Admiral Karl Doenitz succeeded Hitler as leader of the Third Reich, serving as its president for 20 days, long enough to surrender to the Allies. As war criminals go, Doenitz got a slap on the wrist, 10 years in prison. Documents revealed much later would have probably ensured his execution had they been available at trial.
Admiral Wilhem Canaris, as it happens, had been funneling select secrets to the Allies throughout the war. His downfall came when his role was revealed in the plot to assassinate Hitler. The Gestapo hanged him naked with a piano wire.
Gregorio Fuentes smoked cigars and drank rum for the last 83 of his 104 years, finally succumbing to lung cancer in 2002. He was a regular visitor at the Hemingway Museum, where he would help in the care and maintenance of Pilar.
The museum’s curator once quoted Fuentes as saying that no day would pass without him thinking about his dear friend, Ernest Hemingway. Fuentes may not have been the model for the old man in “The Old Man in the Sea,” but his was a life that imitated art.
8 July 1943: Sipriz, Nassau Harbour
The boatman pulled the starboard oar out of the way as the skiff bumped against the side of the sloop with Sipriz painted on her hull, Creole for “Surprise.” The sight of Laurete Abelard sitting in the stern provided its own surprise for Duvalier and Albert Pierre, who had been napping on deck.
Duvalier reached over the side and helped her onto the bigger boat. She thanked the oarsman and paid him a few coins from her bag. Looking very serious, she introduced herself to Pierre.
“Laurette, I am happy you have come, but so soon? Why?” Duvalier asked, while the bemused captain sat back listening. Duvalier had told him about the woman and the horrific events of the night before, yet the two had thought themselves in the clear, unknown and undetected.
“I have come to warn you. You must go quickly. Go back to Haiti.”
“Soon enough, the captain says. Soon enough.”
“No you must go now. The police do not think I know anything, but the governor—you know he is brother to their king—questioned me personally, and he did so in French so the police would not know what we were saying.”
“His Excellency questioned me about the box—the one you delivered to the house. The things that were inside are missing.”
Duvalier interrupted. “I was never told what the box contained. It was in a sealed pouch so I could not look inside. I can say this: It did not weigh much.”
“Odelin, he asked about you. Is the delivery man Haitian? When did he come? Where is he now? I said I do not know. He kept asking. I think he believes you may be the one that stole the secrets from the box.”
Coughing, Pierre stood and faced the skyline of Nassau town. “Now that there is word of Haitian involvement, we are no longer invisible, my friend. I agree with Laurete. We must leave as soon the crew return from the refuse dumps. We will set sail before the sun goes down.”
“One more thing, capitaine,” she said. “I want to go with you. The police let me leave because they thought I was going to market to buy cleaning liquids for the bloody floor. I do not want to go back. There is no future here for me now.”
“So it shall be, young woman. You sail with us,” Pierre said. And seeing the gratitude on Duvalier’s face: “This boyfriend of yours saved our black asses.”
19 July 1943: Abwehr Headquarters, Berlin
“Major, I warned you when you came to us that you would find a degree unpleasantness in your work that you would not have experienced on the general staff.” Admiral Wilhem Canaris faced the Army man on the other side of his oaken desk.
The major was Kurt Fuhrich, who wore an eyepatch and had his jacket sleeve folded and pinned at the stump. Right arm and eye were lost as the result of Soviet artillery barrage on Army headquarters during the battle for Stalingrad. Unfit for combat, he was reassigned to run Abwehr spies, including the man now calling himself Odelin Duvalier.
“Nevertheless, sir, I must protest. We are being ordered to execute an operative without a single piece of evidence that he has done anything other than carry out his orders dutifully and successfully.”
“Look, Kurt, it is natural to want to protect one’s men, but we must pick our battles. The Abwehr predicted the Allies were going to invade Greece, so we moved our divisions to the Balkans. Last week, British and American forces came ashore at Sicily, not Greece. I no longer possess the political capital to balk at a demand from that asswipe Von Ribbentrop.”
“Sir, it would be a crime…”
“Don’t talk to me about crime, you fool. You have been to the East. You have seen what we are doing there first-hand. This war has been nothing but one long criminal enterprise. The death of one agent is small thing by comparison.” Canaris paused, knowing he had crossed a line.
“Please disregard some of my conclusions, Major Fuhrich. Contact our man in Santo Domingo and give the order. The agent is to be eliminated upon his return to Haiti.”
“Yes, sir. Under protest.”
“Protest noted, major. Now get the hell out my office.”
