The Bullet Garden

CHAPTER 74 Maltby’s

He was an old man in a dry season. He ached everywhere, most profoundly in his soul. He took his time showering, powdering, putting on new shirt and tie, making certain Teddy had polished his shoes brightly.

“Do watch your drinking, David, dear,” called his wife from the bed to which her barbiturate habit — the Mellon millions were of no help — had condemned her.

“I shall, darling,” said the colonel, though it was a lie, as he hungered for Scotch, lots of it.

The driver was late; it didn’t matter. He got lost; again, it didn’t matter. New chap.

“Sorry, sir. I’m nervous on the backwards driving rules.”

“Not to worry. You’ll get used to it soon enough,” said the colonel, diplomatic even to tech 5s from Omaha. “Try not to get us hit by a buzz bomb, young man,” he added, and the boy said, “Yes, sir,” not getting the joke.

Maltby lived not quite in country but definitely not in town. It was the sort of Victorian monstrosity lots of new money bought, clearly bespeaking no lineage and family but only money and power. Coal bought it, steel bought it, railroads bought it, but nobody who’d ever lived there had fought at Blenheim or even knew what Blenheim was.

The driver dropped the colonel at the big house’s big door, which was encapsulated in some clown’s idea of a drawbridge design, and, taking a breath of melancholy air, the colonel entered.

Phew! It smelled of smoke like Hamburg after a night’s bashing by Lancaster. The noise of chatter had reached highest buzz. While a butler bowed and scraped, took his hat, then led him to the grand room overlooking the terrace and then the grounds, the colonel charted his strategy. It involved a direct assault on Maltby’s bar for a fortifying drink, a quick confab with Sir Colin and HMS Devastator, a round of hellos and handshakes with those high muckers of Six and Five as he knew them, perhaps a meet with a new chap who might become useful sometime or other, a nod to diplomats, a chummy chat with any high American officers who happened to be present, a few minutes, Scotched up again, to gander at the beauties, a hello — good-bye to the fool Maltby and the child actress he had married (number three, was it?), and then out before the crowd.

Oh, so much easier if Millie were there!

Millie, I miss you so!

We all miss you so!

Why did that fool fighter pilot boy manage to get himself shot down today of all days. Why did this Zora choose to have her nervous breakdown now? Had the woman not heard of delayed grief? So inconvenient.

He went into the large room, took a blink at the high drama of the lighting, a dry swallow at the wall of smoke that belted him in his face, looked about for Sir Colin, found him, waited patiently for eye contact, achieved it finally and—

“He’s here!”

“It’s Bruce of OSS!”

“Hip hip hooray!” someone else said.

“Good show!”

“Well done, old chap!”

“Three cheers for the U.S. of A.!”

“Three more for Oh So Social!”

In seconds an audience had formed, pink-faced drunks in exotic uniforms or double-breasted bankers’ monkey suits, drinks held high in salute. At each shoulder, a woman’s face bloomed with admiration. He felt the love broadcast upon him as if he were having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.

“Well, ah—”

Sir Colin was next to him suddenly, and the fool Maltby, and someone from MI6 known only as X (well, everybody who mattered knew his real name), and they all squeezed around him, shaking hands, patting back, clapping shoulder.

“Speech! Speech! Speech!” came a chant.

“You must address your worshippers, old man,” whispered Sir Colin. “Really, one only gets a single night like this, and yours has arrived. Make it count.”

He faced them.

Was he at a loss for words?

Are you kidding?

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Ah, could someone get me a Scotch, please? Glenlivet, please.”

Laughter, but indeed a glass of amber fluid rotating on diamond cubes of ice was thrust magically into his hands, and just as magically he took a calming sip.

“Ah, thank you very much. I can only say that what we accomplished was by dint, first, of teamwork of which I am merely the symbol, and, second, by closely following our British uncles, masters of the game, for inspiration, advice, and can-do, will-do attitude.”

He raised his glass, took a rather stiff belt — ah, the blur, the wham, so much better! — and continued more or less in the same line, only repeating himself six or nine times, until he felt he’d used up enough oxygen in the room, big as it was, and needed more Scotch.

“And so, in conclusion, despite the joy we all now feel, we must understand that it is but one step, triumphant though it may be, on the trek to victory. As always, triumph will not always occur and tragedy might instead. But inevitably, by spirit, by courage, by will, under superb leadership, we shall prevail!”

The next stage of the ceremony, obviously, was The Mingle. He hated it, of course, but one had to do what was required. It was called “duty.” He roamed, was petted and stroked and congratulated, with squashed-bubby hugs from a variety of mystery women, and pretty much passed around the room like a religious relic at a High Mass or a whore at a low one. He smiled, drank, enjoyed the bubby play, the handshakes not so much, and eventually felt he’d done his utmost.

Back to the bar for replenishment. Lord Glenlivet, at your service, sir! Then a straight shot to Sir Colin, some maneuvering for privacy, and finally, finally, finally he got to ask, “Colin, what in God’s name is this about?”

“You don’t know? Good God, man, what a brilliant performance. You really don’t know?”

“No idea.”

Colin reached into his uniform coat, pulled out a sheet of paper.

“One of our chaps at SHAEF got hold of this early and sent it over. Right now, it’s being distributed to the whole theater.”

The colonel unfolded the paper, saw it was a feeble mimeograph, letters slightly blurry and too small.

He got out his glasses, hung them on nose and ears, took another bolt of the Glenlivet, and read:

CHAPTER 75 Sebastian

No, he didn’t want to join battalion G-2. No, he didn’t want to join division G-2. No, he didn’t want to join corps G-2. No, he didn’t want to join army G-2. No, he didn’t want to join SHAEF G-2, and being asked by a General Smith, Eisenhower’s hatchet man and butt-kicker, was an honor, since usually only bridge players got that nod.

