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

by Secret Warriors(Lit)

  5 hours 7 Augu@

  OY the Naval Air Transport Command landed r the usual terminus of flights originating in Uriltoo to craft sto Ded some than taxiing the terminal the air PI from the terminal buildings. Two senior officers, the London of station of the American OSS and Oscar Zigler of SHAEF co un A chief terintelligence@ met the aircrafti TWO passengers debarked, a naval officer and an American lieutenant colonel, presumably Edmund T.

  Stevens. the new number two man for the OSS in London. They entered an Austin Princess limousine assigned to the OSS and were driven to the Dorchester Hotel, accompanied by two umnarked American CIC cars.

  The driver of a U.S. Army three-quarter-ton truck Plus a man in the uniform of a French Navy seaman, began unloading luggage and several wooden crates from the Navy aircraft Four American officers then debarked from the aircraft, entered two more Ford CIO oars, and tel were driven, with the truck following, to the Dorchester Ho Almost immediately, the aircraft was moved to a guarded hangar. It has been impossible to penetrate the rooms the OSS maintains in the Dorchester Hotel, because that entire wing of the eighth floor is being guarded by both the British (who have a man riding the elevators and another stationed in the fire escape stairs) and by the American Army's CIC@ It had been learned, however, that the largest of the three OSS suites had been reserved for an unidentified senior personage.

  Air 5 The next morning it was determined that the American is a man named Canidy, who was in charge of the safe Vice-Admiral de Verbey was interned in the United "Merde!" said the commander in chief of Free French Forces and head of the French State. ""Confirm the identity'?

  Who else do you think it could possibly be?" from our:

  Jive in THE SECRET WARRIORS 0 asl the safe house in Deal, New Jersey, it is probable that the other three officers are Captain James M. B.

  Whittaker, an intimate of President Roosevelt; Lieutenant C. Holds worth Martin III, formerly a French resident and a 1939 graduate of the Rcole Poly technique in Paris; and Eric Fulmar, a German-American last known to be in Morocco. (There is a rather extensive dossier on Fulmar. In Morocco, he was intimately associated with Sidi Has san el Ferruch, the pasha of Ksar es Souk. Although there is no intelligence previously connecting him with Vice-Admiral de Verbey, it seems logical to conclude that he is a longtime American agent.)

  The dossier of C. Holds worth Martin, Jr." reveals that he is married to a French national and was general manager of Lefreque, &A." the engineering firm, before the war. He and his wife have a long-standing personal relationship with Vice-Admiral de Verbb@ Now residing in New York City, he is known to be associated with Colonel William Donovan of the CS&

  At 0810 8 August 1942, Canidy, Whittaker, Martin, and Fulmar left the Dorchester Hotel in an OSS automobile and were driven to the British SOE Station IX. At 1420, Canidy and Whittaker, in a vehicle assigned to SOE, were driven to Whitby House, Kent, which is the seat of the duchy of Stan field, where they remained until 1915 hours 11 August 1942, when they returned to the Dorchester Hotel.

  The estate has been turned into an OSS installation. A double barbed-wire fence has been erected by American troops, a battalion of which (Infantry, Lieutenant Colonel Innes) has been encamped on the estate since 3 August.

  At 0615 hours 12 August, the naval personage and his immediate staff departed the Dorchester Hotel in the Austin Princess limousine of the OSS and were driven to Whitby House. An attempt is presently under way to penetrate Whitby House, or in some other manner confirm the identity of the naval personage.

  "The possibility exists, mon G,@n&al, that they wish us to believe that it is Admiral de Verbey. That, perhaps, the man is a double."

  "Of course it's de Verbey, you idiot!" le Gimiral fumed. "In that case, it would seem, mon GM&al," the deputy chief of the cc Deuxi&me Bureau said, that Bedell Smith has lied to you." De Gaulle fixed him with an icy glare. "Find out for me," he said finally, "why that Navy airplane is being held in reserve. Find out where it's going."

