"Right now," Montagu said, "Hitler knows two things: one, that the Allies will not stop after taking Tunisia, and, two, that we could come in through any Nazi-occupied country or any neutral country. What he does not know is that, barring any major developments, the Allied strategy is to invade the island of Sicily, then go into Italy. This, of course, comes as no real surprise to anyone-"

Fleming interrupted: "Even Winston Churchill has said that 'anybody but a damn fool would know it is Sicily.'"

There were nods around the table.

"And it's our job," Montagu went on, "not to let that damn fool Hitler see that. Or at least believe it."

There were appreciative chuckles.

Montagu continued: "As we all well know, when something is indeed planned it is hard to keep a lid on it. 'Loose lips sink ships,' that sort of thing. Hitler has sympathetic ears in places high and low just waiting to intercept and pass along any news of Allied intentions."

Like the Manhattan Project, Charity thought, then glanced at Ed Stevens. When she saw him return the glance, she wondered if he had had the same thought. Charity thought, then glanced at Ed Stevens. When she saw him return the glance, she wondered if he had had the same thought.

"Which is why we came up with the idea for this deception," Montagu added.

"Deceptions, plural," Niven said. plural," Niven said.

"Yes," Montagu said. "David is of course correct. There are other minor ruses de guerre ruses de guerre in play. One, for example, concerns Sir Henry Wilson. The field marshal's army, as you know, under General Montgomery and based in Egypt, is making motions so as to look as if it is preparing to invade Greece, with the continued threat of advancing up through the Balkans. That should get Hitler's attention." in play. One, for example, concerns Sir Henry Wilson. The field marshal's army, as you know, under General Montgomery and based in Egypt, is making motions so as to look as if it is preparing to invade Greece, with the continued threat of advancing up through the Balkans. That should get Hitler's attention."

"In support of that," Ed Stevens offered, "some of our agents at London Station for the last month have had their contacts not so quietly buy up all the Greek drachmas they can get their hands on. Collecting so much currency has gotten the attention of, as you put it, those with the sympathetic ears. It wouldn't surprise me if that information is already in Berlin."

Stevens looked at Charity and Jamison, and added, "Some of our agents here soon will be training to work with the Greek Resistance. We'll send them in to help increase operations to draw the Germans' attention from Operation Husky. That's so that when the Germans swallow Mincemeat and they begin shifting, say, armored divisions to Greece, we'll blow railroads and highways, forcing them to move more slowly with the tanks under their own power."

Montagu nodded.

"All pieces of the larger puzzle," he said. "And our piece of deceit is the biggest, the one we devoutly hope will convince Hitler and his planners beyond any doubt, causing them not to reinforce the defense of Sicily."

"We're going to accomplish that with a frozen cadaver?" Bob Jamison said, incredulously.

The Duchess was sipping tea. She almost dropped her cup when she heard that. She turned quickly to look at Jamison, then at Montagu.

"I suppose it's too late for me to excuse myself?" she said lightly.

Montagu had not missed her reaction.

"We have preserved in a sealed steel case in the basement," he said to her,"the body of a man who we will outfit with certain papers that-again, we devoutly hope-will deceive the Germans."

"My home is now a morgue," she said wistfully before taking another sip of tea.

"I would not put it that way," Montagu said carefully. "What we will do with the body here is create the appropriate cover-papers, uniform, and other accoutrements-then a week or so from now, take it to sea."

"Interesting," the Duchess said, nodding.

"But I'm getting quite ahead of myself." He reached down to the table for his cup of tea, took a sip, then returned the cup to its saucer and went on: "Our ultimate mission is to have, quote, most secret, unquote, information-disinformation-on the true plans for Operation Husky fall into the hands of those sympathetic to Hitler. It will then find its way to the German High Command, where it will be judged credible and acted upon."

He paused, then added, "And how do we do that?"

Montagu looked around the room while tapping his temple with his forefinger.

"By second-guessing the German mind," Montagu went on. "We have to consider not what we necessarily know to be true but, rather, what we believe is the German perception of what we know. If they think, for example, that we are inclined to take Greece-even though we know that we aren't-then it is easier to convince them that that is indeed what's going to happen."

"They already believe it," Charity said, nodding her understanding. "They're just looking for confirmation."

"Yes," Montagu said.

"Frankly," Fleming added wryly, "we're finding that second-guessing the German mind is not nearly as difficult as persuading our own superiors. And I'm not even including those in SOE!"

Ed Stevens made an exaggerated look of shock. "You mean to say you have trouble with your brass? And the exalted SOE!"

There were chuckles.

"I'm terribly afraid so," Montagu said. "And it often has been for the reasons opposite those concerning perception. To use the same example, our people knew we weren't invading Greece and then the Balkans, so this knowledge made it harder for them to believe our deception was solid."

"Also, when we first ran the idea up," Fleming explained, "everyone felt that they knew the German mind better than we did. It seemed that every part of our plan was questioned at one level or another. If it wasn't for the mastiff-like tenacity of Ewen here, Mincemeat would have died a long time ago."

