Sergeant Kramer, who had changed his mind about staying, looked up from the desk.
“All we need now, sir, is the access code and the name you want to call this station.”
“Let me sit down there, please,” Cronley said.
“I’m a pretty good typist, sir.”
“As the result of a month’s detention when I was in the sixth grade, so am I. I often think that typing is the most valuable skill I brought into the Army.”
The sergeant laughed and stood. Cronley took his chair.
There was a telephone dial on the front of the SIGABA. Cronley dialed in the access code. Green indicator lights illuminated. A message appeared on the screen: ENTER STATION ID.
“What shall we call our little station?” Cronley wondered aloud. “Where are we? Munich. What comes to mind when you hear Munich? Hitler’s beer garden. Beergarden? Better, Beermug.”
He began typing.
A strip of paper began to snake out of the SIGABA, as simultaneously the message was typed on a roll of paper by the teletype typewriter that was part of the SIGABA/Collins system.
When he had finished typing, and the teletype typewriter stopped clattering, Cronley tore the paper tape free and fed it back into the SIGABA. Then he tore what the teletypewriter had printed from the machine, read it, and then handed it to Sergeant Kramer.
“Pass it around when you’re finished,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM BEERMUG
MSG NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
TO VINT HILL SPECIAL
WISH TO JOIN TANGO NET
ACKNOWLEDGE
“Sergeant Mitchell, right? Cronley asked the technical sergeant.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re senior, so you get the dirty job. You are hereby appointed Classified Documents NCO. I don’t suppose you have a weapon?”
“A.45. In the truck, sir.”
“Not doing you much good there, is it? Go get it. When you have it, I will give you this, which you will keep on your person until I can get my safe moved here from Kloster Grünau. I will then give you the combination to the safe. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The SIGABA began to whir.
“Hold off on getting your pistol until we hear what Vint Hill has to say,” Cronley ordered.
The teletypewriter began to clatter. When it fell silent, Cronley tore off the message, read it, and handed it to Mitchell.
“After you’ve read that, go get your pistol,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM VINT HILL TANGO NET
1103 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
TO BEERMUG ATTENTION ALTARBOY
REF YOUR MSG NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
1-WELCOME TO TANGO NET
2-ACKNOWLEDGE ENCRYPTED TEXT FOLLOWING BY DECRYPTION
FDHSG ASDPW QLPDH GSHII PXCBD GOPWN ABDKD HHSDF
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
“We will now see if the decrypt function works,” Cronley said.
He took the tape, found the encrypted message, tore it off, pushed a key that caused another green light — this one indicating EN/DECRYPTION FUNCTION ACTIVATED — to come on, and then fed the tape into the machine.
The teletypewriter began to clatter:
MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB ITS FLEECE WAS WHITE AS SNOW
“Now let’s see if it works the other way,” Cronley said, and began typing again.
The newly appointed Classified Documents NCO came back into the room — now armed with a Model 1911A1.45 ACP in a leather holster dangling from a web belt — in time to see the end of the tape swallowed by the machine.
He leaned over and watched the teletypewriter chatter out a copy of Cronley’s reply:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM BEERMUG
TO VINT HILL TANGO NET
REF YOUR REPLY TO MY NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
1-MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB ITS FLEECE WAS WHITE AS SNOW
2-ACKNOWLEDGE ENCRYPTED TEST FOLLOWING BY DECRIPTION
SLEST YEWHA DEKLS WKLDK ZSHGF HSGSG
END
ALTARBOY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
Vint Hill’s reply came almost immediately:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM VINT HILL TANGO NET
1103 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
TO BEERMUG ATTENTION ALTARBOY
REF YOUR MSG NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
1-ROSES ARE RED VIOLETS ARE BLUE AND I THINK I LOVE YOU
2-ANYTHING ELSE?
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
“Oh, yes, there is,” Cronley said out loud. “The important part.”
He began to type again:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM BEERMUG
TO VINT HILL TANGO NET
REF YOUR REPLIES TO MY NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
REQUEST TANGO NET BACKUP IF NECESSARY FOR MY DIRECT CONNECT WITH
1-VATICAN
2-TEX
3-POLO
4-SAILOR
5-RANGER
END
ALTARBOY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
“Who the hell are they?” the staff sergeant blurted, and then added: “Sorry, sir.”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Cronley said.
And again there was an almost immediate response:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM VINT HILL TANGO NET
1103 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
TO BEERMUG ATTENTION ALTARBOY
REF YOUR MSG NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945
1-TANGO NET WILL BACK UP AS NECESSARY YOUR DIRECT CONNECTION TO
1-VATICAN
2-TEX
3-POLO
4-SAILOR
5-RANGER
2-ANYTHING ELSE?
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
“Okay. Done. That’s what we needed,” Cronley said, and then began to type:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM BEERMUG
TO VINT HILL TANGO NET
THAT’S IT MANY THANKS
BEERMUG OFF
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
Everybody in the room was looking at him, wondering what was to come next.
If you don’t know what you’re doing, plunge ahead.
He looked at his watch.
It’s quarter to twelve.
Oh, shit!
“Okay. This will be quick, as I have a social engagement — taking a lady to lunch — that I can’t get out of.
“First things first. From this moment, whenever I’m not here, there will be somebody in this room. Somebody with a pistol. No one is to get into this closet except you three, Special Agent Hessinger, First Sergeant Dunwiddie, Lieutenant Stratford, and me. Plus whoever Dunwiddie or the lieutenant thinks should be allowed in here. Understood?”
There was another chorus of “Yes, sir.”
“Captain,” Sergeant Mitchell asked, “you going to tell us who those other people on the net are?”
“Absolutely,” Cronley said. “Vatican is the monastery. Tex is Colonel Cletus Frade, USMC, our commanding officer and the officer in charge of Operation Ost, and that station is in Buenos Aires. Polo is Major Maxwell Ashton the Third, Frade’s deputy, and that station is in Mendoza, which is in the foothills of the Andes Mountains on the border between Argentina and Chile, where we operate the relocation program. Major Ashton will shortly — I hope within a matter of days — be coming here to take over command of the compound. Sailor is in Berlin, in what used to be Admiral Canaris’s home until the Nazis found out we had turned him. You should know — everyone should, for that matter — that the Nazis sent Canaris to a concentration camp, tortured him, hung him dead, leaving his naked corpse to rot. They confiscated all his property. When Second Armored went into Berlin, the OSS took over his house. And, finally, Ranger is Frade when he has this system mounted in whatever airplane he’s flying.”