The Double Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  Then there was Canidy and Eddie Bitter. They had been in the Navy together, as instructor pilots at NAS Pensacola. Bitter was a cousin of Ann Chambers—My God, what about Ann? Where the hell can she be?—and it had been with Ann at her family’s plantation in Alabama that Charity had met Canidy and Bitter. It was right before they had gone off to join what she later learned was the American Volunteer Group in China and Burma, the “Flying Tigers.”

  Now, she knew, Commander Edwin Bitter, USN, was over at Eighth United States Air Force, Fersfield Army Air Forces Station, with elements of the OSS hidden in the 402nd Composite Wing that was a cover for the explosives-packed B-17 drone project.

  And Bitter and Canidy had been Flying Tigers with Doug Douglass—who now was Lieutenant Colonel Douglass, commanding officer of the 344th Fighter Group, Eighth United States Air Force, Atcham Army Air Forces Station. He had just returned from flying temporary duty on an OSS mission to Egypt.

  Using a definition of “love” that was an intense feeling of tender affection and compassion, Charity Hoche knew that these “people involved,” as General Donovan had written, did love one another.

  And that she loved them.

  There was, of course, another definition of love, a deeper one—a passionate feeling of romantic desire and sexual attraction.

  This Charity saved for Doug Douglass.

  Doug, twenty-five, was slight and pleasant-looking—Canidy ribbed him by calling him a West Pointer Boy Scout, each of which he’d been at different times—but Douglass’s intense intelligent eyes revealed something far more.

  For one, he was a natural fighter pilot. Painted on his P-38F’s nose were ten small Japanese flags (each “meatball” signifying a Japanese kill), six swastikas (for the killing of six German aircraft), and the representation of a submarine (he’d bounced a five-hundred-pound bomb into one at the German pens at Saint-Lazare).

  And also there on the nose of the Lockheed Lightning, in newly painted flowing script, was Charity.

  Doug Douglass officially was not in the Office of Strategic Services. But with the mission to Egypt, that door appeared to have been just now opened to him. Charity expected it to happen any second—between Dick Canidy bending his own rules by letting Douglass hang out at Whitbey House and Doug’s father being Wild Bill Donovan’s number two in Washington, and now this TDY, he certainly qualified for membership, honorific or otherwise.

  And I don’t know if I like that or not.

  Because I don’t know how it is going to affect us.

  At the House on Q Street, even in the presence of Donovan and Doug’s father, Charity had made no effort whatsoever to conceal the fact that she had her eyes locked on Doug Douglass. She had thrown all of her energy into getting assigned to be closer to him.

  Charity Hoche was determined to marry Doug Douglass and then take him home and make babies.

  Not necessarily in that order.

  She had hoped that that in fact had happened back in early February—“I think we made a baby,” she’d told him lovingly—and had gone on to explain that a woman’s desire to carry a man’s child was the single most heartfelt indication of love that there possibly could be.

  While a baby had not then been begun—There’ll be other opportunities for that—she had succeeded in sowing another seed.

  Doug clearly returned her love—exhaustingly, at times.

  She was glad. But she wasn’t surprised.

  Charity Hoche was accustomed to getting what Charity Hoche wanted.

  And no damn war is going to change that, she thought again.

  Charity’s thoughts were interrupted by the blaring of a truck horn from the front of the house. A lorry horn, she decided, as it had that peculiar British bleat to it.

  She stood and looked at the large window by the tub. Moisture from the tub had formed on it, and she could not make out anything outside the window but vague shapes—what looked to be some small parade of vehicles.

  She unlatched the window, then pushed it open a crack. Cool air drifted in, and she got goose bumps.

  There, in the drive before the front door, she saw a British Humber light ambulance, with a red cross within a square on its sides, and two olive drab Ford staff cars. It was the ambulance that was blowing its horn. And there was an Army officer getting out of the staff car parked ahead of it.

  That’s Ed Stevens!

  And what’s with the ambulance?

