Guess the door got him good.
Some three feet away, at the foot of a tall curtain, was the pistol that the man had dropped. Fulmar recognized it as a small-frame Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a five-shot model with a two-inch barrel made for the military and police.
Apparently, the man had had a round under the hammer and when the gun had struck the slate floor the impact had caused the hammer to move and fire off a round.
I have no idea where the damned bullet went, Fulmar thought. Just lucky it didn’t hit anyone.
Ingrid quickly closed the door, then knelt beside Fulmar.
“Eric, please—”
He looked at her.
“You know this guy?”
She nodded.
“Who is he?”
“F-B-I,” the man grunted angrily.
Fulmar looked down at him and saw the man’s angry right eye staring back.
What Fulmar did next took Ingrid—not to mention the man—completely by surprise.
Fulmar started laughing, slowly at first, then more deeply.
Of all the people I could run into, I run into one who’s on our side….
The man’s angry eye darted about in its socket.
“Get off me!” the man grunted.
Fulmar looked at Ingrid.
“Is he really FBI?”
She stared wide-eyed back at him and nodded slowly.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
“I can’t say,” Fulmar replied as he reached down with his left hand, dug into the man’s inside coat pocket, and brought out a small leather wallet.
He flipped it open and saw a badge and an ID card.
Well, shit. So much for wild sex with Ingrid tonight….
Fulmar stood and tossed the wallet on the floor beside the man’s face.
Ingrid Müller came into the living room from the kitchen carrying a small, light blue bag made of a thin, soft rubber material in one hand and a small, stainless steel pot in the other. She had just filled the rubber bag with crushed ice and a small amount of cold tap water, then sealed its screw-top opening. The pot was about a quarter full of tap water.
Eric Fulmar and the FBI guy—“Agent Joseph Hall,” it had said on his ID—were seated opposite one another on leather furniture.
Not just any furniture, Fulmar thought, looking around the now brightly lit apartment. This is the good stuff—designer stuff found in museums.
Ingrid’s taste in furnishings ran toward the modern school—less is more. That included her artwork, oil paintings that were hardly more than huge floor-to-ceiling canvases painted in thick textures of a single hue only slightly darker than the walls.
Thus, there did not appear to be much in the large apartment, but what there was was very nice and fashionable.
The main living area, with its light gray-green slate floor, had as its focal point what Fulmer believed to be pieces—Probably knockoffs of the real thing, he thought, but still outrageously expensive—by the very serious designer Le Corbusier.
There was a chrome-and-black-leather couch and two chrome-and-black-leather chairs (the ones he and Hall were sitting in) positioned around a four-foot square glass-top table with a chrome-framed base that mimicked that of the chairs and couch.
It was all situated on a kind of finely woven rope mat—“Sisal,” I think it’s called—in a cream color.
The styling of the furniture was boxy, square, and though visually stunning—like its owner—it was unbelievably uncomfortable.
Fulmar, taking care not to spill on the leather the scotch on the rocks that Ingrid had made for him, shifted in his seat.
It’s like sitting in, well, a damned box.
A well-upholstered box, but a backbreaking box nonetheless.
“Here you are, Joe,” Ingrid said, handing the ice bag to Hall.
The FBI agent pressed the ice bag to his neck and glared at Fulmar.
Ingrid put the pot on the glass top, then stepped around the table and sat on the black leather couch.
“What’s with the pot?” Fulmar asked.
“If Harold comes up and says someone reported they heard a shot, I act like the silly blonde I am and say my heavy pot got too hot and I dropped it on the table.”
Fulmar raised his eyebrows. “Might work.”
“You’ve clearly never seen me act.”
She smiled, then went on:
“As I was saying, I’ve made my connections in the German community here available to the FBI. I’m an American citizen and this is my way of helping in this awful war.”
“And you were willing to sell me out.”
Her face turned very serious.
“If your intention,” she said, her voice hard, “was to aid and abet the enemy, then you bet your ass I’d do anything that helps stop Hitler even a minute sooner. And that includes bringing people to speak with a ‘member of the Bund’”—she nodded at Hall—“someone about whom I can easily act, if challenged, that I had no idea he’s really with the FBI.”
Fulmar smiled.
“I admire your loyalty,” he said after a moment. “It’s why I approached you.”
“To get to those German agents?”
Fulmar saw Agent Hall’s eyes brighten.
“Maybe,” Fulmar said. “Maybe not.”
“Which is it?” Hall said harshly.
“It’s none of your business,” Fulmar said.
“I am a law enforcement officer of the United States government,” Hall snapped. “You will answer my questions. Or you will go to jail.”
Fulmar chuckled.
“I don’t think so.”
He paused.
“Tell me, Agent Hall, what do you know about any connection between the Bund and these German saboteurs?”
“I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to discuss such information.”
“Because you won’t—or because you can’t, because you don’t know?”
Hall stared at him.
“I’m the FBI,” Hall said. “I ask the questions.”
Fulmar chuckled again.
“You were almost with the fucking New York City coroner’s office.”
Hall tried to ignore that.
