“‘Unwise decision’?” Frade parroted. “How about a masterful double stupid decision?”
Dulles smiled at him.
“If you like,” Dulles said, “I will rephrase: When Colonel Flowers, to ensure those files would not fall into the wrong hands, made his masterful double stupid decision to take the files out of the embassy and place them in the safe in his home, he thus unwittingly permitted parties unknown—”
“Otherwise known as el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón,” Frade interrupted again.
“—to gain surreptitious access to them and photograph them, thus permitting the holders of the various bank accounts and safety-deposit boxes to move the assets elsewhere before they could be seized by the Argentine government on Germany’s unconditional surrender.
“On learning that there were no assets to be seized, Colonel Flowers suspected that Colonel Frade had not only intentionally given him false data when ordered to turn over the files to him but had
given the bona fide data to, quote, some of his Argentine friends, close quote. And then reported his suspicions as fact to the assistant chief of staff for intelligence.
“Flowers, of course, had no way of knowing that, in addition to turning over the files to him, what Colonel Frade had actually done was make copies of everything and given those copies to the legal attaché of the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Milton Leibermann, and informed General Donovan that he had done so.
“Mr. Leibermann notified the FBI that he had come into possession of the files, the accuracy of which he had verified, from Colonel Frade.
“On receipt of this communication, J. Edgar Hoover called General Donovan and asked why Colonel Frade had been so obliging, inasmuch as officers of the OSS and the FBI in Argentina were forbidden to communicate with one another. General Donovan told him that Frade had been so concerned the files would be compromised once they were in the hands of Colonel Flowers that he felt justified to place a copy of them into the hands of the FBI.
“And so it came to pass, as it says so often in the Bible, that when the assistant chief of staff for intelligence, in righteous indignation, called upon General Donovan with Colonel Flowers’s suspicions vis-à-vis Colonel Frade, General Donovan was able to tell him they were unfounded. ‘General, the data Frade furnished Colonel Flowers was accurate. Ask J. Edgar Hoover, who has a copy.’
“The assistant chief of staff for intelligence apparently contacted Director Hoover, for that was the last either Donovan or the OSS heard of the matter.
“I think it reasonable to assume, however, that the assistant chief of staff for intelligence did indeed discuss the matter with Colonel Flowers. I also think it reasonable to assume that they refused to relieve Colonel Flowers for cause because that would have been tantamount to admitting the officer forced upon the OSS was grossly incompetent.
“Getting back to what I said at the beginning, the bad news here is that when the OSS is inevitably disbanded, Team Turtle personnel will be reassigned. That almost certainly means everyone will be assigned to the Office of the Military Attaché—in other words, to Colonel Flowers.
“And as soon as the OSS is disbanded—and probably before, possibly as soon as tomorrow—Colonel Flowers is going to try to assume authority over all of you.”
“Fuck him,” Tony Pelosi blurted.
“Please permit me to associate myself with Major Pelosi’s position,” Major Ashton said.
That earned them some chuckles.
“While orders are orders,” Dulles said, “there is a loophole here: Until the OSS is formally disbanded, and until Colonel Flowers is ordered to assume command, so to speak, the status quo will prevail. He will not have the legal authority to issue orders to any of you.
“I think, however, that he will try. If he fails, he will have lost nothing. If he succeeds, the advantages to him are obvious. Victors write history. He will write the history of why the plan to have Operation Phoenix assets seized failed, and Colonel Frade’s gross incompetence—and perhaps his disloyalty—will be the reason.”
“Mr. Dulles,” Lieutenant Oscar Schultz asked, “two questions.”
“Shoot, Jefe,” Dulles said.
Jefe—“chief” in Spanish—made reference both to the Brooklynborn Schultz’s former status as a Navy chief radioman and to what he was called by the workers of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Fluent in Spanish, Schultz often could be found in what he called his gaucho outfit—a broad-brimmed black hat, loose white shirt with billowing sleeves, billowing black bombachas tucked into calf-high soft black leather boots, and a wide silver-studded and buckled leather belt carrying a fourteen-inch knife in a silver scabbard.
“Make that three questions,” the old sailor said. “But if I get the right answer to question one, I won’t have to ask the other two.”
Dulles, Frade, and Ashton immediately took Jefe’s meaning.
Frade and Dulles laughed.
Ashton said, “Good thought!”
Schultz pulled his wicked knife from its scabbard, looked at it admiringly, then began, “A quick and simple fix for this problem—”
“Sorry, Jefe,” Dulles interrupted. “As General of the Army Eisenhower was denied permission by President Roosevelt to remove a problem named Charles de Gaulle by shooting him, this deputy director of the OSS herewith denies you permission to remove a problem named Colonel Richmond C. Flowers by shooting or any other lethal means.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Schultz said, his tone genuinely disappointed, and slipped his blade back in the scabbard.