The Double Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  “If Ike nixes the idea,” Stevens said, “we can call off the op right up to the very last minute, when the agent is launched from the sub.”

  That triggered curious looks from Jamison, the Duchess, and Charity.

  “Submarine?” Charity said.

  Montagu was nodding as he pulled a folder from the case.

  “The Seraph,” he said.

  He opened the folder and produced a single sheet.

  “This is an abstract of what I gave last week to Lieutenant Jewell, the sub commander,” Montagu said. “I think it rather well sums up what we’re trying to do.”

  He handed it to Charity, who immediately held it out to Stevens.

  “Thank you,” Stevens said, declining to take it by holding up his hand palm out, “but I’ve already read it.”

  “As have we,” Fleming said, motioning to Niven and Ustinov.

  Charity nodded, then let her eyes fall to the page:

  * * *

  MOST SECRET

  DUPLICATION PROHIBITED

  OPERATION MINCEMEAT

  1. OBJECT.

  TO CAUSE A BRIEFCASE CONTAINING DOCUMENTS (BOTH ONES MOST SECRET AND OTHERS OF A PERSONAL NATURE) TO DRIFT ASHORE AS NEAR AS POSSIBLE TO HUELVA, SPAIN, IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES THAT IT WILL BE THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN WASHED ASHORE FROM AN AIRCRAFT WHICH CRASHED EN ROUTE FROM THE U.K. TO ALLIED FORCES H.Q. IN NORTH AFRICA.

  2. METHOD.

  A DEAD BODY IN THE BATTLE-DRESS UNIFORM OF A MAJOR, ROYAL MARINES, AND WEARING A “MAE WEST,” WILL BE TAKEN OUT IN A SUBMARINE, TOGETHER WITH THE BRIEFCASE, AND A RUBBER DINGHY.

  THE BODY WILL BE PACKED IN DRY ICE IN A LIGHT-GAUGE METAL CONTAINER (6 FEET 6 INCHES IN LENGTH, 2 FEET IN DIAMETER, AND AN APPROXIMATE FULL WEIGHT OF 400 POUNDS). AS DRY ICE GIVES OFF CARBON DIOXIDE, CONTAINER SHOULD BE OPENED ONLY ON DECK.

  3. POSITION.

  BODY, BRIEFCASE, AND RAFT SHOULD BE PUT IN WATER AT SAME TIME AS CLOSE TO SHORE AS HUELVA AS POSSIBLE, NORTHWEST OF RIVER MOUTH.

  4. THOSE IN KNOW AT GIBRALTAR.

  FLAG OFFICER IN CHARGE AND HIS STAFF OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE ARE THE ONLY ONES TO BE INFORMED.

  5. SIGNALS.

  IF OPERATION SUCCESSFUL, SIGNAL “MINCEMEAT COMPLETED” FROM GIBRALTAR STAFF OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE, TO DIRECTOR OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

  6. CANCELLATION.

  IF NECESSARY, SIGNAL “CANCEL MINCEMEAT,” THEN SINK THE CASE WITH BODY INSIDE IN DEEP WATER.

  DELIVER BRIEFCASE TO GIBRALTAR STAFF OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE, WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO BURN IT UNOPENED.

  7. ABANDONMENT.

  IF NECESSARY, SIGNAL “MINCEMEAT ABANDONED.” FOLLOW PARA. 6 ABOVE.

  8. COVER.

  CONTAINER LABEL OF “OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS” PROVIDES COVER DURING OPERATION. AFTERWARD, COVER IS THAT WE HOPE TO TRAP AN ACTIVE GERMAN AGENT IN ORDER TO GET SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO HAVE SPANIARDS EJECT HIM.

  IT SHOULD BE IMPRESSED ON THE CREW THAT ANY LEAKAGE BEFORE OR EVER AFTER THE OPERATION WILL COMPROMISE OUR POWER TO GET THE SPANIARDS TO ACT IN SUCH CASES.

  ALSO, IF SPANIARDS EVER SUSPECT THIS AS A PLANT, THERE WOULD FOLLOW FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF GREAT MAGNITUDE. SECRECY IS PARAMOUNT.

  E.E.S MONTAGU

  LT-CDR. R.N.V.R.

