"Hijack the U-boat?" Canidy said, incredulous.

Beck shook his head.

"Too big. Too difficult. The other one I can run single-handedly, more or less. I was in the Kriegsmarine." He looked at Canidy and added, "And you were in the U.S. Navy, yes?"

"Yeah, but as an aviator," Canidy said, mimicked an airplane with his left hand, then looked back at the port. "So, you're going to steal that S-boat?"

He shook his head again. "Borrow it. I'll bring it back."

Canidy chuckled and said, "I knew I liked you for a reason."

He then said: "Serious question: How the hell are we going to approach the Casabianca with a fucking enemy S-boat?"

"Serious answer?" Beck said. "Carefully. Very fucking carefully."

He looked at his watch.

"The S-boat has a complement of twenty-four. After they refuel and provision the S-boat for its nightly mission-which will happen anytime now-the crew will then come ashore to dine, leaving maybe one or two sailors aboard on watch." Beck paused as he looked to see if there were any questions. There were none, and he went on: "Then the U-boat crew will be flooding in here as usual right after six o'clock-which is in an hour and fifteen minutes."

"What about her captain?" Canidy said. "He's not going to Jimmy's brothel."

Palasota, tapping his fingertips to his chest, said, "Leave that to me. He will be my guest as we celebrate the new command of Lieutenant Mario Fiorini of the Regia Marina."

Canidy considered that, then said, "How do we get Tubes aboard?"

They all gave that a moment's thought.

Then Palasota said: "Easy. Same way we got him up here. But this time we cover him up on a gurney and have two of my men carry the passed-out drunken sailor back to his U-boat. At that point, we'll get the S-boat sailors to lend a hand-and take over their vessel."

"Simple enough," Canidy said. "And how are we going to get Gimpy here aboard? Same way?"

"You're not going to," John Craig said.

"What?" Canidy said.

"All things being equal, Dick, I'd just as well not get on the sub. Do I have to remind you how well I did on Hank's Gooney Bird?"

Canidy looked at him a long moment.

"Dick, I'm staying behind."

"Are you crazy?" Canidy said, then noticed Andrea Buda was watching John Craig with a keen interest.

And there's something in her eyes . . . do they have something going?

"I can keep the station going," John Craig said. "We never had a resistance built; now we can, with Jimmy Skinny. 'This is the lesson . . .' remember?"

John Craig saw Canidy looking at Andrea.

"Look," he then said, "there's not been a good time to get into this. Andrea said Tubes never touched her."

"What?"

"All that he sent me in the messages was boasting-but it was about a hooker. He was coming here instead, and it's probably how the SS caught him."

Canidy looked to Palasota, who nodded and said, "Makes sense. He was here . . . then he wasn't."

Canidy exhaled audibly, then looked at John Craig.

"Go get back on the radio with Neptune. Message back: quote We have commandeered S-boat. Do not repeat do not let loose any fish. Vessel is number S-323. If you miss vessel number, look for the colors. We will be flying France's new national flag. Signed Jupiter unquote."

"Got it. What's this about a French flag?"

"Just do it."

"Aye-aye, sir," John Craig said, then exchanged smiles with Andrea as he hobbled out the door.

When Canidy entered the S-boat's bridge, the man in the Kriegsmarine uniform at the helm startled him. But when he turned and looked at Canidy, he suddenly looked familiar.

"Welcome aboard. Oberleutnant zur See Ludwig Fahr at your service," Ernst Beck said, making a motion that somewhat resembled a salute.

"No shit," Canidy said. "Where did you get the uniform?"

Beck smiled and pointed up toward the Hotel Michelangelo.

"Right now, or very shortly," he said, "there is a rather embarrassed-and buck naked-Kriegsmarine leutnant asking a hooker if she has perhaps seen his uniform."

Canidy smiled, then looked aft. He saw that Tubes Fuller was in one of two bunks on the back wall of the bridge. He was out cold.

"Where's Kappler?" Canidy said.

"Down below, staying out of sight until we're under way."

Beck made what looked to Canidy like the practiced survey of a professional seaman. Beck then made a final full inspection of the vessel's perimeter, and unceremoniously said, "All lines free, let's get out of here."

There were two groups of three levers each on the console. The forward three had black knobs, the rear group red knobs. He reached for the far left of the black knobs and pushed it forward, engaging the port engine transmission. The S-boat immediately began moving forward and away from the pier.

Beck glanced around the perimeter of the ship, said, "Well, we didn't bring any of the dock with us. That's always a good sign."

