The Honor of Spies

by W. E. B. Griffin; William E. Butterworth; IV

Washington, D.C.

  1715 3 October 1943

  Allen W. Dulles entered Graham's office carrying a well-stuffed briefcase and a small, nearly square package wrapped in cheap gray paper and tied with frazzled string.

  Whatever that is, he brought it from London. Among other things they don't have in Merry Old England these days is decent wrapping paper and string.

  Dulles set the package on Graham's desk and then reached across the desk to shake his hand.

  "How was the flight?" Graham asked.

  "Long and uncomfortable. The daily courier left without me. I came on a standard Douglas C-54. Via Shannon, Ireland; Gander, Newfoundland; and Westover, in Massachusetts. That's a long way to ride sitting on unupholstered seats or trying to sleep on a pile of mail bags on the floor."

  "That's the price of having to respond to the call of your master's voice," Graham said. "How did that go?"

  "First, let me open this," Dulles said, nodding at the package and fishing in his pocket.

  After a moment, Graham reached into a desk drawer, came up with a pair of scissors, and handed them to Dulles.

  "What's in there that's so important?" Graham said.

  "My original thought was to give it to you, but I now realize I need it more than you do. I wish that I was unwelcome at the White House."

  He finally got the paper off the box, then pulled from it an odd-looking bottle--there were dimples in the glass.

  The label read HAIG & HAIG FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD SCOTCH WHISKY.

  "Where the hell did you get that? I thought it had all disappeared, like dinosaurs," Graham said, and then he pushed the lever on his intercom. "Alice, ice and glasses. You won't believe what Mr. Dulles has brought us!"

  Alice Dulaney walked in a minute or so later--Dulles was still struggling to remove the champagne-bottle-like wire netting from the neck of the bottle--with three glasses, a bucket of ice, and a water pitcher on a tray.

  Although she had resisted--for reasons Graham did not pretend to understand--a more impressive title than "secretary," she was far more important to Graham--and thus to the OSS--than her title suggested.

  In Graham's absences--and he spent more time away from his office than in it--she spoke with his authority. This meant she had to be privy to all secrets, official and otherwise.

  In certain circumstances, however--like this one, with only Allen Dulles in Graham's office--she dropped her "I'm nothing more than a simple secretary" masquerade and said, "Yes, thank you. Don't mind if I do. Where the hell did you get that? I haven't seen any of that for years."

  She then took the bottle from Dulles and expertly got rid of the wire and pulled the cork. As if they had rehearsed the routine, Dulles put ice cubes in a glass, which Graham then held up so Alice could splash whisky into it. This was repeated three times. Finally, they tapped glasses.

  After his first sip, Dulles said, "Nice. David Bruce told me he would tell me where I could buy two bottles if I promised he could have one of them. I naturally agreed."

  Colonel David Bruce was the OSS station chief in London.

  "And?" Graham said.

  "I went to the store in the embassy, where they have cases of it stacked to the ceiling. They are willing to part with two bottles--only--per month for 'special friends of the embassy.' David had already had his ration."

  "You should have pulled rank on Bruce," Alice said. "You're the deputy director for Europe; he works for you."

  "That thought ran through my mind, but I decided in the end that if I did, the next time I was in London he wouldn't share his knowledge of important things with me."

  "You know, I'll bet Frade has cases of this stacked up somewhere," Alice said.

  "Remind me to ask him," Graham said. "And speaking of Senor Loose Cannon?"

  "I called Vint Hill Farms Station a couple of minutes ago," she said. "All I got was a runaround. I was going to raise hell, but I realized that maybe the reason we don't have his after-action report is because he hasn't gotten around to sending his after-action report."

  "Do we know if he made it back to Buenos Aires?" Dulles asked.

  "Just that. And we got that from the Associated Press wire that said the first SAA flight from Lisbon had arrived."

  Graham shook his head, took a sip from his glass, and said, "God, this is good whisky!"

  "The President knew he'd made it to Lisbon," Dulles said. "He was pleased."

  "Pleased because Frade managed to get there or because he knew Juan Trippe would be greatly annoyed?" Graham asked.