  31.3.43

  * * *

  “Fascinating,” Charity said as she passed the sheet to Jamison. “Okay, so now what?”

  “Now,” Montagu said, his tone solemn, “we create our man.”

  [FOUR]

  OSS Algiers Station Algiers, Algeria 0810 31 March 1943

  “My plan right now, Stan,” Major Richard M. Canidy, USAAF, said to Captain Stanley S. Fine, USAAF, “subject of course to change at any damn moment, is to run a modified Special Operations team. Instead of an officer, a local liaison, and two radio operators, it’s just going to be Nola and one commo man.”

  Canidy and Fine and Free French Forces Navy Commander Jean L’Herminier, captain of the submarine Casabianca, were seated in the main dining room of the villa. The morning breeze blew in through the open double doors that overlooked the harbor. The table had just been cleared of the breakfast plates. Canidy and Fine had china mugs of coffee. L’Herminier sipped tea from a heavy, clear-glass cup.

  Over breakfast, Canidy had explained everything he had learned from Francisco Nola—specifically, that they still had no clue about what had happened in Sicily after Canidy blew up the cargo ship, that the villa with the yellow-fever hosts might still be intact, and that Nola had agreed to be Canidy’s eyes and ears in Palermo.

  “What about the officer?” Fine said.

  “Me,” Canidy replied. “I’ll stay as long as I have to stay.” He paused. “Which may not be long, if what we expect to find is in fact there.”

  “Are you sure of this plan, Dick?” L’Herminier said.

  Canidy shrugged.

  “Hell if I know, Jean. We can always add more men later. Right now, though, we do not have that luxury. We just don’t have time to wait for more. I need to know about the gas—and I’m really no further along in that regard than I was yesterday. After I get all that worked out—if I do—then we can get back to the discussion of setting up a resistance network on the island.”

  L’Herminier nodded.

  “Well, I can certainly get you in,” he said, trying to be encouraging. “The boat is being replenished as we speak.”

  “Thank you,” Canidy said. He looked at Fine. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Shoot,” Fine said.

  “The wireless operator for Nola.”

  “What about him?”

  “There’s a guy at Dellys, one of the ones Corvo brought with him from the States. I saw him working a SSTR-1 set—the suitcase radio?”

  Fine nodded.

  “Corvo won’t want to lose him,” Canidy went on. “And while I don’t blame him, I do need him more than Corvo does right now.”

  “No one here in the villa’s commo room would do?”

  “Any of them Sicilian?” Canidy said.

  Fine considered that a moment, then shook his head.

  “I don’t think so,” Fine said. “We can go upstairs and ask. You do know that the practice message traffic from the Sandbox is with our radio operators here.”

  “I didn’t,” Canidy said, “but that doesn’t surprise me. If Sandbox called Club des Pins, they’d probably only get static in reply. Literally.”

  L’Herminier’s expression showed he did not follow that.

  “We have agents training with the SOE there,” Canidy explained, “and our British cousins aren’t exactly being the model of cooperation with this fledgling organization we call OSS.”

  L’Herminier nodded his understanding.

  “If it winds up being Corvo’s man,” Fine said, “do you have a name?”

  “Shit,” Canidy said, then thought a moment, then chuckled. “Jones,” he added.

  Fine started to write that down on the pad before him.

  “No, no,” Canidy said, chuckling again. “That’s his training cover name—I think all of them are using it. I didn’t get his real one.”

  He thought another moment, then said, “Just tell Corvo he looks Italian American, about age thirty, and probably comes from a sales background, very likely was the manager of some large territory.”

  Fine was writing it all down, nodding. “Okay. I’ll get on the horn to Corvo.”

  “And have Darmstadter go fetch him from the Sandbox?”

  Fine nodded as he noted that.

  “Done.”

  “Am I missing anything?” Canidy said. “No doubt I’ve forgotten the most important element.”

  “It’s not the most important one,” Fine said. “But what about Professor Rossi?”

  “Rossi! Good question,” Canidy said. “Can you think of any reason to keep him here?”

  Fine shook his head. “No, but you were the one who wanted him on ice. I can think of plenty of reasons why he should be headed for the States. One big one in particular
.”

  Canidy nodded at the reference to the Manhattan Project.

