The Honor of Spies

by W. E. B. Griffin; William E. Butterworth; IV

  The managing director of SAA, who was bent over one of the aluminum crates, was wearing khaki trousers, battered Western boots, and a fur-collared leather jacket that had once been the property of the United States Marine Corps.

  Cletus Frade came out of the box holding a lobster by its tail. Pelosi decided the lobster had to weigh five pounds, maybe more.

  "You're still alive, you great big ugly sonofabitch!" Frade proclaimed happily. "God rewards the virtuous. Remember that, Gonzo."

  Delgano shook his head.

  Frade spotted Pelosi.

  "And, by God, we're safe! The 82nd Airborne is here!"

  "Where'd you get the lobster?" Pelosi inquired.

  "Santiago, Chile, from which Delgano and I have flown in three hours and thirteen minutes. At an average speed of approximately 228 miles per hour, while attaining an altitude of nearly 24,000 feet in the process. We had to go on oxygen over most of the Andes, and it was as cold as a witch's teat up there. But neither seems to have affected my friend here, despite the dire predictions of my chief pilot."

  "I thought the cold and/or lack of oxygen would kill them," Delgano said.

  "What are you going to do with it?" Pelosi asked.

  "Well, at first I thought I'd organize a lobster race, but now I think I'll eat him. And at least some of his buddies in the tank. If you promise to behave, Tony, you are invited to a clambake this very evening at the museum. You may even bring your abused wife."

  Tony knew that the museum was the Frade mansion--which indeed resembled, both internally and externally, a museum--on Avenida Coronel Diaz in Palermo.

  "You've got clams?"

  "Clams, oysters, and lobster. Santiago is a virtual paradise of seafood."

  "Don Cletus thinks we can make money flying it in," Delgano explained.

  "Trust me, Gonzo," Frade said. "And now curiosity is about to overwhelm me: What are you doing here, dressed up like some general's dog-robber?"

  "Curiosity just overwhelmed me," Delgano said. " 'Dog-robber'?"

  "Aides-de-camp, who must be shameless enough to snatch food from the mouths of starving dogs to feed their general, are known as dog-robbers," Frade explained.

  Delgano shook his head.

  Pelosi said: "I was at a reception for foreign attaches at Campo de Mayo. You had to go in uniform with medals."

  "And was Major Baron von Wachtstein there, dazzling everybody with his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross?"

  Pelosi nodded.

  "Good. That means he's in town and can come."

  "So was el Coronel Peron."

  "He can't."

  "And there's a package for you."

  "Yeah?"

  "From Room 1012, National Institutes of Health Building, Washington, D.C. It was in the pouch. My boss said to get it to you, and to get a receipt."

  The headquarters of the Office of Strategic Services was in the National Institutes of Health Building.

  Pelosi's boss, the military attache of the U.S. Embassy, was not fond of either Pelosi or Frade. He had received a teletype message from the vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army directing him not to assign Lieutenant Pelosi any duties that could possibly interfere in any way with his other duties. The other duties were unspecified. The military attache knew that Pelosi was the OSS man in the embassy and worked for Cletus Frade.

  "He didn't happen to open it before he gave it to you to give to me, did he?"

  Pelosi shook his head.

  "Where is it?"

  "In my car."

  "You left the report of my Wasserman test in your car where anybody can get at it? Go get it! My God, what if Dorotea should see it?"

  Pelosi got quickly off the Lodestar.

  "What test is that?" Delgano asked.

  "They draw blood. And test it. If you flunk your Wasserman test, you have syphilis. And it has to be that. I can't think of anything else the National Institutes of Health could possibly be sending me. Can you?"

  Delgano knew where OSS headquarters was.

  "Not really," he said, shaking his head. "Cletus, you are impossible."

  Pelosi had to wait to get back on the airplane until half a dozen workmen had unstrapped the aluminum crates and manhandled them into the back of a 1940 Chevrolet pickup truck.

  Then he came aboard and handed Frade a large padded envelope.

  Frade tore it open.

