DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM AGGIE
TO TEX
GREAT INTEREST HERE IN FUNCTIONING OF YOUR NEW LEICA
IMMEDIATELY ADVISE WHEN AND HOW YOU PLAN TO SEND FAMILY PHOTOS AND REPORT OF HOW FAMILY IS DOING
THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR VACATIONING IN RIO AND SHOULD BE ACCOMPLISHED FIRST
ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT
AGGIE
“You’ve seen this, baby?” Frade asked.
“Of course,” Dorotea said.
“Well, Graham is obviously talking about the Froggers,” Frade said. “But why in this cutesy code language if that thing is any good?”
He indicated the SIGABA device.
“He’s got his reasons, I guess,” Schultz said. “You want to answer it now? Or wait until you get something to eat?”
“With as much naval service as you have, Lieutenant Schultz, I am shocked that you don’t know that nothing gets between a Marine and his chow.” He paused, then asked, “Is there anything else you three have done that I should know about before I chow down?”
“ ‘Chow down’? Good God!” Dorotea said. “I’m married to a savage! But to answer your question, my darling, the only thing that’s happened was that your tailor left a message at the house in Buenos Aires that your suit is ready, and you may pick it up at your convenience.”
“Well, that’s good news!” Clete said happily.
“Since I know your idea of formal dress is hosing the mud off your cowboy boots,” Dorotea said, “your enthusiasm for a new suit piques my curiosity. Tell me all, darling.”
He told her.
Dinner for Frade was the New York strip steak he had thought of earlier, plus two fried eggs, home-fried potatoes, and a tomato and cucumber salad, which additions he thought of as he watched one of the maids open a bottle of merlot.
By the time it was over, not only had a second bottle of merlot been emptied by Clete, Enrico, and Oscar, but Frade was just about prepared to answer Graham’s radio message. Dorotea had first written it down, then gone to the study, typed it out, shown it to him for his approval, then returned to retype it with his corrections, and then finally to show him the final version.
After dinner, he went with her and El Jefe to the study, and watched how the operation worked.
First, she typed the message on the SIGABA keyboard, which produced a very long strip of perforated paper on which the now-encrypted message had been punched.
“Oscar will have to contact Vint Hill, darling,” Dorotea said. “He hasn’t yet had time to teach me how to do that.”
“Won’t you have to learn Morse code first?”
“Of course, but that shouldn’t take long.”
He didn’t argue.
It didn’t take the former chief radioman long to establish contact with Vint Hill. Frade heard Schultz twice key in dit dit dit, dah dit dit dit, which he recognized as being SB, for “Stand By.”
Schultz waved graciously at Dorotea, who then took the perforated tape, fed it into the Collins, and with a delicate finger pushed a button.
The Collins began to swallow the tape, far faster than Clete expected. Finally, it had gone through the machine and come out another opening.
“Another beauty of this setup is that it transmits so fast,” Schultz said. “You can resend—in other words, send twice—in less time than it would take me to key this in by hand. Less time for anybody to triangulate us, even if they happened on the frequency we’re using.”
“Very impressive,” Clete said, meaning it.
He gestured to Dorotea, who fed the tape into the Collins again.
When it started to come out of the Collins, Schultz moved a small metal wastebasket under the transceiver to catch it.
“And now all we have to do is burn the tape,” he said. “And of course Dorotea’s notes and the drafts, and we’re done.”
“Not in here, Oscar,” Dorotea commanded. “Burning that paper will smell up the whole house.”
They carried the wastebasket onto the verandah.
Schultz took out a Zippo lighter, lit a piece of paper, and dropped it, flaming, into the wastebasket.
Clete saw something in the dark that shouldn’t be there—the flare of a match in the garden—touched Enrico’s arm, and pointed.
Enrico worked the action of his shotgun.
Then there was another flare of light in the garden, this time long enough for Frade to see that it was a match that a gaucho on horseback was using to light a cigar. And to see that the gaucho held a 7mm Mauser carbine across his saddle.
“There are always two watching the house, Don Cletus,” Enrico said matter-of-factly.
Frade replied softly so that only Enrico could hear.
“What are you talking about?” Dorotea demanded.
“I just told Enrico that I’m so pleased with all you learned that tonight you can stay; he won’t have to take you back to the village.”
“You bah-stud!” she said loudly.
Schultz laughed.
“And you, too!” Dorotea said.
[SIX]
Office of the Director Office of Strategic Services National Institutes of Health Building Washington, D.C. 0845 23 July 1943
“If you have a moment, Bill?” the deputy director for Western Hemisphere operations of the Office of Strategic Services inquired of the director of the OSS from the latter’s office door.