Fulmar looked at Ingrid.
“Please excuse my language.”
Hall said, “Tell me again, in what capacity are you here asking such questions?”
“You’re the smart one.” Fulmar grinned. “You figure it out.”
“Look, I’ve about had enough of your attitude—”
“No,” Fulmar said evenly, “it doesn’t work that way. How about you get the hell out of here and go try to figure things out. I’ve got work to do.”
As it turns out, Fulmar thought, your work.
No doubt the FBI is still hoping and waiting those German agents just turn themselves in.
Fulmar stood.
Hall just looked up at him.
“I wasn’t kidding,” Fulmar said. “Get up and get the hell out.”
Hall turned to Ingrid.
“Joe,” she said, “you should do as he says.”
Hall made a face, then stood up. He held out his left hand, palm up.
“What do you want,” Fulmar said, “subway fare?”
“My revolver.”
“Considering recent events, I don’t think I feel too comfortable with you having it right now.” He paused. “I know where you work. I’ll see it gets back to your office. Meantime, maybe you won’t have to explain what happened to it.”
“You can’t—”
“I can,” Fulmar interrupted. “And I am.”
He pointed toward the door.
“Out. Now.”
Hall turned for the door.
“This won’t go unchallenged, Fulmar.”
He slammed the door as he left.
After a moment, Ingrid said, “Do you think he’ll cause trouble?”
“No, of course not. He’s not stupid. He knows who I am and now thinks he know
s what I came to you for. He does not want anyone to know what happened here; it’s in his best interest to pretend tonight never happened.”
He paused, then chuckled.
“Hell, when he calms down in the next hour or so he’ll probably become terrified about whether he should file an official report for the discharge of a bureau firearm. They probably track his rounds.”
Fulmar smiled. He drained his drink and put it on the glass-top table.
“I’d better go,” he said. “Thank you—it’s been an interesting evening.”
Ingrid slid up beside him and put her head on his shoulder.
Fulmar felt her thick hair softly flowing from his face to his shoulder. He smelled the sweet lilac of her perfume.
“I feel like I should somehow apologize,” she said, and added softly, “How about, um, we make it an interesting morning?”
Then he felt her hand on his left buttock.
Fulmar looked at her and grinned.
She made her husky laugh.
She added, “It’s what I said before: you know how to handle things. And…I like the way you handled that guy.”
She squeezed his cheek.
Fulmar thought, And I like the way you handle a guy, too.
W.E.B. Griffin is the author of six bestselling series: The Corps, Brotherhood of War, Badge of Honor, Men at War, Honor Bound, and Presidential Agent. He has been invested into the orders of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association, and St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association, and is a life member of the U.S. Special Operations Association; Gaston-Lee Post 5660, Veterans of Foreign Wars; China Post #1 in Exile of the American Legion; and the Police Chiefs Association of Southeast Pennsylvania, South New Jersey, and Delaware. He is an honorary member of the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association, the U.S. Army Special Forces Association, the U.S. Marine Corps Raider Association, and the USMC Combat Correspondents Association. Visit his website at www.webgriffin.com.
William E. Butterworth IV has been a writer and editor for major newspapers and magazines for twenty-five years, and has worked closley with his father for several years on the editing of the Griffin books. He lives in Texas.
[ ONE ]
39 degrees 10 minutes 2 seconds North Latitude
13 degrees 22 minutes 3 seconds East Longitude
Aboard the Casabianca
Off Palermo, Sicily
2010 19 March 1943
Over the course of the previous four days, since leaving Algiers, Dick Canidy had come to admire Commander Jean L’Herminier, the submarine’s chief officer.
Canidy found that L’Herminier was truly an officer and a gentleman, as well as a first-class submariner. Though the commander had a compact frame—five-seven, maybe one-forty—the way he carried himself made him seem much larger. He spoke softly, but there was strength in his voice, a confidence that he knew exactly what he was doing.
And the thirty-five-year-old had real balls. This wasn’t the first time he had pushed his ship hard and fast.
The Agosta-class Casabianca, ninety-two meters long and diesel powered, had been launched February 2, 1935, at St. Nazaire, France. She had been armed with antiaircraft guns and eleven torpedo tubes and carried a complement of some fifty men and four officers.
L’Herminier had pushed the sub to make the nearly five-hundred-nautical-mile trip from Algiers to just north of the northwestern tip of Sicily in four days. During nighttime hours, he ran her as much as he felt comfortable on the surface, which allowed approximately twice the speed than when she ran submerged during the daylight hours.
He had used a somewhat similar tactic four months earlier, when on November 27, 1942, he and his entire crew escaped from Toulon, the Mediterranean port in southern France. Most of the vessels of the French Navy had just been scuttled there to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis, who had invaded in retaliation of the Allies’ OPERATION TORCH.
L’Herminier had set a hard course of 180 degrees and sailed the Casabianca as fast as she would go to Algiers, and there joined the Allies.
And now he was about to send Canidy to the shore of Sicily.
“Ready, Major?” Commander L’Herminier asked.
“At your pleasure, Commander,” Canidy replied.
