Hitler's peace

I had left a five-pound note with the duty corporal to provide cigarettes, medicine, and some decent food and water for the prisoner. Entering the cell, I found the major much recovered and working diligently on Donovan’s Bride material. Thanking me for the extra supplies, he told me he was making excellent progress with the signals transcripts and he might have some plaintexts to show me by the end of the week.

“Good. Sounds as though it will be just in time. We’re flying to Teheran on Saturday morning.”

“So it is Teheran. But don’t they know? The place is full of German sympathizers.”

I shrugged. “I tried telling them. But I’m beginning to suspect FDR thinks he walks on water.”

“On water, no,” said Reichleitner. “But on oil, perhaps. If they’re having the conference there it’s because they’ll all be trying to get the shah to commit to a cheap oil price, in perpetuity.”

“Maybe he can give me a good deal on a rug while he’s at it.”

“By the way. Did you give Roosevelt the Beketovka File?”

“Not yet.” What with seeing Elena again, and being shot at, I had forgotten all about the file now lying on a table in my hotel room. “I’m still trying to get some time with the president so I can bring it to his attention.”

“But you’ve read it yourself.”

“Of course,” I said, thinking I could hardly say I hadn’t and still retain the German’s goodwill. I resolved to try to read the file the moment I got back to Shepheard’s.

“And what do you think?”

“It’s shocking. I think it confirms what a lot of people in this city seem to believe already. That Stalin is as great a threat as Hitler.”

Reichleitner nodded his approval. “He is. He is.”

“To be honest with you, though, I’m not sure it’s going to have much of an immediate influence on Roosevelt. After all, he managed to ignore all the evidence about Katyn.”

“But this time the numbers are so much greater. It’s evidence of a pattern of mass murder and neglect on an industrial scale. If Roosevelt can make an alliance with a man like Stalin, then there’s no reason why he couldn’t make a deal with Hitler himself.”

I nodded uncomfortably. I wondered what Max Reichleitner would have said if I had told him what Donovan had told me: that FDR was indeed pursuing an American peace with Hitler. I told myself he wouldn’t have believed a word of it.

When I got back to Shepheard’s, I picked up the Beketovka File, feeling guilty about the lie I had told. I moved the armchair near the open window, but in the shade. I put a package of cigarettes on the side table next to a cold beer, my notebook, and my fountain pen. Then I dived in. It was a like diving into a dark pond to find that there was something unseen just beneath the opaque surface, like a rusty iron bedstead. The hidden object was a monograph by Heinrich Zahler. I hit my head on it. Hard.