David Lynn Golemon
Beyond the Sea
For my mother and father, two children of the Depression who were saved by a war and lived through it to love forever in peace
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the civilian personnel at the Old Philadelphia Navy Yard, thank you for the great tour and explanation. Also a big shout-out to certain shadowy men and women at M.I.T. — your theories scare the hell out of me.
PROLOGUE
COLD SEAS
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
The large man with the brown fedora sitting at its usual jaunty angle on his head sipped his coffee and watched the passersby on Flores Street. He sat beneath a green awning with the gold-scripted name of the business emblazoned across its front—Trans American Fruit and Grain. The lanky, broad-shouldered man removed the fedora and used the brim to fan his tanned face. He decided to forgo the hot coffee on this warm September morning and simply slid the cup and saucer away from him. His sunglasses hid the dark pupils that never wavered from the onlookers whose wandering eyes strayed his way as they passed by on the sidewalk fronting the shop. His white shirt was already starting to be saturated by his sweat even at this early hour. As much as he hated the climate, he was ever grateful not to be posted to Iceland or even, God forbid, Alaska. The man was here as a punishment for disagreeing with one of the more powerful men in government service. So, the sweat he would have to suffer with silently along with his banishment. His letter of resignation was written out and sitting upon his desk, ready for the military attaché’s signature and forwarding to Washington, D.C. The man was thinking that it may be past time to serve the war in a more direct way.
A morning cloud eased its way past the city and gave a moment’s respite from the early morning sun, allowing the American to look up into the otherwise empty sky. He felt, or rather sensed, the man pull up a chair next to him.
“Good morning, Colonel. You’re here early,” the younger man said as Colonel Garrison Lee, former senator from Maine, lowered his head and fixed the man with a curious look. He remained silent, content not to comment on such an obvious deduction.
He was amazed at the youthful team he had been given for the job they had to do in South America. He had been lucky thus far in not losing one of these kids of his to enemy activity but knew with their “just out of college” arrogant, can-do attitudes, that blessing would not last long. His dark brows rose over the heavy sunglasses.
“Sir, we finished that job last night.”
Finally, Garrison Lee removed the sunglasses from his face and fixed the younger man with his deep and very disturbing blue eyes. He waited without saying a word. He could see the boy was nervous about something. It was usually best for these kids if they broached the subject of their nervousness on their own without being pushed to do so by him.
“We planted the recorder on the professor’s phone with no problem and even fixed his car with a tracking broadcaster.”
Lee had to shake his head in dismay at the term tracking broadcaster. That meant they had been successful at placing a ten-pound electrical tracker that was equivalent in size to a Motorola home radio.
“Well, I see that old Wild Bill picked the right tenth-grade class to join the team down here.”
The young officer flinched at the comment. He had graduated top of his class at the United States Naval Academy last year and had been one of the few handpicked by William “Wild Bill” Donovan, the head of the American OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, the country’s foremost intelligence gathering apparatus in wartime service. While not up to British intelligence in capability, the OSS was well on its way to becoming pretty good at their jobs, if he could keep these college campus all-stars alive long enough.
“From the look on your face, Mr. Hamilton, I think I sense a but coming. A word of advice, young sir: with that terrible poker face of yours, stay out of gambling halls and never, ever try to bluff that new bride of yours with that hidden talent of giving away your poker hand. What’s the girl’s name again?”
“Alice, sir.” The young naval ensign on duty in Argentina on detached assignment to the OSS swallowed and tried to look away from Lee’s eyes as they bored into him. “As I said, sir, we placed all listening devices and thought we were away clean, but—”
“Hamilton, are you going to tell me before or after the damn Nazis finish their work in Europe?”
“I guess we didn’t get away as cleanly as I thought, sir.”
“Look, Hamilton—”
Lee stopped in midsentence when he saw the small gray-bearded man with wire-rimmed glasses holding a leather satchel to his chest like it was armor plate. Garrison recognized the man immediately, and his eyes shot to young Hamilton, who found he couldn’t hold the colonel’s accusing gaze. The small man was thirty feet away and was looking toward the street nervously before his eyes again settled on the two men beneath the awning. Every time a passing vehicle moved by their location, the man would ease back into shadow. The experienced colonel caught all of this with one glance.
“I guess you’ll have an excellent reason why one of the foremost Nazi climatologists is standing right over there and not currently being tracked by your tracking devices.” He held up a strong and brutal-looking hand before Hamilton could speak. “Don’t tell me. He bugged you and your men at the same time you were tagging him, right? I’m beginning to think that possibly old J. Edgar Hoover trained you himself.”
“We were followed, Colonel. I take full responsibility for blowing our cover.”
Lee tilted his hat back on his head and unfolded his long legs from beneath the table and stood. His six-foot-five-inch frame was intimidating to all, including the young field agent. He simply patted young Hamilton on the shoulder and faced the Nazi climatologist the OSS had tagged as worth keeping an eye on. The small scientist was the last on their list of three hundred suspected or proven German nationals in Buenos Aires to be “tagged,” or bugged to keep track of their whereabouts.
“Anything else I should know, son?” he asked as he rolled the sleeves of his white shirt up as he continued looking at the man from Dortmund, Germany, his hometown according to his OSS dossier.
“He came in just a few minutes ago and asked to speak with the station chief.”
This time Lee did look down at Hamilton. “In those words?”
“Exact words, Colonel.”
Lee smiled and then approached the smallish man, slightly overdressed in a tweed jacket. He noticed the good professor’s raggedy shoes and the moth-eaten material of his coat. The Nazis must not place too high a priority on what they pay their scientists these days, Lee thought.
“Sir,” he said as he approached the man. “I’m—”
“Don’t bother with an alias, Colonel Lee. We really do not have time for it,” the man said as his eyes flicked to the street beyond, as if he suspected the devil would drive up at any minute. The man’s beady eyes behind his glasses moved around, examining the faces of the people passing by. He still held his leather valise protectively in front of him.
Garrison Lee tried to hide his astonishment at the smaller man’s abruptness and his general knowledge of just who it was he was speaking to. It was obvious that the front of Trans American Fruit and Grain wasn’t playing well to German intelligence. The Gestapo was getting ever better at these things.