Halabi looked like she was about to ask the doctor to shut up, but the surgeon plowed on anyway. She was bitter and furious, and she spat her words out like poison darts.

“They stuck a piece of piece barbed wire inside her, and used it like a fucking pipe cleaner. I tell you, Lonesome, if we catch these assholes and they still get away with it, I am going to personally draw down and cap ’em myself.”

Halabi folded her arms uncomfortably.

“Now, Doctor, I don’t think it’s come to that—”

“But it’s coming, Captain, believe me. You didn’t meet that asshole detective today. I’ll lay money on the barrelhead that he soft-pedals the whole thing, and when it turns out to be some good ol’ local boy, the fix will go in. You can fuckin’ bank on it. They plucked two slugs out of that chief petty officer this afternoon. Damn near killed him. But do you think they kept the fucking things? Even though we specifically told them to hold on to them, so we could test them? No. They’re ‘missing.’ Lost in the confusion at the hospital. It’s already begun.”

Rachel thought Halabi was going to argue the point.

But she didn’t.

Chapter 31

31

BERLIN, 0721 HOURS, 8 JUNE 1942

The sealed case traveled from Japan to Europe in the diplomatic pouch of the Spanish embassy’s military attaché. He took a Portuguese flying boat to Ankara and thence to Athens and Berlin, where the package was turned over to a colonel of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s personal guard. From there it went directly to the SS head himself.

Himmler was a quiet man. His hands were dainty and lined with blue veins. He always looked short of sleep, and he wasn’t given to histrionics like many of his colleagues. He licked his lips, took a sip of the herbal tea in the cup on his desk, and read the instructions for operating the device that Steckel had sent.

He wondered, briefly, whether he should have it checked. It might be a bomb.

He read the instructions again, and then summoned his secretary.

“Wait until I am out of the room, then press this button,” said Himmler. “I will return momentarily.”

The young man, clicked his heels together and barked, “Immediately, Reichsführer.”

“No,” sighed Himmler. “When I am safely out of the room. Not until then.”

The flint-eyed young man nodded.

Three minutes later, Himmler was back. The device, a flexipad, according to Steckel, glowed serenely atop his desk. His secretary was impressed.

“It is made by the Braun company,” he said helpfully. “German technology is a wonder, mein Reichsführer.”

Himmler nodded and dismissed him from the room. He perused Steckel’s notes again, and followed the first set of instructions.

The handsome, perhaps too-pretty face of the SD man filled the glass plate on the front of the pad.

“Heil Hitler!” he shouted.