The White Vixen (45 page)

“Do they know what is to happen?” Schröder asked.

“Of course not,” Maltov said. “But when I contact them, they will be told where to go. They’ll be on the first available flight to Berlin.”

“Herr Baumann, I trust your end of the operation here will be successful?” Schröder asked.

“We will be ready to execute CAPRICORN on the twenty-seventh,” Baumann said. “I am authorized to tell you gentlemen that H-hour is 12 midnight Buenos Aires time. That will be three a.m. Greenwich Mean Time on the twenty-eighth. Four a.m. in Berlin.”

“Six a.m. in Moscow,” Maltov said. “It would be better if it could be earlier.”

“The operation has to be carefully timed to avoid a launch during twilight,” Baumann said. “The American spy satellites are
not as efficient at night. The earliest we could launch the strike would be ten p.m. local time. Two hours’ flight time to the target, I am told. It is as early as we can make it and ensure optimum security for the strike.”

“Very well,” Maltov said. “In any event, it will be several hours before Moscow gets a clear picture of what has happened. The same will be true for Washington.”

“By noon that day, Germany will be in our hands,” Schröder said. “Herr Baumann, what about Taurus?”

“I will be flying to Bariloche to meet with him on Tuesday,” Baumann said. “I will be monitoring the operation with him from there. My son will be relaying information about CAPRICORN from his office in Buenos Aires. Reports from Germany will come directly to me.”

“I look forward to meeting the Reichsleiter someday,” Maltov said. “He must—“

“Code names only,” Baumann hissed. “Even here.”

Jo had heard enough. She had to get this tape to the American embassy as fast as possible. They must be nearing the end of their meeting; she had to beat Schröder back to the party. As quietly as possible, she began to wind her way toward the side gate of the cemetery, cutting across the grounds, avoiding the paths.

      
A few minutes later she emerged onto the path that paralleled the fence. She figured she had about a five minute head start on Schröder, and she could move faster than he could. The key would be staying out of his sight until she got back to the consulate.
       The side gate was fifty feet away when a man stepped out of the shadows. Jo froze in place. The man took two steps into a pool of light from the street.

“A rather curious place to visit in the evening, Frau Schröder,” Wilhelm Baumann said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Saturday, April 24th, 1982

“Herr Baumann,” Jo said, allowing herself to appear flustered. Now was the time to think fast. Cover story, stick to the cover story.

“I saw you leave the compound, and thought perhaps something was wrong.”

She approached him. “Thank you for your concern, Herr Baumann.”

“It’s Willy, remember?”

She got closer. “My husband…” She brought a hand to her mouth, trying not to appear too melodramatic. “I am embarrassed to admit it, but I fear my husband has been seeing another woman.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. There was someone else back in Berlin, and when I found out he swore he would remain faithful to me from now on. But here, in Buenos Aires, I…well, let’s just say I had reason to believe he was not adhering to his word.”

Baumann took a step closer to her. They were almost touching now, their voices barely above whispers. Jo had put her earpiece back into the recorder, so she didn’t know whether or not Schröder was still talking with the other men, or whether he was heading back to the embassy. “I find it hard to believe that a man would betray a woman as beautiful as you,” Baumann said.

She looked up at him. “I saw him leave the ballroom and thought he must be going to meet someone. I followed him here. Not the smartest thing in the world, I suppose.”

“The city can be dangerous for women at night,” Baumann said. “I must say, though, you seemed to handle yourself very well back there on the street, with that man who accosted you.”

Jo gave him a nervous laugh. “Oh, that. I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Yerevan.” She heard footsteps, back on the main pathway. The one she and Baumann were on, running alongside the perimeter fence, intersected with that path just before the gate. Schröder would walk right past them. They were about fifty feet away.

“You should really see Recoleta in the daylight,” Baumann said. “At night it can be somewhat disconcerting, no?” He reached out and touched her shoulders. “You are chilled.” His hands felt warm, but his grip was tightening. Jo felt she was about five seconds from a decision that might compromise her mission.

The footsteps—two sets—were getting closer. “My husband, he’s coming,” she said. She took Baumann by the elbow and pulled him out of the pool of streetlamp light. They would still be visible from the main path, but not clearly. Behind him, she saw two figures walking toward the gate. Reaching up quickly, she pulled Baumann’s face to hers, bringing her lips to his.

Baumann brought his arms around her, pulling him closer to her. Jo could hear the footsteps passing them, the muttering of one of the men, a chuckle from the other. Then came the creak of the iron gate. She pulled away from the kiss, but remained enclosed in Baumann’s arms. “Thank you, Willy,” Jo said.

“Not at all,” Baumann said. “May I escort you back to the consulate, Frau Schröder?”

“That would be kind of you, but I suppose that now you should call me Larisa.”

When they emerged from the cemetery, Schröder and the elder Baumann were already a block away, across Vicente Lopez and heading down Azcuenaga. Jo knew she would never make it back to the consulate before Schröder, so she began working on a cover.

They were a block away from the consulate when Baumann broke the silence they’d held since leaving Recoleta. “I would not worry too much about your husband, Frau Schröder—Larisa.”

“Why is that, Willy?” She was walking with her left hand in the crook of his right elbow, and she felt him tense ever so slightly.

“You impress me as a woman who can take care of herself.”

Alarm bells started going off for Jo. “Oh, really?”

“Yes,” he said. “Your willingness to follow him in a strange city, at night, and into a cemetery, of all places. Your obvious ability to defend yourself. There is more to you than you let on, I think.”

She managed a laugh. “You overestimate me, Willy.”

They were nearly to the embassy gate now. “Oh, I don’t think so,” Baumann said. “Before I take your leave this evening, I would like to ask you one question.”

