Weeks of seclusion and mourning were interrupted when Dad decided to take me on a sightseeing flight along Lake Erie leaving from the Cleveland airport, not far from our home. He had chosen the air tour not because he was a pilot or some sort of thrill seeker. He was a preacher. And by nature he never did anything on a lark. But he was desperate. Anything to lift me from the cistern of depression I’d sunk into. Up and away we went, closer to heaven, and to Mom. The outing sealed my fate. I made peace with her; I also decided one day I would be a pilot. War, and Miss C, had bumped up the flying opportunities. More recently, with Liberty, I had been plunged into a different slice of what would be normally a man’s world.
Two days of examination under the “S-scope” later, we emerged: me, properly humbled after my subconscious desires and character weaknesses had begun appearing like a bad case of measles under the strain; and Liberty, who, I had come to discover, was a natural-born actress, none the worse for wear.
Area E, the Spy School, covering the cloak part of a covert agent’s job, came next. At E School we learned the fine points of how to search a room, then how to conceal something in the same space; how to tap a phone; how to open letters and reseal them; how to tail someone through hell and high water; how to break into practically anywhere, then get out again, leaving the place looking so untouched even Harry Houdini would be impressed.
The “how-tos” were divulged in classrooms, where we listened to lectures or watched films. But E also had supervised “lab” time. Perhaps it was simply the act of openly indulging in something otherwise forbidden, but while performing such exercises as lock-picking, secret writing, and using ultraviolet light to fluoresce invisible messages, I felt completely at ease. Almost like flying. Practicing interrogation methods was another matter altogether. Trying to trick someone into revealing things unnerved me, and I stuttered and stumbled formulating my questions. An offshoot of my “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” upbringing, I had to suppose.
Liberty, on the other hand, had a repertoire of methods for getting people to open up. At the OI, she had conducted interviews with refugees arriving in New York. The job involved gathering intelligence from them concerning the situation in Europe. The majority of those she questioned were lonely, downtrodden aliens, relieved and grateful to have arrived safely in America. But they were also anxious and wary, and often reluctant to talk. Moreover, a small percentage of them were clever con artists, and part of her job involved screening for enemy agents. Consequently, to be effective, an OI interviewer needed superior interrogation skills and a finely honed instinct. I was lucky Liberty and I were close and I could sponge enough technique from her to pass the course.
Area F, the rough-stuff department, dealing with the dagger part of an agent’s education, was my training swan song. At F, techniques on “how to kill” using a small rock, a pencil, even a folded newspaper were demonstrated. Other displays of imaginative tools of the trade exposed us to such innocuous but deadly devices as exploding fountain pens and plastic explosives that looked and felt like chunks of modeling clay until our instructor stuck in a fuse and detonated one.
One day, our instructor, a captain with big protruding ears and a nonstop grin, seemed especially gleeful showing off a new plum, developed “especially for the girls.”
“It’s a nasty little vial we’ve nicknamed Who Me?” he announced, holding up a small cobalt-blue bottle. “Inside is a substance with an odor ten times as offensive as a skunk’s. All you gotta do is splash it on an enemy official in a crowd. The scent clings to his clothing and person, and he can’t appear in public for days.” The captain beamed. “Imagine what would happen if someone squirted some of this on Hitler?”
Liberty, who was standing next to me, leaned sideways and whispered, “If I ever got that close to Hitler I would use a long knife.” Her tone and the twinkle in her eyes made me want to laugh, but I pressed my lips into a line, watching our instructor reach for the next gadget.
“Now here’s something in a noisemaker we call the Hedy Lamarr,” he said, grinning, holding a round object about the size of a lemon. “Agents use it to distract attention if they’re in a tight spot. Or if they just want to create panic in a theater or an office.”
