The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

“Are you beginning to get the picture?”

“Yeah,” Canidy said thoughtfully.

“If I am ordered to send someone into the Philippines, I want it to be someone who won’t antagonize MacArthur,” Donovan said. “And Jimmy left the Philippines on the PT boat with MacArthur. Even Willoughby can’t argue with that.”

“And Jimmy, of course, knows the Philippines,” Canidy said,“and speaks Spanish.”

“It’s even possible that he knows Fertig,” Donovan said. “Before the islands fell, they were both blowing things up. So it would seem to me that Jimmy is the man to go. But it’s your call. The Dyer mission, and the followons, have the higher priority. If you think you really need him…”

It was a long moment before Canidy replied.

"The unpleasant truth seems to be,” he said finally, "is that Jimmy falls into the ‘Nice to Have’ rather than ‘Have to Have’ category.”

“The Philippines mission is important, Dick,” Donovan said.

“It will screw up his love life, but what the hell, war is supposed to be hell anyway, isn’t it?”

“It would be a volunteer mission. You think he’ll be willing?” Donovan said.

Canidy nodded.

"And now, as they say,” Donovan said, “to the business at hand. I understand that contact has been made with Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz?”

“Three days ago,” Canidy said.

“By whom?” Donovan pursued. “What was said?”

“The British have been helping us,” Canidy said. “We don’t have anyone in Berlin that we can use for this. Their help has been a little reluctant.”

“That figures,” Donovan said.

“Their story is that their men are involved in something ‘rather more important, don’t you know,’” Canidy said in a credible upper-class British accent. “They have told us that we are going to have to make our own arrangements and stop using their agents in both Berlin and Frankfurt. Specifically, they are going to give us one more contact. Probably, if we lean on them, we can make that two contacts. But after no more than two contacts with von Heurten-Mitnitz, we’re on our own.”

Donovan nodded.

“There’s something else, Dick,” he said, “that until now you didn’t have to know, and which the British aren’t going to be told about at this time. We have, we think, a pipeline in place. From Budapest out, I mean.”

“Do I get to use it?” Canidy asked. “I’ve been going on the idea that we’ll get Dyer and his daughter out by fishing boat from Holland. And why the long way around?”

“The Germans know that we, as well as the British, are bringing people out through Holland and Belgium. And they’re getting better and better at finding those pipelines. We’ll continue to use them, of course. And we’ll set up others when they turn one off. But what we’ve done is set one up which will move people the other way,

from Germany to Hungary, then through Yugoslavia. It won’t be used much, just enough to keep it open. And it will be used only for those we must bring out. Do you follow the reasoning?”

Canidy nodded. “It’s in reserve, so to speak.”

“No,” Donovan said. “Not the way I think you mean. It will not be used when one of the Dutch or Belgian routes is shut down. It will be used only when the people being run through are too valuable to run through the others. ”

“Dyer is that important to us?”

“Dyer can tell us about the metallurgy for the jet engines,” Donovan said. “Do I have to tell you, of all people—you burr-under-the-Air-Corps-saddle-blanket—how important that is to us?”

It wasn’t much of a joke, but everybody laughed.

“Why Yugoslavia?” Canidy asked.

“Your responsibility ends when Fulmar delivers the Dyers to Budapest,” Donovan said. “So that’s really none of your business, Dick.”

“The only way to test a pipeline is to run something through it,” Canidy said. “Is that what this is, another goddamned test? I send Fulmar in there, and he picks up the Dyers, and then we wait around to see if the pipeline works? Goddammit!”