“Thank you, sir. I hope I’ve been of service here. And I’ve enjoyed being a major. But the Corps is both my home and my future. It’s my family. There’s islands out there left to bust and someone’s got to lead the young guys whose job it’ll be to bust them. That’s where I fit in. That’s where I belong.”

“Major,” said the reedy, precise General Smith, “you won’t take affront if I send General Vandegrift a letter pointing out to him that he ought to resign immediately and appoint you commandant?”

“Sir, I don’t think the general has had a good laugh since Navy beat Army, whenever that was. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

Then there was crap that all militaries swear they hate but are addicted to: reports, debriefings to a variety of staffs so that nobody would feel left out, as well as travel arrangements, folding and packing, checking weapons for safe transport, returning to London standards of appearance. Swagger’s last official act for First Army was to write a Silver Star recommendation for Archer. Maybe he’d get it, maybe he wouldn’t. Told the Army wanted him to accept some stuff as well, he asked them not to. Couldn’t wear it on his Marine dress uniform.

Late evening a day after, the B-26 Marauder — the medium bomber was referred to in the colloquial as the Baltimore Whore, for the city in which it was built and for the fact that, with smallish wings mounted on a fattish fuselage, it was held to be fast, with no visible means of support — took them to an AAF airfield near Milton Hall, ninety miles or so north of London, the OSS training and supply location. All combat uniforms, boots, web gear, weapons, ammunition, and knives were turned in and checked off as accounted for. Back in summer Class As, they waited for Sebastian.

The car approached.

Hmm, right car, wrong driver.

This one, getting out and snapping to with a smart salute, was tall and willowy, spiffy in tailored enlisted As, but weirdly orange in the lamplight of Milton Hall.

“Major Swagger, Lieutenant Leets, my name is Spec 5 Roger Evans. I’ve been assigned by Colonel Bruce as your new driver and general assistant.”

The two men exchanged glances.

“Colonel Bruce would have come himself,” said the boy, maybe nineteen, obviously another Ivy League novice hand-delivered into a choice assignment by a line of connections as long as a monkey’s arm. He had to be from an old family and college, by the look of him. The snappy wardrobe said old money too. “We just didn’t have a car big enough,” he continued. “But the colonel would like to see you as soon as you get in.”

He opened the Ford’s doors; they entered.

“Why are you so tan, Evans?” asked Swagger as they prowled across the dark landscape toward London. “The Pacific?”

“No, sir. I’m a tennis player, sir. Number two singles at Har—”

“What happened to Sebastian?” asked Leets, not giving a shit about tennis.

“Ah, he transferred out, sir.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Leets. “Was this job too rough on him?”

“He tried very hard to get it done, sir. You know how the Army works. He knew people; he—”

“Where is he now? Camp Beverly Hills? Fort Manhattan? Our embassy in Geneva?”

“No, sir.”

“Well—”

“He transferred to the 1st Ranger Battalion in Italy, sir,” said Evans. “Since he wasn’t Ranger trained, he had to get special dispensation. It wasn’t easy. He said you’d understand.”

“I do,” said Swagger.

CHAPTER 76 The Waiting

He was the man in the noose as it was tightened. Nothing, just the sense of something constricting his neck. He couldn’t go out, he couldn’t accept new jobs, he was hung up in nowhere land, waiting, waiting, waiting.

He lay, completely dressed, in the dark of his bedsitter. The ceiling offered nothing but more darkness. The window was open; random sounds, meaningless, of London washed in and out leaving not a trace.

The spies! Damn the spies! They were such tricky bitches, feline and cunning in their plotting, enmeshed in conspiracy within conspiracy, agenda within agenda. If you signed on with them, you signed on for a voyage into madness. If you—

At last, the knock came, proving there was a real world.

“Yes?”

“Oh, Mr. Raven, you’re there, are you, dearie? Chap has just called. Wants a call back. Left a number. Shall I slip it under the—”

No need for under the door. He wrapped his shame in scarf as he rose, skipped two short steps to the door, opened, took the slip from the old lady, her overly smeared makeup especially repellent today, and walked on past.

“Have a good one, Mr. Raven, sweet.”

He went not to the first nor the second but the third booth he found, checking for followers. None at all, the streets filling up as the night progressed, revelers, lovers, maids and machinists, the mad whirl. He entered the red box, folded the door shut for privacy, addressed the receiver, put in his tuppence, and waited for operator.

“Hullo, general telephone, exchange and number, please.”

He gave it, new to him.

“Yes?” The voice was also new, male, possibly queer in its affectation. Were they all queer?

“Yes?”

“Raven here.”

“That was quick.”

“Get on with it, man! Enough time has passed.”

“Not our fault, old chum. Beyond control.”

“Fine.”

“By the way, you rather roughed up the last lad we sent you, you naughty boy.”

“Is he still on the floor of the loo, soaking in piss?”

“I believe he’s rallied manfully.”

“Little toff made an indecent proposal. Had to set him straight.”

“Such high standards we have, eh?”

“Get on with it.”

“Plenty of time. No need of a cab, even; the tube will get you there with an hour to spare. The hero lad is back from the war, now an even bigger hero. He will meet his young lady tomorrow night, or so we are assured. Lovers reunited amid the whispering leaves of Mayfair. Seen it in the flickers a dozen times.”

“Not so happy an ending this night.”

“You know what to do, then? By our latest instructions? It has to be done a certain way, not with mess or spill, not with melodrama or spectacle. We are paying you for banality. This is why we came to you and pay so much.”

“I have never failed any of my clients yet.”

“There’s an extra fifty quid in it for you if you perform perfectly. Tidy counts.”

“About time somebody recognized my worth.”

