by Ward Wagher
Churchill now lost his temper. “And what if I am? The Crown ceded power long ago. You cannot sack me. Only the house can. Might I remind you, Ma’am, that Parliament is supreme?”
“And look where it has brought us. We have the enmity of the most powerful nations on Earth. If the United States is forced to sue for peace with Japan, it will have been your fault. If German boots march down Whitehall, it will have been your fault. We will be a pariah if someone does not take action. So, therefore, Prime Minister, I am taking action. Your resignation. Now!”
Churchill was confused. It had been a long time since a British monarch had spoken with authority. He was in an impossible situation. He was perfectly within his rights to refuse the queen’s order as illegal, yet he would soon be forced to resign, anyway. But, if he resigned now, it would be seen as bowing to her order.
“I’m waiting, Prime Minister,” she bellowed.
“Oh, very well,” Churchill said.
He slid a fresh sheet of foolscap from the stack on his desk and uncapped his pen. He thought for a moment and then wrote.
September 23, 1942
I hereby resign the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Winston S. Churchill
He looked up at the shocked secretary standing in the doorway. “Have my car brought around, please.”
He then glared at the queen for a moment, then picked up his tumbler and took a healthy drink of the whiskey. After then, he popped the cigar back in his mouth and inhaled deeply. He blew a fragrant cloud of smoke directly at the monarch, then, without a word, he stood up and marched out of the office.
Queen Margaret walked from the prime minister’s office to the outer office and pointed to one of the clerks.
“Get Attlee in here! Somebody has to rescue this government, and for my sins, it looks like it will be me.”
The clerk scrambled to obey his monarch’s command.
§ § §
September 24, 1942
House Speaker’s Office
Capitol Hill
Washington, DC, USA
The blue skein of tobacco smoke lay heavy on the office of the Speaker of the House. Sam Rayburn had tipped his chair on to its hind legs and his feet were on the desktop. Each of the people in the room held a glass of whiskey, bourbon, or, in one case, iced tea. Most were smoking, some cigarettes, others, cigars.
“Okay, Alben,” Rayburn said to Alben Barkley, the Senate Majority Leader, “we need to decide what to do. And we need to do it right here, today.”
“There’s no precedent for it, Sam,” Alben complained. “We can make the call, and push it through the Congress, but the Republicans will be out for blood, and I wouldn’t blame them.”
“Yeah, but what else are we going to do?” one of the Congressmen in the room asked. “We’ve never faced this before.”
“I wonder if we ought to put Sam into the White House,” another said. “He’s the senior elected leader. And he’s next in the Act of Succession.”
Alben Barkley looked uncomfortable. As the Senate Majority Leader, he had always thought of himself as the senior elected official in Congress. He and Rayburn had often argued good-naturedly about it, but this was a horse of a different color.
“I don’t think the people would stand for that,” Rayburn said quietly. “Wallace appointed Truman as Vice President, so the people are going to expect him to take the Oath of Office. Since nobody else has ever faced this, I think it’s up to us to find a solution. Where are we at on Truman’s appointment?”
“We were just getting ready to vote it out of committee,” the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said. “Once again, there was no precedent. Wallace’s appointment of Truman seemed as good as anything for the moment. And, nobody expected to lose another president.”
“And with a war going on,” John McCormack said, “we absolutely cannot afford chaos here in Washington. My concern is if someone challenges this on constitutional grounds.”
McCormack was the House Majority Leader and strongly supported Rayburn. He was also an able legislator.
“I don’t think anybody in the Congress would challenge it,” Barkley said. “The Republicans have generally played ball with us on national matters like this.”
“I’m not necessarily worried about anybody here in Washington,” Rayburn said in his quiet way. “We might get a state attorney general, or, God help us, a Governor out in East Bumblefrick somewhere that decides he can’t let this stand. Best case, he’d get tossed out of court. Worst case we would have torches and pitchforks in the streets here.”
There was a knock at the door, and one of the lower ranking Congressmen opened it. He stepped back in surprise as Harry Truman walked in the door.
“I trust I’m not interrupting something important,” Truman said with his trademark smile.
“Gosh, Harry,” Rayburn said as he rocked his chair forward and stood up. “What are you doing in these parts?”
Truman pointed to the two secret service agents at his side. “You two, guard the door. On the outside, please.”
Looking less than pleased, the two agents stepped back out of the office. Truman shut the door firmly and turned to face the group.
“Something to drink, Mr. Vice President?” McCormack asked.
“I’ll have a little taste. Scotch and water, please.”
When the drink was placed in his hand, he took a strong sip. “That’s very smooth. Whose is it?”
“Oh, I liberated it from the Speaker’s stash,” McCormack said. “He’s never sober enough to realize when some of it goes missing.”
The men in the room laughed and a lot of the tension went out of the air. Harry Truman was one of them, and they were honored he came to visit personally, whatever the reason.
