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
“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.”
