Secret Honor (Honor Bound 3)

Bormann, leaning against his desk, wore the brown uniform of the National Socialist Workers party. He was forty-three, a stocky man of a little less than medium height, and wore his hair close-cropped.

“Ah, there you are, Heinrich!” Bormann greeted Himmler with a smile, and offered his hand. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Himmler consulted his wristwatch. He forced himself to smile.

“You said half past seven,” he said. “It is seven twenty-nine.”

“No one comes in here,” Bormann announced to the Leibstandarte Hauptsturmführer. “And no calls, except from the Führer. Or someone calling for the Führer.”

“Jawohl, Herr Reichsleiter,” the Hauptsturmführer said, and closed the door.

Himmler nodded in turn to Dönitz, von Ribbentrop, and Canaris. Each returned the nod.

“The Reichsmarschall, Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, and Dr. Goebbels are with the Führer at Wolfsschanze,” Bormann announced. “Keitel is aware of the cable from Buenos Aires. I thought I would wait until we see what this meeting decides before seeking instructions from

the Führer.”

Himmler thought: There is an implication in that which I don’t like, that he alone decides what the Führer will or will not be told.

In this case, since the Führer is likely to be furious when he hears about the mess in Argentina, I will allow him to indulge his vanity.

“Has there been anything more than the first cable?” Himmler asked.

Von Ribbentrop shook his head. He was wearing a business suit, the only one there not in uniform. He was fifty, a small, once-handsome man whose blond hair was turning gray.

“The cable said very little,” Bormann said, addressing von Ribbentrop and making the observation an accusation. Ambassador von Lutzenberger was a diplomat, and diplomats were the responsibility of the Foreign Minister.

“It gave us the facts, Martin,” Himmler argued reasonably. “And I rather admire von Lutzenberger’s concern that our cables might not be as secure as we would like to believe.”

“What did it tell you?” Bormann snapped.

“That we were lucky we didn’t lose the Océano Pacífico’s special cargo—the Operation Phoenix special cargo—as well as Goltz and Grüner.”

“It didn’t say what happened, or who is responsible,” Bormann said.

“I would hazard the guess that either the papal nuncio or the American OSS is responsible,” Himmler said sarcastically.

“There has to be someone in the embassy,” Admiral Canaris said.

The others looked at him. Canaris, too, was a short fifty-five-year-old whose face was just starting to jowl. He had been a U-boat commander in World War I.

“I didn’t know Goltz well, but Grüner was a good man,” Canaris went on. “And from what little we know, I agree with Himmler that it was almost certainly the OSS—meaning that someone had to tell them not only what was going on but where and when.”

“I will of course defer to the both of you in this area,” von Ribbentrop said, nodding at Himmler and Canaris. “But I did have the thought that the Argentines themselves might be responsible. They are, after all, Latin. Latins practice revenge. The two killings might be in retribution for the unfortunate death of Oberst Frade.”

“They’re capable of it,” Canaris said thoughtfully. “That’s worth thinking about.”

Canaris was the acknowledged expert in this group about things Argentine. Not only had he been interned by the Argentines during the First World War, but he had escaped from them.

“It was the OSS,” Bormann pronounced.

“Von Lutzenberger’s cable said other details were available,” Himmler said. “Details he obviously did not wish to transmit in a radio message. And he provided us with the names of those people privy to those details.”

“What do we know about those people?” Bormann asked.

“I took the trouble to review their dossiers,” Himmler said, “this afternoon.”

“And?” Canaris asked.