h-r-l-s-l / r-i-a-l-u / i-v-g-a-m / v-e-e-l-b / e-r-s-e-d / e-a-f-r-d / d-l-r-t-e / m-l-e-o-e / w-d-a-s-e / o-x-x-x-x
“I still don’t see…” began Hemingway, and then said, “Ahh…” as I began pencilling in the letters. “They go vertically,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Columns of five.”
I quickly filled in the rest of the grid.
“Let me see,” said the writer.
He read the message aloud, but very softly. “Humberto arrived, delivered messages, all well, Alfredo.” He looked up at me. “Who’s Alfredo?”
“A radio operator’s code name,” I said. Albrecht Gustav Engels, I thought. Formerly broadcasting from clandestine station ‘Bolivar’ in Rio, now residing in maximum security.
“Kohler’s, do you think?” said Hemingway in the voice of an excited boy.
“Possibly,” I said. “But probably a land-based operator.”
Hemingway nodded and looked back at the codebook, holding the book almost reverently, as if he were Tom Sawyer and this were a real treasure map. “And who’s Humberto, do you think?”
I shrugged. Actually, the last dossier Delgado had brought me had covered that. “Humberto” was the Abwehr code name for one Herbert von Heyer, a forty-one-year-old Brazilian who had been born in Santos but who had gone to school in Germany and had been trained as Engels’s assistant there. “Humberto” had been a go-between for Engels and our dinner guest that evening, Theodor Schlegel. They had arrested von Heyer two days after Schlegel had left on his Viking Fund mission.
“What else?” said Hemingway excitedly. “What’s the rest of this code here?”
The facing page was covered with Kohler’s tight script.
“All right,” I said. “This next transmission referred to page seventy-eight.”
“Of Geopolitík?”
“No, of that thick anthology of German literature,” I said. “This cipher prefix keyed on the first twenty-six letters on that page.” I wrote the excerpt—“it took years for him to realize.”
“Wait a minute,” said Hemingway. “This is in English.”
“Very perceptive,” I said. “The original is auf Deutsch. Their last curve was to translate it before transcribing the code.”
“Tricky bastards,” muttered Hemingway.
I had to smile. This was the simplest code the Germans used—mostly for the convenience of their field operators in areas where they felt that monitoring would be very unlikely.
“Yes,” I said. “Well, here they used a different cipher. I think it’s because this was Kohler’s transmission, sent on May seventh on the high seas. Those first twenty-six letters become the key group. Kohler assigned each of the letters a numerical value… one for the a’s, two for all the e’s, three for the letter f…”
“Wait a minute,” said Hemingway. “What happened to the… oh, I see. There were no b’s, c’s, or d’s in the phrase ‘it took years for him to realize.’ ”
“Precisely,” I said. “So that phrase would be translated numerically as 5-12-12-9-9-6-13-2-1-10-11-3-9-10-4-5-8-12-9-10-2-1-7-5-14-2.”
“Hmmm,” said the writer.
“Now it does get a bit tricky,” I said. “Kohler was transmitting letters in the same five-group clusters, but instead of starting with the first column down, the first transmission group would go under the first a. In this case, the a in years.”
I circled the mass of Kohler’s scrawl on the facing page holding the entire second transmission:
o-t-o-d-o / v-y-l-s-o / c-s-n-e-m / o-d-b-u-m / e-e-d-t-w / o-y-r-t-d / e-s-i-a-a / b-l-r-e-r / n-i-f-t-i / s-s-t-b-r / s-d-o-i-a / e-e-e-t-r / c-g-e-i-l / t-n-y-r-i / i-e-n-m-d / y-e-e-i-e / r-t-n-n-t / n-r-f-e-r / t-r-c-n-t / g-e-a-m-o / v-o-f-s-e / r-s-d-t-i / i-o-a-e-n / r-t-n-n-t / h-e-o-n-d / s-t-o-e-o
“I see,” said Hemingway. He took the pencil and filled in the first five letters—o-t-o-d-o—under the first a in years. “Then this second cluster would go… under the next a in the message?”
“Yes,” I said.
Hemingway jotted the v-y-l-s-o under the a in realize.
