The Double Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  The four-door staff car he drove was another that the Navy had decided for whatever reason to leave in its civilian configuration—this particular one with the body and wheels painted in a baby blue color, and its bumpers, grille, window trim, and hubcaps still in shining chrome. There was one obvious modification that may have met some military standard: US NAVY had been stenciled in black, four-inch-high block letters across each of the back doors.

  He mopped the sweat from his forehead, very much aware that hoping for an assignment at sea had been a colossal screwup on his part. He realized that he had, very simply, traded a dreadful, dry Texas heat for a dreadful, humid subtropical heat.

  Not to mention a dreadfully boring job, one he was determined to rise above.

  And not screwing up certainly was one way to accomplish that.

  Lee watched the Casabianca being nudged to her berth by small tugs. Her deck was busy with what clearly were Free French sailors. They steadily and calmly readied lines fore and aft, while watchful gunners stood by the antiaircraft weaponry. A small group of five or six men crowded the conning tower.

  Wonder if one of them is the captain? Lee thought. And which one?

  When the boat was stopped dead in the water alongside the dock, the sailor activity increased dramatically. The speed and agility impressed Lee, who wondered what life on a sub would be like.

  Can’t be worse than a motor pool driver. It sure looks more exciting.

  Once the submarine was secure, a nonregulation gangplank was produced—Looks like something they could’ve made in junior high woodshop— and run from the sub’s deck down to the smooth stone edge of the dockage.

  Ensign Lee watched in amazement as two male figures—What? Passengers? They sure don’t look like Free French sailors—made their way toward coming ashore.

  The first figure walking toward the gangplank was a big man with dark hair, imposing—probably six feet tall, with wide shoulders—and a confident stride. He wore nice, casual tan slacks, a lightweight, dark brown shirt that was buttoned down the front, and a navy blue Greek fisherman’s cap. Slung over his shoulder was a black duffel made of what looked like a rubberized fabric.

  Must be waterproofing, or something that sailors use. But is that a pistol butt sticking out above his belt buckle? I’ll be damned! He’s got himself a .45 tucked in his waistband!

  Trailing the tall man by some ten feet was another tall figure, this one almost completely concealed in a traditional Arab outfit—a white gandoura cloak, a burnous cape, and on his head a fez wrapped in white cloth. He carried—very carefully, very slowly, as he apparently was having more than a little difficulty with his footing on the deck—what looked very much like a large leather suitcase.

  “What’s with the Arab and the suitcase?” Ensign Lee muttered aloud.

  His Texas tongue made “Arab” come out “A-rhab.”

  He thought, Must be a heavy one, too. He’s using both hands on that handle.

  Lee watched with rapt fascination as the big, imposing man moved quickly to the foot of the gangplank and then stopped to look back at the Arab. He clearly looked to be in a rush…and not necessarily pleased with the Arab’s slow pace.

  The big, imposing man waited till the Arab had reached him, then held out his hand for the suitcase.

  The Arab did not seem sure that he wanted the big, imposing man to take the suitcase. There then ensued what Ensign Lee thought to be a somewhat comic tug-of-war.

  This is getting to be a pretty good l’il show, he thought, grinning.

  The big, imposing man then let go of the handle, said something to the Arab, and gestured toward the narrow gangplank.

  The Arab looked at what he was gesturing toward, tentatively placed a foot on the gangplank, and then apparently understood what the big imposing man was trying to tell him. Which appeared to be that the gangplank was (1) not only narrow but (2) also not exactly the most stable of conveyances to carry a heavy suitcase across for a man who was experiencing an obvious loss of footing.

  The Arab let loose the suitcase handle.

  The big, imposing man then made a dramatic sweep of his arm and slight bow, to say, à la Alphonse and Gaston, Please, after you, sir.

  As the Arab began his slow trek across the gangplank, the big, imposing man turned back to the conning tower, where three men in naval officer uniforms still stood, watching.

  The big man then raised his right arm high above his head, made a slow, exaggerated wave of good-bye to the officers, and then saluted them. When the officers had returned his salute, the big man picked up the suitcase, turned toward the foot of the gangplank, and with no apparent effort followed the Arab ashore.

