The Honor of Spies

"That's all I can come up with. The only other question I was asked was about the ransoming of the Jews. Morgenthau asked me."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him that all I knew was that it was still operating, but that I didn't have any details. I suggested you might."

"Thanks a lot," Graham said.

One of the telephones on Graham's desk rang. Alice walked to the desk and answered it.

"Colonel Graham's office. Mrs. Dulaney speaking." There was a brief pause, and then she added, "Send him up, please."

She put the phone down.

"Vint Hill Farms has been heard from," she said.

Then she quickly picked up her glass from the coffee table and walked out of the office.

"There is a Colonel Raymond from Vint Hill Farms for you, Colonel," Mrs. Alice Dulaney, now back in her secretary role, formally announced from the office door.

"Show him in," Graham said as he set down the glass he was holding and lowered his feet from where they had been resting on the open lower right-hand drawer of his desk.

Allen W. Dulles was now sitting on a couch facing a small coffee table, from which he lowered his feet. He set his glass down on the table.

This has to be Frade's after-action report, Graham thought. I guess it took him this long to get everything sorted out.

Lieutenant Colonel James Raymond, Signal Corps--a tall, ascetic-looking man in his late thirties--marched into Graham's office, stopped two feet from Graham's desk, and saluted. He wore a web belt from which dangled a holstered Colt Model 1911A1 pistol. His left wrist was handcuffed to a somewhat scruffy leather briefcase.

Graham returned the salute, although he wasn't in uniform, and he didn't think even the Army exchanged salutes unless both the saluter and the salutee were in uniform.

"Lieutenant Colonel Raymond, sir. From Vint Hill Farms Station." Raymond then looked at Dulles, then back at Graham, making it a question.

"Well, he may look like a Nazi," Graham said, "but actually, Mr. Dulles is the OSS deputy director for Europe and has all the appropriate security clearances. What have you got for me, Colonel?"

"I have a message from Tex for you, sir. I apologize for the delay."

Graham wagged his fingers in a Let's have it gesture, then asked, "What caused the delay?"

"It came in last night, sir, but neither the colonel nor I, sir, was immediately available to decrypt it."

"And only you or the colonel is able to do that?"

"Plus, of course, Lieutenant Fischer," Lieutenant Colonel Raymond said. "And he isn't available."

Graham realized his temper was about to flare.

You could have sent the still-encrypted message over here, rather than wait hours until they found you, Colonel. Believe it or not, we could have decrypted it here.

"Well, Fischer's on his way back, Colonel," Graham said, finally and calmly. "The last word I had was that he'll probably be here tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Colonel Raymond said.

Graham watched as Raymond first freed himself from his handcuff, then unlocked the briefcase, took from it a large manila envelope--stamped TOP SECRET--and then took from that a business-size envelope--also stamped TOP SECRET--and handed that to Graham.

"Thank you," Graham said. "Please have a seat, Colonel. There will probably be a reply. Can I offer you a little something?"

"No, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Coffee, maybe?"

"Yes, sir. If it wouldn't be a problem," Raymond said as he sat in one of the armchairs.

Graham raised his voice. "Alice, it's Maxwell House time in here."

"Coming right up!"

Graham opened the envelope and removed the contents. He read it as far as the first paragraph before he knew he wasn't going to like it.

"Alice," he called. "Belay the coffee in here! The colonel will take it in your office." He looked at Raymond. "This is not quite what I expected. Would you mind . . ."

Raymond was already on his feet.

"Yes, sir," Raymond said. "I understand, sir. I did the decryption myself. That message is a bit unusual, isn't it, sir?"

Again Graham felt his temper flare. This time he had an even harder time keeping it contained.

What Raymond had said he shouldn't have said, although it was true. "A bit unusual" was something of an understatement. But what had ignited Graham's anger was that Raymond acknowledged that he had read the message during the decryption process.

The only way to avoid that was for the individual actually writing the message to encrypt it, and then transmit it, himself, and for the recipient to personally receive and then decrypt it.

Otherwise, any number of people who had no business being familiar with the message at all--secretaries, cryptographers, radio operators, typists--had a valid reason to read the message and thus become familiar with it.