Operation Underworld

by Paddy Kelly

  “Is that her name? Norma?” Nikki was subdued as she realised in all the time she’d known Ira, she’d never asked his wife‘s name.

  “Yes. Fair deal, Miss…?” Doc held his hand out across the counter top.

  “Fair deal, Mr McKeowen. Miss Cole, my name is Miss Cole.” She shook his hand.

  “Her name is Nikki. And she’s here Monday to Friday, eight to six and Saturday till noon every other week,” Shirley blurted out as she suddenly lost her enthusiasm to buzz Doc.

  “Sounds like you got a great agent there.” Doc nodded at Shirley as he backed away from the reception desk. “You’ll be playin’ Radio City before you know it.”

  “Yeah! Shirley the agent.” Nikki was embarrassed and made a mental note to give Shirley a good balling out later. Someone entered through the front door as Doc was preparing to leave.

  “Thank you for your help, ladies. It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cole. And you too, Shirley The Agent. Careful with that finger.” Doc turned to leave. Nikki watched him turn up his collar and don his ball cap as he passed through the door.

  “Girl! You should’a got his number!” Shirley said, slapping Nikki on the arm.

  “I got his number when he walked in here!” Nikki held up the swear jar and Shirley dug through her purse.

  “He ain’t no Alan Ladd but he got potential!” Shirley dropped the nickel in through the slot cut in the cap.

  The man who had entered the building was now standing at the elevators when Doc passed him. It was Treasury Agent Johnson, and after watching Doc leave, he walked over to the two girls who were once again engaged in their work, or at least tried hard to look like they were.

  “Who was that?” He asked in his best casual manner, dripping with suspicion.

  “A guy,” Nikki replied to Johnson, without looking up.

  “What guy? What’d he want?”

  “He was looking for the Woolworth Building.” Both girls, as did all of the girls before them, found Johnson repulsive. Nikki once reckoned, during a girls’ night out, that if John Merrick were a woman he still wouldn’t have dated Agent Johnson.

  “A little late for Christmas shopping, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Look, agent Johnson. I ain’t baby-sittin’ the guy, just givin’ him directions. Ya know?” Nikki’s tone was clear, even to Johnson, that the conversation was over. Her switchboard buzzed and she took the call. Johnson was looking at Shirley, and continued to impose himself.

  “Speaking of dating, when are we gonna get together, sweetheart?”

  Shirley refused to call him by his official title. “Mr Johnson, we’ve had this conversation before. I don’t date married men. Especially ugly married men.”

  Johnson got the hint and meandered back towards the elevators. As soon he was out of earshot, Shirley spoke to Nikki.

  “He’s got to be the only guy on the planet sufferin’from penis envy!”

  “Jeez, Shirl, how do you really feel?”

  Back around the corner, in the ornate lobby of the Woolworth Building, Doc called Louie and relayed what he had found out. Louie in turn informed Doc that the location was a Federal building, filled with civilian offices, except for a few which were Navy. Louie said he had a complete list of all the departments, but Doc didn’t have the heart to tell him that his efforts were wasted. It looked like Ira was on the level. He told Louie he would see him back at the office after lunch, and that he would call Mrs Birnbaum himself.

  “Oh, and Louie one more thing.”

  “What is it Doc?”

  “Go downstairs to 2C, guy in there’s a lawyer. They got an unabridged Webster’s. Find out what the hell a ‘bey’ is, will ya?”

  Chapter Nine

  Commander Haffenden wasted no time in launching Operation Underworld. Lanza’s tentative consent to co-operate was more than enough to draw up plans, requisition agents and supplies, and to establish a base of operations along with a channel of covert communications. So by the time things appeared to have cleared the DA’s office, and Lanza gave the Navy his okay, the ball was rolling within 24 hours.

  In the beginning, there would be three basic areas of operations. The fishing boats, over which Lanza had virtual control, the retail and shipping, that is the lifeline from the boats to the markets, over which he had a large measure of control, and the docks and warehouses, over which he had a little control, providing they were related to the fishing industry.

