The Double Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  The disaster at Tunisia’s Kasserine Pass in the Atlas Mountains had taken place only weeks earlier. Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps had hammered the hell out of Allied forces made up mostly of the U.S. Army’s II Corps. The Germans boldly forced them back fifty miles, while inflicting huge casualties, taking prisoners, and capturing critical matériel, everything from weapons to fuel. Eisenhower eventually struck back successfully, but there was no denying grave mistakes had been made up and down the lines of command.

  “And our cousins are taking advantage of that?” Canidy said.

  “You know the Brits and their snooty air of superiority. They’re brash. It’s creating friction for Eisenhower. And it’s certainly affecting how they treat the OSS and our intel. They’re making the point at AFHQ that if they don’t say something exists, that if their far superior intel-gathering services don’t know about it, then, ipso facto, it cannot possibly exist.”

  “So if us new kids on the block don’t get our fair share of instruction,” Canidy said, “what do we do?”

  “We set up our own finishing school,” Fine said.

  “Okay. When?”

  “Already done.”

  “Really?”

  “You underestimate me, my friend.”

  Canidy grinned. “That I never would do.”

  “There’s a small place we took over called Dellys, about sixty klicks east of here,” Fine explained as he gestured to the right, toward the eastern point of the coast on the horizon. “It’s sort of a miniature Algiers, with a port, an ancient casbah, assorted buildings like these”—he gestured at the city below—“just smaller and fewer, and not much else. We’ve got four or five fishing boats and a dozen or so small rubber boats. With these we practice putting the agents ashore. And we’ll use the aircraft to drop agents in.”

  That got Canidy’s attention.

  “Aircraft?” he said.

  Fine nodded. “We got our hands on a couple C-47s. Darmstadter did. And—”

  “Darmstadter?” Canidy said, excited. “He’s here? With Gooney Birds? This is getting better by the second.”

  “Yeah. A week ago he arrived with the aircraft. I’ve got him on a very short TDY. He’s getting the aircraft squared away; they’re out at the airport, someone with them at all times to keep them from disappearing. He brought pilots with him, then the plan is he’ll head back to England, back to the Aphrodite Project.”

  Like hell, Canidy thought, visualizing the B-17s being turned into Torpex-filled drones. Not if I decide I need him.

  “Hank’s a good guy,” Fine went on. “And a decent pilot.”

  “Agreed.” Canidy grinned, and added, “Not as good as me, but then few are, said he with overwhelming modesty.”

  Fine shook his head, grinned, too, then went on, “And no one knows more than he does about dropping sticks of paratroopers than Hank.”

  “Agreed again,” Canidy said, then thought again about the twin-engine transports. “Can we get more Gooney Birds?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? We could call it Canidy Air Corps just to piss off the Brits. And maybe Colonel Pompous.”

  Fine laughed. When Canidy didn’t laugh, too, Fine’s expression suddenly changed.

  “You’re not serious, Dick, are you?”

  Canidy made a devious face and shrugged.

  “I don’t know, Dick,” Fine said cautiously. “Everyone is fighting over scraps here. We’re lucky to have the two we do.”

  Canidy put up his hands, chest high, palms outward.

  “Okay,” he said. “Just asking. I’m trying to get an idea of what we have immediate access to, and what assets I’ll have to acquire, shall we say, by other means. If it turns out we need more, I can always play the OSS trump card as a last resort.”

  “Good thing you’re better practiced at theft,” Fine said. He was smiling again.

  “Who, me?” Canidy said with mock indignation, his hands on his chest. “That’s an unjust characterization, Counselor! I’ll have you know that I prefer the term ‘borrow,’ as I always return that which I take…perhaps not in the condition in which it was acquired, but return it nonetheless.” He paused. “Unless that proves to be impossible. Then I don’t. But my intentions—like my heart, dear sir—are pure.”

  Fine shook his head in resignation.

