The Fighting Agents

by W. E. B Griffin

  Donovan grunted.

  “It’s time we thought of the worst possible scenario,” he said. “That should be plural. The first thing that can go badly wrong—and I am frankly surprised this hasn’t already happened—is that they will find out who Fulmar and the Professor really are. . . . ”

  “Colonel,” Stevens began.

  “Let me finish, please, Ed,” Donovan said. “The best we could hope for in that situation would be that the Germans would decide we wanted Dyer for what he knows about jet- and rocket-engine metallurgy. That they would not suspect that what we’re really after is getting nuclear-useful people out of Germany.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Stevens said.

  “The second thing that could go wrong would be for Canidy to be captured. Quite aside from what else he knows, I think we have to consider that the Germans know full well who he is—that he’s the number three here—and would decide that we are either very interested in Professor Dyer, or, I’m afraid, that there is more to all this activity than is immediately apparent.”

  Stevens didn’t reply.

  “I think I have to say this, Ed,” Donovan said. “On reflection, I think I made an error in judgment. I think what I should have ordered—to cut our losses to the minimum— was to give the Germans Fulmar and the professor.”

  Stevens didn’t reply.

  “Or alternatively, to arrange for them to be eliminated. On reflection, that’s what should have been done. There are two ways to do that. The first would be to message Canidy to do it. I don’t know if that would work. If he went in there without orders, in direct defiance of orders, I don’t think we can expect him to obey any other order he doesn’t like.”

  “Canidy is not a fool,” Stevens said loyally.

  “Sometimes I wonder about that,” Donovan said. “The second way to ensure that the Germans don’t get to question Fulmar and the professor is to bomb St. Gertrud’s prison.”

  “Canidy’s thought of that. He asked for Composition C- 2.”

  “I meant by aircraft,” Donovan said. “A raid on Budapest. Failing to reach the target, a squadron of B-17s would bomb an alternative target. A target of opportunity. Pécs. That happens all the time.”

  “That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it?” Stevens said.

  “It’s laid on for tomorrow,” Donovan said. “Presuming the weather permits. If not tomorrow, the day after. I have been assured—there is only minimal antiaircraft around Pécs, they can go in low—that there is a seventy-five-percent chance that the prison can be taken out completely. Totally destroyed.”

  “My God!”

  “You know what’s involved with this,” Donovan said. “I don’t see I have any alternative. Do you?”

  “No, Sir,” Stevens said after a moment.

  “With that scenario,” Donovan said, “there is the possibility that the team, and Canidy, can get out.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “If he does,” Donovan said, “by the time I’ve finished with him, he may wish he was still in Hungary.”

  “Sir,” Stevens said. “From his perspective, I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing.”

  After a moment, Donovan said, “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Ed. I thought by now you would have figured out that ‘the right thing’ has absolutely no meaning for the OSS. We do what has to be done, and ‘right’ has absolutely nothing to do with that.”

  He raised his voice.

  “You can take us to Berkeley Square now, please, Ellis.”

  When they got there, Captain Helene Dancy was waiting for them with a just-decrypted message:

  TOP SECRET

  OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE

  FROM STATION VIII FOR OSS LONDON

  C47 THREE HOURS OVERDUE HERE STOP TOTAL FUEL

  EXPENDITURE OCCURRED NOT LATER THAN 0800

  LONDON TIME STOP MUST PRESUME AIRCRAFT LOST

  STOP INASMUCH AS SUCCESSFUL DROP SIGNAL

  UNRECEIVED MUST PRESUME FAILURE STOP UNABLE

  ESTABLISH CONTACT YACHTSMAN OR PHARMACIST STOP

  ADVISE STOP PHARMACIST II

  Donovan read it, then handed it to Stevens.

  The C-47 with Dolan and Darmstadter was lost. And the worst possible scenario: before they had been able to drop the OSS team.

  “I think you’d better radio him to come home,” Donovan said. “And message Wilkins to arrange for a ferry crew for the B-17. I don’t want to lose that, too.”

