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had done the right thing even before he reached for her, and pulled her to
him, and held her tightly against him, and said all the things she was so
afraid she would never hear him say.
The second time was longer, and better, and so was the third.
I TURKE I Summer Place Deal, Now Jersey 0830 Hours July 5, 1942
When Barbara Whittaker left the table to go to the kitchen to ask for another
pot of coffee, Charity Hoc he smiled sweetly at Ann and said, "The tabletop is
glass, so I think I should tell you that everybody can see you playing kneesie
with Major Canidy."
"Charity!" Sarah Child Bitter snapped. Captain Stanley S. Fine had trouble
swallowing his coffee, while Ann Chambers and Richard Canidy flushed and
separated at the knees. Then Ann looked at Canidy. "I don't mind if you
don't," she said, and Canidy moved his knee against hers again. Ann thumbed
her nose at Charity, and Fine and Sarah laughed. This was the scene that
greeted a security man and two Air Corps officers-both captains and both
appearing to be in their mid-thirties when they walked into the breakfast
room: A very good-looking young woman was thumbing her nose at two other
equally attractive young women and two men, one wearing an insignia-less
tropical worsted uniform and the other, younger, wearing swim trunks and a
battered, washed out gray sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves. On the front of the
sweatshirt was still faintly visible the legend "Massachusetts Institute of
Technology." They were all giggling and more than a little red in the face. It
was not what two officers who had volunteered for a hazardous secret mission
expected to find when they reported for duty on orders conspicuously stamped
Top Secret.
"These gentlemen have orders to report to you, Major," the security man said.
"I've verified their identity." Canidy took his knee away from Ann's.
She sensed it would be a long time before she felt that delightful pressure
again. "Thank you," Canidy said, and reached out for a manila envelope the
older of the two captains held in his hand. "I'm Canidy," he said.
"That's Captain Fine." He did not introduce the women. He opened the envelope,
removed another envelope from inside, and broke its seal. He then read the
orders, put them back in the envelope, and passed it down the table to Fine.
"Is the car ready? You put gas in it?" Canidy asked the security man. "Yes,
Sir. It's out in front."
"The weekend is over, I guess," Canidy said to Ann. "Come see us off," Ann
said as she got up. He nodded.
"Give me a minute," he said, and waited until the women had left the room
before asking, "Have you had breakfast?"
"No, Sir," the older of the two Air Corps officers said. The "Sir' came hard,
Fine thought. But if I were as old as they are, I would find it hard saying
"Sir" to a guy in trunks and an MIT sweatshirt who looks as young-who is as
young-as Canidy is. "Sit down," Canidy ordered, waving the two officers into
chairs at the table. Barbara Whittaker came back into the room with a silver
coffeepot.
"Gentlemen," Canidy said, "this is our hostess, Mrs. Barbara Whittaker."
Uncomfortably, the two officers gave Barbara Whittaker their hands and mumbled
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their names. "Would you please see about getting them some breakfast?" Canidy
said.
"And then detour anyone else who wants to eat?"
"I'll have a table set on the porch," Barbara said. I'll see the girls off,"
Canidy said."
Stan, hold the fort, will you? When they were alone, the older of the two
captains said to Fine with mingled annoyance and curiosity, "He's a little
young to be a major, isn't he? "He's also a little young to be the man in
charge," Fine said. "But he's an unusual young man. He was the first ace in
the AVG."
"This isn't what I expected to find," the Air Corps officer said. "Me either,"
Fine said.
"A week ago I had a B-17 squadron at Chanute, "What the hell is this all
about?"
"I think," Fine said, "that I had better wait and let Major Canidy tell you
that." , Canidy returned to the breakfast room five minutes later.
He was still wearing the battered, washed-out MIT sweatshirt and swim trunks,
but Fine thought he no longer looked or sounded like a young Romeo who had
just found his Juliet. "I'll begin with a statement of fact," Canidy said as
he poured another cup of coffee.
"If either of you in any way breaches the security requirements I am about to
outline for you, you will spend the duration of the war in a psychiatric
hospital. It is not a threat. Simply a fact. Is that perfectly clear to both
of you?"
"Yes, Sir," the two Air Corps officers said, almost in unison. There was no
hesitation in calling him "Sir' this time, Fine thought. Was that because I
had told them Canidy had been the AVG-sfirst ace, or did they now sense a
ruthlessness in him that had not been there when they had first walked into
the breakfast room?
I x ONE I Le Re lais de Pointe-Noire Near Casablanca, Morocco July R9,1942
Le Re lais de Pointe-Noire, a two-story stone building, sat on a huge granite
crag thrusting into the Atlantic Ocean. The granite appeared black when surf
crashed against it, hence the name Pointe-Noire. It was said that Le Re lais
de Pointe-Noire was the best restaurant on the Atlantic Coast of Morocco, but
it was perhaps best known for its chamhres spares-there were ten-on the floor
above the main restaurant.
Five of the discreet, private dining rooms-which were furnished with a table,
and a chaise lounge in case the diners decided to take a little nap after
eating-had large windows looking out upon the surf. The others faced inward
toward the narrow road that led from the shore to the granite crag.
Helm ut von Heurten-Mitnitz had reserved a chambre spare looking out on the
surf for himself and Madame Jeanine Lernoine. There was no biding from anyone
that the senior member of the Franco-German Armistice Commission for Morocco
was a guest of the restaurant. For one thing, his Mercedes-Benz automobile was
well known. And so, he suspected, was the Peugeot sedan with the Rabat license
tag he used when he wished to be more discreet. For another, he was usually
accompanied by a second Mercedes, a smaller one, carrying three members of the
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SS-SD, the secret police branch of the SS, and one member of the Sfiret6, the
French Security Service, who were charged with his protection.
His best protection at this moment, von Heurten-Mitnitz had concluded, was to
trust that people would imagine he had brought Jeanine Lemoine here tonight
for carnal purposes. He would have been pleased if it came to that, for
Jeanine was an attractive, pert-breasted female with surprisingly long legs
for a Frenchwoman. Despite the official policy of Franco-German friendship,
she was held in contempt by the French in Morocco. The wife of an officer
being held in a German POW camp, especially one who did not need the money,
should not have become "the little friend" of von Heurten-Mitnitz, who, more
than any other man in Morocco, represented the Germany that had so humiliated
France.
The entire rear wall of the chambre spare was a black mirror. Von [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]