  Someone came out of the front door of the house and waved to Stevens.

  Shit! Jamison!

  I’ve got to get down there.

  She stepped out of the tub, making a large puddle on the tile flooring. She grabbed a towel, quickly rubbed it about her hair and head, then dried her body, her arms, and finally her long legs. She dropped the towel on top of the puddle, then padded back into her bedroom, where she threw on her uniform.

  Once dressed, she felt something odd. When she glanced down at her shoulder-length blond locks, she saw that they were dripping on the uniform.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” she said softly.

  She stormed back into the bathroom and wrapped a fresh towel around her head.

  It’s either the towel or a wet uniform.

  She returned to the bedroom, slipped her shoes on, then went quickly out of the room and down the wide corridor, the fast taps of her heels echoing down the hallway.

  She ran down the stairs to the first floor. Then she went down the center corridor of the left wing of the mansion, to what had once been the ballroom. Now it was the dispensary. She entered.

  The former ballroom had been set up with sixteen field hospital beds. The beds were in two rows of eight each on either side of the high-ceilinged room. A small flat-roofed enclosure, fashioned from raw sheets of plywood over a framework of two-by-fours, was at the far end of the room. This “building” was remarkable in that it held an office for the two doctors assigned to OSS Whitbey House Station, two examining cubicles, a dentist chair and equipment, a pharmacy, an X-ray room, and a complete operating room.

  One of the physicians and a nurse were making the late-afternoon rounds, attending to one of the ten patients, when she came running up.

  “I need you both now, please!” she called. “Follow me!”

  There was a small crowd gathered at the rear of the British ambulance as Charity Hoche arrived in great haste with the doctor and nurse. The large rear panel doors of the Humber light ambulance were swung open wide.

  The only person she recognized was Bob Jamison. Most of the others were in British uniforms. Lieutenant Colonel Stevens was nowhere in sight.

  “Who is it, Bob?” Charity said, looking inside the open doors.

  “You don’t—” the young driver of the ambulance, a moonfaced, somewhat-portly British private, began.

  “Don’t You don’t me, Private!” First Lieutenant Charity Hoche heard herself suddenly snap. “I’m in charge here.”

  The driver, who looked to be barely out of his teen years, held up his hands chest high and palms out as a sign of surrender.

  “Right, miss,” he said agreeably.

  She glared at him, and he immediately stood stiffly, stamped his foot, and saluted sharply, palm outward and fingernails flat to his forehead. “I mean, YESSIR, Leftenant, SAH!”

  The driver of the ambulance was looking above Charity’s head. His eyes twinkled.

  “And might I say quite a lovely towel, SAH!”

  He snapped his saluting hand to his side.

  Charity’s eyes grew large. With a struggle, she ripped the dampened towel off of her head, then threw it to Jamison. It hit him in the chest with a damp thud, leaving a wet mark on his tunic. He caught the towel before it fell to the ground.

  She turned on her heels and looked at the doctor and nurse.

  “In there!” Lieutenant Hoche ordered and pointed in the back of the ambulance, rather unnecessarily.

  As the doctor and nurse peered inside, Charity heard a somewhat-familiar British voice say, �
�I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that.”

  Charity turned to see Lieutenant Colonel Stevens coming down the steps to the front doors with a British officer on either side of him, one in an Army uniform and one in a Navy uniform.

  The Army officer looked somewhat familiar, and when he spoke it was with the familiar voice she had just heard.

  “So sorry,” he said with a smile. “Had to visit the loo.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Stevens and the Navy officer just grinned.

  The doctor had stepped into the back of the ambulance. He knelt beside a closed metal container that was more than large enough for a person to fit inside. Its lid was connected to the main box by a long hinge.

  Charity Hoche had never seen anything like it. But then there was a very long list of things in England that she had come to see for the first time—that horrid haggis, for instance, being at the very top. She knew that there had to be someone injured inside of it—why in the world otherwise would they bring a body in a box to Whitbey House?

  “There’s nothing to be done here,” the doctor said, his tone matter-of-fact.

