“There’s a scrambler phone at post headquarters,” Baker said. “I’ll use that.”
Canidy shrugged.
“What are you thinking, Canidy?” Baker asked, en route to post headquarters in an Army olive-drab staff car. “That he would learn the truth anyhow and be upset?”
“I don’t think you understand trust,” Canidy said. “I don’t think the elaborate bullshit is necessary with this guy. And it damned well could be counterproductive. When you finish tattling on me to Douglass, that’s the argument I’m going to make.”
As he got out of the car before the brick post headquarters building, Baker turned to Canidy.
“We’ll tell him as little of the truth as necessary, agreed?”
“But the truth,” Canidy said.
Baker nodded.
Either he realizes the profound wisdom of my position, or else he’s afraid to go to Douglass with it. Which means that I may have more influence with Douglass than I think I do—or Baker wants me to know I have.
Canidy had hoped to meet the post commander, a general named Patton whom he knew to be quite a character. General Patton had not only traveled around the prewar Army with his own string of polo ponies, but he had designed a uniform for armored troops that made them look like characters in the “Buck Rogers in the 21st Century” comic strip. Unfortunately, it turned out that Patton was in Washington.
Though Patton’s deputy, a brigadier general, was expecting them, he had no idea why they were coming. And when Baker showed him the identification of a deputy U.S. marshal, he was visibly uneasy—and even more nervous when Baker produced an order of the United States Court of Appeals directing him to give Baker access to Captain James M. B. Whittaker and Eric Fulmar. The order went on to say that Baker was authorized—if he so chose—to take one or both of the aforesaid patients into his personal custody.
“I’ll have to check this, you understand, Sir,” the brigadier general said.
A telephone call to the Chief of Staff confirmed that Fort Knox had no choice but to comply with the court order. The brigadier general then called in the post provost marshal, who drove Canidy and Baker to the station hospital in a Chevrolet sedan with a chrome siren on the fender.
The station hospital was a sprawling complex of single-story frame buildings. It was brand-new—still smelling of freshly sawed lumber and paint—and it was built on gently undulating land half a mile from the brick buildings of the main post. After the hospital commander, a tall, heavy, white-mustachioed full colonel, was shown the court order, he told them that Whittaker and Fulmar were in private rooms in a private ward, and that he would personally escort them there.
“Whittaker first,” Canidy said.
The private ward was in a fenced-in portion of the neuropsychiatric division of the hospital. Sections of hurricane fence enclosed a small porch. Fence material was nailed over the windows. A military policeman was in the corridor, and another sat outside the fence on a folding chair under a small tree.
“What’s his physical condition, Colonel?” Baker asked.
“Physically—and so far as I am concerned mentally—there is nothing wrong with Captain Whittaker,” the hospital commander said. “He was a mess when they brought him here, but once we got rid of his parasites and got some food into him, he came right around.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Baker said.
“I’ve been told to ask you no questions, and as a soldier I’ll obey my orders. But I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like a hospital ward being used as a prison,” the hospital commander said. “I don’t think it’s either ethical or legal.”
Good for you, Colonel! Canidy thought.
“Wouldn’t you say, Colonel,” Baker said coldly, “that the Attorney General would be the best judge of that?”
The colonel did not back down.
“The Supreme Court, perhaps,” he said. “I’m not sure about the Attorney General.”
Canidy chuckled, and Baker glared at him.
The MP unlocked the door to a room, then held it open for Canidy, Baker, and the hospital commander.
“Captain Whittaker,” the doctor said. “These gentlemen have been sent from Washington to see you.”
“I’ll be goddamned,” Whittaker said. He was in a red hospital bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers. He had been reading Life magazine.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Baker said, “I’ll take it from here.”
The hospital commander left, closing the door after him, and almost immediately Canidy heard the lock being snapped shut.
Whittaker looked suspiciously at Canidy but got out of his chair and offered his hand.
