Three Secret Service agents, cradling Thompson submachine guns, suddenly appeared on the deck and went to stand at the starboard and stern railings, putting themselves between the President and the approaching vessel.
Donovan got up and stood beside the tall agent at the starboard railing. He now saw a man in a suit and tie standing at the stern of the Chris-Craft. In his right hand the man carried a black briefcase. The left hand had what looked like a death grip on the chrome railing that ran the length of the low cabin roof.
When the man saw Donovan at the railing, he put down the briefcase and saluted him.
“Friend of yours, Bill?” FDR said. “Are you getting picked up so you can avoid our fishing contest?”
After a moment, Donovan said, “Yes, sir. That is, about him being a friend. He works for me.”
“You’re absolutely sure of who this man is, sir?” the taller Secret Service agent said as he adjusted his grip on his Tommy gun.
Donovan, knowing that at least one M2 .50 caliber Browning machine gun—and maybe even an antiaircraft 40mm Bofors cannon—was trained on the approaching watercraft, looked at the President.
FDR put in: “Son, you heard the General. Let him aboard.”
The agent looked over his shoulder, said, “Yes, sir, Mr. President,” and passed the order for the crew to prepare to receive a visitor.
As the Chris-Craft slowed its approach, two lean U.S. Navy seamen apprentices, who Donovan thought looked to be all of fifteen, went amidship and put heavy bumpers made of hemp over the side, then tied them off so that they rested against the hull just above the waterline. The smaller boat then slowly came in alongside the Sequoia. Lines were tossed and cleated, and then the man in the suit was helped aboard the Sequoia.
Donovan turned to Roosevelt.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.”
As Donovan started walking to intercept his OSS man, FDR, clenching his cigarette holder in his teeth, checked the line on his fishing reel.
He said, “And I’ll be right here catching your fish.”
* * *
Three minutes later, Donovan, holding a manila envelope and reading an unfolded sheet of paper, walked up to FDR. The Chris-Craft, with the courier back aboard, then could be seen dropping back behind the Sequoia and pulling away.
“What is so important?” Roosevelt said.
Donovan handed him the paper.
“A follow-up message from David Bruce concerning those aerial torpedoes. I think that, considering our conversation just now about London, you’ll find this interesting.”
III
[ONE]
OSS Algiers Station
Algiers, Algeria
1023 30 May 1943
Stan Fine motioned with his hand for John Craig van der Ploeg to pass him the new messages.
“Tell me why you’re convinced about Tubes,” Canidy said.
“It’s mostly from the chickenfeed.”
“I get that,” Canidy s
aid. “But what kind of chickenfeed?”
“For example,” John Craig van der Ploeg said, “when President Roosevelt in his Fireside Chat announced he was significantly raising war production numbers—those hundred and twenty thousand additional fighter aircraft—I added another fifty percent and messaged ‘a hundred and eighty thousand Lockheed Lightnings’ along with news that Bizerta and Tunis were captured on May seventh and we had taken more than a quarter million German and Italian POWs. And I mixed in mindless information—weather forecasts, sports scores. All things that the Germans either already knew or that they could cross-check elsewhere. There’s no question that the Krauts analyze every word FDR utters, so those aircraft numbers were easy to confirm, and the extra sixty thousand either made them think there’d been a keystroke error—or that the message was actually more accurate. And they of course are well aware of their own losses here in North Africa.”