On balance, USFIP had more weapons after the ambush than before, including two 60mm mortars and sixty rounds for them, several Nambu pistols, nearly two hundred Arisaka rifles, and one Namimba machine gun. Countering this increase was the expenditure of .30-06 ammunition and hand grenades. An Enfield or a BAR without .30-06 ammunition is simply a finely machined piece of steel, not a weapon. And the Japanese had expended all of their hand grenades before they were overwhelmed, the last dozen of them as instruments of suicide.
Just before he disappeared back into the jungle, General Fertig took a last look at the carnage on the highway.
The Japanese, if for no other reason than to save face, would rush reinforcements up here. Patrols would be sent into the jungle.
There would be an opportunity for other ambushes, perhaps not as overwhelmingly successful as this one, but successful enough to kill many Japanese, to force the Japanese to expend fuel and manpower on one patrol after another— and to lose face.
There was a caveat. To conduct other ambushes, he would need ammunition. He had come out of the ambush with only marginally greater stocks of ammunition than he had going in, and that was for the Japanese Arisaka rifles, not the Enfields and the BARs.
He turned and entered the jungle. He would now go back into hiding.
How the hell can I wage a war if they won’t supply me with what I need? Supply me with what I need? The sons-ofbitches won’t even talk to me!
2
THE HOUSE ON Q STREET, NORTHWEST WASHINGTON, D.C. 4 FEBRUARY 1943
Chief Ellis found Captain James M. B. Whittaker in the billiards room in the basement. There were two tables in the darkly paneled room: a standard English billiards table, and a somewhat smaller pocket billiards table. Whittaker was alone at the smaller table.
“Anchors aweigh, Chief,” Whittaker said, looking up from the table when he saw Ellis. He had carefully arranged balls at the lip of each of the pockets on the table. What he was trying to do was sink as many of them as he could with one shot.
Ellis waited until he had made the shot—sinking four of the six balls—before replying.
“I hear you’ve been a bad boy again, Captain Whittaker, ” Ellis said.
“Was Baker waiting for you when you got back?” Whittaker asked, and then, before Ellis could reply, he asked, “Who’s your friend?”
Ellis had with him a Navy white hat, a small man made to look even smaller by his waist-length Navy blue peacoat. He wore round-framed GI glasses. He looked, Whittaker thought, like a Sea Scout.
“Radioman Second Joe Garvey, say hello to Captain Jim Whittaker,” Ellis said.
The sailor snatched off his white hat and came to attention.
“How do you do, Sir?” he asked.
“Poorly, now that you ask,” Whittaker said, smiling at him. “Didn’t your mother warn you to avoid evil companions when you joined the Navy?”
Then he saw that his joke had fallen flat and that the young sailor was uncomfortable, not amused. Whittaker came quickly around the pool table and, smiling, offered his hand.
“Hello, Garvey,” he said. “If you’re with Chief Ellis, you must be somebody special. I’m happy to meet you.”
Garvey shook his hand and smiled uneasily.
“You ever know somebody named Fertig?” Ellis asked.
Whittaker thought it over. “There is a faint tinkle of the bell of memory,” he said.
“In the Philippines?”
“I put that together,” Whittaker said, “but that’s as far as it goes. Is there some reason I should know him?”
“He’s still in the Philippines,” Ellis said.
“Poor sonofabitch,” Whittaker said.
“Garvey’s been talking to him on the radio,” Ellis said.
Whittaker’s face fit up with curiosity.
“He’s in the mountains of Mindanao,” Ellis said. “He says there’s an army sergeant named Withers with him.”
“I knew a guy named Withers over there,” Whittaker said.
“You want to find out if it’s the same one?” Ellis said.
“I don’t think this is just idle curiosity on your part,” Whittaker said.
Ellis shrugged.
“How could we do that?” Whittaker asked.
“You got time to take a ride over to the Navy commo facility in Virginia?” Ellis asked.
“You’re starting to act like Captain Douglass,” Whittaker said. “You answer questions with another question.”
