Line of Fire
Page 40
He looked at his watch.
"Please, Mommy," he said. "It's only half past nine. Can't I stay up till ten?"
"I said I was sorry," she said. "I really don't give a damn if you stay up all night. I'm going to bed."
Barbara flashed her another what's-wrong-with-you? look.
"Just a couple more hands, John," Barbara said. "It's been a long day for me, too."
Joanne went into the bedroom recently vacated by Ellen Feller and started to prepare for bed. She had just emerged from the shower when she heard the telephone ring. A minute later Barbara called her name.
Joanne put on her bathrobe and went into the living room in time to see John Moore walking awkwardly across the room to the couch. He picked up his cane and then went into his bedroom.
"He says he has to go out," Barbara said, and gestured toward the telephone.
"Like hell he's going out!" She pushed the door to his bedroom open.
Moore was pulling his pajama top over his head.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I've got to go to the dungeon," he said. "I'd be grateful if one of you would drive me."
"You're not going anywhere."
"Hey," he said, almost nastily, "enough of this `me Mommy and you Little Boy' bullshit. I have to go to the dungeon. They called. I'm going."
"What the hell is the dungeon?"
He didn't answer her. He found a T-shirt and pulled it over his head. After he stuck his arms in the sleeves of a shirt, he looked at her.
"The dungeon is what they call the cryptographic room. It's in the SWPOA basement. A message there has to be decoded."
"And they don't have a cryptographic officer on duty? Why do you have to go?"
Again, he didn't reply. He turned his back to her and dropped his pajama trousers. She could see the scars on his legs. He almost fell over putting his undershorts on.
When he reached for his trousers, she went to him.
"Let me help you," she said, much more fiercely than she intended. "I don't want you breaking your leg."
He sat on the bed. She dropped to her knees, picked up his pants, and worked them up his calves.
When she looked up at him, she saw him staring down the front of her bathrobe.
She flushed and angrily put her hand to the opening, closed the robe, quickly got to her feet, and turned around.
"I hope you got an eyeful!" she snapped.
She could see him in the mirror over the chest of drawers.
He pushed himself off the bed, stood up, and pulled his trousers up. He had an erection. It stood there defiantly until he had tucked his shirt in and buttoned his waistband. As he pushed himself inside his fly and zipped himself up, he said, "If you didn't want me to look, why did you come in here dressed like that?"
A wave of anger swept through her. She spun around and slapped him as hard as she could, so hard that he fell backward onto the bed.
"You bastard!" she hissed.
And then, as quickly as it came, the anger passed and she realized what she had done.
"Jesus!" he said, shaking his head.
Joanne fled the bedroom, crossed the living room without looking at Barbara, went into their bedroom, and slammed the door.
She leaned against the bedroom door, breathing heavily.
A moment later she heard him ask, "Where's the keys to the Studebaker?"
"You shouldn't be going out," Barbara said.
"Give me the damned keys!" he said.
"I'll drive you," Joanne heard Barbara say. She heard the front door close. After that, the engine started, and then the headlights swept across the window curtains.
She pushed herself off the wall and went and sat on the edge of her bed.
"It's all right, I'm awake," Joanne said when Barbara came into their room without turning on the light.
They had been gone two hours.
Barbara turned the lights on and started to get undressed.
"Is he all right?"
"I just gave him his eleven-thirty Atabrine," Barbara said.
"What was that all about?" Joanne asked. "Did you get to see the dungeon?"
"No. They wouldn't let me in there. Whatever it is, it's in the basement of the SWPOA headquarters building. But I did get to see General MacArthur."
"MacArthur? Really?"
"Yeah. In the flesh. First we went down in the basement. They made me wait outside-"
"Who made you wait?"
"A couple of sergeants with submachine guns made me wait outside a steel door. John went inside, he was in there I guess almost an hour, and then he came back out. Then we got back on the elevator, and he said, `Now you'll get a chance to see how the other half lives,' and we rode up to the seventh floor.
