The First Wave

by James R Benn

  "Harry, what are you doing here?"

  "I heard you were causing trouble, and came to see you. Major

  Harding asked me to stay and stand guard with him. I was going stark raving mad sitting in a hospital bed, so this seemed a nice alternative."

  "How's the leg?"

  "This little scratch? Just a through and through, as we say."

  I was glad to have Harry as a friend. I was glad they were all here, and I thought about nights back in Boston when Dad and Uncle Dan had something going and the house would fill with cops, all watching out for each other. It felt good to be part of something that brought men like these together. Part of it was suffering; I knew that much from Harry and Kaz, and I think Harding too. It was the possibility of death that made men look each other in the eye, grip shoulders, give a nod that said Yes, I will risk everything for you. Harry had that look in his eyes, and I returned it.

  Harding opened the door and asked an orderly to bring in a pot of coffee and four cups. Daylight began to fill the room, so he turned out the lamp. Then he cranked up Kaz's bed so Kaz was sitting up. His face was scratched and bruised, and he looked incredibly thin in the hospital pajamas. I wondered how much strain and abuse his body could take. I wondered the same about mine. Then Kaz opened his eyes.

  "Billy! So glad to see you." He looked around for his glasses and Harding picked them up from the nightstand, handing them to Kaz. Almost tenderly.

  "Same here, buddy" I sat up too and let my feet hang off the side of the bed. It wasn't too bad. I had on the same hospital pajamas as Kaz, and that reminded me: his clothes.

  "Kaz, the notebook is gone," I said.

  "Major Harding has already asked some of the orderlies to go through the discarded clothing. They should find my jacket there."

  "No, you don't understand. It wasn't in your pocket. I searched for it while you were still wearing your jacket."

  There was silence in the room, and Kaz and Harding both looked at me, uncomprehending. The door opened and an orderly entered, a tray with a pot of coffee and cups in his hands.

  "Here you go, Major." He set it down on the table and left.

  "Okay, Boyle, tell me what you know." Harding handed me a cup of black coffee. I took a sip.

  "I'll start with a question. Did you tell Gloria Morgan where our quarters were located, the day we left here with Kaz?"

  "Why?" Harding's eyes narrowed and he didn't look happy. I knew he didn't like me poking around his personal life, or even knowing he had one.

  "Just before we left, you and she were talking outside the entrance to the hospital. Did you tell her where we were headed?"

  "Boyle, she knows we're attached to HQ at the Hotel St. George."

  "Yes, but not everyone attached to HQ is quartered there." I saw the effect that had on Harding. It was the same thing that happened to me when Diana had brought it up. How could I have been so stupid?

  "Yes, I told her. I said perhaps I could take her to dinner there one night."

  "What made you mention where we were quartered?"

  He looked away from me.

  "She asked."

  "Yesterday I saw a nurse wheel Kaz into the Post-Op room. He'd just been given an overdose of morphine. I think that nurse was Gloria Morgan."

  "Yes," said Kaz, in open-mouthed amazement. "It was Miss Morgan who took care of me. She gave me a shot for the pain…"

  "And didn't mark it on your chart. Then stashed you away in a room where no one would notice. In the confusion, your death would've been chalked up to an undiagnosed brain injury. No autopsy, no questions, no notebook."

  "But why…" Harding asked, letting the question hang there. "Why?"

  "Her motive? I have no idea. But it does tell us something."

  "What?" asked Kaz.

  "She had a reason for stealing the notebook and trying to get rid of you. You said the code was virtually unbreakable without knowing what book they were using."

  "Dictionary code?" asked Harding.

  "A variation, quite complex," Kaz said, nodding. "Yes, it makes sense. The key book is here, otherwise why would she want the notebook?"

  "Excuse me, but what are you two talking about?" Harry asked.

  "It's a long story, but coded messages have been sent between Blackpool, England, and Algiers, using neutral merchant ships. The code is based on duplicate copies of a certain book, and if you don't know which book, then the code is totally secure."

  "So by stealing the codebook, she tipped you off that the book is here," Harry said.

  "Yeah. It was the most dangerous situation she could imagine. Both the book and the codebook, with coded messages, in the same place. That's why she killed Jerome, and tried to kill us. Casselli was murdered because he got cold feet, or was too honest for this business."

