W E B Griffin - Men at War 2 - Secret Warriors

by Secret Warriors(Lit)

  Colonel William J. Donovan was not surprised at Dick Canidy's reaction when he went to Canidy's room-actually a small apartment over the boathouse-and told him that he had decided it would be a mistake to put everybody on ice. From the tone of Canidy's "Yes, Sir," Donovan understood that Canidy had already put himself in Donovan's shoes, considered the possible options, and reached the decision that Donovan would most likely come to. "That's all you've got to say? No questions?"

  "All sorts of questions," Canidy said.

  "How are you going to handle Baker? How are you going to handle the Chambers girl? And that bird brained friend of hers, Charity Hoc he?

  Canidy is either more artfully deceitful than I believe or he really has no idea how Ann Chambers feels about him "I've spoken to the Chambers girl," Donovan said.

  "She's very much like her father. Once she understands how important it is to protect the secrecy of what we're doing, it wouldn't enter her mind to endanger that by writing about it."

  "The Chambers newspapers ran Drew Pearson's "Donovan's Dilettantes' column," Canidy said.

  "Brandon Chambers reserves the right to read Pearson's columns before they run in his newspapers. He has killed dozens of them that I know about. I can only assume that Chambers decided that whatever I'm doing, I'm not providing a haven for well-bred draft dodgers, and thus there was no question of national security involved."

  "Hmmm," Canidy grunted thoughtfully. "Or he believed Pearson," Donovan said, chuckling, "and decided to publish that piece as his patriotic duty. It's even possible that he understood I would actually be pleased by such a story, because it would divert attention from what we're really doing." Canidy laughed at that. He knew Brandon Chambers enough to see that Donovan might be right about that. "In any event, I'm going to arrange to have a meal with him to express my appreciation for his discretion. I don't think we have anything to worry about with the Chamberses, pre or fille. Canidy nodded.

  "And the birdbrain? "We're going to offer Miss Hoc he," Donovan said, "whose father, incidentally, is also a friend of mine, summer employment."

  "Summer employment? Doing what?" Canidy asked, surprised. "Working at the house on Q Street, where she can relieve many of Cynthia's housekeeping chores. Cynthia can meanwhile keep an eye on her."

  "I don't know how to say this tactfully, Colonel," Canidy said, "but do you understand how outraged Baker is?"

  "I understand that he holds you in contempt, Dick," Donovan said.

  "Perhaps even more than he holds me in at this moment. But I have a plan which will, I hope, make him come to see me as profoundly wise and sound of judgment."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "I'm going to promote him," Donovan said. Canidy laughed.

  "To what?"

  "Director of recruitment and training for the OSS," Donovan said. "I don't know what that means," Canidy said. "Just what it sounds like," Donovan said.

  "Since Baker devoutly believes that we have been recruiting the wrong kind of people for the OSS, I'm going to let him handle the recruiting.

  It's been taking too much of Pete Doug lass's time anyway."

  "I mean, what the hell is this "OSS'? What's it got to do with us?

  "You mean you don't know?"

  "I've seen it on paperwork," Canidy said.

  "They're now going to pay for our purchase orders, but I don't know who, or what, it is."

  "Well, I can't imagine why no one has told you just who and what the OSS is," Donovan said, smiling.

  "Maybe Baker decided you didn't have the need to know. It happened three weeks ago." He opened his briefcase and searched through it.

  "I'm sure I had it in here," he sai.

  "It's r my personal file." He searched a moment more, then said, "Here it is." He handed Canidy a single sheet of crisp white paper:

  ORDER 06pk 2 of 3

  Strategic Services By virtue of the all vested in me as President of the United States and as Commander 'in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, it is ordered as fbllows@

  1. The Office of the Coordinator of Ttifopmation, established by Order of July 11, 1941, exclusive of the foreign information ities transferred to the Office of war Information by Executive Order of June 13, 1942, shall hereafter be known as the Office of Strategic Services, and is hereby transferred to the jurisdiction of the United states Joint Chiefs of Staff. 2. The Office of Strategic Services shall perform file follow dutiesa. Collect and analyze such strategic information as may be required by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. b. Plan and operate such. special services as may be directed by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. 3. At the head of the Office of Strategic Services shall be a Director of Strategic Services who shall be appointed by the President and who shall perform his duties under the direction and supervision of United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  4. William J. Donovan is hereby appointed as Director of Strategic U Services.

  5. The order of July I 1, 1941, is hereby revo in Chief "So you're now under the Joint Chiefs," Canidy said.

  "Read that very carefully," Donovan said.

  "And start thinking 'we,' Dick.

  After a moment, Canidy said, "I always wondered how you managed to get away with being a free agent. Military and Naval Intelligence must think you're an interloper on their sacred preserve."

  "I'm afraid they do," Donovan said.

  "But ONI and G-2 are under the Chief of Naval Operations and the Army Chief of Staff."

  "Who are under the Joint Chiefs," Canidy said.

  "Who are under the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Donovan said. "So if there is any complaint about us, it has to pass through two levels of the military hierarchy."