Stanley Fine had told Canidy that it had been L’Herminier who had come up with the efficient method of putting agents ashore.
The process involved first making a daylight reconnaissance of the shoreline by periscope to locate an appropriate landing spot on shore for the team. (“You don’t want to drop them off at a tall rocky cliff, for example,” Fine had explained.) The next step was to submerge there and lie on the seafloor till dark. Then, in the safety of darkness, the sub would surface and the agents would disembark to infiltrate ashore either by swimming or by inflatable raft.
The process had worked flawlessly on Corsica, Fine had said, and was quickly being adopted as the standard.
Canidy was dressed in nice slacks, a dark-colored sweater, and a navy blue Greek fisherman’s cap that he had pulled from the wardrobe room the OSS maintained at La Villa de Vue de Mer. These clothes were in fact from Sicily—possibly even once belonging to the shoe magnate Dutton himself—and while they did not fit Canidy perfectly, they were close enough.
He had one other set of clothing from the OSS wardrobe in a black rubberized duffel that also contained his Johnson LMG, the six magazines of .30-06 ammunition for it, four full magazines of .45 ACP for his Colt pistol, ten pounds of Composition C-2 explosive, two packages of cheese crackers, a one-pound salami, and a canteen of water.
In a waterproof canister were the fuses for the Composition C-2, his coded notes of Nola’s family contact information—If for some reason I should find myself in Porto Empedocle—the copy of what he considered his “Charlie Lucky’s You’re an Instant Mobster!” form, and his OSS credentials.
In his pocket, kept close at hand, was a tin pillbox with ten or so aspirin—and two glass ampoules of cyanide acid.
When he had put them in there, he had thought, Well,if the aspirin doesn’t cure a headache, an ampoule sure will.
Commander L’Herminier looked one final time in the periscope, and when he was satisfied with what he saw—or, more important, didn’t see—he turned to his executive officer.
“Take her up please,” the captain of the boat ordered in French.
The deck of the submarine was still much awash with seawater as Canidy and a pair of sailors wordlessly came down the conning tower ladder. Canidy carried his duffel. One of the sailors carried a partially inflated rubber boat, a paddle that folded, and a bellows. The other sailor carried a rope ladder.
Out on the deck, just forward of the conning tower, the sailor with the rope ladder began tying it off to hard points while the sailor with the rubber boat fully inflated it.
When both were finished, Canidy was less than enthused.
As far as he was concerned, the rubber boat that had been provided for him to transition from sea to shore left quite a bit to be desired.
“Boat” is a rather fanciful description, he thought, eyeing the rubber doughnut.
It was not much better than a large truck-tire inner tube, and he began to strongly suspect that that was exactly what it was. Or at least a modified version of one, with a circle of rubber material vulcanized to its bottom to serve as a sort of floor.
Its chief—if not sole—positive attribute was that being so small it would not be hard to hide once he reached shore.
He was grateful that he had had some practice getting in it back in Algiers. But now that he stood on a wet sub deck out in the open sea, that training seemed rather far removed from the real world.
He shook his head.
“Now or never, I suppose,” he said, not necessarily to the sailors.
“Yes, sir,” they said almost in unison.
The paddle was tied to the boat and then the raft tied with two lines—the second being backup in the event the first came loose—to the foot of th
e rope ladder. The sailors slowly slid the boat down the side of the sub.
The sailors came to attention and saluted Canidy.
“Good luck, sir,” the one who attached the ladder said.
“Thanks,” he said, returning the salutes. “I think I’m going to need it.”
He adjusted the straps of the duffel that he had slung over his right shoulder, then got to his knees beside the ladder and, with great effort, began working his way down its difficult rungs.
As he descended, he heard the sound of water lapping against the hull. With the lapping getting louder, he knew he was close to the surface of the water.
He found the rubber boat bobbing in the sea.
Carefully, and slowly, he reached out with his left foot and tried first to locate the damned thing and then, if successful, step into it.
After a moment, he felt the familiar sensation of his shoe touching rubber.
But the boat bobbed away.
When he tried again and reached farther with his foot—his right foot slipped on the rope ladder.
He clung to the ladder with his hands with all his energy.
He hung by his hands a moment—Now, that was close to disaster—then one at a time put both feet back on the ladder, and when he was sure of his footing he slowly reached again for the boat.
He got it.
He then carefully managed to get his right foot in the ring of rubber. He knelt—his knees getting soaked from water that had collected inside the boat—and slowly worked his hands down the rope ladder.
He was completely inside now and floating just fine.
Here’s where I suddenly flip.
Or the sub starts to submerge with me still attached.
Moving as quickly as he dared, he untied the paddle, then the lines attaching the boat to the ladder.
He tugged twice on the ladder to signal he was free of it, then with his hand pushed off of the sub hull.
The fucking massive sub hull, from this perspective, he thought, looking up and watching the ladder being recovered.
He took the paddle, unfolded it, dipped the blade in the water to his right and stroked.
The boat made almost a complete revolution.
Shit!
The Saboteurs Page 34
