The Last Heroes

by W. E. B Griffin

  ‘‘For God’s sake, we’re at war,’’ Bitter said.

  ‘‘Whatever, old chap, has that to do with tiffin?’’ Canidy replied in a British accent. ‘‘Stiff upper lip! Cheerio! Pip-pip and all that!’’

  ‘‘You go ahead if you want to,’’ Bitter said. ‘‘I’m going to stick by the radio.’’

  ‘‘Suit yourself,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘When the Japs start climbing over the rose garden wall, give me a yell, and I’ll come help repel them.’’

  When Canidy came down from his room at half past three, Bitter was sitting in the front seat of the Studebaker. Canidy said nothing about his change of mind. It did seem a little incongruous that with the Pacific Fleet on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, he was going out to get laid.

  Gravelly Point Airport Washington, D.C. 4:45 P.M., December 7, 1941

  The Douglass C-47 airplane waiting for Colonel William Donovan at La Guardia Field was painted the dull olive green of the Army Air Corps. It also bore the Army Air Corps insignia, a red circle in a white star, and it was flown by men in Air Corps uniforms. But when Donovan and Chesley Haywood Whittaker got inside, the interior was civilian. There was even a brochure in a pouch on the back of the seat in front of Chesty Whittaker. In it was a picture of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker welcoming travelers aboard a flagship of Eastern Airlines’ Great Silver Fleet.

  There was no stewardess, but ten minutes after they broke ground and the white beaches of the Atlantic Coast of New Jersey sped by under the left wing, a young officer with pilot’s wings on his tunic came out of the cockpit with a thermos of coffee and two china mugs and told them they should be on the ground in about ninety minutes.

  ‘‘I see the airplane was just drafted,’’ Donovan said as he took the coffee.

  ‘‘Yes, sir.’’ The young officer chuckled. ‘‘We just took it away from Eastern. Tomorrow . . . we’re adding insult to injury by making them do the work . . . they were going to strip the interior. I don’t know what will happen now.’’

  ‘‘I think we can safely presume that they’ll go ahead and strip it,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘The military cannot stand creature comforts.’’

  ‘‘If you gentlemen need anything, just come forward,’’ the young pilot said. ‘‘I better go help steer.’’

  When he had gone, Chesty Whittaker asked the question on his mind:

  ‘‘Are they going to requisition all civilian airplanes?’’

  ‘‘They’re going to requisition what they need right away,’’ Donovan replied, ‘‘and then replace them as soon as they can from production. Don Douglas’s purchase order is going to make him rich: ‘Make as many airplanes as you can as quick as you can, on cost plus ten percent.’ ’’

  ‘‘It couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow,’’ Chesty Whittaker said.

  ‘‘Speaking of requisitioning, Chesty,’’ Donovan said. "How attached are you to the house on Q Street?"

  ‘‘I don’t think I’m going to like this,’’ Chesty said.

  ‘‘I’m going to need a place like that,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘I thought you had an apartment in the Hotel Washington, ’’ Whittaker said, ‘‘as well as the place in Georgetown.’’

  ‘‘I don’t mean me, personally,’’ Donovan said carefully. ‘‘The organization I’m setting up is going to need a place where I can bring people together, put them up overnight— or for a couple of weeks, maybe—a place where they won’t be seen or attract attention. A place, bluntly, to hide people, where they can be protected. A place with a wall around it; a place with a good kitchen and half a dozen bedrooms. A place just like Jimmy’s house on Q Street, Chesty."

  ‘‘What, exactly, Bill, are you up to?’’ Whittaker asked, then quoted, ‘‘ ‘A place to hide people’?’’

  ‘‘I can’t tell you, exactly, Chesty, what I’m doing,’’ Donovan replied.

  ‘‘No, I suppose not,’’ Whittaker said after a moment. "Jimmy, obviously, won’t be using the Q Street house for a while,’’ he went on. ‘‘If the government really has a need for it, Bill, of course you can have it.’’

  ‘‘I’ll have somebody get in touch,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Work out the details. I’ll fix it, of course, so that there will always . . . or almost always . . . be a room for you and Barbara.’’