“I always have time for you, Alejandro,” William J. Donovan said, waving him in. “But only if you’re the bearer of good tidings.”
“We have a response from Frade,” Graham said, gesturing with the folded sheet of paper in his hand.
“From our loose cannon? Why am I afraid what you bear in your hands is not good tidings? Let me see it.”
“Shit,” Graham said.
“Alejandro!” Donovan said in mock horror. “I’m shocked.”
“Well, I was so pleased with it, and anxious to tell you, that I forgot to leave it in my office.”
Donovan gestured for him to hand it over.
“There are things in here I’m not going to like?” Donovan said.
“Almost certainly.”
Graham gave it to him, then walked to a couch, stretched out his legs, and waited while Donovan read the message.
URGENT
VIA ASA SPECIAL
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM TEX
TO AGGIE
1—YOUR MESSAGE RE: LEICA ACKNOWLEDGED
2—INASMUCH AS LIEUTENANT FISCHER (HEREAFTER FLAGS) HAS DEPARTED AND I CAN’T ASK HIM HOW GOOD THE NEW TOY YOU SENT IS, I WILL USE THE SAME CUTE VERBAL CODE WITHIN AN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE THAT YOU DID. PLEASE ADVISE IF I HAVE TO DO THIS IN THE FUTURE.
3—FLAGS LEFT BIRDCAGE APPROXIMATELY 1400 TODAY TO CATCH THE NEXT BUS HOME FROM YOU KNOW WHERE. HE HAS WITH HIM UNEXPOSED ROLL OF FILM SHOWING FROGGERS (HEREAFTER TOURISTS) HOLDING COPY OF DAY-OLD LOCAL NEWSPAPER. HERR TOURIST (HEREAFTER GOOD KRAUT) GAVE US SOME DATA ABOUT LOCAL DIPLOMATIC ORGANIZATION THAT GALAHAD HAS CONFIRMED AS ACCURATE. FRAU TOURIST (HEREAFTER OLD BITCH) REGRETS GOOD KRAUT’S ACTIONS AND WOULD RETURN HOME IN A MINUTE IF GIVEN THE CHANCE.
4—TOURISTS ARE IN THE BEST, MOST REMOTE AND MOST SECURE LOCATION I CAN PROVIDE.
5—A SECOND ROLL OF UNDEVELOPED FILM, ESSENTIALLY THE SAME PICTURES, ADDRESSED TO YOU OR YOUR BOSS, EN ROUTE VIA USAAF OFFICER COURIER, WHO IS PILOTING A BIRDCAGE BIRD UP NORTH.
6—BRIGADIER CHICKEN AT BIRDCAGE, AT FIRST VERY DIFFICULT, BECAME PICTURE OF COOPERATION AFTER I SHOWED HIM MY CREDENTIALS. NOT ONLY DID HE PROVIDE A SPECIAL BIRDCAGE BIRD TO TAKE FLAGS TO THE BUS STOP BUT PROVIDED ARMED GUARD TO MAKE SURE FLAGS GOT
SAFELY ON THE BUS. HE EVEN OFFERED TO BUY ME DINNER BEFORE I FLEW HOME.
7—I CONFESS THE FIRST TIME I SAW THOSE CREDENTIALS, I THOUGHT, NO SURPRISE, THAT SOMEBODY UP THERE WASN’T PLAYING WITH A FULL DECK. I APOLOGIZE ABJECTLY. GIVE THE SOB BOTH EARS AND THE TAIL.
8—WITH REGARD TO FLAGS: NOT ONLY IS
HE ONE HELL OF A TECHNICIAN, BUT A HELL OF A FINE OFFICER. IT LOOKED FOR ABOUT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AS IF WE WERE ALL ABOUT TO BE STOOD AGAINST A WALL. I OFFERED TO GET HIM OUT OF THE LINE OF FIRE. FLAGS SAID HE WOULD TAKE HIS CHANCES AS HE FELT THE PICTURES THE CAMERA GUY WANTED WERE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MAYBE WE UNDERSTOOD. CAN YOU GET HIM A MEDAL?
9—MORE IMPORTANT, CAN YOU GET HIM TO QUOTE VOLUNTEER END QUOTE FOR THE BOY SCOUTS THE WAY YOU DID ME? FOR ONE THING, HE ALREADY KNOWS WHERE MOST OF OUR SKELETONS ARE BURIED, AND WILL LEARN ABOUT THE REST WHEN HE’S WORKING THE OTHER END OF THE TELEPHONE. IF THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE, I VERY STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU GET HIM A BADGE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. THERE’S BOUND TO BE A GENERAL OR COLONEL CHICKEN AT HIS PLACE OF WORK WHO WILL BE TOO CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT HE’S DOING FOR THE BOY SCOUTS, AND A BADGE WILL CERTAINLY HAVE THE SAME BENEFICIAL EFFECT ON HIM THAT IT DID ON GENERAL CHICKEN AT BIRDCAGE.
