As von und zu Aschenburg walked past the flight engineer’s station, Flight Engineer Hover met his eyes and said, “I make it an hour and five minutes of remaining fuel, Herr Oberst.”
“What shall we do, Willi, burn it off going back to Montevideo?”
Von und zu Aschenburg pushed open the door from the cockpit and entered the passenger compartment. There were twenty-five seats, eight rows of three—a single seat on the left of the aisle and two on the right—plus a single seat next to the door to the toilet in the rear, but there were only thirteen passengers plus the steward.
Von und zu Aschenburg had seated Cranz in one of what he thought of as the best seats on the Condor, then told the steward that nobody was to be seated with him.
The best seats were just behind the trailing edge of the wing, so there was a good view downward from their windows; they were near the center of gravity of the aircraft, so there was less movement; and they were only a few steps from the toilet, which was located at the rear of the passenger compartment.
There were three of these best seats, one on the left side of the aisle and two on the right. Herr Cranz was sitting in the window seat on the right. He smiled charmingly at von und zu Aschenburg.
“Dare I hope our flight is really over, Kapitän?”
Von und zu Aschenburg smiled back.
“There are representatives from the embassy waiting for you, Herr Cranz, so whenever you’re ready—”
“I saw Baron von Wachtstein. Who’s the young one?”
“That’s Untersturmführer Schneider,” von und zu Aschenburg said. “He comes to take charge of the diplomatic pouch. Today, pouches, four of them.” He paused.
Cranz smiled charmingly again.
“Your old comrade, Kapitän?”
“Hansel and I flew Me-109Bs with the Condor Legion,” von und zu Aschenburg said.
“ ‘Hansel’?” Cranz parroted, still smiling. “Is
“Only if one has known the holder of the Knight’s Cross since he was an eighteen-year-old hauptgefreiter who had to shave only every third day, Herr Cranz.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Cranz said. “That would have a certain bearing, wouldn’t it?”
He smiled once again, then got out of his seat and followed von und zu Aschenburg to the door.
The instant von und zu Aschenburg stepped onto the shallow flight of roll-up steps, Untersturmführer Schneider threw out his arm in the Nazi salute and barked, “Heil Hitler!”
Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein was so surprised to see Cranz standing in the door behind him that he almost didn’t salute at all.
The first time von Wachtstein had seen the affable, charming SS officer was in Lisbon in early May.
As soon as word of what happened at Samborombón Bay had reached Berlin, an investigation personally directed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had begun. Himmler’s adjutant, Brigadeführer Manfred von Deitzberg— wearing the uniform of a Wehrmacht generalmajor—and Sturmbannführer Erich Raschner, von Deitzberg’s deputy, had been on the next Condor flight to Buenos Aires.
Within twenty-four hours of their arrival, von Deitzberg had ordered First Secretary Anton Gradny-Sawz, Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck, the senior SS officer in Uruguay, and von Wachtstein to be on the returning Condor flight, “to assist in the investigation.”
They had all understood that they were the primary suspects for being the traitor responsible for the disaster. Proof of that had come when their Condor flight had been met in Lisbon by Cranz and a navy officer, Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz, who immediately began the interrogation. The interrogation had been no less thorough—or frightening—because it had been conducted with smiles . . . a conversation between loyal officers of the German Reich simply trying to deduce what had happened.
Cranz and Boltitz had shown up a week later in Augsburg. Cranz was in charge of the elaborate funerals of Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz. By then, von Wachtstein had decided that while the SS officer was far more charming than the naval officer, he was also the most dangerous.
