*
In Washington on Monday evening, Bill Cochrane was in the living room of his new quarters. He sat in shirt sleeves and his suit pants in a faded armchair, a brandy by his side and his arms folded behind his aching, sorrowful head. He thought of the three sailors he had seen in Union Station. They would have done better, he thought, to have gotten so drunk that they never could have found their ship again.
He turned on the Philco console at one minute after nine. The President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, came on the air with what had been announced previously as 'an extraordinary message to the American people.'
In truth, it was. France and Great Britain were finally at war with the little Austrian corporal and his Thousand Year Reich. Roosevelt, speaking from the White House, asked for 'an adjournment of all partisanship and selfishness,' and asked that Americans join together to work toward 'a true neutrality' which would 'keep this newest world war from the western hemisphere.'
The President added that he could not, however, expect every American to be neutral in thoughts. 'A neutral,' Franklin Roosevelt concluded, 'cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.'
'I know what that means,' Bill Cochrane spoke aloud to the console. And he saw the old alliances from the First Great War drifting slowly back into place. And then for another moment he was a boy again, skipping stones into the Rivanna River when his own father went off to war.
Each new generation, he thought, fails to learn from the one before.
J. Edgar Hoover was also very good at grasping Roosevelt's meanings, particularly when beckoned anew to the White House the next day. Roosevelt had allotted ten minutes for Hoover, less if possible.
The President was livid. The Adriana had been in touch by shortwave with the British Naval Chancellery at Foggy Bottom in the hours between her crippling and her annihilation. There was little question that HMS Adriana had been sabotaged on American shores and German naval intelligence had known. A submarine had been sent specifically to stalk and kill her after she left port.
'And you know, of course, J. Edgar,' said Roosevelt, his face already drawn with tension, 'the only way the German Navy could have known that quickly would have been by wireless.'
'That's correct, Mr. President,' Hoover answered.
Roosevelt looked up from his desk. He wore a gray cardigan sweater belonging to his eldest son; his eyes were drawn and haggard. 'J. Edgar,' he said. 'If you think this is beyond the scope of your Bureau, other arrangements could be made.'
Hoover's response was chilly. 'I assure you, Mr. President, that our field agents should be very close to a resolution by now.'
'See that it's resolved quickly,' Roosevelt concluded. 'Or I'll expect your resignation. That's all.'
*
It was the moment to shake Hamburg to its foundations.
Siegfried leaned into his transmission key a few moments past eleven on Wednesday. He gave Hamburg a coded lesson in American civics: MY ASSESSMENT OF U.S. POLITICS AS FOLLOWS: THERE IS ONLY ONE ROOSEVELT. AMERICANS HAVE NO OTHER LEFTIST PRO-JEWISH PRO- BRITISH LEADER OF SIGNIFICANCE. PREDICT CONFIDENTLY THAT REMOVAL OF ROOSEVELT WOULD RESULT IN NEW ADMINISTRATION EITHER NOW OR AFTER 1940 ELECTION MORE AMICABLE TO NEW ORDER OF GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALISM, OR AT LEAST TO HISTORIC AMERICAN ISOLATIONISM. IN THIS MANNER, AMERICANS CAN BE EFFECTIVELY KEPT FROM JOINING EUROPEAN WAR.
Siegfried grinned. He pictured the reactions of those thick-browed Gestapo dolts at AOR-3. Then he fired off his conclusion.
CAN EASILY PLANT FLOWERS FROM BERLIN FOR PRESIDENT F.D. ROOSEVELT. SEEK PERMISSION FROM NO ONE LOWER THAN THE FUEHRER HIMSELF BEFORE I PROCEED. END. CQDXVW-2
Siegfried relaxed and treated himself to a Pall Mall. Almost forty-five seconds expired before his receiver was alive with a response from Hamburg. Siegfried grinned at the jittery dots and dashes.
'The frightened little Gestapo twits,' he cursed to himself, blowing out a long stream of smoke.