  "What!" Harding slammed his coffee cup down, sending a splash of hot coffee up and onto his hand. He shook it off. "Explain yourself, Boyle!"

  "I thought it was Walton, since he had the means and opportunity. Proximity to the Bessette crime family in Blackpool, direct involvement with medical supplies, access to the only telephone in the area so he could inform the shooter when we left him. But when I saw that Gloria had wheeled Kaz into that room to die, I remembered that you and she were talking that day. She knew what route we would have to take, too, and was in a position to make a call from Walton's office. It would have been completely normal for her to be in there."

  "Anybody could've made that call, Boyle," Harding said. "And what about accusing her of killing Jerome? What grounds do you have for that?"

  "Harry's grandmother," I said.

  "What?" all three of them exclaimed at the same time.

  "It came to me when I realized Gloria had given Kaz an overdose. Harry told me how his grandmother hated hospitals and needles. When she was dying, her doctor gave her morphine in a liqueur. Alcohol actually increases the effect of the morphine."

  "So?" demanded Harding.

  "Just before Jerome died, I came into his room and Gloria and he were drinking Crème de Menthe. The perfect liqueur to mask any taste, and liquid morphine is pretty tasteless to start with."

  "But you said they were both drinking it," Harding said.

  "Kaz, how do you feel right now?"

  "My head hurts, but otherwise fine. A little tired, perhaps."

  "There you go, sir. She could give herself an injection of nalorphine as soon as she was alone, and she's all set. She was just off duty, so it would have been normal for her to go to her room and rest."

  "Could she simply go to the hospital pharmacy and sign out an injection of nalorphine? They just don't hand out drugs, even to head nurses!"

  "Sorry, sir, but nalorphine was on the list of drugs stolen when Sergeant Casselli was killed." That did it. Harding slumped in his chair. "I should have known," he said.

  "You couldn't have known, sir," I said. "There's no way…"

  "No," he said in a low, strangled voice, "no. I mean I should have known she wasn't really interested in me. She wasn't back in the States, either, not really. But I-"

  "You loved her," said Kaz quietly. The room was silent. Harding let out a breath that sounded like it had been held since he hit the beach.

  "Yes. All these years. I thought I was the luckiest man in the world to see her again, here, of all places."

  "We should go to Colonel Walton as soon as possible, Major, and tell him."

  But Harding didn't move. He stared out the window at the rising sun, getting used to the idea of being in love with a murderess. He reached for a cigarette and held it between his fingers, rolling it back and forth. I could hear the white paper crinkle against the tobacco. Nobody said a word.

  Two hours later we filed into Walton's office. Since Kaz and I both had bandages on our heads, we looked like a parade of walking wounded after a battle. By contrast, Harding stood ramrod straight, with no expression on his face except the one the army issued him. Inside, I knew he was banged up worse than Kaz and
I put together. Harry stood guard outside in the hallway, one hand on a cane and the other resting on his holstered automatic. Walton and Gloria were already in the office, seated at the conference table-or poker table-depending on what your priorities were.

  "Good morning, gentlemen. Don't you two look a sight! Baron, you've recovered from your accident?" Either she didn't know why we were here or she was one hell of an actress. She flashed a smile at Harding. He nodded back, curdy. A look of surprise flashed across her face. Now she was on guard.

  "Lieutenant Kazimierz," Walton said, stumbling a little over the Polish name, "I want to apologize on behalf of the 21st General Hospital. It was chaos here yesterday, our first major influx of wounded, and we were hit from multiple directions. But that's no excuse for putting a patient in jeopardy."

  Harding ignored Walton and looked straight at Gloria. "We know everything," he said. I had to admire his self-control. He could've called HQ and had someone else confront her. He didn't.

  "Well, that's great!" Gloria said. "Do tell us all about it." She looked at Harding expectantly.

  "We know about your connections to Jules Bessette in Blackpool. Scotland Yard has questioned him and he's told them everything. We know about the letters, the code, how he set you up with his brother here in Algiers, and about how you tipped them off about the penicillin."

  "Me? You're talking about me?" Gloria put her hand to her breast as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was the picture of innocence. She was quite convincing. So was Harding as he lied about Scodand Yard. That was good.

