He knocked and after a moment the small door opened.
A very unfriendly looking face, belonging to what looked like a local male who was about age fifty, appeared in the opening.
He said nothing but raised his right eyebrow as if to ask, Yes?
Canidy glanced over his shoulder at the driver, who was watching with what appeared to be a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.
Canidy looked back at the door and said, “Pharmacist for Pharmacist Two.”
Lieutenant Colonel Stevens had told Canidy that he would use the code names from the last mission in his heads-up message to Fine.
The unfriendly face contorted as if it had encountered a foul smell.
What the hell? Is this the right place?
“Pharmacien pour Pharmacien Deux,” Canidy repeated in French.
The unfriendly face left the opening and the little door closed and locked.
Canidy stood there, wondering what to do next.
He looked at the cabdriver, then smiled, nodded, and held up one finger to say, It’ll be just another minute, buddy. Everything’s okay.
After a couple of minutes, Canidy could hear what sounded like something large and heavy sliding on the inside of the big, heavy door.
Then the door swung open.
There stood the fit and trim Captain Stanley S. Fine in the uniform of the USAAF.
Behind him was the fifty-year-old man with the unfriendly face.
Fine looked past Canidy.
“Nice wheels,” he said with a smile.
Canidy shrugged.
Fine motioned for the man to get Canidy’s bags.
“Good to see you again,” Canidy said, offering his hand.
He looked back out the door.
“How much should I give the cabdriver?” he added.
Fine said something in French to the man with Canidy’s bags.
The man put Canidy’s bags inside the door, then went back out to the driver. Canidy heard the man and the driver begin to noisily negotiate the fare.
“Let’s get a drink,” Fine said. “You’re in time to watch the sunset.”
Fine closed the door, and Canidy then saw what had caused the sliding sound on the big door: a long, wooden four-by-four beam that, when in place across the door, was held by a U-shaped steel cradle bolted to either side of the doorframe.
Fine saw Canidy looking at it.
“Keeps out the riffraff,” Fine said. “Well, most of it.”
He put his arm around Canidy as they walked.
“You got past it.”
Fine poured two glasses of single malt scotch, neat, and brought them out onto the tiled balcony where Canidy leaned against the masonry wall.
The view from the villa was incredible. The city spread out below on a gentle slope that went all the way down to the port, maybe ten kilometers’ distance.
The sun, now a red ball melting into the horizon, set the sky ablaze with deep reds and oranges. It cast remarkable lights on the ships and barrage balloons in the harbor, and on the houses and buildings of the city.
“Very, very nice,” Canidy said softly, taking one of the glasses. “Must be hard to get used to.”
Fine laughed and touched his glass to Canidy’s.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “I don’t think I could ever get used to something as spectacular as that.”
They both took sips of scotch.
They watched the sky for a moment, then Fine added solemnly, “That said, I hate to spoil the moment but I’ve always believed that news that’s not good always should be dealt with at the soonest opportunity.”
Fine took from the inside pocket of his tunic a folded sheet of paper and held it out to Canidy.
“This is not bad, per se,” he said. “It’s just not what you want to hear.”
Canidy quickly unfolded the sheet.
“‘Nothing new at this time,’” he read aloud.
“I’m very sorry about Ann. Wish I could be the one to deliver good news.”
Canidy took a big sip of scotch, then looked at Fine.
“I wish that you could, too.”
He looked out at the view. The sky was quickly darkening and the lights of the city began to twinkle on.
Damn, Ann would love this….
“Let me tell you what we’ve got going here,” Fine said after he had poured them each a fresh drink, “and then we can get into what you need.”
Canidy stood, leaning against the balcony wall.
“Great. Start with this villa. How’d you get it?”
“It belongs to Pamela Dutton, widow of one of Donovan’s law school buddies who made a mint in shoes, if you can believe it. Women’s shoes. She has—maybe it’s had—family here and split her summers between here and Italy, where they had the shoes made. She let us take this place over for ten dollars a year on the condition we’d protect it from the unwashed. And so now it’s our main OSS installation.”
“How does AFHQ feel about that?”
“Well, they aren’t exactly thrilled. We’ve been put under the direction of AFHQ—”
“Which is based at the St. George, right?”
“Yeah. The brass is, anyway. And unless they specifically ask us for any intel—which we’re supposed to supply, and gladly will, but more than a few there don’t like us—we avoid the place.”
Canidy nodded.
“Same old story.”
“Unfortunately. But we don’t have time to dwell on that. We’re in the very early stages of using the Corsica model of assembling teams. These we’ll insert in France to supply and build the resistance. The usual setup: The leader is an intel officer, and there’s a liaison and the two radio operators who report to him.” He paused. “We’re not where I’d like us to be timewise, but I just got here.”
Canidy nodded.
“I remember.”
“The SOE,” Fine went on, “has its finishing school down at Club des Pins. It’s a swank, resort-type place on the beach that they’ve taken over. They’re training their people—and mine—in telegraphy and cryptography and such. They even have a jump school. And…that’s about the sum of it.”