“Hello, Jimmy,” Canidy said. “How the hell are you?” You look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you. Not only physically. You must have put on forty pounds. And that nutty look in your eyes is gone.
“This is the prison ward,” Whittaker said. “Or the lunatic ward. Or the prison slash lunatic ward. How the hell do you think I am?”
“I hear you got rid of Clarence,” Canidy said.
“Yeah,” Whittaker said. “And he was a persistent bastard. It took about ten pounds of quinine to kill him. I was as yellow as a daisy for a while.”
“It must run in the family,” Canidy said. “Your aunt Barbara told me that Chesly had one in—somewhere in the Far East.”
“I’ve heard that story,” Whittaker said, and then he looked coldly at Eldon C. Baker. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“His name is Baker,” Canidy said. “Watch out for him. He’s a sonofabitch. But be nice to him. He has the power to get you out of here.”
“Uncle Franklin is no longer pissed?” Whittaker asked. “I am to be sprung from durance vile?”
“That’s up to you,” Canidy said. “Some people think you’re a bomb about to go off. Others think you may be useful to them. Once you hear why, you may want to stay in the loony bin.”
Whittaker looked at Baker curiously.
“Has Dick told you about Morocco, Captain Whittaker?” Baker asked.
“No,” Whittaker said simply.
“You know, Baker,” Canidy said. “Loose lips lose ships.”
“You are aware that he and I work for the Office of the Coordinator of Information?”
“Yes,” Whittaker said.
“Would you mind telling me what you know about the COI?”
Whittaker shrugged. “It’s a hush-hush outfit run by Bill Donovan,” he said. “It’s probably involved in very strange things, like espionage. Who knows what else?”
“Dick tell you that?” Baker asked.
“If he had, I wouldn’t tell you and get him in trouble,” Whittaker said. “I got some of it from that captain, Douglass, and some of it from the President. The rest I put together myself, like Sherlock Holmes.”
Baker smiled. “Very good,” he said.
“You get two gold stars to take home to Mommy,” Canidy said.
Whittaker chuckled. Baker gave Canidy a dirty look.
“Why don’t we stop the bullshit?” Canidy said.
“Why don’t you?” Whittaker said.
“You first,” Canidy said. “Do you know what was in that letter from MacArthur to the President?”
“No,” Whittaker said. “I know it made General Marshall mad.”
“That’s one of the reasons you’re down here,” Canidy said. “They’re worried you’ll give the press the contents of the letter.”
“I have no idea what it said,” Whittaker said.
“And you’d take a polygraph, a lie-detector test, about that?” Baker asked.
Bull’s-eye! Canidy thought. I knew damned well they didn’t lock him in a loony bin for pissing off the general.
“It was that embarrassing, was it?” Whittaker asked. “Yeah, I’ll take a lie-detector test. Why not? Anything that’ll get me out of here.”
“The next question,” Canidy said, “is, would you be willing to stick your neck out, mission unspeci
fied?”
“No,” Whittaker said after a split second’s hesitation. “I don’t think I would.”
“Your move, Baker,” Canidy said. “He just proved he’s sane.”
“You’ve had a chance to talk to Eric Fulmar?” Baker asked.
“Of course, I have,” Whittaker said.
“Did he tell you what happened in Morocco?” Baker asked.
“Why do I feel that no matter how I answer that, it will cost me?” Whittaker asked.
“Answer that one, Jimmy,” Canidy said. “It’s important.”
Whittaker looked at Canidy, as if making up his mind whether or not to trust him.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “He told me all about Morocco.”
“Including him and me getting the shaft off the coast?” Canidy asked.
“Yeah, that, and how he finally got out. Tied up in the bilge of an Arab chow, or whatever they call those little boats, and taken from Tangier to Gibraltar. He didn’t like that much either.”
“I didn’t think he would,” Canidy said.
“A betrayal, followed by a kidnapping,” Whittaker said. “You guys play dirty.”