  Canidy grinned, then with some finality went on:

  “Okay, so we have some challenges. My immediate one is finding the Stefania and seeing what they know about the status of Palermo. It’s been four days since I blew up the ship; the cleanup has to be well under way. Then I need to find out when the Casabianca sets sail again and if I need to get that date moved up. And then, or maybe before, I need to set up an SO team for Sicily, so we can run a réseau—or whatever the hell the Sicilian word for réseau is.”

  Canidy thought: And keep a low profile so that Ike and his flunky Owen—and anyone else who can bloody well spell AFHQ—don’t know what I’m doing.

  “Get Darmstadter to run you out to Dellys,” Stan Fine said. “You may find what you need at our school. Know that Corvo is out there with Scamporinio, Anfuso, and some others.”

  Canidy had met Max Corvo in Washington, D.C., in ’42, shortly after the chief of the OSS Italian Division, Earl Brennan, had recruited the twenty-two-year-old U.S. Army private. Of Sicilian descent, Corvo had strong connections—family, friends, business associates—both in America and Sicily. He spoke Italian as well as Sicilian dialects. Despite his age and rank, he was put in charge of OSS Italy SI (Secret Intelligence) and quickly manned his section with a dozen Sicilian Americans to serve as SI field agents. Victor Anfuso and Vincent Scamporino, both young lawyers, were among his recruits.

  Canidy knew that as far as AFHQ was concerned, Corvo and Captain Stanley S. Fine were the official face of the OSS here. Canidy was attached to neither OSS Italy nor OSS Algiers. On paper, he was in charge of the safe house known as OSS Whitbey House, which made him the number three man in OSS London, behind David Bruce and Ed Stevens.

  But right now, Canidy worked directly for OSS Washington; he was Wild Bill Donovan’s wild card.

  Canidy reached into his pocket and pulled out the stamped-metal fob that held the key to the Plymouth.

  “On my way,” he said.

  “You’d be wise to use one of our cars,” Fine said reasonably. “Less conspicuous, as I suspect someone is very likely hunting that Plymouth. And Owen, I think, noticed it as he left.”

  Canidy considered all that a moment, then nodded.

  “Dammit, Stan, I hate it that you’re always right. Almost always. But you know how much I hate returning something that I just borrowed.”

  Fine snorted.

  “Yeah, I do,” he said, “but give me the key, anyway.”

  Canidy tossed the fob with its key to him.

  Fine raised his voice slightly. “Monsieur Khatim!”

  The leather-tough Algerian appeared almost instantly at the arched doorway.

  “Please run Major Canidy out to the airport in my car, then take this Navy staff car”—he tossed the key to Khatim, who Canidy noted snatched it out of the air with catlike speed and grace—“back to AFHQ without letting them know you’re doing it.”

  Wordlessly, Monsieur Khatim bowed slightly and turned and left.

  Fine looked at Canidy. “I’ll check on the Casabianca’s schedule with L’Herminier,” he said, “and also, as an alternative, see what other sub might be available.”

  “Good idea,” Canidy said. “Thanks, Stan.”

  “Anything else you can think of?”

  Canidy shook his head.

  “Not right now, but you know there’s always something…and I usually discover it at the worst possible moment.”

  He scooped up his black rubberized duffel, went to the doorway, then stopped and looked back at Fine.

  “Wait. Here’s an obvious one,” Canidy said. “I’m going to need the professor’s help. Sit tight on him till I get back, will you?�
��

  “Sure. Any idea when that’ll be?”

  “As soon as I can, Stan. As soon as I fucking can.”

  [ONE]

  OSS London Station Berkeley Square London, England 1501 30 March 1943

  Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens—who was tall and thin and, at forty-four years old, already silver-haired—stood in the doorway to the office of Colonel David Bruce. He held a message from OSS Algiers Station and waited for his boss to get off the phone.

  The distinguished-looking chief of station, whose chiseled stone face, intense eyes, and starting-to-gray hair caused him to appear older than his age of forty-five, had outstretched his left hand and signaled Just another minute with his index finger.

