Death and Honor полностью

Dorotea went on, “We of course don’t know, darling, when Carlos will show up here again. But since he wasn’t here, he wasn’t able to see Oscar and Enrico moving the equipment into the house and setting up the antennae. And of course you and Delgano were flying back and forth to Brazil, so Delgano doesn’t know. For those reasons, darling, Oscar, Enrico, and I decided that this was the moment to do it. Did we do wrong?”

Frade exhaled audibly.

“No. The only thing you’ve done is embarrass me for not thinking of this myself.”

Dorotea, Enrico, and Oscar looked very pleased with themselves.

“Is it up and running?” Frade said.

“We got the first message right after you took off this morning,” Schultz said. He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Frade.

URGENT

VIA ASA SPECIAL

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH

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.