Canidy let that sink in a second as he looked around the room, making eye contact. He noticed that a couple of the men were made uncomfortable with that. They looked away. He made a mental note on them, particularly the one with a thick black beard who appeared somewhat nervous.
Then he went to the blackboard, located a piece of white chalk, and picked it up.
“I’m going to make this presentation short and sweet,” he said, looking at the men, “as we all have important work to do. But I believe what you’re about to see and hear is important background for what you’re doing.”
He turned to the board.
“Okay,” he began, and, with the chalk, wrote ABWEHR, centered near the top of the blackboard, then drew a box around it. “I’m sure you’re all familiar with this.”
He turned to look at the others and then went on. “Germany’s real use of the Abwehr was to get around the Treaty of Versailles. As you know, with the end of the First World War the 1919 treaty was signed in order to keep Germany contained, keep its balls in a vise. The treaty said that Germany could not engage in espionage or other covert ‘offensive’ intelligence gathering. But it did allow a ‘defensive’ counterespionage. So they had—”
He turned back to the backboard and tapped the white box.
“—the Abwehr.”
To the right of the box, he wrote AMT AUSLANDSNACHRICHTEN UND ABWEHR.
“Anyone translate?” Canidy said.
“Simply,” a voice with a French accent said, “the Office of Foreign and Counterintelligence.”
Canidy looked to see who had answered. It was Pierre, the parachutist.
“Right, Mr.—”
“Mr. Jones,” he said, his French accent somewhat mangling the pronunciation. It came out a nasally Mee-ster Joe-nay.
Pierre Jones, Canidy thought and smiled inwardly.
OSS agents did not use their real names in training camps, and usually only went by their first name. The cover helped protect them in the event that the agent sitting next to him was indeed a V-männer or just a low-level snitch who later could rat him out.
“Of course,” Canidy said and wrote the translation underneath the German as he repeated it. “OFFICE OF FOREIGN AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE.”
He circled the last word, then tapped FOREIGN.
“The treaty allowed Germany’s military attached to its embassies and such to overtly gather information—the ‘foreign’—and the Germans of course did exactly that. The treaty also allowed Germany to have its own security force, and so the ‘counterintelligence.’”
He tapped the circled word.
“But it was under this legitimate service that Germany conducted its illicit activities—its international secret service.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Thus,” he said, then stopped, and above ABWEHR wrote HIGH COMMAND in its own box and drew a line linking the two boxes. He went on: “Thus, the Abwehr, under the High Command, really began as an illegitimate, underground organization, its secret purpose to gather covert intel…all against the faith of the Treaty of Versailles.”
“Not that that damn Hitler abides by any agreements, anyway,” Scamporino said.
“Unfortunately, very true,” Canidy said, and immediately thought about the bastard violating the chemical warfare treaty by putting the Tabun in Palermo.
He cleared his throat, and went on: “By the time Admiral Wilhelm Canaris took over the Abwehr in 1935, Germany’s rearming was pretty much in full swing, and the Abwehr quite powerful. Today, it’s even more so, and the reason why we need to know all that we can to defeat them.”
He saw that some of his students were starting to get a glazed look in their eyes.
“Okay, I’ll try to make this next part fast.”
He turned back toward the blackboard and, below the box with ABWEHR, he drew four more boxes on the same line. Then he drew lines from each new box to the ABWEHR box, forming what looked like a four-tine fork.
“The Abwehr has four main sections, called Abteilungen, or Abt for short. And each Abt has men from the German army, navy, and air services.”
He wrote ABT I in the first box, ABT II in the second, ABT III in the third, and ABT Z in the last.
“Abt I is espionage,” he said, and wrote ESPIONAGE in the box, “commanded as of this month by Colonel Georg Hansen.”
He wrote the name in the box.
“Oberst Hansen is a bit of a roughneck, but, as one might expect of someone in such a position, he is energetic and efficient at his job.”