  ‘‘How good of you,’’ Chesty said dryly. ‘‘There’s one thing, Bill. Someone lives in the garage apartment.’’

  ‘‘He’ll have to move, I’m afraid,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘It’s a she,’’ Chesty said.

  ‘‘Oh?’’ Donovan asked, smiling. ‘‘How much are you paying her?’’

  ‘‘It’s Tom Chenowith’s daughter, you foulmouthed Irish-man, ’’ Chesty said.

  ‘‘Cynthia?’’ Donovan asked. ‘‘I thought she was at Harvard. ’’

  ‘‘She’s through law school and working for the State Department. ’’

  ‘‘Christ, we’re getting old,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘She wants to be a foreign service officer,’’ Chesty said. ‘‘The old-boy network is fighting tooth and claw, of course. But they couldn’t keep her from a job as a lawyer. She was on the Law Review. A very determined young woman. She’ll wind up, I wouldn’t be surprised, as Secretary of State.’’

  ‘‘We can work out something about her, I’m sure,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Which brings us to you.’’

  ‘‘What does that mean?’’

  ‘‘I’d like for you to come work with me, Chesty,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘Doing what?’’

  ‘‘What do you know about intelligence?’’

  ‘‘Spying, finding out troop movements, order of battle, and that sort of thing, I guess. Other than that, absolutely nothing.’’

  ‘‘There’s more to intelligence than spying and military intelligence,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘I think of what we’re doing as strategic intelligence.’’

  ‘‘Bill, I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’’ Chesty Whittaker confessed.

  ‘‘Military intelligence is concerned with things of interest to the military. Navy intelligence concerns itself with the enemy’s naval capabilities. The Army is interested in the capabilities and weaknesses of the enemy ground and air forces. Strategic intelligence is concerned with the enemy’s overall intentions and capabilities.’’

  ‘‘Wouldn’t that be, for lack of a better term, ‘diplomatic’ intelligence?’’

  ‘‘State Department intelligence should deal with diplomatic intelligence,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Strategic intelligence is the whole picture. Do you understand?’’

  ‘‘I don’t really know,’’ Chesty Whittaker confessed.

  ‘‘My function, Chesty,’’ Donovan said, and then stopped. ‘‘Christ, that was a regal ‘my,’ wasn’t it? You know, I sort of like that thought. Anyway, the function of the organization I’m setting up . . . and it’s still in the formative stage . . . is to have a group of really knowledgeable people sift through all the intelligence gathered. I want them to see what this stuff means vis-à-vis the total conduct of the war without having to get caught up in the individual needs of the armed forces and the State Department. To boil it down in other words, for Roosevelt. Franklin does not want an Army or Navy picture, he wants a total picture of what’s going on in the world. He wants to know what’s likely to happen, who’s doing it, why they’re doing it, and what we should do in return.’’

  ‘‘Oh,’’ Whittaker said.

  ‘‘And the reverse,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘I don’t understand.’’

  ‘‘When a strategic decision has been made, we need to be able to decide how it can best be accomplished—economically, quickly, considering available assets and the overall requirements for those assets. Who gets the shipping tonnage, for example, to what part of the world.’’

  ‘‘OK,’’ Whittaker said, understanding.

  ‘‘And finally, Chesty, we’re going to be responsible for dirty tricks
. If we can buy some German general, we’re going to buy him.’’

  ‘‘Espionage, you mean.’’

  ‘‘Including espionage. There’s more to it than that.’’

  ‘‘Where are you going to get the people to do that sort of thing?’’

  ‘‘From all over. The people who are now looking at the big picture are known, somewhat irreverently, as the Twelve Disciples. Actually, so far there are only ten. I’d like you to be the eleventh.’’

  ‘‘I’m flattered, Bill,’’ Whittaker said.

  ‘‘You’ll work your ass off, and I’ll pay you a dollar a year,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘Did your ‘Twelve Disciples’ know what was going to happen this morning?’’ Chesty Whittaker asked.

  Donovan ignored the question.

  ‘‘I asked you a question, Bill,’’ Chesty said.

