name in Germany. I will explain for you. The Muellers of BadenBaden opposed the criminal Hitler and his gangsters. The Fuhrer didn't dare touch us because of our holdings and the loyalties our several thousand employees accorded us. The Allies never understood how frightened Hitler was of domestic dissent. Had they understood, they might have developed tactics within Germany that could have shortened the war. Like Traupman, the little thug with a mustache reached far beyond his grasp, mixing with people he had admired from afar, but who never accepted him.
My father always claimed Hitler's diatribes were the rantings of a frightened, man, driven to eliminate by murder the slightest opposition, as long as there were no consequences. However, Herr Hitler, through conscription, made sure my two brothers were sent to the Russian front, where they were killed, more likely by German bullets than Soviet."
"Hans Traupman, please?"
"He was the total Nazi," said Madame Mueller quietly, turning her face toward the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the window.
"It was strange, almost inhuman, but he wanted power, simply power, beyond the rewards of his profession. He would recite the discredited theories of a superior Aryan race as if they were considered infallible, although he had to know they were not.
I think it was the bitter resentment of the rejected young man who could not walk among the elite of Germany, in spite of his growing reputation, because he simply was a coarse, unlikable person."
"You're leading to something else, I think," said Moreau.
4 "Yes, I am. He began to hold meetings at our house in Nuremberg, meetings with people I knew were unreconstructed National Socialists, Hitler fanatics. He soundproofed the cellar, where they met every Tuesday-I was not permitted to attend. There was a great deal of drinking and from our bedroom I could faintly hear shouting and "Sieg Heils' and the Horst Wessel song, over and over. This went on for three years, until the fifth year of our marriage, and finally I confronted him-why I did not do so earlier, I simply don't know.. .. Affection, no matter how dwindling, does involve protection. I shouted at him, accusing him of dreadful things, of trying to bring back the horrors of the past. And on a Wednesday morning, after one of those terrible nights, he said to me, "It doesn't matter what you think, you rich bitch. We were right then and we're right now!" I left the next day. Does that amplify enough for you, Moreau?"
"It certainly does, madame," replied, the head of the Deuxieme.
"Can you recall any of the men or women at those meetings?"
"It was more than thirty years ago. No, I cannot.
"Even one or two of the 'unreconstructed Nazis'?
"Let me think.. .. There was a Bohr, a Rudolf Bohr, I believe, and a former, very young colonel in the Wehrmacht named Von Schteifel, I think. Other than those two, my memory leaves me. I remember them only because they were frequent visitors for lunch or dinner, where no politics were discussed, but I saw them getting out of their cars through my bedroom window."
"You have been of enormous help, madame," said Moreau, getting up from his chair.
"I'll not disturb you any longer."
"Stop them," whispered Elke Mueller harshly.
"They'll be the death of Germany!"
"We'll remember your words," said Claude Moreau, walking into the foyer.
At the Deuxi&me headquarters in the Kbniginstrasse, Moreau exercised his privileges and ordered Paris to reach Wesley Sorenson immediately.
Sorenson was on the plane back to Washington when his Sky Pager buzzed. He got out of his seat, walked up to the telephone on the first-class bulkhead, inserted his card, and reached his office.
"Hold on, Mr. Director," said the operator in Consular Operations.
"I'll call Munich and patch you through
Allor, Wesley?"
"Yes, Claude?"
"It's Traupman!"
"Traupman's the key!"
They had spoken simultaneously.
"I'll be in my office in roughly an hour," said Sorenson.
"I'll call you back."
"We've both been busy, mon ami."
"You can bet your French ass!"
rew lay beside Karin in the bed in her room at the Bristol
Hotel, their being together a reluctant conDcession on the part of Witkowski. They had made love, and were now experiencing the comfortable afterglow of lovers who know they belong with each other.
"Where the hell are we?" said Latham, having lighted one of his infrequent cigarettes. The smoke curled above them.
"It's in Sorenson's hands now. You have no control."
"That's what I don't like. He's in Washington and we're in Paris and that goddamned Kroeger is on another planet."
"Drugs could extract information from him."
"The embassy doctor says we can't