"On the seashore, near Lake burst." Doug lass looked at her curiously.
"My father and Chesley Hay wood Whittaker were friends. Chesly Whittaker had a big place on the shore at Deal. Summer Place. I was there once with my father," Ann said.
"I'll bet that's where he is."
"That makes sense," Doug lass said.
"Donovan and my father have taken over the Whittaker place here in D.C. But so what?"
"So, no matter what he's doing, I don't think he'll be doing it on the Fourth. If you two wanted to see him, I mean."
"Damn right I want to see him," Ed Bitter said, a little thickly. The alcohol was getting to him.
"Jesus, I owe him an apology."
"Yes, I think you do," Ann said, reinforcing that argument.
"The seashore sounds splendid to me," Charity offered. "Anyplace but this steam bath."
"But how would we get there?" Bitter asked reasonably.
"I don't want to take the baby on a train. And it would take forever.
And we don't know he's where you think he is."
"We can drive," Doug lass said. "You need gas to drive," Bitter said.
"The tank in your car is full," Doug lass said.
"And there's a hundred gallons' worth of coupons in the glove compartment." Ed Bitter, surprising his wife, accepted the black-market gasoline and ration coupons without comment. But, as if he sensed that they really shouldn't be going through with their plan, he offered a last objection. "Who's going to drive?" he asked, focusing his eyes with an effort on Doug lass.
"I'm a little tiddly myself, and you're obviously in 'no condition to drive."
"I'll drive," Ann said.
TWO I Summer Place Deal, New Jersey 2830 Hours July 3,1942 Even with a priority, there had been no airline seat available from Louisville for El don Baker. And he had elected not to use his priority to evict from their berths officers traveling by train from Fort Knox northward. He had consequently caught what sleep he could sitting up in a passenger car to Washington, and it had been nearly six in the evening when he finally reached Summer Place. He was not especially pleased with what he found. First, Canidy had allowed Second Lieutenant C. Holds worth Martin III to call his parents. Then Mrs. Chesley Hay wood Whittaker had taken it upon herself to invite Mr. and Mrs. C. Holds worth Martin, Jr." to come out of the brutal heat of Manhattan and spend the Fourth of July with their son at Summer Place.
THE SECRET WARRIORS 0 ITO "I said they could come," an unrepentant Canidy told Baker after the damage was done.
"Martin pre came to the horn and asked me if it would be all right."
"You should have politely told him no," Baker said. "I was not about to do that. From where I sit, one of Donovan's Disciples ranks the hell out of a lowly Dilettante like myself. And I also thought it would please the admiral."
"And you didn't think you should keep them away from Fulmar?" Baker demanded. At this moment, Eric Fulmar, wearing trunks and a beach robe, was sitting with the Martins and the admiral beneath one of the umbreflaed tables on the lawn. "Again, El don, when Martin pre asked to speak to him, I didn't think it was my place to tell him no."
The damage has been done, Baker decided. First thing in the morning I will report what's happened to Captain Doug lass. In the meantime, I will do what I came here to do. "Captain Doug lass thought it would be a good idea if I sat in on the first session between you and Fine. In case the two of you don't have everything you should have."
"He told me to put the briefcase in Reynolds's safe at Lakehurst and start on it fresh after the Fourth."
"Then, inasmuch as Commander Reynolds doesn't know me, I think that you and I had better ride out there to get it," Baker said. "What about waiting until after the Fourth?"
"I plan to leave here at five tomorrow afternoon," Baker said. "So it's either tonight or tomorrow morning" "Tonight, then," Canidy said.
"Tomorrow we're going to have a clambake on the beach, I wouldn't want anything to interfere with that."
"Let's go, then, Baker said. "You realize we'll have to make the trip twice? Once to get it, and once to put it back?"
"Unless you elect to sleep with it handcuffed to your wrist," Baker said.
When they returned from Lakehurst, Canidy politely asked Admiral de Verbey if he might use his war room.
He then collected Fine, who had been sitting on the porch with Mrs. Whittaker, and led him up to it. "In the somewhat changed circumstances," Baker said, "I think the best thing to do is run briefly through the whole mission. If either Of YOU have questions, interrupt me. It may not be necessary to remind both of you, but I will: The classification of this operation is Top Secret Cabinet Level.
And the cabinet's access is on a need-to-know basis. For your general information, the President has decided that the Vice President does not have the need to know."
"We're impressed, El don," Canidy said.
"Can we move on now?" Baker opened the briefcase, made note of the lock-open sequence count and took out a large-scale map. He spread the map out on the table so that it was right side up in front of Canidy.
"if you will look, you can see, halfway down the leg of Africa near the E Portuguese Angola, Rhodesia, and Belgian Congo borders, a town ca ed Kolwezi," Baker said.
"It's in the Mitumba mountain chain in Katanga Province.
Canidy found it and pointed. Lindbergh's guess had been off by no more than two or three hundred miles.
Baker next handed him a sheaf of photographs: brand-new ten-inch square aerial photographs, some eight-by-ten-inch prints, which were also new, and some other photographs that appeared to have been blown up from old snapshots.
