“What did you say your name was?” Frade asked.
“Stevenson. Supervisory Special Agent Jerome T. Stevenson.”
“Well, Jerome, Boy Scout’s Honor, I didn’t bring a half million dollars from anywhere. Where’d you get that? What was I supposed to be going to do with all that money? And what makes you think I’m a colonel?”
“You’re going to have to turn us loose sooner or later, Colonel Frade,” Stevenson said.
“That, or shoot you for interfering with an OSS operation,” Frade said.
“Smuggling Nazis into Argentina is an OSS operation? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?”
“So, that’s what this is all about. What else did that asshole Flowers tell you?”
He saw the look on Stevenson’s face.
Bingo! Flowers is the one who ran off at the mouth.
Stevenson said: “You’re denying that you are assisting in the escape of Nazis to Argentina?”
Frade replied: “Supervisory Secret Service Agent Stevenson, say hello to OSS Special Agent Stein. Show Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson your credentials, Siggie.”
Stein produced his spurious OSS credentials and showed them to Stevenson.
“Now, Jerome, if I told you that Stein is a devout, practicing Hebrew who lost many members of his family to the concentration camp ovens after he barely got out of the Third Reich alive, what would you say the odds are that Siggie would be helping Nazis escape to anywhere?”
Stevenson, who looked more than a little confused, didn’t reply.
“Rephrasing the question, Jerome. What would you say the odds are that Special Agent Stein adds a certain enthusiasm to his present tasks that a non-Jew simply couldn’t muster?”
“You’re suggesting that what you’re doing is stopping Nazis from escaping?”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’m telling you that. And what it looks like to me is that you and your pal here are about to screw things up for us. The Secret Service was not on the list of cooperating agencies that SHAEF gave me. Which makes me suspect that you’re not telling me the truth, Jerome, which naturally makes me wonder what the hell the truth is.”
“The truth, Colonel Frade,” Stevenson said, “is that we have been sent here by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to prevent Nazis from escaping to South America.”
“Then why didn’t SHAEF tell me that?”
Stevenson didn’t answer.
“SHAEF doesn’t know Morgenthau sent you? Is that what you’re telling me—or not telling me, as the case may be?”
Again, Stevenson didn’t answer directly. He instead said, “Colonel Frade, when OSS has been disbanded, as I’m sure you know it is about to be, it would be in your interest to have friends in the Secret Service.”
“The OSS is about to be disbanded? I never heard that.”
“Take my word on it,” Stevenson said. “You’re about to be homeless, and it is not wise for homeless people to interfere with Secretary Morgenthau.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want to interfere with Secretary Morgenthau. So I’ll tell you what I am going to do: I’m going to move this problem up the chain of command. Do you know what that means?”
Again, Stevenson didn’t reply.
“What that means, Jerome, is that we’re going to wait here for my boss. He’s pretty far up the chain of command at SHAEF, and he’s in charge of keeping Nazis from escaping to South America. Maybe he knows something I don’t.”
Stevenson said nothing.
“He should be here in just a few minutes,” Frade said. “And while we’re waiting, Jerome, I think you and your pal should take off your shoes and socks and your trousers and underpants.”
“What?” Stevenson demanded incredulously.