Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

“Flattery isn’t going to make it go away, Colonel. I figure you got two weeks at the outside.” She turned and walked out of the office.

  She’s right, Trimler thought, and reality’s a bitch. He forced his own emotions aside, making himself become a commander, a man capable of making the hard decisions, taking losses, and then, if need be, ordering his men back into harm’s way again. But he had the responsibility to protect those men and not waste their lives needlessly. Could he do all that? Rather than work that problem, he turned to the letters he had to write. Six letters to next of kin. Villaneuva had produced a file of condolence letters she had rat-holed to help him. But the phrases seemed too trite and polished and he had pushed them aside. He tried to finish the one he had been working on. “…I knew Joey and had come to depend on him. His unfailing sense of humor will be missed.” No! he thought, that won’t work. Too many images assaulted his memory—crisp color photographs courtesy of the Thai government.

  Out of frustration, he selected one of the letters out of Villaneuva’s file and copied it, changing it to fit the circumstances. He quickly worked through the other letters. A knock at the open door caught his attention. It was Villaneuva. “Finished?” she asked. He nodded and she picked up the letters. “I’ll get them in the mail tonight.”

  “That’s not necessary,” he told her. “Tomorrow will be fine. It’s late. Go on home.” She ignored him and set to work.

  Okay, Trimler thought to himself, I can’t avoid the question any longer. What did I do wrong? He sat in his chair and ran through every decision he had made and tried to reconstruct what had conditioned his thinking at the time. He knew what the mistake was. They should have used Spectre with its highly sensitive detection systems to monitor the road for the trucks. If the trucks had arrived early, then the mission should have been aborted. Why hadn’t he brought it up at the time? A shuffle caught his attention and he looked up. Villaneuva was standing there, the letters complete, her eyes full of tears.

  “Were they hard to type?” he asked.

  She nodded. She knew that he, along with some other ranking officers, had screwed up. She waited while he signed the letters. She spun and left the office, only to return almost immediately. “Colonel, it isn’t all your fault. Remember that.” Then she was gone.

  Trimler returned to his private hell and he turned his searing intelligence inward. You didn’t want to use Spectre, he berated himself, because you wanted it to be an all-Delta show. You wanted to hog all the glory for yourself. You sacrificed six men to your ego! Now what are you going to do about it?

  For a moment he considered resigning. But was that the answer? If Villaneuva was right, Delta had to be ready again. Soon. Could he do the job? He bowed his head, wishing some general would make the decisions for him.

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  Charles, the President’s valet, hovered outside the small office on the second floor of the White House that Pontowski liked to use at night. The old man glanced at his watch, not really concerned about the late hour, and wondered how much longer his charge would be working. He touched the transmit button on the small radio on his waist and checked in. “Still awake, A-Okay.” He took pride in the service he gave to the President and was fully trained and prepared to be a human shield if he had to. Besides being a gentle and considerate valet, Charles was a dedicated Secret Service agent.

  He knocked at the door of the small office and entered when he heard “Yes?”

  “Is there anything you need, sir? Perhaps tea?” He took in the condition of the room at a glance and studied the President’s face. Other than being a little tired, Pontowski was fine.

  “Thank you, Charles. Tea would be fine.” The words were enough to reassure the valet that nothing was amiss. If he sensed anything unusual he would immediately relay it to his control and the watch over the President would shift gears and become more attentive. Charles noted that the President was watching TV and that two news commentators were analyzing the recent rescue of Nikki Anderson. They were questioning if the action had been rash since six men had been killed in the rescue.

  “What do you think?” Pontowski asked.

  Charles was taken aback that the President should ask him such a question. “It’s not really for me to say, is it, sir?” he hedged. The gentle look on Pontowski’s face told him that was the wrong answer. The President knew who he was and what he did. Charles gave it to him straight. “The men knew the risks, it was what they volunteered to do, and the objective was accomplished.”

  “Were their lives worth the rescue of one young girl?” Pontowski asked.

