The midget nodded once and without a word went out the door.

Canidy looked again at the Tommy guns standing in the corner.

"Dumb question," Canidy said. "Where did all the American weapons come from? Those Thompsons, and I saw that Shorty-I mean, Vito-has a Model 1903 Colt."

Palasota chuckled. "You are lucky he doesn't know English. If he heard you call him that, he might use it."

"That doesn't answer my question," Canidy said. "Most Model 1903s I've seen have belonged to general officers. Shor- Vito isn't quite in their league."

"Actually, the real story is I've got more Berettas and Lugers than I know what to do with. They're worthless pieces of shit, as far as I'm concerned. Worse than that compared to the Colts. As for them being carried by officers, that may be true, but first guy I saw packing a 1903 was in Chicago-Alfonso Capone?"

Jesus. All these wise guys are connected!

Canidy grunted.

"Yeah, I've heard of Al."

"So I've been having Colts and Thompsons, same as I carried in New York, shipped here since I arrived. Joey Socks gets them, then Francisco Nola, until he disappeared anyway, was smuggling them for me."

No surprise there . . . Lanza's office is where I got my Johnny gun.

Need to change the name of that place from Fulton Fish Market to Fulton Black Market.

There was a knock at the door, and the door immediately swung open.

Vito entered, trailed by Andrea Buda. Canidy saw that she was nicely dressed but not in anything revealing like the hookers wore. There was something different about her, then he realized that she had had her shoulder-length thick chestnut brown hair cut short.

Changing her appearance on purpose?

Better to hide from the SS?

The shorter hair seems to accentuate those breasts. . . .

Her dark almond eyes glanced around the office.

When she saw Canidy, he started to smile and was about to say "Ciao" when he saw her eyes grow huge-and furious.

She began screaming at him, then lunged. Vito, trying to restrain her, grabbed her around the waist and dug in his heels-but only managed to get dragged across the office.

Canidy caught her wrists as she started hitting him openhanded on his chest.

"Andrea!" Palasota yelled.

IX.

[ONE].

OSS London Station Berkeley Square London, England 1410 31 May 1943 "That's right, General Sikorski," Colonel David Bruce said into his telephone as he made notes on a legal pad. "Sausagemaker confirms that they got the latest delivery. I'll let you know when I know more."

Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens-standing at the desk and holding a stack of manila folders-watched Bruce hang up the phone, stare at it a long moment, then grunt.

Bruce looked up at Stevens and said, "We could turn over the entire U.S. Army and Navy to Sikorski and it wouldn't be enough. That makes their third supply drop for May, right?"

"Yeah," Stevens said. "His Tourists distributed the first two to underground cells in the north, and this third went to Szerynski in the south. It had the usual five thousand pounds of"-he flipped open the top folder and read from a sheet-"four Browning thirty cal machine guns, forty-four thirty cal carbines, fifty-five Sten submachine guns, and just over forty thousand rounds of ammo, plus a couple hundred pounds of Composition C-2."

"How much more can we get our hands on, and how quickly?"

Stevens looked back to the folder and began flipping pages.

"Two more on hand. That's an additional five tons' worth. And enough coming in today to put together another." He looked up. "I can't say exactly how long it'll take-a day or three? Sometimes longer-to requisition more."

David Bruce noted that on his pad.

"See what you can find out soonest, Ed, and let me know so I can relay that to Donovan. He says to send more immediately."

"Got it. I'll get working on the two we have on hand, then start the paperwork for more."

"Anything else?" Bruce said somewhat impatiently.

"Szerynski said that he is taking a team back to that camp they found the Germans building in southern Poland. They want to see what's happened since they took out the train carrying Wernher von Braun's assistant, and see if there is anything else that they can sabotage."

"They're going back that soon?"

"It has been seven, eight days."

"Dulles says that the Germans have not even mentioned the sabotage, let alone the loss of that assistant . . . Schwartz?"

