Men at War - 04 - The Fighting Agents by W.E.B. Griffin

Author:W.E.B. Griffin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Military Fiction
ISBN: 9780515130522
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2001-05-01T03:46:58+00:00

5

OSS LONDON STATION BERKELEY SQUARE LONDON, ENGLAND 1610 HOURS 14 FEBRUARY 1943

David Bruce, Chief of London Station, was surprised to sense his office door being quietly opened, and when he looked up, to see the face of Capt. Helene Dancy waiting to catch his attention.

“Sorry to disturb you, Sir,” Capt. Dancy said.

Bruce’s eyebrows rose in question.

“Miss Hoche is here,” Capt. Dancy said.

Bruce frowned. He didn’t want to see Charity Hoche. He wanted, in fact, to nip in the bud any idea of hers that she would enjoy with him the same close personal relationship she was supposed to have with Bill Donovan.

He had directed that Helene Dancy pick the girl up at Croydon and take her directly to Whitbey House in one of the station’s 1941 olive-drab Ford staff cars. En route, Helene was supposed to relay his orders to her to make herself useful wherever Lieutenant Robert Jamison felt she would fit in.

Jamison was Adjutant of Whitbey House Station. His job had been to relieve Canidy of as much of the administrative burden as he could. He had done a good job, but not only was he admittedly unhappy with what he called his chief clerk’s role, but he was also qualified, in Bruce’s opinion, to assume greater operational responsibility.

Jamison wanted to go operational, which was different from assuming greater operational responsibility.

Bruce had already decided that was out of the question, not because Jamison couldn’t do it but because he knew too much for the OSS to risk having him captured. With Canidy the exception that proved the rule, OSS personnel privy to OSS plans and intentions in more than one—their own—case were not permitted to go operational.

No attempt had been made to brief Jamison on any particular operation, but he did the paperwork, and he was as bright as a new dime. There was no question in David Bruce’s mind that Jamison knew far too much about too many things to send him off somewhere where he was likely to find himself being interrogated by the Sicherheitsdienst.

But Bruce had always thought there were areas where Jamison’s intelligence and other talents could be put to better use than requisitioning sheets and towels and keeping abreast of the paperwork. Canidy had been giving him jobs of greater importance than these. And he had accomplished them admirably.

Jamison had handled, for example, and handled well, a project in connection with “Operation Aphrodite”:

There was only one way to test the practicality of the drone bomber project, and that was by setting up a target and trying to blow it up with an explosives-laden, radio-controlled B-17. This, of course, had to be done with as much secrecy as possible, so when they finally flew the flying bombs against the German submarine pens, they would have the necessary element of surprise.

Jamison had scoured the maps of the United Kingdom until he found a lonely bay in Scotland that could be used as a target range. It had required coordination with the English, the local Scottish government, the U.

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