These showed a small town of frame buildings with several huge excavations around it. The excavations were so huge that roads leading to the bottoms of the pits had been carved into its sides. There were also smelters and mountains of smelter and mine tailings. There was an airfield, which looked unpaved except perhaps with mine or smelter tailings, which were often used for that purpose. The " tower" was about ten feet off the ground, and none of the airplanes on the parking ramp was multi engined.
"What we have to do, in absolute secrecy," Baker said as Canidy worked his way through the pictures, "is remove from Kolwezi ten thousand pounds of a very special cargo and bring it here."
"What kind of cargo?" Canidy asked. "An ore," Baker said.
"Please do not ask any further questions about the ore. All you have to know is that it is a dry, nonexplosive substance.
Some of it has the characteristics of ordinary dirt, and some of it is what they call spellings, which means with rocks in it. The rest of it is in the form of smelter residue. it will all be packed in canvas bags, each weighing approximately ninety pounds." Canidy nodded.
"That' s a lot of weight," he said.
"But it' s within the weight range limitations of several of the flight plans Colonel Lindbergh laid out."
"What did you say, Dick?"
Stanley Fine asked, shocked. "I don't think you should talk about that," Baker said. "Oh, for Christ's sake!" Canidy flared.
"Stan, the transport expert who laid most of this on was Colonel Charles Lindbergb. But don't say anything. The President thinks he's a Nazi sympathizer." Fine shook his head in disbelief. "The departure point will be Newark Airport," Baker resumed. "You will fly the bomber stream to Ireland, via Gander Field, Newfoundland and from Ireland to Portugal and then down the west coast of Africa, stopping here, and here, and here. To Kolwezi. There will be a crew of three. We have recruited a pilot and copilot from the Air Transport Command. They were both formerly Pan American pilots who have flown to South Africa before. Not, it is germane to note, in land aircraft. They flew Sikorsky seaplanes.
"But they have received transition training, so they are C-46 qualified, and they will transition both of you into the C-46, so that if it becomes necessary you can fly the aircraft. Coming out of Kolwezi, there will be a passenger."
"Who?" Canidy aske
d. "Grunier," Baker said. "Grunier?" Canidy asked.
"Oh, Christ! Again?"
"We hope to have his family in England within two weeks," Baker said, again ignoring him.
"That was his price for his cooperation in this, and we met it."
"He's in the Belgian Congo?" Canidy asked. "He will be," Baker replied, "That's one of the things holding us up. We have to put him in and then make sure he's in place before we send the airplane.
"What's he going to be doing there?" Canidy asked. "He's going to make sure that the bags contain what we're paying for," Baker said.
"We're going to send a substantial sum of money into the Belgian Congo with him to pay for all this. An even more substantial amount will be paid after you pick it up."
"How much is 'substantial'?" Canidy asked, Baker thought it over before he replied. "The deposit was a hundred thousand dollars' worth of Swiss francs, gold coins. The payment due on delivery is four hundred thousand."
"And why do we trust Grunier? Not only with a hundred thousand dollars, but after what we've already done to him?"
"Because we told him that it would be even easier to send his family back to France than it was to sneak them out," Baker said matter-of-factly. "And because he has been told that if he does what we want him to) his family will be brought here and he will be given a job in Colorado."
"And he believes you?"
"Well, for one thing, it's true," Baker said. "And for another, people believe what they want to believe."
"What the hell is this stuff?"
"I've told you, you're not to ask that sort of question," Baker said.
"Now, about the aircraft. If I'm wrong about anything, Canidy, please interrupt, He was looking through the papers on the table when there was a knock at the door. Baker looked at it impatiently. "Yeah?"
Canidy called. "I think you had better come downstairs, Mr. Canidy," a voice said. Canidy recognized it as the security duty officer's.
"Won't it wait?" Canidy replied.
"We're almost through in here."
"I think you had better come right down, Mr. Canidy," the ex-FBI agent said doggedly. "Duty apparently calls, El don," Canidy said, "What would you suggest I do?"
"Let's wind this up," Fine said.
"If all we're going to do is talk about the airplane, I'd really prefer to look at it myself." A Baker thought that over a moment and then nodded. He started folding the map. "Be down in a minute," Canidy called to the security man. When Baker had the documents back inside the briefcase) he locked it and handed it to Fine. "You'd better use the handcuff, Captain," he said.
Christ, yes, Stanley. For all we know, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann G6ring are downstairs upsetting the guards," Canidy said. "I hope it's something as simple as that. From the security guy's tone of voice, I am more than a little afraid he's going to tell me the admiral has had a heart attack." They went quickly down the wide stairway to the foyer.
There, surrounded by both COI security guards and rifle-armed sailors, were Lieutenant Commander Edwin Bitter, USN; Major Peter Doug lass, Jr., USA AC; and three women, one of them with a baby in her arms.
"I'm really embarrassed about this, Major Canidy," the crew-cut young lieutenant (j.g.) in charge of the Navy guard detail said. "My sentry at the gate passed them into the compound. Because one of them was a naval officer, he said, and because they said they were here with your permission."
