W E B Griffin - Men at War 1 - The Last Heroes

by The Last Heroes(Lit)

  "Mingaladon Tower, CAMCO sixteen rolling," he said, and then advanced the throttle and turned forward, and moved the fuelmixture lever to the full-rich indent. The plane began to move. He felt himself pressed back against his parachute. The P40-B lifted off its tailwheel without any action on Canidy's part. The slipstream was screaming past his cars, and he remembered only then that he hadn't slid the canopy forward to close it. To hell with it.

  Very carefully, he ruddered the ship to the center of the runway, and waited for the stick to come alive. And then, all of a sudden, it was. He inched back, and the wheels left the ground. Almost immediately, as he reached his hand out for the wheelretraction control, his right wing dipped and the ship turned right. He corrected, wondering if that had been torque or gyroscopic procession, and knowing-as he felt the sweat of terror soak his khakis-that he would never forget to be ready for that again.

  The wheels came up, more slowly than he would have expected, and unevenly, so that he had to correct for the difference in drag U11til they were both in their wells. He'd been holding the same elevator position, and the angle of climb increased. But the airspeed was holding.

  He thought, pleased: The sonofabitch climbs like a god damned rocket!

  He took it to three thousand feet before pulling the throttle back to cruise. Then he leveled off, trimmed it up, and flew it for a couple of seconds with his hands and feet off the controls. After that he put it into a gentle climb.

  He played, swinging the stick from side to side, using the rudder to make it crab through the air, getting the feel of it, until he had reached five thousand feet. He leveled off there and finally slid the canopy closed. The shrill whistle of the windstrearn was gone, and what filled the cockpit now was the dull roar of the thousand or so horses turning the three-blade prop in front of him.

  A little later he pulled the stick back and climbed until he ran out of power and speed, and it stalled. It really shook when it stalled. He fell straight through it, pushed the stick forward, and waited for life to come back into it. The needle on the airspeed indicator pointed to 300, then 320, then 330, and then came to the red line at 340. He pulled back on the stick, and felt his stomach sink to his knees. There was a moment's sensation of everything turning red, and then that passed, and he was flying level with the needle right on the red line.

  "Goddamn! " he said aloud, absolutely delighted. He took a quick look at the instrument panel to make sure all the needles were where they were supposed to be, and then put the ship first into a loop and when he came out of the loop a barrel roll, and when he still had all the airspeed he needed after that, into an Immelmann turn.

  After what he thought was about ten minutes he reluctantly decided that he'd better get it back on the ground. He had been flying visually, keeping himself aware of the position of the gleaming, gold-covered Shwe Dagon Pagoda. If he could see that, he could easily find the field. rider his left wingtip at six thousand feet, He flew to it, Put it u nt to three thousand feet, for the first and made a gentle circle desce idle interest. He saw time looking at the ground with more than Rangoon sprawling to the south of the pagoda, and the river, stretching to the Gulf of Martaban. And he saw the thick, lush, deep green jungle. day was beautiful. it was beautiful. Burma was beautiful. The The P40-B was beautiful. it was, he was sure, one of the best days of his life. and got permission to land.

  He called the tower The sonofabitch came in a lot faster than he thought it would, even with the flaps and wheels down, and he was much farther down the runway than he intended before he felt the bounce and heard the chirp when the wheels touched. And it took longer than he thought it would to get the tailwheel On the ground, too. The sonofabitch wanted to stand on its nose. He would have to remember that, too.

  Bitter trotted over to the plane when he taxied it in line beside the others. were about to "What happened?" Bitter asked, concerned. "We go looking for you." s Canidy said.

  "I was only gone ten, fifteen minute "You were gone an hour and fifteen minutes," Bitter said. canidy said.

  "That's one hell of an airplane, Eddie, : Atlanta, Georgia October 15, 1941

  Brandon Chambers's secretary put her head into his office in the Atlanta Courierjournal building and held her hand up, palm outward, her signal that what she had to say was important.

  "Hold it a minute," Brandon Chambers said to the managing editor of the Courierjournal.

  "They just called from the lobby," she said. "Ann's on h UP." er way Brandon Chambers made a hmmphing sound. "I wonder what my lovely, Impulsive, willful little girl wants now?" he asked. Then he signaled that Ann was to be shown in when she arrived, and resumed his conversation.

  Ann Chambers was wearing hose, high heels, a blue polka-dot dress, and a small hat, perched jauntily on her head. The hat had a veil, and beneath it her face was Powdered and rouged and her lips were a brilliant scarlet streak.

  Brandon Chambers didn't pay all that much attention to what women wore, unless it was uncommonly revealing, but he noticed the way his daughter dresse ,d. She almost never wore anything fancier than a pleated skirt, a loose sweater, and loafers.

  "To what do I owe this honor?" he asked pointedly, expecting the worst.

  "Can I get you something, Ann?" her father's secretary said.

  "I'd love a cup of coffee, Mrs. Gregg," Ann said, "if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

  "Is something wrong?" he asked.

