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

by Secret Warriors(Lit)

  "I noticed," Canidy said.

  "Thank you."

  "Sailor," Reynolds said somewhat pompously to his driver, "would You round up some men to push the major's aircraft?"

  "Aye, aye, Sir," the white hat said. Canidy winked at him, and he lie N smiled back, as if to say that it was all right, Reynolds was a little salty, but a good guy. Canidy climbed into the Beech, released the brakes, and strapped the thermos and the bag of sandwiches in the copilot's seat. He wasn't going to need the sandwiches between Lakehurst and Washington, but it had been a nice thing for Reynolds to do. He started to leave the cockpit, when the airplane lurched. A half dozen white hats had started to push it to the center of the hangar. He went aft and closed the door, then returned to the cockpit and strapped himself in. He saw another pair of white hats roll up an enormous fire extinguisher on what looked like wagon wheels. The plane stopped moving.

  Canidy looked at the window.

  "Clear!" he called. "Clear!" one of the white hats called back.

  Canidy set the mixture, primed the port engine, and hit the engine start switch. The starter whined and then the port engine bucked, backfired, and finally caught. He started the other and looked out the window.

  Commander Reynolds was standing there with his fist balled, thumb up.

  Canidy smiled and gave him the gesture back, whereupon Commander Reynolds saluted. Canidy smiled again, returned the salute, and advanced the throttles. Once he was clear of the hangar, he got on the radio and asked for taxi and takeoff instructions. "Navy Six-one-one," the tower replied," you are cleared to taxi to the threshold of runway nine. Hold on the threshold. We have an aircraft on final." The aircraft on final was a Curtiss C-46. Canidy thought he was coming in way too high, and he was right. "Six-one-one," the tower promptly announced, "hold your position. The forty-six is going around."

  "Six-one-one, roger," Canidy said. He followed the C-46 with his eyes as it rose again and made a low turn over the pine barrens. It glistened in the sunlight. A new one, Canidy thought. The next time the C-46 came around at an altitude Canidy saw was much too low. He was right again.

  Even over the racket of his idling engines, he heard the roar of the C-46's engines as the pilot gave them enough throttle to make the end of the runway.

  TEE SECRET WARRIORS 0 III When the C-46 flashed by Canidy, he wondered what it was doing here. There were no markings on either wings, fuselage, or tail. The only time aircraft did not have at least identification numbers on them was when their paint had been stripped off, as the paint had been stripped from the Pan American Curtiss at Newark Airport. Was this the Pan American Curtiss? If so, what was it doing here? The Beech, caught in the C-46's air disturbance, rocked.

  Canidy was reminded how big the C-46 really was and how powerful its engines. "Six-one-one, you are clear for takeoff as soon as the forty-six clears the runway."

  "Roger," Canidy replied as the forty-six moved past him. When it turned off the runway, its prop blast again rocked the Beech. Canidy waited until it stopped shaking, then spoke one final time into the microphone.

  "Six-one-one rolling."

  A few minutes after ten, over eastern Maryland, Canidy raised the Anacostia tower and requested landing permission. When he went into base operations to arrange for the refueling of the airplane, a Navy captain, curious about an Army pilot flying a Navy airplane, looked at the paperwork, and grew even more curious when he read it. He had heard about this strange Beech DI 8S. Officially, he had been informed that by authority of the Chief of Naval Operations "the Navy liaison officer to the Coordinator of Information" would from time to time be basing a DI 8 aircraft at Anacostia. The aircraft was not to be considered part of the Anacostia fleet, and no one was to use the aircraft without the specific permission of Captain Peter Doug lass, USN, the senior Naval officer assigned to COI "You at this place, too, Major?" the Navy captain, whose name was Chester Wezevitz, asked.

  "The information coordinator, or whatever it is? " "Yes, Sir."

  "What the hell is it?" the captain asked.

  "I guess what I'm really asking is what the hell is a Navy captain-Captain Doug lass-doing at the "Coordinator of Information'?"

  The temptation was too great for Canidy (who had even been encouraged during one briefing or another to offer "disinformation" when questioned), and he gave in to it. "You know those comic books, Captain? Warning the white hats about the lasting effects of VD?" he asked.

  "Urging them to use pro kits?"

  "I wondered where the hell they came from," the Navy captain said. By appearing at that moment, Chief Ellis made things even better. "Good morning Major," he said, saluting crisply.

  "I have the major's car."

  "Jesus Christ," the Navy captain said.

  "A chief, driving a staff car." When they were outside, Canidy asked: "What's going on, Ellis? " "We're going to the office," he said.

  "Mr. Baker's there with the captain."

  "What does that sonofabitch want with me?"

  "I dunno," Chief Ellis said, "but don't do nothing dumb, Mr. Canidy.

  "I'd like to feed him his balls," Canidy said. "That's what I mean by dumb," Ellis said. "You know what's going on, don't you, you bastard?"

  Canidy said. "And you won't tell me."

  "I'm surprised at you." The old sailor laughed.

  "Didn't anybody tell you loose lips sink ships?"

  "Screw you, Ellis."

  Canidy chuckled as he got in the front seat of the Buick beside him.

