In Danger's Path

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Oh, Christ, Martha!”

  “I’ve had a number of offers, of course,” she said. “But aside from…the very nice, very rich young aviator…I never really wanted to. And I didn’t go through with that. Until today, when I saw you get out of the car, I had just about convinced myself that whatever I was, I was not the Merry Widow of fame and legend. You know what that means, really, in German?”

  “What?”

  “The title of that operetta, Die Lustige Witwe? Popularly known as The Merry Widow? Lustige means ‘lusty.’ Full of lust.”

  “Oh, for Christ sake!”

  “But when I saw you get out of your car, I realized I was wrong. I was suddenly very lustige indeed.”

  “Martha, for Christ’s sake!”

  “And now that you know, are you really disgusted with me, or do you think, as a kindness, you could force yourself to put your arms around me? Right now, I feel very lonely.”

  He reached for her and wrapped his arms around her and comforted her as she sobbed against his chest.

  “I thought I was going to die when Greg got killed. I did, inside. And then I started having fantasies about you. Jim would come home. Jim would comfort me.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Today wasn’t the first time I’ve caught you looking up my dress,” she said, her sobs turning into giggles. “Thought I didn’t notice? I noticed!”

  “You’re really something, Martha.”

  “And then you were KIA, you bastard!” she said. “And I really died inside all over again. And then you came back from the dead, and didn’t call, and I understood that I’d been a little crazy, thinking that you felt anything for me—or I felt anything for you. And then, you bastard, you show up without warning at the house, and started looking at me like that.”

  “You mean looking up your dress?”

  “That too,” she said. “But I meant the look in your eyes when you saw me. You know the first thing I thought when I saw you?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Actually, the second thing. The second thing I thought was that I was really glad I hadn’t gone to bed with…the nice young man.”

  “What was the first thing?”

  “You’ll never know. You can probably guess, but I’ll never tell you.”

  “And what are you thinking now?”

  “I’m thinking you don’t seem very enthusiastic. Anyway, it’s time for you to take me home, or Daddy will get suspicious.”

  “I didn’t expect this, Martha,” he said. “I’m trying to sort it out.”

  “You’ve got to learn to take a chance,” she said. “Go for broke. Hope for the best. Like I did when I bought two of those things in the ladies’ room.”

  He didn’t reply.

  She pushed herself up and looked down at him.

  “I’m getting the feeling I’m making you uncomfortable,” Martha said. “If I am, for God’s sake, don’t try to be a gentleman.”

  He touched her nipple with his finger.

  “Only two? You should have bought three, four, half a dozen.”

  She moved her body so that he could get his mouth on her nipple.

  “Is that what you were thinking? Is that what you wanted to do?” she asked.

  “Oh, God, yes,” he said.

  “I told you I always know what you’re thinking,” Martha said, as she pressed her breast against his face. “Oh, God, Jimmy, I’m so glad you’re back!”

  XI

  [ONE]

  The Greenbrier Hotel

  White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

  0440 8 March 1943

  Under the military administration of the Greenbrier Hotel, the desk clerk was called the charge of quarters. Whatever he was called, he was the same petty officer second who had the duty when Weston reported in, and he was asleep in an armchair behind the desk when Weston walked up to ask for his key.

  Weston took a certain cruel pleasure in ringing the bell on the desk with sufficient energy to bring the charge of quarters to sudden wakefulness.

  Jim Weston was not in a very good mood. He had driven straight through from Pensacola, stopping only for gas and a couple of really terrible hamburgers. During that time, he’d had plenty of time to consider what an unprincipled miserable sonofabitch he was, first for what he had done to Martha, and second for what that meant with regard to his relationship to Janice.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Weston said with monumental insincerity.

  The charge of quarters looked at his watch.

  “You just got back in time to keep the shit from hitting the fan, Captain, “he said.

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Commander Bolemann told me to call him if you wasn’t back at 0500. If you wasn’t, he was going to call the state police. It’s 0441.”

  He picked up the telephone on the desk and gave the operator who answered a number. “Sir, Ulrich at the front desk? Captain Weston just came in, sir.” There was a pause, then Ulrich added: “Aye, aye, sir.”

  He hung up and turned to Weston. “You’re to go to the Commander’s quarters, Captain,” he said. “Two-oh-one. Take the corridor to the right at the head of the stairs.”

  Weston was halfway to the wide staircase when Ulrich called his name. He turned and saw that Ulrich was holding out his key and a stack of small yellow sheets of paper. To discourage guests from taking them out of the hotel, the keys were attached to enormous, heavy brass plates.

  He turned, walked back to the desk, and took them.

  There were eight small yellow sheets of paper, each a message for Captain Weston, each with a date-and-time stamp.

  * * *

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Hardison asks that you call her, Female

  Officers’ Quarters, USN Hospital, Phila.

  * * *

  That one was date-and-time stamped 1540 5Mar43. Ten minutes after he had made his surreptitious early exit from the Greenbrier. He wondered why she didn’t give a number, then remembered there was some sort of dedicated line between USNH Philadelphia and the Greenbrier. Commander Bolemann had told him that he could use it if he wanted to.

