W E B Griffin - Men at War 2 - Secret Warriors

by Secret Warriors(Lit)

  She waved for him to follow her inside. There was a sitting room, with doors opening off either side. "Sarah!" Ann called. A door opened.

  And Sarah stood framed in it-with an infant in her arms. She looked at Ed Bitter and then away. Ann went to her and took the child.

  What the hell is all this? "Don't tell me that's yours," he said to Ann.

  "Okay. I won't tell you it's mine," Ann said agreeably.

  "It's not mine. It's yours."

  She walked to him and abruptly handed him the infant.

  "He's mine," Sarah said.

  "You're the father, but you don't have to think of him as yours unless you want to."

  "I don't believe this," Ed Bitter said. "Scout's honor, Cousin Edwin," Ann said. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

  "I'm glad you're home safe, Ed," Sarah said. "Goddamn it, don't get off the subject!" he said.

  "Why wasn't I told? "Theoretically," Ann said, "because you were off saving the world for democracy, and she didn't want to trouble you.

  Actually, because she was afraid of what you would do when you found out."

  "Ann!" Sarah said. "Jesus Christ!" Bitter said. "So now that you know, Ed," Ann pursued, "what are you going to do about him?"

  "Ann!" Sarah said again, Ed Bitter looked down at the child in his arms.

  He felt no emotion whatever. This boy is unquestionably my child, if for no other reason than that a practical joke of this magnitude is beyond even Ann. And if it is my child, I certainly will have to do the decent thing: Recognize it, legitimatize it, marry the mother, give it and her my name. He looked at Sarah. She was staring out a window.

  He looked down at the child again. He had no sense of recognition, he thought, no animal sensing that this was the fruit of his loins. It was simply a baby, indistinguishable from dozens he had held as reluctantly as he held this one. "If I seem somewhat stunned by all this," he said, "I am.

  I came here with the intention of rushing Sarah into becoming engaged before my leave was up."

  "You took your sweet time getting to Memphis, Romeo," Ann said. "And now," he said, ignoring the remark, "it would seem that it is not a question of whether she'll marry me, but how soon."

  "You don't have to marry me," Sarah said, not meaning it. "I love you, Sarah," he said, surprised at how easy the words, the lie, came to his lips. "And we owe it to Whatsisname here, don't you think?" Ann laughed.

  "Give me Whatsisname," she said.

  "And I'll take him for a walk."

  "No," Bitter said.

  "You take a walk, Ann. But leave him here. I want to get to know him."

  Ann looked at the two of them and left, saying nothing. Sarah finally turned to him. He looked gaunt, she thought, but even more handsome than the first time she had seen him. She was reacting to him now as she had reacted to him then. Except now she understood what that reaction was.

  He was ore than the most handsome man she had ever seen, he was the sexiest. Perhaps that was really what handsome meant.

  She wanted very much to rush to him, to put her arms around him, to feel his body against hers. But that, she sensed, was not what she should o right now. There had been shock in his eyes when he looked at her, d maybe even fear. Certainly not lust. In "How's your friend Canidy?"

  Sarah asked.

  "Ann hasn't heard from him in a long time, months."

  "To hell with Canidy," he snapped.

  "Let's talk about this." He raised the baby in his arms. "He's very healthy," Sarah said.

  "And most of the time very happy."

  "He looks like you," Bitter said. "Too early to tell," she said.

  "You like him?"

  "I like him," he said, and looked at her and smiled happily. I'll be damned if that isn't true! "I'm glad," she said. She smiled back. It was the first time she had smiled since he had arrived. "Me, too," he said.

  "Glad, I mean. Happy. Stunned, but happy and glad."

  "It wasn't what you expected, was it?"

  "I came with evil designs on your body," he said. Sarah met his eyes.

  He means that. He came hoping for a quick piece of ass, and was instead presented with his child. But that is not important. I am not offended, or hurt. He didn't know, and he came. That is enough.