10—FOR YOUR GENERAL INFORMATION, THERE WAS A STORY IN LA NACIÓN THAT SAID SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS WILL SHORTLY RECEIVE ITS SECOND LODESTAR AIRCRAFT, WITH MORE COMING SOON, AND THAT OPERATIONS WILL SOON BEGIN FROM SOUTH AMERICA’S NEWEST AIRFIELD, WHICH, AT THE SUGGESTION OF COLONEL JUAN D. PERON, HAS BEEN
NAMED AEROPUERTO CORONEL JORGE G. FRADE. THE STORY WENT ON TO SAY THAT INITIAL OPERATIONS WILL BE TO MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY, AND POSADAS, WITH OTHER DESTINATIONS TO BE ADDED AS AIRCRAFT AND PILOTS FOR THEM BECOME AVAILABLE.
11—I WILL BE OUT OF TOUCH FOR THE NEXT THIRTY-SIX HOURS AS I WILL BE VISITING GOOD KRAUT TO SEE WHAT ELSE HE CAN TELL ME, AND TO KEEP OLD BITCH FROM GOING HOME. IN THIS CONNECTION, GALAHAD INFORMS THAT A CONTRACT HAS BEEN PUT OUT ON BOTH BY VON DEITZBERG, WHEN AND WHERE FOUND.
TEX
“I don’t think, Colonel Graham, I have ever seen a document quite like this,” Donovan said.
“That’s why I regret forgetting to forget it in my office,” Graham said. “I thought you might react that way.”
“It’s not an intelligence report, or at least like any other report from the field that I have ever seen.”
“Think of it as good news, Bill.”
“I’ll need a little translation of what Major Frade calls ‘the cute verbal code within an encrypted message.’ ”
“I’ll do my best. It might be easier if I wrote you a memo.”
“Let’s do it now, please, Alejandro. Why does he call this ASA officer ‘Flags,’ for example, do you think?”
“I think it makes reference to the Signal Corps insignia—you know, the crossed semaphore flags?”
Donovan nodded.
“ ‘Tourists’ I think I understand. But ‘Good Kraut’ and ‘Old Bitch’?”
“I think he means Frogger is cooperating and Frau Frogger is not.”
“That’s the first time I have even seen ‘old bitch’ in an official communication, ” Donovan said, and dropped his eyes to the sheet of paper again. “ ‘Brigadier Chicken’? ”
“As in ‘chickenshit.’ Implying the general was reluctant to understand that our operations don’t always follow established protocol or regulations.”
“And I see that I was right when I told you take those badges down there.”
Graham shook his head in mock disgust.
“That’s the lawyer coming out in you again, Bill. Twisting the facts to support your position. You wanted to impress on Frade that he was in the OSS with a badge saying so. That’s all. You didn’t any more think that he would wag them in some Air Forces general’s face than I did.”
Donovan smiled, then went on, “ ‘Give the SOB both ears and the tail’? ”
“I think that Frade is suggesting that the SOB who got him the credentials—which would be you, of course—be given, as is a very good matador in a bullfight, both ears and the tail.”
Donovan shook his head.
“What about this Lieutenant Flags? Can we recruit him?”
“Only, Bill, at the risk of greatly annoying the Army Security Agency. Let me think about that.”
“Well, obviously we can’t give him a medal.”
“You could write him—or I will write and you can sign—a very nice letter to the ASA extolling his many virtues.”
“And the badge Frade says we should give him?”
“That makes sense. I want to talk to Fischer just as soon as I can.”
“When will that be?”
“There’s a B-26 waiting for him to get off the Clipper in Miami. Six, seven hours after that.”
“The film?”
“I don’t know which will get here first, the one Fischer has with him, or the one the pilot-courier is bringing.”
“And we won’t know, will we, until we get the film developed, if there’s anything useful on either roll?”
“There you go again, Counselor, looking for the black cloud. Look on the bright side.”
“Which is?”
“The next-to-last paragraph,” Graham said. “Your friend Franklin’s got the competition to Juan Trippe’s Pan American that he wanted.”
“You think that’s it, Alejandro? That Roosevelt wants to stick it to Trippe with that Argentine airline?”