  “Who knows what that particular young lady is worth,” Charles said.

  Pontowski smiled. “Yes, who knows her value.” Charles excused himself and went for the tea. Pontowski gazed at the TV, not thinking about Nikki Anderson, but of the past and the value of another young lady.

  1943

  Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, England

  The mist came at night, settling over the grounds and casting a gossamer haze over the ugly red-brick Victorian manston and the village of prefabricated huts and buildings that surrounded it. There was no wind to drive it away and no moonlight to infiltrate its spidery clutches. Slowly the mist thickened and the buildings faded into a gently obscurity. An occasional voice could be heard as the dense ground fog cast an unearthly silence over the big house in Buckinghamshire, forty-five miles northwest of London. The fog was a perfect and most suitable cover for what went on inside. Outside, armed guards dressed in camouflage uniforms continued their patrols, moving silently through the trees and along the paths that surrounded the estate known as Bletchley Park.

  Lights were on throughout the estate as work continued around the clock. In one of the most closely guarded rooms, Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, whirred under the watchful eyes of British and American scientists as it wreaked havoc on the enemy. The destruction caused by Colossus was much greater than that caused by any conventional bomb for it had broken the German code known as Enigma. The intelligence gleaned from Colossus was labeled Ultra and was passed on to a small group of Allied leaders who used it to slowly turn the tide of war.

  Outside, a man-made forest of antennas plucked radio signals out of the air for Colossus. Highly skilled radio operators, many of them with years of experience in the merchant marine, could chase a faint signal across the wave bands, determine if it was “hostile” and feed it to the cryptanalysts who tended Colossus. But one group of huts was occupied by radio operators and controllers who were only concerned with listening for “friendly” transmissions from agents deep inside German-occupied territory. Those transmissions were not fed to Colossus but passed to Special Operations Executive, the branch of the British government that carried out sabotage, subversion, underground activities, and assassinations in occupied Europe. This strange collection of military professionals, historians, linguists, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, and the occasional oddball were called the Baker Street Irregulars by those in the know.

  “You had best get her,” one of the SOE radio operators said as she copied down a message. “Rebecca is calling.”

  The young woman who was Rebecca’s controller did not hesitate and reached for the phone, quickly relaying the message. “It’s fortunate that she’s here tonight,” the controller said after completing the call. “I had given up on Rebecca.” The radio operator gave a noncommittal click of her tongue and fine-tuned the receiver. The door swung open and Wilhelmina Crafton hurried in. She was wearing a khaki uniform of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, or FANY, and her hair was pulled severely back from her face and fastened in an untidy bun that still glistened with moisture from the fog. The speed of her arrival and the rumpled look of her uniform indicated she had been sleeping fully clothed. But she was fully awake now as she adjusted the short jacket and straightened her tie and trousers.

  “How long has she been transmitting?” Willi asked.

  “She
’s off the air now,” the radio operator said, handing the transmission to the controller for decoding.

  “Was it her?” Willi asked.

  “It was her ‘fist,’” the radio operator confirmed. She was Rebecca’s “godmother” and had recognized the distinct but subtle way the agent had worked her key. It was her personal signature that identified her to the telegraphist.

  Willi bit the inside of her cheek as she waited for the controller to decode the message. Rebecca’s last transmission had been nineteen days ago and had omitted the code set LS8B that should have been inserted after the third group. The omission meant that something had gone wrong. The controller finished the decode and handed the message to Willi. Tears were in her eyes. “It’s in the wrong place,” she said.

  A numbness froze Willi’s face as she read the message. It was a request for another pianist, or radio operator, to be parachuted in with additional explosives. All was correct except that LS8B was inserted after the fifth and ninth group. It was an obvious mistake and the message was clear—Rebecca had been “burned” and was now under the control of the Gestapo. But she was still trying. “We will have to send an answer,” Willi said. It was the only way they could keep Rebecca alive and it offered a means of feeding misinformation to the Germans. “When would she normally expect a reply?”