The men in our armed forces used images of curvaceous actresses freely. I’d seen my share of them, painted on planes as nose-art. Women’s voluptuous attributes were also played upon when it came to naming new devices. This was the second apparatus that I knew of attributed to an actress. The other was an inflatable life vest, “the Mae West.” But it never occurred to me that I would learn how the Hedy Lamarr worked while we were still indoors. My eyes widened and I froze in place as the captain announced, “Here, let me demonstrate.” He pulled the cap out and tossed the gizmo into a wastebasket. A split second of silence followed, just long enough for me to feel instantly hot and sticky. Suddenly there was the long screech of a falling bomb, a loud explosion, and a flash of yellow flame.
“Just like an air raid, don’t you think, girls?” asked the captain as, eardrums ringing, we watched the flame expend itself in the metal wastebasket.
Chapter Eleven
Back in the ultra quiet VanderKloot suite, having polished off every delicious bite of Mrs. Sarvello’s manicotti, I dabbed my lips and decided that my silky top and full pants had seen enough activity for one night.
I shuffled through the carefully arranged clothing in the armoire, finally finding the tweed skirt and matching copper twin-sweater set I was after. The pullover felt soft and comfortable as I slid it on, but when a ragged edge of my fingernail caught a thread and ripped away from the skin, I yelped. The torn nail hung by a strand. I yanked it off with my teeth and grimaced. Then I had to chuckle. Glossy Fingers! Leave it to Liberty to come up with such an outlandish name. I stepped into the skirt. And what about those owl eyeglasses and that mousy hair coloring? She would never draw anyone’s attention looking so blah.
Precisely what “the art of disguise” course had taught us, I thought, giving the skirt’s side zipper a yank and recalling the last time I had seen Liberty. It was on the final day of my three-week condensed OSS course and we were in Area F.
A portion of the F training area included facilities and grounds that before Pearl Harbor were part of the Congressional Country Club. Nostalgically referred to as “The Club,” the private facility’s once meticulously groomed greens had long since been chewed up by hand grenade practice. Indoors, the formerly elegant ballroom had been transformed into a barn-like classroom littered with folding chairs and blackboards. The vast dining room, previously a place of ornate refinement, now functioned as a singularly unattractive mess hall.
Liberty’s goal was to become a full-fledged operative, meaning that she would be staying on for at least another month. After breakfast that day, I left the converted dining hall, planning to roam the corridors in a final sweep of goodbyes. A comfy book-lined study had miraculously been left untouched. Peering through a partially open door I saw her slight frame, nearly lost in a giant leather chair, on the far side of the room.
“Liberty, what are you doing in here?” I chirped. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Normally, in the company of others, Liberty turned on the charm. Her clear azure eyes lit up, her features came alive, and soon the room was hers. But there she sat, arms crossed over her chest, head pulled down between raised shoulders, her pixie face skewed into a dark scowl. She refused to even look up at me. Wrapped up in my own case of the blues over leaving, I plopped into a chair next to hers. It took some goading, but soon we were commiserating and comparing our woes. In truth, I saw little in Liberty’s “problem” to complain about. I was heading back to Long Beach; she had just heard a rumor that orders were in the hopper, assigning her to China.
“I won’t go there,” she said.
“Why not? Any student agent here would give their false identity to serve in Asia. It’s an exotic place. It’s dangerous. There’s a
dventure.” Besides, I thought, she was born there.
“It’s not Italy.”
“So? China’s a political hot-bed. There’s a lot going on.”
Liberty grimaced. “Uh-huh, sure. Lots of surveys and studies for operational groups.”
War creates strange bedfellows, and our relationship with the Chinese government was multi-faceted. Presently, the Japanese had the Chinese surrounded on all coasts, including the nearby big cities, leaving Western China to the Soviets, Allies, and Chinese-Communists. OSS Research and Analysis had established units in both Chunking and Kunming, and were compiling target studies of Japanese troop movements for the Chinese air forces, led by General Chennault of the famed Flying Tigers.
“Is that what’s wrong?” I ventured. “You’re worried they’ll assign you to R&A and you’ll be stuck poring over data in a thatch hut, bamboo shoots springing up all around you?”