  * * *

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Hardison asks that you call her, Ward

  G-4,

  USN Hospital, Phila.

  * * *

  That one was date-and-time stamped 0039 6Mar43. Janice apparently tried to call him again as soon as she went off duty, in her sweet, naively trusting belief that at midnight he would certainly be in bed. Alone in bed. There were five more messages, indicating that Janice tried and failed to contact him five more times—one of which coincided with a time when he was engaged in carnal union with Mrs. Gregory F. Culhane in the San Carlos Hotel, Pensacola, Florida. The eighth message had originated within the Greenbrier Hotel:

  * * *

  Whenever you float in, please call upon me in my quarters.

  Bolemann, Cmdr, MC USN.

  * * *

  The date-and-time stamp on that one indicated it had been left for him at just about the time he was leaving Pensacola.

  Weston jammed the messages in his pocket and started up the wide staircase to the second floor of the Greenbrier.

  “There may be joy in heaven when the prodigal returns,” Commander Bolemann, attired in a bathrobe, greeted him at the door of his suite, “but what I want to know, you bastard, is where the hell have you been?”

  “I was in Pensacola, sir.”

  “Pensacola?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Am I correct in presuming, Captain Weston, that you didn’t ask my permission to leave the local area to go to Pensacola fucking Florida because you knew goddamned well I would have said ‘no, no, absolutely fucking no’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What the hell were you doing in Pensacola?”

  “I had a letter from my MAG commander at Ewa to a friend of his there.”

  “They have this thing called the U.S. mail,” Bolemann said. “You give them three cents, a
nd they will deliver letters just about anywhere.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I should not be surprised,” Bolemann said. “One must expect that someone who has not only suffered the severe emotional trauma that you have sustained over a prolonged period, but is trying so hard to conceal its effects, will suffer some sort of dementia.”

  “No excuse, sir. But I’m not crazy.”

  “That’s not my diagnosis. That’s Lieutenant Hardison’s diagnosis.”

  “She called you?”

  “Oh, yes. Several times. She has visions of you wandering around in the hills of West Virginia, suffering from amnesia, or perhaps reliving your terrible experiences in the Philippines. For reasons that baffle me, she seems terribly—and I must say most unprofessionally—concerned with your well-being.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “Call her,” Bolemann said.

  “Sir?”

  Bolemann turned and made a “follow me” gesture to Weston. He sat down in an armchair—actually more or less crashed into it—and reached for the telephone on the table beside it.

  “Commander Bolemann,” he said. “Get me Lieutenant Hardison at the Female Officers’ Quarters, Naval Hospital, Philadelphia.”

  Then he handed the handset to Captain Weston.

  “Female Officers’ Quarters.”

  “Lieutenant Hardison, please.”

  “Jim, where have you been? I’ve been out of my mind worrying about you!”

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Janice, how about you?”

  “Where were you?”

  “Wheeling,” he said. Wheeling was the only town in West Virginia he could call to mind. He thought about Charlestown, but on second thought decided that was in South Carolina.

  “Wheeling?”

  “Wheeling, West Virginia.”

  Dear God, let Wheeling be in West Virginia.

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Well, I wanted to get out of here for a little while, and then I had a little car trouble, so I took a hotel room.”

  “Honey, I was so worried!”

  “Honey”? Christ, she called me “honey.”

  “I’m fine, honey.”

  “I even called Dr. Bolemann,” Janice said.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Can you get away next weekend?” Janice asked. “I want to see you so badly.”

  “Just a moment,” Jim said, and covered the microphone with his hand. “She wants to know if I can get away next weekend.”

  Bolemann looked at him thoughtfully. “You really wouldn’t want to hear my initial reaction to that,” he said, and motioned for Weston to give him the telephone.

  “This is Dr. Bolemann, Janice,” he said. “I really don’t think I could authorize Jim to drive all that way and back over the weekend. But I think there is a Greyhound bus he could take. If there is, could you meet him at the bus station?”

  Janice apparently expressed her willingness to do that.

  “Very well, then, we’ll check into it and Jim will call you. Here he is.”

  “Hi!”

  “I’ll meet you at the bus station,” Janice said. “I’ll get a forty-eight-hour pass.”

  “Fine.”

  “Jim, I think I love you, too,” Janice said, and the phone went dead.

  Weston put the phone in its cradle.

  “You’re a lousy liar,” Dr. Bolemann said. “If she wasn’t in love with you, you’d never have gotten away with that car-trouble-in-Wheeling bullshit. I would be very distressed if you were just fucking around with that girl. She’s as nice as they come.”

  “I love her,” Weston said.

  Bolemann nodded. “What are you plans for 0800?” he asked.

  “I plan to be sound asleep,” Weston said. “I drove straight through from Pensacola.”

  “Tell me, which do you like better, tennis or volleyball?”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me. Answer the question.”

  “Tennis, I suppose, sir.”

  “Splendid. At 0755, Captain Weston, you will be at the volleyball courts, suitably attired to participate. You will enthusiastically participate until the noon hour, or until your ass is really dragging, whichever comes last. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Be there, Captain Weston,” Commander Bolemann said, and pointed to the door.