“That’s all I can think of.”
“I want to see that film the moment it’s developed,” Donovan said. “You think we should send Allen Dulles a message telling him it’s on the way? He’s really—”
“It may be all blank. Why don’t we wait and see?”
Donovan considered that a moment, then said, “You’re right. That makes— what?—twice this year, doesn’t it?”
“Three times. My secretary said you really are a bastard, and I agreed with her.”
Donovan laughed out loud and waved the message.
“Can I have this?”
“You’re the boss.”
“I’m going to put it in the safe under ‘Documents of Historical Interest’ and let some historian try to figure it out fifty, sixty years from now.”
Graham laughed, pushed himself off the couch, and extended his hand to Donovan with the first and index fingers crossed.
“What’s that for?” Donovan asked.
“Crossed fingers. Let’s hope those pictures are usable.”
They shook hands; then Graham walked out of Donovan’s office.
XI
[ONE]
Office of the Commercial Attaché Embassy of the German Reich Avenida Córdoba Buenos Aires, Argentina 0910 23 July 1943
“You wished to see me, Herr Cranz?” Fregattenkapitän Karl Boltitz asked at the door of SS-Standartenführer Karl Cranz’s office.
Cranz, who was wearing one of his new suits in the guise of commercial attaché, gestured for Boltitz to come in.
“I asked to see you and von Wachtstein,” Cranz said, his tone making it a question.
“I believe he went quite early to El Palomar airfield, Herr Cranz. I had the impression you wanted him to fly to Uruguay.” His tone, too, made it a question.
“Is that what he told you?” Cranz asked, indicating that Boltitz should come around his desk to look at something he had laid out on it.
“What he said, Herr Standart . . . Sorry, sir.”
Cranz made a it doesn’t matter gesture, then smiled and said, “Actually, Karl, today I feel more like a standartenführer than a bidder for frozen cubed beef.”
“I doubt the Standartenführer ever feels like a natural bidder for frozen cubed beef,” Boltitz said.
“I can hear one day my nephew asking, ‘And what was your most painful experience in the war, Oncle Karl?’ And I can hear me replying, ‘Standing in a freezing warehouse on the docks in Buenos Aires, leibling, trying to buy frozen cubed beef.’ ”
Boltitz chuckled dutifully.
“Did von Wachtstein tell you I wanted to go to Uruguay in the Storch?” Cranz asked.
“Yes, sir, I did,” Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein said from the office door. “If I had known you wanted to see me, sir, I would have tried—”
“No matter, von Wachtstein,” Cranz interrupted him. “You’re here. Is the Storch
flyable?”
“Yes, sir. And if we leave in the next hour, we can arrive in Montevideo in time for a nice lunch at the casino in Carrasco.”
“We’re not going to Uruguay,” Cranz said.
“I had the impression, sir—”
“Impressions are often wrong, von Wachtstein.”
“Yes, sir, I suppose that’s true.”
“I tried, and apparently succeeded, von Wachtstein, to give you the erroneous impression that I wanted you to fly me to Uruguay.”
Von Wachtstein stood silently and thought, What the hell is this bastard up to?
“Doesn’t that make you curious?” Cranz went on.
“Yes, sir, it does.”
“But not enough to ask me why I would do that?”
“No, sir. I assume you had your reasons.”
“Are you a naturally curious man, von Wachtstein?”
“I think I am, sir.”
“But you never asked me about something I feel sure arouses your curiosity, ” Cranz said. “Do you take my meaning?”
“No, sir. I’m lost.”
“You were curious about the special shipment, weren’t you?” Cranz asked, smiling.
Peter felt the base of his neck tighten.
“Yes, sir, I admit that I was. Am.”
“Two weeks ago, I told you the special cargo had been loaded aboard U-BOAT 405. Weren’t you curious, von Wachtstein, about what was going to happen next?”
“Yes, sir, I was.”
“But you never asked me about that, did you?”
“No, sir. I thought you would tell me when you thought I should know.”
“Did you perhaps ask the fregattenkapitän?”
Von Wachtstein looked at Boltitz, then back to Cranz. “Yes, sir, I did.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“Essentially that I would learn about it when you decided I should know, sir.”
“Is that all you asked the fregattenkapitän?”
That’s a loaded question.
And I don’t like the smile on his face.
But this is not the time to hesitate in replying.
“The truth, sir, is that I asked Karl—”
“ ‘Karl’? Not the ‘fregattenkapitän’?”
Von Wachtstein exchanged a glance with Boltitz and decided Boltitz also had no idea where Cranz was going with his line of questioning.
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