Louise's Gamble

by Sarah R. Shaber

  ‘I thought Luciano was in Dannemora prison?’

  ‘He is,’ Corso said. ‘But his capibastone, his underbosses, Frank Costello and “Socks” Lanza, aren’t. Neither is his consigliere, Meyer Lansky. No one in the world hates Nazis more than Lansky.’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Alessa’s letter?’

  ‘Yes,’ Don said, ‘but let us begin at the beginning, and we’ll get to the letter later. Platon?’

  ‘What do you know about the New York City dock system?’ Melinsky asked me.

  I’d been trying not to stare at Melinsky, but now I had an excuse to face him. The man was famous, if not infamous, at OSS. His aristocratic, self-assured bearing corresponded with everything I’d heard about him. He was tall, slim, and as athletic as a man must be who trained as a paratrooper in his fifties. I’d heard rumors that his Army uniforms were tailor-made.

  ‘What everyone else knows, I guess,’ I said.

  ‘The New York City docks are the most vulnerable part of the eastern seaboard. The Port handles half of all US foreign trade. Two hundred cargo docks, warehouses, and piers in Manhattan, Queens, New Jersey, and Brooklyn cover eighty miles. Our troop ships depart from there. Most of the supplies we send to our Allies in Europe are sent from the Port of New York City.’

  ‘The port is vulnerable to espionage and sabotage. The burning of the Normandy and Pier Eighty-Three proves that,’ Corso said.

  ‘But those were accidents,’ I said. ‘Weren’t they?’

  The three men exchanged glances that told me maybe they weren’t.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Don interjected. ‘They happened. The Normandy was being converted to a troop carrier. Fifty-six million dollars it cost the government. Gone.’

  ‘Then there are the convoys,’ Corso said. ‘Without them Britain would starve. And now more will leave the port to support the Torch campaign in North Africa. We know the Germans have advance information about routes and cargoes. This year alone German U-boats have sunk almost one thousand two hundred ships. All the U-boats need to do is line up about fifteen miles apart across a convoy’s planned route and start picking off ships after night falls.’

  ‘God or luck is with us in North Africa,’ Don said. ‘There’s an American standard gauge railway that runs from Casablanca to Algiers to Tunis. We can load up railroad cars and send them directly to the front. But only if the supplies and troops can get to Casablanca.’

  ‘The fast convoys have done their job, delivering the initial force to the front. Now the slow convoys must supply them. They can only steam as fast as the slowest ship – under seven knots,’ Melinsky said. ‘If the U-boats know their routes, those ships are sitting ducks.’

  ‘When do the first slow convoys leave?’ Corso asked.

  ‘The week after Thanksgiving,’ Don said. His hand shook as he stubbed out his cigarette. He immediately lit another. ‘We have to identify and neutralize Axis spies in New York. As many as possible, no matter the cost.’

  The three men had succeeded in scaring me badly, but why were they telling me all this? I was just a file clerk, letter or no letter.

  ‘Max?’ Don asked. ‘You’d better brief her.’

  ‘This is for our ears only,’ Max said. ‘No notes, please. I’m glad you already have Top Secret Clearance, Mrs Pearlie. That will make this operation possible.’

  I was burning with curiosity but managed to compose myself.

  ‘Your friend’s asset,’ he said, sliding Alessa’s letter out of a file on the desk, ‘has proved his bona fides without doubt.’

  ‘So you must’ve determined that the information in the letter is genuine,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ Corso said. ‘But it’s chicken feed. The asset is not ready to pass on the critical material – what we call “the take” – he says he possesses yet. He’s testing us. He’s concerned about the safety of his family and of Alessa. She’s a floater, a civilian he recruited to help him, not a professional.’

  Melinsky pulled out a packet of Sobranies and lit one. He drew smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled. ‘Mrs Pearlie,’ he said, ‘Alessa di Luca’s asset tells us he knows the identity of a dangerous sleeper, a powerful Mafia hoodlum who is feeding intelligence to the Nazis. If it’s true it’s a catastrophe. He must be stopped. We must find out who he is. And Alessa will deal with no one but you. She makes that clear in the note she added to her asset’s letter. So we can’t forward this on to the ONI. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘For a time, at least, you’ll need to be the cut-out between Alessa and OSS,’ Don said.

