The Fighting Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Skipper,” his deputy said to Wilkins (in deference to Wilkins’s pre-OSS service as a Naval officer), “I’ll lay even money he’s off somewhere getting his ashes hauled.”

  “Where, for Christ’s sake? In the bushes in Al Ezbekia Park, no doubt? For three goddamn days? He’s not in a hotel, we know that. And he’s not with any high-class whore, or we’d know that, too . . . and goddamn, I found it embarrassing to have to call the Egyptian cops and ask them to check their whores for him. . . .”

  He stopped and looked out the window at Opera Square again.

  “The Chrysler here?” he asked, reasonably calmly, when he turned around a moment later.

  “Yes, Sir,” his deputy said.

  “Nobody stole the wheels? The driver is present and sober?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I’ll be back,” Wilkins said, and headed for the door.

  “Going to the airport, Sir?”

  Wilkins glared at what he considered to be a stupid question.

  “I’ll lay even money he’ll show up for the flight, Skipper, ” his deputy said reassuringly.

  “And if he doesn’t? What if he got tired of waiting for them to fix the engine and hitchhiked a ride to Brisbane? That MATS flight isn’t the only plane headed in that direction. How the hell am I going to say anything to Donovan without looking like a horse’s ass?”

  With an effort, Wilkins kept from slamming the door after him.

  The 1941 Chrysler Imperial was equipped with the very latest in automotive transmission technology. This was called “fluid drive.” In theory, it eliminated the need to shift gears. In practice, it didn’t work, the result being that it crawled away from a stop. The Chrysler was, Wilkins decided on the way from Opera Square to the airfield, north-east of Cairo, probably the worst possible automobile in the world for Cairo traffic, less practical than a water buffalo pulling a wooden-wheeled cart.

  At the MATS terminal, he sought out the military police captain in charge of security, showed him his OSS identification, and said that it was absolutely essential that he locate one Captain Whittaker, James M. B., USAAC.

  Ten minutes later, three military police brought Captain Whittaker and a strikingly beautiful woman to the MP captain’s office. A flyboy, Wilkins decided somewhat sourly. A good one, to judge by the DFC. He wondered what the OSS wanted from a flyboy.

  “This gentleman wishes to see you, Captain,” the MP captain said.

  Whittaker smiled.

  “As long as it won’t take long,” Whittaker said with a smile. “They’re loading my plane.”

  “You won’t be making that flight, Captain,” Wilkins said.

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  “And who are you?”

  “That’s not really important,” Wilkins said. “You’ll have to take my word for it. You’re coming with me.”

  Whittaker looked at him with amusement in his eyes, his left eyebrow cocked quizzically.

  “That just won’t wash,” Whittaker said.

  Wilkins took his OSS identity card and held it out.

  Captain Whittaker fumbled in his pockets and came out with a nearly identical card and held it out. Wilkins saw that there were two differences in the cards. His own card bore the serial number 1109 and was signed “for the Chairman, The Joint Chiefs of Staff” by Captain Peter Douglass, Sr., USN. Whittaker’s card bore the serial number 29 and was signed by Colonel W. J. Donovan, GSC, USA. Obviously, this handsome flyboy had been in the OSS almost from the beginning.

  “What is all this, mon cher?” the Frenchwoman asked, softly, in French.

  “Nothing at all,” Whittaker replied, in French, and then looked at Wilkins, waiting for an explanation.

  Wilkins handed him the radiogram from Donovan.

  “I’ll be damned,” Whittaker said. “When’s my plane?”

  “Tomorrow,” Wilkins said. “At 0915. You had a seat on this morning’s flight, but you missed it.”

  “It appears,” Whittaker said to the Frenchwoman in French, “that we’re going to have to climb the Great Pyramid again.”

  She blushed attractively.

  “There are quarters available, if you’ve checked out of your hotel,” Wilkins said.

  “That’s very kind of you, Sir,” Whittaker said. “But that won’t be necessary. I’ll be staying with a friend.”

  The Frenchwoman blushed attractively again.

  "War is hell, isn’t it?” Whittaker, smiling broadly, asked Mr. Wilkins.

