by Pat Frank
“Sir, I don’t have a driver’s license. I don’t have a car, and this girl she asked me to come down here and get her tail light fixed.”
“She wanted you to get her tail light fixed at this hour?”
“Yes, sir, at this hour.”
Fischer told himself that this could be the right man. A fishy story and no driver’s license. Probably the punk had just bought the car with the heroin profits. “What’ve you got in the trunk?” he demanded.
“In the trunk? Nothing. I don’t know what’s in the trunk.”
Fischer said, “Open it up.”
The garage attendant, who had been listening, interested, moved away. If there was going to be trouble he didn’t want to get involved.
Cusack took the keys from the ignition. Fischer noticed how shaky he was, and how scared. Cusack opened the trunk. In the trunk was a new, brown leather suitcase, short and thick, more like a sample case, with a clear plastic cover. “Bring it out and open it up,” Fischer commanded.
Cusack did as he was told. There was nothing in the suitcase except five thermos bottles, fitted into niches of a felt-covered wooden rack, and held firmly in place by straps. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Cusack said. He was thinking of the five thermos bottles he had seen in Stan Smith’s closet, and had come to a quick conclusion. He’d bet that his roommate’s money came from stealing and selling mess hall equipment.
Fischer took one of the thermos bottles from the trunk. “Pretty slick way to carry your junk,” he said.
“My junk?”
“You’re a junkie, aren’t you?” Fischer unscrewed the top, drew out the cork, and held the bottle up so he could look inside. Empty. He smelled it. It smelled new. He said, puzzled, “Where’d you get these?”
“I didn’t get them, Lieutenant. I don’t know anything about them. Like I told you, a girl just asked me to drive her car downtown and get her tail light fixed. Now if you want to check with her . . .”
“We’ll check with her later. Right now, we’re taking this car and bag to the base.”
“Sir, I can’t take this car. It doesn’t belong to me.”
Lieutenant Fischer returned the bottle to its place, snapped the case shut, and returned it to the luggage compartment. The kid might be completely clear. Now that he’d talked with him, Lieutenant Fischer didn’t believe he was the slippery, lying, hophead type. But he wasn’t the type who would possess a girl with a new car, either. He seemed just a country kid, one who would have an awful lot of explaining to do, when you considered the FBI and police lookout, and the description of the car and suitcase. Fischer said, “Come on, get in the car. We’re going back to the base. I’ll drive.”
Cusack climbed into the front seat and handed the keys to the lieutenant. Suddenly he put his hands to his face and said, “Oh, Lord!” He could imagine what Stan Smith would say when Stan found out about all this. He knew pretty well what Stan would do to him if he got Stan into trouble. He decided he’d better not mention Stan at all, not to the Air Police.
eight
STANLEY SMITH reported for duty in the Officers’ Open Mess, midnight to 0800 shift, a few minutes early. By the time Sergeant Ciocci and the others got there he had placed his three new thermos bottles in the rack, closest to the wall. He didn’t want Ciocci to see him bringing in three bottles, because it would seem unusual. But on this first shift of Sunday morning Sergeant Ciocci did notice something.
He looked at the row of containers, counting them. “Ten,” he said aloud. “That’s funny. Last time I looked there were seven. We never had more than a dozen, and we lost five in B-Nine-Nines. That makes seven we should have left, but now we’ve got ten. Stan, what d’you make of that?”
Smith laughed. “They aren’t having pups,” he said. “You know I drink a lot of coffee and so do the other fellows over in Thirty-seven and I had a couple of bottles in the barracks and brought them in tonight. Maybe somebody else, on the last Saturday shift, borrowed the other and just brought it back too.”
“Oh, sure,” said Ciocci. “But I could have sworn we never had more than twelve. I was going to requisition five new ones yesterday. Forgot.”
“We’ve got more than twelve,” Smith said. “Somebody’s always got one or two out.”
I guess so,” said Ciocci, satisfied.
To Smith it was a bad omen. In all his operations, this was the first time he had come really close to slipping, and it made him feel jumpy, and apprehensive. Perhaps three was too many to do at once, but of course he didn’t know for sure that he’d be able to destroy three. There might be no missions at all, and even if there were missions you never could know how many officers would draw coffee. And he did have his five bombs and he would like to use them, effectively as possible, before Monday, which he felt sure would be the day. D-Day they called it in the U.S. Army, X-Day in the Russian.