  “And just why is that, Doctor?” Lieutenant Hoche demanded.

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” the British Army officer added softly as he lit a cigarette.

  Lieutenant Hoche looked at him defiantly and said, “Surely there must be something that we can do.”

  She looked at the doctor as he pulled up on the metal lid of the container, opening it just enough for puffs of what looked like fog to come floating out.

  “Dry ice,” the doctor said, and added, “The ‘patient’ would appear to be frozen solid.”

  “Wha—” Charity began.

  “Quite right,” the British Army officer said to Charity. He puffed his cigarette, exhaled a small cloud of smoke, then said with a smile, “As my old friend Groucho Marx says, ‘And please don’t call me Shirley.’”

  First Lieutenant Charity Hoche, all eyes on her, did not know what to say.

  After a moment, Stevens broke the awkward silence.

  “Lieutenant Charity Hoche, may I present Major David Niven?”

  “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” Niven said formally, offering his hand.

  Charity, still not quite sure what was going on, automatically shook it as she replied evenly, “And yours, Major.”

  Stevens motioned with his hand toward the Navy officer beside Niven.

  “And,” Stevens continued, “this is Commander Ian Fleming.”

  Charity thought that Niven and Fleming looked very much alike, with the exception being that Niven had a thin mustache. They were in their early thirties, tall and slender, with dark hair and deeply intelligent eyes. They carried themselves with a real confidence.

  “Commander,” she said with some authority, slowly recovering from the awkward moment.

  “A pleasure,” Commander Fleming replied, shaking Charity’s hand. “And,” he added, motioning toward another naval officer standing nearby, “may I present Lieutenant Commander E.E.S. Montagu of the Royal Navy?”

  Montagu stepped forward. He was of medium height, with a slender face and, Charity noticed, very warm, considerate eyes.

  “It is my honor to meet you, Lieutenant,” he said, taking her hand in his.

  “Commander,” Charity repeated politely. Then, glancing at Niven and Fleming, she added, “I’m happy to address you gentlemen by your rank, but we tend to forgo the formal use of such here. Please call me Charity.”

  Niven immediately pointed to Montagu, then Fleming, then himself, and said, “Ewen, Ian, David.”

  There was a sudden deafening rattle of thunder, and from the gray-black clouds came a driving rain of fat, cold raindrops.

  With a raised voice, Stevens quickly said, “I suggest we take this meeting inside.”

  The downpour then turned even heavier.

  Niven and Fleming calmly motioned with a grand sweep of their arms for Charity to lead the way to the front door. She took off at a half trot.

  As Stevens, Fleming, Montagu, and Jamison began to follow, they overheard Major Niven address the ambulance driver.

  “Private, kindly bring the Genever straightaway.”

  “YES, SAH!” the private replied with another exaggerated sharp salute.

  [FOUR]

  The Pub OSS Whitbey House Station Kent, England 1850 2 April 1943

  The pub was a very large, dark oak–paneled room with twenty-five-foot-high ceilings from which heavy, ornate chandeliers hung at the end of long, thick chains. The pub was packed. A dull roar of lively conversation filled the room, clouds of cigarette and pipe smoke floating up and around the chandeliers.

  Against one wall was the cocktail bar, also of dark oak, and it was busy, with a standing-room-only crowd of men two deep. Opposite the bar were tall French doors that led out onto a stone terrace overlooking the rolling country hills and, barely visible in the distance, perimeter fencing and concertina wire.

  The pub’s old, scuffed upright piano, one more or less still in tune, was angled off the wall at the far end of the bar. A tall, big-boned lieutenant—who had Hungarian features, and whose left foot was in a brand-new plaster of paris cast—sat at it, expertly banging out a lively version of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” His half-empty highball cocktail glass sat on the scarred varnish of the piano lid, vibrating with the tune.