  "No. Nothing's wrong with me. I was hoping I was going to dazzle you with the way I'm dressed. No comment?"

  11ft's one hell of an improvement, I'll happily tell you that."

  "There was a piece in College Woman that said that when women are going for a job interview, they should dress businesslike. I gave a lot of thought to what I'm wearing. I'm here seeking honest employments" she said. "I'll take whatever's offered, no questions asked."

  "Is that so?" he said, smiling.

  "That's so," she said. "And now that you're dazzled with my businesslike appearance, let's get right on to that. I seek employment on the Memphis Daily Advocate. Anything but the women's section."

  "How about managing editor?"

  "I'm serious, Daddy," she said.

  "I was afraid you would be," he said. "What about school?"

  "I am bored out of my mind in school," she said. "I'm finished."

  "You have three years to go, counting this year."

  "I've already withdrawn," she said.

  "You can't do that without my permission," he said.

  6 6 Can't IT' Ann asked. "What do they do, drag me back in hand-cuffst@

  "Does your mother know about this?" he asked.

  "I suppose she will by late this afternoon."

  "And she's going to be both hurt and furious he said.

  "I'm not so sure," Ann said, "and neither are you."

  "Was there something specific at Bryn Mawr? Or was it just general boredom?"

  She didn't answer the question. She asked one of her own: "Aren't you going to ask why the Advocate? Instead of here?"

  "OK he said. "You've been asked."

  "Because you spend most of your time here, and that would be awkward for both of us."

  "That's 'why not here,"' he said, "not 'why the Advocate."'

  "Because the Advocate is a medium-size paper where I already have some friends. I've worked there before.

  "Just a couple of months," he said.

  "I worked there a month last summer," she replied. "And two months after I graduated from St. Margaret's."

  "That's three months," he said.

  "I'd hate it," she said, rushing on, negotiating, "but I'll even take, the women's section. Temporarily."

  "You've already considered, I suppose, that you're throwing away the chance at a good education?"

  "You don't believe that nonsense any more than I do she said. "College is where women are sent to keep them off the streets until they find a husband."

  "I don't believe that either," he said. "And what if I say no,
Annie? Then what?"

  "Then I don't know," she said. "I do know I'm not going back to Bryn Mawr, or any college, period."

  "I'll see what Orrin Fox has to say," he said.

  Ann walked to his desk and pushed down on the intercom TALK switch. "Mrs. Gregg, would you get Mr. Fox of the Advocate for Daddy, please?" she said.

  When he didn't cancel the call, Ann knew that she had gotten her way. Orrin Fox, the managing editor of the Advocate, would probably have given her a job even if her father didn't own the newspaper And she was right. Orrin was even willing to start her out cityside, covering hospitals and funerals, which was more than she thought she'd get.

  "Thank you, Daddy," she said, beaming, and kissed him.

  "Don't look so smug," he said, trying to sound stem-but she couldn't help notice the approval and the pride in his voice. "There's still your mother to consider. She hasn't heard about you quitting college, much less about wanting to go live by yourself in Memphis. I wouldn't think of entering that argument."

  11 can handle Mother9" Ann Chambers said, "and with a little bit of help from my generous daddy, I can find a nice little apartment. Until the paper pays me enough to support myself."

  "I'm serious, Annie," he said. "She's not going to like the idea of you living alone in an apartment in Memphis."

  "I won't be living alone,"Ann said. "Sarah Child will share an apartment with me."

  He didn't know what to make of that.

  "And why," he asked finally, "would Sarah Child want to drop out of college and go live with you in Memphis, Tennessee?"

  "Because she's pregnant Ann said. "And not married."

  "Christ Jesus!" he boomed. "So the crazy little bitch got herself knocked up!"

  "Dad!" Ann cried.

  "I didn't think she had it in her."

  "Dad!" she screamed. "That's cruel! And it's crude! And it's unfair! And Sarah is my friend. She needs help and she needs me."

  "So that's it. She's it," he said, angry. "She's why you're quitting school."

  "I was ready to quit anyway' " Ann said. "But I have to help her. She might as well have no family. Her father's too busy taking care of his bank to take care of her; and her mother's crazy, you know. A certified loony."

  "And Sarah can't take care of herself9" He paused to let that sink in. "Or else you may be aware-even as virginal as you arethat these things have now and again been handled successfully with the help of what has come to be called marriage."

  "Don't be sarcastic, Daddy." She was crying. So he softened and let up on her.

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart; but I'm upset too. I just don't want the kid I love to throw away her education so she can mother a knocked-up little girl. And besides, what about the father?"

  "He's in China," she said, holding in her sobs. "China? Who does little : Sarah know in China?" Then he remembered. "Oh my God! My God, do you mean it happened at The Lodge when you were all down there in the spring?" Ann nodded. "Canidy! " he blared. "Christ!"

  "Wrong," Ann said. "It was Cousin Eddie."

  "Ed? You're kidding."

  "It was Cousin Eddie, Dad, but if you tell anyone, I'll never forgive you. I gave her my word, and you're the only other person who knows."