  My head swam at the thought, and I felt blood rush to my face. I gripped the arms of the chair to steady myself. I was frightened, yes, but I was excited too. I was to be the intermediary between Alessa and OSS. My life wasn’t boring any more!

  Don and Corso stood up to leave.

  ‘Melinsky here is your case officer. He’ll brief you further,’ Don said as the two men left his office.

  And my case officer was Prince of Imperial Russia Platon Melinsky!

  Melinsky’s first wife was the last czar’s sister, Catherine, and his second was an Astor. He’d fought in the First World War and the Russian Civil War. He immigrated to the United States to join the US Army and fight Hitler. Now he was a lieutenant colonel assigned to OSS. A prince, no less. My handler in my first foray into intelligence.

  And then it hit me. I was a real spy. A temporary one, for sure, assigned to Alessa because she wouldn’t work with anyone else, but a spy nonetheless. Planted in a knitting circle, of all things. I was floored.

  ‘What about my job?’ I asked. ‘I mean, my regular job?’

  ‘You’ll keep it. Despite the value of Alessa’s intelligence you should only have to meet with her a few times before she hands the sleeper’s name over to you. I’ll brief you on your cover for any absences from work or home and what you are to share with your staff, friends, everyone – and I mean everyone, even here at OSS. Forever.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Melinsky opened a fresh pack of Sobranies. He lit it with a heavy silver lighter engraved with an insignia that looked like a trident. He saw me looking at it. ‘The Rurik coat of arms,’ he said to me. ‘I’m not a Romanov. The Rurik dynasty failed centuries ago.’ The man had a dynasty, for Pete’s sake!

  ‘Listen carefully,’ Melinsky began. ‘This is your cover for your absences from work. An elderly spinster recently died in Bethesda. Her lifetime hobby was collecting European postcards. She received them from friends, bought them, and traded them. Her nephew discovered box after box as he was cleaning out her apartment. He’s offered them to the Library of Congress, who has suggested to us that someone from the Research and Analysis sort through these postcards for useful information.’

  ‘Like the locations of railroad stations and bridges.’

  ‘Possible targets, exactly. Don Murray has volunteered you for the job. You’ll be gone for a couple of days. And, of course, you’ll offer no explanation at all to your friends and family. You’ll just say that your job requires you to be out of town for a few days. And maybe occasionally after that.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Where am I going?’

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Pearlie, what kind of training do you have?’

  ‘Training? I have a secretarial degree from junior college.’

  Melinsky smiled. ‘Not that kind of training,’ he said. ‘When you came to OSS.’

  ‘Just orientation.’

  ‘You never went to “The Farm”?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I expect that this assignment will be uncomplicated and brief. Once Alessa trusts you, her asset will turn over the name we need and that will be the end of it. But you should have some operational training. When do you see Alessa again?’

  ‘Friday night.’

  ‘It’s Tuesday morning. That gives us time to send you up to “The Farm” for a couple of days. Make sure when you pack you include clothing for outdoor activities. When you come ba
ck to work on Friday we’ll talk again.’

  I didn’t have time to get scared or nervous. Two hours later, after spinning my cover story to my girls and to Phoebe as I packed in my bedroom, I found myself standing on the Eleventh Street side of the Raleigh Hotel with my suitcase.

  A black Ford coupé with bulging fenders and a Maryland license plate pulled over in front of me. The driver leaned out his window.

  ‘I’m Jack,’ he said, using the code name I’d been given.

  I got into the car.

  ‘From now on,’ Jack said, ‘you will use your first name only. Tell no one anything about yourself or your job. No exceptions.’

  SIX

  I struggled helplessly in the man’s grip. He wasn’t big or particularly strong, but he had me in a head and shoulder lock I couldn’t escape. Pulled from behind off balance, I scrabbled for footing in the dead leaves and dirt.

  The blade tip of the long knife touched my wrist, and I knew I was a dead woman.