  3

  127 DEGREES 20 MINUTES WEST LONGITUDE 07 DEGREES 35 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE 0600 HOURS 21 FEBRUARY 1943

  The Drum was on the surface. In these waters, off the eastern shore of Mindanao, the risk of a submarine on the surface being spotted by Japanese aircraft and patrol boats was almost unacceptable. But surfacing had been necessary. There was no way to attempt to contact the American guerrilla radio station from a submerged boat.

  In these circumstances, when the life of his boat was literally at stake, Lt. Commander Edwin R. Lennox ordinarily would have exercised command from the bridge on the conning tower, where he could make the decisions (including the ultimate decision: to dive and run or stay and fight). But Lt. Bill Rutherford, the Drum’s exec, was on the bridge and had the conn, and Lennox was below, leaning against the bulkhead. He, Captain Whittaker, and Lt. Hammersmith were watching as Radioman Second Joe Garvey tried to establish contact with U.S. forces in the Philippines.

  Once he had learned that Joe Garvey was not really a motion-picture photographer, Lennox had wondered how good a radioman Garvey could be—he looked to be about seventeen years old—and how the boyish sailor was going to fare when they put him ashore on Mindanao.

  The first question had been answered when they had been under way only a few days. The Drum’s chief radioman, into whose care Garvey had been entrusted, a salty old submariner not given to complimenting his peers, had volunteered the information that “Garvey really knows his stuff.” From the chief radioman, that was tantamount to comparing Garvey to Marconi.

  Lennox had noticed the two of them together frequently after that, with the innards of a radio spread out in front of them, and he had overheard several of their conversations, of which he had understood very little.

  But he understood the problem Garvey and his chief radioman were trying to solve. The first part of it was that the American guerrillas were operating a homemade radio, and establishing contact with it using the radios available on the Drum might prove difficult.

  And then once—if—they made it safely ashore, the next problem was the radio Garvey was carrying. They intended to replace the guerrillas’ homemade radio with equipment capable of reliable communications to Australia, Hawaii, and the States. What they had was a new, apparently not fully tested “transceiver,” a device weighing only sixty pounds, including an electrical generation system that was pedaled like a stationary bicycle.

  But that was several steps away. What had to be done now was to let the guerrillas know, and to keep the Japanese from learning, that Whittaker and his team were coming ashore—and where, and when.

  Solving that problem had nothing to do with the esoterics of radio-wave propagation in the twenty-meter band.

  Joe Garvey had been sending a short message twice, and then listening for a response, and then sending twice again, and then listening again:

  KFH FOR WYZB

  FOR GENERAL FERTIG

  RELAY WRISTWATCH

  QUOTE POLO COMING FOR NORTH PUERTO RICAN

  COCKTAILS TODAY END QUOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGE KFH BY

  The message, Captain Jim Whittaker had explained, would be delivered to Master Sergeant George Withers, whom he had left on Bataan, and who was now with Fertig on Mindanao. “Wristwatch” made reference to the watch Whittaker had taken from his wrist and given to Withers just before he had left him.

  “Polo” was simple. Jim Whittaker had been a polo player, and was known by that nickname.

  Whittaker was sure that Withers and Fertig would un
derstand that “cocktails” meant “at the cocktail hour.” Whether they interpreted that to mean five P.M., or any hour up to eight or nine, didn’t matter. If they were on the beach where Polo was coming at the cocktail hour, they would wait until the last hope he was coming was gone.

  The tricky part of the message was “Puerto Rican cocktails.” Whittaker said he was banking on Whithers being initially baffled by that, saying aloud to find a meaning.

  Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico?

  “Word association, Skipper,” Whittaker had said. “What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you think ‘Puerto Rico’?”

  “Rum,” Commander Lennox said immediately.

  “Think geographically,” Whittaker said.

  “San Juan, I guess,” Lennox had said. “But I knew about San Juan.”