“Well, I don’t ‘manifest a belligerent and uncooperative attitude,’ ” Ellis said.
“Is that what that sonofabitch said?” Whittaker asked.
“There was more,” Ellis said. “There was something about ‘subjecting a trainee to a humiliating public display of affection.’ Two pages, single spaced.”
“Has the Colonel seen it?” Whittaker asked.
“Not yet,” Ellis said. “I intercepted it. I can lose it, but Baker’s going to expect some kind of a reply, so you better start thinking about that. And about the fact that the Colonel thinks you’re in Virginia running around in the woods.”
“Hmmm,” Whittaker said, considering that.
“You want to take a run over to Virginia?” Ellis asked.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” Whittaker said. He turned to put the pool cue in its rack. “We’ll have lunch on the way,” he said. “I want to go to that three-for-a -quarter hamburger place.”
“White Castle?” Ellis asked incredulously.
“White Castle,” Whittaker confirmed happily. “And eat a dollar’s worth, with a large fries and a Dr Pepper.”
“Maybe Baker’s right,” Ellis said. “He says he thinks you may be crazy.”
“In that case, you can buy your own hamburgers,” Whittaker said as he took his tunic from a bentwood coatrack.
An hour and a half later, a lieutenant commander signed them into his log, then took them past a Marine MP guarding access to a gray painted steel door with RADIO ROOM— POSITIVELY NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS painted on it.
The officer on watch, a young lieutenant j.g. with a blond crew cut, got up from his desk and walked to meet them.
“These people wish to use one of your transmitters,” the lieutenant commander said. “They have their own operator. ”
“Sir?” the j.g. asked, not sure he had heard correctly.
“We’d like to use that Collins, Lieutenant,” Chief Ellis said, nodding his head toward one of a row of transmitters lining the wall.
The j.g. looked at the lieutenant commander for instructions. Strange people coming into the transmitter room was unusual; it was absolutely out of the lieutenant’s experience that they should be given access to the equipment.
“Do it, Mr. Fenway,” the lieutenant commander said.
“Aye, aye, Sir,” the j.g. said, and motioned Garvey to follow him. He led him to a small cubicle holding a telegrapher’s key, a typewriter, and a control panel. Garvey, still wearing his peacoat, pulled up a chair and reached for a set of earphones.
He tapped the key tentatively, then adjusted set screws on its base and tried it again. He rolled paper into the typewriter, then tuned both the receiver and the transmitter.
Then he started to tap the key.
Ellis and Whittaker walked and stood behind him, and looked over his shoulder.
“All they’ve got is an old M94,” Ellis said. “There’s no sense even trying to encrypt. We’re talking in the clear.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Whittaker said.
“It’s a coding device,” Ellis explained. “But we have to presume the Japs got at least one of them.”
“Oh,” Whittaker said.
“When we raise them, you’re going to have to think of some way to find out if this Withers guy is the one you were with, and do it so the Japs will be as confused as possible. ”
“Ask him if he still has the watch,” Whittaker said. “Call him Sergeant Boomboom. Sign it,
Polo.”
Garvey’s fingers flew over the typewriter keys. It was an automatic reaction to what he had heard in his earphones. Ellis and Whittaker looked at what he had typed:
MFS FOR KGS BY
“Send ‘For Sergeant BoomBoom,’ ” Ellis ordered, “ ‘Have you got the watch. Signed Polo.’ ”
Garvey tapped the message out with his key.
“What’s with the watch?” Ellis asked.
“I gave him my watch, just before I left,” Whittaker said.
There was a long wait before Garvey started typing again.
MFS FOR KGS AFFIRMATIVE WHERE POLO MFS BY
“Send ‘Polo Washington,’ ” Whittaker ordered. “ ‘Where Scarface.’ ”
MFS FOR KGS SCARFACE EVERYBODY HERE MFS BY
“Send ‘Send Third Letter Scarface Last Name,’ ” Whittaker ordered.
MFS FOR KGS VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV MSF BY
“Send ‘Glad You All Made It,’ ” Whittaker said.
