The Double Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  What? Charity thought.

  “I thought you were those,” she said to him. “MTC types, I mean.”

  The other MTC man laughed, looked at Ustinov, and said, “Don’t want to lose the ambulance en route, do we?”

  Charity said, “What did you just say?”

  “Oh, nothing, miss. Just joshing. Pay no mind to us.”

  “No, I mean it. Did you just say Great Glen?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “What about it?”

  The two MTC men looked at each other, then at Ustinov.

  “It’s rather complicated,” Ustinov explained. “It took some doing—quite a bit, actually, as London had just been hit with a particularly nasty Luftwaffe attack—but we borrowed the ambulance. It’s usually in service with the London Civil Defence. The Motor Transport Corps uses it to ferry the injured from hospital to a hospice and they said they desperately needed it. But they were not aware of our desperation….”

  Charity Hoche intercepted Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens at the foot of the main stairway near the grand front door of Whitbey House. As she caught her breath, he looked at the clip of Ann Chambers’s story.

  He started shaking his head.

  “I know it’s a long shot, Ed,” Charity said, “but, so far, it’s the only shot.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But, then, I have no other suggestion. No one has come up with anything?”

  He looked at Charity, studying her.

  She was shaking her head. He could see genuine anxiousness in her eyes.

  “You’ve got a good feeling about this, don’t you?” he said.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Okay. Take one of my staff cars. I’ll bring Jamison up to speed.”

  “Thank you, Ed,” she replied, then turned to go.

  “And, Charity?” Stevens called.

  “Yes?”

  “Let me know what you find as soon as you can and if there’s anything that I can do. I’ll be at London Station.”

  “Will do.”

  And she went out the door.

  [FOUR]

  Palermo, Sicily 0855 5 April 1943

  Canidy and Nola entered the upstairs bedroom. There were two small beds pushed together. Canidy noticed the bedside table that held the moldy tea and the book that had been left opened facedown.

  Jim Fuller was at the far end of the room, near the window, which was pushed up. A chilly morning breeze blew in.

  He had the suitcase opened, and the lid to the false compartment removed. The set of three instruments—the transmitter, the receiver, and the power supply—had been removed from the suitcase. They were now on a low wooden coffee table, connected by two thick black power cords with chromed plugs. A length of thin bare wire—the antenna—ran from the set, past a big bowl with a white, glazed finish, and on out the window to the plant shelf.

  Fuller sat down on the floor, situating himself in front of the radio set, his legs crossed. A pair of headphones hung around his neck.

  As Canidy approached, he could see inside the big bowl. The mice were in it. Adolf —Or is that one Eva? Canidy thought—was nibbling on cut-up pieces of raw vegetable. The other was trying, in small bursts of energy, to run on the slick surface and getting nowhere.

  Fuller saw him looking at the mice.

  “I found some small sweet potatoes in a basket on the plant shelf,” he said and looked toward the window. “When I strung the antenna out there on it.”

  Canidy nodded.

  “I’m getting a little hungry myself,” Canidy said.

  Canidy reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash-paper message. He glanced at it one final time. It reminded him of Algiers, when the mission was laid on to find the chemical and biological weapons. Stan Fine and Canidy had had to come up quickly with its additional code names.

  When Fine had suggested that they might use Roman mythology—“There’s so much of that there,” Fine had wondered aloud, “who’s going to be able to separate it from the real thing?”—Canidy had embraced the idea.

  And so now he had just written the message using the code names for the clandestine wireless radio station (“Mercury”), for the team (“Jupiter,” “Optimus,” “Maximus”), and for the submarine (“Neptune”). The code name for the nerve gas—“Antacid”—came from the earlier Sicily mission, when Canidy had pulled out Professor Rossi.

  He held out the message to Fuller.

  “Here’s this,” he said.