  I’d better go down and find L’Herminier before I foul my prop, Ensign Lee thought, pleased with himself for picking up seaman lingo from his lieutenant even though he was stuck ashore. He started walking—almost marching—the thirty-yard distance to where the gangplank met the dockage.

  About midway, he intercepted the Arab and, coming up quickly behind him, the big man.

  Beneath the white cloth that wrapped the fez and most of the face, Ensign Lee saw two chestnut brown eyes staring down at him. Then he saw the eyes dart toward the second man and then the fez nod in that direction.

  At exactly the same time, there came a shrill whistle from the big, imposing man. Ensign Lee looked and saw that the man was waving for him to come to him.

  Ensign Lee started in that direction, walking calmly and purposefully.

  “On the double!” the big man added. “We’re in a hurry!”

  What the hell? Lee thought, but picked up his speed till they met.

  “My orders are to pick up Commander L’Herminier and ferry him to AFHQ,” Lee said with what he hoped was more than a little confidence.

  The big man stared at Lee a long moment, clearly thinking.

  He turned, pointed at the sub, and said, “I just left the commander in the…”

  He looked at the conn tower, which was now empty.

  “Dammit!” the big man said, then turned back to Lee. “Look, I just talked with him. I know he’ll be at least an hour before he disembarks—he told me as much because we’re going to the same place. So if you’re here for that, then I’m sure he won’t mind you running us up first. It’s near AFHQ.”

  “Sir,” Lee said, mustering more confidence, “my orders are to pick up Commander L’Herminier and ferry him to AFHQ.”

  The big man made a face, then said, “So you’ve told me. And I’m telling you that he won’t mind you giving us a lift, then coming back for him.”

  Ensign Lee looked more than a little dubious.

  “Take this,” the big man went on, ignoring Lee’s look and dropping the heavy suitcase on the ground at the ensign’s feet. “We’re in a hurry.”

  Don’t screw this up! Lee thought.

  Ensign Zack Lee, in his best formal tone, said, “Sir, those are not my orders.”

  The big man looked pissed as he adjusted the duffel strap over his shoulder.

  “Who did you say you were?” he said.

  “Ensign Lee, sir. I was sent—”

  “And you will, Ensign Lee. Right after you run us up the hill. Aye, aye, Ensign?”

  The big man raised his eyebrows as if to say What’re you waiting for?

  Ensign Lee, clearly thinking, stared down at his feet. He noticed again the Colt semiautomatic .45 ACP pistol tucked behind the big man’s belt buckle.

  As Lee considered his options, he glanced past the big man toward the sub. There, naval support vehicles, including four GMC 6 × 6 trucks and a couple of Plymouth P11 sedans, were pulling up near the gangplank.

  If Commander L’Herminier gets in one of those instead of mine, who knows where he’ll go? With my luck, nowhere near AFHQ.

  And, oh, boy, would my ass be in a crack then….

  Lee’s eyes nervously darted to the big man, then to the sub, then back again.

  “If you don’t mind, sir,” Lee said, �
�I’ll just check at the boat. It’ll take only a second.”

  “Christ!” the big man fumed, then looked toward the Arab, who stood waiting almost at Lee’s car. The big man then put his hands up, chest high, palms out. “Okay, Lee. Do what you must.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lee said, his voice relieved. “Thank you for understanding, sir.”

  Ensign Lee marched purposefully toward the gangplank.

  When Lee was more or less halfway there, he heard behind him the sound of a door shut. It sounded like the Plymouth’s.

  He turned and saw that the big man had closed the left rear passenger door after the Arab had gotten in, and now was himself in the process of getting in behind the wheel.

  In the time it took Ensign Lee to utter “What the hell?,” the big man had fired up the Plymouth’s engine and begun driving out of the busy dock area.

  “Hey!” Lee shouted as he took off toward it at a trot.

  The car disappeared into the web of city streets. Lee stopped in his tracks.

  “Aw, dadgumit!” he said and looked around to see if anyone had seen what had just happened.

  He sighed.

  There can’t really be any Navy guys in the desert.

