“See what you can find out soonest, Ed, and let me know so I can relay that to Donovan. He says to send more immediately.”
“Got it. I’ll get working on the two we have on hand, then start the paperwork for more.”
“Anything else?” Bruce said somewhat impatiently.
“Szerynski said that he is taking a team back to that camp they found the Germans building in southern Poland. They want to see what’s happened since they took out the train carrying Wernher von Braun’s assistant, and see if there is anything else that they can sabotage.”
“They’re going back that soon?”
“It has been seven, eight days.”
“Dulles says that the Germans have not even mentioned the sabotage, let alone the loss of that assistant . . . Schwartz?”
“Yes, SS-Sturmbannführer Klaus Schwartz, the chemist.”
Bruce shook his head. “What could the rocket scientist’s chemist assistant have been doing that would warrant such silence? Even Dulles’s connections in the Abwehr can’t find out—not only what he was up to but that he died doing it.”
“I don’t get it either,” Stevens said. “Normally, Hitler’s High Command would be ordering some ridiculously extravagant service, the casket covered in medals, to honor one of their fallen great SS heroes.”
There came a rap at the open door, and when they looked they saw the commo room chief in the doorway.
“Colonel, sir,” Captain Tom Harrison said, “another Eyes Only Operational Immediate for you. Busy day, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it, Harrison,” Bruce said, waving him in.
Harrison purposefully marched in and went through the ritual of extending the clipboard for Bruce to sign the Receipt for Classified Document, then Harrison handed him the document with the TOP SECRET cover sheet.
Harrison saluted, then after seeing that Bruce’s attention was on the message, gave up waiting for it to be returned, and marched out.
“Oh, what the hell?” Bruce said after he’d read the first two paragraphs:
* * *
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
X STATION CHIEF
FILE
COPY NO. 1
OF 1 COPY ONLY
31MAY43 1630
FOR OSS LONDON
EYES ONLY COL BRUCE, LT COL STEVENS
FROM OSS ALGIERS
BEGIN QUOTE
DAVID,
GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS, YOU DECIDE. WE ALREADY HAVE AGENT IN-COUNTRY FOR ALLEN DULLES’S REQUEST.