“Yes, Sir,” Harrison said.
“You said that Captain Fine has been sent for?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I don’t think there’s any point in involving Captain Fine in this, Captain,” Bruce said. “What I think you should do is see that Washington gets a copy of this as quickly as you can. And then get in touch with Colonel Stevens and ask him to be in my office at four. A little earlier, if he can make it. And I think it might be a good idea if you were to ask him to bring Lieutenant Hoche with him.”
“Yes, Sir,” Harrison said.
Lt. Hoche, Capt. Harrison recalled, was the newly arrived, absolutely splendiferous blonde who was supposed to be Helene Dancy’s man . . . woman . . . at Whitbey House.
What the hell has she got to do with this?
Bruce returned the documents to the envelope and handed it back to Harrison.
“Thank you, Captain,” he said.
Harrison was wondering whether or not the Customs of the Service required him to salute a three-star general in a hotel dining room, when General Smith solved the problem.
He gave Harrison his hand.
“Pleasure to have met you, Captain,” he said. “I look forward to seeing you again.”
“Yes, Sir,” Harrison said. “Thank you, Sir.”
3
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH BUILDING WASHINGTON, D.C. 0655 HOURS 17 FEBRUARY 1943
Chief Boatswain’s Mate J. R. Ellis, USN, pushed open the plate-glass door, marched into the lobby of the building, and crossed to the elevator, his metal-tapped heels making a ringing noise on the marble floor.
He was almost at the elevator when a guard, whose nose had been in the sports section of the Washington Star, spotted him. The guard, in a blue, police-type uniform, erupted from his chair.
“Hey!”
Ellis looked over his shoulder and saw the guard headed for him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the guard demanded as he caught up with Ellis and put his hand on Ellis’s arm.
Ellis fished in his trousers pocket with his free hand and came up with an identity badge sealed in plastic and fitted with an alligator clip. He held it out for the guard to see. The card bore his photograph, diagonal red “anytime, anyplace” stripes, his name, and in the Duty Assignment box, the words “Office of the Director.”
The guard was satisfied with Ellis’s bona fides, but not mollified.
“You’re supposed to wear that badge, you know,” he said.
“Sorry,” Ellis said. “I forgot.”
Ellis got on the elevator and rode up.
When the second lobby guard returned from the men’s room, the guard who had stopped Ellis was curious enough to ask him, “Who the hell is the sailor with the anytime, anyplace badge?”
“Navy chief? Big guy? Ruddy face?”
“That’s him. He walked in here like he owned the place.”
“He almost does,” the second guard told him. “That’s Chief Ellis. Donovan’s shadow. Nice guy. Just don’t fuck with him. The best way to handle him is to remember the only people around here who tell him what to do are Colonel Donovan and Captain Douglass.”
Upstairs, Ellis got off the elevator and walked down the marble-floored corridor to the Director’s office.
“Good morning, Sir,” he said to the slight, balding man in his late thirties sitting at Colonel Donovan’s secretary’s desk.
William R. Vole was in civilian clothes, but he was a chief warrant officer of the Army Security Agency, a cryptographer, on what had turned out to be permanent loan to the OSS. The Army Security Agency monitored Army radio and wire communications nets to ensure that no classified information was being transmitted in such a manner that it would become available to the enemy. It had also developed a capability, however, to intercept enemy radio transmissions and to break enemy codes.
There were eight such cryptographic experts assigned to the OSS in Washington, and one of them was always available to the office of the Director. They had become de facto duty officers in the Director’s office, in addition to their cryptographic duties. It had been made official by Colonel Donovan, at Ellis’s suggestion. Ellis had pointed out that their cryptographic duties had already made them privy to the contents of incoming and outgoing encrypted messages, so they would learn little they already didn’t know by keeping the Director’s office manned around the clock. And there were other ways they could make themselves useful in the Director’s office.
“Chief,” CWO Vole responded with a smile.
Vole liked Ellis, and felt a certain kinship with him as well. They both had long enlisted service before the war. And unlike many of his peers, he did not resent Ellis’s authority to speak for Colonel Donovan, or Donovan’s deputy, Captain Peter Douglass. He had been around the OSS long enough to see how Ellis used that authority, and he had never seen him abuse it.
