“What’s Dick told you about all this?”
“That I shouldn’t ask questions,” Fine said. “And that I should ask you about calling my wife. Miss Chenowith didn’t seem to think that was a good idea.”
“Cynthia tends to err on the side of caution,” Donovan said. “That’s a pretty good rule to follow around here. What Dick said about not asking questions is another one, probably the most important one. You don’t ask questions, and you don’t volunteer information.”
“Yes, Sir,” Fine said.
“That said, I don’t see any reason, when we’re finished here, that you can’t call your wife and tell her you’ll be out of touch for a few days.”
“Thank you,” Fine said.
“Dick seems to have volunteered the information that I’m connected with all this?” Donovan asked. “In violation of the rules?”
“Only after he swore true faith and allegiance to the Dilettantes, Sir,” Canidy said, unabashed.
Donovan thought that over a moment, then smiled and chuckled.
“Did you see Pearson’s ‘dilettantes’ column, Stanley?”
“Yes, Sir,” Fine said.
“You two are the most unlikely candidates for that description I can think of,” Donovan said.
They laughed, dutifully.
“Stan, there are—aren’t there always?—some administrative things to be taken care of,” Donovan said. “That’ll take a day or two. Then Dick’s going to take you to a house we run in New Jersey. What we want you for involves a rather interesting long-distance cargo flight.”
“Yes, Sir,” Fine said.
“Tonight, at dinner, you’ll meet Eldon Baker, with whom you’ll be working. Tomorrow Dick is going to take him to Fort Knox. By the time they get back, you should be ready to go to Jersey with Dick.”
“Why is Baker going to Knox?” Canidy asked.
“He’ll explain that to you when he’s ready,” Donovan said. “Oh hell, there’s such a thing as carrying secrecy too far. You’re going down there to talk to Jimmy Whittaker.”
“Really?” Canidy asked, but Colonel Donovan chose not to say anything more.
Over dinner—Donovan was not there—the African flight was discussed.
“You’ll function as flight engineer, as well as the mission commander,” Baker told Fine. “And before you go, there will be time to—what is it they say?—‘transition’ you in the airplane.”
Now that it was official that he was not going, Canidy did not feel relief. Instead, he felt left out.
Don’t be a goddamn fool, he told himself.
“Incidentally, Canidy,” Baker said, “we have decided that you, too, should transition into the C-46.”
“My feelings weren’t hurt about being left out,” Canidy said.
“Your feelings have nothing to do with it,” Baker said.
“What is important is that something might happen to Captain Fine, in which case you would go on the flight.”
“You’ve considered, I’m sure, the possibility that either one of us might bend the bird learning how to fly it?” Canidy asked dryly.
“That was considered,” Baker answered matter-of-factly. “According to your records, both you and Captain Fine are rather good pilots. The chances are that there will be no damage to the aircraft. But in case something does happen, we have acquired another aircraft on standby, in case it is needed.”
The next morning Canidy flew the D18S southwest across Virginia, with the Appalachian Mountains on his right wingtip, to Roanoke. There he turned more westerly, crossed the Appalachians, then the Alleghenies and the lower tip of West Virginia, and then set down at a small airport in Wheelwright, Kentucky, for coffee and a piss break.
“Where are we?” Baker asked as Canidy walked through the cabin.
“Eastern Kentucky, a place called Wheelwright,” Canidy said.
Baker followed him out of the airplane and went into the terminal, a small frame building with a sign on it advertising flying lessons for five dollars. Canidy watched as the tanks were topped off, checked the oil, signed a U.S. government purchase order for the gas, and then went to the foul-smelling men’s room.
Baker was waiting for him outside the small building.
“Let’s stretch our legs,” he said, gesturing down the single dirt-and-pebble runway.
They had walked half its length when Baker touched his sleeve. “This is far enough.”
No one, Canidy thought, could possibly overhear what Baker was about to tell him.
“We’re going to Fort Knox to see your friend Whittaker,” he said.
“Donovan told me,” Canidy said.
“And there’s somebody else there you know,” Baker said.
“Are you going to tell me who, or just tease me with your superior knowledge?”
“Eric Fulmar,” Baker said, enjoying Canidy’s surprise.
“If you wanted to surprise me, you’ve surprised me,” Canidy said. “How’d you get him out of Morocco? More important, why? And what is he doing at Knox?”
“Getting him out was simplicity itself,” Baker said. “Even though he didn’t want to come. We had a little talk with Sidi el Ferruch, and Fulmar, trussed up like a Christmas turkey, was delivered to Gibraltar. There he was loaded on a destroyer, taken to Charleston, and then to Fort Knox.”
“What for?”
“We have need for your friend Fulmar again,” Baker said.
“Why?” Canidy asked. “How?”
“Putting him together with Whittaker at Knox was my idea,” Baker said, ignoring Canidy’s questions. “He feels about you—about both of us—much as you feel about me. Since we need his cooperation, I thought it might be a good idea to let him know, via Whittaker, that we can make things very unpleasant for him if he doesn’t cooperate.”
“You are indeed a true sonofabitch,” Canidy said, more in resignation than anger. “You like pushing people around, don’t you?”
