The Double Agents (Men at War 6)

“Et tu, Brute?” he muttered, then popped two tablets in his mouth and washed them down with hot tea.

“You’re right, of course, about the name,” Ewen Montagu said, changing the subject. “We need one. And it must be the right name. But to answer your question directly, Bob, while the war sadly has created a steady supply of bodies—some from battle, some from bombings here, some from everyday natural causes such as old age and disease—none of these worked for our purposes. We needed a military-aged male who, if we were lucky, simply had drowned. But we were having no luck whatsoever.”

Montagu sipped his tea, then went on:

“Then, if we did find what we needed, there was the matter of taking away the body from hospital or morgue. You cannot do it without questions arising. The paperwork involved alone is quite daunting, particularly when having to deal with the deceased’s loved ones. You soon have too many people getting too close to the secret. So while we discreetly inquired about our needs to select administrators we had connections to at hospital and morgue, months passed, and we came up with nothing useful.”

“So then what? You had to resort to getting one from the grave?” Jamiso

n said.

“That was considered,” Montagu said, “but for many reasons was dismissed, the primary one being we needed a fresh corpse for this ruse to be convincing. Then, last week, I was at my desk in the basement of the Admiralty when I got a call. A man who in December had lost all of his family—his wife had been staying with his parents—to a Luftwaffe bombing had become so despondent that he tried taking his own life by swallowing rat poison. He hadn’t died directly from that. Rather, he’d collapsed in the shell of the bombed home, then exposure caused the pneumonia that ultimately did him in.”

Niven dramatically put his fork and knife down on his plate with a clank.

“I really can’t believe we’re discussing this over our food,” he said, then set about to sip at his tea.

Montagu glanced at Niven, then saw Fleming make a hand motion that said Go on.

Montagu looked back at Jamison and tried to wind up his story: “I put in a call straightaway to Sir Bernard Spilsbury, our distinguished chief pathologist who understands our needs, and explained the new circumstances. He said that it would take a pathologist of his advanced skills to discover the traces of the poison during an autopsy. There were maybe three such in all of Europe—he being one—and certainly none in Spain.” Montagu paused and smiled. “Actually, when I inquired Sir Bernard had grunted, then replied, ‘Absolutely, unequivocally none.’”

Montagu took another sip of tea and continued:

“He said that they would likely find only water in the dead man’s lungs, caused by the pneumonia, which would make his death consistent with drowning and/or exposure at sea. Thus, with no family to make inquiries—all the easier for Sir Bernard to have the paperwork ‘misplaced’—and the perfect cause of death, we had our man. He’s in his early thirties. He’s not in good shape, not physically fit at all, which was fine, as he only has to look like a staff officer.”

Ustinov tapped Niven on the shoulder. When Niven turned, Ustinov pointed to the ham on Niven’s plate.

“I take it you are not going to eat that?” Ustinov said.

Niven’s eyes grew wide.

“Have you not even a semblance of decency?” he said. After a moment, he sighed, then pushed the plate toward Ustinov, motioning impatiently for him to take it. “Be my guest. I seem to have lost my appetite.”

Ustinov shrugged, then quickly slid the ham steak onto his almost-empty plate and began cutting into it.

“Charity,” Fleming said, spearing a nice-sized cut of grilled ham, “my compliments on the marvelous meals. Last night’s beef roast and potatoes was a feast for kings. And now this fine breakfast. I have to admit that when I heard we were coming out here, I envisioned we’d be enjoying, as I heard that American radio commercial say over and over, ‘two boxes of Kraft Dinner noodles for one ration point.’”

Charity’s pleasant laughter filled the room.

“If you’d like some, Ian,” she said in an accommodating tone, “we have a stockroom full of those blue boxes of macaroni and cheese. And Spam, too.”

Fleming shook his head as he chewed.

Charity smiled and said, “But thank you for the compliment. Bob Jamison here is actually the one responsible for our finer staples at Whitbey House…in fact, is responsible for everything we get here at Whitbey House.”

Fleming swallowed, then turned toward Jamison and said, “My most hearty thanks, Robert.”

“Not necessary,” Jamison replied. “I’m only following the chief’s standing orders. Dick Canidy said as long as we were here, and as long as we could procure what we needed, then that’s what we would do. Dick always says that an Army marches on its stomach, and those who are well fed are more prone to follow orders for he who feeds them.”

There were chuckles around the table.

“Well, then,” Fleming said, raising his tea cup, “here’s to Canidy.”

The swinging door to the kitchen opened and a British woman in her midthirties appeared. She was attractive, pale-skinned and sandy-haired, about five-four and 125 pounds.

“Aha,” she announced, looking at the side table. “There are the teapots!”

“Liz,” Charity said, “good morning. Come in. Please join us.”