“Sir, Lieutenant János reporting as directed, Sir.”
Lt. Colonel Edmund T. Stevens returned the salute.
“Stand at ease, Lieutenant,” he said.
János was surprised to see the good-looking blond WAC lieutenant in the room. He wondered why. The story about her (which had quickly circulated through Whitbey House) was that she would work for Jamison, taking care of the women.
“How’s your ankle, János? Straight answer, please,” Stevens said.
“With the boot on, sir,” János said, “no problem.”
"How far do you think you could walk on it?” Stevens asked.
“As far as I have to,” János said.
“An overestimate of capability is dangerous, János,” Colonel Stevens said.
“Yes, Sir,” János said.
“A mission of the very highest priority has come up,” Stevens said. “You have already expressed your willingness to participate in a mission involving great personal risk in enemy-occupied territory. You were also made aware that if you were captured, you would be treated not as a prisoner of war but as a spy. I ask you here and now if you still wish to volunteer for such a mission?”
“Yes, Sir,” János said.
“From this point, Lieutenant,” Stevens said, “this conversation is classified Top Secret. Divulging what I am about to tell you to anyone, or discussing it with anyone not now present in this room, will constitute a general court-martial offense. Do you fully understand that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“The mission is to free certain people from confinement in the hands of civil authorities in Hungary. I am now going to pose a question to you that I want you to think over very carefully before replying,” Stevens went on. “If the mission goes sour, or if the mission cannot be accomplished within a set time frame, you will be required to eliminate, by which I mean kill, or cause to have killed, the people presently imprisoned. Now, are you willing to accept the mission, knowing that may be necessary?”
János hesitated, but not for long.
“Yes, Sir,” he said. He became aware that the good-looking blond WAC was looking at him. More than looking at him, he realized—evaluating him and doing that very coldly.
“You believe you would be able to . . . and this is the only phrase that fits the situation . . . kill in cold blood the people presently imprisoned. And possibly a substantial number of others who can only be accurately described as ‘innocent bystanders’?”
“You’re not going to tell me what this is all about?”
“Just please answer my question,” Stevens said.
“With your assurance that it’s a military necessity, Sir,” János said.
Stevens nodded.
“Charity?” he asked.
“Even, Freddy,” Charity Hoche asked, “if the people who had to be eliminated were known to you? Even if you had met them here?”
“Holy Mother of God,” János blurted, and then found control again. “With the same caveat as before, that Colonel Stevens assures me this is militarily necessary.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes?” Stevens called impatiently.
“Colonel Douglass is on the phone for Lieutenant Hoche, Sir,” a male voice said.
“I guess I better take it,” Charity said after a moment’s thought. “He probably just got his orders and wonders what they’re all about.”
She walked out of the office.
“That was the important question,” Colonel Stevens said. “But there is another important question. For reasons I cannot go into, it is impossible for us to send Lieutenant Shawup on this mission. But the team that he commands will make it. There will be a certain resentment on their part toward you. Can you handle it?”
“Yes, Sir,” János said without hesitation.
“They will resent—after having received promises to the contrary—not being under Shawup’s leadership. And they will resent being told . . . they will not be asked, they will be told . . . that elimination of the people being held may be necessary. They will resent that, too.”
“They’ll do what I tell them to do,” János said confidently.
“You sound very sure of yourself,” Stevens said.
“Look at me, Colonel,” János said. “As big as I am, wouldn’t you hate to make me mad?”
Stevens’s face went blank for a moment, and then he chuckled.
“Yes, I guess I would,” he said.
He leaned over the desk and offered János his hand.
“I have every confidence that you can handle this, Lieutenant János,” he said. “Good luck!”
3
FERSFIELD ARMY AIR CORPS STATION BEDFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND 1200 HOURS 18 FEBRUARY 1943
When the P-38 flashed over them, Lieutenant Commander Edwin W. Bitter, USN, Captain Stanley S. Fine, USAAC, and Lieutenant j.g. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., USNR, were sitting on folding wooden chairs outside the Quonset hut that served officially as the orderly room of the 402nd Composite Squadron and secretly as the headquarters for Operation Aphrodite.