“Two reasons I came over here, Gentlemen,” Truman stated. “Let me get straight to the point. I have taken great interest in your deliberations over the appointment of the Vice-President.”
Everyone laughed again.
“Let me be as clear as I can be. The country takes precedence over anyone in this room, myself included. We do not have time for a constitutional crisis. This is the time when the House must put aside its parochial interests and do the right thing. I will abide by the decision of the Congress. There is no other way it can be.”
“That’s easy enough,” Barkley said to more laughter. “What’s the second item?”
“I received a note from the State Department a half hour ago. Churchill has resigned. It appears the queen has taken a direct hand in the government there.”
“She can’t do that, can she?” came a voice in the room.
“Apparently, she has,” Truman replied. “So, the Brits are going to be in even more turmoil than we are at the moment. And, for this room only, the team that the Portuguese arrested for the murder of the president were British. And they normally worked for the prime minister.”
It grew very quiet in the room. Then there were several muttered barnyard oaths.
“I knew that Churchill was resisting a settlement with the Krauts, but I can’t believe he would go to this extreme. What were they thinking?”
“Most everyone who knows,” Truman explained, “thinks that the team was sent in to hit Schloss and got Wallace by mistake. They were similar enough in build that it would have been easy to get confused in the dark.”
“Even then,” Barkley said, “taking out a head of state who was sitting down with you to talk peace just defies reason.”
Truman nodded with a severe frown. “And whoever you guys select to replace Wallace will have, as his first order of business, a very severe set of communications with the British government. In the end, though, we need them in the Pacific, Gentlemen. We need them badly. This war in Europe has got to stop.”
Everyone nodded. The Congress had been extensively briefed on the Pacific war with Japan, and there were no illusions about the difficult position of the United States.
“Wi
th that,” Truman said, “I need to get back to minding the store. If you will let me know at your earliest convenience, of your decision, that would be very good for the country. And, Bess will be able to sleep.”
Several of the Congressmen said, “Yes, Sir.”
Truman turned and walked out of the room.
It was silent in the room for a half minute before Rayburn spoke. “If that man is not the next president of the United States, I will eat my hat.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
September 25, 1942; 6 PM
Reichsprotektor’s Office
SS Headquarters
Berlin, Germany
“What is the disposition of the English team in Lisbon?” Karl Rainer asked.
“The PVDE has indicated the team will be tried for murder. They killed the American president on Portuguese soil. The Portuguese have jurisdiction.”
Rainer’s senior officers were in his office for a late afternoon meeting. The events in Lisbon earlier in the week had severely frightened everyone. The SS was quietly investigating any possible links between the English hit squad and anyone in Germany.
“They will be executed, then,” one of the men commented. “And good enough for them.”
“Have we any information that proves one way or the other who the real target would have been?” Rainer continued.
Heads shook around the table. Finally, one officer spoke.
“It makes too much sense that Churchill intended to kill the Reich Chancellor. Our research in London indicates the team reported to the prime minister. If we so desired, we could indict Churchill for murder.”
“It really becomes a question of jurisdiction,” Rainer commented. “We don’t have it. And, we would be better served to simply express outrage and send our sympathies to the Americans, which I assume we have already done.”
“The Portuguese and the Americans both, or either, will probably release an indictment of Churchill before it is over and done with, anyway,” a third officer said. “Either one has a very good case.”
“I had forgotten you were a lawyer,” Rainer said with a grin. “Could either country extradite from England?”
“It is hard to say. As inflamed as everyone is, anything is possible. As satisfying as it might be, it is pretty hard to imagine Churchill hanging by the neck in either Lisbon or New York City.”
Another of the four men spoke. “My contact in Schreiber’s office told me they heard that Salazar was seriously looking at abrogating their treaty with England.”
“Is Peter Schreiber aware of this?” Rainer snapped.
“I would think so, yes. That group over there would not withhold information from him. They are a loyal bunch. Besides, I believe Herr Schreiber directed him to pass that item to us.”
“I probably should talk to Peter about that, then,” Rainer said. “I think it would be more helpful to us if Portugal stayed neutral.”
“It keeps the venue open if we resume talks with the English.”
“Yes, that too,” Rainer said. “It is also important for us to run commerce through a neutral port.”
Rainer looked at his watch. The others were quietly amused. Everyone knew about Rainer’s Friday night dinners with the American woman. And, this meeting was running late.
“Do we need to talk about Canaris?” One of them asked.
Rainer looked pained. “Is there anything new to report?”
“No, but you instructed us to keep an eye on him.”
“Very well,” Rainer replied. “Let’s put it on the agenda for the Monday meeting. Today was mainly to talk about Lisbon, anyway.”
He looked around the table, and no one said anything further. “Very well, thank you for coming.”
Rainer stood up, indicating the meeting was concluded. He stepped through the doorway into his office. His personal secretary walked in with another stack of paperwork. There would be no relaxation this weekend.
“You are late in leaving for your dinner meeting, Sir.” the secretary said.
