He knew the captain from his last mission, which had also been mounted from London.
Everett had shown up at Milton Hall directly from the States in early February of ’44—about the time the first “Jeds” began to arrive at the Hall. The special Jedburgh teams were formed there, made up of three agents from each of three countries, England, France and the States, in any combination. They were to be dropped into France to help prepare the Maquis for their role in Operation Overlord — the invasion of Europe.
Except for Scandinavia, which the British considered their special domain, there had been, and still was, close cooperation between the OSS and the SOE — the British Special Operations Executive — on actions in Europe, and Everett had soaked up the British methods like a sun-dried sponge. He'd adopted every ploy and every trick he could ferret out. And he'd used them all. Still did.
Dirk had been incredulous when Everett pulled the routine “old buddy” test on him and Sig when he'd picked them up in London to escort them by train to the Hall. The coaches on the British trains are divided into compartments, and as Everett had been helping stow Dirk's and Sig's gear in the overhead racks, he'd spotted a British officer, obviously an old buddy of long standing, less obviously an MTO — a Military Testing Officer — assigned to the test. There'd been a lot of back-slapping, small-talking and old-boying — all of which clearly established that Everett and his buddy were intimate friends. Once the train was under way, Everett had excused himself on some pretext or other and left “old buddy” alone with the two pigeons. That was supposedly the moment of truth. Or rather— of withholding the truth!
To be capable of surviving within a totally hostile environment, an agent must above all be discreet — in fact, have a veritable passion for anonymity. How careful would Sig be in talking about himself to this “old buddy,” so obviously “one of the gang,” under gentle, friendly probing? Would he be tempted to brag a little about his important job? Quite a few candidates had wondered why their one-way journey to Milton Hall had turned into a return trip.
But not only had Sig clammed up and not burned himself or the mission — he'd barely been civilized to the “old buddy”!
Dirk forced himself to return his attention to Corny's lecture — something about eating habits.
“It is nearly always the little things that betray the agent,” Everett was saying, “—give him away as a foreigner. Such as the eating habits we've discussed. Remember — never put down your knife and pick up your fork in your right hand to eat. You might as well wear an American flag sticking out your ear!”
He paused dramatically to let his witty wisdom sink in.
Doesn't the dope realize that both Sig and I were born in Europe? Dirk wondered.
“Then, of course, there is the language factor,” Everett continued “Multilingual or bilingual people instinctively lapse into their native language when they pray or swear. When they count — or screw!” He smiled thinly.
“And finally — be aware of involuntary muscle habits that may give you away. You must be so saturated in your cover story that even unconscious expressions or gestures inconsistent with it become inconceivable — in any situation that may arise. For example, a Catholic priest would hardly reach for a gun in a shoulder holster at an unexpected loud noise behind him. An agent would. You must be thoroughly familiar with your adopted cover.”
Familiar? Dirk thought. Hell — they'd gone over and over and over their cover stories so often in the past few days that he wasn't sure anymore which was his cover name and which his real one….
“Never for a moment forget,” Everett intoned, “that you will be operating in the black in the heart of enemy country. You must constantly think of yourselves as hunted men. A spook who forgets that is not apt to live very long!”
Everett looked at his watch.
“2145 hours,” he said. “We'll call it quits for tonight. At 0700 tomorrow we will start a thorough briefing on your contact in the anti-Nazi resistance group in Hechingen. The man's name is Storp. Otto Storp” He paused significantly. “You will appreciate the not inconsequential feat of locating this man within the severe time limitation imposed on us. Of course, there are several small illegal groups of active anti-Nazis in Germany. They are, in the main, unrelated to one another and without any central direction. Fortunately, we knew of Storp through an underground agent in Frankfurt, who — eh — is no longer active. The German underground must be highly secretive to survive. The Gestapo is a formidable adversary, make no mistake about that!”
He looked at the two young men lounging comfortably in easy chairs in the small, beautifully appointed room annexed by Everett for his briefing talks.