  It contained an inch-thick book. Clete flipped through it, then handed it to Delgano, who read the title aloud: "'Pilot's Operating Manual, Lockheed L-049 Constellation Aircraft.'"

  Delgano then looked at Frade, who handed him a small note that had been paper-clipped to the book.

  "Constellation? Is that that great big new airplane? The one with three tails?" Pelosi asked.

  "It has three vertical stabilizers, Tony," Frade said as he read the note.

  When he had finished reading the note, Delgano looked at Frade.

  "Again?" he asked.

  "I have no idea what this is all about," Frade confessed. "If I figure it out, you'll be the first to know."

  [FIVE]

  Sidi Slimane U.S. Army Air Force Base

  Morocco

  1250 4 September 1943

  Captain Archer C. Dooley Jr., USAAF, commanding officer of the 94th Fighter Squadron, studied the runway behind him in the rearview mirror of his P-38, saw what he wanted to see, then looked to his left, saw that he had the attention of First Lieutenant William Cole, smiled at him, raised his right hand, and gestured with his index finger extended, first pointing down the runway and then in a circling motion upward.

  When Cole had given him a smile and a thumbs-up gesture, Dooley put his hand on the throttle quadrant and pushed both levers forward to take off power.

  This caused the twin Allison V-1710 1,475-horsepower engines of his P- 38 "Lightning" to roar impressively and the aircraft to move at first slowly, and then with rapidly increasing velocity, down the runway.

  He lifted off--with Cole's Lightning perhaps two seconds behind him--retracted the gear, and retarded the throttles to give him the most efficient burning of fuel as he climbed to altitude and to the rendezvous point over the Atlantic Ocean.

  Sixty seconds later, two more P-38s roared down the runway, and sixty seconds after they had become airborne, two more, and sixty seconds after that, two more, for a total of eight.

  "Mother Hen, check in," Captain Dooley ordered.

  One by one, the seven other P-38s in the flight reported in, starting with "Chick One, sir. All okay."

  When Chick Seven had been heard from, Dooley went on: "Pay attention to Mother Hen. We're going out over the drink on this heading, our speed and rate of climb governed by our concern for fuel consumption. Think fuel conservation. Better yet, think of what a long swim you are going to have if you don't think fuel conservation. We are going to eleven thousand feet, which should put us above Grandma. Everyone, repeat everyone, will monitor the frequencies you have been given for Grandma's squawk. Everyone will acknowledge by saying, 'Yes, Mother.' "

  The responses began immediately: "Chick One. Yes, Mother."

  Two of the Chicks were unable to keep the chuckles out of their voices. They tried. The Old Man could be a real hard-ass if he was crossed.

  Captain Dooley had been the valedictorian of the 1942 Class at Saint Ignatius High School in Kansas City, Kansas. He still was not old enough to purchase intoxicating spirits--or, for that matter, even beer--in his hometown.

  He had become an aviation cadet, been commissioned, been selected for fighter pilot training and graduated from that, in time to be assigned to the aerial combat involved in the American invasion of North Africa, flying P-51s for the 403rd Fighter Squadron of the 23rd Fighter Group.

  Four weeks and six days after Second Lieutenant Dooley had reported to the 403rd and flew his first mission, the Squadron First Sergeant had handed him a sheet of paper to sign:

  Officer promotion policies within the 23rd Fighter Group were quite simple:

&n
bsp; 16. In the case of a combat-caused vacancy, the next-senior officer will temporarily move into the vacant position. If no replacement officer of suitable rank becomes available within seven (7) days of such temporary assignment, the temporary assignment will become permanent, and the incumbent will be promoted to the rank called for by the Table of Organization & Equipment without regard to any other promotional criteria.

  When Dooley assumed command of the 403rd, eleven of the pilots who had been senior to him when he had reported for duty as a second lieutenant with the 403rd had been killed or otherwise been rendered hors de combat.