  It was Whittaker’s intention to go ashore north of the small city of San Juan on the eastern shore of Mindanao at six, just before darkness fell.

  “They will be thinking geographically,” Whittaker said firmly. “They’ll get it, all right. The message isn’t what’s bothering me.”

  “Something is bothering you?” Lennox asked sarcastically. “I can’t imagine what that would be.”

  “Well, for one thing, we don’t seem to be getting any reply, ” Whittaker said dryly, “which could mean that either Garvey’s radio isn’t working; or that Fertig’s radio isn’t working; or that Fertig’s people just aren’t listening; or if you insist on taking counsel of your fears, that they have been killed or captured by the Japanese.”

  “And what if they have been, Jim?” Lennox asked, very seriously. “What are you going to do if you can’t raise them on the radio? Try again tomorrow?”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Whittaker said, now as serious as Lennox. “Garvey tells me that the signal he is sending is strong enough to be picked up all over the island. That means that other Americans, or at least Filipinos friendly to him, have heard the message and will get it to him. And so, of course, have the Japanese. I don’t want to give the Japanese any more time to play word association than I already have. I want to go ashore at six tonight.”

  Lennox nodded.

  It was, he realized, the first order Whittaker had given him that was not open to suggestion or argument.

  “I think I’m going to go up to the bridge,” he said, then added without thinking about it, “if you don’t need me?”

  “No, go ahead,” Whittaker said absently.

  Commander Lennox had just reached the ladder to the conning tower when the Klaxon sounded and the speaker’s voice came over the loudspeakers:

  “Japanese aircraft ninety degrees three miles! Dive! Dive!”

  4

  DROP ZONE ASPIRIN NEAR PÉCS, HUNGARY 0535 HOURS 21 FEBRUARY 1943

  Lt. Hank Darmstadter walked down the slanting floor of the C-47 to where Canidy knelt, with his ear to the chest of Lt. Commander John Dolan, USNR.

  “Is he dead?” he asked softly.

  Canidy straightened, still on his knees, and nodded.

  “What the hell were you thinking of, sitting down?” Canidy asked.

  “He had an attack just before we landed at Cairo from Vis,” Darmstadter said, and then answered Canidy’s question: “I couldn’t kick the equipment bags out myself.”

  Two of the parachutists appeared at the door of the aircraft. They had stripped out of their black coveralls and except for the carbines they held in their hands looked like civilians.

  “Jesus!” one of them said when he saw Dolan.

  Canidy got off his knees and looked around the cabin for something to put over Dolan’s body. He saw nothing.

  “Give them the equipment bags,” Canidy said to Darmstadter, then turned to the team. “Take them into the woods. I don’t suppose there’s an ax in there?”

  “Whole fucking kit of engineer tools. Even a power saw,” one of them replied as Darmstadter lowered one of the long, padded bags onto his shoulders.

  “And C-2?” Canidy asked.

  “Hundred pounds of C-2, in two-pound blocks,” the parachutist said as he headed for the cover of the pine forest, staggering under the weight.

  The second parachutist took a bag as the other two members of the team trotted up.

  “The lieutenant’s in pain,” he said. “Pretty bad. Should we give him morphine?”

  “Not yet,” Canidy said.

  The parachutist gave Canidy a dirty look.

  “Christ, he hurts! They never should have made him make this fucking jump!”

  “He’s not dead,” Canidy said. “We’ll be, if we don’t get this airplane out of here before it’s spotted.”

  Then he looked at Darmstadter.

  “You can get it out of here?”

  “No problem,” Darmstadter said immediately, confidently.

  A wild thought popped into Canidy’s mind, and he asked the question:

  “Loaded?”

  “With what?”

  “People. The team. Three others.”

  “Yeah,” Darmstadter said, and then anticipated the next question: “I’ve got about two hours’ fuel aboard. If I can find Vis, that gives me a thirty-minute reserve.”

  “What do you mean, if you can find it?”

  Darmstadter pointed out the door. Canidy looked. It had begun to snow: large, soft-looking flakes.