They were taking the sun. There was precious little sun in England in February, and when it did pop out, everyone who could take the time tried to get out in it.
“I have been told by everybody from Bill Donovan to that ferocious WAC captain in David Bruce’s office that asking questions is like farting in the Sistine Chapel,” Kennedy said, “but I would still dearly like to know where the hell you are taking my brand-new airplane.”
“Come on, Joe,” Commander Bitter said, a mild reproof.
“Yours not to reason why, Lieutenant,” Fine said, smiling at him, “yours but to take yon fighter jockey aloft and see how much you can teach him in an hour or two about driving the B-17.”
He gestured in the direction of the P-38, which the pilot had stood on its wing to line it up with the main Fersfield runway.
“I am also just a little curious why that is necessary,” Kennedy said, “since here sit Commander Bitter and myself, both fully qualified B-17 pilots, and in my case at least, an extraordinary ‘Look Ma, No Copilot’ 17 chauffeur. ”
Bitter and Fine laughed.
“Your country, Lieutenant,” Fine said, “is saving you for more important things.”
“You aren’t going to tell me, are you, you sonofabitch?” Kennedy said.
“I can’t, Joe,” Fine said seriously.
They stood up to watch the P-38 land. It came in hot, in a crab, lining up with the runway at the last moment before touching down.
“If yon fighter jockey tries that in a 17,” Kennedy said dryly, “we will have one more to park over there.”
He pointed to the “graveyard” where remnants of more than two dozen crashed and shot-up B-17s were scattered around.
“Without any whistling-in-the-dark self-confidence,” Kennedy went on, “what are our chances of getting that 17 back?”
“That will depend on how much you can teach Doug,” Fine said.
A Follow Me jeep had driven out to the taxiway to meet the P-38. Fine started to walk toward the revetment in which it would be parked, and Bitter and Kennedy followed him.
“I think I’ll go along in the 17,” Bitter said. “Maybe I could help Joe.”
“No,” Fine said, politely enough, but there was no mistaking it was an order. “We want to keep you around to fly the other new one.”
They reached the revetment as the P-38 taxied up to it.
A ground crewman made a throat-cutting signal with his hand, and the engines died. A ground crewman laid a ladder against the cockpit, and Lt. Colonel Peter Douglass, Jr., climbed down it.
He was wearing a pink Ike jacket, matching trousers, a battered, oil-spotted, fur-felt brimmed cap with the crown stiffener removed on the back of his head, half Wellington boots, and a parachute-silk scarf in the open collar of a gabardine shirt.
He is absolutely, totally, out of uniform, Fine mused. And then he corrected himself. No, that is the uniform prescr
ibed by fighter pilots for themselves. And there is no question that Doug is one hell of a fighter pilot. There were Japanese meatballs and German swastikas painted in three neat rows on the cockpit nose, plus a submarine.
And something brand new. Douglass had named his airplane “Charity.”
“Where the hell is my brass band?” Douglass asked, wrapping his arm around Commander Bitter’s shoulders and (because he knew it annoyed Bitter immensely) kissing him wetly on the temple.
Fine and Kennedy smiled.
“Who’s Charity?” Kennedy asked.
“As in ‘Faith, Hope and,’ ” Douglass said. “if I don’t get a band, how about lunch? I’m starved.”
“You’re going flying with Lieutenant Kennedy,” Fine said. “You can have lunch when you come back.”
“Where am I going flying with you, Kennedy?” Douglass asked.
“Up and down, up and down,” Kennedy smiled. “Fine wants me to teach you to line an airplane up with the runway while you’re still in the air.”
“Only bomber pilots have to do that,” Douglass said. “It’s because their reflexes are so slow. You’re serious about this, aren’t you? Before I have lunch?”
“If you’re a good boy, I’ll have a surprise for you when you get back,” Fine said.
