The Secret Warriors Read online

  “Send some Navy brass to ask his opinion about invading North Africa,” Donovan said. “That might appeal to his ego, keeping his role in the invasion a secret.”

  “And he might even be helpful,” Martin said, just slightly sarcastic. “He was the naval commander in Casablanca.”

  “Well, you make him feel important, and I’ll arrange with Captain Douglass to send some Navy brass down to confer with him.”

  “What about some of the French naval officers in Washington? Can we get him some kind of a small staff? Otherwise, he’ll know we’re just humoring him.”

  Donovan thought that over. The moment Free French naval officers were assigned to de Verbey, de Gaulle would hear about it—and be furious. Perhaps that might not be a bad idea. It was Machiavellian. Or perhaps Rooseveltian.

  “I’ll speak to Douglass,” Donovan said. “I’m sure we can find several otherwise unoccupied French naval officers to serve the admiral.”

  “I’ll have him at Summer Place by noon tomorrow,” Martin promised.

  The third item on the agenda was financial. Five million dollars in gold coins had been made available to finance secret operations in Africa, France, and Spain. More would be made available when needed. Five million was enough to get started.

  Project Arcadia had two basic objectives: to keep Spain from joining the German-Italian-Japanese Axis, and to keep the native populations of French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) from throwing in their lot with the Germans. Five million was a lot of money, but worth it. Ten times that much was available if necessary from the President’s secret war appropriation. It would be much cheaper to spend fifty million to keep Spain neutral than to spend two weeks at war with her.

  Donovan and his Disciples knew that it had been decided to invade French North Africa as quickly as possible. That would be called Operation Torch. Donovan now told the Disciples something he had learned from the President only the day before: The Army and Navy were shooting for an August or September D-Day for Operation Torch, but he and Roosevelt privately believed the operation could not be executed until October or November.

  In addition to the logistical nightmare of sending an invasion force from the United States directly to Africa, there were geopolitical problems. If Spain joined the Axis, the Germans could legally move troops into Spanish Morocco, from where you could almost spit on Gibraltar. The Vichy government was almost certainly going to resist Torch with whatever they had. And they had troops and warships, including the battleship Jean Bart, in Casablanca.

  All of these problems would be compounded if the natives decided to support the Franco-Germans against an American invasion. Some of their troops were not only good but in French service; and even the least modernized of their forces could function effectively as guerrillas. On the other hand, the French Army had never been able to pacify the ones who disdained French service.

  Donovan ordered the five million to be spent with the missions of Project Arcadia alone in mind. As little as possible would be spent for “general war objectives.” It was further not to be regarded as supplemental funds by intelligence operators on the scene.

  Gold was worth $32.00 an ounce, $512.00 a pound. Five million dollars’ worth of gold weighed about ten thousand pounds, five tons. A man named Atherton Richards, a banker on the fringes of the Disciples, would pick up the gold at the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan, transport it by Brink’s armored cars to the Navy base in Brooklyn, and load it on a U.S. Navy destroyer, which would then make a high-speed run across the Atlantic to Gibraltar.

  Donovan’s Disciples had other plans and operations to discuss, offering suggestions and seeking instructions, and the session continued for two more hours before it died down.

  “Is that all?” Donovan finally asked. He was tired and wanted some sleep. The rat poison and the Scotch were getting to him.

  “I have one thing, William,” the Near Eastern Disciple said. “Has there been any decision about whether, or how, we’re going to deal with Thami el Glaoui?”

  “No,” Donovan said, adding dryly, “There are many schools of thought on Thami.”

  The Disciple, previously professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, believed that Thami el Glaoui, pasha of Marrakech, was not only a very interesting character but that he had every likelihood of becoming king of Morocco.

  “Who?” the German Industry Disciple asked, chuckling. “That sounds like an Armenian restaurant.”

  He was given a withering look by the Near Eastern Disciple.