3 August 1943: Pilar, Cojimar, Cuba
“Welcome everyone to the first and final business meeting of the Crook Factory. If you have not done so already, everyone please put some rum in your glass.” Hemingway was one who had already done so; he was feeling jovial. The crew gathered around him in Pilar’s open cockpit for the speech that would precede the party.
He said everything twice, translating for the four Spanish speakers in the crew. “We have completed our final mission as sub chasers, and the reason for that is twofold. 1. Combat air patrols have chased the Krauts back to their side of the pond, and 2. I am chasing after them. I am negotiating with the magazines for an assignment to cover the invasion of Europe, which is expected to happen in ’44.
Most of you were with us when we sighted our one and only sub. I am sorry we never got any closer to one. The good news: That’s probably the reason we’re not all dead now.” He raised his glass and threw back the contents.
“I am also sorry that Jimmy here says he will never eat a piece of fish again in this life. Here’s to you, you sorry sack of shit.” Bonkowski got a laugh as he mimicked throwing up over the side. They passed around the bottle one more time.
“The mission we just completed was deemed to be very important by the higher-ups, so never think what we did was a waste of time. It is the nature of this work that none of us may ever know why we were told to do what we did, or why it even matters. One thing is certain:
“Every one of us needs to keep his fucking mouth shut. One element of government may regard us as heroes, but if word leaks about our role—yeah, you’re all accomplices to murder—another element of government will try to hang us, and the ones that think we’re heroes will pretend they don’t know our names. So keep your fucking mouths shut. Estamos en acuerdo?”
“Si, Don Ernesto, a sus ordenes.”
Don Saxon spoke: “What about the man they arrested in Nassau?”
“Yeah, and we all know it’s a set-up. The irony here—if I may use a novelist’s term—is that the guy they set up is probably the only person I happened to know in Nassau. I was sweating bullets that we might run into each other the whole time. If there’s justice in this world, my friend Freddy de Marigny will be acquitted. If he isn’t, I think I’ve got the leverage I need with London to make it right.”
12 August 1943: Churchill’s Lair, London
Commander Fleming handed the eight-by-ten photographic print to the Fat Man. It was a photo of a letter. The fat man read the document through the reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. He half-tossed the image onto the coffee table and put his glasses on top of it.
“This is dreadful, just dreadful,” he said as if before an audience bigger than the one man in uniform.
“Sir, it’s no worse than we thought. We have been confident that Edward was collaborating in some fashion,” Fleming said.
“No, not that commander. It’s dreadful that a head of state could write so badly. One would like to think after the war that one had bested a worthy adversary, not a hack.”
“Yes, sir. Too true,” Fleming said, encouraged by the fat man’s good mood.
“Now tell me, who killed Sir Harry Oakes? There seems to be some controversy there.”
“Sir, according to a two-page unsigned note that accompanied the roll of film, Hemingway administered a coup de gras to Oakes after a Bahamian friend of Oakes had beaten him nearly to death with a brass candle holder.
The Hitler letter and that silly medal were in a box in the same room as Oakes’ body. The accompanying note says Hemingway was forced to take over the er…tactical work after our commando ate a poison fish.”
“Is he dead?”
“The commando? No he was paralyzed at first, now has recovered and has reported for regular duties.”
“The man arrested in Nassau, he is the ‘Bahamian friend’?”
“No sir, this is where it gets good. The Bahamian friend appears to be in the clear. Oakes’s violent demise and the knowledge that Adolf’s love letter had gone missing so panicked Edward that he hired two third-rate Miami policemen to investigate. We believe that was a tactic to forestall any involvement by Scotland Yard.
“The men from Miami promptly arrested Oakes’ son-in-law, a Frenchman named de Marigny, on who knows what evidence.
“The writer of the accompanying note—who of course is Hemingway writing about himself in the third person—says we will get the originals after Marigny’s acquittal, which is a not-so-subtle way of saying that Marigny had better be acquitted.
“As you may recall, one of Hemingway’s initial objections was the fact that he and Marigny happened to be friends. Shall we initiate actions to affect the outcome of the trial?”
The Fat Man exhaled the smoke from his cigar with the satisfaction of knowing he had gained power over not just Edward but the entire royal family.
“No we shall pull no strings, commander. You must have faith in British justice. Monitor the trial, but do not intervene. Now, savor the moment with me. We have delivered a most wicked message to good effect. Pour yourself a brandy and brief me on the minutia.”
Next: Captain Pierre makes a deal with the German agent. Hemingway greets the man acquitted of murdering Harry Oakes. Boston researchers ponder Pilar’s card games.