Mission to Morocco

By JR Rogers

1944 – Colonel Ferdinand Hecht, who poses as a consular diplomat stationed in Casablanca, French Morocco, is in reality an SS officer with the Gestapo’s SD Afrika Intelligence Group. He directs a network of French spies reporting on American navy blimps operating from their Port Lyautey base against U-boats prowling the Straits of Gibraltar and coastal French Morocco.
America’s wartime intelligence agency the OSS is handed the task of dismantling the network and Lieutenant Sam Bradford arrives aboard a blimp of the Navy’s Africa Squadron to kidnap its suspected leader and transport him to London for interrogation. Under cover as a war correspondent, Bradford’s dogged investigation reveals a trail of local townspeople whose counterfeit demeanor masks their true allegiance to the Nazi spymaster. Intrigue, deception, and willful betrayal plunges the American lieutenant into a vortex of lies as the tentacles of the spy ring are uncovered, while embarking on a brief love affair with one of the suspects in the depraved Moroccan paradise.
Rich with atmosphere and period detail, the intrigue is played out against the northwest coastal town of Port Lyautey on the Sebou River where, in the dusty streets and alleys and in the byzantine Medina of this small colonial seaside town, the French influence is evident, but the compelling force is Arabic and overwhelming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JR Rogers
• Release date: Apr 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310953927

JR Rogers

J.R. Rogers is a literary historical thriller novelist. He has written eight novels of espionage, intrigue & romance. His latest is To Live Another Day. He also writes short stories a number of which have been published in various soft cover and/or online publications. He lives in southern California.

Book preview

MISSION

to

MOROCCO

A WORLD WAR II SPY NOVEL

Smashwords Edition

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

ALSO BY J.R. ROGERS

The Counterfeit Consul

Leopold’s Assassin

Doomed Spy

http://www.authorjrrogers.com

MISSION to MOROCCO

A World War II Spy Novel

J. R. Rogers

Copyright J.R. Rogers 2014

ISBN: 9781310953927

This is a work of fiction. Any reference to real people, living or dead, and real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by LimelightBookCovers.com

In March 1912 the French government and the Sultan of Morocco, Abd-El-Hafid, signed the Treaty of Fez. Because of his growing unpopularity, the Sultan asked the French government for protection against the Berber rebel tribes surrounding Fez. France appointed General Maréchal Hubert Lyautey as Resident-General in French Morocco. Later that year Lyautey established the northwest coastal town of Port Lyautey on the Sebou River as a military fort, harbor, and town. Before the French protectorate, there was only a Kasbah in the area where the modern city can today be found today. After French Morocco gained its independence from France in 1956 the city was renamed Kenitra transliterated as Q'nitra, the little bridge.

CHAPTER 1

Washington, D.C. – fall 1944

Second Lieutenant Samuel (Sam) Honeycutt Bradford, recently commissioned in the United States Army, watched with interest the weary conductor as he worked his way down the aisle collecting his passenger’s yellow tickets. In his cap, bow tie, and natty dark blue uniform with brass buttons he moved with uncertain steps trying to anticipate, or so it seemed to Sam, each tortured stretch of track as the train lurched and jerked over the uneven rail bed. Sam had boarded the Pensy’s Congressional Limited Express afternoon train at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal earlier that afternoon and, according to the schedule, could expect to arrive in Washington, D.C. some three and a half hours later. Inside the dark maroon heavyweight coach it was warm and stuffy and all the seats were taken. The aisle and overhead racks were jammed with Navy sea bags and Army duffel bags and most of the passengers, like Lieutenant Bradford himself, were in uniform.

Three years ago the coach would have been filled with businessmen and travelling salesmen but now the pall of war hung with great weight over the nation as the large electric locomotive with its trailing seven coaches flashed by the string of small towns lining the Eastern seaboard on its way South to the nation’s capital.

