“I’d forgotten that you have spent so much time in South America,” General Smith said, but it was a question, and everybody at the table knew it.
When Schultz didn’t reply immediately, Smith made a statement that was clearly another question: “Chief, in the lobby just now, I said that I thought, when he told me he was sending you to Europe, that Admiral Souers was implying there’s more to your relationship than being old shipmates. Then Homer appeared before you could reply. Or saved you from having to reply.”
“You sure you want me to get into that, General?”
“Only if you’re comfortable telling me.”
“Comfortable, no, but the admiral trusts you, which means I do, and I think you have the right to know,” Schultz said. “So okay. The admiral and I were shipmates on battleship USS Utah in 1938. He was then a lieutenant commander and I had just made chief signalman. About the time he made commander, and went to work for the chief of Naval Intelligence, the Navy sent me to Fort Monmouth, in New Jersey, to see what the Army Signal Corps was up to. My contact in ONI was Commander Souers. I kept him up to speed about what the Army was developing—radar, for one thing—and, more important, what became the SIGABA system.”
“It’s an amazing system,” General Smith said. “You were involved in its development?”
“Yes, sir, I was. In 1943, I installed a SIGABA system on a destroyer, the USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, which then sailed to the South Atlantic to see what kind of range we could get out of it. To keep SIGABA secret, only her captain and two white hats I had with me knew what the real purpose of that voyage was.
“We called at Buenos Aires, official story ‘courtesy visit’ to Argentina, which was then neutral. Actual purpose, so that I could get some SIGABA parts from Collins Radio, which were flown down there in the embassy’s diplomatic pouch.
“A Marine captain comes on board, in a crisp khaki uniform, wearing naval aviator’s wings, the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the third award of the Purple Heart . . .”
“Cletus?” Cronley asked.
“Who else? Anyway, he tells the skipper he understands that he has a SIGABA expert on board and he wants to talk to him. Cletus Frade is a formidable guy. The skipper brings Captain Frade to the radio shack.
“He says he’s heard I’m a SIGABA expert. I deny I ever heard of SIGABA. ‘What is it?’
“He says, ‘Chief, if you ever lie to me again, I’ll have you shot. Now, are you a capable SIGABA repairman or not?’
“I tell him I am. He asks me if I know anything about the RCA 103 Radar—which was also classified Top Secret at the time—and I tell him yes. He says, ‘Pack your sea bag, Chief, orders will soon come detaching you from this tin can and assigning you to me.’
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I’m not worried. The skipper’s not going to let anybody take me off the Alfred Thomas. Who the hell does this crazy Marine think he is? The chief of Naval Operations?
“At 0600 the next morning, so help me God, there is an Urgent message over the SIGABA. Very short message. Classified Top Secret–Tango, which security classification I’d never heard of until that morning. ‘Chief Signalman Oscar J. Schultz detached USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, assigned personal staff Captain Cletus Frade, USMCR, with immediate effect. Ernest J. King, Admiral, USN, Chief of Naval Operations.’
“At 0800, Cletus is waiting for me on the wharf. In civvies, driving his Horch convertible, with a good-looking blond sitting next to him. It’s Dorotea, his Anglo-Argentine wife. He says we’re going out to the ranch, and should be there in time for lunch.
“‘Sir,’ I say, ‘what’s going on here?’
“‘Congratulations, Chief, you are now a member of Team Turtle of the Office of Strategic Services. The team’s out at the ranch. What we do, among other things, is look for German submarines, supposedly neutral ships that supply German submarines, and then we sink them or blow them up or arrange for the Navy to do that for us. We use the RCA 103 Radar to find them, and the SIGABA to pass the word to the Navy. So we need you to keep those technological marvels up and running.’”
“That’s quite a story,” General Smith said.
“Yeah. But let me finish, General, it gets better.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” General Smith said.
“So we go out to the ranch. I found out later that it’s about as big as Manhattan Island. Really. Cletus owns it. He inherited it, and a hell of a lot else, from his father, who was murdered at the orders, so the OSS guys told me, of Hein
rich Himmler himself when it looked like El Coronel Frade was going to become president of Argentina.
“And I met the team. All a bunch of civilians in uniform. Well, maybe not in uniform. But not professional military men, if you know what I mean. No offense, Polo.”
“None taken, El Jefe. That’s what we were, civilians in uniform. On those rare occasions when we wore uniforms.”
“Admiral Souers—by then he was Rear Admiral, Lower Half—finally learned that I’d been shanghaied off the USS Alfred Thomas. He got a message to me saying that he couldn’t get me out of Argentina, but I could still be of use to the Office of Naval Intelligence by reporting everything I could learn about what Frade and Team Turtle were up to. The admiral said that it was very important to ONI.
“By then, I’d already heard about the trouble Clete was having with the naval attaché of our embassy—a real asshole—and the FBI and some other people supposed to be on our side, and I’d gotten to know the OSS guys. So first I told Clete what the admiral wanted, told him I wasn’t going to do it, and then I got on the SIGABA and told the admiral I wasn’t going to report to ONI on Team Turtle and why.
“I got a short message in reply. ‘Fully understand. Let me know if I can ever help with anything Frade needs.’”
“And then one thing led to another, General,” Ashton said. “First, El Jefe became de facto chief of staff to Frade, and then de jure. Or more or less de jure. Without telling El Jefe that he was going to, Clete got on the horn—the SIGABA—to Admiral Souers and told him he was going to ask the Navy to commission El Jefe and was the admiral going to help or get in the way?”