And there was enough vestigial enlisted man in Chief Warrant Officer Vole to take some pleasure in the annoyance and discomfiture of a long line of brass hats who had tried and failed to pull rank on the salty old chief. Vole could not remember an incident where Ellis had not been backed up by Captain Douglass when some brass hat had complained to him about a decision of Ellis’s, and he had several fond memories of incidents where some brass hat, having gotten no satisfaction from Captain Douglass, had gone over Douglass’s head to Colonel Donovan.
The response then had been a furious, if brief, ass-chewing of the brass hat, done with the skill and finesse only a former infantry regimental commander—as Donovan had been in the First War—could hand out.
Ellis took off his brimmed cap and hung it atop a bentwood clothing rack. Then he removed a white silk scarf and folded it very neatly and hung it on a wooden coat hanger. Finally, he took off his blue overcoat and hung that carefully on the hanger. Then he turned and looked at the ASA warrant officer.
“The Colonel’s home,” Chief Warrant Officer Vole reported. “Staley’s with him. The Captain’s home. I sent Marmon with a car for him. He’s going to the Pentagon and will be in about ten, maybe a little later.”
Marmon was a former District policeman who served as combination chauffeur and bodyguard to Captain Peter Douglass.
“That’s it?” Ellis asked.
“Mrs. Foster’s going to be in late,” Vole continued. “She has a dental appointment, but says she can reschedule if you need her. Miss Haley, she says, can handle everything she knows about.”
“Fine,” Ellis said.
“And I just made a pot of coffee,” the ASA warrant officer said.
“And can I use one!” Ellis said. “It’s as cold as a witch’s teat outside.”
He went to the small closet where the coffeepot sat on an electric hot plate and poured a cup.
When he came out, the ASA warrant officer had taken the overnight messages from the safe and laid them out, together with the forms for the receipt of classified documents, on an oak table. Ellis sat down at the table.
“Anything interesting in here?” he asked as he began to sign the forms.
“Mostly routine,” Vole said. “The Philippines have been heard from again, but that’s about all.”
Ellis looked at him with a question on his face.
“Seventeen,” the ASA warrant officer said.
When Ellis had finished signing the receipts and pushed the receipt forms away from him, he picked up file number seventeen and opened it. The first thing he saw was that it was an intercept, rather than a message intended for the OSS.
On his own authority, as “Special Assistant to the Director, ” he had sent a “Request for Intercept” to the ASA, asking that the OSS be furnished with whatever ASA intercept operators around the world heard on either American or enemy frequencies that had anything to do with American guerrilla activity in the Philippine Islands. Inasmuch as the ASA and every other military and naval organization knew that the alternative to not giving the OSS whatever it asked
for was explaining to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff why this could not be done, the “request” had been in fact an order.
Ellis had decided that if Douglass or Donovan asked him why he had done so, and he didn’t think they would, he would tell them it was because of the Whittaker mission. That was logical, of course. But the truth was that Ellis had put in the Request for Intercept long before it had been decided to send Whittaker into the Philippines. He had suspected that the reason there had been no reply to Fertig’s original transmissions to MacArthur’s headquarters in Australia was that some brass hats of MacArthur’s palace guard, or perhaps even MacArthur himself, considered the very existence of guerrillas embarrassing. MacArthur’s liaison officer to Washington had flatly announced that “effective guerrilla operations were impossible. ”
The ASA intercept operators were good. They had furnished Ellis with the radio message from MacArthur appointing Philippine Scout Major Marcario Peralta “military guerrilla chief of temporarily occupied enemy territory,” and with Fertig’s response to that, a request for drugs to cure venereal disease—as much as telling MacArthur he considered himself fucked.
Today’s message showed that Fertig had his temper under control and was thinking:
URGENT FROM WYZB FOR KSF
PASS TO SECRETARY OF WAR WASHINGTON DC
AS SENIOR AMERICAN OFFICER IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS I HAVE ASSUMED COMMAND OF MINDANAO AND VISAYAS WITH RANK OF BRIGADIER GENERAL.
I HAVE REACTIVATED UNITED STATES FORCES IN THE PHILIPPINES.
USFIP HAS REESTABLISHED PHILIPPINE CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE HANDS OF ELECTED COMMONWEALTH OF PHILIPPINES OFFICIALS.
LAWFUL GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINES IN AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY OF USFIP IS PRINTING AND PLACING INTO CIRCULATION MONEY.
USFIP IS BORROWING NECESSARY OPERATIONAL FUNDS FROM COMMONWEALTH OF PHILIPPINES GOVERNMENT.