  At just about the time Archie became the Old Man, the United States achieved aerial superiority over the battlefield, and the 403rd didn't have very many--almost no--aerial battles to wage. The mission became ground support and logistics interdiction. The latter translated to mean they swept low over the desert and shot at anything that moved. Locomotives were ideal targets, but single German staff cars, or Kubelwagens--for that matter, individual German soldiers caught in the open--were fair targets.

  Captain Dooley had dutifully repeated to his pilots the orders from above that even one dead German soldier meant one fewer German who could shoot at the guys in the infantry. But he confessed to his pilots that he himself had very bad memories of a Kraut Mercedes staff car he'd taken out when he'd come across it as it moved alone across the desert.

  "Orders are orders," Captain Dooley told his pilots.

  When things had calmed down a little, the brass had had time to consider officer assignments, putting officers where they could do the most good. Some of the replacement officers sent to the 403rd after Captain Dooley's assumption of command were senior to him. On the other hand, back at Sidi Slimane in Morocco, there was a newly arrived squadron none of whose officers had yet flown in combat. The problem was that the 94th Fighter Squadron was flying Lockheed P-38 Lightnings, not P-51s. Captain Dooley was not qualified to fly P-38s.

  A command decision was made.

  "Fuck it. Dooley's one hell of a pilot. Give him a quick transition into P- 38s and send him to command the 94th. All they're doing back there is running escort for transports flying in from the States. He's a quick learner. He's proven that. And he can teach the others how to fly combat when they're not escorting transports. They'll pay attention to a guy with two DFCs even if he looks like a high school cheerleader."

  Aerial resupply of the North African Theatre of Operations was performed by Douglas C-54 four-engine transports. Carrying high-priority cargo ranging from fresh human blood through spare parts to critically needed personnel, they flew from East Coast airfields to Gander, Newfoundland, and after refueling, from Gander to airfields in England.

  Fighter aircraft from fields in Scotland flew out over the ocean to escort them safely past German fighters flying out of France. To keep a German fighter formation from happening upon a fleet of transports, the transports flew separately.

  The same protection system was put in place as the transports flew from England to North Africa. They were escorted out over the Atlantic by fighters, then flew alone far enough out to sea to avoid German interception as they flew south, until they were met by North Africa-based American fighters over the Atlantic a hundred miles at sea, then escorted to North African air bases, most often Sidi Slimane.

  "Aircraft squawking on One One Seven, this is Mother Hen. How do you read?" Captain Dooley inquired. They were approximately 130 miles out over the Atlantic.

  "Mother Hen, Five Oh Nine reads you loud and clear."

  "Grandma, read you five by five. I should be able to see you. Are you on the deck?"

  "Actually, Mother Hen, I'm at twenty thousand. From up here, I can see what looks like a bunch of little airplanes at what's probably ten thousand. Is that you?"

  Dooley looked up, searching the sky. He saw the sun glinting off the unpainted skin of an aircraft that looked vaguely familiar, and for a moment he had a sick feeling in his stomach.

  Jesus Christ, is that a Condor?

  The Germans were running their long-range transport, the Condor, from fields in Spain to South America. The 94th had been ordered to "engage and destroy" any such aircraft they encountered.

  Archie Dooley did not want to shoot down an unarmed transport.

  Orders are orders.

  Fuck it!

  "Mother Hen to all Chicks. Follow me. Do not--repeat, do not--engage until I give the order."

  He pushed his throttles forward and began his climb.

  Getting to twenty thousand feet didn't take much time, but catching up with the sonofabitch took a hell of a long time.

  He has to be making three hundred miles an hour! I didn't think the Condor was anywhere near this fast.

  Jesus, that's not a Condor!

  What the fuck is it?

  Dooley finally pulled close enough to see that the airplane, whatever the hell it was, was American. There was a star-and-bar recognition sign on the fuselage, and when he picked up a few more feet of altitude, he saw that U.S. ARMY was painted on the wing.

  He looked back at the tail to see if there was a tail number.

  Tail, hell. It's got three of them!

  "Five Oh Nine, this is Mother Hen."

  "Oh, hello there, Mother Hen. I wondered how long it was going to take you to get up here."

