the false set of identity papers he’d had made up two years before for just such an emergency. On these identity papers the name Wolfgang Baron first appeared. The papers claimed Baron had been a language teacher at a school in Berlin he did speak English, French, and Spanish, all fluently and that his sole connection with the Nazi Party or any German military organization was his membership in the Volkssturm,the home guard of the old, the very young, and the lame, assembled from the remnants of German maledom towards the end of the war.
With the coming of peace, Baron traded his black uniform for the black market, exchanging watches and cameras for coffee and gasoline and cigarettes. This interim activity kept him going and earned him some pleasant profit until 1948, when it was possible for him to move abroad and begin converting various of his acquisitions to cash.
He lived in France for the next eight years, slowly selling off the art works he’d commandeered during the war, and it was his expectation to live the rest of his life in France, well off and well out of trouble.
But then the roof fell in. The biggest Nazis had long since been taken care of, and the lesser Nazis were almost all either dead or captured. Smaller and smaller fish were being added to the lists of wanted men, simply because the lists gave so many men in so many countries a source of livelihood, and in the late fifties the name of Baron Wolfgang Friedrich Kastelbern von Altstein made the grade. Charge: war crimes. Specifics: the looting of France. Some enlisted men, truckdrivers and such, had ratted on him.
He found out in time to get out from under, but not in time to liquidate all his assets. He landed in Spain still a wealthy man, but with his wealth cut just about in half and with his opportunities for accumulating more money drastically diminished. He lived for several years in Spain, living on his capital, and when he was approached by the Russians for potential espionage work he was more than willing to take their money. Unfortunately the deal fell through before he made a pfennig; the truth was, he didn’t know anything the Russians could use and he didn’t know any way to find out anything the Russians could use. Espionage had never been a part of his world.
Still, this contact with the Russians proved fruitful a couple of years later, when he decided to move on, establish himself in a country more productive of opportunities for money-making than Spain, and made the mistake of first choosing the United States.
He never did find out how they’d got onto him. He had established himself in New Orleans, being part owner of various night clubs and motels, and suddenly he was in the middle of a covey of Federal agents. He ran like a hare, and if it hadn’t been for the reserve fund he had prudently salted away in a Swiss bank he would have left the United States penniless.
As it was, he was far from rich. He took immediate refuge in Cuba, the one place in the western hemisphere he was sure American policemen could not enter in search of him, and established his identity by mentioning the names of the two Russians with whom he had had dealings in Madrid a few years before. He claimed now to have contacts within the United States, and promised to create an espionage apparatus for the Russians if he was given their co-operation. No money, he assured them, not until and unless he delivered. All he asked was their nonfinancial support in his establishing himself. If thereafter he failed to produce anything worthwhile, the Russians would not have lost a thing.
They agreed, as a speculative venture. Baron had known for twenty years of the nameless nationless unwanted island off the Texas coast; there had been foolish talk at one point during the war about establishing a fuelling base for U-boats there. He arranged for Cuba to claim the island it was nearly nine hundred miles from Cuba, but the Azores were over two thousand miles from Portugal and the world is full of similar precedents, so no serious objections were raised, except in the United States House of Representatives, which fulminated about ‘takeovers’ but which couldn’t do a damn thing about it and he himself named the place Cockaigne, an ironic reference to the land of idleness and luxury in the old legends. It was easy to convince the Russian intelligence officers that a gambling island off the American coast was a good base for espionage, and if the results of that espionage were slow in coming it was still true that Baron had cost the Russians nothing but a little wasted anticipation.
Now he had the island and the casino, and life was pleasant. He had no espionage apparatus, and no intention to establish one, and because he knew how often and how rapidly the world turned over and the politicians and intelligence officers were reshuffled and redealt, he wasn’t particularly worried. He could stall the Russians until new alignments should make their current hopes for him obsolescent.
And now, as ever, the most important thing was to keep himself alive, and healthy, and financially secure, and as safe as possible from his enemies. For this he had the island and the casino and the exercises and Steuber.
Steuber had been with him since 1939, in Berlin. At that time, at the beginning, he had been Baron’s chauffeur. In the years since he had been Baron’s butler, valet, bodyguard, go-between, whipping boy, and confidant. He was Baron’s army, Baron’s family, Baron’s circle of friends. In ways that neither of them clearly understood, Steuber was Baron’s world and equally so was Baron the world for Steuber.
‘Forty,’ said Steuber now, and peered at the stopwatch. ‘Twenty-five seconds ahead.’
Baron rested a few seconds on the floor after his fortieth push-up, then hoisted himself to his feet and started running in place. Steuber counted each time Baron’s right foot touched the floor. Baron ran with fists clenched, head up, eyes staring straight ahead. Running, he looked like a fanatic.
At first neither of them heard the knocking at the door, but when Baron did notice it he turned his head and glared in that direction, because the staff knew he was not to be disturbed while exercising. But the knocking wouldn’t stop, so Baron took over the counting himself, without losing the pace of the running, and nodded to Steuber to go see to the door.
Steuber got to his feet, carefully set watch and book on the chair, and walked across the room it was part- office, part-living room, part-library to open the door. Baron reached one hundred and began at once to do sailor jumps. Steuber was talking in the doorway with one of the staff members from downstairs. Baron did ten sailor jumps and started running again, and Steuber left the room, closing the door behind him.
That was very unusual. Running, Baron frowned, trying to understand it. It must be important or Steuber would not have interrupted their routine this way. But if it were immediately dangerous Steuber would not have gone away without telling Baron about it, In any case, there was nothing to do but go on with the exercising.
It was a few minutes before Steuber came back, and when he did Baron was still running in place. Baron gasped, as he ran, ‘Almost done!’ and Steuber hurried across the room to pick up the watch.
‘One hundred!’ cried Baron, coming down hard on his right leg. He stopped.
Steuber calculated, frowning massively at the watch. The watch looked small in Steuber’s heavy grey hand. Finally, he said, ‘One minute, twelve seconds ahead.’
‘Good. What was that?’
‘Man you better see,’ Steuber said. ‘You can tell better than me if he’s telling the truth.’