  Fuller took the sheet and read it:

  * * *

  TOP SECRET

  OPERATIONAL PRIORITY

  05APR43 1200

  FOR OSS WASHINGTON EYES ONLY GEN DONOVAN; OSS ALGIERS EYES ONLY CAPT FINE.

  FROM MERCURY STATION

  BEGIN QUOTE

  JUPITER OPTIMUS MAXIMUS FIND NO SIGN OF ANTACID OR OTHER. SEARCH CONTINUES.

  NEPTUNE STANDS BY.

  END QUOTE

  TOP SECRET

  * * *

  “Mercury?” Fuller said.

  “That’s your station name,” Canidy said.

  “Mercury?” Fuller repeated. “The planet? Oh, wait…”

  He glanced down the message again.

  “Jupiter Optimus Maximus!” Fuller suddenly said. “Hey, I remember. That’s from mythology. Jupiter was the supreme god of Italy.”

  Nola had a blank look on his face.

  “I have never heard of him,” he said.

  “Of Italy and Rome,” Canidy said. “He was the great protector of the state and every part of life therein. Which, if you think about it, is what we are trying to accomplish.”

  “Wasn’t he honored with the spoils of the generals and the sacrifices by the magistrates?” Fuller said.

  “That’s the one,” Canidy said. “But one of my real favorites is that all places struck by lightning then belonged to Jupiter.”

  Tubes laughed aloud.

  Nola could not quite understand why.

  “Okay,” Tubes said, “so I get it—you’re Jupiter.”

  “Your supreme god finds it pleasing that you see such wisdom,” Canidy said evenly.

  “Then,” Fuller went on, “who’s Maximus?”

  “Jupiter looked to the stars for guidance,” Canidy said, waving with his arm toward the exposed beams of the roof, “and there Jupiter found that that name would go to the great radioman heretofore known as Tubes.”

  “Me Maximus? The greatest?” Fuller said with a huge grin. “I am duly honored.”

  Canidy nodded.

  Tubes looked at Nola and said, “Then that makes you Optimus.”

  “Optimus?” Nola said tentatively. “Thank you.”

  “It means ‘the best,’” Tubes explained.

  Nola’s eyebrows went up and he suddenly looked visibly moved.

  “I am not worthy of such honor,” he said softly.

  No shit, Canidy thought.

  “Well, you’re probably right,” Canidy heard himself saying. “But until I come up with something else—and it’s really too late for that—we’ll just have to leave you as Optimus.”

  Tubes grinned, then looked back at the message.

  “And since Neptune is god of sea,” he said, “then that’s the sub?”

  “Good. And Mercury?” Canidy said. “Your station name?”

  “Now I remember,” he said. “Mercury was the messenger god.”

  “Is the messenger god,” Canidy corrected, patting him on the shoulder. “Well done, Tubes. You surprise me.”

  Canidy looked toward the radio set.

  “Okay, let’s get this sent. Then you need to come downstairs. There’s been—how do I put this?—an interesting development.”

  Fuller looked at him, then turned to the radio set.

  After encrypting the message, he moved to the transmitter. He adjusted the box a little, enough to get his right hand to it comfortably.

  The transmitter and the receiver were nearly twin black boxes, each about ten inches lon
g and four inches wide and tall. They had black Bakelite faceplates that held an assortment of knobs, dials, toggle switches, and more. (Each weighed half the ten pounds of the similar-sized box that was the power supply.)

  At the bottom right-hand corner of the transmitter faceplate was a button-shaped key. It looked somewhat like a black plastic drawer pull on a short shaft.

  Tubes exercised his fingers and wrist, warming them up. Then he looked at the message he had encrypted, lightly put his right index and middle fingers on the key, and rhythmically began tapping out the Morse code.

  Canidy and Nola and Andrea Buda were in the kitchen when Jim Fuller came thumping down the stairs and into the room.

  He was holding out the flash-paper message to Canidy when he caught sight of Andrea.

  He made no attempt to conceal his surprise.

  Praise the gods! Fuller thought. A real nymph!