“I already talked to her,” Douglass said, “which raises the question of Rank Hath Its Privileges.”
“How?” Fine asked.
“A senior officer such as myself,” Douglass said, “cannot be expected to share a room with low-grade underlings such as you guys. Do I make my point?”
“Oh, I think Commander Bitter will be happy to accommodate you, Colonel, Sir,” Kennedy said, chuckling. “He already has had the troops spiffing up the transient female quarters. You’ll notice the smile of anticipation on his face.”
“Doug,” Bitter said very seriously, changing the subject, “if you really want something to eat, I’ll have some sandwiches prepared and get them to the aircraft.”
“Shame on you, Lieutenant Kennedy,” Douglass said, “you are embarrassing the commander.”
For a moment, looking at Bitter, Fine was afraid the situation was going to get out of hand, but with a visible effort, Bitter finally managed a smile.
Douglass looked at his watch.
“The girls are due here at two-fifteen,” he said. “That gives you just about two hours to teach me all you know, Kennedy. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Douglass and Kennedy flew for nearly two hours before landing a final time and taxiing the B-17F back to the 402nd Composite Squadron area. As they stood by the aircraft with the crew chief, giving him a list of things to check to prepare the plane for flight, a small convoy rolled past the B-17 graveyard and stopped before the Quonset hut.
The convoy consisted of an Austin Princess limousine, a Packard limousine, and a three-quarter-ton Dodge weapons-carrier. The Packard and the Austin Princess were driven by sergeants of the WRAC, and the canvas-bodied Dodge by a U.S. Army sergeant.
Lt. Colonel Ed Stevens and Lt. Charity Hoche got out of the Princess, and five men in olive-drab U.S. Army uniforms got out of the Packard.
“Let that be a lesson to you, Lieutenant Kennedy,” Douglass said, “ ‘Virtue is its own reward.’ If you had allowed me to land this aerial barge when I wanted to, I wouldn’t have had to stand around panting until just now.”
“One gathers that the Colonel would be panting over the blond lieutenant?” Kennedy asked. “Who the hell is she, anyway?”
“A senior officer such as myself,” Douglass said, “does not of course discuss either ladies or his personal affairs with a junior officer. But I will say this, Kennedy. If it were to come to my attention that anyone—say, a lowly reserve swabby officer—paid any but official attention to a certain WAC officer while I am off saving the world for democracy, I would feed him his balls.”
“That’s Charity,” Kennedy said.
“That’s Charity,” Douglass confirmed possessively.
“I hate to tell you this, Colonel,” Kennedy said. “But the lady doesn’t seem prone to throw herself in your arms.”
“That’s because she doesn’t want to make you feel jealous, ” Douglass said.
They smiled at each other.
“Thanks for the lessons,” Douglass said. “How did a fair-to-middling airplane driver like you wind up flying aerial barges?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Kennedy said. “And just for the hell of it, Colonel, if that were a check ride, you would have passed it.”
They smiled at each other again.
"Let’s go see if we can make Bitter blush again,” Douglass said.
4
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY 0350 HOURS 19 FEBRUARY 1943
Canidy didn’t see the policeman with his hand held up until he was almost on him.
He had been too busy watching the road in front of him. It had been a long time since he had ridden a bicycle, and while it was true, he had found out, that once you learned how, you never forgot, it was also true that pedaling a bicycle required muscles he hadn’t used in a long time. Even moving as slowly as they had been riding, his calves and upper thighs were heavy with exhaustion.
And the road was covered with frozen slush, which caught the wheel of the bicycle when it rode in one of the ruts. He had taken four spills, and one of them was a bad one, throwing him heavily on his right shoulder and bruising his right knee.
There was no chance to stop before he got to the policeman, although he made a valiant effort. And, he saw, there was no place to run either, no corner to duck around. The policeman had appeared from nowhere because he had been inside a small, wooden guard shack almost hidden by the buttresses of the Árpád Bridge. There was nothing ahead but the bridge itself, and if the policeman couldn’t run him down on foot, which seemed likely, then he would have no trouble shooting at him.
