Von Deitzberg, to ensure he hadn’t missed anything, read Himmler’s letter a third time as he ate his scrambled eggs.
He knew that while everything Himmler had written was true, it was not a complete report of what had happened at Wolfsschanze. Himmler was too smart to write that down, and he knew that von Deitzberg—who not only was privy to the backstabbing of the senior Nazis but personally had witnessed at least a dozen of the Führer’s legendary tirades—would be easily able to fill in the blanks.
Himmler had not considered it necessary to suggest that Goebbels, the clubfooted propaganda minister, had brought South American Airways’ accomplishment to Hitler’s attention, not in order to keep the Führer up-to-date, but rather it would direct the Führer’s rage at Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, of whose power he was jealous and whom he loathed.
It wasn’t at all hard for von Deitzberg to picture the scene around the map table at Wolfsschanze with Hitler ranting at a cowering Göring. The Führer was wont to stamp his foot. His tirade was often accompanied by a shower of spittle. And a supply of spectacles was kept available to replace those he threw at the floor or at whoever was the target of his rage.
And von Deitzberg could clearly see the concern in Goebbels’s eyes when Hitler was on the edge of ordering that the Constellations be shot down, then that concern replaced with relief when Canaris, with his usual skill, kept that from happening.
My God! I’m thinking clearly!
Twenty minutes ago, all I was thinking of was what those gottverdammt concoctions that that moron Müller has been feeding me are doing to my stomach and bowels. Or daydreaming like a sixteen-year-old with raging hormones about Inge von Tresmarck.
It’s as if I’ve been asleep, or drugged, and suddenly woken up.
Why? What happened? What woke me up?
After a moment’s thought, he knew what had happened.
He was terrified because of the last paragraph of Himmler’s letter: “The discussion ended somewhat abruptly at that point when the Führer turned to me and said, in effect, ‘Von Deitzberg is over there; have him take care of this.’ ”
I have been personally given the task of destroying SAA’s aircraft, and in such a manner that the finger of suspicion cannot be pointed at Germany.
Every one of those Sohns der einer Hündin at Wolfsschanze must have been delighted.
Canaris, because Hitler hadn’t ordered him to do it.
Goebbels, because there would not be an uproar in the world’s press over Germans shooting down a civilian airline of a neutral power carrying a load of priests and nuns.
Göring, because Hitler hadn
’t ordered the Luftwaffe to do the shooting down. And Heinrich Himmler, because he hadn’t been ordered to put the Sicherheitsdienst to work destroying the airplanes.
Not one of them—but me, personally!
“Have von Deitzberg take care of this.”
All Himmler was doing was relaying the Führer’s orders.
Yet if I somehow succeed in destroying the airplanes, Himmler will of course take all the credit.
And if I fail, I will have Hitler personally furious with me. And I am a lowly SS-brigadeführer, not a senior general. Hitler doesn’t scream at unimportant people like me; he just has the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler stand them in front of a wall.
Unless he’s really angry, and orders the Leibstandarte to hang me from a butcher’s hook with Goebbels’s movie cameras filming so the Führer can watch my agony at his leisure and over and over again.
And it’s not as if I don’t already have my hands full.
I still have no idea how I’m going to do what else I have to do here—eliminate that gottverdammt American Frade of the OSS, locate and eliminate the Froggers, find out how much damage the Froggers have done to Operation Phoenix, and check on both how the confidential special fund is being handled in Uruguay and whether that miserable deviate von Tresmarck has been able to keep his mouth shut.
And now this!
And I am absolutely alone!
Cranz and Raschner are incompetent—not only did they fail to eliminate Frade but they managed to lose an SS officer and half a dozen of his men while shooting up an empty house. Only a fool would not consider that they will shortly receive a letter from Himmler—now that I think about it, it probably came in the same pouch as Himmler’s letter to von Lutzenberger and me—ordering them to secretly report on how I am carrying out my assignments.
And Cranz will do a good job on that. That Sohn der einer Hündin would like nothing better than to get me out of the way so he could become first deputy adjutant to the Reichsführer-SS.
Well, as I always say about facing a difficult task: “You need good men and a lot of money.”