  "Either or both," Dulles said.

  "Who else was there?" Graham asked.

  "You would know if you had been there. Weren't you invited?"

  "I told the director he was at Vint Hill Farms," Alice said. "He didn't seem terribly disappointed."

  "Wallace, Hoover, and Morgenthau," Dulles said. "Plus the First Lady."

  "That explains why the director wasn't disappointed," Graham said. "Wouldn't you say?"

  "You would have enjoyed it," Dulles said. "Hoover and Wallace got into it. J. Robert Oppenheimer had complained to Wallace that Hoover was 'harass ing' his atomic scientists. Hoover said that it was his responsibility to root out spies wherever they might be found. Morgenthau chimed in and said he was worried the Germans were going to spy on the Manhattan Project, and then Hoover blurted he was more worried about the Russians than the Germans, which annoyed Wallace and Eleanor. Eleanor pointedly reminded Hoover that the Russians were our allies and wouldn't do anything like that."

  "What was the alleged purpose of this meeting of minds?" Graham asked.

  "I really think Roosevelt wanted to know how South American Airlines was doing. He really knows how to hold a grudge."

  "God save us if Wallace or Morgenthau finds out we're using it to move Nazis to South America," Alice said. "And why."

  "Good God!" Graham exclaimed. "Don't say that aloud, even in here!"

  "I didn't hear Alice say anything," Dulles said evenly, eyeing his drink. "Did you say anything, Alice?"

  "Not that I can remember," she said.

  "You're telling me Roosevelt ordered you from Bern just to ask about SAA?" Graham asked.

  "That's all I can come up with. The only other question I was asked was about the ransoming of the Jews. Morgenthau asked me."

  "And what did you say?"

  "I told him that all I knew was that it was still operating, but that I didn't have any details. I suggested you might."

  "Thanks a lot," Graham said.

  One of the telephones on Graham's desk rang. Alice walked to the desk and answered it.

  "Colonel Graham's office. Mrs. Dulaney speaking." There was a brief pause, and then she added, "Send him up, please."

  She put the phone down.

  "Vint Hill Farms has been heard from," she said.

  Then she quickly picked up her glass from the coffee table and walked out of the office.

  "There is a Colonel Raymond from Vint Hill Farms for you, Colonel," Mrs. Alice Dulaney, now back in her secretary role, formally announced from the office door.

  "Show him in," Graham said as he set down the glass he was holding and lowered his feet from where they had been resting on the open lower right-hand drawer of his desk.

  Allen W. Dulles was now sitting on a couch facing a small coffee table, from which he lowered his feet. He set his glass down on the table.

  This has to be Frade's after-action report, Graham thought. I guess it took him this long to get everything sorted out.

  Lieutenant Colonel James Raymond, Signal Corps--a tall, ascetic-looking man in his late thirties--marched into Graham's office, stopped two feet from Graham's desk, and saluted. He wore a web belt from which dangled a holstered Colt Model 1911A1 pistol. His left wrist was handcuffed to a somewhat scruffy leather briefcase.

  Graham returned the salute, although he wasn't in uniform, and he didn't think even the Army exchanged salutes unless both the saluter and the salutee were in uniform.

  "Lieu
tenant Colonel Raymond, sir. From Vint Hill Farms Station." Raymond then looked at Dulles, then back at Graham, making it a question.

  "Well, he may look like a Nazi," Graham said, "but actually, Mr. Dulles is the OSS deputy director for Europe and has all the appropriate security clearances. What have you got for me, Colonel?"

  "I have a message from Tex for you, sir. I apologize for the delay."

  Graham wagged his fingers in a Let's have it gesture, then asked, "What caused the delay?"

  "It came in last night, sir, but neither the colonel nor I, sir, was immediately available to decrypt it."

  "And only you or the colonel is able to do that?"

  "Plus, of course, Lieutenant Fischer," Lieutenant Colonel Raymond said. "And he isn't available."

  Graham realized his temper was about to flare.

  You could have sent the still-encrypted message over here, rather than wait hours until they found you, Colonel. Believe it or not, we could have decrypted it here.

