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. "’Can easily plant flowers from Berlin for President F.D. Roosevelt.' The man has never yet been wrong," Goering said.
Hitler still considered it. "Where did we find this man?" he asked.
"We didn't, Mein Fuehrer," Goering said. "He came to us. He is completely outside all of our services. If we authorize him to proceed, then even we cannot stop-"
"Completely outside?" Hitler asked abruptly, looking Goering in the eye. "Then he could never be conclusively traced to us?"
"No, Mein Fuehrer."
"Then let us wish him luck," Hitler concluded. He reached for a fountain pen with a brisk single movement of his ivory-hued wrist.
Hitler had entertained a savage hatred of Roosevelt since 1937 when the American President had made a speech in Chicago urging a world "quarantine of dictators and aggressors." Hitler had taken that speech to have been aimed directly at him-which it only partially had been-and had since borne Roosevelt nothing but venom. Hitler insisted that Roosevelt was partially Jewish and attributed all of Roosevelt's actions to "this basic fact."
Now he initialed with great fervor a document which would dispatch a homicidal Siegfried toward Roosevelt.
"Let us hope this will be the end of that Hebrew cripple in the White House," Hitler muttered, withdrawing his pen and musing cheerfully. "You know, of course, Goering, that Roosevelt suffers from syphilitic paralysis, not infantile paralysis. This, too, is a basic fact."
"Of course, Mein Fuehrer," Goering answered.
Goering clapped the file shut and raised his hand in a salute. Hitler returned to his battle maps. Goering was halfway out the door when Hitler, almost as an afterthought, jerked his head up.
"Goering!" he shrieked suddenly.
The Air Minister turned.
"It is more urgent than ever that we obtain a victory in England before the Americans become involved." Hitler motioned toward the folder in Goering's hand. "This 'Siegfried' is more crucial than ever. See that he succeeds."
"We will do everything to assist him," Goering said. Then he saluted again, turned, and departed.
That evening in his radio chamber, four thousand miles to the west, Siegfried swooned in happiness and rejoiced in the unqualified authorization from Berlin that he had dreamed of for years: