Book: The Saboteurs
“W.E.B. Griffin is the best chronicler of the U.S. military
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P r a i s e f o r t h e M e n a t Wa r n o v e l s
b y W. E . B . G r i f f i n . . .
THE LAST HEROES
THE SECRET WARRIORS
THE SOLDIER SPIES
THE FIGHTING AGENTS
THE SABOTEURS
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W. E . B . G R I F F I N ’ S C L A S S I C S E R I E S
PRESIDENTIAL AGENT
Griffin’s electrifying new series of homeland security . . .
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credible American James Bond franchise. It’s slick as hell.”
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continued . . .
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studded with convincing insider details.” —Publishers Weekly
THE CORPS
The bestselling saga of the heroes we call Marines . . .
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HONOR BOUND
The high drama and real heroes of World War II . . .
“ROUSING . . . AN IMMENSELY ENTERTAINING AD-
VENTURE.”
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“A TAUTLY WRITTEN STORY whose twists and turns
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BROTHERHOOD OF WAR
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“AN AMERICAN EPIC.”
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BADGE OF HONOR
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A L S O B Y W. E . B . G R I F F I N
HONOR BOUND
HONOR BOUND
BLOOD AND HONOR
SECRET HONOR
BROTHERHOOD OF WAR
BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS
BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS
BOOK III: THE MAJORS
BOOK IV: THE COLONELS
BOOK V: THE BERETS
BOOK VI: THE GENERALS
BOOK VII: THE NEW BREED
BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS
BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS
THE CORPS
BOOK I: SEMPER FI
BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS
BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK
BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND
BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE
BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT
BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES
BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH
BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE
BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!
BADGE OF HONOR
BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE
BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS
BOOK III: THE VICTIM
BOOK IV: THE WITNESS
BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN
BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS
BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS
BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE
MEN AT WAR
BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES
BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS
BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES
BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS
BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS
(with William E. Butterworth IV)
PRESIDENTIAL AGENT
BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT
BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE
BOOK III: THE HUNTERS
THE
SAB TEURS
W.E.B.
GRIFFIN
AND WILLIAM E. BUTTERWORTH IV
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’
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THE SABOTEURS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the authors
Copyright © 2006 by William E. Butterworth IV.
Excerpt from The Double Agents copyright © 2007 by W. E. B. Griffin.
Cover design © 2006 by mjcdesign.com.
Cover photograph © Jack Delano/Corbis.
Cover typographic styling by Lawrence Ratzkin.
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★
T H E M E N AT WA R S E R I E S
I S R E S P E C T F U L LY D E D I C AT E D
I N H O N O R O F :
Lieutenant Aaron Bank, Infantry, AUS,
detailed OSS
(Later Colonel, Special Forces)
November 23, 1902–April 1, 2004
Lieutenant William E. Colby, Infantry, AUS,
detailed OSS
(Later Ambassador and Director, CIA)
January 4, 1920–April 28, 1996
★
It is no use saying,
“We are doing our best.”
You have got to succeed in doing
what is necessary.
—Winston S. Churchill, British Prime Minister
THE
SABOTEURS
I
[ ONE ]
Villa del Archimedes
Partanna, Sicily
1215 25 February 1943
I do not want to die that way, Professor Arturo Rossi
thought as he looked through the doorway at the far end
of the tiled hallway. It’s utterly terrible . . . inhuman.
His light olive skin paler than usual, the tall, slight
fifty-five-year-old felt himself swaying, faint from all he
had seen.
The bruised, disfigured bodies of four men lay strapped
to battered wooden gurneys inside the room. The an-
cient villa on the hillside overlooking the Mediterranean
Sea had six such rooms off of the common hall, three on
either side, each of cold coarse stone with the windows to
the outside boarded over. More than thirty men also lay
bound to gurneys in the other rooms, lit by harsh light—
alive, but barely.
A warm hand gently gripped Rossi’s left upper arm,
steadying him, and he turned to look at his soft-spoken
old friend from the University of Palermo.
Dr. Giuseppe Napoli, his wild mane of white hair
flowing, had brought Rossi here to witness with his own
2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
eyes the unspeakable acts that were being committed by
the German Schutzstaffel—the SS.
Rossi had followed the elderly physician’s stooped walk
down the hallway in shocked silence. He had glanced
through the staggered doorways and noticed that the
condition of the men worsened room to room, from
mildly sedated with no obvious illness to grave with as-
tonishing symptoms.
And then they had come to this last room, with its
horrid stench of death.
It was the worst of all.
The torsos were mostly covered by dirty gray sweat-
and blood-stained gowns, the arms and legs exposed,
and the wrists and ankles secured to the gurneys by
worn-leather straps. All the bodies bore some sort of
rash. The legs on a couple also showed small open
wounds—infected and festering—while the arms and legs
of the others were spotted with blisters filled with dark
fluid.
Rossi noticed that the smell of rotting flesh was made
worse—if that was possible—by the unemptied tin buck-
ets hanging beneath the gurneys. These held what had
been the contents of the men’s bowels, which with all
Teutonic efficiency had passed through a hole fashioned
in the gurneys for unattended evacuation.
Rossi quickly turned away from the doorway. His
throat contracted, and he felt his eyes moisten, then a
tear slip down his right cheek.
It was clear that these men—all Sicilians, as his friend
had warned him—suffered greatly in their final weeks
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3
and days. Yet the contorted faces of the dead suggested
that not even death had brought them any real peace.
Rossi realized that what disturbed him—beyond the
obvious outrage at such atrocities against his fellow
man—was that foreigners could come in and inflict such
terrible things upon Sicilians in their own country in a
villa named for Archimedes, perhaps the greatest of all Si-
cilians.
And that they could do it with what appeared to be
absolute impunity.
But how can anything be done about something no one
knows—or admits—is happening?
The villa, built by the Normans nine centuries earlier,
overlooked the sea a little more than ten kilometers up
the coast from Palermo’s Quattro Canti quarter—the
“four corners” city center—and the Norman-built Royal
Palace, as well as the University of Palermo.
Far enough away so that any screams or gunshots or
whatever would be lost to the blowing winds. And the secret
remains safe. . . .
“So now you know,” Napoli whispered.
Rossi looked at his friend, who held a cotton handker-
chief over his nose and mouth. Rossi could see in his eyes
genuine sadness and more than a little fear.
Rossi nodded softly and risked another glance around
the cold, hard room.
“The Germans have brought yellow fever here,” the
doctor continued. “They use these human hosts to keep
the virus alive . . . and, I think, to serve as an example of
what they are capable of doing. I fear that this is just the
4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
beginning. I hear the Germans are experimenting else-
where with other unorthodox methods—worse ones that
also could be brought here.”
Rossi had heard such stories, too, when he had visited
the University of Rome. Quietly told, they described
what was happening in the concentration camps run by
the SS. Humans treated worse than laboratory rats. Bod-
ies dissected without benefit of anesthesia. Legs and arms
and torsos collected and stacked dispassionately, like so
many cords of firewood.
The stories recounted conditions and acts so horrific,
it was said, that German soldiers had to be bribed with
bonuses of cigarettes and salamis and schnapps in order
for them to agree to serve there.
And now, here in Sicily, this outrage of using humans—
Sicilians—to keep alive a deadly virus strain.
“Where are they getting these poor people?” Rossi
asked softly.
“Sturmbannführer Müller of the SD—”
“The Sicherheitsdienst?”
Napoli nodded.
Rossi knew the reputation of the SD, the SS’s intelli-
gence branch. They were ruthless in the execution of
their job: to take out any threat to the Nazis.
“—he has ordered them brought in from the island
prisons.”
“That’s where they took town leaders who opposed
Mussolini. Many were mafia.”
“And many of these here are mafia. Sturmbannführer
Müller says the SD, with Il Duce’s blessing, wants to
T H E S A B O T E U R S
5
neutralize them. This way, they’re not a possible threat—
and they’re no longer ‘useless eaters.’ ”
Rossi nodded slowly. That was another of the stories
he had heard in Rome. As far as the Nazis were con-
cerned, you either actively contributed to the war effort
or you were a burden—a useless eater.
“So Müller says at least now they are useful,” Napoli
said.
Rossi stared him in the eyes.
“For what? I do not understand why they bring this
virus.”
Napoli checked behind them and down the hallway
before responding.
“They’re useful in the preparations for the Americans
and British,” he said softly.
Rossi shook his head.
Napoli went on: “There is much talk that they could
invade Sicily and then Italy on their way to Germany. As
Hitler has not sent many German soldiers here—perhaps
cannot send many, as rumors suggest he is stretched thin
on other fronts—he needs other methods to defend
against such an invasion. And so the few forces that he
has sent—Müller, for example—have very short and very
mean tempers. . . .”
The two men glanced at the bodies on the gurneys.
Rossi softly finished the thought: “. . . And they are
not at all unwilling to do the unspeakable.”
They stood there a long time before Rossi broke the
silence.
“What about Carlo? He would never stand for this.”
6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
A brilliant mathematician and a kind man, Dr. Carlo
Modica was, like Napoli, in his seventies, and had served
as the head of the University of Palermo for almost ten
years. In his specialty as a metallurgist, Rossi had at times
worked closely with him.
Napoli put his hands on Rossi’s shoulders.
“Carlo is the reason I felt you had to see this for your -
self.”
“You’re not telling me that he is permitting this?”
Napoli stared him in the eyes.
“What I am telling you, Arturo, is that Sturmbann-
führer Müller made it clear to Dr. Modica that his partic-
ipation would be in his best interest. Müller said that it
would send a good message to others if someone in such
a prestigious position participated.”
Rossi’s eyes grew larger.
“With all due respect, I would like to hear Carlo tell
me that personally.”
Napoli dropped his hands to his sides.
“He cannot,” he said softly, and his eyes moistened.
“Why?”
“Because Müller has put me in his place here.”
“I don’t—”
“Carlo was injecting the virus in a—” he paused,
searching for the right word “—in a ‘patient’ when the
‘patient’ struggled. Carlo was pricked by the needle or
scratched by the ‘patient’ . . . that part is unclear . . . but
the result is that he somehow infected himself. . . .”
“He has yellow fever?”
Napoli shook his head.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
7
“Had yellow fever.”
He nodded to the men on the gurneys.
Rossi looked, then looked harder, and suddenly was
sick to his stomach.
He now recognized the grotesque body on the far
right as that of the gentle mathematician.
Dear Holy Mother, Rossi thought, and motioned with
his hand in the sign of the cross.
“None of us is safe,” Napoli whispered.
[ TWO ]
Woburn Square
London, England
2010 25 February 1943
Major Richard M. Canidy, United States Army Air Corps,
bounded unnoticed up the stone steps to the first-floor
flat at 16 Woburn Mansions. Solidly built and good-
looking, the twenty-five-year-old displayed such confi-
dence in his quick stride that if any bystanders had seen
him approach the massive wooden door of the flat they
would have mistakenly believed that not only was he sup-
posed to be there but that he may very well have owned
the place.
The flat instead was home to the beautiful Ann Cham-
bers, with whom he had recently shared—and he hoped
soon would again share—some very special times.
No matter how much that idea appealed to him, how-
ever, right now it was not the reason for his haste to get
to the flat—and inside.
8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
If I don’t get the door open in the next second, he
thought, I’m going to piss my pants. My back teeth are
floating. . . .
Canidy knew that the door had a solid-brass handle-
and-lock set, the type with a thumb latch that, when left
unlocked, a simple depressing of the latch caused the bolt
to pull back from its place inside the doorjamb and the
door could then be swung inward. And he knew that it
was old and worn.
If the lock isn’t busted, he thought, odds are good she’s
left it unlocked again.
In one fluid move, he found the handle in the dark
with his right hand, pushed on the latch with his thumb,
and leaned forward in anticipation of the door’s swinging
inward.
A split second after the electrical pulses traveled from
his thumb to his brain, and the brain interpreted these
pulses to mean that the latch did not depress and that the
door was in fact locked, his brain received priority elec-
trical pulses of information from his right shoulder—in
the form of a sharp pain—that the brain then interpreted
to mean the door had not swung inward . . . that it had
not moved at all.
Dammit!
He winced and yanked at the door handle, pushing at
the latch again and again, causing the lock set to rattle.
The door remained locked, but the rattle told him
that there was more than a little slop in the old mecha-
nism.
Hitting the solid door did his bladder absolutely no
T H E S A B O T E U R S
9
good, and he found himself doing a little anxious dance
to try to hold back the inevitable.
He quickly pulled out his pocketknife, opened the
blade, and carefully slipped it in the crack between the
door edge and the doorframe, just above where the bolt
engaged the strike plate. As fast as he could, he worked the
knife blade downward and then methodically back and
forth, the blade little by little depressing the bolt against
its spring until the bolt was clear of the doorjamb.
And the door swung inward.
He entered the flat and slammed the door shut behind
him, the bolt clicking back in place.
It was even darker inside the flat, but the absence of
light only served to heighten Canidy’s sense of smell.
And he could very much detect the sweet, delicate scent
of a woman.
He stumbled around in the dark till he found—
actually, ran into—the lamp where he remembered it
being and clicked it on.
The flat, nicely furnished with ornate old furniture
covered in well-worn fabrics and soft leather, opened
onto a large main room, off of which were two smallish
bedrooms, a single bath with a toilet and a shower, and a
kitchen. There were dark hardwood floors throughout, as
well as thick woolen rugs. A marble fireplace topped with
a four-by-five-foot mirror graced the main living area.
He made a beeline for the head.
The leak surprised even him with its duration; he con-
sidered timing it with his wristwatch chronometer. He
pledged never to pass another crapper without at least
1 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
considering how full his bladder might be and the dis-
tance to the next crapper should he choose not to stop.
When he had finally finished and went to wash his
hands, he caught himself making a massive yawn. Now
he did check his watch.
Only eight-fifteen? Jesus, this has been a long day—didn’t
think we’d ever get wheels-up out of Casablanca this morn-
ing—and she may not be here for some time. Wouldn’t want
to miss what could be a long, passionate night. . . .
He walked to the couch, turning out the light as he
passed the lamp.
He yawned again, and shortly after he lay down and
his head hit the tasseled pillow he was snoring.
As Ann Chambers rounded the darkened street corner,
she caught her right heel in a crack in the sidewalk that
had been left uneven by the bombs of the Luftwaffe.
“Shit,” she whispered in her soft Southern drawl.
When the heel caught, it had stuck fast, and her foot
had come completely out of the shoe, causing her to place
her stocking-covered foot on the cold ground. She reached
down and grasped the heel to pull it free of the sidewalk and
found that it had almost completely separated from where it
attached to the sole.
The twenty-year-old blonde sighed. This was her sec-
ond-to-last pair of really nice—and really comfortable—
shoes, and she wasn’t sure how soon the replacements
she had written home for would arrive. She did a lot of
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 1
walking—everyone in London did a lot of walking—and
for her, comfortable shoes rated high on the list of ab-
solute necessities.
So that she would not tear the small leather tag that
barely connected the heel at the back, she put down her
heavy, black leather briefcase and used both hands to
carefully tug at the heel until it pulled free.
Ann held up the shoe, trying to get a decent look at
the damage in the dim light. She thought that there
might be a small chance she could repair the shoe herself
because she knew there was next to no chance of getting
a cobbler, even if she could find one that hadn’t been
blown out of business, to do so in a timely fashion.
A nicely dressed middle-aged man approached and
stopped.
Great, she thought. Just what I need now. . . .
“Can I be of any help, lass?”
Ann, still kneeling, looked up at him.
“Thank you, but no.”
“You’re sure?”
The only thing I need is protection from strangers who
can’t take no for an answer.
“Yes,” she snapped.
She saw him make a face and immediately felt bad. Be-
ing frustrated about the broken shoe—not to mention
going home to an empty flat—was not his fault.
In a softened tone, she added, “I’m almost home.
Thank you.”
He turned smartly on his heel. “Very well.”
1 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
As the man walked away, she stood up and looked
again at the shoe and still couldn’t tell how badly it was
damaged.
She frowned, then—despite the fact that her right
foot was close to numb from the cold—removed her
other shoe, collected her briefcase, and padded all but
barefoot in her now-torn hosiery the final block to her flat
at 16 Woburn Mansions.
As she went, she could not help but be saddened again
by the ugly gaps in the buildings. German bombs had de-
stroyed large sections of the city—the damage had been
utterly indiscriminate—and there was more and more of
the destruction almost every day.
It was no different here at Woburn Square, where
bombs had taken out ten of the twenty-four entrances
and reduced what not very long ago had been a lush and
meticulously kept park to nothing more than a burned
fence and bare trees.
Adding another insult, the once-manicured park was
now pocked from where crews had dug dirt to fill sand-
bags and dug out small shelters, for those who could not
reach a basement or subway shelter quickly enough when
bombs began to fall.
Sixteen Woburn Mansions had survived, but its win-
dows now were boarded with plywood and its limestone
façade scorched black from the fires that had raged up
and down the street.
Ann walked up the short flight of stone steps, dug into
her briefcase, and came out with a key ring, then put one
of the keys in the heavy brass lock of the massive wooden
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 3
door and, when she heard the loud metallic clunk of the
tumbler turning, depressed the lever above the handle
with her thumb, leaned her shoulder into the door, and
walked inside.
She went to the lamp, clicked it on, and sighed. It was
good to be home. Ann appreciated the fact that while her
flat was not what one would describe as opulent, it was
certainly comfortable—and superior to most flats in Lon-
don, particularly the ones on Woburn Square that now
were nothing but rubble.
And most important, for now, it was hers alone.
Sixteen Woburn Mansions had been assigned to the
Chambers News Service, through its London bureau
chief, by the Central London Housing Authority acting
on a memorandum from CNS’s main office in Atlanta,
duly relayed through the SHAEF (Supreme Headquar-
ters, Allied Expeditionary Force) billeting officer, that
had stated that the flat was intended to house all five
CNS female employees in London, names to be provided
as soon as they were available and could be forwarded
from Atlanta.
And while the flat technically did indeed currently
house all of the female employees of the Chambers News
Service London bureau—in the person of one Miss Ann
Chambers—what the bureau chief did not know was that
it had been Miss Chambers who initiated the memoran-
dum from the Atlanta office just after having obtained an
assignment to the London office and just prior to her ar-
rival in England, and that while it was theoretically possi-
ble there would be more female employees sent to serve
1 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
in the London bureau, for the near term at the very least
it was not at all likely.
This caused Ann some genuine mixed feelings. She
knew that she was bending the rules. She knew that
people in London were packed in flats, and ones smaller
than hers. But she also knew that she would give up the
flat in a heartbeat when she was sure that it had finally
served its purpose—helping her have a private place to
land the love of her life—and she was determined that
that was going to be soon . . . very soon.
After that, she promised herself, she would make
amends for this bit of selfishness.
The bureau chief suspected, of course, that Ann had
used the system to her advantage, but it made no sense to
fight it.
For one thing, Ann Chambers was the daughter of
the owner of Chambers Publishing Company and the
Chambers News Service—and, accordingly, was the Lon-
don bureau chief’s boss’s boss.
For another, she was a fully accredited correspondent,
and a damned good one. She had real talent, wasn’t
afraid of hard work, and consequently turned in solid fea-
ture articles that the news service sent out on the wires
around the world. Her Profiles of Courage series about
ordinary everyday citizens serving in extraordinary roles
during wartime had become wildly successful.
Why, then, would the bureau chief want to upset the
apple cart over what, at least for the time being, was a
technicality? As far as he knew, more female employees
might be on the way; he certainly could use them.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 5
There was no question that Ann was more than earn-
ing her keep. Which was a good thing because there was
no doubt in anyone’s mind that the last thing that Bran-
don Chambers, chairman of the board of the Chambers
Publishing Company, would have stood for was blind
nepotism. He was a tough, no-nonsense businessman—
some said a real sonofabitch, a reputation that Chambers
wasted no effort to dispel or even dispute—who had
built a world-class news service from the ground up and
would not make a token hire of a family member unable
to pull his or her own weight.
Early on, Ann had shown that she had a way with
words—much like her father—and so while it came as no
real surprise to Brandon Chambers, he was nonetheless
not happy when out of the blue she showed up at his At-
lanta office and announced that she had dropped out of
Bryn Mawr and said that if her father did not give back
the part-time correspondent job that she had held off
and on since high school, she was reasonably sure Gard-
ner Cowles—who owned Look magazine and a lot else—
could find something for her to do. And very likely make
it a full-time position.
Cowles was Brandon Chambers’s bitter competitor
and just cutthroat enough to find great glee in providing
Ann Chambers with a job at Look magazine, which was
regularly beating the life out of Life.
Thus, there was no changing his daughter’s mind. “I
wonder where she got that lovely stubborn personality
trait?” Mrs. Brandon Chambers had said with more than
a little sarcasm when her husband phoned with the news
1 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
of their daughter’s plan—and Ann went to work that day
in the Atlanta home office as a full-time Chambers News
Service correspondent.
Now, some months later, she had had herself trans-
ferred to the London bureau.
That, too, had triggered howls of protest from the
corporate office of the chairman of the board—he never
believed any woman should be a war correspondent, and
certainly not someone of his own flesh and blood—but it
quickly became another father-daughter battle lost by
Brandon Chambers.
Dick Canidy had been asleep twenty minutes when he
snored so loudly that he woke himself up. It took him a
moment to get his bearings, and as his brain told him
where he was he heard a key being put in the front door,
the lock turning, and the door opening.
He started to jump up but stopped to admire the sil-
houette of the well-built young woman in the doorway.
Ann closed and locked the door and carefully found her
way across the flat in the dark.
He laid his head back on the pillow. Her presence ex-
cited him. He could feel the beating of his heart begin-
ning to build and a slight sweat forming on his hands.
After a moment, he ever so slightly caught her scent . . .
and smiled.
He watched as she padded to the fireplace— Is she bare-
foot? he wondered—and dropped her shoes and leather
bag to the floor— She is barefoot! Or at least in stockings.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 7
Ann groped around until she found the matches, then lit
the candles at either end of the marble mantel. They
started to glow brightly, the light filling more and more
of the flat, and he lay in the shadows on the couch.
Jesus Christ, if I say anything now it’s liable to scare her
out of her skin!
Then she started to take off her outer clothes.
Now, this could get interesting. . . .
Ann put down the matches on the mantel, then pulled
off her overcoat and without turning tossed it over the
back of the couch. She slipped her V-neck sweater over
her head—uncovering a white blouse that fitted her form
tightly—and was about to throw it on the couch, too,
when she had a second thought.
She put the armpit of the sweater to her nose, sniffed
with more than a little apprehension, grunted Ugh—then
threw it to the couch.
When she next adjusted her skirt, pulling it up at the
waistband and twisting it slightly, the wool caused her
buttocks to itch and she found herself vigorously scratch-
ing her fanny with the fingernails of both hands.
Those unfortunate events now handled, Ann arranged
the candles to her satisfaction, then examined herself in
the mirror and fixed her hair mussed by the sweater.
Looking at herself, she could not help but think of
Sara Spenser and the profile of her that she had spent the
day writing.
For most of the last week, Ann had followed the
1 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
nineteen-year-old, spunky, petite brunette as she’d served
with the Light Rescue Section of London’s Civil Defence.
Under a 1914 tin hat, draped in baggy woolen men’s
pants and heavy overcoat and clunking around in
“Wellies”—men’s rubber Wellington boots—three sizes
too big, Sara worked twenty-four-hour shifts, carefully
but quickly digging through rubble to uncover victims
whose homes or businesses had been bombed and then
carrying them by canvas stretcher to the buses converted
into ambulances that waited nearby.
It had taken a couple of days—and one long, teary
night over pints of stout at the Prince’s Bangers & Mash
Pub—to get Sara to open up, really open up, but Ann
had, and she learned that Sara was all that was left of her
immediate Spenser family.
Her brothers had died in battle, and her parents and
grandparents were killed during a blitz when a series of
bombs leveled their neighborhood. There were some-
where some second cousins twice or thrice removed, but
for all the contact between the families, she said, “They
may as well be bloody Aborigines. Could be dead, too.
Who knows? That’s how close we are.”
Ann was not sure if it was Sara’s matter-of-fact deliv-
ery, or the realization that Sara was about Ann’s age and
given some tragic turn Sara’s story could be Ann’s story,
or all the beer they had consumed—or a combination
thereof—but Ann was terribly saddened for Sara.
Sara, however, would have none of it. She would not
accept pity, she said. “Others have lost everything, yet
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 9
here I am alive and well and with my life ahead of me. I
can—I must—carry on.”
Ann had found strength in Sara Spenser. She was im-
pressed with her brave front, and perhaps even more so
with her ability to find humor in some of the most diffi-
cult of times.
Sara had turned heads with her laughter that night in
the noisy pub as she told Ann about the time her Light
Rescue Section had been removing rubble of another
bombed-out building, first evacuating victim after victim
still alive to the ambulances, then dealing with the dead,
then uncovering an older gentlemen, looking a bit bewil-
dered but clearly alive, pants around his ankles and sur-
rounded by debris one would expect to find in a water
closet.
Sara had taken a deep swallow of her stout, then re-
called, “As I helped him pull up his trousers, I asked if he
was all right. He nodded and said, ‘It’s just that it’s
rather odd that one moment, here I am sitting on the
loo, and the next, when I pull the chain, down comes the
bloody house!’ ”
Ann had spent exhausting days running around Lon-
don’s bomb-debris-filled streets to track down stories
and interview people, then often-sleepless nights await-
ing the haunting sounds of the air-raid sirens.
More than once she had wondered why she didn’t just
go home to Atlanta . . . or even back to Bryn Mawr. Re-
turn to the safety and sanity of the States. But then she
realized that she might not meet a person such as Sara
2 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
otherwise, and she knew there was no way she could not
be here. Writing about the war had become her duty.
In the glow of the candles in the mirror, Ann smiled at
herself.
And I didn’t really come here for the work. I came here
for Dick.
And then her throat caught.
Where the hell is he? It’s been almost two weeks since he
left and not a word. For all I know he could be lost or cap-
tured or . . . She tried to force herself not to think it . . .
dead.
Although Major Richard M. Canidy wore the uniform
of the United States Army Air Forces, Ann Chambers
knew that the dark-haired aviator worked for an outfit
called the Office of Strategic Services. More than worked
for it—was pretty high up in it.
It was more or less known that the OSS was a military
intelligence operation, a secretive collection of spies, an-
alysts, and such from various branches of the military
and the government and corporate America, some very
highly connected, reflecting in part the fact that its head,
Colonel William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, enjoyed the
confidence and close friendship of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt going back to their days in law school at Co-
lumbia.
But that was all she knew—despite her sniffing around
on the side—and it was more than Canidy was willing to
tell her. Even this current mission of his was one he had
said not one word about.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 1
Except to say good-bye here at the flat in a very spe-
cial, very personal way.
Which was why, she thought, and made a mischievous
grin in the mirror, the flat would always be kept only for
her. Her and Dick.
If he ever comes back.
Dick, with the warmth and smell of Ann on her coat and
sweater, thought that he had nearly died and gone to
heaven. He moved under their weight and caused a spring
in the couch seat to creak.
He looked toward Ann and saw her eyes dart in the
mirror, searching.
After a moment, she turned toward the couch.
What the hell. Now or never.
As he started to sit up, he said, “Hey . . .”
Ann had heard a noise. Was it the floor creaking?
She held her breath and looked in the mirror, search-
ing to see if there was someone in the room behind her.
She saw nothing, then quickly turned to look more care-
fully.
Then she thought she had heard a man’s voice—
Dick’s? —but knew that that had to be impossible.
Just imagined it, she thought, just wished it.
She shook her head, telling herself it had been too
long a day.
2 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Then suddenly she saw the clothes she had tossed on
the couch were . . . moving?
She started to scream—but then there was Dick
Canidy coming out from under her coat, the sweater still
on his head.
He was dressed in uniform, his eyes smiling, his arms
open wide.
“Hey, baby!” he said. “Surprised?”
Ann caught her breath, then felt slightly unsteady on
her legs.
“Dick!” she cried softly.
She padded across the room into his arms, pulled the
sweater off his head, buried her head in his neck. She felt
his arms wrap around and hold her tightly. It was an in-
credible feeling.
She turned to look up at him, smiled, and they kissed
deeply.
When finally they had separated, Dick lovingly cupped
her face with both of his hands. He thought he noticed
something on her cheek, gently angled it toward the can-
dlelight, then saw on her fair skin a line of tears that glis-
tened with the reflection of the flame.
He felt his body quiver, slightly and involuntarily, as
he realized just how incredibly beautiful he found Ann
and how deeply she affected him.
“Miss me?” he said softly and kissed the tears.
Ann was already unbuttoning Dick’s shirt.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 3
“So how did you get in the flat?” Ann said as she poured
port into the wineglass that Dick Canidy held, filling it
about halfway.
They were lying side by side on the floor before the
fireplace—which now crackled as it burned brightly—on
top of giant pillows covered in a fine silk fabric and under
a goose-down-stuffed, cotton-fabric-covered duvet.
Ann put the cork back in the squat fat bottle, placed
the bottle near the fire to keep it warm, then snuggled up
to Canidy.
He offered the glass to her, raised an eyebrow, and she
leaned forward and took a big sip, then leaned forward
and kissed him. She wondered if it was possible to feel
any more warmth in any more places of her body at once.
Canidy smiled and finally said, “Getting in places—
mostly where I’m not supposed to be—is what I do for a
living.”
He shrugged.
“This place is no challenge—boarded windows, half the
building missing—”
“Is that where you were?” she pursued. “Where you
weren’t supposed to be?”
“Annie,” he said, sighing. “You know I can’t—”
“I know, I know. But you can’t blame me for trying.”
She looked into his eyes.
“I worry about you. I worry about you and me.”
“Shhhh,” he said, looking back into her eyes and
gently touching his index finger to her lips. “Stop.
Don’t. We’re fine. And now that I’m back and certain
2 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
problems have been solved, I plan to be around for as
long as I can.”
Beaming, Ann quickly sat up, and as she did the du-
vet slipped, exposing her bosom.
Dick smiled and kissed her left breast.
“Promise?” she said softly, modestly pulling up the
duvet.
“I go where I’m ordered, Annie. I can’t—”
“Promise?” she repeated, this time more forcefully.
“Please?”
Dick took the glass of port and put it beside the bot-
tle, then wiggled under the duvet and wrapped himself
around her.
“Promise,” he said softly, knowing sometime—
probably soon—he would have to break it.
[ THREE ]
Brooklyn Army Base and Terminal
Brooklyn, New York
0545 26 February 1943
“Tony the Gut” Lucchese, the five-foot-seven, 220-
pound gang boss of local 213, International Longshore-
man’s Association, stood near the edge of the industrial
dock as icy gusts came across the East River.
Son of a bitch! the thirty-five-year-old thought, turn-
ing his back to the wind. I’m gonna freeze my fuckin’ nuts
off out here.
He took a final puff of what was left of his stub of a ci-
gar, threw the butt into the dark water, then thrust his
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 5
hands into the pockets of his heavy woolen overcoat, his
fat fingers hitting the grip of the .357 caliber revolver
he’d put in the right pocket.
Lucchese looked up as an olive drab jeep floated past,
hanging from a cable of a loading boom on the dock,
then shivered violently and wondered if the shiver had
been caused by the bitter cold—or his outright fear.
Seventy percent of the war goods and soldiers shipped
to Europe passed through New York area terminals—
much of that going through the Brooklyn terminal.
The ILA controlled it all.
The union saw to it that the loading went on
smoothly round the clock—and on time, like that bastard
Mussolini ran his trains—because not only was the ship-
ping critical to winning the war, keeping the pace steady
was important to the ILA boys doing the skimming.
The more they moved, the less anyone noticed a con-
tainer here and pallet there had been “misplaced” in
transit.
This was not lost on Lucchese.
It don’t take no Road Scholar to figure out I can get
whacked for doing this thing, he thought.
And Lucchese knew that if they didn’t whack him for
causing the loading of the ships to slow—or stop—then
they’d likely do it for him going behind the ILA’s back
and working for Harry Bridges in the first place. The
head of the stevedore unions on the West Coast, from
Seattle to San Diego, was trying to muscle his way in on
East Coast business—and the ILA locals weren’t happy
about that shit at all.
2 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Lucchese mindlessly kicked at the snow with the toe
of his boot. He still had time to back out of this thing,
time to save his ass. Just pick up the phone and call it off.
But . . . Bridges’s boys would be really pissed, and he
would blow this, his big chance to move up when
Bridges came in, to be at the front of the line—to be the
real player they kept saying he should be.
Lucchese pushed back his round, pressed-steel safety
hat. He scanned the lines of railroad flatcars and semi-
truck flatbed trailers that waited to off-load tanks and
trucks and munitions and medicine and food and more—
everything desperately needed to fight and win a war.
The lines went back as far as he could see in the dimly lit
dockyard.
At the head of the lines, booms on the dock and ships
moved like giant fingers lifting the pallets and containers
and vehicles into EC2 (Emergency, Cargo, Large Capac-
ity) ships. Each 441-foot-long vessel could transport the
same amount as three hundred railroad cars, and a dozen
EC2s were moored here, taking on cargo, while a couple
dozen more were staged in the bay, waiting for their turn
at the dock.
It was no secret that these so-called Liberty ships were
being built in record time at U.S. shipyards on the East,
West, and Gulf Coasts—and being sunk by enemy torpe-
does damned near as fast.
Convoys, each with scores of Liberty ships, rushed
eastward across the Atlantic, only to be hunted down by
packs of German U-boats. Hundreds upon hundreds of
the ships and their crews were blasted into the icy-cold
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 7
depths—seven and a half million tons of critical cargo
lost in 1942 alone.
The Nazi submarines were so deadly effective that the
Allies considered a Liberty ship to have earned back its
cost if it made just one trip across the Atlantic Ocean.
Which made, the nervous Lucchese knew, today’s act
all the more volatile, if not reprehensible.
A ship horn suddenly blew and Tony thought he’d
shit his pants.
Aw, fuck it. I gotta do this thing.
Tony the Gut walked up to the door of the tin box of a
dock office that he shared with International Longshore-
man’s Association gang bosses Michael Francis “Iron
Mike” Mahoney and Franco Giuseppi “Little Joe” Biag-
gio. He grabbed the knob, then stopped short of turning
and pulling it.
He was still anxious, not to mention breathing a little
heavily from the walk, and the feeling in his ample belly
still was not a good one. Maybe not so much dread.
Maybe more like a mix of emotions—fear for sure, anxi-
ety . . . hell, even a little excitement muddled in there.
Yeah, Lucchese thought, that’s all. C’mon, you can do
this!
He took a deep breath, exhaled, turned the knob, and
pulled the door open.
The twelve-by-twelve paneled office held—barely—
the wooden desks of the three gang bosses. Space was
tight; if two of the men leaned back in their chairs at the
2 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
same time, they hit. Each desk was pushed up against a
wall of its own. The top of Lucchese’s desk butted the
bottom of the grimy plate-glass window—with the dusty,
three-month-old merry christmas! & happy new
year! banner draped across the top—that overlooked
the waterfront. Mahoney’s was opposite it, at the foot
of a large chalkboard that was a grid of white boxes in
which the gang bosses kept track of who worked load-
ing what ship and at what job—winch drivers, boom
men, jitney drivers, and so on. The third desk, Biaggio’s,
was against the wall directly across from the door.
They shared the office’s one battered telephone, coal
black with a long, frayed cord. It was on Biaggio’s desk,
next to a filthy ashtray and a beat-up RCA radio softly
playing music.
Biaggio, a compact five-foot-three, 120-pound thirty-
year-old with piercing gray eyes and a mostly bald head
that he kept trimmed to the scalp, was talking on the
phone when Lucchese entered the office. The bitter cold
wind blasted in from behind him, carrying some snow-
flakes.
“Close the goddamned door already,” Mahoney
snapped, grabbing at papers being blown about his desk.
Mahoney, who was thirty-two and had thick black hair
that he kept slicked back, stood as tall as Lucchese but
weighed 160, every ounce of muscle toned from long
hours at Nicky’s Gym.
Biaggio looked up from his desk, said, “I gotta go,”
into the phone receiver and put it in its cradle.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 9
He caught Lucchese’s attention.
“We need to talk, Tony. Have a seat.”
Lucchese looked at him. Biaggio was the brightest of
the three, on top of everything. He’d been brought in by
the ILA not quite six months ago, when the union hall
boss said Lucchese “could use a little help, what with the
push to load ships faster and all.”
Biaggio showed that he could handle his own work
and at the same time know what was going on with Luc-
chese’s and Mahoney’s gangs.
Since just after Biaggio first arrived, Lucchese had
tried—but usually failed—to be one step ahead of Little
Joe. The second-guessing tended to annoy Biaggio, but
Lucchese never stopped.
Must be that boom thing he’s worried about, Lucchese
thought now.
He said, “Engineering’s fixed that winch on that
ten-ton—”
“Sit,” Mahoney said pointedly as he stood up.
Lucchese stared at him.
“What the hell’s up with you?”
“Tony, don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Bi-
aggio said quietly. “Sit. Please.”
Lucchese moved toward his chair, making an agree-
able gesture with his hands up, palms out. He shrugged
out of his heavy coat and dropped his huge frame into
the wooden chair. He nodded toward the phone.
“I’m expecting a call, just so’s you know.”
“We know,” Mahoney said.
3 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Lucchese raised an eyebrow, his face questioning.
“Everything,” Biaggio added, staring at Lucchese.
“We know everything.”
Lucchese looked blankly at Biaggio.
What the hell? Everything?
Biaggio stared straight back, said nothing, just let that
information take root. He then, with some element of
theater, pulled a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes from his
shirt pocket, slid one from the pack and put it to his lips.
He produced a scratched and dinged stainless-steel
Zippo lighter from his pants pocket and, with a flourish,
lit the cigarette, clicked the top closed with a flick of the
wrist, and put the Zippo on the desk.
He held the pack out to Lucchese.
“No, thanks,” Lucchese said and cleared his throat,
hoping that no one noticed the nervous slight stammer.
He felt himself starting to sweat, despite the cold of-
fice, and hoped that that was not evident, either. A ciga-
rette could calm him.
“Wait. Yeah, Little Joe, I’ll have a smoke.”
After he’d lit Lucchese’s cigarette and put the Zippo
in his pants pocket, Biaggio continued: “Look, we know
who you’ve been talking to, who you’re waiting to talk
to”—he glanced at the phone—“and, most important,
we know why. So don’t try bullshitting us.”
Lucchese felt his stomach twist into a knot. He took a
pull on the cigarette and looked out the window.
Biaggio said, “You want to tell us why?”
Why what? You don’t know shit, Lucchese thought.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 1
He said, “Tell you why what?”
“Why you’re doing this thing?” Biaggio said, his tone
suggesting that he was beyond annoyed.
Lucchese inhaled deeply, then let it out.
“What thing?”
Mahoney slammed his fist on the desk. “Don’t bull-
shit us!”
Lucchese slid his chair back and away, toward the
door.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
“You!” Mahoney said, clearly upset. “You—”
“Easy, Mike,” Biaggio said.
Biaggio glanced out the window. No one was paying
any particular attention to the gang bosses’ office. Men
and machines worked at a steady pace. A jeep on a cable
swung past the window.
Biaggio locked eyes with Lucchese.
“Harry Bridges,” Biaggio said slowly.
Oh shit! Lucchese thought.
He automatically glanced at the phone, then hated
himself for it when he saw that Biaggio’s eyes had fol-
lowed his eyes to it.
Lucchese did not trust himself to speak at first. He
took a puff, exhaled. Then: “Yeah? Okay, so what about
Bridges? It’s no secret a bunch of us from the ILA lis-
tened to him speak.”
“But after that,” Biaggio said, “ ’most everybody took
the hint and forgot about him.”
“And what if I didn’t?” Lucchese said.
3 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Biaggio sighed. He stubbed out his cigarette in the
half-full ashtray on his desk, lit another. He picked up the
whole phone and slammed it on Lucchese’s desk.
“What you’re gonna do when it rings is this,” Biaggio
said, his eyes cold gray. “You’re gonna tell Bridges that
you’ve done this thing, that it’s happening, then you’re
gonna say you gotta go and you hang up. That’s it.”
“It’s not Bridges who’s calling,” Lucchese said defi-
antly.
This, he knew, was of course true—if not entirely
transparent—because he also knew it was one of Bridges’s
men who was supposed to call.
Biaggio shook his head, then exploded: “Then you
fucking well tell whoever calls that you’ve done the fuck-
ing thing and it’s fucking happening! You got that?”
He paused, caught his breath.
Then he more quietly added, disgusted, “Jesusfuck-
ingchrist, Tony. How stupid do you think I am?”
Slowly shaking his head, Lucchese looked down at his
boots, then up and out the window, avoiding eye con-
tact. This had all seemed so much easier when it was be-
ing planned.
How’d it go bad? Who talked?
As he watched a cable swing two U.S. Army one-ton
Ben Hur trailers past the window en route to a ship hold,
Lucchese thought that he might cry.
The phone rang.
Tony turned to the sound, looked at the phone,
looked at the clock on the wall showing 8:01, looked at
Biaggio.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 3
It rang a second time.
“Go on and get it,” Biaggio said after a moment.
But it had stopped ringing.
“I’m supposed to answer on the third ring next time
they call, at two after.”
Lucchese looked up at the clock and watched the sec-
ond hand tick around the face.
When the phone had rung three times, Lucchese put
the receiver to his ear and said, “Yeah?”
Biaggio sensed Mahoney moving, and when he looked
at him he saw that he was leaning down and pulling his
Colt .38 caliber revolver out from where he stashed it in
the bottom drawer of his desk. Mahoney swung out the
cylinder of the snub-nose, checked to see that it was
loaded, then softly clicked the cylinder back in. He pulled
up his left pants cuff, tucked the pistol in his sock, snug-
ging it inside the top of his leather boot, then pulled the
cuff back down. He looked at Lucchese.
“Uh-huh,” Lucchese was saying into the phone, his
eyes glued on Biaggio. “That’s right. It’s done. I’ve
passed the word.”
Lucchese listened for a moment, said, “Right,” then
hung up the receiver.
He looked at Biaggio. “Now what?”
Biaggio stubbed out his cigarette.
“You wait,” Biaggio said. “Right there, by the
phone.”
“Another call?”
“Let’s go, Mike,” Biaggio said, standing up. “We got
work to do.”
3 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“A call from who?” Lucchese pursued.
Little Joe and Iron Mike ignored the question.
Lucchese watched them pull on their heavy coats and
thick knit caps and steel safety helmets, then go through
the door without saying another word.
The icy wind blew in, and for a moment there was the
loud drone of the heavy equipment outside before the
door slammed shut with the wind.
The gang boss office was now quiet except for the
sound of the radio playing. Softly, International Long-
shoreman’s Association gang boss Anthony Christopher
“Tony the Gut” Lucchese started crying.
“Oh, God . . .” he sobbed.
As Biaggio and Mahoney walked away from the office,
they were aware of a U.S. Army six-by-six—a Truck,
General Purpose, two-and-one-half-ton 6×6, meaning all
wheels were powered—hanging from the cable of a ten-
ton boom.
The GMC “deuce and a half,” an Army workhorse,
had an open cab with a canvas-covered cargo area and
was painted olive drab with white markings, including
that of a three-foot-diameter star-in-a-ring that about
covered the whole door. It was not uncommon for a Ben
Hur trailer to be hooked behind a six-by-six.
“Okay,” Biaggio said to Maloney.
They gave the signal—each pulled a knit scarf from an
overcoat pocket and simultaneously wrapped their necks—
then turned to walk toward the farthest Liberty ship.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 5
Immediately, they heard the pitch of the ten-ton
boom winch become deeper, straining under a heavy
load. The six-by-six hanging on the ten-ton boom cable
was now beginning to swing toward its ship hold.
Then there came a great screaming of winch gears and
the cable started to unspool rapidly as the giant GMC
truck fell from the sky.
As he stared intently at the phone, waiting for it to ring
and wondering who it would be, Tony heard a terrible
noise on the dock outside the office.
He looked up at the plate-glass window in time to see
a blur of olive drab with a white star fill it.
In his last conscious moment, Tony the Gut saw the
window explode—its shards flying into the office and
spearing his flesh—and felt the office ceiling collapse on
his head.
A huge truck tire came to a rest on his back, crushing
out his last breath.
[ FOUR ]
OSS London Station
Berkeley Square
London, England
0745 28 February 1943
Colonel David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce, the distinguished-
looking chief of London Station, heard the rapping of
knuckles on the wooden doorframe and looked up from
3 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
the stack of documents that he had been reading since he
had arrived at six o’clock.
Bruce had the calm and detached manner of a high-
level career diplomat, which is what he had set out to be
when he’d joined the diplomatic corps after graduating
from Princeton University. His face was stonelike, chis-
eled, and his eyes burned with an intensity that caused
him to appear older than his years, though he had turned
forty-five just two weeks earlier.
His number two, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens, a
beginning-to-gray forty-four-year-old whose strong face
always seemed to be in deep thought, stood in the door-
way to the empty outer office of Bruce’s administrative
assistant.
“Good morning, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel Stevens
said, and held up an envelope stamped top secret.
“This just came in from Colonel Donovan.”
Bruce glanced at a side table. It held photographs in
silver and wooden frames of Bruce with politicians and
military leaders—one showed him with British prime
minister Winston Churchill at the polo grounds, another
with General Dwight Eisenhower in Algiers—and there
was a silver-framed image taken of Bruce in an Adiron-
dack chair with his wife, Alisa, sitting on his lap.
It had been snapped in Nantucket some years earlier—
a decade, if not longer—and it had captured the young,
vibrant couple in a relaxed, carefree moment. A visibly
half-in-the-bag Bruce, in a tailored dark suit, had the top
button of his crisp white shirt undone and his orange-
and-black rep necktie loosened, while his wife, in pearls
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 7
and a dark silk cocktail dress, held her high-heel shoes in
one hand, a drink in the other.
It was one of Bruce’s favorites because it froze in time
a very rare moment when their vast wealth did not mat-
ter—Bruce had a great deal of his own money when he
married Alisa, née Mellon, the richest woman in America.
At that moment, they had been simply happy, a loving
couple—which wasn’t necessarily the case now, and one
reason Bruce found himself more and more on edge.
“ ’Morning, Ed,” Bruce said almost absently, waving
him in the office.
Next to the papers on the deeply polished desk was a
silver service for coffee—a large carafe, three clean cups
and saucers in addition to the cup and saucer Bruce had
used, and sugar and milk in their bowl and pitcher—and
Bruce motioned toward it.
“You’ll forgive my manners when I ask you to please
pour yourself a cup,” Bruce said, taking the envelope.
“Thanks. I believe I can manage,” Stevens said agree-
ably, as Bruce broke the seal on the envelope, flipped past
the two top secret cover pages, and began to read.
Bruce grunted.
“Interesting,” he said. “Not exactly surprising.” He
put the sheets back in the envelope and looked at Stevens.
“Damned good news, as far as I’m concerned.”
Ed Stevens, settling into one of the two chairs in front
of the desk, did not reply immediately, but when Bruce
continued to look at him, seemingly expecting some
comment, Stevens said cautiously, between sips of coffee,
“Canidy is due here this morning.”
3 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Good. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’ve al-
ways thought that Canidy is out of his depth here, and he
is helping prove my point with his reckless acts.”
He poked a finger at the stack of documents.
“There’s a message in here from Howell confirming
that Howell arrived in Washington with Fulmar and the
Dyers. Just that. Nothing more.”
Stevens felt unease at what he recognized as Bruce’s
obvious anger. The slight that had triggered it clearly had
not been forgotten nor forgiven.
David Bruce had learned on February 14—two days after
celebrating his birthday—in an eyes only personal mes-
sage from Colonel Donovan that a mission was taking
place in Bruce’s backyard, one of such extreme impor-
tance—“Presidential,” Donovan had written—that Bruce
was deemed not to have the “Need to Know.”
That was difficult enough for the chief of OSS Lon-
don to swallow, but what made matters worse was the
fact that Stevens— My deputy, for Christ’s sake! Bruce had
thought disgustedly—did have the Need to Know,
though Donovan had said that Stevens was privy only to
limited details in order for him to act should he suspect
that any actions by OSS London Station—or by Bruce
personally—might undermine the mission.
It was not a perfect situation, the OSS director apolo-
gized, but it was a necessity, one made by direct order of
FDR. Donovan promised to bring Bruce into the loop as
soon as possible.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 9
It turned out that Donovan didn’t have to; of all
people, Canidy had done it for him, in a top secret—
eyes only message that he had sent from German-
occupied Hungary.
Dick Canidy was Eric Fulmar’s OSS control officer.
He had sent Fulmar, his prep-school classmate and the
American-born son of a German industrialist, to Ger-
many to smuggle out Professor Frederick Dyer, whom
Canidy understood to be an expert in metallurgy and in
the manufacture of jet and rocket engines. The fifty-nine-
year-old professor was disgusted with Nazis in general
and Hitler in particular, and it was hoped that he would
assist the Allies not only in the pinpointing of the facto-
ries that were producing these engines, which would
then be bombed and thus preserve Allied air superior-
ity, but also in the advancement of the Allies’ own devel-
opment of jets and rockets.
What Canidy—and Stevens and Bruce and everyone
except a select few on the secret list controlled by the
President—did not know was that Dyer was more impor-
tantly also a scientist with expertise in nuclear fission, and
his escape would (a) deny the Germans his work in the
race to develop an atomic bomb and (b) help the Ameri-
cans in theirs—code-named the Manhattan Project—at
which they had already had considerable success, includ-
ing the first uranium chain reaction on December 2,
1942, in a lab secretly built in a squash court under the
football stands of the University of Chicago.
An escape route had been carefully planned, with a
series of OSS and British Special Operations Executive
4 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
agents and resistance members set to smuggle Fulmar
and the professor and his daughter from Marburg an der
Lahn in Germany (where Fulmar was leaving a long trail
of German SS bodies) to Vienna, then Budapest, and ul-
timately to the coast of the Adriatic Sea, where a fishing
boat would ferry them out to the island of Vis, on which
Canidy waited with his hidden B-25 aircraft.
That had been the plan. But, as plans can, it went
bad—placing the President’s extreme mission, as well as
the lives of Fulmar and the professor, in jeopardy.
Canidy had sent a message from Vis saying that only
Gisella Dyer, the professor’s attractive twenty-nine-year-
old daughter, had made it out via the Hungarian pipe-
line. Fulmar and the professor were serving ninety days’
hard labor in Pécs, in southwest Hungary, their punish-
ment for being black marketers, ones who failed to pay
off local officials.
When word got back to OSS Washington, Donovan
made a cold-blooded decision: If in ten days Canidy
failed to rescue Fulmar and Professor Dyer, Canidy was
ordered to terminate them to keep them from falling into
the hands of the Germans on their trail.
When Donovan then learned that Canidy, risking
everything, had gone after them himself, and then that
the OSS team and the C-47 sent to support him was de-
clared late and presumed lost, Donovan had had to cut
his losses: He ordered a squadron of B-17s, ostensibly en
route for a raid on Budapest, to take out the Hungarian
prison as a target of opportunity.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 1
But the C-47 hadn’t been lost—it’d been forced to land.
And then, as the B-17s leveled the prison at Pécs,
it’d taken off with Canidy and Fulmar and Professor
Dyer . . . mission accomplished.
Bruce reached out for the carafe and poured himself
more coffee as he thought how that damned loose can-
non Dick Canidy had again gotten away with not follow-
ing the standard operating procedures.
But maybe not, he thought, judging by this morning’s
message. Maybe Donovan is about to call Canidy on the
carpet.
Bruce caught the look in Stevens’s eyes and realized
that he had put him in an awkward position.
“Sorry, Ed. Forget I said anything.”
Bruce thumbed through the pile of messages until he
found what he was looking for and passed it to Stevens.
“You’ve seen this?”
“Yeah,” Stevens said after he scanned it. “Another re-
quest from Sandman for Corsica.”
“I know getting the weapons is no problem. But do
we have the cash on hand that they request?”
“Can you give me a minute?” Stevens asked and nod-
ded toward his office, signifying that he wanted to check
something.
“Of course,” Bruce said, then picked up his coffee cup
and turned his attention to the decrypted message from
the OSS agent on the Axis-held French island of Corsica.
4 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Two months earlier, in mid-December, the Office of
Strategic Services had made history with the landing of
the first OSS secret agent team inside enemy-occupied
Europe. To the great relief of OSS stations from North
Africa to London to Washington, the team, with minimal
difficulties, had had textbook success from the time its
clandestine radio station, code-named pearl harbor,
had, on December 25, 1942, sent to OSS Algiers Station
the first of what would become almost daily messages
that detailed German and Italian strengths and strategic
locations and more.
It was remarkable for the OSS on a number of levels,
not the least of which was that it garnered the young
agency genuine credibility—albeit grudgingly in some
quarters, such as the British SIS, which had been formed
in the sixteenth century and had absolutely no patience
for the stumbles of the infant American intelligence or-
ganization.
General Dwight David Eisenhower, the supreme Al-
lied commander, while not exactly a cheerleader for the
unorthodox methods of Colonel Donovan and his merry
band of spies, became a cautious convert when, at Allied
Forces Headquarters in North Africa, he was provided
with the OSS intel relayed from Corsica.
The covert team, using its growing web of local con-
nections, had reported that only twenty-five thousand
Italians had taken the island; that they’d done it with rel-
ative ease because the Vichy government had ordered the
French army’s two battalions there not to resist; that
these battalions were demobilized and their general put
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 3
under house arrest; and that the Italians had limited their
strength on the island only to the west and east coasts
and to major highways inland.
Building on that team’s success, the OSS was contin-
ually assembling and training more teams. Two were on
standby to go in as soon as possible, one of these an
emergency backup to the first—as relief, when the team
was exfiltrated, or as replacement, in the event that its
cover was blown. The rest were being trained for SO—
Special Operations—OSS agents sent in to support the
local resistance, the Corsican Maquis, with tools for sab-
otage and harassment of the enemy.
As Bruce read the most recent report from the agent
on Corsica—this report including a list of the local gen-
darmes that the team had recruited and their needs—
there was a light tap at the door.
“Good morning, sir,” the pleasant voice of a woman
said.
David Bruce looked up and saw Captain Helene
Dancy, Women’s Army Corps.
Captain Dancy was Bruce’s administrative assistant, an
attractive brunette in her thirties who had left a position
at the Prudential Insurance Company as executive secre-
tary to the senior vice president for real estate. She was
professional and thorough, with the golden ability to get
things done when others would have long ago given up.
“Good morning, Captain. Everything well with you
this morning?”
“Just fine, thank you, sir.”
She nodded at the stack of reports.
4 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“And you? I see you’ve managed your usual early
start. Anything for me?”
“Never early enough, it would seem,” he said with a
tone of resignation. “Colonel Stevens just left to find
something. I have nothing for you right now, but should
Stevens require help that could change.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Were you able to locate Captain Fine?”
“Yes, sir. Late yesterday. And I just passed by him in
the hall. He said he would be by momentarily.”
Bruce glanced at the file on his desk that held the top
secret message from Donovan.
“So should Major Canidy. While I’d like to keep
Canidy at bay, I don’t think that that’s going to happen.”
He paused. “But I might be able to use that to my ad-
vantage.”
“Sir?” Captain Dancy said. “I don’t follow.”
“Never mind it, please. Just thinking aloud. Show
them in when they get here.”
Captain Dancy had finally sat down at her desk after hav-
ing replaced the coffee service in David Bruce’s office
with a carafe of fresh coffee and clean cups when a tall
scholarly looking man in the uniform of a United States
Army Air Forces captain entered her office.
“Sorry I took so long,” Captain Stanley S. Fine said.
“Not a problem,” Captain Dancy replied with a smile.
“Colonel Bruce said you were to go right in when you
got here.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 5
She had long been impressed with the thirty-three-
year-old Fine and not just because she knew that before
joining the OSS and before being a commander of a
B-17 squadron (this despite his great desire to be a fighter
pilot) he had been a Hollywood lawyer. That, of course,
did impress her—the movie business had that effect—but
what Captain Dancy really understood about Captain
Fine was that he was a very wise man and she knew this
judgment of his character was widely shared, including
by both Colonel Donovan and Colonel Bruce.
“His nose out of joint that I’m late?” Captain Fine
said.
“You’re not late. And I don’t think that it’s you he’s—”
“Stan!” a familiar voice called from the hallway just
outside the door. “I need a moment with you.”
Captain Dancy recognized the voice, and was not sur-
prised when a moment later Major Richard Canidy ap-
peared in the doorway.
“—It’s him,” she said, finishing her sentence with a
smile in her voice.
“ ‘It’s him’ who?” Dick Canidy said, mock-innocently.
“I could not possibly be guilty of that for which I have
been unjustly accused.” He paused. “Could I?”
Captain Dancy liked Major Canidy as much as—if not
more than—she did Captain Fine. And for some of the
same reasons—Dick was a bright guy, one who was gen-
uine and caring—as well as for some other reasons—Dick
was damned dashing, with a real magnetism that on oc-
casion caused her to lament the differences in their ages.
“You tell me, Major Canidy,” Captain Dancy said in a
4 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
conspiratorial tone, then added warmly, “It’s nice to have
you home safe.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Can whatever it is you need to discuss wait till
lunch?” Fine asked.
Canidy thought about it for a second. “Fine, Captain
Fine.”
Captain Dancy stood, shaking her head.
“If you two will follow me, please,” she said, and
started for the office of the chief of OSS London Station.
David Bruce, holding a coffee cup saucer in one hand
and sipping from the cup in his other, was in deep
thought looking out one of the tall windows when his of-
fice door opened and Captain Dancy announced, “Sir,
Captain Fine and Major Canidy are here.”
Bruce, still looking down at the street and sidewalk,
said, “Thank you. Send them in, please.”
A moment later, Fine and Canidy said, almost in uni-
son, “Good morning, sir.”
Bruce turned away from the window in time to see
Captain Dancy leaving the office and pulling the door
closed behind her.
“Good morning,” Bruce replied. He looked them in
the eyes for a moment, then said, “Please allow me to say
that I am deeply relieved that you both made it back.”
He looked at Canidy and added, “That didn’t always
seem to be the case.”
“Thank you, sir,” they replied.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 7
“You certainly deserve some time off after that mis-
sion,” Bruce said. “But I’m afraid it’s going to have to
wait. The sooner we get going on this, the better.”
Fine and Canidy exchanged glances.
“Get going on what?” Canidy said to Bruce. “We
haven’t—”
There was a knock at the door and it swung open.
“Colonel Stevens, sir,” Captain Dancy announced.
Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens was standing there be-
hind her, a worn-leather briefcase in each hand.
“Come,” Bruce said almost impatiently.
When Ed Stevens entered, Fine and Canidy came into
his view.
“Stan! Dick!” Stevens said.
He put down the briefcases, went to them, and em-
braced them one at a time, giving each a loud double pat
on the back. When he was confident of his voice, he
added, “Damn, it’s good to see you guys!”
Lieutenant Colonel Stevens took a step back and com-
posed himself.
“Thanks, Ed,” Canidy said.
“It’s good to be back,” Fine added. “Thank you, Ed.”
Stevens nodded and smiled, then collected the briefcases
and turned to Bruce.
“I knew we had these funds in the safe. I’m having
them see how much more we can get, and how soon.”
“Funds?” Canidy repeated.
When Stevens nodded, Canidy turned to Bruce.
“This have to do with what you’re talking about,
David?”
4 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Bruce ignored the question. He pointed to the couch.
“Put them there, Ed,” he said.
He looked at Canidy and Fine.
“Can I offer you some coffee?” he asked. “Helene just
made it.”
As Bruce poured everyone a cup from the new carafe
brought in by Captain Dancy, Stevens placed the brief-
case from his left hand on the couch first, then the one
from his right hand beside it.
He worked the combination lock on the left briefcase,
pushed the buttons to unlock its clasps, and after the
clasps sprung open with a dull click-click he slowly
opened the case. Then he repeated the process with the
right case.
Stevens looked at Bruce.
“Nice,” Bruce said, stepping over to admire the worn
currency that was in fat bundles secured with paper
bands. “I don’t care how much one might be around
money, you just can’t help but be impressed with cold,
hard cash—seeing it, feeling it, smelling it.”
There were appreciative chuckles.
Canidy offered, “I’ve always thought that bank tellers
were not being completely truthful when they said that
they were unaffected by all the money they handled day
in and day out.”
“They were just saying something they felt obligated
to say?” Fine said.
“That’s my guess,” Canidy said. “That, or they’re just
damned liars looking for a chance to skim it.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 9
“There’s always that temptation,” Bruce said matter-
of-factly. “Or out-and-out steal it all.”
“Anyway,” Stevens said, pointing to the left briefcase,
“in here is a half-million francs, and—” he pointed to the
right one “—this is a hundred thousand in lire. It’s a start,
and more is on the way. We had another two hundred
thousand francs, but our contact at Banque Oran became
suspicious of a series of deposits by the owner of a restau-
rant that had suddenly become quote very successful un-
quote and when the bills were inspected, about one in
ten were found to have had sequential serial numbers.”
Bruce grunted.
“The Fascists really can’t think we are that stupid,” he
said. “That’s insulting.”
“More likely a stupid mistake on the restaurateur’s
part. Careless. Or lazy. Just stuck the new bills in with old
ones in a single batch, not bothering to spread out the
ones with sequential numbers over time. After we discov-
ered that the money was marked, but before we could
turn him, I’m told somebody shot him.”
Bruce shook his head. There was no room for mis-
takes in this business. Especially sloppy ones. Yet, there
seemed to be no end of them, either. And it was too bad
he’d been killed; you could never have too many double
agents.
“That amount should satisfy Sandman’s immediate
request,” Bruce said, glancing at the pile of documents
on his desk that included the message from Corsica as he
sat down.
5 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He motioned for Canidy and Fine to take their seats
in the armchairs in front of his desk and they did.
“Yes, sir,” Stevens agreed and closed the cases, then
moved one to take his seat on the couch.
“Sandman?” Canidy said, eyebrows raised in question.
Bruce bristled at the temerity.
As a rule of thumb, the asking of questions in the OSS
was discouraged; in fact, the act could, depending on the
magnitude of the subject, carry significant penalties in-
cluding but not limited to, say, confinement in an obscure
stockade at the far end of the world for the duration of the
war plus ninety days—if not longer. One either had the
Need to Know or one didn’t. Lives—indeed, the war—
could be lost if too many knew too much.
Looking at Canidy, Bruce knew that he knew this. But
Bruce also knew that he was still pissed that Canidy and
Fine and Stevens, his goddamned deputy, had had the
Need to Know about the smuggling of Professor Dyer
and his daughter out of Hungary—while he didn’t.
Intellectually, he could understand the logic. Emo-
tionally, however, was something else.
Yet here was Canidy once again questioning at will.
Bruce was honest enough with himself to recognize
that he had more than a little resentment toward Major
Richard M. Canidy, USAAF.
What bothered Bruce wasn’t the fact that despite the
gold leaves of a major pinned to his A-2 jacket epaulets,
Canidy was not an officer of the Army Air Forces. Assim-
ilated ranks were issued all the time—particularly in the
OSS. Because civilians in a military environment attract
T H E S A B O T E U R S
5 1
attention and because little attention is paid to majors,
especially at the upper levels of the military hierarchy, it
had made good sense to arrange for the Army Air Forces
to issue an AGO card from the Adjutant General’s Office
to “Technical Consultant Canidy” that identified him as
a major. That way, should someone inquire of Eighth Air
Force or SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expe-
ditionary Force), a record would exist of a Canidy, Major
Richard M., USAAF.
And what bothered Bruce was not the fact that Canidy,
with a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engi-
neering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
1938, had, as a lieutenant junior grade, United States
Navy Reserve, been recruited from his duty of instructor
pilot at Naval Air Station Pensacola to be a Flying Tiger
with Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group,
then from there been tapped to be a “technical consult-
ant” to the Office of the Coordinator of Information, the
first incarnation of the OSS.
Canidy had proven himself a warrior—particularly in
China with the Flying Tigers—as well as a natural leader,
and Bruce respected that.
No, what bothered the strictly ordered sensibilities of
David Bruce was the fact that Canidy was simply too
young and too reckless—particularly in light of the fact
that being the officer in charge of Whitbey House Sta-
tion, OSS-England, made him the third-highest-ranking
OSS officer in England.
And, getting to the meat of it, what really bothered
Bruce the most was not only the fact that Canidy pulled
5 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
damned dangerous stunts—invariably leaving a mess for
the diplomatic-minded such as Bruce to clean up—but
that he damned well got away with them.
Which, of course, left Canidy with no problem asking
questions that he should not be asking.
“Ed,” London Station chief David Bruce finally said,
“why don’t you fill in the details?”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens said, then
looked at Major Canidy and Captain Fine. “You’re famil-
iar with ‘Pearl Harbor’?”
“You’re referring to the OSS team,” Canidy said, “not
to the Territory of Hawaii.”
Stevens nodded.
Stan Fine said, “We are.”
Stevens stood and went to the desk and picked up the
carafe. He raised the pot to ask everyone, More? , and
poured after Bruce slid his cup closer, then warmed up
Fine’s and Canidy’s cups, then finally his own.
“Sandman is in Algiers,” Stevens continued, “training
additional teams for insertion into Corsica. The next
team will take in this cash, sharing it with the team al-
ready in place. You’re familiar with the makeup of the
teams?”
“The recruits are Corsicans,” Canidy began, “from
the French Deuxième Bureau at Algiers.”
The French Deuxième Bureau was the intelligence
arm of the French army’s general staff.
“Right,” Stevens said. “An officer and three men. The
officer is the intel leader, and the liaison and the two ra-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
5 3
dio operators report to him. So Sandman took the four-
man team in by Casabianca—”
“The French sub?” Canidy said.
“Exactly. They infiltrated at night onto the beach by
rubber boat. First wave ashore, they took wireless radio
sets, money, weapons—”
“Lots of Composition C-2,” Bruce interrupted.
“Lots of C-2,” Stevens confirmed with a smile. “Then
the sub backed just offshore, where it laid on the bottom
for twenty hours. Meanwhile, the team went inland, es-
tablished its base, then the next night returned to the
beach—a different spot that’d been prearranged—and
signaled the sub, which had been waiting subsurface,
watching with its periscope. It surfaced, and full supply—
more pistols, Sten nine-millimeter submachine guns,
ammo, et cetera, et cetera—was completed.”
Stevens took a sip of coffee, then continued: “In days
we were getting reports from Pearl Harbor, making it
successful on a number of levels—”
“So much so,” Bruce interrupted again, “that our
plan now is to send in teams to France.”
There was silence as Canidy and Fine drank from their
cups and considered that.
Stevens went on: “There’s more, but for now un-
derstand that we’re going to use the Corsica model of
inserting teams in France to supply and build the resis-
tance. That said, it’s going to be more difficult. We got
lucky in Corsica; the Germans and Italians took the is-
land with next to no troops, and continue to hold it in a
5 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
very sloppy manner. The French there hate the Fascist
Italians, of course, and so far don’t seem afraid to take our
help to rise up against them.”
“Conversely, France is crawling with Krauts,” Canidy
said. “And with a lot of Frogs who want to get along
with the Krauts.”
“Right,” Stevens said. “We’re confident that enough
of the French will fight; it’s just going to be harder get-
ting to them.”
“And that’s where we come in?” Canidy asked. “C-2
and suitcases of cash—I’m in.”
Canidy thought that he noticed a just-perceptible
smirk from David Bruce.
“That,” the chief of London Station replied evenly
and with a straight face, “is where Captain Fine comes in.
Captain Fine will be flying this money to OSS Algiers,
where he will give it to Sandman and then begin the
setting up of teams for France. Right now, Major, since
you’ve just successfully come from German-occupied ter-
ritory, I’m simply interested in your observations.”
“Well,” Canidy shot back, “my first observation—”
“Dick!” Fine said, cautioning him.
“Before you go off half-cocked, Major,” Bruce said,
“you should know that I have my reasons.”
“Reasons?” Canidy parroted.
David Bruce knew that he shouldn’t, but he felt some
small pleasure picking up the envelope and handing it to
Canidy. “For you.”
Canidy reached out, practically snatched the envelope,
and opened it. He flipped past the outer cover sheet
T H E S A B O T E U R S
5 5
stamped top secret, then past the inner one stamped
top secret—eyes only bruce stevens canidy and
read the message without expression.
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
FROM OSS WASHINGTON FOR OSS LONDON EYES
ONLY BRUCE STEVENS CANIDY
QUOTE USING MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS CANIDY
IS TO REPORT TO THIS OFFICE AND TO ME RE -
PEAT ME DIRECTLY STOP CANIDY IS NOT REPEAT
NOT TO ATTACH HIMSELF TO OR ASSUME AUTHOR -
ITY OF ANY OP OR MISSION STOP DONOVAN END
QUOTE
Canidy put it back in the envelope.
“Any idea what this is about?” he said.
Bruce locked eyes with him, waited for a moment, then
said, “Officially? No. Unofficially?” He paused, seemingly
deciding if it was wise to go on. “Unofficially, I think it’s
rather clear.”