Out in the countryside, idling cars and trucks and boys on bicycles waited impatiently behind the wooden arm at the many crossings for the train to pass. At the few scheduled stops from which it had already come and gone, Newark, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, the stations were adorned with patriotic red, white, and blue bunting and colorful war effort propaganda posters. On the platforms there was a frenzy of activity as soldiers and sailors circulated and joked and cursed, their expressions grim and foreboding. Others sat on the floor and chain smoked in deep reflective silence, all of them trying not to think about where they were going as they awaited the inevitable trains that would convey them to the ports of embarkation from which they would sail for the war in Europe. The crowds spoke to the War Department’s massive and continuing military build-up and already, according to the papers, threatening to overwhelm the railroads still the country’s principal mode of long distance transport.

The sailor sitting next to Sam sighed as he folded his borrowed copy of the New York newspaper.

Can’t concentrate, he said, in disgust handing it over to Sam. Thanks anyway, sir.

He shook out a Pall Mall and busied himself lighting it before exhaling a long stream of smoke then tried again to make himself comfortable on the hard, dirty, and worn burgundy-colored seat cushion.

Where you headed, sir, you shipping out? he asked turning back to Sam.

It was a common enough question amongst the servicemen travelling on the afternoon train and Sam had already been asked it several times.

More training, he said, simply.

Oh yeah? I hear the Army does a lot of training. He nodded, considering his answer and bit his lip. I’m shipping out of Norfolk tomorrow. Then: You got a girl, sir?

Yes, I do, how about yourself?

Sure do, want to see her picture?

Sam nodded. He wasn’t curious but guessed the sailor wanted someone to appreciate the sweetheart he was leaving behind.

When he looked at it, Sam thought it was a telling snapshot of the two of them, probably taken by a friend. He had seen many such photographs while in basic training at Fort Dix.

The sailor and his girl were trying to smile but they looked uncomfortable, posed as they were outside of a storefront restaurant on a brilliant afternoon. She was pretty and unassuming and dressed for an outing. He was wearing his ‘dixie-cup’-style white canvas hat low over his eyebrows and looked stern in his Navy blues with his left arm around her narrow waist.

Sam handed it back and said something nice and watched the sailor look hard at the snapshot for a long moment before putting it away.

The photograph prompted Sam to think again about Marjorie. They had been an item while he was at Princeton, she close-by, a mere two hours away and a student at Sarah Lawrence. They met one fall weekend at a Princeton mixer and hit it off right away. Though their relationship had cooled since graduation, perhaps because he had enlisted four months ago, he couldn’t be sure, he imagined they were still close and he was still very fond of her.

Marjorie was an assistant at Harper’s Bazaar now and the evening before he left for Washington they had a quiet dinner together in New York City at his favorite Italian restaurant. Over drinks beforehand he tried to explain about his new assignment and his sudden promotion from Private First Class to Second Lieutenant. And though he was short on details, because he had been barred from discussing what little he knew, he invented a story that seemed to satisfy her.

Marjorie, though, was curious about why the FBI had come around and asked all sorts of personal questions of she and her parents and their mutual school friends and he had to invent a story about the Army field investigation required before being promoted to an officers’ rank.

Still, Sam thought they had parted as friends, the relationship intact. He had kissed her cheek and vowed to write and call often and she in turn had smiled and put one of her arms around him and hugged him softly.

It was near the end of his Advanced Individual Training while at Fort Dix, after basic training, when he was pulled from practice on the firing range one afternoon and ordered by his Sergeant to report at once to a Colonel Morse at headquarters.

The colonel, when Sam found him seated while he stood at attention in front of his desk, was older, tall, and studious-looking with an intelligent face. Like many of Sam’s friends who had been drafted into the war, and had their lives all of a sudden uprooted, the colonel looked ill at ease in his uniform.

He didn’t bother to return Sam’s salute. Instead, he told him to sit. After some small talk about the liberation of Paris earlier that summer, and the latest war headlines detailing the Allied push toward Germany, he came to the point of their meeting.

Ever here of the OSS, Bradford?

