Which is corrupt and immoral, Canaris thought.
He believed that sort of favoritism was the basic flaw in the Nazi party and its leadership.
The SS, especially, is riddled through with thieves and sociopaths.
“May I offer you a glass of wine, Canaris? Or champagne, perhaps?” Bormann asked as he sat down and gestured for Canaris to take the chair at the side of the table.
“Thank you, no, Herr Reichsleiter. If there is any, I’ll have a glass of beer.”
Bormann snapped his fingers and one of the interns hurried to produce a bottle of beer, the proper glass for it, and to set it before Canaris.
Bormann lifted the silver covers on the plates on the tables, and nodded approvingly at what they had been keeping warm.
“That will be all, thank you,” he said to the waiters. “The admiral and I will serve ourselves.”
Both young men clicked their heels, bowed crisply, and walked out of the dining room, closing the door after themselves.
Canaris wondered if Bormann had his wire recorder running and was recording this meeting. It was an idle thought, as Canaris always acted as if he knew whatever he was saying was being recorded, and said nothing that could possibly be used against him.
Wordlessly, the two served themselves. First, a consommé, then roast pork with mashed potatoes, green beans, applesauce, and red sauerkraut.
“Very nice,” Canaris said.
“Truth to tell, Canaris,” Bormann said. “I suspected getting people out of the office and my desk clear was going to take more time than I would have liked, and that I would be forced to ask you to wait. So a special lunch was in order, by way of apology. And if I proved to be wrong, and I could have received you on time, you would have been impressed by both my efficiency and the lunch.”
Canaris smiled and chuckled dutifully.
“I wanted to talk to you about Argentina, about Operation Phoenix,” Bormann then said. “That’s becoming a problem, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I would.”
“And with everything else the Führer has to deal with, I really hate to bother him with it.”
“I understand,” Canaris said. “It hasn’t gone well, has it?”
“The only good news was that we didn’t lose the special shipment on the shore of . . . what was it? Bonbon Bay? Something like that?”
“Samborombón Bay,” Canaris furnished.
“Why do you suppose that was, Canaris? Why didn’t the people who shot Standartenführer Goltz and Oberst Whatsisname, the military attaché?”
“Grüner,” Canaris furnished.
“. . . and Oberst Grüner grab the special shipment?”
“There are several possibilities,” Canaris said. “The story Korvettenkapitän Boltitz got from the captain of the Océano Pacífico suggests that they didn’t have time to even begin unloading the special cargo from the Océano Pacífico’s lifeboat when the shooting started. The Luftwaffe officer, von Wachtstein, then put the bodies into the boat and they went back to the ship.”
“You believe that story? I’ve always thought it was odd that the other two were killed and von Whatsisname wasn’t hurt.”
“Von Wachtstein,” Canaris furnished. “May I go on, Herr Reichsleiter?”
“Of course. Excuse me, Canaris.”
“What I was about to say was that that suggests the possibility that the Argentines accomplished what they may have set out to do. That is, get revenge for the killing of Oberst Frade by killing two German officers. Once that was done, they had no further interest in the boat or its crew. And von Wachtstein was in civilian clothing, which suggests the possibility they thought he was just another seaman. And, of course, they had no idea what was in the crates.”
“You think, then, that it was an act of revenge? By Argentine army officers?”
“Excuse me, Herr Reichsleiter, but what I said was that it suggests the possibility. We have no facts to go on. But, having said that, the fact that they showed no interest in the crates suggests they didn’t have any idea what they contained, and didn’t care. Robbery was not the motive, ergo sum. And robbery would offend the Argentine officer’s code of honor.”
“They can murder in cold blood but not steal?”
“In a sense. They consider revenge to be one thing, theft another.”
“How do you think they knew when and where the landing would be attempted? ”
“Again, several possibilities. They have a man in their Bureau of Internal Security, an Oberst Martín, who is far more competent than one would expect. One possible scenario is that he maintained aerial surveillance of the Océano Pacífico once she entered the River Plate. They have the capability to do that. And once the Océano Pacífico left the normal channel to the Buenos Aires harbor, and moved toward Samborombón Bay, he sent up a watch on the shore in that area. He also has that capability.”
“What you’re saying is that you don’t think we have a traitor in the embassy in Buenos Aires?”
“I’m not saying that at all, Herr Reichsleiter,” Canaris replied. “There very well may be. If there is, I’m sure Brigadeführer von Deitzberg will find that out. If indeed he hasn’t already. Has anyone heard from him?”
“Not that I know of,” Bormann said. “You didn’t mention your man just now, Korvettenkapitän Whatsisname?”
“Boltitz, Herr Reichsleiter. He’s a junior officer and he’s taking his orders from, and will make his report through, von Deitzberg. He’s not really an intelligence officer . . . an intelligence officer for something like this.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Herr Reichsleiter. Boltitz is a good man. Very smart. If you want an assessment of the Royal Navy, of the probable course and speed of a convoy crossing the North Atlantic in January, that sort of thing, he’s quite useful. He was a submarine officer—many successful patrols—but he doesn’t have much experience—any at all, actually—in counterintelligence, which is what von Deitzberg is dealing with here.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Bormann said.
“When von Deitzberg came to me asking if I had someone who could talk, as a seaman and in Portuguese, to the captain of the Océano Pacífico about what happened at Samborombón Bay, I assigned Boltitz to him. And Boltitz apparently impressed von Deitzberg, because he asked me if he could have him to go with him to Argentina.”
“He speaks Portuguese?”
“Yes. And Spanish. And English. Many naval officers are multilingual.”
“I suppose that would be useful to a naval officer.”
“Yes. But, frankly, Herr Reichsleiter, I wondered if Boltitz wouldn’t be more useful here in Berlin. I deferred to von Deitzberg.”
“Huh,” Bormann grunted. “It is sometimes hard, is it not, not to defer to a high-ranking SS officer?”
“Sometimes, as I suspect you well know, to do one’s duty it is necessary. But we have a saying in the navy, Herr Reichsleiter, that it is always wise to conserve one’s ammunition until you really need it.”
Bormann chuckled.
I think the Herr Reichsleiter swallowed that whole.
Boltitz is not a counterintelligence officer. And he’s in Argentina not because I wanted him there, but because von Deitzberg asked for him, and I didn’t think objecting was worth the trouble it would cause.
“We’re getting a little off track here, Herr Vizeadmiral,” Bormann said. “What I wanted to talk to you about is making Operation Phoenix a success, not about the problems we’re having with it at the moment.”
“I’m not sure I follow you, Herr Reichsleiter.”
“I’m sure, one way or another, we can get the special shipment into Argentina. What I’m concerned about is what we do with it when we get it there. What I’m saying, I suppose, is that I’ve been thinking we need a good Argentine ally.”