More sergeants with submachine guns.
"One of them said, `The Supreme Commander is expecting you, Lieutenant.'
"Really?"
"And the sergeant opened a door, and John said, Ì'll be right out,' and went in. MacArthur was standing right inside, walking around with a cup of coffee."
"And?"
"John said, `Good evening, General." And MacArthur said, `Where's Pluto?" and John said, `He had to go to Townsville, Sir,' and handed him a folder with a TOP SECRET cover sheet. MacArthur read it and grunted. Then he asked, `Has General Willoughby seen this?" and John said, `No, Sir. I just decoded it,'
and MacArthur said, Ì'll see that he gets it." And then he said, `Have I met you before, Lieutenant?" and John said, Ì was stationed here before, Sir, as a sergeant." And MacArthur said, `Yes, of course, you're the fellow they sent to Guadalcanal by mistake. I'm glad to see you're recovered."
"Recovered, in a pig's eye!" Joanne interrupted.
"You want to hear what happened or not?" Barbara asked.
"Go on."
"So then MacArthur laid his hand on John's shoulder, sort of patted him, and said, Ì'm sorry you had to come here this late at night. When did you say Pluto will be back?" and John said, `Probably tomorrow, Sir,' and MacArthur grunted and walked him to the door. `Good night, son. Thank you,' he said, and then he saw me and smiled and nodded. What do you think about that?"
"I hope you're not making it all up," Joanne said.
"Well, you can go to hell!" Barbara said. She went into the bathroom.
"I'll give him his one-thirty," Joanne called after her, then rolled on her side and stretched her arm out for the alarm clock so she could set it.
Joanne pushed open the door to John Marston Moore's room and walked to the side of his bed, using her flashlight.
"Pill time," she said. "Shield your eyes, I'm going to turn the light on."
"I'm not asleep. Turn it on." She turned the bedside table lamp on. He pushed himself up against the headboard.
"Trouble sleeping?" she asked.
She dumped two Atabrine pills from the bottle, handed them to him, and then handed him a glass of water.
"Yeah," he said after he swallowed the Atabrine.
She sat down on the bed, stuck a thermometer in his mouth, and started to take his pulse.
He smelled of soap. She remembered hearing the sound of running water half an hour after Barbara finished her shower and climbed in bed. She almost got up then to make sure he didn't fall down and hurt himself. But it occurred to her that he had been managing showers by himself with no trouble before Joanne Miller, RN, started taking a professional interest in his physical welfare. She realized he didn't need her help now.
That kept her from making a fool of herself. She did not get out of bed. She lay there, with a clear image of him in the shower. The scars on his leg. His legs. His chest. His rear end.
What he had to tuck in his pants just before she slapped him for looking down her robe at her breasts.
As a nurse, that word-for what he stuck inside his pants-meant nothing much to her. As a nurse, she used it easily, professionally. But now was something else...
`What's the matter?" she asked. "Why can't you sleep?"
/>
"You are," he mumbled around the thermometer.
"Ssssh," she said. She wondered if her face was really flushed, or whether it just felt that way.
There was nothing wrong with his heartbeat. And when she took the thermometer from his mouth, she saw that his temperature was only slightly elevated.
"Your temperature has dropped," she said.
"That's surprising," he said.
She gave him a professional smile and then looked at his eyes to see if the pupils were dilated.
That was a mistake. I didn't assess the diameter of his pupils. I fell in.
"I'd like to apologize for... before. I shouldn't have slapped you."
His hand is on my cheek. Why don't I push it away? Or get up?
"Jesus, you're beautiful!"
"You shouldn't be doing that," Joanne said. "I shouldn't let you do that."
"Look at me again," he said.
"No!"
"Look at me again!"
I knew if I did that, this would happen! Joanne thought as she felt his hands on her back, pulling her to him.
She felt her heart jump when their lips touched. And she felt a weakness in her middle. And she barely had the strength to push away from him.
"This is absolutely insane!"
"Yeah, isn't it?"