  “I agree. Plus, with him gone, that’ll be one fewer thing to worry about AFHQ sticking its nose in.”

  He took a healthy swig from his coffee mug, then looked at L’Herminier.

  “Tell me what it was that that Owen at AFHQ wanted from you, Jean.”

  L’Herminier shrugged.

  “I really don’t know,” he said. “When I finally got there—late, as I was pointedly told by his assistant, because something had happened with the driver he had sent for me—”

  “I might know something about that,” Canidy said, grinning.

  “About what this aide to Eisenhower wants?”

  “Well, maybe that. But I know what happened with the driver.”

  “They said his car was stolen,” L’Herminier said. “Right there at the naval dock, where we tied up.”

  “Borrowed,” Canidy said.

  Fine chuckled.

  When L’Herminier looked at him, Fine explained, “Canidy swiped your car.”

  “Borrowed,” Canidy repeated. “I gave it back. So, not stolen, not swiped. Borrowed. If that ensign had damn well done what I suggested—run the professor and me up here, then gone back to get you; there was plenty of time for all that—then none of this would have happened.”

  L’Herminier nodded as he took it all in.

  “Yes,” he said, “but then I would have been timely with my appointment with Lieutenant Colonel Owen.”

  “Ha!” Canidy suddenly said. “Then it worked out perfectly after all!”

  “Dick’s probably right,” Fine said. “Odds are that Owen needlessly would’ve caused you some grief. Or us some grief. It’s what he does best.”

  L’Herminier shook his head, then said, “Owen’s secretary said that I was to come again this afternoon. ‘Fifteen hundred hours, sharp,’ she ordered in that snippy Brit way.”

  “Damn shame,” Canidy said, smiling.

  “What is a damn shame?” L’Herminier said.

  “That you’re going to miss today’s meeting, too. Fuck Owen. We have a boat to sail.”

  L’Herminier looked at him for a long moment.

  “There is every chance,” Fine put in, his tone reasonable, “that if you were to duly report to Owen’s desk at the appointed hour, you would be so informed by this snippy Brit lass that Lieutenant Colonel Warren J. Owen was in meetings and unavailable for an indefinite period of time, and, further, that the colonel had said, as aide to General Eisenhower and concerning matters of interest to the Allied Forces commander, that your orders are to await his return. Have a seat, and please don’t disturb anyone.”

  Canidy was nodding his agreement.

  L’Herminier remained silent for some time. Then he said, “Why is this?”

  Canidy smirked.

  “That’s just the great kind of guy he is,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

  “Remarkable,” L’Herminier replied.

  “Yeah, unfortunately,” Canidy said. “Check the dictionary under REMF—”

  L’Herminier looked confused.

  “It stands for ‘Rear Echelon Mother Fucker’—” Canidy explained.

  L’Herminier’s eyebrows went up at that.

  “And next to the definition, you’ll find that chair warmer’s photo.”

  “You sound like you’ve had a bad run-in with this Owen,” L’Herminier said.

  “Not directly,” Canidy said, glancing at Fine, then looking back at L’Herminier. “But just about everyone else I know has—or knows someone who has—and it would seem to be just a matter of time till I have that distinct pleasure.”

  “The reason Owen and everyone else is out of sorts at AFHQ,” Fine added in the even tone of a lawyer counseling a client, “is that Eisenhower has everyone running in circles with this divine declaration that there will be cooperation among the Allied Forces under his command. He means well. But we all know what happens when those who mean well—”

  “They fuck it up for us few who are actually getting something done,” Canidy interrupted, “that’s what.”

  Fine nodded, then went on: “According to my sources there at AFHQ, it’s causing more division than unity because Ike is bending over backward to accommodate the Brits—”

  “And that,” Canidy finished, his tone disgusted, “is making the Americans feel shorted—by their own commander! Our OSS agents being snubbed at Club des Pins is a prime example. Thank God we’ve got the Sandbox or I’d be out of luck finding a commo man ready to go.” He grunted. “There’s no end to the shit being swallowed thanks to Ike’s steady drumbeat of ‘in the interests of inter-Allied unity.’”

  Fine laughed. “You sound just like Georgie Patton.”

