“Both of you stop it,” Stevens said firmly.
They both looked at him in surprise.
“Or we don’t get any cookies and milk, right?” Canidy asked after a moment.
The chief of station looked between them, and then he laughed.
But David Bruce did not seem truly amused.
“Well, let’s get on to other things,” Bruce said, as if the exchange simply had not taken place,“if Dick has to be at Grosvenor Square by eleven-fifteen.”
Stevens wondered why the chief of station had backed away from the confrontation. And then he understood: A sequence of events would follow if the chief of station relieved Canidy, which would automatically mean sending him to Richodan:
Donovan would demand an explanation. He would get the chief of station’s version, and then Canidy’s, and then he would ask for Stevens’s.
Stevens would back Canidy, and the chief of station knew it. It would not be disloyalty on his part to do so, but rather loyalty to the OSS mission, which transcended the traditional loyalty to one’s immediate superior.
The truth was that Canidy had become what no one was supposed to be, damned near irreplaceable.
There would be resentment bordering on mutiny on the part of Whittaker and Dolan if Canidy were relieved and sent to Richodan.
There was no telling what damage to the morale of the agents-in-training there would be if Canidy was relieved. They had faith in the OSS and what they were being asked to do largely because of Canidy. He had been “operational, ” and they believed he asked them to do nothing he didn’t think was necessary and nothing he wouldn’t do himself. And they believed he was their advocate.
That was true, of course. And the other truth was that Canidy had just played his hole card, and it was an ace.
There was no question in Stevens’s mind or, apparently, in the chief of station’s, that it was going to be necessary to send Eric Fulmar into Germany. If Canidy was relieved, it was entirely possible that Fulmar’s reaction would be to refuse to go to Germany. They couldn’t order him in; he really had to be a volunteer. And he could not be replaced with another German-speaking agent.
Stevens wondered if Canidy had thought this all through. It was certainly entirely possible that he had. Or whether the outburst had been as spontaneous as it had appeared.
Whichever it was, Canidy had offered David Bruce just two options: The chief of station could laugh at the whole thing. Or else he could pay the price of demanding polite, unquestioning obedience to his authority. He had elected to laugh, and in doing so, earned himself Stevens’s respect.
X
[ONE]
44-46 Beerenstrasse Berlin-Zehlendorf 0915 Hours 12 January 1943
The three-story stucco villa the von Heurten-Mitnitz family had built in the upper-class suburb of Zehlendorf in 1938 was never intended to be home. It was a pied-à-terre for those times when Graf and his wife—or the brothers and their wives—happened to be in Berlin. Otherwise, they preferred their Pomeranian estates and traveled to Berlin only rarely.
The downstairs, including the kitchen, had been designed to entertain large numbers of people in a way that would reflect the stature of the family. Anyone could rent a ballroom at the Adlon or the Hotel am Zoo for a dinner dance. Only a few could feed fifty at a sit-down dinner in their private residence.
The entrance foyer, designed to hold one hundred people for cocktails, was just inside the front door. It was illuminated by an Austrian crystal chandelier hanging from a roof beam. On either side of the far wall, over the double doors that led to the dining room, were curving stairs leading to the apartments upstairs. The host and his wife could make an impressive entrance down the stairs.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz didn’t like the house. The apartment he lived in there reminded him of a lesser suite in a second-rate hotel. But there were few decent apartments to lease in Berlin; and besides, living in the house would give him greater freedom of movement than an apartment or a suite in a hotel would.
He checked his appearance in the mirror in his bathroom: He was wearing a well-fitting gray suit, one of the last three he’d gotten from London before the war started. Next he patted his pockets to make sure he had his cigarette case and wallet, then started down the curving stairs to the foyer.
Halfway down, he called out:
“How good of you, Herr Standartenführer!”
Johann Müller was standing in his overcoat beside von Heurten-Mitnitz’s housekeeper just inside the foyer. Melting snow from his boots formed small puddles on the tile floor.
"My pleasure, Herr Minister,” Müller replied.
“Nevertheless, I am grateful to you,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “I really don’t know how I would get to the office before noon otherwise.”
“My pleasure,” Müller repeated.
The housekeeper went to the foyer closet and took a fur-collared overcoat and a homburg from it. She handed von Heurten-Mitnitz the homburg first, and he put it on before a mirror over a radiator, then held his arms behind him so she could help him with the coat.
“Thank you, Frau Carr,” he said.
He made a courteous gesture, waving Müller through the foyer ahead of him. An Opel Admiral sat at the curb.
“New car, Johnny?” he asked as he got in.
“New to me,” Müller said. “It’s got ninety thousand kilometers on the meter. And I don’t know how practical it is,” he added as he climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. “It’s conspicuous. Someone in my line of work should not be too conspicuous.”
“You look well in it,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said, then: "Why don’t we take the Avus?”
Müller nodded and headed for the superhighway.
“Frau Carr, you know,” Müller said,“has reported you for listening to the BBC. I saw the Zehlendorf SS report for the week.”