Hamburg began,DO NOT HAVE AUTHORITY TO ASSIGN
Siegfried angrily whirled from his receiver to his transmission key. How these underlings could waste precious time! He slashed into their message: I AM NOT SEEKING YOUR PERMISSION, YOU INCOMPETENT MORONS! WILL PROCEED ONLY ON DIRECT PERSONAL ORDERS OF ADOLF HITLER. OBTAIN SAID PERMISSION THROUGH APPROPRIATE GESTAPO CHANNELS! AWAITING RESPONSE SUNDAY NIGHT. END. CQDXVW-2
Siegfried boldly leaned back from his key, his shoulders square and erect. He stared at the receiver. Not a whimper from Hamburg. It was about time they learned who was in control. About time, indeed.
*
In Washington, Siegfried's entire transmission had come in clear as a bell. The Bluebirds had a complete recording. Cochrane, who had come up corpse-cold in his responses from twelve chiefs of urban bomb units, oversaw the Bluebirds' progress, then oversaw everyone in Cryptology as they tried to distill Siegfried's anguishing blips.
'Mary Ryan has been in this repulsive business for a long time,' Mary Ryan said with pride late on Thursday, 'and she has never seen a cipher like this one. Alphabet soup, that's what it is. Heavy on the boiled pork and roast potatoes.'
Cochrane nodded. The Virgin Mary remained at her desk. Cochrane went by Bobby Charles Martin's cell in Section Seven. Together, Cochrane and the cartographer from Ohio spread out a huge map of the states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Martin, creeping forward with the minimal new results obtained from triangulation, motioned with his finger and drew a circle with a fifty-mile radius around the area of New Jersey just south of New York City.
'He's somewhere in here,' the former Ohio state trooper announced solemnly. 'But that's all I can say.'
A few minutes later, Wheeler passed Cochrane in the hallway. 'Hoover's still screaming bloody murder,' Wheeler said routinely as he passed. 'I can keep him at bay for another couple of days.'
Mr. Hay chose that moment to pass both of them in the hallway, concealing a lit cigarette in his palm. He knew better than to even look up.
*
It was Hermann Goering, himself, founder of the Gestapo and currently Minister of the Air Force, who had the pleasure of passing along the report from the nervous Hamburg station to Hitler.
War meetings at 9 A.M. were common in early September. Each day the Wehrmacht made extraordinary progress in every direction, pulverizing anything that stood in its way. The Luftwaffe, meanwhile, softened any potential resistance through its merciless aerial bombardment. Already, Warsaw was in ruins, Danzig had been taken, and Hitler had received ebullient reports on a potentially swift victory in France and a tougher but eventual victory over the Royal Air Force.
Goering found Hitler in the map room of the Berlin Chancellery. Hitler wore a gray shirt, black tie, black trousers, and the mandatory armband. Goering noticed for the first time since he had ever known Hitler that the Fuehrer's eyes looked drawn and tired.
There were a dozen men there, cabinet members and generals, to discuss war preparations. The mood of the men in the room, considering Nazi successes in the field and in the air, was suitably cheerful.
Goering waited until noon when the meeting was adjourned and when all others had departed. Then he spoke privately to Hitler. He showed him the record of transmissions from AOR-3 in Hamburg. He recounted the successes of Siegfried in the United States.
Hitler's eyes narrowed and sparkled at the same time. 'Ah, yes,' he said in his soft Austrian whine, 'you have spoken of this man before.' Hitler scanned the previous successes of the agent in America. Hitler's eyebrows were raised. 'He has sunk two English ships? Once by himself, once with the help of our Navy.'
'He has always succeeded in whatever he has tried. I'm sure the Fuehrer recalls the bombing in Birmingham, England, a few years ago.'
'Ah, yes. Of course.' Hitler's eyes were merry. 'And now,' Goering continued, nodding to the report before them, 'he proposes-'
'I see what he proposes,' Hitler said softly. He pursed his rosy lips. 'Do you think this is possible?'
Goering quoted from Siegfried. '’Americans have no other leader of significance,’' he said slowly in German.