Canidy in the next box wrote SABOTAGE, SUBVERSION, and after a dash put COL. ERWIN LAHOUSEN.
“Like a great many of Hitler’s officers—like Hitler himself—Oberst Lahousen is an Austrian. He comes from a military family, and so is very much a natural at what he does”—Canidy tapped the box—“sabotage and subversion.”
In the Abt III box, Canidy wrote SECURITY, COUNTERESPIONAGE, and COL. EGBERT VON BENTIVEGNI. “This one, I’m sure you gather, is what once was the legitimate arm under which the illegitimate Abwehr once operated.”
And in the last box, Abt Z, he wrote Z = “ZENTRAL” OR ADMIN. and COL. HANS OSTER.
“And this one is the administrative section. A critical component, if only for its layers of bureaucracy that with luck we could target in order to cut off, or at least cause to delay, the lifeblood of money, munitions, et cetera, destined for German agents.”
He looked around the room. A few men, the more intelligent-looking ones, were writing down what he’d put on the board. The vast majority, however, simply sat and stared back blankly.
“Questions at this point?” Canidy said.
The room remained silent, the men looking either reluctant to speak or, more likely, just disengaged.
“Anyone?” Canidy pursued. “If I don’t know the answer, I’ll just get it pooma.”
There now were flashes of curiosity in their eyes.
“Pooh—what?” Darmstadter suddenly said, innocently…then looked embarrassed at his outburst.
Canidy grinned. “You surprise me. Of all people, I’d have thought you’d be the one who knew pooma up and down.”
Canidy turned to the board and wrote the word on the board.
Then, tapping the appropriate letter as he went, Canidy said, “Pulled Out of My Ass. Pooma.”
The room erupted with appreciative laughter.
After the sound of that settled, a young man at the front raised his hand. He appeared to be Sicilian, or Sicilian American, about twenty years old.
Canidy pointed to him. “Yes?”
“The odds of me running into Oberst Lahousen,” the young man said, motioning at the blackboard, “well, let’s just say I’m not holding my breath it’s going to happen. So how exactly does all this fit with what we’re doing?”
There’s an American flavor to his speech, Canidy thought. Maybe one of Corvo’s ten recruits he brought over….
Canidy nodded.
“Okay,” he said, “I understand what you’re saying. But it’s important to understand the big picture—Know Thy Enemy—so that you can understand the ones that you will come in contact with.”
The young man nodded, his unruly black hair bouncing.
Canidy turned to the board and wrote PINS ON THE MAP SYNDROME.
He looked at the men, and said, “Anyone heard of that?”
An intelligent-looking Italian American of about thirty raised his hand.
“Is it like where you keep track of your salesmen by putting pushpins with different-colored heads on a map representing your sales territory?” he said clearly with the accent and experience of someone who had been in America for some time.
Definitely one of Corvo’s recruits from the States.
Canidy nodded.
“Very much so,” he said. “It is, in other words, the tracking of assets. But something more. The syndrome part has, as you might expect, a psychological component.”
Canidy turned to the
board and began writing again.
“First, let me outline this.”
He turned and pointed at the young Sicilian American and said, “You mentioned Oberst Lahousen, so I’ll use Abt II. But know that all the Abts are structured in this manner. Abt II is a good example, as it was the parent of the Brandenburg units, the ruthless German special ops that took out the partisans in Yugoslavia in ’41. These are the type of forces you can expect to fight.”
He drew another box at the top of the board, then wrote ABWEHR HQ in it. Under that, he put another box, drew a line linking the two, and in the lower box wrote ABWEHRSTELLEN (“ASTS”).
“There are some twenty-plus Asts within the Reich,” Canidy said as he drew another box, this one under ASTS, “with a dozen or more in occupied territories. Each Ast has smaller Nebenstellen”—he wrote that in the new box and added NESTS—“and these Nests can have even smaller teams that specialize, called Aussenstellen, or ‘Outstations.’”
Canidy noticed Corvo and Scamporino nodding, having recognized the terms ASTS and NESTS.