  Brandon Chambers shook his massive head and exhaled audibly. She was going to win this one, he knew. He might as well acake care cept the inevitability of it. Ann was going to Memphis to t of the little girl. So that was that.

  "And what has Ed got to say?"

  "Eddie doesn't know," Ann said. "She won't tell him, and she made me give my word that I wouldn't tell him either."

  "Why not?"

  "She said because she believes what happened is her fault, not his-"

  "It takes two," he flared up, but only halfheartedly.

  "But what I think it is is that she's a Jew."

  "That wouldn't make a difference to Ed," her father said.

  "Wouldn't it?" Ann asked her father. "Would you bet big money on that, Daddy?

  What would Aunt Helen think?"

  "What are we going to tell your mother?" he asked. "That Sarah's pregnant, and that's all," Ann said.

  LI Berlin, Clermany November 10, 1941

  Helmut Maximilian Ernst von Heurten-Mitnitz liked America. He'd graduated from Harvard in 1927 and, in the footsteps of four generations of Heurten-Mitnitz younger : sons, had joined the Foreign Ser is vice to end up at the German embassy in Washington. Two year, served as consul general in New Orleans and he remem. later he bered that city with particular fondness. He thought often of Kolb's a German restaurant just off Canal Street, where he was treated with exceptional warmth and good food. And in two Mardi Gras parades, dressed in a fantastic costume, he'd ridden a float and thrown candy and glass beads at the hordes of people jamming the narrow streets of the French Quarter.

  On his return to Berlin in 1938, Max discovered that his older brother, Karlfriedrich, had lent the National Socialist German Workers'party the prestige of the von Heurten-Mitnitz name and a great deal of money. Privately both Max and Karlfriedrich detested most of the upper-echelon Nazis, but there was no question that the Nazi party had saved Germany from the fate of Russia. And it was inarguable that life was better under Nazi rule than it had been before.

  But Max did not want to fight the Nazis' wars. He had his foreign-service exemption, but his brother's loans had made their family highly visible. Someone was only too likely to see in him a fine officer with a bright destiny on the eastern front. He needed some important assignment in which he could further his career and at the same time remove himself from the doom that would befall him if he stayed where he was. He needed to get out of Berlin.

  Johann MULLER was one of the original hundred thousand members of the National Socialist German Workers' party, and he was thus entitled to wear the golden party pin. He had joined the infant Nazi Party because he had realized very early on how useful membership was going to be to a policeman. Mfiller never believed for an instant that the party, or for that matter Adolf Hitler, was the salvation of Germany. There had been policemen under the Kaiser and under the Weimar Republic, and there would be policemen under whatever replaced the Thousand Year Reich.

  M01ler had been a Kreis Marburg Wachtmann for two years when he learned that Hermann G6ring, as police president of Prussia, was quietlv buildings a secret police force. Mfiller applied and was appointed to the Prussian state police as a Kriminalinspektor, grade three. He arrived in Berlin immediately after Hitler, as boss of what would soon be the Gestapo, had Gbring out and replaced him with the rather more trustworthy Heinrich Hirmnler.

  Although Himmler immediately retired most of the people G6ring had brought in, Mfiller stayed. He hadn't been with the state police long enough to be corrupted. Besides, a policeman who wore a gold party pin and who had risen from the ranks in rural Hesse was really the sort of man they were looking for. Himmler needed ordinary policemen to handle ordinary crimes.

  When the war came, though he remained a policeman, MULLER was ordered into uniform. Some of his duties, however, still required ordinary clothes. Without any particular plan, Johann Miffler had come to be a specialist in crimes-from embezzlement to currency violations to vice--committed by military officers, senior and influential government employees, and party officials. Mfiller became the man in Berlin who decided whether or not a case was made. Sometimes he ordered detention or arrest; other times, he merely threatened these-to see what would happen. Other times he decided the charges "had no basis in fact."

  And still other times, of course, he kept people under his thumb, either for use as infonners, or in positions where they might do him some good, while he made up his mind what to do with them.

  His own specialty was the investigation of payoffs and kickbacks, which meant digging up money people had spent considerable time and imagination burying. He was good at it.

  He met Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz when a Swede with a diplomatic passport and a Foreign Ministry official had shown up together in be
d at a hotel in Lichtefeld, an incident with implications beyond mere offense against the morality of the state. The liaison officer Miiller usually dealt with at the Foreign Ministry had been replaced by von Heurten-Mitnitz. When MULLER got to Bendlerstrasse, he was not surprised to find the diplomat looked as elegant as he had sounded on the telephone. He was a tall, sharpfeatured, fair-haired East Prussian of about thirty-five. And he was wearing a well-cut British lounge suit that had certainly cost as much as Mfiller made in a month.

  Five minutes with von Heurten-Mitnitz was long enough for Maller to judge that von Heurten-Mitnitz was a far more practical rnan than his manner and elegant dress implied. At the same time, Max von Heurten-Mitnitz had seen enough of M01ler to be convinced that the policeman before him was not the simple Hessian peasant he carefully painted himself to be.