"Oh, Christ!" Canidy said in exasperation, and then he laughed. He had taken a close look at Doug lass. Not only was his face smeared with lipstick, but somehow the buttons on his fly did not match the holes.
"You two need keepers," he said to Doug lass and Bitter. "Who are these people?" Baker snapped. "The one with the lipstick on his face is Peter Doug lass, Jr.," Canidy said.
"Doug, say hello to El don Baker. He works for your father."
"What are they doing here?" Baker demanded icily. "I guess they came for the clambake," Canidy said. He turned to the young Navy officer of the guard.
"I can't say there's no harm done," he said.
"But they're not dangerous. You can let the white hats go."
"None of these people are to leave the grounds without my specific permission," Baker said. "Until I'm relieved, El don-and you don't have the authority to do that-I'm in charge. Which means you issue orders through me," Canidy said. Then he looked at the others.
"But he's right. I'm sorry; now that you're here, you'll have to stay here until they decide what to do with you. "Sounds fine to me, Dick," Douglas said.
"You said something about a clambake?"
"Baker, why don't you get on the phone and tell Captain Doug lass about our guests," Canidy said, laughing.
"I know you're dying to do that. @)
Baker walked quickly into the library.
Canidy looked at the others. Sarah Child Bitter seemed close to tears.
Commander Bitter, Canidy thought, looked as if he has just farted in church. "The first thing we have to do is get everybody bedded down," Canidy ordered.
"All right, lady prisoners, follow me. There's a butler around here someplace, and we'll get him to bed you down. The male prisoners will find the bar to the right."
THREE Summer Place Deal, New Jersey 1005 Hours July 4, 1942
As his Packard rolled past the sailor guarding the private road to the Whittaker estate, Colonel William J. Donovan wanted to believe the affair at Summer Place was something like The Marx Brothers at the Seashore-because he thought it was so real, so immediate, and the security implications were so monumental that his mind couldn't take it all in. It was proving impossible on a bright Fourth of July, in your own car with your wife sitting beside you, riding up to a house and friends you knew well, to see a bona fide threat not only to the coming amphibious landing on the North Coast of Africa but to the Army Air Corps' plans for the bombardment of Germany, and even to the development of the weapon that might, very likely, decide the outcome of the war.
When they approached the house, they told the chauffeur to go around to the front. The chauffeur was a former FBI agent who had a.3 8 in a shoulder holster. There was a Thompson.45 ACP machine pistol on the floorboard. Donovan himself carried a.32 Colt Automatic pistol with a silencer-on his belt. He had not taken off his seersucker jacket, because he knew the sight of the pistol disturbed Ruth. As the car rolled to a stop before the broad stairway, he saw three groups of people. Sitting at umbrella ed tables on the lawn were an extraordinarily handsome collection of young people. He recognized Canidy, Jimmy Whittaker, and young Doug lass. The other men, a Navy lieutenant commander and two handsome, muscular young men wearing swim trunks and bathrobes, were obviously Bitter, young Martin, and the very interesting Eric Fulmar. Three young women were with them. One of them held a baby on her lap. On each of the tables were pitchers of iced tea, and a galvanized tub was sitting on the grass full of ice and beer.
Donovan thought that it was significant that Canidy was on the lawn with the intruders and not with one of the two groups that had formed on the porch. The group on the right was made up of Vice Admiral d'escadre de Verbey; his staff; their hostess, Mrs. Barbara Whittaker; and Mr. and Mrs. C. Holds worth Martin, Jr. Two silver wine buckets held a half-dozen towel-wrapped bottles. Probably champagne, Donovan thought.
On the left-with an iced-tea pitcher-sat "the forces of shamed righteousness": Captain Peter Doug lass, Sr."
USN; a Navy commander and a young lieutenant (obviously these two were officers from the Lakehurst guard detail); Mr. El don C. Baker; Miss Cynthia Chenowith; and Captain Stanley S. Fine, USA AC. Donovan thought it was especially interesting that Fine sat with Doug lass, Baker, and the others. Captain Peter Doug lass had the night before accepted full responsibility for what had happened and had offered his resignation.
Donovan had no intention of accepting it, but when he glanced at Doug lass's crestfallen face he realized that Doug lass had imagined the worst possible scenario for the situation. To judge by his face, Bak
er simply looked angry. Cynthia Chenowith seemed embarrassed and ashamed.
The two Navy officers had faces Donovan recognized from his own military service: The big brass hat has just arrived, and there is no telling what will happen next. Fine, as always, was a lawyer, privy to the mess before the bar but not personally involved in it. Donovan suppressed a smile when the young lieutenant, carried away as the big brass hat started up the stairs, came to attention and saluted. That triggered an automatic reflex from the other officers on the porch, They all saluted, even the admiral. "Good morning Donovan said as he reached the top. He offered his hand to Doug lass and Baker, introduced himself to the other naval officers, smiled at Cynthia, and then took Ruth's arm and crossed the porch to where Barbara Whittaker and her group waited.
W E B Griffin - Men at War 2 - Secret Warriors Page 21