He finished writing all that, and went on:
“Then there is the Kriegsorganisation, ‘KO’ for short, or ‘War Organization.’ This operates in neutral countries—Switzerland and Sweden, of course, Spain, Turkey, et cetera—with either a diplomatic or commercial cover. It is the Abwehr’s overt presence, but the Abwehr does not act against its host. KO serves as a base of operations.”
When he finished, he turned to the crowd and said:
“All of these have representatives from each of the German services, and all of these, we have found, do not have any true centralized control or direction from above. Therefore, the Abwehr is not always well run. And, occasionally, not well run at all.”
There were murmurings.
“Do not misunderstand me,” Canidy quickly added. “It is often effective, and you should not underestimate it. But there are Abwehr weak links.” He paused. “Here’s where the syndrome kicks in. We have found, as I’m sure you have seen here among the German POWs, that Nazi officers tend to be rather proud of themselves—”
Someone in the crowd snorted loudly. That caused others to chuckle.
Canidy went on: “A genuine arrogance—”
“Like that goddamn Hitler!” the young Sicilian American interrupted.
Appreciative grunts of agreement rippled through the crowd.
Do I need to tell them to shut the hell up until I’m finished?
He was about to say exactly that when he realized that the outbursts proved that the men now were engaged with the subject. Snapping at them would be the equivalent of him pissing on their fire. So, instead, he embraced it.
“Yes, ‘Like that goddamn Hitler,’” Canidy repeated.
Darmstadter saw the young man’s face practically light up.
Canidy’s good at that, Darmstadter thought, making the guy low on the team feel like he’s king.
Canidy went on: “Hitler’s arrogance is their example and they mimic it. Now, to feed this arrogance, these officers need power, and the more people they control, then the more power they appear to have—among their men and their superiors.”
“The more pins on the map!” the young Sicilian American said suddenly.
“You got it,” Canidy said. “And this, you might expect, tends to fuel itself. And competition rises between officers who oversee the spies and their controllers. They think that if, for example, ten agents are good, a hundred has to be ten or more times better. So ignoring whatever talent their recruits may or may not have—or even what loyalty—they fill their ranks with as many men, or women, as possible.”
He paused, letting that set in.
“And here’s where the payoff comes for us: The Asts and Nests—again, acting independently, without direction from above—recruit and train their own spies, then send them on ops. Ast Berlin could, for example, send agents to, say, Porto Empedocle not knowing that Ast Hamburg and Ast Munich already had agents there. And Hamburg and Munich may not know of the other’s existence.”
He paused, glanced at the board, then continued:
“These agents sent into the field may be without talent, but they are not so stupid as not to recognize this arrogance and the fact that they can play to it. They feed the officer information—good, bad, indifferent—and the officer adds that to the information from his other agents, then passes it all up the line to impress his superiors. Meanwhile, the agent skims money he’s given to pay his sources, demands higher payment for his work, lies about his expenses. His loyalty is only to himself. And, clearly, that loyalty has a price.”
He paused.
“And that, gentlemen, is one of the major weak links of the Abwehr—if not the weakest link.”
There were nods of understanding in the crowd.
Pierre, the parachutist, then said, “You’re not suggesting that only the Krauts are corrupt, are you?”
Shit, Canidy thought, looking at Pierre. Good question.
Answer: “Not no but hell, no. We’ve got our own agents rotten to the core.”
Then he wondered: And how much of what I just went over was already perfectly clear to someone here?
“Oh, no,” Canidy said. “You’re going to find that on our side, too. It’s, unfortunately, human nature.”
“Then what’s the difference?” Pierre pursued.
Christ, another good question.
Am I being naïve about this? And he’s seeing right through it?
Because the real answer is: “Not a helluva lot.”
But…there is one difference, however small it might be. And sometimes it’s the small thing that saves the day.
