Donovan looked for a long moment at FDR, until the President met his eyes and nodded.
“Frank, without Normandy we very likely could be facing the turning point in the war. Especially if Hitler bombs London and—”
“Damn it, Bill!” FDR interrupted, poking at him with his cigarette holder. “Don’t you go and start sounding like Joe Kennedy, too! This is not what I wanted to hear. . . .”
“You know that I’m not a goddamn defeatist, Frank. I agree with Ike; I know we can win this war. We have to win this war. And I’m telling you the truth about what you need to know, not what I think you want
to hear. You’ll recall that that was why you said you put me in this job.”
FDR, silently staring off into the distance, puffed on his cigarette until it burned down to the holder. He turned back to Donovan and met his eyes.
“Do whatever necessary to stop those flying bombs, Bill. Keep Canidy on it—sounds like the perfect job for a loose cannon—and anyone else . . . everyone else.”
Donovan nodded. “As to the rockets, we’ve already been in contact with Professor Goddard—”
“The famous physicist? That Goddard?” He gestured toward the east. “Isn’t he over in Annapolis?”
“That’s the one. Robert H. Goddard. He has a lab in Annapolis, where he’s doing research for the Navy. Before the war, von Braun contacted Goddard, whose scientific papers he admired, to discuss the concepts of the building of rockets. Goddard has nothing but praise for von Braun—for his great ability as a scientist, that is.”
The President grunted, then took a sip of his cocktail.
“I started by asking about Sicily,” the President said. “Get back to that.”
Donovan said: “I know I’m probably repeating myself here, but in short, after Canidy blew up the yellow fever lab, he made sure that the cargo ship transporting the Tabun was destroyed. Specifically, it was sunk by torpedo.”
FDR nodded.
Donovan added: “There has been no known fallout from either event.”
“What I really want to know,” Roosevelt then said, gesturing give me more with his hand, “is what do we know about why the Tabun was in Sicily?”
Donovan said: “What we know comes from two sources. One, from Canidy, whose connections in Palermo had access to the SS office there. And, two, from the Abwehr, from Admiral Canaris’s agent Tiny, who told us that SS-Obersturmbannführer Oskar Kappler, the number two SS man in Messina, knew about all the SS operations on Sicily, including the secret plans for chemical and biological weapons. Their information was the same: that the gas was never meant to be used offensively. It was staged only for insurance.”
“Who exactly is this Kappler? Can his word be trusted?”
Donovan nodded again.
“We have no reason to doubt it. Kappler comes from a wealthy Ruhr Valley family with a lot to lose. Among other companies they own, Kappler Industrie GmbH is the chief provider of coke and other key engine-building materials to Mann and Daimler-Benz. His father, Wolfgang, was a business associate of Fritz Thyssen—”
“I know Thyssen,” Roosevelt interrupted. “He’s the steel industrialist.”
“Right.”
“Years ago he approached my cousin Teddy with a business deal in South America—you know how much time Teddy spent in that part of the world. Thyssen had—still has—companies all over, which turned out to be smart planning considering that Hitler nationalized his German companies, especially his steel plants in Ruhr. That was after Thyssen soured on Hitler’s vision of a Thousand-Year Reich and fled the country with his family. Teddy said that, despite the mistake of supporting Hitler early on, he was a decent man.”
“Well, it all ties in,” Donovan went on, “because Canaris also is tight with Wolffy Kappler. I would say that Kappler wants his businesses operating again during peacetime—as well as ending the destruction of the Fatherland—and would be willing to help Canaris and his group take out Hitler to accomplish that. And, failing that, to help Canaris land on his feet after the Thousand-Year Reich collapses. Before the war, Thyssen had been seen with Wolffy Kappler inspecting the industrial docks at Buenos Aires.”
“Is that so? Now, that’s interesting. Argentina was one of the countries Teddy said was involved in Thyssen’s business offer.”
“That would not surprise me; there is a lot of interest in quote neutral unquote Argentina. But getting back to the Tabun. SS-Obersturmbannführer Kappler had no intention of allowing the gas munitions to be used—and hid them—because, we believe, he doesn’t want the war to become any worse—he, too, believes it’s all but over—and because he’s making plans to get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Explaining his father being sighted in Argentina.”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s just hope that’s the case with all the other stockpiles of Tabun.”
“We can try and find out,” Donovan said.