“Indeed. And, Raven, this is our way of making sure you understand how quite important the outcome is to all sorts of people. You are being counted upon. There’s a good lad.”

CHAPTER 77 The Office

They sat on the leather couches. It was close to 0400 British summer war time. London outside was quiet, dark, secure. A doodle had landed earlier, but the fuel measure was way off and it hit east of the city, turning an empty field into an empty crater, probably doing everyone a bit of good. Fritz was perhaps tired too and gave it up for the day.

Three of them, one in his forties, one in his thirties, one in his twenties, pretending for now those decades apart in birthing years meant nothing. Bushmills fine Irish. One lamp, the building quiet. No dog pictures visible on the walls, no file cabinets against the wall. No wall. A fire would have made it more ceremonial, but since it was in the seventies, far too warm for fire; the lamp in a far corner had to stand in for illumination purposes. It tried hard but came up short, leaving the room rent by shadow and dark.

It had started with war stories, with Brix’s rifle, which Swagger had given the colonel.

“By God,” said the man, “that will be on the mantel of every house I own, and my eldest grandson’s as well.” He wedged it on this mantel, where it sunk into darkness.

“Now, please. Do tell all.”

Leets delivered a summary of how it was planned, how it was executed, how it succeeded. So impressive. If the colonel was upset at being out of the loop, he didn’t mention it. He felt too good.

And, in fact, he moved next to a note of triumph. Colonel Bruce was almost in tears. He told them of the party.

“Gentlemen, I’ve never been so moved, so proud. I can’t say enough. Harry and the President must hear of this. They’ll be pleased too, I’m sure. Now, I’ve heard, Earl, if I may, that you’re most eager to return to the Marine Corps. I do understand and will see that it happens ASAP. But I’d be remiss if—” and he launched into his own recruitment pitch, guaranteeing instant promotion to lieutenant colonel and command of the Special Operations division, Tyne’s old bailiwick.

“I think when we’ve won,” the older man continued, “they may close OSS down. It hasn’t been without its controversies, as even General Donovan would admit. And perhaps I wasn’t the best choice to take the London helm. But somehow, within a year or so, it’ll be reborn under a different name, mark my words. And it’ll be staffed — it has to be — with outstanding, experienced OSS personnel. You could play a part, Earl, especially with my recommendation. A big part.”

Swagger did his routine turn-down, which Leets had heard before too often, but managed this time, despite fatigue and the lateness of the hour, to sell it solidly.

“Earl, I know recruiters will come to you again. I want you to be aware of that. It’s never too late. You’ll always have a home among the spies. It’s your métier.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Here, some more Bushmills,” said the colonel.

Each took a shot. The stuff was good.

The talk was low but pleasant, meandering. Sebastian’s transfer came up and how many big people got involved. It consumed a whole day of office time.

“Millie was run ragged!”

Then Leets’s future. Still medical school? After all, his fine record in OSS could mean doors opening in all sorts of interesting areas. Mustn’t be too hasty.

Yawns. It seemed to be over. No. Two of them didn’t realize yet that it hadn’t even begun. It was 0500 British summer war time, by the clock on the mantel, still visible in the shadow.

Swagger said, “By the way, sir, there’s a loose end I’d like to tie up. Do you mind?”

“Ah — well, I suppose.”

“Actually, it’s Lieutenant Leets who’ll help us tie it up. Leets, you know, there’s a story you’ve never told me. I’ve never asked you. But I know that inside you something is and has been gnawing. You try to hide it, and maybe you could from the officers, but I’m a sergeant. I see stuff officers don’t. So let’s have it.”

Leets looked most uncomfortable.

“Major, I don’t—”

“We have lots of time. I want Colonel Bruce in on this too. Come on, Lieutenant.”

“I really don’t—”

“Casey,” said Swagger. “It’s time to tell me about Casey.”

It took an hour. Swagger asked questions.

“The Brens were pulled during the firefight?”

“How did the SS Das Reich people get there so fast?”

“Any indication from St. Florian that Group Roger could have been infiltrated?”

“The fat guy, the butcher who fought in Spain — do you know who with? Wasn’t POUM, was it?”

“And in all the checking, not a word on Captain St. Florian? Did anyone mount any kind of search? Are there reports of executions after the incident on file?”

“How about your debriefing here? Did it seem thorough? Did you confide in them as you’ve confided in us? No? Why? What was eating you?”

“I must say, Major,” said the colonel, “I don’t see where this is headed. I suspect history will judge Operation Jedburgh quite harshly for being ill-planned, hastily implemented, rather a botch, actually. I’m sure I’ll have to answer for it in many history books. Too busy at parties, not enough supervision and target planning, inept coordination with the maquisards. But then, that’s what happens in war, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” said the major.

Leets reached the end. It was 0607 British summer war time.

“Casey was betrayed,” he said. “I know it.”

They let it sit.

Then the colonel said, “Lieutenant, please file a report on these allegations with Millie tomorrow. I’ll assign someone from outside the office to look at them — someone perhaps with investigative skills. I’m thinking—”

“Sir, he can’t file it with Millie,” said Swagger. “She’s the spy.”

CHAPTER 78 Somewhere in France

“All right,” Archer said, “new guys on me.”

Much drama aroused in the dark, as it was clear something big was happening. Ignorant armies preparing to clash by night. A sense of large vehicles moving on congested roads, formations of men easing through the trees, flashlight beams slashing everywhere, commands sharp and hard cutting the air, just the vibration of a big parade or convoy disassembling, rearranging, smoking, and hurrying up to wait.

The kids gathered before him, their tentativeness evident in the awkward stutter with which they moved. About seven beardless warriors, new to the bocage, new to Dog 2–2, new to the war, new to the closeness of death. He saw eyes wide open, apprehending everything, understanding nothing.

