The Fighting Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  Lennox had just lit a cigar when the Admiral’s aide came for him.

  “I wondered what had happened to you,” the aide said.

  “I was about to come looking for you, Commander,” Lennox said. “I’ve got to think about getting back to Pearl.”

  “We’ll get you back to the Drum,” the aide said. “But right now, will you come with me, please?”

  “Where are we going?”

  The aide did not reply. Lennox followed him around the pool, then through a long, high-ceilinged living room, and then down a corridor. The aide stopped before a door and knocked.

  “Come!” a male voice said.

  It was a den, a private office.

  Inside were CINCPAC, COMSUBFORPAC, CINC-PAC’S aide, a very good-looking young woman, an Air Corps captain, and movie star Greg Hammer in the uniform of a first lieutenant of the Army’s Signal Corps.

  Lennox was a little embarrassed about what he had imagined when he saw Hammer floating around in the pool. He was clearly not a draft dodger. But not too embarrassed. He’d heard about Hollywood movie stars going into the services. There was a Marine aviation squadron with Macdonald Carey and Tyrone Power in it, conveniently stationed in Diego, where they had rented a hotel so they wouldn’t be forced to put up with the discomfits of a BOQ. Clark Gable had been commissioned a lieutenant in the Air Corps. Ronald Reagan was making training films in Hollywood as a first lieutenant. It was therefore not surprising to find Greg Hammer in an officer’s uniform.

  “Miss Chenowith,” CINCPAC said, “may I present Commander Lennox, captain of the Drum?”

  Cynthia Chenowith gave him her hand and said she was glad to meet him. Her hand was the first female hand Lennox had touched in a year, and it was warm and soft, and he unkindly wondered who was privileged to jump Miss Chenowith.

  “Miss Chenowith is connected with Continental Studios, ” CINCPAC said. “And I’m sure you recognize Lieutenant Greg Hammer?”

  “Yes, of course,” Lennox said, shaking the movie star’s hand.

  “And this is Captain Whittaker, of the Air Corps,” CINCPAC said.

  “How are you, Commander?” Whittaker said, and gave Lennox his hand.

  Lennox couldn’t remember having seen Whittaker in a movie, but then he had never paid all that much attention to Hollywood pretty boys. At least Whittaker had gone to flight school; there were aviator’s wings, if no ribbons, on his blouse.

  “You may have wondered, Commander,” CINCPAC said, making his little joke, “why I have called this meeting. ”

  Lennox laughed, dutifully.

  “Yes, Sir,” he said, “I have.”

  “Continental Studios,” CINCPAC said, “has decided to make a motion picture documentary of a submarine patrol. The Navy has promised its full cooperation, and, after consulting with Admiral Keene, I have selected the Drum to participate.”

  “I don’t quite understand, Sir,” Lennox said. He didn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

  “Captain Whittaker and Lieutenant Hammer will be sailing with you, Lennox. Plus a Navy enlisted photographer’s assistant.”

  “On patrol, Sir?” Lennox asked, incredulously.

  “As I understand the way it will work,” CINCPAC said, “Greg Hammer will serve as narrator, Captain Whittaker will function as director/producer, and the white hat will operate the camera.”

  If you open your mouth and say one word, Lennox, it will run away with you and you will tell CINCPAC, COMSUBFORPAC, and the pretty lady with the gorgeous breasts precisely what you think of the dumbest fucking idea you have ever heard of.

  “Yes, Sir,” Commander Lennox said.

  And then, in desperation, he thought of something that just might keep them from putting this idiotic idea into practice.

  “I presume that you gentlemen and the sailor have gone through the school at New London?” Lennox asked.

  “No,” Captain Whittaker said. “We thought about it, but we couldn’t find time in the schedule.”

  “Sir, may I respectfully suggest that poses a pretty severe problem?” Lennox said. “We have no way of knowing if these gentlemen can take the atmospheric pressures of the boat.”

  “We checked with the fleet surgeon about that, Lennox,” COMSUBFORPAC said. “He feels that, after examining their last physical examinations, there is no reason they will have trouble.”