Canidy waved Go on with his hand.
Bruce said, “You are damned lucky to be alive and free
as opposed to alive and in the hands of the Sicherheits-
dienst. You knew too much to go behind the lines. What
if you had in fact been captured?”
“But I wasn’t,” Canidy shot back. “And I accom-
plished the mission.”
“At an incredibly great risk,” Bruce replied icily. “And
not without significant loss. The Hungarian pipeline is
5 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
blown, and last word we got from the OSS radio station
was code that they had been discovered and were about
to be captured.”
Canidy’s face tightened. He looked past Bruce and
stared out the window.
“Judging by the wording of Colonel Donovan’s mes-
sage,” Bruce went on calculatingly, “I presume he feels
the same way.”
After a moment, Canidy locked eyes with Bruce.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, putting his cup and
saucer on the desk. “I greatly regret the loss of any
agents, but I did what I thought was the best under the
circumstances. . . .”
“And you did do the best considering the circum-
stances,” Fine offered.
“Thank you, Stan,” Canidy said.
Then he stood, and took the envelope that held his
top secret order from Donovan.
“If you’ll excuse me, I think I should pack.”
II
[ ONE ]
Unterseeboot 134
30 degrees 35 minutes 5 seconds North Latitude
81 degrees 39 minutes 10 seconds West Longitude
Off Manhattan Beach, Florida
2305 27 February 1943
Kapitänleutnant Hans-Günther Brosin—who was twenty-
six years old, had a clean-shaven, soft-featured face, a
head of loosely cropped black hair, and a compact five-
six, 130-pound build that one might expect of a seaman
who had volunteered to go to war in the confines of a
tube only thirty feet tall and two hundred long—not
only was not happy with his present assignment, he was
highly pissed.
In his mind, it was one thing to have to follow orders
that you knew went contrary to everything you under-
stood your training to be—and, without question, the
training of a Kriegsmarine U-boat commander and his
crew was to hunt down and kill enemy vessels—but it was
entirely another thing to follow orders that not only es-
sentially repeated those of a mission that had been risky
beyond reason but that very much repeated orders of a
5 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
risky mission that had in fact proven to be a complete and
utter failure.
The vessel’s two-week-plus passage across the Atlantic
Ocean—during which the U-134, running under strict
radio silence, had come across a convoy of Liberty ships
carrying war matériel eastward and the crew had not
been able to fire a single one of its fourteen torpedoes be-
cause Kapitänleutnant Brosin’s orders specifically forbade
any enemy contact unless it was in an act of defense and
“necessary to ensure the success of mission”—had in no
way tempered his anger.
I am the commander of a fully armed man-of-war, he
thought, not of a passenger ferry.
Brosin looked up from the chart that plotted their
course to the shores of America, and studied the cause of
his contempt.
Richard Koch and Rudolf Cremer were the leaders of
the two two-man teams he was to put ashore. Koch’s
partner was Kurt Bayer, and Cremer’s was Rolf Gross-
man. They were all in their late twenties and of average
size and looks (none of the four appeared distinctly Ger-
man), each dressed in all-black woolen clothing, com-
plete with knit cap, and wearing a black leather holster
that secured a Walther P38 9mm semiautomatic pistol
and an extra eight-round magazine.
Brosin was unaware—his orders strictly spelled out
that he was to transport the teams and see that they made
it to shore; he knew not who they were nor what they
were doing, and they did not offer the information nor
did he ask it—that all four men had spent years in the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
5 9
United States before the war and that if they had not al-
ready returned to the fatherland by December 1941 they
had in the months immediately afterward. Koch and
Cremer had served in the military; Bayer and Grossman,
civilians, were selected in large part for their knowledge
of America, then were trained for their mission by the
Abwehr, the military’s secret service.
The teams were moving four black stainless steel con-
tainers, each roughly the size and shape of a large stuffed
duffel, complete with black-webbed shoulder straps. One
by one, they staged the heavy containers near the base of
the ladder that led up to the hatch in the conning tower.
Feeling Brosin’s eyes on him, Koch glanced over at
him, and nodded. Brosin did not respond.
Koch, a good six inches taller and forty pounds heav-
ier than Brosin, had come to respect the commander—at
the very least for his obvious professional care for his men
and his ship, and surely for his temper. In view of the lat-
ter, Koch had—as difficult as such a thing was to accom-
plish on an undersea boat—managed to keep his distance
from the captain the whole two weeks. And, as overall
leader, he had made sure that Cremer and Bayer and
Grossman had done the same. At one point, when they
had confined themselves to their bunks to memorize the
details of their mission orders for after landing—every
phase had to be accomplished by memory only—two
days passed without the captain seeing his unwanted hu-
man cargo.
Crouching, Koch helped Cremer position the last con-
tainer, gave him a pat on the back, then, being careful as
6 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
he stood upright so as not to strike his head on any of the
ship structure, walked over to Brosin.
“Not long now, Commander,” Koch said.
“Not soon enough,” Brosin replied evenly, looking
right through him.
That, Koch remembered all too well, was exactly what
the captain of U-134 had told him when they had had
their first meeting—a private one—in the captain’s quar-
ters shortly after they had sailed from the bunker at Brest,
France.
“Just so we are clear about this,” Kapitänleutnant Hans-
Günther Brosin had said, waving his copy of the mis-
sion’s secret orders. “Landing agents from a U-boat on
the shore of America was an idea that bordered on sui-
cide when it was attempted only months ago and it is an
idea that is more than suicide now.”
“Commander, not attempted but successfully—”
“I count Kapitänleutnant Linder,” Brosin inter-
rupted, holding up his hand in a gesture that stopped
Koch, “as a personal friend. He, as one professional to
another, personally told me the complete details of how
U-202, under his command, put ashore the four Abwehr-
trained agents on the Long Island of New York. Including
the fact that, as the agents and their containers of explosives
moved to shore by raft, the U-boat became grounded on
a shoal of sand.”
“Perhaps if the captain had—”
“Ach du lieber Gott!” Brosin snapped. “There is no per-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
6 1
haps! This boat is the same type as U-202, and I can tell
you, Herr Koch, as I know every detail of this ship, stem
to stern, that for it to float requires a minimum water
depth of five meters. And what is more—”
He heard his voice echo down the ship. He had
quickly been losing his temper and realized it.
He paused, took a deep breath, then with a lower voice
had continued: “And what is more, Herr Koch, a U-boat’s
only measure of safety is the silence of the depths. If she
is in less than thirty meters—and certainly if she is in five,
ten meters of water, or, worse, is aground—she is a sitting
duck. As was the U-202.”
He shook his head.
Brosin went on, his disgust clearly evident: “Are you
aware that when the emergency measures of dumping
fuel to lighten the boat, then using her diesel engines full
power astern, did not seem to be helping free her from
the shoal—an act that not only resulted in the loss of
more precious fuel but also served to ruin any stealth the
boat might have enjoyed—Kapitänleutnant Linder had
ordered the crew to begin to scuttle her?”
“Commander, I am more than—”
“Of course you are. And so, too, you are of course
aware that the agents—those four in New York and an-
other four the next day put ashore just south of here—
were almost immediately captured? And those not put to
death by the Americans were sentenced to spend their
lives in prison?”
When Koch wordlessly stared back at Brosin, the cap-
tain threw up his hands.
6 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“It was insanity to embark on such a mission,” Brosin
said with disgust, “and it is insanity to repeat such a
failure.”
“And, Commander,” Koch had said matter-of-factly,
“as it was the U-202’s and Kapitänleutnant Linder’s, so
is it our duty to serve as ordered.”
“That does not mean I will repeat mistakes made.”
“Nor will I, Commander,” Koch had replied coldly.
“With respect, that is why this time we land during win-
ter. And in deeper water. You will recall that Kapitänleut-
nant Deecke had no such problem with U-584 landing
its agents on the Florida shore. And U-584 is a Type
VIIC”—he paused for effect—“the same as this boat.”
“I have made my position clear,” Brosin said and
stood up. “There is no margin for error.”
“Understood, Commander,” Koch said, rising. He
started to leave, then added in a light and hopeful tone:
“Remember, it is the new year. Victory for the Führer
and the fatherland is soon, my friend.”
“Not soon enough,” Brosin had said.
Now, more than two weeks later, U-134 was within ten
miles of the uppermost east coast of Florida.
Brosin turned to his executive officer, who stood with
his forehead against the periscope, eyes pressed to its
rubber eyecups.
“Good, Willi?”
“Nasty weather up top, sir,” Wachoffizier Wilhelm
Detrick, a squat, dark-haired twenty-one-year-old, said.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
6 3
“Rain, light wind from the northwest. Visibility is not
great. But nothing in sight, sir.”
“Take us up, then, Willi. Keep her running on batter-
ies, prepared to go immediately to full diesel power, if
necessary.”
Brosin paused and looked at Koch and his teams, then
added: “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we
can get back to our real work.”
“Yes, sir,” Detrick said.
[ TWO ]
Manhattan Beach, Florida
0201 28 February 1943
United States Coast Guard Yeoman Third Class Peter
Pappas, who was five-foot-five, 130 pounds, and blessed
with the chiseled look of a Greek god bronzed by sun
and salt, tugged the hood of his poncho tighter around
his head, trying to seal out the cold rain that was drip-
ping in around the brim of his hat.
The rain had been coming in what seemed like almost
regular intervals the whole time—two hours so far, with
two to go—that he had been patrolling the beach. The
wind had been light but steady out of the northwest. A
very, very quiet Saturday night, and now early Sunday
morning.
Pappas stopped at another one of the somewhat regu-
lar indentations between the sand dunes, paths cut by
the feet of countless beachgoers during warmer and hap-
pier times. He looked inland and saw nothing suspicious.
6 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Then, with his handkerchief, he wiped rain from the lens
of the U.S. Navy binoculars hanging from his neck,
raised them to his eyes, carefully fitted the eyepieces to
his eye sockets, then made a 180-degree sweep of the
beach and ocean, slowly scanning from north to south.
And seeing absolutely nothing but black-gray sand,
black-gray sea, and black-gray sky.
Again.
He snickered. He had just remembered the line he’d
joked with the girls to get them to meet him at night on
the beach: “Want to go watch the submarine races?”
Damned submarines, he thought, the smile long gone.
Joke’s on me now.
It had been about a year ago when, as a seventeen-year-
old senior at Tarpon Springs High School, Peter Pappas
first began to seriously consider joining the United States
Coast Guard.
Being around boats and water was more than natural
for him. His grandparents had come from Greece and
settled into what then had been a village of fishermen
and sponge divers. In time, Pappas’s father and uncles
had followed their father into the business that had fairly
rewarded their families for their hard labors. And so, too,
had Pappas begun working the boats as a young boy,
learning the business from the bottom—literally, cutting
sea sponges from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.
By age seventeen, though, after five-plus years of pulling
T H E S A B O T E U R S
6 5
sponges and filleting fish, Pappas had more than convinced
himself that he needed to do something with his life other
than work the family boats.
Actually, it had been Ana who had convinced him.
Not that Anastasia Costas had told him that specifically,
but Pappas could figure out that a sponge diver had little
chance at a long-term relationship with the only daugh-
ter of Alexander Costas, Esquire, mayor of the town of
Tarpon Springs.
Pappas had the Greek-god-like looks and a seemingly
endless, easy charm that went a long way to masking the
fact that he had not necessarily been blessed with smarts.
He was a nice guy, even honest (something that could
not be said of many of the boat guys), and that coupled
with the looks and charm had caught the attention of
fifteen-year-old Ana. And he intended to keep it.
When Pappas had looked around Tarpon Springs and
considered his options, he found few. He had not ex-
celled academically—it had taken some tutoring for him
to actually graduate high school—and he certainly had
not performed well in any sport. Working long hours on
the boats had not allowed for any athletics.
Then, last summer, as the Sophia, one of his father’s
two wooden work boats, headed for port loaded with sea
sponges and grouper and snapper, he had seen a Coast
Guard cutter rumble past. The ship was at least one hun-
dred feet long—more than three times the length of the
Sophia—and fast. More impressive, though, was a crew
member at the stern: He stood at what Pappas was pretty
6 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
sure had to be a machine gun. Maybe a .50 caliber. And
he seemed to be making a slow salute or wave in Pappas’s
direction as the cutter continued past.
Pappas, hosing fish guts off his boots and the deck,
had made his decision then and there. Joining the Coast
Guard would give him the opportunity to be paid to
travel far, if he wanted. Or he could stay close to home,
as this cutter proved was possible. And with the United
States having just been bombed into the war, women
loved a man in uniform. Including Ana.
When Pappas went to enlist, the United States Coast
Guard recruiter down there in Tampa could not have
agreed with him more.
“And I can request where I’d want to be assigned?”
Pappas had asked him.
“Hell, son,” the recruiter said, handing him a pen and
the enlistment papers, “you can request anything you
want!” He pointed. “Your autograph goes right there.”
Pappas had not requested Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
The last place on God’s green earth that Pappas ex-
pected to be in the middle of winter was on a deserted
beach in a cold rain. With the world at war and being
two-thirds water—that was one thing he had actually ab-
sorbed when he hadn’t been daydreaming at Tarpon
Springs High—Pappas figured the odds should have
been in his favor that, rain or shine, he would instead be
manning, say, a USCG cutter .50 caliber machine gun in
T H E S A B O T E U R S
6 7
the act of protecting U.S. merchant marine ships shut-
tling war supplies.
Or something, for Christ’s sake.
Certainly not a yeoman third class on coast watch,
standing on a dune in wet sand up to his ankles and look-
ing out through binoculars at the black-gray seas of the
Atlantic under an even blacker-grayer layer of clouds.
Sure, there had been more than a little hysteria about
the security of America’s shores after they caught those
Kraut spies last summer, but that had long ago died
down. And what idiots would again try doing something
with subs that had already failed them? Even the Krauts
couldn’t be that stupid.
So far, Pappas had heard only what sounded like some
drunken celebrating—at one point that naughty, deep-
throated laugh of a female having too much fun—but
that had been inland, toward the bungalows and bars
of the town of Jacksonville Beach, the voices carried out
on the wind.
Here on the beach, he had not seen anything all night,
and he had no reason to think he would see anything all
morning. Especially in this impossible soup.
And, he thought, for Christ’s sake, what if I did? They
didn’t even issue me a weapon. Just a damned whistle, these
binocs, and as a special treat—whoopee!—a hoagie sandwich.
Peter thought about Ana.
At least that part of his plan had not soured. Yet. They
still wrote to one another, though the span between her
letters seemed to be getting longer each time, and the
6 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
length of her letters shorter and less, well, personally de-
tailed.
He reached inside his poncho and felt in his breast
pocket for the letter that he’d received from her just a
few days ago. She had written after Valentine’s Day, all
excited about the chocolates he had arranged to have
sent to her, but the letter otherwise was filled with gen-
eralities, and certainly no specifics about their plans to-
gether.
Peter was more than aware that if he had not volun-
teered to join the Coast Guard, he very likely would have
been with Ana on Saturday night—and maybe into this
Sunday morning—and there would have been absolutely
no chance that she was with some other guy who also
had found her many fine qualities desirable.
He suddenly felt very sad and lonely.
And while he was a little hungry— Hell, I always seem
hungry—the hoagie sandwich, a thick, soft roll slathered
with butter and packed with turkey, was really not going
to be much of a consolation.
Pappas walked toward one of the footpaths between
the dunes until he found a weather-beaten log that looked
as if it had been beached there for decades. He sat on it.
He considered rereading Ana’s letter—it was upbeat
and would probably cheer him—but realized it simply
was too dark to see much of anything, let alone read a
piece of paper. Besides, the rain would make the ink on
the letter run and likely dilute the delicate fragrance of
the perfume that she had misted it with and he didn’t
T H E S A B O T E U R S
6 9
want to risk ruining a letter that he had read only three
times so far. And who knew when she’d write next?
Instead, he put the binoculars beside him on the log,
then dug down in his wool coat till he found the inside
pocket that held the wrapped-in-waxed-paper hoagie. He
pulled it out, pulled back the paper, and was surprised to
discover that it was somewhat warm, at least in relation
to the conditions outside his poncho.
Pappas again thought of the letter and the perfume
and suddenly had a mental image of Ana. The vision caused
a stir in his groin. He could see Ana, deeply tan and in
her black swimsuit, the one with the low-cut front and
the back open impossibly far down. She was lying on her
side, on a towel just above where the gulf surf rolled to
its highest point on the bright white sand.
He looked at the sandwich, looked into the dark dis-
tance, shrugged.
Pushing back the pangs of hunger, he ducked his head
completely inside the poncho, brought the sandwich in
under the same cover, then unbuttoned his fly, made
himself accessible, ran his fingers through the bun in or-
der to coat them with the butter, and, his hand thus lu-
bricated, reached down and found himself again as he
pictured Ana peeling off her black swimsuit.
7 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ THREE ]
Unterseeboot 134
30 degrees 36 minutes 5 seconds North Latitude
81 degrees 39 minutes 1 second West Longitude
Manhattan Beach, Florida
0130 28 February 1943
The German submarine was motionless on the slick sur-
face of the Atlantic Ocean three hundred yards off the
shore of the United States of America and barely afloat in
a water depth of thirty-one feet.
Its conning tower was crowded. Kapitänleutnant Hans-
Günther Brosin stood there, as did his executive officer,
while a line of sailors worked to move the four stainless
steel containers from down below out through the conn
hatch and onto the deck, where the two teams of
commando-trained agents were quickly and efficiently
inflating the last of the six-foot-long rubber rafts and
preparing the three coils of three-quarter-inch-diameter
line that would be tied end to end to eventually tether all
of the rafts to the U-boat.
Brosin glanced up nervously at the thick clouds.
Though there was a steady, cold drizzle, he was content
to suffer it in return for the air cover that it and the
clouds provided.
It was eerily still and calm and quiet . . . too damned
quiet. What little wind that there was came out of the
northwest, causing the only surf—if the absence of such
could be called that—to be a soft lapping of waves on the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
7 1
shore. No surf and no wind meant no natural sounds to
mask any loud noise that they might make.
As Brosin fitted the soft rubber eyepieces of his Carl
Zeiss binoculars to his eyes and made a slow sweep of the
coastline, he said, “What is our time, Willi?”
Detrick trained a penlight on the chronometer
strapped to his wrist.
“Nine and a quarter minutes so far, sir, twenty and
three-quarter to go.”
“An eternity,” Brosin muttered. Then he asked, “En-
gines?”
“On standby, crew awaiting your orders.”
When Brosin took the binoculars from his eyes, he
saw that Richard Koch was coming up from the deck to
the conning tower.
As the agent approached, Brosin said, not kindly,
“What is it? Troubles?”
Koch held out his hand. “As this will be our last com-
munication, Commander, I wanted to say thank you. We
go now.”
Brosin nodded. “Go with God,” he said more warmly,
shaking Koch’s hand. He then added, in a serious tone:
“But go quickly. This exposure becomes more dangerous
by the moment. In precisely twenty minutes, we will be
under way, with or without the rafts.”
Brosin knew that while it was not absolutely critical
that the U-boat take the four rubber boats with it when
it left, everyone would be better off if it did—the agent
teams especially.
7 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
They could hit the beach, strap the stainless steel con-
tainers on their backs, and move inland without having
to take time to deflate and then bury the boats. Only
their footprints would be evidence of their having been
there, and in an hour’s time, with the rain, those would
be gone, too.
And if no rubber rafts were found, then there would
be no reason for anyone to look for whatever vessel had
launched them.
Koch lightly clicked his heels, nodded once in defer-
ence, and left the tower for the deck.
Brosin turned to Wachoffizier Detrick.
“If there is no signal within fifteen minutes to retrieve
the boats, Willi, personally see that the line is cut.”
“Yes, sir.”
Richard Koch dipped the wooden oar blades into the sea,
pressed for leverage the toes of his boots into the crease
formed where the floor of the rubber boat met the tran-
som, and slowly leaned back, pulling on the oars as he did.
The whole boat seemed to contort and simply move
in place at first. It felt as if the rubber ring that formed
the sides of the raft just flexed around the weight of the
cargo—Koch and the stainless steel container—and that
the boat made no forward motion across the water.
Koch raised the blades out of the water, leaned for-
ward, dipped the blades, and again leaned back and
pulled. More flexing of the raft, but not as much as the
first time. And when he made another cycle, he could
T H E S A B O T E U R S
7 3
sense that he was making progress, that the rubber boat
was moving forward.
Between his raft and the U-boat, Koch could hear the
dipping of the others’ oar blades and similar sounds of
progress.
Getting the men and the containers from the U-boat
into the rafts had gone almost as they had practiced it
at the sub pens in France. They first had tied off each
boat—as an act of safety in the event one went in the
drink before anyone wanted it there—to a short line that
was secured to the ironwork that protected that deck gun
mounted just fore of the conning tower. Then, after the
boats were inflated with a foot-operated bellows, they
were slipped over the side. One had gone in upside down
and had to be recovered, drained of seawater, and re-
launched.
Next, a rope ladder was produced and deployed, and
the first agent, Bayer, made his way down it, along the
port side of the sub, and into a raft being steadied by a
sailor holding as best he could to the short length of line
tied to the bow. Once the agent was in the boat, seated
on the center bladder of inflated rubber that served as his
rowing position, one of the stainless steel containers, tied
to another line and with its web shoulder straps placed
against the hull to muffle any metal-on-metal clanking,
was slowly slid down the port side. The container was se-
cured on the deck of the raft by a strap affixed to the
floorboard, and the sailor then cast off the short bowline
and the next raft was pulled forward and positioned at
the foot of the rope ladder.
7 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
With each agent, the process had been repeated al-
most flawlessly. The exception was Rolf Grossman.
When Grossman’s container was lowered over the
side, the sailor, his fingers tired and cramping, acciden-
tally let the rope slip and in the quiet of the night the
container hit the water with a remarkable sound. The re-
sulting splash nearly soaked Grossman with cold sea-
water, and it took some effort for the quick-tempered
agent not to spring from the raft and up the ladder to let
loose a string of expletives—if not a fistful of knuckles—
at the sailor.
In addition to the short length of line on his boat,
Koch had another. It was tied to a hard point on his bow
and, at the other end of the line, to another coil of line
on the U-boat deck that in turn was tied to yet another
coil of line that was secured to the ironwork that pro-
tected the U-boat’s deck gun. A sailor played out the
coiled lines as Koch rowed away.
Koch now led the tiny flotilla to just shy of shore. He
kept a steady rhythm as he cycled the oars. And after
some time, he felt the raft suddenly rise higher on a swell
than it had on any swell since he had left the sub and he
knew that meant the water was getting shallower, that he
was almost ashore.
He dipped the blades and pulled hard on the oars,
once, twice, then, on the third pull, he at once felt the
blades strike the sand bottom and the raft slide to a stop
to the sound of rubber scraping on the beach.
Koch quickly shipped his oars and practically leaped
out of the boat and onto the shore. He scanned the area,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
7 5
saw nothing in the darkness, then reached in the boat
and, with a good deal of effort, pulled out the stainless
container and set it on the sand. He turned and tugged
hard at the raft to pull it up and out of the water.
Next, he carried the container higher on the beach, up
past some driftwood and old logs, then ran back to meet
the other rafts.
One by one, as they repeated the pulling ashore of the
boats, Koch used hand signals to indicate that the agents
should move the containers to the collection point on
higher ground.
As Cremer and Bayer and Grossman did so, Koch
took the loose end of the short line of the nearest raft and
tied it to his boat, then tied the next raft to that one, cre-
ating a train of rubber rafts ultimately tethered to the
U-boat.
He was tying the last raft when Cremer returned.
“Herr Hauptmann, shall I make the retrieval signal?”
Cremer whispered in German.
“Not ‘Herr Hauptmann,’ ” Koch hissed in English.
“From now on, we use our American names.”
“Yes, sir—” Cremer began in English, then corrected
himself. “Okay, Richard.”
Cremer stepped to the water’s edge, removed a black
tin flashlight from his pocket, held it to the highest point
he could reach over his head, then pushed its switch six
times to make the agreed-upon signal of two series of
three flashes each. When there was no immediate re-
sponse from the U-boat, he quickly repeated the two se-
ries of three flashes.
7 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He heard a sound of something rushing through the
water just offshore and realized it was getting closer. It
sounded like a small school of fish rushing across the sur-
face. Then he noticed a line tied to the first raft was draw-
ing taut—fast. The line stiffened and the raft practically
shot off of the shore. It took him a moment to under-
stand that someone on the U-boat had seen his first sig-
nal and the sailors had begun to pull on the line. The
delay, he guessed, had to have been due to the length of
the line and the taking up of its slack.
Cremer put the flashlight in his pocket, then hurried
over to the next raft in line. He positioned it in the water,
toward the U-boat. Koch was about to do the same with
the third raft when he heard footfalls squeaking in the
sand as someone was fast approaching.
“Sir!” Bayer whispered excitedly.
“It’s Rich—” Koch began to correct Bayer as he
turned away from the raft to face him.
Koch stopped when he saw Bayer standing there with
Grossman. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but when Cre-
mer ran up with his flashlight and turned it on there was
no disputing it.
Between Bayer and Grossman stood a young man—
really, only a kid; his huge eyes showed stark terror—
wearing the uniform of an American coastguardsman.
Bayer had the young man’s hands bound together
with rope cut from one of the containers, and Grossman
had his Walther 9mm pistol pointed at the kid’s head.
They had used a length of material cut from the poncho
to gag his mouth.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
7 7
“Turn off the goddamned light!” Koch whispered, in
German, and when it went dark he leaned closer to
Bayer’s ear and snapped, “What is this?”
Bayer replied in German: “I was having no luck find-
ing the placement of the containers. I went up to the
dunes, by some logs, and heard moaning.”
“Moaning?” Koch repeated.
“Ja,” Bayer said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “And
when I finally saw where it was coming from—a poncho—
I saw it was shaking. A happy shaking, if you get my
meaning, Herr Hauptmann.”
Koch looked at him incredulously. “Scheist!” he said.
“He has no weapons,” Grossman said. “What do you
want to do? I can kill him, but then we have a body.”
Koch considered that quickly. Grossman would have
no trouble strangling him—cutting his throat or shoot-
ing him was out of the question; too messy and noisy—
but they couldn’t leave the body on the beach or toss it
in the sea.
The kid clearly constituted some sort of beach patrol.
And if he didn’t check in with someone, that someone
would come looking for him, and if they found his body
there would be problems that the Germans did not need.
Same if they tried to bury him. Someone would eventu-
ally find the grave site. Worse, it would require the teams
to burn valuable time digging a grave, burying the body,
then covering their tracks.
There was the sound of laughter coming from a short
distance inland, and a woman’s cackle caused Koch to be
distracted for a moment. Then, behind him, there came
7 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
the sound of the third raft beginning to crunch across the
sand as it headed for the sea.
Koch turned and looked at it a long moment as it slid
away.
“This way!” he said, running for the last raft in the
line. “Schnell!”
With more than a little effort, Bayer and Grossman
lifted and dragged the young American in the soft sand
behind Koch.
“In here!” Koch said, pointing to the raft.
The American squirmed and made angry grunts as
they placed him on the floor of the raft. Grossman smacked
him hard on the top of his head with the Walther and the
protests stopped for a moment. When the kid stirred,
Grossman hit him again with the pistol, this time behind
the right ear, and he went limp.
“Take those oars and put them in the other boat!”
Koch ordered as he rushed to wrap the kid’s ankle with
the strap that had secured the container to the raft. He
then took the end of the line that bound his hands and
ran it down to the ankles, trussing him to keep him from
jumping overboard in the event there came such an op-
portunity.
The line that tied the fourth boat to the third boat
now began to tighten, then became quite taut. Koch
suddenly realized that with the added weight of the kid,
the fourth boat was stuck high and dry. He signaled for
each man to move to a corner of the boat and they lifted
and carried the raft into the water.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
7 9
Slowly, the train began moving smoothly out to sea
again.
“That should make a nice surprise for the com-
mander,” Koch said as the last raft and its cargo floated
from view.
The men chuckled.
“Enough of this,” Koch said. “Let us go before he is
discovered off his post—and then we are.”
U-134 had been moving slowly in reverse under the
quiet power of batteries for about five minutes—Kapitän-
leutnant Hans-Günther Brosin having given the order to
be under way immediately after seeing through his
binoculars the first blink of light from the agent’s six-
pulse signal.
After the first two sets of three flashes, there quickly
had followed another two sets, and Brosin wondered if
there was any particular reason for that—were the agents
simply more anxious than necessary or did they need to
get the rafts off the beach right away because they were
in immediate danger of being discovered?
There was a flash code for that contingency, of course,
as well as for others, but Brosin knew that invariably
there were gray areas when something happened that was
not addressed by some specific signal. So instead of hav-
ing the U-boat sit in the shallow sea while the deck crew
of five hand over hand pulled in the line in order to re-
trieve the rafts, he ordered another five sailors to go
8 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
down and help them pull against the extra strain of the
U-boat backing away from shore.
The sooner they were in deeper water, the sooner he
would feel better.
Moments after he had given the order to get under
way, as the sailors were hauling in the line, there came an-
other odd occurrence.
The line tethering the rafts suddenly became very
taut. It pulled forward the seamen who were retrieving it
due to the fact that the ship was of course motoring in
the opposite direction. This created the real danger of
pulling them overboard, and Brosin was just about to
bark the order that they let loose of the line and that the
engine power be cut when whatever obstruction there
had been was overcome, and the sailors were again re-
covering line hand over hand.
Now, with his binoculars, Brosin could see the first of
the four rafts coming into view through the drizzle.
“What is our depth, Willi?” Brosin asked.
The executive officer relayed the question down be-
low and a moment later replied, “Thirty meters, sir.”
Brosin watched the first raft reach the submarine. The
sailors cleated the line, ran to the raft, and manhandled it
aboard. Two seamen began deflating the recovered raft
while the others returned to pulling in the line that teth-
ered it to the following rafts.
Satisfied that the recovery process was progressing
well and nearly completed, the captain let the binoculars
hang from the strap around his neck and turned to his
executive officer.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
8 1
“Bring her around, Willi,” he ordered, “and set a
course of one-two-five degrees. Go to diesel power, five
knots to start, then double that once all boats are aboard
and stowed.”
“Yes, sir,” Wachoffizier Detrick said, and called the or-
ders down below.
Brosin looked again at the men on deck, saw that they
had the third boat out of the water, then he removed the
strap from around his neck, handed the binocs to the
XO, and went to the hatch to go below.
Brosin had just stepped from the foot of the conning
tower ladder when he heard from above Willi Detrick’s
excited voice call down through the hatch, “Sir! I think
you should see this!”
[ FOUR ]
Gander Airport
Gander, Newfoundland
0840 4 March 1943
Dick Canidy had sensed in his gut the very early sign that
the Douglas C-54, one so new that it seemed right off
the assembly line, was going to have problems with one
of its four Twin Wasp radial engines.
The Air Transport Command flight had been eight
hours, ten minutes, and fifteen seconds out of Prestwick,
Scotland—Canidy had immediately checked his chron-
ometer, which he had reset to zero and activated as the
bird had gone wheels up—when he detected an odd faint
8 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
vibration that his aeronautic training had immediately
told him was more than a mere aberration.
Not a minute later, it manifested itself again, louder
this time, and one of the engines on the left wing of the
Douglas C-54 began to shake the plane violently. Then a
great cloud of black smoke erupted out of the outboard
Twin Wasp, and the pilot rushed to shut it down, feather
its props, and adjust throttles and trim to rebalance the
aircraft.
This took a few minutes, what to many passengers
seemed like hours, but soon afterward they were in-
formed that everything was fine, that the cause of the en-
gine failure was a common oil pressure problem, that the
pilots had absolutely no doubt that the aircraft could
make this leg’s intended destination—the refueling stop
of Gander—and that the only inconvenience was that
they would just be a bit delayed.
Canidy knew that “a bit delayed” was a huge under-
statement. Down one engine, they were going to be fly-
ing slower than the 250 miles per hour or so that the
aircraft had been making.
But he of course knew the rest to be true. The excuse
of an oil pressure problem was plausible. And the aircraft
was more than capable of cruising along at an altitude of
seven thousand feet on the power of the remaining three
1,450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines.
That had been the view of Canidy the Professional
Aviator.
Canidy the Bus Passenger, however, became miserable
after hours of looking at the dead engine with the At-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
8 3
lantic Ocean in the background and was grateful to fi-
nally see the coastline of Newfoundland on the horizon,
and then the snow-covered airfield itself, a welcome way-
point carved out of the wilderness on what not five years
earlier had been an uninhabited plateau of Gander Lake’s
north shore.
As the Air Transport Command C-54 pilot turned on
final, the only sounds in the cabin were the hum of the
Twin Wasps and the rush of air over the flaps extended
from the wings. The next sounds heard—the chirp-chirp
of the aircraft wheels gently touching down on the run-
way—were followed by the raucous applause of the ner-
vous passengers now greatly relieved to have cheated
death again.
Canidy looked out the window, trying to avoid get-
ting drawn into the mindless jabbering of the other pas-
sengers.
Just before touching down, his field of view allowed
him to see hundreds of warbirds parked in neat lines—
Douglas Boston light bombers with Canadian Air Force
markings, U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 Mitchells and B-24
Liberators, and more—all apparently waiting to be fer-
ried eastward to battle.
They came through here, Canidy knew, because the
shortest route between North America and Europe was
Gander to Prestwick. He remembered being told that
the population of this godforsaken frozen outpost had
swollen to some fifteen thousand—a mix of Royal Air
Force, Canadian Army, and U.S. Army Air Forces, heavy
on the Canucks.
8 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy could not see the warbirds now. All that was
visible was a wall of snow that had been plowed off of the
runway. He looked across the airplane and saw that there
was a wall on either side of them and it appeared as if the
plane was traveling along in some kind of winter canyon.
The aircraft came to a gap in the canyon wall—a ramp
to the taxiway—and as the C-54 turned into it, Canidy
could see that a yellow truck with a follow me sign had
been waiting there, and now was leading the way.
A moment later, Canidy began to see a row, then two
and three rows, of bombers. The C-54 rolled past them,
then past two hangars that looked full of aircraft in for re-
pair, then up to the Base Operations building.
Ramp personnel wearing remarkably heavy winter
outfits and carrying wands waved the C-54 to a parking
pad next to two other C-54s, and the pilot shut down the
three good engines.
After a long visit to the gentlemen’s facilities, Canidy
attempted to get a status report on the aircraft and—
though appreciative of having made it alive and well to
Beautiful Downtown Gander—an idea of when the hell
he could expect to be airborne out of this icebox of an
outpost, en route to Elizabeth City, New Jersey, and con-
nections from there to anywhere else but here.
He tried at first to go through channels.
Start with the little guy, he thought. Be nice. Don’t
make waves.
That had been a disaster.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
8 5
At every step, they gave him a variation on the same
bullshit line: “It’s going to take more than a little time
to pinpoint the problem—a day, maybe longer—then fix
it—did you see the full maintenance hangars as you came
in?—or arrange for an available backup aircraft and get it
in the air, or failing all that, find everyone an empty seat
here and there on various other aircraft. We’re sorry, Ma-
jor. It’s the best we can do. We didn’t break the aircraft
on purpose.”
And the more Canidy pushed, the more resistance he
encountered.
To hell with this, Canidy thought.
He made a direct path to the airfield’s Flight Opera-
tions.
There he learned from a clerk that another C-54—this
one freshly refueled and headed for Washington—had
just about finished embarking its passengers.
“As the major might expect,” the clerk added, in what
he thought was a helpful manner, “the aircraft is com-
pletely full. The passenger manifest is closed.”
With some effort, Canidy tracked down the Air Offi-
cer of the Day and explained his situation. This of course
could not have fallen on less sympathetic ears.
“Everybody’s in a hurry to get home, Major,” Cana-
dian Air Force Group Captain Pierre Tugnutt said.
Tugnutt was an officious prissy type, tall and slight,
with a meticulously trimmed pencil mustache and thin
strands of hair combed over an enormous bald spot,
who practically sniffed with contempt as he handed back
Canidy’s USAAF travel orders.
8 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I’m not every—” Canidy said to Group Captain
Tugnutt before he realized others in the room were
watching their interaction and he stopped.
“Captain,” he began again, calmly, “could we have a
private moment?”
“I believe our business here is complete, Major.”
“Captain,” Canidy replied evenly and with a forced
smile, “it would really be in the best interests of both of
us.” He paused, then nodded toward the small adjoining
office. “Please.”
Captain Tugnutt’s bony face contorted to show his
obvious annoyance. He finally said, “Very well.”
“Thank you, sir,” Canidy said loudly, more for the
benefit of those in the room than for Tugnutt.
In the office, Captain Tugnutt said, “Now, Major—”
“Captain,” Canidy interrupted, his voice low as he
spoke with an edge to his words, “know that I share this
with great reluctance.”
Canidy produced a small leather wallet containing his
OSS anywhere-anytime-anyfuckingthing credentials.
“You get me on that plane, sir, ” Canidy added, “or we
get the air vice marshall on the horn.”
The AOD raised an eyebrow as he reviewed the creden-
tials—twice, since it was clear he had never seen any like
them before—before he handed them back.
“If you’d made these available from the start, Major,”
Captain Tugnutt said snottily, “there’d been no problem,
and certainly no call for threats.”
It was all Canidy could do not to suggest that the
captain make himself genuinely useful to at least one
T H E S A B O T E U R S
8 7
person by going off and performing on himself what his
surname implied.
But Canidy wanted on that damned airplane—and out
of Gander—and impressed himself by keeping his auto-
matic mouth shut for once.
As Canidy climbed aboard the about-to-depart flight, he
realized that his problems would likely not end with the
fastening of his lap belt. He saw his open seat—the only
open seat on the whole aircraft—and it was right next to
a lieutenant colonel who had a very sour look.
He clearly was not at all happy that his traveling
buddy, also a light bird, had been bumped—and, worse
than bumped, made to get off of the plane—to make
room for a lowly major.
Canidy, not in any mood to deal with another by-the-
book type, dealt with the situation in what he felt was the
best manner: He ignored it.
Then he thought, Why the hell not? I’m ordered home
to take my medicine, so what’s the worst that can happen?
They send me back to fight the Krauts?
Canidy pulled a silver flask from his tunic, lifted it
toward the prickly lieutenant colonel as if in a toast, said
with a smile, “For medicinal purposes,” then, in three
healthy swigs, drained half of the scotch contained
therein, put the flask back in his tunic pocket, pulled his
cap down so the brim covered his eyes, and with vivid
memories of the bittersweet hours in the arms of Ann
Chambers at her flat the previous night— Or was it the
8 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
night before? Jesus, I hate this travel—he slid into a deep
sleep.
[ FIVE ]
Anacostia Naval Air Station
Washington, D.C.
1520 5 March 1943
The change in pitch of the four Twin Wasp radial engines
on the Air Transport Command C-54 when the pilot
throttled back for a slow descent from its cruising alti-
tude of nine thousand feet caused Major Richard Canidy,
USAAF, to stir from his sleep. He had awakened briefly
once before when he thought he may have felt another
odd vibration, but all engines continued to turn and he
had dozed off again.
He cracked open one eye now, then the other, and af-
ter his pupils adjusted to the painfully bright afternoon
sunlight that was flooding into his window he glanced
out over the right wing. He could see a beautiful blanket
of snow covering everything on the ground of what he
guessed was Delaware. No, Maryland, he corrected him-
self when he recognized the geography of the eastern
shore of Chesapeake Bay.
The pilot banked a bit to the right, and when the
brilliant sun reflected off the wing, Canidy winced, then
turned away from the window.
The lieutenant colonel was still strapped in next to
Canidy, and though he did not seem to be as much out
of sorts as he had been at takeoff, he was not exactly
T H E S A B O T E U R S
8 9
about to offer, say, his services as a D.C. tour guide—or
even share transportation into the district.
Sharing transportation, Canidy saw as he carried his
duffel on his shoulder down the aircraft steps behind the
lieutenant colonel, was not going to be a problem.
There, parked among a line of olive drab Chevrolet
staff cars, was a 1941 Packard 280 convertible coupe.
Leaning on its fender, reading a copy of the Washington
Star, was a stocky chief boatswain’s mate wearing an ex-
pensively tailored United States Navy uniform. On the
chief’s sleeve were stitched twenty-four years’ worth of
hash marks.
Canidy realized that the scene fascinated the lieu-
tenant colonel, and he intentionally picked up his pace
across the tarmac enough to move ahead of the lieu-
tenant colonel.
The lieutenant colonel watched as the goddamned
major who had bumped his buddy off of the C-54 ap-
proached the chief.
When the major barked, “Ellis!” the chief quickly
looked up from his paper, scanned the line of arriving
passengers, then even more quickly folded the Star and
tossed it in the Packard, and saluted the major crisply.
“Major Canidy, sir !”
The major tossed his duffel to the chief, who caught
it, then moved ahead of the major and opened the pas-
senger door of the coupe. Once the major was in the car,
the chief closed the door, put the duffel in the trunk, slid
in behind the wheel, and began to drive away.
The lieutenant colonel stood stiffly as the car passed,
9 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
the major saluting smartly and smiling from its passen-
ger’s seat. It took a moment or so for the stunned lieu-
tenant colonel to answer with barely a wave of a salute.
“How the hell are you, Chief ?” Canidy said as the
Packard turned left onto South Capitol Street, SE, then
started to cross the bridge into the city.
“Doing pretty good, Dick,” Ellis replied with a warm
smile. “That light bird with you have a bug up his ass or
what?”
Canidy picked up the copy of the Star and scanned
the headlines. “I had to bump his buddy off the flight at
Gander, and, if that wasn’t enough, the AOD refused to
tell him why. And then I wouldn’t, either.”
Ellis grinned, shaking his head. “Damned good to see
you. Didn’t think that I would.”
Ellis worked for Colonel Donovan as special assistant
to the director. He understood that to mean that he was
to do “everything and anything” to make the life of the
head of the OSS easier and that kept him going round
the clock. He was privy to ninety-nine-point-nine-nine
percent of everything the director read, wrote, uttered,
or otherwise transmitted, and knew all about Canidy
having been in German-occupied Hungary.
He was also quite aware that Donovan had called
Canidy back from London in a secret—eyes only mes-
sage—Ellis was the one who had hand-carried it to the
commo room for encryption and transmittal. That duty
of course naturally fell under the heading of doing every-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
9 1
thing and anything for the director. But, as far as Ellis
was concerned, so did an errand to fetch Dick Canidy at
the airfield.
Truth be known, Ellis had the greatest respect for
Canidy, and would have done anything for him.
“Should I ask about the wheels?” Canidy said.
“I’ve got orders to drive it once a week so it don’t just
sit and rot behind the house on Q Street.”
The house on Q Street, NW, a turn-of-the-century
mansion that had long belonged to the wealthy Whit-
taker family, was being leased for one dollar a year to the
Office of Strategic Services as a place to safely and dis-
creetly house whomever—agents, politicians—was deemed
necessary in the course of duty.
Whittaker Construction Company, which had begun
by building and operating railroads before the Civil War,
now included various areas of heavy construction (ports
for ships and planes, hotels, office buildings), and con-
tinued to be quite prosperous.
With enormous wealth came very high connections
and the majority shareholder of the firm—James M. B.
Whittaker (Harvard ’39), presently a U.S. Army captain
on an OSS mission behind enemy lines in the Philip-
pines—had been known to address the President of the
United States as “Uncle Frank,” and not always pleas-
antly.
“Sounds like something Jimmy Whittaker would say,”
Canidy said.
“Yeah, and so I was doing just that, just about to go
on my usual thirty-minute spin, when the boss, who
9 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
didn’t want you looking for him in his office, said to go
find you at Anacostia. ‘Why don’t you take the convert-
ible out to the prodigal son?’ is what he said.”
“I’m not the prodigal son. Jimmy is. That’s why it’s
his car. Hell, his house. Any word from Jimmy?”
Ellis looked at him blankly. He didn’t respond.
“I’ll take the absence of bad news to mean good
news,” Canidy said with a smile.
Ellis, eyes on the road ahead, shook his head.
Canidy went on: “The boss have much to say about
me otherwise?”
“Only that he’d meet us after he stopped by his town
house in Georgetown.”
“That works,” Canidy said. “I definitely need a change
of clothes.”
“A shower wouldn’t hurt, either,” Chief Ellis said, and
smirked as he turned left onto M Street, headed for Rock
Creek Parkway.
The house on Q Street, NW—a mansion on an estate—
was surrounded by an eight-foot-high brick wall. Ellis
brought the Packard to a stop with its bumper against
the heavy, solid gate in the wall.
He was about to tap out “Shave and a Haircut, Two
Bits” on the horn—mostly because it drove the ex–Secret
Service guys nuts, and Ellis didn’t much care for them or
their holier-than-thou attitudes—when a muscular man
in civilian clothing and a woolen overcoat stepped out
T H E S A B O T E U R S
9 3
from a break in a hedgerow and approached Ellis’s win-
dow, his shoes crunching the snow as he walked.
Canidy thought the overcoat more than adequately
concealed what he probably held underneath—a Thomp-
son .45 caliber submachine gun. The man looked inside
the vehicle, nodded at Ellis, then disappeared back in the
hedgerow.
A moment later, the double gate swung inward, Ellis
pulled forward, and just as soon as the car was inside, the
gate doors swung closed again.
Ellis followed the cobblestone driveway back to the
five-car garage, which was called the “stable” because
that was what it had been before being converted to hold
automobiles. He parked the car, then went to the trunk
and retrieved Canidy’s duffel.
“I’ll get that, Chief,” Canidy said, holding out his
hand.
“I can use the exercise,” Ellis said, waving him off.
“Besides, I know how it feels when you get off that plane
from London.”
“Nothing a good belt won’t fix,” Canidy said.
They walked up to the mansion, and Ellis opened the
door that led into the kitchen, then followed Canidy in-
side.
It was a very large space—filled now with the delight-
ful smell of onion and garlic sautéing in olive oil—and
had the industrial-sized stoves and cookware and the
stocked pantries and huge refrigerators that one would
expect to find in a restaurant. And it was noisy.
9 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
A short, rotund, olive-skinned man in his fifties, wear-
ing a white chef’s hat and coat, was loudly directing a
staff of four, waving a large knife as his pointer. Before
him on the marble counter were two large uncut tender-
loins of beef on a cutting board.
“Chief Ellis!” the chef, now waving the knife at him,
said in a deep, thick accent that Canidy guessed was Ital-
ian or maybe Sicilian. “You don’t interfere!”
“Just passing through, Antonio, just passing through,”
Ellis replied. “Say hello to Major Canidy.”
Chef Antonio approached Canidy, stopped within five
feet, put his hands stiffly to either side—the knife still
held in the right one—and in an exaggerated fashion
looked down at his feet for a long moment, then up and
at Canidy.
“It is my great honor, Major,” he said formally.
Then he glanced at Chief Ellis and said to Canidy,
“Chief Ellis is banned from my kitchen. He interferes,
and food disappears.” He motioned back and forth over
his round belly to illustrate.
Canidy laughed.
“It is my pleasure—Antonio, is it?” Canidy noticed
that the chef beamed appreciatively that he had ad-
dressed him correctly, then went on: “And you’re right,
Antonio. I’ve yet to meet a Navy man you can trust
around food or booze. Speaking of which”—he looked
at Ellis and nodded toward the heavy wooden door on
the other side of the kitchen—“I’m going to get a taste
of the latter and take it to my room.”
“Your bag will be waiting when you get there. And I
T H E S A B O T E U R S
9 5
took the liberty of having the staff clean and press the
suit you left here. Might be a good idea to dress for din-
ner. The boss said to expect him about six o’clock.”
Canidy nodded. “Thank you, Chief,” he said sin-
cerely. As he went though the door, he added, “It’s al-
ways wise to dress for what might be one’s last meal.”
III
[ ONE ]
Q Street, NW
Washington, D.C.
1755 5 March 1943
Dick Canidy left his room on the third and uppermost
floor of the north wing of the mansion and walked down
the long hallway. He had had difficulty getting the top
button of his heavily starched dress shirt buttoned, and,
when he finally did, he could not believe how tight the
goddamned shirt collar felt. He wondered if the cleaning
staff had done something terrible to his shirt—at one
point questioning if it was even his shirt—then decided it
was simply a very heavy starching that likely caused some
shrinkage. Whatever the reason, the collar was extremely
stiff and extremely uncomfortable and so he worked his
necktie back and forth to loosen it, then squeezed fin-
gertips inside the collar on either side of his neck and
gently pulled, stretching the material.
That seemed to provide some comfort, and so he
carefully snugged up his Windsor knot just enough to
hold it in place but not so tightly as to cancel out what
he’d just accomplished. He then closed one button on
his dark gray, single-breasted Brooks Brothers suit jacket,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
9 7
surveyed himself in the enormous, etched-glass oval mir-
ror hanging at the end of the hallway, then went down
the wide stairway.
One of the heavy wooden double doors to the library
was partially open and Canidy entered through it, closing
it behind him with a squeak from its heavy brass hinges.
It was a huge room paneled with deeply polished
hardwoods that held large oil paintings of family portraits
of generations of Whittakers. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves
were filled. The dark wooden floor area was segmented
by four large Oriental area rugs of equal size, on each of
which were the same heavy leather couches and arm-
chairs with overstuffed ottomans arranged facing inward,
the design creating a quad of individual areas.
On the farthest wall, above and on either side of the or-
nate brick fireplace, which crackled with a just-beginning-
to-burn fire, there were mounted trophies of great
animals—among them a lion, a wildebeest, a zebra, and a
pair of spectacular horned heads that Canidy seemed to
recall were commonly known as Greater Kudus, which
he thought was an antelope or such—in a gallery, near
which a rollaway bar service had been positioned.
The bar was Canidy’s immediate destination and the
soles of his leather shoes made a resounding thump-thump-
thump in the quiet room as he crossed the wooden floor
to reach it.
The service contained a wide selection of spirits, light
and dark and very expensive, as well as aperitifs and two
9 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
brands of VSOP cognacs he had never heard of. Canidy
found what he was looking for—a delightful twenty-year-
old single malt made by the Famous Grouse folks—and
he poured himself a double, neat, in a crystal tumbler.
He took his drink and stepped closer to the fire, and,
deep in thought, stood and stared silently at the flames.
So this is how it ends? Canidy thought somewhat mo-
rosely. In a glorious mansion with exquisite scotch? The un-
washed amid the trappings of great wealth and comfort
and success? How rich!
He took a healthy drink of the single malt and waited
a moment before swallowing, enjoying its deep flavor
and warmth on his tongue.
He looked up at the exotic animals. He raised his glass
to them.
“Make room for me up there, boys. I’m soon to join
your lot. . . .”
As he took another drink, he heard the door hinges
squeak across the room and he turned.
Canidy recognized the distinguished-looking gentle-
man of sixty standing in the doorway. He was stocky yet
fit, with a full head of silver hair neatly trimmed and
strong eyes set in the ruddy face of an Irishman. He wore
a well-cut, double-breasted dark gray suit, a crisp white
shirt, and a marine-and-white rep necktie. He had a strong
presence; his confidence filled the room.
There was a reason for this, Canidy well knew. Here was
a man whose accomplishments were legion—successful
Wall Street lawyer and Medal of Honor recipient led the
long list—a warrior, a genuine leader, someone whom
T H E S A B O T E U R S
9 9
men would follow anywhere, anytime, for anything,
without question.
And here, Canidy knew, was the man he had let down.
“Good evening, sir,” Major Richard Canidy said,
mustering a voice stronger than he felt. He started walk-
ing toward him.
“Dick,” Colonel William J. Donovan, director of the
Office of Strategic Services, said warmly. “How are you?”
“Getting better by the sip, sir.” He raised his glass. “I
hope you’ll forgive me for starting.”
Canidy and Donovan met in the middle of the room
and they shook hands with some intensity.
“It’s really nice to see you, Dick,” Donovan said, his
eyes locked on Canidy’s.
“Thank you, sir. And you.”
After a long moment, Donovan released Canidy’s
hand, took a step back, and looked at Canidy’s glass.
“Do I suspect you’re into the good single malt?”
“Guilty, sir.”
“Well, then, what the hell.” He smiled. “As we say in the
business, ‘When with evil companions, try to blend in.’ ”
Canidy grinned, nodded once, said, “Single malt it is,
sir,” then turned for the bar, and thought, Helluva way
to get my head handed to me. But— he glanced at the ani-
mal trophies —I can think of worse.
As Canidy poured another crystal tumbler with two
shots of twenty-year-old Famous Grouse single malt
scotch, the director of the OSS said behind him, “I read
your after-action report.”
That was all he said. There was a silence, interrupted
1 0 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
only by the sounds of Canidy putting the bottle back on
the tray with a clunk and of the fire crackling.
Canidy wondered if he was supposed to say something
in reply.
But what? Is this where I throw myself on the mercy of the
court—court, my ass; more like the court, judge, jury, and
firing squad—and confess to having fucked up, apologize to
Donovan for having caused him to bring me home to deal
with my actions, and then beg him that I not be sent to some
hellhole of a stockade or mental ward where I’ll spend the
duration of the war cutting sheets of paper into paper dolls
and confetti?
“Yes, sir,” Canidy said—it was more of a question
than a statement—as he handed the drink to Donovan.
“Thank you.” Donovan took the glass and raised it to
Canidy in a toast. “To successful missions—”
“Sir?”
“—To successful missions that contribute to winning
the war.”
Canidy touched his glass to Donovan’s, but as they
both took sips it was clear that Canidy was not com-
pletely following the OSS director’s meaning.
“Nice,” Donovan said, holding the glass in his palm
and admiring the booze. “Very nice.”
He walked over to the nearest leather couch, sat down,
then motioned for Canidy to do the same on the facing
couch. Canidy did, and now realized that the arrange-
ment of furniture created an environment where a dis-
cussion could be at once open and confidential.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 0 1
After a long moment, Donovan looked at Canidy.
“Anything you want to add that you may have purpose-
fully left out of your after-action report?” he said, his
tone pointed yet at the same time assuring.
What the hell is he hinting at? Canidy wondered. I put
everything in there.
“There were some minor things,” Canidy offered.
“Operational logistics, communications snafus, that kind
of thing.”
Donovan nodded.
Am I missing something here? Canidy thought. Of
course I am. And, Christ, it’s crystal clear—that sonofa-
bitch David Bruce even spelled it out for me—so why the
hell not just get it over with?
Canidy inhaled deeply, let it out, and said, “There is
one thing that I felt best not put in writing.”
Donovan raised an eyebrow.
Canidy stood. “I fucked up, sir. And I apologize.”
The director of the Office of Strategic Services did not
respond.
“It’s just that,” Canidy went on, “someone had to do
something to complete the mission. And so, completely
aware of the fact that I was the control—and knew too
much to go behind the lines—I ignored that and . . . and
I went in.”
He took the last sip of scotch, put the empty tumbler
on the coffee table, and after a long moment of consid-
ering if he should say his next thought, he dismissed it,
then mustered the courage to say it.
1 0 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Colonel, while I do apologize to you personally, I
feel you should also know that I would do it again. I
couldn’t leave Eric and the professor in there; they knew
too much. I couldn’t do it—wouldn’t do it—and so I
would suggest that I am more than a little in over my
head. That now said, I’m prepared to—what? I’m not ex-
actly sure of my options. Quit? Resign? Drive a desk and
push papers here in Washington?”
Donovan was quiet as he considered that. He looked
Canidy in the eyes, looked at his glass, sipped the last of
his single malt.
“None of the above,” Donovan finally said. “You know
that, Dick. In fact, you know too much.” He paused. “Your
offer—however misplaced—is declined—”
“Sir? I—”
“Let me finish, please. While I appreciate what you’ve
said, more than I think you realize, I did not come
here—I did not bring you back from London—to shut
you down.”
Canidy, not believing what he was hearing, simply
stared at the director of the Office of Strategic Services.
“Would you mind, while you’re up?” Donovan said,
holding out his tumbler to Canidy. “But just half this
time. And a water alongside, please.”
Canidy nodded, and as he walked to the bar Donovan
said, “Tell me your understanding of what we’re doing in
England.”
“As far as the OSS specifically?” Canidy said, uncork-
ing the single malt bottle and pouring.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 0 3
“Yeah.”
“Well, starting with the topic at hand, we’re pulling
scientists such as Dyer out through our pipelines, as well
as running harassment campaigns, such as Eric Fulmar’s
blowing up of the ball-bearing plant that was in my re-
port. Then there’s the Aphrodite Project, B-17 drones
packed with Torpex to blow U-boat pens and targets of
opportunity.”
Canidy delivered to Donovan his drinks, placing the
glass of water and the glass of single malt on the coffee
table in front of him.
“That, plus some counterintel and psych ops, are all
being run out of Whitbey House Station,” Canidy said,
returning to the bar for his drink and bringing it back to
his place on the couch. “And just now, David Bruce told
me I’m losing Stan Fine, who Bruce is sending—maybe
has already sent—to Algiers to begin setting up teams to
go into France to support the resistance the way we’ve
got agents in Corsica.”
Canidy watched as Donovan picked up the glass with
the water, poured some into the scotch, diluting it by
about fifty percent, then picked up the single malt, took
a test sip, and, apparently satisfied, put the glass back on
the table.
“That’s mostly correct about Fine in Algiers,” Dono-
van finally said. “It’s all about building a réseau—a net—
of resistance.”
He paused in thought.
“Let me paint you a couple of pictures,” Donovan
1 0 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
went on. “First the big one. The Allies are mustering for
a large push and Hitler knows it. And it’s pretty obvious
to anyone paying even half attention that France is key;
we take it back, take all of it back, and the march is on
to Berlin. What isn’t so obvious is how we would take
France—simply by going in across the narrow top of
the English Channel or by coming up from the south,
through what Churchill has intimated as ‘the soft under-
belly of Europe,’ or by doing both—and what must be
even less obvious to Hitler is how to successfully defend
against any—indeed, all—of that while at the same time
battling the Russians.
“Our having done so well with Torch,” he continued,
“and now with having so many Allied forces in North
Africa would tend to suggest preparations for the latter,
taking Italy, then in through southern France. Yet no
matter which of those options is in play—indeed, if all
of them are in play; the President made it clear in his
Casablanca Conference speech two weeks ago that the
Allies will settle for nothing short of unconditional sur-
render—Hitler knows that his chances are made far bet-
ter by Germany’s success in the Atlantic.”
Canidy nodded. “The starving of England,” he said.
“Exactly. Continue to dramatically reduce the flow of
supplies—food, fuel, weapons, ammunition—and the
Germans’ defense of France becomes easier and gives
way to the Germans’ offense of London. And the U-boats
have been wildly successful in taking out our supply ships
in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 0 5
The director of the Office of Strategic Services leaned
forward and picked up his glass, took a sip of single malt,
considered his next thoughts.
He continued: “That’s the big picture, dangerously
simply put, for Europe. As for a smaller picture—at least
as far as the OSS is concerned—it involves what David
Bruce has Fine doing. OSS London’s Special Operations
is working with Britain’s Special Operations Executive
and the Free French to support the Maquis—young guys
pretty much your age—who fled for France’s woods in-
stead of being forced into slave labor for the German oc-
cupation.”
“Small wonder they don’t trust the Vichy govern-
ment, either,” Canidy said.
“And for damned good reason. So they’ve formed
groups. There’s the Francs Tireurs et Partisans, which is
controlled by the Communists. The Organization de la
Résistance dans l’Armée, full of followers of Giraud. De
Gaulle’s faithful are Forces Française de l’Intérieur, which
is the strongest, and in large part controlled from Lon-
don by the Bureau de Renseignement et d’Action. And a
smattering of others.”
“And we’re supposed to support all these various fac-
tions?”
“That and pull them together,” Donovan said, nod-
ding. “For now, and for after the war. They’re already
fighting among themselves for postwar control. But they
need training. They need weapons. Food. Money.”
“They need us . . .” Canidy said.
1 0 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Exactly. We’re having great success in Corsica. And
we can do it in France. The vast majority of the French
was anti-Axis before being occupied by them, and they
can only be more so now. And those who may be on the
fence, for whatever reason, can be persuaded to work
with the réseau by appealing to their patriotism—or to
their basic sense of survival.”
“When you say ‘basic sense of survival’ . . . ?”
“I mean life or death,” Donovan replied, his tone cool
and calculated.
He let Canidy consider that, then said, “Our mission
will be to supply and lead the Maquis in guerrilla warfare,
sabotaging fuel-storage facilities, rail lines, factories, power
plants—anything to rob the Germans of their use. SHAEF
will designate targets, which SO and SOE agents will
then tell the Maquis to take out. For example, using Ful-
mar’s recent work, it’s a ball-bearing plant. If those who
run it are receptive to working with the Maquis, then we
blow the machinery—forges, lathes, electrical transform-
ers, whatever—to disrupt production for the short term;
if, however, they choose to be uncooperative, we lay on
an aerial bombing run and blow the whole building. The
whole damned neighborhood.”
“Making it a French decision if they want their infra-
structure to survive the war,” Canidy said, nodding. “Ef-
fective.”
“Quite. And I don’t think we will have to resort to
the bombing more than necessary. The French, as we’re
finding on Corsica, will readily accept our arms and sup-
port. Perhaps too readily.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 0 7
“What do you mean by that?”
Donovan considered not answering. After a moment,
he replied, “Part of dancing with the devil is that we have
to recognize they’re the devil for a reason, and that the
devil has his own motives.”
“For postwar?”
“I’m getting more than a little heat here in Washing-
ton when it’s suggested that we’re supplying the Com-
munists—the devil incarnate—with arms.”
“But there is, even if only a little, Allied support for
that,” Canidy said, making it more of a question than a
statement. “ ‘If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least
a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Com-
mons.’ ”
Donovan smiled. “So sayeth Winston. Yes, there is a
reluctant Allied support. Because the success of the
Maquis is critical to the success of the American and
British and other Allied combat forces to come. And that,
Major Canidy, is why I brought you back here.”
Canidy looked off in the distance and tried to make
sense of it all. Something was not right. A piece of the
puzzle was missing. He looked at the director of the Of-
fice of Strategic Services, who he saw was watching him,
studying him.
Canidy said, “At the risk of losing what little credibil-
ity I’m afraid that I might have with you, I must admit
that I do not follow you completely. I understand going
in and supporting the French resistance—I’m fully pre-
pared to act on that right now, set up SO teams, et cetera,
et cetera—but what does not make sense to me, if you’ll
1 0 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
forgive me for saying, is why you could not have made
these orders in a Secret—Eyes Only message. I could be
on the ground in Algiers with Stan Fine right now.”
“Because you’re not going into France.”
The surprise was evident on Canidy’s face. “But I
thought that you just said—”
Donovan held up his hand. “Did you stop to wonder
why it’s just you and me here, Dick?”
“Yes, sir. I thought my ass was in a crack—”
“And after I made it clear to you that it wasn’t, did
you not wonder?”
Canidy said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Donovan continued: “The reason that I pulled you
back in the manner that I did was so that everyone would
think that your ass was in a crack. So if you disappear, it
won’t be unexpected.”
“Disappear, sir? To where?”
Donovan did not reply directly. He studied the crystal
tumbler as he rolled it in his fingers, making the single
malt rise and fall as it slowly circled. “There are, as you
know, people who do not like the OSS. People on our
side of the war, some very high up. For good or other-
wise, one of our chief supporters is the President of the
United States.”
“One could do worse,” Canidy offered.
“Perhaps,” Donovan said, agreeably. “But some-
times—maybe most times—such connections can cause
serious friction, particularly when you take your orders
directly from the President. That’s why no one under-
stood why it was so important that you flew a mission to
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 0 9
bring back bags of what was thought to be dirt. And no
one understood why it was so important to bring out
Professor Dyer. And now no one will understand why it’s
important you set up and run a resistance net in Sicily.”
“Sicily?”
“General Eisenhower, there at AFHQ in Algiers, has
made it clear that he does not want us—OSS in general
and OSS SO in particular—in Sicily before the invasion.
He thinks it will tip our hand to Mussolini and Hitler.
Especially if our Special Operations begins blowing up
things.”
“So we’re going into France from the south?”
Donovan ignored that. “The OSS Italian SI desk here
in Washington, under a very capable and very young
Army fellow by the name of Corvo, has been pulling to-
gether men to compile intel on Sicily and Italy. Their
work has been limited to interviewing anyone in the
States with an interest in the place, from tourists who vis-
ited there to Mussolini-hating natives who fled to the
States. They’re making relief maps of the islands, compil-
ing lists of assets, targets of opportunity, et cetera. Natu-
rally, this is leading to some internal jockeying as some of
the SI guys try to set themselves up as SO, but we’ve
been stalling, using Eisenhower as our excuse. Which is
why you’re going to set up a resistance net in Sicily, just
as is being done in France, one that will not be discov-
ered by the Italians, the Germans, the OSS Italian SI—
and particularly by Ike.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It won’t be easy. While the Sicilians hate the Fascists,
1 1 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
they’re not exactly fond of anyone else, either. You’re go-
ing to have to develop some leverage with them, because
we need intel and we need it right now, something to
feed Eisenhower in the event he gets wind of what we’re
up to—and particularly if we uncover something he
doesn’t know but should.”
He paused to let that soak in, and as Canidy nodded,
went on: “Your cover is the extraction of another scien-
tist, this one a Sicilian named Arturo Rossi. He also has
expertise in metallurgy. More important, he is a key
contact with scientists whose disciplines are of extremely
high value to the United States.”
“For example?”
Donovan took a sip of single malt before replying. It
was obvious that he did not want to answer the question
directly and that he was not going to.
“These disciplines,” he finally said, “and their impor-
tance will become clearer to you in time. For now, know
that Professor Dyer said that he and Rossi worked to-
gether when they both were visiting professors at the
University of Rome. So our immediate fear is that once
the Germans figure that out, and find the connection
with the missing Dyer and these other scientists, Rossi’s
life will be at risk, if it’s not already.”
“I understand.”
“It’s going to be especially difficult because we don’t
have any established pipelines, and establishing one means
getting through to the tight-lipped Sicilians—”
There came a knock, and Donovan stopped speaking
as one of the heavy wooden doors squeaked open.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 1 1
Chief Ellis stood in the doorway with a natty man
who carried in his left hand a tan leather satchel and who
wore a dark two-piece business suit, white shirt, and navy
blue patterned tie with a matching pocket square. He
looked to be about thirty years old and was of average
height, with pale skin, dark eyes, shiny black wavy hair
that was neatly combed, and a finely trimmed black mus-
tache.
“Major Gurfein, sir,” Ellis announced. “And Antonio
says he’s prepared to serve in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Donovan said as he stood up.
“Murray, please come join us,” he added, waving him in.
Canidy stood and followed Donovan as Ellis left the
room and closed the door.
Donovan shook hands with Gurfein, then motioned
toward Canidy. “Murray Gurfein, Dick Canidy. Dick,
Murray.”
They shook hands.
Donovan put a hand on Gurfein’s shoulder, squeezed
it, and said, “Something to drink, Murray? Dick pours a
deadly single malt.”
Gurfein smiled. “That would be a lifesaver.”
Canidy brought the drink to where Donovan and Gur-
fein were seated.
The director of the Office of Strategic Services raised
his glass in a toast and Canidy and Gurfein followed.
“Our swords,” Donovan said.
“Our swords,” Canidy and Gurfein repeated in unison.
1 1 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
After they sipped, Donovan looked at Gurfein. “Nice
booze, no?”
“Very.”
Donovan turned to Canidy. “For your edification,
Dick, the most recent time that Murray and I had the op-
portunity to share a single malt was last summer at the
bar of a very nice hotel in midtown Manhattan, a den
of ill repute frequented by the usual bigwigs, including
Mayor Fiorello La Guardia himself. Our host was a
lawyer by the name of Moses Polakoff.”
Canidy drew a blank on the name, and shook his head
slightly to indicate that.
“Charles Luciano?” Donovan said.
Canidy shook his head again.
Gurfein offered, “Charlie ‘Lucky’?”
Canidy’s eyebrows rose. “The head of the mob? Isn’t
he doing time?”
Gurfein nodded. “Thirty to fifty, courtesy of my for-
mer employer.”
“Before Murray joined the OSS,” Donovan ex-
plained, “he was head of the Rackets Bureau of the New
York County District Attorney’s Office. Tom Dewey, as
D.A. for New York County and as the U.S. Attorney for
the Southern District of New York, did an incredible job
of cleaning out the underworld—Dutch Schultz, Waxey
Gordon, Legs Diamond.”
“Luciano went down in ’36,” Gurfein added, “for
compulsory prostitution of women. Moses Polakoff is his
lawyer. Luciano was in Dannemora Prison till last May,
when we had him transferred to Great Meadow.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 1 3
“Why the move?” Canidy said.
“That’s why Murray is here,” Donovan said. “When
he was running the Rackets Bureau, an unusual situation
arose with ONI. One that might help you.”
Canidy looked incredulous. “I’m going to ask a
Guinea gangster for help?”
