“If you’re about to say something witty, Charles, about our American friends, “”C” said, “please spare me. Otherwise?”
“I had a rather profound thought, actually,” the deputy chief of MI-6 said.
“I confess to thinking about sending virgins off to do a woman’s work.
But then it occurred to me they all start off as virgins, don’t they?
All it takes is once.”
“C” smiled.
“I knew I could count on you for something romantic, Charles.
“Then he added, KBUT I don’t think you can fairly categorize either that Major Canidy or that half-German chap they’re going to send in as virgins.
They may not yet know how to run a professional like von Heurten-Mitnitz, but they’re not virgins. They’ve both been operational.”
“Virgins,” the deputy chief of MI-6 insisted. “Deadly virgins, perhaps.
But virgins.” [SHREE] Sho Sotol d’anfa an. Caszblonca, Morocco 8 December 1942 Though it was now functioning as officers’ quarters for Western Task Force, the Hotel d’anfa had lost none of its elegance or ambience.
The pool and the tennis courts remained open, as did the only rooftop bar and night club in Casablanca.
Eldon C. Baker, a man of not quite thirty-two years with something of a moon face and thinning, sandy hair, sat in a corner of the bar.
He wore an officer’s uniform with the customary U. S.” lapel insignia but without insignia of branch of service or rank. On the shoulder of his green gabardine tunic was a square embroidered in blue. There was a triangle within the square and the letters
“U. S.” It was the insignia worn by civilian experts attached to the U. S. Army in the field.
Baker carried both orders and an AGO card in the name of James B. Westerman. The orders had been issued by the War Department and authorized priority military air travel from the United States to “Western Task Force in the Field” in connection with activities of the Offfice of the Comptroller of the Army. In the
“RANK” block, the AGO card said, “ASS It/Col.” This meant that Baker carried the assimilated rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was entitled to the privileges of that rank when it came to quarters, transportation, and so on. So far, no one else had thought
“ASS It/Col” was at all amusing.
Baker also carried–in a safe place–a second identification card and a second set of orders. These had his correct name on them. The identification card, which came with a badge, identified him as a Special Agent of the U. S. Army Counterintelligence Corps, and the orders, issued in the name of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, said that he was engaged in a confidential mission for the Assistant Chief of Staff, G2, and any questions concerning him and his mission should be referred to that office.
While the second set of credentials was genuine–they had in fact been issued by G2–Eldon C. Baker was not an agent of the CIC. He was in fact an employee of the State Department and was paid as an FSO-4.
For more than a year, however, he had been on temporary duty with the OSS.
He was listed on the OSS table of organization as “Chief, Recruitment and Training”, and it was in connection with this that he had come to Morocco. His primary mission was to recruit people, with emphasis on officers fluent in French, Italian, or German, for planned covert operations against Germany and Italy. He also intended to arrange for the parachute training of OSS agents by the U. S. Army. And he had a third mission, known only to Colonel Donovan and Captain Douglass, He was going to send a postcard.
The third mission had a higher priority than anything else that had brought Eldon C. Baker from Washington to the rooftop bar of the Hotel d’anfa.
Baker saw Eric Fulmar before Fulmar saw him. As Baker expected, Fulmar came into the bar a little after five o’clock. The hint of a smile appeared on Baker’s lips when he saw him. Eric Fulmar was rather obviously pleased with himself and his role in the scheme of things.
He was in olive-drab uniform, a shirt, trousers, and tie. His feet were in highly polished jump boots, which went with the silver parachutist’s wings on his breast pocket just above his two ribbons.