  “Sir, may I suggest there are psychological considerations as well? There is the question of confinement, claustrophobia . . . ”

  “Perhaps Admiral Keene didn’t make himself clear,” CINCPAC said, a little sharply. “The potential medical problems have been considered, and judged to be manageable. ”

  “Yes, Sir,” Lennox said.

  “Captain Whittaker and Lieutenant Hammer, and the white hat, will come aboard the Drum at 0530,” COMSUBFORPAC said. “Their gear will be loaded aboard between now and then.”

  “Their gear, Sir?” Lennox asked.

  “Their cameras and recording equipment and film,” COMSUBFORPAC said.

  “And the rubber boats,” Captain Whittaker said. “And their outboard motors.”

  “We plan to inflate them when we’re at sea,” Greg Hammer offered, “for what we call long shots, location shots.”

  “I don’t know where we’re going to find the room to store any rubber boats,” Lennox said.

  “Perhaps,” CINCPAC said, “it might be a good idea for you, Lennox, to go aboard now and supervise the loading yourself.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Lennox said. “Your permission to withdraw, Sir?”

  “Granted,” CINCPAC said. He offered Lennox his hand. “Good hunting, Commander.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Lennox said. He nodded at the others and walked out of the room.

  “Good hunting”? Jesus H. Christ! How the hell can I hunt for anything with a couple of second-rate movie stars and a photographer on board? What the fuck did I do to deserve this?

  The admiral’s aide followed him back down the corridor and through the living room and to the bar by the swimming pool, where Lennox ordered a double bourbon and drank it neat.

  He looked the admiral’s aide in the eye.

  “Have they lost their fucking minds, or what? If it’s so important to make a fucking movie, why not send a couple of photographer’s mates, submarine-qualified photographer’s mates? Two fucking movie stars? It’s absolutely insane! ”

  “Yours not to reason why, Commander,” the aide said. “Yours but to do and die—meanwhile being very courteous to your passengers. They have friends in high places.”

  He was never to know how close he came to being decked by the captain of the USS Drum.

  When the Plymouth dropped him off at the wharf where the Drum was tied up, there were half a dozen sailors staggering under the weight of small wooden boxes.

  Lennox went aboard.

  “What the hell is going on, Skipper?” the officer of the deck asked.

  “We are taking two movie stars, plus a movie cameraman, with us,” Lennox said.

  “What?”

  “There are supposed to be rubber boats and outboard motors,” Lennox said, ignoring the question.

  “I put two rubber boats with motors in the aft torpedo room,” the officer of the deck said. “I don’t know how the hell anybody will be able to move in there. For sure, we won’t be able to load the tubes with the boats in there.”

  “And the rest of their equipment?”

  “That wasn’t so hard to store,” the officer of the deck said. “There were a couple of boxes maybe five feet long. Everything else is in those little boxes. They’re heavy as hell. What’s in them?”

  “What does it say on the boxes?”

  " ’Photographic Film. Do Not X-Ray.’ ”

  “Then, presumably, they contain motion picture film,” Lennox said. “See the chief of the boat, and tell him we’ll have one more white hat with us. The movie stars will share bunks with the officers.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” the
officer of the deck said. “May I ask which movie stars?”

  “Greg Hammer is one of them,” Lennox said. “The other is a guy named Whittaker. Never heard of him. An anonymous celebrity, so to speak.”

  “I know Hammer,” the officer of the deck said.

  “By the time this patrol is over, you will know him intimately, ” Lennox said. “Good night, Mr. Downey.”

  “Good night, Skipper.”

  2

  FORD ISLAND, PEARL HARBOR NAVY YARD OAHU, TERRITORY OF HAWAII 16 FEBRUARY 1943

  At five minutes to six, twenty-five minutes late, CINC-PAC’S Cadillac limousine came onto the wharf. CINC-PAC’S aide, the two movie stars, and the woman from Continental Studios were in the back, CINCPAC’s aide sitting on a jump seat. There was a very slight, bespectacled, very boyish-looking sailor in front with the driver.