  "And you're not worried about the Chairman? Isn't he going to naturally side with the brass hats?"

  "No," Donovan said.

  "Despite what you might have heard, Admiral Leahy and I agree far more often than we disagree. And besides, I'm sure he has drawn the correct inference from the fact that not only was he not given the right to pick the director of the OSS, he wasn't even asked for a suggestion.

  Canidy chuckled.

  "I get the point."

  "That's about as much of a blanket authority as I think anyone could get under the existing bureaucracy," Donovan said.

  "It's more, frankly, than I thought I was going to get."

  "Does it come with money, too?"

  "Whenever possible, we're going to draw our funds from the non accountable funds allocated to the Joint Chiefs. If it's not there, we can get what we need from the President's discretionary funds. That airplane of yours, for example, will be charged against the Joint Chiefs. The money we're spending on the African flight operation is coming from the President."

  " Interesting. "Getting back to Baker," Donovan said.

  "We're about to start recruiting people on a large scale. Baker is the man to handle that, I think, and also to run the school. Have you heard about that?"

  "Back when he was still talking to me, Baker threatened to send me to it," Canidy said.

  "But all I know is that there is a school."

  "One now, more later. We're going to take over the Congressional Country Club in Maryland, and we're taking over a country place, the estate of a duke, in England. The place we have right now is an estate made available to us in Virginia, not far from Washington," Donovan said.

  "I think we can give you and Whittaker-especially Whittaker-credit for on-the-job training and excuse you from going through it; but from now on, just about everybody we recruit will go through formal training."

  "Espionage 101?" Canidy said. "Just about," Donovan said.

  "Some of the people we're going to recruit will come from the military, but many others will come directly from civilian life. They'll need to acquire some basic skills-firearms, for example-and a little belly flattening and muscle toning. Sort of our version of basic training."

  41 understand," Canidy said. "Baker wants Jimmy Whittaker
as an instructor, and I think for once he will be a round peg in a round hole. And young Martin, too."

  "You mean to go through the school, don't you? Not as an instructor?

  "Martin was commissioned when he finished basic training," Donovan said.

  "From then on, he's been at either Fort Bragg or Fort Benning working with the people developing parachute operations. He's actually something of an expert. He's made sixty or seventy jumps, many at night, and he's spent a lot of time learning how to drop cargo by parachute."

  "I thought he was involved with us because he knew Fulmar-and because of his father," Canidy said. "That, too," Donovan said.

  "If you need him to deal with Fulmar, he'll be available. Or just go get him. There's an airfield on the estate." He dipped into his briefcase again and came up with an Esso road map. On it was marked a surprisingly large area about thirty miles from the District of Columbia.

  "The field was a private strip," Donovan said.

  "And is not, I understand, on FAA aerial charts. Can you find it from that?"

  "I can find it, but will it take the Beech?"

  "I'm sure it will," Donovan said.

  "I was once picked up there in a DC-3."

  "I can find it," Canidy said, making a careful mental note of where the estate was in relation to Washington. "Can you get everybody in the Beech?"

  "Who's everybody?" it Baker, Cynthia, the two Doug lasses, your friend Bitter, Jimmy Whittaker, and young Martin."

  "Yeah," Canidy said after thinking it over.

  "To this place in the country, you mean?"

  "No. To Anacostia. Doug lass can arrange to get them to the estate in the morning" "You're talking about right now?"

  "I heard something about a clambake," Donovan said. "I'm responsible for that," Canidy said.

  "Guarding this place is really lousy duty for the white hats. I feel sorry for them. I thought they would probably like a clambake, and I showed them what had to be done."

  "A pit on the beach?" Donovan asked.

  "Lobsters? Clams? Corn on the cob? Beer?"

  "The works," Canidy said. "Who's paying for the beer and lobster?"

  "I am."

  "Well, turn in a voucher for it." Canidy was surprised.

  "Thank you," he said. "You won't get to drink any of the beer, since you'll be flying, but I can't see any point in letting all that food go to waste by sending everybody to Washington right now. And Mrs. Donovan and I love clambakes."

  "Considering what I feared was going to happen to me, I can cheerfully do without the beer," Canidy said. Donovan nodded. "How close was I to St. Elizabeth's, Colonel?" Canidy asked. "It was a close call, Dick," Donovan said.

  "As close as I've made lately. I hope it was a good call.

  THE SECRET WARRIORS 0 a0l "Yeah," Canidy said after a moment, thoughtfully, but as if he was thinking of someone else.

  "So do I." As Donovan began to move toward the door, Canidy asked, "What about Bitter's wife and the birdbrain?"

  "I'll have Ann Chambers drive their car back in the morning Donovan said.

  "If she thinks that's too much to ask of her, you can see about getting someone to drive the car."

  "Oh, she can drive it," Canidy said.

  "She can even fly. I mean, really. Not just a Piper Cub. She's got a commercial ticket, an instrument rating, and five hundred-odd hours.

  She's really a very capable young woman."