"Yes, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Klaus Schwartz, the chemist."

Bruce shook his head. "What could the rocket scientist's chemist assistant have been doing that would warrant such silence? Even Dulles's connections in the Abwehr can't find out-not only what he was up to but that he died doing it."

"I don't get it either," Stevens said. "Normally, Hitler's High Command would be ordering some ridiculously extravagant service, the casket covered in medals, to honor one of their fallen great SS heroes."

There came a rap at the open door, and when they looked they saw the commo room chief in the doorway.

"Colonel, sir," Captain Tom Harrison said, "another Eyes Only Operational Immediate for you. Busy day, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it, Harrison," Bruce said, waving him in.

Harrison purposefully marched in and went through the ritual of extending the clipboard for Bruce to sign the Receipt for Classified Document, then Harrison handed him the document with the TOP SECRET cover sheet.

Harrison saluted, then after seeing that Bruce's attention was on the message, gave up waiting for it to be returned, and marched out.

"Oh, what the hell?" Bruce said after he'd read the first two paragraphs:

TOP SECRET.

OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE.

X STATION CHIEF.

FILE.

COPY NO. 1.

OF 1 COPY ONLY.

31MAY43 1630.

FOR OSS LONDON.

EYES ONLY COL BRUCE, LT COL STEVENS.

FROM OSS ALGIERS.

BEGIN QUOTE.

DAVID,.

GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS, YOU DECIDE. WE ALREADY HAVE AGENT IN-COUNTRY FOR ALLEN DULLES'S REQUEST.

JUPITER, UNKNOWN TO AFHQ AND AGAINST IKE'S WISHES, HAS BEEN IN SICILY ALMOST 24 HOURS. HIS MISSION: (A) LOCATE AND RESCUE MAXIMUS AND OPTIMUS (B) LOCATE AND DESTROY ANY NEW TABUN MUNITIONS (C) DETERMINE VALIDITY OF REPORTS OF UPWARD OF HALF-MILLION ENEMY TROOPERS. AND NOW, IN RECEIPT OF MY MESSAGE TODAY, (D) LOCATE AND BE PREPARED TO ELIMINATE SS-OBERSTURMBANNFUHRER OSKAR KAPPLER SOONEST BUT BY 7 JUNE.

LT COL J WARREN OWEN -- KNOWING NONE, REPEAT NONE, OF THE ABOVE -- TODAY INFORMED ME THAT AFHQ BEGINS SOFT BOMBING OF SICILY ON 17 JUNE, AFTER DIVERSIONARY SOFT BOMBING OF SARDINIA, CORSICA, AND PORT OF NAPLES ON 7 JUNE.

LASTLY, AN INTERESTING PIECE FOR OUR PUZZLE. AS A WAY TO KEEP OSS BUSY -- AND PRESUMABLY THE HELL OUT OF AFHQ'S WAY -- LT COL OWEN HAS BEEN SENDING GERMAN AND ITALIAN GENERAL OFFICERS TAKEN POW IN TUNISIA TO BE INTERROGATED BY US AT OSS DELLYS.

OUR CHIEF INTERROGATOR IS CAPT JIMBO LINDER, A NORTH CAROLINIAN FLUENT IN GERMAN WHO WAS SCHOOLED IN SWITZERLAND AND UPON GRADUATION RETURNED TO STATES AND JOINED NAVY. LINDER, AS SHARP AS THEY COME, MISSES NOTHING.

IN THE COURSE OF INTERVIEWING AFRIKA KORPS MAJ GEN HELMUT VON ECKARDT, OF THE 5TH PANZER ARMY, LINDER THOUGHT THAT HE WOULD BE CORDIAL TO THE GENERAL AND CASUALLY MENTIONED THAT CONDITIONS FOR VON ECKARDT SOON WOULD IMPROVE WHEN HE WOULD BE SENT TO BE INTERRED IN LONDON.