  "He's usually sound asleep at half past five," she said.

  "And he sleeps like a log until it's time to feed him again." He was strangely excited. He recognized it as sexual excitement. What the hell.

  What's wrong with that? "We'll have to get rid of Ann," he said. "If she can't hear the baby cry, she couldn't hear us," Sarah said.

  100 19 W.K.B. GRIFFIX She saw the surprise on his face and added: "I've been thinking about you that way, too. Does that shock you?"

  "I don't think anything will ever shock me again," Bitter said.

  Lieutenant Commander Edwin H. Bitter, USN, and Miss Sarah Child were united in matrimony seventy-two hours after he learned that he was a father. There were two ceremonies, the first in the chambers of judge Braxton Fogg of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Tennessee District.

  Before going on the bench, judge Fogg had represented the Chandler H.

  Bitter Company, Commodities Brokers, in Memphis and become a close friend of Chandler H. Bitter. judge Fogg was pleased to be able to be of service, and between judge Fogg and Miss Ann Chambers it was arranged to keep the news of the wedding from being released to-more important, published in-the Memphis Advocate, or any other newspaper.

  Both the father of the groom and Joseph Schild, the father of the bride, agreed that the important thing was that Ed had come home alive to assume-if a little late-his role as husband and father. The story, it was agreed between them, to be given out was that Sarah and Ed had been secretly married before Ed had gone off to the Flying Tigers.

  It would have been better if Sarah had been willing to divulge the name of the father before now, so that story could have been circulated earlier, but there was nothing that could be done about that now.

  Mr. Schild confided in Mr. and Mrs. Bitter the unfortunate reaction his wife had had upon learning that her only daughter was pregnant, and told them that she was again in the Institute of Living in Hartford.

  He was of course desperate to do anything that might help her.

  Could Chandler Bitter and his wife possibly see their way clear to participating in a Hebrew wedding ceremony, photographs of which would be taken and shown to Mrs. Schild? Together with photographs of the married couple with their child?

  A second wedding ceremony was performed by Rabbi Mo she Teitelbaum in Memphis's Congregation Beth Sholoin. Wearing hastily rented formal clothing, Mr. Schild gave his bride to marriage to Commander Bit AM ter, whose father served as his best man. Miss Ann Chambers served both as bridesmaid and supervisor of wedding photography. It was the first time Commander Bitter, his parents, or Miss Chambers had ever been in a Hebrew place of worship.

  TWO I Haugarit Newark Airport Newark, New Jersey June a5, 194a Dick Canidy was standing in the fuselage of a Curtiss Wright CW-20 airplane (military designation C-46 Commando) wearing oil-stained mechanic's coveralls. He had come up to Newark from Summer Place in Deal on a New Jersey Central Railroad commuter train in a business suit, taken a Public Service bus to the airport, walked to Hangar 17, and changed into the coveralls, He had made the same trip every day for the past four days. d overalls, were with him inside Two men, also wearing grease-stame s room, in addi the cavernous main compartment of the C-46-there wa tion to general cargo, for 40 fully equipped troops, or 33 stretchers, or five Wright R-3350 engines, or their equivalent weight of other goods. One of them was an airframe mechanic on loan from Pan American Airways, and the other was Colonel Charles Augustus "Lucky Lindy" Lindbergh, U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve, Inactive, the first man to have flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Come up with a

  Lindbergh and the airframe mechanic were trying to c el-carrying capacity simple, reliable means of augmenting the C-46's fu tisoned in the air. The no
rmal range with auxiliary tanks that could be jet of the C-46-1,170 miles at 180 knots-was not going to be enough for the mission planned. ad been initially in the very pres Canidy no longer felt as awed as he hence of Lindbergh. For one thing, Lindbergh didn't act like a colonel, much less like one of the most famous and admired men in the world. The lanky aviator Lindbergh had made it almost immediately plain that since Canidy was another flier, he was thus a brother. He had then proved, in a number of small ways, that he meant what he said. Canidy had shared a dozen cold and soggy hot dogs with the tall, shy hero. Twice, wearing Pan American coveralls, Lindbergh had walked the half mile to the terminal to buy them himself.