  "Well, Fischer's on his way back, Colonel," Graham said, finally and calmly. "The last word I had was that he'll probably be here tomorrow."

  "Yes, sir," Lieutenant Colonel Raymond said.

  Graham watched as Raymond first freed himself from his handcuff, then unlocked the briefcase, took from it a large manila envelope--stamped TOP SECRET--and then took from that a business-size envelope--also stamped TOP SECRET--and handed that to Graham.

  "Thank you," Graham said. "Please have a seat, Colonel. There will probably be a reply. Can I offer you a little something?"

  "No, sir. Thank you, sir."

  "Coffee, maybe?"

  "Yes, sir. If it wouldn't be a problem," Raymond said as he sat in one of the armchairs.

  Graham raised his voice. "Alice, it's Maxwell House time in here."

  "Coming right up!"

  Graham opened the envelope and removed the contents. He read it as far as the first paragraph before he knew he wasn't going to like it.

  "Alice," he called. "Belay the coffee in here! The colonel will take it in your office." He looked at Raymond. "This is not quite what I expected. Would you mind . . ."

  Raymond was already on his feet.

  "Yes, sir," Raymond said. "I understand, sir. I did the decryption myself. That message is a bit unusual, isn't it, sir?"

  Again Graham felt his temper flare. This time he had an even harder time keeping it contained.

  What Raymond had said he shouldn't have said, although it was true. "A bit unusual" was something of an understatement. But what had ignited Graham's anger was that Raymond acknowledged that he had read the message during the decryption process.

  The only way to avoid that was for the individual actually writing the message to encrypt it, and then transmit it, himself, and for the recipient to personally receive and then decrypt it.

  Otherwise, any number of people who had no business being familiar with the message at all--secretaries, cryptographers, radio operators, typists--had a valid reason to read the message and thus become familiar with it.

  This system made necessary the use of code names for people and places and operations within the encrypted message itself. The theory being that if only the author and the recipient knew that "Tex" was Major Cletus Frade and

  "Aggie" was Colonel A. F. Graham, et cetera, the clerks, et cetera, involved in the transmission and receipt of the message who had read it would not know what they had read.

  "Yes, it is," Graham replied, his temper under control. "This shouldn't take long, Colonel. Thank you for your patience."

  "Not at all, sir."

  Lieutenant Colonel Raymond left the office, closing the door after himself.

  Dulles got up and walked to Graham's desk and looked over his shoulder at the message.

  Graham knew what all the code names meant, but Dulles had to ask about some of them:

  "Pinocchio? Who's that?"

  "He said 'new Kraut buddy.' Probably Gehlen."

  "Pinocchio because his nose grows when he's lying?"

  "What else, Allen?" Graham said.

  "Polo?"

  "Captain Madison R. Sawyer III, formerly Number Three on the Ramapo Valley polo team."

  "The Brewery is where Frade has the Froggers?"

  "It's his house in the vineyards of his Estancia Don Guillermo in the foothills of the Andes Mountains near Mendoza. He told me the entire Marine Raider Battalion couldn't get up the mountain to take it."

  Dulles chuckled, then asked, "Big-Z?"

  "SS-Brigadefuhrer Manfred von Deitzberg."

  "Bagman?"

  "Sturmbannfuhrer Werner von Tresmarck, who runs that obscene confidential fund operation; he's light on his feet and does exactly what von Deitzberg tells him because otherwise he goes to Sachsenhausen with a pink triangle on his chest."

  "That would tend to make him behave, I suppose. Sausage?"

  "Anton von Gradny-Sawz, first secretary of the German Embassy."

  "Cavalry?"

  "Major Frade has declined to give me his name," Graham said dryly. "But I suspect he's Colonel Alejandro Martin of the BIS. I don't think Frade has turned him, but I think it's safe to say that Martin has decided that the gringos are less of a danger to Argentina than the Nazis. He's been helpful. Very helpful."

  "I presume 'Bigtoys' means the Constellations?" Dulles said.

  "What else could it mean? But what's that about von Deitzberg being ordered to destroy them? Ordered by who?"