  When they got to the National Institutes of Health building, El don C.

  Baker, a pudgy, bland-appearing man, was sitting on a red leather couch in Captain Doug lass's office bent over what Canidy in a moment realized were the flight plans Lindbergh had made up. That seemed to prove that the Curtiss he had seen landing at Lakehurst was indeed the Pan American aircraft. "How are you, Canidy?" Baker said, leaning forward and offering his hand. Canidy ignored the offered hand. The last time he had seen El don C. Baker had been in the palace of the pasha of Ksar es Souk in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Baker had known then that Canidy was not going to be loaded aboard the sub then at sea off Safi. He had not told Canidy. Baker shrugged.

  "I'm sorry you still feel that way," he said. the SECRET WARRIORS N 119

  "Do you know what you're looking at?" Canidy asked, "I have a general idea," Baker said.

  "I'm sure you can explain anything I can't figure out myself." Captain Doug lass, carrying an armful of military service records, walked into the office." Good morning Dick," he said." Nice flight? How's the admiral? "A little restive, but under control. Did you know that de Gaulle sent him a letter saying he couldn't afford to pay him?"

  "No, I didn't," Doug lass said. "I would have guessed you were reading his mail," Canidy said. "His mail is being read," Doug lass corrected him.

  "But his pay status has not until now been brought to my attention.

  I'll see what I can do. Obviously, you think it's important, or you wouldn't have brought it up."

  "Do I detect an ever-so-subtle reprimand?"

  "Not at all," Doug lass said, and smiled.

  "As a matter of fact, I was about to tell you that a number of people have been saying nice things about you. After that I was going to tell you I think you're doing a fine job keeping the admiral happy."

  "Is that what this is all about?" Canidy asked. "You're not interested in the nice things people have been saying about you?"

  "Go ahead," Canidy said. "Our friend at Pan American told the colonel that you are an unusually bright, unusually capable young man." Canidy was embarrassed. "Perfectly capable of supervising the Curtiss flight by yourself from here on in," Doug lass finished. "I saw that you had the plane moved to Lakehurst," Canidy said.

  "But before we go any further, there is one little detail that seems to have been overlooked: I've never flown a C-46."

  "No problem," Baker said.

  "You won't be flying it anyway."


  "Who will?" Canidy asked. "I'm not finished with the nice reports," Doug lass said.

  "I had occasion last night to discuss you with an Air Corps officer.

  To hear him tell it, You combine the character traits of a Boy Scout with the flying skill of Baron von Richthofen." It took Canidy a moment to guess what was up. Then he broke into a broad smile.

  "Oh," he said, "have you by any chance been talking to your son and namesake? Is Doug back?"

  "He's been back about a month. He was home. He stopped off here, on his way to Alabama. He's been made a major, and they gave him a fighter group, P-3 8s."

  "I'm glad to hear that," Canidy said. "I took what he said about you with a large grain of salt, of course," Doug lass said.

  "But I thought I would pass it on." Canidy laughed.

  "Who is going to fly the African mission?" he asked. "African mission?"

  Baker asked incredulously. "That depends in large part on you," Captain Doug lass said, ignoring Baker and acknowledging that Canidy's suspicions were correct. "I don't understand," he said. Doug lass handed him one of the service records.

  "This is the man we would like to make the flight," he said.

  "Do you think he could handle it? Canidy took the records and found the Air Corps captain's flight records. The officer had entered the service with several hundred hours of single-engine civilian time, taken a quickie course in a basic trainer, and then gone right into B-17s. He had picked up not quite two hundred hours as a B-17 pilot in command, and was currently commanding a bomber squadron. The first thing he thought was that the captain was not especially qualified for either a quick transition course to the C-46 or to fly across the Atlantic to Africa. And then he glanced at the pilot's name: Captain Stanley S.

  Fine.

  There were, Canidy thought, probably fifteen Stanley S. Fines in the Washington telephone directory, and three times that many in the directories of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, but he knew, somehow, that this one was his Stanley S. Fine. Canidy had first met Fine in Cedar Rapids, when he and Eric Fulmar were kids. When he and Eric, horsing around with matches fired from toy pistols intended to fire suction-cup darts, had managed to set an automobile on fire, Fine had rushed to Cedar Rapids to buy the guy a new Studebaker, free them from the clutches of a fat lady of the juvenile Authority, and, most important, to keep the whole escapade out of the newspapers. Fulmar had told him Stanley S. Fine was a lawyer who worked for his uncle, who owned most of Continental Motion Picture Studios. His responsibilities included keeping the secret that "America's Sweetheart," THE SECRET WARRIORS R 121

  Monica Carlisle, had not only been married but had a thirteen-year-old son by the name of Eric Fulmar. The last time Canidy had seen Fine had been here in Washington just before he and Eddie Bitter had gone off to the Flying Tigers. They had had dinner with Chesly Whittaker and Cynthia Chenowith. Fine had some business with Donovan's law firm.

  The more he thought about it, the more it would be an extraordinary coincidence if this B- 17 pilot was not the same Stanley S. Fine. "I think I know this guy," Canidy said. "Colonel Donovan thought you might remember Captain Fine," Doug lass said. "The question you were asked, Canidy," Baker said, "is whether you think he can handle the mission."