“And this third cluster,” he said. “It should go under the first e. The next letter in the alphabet here.”
“You’ve got it,” I said. I watched as Hemingway quickly filled in the rest of the grid.
Hemingway read the message aloud, filling in the missing words as he went—“British convoy of ten cargo vessels and one destroyer sighted yesterday at noon off Recife. We were unable to determine its destination but it must be Trinidad. More details tomorrow.”
He sat back in the chair and dropped the pencil on the table. “Jesus Christ, Lucas, this is for real. These fuckers are helping to sink ships.”
I nodded. “We’re only speculating that this was Kohler’s transmission, though. Perhaps it’s another broadcast from Brazil… or even from Cuba… that he intercepted. It could even have been broadcast from the sub we saw.”
Hemingway was rubbing his cheek. “What about the rest of these code groups?”
I grinned. “Now it gets interesting. As far as I can tell, Kohler translated these either the day he was killed or the day before.” I picked up the pencil, blocked the next grid, jotted down the key twenty-six letters, and filled in the columns at lightning speed: “May 15—three agents landed, U-176, position: lat. 23 deg. 21 min N. long. 80 deg., 18 min W. All safe.”
“Me cago en Dios!” cried Hemingway. “Estamos copados!”
I had to blink at the vulgarity of the first part of that comment: “I shit on God! We’re surrounded.”
He ran into his office to get nautical charts. I walked the short distance to the new kitchen and peeked in on the whore. She was sitting meekly at the table, a glass of water in her hands. She looked up at me with red eyes. I nodded at her, shut the door, and walked back to the old kitchen, laying the codebook and notes out again.
Hemingway was spreading a map of Cuban waters. It was an old map with many notations in pencil and grease pen. “Here,” he said, his blunt finger stabbing down. “That’s about seven, eight miles southwest of the old lighthouse at Bahía de Cadiz Key. I know that fucking spot. It would be a perfect place to land enemy spies. The surf’s not bad, and they could hike to the highway in twenty minutes. God damn it!” He pounded his fist down.
“There are two more transmissions,” I said. I didn’t even bother to block the grids, merely showing him my notes.
The first message read: “June 13, U-239, three agents”—and gave latitude and longitude. Then the cryptic: “Alum. Corp. Amer., Niag. Falls hydroelect., NY water supply.”
“I think those are the targets for sabotage,” I said softly. “The Aluminum Corporation of America. The big hydroelectric complex at Niagara Falls, New York. And New York City’s water supply system.”
“June thirteenth!” shouted Hemingway so loudly that I had to hush him so that the whore would not hear. “That hasn’t happened yet. They must be trying to get to the States through Cuba. We can trap those bastards, sink the U-boat and the spies’ raft! No, wait till they land and then grab them by the cojones.”
He jumped to his feet again and pored over his charts. “Wait a minute,” he said after only half a minute. “Those numbers are way off. This isn’t in Cuban waters. Wait here.”
He came back again with a large atlas. Opening it, he began flipping pages. “Here,” he said at last. “Holy shit. Holy Mother of God. Christ on a stick.”
I leaned over to see where he was pointing, even though I had looked up the coordinates in the same atlas before joining the pool party that afternoon. “Long Island,” I said. “Interesting.”
“Right near Amagansett,” said Hemingway. He almost collapsed into the chair. “They can take a goddamn bus to Niagara Falls and their other targets. Well, shit and damn. We can’t intercept them ourselves, but…” He grabbed my wrist. “We have to get this to the embassy… to the FBI, to the navy, Lucas. They’ll be able to grab that sub and those Nazi agents. Catch them in th
e fucking act.”
“Yeah,” I said. “There was one more message here. It just reads: ‘June 19, four agents,’—and gives these coordinates. Those are southern waters, aren’t they?”
“Not Cuban,” said Hemingway, and began flipping pages again. He pointed. “Up here. The coast of Florida. Not far from Jacksonville.” He ran his hand through his hair and slumped back again. His hair had been slicked down for the evening’s party, and now dark strands stood up. “My God, Lucas. They’re coming ashore like rats. We should take these to the ambassador now.”
“In the morning should suffice,” I said.