  3

  VIRGINIA HIGHWAY 234 NEAR WASHINGTON, D.C. 25 JANUARY 1943

  There were four men in the 1942 black Buick Roadmaster, riding in silence.

  There had been a little snow, but the road was clear, and the illuminated needle of the speedometer pointed just past seventy miles per hour. There was virtually no traffic on the road, not even the glow of distant headlights over the gentle hills before them.

  When the flashing red signal lantern suddenly appeared in the road before them, Chief Ellis was startled. But, even as the driver started stabbing at the brakes, Ellis reached under the seat and came out with a Thompson machine-pistol.

  In the backseat, Colonel William J. Donovan looked up from the document he was reading. Ellis had rigged a really nice reading light on a flexible shaft. The light turned automobile rides into work sessions rather than wastes of time.

  “What is it?” Captain Peter Douglass asked.

  “Dunno,” Ellis replied, and then, almost immediately, “It’s the fucking cops!”

  “How fast were we going?” Donovan asked calmly.

  “About seventy, Sir,” Staley, the driver, said.

  Staley was in civilian clothing. Ellis was in uniform, except for his brimmed chief’s cap, which was on the seat beside him. But in his blue, insignia-less overcoat, he appeared at casual glance to be a portly, ruddy-faced civilian.

  Ellis shoved the Thompson back under the front seat as the driver pulled onto the shoulder.

  The Virginia state trooper, in a stiff-brimmed hat, swaggered up to the car.

  “May I see your license and registration, please, Sir?” he asked, with ritual courtesy.

  They were handed over.

  “Sir, are you Charles D. Staley, of this Q Street, Northwest, address, in the District?”

  “Yes, Sir,” the driver said.

  “And this vehicle is the property of . . .” He paused to examine the registration with his flashlight. ". . . W. J. Donovan?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Does Mr. Donovan know you are driving his vehicle?”

  “I’m Donovan,” Donovan said. The trooper flashed his light in Donovan’s face.

  “Yes, Sir,” he said. He returned his attention to the driver. “Sir, you went through a speed-detection area. You were clocked, over a measured quarter mile, at seventy-three point six miles per hour.”

  “I didn’t realize I was going that fast,” the driver said.

  “Two state troopers will testify that you were, Sir,” the trooper said. “I’m going to have to issue you a citation. You will be charged with reckless driving. The law is that any speed twenty miles in excess of the posted speed limit is considered reckless driving. Are you aware, Sir, that in order to conserve gasoline and rubber for the war effort, the speed limit across the nation is now thirty-five miles per hour?”

  “I heard about that,” the driver said dryly.

  “If you are found guilty in a court of law—the place and time of your required appearance will be on the citation I am about to give you—your local ration board will be notified of this violation. You have a C sticker, which means that you agreed in writing to make a genuine effort to conserve the gasoline authorized for you. I think you will agree that driving seventy-three point six miles per hour does not conserve fuel.”

  “I was in sort of a hurry,” the driver said.

  “So are our boys in uniform,” the state trooper said. “In a hurry to get the war over. And pe
rsonally, I think we should do all we can to help them.”

  “Ellis!” Donovan warned softly.

  “Can I go now?” Staley asked, taking the citation.

  “Yes, Sir,” the state trooper said, and marched off.

  The driver cranked up the window.

  “Sorry about that, Colonel,” he said.

  “Hell, I told you to step on it,” Donovan said. “Ellis, give Staley money to pay the fine. If there are any other complications, let Captain Douglass know.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Ellis said.

  “And as soon as we’re over the next hill,” Donovan said, “step on it.”

  Twenty minutes later, the Buick was in the Rock Creek section of the District of Columbia, moving down Q Street, Northwest. They came to an estate surrounded by an eight-foot -high brick wall. The driver switched from low beam to high beam and back again, and a moment later turned off Q Street, stopping the Buick with its nose against a heavy, solid gate in the wall.

  A muscular man in civilian clothing stepped out of the shadows and walked to the car. The driver turned the interior lights on for a moment, and then off again.