Baker didn’t reply.
“What kind of cooperation?” Canidy asked.
“In connection with the North African invasion,” Baker said.
Canidy thought that over for a moment.
“Bullshit,” he said. “First of all, you gave me that too quick, and second, we don’t need Fulmar. You’ve already compromised Sidi el Ferruch. He has no choice but to do what you want him to do.”
Baker smiled patronizingly at Canidy. “Very good, Canidy,” he said. “Let us say, then, we tell everybody who has the need to know that we want Fulmar for Operation Torch.”
“What do we really want him for?”
“You don’t have the need to know, just yet,” Baker said.
“Fuck you,” Canidy said.
“You really should learn to control your mouth,” Baker flared. “One day it’s going to get you in trouble.”
There was a pause while Baker waited for an apology. He went on after none came: “It is important, Canidy. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
“If you say so, Eldon,” Canidy said sarcastically. He was trying to get under Baker’s skin, and he succeeded.
“You don’t really think we recruited Fine just to fly that airplane, do you?” Baker asked sarcastically.
“I wondered about that,” Canidy said.
“Fine has some interesting contacts in Europe,” Baker said. “And we have reason to believe his uncle has made substantial contributions to the Zionist movement.”
“I don’t understand that,” Canidy said.
“The Zionists have a very skillful intelligence service,” Baker said, as if patiently dealing with a backward child.
“I didn’t know that,” Canidy confessed.
“Much of what we know about German jet-engine development we got from the British, who got it from the Zionists,” Baker said. “And you’re shortly going to be joined at Summer Place by Second Lieutenant C. Holdsworth Martin the Third.”
“The Disciple, Junior?” Canidy asked, surprised. “Wait till Drew
Pearson hears about that.”
Baker ignored him again. “He was at La Rosey in Switzerland with Fulmar,” Baker said.
“What the hell is so important about Fulmar?” Canidy asked.
“Important enough that I may order responsibility for Captain Whittaker transferred from Fort Knox to you, at Summer Place—if he can bring Fulmar with him.”
“How can I get Whittaker to talk Fulmar into anything if neither of us has the slightest idea what you want Fulmar to do?”
“We tell Whittaker that it’s something connected with the invasion of North Africa. That’s credible. But we simply cannot even suggest what we really want from Fulmar at this point.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch if I understand any of this,” Canidy said.
“Good. You’re not supposed to.”
“What makes you think Fulmar will believe anything you have to say?” Canidy asked. “I suppose it’s occurred to you that you destroyed your credibility with Fulmar when you left him and me floating around in the Atlantic off Safi?” Canidy said.
“That’s where you come in,” Baker said. “Why do you think you were left behind? You ever wonder about that?”
“I was too mad to wonder about it,” Canidy said.
“Police detectives have an interrogation technique,” Baker said, “where one is a heartless sonofabitch, and another is kind, gentle, and understanding.”
“And I’m to be the good guy, right?”
“Now you’re getting the picture,” Baker said. “You’re not a sonofabitch like Baker; you were left behind, too.”
“The truth is that you are a genuine, heartless sonofabitch, and like being one,” Canidy said.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Baker said.
“Okay,” Canidy said. “I get the picture. Is this class about over now?”
“I was about to suggest it was,” Baker said, and waved his hand back down the pebble runway to where the D18 sat waiting for them.
PART SIX
1
THE WILLARD HOTEL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JUNE 29, 1942
Sarah Child Bitter was kneeling on the floor of what at one time had been the suite Joseph Schild and Company, Merchant Bankers, maintained in Washington. The suite was now what she thought of as her first married home. What she was trying to do was force mashed carrots into Joe, a losing battle that was thankfully interrupted when the telephone rang. Long distance was calling for Commander Bitter.
“I’m sorry, operator, he’s not here,” Sarah said.
“If that’s Mrs. Bitter, operator,” the voice said, “I’ll talk to her.”
“This is Mrs. Bitter,” Sarah said.
“Go ahead, Sir,” the operator said.
“This is Doug Douglass, Mrs. Bitter,” a pleasant voice said. “I’m an old friend of Ed’s.”
“I know,” she said.
Doug Douglass was more than an old friend. He was the man who had saved Ed’s life when Ed had been wounded. Doug Douglass had landed his own P-40 on a dry riverbed, manhandled Ed from the cockpit of his plane into his own cockpit, and then somehow managed to take off again.
“When I called his folks to ask if they knew where he was, they gave me your number.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you’re back,” Sarah said.
“So am I,” he said. “I never thought I would be delighted to be stationed in Selma, Alabama, but—”
“Is that where you are?” Sarah asked. “Alabama?”
“They gave me a fighter group down here, Mrs. Bitter,” he said.
I will thank him for my husband’s life, for Joe’s daddy, but this isn’t the time.
“Oh, please call me Sarah,” she said.
“I hear there’s a baby, too, I didn’t know about.”
“Yes, there is,” Sarah said.
“I’d like to see Ed,” Douglass said. “And if he’s going to be available, this weekend. I’m coming up to Washington.”
“He’ll be available,” Sarah said. “And you’ll stay here with us.”
