Stevens did not respond to that.
“Another high priority is getting our hands on a German jet engine. Depending on how things work out when we send him back into North Africa for Torch, Eric Fulmar will probably be involved with that. It may be necessary to send him into Germany. But in any event, when Torch is over, it is planned to send him to Switzerland. There is even an idea—which I consider pretty far-fetched—to steal a jet aircraft.”
“Have we got anybody who knows how to fly one?”
“No,” Stevens said. “And from the information we have, the jets don’t have sufficient range to make it out of Germany. But since Colonel Donovan hasn’t rejected the idea out of hand, you can see the priority he places on getting concrete information on the jet fighters.”
“Are you thinking of using me to steal one of these airplanes?” Canidy asked.
Jesus Christ, I hope not!
“As you don’t know how to fly one,” Stevens said, “I think that’s probably not in the works. But on the other hand, we’re in an unlikely business. There is one aviation operation in which you will be involved, however. You and Whittaker. The Germans have built submarine pens at Saint-Nazaire that are apparently bombproof. The Navy has come up with an idea. I’m told the idea actually came from a young lieutenant named Kennedy?”
Thinking he was being asked if he knew him, Canidy shook his head. “I don’t know him, I don’t think,” he said.
“No reason that you should,” Stevens said. “But I thought you might recognize the name. I know him. And what he wants to do is turn worn-out B-17s into radio-controlled flying bombs. The aircraft would be loaded with explosives, and then flown directly into the submarine pens.”
“Can that be done?” Canidy asked incredulously.
“Taking out the submarine pens is of such importance—we simply can’t accept the damage the submarines are doing to the Atlantic supply line—that the Joint Chiefs have given them authority to have at least a shot at it. We have been directed to support them as far as we can. You’re an aeronautical engineer—”
“Who has never even been in a B-17,” Canidy interrupted.
“And Jim Whittaker is an explosives expert,” Stevens went on. “I’ve arranged for the British to demonstrate an explosive of theirs, something called Torpex, to our experts. One of those experts should be Jim Whittaker. I think you should be the other one. Go talk to Kennedy, at least.”
“A lieutenant is running this?” Canidy asked.
“Not only is Lieutenant Kennedy a very bright young man,” Stevens said, “but his father owns the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, just about controls the import of Scotch whiskey into the United States, and was the ambassador to the Court of Saint James.”
“Almost as well-connected as Jimmy, in other words,” Canidy said dryly.
“I think that ran through Colonel Donovan’s mind when he suggested we involve Captain Whittaker in the flying-bomb project,” Stevens said dryly.
Then he looked at his watch. “Hadn’t you better start heading back to Whitby House?”
“I sort of hoped I could stick around here until we hear something more about Fine,” Canidy said.
“Sure,” Stevens said. “Stay right here, if you like. As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
4
WHITBY HOUSE
KENT, ENGLAND
2100 HOURS
AUGUST 17, 1942
As he pulled the heavy tarpaulin from the trunk of the Ford and dragged it in place over the car, Captain James M. B. Whittaker wondered if he was being subtly punished by Major Richard Canidy.
There was no reason Canidy couldn’t have driven the Ford himself into London, but he had insisted that Whittaker drive him. And there was no reason Whittaker could not have stayed in London, but Canidy had insisted the risk of leaving the stolen car (despite new numbers painted on the hood and a valid trip ticket) in London overnight was too great to take.
So he wound up, in the car he had stolen for his own convenience, playing chauffeur to Canidy and being sent back to Whitby House like any other chauffeur.
Canidy could be subtle at times, and this was probably one of those times.
When he walked into Whitby House, the officer of the guard told him that Lieutenant Jamison had gone to the movie they were showing. The movie started at 2000 hours, so there was no point in walking down there just to see the end of it. If Jamison had gone to the movies, the duchess had probably gone with him.
With Canidy gone, he could have at least tried to have a shot at the duchess, even though he knew Canidy was dead serious when he told him the duchess was off-limits. As Whittaker made his way up the wide staircase to his apartment—the one that was once the duchess’s—he was forced to conclude that the world was often cruel to kind, gentle, and all-around worthy people like himself.
When he got to the apartment, he felt he was entitled, by way of solace, to a drink or two of the Scotch Canidy had had the foresight to steal from the cabinet in the library of the house on Q Street. If he didn’t drink it now, he thought, it would be all gone. And technically, it was his anyway.
He went into the ducal chambers, found the Scotch, poured a glassful, and carried the glass back into the apartment. There he carefully poured two inches of it into a second glass, added water, and sat down in a high-backed chair. He was sipping it when there was a loud and almost vulgar gurgling sound. He looked around the suite in surprise and for the first time saw there was a crack of light under the door to the bathroom.
The duchess is shamelessly taking advantage of the American hot water, he thought. Naughty. And she is not at the movies with Jamison.
Elizabeth, Duchess Stanfield, came into the room several minutes later. She was wearing a thick terry-cloth robe, and her hair was wrapped in a towel.
