The Double Agents Read online

  THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  ALSO BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  PRESIDENTIAL AGENT

  BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT

  BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE

  BOOK III: THE HUNTERS

  BROTHERHOOD OF WAR

  BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS

  BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS

  BOOK III: THE MAJORS

  BOOK IV: THE COLONELS

  BOOK V: THE BERETS

  BOOK VI: THE GENERALS BOOK

  VII: THE NEW BREED

  BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS

  BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS

  THE CORPS

  BOOK I: SEMPER FI

  BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS

  BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK

  BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE

  BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT

  BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES

  BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH

  BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE

  BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!

  BADGE OF HONOR

  BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE

  BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS

  BOOK III: THE VICTIM

  BOOK IV: THE WITNESS

  BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN

  BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS

  BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS

  BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE

  MEN AT WAR

  BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES

  BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS

  BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES

  BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS

  BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS

  (with William E. Butterworth IV)

  HONOR BOUND

  HONOR BOUND

  BLOOD AND HONOR

  SECRET HONOR

  THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  W.E.B. GRIFFIN AND WILLIAM E. BUTTERWORTH IV

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  NEW YORK

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group

  (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24

  Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2007 by William E. Butterworth IV

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or disributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Griffin, W. E. B.

  The double agents / W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV.

  p. cm.—(The men at war series)

  ISBN: 9781101405772

  1. United States. Office of Strategic Services—Fiction. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Secret service—Fiction. I. Butterworth, William E. (William Edmund). II. Title.

  PS3557.R489137D68 2007 2007011993

  813'.54—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Contents

  THE MEN AT WAR SERIES IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN HONOR OF

  I

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  II

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  III

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  IV

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  V

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  VI

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  VII

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  VIII

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  IX

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  X

  [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  AFTERWORD

  THE MEN AT WAR SERIES

  IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

  IN HONOR OF

  Lieutenant Aaron Bank, Infantry, AUS,

  detailed OSS

  (Later Colonel, Special Forces)

  November 23, 1902–April 1, 2004

  Lieutenant William E. Colby, Infantry, AUS,

  detailed OSS

  (Later Ambassador and Director, CIA)

  January 4, 1920–April 28, 1996

  * * *

  It is no use saying,

  “We are doing our best.”

  You have got to succeed in doing

  what is necessary.

  —Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill

  * * *

  * * *

  When you get to the end

  of your rope,

  tie a knot, and hang on.

  —President Franklin D. Roosevelt

  * * *

  THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  [ONE]

  Schutzstaffel Provisional Headquarters Messina, Sicily 0810 26 March 1943

  “You’d very likely be shot for saying such a thing,” SS Standartenführer Julius Schrader said.

  SS Obersturmbannführer Oskar Kappler—an athletic thirty-two-year-old, tall and trim, with a strong chin, intelligent blue eyes, and a full head of closely cropped light brown hair—did not trust his voice to reply. The lieutenant colonel stood stiffly and simply stared at the colonel, a pale-skinned portly thirty-five-year-old of medium height who kept his balding head cleanly shaven.

  “Of all people, my friend, this you should understand,” Schrader added.

  Taking care not to spill coffee from the fine porcelain china cup that he carried on its saucer, the Standartenführer rose slowly from his high-backed leather chair, then moved out from behind the polished marble-topped wooden desk that dominated the large office.

  Kappler’s eyes followed Schrader as he walked across the floor, also highly polished stone, past oversize portraits of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels—the images of the Nazi Germany leader and his propaganda minister struck Kappler as more oafish than inspiring—and over to one of the half-dozen floor-to-ceiling windows with heavy burgundy-co
lored drapes pulled back to either side.

  Sipping from his cup, Schrader looked out at the busy Port of Messina and, five kilometers distant across the Strait of Messina, to the toe of the boot that was mainland Italy. The morning sun painted the coast and rising hills in golden hues and turned the surface of the emerald green sea to shimmering silver.

  Schrader sighed, then added pointedly but softly: “Or, perhaps worse, you would be sent to suffer a slow death in a concentration camp.”

  Both men—Nazi officers in the Sicherheitsdienst, known as the SD, the intelligence arm of the Schutzstaffel, also called the SS—knew far more about that than they wished. Punishment for anything less than total commitment to der Führer and the success of his Third Reich was swift and brutal. And they both personally had witnessed incidents in which those merely suspected of being suspicious—civilians and soldiers alike—had been summarily shot or shipped off to spend their final days toiling in the death camps.

  For those so sentenced, a bullet served as the far better option, even if self-administered…as it sometimes was.

  Obersturmbannführer Kappler wanted to speak but found it hard to control his voice so that it did not waver.

  Schrader surveyed the port. Cargo vessels flying the flags of Germany and Italy were moored at the long docks, loading and unloading, the cranes and ships creating long, defined shadows in the low angle of the sun.

  At anchor inside the sickle-shaped harbor were warships—two aging destroyers and a heavy cruiser of the Regina Marina, the latter easily twenty years old—from the Third Division of the Italian navy.

  Schrader thought, The ships look beautiful in the morning light, but the fact is, the merchant vessels have been weeks late getting here. Supply to all of our ports in Sicily—especially those in the south and far west—has been getting slower. Food, munitions, everything.

  And the Regina Marina treats us like some kind of stepchild, providing only weak, aging vessels for our protection.

  It is hard not to agree with my old friend…though I dare not say it.

  Schrader, still looking out the window, stated in a matter-of-fact tone: “We go back very far, Oskar. I have always supported you. Yet I must strongly counsel you not to continue with such talk and will, even at great risk to myself for not reporting it, ignore that you ever said anything of the kind.”

  He turned to glance at Kappler. He saw him looking off into the distance, slowly shaking his head in frustration if not defiance.