“Nice.”
They silently sipped at their drinks.
Fine broke the silence. “So…you’re going in yourself.”
It was more a question than a statement.
Canidy nodded.
“It’s necessary, Stan. We need this guy out now. And I need to get a handle on whatever it is the boss is after there.”
And, should I not make it back, what the hell.
Ann didn’t, either.
“The trick,” Canidy went on, “is getting into Palermo.”
Fine was quiet a moment.
“How about PT boats out of Bizerta?”
The wooden-hulled patrol torpedo boats were faster than hell and armed to the teeth. The eighty-foot-long Elco model, powered by triple twelve-cylinder, fifteen-hundred-horsepower Packard engines, could make more than forty knots. They could be armed with .50 caliber machine guns, torpedo tubes, depth charges, even a 40 mm Bofors medium antiaircraft gun.
“That’s tempting. I had considered PTs, but then decided they were too open and it was too far. Plus, it’s really helpful to have good seas and a moonless night with them.”
Fine nodded.
“How about a sub?”
“That would work. Happen to have an extra sitting around?”
Fine chuckled.
“Not quite,” he said. “But there is going to be a resupply of Sandman in Corsica that leaves out of here in three days.”
“The Corsicans who were recruited through the French Deuxième Bureau,” Canidy said.
“Right. They’ll take the Casabianca and go ashore on Corsica by rubber boat.”
Canidy looked at him.
“Try to pay attention, Stan,” he said, and with his hand that held his drink he pointed toward one o’clock. “Corsica is a chunk of rock in the water out in that direction
.”
He pointed to three o’clock.
“Sicily,” he went on, “is another chunk of rock in the water more or less out thataway.”
Fine chuckled again.
Fine said, “Any reason they couldn’t drop you there after dropping the team on Corsica?”
Canidy thought about that a long moment.
Fine went on: “And wait for you offshore on the bottom till you come out?”
Canidy looked at him, then his eyes brightened.
“Wait,” he said. “What about dropping me off on the way and picking me up on the way back? We plan for the pickup in the same place they drop me—just like how the teams do it—with a backup site.”
Fine nodded thoughtfully.
“That could make sense,” he said. “But…what if there are problems in Corsica before they get back to you…”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Canidy said, and shrugged. “I’ve been stranded before.”
Fine considered that.
“If that’s what you want, Dick, I don’t see why not.” He paused. “But then, I’m learning there’s a lot that I think is okay and someone is always more than happy to tell me otherwise.”
“One Colonel Owen?”
He nodded.
“And others…but they can be handled,” Fine said finally. “What about you—anything you need?”
“No, but thanks. I brought what I thought I’d need, including a nice new Johnson LMG.”
Fine’s eyebrows went up.
“Nice,” he said. “Where’d you get that?”
Canidy told him about how he and Fulmar each got one from Joe “Socks” Lanza.
“Amazing,” Fine said when he had finished. “But then again, I guess not. Not after you’ve seen all the shady characters running around this town.”
“That reminds me,” Canidy said. “I thought I saw a guy I knew in the market this afternoon—but he’s not supposed to be here.”
“This place is white-hot with the anticipation of the Husky Op,” Fine said, his tone matter-of-fact. “There’re spies here from every Allied power. Then we’ve got the Communists, the Fascists—and of course the Nazi spies, who no doubt are putting two and two together. It would surprise me not one bit if the pope himself came walking through town….”
Canidy, deep in thought, gazed out across the water.
“So they just might be expecting someone like me slipping into Sicily….”
Fine nodded solemnly.
“Yes, unfortunately the odds are good that they would.”
“The boss must understand that.”
They were silent a moment.
“Wait,” Canidy said again. “I do need something else from you. When I get ashore, I’d like to set some things to blow in case I need a diversion or two. So, some Composition C-2?”
“Not a problem.”
“Okay, then. That’s it.”
“Good. Let me make a call, then we’ll get some dinner.”
[ FIVE ]
1010 East Eighty-third Street
New York City, New York
0135 8 March 1943
Eric Fulmar followed Ingrid Müller out the door of Wagner’s Restaurant and Market. As they walked west, there was an awkward silence, which Fulmar desperately wanted to break while consciously avoiding the mentioning in public of anything about the German-American Bund.
“So,” he said finally, “have you seen any good movies lately?”
“Not really. You?”
“Heaven Can Wait was pretty funny.”
“Heaven Can Wait simply made me sick.”
Fulmar looked at her.
“Why?” he said, incredulous. “I thought it was hilarious. And very romantic.”
She looked at him.
“I auditioned for the lead role.”
“Oh. Sorry I mentioned it.”
They did not speak again till after they were across Park Avenue.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ingrid said, switching her clutch between hands. “Gene Tierney did a marvelous job as Martha Strable. She’s a doll. I do love her.” She paused. “But I really wanted that part—needed that part.”
“What happened?”
