The Honor of Spies

He had to wait until someone brought a ladder so that he could climb down from the P-38 cockpit.

By the time he got close to the Constellation, two civilians were climbing down the ladder.

That guy looks just like Howard Hughes.

The guy who looked just like Howard Hughes said, "Why do I think you're Mother Hen?" Then, without waiting for a reply, he said to the other civilian, "This is the guy who shepherded us in here, Colonel."

"I was very happy to see you out there, Captain," the other civilian said, offering Dooley his hand. "Thank you. And are you going to take care of us on the way to Lisbon?"

The base commander put in: "I thought I'd wait, Colonel Graham, until you got here before I told the captain where he was going next."

"But he is prepared to leave shortly?" Colonel Graham asked.

"Just as soon as his aircraft is refueled," the base commander said, then looked at Dooley. "Right, Captain?"

"Yes, sir."

The base commander looked back at Graham and added, "And he picks up the flight plan at Base Ops, of course, and confers with the C-47 crew."

"Good," Colonel Graham said. "We have a very narrow window of time."

"Any questions, Captain Dooley?" the base commander asked.

"Actually, I have two, sir. Three, if I can ask this gentleman if he's the pilot I saw when we made rendezvous."

The tall civilian nodded.

"How long did it take you to come from England in that beautiful airplane?"

"Actually, we came by way of Belem, Brazil. It took us a little over eleven hours from Belem. That's two questions."

"Did anyone ever tell you you look like Howard Hughes?"

"I hear that all the time," Howard Hughes said.

VII

[ONE]

Hotel Britania

Rua Rodrigues Sampaio 17

Lisbon, Portugal

1745 4 September 1943

The deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services for Europe cracked open the door of his suite, saw the deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services for the Western Hemisphere standing in the corridor, pulled the door fully open, and gestured for him to enter.

"Nice flight, Alex?" Allen Dulles asked as the two shook hands.

"Coming in here from Morocco on that old-fashioned Douglas DC-3 was a little crowded and bumpy. But the rest of the trip, on the Constellation, was quite comfortable," Colonel A. F. Graham said.

Dulles chuckled.

"Howard knows how to take care of himself," Graham added. "There's a galley, and a couple of stewards, and bunks with sheets and pillows. And we flew so high, we were above the bad weather. What's up?"

"Wild Bill know you're here?" Dulles asked.

"You said don't tell him, so I didn't." Graham met Dulles's eyes, smiled, and asked, "What are we hiding from our leader?"

He took a long, thin, black cigar from a case, then remembered his manners and offered the case to Dulles, who shook his head.

"There's been a very interesting development," Dulles said. "What would you say, Alex, if I told you that the Germans know a great deal about the Manhattan Project?"

"You sound surprised," Graham said.

"A very great deal, Alex," Dulles said.

There was a battered leather briefcase on a desk. Dulles went to it, unlocked it, matter-of-factly took a yellow-bodied thermite grenade from it, set it carefully on the desk, then went back into the briefcase and came out with a stack of eight-by-ten-inch photographs, which he handed to Graham.

Graham read the photograph of the cover sheet carefully, then looked through the stack of photographs of the rest of the document.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at," he confessed.

"You know about the Manhattan Project's facility in Tennessee?"

"Oak Ridge?"

"Oak Ridge is Site X," Dulles said. "What this is--these are--are photographs of the weekly progress report on the four projects they're setting up there to separate enough weapons-grade uranium from uranium ore to make a weapon. Or weapons. Atomic bombs."

"Where'd you get this report?"

"From the Germans. Specifically, from Fregattenkapitan Otto von und zu Waching, who is Admiral Canaris's deputy."

"Meaning the Germans have a spy--spies--in Oak Ridge?" Graham asked incredulously. "That's bad news. You haven't told Donovan?"

"No, I haven't told Donovan."

"Why not?"

"The Germans don't have spies in Oak Ridge. The Russians do. The Germans apparently have people in the Kremlin. According to von und zu Waching, that's where those photos came from."

"How long have you known about this?" Graham asked.

"Since two o'clock this afternoon. Canaris got word to me that he thought it would be to our mutual interest if we got together with von und zu Waching--"

" 'We'?" Graham interrupted.

"You and me. He asked for you by name. So I sent you the 'come to Portugal very quietly' message. Canaris doesn't play games, for one thing, and for another, I really didn't want to deal with whatever this was by myself."

"What the hell is it all about?"