Inside the room, Sidi el Ferruch and the blond American were nearly naked. Meanwhile el Ferruch’s huge Senegalese took the women to one side, holding their arms so firmly in his massive hands that they carried dark bruises for weeks. If either of them ever said a word about what they saw in the chambre séparée, he warned them, he would slice off their breasts and send them to their families.
Ropes were produced, attached to radiators, and then released out the open windows. There was a rope apiece for each of the men, and one for the small, heavy oilskin package of currency. Once they were in the water, the American would tow the money while the jewels were strapped to the lithe, muscular, practically hairless body of Sidi Hassan el Ferruch. Neither wore any swimming costume.
Fulmar was a better swimmer then el Ferruch, and perfectly capable of handling both the currency and the jewels, but Sidi Hassan el Ferruch insisted on joining him. There was not only greater safety that way, but the boatmen they were meeting would also afterward return to Safi (the village where they made their home) and report that Sheikh Sidi Hassan el Ferruch had swum through the surf at Pointe-Noire. There would be a very nice increase in Sheikh Sidi Hassan el Ferruch’s reputation as a result. And in due course other heroic tales and legends. The reward Sidi expected to find as a consequence of tonight’s escapades, in other words, had little to do with any increases these would add to his wealth.
Unlike his friend, however, Eric wanted money—and lots of it. But he, too, was grinning like Errol Flynn as the two of them swung down their ropes. Getting the money was necessary, but the adventure of getting it was supreme delight.
But the trick was getting into the water. Dropping into the surf, you ran the risk of being captured by a wave and smashed against the rock. The trick, which they had practiced down the coast, was to lower oneself onto the rock as a wave receded, then immediately dive into the next wave. If that was done properly, there was sufficient force in the dive to carry the diver far enough away from the rock not to be smashed against it.
Coming in was less risky. You just waited until a wave receded, then swam quickly to the rock before another crashed, and scampered up the rope out of the way of the next one.
Beyond the surf, there was only one danger: missing the boats three hundred meters offshore. If there were no boats, Fulmar joked during dinner in Le Relaise de Pointe-Noire, some fisherman’s wife walking the beach the next morning would find a surprising gift from Allah.
Twenty minutes after entering the water, Fulmar and then el Ferruch heard the steady slapping of an oar against the water and swam toward the sound. Fulmar was first to find it. He was hauled aboard the black, low-slung, fifteen-foot fisherman’s dory and wrapped in blankets before el Ferruch’s hand appeared on the rail and he too was hauled in.
It took them almost ten minutes—longer than they expected—before they had stopped shivering and were prepared to reenter the water. Going back was easier, because the lights of Le Relaise de Pointe-Noire were a target, because they would now be carried in by the very strong tides.
An hour after they first entered the water, they were back on the rock, and the fisherman’s dory had almost made its rendezvous with its mother ship, a forty-foot single-sailed fishing dhow. The dhow would sail fifteen miles due west into the Atlantic and rendezvous with an Argentine steamer bound for Buenos Aires. The dhow would then cast its nets for the rest of the night and then return to Safi, where the crew would rejoin their friends, laugh and joke and relate the story of how Sheikh Sidi Hassan el Ferruch had swum through the surf at Pointe-Noire and again made fools of the French and the Germans.
When the two naked, shivering men climbed through the windows of the chambre séparée, the enormous Senegalese immediately coiled the ropes, and the Moroccan women wrapped them inside blankets. Later the very exciting-looking blond one drank from a bottle of French cognac, then reclined on a chaise longue. One of the women rubbed his legs and back with towels, and then his front. He stopped shivering, sat up, looked down at himself, closed his eyes, and laughed.
She laughed too, and gently—but very cautiously—let her fingers experience his luxurious mat of light golden hair. She was not used to hair so bright.
And he, when not long afterward he began to explore her body with his hands, found her hair to be fuller, richer, and darker than he was used to . . . except where she had carefully made herself baby-smooth.
National Institute of Health Building Washington, D.C. November 30, 1941
Captain Peter Douglass gave Eldon C. Baker a cup of coffee, poured himself one, then carried it behind his desk.
‘‘I’ve just been reading your files,’’ he said. ‘‘Again.’’
‘‘I’m a little surprised to hear that,’’ Baker confessed. He wondered how the Navy captain had managed to gain access to his personal records.
‘‘The psychiatrist thinks you have a tendency to indulge your fantasies,’’ Douglass said. He flipped through papers on his desk. ‘‘Would you say that’s the case, Mr. Baker?’’
Now Baker was even more surprised. It was absolutely against regulations for psychiatric evaluation records to be disseminated outside the intelligence division of the State Department, much less casually shipped to some public-relations outfit sharing quarters with the National Institute of Health.
‘‘May I see that?’’ Baker asked.
‘‘Help yourself,’’ Douglass said.
Baker got out of his chair and walked to Douglass’s desk.
‘‘They were more than a little upset when I went over there for these,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘And were more than a little reluctant to hand them over.’’
‘‘You’re not supposed to have access to these records,’’ Baker said.
