The 34th Degree

33

P resident Franklin D. Roosevelt sat at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House, reaching for a fresh cigarette while he listened to Donovan on the phone. When he hung up, he placed the cigarette at the end of a long holder and looked across at Churchill. “They’ve just taken off, Mr. Prime Minister.”

“Andros should be in Bern by tomorrow night,” said Churchill, puffing away on his Havana. He offered the president a light.

Roosevelt inhaled and then released a stream of smoke. “Dulles is in for quite a shock when he gets the news that Andros is coming. So what happens now?”

“A lot depends on how things go in Bern, Mr. President. But I expect Andros to be in Athens by the time I arrive in Algiers next week to meet with General Eisenhower. At that point, things are wide open.”

Roosevelt nodded his understanding. “Our first American in Greece,” he noted. “I should have liked very much to have met him.”

Churchill grunted. “He has his own reasons for going. If we wrapped it up in the Stars and Stripes, he’d be more suspicious than ever.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Roosevelt swiveled his wheelchair around and wheeled himself to the window. “He suspects nothing, then?”

“About the Sicily invasion and why we really want the Maranatha text? No,” said Churchill. “If anything, he believes we’re about to invade Greece.”

“Which is what you want him to believe,” said Roosevelt at the window, staring out as he smoked.

“The important thing is to ensure the Germans still believe the target of the Allied invasion is Greece,” Churchill insisted. “If Andros can steal the Maranatha text before von Berg compares it to our fake, I will be delighted.”

“But if he can’t?” Roosevelt swiveled around in the chair. “If Andros is caught?”

“Then his attempt to steal the Maranatha text, together with Captain Whyte’s efforts to increase Greek partisan activity, can only reinforce Hitler’s fears that Greece is about to be invaded.”

“I see, Mr. Prime Minister,” said Roosevelt thoughtfully. “So you expect Andros to fail.”

“Counting on it, I’m sorry to say,” Churchill confessed. “That calculating know-it-all Prestwick even worked out the chances of Andros fulfilling his mission statistically. There are three chances in ten that Andros will be incapacitated before even arriving in Athens: His plane could be shot down in the Mediterranean, something screwy could happen in Switzerland, that sort of thing. If he does make it to Athens, there’s one chance in three that he’ll be found out and captured. If he’s captured, there’s one chance in two that he’ll be interrogated by the Gestapo.”

“But in his case, the rules don’t apply,” Roosevelt said. “The Nazis know he’s coming. So he really has no chance, does he?”

“Not really,” concluded Churchill as he put out his Havana. “But it’s better for one man to die than millions.”