USFIP URGENTLY REQUIRES MINIMUM ONE MILLION DOLLARS IN GOLD.
USFIP URGENTLY REQUIRES FOR MORALE OF PHILIPPINE POPULATION ANY SORT OF AID. MEDICINE FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION PREFERABLE.
FERTIG BRIG GENERAL USA COMMANDING USFIP
Ellis frowned.
“What the hell is that all about?” Vole asked.
“Fertig is being fucked by the system,” Ellis said. “But he’s too mean to lie down and take it.”
The telephone rang. Vole answered it, and then held his hand over the microphone.
“There’s an Eyes Only Operational Immediate for either Donovan or Douglass,” he said. “They want to know if anybody’s here that can take it.”
“Decrypted?” Ellis asked.
“Yeah. Dispatched at 1207 London time.”
“Would you run down there and get it?” Ellis asked.
Vole nodded, and took his hand away from the telephone microphone.
“Put it in a cover,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”
Vole was gone no more than five minutes. By the time he returned, Ellis had gone through the overnight messages and arranged those he felt Colonel Donovan should personally see in the order of their importance.
He took the two Eyes Onlys from Vole.
“I thought you said one Eyes Only,” he said.
“They’re related,” Vole said.
He opened Dolan’s message first, read it, and grunted. Then he opened the message Canidy had laboriously encrypted in the monks’ cave on the Island of Vis.
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
OSS LONDON STATION OSS WASHINGTON
EYES ONLY COLONEL DONOVAN; CAPTAIN DOUGLASS
FOLLOWING FROM CANIDY RECEIVED 1110 LONDON TIME FORWARDED AUTHORITY DANCY CAPT WAC.
BRUCE AND/OR STEVENS WILL HAVE MESSAGE IN HANDS NO LATER THAN 1230 LONDON TIME.
QUOTE TOP SECRET OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE EYES ONLY BRUCE AND STEVENS
ON SAFE ARRIVAL STATION VII INFORMED BY YACHTSMAN EXLAX AND TINCAN ONE IN HANDS OF CIVIL AUTHORITIES STATION V. TINCAN TWO SAFE WELL STATION VII.
SURPRISE BOARDING BY BLACK GUARD AND RIVER POLICE YACHT STATION V RESULTED DISCOVERY EXLAX OPERATIONAL FUNDS. HUNGARIANS PRESUMABLY BELIEVE FUNDS INTENDED FOR PURCHASE BLACK MARKET FOOD. EXLAX AND TINCAN ONE ARRESTED AS BLACK MARKETEERS. SENTENCED NINE ZERO DAYS HARD LABOR COAL MINES STATION V.
YACHTSMAN REPORTS DOCUMENTS NOT REPEAT NOT QUESTIONED.
YACHTSMAN STATES SITUATION FAIRLY COMMON. ABSENCE PREPAYMENT GRAFT BLACK GUARD AND RIVER POLICE REGULARLY ARREST BLACK MARKETEERS CONFISCATE GOODS OR MONEY CONFINE LOCAL JAIL AT MINE HARD LABOR AS LESSON. YACHTSMAN BELIEVES THEY WILL BE RELEASED WITHOUT FURTHER DIFFICULTY PRIOR COMPLETION SENTENCE.
HAVE TAKEN FOLLOWING ACTION.
A. WILL REMAIN HERE PENDING DECISIONS ACTIONS ENUMERATED LATER HEREIN.
B. TINCAN TWO FLOWN CAIRO FOR ICING THERE. RECEIPT THIS MESSAGE WILL CONFIRM SAFE ARRIVAL.
C. YACHTSMAN ORDERED TO STATION V TO PERSONALLY CONFIRM LOCATION OF EXLAX AND TINCAN ONE AND TO EXPLORE POSSIBILITY ESCAPE OR RELEASE BY FORCE. EXPECTED TRAVEL TIME FOUR REPEAT FOUR DAYS. STATION V TO STATION VII COMMUNICATIONS SLOW AND UNRELIABLE REPEAT UNRELIABLE.