“Couldn’t be helped,” Rainer said. “Go ahead send the car for Miss Simpson. Have the front desk call me when it gets back here. I haven’t been able to touch my desk today.”
“I understand, Sir. I will see to things at once.”
“Thanks, Klaus. At least I’ll have twenty or twenty-five minutes to engage my desk in combat.”
The secretary eased out of the room quietly. Karl Rainer was always tactful around his employees, even when under stress. In return, the people who worked in his office made strenuous efforts to avoid increasing the strain. In addition, the ones who had met or observed Misty Simpson liked her. They noticed how much more relaxed Rainer was after his dinners with the lady.
Rainer sat down at the desk and picked up his notes from the meeting. He tried to sort out the events in his mind, and determine what the English were trying to do. So far, the cease-fire was holding. They had a new prime minister, now. Perhaps, one of the leaders could arrange another meeting. They should have been falling all over themselves to end the war, but Churchill had seemed determined to push things through to a bloody conclusion. Lisbon had demonstrated that. It was funny, Rainer decided, Churchill probably really had accomplished his goals, because it would be a long time before Rainer allowed Schloss to leave the country again. It seemed like every time he went somewhere, people were shooting at him.
Perhaps he could influence events so that the new prime minister would make a dramatic trip to German soil. At least Rainer was reasonably sure he could guarantee the safety of everyone in the meeting were in Cologne or Frankfurt. What remained was to see what the American reaction to this would be. And so far, the American diplomatic avenues had been very quiet. It appeared the Americans were still sorting out their own constitutional crisis in replacing Wallace. He was sure, however, that whenever the American reaction came, it would be unpleasant for the English.
So, rather than sorting through his own mess that was sitting right in front of him, Rainer spent the next thirty minutes pondering the state of the world. Things were looking much brighter for Germany and Italy, but history had proven repeatedly how quickly even the slightest bit of order could disintegrate into a conflagration. Some of the rumblings coming out of Soviet Russia were unsettling, and he really did not want to deal with that right now.
Rainer was surprised when his secretary knocked on the door.
“Your car is here, Sir.”
He looked at his watch and then jumped to his feet. “I completely lost track of time.”
The secretary walked into the office and helped Rainer into his coat. “You will want to pay attention to the lady tonight, Sir. I believe her week has been as difficult as yours.”
“I suspect that is the case,” he replied. “I don’t think anyone had a good week, except maybe the Japanese.”
“Of course, Sir.”
He walked quickly from the office and down the hall to the elevator. The operator eased the machine smoothly to the first floor.
“Have a good evening, Sir,” the operator said.
He nodded. “Thank you. I will plan on it. It has been a long day.”
The elevator operator touched the bill of his cap in respect. Rainer walked across the lobby and nodded to the guards, who jumped to attention. His driver waited by the back door of the Mercedes. Two 1939 Opel Admiral closed sedans were parked, one in front and one behind. Those held his security team. After his nagging about the security of the Reich Chancellor, he could hardly refuse the insistent demands of his own security people.
He climbed into the back seat of the Mercedes next to Misty. “Sorry to be late. It was quite the day.”
“I felt guilty about leaving the office,” Misty said. “After Lisbon, things are really in turmoil.”
“I wonder if, in the future, we will be talking about before Lisbon, and after Lisbon,” Rainer said. “It must have been unbelievable there.”
“I was so afraid something would happen to Herr
Schloss,” she recalled. “I never dreamed that the president might be in danger. I think it was the most horrible night of my life.”
“It must have been very bad.”
“It was the shock, mainly. And now, no one knows what is going to happen.”
“That is very true,” Rainer agreed.
“Where are we going, tonight?” she asked.
“I thought we would visit our favorite restaurant in Potsdam. We have not been there for a while.”
“Oh, that would be very good.”
“It seemed a little far to drive back up to Wolgast,” he said dryly.
“And you, Sir, are not very funny. You try being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire. At night. In the rain.”
He laughed softly. “I somehow cannot imagine you being in a situation where you did not immediately begin thinking of a solution to your problems.”
“And I solved them.”
The three cars moved easily through the Friday night Berlin traffic. She watched out the window at the early evening shadows. It was growing dark, but the lights were not coming on in the city. Berlin was still under blackout and would remain so until some sort of a settlement was achieved with the British.
“Might we talk business for a moment?” he asked.
She looked at him curiously. “What is on your mind, Karl?”
“I would really like to get some background on the events in Lisbon. The reports from our security team indicated you had a part in raising the warning in the first place.”
“It was strange,” she said, almost as if to herself. “I was visiting the ladies’ toilet and while in there a large old woman walked up to me, and told me that the front of the hotel was dangerous.”
“The report indicated such,” Rainer said. “What it did not include was a good description of the old lady. It was curious.”
“Curious doesn’t begin to describe it. Do you know what the old bag looked like, Karl? She looked a lot like the Reich Chancellor’s housekeeper.”
