The Saboteurs
Page 30
Standing in front of the door to the room at the very end of the hall was a heavyset man of about thirty, medium height, wearing a tight-fitting dark suit and a hat. He was also very hairy—he had almost fur overflowing his shirt collar and cuffs.
Bayer recalled seeing him get on the elevator in the lobby when he had first gone downstairs. Now the man apparently was having some difficulty getting his key to unlock the door to his room. When they exchanged glances, the man shrugged his shoulders. He looked embarrassed or anxious—or both.
Bayer turned in the other direction and walked to his room.
He unlocked the door of 909, turned the knob, and began to push open the door. As he did so, the first thing he noticed was the sound of soft sobbing coming from inside.
Mary!
He threw open the door.
There on the bed, he saw her curled in the fetal position, her back turned toward him.
She had kicked off her heels but still wore her winter coat. She had on a navy blue, knee-length skirt, white blouse, and, over her blond hair, a flower-patterned navy scarf.
“Mary!” he said, slamming the door harder than he meant.
She responded by sobbing more deeply, her body trembling with the effort.
Bayer quickly went to her and reached out tentatively to touch her. His right hand gently grasped her left shoulder. She recoiled at first, pulling free of his hand.
He softly sat on the bed and touched her shoulder again. This time, she did not pull away, and when he tugged gently she slowly—and with what was obvious pain—rolled toward him, stopping as she lay on her back. She had the scarf completely covering her face.
He reached down to pull back the scarf and give her a kiss. She held the fabric tightly, and he had to tug a couple of times before she let it slide back.
Bayer was shocked at the sight.
So horrible was her bruising and swelling that he automatically exclaimed in German, “Ach du lieber Gott!”
One of Mary’s eyes was swollen completely shut. The other had broken blood vessels. Her ears were bruised, as though she’d been repeatedly slapped. Her nose was bloody—he wondered if it was in fact broken—and she had a busted upper lip.
He was not sure but it looked like she might have lost one of the teeth that helped form her goofy little gap.
He looked away from her face and cautiously down along her body. It was then that he saw that her neck was also bruised—four horizontal stripes of blue-black on the left side of her throat, three on the right, that strongly suggested someone had taken both hands and tried to strangle her. And farther down, beneath the white blouse, dark shapes on her breasts that indicated the beating had been widespread.
He could not comprehend an act so vicious against a girl so beautiful.
His head spun.
He inhaled deeply.
He began to cry.
“What happened, Mary? Who did this?”
She did not reply. She pulled the scarf back over her face, rolled back over into the fetal position, and continued to sob.
Bayer attempted to softly stroke her back to console her, but when he did she made a strong reflex and he guessed that she had been beaten on her back, too.
He stood up and anxiously paced the room.
“I’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
Mary shook her head twice and grunted, “Uh-uh.”
Bayer thought, Christ, she’s right. I can’t take her. If they started asking me questions, they might think that I did this.
And even if they don’t, they will ask who I am, and that’s a question I can’t afford to answer….
He checked her over cautiously.
After he had determined to the best of his ability that she did not seem to have any life-threatening injuries—he was relieved, too, to see that she hadn’t lost any teeth—he went in the bathroom, ran cold water in the sink, and soaked a hand towel in it. He wrung out the excess water and went back to the bed.
“Here. Let me try to clean up some of this.”
She didn’t move at first, but after a moment she slowly rolled onto her back.
He pulled back the scarf, then removed it from her head entirely, tossing it to the side of the bed. He began to softly dab at the dried blood on her lip, taking care not to reopen the wound.
When that blood was cleared, he refolded the towel to make a clean area, then moved to her nostrils and worked to clear them of the caked blood.
When the hand towel had turned completely red, he went back into the bathroom, rinsed it out, wet a second one, then took both of them to Mary.
He folded the fresh towel lengthwise and draped it across her forehead. Then he took the towel that he had rinsed and went back to softening the dried blood and dabbing it off.
A half hour later, Bayer carefully began undressing Mary.
He removed her coat, then unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it back.
The bruises across her belly and back almost made him nauseated.
He helped her into the bathroom and into the shower, then gently dried her with a towel and put her in bed.
Then he pulled up a chair, turned on some soft music, and gently stroked her hair until she fell into a deep sleep.
When Bayer awoke the next morning, Mary was curled under the covers with only her head visible. She was looking at him with her one good eye.
She tried to smile but the effort clearly hurt her.
“Good morning,” Bayer asked softly. “How do you feel?”
She shook her head twice slowly.
“Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head again.
“Are you going to be all right?”
She nodded.
Bayer stood. He walked into the bathroom, filled one of the glasses with water, drank it all, then refilled the glass and brought it to Mary.
“Here,” he said, holding out the glass. “Try some of this. You need to drink.”
She closed her eye but did not move.
Bayer stared at her, wondering what to do next. Then he saw that she was moving her feet, ever so slightly, then her legs. He realized that she was attempting to reposition herself—and that it was taking great effort.