  He had not been recognized. He looked like just one more airplane mechanic trying to fix a broken bird. That was not to say that Canidy had grown entirely comfortable around Lindbergh. He hadn't been sure what to call him, for one thing. He certainly couldn't call him Slim, and-considering President Roosevelt's refusal to call Colonel Lindbergh to active duty he wasn't sure how Lindbergh would react to being called Colonel. Finally, toward the end of their first day together, he had gathered his courage and asked him what he would like to be called.

  "How about Slim?" Lindbergh said. "I don't think I could do that," Canidy said. "Well, then, Major, call me Colonel if that's more comfortable for you. "Colonel," Canidy blurted, "I'm not a major. I'm not really in the Air Corps. I'm just wearing the uniform. Lindbergh hadn't liked that.

  "It was Colonel Donovan's idea," Canidy said. "1 see," Lindbergh said.

  After the first day, Canidy had not worn the major's uniform. And two days later, when he walked into the Pan American hangar at Newark Airport, he knew from the look on Lindbergh's face that he had offended him. "Mr. Canidy," Lindbergh greeted him, 4@ as someone who will probably never again wear a uniform, who has never heard a shot fired in anger, I feel a little foolish being called Colonel by the first ace in the American Volunteer Group. Why didn't you tell me about that?"

  Canidy shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, from now on it's Slim and Dick," Lindbergh said.

  "All right?"

  "Yes, Sir," Canidy said. He still could not bring himself to call Lindbergh Slim. Connecting one casually dropped fact with another, he learned that Lindbergh had personally laid out, then flown himself, most of Pan American long-distance flight routes in South America and across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and that he had an awesome amount of experience with all of the Sikorsky amphibians and seaplanes Pan Am used. But Lindbergh had already concluded that large commercial seaplane transports had outlived their usefulness. "I think," he told Canidy over a hot dog and a Coke, "that we've already reached the point of diminishing return in seaplane design. The engines-to avoid ingesting water on takeoff or landing-have to he placed very high. To mount them that far above the water, we can't use aerodynamically efficient wings and engine locations. And if we make these planes any larger, we will have to make their hulls correspondingly stronger, and the weight penalty there is too high. "There's no question in my mind that the next step in transoceanic flight is going to he an aerodynamically efficient airframe, designed for flight at very high altitude. Howard Hughes showed me some preliminary drawings of a really beautiful airplane that will carry seventy people at thirty thousand feet at nearly four hundred miles an hour for three thousand miles. The big leap forward will come when they come up with a reliable jet engine. With jets, transport aircraft will actually approach the speed of sound." Canidy, who had heard only the most vague references to jet engines, said so, and was astonished to learn from Lindbergh that both the English and the Germans had test-flown jet-powered aircraft. Lindbergh had already rejected Donovan's notion that a seaplane, one of Pan American's Sikorskys, be borrowed for the long-distance cargo flight he wanted. And Lindbergh also had quickly deduced where that flight was headed. "Bill Donovan won't tell me where this flight is going," Lindbergh said, "and if you know, I suppose you cant tell me either. But unless you tell me it's a waste of my time, I'm going to work on the idea that it's probably some place on the west coast of Africa."

  "I really don't know," Canidy had told him. Lindbergh shrugged.

  "And since there is some question about where my sympathies lie in this war, I don't suppose I'll be asked to fly this mission. That means, I suppose, that you will."

  "I don't know that, either," Canidy said. "Hub!" Lindbergh snorted, and then went on: "Well, we'll proceed on the notion that you'll be flying it."

  "I really don't know, Colonel," Canidy pursued.

  "I've never flown anything but fighters-and a Beech DI 8S, "They're sending kids with a hundred twenty hours' total time to Europe as B-17 aircraft commanders,' Lindbergh said.