  "We know about Jerome. We know how you were hunting for the codebook. We know about the Crème de Menthe and the morphine. We know you had Casselli killed when he wouldn't play along with you, and that you took the receipt for the orders concerning the second shipment of penicillin from him."

  "Sam, what are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke?" Now she turned on the charm, looking back and forth between Walton and Harding, eyelids fluttering, then looked as if she were about to cry. Walton seemed stunned.

  "We know about you and Villard."

  Now I was stunned. Harding made this accusation with conviction. I guessed there was something in their past that caused him to make that leap. This time Gloria was silent. Harding kept on speaking, never taking his eyes from Gloria, tapping the table with his index finger as he made each point.

  "We know you tried to kill Lieutenant Kazimierz in order to get the notebook from him, and to eliminate him in case he knew anything that might endanger you. He will testify that you gave him an injection, and there are witnesses. I have men searching your quarters now. We'll search the entire hospital if we have to, and we'll find the code book. We know that's here too. And the nalorphine, and your private supply of morphine. It's all here. We know everything," he added, that last sentence as a quiet afterthought, the only evidence in anything he said of his pain.

  "If somebody has done all these terrible things, they could also have framed me, have you considered that?" Gloria tilted her head.

  "We know you used this telephone to call Bessette or Villard and arrange to have us ambushed as we drove back to the hotel."

  "If you know everything, what more do you need from me, Sam? Do you enjoy seeing me suffer?"

  "I want to know why," Harding said.

  She laughed. "You know everything, and nothing." She folded her arms. Not exactly a confession, but not a protestation of innocence either. It was awkward.

  There was nothing for me to say, so I glanced around the room. I looked at Walton's books. All the Army manuals, medical texts… and one empty space.

  "Where's your Gray's Anatomy?" I asked Walton, my eyes on Gloria. She flinched.

  "What the hell does that matter?" Walton growled. Then he surveyed his shelves. "Damned if I know. People borrow my books all the time."

  I looked at Gloria. What would she need to decode now? What was in the notebook that she didn't already know? Then I knew. Light dawns on Marblehead, as my dad used to say, whenever he figured out something that should have been obvious from the start.

  "Captain Morgan," I said, as calmly as I could "What was it? Bank accounts?"

  Everyone in the room looked at me, quizzically.

  "Let me guess. Swiss bank accounts. You weren't just after a split of the take from drug thefts, no matter how valuable the penicillin was. You were after that notebook for yourself. You were going to double-cross the Bessettes. With Villard? Or were you double-dealing him, too?"

  She said nothing. No more sweet Southern murmurs, no more innocent fluttering eyelashes.

  "Captain Morgan," Harding stated, in his official voice, "you will shortly be arraigned for a General Court-Martial on a number of offenses, including murder, attempted murder, larceny, embezzlement, and a host of lesser charges. You will be lucky not to be executed, as these crimes occurred in wartime."

  "Why are you telling me this, Sam?"

  "Tell us why. Why did you do it? Cooperate. Please." Begging her to explain cost Harding. It revealed his agony.

  "Oh, you poor dear man," Gloria said, laughing. "What, will you promise only to shoot me with one bullet instead of ten? You could learn a lot from Billy, Sam. He's more intelligent than he looks."

  I felt sympathy for Harding, and even a little for Gloria, but she was a cold-blooded killer who had confessed her guilt. She had been playing everyone, probably even Villard, and there was no way she was going to beg for mercy now. She had counted on making a big haul, and if she couldn't have that she wasn't going to settle for a little pity from Harding.

  The noise in my head returned, a low buzzing sound. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if it would go away, but it got louder and louder. I tried to ignore it, but then I noticed everyone else was looking out the windows. The door flew open and Harry burst in.

  "Air raid. Get to the shelters!"

  There was a rush to the door. Harding took Gloria's hand. I fell in behind them. I expected her to twist away, to reject him or even to try to escape. She didn't. But she looked scared. Maybe she needed a little tenderness. Maybe Harding wanted something from her other than contempt. I don't know. What I wanted was a well-built air raid shelter over my head.

