The Fighting Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  He could not see over the cab, so he had no idea what they’d hit.

  A moment later, there was a call in Hungarian for everybody to get out.

  Getting everybody out to push was routine, too. And while it wasn’t as interesting as watching the Hungarians try to get the wheels of a dump truck back on the ground by swearing and throwing stones at it, it would still delay the journey into the mines.

  It wasn’t until he had slid from the truck bed and turned around that Eric saw that whatever was happening was not routine.

  There were men behind the truck, Hungarian civilians with pistols; and the two Keystone Kops on the motorcycle who trailed the truck were on the ground, spread-eagled. As Fulmar watched, the driver and his assistant were brought to the rear of the truck and forced onto the ground beside the cops.

  One of the men with pistols motioned the prisoners into a line, and then into two lines, then three, prodding the slow ones with the barrel of his pistol. And then another man came down the line and rudely jerked people out of line by grabbing their shoulders.

  If I wasn’t so afraid, this would be funny.

  The man reached him, jerked Fulmar out of line, and marched him toward the front of the truck. Fulmar saw what had stopped the truck. A tree lay across the road. At first he thought it had been sawed, but then he saw that it had been taken down by somebody who knew how to use Primacord.

  Standing near the cab of the truck were more Hungarians. One of them, in a large soft black woolen hat, looked somehow familiar.

  “You do not recognize me,” Canidy ordered quietly when Fulmar was dragged before him.

  Fulmar shook his head in wonderment and smiled, but said nothing.

  “We don’t have much time,” Canidy said. “Just tell me which of the others would escape if they had half a chance?”

  Fulmar looked confused.

  “You heard me,” Canidy said. “I need to know who are the serious criminals.”

  Fulmar was as much confused by the question as he was surprised to see Canidy. But he finally understood that the question was important for reasons he could not imagine.

  “These guys are petty criminals,” Fulmar said. “If they weren’t in jail, they’d probably starve. No real criminals, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Damn,” Canidy said. “Now, is Professor Dyer one of the people we pulled out of there?”

  Fulmar looked.

  “Second from the end,” he said, “with the glasses.”

  Canidy waved another of the Hungarians over and spoke softly to him in English.

  “No gangsters,” he said. “We’ll just have to take half a dozen of them with us, that’s all there is to it. You saw Dyer?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think he recognized me.”

  “Let’s try to keep it that way for the time being,” Canidy said. “You go ahead and get them to uncover the plane.”

  “The plane?” Fulmar blurted. “You’ve got an airplane?”

  “Take Loudmouth here with you,” Canidy said. “He insists on talking English.”

  There was a sharp cracking noise, followed a moment later by a creaking, tearing noise, and finally a great crashing sound.

  Fulmar realized that another tree, its trunk severed by Primacord, had been dropped across the road.

  “Let’s go, Lieutenant,” the man Canidy had spoken to said softly, and Fulmar followed him off the road and into the forest.

  It was a long way across steep, heavily forested hills from where the prison truck had been stopped to the meadow; and when they got there, Fulmar was sweat-soaked and panting from the exertion.

  He didn’t see an airplane. All he saw was a Hungarian standing at the far end of the meadow beside two of the largest horses he had ever seen. The horses wore whatever horses used so they could pull a wagon or a plow, but there was nothing around for them to pull.

  And then, as they crossed the meadow, he saw a round red light sticking out of a snow-covered mound. And he understood that he was looking at the top of an aircraft vertical stabilizer.

  An American pilot wearing a leather A-2 jacket and with a Thompson submachine gun in his hands came out of the woods.

  “This is Fulmar,” Ferniany told Darmstadter. “Canidy’s bringing the other one.”

  Darmstadter looked with unabashed curiosity at Fulmar.

  This young guy in blue work clothes was the purpose of this whole operation?

  “Hello,” Fulmar said.

  That shocked Darmstadter into action.

  He looked around for someplace to put the Thompson down and finally hung it from a brass horn on the harness of one of the horses. Ferniany watched him, then shrugged and put his pistol in his pocket and went to the mound of snow-covered brush.

