The 34th Degree

102

His Majesty’s submarine the Cherub slowly made its way beneath the surface of the Mediterranean en route to its rendezvous with the OSS agent code-named Sinon, off the southwestern coast of the Greek Peloponnese.

For Lieutenant Commander Eric Safire, its captain, things had been touch and go for several hours, ever since the submarine’s radio operator had picked up word that a Luftwaffe air strike had decimated the National Bands base in Greece. But under a half hour ago, Orestes in Sparta had radioed that Sinon had survived and was on his way to the rendezvous as planned. Or rather, almost as planned. That was what worried Safire, but he had said nothing about it yet because he had learned not to question his orders.

A young man of medium height, the twenty-six-year-old captain wore his straight brown hair long enough to tuck behind his ears. He would have resembled a girl were it not for the three-day growth on his face. He had said good-bye to his razor blade back in port because at sea they had to conserve their fresh water, and shaving with salt water packed too much of a sting.

This mission was his third in a remarkable series of special operations. First came the North Africa landings, Operation Torch, when he was an officer aboard the submarine HM Seraph and they had slipped General Mark Clark ashore to secretly contact the French before the Allied invasion. Next came Operation Mincemeat, when they dropped the body of “Major Martin” off the coast of Huelva, Spain.

This time around, Safire was the master of his own mint-condition submarine, and his company was neither a distinguished general nor a pseudonymous corpse but an American OSS colonel named Jason Prestwick, who stood beside him in the control room, thrilled to be “in the field,” as he called it.

The American had joined them in Algiers and had made himself an annoying if amusing nuisance to the young crew. The tall, awkward professor seemed harmless enough at first, bumping his head against the short doorways and threatening only his own well-being. Soon, however, he was putting the entire crew in danger. What with his endless fascination with new technology, he was always touching this button or turning that dial. For one wild minute the submarine was in danger of sinking after a curious Prestwick had removed the sea hatch from the floor and was surprised to find water bubbling up into the control room.

Safire turned to the old professor, noted the Band-Aid on his forehead, and asked, “Your Joe ever done this before?”

“ I’ve never done this before, Commander, let alone Andros,” Prestwick replied with a sour expression. “But if he comes out of Greece alive, he’ll have information vital to the war. Information that Churchill and Roosevelt are anxiously awaiting.”

“It’s going to be tricky,” Safire warned, showing Prestwick the charts. “The signal we picked up from Orestes said that the caique carrying Andros is going to launch from Kalamata. That’s in the Gulf of Messenia.”

Prestwick followed Safire’s finger as it traced the route on the chart. “So what?”

“Our orders in Alexandria were to rendezvous six miles off the Cape of Koroni. That’s beyond this peninsula at the mouth of the gulf.”

“I don’t see the difference,” said Prestwick. “Rather than take the land route all the way to Koroni, they’re going to launch from Kalamata and cut across the gulf waters. What are you getting at?”

Safire pointed to a mass of X’s on the chart, off the port of Kalamata. “See these markings? The Germans have mined the Gulf of Messenia. Andros will never get out of there in one piece.”

“Good God!” said Prestwick. “Can’t we stop them?”

Safire rubbed his stubbled chin. “A little late for that, I think. They’ve probably left already from Sparta, and it’s too risky to surface right now. What I can’t understand is why. It was SOE agents in Athens who provided Cairo with the location of the German minefields for our charts in the first place.”

The American’s hands trembled as he lifted the chart and looked for himself, his green eyes squinting from behind their glasses. “What can we do?”

Safire wanted to tell him they could turn back, that it would be foolhardy to jeopardize the Cherub and its crew by straying anywhere near that minefield in the futile search for an agent who would not be there when they surfaced. But Prestwick was the senior intelligence officer here, and Safire had learned early on in his naval career that when a superior asked for his opinion, it was better to offer options and not advice.

“We could try to surface at the designated rendezvous in the unlikely chance that your Joe is there,” he answered. “Or we could call it a day and head back to base.”

“Turn back?” Prestwick put down the chart and looked at him, his angry eyes turning into green slits behind the fogged-up glasses. “You turn back, Commander, and I’ll have you brought up on charges of insubordination and see that you are stripped of your command.”

The nasty tone in the American’s voice tempted Safire toward violence, but he restrained himself. Striking a superior officer, however inferior a man he might be, would do little to boost his naval career or help the Allies.

“Of course, sir,” said Safire, and turned to the helmsman. “Full ahead.”