His lips were now on her neck.
"We have to stop!"
"Why?"
He's pushing my robe open!
"Barbara! She'll hear us."
He touched her nipple with his tongue, and then looked up at her and smiled.
"She's probably asleep," John said.
Oh, God, I hope she is, Joanne thought as she reached down and pushed John's head back where it had been.
[Four]
FERDINAND SIX
BUKA, SOLOMON ISLANDS
1 OCTOBER 1942
It's either hotter than usual, Sergeant Steve Koffler thought, or Ian Bruce is getting sick or something, because he's really wheezing as he pumps the pedals of the generator.
FRD6. KCY. FRD6. KCY AK. KCY CLR.
Detachment A of Special Marine Corps Detachment 14, this is the United States Pacific Fleet Radio.
Receipt of your transmission is acknowledged. Our exchange of messages is concluded.
Steve did not follow the prescribed procedure, which was to tap out FRD6 CLR before shutting down.
It was a waste of goddamned time, and Ian Bruce looked worn out.
He reached for the ON/OFF switch and then stopped.
FRD6, FRD1. FRD6,FRD1. SB CODE.
Detachment A of Special Marine Corps Detachment 14, this is Coastwatcher Radio. Stand by to receive an encoded message.
What the fuck do they want?
He glanced at Ian Bruce. Ian was looking at him, waiting for the signal to stop pumping. Steve shook his head, made a keep-it-up gesture and replied to Townsville.
FRD1,FRD6. GA.
Go ahead, Townsville.
The message was not unusually long, maybe fifteen five character blocks, but after Steve sent the usual, FRD1, FRD6. AK, Townsville came right back: FRD6, FRD1. FRD1 SB. FRD1 SB.
Townsville was standing by, waiting for an answer to their message.
Steve made a cutting motion across his throat. It would take him a couple of minutes, at least, to decode the message. Ian Bruce needed a break.
And a bath. I can smell him from here.
"Bloody hell!" Ian Bruce said.
"See if you can find Lieutenant Howard, will you?"
"Right you are." Both Lieutenant Howard and Sub-Lieutenant Reeves came into the hut before Steve finished decoding the message.
"What the hell is this?" he asked, giving the decoded message to Howard.
USE AS SIMPLE SUBSTITUTION X JULIETS NAME X ROMEOS NAME X WHAT SHE
THOUGHT HE HAD WHEN
THEY MET X NAME OF TEST X RESULT OF TEST X
18xl9xO9x37xll
15x23xO8xO9xll
OlxO2xO3xO4xO5
06xO7x23x3lxO5
"They've gone sodding bonkers," Sub-Lieutenant Reeves said, and then added an unpleasant afterthought. "You don't think this could be from our Nipponese churns, do you?" Steve shook his head.
"No," he said. "I recognized his hand."
"I know what simple substitution is," Joe Howard said, and so should you. But who the hell is Romeo?"
"It would have to be our lad, here," Reeves said. "Neither you nor I are romantically involved at the moment."
"Lay off him," Howard said.
"No offense, Steve, my lad."
"Go fuck yourself," Steve said. "What does that `what she thought he had when they met' mean?"
"I think I know," Howard said.
He dropped to the dirt floor. They had two pads of message paper left.
He picked up one of them. Holding it on his knees, he wrote:
BarbaraJosephSyphilisWassermanNegative
"My girl's name is Barbara," he said. "Mine is Joseph. I was taking my pre-commissioning physical in San Diego, and the doctor thought I was lying when I told him I'd never had VD.
He sent me to the VD ward for a Wasserman."
"I have the oddest feeling that he actually believes he knows what he's doing," Lieutenant Reeves said.
"Barbara was the nurse on duty," Joe added.
Very carefully, he wrote numbers under the letters. When he finished, it looked like this: BarbaraJosephSyphilisWassermanNegative
12345678901234567890123456789012345678
Then he recopied the numbers so there was space beneath them, and made the translation.
