But, then, Canidy thought, maybe not this place.
They don’t know that Frank was involved with Rossi’s disappearance—might very well not even suspect it.
And this is Frank’s cousin’s house.
Despite Frank’s dramatics, the fact that the cousin and wife took off in a hurry could have a very simple—and innocent—explanation.
In which case, they’re just plain lazy slobs who have no trouble living in filth.
“I don’t think there’s real reason to worry about this place being watched,” Canidy said. “However, we shouldn’t discount it…or anything else, at this point.”
Nola and Fuller nodded their understanding.
They were quiet for some moments, each lost in their own thoughts.
“On the other hand,” Canidy said out of the blue, looking at Nola, “you getting caught might not be a bad thing.”
Nola and Fuller were shocked.
“You could become a pin on the map,” Canidy said by way of explanation. “Especially when I start funneling men and matériel in here for the resistance.”
Not to mention, he thought, if I give you to pass out the ten thousand bucks in dollars and lire tucked in my money belt.
Both men looked back with blank looks.
Canidy turned to Fuller.
“Weren’t you at the Sandbox when…Oh, hell. No, that was John Craig Whatshisname—”
“Van der Ploeg,” Fuller furnished.
“Right. Who, right now, better be filling the air with dummy messages to you.”
“Building the traffic level?” Fuller said, but it was more a statement than a question.
Tubes had been schooled in the tactic of manipulating W/T message traffic in order to confuse the enemy. A sudden surge in traffic would suggest to the eavesdroppers that an operation was imminent—the larger the volume, the larger the op—and they could respond accordingly. Thus the key was to avoid peaks and valleys in the daily flow of traffic.
Conversely, one bit of subterfuge was to play to that—occasionally create an artificial peak of messages to make the enemy think something was about to happen. This would cause the Germans to apply more resources, diverting anything from the attention of a single radioman to a Panzer Division from other real ops.
“I’m sure John’s got a credible volume going,” Fuller said. “Enough to appear normal, but not enough to draw attention. I told you, he’s really good.”
Canidy snorted.
“And really afraid of the bogeyman,” he added.
Fuller found himself grinning at that.
“He’s just a kid,” Fuller said loyally. “Maybe he’ll grow out of that claustrophobia.”
“Maybe,” Canidy said, sounding unconvinced. “Now, getting back to the Pins on the Map Syndrome. I now assume that Nebenstellen—‘nests’—and Aussenstellen are also terms unfamiliar to both of you?”
They nodded.
Canidy sighed.
“Okay, then,” he said, “I’m going to have to take this from the top.”
He looked at the sink, then at Nola.
“What are the odds that there’s actually something reasonably clean enough to drink out of,” Canidy said, “and that the water coming out of that faucet isn’t rancid?”
Fuller went to the cabinets and began opening the grimy doors. Behind the third one, he found glasses, no two alike. He stuck his fingers in three of them, then ran the tap. A discolored stream came out at first, and when that had purged and begun running clear he filled the glasses and distributed them.
As he did, Canidy began: “Pins on a map is another way of saying the tracking of assets. As I told you, Tubes, we are assets to the Allies. And Frank is an asset to the Allies—specifically, to the OSS. If the Abwehr could turn us, make us spy for them, we would become their assets. With me so far?”
Fuller nodded as he handed Canidy his glass.
“Thank you,” Canidy said, and took a sip. “Surprise, surprise. Not bad for motor oil.”
“Is rainwater from the cistern on roof,” Nola said, and took his glass and drank it down.
“Great,” Canidy said, putting his glass on the table. “Laced with Tabun ashes. I’ll think I’ll wait and watch what effect it has on you, Frank.”
There was a clunk as Fuller put his glass on the counter. When Nola looked at him, Fuller shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry, Frank.”
Nola shook his head, then said to Canidy: “Yes, I also follow you. So far. But I don’t think I like where this is headed. Go on.”