  “Thami el Glaoui,” the Disciple began patiently, pedantically, “bridges, one might say—he’s sixty-some, maybe seventy, no one seems to know for sure—the Thousand and One Nights and what it pleases us to consider modern civilization. He rules over his tribesmen like a sheikh in the desert, as absolute monarch, exercising the power of life and death. But he also owns wineries, farms, a bus company, and phosphate mines. God only knows how much he made by taking a percentage for smuggling diamonds and currency out of Morocco and France.”

  “Can he do us any good?” the Italian Disciple interrupted impatiently. “And if so, how?”

  The Near Eastern Disciple was not used to being interrupted, and produced another withering look.

  “We could not have gotten the mining engineer Grunier out of Morocco without his permission,” he said. “That cost us one hundred thousand dollars. If I may continue?”

  “Please,” Donovan said, spreading oil on troubled waters.

  “If Thami el Glaoui were to come to believe that we were in favor of his becoming king, or at least that we would not support the present monarch—who would, I should add, like to behead him—it could be quite valuable to us, I think.”

  “Sorry, Charley,” the Italian Disciple said contritely. “No offense.”

  The apology was ignored.

  “The man who has led Thami el Glaoui into the twentieth century is another interesting chap,” the Disciple went on, as if picking up a lecture. “He is the old pasha of Ksar es Souk. For years and years and years he was the éminence grise behind Thami’s maneuverings. He was assassinated on December sixth last, probably by the king. Probably with the tacit approval of the Germans. Possibly by mistake—they could have easily been after his son instead. The son was involved in high-stakes smuggling.”

  “I don’t get the point of all this, Charley,” C. Holdsworth Martin, Jr., said.

  “On the death of the pasha, the eldest son became pasha. The pasha is dead. Long live the pasha. The new pasha of Ksar es Souk is Sidi el Ferruch,” the Disciple went on. “Twenty-five years old. Educated in Switzerland and Germany. A product of this century.”

  “What about him?” East Europe asked impatiently. “Can he do us any good?”

  It was time for Donovan to interrupt.

  “He already has,” he said. “He smuggled—with el Glaoui’s permission—Grunier out of Morocco. Charley feels that he could be very useful when we invade North Africa. So do I. But there is, to reiterate, more than one school of thought on the question.”

  “You’re thinking about causing a native rebellion, then?” The previously skeptical Italian Disciple was now fascinated.

  “The Army’s weighing the pros and cons,” Donovan said, not wanting to get into a lengthy discussion of that now. “It’s something for the back burner. A rebellion could quickly get out of hand, but simply ensuring that Thami el Glaoui’s Berbers stay out of the fight seems worth whatever effort it would take. I’ll let you know what’s decided.”

  The Near East Disciple was used to concluding lectures when he wished to conclude them, and not before. He was also, Donovan decided, not immune to the romance of his first venture into international intrigue.

  “With an eye to using el Ferruch in the future, and for other reasons,” the Disciple said, “we decided not to bring Eric Fulmar out when we brought Grunier out.”

  East Europe took the bait. “Who is Eric Fulmar?” It was the first he had heard about th
is operation.

  “Still another interesting character,” the Near East Disciple said. “His father is the Fulmar of Fulmar Elektrische Gesellschaft, and his mother is Monica Carlisle, the actress.”

  Now that Charley had the other Disciples’ rapt attention, Donovan knew that silencing him was going to be damned near impossible.

  “I didn’t know she was even married. Or was that old,” C. Holdsworth Martin, Jr., said.

  “Very likely to make sure that her dark secret—a son that old—did not become public knowledge,” the Near East Disciple went on, “she sent him to school in Switzerland. Where Sidi el Ferruch, conveniently for us, was also a student.”

  “This is off the wall, Charley,” Martin said. “But where in Switzerland? What school?”

  “Bull’s-eye, Holdsworth,” the Near East Disciple said. “La Rosey. Where your boy was.”

  C. Holdsworth Martin snorted. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “And then el Ferruch and Fulmar went to Germany—to Phillip’s University in Marburg an der Lahn—for college. Where they apparently took honors in Smuggling 101. The pair of them have made a fortune smuggling gold, jewels, currency, and fine art out of France—not to mention the hundred thousand we paid them to get Grunier out. Fulmar now has over a hundred thousand in the Park and Fifty-seventh Street branch of the First National City Bank. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was more money in Switzerland.”