  Stevens filled the time listening to the one side of the conversation, as the Metropolitan-Vickers radio in the corner of the office droned out yet another stiff bit of classical music courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. He enjoyed classical music. But much of the BBC’s selections were uninspired, and Stevens found himself looking forward to the breaks in the music for the BBC’s regular readings of the Allied cryptic message traffic: “And now for our friends away from home: Churchy wishes Franky a happy birthday, Churchy wishes Franky a happy birthday. Adolf needs a shave, Adolf needs a shave….”

  Stevens was not learning much about Bruce’s call.

  The chief of station’s contributions were limited to multiples of “I understand” and “Right” and a few grunts. Then, almost exactly a minute later, he finally said, “Thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” and placed the handset in its cradle. He stared at the phone with disdain, then looked up at Stevens.

  “That,” Bruce announced, “was not good news.”

  He waved Stevens to take a seat on the couch opposite the desk.

  “I couldn’t quite pick up on who it was let alone what it was about,” Stevens said. “Winant?”

  Bruce nodded. “I could almost hear him without benefit of the telephone.”

  The U.S. embassy at One Grosvenor Square was but blocks away from the Berkeley Square building that housed OSS London Station. The embassy stood near the house on the corner of Duke and Brook that was where America’s first minister to the Court of St. James’s—John Adams, later President John Adams—had lived, beginning in 1785.

  Bruce was not particularly fond of John G. Winant, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. He did not necessarily dislike the man—Winant had twice served as governor of New Hampshire and was, like Bruce, a product of Princeton—but was quite wary of him.

  He could not put his finger on what exactly it was about Winant that caused the caution flags. There were his quirks, as might be expected of such a high-profile politician, but Bruce recognized something else—some disturbance, some imbalance, deep down. Something as yet not fully developed that could—and probably would—erupt at some point.

  And Bruce was wise enough to maintain a healthy distance so as not to get caught in any aftereffects when it did.

  David Bruce was not playing pseudo shrink in his analysis of the man. The very intelligent—some said brilliant—Bruce had personal experience with the oddities of the human condition. His wife suffered from mental illness. They had thrown a lot of money at the problem—Bruce had made his own fortune before marrying Alisa Mellon, one of the wealthiest women in the world—and in the hiring of the best medical minds, and the picking of said minds, he’d in his own way come to be somewhat of an expert layman.

  Yet whatever the problem there may or may not be, David Bruce knew that Winant had a direct line to the Oval Office. (Literally. Word was that AT&T billed the embassy a small fortune—more than ten dollars a minute—for his calls over the transatlantic line.) Not only was Winant, as the Ambassador to the Court of Saint James’s, the personal representative of the President of the United States of America, he was also one of his buddies. He had long enjoyed FDR’s generosity. Roosevelt, before appointing Winant to his current position in London, had in 1935 made him the first leader of the newly formed Social Security Board.

  Colonel David Bruce looked at Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens.

  “Ambassador Winant informs me, as a courtesy, that his legal attaché has been contacted by Brandon Chambers.”

  The legal attaché, Stevens knew, was the agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation attached as a liaison between the embassy and the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

  “No doubt Chambers is looking for Ann,” Stevens said. “Can’t blame him for that.”

  “No, but we can blame Canidy.”

  “How so?”

  “Because the father wants to know how he can find Canidy. He figures, reasonably, that if he finds Canidy, he finds Ann. It did not help—actually, it hurt, as he took offense—when the FBI agent professed ignorance of something called ‘the OSS.’”

  Stevens whistled softly. “Wish it were that simple. I know Dick does.” He paused, then wondered aloud, “I wonder how he came to look for Dick in London?”

  He was immediately sorry he had said it when he saw Bruce make a face.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Bruce said, “when your daughter lets you in on a secret or two along the way. Even without benefit of Canidy’s indiscretions, Chambers can put two and two together. He’s a man of considerable resources. And, apparently, temper. The ambassador said that Chambers demanded to be put in touch with the OSS office here—or, better, Canidy directly—or he’d take his request as high as he’d have to.”