Liberty shook her head. “No. My sources tell me I’d be in the field.”
“Behind the lines?”
The dull strains of Liberty’s voice grated against the thrill in mine. “Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“I’d be reporting to Colonel Whitcomb.”
I blinked. “The Colonel Whitcomb? But he’s in charge of all OSS-China Intelligence.”
Liberty shrugged. “Uh-hmm.”
“But that means you’ll be in the thick of things for sure—”
“Pucci, you don’t understand,” she snapped. “My jump from OWI to OSS…Well, I only agreed to do it after negotiating certain terms.”
Liberty’s mother, originally from Switzerland, had relatives still living there. During high school, she’d attended a Swiss boarding school and it was there that Liberty had become proficient in languages. General Donovan, our secret service boss, habitually recruited from a close circle of well-heeled friends, the practice earning OSS a reputation as an elitist “Oh-So-Social” organization. She went on to explain that like Donovan, she had scores of reliable contacts and old friends, including boarding school chums who had joined the resistance network in Italy. When the OSS recruiter had approached her at the Office of War Information, she had agreed to make the switch, but only after being assured that she would be sent there.
Her mouth formed a wrinkled pout. “He thought it was a swell idea. ‘You’ll be an asset,’ he said, ‘the perfect medium between OSS-MO in Rome and your pals in the Italian underground.’ He promised to arrange it.”
“Well, that’s what you get for being the mistress of languages,” I said lightly. “You’re the only woman…no, the only person I know who speaks Italian, French, German, and Mandarin to boot.” It went without saying that Liberty was also the only person I knew who would have the gall to try negotiating with the U.S. Government. And the temerity to be upset at discovering she had been outmaneuvered.
Her voice was another of Liberty’s special qualities. It was bubbly and melodic. She also had a lilting laugh. But my attempt at humor fell flat. The lines of her pout deepened.
“Liberty, this isn’t like you. You know the way the government works. If you wanted to go to Italy, you should have insisted on duty in China.”
She sighed and faced me. “Pucci, assisting Colonel Whitcomb isn’t what you think. There’s nothing in it for someone with brains or even contacts. It’s all about cleavage.”
“Cleavage?”
Liberty nodded. “Right. There’s a girl shortage there. I’d be cast in the role of party girl, expected to attend all the big official functions.”
“And?”
She flapped her hand dismissively. “Soirees, dinner parties, they’re great places where a woman, especially a flirtatious one who’s conveniently fluent in Mandarin, can pick up lots of valuable information.”
I wasn’t one for frothy party gowns, but Liberty loved getting dolled up. That day’s getup—a banana-yellow shirt, a flowery silk scarf, and pleated linen slacks—spoke volumes.
“Liberty, c’mon,” I said, “we need to know how the Chinese think and what they’re up to. You’d be doing what we’ve been trained to do, gather intelligence. And another thing. Since when have you been shy about using your feminine wiles to gain the advantage?”
Liberty’s hands were resting on the newspaper she had been reading before I joined her, now folded and forgotten in her lap. Well, one hand was at rest. The other was plucking at the beads on her keepsake silver bracelet. She smiled faintly, but in the next instant she was serious again.
“China is not Italy,” she said firmly. “I simply have to find a way to change the orders.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
She had been staring at the newspaper. She looked up. Her eyes were narrow catlike slits. “I’m not sure yet. But I’ll think of something, wait and see.”
***
The library’s pocket doors had been left open. Peering into the semi-dark room, I saw the dim silhouettes of wing-back chairs and hump-back sofas in clustered arrangements resembling tombstones in a graveyard, place marks for the dearly departed.
There she was, tucked into a shadowy corner behind one of the Queen Anne desks. A sconce cast a soft arc of pale light on the tall bookcase behind her. She was reading by flashlight, a book propped in front of her on the desk.