  THREE I Newark Airport 1130 Hours August 13,1942

  Three of the four men in the 1941 Ford wooden-bodied station wagon were wearing the uniforms of Pan American World Airways' air crews. The two middle-aged Air Transport Command captains had in fact been Pan American Airways pilots before volunteering for the Air Corps. They had taken Pan American uniforms-including one for Stanley S. Fine out of mothballs for the African flight. The C-46 now had painted on the fuselage the insignia of CAT, the Chinese Airline, and Chinese registration numbers.

  Pan American's experienced pilots were routinely hired by aircraft manufacturers to deliver aircraft to foreign airlines. All departing transatlantic flights, military and civilian, were controlled by the Air Corps. The great majority of these flights left from Newark. The C-46 had consequently been flown from Lakehurst to Newark three days before; the more routine their flight appeared, the better. From all outward appearances, theirs was just one more routine ferry flight. As the station wagon approached the airfield, with the skyscrapers of New York City visible beyond the ironwork of the Pulaski Skyway, a B17E passed over them, flaps and wheels lowered, and touched down. "Pretty, isn't it?" Fine said dryly.

  "Four engines, too."

  "Oh ye of little faith!" Homer Wilson, the older of the two ex-PAA pilots, chuckled.

  Once they had shown their papers to the guard and been passed inside the fence, they drove past long rows of B-17Es sitting on parking ramps.

  Sometimes as many as a hundred B-17s left Newark every day for ngland.

  The details of these ferry flights had been explained during one E of their briefings-an operation Fine thought remarkably casual. They simply formed up flights of twenty or twenty-five aircraft. Two of the planes in each flight had pilots and navigators familiar with the route qualified people who did nothing but fly back and forth across the Atlantic. The rest of the flight just followed the leaders. The trip was in two legs, first to Gander Field, in Newfoundland, and then across the Atlantic to Prest wick Field, Scotland. They drove to a Quonset hut with a "Transient Flight Crews Report Here" sign nailed above its door.

  The hut was jammed with Air Corps fliers, officers and enlisted men, almost all of them carrying Val-Pa ks and duffel bags, Some of them, Fine thought, were behaving like a high-school football team en route to a game. A few others, the brighter ones-or perhaps those who weren't so new to this sot of thing-sat quietly and thoughtfully, as if they knew what they were getting into and were considering their chances of living through it. There were a harassed-looking captain and several sergeants behind a small counter The officer spotted the civilians. "You're the CAT guys?" he asked. "Right," Fine said. The captain flipped through sheets of paper on a clipboard and pulled one loose and handed it to Fine. "They took it out of the hangar," he said.

  "It's on the parking ramp, way down at the end. You got wheels?" Fine nodded." When you've checked it over, come back here," the captain said, and we'll see about getting you off."

  The C-46, surprisingly, looked larger than the B-17E parked next to it.

  It was in fact a larger airplane, even though it had only two engines to the B-17E's four.

  As they were walking around it, starting the preflight check, a B-17E on its landing approach came over them at fifty feet, the noise of its throttled-back engines deafening.

  They found a work stand, manhandled it into place, and removed the inspection plates on the port engine while the B- 17E taxied up the ramp, turned, and parked beside them.

  "I am lo sing my mind," Homer Wilson said.

  "If the kid in the left seat of that thing is a day older than sixteen, I'm Eddie Rickenbacker. Fine looked up but couldn't see anything. By the time they finished inspecting the engine and were pushing the platform around the nose to the other engine, the B-17E crew had shut the airplane down, done the paperwork, and climbed out. They were standing by the nose, waiting for a ride down the parking ramp.

  "You're right," Fine said incredulously, "that's a boy. They're both boys! " "No,
I'm not," one of the B-17E pilots said to him, shaking her head.

  Her hair, which she had had pinned up, came loose and fell across her shoulders. "We're WASPS."

  "I'm afraid to ask what that is," Homer Wilson said. "Women Auxiliary Service Pilots," she said.