“At ease, smoke ’em if you got ’em, take a load off, relax.”

They obeyed except for the relaxation part, which was impossible for them — for anyone, actually — in the 9th Infantry Division, or any of the other eleven divisions in First Army.

“I know you’re scared,” Archer said. His grease gun hung from a strap around his neck and he wore a waistcoat of fragmentation grenades over his M41 field jacket. “I’m scared; everybody’s scared. There’s going to be a lot of shit flying through the air in a few hours. Some guys, maybe some of you, will get hit, some guys killed. That’s what happens up here and I am not going to sugarcoat it.

“Just remember two things: in combat, confusion is normal and no plan survives contact with the enemy. So no matter how many times the captain has explained it to you, it won’t be like that. It’ll be smoke, lots of noise and flash, and you’ll quickly lose orientation to your map points. You probably won’t see the steeple at Saint-Gilles that’s our objective. But I’m here to tell you that’s okay. The main point is not to lose contact with the company. You want our guys visible to you. If you lose that, you could get in big trouble. Just stay low, move when the line moves.

“No heroics, at least not on the first day. You may see Germans but you probably won’t. They come and go like ghosts. I would keep my safety on while moving, but if we are stopped, then punch it off and look for targets. It’s not killing, it’s shooting, and you’ve been well trained.”

“Sarge,” a seemingly twelve-year-old asked, “what do we do about prisoners?”

“Let the more experienced men handle them. Give cover, keep your eyes open. You don’t shoot the surrendered. That’s not how we do things here, no matter what you’ve heard. Anything else?”

Either there wasn’t, or nobody had the nerve to ask, “Will I die?”

“Okay,” Archer said, consulting his watch. “A few hours until jump-off yet. Again, relax, grab some sleep if you can. Tomorrow, listen to Sergeants Blikowicz and Roselli. They’re good men; they’ll take care of you. You also take care of each other.”

Maybe he’d helped them a bit, maybe he hadn’t. Who knew? But it was all he could do. The boys rose to shuffle back to their squads. But one or two looked at him with something other than the usual indifference. They had a kind of worship in their eyes.

That’s when he knew: he had become a war god.

CHAPTER 79 Berkeley Square

The talk was all the big attack. Operation Cobra, it was called, as the boys smashed through German lines smack in the face, through Saint-Gilles and Marigny. Leets realized that was why there’d been such a rush, such urgency. They wanted to get out news of success against the snipers before launching such an adventure as a last-second morale booster, telling the G.I.s that a night patrol wasn’t a ball-buster, that the Germans were as blind after twilight as they were now that this special unit had been destroyed.

“You must be so proud,” she said. “Really, it all came down to an OSS major and a first lieutenant, the whole thing, and you delivered against all the odds.”

He laughed.

“The major delivered. I held his coat. That was about it.”

“So modest. God, where do they make men like you?”

“Much to be modest about,” he said.

They walked. It was just after 7. He’d left her a message that morning saying he’d gotten in late, was going on forty-eight sleepless hours, had to crash. He’d sleep the day away and pick her up at 70 Grosvenor at 7.

And there she had been. Standing in front of the prosaic building as the lights were just beginning to take effect, and no cinematographer could have done a better job casting the planes of her classical face, the luster of those mysterious eyes, the lithe grace of that long body in a veil of glow. She was a goddess in the uniform of a second lieutenant of the WACs and managed to make even that dowdy garment glamorous. She smiled; radiance blossomed in an otherwise radiance-free world.

God, he loved her. God, he hated her.

They had walked a bit.

“You’re not hungry, darling?” she asked.

“No, they crammed me with Spam and pineapple upside down cake. I think it’s turned into sludge in my stomach.”

“Let’s go to the park. Let’s enjoy the twilight. Then cocktails and a slow walk back. We don’t have to talk about anything. The future will take care of itself.”

They held hands; their shoulders brushed, and the tingle of flesh on flesh went through his body. That was sex in 1944. It was enough.

They entered the park as the last hues of setting sun empurpled a few clouds in that sector of sky. Yes on the birds, yes on the breeze agitating the leaves of the London planes, yes on the fragrance of the flowers, yes on her fragrance. The vapors of a low fog began to infiltrate, giving the whole thing an over-art-directed aspect, almost unbelievable. But, yes again, things like this do happen.

They sat.

“The colonel,” she said, “was out all day. I’m sure he was at Bushy Park, getting briefed on Cobra. God, I hope this is finally the beginning of the end.”

“How’s your friend Zora?” he asked. “Is she going to make it?”

“She’s tough, you know. She will. I can’t wait to introduce you. You’ll love her.”

“I can’t wait,” said Leets.

“Poor Tom. He went down before Cobra and never knew.”

“Maybe he’s in a POW camp.”

“We hope and pray.”

“By the way,” he said after a pause, “a P-51 hasn’t been shot down in fourteen days. And also, there’s no one at OWI named Zora. It must be a code name for a spy.”

Another pause. She got out a cigarette, lit it, exhaled a plume of thick smoke.

“We know,” he said. “Millie, we know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re working for someone. Not OSS. You’re reporting to them.”

Another pause.

“You’re talking crazy, darling. Did you take some drugs or something? Has somebody been filling your mind with fantasy? Why, for God’s sake, would I work for the Nazis? I loathe and despise them. I hate what they’re doing. I hate the murders, the slaughter, the arrests. I hate their hate. I—”

“Not the Nazis,” he said. “The Russians.”

Again the pause. What did it signify? Astonishment? Strategic recalculation? Both?

“That doesn’t even make sense. Jim, they’re our allies.”

“In the current war. But they know they’ve already won it. They’ve known since Kursk in ’43. They’ve already moved on to the next war. The one against us that we haven’t even thought about. Hot or cold, they’re fighting the war of 1984.”