“Are there any more messages?” He looked at the codebook scribbles almost hungrily.
I shook my head. “But if Kohler’s replacement doesn’t change the code, we may intercept more at sea.”
The writer nodded. “We’ll have to put to sea immediately. Get Don Saxon on board to monitor the radios and direction-finding gear, and go trolling for subs.”
“We’ll have to figure out what to do with Maria,” I said.
“What? Xenophobia? Why?” Hemingway brushed his hair back into place.
“I think you’re right about Maldonado checking up on the provincial cops’ report,” I said. “Caballo Loco will be up here soon, sniffing around.”
“We’ll think of something in the morning,” said the writer, still looking at the code grids. He suddenly grinned. “Hell, worse comes to worse, we can take her with us.”
I thought that he was joking. “As a cook?” I said.
Hemingway looked completely serious as he shook his head. “Gregorio’s our cook. The best any boat ever had. Xenophobia can mend socks and pass the ammunition when things get hot.”
Christ, I thought.
Suddenly the writer stood and squeezed my shoulder very hard. “You did good, Lucas. Very good. I still don’t know who or what you really are, but as long as you give the Crook Factory information like this, I’ll be happy to keep you on.” He took the codebook and notes. “I’m sleeping with these tonight. I’ll drive down to see Spruille Braden in the morning.”
I nodded.
“Good night, Lucas,” said Hemingway, still grinning as he switched off the lights of the old kitchen. “Good job.”
UP IN GRADE A WITH MARIA, we did not risk turning on lights. While she was in the smaller room undressing and getting ready for bed in the dark. I pulled the .38 pistol from its hiding place behind the loose bricks of the fireplace, checked to make sure that it was loaded except for the chamber under the hammer, and slid the pistol under my pillow. It was very dark out and starting to rain. I had dragged my cot into the outer room, but before I was under the covers, the whore was dragging her cot and blankets out next to mine. I frowned at her.
“Please, señor,” she whispered. “Please. I will only lie here next to you. I will not touch you. I am so scared.” She crept under the blankets. Her cot was less than a foot from mine.
“What the hell were you doing down there in the town?” I whispered harshly. “By all rights, Caballo Loco should be interrogating you now.”
She began to shake. Her whisper was ragged. “I was so lonely. I was so unhappy. I went down there… I was not thinking. I could not go home. I had no money for a bus. I thought that I might find something… some way. I do not know, Señor José. I will not leave the grounds of the farm again, I swear on my mother’s eyes.”
I sighed and stared at the ceiling. After a moment, I heard a soft movement of her blankets and her small hand touched my bare shoulder. Her fingers were cold and still trembling. I did not reach up to squeeze that hand, but neither did I push it away.
Jesus, I thought as the rain pounded on the roof and the wind ruffled palm fronds outside. And summer’s just beginning.
16
MAY PASSED AND TURNED INTO JUNE, and I became convinced that somewhere a noose was slowly but inexorably tightening. But which noose and around whose neck, I had little idea. The tropical heat grew from impressive to ridiculous, and when the trade winds did not blow, one’s skull felt like it was being pounded by a hammer of sun glare against an anvil of blinding sea.
The was news from both theaters was mostly bad, with just enough reassuring facts to keep the fainthearted from despairing.
On the first day of June, Mexico declared war on the Axis.
“Well, that’s it then,” said Hemingway when we heard the news on the new shortwave radio on the Pilar. “Hitler and Tojo will probably throw in the towel when they hear this. All those divisions of crack Mexican troops should be invading Europe and the Home Islands before the month is over.”
On June 4, the Japanese launched a huge attack at Midway Island. Everyone aboard the Pilar listened to the bare news reports of the fighting for four days; everyone except me had strong opinions about this new age of naval warfare. Hemingway insisted that the days of battleships and naval gunnery were gone, as extinct as crossbows, and that the type of fighting we were hearing about now—carriers launching aircraft to strike at enemy fleets from a distance of hundreds of miles—would decide the war. Evidently Admiral Ernest King, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet, agreed with Hemingway, because even while the outcome of the battle was in doubt, King admitted to reporters that the result of that battle would alter the course of the war. By June 7, the navy was claiming victory, but it would be months before we all realized how important and decisive that victory had been.