MFS FOR KGS FOR POLO FROM SCARFACE VAYA CON DIOS MFS BY
“Send,” Whittaker began, and then his voice broke, and when Ellis turned to look at him, he saw tears running down his cheeks.
“Send,” Whittaker went on, “ ‘Hold On. The Twenty-sixth Will Ride Again. God Bless You All. Polo.’ ”
MFS FOR KGS MFS OUT
Captain James M. B. Whittaker, rather loudly, blew his nose. When he spoke, he had his voice under control.
“ ‘Scarface’ is Master Sergeant Victor Alvarez, late of the Twenty-sixth Cavalry, Philippine Scouts. He was in the habit of calling Sergeant Withers ‘Sergeant BoomBoom’ because Withers blew things up.”
“Clandestine station in the Philippines?” the lieutenant commander asked. Whittaker nodded. “Poor bastards!”
“Thank you for your assistance, Commander,” Whittaker said formally. “Let’s get out of here, Ellis.”
When they got in the Buick Roadmaster, Ellis reached into the glove compartment and came out with a pint bottle of Old Overholt. He handed it to Whittaker.
“Good for the sinuses,” he said.
“I wish I had gone with you to Warm Springs, Ellis,” Whittaker said tensely. “It would have given me a chance to ask Uncle Franklin why the hell we have abandoned those guys.”
“I suppose that’s why the Colonel wanted you to run around in the woods in Virginia,” Ellis said. “Every time you tell off your uncle Franklin, he has to pick up the pieces.”
“And what, exactly, he plans to do about it,” Whittaker said.
“You might as well hear this now,” Ellis said. “They asked for money. There is Army brass, both here and in Australia, who are against it, because they think the Japs are using those people . . . what the Colonel calls ‘turned agents.’ ”
“How much did they ask for?” Whittaker asked.
Ellis thought it was a strange question, but told him.
“A million, in gold, gold coins, for openers.”
“They say what for?”
“We’re talking in the clear, Captain,” Ellis said. “You can’t expect them to offer details.”
“When can I get to see the Colonel?” Whittaker asked.
“He said that I should go to Virginia and pick you up and see if we could raise MFS,” Ellis said. “I think he wanted to see if you thought they were being controlled by the Japs. To answer your question, Captain, that’s where we’re going now.”
3
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH BUILDING WASHINGTON, D.C. 4 FEBRUARY 1943
Colonel William J. Donovan was in civilian clothing: a well-cut, double-breasted Glen plaid suit, a crisp white shirt, and a red-and-blue finely patterned necktie. He looked, Whittaker thought, like a successful lawyer about to sue Chrysler or DuPont for a lot of money.
When Whittaker entered the office, Donovan walked around his desk with his hand extended, and then the handshake gave way to a quick embrace.
“Good to see you, Jimmy,” he said. “How did you find the place in Virginia?”
“I’d been there before,” Jimmy said. “And Staley drew a map. No problem.”
“Why do I suspect you purposely misunderstood me?” Donovan asked.
“You mean ‘what did I think of the place’?”
Donovan nodded.
“Baker and I crossed swords again,” Whittaker said. “He seems to feel I ‘manifested a belligerent and uncooperative attitude.’ I also ‘subjected a trainee to public humiliation.’ ”
“Oh, Jimmy,” Donovan said, both angry and resigned. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Well, the belligerent and uncooperative attitude is something that seems to happen when I get in the same room with Baker,” Whittaker said. “It seems to be contagious. Canidy has the same thing happen to him.”
“We’re talking about you, not Dick Canidy,” Donovan said. “What happened with the trainee? What was he doing so wrong you felt you had to humiliate him?”
“Her,” Whittaker corrected him. “I kissed her.”
“Cynthia?” Donovan asked. Whittaker nodded. “I don’t know why I’m smiling,” Donovan added. “I’m sure she didn’t think it was funny. You’ll notice that I am assuming she didn’t want to be kissed.”
“That girl doesn’t know what she wants,” Whittaker said. “For example, she has some absurd notion that she wants to go operational. When I saw her, she was all dressed up in fatigues and carrying a Springfield at port arms. I found her irresistible. I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of that?”