“I hardly—”

“They know France will be in play when Berlin is taken. They control hundreds of guerrilla groups there already who are stockpiling arms for that battle. And they want our efforts in France to be a mess. They want us blowing up churches, bombing bridges and railways, razing villages, killing civilians, burning forests. They want something they call ‘the People’ to hate us. It’s the fastest route to 1984. It’s Realpolitik.”

“Jim, you haven’t a shred of proof.”

“We have all the proof we need. It was the major who—”

“That man hates me. Maybe he hates you too. He’ll twist and distort and—”

“No, actually, he doesn’t hate you. You just think that because he’s the only one you know who isn’t in love with you, unlike me or the colonel, or that poor idiot Frank Tyne. That’s your greatest weapon; you use it brilliantly.”

“Jim—”

“Please shut up and listen to me. When we went on our first patrol, the Germans had no idea we were there. That’s because it was never reported in those summaries you do. That’s how Swagger knew the Germans wouldn’t have sentries out; they thought they had the night off. Then, a few days ago, to test the thesis, he arranged through First Army that you were given a SHAEF theater summary to distribute to the office. It was like all the other theater summaries you’ve been doing at 1600 every day since you got here. Except this one didn’t go anywhere but to you. You typed it on mimeo, gave it to a tech to crank out and distribute. Sebastian got it from the tech. It never went anyplace. You were the only one who saw it. Yet all the snipers of Sturmgruppe Tausend were in place and waiting. They were using your information. You got your info to Zora, who got it to her NKVD contact, who got it directly to the Germans. In fact, the Germans have always known where and when we were sending out night patrols. NKVD told them. And NKVD ordered the butcher to pull the Brens at Tulle. The NKVD source got SS Das Reich to send trucks ahead; that’s how they arrived so fast. The trucks were on the way before we even hit the bridge.”

“I didn’t know Basil. I didn’t know you. It wasn’t personal, it was political.”

“Tell me, Millie. Tell me about it. Tell me how you killed Basil.”

CHAPTER 80 Millie Again

Enter Millie Fenwick again. Millie, from Millicent, from the Fenwicks, you know, the Fenwicks of the North Shore. Millie was a lovely girl, clever as the devil. She graduated with high marks from Smith but never bragged or acted smart; got her first job working as a secretary at Life in Manhattan for the awful Luce and his hideous wife; spent some time on a Senate staff (her father arranged it); and then, when the war came, she gravitated toward the Office of Strategic Services just as surely as it gravitated toward her. People knew where they belonged, and organizations knew what kind of people belonged in them, so General Donovan’s assistants fell in instant love with the willowy blonde who looked smashing at any party, smoked brilliantly, had languid, see-through-anything luminosity in her eyes. Everyone loved the way her hair fell down to her shoulders; everyone loved the diaphanous cling of a gown or blouse to her long torso; everyone loved her yards and yards of legs, her perfect ankles well displayed by the platforms of the heels all the girls wore.

By ’43 she’d transferred to London Station at 70 Grosvenor in Mayfair, under Colonel Bruce, one of whose assistants she’d become, and wore the uniform of a second lieutenant in the WACs. She was in charge of the colonel’s social calendar. She answered his phones or placed his calls, but it was more than that. She also knew the town and so was able to prioritize. The colonel was hopeless and said yes to every invitation in the days before she arrived on station.

She was indispensable, she was ruthless, she was efficient, she was beautiful and brilliant at once, and she was the ranking NKVD agent in OSS, the star of INO (Foreign Intelligence Section), who had been trained at Shkola Osobogo Naznacheniya, the Special Purposes School, in Balashikha, fifteen miles east of the Moscow Ring Road when everybody thought she was rusticating in Cap d’Antibes.

Millie sniffed something up at 3 p.m. that afternoon, when Colonel Bruce’s mood immediately brightened. The issue of the day had been Operation Jedburgh, by which three-men teams of OSS/SOE/FFI agents had parachuted behind the lines to wreak havoc on German communications and transportation lines in the immediate wake of the Normandy show. So far, no good. No teams had hit a target; many had drifted apart in the descent and failed to link up with Maquis units whom they were supposed to lead; several had never acknowledged arrival by radio and were considered combat lost. It was looking like a washout, and Colonel Bruce knew he was meeting with Sir Colin Gubbins, head of SOE, and that Gubbins would blame the muck-up on the American third of the units. It was so important that the teams did well!

But around 1800, the SOE liaison informed the colonel that radio intercepts strongly suggested one team was in position and would strike that night at midnight against a bridge on Das Reich’s route to the beachhead.

“Millie, do you see? This is what we needed.”

The great issue with OSS was that it was considered immature — inferior and amateur in comparison to the far savvier British intel outfits — and it drove both General Donovan and his factotum Colonel Bruce mad.

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, the boys,” said Colonel Bruce. “Those wonderful, wonderful boys, they make me so proud. Here’s to Casey at the bat!”

Millie, of course, was not privy to code names and didn’t know which groups were operating where; she just scooped up all available information and turned it over to her NKVD control, a fellow named Hedgepath who’d been big in WPA and then network radio PR before the war and was now big in the Office of War Information, reporting directly to Mr. Sherwood. She adored Hedgepath because of course he was one of the few men on earth who didn’t yield to and couldn’t be budged by her blandishments, charms, and beauty. She had no way of knowing he was a sexual deviate and therefore immune to such. From any gal.

She called him from a phone in the Accounting Section, feeling utterly secure because no one monitored internal calls between American entities such as 70 Grosvenor and the London OWI headquarters nearby. It was Kate Jesse’s phone, and Kate thought Millie used it to speak to a secret lover, an RAF bomber pilot. Kate’s problem: she read Redbook magazine too earnestly.