Donovan looked at him a long moment. “Time to
dance with a new devil, Dick.” He glanced at his watch,
then at Gurfein. “Why don’t you start from the begin-
ning, Murray? But first, shall we eat?”
[ TWO ]
Manhattan Beach, Florida
0330 28 February 1943
Richard Koch and Rudolf Cremer helped Kurt Bayer and
Rolf Grossman dig two shallow holes beyond a line of
sand dunes fifty yards inland from the beach in order to
bury the black stainless steel containers—now each just
top and bottom shells that were nested together after be-
ing emptied of the soft bags that contained explosives,
detonators, pistols and ammunition, United States cur-
rency, and clothing.
Koch thought, but couldn’t be sure, that he heard the
angry shouting of Kapitänleutnant Hans-Günther Brosin
from just offshore. He told himself that he had to be
imagining it because of at least two things: Enough time
had passed since they had sent the young coastguards-
man, bound and gagged, out to the U-boat in the train
of rafts being retrieved, which should have put the
1 1 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
vessel—and its captain—far out of earshot. And the U-boat
commander would not be so careless as to draw undue
attention to himself while in the process of trying to get
his ship to deeper water before being discovered.
Still, Koch smiled in the darkness at what he imagined
as the U-boat captain’s furious reaction to his little sur-
prise.
The men filled in the greater part of the holes using
their short-handled shovels, then tossed the shovels in on
top, too, and filled in the last foot or so of sand by hand.
They smoothed out the top of the disturbed sand as best
they could, then left it, relying on the rain and wind to
blend it all back together.
They stood, and each slung one of the heavy soft bags
over their shoulder, adjusted its strap, then started mov-
ing southward along the sand-dune line, the team of
Richard Koch and Kurt Bayer in the lead and, some ten
paces or so back, Rudolf Cremer and Rolf Grossman
bringing up the rear.
The plan now called for the two teams to separate
as soon as possible. That meant after they had secured
transportation—a 1935 Ford sedan, big enough to fit
them all for the short time necessary—which Koch told
them he had arranged for through an old contact.
On the surface, the car seemed only a convenience,
not a necessity—each team member had been thor-
oughly briefed on the terrain and alternate transporta-
tion options by Koch and could find their way alone if
necessary—but beyond that, it held other value to Koch.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 1 5
Richard Koch had lived for three years—between
stints as a part-time engineering student at the University
of Florida at Gainesville—in Jacksonville, where he worked
for the local company that distributed Budweiser beer.
He had driven a truck and delivered cases and kegs of
Auggie Busch’s best brewed hops and barley to Duval
County bars in the seaside towns that lined its shore—
Manhattan Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and on down U.S.
Highway 1 to the St. Johns County line.
Over the course of his regular three-times-a-week
route, he had become friendly with many of the bartenders
and restaurant managers with whom he had come in con-
tact, but none so well as J. Whit Stevens. “Jay,” as he was
called, was a stocky, middle-aged blue blood from
Philadelphia who had inherited from his eccentric grand-
mother a popular hole-in-the-wall at Neptune Beach
called Pete’s Bar.
It was because of his grandmother that generations of
the Stevens family had spent their winter breaks at Jack-
sonville Beach. She was a free spirit in the world of
the upper crust, and believed that the Palm Beach–type
crowds wintering to the south of Jax were snooty and
terribly overrated. She had spent nearly a lifetime trying
to take some of the stiffness out of her own husband—
Stevens’s grandfather—and her son—Stevens’s father—
but with little success.
And so it surprised no one when, after old man
Stevens died of a heart attack at his senior vice president
desk in the trust department of Mellon Bank, Grandma
1 1 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Stevens up and moved permanently to Jacksonville
Beach, where, in another free-spirited act, she opened
Pete’s to help her pass the time.
Stevens’s father was also at Mellon, as president of the
corporate banking department there, and it had made
sense to everyone that Stevens would follow his father
and grandfather into banking.
And he did. He graduated from the business school at
the University of Pennsylvania and soon became a Mellon
junior executive on the fast track. But it was not to last.
Stevens never was comfortable as a button-down type.
And all the business of being a blue blood bored him;
he’d just as soon push away from a gourmet meal at a
gala at the Union League of Philadelphia, loosen his tie
as he walked across Broad Street, and go eat a Philly
cheesesteak in the 12th Street Market.
The undisputable fact was that genes had indeed
jumped a generation—and the genes he had gotten were
those of his grandmother.
Clearly, she had recognized that and, accordingly,
willed to him the bar—her last defiant act in trying to
loosen up the Stevens clan.
This time, she had been successful beyond her great-
est hope.
It had been years since her funeral, and that had been
the last time that Stevens had put on a suit and tie. He
now was prone to well-worn khakis, a faded captain’s shirt
with epaulets, and a crushed navy blue Greek sailor’s cap
that was always askew on his unruly sandy hair.
As his grandmother had been, Stevens was also well
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 1 7
liked. This was in part because of his engaging habit of
greeting everyone with a pat on the back—a hug for cer-
tain regulars—but he knew it also was due to the fact that
he had a habit of letting the bartenders at Pete’s pour
penny draft beer when the happy mood struck him.
From most appearances, Stevens did not take the bar
business too seriously. It seemed that the steady cus-
tomers provided him an easy and reasonable cash flow
most of the year and a very good income during the height
of seasons, June through August and mid-November to
early January. And he had that rent-free two-bedroom
apartment above the bar, a bit ratty-looking from the
outside but with what had to be an incredible view of the
beach and Atlantic Ocean. Why work hard?
But the exact opposite was true.
The proprietor, with his master’s of business adminis-
tration from Wharton, quietly tracked every nickel, knew
what a keg cost him wholesale, knew what he lost in re-
tail income when he just about gave away each keg dur-
ing a “happy mood,” and knew by what percentage
customer traffic—and revenue—then increased after word
got around that Pete’s had been giving away beer again.
Most important, he knew that not all of the income
found its way onto the cash receipts reported to the Bu-
reau of Internal Revenue. Consequently, Stevens had a
hefty fund tucked away for a rainy day—a very rainy
day—or for whatever else he decided was the best use of
his money.
In addition to the income from the bar, Stevens also
dabbled in a number of other cash-generating ventures.
1 1 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He owned a couple of rental cottages—shacks, really, just
bare bone and basic but with great beach access—and
these he let in spring and summer (no one ever wanted to
rent them in winter, when a cold wet wind blew in
steadily off the ocean, and the only heat source in the
cottages was the rarely used wood-burning stoves). And
he traded cars, some by choice, some by necessity.
It was common—maybe too common—in a beach
town environment for jobs to come and go almost as easy
as the wind, leaving carpenters and painters and other
such tradesmen to wait out the dry spells.
And it only made sense, at least to them, to spend
time between jobs where they spent time after work
when they had jobs: at Pete’s. But drinking when there’s
no income, and no hope of income anytime soon, made
for a bad formula.
Thus, quietly, because he did not want to become
known as the Bank of Booze, Stevens allowed a select
group to run bar tabs. While those who found them-
selves in that group thought it was a damned decent
service for Stevens to offer to Pete’s regulars who were
temporarily down on their luck, it was far from a mag-
nanimous act on Stevens’s part.
He knew his customers, and which ones were loan
worthy and which were ne’er-do-wells. And for the wor-
thy, he charged a somewhat healthy interest rate, and se-
cured it by holding the legal title to the car or truck of
the borrower.
When the owner got work, he bought back his title by
paying off—in cash—his tab and the interest incurred. If
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 1 9
the owner did not get work and the tab reached a point
short of the value of the vehicle, it was pay up or default
time.
Consequently, Stevens had one, two—on occasion, as
many as four—vehicles to his name.
When he could, he kept a couple of them parked out-
side the bar—it was always good for the place to look as
though someone were there, to draw in patrons during
business hours and, after hours, to deter others who
might not have the best of intentions—and any extras he
kept parked out at the rental cottages.
Richard Koch did not have the benefit of being edu-
cated at a school of finance—he had been strictly reared
in a home of modest means, his father a hardworking
diesel-engine mechanic who had brought the family to
America but then decided to return home to Germany
when Richard was nineteen and old enough to fend for
himself—but Koch was frugal-minded, too.
He had managed his personal affairs well by keeping
steady employment and spending within his means. He
even socked away cash on a regular basis—a little some
times, more others, till he had just over three thousand
dollars.
Koch never needed to use Stevens’s loan system, but
he was aware of it, and aware that Stevens seemed to be
always doing something with cars, and so when, in No-
vember 1941, Koch made plans to visit his family in Ger-
many, he spoke with Stevens about leaving his car with
him. Stevens was of course agreeable—for a small fee.
That left only one thing to take care of: what to do
1 2 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
with the brick of cash that Koch had saved. He did not
want to leave it in a bank—not being a U.S. citizen made
him concerned that the money could be confiscated for
whatever reason—and he thought long and hard about
what to do with it, from burying it to having someone
hold it for him.
He finally realized that he already was having Stevens
hold his car; why not just have him hold it, too—but not
know that he was doing so? He could hide it in the car.
After first taking brown butcher paper and wrapping
the cash in two small bundles, then covering the paper
with heavy black tape, he went through the Ford looking
for a spot that was both safe and not at all obvious. He
looked and looked and finally decided on the backseat.
He unbolted the seat from the floorboard, taped the
bundles to the wire frame underneath, and then bolted
the seat back in place.
Then he drove the car to Pete’s Bar, parked it out
front, locked it, and went inside and handed the keys to
Stevens—never for a moment realizing that in a month’s
time Germany would be declaring war on the United
States and in two months’ time he would be enlisted in
the German army.
In December 1942, Richard Koch had a letter-sized en-
velope added to a pouch containing other correspon-
dence from the Abwehr. This pouch was then hand-carried
to Spain, where it found its way to a Spanish diplomatic
courier en route to Spain’s consulate office in New York
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 2 1
City. There the envelope was sent by messenger to Eva
Carr, one of Fritz Kuhn’s faithful in the German-American
Bund living on the Lower East Side.
When Eva Carr, a rugged-looking brunette of thirty-
five, opened the plain envelope, she found another, note-
card-sized envelope.
It carried the return address:
Richard Koch
Gen Delivery
NYC NY
And it was addressed to:
Mr. J. W. Stevens
c/o Pete’s Bar
117 1st St
Neptune Beach Florida
Attached to the inner envelope was a handwritten
note that instructed the recipient to affix the proper
three-cent postage to the inner envelope and mail it from
a box in New York.
Had Eva Carr opened the smaller envelope, she would
have seen the letter therein, written by hand by Koch,
that began “My Dear Jay,” then opened with a line in-
quiring as to Stevens’s health and well-being, and abruptly
segued to announce that Koch would be coming back to
collect his car, within the next thirty to forty-five days,
and if Koch could so impose on Stevens he enclosed a
twenty-dollar bill (in U.S. currency, of course, which had
come from German counterintelligence) in order to have
1 2 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
someone check out the car to ensure that it was in sound
operating order, that it didn’t need a new battery or tire
or other, that it had a full tank of fresh gasoline, et cetera,
et cetera.
The letter closed by wishing Stevens—and Pete’s—a
successful new year.
[ THREE ]
Wordlessly, the teams made their way southward in the
rain at a half trot, following along the dune line. They
came to an occasional footpath—beach access points that
connected parking lots to the shore—and stopped, care-
fully looking for the lone, love-struck couple out for a
middle-of-the-night stroll or the drunk who may not
have quite made it home, before crossing the path and
continuing south.
At one point, they came to a halt at a four-foot-high
fence that blocked their way—Kurt Bayer actually ran
right into the wall of vertical wooden slats wired together
and was grateful that it had flexed at impact—and,
breathing heavily, the four had to take time to debate
whether it was faster to scale the fence or to run toward
the ocean in order to circumvent it.
They chose, after a brief and animated discussion, to
scale it and soon were running at a measured pace back
toward the south, the path clear of everything but sand
and more sand for the next forty-five minutes.
Then they came to another beach access path, and
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 2 3
there in the dark the faded signage announced, unneces-
sarily:
no lifeguard
on duty!
swim at your own risk!
town of atlantic beach
It was the last part that Richard Koch had found
the most interesting, for it confirmed for him what he
thought he both remembered and recognized in the dark
and rain of the landmarks through this area.
Kurt Bayer stood there beside him, catching his
breath, and they waited for Rudolf Cremer and Rolf
Grossman to catch up to them. After a moment, they
could hear them—feet squeaking in the sand as they
ran—and shortly thereafter their vague shapes came into
view through the mist.
Koch could hear their labored breaths. Then he heard
Cremer manage to say, “Is—is this—this it?”
Koch whispered, “This should be the path leading to
Sixteenth Street, and, if so, just over there about five
hundred meters”—he pointed south and slightly inland,
past some scrub pine trees and palmettos—“are the cot-
tages.”
“Let’s go, then,” Grossman said, already moving and
trying not to sound as if he were breathing as hard as
he was.
1 2 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
They passed the pines and palmettos and came to a pair
of darkened cottages, two hexagonal designs built side by
side on pilings six feet above the sand and overlooking
the ocean. Koch knew that these belonged to J. Whit
Stevens because he had twice rented one of them himself.
They were identical, with weather-beaten wooden sid-
ing, wooden decks and railings—some sections warped—
and rusty tin roofs. The windows were shuttered for the
season. Even in the dark it was clear that these were sum-
mer rentals, absently looked after with the kind of neglect
where one fixes things only when they break—and maybe
then not even right away—as opposed to performing some
semblance of preventative maintenance.
Koch, after pulling his Walther P38 9mm semiauto-
matic pistol from the leather holster on his hip, then
hearing the others doing the same, led the men toward
the nearest cottage.
He could feel the sand under his feet becoming more
packed, and then becoming almost solid, as he reached
the point where grass grew at the foot of the wooden
steps leading up to the deck.
Looking around, Koch had hoped—and even half-
expected—that he would get lucky and find his 1935 Ford
sedan, probably coated white with salt spray and sand par-
ticles, parked on one of the crushed oyster shell pads under
the cottages, where Stevens often left cars for long-term
storage out of direct sunlight.
He was more than a little disappointed, if not some-
what pissed, that it wasn’t there—in fact, that there were
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 2 5
no cars around—because it meant that he would have to
walk to Pete’s Bar and deal with Stevens at his apartment.
They went up the flight of steps, and, at the top, Koch
found the key that he remembered was kept hidden be-
hind a light fixture beside the main door.
He put it in the rusted padlock, opened the stiff lock
with some effort, and threw back the clasp. He grabbed
the knob, turned it, and pushed.
Nothing happened. The door was stuck.
Damned thing is either swollen or warped, Koch
thought, or the whole worthless house is leaning, causing
the door to bind in its frame. If I open it, the whole damned
place is liable to collapse. Oh, what the hell . . .
Koch turned the knob and hit the door hard with his
shoulder once, then twice, and the door finally swung in-
ward on very noisy hinges.
It was even darker inside the cottage.
Koch flipped the light switch by the door but nothing
happened. He realized that it was like Stevens to have
had the electrical service turned off to save even a cent;
probably the water, too.
He felt someone suddenly standing beside him, and
when he looked Grossman switched on his flashlight and
swept the room with its beam. The light initially hurt
Koch’s eyes, but he adjusted quickly and could see, with
all the dust and spiderwebs, that it had been some time
since anyone had lived in or even visited the cottage.
1 2 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
They had entered next to the kitchen, which opened
onto a main living area that—when the shutters were re-
moved—looked out over the Atlantic. There was a short
hallway connecting to two bedrooms and a single bath.
They fanned out, checking that the rest of the cottage
was clear, then went into the main living area and put
their bags down on the wooden floor.
Koch took his flashlight and went to the kitchen and
started going through the cabinets.
They were mostly empty, save for containers of salt
and such, but he finally found the candles he remem-
bered being there. He put one on the table and lit it.
Then he took from his pocket a pack of Derby cigarettes.
Now that they were inside, it was safe to light one up
without being seen, and he did.
“First thing after daylight, I’ll go get the car,” Koch
said, walking over to the couch. “For now, take your pick
of the beds in back. I’ll stand watch first—”
“Sir,” Kurt Bayer said, sitting at the table lit by the
candle, “you rest and I’ll take watch.”
He sat down on the couch, positioning his bag right
next to him. “No—”
“With respect, sir,” Bayer pursued, “I can rest when
you go for the car. Right now, you’re tired, and we all
need to be rested.”
Everyone heard Grossman grunt. It sounded derisive,
as if Grossman thought the other junior agent was kiss-
ing up to his superior.
That attitude bothered Koch, but he found himself
smiling in the dark. He was actually grateful he was
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 2 7
teamed with someone like Bayer, not Grossman, because
the Oberschutz, or chief rifleman, was the coldly ruthless
one, a little too quick to cut a throat, or, as he’d done to
the young coastguardsman, pistol-whip someone.
“You’re right, Kurt,” Koch said. “Thank you.”
Richard Koch finished his cigarette, stubbed it out,
then repositioned a couple of the pillows on the couch,
swung his feet up, and shortly, with his pistol in hand and
resting on his belly, was snoring.
[ FOUR ]
Neptune Beach, Florida
0810 28 February 1943
Richard Koch, walking at a fast clip down Ocean Drive,
pushed the hood of his sweatshirt off his head. He had
pulled it up against the morning chill when he had
started out from the cottage about an hour ago, but now
that he had worked up a light sweat it wasn’t needed. He
wore the hooded sweatshirt—a heavy, gray cotton one
with the faded orange uf logo—tennis shoes, and black
shorts.
Just another local out for his morning walk, he thought,
his hands in the sweatshirt pouch below the uf. One
packing a Walther P38.
At the next corner, Koch cut across the intersection
and started walking south on First Street. He could see
the sign for Pete’s Bar and looked at the parking spaces in
front of the saloon—and began to worry.
Of the two vehicles parked there, neither was the 1935
1 2 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Ford touring sedan. One was a pickup—a 1930 Chevy—
with garish yellow doors lettered stan’s plumbing and
black fenders (the left front one dented) and a rusted
metal framework mounted above the cargo area for the
carrying of oversized lengths of pipes.
For whatever reason—probably the need for a
plumber—it reminded Koch of a drunk he’d once seen in
the men’s room at Pete’s, throwing up in a toilet over-
flowing with a nasty mix of vomitus and other solids.
Koch had grown fond of the Ford. He liked the de-
sign, especially its nose—the tall, sleek chrome grille that
was raked backward with bullet headlamps mounted on
either side, just above the twin horns, and then crowned
with the stylized V-8 emblem that was repeated inside on
the dash.
It wasn’t Cadillac fancy, but in Koch’s mind it was
very nice just the same.
And it has a backseat full of fucking cash.
Koch went around to the back of 117 First Street, to
the flight of rusted steel steps that led to the roof and the
apartment there. He started up the steps, his shoes mak-
ing an enormous racket on the steel as he ascended.
If J. Whit Stevens wasn’t awake before, he is now.
The sun-faded black, stamped-tin address numbers
nailed to the left of the doorframe read 117-a, although
nails at the top and bottom of the a had rusted off and
the letter was now nearly upside down, hanging by the
remaining nail in its left foot.
No surprise. Looks like he takes the same care of his
apartment as he does his rentals.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 2 9
Koch knocked, and the a rocked on its nail.
He heard movement inside the apartment, then foot-
steps approaching the door.
“Yes?” an unseen Stevens said from behind the closed
door.
“Jay, it’s me, Richard Koch. Look, I apologize for
bothering you at this hour on a Sunday. Can we talk?”
After a long moment, there was the sound of the
deadbolt lock turning, then the doorknob. The door
opened about halfway, and there stood J. Whit Stevens in
pajamas and holding a steaming cup of coffee.
“Richard Koch?” he repeated, as he studied him.
“I worked for the Bud distributor,” Koch said. “Re-
member? And I left my Ford with you.”
Stevens did not seem to register that for a moment,
but then his eyes suddenly went wide.
“Oh, that Richard Koch,” he said.
“I’m actually here about the car,” Koch said. He
smiled, glad to be remembered finally.
“Come in, come in,” Stevens said in a now-friendly
tone while opening the door wide.
As Koch stepped inside, Stevens patted him on the
back. “Nice to see you, Richard.”
Koch had never been in Stevens’s apartment. He was
surprised.
It was the exact opposite of the bar and the cottages.
Clean—spotless, even—and nicely furnished with a big
couch, two reclining armchairs, and assorted tables and
lamps and nicely framed art. There was an expensive-
looking India rug, easily ten by twelve, woven with an
1 3 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
intricate patterned design in red, gold, and black. Against
the near wall, a cabinet with beveled, cut-glass doors held
expensive china and glassware. Next to it, by the kitchen
area, was a beautifully finished wooden table. And on the
table were a radio softly playing classical music—Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons, Koch recognized—and a coffeepot next to
the morning Florida Times-Union paper, which Stevens
obviously had been reading when Koch had knocked. He
noticed that one headline read: u-boat attacks drop
but still high—300,000 tons sunk in last 30 days.
Stevens walked over to the curtain that covered the
eastern wall and pulled on the cord system that opened it,
revealing a breathtaking view of the ocean and beach, the
sun rising low on the horizon, its golden rays fingering
through the gaps of the clouds beginning to break up.
Stevens took in the view a moment, then turned and
asked, “Can I get you some coffee?”
“I don’t want to impose. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Very well,” Stevens said, nodding. “Have a seat,
please.”
“Did you get my letter?” Koch said. He remained
standing.
Stevens looked as if he were trying to pick his words
with care.
“The one with that interesting twenty-dollar bill?” he
said conversationally. “Yes, I did.” He paused. “But—”
“But?”
“But after the fact.”
“What fact? Is it wrecked? Stolen? What?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 3 1
Stevens looked at Koch a moment, then said, “If
you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ve got something for you.”
He put down his coffee cup on a table next to one of
the armchairs, then went across the apartment, back to a
door that was on the far side of the kitchen, opened it,
and went through it. The door was left ajar, and Koch
could see the foot of a bed inside.
What the hell did he mean by “after the fact”?
He shook his head as he walked over to the window.
He looked out over the ocean, idly wondering where
out there his U-boat was. Koch heard Stevens’s footsteps
again, then his voice, now chipper, saying, “Here it is.”
He turned and saw that Stevens held a brown accor-
dion folder and was pulling out an eight-by-ten envelope
with r koch handwritten on it in black ink.
Stevens extended the envelope to Koch. He took it,
squeezed upright the brass clasp holding the flap, opened
the envelope, then peered inside. He saw papers—the
letter he had sent (it still had the twenty-dollar bill in it),
some sort of accounting sheet, and a stack of bills, mostly
fifties, bound by rubber band—and pulled them out.
“Eight hundred forty-five dollars, less my commis-
sion,” Stevens said proudly as Koch fanned through the
money. “More than the blue book’s retail value, even af-
ter deducting my fees.”
Koch was now reading the accounting sheet that ac-
companied the cash.
“You sold my car?” he said, incredulous.
“For a mint!” Stevens replied.
1 3 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Who said you could sell my goddamned car?” Koch
said. “And what am I going to do now?”
“I didn’t need your permission,” Stevens said some-
what piously. “The law allows for the placing of a lien
after failure to make payment on the storage and mainte-
nance of a vehicle—”
“But I paid you in advance!” Koch said, his temper
building. He was about to pull out his Walther but
stopped himself.
“Not for the full period,” Stevens replied. “Regard-
less, that’s a mere technicality. I got you a very good deal.
You should thank me.”
“I should fucking shoot you,” Koch snapped, then was
immediately sorry that he did.
Stevens, his face showing fear, took a step back.
Don’t be stupid, Koch told himself. Think!
Stevens watched with real interest as Koch, nervous as
well as agitated, pulled a wrinkled pack of cigarettes from
a pocket of his shorts and lit one. The pack had a draw-
ing of a black horse head and the brand name Derby.
Koch ignored the interest, and, after taking a long
drag and exhaling, looked again at the accounting form.
Stevens said, “It’s all accounted for there on the sheet.
There’s no need to be this way. You were gone quite a
long time, longer than you said—”
Koch looked up at him. “Where’s my car?” he said
forcefully. “I mean, who bought it?”
Stevens opened his mouth to speak but then closed it
without uttering a sound. He thought something over,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 3 3
then shrugged and finally said, “I can get that informa-
tion—I’m not required to share it—but I’ll have to check
my files for it.”
“How long will that take?”
“An hour, maybe less. It’s been sold for at least six
months. Getting to the paper could take some digging.
Do you have to have it now?”
He’s right. I don’t. Even if I had the information on
who bought it, I’d still need to find the guy. Right now, I
need wheels.
“I need wheels,” Koch said. “Where can I get another
car—and I mean now!”
“I understand,” Stevens said, thinking about it, “but
I’m afraid that I don’t have any cars right now.”
“Shit!”
“I’m sorry, Richard—”
Koch then remembered the car that he had seen when
he walked up to Pete’s looking for his Ford. “What about
what’s parked in front of the bar?”
Stevens thought for a moment. “No car that I own.
Must belong to someone who got too drunk last night
and left it.” He paused. “How desperate are you?”
Koch didn’t respond. He thought, I could just steal the
goddamned car.
“How about a truck?” Stevens said and smiled. “I do
have a truck.”
Koch considered that a short moment. “Get me the
keys to it.”
“Now, I have to warn you—”
1 3 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Just get me the goddamned keys!”
Stevens looked at him a moment.
“Okay. And so there’s no bad feelings about this situ-
ation with your car, I’ll give you a deal on the truck.”
“You sure as hell will,” Koch said, and thought, You
don’t know how good of one.
“It’s in the safe,” Stevens said, turning for the bedroom.
“I’ll be just a moment.”
A moment later when he returned, Stevens held a
chrome-plated Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver and
had it aimed at Koch.
When Koch entered the cottage—passing Rudolf Cre-
mer, who had gone to the door with pistol in hand when
he heard the footsteps coming up the stairs—he found
that one of the shutters over a window facing east had
been pulled back and morning light flooded the main liv-
ing area.
Rolf Grossman sat at the kitchen table, finishing the
field cleaning of his Walther; he had lubricated and re-
assembled it after getting out the sand that seemed to
have collected in its every crack and crevice.
The agents had changed out of their black clothing
and now wore the light-colored, casual American-style
clothing that they had brought.
Spread out on the floor were the contents of the soft
bags: electric blasting caps, two-by-three-inch mechani-
cal time-delay devices (their mechanisms built like a wrist-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 3 5
watch’s, with gears and springs), other slow-fuse devices
disguised as pen-and-pencil sets, ampoules of sulfuric acid,
boxes of 9mm ammo, bundles of currency, and more.
The men had taken it all out to ensure that it was di-
vided up evenly between teams, then repacked the gear
into olive drab canvas duffels that they had packed.
Kurt Bayer was repacking his green duffel when he
glanced over at Koch and saw the bloody cloth tied
around his left thigh.
“Ach!” Bayer exclaimed. “What the hell happened?”
Koch walked with scarcely a limp toward the couch
and sat heavily on it.
“It’s nothing,” he said. He looked at the gear spread
out. “How soon before everyone is ready to go?”
Cremer and Grossman were now moving quickly
toward Koch.
“Do we need to go immediately?” Cremer said excit-
edly. He looked toward the cottage door. “Is anyone
chasing you?”
Koch shook his head. “Relax. Everything is okay. But
we should get going as soon as possible.”
Grossman pointed at the leg and, in an accusatory
tone, said, “What the hell did you do?”
Koch looked at him a moment. “Fuck you. I said
everything is okay.”
He untied the cloth—what Bayer now recognized had
been a white T-shirt—and inspected the wound, a small,
oozing red pulp hole on the outside of the thigh that re-
minded Bayer of a very wet, chewed-up pencil eraser.
1 3 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“It went in,” Koch said matter-of-factly, “and it went
out. No serious tissue damage. Bleeding is done. Just
need to clean it up.”
Grossman took a close look and repeated, “What the
hell did you do?”
When Koch didn’t reply again, Grossman said coldly,
“We need to know how this affects what we do after the
teams separate.”
“He’s right,” Cremer added. “Who’s going to be
looking for us?”
Koch nodded. “All right. Fine. I went to the man who
had my car . . .”
J. Whit Stevens had held the Banker’s Special five-shot
revolver in his right hand.
“I had no reservations about selling your car after
your letter came with that twenty-dollar bill,” he had
said. “I knew then that you were up to something shifty,
not just somewhere having fun, overstaying the length of
time you said you’d be gone.”
Koch, hands in his sweatshirt pouch, the right one
holding the 9mm Walther, looked at Stevens and waited
for an opportunity.
Stevens misinterpreted the silence. “You don’t know
what I’m talking about, do you?”
Koch shook his head. “No, I don’t. Look, can you put
down the gun?”
“I had my suspicions before I saw the twenty you sent.
It’s a Series 1928 Gold Certificate. They’ve been out of
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 3 7
circulation for years. The size of it—about a third bigger
than today’s paper money—is a dead giveaway.”
Koch thought, The fucking Abwehr gave us the wrong
money? Christ!
He said, “I don’t know what you’re taking about.”
“Of course not,” Stevens said, coming closer. “But
I do.”
He pointed the pistol at Koch’s pants pocket. “Mind
if I have a smoke?”
Koch shrugged, then reached into his pants pocket
with his left hand and brought out the pack of Derby cig-
arettes.
Stevens nervously waved the pistol at the pack.
“Nice Kraut brand, Herr Koch.”
Richard Koch stared back but did not respond as he
held out the pack.
“I traveled extensively in Europe before the war,”
Stevens went on, smugly. “England, France, Austria, Ger-
many. I know a few things about your country, including
its brands.”
Koch said nothing, just jerked the pack upward so that
a single cigarette appeared in the small hole torn in
the top of the pack. Stevens reached for it with his left
hand—and Koch tossed the pack hard into his face.
There was a sharp crack as Stevens’s .38 fired. Koch
felt a burning sensation in his left thigh but ignored it as
he grabbed the revolver while thrusting his right knee
into Stevens’s groin. Stevens groaned and doubled over,
and Koch forced the muzzle of the revolver behind
Stevens’s left ear—and squeezed the trigger.
1 3 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Instantly, a small geyser of blood and gray matter
erupted from the exit wound atop Stevens’s skull and he
collapsed to the floor, blood from the wound pooling on
the India rug.
“. . . And I grabbed the keys to the truck, and came right
here,” Koch said to Cremer, Grossman, and Bayer at the
cottage.
He chose not to mention the three bricks of cash col-
lected from the bedroom safe when he went for the truck
key—twelve thousand dollars of J. Whit Stevens’s rainy-
day fund kept separate from the rest that was kept in the
safe embedded in the concrete floor of the bar.
“Scheist!” Cremer said. “We have not been ashore a
full day and already we have a trail of a missing coast-
guardsman and a dead pub owner!”
“We have to move!” Grossman said excitedly, and got
down on his knees and started repacking one of the soft
black bags.
Koch shrugged.
“No argument,” he said. “Give me a minute to clean
this scratch and we go.”
Ten minutes later, after carefully packing all the bags and
making sure that they had left no sign of their presence in
the cottage, the four men went down the wooden steps
and headed toward the parking pad of crushed oyster
shells beneath the cottage.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 3 9
“What the hell?” Cremer said when he saw the horrid
yellow-and-black plumber’s pickup. “When you said
‘truck’ . . .” His voice trailed off.
Koch shrugged, then wordlessly put his bag in the
back and got behind the wheel.
Cremer exchanged glances of disgust with Grossman,
then they put their bags in the back and climbed in with
them, trying to arrange themselves so that they would be
inconspicuous to passersby.
As the truck starter ground and the engine caught
with a cough, Bayer came running up, tossed his bag in
the back—hitting Grossman in the head in the process—
then got in the passenger’s seat and slammed the yellow
door shut.
The truck’s tires began to crunch on the shells.
IV
[ ONE ]
Q Street, NW
Washington, D.C.
1850 5 March 1943
“Luciano is a curious study in contrasts,” Gurfein said
right before slicing more beef tenderloin and putting it in
his mouth.
Canidy, Gurfein, and Donovan, well into their meal,
were seated in the small private breakfast area that was off
of the mansion’s main kitchen.
The huge table in the main dining room was for some
reason being used as a conference table—with papers and
maps spread all over it—and therefore unavailable.
The private breakfast area’s outer wall was a large bay
window that overlooked a moonlit open area of the es-
tate that went back an acre or so to where a row of tall
evergreen trees heavy with snow masked a section of the
stone wall that ringed the property and was patrolled at
irregular times by armed guards.
Covered with a cloth of white linen, the rectangular
table was somewhat small, about three by four, and in-
tended to comfortably seat two. It was now set for three,
using what was considered to be the “everyday” china,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 4 1
leaving little empty space between the nice but simple
heavy white plates and the water and wine glasses.
Donovan sat at one end of the table, Canidy at the
other, and Gurfein was seated between them, opposite
the bay window.
Behind Gurfein—very close behind him—was a nar-
row ten-foot-long shelf running the length of the wall. It
now held half-empty platters of sliced beef tenderloin,
garlic-roasted red potatoes, steamed asparagus with a
lemon-cream sauce, as well as a glass pitcher of ice water
and a half-dozen bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, one of
them empty and another open and “breathing.”
At the start, Donovan had excused the staff, saying
that he felt sure that he and his guests could serve them-
selves without risk of starving or other calamity, but if
anything should arise to prove him wrong—“And I have
been wrong before,” he said. “I believe it was a summer
day in 1888 . . . when I was five”—he would immedi-
ately summon them by pressing the floor-mounted ser-
vice call button beneath him.
“Contrasts?” Canidy repeated, carefully cutting his
last stalk of asparagus. “How so?”
Gurfein hurried the chewing of his beef, and swal-
lowed quickly with some effort.
He said, “Although he’s rough and squat and
dumpy—looks like a dumb Guinea thug, especially with
that droopy eyelid and the neck scar he got from knife
cuts—he is actually a cool operator who could run a cor-
poration, if he wanted. A legal one, I mean, because he’s
clearly running an illicit one. Another example is that
1 4 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
there is absolutely no doubt that he is a ruthless killer,
more than comfortable with getting his hands dirty, yet
he has been a model prisoner. Not one problem since he
went in the slam this time. And he’s not eligible for pa-
role for another thirteen or so years—1956.”
“Will he get it?” Canidy asked.
“Not even likely,” Gurfein said. “Not with his history.
When he first went up—he was sent to Sing Sing—the
prison psychiatrist there diagnosed him as dangerous,
and added that, due to his drug addiction, Luciano
should be transferred to Dannemora. And he was. He
was confined to his cell for sixteen hours a day, the re-
mainder of the time spent working in the laundry, with
an hour every other day allowed for some type of exer-
cise.”
The state prison Sing Sing was at Ossining, near New
York City. Dannemora, the state’s third-oldest prison and
maximum-security facility—and, accordingly, a cold, mis-
erable place to spend a night, let alone to languish a
lifetime—was in upstate New York, about sixty miles
from Albany.
Canidy reached for the open bottle of Cabernet.
When he held it up, Donovan said, “Please,” and Gur-
fein nodded enthusiastically. Canidy poured a little more
wine into their glasses, then into his.
“If I may,” Gurfein said to Donovan, “let me begin
with a quick history of Luciano, then we can get into re-
cent events. Because of the latter, I had to deeply invest
myself in the former, and that in and of itself was a for-
midable task.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 4 3
“Of course,” Donovan said.
Gurfein looked to Canidy.
“Please,” Canidy added.
Gurfein cut a piece of meat and put it in his mouth,
clearly gathering his thoughts as he chewed and looked
out the window. After he swallowed, he took two healthy
sips of wine, then dabbed at his lips with his linen napkin.
“First off,” the former assistant district attorney for
New York County began, “he is not a citizen of the
United States, which is what most assume he is. He was
born Salvatore Lucania on November 24, 1897, in Sicily,
the third son of five children. When Salvatore was seven,
his father, a steam-boiler mechanic by the name of An-
thony Lucania, immigrated to the United States and
found work in Brooklyn at a brass-bed factory. The fol-
lowing year, Luciano came to the U.S. with his mother
and siblings. The family worked hard, stayed out of
trouble—everyone except Luciano. He was a tough guy
from the start. Before he dropped out of school, in fifth
grade, he was already roughing up the little Jewish kids,
saying he would protect them from being beaten up in the
neighborhood, at school—wherever—if they paid him—”
“And if they didn’t,” Canidy put in, “then he beat
them up until they did?”
Gurfein nodded.
“Classic thuggery,” Canidy said.
“Interestingly,” Gurfein said between sips of wine,
“one skinny Polish Jew fought back. His name was Maier
Suchowljansky—”
“Later, one Meyer Lansky?” Canidy said.
1 4 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“One and the same,” Donovan acknowledged.
Gurfein stared at his wineglass a moment, collecting
his next thoughts as he methodically worked his thumb
and forefinger on the stem, slowly spinning the wine. He
continued:
“Even though Meyer ‘Little Man’ Lansky was five
years younger than Luciano, Luciano liked him, re-
spected him, learned to listen to him. They were running
rackets in no time. Luciano got busted dealing drugs in
his late teens, and spent months in the slam at Blackwell’s
Island. Despite all that—or, rather, perhaps because of
it—Luciano rose quickly in the underworld. He joined
gangs, then ran them, running with some important Ital-
ian mob guys. Quote Italian unquote is key, because
when Luciano wound up working with Joe ‘The Boss’
Masseria, it wasn’t long before it got bloody.”
Gurfein noticed that Canidy and Donovan had
pushed back from their empty plates and so he turned his
attention to what little remained of his meal. After a long
moment, his plate clean, he picked up his wineglass and
went on:
“As capo di tutti capi—boss of all bosses—Masseria
made a lot of money, and Luciano, now his number two,
made him even more. At one point, thinking he was do-
ing what his boss expected him to do, Luciano suggested
that they diversify—get bigger and more powerful be-
yond their already formidable wealth and influence—by
doing business with gangs that weren’t Italian.”
“Why not?” Canidy said. “Lansky, Luciano’s most
trusted friend, was a Polish Jew.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 4 5
“True. No doubt that’s what Luciano was thinking.
But Luciano’s idea was to expand not only with gangs
that weren’t just Italian—but with gangs that weren’t
just in New York. He was already envisioning a nation-
wide syndicate. Whether he shared all of this with Masse-
ria is unclear. But Masseria would have nothing of the
idea of working with non-Italians. Luciano was persistent
but ultimately frustrated. He got nowhere.”
Gurfein drained his glass, then slid it toward Canidy’s
wine bottle. “If you would, please?”
As Canidy poured, Gurfein said, “Masseria, however,
was beginning to fear Luciano—as any wise boss would
with nowhere to go but down. So one night in October
of ’29 a car pulled up to the curb where Luciano stood
on the sidewalk on Broadway and Fifth Avenue, right
there in front of the Flatiron Building, which he’d just
come out of, and some guys jumped out and forced
him into the backseat. They bound and gagged him and
drove him out to Staten Island. They beat the living shit
out of him, pistol-whipping and stabbing him, then strung
him up in a warehouse by his wrists. Before they left him
to hang there till dead, they also cut his throat.”
“Apparently, not good enough,” Canidy said with a
grin. He knew how easy it was for someone not properly
trained to try to slit a throat—and fail. It was harder, and
a helluva lot messier, than the movies made it look.
Gurfein nodded. “That’s what makes him one tough
Guinea sonofabitch. Beaten and bloody, he still some-
how managed to work free of the rope that tied his
hands, then he crawled out of the warehouse and wound
1 4 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
up getting picked up by NYPD’s 123rd Precinct. The
cops grilled him, but Luciano, true to omertà, said noth-
ing, and they ran him to the hospital, where the cops had
no choice but to let him go.”
“It’s easy not to snitch if you don’t know who tried to
kill you. Did he?”
“Keep quiet? Yeah, he was faithful to the code—wise-
guys don’t speak out, especially to cops, about the mob.
Did he know who did it? No. Not at first. But over time,
his counsel—Lansky—figured it out for him.”
“Masseria.”
Gurfein nodded. “And Lansky helped his pal plot re-
venge. So one day Luciano secretly approached Salvatore
‘Little Caesar’ Maranzano—”
“This is where it turned really bloody,” Donovan in-
terrupted. “Masseria and Maranzano were bitter com-
petitors and even more bitter enemies. And so began
what became called the Castellammarese War. Many of
the immigrants fighting this mob war, including Maran-
zano, had come from the western Sicilian town of Castel-
lammare del Golf, hence the name.” He looked at Gurfein.
“Sorry. Please continue.”
“Over the next couple of years,” Gurfein went on, “it
was a real underworld bloodbath. Countless gangsters
got gunned down. Masseria had been right to be fearful,
because everyone was fearful. And it was in this crazed
environment that Luciano set him up. He arranged to
meet him at a restaurant in Coney Island, and the hit
men were waiting.”
He sipped from his wine, then grinned. “So Luciano
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 4 7
got revenge on Masseria for his attempted whacking.
And Maranzano, who now called himself capo di tutti
capi, rewarded Luciano by making him his number two.”
“Jesus Christ!” Canidy said. “Same song, different
verse.”
“Yes and no. As with Masseria, you had Luciano play-
ing second fiddle to the ruthless big boss. But with one
difference: Maranzano embraced Luciano’s idea of a na-
tionwide syndicate. He wanted to be capo di tutti capi
of the United States. And in order to accomplish this,
he felt he had to take out two obstacles: a gangster in
Chicago named Al Capone—”
Canidy finished it: “—and a gangster in New York
named Charlie Lucky.”
“As you say, ‘same song.’ And Luciano had played this
tune before. So, with Meyer ‘Little Man’ Lansky’s help,
he got Maranzano before Maranzano got him.”
Canidy sighed. “Is there any end to all this?”
Donovan said, “Oh, it just gets better.” He looked at
Gurfein. “Pick up with Dewey.”
Gurfein nodded, then raised an eyebrow. “Colonel,
you know it—and him—better than I do, sir. I suggest
you pick up that part.”
It was no secret that Donovan had close connections
in New York—he had been a United States Attorney in
New York, a very successful one in seeing to the enforce-
ment of Prohibition laws, before settling into a highly lu-
crative private practice on Wall Street.
“There’s an interesting twist here,” Donovan said to
Canidy, rising to the story, but then had second thoughts
1 4 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
and turned to Gurfein. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to
hear your take on it again, Murray.”
Gurfein nodded.
“Very well, sir.” He looked at Canidy. “You’re familiar
with Tom Dewey?”
“Just what I read in the papers,” Canidy said. “Good-
looking, bright guy, fearless. Ran for governor of New
York—and lost—in ’38 at age thirty-five, thirty-six, pros-
ecuted big-time mobsters and other high-profile bad guys,
like the leader of the American Nazis, whatshisname—”
“Fritz Kuhn,” Gurfein supplied.
“—Fritz Kuhn,” Canidy repeated. “Dewey is running
for governor again, and will probably go from there to
run for President.”
“Simply put, in a short time he’s cut a very wide path
that’s shut down a lot of people,” Gurfein said. “You’d
think the mob would want to rub him out—”
“Sure,” Canidy said.
“—and you’d be right.”
“And therein lies the twist,” Donovan said.
Gurfein nodded slowly. “With Joe ‘The Boss’ Masse-
ria and Salvatore ‘Little Caesar’ Maranzano dead and
gone, Luciano and Lansky knew this was their chance to
pull together the various factions of the underworld. If
they didn’t, well, what goes around comes around, right?
So with some great dealing and convincing they man-
aged to set up what was called ‘the Commission.’ ”
The director of the Office of Strategic Services said:
“Dutch Schultz, Lansky, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, and
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 4 9
of course Luciano as its chairman.” He looked at Gur-
fein. “You tell it.”
“It was, I think, 1935—”
“Right,” Donovan said. “ ’Thirty-five.”
“—and Dewey was investigating Dutch Schultz. When
Dutch went into hiding, Mayor La Guardia started to
really put the screws to Schultz’s slot-machine racket.
Needless to say, Dutch didn’t like it, and proposed to the
Commission that Dewey be taken out. Jonnie Torrio told
him, ‘You don’t go whacking guys that high,’ or words
to that effect—”
“That’s right,” Donovan said. “I’d forgotten Torrio
was also on the Commission. And no wonder. It was his
gang that a young Luciano first joined.”
Gurfein waited to see if Donovan was finished, and
when the head of the OSS waved his hand in a Go ahead
gesture, Gurfein continued:
“See, the Commission was really afraid of their own
rackets taking heat—even getting shut down—after the
public reacted badly to the news of the immensely popu-
lar D.A. being killed by the same scum he was trying to
clean up. So when Dutch was told no, he was, shall we
say, less than thrilled about not getting his way, and be-
came so pissed that he decided that he was going to do
the job himself. That is, have his goons kill Dewey. Word
spread among the gangs, and when Luciano and his
buddy Lansky got wind of it they knew that they had to
stop Dutch Schultz.”
“And the only way to do that,” Canidy said,
1 5 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
remembering the news stories, “was for Schultz to get
whacked.”
Gurfein took a sip of water and nodded at the same
time, spilling water on the table and in his lap.
“Shit!” he said softly, then “Excuse me,” and quickly
patted at the wet spots with his napkin.
“So, Schultz,” he went on, “real name Arthur Simon
Flegenheimer, aka the notorious Beer Baron, age thirty-
three, got shot in the Palace Chop House in Newark and
days later died of wounds suffered.”
“And Dewey lived to see another day,” Donovan said,
“saved, oddly enough, by the mob.”
“Fascinating,” Canidy said. “But what—”
“Not that that made any difference to Dewey,” Gur-
fein interrupted, adding, “because while Luciano may
have directly or indirectly kept Dewey from being killed,
Luciano was far from being home free. In fact, quite the
opposite. The relentless prosecutor got him good: His
team of racket busters raided scores of brothels and
brought in some one hundred hookers and madams. Af-
ter a couple weeks in the city’s Women’s House of De-
tention, enough of them talked so that Dewey could
bring charges that would stick. And, in the end, Luciano
was found guilty of running prostitution rings and sen-
tenced to a record term of thirty to fifty.”
“Sounds like Dewey essentially had him tossed in the
slam for life and thrown away the key,” Canidy said.
“That’s what everyone thought,” Donovan said. “But
then the ONI came calling. They were desperate— are
desperate—for information on spies, saboteurs.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 5 1
“Navy intelligence in New York,” Gurfein said, pick-
ing up the next part of the story, “was having trouble—”
Canidy held up his hand to stop him. “Excuse me,
Murray. Hold that thought, please, and pardon me for a
moment. I’m going to make a quick visit to the gentle-
men’s facilities.”
“Good idea,” Donovan said.
He surveyed the table, now little more than a collec-
tion of dirty dishes and glasses, and there followed the
sound of his foot tapping the floor. After a moment,
Canidy realized that Donovan was pressing the service
call button.
“We can have our coffee in the library,” Donovan
said. “Say, ten minutes?”
[ TWO ]
A silver coffee service tray was on the coffee table be-
tween the couches nearest the fireplace. Three china
cups, each emptied of coffee at a different level, were on
the table, as was a heavy wooden humidor.
Colonel William “Wild Bill” Donovan was seated on
one couch and had leaned forward to open the lid of the
humidor and dig out a cigar. His fingers found one, and,
after he pulled it out, the heavy wooden lid fell shut with
a resounding bang that carried well through the large
room.
As Donovan went through the ritual of unwrapping
the cigar, sniffing its length, then snipping the closed end
and putting flame to the other end with an engraved,
1 5 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
gold-plated lighter, Major Richard Canidy and Major
Murray Gurfein stood at the rollaway cart of liquor.
Gurfein held fat snifters in each hand while Canidy
poured into them from one of the VSOP cognac bottles,
the brand of which he earlier had not recognized.
A third snifter was on the cart, and Canidy poured
into it as Gurfein went to the couches, where he handed
one glass of cognac to Colonel Donovan.
“You’re saying that Navy intel in New York was get-
ting reports of U-boats in the Upper Bay?” Canidy asked,
incredulously.
“Yeah,” Gurfein said, opening the lid of the humidor
and digging out a cigar for himself. “But only reports.
No sightings. Considering all the ships getting sunk not
far offshore, and those saboteurs we caught last June
who had come in at Long Island by U-boat, it’s under-
standable that people would make that leap of logic. Es-
pecially after the Normandie went down in the Hudson,
moored there at Pier 88.”
“The Normandy?” Canidy said.
Gurfein, puffing deeply on his cigar as he held a match
to it, nodded.
“The French luxury ocean liner SS Normandie, ” he
explained, “was the world’s largest ship when launched at
St. Nazaire in 1932. She had crossed the Atlantic a hun-
dred or so times when, after arriving in New York, the
Coast Guard took her into custody.”
“How could they do that?”
“Rather easily. France had been occupied, and they
were not about to let the Krauts have her back. So, in-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 5 3
stead, the U.S. War Department then seized the ship, re-
named it the USS Lafayette, and began converting it into
a troop carrier. That process was nearly completed when,
on February 9, 1942, she began to burn. The fire quickly
spread, there were explosions and more flames, and the
great ship turned on her side and without ceremony
sank.”
“Jesus Christ,” Canidy said. “Incredible.”
“Yeah,” Gurfein said, sipping cognac. “After that, you
would not believe what kinds of reports came in from the
public. Everyone who looked even mildly suspicious
suddenly was considered a spy or saboteur. One guy was
convinced he’d seen der Führer’s personal Mercedes—
but the FBI, ever quick on their toes, discounted that
one when two of their agents arrived to question him at
the bar, on East Seventh.”
Canidy chuckled. “McSorley’s?”
“McSorley’s Ale House indeed. They couldn’t do
anything with him, though. He was dusty as everything
else in that hole, half in the bag, and adamant that he’d
seen what he’d said he’d seen. He’d slurred, ‘Why the
hell can’t you guys just do your jobs. The goddamned
Krauts are right under your noses!’ ”
Now all three men chuckled.
“Have you seen her?” Gurfein said, his tone now seri-
ous. “The Lafayette, I mean. She’s still there. It’s an in-
credible sight. Bigger than the Queen Mary, but now just
a burned abandoned hulk. That’s a real signal for some-
one to send.”
Canidy shook his head.
1 5 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Donovan said, “I have, and you’re right. It’s sad. A
magnificent ship burned right before it was ready to sail.
You can see why rumors circulated about how it hap-
pened.”
“Rumors?” Canidy repeated.
“ONI’s Third Naval District,” Gurfein said, “is re-
sponsible for securing the waterfront in New York, Con-
necticut, and part of New Jersey—”
“And,” Canidy interrupted, “it reports to . . . ?”
“The Office of Naval Intelligence here in Washing-
ton,” Donovan offered, “which means just about directly
to Frank Knox.”
Colonel Frank Knox was secretary of the Navy.
Gurfein went on: “—their key job being to see that
nothing interferes with troop shipments and with ship-
ments of supplies and ammunition. In that capacity, and
in the capacity of ensuring the general safety of the wa-
terfront, they’re looking for subversive activities both in
the harbor and on the coast.”
“Okay,” Canidy said.
“And because of that, they received all sorts of sug-
gestions as to what happened to the Lafayette. ”
“Such as?”
“Such as the ship was sabotaged by the mob as a very
clear way of saying they controlled the waterfront and
could do the same to any other ship—or ships—if Lu-
ciano wasn’t looked upon favorably for early release.”
“Any truth to that?”
“None whatsoever,” Gurfein said, somewhat defen-
sively.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 5 5
Canidy wondered what that was about.
Gurfein went on: “There have been suggestions that
those with sympathy toward the Axis, particularly Fritz
Kuhn’s followers in the German-American Bund, set it
afire to keep it—and the troops and matériel it would
carry—out of the war.”
“That’s plausible,” Canidy said.
“Yeah, it is. But so far, no one has turned up any
proof. Just a lot of tips that go nowhere. Since she sank,
it seems that every time someone sees a bluefish break
the surface of the Hudson or East River he’s convinced
it’s a U-boat periscope and the phones ring off the
hook.”
Canidy said, “And when the guys from ONI check it
all out—”
“They come up with next to nothing,” Gurfein said
matter-of-factly, then chuckled. “Except maybe the occa-
sional FBI agent lurking in the shadows quote under-
cover unquote.”
“Part of why no one was getting any information,”
Donovan put in, “was because the mob does control the
waterfront. You could put Navy guys everywhere—and
they pretty much did—but then nobody talks, nobody
answers questions, never mind provides leads, good or
bad.”
Gurfein took a puff of his cigar and let out a big blue
cloud.
“It’s like this,” he said. “You could be standing in the
middle of Fulton Fish Market and pointing to a table
stacked high with tuna and asking one of the union boys,
1 5 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
‘What kind of fish is that?’ Now, if he suspected you were
a Navy guy, or working for one, he’d look you square in
the eye and say, ‘Fish? What fish? I don’t see no fuckin’
fish,’ then grin like he knew he had you.”
“Meanwhile,” Donovan said, “ships were going down
in record numbers. In March ’42, fifty were sunk, an-
other fifty in April, more than a hundred in May, and on
and on.”
Gurfein was nodding knowingly.
“Which suggested,” Donovan continued, “at least two
grave situations: One, somehow information about when
and where ships sailed was apparently reaching U-boats
waiting, like sharks before a feeding frenzy, just offshore.
Two, these U-boats seemed to have unlimited fuel; that
is, they somehow were being refueled to stay on station.
There simply were too many being too successful.”
“So,” Gurfein said, putting his cigar in an ashtray and
picking up his cognac, “ONI, being in charge of the wa-
terfront, was under great pressure to get information.
And because they were in charge of the waterfront, they
knew that the mob ran it and that the mob controlled the
fishing boats—if not directly, then had considerable in-
fluence indirectly, because the mob controlled the Fulton
Fish Market, where catches from Maine to Florida—the
entire eastern seaboard—were sold. And the fellow who
controlled the fish market was— is —Joe ‘Socks’ Lanza.”
Canidy sat back in his seat. “So ONI approached this
guy Lanza?”
Gurfein shook his head.
“Not directly. No way he’d talk,” he said, then took
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 5 7
a sip from the glass before going on: “Joseph ‘Socks’
Lanza, age forty-one, a real brawler, an in-your-face kind
of guy from the Lower East Side—oldest of nine kids—
fought his way to be what’s called the business agent of
local 124, United Seafood Workers union. A long history
of charges—theft, homicide, coercion—that never stuck.
No witnesses, no worries. Go figger, right?”
Canidy chuckled.
“It would be funny if it weren’t so true,” the former
assistant district attorney said. “But it’s also funny—
funny coincidental, not funny ha-ha—that when the
D.A.’s phone rang with ONI at the other end of the line
asking about a dock boss named Joe Socks, we had the
guy under indictment for alleged extortion on the water-
front—your basic kickbacks from workers, and beatings if
they didn’t pay.”
“Back to your basic thuggery,” Canidy said. “Wise-
guy 101.”
“So we set up a meeting with a couple of the Navy
boys and Lanza’s lawyer. We explained that we needed
access, we needed answers, we needed tips, we needed
anything, and would Lanza be willing to help?”
“What did you offer them?” Canidy said. “Some pos-
sibility of a deal on the extortion?”
Gurfein shook his head vigorously. “Not one damned
thing.”
“Nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Gurfein repeated. “We simply
appealed to their sense of patriotism.”
He puffed on his cigar two times, heavily, exhaled
1 5 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
audibly, then took the cigar into his hand and gestured
toward Canidy with it as he made his point.
“You have to keep in mind that these Italians and Si-
cilians came to the United States for a better life and that
many have family back in the old country, where Mus-
solini and the Fascists are making life a living hell. And
keep in mind that Il Duce went after the mafioso in a vi-
cious manner, appointing a special prefect with extraor-
dinary powers to wipe them out; many wound up in
penal colonies on those volcanic islands north of Sicily—
the Liparis, in the Tyrrhenian Sea—while some of their
bosses had to find refuge in Canada and elsewhere. So
patriotism, on the surface—it’s not that hard a sell.”
He put the cigar back in his mouth and puffed.
Donovan said, “That’s not to say that they did not
think there might be some consideration paid at a later
time, especially if their help made a real difference—”
“But,” Gurfein, sitting up stiffly, shot back, “we of-
fered nothing.”
Donovan smiled.
“Yes, Murray, I’m not disputing that. I’m putting my-
self in their shoes, considering how they might have per-
ceived the situation.”
Gurfein looked at the director of the OSS a moment
and realized he’d been overly defensive.
“Of course,” he finally said softly. “My apologies, sir.”
He slumped back in the couch.
“Not necessary but accepted,” Donovan said very
agreeably. “There is also the very real possibility,” the di-
rector of the OSS went on, looking at Canidy, “that they
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 5 9
were open to the idea because the more information col-
lected meant the more they knew about the waterfront.
It really was to their benefit.”
“And then there’s that patriotism thing,” Canidy said
and beamed at Gurfein.
Gurfein looked at Canidy intensely, then realized he
was having his chain pulled. He smiled.
“Okay, okay, I’m not that naïve. So there were possible
plusses for both sides. Bottom line is, it worked. Slowly at
first. Not every guy on the waterfront opened up imme-
diately . . . or at all. Then someone—Lanza, I think—got
the idea that with the right words said by the right
people—the bosses—word would get out for everyone
to cooperate. It’d grease the skids. And what better way
to get the bosses to agree than to have the boss of bosses
agree?”
“And it was off to see Luciano,” Canidy said.
“Polakoff first,” Donovan said, correcting him. “In the
hotel bar, remember?”
Canidy’s eyebrows went up. “Right.”
“We got Luciano, without him knowing how or why,
moved from Dannemora to Great Meadow,” Gurfein
said, “after selling it to Louis Lyons, New York’s com-
missioner of corrections. His line was, ‘If it saves the life
of one American sailor, I’m all for it.’ ” He looked at
Canidy. “That patriotism thing.”
Canidy smiled. “Sure, but he’s supposed to be on our
side.”
“A lot of people are supposed to be on our side but
don’t always seem to be,” Gurfein replied.
1 6 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Some of my biggest enemies,” Donovan added
solemnly, “are here in Washington, not in Europe.”
Canidy and Gurfein exchanged glances.
While exceedingly rare, it wasn’t the first time that
Canidy had heard the OSS chief complain about having
to fight more bureaucratic battles than real ones with
bullets. But from the look on Gurfein’s face, it apparently
was a first for him to hear such blasphemy.
“So,” Gurfein went on, “they swapped eight prisoners
from each prison—”
“Wonder what the seven who moved with Luciano
thought they’d done right to deserve better conditions,”
Canidy thought aloud. “Or what the eight moved to
Dannemora thought they’d done wrong.”
Gurfein looked at him a moment, then corrected him.
“Eight—because Luciano didn’t know, either. Polakoff
and Lansky had made the move as a condition of their
getting Luciano to agree. Their reasoning was to have
him closer so their commute to and from New York
would be short, but ultimately it was, I think, a test to see
how serious we were, to see if we could and would affect
the transfer.”
“And did he?” Canidy said.
“Agree? Not at first. Ever careful, Luciano said he was
not sure who was going to win the war, and he did not
want anyone knowing he cooperated. He was also afraid
of being deported back to Sicily and having to suffer the
wrath of Mussolini or Hitler or—maybe worse—the
mafia there. It was only after Luciano considered that
he’d been moved to a better place, and there he would be
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 6 1
allowed to meet with Lansky and his lawyer whenever he
wanted—”
“In the interest of providing information for the war
effort,” Canidy said, “and not running any rackets.”
“Certainly the former,” Gurfein said. “As to the lat-
ter?” He shrugged. “Regardless, in no time word worked
its way down through the ranks that Luciano said to co-
operate and they did. They even went so far as to issue
union cards to ONI guys to work everywhere from on
the fishing boats themselves to behind the counter of the
hatcheck rooms in nightclubs.”
Donovan said, “And, Dick, that’s the kind of access
you’re going to need in Sicily.”
“From Luciano?” Canidy said. “Do you think patriot-
ism is going to cut it again? It’s a different dynamic.”
“Not necessarily,” Donovan said. “What makes you
think Luciano would not want to expand into his home
country?”
Canidy considered that. Before he could reply, Gur-
fein spoke up.
“You can ask him for yourself, Dick,” Gurfein said.
“About the patriotism part, that is. I’ve got it set up for
you to meet Lanza, then maybe Luciano.”
1 6 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ THREE ]
Jacksonville, Florida
1130 28 February 1943
As Richard Koch turned the yellow-and-black 1930 Chev-
rolet pickup truck onto U.S. 1 and drove toward the St.
Johns River, he studied the instruments on the dash-
board.
He saw that the speedometer did not register—its
needle rested below the zero on the dial face—and that
the mileage shown on the odometer, which was not turn-
ing, was 40,348. With the odometer displaying only five
digits, he knew that the numbers had to have rolled
all zeros, and that meant that the truck really had, at
the very least—who knew when the odometer had last
worked—140,348 miles, if not 240,348.
He noticed, too, that the oil pressure and ammeter
gauges seemed to be registering properly and in a
good range. The needle on the gauge labeled oil/p.s.i.
pointed to 50 and the ammeter needle bounced between
8 and 10.
He glanced at the gauge labeled fuel. Its needle was
flat against the e.
Does that mean it’s broken, too, or we’re out of gas? he
wondered. Either way, I have no idea how much gas is in
the tank.
He tapped the gauge glass with his right index finger.
The needle didn’t respond.
“Damn!” he said.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 6 3
“What?” Kurt Bayer said.
“We need gas,” Koch replied.
After a moment’s thought, Bayer said, “They didn’t
issue us any ration coupons.”
Even if the Abwehr had, Koch thought, they’d probably
be the wrong ones. Like that damned twenty they gave me.
Bayer glanced around the truck, then through the
back window to the cargo area where Rolf Grossman and
Rudolf Cremer were riding, leaning against built-in
boxes used for carrying tools and plumbing parts.
“There’s probably a rubber hose back there,” Bayer
said. “We could siphon some from another vehicle.”
Koch nodded. “Yeah, good idea.” He looked at the
glove box. “Just for the hell of it, check in there.”
Bayer opened the glove box door and wads of discol-
ored papers that had been crammed inside came pouring
out.
“What the . . . ?” Bayer said as they fell in his lap and
down to the filthy floorboard.
He began picking through the mess. There were
handwritten receipts on standard forms from plumbing
supply shops and blank invoices imprinted in black ink
with stan’s plumbing, manhattan bch, fla.
After a moment, Bayer’s voice sounded excited.
“Well, would you look at this . . .”
Koch downshifted the transmission to slow for a traf-
fic light that was turning red—the wound in his left leg
hurting when he depressed the clutch—and then looked
over.
1 6 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
A grinning Bayer held up a small form.
On it, next to a tiny shield design that encouraged the
buying of war bonds and stamps, it had united states
of america office of price administration gaso-
line ration card at the top, a seven-digit serial num-
ber, and, twice the point size of the number, a big letter
t. Under that was the handwritten information of the
holder—Stanley Smith, who, the form stated, had agreed
to “observe the rules and regulations governing ra-
tioning as issued by the Office of Price Administra-
tion”—his address, and the truck’s make and model and
license plate number.
Koch grinned at the rules and regulations part— What
a joke— then his eye went to the t.
“That’s good for five gallons,” he said. “All we need.”
He looked at Bayer.
“But when we stop,” he added, “check for that rubber
hose. We may need it later.”
Koch, after they had finally found a gas station open and
pumped fuel in what had been a dry tank, took the U.S.
1 bridge across the St. Johns River into downtown Jack-
sonville. He drove up Main Street, looking intently in
each direction as he went through the intersections at
Monroe, Duval, then Church Streets.
“Something wrong?” Bayer asked.
There now was a short coil of half-inch-diameter wa-
ter hose at his feet, on top of the scattered receipts from
the glove box.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 6 5
Koch didn’t answer right away.
A minute later, when they came to State Street, he
said, “Damn, went too far. I knew this didn’t look right,”
and turned left, drove six blocks to Broad Street, made
another left, and then a right onto Water Street.
There, Bayer pointed out the train tracks.
Koch smiled and nodded, then pointed to a lamppost
on the corner with a street sign that had the representa-
tion of a train track on it— Looks like a stepladder, Koch
thought—an arrow, and jacksonville terminal.
Down the street, a row of two dozen palm trees, each
easily thirty feet tall, separated Water Street from the park-
ing lot of the terminal building.
The building itself was quite grand.
“Impressive,” Bayer said, marveling at its massive
stone façade.
The wide entrance featured a row of fourteen Doric
columns towering four stories high. The main building
itself rose even higher, topped by a peaked roof.
“Typical American overkill,” Koch said, unimpressed.
“They say the design is a smaller version of New York’s
Penn Station, which, of course, was designed to copy the
Roman baths.” He looked at it a moment before pulling
into a parking spot. “Disgusting, if you ask me.”
As he pressed down on the clutch with his left leg, the
wound in his leg triggered a spasm of pain and he invol-
untarily jerked the leg. That caused him to dump the
clutch—killing the engine and banging Grossman’s head
on the back window.
Koch turned at the thump, saw the big oberschutz
1 6 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
vigorously rubbing his skull like a little boy with a boo-
boo, and called back, “Sorry!”
Grossman glared back through the window.
Bayer and Koch got out of the truck.
“We’ll be back shortly,” Koch told the pair in the back
of the truck.
“Be quick,” Grossman called out as they started to
walk across the parking lot toward the giant columns. “I
have to piss.”
Inside, Bayer thought that the terminal was even more
elaborate and massive—if that was possible.
The main waiting room, light and bright, held grand
arched windows that towered upward six stories to an or-
nate vaulted ceiling. The floor itself—the first thing he
had noticed—was marble polished to an incredible gleam,
which seemed to hold its shine well despite the heavy
foot traffic.
And there was a mass moving through. The place was
packed with hundreds of civilians and soldiers, some trav-
eling, others there to see off or greet those traveling. They
milled about the room or waited on the long wooden
benches, talking, reading, couples holding hands. Many
lingered in the huge restaurant and in the snack bars and
newsstands. A few were even getting trims at the barber-
shop.
Bayer looked around the great room and saw signage
indicating main concourse and, just before the orna-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 6 7
mental iron gates that led to the trains themselves, tick-
eting.
He lost sight of Koch in the crowd, then saw him
walking toward the semicircle of ticketing windows in
the marble wall at the right side of the main room.
The idea was for each agent to buy two round-trip
tickets to different destinations. They would give these—
one for each destination—to Grossman and Cremer,
who would travel on one and keep the other as an alter-
nate route, a backup.
The reason Koch and Bayer and not Grossman and
Cremer were buying the tickets was so that if someone
should later try to retrace their path, there would be no
one able to recall either agent having ever purchased a
ticket or the destination of those tickets.
And there was enough speculation between them that
they had already left a very clear trail.
Bayer navigated through the crowd. He noticed that
Koch had gone to a line for a ticket window at one end
of the semicircle. Bayer, accordingly, headed to a line at
the opposite end.
Bayer’s line was shorter. He had only three people in
front of him, including a young mother holding on her
hip a toddler who didn’t want to be held.
Surprisingly, the line moved quickly, though, and after
only ten or so minutes of Bayer being annoyed by the
toddler at his feet he was at the window.
“Destination, sugar?” the young blonde woman be-
hind the window asked pleasantly.
1 6 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Bayer was caught off guard for a moment, surprised at
how attractive she was. And that Southern accent seemed
to drip with sweetness.
He smiled, but didn’t reply.
“Where you going?” she said.
“Birmingham,” he said, then remembered to add,
“Round-trip.”
“Atlanta or Mobile?”
He looked blankly at her. “No,” he said after a mo-
ment. “Birmingham, please.”
“Atlanta or Mobile?” she repeated.
Bayer, staring, wondered if he couldn’t be heard over
the din of the room.
The blonde rolled her eyes.
She said, “You have to connect to get to Birmingham,
sugar. You can go to Mobile, then go north. Or you can
go to Atlanta, then go west.”
Shit! Bayer thought. We went over this!
“Atlanta, please,” he said, trying not to appear ner-
vous.
“That one departs in fifteen minutes or four hours. Is
fifteen minutes a problem?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“Six dollars.”
“Six!” he said.
She gave him a big smile, a flash of bright white teeth.
“It’s the Orange Blossom Special, sugar. Real luxury.
Air-conditioning and diesel power. You want cheaper,
take the coal-fired train to Mobile.” She paused. “It de-
parts in two hours.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 6 9
“No, no,” he said, “that’s fine.”
He pulled out his wallet and removed a ten and two
singles.
“Two, please,” he said, putting the cash on the marble.
“I’m with, uh, a friend.”
Her eyebrows went up for a second, then she reached
into a drawer, came out with eight tickets—two for each
of the round-trip’s four legs—then put four tickets each
into two sleeves decorated with oranges and slid the
sleeves toward him.
“Track 20. Y’all have a nice trip.”
Bayer nodded Thank you, left the window, and walked
toward the front door, making what he hoped was an in-
conspicuous glance over at Koch. He saw that Koch was
still in line, with two people between him and the window.
“It’s that way!” Bayer heard his ticket woman say.
He turned to look at her.