  Socks would handle all the field operations on his side, Haffenden would control all his agents, and the only two who would know about the operation as a whole would be Lanza and Haffenden. At least that’s what Lanza was told. However, for the moment, both parties had a vested interest in excluding the DAto as great an extent as possible.

  Lanza had to conceal his involvement in order to avoid exposing the extent of his operation if he were to stay in business. A valuable lesson he learned from the Boss.

  One of the cornerstones of Luciano’s success was the code of silence. Not the ‘keep your mouth shut while sitting under a hot police lamp and being slapped around’ code of silence, although that went without saying. Instead, it was the ability to isolate information from everyone except those with the absolute need to know. Combine this with the uncanny ability to keep locations and extents of specific operations secret, and the results spoke for themselves.

  For example, a quarter of a century after Luciano’s deportation in 1945, local state and federal officials, in one investigation after another as well as in sworn testimony, continued to give vastly conflicting stories concerning him and his operations. These incongruities even exist as a matter of Congressional record.

  Luciano shared a hotel suite with the Head of the Democratic Committee at the National Convention in Chicago in 1932, the year FDR won. The same FDR who earlier, as governor of New York, pardoned over sixty of Luciano’s associates from Federal prison, most of whom were drug trafficking offenders.

  Haffenden had as much at stake as Lanza. Although he was internationally renowned for his work in intelligence, having been the subject of numerous books and articles, he was in a new ballpark concerning domestic saboteurs. The world of international espionage had changed drastically since his first tour of duty in 1917, back when, incredibly enough, few of the Naval Staff and none of the Army Staff Officers put any credence whatsoever in the burgeoning area of military intelligence. It wasn’t even mentioned in an official capacity at the war colleges.

  The prevailing attitude towards the subject was amply demonstrated by the story of a British Colonel who, in the First World War, was presented with intercepted German dispatches. The officer ordered them promptly returned, unopened, commenting, “Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s post.”

  However, that was a quarter of a century ago, and things had changed. Virtually every major operation of the Second World War, on both sides, depended on available intelligence prior to launch. In addition, as the war dragged on, an even more valuable strategy was adopted. Namely, that of supplying the other side with false intelligence. It was a much more complicated game now, and as a consequence, Haffenden intended to isolate information from everyone except those who had an absolute need to know.

  The first order of business was for Socks to meet with the Commander and get a list of his needs. This happened the next day, and the meet was brief, as initially needs were simple. Get as many eyes and ears as were available on station, as soon as possible.

  The next step was for Socks to get a list of contacts together to allow him to begin placing operatives into key positions, in as much as the primary concern was to nab the enemy agents and potential saboteurs who were resupplying the U-Boats, the docks and the fishing boats had priority.

  Naval Intelligence agents were scattered around on the fishing vessels, being passed off as a friend of a friend, or somebody’s cousin on his mother’s side. Naturally, preference was given to personnel who had fishing experience and/or grew up in the local New York districts,
“On accounta dey could tawk da right way”. Stationing agents with the fishing fleet had at least two unexpected side effects. One good, and one that would eventually counteract all their efforts at keeping the operation secret.

  Prior to the onset of the project, it was not inconceivable for the shipping agents, civilian authorities or the US Navy to have to wait weeks or even months to find out if a ship had been lost at sea. Whether lost to severe sailing conditions or, as was more often the case, the Wolf Packs, this delay in information was a serious hindrance to the flow of supplies.

  With trained agents out on the water armed with radios, bad news of the loss of a vessel could be relayed much sooner. Wreckage could be identified, or in rare cases survivors rescued. In the even more remote instances, if discovered soon enough, ‘alert aircraft’could be launched and the offending U-Boat sought out.