“Hullo,” said Hedgepath.

“Millie here.”

“Of course, my dear.”

She reiterated what she had learned that day, the colonel’s schedule, his incoming calls, reports, office tidbits, expenditures, the nuts and bolts of it. Finally she mentioned some kind of show that was set for the evening, and the colonel’s curious explosion of glee: “Casey at the bat.”

“Oh, baseball,” said Mr. Hedgepath. “I loathe baseball. It’s mostly standing around, isn’t it? Awfully boring. Who’s this Casey?”

“It’s from a famous poem. ‘Mighty Casey,’ they call him, a sort of Babe Ruth figure. All hopes are on him. It’s very dramatic.”

“Who knew there was drama in baseball?”

“At any rate, ‘Casey at the Bat’ is about a hero’s chance to win the big game. As I recall, he fails. It’s regarded as a tragedy. I think Casey has to do with something they’re calling Operation Jedburgh.”

Jedburgh?

“Hmm,” said Hedgepath. He knew from Moscow NKVD Center that the terrible Zyborny had sent a flash to GRU earlier, but the center wasn’t completely able to penetrate the GRU code and only knew the subject of the message was a Brit-Yank-Frenchy thing called Operation Jedburgh, some silly blowing-up of structures that would have to be expensively rebuilt after the war. But NKVD did not want GRU operating with impunity anywhere and the two agencies cordially hated each other. NKVD Center was suddenly interested in Operation Jed not as part of the war against the Germans, which it knew was won, but in the war against GRU for postwar operational control of the intelligence mechanism.

“Urgent you penetrate Jed,” NKVD Center had ordered.

“My dear Miss Fenwick,” said Mr. Hedgepath. “Can you focus tonight on this ‘Casey’? There’s a lot of interest in it. Possibly flirt it up with one of the cowboys and get me some information soonest? I’d like to pop a line to Our Friends before bedtime if possible.”

Millie sighed. She knew exactly what she had to do. Drinks with Frank Tyne, a horrible New York Irisher and former cop who was all swagger and bluster. He’d been in and out of France for two years now, or so it was said, and it was rumored had actually killed several Germans. More to the point, he adored her and had been asking her out for weeks.

That night his dreams came true.

“They must be so brave,” said Millie to poor, hopelessly-in-love Frank Tyne. Frank’s Irish heritage, or so he claimed, made him a special favorite of General Donovan, whom he routinely referred to as “the General.” He was not above using such information to advance himself. He was crude, direct, horny, stupid, supposedly a hero but utterly full of himself and other noxious substances.

“Good guys. See, the deal is, it was time to show Jerry some action. The General knew that. So these teams, I put them together as an opportunity for the outfit to show its stuff.”

She knew he hadn’t put one and one together to get two.

“And tonight’s the night?”

“Tonight’s the night,” Frank said, with a wicked gleam in his eyes that suggested that maybe he was assuming tonight was the night in more ways than one.

They sat in the bar of the Coach & Horses, amid smoke, other drinkers, and trysters.

“Frank, you should be so proud. It’s your plan, after all. You’re really doing something. I mean, so much of it is politics, society, canoodling, and it has nothing to do with the war. I just get depressed sometimes. Even Colonel Bruce, he tries so hard, he’s such a darling, but he’s ineffectual. You, Frank—you are stopping the Nazis. That is so important. Somebody has to do the fighting!”

She touched Frank’s wrist, and smiled radiantly, and watched the poor mick melt. Then, fighting the sudden rush of phlegm to his throat, he said, “Look, let’s get out of here.”

“Frank, we shouldn’t. I mean—”

“Miss Fenwick — Millie… May I call you Millie?”

“Of course.”

“Millie, it’s the night of the warrior. We should commemorate it. Look, let’s go back to my office; I have a little stash of very fine Pikesville Rye. We can have some privacy. It’ll be a great night and we can wait for news of Team Casey’s strike to come in and celebrate.”

Millie played up the I’m-considering look, going through several Yes-why-nots? and several No-no-it’s-wrongs before seeming to settle on the Yes-why-not?

“Yes, why not?” she said, but he was already pulling on his raincoat over his uniform.

It was spread out before her on Frank Tyne’s desk: Operation Jedburgh. It was a facsimile of the map in Operations two floors below, now staffed and busy. But it was close enough to actuality for government work.

She could see all the locations for the teams, and all their targets, laid out across the Cotentin Peninsula and southwestern France, all the boys who’d gone in with darkened faces and knives between their teeth. Teams Frederick and Hugh, Harry and Ian, Willis and Felix, Francis and David, with the mission to set Europe ablaze.

“Oh, Frank,” she said. “And to think you thought it up. That’s your plan. Those magnificent men fighting and killing, and all under your direction.”

Frank swelled a bit, then turned modest.

“Sweetie, you have to understand it was a true team effort, and it involved logistics and liaison between three entities. I just conceived and organized it, that’s all. It’s my bit. Nothing dramatic. I don’t want you thinking I’m a hero. The kids are the heroes.”

Her eyes scanned the map with incredible intensity, and if dumbbell Frank had a whisper of sense in his brain, he would have noted how inappropriate her concentration was, but of course he was way gone. He was over the edge. His dick was as big as a wine bottle.

“Oooooh!” she squealed girlishly. “What’s this one? Casey.”

“You must have heard the name in the air. Casey’s on for tonight. There’s a bridge, right smack in a German panzer division’s route. Casey’s going to hit it, ka-boom! No tanks, not on my watch.”

“Such heroes.”

“If there’s room for heroics. First, you have to get through the bullshit — oh, excuse me — the bull crap about politics. France is not only fighting the Germans but the French themselves are always trying to skew this way or that for political advantage after the war.”

