The Fighting Agents Part 9

"-then I can make sure that no one bothers it while you are gone."

Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz looked at Hamm without speaking, but a raised eyebrow asked, What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?

"There have been unfortunate incidents, Herr Brigadefuhrer, " Hamm explained, "where cars have been . . . defiled defiled . . . by unsavory elements among the Budapest population. Paint scratched. Worse." . . . by unsavory elements among the Budapest population. Paint scratched. Worse."

Von Heurten-Mitnitz seemed to consider this a moment, and then he smiled.

"I believe I am beginning to understand," he said. "You saw my car parked, and took the trouble to find out whose it was, and then to meet me. How very obliging of you, Herr Hamm! I am most grateful."

"It was my pleasure, Herr Brigadefuhrer," Hamm said.

"You can do me one other courtesy," von Heurten-Mitnitz said. "Please do not use my SS rank when addressing me. The less well known it is in Budapest, the better, if you take my meaning. I also hold the rank of minister."

"That was thoughtless of me, Herr Minister," Hamm said. "I beg the Herr Minister's pardon."

"Don't be silly, my dear Hamm," von Heurten-Mitnitz said. "How could you have known?"

"Is there any other way in which I can help the Herr Minister?" Hamm said.

"I can't think of one," 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Heurten-Mitnitz returned casually, and with a smile, and then Hamm stood back as von Heurten-Mitnitz backed the Admiral out of its parking s.p.a.ce.

All things considered, Hamm thought, Hamm thought, I handled that rather well. I handled that rather well.

When they were a few yards from the station, the tall, gray-haired man in the backseat spoke. "My G.o.d, 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 G.o.d!" 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 Reichsfuhrer-SS. It was a forgery, a very good one. In a safe at Whitbey House, Kent, there was a bona fide ident.i.ty card issued by the Adjutant General's Office, U.S. Army, identifying him as FULMAR, Eric, 1st Lt., 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 barechested 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.

"I'm the Countess Batthyany," she said. "Won't you please come in?"

Professor Dyer and his daughter got out of the car and, following the direction indicated by the Countess's outstretched hand, walked into the building. The Countess turned to smile at Fulmar. "And you must be dear cousin Eric," she said, dryly. "How nice to finally meet you."

Fulmar laughed. "h.e.l.lo," he said.

She turned to von Heurten-Mitnitz, who had walked around the front of the car.

"I see everything turned out all right," she said.

"The Gestapo man at the station personally led us past the checkpoint," he said.

"Oooh," she said. "I suppose you could use a drink."

"I could," Fulmar said.

She turned to look at him again.

"You look like Manny," she said. "You even sound like him. That terrible Hessian dialect."

He chuckled.

"Let's hope you are luckier," the Countess said as she started into the house.

"Let's hope there's some of his clothing here, and that it fits," Fulmar said. "Particularly shoes."

She turned and looked at him again, this time appraisingly.

"You're a little larger than Manny was," she said. "But there should be something. I gather you want to get out of that uniform?"

"They're looking for an Obersturmfuhrer who looks like me," Fulmar said. "There was a Gestapo agent at the border who thought he had found him."

"That close?" she asked.

"I think it's been smoothed over," von Heurten-Mitnitz said. "It was close, but I think it . . . is smoothed over."

The Countess considered what he had said and nodded her head.

Heating the enormous old palace had under the best of circ.u.mstances always been difficult. Now, without adequate supplies of coal, it had proved impossible. It wasn't as if she didn't have coal. There were half a dozen coal mines running around the clock on Batthyany property, and she could have all the coal she wanted. The problem was getting the coal from the mines to Batthyany Palace. That required trucks, and she had been allocated one truckload per month. She didn't always get that, and even when she did, one truckload was nowhere near enough to heat the palace.

She didn't even bother to try to heat the entire lower floor of the palace, nor the two upper floors. They had been shut off with rather ugly and really not very effective wooden barriers over the stairwells. Only the first floor was occupied (in America, the second floor). The Countess was living in a five-room apartment overlooking Holy Trinity Square, but she often thought she might as well be living in the bas.e.m.e.nt for all she got to look at the square. Most of the floor-to-ceiling windows had been timbered over to preserve the heat from the tall, porcelain-covered stoves in the corners of the rooms. The two windows (leading to the balcony over the square and the garden in the rear) that were not covered over with timber were covered with seldom -opened drapes.

The Dyers, not knowing where to go and looking uncomfortable, waited for the others to catch up with them at the foot of what had been the servants' stairway to the first floor. The Countess went up ahead of them. They came out in the large, elegantly furnished sitting room overlooking the square.

