The Haigerloch Project

“And finally — be aware of involuntary muscle habits that may give you away. You must be so saturated in your cover story that even unconscious expressions or gestures inconsistent with it become inconceivable — in any situation that may arise. For example, a Catholic priest would hardly reach for a gun in a shoulder holster at an unexpected loud noise behind him. An agent would. You must be thoroughly familiar with your adopted cover.”

Familiar? Dirk thought. Hell — they'd gone over and over and over their cover stories so often in the past few days that he wasn't sure anymore which was his cover name and which his real one….

“Never for a moment forget,” Everett intoned, “that you will be operating in the black in the heart of enemy country. You must constantly think of yourselves as hunted men. A spook who forgets that is not apt to live very long!”

Everett looked at his watch.

“2145 hours,” he said. “We'll call it quits for tonight. At 0700 tomorrow we will start a thorough briefing on your contact in the anti-Nazi resistance group in Hechingen. The man's name is Storp. Otto Storp” He paused significantly. “You will appreciate the not inconsequential feat of locating this man within the severe time limitation imposed on us. Of course, there are several small illegal groups of active anti-Nazis in Germany. They are, in the main, unrelated to one another and without any central direction. Fortunately, we knew of Storp through an underground agent in Frankfurt, who — eh — is no longer active. The German underground must be highly secretive to survive. The Gestapo is a formidable adversary, make no mistake about that!”

He looked at the two young men lounging comfortably in easy chairs in the small, beautifully appointed room annexed by Everett for his briefing talks.

“In the afternoon,” he continued, “you will be taken to London. The Moles have your ID and outfits ready for you.” He stood up. “That's all for today.”

He marched smartly from the room.

Sig looked after him.

“Seems to know what he's talking about,” he said.

Dirk raised an eyebrow.

“Corny?” he said. “He's an alchemist's nightmare.”

It was Sig's turn to do the raised-eyebrow routine.

“You pour golden information into him and it comes out leaden platitudes!” Dirk said with a grin and settled into his chair, draping himself over the arm like a Dali watch. He looked forward to their visit with the London Moles. They were fantastic. It was their responsibility to equip the spooks in the field with all the physical gear necessary: identity cards, clothing, every little personal item, and their stuff was indistinguishable from the real thing — mainly because it was the real thing. The Moles scrounged their enormous inventory of clothing and all the rest from pawnshops and secondhand stores in New York and London that were frequented by refugees from Nazi-occupied countries. They collected European suits and coats and underwear, fountain pens, calendar notebooks, shoes, watches, suitcases, spectacles and anything else an OSS agent might need to sustain his cover.

They also operated an efficient little printing press, turning out false documents and identification papers of all kinds, complete with seals and signatures that would defy the most minute examination. Often the Moles themselves would wear the clothing and carry the false documents around in their pockets for a while to give the proper aged look to them. They could turn a New York university professor into a French farmer or a Chicago lawyer into an Italian priest at the drop of a secondhand hat. It was damned important work. And top secret. The Moles got to know a lot of agents — and their covers. But they hadn't lost their perspective — nor their sense of humor. Dirk recalled the sign on the desk of one man who was busily sewing a false pocket into a jacket: DON'T GET THE IMPRESSION I'M INEFFICIENT, it read. THE NATURE OF MY WORK IS SO SECRET IT DOES NOT ALLOW ME TO KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!

He wondered idly if they were called Moles because they made it possible for the spooks to go underground.

He rubbed his elbow. It was becoming a habit. One of Corny's muscle habits? Couldn't hurt. He did have a bum elbow — and it was part of his cover.

Sig watched him.

“Bother you?”

“It's okay.”

“How did it happen?”