“You made your peace with Baker?” Donovan asked.
“I left,” Whittaker said. “He’s probably still mad.”
“You left?” Donovan asked, confused. “You mean, when Ellis came for you?”
“I left about thirty minutes after I got there,” Whittaker said. “I’ve been at the house.”
“I left orders that you were to be taken out there,” Donovan said coldly.
“Staley told me,” Whittaker said. “He was pretty insistent. ”
Donovan looked at him coldly, waiting for a further explanation.
“I could offer some excuse, like I would probably have broken Baker’s arms if I stayed, but the real reason I left was that Baker was acting as if he was controlling me.”
“That’s what he’s paid to do,” Donovan said sharply.
“I don’t know what you’ve got planned for me, why I’m here and not in Australia, but if it means that Baker is my control, you’re going to have to get yourself another boy.”
“You can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, Jim,” Donovan said. “And this is one of them. Just who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
Whittaker’s reply came a long moment later.
“I know I’m talking to the head of the OSS,” he said. “Not Uncle Bill, who used to bounce me on his knee. I’m not asking for any special treatment. I don’t know what my alternatives are, but whatever they are, I’ll take them, rather than go anywhere with him as my control.”
Donovan glared at him.
“You have a reason for feeling that way, I presume?”
“There are two kinds of controls,” Whittaker said. “Both profess great sadness when somebody gets bagged. One kind means it. Baker is the other kind. Baker is too willing to accept risks with somebody else’s life. He sees ‘the big picture’ much too clearly.”
They locked eyes for a moment, and then Donovan asked, “Did Ellis mention anything about dinner tonight?”
The question surprised Whittaker.
“No,” he said. “He didn’t.” Then he thought a moment. “Don’t tell me I’m to have dinner with Baker?”
“Not with Baker,” Donovan said. And then, when he was sure in his own mind that Ellis hadn’t said anything about the dinner and that Whittaker in fact did not know, he added, “With the President.”
“Oh?” Whittaker said.
“There will be no repetition, nothing remotely resembling a repetition of w
hat happened the last time you had dinner with him,” Donovan said.
“I was a little crazy the last time,” Whittaker said. “And I don’t want to find myself locked up in a loony bin again.”
“You take my point,” Donovan said evenly.
Whittaker nodded. “Is dinner his idea, or yours?” he asked.
“His idea,” Donovan said. “But when I told him you were in Washington, I was pretty sure he’d want to see you.”
“You’re being devious again,” Whittaker said.
“Trust me, Jimmy,” Donovan said, smiling.
“You, I trust,” Whittaker said.
“Ellis has some dossiers, and some other material, I want you to look at,” Donovan said. “By the time you’re finished, I should be finished here; and we can go over to the house.”
The President of the United States traveled from 1600 Pennsylvania to Embassy Row in a four-car convoy: There was a District of Columbia police car with flashing red lights; then a black Chevrolet full of Secret Service agents; a 1939 Packard limousine (not the presidential limousine); and finally another Chevrolet packed with Secret Service agents.
The gate in the wall was already open when the convoy arrived. The police car and the tailing Secret Service car pulled to the curb and stopped. The lead Secret Service car and the Packard drove through the gate, which closed immediately after them.
When the two cars stopped, two burly Secret Service agents half trotted to the limousine. One of them reached in and swung the President’s feet outward. Then he hauled him from the car and erect. Then he and the other agent, with an ease born of practice, made a cradle of their locked arms and carried him to and up the kitchen stairs. By the time they got there, a third Secret Service agent had taken a collapsible wheelchair from the trunk of the Chevrolet, trotted with it to the kitchen, and had it unfolded and waiting when the President was carried to it.
“One of you,” the President of the United States said, “smells of something that didn’t come out of an after-shave bottle. ‘My Sin’?”
The burly Secret Service agent now pushing the wheelchair chuckled.
“No comment, Mr. President,” he said.
The Fighting Agents Page 11