The Spymasters: A Men at War Novel Read online

  “Twice? What happened?”

  “Each time Mercury Station went off the air. And when it finally returned, it was always with the excuse that Nola had had to go deep underground to evade the Italian secret police, and Tubes went along to keep the station from being detected. Then suddenly the station’s back up and he’s sending these detailed messages.”

  Canidy shook his head. “Assuming they are in fact under SS control, we’re damn lucky the SS didn’t set up a trap for those teams—lure them in to execute them.”

  ULTRA had revealed one of Adolf Hitler’s secret orders, issued on October 18, 1942: “All enemies on commando missions—in or out of uniform, with or without weapons, in battle or in flight—are to be slaughtered to the last man. Should it be found necessary to spare one or two for interrogation purposes, these men are to be shot immediately after interrogation.”

  “Trust me,” Fine said, “knowing that Hitler has ordered that all captured spies be executed, we were very cautious about that. That the teams were not ambushed suggests that the Germans value keeping Mercury Station on-air more.”

  “And if they’d either killed them or made them controlled, too, that would have sent the signal that Mercury Station was compromised.”

  Fine nodded.

  After a moment, Canidy said: “Then Tubes really is being controlled.”

  Fine said: “John Craig van der Ploeg has been sending Tubes chickenfeed since that first suspicious message he showed you on April tenth.”

  While the SS was prone to execute captured enemy agents—something they readily did well before Hitler sent out the order to do so—they would spare those radio operators who agreed to transmit under control. Knowing this, Allied agents were trained to use a secret danger signal that let their case officer know they had been compromised—signing off, for instance, as “Will” instead of the usual “Bill.” That allowed the transmission of factual but harmless intel—the so-called chickenfeed—to the agents to keep them alive until a rescue mission could be staged or Allied troops overran their position.

  But even without the use of the secret danger signal, chickenfeed could prove effective.

  Fine went on: “That was more than a month ago, and John Craig says in that time he’s only become more convinced that Tubes hasn’t independently worked the radio.”

  Canidy saw Fine’s eyes look beyond him, past the pair of French doors that opened onto the balcony, which was off the main living area. He heard the sound of footsteps, and then felt the presence of someone standing behind him.

  Canidy turned his head in time to hear John Craig van der Ploeg declare, “And I still am convinced of that.”

  II

  [ONE]

  Old City

  Bern, Switzerland

  2046 25 May 1943

  “That skittish bastard gave us only a two-hour heads-up,” the driver of the black taxicab—a somewhat battered 1938 Mercedes-Benz 260D—said to the passenger as he made the turn onto the cobblestones of Kramgasse. “This is our only chance to grab him. Don’t screw it up, Eric.”

  “I won’t if you won’t,” Eric Fulmar replied from the backseat. “Too bad Canidy isn’t here. This is right up his alley.”

  Fulmar was twenty-four years old, blond and blue-eyed, and had a lithe build packing enormous energy and power.

  With a slight squeal of brakes, the four-door sedan rolled to a stop one block shy of the medieval Zeitglocke clock tower.

  The Zeitglocke—or “time bell,” featuring a three-thousand-pound bronze bell struck by a gilded human-sized Chronos, the Greek personification of time—rose almost a dozen stories above the busy Kramgasse. Since the thirteenth century, the baroque-style landmark built of stone had served as a prison, a guard tower, and, now, with its fifteenth-century astronomical clock and nearby shops and coffeehouses, a city attraction popular with those trying to forget a world war threatened their neutral country. That blackout rules were in effect, and the street mostly dark, did not exactly help in that regard.

  As the Mercedes’s idling diesel engine rattled, Eric Fulmar pulled a Colt Model 1911A .45 ACP pistol from the right pocket of his dark gray woolen overcoat.

  The driver—Geoff Sanderson, who was thirty years old, of average build and soft facial features—did not jump or otherwise immediately react when he heard the metallic sound of the semiautomatic’s slide pulled back on its spring and then released to slam forward. He was more than accustomed to the sound of a round being chambered. He had done the same with his own .45—which he had on the seat beside him, concealed under a hat—a half hour earlier at the OSS safe house just across the River Aare.