  Canidy grinned. “That’s who I was told said that. I stole it. Which doesn’t mean I don’t believe it, too.”

  “Beyond all that, there is some legitimate reason for the craziness at AFHQ,” Fine said. “They’re up to their asses in alligators with the fighting in Tunisia, where we’ll soon have some three hundred thousand troops. At the same time, AFHQ is making early plans for the Husky op—and not doing well with that at all.”

  “Doesn’t help that the Brits are in charge of the op,” Canidy said, “making Eisenhower little more than a figurehead. Beating his own men up to ‘Cooperate! Cooperate!’”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Fine said. “Word is that Alexander’s leadership right now is tenuous at best, and that has Tedder, Cunningham, and Montgomery squabbling among themselves.”

  Neither Canidy nor L’Herminier was surprised to hear that Air Chief Marshall Arthur Tedder, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and General Bernard Montgomery held different opinions of how the invasion should proceed.

  “Is nothing concrete getting done on Husky?” Canidy said.

  “Oh, there are plans,” Fine said. “Just too many. As you might expect, each man’s thoughts follow the lines of his particular service. Cunningham wants to spread out the landings so that the Allied fleet has the most security. Tedder wants priority to be the taking of southeast Sicily’s airfields so he can have them for his aircraft. And Montgomery, carrying Alexander’s water, is pushing for an invasion of southeast Sicily with the ground forces attack as a single unit.”

  Canidy shook his head. “And what does General Patton have to say? Doesn’t matter. He can’t be heard over the rat-a-tat-tat of Ike—busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger—beating the damn drum of inter-Allied unity.” He paused, then dramatically added, “C’est la guerre!”

  Fine and L’Herminier chuckled.

  Canidy drained what was left of his coffee in one gulp and put the mug on the table with a thud.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” he said, standing up. “And before we do that, Stanley, I have to raid your warehouse downstairs. But first, let’s go talk to your commo guys.”

  [ONE]

  OSS Whitbey House Station Kent, England 1155 3 April 1943

  Private Peter Ustinov led a procession into the breakfast room that included First Lieutenant Robert Jamison and four men who wore British uniforms. All but one of the six were carrying typewriters; the last in line manhandled a very big, heavy cardboard box.

  “The typewriters can go on the big table,” Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, of Royal Naval intelligence, said as he stood pouring tea at the side table, “and the box on the floor beneath it.”

  The Duchess Stanfield, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens, Major David Niven, Commander Ian Fleming, and First Lieutenant Charity Hoche were seated at the big table. Stevens, Niven, and Fleming stood up and made room for the machines.

  Charity studied the men helping Ustinov and Jamison. She had seen a couple of them when the caravan had arrived late yesterday with the ambulance bearing the body in the metal box. They wore, she saw, the uniform of the British Motor Transport Corps, but experience told her not to take that at face value.

  Jamison and Ustinov each carried a nearly
new British Oliver manual typewriter to the table. One was a Special Model 15 and the other a Special Model 16. They carefully placed both on the table.

  The next two men followed with a pair of Hermes—the manufacturer plates stamped HERMES MODEL 5, PAILLARD S.A., YVERDON, SWITZERLAND—and formed a line with these next to the Olivers.

  The fifth man—who was brawny but still labored under his load—stood waiting with an Italian Olivetti Model M40 under one arm and a hefty Standard Model 16, made by the Remington Typewriter Co., New York, U.S.A., under the other. The men who had just put down the twin Hermes took these from him and put them on the table.

  As they did so, the last man put down the heavy cardboard box on the floor beneath the Olivers. It made a loud thud, and the big man looked up at Montagu, his face apologetic.

  “That’s fine,” Montagu said to him, then added to the others, “Thank you, gentlemen.”

  “That,” Ustinov announced loudly as he shook his arms in a manner suggesting great relief, “was almost as exhausting as when we moved that canister down to the basement. Wasn’t it, men?”

  They looked at him, not knowing what to say.

  “Of course it was,” Ustinov answered for them. He looked at Niven. “Permission to retire for an hour’s recuperation, sir?”

  They now understood and smiled.

  “Permission denied,” Niven said. “You can take your bloody nap later.”

  Ustinov looked at the men in the uniform of the British Motor Transport Corps and shrugged.