After a moment, Canidy made a face that he understood, then said: "Change of subject: Have they come up with a D-day for Husky?"

"Which D-day?"

"There's more than one? How can that be?"

"Right now, it's next Wednesday."

"Next Wednesday?" Canidy repeated, his tone incredulous.

Fine grinned and looked at John Craig van der Ploeg.

"Tell him, son."

"You've heard," John Craig began, "that 'Three can keep a secret-'"

"'If two of them are dead,'" Canidy finished. "You probably learned that in my Throat Cutting and Bomb Throwing course."

John Craig nodded. "As a matter of fact, I did. I also learned that Benjamin Franklin-who knew a thing or two about spying, having been part of the Secret Committee created by the Second Continental Congress in 1775-actually said it first."

"Impressive," Canidy said drily. "And this little bit of trivia of yours has what bearing on D-day?"

"Well," John Craig said, "the minute those proverbial three people hear the date for D-day, word spreads. To throw off the enemy, AFHQ is assigning at least four days as Husky's D-day. The first one is Wednesday of next week. It's what's called 'disinformation.'"

"I know what the hell disinformation is," Canidy snapped. "As I'm sure you've been seeding that disinformation in your messages that we assume are being intercepted by our eager enemies. And the closer we get to Wednesday, the heavier your message traffic will become to give the illusion of a pending invasion."

John Craig nodded. "You have no idea. Our commo room is really busy. We've also been spreading rumors around Algiers that that's the date. With any luck the Krauts will man their guns next Wednesday awaiting a beach assault-and be met with only another lovely Mediterranean sunrise. Then we'll repeat all that with the next date that AFHQ gives us. With more luck, they'll think the date for the real D-day is just more disinformation and not show up."

Canidy grunted. "Don't hold your breath that that will happen."

"Dick," Stan Fine then said, "you didn't hear it from me: It's early July. No hard date yet."

"We're invading Sicily in six, seven weeks?"

Fine nodded.

"What about Corkscrew?" Canidy said. "It has to be right about now."

The primary objective of OPERATION CORKSCREW was the destruction of Pantelleria's airfields and radar installations considered a threat to the invasion of Sicily. Pantelleria, a thirty-two-square-mile island that was thirty miles east of Tunisia and sixty miles southwest of Sicily, had a normal population of about three thousand. Italian soldiers had quadrupled that.

CORKSCREW's secondary objective was to gauge just how many bombs would be required to take the island-information that could then be used in the plans for taking Sicily.

"The heavy pounding starts Wednesday of next week," Fine said.

"No shit? Or is that another bogus date?"

"It's actual," Fine said.

John Craig offered: "That makes the other disinformation not seem intentional. They will think they just misread or misinterpreted what we sent. Right date, wrong island."

Canidy looked at John Craig.

"Believe it or not, I do know how that works," Canidy said, then sighed. "Jesus! All this changes everything with Mercury Station."

[THREE].

Aboard the Sequoia On the Potomac River near Mount Vernon, Virginia 1703 30 May 1943 "You might want to check your line there, General," the President of the United States said casually to the director of the Office of Strategic Services, gesturing with his silver-tipped cigarette holder at the fishing rod that had just barely flexed.

It was a warm, cloudless spring afternoon. William Joseph Donovan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sipping gin and tonic cocktails from squat fine crystal glasses, were seated in heavily varnished mahogany fishing chairs on the stern of the 104-foot-long Sequoia. The wooden motor vessel recently had been replaced as the Presidential Yacht by the 165-foot all-steel U.S.S. Potomac and passed to the secretary of the Navy on the condition that FDR, as he did now, could on occasion borrow her to conduct quiet meetings.

"For fishing expeditions," FDR had explained to Navy Secretary Frank Knox, adding with a conspiratorial grin, "maybe even ones that actually involve a rod and reel."

The Sequoia-running on only one of her twin diesel engines in order to slowly troll the fishing lures-made her way upriver after having cruised down to where the Potomac River flowed into Chesapeake Bay.

The sixty-one-year-old President, looking gaunt and a little tired, wore a long-sleeved white shirt, its cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and khakis, both starched but well wrinkled. A wide-brimmed floppy canvas hat shielded his pale face and scalp from the sun.

Roosevelt held up his glass in the direction of Mount Vernon, now visible on the southern bank.

"A toast to our first commander in chief," the present commander in chief announced, "and spymaster. I trust you're aware that George Washington set up the Continental Army's first intelligence command."

Donovan, a stocky, ruddy-faced, silver-haired Irishman of sixty, was similarly clothed but with a dark blue button-down shirt and no hat.

He smiled and raised his glass toward Washington's estate and said, "Indeed. Knowlton's Rangers, in 1776. Here's to General Washington, who declared, 'The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged.'"