  There were many secrets in the OSS stations in London and in Washington, but the relationship between the stunning Southern blonde and Dick Canidy wasn’t one of them.

  Ann Chambers, twenty years old, had gotten herself a job as a war correspondent for the Chambers News Service. It was obviously no coincidence that she shared her name with her employer’s; her father was the chairman of the board of the Chambers Publishing Corporation and the Chambers News Service was a wholly owned subsidiary of that. The corporation also held total interest in nine newspapers and more than twice that many radio stations.

  Her employment, however, had not been a blatant bout of nepotism.

  In the summers of her high school years, Ann Chambers had worked part-time at The Atlanta Courier-Journal, making herself useful in the family business as best she could. She did anything from moving mail and fetching coffee for editors to checking page proofs in order to edit out typographic and other errors. Occasionally, she had been given short features to write from her desk.

  Human interest pieces came naturally to her, and she excelled at chronicling how newlyweds had come to meet, then fall desperately in love and marry. These articles appeared in the Sunday “Weddings” section. They became very popular with women readers—married and single alike—and thus with advertisers, too.

  And it was there that Ann really began to better understand two very important things. One was the family business: bring in the readers and the ad dollars follow. And the other was: that she had a very marketable skill.

  So when Ann decided that marrying Dick Canidy was to take precedence over her studies at Bryn Mawr, and to do that would require following him to London, and to get to London would require a legitimate civilian occupation deemed necessary in the eyes of the War Department, she had not had to look very far.

  Brandon Chambers, however, did not think women in general should be in harm’s way—a veteran of War One, he embraced the idea of the fairer sex keeping the home fires burning—and he sure as hell didn’t believe his daughter should.

  Brandon Chambers was a big man—both in business and, at two hundred thirty pounds, in girth—and not of the sort to give in easily. He was accustomed to getting his way. But when he balked at Ann’s idea, he found that he had met his match in his daughter.

  She had explained to him in a logical manner that either he could hire her or his competition would.

  “Mr. Cowles,” she had said in her soft, sweet Southern accent, “has kindly offered me a correspondent position i
n the London bureau of Look.”

  Gardner Cowles was the owner of the hugely successful magazine, as well as quite a number of other properties that competed directly with those of the Chambers Publishing Corporation.

  Brandon Chambers would just as soon gouge out his eyes than see his daughter’s byline in Look, never mind having the skills of a Chambers making money for that sonofabitch Cowles.

  And so it was that Ann Chambers had come to England to work for the Chambers News Service.

  While her dashing Dick Canidy disappeared now and then on some secret mission to win the war, Ann had set about the serious business of capturing the war in words for those back home. She worked writing scripts for the newsman Meachum Hope on his Report from London radio broadcast. And she had developed her own human interest series—“Profiles of Courage,” newspaper articles about the extraordinary efforts of everyday citizens in war-torn England—and each week had sent out a new installment across the Chambers News Service wire.

  Until her flat had been bombed during an attack of London by the Luftwaffe.

  “You are aware,” Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens said, “that I have been in touch with Andy Marks, the CNS bureau chief here. Canidy gave him my name as a contact if Marks heard news of Ann.”

  “I’m aware,” Colonel David Bruce replied agreeably.

  Bruce walked a somewhat fine line with Stevens. He knew that Donovan had personally recruited Stevens, a West Pointer who had resigned his commission before the war in order to work in his wife’s wholesale food business, and who, because of that, had lived and worked in England. Donovan had noted how Stevens handled with ease the difficult upper-crust Englishmen and had tapped him for OSS London Station as much for that valuable skill as for his military expertise.

  “As far as Marks knows,” Stevens said, “we’re no more than another bureaucratic layer for the Army Air Forces, a logistical office.”

  Bruce grinned. “Which is not exactly untrue.”