He wheezed and breathed with difficulty when he spoke, something Sam found difficult to ignore.

OSS, colonel? Sam paused. No, sir, I don’t think so. You see, I haven’t been in the Army long enough to become familiar with all of the initials.

The colonel gave him an understanding half smile.

Office of Strategic Services, he said, in his laborious way. OSS, it’s a hush-hush outfit, wartime intelligence, special operations, that kind of thing. Irregular warfare, we call it.

Yes, sir. Self-conscious Sam moved in the hard wooden chair trying to understand what the colonel was telling him.

Look, Bradford . . . , he said, sounding impatient.

He opened the thick manila folder in front of him. He glanced down at it then back at Sam.

We’ve looked into your education and your background, who your parents are, those sorts of things. We like what we see. Quite frankly, we think we could use you. You’d be on detached duty but still in the Army. It’s all I can say. Well, what about it? He looked hard at Sam.

Yes, sir, it sounds interesting.

There was a prolonged silence.

So here we are, Bradford, he said, at last. You’ll graduate from AIT soon, two weeks isn’t it?

Eleven days, sir.

Yes, that’s right. He nodded and made a mental note. By the way Bradford, no offense I know it’s your training, but you can quit the sir business for right now. I know this is the Army but it gets on my nerves, okay? You and me, we’re basically civilians.

Alright.

Much better. Now, where were we? Okay, he said, remembering. His wooden armchair groaned and creaked under his weight as he leaned back in it. Let me help you out. Here’s how it unfolds if you were to come aboard: you graduate from AIT and we’ll award you an immediate field promotion to second lieutenant. After that, you’re assigned to OSS for the duration of the war. Obviously, there’d be no OCS, no need for it. You know those initials, I’d guess.

Sam grinned. Yes, I know those alright, Officer Candidate School.

Correct, he said, sounding as if he were the professor he might have been before the war. So there you have it, Bradford, it’s all I can say.

Not a lot to go on, sir.

Sorry, Bradford, he said, suddenly impatient. There’s a limit to what I can discuss with you. I don’t have to remind you there’s a war on, so I’ll need your answer right now. I have others to talk to today.

Sam spent a frantic silent moment weighing his options.

The colonel, as if reading his mind, tried to focus his thinking.

I think you’ll do fine. You have the sort of background we’re interested in and it’s critical work. Of course, if you have other ideas, alright, but there’s to be no mention of our conversation today.

Where would my duty station be, sir?

Washington, D.C. for training, first. Afterward, I don’t know. He shrugged and sat up. He closed the file and slid it away from him. That’s not my department.

Alright, colonel, said Sam taking a leap of faith. I accept.

He hadn’t given it more than a minute’s thought but already the allure of an organization that had evidently spent the time to review and consider his qualifications, and no doubt note his fluency in the French language, appealed to him at once. On balance, the OSS had made more of an effort than the regular army had in examining his background. He was still full of contempt for the way the Army had arbitrarily pigeonholed him; after training and OCS, he was told, he would be assigned to an artillery battalion. He had no idea why and no one would explain it.

Good, said the colonel relieved and nodding. Then it’s settled. You’ll have your orders after graduation. In the meantime, Bradford, not a word about OSS to the others, not even to your sergeant, got it? He stood. If you get into a jam, just say you’re being interviewed about OCS. Give them my name, if you have to, but nothing else.

Understood. Sam got to his feet. Say, how about my parents, colonel? Can I tell them anything?

Not a word, he said, reprimanding him. Not even to your girl, if you have one, do I make myself clear?

Sam nodded wondering what he had gotten himself into.

Now the colonel came around his desk and Sam moved to meet him. The colonel extended his hand and the two shook.

Congratulations, Bradford. Welcome to OSS.

After graduation from AIT, Sam had signed some papers and, while his background investigation was being conducted, was assigned to spend three weeks idling as a relief clerk at the Fort Dix office filling post requests for administrative publications and forms.