  When the branches were off the tail section, Alois hitched a stout rope to the tail wheel and the huge horses pulled the C-47 far enough out of the forest to turn the airplane around.

  It took half an hour to remove all the branches from the C-47. Some of them had frozen to the wings and fuselage, and small branches had wedged into the openings of the movable control surfaces.

  Darmstadter started the engines, to make sure they would start. The engines started without difficulty, but when he tried to run the controls through their operating range, he found that snow had melted and then frozen the controls cables.

  He let the engines run until they had reached operating temperature, then shut them down. Then he went after the ice in the ailerons and other movable control surfaces while Fulmar and Ferniany hammered at the ice on the wings. They quickly learned the best way to get it off was to stamp on it with their feet or slam it with their fists. The aluminum would then flex enough to free the ice, which could then be pushed or kicked out of the way.

  They were still working on the airplane when the team, the Hungarian underground, Canidy, Dyer, and six wholly confused and terrified petty criminals from St. Gertrud’s prison arrived.

  “Wind it up,” Canidy ordered. “We’re going. Get those people aboard.”

  “We’re taking them?” Fulmar asked incredulously.

  “Instant immigration,” Canidy said. “Get them aboard.”

  Canidy stood by the door of the airplane as the Hungarians and the team and Professor Dyer got aboard. He collected the weapons and passed them to the Hungarians. Darmstadter started one engine and then the other.

  “Get on, Eric,” Canidy ordered.

  Ferniany and Canidy looked at each other a moment, wordlessly.

  “You aren’t really such a horse’s ass after all,” Canidy finally said. “Take care.”

  “You are,” Ferniany said with a smile. “A horse’s ass, I mean.”

  Then he slapped Canidy on the back and ran to get out of the prop blast.

  Canidy climbed into the Gooney Bird. As he closed the door, Darmstadter started to taxi to the absolute end of the meadow.

  Canidy slid into the copilot’s seat as Darmstadter turned the Gooney Bird around.

  Darmstadter locked the brakes, checked the mags, and then ran both engines up to takeoff power. The Gooney Bird trembled and bounced. He took the brakes off, and the airplane began to roll, first with maddening slowness, and then picking up speed. But not quite enough to get it off the ground.

  As they reached the end of the meadow, Darmstadter pulled it into the air. There was not enough velocity to maintain flight, and it started to stall. Darmstadter pushed the nose down, getting it out of the incipient stall; and the Gooney Bird now followed the contour of the cut-over hillside down toward the stream. It was flying, but only barely.

  And then he pulled back on the wheel again, and this time, having picked up just enough speed, the Gooney Bird was willing to fly for real.

  “Very impressive,” Canidy’s voice came over the earphones. Thinking it was sarcasm, Darmstadter snapped his head toward him.

  Canidy was beaming and making an “OK” sign of approval with his left hand.

  And then Canidy’s
face registered genuine surprise, and the “OK” sign changed into a finger pointing out the windshield. Darmstadter followed it.

  There were sixteen B-17 aircraft flying in five staggered Vs at what was probably eight thousand feet. Their bomb bays were open, and as Darmstadter and Canidy watched, streams of 500-pound bombs began to drop.

  “They’re bombing Pécs,” Darmstadter said. “What the hell is there in Pécs worth bombing with a squadron of B- 17s?”

  Canidy didn’t respond to that.

  “I think you had better get back on the deck,” he said. “Steer one nine zero.”

  3

  OSS LONDON STATION BERKELEY SQUARE LONDON, ENGLAND 1630 HOURS 22 FEBRUARY 1943

  Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., came into David Bruce’s office. Kennedy looked, Colonel Wild Bill Donovan thought, not unlike his father as a young man.

  “Hello, Joe,” Donovan said. “How are you?”

  “Not very cheerful, Colonel,” Kennedy said, raising a package in his hand. “Dolan’s personal items. I didn’t know what to do with them.”

  “I’ll take them, Mr. Kennedy,” Chief Ellis said. “I’ll see that they get to his next of kin.”