6. REQUEST PERMISSION EFFECT RELEASE EXLAX AND TINCAN ONE BEST MEANS AT MY DISCRETION. IF SO REQUIRE IMMEDIATE DISPATCH VIA STATION VIII NEXT AVAILABLE HUNGARIAN SPEAKING TEAM. STANDARD
TEAM EQUIPMENT SHOULD BE AUGMENTED WITH THIRTY POUNDS COMPOSITION C2 AND EQUIVALENT TWENTY THOUSAND US DOLLARS IN HUNGARIAN, GERMAN AND YUGOSLAVIAN CURRENCY. TEAM SHOULD HAVE HUNGARIAN AND OR YUGOSLAVIAN IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENTS.
7. IN VIEW NECESSARY ABSENCE EXLAX CONTROLLER SUGGEST FINE AS TEMPORARY REPLACEMENT.
CANIDY
END QUOTE
TOP SECRET
“Oh, shit!” Chief Ellis said.
He picked up the telephone and dialed a number from memory.
Staley’s familiar voice came on the line: “Capitol 3-1991.”
“Is he up yet?” Ellis asked.
“I heard the crapper flush,” Staley reported.
“Well, don’t say nothing unless he tells you to go anywhere but here,” Ellis said. “If he does, say I called and said I think he should come here straight from there.”
“What’s up, Ellis?” Colonel Wild Bill Donovan’s voice asked.
“There’s something I think you ought to see as soon as you can, Sir.”
“Will it wait until after breakfast, would you say?”
“Yes, Sir, it’ll keep that long.”
“We’ll be there inside of forty-five minutes,” Donovan said, and the line went dead.
Ellis tapped the cutoff button on the telephone with his finger and dialed another number from memory.
“Capitol 3-2772,” a male voice answered.
“Captain Douglass?” Ellis asked.
“Who’s calling, please?” the man asked.
“Marmon, goddamn you, is that you?”
“You don’t have to bite my ass off, Chief,” Marmon said righteously. “I thought I recognized your voice.”
“Is the Captain there?”
“You want me to get him?”
“No. Shit! I’m taking a census.”
In a moment, Captain Douglass came on the line.
“Good morning, Chief,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know what’s going on where you’re going, but if you can put it off, I think it would be a good idea if you came in.”
“He ask for me?”
“No, Sir, but I think he probably will.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Captain Douglass said. “Thank you, Chief.”
Ellis hung the telephone up.
“That important, huh?” Warrant Officer Vole asked.
Ellis looked at him.
“If you’re fishing for an explanation,” Ellis said, “don’t.”
“I read the decrypt,” Vole protested.
“That’s only because we haven’t figured out a way for you to decrypt stuff without reading it,” Ellis said matter-of-factly.
He got up and walked to the saf
e and worked the combination. From a two-foot-high stack of folders piled precariously in the bottom, he pulled a thick one with a TOP SECRET cover sheet and EXLAX written on it with a thick pointed pen.
He carried it to the desk and started going through it. There was no more of a question in his mind that the Colonel would want the paperwork in front of him than there was that he would want to talk Canidy’s Eyes Only Operational Immediate over with Captain Douglass. By the time either of them walked into the office, the paperwork would be ready for them.
Ellis’s eye fell on the overnight traffic. He should get that out of the way before he laid this stuff out.
Then he had another thought. He opened a drawer and took out a lined pad and a pencil and wrote quickly on it.
“You want to make yourself useful,” he said to Vole. “Get this encoded and out right away. And then stick around. I think there will be a reply to the Eyes Onlys.”
Vole took the sheet of lined paper from Ellis and read it.
Urgent
via K S F for W Y Z B
For Hq US Forces in Philippines
Attention Brigadier General Fertig
Keep your shirt on stop
J. R. Ellis
Chief USN Stop End
“You really want me to send this?” Vole asked.
“Just that way,” Chief Ellis said.
4
OFFICE OF THE STATION CHIEF OSS LONDON STATION BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON 1600 HOURS 17 FEBRUARY 1943
“Is something wrong, David?” Lt. Colonel Edmund T. Stevens asked.
Bruce looked at him with his eyebrows raised.
“I would say so, wouldn’t you?” he replied dryly.
"I mean, right now, here,” Stevens said. “You were frowning. ”
“Oh,” Bruce said, and then managed a faint smile. He gestured vaguely around his office. “Actually, I was thinking, paraphrasing Churchill, that ‘never have so few been commanded by so many.’ ”
The three visitors’ chairs in the office were occupied by Colonel Stevens, Capt. Helene Dancy, and Lt. Charity Hoche. Capt. Stanley S. Fine was leaning against the wall.
The Fighting Agents Page 30