Rambunctious by Rick Wilber

Author:Rick Wilber [Wilber, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WordFire Press

August 23rd, 1943

William, “Wild Bill” Donovan was setting up a special kind of operation, a unit filled with people who would risk their lives for their country, working behind enemy lines, finding out things, causing trouble for the enemy.

What he had in mind for Moe Berg was work in Europe, dangerous work. He needed someone who could speak all those damn languages, someone with nerve, someone smart, someone with some physical skills and the willingness to do what had to be done. Was Moe Berg that man, Donovan wanted to know?

Sure he was. Sign me up, he said to Donovan after a half-hour conversation. And when do I start?

But it wasn’t that simple. It would be best to finish the baseball season and then disappear into the woodwork, quietly, unobserved. Could Moe do that? Could he play ball for both the White Sox and his country? Could he finish things out in September and then go into training in October and, probably, be in action by the spring?

Sure he could. Sign me up, he said again to Donovan. And so it was.

But if the plan was to keep it quiet, Moe failed at that. Flush with his new calling, filled with self-confidence, the old Moe faded away into the rainy days of August and a new, bolder, Moe Berg was playing first base now for the Sox. A Moe who was hitting a ton, making the picks at first, running the bases like a madman. Freedom from worry was a wonderful thing and Moe tore the cover off the ball for the last three weeks of the season, hitting .342 and playing great defense. He led the White Sox in a climb from fourth place to third and then to second in the American League. Hell, still five games back at the end of the season but in that last month Moe Berg, baseball player, went from has-been to a hot item. Manager Jimmy Dykes professed loudly that he loved Moe’s heart and his determination. General Manager Harry Grabiner praised Moe and swore he wouldn’t trade him, and then started trying to make a deal with the Senators.

This was not exactly how Donovan wanted it to go, since it brought attention to Moe, but that was all right, in the off-season most people would forget baseball. There was, after all, a war going on. A hell of a war, what with Rommel revitalized in North Africa taking back Tobruk and knocking on the door of Cairo, and Germany launching those damn rockets at London, and the Luftwaffe’s new jet aircraft regaining superiority over Europe. Things were teetering. There were a lot of people, important people, saying it was time for an armistice with Hitler so America could concentrate on the Japanese, where the war was going better since the cakewalk at Tinian.

Wild Bill was not interested in talking peace with Hitler. Wild Bill knew what most Americans didn’t: the Nazis were working on a super-bomb, and with jets and rockets and those new, larger U-boats they had a way to deliver one if they got the damn bomb built.

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