  “On the first BBC transmission of ‘London Calling’ seventy-two hours after this message.”

  “I’ll arrange it,” Willi told them. Her right fist balled into a tight knot. “I must return to London.” She walked out of the hut, her face set in a grim mask.

  “No wonder they call her the Ice Queen,” the radio operator said.

  “This is the third ‘Mistral’ pianist she’s lost,” the controller agreed. “You would think she’d feel something.”

  The khaki-colored BSA motorcycle and sidecar emerged out of the thick London fog and rattled to a stop next to the St. James underground station in Westminster. “That was sporting, miss,” the Army private said as Willi unlimbered her long legs from the cramped confines of the sidecar. She was numb from the cold.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “But it is important.” She gave him a smile that made up for the difficult journey from Bletchley Park. He nodded, wondering what a volunteer nurse could be doing that was important enough for his sergeant to dispatch him so early in the morning. Probably some general’s popsie, he thought as he gunned the engine and disappeared into the dense fog. She watched him go and then hurried across the street to the Broadway Buildings. She walked briskly up the steps past the bright brass nameplate that announced the headquarters of the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company.

  She made her way to the sixth floor and walked down the narrow corridor crowded with a menagerie of people. While all of them were concerned with putting out fires, none were in the fire extinguisher business. It was the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service—the organization the world mistakenly called MI-6. A secretary glanced up from her work when Willi entered the crowded office that she shared with four other Baker Street Irregulars from the Special Operations Executive who coordinated activities with the Secret Intelligence Service. “Miss,” the secretary called, “the general wants to see you immediately.”

  “Do I have time to freshen up a bit?”

  “I don’t really think so,” the woman answered. Willi hung up her heavy overcoat, tucked her shirt in, glanced in a mirror, frowned, and hurried out of the office.

  The dapper and slender man who looked up from his work when Willi entered his office looked more like an academician than a general. He motioned her to a seat while he finished signing the documents a secretary had handed him. For at least the third time, Willi wondered if he was really the illegitimate son of Edward VII. Well, he has the connections, she thought, recalling the succession of high-born wives he had married. This was “C,” the legendary chief of the Secret Intelligence Service—Major General Sir Stewart Menzies.

  Finally, he turned his attention to her. “More bad news, I hear.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve lost our third pianist in the Pas de Calais area in less than two months.”

  “That’s Mistral, as I recall. Was she good?”

  “Very.” He didn’t like that answer, Willi thought, watching his face.

  “Can SOE set up a new circuit?” Menzies asked. “Obviously, Mistral has been penetrated and we need to effect a bypass.”

  “That will take resources we don’t really have,” Willi told him.

  “Can you make them available? It is important, you know.”

  Willi knew the area must have taken on added importance for Menzies to make such a request. She tried to think of what was going on around the Pas de Calais to make the creation of another underground network so critical. “The invasion?” she asked.

  “Obviously,” he said.

  “I’ll see what we can do.”

  “There’s another matter that needs tending. Can you and Combined Operations do something about those confounded E-boats operating out of Dunkirk?”

  “I’ll talk to Commander Bertram and see what we can arrange.”

  “Barmy mentioned that Roger was back in hospital.”

  Willi frowned. Menzies and his cronies seemed to have unlimited sources of information and gossiped about everything. “He should be out today. He had a nasty fall.”

  “From a horse in a polo match, I hear. Who was the American?”

  Where did he learn that? she wondered. “I don’t recall his name. He’s in the RAF.”

  “Ah, I see,” Menzies said. “Let me know about the new circuit and those E-boats.” She stood up and left, fully aware that Menzies was mentally undressing her as she walked out.

  When Willi entered the Combined Operations Headquarters Building in Richmond Terrace, she was wearing the dark blue uniform of an officer in the Wrens, the Women’s Royal Naval Service. The well-tailored uniform caused more than one male to turn and watch her walk purposefully down the hall to the operations section, where she sought out the chief of current operations, Commander Roger Bertram.

