You know, Baker,” Canidy said.” Loose lips lose ships.
“You are aware that he and I work for the Office of the Coordinator of Information?”
“Yes,” Whittaker said. “Would you mind telling me what you know about the COV’ Whittaker shrugged.
“It’s a hush-hush outfit run by Bill Donovan,” he said, “It’s probably involved in very strange things, like espionage. Who knows what else?”
“Dick tell you that?” Baker asked. “If he had, I wouldn’t tell you and get him in trouble,” Whittaker said.
“I got some of it from that captain, Doug lass, and some of it from the President. The rest I put together myself, like Sherlock Holmes.”
Baker smiled.
“Very good,” he said. “You get two gold stars to take home to Mommy,” Canidy said. Whittaker chuckled. Baker gave Canidy a dirty look.
“Why don’t we stop the bullshit?” Canidy said. “Why don’t you?”
Whittaker said. “You first,” Canidy said.
“Do you know what was in that letter from MacArthur to the President?”
” No,” Whittaker said.” I know it made General Marshall mad. “That’s one of the reasons you’re down here,” Canidy said.
“They’re worried you’ll give the press the contents of the letter.”
“I have no idea what it said,” Whittaker said. “And you’d take a polygraph, a lie-detector test, about that?” Baker asked.
Bull’s-eye!
Canidy thought. I knew damned well they didn’t lock him in a loony bin for pissing off the general. “It was that embarrassing, was it?”
Whittaker asked.
“Yeah, I’ll take a lie-detector test. Why not? Anything that’ll get me out of here.”
“The next question,” Canidy said, “is, would you be willing to stick your neck out, mission unspecified?”
AEEEW@
“No,” Whittaker said after a split second’s hesitation.
“I don’t think I would.”
” Your move, Baker,” Canidy said.” He just proved he’s sane. “You’ve had a chance to talk to Eric Fulmar?” Baker asked. “Of course, I have,” Whittaker said. “Did he tell you what happened in Morocco?”
Baker asked.
“Why do I feel that no matter how I answer that, it will cost me?”
Whittaker asked. “Answer that one, Jimmy,” Canidy said.
“It’s important.” Whittaker looked at Canidy, as if making up his mind whether or not to trust him. “Yeah,” he said finally.
“He told me all about Morocco.”
“Including him and me getting the shaft off the coast?” Canidy asked.
“Yeah, that, and how he finally got out. Tied up in the bilge of an Arab chow, or whatever they call those little boats, and taken from Tangier to Gibraltar. He didn’t like that much either.”
“I didn’t think he would,” Canidy said. “A betrayal, followed by a kidnapping,” Whittaker said.
“You guys play dirty.”
“Baker plays dirty,” Canidy said.
“I got left behind too. I’m one of the good guys, Jimmy.”
“You’re doing fine, Canidy,” Baker said angrily.
“Keep it up.”
“Why not?” Canidy said.
“This way you can tell Doug lass and Donovan that I was the one who told him all the secrets and you had nothing to do with it.”
“So tell me a secret,” Whittaker said.
“Things have been a little dull around here.”
“Eric Fulmar is close to an important man in Morocco,” Canidy said.
“We want to use that again.
We used him once.”
“So he told me,” Whittaker said.
“And if you ask him to do the same thing again, being a reasonable man of average intelligence, he’s going to tell you to go fuck yourselves.”
“If he does, then both of you stay here,” Baker said. “You just can’t do that,” Whittaker flared. “We can, Jimmy,” Canidy said.
“And we will. Whittaker looked at him. “I notice you said ‘we,’ Dick,” he said.
“Yeah, I said ‘we,” Canidy said.
“I’m part of this.”
“Otherwise you get locked up, too?”
“Partly that,” Canidy said.
“And partly because I think that what we’re doing is so important that the usual rules don’t apply.”
“What’s got me pissed off,” Whittaker said, “is that just as soon as got home, they start treating me like the enemy.”
“You got between Marshall and MacArthur,” Canidy said.
“You were an innocent bystander who got caught in the line of fire.
Nobody thinks you’re the enemy.”