The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

Since it was felt the Admiral would be more comfortable with a military host than a civilian, it had been “Major” Canidy at Deal. And Major Canidy had recruited bona-fide Captain and B-17 Squadron Commander Stanley S. Fine for the Fulmar Operation.

Fine had fully expected to be returned to the Air Corps after the COI no longer needed his services. But the COI was just as reluctant to lose him as it was to lose Canidy. Since Canidy and Fine were already on the COI roster— and pilots—they had been given the “fly the magic dirt for the Norden bombsight out of the Belgian Congo” mission.

When that operation was over, Fine had become for all intents and purposes Colonel Stevens’s deputy. And Canidy was given command of Whitbey House station. It was Canidy’s opinion that—with the single, if very important, exception that they were “cleared” for OSS duty—his and Fine’s current jobs had nothing to do with their qualifications but rather with their availability as more or less round pegs in the round holes of the OSS manning chart. There were dozens of empty holes; the OSS was growing almost miraculously.

Canidy was amused and a little disconcerted to be regarded now by OSS recruits as a grizzled and legendary veteran.

There were perks, of course. He was commanding Whitbey House station, which meant—most important—that he didn’t have to deal with a commanding officer. Stevens left him pretty much alone. And he had a car and a driver: If he wanted to go into London, he didn’t have to ask permission. And he was the Lord of the Manor and had established himself in the ducal apartment of Whitbey House: three large rooms, museum-quality furniture, an enormous bathroom, and even room service when he wanted it.

There was a loud knock at his door.

“Come!” Canidy called. It was more than likely Jamison come to lead him through the paperwork jungle. Jamison was the very bright lieutenant who did much of the administrative work for Canidy.

It was not Jamison.

“Am I interrupting anything, Dick?” Colonel Wild Bill Donovan asked as he walked into the room.

Canidy quickly stood up.

“Not a thing,” Canidy said. “I was just sitting here letting this crap drive me out of my mind.” He gestured at the paper-submerged desk.

Donovan chuckled sympathetically.

“You ought to see what Pete Douglass has waiting for me when I get back to the office,” he said.

"Jamison is a lot of help,” Canidy said. "Actually, he’s perfectly capable of running this place all by himself.”

“Jimmy about?” Donovan asked.

“Jimmy’s spreading pollen,”Canidy said.“Would you like me to find him?”

Donovan laughed.

“We’ll send for him after a bit, and for Stevens and Fine,” he said. “I want a private word with you first.”

Canidy nodded.

“I’m tempted to ask about Ann Chambers,” Donovan said. “Did I detect a little sour grapes about Jimmy’s ‘pollen spreading’?”

“Ann’s in the North of England,” Canidy said. “I finally got her on the phone about twenty minutes ago.”

Ann Chambers was a war correspondent for the Chambers News Service. Her father was Chairman of the Board of the Chambers Publishing Corporation, of which the Chambers News Service was a wholly owned subsidiary. She was in England because Dick Canidy was in England, and she was in love with Dick Canidy. Between her bona-fide skills as a journalist and her father’s influence, Ann got pretty much what she wanted.

“Give her my best regards when you see her,” Donovan said.

Canidy chuckled.

Ann Chambers posed a continuing problem for Donovan and the OSS. Other curious journalists could be dealt with by suggesting quietly to their superiors that national security required their return to the States. More seriously curious journalists could be hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation. Brandon Chambers, however, would demand to know precisely how his daughter had endangered the national security and would then make his own judgment about that.

And if Brandon Chambers’s daughter was put into a psychiatric hospital for evaluation—which had been the Attorney General’s solution to the problem of habeas corpus—Brandon Chambers’s eight newspapers, five radio stations, and the Chambers News Service could be counted on to put the admittedly constitutionally questionable practice before the American public until the Supreme Court dealt with its legality.

"Certainly,” Canidy said, smiling. “I’ll even tell her you want her for an exclusive, long, candlelit tête-à-tête maybe?”

Donovan had to laugh. "Okay,” he said. “I confess I sometimes yearn for the days when the men went to war, and the women stayed home and knitted sweaters for them.”

And then Donovan was suddenly all business.

“I’m curious about your reaction, your gut reaction, about putting Fulmar back into Morocco,” he said.