Cranz saw no potential problems with any of this, and was delighted with what he saw as his future here in Buenos Aires. Neither was he worried that anything would happen in Germany to see him recalled. That couldn’t be done without the acquiescence of everyone involved with Operation Phoenix—and that group included Martin Bormann. Karl Cranz was much closer to Hitler’s right-hand man than anyone thought, and Bormann wanted Cranz in Buenos Aires. Bormann knew more about the confidential special fund than anyone thought, because Cranz had gone to him and told him.
Bormann’s reactions had not been what Cranz had expected. The Reichsleiter had not gone to Himmler with the information that von Deitzberg was conducting what Himmler probably would have considered a treasonous fraud against the Third Reich. Nor had he asked to be included in the distribution of the fund’s munificence.
“What I want you to do about that, Karl,” he’d said, using Cranz’s Christian name for the first time, “is play along with them. Sometimes, something sordid like that can be transformed into something useful. And don’t worry. If it comes out, I’ll tell the Führer you were acting on my orders.”
Cranz had asked Bormann what to do about taking money from the special confidential fund, saying that it would look suspicious if he didn’t. Bormann had said, somewhat cryptically, “Don’t do anything that would cause suspicion,” and Cranz had decided that that was permission to keep taking the money.
The money was one of the reasons Cranz also was pleased about what life in Buenos Aires promised to be, especially after Ilse and the children joined him. Frogger had told him that there was a generous Foreign Service allowance for renting an apartment, adding that he didn’t use all of his and pocketed the difference, which was permitted.
Cranz had immediately decided to do the opposite, to augment the rental allowance with money from the special confidential fund. When Ilse and the children joined him, they’d find a very nice apartment—perhaps even a chalet in one of the suburbs—waiting for them.
He’d also used some special confidential funds the night before. He’d sort of tricked Boltitz into taking him to his tailor by asking him what he planned to do about new uniforms to go with his new rank. When Boltitz had replied that he’d have to go—and soon—to von Wachtstein’s tailor to have the extra golden stripe added to the sleeve, Cranz had said, “I’ll go with you, Karl. I need some suits, and I might as well take advantage of not having to worry about a clothing ration.”
He’d ordered half a dozen suits, shirts, and neckties. Not that it mattered, but they were really inexpensive. And when they walked back onto the street, he’d seen a lingerie store with what looked like silk stockings in the window.
Silk stockings were hard to come by in Berlin, even in the special stores for senior officers. The opposite was apparently true in Buenos Aires. The store had shelf upon shelf of them, and at quite reasonable prices.
He bought a dozen pair of the best quality the store offered. He would get Captain von und zu Aschenburg, the Condor pilot, to take them to Ilse. He would put a note in the box, suggesting that Ilse give a pair or two of them to her friend Gerda. She would probably do so anyway, but it was best to make sure. Gerda, the daughter of Walter Buch, chairman of the party’s court for the determination of NSDAP legal matters and internal discipline, was married to Martin Bormann.
Von und zu Aschenburg, too, was going to be useful. Once he got in the habit of taking small packages from South America to Berlin, those packages in the future could contain Swiss francs, English pounds, and American dollars for von Deitzberg.
One of the problems with the special confidential fund was that the payments made to gain the freedom of the Jews in the concentration camps were transacted in Uruguay. That required converting the funds to currency usable in Germany. Reichsmarks were hard to come by in Argentina and Uruguay without going through either the Buenos Aires branches of the Deutsche Bank or the Dresdnerbank—which of course being German kept detailed records, which of course was not a good thing. Thus, von Tresmarck had to send the cash in the diplomatic pouch, and that raised the risk of Hauptsturmführer Forster—who was both zealous and until now under no one’s authority— finding out what von Tresmarck’s little packages contained.
Cranz had arrived in what arguably was his office at five minutes to nine. His good feeling lasted until he glanced at his watch and saw that it now was quarter past nine.
One would have thought that Frogger would have come in a bit early, not a bit late.
He said and did nothing even then, instead glancing through the Argentinisches Tageblatt, the German-language newspaper. Somebody—he couldn’t remember who—had told him that the Argentines, who regarded the Tageblatt as a “guest newspaper,” would not permit it to publish much of anything at all except announcements of church meetings, births, weddings, deaths, and the like unless the items first had been published in an Argentine newspaper—and then only if the translation was approved by the Argentine government and the paper ran both the German translation and the original story in Spanish, either side by side or one after the other.
Reading it now, Cranz thought that were it not for the notices of the deaths of Argo-Germans in Africa and Russia, and pleas to contribute to Winterhilfe— which asked Germans abroad to aid Germans impoverished by the war—one would never know a war was on.
He quickly tired of reading news of the Buenos Aires German community’s church suppers and such.
He looked at his watch again.
Nine twenty-five.
Where the hell is he?
He couldn’t remember the name of Frogger’s secretary, so he couldn’t call for her. Instead, he got up from Frogger’s desk and walked to the outer office.
“Señora,” he asked politely, “you don’t happen to know where El Señor Frogger is, do you?”
She smiled, then said she was sorry, she had no idea.
“What time does he usually come to work?”
“He’s usually here, señor, when I come in.”
“And when do you usually come in, señora?”
“El Señor Frogger likes to have me at my desk at eight, señor.”
“He didn’t send a message that he would be late?”
“No, señor.”
“Would you please try to get him, or La Señora Frogger, on the telephone for me, please?”
Three minutes later, she reported that there was no answer at El Señor Frogger’s home number or at the Café Flora, where he and La Señora Frogger sometimes went for breakfast.
Cranz smiled and thanked her, gave the situation a moment’s thought, then went looking for First Secretary Anton von Gradny-Sawz.
Cranz had already formed several opinions about Gradny-Sawz, none of them very flattering. He had decided Gradny-Sawz was shrewd but not very bright; that it had been a mistake by Bormann to name him to try to enlist Colonel Perón—that Cranz probably would have to take that task onto himself—and that while Gradny-Sawz probably was not the traitor, neither was he trustworthy.
But Gradny-Sawz was first secretary of the embassy, and thus Frogger’s immediate superior, and Cranz didn’t want to go to the ambassador about something petty like Frogger not showing up for work on time.
When Cranz got to Gradny-Sawz’s office, von Deitzberg was in there with Gradny-Sawz and looked at Cranz with annoyance.
“Will this wait, Cranz?” von Deitzberg snapped.
“Frogger hasn’t come in, and I was going to ask the first secretary if he perhaps knew anything about it.”
“Did you call him at home?” von Deitzberg asked.
“There’s no answer,” Cranz said.
“Let me check with Fräulein Hässell,” Gradny-Sawz said, and dialed a number.