“Okay, I’ll try to keep this simple,” Canidy said. “The Abwehr collects agents like, well, like a boat hull collects barnacles. And with about as much discretion. The more the merrier. Why? The more assets, the more pins, the more power. And power corrupts…”
“…and that brings us to the Abwehr’s Nebenstellen,” Canidy said, concluding what was basically the same thirty-minute briefing he had given to Max Corvo’s men at the Sandbox. “These ‘nests’ have specialty teams called Aussenstellen, or ‘outstations.’”
He looked at Nola, then added: “And if we can get you to talking to an outstation here in Palermo, Frank, we would have all kinds of answers.”
Nola looked more than a little dubious.
“I don’t know that I could get away with that, Dick,” he said. “I am a fisherman. I have enough trouble paying the SS soldiers at Quattro Canti, the ones who report to Sturmbannführer Müller.”
The SS had its local headquarters in the Quattro Canti, Palermo’s “four corners” city center, which had been built by the Normans nine centuries earlier. Nola—reluctantly, after Canidy had cornered him—told Canidy that greasing the right hands there allowed him the freedom to move almost anything he wanted in and out of the port of Palermo.
Of course, these same crooked SS shits taking cash were also more than happy to “accept as a personal courtesy” the occasional skim of whatever it actually was that Nola’s men were passing through the warehouses—from fresh fish to fruit and nuts to the always-appreciated cases of wines.
The irony that the SS used the squeeze technique on the Mafia—the very ones who arguably invented it, if not perfected it, in Sicily—was not lost on Canidy.
“Oh, c’mon, Frank,” Canidy flared. “You’ve got connections. Don’t go playing this I’m but a simple fisherman bullshit game with me again. I swallowed that once.”
Nola looked back at him, intensely and wordlessly.
“If you’re worried about money,” Canidy then said, “don’t be.”
“Money—that would help. But it’s not that alone. I am thinking about the crew gunned down on the fishing boat and about those men hanging at the port. I cannot honor them if I, too, am killed….”
“As long as the Nazis consider you are valuable to them—an asset—no harm would come to you,” Canidy said.
Nola’s eyebrows went up. “As you say, Dick. But I will think about it.”
“If not you, what about someone else?” Canidy said. “What about the others who worked for Rossi? The ones I showed how to use the Composition C-2 on the villa?”
“Maybe.”
“What were their names…Cordova?”
Nola nodded.
“Alfredo Cordova,” he confirmed. “And Alessandro Paterno and Simone Cesareo. We, of course, would have to ask them.”
“First,” Canidy said, “we have to ask about the villa. If it went up, and, if not, why.”
Canidy checked his wristwatch.
“We’re coming up on eight-thirty,” he said. “Tubes, when’s the next set time for your buddy John Craig to throw the switch from SEND to RECEIVE?”
“Oh-nine-hundred,” Fuller said. “That’s when he’ll stand by and listen for our signals.”
Canidy considered that, then said, “That works. That is, if you think you can get the radio rigged by then. Can you?”
Fuller nodded.
“I’ll give it my best shot,” he said. “If not, after that the next
standby is twelve hundred hours, then fifteen and eighteen hundred.”
“Let’s try to get it done now, twelve-hundred at the latest,” Canidy said. “I’ll write the message while you do.”
“Roger that,” Fuller said.
Canidy looked at Nola.
“Frank, think you could in that time try to get an eyeball on Rossi’s sister?”
Oops, Canidy suddenly thought, poor choice of words, that….
Nola nodded.
“Is only minutes away,” he said, then stood up.
Well, he did not catch that or he’s ignoring it.
Either way’s fine by me. So long as we stay on track here.
“When you come back,” Canidy said, “make sure no one is following you. Walk in big circles, if you have to.”
“Okay,” Nola said, then went out the front door, locking it behind him.
As Canidy reached into his duffel for a small sheet of the thin flash paper—so named because when a match was put to it, it turned to ash in a flash of flame—Fuller slid the suitcase radio out from under the table. He then grabbed the pouch containing the mice and took it and the suitcase and the Sten upstairs.