  The driver opened the door for them, and then, as they waved cheerfully at Lennox, the boyish-looking sailor took two small canvas bags from the trunk and carried them aboard.

  The crew looked at the wharf in unabashed curiosity.

  Capt. Whittaker suddenly grabbed Miss Chenowith and kissed her on the mouth. The crew of the Drum whistled and cheered.

  Miss Chenowith freed herself, turned to Lt. Hammer, and kissed him on the mouth.

  The crew whistled and cheered again.

  Whittaker and Hammer walked down the gangplank and stepped onto the deck of the Drum. They did not salute the officer of the deck, nor ask permission to come aboard. They just walked on board and went into the conning tower as if they were boarding the Staten Island Ferry.

  “Make all preparations to get under way,” Commander Lennox ordered.

  The Navy band on the wharf, following tradition, began to play “Anchors Aweigh.”

  “Remove the gangplanks, loosen up all lines fore and aft,” Lt. Rutherford ordered.

  Commander Lennox sensed movement behind him. He turned and saw Capt. Whittaker’s head and shoulders coming through the hatch.

  “Morning,” Whittaker said cheerfully.

  A moment later, Lt. Hammer came through the hatch.

  With a massive effort, Commander Lennox smiled.

  “If you gentlemen will be good enough to stand back there,” he said, pointing.

  “Sure,” Whittaker said. “We don’t want to be in the way.”

  Both of them waved at the girl on the wharf. Both of them, Lennox saw, wore evidence of her lipstick. She waved back.

  “Cast off all lines,” Lennox said. “Secure all deck hatches. Half left rudder. Ahead dead slow.”

  The Drum shuddered just perceptibly as the engines engaged. Very slowly, she moved away from the dock.

  When they were in the channel, moving past Battleship Row, Lennox turned to Rutherford.

  “You have the conn, Mr. Rutherford,” he said. “Take us to sea.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  “And if you gentlemen don’t mind, I would like a word with you in my cabin.”

  Commander Lennox delivered a brief, precise, and pungent lecture on the customs of the Naval Service as they applied to submarine service, starting with the information that one was supposed to ask permission before boarding a Naval vessel and touching on such items as the prohibition from entering the bridge without the specific permission of the captain.

  And then he warmed to his subject.

  So far as he was concerned, he told them, this movie documentary was the dumbest goddamned thing he had heard of in his eight years in the Navy.

  In addition to that, he didn’t like the attitude of either of them. He was the captain of a vessel at sea, and when they spoke with him, they would call him either “Captain” or “Sir.” But for the time being, he said, he would be pleased if they didn’t speak to him unless spoken to, and he would consider it a personal favor if they would take their meals in the wardroom when he was not there. Movie actors in officers’ uniforms ruined his appetite.

  As far as he was concerned, his business was sinking Japanese ships, not making some kind of bullshit movie. They should conduct themselves accordingly.

  Capt. Whittaker and Lt. Hammer took the speech without comment, which Lennox found disturbing. He had hoped they would argue with him, which would have given him the chance to really eat ass, and possibly even an excuse to throw their goddamned rubber boats and movie cameras over the side.

  “Sir,” Whittaker said respectfully, “we will do our best to keep out of your way.”

  “See that you do,” Lennox said. “You are dismissed.”

  Once he had finished blowing his top, Lennox was a little ashamed of himself. He told himself they had their orders, too, even if those orders were to make a fucking movie. And now that he had calmed down a little, he understood that he had been something of a prick to them.

  They were still several hundred miles from the position in the Pacific where he was authorized to open envelope “2,” but he went to the safe and got it anyway. Maybe, once he knew where they were going, he would be able to suggest to the movie stars something they could take pictures of. Maybe that would make up for his having acted like a horse’s ass.

  He tore the envelope open.

  TOP SECRET COMMANDER SUBMARINE FORCE PACIFIC PEARL HARBOR, TERRITORY OF HAWAII

  To: Commanding Officer USS Drum SS228

  By Direction of the President, you will proceed to the Island of Mindanao, Territory of the Philippines, and there put ashore, at such place and at such time as he may designate, Captain James M. B. Whittaker, USAAC, and such personnel and equipment as he may desire.

