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adds up. Truck drivers, railway workers, quartermaster men, anyone who comes in contact with military supplies can be tempted to steal.”
    â€œAt this point it’s an epidemic,” Hatch said. “Forty percent of all cases CID has involves the theft of supplies. Not petty pilferage; it’s the wholesale looting of supplies being stockpiled for the invasion.”
    â€œEverything from fuel to penicillin,” Harding added. “With the right black market contacts, it’s easy to get rich quick.”
    â€œSure,” I said. “There’s plenty of people willing to pay for what they can’t get under rationing. And no shortage of those willing to sell the stuff, right, Archie?”
    â€œNo arguing with that, Peaches. But this is something different. It goes beyond providing the necessities of life to ordinary folk.” I knew that wasn’t all posturing. Archie and his gang were based in Shoreditch, a bombed-out and poor part of London. He spread his wealth around, keeping the neighborhood folks happy and on his side.
    â€œChapman’s right,” Harding said, setting a pack of Lucky Strikes on the table. Archie snatched one, and Harding fired up his Zippo for both of them. “We’re after a major gang. They have connections to the English criminal world and the black market.”
    â€œAmericans?” I asked.
    â€œMostly,” Agent Hatch said. “They call themselves the Morgan Gang. They started small, selling pilfered supplies to the black market locally and then branched out to Oxford and Birmingham. Recently they made contact with a group of British deserters in the same line of work and joined forces.”
    â€œMakes sense,” I said. “Men on the inside and the outside.”
    â€œMade sense to them, too,” Hatch continued. “We’ve had our own problem with desertions, especially with the invasion coming anytime now. We know a dozen American deserters have recently joined them and are being used to stage armed robberies of supply trucks.”
    â€œTheir inside men pass on information about routes and manifests,” Harding said. “Then the deserters—Yanks and Brits—pull off the robberies, in uniform or civilian clothes. They sell the supplies off fast. That’s where the English gangs come in. They have the contacts to dispose of the goods quickly, moving them into the black market in small batches. No one’s the wiser.”
    â€œBut the army’s the poorer,” I said, eyeing Archie and wondering why he was involved. The real reason, not whatever story he’d spin sooner or later.
    â€œAnd the Morgan Gang gets richer,” Hatch said. “Coffee is going for ten bucks a pound. A fifty-carton box of smokes brings in a cool thousand. We’re talking big money.”
    â€œThey’ve been hitting fuel shipments lately,” Harding said. “Two deuce-and-a-half trucks filled with fifty-gallon drums of gasoline were hijacked last week. At gunpoint.”
    â€œPetrol’s a tempting target,” Archie said. “There’s precious little allowed for business and none at all for private use. Those with cash will pay well to drive their fancy cars again.”
    â€œPenicillin as well,” Hatch said. “Gangs need the stuff to treat their prostitutes or anyone who gets the clap and wants to be treated off the books.”
    â€œWe’re going to need a lot of penicillin in field hospitals once the invasion begins,” Harding said. “If we don’t stop these thefts, a lot of boys are going to die without the stuff.”
    â€œOkay, I understand,” I said. “You’ve got a well-organized gang looting army supplies. What part am I playing in all this? And why is Archie here?”
    â€œThey’re not only organized,” Hatch said, “they’re ruthless. They’ll use anything from payoffs to threats to get what they want. Say