TOP SECRET.

OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE.

X STATION CHIEF.

FILE.

COPY NO. 1.

OF 1 COPY ONLY.

26MAY43 0615.

FOR OSS ALGIERS STATION.

EYES ONLY CAPT FINE.

FROM MERCURY STATION.

BEGIN QUOTE.

1. ITALIAN AND GERMAN FORCES ARRIVING PORT OF MESSINA DAILY VIA FERRY FROM ITALY MAINLAND.

ITALIANS -- ELEMENTS OF ITALIAN 6TH ARMY. EXPECT TOTAL OF 250,000 TROOPS BY END OF MONTH.

GERMANS -- 2 PANZER DIVISIONS WITH 60,000 TROOPS SPLIT BETWEEN PALERMO AND MESSINA. ANOTHER 4 DIVISIONS WITH 120,000 TROOPS SAID TO ARRIVE BY MID-JUNE AND MOVE TOWARD SOUTH COAST. MESSINA BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE IT COULD BE DOWNTOWN BERLIN.

SOURCE: OPTIMUS BOAT CREW.

2. EVERY DAY 4 HEAVILY GUARDED TRAINS, WITH 25-30 CARS EACH, LOADED WITH MILITARY VEHICLES, TANKS, AND ACK-ACK GUNS LEAVE MESSINA AT 1700 GMT FOR CATANIA AND SYRACUSE, AND 1 TRAIN WITH SIMILAR CARS AND CARGO LEAVES EACH DAY AT 1900 GMT FOR PALERMO.

SOURCE: TRAINMASTER AT MESSINA.

MAXIMUS.

END QUOTE.

TOP SECRET.

"That's almost a half-million soldiers," Canidy said, handing back the message. "And a hundred and fifty railcars loaded with tanks and howitzers every day?"

Fine nodded.

Canidy thought for a moment, then said: "It's-what?-two miles across the Strait of Messina to the toe of Italy?"

"A little farther, but not quite three."

"And Sicily is the same time as here-"

"Same, GMT plus one," Fine supplied.

"-so that means they're moving the trains at night. Which would make them harder targets." Canidy paused, then said, his tone incredulous, "A half-million men? Those have to be exaggerated numbers. How the hell could Tubes possibly know that?" Then his tone turned sarcastic as he added, "Not from Frank Nola's brilliant boat captains."

"Well, those fishing boats do spend a lot of time in the various ports, and their crews have a lot of connections there-"

"Connections?" Canidy interrupted. "They're all practically related. Tweedle Fucking Dee and Dumb come immediately to mind."

"-But I agree the numbers are likely inflated. It makes perfect sense that the Germans would want us to believe they're putting more forces there, particularly after Mincemeat."

Canidy knew a number of minor ruses de guerre had been put in play in anticipation of the Sicily invasion, including British Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson's army, based in Egypt, making movements that looked like preparations for its invasion of Greece and then the threat of advancing further to the Balkans.

But the biggest deception had been OPERATION MINCEMEAT.

In late April, "Major Martin"-a cadaver in a Royal Marines battledress uniform with a briefcase chained to him-had been set adrift from a British submarine just off "neutral" Spain. Secret and personal papers in the briefcase had been created at OSS Whitbey House Station to suggest the major was a courier en route from the United Kingdom to Allied Forces Headquarters when his aircraft crashed and he washed ashore. After the "most secret" papers-disinformation on the true plans for OPERATION HUSKY-fell into the hands of Spaniards sympathetic to Hitler, they were photographed by German agents and the copies sent up to the German High Command.

ULTRA-the code name given to intelligence that was taken from intercepts of secret messages encrypted by German Enigma cipher machines-quietly revealed every step along the way. Including that German intel personnel in Berlin then judged the content of the materials to be entirely credible.

"According to Ultra," Fine went on, "Hitler has just now-on May thirteenth-announced that he believes the Sicily invasion is a diversion, and that, as Major Martin's Top Secret papers said, Greece is next. Which of course was exactly what he feared, making the whole deception even more believable to him."

"Tell them what they want to hear," Canidy said.

"Right. So Hitler has demanded that 'measures regarding Sardinia and the Peloponnese take precedence over everything else.'"

He gestured at the shorter of the two piles of messages.

"There's traffic in there from the two Sandbox teams that we sent in to support the Greek resistance. As the Germans begin moving armored divisions by train to Greece, the teams will help the resistance in taking out bridges and rails to keep those divisions there-and far away from being able to reinforce Italy and Sicily."

Canidy pointed to the message from MERCURY STATION.

"It would not hurt to have another team go in to see if we can corroborate any of what's in that. And another team to save Tubes's ass. I left the poor bastard there. . . ."

Fine exchanged a long look with Canidy, then said, "Jim wanted to go operational. You know that, Dick."

"Yeah, I do. And he actually did a damn good job while I was there with him."

"And you do know that twice we sent in teams to try locating him and Nola, right?"

"Twice? What happened?"

"Each time Mercury Station went off the air. And when it finally returned, it was always with the excuse that Nola had had to go deep underground to evade the Italian secret police, and Tubes went along to keep the station from being detected. Then suddenly the station's back up and he's sending these detailed messages."

Canidy shook his head. "Assuming they are in fact under SS control, we're damn lucky the SS didn't set up a trap for those teams-lure them in to execute them."

ULTRA had revealed one of Adolf Hitler's secret orders, issued on October 18, 1942: "All enemies on commando missions-in or out of uniform, with or without weapons, in battle or in flight-are to be slaughtered to the last man. Should it be found necessary to spare one or two for interrogation purposes, these men are to be shot immediately after interrogation."