At last, one evening he was called to the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. He was still living on post in the barracks and he was relieved some sort of progress might be announced. To his surprise, in a guest room on the fourth floor he signed more papers, accepted a commission, took an oath of allegiance, was congratulated by two officers in uniform, and given his travel orders to Washington.

When Sam glanced at his watch, he realized the train should have arrived in Washington. Instead, they were now sitting inexplicably in Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Station without an explanation from the conductor. At last unannounced, after a long delay and without hearing the trainmaster’s whistle, Sam’s train slid quietly out of the station and gathered speed for its short 40 mile run to the nation’s capital.

Disembarking at last at Washington’s Union Station, and almost an hour behind schedule, Sam hefted his duffel bag, grabbed the large sealed brown envelope containing his orders, and descended the steep steps from the coach. Joining the shoving crowd of uniforms moving toward the exit, Sam walked the length of the train, past the massive, dark green Pennsylvania Railroad double-headed locomotive with its roof-mounted spidery pantograph, and on out through the ticket hall to the curb.

CHAPTER 2

Sam was billeted for a time in a rundown building on G Street, Northwest. He saw it was a tall, narrow, and unmarked five story cast-iron structure when the taxi driver pulled to the curb. Converted from a decaying office space it was home for inductees into the OSS who required further processing before being enrolled in the organization’s training camp. Situated downtown, the G Street Building, as it was known, was around the corner from F Street the city’s main shopping district and the landmark ten-story Woodward & Lothrop department store. The ground floor lobby entrance to the G Street building was guarded and restricted but once beyond the inspection post residents found a pleasant cafeteria-style dining room with potted plants.

Over meals shared with the others, Sam learned he was not the only one to have been selected for OSS. In fact, everyone billeted there had been recruited into the secret organization. He noted, too, not all the men were officers, in fact a good number were from the enlisted ranks, and there were even a few civilians. All had been handpicked and, beyond the natural camaraderie that sprang up between them, what they had in common was an ambition and desire to contribute in some significant way to the war effort using their special talents and skills.

Besides the many linguists, with a good command of the many standard European languages, Sam learned a number of his comrades were fluent in interesting but not often heard languages and regional dialects: Plattdeutsch, Bairisch, Elsassisch, Farsi, Norwegian, Slovak, Flemish, Swiss-German were some of them, and he wondered often how such languages might fit into the broader OSS war effort about which he still knew almost nothing. At the same time Sam began to have doubts about whether his facility with the French language – honed during the impressionable years of his youth in Paris while enrolled in a local school while his father toiled as the assistant head surgeon at the American Hospital of Paris – could contribute to the war effort. He came to realize only being able to speak fluent French paled in comparison to the arcane language skills of the many men with whom he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

To compensate, Sam concentrated on practicing his basic and rough working knowledge of Darija, a colloquial Arabic he had picked up while spending the summers of 1941 and 1942 in Rabat, Morocco where his father had moved the family to assume the position of head surgeon at the city’s French hospital for Europeans. It was a position he had abandoned at the outbreak of the war and returned his family home to New York City.

The sprawling, 400 acre once private Congressional Country Club with its twin golf courses was close to the border between the District of Columbia and Maryland on the Maryland side of the line and less than twenty miles from the White House. In 1944, it was being leased to the OSS under a secret agreement whereby the Government would use it as a training camp. The OSS’s Schools and Training Branch had transformed the grounds into a quasi-military training encampment.

It reminded Sam at first sight of Fort Dix, if he ignored the sprawling and lavish six-level Mediterranean-style clubhouse with its red tile roof. Indoors, he would later learn, was an Olympic swimming pool and a bowling alley. But beyond, as he looked out from behind the windows of the bus conveying them from G Street, around the wooded lakefront shoreline had been erected a veritable city of peak roof six man tents. Semi-circular Quonset huts with corrugated roofs encircled the impressive clubhouse and dotted the once pristine winding landscape. Sam noted the fairways had become firing ranges and concrete bunkers and pillboxes could be seen dotting the wooded landscape. Someone on the bus pointed and drew everyone’s attention to three airplane fuselages without wings mounted on blocks. Men in helmets, harnesses and packed parachutes were practicing jumping to the ground from the open doors while instructors with clipboards made sure the men rolled correctly when they hit the ground. Jeeps and scooters driven with urgency skirted columns of men in tight formation as they moved over the once well-tended roads winding around the now unkempt rolling greens and the lake.