  “Tubes,” Canidy said, “this is Andrea Buda.”

  Fuller nodded and smiled, then stepped forward. He held out his right hand.

  “Hello,” he said. “It’s my pleasure to meet you.”

  “She doesn’t speak English…” Canidy began.

  Andrea returned the smile, put her hand in his, and leaned forward, slightly turning her face to present her left cheek.

  “But it would appear,” Canidy went on, “that you’re expected to perform the traditional greeting.”

  Fuller looked at Canidy, confused.

  About that time, Andrea moved forward.

  To Fuller’s amazement, she touched her left cheek to his, made the sound of a kiss, then repeated it as her right cheek touched his.

  Then she stepped back, smiled, and diverted her eyes.

  “That is what I meant,” Canidy said. “You can take the boy out of California, but you can’t take the beach bum out of the boy.”

  Fuller smiled at Canidy and quietly said, “Can I change my name to Venus?”

  Venus? Canidy thought.

  Then it took every effort for him not to grin.

  Venus, goddess of love….

  Canidy took a match from the box on the table and struck it.

  “Tubes, touch her in any way that could be construed as anything but for the protection of her life,” Canidy said lightly, “and…”

  He touched the tip of the flame to the flash paper.

  Andrea gasped.

  [ONE]

  Great Glen, England 1620 4 April 1943

  For the first eighty miles or so miles of Charity Hoche’s drive north, the view from behind the wheel of Ed Stevens’s olive drab 1941 Chevrolet staff car had been relatively unchanged.

  It had been that of a big red cross painted on an even bigger square of white painted on a big dark green box.

  Since leaving Whitbey House, Ann had followed the British Humber light ambulance that carried Major William Martin, Royal Navy Marines.

  Then, just shy of Northampton, her view had changed somewhat. As the ambulance approached a fork in the road, she saw a right arm sticking out from what was the driver window and a left arm out from the passenger window. The arms did not belong to the same body, of course.

  The passenger’s arm—that of Private Peter Ustinov—waved an animated cheery good-bye. The other arm pointed dramatically forward, in the direction of the fork, a narrow macadam lane that split off to the right. The ambulance then followed the main road to the left, continuing north to Glasgow and then on to the docks at Greenock.

  Charity came up on the smaller road, checked for oncoming traffic, and then took the turn, tapping the horn twice as she did to signal Good-bye, too.

  The one who had pointed out the turn was the bigger of the two men who wore the uniform of the British Motor Pool Corps. Confirming Charity’s suspicions, they were not actually assigned to the MPC; Ustinov had said it was their cover story for what he called “the unfortunate unauthorized reallocation of the Humber.” The burly man had also given Charity written directions to follow from that point forward.

  “Sorry we can’t show you personally, miss,” he had said. “Can’t yet afford to lose the ambulance to the real MPC types, you know.”

  The instruments of the American Chevrolet staff car registered, of course, in miles. The speedometer indicated that Charity, now on the far side of Northampton, was making about twenty-five miles an hour over the rough surface of the uneven macadam. And the odometer showed that she had covered more than one hundred miles.

  Generally, Charity had a little difficulty with the mathematical conversion of miles to kilometers—it wasn’t that she couldn’t do it; she just rather didn’t care for the mental exercise—but this time it was easy.

  A round 100 makes it a snap.

  The formula is to multiply the number of miles by 1.6 kilometers.

  And that means I’ve just gone 160 kilometers.

  On the left roadside, she saw by the sculpted hedgerow a signpost that read GREAT GLEN 14 KM.

  She glanced at the handwritten directions and confirmed that her destination was just shy of the town.

  Charity could not recall the exact formula for converting kilometers to miles. But making a rough calculation was almost easier than multiplying by 100.

  A kilometer is roughly six-tenths of a mile.

  That’s slightly more than half a mile.

  So that means I’m a little more than half of fourteen—or seven—miles from Great Glen.