“I rather thought she would,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said dryly. “Her vigilance and devotion to the state are commendable. What do they tell her, by the way, when she does make such reports?”
“In this case, she was asked if anyone was with you,” Müller said, “and told that since you have a Propaganda Ministry permit, further reports would not be necessary unless someone was with you when you listened.”
“I wonder if she was relieved or disappointed?” von Heurten-Mitnitz mused. “I gather you’re leading up to the ‘Gisella Thanks Eric’ message?”
“You’re sure it’s our Gisella and our Eric?”
“Oh, I’m sure it is,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“What the hell does it mean?” Müller said. “That we’re to get her a radio so that she can listen to the BBC?”
“How could that be done?” von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.
“I thought you were going to tell me,” Müller said.
“I have an idea,” Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “I’m not sure how you will react.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Fräulein Dyer has attracted the eye of a senior SS-SD officer,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “They met while he was home on Christmas leave. They were introduced by an SS-SD officer. A bachelor, somewhat older than the lady, he is rather badly smitten with her. He wants to give her a little present.”
Müller laughed, then was silent for a moment before he replied:
“I was in Peis’s apartment,” he said. “Peis had a very nice, very ornate Siemens radio. I rather doubt he went to a store and bought it. It was probably ‘taken into protective storage.’ There are probably others.”
“Perhaps you could steal a few hours from your busy schedule to pursue a little May and December romance,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“Goddamn it, Helmut,” Müller said. “There’s not that much of an age difference between us.”
“And you know, of course, what Oscar Wilde said,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“I don’t even know who he is, much less what he said.”
“He was an Englishman,” von Heurten
-Mitnitz said. “A writer who said some interesting things, one of which was that ‘celibacy is the most unusual of all perversions.’”
Müller snorted appreciatively.
“Now I know,” he said. “He went to prison for being a fag, right?”
“Yes, he did.”
“A man could get in trouble, Herr Minister, quoting the philosophy of an English pansy to a Standartenführer SS-SD,” Müller said.
“Yes, I daresay he could,” von Heurten-Mitnitz agreed.
“What the hell do they want, Helmut?”
“I’ve given that a lot of thought,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“And?”
“It may have something to do with the professor,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “Or with the Fulmar Werke in Marburg. I can’t imagine what else it would be.”
“And by getting her a radio, we let them know we’re ready to put our necks on the block? Is that how you figure it?”
“Yes,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “They must have someone in Marburg. Or the Dyers are already in touch with an agent—”
“She’s not,” Müller interrupted. “And I don’t think her father is, either.”
"Then there is an agent in Marburg watching them,” von Heurten-Mitnitz repeated,“who will report we’re doing what we’ve been asked to do.”
“It makes me sick,” Müller said. “That may be just fear. But it may be that I don’t like treason.”
It was a moment before von Heurten-Mitnitz replied.
"While I was waiting for you, Johnny,” he said,“I was listening to the radio. The Americans bombed Dortmund last night. According to the Propaganda Ministry, damage was light—”
Müller snorted.
“—and,” von Heurten-Mitnitz went on, “if we are to believe Reichsmarschall Göring, as of course we all do, the Luftwaffe downed twenty-nine of the attacking force of two hundred bombers.”
"Call me ’Meyer,’” Müller said.
In the early days of the war, Göring had assured the German people that if Allied aircraft ever bombed German soil, they were free to call him "Meyer,” a Jewish name and thus a pejorative.
“I was asked to comment,” von Heurten-Mitnitz went on,“on an Abwehr report from an agent in New Jersey, which estimated the Americans were flying upward of fifty aircraft to England every day.”
“New Jersey?” Müller asked.
“A state. Right next to New York City,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “In other words, roughly speaking, the Americans are sending to England approximately twice as many aircraft as the Luftwaffe can shoot down.”
“What did you say about the Abwehr report?” Müller asked.
“It’s rather delicate,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “If I tell the truth, that makes me sound very wise in some quarters. And like a defeatist in others.”
“I asked what you said,” Müller said.
“I said that I would tend to believe the aircraft figures,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “But I added that the Americans could be expected to make a desperate effort to replace the terrific losses inflicted upon them by the Luftwaffe, and that clearly such effort would be at the expense of other war production.”
Müller grunted and shook his head.
“I think the next time the Americans bomb Dortmund,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said,“there will be five hundred B-17s. And I think the next time we hear from our agent in New Jersey, he will estimate that a hundred B-17s are leaving every day for England.”
"Shit,” Müller said.
“What we are doing, Johann,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said,“is trying to end this unwinnable war before the Americans run out of cities to bomb into rubble.”
"They still call it treason,” Müller said.
“Can you get a radio that will receive the BBC to Fräulein Dyer?” von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.
“You said, or at least suggested, that you think it would be a good idea if it appeared that I was somehow involved with the Dyer woman,” Müller said.
“Yes, I did,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“I just might go see my family again this weekend,” Müller said.