  ‘This is the radial artery,’ Sergeant Smith said, loosening his chokehold on my neck. With relief bordering on euphoria I drew in a lungful of air. ‘It’s only a quarter inch below the surface of the skin, so it’s a good spot for a girl to target. This artery’s tiny, though, so slice right across the entire wrist as deep as you can so you make sure you get it. Your attacker will lose consciousness in about fourteen seconds and bleed to death in a minute and a half.’

  I’d arrived at ‘The Farm’ in time for combat knife instruction. I’d joined Myrna and Sandy, the other women in my group, after changing into slacks, jacket, and canvas shoes.

  Sergeant Smith released me. Even though I knew he was just demonstrating, I loathed the helplessness I felt in his grip. I was eager to learn how to defend against it.

  ‘Now,’ Sergeant Smith said, ‘you girls, if you’re attacked from the front, you’re likely to be shorter than your assailant. We’ll go more into hand-to-hand combat tomorrow, but your best bet is to shove your flat left hand under your attacker’s chin as hard as you can and push him up and back, digging the fingers of that left hand into his eyes – no cringing, please. We call that grip the Tiger’s Claw. That will force your attacker off balance and blind him. Once he’s disabled, slash across the radial artery above his elbow. If you can’t reach it, drop into a crouch and thrust up into his belly above the navel. You won’t be able to penetrate the stomach artery with the knife we’ll be issuing you, but you will be able to inflict some real damage and possibly escape.’

  Smith held up the wicked looking knife – fifteen inches long at least, double-edged, with a deadly point – that he’d been using. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife. If you were men assigned to fieldwork, we’d give you one of these, but clearly –’ and he grinned – ‘this wouldn’t fit into your handbags.’

  He seemed disappointed that the three of us didn’t laugh at his little joke.

  ‘Here are your knives,’ Smith said, handing us each a small cardboard box. I opened mine and found a pocketknife with a scored horn handle.

  Smith pulled one like it from his pocket and held it up.

  ‘This is a Schrade switchblade,’ he said, ‘developed for paratroopers, so they can cut their lines with one hand if they land tangled up in a tree. But it’s an excellent small fighting knife because you only need one hand to use it.’

  He demonstrated where to position the knife across our palms, how to manipulate the button that opened it, and then how to close and lock it.

  When I pressed the tiny button on the knife’s spine the blade shot out of the handle. It had a sharp point and one sharpened edge.

  ‘Remember to keep your knife honed,’ he said, ‘otherwise you won’t get a clean cut and the artery will close up and stop bleeding.’

  The first time Sandy popped her blade open she squealed. She was a petite blonde with the JC Penney tag still hanging off her slacks. Myrna, an auburn-haired woman with long legs and a deep cleavage, was as gorgeous as a pin-up girl. She got comfortable with the knife’s action quickly. Sandy needed a couple more demonstrations from Sergeant Smith.

  ‘Now I’ll show you the basics of using the blade. Sandy,’ Smith said, ‘come over here. I’m going to pretend I’m coming at you. Don’t open your blade, just show me what you’d do.’

  ‘Holy smoke, Sergeant!’ she said. ‘Do I have to? I don’t think I’ll ever need to use a knife!’

  ‘Don’t comment on your assignment, Sandy. And this is basic training for females. You have to pass to go on to your assignment.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. He came at her. ‘Are we starting now?’ she asked.

  ‘Hesitation,’ he said, ‘might last forever. React, don’t think. Louise, you try now.’

  He came at me quickly, and as he reached for me I stopped his chin with my open left hand and forced his head back, then feinted with my closed knife across his upper arm.

  ‘Very good!’ he said. ‘Now, Myrna.’ He didn’t move a half a step forward before she stopped him cold and slashed across his arm. ‘Excellent!’ he said.

  ‘What if my attacker has a knife, too, or a revolver?’ asked Sandy, her blue eyes so wide that I could see their whites.

  ‘We’ll show you some more hand-to-hand combat moves tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We’re done for today. Get familiar with your knives. And there’s reading material in your rooms for you to go over tonight. Chow is in an hour in the dining room.’

  The three of us hiked from the training field back up toward the country mansion that OSS dubbed ‘The Farm’.