Not lost on Donovan was the connection that Roosevelt was making between FDR and George Washington.

Two years earlier, FDR had asked Donovan to take leave of his successful New York City law firm and become head of the United States' new intelligence organization. It had the innocuous name of the Office of Coordinator of Information, but the Top Secret COI was anything but innocent or harmless.

As its spy chief, Donovan had been a civilian using the title of "colonel," which he'd been in the First World War. But two months ago, in late March 1943, FDR had given Donovan his new commission. COI had become the Office of Strategic Services, and its director was now Brigadier General William Joseph Donovan, USA, a rank more appropriate for America's spymaster.

Roosevelt, whose long history with Donovan dated back to their days as classmates at Columbia Law School, knew that "Wild Bill" was one helluva soldier. The rare kind of leader who men faithfully followed without question. That had been proven without question on the battlefields of France in World War One. Donovan had been with the "Fighting 69th," the National Guard regiment from New York City.

In one particularly bloody engagement, Donovan, his troops taking great casualties and himself badly wounded by machine-gun fire, continually had exposed himself to enemy bullets as he moved among his men. He reorganized the battered platoons, then led them in assault after assault on the enemy. Refusing to be evacuated for his wounds, Donovan continued fighting until confident that his men could withdraw to a less exposed position.

That had earned him the Medal of Honor-America's highest award for valor.

Despite their many differences-FDR was the product of moneyed privilege, while scrappy Donovan's wealth was self-made-Roosevelt recognized that he and Wild Bill shared more than a few qualities, chief among them being tough, intelligent, shrewd sonsofbitches.

This wasn't lost on Donovan, either, but being a tough, intelligent, shrewd sonofabitch, he understood that their relationship, based on genuine mutual respect, was far more professional than an actual close friendship. While they did call themselves pals, Donovan knew that FDR used people-indeed was an unapologetic Machiavellian who took great pleasure in quietly playing people against one another-and was careful not to confuse FDR's attention as anything more than FDR working to get what FDR wanted.

And what FDR always wanted-whether for professional or personal reasons, or both-was solid, truthful information.

In 1920, Roosevelt, then serving as assistant secretary of the Navy, attached Wild Bill to the Office of Naval Intelligence and sent him to collect intelligence in Siberia. Donovan, long the world traveler as he managed the interests of his law firm's international clients, found that he enjoyed being FDR's envoy.

Wild Bill had found a new calling-and Roosevelt had found a source he could trust.

In his first term as President, FDR sent Donovan to get him the facts on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia. (Donovan reported back that the helpless Africans were being slaughtered in the one-sided "war.") And then, in 1940, Donovan was sent by FDR to do the same as another charismatic European leader-this one the chancellor of Germany-was spreading the evil of Fascism.

Adolf Hitler threatened all of Europe-and, Roosevelt feared, maybe beyond.

After a quick trip to England to answer FDR's question-"Can our cousins beat back that bastard Hitler?"-Donovan said the British could not take on the Nazis alone, but for the present they should be able to protect themselves-if aided by the United States.

That wasn't the good news that Roosevelt wanted to hear. But then that was why he had sent Donovan: to get the facts and deliver them unadulterated.

Roosevelt immediately sent Donovan on a longer trip to gather intelligence in the Mediterranean and the Baltics. Three months later, Donovan's report found FDR, now in his third term as President, calculating how a neutral America could help stop the spreading of Fascism and Communism.

He knew only one thing for sure: It would be anything but easy.

FDR solemnly believed in the oath of defending the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Yet in order to protect the U.S.-as well as effectively deal with America's isolationists who vehemently opposed the U.S. getting involved in another world war-he needed not just more intelligence but more solid intelligence.

He was up to his ears in the former. It came from the vast U.S. government agencies-starting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its director, the relentless J. Edgar Hoover-set up to collect exactly that. But when combined with intel provided by others, such as the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Military Intelligence Division, a perfectly clear picture rarely came into focus.

The reason for this was because of each organization's first priority: self-preservation. Intelligence provided to the President, they deeply believed, should always shine a favorable light on the agency and, conversely, should never ever make said agency look bad. And the way to do that was to provide the President with what he wanted to hear-thus making the agency appear brilliant-and squash anything that didn't.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who from time to time admitted having an ego, thought it remotely possible that he might, key word might, suffer some failing-but being a naive fool certainly wasn't one. He understood what was going on, and what he needed, and who could get it for him.

Thus, in July of 1941, using his presidential emergency unvouchered funds, he created the secret new office of Coordinator of Information, and named Wild Bill Donovan its chief. He then quietly announced to the heads of the various intelligence agencies that Donovan's office would collect all national security information from them, analyze it, and deliver his findings directly to the President.

