TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM AGGIE
TO TEX
GREAT INTEREST HERE IN FUNCTIONING OF YOUR NEW LEICA
IMMEDIATELY ADVISE WHEN AND HOW YOU PLAN TO SEND FAMILY PHOTOS AND REPORT OF HOW FAMILY IS DOING
THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR VACATIONING IN RIO AND SHOULD BE ACCOMPLISHED FIRST
ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT
AGGIE
“You’ve seen this, baby?” Frade asked.
“Of course,” Dorotea said.
“Well, Graham is obviously talking about the Froggers,” Frade said. “But why in this cutesy code language if that thing is any good?”
He indicated the SIGABA device.
“He’s got his reasons, I guess,” Schultz said. “You want to answer it now? Or wait until you get something to eat?”
“With as much naval service as you have, Lieutenant Schultz, I am shocked that you don’t know that nothing gets between a Marine and his chow.” He paused, then asked, “Is there anything else you three have done that I should know about before I chow down?”
“ ‘Chow down’? Good God!” Dorotea said. “I’m married to a savage! But to answer your question, my darling, the only thing that’s happened was that your tailor left a message at the house in Buenos Aires that your suit is ready, and you may pick it up at your convenience.”
“Well, that’s good news!” Clete said happily.
“Since I know your idea of formal dress is hosing the mud off your cowboy boots,” Dorotea said, “your enthusiasm for a new suit piques my curiosity. Tell me all, darling.”
He told her.
Dinner for Frade was the New York strip steak he had thought of earlier, plus two fried eggs, home-fried potatoes, and a tomato and cucumber salad, which additions he thought of as he watched one of the maids open a bottle of merlot.
By the time it was over, not only had a second bottle of merlot been emptied by Clete, Enrico, and Oscar, but Frade was just about prepared to answer Graham’s radio message. Dorotea had first written it down, then gone to the study, typed it out, shown it to him for his approval, then returned to retype it with his corrections, and then finally to show him the final version.
After dinner, he went with her and El Jefe to the study, and watched how the operation worked.
First, she typed the message on the SIGABA keyboard, which produced a very long strip of perforated paper on which the now-encrypted message had been punched.
“Oscar will have to contact Vint Hill, darling,” Dorotea said. “He hasn’t yet had time to teach me how to do that.”
“Won’t you have to learn Morse code first?”
“Of course, but that shouldn’t take long.”
He didn’t argue.
It didn’t take the former chief radioman long to establish contact with Vint Hill. Frade heard Schultz twice key in dit dit dit, dah dit dit dit, which he recognized as being SB, for “Stand By.”
Schultz waved graciously at Dorotea, who then took the perforated tape, fed it into the Collins, and with a delicate finger pushed a button.
The Collins began to swallow the tape, far faster than Clete expected. Finally, it had gone through the machine and come out another opening.