“It should be a pleasant drive, in your new car,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
[TWO]
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Grosvenor Square, London 1145 Hours 12 January 1943
“That went well I think, Korman,” Rear Admiral G. G. Foster said to Commander Korman after the award ceremony. “Even Meachum Hope of Carlson Broadcasting.”
“Thank you, sir,” Korman said. He did not think it necessary to inform the admiral that he had learned that Bitter was the nephew of the man who owned Carlson Broadcasting. He rather doubted that Meachum Hope would have otherwise come to SHAEF to watch one more officer get one more medal. But that had mushroomed. When Carlson News Service had been ordered to the presentation by the London bureau chief, and word got around that Meachum Hope was making a recording for his nightly broadcast to the States, the other news services and radio broadcasters decided they might be missing something and showed up themselves.
And they were happy, for Eisenhower himself made the award, gave a little speech, and, with his arm around Lieutenant Commander Edwin H. Bitter, USN, smiled his famous smile. Ike was always good copy.
The admiral stepped away from Commander Korman and had a brief private word with General Eisenhower, then he came back to Korman.
“Arrange for Commander Bitter to be at my quarters around 1730,” he ordered. “General Eisenhower said he might be able to drop by for a minute. Ask Mr. Meachum Hope and that woman reporter— What’s her name?”
“Chambers, Admiral.”
“Ask Mr. Hope and Miss Chambers if they would like to take a cocktail with me. And see if you can get Lieutenant Kennedy to be there.”
“Who, sir?”
"Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.,” the admiral snapped. “Tell Commander Bitter I would be pleased if he could arrange it.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Korman said. That was a mixed bag. It would certainly be good public relations for Meachum Hope and the Chambers girl to take a drink on the admiral. If he hadn’t been so leery of the admiral, he would have made precisely that suggestion himself. He wondered who the hell this Lieutenant Kennedy was.
But there was nothing to do but find out who he was, and get him to the Connaught Hotel at 1730. It hadn’t been a suggestion from Admiral Foster; it had been an order.
[THREE]
London Station, Office of Strategic Services Berkeley Square
“Colonel Stevens would like to see you right away, Major,” the sergeant major said when Canidy walked in.
“He say why?” Canidy asked. When the sergeant major shook his head, he asked: “Fulmar get in all right?”
“He’s with Captain Fine,” the sergeant major said.
Canidy went up the stairs two at a time, then raced down the corridor of the house to Colonel Stevens’s office. The stairs creaked, and the carpet was threadbare. London Station, compared to Whitbey House, was crowded, dirty, and run-down. Stevens’s private office was dark and small.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“How did things go at SHAEF?” Stevens asked.
"Very nicely,” Canidy said. "I managed to get a word in with Bitter—I was right, he was being stashed by the Navy PIO—and he gave a nice little speech about interservice cooperation. He is taking cocktails with Eisenhower. Or at least with Admiral Foster, and Ike has promised to drop by. The admiral also wanted Kennedy there, so I called him and told him to go.”
“I’m beginning to think like you,” Stevens said, “that is to say, scatologically. When I saw this, I thought,‘My God, publicity is like the clap. It comes as an epidemic.’”
He handed Canidy a copy of the tabloid-size Stars & Stripes.
There were two photographs on the front page. One was of the President of the United States, smiling broadly, his cigarette holder sticking up jauntily. The second showed a good-looking
female standing on the lower step of an aircraft loading ladder. She was wearing a USO uniform, and she was waving. There was a caption beneath the two-column photo:AMERICA’S SWEETHEART IN UK—Monica Sinclair waves as she debarks a MATS transport at London’s Croydon Airfield to begin a four-week tour of American military bases in the UK. She was greeted by Col. R. J. Tourtillott [left] of SHAEF Special Services.
“Couldn’t this have been stopped?” Canidy asked, shaking his head. “I don’t like it. For reasons that may seem a little far-fetched—a connection being made with her and Eric, for example. But I have a gut feeling that this is bad news, and I’d rather go on the gut feeling.”
“I have the same gut feeling,” Stevens said, and then went on: “If we had known about it, we could have stopped it. But until just now, it never entered my mind to have a liaison officer at Special Services. What do you think we should do about her, if anything?”
“How do you feel about assassination?” Canidy replied.
Stevens chuckled. “I don’t think we could keep that out of Stars & Stripes,” he said. “How do we handle her short of assassination?”
“I thought you’d tell me,” Canidy said. “Fulmar know?”
“Not yet,” Stevens said. When Canidy looked at him quizzically, he added: “In the words of our sergeant major, he has never seen ‘such a fucked-up service record.’ He and Fine are wading through all the paper now. Among other things, Fulmar’s never been paid, and he doesn’t have his National Service Life Insurance—that sort of thing.”
“Well, now he can put his mommy down as his beneficiary,” Canidy said.
“What do we do, Dick?” Stevens asked.
“I don’t know,” Canidy confessed.
“Do you know her?”
“No,” Canidy said. “But I think Eric met her once.”
“Maybe he won’t even want to see her,” Stevens said. “Or vice versa.”
Soldier Spies Page 27