In FDR's mind, this of course would be just as Donovan had done since FDR, as assistant secretary of the Navy, had sent him around the world to serve as his eyes and ears.

The heads of the various intelligence agencies, however, were of a different mind. Put mildly, they were less than pleased. Turf battles reached a fevered pitch. And Donovan found his COI more or less shunned.

After almost a year, FDR relented to the argument of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that highly sensitive military intelligence should not be evaluated by an organization outside the military. The President ordered that the COI become the Office of Strategic Services, complete with the ability to collect its own intel, and that Donovan report to General George Catlett Marshall, chairman of the JCS.

Now it was Wild Bill Donovan who made the expected noises to demonstrate his displeasure. But no more than necessary. Because, being a tough, intelligent, shrewd sonofabitch, he was well aware that his relationship with another tough, intelligent, shrewd sonofabitch really had not changed.

He would always have direct access to the President.

[FOUR].

Roosevelt watched as the tip of Donovan's bamboo fishing rod flexed once more, then the line began screaming off its bulky reel.

Donovan quickly put his cocktail glass on the teak deck and pulled the rod butt from its holder.

"Told you," FDR said with a chuckle, then in a mischievous tone added: "You never listen to me, Bill."

"Please accept my sincere apology, Mr. President, sir," Donovan said drily.

As he raised his rod, both men looked out behind the boat. Some fifty yards back they saw a silver flash at the end of the line-and a large fish broke the surface of the Potomac.

"Looks like it might be the nicest striper yet," the President said with a smile, then bit down on the cigarette holder at the corner of his mouth and began reeling in his line to keep it from getting tangled with Donovan's.

They had been trolling for almost two hours, and in that time both had hooked plenty of fish. Iced down in the cooler that had been hauled below to the galley, where the chef was preparing dinner, were eight nice-sized striped bass, each weighing between fifteen and twenty pounds. FDR had caught five, Donovan three.

Donovan, however, had hooked two other fish. Both had broken off-one in a spectacular display of defiance complete with great leaps and shakes of its head to throw the lure free-and the President was not going to let it be forgotten.

FDR glanced over, and needled him: "Seeing how big it is, if you can actually boat it, I'll allow it to count as two-"

Just as he said that, the huge fish shook its head and threw the lure.

Donovan sighed. He looked at FDR, shrugged, then leaned back in his mahogany fishing chair. He returned the rod butt to its holder, retrieved his cocktail, and took a healthy sip.

Roosevelt, letting line on his reel unspool in order to reposition his lure, then casually said, "Any further word about your loose cannon's actions in Sicily?"

Donovan knew that he was referring to Dick Canidy, and was about to snap: We've had this conversation, Frank, and he's not a loose cannon!

But then he saw out of the corner of his eye that Roosevelt, watching his lure get smaller in the distance, was smiling. And he remembered that, when Donovan had defended Canidy as someone who more times than not got things done no matter the obstacles, FDR had replied that he'd heard others call Donovan his loose cannon, and felt the name was as unfair to Donovan as it was to Canidy.

Donovan believed that the OSS's successes came from what he called a "calculated recklessness." He preached-and personally practiced-not being afraid to make mistakes, because the OSS had to be unafraid of trying things that had not been tried before.

And Donovan believed that what Canidy had done on the Nazi-occupied island was a perfect example of what defined an OSS operator-secretly going behind enemy lines to smuggle out a Sicilian scientist, then finding that the Nazis had chemical and biological weapons of warfare there, and more or less single-handedly destroying them. All without feeling obligated to go up the chain of command, asking permission to do so-permission that, if not immediately denied, would be delayed for future (fill in the blank) "discussion," "research," et cetera, et cetera, until the window of opportunity to act was slammed shut.

"What happened with the nerve gas?" FDR pursued.

"I talked with Canidy in London," Donovan began, ignoring the loose cannon comment. "This gets a little complicated-"

"Then talk slowly," FDR interrupted. "I'll try to keep up when I'm not catching your fish."

Donovan couldn't help but chuckle.

"Thank you, Mr. President. I do appreciate your magnanimity."

He paused to gather his thoughts, then went on: "Okay, let me back up and bring in Allen Dulles. Among his many sources in Switzerland is a vice counsel of the German consulate in Zurich. That's his cover-he's actually working for Admiral Canaris in the Abwehr."

"He's a German intelligence officer posing as a diplomat?"

"Yes, at least as far as they want the Gestapo-and anyone else paying attention-to believe. What they don't want anyone to discover is what Tiny really is-"

"Tiny?" Roosevelt interrupted again.

"That's what Dulles calls Canaris's agent behind his back, which apparently is enormous. Tiny is a giant of a man."