  It sat on about a hundred acres of tobacco stubble and cattle pasture not far from Washington in southern Maryland. Soon after war was declared OSS had converted the house, barns, outbuildings, and polo grounds to training facilities for the Secret Intelligence Branch. The main house itself looked like an English manor. It had enough bedrooms to sleep over twenty trainees.

  ‘The Farm’ wasn’t as military in its nature as the Special Operations training camps. Otherwise we’d be in tents and uniforms. Its curriculum was more informal, emphasizing observation, concealment, cover stories, bribery, how to handle agents, and such. I knew a few girls who’d already taken the truncated course for females here. My friend Joan Adams, who was one of Director Donovan’s secretaries, was one.

  I wouldn’t say this out loud, but I was sick of living in the files and thrilled to be here! I doubted that getting one name from Alessa and delivering it to Max Corso would require any real spy type stuff, but I didn’t care.

  ‘That was jolly,’ Myrna said as we trudged uphill, crunching through the frozen mud of a farm road.

  ‘I wouldn’t say jolly,’ I answered, ‘but I liked learning to defend myself.’

  ‘You two are all wet,’ Sandy said. ‘I’m sure I won’t ever use this knife for anything other than cutting string. I hope not, anyway.’

  True to the sergeant’s word, we found a stack of reading material on each of the three single beds that lined one wall of the large room we’d share. The room was regal. It flaunted a stone fireplace, thick moldings, high ceilings, and oil paintings of the ‘hunt and hound’ sort crowding the walls.

  Sandy sat on her bed cross-legged and hefted her stack of reading material, sighing. ‘I really don’t think I’m going to need all this,’ she said, ‘I’m only going to be—’

  ‘Hush, Sandy,’ I said. ‘We’re not supposed to talk about our assignments.’

  ‘But we’re alone!’

  ‘Shut up, Sandy,’ Myrna said. ‘Or you will flunk out for sure.’

  Sandy shut up, with a pout.

  ‘Do you think we should dress for dinner?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Myrna said. ‘Never overlook the chance to make an impression.’

  ‘Dibs on the bathroom,’ Sandy said, collecting clothes and a toilet bag from her suitcase and heading down the hall.

  Myrna stripped without bothering to turn her back to me. The woman had gorgeous undies. Her pale pink knick
ers edged with chocolate brown lace matched her bra, garter belt, and slip. She drew on silk stockings; where she found them these days I couldn’t imagine.

  I was more modest and turned my back to don my everyday white cotton underwear. No silk stockings for me – mine were rayon. I’d brought one dress with me, the simple black shirtwaist I’d worn to Bill’s funeral years ago. I wore it seldom, so it was still like new, but I’d replaced the collar and cuffs with a contrasting plaid so the dress would look less funereal. I’d loved Bill very much, but he’d been dead for years now, and I was a different person.

  When I turned back around Myrna was wearing a low-cut red jersey dress that clung to her hourglass figure and stacked heels that emphasized her long legs. She was a real dame, no question.

  Sandy came into the bedroom wearing a blue sweater set and pearls that made her look like a schoolgirl.

  I went down to the bathroom to put on my face. The only make-up I wore was powder and lipstick, even though, as Ada often remarked, I looked the thirty years old I was. I didn’t see the point to foundation, since it seemed to slip right off my skin, and my glasses hid the thickest eye make-up I could apply.

  Myrna sent Sandy and me downstairs ahead of her. ‘I’ll do my thing in the bathroom and be down in a minute,’ she said.

  I found out why later when she made her entrance.

  There were fifteen male trainees at ‘The Farm’ with us. Every one turned and gawked at Myrna when she walked into the dining room. I didn’t blame them; I admired her looks too. The woman was so gorgeous that she reminded me of Rita Hayworth.

  There were two large round tables in the dining room. Sandy and I had saved a seat for her at our table, but she swept right past us and sat down at the other, where she’d be the only woman.

  Two colored boys in naval stewards’ uniforms brought platters of pork chops, sweet potatoes, stewed apples, and rolls through the swinging doors of the kitchen. We were hungry from all that outdoor exercise and fell on the food like starving refugees.