  ‘‘A question you should know I couldn’t answer,’’ Donovan said. It was a rebuke.

  ‘‘I don’t know what good I would be,’’ Whittaker said. ‘‘I don’t know anything about this sort of thing.’’

  ‘‘You have been traveling all over the world since you were a boy,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘You know a wide assortment of people, including a number of our enemies. Let me be the judge of the rest.’’

  ‘‘Obviously,’’ Chesty said, ‘‘the war will require a mind-boggling amount of heavy construction. That’s really my field, Bill. I build railroads and bridges. Wouldn’t I be more valuable doing that?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Donovan said simply. ‘‘You will be of greater value working for me. There are a lot of people who can put up a bridge. What I need from you is your brains and your fund of knowledge.’’

  Chesley Haywood Whittaker was both flattered and excited. He was going to have an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the war they had just entered. He looked at Donovan.

  ‘‘What kind of knowledge?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Just off the top of your head, Chesty, if I came to you and said it was necessary for the government to build an enormous plant, and do so rather secretly—’’

  ‘‘What kind of a plant? Making what?’’

  ‘‘I can’t tell you that,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Say a complicated chemical process.’’

  ‘‘Poison gas?’’

  ‘‘Something like that,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Something that should not be built, say, any closer than a hundred miles to a population center.’’

  ‘‘Chemical processing takes enormous amounts of power,’’ Whittaker said. ‘‘So it would be best to put it near a source of hydroelectric power. That means, I would say, off the top of my head, either Alabama or Tennessee, because of the TVA’s electric-generating capability—or maybe Washington State.’’

  ‘‘That kind of knowledge, Chesty,’’ Donovan said, smiling.

  ‘‘Will I have to call you sir?’’

  ‘‘And stand to attention.’’ Donovan put out his hand.

  ‘‘Are you serious about this plant, or plants?’’ Whittaker asked.

  ‘‘Just as soon as you can, do me up a one- or two-page briefing paper,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘This is a very high priority, Chesty.’’

  ‘‘That much poison gas? Are we in that much trouble?’’

  ‘‘Yes, we’re in that much trouble. Maybe it isn’t poison gas. Think of complicated chemical processes. Don’t limit your thoughts to poison gas.’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ Whittaker said. ‘‘I’ll have it for you tomorrow. ’’

  ‘‘The less help you have, the better,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘Meaning the less people who know?’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ Donovan said.

  Whittaker nodded his understanding.

  ‘‘Bill,’’ he asked, ‘‘what’s going to happen to Jimmy? He’s in the Philippines.’’

  Donovan’s face grew serious. He thought about his reply before he offered it.

  ‘‘There are two schools of thought,’’ he said. ‘‘One believes it is in the best interests of the United States to try to defend our territory and our interests in the Far East. The other believes that we should deal with the Germans before we knock out the Japanese. I think we are going to follow the second choice.’’

  ‘‘At the expense of the first, you mean?’’

  ‘‘There’s neither the men nor the matériel for both at once,’’ Donovan said.

  ‘‘We’re going to lose the Philippines?’’

  ‘‘What’s Jimmy flying?’’ Donovan replied, ignoring the question.

  "Pursuit planes," Chesty said. "P40s. What else, considering Jimmy?’’

  ‘‘Then he’ll be in the thick of it,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘The basic defense strategy for the Philippines is to destroy the Japanese invasion fleet from the air. They just sent a flock of Flying Fortresses over there . . . you know, those four-engine Boeings?’’

  ‘‘Jimmy’s flying a pursuit plane.’’

  ‘‘The Japanese will try to destroy our bombers on the ground. Defending them will be the job of the pursuit pilots. ’’

  ‘‘And will they be able to?’’

  ‘‘If they try hard enough, and if they don’t run out of planes,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘There’s a convoy, accompanied by the cruiser Pensacola, en route to Manila now. There’s several shiploads of fighter planes in it.’’

  ‘‘What are you telling me, Bill?’’ Chesty asked.

  ‘‘That Jimmy will be in the thick of it,’’ Donovan repeated. ‘‘You wanted the truth.’’

  The conversation ended there, because there was simply nothing else to say.