“And what is that?”

With the gate five meters ahead, he turned to face her. He reached up and touched her face. “Could you do an arithmetic problem for me?”

“A—what?”

The light was dim, but his eyes were steel. “Division, for instance. Anything at all.”

Jo immediately locked onto something her German instructor had told her back at the Monk. Doing mathematical calculations in the foreign language is difficult. During the war, that’s how the Germans would catch many of our people posing as native civilians. Learn one or two, just in case.

She smiled. “
Dreissig geteilt durch zehn ist drei
.” Thirty divided by ten is three. “Would you like to hear it in Russian, or Armenian?”

Baumann’s smile was wry and thin. He tilted her chin upward. “Very good,
liebchen.
Perhaps you are not as complex as I thought.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips lightly. “It has been a pleasure getting to know you, Larisa. A pity you are leaving tomorrow.”

“Yes, a pity,” she said. “Good night, Willy.” She left him and walked quickly to the consulate gate.

***

Jo didn’t know whether she should be relieved or dismayed when they arrived back at their hotel suite. Fortunately, the handoff with the doorman went smoothly, and Jo assumed the microcassette was on its way to the American embassy. She would make a report to them in the morning, just to be sure. But spending another night here with Schröder didn’t make her feel very comfortable. Well, she had just one more night with him. Tomorrow she would get the order to split up; they were scheduled be on the same flight to Madrid, but Marie had indicated neither would be making the flight. With any luck at all, she’d be flying back to the States, and Schröder would be facing whatever fate was in store for him.

“Excuse me while I use the bathroom,” Schröder said as they entered their suite. He went off to his bedroom, while Jo took a seat on the couch, pulled off her wrap and slipped out of her shoes. She wasn’t used to spending this much time in high heels. She was massaging her left foot when she heard the toilet flush and then Schröder emerged from his bedroom.

“Let me take that jacket off,” Jo said, moving toward him. “You look uncomfortable. How about a neck rub?”

“Some other time, perhaps,” Schröder said. He held out his left hand. “I’ll save you the trouble. I believe this is the transmitter you must have planted earlier?”

Jo froze, three feet away. Recovering quickly, she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Walter.”

“You must not have been in this business very long, my dear. You’re not a very good liar. A decent actress, though. Your performance with the man back at the cemetery was touching.” Seeing her eyes widen a bit, he barked a laugh. “Your, ah, posterior wasn’t quite out of the light. A man doesn’t soon forget one like yours.” He reached into his right jacket pocket and withdrew a handgun. “Please be so kind as to take a seat on the couch.”

Jo deliberately avoided looking at the barrel of the gun as it pointed at her. “What’s going on, Walter? We’re supposed to be working together.”

“Let’s not play the game, shall we? Now, sit down. My associates will be here momentarily. I took the liberty of calling them from the phone in the lavatory. So bourgeois, a telephone in the loo, yet it came in handy. In retrospect, I should have informed them earlier about who you really are. A tactical error on my part, but one that I have rectified.”

Jo knew now she had to act. Still three feet away, she took a cautious step forward, bringing her hands up toward her head. Schroeder brought the gun up, exactly the wrong thing to do. “Please, Walter, don’t shoot me. Please! They told me to keep an eye on you, they—“ Moving faster than Schröder’s mind could comprehend, Jo slapped out with her right hand, knocking the gun aside, while bringing her left hand up to shield the near side of her face from the flash and powder burn. At the same moment, she lashed out with her right foot, catching Schroeder on the inside of his right knee. The gun fired, the bullet missing Jo’s head by ten inches, as the German yelled in pain, his knee buckling, sending him off-balance.

He held onto the gun despite the pain. Jo leaped toward him and grabbed his gun hand with both of hers, bending the hand far to its right. Schröder swore as tendons popped in his wrist and Jo wrenched the weapon away. With a roar, the German launched himself at her, taking Jo by surprise with agility that belied his injuries. Schröder bulled into Jo, grabbing her around the waist with his left arm, driving her backwards.

Jo dropped the gun and let herself go with Schröder’s momentum, pulling him forward and downward with a two-handed grip on his shirt front, and as she crashed to the carpeted floor, barely missing the sharp edge of the wooden coffee table, she brought both feet up and under the German, levering him up and over with her powerful legs. Schröder yelled as he sailed through the air, clearing the top of the couch and falling heavily to the floor with a strange cracking sound. Jo continued up and over, executing a perfect backward somersault, landing on her feet. She whirled and ran to Schröder, hands raised for another attack, but the German was lying motionless, his neck at an impossible angle. Jo reached down cautiously and felt for a pulse at the side of the broken neck. It was there, faint, and then a moment later it was gone.

She had to get out now and fought to remain calm. Larisa’s clothing could stay behind, but she had to get her own gun and get to the embassy. Before she could move, though, the suite’s main door opened. A tall, blond-haired man in an immaculate suit stood there, and when he saw Jo he quickly pulled a gun and stepped carefully into the room.

“Don’t move, Fräulein,” the man said. Another man came in behind him, then another. All had guns drawn. Schröder’s weapon lay on the floor, near the first man. He knelt down and picked it up.

“Who are you?” Jo asked in German.

“My name is Heinz Nagel,” the blond man said. “Herr Schröder warned us there might be some difficulties with you. We were in the lobby. A shame we did not arrive a few minutes sooner.” He glanced past her and shook his head. “Some very important people are going to be very disappointed with this news.”

Jo tensed inwardly. If they were going to shoot her now, she would have to do what she could to save herself, despite the odds. This Nagel was no fool, though. He motioned with his gun. “Please don’t attempt anything foolish, Frau Schröder, or whoever you really are. You have a choice: cooperate, or be shot now. Choose wisely.”