  The negative effect was both inevitable and unforeseen. Fishing boats, like all small sea-going craft, can only accommodate a given number of individuals. One agent goes on, one fisherman comes off.

  In time of war, with money tight, rationing and the seasonal nature of fishing, being put off the boat made for some unhappy people. This, combined with the bulky radio gear required on board, made it nearly impossible to keep the Top Secret operation covert. Within a couple of weeks, everyone on the docks knew something was going on.

  After the first month, the operation was going well, in terms of logistics. In terms of effectiveness, though… well, that was an interesting question. Were the designers of Operation Underworld not catching any saboteurs because they were scaring them away, or were they not catching any because the secret was out?

  Haffenden and his men, for the most part, were in uncharted waters. American intelligence-gathering capability lagged far behind that of the warring nations and many elements in the Federal government were very slow to understand the significance of it.

  Despite intelligence gathered in the pre-war years indicating that the Japanese were amassing a hostile naval force, the American politicians still went so far as to prosecute and punish visionaries such as Billy Mitchell. To compound Haffenden’s problems, none of the allies were sharing information.

  For example, later in the war, when the Allies realised that the first nation with an atomic bomb would win, heavy water became the priority. So, one moonlit night, in a French harbour, a team of OSS (Office of Strategic Services) operatives paddled their rubber boats toward a freighter anchored in a slip. On board the freighter was Hitler’s last significant supply of tritium. As they made final preparations to mine and sink the ship, it exploded, burned and sank right before their eyes. In the sullen moonlight, the OSS operatives sat dumbfounded as they watched three canoes paddling away from the burning hulk. Klapper canoes, the hallmark vessels of the British Special Operations Executive, the SOE.

  Whatever the reasons, the early stages of the operation were not very successful. At the same time, expanding out into the shipping branches of the fishing trade, such as the trucking industry, the project demanded more contacts and consumed more territory and resources. Socks complied and set it up by helping extend the net starting with trucking company owners, dispatchers and in some cases enlisting the help of small independents whom he would normally attempt to put out of business, promising to lay off if they helped out.

  Riding trucks all day helped the operatives to learn their way around, but did little to put them in close touch with any potential enemy agents. Unknown to any of the players, involvement with the trucking unions would also initiate a development in the operation which would have an unforeseen impact.

  Infiltration of the docks was a much more complicated affair. Lanza’s influence was limited to those areas where the fishing industry flourished. With such a complicated network of waterfronts as exists in New York Harbor, no one person or entity could control it all. With five boroughs on the New York side, plus Long Island and seven cities on the Jersey side, the linear area alone was mind-boggling. This did not take into account the New England states, or the states further south such as Delaware and Maryland, and, at the time, the Fulton Street Market shipped as far south as the Carolinas.

  All the same, agents were placed on the accessible piers and adjoining areas, and for a short time, a routine developed. Communication was carried out primarily by phone, and operatives checked in with Haffenden on a rotational basis. They were assigned and reassigned as needed and information was recorded.

  The primary record of the secret codes, contact locations and most importantly, the names of those involved, was Commander Haffenden’s ‘little black book’. This book was supposed to stay on his person at all times. At least that was the standard operating procedure for classified materials at the time. It was officially known as ‘chain of custody’. In other words, who had it last?

  However, like a McGuffin in a Hitchcock film, the little black book was destined to impose a significant emotional event on the lives of more than one player in Operation Underworld. It wouldn’t turn out to be the stuff dreams were made of.

  Codes for the members of Lanza’s crew were really not required. At least not new ones. They all had their passwords, known locations and contacts in place long before the war. In fact, these men had effectively been at war since 1931. Aten year jump on the Navy.

  One interesting code that did evolve, however, was the password used when one Mob member wanted another Mob member to know he was in on the operation.

  “I’m working for the Commander,” became the verbal high sign between them.

  Not long into the operation, the load began to show on Lanza. In addition to his indictment, and the time he was devoting to the Navy’s business instead of his own, a third factor began to compound his life which he had not banked on.

