Top Secret (Clandestine Operations 1)

“How’s our friend in das Gasthaus?”

“He’s still not talking to us, sir. He did, though, really wolf down his breakfast.”

“Well, he didn’t eat much for dinner last night.”

Jesus, was that only last night?

“And this just in, sir,” Lewis said, handing him a SIGABA printout.

Cronley read as far as the first paragraph before deciding that Major Ashton was not good at following—or more likely didn’t want to follow—the prescribed literary rules for messages, which called for the messages to say what had to be said formally and in as few words as possible.

PRIORITY

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

FROM POLO

VIA VINT HILL TANGO NET

1000 GREENWICH 5 NOVEMBER 1945

TO VATICAN ATTENTION ALTARBOY

BEERMUG ATTENTION ALTARBOY

1-FBI LOOKING FOR YOU HERE TOO. OUR FRIEND THE ARGENTINE J. EDGAR TOLD THEM NOTHING BUT ASKED ME IF YOU HAVE BEEN ROBBING BANKS.

2-LEAVING MOUNTAINTOP VERY SHORTLY TO WELCOME TEX ON HIS ARRIVAL.

3-OUR JESUIT FRIEND WILL ALSO BE IN THE WELCOMING CROWD.

POLO

END

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH

—

Cronley handed the printout to General Gehlen.

“The Argentine J. Edgar?” Gehlen asked.

“J. Edgar Hoover heads the FBI. The Argentine version of that is the BIS. He’s talking about General Martín, who heads the BIS.”

“I should have thought of that,” Gehlen said. “Mountaintop, I assume, is the establishment in the Andes?”

“The foothills of the Andes. Mendoza.”

“And the Jesuit will be in Buenos Aires when Colonel Frade arrives. I hope he’ll do what Frade asks.”

“I think the problem was in finding him. I’m sure he’ll do what we want him to do, it’s in his interest as well as ours.”

“And a final question. Why is the FBI so interested in finding you?”

“I’ve thought about that,” Cronley said. “The best scenario I can come up with is that J. Edgar himself, probably because someone told him there was a young second lieutenant on Clete’s grandfather’s airplane, said, ‘Get to him.’