The entrance gates on Connecticut Avenue were guarded, the floodlit perimeter encircled with barbed wire-topped fencing and patrolled day and night, while the once palatial and lavish clubhouse dining room had been transformed into a mess hall. Designated as Area F the country club was to become Sam’s new home for the month-long training regimen.

Basic and advanced training began each morning with a six-mile run. After calisthenics, there were classes on how to shoot pistols and submachine guns, how to throw hand grenades, how to read maps, how to approach a man with a knife hidden inside of a rolled up newspaper, and how to slit his throat. There were numerous off-site trips to outlying national parks for advanced training – often at night – where they learned how to overcome sentries positioned outside of mock buildings, practiced breaking and entering and selecting and establishing one-time aircraft landing sites with pointers on how to position marker flares. And then the men were lectured on the merits of special field pills: the K pill for rendering someone unconscious, the TD pill that could act as a truth drug during interrogations, and the L pill, which was harmless if swallowed but instantly deadly if bit into and ingested.

The camaraderie that had flourished between the men on G Street was carried over to Area F, or simply F as the recruits shortened it. The cramped six-man tents offered little comfort or privacy but the general enthusiasm for the special training and the overriding concern to learn to operate as effective OSS officers and survive in the field carried them through successfully until the morning of their graduation ceremony.

Afterward, at a special lunch, each man received his orders. They were sealed and placed on his chair at his designated position around the many round tables set up in the dining hall.

Sam picked up his brown envelope, sat, and then watched for a moment the five others at his table as they each ripped open their orders. All were silent as they read.

His orders were brief with no elaboration: he was to report the next morning at 0800 to a Colonel Shaw at OSS headquarters in Washington for detailed instructions. Disappointed, but intrigued, Sam slid the sheet of paper back into the envelope and took a sip of water.

The waiters were descending on the tables now, pushing carts heavy with plates of steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Sam looked around at his teammates. No one was speaking; most had thoughtful, pensive expressions as each contemplated their orders in silence and Sam wondered how many of them would survive the war and whether he would as well. There was some nervous clearing of throats; a few lit cigarettes and Sam watched a soldier lean in next to his seatmate to perhaps share his own assignment despite the rules against it.

It was much the same across the large room at all of the other tables. The idle pre-dinner chatter and laughter that filled the air had died; there was only the clatter of forks and knives on the scratched white ceramic dinner plates as the men began to cut their steaks and the repeated rush of ice cubes and water into glasses as the waiters went around a second time.

OSS headquarters was located at 2430 E Street, N.W., a complex of four Federal-style buildings, brick-and-limestone structures arranged on a tree-shaded hill west of the Lincoln Memorial and across the street from the State Department. They were the former headquarters of the National Health Institute and partially camouflaged behind an old brewery. All of the windows of the E Street complex were barred giving the structures a rather sinister appearance. In the near distance was the Potomac River and small Theodore Roosevelt Island.

At 0745, Sam entered the four-story South Building after showing his credentials to a guard with a shoulder holster and climbed to the second-floor office of Colonel Shaw. Only a room number, a detail he found strange, identified the door into the office when he found it.

In his long walk down the narrow creaking halls Sam noticed none of the frosted glass doors had either the name or rank of the occupant or the designation of the office activity beyond.

He found a woman in the uniform of the Women’s Army Corps busy behind her typewriter as he entered room 268. After identifying himself, he was told to take a chair. He watched the WAC pick up the intercom phone and murmur something into it then replace the handset before returning to her typing.

