The Fighting Agents Part 6

Donovan was not surprised that Hoover had made Tolson privy to the secrets of the Manhattan Project, but he was surprised that Hoover had admitted it so openly to him. Tolson, like Vice President Wallace, was not on the shortlist of people authorized access to information concerning the atomic bomb.

"Then you should have brought him with you, Edgar," Donovan said. "Clyde's an old pal. He doesn't need a formal invitation to break bread with us."

Hoover, Donovan realized, had just put him on a spot. Should he run, as he was supposed to, to Roosevelt and tattle that the head of the FBI had taken it upon himself to breach security? If he did, would it turn out that Hoover had gotten permission from Roosevelt to tell Tolson? Which would make him look the fool. And if he didn't go, would Roosevelt find out, and be justifiably angry that he had known and said nothing?

He decided that this was one of those rare instances where it was necessary to be very open with Hoover.

"Edgar, does Roosevelt know you've decided it was necessary to brief Clyde?"

"No," Hoover said, and met his eyes. "Are you going to tell him?"

"Certainly," Donovan said. "I've been hearing rumors about Clyde. He's supposed to be about as pinko as Henry Wallace."

Hoover laughed, but his smile was strained.

I'll let you worry about whether or not I'm going to tell Roosevelt, Donovan thought. Donovan thought. That hand went to me. Another proof of the theory that when you really don't know what to do, try telling the truth. That hand went to me. Another proof of the theory that when you really don't know what to do, try telling the truth.

Hoover looked at his wrist.w.a.tch and stood up.

"I had no idea how late it is," he said.

"I'll walk you to your car, Edgar," Donovan said.

4.

UNION STATION WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C. 30 JANUARY 1943.

Staley had no trouble picking Capt. James M. B. Whittaker out of the crowd of people walking away from the train, although many of them were in uniform, and almost a dozen of those in uniform were captains of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

"Look for a guy who looks like an Air Corps recruiting poster," Chief Ellis had told him. "Tall, good-looking, and either the sloppiest officer you ever saw, or the sharpest. Depends on how he feels right then."

Capt. Whittaker, Staley concluded, had decided to be sharp. He was wearing a perfectly tailored pink-and-green uniform, and he was in the process of putting on a camel's-hair short coat when Staley spotted him. His brimmed cap had the fifty-mission crush, an affectation of a fighter pilot, but except for that, he looked as if he had just walked out of a clothing store window.

Staley intercepted him, catching himself just before he started to salute. He was not quite used to wearing civilian clothes and acting like a civilian.

"Captain Whittaker?"

"Guilty," Whittaker said, smiling at him.

"I'm standing in for Chief Ellis, Sir," Staley said. "Let me give you a hand with your gear."

"Since you're foolish enough to volunteer," Whittaker said, "you can have the heavy one. Where's Ellis?"

"He's in Georgia, Sir," Staley said.

"With the Colonel? And our commander-in-chief?"

"Yes, Sir," Staley said, wondering how Whittaker could have known that.

When they were in the Buick, Whittaker said, "Well, I appreciate you meeting me, but I could have taken a cab."

"To Virginia?" Staley blurted. Ellis had told him that Whittaker was rich, that, in fact, he owned the house on Q Street, but the notion of taking a forty-mile taxi ride startled him.

"Virginia? I'm talking about Q Street."

"Sir, I'm supposed to take you to Virginia," Staley said.

"I'm going to the house on Q Street," Whittaker said firmly. "If that makes it awkward for you, just drop me at the next corner. I'll catch a cab, and we'll say you couldn't find me at Union Station."

"They expect you in Virginia," Staley protested.

"In a word, f.u.c.k 'em," Whittaker said, then, quickly, "Right over there, there's a cab."

"I'll take you to the house," Staley said. "n.o.body said anything about me making you go to Virginia. But if you tell them I told you . . ."

"I'll cover you," Whittaker said. "You know what goes on in Virginia, I suppose? They do all sorts of obscene things out there, like push-ups and running for miles before they have breakfast."

Staley laughed. "I went through it."

"Then you must know a p.r.i.c.k by the name of Eldon C. Baker," Whittaker said, "which is another reason I'm not going to Virginia."

"I know him," Staley said.

When they got to the house on Q Street, Northwest, the guard would not pa.s.s the Buick through the gate until Whittaker showed him his credentials.

And when they walked into the kitchen, Charity Hoche, in her bathrobe, was waiting for them.

"You're not supposed to be here, Jimmy," she said.

"Jesus, and I was hoping for something along the lines of 'Welcome home, Jimmy.' "

"They expect you in Virginia," Charity said.

"I hope they're not holding their breath," Whittaker said. "Aren't you going to ask me about Doug?"

"How's Doug?"

"Bearing up rather well, considering," he said.

"Bearing up rather well considering what?"

"That he's the official stud for the London-area Red Cross girls," Whittaker said. "Some of them are real man-eaters. "

"d.a.m.n you," she said.

"Actually, the last time I saw him, he was staring moodily off into s.p.a.ce, muttering Browning sonnets," Whittaker said. " 'How do I love Charity? Let me count the ways. . . . I love her . . .' "

"That's better," Charity said. "I'm going over there. I found out a couple of days ago."

"Well, that should certainly change his social life," Whittaker said, and then he asked the question that had been on his mind since he first saw Charity.

"Where's the regular house mother?"

"Cynthia's at the place in Virginia," Charity said.

"What's she doing there?"

"Going through the course," Charity said.

"What course?"

"The regular course," Charity said.

"What the h.e.l.l is that all about?" he asked.

"What do you think?" Charity asked.

The notion that Cynthia was undergoing training to become an agent was so preposterous that he didn't pursue it.

"I'll go out there in the morning," he said. "Is my car here?"

