“Is there any other way in which I can help the Herr Minister?” Hamm said.
“I can’t think ofone,”von Heurten-Mitnitz said after a moment’s hesitation.
He offered his hand.
“I am touched by your courtesy, Herr Hamm, and impressed with your thoroughness. I shall tell the Ambassador what you’ve done for me.”
They were by then standing beside the Admiral. Hamm opened both doors and, after the father-and-daughter had gotten into the backseat, closed them.
The young SS officer walked around the rear of the car and slipped in beside von Heurten-Mitnitz. Hamm gave another salute, which von HeurtenMitnitz returned casually, and with a smile, and then Hamm stood back as von Heurten-Mitnitz backed the Admiral out of its parking space.
All things considered, Hamm thought, / handled that rather well.
When they were a few yards from the station, the tall, gray-haired man in the backseat spoke.
“My God, when he stopped you, I thought I was going to faint.”
“You really don’t faint when you’re frightened, Professor,” the young SS officer said.
“Fear causes adrenaline to flow, and that increases, not decreases, the flow of blood to the brain. Shutting off blood to the brain is what makes you faint.”
“Oh, my God! “the young woman in the backseat said with infinite disgust.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz chuckled.
“How very American,” he said.
The young SS officer carried an identification card that identified him as Obersturmfuhrer-SS Baron von Fulmar, of the personal staff of the ReichsnihrerSS, It was a forgery, a very good one. In a safe at Whithey House, Kent, there was a bona fide identity card issued by the Adjutant General’s Office, U.S.
Army, identifying him as FULMAR, Eric, 1st It.” Infantry, Army of the United States.
“Where are we going?” the gray-haired man asked. He was Professor Doktor Friedrich Dyer, until two days before of the Metallurgy Department, College of Physics, the University of Marburg. His name was now being circulated over SS-SD and police teletypes. He was being sought for questioning regarding the murder of SS Hauptsturmfuhrer (Captain) Wilhelm Peis. The teletype message said that he was probably accompanied by his daughter Gisella, that it was possible that they would try to flee the country, and that authorities in ports along the English Channel should consequently be on special alert.
“To Batthyany Palace,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“It’s on Holy Trinity Square. Not far from here.”
“And what happens there?” Professor Dyer asked.
“I don’t know about anybody else,” Fulmar said.
“But I intend to go to work on a bottle of brandy.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Professor Dyer snapped.
“You’ll be told what you have to know, Professor,” Fulmar said, “when you have to know it. The less you know, the better. I thought I’d made that plain.”
Professor Dyer exhaled audibly and slumped against his seat. His daughter flashed a look of contempt at the back of Fulmar’s head, and shook her own head in resignation.
Batthyany Palace, directly across Holy Trinity Square from St. Matthias’s Church, had been built at approximately the same time (1775-77) as the royal castle (1715-70) atop Castle Hill. Twelve-foot statues of bare-chested men on the facade appeared to be carrying the upper stories on their shoulders, earning the admiration of ten-foot, large-bosomed granite women twined around pillars at each of three identical double doors.
The door at the left was a fake. The center door opened into the entrance foyer of the palace, and the door at the right was the carriage entrance. Von Heurten-Mitnitz turned off the square and stopped the Admiral with its nose against the right door and blew the horn. A moment later, one by one, the double doors opened. He drove through, and the doors closed after him.
Beatrice, Countess Batthyany and Baroness von Steighofen, was standing in a vestibule waiting for them. She was a tall, generously built woman in her early thirties. She was wearing a sable coat that reached nearly to her ankles and a matching sable hat under which a good deal of dark red hair was visible.
Von Heurten-Mitnitz drove past her into a courtyard, turned around, and returned to the vestibule, where he stopped.
The Countess went to the rear door and pulled it open.