Fulmar immediately sat down on a fragile-looking gilded wood Louis XIV sofa and began to pull his black leather boots off.

The Countess looked askance at him, but von Heurten-Mitnitz sensed there was something wrong.

"Something wrong with your feet?" he asked.

"These G.o.dd.a.m.ned boots are four sizes too small," Fulmar said. "I soaked them with water, but it didn't help a whole h.e.l.l of a lot."

When he had the boots off, he pulled a stocking off and, holding his foot in his lap, examined it carefully.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n, look at that!" he said. The skin was rubbed raw, and was bleeding in several places.

The Countess walked to the sofa, dropped to her knees, and took the foot in her hand.

"How did you manage to walk?" she asked.

"Why, Cousin," Fulmar said, "I simply considered the alternative."

"You'll have to soak that in brine," she said. "It's the only thing that will help."

"By brine, you mean salt in water?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Before we do that, I would like a very large cognac," he said, and pulled off the other sock. The other foot was worse. The blood from the sore spots had flowed more copiously, and when it had dried, it had glued the sock to the wounds. He swore as he pulled the stocking off.

The Countess walked to a cabinet and returned with a large crystal brandy snifter.

"I'll heat some water," she said. "And make a brine."

"And pickle my feet," Fulmar said dryly. "Thank you, Cousin, ever so much."

"Why do you call her 'cousin'?" Professor Dyer asked.

"We are, by marriage," the Countess said. "My late husband and Eric are, or were, cousins."

"Your late husband?" the professor asked.

"The professor tends to ask a lot of questions," Fulmar said mockingly.

"My husband, the late Oberstleutnant [Lieutenant Colonel] Baron Manfried von Steighofen, fell for his fatherland on the eastern front," the Countess said dryly.

"And you're doing this?" the professor asked.

"It's one of the reasons I'm doing 'this,' my dear Herr Professor," the Countess said.

"And the other?" Fulmar asked.

"Is it important?"

"I'm curious," Fulmar said. "If I were in your shoes, I would be rooting for the Germans."

"If I thought they had a chance to win, I probably would be," she said matter-of-factly. "But they won't win. Which means that the Communists will come to Budapest. If they don't shoot me, I'll find myself walking the square outside asking strangers if they're looking for a good time."

"Beatrice!" von Heurten-Mitnitz exclaimed.

"Face facts, my dear Helmut," the Countess said.

"The flaw in your logic," Fulmar said, "is that you are helping the Russians to come here."

"In which case, I can only hope that you and Helmut will still be alive and in a position to tell the Commissar what a fearless anti-fascist I was," she said. "There's a small chance that would keep them from shooting me out of hand." There was a moment's silence, and then she went on. "What I'm really hoping for is that there will be a coup d'etat by people like Helmut against the Bavarian corporal, and in time for whoever takes over to sue for an armistice. If there's an armistice, perhaps I won't lose everything."

"Huh," Fulmar grunted.

"And what has motivated you, my dear Eric," the Countess said, "to do what you're doing?"

It was a moment before he replied. "Sometimes I really wonder," he said.

The Countess nodded, then turned to Gisella Dyer.

"Would you help me, please?" she said. "I made a gulyas, and if you would help serve it, I'll heat some water to 'pickle' Eric's feet."

The sting of the warm salt water on his feet was not as painful as Eric Fulmar had expected, and he wondered if this was because he was partially anesthetized by the Countess's brandy, or whether his feet were beyond hurting. The gulyas was delicious, and he decided that was because it was delicious and not because of the cognac-or because they'd had little to eat save lard and dark bread sandwiches since leaving Marburg an der Lahn.

Von Heurten-Mitnitz waited until they were finished and Fulmar was pouring a little brandy to improve his small, strong cup of coffee, and then he said: "I think it would be best if I knew precisely what has happened since you entered Germany, Eric."

"A synopsis would be that everything that could go wrong, did," Fulmar said.

"What about the Gestapo agent? Did you have to kill him?"

"I killed him when he opened the luggage that had been left on the train for me," Fulmar said matter-of-factly, "and found the Obersturmfuhrer's uniform. And then the boots didn't fit."

Von Heurten-Mitnitz nodded. "And in Marburg, was what happened there necessary?"

"Yes, of course it was," Fulmar said impatiently. "I don't like scrambling people's brains."

"You could learn some delicacy," the Countess said.

"We are not in a delicate business, Cousin," Fulmar said.

"But that's it? There's nothing else I don't know about?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

Fulmar's hesitation was obvious.

"What else?" von Heurten-Mitnitz persisted.

"I was recognized on the train," he said. "Before I got to Frankfurt. On the way to Marburg."