  “This Fulmar chap was supposed to come out with Grunier?” Italy asked, and when the Near East Disciple nodded, asked: “Then why didn’t we bring him out?”

  “That was part of the deal,” the Disciple said, relishing his role as spymaster.

  He has a surprising talent to be a sonofabitch, Donovan thought, but so long as it’s in a good cause . . .

  “He thought we were going to bring him out,” the Disciple went on. “The Germans were breathing down his neck. They knew about the smuggling, and the son of a prominent Nazi industrialist should be in uniform, preferably with the Waffen SS in Russia. Since he knew that it was a bit below the salt to have made himself rich by helping the French move their assets out from under the benevolent control of the Thousand-Year Reich, he really wanted to get himself out of Morocco. It made him very cooperative.”

  “If we said we would bring him out, then why didn’t we?” Italy continued, his sense of fair play offended.

  “It wasn’t nice, Henry,” Donovan said. “But it was considered necessary. It gave Sidi el Ferruch a choice. He could turn Fulmar in, and cover himself with the Germans. Or he could continue to protect him, and leave the door open to us. And of course, when we’re talking about el Ferruch, we’re talking about Thami el Glaoui. For the moment, at least, he’s decided to leave the door open. Fulmar is in the pasha’s palace at Ksar es Souk.”

  “And what does this Fulmar think of us for leaving him behind when we promised to get him out of Morocco?”

  “I don’t suppose he thinks very kindly of us,” Donovan said. “We’ll have to deal with that when we come to it. If we come to it. As I said, the decision whether or not to try to use Thami el Glaoui’s Berbers has not yet been made.”

  “If I were Fulmar,” the Italy Disciple said, “I would tell you to go straight to the devil.”

  Donovan suppressed a smile. “We’ll have to burn that bridge when we get to it,” he said. “I don’t think waving a flag at him will be very effective, but he likes money.”

  “Good God!” the outraged Disciple said in disgust.

  “Anything else?” Donovan asked, looking at them one at a time.

  There were only verbal reports, nothing that required discussion. When these were concluded, Donovan’s visitors shook his hand and left.

  He drained the Scotch in his glass, had another, and then turned the light off. But his mind would not let him go to sleep. He poured more Scotch and drank that. He wondered if he would die. He didn’t want to die now. Not, he thought, until the tide had turned. Not while he was having so much fun. He went to sleep vowing to obey the doctor’s command to stay in bed until the embolism dissolved.

  Donovan had been asleep an hour when one of the telephones on his bedside table rang. He had three telephones there: a house phone, a secure telephone, and his personal, unlisted telephone. The last was ringing. It was probably Ruth, he thought as he reached for it. He wondered what his wife wanted at this time of night.

  Instead, it turned out to be Barbara Whittaker. Barbara owned Summer Place, the mansion in Deal, and had made it available without cost or question when Donovan told her he needed it. Barbara Whittaker was a very old friend of both Ruth and Bill. She was also the widow of his lifelong friend Chesly Whittaker, and, he remembered, the aunt of Jimmy Whittaker, who was in the Philippines in the Air Corps. Turning over Summer Place and the house on Q Street to Donovan was the only way she could imagine of helping Jimmy.

  “I’m sorry if I woke you, Bill, but I had to say thank you.”

  “For what?” Donovan asked, confused.

  “Jimmy just called. He’s in San Francisco.”

  Donovan concealed his surprise. The best hope he had had for Chesly Whittaker’s nephew was that he would somehow survive both the debacle in the Philippine Islands and the certain confinement in a Japanese POW camp.

  “He’s in San Francisco?” he asked, still confused.

  “All right, Bill,” Barbara Whittaker said. “I understand. But thank you and God bless you.”

  “He got out of the Philippines?” he asked.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you,” she said, gently sarcastic, humoring him. “So in case anyone asks you, you’ll know. He got out of the Philippines with Douglas MacArthur, and Douglas sent him from Australia with a letter to Franklin Roosevelt. They’re flying him to Washington tonight with it.”