“The passenger boarding ramp is that way,” she
called, helpfully, pointing toward the ornamental iron
gates. “Track 20.”
Bayer waved and nodded, mouthing Thank you.
He went out the front door.
When he got to the truck, Cremer and Grossman
were standing on either side of the cargo area, looking
anxious. Grossman was closing up his duffel.
“Where’s Koch?” Cremer said.
“Still in line getting the backup tickets.” He discreetly
set the two orange sleeves with their tickets in the cargo
area. “These are the ones to Atlanta and on to Birming-
ham. It leaves in fifteen minutes.”
1 7 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Fifteen minutes?” Grossman repeated.
He snatched up a sleeve, stuffed it into his coat
pocket, then pulled his duffel out of the truck and swung
it onto his shoulder.
“Forget the backup tickets,” Grossman said, adjusting
his fedora and walking toward the building.
Bayer said, “Where are you going?”
“To take a leak and catch a train.”
Cremer looked at Grossman, then at Bayer, and
shrugged. He grabbed his tickets and a duffel.
“Tell Koch thanks.” He offered his hand, and as they
shook he said, “Take care of yourself, Kurt.”
“And you, Rudolf.” He looked toward Grossman.
“Watch yourself with him.”
Cremer smiled. He waited a moment until Grossman
blended in with the crowd that was entering the build-
ing, then followed.
Grossman entered the main waiting area of the terminal
building. As he scanned the room, looking for a restroom
sign, he saw Richard Koch walking away from the ticket
windows. They locked eyes a moment, and Grossman
shook his head, then immediately turned and walked in a
direction away from Koch.
Just before the iron gates leading to the trains, Gross-
man saw a sign reading men. He entered and found a
stall at the far end empty, then squeezed into it with his
duffel and closed the door, sliding the latch to lock it.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 7 1
Two minutes later, his bladder and his duffel both
somewhat lighter, he exited the stall.
An anxious young man started for it, but Grossman,
wrinkling his face, waved the young man off as he spiked
a piece of paper on the coat hook attached to the outside
of the door.
The paper, scrawled in heavy pencil, read: “Out of
Order.”
Koch went out the front entrance of the terminal about
the time Cremer entered it, but neither saw the other in
the crowd.
Bayer was at the truck, waiting in the passenger’s seat,
when Koch got there. Koch got in behind the wheel.
When Bayer had explained what had happened to the
other two agents, Koch did not seem surprised or upset.
“Good riddance,” Koch said.
Koch shifted the truck’s gearbox into neutral, then de-
pressed the starter pedal on the floorboard. Nothing hap-
pened. He pressed it again and again nothing.
“Dead battery?” Bayer said.
“Hell if I know,” Koch replied, opening the door.
They got out and went to the front of the truck. Koch
raised the hood. The engine had oil seeping at nearly
every seam, and the oil itself had mixed with dirt to cre-
ate a thin coat of oily, black cake.
Koch located the battery. It appeared to have the same
oily dirt coating—how oil got on it, he had no idea—and
1 7 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
there was a plume of gray-white corrosive growth on the
battery’s positive lead post.
“Nice,” Bayer said. “More than enough corrosion to
make it lose contact. I thought I saw a wrench in the
toolbox. I’ll get it.”
Cremer had made his way with the flow of the crowd
along the passenger boarding ramp. He saw that the end
of each track had its own white stone train bumper—a
big block about four by four by four—with the bold,
black track number painted on it. In keeping with the
landscape design scheme of rows of palm trees outside
the station, each bumper was topped with a potted, four-
foot-tall palm, creating a similar row inside.
Cremer came to the palm-topped, white stone train
bumper with its black-painted 20. The passenger train
there—its cars had orange blossom special lettered
on them—appeared to be a very nice one.
He got in line to board behind a well-dressed older
man in a dark two-piece suit and hat.
The man looked back at him, smiled, then stepped to
the side.
“After you, soldier,” the man said to Cremer, appear-
ing pleased to offer Cremer the courtesy of going ahead
of him.
Cremer thought he must have looked confused to the
man because the man attempted to clarify by nodding at
the olive drab duffel on Cremer’s shoulder.
Now Cremer understood.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 7 3
“Thank you, sir,” he replied. “But I insist, you first.”
That seemed to please the older man even more. He
nodded and went ahead.
As Cremer boarded behind the man, he saw Gross-
man farther down the ramp, looking like another soldier
boarding at another doorway.
It took Kurt Bayer longer than he expected to find the
right-sized wrench in the toolbox, then more than a lit-
tle effort to loosen the nut on the clamp that attached
the electrical cable to the battery. He took his time,
knowing that the corrosion had weakened metal and that
if he broke the clamp they were really screwed.
A train whistle blew and Bayer checked his watch. Sev-
enteen minutes had passed since he bought the tickets to
Birmingham.
“Must be their train leaving,” Koch said.
Bayer nodded and went back to working on the clamp.
After a few minutes of painstakingly unscrewing the clamp
nut, he finally had it loose of the lead post.
Richard Koch reached in and grabbed the cable. As he
began tapping the clamp against the truck’s framework,
dislodging some corrosion in the process, there came a
horrific explosion from behind the terminal building.
The sound from the concussion was such that it
caused Bayer and Koch to jump. Richard hit his head on
the underside of the truck hood.
They exchanged wide-eyed glances, then looked
toward the building.
1 7 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
A black cloud of smoke was rising above the terminal,
where the passenger-boarding-ramp area met the main
building.
People came running and screaming out of the build-
ing. Some were bleeding. A few—all of them men—had
their clothes on fire.
“Whatever that is,” Koch said, “it’s not good for us.”
Bayer quickly put the clamp back on the battery post,
then tightened it as best he could with the wrench.
The parking lot was becoming chaotic as people raced
to their cars to get away from the explosion while others
ran from their cars to try to find loved ones inside the ter-
minal.
Bayer wasn’t sure but he thought he’d just seen one
woman, hysterical, bolt from her car and run to the ter-
minal, leaving the car there with its door wide open and
its engine still running.
Koch got behind the wheel of the pickup and tried to
start it.
Nothing.
“Dammit!” he said, slamming his fist on the dash.
He mashed the starter pedal again.
Still nothing.
He stuck his head out of the window, looking around
the open hood, but he couldn’t see Bayer.
“Now, what the hell?” Koch muttered.
As he got out of the truck, he heard Bayer call,
“Richard!”
He turned and saw Bayer putting their two duffel
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 7 5
bags into the backseat of a 1940 Ford sedan, then getting
behind the wheel.
Koch went to the passenger’s door, got in, and Bayer
calmly eased away as police cars and fire trucks, sirens
wailing, began arriving.
Koch gave Bayer directions on how to take Bay Street
east, back to Main, where he could make a left turn to
drive north on U.S. 1.
[ FOUR ]
Penn Station
New York City, New York
1130 6 March 1943
As the Washington–Baltimore–New York commuter
train rolled into Pennsylvania Station in midtown Man-
hattan, its brakes making a long, high-pitched squeal,
Major Richard Canidy, United States Army Air Forces,
prepared to put the sheet of paper that he had been read-
ing back in its brown accordion folder. Murray Gurfein
had given the folder to him when Gurfein had dropped
him off earlier that morning at Union Station in Wash-
ington, D.C.
The folder was fat, packed with a three-inch-thick
stack of research that represented the highlights of Gur-
fein’s background check of Charles “Lucky” Luciano. As
Canidy glanced at the last sheet of paper, he found its
contents curious though not necessarily surprising:
1 7 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
New York Department of Corrections
Great Meadow Prison
Comstock (Washington County), New York
Medical Evaluation of:
LUCIANO, CHARLES
Inmate #92168
The inmate noted above, a White Male, Age
44, has been examined by this physician
and the following conditions have been
found:
HEAD: Normal. Scalp clean.
EYES: Normal, corrected. Vision, right, 90
percent. Vision, left, 90 percent.
NOSE: Clear.
MOUTH: Teeth good, tonsils not visible.
NECK: Normal, with notable scar. Thyroid
normal.
EARS: Hearing 36/36 both ears.
CHEST: Normal. Lungs clear.
HEART: Strong, with occasional murmurs.
GENITALIA: Negative for penile scars, dis -
charge.
RECTUM: Negative for hemorrhoids.
PULSE: 75 resting, 95 after mild exercise,
77 after 2 minutes rest.
BLOOD PRESSURE: 125/85.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 7 7
HEIGHT: 5-8.
WEIGHT: 158.
WASSERMANN: Negative.
NOTE: Due to the existence of heart mur -
murs, it is this physician’s opinion that
the inmate NOT be assigned duties that are
arduous (i.e., laundry work).
Signed this 12th Day of May 1942
L A Thume MD
Leo A. Thume, M.D.
Canidy’s eye paused on the line noting the results of
the Wassermann test—the German bacteriologist August
von Wassermann in 1906 designed it as the definitive di-
agnosis for the sexually transmitted disease of syphilis—
and it brought to mind the other wild information on the
mobster that Murray Gurfein had supplied in detail at
dinner the previous night, including that in the course of
running prostitution rackets Luciano had sampled his own
product—just as he’d sampled the heroin he ran—enough
to contract syphilis once and gonorrhea eight times.
The train came to a complete stop, and Canidy slipped
the page back into the folder and then the folder into his
leather attaché case—being careful to keep it clear of the
Colt Model 1911 .45 ACP semiautomatic—as he and
the other passengers on the packed train gathered their
belongings to disembark.
1 7 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The door at the end of the car opened and two New
York City transit cops came through. Canidy noted that
the policemen were making a fairly thorough visual in-
spection of the passengers as they passed.
He didn’t think anything more of it until he was
walking through Penn Station, en route to the cabstand,
when he noticed what appeared to be a heavier-than-
normal presence of cops. Then he seemed to remember
that there had been quite a few D.C. cops in Union Station.
It struck him as odd that he was just now noticing it—
I’m supposed to be more situationally aware than most
people— but then he recalled that that famous sociologist,
Dr. Whatshisface, found that everyone allowed people in
uniform to be invisible to them.
It was a fact not lost on criminals, who commonly put
on, say, a postman’s uniform to get an edge when com-
mitting a crime. When it came time for witnesses to be
interviewed by police investigators, the witnesses would
not remember seeing a face—“Just a mailman.”
Still, I need to pay better attention, Canidy thought.
The cabstand had a long line of people waiting.
Canidy walked past it, headed east on Thirty-second
Street. Two blocks later, he was able to hail a cab from
the corner of Broadway.
He got in the backseat, gave the driver the address—
117 South Street—and the car shot south down Broad-
way.
Someone had left a copy of the New York World-
Telegram on the seat and he picked it up and scanned the
headlines. One was about FDR—what had become the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 7 9
World’s usual daily headline taking the President to task
on what he had said—or not said—the previous day
about the war, or the economy . . . or the price of blue
cheese.
Another headline announced a story on Lieutenant
General George Kenney’s Fifth Air Force attack on a
Japanese convoy in the Bismarck Sea that sank four of its
destroyers and all eight of its transports—with half of the
seven thousand Japanese troops lost.
And yet another led into an article that carried newly
released details on the Allied convoy ON-166, which had
fourteen ships sunk by U-boats in the Atlantic in late
February.
Then there was one, and the short piece beneath it, that
caught his attention:
DEATH TOLLS RISE
IN GEORGIA & FLORIDA
10 Dead After Explosions in Train Stations
Official: “No Connection Between Blasts”
By Jeffrey Csatari/
New York World-Telegram
ATLANTA, Mar. 5th — Two more people died to -
day from injuries suffered in an explosion
Sunday night at the Atlanta Terminal Sta -
tion here and in another explosion earlier
at Florida’s Jacksonville Terminal.
1 8 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Today’s deaths bring the total dead
from both blasts to 10. Another 32 people
were injured; 4 remain hospitalized.
While some witnesses have called the
two explosions at the train stations
“highly suspicious,” local and federal of -
ficials investigating the incidents say
that there is nothing to link them except
simple coincidence.
“There is no connection between the
blasts,” said Christopher Gilman, Special
Agent in Charge of the Atlanta office of
the F.B.I. “End of story.”
An official close to the investigation
in Jacksonville, who asked not to be iden -
tified, said: “It’s looking like a faulty
gas line to a heater in the men’s room was
responsible, but we’re unable to confirm
that at this time.”
When asked about the report of a Ger -
man pistol being found at the scene of
the Atlanta Terminal Station explosion,
Gilman said, “We have no other comment.”
The cabbie accelerated heavily down Broadway, honk-
ing the horn steadily, and Canidy looked up from the pa-
per to find that the driver was trying to make it through
the light at Seventeenth Street before it turned red.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 8 1
After another ten minutes of such mindless driving—
and countless near collisions along the meandering route—
the driver turned off of Fulton onto South Street, passed
the fish market, and came to a sudden stop with a squeal
of brakes and screech of tires.
A New York City traffic cop had South Street blocked
off, his patrol car parked at an angle, the fender-mounted
emergency lights flashing red.
“What is it?” Canidy asked the cabbie.
“Dunno,” he said, his head out the window, straining
to see past the cop.
Canidy could see only traffic backed up and some cops
getting out wooden barricades with orange and black
stripes and starting to assemble them.
He looked at the street addresses just out of his win-
dow and realized he was only a half block shy of the ad-
dress Gurfein had given him for Meyer’s Hotel, where
Joe “Socks” Lanza kept a regular room to conduct busi-
ness away from the fish market nearby.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a bill to pay the
fare, said, “Here you go,” and grabbed his attaché case,
then slid out of the backseat.
He made his way along the sidewalk, past the line of
cars stopped by the police car and around one of the cops
who was just now erecting a barricade on the sidewalk.
“Hey, buddy!” the cop called. “You can’t—”
Pretending he didn’t hear him, Canidy kept walking
toward 117 South Street.
A moment later, he heard the cop mutter, “Awfuckit.”
1 8 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Ahead, at Meyer’s Hotel—a shabby establishment
four stories high with maybe thirty rooms, half of which
were at any one time being used by the mob—Canidy
saw a small half circle of cops gathered at the entrance of
the building. They were looking at something slumped
against the building.
Canidy looked closer.
Not some thing. Some one.
He knew what the body of a dead man looked like.
As Canidy approached the building, he saw that a
burly guy in a leather cap and wearing the outfit of a fish-
monger—flannel shirt, greasy overalls, knee-high rubber
boots—was leaning against the wall.
The fishmonger stepped forward and blocked his
path.
“Nobody goes in,” the huge guy said.
He was six-two, two-fifty—at least—and Canidy
found himself having to look up at him.
“I’ve got a meeting,” Canidy replied, undeterred.
“You a cop or what?”
The guy eyed him. “Your name Kennedy?”
When Canidy studied his eyes, he saw a no-nonsense
look. “Canidy,” he said.
“Yeah. He told me to take you to meet him.” The guy
looked over his shoulder at the crime scene. “Something
came up.”
“Apparently,” Canidy said.
V
[ ONE ]
Nick’s Café
Pearl at Fletcher Street
New York City, New York
1240 6 March 1943
Major Richard Canidy, in the uniform of the United
States Army Air Forces, carried his leather attaché as he
followed the monster of a fishmonger two blocks south,
then, turning onto Fletcher Street, another two blocks
west.
We must make a curious-looking pair, Canidy mused.
“In here,” the guy said when they got to a twenty-
four-hour restaurant on the corner where Fletcher met
Pearl. It was all he had said the entire four-block walk
from Meyer’s Hotel.
They entered, and Canidy saw that the restaurant—a
diner, really, small and not brightly lit—was mostly full,
with a working-class lunch crowd of truck drivers, heavy-
construction workers, postmen, even a couple of street-
beat cops.
There was the murmur of conversation mixed with
the clanking of forks and knives on plates and, just now,
the breaking of a water glass accidentally dropped on the
1 8 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
black-and-white mosaic tile floor by the lone busboy hus-
tling to clear a table. The smell of garlic and onion was
heavy in the air.
The layout of the rectangular room was long and nar-
row. On the left, at the front by the plate-glass window
looking out onto Pearl Street, was a wooden counter with
a dozen vinyl-cushion-topped swivel stools on three-foot-
high chrome pedestals. Along the right wall, a series of
wooden booths and tables ran from the front window to
the back wall, each table set for four customers, and each
with a black-framed photograph of a Greek island scene
nailed to the wall beside it. At the very back, through a
single swinging metal door with a window, was the busy
kitchen.
A waiter, having kicked open the swinging door, came
out of the kitchen balancing on his shoulder a huge,
round serving tray piled high with plates of sandwiches
and potato chips and bowls of soups. The light from the
kitchen briefly illuminated the darkened booths near the
back wall. Then the door swung shut, making a flap-flap-
flap sound before finally becoming still.
For a moment, Canidy could better see, sitting in the
farthest booth and facing the front door, a rough-looking
Guinea about the age of fifty, with a cup of coffee in his
hand and talking to someone seated across the table and
out of Canidy’s view.
“Back here,” the fishmonger said.
As the guy made his way toward the rear of the restau-
rant, some of the workers looked up from their meals and
nodded and he wordlessly acknowledged the greetings.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 8 5
They reached the booth, and Canidy saw that the
man was dressed like the fishmonger he had followed—
long-sleeved flannel shirt, dirty overalls, rubber boots.
And Canidy saw that the man seated across from him,
in a cheap black suit, was about five-eight and one-fifty,
midthirties, with slight features and pale skin. He also
was drinking coffee—but an espresso—and next to his
tiny cup there was a copy of Il Nuovo Mondo, the anti-
Fascist newspaper published in New York, with a photo-
graph of Benito Mussolini on the front page.
“This is the guy,” the fishmonger said to the two at
the table by way of greeting.
The man in the cheap suit looked up.
“I’m Joe Guerin,” he said, moving so that he was half
standing with his hand out.
The lawyer, Canidy thought, remembering Murray
Gurfein’s description.
He shook the offered hand and replied, “Dick
Canidy. Nice to meet you.”
“This is Mr. Lanza,” Guerin added, “my client.”
Joe Socks—short and pudgy, with a pockmarked face
and a bad haircut—looked at Canidy with cold, hard
eyes. Canidy knew from Gurfein’s background informa-
tion that Lanza was forty-one years old, but he sure
didn’t look it. The hard living showed.
Canidy offered his hand and Lanza shook it with a
very firm grip.
“Pleased to meet you,” Canidy said, impressed by the
mobster’s heavily callused hand.
Lanza, stone-faced, replied only with a nod.
1 8 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Have a seat,” Guerin said, motioning to a place be-
side himself and opposite Lanza.
As Canidy sat down, putting his attaché case at his
feet, the monster fishmonger stepped away from the
table and positioned himself in the back corner of the
restaurant, out of the kitchen traffic, with a clear view of
both the front door and the booth with Canidy, Lanza,
and Guerin.
“Our friend contacted me,” Guerin began, “and I in
turned asked Mr. Lanza if he would be open to this
meeting.”
“Thank you,” Canidy said to Guerin, then looked at
Lanza and said, “Thank you.”
Lanza made a slow blink of acknowledgment.
Guerin took a sip of coffee, then said, “Oh, excuse
me. Would you care for something to eat? The food is
very good here.”
“Thank you, but nothing right now,” Canidy replied.
He looked at the cup. “Coffee would be nice.”
Guerin got the fishmonger’s attention, held up his
cup and pointed to it, then to Canidy. The guy walked
over to where a waiter was putting cups of coffee and
espressos onto a tray, took from it one of the espressos—
earning him a sharp look from the waiter—and a mo-
ment later slid the steaming cup in front of Canidy.
“Thanks,” Canidy said.
The fishmonger wordlessly returned to his post.
Guerin said, “Now, what is it that you need, Mr.
Canidy?”
Canidy looked at him a moment, and thought, What
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 8 7
the hell am I supposed to do? Come out right here in public
and tell a Guinea gangster that I want the Boss to set me up
with the mafia in Sicily? This is unbelievably surreal, even
for me.
“Did Mur—” Canidy began, then caught himself.
“Did our friend give you any indication as to the sub-
ject?”
Guerin shook his head. “Only that it is of the utmost
importance,” he said.
Well, that’s just great.
Canidy glanced at the fishmonger, who was staring at
the front door. He wanted to look that way, too, to at
least see if anyone would be able to overhear what he was
about to say. But that did not seem the proper thing to
do at this point.
“I’m not sure here is the best place to discuss this,”
Canidy said finally.
Guerin looked around casually. “Here is fine. Nothing
happens without my client’s say. Nick, the owner, is pro-
tected.”
Canidy wanted to reply, Like nothing happens at your
hotel?
He instead said, “With respect, this is not the place.
Things—”
“Things what?” Guerin said impatiently.
Canidy picked up on that.
Oh, to hell with it.
“—Things happen, like the surprise at the hotel.”
“That,” Lanza said, suddenly and coldly, “was a mis-
understanding and it is being dealt with.”
1 8 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“It is not what I want to happen here,” Canidy said
evenly. “A misunderstanding.” Now he looked around the
room, then back at Lanza. “A misunderstanding after
someone overhears something that they shouldn’t.”
They stared at each other a moment, then Lanza said
quietly, “After some guys at Brooklyn Terminal thought
they could slow down the ship loading, we had them
kicked in the ass. That led to this other thing just now. All
a misunderstanding.” He shrugged. “These things, they
happen. Then they’re dealt with.”
“Dealt with”? Canidy thought, looking at the emo-
tionless eyes. As in, made to go away?
Lanza went on, his manner conversational: “Let’s get
back to why we’re here. You came to us because of our
mutual friend. We have an understanding—an honorable
one—with our friend, as you clearly do. That makes you
gli amici, friend of friend. Capiche? ”
He paused, glanced at his coffee, looking bored.
“So,” he went on, “tell us what it is that you need.”
Canidy raised his eyebrows.
“Yessir, Colonel Donovan, mission accomplished. I se-
cured an ‘honorable understanding’ with the murderous
mob!”
Jesus, this is incredibly surreal.
But, okay . . .
“Okay,” he said. “I need to speak with Charlie about
getting some help like our friend got.”
Lanza looked at him with renewed interest. “ ‘Charlie’?”
Canidy nodded.
“And what more could you want?” Lanza said. “We
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 8 9
are already giving every kind of help possible. Here, and
all up and down the coast.”
Canidy leaned forward and quietly said, “Charlie’s
home.”
“We got Brooklyn covered,” Lanza said.
Canidy shook his head. “His real home.”
“Yeah, and we got it—” he said, then stopped, and his
right eyebrow went up. “You mean . . . ?”
“Yeah,” Canidy said.
Lanza’s eyes darted to Guerin, who looked back and
shrugged.
“What would you be needing in his . . . home?”
Lanza said to Canidy.
“Contacts,” Canidy said. “Locals with connections,
with information, who would be willing to build an un-
derground resistance against”—he put his right index
finger on Mussolini’s photograph on the front page of Il
Nuovo Mondo—“certain individuals.”
Lanza, showing no emotion, considered that. He said,
“Why didn’t you go straight to him with your request?
Why me?”
Canidy nodded; he had expected Lanza might ask
that.
“Respect,” Canidy said.
When he said it, he saw Lanza’s eyes light up a little.
Murray Gurfein, the onetime New York assistant dis-
trict attorney, had explained to Canidy that, despite the
general perception of the underworld as ruthless and
cold-blooded, the mafia prided itself on respect—or at
least the appearance of respect. They considered it a vital
1 9 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
component in keeping their social order intact. Without
respect for the bosses, respect for the organizations, their
society would devolve into nothing more than bitter
bloody turf battles—conflicts no one would ultimately win.
“When I discussed it with our friend,” Canidy went
on, “I said I wanted first to develop a relationship with
those who I’d be working with, then with their blessing
take it higher.”
Lanza studied Canidy without saying anything.
“We could have just as easily called Mr. Polakoff as
Mr. Guerin here,” Canidy said, mentioning Luciano’s at-
torney as a matter of fact. “But it would not have been
respectful to the people I also would be asking for help.”
Lanza did not respond to that. He said, “And what
would Charlie be getting in return?”
Canidy thought of Murray Gurfein being defensive at
dinner, and grinned.
“Something funny?” Lanza said.
Canidy heard a Lower East Side tough-guy tone of
voice that he figured had to be close to what Lanza used
when he was about to put the screws to someone who
had not paid his protection money or his kickback.
“No, not at all,” Canidy said, earnest but unnerved.
He took a sip of his espresso, then looked Lanza in the
eye. “To answer your question, he would be getting what
he is getting now, a deep sense of patriotism for his part
in helping to win the war.”
Lanza held the eye contact for a long moment, then
looked away deep in thought. He drained his coffee cup,
set it down in its saucer with a clank, and nodded.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 9 1
“E cosa mia,” he said finally.
Canidy’s face showed that he did not comprehend.
“It is my thing,” Lanza said with some semblance of a
faint smile. “Leave it to me.”
[ TWO ]
When Dick Canidy stepped out of Nick’s Café onto the
busy sidewalk, after Joe “Socks” Lanza had told him that
he was sure he could pull together something for that
night and to call Meyer’s Hotel in two hours for an up-
date, he decided that he needed to clear his head and
think all this through.
And one of the best ways Canidy knew to do that was
to take a walk.
First, though, he realized that his original plan for the
day—to take the late train back to Washington, which
was why he had not brought a suitcase—was now changed
and that he needed a place to spend the night.
And he also needed a destination to walk.
May as well be one and the same, he thought.
He went to the street corner, to the bank of three pay-
telephones there, picked up the handset of the only phone
not being used, dropped in a coin, and asked for the
Gramercy Park Hotel.
When he was connected by the operator with the
front desk clerk, she said that they had a few rooms
available, but since it was getting to be afternoon he
would do well to come directly to the hotel in order to
secure one.
1 9 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He said that he’d be there in about an hour—maybe
sooner—and hung up the phone.
He started walking north on Pearl and noticed that
while the air still was crisp and cold, the sky had cleared
and the sun, now shining brightly on his side of the
street, felt warm and refreshing.
And after that encounter with a cold-blooded mobster,
Canidy thought as he crossed to go west on Fulton, I
could use something—anything—to break the chill.
Canidy walked along, trying to put his finger on what
bothered him—and something did indeed deeply disturb
him—about Lanza.
Is it the corruption? His background of coercion, beat-
ings, killings—the basic thuggery? Sure, some of that.
Hell, it was all of that.
But don’t be naïve, Dick, because the fact is that in all
of history there has been corruption, and with corruption
comes the violence of coercion, beatings, killings, and more.
After a few blocks, he made a right at the corner of
Broadway. City Hall came into view.
And here’s proof that there always will be corruption—
politicians.
What makes a coat-and-tie pol getting a kickback for
awarding a city public works contract any better than a
Guinea goon in rubber boots getting one for “protecting” a
café owner or the hookers in his hotel?
It’s not the absence of violence. Don’t kid yourself. Many
a politician has met an ugly end for failing to do as
agreed—particularly when in bed with the mob.
Canidy walked past the grand City Hall grounds, ad-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 9 3
miring the building and marveling at the memory of just
how much—and how blatantly—Boss Tweed, as New
York City’s commissioner of public works, and the polit-
ical machine known as Tammany Hall had stolen in the
1860s and ’70s.
What was it, some two hundred million dollars? Cor-
ruption of unbelievable proportions.
And who the hell knew how much the Honorable La
Guardia had to pay—or still was paying—Tammany Hall
for his election as mayor?
And with that kind of money involved, only a fool would
believe that no one got hurt—that a kneecap or two didn’t
get popped, that someone wasn’t forced to take a long walk
on a short pier—in the process.
So Canidy told himself that it wasn’t the ugly under-
belly of the mob that really disturbed him.
It was more the fact that he innately, and perhaps too
easily, understood how and why the mafia worked.
And he understood that he now had to work with it—
“to dance with the devil,” as Colonel Donovan had said.
What the mob does is not a good thing. But it is better
than anything that Hitler and Mussolini have in mind.
Just shy of crossing Canal Street, Canidy passed a series
of storefronts and noticed the window of one in particu-
lar that advertised a sale on religious books.
It caused him to wonder, as he continued north, how
much of an impact the news of his association with the un-
derworld would make on his father. That is, if he told
him—and he had absolutely no intention of even suggest-
ing it to him.
1 9 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The Reverend George Crater Canidy, Ph.D., D.D.,
was the headmaster of St. Paul’s School in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa. He was a kind and good man—a true gentle
man—whose faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was sur-
passed—if that was at all possible—by his dedication to
the education and well-being of the students put under
his care.
The Reverend Dr. Canidy lived in the Episcopal
school’s dormitory, in a small, separate apartment there,
and had his office nearby, which allowed him to spend
every possible minute on the mission that he devoutly
believed to be one of the highest and most noble callings
a man could have.
Dick Canidy loved his father. He respected him—
genuinely, in the truest definition of the word, not the
bastardized version that he had used with that Guinea
sonofabitch just now.
The Reverend Dr. Canidy had had his share of disap-
pointments in life, yet he always had stayed strong while
he suffered them silently.
He had long been a widower; Dick had no real mem-
ory of his mother—other than a vague recollection of
visits to a hospital room with a bad odor in her final
months—but knew that her illness had not been a short
one and that his father had shouldered the responsibility
of her care with remarkable strength and quiet courage.
Afterward, he also had delicately handled the new role
of single parent and teacher.
That might have been his toughest challenge, Canidy
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 9 5
thought now, and grinned mischievously as he ap-
proached Houston Street.
Young Dick had been somewhat difficult, and the
troubles really reached a head when a young man name
Eric Fulmar was enrolled a grade behind him in the lower
school.
Eric had arrived at St. Paul’s with a bad attitude—he
knew that he was being stuck somewhere safe for the
convenience of his mother, Monica Carlisle, the vivacious
and—if you believed the studio publicity people—young
actress prone to playing coed roles.
It absolutely was not good PR for Miss Carlisle to
have a son—and one so old!—and, even worse, if the
truth got out, a child who was unwanted, whose father
was a German industrialist close to Hitler.
So off Eric was shipped to Iowa.
There, he and Canidy made fast friends, and in no
time they were boys being boys—the pinnacle of which
was misbehavior that resulted in piles of fall leaves being
set afire . . . and their flames accidentally following a path
to the fuel tank of a Studebaker President.
The explosion was spectacular, as was the reaction of
everyone to it.
To smooth things over, Miss Carlisle’s studio sent a
sharp young lawyer—one by the name of Stanley Fine—
and with the miracle of a calm demeanor and a check-
book, all was made right.
Everything except the disappointment young Dick
saw in his father’s eyes.
1 9 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
It was much the same look that, not much later, when
Dick was determined to learn to fly at the local airfield,
he had seen in his father’s eyes when it became clear that
the son had no desire to follow the path that the father
had hoped—into either the church or academia.
Canidy, dodging a cab as he crossed Tenth Street,
knew that it would be quite the same look if the Rev-
erend Dr. Canidy were to learn of his most recent deal-
ings with the murderous and the corrupt.
Dad would not care for it one bit. He’s like most people.
He wants to believe in the good, and only the good—and
that’s okay.
It just leaves dealing with the bad to guys like me, and
that’s okay, too.
Except . . . except maybe that’s what’s so troubling to me.
How can a father and son be so different?
Then again, maybe we’re not.
It’s not as though I’m dealing with these goddamned
Guinea gangsters because I want to; in fact, I don’t want to.
I’m doing it because it’s necessary.
A block south of Union Square, Canidy came to the
storefront of an expensive lingerie shop and Ann Cham-
bers came immediately to mind.
But Dad would like Ann.
He looked in the window, at the display, and had
graphic thoughts about the lingerie and Ann.
And what about Ann?
That is one incredible woman—and a long way, in
many ways, from the young coed I first met two years ago at
her family’s Alabama plantation.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 9 7
Beautiful, smart . . . and determined. Her capacity for
affection and care is off the chart.
And it’s not as if I have none of those feelings for her.
I’m just not accustomed to having feelings for only one
woman for any length of time. Fifteen, twenty minutes max,
making me one sorry sonofabitch.
So then . . . where is this going, this “relationship”?
The war is not going to end tomorrow, or next week, and
I can’t keep promising her that I won’t go away—then im-
mediately break that promise.
This is what I do.
And now I’m off to Sicily?
I’m going to need some help with that, help handling
these mob guys.
Maybe I can get Fulmar. Or Stan Fine. Screw David
Bruce.
Sicily! Jesus!
Ann won’t like that . . . me gone again to parts un-
known.
Canidy noticed a display of silk hosiery.
I’d be smart to bring back some of those for her. And
some soaps and fragrances. Yeah, after I hit the hotel I’ll
head back here, then over to Kiehl’s, over on Third Avenue
and—what?
He looked at the street sign—it read 13th.
That’s it. Third and Thirteenth. Come to think of it,
without my Dopp kit I need deodorant and stuff, too. But
first, the room.
1 9 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ THREE ]
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
1415 6 March 1943
Dick Canidy pushed hard on the gleaming brass bar of
the heavy revolving door of what he considered to be one
of the city’s best-kept secrets.
The Gramercy, built in the 1920s of brick in a renais-
sance revival style, had a simple elegance that was in
keeping with its quiet but very nice neighborhood. It
even had a private park across the street.
It was, Canidy believed, every bit as elegant as, say,
the Roosevelt up on Madison at Forty-fifth—only some
twenty or so blocks north—but a world away from the
feel of a crazed city outside your door.
So without really trying, the hotel drew a wide spec-
trum of guests, including high-level politicians and a slew
of celebrities on the way up—or down. There were all
kinds of stories about the stars, including, Canidy re-
called hearing, that Humphrey Bogart had been married
to his first or second wife—or maybe it was both of
them—in the rooftop garden.
Some of the well-heeled kept apartments here, and it
was not unheard of for one of the elevators to open on
the ground floor and have, say, a couple of Old English
sheepdogs come bounding out, pulling a resident off
of the elevator—clearing a path between the regular
guests—on their way to the private neighborhood park.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
1 9 9
All of this served to give the place the comfortable
feeling of home—a very nice home—and Canidy tried to
stay here every opportunity he could.
As he entered the hotel lobby, he could see people
seated in the oversized armchairs beneath the under-
stated chandelier. There were others moving to catch one
of the elevators to the left of the room. And directly
ahead of him was the front desk with, to his great disap-
pointment, a line of three people.
He joined them—two young men and a woman a bit
older—and began to worry that he had taken too long to
get to the hotel. The woman he had spoken to on the
telephone had said that there had been only a few rooms
left. Now, clearly, there were a few people in front of him,
and there was no telling how many had come and gone
in the time since he called about an hour ago.
The front desk was actually a massive slab of dark pol-
ished stone, some eight feet long, set atop finely milled
oak paneling. Filling the wall behind the two clerks work-
ing the desk was an impressive honeycomb of at least a
hundred cubbyholes, also fashioned of oak, each box
about six by six inches, with a brass number affixed to the
bottom lip. Visible inside them were room keys, mes-
sages, an occasional envelope.
At the head of the line was a young man in a business
suit. Canidy heard him give his name and room number
and ask if there had been any messages. The clerk turned
to the wall of cubbyholes, reached into one, and re-
trieved a small stack of note-sized messages. The young
man took them, thanked the clerk, and turned away as he
2 0 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
thumbed through the stack, now leaving two people
ahead of Canidy.
Next in line was a woman of about fifty, well-dressed,
and when she approached the desk the clerk smiled and
warmly greeted her by name.
Canidy overheard her ask the clerk for another key to
her room.
“Because,” she said, making a face and turning to ges-
ture at the young man behind her, “my son seems to
have locked both my key and his in his room.”
The clerk turned to the cubbyholes, reached in one
and then in another, taking a duplicate key from each,
and then gave one to the mother and one to the son.
As they left, Canidy sighed with relief.
He stepped up to the desk.
The clerk—his name tag read victor—smiled.
“How may I help you, sir?” Victor said.
“I called a short time ago about a room.”
“Welcome to the Gramercy. One moment, please. I’ll
see what we have available.”
Victor went to a wooden, open-topped box filled with
five-by-seven-inch index cards. He flipped through the
cards, wrinkled his face once, then twice. He pulled out
one card, looked at it, then shook his head as he put it
back in the box. He flipped farther back. His eyebrows
went up suddenly and he smiled.
He turned to Canidy with the card.
“We do have something,” Victor said and smiled
again. “A very nice one-bedroom suite.”
“Suite?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 0 1
“Yessir,” Victor replied, producing a blank registra-
tion card and fountain pen. “It overlooks the park. Very
nice.”
Canidy knew that the Gramercy’s rooms were huge,
and that the smallest of the huge were on the twelfth
floor.
“Nothing smaller? Maybe something on twelve, over-
looking Twenty-first?”
The clerk’s eyes brightened a moment, indicating that
he caught that this was not Canidy’s first visit. Then he
frowned and shook his head. “No, sir. I’m afraid not.”
Canidy did not respond.
What’s a suite going to cost?
What do I care? It’s not my money.
And the OSS has nearly limitless funds.
Still, I don’t like just throwing it away.
“Is there a problem?” Victor said.
Canidy looked at him.
Well, hell, it’s just for one night. Who knows what miser-
able place I’ll be sleeping in tomorrow night, or the next.
Canidy was about to open his mouth when Victor
leaned forward.
Quietly he said, “I do believe that for a regular guest
such as yourself I can offer one of the singles on twelve if
you’ll allow me to upgrade you to a suite for the same rate.”
Canidy’s eyebrows went up. “That would be very
nice. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Victor watched as Canidy began writing his name on
the registration card. The clerk turned his head, almost
2 0 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
touching his left ear to his left shoulder, as he tried to
read the card so that it was not upside down.
“ ‘Canidy’?” Victor said, looking thoughtful.
“Richard,” he confirmed, looking at him.
The clerk turned to the cubbyholes and from one with
a brass tag stamped misc he pulled out an assortment of
odd-sized pieces of paper. Canidy recognized some of
them as being message notes like the first man in line re-
ceived when Canidy joined the line.
The clerk pulled one of the message sheets from the
stack, put the bulk of the papers back in the cubbyhole,
then turned to Canidy.
“This came for you”—he glanced at the line on the
form where the time had been handwritten—“twenty
minutes ago.”
What the hell? Canidy thought, the hairs on the back of
his neck standing on end. No one knew I was coming here.
Hell, I didn’t know until an hour ago.
He looked around him, checking the lobby. He saw
nothing but the same mix of harmless-looking guests go-
ing about their business.
He quickly took the form from Victor, somewhat of-
fending the clerk with his brusqueness, and scanned it.
All that was written on it, on the appropriate lines,
was: “3/6, 2:05, Mr. Canidy, WOrth 2-7625.”
Canidy looked at Victor. “There’s no name on the
‘from’ line. Any idea who called?”
Victor reached out for the form, looked at it, then
looked at Canidy.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 0 3
“No, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t take this. The
operator did.”
“Where’s WOrth?”
Victor looked again at the message. “That would be a
number for the Lower East Side, down around the fish
market.”
Canidy nodded. “Thank you. Can I get that room key
now?”
[ FOUR ]
Suite 601
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
1445 6 March 1943
Dick Canidy got on an empty elevator, pushed the 6 but-
ton, and when the doors had closed removed the Colt
.45 ACP semiautomatic from his attaché case and
slipped it in the small of his back.
Who knew I was here? And how?
Does the mob have insiders working here, too?
The elevator stopped and opened on the sixth floor.
He stuck his head out, looking down the hall to the left
and then to the right.
Nothing.
He glanced at the small signage on the wall opposite
the elevator. It listed a series of room numbers that in-
cluded 601, with an arrow pointing left.
2 0 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He went left down the hall, found the door, put in his
key and turned it.
He reached inside the door to the suite and flipped on
the light switch, then entered and closed the door behind
him. He went quickly through the suite, throwing light
switches and checking the bedroom, the closet, the bath-
room, under the bed.
There was nothing unusual—and certainly no one—in
any of the rooms.
It had to be one of the guys using the pay phones outside
the diner. One of them worked for Lanza and had been
waiting there to follow me, then got lucky when he over-
heard my phone conversation. He may have even seen the
number that I dialed.
But then they called ahead, left the message at the hotel
before I had a chance to call them.
Did they do that to send a bigger message—“We can find
you”—or was it them just not thinking.
Either way, it’s not good.
Dammit, Dick! Watch your back!
He looked around the suite and now noticed that it
was very nice.
It had an outer room with two large couches and two
oversized armchairs with ottomans, all upholstered in the
same fine, light-colored fabric. There was a large oval
coffee table, with copies of Time and Look and the Sat-
urday Evening Post magazines on top and a big bowl of
potpourri, which gave the room a pleasant, floral scent. A
side table between the oversized armchairs held a thin
brass lamp and a black telephone.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 0 5
Canidy put his attaché case on the coffee table—
almost dumping the bowl of potpourri—went to the
door, locked the deadbolt, then stuck the .45 in his front
right pants pocket. The pistol butt stuck out, but that
didn’t bother him.
He walked over to the closed curtain that covered one
wall. The curtain went from the floor to the ceiling, and
when he pulled back one side he saw that Victor, the
front desk clerk, had not exaggerated about the view.
The suite did have a very nice perspective on the
whole neighborhood, and especially on the private park
across the street. The room was up just high enough to
see everything, yet not so high for details—the park’s
nicely manicured topiaries, dense bushes planted in intri-
cate checkerboard and circular patterns, and such—to be
lost in the distance. There was a woman sitting on one of
the wrought-iron benches, and he could almost distin-
guish what she was reading, while a wirehaired terrier
pawed at a ball at her feet.
He let the curtain fall closed, then went through the
door into the bedroom.
It had elegant wallpaper with vertical pinstripes in
navy and silver. The light pine headboard and footboard
of the king-sized bed matched the bedside tables on ei-
ther side and the enormous dresser with its large mirror.
What a waste for one person! Ann would love this!
Canidy went into the bathroom, took a leak, then
washed his hands and face at the white porcelain sink.
He removed one of the thick, soft white-cotton hand
towels—each one, including the fat bath towels, had
2 0 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
gramercy park hotel stitched in neat green half-inch-
high lettering—from the chrome ring affixed to the
white-tiled wall and, almost like he was praying, buried
his face in it.
What the hell am I getting myself into?
Then he looked up and at himself in the mirror above
the sink.
Make the call.
In the outer room of the suite, he went to the armchairs,
pulled the pistol from his right pocket, and put it on the
side table next to the telephone. He then reached into his
pocket for the message with the Lower East Side phone
number and sat in the armchair to the left of the phone.
He picked up the receiver, double-checked the num-
ber on the message, and asked for 962-7625.
The call was answered on the third ring.
“Dunn,” a deep male voice said.
“Is this WOrth-two-seven-six-two-five?”
“Yeah.”
“My name is Canidy. I have a message to call but no
name.”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t leave this number?”
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Canidy. C-A-N—”
“Hang on.”
Canidy heard the clunk sound of the receiver being
put down on a hard surface, then the sound of footsteps,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 0 7
then, faintly in the distance, the sound of the man’s voice
relating their conversation. After a moment, the foot-
steps grew louder and the receiver was picked up from
the hard surface.
“Hello?” a different voice said in Canidy’s ear.
“This is Richard—”
“Yeah, I remember,” the voice said sarcastically. “We
just met.”
Lanza?
“Listen,” Lanza continued, “that thing we talked
about? I got someone you want to meet. Eight o’clock
tonight, you go out of your hotel, walk to the northeast
corner of the park across the street, and a car will be there
to pick you up. Got it?”
I didn’t tell him what hotel. Clearly, he knows. And he’s
not making anything of it, just letting me twist knowing
that he knows.
“Eight,” Canidy said, “northeast corner. Got it.
What—”
“And get out of that uniform. You won’t need it. Get
in something you won’t care if it gets dirty. Or wet.”
Wet?
Canidy heard the connection break.
He checked his chronometer. It was three o’clock.
Five hours. Not a lot of time.
Canidy, the .45 tucked again into the small of his back,
took the elevator back down to the first floor. At the
front desk, Victor was still there, and Canidy asked him
2 0 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
where the nearest shop was that he could buy some ca-
sual, rugged clothing.
“For any special purpose?” Victor asked.
Yeah, Canidy thought, something that can get dirty
and wet. “You know, Victor, mob kind of stuff. ”
Hell, I don’t know.
“Khakis, flannel shirt,” Canidy said, thinking about
what Lanza and the monster fishmonger had been wear-
ing. He didn’t mention the rubber boots.
“Leonwood’s,” Victor said immediately.
“What’s that?”
“The outfitter L.L. Bean?”
“Yeah, Leon Leonwood. But he’s in Maine.”
“Uh-huh. That’s the main story—with and without
the e—but there’s a small basement store on the other
side of Union Square that sells last year’s clothes and re-
turns at a deep discount.”
Canidy’s face lit up. “Perfect! Good stuff at a cheap
price.”
Victor took a slip of paper and wrote “Leonwood’s,
867 Broadway @ 17th” on it and slid it across the pol-
ished stone.
“Thank you,” Canidy said and turned to go through
the revolving door.
An hour and a half later, a grinning Canidy walked up the
basement steps of Leonwood’s and out onto Broadway.
He carried a big, nondescript brown paper bag packed
with three pairs of khakis, two in navy and one brown; a
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 0 9
pair of tobacco-colored, waxed-canvas pants; three flan-
nel shirts in dark, solid colors; a pair of black leather
boots; a dark brown field coat; three pairs of black
woolen socks; two packages of white cotton boxers and
T-shirts; a woolen knit cap; and one wooden duck call,
something that he had always wanted and Leonwood’s
was just about giving them away.
Jesus, I spent a bundle. But for what I got, I saved a
bundle, too.
And for what I saved, I can now go to that nice lingerie
store and then over to Kiehl’s.
Canidy had more trouble in the lingerie store than he
had in Leonwood’s. A lot more trouble. He had been
shopping for a half hour and had yet to pick out one nice
thing to buy for Ann.
Operative word: nice.
He kept looking at items, picking them up, then feel-
ing guilty and putting them back on the shelf.
This was a helluva lot easier at Leonwood’s. There, I
knew what I needed.
Now I don’t know if I’m shopping for Ann—or for me.
He was finally rescued by a pleasant young woman
salesclerk.
She walked and talked him through the merchandise,
starting out with the silk hosiery.
Damn! I could have picked those out on my own, but no,
I had to go straight to the lacy stuff.
One very small but very expensive box later, he was on
2 1 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
his way to Third and Thirteenth, his brown bag only
slightly heavier and his wallet significantly lighter.
Filling a shopping basket at kiehl’s since 1851 was ac-
complished with much more ease. Canidy pretty much
went through the women’s section of the store, putting
one or two of everything in it.
How can I go wrong? This stuff’s been winning women’s
hearts for almost a hundred years.
He had various bottles of skin moisturizers, face
cleansers, bath oils, some kind of cream that softened and
removed calluses from feet—and more.
And he splurged on himself, buying a small bar of
moisturizing soap to use when he shaved and a stick of
antiperspirant.
Now, as he headed back to the hotel, he had a second
bag, one nearly the size of—and at least the weight of—
the one containing the clothing.
This day is getting more surreal by the moment.
Who would believe I’d be shopping at the same time that
I have a date with the mob?
Canidy went through the revolving door of the Gra-
mercy Park Hotel. He looked toward the front desk; if
Victor was there, he wanted to thank him for sending
him to Leonwood’s. But Victor wasn’t, so Canidy went
to the elevators and caught the next one up.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 1 1
In his room, he put down the bags on the big bed and
went through the one containing his clothes, laying out
what he would wear that night.
He checked his watch. Six o’clock.
He realized that he had not eaten since breakfast that
morning. In Washington.
Have I really covered this much ground in just one day?
I need to catch a nap.
His stomach growled.
And . . . I need something to eat.
The Gramercy’s lounge was off of the lobby, and Canidy,
passing the polished-stone front desk, could already hear
the lively crowd before he entered.
The lounge featured a terrific massive wooden bar, small
round tables with plush, intimate seating, and a gleaming
grand piano at which a fellow was playing what Canidy
thought was a Duke Ellington piece.
He took one of the empty seats at the bar and asked
the bartender for a menu. While he scanned it, the bar-
tender put a glass of ice water and small bowl of orange
fish-shaped crackers in front of him. Canidy popped a
couple of the crackers into his mouth.
Mmmm. Cheddar-flavored. Nice.
The crackers almost immediately made him thirsty
and he looked at the small forest of spigot handles on the
draft beers, saw a good Hessian family name that he rec-
ognized as a brewery in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, got
2 1 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
the bartender’s attention and pointed to it. When the
lager was delivered, he ordered something that he thought
would be quick: a steak sandwich with chips.
He sipped his beer and munched on the cheddar crack-
ers, looking in the mirror to watch the crowd in the room.
So who here has mob connections? He grunted. Besides
me, that is.
The piano player? One of the waitresses?
The bartender?
Murray Gurfein said that through the unions the mob
touched just about everything.
He also said the mob was good about getting union cards
issued to the Navy guys for undercover work at the docks, on
boats and trucks, in hotels and restaurants.
Not quite five minutes later, the bartender produced a
plate with his sandwich.
Canidy looked at him with new interest.
Bet he’s a spook with—what did Gurfein call it?—
“Local 16 of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Interna-
tional Alliance and Bartenders Union.”
“Thank you,” Canidy said, then grinned as he picked
up the sandwich.
Nah, he thought, taking a bite. On second thought, even
the mob wouldn’t let a Navy guy near the booze.
The sliced steak on a fresh, hard-crusted baguette
turned out to be not only quick but first-class. The beef
was a sirloin strip that had been lightly marinated and
perfectly grilled to medium-rare, the chips were actually
more like steak fries, and the fat pickle was crisp, ice-cold,
and almost oozed garlic.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 1 3
Canidy finished his meal in no time— I didn’t realize
how hungry I was—and he waved for the check as he fin-
ished the last of his beer. He signed it to the room and
left.
Back in the suite, he took a hot shower, then pulled on
his new clothes.
He folded his uniform and put it in the cleaning
bag from the closet, then called downstairs for it to be
picked up.
“I’ll need it cleaned and pressed,” he said into the
phone, “and returned by first thing—”
He yawned, long and hard, and looked at the clock on
the bedside table. It showed seven-thirty.
Fifteen minutes. That’s all I need.
“—in the morning,” he finished, then added: “And
I’d like a wake-up call for seven-fifty, please.”
“Yessir, a wake-up call for seven-fifty a.m.”
“No, p.m.”
There was a pause, then, “Yessir, seven-fifty p.m. ”
Canidy set the alarm on the windup clock beside the
bed as a backup, then pushed aside the rest of the clothes
that he had bought and lay down on the bed.
The next sounds he heard—the nonstop ring-ring ring-
ring of the phone and the clanging of the alarm clock—
shook him from a deep sleep.
He looked quickly at the clock. Eight o’clock.
“Damn!”
He jumped up, collected his thoughts.
2 1 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He went to the curtain, pulled it back, and looked out
at the northeast corner of the park. No car appeared to
be waiting.
Okay. Maybe he’s late, too. Let’s go.
He took his .45 off of the bed, stuck it in the small of
his back, pulled on the new field coat, stuffed the woolen
knit cap in his pocket, then rushed out to the elevators.
He pushed the down button, but neither elevator re-
sponded. The indicators over the doors—a half circle of
numbers with an arrow, the one over the left elevator
pointing to 10 and the one over the right to 1—did not
move.
Hell, I’m only on the sixth floor.
He ran down the hallway, pushed open the heavy
metal door, and took the bare concrete stairs of the fire
escape down two at a time.
He opened the door marked floor 1 and saw that he
was down the hall from the main lobby. He went to it,
then out through the revolving door.
When he got to the northeast corner of the park, he
looked around in the dim light. He still could see no car
that seemed to be there for him.
There was, however, a sudden movement behind him,
against the fence that circled the park. His hair stood up
on the back of his neck, and the pistol in his back seemed
a very long way away from his right hand.
Just as he started to turn toward it while reaching for
the .45, the movement surged toward him, causing him
to jump back.
A well-fed cat then flew down the sidewalk.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 1 5
Jesus. Get it together or it’s going to be one long night.
He saw a cab circling the park. It made the turn onto
the street where he stood, began to slow, then pulled to
the curb in front of him. The back door opened.
“Get in,” a vaguely familiar voice said.
Canidy did, but there was no one else in the car, only
the driver, who was huge.
The monster fishmonger.
Canidy slid in and pulled the door closed. “Where are
we going?”
“Not far.”
He drove off with a heavy foot on the accelerator.
Canidy kept track of their route. The cabbie fishmon-
ger— What the hell else does he do? —made a number of
turns and soon was flying south down Second Avenue,
headed for the Lower East Side.
No surprise there, I guess.
After a bit of jogging down different streets, Canidy
saw a sign reading south street and he decided that
they were headed for Meyer’s Hotel.
Maybe all the dead bodies have been cleaned up by now.
Without slowing, they drove right past Meyer’s
Hotel.
What the hell?
Two blocks later, the fishmonger turned east and,
now driving slowly, wended his way down to dockage on
the East River.
Beyond a tall wooden piling with a sign reading pier
10 there was moored a rusty steel-hulled vessel about
seventy feet long. A cargo truck was alongside it, on the
2 1 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
wooden finger of the dock, and what looked like steve-
dores were moving something off the boat.
“This is it,” the fishmonger said.
“It what?”
“The Annie, ” the fishmonger said, then looked over
his shoulder. “Get out.”
[ FIVE ]
Room 305
The Adolphus Hotel
1321 Commerce Street
Dallas, Texas
1540 5 March 1943
Rolf Grossman was anxious.
The German agent paced the spacious room of the
downtown luxury hotel where he and Rudolf Cremer
had been staying since Wednesday, when they had arrived
by train from Birmingham.
All week they had been trying to keep a low profile—
especially after Grossman’s screwup Sunday night when
he dropped his Walther PPK somewhere in the Atlanta
train station—and now that something was finally about
to happen, he was unbearable.
“How much longer?” he said.
Cremer, sitting at one end of the long couch by the
open window, looked casually over the top of the after-
noon edition of the Dallas Daily Times-Herald.
He did not like this behavior just before they carried
out an operation. Grossman always became too agitated
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 1 7
and his heightened attitude tended to make him careless.
Losing the damned pistol was an obvious example.
Both men were dressed in simple black suits, white
shirts, and black leather shoes that could stand a shine.
Cremer glanced at his Hamilton wristwatch.
“Soon,” he said. “The commuter rush begins in about
twenty minutes. Be patient.”
Grossman walked around the suitcases that they had
bought in the second-hand store in Birmingham and that
they now had placed by the door and went to the West-
inghouse radio that was on a table beside one of the
two beds. He turned the on-off/volume dial and the
speaker crackled. He tried to tune in a station by turning
the other dial, but all he got was static. He hit the side of
the radio with the open palm of his left hand.
“I’ve hated this hotel since we got here,” Grossman
said disgustedly. He almost spat out the words.
“I like it,” Cremer said in an even tone. “That beer
baron—”
“A traitor to our country, if you ask me.”
Cremer shrugged. “So you keep saying. Busch began
making beer in America in the middle 1800s. I don’t
think it is fair to judge him now, almost a hundred years
later, using your standards for this war.”
Grossman grunted. “You are either German or you’re
not.”
“Remind me of your family background again?” Cre-
mer said.
Grossman had confided during the long train trip
from Birmingham to Dallas that his mother was French.
2 1 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He glowered at Cremer.
“All I know for sure,” Cremer went on, “is that he
built a very nice hotel in a place that is not very nice. It
has none of that cowboy nonsense we’ve seen every-
where else.”
Adolphus Busch, as might be expected of one so
named, saw to it that the hotel bearing his name was
heavily influenced by European design. He built a bit of
Bavaria on the north Texas prairie, creating an oasis of el-
egance in a town that was otherwise rather rough around
the edges.
The guests Grossman and Cremer had seen clearly
were wealthy, though the two noticed that their dress
was not necessarily always up to the standards of what
might be expected of, say, the German upper class at-
tending functions at the Hotel Berlin.
Granted, almost without exception the women of the
Adolphus dressed quite fashionably, and many practically
dripped in diamonds.
The clothing of the men, though, covered a wide
range.
Some of them wore well-fitted suits with pointed-toe,
Western-style boots, their black leather skins buffed to a
deep shine. Instead of a necktie, a few had on a bolo, a
finely braided leather cord that was clasped at the shirt-
collar button by an elaborate slide fashioned by crafts-
men of silver and gems.
Most of the other men at the Adolphus, however,
were not concerned with such niceties. They had the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 1 9
weathered look of ranchers—hardworking and honest
men—and it reflected in their clothes. If they happened
to have on suit coats, the garments were not freshly
pressed—one had even showed dirt—and their boots,
whether the toes were pointed or rounded, went unpol-
ished.
As it happened, this worked in the favor of Cremer
and Grossman.
Cremer said, “No one has looked twice at us here,
proving no one would expect to find a couple of German
nationals suspected of blowing up things hiding in an ex-
pensive hotel.”
Cremer flipped the pages of the Dallas Daily Times-
Herald, found what he was looking for, then folded the
paper.
“Especially,” he added, “when those agents appear to
be blowing up things on the East Coast.”
He held out the folded paper to Grossman.
“Here. Read this.”
Grossman walked over, took the paper, and found the
article.
POWER OUTAGES SPREAD
Baltimore Latest to Lose Power;
3 Cities in 3 Days Go Dark
Governor Calls for Calm
By Michael B. Goldman
Daily Times-Herald Washington Bureau Chief
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar. 5 — The mayor of Bal -
timore, MD, last night called his entire
police department on duty after more than
half of that port city’s downtown area
lost electrical power.
The outage began at 6 o’clock and lasted
for more than five hours.
Confusion struck commuters the hardest,
with busy train stations coming to a halt
and city streets gridlocked until well af -
ter midnight.
Hospital emergency rooms were reported
to be operating at peak capacity with
record numbers of injured being admitted.
A hospital representative who would not
speak officially put the figure at “hun -
dreds.”
“It is important to have a strong police
presence at such times,” Mayor Sean Mac -
Donald said, explaining his emergency ac -
tion. “The public expects it.”
By this morning, power and calm had re -
turned to downtown Baltimore.
But, according to some, there was any -
thing but calm among the general popula -
tion.
“People are scared,” said Maryland
state representative Silas Rippy, a Demo -
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 2 1
crat whose district includes downtown Bal -
timore. “This is exactly what happened on
Tuesday in Carolina and on Thursday in
Virginia. They’re calling it a ‘coinci -
dence.’ This is no coincidence. We want —
and we deserve — real answers.”
Downtown areas of Charlotte, NC, and
Richmond, Va., lost electrical power this
week, causing injury and panic.
According to Baltimore Power & Light,
the cause of the Maryland power failure
also was faulty equipment.
“It is an unfortunate coincidence,”
said Carl Hemple, BP&L Director of Public
Relations. “This particular power grid
happened to have the same equipment — indeed
the same series of manufacture — as the oth -
ers that went down. It appears that all of
the grids were weakened by what we all
know has been a worse than usual winter
season. It’s just that simple.”
Agents from the Federal Bureau of In -
vestigation, who had been looking into the
event in North Carolina and Virginia, and
now are reviewing this one in Maryland,
agreed.
“The fact is that it is similar equip -
ment failing under similar conditions,”
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
said Special Agent Mark Davis of F.B.I.
headquarters here in Washington. “All
grids are being inspected, and any weak -
nesses found are being corrected.”
That explanation, Representative Rippy
said, was not good enough.
“Hundreds upon hundreds have been
hurt,” he said. “First it was the train
stations. Now this. Who and what is next?”
Maryland Governor Harold Clarke called
on citizens to remain calm.
“Let’s all exercise good judgment,” he
said from his office in the capitol. “And
please join me and pray for those injured
in this unfortunate event.”
Grossman handed the newspaper back to Cremer and
said, “The cover story of the government is good. But it
does not seem to be believed.”
Cremer nodded. “Possibly. But the good news is that
the public is reacting just as we had hoped. Bayer and
Koch are doing a good job. Steady, small attacks. Let the
people cause their own problems.” He looked directly at
Grossman. “That’s what we need to do, too. No more
big blasts.”
Grossman glared back.
“Okay,” he said. “Enough. I told you that it was a
mistake to use so much explosive in the Atlanta train sta-
tion lockers.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 2 3
He looked at the coffee table, where there were two
identical sets of explosives and primers laid out.
“These should be just enough to cause the necessary
confusion,” he said.
Cremer nodded, then looked at his watch. He put
aside the newspaper.
“Okay. It’s close enough to time. Let’s go.”
Grossman went to the table, picked up one set of the
explosives, and put it in a small black leather case.
They took one of the five massive elevators down to the
first floor, then crossed the richly carpeted lobby and
went down the steps to the entrance.
A doorman opened one of the large beveled-glass-and-
bronze doors, tipped his hat, and said, “Good day, gen-
tlemen,” as they passed onto the busy sidewalk.
They walked up Commerce Street, keeping pace with
the crowd of businessmen and secretaries who appeared
to have just left their offices.
Ahead of them, a couple of men in suits and ties went
through the revolving door of the fancy bar and grill that
was a part of the Adolphus. The bar had large, inviting
windows overlooking the sidewalk. Cremer looked inside
as they passed and watched the two men who had just
entered join an animated crowd of businessmen and
-women standing at the long, classy brass bar for Friday
happy hour.
At the street corner, after waiting for the light to
change, Cremer and Grossman crossed Akard Street—
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
dodging an automobile running the red light—and con-
tinued along Commerce.
About halfway up the block, a series of department
store windows began. The goods in the large displays
looked very much like what they had seen all week on
guests at the hotel—very fine and expensive clothing and
jewelry.
Almost at the end of the block, they came to a large
elaborate entrance into the department store itself.
Grossman glanced at Cremer, who nodded, and they
followed four attractive young women through the doors
under shiny metalwork that read: neiman marcus.
Inside, Cremer followed one of the women—a
blonde—to the right while Grossman continued straight,
behind two brunettes.
The store was full of customers, mostly women, but
more than a few men. An off-duty Dallas policeman, in
uniform and armed, working as store security, was riding
the escalator to the second floor, scanning the first-floor
crowd as he ascended, and then was gone.
The blonde walked slowly past one of the brightly lit
glass display cases, admired the earrings there, then con-
tinued walking. Cremer stopped and feigned interest in
the jewelry while keeping an eye on Grossman.
As planned, Grossman was approaching the counter in
the corner that displayed leather goods—wallets, purses,
belts, and more.
After he casually looked at the contents of one case, a
nicely dressed, dark-haired salesgirl behind the counter
walked up and began speaking to him.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 2 5
Grossman nodded, pointed to something in the dis-
play, and the salesclerk took out a key, unlocked the back
of the display, and pulled out a wallet.
Grossman casually put the small leather case with the
explosives on the counter beside an open black box con-
taining leather key rings and took the wallet.
“Can I help you?” a young woman’s voice asked, star-
tling Cremer.
He turned and now saw a pretty redheaded salesclerk
standing behind the display with the earrings.
“Oh, no,” he said and smiled. “Thank you, but no. I
just got distracted.”
“These can do that,” the redhead said, looking at the
earrings.
“Yes, yes they can,” Cremer said and started walking
toward the leather goods section.
When he reached it, Grossman was at the end of the
counter, shaking his head and frowning as he handed
back the wallet to the salesclerk.
Cremer heard him say, “Not quite what I need. I’ll
just keep looking.”
“Very well,” the salesclerk said, then saw Cremer and
turned to help him. When she had reached him, she
asked, “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, please,” he said and pointed to a purse at the end
of the counter farthest from Grossman. “I’m thinking of
something for my girlfriend.”
As the salesclerk showed Cremer a large brown purse,
he saw Grossman in his peripheral vision walking away
from the display—without the small black leather case.
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Fifteen minutes later, Cremer held a small brown pa-
per bag with vertical stripes and the store logotype on it.
In it was a half pound of warm salted cashews.
He put a handful in his mouth, then, chewing, went
out the doors on the opposite side of the store that he
and Grossman had entered, turned left on the sidewalk,
went down Main Street for two blocks, made another
left, onto Field, then came back to Commerce, turned,
and went through the glass-and-bronze doors of the
Adolphus.
Grossman had his suitcase in hand when Cremer
reached the room.
Cremer looked to the coffee table; the second set of
explosive and primer was no longer there.
“Okay,” Cremer said, nodding, “you go on. I’ll see
you at the station.”
Cremer guessed that it was maybe six hundred meters
from the hotel to Union Station and so far every step of
the way he had half-expected the explosive to go off in
that fancy department store with the Jewish name.
Grossman had set the fuses too short in the train sta-
tions in both Jacksonville and Atlanta. He had almost
blown himself up in Atlanta.
Cremer had told him to set up the trigger—an am-
poule of acid that caused a slow burn until it activated the
fuse—so that it would not fire for at least an hour.
But with Grossman having again been so anxious,
Cremer knew that there was a good chance he had
T H E S A B O T E U R S
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screwed that up and so half-expected the bomb would go
off at any moment.
He came to South Houston Street and made a left
turn.
And when it does blow, it will certainly cause a curious
new twist for the Americans to consider.
First it had been train stations and power plants on the
East Coast.
And now Neiman’s—a Jude Speicher— in Texas?
How will officials explain this as a “coincidence”?
He joined the crowd making its way to and through
the front doors of Union Station.
Especially when the train station down the street from
the store gets hit, too.
Inside the terminal, half a dozen Dallas policemen
watched the people walk through.
He saw a freestanding sign that read to trains and
had an arrow with u.s.o. above it. He snugged his hat
down on his head, and as he headed for the sign he heard
the keening of fire-engine sirens down the street. Three
of the cops went running out the door.
He looked at his Hamilton and shook his head in
disgust.
Only thirty minutes.
VI
[ ONE ]
Pier 10
Fulton Fish Market
New York City, New York
2025 6 March 1943
Dick Canidy stood on the dock on the East River and
watched the taillights of the taxicab with the fishmonger
at the wheel disappear into the distance.
He sniffed, then groaned.
Jesus, that’s raw.
The massive timbers of the dock reeked of dead fish,
despite the cold temperatures, and this was on top of the
heavy odor of diesel fuel that over the years had been
spilled and then soaked into the wood. He idly wondered
how bad the assault on the senses must be in the summer
heat.
Canidy saw that the dock had piers about fifty yards
long jutting into the river, most with boats moored to
them, and longshoremen on and around the boats.
He looked at the activity out at the end of the wooden
finger with the pier 10 sign. He could make out the
shapes of the cargo truck and the big boat there but not
much detail.
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There was light shining from across the river—from
the Brooklyn Terminal, where a line of Liberty ships was
being loaded—but there were almost no lights here on
the dock and those few that were burning had been
masked or otherwise dimmed. Even the Brooklyn Bridge
looming in the distance was mostly darkened.
There was of course a reason for this. It had been al-
most a year since the order had come—in April 1942, as
the vicious U-boat attacks off the East Coast continued
to escalate—for all unnecessary lighting on the New York
waterfront to be turned out.
The wind gusted, and Canidy buttoned up his jacket,
then pulled the woolen knit cap from his pocket and
pulled it on his head, grateful that he now was dressed for
the winter woods of Maine, or at least the New York City
equivalent.
As he moved toward the boat, he began to pick out
details. What from the distance had been a great bulk of
rusty black-painted steel hull rising from the river now
had rigging and winches and cables and crew—and a
name.
annie was painted in tall, white block lettering high
on the black bow.
She was an ocean fishing vessel. Three-quarters of her
seventy-foot length, from the stern to just shy of the
white pilothouse on the bow, formed a large, flat, open
working area with heavy-duty fishing equipment for
long-lining (running out miles of baited hooks for hours
at a time) and a series of hatches above deep cargo holds.
A steel mast towered behind the pilothouse, and its
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
boom, controlled by a series of steel cables, reached from
the foot of the tower almost to the back of the boat.
Canidy stopped beside the cargo truck and watched
as a guy in a thick, dark woolen sweater and black rub-
ber overalls operated levers that were connected to the
winches that moved the boom.
The boom was in the process of lifting a crate—
Canidy could now see that it held the iced-down car-
casses of large billfish and sharks—from one of the ship
holds. Two other men were standing on the back of the
cargo truck, waiting to guide the crate onto a stack of
other crates already there.
“Watch it, there!” the taller of the two guys on the
truck called out to Canidy.
Canidy turned and looked at him.
“That crate’s gonna swing right over your head,” the
guy went on, “and you really don’t want to be there
when it does.”
Canidy looked at the crate hanging from the boom
cable and saw that a steady stream of what looked like
water flowed from its lowest corner. He then took a
closer look at the crates on the truck; they were dripping
wet, and a slimy liquid ran in rivulets from them, down
the truck bed, then drained onto the dock and through
the cracks between timber, making, he thought, as it
hit the river, a sound similar to the taking of a massive
leak.
He stepped back some twenty feet, what he thought
was a sufficient distance, and now stood next to the
gangplank that led aboard the Annie. From there, he
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 3 1
watched the crate swing right over where he had been
standing—leaving a very wet trail as it went—and then
with a different whine from the winch, be lowered to the
truck, where the two men manhandled it into place on a
stack of other crates before the cable went slack.