They were thirty meters under way when Beck reached forward and pushed the other two black knobs fully forward. Canidy could feel the S-boat respond almost immediately. Its bow rose and the stern settled in a little as it moved forward faster.

Canidy watched Beck, scanning the harbor as he made gentle turns for the mouth, then wrap his fist in an extended fashion over the group of levers with the red knobs. As soon as Beck saw ahead was nothing but open sea, he pushed the three red knobs to about three-quarter throttle.

The triple two-thousand-horsepower Daimler-Benz diesels roared, producing a massive black exhaust cloud behind the boat.

The noise level at the helm was considerably louder, and when Beck turned to Canidy and gestured at the console, he had to almost shout to be heard: "Any idea which of these levers works the brakes?"

The S-boat banged through somewhat choppy seas for two hours. Kappler had come up to the bridge and with Canidy watched Beck's almost casual running of the vessel, working its radar and monitoring its radio. While Canidy had been duly impressed-he knew that anything that looked simple usually was exactly anything but that-Kappler became bored and crashed in the empty bunk above Tubes.

Beck, with his face dimly lit in the green glow of the control panel lights, looked at Canidy and raised his voice to be heard above the engine noise: "Should be about another hour."

Canidy nodded.

Then, ten minutes later, he saw Beck's expression change in the green glow as he rapidly tapped the screen of the radar.

"Shit!" he said. "We've got company."

Then the radio squawked, an urgent German voice repeating an order.

"What's he saying?" Canidy said.

"For us to identify ourselves."

Which if we do, Canidy thought, we may get blown out of the water for having stolen the boat.

And if we don't, we'll damn sure get shot at.

"Christ!" Beck said, pointing at the radar. "There's a hot fish in the water! We're under fire!"

Beck made a course correction, then reached up and threw two toggle switches. Lights above each of them glowed red.

"May as well get rid of some weight," Beck said casually. "Turnabout, they say, is fair play."

One of the lights turned green, then the other one did.

Beck hit one toggle-and the S-boat shuddered as a torpedo fired. After a count of three, he hit the second toggle, and there was another shudder. He then made a hard turn to port, started an evasive series of zigzags, and finally straightened out and pushed the triple throttles all the way forward.

He glanced at Canidy and grinned. The noise was now too great for anything said.

[FOUR].

39 degrees 01 minute North Latitude 12 degrees 23 minutes East Longitude Aboard the Casabianca Mediterranean Sea 2335 1 June 1943 Commander Jean L'Herminier, chief officer of the Free French Forces submarine, stood five-foot-seven and maybe 140. The thirty-five-year-old carried himself with an easygoing, soft-spoken confidence. He approached his executive officer-a frail-looking sad-eyed Frenchman a head shorter than the commander-who for the last hour had had his eyes glued to the periscope.

"Sir, I have visual on another S-boat," the executive officer said.

This made the second Kriegsmarine patrol boat they had picked up on radar in the last three hours.

The XO added, "It's too damn dark to make out her hull number, sir."

"Understood. Canidy's message clearly stated that confirmation of our target vessel will be that it is flying France's new colors."

"Yes, sir. I don't quite understand that, but I am looking. . . ."

After a moment, the XO exclaimed, "Sacre bleu! Those sons of whores!"

"What?" L'Herminier said as he watched the XO step back from the scope.

"They mock us!" the XO almost spat out, indignant.

L'Herminier stepped to the periscope and had a look.

The XO could not believe his eyes and ears the next moment when L'Herminier chuckled, then stepped away from the periscope and began laughing hysterically at what appeared to be a white bedsheet flying above the S-boat's bridge.

The memory of being under fire only six months earlier still was a fresh wound. Ignoring demands of the admiralty of Vichy France that French ships be scuttled at Toulon, L'Herminier had sailed for North Africa-saving his ship and men from surrender.

And now L'Herminier remembered Canidy's descriptive word for Vichy France.

The commander turned to his XO and ordered, "Prepare to surface and make contact. Signal code word 'chickenshits.'"

[FIVE].

OSS London Station London, England 1200 17 June 1943 "And then they got out on a Kriegsmarine patrol boat," Lieutentant Colonel Ed Stevens was telling Brigadier General William Donovan, "one flying the new colors of France."

David Bruce grunted derisively.

As Donovan was about to say something, there was a knock at the door.

"Come!" Bruce called.

"Well," Wild Bill said, "if it's not our favorite loose cannon."

Dick Canidy wasn't sure how to respond.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, sir. My apology for being late."

"I'm just damn glad you're here," Donovan said. "And with Kappler safe."

"Yes, sir. Thank you."