"Trust me," Fine said, "knowing that Hitler has ordered that all captured spies be executed, we were very cautious about that. That the teams were not ambushed suggests that the Germans value keeping Mercury Station on-air more."

"And if they'd either killed them or made them controlled, too, that would have sent the signal that Mercury Station was compromised."

Fine nodded.

After a moment, Canidy said: "Then Tubes really is being controlled."

Fine said: "John Craig van der Ploeg has been sending Tubes chickenfeed since that first suspicious message he showed you on April tenth."

While the SS was prone to execute captured enemy agents-something they readily did well before Hitler sent out the order to do so-they would spare those radio operators who agreed to transmit under control. Knowing this, Allied agents were trained to use a secret danger signal that let their case officer know they had been compromised-signing off, for instance, as "Will" instead of the usual "Bill." That allowed the transmission of factual but harmless intel-the so-called chickenfeed-to the agents to keep them alive until a rescue mission could be staged or Allied troops overran their position.

But even without the use of the secret danger signal, chickenfeed could prove effective.

Fine went on: "That was more than a month ago, and John Craig says in that time he's only become more convinced that Tubes hasn't independently worked the radio."

Canidy saw Fine's eyes look beyond him, past the pair of French doors that opened onto the balcony, which was off the main living area. He heard the sound of footsteps, and then felt the presence of someone standing behind him.

Canidy turned his head in time to hear John Craig van der Ploeg declare, "And I still am convinced of that."

II.

[ONE].

Old City Bern, Switzerland 2046 25 May 1943 "That skittish bastard gave us only a two-hour heads-up," the driver of the black taxicab-a somewhat battered 1938 Mercedes-Benz 260D-said to the passenger as he made the turn onto the cobblestones of Kramgasse. "This is our only chance to grab him. Don't screw it up, Eric."

"I won't if you won't," Eric Fulmar replied from the backseat. "Too bad Canidy isn't here. This is right up his alley."

Fulmar was twenty-four years old, blond and blue-eyed, and had a lithe build packing enormous energy and power.

With a slight squeal of brakes, the four-door sedan rolled to a stop one block shy of the medieval Zeitglocke clock tower.

The Zeitglocke-or "time bell," featuring a three-thousand-pound bronze bell struck by a gilded human-sized Chronos, the Greek personification of time-rose almost a dozen stories above the busy Kramgasse. Since the thirteenth century, the baroque-style landmark built of stone had served as a prison, a guard tower, and, now, with its fifteenth-century astronomical clock and nearby shops and coffeehouses, a city attraction popular with those trying to forget a world war threatened their neutral country. That blackout rules were in effect, and the street mostly dark, did not exactly help in that regard.

As the Mercedes's idling diesel engine rattled, Eric Fulmar pulled a Colt Model 1911A .45 ACP pistol from the right pocket of his dark gray woolen overcoat.

The driver-Geoff Sanderson, who was thirty years old, of average build and soft facial features-did not jump or otherwise immediately react when he heard the metallic sound of the semiautomatic's slide pulled back on its spring and then released to slam forward. He was more than accustomed to the sound of a round being chambered. He had done the same with his own .45-which he had on the seat beside him, concealed under a hat-a half hour earlier at the OSS safe house just across the River Aare.

"You're just now remembering to do that?" Sanderson said sharply.

"Better late than never," Fulmar replied matter-of-factly as his thumb clicked down the lever that locked the hammer in its cocked position.

"If you'd thought of it sooner, you'd have had time to feed the magazine another round," Sanderson said, and smugly added, "Like I did."

Fulmar grunted as he slipped the pistol back in his overcoat pocket.

"Unlike you," he said, "I tend to hit what I shoot at with my first shot-if I have to shoot."

He then reached inside his left sleeve and pulled from the scabbard strapped under his forearm a Fairbairn-Sykes, a black doubled-edged dagger. He touched the tip of the slender five-and-a-half-inch-long blade to the back of the driver's neck, added light pressure, and said, "Usually this is all I need."

Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

This time it was Sanderson who grunted.

He then grinned and said, "I thought I taught you never to bring a knife to a gunfight."

Fulmar grinned back. He knew they both subscribed to what was taught in Canidy's Throat Cutting and Bomb Throwing Academy at OSS Whitbey House Station: If you're close enough to stab them, you're damn sure close enough to shoot them.

"Besides," Sanderson went on, "you know that orders are not to use either unless absolutely necessary-we want this bastard alive."

Then Sanderson's eyes suddenly darted to the windshield. It took some effort to make out details down the dark, crowded street, but he could see just enough. Then he glanced at his wristwatch, then back out the windshield.

"It's five of nine," Sanderson said. "Almost time. Can you see the tall guy, the silver-haired one with the gray homburg? He's at two o'clock, in front of the cafe."

Fulmar, carefully sliding his Fairbairn back into its sheath, looked down the block.

Kramgasse was wide and lined on both sides with ancient four-story stone buildings. As was common in Old City Bern, above the street-level shops and restaurants were three stories of apartments. He saw couples and clusters of small groups up and down the street and gathered around the Zeitglocke tower at the far end of Kramgasse.

And standing just outside a shadow of the Zeitglocke was the tall man with the homburg.

The hat was not resting on his head but instead cradled under his left arm. He slowly and meticulously ate an ice cream cone that was in his right hand.

"How the hell can I miss him?" Fulmar said. "Fritz, right? What is he, six-four and two-forty?"

"Yeah, something like that. And to repeat myself, when Fritz turns the hat so that its crown is against his coat it means-"