The cable was unhooked and the winch operator ma-
nipulated the levers. The winches made a high-pitched
whine as the cable was recovered and the boom swung
back aboard.
The taller man jumped down from the truck and
walked toward the gangplank.
“You Canidy?” he said as he approached.
The thick accent clearly was Italian—probably Sicilian,
Canidy guessed.
The man, a head taller than Canidy, looked to be
about thirty-five and solidly built. He had an olive com-
plexion, thick black hair that was cut close to the scalp, a
rather large nose, and a black mustache.
“Yeah, I’m Canidy.”
“C’mon aboard,” he said, brushing past.
As Canidy followed him to the rusty pilothouse, the
truck on the dock started its engine and with a grinding
of gears began to pull away with the crates of fish.
Canidy saw that the deckhand who had been working
the boom was now securing it and the cable, and the guy
who had been on the truck had moved down the finger
of the dock and was beginning to untie the starboard
bowline from a cleat.
The tall man went to the steel door of the pilothouse,
opened it, and went through it.
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy began to follow, but the man turned and
pointed to the bow of the boat.
“You mind tending to lines?”
Canidy looked forward. “Sure,” he said.
“Come back when we’re under way.”
Under way? Where the hell are we going?
Is this godforsaken rust bucket really seaworthy?
Canidy shrugged and went back out the door, then to
the bow.
He heard the sound of a motor struggling to start,
then a rumble of exhaust, and he felt a vibration in his
feet as a big diesel engine came to life. A moment later,
there was another slow rumble, and the vibration from
the deck was more pronounced.
The guy on the dock holding the bowline coiled it,
shouted, “Line!” then tossed it aboard.
Canidy caught it, then recoiled it and secured it to a
cleat.
The guy, after having pushed the gangplank aboard,
was now at a cleat midway on the dock, untying the line
there.
Canidy went toward him, stepping over the gang-
plank. As he got closer, the guy shouted, “Line!” and
threw it.
This time, Canidy missed the rope.
It landed on the wet deck. He picked it up, and as he
began to coil it he realized that this rope was markedly
different from the first.
It had a cold slime on it, and it smelled of fish.
Shit! It’s the same slop that leaked from the crates!
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2 3 3
His hands began to ache from the cold and wet.
He saw that the guy on the deck was now at the dock
cleat at the back of the boat and very shortly would be
throwing the line aboard. If Canidy didn’t get there first,
that line was going to get slimed, too.
He quickly coiled the line in his hand, in the process
slinging slop onto his pants.
Well, that’s what Lanza meant by dirty and wet. . . .
He secured the line, then rushed toward the stern. He
hit a slippery spot, started to slide, and, for one terrifying
moment, thought that he would skid off of the deck and
into the damned river.
He regained his traction, and, in a somewhat comic
fashion, fast-walked the rest of the way.
“Line!”
Canidy got to the stern just as the rope came sailing
aboard.
He secured it, then looked back and watched as the guy
on the dock jumped aboard at the stern, miraculously
landing solidly on the fish-slimed deck.
If I’d done that, I’d have slid all the way to New Jersey.
The guy tipped his hat to say thanks for the help, and
Canidy turned for the front of the boat.
As he walked to the pilothouse, he could see the tall
man inside, lit by small spots of light from the instrument
panel, motioning for him to come in.
He went to the steel door and entered.
It was bare-bones inside the pilothouse—a ragged
captain’s chair on a pedestal, two old wooden folding
chairs against the far wall, two wooden bunks bolted one
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
above the other on the back wall, and nothing more. A
pair of Ithaca Model 37 12-gauge pump shotguns with
battered stocks stood on their butts in a makeshift rack to
the left of the helm.
Canidy noticed that it felt slightly warmer inside but
figured that was mostly because there was no wind. The
smell of fish still was strong.
The tall man was alone, standing at the helm, facing
forward and scanning the river beyond the bank of win-
dows.
“Thanks for the hand with the lines,” he said, looking
at Canidy in the reflection of the window.
“No problem,” Canidy said, rubbing his hands.
“There’s a wipe rag by the door, if you want.”
Canidy looked and found a crusty, brown-stained
towel hanging on a small peg.
Better than nothing, I suppose.
He got the slime off his cold hands as best he could,
put the towel back, then walked toward the helm.
The tall man kept his eyes on the river, navigating the
Annie past a Liberty ship that was moving toward the
Brooklyn Terminal docks.
He extended his right hand to Canidy.
“Francesco Nola,” he said.
Canidy took it. The grip was firm, the hand rough.
“Richard Canidy, Captain.”
“Call me Frank.”
“I’m Dick.” He looked out the window. “Mind if I
ask where we’re headed?”
Canidy saw Nola grin slightly.
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2 3 5
The captain said, “I was told you’re looking for infor-
mation.” He paused. “I thought you might want to go
along as we refuel a U-boat.”
Canidy stared at Nola’s face in the reflection, trying to
determine if he was serious.
After a moment, Canidy said evenly, “If that’s a joke,
it’s not funny.”
They were out of the East River now, entering Upper
New York Bay.
Nola used the open palm of his right hand to gently
bump the twin throttle controls forward. There was a
slight hesitation, as if the engines had become flooded
with fuel, then the rumble grew a little louder and the
bow came up as the boat gained speed.
“No, it’s not funny at all,” Nola finally responded.
Canidy saw in the reflection that the captain’s face had
tensed.
Nola added, “It certainly wasn’t when I was accused
of it.”
He was refueling U-boats? Jesus H. Christ! I should
shoot him myself!
“Do I understand you to say—”
“Your government boys impounded my boat out at
Montauk last year, about six months after I bought it.”
“ ‘My boys’? What boys?”
“Your government bureau of investigating.”
“The FBI?”
“Yes. They said that I was using the Annie to run fuel
to the German submarines.”
“You’re here now, so I assume you weren’t?”
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“No,” he said coldly. “I was not.”
Canidy smelled something different in the air, then re-
alized that it was a warm draft coming from a floor vent.
The engines had warmed and were producing heat for
the pilothouse. A fishy-smelling heat.
“But they still impounded your boat?”
“Yes. I found out—much later—it was because I had
had the boat in the docks at Massapequa, being worked
on. When my Annie had been the Irish Lass, belonging
to someone else during Prohibition, she was a rum-
runner. And when these workers, the ship—what is the
word?”
“Shipwrights?”
“—these shipwrights went deep into the holds, they
discovered bulkheads that were not right. They removed
them and found the large compartments. One had four-
teen cases of vodka still in it. I was shocked. But, so what?
It is legal to have liquor now. Yes?”
“Yeah.”
“But word got back to Montauk that the Annie had
been a rumrunner, and that it had these special bulk-
heads. Then the story became that the owner of the An-
nie—who looked Italian and spoke the language like a
native—had sympathies to Mussolini and the Germans
and instead of running rum behind those bulkheads he
was running diesel fuel in bladders to the U-boats. And
as everything about the story was true except the part
about Fascist sympathies and fuel running, it all became
the truth. People believe what they want to believe, yes?
And the government took my boat.”
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2 3 7
Canidy looked off to starboard and could see in the
distance the lights of the military terminal on the western
shore of the bay, at Bayonne, New Jersey. Liberty ships
were being loaded there, with more in the bay waiting their
turn, just as at the Brooklyn Terminal.
“I do not blame them; it’s their job,” Nola went on and
gestured toward the ships at Bayonne. “These U-boats are
causing great damage to our efforts to win the war.”
He stopped and chuckled to himself.
“Listen to me. ‘Our’ efforts. I am doing nothing. I am
not a U.S. citizen. I am only a Sicilian fisherman. And not
even that now.”
He turned and looked at Canidy.
“If I could,” he added, his voice rising, “I would
blow those bastards and their U-boats out of the water
myself!”
Canidy saw that there was a burning intensity in
Nola’s eyes.
Is he trying to convince me of something with this little
speech?
“I will tell you something,” the captain continued, his
face softening somewhat. “I did not want to leave Sicily.
I had to, because of that bastard Mussolini.” He paused.
“It is not safe for me there. Mussolini’s men do unspeak-
able things. And they accused some of my uncles and
cousins of being mafia and took them to the prisons on
the small islands. It was only time before they accused me
of the same.”
Canidy saw that Nola had tensed, his hands gripping
the helm tighter.
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“And I had to leave for my Annie.”
The boat . . . ?
“You see, my wife is Jewish. I would not stay. We
could not.”
Is he going to cry?
He is crying.
Nola cleared his throat. “Please excuse me. This all
means so much to me. I’m not a U.S. citizen. But I want
to fight those bastards. For my wife, for my uncles and
cousins, for my country.”
Canidy didn’t say anything. When it was clear that the
captain had finished, at least for the moment, he said,
“You were talking about the Annie. How did you get
your boat back?”
The captain was looking forward again, hands a little
relaxed on the wheel.
“The Navy,” he said.
“The Navy got it back?”
Nola nodded. “Without my boat, I was out of work.
Mr. Lanza asked me why I had stopped selling my catch
at the fish market. I told him my story. He said he’d look
into it. A week later, I got a call—‘Come get your boat.’
Mr. Lanza said he had the Navy get it back.”
He had Murray Gurfein get it back for you. But no
need to split hairs.
Nola added, “Now, Mr. Lanza tells me that you need
information for the war.” He looked in the reflection at
Canidy. “I am at your service. My family of fishermen is
at your service.”
What the hell am I going to do with fishermen?
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 3 9
Unless . . . they have a boat.
Canidy said, “Does your family have a boat?”
“Nothing like the Annie, of course.”
Great! Maybe it’s actually seaworthy.
“I understand. But a boat that could get men around
the islands unnoticed?”
“Yes. Two.”
“Two boats?”
Nola nodded. “Two—what is the word?— fleets.”
[ TWO ]
Office of the President’s Physician
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.
1815 6 March 1943
“That will be all for now, Charles,” the President of the
United States of America said, wheeling himself through
the side door into the nicely appointed office.
The valet—Charles Maples, a distinguished-looking
older black man with gray hair, wearing a stiff white shirt
and jacket, black slacks, and impeccably shined black
leather shoes—had just put a large wooden tray holding
a pitcher of ice, a selection of liquors in crystal decanters,
three crystal glasses, a carafe of coffee, and three china
mugs on the doctor’s spotless oak desk.
Seated in deep comfortable armchairs across the room
were William J. Donovan, director of the Office of
Strategic Services; and J. Edgar Hoover, director of the
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both wore dark suits
and ties. They stood up.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” the President said.
“Good evening, sir,” they replied almost in unison.
The valet said, “Please, let me know if I can be of fur-
ther service.”
“See that we’re not disturbed,” Roosevelt replied.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
The valet went out the main door and it quietly
clicked closed behind him.
Roosevelt—without a suit coat but in pants, white
dress shirt, and a striped bow tie, and with a cigarette
holder clenched in his teeth—rolled his wheelchair over
to where Donovan and Hoover stood.
“Please, sit,” he said.
The FBI and OSS heads shared a New Year’s Day birth-
day, a fervent sense of patriotism, and, to varying de-
grees, the ear of the President—but that was it.
There was not any sort of animosity between them—
in fact, they thought well of one another—but there was
certainly a difference in both how they perceived their
missions and how they carried them out.
The FBI head saw things in black and white, while the
OSS chief acknowledged the many shades of gray.
Hoover, forty-eight years old, had been head of the
bureau for just shy of nineteen years. He devoutly be-
lieved that the law was the law—period—and ran the FBI
with an iron fist.
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2 4 1
There was no questioning his competence and his suc-
cess. The FBI under his leadership had become an ex-
tremely efficient law enforcement agency.
The most efficient one, the brash Hoover would be
first to say. And he unapologetically corrected anyone
who thought otherwise.
The FBI director had the habit of seeking out the
limelight in the interest of making himself—which was to
say the bureau, since Hoover was the FBI—look better.
In the 1930s, he had made a name for himself and the
bureau by going after the mob—“the despicable thugs
who threaten our law and order and, in turn, our very
civilization,” he declared.
He assigned special agents to spend whatever was
necessary—months, years, and who knew how much
money—to hunt down such vicious gangsters as “Pretty
Boy” Floyd and “Machine Gun” Kelly.
When the agents found a mobster, Hoover swooped
in on the night of the bust, and was there, front and cen-
ter, when the press’s camera bulbs popped.
It actually was brilliant PR—at which Hoover proved
to be a very clever player—because the better his FBI
looked in the eyes of the public, the more it helped to get
money and other considerations from his connections on
Capitol Hill and Roosevelt’s inner circle at the White
House.
And Hoover had his ways to get what he wanted.
Among other things, he kept secret dossiers on any-
one he thought to be (a) suspicious and possibly danger-
ous—subversive or worse—to the United States, and (b)
2 4 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
possibly dangerous—now or in the future—to Hoover
and the FBI.
The head of the FBI enjoyed his high profile and
power and let nothing threaten it. If he had to go pub-
lic with information—for the good of the country of
course—he did so.
And if just the threat of going public served the same
purpose, so much the better.
Conversely, as fast as Hoover ran to the klieg lights—
in the process making grandstanding an indelible hallmark
of the FBI—Donovan went to the safety of the shadows.
Donovan, twelve years Hoover’s senior, had long
worked quietly—and extremely effectively—behind the
scenes for Roosevelt.
After Donovan had returned from the First World War
a hero and then run a successful Wall Street law firm,
Roosevelt, who was serving as assistant secretary of the
Navy, secretly attached him to the Office of Naval Intel-
ligence. Thus began Donovan’s long and secret service
of quietly gathering intel at Roosevelt’s request.
As this was happening, it came time to clean up what
had become a corrupt Bureau of Information—what in
1935 would become the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion—and heading the list of candidates was one William
Joseph Donovan.
But Donovan, still the soldier spy in the shadows and
wanting to stay there, quietly campaigned for a young
Justice Department lawyer named John Edgar Hoover to
get the job.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 4 3
Donovan’s behind-the-scenes hand in Hoover land-
ing the position was not lost on Hoover. He was grateful,
and came to consider him a friend and mentor.
Which only served to make matters worse when
Hoover got word that the President was considering a
new secret organization. This agency would be above all
others, collecting intelligence worldwide, as well as con-
ducting counterintelligence operations and more. And
Wild Bill Donovan—whom Roosevelt had asked to draft
its plans—was to head it up.
Hoover knew he had to put out this potential in-
ferno—a real threat to the power of his FBI—fast.
Using every bit of his finely honed political skills, he
tried to impress upon the President that what this new
organization did was indeed exactly what the FBI already
did, simply on a larger scale, and that any such organiza-
tion should be—must be, to optimize its efficiency—
under the purview of Hoover.
Roosevelt, graciously and with masterful maneuver-
ing, let the FBI director know that he valued his counsel
and insight, but said that he had made up his mind. As a
bone, he threw Hoover the oversight of all of North,
South, and Central America.
Thus, in 1941, William J. Donovan, a civilian, was
made Roosevelt’s coordinator of information, at a pay
rate of one dollar per annum. And in 1942, when COI
evolved into the Office of Strategic Services, he was re-
called to active duty as Colonel Donovan and made its
director.
2 4 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Donovan noticed that Roosevelt looked more tired than
usual.
Behind the frameless round spectacles clipped to the
bridge of the President’s nose, there were dark sacs under
his eyes. His thinning hair showed more gray working
its way up from his temples. And he seemed somewhat
slumped in his chair.
Not surprising, Donovan thought, not with war being
waged on damned near every continent. And he’d never
admit a weakness, but that polio is sapping his strength.
It was then that Donovan answered two unasked ques-
tions in his mind—where Roosevelt had just come from,
and why they were meeting in the physician’s office.
The President clearly had been in his secret War
Room, which was here on the ground floor of the White
House, between the Diplomatic Reception Room and
his physician’s office. He spent more time in there than
he would ever acknowledge, though records of who
came and went—and when—were, of course, meticu-
lously kept.
That answered question one.
Donovan was one of very few who knew of the War
Room’s existence. Aside from the three shifts of officers
from the Army and Navy who staffed it round the clock,
the only ones who knew about it were presidential ad-
visor Harry Hopkins, Admiral William Leahy, General
George Marshall, and British prime minister Winston
Churchill.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 4 5
It had been Churchill’s visit in December 1941 that
caused it to be built. The prime minister had brought a
portable version of his own War Room that he had in un-
derground London. The traveling model was complete
with reduced maps that pinpointed key information on
the war.
Roosevelt liked the idea of his own full-sized War
Room and quietly had one drawn up.
Now fiberboard covered the walls of a onetime ladies’
cloakroom, and maps of the world, in large scale, were af-
fixed thereon. As intel came in, the officers continually
updated the maps, marking with pins, coded by color
and design, everything from the locations of ships (de-
stroyers had round red heads) to the locations of political
leaders (Stalin was a pipe, Churchill a cigar).
Donovan knew that early every morning, Roosevelt
would come to the physician’s office for his daily checkup
and massage, then slip undetected into the War Room
next door to be briefed on the overnights.
And Donovan was a member of a group that was even
smaller than the one that knew about the War Room:
those who had actually been in it.
Not even Eleanor Roosevelt was allowed inside.
Clearly, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—who, as they
awaited FDR’s arrival, had idly wondered aloud why they
were meeting in the physician’s office—not only had not
been in the War Room but also did not know about it.
And, at least as far as tonight was concerned, would
continue to be kept in the dark.
And that answered question two.
2 4 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I appreciate you gentlemen coming on such short no-
tice,” Roosevelt said, sounding more energized than he
appeared.
“Yes, Mr. President,” they said, almost in unison.
“Can I get anyone a drink or coffee?” the President
asked, motioning toward the service on the desk. “Or
perhaps one and the same?”
“Not for me, sir,” Donovan said.
“I would love a taste, sir,” Hoover said. “But, no,
thank you. I have to get back to the office tonight. And
I’ve had more than enough coffee for one day.”
“Can I get you something, Mr. President?” Donovan
said.
Roosevelt shook his head, rubbing his eyes and mas-
saging the bridge of his nose. “I can wait, Bill. Thank
you.” He then lit the cigarette in his holder, exhaled a
blue cloud, and said, “Then let’s get on with it—Edgar,
any news?”
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover nodded as he reached
into his suit coat pocket and brought out a folded sheet
of paper. He unfolded it and scanned it.
“According to our labs,” Hoover began in an offi-
cious tone, “the residue taken from the crime scenes at
the train terminals in Florida and Georgia and from the
electrical transformer stations in North Carolina, Virginia,
and Maryland tested to be from the same family of explo-
sive: cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 4 7
“In layman’s terms?” the President said, puffing
deeply on his cigarette.
“The Germans call it hexogen—” Donovan offered,
earning him a glare from Hoover.
He now had Roosevelt’s attention, and finished,
“—the Brits call their version Royal Demolition Explo-
sive, or RDX. Here it’s just cyclonite. Very common.
Very effective.”
Roosevelt looked back at Hoover.
“So,” the President went on, “then all of the East Coast
attacks can be linked?”
“Well, as Bill says, it is a very common compound—”
“You’re telling me that you don’t know, Edgar?” the
President interrupted.
“No, sir, not that I don’t know. I’m telling you that
it’s possible—if not likely—that some of these attacks
could be sympathetic ones.”
“Sympathetic?”
“Copycats,” Hoover explained. “People who either
have some ax to grind with America—or your politics,
sir—or who simply like seeing things go boom and the
public’s reaction.”
Roosevelt considered that a moment.
“What about the German pistol that was found in At-
lanta?”
Hoover nodded. “We do have that. And we have had
it tested for ballistics and we pulled the fingerprints.
Right now, the prints are being run, but so far there has
been no conclusive match.”
2 4 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The President looked off across the room as he
thought that over.
Hoover added, “Mr. President, if you’re wondering if
the pistol is the key clue that these are German agents re-
sponsible, know that there could be thousands of Walther
PPKs in the United States, ones imported before the war.
It is not an uncommon firearm, despite being of German
manufacture. We simply do not have enough evidence to
determine beyond any doubt that this is all the work of
German agents.”
The President looked at Hoover. “What about Dallas?
What have we found out from there?”
“We do not have those details yet, sir,” Hoover began.
“As you know, the explosions at the department store and
train station took place just last night—”
“Of course I know!” the President interrupted, his
voice rising. He pointed at a copy of the Washington Star
that was on a side table. “The whole damned country
knows.”
“Yessir,” Hoover replied softly but evenly. “Mr. Presi-
dent, please understand that I have every man available
on this. We will have answers. And we will get those re-
sponsible.”
Roosevelt suddenly made a toothy grin behind his cig-
arette holder.
“Just as you did the first ones?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hoover began strongly, but then his voice
faded as he finished, “Mr. President.”
Roosevelt knew that the capture of the German agents
had absolutely nothing to do with the FBI’s ability to
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 4 9
root out foreign agents on U.S. soil and bring them to
justice.
What had happened in June 1942 was that German
U-boats in operation pastorius deposited eight
agents trained in sabotage onto the shores of the United
States, four on New York’s Long Island and four near
Jacksonville, Florida.
The ones in Florida infiltrated with no problem.
The four in New York, however, were almost immedi-
ately discovered by a coastguardsman walking the sea-
shore. They told him that they were fishermen, gave him
a cash bribe, and he left—to alert his superiors.
A manhunt for the agents began on Long Island, but
too late, and the agents were able to board the Long Is-
land Railroad and make it into the city.
That they had managed to get that far was not good
enough for one of the agents. George Dasch was having
serious doubts about his role in the mission, as well as its
overall success, and in the hotel room that he shared with
another agent, Ernest Burger, he convinced Burger that
they should give themselves up.
The two took a train to Washington, and at the May-
flower Hotel—blocks from the White House—they called
the FBI. They asked to speak with J. Edgar Hoover.
While Hoover did not personally respond—it’s not
clear if he had been given the opportunity—FBI agents
did arrive at the room at the Mayflower and Dasch and
Burger were taken to FBI headquarters.
2 5 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
They gave their statements and turned over the U.S.
currency they had brought, as well as maps of the places
that they were supposed to have bombed—power plants,
water supplies, train stations, factories, and more.
And they gave details of the other agents’ missions.
Within two weeks, all eight agents had been arrested.
When Hoover made the announcement that the man-
hunt for the German agents was over, that the FBI had
them in custody, the part about Dasch and Burger having
surrendered and then giving up the other teams was not
mentioned.
The reason for the omission, he had privately ex-
plained, was that he wanted the enemy to believe that
U.S. counterintelligence had rooted out their agents.
Left unsaid: And if anyone should happen to believe
that once again the FBI Super Cops have saved the day, so
be it.
“Do you remember what those German agents told us
last year?” Roosevelt said. “About Hitler sending them
because he wants to bring the war to American’s back-
yard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I would say that he’s done it,” Roosevelt said.
“Wouldn’t you?”
Hoover did not reply. He shifted in his seat, suddenly
feeling the sweat in his palms.
Roosevelt looked at Donovan, who was more or less
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 5 1
intently studying a fixed point on the finely polished
hardwood floor.
“Bill, I apologize to you and to Edgar about how this
discussion has transpired. My intention was not to put
anyone on the spot.”
Donovan looked at him and said, “No apology neces-
sary to me, Mr. President.”
“Nor to me, sir,” Hoover added. “You have every rea-
son to be concerned.”
Roosevelt shook his head. “The headlines are bad
enough, but every time a light flickers in the White
House, Eleanor thinks it’s the end of the goddamned
world!”
Hoover looked at the President, saw the toothy smile,
and found himself grinning, too.
Donovan chuckled softly.
“Mr. President, it isn’t that we’re not pursuing the
German agent angle,” Hoover offered. “For example, we
have agents reinterviewing Dasch and Burger.” He paused.
“Very simply, sir, we are checking and rechecking every-
thing.”
Roosevelt nodded solemnly. “I understand. But we
have to do more. Which is why I asked you both here.
Edgar, I want you to know that Bill’s agents will be
working on this, too.”
“In my area of operations?” Hoover asked, glancing at
Donovan.
Hoover saw that the look on Donovan’s face could
have shown that this was the first that he had heard of
2 5 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
this plan. Or it could have shown that he was expertly
hiding the fact that he had heard of this plan a day or a
week ago.
Roosevelt went on: “They will be using their network
of agents to see if they can uncover any intel as to who is
making these attacks. Your agents will share any informa-
tion that is asked of them.”
Like hell they will, Hoover thought.
Hoover said, “Yes, Mr. President.”
“As I said, we have to do more. This cannot continue.
Especially now that it has become personal.”
Donovan and Hoover looked at the President.
“In Dallas,” Roosevelt explained, “they bombed the
USO lounge.”
“Yes, sir,” Hoover said, but it was more a question
than a statement.
“They have come into our country,” the President ex-
plained, “and now are targeting our soldiers on our land.
It is difficult enough dealing with U-boats off the coast.
We cannot have every American thinking there is a Ger-
man agent on every U.S. street corner.”
He looked for a long moment at Donovan, then at
Hoover. “Any questions?”
“No, sir,” Donovan said.
“None, Mr. President,” Hoover said. “And if that is all,
I’d like to be excused in order to get back to the office.”
“Thank you for coming, Edgar.”
Hoover stood, and Donovan followed his lead.
The FBI director shook the President’s hand, then the
OSS director’s.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 5 3
“I’ll let you know—both of you—as soon as I hear
from the labs about the Dallas results.”
“Please,” Roosevelt said. “And anything else that Bill
should know.”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
As soon as Hoover went out the door, the President
looked at Donovan and said, “I think we can both use a
belt right now. I’m done with the room for tonight.”
“Allow me,” Donovan said and went to the wooden
tray with the crystal. The ice in the pitcher was about half
melted.
“Should I call for more ice?” Donovan asked.
Roosevelt looked. “What’s there will be fine. We’ll
just pretend we’re students roughing it at Columbia.”
“Then I’d better call for more ice,” Donovan said.
“As I recall, you never suffered one second in school.”
“You can go to hell, Colonel,” the President said,
laughing. “Pour me a damned martini. A double. I think
Eleanor is checking lightbulbs; we should be out of her
sights for a while.”
Donovan put ice in two of the crystal glasses, then
poured a healthy four ounces of gin on top. He carried
the glasses back to the couch and chairs and handed one
of the glasses to Roosevelt.
“Victory,” Donovan said, holding up his glass in a
toast.
“Victory indeed,” Roosevelt replied and touched his
glass to Donovan’s.
After they took a sip, Donovan said, “Is it just me or
does anyone else suspect that Edgar does not want to
2 5 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
believe there are German agents blowing things up in
our country?”
“He’s embarrassed, Bill. He knows they’re out there
and wants to bag them as much as anyone—probably
more than anyone. But until he can, he’s protecting his
image like that prefect in Casablanca—”
He paused, mentally groping for the character’s name.
“Captain Renault,” Donovan supplied. “Played by
Claude Rains.”
Donovan and his wife, Ruth, had been among those
whom the President had hosted in December in the
White House theater under the east terrace for a showing
of the new hit movie starring Humphrey Bogart and In-
grid Bergman.
Donovan had found the event somewhat ironic—
considering that the love story was set in war-torn, present-
day North Africa and that shell casings spent there in op-
eration torch barely a month earlier were damned
near still warm—but then decided it was in fact Roosevelt
relishing the irony.
“—Yes,” the President picked up, enjoying himself,
“Captain Hoover declaring, ‘I’m shocked, shocked, to
find German agents here!’ ”
Roosevelt made his toothy grin, then took a good sip
of his martini.
“I’m damned lucky,” he went on, “in the absence of this
‘evidence beyond a doubt,’ that he hasn’t just rounded
up the usual suspects and called a press conference.”
Donovan chuckled.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 5 5
Roosevelt, after a moment, said in a deeply serious
tone, “Unfortunately, this is a humorless situation.”
He looked at Donovan to make his point.
“This problem, it has to go away. As in, it never hap-
pened.”
“Say that again, Frank,” Donovan said softly.
Roosevelt did not make a point of reminding Dono-
van that he preferred to be addressed formally as “Mr.
President.”
“Bill, this problem on our turf must disappear. I need
America’s attention and energies focused on Europe and
the Pacific. These German-agent headlines need to go
away.”
“I agree.”
“And if Hoover bags these guys, he’ll make sure that
not only are there more headlines, but that he’s pictured
on every front page.” He paused. “So it’s up to you.”
“The U.S. is not my area of operations—”
“Bill,” Roosevelt interrupted. “I don’t know how
much clearer I can be. You do what you have to do. Do
it fast. Do it quietly.”
Donovan looked him in the eyes and said, “Yes, Mr.
President,” then took a long sip on his drink.
2 5 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ THREE ]
Newark, New Jersey
2010 6 March 1943
Kurt Bayer and Richard Koch had made good time get-
ting to downtown Newark in the 1940 Ford sedan that
they had taken from the parking lot of the Jacksonville
Terminal Station.
In the course of the past week, they had put far more
than a thousand miles on the car. They had also put on a
succession of different license plates, stealing ones off of
cars in South Carolina and Delaware, then carefully dis-
posing of the old ones.
The car had thus blended in well with so many other
average sedans as they made their way toward New York
City. It had served them well—far better than that hor-
rendous yellow plumber’s truck would have—and they
had been very fortunate indeed.
But with all of the news reports, Koch felt their luck
was in danger of running out.
Ever since they had blown up the electric transformer
station in Baltimore, every town that they had passed
through seemed to have a heavier and heavier police
presence.
The Reading Terminal in Philadelphia had been crawl-
ing with cops, as was Trenton’s and even little Prince-
ton’s.
Koch thought that it could be the result of an active
imagination, but damned near every power pole along
U.S. 1 seemed to have a cop parked next to it.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 5 7
And it was no different here in Newark.
It was hard not to notice the squad cars lined up out-
side Penn Station and, as they drove down East Park
Street, the paddy wagons parked on the curb of the north
side of the Public Service Bus Terminal.
Koch looked away from the cops and saw something
across the street from the bus terminal that caught his in-
terest. A restaurant sign hung from a pole on the dark
brick building. Lit in bright red neon was: palace chop
house.
A steak and a couple beers sounds really good right now.
But not there. Too damned many cops across the street.
“After we get our room at the hotel,” Koch said, “I’m
going to get rid of the car. Then we can eat.”
“Okay,” Bayer said.
They had already discussed ditching the car at great
length during the drive. They still had more missions,
but now it was time to cool it, to hide out. Especially af-
ter Rolf Grossman and Rudolf Cremer’s latest in Texas.
The radio stations—every one since Wilmington, Dela-
ware, that morning, till they got tired of it and turned it
off after noon—had had some news about the explosions
in the Dallas train station and that expensive department
store.
After making it though the heavy traffic at the inter-
section of Market and Broad, Bayer drove a number of
blocks, made a couple of turns, and finally came to Park
Place.
“There,” Koch said, pointing.
The Robert Treat Hotel was just down the block.
2 5 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I see it.”
“Drop me here,” Koch said, “then go all the way
down and park around the corner. I’ll get the room key,
then come find you and we’ll walk in. That way the car’s
out of sight and not linked with us.”
Fifteen minutes later, Bayer and Koch carried the suit-
cases that contained their duffel bags through the front
doors of the hotel.
Bayer saw that it was a nice hotel, not anything like
the motor hotels that they had been staying in all week.
The lobby featured impressive large columns, and there
was marble and polished tile everywhere.
They walked to the elevators, passing two young
women, a well-built blonde and a petite redhead, both
about twenty, relaxing in richly upholstered chairs beside
a line of lush palms.
The blonde, her tight black skirt rising up on her
crossed legs, made eye contact with Bayer. She smiled.
He sheepishly grinned back.
Koch and Bayer got on the elevator, and as the doors
closed Bayer met the blonde’s eyes again. She winked.
“Now, those,” he said as the car began to rise, “were
some good-looking women. Wonder who they are?”
Koch was looking up and watching the floor indicator
move past 3.
“Prostitutes,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Hookers?” Bayer felt as if he’d been punched. “No!”
“Yes.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 5 9
“Really?”
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and the doors
opened.
“Really,” Koch said, then looked at Bayer and added,
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
Richard Koch had been gone for more than an hour. He
had said it was going to take him no more than a half
hour to get rid of the car.
The time was not a problem for Kurt Bayer. It was, in-
stead, that from almost the moment that Koch had left,
Bayer’s stomach had started to growl.
Bayer had dug through his luggage, hoping to find a
stick of the chewing gum from the pack that he had
spilled in there a few days ago. There was none.
What I really want is something salty.
Some nuts or chips would be good.
He went over to the table between the two beds, and
on the white notepad there, wrote:
R—
In the bar
KB
He put the whole pad in the center of the dark bed-
spread where Koch couldn’t miss it, then went out the
door.
The bar turned out to be easy to find. An open area
off of the main lobby, it was noisy and smoky. There was
2 6 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
a twenty-foot-long bar, made of nice dark wood and with
a dozen tall seats, about half of which were being used.
The thirty or so cocktail tables were almost all taken;
some had a couple sitting and enjoying drinks at them,
others two or more couples.
Bayer saw three empty seats at the far end of the bar
and went and sat in the very last one, against the wall. He
realized that from there he could keep an eye on the
lobby and probably see when Koch came in and intercept
him. Then they could go get dinner.
He looked on top of the bar and smiled—there were
bowls of potato chips and nuts.
Bayer was reaching for a chip when the bartender
walked up. He was in his midforties, tall, with thinning
salt-and-pepper hair, a gray mustache, and somewhat
jowly cheeks. He wore a cheap black vest, a clip-on black
bow tie, and a white shirt with slightly frayed cuffs. The
gold tin name tag on the vest pocket read: sean o’neill.
“
’Evening,” the bartender said. “What’re you
drinking?”
“ ’Evening, Sean,” Bayer said. “I was thinking about a
beer, but I’ve had a long day and think I deserve a real
drink.”
“You name it.”
“Martini, up.”
Yeah, that should either tame the rumbles in my stomach
or make me ravenous.
“Vodka or gin?”
“Gin. Do you have Beefeater’s?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 6 1
I’m supposed to be blending in. What good German
would be drinking British booze?
“You got it, pal.”
The bowl of chips was empty, and he had the nut bowl
down to half full by the time the bartender brought his
second martini. And still no sign of Koch.
“Thank you, Sean.”
“Sure thing.”
Bayer looked at the drink before taking a sip.
Better take it easy on this one, he thought. My old man
always said to stay away from gin, that it made you mean
or stupid. Or maybe both.
Now’s not a good time to learn that he was once again
right.
He took a sip at the same time the bartender brought
bowls of fresh chips and nuts.
He put down the glass and reached for a chip from the
new bowl. Right as his hand got to the bowl, there were
slender, pale white fingers with long, red manicured nails
reaching in ahead of him.
“Excuse me,” a female’s soft voice said.
Bayer turned to the voice and was met with the same
sweet smile he had first seen earlier, just before getting
on the elevator.
“Would you like some company?” the young blonde
in the tight black skirt said, motioning at the empty chair
next to him.
2 6 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Please,” he tried to say but his throat caught.
He took a sip of his martini as she stepped up into the
seat and put a small black clutch bag on the bar.
Well, if she’s a hooker she’s not getting much business on a
Saturday night.
He glanced at her. She was trying to get the bar-
tender’s attention.
What the hell does Koch know? She’s not one. Look at her.
She’s too good-looking, too young, too innocent.
She turned and caught him looking at her. She smiled,
more widely this time, and for the first time he noticed
that her teeth were crooked.
Bayer glanced down the bar to the far end, where the
bartender was making small talk with a customer.
He raised his voice and waved his left hand. “Sean!”
The bartender turned and at first seemed to make a
face. But then he grabbed a cocktail napkin and started
coming toward them.
He put the napkin in front of the blonde.
Bayer said, “What would you like—”
“Mary,” she said.
“A Bloody Mary?” Bayer said.
“No, silly.” She giggled, and showed a bit of her
crooked teeth. “My name is Mary. Mary Callahan. I’ll
have”—she looked at his martini—“oh, I guess I’ll have
one of those.”
The bartender said, “A Beefeater’s martini coming
up,” and turned away.
“Oh?” she said excitedly to Bayer. “Is that gin?”
“Is that okay?” Bayer asked.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 6 3
“I guess. You like yours, right?”
He nodded. “Want to try it before you get yours?”
“Do you mind?” She smiled.
He slid the glass over in front of her and she slowly
put it to her lips and took a tiny sip.
Bayer saw that when she took the glass from her lips,
there was red lipstick on the glass. He wondered how he
could “accidentally” get that to his lips and see what it
tasted like.
“Whew!” she said. “That’s strong—”
“You want to order something else?” he said and
started to wave for the bartender.
“Oh, no,” she said, looking intently at him. “That’ll
be just fine.”
Her eyes twinkle!
She put the glass back on the napkin and slid it back
to him.
She offered her right hand and said, “Thank you—”
Bayer took her hand and shook it.
She repeated, “Thank you—”
“Oh, Kurt. It’s Kurt,” he replied. “And you’re very
welcome, Mary.”
Bayer noticed how soft and warm her hand was—and
that she made no effort to immediately pull it free after
they had shaken.
Sean the bartender walked up with Mary’s martini and
put it on the napkin before her.
She then, with a smile, removed her hand from Bayer’s
and picked up the martini and gestured toward him.
“To new friends,” she said.
2 6 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He met it with his and they clinked glasses.
“New friends,” he said, grinning.
He wondered if the sudden warm feeling he had was
caused by the gin or the thoughts he was having of Mary.
They both sipped their drinks.
She took a slender chrome case from the small black
purse and pulled a cigarette from it.
Bayer quickly scanned the bar, found a nearby basket
of matches, took a pack from it and lit her cigarette.
“Thank you,” she said after delicately exhaling the
smoke over her shoulder.
He smiled, then sipped at his martini, trying to fill
what was beginning to feel like an awkward silence.
He tasted something different this sip, and, when he
looked at the glass rim, saw that he had touched the point
where Mary had sipped and left a little lipstick.
I’d like to have more of that.
But what do I say now?
“Didn’t I see you earlier?” Mary asked.
Thank God!
Bayer smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “By the ele-
vators.”
“That’s right. You were coming in with another man.”
“Just a friend,” Bayer said, not worried about reveal-
ing anything about their mission.
He and Koch, when they were on the U-boat, had
come up with the simple cover story of being two friends
traveling to New York, where they would be joining in
the war effort.
As with the best of cover stories, it was close to the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 6 5
truth. They felt somewhat like friends now. They were
traveling to New York. And they would be “joining in
the war effort”—though they found more than a little
humor in the twist on that.
“It appeared that you had a friend, too,” Bayer said.
“She’s on a date.”
“Oh?”
Mary smiled sweetly, but he noticed her hand holding
the cigarette shook a little.
In a nervous voice, she asked, “Are you interested in a
date?”
That bastard Koch was right!
“A date?” he repeated tentatively.
She picked up her martini and, as she sipped, looked
over the rim at him and nodded.
Damn!
He reached for his glass and took a sip and suddenly
grinned.
She took the matchbook that was in front of him,
opened it, and on the inside cover wrote: “10/30.”
“Till midnight,” she said, her voice inviting and her
left pinky first pointing to the ten-dollar fee then to the
one for thirty dollars, “or for all night.”
He looked at the matchbook, then looked into her
eyes.
Jesus. They’re still twinkling!
Well, this sure will beat hell out of hearing Koch snore all
night.
He took the pen and circled “30.”
Mary made her crooked smile.
2 6 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ FOUR ]
New York Bay
2345 6 March 1943
Francesco Nola put down the battered black binoculars,
pulled back on the throttle controls, and made a hard
course correction, swinging the wooden wheel so that
the Annie headed in a due eastward direction and in line
with the channel markers. The dimly lit compass face re-
sponded by rocking then spinning inside its grimy glass
dome on the helm, the white number 90 finally settling
in behind the black line etched in the dome glass.
Dick Canidy could tell that they were now in the Nar-
rows, the tidal strait between Upper New York Bay and
Lower New York Bay, and that on the present course,
they were headed for shore.
Behind them was Staten Island, and ahead—directly
ahead, as Canidy could now make out the shoreline and
some docks—was the southwestern tip of the borough of
Brooklyn, on Long Island.
“So after I ice up the Annie here and deliver her to my
cousin at Montauk—he’s taking her on a four-day run—
I’ll come right back to the city and we’ll meet a little af-
ter that,” Nola said.
He reduced the throttle more, causing the boat to set-
tle in the water.
“You have my home telephone number. If I am not
there, then I am at the fish market. You can get me one
place or the other.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 6 7
“Okay,” Canidy said.
Outside the pilothouse windows, he saw the man who
had thrown him the lines at the fish-market dock. The
man was walking toward the bow, preparing the lines for
docking.
Canidy wondered if he should offer to help, then saw
on the dock a man coming out onto the pier finger. The
building behind him had a faded sign reading: island
ice & supplies brklyn. A metal chute projected out of
the top floor and reached down and out to the pier
where the Annie was about to be moored.
Canidy watched quietly as Nola, with a mix of grace
and skill, spun the boat in its own length, working the
engines against themselves—starboard in forward, port
in reverse—then both in concert, to back the boat in so
that the ice chute could easily reach and fill the fish holds.
After a couple minutes of bumping the levers in and
out of gear, the Annie gently nudged to a stop against
the pier. Nola put the twin gear levers in the neutral po-
sition, then went out the steel door of the pilothouse to
get a better view of the work on the deck.
He saw that the fore and aft lines were being tied to
pilings, and nodded to his crewman.
He turned with his hand out to Canidy.
“See you soon,” he said.
“Thank you,” Canidy replied, shaking the offered
hand.
“Just in time,” Nola then said and nodded toward the
dock.
2 6 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy looked toward the building and noticed noth-
ing special. Then, just beyond the building, he saw a taxi-
cab pull up to the curb.
“Mine?”
Nola nodded.
“That’s some service. Especially out here at this hour.”
Nola smiled and squeezed his arm.
Canidy went to the car. When he got close, he realized it
wasn’t just any cab.
He got in the backseat and closed the door quickly,
appreciative of the warmth inside.
“Small world,” Canidy said to the monster fishmon-
ger cabbie.
The fishmonger did not reply. He put the car in
gear . . . then sniffed audibly and slightly cocked his
head.
Canidy heard him grunt, and watched as he quickly
rolled down the driver’s window and then the front pas-
senger’s window— He’d do the back ones, too, Canidy
thought, if he could reach them— before driving off.
It was almost two o’clock when the cab pulled up at 2
Lexington Avenue. Other than a couple walking up the
sidewalk to the Gramercy Park Hotel—a man and a
woman coming in late from some formal event, judging
by their attire—there was no one else around.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 6 9
Nor was there anyone in the lobby as he went
through, nor at the front desk.
When he got to the elevator bank, the indicators
showed the cars were all stopped on upper floors.
He pushed the call button, then considered taking the
steps up. About the time he decided he was just too ex-
hausted to do that, an empty car arrived and opened its
doors.
In his suite, he found his uniform lying on his bed,
cleaned and pressed.
He pulled the .45 from the small of his back and put
it under a pillow on the bed.
Then he peeled off his fish-slimed clothes, stuck them
in a bag, and considered what to do with them.
Nobody’s going to steal anything smelling this bad.
He went to the suite door, opened it, and put the bag
in the hallway, looping its drawstring closure over the
doorknob. Then he phoned the hotel operator and gave
instructions that he needed the clothes he’d left outside
his door back from the laundry service by eight o’clock,
and he asked for a wake-up call.
I’ll put in a call to Donovan first thing. With any luck,
I can have Eric Fulmar here by tomorrow afternoon, or at
least before I meet with Nola on Monday.
He then took a hot shower, pulled on fresh boxers and
a T-shirt, and crawled into the soft, king-sized bed.
Ann would like this bed, he thought, yawning and
rolling onto his back. And I would like Ann in it. . . .
VII
[ ONE ]
Aboard the Red Rocket
Rock Island Train Number 507
Davis, Oklahoma
1215 6 March 1943
“We should be going to Amarillo instead,” Rolf Gross-
man said as he placed what looked like a very fat black ci-
gar on the folding table of the Pullman compartment.
“Strike while the iron is hot.”
The “cigar” was a five-hundred-gram stick of explo-
sive wrapped tightly in a thin skin of black paper.
“Is that a good idea?” Rudolf Cremer said, watching
him compulsively put together another pouch bomb.
“On a moving train?”
Grossman glared at him.
“I know what I’m doing,” he said, then turned back
to the table.
He put one of the acid-timed fuses—disguised to look
like an ink pen—beside the explosive and its detonator,
then pulled from his suitcase a small black leather pouch.
He attached the fuse and detonator to the explosive, tin-
kered with the pen timer, then carefully slipped the as-
sembly into the pouch.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 7 1
“Now we have a half kilo with a short fuse,” he said,
clearly pleased with his work, “and another with a long
fuse.”
With his history, Cremer thought, how the hell can he
tell the difference?
“We have no need for either until we get to Kansas
City,” Cremer said.
“We would in Amarillo.”
The year-old Army ordnance Pantex facility, on six-
teen thousand acres of Texas Panhandle seventeen miles
outside of Amarillo, was producing explosive-filled pro-
jectiles—bombs and shells—round the clock.
Cremer shook his head. Grossman’s appetite for blow-
ing up things was insatiable—which of course made the
Oberschutz more or less perfect for their mission—and
taking out such an enormous target probably would
make him happy only until he could explode something
else.
“Why must I keep reminding you that Skorzeny’s or-
ders are that we do not go after big targets?” he said. “We
are successful in what we were trained to do.”
Otto Skorzeny, thirty-four, was a legendary Nazi lieu-
tenant colonel. He had won the Iron Cross fighting with
the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler against the Soviets and
afterward had been handpicked by the Führer to lead
the German commandos. With dark hair and deep, dark
eyes, he had strong good looks that were crudely ac-
cented by a scar that went from the tip of his chin, arced
across his left check, and ended at his ear—a wound he
received dueling with sabers as a student in Vienna.
2 7 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The radio mounted in the wall of the Pullman com-
partment was tuned to a news broadcast—heavy on the
Dallas explosions—but the station’s signal was getting
weak and the sound had deteriorated to mostly static.
Grossman got up and walked over to it.
“But taking out a bomb-building plant would be
incredible,” he said. “Imagine the secondary explo-
sions. . . .”
Cremer could indeed imagine the incredible destruc-
tion of massive stockpiles of explosives erupting. Not to
mention the setback it no doubt would cause the Ameri-
cans in their war effort. But a task on that scale—if it was
even possible—was best left to the Luftwaffe, not a lone
pair of agents, and thus he had to constantly discourage
Grossman and that had become a source of more than a
little friction between them.
Cremer was convinced that taking this sleek, bright
red train, with its routing from Dallas–Fort Worth to Ok-
lahoma City to Kansas City, was the best way to put some
distance between them and the blasts . . . and the crowds
of cops who no doubt were swarming the area . . . and
position them well for more sabotage opportunities.
During their week in Dallas, after having walked down
to Union Station and collected pamphlets with each rail
line’s schedule, he had gone over them and determined
that from Kansas City they could get anywhere they
needed to be in the middle and western U.S. The Rocky
Mountain Rocket, train number 107-7, ran from Kansas
to Denver; train number 43, the Californian, went from
Kansas City to Chicago to Los Angeles; the Mid-Continent
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 7 3
Special, train number 17, had sleepers to Minneapolis
and Des Moines.
And so he had bought them tickets on the Red Rocket
and secured for the duration of the trip a Pullman “mas-
ter room” compartment.
He looked around the master room and was reminded
of the railway brochure that had said it offered “the ulti-
mate in refined comfort.” So far, he could not dispute
that.
This one—on the left side of the train—had a big
main room, about seven by ten, with four comfortable,
cloth-upholstered, chrome-frame armchairs that could
be put wherever a passenger pleased. (The smaller ac-
commodations came with fixed bench seating.) When
the chairs were slid to the side, there was room to fold
down the two twin-sized beds from the walls. The com-
partment also had a large wardrobe, plus full-length
dressing mirrors. And, off the main room, an attached
private bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower.
Cremer had an armchair pulled up to one of the two
large windows and was looking out to the west. He no-
ticed that the Oklahoma countryside was changing. For
the last hour or so, since at least the Texas border, it had
been fairly flat, barren land, with occasional clumps of
trees. Now it was turning dramatically hilly, with exposed
uplifts of rock—what looked like the foothills of some
small mountains.
Grossman was quickly adjusting the tuning knob of
the radio, anxious to hear more of the news bulletins on
the Dallas explosions. After a moment, some cowboy
2 7 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
music came in clearly. It was the tail end of a tune by Bob
Wills and His Texas Playboys. Cremer had heard quite a
bit of them on the radio while in Dallas and actually was
beginning to like this Texas swing music.
Grossman, however, would have none of it, and after
hearing a bartender in the Adolphus Hotel alternately re-
fer to it as “Western” or “shitkicker” music had used only
the latter description whenever he heard it.
Cremer was surprised that he did not call it that now
but decided it was probably because the radio announcer
was promising that the news was coming up next, with
updates on the terror in Dallas, and Grossman would
rather suffer the music than miss a report.
Grossman went back to the table and continued work-
ing with the explosives as the Red Rocket swayed and
clack-clack-clacked its way north toward Oklahoma City.
Considering all the time and attention he gives those,
Cremer thought with mild disgust, one would think he
could have properly set the goddamned fuses in Dallas.
A half hour later, Cremer felt the train begin to slow. He
looked out the window and saw that the countryside was
becoming more developed. Houses dotted the land, and
there were more roads that were improved—ones paved
with blacktop as opposed to all the bare dirt ones he’d seen.
He wondered if they already were approaching Okla-
homa City.
The train slowed even further as it came closer to
town. First there were nice wooden houses in tidy neigh-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 7 5
borhoods, then the two- and three-story brick buildings
of downtown proper.
Cremer strained to peer forward, and, following the
tracks, could just see the train depot to the left side of the
tracks. It was a small one, about half a block long, of dark
red brick with a black tile roof and a narrow wooden
boarding platform—all clearly too small to be that of
Oklahoma City.
Then, just as he noticed the standardized signage
reading norman on the station’s southern wall, he heard
the porter passing outside the compartment door.
“Norman!” the deep, black voice announced, “Nor-
man, Oklahoma! No stops, no disembarking! No stops,
no disembarking!”
The porter’s voice grew fainter as he moved up the car
repeating the station information.
Cremer and Grossman exchanged glances.
“I don’t like this,” Grossman said and quickly put the
last of the explosives back in the suitcase. The only thing
remaining on the table was one of the small black leather
pouches.
“Don’t overreact,” Cremer said. “We may just be tak-
ing on mail or something.”
The train’s brakes began to squeal and Cremer again
looked out the window. He could see a few men standing
on the platform, two in dark gray suits and black fedoras,
one in the blue uniform and cap of a railway employee.
The train, with the locomotive coming even with the
station, was now barely rolling along. There were no
more brake squeals.
2 7 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
As the first of the passenger cars reached the station,
the two men in dark suits began running alongside. In no
time, they were outside Cremer’s window—Grossman
now saw them, too—and he pulled the curtains closed
for a moment. The car rolled past them, and when he
cracked open the curtains again and looked back he saw
that the men had matched the speed of the train and
were now, one at a time and with some difficulty, jump-
ing onto the metal platform where the last two cars were
connected.
Cremer’s stomach knotted.
Those aren’t postal clerks, he thought.
“They just jumped on the train,” he said.
Grossman got to his feet, picked up the leather pouch
from the table, slipped it into his suit coat pocket, and
went to the door. He put his ear to the door but heard
nothing unusual.
The train began to pick up speed, and when Cremer
looked out the window this time he could see that they
were leaving downtown.
He stood up, too, and when he instinctively reached
in his pants pocket, making sure the Walther pistol was
still there—it was—he noticed that his palms were start-
ing to sweat.
Grossman opened the door a crack and looked out.
Then he pulled it open more, looked toward the car be-
hind them, then to the one ahead, and then stepped out
into the hall. He glanced at Cremer before walking to the
back of the car.
Cremer watched as Grossman positioned himself to
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 7 7
the left of the rear door’s window, out of sight of anyone
in the other cars, and peered back into them.
Grossman saw that the two men—one taller and
clean-shaven, the other with a mustache—were going
through the farthest car, systematically knocking on the
door of every compartment.
Each time, the man with the mustache would stand
outside the door, covering the taller man as he went in.
After about a minute, the taller man would then come
out and they would move to the next compartment and
repeat the process.
At the fourth compartment, one of the passengers, a
slender male of about thirty, came out into the hallway.
He gave his wallet to the man with the mustache, who
then appeared to ask a few questions as he inspected what
looked like identification papers.
The man with the mustache gave back the wallet,
nodded curtly, then went with his partner to the next
compartment.
Grossman had seen enough. He carefully and quickly
made his way back to the compartment.
Cremer closed the door once Grossman was inside.
“What did you see?”
“Two men, maybe local police but probably state or
FBI, clearing the train compartment by compartment.
They’re checking passengers’ papers.”
“Well, our papers are not a problem,” Cremer said
evenly. “My driver’s license is the same as I had when I
lived in New Jersey.”
“Mine also.” Grossman’s eyes darted around the
2 7 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
compartment. “But I do not like how this is happening.
This is no routine investigation. There probably are more
police waiting in Oklahoma City.”
He went to the suitcase and pulled out the other black
pouch.
“What the hell do you intend to do with that?” Cre-
mer said.
“How far from Oklahoma City are we?”
Cremer looked at him, made the mental calculations,
then said, “Fifteen minutes . . . maybe less.”
Grossman held up the pouch he had taken from the
suitcase.
“This is the one with the ten-minute fuse. I am going
to place it in the passenger car behind us. It will take
them no more than ten minutes to work their way up to
it. Meanwhile, we will go forward, and when it blows,
and the train stops, we will get out. By that time, the
train will be in the city and we can slip away in the
chaos.”
Cremer, thinking, stared at him.
I don’t want to believe it, but he may be right.
Hell, he is right.
Why else would a couple of cops suddenly jump on a
train, if they weren’t looking for us? The damned radio has
been nothing but nonstop reports about Dallas.
And lucky Grossman—now he gets to blow up some-
thing else.
He went to the door, opened it, and looked down the
car and through the door windows. He could see the two
men in gray suits and black fedoras, not in detail but
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 7 9
clearly enough to tell that they were now about halfway
through the first car. He closed the door.
“I don’t like the idea . . . but, frankly, I do not have a
better one.”
“Okay, then,” Grossman said and unzipped the pouch.
“I’ll start the acid fuse.”
He pulled out the pen, looked at it, then quickly
looked at it more closely, and whispered, “Scheist.”
Cremer saw Grossman’s face lose all color.
“What?”
“The fuse . . .”
The initial explosion of the half-kilo bomb blew out the
side of the train seconds later. Grossman and Cremer had
only a heartbeat to begin to comprehend what the ab-
solutely brilliant flash and vicious concussion meant.
Within a split second, secondary explosions were trig-
gered when the twenty or so kilograms of plastic explo-
sive that had been packed in the suitcases—and the half
kilo in Grossman’s coat pocket—suddenly cooked off.
The massive blasts rocked the whole train and tore the
last three Pullman passenger cars from the track, scatter-
ing the Red Rocket and its contents across the peaceful
Oklahoma countryside.
2 8 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ TWO ]
Office of Strategic Services
The National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.
0630 7 March 1943
When President Roosevelt had informed Wild Bill Don-
ovan in August of 1941 that he had made a few calls
and found, in a town where office and living accommo-
dations were impossibly tight, space from which Dono-
van could execute the duties associated with his new
position as director of the Office of Coordinator of In-
formation, Donovan at first was somewhat under-
whelmed.
The National Institutes of Health? he had wondered.
In no time, however, it became clear that housing—
or, more to the point, hiding—the supersecret OCOI
(and then its successor, the Office of Strategic Services)
in the nondescript NIH building with its innocuous name
came as close to perfect as the parameters of wartime al-
lowed.
The office of the director of the OSS was nicely fur-
nished with a large, glistening desk, a red leather couch,
and two red leather chairs. The director himself was sit-
ting in one of the chairs, his feet up and crossed on a low
glass-top table, and reading from a fat folder in his lap.
“From the looks of it, Professor Dyer has already
earned his keep,” Donovan said to his deputy director.
“Yes, sir,” Captain Peter Stuart Douglass Sr., USN,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 8 1
said. “The list of scientists he thinks will follow him is im-
pressive.”
Douglass was slender and fit, a pleasant-looking forty-
four-year-old with sandy hair and a freckled face. His career
in the Navy had been spent aboard deepwater vessels—
most recently as the commanding officer of a destroyer
squadron—and in intelligence. When FDR had given
Donovan the OCOI, he said it was only just that he start
his staffing, too, and—with Donovan’s blessing—asked
the secretary of the Navy to put Douglass on indefinite
duty as Donovan’s number two.
Douglass, who believed he had little hope of making
admiral—and was not sure he in fact wanted such duty,
especially if it meant sailing a desk in Washington—
embraced the OCOI assignment because it promised to
put him, as it now delivered, in the middle of some very
exciting and important work.
“Question is,” Donovan went on, “can we get them
out before the Germans (a) find out we grabbed Dyer
and that he’s not simply ‘missing,’ and (b) decide that
the loyalty of these remaining scientists is not with Hitler
but soon with Leslie Groves.”
Until recently—as in two weeks before—Professor Fred-
erick Dyer, a rumpled academic in patched tweed in his
fifties, had been at the University of Marburg, working
under duress on the molecular structure of metals in the
pursuit of turbine engine technology for the propulsion
2 8 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
of aircraft, among other projects critical to ensuring the
Tausendjahriges Reich—the Nazis’ thousand-year empire.
The OSS—with Eric Fulmar as the mission operative
and Dick Canidy as his control—had smuggled Dyer
and his daughter, twenty-nine-year-old Gisella, out via an
OSS pipeline. The difficult escape through German-
occupied Hungary very nearly cost all of them their lives.
In the end—as in two days ago—the Dyers were es-
corted to the University of Chicago, where the professor
joined the dozen or so scientists—including Enrico Fermi,
Dyer’s friend and colleague from the University of Rome—
working on a highly classified project led by Brigadier
General Leslie Groves, Army of the United States.
Code-named the Manhattan Project, it traced its roots
to when the brilliant Fermi had fled Mussolini’s fascism
for the United States.
Once in the U.S., Fermi naturally had become in-
volved with a number of other eminent scientists, many
of them also Europeans who had sought freedom in
America. There was the great Danish physicist Niels
Bohr, the master German mathematician Albert Einstein,
the Hungarians Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Eugene
Wigner, and others of remarkable scientific talent.
And among them there was talk of the very real possi-
bility of splitting the uranium atom in a chain reaction—
“fission,” they called it—that would create energy on a
scale bordering on the incomprehensible.
They theorized that the energy released from such a
chain reaction, or continuous disintegration, of one hun-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 8 3
dred pounds of the uranium 235 isotope was the equiva-
lent of the energy from twenty thousand tons of the high
explosive TNT (trinitrotoluene).
The scale of effort to achieve this fission and then har-
ness it in a usable manner—if, in fact, it was entirely
possible, and the scientists had some disagreement over
that—also bordered on the incomprehensible.
What was not disputed among these great minds was
the fact that others in the world’s scientific and political
communities were aware of the possibilities of atomic fis-
sion and its military applications—and these others in-
cluded Adolf Hitler.
Thus, the scientists in America—particularly the Hun-
garians Szilard, Teller, and Wigner, who vividly knew the
reach of Hitler’s cruel hand and the inconceivable atroc-
ities that would follow were he to gain control of such a
weapon—had to make this information known to the
President of the United States.
They did so by drafting a letter, under Einstein’s
signature and dated August 2, 1939, that was then deliv-
ered to the White House by Alexander Sachs, an econo-
mist who enjoyed Roosevelt’s close friendship.
The letter laid out everything the scientists knew
about the big picture of turning uranium into an atomic
bomb—what the potential uses were, where the rare us-
able uranium could be found, the limits of current aca-
demic funding, et cetera, et cetera. It ended by stating
that it was understood that Germany had stopped the
sale of uranium from Czech mines it had taken control
2 8 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
of, and that the uranium work being done in America was
being repeated at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin,
where physicist Carl von Weizsacker—son of Nazi under-
secretary of state Ernst von Weizsacker—was attached.
FDR instantly read between the lines. And he saw that
this situation set up a pair of particularly difficult obsta-
cles for the United States—not officially in the war—and
the Allies:
1. They had to beat the Germans in the actual de-
velopment of such an atomic bomb while not
letting the enemy know that they were in fact
working on one; and
2. They had to stop the Germans from accomplish-
ing the same.
To the first problem, FDR put into play the Manhat-
tan Project, a secret so great that only a very small circle
of people—the scientists and FDR, of course, Churchill,
Donovan, Hoover, the chief of Naval intelligence, an
Army general named Leslie Groves—knew about it. Vice
President Henry Wallace was not in that circle.
And to aid with the second problem, he established
the Office of Coordinator of Information, which, as part
of its agents’ secret work in intelligence, counterintelli-
gence, sabotage, and other shadowy operations, would be
deeply involved both in the snatching of scientists from
the Axis and in the blowing up of their assets that could
be used in the development of an atomic bomb.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 8 5
Donovan flipped through the Dyer file and came to a
sheet that caught his interest. “ ‘Known alloy machining,
milling, and extrusion shops in and near Frankfurt’?”
“Another nice list from the professor,” Douglass said.
“We were aware of a couple of the major ones, but not
that many, and not the scope of their production. There
has to be a lot of machinery that the Germans looted and
shipped back to put on line.”
“Maybe Doug can take out these facilities with the
drones,” Donovan said with raised eyebrows.
Captain Douglass smiled warmly at the thought of
his son.
While Peter Stuart “Doug” Douglass Jr. was Captain
Douglass’s namesake, the twenty-six-year-old West Point
graduate was quite something more. Starting with the
fact that he was a triple ace and a newly minted lieutenant
colonel in the Army Air Forces.
He also was in England, and caught up with the OSS
team involved in the Aphrodite Project, which was try-
ing—key word trying, because so far they had had little
luck—to convert B-17s into Torpex-filled drones that,
controlled remotely, would attack and blow up German
submarine pens and other targets considered highly valu-
able to the military, such as plants fabricating parts for
tanks, attack aircraft, et cetera.
Lieutenant Colonel Douglass believed the drone to be
a good idea—anything with the potential to save lives
was a good idea—and he had good reason to, profes-
sionally and emotionally.
2 8 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
As the commanding officer of the 344th Fighter
Group, Eighth United States Air Force, then-Major
Douglass had lost 40 percent of his pilots to enemy fire
during a bombing mission of German sub pens at St.
Lazare. He vowed to do anything he could, when he
could, to never allow the risking of the lives of his men in
such a reckless way.
That included, one version of the story went, a furious
Douglass having gone directly from his shot-up P-38F
on the field at Atcham to the Eighth Air Force Head-
quarters building there, finding the planning and train-
ing officer who had laid out the mission—and giving the
REMF a bloody nose to make his point known, not to
mention remembered.
It wasn’t the smartest of moves, Major Douglass had
been the first to admit, but what the hell were they going
to do to a graduate of Hudson High who had against all
odds managed to actually take out a sub on the mission
and bring back 60 percent of his force?
Worst case?
Send the poor bastard back out in his Lockheed
Lightning?
The one with its nose painted with ten small Japanese
flags (or “meatballs,” each representing the downing of a
Japanese airplane), six swastikas (signifying six German
aircraft kills), and now a submarine of equal size?
Even the Army’s slow-grinding bureaucratic machin-
ery on rare occasion was capable of exhibiting some wis-
dom and in this case saw fit to recognize Douglass’s
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 8 7
heroism and leadership on the St. Lazare mission by pro-
moting him to lieutenant colonel.
“I know that Doug would certainly welcome the
chance to bomb them all,” the deputy director of the
OSS replied. “There’s more than a little professional
competition with our cousins in the SOE, especially after
their saboteurs blew the nitrates plant in Norway last
month.”
Norway was a leading producer of deuterium oxide—
or “heavy water,” a by-product of the manufacture of
fertilizer—one of only two materials (the other being
graphite) that scientists found could control (essentially
cool) the reactors during nuclear production. The British
Special Operations Executive all-Norwegian commando
raid at Rjukan had destroyed a critical half ton of heavy
water earmarked for the Nazis’ nuclear-development
program.
Donovan nodded. “That was such an important facil-
ity, they’re rapidly rebuilding it.”
“Then Doug won’t have to wait long for his turn at
taking it out.”
Donovan chuckled appreciatively.
“With any luck, he can do it safely from the controls
of an Aphrodite drone,” the OSS director said. “But
if the Pope keeps up the pace, Doug may not get a
chance.”
“The Pope?”
“Fermi,” Donovan explained. “Oppenheimer picked
up on the nickname. Years ago, some Italian scientists
2 8 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
gave it to the young Fermi because they said he believed
himself to be infallible.”
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the distinguished
physicist from the University of California overseeing the
scientists of the Manhattan Project.
Douglass grinned. “Oh, that one. Sorry. My mind
went right to Rome. I had heard that about the nick-
name.”
Donovan went on, “Oppenheimer says that in discus-
sions with the Pope after they created the first atomic
chain reaction at the University of Chicago in December,
he, Oppenheimer, sees a completed bomb.”
Douglass stared at Donovan.
“That is remarkable,” Douglass said after a long mo-
ment.
“Yes, which is why the OSS is accelerating the pulling
out of the scientists and the sabotaging of assets.”
“Sounds like Doug is going to be busy.”
“We’re all going to be very busy.”
[ THREE ]
The National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.
0655 7 March 1943
The young woman at the tall reception desk in the NIH
lobby watched as the lithe, good-looking guy in his mid-
twenties walked toward her. He wore a U.S. Army uniform
with first lieutenant bars and had blond hair and blue
eyes. He moved with enormous energy and confidence.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 8 9
Seated at a small desk to the right of the receptionist
station was a uniformed policeman—half-listening to a
radio news bulletin about what was being described as
a train derailment in Oklahoma earlier in the day—and
two other cops standing guard by the elevators. They
watched the soldier, too.
“My name is Fulmar,” the Army lieutenant said to the
receptionist. “Captain Douglass is expecting me.”
She consulted a typewritten list.
“May I see some identification, please?”
Fulmar produced the identity card issued by the Ad-
jutant General’s Office, U.S. Army, that said he was
“FULMAR, Eric, 1st Lt., Infantry, Army of the United
States.”
After she carefully studied it and studied him and
smiled, she produced a cardboard visitor badge. Ful-
mar thought that that was curious; he was in the OSS,
not just a regular visitor to the Washington office, and
thought that the list she had checked would have some-
how reflected his status.
Then he noticed there was no signage—no indication
whatsoever—of the OSS and decided the standardized
badge was part of the anonymity, and thus nothing more
than some standard operating procedure, and attached it
to his tunic using the alligator clip on the back.
One of the guards at the elevators approached the
desk.
“Please show the lieutenant to Captain Douglass’s of-
fice,” the receptionist said to the guard.
“This way, sir,” the guard said.
2 9 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
They took the elevator up three floors, then walked all
the way down a long hallway. At the end was a doorway
with a little sign labeled director. A police guard was
posted outside. He was sitting in a folding metal chair
reading the Washington Star.
The two policemen acknowledged one another, and
Fulmar followed the first through the door and into an
outer office that had a small army of female clerks. One
was older and gray-haired, at a basic wooden desk with a
black phone and a nameplate that read a. fishburne,
and was apparently in charge. Two younger women were
standing at a pushcart stacked with papers and file folders
and working with quiet efficiency to feed a huge bank of
file cabinets. Three other young women noisily clacked
away at typewriters, presumably generating more work
for the women at the file cabinets.
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” the gray-haired woman
said with a smile. “The captain expects you.”
There were two inner doors, one labeled director
and one deputy director.
The cop started to lead Fulmar to the latter, but the
gray-haired woman said, “They’re in the boss’s office.”
The cop looked at her and nodded. He walked to the
door with director on it, knocked on the doorframe,
and when he heard a man’s voice from behind the door
call out, “Come!” he opened it and announced, “Good
morning, sir. Lieutenant Fulmar is here.”
Fulmar heard the voice say, “Send him in, please.”
The cop stepped back from the door, gestured with
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 9 1
his hand for Fulmar to enter the office, then went out the
main door and down the corridor toward the elevator.
Fulmar stepped through the doorway and saw two of-
ficers in uniform, one a silver-haired Army colonel and
one a sandy-haired Navy captain, sitting in opposing red
leather chairs that were separated by a glass-top table and
a red leather couch.
Fulmar came to attention and saluted stiffly.
“Reporting as ordered, sir.”
The officers stood and returned the salute.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant,” the Navy
captain said, offering his hand. “I’m Captain Douglass. I
think you may know my son.”
Fulmar shook his hand. “An honor, sir. To meet you,
and to be acquainted with Doug—with Colonel Doug-
lass.”
“That’s very kind of you to say,” Douglass replied,
then took a step back and motioned to the Army colonel.
