“But he knows about that cap.”
Vance stared a moment at the cap, brow furrowed with curiosity, his fingers caressing his mustache. The crumpled cloth sat there lifeless, the German eagle patch emblazoned on the front, a ghostly aura of dust settling around it on the veneered tabletop. The hat’s former owner obviously belonged to the German Afrika Korps, which had ranged across the deserts of North Africa until General Montgomery had begun beating him back from Egypt at el Alamien and Patton drove him from Morocco and Algeria in Operation Torch. Defeating Rommel there led to a swift invasion of Sicily and then Italy, but the Allies needed another foothold in Europe from which to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
Who was the Afrika Korps officer who wore that hat? By the worn marks midway along the fabric, Vance figured the fellow wore headphones a lot, meaning he served some function in communications, possibly with a wireless company or as a radioman with a mobile reconnaissance unit. His glance followed the trail of dried blood tracking up one side.
Soldiers always picked up souvenirs of their experiences, badges of courage proving they had participated in particular battles and had come away alive once more. Why was this cap special? Vance leaned forward, enthralled by the potential power of this simple, crumpled hat.
“Where do we go from here, sir?” Jackson asked, a glint of suspicion in her eyes.
Vance leaned back in his chair, the opulent dining room suddenly coming back into focus and diminishing the cap’s presence in his mind. He turned to Lieutenant Jackson with a charming smile. “Why don’t you contact our British cousins and track down this Sewell fellow. Kelly was with the First Infantry Division stationed near Poole on the southern coast of England. Follow his deployment to determine when it came in contact with any British units. Probably some element of that British army division stationed around Southampton. I want to know exactly when and where Sewell found that cap.”
“Should I forward any recommendations to Colonel Donovan?” she asked.
Vance peered back at the cap. “Not at this time,” he replied. “This situation calls for a bit more investigation on our part before we make any concrete recommendations.”
“General Eisenhower can’t wait,” Jackson noted. “They’re deliberating even now whether to launch Overlord in the next few days.”
Simple strategy for invading the continent dictated an amphibious landing with the shortest crossing from England to France at Calais, not a longer, riskier crossing to Normandy. All intelligence from agents behind the lines pointed to Hitler expecting an invasion at Calais given the deployment of his armies. German army wireless traffic intercepted and deciphered by the British code breakers at Station X confirmed the field reports. But even they could only provide a small view of the overall picture.
“They have more intelligence to corroborate than we can provide,” Vance countered. “At this point, with British and American forces poised to strike after months of planning, Hitler’s armies deployed somewhere along the Atlantic wall, and Eisenhower watching the weather reports, Eisenhower’s taking as low a risk as he can get.”
“I don’t think SHAEF would quite see it that way,” Jackson countered.
“Well, we have nothing conclusive to give them until we uncover more about that cap.” Vance walked over to stare out the window over the carefully manicured English gardens outside.
Jackson closed her notebook and collected Kelly’s file. “Do you want me to lock that up in the vault?” she asked, nodding at the cap.
Vance didn’t interrupt his examination of the light rain falling on the gardens and a few visible portions of the great old manor house. “Just leave it there,” Vance said. “I’ll take a closer look at it in a few moments, thank you, Lieutenant.”
Jackson sauntered out of the dining room, her heels clicking severely on the ornately patterned parquet floor. Vance stole a glance at her as she slipped out the tall double doors and closed them behind her.
Vance stood at the windows a few more minutes taking in the scenery outside. He found such peaceful contemplation of the natural world or mundane matters necessary in steeling himself for encountering the unnatural. He inhaled the lingering scent of candle wax and perfume that haunted the room, heard the patter of raindrops against the windowpane merge with clattering typists in a nearby room, felt the muggy air close about him in his woolen uniform.
Vance casually walked to the table and picked up the cap. It electrified the goose bumps on his arm and sent shivers up his spine. Though he slicked back his wavy hair, it seemed to stand up on end and tingle as if covered with excited bees. His ability to detect items or people with otherworldly qualities had brought him to the attention of the OSS, which appointed him head of its Bureau of Special Investigations (derisively named “BS Investigations” by those ignorant of its true purposes). By now Vance knew Kelly wasn’t a German spy; he was more interested in the cap, what it did to those who wore it, and what it might do to help the Allies win the war.
Vance ran his fingers over the cap, ran his thumb over the Nazi eagle patch on the front. He felt granules of warm sand, leather-padded headband and earphones, sticky sweet blood. Vance inhaled its scents: dust, sweat, cordite, and fear. Then he put the cap on his head.
Information, sensations, and emotions flooded every corner of Vance’s mind. He reached out to steady himself against the dining table. His vision narrowed into distant tunnels; he breathed more rapidly to delay the unconsciousness racing up to meet him. He fought to focus on the ancient family portraits and ornate candle sconces on the far wall to keep his eyes from rolling up into the back of his head.
The burst of paranormal energy dropped him to the floor. A maelstrom of dots and dashes, clicking, blinking, typing, spinning metal rotors, clumps of four-letter groups, and finally cohesive German words rushed through his mind, a tempest of sensations not simply of the man who had fought and died wearing that Afrika Korps cap, but of all those past and present involved in the wireless telegraphy, codes, and ciphers the Nazis used to coordinate their vast war machine. For a fleeting second Vance realized no ordinary soldier like Private Kelly could possibly comprehend, let alone maintain mental and emotional control over this overwhelming storm of information. But Vance fought, shaking his head and body in apoplectic convulsions in an effort to physically and mentally discern the sensations flooding his mind.
Once he managed to isolate and understand streams of seemingly dissonant information, Vance tried arranging them in a logical order, much like conducting an interrogation or sifting through a file, starting with the basic information and working deeper. The originating signals pounded through his head, overlapping drumbeats of dots and dashes of multiple transmitters broadcasting messages in Morse code. These rapidly passed through stages of clicking typewriter keys, smooth electrical current passing through advancing metal rotors, and finally blinking letter lights. The letters gathered into groups of four, then transformed into comprehensible abbreviations and even entire words.
Vance realized this cap somehow channeled and deciphered all German radio communication within Western Europe through its wearer.
He doubted anyone intentionally designed the cap that way-the Nazis would be fools to allow such a fantastic weapon to fall into Allied hands-but surmised the emotional heat of combat and anguish of death imbued it with the knowledge and expertise of its wearer, who must have served with a wireless communications company in North Africa.