The Fighting Agents (Men at War 4)

"Maybe he'll be smart enough not to volunteer an opinion."

The moment he said it, he was a little sorry. There was something in the chemistry between him and Ferniany that produced dislike without real reason.

But that wasn't why he had snapped at him. The reason for that was that Ferniany was close to the truth.

"Saint Peter," the OSS agent on the fishing boat, was probably not going to like what he was about to learn. Nor would Stevens and Bruce, and if it got that far, Capt. Douglass or Colonel Donovan.

The OSS agents on the scene would be annoyed both by having their thunder stolen by a visiting brass hat and by the extra risk his grandstanding would mean. And Stevens and Bruce would bitterly question his decision to go into Hungary himself. First and foremost was the question of his running the risk of falling into German hands. And right on the heels of that was the equally valid question of whether he could do what had to be done any better than Yachtsman and Saint Peter could do it.

Captain Hughson touched Canidy's arm.

"There's a rock over the water," he said.

"You can jump from it to the boat."

He nodded toward it.

"Would you like to take this with you?" Hughson asked, unslinging his Sten submachine gun from his shoulder and offering it to Canidy.

"Have you got another one?"

"Actually," Hughson said, "there's a Schmeisser in my cell I've been looking for an excuse to carry."

"Then thank you, Hughson," Canidy said, and took the submachine gun from him.

"You will be a good chap, won't you, Major, and make an effort to return the Sten to me, in person?" Hughson said.

"Despite what everybody apparently thinks," Canidy said, "I am not charging foolhardy into the valley of death."

"No, of course you aren't," Hughson said. He put out his hand, and Canidy took it.

The boat nosed in to the rock. First Ferniany and then Canidy jumped onto the deck. Immediately, the boat headed offshore.

There

were two men in the wheelhouse, both dark-haired and darkskinned, both needing a shave, and both dressed in dark blue fisherman's trousers and rough brown sweaters. It was only when one of them spoke in English to Ferniany that Canidy had any idea which was the genuine fisherman and which the SOE agent with the code name "Saint Peter."

"And what, might one dare inquire, is one supposed to do with this downed, if intrepid, aviator?" Saint Peter asked in an upper-class British accent.

Ferniany chuckled.

"Major Canidy, may I introduce Lieutenant J.V.M. Bean Williams, late of the Household Cavalry?"

"How'd'ja do?" It. Beane-Williams said with a smile, offering his hand."

hate to put it to you so bluntly, Major, but you have, so to speak, just enter the "Out' door. England... I presume you came from England... is in quit the opposite direction."

Canidy chuckled. He liked this Englishman.

"Hughson tells me that you can put us ashore on the mainland," Canid said.

"I presume there is a reason?" Saint Peter said.

"Someplace where we can make contact with Mihajlovic's guerrillas, Canidy said.

"Our ultimate destination is Budapest, and the sooner we can gs there, the better."

"Budapest is rather nasty this time of year," Saint Peter said.