  It first hit him one afternoon at Morrelli’s Restaurant on the corner of Mott and Hester Streets. He was having lunch with a couple of representatives from the Brooklyn docks, one of the locations where he had no influence. Haffenden wanted to get some men over there to snoop around the shipping piers. Lanza told the Commander he would see what he could do, and instead of contacting the Camardo brothers directly, Socks thought it wiser to use intermediaries.

  The winter air was frigid but the crystal clear Manhattan sky allowed the sun to impose a comfortable greenhouse effect on the area just inside the restaurant window. The intoxicating aromas of sauces and pastries floated gently throughout the small room, and a thin veil of cigarette smoke, highlighted by the sun’s rays, lingered in the corner to give a Hopper-esque quality to the three men sitting at the four seat table.

  Under the cloud of spent tobacco, the larger of the three men ate as if it were his last meal and, increasingly agitated by the shrill scraping of the knife and fork on the big man’s plate, Lanza snubbed out his cigarette and broke the silence.

  “So whata ya tellin’me, Jimmy? I’m no good no more?” Socks looked Jimmy square in the eye, who twirled his empty cup of demitasse.

  “I ain’t sayin’ you’re no good, Socks! It’s just that a lotta the guys are a little edgy right now, that’s all.” Jimmy’s words were compelled to escape in between mouthfuls of primavera. He hoped that Lanza would get the picture without him having to spell it out.

  “This guy’s straight up, I’m tellin’ ya. You can talk to him yerself. He’s got guys all over the place. The docks, on trucks, on the boats.”

  “That’s exactly the problem, Socks. Feds all over the place. A lotta people don’t think that’s such a good idea, ya know?”

  Awaiter approached the table from the side just as Socks let go on Jimmy.

  “They ain’t Feds! They’re Navy!” Lanza kept his voice down, but let his growing irritation seep through. The young boy detoured to the other side of the room.

  Jimmy looked at the other man at the table who had been sitting in silence since the start of the meal. It was tradition to politely avoid talk of business until after the meal, and so up until now he had only engag
ed in chit-chat. He accepted the signal from Jimmy, and took over the conversation.

  “Socks, I gotta give it to ya straight. There’s talk’a you makin’ deals.”

  “Deals wit who?” He was coming to a slow boil. Not because of the accusation, it really wasn’t an accusation. If the Camardos said they heard rumours, then there were rumours. And Lanza was pretty sure he knew the source.

  “The DA. Some guys got it figured that you cut a deal ta let the Feds in on some of the operations, so they’d go lighter on ya.”

  “They ain’t fuckin’Feds! They’re United States fuckin’Navy!”

  “Navy, DA, Treasury, they’re all the Law, Socks.” Frankie spoke in a controlled tone, and Socks began to see the futility of his argument. It was a tactic as old as the frontal assault, but a lot less risky for the accuser. Once you were put on the defensive with a simple accusation, no matter what you said, you sounded guilty by virtue of the fact you were defending yourself. No substantiation or real evidence was needed.

  “Does the DA know about this little party?” Lanza certainly couldn’t lie about that. Frankie would never have asked if he didn’t already know the answer.

  “Dem DA’s are only there for one thing, Socks. Ta become politicians. We got Soldiers, Lieutenants, Captains, and a Boss, they got Assistant DA’s, DA’s, Attorney Generals and Governors. Look at Roosevelt. Sure, he helped us out when he was Gov’ner, but what the hell? Was mostly our money got him elected.” His partner was moved to chime in.

  “Better than that little worm Dewey. Frames Lucky, buys the judge and Charlie goes up for fifty years fer a crime ain’t worth ten! Am I right, Socks or am I right? Tell me. You agree or not?”

  “Yeah, I get yer point. Now, you look me in the eye and tell me you think I’m a fink.” Lanza knew he risked Frankie’s friendship with this challenge, but he was too frustrated to care.