Page 7

FOR OSS WASHINGTON EYES ONLY COL DONOVAN; OSS ALGIERS EYES ONLY CAPT FINE.

BEGIN QUOTE

PACKAGE COLLECTED AND FLOATING HOME.

URGENT: NOTE THAT PACKAGE CONFIRMS REPEAT PACKAGE CONFIRMS BEYOND ANY QUESTION THAT ANTACID EXISTS AT COLLECTION POINT PLUS OTHERS.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW ON ARRIVAL.

CANIDY

END QUOTE

TOP SECRET

* * *

L’Herminier folded it and put it in his tunic pocket.

“Consider it done,” Commander L’Herminier said agreeably. “Soon as it is safe to surface.”

“Thank you,” Canidy said.

L’Herminier looked like he had a question.

“Something on your mind, Commander?” Canidy said.

“Antacid?” he said simply.

Canidy raised an eyebrow.

“My code words aren’t always appreciated,” he said.

“But antacid for a nerve agent?” L’Herminier said, not making a connection and thinking something must be lost in the translation.

“I think it’s fair to say that if you had a bout of stomach acid,” Canidy said, somewhat darkly, “a dose of Tabun would cure you of it for good.”

The commander’s eyebrows went up in recognition.

“Oui,” he said softly. “That and everything else.”

[THREE]

The Oval Office The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 1125 27 March 1943

“Bill!” Franklin Delano Roosevelt called fondly. The President of the United States of America propelled himself across the room in the wooden chair that he had had specially fitted with wheels. “Such a pleasure to see you again so soon.”

William J. Donovan, a stocky, silver-haired, ruddy-faced Irishman, stood in the doorway to the right, which led to the office of the President’s personal secretary.

“Come in, General,” Roosevelt continued as he rolled closer, smiling, with his ivory cigarette holder clenched between his teeth.

Roosevelt took great delight in the use of the rank. When Donovan had returned to the employ of the United States government in 1941 at the request of FDR, he had been a civilian using the honorific title of “Colonel,” which he had in fact been in the First World War.

On Tuesday, March 23, when he had been given his new commission, he became Brigadier General William Joseph Donovan, USA.

It was a title more appropriate for the man whom FDR had made America’s spymaster.

Donovan forced a smile. He was pleased to find Roosevelt in a pleasant frame of mind. The President had been under a lot of stress of late, plus clearly in some pain from the cruel effects of the polio that had nearly killed him in 1921. Donovan was sorry that the news he bore would no doubt squash those good spirits.