Sam heard voices behind the inner office wall and crossed his leg then tapped his foot impatiently. He found there was nothing to read except a security notice in a black frame hung on the wall alongside him. It read: Keep Your Eyes and Ears OPEN and Your Mouth SHUT!

Eventually, the voices grew louder and then the doorknob was turned and the door opened. A thin older man in an Army uniform, with a major’s golden oak leaf insignia and wearing round frame glasses, stepped through and beckoned to him.

Lieutenant Bradford? If you wouldn’t mind please, right this way.

Sam followed him into a large office and heard the door close behind him. The air was thick with a slow twirling cloud of exhaled cigarette smoke. A black and white map on one of the walls briefly caught Sam’s attention; the continental outline was not the United States.

The officer who was expecting him stood behind his wide desk. Near its edge was a wooden nameplate. It read: Col. Michael Shaw, U.S.A.

Sam stood at attention, introduced himself, and saluted smartly. Colonel Shaw responded in kind.

Now, Shaw extended his arm toward the major.

Lieutenant Bradford, this is Major Bardwell Porter, he’s with our planning team. Bard, this is Lieutenant Bradford, the man of the hour.

Sam turned to him. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.

They shook hands and Sam nodded tightly.

The pleasure’s all mine, lieutenant, said Porter in a pleasant voice. Colonel Shaw here was busy briefing me about you and your background. It’s awfully good to finally meet you. How was the training, by the way? he said, eagerly. I always like to hear what the new men think of it.

Thank you, sir, said Sam. Well, the training was difficult but I was able to get through it in one piece. I set my mind to it.

Excellent, it’s what I want to hear, a can do attitude.

Why don’t we all sit, said Colonel Shaw who seemed restless waiting for Bradford and the major to finish. He sank with difficulty into his chair as if finding it awkward to bend his knees. Okay, let’s get to it, he sighed.

Sam wondered whether the officer might have been wounded in the war and thought he saw him grimace as he rearranged himself. Sam sat in one of the two chairs that faced the colonel’s desk, the major to his left.

The colonel rearranged several thick files on his desk, leaned back, and began.

Now then, lieutenant, he said, addressing Sam, I would imagine you’re anxious to hear about your assignment so I won’t keep you waiting. We’re calling it Operation Cross Section. Cross Section will play out in Morocco, said Shaw with a steadfast gaze. You’re familiar with that part of the world, I know.

Sam nodded and sat up straighter. He never imagined he might one day return to Morocco.

Yes, sir, I am.

By the way, just as background, this has nothing to do with mopping up after Operation Torch, continued the colonel, almost as an afterthought. That’s over and done with. We’ve got our beachhead in Morocco and Algeria now, thanks to Patton and his Western Task Force but it doesn’t mean there aren’t things that need fixing."

Colonel? called out Porter. If you don’t my saying so maybe we should move over to the map, give Bradford here, an idea.

Alright. He drew himself slowly out of his chair and hobbled over to the large, hanging wall map.

Porter and Sam joined him.

Now Sam recognized the outline of North Africa and was close enough the read the legend: Operation Torch, November 1942, Torch Landings. It was an old campaign map, obviously, if he was to judge by the date and the various arrows up and down the coast pointing to the different beachheads. He saw the massive continental outline of Southern Spain at the top of the map descending toward the outstretched mass of land that was Northern Morocco, the Mediterranean, and the Straight of Gibraltar separating them.

The colonel had carried a yellow pencil with him and was tapping on the map at a location named Port Lyautey on the Atlantic coast. It looked as though it were about halfway between Casablanca in French Morocco to the south and Tangier up north on the border of Spanish Morocco.

This is where you’re going in, Bradford, Port Lyautey.

He tapped with the rubber end of his pencil the Port Lyautey location several times then dropped his arm.

Sam nodded. He was interested but concerned because he didn’t know what to ask or what to say. He wondered how soon his involvement in the operation would be revealed. Instead, he chose to remain silent.

Rabat? Isn’t that where you spent a few summers? It was Major Porter alongside him pointing at the map.