Ciocci looked out through the glass in the swinging doors that separated the kitchen from the mess hall. He said, “We’ve got some early customers. Take ’em, will you, Stan?”
During the regular, daylight meal hours the mess hall operated like a cafeteria, with the officers serving themselves, except in the Sky Room. During these hours the long array of steam tables were always filled with hot food. On the midnight to 0800 shift cafeteria service was not practicable, for these were the hours in which all major equipment was scoured and cleaned. So on this shift the cooks and kitchen helpers waited on table. Smith walked into the mess hall.
The good-looking civilian girl who had been around the base for a few days, and who he believed must be an agent for Special Investigations, was seating herself at one of the tables. With her was the big one-eyed major, and Lundstrom, the colonel from Washington, a wheel in security, who never seemed to sleep. They ordered sandwiches and milk.
When they had finished eating the major paid out of his chit book and asked, “How about wrapping up a roast beef to take out? With pickle.”
“Yes, sir,” said Smith.
He cleared the dishes, went into the kitchen, made a sandwich, and brought it to the major. The girl was talking. “Jess,” she was saying, “you’ve been at it all day. Why don’t you get some rest and be fresh in the morning?”
“Can’t,” said the major. “Too much paper work. We’ve got twelve training missions scheduled. SAC says the crews have got to make up for the day they lost. Then the ferry operation starts tomorrow night.”
“All right,” the girl said. “I know there’s no use arguing. I’ll drive you both over to administration.”
And they rose and left. Twelve missions, Smith thought. Twelve missions meant forty-eight officers flying. Certainly three out of forty-eight would want coffee with their flight lunches. It would be a big day, the biggest ever. They’d all be crazy with fear and frustration by this time tomorrow.
2
When Katy dropped them at administration, Jesse Price returned to executive office while Lundstrom continued on down the hallway to the office of the commanding general. Even at this hour, ten minutes to one in the morning, there was a pleasant pulse of activity on the base. The flight crews named for the morning missions were still sleeping, and yet preparations for the missions were underway. Engines were being tested, fuel trucks drinking from enormous underground tanks, armorers drawing rockets and 20 millimeter ammunition, radar maintenance men conducting their endless examination of equipment. Reports were coming in to the executive office, orders flowing out.
At this moment, and until Buddy Conklin arrived to take over, Jesse Price was senior staff officer at Hibiscus. Under him was Captain Challon, the regular duty officer of the night, a lieutenant, two staff sergeants, and three or four airmen, one of whom shuttled between Jesse’s desk and the communications center. It had been a long time since Jesse had been in a post of command. His last command had blown up on the runway at Okinawa. He enjoyed command. He enjoyed making decisions, even when they were routine and trivial. He hoped that the bird colonel who was Buddy Co
nklin’s regular deputy, and exec, would tarry for a few days in New Mexico. The responsibilities of command divorced a man’s mind from problems and fears about which you could do nothing. Whether you flew a plane or a desk, the commander’s job was definite. It was right there in front of him—a course to steer, a message to send, an order to sign.
At 0140 a strange priority message came over the teletype from SAC headquarters in Omaha: “ATTENTION COMMANDING OFFICERS ALL DIVISIONS AND WINGS—THE FBI REPORTS THAT A CONTACT MAN FOR ENEMY AGENTS BLAMES SABOTAGE FOR THE LOSS OF THE B-99 BOMBERS. HE CLAIMS FOUR MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE. THE INFORMANT, NOW DECEASED, SAID HE MET ONE OF THE MEN, WHOSE NAME IS SMITH. THE FBI HOPES TO HAVE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS BY MONDAY. MAINTAIN YOUR CONDITION OF ALERT.”
Jesse called Challon to his desk and showed him the message. “Ever see anything like that?” he asked.
Challon, a young man from Chattanooga who had just returned from duty in the Midlands with dashing RAF mustaches, read the dispatch and said, “Never in my born days.”
“How many Smiths do we have on this base?”
