The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

Then he met Gisella’s eyes a moment before turning and walking out of the apartment.

He was almost at the foyer door when Gisella caught up with him.

“Johnny!”

She put her arms around him.

“Be careful,” she said.

The foyer door opened and the resident snoop’s eye appeared.

Müller yielded to the temptation to give her something to report. He kissed Gisella on the mouth, then put his hands on her rear end and pressed her against him.

He kissed her longer than he had intended, and more tenderly. Then he went out to the Admiral.

He thought, as he drove past the house: The truth is that I am acting like a schoolboy about that woman. I am going to have to watch myself. Not only is the affection mostly imaginary, but emotion is always dangerous.

But then: After I have lunch with von Heurten-Mitnitz tomorrow, I’ll take a run over and get her some of the black silk French underwear. And some French perfume, too.

Chapter THREE

The Foreign Ministry

Berlin, Germany

20 January 1943

The situation was surreal, Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz thought, dreamlike. Yet very real.

When he walked into his office earlier, he had received word that Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop would be pleased if von Heurten-Mitnitz would take luncheon with him in his private dining room.

“I took the liberty, Herr Minister,” Fräulein Ingebord Schermann said,“of informing the Herr Reichsminister’s adjutant that so far as I knew there was nothing on your schedule that would keep you from accepting his invitation. ”

“That was precisely the right thing to say, Fräulein Schermann,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “Thank you. The time?”

“Half past one, Herr Minister,” she said.

He had had a little over four hours to consider how he would handle this meeting with von Ribbentrop.

He and von Ribbentrop had much in common, or so it appeared on the surface. They were both aristocrats and career officers of the diplomatic service. Von Ribbentrop had once been a commercial attaché at the German embassy in Ottawa, as Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz had been an attaché in New Orleans. And von Ribbentrop, like the Graf von Heurten-Mitnitz, had been an early convert to National Socialism and the Führer.

Beneath the surface, however, there were substantial differences: Joachim von Ribbentrop’s Almanac de Gotha pedigree was nowhere near as distinguished as von Ribbentrop liked people to think it was. Nor was he

nearly as clever or as skilled a diplomat as he thought he was. Like Müller, he had been promoted over his ability because he was not only trustworthy but an old-time—and thus deserving—Party comrade. Even Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz’s brother held von Ribbentrop with a measure of scorn.

Since his return to Berlin, Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz had avoided von Ribbentrop. As indeed von Ribbentrop had avoided von Heurten-Mitnitz until it became apparent that von Heurten-Mitnitz would not be blamed for the American invasion of Morocco.

When he was asked to lunch with von Ribbentrop, von Heurten-Mitnitz’s first thought had to do with the report of French perfidy in Morocco. That was not any closer to completion than it ever had been.

But that question could have been asked over the phone.

Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz had no idea what would emerge when he presented himself to von Ribbentrop’s receptionist at twenty minutes after one.

The receptionist told him that the Reichsminister was tied up and offered him a chair, coffee, and a magazine.

At 1:25, the door burst open and General Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the SS, trailed by an aide, marched into the reception room, nodded curtly at von Ribbentrop’s receptionist, shoved open the ceiling-high doors to von Ribbentrop’s office, and went inside.

Kaltenbrunner, physically, was an imposing man. He was six feet eight inches tall, with weight to match, and his cheek bore a prominent scar from a saber slash.