Men At War - The Soldier Spies - Men at War - The Soldier Spies Part 31
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Men at War - The Soldier Spies Part 31

"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 Bieer--I was right, he was being stashed by the Navy PIO--and he gave a nice liale speech about inter service 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's Stripes.

There were two photographs on the front page. One was of the President of the United States, smiling broadly, his cigareae 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 [leftl 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 liale 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 and 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 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."

"Well--before he sees Stars & Stripes himself--he'll have to be told that she's here. In the meantime, you and me will pray that he doesn't want to see her." Stevens nodded.

"Anything else?" Canidy asked.

Stevens shook his head. "Good luck, Dick," he said.

Canidy picked up Stars's Stripes, folded it so that the front page was not visible, and left Stevens's office.

He found Fulmar in Fine's office. He was sitting at a table with Fine and Master Sergeant Ed Davis, the sergeant major.

"Ali Baba, I presume," Canidy said, "and the two thieves." Master Sergeant Davis, a stocky, jowly man in his late thirties, was Regular Army. He had once been in a battery of Coast Artillery commanded by then Lieutenant Edmund T. Stevens. Stevens had bumped into him in the PX. Two days later, Davis had reported for duty at Berkeley Square.

Eric Fulmar, his jacket unbuttoned and his tie pulled down, stood up, smiled warmly at Canidy, then walked to him with his h? nd extended.

But the intended handshake turned into an embrace.

"Has he been checked for clap and other social diseases, Davis?" Canidy asked.

"They wouldn't let him out of Morocco before they checked on that, Major," Davis said. Davis was privy to the fact--he was, among other things, the London station finance officer--that Canidy was not a major, but was in the employ of the United States government as a technical Consultant, Grade 14." Even so, he treated Canidy with the regard of a longtime professional noncom for an officer he respects.

"Then it's okay to kiss him?" Canidy asked innocently.

"I wouldn't go quite that far, Major," Davis said.

"How's the paperwork coming?" Canidy asked.

"Give me another ten minutes, and we'll be finished," Davis said.

Canidy nodded, sat down at the table.

He went through the stack of forms that seemed to be completed and picked up the Application for National Service Life Insurance. As the beneficiary of the $10, 000 the government would pay on his death, Fulmar had put down Rev. George Carter Canidy, D. D. , St. Paul's School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa." In the relationship block he had entered "Friend." The Rev. Dr. Canidy was Canidy's father. Canidy thought of Eldon Baker's conviction that he and Eric were too close emotionally.

What was too close?

Finally, Davis was through.

"He's got a bunch of dough coming, Major," Davis said. "Both Army pay and OSS pay. Colonel Stevens said to pay him as a Technical Consultant, Grade 10, from the time of the first contact." That was, Canidy thought, a nice gesture on Stevens's part.

"And you didn't even know you'd enlisted, did you?" Canidy said.

"More than I've got in the safe," Davis said. "I'll have to go over to SHAEF finance and get the money."

L..

"Well, Captain Fine is rich," Canidy said. "We'll just sponge on him until you get it." "I've got money," Fulmar said.

"Then I'll sponge on you," Canidy said. "Has this room been swept lately, Davis? We have deep secrets to discuss with the Sheikh of Araby." "Yes, sir," Davis said. "The Signal Corps was here yesterday." "What kind of secrets?" Fulmar asked as Davis cleared the table of the forms and other papers.

"We thought we'd start with your sex life," Canidy said, "and then go on to other, more interesting things."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Fulmar asked, exasperated.

Canidy shrugged, a signal that he would not go on until Davis, who did not have the need-to-know, had left them alone.

When he had gathered up all the papers, Davis said, "Any time after lunch tomorrow, Lieutenant, come by and I'll have your money."

"Thank you," Fulmar said. He waited until Davis had left, then turned to Canidy. "On the subject of money, is my bank account still blocked?" "I don't know," Canidy said. "But I'll find out." He walked to Fine's desk, picked up the telephone, and called Colonel Stevens.

"Eric wants to know if his New York bank account is still frozen," he said, "and if so, why. Could you send a cable and find out?"

"Thank you," Fulmar said.

"What's all that about?" Fine asked. "Or can't I ask?"