There was a perpetual shortage of hotel rooms in Washington for civilians. And so many officers were visiting the city, Ed had told her, that rooms in transient bachelor officers’ quarters had become nothing but wall-to-wall cots.
Sarah was at first delighted to have the chance to offer Doug Douglass a place to stay, until she remembered that her old friend Charity Hoche was coming on Friday afternoon and Ann Chambers on Saturday, which meant there would be no spare room. Well, they would just have to make do, have the hotel send up cots or something. Both Ann and Douglass had large claims on her. And Charity was a dear. Fortunately, it turned out there wasn’t going to be a problem after all.
“Well, that’s very kind, Sarah, but I already have a place to stay,” Doug said.
“A nice place?” she challenged.
“Very nice.” He chuckled. “I’ll be staying with my father.”
“Well, there’s a room here if you need one,” Sarah said. “Are you going to be here on business?”
“I am solemnly informed that the entire war effort will collapse unless I immediately acquire some cross-country time,” he said. “So I decided to cross the country to our nation’s capital instead of Hogwash, Wisconsin.”
He has a nice voice, Sarah thought. And seems like a nice fellow.
“Well, if the fate of the nation depends on it,” Sarah said. “How long can you stay?”
“Overnight, anyway,” he said. “If you can find a baby-sitter, I’d like to take you out to dinner.”
“No, you won’t,” Sarah said. “We’ll have a party. I even know some girls.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“I want to,” Sarah said. “When and where are you arriving?”
“I’ll leave here, say, six, six-thirty,” he said. “I should touch down at Bolling no later than half past ten.”
“You can’t make it from Alabama that quickly, can you?” she said.
“You can in a P-38,” he said.
“I really look forward to this,” Sarah said.
“Me, too, Sarah,” he said, then: “Gotta go! See you Saturday.”
The line went dead.
What I really would like to do, she thought, is call Ed and tell him. But he doesn’t like me to call him there.
She meditated a moment, then lifted her finger off the switch. When the operator came on the line, Sarah gave her Ann’s number at the Memphis Advocate.
“Ed’s friend Douglass is going to be here Saturday, too,” she announced. “If he’s going to see Ed, maybe he’ll see Dick Canidy, too.”
“At least I should be able to corner him and see if he has a number or an address,” Ann said. Then: “Just for the hell of it, why don’t you try the National Institutes of Health again for me? Save me the price of a call. If he comes on the line, hang up.”
Sarah giggled. “Okay,” she said. “I will.”
Ann gave her the number, said, “See you Saturday,” and hung up.
Just as before with Ann, the operator at the National Institutes of Health informed Sarah that no one named Canidy worked there.
“I’m sure there’s some mistake,” Sarah said. “I was told to call him at the National Institutes of Health building.”
There was silence on the line, and Sarah had just about decided the operator had hung up on her, when there was the sound of a phone being rung.
A woman answered and said, “Hello?”
The one word was enough for Sarah to judge that she was young, sophisticated, and intelligent.
“Major Richard Canidy, please,” Sarah said.
There was a hesitation.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“My name is Sarah Bitter,” Sarah said. There was another pause. Sarah suspected she was about to be put off again, so she quickly added, “My husband is Commander Edwin Bitter. He and Major Canidy were in the American Volunteer Group.”
&n
bsp; There was another pause, not as long.
“May I ask where you got this number?” the young woman asked.
“From another Flying Tiger,” Sarah said. “Major Doug Douglass.”
“I see,” the young woman said, her inflection explaining a good deal. “Well, I’m sorry, Miss, there is no one here by that name.”
“I see,” Sarah said. “Thank you very much, anyway.”
The young woman hung up without another word.
2
GODMAN ARMY AIR FIELD
FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY
JUNE 29, 1942
The parking ramps of Godman held a large number of what looked like brand-new Lockheed P-38 aircraft. At least two squadrons, Canidy judged. He wondered why so many were in the middle of Kentucky, and wondered if they were here to protect the United States gold reserves.
That made perfect bureaucratic/military sense: Station two squadrons of brand-new fighters here to protect something that not only was buried deep underground but far beyond the range of any enemy bomber.
“They expect us,” Baker announced. “I have a number to call.”
“Go call it,” Canidy said, and went to find somebody to top off the D18’s tanks.
A few moments later, Baker returned to the airplane and announced a car was coming for them; it would be a couple of minutes.
Canidy looked at the other man carefully. After considerable thought he had made up his mind to do something he now concluded was not unduly colored by his dislike for Eldon C. Baker.
“Let’s stretch our legs,” he said, mimicking Baker’s manner at Wheelwright. When he had him out of earshot of the ground crew servicing the Beech, he said, “I’ve been thinking that I’m not going to feed Whittaker your line of bullshit about some kind of unspecified dangerous mission. I’m not going to lie to him.”
“Your sense of humor, or loyalty, or whatever it is, is misplaced,” Baker said. “Though commendable,” he added.
“Well, I’m not going to do it, so do whatever you have to do with that in mind,” Canidy said.
“Are we going to have to call Captain Douglass on the phone to get this straightened out?”
“Call anybody you want,” Canidy said.
The Secret Warriors Page 17