  “You’re just now remembering to do that?” Sanderson said sharply.

  “Better late than never,” Fulmar replied matter-of-factly as his thumb clicked down the lever that locked the hammer in its cocked position.

  “If you’d thought of it sooner, you’d have had time to feed the magazine another round,” Sanderson said, and smugly added, “Like I did.”

  Fulmar grunted as he slipped the pistol back in his overcoat pocket.

  “Unlike you,” he said, “I tend to hit what I shoot at with my first shot—if I have to shoot.”

  He then reached inside his left sleeve and pulled from the scabbard strapped under his forearm a Fairbairn-Sykes, a black doubled-edged dagger. He touched the tip of the slender five-and-a-half-inch-long blade to the back of the driver’s neck, added light pressure, and said, “Usually this is all I need.”

  Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

  This time it was Sanderson who grunted.

  He then grinned and said, “I thought I taught you never to bring a knife to a gunfight.”

  Fulmar grinned back. He knew they both subscribed to what was taught in Canidy’s Throat Cutting and Bomb Throwing Academy at OSS Whitbey House Station: If you’re close enough to stab them, you’re damn sure close enough to shoot them.

  “Besides,” Sanderson went on, “you know that orders are not to use either unless absolutely necessary—we want this bastard alive.”

  Then Sanderson’s eyes suddenly darted to the windshield. It took some effort to make out details down the dark, crowded street, but he could see just enough. Then he glanced at his wristwatch, then back out the windshield.

  “It’s five of nine,” Sanderson said. “Almost time. Can you see the tall guy, the silver-haired one with the gray homburg? He’s at two o’clock, in front of the café.”

  Fulmar, carefully sliding his Fairbairn back into its sheath, looked down the block.

  Kramgasse was wide and lined on both sides with ancient four-story stone buildings. As was common in Old City Bern, above the street-level shops and restaurants were three stories of apartments. He saw couples and clusters of small groups up and down the street and gathered around the Zeitglocke tower at the far end of Kramgasse.

  And standing just outside a shadow of the Zeitglocke was the tall man with the homburg.

  The hat was not resting on his head but instead cradled under his left arm. He slowly and meticulously ate an ice cream cone that was in his right hand.

  “How the hell can I miss him?” Fulmar said. “Fritz, right? What is he, six-four and two-forty?”

  “Yeah, something like that. And to repeat myself, when Fritz turns the hat so that its crown is against his coat it means—”

  “I know, I know,” Fulmar put in, “it means that he’s ID’d our mark, the Sparrow, carrying two white Sprüngli candy bags.”

  He glanced down at one such paper bag with thin rope handles that was beside him.

  “—And if he moves the hat from his left arm to his right?”

  “That’s the abort signal.”

  “Yeah. He’s spotted someone we can’t afford getting involved with.”

  Switzerland was surrounded by vast territory under Axis control. And with Adolf Hitler wanting to grind his boot heel on its neck, the Swiss were not going to give the belligerent Nazi leader any excuse to ev
en attempt an invasion. Thus, it was the job of the Swiss foreign police—Fremdenpolizei—to keep an eye on those who might violate Switzerland’s neutrality.

  Their job was without end—the country was infested with spies of all stripes, particularly the German Abwehr’s Kriegsorganisation—War Organization—but also the SS’s Gestapo, and of course agents from the Office of Strategic Services and England’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, known as MI-6). The vast majority operated with either a diplomatic or commercial cover.

  Sanderson went on: “Fritz said this place is crawling with Kraut spies and that Dulles’s contacts have ID’d at least fifteen hundred.”

  Fulmar grunted. “Yeah, it’s called the German Fucking Embassy. And I bet Dulles has tried turning all of them.”

  Sanderson chuckled.

  Allen Welsh Dulles, carrying credentials of a diplomat with the United States Legation to Switzerland, was OSS deputy director for Europe.

  Sanderson glanced at his wristwatch, then looked over his shoulder. “Two minutes. Be careful, buddy.”