“It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Colonel Dono-
van.” He looked at Donovan. “Colonel, may I present
Lieutenant Fulmar?”
Fulmar already had his hand out, and when the Irish-
man took it in his mitt of a hand, Fulmar could not help
but notice the very firm squeeze as they shook.
“I’ve heard a great deal about you, Lieutenant,”
Donovan said.
“Yes, sir?”
Donovan grinned. “Relax. It’s very good. Otherwise
we would not have asked you here.”
2 9 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s get on with it,” Donovan said, his face somber.
“It’s a matter that seems to be getting more urgent by
the hour.”
He motioned toward the couch and chairs.
“Have a seat, please.”
“Thank you,” Fulmar said and moved toward the red
couch.
As Donovan went to his red armchair near the fat
manila folder on the glass-top table, he said, “I don’t
know about the lieutenant, Captain Douglass, but I
would be eternally grateful for a cup of coffee.”
Douglass looked at Fulmar. “How about it?”
“Please.”
Douglass went to the door and opened it just enough
to call out. The sound of typewriters filtered in.
“Mrs. Fishburne,” he said, “coffee for three, please,
and anything else you can scrounge up that we might
find of interest. Thank you.”
Douglass closed the door, shutting off the clacking,
and returned to the red chair opposite Donovan and sat
down.
Donovan, seated toward the front edge of the chair
cushion, leaned forward. Elbows on his knees, he held
his hands together—almost in a manner of praying—and
tapped his fingertips together twice, then touched index
fingers to his nose and thumbs to his chin as he consid-
ered his thoughts.
He looked directly into Fulmar’s eyes.
It was a penetrating gaze, and as Fulmar looked back
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 9 3
into the steely gray-green eyes he felt himself automati-
cally sit more rigidly.
“What I am about to tell you,” Donovan began in a
tone deeply serious, “is known by only a few people in
the OSS.”
“Yes, sir,” Fulmar said, but it was more a question.
“The President has directed the OSS to quote quietly
and quickly unquote put an end to the acts of German
sabotage on American soil.”
“Sir?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?” Donovan said softly.
Fulmar glanced at Douglass, who was expressionless,
then back to Donovan.
“No, sir,” Fulmar said. “It’s just that it was my under-
standing that that was the FBI’s territory.”
“It is. Which is why what I am asking of you requires
the utmost secrecy.”
After a moment, Fulmar said, “Yes, sir.”
“Do you have any questions?”
Fulmar nodded.
“A few, sir. The first being: ‘Why me?’ ”
“You are the proverbial round peg for the round
hole,” Donovan said, sliding back in his chair to a more
relaxed position and crossing his legs. “You understand
the mind of a spy and the mind of a German—you speak
German fluently, yes—?”
“Yes, sir.”
“—And how many other languages?”
Fulmar shrugged. “Three fluently, maybe four, five pass-
ably. Living in so many places, they came to me easily. . . .”
2 9 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The director nodded. “And that—and I mean your
ability to blend in ‘so many places,’ as you put it—
coupled with your actions in the rescue of the Dyers
makes you our round peg.”
He paused.
“You perform exceptionally under pressure . . . and
we’re under a great deal of pressure.”
There was a long silence before Douglass broke it.
“The President—and our country—simply cannot
have these agents taking the focus off of the war abroad,”
the deputy director said.
“Yes, sir. What would you have me do?”
“Whatever is necessary,” Donovan said.
“And, sir, that would be—?”
“Whatever is necessary,” Donovan repeated evenly.
The director let that sink in, and when Fulmar slowly
nodded that he understood, Donovan went on:
“The FBI has been directed to share with us every-
thing they have on all the bombings. On the surface, that
sounds great. But I find at least two fundamental flaws in
it, the first being that Director Hoover is not going to
willingly turn over all of the information if there’s a
chance that he can hold something back in order for the
FBI to collar these German agents and get the credit—”
“We know for a fact they’re German?” Fulmar said.
Donovan showed his mild displeasure at being inter-
rupted. “May I finish?”
“Certainly, sir. My apologies.”
“To answer your question, we have reason to believe
that they are agents of Germany—if not precisely Ger-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 9 5
man nationals—because of the pattern of evidence that
they’re leaving, from weapons to witnesses. There’s a
file—”
Douglass stood up. “I’ll get it,” he said and went to
the big desk.
“—and in it,” Donovan went on, “is everything the
FBI believes we should have. It’s enough to establish that
in all likelihood we are dealing with German agents—
soldiers trained by Skorzeny. You’re familiar with Ober-
sturmbannführer Skorzeny?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
Fulmar’s tone suggested that it was inconceivable that
anyone could not be familiar with such a storied warrior,
enemy or not.
Douglass brought back a folder thick with papers. He
put it on the glass-top table. Fulmar glanced at it, then
back at Donovan.
“And that brings me to the other flaw,” Donovan
went on. “The OSS at its core is military and thus plays
by different rules than does the FBI. While Director
Hoover has been known to stretch the rules of law en-
forcement to suit his needs, by and large he keeps the
bureau on the straight and narrow—his intolerance of
crooked cops, for example—and this rigid mind-set, hav-
ing trickled down to how the rank and file fundamentally
operates, limits what the bureau is capable of accom-
plishing. You follow me so far?”
“I believe so, sir. No risk, no reward.”
“Yes. The President understands these limitations, as
he does the parameters of the OSS, and thus has decided
2 9 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
that the situation requires something more than the FBI
offers. . . .”
He paused to gather his thoughts.
“These attacks,” he went on, “spotlight some of our
country’s biggest weaknesses. The United States cannot
secure its vast borders—that’s a statement of fact, not a
political ploy—and our infrastructure is vulnerable to sub-
versive acts. We simply cannot protect every electrical
substation, every train station, every town reservoir from
attack. There are too many, and the manpower available—
that is to say, everyone we are not sending to fight
abroad—is far too few.”
“So one clever saboteur can with little effort cause re-
markable chaos,” Fulmar said.
“Correction,” Douglass said, “is causing remarkable
chaos.”
“And with more than one on the ground,” Donovan
added, “there is a force multiplier effect. Follow?”
“If the public hears of two,” Fulmar offered, “they
speculate that there could be two—or two dozen—
others.”
“It’s already happening in the press reports,” Doug-
lass said. “Reckless speculation. And soon the press will
draw the obvious conclusion that the Texas and Okla-
homa explosions show that the size of the attacks are be-
coming larger by the day.”
Donovan added: “Given time—and the Hoover
Maxim on Criminality—the FBI would get these guys.
But we don’t have the luxury of time.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 9 7
“ ‘The Hoover Maxim on Criminality’?” Fulmar said.
“I am not familiar with that.”
Donovan’s eyes twinkled as he looked at Douglass.
“You wouldn’t be expected to,” Douglass said with a
smile. “Quoting from the J. Edgar Book of Law Enforce-
ment, ‘The Hoover Maxim on Criminality stipulates that
all criminals—without exception—commit some stupid
act before, during, or after a crime that allows for their
eventual capture.’ ”
The director and deputy director of the OSS ex-
changed grins.
“Forgive us,” Donovan said. “We do not mean to
make light of the circumstance. It is just that the impor-
tant word there as far as we’re concerned is eventual.”
“Yes, sir,” Fulmar said. “We do not have time to
wait.”
Donovan nodded. He liked what he just heard. Ful-
mar had said that he understood the urgency of the mis-
sion—and with “we” his acceptance of it.
Douglass said, “And that brings us back to doing
whatever is necessary—”
There was a knock at the door.
Douglass looked to Donovan, who nodded.
“Come!” Douglass called.
The door opened and Mrs. Fishburne came through
it, struggling with a tray holding three china mugs of
steaming coffee and a plate piled with sticky bun pastries.
“I’m sorry that I took so long,” she said, placing the
tray on the glass-top table. In her hand there was a sealed
2 9 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
envelope, with strictly confidential stamped in red
on the front.
“This just came for you, Colonel,” she said. “An FBI
agent hand-carried it here. He said that his orders were
to give it to you personally. It took some time for me to
convince him that the director and the deputy director
were not only unavailable now, but that it would be
hours before either was available at all. He gave that
about five seconds of thought and decided that waiting
was not high on his list of priorities.”
Donovan chuckled as he broke the seal of the enve-
lope.
“You did well, Mrs. Fishburne,” the director of the
OSS said, scanning the message. “As you’ll learn, the
FBI has a very high regard of itself, and it is a noble en-
deavor indeed—if fruitless—to try to help keep them
grounded.”
“Yes, sir,” she said without much conviction.
He looked up from the sheet of paper and added,
“Don’t be surprised, however, if you suddenly find your-
self the subject of a thorough FBI investigation.”
Mrs. Fishburne looked momentarily stunned.
Donovan grinned. “I’m only half kidding. If the FBI
had decided you were a threat to the domestic security of
the United States, Mrs. Fishburne, there’d already be an
ample file on you. And they’d just be waiting for the
Hoover Maxim on Criminality to work its magic.”
Fulmar glanced at Douglass and could see he was try-
ing not to grin too obviously.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
2 9 9
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Fishburne said, clearly not at all com-
fortable with the explanation.
“That’ll be all for now, Mrs. Fishburne,” Douglass
said. “Thank you.”
She turned and left the room, pulling the door closed
behind her.
“Well, this appears to be both good and bad news,”
Donovan said, leaning forward to pass the letter to
Douglass, then picking up one of the steaming china
mugs.
He looked at Fulmar and nodded at the coffee. “Help
yourself.”
Douglass sat back in his chair and his eyes fell to the
message.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Office of the Deputy Director
*** STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL ***
March 7, 1943
Colonel Donovan:
As an update to the previous information
provided by the F.B.I. to your office on
the most recent acts of sabotage, Director
Hoover has asked me to inform you of the
following:
3 0 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
1. That our F.B.I. agents in Texas believe
with a confidence factor of 90 percent that
at least two (2) German saboteurs were re -
sponsible for the Mar. 5 bombing of the
Dallas department store that killed two
(2) citizens and injured five (5) others;
2. That our F.B.I. agents in Texas believe
with a confidence factor of 90 percent that
at least one (1) German saboteur was re -
sponsible for the bombing of the Mar. 5
Dallas Union Station train depot and the
U.S.O. therein, killing five (5) soldiers
and injuring twenty (20) others;
3. That our F.B.I. agents in Texas and Ok-
lahoma believe with a confidence factor of
70 percent that at least one (1) German
saboteur was responsible for the bomb -
ing on Mar. 6 of the Red Rock Rail Line
train en route Dallas to Kansas (casual -
ties unknown at this time); and
4. That our agents in Oklahoma believe
that in the train bombing:
(a) with a confidence factor of 50 per-
cent at least one (1) German saboteur died
in the explosion, and
(b) with a confidence factor of 100 per-
cent two (2) F.B.I. agents in the defense
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 0 1
of their country lost their lives in the
explosion.
On behalf of the Director,
And with warmest personal regards,
Clyde
C. A. Tolson
Douglass’s eyebrows went up.
Donovan saw that and said, “Wondering why Tolson
sent that, are you?”
As deputy director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson was
nearly inseparable from Hoover. Both on and off the job.
Their relationship was so close in fact that rumors of ho-
mosexuality circled regularly, though Donovan dismissed
the dirty tales as more of the vicious undercurrent that
was Washington politics.
“A little,” Douglass said as he leaned forward and
passed the paper to Fulmar, and added, “Your mission’s
most recent intel, Lieutenant. Word to the wise: Don’t
take it at face value.”
“Yes, sir,” Fulmar said, and began reading the confi-
dential message.
Donovan explained, “While the President told the di-
rector to keep us—the OSS—informed of any and all up-
dates, he did not say that the director had to do so
personally.”
3 0 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Then using Tolson is his way of following what he
considers a distasteful order,” Douglass said, “without
bringing himself to the level of a lowly field operative.”
Douglass caught Fulmar’s eyes dart at him.
“No offense, Lieutenant. No one in this room has
anything but the highest regard for field ops.”
Fulmar knew that that certainly was the case with Wild
Bill Donovan—his reputation as a first-rate battlefield
commander was above reproach, made all the more so by
his Medal of Honor from the First War—and while Doug-
lass’s history was not necessarily as well known, Fulmar
had to believe (a) that Donovan would not tolerate any-
one but a true believer as his number two, and (b) that
with Doug Douglass being one competent fearless son-
ofabitch, he had had to have learned that from someone
and that someone most likely was his father.
“None taken, sir,” Fulmar said.
“That crack about not taking Tolson’s update at face
value was not entirely facetious,” Douglass said.
He looked at Donovan. “I am somewhat suspicious as
to why they have provided that information to us so
quickly. We usually have to pry the weather report from
them.”
Donovan nodded. “Just take that into consideration
as you review the file, Lieutenant.”
“I will, sir.”
“How are you fixed for a place to stay here?” Douglass
asked.
“I need something, sir, but I don’t anticipate for long,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 0 3
maybe a night or two. I’d like to get on the trail of these
guys as soon as possible.”
Douglass looked at Donovan, who nodded.
“We have a place on Q Street,” Douglass then said.
“I’ll have Chief Ellis make arrangements for that, as well
as anything else you’ll need.”
Douglass stood, then Donovan followed.
“Good luck,” the director of the OSS said, offering
his hand.
Fulmar quickly got to his feet and shook the director’s
hand. “Thank you, sir.”
“Grab that file,” Douglass said, “and a sticky bun, if
you like”—he nodded toward the door—“and we can be
on our way.”
[ FOUR ]
Room 909
Robert Treat Hotel
Newark, New Jersey
0115 7 March 1943
After Kurt Bayer had agreed to an all-night date with
Mary by circling the “30” that she had written on the in-
side of the matchbook cover, Kurt had said that he had to
make a couple of quick arrangements.
The first he said was that he had to go to his room and
leave another note for his traveling partner.
He asked Mary about a hotel room, and when Mary
replied that she did not have one—wasn’t allowed to
3 0 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
have one, she added—Bayer realized that meant he had
to take care of that, see if he could get one in the Robert
Treat, and, if not, then try to find one elsewhere, prefer-
ably very close by, before writing the new note.
He had considered the idea that they could have taken
a chance and used the room he already had access to. But
he instantly dismissed that, because they wanted the room
for all night, and he told himself he’d be damned if
he and Mary were going to be interrupted by Richard
Koch storming into the room at whatever late hour—
possibly drunk, and possibly suddenly interested in shar-
ing Mary.
So Bayer had gone to the front desk, found that they
had plenty of available rooms, put down a cash deposit to
secure a nice one with a view on the ninth floor for three
days to start, and then returned to the lounge with two
keys.
At the bar with Mary, he had ordered them both fresh
drinks—doubles, and in highball glasses, so on their way
upstairs they would not risk spilling liquor from the
tricky-shaped martini glasses—then paid the tab, signing
it to Koch’s room, and gave Mary her room key, saying
that he would meet her there after he went by his room
and either told Koch that he had plans for the evening or
left him a note to that effect.
Bayer had found the notepad with his first note un-
touched on top of the bedspread and no sign that Koch
had ever returned. He wondered where in hell Koch
could have gone for so long—ditching a car was not that
difficult—then decided he’d probably found his own fun.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 0 5
He had then torn off the old note from the pad and
written a new one:
R—
Starving. Couldn’t wait any longer.
See you in the morning.
K
He had grinned at that.
Starving? Absolutely. But now it’s a whole different
hunger.
Mary had already been in the bed when Bayer finally
reached room 909, though in the darkened room it had
taken him a moment to notice the human form under
the covers. She had all the lights turned out, the radio
quietly playing some big band music, and the curtains on
the big window pulled back to show the sweeping view
over Newark.
As his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he noticed the
tidy stack of her clothes in a chair by the window, with
her shoes beneath on the floor. And he could see that she
had the sheets pulled up to her nose—and that her eyes
twinkled.
Aroused, Bayer had not been able to pull off his
clothes fast enough.
Literally.
No sooner had he jumped naked between the
sheets—at the same moment noticing Mary’s wonderful
warmth and sweet scent floating out—than his first at-
tempt at coupling turned disastrous.
3 0 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Bayer had been very excited—too excited, it turned
out—and they had had to wait thirty minutes—despite
Mary’s very creative and energetic attempts to breathe
life, so to speak, back into his libido—before they could
again try making the beast with two backs.
They now lay on their backs in the bed, sweat-soaked and
exhausted, looking at the ceiling, the music from the ra-
dio softly masking the sound of them trying to catch
their breath.
After a moment, Mary inhaled deeply and let it out.
“That was worth the wait,” she said, and giggled as
she reached over to stroke his chest.
“Yeah, it was.”
“You’re very nice, you know.”
He turned to her and was amazed at how much she
glowed, her face soft and warm, her blonde hair bright in
the night.
“Thank you,” he said. “And you’re amazing.”
She looked back at the ceiling and giggled.
The music ended, and an announcer came on and said
that that had been the melodic sounds of Glenn Miller
and his orchestra and that the news was next.
Bayer instantly turned to look at the radio, then
padded naked across the room and tuned in another sta-
tion.
“Something wrong with the music?” Mary said, ad-
miring Kurt’s body.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 0 7
“Oh, it’s not the music. I’m just tired of news. And it
doesn’t seem right for now.”
Mary giggled.
She said, “Somehow I don’t think the news is going
to slow you down.”
Bayer crawled back in bed and kissed her on the lips.
“Me, either.”
“Especially if it’s about those . . . explosions.”
“Explosions?”
“Yeah, bombings is what they’re saying in the news.
They’re scary, but at the same time they’re kind of excit-
ing—you know?”
What the hell? Bayer thought.
“How old are you?” he said all of a sudden.
“Twenty-two,” she shot back.
He reached over, cupped her breast, and squeezed
very gently as he kissed her ear.
“No, really,” he whispered.
“Twenty-two.”
“C’mon . . .”
“Why’s it important?”
“Just curious.”
“Okay. Twenty.”
“Mary . . .” he whispered and squeezed again.
“Eighteen, okay? Why?”
Jesus Christ. A hooker at eighteen?
“How long have you been doing . . . this?” he said.
She sat upright. “Doing what?” she said defensively.
Bayer looked up at her. “What we’re doing.”
3 0 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
She looked out the window a long moment. She snif-
fled, and Bayer saw her eyes were now glistening.
“I think I’d better go,” she said finally and threw back
the sheet.
Bayer reached out and wrapped his arms around her,
then pulled her back beside him on the bed.
“I’m sorry I asked.”
She sniffled again and nodded.
Bayer thought, I need to turn this back around. . . .
“Tell me what you find so exciting about those explo-
sions?” he said.
“Nothing, really.”
“C’mon . . .”
She shrugged loose of his arms and sat up.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” she said, looking down at him,
her voice hard. “I see power in them.”
“Power?”
“Yeah, like if I could do what they’re doing I would
have power.”
“What would you do with the power?”
She looked out the window again, deciding if she
should answer . . . and answer truthfully.
“Look,” she said, her tone softened. “I like you. A
lot, you know? Like I said, you’re very nice.”
She paused, then swallowed hard.
“Not every guy is,” she went on.
“What do you mean?”
“When I was fifteen, my boyfriend—he was twenty.
And he had an older buddy who ran a club over on
Route 17 in Lodi, and they said I could make some really
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 0 9
sweet money by dancing. Just warm-up stuff. No nudity,
you know?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And at first that’s what it was. The money was great.
But then I began having a drink or two while dancing,
and then more, and my boyfriend said he didn’t mind if
I tried it topless—said he liked that customers knew I was
his girlfriend and how they had to pay to see what he got
for free. . . .”
She stopped and looked toward the bedside table. Her
glass from the bar was there, mostly melted ice, and she
took a sip.
“And then the money got better,” she went on, “and
the audience, you know, the rush you get from them, so
I was doing more and more. And then—I guess I’d just
turned seventeen—I started doing private dances and
couldn’t believe the money. My boyfriend said he didn’t
mind the private dances and I found out why—the bas-
tard had gotten himself a new girl. . . .”
“Jesus,” Bayer said softly, stroking her hair.
“So next thing I knew, with my boyfriend out of the
picture, his buddy said that I owed the club so much for
my drinks—which I had always paid for—and half my
tips. And he said there was a way to make up the differ-
ence. . . .”
“This way.”
There was a long silence. “I didn’t do it till they beat
me up pretty good. Lots of bruises, and I couldn’t work
for a couple months. So I still owed the money but
couldn’t pay it off. But then I healed up. . . .”
3 1 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Now Bayer took a sip of his watered-down drink.
“I can see why you’d want that power,” he said softly
as he put the glass back on the table.
“Uh-huh.”
There was a long silence, and then she said, “Let’s for-
get about all that and you and me just have some fun.”
She rolled over and draped her right thigh over his
belly.
He enjoyed the weight and the warm, soft feel of it,
and when she moved it and her leg brushed his groin he
liked that even more.
Bayer grinned in the dark.
Do I tell her?
He said, “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure,” Mary whispered.
“You could not tell anyone else.”
She snuggled up to him.
“What is it?” she whispered seductively.
“I know who’s causing them.”
“Causing what?”
“The explosions.”
She inhaled deeply and audibly. “No!”
Ach! I shouldn’t have said shit.
“Who?” she pursued.
“Well . . .”
“Do you know,” she said, “or—”
She reached down with her right hand and grasped his
genitals. The warmth of her hand caused him to stir.
“—are you just full of it?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 1 1
She squeezed gently.
He groaned appreciatively.
“Hey,” she said, “it’s like a miracle.”
He was ready again and broke free of her grasp, and
rolled onto her as she started to giggle.
VIII
[ ONE ]
Suite 601
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
0801 7 March 1943
Lit by a full moon, Ann Chambers came in and out of Dick
Canidy’s view as he chased her up the narrow, winding
grassy drive that was lined with mature magnolia trees in
full bloom. She was wearing the silk pajamas that he had
bought for her at the boutique on Broadway, the pj top half
unbuttoned, and every now and then Dick could hear her
playful laugh float back on the cool, humid night air.
This was the Plantation, a vast tract of timberland that
the Chambers family owned in southern Alabama, and the
natural drive wound from a paved macadam country
road past the dirt airstrip—where the Beech Staggerwing
biplane was tied down—and ended a mile later, opening
onto a large hilltop clearing that highlighted the property’s
main building, a Gone with the Wind antebellum man-
sion that had been named the Lodge.
Dick saw Ann finally dart out of the shadows of the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 1 3
magnolias, glance at him over her shoulder—her long
blonde hair catching the moonlight—and laugh as she went
to a side entrance of the Lodge.
As Dick approached, he could see that she was pulling on
the wood-frame screen door but that it would not open. The
flimsy door was being held shut from the inside by a small
hook-and-eye latch, and every time she pulled, the hook gave
only a half inch or so—and the door then slammed back
into its frame.
Dick came closer, and the bam, bam, bam became
louder with Ann repeatedly pulling at the door—and
laughing hysterically. The top of her silk pj’s slid off her
right shoulder.
Dick grinned mischievously, his heart beating rapidly as
he closed in on her.
Ann laughed, and the door slammed bam, bam, bam. . . .
And a man’s muffled voice called, “Mr. Canidy?”
Canidy shook his head, trying to shake off the fog that
clouded his thought.
Bam, bam, bam.
“Room service, Mr. Canidy.”
Canidy cracked open an eye and saw that he wasn’t at
the Plantation in Alabama but still at the Gramercy in
New York.
The clock on the bedside table showed three minutes
past eight.
Bam, bam, bam.
“Mr. Canidy?”
I didn’t call for room service.
3 1 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He slipped his right hand under his pillow, found his
.45, then got out of bed and in only his boxers and
T-shirt went to the door.
“I didn’t request room service,” he said, staying to the
side of the doorframe, away from the door itself.
Using his right thumb, he pulled back the hammer on
the pistol.
“It’s complimentary, sir.”
Canidy rubbed his eyes. He shook his head.
Complimentary?
Wait . . . that’s right. Instead of a wake-up phone call,
they send up coffee and tea and the morning paper at the
requested time.
He took his left index finger and thumb, grasped the
hammer, squeezed the trigger, and carefully uncocked
the pistol.
“Just leave it at the foot of the door, please.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“That’ll be fine. Your gratuity will be on the tray when
you come back for it.”
“Very well, sir,” the voice said, and then there was the
clanking of cups and saucers as the tray was placed on
the floor.
Canidy walked to the bathroom, put the pistol on the
top of the toilet tank, and took a long leak.
He flushed, glanced at himself in the mirror over the
sink— Smooth move, Casanova. The minute you fall for one
girl, you can’t even get laid in your dreams—and washed
his hands and face.
He took the white terry cloth robe from the hook on
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 1 5
the back of the bathroom door, put it on, slipped the
pistol in the right pocket, and, somewhat sure the gun
wasn’t going to fall out, went back to the door.
After he unlocked it and went to open it, he found
that there was some resistance. He got it open enough to
peek out and saw that the resistance was because his
clothes from the trip aboard the fishing boat had been
cleaned and returned and were now hanging from the
doorknob.
He pulled open the door completely, retrieved the
clothes, and put them on the couch, then went back and
picked up the tray and brought it in the room, pushing
the door closed with his foot.
Canidy put the tray on the coffee table in the sitting
room of his suite and looked at the New York Times as he
poured steaming coffee into one of the two cups.
The biggest headline above the fold read: u-boat at-
tacks in atlantic on rise again.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said disgustedly.
He sat in the armchair, unfolded the paper, and
scanned the other headlines on the front page.
There was a long piece, with a large photograph
showing strewn wreckage, about a train derailment in
Oklahoma on Saturday. Beneath that, a report on the
Luftwaffe’s attack on London with twin-engine Heinkel
He 111 bombers. A short piece reported that the rate
of pregnancies among American teenagers had spiked.
And—some really good news—the rest of the page was
devoted to progress on the war fronts: the Germans
withdrawing from Tunisia, the RAF bombing the hell
3 1 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
out of Berlin, and the Australians and Americans kicking
the goddamned Japs’ asses in the Bismarck Sea.
He decided to start with the U-boat article and went
back to it.
It reported that both of the convoys that had left the
New York area in just the first week of March had been
attacked, with a loss of four ships carrying matériel and
one troopship.
“Shit,” he said and drained his coffee cup.
He moved on to the London bombing piece and that
caused him to wonder—and worry—if Ann Chambers
was right now knee-deep in rubble interviewing rescuers
for her profiles.
Jesus, I’m getting nowhere sitting here, he thought,
frustrated. I need to do something.
He poured more coffee, grabbed the newspaper, and
started for the head.
He glanced at the clock. Eight-twenty.
To hell with it. Close enough.
Canidy put down the paper and picked up the phone
receiver. He then asked the operator to connect him to a
Washington number he gave from memory.
“Switchboard oh-five,” a woman’s monotone voice
answered.
“Major Canidy for Chief Ellis. Is he available, please?”
“Major Canidy? One moment.”
Canidy took a sip of his coffee as he heard a click and
another dial tone and then ringing.
“Ellis,” came the familiar voice.
“How they hanging, Chief?” Canidy said.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 1 7
“One lower than the other, Major. Got a heads-up for
you—I overheard the boss asking if you were having any
success and when you’d be headed over there. Sounded
like he wanted whatever done yesterday. . . .”
Shit, Canidy thought.
He said, “Any chance you’re with the boss?”
“No chance. Sorry.”
“Well, if it comes up again before I speak to him, tell
him I said, ‘Some, and very soon.’ ”
“Will do. He’s at home. The captain has me babysit-
ting.”
Canidy knew that Colonel Donovan’s home was a
town house in Georgetown, just off of Wisconsin Av-
enue, and that when Ellis said he was babysitting for the
captain, that meant that Douglass had him keeping
watch over someone at the house on Q Street.
“I was going to ask him if I could get Ex-Lax to work
with me.”
Ellis knew that Canidy’s lower gastrointestinal tract
was not the subject at hand. It was, instead, Eric Fulmar.
“Ex-Lax” had been the code name that “Pharmacist”—
Canidy—had assigned him on their last mission, the one
in Hungary that almost killed them all.
When Fulmar learned of the code name, he did not
find it at all fitting—and sure as hell not humorous—
which, of course, only caused Canidy to continue refer-
ring to him by it.
Ellis didn’t answer immediately.
Canidy went on: “What do you think the chances are
of that?”
3 1 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Not good, Major.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why don’t you ask him yourself ?”
“Donovan?”
“No, Ex—” Ellis began, then caught himself. “Ful-
mar. He’s right here.”
Canidy heard the phone being passed.
Fulmar’s voice came through the phone: “How about
cutting out that ‘Ex-Lax’ shit, ol’ buddy?”
“Good morning, Eric. Nice to hear your voice, too. And
you don’t have to thank me again for saving your ass.”
The line was quiet a moment, then Fulmar said, “You
know I’m grateful. But you’re not going to let me forget,
are you?”
“Never. That way, you’ll always come running when I
call.”
Fulmar chuckled. “Like now? What’s on your mind?
Everything okay?”
“So far. But I’m in New York, up to my neck, and
soon quite possibly over my head, and was hoping to
maybe get a hand from you.”
“Not possible. Sorry. The boss has me . . . let’s just
call it ‘busy.’ ”
“Anything I know about?”
“Only if you’ve listened to the radio or read a news-
paper lately. It’s hot.”
“You’re the one responsible for the spike in knocked-
up teens?”
“Very funny. All I can tell you is that I’ve been up
for what seems like hours doing nothing but wading
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 1 9
through more bullshit FBI reports. I’ve never read so
much that said so little in my life. Except maybe your En-
glish essays at St. Paul’s.”
“When do you think you could break free?”
“I can’t, I told you. I have to . . . Hang on a mo-
ment.”
Canidy guessed that Fulmar had moved the receiver
away from his head, because he could faintly hear Fulmar
asking Ellis something and Ellis grunting a reply. Then
he could hear Fulmar more clearly.
“Where are you?” Fulmar asked Canidy.
“New York.”
“No, where are you staying?”
“Gramercy.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Plenty of room. I got a suite.”
“Look, I can read these files anywhere. And I need to
run down a lead there.”
“Great!”
“I can be there by—what?—after noon or so.”
“Room six-oh-one.”
“Six-oh-one. Got it.”
3 2 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ TWO ]
Robert Treat Hotel
Newark, New Jersey
0815 7 March 1943
Richard Koch was sitting among a small crowd in the
lobby. He was reading the Trenton Times and smoking a
cigarette when he noticed one of the two young hookers
from the night before come out of one of the elevators
and start across the lobby.
He smiled at the blonde as she caught a glimpse of
him, but she would not make eye contact.
Still wearing the same clothes from last night, mein
Liebchen? Business must be good.
He was admiring the sway of her hips as she went out
the main doors when another elevator opened and Kurt
Bayer got off.
Koch glared at him and thought, It’s about time you
showed up, you bastard.
He folded the newspaper, got to his feet, and started
walking toward the main doors. He nodded for Bayer to
follow.
Outside, Koch waited for Bayer to catch up.
“Good morning,” Bayer said pleasantly.
“I got your note in the room,” Koch snapped.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Bayer looked at him before replying.
“I can ask the same: Where the hell have you been?”
“Getting rid of the car. Like I told you.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 2 1
“You also told me that that was going to take only a
half hour to do.”
Koch started walking. “Come. There’s a coffee shop
around the corner.”
As they walked, Koch added, “I had to take extra care
with the car.”
“Why?”
“Because of this.”
He swung the newspaper, hitting him in the chest.
Bayer looked at him crossly, then took the paper, un-
folded it, and scanned the headlines.
He came to the picture of a train wreck, and read the
caption.
“Ach du lieber Gott!” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Koch said.
They turned the corner and came to the door of a cof-
fee shop.
“Read the story,” Koch said. “It just gets better.”
He pulled open the door and went inside. Bayer
quickly followed.
The noisy small restaurant, with its open kitchen be-
hind the counter, was quite warm, the air saturated with
the smells of toast and coffee and grease. They took one of
the two empty booths toward the back and, after the wait-
ress brought them water and coffee, placed their order.
Bayer flipped the pages of the newspaper until he came
to the article on the train derailment. It was a long one.
After a moment, he said, “It says they believe the de-
railment is connected with the explosions in Dallas.”
3 2 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I know. I read it,” Koch said, annoyed. “And of
course they do. Who wouldn’t put the two together?
They happened a day and maybe three hundred kilome-
ters apart.”
He sighed heavily.
“Those bastards are out of control.”
“I say it’s Grossman,” Bayer said, looking at him.
“It doesn’t matter which one it is. Their actions re-
quire that we really have to be careful right now. There’re
already cops everywhere.”
The waitress arrived with an armload of plates. She
took two off, placing a plate of ham and fried eggs and
toast in front of Koch and a plate with a tall stack of pan-
cakes in front of Bayer.
Bayer poured syrup on his cakes, then kept reading as
he ate. He shook his head.
“ ‘Authorities declined to speculate,’ ” he read aloud,
talking with a full mouth, “ ‘if there was any connection
between these explosions and the ones last week on the
East Coast.’ Damn!”
Mashed pancake flew out of his mouth, and he washed
down what remained with a swallow of water.
“I think,” Koch said evenly, “that we are okay here.”
Koch had noted that no one had paid him any notice
as he had waited in the hotel lobby. Now his eyes sur-
veyed the restaurant and its customers. And, again, no
one paid them any particular notice.
“We just have to not make a single mistake.”
Bayer nodded.
Koch tore into his ham slice with the knife, cut off a
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 2 3
large piece, forked it into his mouth and chewed aggres-
sively. He repeated the process, not saying a word until
the plate was empty. Then, finished, he at once tossed the
fork and knife on the plate with a loud clank.
He looked at Bayer.
“So, now you tell me where you were last night.”
Bayer turned his attention to his plate. He casually cut
more pancake and put it in his mouth and chewed slowly
as he looked at Koch, then around the restaurant, then
back at Koch.
“I had a date,” he said, his mouth half full.
“With that hooker?” Koch said, incredulous.
Bayer frowned.
“She has a name.”
“I thought I told you to be careful!”
“I was.”
“No more,” Koch said firmly. “It must not happen
again.”
“What is the harm?”
Bayer looked at him, and when Koch did not answer
Bayer grinned, then leaned forward.
“I think that I can get her friend the redhead for you
as a date.”
Koch ignored him.
“What we are going to do,” he said as a matter of fact,
“is stick with our original plan but wait at least an extra
three, four days to see what Cremer and Grossman do—
or what gets done about them and their work.”
“Fine.” He shrugged and cut another piece of pan-
cake. “I have something to fill my time.”
3 2 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Koch’s eyes narrowed. Steam practically came out of
his ears.
Koch thought, This whole time we’ve worked well to-
gether as a team—but bring in one lousy piece of ass . . .
“I’ll be in the room,” he said, sliding out of the
booth. “We will continue this conversation there.”
Bayer watched Koch’s back as he went to the door and
through it, then disappeared down the sidewalk in the di-
rection of the hotel.
He made a face, then looked back at his plate and saw
that he wasn’t nearly finished.
What the hell. I’ll take my time and eat in peace.
He held up his coffee cup for the waitress to see.
She came and refilled it, and his water, collected
Koch’s plate and cup, and left the check on the table.
Bayer cut another piece of pancake and went back to
reading the newspaper.
He did not really understand why Koch was so con-
cerned about the explosions in Texas and Oklahoma.
The other team of agents was having significant success
with blowing up things and creating general disorder.
That was what they had all been sent to do. Granted, not
with such big bombings, but nevertheless . . .
He shook his head and turned the page.
He came to a full-page advertisement for Bamberger’s
Department Store that showed new women’s spring
fashions. The light-haired young model wore a very flat-
tering formfitting blouse and it took no effort whatever
for Bayer to picture Mary in it. He smiled, and with that
warm mental image turned the page.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 2 5
Ten minutes later, he had finished with the pancake
and washed it down with coffee.
He reached into the right pocket of his pants and dug
around for the roll of cash that he had bound with a rub-
ber band. All he came up with, though, was the rubber
band and a fistful of coins.
Damn! All my cash went to pay for the room and Mary!
After hearing about her money woes, he had advanced
her almost a week’s worth of cash so that she could
buy time with the club owner—and time that they could
spend together.
He grabbed the check, looked at the total, then
quickly counted the coins in his hand.
Just enough, but almost no tip.
As quietly as he could, he put all of the coins on top of
the ticket and slipped toward the door, avoiding the
waitress and anyone else.
Koch was sitting on his unmade bed in their room on the
fourth floor. Bayer’s bed was still the way he had left it
the night before, although now there were the two duf-
fel bags on it.
Koch had a newspaper spread out on the bed and
was field-cleaning his Walther PPK 9mm semiautomatic
pistol.
“Any plans for that?” Bayer said as he locked the door
behind him.
“Just maintenance. When I’m finished, we can go
over the plans for New York.”
3 2 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Bayer walked over to the duffels and starting digging
in the nearest one.
Koch glanced up from his gun. “Need something?”
Bayer stopped digging and looked back at Koch.
“Cash. I literally spent my last dime paying the restau-
rant bill.”
“What? I gave you almost three hundred dollars two
days ago.”
“Right. And I spent it.”
“On what, for chrissake?”
“There was all that gas on the drive up,” he said. “And
on food. . . .”
And—damn, he won’t like it—on Mary.
Koch angrily jabbed his right index finger at him.
“And on that goddamned hooker!”
Bayer stared at him. “I said she has a name.” He
shook his head. “I paid her. So what? We have plenty
more money.”
Koch made a short, snide laugh.
“Not for that we don’t. I control the funds, you may
recall.”
Bayer glared at him.
Damn him!
I need that cash.
But . . . not right away. At least I have a few days to fig -
ure this out.
He pulled his Walther from his pocket and Koch’s
eyes grew wide.
Huh?
Oh, now that’s interesting.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 2 7
So I scare you, do I?
Bayer looked down at his pistol. He pushed the thumb
button at the top of the grip on the left side of the frame.
That released the magazine and it dropped out of the
handle. He pulled back the slide to eject the 9mm round
that was in the throat, then spread out newspaper on his
bed and began disassembling the weapon.
“Hand me that oil, will you?” Bayer said.
[ THREE ]
New York Public Library
Fifth Avenue at Forty-second Street
New York City, New York
1142 7 March 1943
Dick Canidy stood on the sidewalk in front of a huge
stone lion that overlooked Fifth Avenue and held out his
right arm, trying to flag down a taxicab. All the ones
headed south zipped past him, and it was not until the
Forty-second Street traffic light cycled to red that a cab-
bie heading north did a U-turn and pulled up in front of
the library and Canidy.
This is all going too well, he thought as he opened the
cab’s back door and got in. The other shoe is bound to drop
at any moment.
“Gramercy Park Hotel,” he told the cabbie and put
his heavy leather attaché case on the floor as the cab shot
south toward Twenty-first Street.
What had been going well was his luck with finding
research material on Sicily.
3 2 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
After getting off the phone with Eric Fulmar, he had
moved on to taking care of the morning’s three s’s, and
in the course of covering the latter two at once—shaving
in the shower—he came up with the idea of seeing what
the New York Public Library had on the shelf.
And had was the key word, as Canidy’s bag now held
what little the NYPL had held on Sicily deep in its dusty
stacks.
He hadn’t been greedy per se—where there were dupli-
cates of a title, he took only one—but his cache contained
a dozen books, including the expected Michelin Guide,
and—a genuine surprise—eighteenth-century British Ad-
miralty charts (“Produced by the Royal Hydrographic
Office”) that showed the coastlines of Sicily and Italy and
all of their islands, the details of their ports, as well as de-
tailed information on such curious things as caves and
the erosion of coastal areas.
It had taken Canidy more effort to fit all of his find
into his bag than it had to sneak the loot out of the li-
brary. He had not gone out past the front desk but
through the janitor’s door that was ajar at the back of the
building and had slipped into the stream of pedestrians
coming out of Bryant Park.
Next thing he knew, he had been in front of the lion
and then in the backseat of the cab that had stopped just
for him.
Yeah. Something is going to go to hell at any moment. . . .
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 2 9
The cab arrived at the Gramercy ten minutes later and
Canidy paid the fare. He went in the hotel and took the
elevator to the sixth floor.
In his room, he turned on the radio and tuned in to
the National Broadcasting Corporation’s Blue Network,
which was playing jazz. He opened his attaché case and,
feeling somewhat like a mischievous underclassman in
the lower school at St. Paul’s in Cedar Rapids, brought
out his “borrowed” library research and began laying it
out.
He unfolded two of the British Admiralty charts on
the couch and made a small stack of the books on the
coffee table, putting them next to where he had left a pair
of socks and the duck call that he’d bought at Leon-
wood’s.
After studying the charts for a few minutes, he
thought he would have a better understanding of the is-
lands if he had Francesco Nola take him on a tour, so to
speak, explaining what was what and who was where.
He then picked up the Michelin Guide and went to
settle into the armchair. But first, he decided, he’d call
room service and ask if the kitchen could put together
for delivery one of those nice sliced-steak-on-a-hard-
crusted-baguette sandwiches that he had had the night
before at the bar and a pot of coffee.
The person answering the room service phone said
that a server would have it up to room 601 within the
half hour, twelve-thirty at the latest.
Canidy hung up the phone, wondering, Okay, was
3 3 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
that an undercover Navy guy or was it a member of the
mob’s union? And whichever one it was, how soon before my
lunch order is passed up the intel line?
Three hours later, as Canidy picked up the fat slice of gar-
lic pickle from the plate on the room service cart that had
held his sandwich, there came a knock at the door. He
took a bite of the pickle, tossed the remainder of it on the
plate, then went to the door.
“Yeah?” he said, standing beside it.
“It’s me,” Fulmar’s voice answered.
Canidy smiled and quickly unlocked, then opened,
the door.
Fulmar, blond and lithe, stood there in a nicely cut
dark gray J. Press two-piece suit, a white button-down-
collar shirt, and a blue-and-silver rep tie. He held a
brown suitcase in his right hand and a brown leather
briefcase in his left.
“Come in!” Canidy said.
Fulmar came in and put down his bags and they em-
braced warmly.
Canidy took a step back and looked him over.
“Why do I suddenly feel like there’s going to be a
meeting with the headmaster and adults?”
Fulmar grinned.
“I don’t know. We’d have to have done something sig-
nificant to require one these days. The government pays
us to do things we used to get in trouble for.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 3 1
Canidy smiled as he grabbed the suitcase. He carried
it to the far corner of the room.
“The couch folds out into a bed,” he said. “Have you
had lunch?”
Fulmar shook his head. “Looks like you have.”
“How about a steak sandwich? The ones they make
here are first-class.” He gestured toward the plate on the
room service cart. “That was my second one.”
“Today?”
“No, I had the first one in the bar last night.”
“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”
Canidy nodded and went to the phone and dialed
room service.
“Hello? That sandwich you sent up to six-oh-one?—
“Yes, it was fine—
“No, really. I’d like another sent up, please. Yes. What?”
Canidy looked at Fulmar, pointed at the coffee cup
and raised an eyebrow.
Fulmar nodded.
“Yes,” Canidy said into the receiver, “and another pot
of coffee. Thank you.”
As he put the receiver back in its cradle, he saw that
Fulmar was looking over a British Admiralty chart and
the library books.
“Those,” Canidy said with a smile, “are part of what
brought back feelings of our dear ol’ boarding school
days.”
Fulmar picked up the duck call and held it up to
Canidy, who shrugged sheepishly.
3 3 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“It was on sale. . . .”
Fulmar put it to his lips and blew. The reed vibrated a
miserable quaaack sound.
“Sounds like that duck deserves to be shot,” Canidy
said, “put out of its misery.”
Fulmar chuckled, then put the duck call back on the
coffee table and picked up one of the dusty books and
opened it.
He saw that inside the front cover there was glued a
tan-colored pouch. It held a stiff card five inches tall and
three wide with new york public library printed at
the top and typewritten just below that the book’s title—
“Of Wine and Roses: A Lover’s Tour of Sicily”—and then
the author—“Sir Barry Brown”—and then a list of a
dozen or so borrowers’ names with chronological due
dates that had been made by an adjustable rubber stamp,
the most recent entry being mar 04 38. And in long-
faded red ink, stamped at least three times on the first
four pages and the inside back cover: property of the
new york public library system.
He picked up the next book in the stack, opened the
front cover, and saw that it also had a similar card still in
its tan pouch.
“Lose your library card, did you?”
Canidy shrugged.
“Like at St. Paul’s, I intend on returning them.” He
paused. “Eventually, anyway.”
“Well, now I don’t have to guess where you’re going.”
Canidy raised his eyebrows. “And now I can honestly
say that I didn’t tell you.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 3 3
“Sicily? What the hell, Dick?”
“Boss’s orders.”
Fulmar sighed. “Yeah, I’ve got mine, too.”
They looked at each other a long moment.
Fulmar broke the silence.
“So, you said you needed some help?”
“I wanted to ask Donovan to let you work with me.”
“I would—and maybe can—but not until I get a han -
dle on these Abwehr bombings . . . or the FBI does.”
“These bombings in the States?”
Fulmar nodded.
“Jesus. That must make Hoover happy.”
Fulmar shrugged.
“All I know,” he said, “is that Roosevelt told Donovan
to take care of it quote quickly and quietly unquote. And
here I am.”
“You said you had a lead to follow?”
“In the files the FBI gave me—the ones that Donovan
and Douglass told me quote not to take at face value
unquote because they were nothing more than what
Hoover wanted the OSS to have—”
“No surprise, with you encroaching on Hoover’s ter-
ritory.”
“Yeah. Anyway, in there was information suggesting
Fritz Kuhn and his American Nazi Party may be con-
nected with the agents. The FBI gave them a once-over,
came up with nothing. But I’m going to shake that tree,
too, and see what falls out. Midnight tonight I have a
date—more like a meeting—over on the Upper East
Side. Remember Ingrid Müller?”
3 3 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy’s face brightened considerably.
“Who the hell could forget her?” he said, grinning.
Ingrid Müller—tall, tanned, and white blonde—had
been a sixteen-year-old sex kitten when she appeared in
Monkeying Around, a 1933 comedy that starred Fulmar’s
mother, Monica Carlisle. Every red-blooded American
male—and certainly the boys of St. Paul’s Episcopal
Preparatory School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa—went ape-shit
over Ingrid. Fulmar and Canidy had tried every way they
thought possible to get her to visit Iowa, including send-
ing letter after letter to Fulmar’s mother that contained
everything from promises that sensible people would see
as impossible to keep to outright begging.
Months passed without a single response—not at all
unusual behavior for the “childless” Monica Carlisle—
and the boys had given up.
Then the star’s legal counsel—a young Hollywood
hotshot in his twenties by the name of Stanley S. Fine,
Esquire—showed up.
Fulmar and Canidy were convinced that Fulmar’s
mother had again sent him to put out yet another fire (if
nothing else, to make them cease and desist from writing
annoying letters to her) when they noticed a familiar fe-
male in his company.
It was indeed the teen starlet Miss Müller. She had
been scouting locations for background on her next
movie—one set at a boarding school for boys—and she
said that Mr. Fine, Esq., had suggested St. Paul’s (“sim-
ply as an idea, something to use as a reference without
having to fly all the way to the East Coast”), and, as stu-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 3 5
dent escorts, he thought that one Dick Canidy, son of
the headmaster, and one Eric Fulmar would serve her
well.
Fine ensured, despite the best attempts of Canidy and
Fulmar during her two-day visit, that neither had an op-
portunity to get in any trouble with Miss Ingrid Müller.
Thus, the short-term result had been that the boys
were instant heroes among their classmates. And, long
term, Fulmar had found himself exchanging an occa-
sional letter with her—his being far more frequent than
hers.
“I vowed never to forget her,” Fulmar said.
“I remember. I also remember that you vowed to bag
her. So you’re batting .500.”
“Maybe my luck changes tonight. She will be very
pleased to know that I am seriously considering joining
the American Nazi Party—”
“Of which I presume she is a member?”
Fulmar nodded.
“That’s what she tells me in her letters.” He paused.
“And she’ll be pleased I am considering joining her and
the party because I believe, as a Good German, that we
must win this war in any way possible. Oh, and how
could I go about contributing to these German agents
that the newspapers say are bombing the States?”
Canidy smiled.
“Subtle. Is this before or after you try to get in her
pants?”
“Before. No, after . . . Hell, whatever it takes.”
“You wouldn’t consider trading missions, would you?”
3 3 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Fulmar raised an eyebrow in question. “Certainly not
with what I know so far about yours.”
“It’s pretty straightforward. You’ve done it before.
There’s another scientist to pull out before the Germans
get him.”
“That’s it?”
“And something bigger that, according to Donovan,
I’ll find when I get there. I’m going to need help with
that and running the underground.”
“I think I’ll stick with trying to bag Ingrid and shoot
saboteurs.”
He looked at the charts.
“But that explains your looting of the library.”
Canidy nodded.
“Oh, it gets better. I’m now officially involved with the
King of the Looters.”
Fulmar looked at him, and shook his head.
“I don’t follow.”
“Charlie Lucky,” Canidy offered.
Fulmar shook his head again.
“Murder, Inc., ring a bell?” Canidy asked.
Fulmar’s eyes widened at the realization.
“No shit?” Fulmar said. “The mob?”
“No shit. The connection goes back to when Murray
Gurfein . . .”
“. . . So Luciano,” Fulmar said finally, “is serving time,
but, as boss of all bosses, is running the rackets from
prison?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 3 7
“Exactly. And has pretty much made good on every
request we—the U.S.—has made of him.”
“Amazing. But, then again, there’s no end to what
people will do for the promise of freedom.” He paused.
“It’s what this damned war is all about, no?”
Canidy nodded. “True. For some. Can’t forget,
though, that for others it is an opportunistic time . . .”
The phone rang and Canidy reached for the receiver.
“Hello?”
Fulmar went back to the charts and studied them.
“Frank,” Canidy said, “how are you?
“Tonight is fine—
“Okay, got it. Six o’clock at Sammy’s, at the fish mar-
ket. I’ll be bringing my partner, okay?”
He looked at Fulmar, who nodded his agreement.
Canidy said into the phone, “Okay, then. Thanks,
Frank.”
As he hung up the receiver, there was a knock at the
door.
“That must be your lunch,” he said, and saw that Ful-
mar had the duck call back in his hand.
Fulmar grinned and blew a soft quaaack . . .
quaaaaaack.
Canidy reached the door and raised an eyebrow that
asked, What?
Fulmar shrugged.
“You’re dealing with Murder, Inc.,” he said solemnly.
“Just wondering when the dust settles who’s going to be
the real dead ducks. . . .”
3 3 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ FOUR ]
Fulton Fish Market
New York City, New York
1750 7 March 1943
The cab carrying Dick Canidy and Eric Fulmar, both
now in casual clothes, turned south off of Beekman
Street and slowly rolled up in front of the market. The
long, two-story white building of concrete and brick had
a series of street-level doorways that served as the en-
trance to the individual fish resellers. Signs were affixed
above the wide doorways, each advertising the business
therein: fair fish co. inc., s&r seafood, manhattan
fish co., and more than a dozen others.
Heavily clothed workers were moving about busily, car-
rying boxes and pushing two-wheel dollies. Trucks, both
local delivery and over-the-road tractor trailers, were being
steadily loaded.
“There it is,” Canidy said, pointing to a doorway five
businesses down. The sign above it read: sammy’s
wholesale seafood co.
A forklift carrying a pallet with a four-foot-tall
wooden bin piled high with iced-down fish was moving
quickly into Sammy’s. The cab dodged it and pulled up
outside the doorway, its brakes squealing to a stop.
Canidy paid the fare, and they got out and started
toward the doorway. Canidy carried his attaché case with
the Sicily books and charts.
Fulmar sniffed and made a face. “Rather rank, huh?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 3 9
Canidy inhaled deeply—but didn’t gag, which sur-
prised Fulmar.
“This?” Canidy said. “This is nothing. You should go
around back, where the boats come in. It’s really raw
there.”
They walked through the large doorway and stepped
around the back of the forklift that now was putting down
its load beside a wooden table thirty feet long and topped
with a sheet of dented, bloodstained galvanized tin.
Behind the table stood four men with long, thin-
bladed filet knives. They began to methodically pull fish
from the just-delivered box, and, with surgical skill—
remarkable both for their spare efficient motions and for
their ability to completely remove all useful flesh—began
to separate tissue from bone.
The large filets were then slid down the tin tabletop,
where another worker put them in a twenty-gallon scoop
that hung by chain below an enormous scale suspended
from a steel ceiling beam.
When the scale’s long black needle rotated on the dial
face to the number 20, the worker then packed the fish
filets with shaved ice into smaller boxes, these made of
heavy waxed cardboard and imprinted with: perishable
fresh seafood—20 lbs.—sammy’s wholesale sea-
food co. nyc.
The full boxes were then stacked on a new pallet,
which, when full, the forklift would carry out to one of
the delivery trucks.
All around the open-air facility, workers moved fish in
3 4 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
various states of processing—from full carcasses to just
head and bones—by spiking them with handheld two-
foot-long gaffs (cold steel hooks on short shafts). Occa-
sionally, a couple of workers would wheel around dollies
carrying forty-gallon galvanized tubs of squid and octo-
pus.
The forklift driver—a fat, squat, rough-looking Italian
with coal black eyes set deep in a weathered face—put
the lift in reverse, inched it backward, and, when the
forks were clear of the pallet of fish, raced the engine and
manipulated a lever that very noisily brought the forks a
foot off the ground. Then he very quickly backed the lift
outside, where he switched off the engine and jumped
free as it slowed and then came to a stop all by itself.
He walked back inside the large doors and looked at
Canidy and Fulmar.
“Help you guys?” he asked agreeably.
“Looking for Frank Nola,” Canidy said.
The coal black eyes studied Canidy a moment.
“The name’s Canidy,” he added. “Nola knows we’re
coming.”
“Upstairs.”
Canidy followed the squat Italian’s eyes upward.
There he saw a bare steel framework of beams supported
by steel poles, painted red and rising from the concrete
first floor. Above the framework was a wooden tongue-
and-groove floor.
“The steps are in the back there,” the squat Italian
added, pointing to a far corner.
“Thanks,” Canidy replied.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 4 1
Fulmar followed Canidy to the back corner, then up
the steps, which led to a narrow landing on the second
floor and a wooden door with a small metal sign reading:
office.
Canidy knocked, and then they heard footsteps ap-
proaching the other side of the door. The knob turned
and the door flew open inward.
The office was dimly lit by a single bare bulb hanging
from the ceiling, but Canidy and Fulmar could see well
enough to tell that they were looking at the muzzle of a
high-caliber long arm—and immediately put their hands
up, waist high, palms out. Canidy’s attaché case hung
painfully on his thumb.
Behind the business end of the firearm was an Italian
fishmonger, this one somewhat slender and of medium
height, wearing a dark wool sweater and black rubber
overalls. Canidy could not be sure in the low light of the
office but he thought that this guy looked like one of
Nola’s men whom he had seen loading crates on the
truck the previous night.
I can easily grab the end of the barrel, Canidy thought.
But even if I get the muzzle pointed away, this could get
messy fast, especially if that’s what I think it is and it’s on
full auto.
Canidy saw some motion behind the fishmonger, and
then Francesco Nola’s voice called from farther inside the
office. “Mario! Put that gun away!”
Another set of footsteps quickly approached the door.
The door swung open completely and there stood Nola.
He pushed Mario to the side, forced the direction of the
3 4 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
muzzle to the ceiling, and then smacked him on the side
of the head.
As Fulmar and Canidy put down their hands, they ex-
changed glances. Fulmar’s said what Canidy was think-
ing— We’ve got to deal with dangerous goons like this?
“Nice welcoming party,” Canidy said. “I’d hate to see
how you host people you don’t expect.”
“My apologies,” Nola said. “Mario, he’s just a little
jumpy. Come in, come in.”
Canidy looked around the office once they were in-
side. There was a rusty filing cabinet against one wall, a
grimy, threadbare couch with the stuffing poking out the
cushions against another, and in the middle a big, beat-
up wooden desk that had its front right leg reinforced by a
two-by-four nailed to it.
“This is a very close friend of mine, Frank,” he said as
he gestured to Fulmar.
Nola offered his hand to Fulmar. “Francesco Nola.”
Fulmar shook the hand but made no effort to offer his
name.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nola.”
“It’s Frank, please.”
Canidy said, “Mind if I ask where Mario got that
gun?”
“Why?” Nola said.
“Can I have a look at it?” Canidy pursued.
“Mario,” Nola said, “give my friend the rifle.”
Mario, in a sloppy motion, swung the barrel so that
the muzzle swept across Canidy and Fulmar. This time
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 4 3
Canidy did grab the end of the barrel and thrust it
toward the ceiling.
“No offense, Mario,” he said coldly, “but I’ve seen
people killed that way.”
Nola smacked the top of Mario’s head again. “Idiot!”
Mario looked hurt and let loose of the stock.
Canidy held up the gun to the light from the bare
bulb. He looked it over, then read the stamping on the
receiver. “Yeah, just what I thought.”
He looked at Fulmar, then handed him the gun.
“Ever see one of these?”
“A Johnny gun, no?”
Canidy nodded. “A Johnson model 1941 light ma-
chine gun, chambered for thirty-ought-six Springfield.
They’re rare.”
“And they’re a helluva weapon. They had the semi-
auto rifle version at the range in Virginia. Next to the
Thompsons. I think the range master said that the LMG
in full auto puts out four hundred and fifty rounds a
minute. Reliably. Open bolt, no jams.”
The range in Virginia was at an estate that the OSS
used as its agent training facilities. They called it “The
Farm.” It essentially was an intense boot camp—one
where all the agents in training went by their first name
and only their first name—complete with instruction in
all types of explosives and weaponry, domestic and for-
eign. The gun range had a wide range of pistols and rifles,
anything the OSS could get its hands on from the field
so that agents would have some familiarity in their use
3 4 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
should they find themselves left with only, say, a German
Mauser or British Sten to defend themselves.
“Johnny gun” was a word play on “Tommy gun,” the
nickname for the storied Thompson .45 caliber subma-
chine gun.
“They said the LMG was in short supply,” Fulmar fin-
ished, handing the gun back to Canidy.
Canidy pulled the twenty-round box magazine from
its mount in the left side of the receiver, checked the ac-
tion to ensure that a round wasn’t chambered, then
handed the gun to Mario. He inspected the magazine
and then tossed that to him.
“Do us a favor, Mario. Leave it unloaded till we leave,
okay?”
Mario squinted his eyes to show his disapproval.
“Do as he says,” Nola added.
Mario nodded, then walked with the gun to the grimy
couch on the far side of the office and took a seat, laying
the weapon across his knees.
Canidy turned to Nola.
“Reason I asked where you got that,” he said evenly,
“is that they are in short supply, and the ones available
were supposed to go to the Marines.”
That’s one reason. Another is: I’d like to get my hands on
one for myself.
“No,” Nola said, “that one came from a crate that was
supposed to go to the Netherlands.”
Canidy’s eyes lit up.
“Really?”
He looked at Fulmar.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 4 5
“Story I heard was that there was a real pissing match
over the Johnny gun even being considered to take the
place of the BAR,” Canidy explained.
The beloved Browning automatic rifle was the U.S.’s
primary automatic weapon, tough as nails and reliable as
hell. In many minds it had no peer, and never would, and
when Boston attorney—and Marine Corps reserve offi-
cer—Melvin Maynard Johnson Jr. designed and built the
first generation of the Johnny gun—a semiautomatic rifle
that he felt was superior to the new M1 Garand—his bat-
tle for it to be adopted was straight uphill. In the eyes of
the U.S. Army Ordnance Department, the Johnson had
all the chance of being military issue that a Red Ryder BB
gun or a slingshot did.
Johnson did get his M1941 LMG into the hands of
some Marine Raiders. And the Marine’s First Parachute
Battalion came to prefer the weapon because it weighed
only twelve pounds (the BAR was a hefty twenty), and
because its buttstock and barrel were designed to be
quickly removed and replaced, allowing for more com-
pact packing and easier servicing in the field.
“Then,” Canidy went on, “some Marines praised its
performance in the Solomons and ’Canal—more than
one swearing it beat the BAR hands down, especially
in the jungles—and the Dutch got wind of that and or-
dered a bunch for their colonial troops in the East In-
dies.”
“But the Japs took the islands,” Fulmar said.
“Right. And after they did, the U.S. embargoed the
weapons that had come out of the Rhode Island factory
3 4 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
and not yet shipped. So at that point no one was getting
them, except now . . .”
Canidy looked at Nola.
“Would I be guessing wrong if I said that friends of
Socks peddled this one?”
Nola did not have to say anything. The answer was on
his face.
Canidy said, “I’m not at all happy with the idea of the
mob getting them.”
Nola shrugged. “What can I say? Better than the Japs.”
“I heard that they had to pull a whole shipment off one
of the Liberty ships.”
Nola shrugged again. “If you say. I do not know. I am
sorry.”
Well, this is starting out as some fine partnership,
Canidy thought.
He said, “Have you seen Lanza today?”
“Yes, he was here at the market.”
“Was or is? I’d like to see him.”
Nola walked over to the desk and picked up the phone
and asked for a number.
“This is Frank Nola,” he said after a moment. “Is Mr.
Lanza still there?” There was a pause. “At his office?
Thank you.”
He broke off the connection by pushing the receiver
hook down with his index finger, then asked for another
number.
“Mr. Lanza? Frank Nola—
“Yes, sir, those fish were processed, packed, and
loaded—
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 4 7
“Probably three days. The Annie should be out right
now—
“Yes, sir, I will. Mr. Lanza, I have Mr. Canidy here. He
wants to see you—
“I will. Good-bye.”
He put the receiver in its hook and looked at Canidy.
“He said to come by his office. He has something for
you. He’s going to get something to eat, then he’ll be
back there till midnight.”
“In Meyer’s Hotel?”
“Room two-oh-one.”
“Okay,” Canidy said, carrying his attaché case to the
desk. “In the meantime, I hope I can find something that
you do know about. I brought some charts of Sicily and
the islands. Think we can start with a tour?”
Nola nodded. “Yes. And I may have other things that
would be of help.”
Canidy unfolded the chart that covered the southern
coast of Sicily.
“We run boats from here at Porto Empedocle,” Nola
began, pointing to a midpoint on the southern coast of
the island, “across the Strait of Sicily down to the Black
Pearl, then over to Tunisia.” He paused. “Do you have a
chart that shows Africa?”
“Hang on,” Canidy said and pulled the Michelin
Guide from his attaché.
Nola took it and flipped to a regional map that
included a sliver of the northern African coast just under
Sicily, then continued, “To here at Nabeul, then up and
around Cape Bon and into Tunis itself.”
3 4 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy pointed at the Sicilian island in the strait that
was closer to Tunisia than to Sicily. “The Black Pearl?”
Nola nodded.
“Pantelleria,” he explained. “It is volcanic rock—black
rock—about fourteen by eight or nine kilometers. It’s
known for its capers, figs, lentils, grapes. I have cousins
there. Rizzo is the family name. Many Rizzos there. They
are tonnarotti.”
Canidy shook his head.
“Tuna fisherman,” Fulmar translated.
Nola smiled and nodded. “Bluefin tuna. You would
like it. They take a number of boats and work the nets,
surrounding the big fish like cowboys herd cattle. The
nets close in and the great tuna struggle to escape, and
the water, as you can imagine, becomes a brutal swirl of
fish and blood.”
Fulmar said, “Those fish can be four hundred
pounds.”
Nola smiled again.
“Yes. Some as big as some cattle. And when you catch
the entire school—twenty, thirty fish or more—it is
called a mattanza.” He paused. “That is a word that also
has come to mean ‘massacre.’ ”
Canidy studied Nola, who clearly was happy with this
tale of his family heritage, then glanced at Mario on the
couch.
Maybe there is some fight to these people after all, Canidy
thought. Not blooded in human battle, but unafraid of be-
ing around blood and violence.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 4 9
“So how far from here to here to here—Porto Empe-
docle to the Black Pearl to Tunis?”
“About one hundred and fifty kilometers,” Nola said.
“One way.”
“And how often does your family run the route?”
“Every day. There are boats traveling in both direc-
tions. They usually take two, three days—when there
are no patrols or other problems, such as mechanical
breaks—fishing as they go.”
“What if they did not fish?”
“Straight across? Less than a day, considering the
seas.”
Fulmar said, “Tell us about the patrols.”
“Germans mostly. Sometimes Italians. They usually
do not stop us. But sometimes they board the boats,
make sure we are doing what we say we’re doing. Some-
times they take our fish. Confiscate it?”
Fulmar nodded. “Harassment.”
“Yes. They say it is a price of doing business.” He
paused. “One captain from another family refused to give
up his catch—he had been stopped twice that month—
and the Germans shot his boat full of holes. So he lost
the catch and the boat . . . and was lucky to live.”
Canidy said, “How many boats do you have and what
size?”
“There are—or at least there were when I was last
there—nineteen boats. Eight of them are deepwater
boats that average twelve meters in length. The others
are smaller—maybe six meters—and completely open.”
3 5 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“And the crew for the big boats?”
“Two to six. Depends on the time of year—more in
May and June, when the big tuna move through—and
who is available.”
Canidy pointed to the chart, at the southern shore of
Sicily.
“Let’s say I was coming into port on one of your
boats. What would I see? Who would I see?”
Nola’s eyes brightened and his narrow face spread
with a broad grin.
“Oh, you would see the most beautiful port in your
life. And the most wonderful people.”
Canidy said, “I need details, please. Specifics.”
Nola nodded agreeably.
“Not a problem.”
He went to a box across the room and took from it a
heavy leather-bound volume some two feet square and at
least three inches thick.
He brought it back to the desk and said proudly, “My
family photographs.”
He opened the cover and pointed to a somewhat
faded black-and-white photo that dominated the first page.
It showed a score of heavyset middle-aged and older men,
ten of them, sitting in straight-backed wooden chairs and
the other half standing behind them, all in dark suits and
shoes and white shirts.
“These are the padrones,” Nola said. “The leaders of
Porto Empedocle.”
Canidy thought, Jesus Christ, that is one tough unat-
tractive crowd.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 5 1
“This was taken about five years ago. Some are still
there.”
He pointed to two of the men standing. They were a
bit taller and far more slender than most of the others.
They resembled Nola.
“This one is my father,” he said. “And next to him,
his brother, my uncle Ignazio, who was on the town
council.”
He pointed at a very fat, very gray-headed man seated
in the middle chair. “This was the mayor, Carlo Paglia. A
very wise man.”
And looking mean as hell, Canidy thought.
“The Nazis took Mayor Paglia and Uncle Ignazio off
to prison. Some of the others fled to Tunis, but most
stayed.”
He sighed and turned the page.
Nola went through the album, describing each photo-
graph, where it was taken, and pointing out that location
on an admiralty chart—or, if in Tunis, on the 1935
tourist map of Tunisia that he had produced—then writ-
ing down names of who was who. He set aside duplicate
loose photos for Canidy to keep.
The majority of the images showed Sicily. It clearly
was a more robust and happier time. The towns built
along the hills were busy. The people looked full of life.
They ran their businesses and raised their families. They
swam the clear turquoise waters and played on the
beaches of pebble and sand, strolled the crowded palaz-
zos and shopped the open-air markets that offered plen-
tiful meats and vegetables and fruit.
3 5 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
That likely was not the case now, not with everyone
forced to work for the war effort. The Germans also took
the majority of their food production and shipped it to
feed others elsewhere. Rationing was widespread—not to
mention discontent with Mussolini and fascism.
After two hours, Canidy and Fulmar felt that they knew
the extended family of Francisco Nola and the families
of the padrones damned near intimately. Both those in
Porto Empedocle and Tunis.
Nola folded the sheets of paper, then handed them
and the photographs to Canidy.
“Thank you,” Canidy said.
He put them in his attaché case.
“Frank, how soon do you think you will be able to
leave?”
Nola looked back at him blankly.
“Leave?”
“Yes. Leave. You are going with me, right?”
“That was not the plan,” Nola said.
“Well, then it is now.”
“No, it is not possible for me to go with you.”
Canidy exchanged glances with Fulmar, then looked
back at Nola.
“Why the hell not?”
“I cannot say.” He glanced at the folded papers.
“Once you locate my family, the letter of introduction
will do the rest. You will have many people.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 5 3
Canidy started stuffing the books and charts back in
his attaché case.
Dammit! I knew this was going too smoothly.
“What the hell happened to the guy who wanted to
blow up all of the Germans himself ?” Canidy said furi-
ously. “Where the hell is he now? Jesus H. Christ,
Frank!”
“He still stands before you,” Nola said stiffly, his voice
wavering with emotion.
Canidy shook his head, then looked him in the eyes.
“Frank, I’m going to need more than family snap-
shots. I need hard intel. How many troops and exactly
where? Who is in charge of harbor security, of town se-
curity? The locations of minefields on the beaches and
offshore, and what’s been booby-trapped. I need docu-
ments on enemy ops. And more. . . .”
“And you will have that,” Nola replied evenly.
Canidy stared at him for a long time. Then he looked
as his watch, then at Fulmar. “Let’s go see Lanza.
Ready?”
Fulmar nodded.