  Kappler cleared his throat, swallowed—and found his voice.

  “Juli,” he began softly but with determination, “I, of course, have always appreciated everything that you have done for me. And I certainly value your counsel. But…”

  Schrader held up his hand, palm outward, in a gesture that said Stop.

  “But nothing,” he said. “You will serve here as ordered, as will I, and we will honor the Führer and the Fatherland. Period.”

  Kappler looked at his friend, who for the last year also had been his superior in the SS office in Messina. Their friendship dated back a dozen years, to when they had been teammates on the university polo team in Berlin. Schrader, then in far better shape, had held the key position of number four player while Kappler had been number three.

  Then as now, Kappler knew Schrader expected him to follow his lead.

  “But, Juli, I have heard from sources in Berlin that Hitler will not be able to defend Sicily adequately. With his focus on fronts of higher strategic value—France, Russia, others—he cannot afford to send the forces necessary to do so. And when that is realized by the Italian military—who some say would just as well fight against us, which is to say not fight any invasion—we’ll be left to defend this pathetic island alone. We’ll be overrun.”

  He walked over to the window and stood beside Schrader.

  “Take a closer look out there, Juli,” Kappler said, making a dramatic sweep with his arm. “What do you see? A tired old city—no, not even that—a tired old town that has been neglected by its own people. And what has Mussolini done for Messina? Same that he’s done for all of Sicily: nothing but promise after promise, all of them empty. Yet here the Sicilians sit, so close that they can almost reach out and touch the shore of Italy—and its riches.”

  He paused, then pointed to the northwest, where the low masonry buildings at the edge of the city gave way to much-lesser structures—fashioned of really no more than rusted corrugated tin and other salvaged metal and wood scraps—near the foothills.

  “And there,” Kappler went on, his tone of voice becoming stronger. “Those shanties. Do you think that any one of the tens of thousands in those miserable conditions have any reason to fight for Mussolini? No. Of course not. Nor does the average Sicilian feel loyalty to him. And certainly not the real leaders, the members of the Mafia—many of whom, you will recall, you and I helped Il Duce imprison. They feel exactly the opposite. They despise Mussolini.” He paused. “They despise us.”

  Schrader made a humph sound and shrugged.

  “What do you expect?” he said. “This is war—”

  “But,” Kappler interrupted, “you would think that we’re an occupying force. We’re not. These people do not know—or choose not to acknowledge—that we’re fighting on the same side, Juli.”

  He let that statement set in, then added: “If you do not agree, then answer this: How do we go about ensuring their allegiance?”

  He looked at his friend. When finally there was no answer, only silence, he answered the question himself: “We do it with threats, Juli, with coercion and fear. Just as you and I fear being found not to be in complete and total lockstep with”—he made a wave of disgust with his hand toward the portraits on the wall—“the high party and its ideals.”

  Schrader looked at Kappler, then at his coffee cup, and drained it.

  “This is complete nonsense,” Schrader said. “I have been given no intelligence that says—”

  “Do you really believe that they would tell you that? From what I hear, no one tells the Führer anything that the Führer does not want to hear. His temper is legendary.”

  Schrader snorted. “So it is said. I would not wish to have been the unfortunate one who had to report the news last month of von Paulus’s defeat.”

  Kappler nodded solemnly.

  The Wehrmacht had been dealt a devastating blow by the Russian Red Army. Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus and his Sixth German Army—strung out too far while battling a wicked Stalingrad winter—had been damn near obliterated.

  It was a loss that even now Hitler had not come completely to comprehend—quite possibly could not, considering that people were prone to report that which would keep them alive…not necessarily that which the Führer needed to hear.

  “Precisely,” Kappler said. “And apparently that temper is worsening with his misfortunes of war. First, he basically loses North Africa and—worse—refuses to concede it. Now, mere months later, this travesty in Stalingrad. What makes you think he is even thinking of Sicily? Maybe he’s more concerned about Corsica and Sardinia. They’re closer to the mainland. If I were him, I would pull back and protect against mainland invasions closer to home—particularly ones from the east and west—battles that I can win.” He exhaled audibly. “Not save some island.”

  He looked at Schrader, who returned the look but said nothing.

  Kappler then quietly offered: “You know there have been attempts on Hitler’s life.”

  “Rumors,” Schrader snapped.

  Kappler nodded and said, “Possibly. But credible ones. He’s weakening.”

  Schrader stared at Kappler, looking in his eyes for something that he feared Kappler might be holding back from saying.

  Schrader knew the Kapplers were an old family well connected in Dortmund—and thus well connected at high levels in Berlin thanks to Oskar’s industrialist grandfather’s steel mill in Ruhrpott, the Ruhr Valley, supplying critical materials to the war effort—and Kappler could very well h
ave access to quiet information that Schrader never would.

  “Only a fool would try to assassinate him,” Schrader finally said, reasonably.

  “Only a fool would try and fail.”

  Schrader stiffened and with a raised voice said, “You’re not suggesting—?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything, Juli,” he said evenly. “I am saying, however, that there appear to be real cracks in Hitler’s grand plan. And that wise men make their own plans for different courses of action.”

  Schrader walked wordlessly over to the desk, took a deep breath and exhaled, then picked up the carafe from the sterling silver coffee service at the front edge of the desk. He gestured with it, offering Kappler a cup.

  “Sure you won’t have some?” he asked, his voice now casual, and after Kappler shook his head Schrader shrugged and poured himself a fresh cup.

  “Different courses of action,” Schrader said conversationally. “What does this mean?”

  “Just look at what Hitler has sent us to prepare for a possible invasion. Not men, not matériel. No, he has left us Il Duce’s tired army to fight with our own thin forces.”

  As Schrader absently stirred three spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee, he said, “There is no reason we could not get additional reinforcements.”