Blood and Honor (Honor Bound 2)

"Unease about what?"

"I hope you're not placing too much confidence in me."

"Modesty doesn't become you, Josef. And you know how important this endeavor is."

"I will, of course, do my best."

Bormann nodded.

"1 had a thought," he said, moving to another subject, "when they told me you were at the outer wire, and again while you were waiting. Vis-a-vis von Wachtstein."

"Oh?"

"I have a feeling his son might be very useful to us. Particularly if the Generalleutnant himself were participating in the endeavor." (A Generalleutnant is literally a lieutenant general, but is equivalent to a U.S. Army-two-star- major general.) "I won't say anything to him, of course, until you have a chance to look at the situation in Buenos Aires and let me know what you think. But why don't you pay a courtesy call on him now, Josef, ask if there is something you could carry for him to his son-a letter, perhaps?"

"A very good idea," Goltz said. "I was, what shall I say, a little surprised at how close the von Wachtsteins are to poverty. If we are to believe the Generalleutnant's estate-tax return."

"Perhaps he dug a hole with his paws and buried a bone or two in it for a rainy day. After all, he is a Pomeranian."

Goltz smiled.

"While he is preparing whatever he wishes to send-give him an hour, say-you come back here and we'll talk."

"Yes, Sir."

"He's across the road, but I'll send you in my car so you won't have to walk."

"That's very good of you."

"In lieu of a drink, Josef. I'm taking dinner with the F?hrer, and I don't want to smell of alcohol."

Goltz chuckled. The F?hrer was an ascetic man who neither smoked nor drank. There was an unwritten law that those privileged to be in his presence also abstained.

Generalleutnant Graf (Count) Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein was a short, slight, nearly bald fifty-four-year-old, the seventh of his Pomeranian line to earn the right to be called "General." Originally a cavalryman, he had joined the General Staff as an Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) eight years before.

When war broke out, he went into Poland at that rank but assumed com-mand of a Panzer regiment when its colonel was killed in his tank turret during an unexpectedly difficult encirclement maneuver. His Polish opponent, they later learned, had instructed his troops to save their rifle fire for officers who gallantly exposed themselves in tank turrets. Afterward, he was promoted to colonel.

He went into Russia commanding a tank regiment, and was fairly seriously wounded. When Generaloberst Jodl heard this-von Wachstein had worked un-der Jodl as a major-he decided that the Army could not afford to have an un-usually bright general staff officer killed doing something as unimportant as commanding troops in combat, and ordered him back to Berlin. With the trans-fer came a promotion to Generalmajor (literally, Major General, but equivalent to a U.S. Army-one-star-Brigadier General).

Earlier this year, in February, following a shakeup in the General Staff af-ter the Sixth Army's surrender at Stalingrad, he was promoted Generalleutnant, with the additional honor of having the F?hrer personally pin on his new badges of rank.

"What the General Staff needs, Jodl," the F?hrer had said at the small pro-motion ceremony in his bunker, "is more general officers like Graf von Wacht-stein and myself-men who have been exposed to fire."

Hitler had won the Iron Cross First Class-an unusual decoration for a lowly corporal-in the First World War, and was fond of reminding his gener-als that, unlike many of them, he had been tested under fire.

"Hello, Goltz," von Wachtstein said, returning Goltz's salute with an equally casual raising of his arm from the elbow, palm extended. "What can I do for you, beyond offering you coffee?"

"Coffee would be fine, Herr Generalleutnant," Goltz replied. "It was a long ride from Berlin."

Von Wachtstein mimed raising a coffee cup to his lips to his chief clerk, Feldwebel (Technical Sergeant) Alois Hennig, a tall, blond twenty-two-year-old.

"Jawohl, Herr Generalleutnant," Hennig said, and left them alone.

"Reichsleiter Bormann is in conference," Goltz said. "I thought I would pass the time paying my respects to you."

"Bormann is a busy man," von Wachtstein said.

"I'm about to go to Buenos Aires."