  "We ferry these from the factory." She nodded at the C-46.

  "I thought they were flying these over from the West Coast."

  "Not this one," Wilson said.

  "If somebody with fifteen hundred hours-plus of multi engine time wanted a job with CAT," she said, "who could she ask?"

  "There's an office in Rockefeller Center," Wilson said.

  "But I don't think you'd want to go to China."

  "Yeah, I would ," she said.

  "Three trips a week here from Seattle get a little dull."

  They gave the WASP crew, two pilots and a flight engineer, an women, a ride back up the ramp. Both the Pan American pilots seemed stunned, Fine saw.

  They were sent to base operations for a pilots' briefing. A major, an older pilot, told them, using a map and a pointer, that a flight of twenty three B-17Es would soon begin taking off. They would form up at cruise altitude, nine thousand feet, over Morris town, New Jersey.

  Then, in four and five-plane Vs, they would fly north over Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, toward Newfoundland.

  "If you can get off the ground now-within the next thirty minutes or so" he said, "the flight will catch up with you somewhere over Maine.

  A.4 j By the time the tail of the flight has gone past you, you should be pretty close to Gander. In other words, you'll have some company on the scary part of the first leg."

  "Let's go wind it up," Homer Wilson said, and they went directly back to the plane, loaded their luggage aboard, and climbed up the ladder into the cabin. There were several fire extinguishers on wheels scattered along the parking ramp, and Fine drafted the security agent to help him wheel one into place. Once he had his engines running, Homer Wilson paid no attention to Fine at all. Fine heard the hydraulic hiss as the brakes were released; then the C-46 moved onto the taxiway and headed for the far end of the field.

  FOUR Whitby House Kent, England August 14, 1942 Lieutenant Jamison went looking for Dick Canidy late in the afternoon, carrying with him a six-inch-thick stack of printed forms. He found him in Colonel Innes's command post, formerly the gamekeeper's cottage, listening with something less than enraptured fascination to the colonel's most recent inspiration about what he called "perimeter security." Jamison had learned that Colonel Innes had fresh ideas on the subject at least twice a day. Jamison decided that Canidy would probably like to be rescued.

  "Sorry to interrupt, Sir," he said, crisply military.

  "But there are some matters that require the major's immediate attention."

  "I'm afraid I'll have to get back with you later, Colonel," Canidy said.

  "I understand, of course," Colonel Innes said. As they walked back to the house, Canidy asked, "What's up?" Jamison hoisted the stack of requisitions. "Well, I appreciate being rescued, Jamey," Canidy said.

  "If I had spent another five minutes in there, I would have fallen asleep and really hurt his feelings."

  "He does try hard, doesn't he?" Jamison said. "Still-as a manifestation of my boundless faith in your ability, and also because I don't know what I'm signing anyway-you should know that I want you to go right ahead and forge my name to requisitions whenever you think you have to."

  "That sort of puts me on a spot," Jamison said after Canidy had flipped through the stack of requisitions. "How?"

  "One of those requisitions you are about to sign is for a car," Jamison said.

  "A real car, not a jeep. I am prepared to defend it, but I'd rather you knew about it. You won't if you haven't even seen it. Canidy looked at him curiously. "A car?" he asked.

  "You mean an American car?"

  "Three jeeps and a couple of three-quarter-ton trucks are supposed to arrive tomorrow with the service troops," Jamison said.

  "I thought a car would be nice to have. You just signed what I consider to be a splendid justification for a sedan," "Okay," Canidy said, smiling.

  "If you think you can 'persuade' them to give us one, fine."

  "They just got half a dozen Fords," Jamison said, and added, "I have a spy planted in the enemy headquarters. I can't promise, but there's a chance I can steal one from the motor pool, and we can worry about returning it later."

  "Lieutenant," Canidy said, "are you actually standing there and proposing theft of an automobile from the OSS motor pool? You don't really think you could get away with that, do you?

