The Cairo Code by Glenn Meade

Azores, then northeast to the Gibraltar straits, and on to Oran. Our ETA is nine days from now—the twentieth—Mr. President, sir. Then you’ll be on your way to Cairo by plane, barring problems.”
    Roosevelt smiled gently, the cigarette holder clenched between his teeth. “I’ll assume you’re well equipped for those?”
    â€œWe’ve got speed, and a destroyer escort. Both should prove too much for any German subs. But then you never can tell. It’s a risk we take, sir.”
    Roosevelt shrugged. “The price of war, Captain.”
    â€œWe’ll have our aircraft scouting for submarine activity, and the destroyers will be using their sonar equipment for the same purpose. It’s the German U-boats that pose the biggest threat. They’re pretty deadly.”
    Roosevelt removed the holder from his mouth and looked up, his face more serious. “This is an important trip, Captain. You might even say that hundreds or thousands of lives—not to mention the outcome of the war and the future of our nation—depend upon my arrival. You think we’ll make it?”
    McCrea considered before replying. “It’s never easy to predict, Mr. President, with so much enemy activity in the Atlantic. But then again, the Germans don’t know our plans and we’ll be moving fast, so I’m pretty confident we can get you safely to your destination.”
    Roosevelt removed his glasses and gave one of his famous lopsided smiles. “Captain, it seems for now my fate is in your hands.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    The man wore a pair of dark navy oilskins, the standard issue of the U.S. Coast Guard. He had waited for almost three hours, lying in the sodden grass on the Norfolk headland as the rain pelted down, the powerful marine binoculars resting on his arm. By the time he saw the tugboat roll through the waves and come alongside the Iowa, the rain had stopped and the visibility had greatly improved. He lay there, observing the vessels as best he could from such a distance. Five minutes later he tucked the binoculars under his oilskins and made his way back down the headland path. He recovered the bicycle hidden in the long grass, swung his leg over the crossbar, and rode away.

6
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BERLIN
14 NOVEMBER, 8:30 A.M.
    Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was an odd man.
    He shuffled around wearing carpet slippers, and his office was always in disarray. The obligatory wall portrait of Adolf Hitler was nowhere to be seen, for Canaris—or the “Little Admiral,” as the former U-boat commander was affectionately known to his old shipmates—had nothing but contempt for the vulgar and pompous Nazi leadership. It was a contempt he shrewdly kept to himself, for Canaris was also head of the Abwehr, Germany’s wartime military intelligence, with responsibility for overseeing almost twenty thousand personnel and agents in thirty countries around the world.
    It was almost noon when the young Prussian adjutant knocked on the office door in the Abwehr’s headquarters at 74-76 Tirpitz Ufer in Berlin, overlooking the Landwehr canal, and, receiving no reply, entered. The adjutant was a new man, barely a week in his post, but he was already acquainted with the admiral’s eccentricity. He saw a small man in his middle fifties with bushy gray eyebrows and a stooped back, who looked like a provincial schoolmaster, wearing frayed slippers and a crumpled naval uniform, kneeling on the floor, and feeding a bowl of scraps to two nervous-looking pet dachshunds.
    The adjutant coughed. “Herr Admiral.” Canaris looked up, distracted. “What is it, Bauer?”
    â€œA call from SS headquarters, from General Schellenberg.”
    â€œAnd what does Walter want this time?”
    â€œThe general requests an urgent meeting at nine hundred hours.”
    â€œFor what purpose?”
    â€œHe didn’t say, Herr Admiral. Only that it’s urgent.”
    A