“I’ll be in touch, Frank,” Canidy said sharply.
He grabbed his attaché case and they went out the
door.
Canidy and Fulmar crossed South Street and started
walking the block north toward Meyer’s Hotel.
“Sonofabitch!” Canidy said. “I don’t know if I’m
3 5 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
madder at Nola for saying he’s not going or at myself for
assuming he was going.”
“I would not worry about that too much,” Fulmar
said. “You have what appears to be good information to
get going now. Each bit—”
“I know, I know. Each bit of info leads to more info.
But I needed a lot yesterday.”
Canidy stopped walking.
When Fulmar stopped and looked back at him, Can-
idy said, “There’s just something about this that doesn’t
feel right.”
Fulmar laughed. He checked the immediate area
around them, then said, “Are you fucking kidding me?
Everything about this doesn’t feel right!”
Canidy shook his head.
“Thanks, pal. Thanks for making me feel better.”
The door to room 201 could have used a fresh coat of
paint. It actually could have used a complete refinishing
since it had, judging by the fat flakes of paint that were
peeling off, already been painted four or more times,
layer upon layer. But then if renovation started with the
door, there would be no end to it. The whole damned
hotel needed work.
Canidy, still fuming at Nola’s announcement that he
was not going to Sicily, knocked on the door harder than
he realized and chips of paint came flying off.
“Easy, Dick,” Fulmar said.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 5 5
The door swung open quickly and noisily and Joe
“Socks” Lanza stood there.
“What the hell?” he said.
He looked at Fulmar.
“Who’s this?”
“A good friend,” Canidy said.
Lanza looked past them, down the hall, then said,
“Let’s not talk in the hall.”
He turned and walked back into the room. Canidy
and Fulmar followed.
The room was bare and ratty but brightly lit. It had a
desk that was a mess of magazines and newspapers, and
four mismatched chairs, one behind the desk. There was
a single window that overlooked South Street, and the
stained bedsheet that served as a curtain was pulled
closed.
“I just got the news that Frank Nola is not going to go
with me,” Canidy said.
Lanza sat down behind the desk. Canidy and Fulmar
took seats across the desk from him.
“Yeah—and?” Lanza said.
“And I thought that that was what you were going to
get for me—someone to get me into Sicily and to the lo-
cals there.”
“He didn’t give you any names?”
Canidy grunted.
“I’ve got more names than the fucking Palermo
phone book.”
“Then what is the problem? You use that list, you will
3 5 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
get what you want. That is a promise. Those names—”
Lanza reached into his coat pocket, pulled out an enve-
lope, and handed it across the desk “—those names and
this are all you need.”
Canidy took the envelope, opened it, and unfolded
the letter.
It was written in English and in what appeared to be
Sicilian. Canidy’s eyes fell to the former:
March 1943
The bearer of this letter is Mr. Richard
Canidy.
With this letter, the bearer brings to
you my many good wishes.
It is requested of you in turn that the
bearer be given the same respect and con -
siderations that would be given if I were
to personally appear before you.
Your friendship is appreciated and it
will not be forgotten.
Charles Luciano
(Salvatore Lucania)
It was clear that the date and the first line, slightly mis-
aligned with the other lines, were newly typed.
“You keep a stack of these around?” Canidy asked, his
tone sarcastic. “Just type in a date and a name and
you’re—what?—instantly made?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 5 7
“It is necessary with Charlie being away,” Lanza said,
clearly not pleased with being mocked. “He signed that
letter. It will be honored.”
Canidy raised his eyebrows dubiously.
“We’ll see. But this is one reason why I wanted Nola.”
“Look, Charlie Lucky said to give you whatever the
hell you wanted and we will. But it is not possible for
Nola to go with you.”
Canidy’s eyebrows went up again.
“Anything?” he repeated.
Lanza sighed.
“Anything but Nola—”
“For starters,” Canidy interrupted, “I want one of the
Johnson LMGs, like the one that you gave Nola.”
Lanza looked into Canidy’s eyes and frowned slightly.
Bingo, Canidy thought. It was Lanza. Why am I not
surprised?
Canidy glanced at Fulmar and added, “Make that two.
We will each need one, with a full ammo box.”
Lanza considered the request for a long quiet mo-
ment, then said, “What else?”
“How many do you have?” Canidy asked.
Lanza did not respond, verbally or physically.
“You want to tell me where the hell you got them?”
Canidy pursued.
Lanza didn’t answer.
“They were supposed to go to the Marines,” Canidy
said pointedly. “I can bring a lot of goddamned heat
down on you for grabbing them.”
Lanza’s eyes narrowed. He studied both Canidy and
3 5 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Fulmar, then, after a long moment, picked up the tele-
phone receiver and dialed.
“Yeah, it’s Joe. Put two of those new sticks in a box
and put them in the trunk of the car—
“Yeah, those sticks. Don’t ask questions. Just do it.
Make sure they’re complete. . . . What? Yeah, complete.
You know what I mean.”
He hung up the receiver and stared at Canidy.
“Bringing in ‘heat,’ as you say, would not be wise. The
fact is—and you can check this out—it was the military
that ordered those guns pulled off of a Liberty ship”—he
outstretched his left arm and pointed with his index finger
at the window covered with a bedsheet—“right over there
across the river. So it was your guys that did that. And
here we’re doing as you ask. So easy on the threats, huh?”
“Those pulled from the ship were ones for the
Dutch?”
Lanza made a thin smile.
“There. You already know.”
“That doesn’t explain why you have them.”
Lanza shrugged.
“A small part of a total shipment got lost between the
ship and the warehouse,” he said simply. “Some guys
found it.”
“And didn’t turn it over?”
Lanza made the thin smile again, then said dryly,
“That’s not the way it works.”
Canidy shook his head.
“What the fuck does it matter?” Lanza said casually.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 5 9
“So instead of, say, a hundred boxes locked down and
collecting dust, now there’s only ninety-nine. Or ninety-
eight. Whatever.”
He paused to make his point.
“And now you’re going to get yours. Ones you
wouldn’t even know about—let alone get—if they’d
been turned in to be locked up for who the hell knows
how long.”
Jesus Christ, Canidy thought , he’s beginning to make
sense.
Canidy looked to the desk, at the newspaper there,
then at Fulmar—and he had a wild idea.
What the hell? What’s to lose? This whole damned dance
with the devil is wild.
Canidy reached forward and took from the desk a
copy of the New York World-Telegram.
One of the headlines read: more bombings lead to
more questions.
“Let me ask you about something else,” he said, hold-
ing up the newspaper. “What do you know about these
bombings?”
“Not much. Less than you, I’d guess.”
Canidy locked eyes with him.
Lanza said, “It’s not our guys, if that’s what you’re
asking.”
“Can you ask around?” Fulmar said.
Lanza shrugged.
“I’ll keep my ears open,” he said after a moment.
“Anything else?”
3 6 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Not right now,” Canidy said.
Lanza stood up.
“Then I’ll show you the way out.”
They left the office, went down the hallway to the back
of the hotel, then down a flight of wooden steps that led
to the alley.
It was almost completely dark there, but the yellow of
the taxicab made itself known. As did, Canidy noticed,
the hulking silhouette of the monster fishmonger.
“You get the sticks?” Lanza asked the driver.
“In the trunk.”
“Good. They now belong to these guys. Take them
wherever they want.”
The driver wordlessly got in behind the wheel and
slammed the door closed.
Canidy turned to thank Lanza but he had already
gone back in the hotel.
Fulmar and Canidy got in the backseat.
“Gramercy,” Canidy said to the driver. “I think you
know the way.”
IX
[ ONE ]
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
2210 7 March 1943
The monster fishmonger opened the trunk of the cab,
and inside there were three parcels, each wrapped in
the same heavy brown paper used for packing seafood.
The two smaller packages were cubes about eight by ten
inches; the one larger parcel was flat and rectangular,
some two feet long, a foot wide, and eighteen inches high.
Fulmar reached in for one of the smaller parcels, ex-
pecting it to be lighter than the big one.
“Jesus,” he said. “That’s heavy as hell.”
“That’s because that’s a can of thirty-ought-six,” Canidy
said, standing there holding his attaché case.
Fulmar picked up the bigger box.
“Much better.”
“About twenty-five pounds?” Canidy said.
“Yeah.”
“That’d be the ‘sticks.’ I have only one free hand. I’ll
carry them while you get the cans.”
3 6 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Fulmar raised an eyebrow.
“Gee, thanks, pal.”
In the suite, Canidy put the large parcel on the coffee
table in the sitting room. Fulmar entered a moment later,
somewhat struggling with the weight of the two metal
cans of .30-06 caliber ammunition, one awkwardly cra-
dled under each arm.
He pushed the door closed with his right heel, then
put the cans on the floor with a solid thump, thump. He
tore off the brown paper wrapping.
“I’m going to hit the head,” Canidy said and started
in that direction.
The ammo boxes, dark green with a stencil of yellow
lettering on the side indicating the contents, each had a
metal handle that folded flat against the lid. Fulmar
pulled up a handle as he worked the lid latch.
“It would have been far easier to carry these using the
handles.”
Canidy chuckled.
“Yeah, and far easier for anyone to have recognized
them as ammo cans,” he answered from the bathroom,
then swung the door shut.
When he came back into the room a few minutes later,
Fulmar had the brown paper off of the sturdy cardboard
containers holding the Johnny guns and was opening the
lid to the one on top.
He looked inside and said, “Oh, shit. Original packing.”
Canidy pulled back the lid to get a better look.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 6 3
“Oh, shit, indeed. I hate Cosmoline.”
The rust preventative that coated the entire gun—
metal and wood—was a petroleum jelly much like Vase-
line—but stiffer and stinkier and harder than hell to
remove completely. It had a nasty tendency, particularly
in hot weather, to ooze out of every pore of the weapon,
notably from the stock, and onto the shooter’s face,
which was the last place anyone wanted greasy oil when
they were hot and sweaty.
“How’re we going to get it off ?”
“How else? Same as usual. Make a mess. And hope we
get most of it off. . . .”
Some forty minutes later, the floor was a pile of petroleum-
fouled hotel towels. But the Johnny guns practically
gleamed.
“I knew it!” Fulmar said disgustedly, holding out his
hands.
“What?”
“Look at me. There’s fucking Cosmoline all over me.
And I need to take a quick shower before I see Ingrid.”
Canidy began laughing.
“A shower? Good luck. You’re going to bead water bet-
ter than a goose’s ass!”
Fulmar made a face.
“I’m sorry,” Canidy said, not at all convincingly and
visibly trying to suppress more laughter. “Really. Look,
maybe I’d better go for you. I’d probably have a better
chance of bagging her, anyway.”
3 6 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I’ll go like this before I let that happen.”
Canidy, smiling and shaking his head, got up and went
to the door.
“Be right back,” he said and left.
Fulmar walked into the bathroom, turned on the sink
faucets, blending the water till the temperature was as
hot as he could stand it. He began soaping and scrubbing
the petroleum jelly from his hands and forearms.
After ten minutes, there was a knock at the door.
“Shit.”
With no clean towels, he shook his hands to try to dry
them as he went to answer the door.
“Yeah?” he called.
“Housekeeping,” Canidy answered in a falsetto voice.
Fulmar turned the knob—getting on his hand the Cos-
moline that Canidy had smeared there when he had gone
out—and opened the door.
There stood Canidy with a Cheshire cat grin and
holding a stack of five fat bath towels.
“Midnight requisition,” Canidy said in his normal
voice.
He entered and tossed the stack on one of the arm-
chairs.
Fulmar carefully pulled one from the middle, where
Canidy’s oily hands had not touched.
“Ingrid thanks you,” Fulmar said.
“I can think of plenty of ways she can do that per-
sonally.”
“I’m sure you can.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 6 5
Fulmar took the towel back into the bathroom and
started running the shower water.
Canidy walked over to the cans of ammunition, un-
latched the lid of one, and popped it open. It was packed
with shiny brass cartridges. He reached in, took a hand-
ful, then started feeding them round by round into one
of the six magazines that came in each Johnny gun card-
board container.
When Fulmar came out of the bathroom, he was wearing
his suit pants and was buttoning the top button of a clean
white dress shirt and snugging up the knot of his blue-
and-silver rep necktie.
He saw that Canidy was taking another towel—one of
the clean ones he had just procured—to a Johnny gun
and methodically rubbing off more Cosmoline. The
magazines were all now full of ammunition, lined up
neatly next to the ammo cans.
“This gun’s about as good as it’s going to get,” Can-
idy said. “That is, without sitting for a couple hours un-
der a summer sun to melt out the remainder.”
“It looks nice.”
“Any need to take it with you tonight?”
Fulmar considered that a moment.
“Thanks, but that’s not practical. And not necessary. I
have my .45”—he patted his lower back—“and”—he
patted his left forearm—“my baby Fairbairn.”
Under the shirtsleeve, in a leather scabbard, was a
3 6 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
stiletto-shaped knife that Fulmar used as the situation de-
manded—he pulled it out first if absolute silence was re-
quired or used it as a backup if making noise was not a
factor.
Fulmar subscribed to Canidy’s hand-to-hand combat
school of thought: If you were close enough to stick a
blade in someone’s brain, you damned sure were close
enough to put a bullet in it instead.
The Fairbairn had been invented by an Englishman
named William Ewart Fairbairn, who ran the Shanghai
police force. He developed the black, double-edged
blade for close combat with street thugs. Lately, he could
be found at The Farm in Virginia, teaching OSS agents
how to silently kill using his knife, or a silenced .22
caliber pistol, or a number of other highly effective
tools and methods—including a newspaper rolled into a
cone.
The “regular” version of the Fairbairn was issued to all
British commandos, its scabbard customarily sewn to the
boot or trouser leg.
Fulmar’s smaller model, which he had bought from an
English sergeant at SOE’s Station X, looked a lot like the
big one but instead featured a six-inch-long, double-
edged blade and a short handle just long enough for
fingers to be wrapped around it. It was carried, hilt
downward, in the scabbard hidden between the bottom
of his left wrist and the inside bend of his elbow.
Canidy knew that Fulmar, as he had fled Germany
with Professor Dyer and Dyer’s daughter, Gisella, had
used the baby Fairbairn quite effectively to scramble the
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 6 7
brains of a string of German SS officers who had had the
misfortune of getting between them and safety.
“Right,” Canidy said. “That should be enough to
protect you as you attempt to secure the fair maiden’s af-
fections.”
“One can only hope.”
Fulmar pulled on his suit coat.
“Changing the subject,” Canidy said, “I was doing
more than cleaning your weapon while you primped in
there.”
“Yeah?”
“This has nothing to do with your qualities as a room-
mate but I decided that I may not be here when you get
back.” He paused. “Probably won’t be.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, I have, as you say, enough information to get
started . . . and the clock is ticking. I’ll take my new
friend Johnny here and get to work. Unless you think
there is anything that I can do to help you.”
Fulmar looked off in the distance in deep thought.
“Not for me, Dick,” he said finally. “But I do wish I
could go with you.”
“Get done what you have to and maybe you can.”
Fulmar nodded.
“I’ll take care of the room. Just tell them when you’re
leaving it for good.”
“Thanks, Dick.”
They stared at each other a long moment, then em-
braced.
When they finally released one another, Canidy was
3 6 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
not sure of his voice and simply nodded good-bye as Ful-
mar quietly picked up his overcoat and went out the
door.
[ TWO ]
New York City, New York
0015 8 March 1943
The traffic at midnight had been nearly nonexistent and
the cab had flown up First Avenue. Too fast for Fulmar,
who did not want to arrive too early. He wanted a little
time to clear his head—walking in crisp, cold air always
seemed to work—and to get a good look at Yorkville be-
fore meeting Ingrid Müller.
He had the cabdriver drop him at the northeast corner
of Second Avenue and Eightieth Street, which was just
inside the southern edge of Yorkville.
This section of Manhattan’s East Side—known for its
heavy concentration of German residents and their shops
and restaurants that recalled dear ol’ Deutschland—
covered an area that went from about Seventy-ninth
Street up to Ninety-sixth or so, and from the East River
on over to Third Avenue.
Ingrid Müller had told Fulmar to meet her at Wag-
ner’s Restaurant and Market, Eighty-fifth at Second, and
as the cab drove off he started walking slowly in that di-
rection.
He was surprised—though he wasn’t sure why—that
there were still quite a few people out and about in the
cold at this late hour.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 6 9
As he passed a dimly lit bakery and coffee shop—the
sign read: konditorei kaffeehaus—he looked inside
and saw that it was about a quarter full of patrons.
That impressed him, but not quite as much as the rea-
son why it took a bit of effort to see the people inside:
From the top of the shop’s window, next to a chalkboard
menu, hung a huge American flag. It filled half of the big
window, and he guessed that if they could have put a big-
ger one there, they would have.
As he approached the next block, Fulmar saw that
someone had pasted on the side of a redbrick apartment
building a series of U.S. Navy recruitment posters so that
they covered—mostly, anyway—the pro-Nazi graffiti be-
neath.
Block after block, he passed more nicely kept shops and
apartment buildings.
By all appearances, Yorkville seemed just another nor-
mal New York neighborhood.
If you didn’t look too deeply, it’d be hard to believe it’s a
boiling pot of subversion. . . .
Ahead, Fulmar saw the brick and glass façade to Wag-
ner’s Restaurant and Market.
The establishment’s name was painted in large gold
lettering on the main picture window, above a round, red
neon sign—rheingold extra dry—advertising beer.
Its street number was painted in the same gold lettering,
but much smaller, on the glass panes above the dark
wooden door.
Fulmar glanced inside the window, past the blinking
neon sign, but did not immediately see Ingrid Müller.
3 7 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He grabbed the big brass handle of the door, pulled
hard, and went inside.
The first thing that he noticed was the blast of heat
that greeted him.
He pulled off his overcoat and draped it on his left
arm, over the sleeve concealing his baby Fairbairn.
He saw that Wagner’s was more of a bar and grill than
a real grocery, such as Schaller & Weber’s, which he had
noticed on Second Avenue just up the block.
The interior of Wagner’s had dark-stained paneled
walls. The ceiling was of pressed tin in a burnished gold
color. The bar, also of dark wood, ran the length of the
right side of the room—where a series of four U.S. flags
hung from staffs in a row above the mirrors. There were
wooden tables and chairs in the middle of the room and
a line of booths down the left side.
At the back of the restaurant was the “market”—two
open refrigerated cases, the kind found in full-service
grocery stores, these containing packages of kielbasa,
bratwurst, potato salad, and such, all menu items that
had been prepared in the kitchen on the premises for
carryout.
About half of the bar’s twenty or so stools were
taken—including by a half-dozen sailors in uniform—
and three of the tables were each occupied by couples en-
joying their cocktails.
Fulmar noticed motion on the left side of the room,
and when he looked he saw in a booth a blonde woman
in a dark outfit waving to get his attention.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 7 1
She was sitting alone, smoking a cigarette, and had on
the table in front of her a cup of what he guessed was
probably coffee.
My God! She’s gotten even more gorgeous.
He smiled and made a direct line for her table.
As he walked up, she smiled.
“I knew that had to be you,” she said. “You haven’t
changed . . . but, then, you have.”
She remained seated but held out her right hand.
When he reached to take it, she leaned forward and
turned her head to offer her cheek. Fulmar took her hand,
bent over, touched his right cheek to hers, and made the
sound of a kiss. She turned the other way and he touched
his left cheek to hers, and again made the kissing sound.
Damn, she has soft skin.
Fulmar looked at her. She wore no makeup that he
could tell.
And she doesn’t need it.
Her fair skin was flawless. She had a soft, narrow face
with high cheekbones, a thin nose, delicate lips, high eye-
brows, and deep, ice blue eyes. Her hair was rich and
thick, heavy with big waves. And her dark outfit tried but
failed to hide the fact that she was fantastically built.
“It’s great to see you again, Ingrid. You look sensa-
tional.”
She smiled appreciatively.
“That’s very kind of you to say.”
She gestured to the seat across the table from her.
“Please, have a seat.”
3 7 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Fulmar tossed his overcoat onto the seat and slid in
the booth after it.
The cushioning or the springs—or both—in the seat
were soft or old—or both—and he instantly found him-
self sitting in a sort of self-formed bowl.
The back of this bowl pressed at his lower backside,
which, in turn, pushed at the nose of the .45 tucked in
the small of his back. He discreetly reached back and
repositioned the pistol so that it would not fall out of his
waistband.
Ingrid said, “I’m so glad that we could get together
again. It’s been—what?—five, six years?”
“Ten,” Fulmar said.
“Really? No! That long?”
“And some ten thousand letters,” he added with a smile.
She blushed.
She looked down momentarily as she absently ran the
long, thin fingers of her left hand through her thick,
wavy golden hair.
When she looked back up, she took a puff of the ciga-
rette she held between the tips of her right-hand index
and middle fingers, then exhaled as she leaned forward.
She rested on her right elbow, her wrist cocked, her
thumb angling the cigarette upward.
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty,” she grinned,
“you’re being successful.”
“I apologize.”
“Please don’t. They were very sweet letters, and I
should be ashamed for not responding to them.”
“Well, I imagine you get quite a bit of fan mail. You
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 7 3
can’t answer every one. And lately you have been writing
me back. . . .”
She smiled a smile that said, Thank you for letting me
off the hook.
After a moment, she said, “Would you like something
to eat or drink?”
He nodded. “Is that coffee?”
“Tea.”
“Actually, I have a weakness for the power of persua-
sion.”
She cocked her head quizzically.
“How so?”
“That neon sign in the window?”
She looked at it, then back at him.
“What about it?”
“I’m convinced it’s there for me,” he said with a
straight face, “and for me alone.”
She laughed. It was a deep and husky laugh—one that
had become, in addition to her stunning looks, her sig-
nature on screen.
Fulmar waved to get the bartender’s attention.
“A Rheingold, please,” he called.
The bartender nodded.
Fulmar looked at Ingrid, who was pushing aside
her cup.
“Make it two,” she said with a smile. “Suddenly, this
tea tastes like acid.”
Fulmar turned back toward the bartender, who was
drawing Fulmar’s beer from the tap.
“Make it two.”
3 7 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Two Rheingolds it is,” the bartender replied.
Fulmar turned back to Ingrid.
“So,” she said, “how is your mother?”
Fulmar did not immediately reply.
“You would probably know better than I,” he said fi -
nally, without emotion.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you knew,” he explained.
She shook her head.
“My mother and I don’t talk. I don’t exist to her, at
least to her as Monica Sinclair, Star of the Silver Screen.”
Ingrid reached out with her right hand and gently
squeezed Fulmar’s left wrist. He liked the warm feel of
her hand, and its strength.
“That’s so sad,” she said softly.
Jesus Christ, Fulmar thought, looking into her eyes.
They’re even more sensual in person than on screen. Can she
turn that on and off as needed—or is it sincere?
He shrugged.
“You get used to it,” he said.
She looked off into the distance.
“And all this time,” she added, “I thought that it was
just me that brought out the bitch in Monica.”
“Well, welcome to the club.”
Ingrid shook her head sadly.
She caressed his wrist, then looked more closely at it.
“You have unusually dry hands,” she said suddenly.
It was more a question than a statement.
Fucking Cosmoline, Fulmar thought.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 7 5
He said, “That’s a long story. Had trouble washing some
gunk off of my hands.”
She stared at him with a look of amazement.
“You seem to deal with things so well. Nothing seems
to bother you—”
She paused as the bartender arrived with the two
glasses of beer.
He placed one in front of Ingrid, then one in front of
Fulmar.
“Danke,” Fulmar said.
“No problem,” the bartender said.
The bartender showed no reaction, one way or the
other, to Fulmar thanking him in German and walked away.
Fulmar smiled at Ingrid.
“Let’s change the subject, huh?”
“Okay,” she said.
She let go of his wrist and put her hands in her lap.
Shit! he thought. Maybe we should get back to dis-
cussing Sweet Ol’ Mom. . . .
Fulmar picked up his beer.
“To reunions,” he said, holding it toward her.
She grinned.
“Why not?” she said, picking up her beer. “To re-
unions.”
They touched glasses and took sips.
Fulmar put his glass on the table and leaned forward.
“Tell me about yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you up to these days?”
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I read the terrible scripts that my agent in Holly-
wood sends me, then scream at my agent for sending me
terrible scripts.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
She let out her trademark laugh loud enough that,
Fulmar saw in his peripheral vision, two of the sailors at
the bar turned and looked and smiled along before going
back to their conversation.
“What’s not wrong with them!” she said. “Forgive me,
but these are roles even your mother would not take.”
She looked wistful.
“It’s hard in these days of war,” she went on, “partic-
ularly with a name like mine, to get good parts. I’m look-
ing at changing agents. There’s a very young guy named
Ovitz who I like a lot. Funny guy, and sharp as razor.”
“Stan Fine mentioned him once,” Fulmar said. “Had
nothing but nice things to say, and that I understand is
unheard of in Hollywood.”
He took a sip of beer.
“So you’ve got some time on your hands between
scripts?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“What do you mean by that?”
Fulmar glanced around the room before replying.
“What we sometimes talked about in our letters.”
She raised one of her thin eyebrows, then looked at
her cigarette and took a long pull on it.
Fulmar said, “You know who my father is, yes?”
She nodded as she exhaled the cigarette smoke toward
the ceiling.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 7 7
The memory of when she learned that was very clear
in her mind.
Years earlier, in one of Monica Sinclair’s weaker mo-
ments—she’d been stone-drunk after a long day of being
extremely difficult on the set—Ingrid had been told about
“that sonofabitch” with whom Monica had had a fling.
And by whom she had had an unwanted son.
Monica Sinclair had vividly described the Baron von
Fulmar as not only “a miserable fucking prick of the
highest order” but as one highly placed in the Nazi Party
and as the general director of the very important Fulmar
Elektrische G.m.b.H.
So, Ingrid knew, not only was Fulmar arguably as Ger-
man as anyone in Yorkville, but he was unquestionably bet-
ter connected than probably everyone there. Including Fritz
Kuhn, whom Hitler tolerated but did not necessarily like.
She looked him in the eyes.
“And,” he went on, “you have alluded to the fact that
you are friendly with Fritz Kuhn.”
Ingrid quickly looked away.
“I’d prefer we not talk about that here.”
She picked up her beer and took a healthy swallow.
Fulmar did the same, then put down his glass. He
leaned forward.
“I want to help,” he whispered.
“Help what?”
“The Bund.”
Fulmar noticed that the mention of the German-
American Bund—the federation of American Nazis—
seemed to pique her interest.
3 7 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Especially,” he went on, “if there’s any connection to
the bombing of the American cities.”
Ingrid looked at him a very long moment—he thought
he saw sadness or maybe even some disappointment—
but she did not say a word.
She looked away, lit a fresh cigarette, took a puff and
exhaled.
She looked back at Fulmar, her ice blue eyes calculat-
ing, then drained her beer and stubbed out her barely
burned cigarette.
“Let’s discuss this in my apartment,” she said with a
smile.
Fulmar smiled back.
Yes, let’s discuss this in your apartment.
This . . . and maybe how I get in your pants.
He turned to the bartender and pointed to their table.
“Check, please!”
[ THREE ]
Room 909
Robert Treat Hotel
Newark, New Jersey
1829 7 March 1943
Mary was late.
Kurt Bayer stood looking out the big window of the
hotel room, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of her
coming down the sidewalk to the hotel. It was no use. At
this distance, from the ninth floor, it was impossible to
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 7 9
distinguish many details of the people beyond the kind of
clothes they wore—suit or skirt—and the coloring—dark
or light—of that clothing.
He checked his watch again.
She was now almost exactly an hour and a half late.
When she had been only a half hour late, he had gone
from being excited about her arrival to the early stages of
being annoyed. And at an hour, he had started getting
mad.
But now, after nearly ninety minutes, he had begun to
worry about her.
And I have no idea how to check on her, he thought,
frustrated. I can’t very well go down to that topless dance
bar—if I could find the fucking thing—and ask around
about her.
Bayer knew, too, that he wasn’t about to go ask
Richard Koch for any help, either. They had spent all day
together going over again—for what in Bayer’s mind had
to be the fiftieth time—their plans for putting a bomb on
a New York City transit bus.
At one point, after Bayer had asked Koch for just a few
dollars—which Koch reluctantly gave him—Koch had
gone after him about Mary, had gone on and on and on
about how the relationship had to end. Period.
Koch had even tried to make Bayer admit that not
only was the relationship stupid but it was dangerous,
too, and he wanted him to promise to think only of the
mission.
To which Bayer had promptly stood, glared at Koch,
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
said that he wasn’t about to walk away from a woman he
thought he might be falling in love with, and then
stormed out of the room and went to his own.
Where, now some two hours later, he waited and wor-
ried.
I’m going crazy in here, he thought as he turned away
from the window. Maybe going downstairs and meeting
her there will help.
If nothing else, I’ll get to see her sooner. . . .
He picked up his Walther PPK pistol from the bedside
table, slipped it into the right pocket of his woolen win-
ter coat, and went out the door.
As he approached the bank of elevators, he saw that
the floor indicator above the right pair of doors showed
that that elevator was stopped at the eleventh floor. He
looked above the left set of doors and saw that the nee-
dle of its indicator was moving; the car was coming up,
now passing the seventh floor.
Maybe she’s on it. . . .
The needle of the indicator moved past 7, then 8, and
then 9. He heard the car itself actually pass his floor. The
needle then showed that it had stopped on 10.
Damn!
He pushed the down button, illuminating it.
The indicator of the right elevator began moving. The
needle moved past 10, approached 9—then passed 9 and
kept going all the way to 1.
What the hell?
He looked at the down button. It was still illumi-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 8 1
nated. He stabbed it twice with his right index finger
anyway.
He next heard the sounds of the left car coming down
from the tenth floor, then the clunking of the mechanism
that opened its pair of doors on his floor.
The car was empty.
Bayer quickly entered it, but as the doors started to
close he had a sudden desperate thought.
What if she comes up while I’m going down?
He stepped one foot out of the car, into the path of
the closing doors, and they tried to close completely.
With considerable effort, he fought the mechanism and,
after a moment, forced them back open.
He stood there, leaning against the door, trying to de-
cide what to do.
This is driving me nuts. What is it with this girl that’s
making me act this way? Ach!
He shook his head, stepped back inside the car,
pushed the button labeled l on the wall and sighed as the
door mechanism clunked the doors closed.
Bayer spent a frantic twenty minutes checking the lobby
of the hotel, then the sidewalk outside—going all the
way to the street corner in both directions—then the
lobby again, before taking a seat in the same upholstered
chair in the lobby that Richard Koch had waited that
morning before breakfast.
With his clear view of both the elevator bank and the
3 8 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
front door, he watched a steady stream of guests going
to and from the elevators. He even noticed that at least
once the elevators had carried a guest or guests plural to
the ninth floor.
But no Mary.
After about ten minutes, he had had enough.
He got up, walked to the elevators, and rode the left
one back up to the ninth floor.
When Bayer stepped off of the elevator, he noticed
movement to his right and looked toward it.
Standing in front of the door to the room at the very
end of the hall was a heavyset man of about thirty, medium
height, wearing a tight-fitting dark suit and a hat. He was
also very hairy—he had almost fur overflowing his shirt
collar and cuffs.
Bayer recalled seeing him get on the elevator in the
lobby when he had first gone downstairs. Now the man
apparently was having some difficulty getting his key to
unlock the door to his room. When they exchanged
glances, the man shrugged his shoulders. He looked em-
barrassed or anxious—or both.
Bayer turned in the other direction and walked to his
room.
He unlocked the door of 909, turned the knob, and
began to push open the door. As he did so, the first thing
he noticed was the sound of soft sobbing coming from
inside.
Mary!
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 8 3
He threw open the door.
There on the bed, he saw her curled in the fetal posi-
tion, her back turned toward him.
She had kicked off her heels but still wore her winter
coat. She had on a navy blue, knee-length skirt, white
blouse, and, over her blond hair, a flower-patterned navy
scarf.
“Mary!” he said, slamming the door harder than he
meant.
She responded by sobbing more deeply, her body
trembling with the effort.
Bayer quickly went to her and reached out tentatively
to touch her. His right hand gently grasped her left
shoulder. She recoiled at first, pulling free of his hand.
He softly sat on the bed and touched her shoulder
again. This time, she did not pull away, and when he
tugged gently she slowly—and with what was obvious
pain—rolled toward him, stopping as she lay on her back.
She had the scarf completely covering her face.
He reached down to pull back the scarf and give her a
kiss. She held the fabric tightly, and he had to tug a cou-
ple of times before she let it slide back.
Bayer was shocked at the sight.
So horrible was her bruising and swelling that he au-
tomatically exclaimed in German, “Ach du lieber Gott!”
One of Mary’s eyes was swollen completely shut. The
other had broken blood vessels. Her ears were bruised, as
though she’d been repeatedly slapped. Her nose was
bloody—he wondered if it was in fact broken—and she
had a busted upper lip.
3 8 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He was not sure but it looked like she might have lost
one of the teeth that helped form her goofy little gap.
He looked away from her face and cautiously down
along her body. It was then that he saw that her neck was
also bruised—four horizontal stripes of blue-black on the
left side of her throat, three on the right, that strongly
suggested someone had taken both hands and tried to
strangle her. And farther down, beneath the white blouse,
dark shapes on her breasts that indicated the beating had
been widespread.
He could not comprehend an act so vicious against a
girl so beautiful.
His head spun.
He inhaled deeply.
He began to cry.
“What happened, Mary? Who did this?”
She did not reply. She pulled the scarf back over her
face, rolled back over into the fetal position, and contin-
ued to sob.
Bayer attempted to softly stroke her back to console
her, but when he did she made a strong reflex and he
guessed that she had been beaten on her back, too.
He stood up and anxiously paced the room.
“I’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
Mary shook her head twice and grunted, “Uh-uh.”
Bayer thought, Christ, she’s right. I can’t take her. If they
started asking me questions, they might think that I did this.
And even if they don’t, they will ask who I am, and
that’s a question I can’t afford to answer. . . .
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 8 5
He checked her over cautiously.
After he had determined to the best of his ability that
she did not seem to have any life-threatening injuries—
he was relieved, too, to see that she hadn’t lost any
teeth—he went in the bathroom, ran cold water in the
sink, and soaked a hand towel in it. He wrung out the ex-
cess water and went back to the bed.
“Here. Let me try to clean up some of this.”
She didn’t move at first, but after a moment she slowly
rolled onto her back.
He pulled back the scarf, then removed it from her
head entirely, tossing it to the side of the bed. He began
to softly dab at the dried blood on her lip, taking care not
to reopen the wound.
When that blood was cleared, he refolded the towel to
make a clean area, then moved to her nostrils and worked
to clear them of the caked blood.
When the hand towel had turned completely red, he
went back into the bathroom, rinsed it out, wet a second
one, then took both of them to Mary.
He folded the fresh towel lengthwise and draped it
across her forehead. Then he took the towel that he had
rinsed and went back to softening the dried blood and
dabbing it off.
A half hour later, Bayer carefully began undressing Mary.
He removed her coat, then unbuttoned her blouse
and pulled it back.
3 8 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The bruises across her belly and back almost made
him nauseated.
He helped her into the bathroom and into the shower,
then gently dried her with a towel and put her in bed.
Then he pulled up a chair, turned on some soft music,
and gently stroked her hair until she fell into a deep sleep.
When Bayer awoke the next morning, Mary was curled
under the covers with only her head visible. She was
looking at him with her one good eye.
She tried to smile but the effort clearly hurt her.
“Good morning,” Bayer asked softly. “How do you
feel?”
She shook her head twice slowly.
“Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head again.
“Are you going to be all right?”
She nodded.
Bayer stood. He walked into the bathroom, filled one
of the glasses with water, drank it all, then refilled the
glass and brought it to Mary.
“Here,” he said, holding out the glass. “Try some of
this. You need to drink.”
She closed her eye but did not move.
Bayer stared at her, wondering what to do next. Then
he saw that she was moving her feet, ever so slightly, then
her legs. He realized that she was attempting to reposi-
tion herself—and that it was taking great effort.
She has got to be in terrible pain.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 8 7
“Can I help?” he said softly.
She shook her head, then rolled onto her back and
used her elbows to inch herself up, pulling the sheet with
her as she went.
Bayer quickly put the glass of water on the bedside table
and started adjusting the pillows to better support her.
When she was sitting up and as comfortable as could
be expected, she reached over and picked up the glass.
She sipped the water tentatively, drinking only about a
quarter of the water in the glass.
She sat there, her good eye closed, and slowly
breathed in and out. After a moment, she brought the
glass back up to her lips, took a deeper sip than before,
then opened her eye and watched as she put the glass
back on the table.
She looked at Bayer and mouthed, Thank you.
He said very slowly and softly but with some force,
“Who did this, sweetheart?”
Mary closed her eye, shook her head, then slid down
on the bed, back beneath the sheets.
She pulled the cover over her head and went back to
sleep.
3 8 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ FOUR ]
OSS London Station
London, England
0915 10 March 1943
As a professional aviator, Major Richard M. Canidy,
United States Army Air Forces, knew that to get from
New York City to Algiers the faster, more efficient rout-
ing—the term “faster” being somewhat academic, as
there really was no way in hell to quickly cover such a vast
distance—was to go south, then east, then northeast.
That little adventure—about five days in transit if you
were lucky, longer if you weren’t—meant taking a Boe-
ing C-75—one of the massive tail-dragger transcontinen-
tal Clippers with four 900-horsepower Wright Cyclone
engines that the USAAF had taken over from Pan Am—
to South America via Cuba, British Guiana, and Brazil,
then getting aboard a converted B-24 bomber for the
transatlantic leg to Dakar, French West Africa.
With a fuel stop in the ocean on a speck of rock called
Ascension Island.
If good fortune allowed you to find the refueling stop,
and to make Dakar, then came the long flight over the
Sahara Desert, then another over the Atlas Mountains to
Marrakech, then a four-hour hop to Algiers.
To the weary traveler at that point, the ragged little
Maison Blanche Airport looked more lovely than Wash-
ington National Airport during cherry blossom season.
Conversely, Canidy knew, the northern routing, while
arguably not as “fast” or efficient to the Mediterranean
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 8 9
Theater of Operations as its southern counterpart, had at
least two things going for it:
One—which appealed immensely to Canidy the Aero-
nautical Engineer, who had a profound sense of self-
preservation—it did not require, in an aircraft potentially
flying on fumes, the terrifying task of trying to find a
speck of solid surface on which to put down in one of
earth’s largest bodies of water.
And two—which appealed to Canidy the Love-Struck—
it did mean he could stop and see Ann Chambers en
route.
If pressed, Canidy was not sure which was the stronger
sales point, but together they created a deal that simply
could not be passed up.
And so he had gone from the Gramercy Park Hotel in
New York City to Elizabeth, New Jersey, and there caught
an Air Transport Command C-54 aircraft that ferried him
and twoscore of his fellow comrades in arms to Gander
Field, Newfoundland, then on to Prestwick, Scotland.
Canidy found himself in London in almost no time.
Hauling a suitcase in each hand—one containing his
Johnny gun and the six magazines full of .30-06—Dick
Canidy entered the Berkeley Square building of OSS Lon-
don Station, cleared through security, and made his way
upstairs to the office of Captain Helene Dancy, WAC.
Canidy looked through the doorway into her office,
which was outside the doorway to that of her boss, David
Bruce, the chief of station.
3 9 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
She was standing in front of a filing cabinet, impa-
tiently flipping through folders. Canidy noticed that
despite exuding her usual attractiveness, she did not
presently have a look of overwhelming joy.
“My, don’t we appear happy,” Canidy said.
When she turned and looked at who had had the nerve
to interrupt her with some sort of sarcasm, the flames in
her eyes could have bored holes in cold steel.
But then she saw just who it was and her eyes soft-
ened, and a big smile showed her brilliant white teeth.
“Dick!” she said, slamming the cabinet shut.
“Bad morning?”
“The usual FUBARs. I’m just not in the mood to deal
with them today.”
“Fouled up beyond all recognition? Or the other,
worse F-word?”
“The other,” she said, absently wadding up a sheet of
paper. “What brings you back?”
She looked at the suitcases.
“Are you moving in?”
“I take it that you really don’t know?”
She shook her head.
He bent his head toward Bruce’s office behind her.
“How about him?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Is he in?”
She shook her head.
“He’s not in the office?” Canidy pressed. “Or the
country?”
“Both.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 9 1
“Great! I didn’t particularly want to see him, anyway.”
She shook her head and smiled. “You’re impossible.”
“How about Colonel Stevens? I was told to see him
when I got in.”
“I can call, if you like.”
“Thanks, but I’ll just go down to his office. I wanted
to stop here first—a courtesy to Colonel Bruce.”
“Something tells me there’s more to it than that.”
She said it with a knowing smile.
Canidy made a face of shock and put his hands up to
his chest, palms out.
“What!” he said with mock indignation. “I cannot be-
lieve you would suggest that my intentions are anything
less than completely honorable!”
“Take it on down the hall, Major,” Captain Darcy
said, laughing. “Would you like me to bring you two
something to drink?”
“I always said you were the best, Captain. Coffee
would be great.”
She playfully threw the wadded-up sheet of paper at
him as he turned to leave.
Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens was seated behind the
desk in his office, leaning back in his chair with his feet
up. In his hands was a thick stack of papers, about half of
which rested on his lap and the other half, which he’d al-
ready read, on his chest.
When Canidy knocked on the doorframe, he saw that
the graying forty-four-year-old was deep in thought.
3 9 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Still trying to solve the world’s problems, Colonel?”
Canidy said.
Stevens’s stonelike face looked up and smiled when he
saw Canidy in the doorway.
He put the papers on his desk, then stood up.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Drop your bags
in the corner.”
As Canidy did so, Stevens came out from behind the
desk.
They shook hands.
“Great to see you back so soon.”
Canidy shrugged.
“What can I say? When I left, it didn’t look like I’d
ever be back. But I found that if one prostrates oneself
before the boss, the boss will send one back out to draw
enemy fire.” He paused. “Lucky me, huh?”
Stevens shook his head.
“You’re damned good at what you do, Dick. Don’t
you forget that.”
They looked each other in the eye a long moment,
then Canidy broke the silence.
“Any word from Stan Fine?”
“Only that he’s in Algiers and setting up shop in what
he describes as ‘loosely controlled chaos.’ ”
Canidy grinned.
“Can you get me the details on how to find him
there?”
Stevens nodded.
“Done.”
“And give him a heads-up I’m en route?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 9 3
“Done.”
There was a knock at the door and Captain Darcy
brought in a tray with two china mugs of steaming cof-
fee, a third mug half filled with milk, and a small bowl of
sugar. She placed it on the desk.
“Thank you, Helene,” Stevens said.
“Thanks,” Canidy added, picking up one of the mugs.
“You’re welcome, gentlemen,” she said. “Let me
know if you need anything else.”
She smiled and turned and left.
Stevens walked over to the desk and picked up a mug
of coffee and a folder.
“I got an Eyes Only from Colonel Donovan via Chief
Ellis that said you were coming, and that Donovan
wanted me to pull any intel the SI Italy desk here had on
your Professor Rossi.”
Stevens handed over the brown folder that had come
up from the Secret Intelligence branch in the building’s
basement.
Canidy flipped it open and saw that it held only a few
sheets of paper.
“Not much there,” Stevens said, “but what we do
have is fresh. Rossi, for example, was seen just last week
at the University of Palermo.”
Palermo? Canidy thought. That’s the north side of
Sicily. Francisco Nola’s people are in Porto Empedocle, on
the south side. Not that you couldn’t get between the two by
boat. But that might be like saying you can get from New
York to London by boat—complete with the damned Ger-
mans trying to sink you. . . .
3 9 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Does Bruce know about this?” Canidy asked.
Stevens shook his head.
“The boss made it clear only you—and I—had the
need to know.”
Canidy raised his eyebrows.
“That wasn’t my idea, Ed.”
“I know, Dick. You shouldn’t sweat it. It’s not the first
op that’s been kept supersecret—and I suspect that it
won’t be the last.”
Canidy nodded.
Not telling Bruce about the mission to nab Professor
Dyer immediately comes to mind, he thought.
He looked at the folder and said, “Eisenhower will
throw a fit if he finds out.”
General Dwight David Eisenhower was Supreme Com-
mander Allied Expeditionary Force, who had just enjoyed
enormous success leading the Allies’ amphibious land-
ing in North Africa—operation torch—and looked to
repeat that with the taking of Sicily and Italy—opera-
tion husky.
Stevens nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, so be it. The boss has his reasons. Ike can play
the game, too.”
“Which reminds me,” Stevens said. “A word to the
wise, my friend. Steer clear of Lieutenant Colonel
Owen.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Warren J. Owen. He’s one of Ike’s gatekeepers at
AFHQ in Algiers. On the fast track. Ivy League fellow—
Hah vard ’36—who smokes cigars for the pretense, not
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 9 5
because he likes them. And drinks—or at least talks about
drinking—expensive wines, ones you’ve never heard of.
You know the type.”
Canidy made a sour face and nodded.
“Worse,” Stevens went on, “he has a remarkable
knack of bullshitting out both sides of his mouth. Trou-
ble is, I think he really believes what he says.”
Canidy chuckled.
He said, “Reminds me of Turkish officers. When one
solemnly tells you, ‘It is no problem,’ what he means is
it’s not a problem for him.”
Now Stevens chuckled.
After a moment, Stevens added, “And if all that wasn’t
bad enough, this Owen is a ticket puncher.”
Canidy shook his head.
“I won’t mention any names,” Stevens went on, “but
someone said the other night at the Savoy bar that if
Owen could get an I Wuz There ribbon for using the
women’s restroom—and there was absolutely no risk of a
shot being fired in anger in his direction—he’d be front
of the line.”
Canidy let out a belly laugh.
“Yeah,” Stevens smiled, “that’s what everyone at the
bar did, too. Laugh. Apparently, it’s not a secret. And, at
least in my opinion, it’s not a good way for people to
think of an officer who ranks so high—especially one sit-
ting at the right hand of Ike.”
“I agree. Does this Colonel Owen have any other stel-
lar qualities?”
“Well, he does go by the book. Strictly. Which is why
3 9 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
I think that Ike likes him. But his going by the book
really means that he doesn’t like making waves, specifi-
cally doesn’t like anyone else making waves.”
Stevens stared at Canidy.
“Which means—”
“I know, I know,” Canidy said, holding his hands up
chest high, palms out. “I get it. Which means he won’t
like me. Especially if he gets wind of this.” He waved the
folder. “Ike has made it clear (a) that he doesn’t think
much of the OSS, and (b) that he damned sure doesn’t
want us going in ahead of the rest.”
Stevens raised his eyebrows.
“Exactly,” he said.
“So, I’ll deal with it,” Canidy said.
Canidy looked at his wristwatch, then changed the
subject.
“I’ve got one stop to make to deliver some girly
things”—he nodded at his suitcases—“then I’m going to
hop out to the airfield at Scampton and hitch a ride there
on one of the B-17s that the Royal Air Force is ferrying
to Algiers.”
Stevens looked to the suitcases, then back to Canidy
and smiled warmly.
“Good for you. But watch yourself, my friend. When
I said that you should not forget that you are good at
what you do, I meant at being a spook. A woman in love
is a far more dangerous proposition.”
Canidy grinned.
“Duly noted, Colonel.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 9 7
When Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens had called down
for one of London Station’s motorcars to be made avail-
able to Major Richard Canidy, the Brit in charge of the ve-
hicle pool had told him that he was terribly sorry but all of
the standard-issue vehicles in service—a small fleet of non-
descript English-made sedans—were in use. The garage,
unfortunately for the moment, was stark empty.
But when the Brit had heard the disappointment in
Stevens’s voice, he quickly offered one option: If it was
to be a local errand, his brother—who had just pulled up
to bring him his sack lunch of a sardine sandwich—could
do so in his personal vehicle.
Stevens had immediately accepted the kind offer.
Canidy stepped from the building with a suitcase in each
hand. Two British male civilians in their early twenties—
they looked almost like twins—approached him.
“Mr. Canidy, sir?” the one on the left, who wore a tie
and jacket, said.
Canidy nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m Robert, sir. And this is my brother, Harry.”
Canidy nodded.
“Thank you two again for your kind offer.”
Canidy saw that Harry was looking at the suitcases
with what appeared to be mild shock.
“Any problem?” Canidy said.
3 9 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Those are to go with you, sir?” Harry said.
“Sure. Why?”
Harry looked at Robert with a raised eyebrow. Then
the brothers at once turned to look toward the street,
the gap between them opening and giving Canidy a clear
view of what he instantly surmised to be Harry’s personal
motorcar.
It was a candy apple red 1937 Austin Seven 65—
nicknamed “Nippy”—a tiny, two-seat convertible barely
bigger than the passenger’s compartment itself. It looked
to be six, maybe seven feet long, not quite three feet wide,
and the top of the chrome-plated frame of the windshield
looked as if it reached about as high as Canidy’s hip.
It might be best, Canidy thought, if right now I don’t
say a word.
Robert turned back to Canidy.
With classic English understatement, Robert said, quite
unnecessarily, “It’ll be a bit tight of a fit.”
Robert then smiled and revealed thin gray teeth that
could have used the attention of an orthodontist.
He added cheerfully, “But my brother Harry works
miracles.”
He looked at his brother.
“Isn’t that right, Harry?”
Harry looked back at Robert wordlessly—and, Canidy
thought, more than a little dubiously.
“Right!” Robert answered for him.
Robert grabbed one of Canidy’s suitcases and said,
“So off you go!”
After a moment, Harry grabbed the other suitcase and
T H E S A B O T E U R S
3 9 9
made himself busy with taking rope from the trunk of the
Austin, positioning the suitcases on the lid of the trunk,
then repositioning them, then tying them down.
After a few minutes, despite the car visibly squatting
under the additional weight, it looked as if Harry had
been indeed successful.
Even he appeared surprised that he had pulled off the
miracle.
Robert went to the left door and opened it.
“Here you are, Mr. Canidy.”
Canidy squeezed into the passenger’s seat as Harry
hopped behind the steering wheel.
Inside, it was so tight that they touched shoulders.
To make some room, Canidy stuck his left arm out of
his “window” opening—there were no actual glass side
windows, nor side curtains, just an opening—and rested
it on the top of the doorframe.
This car is so low that if I’m not careful and my arm
slips off this door, I’ll drag my damned knuckles across the
cobblestones.
Canidy turned to Harry.
“We’re going to Woburn Square,” he said.
Harry made a face that suggested some ambivalence.
“Do you know where it is?” Canidy said.
“Quite,” Harry said. “It’s just that . . .”
“What?”
Harry hesitated, visibly thinking.
“Nothing. I could be wrong.”
He grabbed the knob of the stick shift with his left
hand and moved it into first, grinding gears as he pushed.
4 0 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
When the sounds of metal being tortured ended, indicat-
ing that the gears had finally properly meshed, he revved
the 747-cubic-centimeter engine to a high whine, let out
on the clutch pedal, and the tiny motorcar lurched into
traffic.
The car, clearly far overloaded, rode like a brick. At al-
most every bump, it bottomed out, and the jarring re-
peatedly shot up Canidy’s spine to his jaw. He began to
wonder if walking and dragging his suitcases would have
been better than this torturous ride.
Harry seemed oblivious.
He ran up through the gears, the little engine roaring
mightily. He wove through the heavy Wednesday traffic,
then headed down Brook Street. At Hanover Square, he
suddenly downshifted, wrestled the wheel to the left, and
shot toward the traffic circle.
Canidy worried that if his luggage didn’t go flying off
the trunk lid, then its weight being suddenly shifted was
going to cause the Nippy to go up on its two right tires—
maybe even flip.
It didn’t, and Harry accelerated heavily out of the cir-
cle, then shifted into high gear.
He picked up Mortimer Street and headed east.
As they went, Canidy could see the clear evidence of
the recent bombings by the Luftwaffe that he had read
about in the New York papers.
Some shops had their windows blown out while other
shops were gone completely, their buildings demolished.
There were lines of women and children outside mar-
kets and laundries and more.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 0 1
In the next block, two London bobbies sat sipping tea
at a table on the sidewalk, taking a break from walking
their beat. All that remained of the tea shop was part of
the brick wall that held the store’s wooden signage; the
rest of the building beyond that was gone.
As Harry got on Gower Street, Canidy realized that
the destruction was looking much worse.
And Woburn Square was only blocks away.
He turned to speak to Harry but found that he was so
close that he almost put his nose in Harry’s ear.
He looked forward again, out the windshield, and
said, “How bad were the bombings in this area?”
“Spotty. Some parts the bombs did some serious dam-
age. But other parts went untouched.”
Canidy thought about that a moment.
“And Woburn Mansions?”
In his peripheral vision, he saw Harry shaking his
head.
“Not great,” Harry replied.
They made the next block with only the sound of the
Austin whining.
As they turned onto Woburn Mansions, Canidy felt a
real fear take hold.
It took him a moment to get his bearings because so
much had changed.
He saw the park, then recognized the point in the
park where 16 Woburn Mansions would have been in re-
lation to it.
He looked hard and had trouble believing his eyes.
The building with Ann Chambers’s flat—the very one
4 0 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
that had once survived other bombings with only its
limestone façade scorched black from the fires—was now
rubble.
Sixteen Woburn Mansions—and everything to its
right and left—was gone.
Bombed to nothing but rubble.
And what about Ann?
Oh, shit!
X
[ ONE ]
Robert Treat Hotel
Newark, New Jersey
0915 8 March 1943
Kurt Bayer passed through the front doors of the ho-
tel carrying a brown paper sack that was imprinted in
black with: trenton pharmacy/we deliver city-
wide/phone hill 4-3466.
In the bag, he had a fifty-tablet bottle of double-
strength aspirin, a roll of two-inch-wide sterilized gauze,
a roll of white fabric adhesive tape, a pair of blunt-tip scis-
sors, a pint bottle of the topical antiseptic Mercuro-
chrome, and a fifteen-piece box of Whitman’s Sampler
chocolates.
He scanned the lobby for any sign of Richard Koch.
He did not see him, even in the cushioned chair where
the agent usually sat to read the newspaper and smoke
cigarettes.
On one hand, he was glad, because if Koch learned
that he had used the cash he’d given him for Mary again,
Koch would no doubt launch back into his speech about
the relationship having to end.
On the other hand, however, he did grudgingly admit
4 0 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
that he admired his partner and knew that he could use
some wise counsel right now to help Mary.
When Bayer got to the ninth floor, he noticed motion
at the end of the hallway to the right. When he glanced
that way, he expected to see the hairy, heavyset man in
the tight suit. He instead saw a tall, dark-skinned man in
casual slacks, shirt, and leather jacket. He had black hair
that was nicely trimmed and a neat, thin black mustache.
And he was, as the heavyset man had been, having ap-
parent difficulty getting his room key to work in his
door.
Guess the fat guy didn’t report it, Bayer thought as he
approached room 909, and if you don’t report it, it won’t
get fixed.
Bayer put his key in his door, unlocked it, and opened
it just enough to slip inside quickly and quietly so as not
to awaken Mary.
That, he immediately saw with the light of the bedside
lamp, hadn’t been necessary.
Mary was awake. And sitting up, albeit clearly with
some discomfort.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said.
She made her gap-tooth smile.
“Hi.”
He held up the paper bag for her to see.
“I went to the pharmacy, got you some stuff.”
“Thank you.”
Bayer took off his winter coat, put it—with the
Walther pistol in the pocket—on the upholstered chair
by the coffee table, then walked over to the curtain.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 0 5
“Okay if I open this? It’s a beautiful morning. Might
make you feel better.”
“I guess.”
He slowly pulled back the curtain with his left hand
and soft morning light from the western exposure began
to fill the room.
When it was all the way open, Bayer turned—and al-
most dropped the bag.
The morning light emphasized Mary’s injuries. Her
bruising had turned deeper during the night, so much so
that, for example, places on her face that had been sepa-
rate spots the night before had melded into one big blue-
black bruise.
I swear on my mother’s grave that I will get the bastards
who did this. . . .
Bayer walked to Mary, removing the box of chocolates
from the bag as he went.
He sat beside her on the bed and held out the box.
“For you.”
She grinned.
“That’s sweet. Thank you.”
She opened the box and put it on the bedside table,
beside the telephone.
They stared at each other a long time, then Bayer
broke the silence.
“Please, Mary, you have to tell me what happened.”
She closed her eye but said nothing.
“Were you robbed?”
She shook her head.
“Did someone take the money that I gave you?”
4 0 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
She started softly crying.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t want to make you cry
more.” He paused. “But I have to know.”
She opened her eye.
“You won’t get mad?”
“Mad? Why would I get mad? Just tell me who did it.”
She was silent a moment.
“Okay . . .” she began, then inhaled deeply. “Donnie.”
“Donnie? Donnie who?”
“Paselli.”
“Who the hell is Donnie Paselli?”
Mary started crying and sniffling.
Bayer got up and went to the bathroom for a tissue.
He pulled one from the box, then grabbed the box and
brought it back and put it on the bedside table. He
pulled out another two tissues and handed them all
to her.
She gently blew her nose—the effort itself proved
painful—and coated the tissues with a soupy, blood-laced
mucus.
When she paused, Bayer took the tissues, threw them
in the tin trash can that was under the bedside table, and
gave her two new ones to hold to her nostrils.
She looked at him, then looked away, then said, “They
call him Donnie the Ape—Donnie ‘the Ape’ Paselli.”
“Okay. But why—”
“He’s the guy who I told you beat me before. You
know? The guy I’m supposed to give half of my money I
make?”
Bayer was silent.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 0 7
You didn’t give him the fucking money I gave you?
Jesus!
“You didn’t give him the money . . . ?”
Mary shook her head.
“I had late bills, rent . . .”
She sniffled.
“Please don’t hit me,” she whispered.
Hit you? I want to hug you— but I’m afraid that that
might hurt you even more.
“Shhhh,” he said.
His head spun.
I need to talk to Koch. This has gotten way out of hand.
Bayer leaned forward, toward the bedside table, and
picked up the receiver of the phone. He dialed o, then sat
upright again.
“Operator, please give me room four-ten.”
There was a long pause as the call was put through.
“Yeah,” Bayer then said into the phone. “It’s me—
“Where? I’m in the hotel—
“That can wait. Look, I’ve got a serious problem—
which means we’ve got a serious problem—one that
you’re not going to like—
“No, I can’t tell you here—
“Stop shouting! I really need you to get off of that
right now, and meet me in room nine-oh-nine—
“Right. Nine-oh-nine.”
Bayer put the phone back in its cradle. He looked at
Mary.
She was watching him, and he could see stark terror in
her one good eye.
4 0 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Not five minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
Damn, that was fast, Bayer thought. He must be
furious.
Bayer went to the door, turned the knob—and sud-
denly felt the door being violently forced open.
In the next moment, he was conscious of three things
happening simultaneously: There was a hand squeezing
his throat. He was being pushed against the wall to the
right of the bed. And he was looking down the muzzle of
a pistol.
Holding the small-caliber semiautomatic—he did not
recognize the make, but right now he did not exactly
have a very good view of anything except where the bul-
let would exit immediately before it blew out his brains—
was the tall, dark-skinned man who had been at the end
of the hallway when Bayer had stepped off the elevator.
“Not a fucking word,” the man said evenly, almost
calmly.
Bayer, pinned to the wall, tried to nod his under-
standing.
Mary let out a pathetic whimper.
Both Bayer and the man looked toward her.
“Get out of the fucking bed, Mary!” the man said. “I
want to see your hands.”
Bayer’s eyebrows went up when he heard the man say
her name.
How does he know?
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 0 9
Then the man, as if reading Bayer’s mind, looked at
him and said, “I’m here to collect the money the bitch
owes Donnie.”
He turned back to look at the bed.
“Move it, Mary!”
“Okay, okay, Christopher,” she said.
Mary struggled to get out of the bed but finally did so
and stood there naked and bruised and bent, modestly
trying but failing to cover her breasts and crotch with her
marked arms and hands.
That, you sonofabitch, is a new low, Bayer thought, star-
ing at the man.
The man appeared unmoved.
He motioned with the pistol at Mary and said, “You!
Go close the door!”
Bayer watched as she shuffled feebly from the bed,
passed where he was pinned against the wall, then crossed
the room to the door. She pushed it but was so weak that
when the door swung on its hinges it closed but did not
click completely shut.
Bayer, his voice sounding strange due to his vocal
cords being constricted, asked the man, “How much?”
“Three hundred bucks, plus another hundred as a
penalty.”
Beating her almost to death wasn’t penalty enough?
Bayer thought.
Bayer nodded his understanding.
He tried to swallow.
The man said, “And I want it fucking now.”
4 1 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Bayer nodded again.
“I have to get it from my wallet”—he nodded toward
the upholstered chair—“in my coat.”
The man looked at the coat in the chair.
“Mary,” he said, “bring me that coat!”
Mary shuffled from the door to the chair. With some
difficulty, she pulled the coat off the chair and started
dragging it across the room.
“Hurry, goddammit!” the man said.
[ TWO ]
Richard Koch, who had hung up the phone after Bayer
had called and immediately gone to the elevator and
taken it up, walked down the corridor of the ninth floor.
He looked at the room numbers on the doors on the
right side as he went and saw that he was getting closer
to 909. He came to 903, then 905. When he got to 907,
he looked ahead and saw what had to be the door to 909.
It was open a crack.
He took another step—then heard from the inside of
909 a strange man’s voice say, “Hurry, goddammit!”
It made Koch’s skin crawl.
He instantly got low to the floor, then reached in his
pocket, pulled out the Walther PPK semiautomatic pis-
tol, and worked the slide to chamber one of the 9mm
rounds.
He started moving toward the door, pistol up and
ready.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 1 1
He came to the doorframe of 909—the side where
the door had its hinges—and stopped just shy of it.
He leaned forward, in the direction of the knob, and
tried to get a look through the crack.
All he could see, though, was some furniture and a
window with its curtain wide open.
He listened and heard a woman weeping, then the
strange man asking, “Which pocket is it in?”
Pocket? Koch thought.
Then he heard another man’s voice grunt something.
It was mostly unintelligible, but clearly it was Bayer’s—
and he sounded under duress.
I have no idea how many people are in there . . .
He pushed on the door gently. It moved, opening an-
other two inches.
He waited to see if there was any reaction to that from
the inside.
There wasn’t, and so he took another look through
the now-larger crack between the door and its frame.
What he saw horrified him.
It was Bayer’s hooker, standing naked—and brutally
bruised from head to toe.
She held Bayer’s coat.
What the hell did Kurt do to her? And why?
And is that her pimp here to settle the score?
Bayer said he had a problem . . . said that we had a
problem.
Stupid son of a whore!
I told him something like this could happen.
4 1 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Koch took a deep breath, stayed low, and started
pushing open the door very slowly.
[ THREE ]
Christopher “the Enforcer” Salerno took great pride in his
street name, and in the fact that he had earned it by be-
ing good at what he did—“debt collection,” he called it.
The thirty-one-year-old had been settling scores for
almost ten years, not counting his teenage years, when he
had dropped out of high school in Hoboken and hustled
on the streets for whoever would hire him to do what-
ever.
Having worked nearly a decade exclusively for Donnie
“the Ape” Paselli, he considered himself not only a pro-
fessional—but the professional. He trained to keep his
skills sharp. He worked out daily to stay in top shape.
And he never took anything for granted, particularly in
the middle of a collection.
Right now, his adrenaline was rushing. He knew that he
had to keep it under control while at the same time using it
to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
So far, everything had gone pretty much as planned.
After Mary had not paid Paselli his cut and Salerno
had had to have her beaten—during which she had bab-
bled some nonsense that her trick, “Kurt,” claimed to be
a German agent responsible for all the bombings that
were in the news—they had tailed the stupid hooker
right back to the hotel, right back to her stupid trick.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 1 3
Then Paselli had waited down the hall to get an idea
of what they were up against to get his money. Then he
had sent Salerno to complete the transaction.
Salerno had his Colt Model 1908 .25 caliber semi-
automatic pistol pointed at Bayer’s forehead. It was a small,
cold-blue-steel vest-pocket model barely as big as his left
hand that held it—but it got the job done. He had his
right hand firmly squeezing Bayer’s throat.
A head taller and some thirty pounds heavier, Salerno
had no trouble keeping control of the guy.
But that damned Mary is taking too long getting me
that coat with the money.
“Hurry, goddammit!” Salerno said.
When Salerno looked over his shoulder at her, he saw
that her one good eye had quickly looked to the door,
then back at him.
Salerno looked at the door, too.
It was moving slowly open.
With his hand still squeezing Bayer’s throat, Salerno
quickly pulled him from the wall and spun him so that he
stood between him and the door. He put the muzzle of
the pistol against Bayer’s skull, right behind his left ear-
lobe.
“One sound,” Salerno said calmly, “and you’re—”
The door suddenly swung wide open and a man entered
in a crouched position, his pistol sweeping the room.
Shit! Salerno thought.
Salerno squeezed the trigger of the tiny Colt. There
was a crack, and then the slide of the pistol cycled rapidly,
4 1 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
ejecting the spent casing—it landed on the bed—and
feeding a fresh round into the breech.
Bayer started to crumple to the floor.
Mary screamed something unintelligible.
Salerno ignored it.
Using Bayer’s body as a shield, he shoved him toward
the man who now was moving toward them, then
dropped to the floor and rolled left.
The man fired one shot at him, then another.
Neither found their target.
Salerno quickly squeezed off four shots.
Two of them went wild, missing the man completely.
The third .25 caliber bullet hit him in the groin area—
stopping him not at all.
The fourth found his right knee, however, and caused
him to fall forward, over Bayer’s body and toward Sal-
erno.
When the man hit the carpet, Salerno quickly put the
muzzle of the tiny Colt to the base of the man’s skull and
fired the last of the six rounds.
He then quickly reached into the front pocket of his
trousers and brought out a full magazine of .25 caliber
ACP ammo.
Salerno swapped the fresh magazine for the spent one,
racked the slide, and aimed the muzzle right back at the
man’s head.
The man did not move.
Salerno looked at Bayer. A steady trickle of blood ran
from his left ear.
He was dead, too.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 1 5
Neither had an exit wound; the small-caliber bullets
clearly had bounced around inside their skulls, scram-
bling brains and bringing quick death.
As Salerno picked up the man’s pistol— Huh! A Walther.
How about that? —and stuck it in his coat pocket, the
man passed his last gas.
Salerno heard Mary sobbing uncontrollably.
He walked across the room looking for her, following
the sobs.
He found her curled up on her left side on the tile
floor of the bathroom. She had her arms wrapped over
her head, her ears covered.
Salerno stepped closer and saw that there was blood
coming from her neck.
One of my shots must have got her.
He shook his head.
What a waste. If only she’d done what she was sup-
posed to . . .
He leaned over and put a round behind her right ear.
The crack echoed in the tiled room.
Her body quivered, then went limp.
Salerno went back into the main room.
He picked up the coat that Mary had tried to carry
across the room, dug through its pockets, and found a
pistol in the right one.
What the fuck? Another Walther, identical to the other.
He put the second pistol in the other outside pocket
of his coat.
He dug in the coat some more but found no money.
“You lying sack of shit,” he said.
4 1 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He went through Bayer’s pants pockets and found no
money there, either.
He kicked the body.
Then he went to the second guy and picked through
his pockets.
Bingo.
Salerno came out of the right pocket of the pants with
a roll of cash. He pulled off the rubber band, flattened
the bills, and counted the money. Five hundred and
thirty-one dollars. He rolled it back up and wrapped the
roll with the rubber band.
In the left pocket, he found a key to room 410.
Maybe there’s more where this came from . . .
Salerno went to the telephone, asked the operator to
connect him to a number he provided, and after a mo-
ment said into the receiver, “I got the cash. But it got
ugly. Need to get rid of three—huh?—yeah, three. Had a
surprise guest. Take care of it, okay?”
A moment later, he put the receiver back in its cradle.
When he did, he noticed the open Whitman’s Sam-
pler box of chocolates next to the telephone.
He raised an eyebrow, then picked through the selec-
tion. He took out a chocolate-covered cherry and popped
it in his mouth. He swallowed it after just two chews.
He licked his lips, looked again at the selection—then
grabbed a fistful of the chocolates from the box, stuck
them in his coat pocket, and went out the door.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 1 7
[ FOUR ]
Algiers, Algeria
1625 12 March 1943
Major Richard M. Canidy, USAAF, awoke abruptly when
he felt himself being bounced—bodily lifted a couple of
inches, then dropped—and it took him a moment to get
his bearings and figure out what the hell just happened.
Snug and warm in a lambskin flight suit, he quickly re-
called that he had gone to sleep—a deep sleep, it turned
out—while lying on the floor next to the bulkhead of the
cockpit of the B-17.
He could have tried to sleep in one of the fabric sling
seats that the aircraft had lining one side of the fuselage.
But he knew that that would have been terribly uncom-
fortable, despite the fact that he could have strapped
himself into the seat for security.
The alternative—lying on the floor, against the bulk-
head—was somewhat riskier. If the plane, as it had just
now done, dropped suddenly—the pressure in Canidy’s
ears and sounds from the airstream told him they were
rapidly descending—he would get bounced in the air.