Montagu looked at Fleming and appeared to take a quiet pride in the praise.

Montagu then turned to the others and went on: "We had made sure we had it pretty well worked out before we took it higher, to the head of British Naval Intelligence, then on up to Prime Minister Churchill, who ultimately approved it."

He went to the side table and refreshed his cup of tea.

Niven signaled for Ustinov to do the same for everyone at the table and the batman nodded, got up, retrieved a teapot, and began pouring.

Montagu went on: "For example, our first idea-feeding information through a doubled agent using a wireless-we dismissed almost as quickly as we first thought it. Too obvious. If the disinformation we sent was not quickly dismissed at a low level-such being the nature of mistrust in a double agent-then it would be dismissed-or even lost outright-somewhere along the chain long before it reached the High Command. And we simply did not have the time to wait and see if that worked."

As Montagu took a sip of his tea, Fleming said: "Likewise, another idea was to insert in occupied France an agent, similar to our man downstairs, but by parachute. He would carry a W/T, which we would expect the enemy to capture. They would then operate the radio as if the agent had in fact survived. This in essence would have been the equivalent of their running a double agent. They would act as if they were the agent, and we would play along, sending both genuine factual information-harmless intelligence that they could authenticate-with disinformation supporting the deception."

"The first obstacle we found with that idea," Montagu said, "was making the dead body look as if it had died during the parachuting-not before. The obvious solution was to rig the parachute so that it opened only partially. Such an impact with the ground would of course kill any man. Unfortunately, it also would very likely cause the destruction of the W/T."

"And operation over," Fleming added.

"But even if the radio survived," Jamison said, "say, the chute snagged in a treetop, there would be another even bigger hole with that scenario. Agents don't carry their codes, and so whoever captured the W/T would find it about as useful as a rock."

"True," Fleming put in. "Agents are not supposed supposed to carry their codes. We looked for a plausible reason around that, to have what might be a, quote, careless and absentminded, unquote, agent carrying only his code, or even thinking himself somewhat clever by burying the real code in a list of fictitious ones. But, not surprisingly, we failed in that miserably. It would be considered suspicious immediately. So we'd have a situation where we could send all the telegraphy messages we wanted and they could decode them as best they could using their usual means. But if they didn't have the unique code of the double agent, there would be no way for them to continue 'his' part of the conversation. So this idea also was dismissed with haste." to carry their codes. We looked for a plausible reason around that, to have what might be a, quote, careless and absentminded, unquote, agent carrying only his code, or even thinking himself somewhat clever by burying the real code in a list of fictitious ones. But, not surprisingly, we failed in that miserably. It would be considered suspicious immediately. So we'd have a situation where we could send all the telegraphy messages we wanted and they could decode them as best they could using their usual means. But if they didn't have the unique code of the double agent, there would be no way for them to continue 'his' part of the conversation. So this idea also was dismissed with haste."

"After much back-and-forth over months with everyone between us and the prime minister," Montagu said, "we finally worked out a framework that was approved by all."

"What about AFHQ?" Charity said. "I assume General Eisenhower has signed off on it."

Montagu looked to Fleming, then to Stevens, for guidance.

Stevens and Fleming exchanged glances and seemed to have the same thought: Innocence out of the mouths of babes.... Innocence out of the mouths of babes....

"Did I say something wrong?" Charity said.

There was no way that either Fleming or Stevens could get into the real reasons why Operation Mincemeat had developed in the manner that it had. For that matter, damn near no one could-not unless they were privy to the personal communications between the President of the United States and the British Prime Minister.

Churchill was spending a great deal of time and effort trying to influence FDR-some said "manipulate the great manipulator"-trying to keep his focus on the war in Europe. There was more than a little reasonable fear in London that if the Americans accelerated the moving of assets to fight the growing war in the Pacific, the impact on Britain would be great-prolonging the war with Hitler perhaps to the point of losing it.

Thus, Churchill considered success in Sicily critical on a number of levels and was going to do whatever was necessary to see that Mincemeat was successful.

Including keeping Mincemeat hidden from that Yank commander at AFHQ.

What Stevens and Fleming did know was that Wild Bill Donovan had approved of this later-rather-than-sooner business of getting Ike's approval-going so far as to repeat what he'd personally told FDR: "It's hard to blow your nose anywhere near AFHQ without his explicit permission." The OSS director well understood that more often than not that was how things had to be done in their business-that secret services worked best in the shadows. And Donovan-who was was privy to the fact that Churchill was working Roosevelt because Roosevelt had confided in him-believed in the soundness and necessity of the operation regardless of the political play at the top. privy to the fact that Churchill was working Roosevelt because Roosevelt had confided in him-believed in the soundness and necessity of the operation regardless of the political play at the top.

"Nothing wrong at all, Charity," Stevens said. "We are-how shall I put this?-in the due process of accomplishing that. Until we do, we want to keep it quiet. Which gets back to why we came out here in the first place."