  [TWO]

  The White Room

  The Office of Strategic Services

  The National Institutes of Health Building

  Washington, D.C.

  0930 8 March 1943

  Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, looked distinctly uncomfortable as he followed Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, and Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, down the fifth-floor corridor to the White Room. Like many enlisted men of the regular, prewar Marine Corps, he devoutly believed that the route to happiness in the Corps was to stay as far away as possible from officers you don’t really know. He had been told who was going to be at the briefing, and he didn’t hardly know any of the fuckers.

  Colonel Banning and McCoy were, of course, not threatening. He had worked for then Captain Banning in the 4th Marines in Shanghai where Banning had been the 4th Marine’s G-2. He liked and trusted Banning.

  He also liked and trusted Captain McCoy, of course, but McCoy wasn’t a real officer. The Corps had hung officer’s insignia on McCoy because of the war, but that was just temporary. Just as soon as the war was over and things got back to normal, the Killer would go back to the ranks. Probably as a staff sergeant. Maybe, if he got lucky, they’d make him a technical sergeant. He himself would be perfectly happy, when the war was over and things went back to normal, if he got to keep staff sergeant’s stripes. That way, with a little bit of luck, he could make technical sergeant himself before he retired.

  The Corps really went ape-shit in war time. They’d even pinned a lieutenant’s bar on that kid, the Easterbunny. He was living in the hotel, too, running around all dressed up in an officer’s uniform, Sam Browne belt and lieutenant’s bars and all. There was nothing wrong with the Easterbunny. The gutsy little shit had proved he had the balls of a gorilla—and earned that 2nd Raider Battalion patch—on Bloody Ridge, trying to carry his officer down that fucking hill with every fucking Jap this side of Tokyo shooting at him. But that didn’t make him no officer.

  And they were even going to make a temporary officer out of Koffler, when he finished officer school at Quantico. Koffler was a good kid, a good Marine—he’d probably make a good corporal. But an officer? No fucking way!

  And the officers he was going to have to face today were all going to be real officers…real senior officers. And the only way to get along with real senior officers was to stay as fucking far away from them as you could get.

  Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman was splendidly turned out in a brand-new, freshly tailored-to-fit uniform. Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker had shown up at the hotel with a supply sergeant from Eighth & I in tow. The supply sergeant had measured Zimmerman, and then written down all his qualifications and decorations, and then come back no more than four hours later with two complete sets of greens with everything all sewn or pinned on. Stripes, 2nd Raider Battalion shoulder patch, fruit salad, marksmanship badges, hash marks, everything.

  While he was examining himself in the mirror, Zimmerman had had to admit that he looked pretty fucking sharp and shipshape.

  He also thought that the red-striped badge with his picture on it that McCoy had pinned to the pocket of his new tunic made him look like a fucking dummy in a clothing-store window.

  Two guys in cop-type uniforms at a little counter went through some bullshit about comparing his face and signature on some cards they had in a file with his picture and signature on the badge. As they did that, Zimmerman wondered where the hell they had got his signature from. And then one of the cops unlocked the door and motioned them in
side.

  “Sorry to be late, gentlemen,” Banning said. “Would you believe a flat tire?”

  “Colonel,” Brigadier General Fleming Pickering said, standing up. “I never look a gift horse in the mouth.” He turned to look at the others sitting around the table:

  The Deputy Director (Operations) of the Office of Strategic Services; Brigadier General F. L. Rickabee, USMC; Captain David W. Haughton, USN; Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker, USMCR; Major Jake Dillon, USMCR; 2nd Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR; and an Army Air Corps officer, whose identification badge identified him as Lt. Col. H. J. Hazeltine USAAC. Rickabee, Stecker, and Haughton were wearing VISITOR 5th Floor Only badges; the others had red-striped any area any time badges.

  This told Pickering that Colonel Hazeltine was assigned to the OSS, and not as an Air Corps representative to the meeting.

  Pickering went to Zimmerman and shook his hand, then put his arm around his shoulder.

  “Gentlemen, there has been a good deal in the newspapers of late about ‘old-breed Marines.’ Here’s one in the flesh, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, whom I’m proud to say I know and consider my friend.”

  Zimmerman looked very uncomfortable.

  “I think everybody knows everybody else, except…Ken, do you know the OSS’s weather expert, Colonel Hazeltine?”

  “No, sir.”

  Hazeltine stood up and walked to McCoy and gave him his hand.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, Captain,” he said.

  “How do you do, sir?”

  Hazeltine turned to Zimmerman.

  “And you, too, Sergeant,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Zimmerman said.

  Hazeltine restrained a smile. Pickering had warned everyone that all they were going to hear from Gunny Zimmerman was “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” or “Aye aye, sir,” unless it was pried—or dynamited—out of him.

  “How do you want to handle this, Ed?” Pickering asked.

  “Sir, I thought I would sort of conduct the briefing myself, with the understanding that Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman will interrupt me if I leave anything out, or if—when—I get something wrong.”