  Can there…?

  [TWO]

  Canidy, his foot heavy on the accelerator pedal, briskly wound the Plymouth through Algiers, the car’s eighty-seven-horsepower six-cylinder straining on the inclines. He aggressively tapped the horn when the mass of pedestrians—and the occasional donkey-drawn carts—clogged the narrow cobblestone-paved streets, taking care to play the clutch just right because the low-geared, three-speed transmission had a nasty habit of bucking on the hills.

  Canidy had instructed Professor Rossi to stay down on the backseat out of sight. And every now and then, particularly at the sudden moments requiring heavy braking and during the rounding of blind corners, Canidy could hear from the backseat Rossi’s groans or gasps or murmurings, these last sounds he decided being directed to a higher power.

  Moving ever farther up the hillside of white buildings with red tile roofs, the view of the harbor and sea growing greater and wider below, Canidy sped along, scanning the city streets for familiar landmarks.

  After a few more minutes, and more than a few turns, he said somewhat excitedly, “Aha, there’s the Hotel Saint George!” He then upshifted, accelerated past that grand old building that served as the base for the brass of AFHQ, slowed only slightly as he hung a left at the next intersection, then accelerated again up the hill.

  “You’re one lucky man, Professor,” Canidy called back in a cheery tone as he made a right turn onto rue Michaud and backed off the gas. “You’re in the hands of a natural navigator, a human compass, a—oh, shit!”

  Canidy braked heavily and quickly nosed the car to a stop at the curb. He tried unsuccessfully to hide behind the delivery truck that was parked across the street from a large villa painted a faint shade of pink.

  When he had set the brake and killed the engine, he heard Rossi murmur a final prayer, then a sigh.

  “Sit tight, Professor,” Canidy called back quietly. “We need to wait here a moment.”

  “Buon,” Rossi whispered in reply, his tone suggesting that he was not at all disappointed.

  Canidy stared across the street. Parked at the curb in front of a large villa was what had first caught his attention: a great big Army staff car.

  Unlike the Plymouth, this 1942 Cadillac had been completely made over with military markings, including the painting of its body in olive drab and its bumpers and other chromed parts blacked out. At the front and back were places designed for the holding of small flags and of small signage—ones that Canidy knew very probably displayed the stars of a general officer of the United States Army. Specifically, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied (Expeditionary) Forces.

  There were four people on the sidewalk near the car. One was a mean-looking civilian male who was absently sweeping the walkway with a makeshift broom fashioned of palm fronds while keeping an eye on the other three. Canidy recognized him. He was the villa owner’s vassal, Monsieur Khatim, a tough, old Algerian who Canidy knew carried a curved khanjar dagger—its double edges razor-sharp—in a sculpted scabbard on his hip just inside the overfold of his off-white robe.

  Two wore the uniforms of senior officers in the United States Army. One was a captain, whose face Canidy could see and whom Canidy knew well, the other a lieutenant colonel, whose back was to him. The third was a good-looking Irish woman in her midthirties who wore the uniform of the British Motor Transport Corps; she stood stiffly, holding open the right rear passenger door.

  That’s Ike’s Caddy, all right, Canidy thought.

  And that has got to be his driver—the one who they say he’s slipping it to on the side. Hell of a fine-looking woman.

  But I don’t think that’s Ike talking with Stan Fine.

  Must be his light bird fluky, Ol’ Colonel Whatshisname.

  Captain Stanley S. Fine, U.S. Army Air Forces, the acting chief of station of OSS Algiers, was thirty-five years old, a tall, ascetic Jew who had left his position as a high-level Hollywood studio lawyer. He joined the Army hoping to be a fighter pilot but wound up with command of a B-17 squadron, then found himself recruited for the OSS.

  Fine, nodding in a slow, measured manner, looked somewhat annoyed by the conversation with the lieutenant colonel, a tall, athletic-looking man who—at least from the rear—bore a striking resemblance to Eisenhower.

  Maybe that’s why Ike keeps this guy around, Canidy mused. Body doubles make great bullet magnets. Or maybe Ike just uses him as a diversion.