“I’d hoped to be done before you returned,” she said.
“No apologies required,” he said. “My bathtub is your bathtub, as they say in ol’ Meh-hi-co.”
She smiled at him. “That was a quick trip,” she said.
“Our leader elected to stay in London,” Whittaker said.
“And you didn’t?” she teased.
“Oh, he was on business,” Whittaker said. “And I guess he—”
“What?”
“There’s a mission on. I think he wanted to stick close to London to get word on it. A couple of pals of ours are involved.”
“I see,” she said. “Waiting is difficult, isn’t it?”
“Can I offer you a little belt of this?” he asked. “Guaranteed to cure what ails you and to take the hair off your chest.”
Now, that was a goddamned dumb thing to say.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Genuine Scotch whiskey,” he said
“Yes, I think I would,” she said. “I feel a bit down, myself.”
She has forgiven me. Watch the mouth from here on in.
“Me, too,” he said. “They say that misery loves company.”
He made her a drink. She surprised him by saying she would take it neat.
“This is very nice,” she said.
“Reimported from the United States by our leader,” he said.
“Will he be angry when he finds it gone?”
“Probably,” Whittaker said. “Why do you ask? Has he been jumping on you again?”
“Oh no,” she said, and then laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Two people speaking the same language differently again,” she said. “The vernacular is different. I would not use that slang, if you don’t mind the suggestion, in mixed English company.”
“Jumping is screwing in English English?” he asked.
“Why did I bring this subject up?”
Why indeed?
“In Australia it’s ‘rooting,’” Whittaker offered.
“Did you have a nice ride to and from London?” she asked, diverting the conversation to what she obviously hoped was a sexless sub
ject.
“Lovely,” he said. “Why are you down? Is there anything I can do?”
“You’ve done it,” she said, raising the whiskey glass.
“That’s not an answer,” he said.
“I took advantage of everyone’s absence to wander through the house,” she said. “I’m afraid it was a mistake. It made me miss my husband.”
Well, there goes the ball game.
“Where’s he stationed?” “Where’s he stationed?”
“My husband is down,” she said. “He was flying a Wellington. It went down over Hanover. There were some parachutes, but there’s been no word.”
“Jesus,” Whittaker said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about that.”
Her eyes met his for a moment, then she looked away.
“Could you possibly spare some more of that?” she asked. She could not let things stand like that, she decided. It would be unfair.
“Of course,” he said, and poured Scotch in her glass. “When that’s gone, I’ll go steal some more.”
“Why are you down?” she asked.
“The standard reason, I suppose: unrequited love.”
“That’s strange,” she said. “I thought you would be one of these people who believe that not to worry, if you lose one woman, another will be along shortly, like a tram.”
“After a while, Your Grace, one becomes rather bored with trams,” he said, in a credible, mock British accent.
She laughed.
“Then this is a serious relationship that’s gone awry?” she said.
“It hasn’t gone awry, because I have never been able to get this particular tram on the tracks.”
“Have you told her?”
“She knows.”
“Oh.”
“Were you ever infatuated, as a girl, with a boy? I mean when you were ten, or twelve? And the boy was a couple of years older?”
“Of course,” she said. “This girl thinks she is too young for you?”
“The reverse. I was the ten-year-old hopelessly in love with a thirteen-year-old girl.”
“And she thought—still thinks—she’s too old for you?”
“That’s part of it, I think,” he said. “She can’t forget the bony-kneed little boy with braces on his teeth and suppurating acne.”
She chuckled.
“You don’t have acne now,” she said.
You’re a damned good-looking young man, as a matter of fact.
“I was sitting here developing a theory that she’s been burned by love.”
“All women are burned by love at one time or another,” she said. “It passes with time.”
“I think she was really in love with this guy,” Whittaker said. “Which makes sense, considering the guy. And the girl.”
“You know him?”
“Very well,” Whittaker said. “He died.”
“And she’s mourning over him?”
“Some people have said that this guy and I are—were—very much alike. Theory two thousand and two holds that she is rejecting me because I am so much like the other guy. That she was really hurt when he kicked the bucket and is afraid of getting involved again and getting hurt again.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” she said. “You want my advice?”
“Why not?”
“She’ll probably come to her senses,” she said. “Sooner or later. Are you willing to wait?”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t have any choice in the matter.”
“Then wait,” she said. “It may not take as long as you think it will.”
“And, in the meantime, you don’t happen to know when the next tram will be along, do you? To tide me over?”
Whittaker saw her face change.
You did it again, Motormouth! Jesus, what’s wrong with you?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“No offense taken,” she said. “I knew what you meant.”
“I’m about to have another of these,” Whittaker said, raising his glass. “How about you?”
“I won’t even say I shouldn’t,” she said, drained her glass, and handed it to him.
He reached for the bottle of Scotch.
“Have you ever wondered why there are two apartments?” she asked. “Why I lived here, and my husband in a separate apartment?”