  Fulmar picked up a soft leather briefcase—one packed with $10,000 in mixed currencies, all counterfeit but $500 in U.S. ten-dollar bills—and the white Sprüngli confectionery bag that was next to it.

  “Jawohl, mein Führer!” Fulmar said drily in flawless German, then nodded and continued in equally flawless English: “Don’t worry about me. Just make sure you guys grab the bastard after the exchange. See you back at the safe house.”

  He reached for the door handle, worked it, and swung open the door with a creak of its hinges. A cold gust blew in, and as he stepped out he turned up his woolen coat collar against the wind.

  * * *

  Geoff Sanderson watched as Eric Fulmar more or less casually made his way down Kramgasse. The briefcase and the white Sprüngli confectionery bag Fulmar carried in his left hand. His right hand was in his overcoat pocket, gripping his .45.

  A minute later, as Fulmar passed some twenty feet in front of Fritz, Fritz moved his ice cream to his left hand, then used his right hand to turn the homburg so that its crown touched his chest.

  Sanderson caught the signal and quickly scanned the crowd as he put the Mercedes in gear. It took him a moment but—There! Coming out from beneath the tower!—he first saw the two white bags and then the contact—a man who looked to be in his late thirties and oddly resembled his code name.

  The Sparrow had a bony face with beady eyes and a beak of a nose. He had short legs—he stood maybe five-two—and was thin, almost sickly-looking.

  The Sparrow stopped, put the bags at his feet, then pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He nervously exhaled as he surveyed the crowd around him. He then noticed a tall blond man approaching with a leather briefcase and a Sprüngli confectionery bag—and immediately looked in the opposite direction.

  Sanderson then watched as Fulmar stopped and asked the Sparrow for a cigarette. Then, Sanderson knew, they exchanged their code messages: “I don’t know which is a worse habit, the actual smoking or always asking for a free smoke,” answered with “Everything must have its price, including chocolate.”

  Sanderson let out on the clutch and slowly rolled toward the men.

  He scanned the crowd for anyone who might be taking unusual interest in Fulmar and the Sparrow, noticed none, then watched as Fulmar placed his leather briefcase and confectionery bag beside where the Sparrow had put his two.

  The Sparrow produced a cigarette and, after passing it and then lighting it for Fulmar, exchanged nods, reached down to the bags—and grabbed the handle of only the leather case. He turned and tried to casually walk away, but it was clear that he was motioning nervously with his cigarette as he went.

  Sanderson watched Fulmar, his lit cigarette hanging from his lips, smoothly scoop up the three Sprüngli confectionery bags in his left hand, then quickly disappear in the crowd at the foot of the Zeitglocke.

  At almost the same time, Sanderson saw Fritz put the homburg on his head and carefully track the Sparrow as he walked up Kramgasse in their direction.

  Sanderson maneuvered the Mercedes so that the vehicle would be positioned directly in front of Fritz, with the Sparrow, walking at a good clip, soon to be between them.

  As the Sparrow nervously scanned the crowd, then the taxi, and then the crowd again, two men in heavy dark clothing and hats suddenly converged on him from behind. One man held at his hip what appeared to be a snub-nosed revolver.

  “Oh, shit!” Sanderson said aloud, then saw the gun raised and aimed at the Sparrow’s back.

  Sanderson began hammering the taxi’s horn as he reached for the .45 on the seat beside him. Fritz saw what was happening and pulled out his pistol as he moved quickly toward the Sparrow’s attackers.

  It was too late.

  Sanderson saw the revolver’s muzzle flash at the same time that the gilded Chronos’s heavy hammer struck the ton-and-a-half bronze bell at the stroke of nine.

  The resonating loud ring startled some in the crowd. They jumped, then applauded. The bell’s ring completely masked the sound of the pistol shot. There was only the muzzle flash, and then the Sparrow stumbled forward, dropping the leather case as he went.

  Sanderson raised his .45—but immediately knew that neither he nor Fritz could fire without the chance of them hitting each other.

  Again Chronos struck his bell. And again there was a muzzle flash from the attacker’s revolver.