  Fine appeared to have just about had his fill of whatever Colonel Whatshisname had to say and his eyes started to roam. Canidy saw Fine glance his way, and Canidy began smiling and waving broadly like a long-lost friend.

  Fine seemed first to notice the baby blue Plymouth not quite hidden behind the truck, then did see the excited motion from behind its steering wheel, and then figured out what—or, more precisely, who—he was looking at.

  A practiced lawyer of considerable skill, Fine kept his poker face, but still quickly returned his attention to the lieutenant colonel.

  At that point, the lieutenant colonel apparently had at last reached the end of his speech. Fine nodded one last time, and they exchanged salutes.

  The lieutenant colonel turned and moved toward the car door, which still was being held open for him. He looked up and down the street as he did so. Just as he started to climb in the backseat, he noticed the baby blue Navy staff car parked behind a big truck across the street.

  He studied it for a moment, wondering if he actually was seeing a man slumped behind the wheel and napping under a Greek fisherman cap that was pulled down over his face. Then he decided that if that was indeed what it was—he’d seen his share of some strange things happening here in Algiers—it was a matter not worthy of his time. And he slid onto the Cadillac’s backseat, allowing the door to be closed behind him.

  The good-looking Motor Transport Corps driver ran around the front of the car and got in behind the wheel.

  Fine stood by and watched as the Cadillac pulled away from the curb. When it had driven out of sight, he walked quickly across the street toward the Plymouth.

  Canidy was already standing out on the sidewalk and in the process of opening the rear passenger door.

  “Once again,” Stanley Fine said by way of greeting, “your timing is impeccable and your luck apparently without limit.”

  “Was that who I think it was?” Canidy said, shouldering his rubberized duffel bag.

  The bag was all that Canidy had carried into Sicily. It had held a change of clothes, a Johnson light machine gun, six magazines of .30-06 ammunition for the LMG, four mags of .45 ACP for his Colt pistol, ten pounds of Composition C-2 explosive, two packages of cheese crackers, a one-pound salami, and a canteen of water. With the exception of the C-2 and food gone, it still held the same items.

  He offe
red his hand to Fine. “Good to see you, Stan.”

  “You, too,” Fine answered fondly as he shook Canidy’s hand, then gave a friendly pat to his shoulder. “Welcome back. And if you thought it was Ike’s right hand, then your skills of deduction remain in top form, too.”

  “No,” Canidy said with a straight face, “what I meant was, Ike’s secret piece of ass?”

  Fine laughed. “That was his driver, yes. Kay Summersby. Beautiful woman. Beautiful newly divorced woman. But that’s all I know. Rumors of Ike’s activities are legion…. So who knows?”

  “Divorced?” Canidy said with a smile. “That’s interesting.”

  “Don’t even think about it, Dick.”

  “Oh, even I don’t live that dangerously.”

  He turned to the car.

  Professor Rossi was expending some effort to sit upright, then slide himself and his suitcase out. Once finally on the sidewalk, Rossi awkwardly adjusted his burnous cape and rewrapped the cloth around his fez and head.

  “Professor,” Canidy said, “say hello to your new best friend, Captain Stanley Fine.”

  “My pleasure, Professor,” Fine said, looking up and down the street suspiciously. Then he nodded toward the villa. “If you don’t mind, let’s get you out of sight.”

  The professor made a grunt and nodded, then started to grab the suitcase. He found Canidy’s hand already lifting it. This time, there was no tug-of-war over who would carry it.

  As Canidy started to lug the case across the street, he saw that Fine still was scanning the immediate area.

  “Where’s your driver?” Fine said.

  “Oh, I expect he’ll be along eventually,” Canidy called over his shoulder and continued toward the villa without further explanation.

  Fine just shook his head, then looked at the professor and motioned for him to precede him to the villa, where Monsieur Khatim waited at the door.

  [THREE]

  Drinking coffee from a heavy white china mug, Canidy stood looking out wooden slatted French doors that opened onto a balcony. A warm breeze blew in, lightly scented with sea salt and lilacs. The room before the war had served as the primary of two main dining areas of the Villa de Vue de Mer.