He wanted to show her what an insider he was. “Casey was hung up for some reason because a commie guerrilla outfit wouldn’t give them support. But I was able to make certain phone calls — can’t say to who, you understand — and the Commies were ordered to pitch in.” He smiled smugly, loosened his tie, took another swig of rye.

“And it’s happening tonight?”

He looked at his watch, worn commando-style upside down on his wrist.

“Real soon now. We should know by dawn.”

“It’s so exciting.”

“Millie, why don’t you come over here on the couch and we’ll relax for a bit, have a few more drinks. Then I’ll wander down to Operations and see if anything’s come in on Casey.”

“Oh, Frank,” she said. She sunk down on the old sofa that constituted his office furniture, beside the desk and the battered filing cabinets and the safe, and snuggled close to him, and felt him groping to get his beefy arms around her.

“Oh, Millie, Millie, God, Millie, if you only knew, Jesus, Millie, I’ve had the same feeling for you that you have for me, I’m so glad the war has brought us together, oh, Millie…”

She smiled, and when he closed his eyes to kiss her, she brought a handkerchief full of knockout drops — chloral hydrate, mixed with alcohol — to his nostrils and felt him struggle, then go limp.

She got up quickly, went to the map, marked the coordinates for Casey’s operational area, and then realized of course they would know all this. The big info was that a red group had agreed to assist the Jeds, which meant assisting the FFI. She knew Moscow would go through the roof on that one! It felt so wrong to her, so unjust. If you helped the FFI, then the war would have been for nothing; when it was over, it would just go back to what it was, with big money ruling everything and the little guy squashed to nothingness and all the bullies and all the rich scum and all the boys who’d pawed her at Smith, brutal, smelly, drunken Frank Tyne, all those men would be triumphant, and what, really, what would have been the point? The only hope was the Soviet Union, the greatness of Uncle Joe, the justice of a system that didn’t depend on exploitation but that enabled man to be all that he could be, noble and giving, generous and loving. That was a world worth fighting for, and if she didn’t have a gun, she had a telephone.

She picked it up and dialed, knowing that nowhere on earth would anyone see anything suspicious about Frank Tyne of OSS calling David Hedgepath of the Office of War Information at 2214 on the night of June 8, 1944.

CHAPTER 81 The Raven

The fog was most helpful. Across the street, he was secure in the bushes, standing in the darkness of one of the great residences surrounding the park and yet awarded a solid view. The vapors rose, not much at first, then to shoe level, then up, heavier to the waist, and finally a fine scrim on all of the park, all of London, really.

He could see them through the circle of plane trees that defined the center of the park, sitting on a bench, lost in conversation. He hoped they’d stay. A few other walkers roamed the park; so much easier if they departed. Then a bobby on foot patrol, lamp in hand, whistle in tunic, wandered by and seemed to utter something. Raven heard the hero lieutenant answering, “Same to you, Officer.” The policeman completed his rounds and headed off, and Mr. Raven, who had a prodigious memory for police routes and times, knew he wouldn’t be back until nearly 11. It was but 8:30 now.

He waited, he waited, he waited. The park’s last visitor, a single gentleman with a Scottish terrier on a leash, left by the far exit and the two Americans were alone. It was time. He felt the pistol heavy in his hand in the folds of the coat. At this point, so close to action, he found himself tumescent. It was not unusual.

“I had no idea who ‘Leets’ was until the colonel took me to see you in hospital. I saw this large, handsome man trying so hard to deflect praise from himself. I also saw the pain on his face, but more: the weight of the loss he’d experienced. I knew I was responsible for it all. And I suppose you think the love I feel for you is a fraud, part of my red half. But it’s not, Jim. No matter what happens, it’s not.”

A policeman wandered by. Decent fellow, friendly.

“Evening, sir and madam,” he said, and Leets answered, watched then as he drifted away. He turned back to her.

“I could be cynical and say you used the charm and beauty on me as part of your cover. If I loved you, and dammit to hell, I do and always will, I’d never see you for what you were. I could never be realistic, I could never force myself to look at the evidence, I would keep my suspicions to myself.”

“I swear, I never thought of that. Yes, I manipulated that idiot Frank Tyne and I suppose I did the same to the poor colonel. I knew I’d last until a realist came along. He came sooner than anybody anticipated. But none of that is about you. Everything I have said to you, I have meant.”

“God, I wish there was some other way.”

“There is, Jim.”

“Don’t.”

“Just listen. You could come with me on my journey. You could have a big career ahead of you with your record in the war and find yourself in high places. There you could work for a new world. You could do so much good. The whole point is to find meaning and worth in all the slaughter and destruction. If we just go back to the way it was, it’s all been for nothing.”

“I doubt Private Goldberg would agree.”

“Private Goldberg?”

“The late Private Goldberg. He thought he was dying for his country and was willing to do so. True also of Captain St. Florian: despite his cosmopolitan ironies and sophistication, a believer. And all the French kids shot down by Das Reich on the slope at Tulle. It’s not America or the Allies. It’s them. I owe them, much as even right now I’d like to take you in my arms.”

“Poor Jim,” she said.

“Here’s my pitch. We go to the FBI tomorrow. I know who the guy is in the outfit. You confess. They’ll get you on a plane out the next day. You go to Hoover, you spill everything. You tell who recruited you, who you met, how and where you were trained. You give up Zora. You give it all up. As you say, the Russians are our allies, at least formally. And the FBI knows a lot of good-hearted Americans have fallen for the line about a better tomorrow. Maybe that’ll cut you some slack and keep you out of jail for life. Then… well, we’ll let ‘then’ take care of itself.”