"It is, but I'm not sure they allow you to have a car out there," Charity said.

"I'll take my chances," he said. "Now, if you will give me some whiskey to drink, I'll brief you on the compet.i.tion you're going to face when you get to England. And just for the record, Charity, I came here over the very strenuous objections of this gentleman."

"Staley's my name, Captain," Staley said, and offered his hand. Staley liked Whittaker. Ellis had said he would. He himself hadn't been so sure. Officers are officers. But there was something about this guy that made him special.

"Over the strenuous objections of Mr. Staley," Whittaker said. "And now can I have some booze?"

He woke early, his body clock confused by the distances he'd covered, and aware that sometime around two in the afternoon, he would get very sleepy. Worse, he thought, his mind would be dulled. And he wanted to be sharp when he saw Cynthia.

He took a shower in the large, tiled, two-headed shower where legend had it that Chesley Haywood Whittaker, his uncle "Chesty," had died of a stroke. The truth was that Chesty Whittaker had died in the saddle, on Pearl Harbor Day, and that Chief Ellis had manhandled the body over here so that it could be "found" in his own shower rather than in the bed of a young woman, the daughter of a college cla.s.smate, with whom he had had a two-year affair. The young woman's name was Cynthia Chenowith.

Only a few people knew what had really happened: Wild Bill Donovan-who had been Chesty's lifelong crony and with whom he had flown to Was.h.i.+ngton when Donovan had been summoned to the White House-knew. And Captain Dougla.s.s knew. And Chief Ellis. And d.i.c.k Canidy, Whittaker's school chum and now number-three man in London for the OSS. And, of course, Jimmy Whittaker knew. He didn't think Cynthia knew he knew, and that was the way he wanted to keep it. It didn't matter to him, he told himself-and most of the time, he believed, it didn't.

But he thought about it in the shower, and he thought about it when he backed the Packard out of the garage. The 1941 Packard 280 convertible coupe had been Chesty's. Presumably, Chesty and Cynthia had been in it together on many happy occasions. He didn't think they had made the beast with two backs in the backseat, but it was reasonable to presume that they had held hands, and kissed, and that sort of thing.

Despite the cold, when he was out of the District, he pulled to the side of the road and put the roof down. He had the heater going full blast, and he left the windows up, and it was really rather pleasant.

A quarter of a mile off the state highway into the Virginia property, well out of sight of the highway, a guard post had been erected, and Whittaker learned that Charity had been right about the car. They expected him, but not at the wheel of a car.

"I really don't know what the h.e.l.l to say," the guard, wearing the uniform of a member of the National Park Service police, said. "I got your name on the list, Captain, but as a trainee, and trainees can't have private cars."

"But as I've shown you, I'm not a trainee," Whittaker said. "Look, call Baker and tell him I'm here, and driving a car."

The guard went into his little shack and a moment later came out again, and said, "Mr. Baker says come right to his office, Captain. It's in the main house. You can't miss it."

The road wound through a stand of pine trees, and as he was coming out of it, he pa.s.sed a group of twelve or fifteen trainees taking a run. They were carrying, in front of them, at "Port Arms," Springfield Model 1903 caliber .30-06 rifles, not that it was expected they would ever use one, but to make the physical conditioning a little tougher.

He slowed down and glanced out the side window at them as he pa.s.sed them. And saw Cynthia Chenowith. She had her hair hidden under a GI fatigue habit, and the truth was that he saw her b.r.e.a.s.t.s flopping around under her fatigue jacket and marveled at that for a moment before he recognized her.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t!" he said with great disgust, then stepped on the accelerator.

Eldon Baker's office was in what had been the breakfast room of the mansion, a rather small room whose floor-length doors opened onto a flagstone patio, and beyond that to a flat gra.s.sy area that Whittaker remembered as having been a putting green.

Baker was sitting behind a government-issue gray metal desk when Whittaker walked in. He was a pudgy-faced man in his thirties. He was wearing fatigues, but where an officer would have worn the insignia of his rank and branch of service, there was a square insignia embroidered in blue: a triangle within the square, and the letters "U.S." It was the insignia worn by civilian experts attached to the U.S. Army in the field. Baker had been a State Department intelligence officer before joining the OSS, where he was listed on the OSS Table of Organization as "Chief, Recruitment and Training." So far as Whittaker knew, he had never been in the service.

"Well, h.e.l.lo, Jim," Baker said. "We rather expected you last night."

"You look very military, Eldon," Whittaker said. "Am I expected to salute?"

"We don't salute around here," Baker said. "Neither do we wear insignia of rank or branch of service."

"Can I ask you a question?" Whittaker asked.

"What are you doing here? Well, that's very simple. You haven't gone through the course and . . ."

"What is Cynthia Chenowith doing running around in fatigues and carrying a Springfield?"

"Isn't that self-evident? She's going through the course. And doing rather well. Frankly, much better than I expected she would."

"To what end?" Whittaker asked.

"Again, isn't that self-evident?"

"You're out of your f.u.c.king mind, Eldon," Whittaker said matter-of-factly. "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you?"

"I had hoped that our relations.h.i.+p would be amicable," Baker said. "You're making that difficult."

"Are you telling me you seriously propose to send that girl out operationally?" Whittaker asked.

"Nothing specific at the moment, but when the opportunity presents itself . . ."

"And Bill Donovan's going along with that insane notion? "

"Obviously, it has Colonel Donovan's approval," Baker said. "And, as obviously, it's really none of your business, is it?"

"I'm making it my business," Whittaker said.

"Have you some explanation for not coming here as you were directed to do?" Baker said. "You will notice I have changed the subject."

"I don't have to explain anything to you, Eldon," Whittaker said. "I don't work for you. I don't even know what I'm doing in the States."