  At the far end of the room was a ten-foot-tall carved stone fireplace surrounded by a wall of bookcases. And on either side of the fireplace, appearing as if sentries on duty, stood a pair of ancient suits of armor—the one on the right with a cigar butt strategically placed (one might say crammed) in its face shield, a battered USAAC cotton-twill-and-leather-brim crush cap set atop its helmet, and a woolen scarf in the Royal Stewart tartan pattern wrapped around its neck.

  Around the room were arrangements of large and small circular tables, with heavy sofas and armchairs covered in age-softened dark green English leather. Like the bar, the sofas and chairs were filled with an animated crowd of drinkers and smokers.

  Right next to the fireplace—and the dashing suit of armor—was one of the larger tables. Seated at it were Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens, First Lieutenant Charity Hoche, First Lieutenant Robert Jamison, Commander Ian Lancaster Fleming, Lieutenant Commander Ewen E. S. Montagu, and Major James David Graham Niven.

  All were more or less still wet from the sudden rain shower. Beneath Charity’s tunic, her blouse, while already straining at the buttons to conceal her ample bosom, was just about transparent—and quite distracting. She appeared oblivious to the situation.

  “What can I offer you gentlemen to drink?” Charity said. “Some of your country’s nice scotch, perhaps?”

  She saw Niven glance at Montagu, who returned the look with a somewhat-serious gaze.

  Niven turned back to Charity and—silently grateful that it was a pleasant experience to look her in the eyes and thus avoid gazing at her bosom—said, “That’s very kind of you, Lieutenant—”

  “Please, it’s Charity,” she interrupted and smiled warmly.

  He smiled back.

  “Ah, yes. Right. Thank you, Charity. What I was going to say was, I believe we should touch on this bit of business before getting into all that.”

  “No coffee? Or tea?” she suggested, then realized she was falling back to the hostess mode she had used so well in Washington.

  “I’d truly like to get into the good stuff,” Niven said, “and the sooner we cover the business, the sooner that can happen. It’s preliminary and should not take long.”

  “Of course,” Charity said, nodding understandingly.

  She then turned to Commander Fleming.

  “I seem to recall seeing you in Washington?” she said. It was more a statement than a question.

  She saw Stevens nod, glanced at him, then back at Fleming.

  “With General Donovan?” she added.

  “That’s right,” Fleming replied. “But, no offense intended,
I remember addressing him as ‘Colonel Donovan.’”

  “President Roosevelt,” Ed Stevens explained, “just gave him his commission, Ian.”

  “Excellent,” Fleming said, smiling. “Well deserved. I’ll have to remember to send him a note.”

  Stevens was aware that Fleming knew Wild Bill Donovan better than everyone at the table knew their OSS boss.

  Ian Fleming—who came from a well-to-do family, his father a member of Parliament and his father’s father a financier with very deep pockets—had been a journalist and then a stockbroker. When World War II started, Fleming was already commissioned into the Royal Navy and serving under the director of Naval Intelligence.

  In London, during one of the fact-finding missions to Europe on behalf of Roosevelt, Donovan had become very friendly with Fleming. Over many drinks at Fleming’s club (Boodles, founded in the eighteenth century at 24 St. James’s Place, and now mere blocks from OSS London Station), Fleming had shared his views on what did—and, more important, what did not—work in covert and overt intelligence organizations.

  Donovan had been fascinated, and he eventually asked Fleming to draft a plan for what in his opinion he believed would be the most effective of all secret services. With this plan, Donovan began formulating his own structure, which eventually found its way into FDR’s hands—and became the working instrument for what would become the Office of the Coordinator of Information and then the Office of Strategic Services.

  “I have had the genuine pleasure of visiting with Col—General—Donovan in Washington at his office,” Fleming said. “Most of our time together, however, has been over drinks at Boodles.”

  Charity smiled warmly, showing a perfect row of beautiful white teeth.

  “I thought I did recall you,” Charity said in her finest Philadelphia socialite voice.

  Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens noticed that and he smiled. Her tone reminded him of the code name he and Wild Bill Donovan privately had given her: Katharine Hepburn.