  "Not bad-looking, either," Donovan said. "Yeah," Canidy said noncommittally. Maybe it's chemical, Donovan thought. Maybe as there is a chemical attraction between young people of opposite sexes, there is also a chemical repulsion. Obviously, Ann Chambers does not ring bells in Dick Canidy.

  TWO I Summer Place Deal, New Jersey 0015 Hours July 5, 1942

  Ann Chambers had not been asleep, although she had pretended to be when Charity had finally, about eleven, returned to their room. Charity had been spending considerable time with Doug Doug lass in Canidy's room above the boathouse during the clambake. And Ann-in her current state of mind-did not want to listen to Charity's impassioned rhapsodies about it. The problem was that, unlike Charity's dashing hero, hers, rather than leaping enthusiastically into her bed, seemed oblivious to her very existence. How could she look soulfully into his eyes when she couldn't get him to look at her?

  When the luminous hands on the traveling alarm clock lined up at midnight, Ann was really faced with doing what she had decided to do that afternoon. It was different now. It was not an intellectual exercise.

  7@

  She thought some more, and when the hands of the clock reached fifteen minutes after midnight, she finally made up her mind. She would forget she was a nice girl, a virgin, an Episcopalian, and that good Episcopalian virgins who find themselves awake at midnight roll over and go back to sleep. Opportunity knocks but once, she told herself quietly as she swung her legs out and searched for her shoes under the bed with her toes. If not now, then probably never There is absolutely no chance I'll ever get invited back here, and where else would there ever be the opportunity again? There was enough light in the room for her to see Charity clearly. She was on her stomach, with her nightgown up to her waist. She was in a deep sleep. Ann pulled a high-collared cotton robe over her baby-doll pajamas, buttoned it, and then, her lips tight in determination, reached under it and pulled the cutesy-poo balloon-leg pajama pants off. The one thing she didn't want Dick Canidy to think was that she was a cutesy-poo college girl. Though it was a little wicked to leave her bedroom half naked under a thin robe, it gave her determination. There was no turning back now.

  She went down the stairs to the foyer. A civilian security guard was sitting in an upholstered chair by the door to what had been a closet but now held a switchboard. Presuming everyone had gone to bed, he had pulled down his tie, removed his seersucker jacket, and hung his shoulder holster over the back of his chair. He looked up from his copy of The Saturday Evening Post, his face expressionless. "Can't sleep," Ann said.

  "I think it's probably the corn. I ate two dozen ears." He smiled.

  It was a friendly smile. "That was nice, wasn't it?" he said.

  "I had four lobsters. I think there's some baking soda in the kitchen."

  "I think I'll try a walk," Ann said.

  "Then the baking soda." He leaned down then and came up with a flashlight. There were half a dozen of them, the funny-looking kind they had in the military services, with the lens and bulb at right angles to the battery case, lined neatly against the baseboard.

  "Here," he said.

  "I won't need that," she said. "The sailors may be a little nervous," he said practically. "Better they see you coming than think somebody-like the officer of the guard-is sneaking around to check up on them."

  "Thank you," she said, and took the light and walked out toward the boathouse. If he's not there already, it won't be long. They left Summer Place at half past seven. It was fifteen minutes to Lakehurst, and maybe another fifteen minutes to put everybody in the airplane, file a flight plan, and take off. It was about a hundred seventy-five air miles to Washington. At, say, a hundred fifteen knots, that was an hour and a half to Anacostia, call it two hours before they were on the ground.

  Then another two hours back to Lakehurst. He should be back about half past midnight. Halfway to the boathouse, startling her, one of the sailors appeared suddenly out of the darkness, his rifle held diagonally across his chest. "Can I help you, Miss?" No, thank you," she said." I'm just going to the boathouse. "Yes, Miss," he said, and when she started walking again, he marched behind her. Ann thought: These guys all had the riot act read to them after Doug lass had glibly talked their way past the sentry on the road when we arrived. This nice-looking man had gotten the message. If I tell him I'm going to the boathouse he intends to see that I go there and nowhere else. As Ann climbed the outside stairway to Canidy's rooms, she expected the door to be locked. But the door was open, and she let herself in. Did that mean he was home already? There was noth
ing to do but turn on the lights, she realized.

  Otherwise, the young sailor with the rifle would climb the stairs and see if anything was wrong. She snapped the switch. It was one big room, and he was not there. The bed was mussed, and the ashtray on the table beside it was full of cigarette butts. Half had lipstick on them. That damned Charity doesn't even have the decency to clean up after herself, Ann thought angrily. She dumped the cigarette butts into a wastebasket under the washbasin, then searched in drawers and closets for clean sheets and pillowcases.

  She had just finished making the bed when she heard footsteps on the wooden stairs. Suddenly absolutely unable to face Dick Canidy, she retreated first against the wall, then into a closet. I'll have to come out, she thought as she peered through a crack in the slatted door, but not this instant! "Richard? You there?" a male voice called. In a moment, she saw who it was. It was Eric Fulmar, someone everybody seemed to know but no one was willing to talk about. "Shit," Fulmar said, "nobody's home." Now he'll go. Please, God, make him go!