  "The only thing that comes to mind is that Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels is unhappy--for his propaganda purposes--with Argentina having better transport aircraft than Lufthansa," Dulles said. "But I rather doubt that he has that much influence over Himmler, who would have to issue that order."

  "Maybe it came from Hitler; Goebbels has influence with him."

  "I just don't know," Dulles said.

  "Now, that's worrisome," Dulles said.

  "Yes, it is."

  "The question is who turned whom."

  "My God, Allen! He's a Marine with the Navy Cross! What I meant was that he told him 'just about everything.' "

  Dulles looked as if he was about to reply but then had changed his mind.

  "Well, I can make a good guess who he means by 'Princeton,' " Allen W. Dulles, BA Princeton '14, MA Princeton '16, said, smiling. "But the Valkyrie business is worrisome."

  "You did get that message? That Martin has someone in the Argentine Embassy in Berlin?"

  "And I have been working on it, so far unsuccessfully."

  Graham nodded thoughtfully, then said, "Are you going to pass around that the Argentines know about Valkyrie?"

  "I'll have to think, very carefully, about that. All of those involved do not have von Stauffenberg's courage and determination; if they heard this they'd be likely to pull back. I wish there was some way I could get to Argentina and discuss the players with Colonel Frogger, but I don't see how I could arrange that."

  "We can ask Frade to ask him, Allen."

  "Let's put that on the back burner for the moment."

  Graham nodded.

  "Why Renfrew?" Dulles said.

  "After the movie."

  Renfrew of the Royal Mounted had been a surprisingly successful B movie of 1937 starring James Newill as Sergeant Renfrew, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who pursued the evildoers, assisted by his dog, a German shepherd named Lightning.

  "Why not Dick Tracy?" Dulles said. "Renfrew must've meant something to Frade."

  "Who," Graham replied, "was (a) still not much more than a boy when that movie came out, and (b) was almost certainly fairly well lubricated when he wrote this message."

  "Is there an Argentine equivalent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?" Dulles pursued.

  After a moment, Graham said, "Yeah. The Gendarmeria Nacional."

  "Would you care to wager a small amount that Renfrew has something to do with the Gendarmeria Nacional?"

  "If he's a pal of Cavalry, he probably runs the Gendarmeria Nacional
," Graham said. "Don't let this go to your head, but for a Princetonian you're pretty clever."

  "And are you going to reward me with another taste from our Pinch bottle?"

  "I thought you would never ask," Graham said, and rose from his desk and went to the coffee table where he poured scotch whisky in glasses for both of them.

  Dulles sat in Graham's chair and resumed reading.

  Graham returned with their drinks, set them on the desk, and then went to take one of the chairs in front of his desk to move it next to Dulles.

  "That makes sense," Dulles said. "On both counts. The one thing Argentina doesn't need is a Spanish-type civil war, and all the ingredients for one are there, just waiting for someone to strike a match."

  "Yeah. And wouldn't the Chileans and the Brazilians like that?"

  Dulles raised his eyes to Graham's and answered the unspoken question in them:

  "I really didn't think Frade would find out," Dulles said.

  "But you didn't tell me."

  "I planned to."

  "He said, lamely."

  "Honest to God, Alex, I forgot."

  " 'Tomorrow morning,' " Dulles said. "That means this morning, right?"

  "Western Union service has been a little slow," Graham said sarcastically. "If he left Buenos Aires--probably, almost certainly, in his Lodestar--at, say, oh nine hundred, he's been there for hours. It's about a four-hour flight."

  "His Lodestar? A prerogative of being managing director of South American Airways? Very nice."

  "No. It is his personal Lodestar. His father had a Staggerwing Beechcraft. Our Cletus borrowed it, then got shot down in it dropping flares out of it to illuminate the Reine de la Mer so the USS Devil-Fish could put a torpedo into her.

  "Our commander in chief was so delighted that he made our Cletus a captain, gave him another Distinguished Flying Cross--which he deserved--and then ordered the Air Corps to immediately replace the lost Beechcraft. Not just via some flunky: Roosevelt ordered General Hap Arnold, the Chief of Staff of the Air Corps, to personally see to it.