And so far as young Joe Kennedy was concerned, he was to have been told on Friday anyhow that overall responsibility for the flying bomb project had been assigned to the OSS.
“I’m dying to know what’s going on in this place, Colonel,” Kennedy said,“but I’m afraid to ask.”
“We were going to bring you here on Friday anyway,” Stevens said. “Canidy just pushed up the schedule a little.”
“Can I ask what’s ‘here’?”
“Whitbey House is under the Office of Strategic Services,” Stevens said, “which is under your father’s old pal Colonel Bill Donovan.”
“And I was to be brought here, you said?”
“OSS has taken over the ‘take out the Saint-Lazare sub pens’ project,” Stevens said, “to settle the squabble between the Air Corps and the Navy about who should do it and how. Canidy’s the action officer.”
That was the official version, but it wasn’t the entire truth. Canidy had gone to Stevens and told him he had heard about the flying bomb project: There was no question in his mind that when the Germans started to produce jet aircraft engines, they would do so in plants as well-protected as the submarine pens. Which meant that he wanted to get in on the ground floor of the project.
Stevens had agreed with that and taken the proposal to David Bruce. Bruce had gone to Eisenhower that same afternoon; and Ike, over the objections of the Navy and the Air Corps, had turned the flying-bomb project over to the OSS.
“So that’s how you knew so much about me,” Kennedy said to Canidy.
“I liked it better when you thought maybe I really was omniscient,” Canidy said. He looked at his watch. “We’ve got an hour or so before dinner. You want to talk now, or would you rather wait until we’re a little drunk, and stuffed with the roast beef of Merrie Olde England?”
“Now,” Kennedy said.
Douglass shrugged, accepting the inevitable.
One of the trainees had found the piano. Over the murmur of conversation, "O Little Town of Bethlehem” could be faintly heard.
“Kennedy,” Canidy said,“when Doug tells you what you’re facing at Saint-Lazare, and when you tell Doug about your B-17s full of Torpex”—a new, very powerful British-developed explosive—“you both may wish you were soused.”
“Christ!” Kennedy said softly.
“Something wrong, Joe?” Stevens asked.
“I guess I’m just surprised to hear discussed so openly what I thought was a secret,” Kennedy said.
“I’m glad you brought that up,” Stevens said.
“Sir?”
“Although he certainly has given you cause to think otherwise,” Stevens said, “Canidy is not a complete fool, nor does he play footloose and fancy-free with security. Everyone within hearing is involved in this project, and cleared appropriately. But no one else here is. You understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Kennedy said.
"And you understand, of course, Kennedy,” Canidy said, “that that was a none-too-subtle reprimand?”
“Don’t push your luck, Dick!” Stevens snapped. “Damn it, sometimes you go too far!’’
Stevens held Canidy in an icy glance for a long moment, until Canidy said,“I’m sorry, Colonel. I guess I do.”
“Guess?” Stevens snapped.
Here was another icy pause, then Stevens said,“I suppose the best place to talk is in your apartment, Dick. Shall we go there?”
“Yes, sir,” Canidy said. He sounded genuinely contrite.
As they started out of the room, Stevens became aware that conversation in the hall had died down and that the trainees were now singing along with the piano. Eyes were on them, and he thought he saw disappointment—and perhaps displeasure—in them that the brass was walking out on the Christmas carols.
He put his hand on Canidy’s arm.