“How smuggled?”
“Usually, in one of two ways. Several of the stewards on the Lufthansa Condor flights to Buenos Aires are mine. In addition to keeping an eye on the passengers and crew for me, they bring me Brazilian coffee beans. And then, from time to time, I have to send someone to Lisbon—or go there myself—and in Lisbon, one can go into any grocery store and buy as much coffee as one can afford.”
“The Führer would be very disappointed in you if I told him that,” Himmler said. “I gave up on our Victory Coffee a year ago and went to tea. And now the tea is going the same way as the coffee did.”
“I’m coffee rich at the moment. May I offer you a half-kilo?”
“A cup I will gratefully accept. But thank you, no, about the half-kilo. If I took it, I would again become addicted, and withdrawal is just too painful.” Himmler smiled his undertaker’s smile. “Actually, what I wanted to talk to you about is a conversation I had over a cup of tea with our Führer yesterday at Wolfsschanze—after you left.”
“How was the tea?”
“Excellent. It was a gift of the Japanese ambassador.”
“And did the Führer offer you a half-kilo?”
“You know better than that, Canaris. What he did want to talk about was South America.”
“Really?”
“He said that he was just letting his imagination run, but what did I think about sending Il Duce, once he has been freed, to South America.”
“To seek asylum from the King? Victor Emmanuel?”
“He had in mind Operation Phoenix,” Himmler said evenly.
“That would be difficult without a good deal of preparation.”
“So I told the Führer. Then he said something to the effect that he was sure the mechanis
m of movement was in place. The statement was, of course, in fact a question.”
“‘The mechanism of movement’? He was asking about the submarine? Submarines, plural?”
Himmler nodded.
“I told the Führer that I had turned over control of U-405 to you some weeks ago and that I knew you were either planning, or had already put into play, a test run of U-405 to see if there were any flaws in your scheme for transporting and secretly inserting senior officials into Argentina.”
Himmler looked at Canaris to see what his reaction to this would be.
Canaris hoped his face did not show the fury he felt.
You sonofabitch!
You never turned over control of U-405 to me.
What the hell are you up to?
He waited for Himmler to explain. Himmler waited for Canaris to say something.
Canaris reached into his inside jacket pocket and took from it a small, leather-bound notebook. He flipped through it until he found what he wanted.
“So, that’s what Kapitänleutnant von Dattenberg’s submarine was doing yesterday afternoon at South Longitude 39.91, West Latitude 43.76.”
“Is that where it is? And where is that?” Himmler asked, smiling.
“That’s where it is, Herr Reichsführer. In the South Atlantic, about eight hundred miles from the mouth of the River Plate—far enough out to avoid aerial detection by the B-24s that the Americans are flying out of Brazil.”
“I had no choice, Canaris. You know as well as I how it is with the Führer. When he asks a question, he expects an answer, and becomes . . . what shall I say? . . . excitedly disappointed when there is none.”