The Double Agents (Men at War 6)

And that has got to be his driver—the one who they say he’s slipping it to on the side. Hell of a fine-looking woman.

But I don’t think that’s Ike talking with Stan Fine.

Must be his light bird fluky, Ol’ Colonel Whatshisname.

Captain Stanley S. Fine, U.S. Army Air Forces, the acting chief of station of OSS Algiers, was thirty-five years old, a tall, ascetic Jew who had left his position as a high-level Hollywood studio lawyer. He joined the Army hoping to be a fighter pilot but wound up with command of a B-17 squadron, then found himself recruited for the OSS.

Fine, nodding in a slow, measured manner, looked somewhat annoyed by the conversation with the lieutenant colonel, a tall, athletic-looking man who—at least from the rear—bore a striking resemblance to Eisenhower.

Maybe that’s why Ike keeps this guy around, Canidy mused. Body doubles make great bullet magnets. Or maybe Ike just uses him as a diversion.

Fine appeared to have just about had his fill of whatever Colonel Whatshisname had to say and his eyes started to roam. Canidy saw Fine glance his way, and Canidy began smiling and waving broadly like a long-lost friend.

Fine seemed first to notice the baby blue Plymouth not quite hidden behind the truck, then did see the excited motion from behind its steering wheel, and then figured out what—or, more precisely, who—he was looking at.

A practiced lawyer of considerable skill, Fine kept his poker face, but still quickly returned his attention to the lieutenant colonel.

At that point, the lieutenant colonel apparently had at last reached the end of his speech. Fine nodded one last time, and they exchanged salutes.

The lieutenant colonel turned and moved toward the car door, which still was being held open for him. He looked up and down the street as he did so. Just as he started to climb in the backseat, he noticed the baby blue Navy staff car parked behind a big truck across the street.

He studied it for a moment, wondering if he actually was seeing a man slumped behind the wheel and napping under a Greek fisherman cap that was pulled down over his face. Then he decided that if that was indeed what it was—he’d seen his share of some strange things happening here in Algiers—it was a matter not worthy of his time. And he slid onto the Cadillac’s backseat, allowing the door to be closed behind him.

The good-looking Motor Transport Corps driver ran around the front of the car and got in behind the wheel.

Fine stood by and watched as the Cadillac pulled away from the curb. When it had driven out of sight, he walked quickly across the street toward the Plymouth.

Canidy was already standing out on the sidewalk and in the process of opening the rear passenger door.

“Once again,” Stanley Fine said by way of greeting, “your timing is impeccable and your luck apparently without limit.”

“Was that who I think it was?” Canidy said, shouldering his rubberized duffel bag.

The bag was all that Canidy had carried into Sicily. It had held a change of clothes, a Johnson light machine gun, six magazines of .30-06 ammunition for the LMG, four mags of .45 ACP for his Colt pistol, ten pounds of Composition C-2 explosive, two packages of cheese crackers, a one-pound salami, and a canteen of water. With the exception of the C-2 and food gone, it still held the same items.

He offe

red his hand to Fine. “Good to see you, Stan.”

“You, too,” Fine answered fondly as he shook Canidy’s hand, then gave a friendly pat to his shoulder. “Welcome back. And if you thought it was Ike’s right hand, then your skills of deduction remain in top form, too.”

“No,” Canidy said with a straight face, “what I meant was, Ike’s secret piece of ass?”

Fine laughed. “That was his driver, yes. Kay Summersby. Beautiful woman. Beautiful newly divorced woman. But that’s all I know. Rumors of Ike’s activities are legion…. So who knows?”

“Divorced?” Canidy said with a smile. “That’s interesting.”

“Don’t even think about it, Dick.”

“Oh, even I don’t live that dangerously.”

He turned to the car.

Professor Rossi was expending some effort to sit upright, then slide himself and his suitcase out. Once finally on the sidewalk, Rossi awkwardly adjusted his burnous cape and rewrapped the cloth around his fez and head.

“Professor,” Canidy said, “say hello to your new best friend, Captain Stanley Fine.”

“My pleasure, Professor,” Fine said, looking up and down the street suspiciously. Then he nodded toward the villa. “If you don’t mind, let’s get you out of sight.”