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Cronley kept his eyes on the door until it was closed. He still didn’t get a glimpse of Elsa.
Von Dattenberg saw Boltitz and walked quickly to him.
“I’m delighted to see you, Karl.”
“And you, Willi.”
They stiffly shook hands.
“Willi, this is Subteniente Cronley,” Frade said. “I think you know everybody else.”
Von Dattenberg advanced on Cronley and offered his hand.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an American officer in uniform before, Lieutenant,” he said in English.
“I speak German,” Cronley said.
“His mother’s from Strasbourg,” the old man said. “That’s where he got the German. My mother was from New Orleans, which means we can do this in French, Cajun, Spanish, or English. Any language but German. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“And this,” Frade said, continuing in English, “is my grandfather.”
Von Dattenberg shook his hand and said, “My honor, sir.”
“My grandfather, Willi, has been sent by President Truman, who is very interested in the five hundred sixty kilograms of uranium oxide that was on U-234 when she sailed for Japan from Narvik.”
“Your grandfather?” von Dattenberg said, surprised.
“Yeah, my grandfather,” Clete replied. “What can you tell us?”
“The only thing I can tell you for certain is that I think uranium oxide being on U-234 is nothing more than a rumor.”
“Karl,” Clete said, “tell him.”
“It’s not a rumor, Willi. Did you know Kurt Schrann?”
Von Dattenberg nodded. “The fellow you had directly commissioned, right?”
“He was second engineer officer on U-234. He was among those who Kapitän Schneider . . .”
“Good man,” von Dattenberg said.
“. . . allowed to leave the boat in Narvik before they sailed. I ran Kurt down in Bremen. He wouldn’t lie to me. He said the coordinates for the landfall were also furnished, in code, to U-405.”
“Not to me,” von Dattenberg said.
“Then why would this guy say that they were?” Clete asked.
“I don’t know,” von Dattenberg replied thoughtfully. “The only coded coordinates I had in my safe were the rendezvous coordinates.”
“What are they?” Jimmy Cronley asked.
Von Dattenberg gave him an annoyed look.
Cronley interpreted it to mean: Who the hell are you, Subteniente, to be asking questions?
When von Dattenberg didn’t reply immediately, Frade asked, not pleasantly, “Well, what are they?”
“During the war,” von Dattenberg began, “we were following Admiral Doenitz’s Wolfpack tactic, and when the Kriegsmarine learned of the location of an Allied convoy, we would receive orders by radio to rendezvous at a certain point—”
