Gisella looked at him with both concern and curiosity.
He took her arms in his hands and pulled her to him so that he could bring his lips to her ear.
“Peis may have this place wired,” he said. “If you have to talk in here, make sure the radio is going and the water is running. It would be better if you talked in the woods, or a park. Not near a lake.” She nodded.
He motioned Professor Dyer over and put his mouth close to his ear.
“Your daughter is going to tell you what’s going on,” he said.
“Pay attention. And keep your mouth shut, or we’ll all wind up dead.” When he let go of Dyer, he saw the confusion in the man’s eyes.
He went back to Gisella.
“Tell him what you know. And make sure he understands how dangerous this is. Find out what you can. Anything. Wild guesses, anything.” Gisella nodded and then, as she spoke into his ear, he could feel her warm breath, “You’re going? Now? Why?”
“He’s made up his mind not to like me,” he said. “So he wouldn’t trust me anyhow. You have to make him do that.” He looked into her eyes until she nodded understanding and agreement. Then he added, “And I have to drive to Berlin, remember.” He resisted the temptation to kiss her ears, and let her go.
He shut the water off and turned the radio volume down.
“It has been a great pleasure to meet you, Herr Professor Doktor,” he said. “I look forward to that pleasure soon again. And I shall be in touch with you, my dear Gisella, just as soon as duty permits.” He paused and said loudly, “Heil Hitler und auf Wiedersehen.” 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.
Muller 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 thati 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, IX take a run over and get her some of the black silk French underwear.
And some French perfume, too.
TIIREE] The For-ign Illlinidry B-rlin, -rmany ao 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,” Fraulein 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, Fraulein 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 attache at the German embassy in Ottawa, as Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz had been an attache in New Orleans. And von Ribbentrop, like the Graf von Heurten-Mitnitz, had been an early convert to National Socialism and the Fuhrer.
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 Muller, 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 Heurtenmitnitz’s brother held von Ribbentrop with a measure of scorn.