The bouncing was a calculated risk, but it was a hell of
a lot more comfortable than sleeping in the slings.
Canidy was in the last of a flight of four B-17s. Each
was a mammoth marvel of aeronautical engineering. The
B-17 had four twelve-hundred-horsepower Wright Cy-
clone engines. Its cruising speed of 182 miles per hour
gave it a range of two thousand miles while carrying a
bomb payload of three tons. (It could carry as much as
4 1 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
three times that but with a reduced range.) And it was
armed with thirteen .50 caliber machine guns mounted
all around the aircraft.
The routing of the Flying Fortresses had taken them
from England south over the Atlantic Ocean, down the
western coast of Spain, then on an almost due east vector
over Morocco and into Algeria.
Thankfully, the trip had been uneventful.
But Canidy knew that wasn’t always the case with the
B-17.
Word had gotten around the USAAC that when Gen-
eral Eisenhower had flown pretty much the same routing
a month ago to the Casablanca Conference to meet with
President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and all of
the other top generals, he had been in a Flying Fortress—
and the aircraft had lost two of its engines.
On the growing chance that the B-17 would not make
its destination and that they would have to ditch, Ike had
wound up spending most of the trip wearing a parachute
harness.
Canidy felt his big bird turn on final for the Maison
Blanche Airport.
He got up, and went to one of the fabric seats and
strapped himself in.
He sighed.
All signs suggested that they were going to get on the
deck at Algiers just fine.
But that did not mean that he did not have much to
worry about.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 1 9
He was still sick to his stomach at the thought of Ann
Chambers gone missing . . . and maybe gone forever.
I spent every possible second chasing down anyone who
might know anything about her.
Small wonder I just now slept so hard. . . .
As soon as Canidy had contacted Ed Stevens, Stevens
had said he would immediately have people continue
looking for Ann. He would message Canidy the minute
he heard anything.
And when Canidy had spoken with Ann’s bureau chief
at the London office of Chambers News Service, the ed-
itor—who also had not heard a word from her since the
bombing—promised to honor Canidy’s request that he
pass along any news to Lieutenant Colonel Stevens.
People disappear all the time in war . . . and then reap-
pear.
Please, Lord, I never ask for anything, especially for me.
But I pray You let Ann reappear. . . .
The scene outside of Base Operations, in the airport
parking lot, bordered on comical. A crowd of some fifty
or so natives swarmed in all directions. There appeared to
be no logic as to where they went and why.
Canidy stood there for a moment with his suitcases
and watched in amazement. He thought that it resem-
bled what happened when you took your shoe and tapped
the top of an ant mound—the ants suddenly appeared
and swarmed every which way.
4 2 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He felt a hand touch his right hand and then his suit-
case being picked up.
“Hey!” he said, turning to see who it was.
There was a tall, thin, dark-skinned man in a well-
worn, tan-colored suit and a collarless white shirt. He
had a narrow, clean-shaven face with intense almond
eyes.
“Taxi! Taxi!” he said in broken English with a faint
French accent.
He nodded toward the parking lot.
Why the hell not? Canidy thought.
The man made a path through the crowd and Canidy
followed, carrying the suitcase that contained some cloth-
ing and the Johnny gun.
The parking lot looked more like a junkyard. Not one
of the vehicles appeared to be in sound operating condi-
tion. And when Canidy saw the man stop at a 1936 Peu-
geot 402, it made him long for the tiny Austin “Nippy.”
The black paint on the guy’s taxi was severely faded
and much of it had been overtaken by rust. The sedan
had no trunk lid, no front fenders, the rear bumper was
crushed into the bodywork and the back window was
broken out completely.
The man put the suitcase in the lidless trunk, then
motioned for Canidy to give him the other case to put
with it.
Like hell!
And have someone come along and steal them while
we’re in traffic?
Canidy shook his head and pointed to the backseat.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 2 1
The man looked, understood what Canidy meant, and
moved the case out of the trunk and into the car. The
second case went next to it. Then Canidy got in beside
them.
“Villa de Vue de Mer,” Canidy said.
“Villa de Vue de Mer?” the driver repeated with some
surprise.
What the hell is wrong with that?
Stevens said that’s where Fine was based, at the Sea View
Villa.
“La Villa de Vue de Mer,” Canidy said again with con-
viction.
“La Villa de Vue de Mer,” the driver said, nodding re-
peatedly, “La Villa de Vue de Mer.”
It was a twenty-minute drive from the airport into
downtown Algiers.
It wasn’t that long of a distance—twelve, maybe fifteen
kilometers—but the narrow roads were in bad shape and
they were packed with more of the craziness that was at
the airport. It was a third-world mix of traffic that included
not only cars and trucks but people on foot and horses
pulling wagons.
Canidy, on a positive note, did notice that the weather
was absolutely beautiful, the temperature mild, the late-
afternoon sky cloudless and bright blue.
As the car crested a hill, the city and the naturally cir-
cular harbor—with the Mediterranean Sea just beyond—
came into view.
At the port docks was a colorful fleet of wooden fish-
ing boats. And anchored in the harbor were a half dozen
4 2 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
or so United States Navy vessels and twice that many
Liberty ships. Silver barrage balloons—beginning to re-
flect the early golden hues of the sunset—floated above
the ships, their steel-cable tethers discouraging attacks on
the ships by enemy aircraft.
The driver, tapping the horn occasionally, wound the
taxi down the city’s narrow lanes.
The car made a right turn and drove past the luxuri-
ous Hotel St. George. It sat on the lush hillside over-
looking the port.
Canidy knew from his research that the hotel had been
built in 1889. It was of a French Colonial style—with a
brilliant white masonry exterior—and it was surrounded
by beautiful, well-kept gardens and rows of towering
palm trees. The interior was said to be impeccable, with
grand, gilded ceilings and walls adorned by thousands of
multicolored, hand-painted tiles.
Canidy also knew that the supreme commander had
made the St. George his Allied Forces Headquarters.
And with Eisenhower’s AFHQ came all the brass, and all
their aides.
Probably a good idea to keep clear of the place.
They drove on and came to an open market.
The cabbie slowed and rolled past, slow enough for
Canidy to be able to get a good look at the tables of pro-
duce and dried fish for sale.
He studied the people waiting in lines and the ones at
the front, haggling. A tall, olive-skinned man, with thick
black hair cut close to the scalp, a rather large nose, and
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 2 3
a black mustache, walked past his window—and Canidy
did a double take.
They made eye contact, but then the man quickly
looked away.
Damn! If that’s not Francisco Nola, it’s his genetic
twin.
Canidy looked again, hard, but the guy had started
walking away and then disappeared into the crowd.
Incredible . . . but then I guess maybe half of the people
here could be part of Nola’s genetic pool.
The crowd cleared out from in front of the car and the
driver picked up speed.
He turned on a narrow street that went uphill, drove
another three blocks, and pulled to a stop in front of a
large, French Colonial–style villa. It resembled the Hotel
St. George, except that it was maybe half as large, and its
masonry exterior was a faint pink color.
There was no signage to indicate the place was any-
thing more than a private residence.
“La Villa de Vue de Mer,” the driver said with some
finality.
He stepped out of the car.
Canidy got out of the backseat dragging one of the
suitcases, then reached in and pulled out the other. He
had no idea how much to pay the driver, who stood
watching him.
He motioned to the driver with both hands, palms out
and fingers spread, to wait right there.
The driver looked at him suspiciously, then nodded.
4 2 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy went to the large wooden door of the villa,
looked at it, and noticed that it had a heavy brass knocker
and, next to it at eye level, a smaller door about four
inches square.
He knocked and after a moment the small door
opened.
A very unfriendly looking face, belonging to what
looked like a local male who was about age fifty, appeared
in the opening.
He said nothing but raised his right eyebrow as if to
ask, Yes?
Canidy glanced over his shoulder at the driver, who
was watching with what appeared to be a mixture of cu-
riosity and annoyance.
Canidy looked back at the door and said, “Pharmacist
for Pharmacist Two.”
Lieutenant Colonel Stevens had told Canidy that he
would use the code names from the last mission in his
heads-up message to Fine.
The unfriendly face contorted as if it had encountered
a foul smell.
What the hell? Is this the right place?
“Pharmacien pour Pharmacien Deux,” Canidy re-
peated in French.
The unfriendly face left the opening and the little door
closed and locked.
Canidy stood there, wondering what to do next.
He looked at the cabdriver, then smiled, nodded, and
held up one finger to say, It’ll be just another minute,
buddy. Everything’s okay.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 2 5
After a couple of minutes, Canidy could hear what
sounded like something large and heavy sliding on the
inside of the big, heavy door.
Then the door swung open.
There stood the fit and trim Captain Stanley S. Fine in
the uniform of the USAAF.
Behind him was the fifty-year-old man with the un-
friendly face.
Fine looked past Canidy.
“Nice wheels,” he said with a smile.
Canidy shrugged.
Fine motioned for the man to get Canidy’s bags.
“Good to see you again,” Canidy said, offering his
hand.
He looked back out the door.
“How much should I give the cabdriver?” he added.
Fine said something in French to the man with
Canidy’s bags.
The man put Canidy’s bags inside the door, then went
back out to the driver. Canidy heard the man and the
driver begin to noisily negotiate the fare.
“Let’s get a drink,” Fine said. “You’re in time to
watch the sunset.”
Fine closed the door, and Canidy then saw what had
caused the sliding sound on the big door: a long, wooden
four-by-four beam that, when in place across the door,
was held by a U-shaped steel cradle bolted to either side
of the doorframe.
Fine saw Canidy looking at it.
“Keeps out the riffraff,” Fine said. “Well, most of it.”
4 2 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He put his arm around Canidy as they walked.
“You got past it.”
Fine poured two glasses of single malt scotch, neat, and
brought them out onto the tiled balcony where Canidy
leaned against the masonry wall.
The view from the villa was incredible. The city spread
out below on a gentle slope that went all the way down to
the port, maybe ten kilometers’ distance.
The sun, now a red ball melting into the horizon, set
the sky ablaze with deep reds and oranges. It cast re-
markable lights on the ships and barrage balloons in the
harbor, and on the houses and buildings of the city.
“Very, very nice,” Canidy said softly, taking one of the
glasses. “Must be hard to get used to.”
Fine laughed and touched his glass to Canidy’s.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “I don’t think I could ever
get used to something as spectacular as that.”
They both took sips of scotch.
They watched the sky for a moment, then Fine added
solemnly, “That said, I hate to spoil the moment but I’ve
always believed that news that’s not good always should
be dealt with at the soonest opportunity.”
Fine took from the inside pocket of his tunic a folded
sheet of paper and held it out to Canidy.
“This is not bad, per se,” he said. “It’s just not what
you want to hear.”
Canidy quickly unfolded the sheet.
“ ‘Nothing new at this time,’ ” he read aloud.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 2 7
“I’m very sorry about Ann. Wish I could be the one
to deliver good news.”
Canidy took a big sip of scotch, then looked at Fine.
“I wish that you could, too.”
He looked out at the view. The sky was quickly dark-
ening and the lights of the city began to twinkle on.
Damn, Ann would love this. . . .
“Let me tell you what we’ve got going here,” Fine said
after he had poured them each a fresh drink, “and then
we can get into what you need.”
Canidy stood, leaning against the balcony wall.
“Great. Start with this villa. How’d you get it?”
“It belongs to Pamela Dutton, widow of one of Don-
ovan’s law school buddies who made a mint in shoes, if
you can believe it. Women’s shoes. She has—maybe it’s
had—family here and split her summers between here
and Italy, where they had the shoes made. She let us take
this place over for ten dollars a year on the condition
we’d protect it from the unwashed. And so now it’s our
main OSS installation.”
“How does AFHQ feel about that?”
“Well, they aren’t exactly thrilled. We’ve been put un-
der the direction of AFHQ—”
“Which is based at the St. George, right?”
“Yeah. The brass is, anyway. And unless they specifi-
cally ask us for any intel—which we’re supposed to sup-
ply, and gladly will, but more than a few there don’t like
us—we avoid the place.”
4 2 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy nodded.
“Same old story.”
“Unfortunately. But we don’t have time to dwell on
that. We’re in the very early stages of using the Corsica
model of assembling teams. These we’ll insert in France
to supply and build the resistance. The usual setup: The
leader is an intel officer, and there’s a liaison and the two
radio operators who report to him.” He paused. “We’re
not where I’d like us to be timewise, but I just got here.”
Canidy nodded.
“I remember.”
“The SOE,” Fine went on, “has its finishing school
down at Club des Pins. It’s a swank, resort-type place on
the beach that they’ve taken over. They’re training their
people—and mine—in telegraphy and cryptography and
such. They even have a jump school. And . . . that’s
about the sum of it.”
“Nice.”
They silently sipped at their drinks.
Fine broke the silence. “So . . . you’re going in your -
self.”
It was more a question than a statement.
Canidy nodded.
“It’s necessary, Stan. We need this guy out now. And
I need to get a handle on whatever it is the boss is after
there.”
And, should I not make it back, what the hell.
Ann didn’t, either.
“The trick,” Canidy went on, “is getting into Pa-
lermo.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 2 9
Fine was quiet a moment.
“How about PT boats out of Bizerta?”
The wooden-hulled patrol torpedo boats were faster
than hell and armed to the teeth. The eighty-foot-long
Elco model, powered by triple twelve-cylinder, fifteen-
hundred-horsepower Packard engines, could make more
than forty knots. They could be armed with .50 caliber
machine guns, torpedo tubes, depth charges, even a 40
mm Bofors medium antiaircraft gun.
“That’s tempting. I had considered PTs, but then de-
cided they were too open and it was too far. Plus, it’s
really helpful to have good seas and a moonless night
with them.”
Fine nodded.
“How about a sub?”
“That would work. Happen to have an extra sitting
around?”
Fine chuckled.
“Not quite,” he said. “But there is going to be a re-
supply of Sandman in Corsica that leaves out of here in
three days.”
“The Corsicans who were recruited through the
French Deuxième Bureau,” Canidy said.
“Right. They’ll take the Casabianca and go ashore on
Corsica by rubber boat.”
Canidy looked at him.
“Try to pay attention, Stan,” he said, and with his
hand that held his drink he pointed toward one o’clock.
“Corsica is a chunk of rock in the water out in that direc-
tion.”
4 3 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He pointed to three o’clock.
“Sicily,” he went on, “is another chunk of rock in the
water more or less out thataway.”
Fine chuckled again.
Fine said, “Any reason they couldn’t drop you there
after dropping the team on Corsica?”
Canidy thought about that a long moment.
Fine went on: “And wait for you offshore on the bot-
tom till you come out?”
Canidy looked at him, then his eyes brightened.
“Wait,” he said. “What about dropping me off on the
way and picking me up on the way back? We plan for
the pickup in the same place they drop me—just like how
the teams do it—with a backup site.”
Fine nodded thoughtfully.
“That could make sense,” he said. “But . . . what if
there are problems in Corsica before they get back to
you . . .”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Canidy said, and
shrugged. “I’ve been stranded before.”
Fine considered that.
“If that’s what you want, Dick, I don’t see why not.”
He paused. “But then, I’m learning there’s a lot that I
think is okay and someone is always more than happy to
tell me otherwise.”
“One Colonel Owen?”
He nodded.
“And others . . . but they can be handled,” Fine said
finally. “What about you—anything you need?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 3 1
“No, but thanks. I brought what I thought I’d need,
including a nice new Johnson LMG.”
Fine’s eyebrows went up.
“Nice,” he said. “Where’d you get that?”
Canidy told him about how he and Fulmar each got
one from Joe “Socks” Lanza.
“Amazing,” Fine said when he had finished. “But
then again, I guess not. Not after you’ve seen all the shady
characters running around this town.”
“That reminds me,” Canidy said. “I thought I saw a
guy I knew in the market this afternoon—but he’s not
supposed to be here.”
“This place is white-hot with the anticipation of the
Husky Op,” Fine said, his tone matter-of-fact. “There’re
spies here from every Allied power. Then we’ve got the
Communists, the Fascists—and of course the Nazi spies,
who no doubt are putting two and two together. It
would surprise me not one bit if the pope himself came
walking through town. . . .”
Canidy, deep in thought, gazed out across the water.
“So they just might be expecting someone like me
slipping into Sicily. . . .”
Fine nodded solemnly.
“Yes, unfortunately the odds are good that they
would.”
“The boss must understand that.”
They were silent a moment.
“Wait,” Canidy said again. “I do need something else
from you. When I get ashore, I’d like to set some things
4 3 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
to blow in case I need a diversion or two. So, some Com-
position C-2?”
“Not a problem.”
“Okay, then. That’s it.”
“Good. Let me make a call, then we’ll get some dinner.”
[ FIVE ]
1010 East Eighty-third Street
New York City, New York
0135 8 March 1943
Eric Fulmar followed Ingrid Müller out the door of Wag-
ner’s Restaurant and Market. As they walked west, there
was an awkward silence, which Fulmar desperately wanted
to break while consciously avoiding the mentioning in
public of anything about the German-American Bund.
“So,” he said finally, “have you seen any good movies
lately?”
“Not really. You?”
“Heaven Can Wait was pretty funny.”
“Heaven Can Wait simply made me sick.”
Fulmar looked at her.
“Why?” he said, incredulous. “I thought it was hilari-
ous. And very romantic.”
She looked at him.
“I auditioned for the lead role.”
“Oh. Sorry I mentioned it.”
They did not speak again till after they were across
Park Avenue.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 3 3
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ingrid said, switching her
clutch between hands. “Gene Tierney did a marvelous
job as Martha Strable. She’s a doll. I do love her.” She
paused. “But I really wanted that part— needed that
part.”
“What happened?”
“It’s what I told you earlier—it’s what didn’t
happen.”
Fulmar gave that some thought.
“I don’t follow.”
“Ernst said the studio wouldn’t go for me.”
“Ernst?”
“Lubitsch. The director.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Maybe I should just change my goddamned name
and start over. Or become a director; clearly, it’s okay for
someone behind the camera to be from Berlin. But not
an actress. . . .”
She let that thought drop as she stopped in front of
the grand entrance to a high-rise apartment building.
The three-foot-square cast-bronze signage on the
brick wall to the right of the door richly announced: roy-
alton towers.
“Here we are,” she said simply.
Behind the pair of thick glass doors was a doorman—
about thirty-five, every bit of six-four and two-twenty,
wearing a dark blue uniform with gold piping—and he
pushed open the left door with no apparent effort.
“Good evening, Miss Müller,” he said formally.
4 3 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
She answered with her husky laugh as she entered and
passed him.
“Harold, don’t be silly,” she called over her shoulder.
“It’s ‘Good morning.’ ”
The doorman smiled.
“Yes, madam. Of course it is. Good morning.”
Harold looked suspiciously at Fulmar.
“Good morning to you, sir,” he said stiffly.
Fulmar nodded and pressed past, catching up to In-
grid at the bank of elevators.
He looked around the expensively appointed lobby.
There was polished marble almost everywhere, and,
looming above, a grand chandelier that looked impossi-
bly big and bright.
Whatever roles she’s getting, Eric thought, the money
must be pretty good. This place didn’t come cheap.
The elevator on the far left was waiting with its doors
open and Ingrid motioned that they should get on it.
“Shall we?” she said.
Inside, Eric saw her push the 10 button. It lit up, the
doors closed, and the car began to ascend. They rode
up in silence.
And, interestingly, her home is not in Yorkville . . . nor
particularly near it.
Third Avenue may as well be the proverbial train tracks
separating her town’s good and bad sides.
He glanced at her and smiled.
She smiled back.
So it would appear that my sweet Ingrid does not wish to
live among her fellow Germans in Yorkville.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 3 5
What does that tell me?
The elevator reached the tenth floor and the doors
opened.
Fulmar saw that the floor there was a smaller version
of the main, first-floor lobby—a wide application of the
same beautiful polished marble and a looming, though
smaller, chandelier.
There also was a picture window that faced south. Ful-
mar went to it and saw that it allowed for a grand view of
the city in that direction, as well as decent ones to the
east and to the west.
He found that, with a little work, he could see just
past the apartment building to the west—it was on Fifth
Avenue—and catch part of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art that was behind it, and beyond that the vast dark area
that was Central Park.
“Nice,” Fulmar said.
“This way,” Ingrid said with a smile.
She started down the hallway, pulling a fob that held a
couple keys from her clutch.
Halfway down the hall, she stopped in front of a door.
It was painted a cream color and, at eye level, had a four-
inch-square frame with 1011 in it. There also was a black
doorbell button.
She tried to put one of the keys into the lock but was
having some difficulty.
She’s nervous. You’d think I was her first gentleman vis-
itor. . . .
Fulmar stepped closer.
“Can I help?”
4 3 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
She worked more quickly with the key and it found its
home.
Without looking at him, she said, “There, got it,”
then turned the knob and pushed open the door.
She motioned with her right hand and said, “After
you.”
Fulmar nodded and started to go through the door-
way and into the dark apartment.
“The switch is here on the left,” she offered, reaching
her hand in to hit the light.
There was the sound of something moving inside,
behind the door—and the hair on the back of Fulmar’s
neck stood straight on end.
With his left hand, he quickly swatted her hand away
from the switch before she could turn it on. At the same
time, he threw back the tail of his jacket with his right
hand and pulled out his .45, thumbing back the hammer
as he brought the gun up. Then he threw his full weight
into the door and followed it to the wall.
But it didn’t hit the wall.
It stopped about eight inches shy of the wall, and
when it did there came a heavy, soft thud from behind it
and the sound of a man’s grunt. Then there was a dense,
metallic clunk near Fulmar’s feet—
Was that a pist— ?
—and then the crack of a small-caliber round going off.
It was a fucking pistol hitting the floor!
“Get out!” Fulmar called to Ingrid.
“Be careful!” Ingrid said.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 3 7
He pulled back on the door and slammed his weight
into it again, causing another thud and grunt. He
reached around and grabbed at the person behind the
door, found what felt like an arm, yanked hard, and
threw the person to the floor facedown.
In the ambient light, Fulmar could make out that it
was indeed a man.
Fulmar put his left knee on the man’s neck, forcing his
face to the right, then stuck the muzzle of the .45 to the
man’s right ear.
“Make a fucking move and your brains—”
“Eric, don’t!” Ingrid said. “He’s FBI!”
She flipped on the lights, and it took a second for Ful-
mar’s pupils to contract as they adjusted to the bright-
ness.
Fulmar now got a good look at the man.
He was smaller than Fulmar, about five-five, one-
thirty, and in his midthirties. He wore a rumpled dark
suit, dark blue shirt, dark patterned tie, and scuffed black
leather shoes. His face and neck were bright red, thanks
to the way Fulmar had him pinned to the slate floor. And
he had a bloody nose.
Guess the door got him good.
Some three feet away, at the foot of a tall curtain, was
the pistol that the man had dropped. Fulmar recognized
it as a small-frame Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a
five-shot model with a two-inch barrel made for the mil-
itary and police.
Apparently, the man had had a round under the hammer
4 3 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
and when the gun had struck the slate floor the impact
had caused the hammer to move and fire off a round.
I have no idea where the damned bullet went, Fulmar
thought. Just lucky it didn’t hit anyone.
Ingrid quickly closed the door, then knelt beside
Fulmar.
“Eric, please—”
He looked at her.
“You know this guy?”
She nodded.
“Who is he?”
“F-B-I,” the man grunted angrily.
Fulmar looked down at him and saw the man’s angry
right eye staring back.
What Fulmar did next took Ingrid—not to mention
the man—completely by surprise.
Fulmar started laughing, slowly at first, then more
deeply.
Of all the people I could run into, I run into one who’s
on our side. . . .
The man’s angry eye darted about in its socket.
“Get off me!” the man grunted.
Fulmar looked at Ingrid.
“Is he really FBI?”
She stared wide-eyed back at him and nodded slowly.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
“I can’t say,” Fulmar replied as he reached down with
his left hand, dug into the man’s inside coat pocket, and
brought out a small leather wallet.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 3 9
He flipped it open and saw a badge and an ID card.
Well, shit. So much for wild sex with Ingrid tonight. . . .
Fulmar stood and tossed the wallet on the floor beside
the man’s face.
Ingrid Müller came into the living room from the
kitchen carrying a small, light blue bag made of a thin,
soft rubber material in one hand and a small, stainless
steel pot in the other. She had just filled the rubber bag
with crushed ice and a small amount of cold tap water,
then sealed its screw-top opening. The pot was about a
quarter full of tap water.
Eric Fulmar and the FBI guy—“Agent Joseph Hall,”
it had said on his ID—were seated opposite one another
on leather furniture.
Not just any furniture, Fulmar thought, looking
around the now brightly lit apartment. This is the good
stuff—designer stuff found in museums.
Ingrid’s taste in furnishings ran toward the modern
school—less is more. That included her artwork, oil
paintings that were hardly more than huge floor-to-
ceiling canvases painted in thick textures of a single hue
only slightly darker than the walls.
Thus, there did not appear to be much in the large
apartment, but what there was was very nice and fash-
ionable.
The main living area, with its light gray-green slate
floor, had as its focal point what Fulmer believed to be
4 4 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
pieces— Probably knockoffs of the real thing, he thought,
but still outrageously expensive—by the very serious de-
signer Le Corbusier.
There was a chrome-and-black-leather couch and two
chrome-and-black-leather chairs (the ones he and Hall
were sitting in) positioned around a four-foot square
glass-top table with a chrome-framed base that mimicked
that of the chairs and couch.
It was all situated on a kind of finely woven rope
mat— “Sisal,” I think it’s called—in a cream color.
The styling of the furniture was boxy, square, and
though visually stunning— like its owner—it was unbeliev-
ably uncomfortable.
Fulmar, taking care not to spill on the leather the
scotch on the rocks that Ingrid had made for him, shifted
in his seat.
It’s like sitting in, well, a damned box.
A well-upholstered box, but a backbreaking box none-
theless.
“Here you are, Joe,” Ingrid said, handing the ice bag
to Hall.
The FBI agent pressed the ice bag to his neck and
glared at Fulmar.
Ingrid put the pot on the glass top, then stepped
around the table and sat on the black leather couch.
“What’s with the pot?” Fulmar asked.
“If Harold comes up and says someone reported they
heard a shot, I act like the silly blonde I am and say my heavy
pot got too hot and I dropped it on the table.”
Fulmar raised his eyebrows. “Might work.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 4 1
“You’ve clearly never seen me act.”
She smiled, then went on:
“As I was saying, I’ve made my connections in the Ger-
man community here available to the FBI. I’m an Ameri-
can citizen and this is my way of helping in this awful war.”
“And you were willing to sell me out.”
Her face turned very serious.
“If your intention,” she said, her voice hard, “was to
aid and abet the enemy, then you bet your ass I’d do any-
thing that helps stop Hitler even a minute sooner. And
that includes bringing people to speak with a ‘member of
the Bund’
”—she nodded at Hall—“someone about
whom I can easily act, if challenged, that I had no idea
he’s really with the FBI.”
Fulmar smiled.
“I admire your loyalty,” he said after a moment. “It’s
why I approached you.”
“To get to those German agents?”
Fulmar saw Agent Hall’s eyes brighten.
“Maybe,” Fulmar said. “Maybe not.”
“Which is it?” Hall said harshly.
“It’s none of your business,” Fulmar said.
“I am a law enforcement officer of the United States
government,” Hall snapped. “You will answer my ques-
tions. Or you will go to jail.”
Fulmar chuckled.
“I don’t think so.”
He paused.
“Tell me, Agent Hall, what do you know about any con-
nection between the Bund and these German saboteurs?”
4 4 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to discuss such in-
formation.”
“Because you won’t—or because you can’t, because
you don’t know?”
Hall stared at him.
“I’m the FBI,” Hall said. “I ask the questions.”
Fulmar chuckled again.
“You were almost with the fucking New York City
coroner’s office.”
Hall tried to ignore that.
Fulmar looked at Ingrid.
“Please excuse my language.”
Hall said, “Tell me again, in what capacity are you
here asking such questions?”
“You’re the smart one.” Fulmar grinned. “You figure
it out.”
“Look, I’ve about had enough of your attitude—”
“No,” Fulmar said evenly, “it doesn’t work that way.
How about you get the hell out of here and go try to fig-
ure things out. I’ve got work to do.”
As it turns out, Fulmar thought, your work.
No doubt the FBI is still hoping and waiting those Ger-
man agents just turn themselves in.
Fulmar stood.
Hall just looked up at him.
“I wasn’t kidding,” Fulmar said. “Get up and get the
hell out.”
Hall turned to Ingrid.
“Joe,” she said, “you should do as he says.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 4 3
Hall made a face, then stood up. He held out his left
hand, palm up.
“What do you want,” Fulmar said, “subway fare?”
“My revolver.”
“Considering recent events, I don’t think I feel too
comfortable with you having it right now.” He paused.
“I know where you work. I’ll see it gets back to your of-
fice. Meantime, maybe you won’t have to explain what
happened to it.”
“You can’t—”
“I can,” Fulmar interrupted. “And I am.”
He pointed toward the door.
“Out. Now.”
Hall turned for the door.
“This won’t go unchallenged, Fulmar.”
He slammed the door as he left.
After a moment, Ingrid said, “Do you think he’ll
cause trouble?”
“No, of course not. He’s not stupid. He knows who I
am and now thinks he knows what I came to you for. He
does not want anyone to know what happened here; it’s
in his best interest to pretend tonight never happened.”
He paused, then chuckled.
“Hell, when he calms down in the next hour or so
he’ll probably become terrified about whether he should
file an official report for the discharge of a bureau
firearm. They probably track his rounds.”
Fulmar smiled. He drained his drink and put it on the
glass-top table.
4 4 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“I’d better go,” he said. “Thank you—it’s been an in-
teresting evening.”
Ingrid slid up beside him and put her head on his
shoulder.
Fulmar felt her thick hair softly flowing from his face
to his shoulder. He smelled the sweet lilac of her per-
fume.
“I feel like I should somehow apologize,” she said,
and added softly, “How about, um, we make it an inter-
esting morning?”
Then he felt her hand on his left buttock.
Fulmar looked at her and grinned.
She made her husky laugh.
She added, “It’s what I said before: you know how to
handle things. And . . . I like the way you handled that
guy.”
She squeezed his cheek.
Fulmar thought, And I like the way you handle a
guy, too.
XI
[ ONE ]
39 degrees 10 minutes 2 seconds North Latitude
13 degrees 22 minutes 3 seconds East Longitude
Aboard the Casabianca
Off Palermo, Sicily
2010 19 March 1943
Over the course of the previous four days, since leaving
Algiers, Dick Canidy had come to admire Commander
Jean L’Herminier, the submarine’s chief officer.
Canidy found that L’Herminier was truly an officer
and a gentleman, as well as a first-class submariner. Though
the commander had a compact frame—five-seven, maybe
one-forty—the way he carried himself made him seem
much larger. He spoke softly, but there was strength in
his voice, a confidence that he knew exactly what he was
doing.
And the thirty-five-year-old had real balls. This wasn’t
the first time he had pushed his ship hard and fast.
The Agosta-class Casabianca, ninety-two meters long
and diesel powered, had been launched February 2,
1935, at St. Nazaire, France. She had been armed with
antiaircraft guns and eleven torpedo tubes and carried a
complement of some fifty men and four officers.
4 4 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
L’Herminier had pushed the sub to make the nearly
five-hundred-nautical-mile trip from Algiers to just north
of the northwestern tip of Sicily in four days. During
nighttime hours, he ran her as much as he felt comfort-
able on the surface, which allowed approximately twice
the speed than when she ran submerged during the day-
light hours.
He had used a somewhat similar tactic four months
earlier, when on November 27, 1942, he and his entire
crew escaped from Toulon, the Mediterranean port in
southern France. Most of the vessels of the French Navy
had just been scuttled there to keep them out of the
hands of the Nazis, who had invaded in retaliation of the
Allies’ operation torch.
L’Herminier had set a hard course of 180 degrees and
sailed the Casabianca as fast as she would go to Algiers,
and there joined the Allies.
And now he was about to send Canidy to the shore of
Sicily.
“Ready, Major?” Commander L’Herminier asked.
“At your pleasure, Commander,” Canidy replied.
Stanley Fine had told Canidy that it had been L’Her-
minier who had come up with the efficient method of
putting agents ashore.
The process involved first making a daylight recon-
naissance of the shoreline by periscope to locate an
appropriate landing spot on shore for the team. (“You
don’t want to drop them off at a tall rocky cliff, for ex-
ample,” Fine had explained.) The next step was to sub-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 4 7
merge there and lie on the seafloor till dark. Then, in the
safety of darkness, the sub would surface and the agents
would disembark to infiltrate ashore either by swimming
or by inflatable raft.
The process had worked flawlessly on Corsica, Fine
had said, and was quickly being adopted as the standard.
Canidy was dressed in nice slacks, a dark-colored
sweater, and a navy blue Greek fisherman’s cap that he
had pulled from the wardrobe room the OSS maintained
at La Villa de Vue de Mer. These clothes were in fact
from Sicily—possibly even once belonging to the shoe
magnate Dutton himself—and while they did not fit
Canidy perfectly, they were close enough.
He had one other set of clothing from the OSS
wardrobe in a black rubberized duffel that also contained
his Johnson LMG, the six magazines of .30-06 ammuni-
tion for it, four full magazines of .45 ACP for his Colt
pistol, ten pounds of Composition C-2 explosive, two
packages of cheese crackers, a one-pound salami, and a
canteen of water.
In a waterproof canister were the fuses for the Com-
position C-2, his coded notes of Nola’s family contact in-
formation— If for some reason I should find myself in Porto
Empedocle—the copy of what he considered his “Charlie
Lucky’s You’re an Instant Mobster!” form, and his OSS
credentials.
In his pocket, kept close at hand, was a tin pillbox with
ten or so aspirin—and two glass ampoules of cyanide acid.
When he had put them in there, he had thought, Well,
4 4 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
if the aspirin doesn’t cure a headache, an ampoule sure
will.
Commander L’Herminier looked one final time in the
periscope, and when he was satisfied with what he saw—
or, more important, didn’t see—he turned to his execu-
tive officer.
“Take her up please,” the captain of the boat ordered
in French.
The deck of the submarine was still much awash with sea-
water as Canidy and a pair of sailors wordlessly came
down the conning tower ladder. Canidy carried his duf-
fel. One of the sailors carried a partially inflated rubber
boat, a paddle that folded, and a bellows. The other sailor
carried a rope ladder.
Out on the deck, just forward of the conning tower,
the sailor with the rope ladder began tying it off to hard
points while the sailor with the rubber boat fully inflated it.
When both were finished, Canidy was less than en-
thused.
As far as he was concerned, the rubber boat that had
been provided for him to transition from sea to shore left
quite a bit to be desired.
“Boat” is a rather fanciful description, he thought,
eyeing the rubber doughnut.
It was not much better than a large truck-tire inner
tube, and he began to strongly suspect that that was ex-
actly what it was. Or at least a modified version of one,
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 4 9
with a circle of rubber material vulcanized to its bottom
to serve as a sort of floor.
Its chief—if not sole—positive attribute was that be-
ing so small it would not be hard to hide once he reached
shore.
He was grateful that he had had some practice getting
in it back in Algiers. But now that he stood on a wet sub
deck out in the open sea, that training seemed rather far
removed from the real world.
He shook his head.
“Now or never, I suppose,” he said, not necessarily to
the sailors.
“Yes, sir,” they said almost in unison.
The paddle was tied to the boat and then the raft tied
with two lines—the second being backup in the event the
first came loose—to the foot of the rope ladder. The
sailors slowly slid the boat down the side of the sub.
The sailors came to attention and saluted Canidy.
“Good luck, sir,” the one who attached the ladder
said.
“Thanks,” he said, returning the salutes. “I think I’m
going to need it.”
He adjusted the straps of the duffel that he had slung
over his right shoulder, then got to his knees beside the
ladder and, with great effort, began working his way
down its difficult rungs.
As he descended, he heard the sound of water lapping
against the hull. With the lapping getting louder, he knew
he was close to the surface of the water.
4 5 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He found the rubber boat bobbing in the sea.
Carefully, and slowly, he reached out with his left foot
and tried first to locate the damned thing and then, if
successful, step into it.
After a moment, he felt the familiar sensation of his
shoe touching rubber.
But the boat bobbed away.
When he tried again and reached farther with his
foot—his right foot slipped on the rope ladder.
He clung to the ladder with his hands with all his
energy.
He hung by his hands a moment— Now, that was close
to disaster—then one at a time put both feet back on the
ladder, and when he was sure of his footing he slowly
reached again for the boat.
He got it.
He then carefully managed to get his right foot in the
ring of rubber. He knelt—his knees getting soaked from
water that had collected inside the boat—and slowly
worked his hands down the rope ladder.
He was completely inside now and floating just fine.
Here’s where I suddenly flip.
Or the sub starts to submerge with me still attached.
Moving as quickly as he dared, he untied the paddle,
then the lines attaching the boat to the ladder.
He tugged twice on the ladder to signal he was free of
it, then with his hand pushed off of the sub hull.
The fucking massive sub hull, from this perspective, he
thought, looking up and watching the ladder being re-
covered.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 5 1
He took the paddle, unfolded it, dipped the blade in
the water to his right and stroked.
The boat made almost a complete revolution.
Shit!
Forgot about that . . .
He carefully reached the paddle out in front of him,
toward shore, dipped the blade again, and brought the
blade straight back toward him.
The rubber boat moved forward.
He pulled this way for about five minutes when he
suddenly felt the boat moving far more quickly than he
could possibly paddle it.
What the hell?
Then he remembered.
Backwash from the sub’s screws.
Thanks, guys!
He looked back, but the big boat was gone in the dark
or the depths . . . or both.
And he suddenly felt very alone.
He rode the rush from the backwash. Then, when it
had died out, he began paddling again.
Ten minutes later, he felt the rubber boat’s bottom hit
sand.
4 5 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
[ TWO ]
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
1315 8 March 1943
When the taxicab pulled up outside the hotel, the driver
saw that he was going to have to wake up the passenger
in the backseat. The guy had fallen asleep almost as soon
as he had gotten in at the corner of Fifth Avenue and
Eighty-third Street.
“Hey, buddy!” the cabbie said, looking in his rearview
mirror. “This is it.”
Eric Fulmar rubbed his eyes, opened them, and yawned.
“Great,” he said, and looked out the window.
“Thanks.”
He paid the fare and got out and went through the re-
volving door of the hotel.
Heading for the elevator, he passed the front desk,
then stopped and went back.
“Good morning,” he said to the desk clerk. “Any
messages for suite six-oh-one?”
The clerk turned and checked one of the cubbyholes
in the wooden honeycomb behind him and retrieved two
yellow sheets.
He looked at them, then turned and held them out to
Fulmar as he made an unpleasant face.
“A couple for you, Mr. Canidy,” he said curtly.
Fulmar nodded.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 5 3
He didn’t think it was important to correct him.
And he was too tired to give a damn about whatever
bug was up this guy’s ass.
“Thanks,” Fulmar said.
Fulmar read the messages as he took the elevator up.
One was from housekeeping, saying that they were
sorry but that they were going to have to place an extra
charge against the room for the cleaning of the “oily”
towels.
That probably explains why the guy made a face.
But what do I care?
He grinned.
I’m “Mister Canidy.”
The other message had only a date and a time—it was
from noon, just an hour ago—and a telephone number:
WOrth 2-7625.
Fulmar opened the door to the suite.
He saw that it had been neatly made up. His luggage
had been moved from the corner of the sitting room
back into the bedroom. And there was a set of fresh clean
towels hanging in the bathroom.
There was absolutely no sign that Major Richard
Canidy, United States Army Air Forces, had been there.
I wonder what Dick did with my Johnny gun? Or did he
take them both?
Fulmar looked around the suite for the Johnson LMG,
first in the sitting room—under and behind and inside
4 5 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
the Hide-A-Bed couch—and next in the bedroom—
under the bed and between the mattress and box springs.
Then he went to the clothes closet. It wasn’t on the
floor in there. But at the top of the closet was a deep,
dark shelf that held extra comforters and pillows and he
reached up and felt under the blankets.
Bingo.
Fulmar looked and saw that Canidy had rewrapped
the boxes, both the heavy, cardboard one with the
Johnny gun broken down inside and the other, metal
one with the thirty-ought-six ammo, and hidden them
well.
Thanks, pal. I may need this. . . .
He covered the boxes back with the heavy blankets
and pillows, then went to the phone and called the num-
ber that was written on the message.
When the call was answered, he recognized the voice
of Joe “Socks” Lanza.
“Fulmar,” Fulmar said. “I got a message to call this
number.”
“Yeah,” Lanza replied. “I asked around, like you
wanted.”
“And?”
“You’re not going to find out anything where you
were last night.”
What the hell?
“How do you know where I was last night?”
“How do you think? You were in a bar, no? Talking
German to the bartender.”
When ONI—Naval intelligence—in New York City
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 5 5
had been trying to think of ways of casting a wide net to
spy on the German-American Bund in Yorkville, it had
been Lanza’s idea to use William “Tough Willie” Mc-
Cabe’s union guys who serviced the bar vending ma-
chines.
Lanza told them that the forty-seven-year-old Mc-
Cabe had a small army of low-paid thugs from Harlem
who ran numbers in the bars, then collected the money.
They were in every Yorkville bar every day—and they
knew every bartender.
And what they learned, Lanza learned.
Fulmar thought, If you consider saying one word—
Danke— talking German, then okay, Joe Socks, you got me.
But he’s on the money about it being a dead end.
Jesus! Does he know about Ingrid, too? And Hall, the
FBI guy?
“Okay,” Fulmar said. “So if not there, where?”
“Take the cab out to Lodi.”
“Jersey?”
“Yeah. There’s a place on Route 17 called Lucky’s
Pink Palace. Ask for Christopher. He’s expecting you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“Thought you were in a hurry. If you want to
wait . . .”
What I want— thanks to Ingrid
.
.
.
oh boy, that
Ingrid— is to fall on the bed here and take a long nap.
But that’s just not an option right now.
“Okay. When will the cab be here?”
4 5 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“It’s there now.”
“It’s here now,” he repeated, incredulous.
He yawned.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Fulmar heard the connection go dead.
Fulmar went out the revolving door of the Gramercy and
saw what he thought was Lanza’s taxicab waiting at the
corner.
He started walking toward it. The cab’s engine started
and then the car began rolling toward him.
For a moment, Fulmar thought that he might be
mistaken—the monster fishmonger was not behind the
wheel—but then the car stopped when its back door was
even with him.
He opened the door and asked the driver, “This Joe
Socks’s?”
“Yeah,” the driver said.
Fulmar saw that the driver was a tiny guy, maybe five-
two, one-ten— probably has to jump around in the shower
just to get wet—and about age thirty. He had a two-day
growth of black, stubby beard and wore a dark work
shirt, corduroy pants, and a black leather Great Gatsby
driving cap.
Fulmar got in the backseat.
“Where’s the big guy?”
“What big guy?”
Fulmar shook his head.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 5 7
He looked out the window and yawned.
“Never mind,” he said and settled in for a nap.
A jarring sensation abruptly awoke Fulmar from his deep
sleep.
At first it felt like the taxi had hit a wall or something.
But when he looked out the window and back to where
they’d just been—down what he guessed was Route 17—
he saw that the cabbie had just jumped a curb to reach a
parking lot.
This part of Route 17 was a hellish-looking thorough-
fare through a rough part of town. It had two lanes in
each direction—with vehicles bumper-to-bumper—and
traffic lights as far as the eye could see. It was lined with
cheap used-car lots, greasy burger and fried chicken
joints . . . and strip clubs.
Fulmar looked out the front windshield.
In front of the car was a two-story building almost the
size of a high school gymnasium. It was built of cinder
blocks and had been painted completely hot pink. It had a
flat roof and no windows. The front wall had two steel doors
at street level, one labeled entrance and one labeled exit.
Painted on at least three sides, as well as illuminated
on the pink neon sign atop the twenty-foot-tall steel pole
near the curb, was lucky’s pink palace.
The very top edge of the walls, just below the lip of
the rooftop, had girls! girls! girls! repeated over and
over in lettering three feet tall.
4 5 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Fulmar noted that the parking lot was packed and that
the crowd had a disproportionate number of work
trucks.
“Looks like the place,” he said.
The driver grunted, then drove around to the back
side of the building.
There were two steel doors in the back wall, one at
ground level and one on the second floor, at the top of a
set of rusty steps that served as a fire escape. The lower
door read: no deliveries 11a.m.–2p.m. The upper
door: no admittance! fire exit! keep clear!
When the cabbie nosed the car into a parking place,
the car’s bumper tapped the bumper of the one parked in
front of it.
He shut off the engine.
“I’ll wait here for you.” He pointed to the top door.
“Just knock on the office door up there.”
As the cabbie tuned the dash radio and adjusted the
volume, Fulmar opened the back door, got out, and
walked toward the steel steps. He could hear loud music
coming from the inside of the building.
At the top of the stairs, he looked at the steel door. It
had three industrial locks and one peephole.
They don’t want anyone getting in this way. . . .
He knocked. There was no reply for a moment, then
he heard one of the locks open, then a second, then the
third.
The door opened a crack and a thick Italian accent
said, “Yeah?”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 5 9
“I’m looking for Christopher,” Fulmar said. “Joe
Socks says he’s expecting me.”
After a moment, the door opened just enough for
Fulmar to squeeze through.
Once inside, he saw the guy who had opened it—a
really fat guy, easily two-forty, probably two-sixty, in
baggy slacks and a dark shirt, its tail untucked—slam the
door shut, then start throwing the dead bolt locks.
There was nothing at all exceptional about the office.
It had two standard gray steel desks with wooden swivel
chairs on casters, half a dozen regular wooden chairs scat-
tered around the room, a couple of pictures of the Jersey
shore on one wall, a large four-by-four calendar for the
year 1943, with the days to date crossed out, on another.
There was a dartboard hung on a wooden interior door.
And one tall tin trash can, overflowing with old discol-
ored newspapers.
A big, hairy guy sat behind one of the desks and a
thin, dark-skinned guy with a thin mustache was behind
the other.
The fat guy stared at him.
The thin guy got up and came out from behind his desk.
“You Fulmar?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Christopher,” he said, his tone of voice flat.
He offered his right hand.
Fulmar shook it and was impressed by the strong grip.
“Why don’t you give us ten minutes?” Christopher
said to the really fat guy.
4 6 0
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
“Whatever you say, Christopher,” the obese guy said
and started opening the dead bolts again.
When the obese guy was gone, and Christopher had
locked the door, the hairy guy behind the desk said, “Joe
Socks says you’re looking for something?”
“Some one, ” Fulmar said. “I’m sorry, but you are—?”
“In charge.”
He smirked.
Fulmar looked at him.
Okay, have it your way . . .
“Okay. Short version. Lanza has agreed to help me find
the German agents who are setting off bombs in the U.S.”
Neither responded to that.
Fulmar looked at Christopher, then back at the
hairy guy.
“And,” Fulmar went on, “Lanza said you guys knew
something that would help.”
After a moment, the hairy guy nodded.
“Keep this in mind: I’m only doing this because Joe
Socks said to.”
Fulmar nodded. “I understand.”
The hairy guy opened the top drawer of his desk, re-
moved a pistol, and held it out.
Fulmar took it, checked to see if it was loaded—it
was—then said, “It’s a Walther.”
“It’s what we took off the guy who didn’t pay his bills.”
“Okay . . .” Fulmar said.
He made a motion with his right hand that said, Give
me more.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 6 1
“Story we got was that he’d been boasting that he’d
been doing the bombings.”
“Was he?”
The hairy guy shrugged.
“Where is he?” Fulmar quickly said.
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“Gone.”
“Look,” Fulmar said. “I’ve got to have more to go on
than that. ‘Some nameless guy at a Jersey strip club says
the bomber is quote gone unquote.’ I’d deserve to have
my head handed to me if I reported back with just that.”
The hairy guy stared back at him.
“Okay,” he said after a moment, “that horny Kraut
told my hooker that he and his partner had been doing
the bombing on the East Coast and that there was an-
other team in Arizona—”
“Texas?” Fulmar said.
“Yeah, Texas. Whatever. I was damned if I was gonna
give the guy up to the fucking FBI, dead or alive. He
owed me for my hooker. So we went to squeeze him—
nobody cheats me, ever—and his Kraut buddy starts a
fucking shoot-out.”
He paused, then went on:
“They lost. And now the sonsofbitches are fish food.”
He made a thin smile.
“That enough ‘to go on’?”
Fulmar thought for a moment.
“Is this pistol all you found? No wallets? No IDs?”
4 6 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The fat guy glanced at Christopher and jerked his head
to say, Give it to him.
Fulmar turned and saw Christopher holding out what
looked like a pen.
“Found this in a duffel in their room. Maybe you can
make something of it.”
Fulmar took it and looked at it closely.
It’s an acid fuse disguised as an ink pen.
And where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Or maybe explosives . . .
“There wasn’t anything else in the bag?”
The hairy guy looked at him with a blank face.
“Nope.”
My ass. Of course there was.
But . . . okay . . . I’m not going to get anywhere with
this.
You keep whatever you got.
“I need to use your phone,” Fulmar said.
“Help yourself,” the hairy guy said, motioning to the
black one on his desk.
Fulmar gave a number to the operator.
“Switchboard oh-five,” a woman’s monotone voice
answered.
“Fulmar for Chief Ellis.”
“Hold one.”
There was a clicking sound, then a familiar voice.
“Ellis.”
“Got a pencil handy?”
“Huh?” Ellis said, then recognized Fulmar’s voice.
“Uh, yeah . . . okay, go.”
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 6 3
“Message for the boss: ‘Fire out. No trace.’ ”
“ ‘Fire out. No trace.’ Got it. Congratulations. And
interesting timing.”
“How’s that?”
“The other guys report the other fire is out. It’s on
the news.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You coming home now?”
“See you soon,” Fulmar said and hung up the phone.
All the way back to Manhattan, with the Walther and
acid-fuse pen in his pockets, Fulmar tried to find holes in
what just happened.
There really isn’t any way to absolutely know if all the
fires are out.
Maybe all the agents aren’t dead.
Maybe others are laying low.
Then again, maybe there aren’t any others.
The only way to find out for sure is to wait and see if
there are any more bombings, while keeping the intel lines
open.
Which I can do from Washington while working on
something else.
Like going to work with Canidy.
He sighed.
But all that can wait till after I see Ingrid again.
The cabbie tuned the radio in the dash to a new
station. The programming was going to a commercial
break.
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The announcer said, “The news is next after this mes-
sage from one of our sponsors.”
An obnoxious advertisement, sponsored by the Tri-
State Ford Dealers, came and went, and then the an-
nouncer’s voice came back on again.
“And now for today’s breaking news,” he said. “In a
press conference in Washington, D.C., a half hour ago,
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—”
Fulmar said, “Turn that up, will you?”
The driver did, and they both listened as Hoover said,
“I repeat, we have found no evidence to suggest that this
train wreck in Oklahoma was anything more than a very
tragic event involving a gas leak. . . .”
Say it often enough, Fulmar thought, it becomes the
truth.
Fulmar said to the driver, “That’s all I needed to hear.
You can turn it down or change the station.”
He looked out the window and wondered what Ingrid
was doing right now.
[ THREE ]
Palermo, Sicily
2240 19 March 1943
First impressions were important, Major Richard M.
Canidy, USAAF, knew, and the thing that most im-
pressed him about Sicily was how it appeared utterly un-
affected by the fact that there was a war going on.
Although he had taken great care to evade any Ger-
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 6 5
man or Italian coast watchers when he had landed just up
the beach from Mondello, and when he had deflated the
rubber boat and buried it, and then when he had passed
through the tiny seaside town, his efforts seemed mis-
spent.
He had not seen a single soul.
There had of course been a dog, and a slew of damned
feral cats—but not a single human being.
Mondello may as well have had its sidewalks rolled up.
It was only now, as Canidy continued to walk the
ten-plus kilometers to Palermo, paralleling a two-lane
macadam road but staying far off it, that he finally saw
someone.
It was a man, and he was inside a small stone house off
in the distance.
Canidy saw him through the window and watched as
he walked across the room—and blew out the candles for
the night.
Amazing, Canidy thought, shaking his head and look-
ing up at the twinking stars in the dark sky. Is the whole is-
land on snooze?
He started walking again.
I don’t know.
But I do know that the last thing I’m going to do is let
my guard down.
I plan on being back at that beach when the sub returns
in six days. . . .
4 6 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy came closer to the capital city and its glow of
lights began pushing back the pitch-black night.
Now, as he entered the outskirts of town with its
brightly painted modern buildings constructed of ma-
sonry, he finally saw some people. He passed a man, then
another, then saw a couple holding hands as they walked
across a piazza.
Not many, but at least it was some life.
He walked until he came to what he recognized from
photographs was the Quattro Canti district. It was the
city center, the medieval “four corners” area, and its an-
cient Norman-built stone buildings loomed in the night
shadows.
He looked around, then walked on, heading in what
he thought— hoped—was the direction of the University
of Palermo.
I may as well check it out now, in the dark, with no one
around.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and bump into the pro-
fessor.
He chuckled.
Yeah, right.
Fifteen minutes later, after covering five blocks and
backtracking two, he found affixed to a street-corner wall
a metal sign with an arrow and the word università.
Voilà! Canidy thought.
Or is it “Eureka!”?
He reached the university after three blocks.
The school itself was a disappointment. There was
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 6 7
no campus. And with no campus there were no fields
for playing sports, no complex for housing students—
nothing that gave a genuine sense of a school.
There was, instead, only more of the same masonry-
style buildings he had seen in the modern parts of the
city. Across the top of the main building’s façade was ba-
sic signage, the black block lettering on a white back-
ground proclaiming: palermo università.
Canidy walked up and got a closer look in the big win-
dow of the main building.
There was a security guard inside, sitting on a wooden
folding chair with a billy club resting across his knees—
and sound asleep.
The funny thing to do would be to bang loudly on the
window and watch this guy go flying.
It’d also be the stupid thing to do.
Canidy looked around some more and found that the
lights were out all around the university’s building, the
doors locked tight.
At a corner, he came to a coffee shop. Its door was
open, and he could hear the sound of voices floating out.
He walked to the door and looked inside. There were
eight students at the small round table and they had
books with them. But judging by the fact that a couple of
the girls were sitting in the laps of the boys, it appeared
that the last thing they were there for was the study of
academics.
One of the girls—a beautiful twentysomething with
dark, inviting eyes, jet-black hair, and large breasts barely
4 6 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
restrained by her sleeveless blouse—noticed Canidy at
the door and smiled at him.
He grinned back, then walked on.
Love conquers all.
He turned onto a street named for Leonardo da
Vinci—earlier, he’d passed one named for Michelan-
gelo—and followed it downhill. He could see the port in
the distance.
When he reached the bottom of the hill, he saw that
there were a number of boats moored in the port. They
were tied either to the long pier or to buoys in the harbor.
He also saw that there was absolutely no one around.
He surveyed the area.
At the pier was one large cargo ship, eighty, ninety feet
long, with a flat deck that had large hatches and tall
booms. It was the biggest vessel in sight. The rest were
all fishing boats of various brightly painted wooden de-
signs, six of them about forty feet in length, but the bulk
of them were about twenty feet long and, interestingly,
pointed at both ends. There were a half dozen more of
these twenty-footers pulled up on the shore of pebbles,
lying on their side, apparently in for repair of some sort.
Overlooking the port were apartments and homes built
almost to the water’s edge. They were dark and quiet.
Dockside was a series of shops, including what looked
to be a fish market, their doors and windows closed and
locked. Lining the outside wall of the fish market were
wooden tables painted in bright greens and yellows and
reds. He had seen similar ones at the Fulton Fish Market.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 6 9
They were built at a thirty-degree angle, with deep sides
to hold ice, for the display of fresh-caught fish.
Something on the dock moved and Canidy crouched
behind a corner of an apartment.
He looked again, and saw a cat standing next to where
one of the twenty-footers was tied. The boat was covered
almost completely by a tarp, and as Canidy watched the
cat leapt from the pier and landed in the middle of it.
Almost immediately, the cat came flying back onto the
pier—and not by choice, Canidy saw.
The tarp was pulled back and an angry male stuck his
head up. He slurred something in Sicilian at the cat, then
threw a bottle for good measure.
Canidy chuckled softly.
Sounds like someone had a bit to drink tonight and had
to sleep on the boat.
Or maybe that’s where he always sleeps.
I’ve had worse. . . .
Canidy caught himself in a yawn.
I’d like to settle into one right now myself.
But no matter which one I pick, that’ll be the one where
the owner is casting off lines at oh-dark-hundred—and
finding me aboard, snoring, will not be the highlight of
his day.
Or mine.
Canidy then looked back at the beached twenty-foot
boats.
But no one’s going fishing in those anytime soon.
He walked down to the second-farthest one. It was
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
turned on its starboard side, its hull facing the fish mar-
ket and shops. He pulled back on its tarp and saw that the
interior had been gutted. There was a very long, smooth
area where he could crawl in and pull the tarp back for
concealment.
He looked at his watch and saw that it was now almost
one o’clock.
May as well get rest while I can.
He took a long leak on the pebble beach, then settled
inside the boat, put his .45 under his duffel, rested his
head on top of it, and yawned.
And the Gramercy Park has the nerve to call itself a lux-
ury hotel. . . .
The sound of small diesel engines came loudly across
the water and almost echoed inside the boat hull where
Canidy lay rubbing his eyes.
Judging by the light coming in the edges of the tarp,
he figured it was just turning dawn and a glance at his
wristwatch confirmed it. Both hands were on the six.
Men’s voices filled the air, and there was the sound of
foot traffic on the wooden pier.
Canidy peeked out of the tarp, saw there was nothing
but another boat hull looking back at him, and crawled
out of the boat.
He peered around the boat. The piers were bustling with
fishermen loading their boats for the day; some boats had
already cast off lines and were headed out of the harbor.
Some of the shops were now open. Canidy noticed
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 7 1
the smell of coffee on the salt air, and that someone had
put ice in the display tables outside of the fish market.
Customers were already coming and going.
Canidy turned around and relieved himself in what he
thought was probably the same spot he had five hours
earlier. He started to grab his duffel and throw it on his
back but stopped. He made a close examination of the
boat and the work done on it thus far and decided that
the boat had not been touched in months.
No one’s coming in the next hour or so.
He slipped the .45 into the small of his back, adjusted
his Greek cap, then headed for the shops, hoping he
might get lucky sneaking a cup of coffee.
As he walked across the beach, he studied the steady
traffic going on and off the pier. All of the men looked
approximately the same—same dark pants and sweaters,
same olive complexions, and pretty much the same head
of hair (though this varied greatly; some had beards or
mustaches while others were clean-shaven).
Canidy stepped up on the pier and joined the line
headed to the shops. He followed two men into one and
saw that it wasn’t a shop so much as a bare-bones com-
munal room. There were two wooden tables. On one
were baskets of fruit and breads. On the other, in the cor-
ner, were two big coffeepots. One was being refilled by a
tiny, wrinkled woman who Canidy guessed had to be
eighty, eighty-five.
Hell, she could be a hundred and eighty-five, for all I know.
The fishermen were freely helping themselves, no one
paying for anything.
4 7 2
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
The woman looked at Canidy and she moved her thin
wrinkled lips into something of a smile. She poured cof-
fee into a chipped and stained white porcelain cup and
held it out to him.
Jackpot.
He smiled and nodded his thanks, then turned to
leave, grabbing a fig from a basket on the way out.
Outside, standing beside one of the iced-down display
tables, he took his first sip of coffee and looked out across
the piers.
The boat with the drunk who’d thrown the cat off
early that morning still had the tarp across it.
Sleeping in . . . must’ve been some bender he was on.
Canidy looked past that boat, to the end of the pier,
where it made a T, and saw a good-sized fishing boat,
about fifty feet, just arriving. Painted on its bow, just be-
low the rusty anchor mounted there, was: stefania.
Two more of the same-looking men—olive-skinned,
dark clothes, dark hair, et cetera, et cetera—jumped
off the Stefania and secured her lines to cleats on the pier.
Canidy took another sip of coffee—and almost blew it
out when he saw a third man get off the boat.
It just can’t be . . .
He had to get a better look and quickly joined the line
of fishermen walking out on the pier.
As he approached the Stefania, it became clear that he
was not seeing things.
Although the guy had his back to him, there was no
doubt whatever that this guy was not average. He was big
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 7 3
and burly—easily six-two, two-fifty—and towered over
everyone else.
And then Canidy saw who was onboard handing the
big guy a wooden crate.
I knew it!
Canidy stepped closer and said quietly, “I don’t sup-
pose there’s fish in that box, huh, Frank?”
Francisco Nola turned to look but did not appear to
be particularly surprised to see Dick Canidy standing on
a pier in Palermo.
The monster fishmonger, however, almost dropped
the wooden crate into the sea.
Nola looked around the pier, then jerked his head
toward the cabin of his boat.
“C’mon aboard,” he said softly in English to Canidy.
Nola said something in Sicilian to the monster fish-
monger, then turned to go into the cabin.
Canidy hopped aboard and followed.
“So you couldn’t come with me,” Canidy said, “but here
the hell you are.”
Nola was standing next to the helm of the Stefania,
his arms crossed. He stared at Canidy but did not speak.
“What the hell is that all about?” Canidy said, his
voice rising.
Nola glanced out the window before replying.
“This trip was planned before you were sent to me,”
he said.
4 7 4
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
Canidy shook his head in disbelief.
A member of the crew came up from down below car-
rying another crate. He went out of the cabin without
saying a word.
“What’s in the boxes?” Canidy said.
Nola did not immediately reply.
“Chocolates,” he said finally.
“Bullshit!”
“And medicine.”
Canidy stared at him.
“That I believe. What else?”
Nola shrugged.
“Does it matter?”
Canidy ignored that.
“Maybe weapons?” he went on.
Nola looked out the window, then back at Canidy.
“You know whose side I’m on.”
“How did you get this stuff into Algiers?”
“If you know who loads the Liberty ships in New
York, you can figure out who unloads them here.”
Canidy nodded, and thought, And a crate here and a
crate there that goes missing, or isn’t listed on a manifest . . .
doesn’t exist. Nice.
“How do you get to come in and out of here? They
let you?”
“Not everyone. We have to wait till a German named
Müller is away or otherwise distracted.” He paused. “We
have always run an import-export business. Olive oil,
tomatoes, and more out. Merchandise in. It is overlooked
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 7 5
now because you can always find someone willing to look
the other way if it is to his advantage.”
He held up his right hand and rubbed his thumb and
index finger together.
“Why didn’t you tell me you did this—that you ran
boats here?”
Nola grinned.
“You didn’t ask.”
Canidy made a sour face.
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
“Look,” Nola said reasonably, “I would have. But you
were interested in Porto Empedocle.”
Canidy stared at him.
Dammit. He’s right. That’s when I thought we were go-
ing to bring the professor out that way.
“I thought that that was where we’d bring out Pro-
fessor Rossi.”
“Rossi?”
“Yeah. Know him?”
Nola shook his head.
Canidy said, “He’s at the university here—”
“Yes,” Nola said. “His sister is my cousin’s neighbor.
They used to sometimes have dinners, then play cards.
Dr. Napoli and Dr. Modica, too, but no longer. I hear
both are dead.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know Rossi?”
“I don’t. I said his sister—”
“Jesus Christ!” Canidy exploded.
What is it with this guy?
4 7 6
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
He should be a lawyer!
Or maybe I should ask better questions . . .
I’d better start again.
“Sorry, Frank,” Canidy said, and took a deep breath.
“Can you get me to Rossi?”
[ FOUR ]
Port of Palermo
Palermo, Sicily
1805 25 March 1943
The Stefania, her diesel engine idling, was moored next
to the huge cargo ship when Dick Canidy helped Profes-
sor Arturo Rossi aboard.
Rossi, carrying a suitcase packed with his papers from
his office at the university, tried to move too quickly and
nearly fell into the dark water.
Canidy took the suitcase and Rossi awkwardly rushed
again to get aboard.
He made it, and Canidy then handed the suitcase over
and hopped aboard with his duffel.
As he helped the professor into the cabin, Canidy
thought, He’s been in high gear since the very second he un-
derstood that I could get him the hell out of here.
Keeping him under wraps the last few days has been
tough.
And no wonder.
He loses two dear colleagues—one to a heinous disease,
the other shot in front of him by that Müller from the SS—
then is tapped to take their place in that hellhole of a villa.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 7 7
It was the same as a death sentence.
Canidy helped Rossi get comfortable on a bunk down
below.
At least the villa is history . . . or will be in two hours,
when Nola’s men fire the fuses to the C-2 I set for them.
Canidy looked out the porthole at the harbor.
But I still don’t know what the hell Donovan meant
about something bigger.
Maybe it was the viruses . . .
“Thank you,” Rossi said.
“You’re welcome, Professor.”
Rossi looked at him oddly.
“Something bothering you, Professor?”
He shook his head.
“Just what are you going to do about the Tabun?”
Rossi said.
Tabun? Canidy thought.
He said, “Tabun, as in gas?”
“Yes. That’s also why you’re here, no?”
Canidy did not answer.
“Why Tabun?” he said.
“You’ve seen how few Germans there are here,” the
professor explained.
Next to none.
“Yeah.”
“Well, in anticipation of an Allied landing on an island
it can barely hold because they’re stretched so thin, the
Germans have very quietly brought in their first ship-
ment of the nerve agent.”
Jesus! That stuff is worse than yellow fever. It targets
4 7 8
W . E . B . G R I F F I N
organs, and it makes muscles twitch till the victim collapses
from exhaustion— and dies.
“Where is it?”
Rossi pointed out the porthole, to the darkened cargo
ship moored nearby.
Canidy dug into his duffel and came out with the last
two pounds of Composition C-2, then went topside.
Nola stood at the helm.
“You ready?” Nola said.
“You have any men on the dock?” Canidy replied.
Nola shook his head.
“They are all aboard. There’s no one out there.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Canidy said, and reached to
set his watch.
Nola touched his watch to adjust it.
Canidy said, “Mark.”
Canidy then went out of the cabin, jumped on the pier,
and ran toward the cargo ship.
Nola looked at his watch. Nine minutes had passed since
Canidy left.
He stuck his head out the door of the cabin.
“Cast off the lines,” he called to his men.
The men untied the bow and stern lines from the
cleats on the pier, then leaped back aboard, coiling the
lines as they went.
Nola checked his watch.
The second hand swept the face.
Ten minutes.
T H E S A B O T E U R S
4 7 9
He looked back to the pier, saw no one, and frowned.
His right hand reached up and bumped forward the
lever that controlled the transmission.
As the Stefania slowly moved ahead, Nola turned the
wooden spoke wheel to port and her bow began to angle
out toward the open sea.
Just as the transom cleared the end of the pier, Nola
heard a heavy thump, thump aft of him.
He did not turn around to look.
It was the unmistakable sound of feet hitting the deck.
The Stefania was dead in the water—her engine off and
all lights out—just north of Mondello, which was just be-
low the Villa del Archimedes at Partanna.
It had been an hour since she had left the dock at
Palermo, and Dick Canidy, sitting on the transom and
peering toward shore through a pair of battered binocu-
lars, was beginning to question his skills.
He let the binocs hang from the strap around his
neck, looked again at his watch, then back toward land—
and then there came a small explosion followed by a sec-
ond one, and then by a much louder one.
It lit the night.
“That third one,” he said to no one in particular,
“must have been the fuel cell cooking off. Or . . . maybe
there was something more onboard that ship.”
“Whatever it was,” the professor replied, “judging by
the fire plume, it totally consumed everything aboard.”
There was a loud rush of water about one hundred
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W . E . B . G R I F F I N
yards north of their position. Everyone turned to see the
great black bulk of a submarine. It was lit by the glow in
the sky.
Canidy turned to the professor.
“There’s our ride,” he said. “Too bad we can’t stick
around to see the villa go up. That’s going to be one of
my masterpieces.”
W.E.B. Griffin is the author of six bestselling series: The
Corps, Brotherhood of War, Badge of Honor, Men at
War, Honor Bound, and Presidential Agent. He has been
invested into the orders of St. George of the U.S. Armor
Association, and St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation
Association, and is a life member of the U.S. Special Op-
erations Association; Gaston-Lee Post 5660, Veterans of
Foreign Wars; China Post #1 in Exile of the American
Legion; and the Police Chiefs Association of Southeast
Pennsylvania, South New Jersey, and Delaware. He is an
honorary member of the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou
Association, the U.S. Army Special Forces Association,
the U.S. Marine Corps Raider Association, and the
USMC Combat Correspondents Association. Visit his
website at www.webgriffin.com.
William E. Butterworth IV has been a writer and edi-
tor for major newspapers and magazines for twenty-five
years, and has worked closley with his father for several
years on the editing of the Griffin books. He lives in
Texas.
Document Outline
Cover Page
Praise
Also by W.E.B. Griffin
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Epigraph Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
About the Authors