The Secret Warriors

by W. E. B Griffin

  “He can help us recruit a man who we hope can do something useful in this regard. Our man in Morocco, Murphy. . . . You met him, I think?”

  “On my way out,” Canidy confirmed.

  “He has established a rather interesting contact with a man named Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz.”

  “He heads the Franco-German Armistice Commission,” Canidy said. “He was doing his damnedest—he and an SS officer named Müller—to get Fulmar back to Germany.”

  “Well, for several reasons, Murphy believes he can be very valuable to us. Fulmar is the key to his cooperation. That’s why we brought Fulmar out of Morocco. It has little or nothing to do with Operation Torch.”

  “How is this tied in with the African flight?”

  “It’s not,” Donovan said after a moment’s hesitation.

  It was obvious that Canidy did not believe him.

  “And this breach of security has fucked this up?”

  “If it gets out, it will,” Donovan said.

  “Then, and for the first time, I am truly sorry,” Canidy said. “Shit! Why didn’t somebody tell me this?”

  “You weren’t sorry before?”

  “You want a straight answer to that?” Canidy asked.

  “Please,” C. Holdsworth Martin, Jr., said.

  “It struck me as much ado about nothing,” Canidy said.

  Donovan coughed, as if he were trying in vain to dislodge something in his throat.

  Canidy waited for him to stop and then went on. “All you have to do is tell Bitter and Douglass to keep their mouths shut. To consider them security risks is patently absurd. So far as Whittaker and Martin are concerned, they don’t know anything, except who’s here in Deal. They also can be told to keep their mouths shut. There is a problem with one of the women, Ann Chambers. She may look like she’s nineteen years old, but she’s a lot smarter than you’d think just to look at her. Last night she was pumping everybody.”

  “You think she learned anything?”

  “No,” Canidy said matter-of-factly. “I’m sure she didn’t. But she’s smart, and we can’t afford to have her speculating in the newspapers.”

  “Are you telling me that, with her exception, you don’t see any security problem?”

  “I don’t suppose my opinion is worth much,” Canidy said, “but if you figure some way to shut her up, I don’t see a security problem, period. I never did.”

  “That’s very interesting, Canidy,” Donovan said. “It is almost exactly the opposite of the opinion Baker holds. And he’s a professional.”

  “I’m not exactly an amateur myself anymore, Colonel. I stopped being an amateur when the sub went off without me.”

  “Not exactly an amateur, but not a professional either,” Donovan said. “Okay, Canidy, that’ll be it. Thank you.”

  “What’s my status, may I ask?”

  “Mr. Martin and I are going to discuss that now. Until a decision has been reached, I think it would be best if you waited in your room.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Canidy said.

  When he had gone, Martin said, “You’re not going to like this, Bill, but my vote goes to Canidy.”

  “Oh, mine, too,” Donovan said. “What you and I are going to have to do is come up with some way to stroke Baker’s ruffled feathers. He’s good, and we can’t afford to have him feeling that we’re pissing on him.”

  “Piss on him a little, Bill,” Martin said. “It’ll be good for him. He seems to think that he’s the spymaster, and that’s your role.”

  Donovan thought that over a moment.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll send him in and you piss on him. Tell him you question his judgment about yelling ‘Fire!’ so loudly.”

  “Why me?”

  “It was your idea, Holdsworth,” Donovan said reasonably, and stood up. “I’m going to go see Canidy and read the riot act again, and then I’m going to find out if he really has laid on a clambake. I haven’t been to one in years.”

  PART EIGHT

  1

  SUMMER PLACE

  DEAL, NEW JERSEY

  JULY 4, 1942

  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 birdbrained friend of hers, Charity Hoche?”

  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, père or fille.”

  Canidy nodded. “And the birdbrain?”

  “We’re going to offer Miss Hoche,” 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 Douglass’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 brie
fcase and searched through it. “I’m sure I had it in here,” he said. “It’s for my personal file.” He searched a moment more, then said, “Here it is.”

  He handed Canidy a single sheet of crisp white paper:

  MILITARY ORDER Copy 2 of 3

  Office of Strategic Services

  By virtue of the authority 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 follows:

  1. The Office of the Coordinator of Information, established by Order of July 11, 1941, exclusive of the foreign information activities 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 the following duties:

  a. 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 the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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

  5. The order of July 11, 1941, is hereby revoked.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Commander 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 nonaccountable 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.”

  “I 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?”

  “Baker, Cynthia, the two Douglasses, 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. Douglass 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.”

  “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.

  2

  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 Douglass 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.

  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.