  The muscular man touched the brim of his snap-brim hat. A moment later, the double gate swung inward. As soon as the car was inside, the gates closed after it.

  “Ellis,” Donovan said, “I hate to make you an orderly, but it would save us a lot of time if you went by my house and packed a bag. And get your own while you’re at it. Then we can go from here to Union Station.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “The Secret Service sent over the passes?” Donovan asked.

  “I’ll check on that, too, Sir,” Ellis said.

  “I don’t want to find myself waving bye-bye on the platform as the President goes off to Georgia by himself,” Donovan said.

  “No, Sir, I’ll see we’re aboard the train,” Ellis said.

  Donovan and Douglass got out of the car and entered the turn-of-the-century mansion through the kitchen door. The kitchen was enormous and furnished with restaurant-size stoves and refrigerators.

  A tall young woman with blond hair hanging to her shoulders came into the room. She wore a simple black dress, a single string of pearls, and just above her right breast a miniature pair of pilot’s wings. Captain Douglass’s eyes betrayed a moment’s surprise and special interest in the wings. He was sure he knew their source: His wife had an identical pair, sent from London by their son. What seemed like last week, their son had seemed an eager-eyed West Point cadet; and now, at twenty-five, he was a lieutenant colonel. His son also liked this girl very much.

  “Good evening,” Charity Hoche said with a radiant smile. Her accent betrayed her origins: Charity Hoche had been raised on a twenty-acre estate in Wallingford, which was one of the plusher suburbs of Philadelphia, and educated at Bryn Mawr.

  “Hello, Charity,” Donovan said. “Mr. Hoover here?”

  “No, Sir,” she said. “And no calls, either. From him.”

  “Time and J. Edgar Hoover wait for no man,” Donovan said. “What are we going to feed him?”

  “Capon,” she said. “And wild rice.”

  “Good.” Donovan chuckled. “Eating chicken with a knife and fork is not one of J. Edgar’s strong points. He always makes me feel he’d rather eat one with his hands. After biting off the head, of course.”

  “And,” Charity said, “a very nice Chateau de Long Chablis, ’35.”

  “Where the hell did we get that?” Donovan asked.

  “Actually, I brought it from home,” Charity said. “I knew this was important.”

  “And you wanted to butter up the boss, too,” Donovan said.

  “Guilty,” Charity said with a smile.

  “I might decide to keep you here for your father’s cellar, ” Donovan said.

  “As opposed to what?” Douglass asked.

  “Charity wants to go to England,” Donovan said. “I can’t imagine why.”

  Charity chuckled deep in her throat.

  A very sexual young woman, Captain Douglass thought. Not quite what he had hoped for Peter Douglass, Jr. He wanted for Doug a girl just like the girl who had married dear old dad when he’d been an ensign fresh from Annapolis. Not this Main Line socialite who was used to spending more money on her clothing than Doug (even as an Air Corps lieutenant colonel drawing flight pay) made in a year. And who, according to the FBI’s CBI (Complete Background Investigation) on her, was a long way from having any claim to a virginal white bridal dress.

  He was really worried, he thought, that Charity looked on Doug as this year’s chic catch, a dashing hero, rather than as someone whose life she would share.

  “There have been some cables from London,” Charity said. “Nothing important, except that Fulmar and Fine have left for Lisbon. And there’s one from Cairo, with Jimmy Whittaker’s ETA.”

  “Good,” Donovan said. “I wasn’t sure we could catch him.”

  “Apparently, they had some trouble finding him,” Charity said. “The cable said that he had not checked in with them, which is why he wasn’t on an earlier plane.”

  “I wonder what her name was?” Donovan chuckled.

  “Jeanine d’Autrey-Lascal,” Charity furnished. “Her husband ran a bank there before the war and is now with General de Gaulle.”

  “Wilkins sent that, too?” Donovan chuckled. “Thorough, isn’t he?”

  “Wilkins described her as Jimmy’s ‘good friend,’ ” Charity said.

  “Pilots do get around, don’t they, Charity?” Donovan teased.