“In the afternoon,” he continued, “you will be taken to London. The Moles have your ID and outfits ready for you.” He stood up. “That's all for today.”
He marched smartly from the room.
Sig looked after him.
“Seems to know what he's talking about,” he said.
Dirk raised an eyebrow.
“Corny?” he said. “He's an alchemist's nightmare.”
It was Sig's turn to do the raised-eyebrow routine.
“You pour golden information into him and it comes out leaden platitudes!” Dirk said with a grin and settled into his chair, draping himself over the arm like a Dali watch. He looked forward to their visit with the London Moles. They were fantastic. It was their responsibility to equip the spooks in the field with all the physical gear necessary: identity cards, clothing, every little personal item, and their stuff was indistinguishable from the real thing — mainly because it was the real thing. The Moles scrounged their enormous inventory of clothing and all the rest from pawnshops and secondhand stores in New York and London that were frequented by refugees from Nazi-occupied countries. They collected European suits and coats and underwear, fountain pens, calendar notebooks, shoes, watches, suitcases, spectacles and anything else an OSS agent might need to sustain his cover.
They also operated an efficient little printing press, turning out false documents and identification papers of all kinds, complete with seals and signatures that would defy the most minute examination. Often the Moles themselves would wear the clothing and carry the false documents around in their pockets for a while to give the proper aged look to them. They could turn a New York university professor into a French farmer or a Chicago lawyer into an Italian priest at the drop of a secondhand hat. It was damned important work. And top secret. The Moles got to know a lot of agents — and their covers. But they hadn't lost their perspective — nor their sense of humor. Dirk recalled the sign on the desk of one man who was busily sewing a false pocket into a jacket: DON'T GET THE IMPRESSION I'M INEFFICIENT, it read. THE NATURE OF MY WORK IS SO SECRET IT DOES NOT ALLOW ME TO KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!
He wondered idly if they were called Moles because they made it possible for the spooks to go underground.
He rubbed his elbow. It was becoming a habit. One of Corny's muscle habits? Couldn't hurt. He did have a bum elbow — and it was part of his cover.
Sig watched him.
“Bother you?”
“It's okay.”
“How did it happen?”
How? Dirk thought…. It had been in Holland. He'd been on a mission against the V-2 launching sites on the Dutch coast north of Amsterdam near Bergen aan Zee. The RAF had blasted most of them, but they couldn't get to the rest without specific information Someone had to get it. London was being clobbered. He and his Dutch underground contact, Jan, had entered a bombed-out assembly plant, destroyed in a prior raid. Cautiously, ever wary of booby traps, they had entered an office in their search for a vantage point from which to observe a launching pad nearby…. He could see the scene. He would always be able to see it. The cracked walls and ceiling and the shattered windows; the debris-strewn floor, the broken furniture and the big desk — all covered with the fine white dust of crumbled plaster which coated every surface. And the single sheet of paper that looked like a folded blueprint lying on top of the desk with the word GEHEIM — Secret — showing through the dust! They had stopped. They had looked around carefully…. He saw the tiny patch of fresh yellow sawdust under the desk — in the same instant Jan reached for the document. He screamed his warning — which was drowned out by the blinding roar of the explosion. Jan had literally disintegrated. His own left side had been peppered with shrapnel and splinters from the massive desk. Had he not instinctively turned away, he would have been blinded. As it was, he was unable to hear and could barely see. The blood was running into his eyes. But he'd managed to crawl from the building and hide He'd been found by a Dutch girl with a round red face, a huge bosom — and the gentlest hands in the world. She had nursed him back to a semblance of health — and the underground had managed to evacuate him to England in the bilge of a fishing boat…. It had been a booby trap. The most ingenious he'd ever run across. And so simple. A small hole bored through the desk top and lined with a metal ring; a wire taped to the underside of the document lying over the hole, running down through the middle of the ring — without touching; the batteries of the electrical firing device hidden in the drawer below and wired to a couple of grenades. When the document was moved — and contact was made—boom!