  Dooley pulled closer and parallel to the cockpit of the huge--And beautiful! Jesus, that's good-looking!--airplane.

  The pilot waved cheerfully at him.

  Dooley saw that he was not wearing an oxygen mask.

  Don't tell me it's pressurized! It has to be. He's at twenty thousand with no mask!

  Jesus, I know what it is. It's a Constellation! I've seen pictures.

  What the hell is it doing here?

  Dooley saw that his airspeed indicator needle was flickering at 320.

  "Five Oh Nine, Mother Hen. We are going to form a protective shield above and ahead and behind you and lead you in."

  "Thank you very much."

  I will be goddamned if I will ask him if that's really a Constellation.

  Dooley went almost to the deck with the Constellation, watched it touch smoothly down, then shoved his throttles forward and picked up the nose so that he--and the rest of the flight--could go around and get in the landing stack.

  When Dooley's P-38 was at the end of its landing roll, he was surprised to see that instead of at Base Ops, where he expected it to be, the Constellation was at a remote corner of the field, where maybe fifty people were hurriedly erecting camouflage netting over it.

  "Mother Hen to all Chicks. Refuel, check your planes, but don't get far from them. I was told to expect another mission when we got back."

  He switched radio frequencies from Air-to-Air Three to Air-to- Ground Two.

  "Sidi Tower, Mother Hen is going to taxi to the Constellation."

  "Negative, Mother Hen. You are denied--"

  Dooley turned his radios off and taxied to the Constellation.

  By the time he got there, the camouflage netting was in place and the staff car of the base commander was parked at the foot of a long ladder that reached up to the fuselage of the Constellation.

  The base commander glowered at Dooley.

  Fuck it! What's he going to do, send me to North Africa?

  He started to shut down the Lightning.

  He had to wait until someone brought a ladder so that he could climb down from the P-38 cockpit.

  By the time he got close to the Constellation, two civilians were climbing down the ladder.

  That guy looks just like Howard Hughes.

  The guy who looked just like Howard Hughes said, "Why do I think you're Mother Hen?" Then, without waiting for a reply, he said to the other civilian, "This is the guy who shepherded us in here, Colonel."

  "I was very happy to see you out there, Captain," the other civilian said, offering Dooley his hand. "Thank you. And are you going to take care of us on the way to Lisbon?"

  The base comma
nder put in: "I thought I'd wait, Colonel Graham, until you got here before I told the captain where he was going next."

  "But he is prepared to leave shortly?" Colonel Graham asked.

  "Just as soon as his aircraft is refueled," the base commander said, then looked at Dooley. "Right, Captain?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The base commander looked back at Graham and added, "And he picks up the flight plan at Base Ops, of course, and confers with the C-47 crew."

  "Good," Colonel Graham said. "We have a very narrow window of time."

  "Any questions, Captain Dooley?" the base commander asked.

  "Actually, I have two, sir. Three, if I can ask this gentleman if he's the pilot I saw when we made rendezvous."

  The tall civilian nodded.

  "How long did it take you to come from England in that beautiful airplane?"

  "Actually, we came by way of Belem, Brazil. It took us a little over eleven hours from Belem. That's two questions."

  "Did anyone ever tell you you look like Howard Hughes?"

  "I hear that all the time," Howard Hughes said.

  VII

  [ONE]

  Hotel Britania

  Rua Rodrigues Sampaio 17

  Lisbon, Portugal

  1745 4 September 1943

  The deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services for Europe cracked open the door of his suite, saw the deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services for the Western Hemisphere standing in the corridor, pulled the door fully open, and gestured for him to enter.

  "Nice flight, Alex?" Allen Dulles asked as the two shook hands.

  "Coming in here from Morocco on that old-fashioned Douglas DC-3 was a little crowded and bumpy. But the rest of the trip, on the Constellation, was quite comfortable," Colonel A. F. Graham said.

  Dulles chuckled.

  "Howard knows how to take care of himself," Graham added. "There's a galley, and a couple of stewards, and bunks with sheets and pillows. And we flew so high, we were above the bad weather. What's up?"