“Would you really want to send him to South America, or are you just going to dangle that carrot in front of his nose?”
“I really want to send him.”
“Because of the family connection?”
“Yes. I’m hoping that Stroessner will shoot him. Then I can tell my mother that I did all in my power for Cousin Luther.”
“It’s not nice to lie to one’s mother.”
“I’d rather lie to her than have to tell her a friend of mine shot him in the knees and elbows with a .22 and then threw him in the Rhine.”
“Which would have already happened were we not friends. I got nothing out of the fils de pute even after employing my best
interrogative techniques. He resisted me with what I’m now thinking was a religious fervor.”
“Why don’t we go see him, and see if I can talk him into accepting the good life in Paraguay instead of waiting to see what Himmler’s Heaven will provide?”
“I don’t see what either of us has to lose. Capitaine DuPres, would you please call the Sainte Marguerite and have Stauffer taken to an interrogation room? Naked and in shackles. He can have a blanket.”
“Oui, mon colonel.”
“What did Henri call you, Jean-Paul? ‘Mon colonel’?”
“To use my favorite American phrase, ‘Go fuck yourself, mon ami.’”
“Saint Marguerite? Who’s she?”
“That’s where we have your cousin Luther, James. In the loving arms of Saint Marguerite.”
[FIVE]
Sainte Marguerite Prison
Strasbourg, France
1410 24 February 1946
From the outside, Sainte Marguerite Prison looked more like a hospital or a school than a prison, but once they went inside, there were barred corridors and windows and an unpleasant smell.
A guard led them down a corridor through three barred barriers to a small room furnished with a simple table and three wooden straight-backed chairs. There was a lined pad and a pencil on the table.
“Bring him in,” Fortin ordered curtly.
“Oui, mon commandant.”
Luther Stauffer was led into the room a minute later by two guards.
He was naked under a gray blanket. There were shackles around his ankles and wrists. Cronley could see no bruises or other signs of physical abuse.
“Put him in the chair,” Fortin ordered.
Stauffer was shuffled to the chair at the table and sat down in it.
“Wie geht’s, Herr Sturmführer?” Cronley asked.
“And how are you, Cousin James?”
“Well, there are no shackles around my wrists and ankles and I’m wearing a lot more than a dirty blanket to keep me warm, so I’m obviously doing better than you.”