"Not that Eric wasn't willing to risk his all for Mom's Apple Pie, et cetera, and the American Way of Life," Canidy said, "but Donovan promised him that if he joined up and did good, he would get both the IRS and the Alien Property people to take their hands off the money Eric has in the National City Bank."

"What money?" Fine asked.

"I made a few bucks in the export-import' business, Stan," Fulmar said, just a little smugly.

"Right, at a hundred and twenty grand," Canidy said. "It is one of the reasons he's not too popular in Germany. The export business he's talking about is smuggling cash and jewels out of Occupied France under the noses of the Germans. For a percentage."

"I didn't know about that," Fine said. "That you made so much money, I mean."

"And you are now going to learn some astonishing things about his sex life, Stan," Canidy said.

"You keep saying that," Fulmar said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Gisella Dyer," Canidy said.

Fulmar looked at him out of eyes that suddenly turned cold.

"That fucking postcard!" he said. "I wondered what the hell that was all about. Are you doing Baker's dirty work again, Dick?"

"What I'm doing is my job," Canidy said. "At the moment, I'm keeping Eldon Baker out of it. How long I'll be able to do that depends on you."

"Stop beating around the bush," Fulmar said. "Let's have it."

"We are, through your friends Shitfitz and Mulleg establishing contact with Gisella Dyer." Fulmar thought that over a moment before replying.

"You mean with her father," he said. "That was on Baker's postcard." Canidy nodded.

"You sonofabitch!" Fulmar said. "Dick, if I'd known you were going to involve her in this OSS shit, I never would have told you about her.

"OK, let me handle that first," Canidy said. "The first thing is that all's fair in love and war." "Fuck you," Fulmar said. "I told you about her as a friend."

"And the second thing is that it would have come out anyway."

"How?" Fulmar snorted derisively.

"There is interest in Professor Dyer," Canidy said.

"What kind of interest?" "I don't know," Canidy said. "We have a file on him, and so do the English. They--'they' being the powers that be that don't confide in me-want to get him, and his daughter, out of Germany." Fulmar looked at him suspiciously.

Canidy raised his right hand to the level of his shoulder, three fingers extended--the Boy Scout's salute.

"Boy Scout's Honor," Canidy said. "Cross my heart and hope to die.

Okay?" Fulmar chuckled.

"Okay," he said.

"They would have made the connection," Canidy went on. "He's at the University of Marburg. You went to Marburg. That connection would have come out on the punch cards."

"On the what?"

"The IBM cards," Fine explained. "Little oblong pieces of cardboard.

They punch holes in them, and then stab them with what looks like an ice pick. They can sort them that way. Understand?"

"I'll take your word for it, Stan," Fulmar said.

"It would have come out. You would have been asked if you knew Professor Dyer." "And I would have said No, "' Fulmar said.

"Oh, goddamnit, no, you wouldn't have," Canidy said.

"Yeah, I would have, Dick," Fulmar said.

"Okay," Canidy said. "So I would have been asked if I had ever heard you mention the Dyers, and I would have said, Yes, Fulmar told me he was screwing his daughter. "' "That's what I meant when I said, Fuck you, buddy, "' Fulmar said.

"We're kicking a dead horse," Canidy said. "We know about you and the Dyer girl. It has been decided to use that connection."

"Shit!" Fulmar said.

"I know what you're thinking," Canidy said.

"Do you? When was the last time you were in Germany?" Canidy happened to be glancing at Fine when Fulmar said that.

Their eyes locked for a moment.

"I don't want to come across all sweetness and light," Canidy said.

"But since the intention is to get the professor and his daughter out of Germany, I suggest that we're the good guys."

"What makes you think you can get them out?"

"There are ways."

"What I see is Gisella waving bye-bye to the airplane, or the boat, or whatever. The way you and I waved bye-bye to the submarine off Safi," Fulmar said.

"So long as I'm running this," Canidy said, "that won't happen."

"But you can't, or won't, tell me why they want him out?" Fulmar asked.

"Can't," Canidy said. "And if I have to say this, Eric, you and I both got out of Morocco eventually."

"What do you think would happen to her if her father suddenly disappeared?" Fulmar asked. "And what makes you think she'll go along with this, anyway? What's in it for her? And don't wave the flag.