“I think fewer questions would be raised about my assignment to the embassy if I were accompanied by my family.”
“Being accompanied is obviously out of the question,” Himmler said simply. “You will be on the plane tomorrow. But I can see the merit of your suggestion, so perhaps your family could join you there later.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Insofar as ‘fewer questions’ is concerned, Admiral Canaris said that fewer questions would be raised by Boltitz being named naval attaché if he had the appropriate rank. He brought this to the attention of Grand Admiral Doenitz, who agreed. So you will be taking with you Korvettenkapitän Boltitz’s promotion orders to fregattenkapitän dated several months ago, and which somehow became lost in the bureaucracy. When his appointment as naval attaché is announced to the diplomatic community, it will be as Fregattenkapitän Boltitz. A month or six weeks from now, he will be promoted kapitän zur see.”
Cranz nodded.
“May I ask my role vis-à-vis Kapitän zur See Boltitz, Herr Reichsprotektor? ”
“May I be the first to offer my congratulations on your promotion, Herr Standartenführer Cranz?” Himmler said, smiling. “Since your promotion will predate Boltitz’s promotion to kapitän zur see, when that comes through, you will be the senior officer in the embassy.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“Under the circumstances, your promotion will not be made known to Brigadeführer von Deitzberg until he’s back here. You will carry to him a letter ordering his return to his duties in Berlin. Since you have no idea why I am recalling him, those orders will be as much of a surprise to you as they are to him.”
“I understand, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
“That raises the question of Sturmbannführer Raschner,” Himmler said. “Would you prefer that he return to Berlin with von Deitzberg, or would he be useful to you?”
Cranz considered that for a moment.
“I think he would be very useful to me there, Herr Reichsprotektor.”
“All right, he’s yours. But don’t tell him until von Deitzberg is on his way back here.”
“Yes, sir.”
V
[ONE]
Tempelhof Airfield Berlin, Germany 0725 8 July 1943
Lufthansa Kapitän Dieter von und zu Aschenburg, a tall, blue-eyed, blond-haired, fair-skinned Prussian, sat in the pilot seat of the Focke-Wulf 200B “Condor,” impatiently tapping the balls of his fingers together.
He had hoped to get off the ground before seven o’clock, and here it was nearly half past, and the only information he could get from the goddamn tower was that permission for him to take off “would be coming momentarily. ” They had been telling him that for half an hour.
Lufthansa Flight 1007 was about to begin a journey of some 8,500 miles to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The flight would be made in four legs, and it was arguable which of them was the most dangerous. None of them was anything approaching safe.
The sleek and slender aircraft, powered by four 870-horsepower BMW engines, looked much like the smaller, dual-engine American DC-3, especially in the nose and cockpit area. It would fly—
That was the shortest leg—1,435 miles—well within the Condor’s maximum range of 2,200 miles. The danger here was from American and British aircraft over Germany and occupied France. Most of the real danger came from Allied fighters rigged as photo-reconnaissance aircraft. They were fitted with extra fuel tanks, and often most of their machine guns were removed. They were charged with photographing the previous night’s bomber target to see how much damage had been done and which targets needed to be bombed again.
Von und zu Aschenburg knew that not all of the photo-recon aircraft had had their machine guns removed, leaving the fighters with two .50-caliber weapons perfectly capable of shooting down an unarmed Condor if they crossed paths with one—and fast enough to chase it if that was necessary. It was perfectly legal under the rules of warfare for the Allies to shoot down a transport aircraft that had red swastikas, outlined in white, painted on the sides of the fuselage and vertical stabilizer.
Presuming the Condor made it safely to neutral Portugal, the next leg of the flight would be 1,800 miles—safely within the Condor’s range—from Lisbon to Dakar, in the French colony of Senegal on the west coast of Africa.
The danger between Lisbon and Dakar was again Allied aircraft, both long-range bombers on antisubmarine patrol and fighters operating from Moroccan airfields now in American hands, all of whom would regard the Condor as fair game.
Presuming the Condor was not shot down en route to Dakar, the airplane would be inspected and otherwise prepared for the next leg of the trip, 2,500 miles across the North Atlantic Ocean to Cayenne in French Guiana in the northeast of the South American continent.
