“What do you think?”
“Fantastic,” Carter replied, nodding his appreciation of the total make-over.
Von Krumm put out his hand. “So glad you had a safe trip, Herr Huzel. Allow me to introduce myself. SS General Erwin Bittrich. I thought it best that I outrank the alias of our prey.”
Carter smiled. “A wise decision, General.” He nodded to Lorena. “Your daughter.”
Von Krumm turned to the woman and extended his arms. “Magda, my darling,” he cackled, “it’s so good to see you again after all these years!”
“When yer bloody family reunion is over,” Mortimer Potts said from the rear of the ambulance, “how about a hand with this garbage?”
When Huzel was established in the dungeon room that had been prepared for him, the four of them returned to a small study on the first floor.
Von Krumm explained the arrangement to Potts. “He has everything he needs down there. You can feed him via the dumbwaiter, and communicate with him on the intercom.”
“He never has to see my face, then?” Potts asked.
“Never. There are three phones in the house, two in the upstairs bedrooms, one here. Nick can reach you direct if he has need of more information.”
“I can also use you as a dummy,” Carter added, “if I have to make Glaskov think I’m getting prices.”
Potts frowned. “How do I get the bloke to talk?”
“Easy,” Carter replied. “Give him a choice... talk or starve. I go up to Frankfurt and fly out tomorrow. You two follow on the day after. Otto, can you have papers ready for Lorena by then?”
The count shrugged. “No problem. We’ll be traveling with Swiss passports, a professor of law and his daughter.”
Carter stood, tapping the book he had taken from Huzel’s safe. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of deciphering and memorizing to do.”
He left the room. Mortimer returned to the ambulance to fetch their bags. Von Krumm turned to Lorena and put his hand on her knee.
“You are remarkably beautiful, a very sensuous woman, my dear. I’m looking forward to the next week. I am sure we shall get along fine.” His voice no longer creaked with age.
Lorena lifted his hand and placed it on his own knee. “I’m sure we will, Count von Krumm, if we both remember who we are... Daddy.”
Nine
The flight was long and boring, a Lufthansa out of Frankfurt nonstop to Rio. He’d seen the movie twice before on other flights, the food, even in first class, still tasted like half-cooked plastic, and the foghomlike snoring of the passenger seated behind him kept Carter from getting much-needed sleep. Even the attentions of the comely and well-endowed flight attendant did little to ease the boredom. The 5:30 A.M. landing came none too soon.
Customs gave him no trouble with the Fabian Huzel passport, and less than an hour after landing he was in a suite at the Leme Palace.
He direct-dialed the Rio office of Amalgamated Press and Wire Services, Buck Waters’s private number. He let it ring three times and hung up. He dialed again, let it ring once, and hung up again.
Then he dialed the switchboard operator. “I’d like to send a telegram, please, and charge it to my room.”
“Go ahead, senhor.”
“Senhor Enrique Bolivar, Rancho Corinto, Paranavi. Have arrived Rio. Await your instructions transportation. Suite Eleven-ten, Leme Palace, Huzel. That’s it.”
The girl read it back. “Will there be anything else?”
“Not for the moment. Thank you.”
Carter took the elevator to the basement and the exercise, steam room, and pool.
“Just towels and a locker, please,” he said to the attendant.
“No massage, senhor?”
“No.”
He undressed at the locker and showered before doing a few laps in the pool. Then he tied a towel around his waist and entered the steam room. Two men were already on the benches, a fat, wheezing businessman, and Buck Waters.
Carter climbed to the top bench, settled back with his eyes closed, and let the soothing steam envelop him. Fifteen minutes later the fat man left and Waters slid down the bench until he was right beside Carter. He took a Beretta automatic from between his legs and passed it to the Killmaster.
“What else do you need?”
“Put out the word that an old SS general named Erwin Bittrich is heading this way to contact his Odessa pals.”
Waters chuckled. “What’s left of the Odessa is a bunch of old, old men who could care less anymore. After Mengele went, the rest of them gave up. The Fourth Reich is dead, Nick.”
“I know that and you know that, but some people might still get antsy.”
“Is someone really coming?”
Carter nodded. “Traveling Swiss under the names Otto and Magda Goldolph. The Mossad got anybody down here left as bait?”
“Yeah, a couple. I do a little checking now and then for them, but they haven’t turned any stones over for a while.”
“No matter,” Carter said. “Put Otto in touch with them. He’ll take the ball from there. And let it be known that he’s looking for an old traitor, a Gruppenführer named Graf von Wassner.”
“Will do. Then what?”
“Get Otto four good men, all locals and armed to the teeth. He’ll take it from there.”
“Anything official on this?”
“Nothing on paper.”
“Jesus, Nick, the crap you come up with.”
“Nature of the beast,” Carter replied, rising. “I’ve been in a steel cocoon all night. Gonna get a few hours’ sleep, then lay down a bit of a smoke screen.”
“You want some company?” Waters asked.
“Not yours,” Carter said with a grin. “Got a hunch I’ll have someone on my heels from the other side until I leave Rio.”
Back in the suite, he stripped and passed out.
It was just after two in the afternoon when Carter’s mental alarm went off. He called room service and ordered coffee. He showered and shaved while he was waiting for it, then stretched out on the bed to drink it.
He was getting dressed when the phone rang. “Yes?”
“There is an envelope in your box, Senhor Huzel. It came by messenger.”
“Thank you.”
Ten minutes later he checked at the desk. There were two envelopes. His name was scrawled across both of them, but in different hands. He ripped open the first one, and smiled.
Welcome to Brazil, Herr Huzel, the note said in fancy typed script. A car will pick you up at your hotel at nine sharp tomorrow morning. Bolivar.
The note in the second envelope made the hair on the back of Carter’s neck stand up: Huzeclass="underline" I am in Room 419. Give me a call this evening. Perhaps we could have dinner and conversation. Verna Rashkin.
The note brought home to Carter the one chance they were taking. The two people he would be bidding against for the jewels were Ravel Bourlein from Paris, and Verna Rashkin from New York.
Vadim Vinnick’s words came back to him: “It is highly unlikely that such adversaries have ever met face-to-face. All three of them make an effort to keep a low profile. But it is possible. If that happens, you must be prepared to change the plan midstream.”
Carter slipped the envelopes into his pocket as he entered the bar.
He would liked to have broached the problem after he had arrived at Rancho Corinto.
The hotel bar was about half full. He took one of the stools and ordered a vodka and orange juice. He sipped it slowly, watching and listening to the others in the bar. They were mostly couples, but there were a few solo men, sitting alone as he was. Nobody seemed to be paying any undue interest in him.