Challon laughed. “I don’t know, Major. I had two in my last crew, and I know a couple more right here in administration.”
The message was crazy, all right, Jess thought, and yet the FBI wouldn’t send it along unless they had a few hard facts. A man’s death was a hard fact. Jesse wondered whether “informant, now deceased,” had been killed while escaping, or had killed himself, or been murdered, or simply died of natural causes. It was intriguing as a who-dun-it, but it was no help, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he had to worry about was Hibiscus Base. Somebody else would have to take care of the rest of the world.
Hibiscus Base was running smoothly until Lundstrom poked his head into the office and said, “Major Price, will you come out here, please?”
Jess went to the door. Lundstrom said, quietly, “We may have something downstairs in Air Police. Want to come down with me?”
“Yes.” Jess turned to Challon. “Take over for a while, will you, Captain?”
As they walked down the corridor, Lundstrom said, “Remember that Lieutenant Fischer—rangy, tanned boy at the gate the day you got here? Well, he just brought in a green-and-white Chevvy, an airman, and a suitcase.”
Jess looked at his watch. It was two-thirty. In thirty minutes the pilots and airmen would be roused for pre-flight briefing and checkouts. The first mission was due off at 0700. He began to think ahead.
3
The Air Police headquarters on the ground floor of administration included an interrogation room, its windows barred, and equipped with the bare essentials of furniture, including a wire recorder, a line of chairs, a stenographer’s desk with typewriter. A small group of men were already there. They included Lieutenant Fischer, Major Click, the base security officer, a master sergeant of the Air Police with a stenographer’s pad, two airmen with carbines, and the prisoner. On the table lay the oddly shaped suitcase, open.
Jesse Price was astonished. The prisoner, sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair, blotches on his face purplish under the bright fluorescent rods of light, looked like a high school senior who had been picked up, by accident, in a raid on a juke joint. His mouth was half open, his eyes glazed, and he was dumb with fright. Colonel Lundstrom said, “What’s this—juvenile delinquency week? What’s the story?”
Lieutenant Fischer told what there was to tell. Airman 2/c Cusack claimed that the car didn’t belong to him. He didn’t know anything about the suitcase, hadn’t seen it until he was picked up at the all-night garage in Orlando. He claimed that he had been working in the mess hall Thursday night, midnight to 0800. If that was true he had an absolute alibi, and was not the airman seen by the Marine.
“Shouldn’t be hard to check up,” said Lundstrom.
At first the sight of the five quart bottles nestled in their felt niches made no impression on Jesse, except that it looked like the luggage had been designed as part of an elaborate picnic outfit. Then their shape jostled cells of memory. The shape he had drawn on the blackboard in Buddy Conklin’s office, to illustrate the pressure bomb used by the Germans in Italy, was the shape of a thermos bottle. The pressure bombs that had blown the Cottontails’ old B-24’s out of the sky had also been cylindrical, and a bit more than a foot long. “What’s in those bottles, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“Nothing, Major. Nothing at all. I examined them all. Thought I might find heroin.”
“Lieutenant, have you checked the ownership of the car?” asked Lundstrom.
“The sergeant did, sir,” said Fischer. “It’s listed to Betty Jo Atkins, in Orlando, like this airman said. She doesn’t have a phone.”
Lundstrom turned on the boy. “What’s the name of your commanding officer?”
Cusack’s mouth opened and closed twice before any words came out. “Kuhn, sir,” he said finally. “Captain Kuhn. He’s mess officer.”
4
The orderly pattern of Captain Kuhn’s life had been badly disrupted for the entire week. Ever since Hibiscus lost its first two B-99’s, operation of the Officers’ Open Mess had become disorganized and complicated. There was a sudden influx of civilian technicians and factory men whom he was called upon to feed, and a procession of brass from Washington. His chit book system was in confusion, and he was sure his accounts would show a loss that he might have to make up out of his own pocket. Not a night passed without some panic or flap, such as providing flight lunches for generals, on five minutes’ notice. The whole business was unnerving.