  “Does he have any?” Kennedy asked. “I never heard him talk about a family.”

  “I’m sure there’s a brother or a sister or somebody,” Donovan said.

  “And what do I do about Darmstadter?” Kennedy said. “Write the letter myself, or let his old outfit do it? He was on TDY to the composite squadron, officially.”

  He was, Donovan thought, approvingly, already assuming the responsibilities of command.

  “You write it, Joe,” Donovan ordered. “Be vague. But let them know he went in as a volunteer doing something important. ” He thought about saying something else, realized that he shouldn’t, but said it anyway: “I wish we could report them KIA. Until we have positive word, of course, they’ll have to be carried as MIA. But I don’t think there’s any real hope.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Kennedy said.

  Donovan had been avoiding making the decision what to do about taking the necessary action about Dick Canidy and Ferniany. At the very least, they were missing in action. It might even be better to hope that they were dead. Just before it went off the air, interrupting a code block, the OSS radio station had sent the code for “Station discovered, in immediate danger of being captured.”

  It was reasonable to presume that Ferniany had been captured in Budapest. If that was true, and he was lucky, he would be dead. If that was true, and he was unlucky, he was alive and in the hands of the SS; and it might be some time before they were through with him and shot him. Or hanged him with a length of piano wire.

  If they had caught him alive, it had to be presumed that he had given them Canidy’s location and told them what he knew. No matter how little that was, it was certain to be damaging to von Heurten-Mitnitz, the Countess Batthyany, and the whole Hungarian pipeline.

  There seemed to be little doubt that Fulmar and Professor Dyer were dead. The last B-17 had carried photographers, and there was proof beyond question that St. Gertrud’s prison and three square blocks around it had been bombed into rubble.

  Canidy, to be sure, might still be alive, on the run somewhere in the forests near Pécs. He had as many lives as a cat.

  It was the particularly obscene nature of this business, Donovan thought, that I am forced to hope that he is dead. If he is dead, what he knows will not become known to the Germans.

  He had decided that when he made up his mind to do it, he would personally write to the Reverend Doctor George Crater Canidy. He knew that it would be important, that Canidy would really want his father to believe he had died saving lives, not taking them. In a sense that was true, and maybe, Donovan decided, he would be able to make that point.

  A more immediate problem was telling Ann Chambers. She had no legal right to know, of course. But legality had nothing to do with it. Donovan wanted her to hear it from him, and that meant he would have to tell her in the next couple of hours, before he got on the Washington plane.

  “Joe,” he said, “you understand, of course, that Operation Aphrodite is now your responsibility?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “When Stan Fine gets back, he will fill the role Canidy had. You will report to him.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “There’s more to it than the sub pens at Saint-Lazare,” Donovan said.

  “I assumed there was,” Kennedy said matter-of-factly.

  Donovan’s eyebrows rose.

  “I’ll have Colonel Stevens fill you in,” Donovan said.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “We have to expect setbacks, Joe,” Donovan said, wondering if he was talking as much to himself as he was to Kennedy. “And not everything has gone wrong. Just before you came, there was word that Jimmy Whittaker is safely ashore in the Philippines.”

  “Sir?” Kennedy asked, confused.

  I am more emotionally upset by all this than I like to think I am; there was no reason for me to tell Kennedy that, and I should have known that he didn’t know what was planned for Whittaker.

  “That’s out of school, Joe,” Donovan said. “You don’t have the Need-to-Know.”

  “You sent Jimmy back to the Philippines?” Kennedy asked incredulously.

  “He volunteered to go,” Donovan said.

  That’s pretty lame, Donovan, and you know it. You did indeed send Jimmy back, knowing full well the risks.

  The door opened. Capt. Helene Dancy walked in.

  “I asked not to be disturbed,” Donovan said, coldly angry. “Do I have to lock the door to keep from being interrupted? ”

  Just because you don’t like yourself right now is no reason to jump all over her.

  Capt. Dancy did not reply. White-faced, obviously hurt and angry, she marched to his desk, laid a TOP SECRET cover sheet on it, and marched back out of the office.