LINDER SAID VON ECKARDT DAMN NEAR CAME UNGLUED. HE TRIED -- AND MISERABLY FAILED -- TO CONCEAL DEEP CONCERN ABOUT THE TRANSFER. VON ECKARDT ANNOUNCED THAT HE WAS QUITE CONTENT WITH REMAINING IN DELLYS UNTIL WAR'S END, WHICH HE SUGGESTED WOULD COME SOON ENOUGH. WHEN LINDER ATTEMPTED TO FIND A REASON, VON ECKARDT GAVE UP NO CLUE.

LINDER KNEW THAT HE SMELLED A RAT, THAT IT WAS EVIDENT VON ECKARDT FEARED SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT. WHILE THE VILLA THAT VON ECKARDT SHARES WITH TWO OTHER OFFICERS, ONE GERMAN AND ONE ITALIAN, IS AS NICE AS ANY QUARTERS IN DELLYS, ALMOST ANYTHING IN LONDON WOULD BE A VAST IMPROVEMENT.

THE VILLA IS WIRED, AND WE MADE CERTAIN THAT COGNAC AND SCHNAPPS WERE IN AMPLE SUPPLY.

THE NEXT NIGHT, AFTER LINDER'S INTERROGATION OF AFRIKA KORPS COL LUDWIG MULLER, MULLER AND VON ECKARDT WERE HAVING AFTER-DINNER DRINKS. MULLER ANNOUNCED THAT HE WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING TRANSFERRED TO LONDON. THEIR LOUD ANIMATED CONVERSATION THAT FOLLOWED, FUELED BY THE ALCOHOL, WAS CLEARLY RECORDED BY OUR LISTENING DEVICES.

VON ECKARDT TOLD MULLER THAT THEY QUOTE DON'T WANT TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR LONDON WHEN WERNHER VON BRAUN'S VERGELTUNGSWAFFE BEGIN FALLING UNQUOTE.

VON ECKARDT DESCRIBED THE V-1 AND V-2 AERIAL TORPEDOES AS BEING ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP, AND COMPLETELY DEVASTATING, SUCCEEDING WHERE THE BLITZ ON LONDON HAD FAILED. VON ECKARDT WENT SO FAR AS TO SAY TO MULLER THAT HE WOULD TAKE HIS OWN LIFE BEFORE BEING SENT TO LONDON.

LINDER IS NOW WORKING ON A METHOD TO FIND OUT WHAT EXACTLY VON ECKARDT KNOWS ABOUT BOMBS, INCLUDING CURRENTLY INTERVIEWING HIM ABOUT PREVIOUS COMMANDS THAT MAY INDIRECTLY POINT TO HIS INVOLVEMENT WITH SAME.

WILL KEEP YOU POSTED ON ALL THE ABOVE. AND LET ME KNOW WHAT WILD BILL WANTS JUPITER TO DO WITH KAPPLER.

END QUOTE.

FINE.

TOP SECRET.

Bruce passed the message to Stevens and angrily said, "That damn Canidy is back in Sicily! What does he think he's doing?"

Stevens read it, then said, "Dick has his hands full, that's for sure. I know you don't like what he tends to do, but you have to admit he gets the job done-"

"But at what cost? He's risking not just his life."

"-and if he can quickly get to Oskar Kappler in such a way that old man Kappler believes Bormann made good on his threat to harm his family, then the old man will really work to help us."

Bruce looked at him a long moment.

"Let's leave that to Stan," he said, then tapped his writing pad. "We have Kappler's wife and daughter to deal with."

Stevens nodded, then looked back at Fine's message.

"At least Ike having Jimmy Doolittle's bombers strike farther north will keep Hitler guessing-convince him we are softening them up and bypassing Sicily entirely. And maybe keep attention off Canidy."

"What do you think about that general? That's really the first word we've heard about the aerial torpedoes that's not been fed to us or been pure propaganda. Short of von Braun, it's right from the horse's mouth."