Also on June 4, word came from occupied Eastern Europe that a Czech patriot had assassinated SS Chief Reinhard Heydrich in that country. I knew from my black bag jobs at the BSC’s Camp X in Canada that this “act of a Czech patriot” was actually a carefully planned British operation using Czech nationals. It had been William Stephenson’s and Ian Fleming’s idea to kill Heydrich. I was also not surprised when we heard on June 10 that the Nazis had destroyed the entire Czech town of Lidice and executed more than 1,300 of its civilian inhabitants in reprisal for Heydrich’s assassination. The only reason given for the Nazis’ choosing Lidice was that there had been a rumor that one of the assassins might have spent a night there.
And so the war progressed. By the middle of the month, Field Marshal Rommel was kicking British ass all the way across North Africa. The Japanese grabbed two islands in the Aleutian Islands and U.S. aircraft blasted six Jap ships along that Alaskan chain of islands. Despite Marlene Dietrich’s inspiring words about how tough the Russians were, it was becoming obvious that the Germans were continuing to drive the Soviets back across the steppes and that Sevastopol, Russia’s major Black Sea naval base, was on the verge of being captured.
On June 13, FDR authorized the creation of the Office of Strategic Services, consolidating and enlarging the authority of Wild Bill Donovan’s former COI. I was tempted to send Mr. Wallace Beta Phillips a congratulatory card, but I had already sent Phillips the gift of the coded message regarding the British convoy—knowing that this was old material to Donovan’s people, but fulfilling my part of the bargain—and when I had tried to call Phillips at the Nacional in late May, I was told that the little man had checked out and left London as his forwarding address.
IN NEWS MORE PERTINENT TO OUR EFFORTS, U.S. and Havana papers announced on June 29 that eight German saboteurs had been captured on Long Island by the FBI. This report turned out to be erroneous in almost every particular, but it was the first response we had heard from Hemingway’s bold report more than a month earlier.
Hemingway had been disappointed about the lack of excitement surrounding his report. Ambassador Braden had been profuse in his praise, admiring Hemingway’s covert operations and expressing certainty that the FBI and the navy would act immediately upon receiving and confirming the details. Colonel Thomason had sent Hemingway a coded note of congratulations through the embassy’s diplomatic pouch. But there was an undercurrent of skepticism in both men’s praise that infuriated Hemingway.
I handed my own report to Delgado and was not surprised when his only response after reading
it was a slight rise in one eyebrow and a curl of his lip. It was a month later that I learned the details of the “saboteur arrest” through Delgado.
No German spies had been arrested on Long Island.
Despite Hemingway’s report to the U.S. embassy and despite my report through Delgado directly to Director Hoover, the German spies had come ashore on June 13 without being interdicted or challenged by the FBI or the navy. Their landing would have gone unobserved except for their accidental encounter with a lone, young Coast Guardsman named John Cullen. This young man was patrolling an empty stretch of beach near Amagansett, Long Island, on the night of June 13 when he came across four men wrestling a large raft through heavy surf. Cullen waited for the men to come ashore. They assured him—with only slight German accents—that they were fishermen, that their boat had foundered, and that they were walking to town for help.
Cullen was not totally convinced. Besides the German accents and the fact that the four men were dressed like city civilians, there was the fact that one of the men apparently forgot himself and addressed the others in rapid-fire German. Also, the men were clearly armed with Lugers. Finally, there was the additional detail that in the predawn light the German submarine was plainly visible on the surface only some 150 feet from the beach, struggling to free itself from a sandbar.
The crack Abwehr agents did what any well-trained, cold-blooded spies would in such a circumstance—they offered John Cullen a bribe of $260, obviously all the folding money they had in their wet pockets at the time. With one eye on their weapons and another on the German U-boat, Cullen took the money and jogged back to his Coast Guard station, where his superiors promptly ignored his report for several hours. Had they believed him and acted before dawn, they would have found the four Nazi agents impatiently waiting for the 6:00 A.M. train at the Amagansett station of the Long Island Railroad and the U-boat still churning in a noisy attempt to free itself from the sandbar.