I smiled. Liberty might not be in Italy, but she had won her battle in part. She had not been shipped to China, nor was she in one of the party frocks she had mournfully predicted were de rigueur for the assignment. In keeping with her present cover, she wore a pink manicurist’s smock, even after hours.
The room was completely still. My footfalls made soft padding sounds against the broad carpet. Liberty’s head snapped up, her long neck stretching in a taut line as she squinted into the dark.
“Liber….Glossy!” I whooped, nearly blowing her cover.
“Pucci!” my pal burbled gaily, standing.
We hugged and I detected the faint scent of nail lacquer permeating her stiff cotton smock. I dropped to an upholstered chair while Liberty returned the book she’d been reading to a shelf behind her. It was the copy of Personality Unlimited I had delivered to her earlier in the day.
She took the seat opposite me, and as we leaned forward conspiratorially the beads on Liberty’s bracelet clattered. Her eyes flicked to my wrist; my gaze cut to the tiny cross earring hanging from her earlobe. At school, I’d traded the cross for her bracelet although, back then, the delicate symbol had been part of a necklace my father had given me for confirmation. Momentarily put off that she would alter the piece without asking, I quickly smiled, realizing I should be flattered. She had similarly transformed a pebble taken from the Great Wall of China and, on occasion, liked to wear it like a pirate, or in this instance with the cross, a religious marauder, dangling from one ear. The adornment had a deeper value though: its power to remind her of her father.
“I’m dying to know everything,” I said, “but, first, please tell me what’s so important about that copy of Personality Unlimited you just put back on the shelf?”
Liberty was wearing the oversized glasses. Her sharp blue eyes, exaggerated by the thick lenses, blinked.
“Kiki Barclay-Bly, the woman running this year’s Book Faire, said you’d requested it. She wanted to bring it here herself, but V-V—that’s her husband—wanted to do it instead. So, what’s going on? Have you cast one of your femme fatale spells on him?”
She laughed the melodious sound so exclusively hers. This was the pal I knew and adored.
“What’s the significance of the book?” I repeated in a whisper. “And what are you doing here? You wangled your way out of the China duty, obviously, but what about Italy?”
She looked momentarily wistful. “We all have to pay our dues. The book? I didn’t ask for it and couldn’t say why or even if it’s important. I didn’t find anything special.”
I nodded. I’d scanned the book myself on the way to the salon. So why all the fuss? I glanced over my shoulder a
nd leaned forward. “Okay, forget the book. What are you doing here? Why are you under cover?”
When nervous or lost in thought, Liberty chewed the skin inside her cheek, the habit twisting her mouth askew, adding another quirky dimension to her already impish face. She worked her cheek now and I had the sense she was stalling, wanting to answer my questions but afraid of breaching orders. Her cheek went slack.
“Promise not to repeat what I’m about to say to anyone?” I crossed my heart, and she cast a quick glance around the room. She spoke softly. “G-2 sent me. Someone at the Club is passing secret information to the Nazis.”
“Wh-what?” I stammered. “I mean, who? Who do they suspect?”
“They suspect it has to do with gossip between chairs.”
“Gossip between chairs?”
“Right. You know, beauty parlor talk.”
“Uh-huh…”
She read my confusion. “There’s something about having one’s hair done that releases a woman’s inhibitions.”
“And?”
“The suspect, the wife of a Naval Officer, is one of Clara Renner’s clients.”
I had a sinking feeling. Had the scenario I feared actually happened? Were G-2 and the FBI working on the same case without the other’s knowledge? Had Liberty and I been unwittingly doubled-up?
She looked furtively around the room again. “Personally, I think the woman is just a gossip. Someone insecure who needs to feel important. And what better way to get attention than to let others know discreetly she has access to inside information? You know, drop a hint about what’s going on at the base here, something about her husband’s activities there, how important her husband is, what his duties are, where he might be going. Pretty soon, everyone’s impressed…Classic case of loose lips, if you get my drift.”
Lipstick and Lies Page 14