18x19x09x37x11
I l o v e
15x23xO8xO9xll
y a j o e
OlxO2xO3xO4xO5
b a r b a
06xO7x23x3lxO5
r a a n a
"Does that say anything?" Reeves asked.
"Yeah," Joe Howard whispered.
He wrote out two five-character blocks of numbers and handed them to Steve.
"You up?"
"No."
"I'll pump the goddamned bicycle. You get on the air and send that."
"What the hell does it say?" Reeves asked.
"What they sent says, Ì love ya, Joe Barbara,' " Steve Koffler said.
"The last three letters are fillers, to fill the five-character block.
What he's replying is none of your business." The dials came to life.
Steve's hand worked the key.
FRD1, FRD6. FRD1, FRD6.
Coastwatcher Radio, this is Ferdinand Six.
FRD6, FRD1, GA.
Ferdinand Six, go ahead.
Steve sent the reply, and then showed it to Reeves.
28x38x25x10x10
M e T o o
OlxO2xO4xl5xO5
B a b y a
Townsville came right back:
FRD6, FRD1. AK
lOx23x28x32xlO
35x38x37x38xOl
02xl2xl3x3Ox38
END
FRD1, FRD6. AK. SB.
Coastwatcher Radio, acknowledged. Standing by
"Go pump the bike," Steve said. "Let him decode this.
Maybe there's more." There was:
3OxO2x35xl3xO7
31x17x11x19x22
Steven sent the reply:
FRDI, FRD6. AK. MORE??
The reply came immediately:
FRD1. CLR.
"That's it," Steve said as he made the cutting motion across his throat.
Reeves stopped pumping.
Steve turned the radio off, stood up, and handed the last message to Howard. After that he hovered over Howard, watching him as he finished decoding the previous message.
10x23x28x32x10
S A M E S
35x38x37x38xOl
T E V E B
02xl2xl3x3Ox38
A P H N E
"What the hell does that say?"
"'Same Steve, signed Daphne,"' Howard said.
"Daphne is spelled with àD,' not àB,"' Steve said.
"There's nòB' in the substitution, Steve," Howard solid.
"What sounds closest?"
He started working on the final block of numbers and finally handed that to Steve.
"Take a look at that, Jacob," Howard said. "What do you make of it?"
30x02x35x13x07
N A T H A
31xl7xllxl9x22
N I E L W
17xl9xl9xlOx22
I L L S E
26x16x23x26x11
E P A T I
38x3lxl4xllx24
E N S E S
09xO9x3lxO2xO7
O O N A A
"Nathaniel Willseep At?" Reeves asked. "What the bloody hell is ìenses'?"
"Nathaniel will see Patience soon," Howard said.
"There's nòC' in Patience," Steve said.
"Same thing. You use what you have, in this case an `S.' The question is, who is Nathaniel? And what the hell does it mean?" They found Miss Patience Witherspoon washing Steve's spare utility trousers on a rock in the stream. Nathaniel Wallace turned out to be one of her friends when she was at the Mission School.
"Do you know where he is now?" Reeves asked.
"Yes, Sir. He was sent to Australia just before the war to enroll in King's College. Nathaniel is very intelligent. He did very well in school."
"And did Nathaniel know you were going into the bush with me?" Reeves asked very carefully.
"I sent him a note with the St. James, " Patience said. "Asking him to pray for us."
"What?" Howard asked.
"The St. James was the last ship to leave here before the Japanese came," Reeves said. "It wasn't a ship, really, more like a powered launch."
"Bingo," Howard said. "We are about to be reinforced." He'd caught himself just in time. He was about to say "relieved."
"Is that what you think?" Reeves asked.
"They must know our radio is on its last legs," Howard said.
"And that we need supplies."
"But why take the risk of letting us know someone's coming?"
"So we'll be on the lookout for parachutes, prepared to receive them."
"You think they'd do that again?"
"There's no other way."
"And the Japs know it," Reeves said. "And they're looking for parachutes. And when they break that child's code of yours, they'll really be looking."