“Obersturmbannführer Cranz? I don’t seem to know the name.”
“That’s surprising,” Karl said. “He’s on the personal staff of the Reichsprotektor.”
The Gestapo agent stared intently into Boltitz’s eyes for a moment, then took out his notebook. “That’s C-R-A—”
“A second set of prints should be sent to Fregattenkapitän von und zu Waching at the Abwehr,” Boltitz interrupted. “Is there any reason why this can’t be done by eight in the morning?”
“No, I can’t think of any.”
The desk clerk now had two room keys in his hand.
Boltitz put his hand out for them. The desk clerk looked to the Gestapo agent for directions. The Gestapo agent nodded, and the desk clerk dropped the keys into Boltitz’s hand.
“Good,” Boltitz said. He looked at the Gestapo agent. “Fregattenkapitän von und zu Waching and Obersturmbannführer Cranz will be expecting those photographs at eight in the morning.”
“I understand,” the Gestapo agent said.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Boltitz said.
The Gestapo agent nodded but didn’t speak.
Boltitz walked back to the lobby bar with irreverent thoughts running through his head: What Cranz and von und zu Waching—for that matter, Himmler and Canaris—are liable to see in the photographs are two heroic Luftwaffe pilots sleeping off a drunk. Alone.
Well, at least they’ll have proof that I’ve been doing my job.
What a despicable way to earn your living, hanging around a hotel lobby, waiting for the opportunity to photograph officers in bed with some slut!
Where do they recruit Gestapo agents? In a sewer?
Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein and Hauptmann Wilhelm Johannes Grüner were no longer at the table where Boltitz had left them.
They were now at the bar, with the young women who had been smiling at them before and a Wehrmacht General Staff Oberstleutnant and an SS-Hauptsturmführer.
To the visible annoyance of the Army and the SS men, the young women seemed far more fascinated with the two fighter pilots (one of whom had the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross hanging around his neck) than with them.
If one is a nice German girl, one does not go to bed with a young man one has met thirty minutes before in a bar. Unless, of course, he is a hero, in which case one is not a slut but a patriotic German woman making her contribution to the Final Victory.
Grüner saw him. “U-boat!” he cried. “You’re back! We thought you’d submerged!”
Boltitz dangled the hotel keys in front of him.
“How the hell did you get those?” Willi asked. “They told me there wasn’t a room in the house.”
“Never underestimate the submarine service, Willi,” Boltitz said.
“Ladies, may I present Korvettenkapitän Boltitz?” Willi said.
The young women all offered their hands. One of them, a tall, buxom woman with dark red hair who looked Hungarian, held on to Boltitz’s hand far longer than the circumstances demanded. “And does the Korvettenkapitän of the Submarine Service have a first name?” she asked.
“He does,” Boltitz said. “It’s Karl, and Karl suggests that it might be very pleasant to go upstairs and sip Champagne while we watch the people walk up and down the Kurfürstendamm.”
“That would be very nice,” the red-haired woman said. “My name is Charlotte.”
She gave him her hand again.
The waiter appeared. “Major Freiherr von Wachtstein?”
Peter nodded.