“Very simple,” Canidy said, looking around the crowd, then making a dramatic sweep of the room with his right hand. “We want to fight to win. When you were approached, no one in here volunteered for fear that, if they didn’t, they’d be sent to a concentration camp, or shot on the spot, or that their families would be. Right?”
He saw a few heads nodding in agreement.
“Now, without a doubt, there are those with ulterior motives, perhaps even someone in this room”—he glanced at one of the men whom he’d earlier made uneasy with his eye contact; the bearded man now busied himself making notes from the blackboard—“but we have ways to weed them out. As my father, and, I’m sure, your fathers, too, said, ‘Good always overcomes evil.’”
He let that sink in, then continued:
“Now, knowing all I’ve told you here, and knowing what you’re learning here at the Sandbox, there should not be a doubt in your minds that you and I will be successful fighting for the freedom of our countries, for the freedom of our families.” He paused for dramatic effect, then, raising his voice, said, “We’re going to kick the living hell out of them and win this goddamn war!”
The crowd erupted with hoots and applause.
Canidy looked around the room, smiling.
Jesus, I think that I just may have pulled that off.
Or, as the case would be, I did it pooma.
When in doubt, always wave flag and family in their face.
Canidy glanced at his watch, then held up his hand as a wave good-bye.
“And with that, gentlemen, I have to go.”
There was more polite applause as the men got up from their seats.
Canidy walked over to Corvo.
“I’m sure I’ll be back sometime soon, Max,” he said. “Meantime, keep an eye out for what we discussed.”
Because I’m going to take over one of your teams for Sicily. And if I can turn an enemy agent here, so much the better.
“Will do, Dick,” Corvo said. He looked at the board, then added, “And thanks for this.”
As Scamporino walked up, Corvo said to him, “We need to save what’s on the board. Get a picture of it, huh? Or write it down…whatever.”
Scamporino nodded. He looked at Canidy and offered his hand.
“Thanks for that lesson. And, particularly, th
e pep talk. The men needed it more than I realized.”
“You’re welcome,” Canidy said, shaking his hand.
Scamporino turned to Darmstadter, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “See you soon, Hank. Take care.”
Then he left the room.
As Canidy started to follow Scamporino to the door, he glanced again at the charcoal scenes from the Bible.
Two thoughts struck him, both concerning his father, the Reverend Dr. George Crater Canidy, headmaster of St. Paul’s School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
First was that he knew that his father would know exactly what they were, right down to citing chapter and verse for each. His father was, of course, expert in such study.
Second, that he had just served as teacher to a class of students, just as his father had done for decades.
Dick Canidy loved his father dearly. Yet he wondered how his father would feel knowing that he was part of an organization using the facility that had once been a boarding school for Catholic boys—not unlike St. Paul’s and its sons of devout Episcopalians—for the training of spies and saboteurs and assassins.
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” Canidy suddenly remembered. From the Book of John—chapter 8, verse 32.
Like father, like son?
Don’t kid yourself, Dick.
Dear ol’ Dad, God bless him, would not like this shit one bit.
[TWO]
Darmstadter raised the landing gear and retracted the flaps of the Gooney Bird after their departure from the dirt strip at Dellys. He then pushed the yoke slightly forward, leveling off the plane, and adjusted the throttle back just slightly, settling in on a due easterly course right along the coastline.
The sun was to their back, a little more than an hour from setting and starting to create long shadows across the ground ahead of them. After a few minutes, Darmstadter pointed in an animated fashion at eleven o’clock out the windscreen.
“There they go,” he said over the intercom. “Headed for the Sandbox.”
Canidy looked out that direction, and saw another C-47. The sunlight set it off in the blue sky.
Canidy saw that it was approaching the western edge of Dellys. Then he saw, in quick succession, eight figures drop from the back of the aircraft—then their parachutes pop open one after another. They floated down, all nicely lit by the sun, and landed somewhat scattered. Then the aircraft disappeared over the ridge, headed in the direction of the dirt strip on the other side.
The Double Agents Page 12