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Dulles looked at Boltitz.
“Karl, your opinion of this?”
Boltitz looked at Dulles, nodded, and after a moment’s thought said: “I’m not saying it couldn’t be done. But I can see a number of problems with it. As you would expect, refueling a submarine at sea is not anywhere near the same thing as an automobile pulling up to a service station. There would have to be large-capacity pumps and a substantial quantity of hose aboard either U-234—which, considering how much cargo she is carrying, seems unlikely—or on each of the tanker submarines. Are that many pumps available, that many hoses, in Norway? I rather think not.
“Further, transfer at sea between submarines is hazardous. There would be considerable risk that U-234 would be damaged in the process—either by collision or fire or explosion.
“U-234 does have aboard enough fuel to bring her from Norway to Argentina—a distance of some seven thousand nautical miles—presuming she cruised at best speed to conserve fuel, which means quite slowly.
“That problem, the great distance between Europe and here, is what made the replenishment ship program necessary. And, as we well know, replenishment ships are no longer available, thanks to parties who shall remain nameless.”
Those members of Team Turtle who did not grin either grunted or made some other sound of acknowledgment.
Boltitz continued: “A scenario that occurs to me as more feasible is that U-234 may be slowly making her way here at best speed for fuel efficiency. Meanwhile, the tanker submarines are making their way here at a higher rate of speed. They might be traveling in pairs, but more likely alone, to lower the chance of loss in case they were detected.
“In either event, either sailing together or rendezvousing at some prearranged point, one of them would transfer its fuel to a second, and then be scuttled, with her crew moving to the other.
“This could be repeated with other pairs of submarines, with the ultimate result being that, say, two hundred miles off the Argentine coast, there would be four—possibly more—submarines with full tanks, ready to fill the tanks of U-234. After doing so, they again would scuttle whatever empty vessels and the remainders would accompany U-234 to Japan.”
“That does make sense,” Frade thought out loud.
After a moment, Dulles said: “All right, then. Let’s put this line of thought on the back burner for the moment and discuss U-977. Most of what we have heard about her sounds like the product of fevered imaginations. About the only thing we know with absolute certainty—as Karl has confirmed—is that she is a Type VIIC—”
“Which is the same U-boot type as U-405,” Karl Boltitz offered.
Dulles motioned for him to continue.
“She’s sixty-seven meters in length,” Boltitz then said. He paused. “My apology. That’s two hundred and twenty feet. She draws fifteen feet. She carries a crew of approximately fifty, and is armed with fifteen torpedoes—four tubes forward, one aft—and a small 8.8cm deck gun. Her surface range, at twelve miles per hour, is more than eight thousand miles. Untersee—submerged, if you will—she can run only eighty miles. And to avoid detection, she would certainly run most of the distance submerged to schnorchel depth—only surfacing for a couple hours a night—meaning it could possibly take U-977 months to reach here. The snort is not strong, and thus the captain must limit her speed to six knots.”
“Schnorchel?” Frade repeated.
Boltitz nodded. “‘Snort’ for short. You would call it a snorkel. It is a tall tube that rises from the conning tower to above the surface so that the U-boot can take in fresh air while running submerged.”
“Thank you, Karl,” Dulles then said. “Okay, our information is that U-977, under command of twenty-four-year-old Oberleutnant Heinz Schäffer, left Kristiansand, Norway, to begin a routine patrol on May second. She had arrived there on April thirtieth.”
“That sounds suspicious,” Boltitz said. “It takes more than two or three days to prepare a boat for patrol. Could it be that she was made ready for sea elsewhere and went to Kristiansand to pick up something?”
Dulles looked at Boltitz, then turned to Clete Frade.
“Colonel Frade, this is where the outrageous part begins. I’m afraid that I’ve already gone on long enough, to the point where everyone not only needs a libation but, I believe, deserves one—”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Frade said.
“—but just one,” Dulles continued, “until after we have finished with the business. Which I promise won’t take long.”
[TWO]
All the men in the quincho stood at their wood-plank tables, all holding their drinks aloft in their right hand.
“In the words of Aristotle, ‘We make war that we may live in peace,’” Allen W. Dulles solemnly intoned. “To victory in Europe!”
The room filled with the parroting of “To victory in Europe!” and the chanting of “Hear, hear!”
After everyone had taken a sip of their drinks, Dulles motioned for them to take their seats.
“Drink up, gentlemen,” Dulles then said. “The alcohol should help make what I’m about to share with you seem at least a little plausible.”
“Great!” Oscar Schultz said. “Now we get the outrageous stuff.”