  Roger looked up from his crowded desk and eyed her approvingly. “Smashing,” he said. “You should wear that one more often.”

  “It does seem to be the perfect cover for over here,” she allowed. “It fits right in.” In addition to the FANY and Wren uniforms, Willi would occasionally wear a WAAF, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, uniform. The proper uniform simplified matters as she went about her duties.

  “Please.” Roger smiled at her. “No interservice rivalries are allowed in Combined Operations. Mountbatten would have my liver if I was the least bit partisan towards the Senior Service. But you do give us an advantage.”

  “Roger, I’m not here to discuss internal politics.”

  Bertram adopted a serious face and waited. Like most of his colleagues, Bertram considered the Baker Street Irregulars and the SOE not quite “top form” and condescendingly discounted their work. But considering the personal relationship he wanted to keep on track, he did have to humor the beautiful and headstrong girl. “C called me in this morning,” she told him. “He wants to do something about the E-boats out of Dunkirk.”

  “Now why should they concern him?” Roger wondered. He pushed his chair back and stood up. Willi could tell that he was still moving carefully and favoring his right side. She followed him into the next room where navy yeomen constantly updated the latest changes in the disposition of German forces on large maps that covered every wall. “Peterson,” he called to one of the yeomen, “what’s been brewing in the Pas de Calais sector?”

  The short and pudgy former schoolteacher scurried over to them. “Interesting force dispositions,” he told them. “Whenever we turn up our level of attention, a slight increase in bombing raids, or more aggressive air patrols, the Boche respond with increased defenses. They take anything we do there very seriously. The night intruder missions by Mosquitoes appear to be most effective in eliciting a response. The Ger
mans have their own name for Mosquito ops now—Moskitopanik.”

  “That will be all, Peterson,” Bertram said, dismissing him. Like most of his social class, Bertram instantly cast the lower ranks into a special limbo where they were expected to wait until needed. It was a totally natural order to Willi and she thought nothing of it. Peterson waddled away, but stayed within earshot in case they called.

  “I think it’s very clear,” Bertram said. “This is the area where the invasion can be expected. We need to soften their defenses.”

  “Obviously,” Willi parroted, imitating C’s reaction. “But we don’t have the resources to do anything about those E-boats. Can you do it?”

  “Difficult,” he said. “After the raid on Dieppe, we avoid well-defended areas like Dunkirk. No,” he decided, coming to a conclusion, “it’s just not on for us. Perhaps those Mosquitoes”—his voice had a condescending tone—“can do something.”

  “I’ll let C know and speak to the RAF,” Willi said.

  Roger gave her his most charming look now that business was taken care of. “Tonight?”

  “Oh, I’d love that.” She gave him a smile that reached out and captured the nearby Peterson. “Are you up to it so soon?” she asked.

  “Perhaps we can make medical history.”

  Peterson watched them walk out of his room. “They bloody well deserve each other,” he muttered to himself, hating them for what they were, living examples of the British upper class. George Peterson was a loyal British subject and a dedicated communist.

  The sixth floor of the Broadway Buildings had settled down into its usual midafternoon routine and Willi had the office to herself. She used the privacy to change into her WAAF uniform for a visit to her RAF contact in Whitehall. If Special Operations couldn’t handle the E-boat problem at Dunkirk, the RAF would. A slipped word about Combined Operations declining the mission would whet their appetite. She calculated that Menzies would owe SOE a favor if they solved whatever problem he was having with the E-boats. She chalked it all up to the conflict of interest SIS was having with SOE. Menzies had never been happy when the covert action arm of intelligence had been split off from his SIS and given to the Baker Street Irregulars. But it made sense to her; the Special Operations Executive tended to make loud noises when they went to work and many of their agents were captured. Those were two conditions that the gatherers of intelligence like the SIS should avoid.