“Baker plays dirty,” Canidy said. “I got left behind too. I’m one of the good guys, Jimmy.”
“You’re doing fine, Canidy,” Baker said angrily. “Keep it up.”
“Why not?” Canidy said. “This way you can tell Douglass and Donovan that I was the one who told him all the secrets and you had nothing to do with it.”
“So tell me a secret,” Whittaker said. “Things have been a little dull around here.”
“Eric Fulmar is close to an important man in Morocco,” Canidy said. “We want to use that again. We used him once.”
“So he told me,” Whittaker said. “And if you ask him to do the same thing again, being a reasonable man of average intelligence, he’s going to tell you to go fuck yourselves.”
“If he does, then both of you stay here,” Baker said.
“You just can’t do that,” Whittaker flared.
“We can, Jimmy,” Canidy said. “And we will.”
Whittaker looked at him.
“I notice you said ‘we,’ Dick,” he said.
“Yeah, I said ‘we,’” Canidy said. “I’m part of this.”
“Otherwise you get locked up, too?”
“Partly that,” Canidy said. “And partly because I think that what we’re doing is so important that the usual rules don’t apply.”
“What’s got me pissed off,” Whittaker said, “is that just as soon as I got home, they start treating me like the enemy.”
“You got between Marshall and MacArthur,” Canidy said. “You were an innocent bystander who got caught in the line of fire. Nobody thinks you’re the enemy.”
“That’s why there’s a fence over the window and an MP outside, right?”
“We’ve come with the authority to take you out of here, Captain Whittaker,” Baker said.
“What’s the price?”
“You heard it,” Canidy said. “You volunteer for the classic dangerous, secret mission, like Errol Flynn.”
“I couldn’t just go back to flying fighters?” Whittaker asked.
“Not any more than I can,” Canidy said.
“Okay,” Whittaker said after a moment’s thought. “What the hell.” He saluted Canidy, crisply but mockingly. “I await my orders, Sir, and stand prepared to give my all for our noble cause. Whatever the hell that might be.”
“This really isn’t a joking matter, Whittaker,” Baker said.
“I didn’t think it was,” Whittaker said coldly.
“You are now a member, more or less in good standing,” Canidy said, “of Donovan’s Dilettantes.”
“What the hell is that?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Canidy said.
“And what’s the ‘more or less in good standing’ mean?”
“Now we have to get Fulmar to cooperate,” Canidy said.
“My getting out of here really depends on that?” Whittaker asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Baker said.
“No,” Canidy said firmly. “No, it doesn’t, Jimmy. Baker, I’ll go to Donovan himself about that. Jimmy’s coming with us no matter what happens with Eric Fulmar.”
Baker didn’t reply.
“Well, Mr. Baker?” Whittaker asked after a moment.
“I can see no point in keeping you here any longer, Captain Whittaker,” Baker said finally.
“Okay,” Whittaker said. “You guys are going to have a problem with Fulmar. He’s really pissed. He’s tried to escape four times.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” Baker said. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. The only reason he hasn’t escaped is that every time he was about to go, I squealed on him.”
“He know about that?” Canidy asked.
Whittaker shook his head no. “It wasn’t time to try something like that,” Whittaker said. “It was getting close, but it wasn’t time yet. I sort of thought there was a reason my childhood chum just ‘coincidentally’ wound up in the adjacent cell.”
“You are very perceptive, Captain,” Baker said approvingly.
“Lucky for you I am,” Whittaker said. “I could have gotten out of here.”
“How could you have done that?” Baker said scoffingly.
“Would you like to watch me take that forty-five away from that kid?” Whittaker said, nodding at the MP sitting on a folding chair in the fenced-in yard. “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Baker. I thought that surely Major Canidy had regaled you with tales of my exploits on Bataan.”
“I’m well aware that you were decorated for valor, Captain Whittaker,” Baker said condescendingly.