  “Until they’re finally forced to land,” Charity said. “What goes up, they say, has to come down. Eventually, if they’re lucky, a Delilah comes into their lives.”

  “As in Samson-and?” Donovan chuckled. “You’re planning on giving young Douglass a haircut?”

  “I don’t really think that’s what Delilah did to Samson,” Charity said. “But if that’s what it takes . . .”

  Both Donovan and Douglass laughed, but Douglass’s laughter seemed a little strained. If he had correctly understood Charity, and he was afraid he had, she had as much as said that she was going to drain Doug sexually to the point where straying would be physically impossible.

  A buzzer buzzed four times.

  “The Director has arrived,” Charity said. “Are you going to meet him outside, or would it be better if we all prostrated ourselves in the entrance foyer?”

  Donovan laughed heartily. He genuinely enjoyed Charity Hoche.

  “Let’s meet him outside and bring him in through the kitchen,” Donovan said.

  They went back to the cobblestone driveway that separated the mansion from the stable—still so called, although it had been converted to a five-car garage—as a Cadillac limousine, bristling with shortwave radio antennae, rolled majestically in.

  There were two neatly dressed young men in the front seat, one of whom jumped out to open the door the instant the car stopped.

  J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, got out.

  “Hello, Edgar,” Donovan said. “I’m glad you could find the time.”

  “It’s always a pleasure, Bill,” Hoover said, firmly shaking his hand. He nodded curtly to Captain Douglass. “Douglass, ” he said.

  “Mr. Director,” Douglass said.

  “And you know Miss Hoche, I believe, Edgar?”

  Hoover beamed.

  “How nice to see you, my dear,” he said. “And how is your father?” Before Charity could open her mouth, he went on, “You be sure to give both your mother and father my kindest regards.”

  “Of course,” Charity said.

  “Would you like a little belt, Edgar?” Donovan asked. “Or would you rather go right in to dinner?”

  “This is one of those days when I would dearly like a little taste,” Hoover said, “and just don’t have the time.”

  “Well, we’ll give you a rain check,” Donovan said. “I’m trying to be very nice to you, Edgar.”

 
“That sounds as if you want something,” Hoover said, jovially, as they entered the house through the kitchen.

  “Actually,” Donovan said, “I was hoping you might have a contact with the state police in Virginia.”

  “I can probably help,” Hoover said. “What is it you need?”

  “You know somebody that can fix a speeding ticket?” Donovan asked.

  Hoover looked at him in genuine surprise.

  “Seventy-three-point-six in a thirty-five-mile zone,” Donovan said, straight-faced. “The cop said that we’d probably lose our C-ration sticker, too.”

  Hoover smiled.

  “Darn you, Bill,” he said. “You really had me going there for a minute.”

  “Oh, Edgar, you know better than that. I’d never ask you to fix a speeding ticket.”

  “You didn’t really get one, did you?” Hoover asked.

  “Less than an hour ago,” Donovan said. “On the way here. But don’t worry about it, Edgar. I’m going to ask the boss for a presidential pardon.”

  Hoover’s smile was now strained.

  “As soon as we get our business out of the way, Edgar, we’re headed for Warm Springs,” Donovan said. “On his way down there, Franklin’s always in a very good mood. He’ll take care of the speeding ticket, I’m sure.”

  Hoover marched ahead of him toward the dining room. He knew the way.

  Donovan glanced at Charity Hoche. She smiled and gave him a nod of approval. He had put Hoover off balance, and with consummate skill that Charity appreciated. First, by the suggestion of an insult: that the nation’s ranking law-enforcement officer, Mr. G-Man himself, would fix a speeding ticket, and then with the announcement that he was going to Warm Springs with President Roosevelt (whom he was privileged to call by his first name) on a trip on which Hoover had obviously not been invited.

  There were very few people who could discomfit J. Edgar Hoover. Donovan, Charity thought, could play him like a violin.

  The table was set for three.

  Charity waited until they were seated, then started to leave.

  “I’ll serve now, if that would be all right,” she said.

  “Fine,” Donovan said, and then, as if he had just thought of it, “Oh, Charity, there was one more cable from London, a personal to me from Stevens.”