association with the neo Nazis Sigmund Kroeger was officially listed as a deserter. from the Luftwaffe in the final months of the war."
"So were thousands of others."
"Of the Wehrmacht, perhaps, not the Luftwaffe, and very few senior officers. The elder Kroeger was a decorated major, decorated by Goering himself. The military records, ours and yours, show that had the war continued and Kroeger been captured, he would have been courtmartialed and shot. By the Third Reich."
"What happened to him after the war?"
"The usual obfuscations. He had flown his Messerschmitt over the Allied lines, parachuted out, and let his plane crash into a field.
British troops kept the nearby villagers from killing him and he was given the status of prisoner of war."
"And after the surrender, he was repatriated?"
"Obfuscations, what can I tell you? He was the son of a factory owner who employed hundreds of people. However, in the final analysis, he was a deserter, and no devoted follower of the Ffihrer. Hardly the basis for his own son to become one."
"Yes, I see. What about his wife, Gerhardt's mother?"
"A stolid, upper-middle-class Hausfrau who probably detested the war. At any rate, she was never listed as a member of the National Socialist Party and never known to attend the numerous rallies."
"Not exactly a pro-Nazi influence."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you."
"And Kroeger's university and medical schooling, were there any student factions antagonistic to Germany's democratizations, its rejection of the Third Reich, that might have impressed the young Kroeger?"
"None that I can find. His professors, by and large, termed him a man who kept to himself, a born scholar and doctor in training, simply outstanding. His surgical residency was so superb, he was operating months before it was customary."
"His specialization?"
"The brain. They say he had 'golden hands and quicksilver fingers'; that's a direct quote from the renowned Hans Traupman, another giant in the field."
"Who ?5)
"Traupman, Hans Traupman, chief of cranial surgery, Nuremberg."
"Are they friends?"
"Other than a professional association, there's no reference to a specific friendship."
"Yet he was excessive in his praise of a subordinate."
"Not all surgeons are ungenerous, Moreau."
"I suppose not. Were there any conclusions or opinions as to why Kroeger resigned his post and immigrated to Sweden?"
"Other than his own very emotional statement, no. He had been performing extremely delicate, one might say nerve-racking, operations for nearly twenty years. His personal judgment was that he had burnt himself out, that a tremble had developed in those 'quicksilver' fingers of his, and he would not further risk patients' lives. Most admirable.
"Most obfuscation al said Moreau quietly.
"Has anyone followed up on where he is now?"
"Only hearsay, as you'll read. Several former colleagues who've heard from him, none less than four years ago, say he opened a general practice under a Swedish name, north of Gbteborg."
"Who are these 'former colleagues'?"
"Their names are in the report. You may reach them yourself, if you wish."
"I wish."
"Now, Monsieur Moreau," said the German ambassador, his short, skeletal body leaning back in the chair, "I think it's time you were clear with me. When we spoke on a secure line, as you demanded-you implied that one Gerhardt Kroeger, surgeon, could be part of the Nazi movement, but you offered no evidence, to say nothing of proof. Instead, rather outrageously, you said that if my government, through this office, refused to comply with your request to furnish you with a complete dossier on Kroeger, you would complain to the Quai d'Orsay that we were conceivably covering up the identity of a powerful member of the new Nazi core.
Again, no evidence, no proof, and once you enter that file into your system, it's quite possible that an doctor somewhere in Sweden will have his very life in jeopardy, for I have no doubt you'll find him. There's your information, Monsieur Moreau. Give me something, if only to assuage my conscience, for, as I say, you will find him."
"We have found him, Monsieur IAmbassadeur. He's here in Paris, less than twenty blocks away. His mission is to find Harry Latham and kill him. But why be, why a doctor, a surgeon? That's the question we must answer."
Out on the street, Moreau went directly to his Deuxieme Bureau vehicle, climbed in, nodded to his driver to proceed, and picked up the embassy telephone from its cradle. He dialed an in-house sterile number.
"Jacques?"
"Yes, Claude?"
"Run an in-depth trace on a doctor named Traupman, Hans Traupman, a surgeon in Nuremberg."
The evening was passing slowly, far too slowly for an agitated Drew Latham. The hotel suite was