  "According to this, he's a qualified multi engine pilot with long distance navigation experience," Canidy said.

  "But certainly there ought to be better-qualified people around for something like the African flight. "But he could handle it?" Doug lass pursued. "Yeah, I think he could."

  "We'll arrange for an experienced crew to go with him," Doug lass said.

  "That's presuming you can talk him into volunteering." Canidy looked at Doug lass thoughtfully for a moment.

  All "You don't mean talking him into volunteering for just this flight," he said.

  "What you want him to do is enlist in Donovan's Dilettantes. Doug lass laughed.

  "You heard about that, did you?"

  "We get newspapers in Deal," Canidy said. "The colonel was rather amused by that piece," Doug lass said, "And told me it would probably do us more good than harm."

  "You didn't answer my question, Captain," Canidy said. "You're right, we want Captain Fine permanently."

  "Why?" Canidy asked. "You ask entirely too many questions, Canidy," Baker said.

  "Newspaper columnist Drew Pearson, who loathed Franklin Roosevelt and seldom passed over an opportunity to attack him, had pieced together one or two facts with a good deal of vague hearsay and written a column in which he accused Roosevelt, through Colonel William J. Donovan, of keeping his rich, famous, and social dilettante friends out of combat service by recruiting them for his propaganda organization. Pearson had even heard about the house on Q Street, calling it a "luxurious mansion requisitioned to serve as a barracks for Rooseveltian favorites," but had mis located it in Virginia.

  "He's another good friend of Eric Fulmar," Captain Doug lass said.

  "You gave me that too easily," Canidy said. "Which means that isn't the reason you want him."

  "You're getting very perceptive, Dick," Doug lass said.

  "But we're not playing twenty questions. If you don't like that answer, I'm sorry, but it's all you get for now."

  "Why have I been picked to recruit him? I hardly know him."

  "When I said that's all you get for now, Dick," Doug lass said, "I meant it."

  @A TWO I Chanute Field, Illinois June 28, 194a An eight-ship flight of B-17Es appeared in the air in the north. Canidy watched from a pickup truck. The truck was painted in a checkerboard pattern, and a large checkerboard flag was flying from its bed. The tai lend B-17E dropped its nose and made a steep descent for a straight-in approach to the runway.

  "That'll be Captain Fine, Sir," the assistant base adjutant, who was driving the pickup, said to Canidy.

  "He likes to sit on the taxiway so that he can offer 'constructive criticism' of their landings."

  Canidy smiled. The translation of that was "eat ass."

  The assistant base adjutant, a captain, was very impressed with Major Richard Canidy. This was his first encounter with an officer assigned to General Headquarters, Army Air Corps, who was traveling on orders stamped "Secret." That he was flying a Navy airplane added a delightful touch of mystery.

  "This is Major Canidy, Captain," the base commander had told him. "I want you to take him where he wants to go and do whatever you can to assist him. But don't ask him any questions."

  The remaining seven B-17Es circled the field in formation. As they passed over, the roar of their engines was awesome. They were simply enormous-and seemed invincible. Canidy let himself dwell for a moment on the incredible logistics problem involved in just getting them into the air. How many gallons of gas had it taken to fill their tanks?

  How many mechanics were required to service that many engines? For that matter, how many parachute riggers had to be trained just to pack all those parachutes? One by one, at ninety-second intervals, the B-17Es detached themselves from the formation and began to land. By the time the first wheels touched down on the wide concrete runway, Fine's plane had stopped a third of the way down the parallel taxiway, shut down its inboard engines, and turned its nose toward the runway.

  The captain drove the pickup over next to it, and Canidy saw in the pilot's seat a thin-faced, ascetic man with horn-rimmed glasses. He wasn't at all like the man Canidy remembered. Captain Stanley S. Fine was wearing a leather-brimmed cap with a headset clamped over it. He looked down at the pickup truck, then turned his attention to the first plane landing.

  A minute later, a sergeant in sheepskin high-altitude clothing came to the pickup. He saw Canidy's gold leaf and saluted. "Sir, Captain Fine wants to know if you're waiting for him."

  "Yes, I am, Sergeant," Canidy said.

  When the message was relayed to him, Fine looked down at the pickup truck again, without recognition. His eyebrows rose in curiosity, and he smiled. Then he looked away and didn't look back at Canidy until the la
st of the B-17Es had landed. Finally he held up his index finger as an "I'll be with you in a minute" signal and disappeared from view.

  He appeared on the ground shortly afterward walking around the tail section of the aircraft, holding his cap on his head with his hand against the prop blast of the idling engines. He was wearing a tropical worsted shirt and trousers and a horsehide leather A-2 jacket.

  He saluted Canidy.

  "Is there something I can do for you, Major?"

  "We've met, Captain Fine," Canidy said. Fine's eyebrows rose in question. "The first time was when Eric Fulmar and I tried to burn down Cedar Rapids. The last time was in Washington the spring before the war.

  We had dinner with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan and Cynthia Chenowith."