  She noted the odometer reading: 42,215.

  A little more than ten minutes later, as the odometer rolled to 42,220, she saw that the roadside hedgerow had ended. There now was a well-maintained, low wall constructed of fieldstone. And, as the odometer turned to 42,221, she came to a gap in the wall, an entrance, with a wooden sign that appeared somewhat new.

  She braked as she read it: HIGHAM HILLS, A HOME TO ALL.

  Charity felt her throat tighten as the car came to a stop.

  She leaned forward in her seat, chin on the steering wheel, and peered down past the entrance.

  There was a charming grassy drive with two tracks of bare soil rutted by automotive traffic. It was lined on either side by mature field maples, the canopies of the trees touching to form a tunnel. And outside of the tall trees, running along the edge of the farm fields, a simple wooden fence consisting of two parallel boards running between posts five feet high.

  This trip will turn out to be a complete waste of time and effort.

  Not to mention most likely emotionally draining.

  But I had to try. I owe Ann that much.

  And when I’m done here, and with Major Martin gone, I can double up my effort in finding her.

  Charity sat back. She shifted the Chevy into first gear, turned the steering wheel as she let out on the clutch, and soon was slowly rolling past the entrance and into the tunnel of trees.

  The lane wound along for almost a mile. Then the tree line and canopy ended, and the drive made a large circle in front of what appeared to be the main house of the farm.

  Charity saw that the two-story residence was built of sturdy materials, with a façade of fieldstone and a roof of slate. And though nothing on the order of an estate such as Whitbey House, it was a rather large residence. It had a substantial covered porch on the front and two sides—where, perhaps, twenty or thirty people were sitting or milling about—and it looked to Charity as if each floor could have maybe ten to twelve large rooms.

  She saw that there were three English automobiles and one somewhat-battered pickup truck parked together on the grass off of the circular drive, and Charity steered the Chevrolet beside the truck and shut it off.

  She looked toward the porch and the people there and saw that her newly arrived vehicle was now the subject of some attention.

  Here goes nothing, she thought and opened her car door.

  As she made her way toward the shallow steps leading to the front porch, a man on crutches worked his way down the steps, then toward her.

  He looked to be about sixty. His long face
was clean-shaven and his thinning silver hair loosely combed over a shiny scalp. He was neatly dressed in a well-worn wrinkled brown suit with a white shirt, no tie. The right leg below the knee was missing, and the man had neatly pinned up the pant cuff so it would not drag on the ground. And though the man appeared gaunt, he moved on his crutches with a determined effort and an air of authority.

  As the man approached Charity, he said with a cockney accent, “How can I help you, miss?”

  Charity smiled, then noticed that the man had a clipboard tucked under his left arm, between the armpit and the cushion top of the crutch. She held out her right hand.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you,” Charity said with a dazzling smile. “My name is Lieutenant Hoche.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Lieutenant,” he said, shaking her hand. “Christopher Johnson. I’m the adjunct here.”

  “I was hoping to see Grace Higham,” Charity said pleasantly.

  “She’s rather busy right now. If I could ask what this pertains to? Or perhaps I could assist?”

  Charity considered that and nodded.

  “Of course,” she said and composed her thought. “There was a recent Luftwaffe bombing in London. A very dear friend has not been heard from since. I am trying to find her and coming here was one of my first leads.”

  “She’s in recovery here?” Johnson said and pulled the clipboard from under his arm. “What’s her name?”

  “Ann Chambers,” Charity said. “But I don’t think that she’s a patient.”

  Christopher Johnson flipped through a few sheets on the clipboard and scanned the names, running an index finger down the listing.

  “If she were,” Charity went on, “I believe we would have heard from her.”

  “No,” Johnson said, still looking at the clipboard, “not a single Chambers listed here. Ann or otherwise.” He looked up, and Charity saw genuine empathy in his blue-gray eyes. “I’m very sorry, Lieutenant.”