She has got to be in terrible pain.
“Can I help?” he said softly.
She shook her head, then rolled onto her back and used her elbows to inch herself up, pulling the sheet with her as she went.
Bayer quickly put the glass of water on the bedside table and started adjusting the pillows to better support her.
When she was sitting up and as comfortable as could be expected, she reached over and picked up the glass. She sipped the water tentatively, drinking only about a quarter of the water in the glass.
She sat there, her good eye closed, and slowly breathed in and out. After a moment, she brought the glass back up to her lips, took a deeper sip than before, then opened her eye and watched as she put the glass back on the table.
She looked at Bayer and mouthed, Thank you.
He said very slowly and softly but with some force, “Who did this, sweetheart?”
Mary closed her eye, shook her head, then slid down on the bed, back beneath the sheets.
She pulled the cover over her head and went back to sleep.
[ FOUR ]
OSS London Station
London, England
0915 10 March 1943
As a professional aviator, Major Richard M. Canidy, United States Army Air Forces, knew that to get from New York City to Algiers the faster, more efficient routing—the term “faster” being somewhat academic, as there really was no way in hell to quickly cover such a vast distance—was to go south, then east, then northeast.
That little adventure—about five days in transit if you were lucky, longer if you weren’t—meant taking a Boeing C-75—one of the massive tail-dragger transcontinental Clippers with four 900-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines that the USAAF had taken over from Pan Am—to South America via
Cuba, British Guiana, and Brazil, then getting aboard a converted B-24 bomber for the transatlantic leg to Dakar, French West Africa.
With a fuel stop in the ocean on a speck of rock called Ascension Island.
If good fortune allowed you to find the refueling stop, and to make Dakar, then came the long flight over the Sahara Desert, then another over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech, then a four-hour hop to Algiers.
To the weary traveler at that point, the ragged little Maison Blanche Airport looked more lovely than Washington National Airport during cherry blossom season.
Conversely, Canidy knew, the northern routing, while arguably not as “fast” or efficient to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations as its southern counterpart, had at least two things going for it:
One—which appealed immensely to Canidy the Aeronautical Engineer, who had a profound sense of self-preservation—it did not require, in an aircraft potentially flying on fumes, the terrifying task of trying to find a speck of solid surface on which to put down in one of earth’s largest bodies of water.
And two—which appealed to Canidy the Love-Struck—it did mean he could stop and see Ann Chambers en route.
If pressed, Canidy was not sure which was the stronger sales point, but together they created a deal that simply could not be passed up.
And so he had gone from the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City to Elizabeth, New Jersey, and there caught an Air Transport Command C-54 aircraft that ferried him and twoscore of his fellow comrades in arms to Gander Field, Newfoundland, then on to Prestwick, Scotland.
Canidy found himself in London in almost no time.
Hauling a suitcase in each hand—one containing his Johnny gun and the six magazines full of .30-06—Dick Canidy entered the Berkeley Square building of OSS London Station, cleared through security, and made his way upstairs to the office of Captain Helene Dancy, WAC.
Canidy looked through the doorway into her office, which was outside the doorway to that of her boss, David Bruce, the chief of station.
She was standing in front of a filing cabinet, impatiently flipping through folders. Canidy noticed that despite exuding her usual attractiveness, she did not presently have a look of overwhelming joy.
“My, don’t we appear happy,” Canidy said.
When she turned and looked at who had had the nerve to interrupt her with some sort of sarcasm, the flames in her eyes could have bored holes in cold steel.
But then she saw just who it was and her eyes softened, and a big smile showed her brilliant white teeth.
“Dick!” she said, slamming the cabinet shut.
“Bad morning?”
“The usual FUBARs. I’m just not in the mood to deal with them today.”
“Fouled up beyond all recognition? Or the other, worse F-word?”
“The other,” she said, absently wadding up a sheet of paper. “What brings you back?”
She looked at the suitcases.
“Are you moving in?”
“I take it that you really don’t know?”
She shook her head.
He bent his head toward Bruce’s office behind her.
“How about him?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Is he in?”
She shook her head.
“He’s not in the office?” Canidy pressed. “Or the country?”
“Both.”
“Great! I didn’t particularly want to see him, anyway.”
She shook her head and smiled. “You’re impossible.”
“How about Colonel Stevens? I was told to see him when I got in.”
“I can call, if you like.”
“Thanks, but I’ll just go down to his office. I wanted to stop here first—a courtesy to Colonel Bruce.”
“Something tells me there’s more to it than that.”
She said it with a knowing smile.
Canidy made a face of shock and put his hands up to his chest, palms out.
“What!” he said with mock indignation. “I cannot believe you would suggest that my intentions are anything less than completely honorable!”
“Take it on down the hall, Major,” Captain Darcy said, laughing. “Would you like me to bring you two something to drink?”
“I always said you were the best, Captain. Coffee would be great.”
She playfully threw the wadded-up sheet of paper at him as he turned to leave.
Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens was seated behind the desk in his office, leaning back in his chair with his feet up. In his hands was a thick stack of papers, about half of which rested on his lap and the other half, which he’d already read, on his chest.
When Canidy knocked on the doorframe, he saw that the graying forty-four-year-old was deep in thought.
“Still trying to solve the world’s problems, Colonel?” Canidy said.
Stevens’s stonelike face looked up and smiled when he saw Canidy in the doorway.
He put the papers on his desk, then stood up.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Drop your bags in the corner.”
As Canidy did so, Stevens came out from behind the desk.
They shook hands.
“Great to see you back so soon.”
Canidy shrugged.
“What can I say? When I left, it didn’t look like I’d ever be back. But I found that if one prostrates oneself before the boss, the boss will send one back out to draw enemy fire.” He paused. “Lucky me, huh?”
Stevens shook his head.
“You’re damned good at what you do, Dick. Don’t you forget that.”
They looked each other in the eye a long moment, then Canidy broke the silence.
“Any word from Stan Fine?”
“Only that he’s in Algiers and setting up shop in what he describes as ‘loosely controlled chaos.’”
Canidy grinned.
“Can you get me the details on how to find him there?”
Stevens nodded.
“Done.”
“And give him a heads-up I’m en route?”
“Done.”
There was a knock at the door and Captain Darcy brought in a tray with two china mugs of steaming coffee, a third mug half filled with milk, and a small bowl of sugar. She placed it on the desk.
“Thank you, Helene,” Stevens said.
“Thanks,” Canidy added, picking up one of the mugs.
“You’re welcome, gentlemen,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
She smiled and turned and left.
Stevens walked over to the desk and picked up a mug of coffee and a folder.
“I got an Eyes Only from Colonel Donovan via Chief Ellis that said you were coming, and that Donovan wanted me to pull any intel the SI Italy desk here had on your Professor Rossi.”
Stevens handed over the brown folder that had come up from the Secret Intelligence branch in the building’s basement.
Canidy flipped it open and saw that it held only a few sheets of paper.
“Not much there,” Stevens said, “but what we do have is fresh. Rossi, for example, was seen just last week at the University of Palermo.”
Palermo? Canidy thought. That’s the north side of Sicily. Francisco Nola’s people are in Porto Empedocle, on the south side. Not that you couldn’t get between the two by boat. But that might be like saying you can get from New York to London by boat—complete with the damned Germans trying to sink you….
“Does Bruce know about this?” Canidy asked.
Stevens shook his head.
“The boss made it clear only you—and I—had the need to know.”
Canidy raised his eyebrows.
“That wasn’t my idea, Ed.”
“I know, Dick. You shouldn’t sweat it. It’s not the first op that’s been kept supersecret—and I suspect that it won’t be the last.”
Canidy nodded.
Not telling Bruce about the mission to nab Professor Dyer immediately comes to mind, he t
hought.
He looked at the folder and said, “Eisenhower will throw a fit if he finds out.”
General Dwight David Eisenhower was Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, who had just enjoyed enormous success leading the Allies’ amphibious landing in North Africa—OPERATION TORCH—and looked to repeat that with the taking of Sicily and Italy—OPERATION HUSKY.
Stevens nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, so be it. The boss has his reasons. Ike can play the game, too.”
“Which reminds me,” Stevens said. “A word to the wise, my friend. Steer clear of Lieutenant Colonel Owen.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Warren J. Owen. He’s one of Ike’s gatekeepers at AFHQ in Algiers. On the fast track. Ivy League fellow—Hahvard ’36—who smokes cigars for the pretense, not because he likes them. And drinks—or at least talks about drinking—expensive wines, ones you’ve never heard of. You know the type.”
Canidy made a sour face and nodded.
“Worse,” Stevens went on, “he has a remarkable knack of bullshitting out both sides of his mouth. Trouble is, I think he really believes what he says.”
Canidy chuckled.
He said, “Reminds me of Turkish officers. When one solemnly tells you, ‘It is no problem,’ what he means is it’s not a problem for him.”
Now Stevens chuckled.
After a moment, Stevens added, “And if all that wasn’t bad enough, this Owen is a ticket puncher.”
Canidy shook his head.
“I won’t mention any names,” Stevens went on, “but someone said the other night at the Savoy bar that if Owen could get an I Wuz There ribbon for using the women’s restroom—and there was absolutely no risk of a shot being fired in anger in his direction—he’d be front of the line.”
Canidy let out a belly laugh.
“Yeah,” Stevens smiled, “that’s what everyone at the bar did, too. Laugh. Apparently, it’s not a secret. And, at least in my opinion, it’s not a good way for people to think of an officer who ranks so high—especially one sitting at the right hand of Ike.”
“I agree. Does this Colonel Owen have any other stellar qualities?”
“Well, he does go by the book. Strictly. Which is why I think that Ike likes him. But his going by the book really means that he doesn’t like making waves, specifically doesn’t like anyone else making waves.”