The Double Agents (Men at War 6)

Then, tapping the appropriate letter as he went, Canidy said, “Pulled Out of My Ass. Pooma.”

The room erupted with appreciative laughter.

After the sound of that settled, a young man at the front raised his hand. He appeared to be Sicilian, or Sicilian American, about twenty years old.

Canidy pointed to him. “Yes?”

“The odds of me running into Oberst Lahousen,” the young man said, motioning at the blackboard, “well, let’s just say I’m not holding my breath it’s going to happen. So how exactly does all this fit with what we’re doing?”

There’s an American flavor to his speech, Canidy thought. Maybe one of Corvo’s ten recruits he brought over….

Canidy nodded.

“Okay,” he said, “I understand what you’re saying. But it’s important to understand the big picture—Know Thy Enemy—so that you can understand the ones that you will come in contact with.”

The young man nodded, his unruly black hair bouncing.

Canidy turned to the board and wrote PINS ON THE MAP SYNDROME.

He looked at the men, and said, “Anyone heard of that?”

An intelligent-looking Italian American of about thirty raised his hand.

“Is it like where you keep track of your salesmen by putting pushpins with different-colored heads on a map representing your sales territory?” he said clearly with the accent and experience of someone who had been in America for some time.

Definitely one of Corvo’s recruits from the States.

Canidy nodded.

“Very much so,” he said. “It is, in other words, the tracking of assets. But something more. The syndrome part has, as you might expect, a psychological component.”

Canidy turned to the

board and began writing again.

“First, let me outline this.”

He turned and pointed at the young Sicilian American and said, “You mentioned Oberst Lahousen, so I’ll use Abt II. But know that all the Abts are structured in this manner. Abt II is a good example, as it was the parent of the Brandenburg units, the ruthless German special ops that took out the partisans in Yugoslavia in ’41. These are the type of forces you can expect to fight.”

He drew another box at the top of the board, then wrote ABWEHR HQ in it. Under that, he put another box, drew a line linking the two, and in the lower box wrote ABWEHRSTELLEN (“ASTS”).

“There are some twenty-plus Asts within the Reich,” Canidy said as he drew another box, this one under ASTS, “with a dozen or more in occupied territories. Each Ast has smaller Nebenstellen”—he wrote that in the new box and added NESTS—“and these Nests can have even smaller teams that specialize, called Aussenstellen, or ‘Outstations.’”

Canidy noticed Corvo and Scamporino nodding, having recognized the terms ASTS and NESTS.

He finished writing all that, and went on:

“Then there is the Kriegsorganisation, ‘KO’ for short, or ‘War Organization.’ This operates in neutral countries—Switzerland and Sweden, of course, Spain, Turkey, et cetera—with either a diplomatic or commercial cover. It is the Abwehr’s overt presence, but the Abwehr does not act against its host. KO serves as a base of operations.”

When he finished, he turned to the crowd and said:

“All of these have representatives from each of the German services, and all of these, we have found, do not have any true centralized control or direction from above. Therefore, the Abwehr is not always well run. And, occasionally, not well run at all.”

There were murmurings.

“Do not misunderstand me,” Canidy quickly added. “It is often effective, and you should not underestimate it. But there are Abwehr weak links.” He paused. “Here’s where the syndrome kicks in. We have found, as I’m sure you have seen here among the German POWs, that Nazi officers tend to be rather proud of themselves—”

Someone in the crowd snorted loudly. That caused others to chuckle.