“First, let me open this,” Dulles said, nodding at the package and fishing in his pocket.
After a moment, Graham reached into a desk drawer, came up with a pair of scissors, and handed them to Dulles.
“What’s in there that’s so important?” Graham said.
“My original thought was to give it to you, but I now realize I need it more than you do. I wish that I was unwelcome at the White House.”
He finally got the paper off the box, then pulled from it an odd-looking bottle—there were dimples in the glass.
The label read HAIG & HAIG FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD SCOTCH WHISKY.
“Where the hell did you get that? I thought it had all disappeared, like dinosaurs,” Graham said, and then he pushed the lever on his intercom. “Alice, ice and glasses. You won’t believe what Mr. Dulles has brought us!”
Alice Dulaney walked in a minute or so later—Dulles was still struggling to remove the champagne-bottle-like wire netting from the neck of the bottle—with three glasses, a bucket of ice, and a water pitcher on a tray.
Although she had resisted—for reasons Graham did not pretend to understand—a more impressive title than “secretary,” she was far more important to Graham—and thus to the OSS—than her title suggested.
In Graham’s absences—and he spent more time away from his office than in it—she spoke with his authority. This meant she had to be privy to all secrets, official and otherwise.
In certain circumstances, however—like this one, with only Allen Dulles in Graham’s office—she dropped her “I’m nothing more than a simple secretary” masquerade and said, “Yes, thank you. Don’t mind if I do. Where the hell did you get that? I haven’t seen any of that for years.”
She then took the bottle from Dulles and expertly got rid of the wire and pulled the cork. As if they had rehearsed the routine, Dulles put ice cubes in a glass, which Graham then held up so Alice could splash whisky into it. This was repeated three times. Finally, they tapped glasses.
After his first sip, Dulles said, “Nice. David Bruce told me he would tell me where I could buy two bottles if I promised he could have one of them. I naturally agreed.”
Colonel David Bruce was the OSS station chief in London.
“And?” Graham said.
“I went to the store in the embassy, where they have cases of it stacked to the ceiling. They are willing to part with two bottles—only—per month for ‘special friends of the embassy.’ David had already had his ration.”
“You should have pulled rank on Bruce,” Alice said. “You’re the deputy director for Europe; he works for you.”
“That thought ran through my mind, but I decided in the end that if I did, the next time I was in London he wouldn’t share his knowledge of important things with me.”
“You know, I’ll bet Frade has cases of this stacked up somewhere,” Alice said.
“Remind me to ask him,” Graham said. “And speaking of Señor Loose Cannon?”
“I called Vint Hill Farms Station a couple of minutes ago,” she said. “All I got was a runaround. I was going to raise hell, but I realized that maybe the reason we don’t have his after-action report is because he hasn’t gotten around to sending his after-action report.”
“Do we know if he made it back to Buenos Aires?” Dulles asked.
“Just that. And we got that from the Associated Press wire that said the first SAA flight from Lisbon had arrived.”
Graham shook his head, took a sip from his glass, and said, “God, this is good whisky!”
“The President knew he’d made it to Lisbon,” Dulles said. “He was pleased.”
“Pleased because Frade managed to get there or because he knew Juan Trippe would be greatly annoyed?” Graham asked.
“Either or both,” Dulles said.
“Who else was there?” Graham asked.
“You would know if you had been there. Weren’t you invited?”
“I told the director he was at Vint Hill Farms,” Alice said. “He didn’t seem terribly disappointed.”