  "How many hours did you say you have, Ace?"

  Canidy didn't reply, He had more than 2,000 hours in the air, more than twice 120 hours in combat, but he was reluctant to say so. Lindbergb chuckled, then went on: "Far down the west coast of Africa. Perhaps as far as South Africa. The way to do that is with a Curtiss."

  "Why?" Canidy asked simply, "Because it can fly faster and higher tbqn a Sikorsky, and when we solve the problem of auxiliary fuel tanks, maybe a thousand miles farther." Lindbergh had arranged for a Pan American Strato liner, the civilian version of the Commando, to be flown to Newark. The story was let out that it had been requisitioned by the Air Corps. While one crew of workmen stripped the seats, the carpets, and the sound-deadening material from the cabin, another crew removed the glistening white paint and Pan American insignia from the outside skin.

  Then Hangar 17 was isolated and placed under guard by Air Corps military policemen. Canidy came to understand that isolating aircraft and cargo was a routine procedure these days.

  Whenever a crew from Pan American was doing something that did not require his expertise, Lindbergh talked to Canidy at length about long-distance, high-altitude flight. In the course of these discussions, Lindbergh and Canidy prepared more than a dozen flight plans, all based on the idea that the departure point would be either the Azores or one of the American air bases in England. Though they didn't know where they were going, Or even where they would leave from, Lindbergb seemed determined to have a flight plan prepared for every possibility.

  Lindbergb also spent long hours showing Canidy around the Curtiss's cockpit, familiarizing him with the controls and the peculiarities Of the aircraft, while delivering conversational lectures on how to milk the most mileage from its twin 2,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines. He gave no consideration to the fact that Canidy had never flown the Curtiss. Lindbergh seemed to believe that little problem could be solved in an hour or two in the left seat, going around the pattern shooting touch-and-go landings.

  Although Canidy was by no means modest about his flying ability he was, after all, a pretty good fighter pilot-flying the Curtiss when the p time came made him more than a little nervous.

  And-there being no question in his mind that Lindbergh had correctly deduced where the plane was headed-what he had come to think of as the African flight wasn't all Canidy had to deal with. His primary duty was still the baby-sitting of Admiral de Verbey at Summer Place, and there were always other problems with that-most of them small but time-consuming ones with the guards. They developed colds. One of them fell over a piece of driftwood on the beach, dislocated his shoulder, and nearly died of exposure before he was found. And then disputes between the guards over the duty roster had to be resolved.

  Canidy and the admiral had quickly dropped the polite fiction that Canidy was his liaison officer. The admiral knew that he was being politely held prisoner. To pretend otherwise would have been insulting. And the admiral placed yet another demand on Canidy's time.

  In what Canidy came to think of as his Great Summer Place Mistake, on his second or third night in Deal-caught up in the excitement of the game he had played some first-class bridge, wiping out the admiral and Mrs. Whittaker and awing the ex-FBI agent who had been drafted for a fourth. The admiral thereafter saw in Canidy a bri
dge player worthy of his own considerable talent, From then on, whenever Canidy sat down near a flat surface, the admiral started drawing up chairs and shuffling cards. Canidy soon realized that he should have dropped the cards on the floor the first night. And then the admiral announced, dead serious, that he intended to steal-he said "restore to service against the Boche'@-the battleship jean Bart, the largest vessel in the French Navy, currently at anchor "under German monitor ship' in Casablanca harbor. The first time Canidy learned this, he was torn between amusement and concern for the admiral's mental health. Telling himself that humoring the feisty little old man was the price he was going to have to pay to keep the admiral happy, he had reluctantly presented himself at Admiral de Verbey's war plans room-a glassed-in porch on the second floor-to be "briefed."

  Charts of Casablanca harbor, the mouth of the Mediterranean, and 106 a W.E.H. URIFFIN the eastern Atlantic had been thumbtacked to the walls.