Canidy put the flash paper on the table, noticed that the pouch of mice was gone, then looked up and saw Fuller walking away with it.
He shook his head and grinned.
And then he began composing the first message about their mission for Fuller to encrypt and send to OSS Algiers Station.
Fifteen minutes later, there came the sound of heavy footsteps from above, then the sound of boots coming down the wooden steps.
Jim Fuller appeared at the doorway of the kitchen.
“We’re up and running,” he announced excitedly.
“Good job, Tubes,” Canidy said. “I’ll be right up.”
Fuller turned and went back up the steps with a thumping of his boots.
Canidy had just gotten up from the table to follow Fuller upstairs when he heard the key being worked in the lock of the exterior door.
He instinctively reached to the small of his back and pulled out his Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol. Just as he racked back its slide, the door opened.
Frank Nola stood there. He inhaled deeply—either at the sound of the slide having cycled forward, chambering a round, or at his view looking down the large muzzle. Or both.
Canidy brought down the pistol, decocked it, leaving the round in the throat.
When he looked back at Nola, he saw that someone was standing on the sidewalk behind him.
It was a young man, about five foot seven, with soft features and doe-like eyes. His trousers, shirt, and coat looked to be two sizes too big, and of a style typically worn by a much older man. Even his woolen hat was oversize, its rim settling down almost over his eyes.
“C’mon in,” Canidy said impatiently, now aware that the false alarm had triggered his adrenaline. “You caught me off guard for a moment there.”
Nola exhaled loudly. He glanced at the gun, then back at Canidy, then made a sour face. He continued into the apartment. The young man followed, making cautious eye contact with Canidy.
As Nola pushed the door closed and locked it, Canidy studied the young man.
Canidy thought, Why do I have the feeling something’s not quite—
Nola announced, “This is Andrea.”
I knew it! That’s a young woman in a man’s clothes.
And, for some reason, those clothes look familiar.
What the hell?
“Are you just pulling people off the street now?” Canidy said to Nola.
Nola ignored that.
“Andrea,” he said to her, motioning toward Canidy, then switched to Sicilian, “this is my friend. Forget how he answers the door.”
Canidy looked at Andrea. This time, she made stronger eye contact. But she remained silent. He saw her eyes scanning the kitchen. When she came to the Johnny gun leaning against the cabinet, she seemed neither surprised nor bothered by it. The filthy dishes and glasses in the sink appeared to offend her more.
If that’s indeed the case, I like this girl.
“Andrea’s father is a fisherman,” Nola said. “Luigi Buda is a fisherman on one our boats. It left out the same night that…that I left on the Stefania.”
Canidy picked up on that. It was the same night he had Canidy and Rossi shuttled out to wait for the submarine.
And for the ninety-foot cargo ship to go up in flames.
“After the explosion in the port,” he went on, “two SS soldiers came to her house, and she heard them asking her mother where her father was. Then they asked about her brothers. Andrea became frightened and slipped out of the house, and went to the Rossi house a block away. Rossi’s sister taught Andrea to pray the rosary in church school. She wasn’t there, but a box of his clothes was.”
That’s why I recognized the clothes, Canidy said, glancing at the girl.
They are Professor Rossi’s.
Nola looked at Andrea and spoke again in Sicilian.
She shook her head and replied tersely.
“She speaks only Sicilian?” Canidy said.
“Yes,” Nola replied. “She is in university and plans to learn English. I just asked if she had seen her mother since. She said no. She is afraid to go home, to dress in her own clothes. She’s been at the Rossi house—dressed in the professor’s clothes to better hide herself—all this time. She said the first days after the blast, there were SS all over, then not so much. When I knocked on the Rossi door, she recognized me…. And here we are.”
He said something to her in a fatherly tone.
She smiled softly and nodded.
“I said she should make herself comfortable, that this is home, too.”