  The slit trenches were still there, but there were improved shelters as well. Sloping walkways had been dug into the ground, with entrances covered by wood beams layered with sandbags. Some of them were pretty large, and nurses were guiding the patients who could walk into them. I knew there were plenty of nurses, doctors, and patients left inside, and I prayed the Luftwaffe wouldn't aim at the hospital. At the same time I wished the army would move the goddamn supply dump next to us a good ten miles down the road.

  We made our way down into a smaller shelter. We had to duck going in, and the ceiling was low inside as well. I couldn't stand up straight, so like most everybody else I squatted and listened to the insectlike buzzing get nearer and nearer.

  "Where's the bloody RAF?" Harry asked no one in particular.

  There was a faraway sound of bombs, explosions that sounded like fireworks. It lasted a full minute, the buzzing coming ever closer. I heard the rhythmic, slow, pumping sound of a 40mm anti-aircraft battery, not too far away. I glanced at Harding. He was crouched by the side of the door, still holding Gloria's hand. A jailer or a lover?

  The anti-aircraft batteries around the supply dump opened up, and the noise level increased, until we couldn't hear the planes anymore, which didn't matter since the anti-aircraft fire meant they were coming our way. Gloria took her hand away from Harding and lowered her head, covering her ears tightly. Harding put his right arm around her.

  As smooth as silk, she made her move. She lowered her left hand, as if she was going to take his again, but it kept going, down to his leather holster. She unsnapped it, pulled out the big.45 automatic, flipped the safety off and raised it to Harding's head.

  "Get back. No one move or I'll kill him!" she screamed loud enough to be heard over the anti-aircraft fir
e and the thudding of bombs that had started to shake the ground. Clumps of dirt shook loose from the sides of the shelter as if someone was just outside hitting it with a sledgehammer.

  "Gloria, don't, there's no where you can go," Harding pleaded with her. She backed toward the entrance.

  "You're right, Sam. Nowhere. You've got me right where you want me. But I'm not playing by your rules. If I can't have it all I'm not going to rot in a stockade waiting for the firing squad."

  "Gloria-" Harding began, moving closer to her. She pulled the hammer back and held the automatic, squarely aimed at his forehead.

  "I'd hate to do it," she said, "but I will. Back off."

  Harding eased back. She unbuttoned two buttons of her fatigues and reached inside her shirt. Hidden within the bulky men's uniform was the notebook.

  "You're a smart young man, Billy. Here's your reward. Five million dollars, maybe more. Waiting in Switzerland." She tossed the notebook to the ground and backed out of the shelter. Another load of bombs hit nearby and I could feel the vibrations shake the ground. Harding followed Gloria to the entrance. She fired once, striking the ground in front of him. Then she was gone.

  Harding started after her. I grabbed him by the shoulder, to prevent him from jumping out of the shelter.

  "You can't go out there, Major!"

  "Let go of me, Boyle!"

  He turned and swung at me, hitting me on the jaw hard enough to loosen my grip. He scrambled up the walkway and I followed. The enemy aircraft were almost on top of us. I pulled him down. We both crouched as low as we could as tracers lit up the sky and the chatter of machine guns joined in, small puffs from the 40mm guns exploding above us. Straight into this hell flew five, no, six formations of four bombers each. I could hear other bombs going off farther away, and guessed this was only a part of the main raid. Heinkel 111s again, their spade-shaped wings beginning to become visible.

  Gloria ran right toward them, as close to the supply dump as she could get. She was about a hundred yards away, all alone above ground. She turned once, gazed in our direction, and dropped the pistol, then calmly walked forward as she raised her arms, palms outstretched. I kept both my hands on Harding, as we watched, transfixed, from the dugout entrance. The drone of the engines mixed with the anti-aircraft fire until sound enveloped us and felt like it would crush our eardrums. We could see the bomb bay doors open, as if in acknowledgment of Gloria's gesture. The lead plane dropped its load and then the others followed, the bombs wobbling in the air for a hesitant second, then gaining speed and becoming blurs that exploded inside the supply dump, throwing up flames, black smoke and crashing thunder that crept toward Gloria, her honey brown hair blown back by their force. The concussion from the blasts staggered her, thrusting her back a step. A final stick of bombs walked their way toward her, the last of them exploding where she stood, eruptions of fire, smoke, and debris covering everything. She was gone. But on her own terms.