“I didn’t get any medals for what I did,” Whittaker said. “You could call my medals political medals. It pleased the people who gave them to me. It had nothing to do with what I did.”
“What exactly did you do?” Baker asked.
“I blew a lot of things up,” Whittaker said. “Sometimes after the Japs had captured them. I’m awfully good at explosions.”
“Really?”
“That meant we had to take out sentries,” Whittaker said conversationally.
“Indeed?” Baker said impatiently.
The next thing Baker knew, he was on the floor. Whittaker’s knee against his back held him immobile. Whittaker’s left hand was on his chin, twisting his neck so that it was exposed. Whittaker drew the index finger of his right hand across Baker’s Adam’s apple.
“I don’t think,” Whittaker said, still conversationally, “that I would have to cut that kid’s throat to get his gun. All I would have to do is say ‘Boo!’”
“Let him up, Jimmy,” Canidy said, laughing. “I think you’ve made your point.”
Baker rose awkwardly to his feet and straightened his clothing. Then he surprised Canidy.
“You’re very good,” Baker said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that fast.”
That surprised Whittaker, too, and seemed to embarrass him.
“You figured out how to handle Fulmar?” Whittaker asked. “Or are you open to suggestion?”
“Let’s hear it,” Canidy said quickly.
“If you go in there and give him the business about volunteering, he’s going to tell you to go fuck yourselves.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Take him someplace now, without conditions. Maybe the house on Q Street, or better, Summer Place. Dangle the carrot in front of his nose. Sugar catches more flies than vinegar. Right now you’ve got him trapped in a corner. Even Pekingese dogs will fight when you get them in a corner.”
“I’m not sure I’m authorized to do that, give him his freedom without conditions,” Baker said uncomfortably. But Canidy saw that he had not rejected Whittaker’s reasoning out of hand.
“And you stay the hell out of sight,” Whittaker said. “He really hates you. Let Canidy go in there and tell him he’s been sent to get us
out of here.”
“Would he believe that?” Baker asked.
“Why not? The last time he saw Canidy was after they’d both been left behind in Morocco. And he would probably take his cue from me.”
“And what if he tries to escape?”
“Canidy and I can handle him until we get where we’re going,” Whittaker said.
“I’ll have to have permission,” Baker said.
“No,” Canidy said. “If you ask for permission, Douglass is going to say no. You get on the telephone after we’re airborne and call Washington, and tell them we’re on the way. Whittaker’s right, and you know he is. Your coming here was stupid.”
Baker thought that over for a moment, then walked to the door and knocked. When the MP opened it, he asked him to fetch the provost marshal. When the provost marshal came, Baker told him that he was serving the court order which directed that Whittaker and Fulmar be placed in his custody.
He handed a copy of the court order to the provost marshal.
“You have been served, Sir,” Baker said, formally. “Before two witnesses.”
The provost marshal read the court order and then put it in a pocket of his tunic.
“Would you have Captain Whittaker’s uniforms brought here, please?” Canidy said.
“I won’t be going with them,” Baker said. “Can you provide transportation for me to post headquarters? And Major Canidy and the two gentlemen will require transportation to Godman Field.”
“Yes, Sir,” the provost marshal said. “I’ll telephone for another car.”
Baker turned and spoke to Canidy.
“Unless you hear to the contrary while you’re en route,” he said, “go to Lakehurst. I’ll have someone meet your plane.”
“Jesus Christ!” Eric Fulmar said when Dick Canidy and Jim Whittaker walked into his room. “What the hell is all this?”
“Mr. Fulmar, Major Canidy,” Whittaker said. “Otherwise known as the knight in shining armor riding up on his white horse to rescue Prince Charming—the Princes, plural, Charming—from the evil king’s dungeon.”
“No shit?”
“Let’s go, Eric,” Canidy said. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Do you really care?”
“I don’t know where my clothes are,” Fulmar said.
The Secret Warriors Page 18