At that moment, she pulled off the woolen hat. Rich chestnut brown hair fell to her shoulders. She shook her head and air-fluffed the thick locks. Then she pulled off the jacket.
Now Canidy could see without question that she was indeed female. And beautiful. Maybe twenty years old, with dark, inviting almond eyes, and, defying Rossi’s oversize shirt, magnificent breasts.
This sure as hell ain’t Rossi’s sister.
Then he felt badly.
If by some coincidence that was her father’s boat that that Schnellboot took out, she may be the only surviving member of her family.
Or, if not that patrol boat, then another.
“So the brothers could’ve been lost with the father,” Canidy said solemnly.
Nola looked at him. It took Nola a moment to comprehend what he was saying.
“Oh, no,” Nola said. “The two brothers worked in the warehouses.”
Nola said something in Sicilian to the girl. Canidy recognized it as a question, and saw that, when she nodded and spoke her answer, her face brightened.
“She said they’re alive. They were the ones who told her to stay at Rossi’s sisters and keep using Rossi’s clothes.”
“Does she know where they are?”
Nola spoke to her. Canidy could tell from the tone that it was a question.
She answered.
“Near the warehouses,” Nola said.
Why do I have to pull the information out of Frank?
Is it conditioning from omertà?
Or is he just that damn dense?
Jesus!
“Well, then, we have our first place to go,” Canidy said in a somewhat-sarcastic tone.
He felt the flash paper in his pocket.
“After we take care of something,” Canidy added. “You need to see this, Frank. Come with me upstairs.”
Nola spoke to Andrea and she started to stand.
I don’t want her seeing the radio, Canidy thought.
“She waits here, dammit!” he flared.
Andrea did not need that translated. She immediately sat back down.
Canidy noticed that her eyes were questioning, but it appeared that his outburst neither upset nor offended her.
Tough girl…or a not very bright one?
“Grazie,” Canidy said, hoping that his thanks sounded sincere despite his lack of a smile.
“Tell her we’ll be right back,” Canidy said and began walking out of the kitchen. He heard Nola translating, as he reached the foot of the stairs.
[THREE]
OSS Whitbey House Station Kent, England 1145 4 April 1943
Private Peter Ustinov was at the wheel of the dark green British Humber light ambulance as it rolled to a stop at a service entrance at the rear of Whitbey House. The ambulance’s bold red cross on the large white square painted on its side panel and rear doors was bright against the gloom of the rainy day.
First Lieutenant Robert Jamison stood waiting beside the service entrance’s pair of heavy wooden doors.
Ustinov ground the stubborn transmission into its reverse gear and let out on the clutch. The truck zigzagged as it slowly moved backward, the front wheels cutting hard left, then hard right. Then Ustinov hit the brakes hard.
Jamison stepped over so get a better view of the cab. He found the befuddled face of Ustinov, having difficulty seeing anything behind him, staring into the rain mist on the glass of the rearview mirror.
“C’mon back!” Jamison coaxed.
He held up his hands and began making signals to guide him.
Ustinov revved the engine, and the truck again began to slowly roll toward the doors.
“A little right,” Jamison called. “C’mon, that’s it…. Now straight…. C’mon back straight two meters…one meter…. And whoa!”
The ambulance jerked to a stop and its engine died.
Ustinov had dumped the clutch.
Ustinov climbed out of the truck, slamming the door behind him.
“Nice work,” Jamison said.
“Maybe for a blind man,” Ustinov said, smiling. “My thanks for your aid.”
He looked around.
“Have you seen the motor transport chaps?” Ustinov went on. “I said I wasn’t going to lift that Major Martin in his casing by myself.”
“I sent them inside,” Jamison said, motioning with his right thumb toward the service-entrance doors, “to close the case.”
“We have a pair of petrol jerry cans in here,” Ustinov said, patting the palm of his hand twice on the shell of the ambulance. “At least one could stand being topped off.”
The Double Agents Page 28