“Anything interesting in here?” he asked as he began to sign the forms.
“Mostly routine,” Vole said.
“The Philippines have been heard from again, but that’s about all.”
Ellis looked at him with a question on his face.
“Seventeen,” the ASA warrant officer said.
When Ellis had finished signing the receipts and pushed the receipt forms away from him, he picked up file number seventeen and opened it. The first thing he saw was that it was an intercept, rather than a message intended for the OSS.
On his own authority, as “Special Assistant to the Director,” he had sent a “Request for Intercept” to the ASA, asking that the OSS be furnished with whatever ASA intercept operators around the world heard on either American or enemy frequencies that had anything to do with American guerrilla activity in the Philippine Islands. Inasmuch as the ASA and every other military and naval organization knew that the alternative to not giving the OSS whatever it asked for was explaining to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff why thiN could not be done, the “request” had been in fact an order. ;
Ellis had decided that if Douglass or Donovan asked him why he had done’ so, and he didn’t think they would, he would tell them it was because of the?
Whittaker mission. That was logical, of course. But the truth was that Ellis ha put in the Request for Intercept long before it had been decided to send Whiti taker into the Philippines. He had suspected that the reason there had beeo| no reply to Fertig’s original transmissions to MacArthur’s headquarters in AuStralia was that some brass hats of MacArthur’s palace guard, or perhaps eveqi MacArthur himself, considered the very existence of guerrillas embarrassing,!
MacArthur’s liaison officer to Washington had flatly announced that “effectiv| guerrilla operations were impossible.”
The ASA intercept operators were good. They had furnished Ellis with tbt radio message from MacArthur appointing Philippine Scout Major Marcarit Peralta “military guerrilla chief of temporarily occupied enemy territory,” ant
with Fertig’s response to that, a request for drugs to cure venereal disease–as much as telling MacArthur he considered himself nicked.
Today’s message showed that Fertig had his temper under control and was thinking:
URGENT PROM WYZB FOR KSF
PASS TO SECRETARY 07 WAR WASHINGTON DC
AS SENIOR AMERICAN OFFICER IS THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS I
HAVE ASSUMED COMMAND OF MINDANAO AKD VISAYAS WITH RAMK OF
BRIGADIER GENERAL.
I HAVE REACTIVATED UNITED STATES FORCES IN THE
PHILIPPINES.
USFIP HAS REESTABLISHES PHILIPPINE CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE
HANDS OF ELECTED COMMONWEALTH OF PHILIPPINES OFFICIALS.
LAWFUL GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINES IN AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY
OF USFI-P IS PRINTING AND PLACING INTO CIRCULATION MONEY.
USFIP IS BORROWING NECESSARY OPERATIONAL FUNDS FROM
COMMONWEALTH OP PHILIPPINES GOVERNMENT.
USFIP URGENTLY REQUIRES MINIMUM ONE MILLION DOLLARS IN
GOLD.
USFIP URGENTLY REQUIRES FOR MORALE OF PHILIPPINE
POPULATION ANY SORT OF AID. MEDICINE FIREARMS AND
AMMUNITION PREFERABLE.
PERTIG BRIG GENERAL USA COMMANDING USFIP
Ellis frowned.
“What the hell is that all about?
“Vole asked.
“Fertig is being fucked by the system,” Ellis said.
“But he’s too mean to lie down and take it.”
The telephone rang. Vole answered it, and then held his hand over the microphone.
“There’s an Eyes Only Operational Immediate for either Donovan or Douglass,” he said.
“They want to know if anybody’s here that can take it.”
“Decrypted?” Ellis asked.
“Yeah. Dispatched at 1207 London time.”
“Would you run down there and get it?” Ellis asked.
Vole nodded, and took his hand away from the telephone microphone.
“Put it in a cover,” he said.
“I’ll be right down.”
Vole was gone no more than five minutes. By the time he returned, Ellis had gone through the overnight messages and arranged those he felt Colonel Donovan should personally see in the order of their importance.
He took the two Eyes Onlys from Vole.
“I thought you said one Eyes Only,” he said.
“They’re related,” Vole said.
He opened Dolan’s message first, read it, and grunted. Then he opened the message Canidy had laboriously encrypted in the monks’ cave on the Island of Vis.
OSS LONDON STATION OSS WASHINGTON
EYES ONLY COLONEL DONOVAM; CAPTAIN DOUGLASS
FOLLOWING PROM CAHIDY RECEIVED 1110 LONDON TIME