Charity nodded her understanding.

"We are confident that we will get General Eisenhower's approval," Montagu said as he walked back over the side table, under which was a leather briefcase. He bent over, picked the case up, then put it on the table.

"Due to the complexity of what we have so far done," he went on, opening the case's clasps, "and what we are doing now, it will be easier to sell it not exactly as a fait accompli fait accompli-but as close to one as possible. As Prime Minister Churchill says, time taken to cancel is quite shorter than time needed to plan."

"If Ike nixes the idea," Stevens said, "we can call off the op right up to the very last minute, when the agent is launched from the sub."

That triggered curious looks from Jamison, the Duchess, and Charity.

"Submarine?" Charity said.

Montagu was nodding as he pulled a folder from the case.

"The Seraph, Seraph," he said.

He opened the folder and produced a single sheet.

"This is an abstract of what I gave last week to Lieutenant Jewell, the sub commander," Montagu said. "I think it rather well sums up what we're trying to do."

He handed it to Charity, who immediately held it out to Stevens.

"Thank you," Stevens said, declining to take it by holding up his hand palm out, "but I've already read it."

"As have we," Fleming said, motioning to Niven and Ustinov.

Charity nodded, then let her eyes fall to the page:

MOST SECRETDUPLICATION PROHIBITED.

OPERATION MINCEMEAT.

1. OBJECT. OBJECT.

TO CAUSE A BRIEFCASE CONTAINING DOCUMENTS (BOTH ONES MOST SECRET AND OTHERS OF A PERSONAL NATURE) TO DRIFT ASHORE AS NEAR AS POSSIBLE TO HUELVA, SPAIN, IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES THAT IT WILL BE THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN WASHED ASHORE FROM AN AIRCRAFT WHICH CRASHED EN ROUTE FROM THE U.K. TO ALLIED FORCES H.Q. IN NORTH AFRICA.

2. METHOD. METHOD.

A DEAD BODY IN THE BATTLE-DRESS UNIFORM OF A MAJOR, ROYAL MARINES, AND WEARING A "MAE WEST," WILL BE TAKEN OUT IN A SUBMARINE, TOGETHER WITH THE BRIEFCASE, AND A RUBBER DINGHY.

THE BODY WILL BE PACKED IN DRY ICE IN A LIGHT-GAUGE METAL CONTAINER (6 FEET 6 INCHES IN LENGTH, 2 FEET IN DIAMETER, AND AN APPROXIMATE FULL WEIGHT OF 400 POUNDS). AS DRY ICE GIVES OFF CARBON DIOXIDE, CONTAINER SHOULD BE OPENED ONLY ON DECK.

3. POSITION. POSITION.

BODY, BRIEFCASE, AND RAFT SHOULD BE PUT IN WATER AT SAME TIME AS CLOSE TO SHORE AS HUELVA AS POSSIBLE, NORTHWEST OF RIVER MOUTH.

4. THOSE IN KNOW AT GIBRALTAR. THOSE IN KNOW AT GIBRALTAR.

FLAG OFFICER IN CHARGE AND HIS STAFF OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE ARE THE ONLY ONES TO BE INFORMED.

5. SIGNALS. SIGNALS.

IF OPERATION SUCCESSFUL, SIGNAL "MINCEMEAT COMPLETED" FROM GIBRALTAR STAFF OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE, TO DIRECTOR OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

6. CANCELLATION. CANCELLATION.

IF NECESSARY, SIGNAL "CANCEL MINCEMEAT," THEN SINK THE CASE WITH BODY INSIDE IN DEEP WATER.DELIVER BRIEFCASE TO GIBRALTAR STAFF OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE, WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO BURN IT UNOPENED.

7. ABANDONMENT. ABANDONMENT.

IF NECESSARY, SIGNAL "MINCEMEAT ABANDONED." FOLLOW PARA. 6 ABOVE.

8. COVER. COVER.

CONTAINER LABEL OF "OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS" PROVIDES COVER DURING OPERATION. AFTERWARD, COVER IS THAT WE HOPE TO TRAP AN ACTIVE GERMAN AGENT IN ORDER TO GET SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO HAVE SPANIARDS EJECT HIM.

IT SHOULD BE IMPRESSED ON THE CREW THAT ANY LEAKAGE BEFORE OR EVER AFTER THE OPERATION WILL COMPROMISE OUR POWER TO GET THE SPANIARDS TO ACT IN SUCH CASES.

ALSO, IF SPANIARDS EVER SUSPECT THIS AS A PLANT, THERE WOULD FOLLOW FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF GREAT MAGNITUDE. SECRECY IS PARAMOUNT.

E.E.S MONTAGU.

LT-CDR. R.N.V.R.

31.3.43.

"Fascinating," Charity said as she passed the sheet to Jamison. "Okay, so now what?"

"Now," Montagu said, his tone solemn, "we create our man."

[FOUR].