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General Dwight David Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, while not exactly a cheerleader for the unorthodox methods of Colonel Donovan and his merry band of spies, became a cautious convert when, at Allied Forces Headquarters in North Africa, he was provided with the OSS intel relayed from Corsica.
The covert team, using its growing web of local connections, had reported that only twenty-five thousand Italians had taken the island; that they’d done it with relative ease because the Vichy government had ordered the French army’s two battalions there not to resist; that these battalions were demobilized and their general put under house arrest; and that the Italians had limited their strength on the island only to the west and east coasts and to major highways inland.
Building on that team’s success, the OSS was continually assembling and training more teams. Two were on standby to go in as soon as possible, one of these an emergency backup to the first—as relief, when the team was exfiltrated, or as replacement, in the event that its cover was blown. The rest were being trained for SO—Special Operations—OSS agents sent in to support the local resistance, the Corsican Maquis, with tools for sabotage and harassment of the enemy.
As Bruce read the most recent report from the agent on Corsica—this report including a list of the local gendarmes that the team had recruited and their needs—there was a light tap at the door.
“Good morning, sir,” the pleasant voice of a woman said.
David Bruce looked up and saw Captain Helene Dancy, Women’s Army Corps.
Captain Dancy was Bruce’s administrative assistant, an attractive brunette in her thirties who had left a position at the Prudential Insurance Company as executive secretary to the senior vice president for real estate. She was professional and thorough, with the golden ability to get things done when others would have long ago given up.
“Good morning, Captain. Everything well with you this morning?”
“Just fine, thank you, sir.”
She nodded at the stack of reports.
“An
d you? I see you’ve managed your usual early start. Anything for me?”
“Never early enough, it would seem,” he said with a tone of resignation. “Colonel Stevens just left to find something. I have nothing for you right now, but should Stevens require help that could change.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Were you able to locate Captain Fine?”
“Yes, sir. Late yesterday. And I just passed by him in the hall. He said he would be by momentarily.”
Bruce glanced at the file on his desk that held the TOP SECRET message from Donovan.
“So should Major Canidy. While I’d like to keep Canidy at bay, I don’t think that that’s going to happen.” He paused. “But I might be able to use that to my advantage.”
“Sir?” Captain Dancy said. “I don’t follow.”
“Never mind it, please. Just thinking aloud. Show them in when they get here.”
Captain Dancy had finally sat down at her desk after having replaced the coffee service in David Bruce’s office with a carafe of fresh coffee and clean cups when a tall scholarly looking man in the uniform of a United States Army Air Forces captain entered her office.
“Sorry I took so long,” Captain Stanley S. Fine said.
“Not a problem,” Captain Dancy replied with a smile. “Colonel Bruce said you were to go right in when you got here.”
She had long been impressed with the thirty-three-year-old Fine and not just because she knew that before joining the OSS and before being a commander of a B-17 squadron (this despite his great desire to be a fighter pilot) he had been a Hollywood lawyer. That, of course, did impress her—the movie business had that effect—but what Captain Dancy really understood about Captain Fine was that he was a very wise man and she knew this judgment of his character was widely shared, including by both Colonel Donovan and Colonel Bruce.
“His nose out of joint that I’m late?” Captain Fine said.
“You’re not late. And I don’t think that it’s you he’s—”
“Stan!” a familiar voice called from the hallway just outside the door. “I need a moment with you.”
Captain Dancy recognized the voice, and was not surprised when a moment later Major Richard Canidy appeared in the doorway.
“—It’s him,” she said, finishing her sentence with a smile in her voice.
“‘It’s him’ who?” Dick Canidy said, mock-innocently. “I could not possibly be guilty of that for which I have been unjustly accused.” He paused. “Could I?”