“Jim, I can’t. You don’t understand. I believe. It’s not about getting my father to pay attention to me or getting revenge on my drunken mother. It’s not because I was seduced by a red professor at college or am striking out at a world that has ignored me while noticing my face. I believe.”

A small man emerged from the fog. He wore a derby, an overcoat, and a scarf over his face. His eyes seemed odd.

“Evening, sir and madam,” he said. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

He had a pistol in his hand.

Now at last.

He was so close, he could hear them. It was a conversation of some urgency — earnest, he judged, on both their parts — driven by emotion that was nevertheless, as it is among people of their sort, held in.

And for the first time in his life, he felt sympathy.

Am I really to do this? Must I do this? Suddenly it seemed wrong.

They were so perfect, so in love, so beautiful. It was a scene from a romantic painting, something from before the Great War. Something from a myth, a medieval tale, an old book, a collective folk memory. Lancelot and Guinevere, Héloïse and Abelard, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet. To interrupt seemed impolite; to destroy, blasphemous. He yearned to walk away. It would be his end, of course. His reputation shattered, what else could a man with his face do? He scared children; he made women turn away and men wince. There was only this life.

He stepped forward.

“Evening, sir and madam,” he said. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

He broke their intensity. Both stared intently at him.

He presented the pistol.

They did not panic or cry; they did not scream. They simply looked on, waiting, accepting what must happen. The woman uttered something to the man and took his hand.

He followed his orders.

He did what he must. He fired.

The report was loud in the quiet of the London park, shrouded in fog.

He turned. He walked away, cursing himself and his duty.

The man had an almost sheepish look in his eyes, for his eyes were all that was visible. He had come to kill, almost embarrassed by the nature of the mission.

“Jim, I do love you,” she said, taking his hand. “But I also know the Revolution is sometimes cruel to the few in order, someplace else in time, to be kind to the many.”

The little man fired.

The bullet was kind to her beauty. It punctured her above the right eye, destroying nothing, ruining everything. She toppled to the right, to the bench.

CHAPTER 82 RAF Horham

Evans drove Leets and Swagger to RAF Horham, in Suffolk, home to the Eighth Air Force’s 92nd Bomb Group. After being ID’d at the gate, they pulled in next to the administrative office in the control tower.

“Evans, go in and see if the major needs to sign in or something.”

“Yes, sir,” said Evans, departing.

They watched him go, young asshole who knew nothing, so beautiful in his tailored Class As.

“So what does the colonel have for you?” Swagger asked. “Has he told you?”

“It’s not really for me. It’s for Evans, so he’ll have his afternoons free to give tennis lessons to various London big shots. Meanwhile, back at 70, I’m heading up something called SWET: Small Weapons Evaluation Team. It’s a huge unit consisting of me and, when available, Evans. The idea is to evaluate new-generation German small arms as they come into our possession and to write technical reports. The more technical the better, because it’ll eat up time and keep anybody from ever reading them.”

“Sounds like you’d get some range time.”

“If Corporal Evans’s schedule permits.”

“Are you okay about the girl?”

“Ah, well…,” he said. “I suppose a few more sleepless nights or weeks ahead. Regrets, yeah, sorrow, of course. Pain, but there’s always pain in a war. Not as much as Basil, not as much as Goldberg. She believed in what she was doing, and that means, whether she knew it or not, she had to accept the outcome. Her choice, no one else’s.”

“She was the girl who knew too much. They couldn’t let her be taken.”

“Had she figured that out, or was it just as much a surprise to her as to me? We’ll never know. Suicide or murder? I’ll wonder for the rest of my life.”

Evans knocked on the window. Leets rolled it down.

“Straight to the flight line. It’s the number two ship, Duffy’s Circus. They’re ready to go.”

Leets nodded. The kid got in, only checking his watch once to see if he’d have to cancel on General Lehman at 1600, and drove them. The car passed along a row of huge warbirds canted upward on their landing gear, four-engine behemoths with proud tails reaching skyward, plexiglass and silver gleaming, guns jutting, bullet holes patched, folks around them busy loading the bombs that looked like gigantic rusted sausages for the day’s run to Berlin or Munich or wherever. B-17s in excelsior! Aviators in A2s and crushed forty-mission caps, soon to be targets at twenty-four thousand feet for the entire Luftwaffe, stood around the giant tires and ladders into the fuselage hatches, joshing, laughing, smoking, all of them.

They arrived at Duffy’s Circus.

“Earl, dammit, are you sure you don’t want to take that commission? It’s not too late. It kills me to think of you shot to pieces in some jungle shithole in a place I can’t even pronounce. It’s such a waste.”

“I think it’ll be pronounced PELL–I-LOO, if it matters. Worst-kept secret in Washington. A waste? Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not cleared for discussions on waste. That’s for generals and politicians. To me, we’re fighting so we can stop fighting. If it has to be done, it better be done by someone who knows what he’s doing. Less dying that way.”

“Then take a Marine commission. You could have one in thirty seconds.”

“Believe it or not, when it comes to fighting Japs, sergeants are more useful than majors. It’s sergeant’s work.”

They shook hands.

“Take it easy, Lieutenant. You’re the best.”

The older man turned and went to meet his aircrew.

From the observation deck of the control tower, Leets watched the Flying Fort taxi to the runway, orient itself, pause a second, rev, tremble, and then launch. It sped across the English tarmac, gathered enough speed, and left the earth behind. It banked, its landing gear folding into the inboard cowlings, and headed out.

He watched all the way. It seemed to be headed toward Valhalla, or Olympus, someplace more majestic than, ultimately, a scrap of coral, which would come very high, called PELL–I-LOO. It climbed amid towering castles of cumulus, a big bird serenaded by the sun. It became a profile, a blur, a silver speck. Then it disappeared into the blue.

He was thinking: Where do we get such men? And what do we do if we run out of them?