  “I had nothing to do with this, Barbara,” Donovan said. “But of course I’m delighted to hear it.”

  “God bless you, Bill,” Barbara said emotionally. “You’re really a friend.”

  “I hope I am,” he said.

  Then the phone went dead.

  She really thinks I went to Franklin Roosevelt and got him to give Jimmy special treatment.

  And then he had another thought, a professional thought. Douglas MacArthur, whom Bill Donovan had known since they had both been young colonels with the AEF in France in 1917, was very likely up to something devious. God only knew what that letter contained. Whatever it said, it could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Donovan realized that the wrong hands were not only those of Colonel McCormick of the Chicago Tribune but those of George Marshall as well. Marshall and MacArthur despised each other.

  What Roosevelt did with the letter was his business, but it had to reach him, not get “mistakenly” released to the press, or “misplaced” in the Pentagon. Or “lost.”

  Donovan picked up the secure telephone and called the White House. The President was not available, he was told, but would be in half an hour. He left a message for the President: Jimmy Whittaker was in San Francisco, en route to Washington, bearing a personal letter to Franklin Roosevelt from Douglas MacArthur.

  After he hung up, he realized that wasn’t enough. Interception of the letter was possible now that he had announced its existence.

  He picked up the secure phone again and called the COI duty officer in the National Institutes of Health building. He told him to find Captain Peter Douglass and have him call immediately.

  Captain Douglass, whom Donovan had recruited from the Office of Naval Intelligence, was on the phone in three minutes.

  Donovan told him what he had just learned.

  “I want you to find out how Whittaker is traveling to Washington,” Donovan said.

  “If he flew from Hawaii,” Douglass said, “he went to NAS Alameda. I’ll call there and get the details.”

  “I want to ensure that he delivers that letter to the President,” Donovan said. “Which means I want you to have the airplane met when it lands in
Washington. I would prefer that you’re not personally involved, but if need be, meet him yourself. Is there anybody available?”

  “Canidy is in Washington,” Douglass replied. “He came back today from visiting his father in Cedar Rapids. He and Whittaker are close. I think I can lay my hands on him. And Chief Ellis is at the house on Q Street, of course.”

  “Where’s Canidy, if he’s not at the house?” Donovan asked.

  “He called up and said he was staying with a friend,” Douglass said dryly. “He left her number with Ellis.”

  “Aside from his catting around,” Donovan asked, chuckling, “is he giving us any trouble?”

  Canidy was a naval aviator who had been recruited by General Claire Chennault for his Flying Tigers in China. Canidy had been the first ace of the American Volunteer Group. He had then been recruited again, this time by the COI, to bring Grunier and the old admiral out of North Africa. After he and Eric Fulmar had been left floating in the Atlantic off Safi by the submarine they’d both expected to escape on, Canidy decided he no longer wished to offer his services to COI.

  Shortly after his safe return to the States, Canidy had informed Captain Douglass that now that he’d had the opportunity to play Jimmy Cagney as a spy, he’d decided that flying fighters off an airplane carrier didn’t seem nearly as dangerous or unpleasant as what he’d gone through in Morocco, and that he would be grateful if Captain Douglass would arrange for his recommissioning in the Navy.

  There were several reasons why Donovan could not permit this. At the top of the list was Canidy’s involvement with the “movement” of Grunier from Morocco to the United States. Canidy knew nothing about why Grunier was important, of course, but he knew about Grunier, and that meant he was privy to a nuclear secret, and that in itself was enough to deny him return to the Navy.

  And that wasn’t the only secret he knew. He had been in contact with Sidi Hassan el Ferruch, pasha of Ksar es Souk. Donovan believed that Roosevelt in the end would decide in favor of the notion of using el Ferruch’s Berbers in the invasion of North Africa. But even if he didn’t, the necessity for absolute secrecy about American plans for North Africa was such that Canidy’s knowledge of them—presuming he was not a cheerful, willing, obedient, loyal Boy Scout’s honor COI volunteer—made him a security risk.