  As Sanderson jumped from the taxi, the gunman snatched the briefcase and tossed it to his partner. The two men in dark clothing then separated and disappeared into the quickly panicking crowd.

  Sanderson and Fritz reached where the Sparrow lay on the cobblestones.

  “Get the back door open!” Sanderson ordered, then bent over and grabbed the Sparrow.

  He picked up the small limp body and threw him in the backseat, on the cab’s floorboard.

  Chronos hit his bell.

  And there then came the wail of sirens in the distance.

  Fritz jumped in the front passenger seat and slammed the door shut as Sanderson ran around the car and got back behind the wheel.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Sanderson said as he ground the Mercedes into gear and then raced down the cobblestone street.

  And again Chronos struck his bell.

  * * *

  After accelerating heavily for two blocks, Sanderson slowed the battered taxicab to a more normal speed. The police sirens grew louder, and in the next block he saw emergency lights approaching, becoming brighter as they flashed off the walls of the buildings ahead.

  “Shit!” he said again.

  He spun the steering wheel and pulled into an alley, killing the cab’s masked headlights as he entered. He stopped the car and kept an eye on his rearview mirror. A moment later, the police cars sped past, their flashing lights momentarily illuminating the alley and filling his mirror.

  “Close,” Fritz said, looking at him.

  “Yeah, too close.” He motioned toward the backseat floorboard. “Can you check on him?”

  Fritz reached down and put a finger on the Sparrow’s neck. After feeling he had a slight pulse, he put the back of his hand in front of the Sparrow’s nose and mouth.

  “Still with us,” Fritz announced, “but barely.”

  “Damn it!”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, and once sirens could barely be heard, Sanderson put the Mercedes in gear, hit the headlights, and drove out of the alley.

  They wound their way to Aarstrasse, followed that street along the river to the next traffic circle, went through that, and crossed the River Aare on the Dalmazibrücke.

  Not ten minutes later, after winding down the heavily treed Schwellenmattstrasse, the taxi pulled up to the massive wrought-iron gate of an ancient masonry-walled estate. Sanderson killed the headlights. The diesel engine rattled on in the dark.

  About to tap the horn, he muttered, “Where the hell is he?”

  Then a sent
ry in a long black overcoat appeared from the shadows just beyond the gate. Despite the heavy overcoat, Sanderson could tell that the guard carried a weapon—a Thompson Model 1928A1 submachine gun—concealed underneath.

  The sentry walked up to the driver’s window and looked in as the window came down.

  “Open the goddamn gate!” Sanderson flared. “What are you waiting for?”

  Jesus! he thought. It’s always easiest to assign guard duty to those who really aren’t bright enough for more difficult work—but then you’re stuck having dimwits with weapons guarding the goddamn gates.

  The sentry almost immediately recognized Sanderson—if not his voice and tone—then trotted to the gate and swung it open inward.

  The diesel motor revved, and the Mercedes passed through into a courtyard.

  There were two heavy wooden garage doors, and the left one then began to move upward. When it was more than halfway open, Geoff Sanderson saw that the man who was opening it was Eric Fulmar. Beyond him, at the back of the garage, was his BMW motorcycle. And resting on its seat was a single white Sprüngli confectionery bag.

  That hadn’t surprised him.

  But after the wooden door had been completely opened, and Sanderson had moved the Mercedes inside, the interior light gave him a better look at Fulmar.

  What the hell?

  Why is he covered in blood?

  “What the hell happened to you?” Sanderson said as he got out of the car.

  “Someone thought they wanted the bag more than I did,” Fulmar said with a shrug, then looked at Fritz stepping out of the car and added: “They were wrong. Had to use my knife after all.”

  [TWO]

  OSS Algiers Station

  Algiers, Algeria

  1003 30 May 1943

  “Nice to see you again, Major Canidy!” John Craig van der Ploeg announced, his tone upbeat, as he walked up to the table with a handful of decrypted messages.

  “You, too,” Dick Canidy said, “but how many damn times do I have to tell you not to call me ‘major’ or ‘sir’? I’ll throw you off this balcony if you even think of saluting.”