The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

His aide set down beside von Heurten-Mitnitz, glanced at him curiously, and then picked up a magazine.

Two minutes later, an officer in black SS uniform appeared in von Ribbentrop’s door.

“The Herr Reichsminister will receive you now, Herr von Heurten-Mitnitz, ” he said.

Neither von Ribbentrop nor Kaltenbrunner was in von Ribbentrop’s office. The SS officer led von Heurten-Mitnitz to von Ribbentrop’s private dining room, a long, narrow room overlooking the interior garden. Its view was not unlike the one from von Heurten-Mitnitz’s office, two floors above and a hundred feet south.

“My dear Helmut,” von Ribbentrop said, turning to von Heurten-Mitnitz. “I’m so glad you were free.”

He walked to him and offered his hand. He was an average-size man, with most of his brown hair, but there was a pallor to his skin that did not look healthy. His grip was firm, but that seemed an affectation.

“It was very good of you to ask me,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

“You know the General, of course.”

In fact, von Heurten-Mitnitz had never been formally introduced to Kaltenbrunner.

“Good to see you again, General,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. Kaltenbrunner crushed von Heurten-Mitnitz’s hand in his massive, scarred hand.

“I always come when invited,” Kaltenbrunner said. “Ribbentrop has the best chef in Berlin.”

The long, polished mahogany table would have accommodated twenty people, but only three places had been set. Crisp, starched white place mats had been laid at one end. And there were long-stemmed crystal glasses, an impressive battery of sterling silverware with a swastika embossed on the handles, and elaborately folded napkins stood up on large, white, gold-rimmed plates.

Five hundred yards from here, von Heurten-Mitnitz thought, as well as all over Germany, people are going hungry.

A tall, good-looking SS trooper, with starched white jacket replacing his uniform tunic, walked over and offered a tray holding three cut-crystal glasses.

“An aperitif is always in order, I think,” von Ribbentrop said. “In this case, I asked for Slivovitz”—Hungarian pear brandy. “Under the circumstances, I thought it appropriate.”

Well, that explains it. I am to be ordered to the embassy in Budapest. Because I’ve hinted I want to be assigned there? Or because my brother has suggested it? Or simply because I am a minister who has lost his portfolio and there is an appropriate vacancy in Budapest? But why the private luncheon? And what does Kaltenbrunner have to do with it?

They each took a glass.

“The Führer,” Kaltenbrunner intoned solemnly, and von Heurten-Mitnitz and von Ribbentrop parroted the toast.

“I’ve been telling the general,” von Ribbentrop said, “about the report you’ve been preparing for the Führer. Coming along with it, are you?”

Ah, the report. Is that just a loose end to be tied up before I go? Or is it the reason I am going?

“I’m beginning to see the end,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

“Then we’ll move you at a propitious moment,” von Ribbentrop said, and then interrupted himself. “Why don’t we sit down?”

“That report sounds like one of Goebbels’s ‘anger-events,’” Kaltenbrunner said. An “anger-event” was a German coinage of Kaltenbrunner’s own devising.

"General?” von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

“The general theorizes,” von Ribbentrop said,“and he may well be right, that Dr. Goebbels believes that the Führer is at his best when he is angry. Consequently, the good doctor tries to schedule at least three events a week that are sure to anger our Führer.”

“And that report of yours would be one of them,” Kaltenbrunner said. “As far as I’m concerned, the less said to the Führer about either Africa or the French, the better.”

Two good-looking, blond young SS troopers came into the room. One pushed an exquisite wheeled serving cart. He placed it beside Kaltenbrunner, so that the second could ladle mushroom soup from a silver tureen into Kaltenbrunner’s plate. Then the cart was moved to von Heurten-Mitnitz, and he was served, and finally to von Ribbentrop. Afterward, one of the waiters poured wine, a ’37 Bernkastler.

“So far as my report is concerned, General,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said, “‘Mine’ as the British said as they rode into the valley at Balaklava.”

Kaltenbrunner chuckled, and von Ribbentrop looked puzzled.

“‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die,’” Kaltenbrunner furnished.