  “Dolan was navigating by reference to the ground,” Darmstadter said. “Roads and railroads. I won’t be able to see the ground. And I’m not sure I can find Vis just using a compass.”

  “That kind of snow won’t last long,” Canidy said reassuringly.

  But, he thought angrily, that fucking snow is just what we don’t need!

  And then he realized that exactly the opposite was true. The snow was just what he did need. It would obscure the tracks the landing gear had made on the meadow. And, if he was right, and it left just a dusting of fresh snow atop the inch or two on the ground, it wouldn’t interfere with a takeoff.

  “Start it up,” he ordered. “I’m going to find a place to hide this big sonofabitch.”

  As he ran into the center of the meadow, looking for a break in the trees, someplace where the C-47 could be taxied to, he wondered whether his decision to use the Gooney Bird to get out of here was based on sound military reason (Darmstadter couldn’t find Vis—he could; it was an available asset and should be used) or whether he subconsciously saw it as a lifeboat with himself as a drowning sailor, and was irrationally refusing to let it go, as drowning sailors will fight to get into an already loaded lifeboat, not caring that their weight will swamp it.

  He snapped out of that by telling himself the decision had been made and there was no going back on it now.

  He found no place to hide the airplane, now sitting where it had stopped with engines idling and Darmstadter looking out the window, waiting for instructions.

  Canidy ran back to it and signaled Darmstadter to turn it around, then guided him to the edge of the forest, stopping him only when the nose was in the trees and the propeller on the right engine was spinning two feet from a thick pine trunk.

  Three of the team members were watching him. He wondered if they were simply curious or had already decided he was crazy.

  “You said there was a power saw,” he said. “Get it. Cover as much of this thing as you can with the largest boughs you can.”

  “Why don’t you just blow it?” one of them, the one who was so concerned about János being in pain, said. “You already got one fire.”

  “Everybody gets one question,” Canidy said. “That was yours. I don’t want to hear another. The answer to your question is we’re going to get out of here on that Gooney Bird.”

  “You’ll never get that off the ground in that short a distance, ” the parachutist said.

  “That was an opinion,” Canidy said icily. “You get one, only, of those, too. The next time I want to see your mouth open is when I ask you a question.”

  The parachutist gl
ared at him but said nothing.

  “Get going!” Canidy said. “I want the snow to cover the boughs.”

  “There’s an auxiliary fuel system,” Darmstadter said. “A fifty-five-gallon barrel connected to the main tanks. You want me to try to get it out?”

  “That and anything else heavy we don’t absolutely need.”

  “You’re not talking about Commander Dolan?” Darmstadter flared.

  “No,” Canidy said. “We’ll take Dolan with us.”

  The Countess’s housekeeper appeared in the main room of the lodge when Canidy, Alois, and Freddy János, white-faced, his arms around their shoulders, walked into it.

  She put a balled fist to her mouth. Canidy could not tell whether she was manifesting sympathy or fear.

  “Major,” János said, embarrassed, “I think I’m going to pass out.”

  “I’m going to give you something for pain just as soon as I get you in bed,” Canidy said. “Tell him to tell her to keep her mouth shut.”

  They half carried János to the bed in which Canidy had slept and laid him flat on it. Canidy, as gently as he could, cut the boot from his leg, then pulled a coarsely woven cotton sock—Hungarian, rather than GI wool-cushion-soled—from it. Somewhere in János’s gear was a pair of Hungarian shoes that the plan called for him to put on once he was on the ground. The notion that jump boots might protect his ankle hadn’t worked.

  The ankle was blue and swollen, but there didn’t seem to be any bones threatening to break through the skin.

  Canidy opened a flat metal can, sealed with tape, and took a morphine syringe from it. He pushed János’s trouser leg up as far as he could and shoved the needle into his calf. It would take a little longer for the morphine to take effect that way, but it would be less painful for János than moving his body around to get at his upper arm or buttock.