  TOP SECRET

  OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE

  FROM STATION VII

  TO OSS LONDON EYES ONLY BRUCE AND STEVENS

  EXLAX AND TINCAN ONE ALIVE AND WELL STATION VII STOP GOONEYBIRDING STATION VIII STOP WILL REQUIRE IMMEDIATE AIR TRANSPORTATION STATION VIII DASH LONDON SIX HUNGARIAN CRIMINALS AND REMAINS LT CMDR JOHN DOLAN STOP

  CANIDY

  It took Donovan a moment before he trusted his voice.

  “I think, Joe,” he said finally, handing him the message, “that you had better hold off on writing Lieutenant Darmstadter’s family until we can get this sorted out.”

  As Kennedy read the message, Donovan added, “Let Chief Ellis see it when you’re finished.”

  “ ‘Hungarian criminals’?” Kennedy asked. “Is that some kind of a code?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Donovan said.

  “I wonder what happened to Dolan,” Ellis said.

  “You were friends, Ellis?” Donovan asked.

  “Not really friends,” Ellis said. “Yeah, well, maybe. A couple of old sailors. I liked him.”

  The door opened again.

  “Yes, Sir?” Capt. Helene Dancy asked.

  “First, Helene, I’m sorry I jumped on you,” Donovan said.

  “That’s perfectly all right, Sir,” she said.

  She’s still mad.

  “I think you had better message Wilkins, over my signature, and tell him to give Canidy whatever he wants when he gets there. You don’t know what ‘Hungarian criminals’ means, do you?”

  “No, Sir. I presumably do not have the Need-to-Know.”

  “Neither do I, apparently, Helene,” Donovan said. He smiled at her, and finally she cracked and smiled back.

  “In that case, Sir,” she said. “I think we have to presume that Major Canidy, for reasons he will certainly explain to us, is going to have six Hungarian criminals with him.”

  Donovan chuckled.

  “Will that be all, Colonel?”

  “Lieutenant Kennedy has Commander Dolan’s personal effects,” Donovan said. “Will you
see if you can come up with a next of kin name and address?”

  “I’ve already inquired. Nothing yet. I’ll keep trying. Anything else?”

  “You might tell Ann Chambers that Canidy is on his way home. If you think she’d be interested.”

  4

  THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH BUILDING WASHINGTON, D.C. 1830 HOURS 24 FEBRUARY 1943

  Chief Ellis was tired, unshaven, and mussed. It had been almost forty hours before the ATC C-54 from London had touched down at Anacostia. But he had ignored Colonel Donovan’s orders to “go home and get some sleep, there’s nothing that won’t wait until tomorrow.”

  There was always something that wouldn’t wait.

  “You look like shit, Ellis,” Staley greeted him.

  “I feel like shit,” Ellis said. “How come you aren’t all dressed up in new chief’s blues?”

  “Captain Douglass said he thought it would be nice if the Colonel made it official,” Staley said.

  “Yeah, hell, why not?” Ellis said.

  “But you done it, Ellis,” Staley said. “Thank you.”

  “We old China Sailors got to stick together,” Ellis said. “And you’re at the age where you look silly in bell-bottoms.”

  He tossed his overcoat on a chair, pushed his cap back on his head, sat down at the desk, and slid the stack of classified documents in front of him.

  “Anything interesting in here?”

  “Yachtsman is alive and well,” Staley said. “That came operational immediately from London yesterday. What’s it mean?”

  “It’s damned good news,” Ellis said. “You don’t have to know why. The Colonel will be happy as hell.”

  “Whittaker’s ashore in the Philippines,” Staley said.

  “We heard that,” Ellis said.

  “And the radio works,” Staley said. “There’s a whole bunch of messages from Fertig.”

  “And anything else?”

  “Two things for you,” Staley said uncomfortably. “I opened the telegram. I figured it might be important. It’s on the bottom.”

  Ellis lifted the stack of cover sheets and found the Western Union telegram envelope.