Sam turned to him.

Yes, sir, that’s right. Two summers ’41 and ’42.

Peering in closer Sam realized Rabat was quite close to Port Lyautey, closer even than Casablanca. Never made it up there, though, he added.

The major made a grunting sound of confirmation as if he knew and shifted his stand.

Torch was a success no doubt about it, Ike was mighty pleased, said the colonel giving voice to his thoughts.

I’ve got a War Department map of the city, I’ll send you off with it, Lieutenant, said Major Porter reassuring him. It’s an old one, 1941. We used it for the landings. Don’t imagine things have changed much.

Yes, sir. I’m sure it will be good enough.

The colonel turned to glance at Sam, to gage his expression now that the outline of the mission was coming into focus, but he saw nothing definitive. He labored back to his desk obviously in pain.

Seated, he called over to Major Porter.

Bard, why don’t you fill Bradford in on the transport situation, that’s your baby.

The order given, he proceeded to light a Lucky Strike with a battered Zippo lighter.

Right, colonel, well the Pan Am flying boat to Lisbon is out of the question, said the major turning to Sam as they moved back to their chairs. It’s the fastest way over to the continent and would fit nicely with whatever your cover story is going to be, he began.

When they were both seated again, he continued No, you see the problem we’d have would be getting you from Portugal down to Morocco in a civilian plane. We might be able to arrange something, but there are no schedules over there and air transport is unreliable and, frankly, we don’t have a lot of time to arrange things. Anyway, we have something else in mind.

Well, sir, how about by ship, suggested Sam. He was becoming impatient and hoped to begin to move the conversation along.

No, not at all, too dangerous. The Navy tells us there are still too damn many U-boats prowling the Atlantic.

Sam pursed his lips.

We’ve decided on an airship, lieutenant, he revealed at last. The Navy designation is K-ship, lighter than air, helium-filled blimps. You know what those are, don’t you? You remember the Hindenburg disaster, no doubt.

Yes, sir, I remember hearing about it. I was in boarding school in Switzerland when it happened.

Well, I can tell you it was horrible . . . shocking.

He shook his head as if he might have witnessed the explosion.

She was filled with hydrogen, you see. Best guess by the experts was it was all of that unstable and volatile fuel which ignited the blimp. Anyway, these smaller airships the Navy has developed are first rate from what they tell me, secure and best of all, reliable. And while I’m on the subject, I want you to know you’re going to be the OSS’s guinea pig. We want to see how things work out for you using this form of transport and especially how cooperative the Navy will be. So plan on giving me a full report when you return.

Yes, sir, will do.

Good, we’re going to need a safe and secure means of transporting our people over to North Africa in the future. Reliability is the key, Bradford, and if this thing works out, well then all the better.

I understand, sir. And these K-ships can make it all the way to Africa without trouble?

The have been for some time, lieutenant but of course they land several times on their way over. The Navy has an airship squadron called the Africa Squadron. They fly over to Port Lyautey pretty regularly, but never with non-Navy personnel aboard, passengers if you get my meaning. Anyway, he made a dismissive gesture with his hand, it’s hush-hush but no doubt you’ll learn all about it.

Yes, sir, I hope I will.

Oh, you will. Now, you’ll be issued orders to proceed directly to South Weymouth Naval Air Station after your thirty-day leave. It’s all arranged and they’re expecting you.

South Weymouth, near Boston, sir?

That’s right, do you know it?

I know the Boston area and I’ve heard of the town before.

I see, well when you shove off in thirty days you’ll catch a New Haven train from Grand Central. It will take you right up there but don’t concern yourself with that right now. It will all be in your orders.

Thank you, sir. Sounds like an interesting assignment.

You haven’t heard the half of it, lieutenant, he said, sounding somber. Well, that’s that, he said. He slapped his knee. "I’ll leave you with Colonel Shaw for the details of your mission and your instructions. You see, lieutenant, I’m not cleared for all the rest of it and I