And nine days after that, PEARL HARBOR, the code name for the clandestine wireless radio s
tation, sent a message in Morse code to OSS Algiers Station—and became the first OSS team to successfully transmit intel from inside enemy-controlled Europe.
Henceforth, on a daily basis, the W/T (wireless telegraphy) link relayed order of battle information on the Italians and Germans to an OSS control in Algiers. This intel was then decrypted and forwarded across town to Allied Forces Headquarters, where it came to be enthusiastically embraced—and helped to establish the fledgling OSS as a bona fide supplier of enemy intel in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO).
As historic and reaching as the mission had been, however, it had not been without error. During the second insertion of OSS agents, the dinghy had capsized and its two sailors had become stranded on the island with the agents.
It wasn’t exactly a disastrous turn of events—the crewmen were, after all, French and thus could assimilate, and, it was expected, aid the agents—but it certainly had not been planned.
The Casabianca found that it had no option but to return to Algiers, where plans were drawn up for another mission to Corsica that would serve to rescue the two crewmen and resupply the OSS teams.
In the course of such planning, Dick Canidy’s request came up, and Commander L’Herminier had voiced his opinion of the mission.
“It would only be a bit of a detour to and from Corsica,” L’Herminier had said. “Consider it done.”
The new plan thus called for Commander L’Herminier to put Canidy ashore on Sicily, exactly as L’Herminier had put the OSS teams on Corisca—with the hopeful exception of dunking him in the drink—and then continue on to Corsica, where the sub would resupply the teams there and collect the pair of stranded sailors.
Canidy, meanwhile, was to locate a professor from the University of Palermo who had great expertise in metallurgy—and whose skills were a critical asset to any country with an interest in the development of advanced weaponry—and convince him that it was in his best interests to leave Sicily with Canidy.
If, however, the professor would not allow himself to be so persuaded, Canidy’s orders were to take him out—in the absolute worst possible sense of the phrase—thus depriving the Germans and Italians of his expertise in their advancement of such new weaponry.
Canidy was also to reconnoiter the area, keeping an eye out for locations and, if possible, personnel to set up OSS stations on Sicily like that of Pearl Harbor on Corsica, as well as collect anything else that would be of military intelligence value.
In a short time, Canidy got more than anyone had bargained for.
For starters, the professor shared evidence that the enemy had biological weapons in its possession, then, at the eleventh hour, pointed out the existence of chemical weapons as well.
Canidy had carefully put to use his Composition C-2 plastic explosives to get rid of both.
And when the submarine returned exactly on schedule six days later for the extraction, both he and the professor were more than ready to get the hell out of there.
That extraction had happened the previous night.
Now, this morning, with the professor sound and secure in a bunk room of the submarine, the suitcase at his feet packed with all the scholarly writings that he could carry out, Canidy had borrowed a ship’s typewriter and written the mission’s after-action report.
Canidy then had confirmed the critical points of his report with the professor, then composed a brief top secret message that would need to be sent by the sub’s commo room as soon as possible, and then finally requested the private meeting with the commander of the Casabianca.
In L’Herminier’s office, Canidy handed over the typewritten message.
“We need to encrypt this at the earliest opportunity,” Canidy said, “then radio it.”
On the five-hundred-nautical-mile leg from Algiers to Sicily’s Mondello, the sub had run as hard and fast as conditions allowed—sometimes ten knots, sometimes dead in the water at depth to avoid detection by German and Italian ships on patrol.
Heading back would take her at least as long, and Canidy knew his report could not wait for that time frame.
News of the nerve gas would be enough to get attention right away. He decided there was no reason to muddy the message with the discovery of the yellow fever—which was detailed in his after action-report—and would save it for a subsequent message, or till they reached OSS Algiers Station.
There shouldn’t be anything left of the villa and its lab, anyway, Canidy thought.
L’Herminier took the sheet and his eyes fell on it:
* * *
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
26MAR43 0900