  Christ, it's the OSS. They probably chain each vehicle to the pavement.

  And have you considered the trouble I would be in if you got caught?"

  "I guess," Jamison said uncomfortably, "it's not such a hot idea," "Now," Canidy went on, "Captain Whittaker could probably get away with it. And he could probably figure out how we could keep it after we stole it. Where is he?" Jamison smiled.

  "Playing billiards," he said. "How do you plan to get to London?"

  "With the message-center car," Jamison said. "I am going to hold you responsible if Captain Whittaker returns from London with a social disease," Canidy said.

  "With that caveat, you have my permission to have at it. But you should keep in mind that I will follow sacred OSS tradition in this.

  If you get caught, I never saw you before in my life." He handed the requisitions back to Jamison, and they went looking for Whittaker.

  Canidy had dinner with Admiral de Verbey, and they played chess for an hour afterward; then Canidy went to his room. The ducal chambers, which Canidy had claimed for himself, were large, beautifully furnished, and had an alcove with a desk and telephone he used as an office. Both for reasons of protocol and because he liked the old man, Canidy had originally planned to put the admiral in the ducal chambers, but Lieutenant Jamison talked him out of it. The apartment had so many entrances that guarding the admiral there would be more difficult than it would be in a smaller apartment with only one door. Whittaker was in the connecting apartment, where the duchess of Stan field had slept.

  Despite the warning Canidy had received from Colonel Stevens, Her Grace had not appeared at Whitby House, and neither had the British Army officer who was supposed to "liaise" with him. Canidy wasn't sure exactly what that meant; and so far as he was concerned, he hoped neither ever showed up. n Chambers a letter-exactly the same letter he had writhe wrote An ten her every day since his first night in Whitby House: "Having a smashing time, wish you were here. Love, Dick." The letters, all bearing the return address "Box 142, Washington, D.C.," were sent to London, where they were put in a pouch and flown to the States. They would be stamped with a Washington postmark and mailed.

  Presumably, eventually there would be letters from Ann. He was smugly pleased with the idea of sending her what amounted to a daily postcard the censors and letter readers could find no fault with. Ann's incoming mail was not supposed to be intercepted, of course-actually, he was not entirely sure about that-and she would, he told himself, understand why he was not writing more than he was. He was sure she'd get the message that he was indeed thinking about her at least daily.

  The truth of the matter was that he was thinking of her all the time, like a lovesick high-school kid. And the simple act of sitting down and writing those very few words to Ann had become enormously important to him.

  Having finished this day's letter to Ann, he decided to take a drink from one of the bottles of Chesly Whittaker's twenty-four-year-old Scotch he had "borrowed" from the library in the house on Q Street just before they'd come to England. He was sitting in a brocade-upholstered armchair with the almost untouched drink in his hand, his mind full of the myriad physical charms of Ann Chambers, when there came a knock at his door. "Come!"

  It was the officer of the guard, a southern second lieutenant with a double chin.

  "Thcah's an officer he ah wants to see Loo-te
nant Jamison, " the officer of the guard said.

  "An English officer. I mean an English lady officer."

  "Lieutenant Jamison isn't here. Mat does she want?" Canidy said. As he spoke he realized what was up: Damn! Jamison's gone, and now, of course, the missing British officer with whom I am supposed to "liaise'finally shows up. "Ah don't know, Suh. But she's got the right pass to get inside the inn uh perimetuh, Majuh."

  "Would you ask her to come in, please?" Canidy said. The captain marched in, came to attention, and saluted crisply. "Sir!" the captain barked, with an accompanying stamp of his boot heel. The captain, Canidy judged, is about five feet four, weighs maybe 125 pounds, is about thirty-two, give or take a couple of years, and under that really ugly Women's Royal Army Corps cotton uniform obviously has a splendid set of teats. "I'm Major Canidy," he said. "I'm sorry to bother you, Major. I had hoped to report to Lieutenant Jamison."