  The C-47 made a wide descending sweep over the District itself. The Capitol Building was on the left, and the White House on the right. They were so low he could see the flags flying. It was a peaceful scene, and he wondered for a moment if Washington, like London, would be bombed. Was he perhaps having a last look at a Washington that had not been bombed since the English themselves did it in 1814?

  They descended over the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial and the bridges over the Potomac. And then approach lights to the runways of the Gravelly Point airport appeared, and a moment later the wheels chirped as the plane touched down.

  They taxied off the runway and stopped. A black Cadillac limousine drove up beside them, and the young pilot who had given them the coffee came out of the cockpit.

  ‘‘Your ground transportation is here, gentlemen,’’ he said. ‘‘Thank you for flying Eastern Air Corps Airlines.’’

  ‘‘I prefer the coffee passers in skirts,’’ Donovan said.

  The young pilot chuckled and went to open the door.

  Whittaker noticed that the pilot had shut down only the right engine. And as soon as they were inside the limousine, he restarted the other one.

  There were guards, soldiers in helmets and uniforms, on both ends of the Fourteenth Street Bridge across the Potomac, and more on Fourteenth Street. And on Fifteenth, Chesty saw still more soldiers guarding the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the Department of Agriculture, the Post Office, the Treasury Department. And marines were stationed at twenty-yard intervals outside the White House fence.

  A lieutenant colonel in a helmet came up to the limousine when it stopped at the gate in the White House fence.

  ‘‘I’m Colonel William Donovan,’’ Donovan said, rolling down the window. ‘‘I’m expected. Mr. Whittaker is with me.’’

  The officer carefully consulted a typewritten list clamped to a clipboard.

  ‘‘May I have your identification, please?’’ he asked. Donovan extended a plastic-covered card. The officer examined it and handed it back. ‘‘Thank you, sir,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I haven’t had time to get Mr. Whittaker identification,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘I’ll vouch for him.’’

  ‘‘I’m sorry, sir,’’ the officer said. ‘‘The only personnel I am permitted to pass inside are those on the list. Mr. Whittaker is not on the list.’’

 
‘‘I told you he’s with me,’’ Donovan said. The officer started shaking his head. ‘‘Not only is he my deputy,’’ Donovan went on, ‘‘but he’s a friend of the President.’’

  ‘‘What you’re going to have to do, sir,’’ the officer said, ‘‘is drive over to the old Army-Navy-State Building. You can arrange to have this gentleman passed through there. Ask for Colonel Retter.’’

  ‘‘Bill,’’ Chesty Whittaker said, ‘‘I’ll just catch a cab and go over to the house. I’d just be in the way, anyway.’’

  ‘‘The President needs all the friends he can get today,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘He would be glad to see you.’’

  ‘‘Tell him, Bill, please, that I’m ready to join his damned team," Whittaker said. "If he wants to see me, call the Q Street house.’’ He started to open the door.

  Donovan stopped him. ‘‘You take the car,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll walk up the drive.’’

  He got out of the car.

  ‘‘Colonel,’’ he said, ‘‘your devotion to duty is commendable. ’’

  Chesty could not tell if his friend was being sarcastic or not.

  The officer made a gesture to a White House policeman, who stepped out onto Pennsylvania and stopped the traffic so the limousine could back out of the drive.

  Chesty gave directions to the chauffeur, and five minutes later was at the house on Q Street.

  He let himself into the house and put his suitcase at the foot of the stairs leading to the upper floors. Then he checked the thermostat. It was set at sixty. He moved it to seventy-two and a moment later heard the oil burner kick on.

  He then walked down the corridor to the butler’s pantry and through it to the kitchen. He unlocked the kitchen door, went down the shallow flight of stairs, and crossed the brick-paved drive to the garage.

  All three doors of the garage were closed, and he could see no lights in the apartment over the garage. It was possible, he thought, deeply disappointed, that Cynthia wasn’t home.

  He climbed the stairs and pushed the doorbell button. There was a chime from inside, and a moment later he heard movement.

  And the door opened.

  Cynthia Chenowith smiled with genuine pleasure when she saw him.