The policeman got out of his way, as Canidy locked the hand brakes and skidded to a stop on the icy slush, the bike slipping out from under him.
He heard Ferniany laugh behind him as Canidy fell to his knees.
And then the policeman said something. Canidy had no idea what he said, but he thought there was a tone of laughter in it.
Canidy got to his feet, picked up the bicycle, and walked to where the policeman was now examining Ferniany’s identity documents. Canidy rested the bicycle against his leg, reached inside his ragged shepherd’s coat for his papers, and held them ready in his hand until the policeman was ready to take them.
He looked toward the far end of the bridge. He could not tell if there was another policeman in another hidden shack at the far end. Probably not. The Árpád Bridge crossed a branch of the Danube between Pest and Margit Island. The Margit Bridge crossed the other branch of the Danube to Buda. If there was another guard shack, it would be on the Margit Bridge, not at the end of this one.
If it became necessary to kill this policeman—by breaking his neck or cutting his throat—it would still be possible to continue across the Danube here.
The policeman handed Ferniany’s papers back and turned to Canidy. He was shaking his head. He said something. Canidy had no idea what it was, but he shrugged.
The policeman took his papers. Canidy saw Ferniany take his garrote from his pocket.
The policeman returned Canidy’s papers with what could have been a courteous bow. Then he turned Canidy around and unfastened the straps of the rucksack Canidy had on his back. He came out with a small cheese and a small sausage.
Canidy gestured that he was welcome to it. The policeman smiled and then politely fastened the straps on the rucksack. Then he went to Ferniany’s bicycle and began to unfasten the straps holding a limp rucksack over the fender. Canidy put his hands up his sleeves, hoping it looked as if he were trying to warm his hands. He jerked the strap around the hilt of his Baby Fairbairn free and tested to see if he could quickly get it out of its sheath. It was a dagger that had been developed by Captain Bruce Fairbairn of the Shangha
i Municipal Police. The “Baby” was the smaller of two versions and was used when concealment was desirable.
Fulmar and Whittaker had given him a quick course in assassination. Neither of them liked the garrote. (“What if the wire gets hung on a button or something?” Fulmar had calmly argued. “Or if he gets his fingers under the wire before you can bury it in his neck? Put your hand over his mouth and stick him behind the ear. As soon as you scramble his brains, you can let him go. It takes a hell of a long time to strangle somebody.”)
Whittaker’s preferred technique of assassination was throat-cutting. (“Once you cut into the throat, all they can do is gargle,” Whittaker had said. “I don’t trust the ittybitty point on the Fairbairn, especially the little one. You hit a bone or something, and it breaks, and there you are with your hand over the mouth of some highly pissed-off character you can’t put down.”)
Canidy had decided the Fairbairn was best, because it was far more concealable than a throat-cutting knife, and because Jimmy Whittaker had somewhat reluctantly conceded that there was a lot of blood when you cut some-one’s throat and very little when you scrambled his brains.
Canidy felt bile in his throat at the prospect that he might now have to put theory into practice, but it did not become necessary. The policeman helped himself to a tub of butter from Ferniany’s rucksack and waved them on.
They rode to the end of the bridge and then crossed Margit Island. He could see what looked to him like an amusement park closed for the winter: small wooden shacks in a line; an oblong building that could have concealed a dodgem ride; a larger round building that almost certainly contained a merry-go-round.
There was no policeman at the Buda end of the Margit Bridge.
Two blocks into Buda, the cobblestone street became too steep and too slippery to pedal the bicycles, and they got off and pushed. And for some reason, here the slush had begun to melt (Canidy wondered about this and decided they were over a tunnel of some kind, maybe a sewer, that gave off enough heat to melt the frozen slush). So his feet, in rough leather work shoes and thick cotton socks, quickly became wet and then even colder than they had been.
The Fighting Agents Page 32