‘‘Nor these either, I daresay,’’ Douglass said. He pushed a stack of manila folders to Baker. They were all stamped SECRET. What they were were his complete files—copies of everything he had transmitted to the State Department since entering his intelligence assignment in France.
‘‘If it’s your intention, Captain, to surprise me, you have,’’ he said. ‘‘May I ask what’s going on around here?’’
‘‘What had you heard?’’ Douglass asked.
‘‘That you were going to handle the national propaganda, should we get in a war,’’ Baker said.
‘‘That, too,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘What is it you want of me?’’ Baker said.
‘‘Well,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘You have a nice speaking voice, and I understand you’re perfectly fluent in French and German. Perhaps we could put you to work doing foreign-language broadcasts.’’
‘‘You’re mocking me,’’ Baker said, without anger. ‘‘Why?’’
‘‘I want to see if the psychiatrist is right,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘I’d like to know what your imagination makes of all this.’’
‘‘Are you serious?’’
‘‘Perfectly.’’
‘‘Anything with enough authority to get my records is some sort of intelligence operation.’’
‘‘Very good,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘But I’m not sure whether that is your imagination at work, or whether Undersecretary Quinn told you that he’s heard this is some sort of intelligence operation and suggested you find out as much as you can about it while you’re over here.’’
‘‘Half and half,’’ Baker said. ‘‘When Mr. Quinn learned I was coming over, he said something about what he’d heard. But I don’t understand how you got the wherewithal to remove my files. That, my unfettered mind suggests, means you have a great deal of authority.’’
‘‘I report to Colonel William J. Donovan. Donovan answers to the President,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘And what do you want with me?’’
‘‘We want you to head up what would be called, in the State Department, the French desk.’’
Baker just looked at him.
‘‘We’re still in the process of starting up,’’ Douglass went on. ‘
‘The French desk—at least for the near future—includes French North West Africa.’’
‘‘Why me?’’
‘‘Well, for one thing, Robert Murphy thinks very highly of you,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘He was furious when he couldn’t get you to be one of his control officers.’’
‘‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’’ Baker said.
Douglass laughed, pleasantly.
‘‘The Weygand-Murphy Accords are only classified secret, ’’ he said. ‘‘If I can get your dossier and your files, are you really surprised that I know about them?’’
‘‘Knowing about something and talking about it are two different things,’’ Baker said.
‘‘We are entitled to know everybody’s secrets,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘The reverse is not true.’’
‘‘Forgive me, Captain, isn’t that a little melodramatic?’’
‘‘Possibly,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘What, exactly, would I be doing on your French desk?’’
‘‘Whatever has to be done in what Colonel Donovan decides is the interest of the United States,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘Some of the things you may be asked to do might violate the law, and will certainly violate what is commonly thought of as decency and morality. Would that bother you?’’
‘‘I’m unable to take you entirely seriously,’’ Baker said.
"Oh, I’d hoped the files would impress you," Douglass said. "They don’t?"
‘‘Yes, they do,’’ Baker said after a moment. ‘‘But you’re throwing this at me awfully quickly.’’
‘‘Yes, I know,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘But don’t take that to mean that I am acting impulsively. Before we sent for you, you were gone over very thoroughly. The decision to send for you was made by Colonel Donovan himself.’’
‘‘What would I be doing?’’ Baker asked.
Douglass ignored the question. ‘‘You’re about to be promoted at the State Department,’’ he said. ‘‘Which was one of the reasons Mr. Murphy couldn’t have you as a control officer. The State Department had high-priority plans for you. Our priority is even higher.’’
Douglass waited a moment for that to sink in and then went on. ‘‘You will, in any case, be given that promotion. If you come over here, State Department records will indicate that you are a special assistant to the undersecretary of state for European affairs. For the time being, at least, you will remain on the State Department payroll. But you will answer to me, not to anyone in the State Department. If I ever find out that you told anyone in the State Department anything that you learn here—and I would, Mr. Baker— you will spend the balance of your government career stamping visas. Do I make that point?’’
‘‘We’re back to the melodrama,’’ Baker said.
‘‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘How much time do I have to think this over?’’ Baker asked.
‘‘Until you leave the room,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘Wouldn’t you be likely to think I’m a fool if I jumped into this impulsively?’’
‘‘I’ve read your files; you’re no fool. The question before me now is how decisive you are.’’
‘‘I’ll call your bluff,’’ Baker said.
‘‘I’m not bluffing,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘As I understand your offer, I retain my State Department status . . ."
‘‘For the time being. You may be asked to transfer to us later,’’ Douglass confirmed.
‘‘And I am to report to you, as head of a French/French North West African desk that is somehow involved in intelligence? ’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘All right,’’ Baker said.
‘‘Would you be offended if I said that I am not surprised? That, in fact, I have already arranged an office for you?’’ Douglass asked.
Baker thought that over.
‘‘No,’’ he said.
‘‘What is the highest security classification with which you are familiar, aside from Presidential Eyes Only?’’
‘‘Secretarial Eyes Only, I suppose,’’ Baker said.
‘‘Until we run you through the administrative process around here, I’m afraid I can’t let you take this out of the office,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘But I want it running through your head while you’re over at State this afternoon cleaning out your desk.’’