The question confused him, and when he turned to look at her, it showed on his face.
“I suppose that goes back a long time,” he said.
“The purpose of marriage between the nobility is to ensure the line, to buttress alliances,” she said. “That sort of thing.”
“I’m about to misinterpret this whole conversation,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You already have misinterpreted this conversation, with that sweet, hopeless look on your face when I told you Edward is listed as missing.”
“You said you missed him,” Whittaker said.
“As indeed I do,” she said. “He’s a fine, amusing, decent human being, and I pray he’s all right.”
“But?”
“We were married because it was expected of us,” she said. “One does what one is expected to do. And avoids what one is expected to avoid, which includes doing anything that would cause talk. In other words, I had to be Caesar’s wife while I was assigned to the War Office.”
He looked at her in surprise. He saw in her eyes that he had not misunderstood her meaning.
“This isn’t the War Office,” Whittaker said.
“And we are alone in the house,” she said. “I was thinking that perhaps we both have been waiting for the same tram.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Whittaker said.
She licked her lips nervously. “I shock you, don’t I?” she asked. She stood up. “Would you rather I leave?”
“No,” he said, a tone of excitement in his voice. “For Christ’s sake, you can’t leave now.”
She nodded her head.
Carrying her fresh drink, he went to her and handed it to her. She took a sip and then set the glass on the table beside her chair.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she said. “But I just realized I have been hoping that something like this would happen from the moment I saw you looking at my breasts.”
“In the kitchen, you mean?” he asked.
She nodded.
She put her hand to his face.
“You looked so hungry,” she said. “So love-starved. I know the feeling.”
She took her hand from his cheek, caught his hand with hers, and directed it to the cord of her robe.
He tugged on it, and it came loose. He lowered his head and took her nipple in his mouth.
She held him there for a moment, then shrugged out of the robe and let it fall to the floor.
She stepped away from him and, looking into his eyes, pulled the towel off her head and shook her hair. Then she turned and walked naked to the canopied bed, threw the cover off, and slipped under the sheets.
“If Canidy finds out about this,” he said, “both our asses will be in a crack.”
“Then,” the Duchess of Stanfield said, “we shall have to be careful that he doesn’t find out, shan’t we?”
He went to the three doors to the apartment and carefully locked them. Then he walked toward the bed, shrugging out of his clothes.
He was later glad that he had locked them, for at ten minutes after four, several minutes after the duchess had woken up feeling frisky and had wakened him in what he thought was a delightfully wicked way, Lieutenant Jamison attempted entry without knocking.
“Whittaker!” Jamison called impatiently. “Open the damned door!”
Whittaker tried to open the door just wide enough to see what the sonofabitch wanted, but Jamison pushed his way inside, looked in genuine surprise at the duchess, and thereafter pretended she was invisible.
“Colonel Stevens was just on the horn,” he said. “You’re to come to the hangar at Croydon as soon as you can
get there.”
“He say why?”
“No,” he said. “But he said bring a change of clothes, and either come by jeep or bring somebody along to drive the Ford back here.”
“Go take the tarpaulin off,” the duchess of Stanfield said. “I can drive the Ford.”
Then she got out of bed and trotted regally, stark naked, across the room to retrieve her bathrobe from where she had dropped it on the floor.
PART TWELVE
1
CROYDON AIRFIELD
LONDON, ENGLAND
0515 HOURS
AUGUST 19, 1942
They had a bit of trouble, as it turned out, gaining entrance to the field itself. The red-hatted soldiers of His Majesty’s Military Police, who guarded it, had been ordered to be on the lookout for a stolen American Ford staff car meeting the description of the one they were driving.
The MP officer of the guard, however, backed down before the icy indignation of Captain the Duchess Stanfield, WRAC, who was driving the car. Her Grace was incensed that anyone could imagine for a moment that she could possibly be found in the company of a car thief. And they were passed on to the field.
The C-46 was out of the hangar, and a snub-nosed English fuel truck was parked beside it. Its hose led to the auxiliary fuel tanks inside the fuselage. Canidy was standing in the aircraft door watching the proceedings. When he saw the Ford drive up, he came down the ladder.
“What’s going on?” Whittaker asked.
“I hate to say this, but the duchess doesn’t have the need to know,” Canidy said.
“The War Office and the OSS agreed that any actions taken with regard to Admiral de Verbey would be a joint decision,” the duchess said.
“So file an official complaint,” Canidy said, and took Whittaker by the arm and led him inside the hangar.
“The captain,” he said to the guards loud enough for the duchess to hear him, “is not authorized to enter the hangar.”
Inside, Whittaker saw Colonel Stevens standing expectantly beside a telephone. Next to him, a cigarette dangling from his lips, was the London chief of station.
“Are they down?” Whittaker asked. That could be the only explanation for their summons in the middle of the night to Croydon. Something had happened to Fine’s airplane, and the backup was needed.
The Secret Warriors Page 33