“It’s what I told you earlier—it’s what didn’t happen.”
Fulmar gave that some thought.
“I don’t follow.”
“Ernst said the studio wouldn’t go for me.”
“Ernst?”
“Lubitsch. The director.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Maybe I should just change my goddamned name and start over. Or become a director; clearly, it’s okay for someone behind the camera to be from Berlin. But not an actress….”
She let that thought drop as she stopped in front of the grand entrance to a high-rise apartment building.
The three-foot-square cast-bronze signage on the brick wall to the right of the door richly announced: ROYALTON TOWERS.
“Here we are,” she said simply.
Behind the pair of thick glass doors was a doorman—about thirty-five, every bit of six-four and two-twenty, wearing a dark blue uniform with gold piping—and he pushed open the left door with no apparent effort.
“Good evening, Miss Müller,” he said formally.
She answered with her husky laugh as she entered and passed him.
“Harold, don’t be silly,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s ‘Good morning.’”
The doorman smiled.
“Yes, madam. Of course it is. Good morning.”
Harold looked suspiciously at Fulmar.
“Good morning to you, sir,” he said stiffly.
Fulmar nodded and pressed past, catching up to Ingrid at the bank of elevators.
He looked around the expensively appointed lobby. There was polished marble almost everywhere, and, looming above, a grand chandelier that looked impossibly big and bright.
Whatever roles she’s getting, Eric thought, the money must be pretty good. This place didn’t come cheap.
The elevator on the far left was waiting with its doors open and Ingrid motioned that they should get on it.
“Shall we?” she said.
Inside, Eric saw her push the 10 button. It lit up, the doors closed, and the car began to ascend. They rode up in silence.
And, interestingly, her home is not in Yorkville…nor particularly near it.
Third Avenue may as well be the proverbial train tracks separating her town’s good and bad sides.
He glanced at her and smiled.
She smiled back.
So it would appear that my sweet Ingrid does not wish to live among her fellow Germans in Yorkville.
What does that tell me?
The elevator reached the tenth floor and the doors opened.
Fulmar saw that the floor there was a smaller version of the main, first-floor lobby—a wide application of the same beautiful polished marble and a looming, though smaller, chandelier.
There also was a picture window that faced south. Fulmar went to it and saw that it allowed for a grand view of the city in that direction, as well as decent ones to the east and to the west.
He found that, with a little work, he could see just past the apartment building to the west—it was on Fifth Avenue—and catch part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was behind it, and beyond that the vast dark area that was Central Park.
“Nice,” Fulmar said.
“This way,” Ingrid said with a smile.
She started down the hallway, pulling a fob that held a couple keys from her clutch.
Halfway down the hall, she stopped in front of a door. It was painted a cream color and, at eye level, had a four-inch-square frame with 1011 in it. There also was a black doorbell button.
She tried to put one of the keys into the lock but was having some difficulty.
She’s nervous. You’d think I was her first gentleman visitor….
Fulmar stepped closer.
“Can I help?”
&
nbsp; She worked more quickly with the key and it found its home.
Without looking at him, she said, “There, got it,” then turned the knob and pushed open the door.
She motioned with her right hand and said, “After you.”
Fulmar nodded and started to go through the doorway and into the dark apartment.
“The switch is here on the left,” she offered, reaching her hand in to hit the light.
There was the sound of something moving inside, behind the door—and the hair on the back of Fulmar’s neck stood straight on end.
With his left hand, he quickly swatted her hand away from the switch before she could turn it on. At the same time, he threw back the tail of his jacket with his right hand and pulled out his .45, thumbing back the hammer as he brought the gun up. Then he threw his full weight into the door and followed it to the wall.
But it didn’t hit the wall.
It stopped about eight inches shy of the wall, and when it did there came a heavy, soft thud from behind it and the sound of a man’s grunt. Then there was a dense, metallic clunk near Fulmar’s feet—
Was that a pist—?
—and then the crack of a small-caliber round going off.
It was a fucking pistol hitting the floor!
“Get out!” Fulmar called to Ingrid.
“Be careful!” Ingrid said.
He pulled back on the door and slammed his weight into it again, causing another thud and grunt. He reached around and grabbed at the person behind the door, found what felt like an arm, yanked hard, and threw the person to the floor facedown.
In the ambient light, Fulmar could make out that it was indeed a man.
Fulmar put his left knee on the man’s neck, forcing his face to the right, then stuck the muzzle of the .45 to the man’s right ear.
“Make a fucking move and your brains—”
“Eric, don’t!” Ingrid said. “He’s FBI!”
She flipped on the lights, and it took a second for Fulmar’s pupils to contract as they adjusted to the brightness.
Fulmar now got a good look at the man.
He was smaller than Fulmar, about five-five, one-thirty, and in his midthirties. He wore a rumpled dark suit, dark blue shirt, dark patterned tie, and scuffed black leather shoes. His face and neck were bright red, thanks to the way Fulmar had him pinned to the slate floor. And he had a bloody nose.
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