“You might consider it a learning experience,” von und zu Waching said. “The SS is second to no one in their zeal.”
What could have been a smile crossed Canaris’s face. Then he picked up the brown envelope and held it out to the steward.
“Have this burned,” he said.
“Jawohl, Herr Admiral.”
“Do you see some significance in von Wachtstein’s chastity?” Canaris asked.
“Herr Admiral, he is involved with a woman in Argentina, I believe he thinks he’s in love.”
“You would say, then,” Canaris said, “that he is not a candidate for a pink triangle?”
“No, Sir. I saw nothing that would suggest that at all.”
“And his reaction to his unexpected encounter with Hauptmann Grüner?” Canaris asked.
It was the question Canaris had told Boltitz to expect, and he had given a good deal of thought to it. Providing an answer posed ethical problems for him.
There was no question in his mind that there was an element of guilt, perhaps even shame, in von Wachtstein’s reaction to Willi Grüner. The question was, however, what the guilt or shame meant.
Von Wachtstein’s version of what had happened at Samborombón Bay—related in his hotel room in Lisbon, when he had been drinking but not drunk—was straightforward. He and Goltz had just stepped ashore from the Océano Pacífico’s ship’s boat, and were greeting Grüner, when they were suddenly fired upon, before they had even begun to unload the special shipment from the boat.
Von Wachtstein claimed there were at least three shots. The first two killed Grüner and Goltz. The third—but perhaps there’d been more—had been aimed at him as he was bending over Grüner’s body.
According to von Wachtstein, the sailors from the Océano Pacífico had been “terrified and useless,” and he had had to drag both bodies from where they had fallen to the ship’s boat. They had then returned to the Océano Pacífico.
The only people who could verify—or disprove—von Wachtstein’s story were the sailors from the Océano Pacífico, including Kapitän de Banderano, and Boltitz couldn’t interrogate them until the ship tied up in Cadiz. In a week or more.
In the meantime, he had to consider that it was entirely possible that von Wachtstein had not been harmed because the riflemen did not want to kill him. If they were good enough snipers to kill two men with two shots to the head, why had they missed a third?
The most logical reason for their “miss” was that they regarded von Wachtstein as a friend, or if not a friend, as someone who had been useful to them.
That line of reasoning presumed von Wachtstein was a traitor. Boltitz was not willing to make that accusation. Not yet, not without further proof.
It was possible, of course, that the shame and guilt that showed on his face when he saw Willi Grüner could simply be the reaction of an officer who felt doubly guilty, doubly shamed, because he had not been able to carry out his orders, and was still alive when Oberst Grüner—who was both his commanding officer and the father of his comrade-in-arms—was dead.
Boltitz was aware that he would like to believe that von Wachtstein had simply been lucky. That the Argentine—or American—sharpshooters had shot at him and missed. He had to admit it was significant that none of the six Océano Pacífico crewmen had been shot, either.
That could suggest that the snipers had fired three—or more—carefully aimed shots as quickly as they could, then immediately left the area to avoid detection.
Boltitz was aware that he liked von Wachtstein and that Generalleutnant von Wachtstein reminded him of his father, and that this might tend to color his reasoning. Yet he knew his duty was to find the truth, whether or not he liked it.
And his duty was to report to Canaris the truth, not his suspicions. An officer like Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, who practiced, as Boltitz himself did, adherence to the officer’s code of honor was entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
“Herr Admiral,” Karl Boltitz said carefully, “von Wachtstein and Hauptmann Grüner served together. Grüner believes that when he was forced to parachute from his aircraft over England, von Wachtstein saved his life—at considerable risk to his own—by protecting him until he landed.”
“I didn’t know that,” Canaris said.
“And, Sir, I learned that before France, they served together in Spain, and were commissioned from the ranks on the same day. They are good friends.”
“And what was von Wachtstein’s reaction to seeing his old friend?”
“He was very uncomfortable, Sir.”
“And you have
an opinion about that?”