Had Captain Kuhn been the brightest officer in the Air Force, he would not have been a captain, and a mess officer, at the age of forty-three. He wore battle stars from the Pacific and the Air Medal on his tunic, but his age in grade announced that somewhere in his career he had fouled up. When the telephone woke him, he looked at the clock, picked up the instrument, and, instead of saying, “Captain Kuhn,” he shouted, “who in hell’s calling at this hour?”
A cold voice replied, “This is Colonel Lundstrom, Special Investigations. Get your fat ass out of the sack and be in the guardroom in administration in two minutes.”
Before Kuhn could say so much as, “Yes, Colonel,” the phone clicked.
As Kuhn tugged on his shirt and trousers, fingers fumbling, he was sure that SI had discovered a discrepancy in his mess fund. He didn’t make administration in two minutes, but he did make it in five, dishevelled and apprehensive. To Kuhn, Lundstrom’s face looked forbidding and bleak as the glaciers at Thule, Greenland, or the tundras of Alaska, or some other Air Force Siberia,
Lundstrom looked at him. Kuhn started to apologize, but Lundstrom said, “This one of your men?” He indicated Cusack.
“Why, yes, sir. I don’t know his name but he is one of my men. On the swing shift, I think.”
“Was he on duty Friday morning between midnight and oh-eight-hundred?”
“Well, I’m not sure, sir. No, sir, I don’t think that’s his night.”
Cusack spoke. “Sir, it isn’t my regular night, but I swapped with one of the other men so I could have Saturday night off. Sergeant Ciocci said I could.”
“Ciocci’s on duty now,” said Kuhn. “He can tell us.” For the first time Kuhn noticed the open suitcase. “Say, those look like my thermos bottles.”
Until that moment, Phil Cusack had not been sure what crime the Air Police lieutenant, and later all this brass, believed he had committed. All he knew for certain was that one of the most exciting, fascinating evenings of his life had suddenly changed into incomprehensible horror and disaster. But now he was certain that Stan Smith had been stealing mess hall equipment, and specifically these thermos bottles, and that he, Cusack, was suspected. He didn’t want to get Stan in trouble, but he didn’t want to go to the federal pen, either. He said, his words directed at Lundstrom, “Sir, I didn’t steal those thermos bottles. Honest I didn’t.”
“Well, they look exactly like the thermos bottles we send out with the f
light lunches,” said Captain Kuhn. “Same color, same size. Colonel, I think you’ve really got something here.”
“I doubt it,” said Lundstrom.
“If there’s any shortage in my equipment there’s been pilfering, that’s what. A man can’t watch everything.”
“Just keep quiet a minute, Captain,” said Lundstrom. He picked up one of the bottles and looked at it closely. On its base was stamped, “Made in U.S.A.” He lifted the suitcase, and inspected its workmanship. The suitcase was new, unscuffed, of top-grade leather, hand-finished, and unquestionably expensive. It was a very unusual piece of luggage. Pressed into the leather Lundstrom saw a name, Brno. “B-r-n-o,” Lundstrom spelled it out. “Ever hear of it? What’s it stand for?”
“B-r-n-o,” Jesse repeated. “Maybe it’s the initials of the manufacturer.” He tried pronouncing it. “Brno,” he said, and repeated, “Brno,” and magically the sound opened a door deep in his memory, and he knew the answer. “Brno isn’t the name of the manufacturer,” he said. “Brno is a town in Czechoslovakia. I’ve seen it—from twenty-five thousand feet. It’s on a river. We used to use it as a check point on some of our long strikes.”
Lundstrom’s fingers were gripping the edge of the suitcase as if it were a throat. “They do make nice leather goods in Czechoslovakia, don’t they?” he said, and looked at Cusack in an entirely different manner.
“Yes,” Jesse said. “Nice leather goods, but they haven’t sold any in this country in a long, long time.”
Cusack didn’t understand what these officers were talking about, but he didn’t like the way they stared at him, like he was a poison snake and smelled bad to boot. He didn’t like the way that major’s one eye bored into him. Once before, in a bar in Morgantown, he had seen two cops look at a man like that. The man had killed another cop. Cusack remembered, in detail, what the two cops had done to the man before they carried him away. “Colonel, sir,” Cusack said to Lundstrom, “if it’s thermos bottles you’re after, I can take you to a whole lot of ’em.”