‘‘That quick?’’
Douglass ignored the question. ‘‘The classification of this—we haven’t come up with a satisfactory classification system yet, frankly—is somewhere below Presidential Eyes Only and somewhere above Secretarial Eyes Only. Only those Cabinet members with a need to know have access to it.’’
He handed Baker a file.
‘‘There’s as much information as we have on a man named Louis Albert Grunier in there,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘The first thing we have to do is find him, and the second thing we have to do is figure out the best way to get him here without arousing the suspicions of the Germans.’’
A quick glance at the first couple of lines showed Baker that Louis Albert Grunier was a French national who was last known to be an employee of Union Minière in the Katanga Province of the Belgian Congo. His present whereabouts were unknown.
‘‘May I ask why this man is valuable?’’ Baker asked.
‘‘Grunier knows the location of a certain raw material that is considered of great importance. We think he will be able to help us get our hands on it.’’
‘‘You’re not going to tell me what kind of material? Or what it is to be used for?’’ Baker asked.
‘‘No,’’ Captain Douglass said. ‘‘But I’ll tell you what I want you to do: indulge your imagination and make guesses. Come in here at nine in the morning and tell me what you’ve been thinking.’’
SEVEN
Summer Place Deal, New Jersey 10:30 A.M., December 7, 1941
Chesley Haywood Whittaker, Sr., had built Summer Place in New Jersey in 1889 because the senior Whittaker did not like Long Island or Connecticut or Rhode Island, where most of his peers had their summer places. He was neither a Vanderbilt nor a Morgan, he said to his wife, just a simple bridge and dam builder; and he could not afford to copy in Newport or Stockbridge a Florentine palace. So she would just have to deal with Deal. The play on words amused him.
The names his wife suggested for the new summer house (twenty-six rooms on three floors, sitting on ten acres that sloped down to the beach of the Atlantic Ocean) also amused him. She proposed Sea View and Sea Breezes and The Breakers and Ocean Crest and Sans Souci (and the English translation, Without Care).
‘‘ ‘Careless’ would be all right, Mitzi,’’ Chesley Haywood Whittaker told his wife. ‘‘It would memorialize my foresight in hiring Carlucci.’’
Antonio Carlucci and Sons, General Contractors, had built the house, graded the dunes, and laid the grass, drive-ways, and a six-hole putting green for what Chesley Haywood Whittaker, Sr., considered an outrageous ninety-seven thousand dollars.
Esther Graham ‘‘Mitzi’’ (for no good reason) Whittaker was alone with the father of her three sons in the privacy of their bedroom in their brownstone on Murray Hill in New York City. There were no children or servants within hearing.
‘‘Call it what you damned well please, you ass!’’ she flared. ‘‘But there had damned well better be a sign up by next week!’’
The house, not quite two miles from the railroad station in Asbury Park, could not be seen from the road. Mitzi’s sister and brother-in-law had ridden in a hack for two hours up and down the road before they found it. It was, Mitzi pointed out to her husband, the only one of more than two dozen summer places nearby that had neither a gatehouse nor a sign.
A sign was up when next Mrs. Whittaker went to Deal. The senior Whittaker had ordered a brick wall six feet high and eight feet long on the sand beside the road. Mounted on it was a bronze sign, cast as a rush order and special favor to Whittaker by the Baldwin Locomotive Wo
rks:
SUMMER PLACE WHITTAKER
‘‘It would have taken six men and God only knows how much money to take it down, and your father knew it,’’ Mitzi Whittaker had often told her sons. It was one of her favorite stories, and every time that Chesley Haywood Whittaker, Jr., passed the sign he thought of his mother telling that story.
He remembered the sign when it stood alone on the sand. Now there was a fence, brick pillars every twenty-five feet, with pointed steel poles in between. The road had long ago been paved with brick, and Summer Place had become the year-round residence of Chesley Haywood Whittaker, Jr.
After the death of first their father and six months later their mother, Mitchell Graham Whittaker, the older brother, had taken over the brownstone in Manhattan and lived there unmarried (but, it was reliably rumored, seldom without female companionship) until his death.
And the house on Q Street had gone to James Graham Whittaker, the baby brother, who had been killed with Pershing in France four months before his wife delivered their only child. As Chesley Haywood Whittaker often thought, young Jim Whittaker became the only chance the family had to perpetuate its name and fortune. For Chesty and his wife—to their deep regret—were childless.
James’s wife, a Martindale girl from Scarsdale, had remarried a couple of years after his death; but she had been extraordinarily kind to Chesty and Mitch about the boy, who had been christened James Mitchell Chesley Whittaker at Saint Bartholomew’s on Park Avenue with his uncles and Barbara as his godparents. She had shared the boy with them more than they had any right to expect she would.
Her second husband, a lawyer on Wall Street, was a Yalie by way of Phillips Exeter. Little Jimmy had followed the Whittakers through St. Mark’s and Harvard. Every New Year’s, they had sort of a delayed Christmas for him at Summer Place, and Jimmy’s mother and her husband and their children always gave them the boy for a month in the summer.
The Last Heroes Page 19