  While the nature of Captain Whittaker’s duties while ashore in the Philippines are classified and are not to be inquired into, you are hereby informed that his duties have the highest priority, and that the entire efforts of the Drum and its crew are to be devoted to its accomplishment, to the exclusion of all else.

  After putting Captain Whittaker and his party ashore, you will put out to sea to a position determined by Captain Whittaker where you will maintain a radio communications schedule with Captain Whittaker, or his designate, at such times as he may require.

  On receipt of the appropriate orders from Captain Whittaker, you will take him, and whomsoever else he designates, together with whatever material and/or equipment he may designate, from the shore of Mindanao at such time and place as he may designate. You will then transport him and boarded personnel and/or equipment and material to such destination as he designates.

  You are specifically forbidden to engage in any action against the enemy unless specifically authorized to engage by Captain Whittaker.

  You are directed to ensure by whatever means necessary that your officers and crew understand both the priorities of this mission, its classification, and the absolute necessity that it remain TOP SECRET.

  By direction:

  G. H. Keene

  Geoffrey H. Keene, Rear Admiral, USN

  Commander Lennox said, “Oh, shit!” so loudly and with such fervor that his voice penetrated the baize curtain that served as the door to his cabin and could be heard above the rumble of the diesel.

  The chief of the boat put his head past the curtain.

  “You called, Captain?”

  “Moaned was more like it,” Lennox said. “Would you tell the exec to come here right away, Chief? And then ask the Army officers to join me at their convenience?”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” the chief of the boat said.

  “And I’ll want you in on this, too, Chief,” Lennox said.

  Everyone was there in a matter of minutes.

  “Chief, I don’t want anybody using the passage while this is going on,” Lennox said. “Put some guards out, and then come back in here.”

  When they were all crowded into the tiny cabin, waiting to hear what he had to say, Lennox said:

  “Except to announce that I really showed my ass a while back, for which I apologize, I don’t really know what to say. May I have your permission to show my orders to my exec and th
e chief of the boat, Captain Whittaker?”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” Whittaker said.

  The chief of the boat read the orders over the exec’s shoulder. Both of them registered surprise on their faces but said nothing.

  “No questions?” Whittaker asked.

  “What’s in the boxes?” the chief of the boat asked.

  “The long ones are packed with carbines,” Hammersmith answered.

  “And half the others are filled with ammo,” Whittaker added.

  “And the other half?”

  “A million dollars’ worth of gold coins,” Whittaker said.

  The chief of the boat accepted that stoically.

  “Gonna be a bitch getting that stuff ashore in rubber boats,” he said. “I don’t suppose the people who’ll be meeting you would have boats, real boats, something big enough to handle that weight?”

  “That’s one of our problems, Chief,” Whittaker said. “Nobody knows we’re coming.”

  “Holy shit!” the chief of the boat said, and then immediately got control of himself. “Well, we’ll figure something out, Captain.”

  3

  16 DEGREES 20 MINUTES NORTH LONGITUDE 43 DEGREES 5 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE (OVER THE ADRIATIC SEA) 1520 HOURS 16 FEBRUARY 1943

  The B-25G “Mitchell” had been alone for hours high in the bright blue sky, its passage around the heel of the Italian boot and up the center of the Adriatic marked by twin trails of condensation behind it. Far beneath it was an unbroken bed of clouds, stretching as far as the eye could see, looking like a vast layer of cotton wool.

  Dolan was at the controls, Canidy in the copilot’s seat, and Darmstadter was sitting on a fold-down jump seat immediately behind the pilots’ seats. It was uncomfortable on the jump seat, but the foam-rubber and leather seats in the fuselage had little appeal for Darmstadter. When he was alone in the fuselage, he had too great an opportunity to think of what could go wrong. He was finding what reassurance he could from being close to Canidy and Dolan.

  Darmstadter had been in the left seat when they left Malta and had made the takeoff. But Canidy had taken over the controls after they had left the ground, and he was the one who had set the course and rate of climb and fine-tuned the engines and the mixture.