W E B Griffin - Men at War 4 - The Fighting Agents

by The Fighting Agents(Lit)

  But that was several steps away. What had to be done now was to let the guerrillas know, and to keep the Japanese from learning, that Whittaker and his team were coming ashore--and where, and when.

  Solving that problem had nothing to do with the esoterics of radio-wave propagation in the twenty-meter band.

  Joe Garvey had been sending a short message twice, and then listening for a response, and then sending twice again, and then listening again:

  KFH FOR WYZB

  FOR GENERAL FERTIG

  RELAY WRISTWATCH

  QUOTE POLO COMING FOR NORTH PUERTO RI CAM COCKTAILS TODAY

  ACKNOWLEDGE KFH BY

  The message, Captain Jim Whittaker had explained, would be delivered to Master Sergeant George Withers, whom he had left on Bataan, and who was now with Fertig on Mindanao.

  "Wristwatch" made reference to the watch Whittaker had taken from his wrist and given to Withers just before he had left him.

  "Polo" was simple. Jim Whittaker had been a polo player, and was known by that nickname.

  Whittaker was sure that Withers and Fertig would understand that "cocktails" meant "at the cocktail hour." Whether they interpreted that to mean five p.m." or any hour up to eight or nine, didn't matter. If they were on the beach where Polo was coming at the cocktail hour, they would wait until the last hope he was coming was gone.

  The tricky part of the message was "Puerto Rican cocktails." Whittaker said he was banking on Whithers being initially baffled by that, saying aloud to find a meaning.

  Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico?

  "Word association, Skipper," Whittaker had said.

  "What's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think "Puerto Rico'?"

  "Rum," Commander Lennox said immediately.

  "Think geographically," Whittaker said.

  "San Juan, I guess," Lennox had said.

  "But I knew about San Juan."

  It was Whittaker's intention to go ashore north of the small city of San Juan on the eastern shore of Mindanao at six, just before darkness fell.

  "They will be thinking geographically," Whittaker said firmly.

  "They'll get it, all right. The message isn't what's bothering me."

  "Something is bothering you?" Lennox asked sarcastically.

  "I can't imagine what that would be."

  "Well, for one thing, we don't seem to be getting any reply," Whittaker said dryly, "which could mean that either Garvey's radio isn't working; or that Fertig's radio isn't working; or that Fertig's people just aren't listening; or if you insist on taking counsel of your fears, that they have been killed or captured by the Japanese."

  "And what if they have been, Jim?

  "Lennox asked, very seriously.

  "What are you going to do if you can't raise them on the radio? Try again tomorrow?"

  "I've thought about that," Whittaker said, now as serious as Lennox.

  "Garvey tells me that the signal he is sending is strong enough to be picked up all over the island. That means that other Americans, or at least Filipinos friendly to him, have heard the message and will get it to him. And so, of course, have the Japanese. I don't want to give the Japanese any more time to play word association than I already have. I want to go ashore at six tonight."

  Lennox nodded.

  It was, he realized, the first order Whittaker had given him that was not open to suggestion or argument.

  "I think I'm going to go up to the bridge," he said, then added without thinking about it, "if you don't need me?"

  "No, go ahead," Whittaker said absently.

  Commander Lennox had just reached the ladder to the conning tower when the Klaxon sounded and the speaker's voice came over the loudspeakers:

  "Japanese aircraft ninety degrees three miles! Dive! Dive!"

  [FOUR]

  Drop Zone Aspirin near Pecs, Hungary

  It. Hank Darmstadter walked down the slanting floor of the C-47 to where Canidy knelt, with his ear to the chest of It. Commander John Dolan, USNR.

  "Is he dead? "he asked softly.

  Canidy straightened, still on his knees, and nodded.

  "What the hell were you thinking of, sitting down?" Canidy asked.

  "He had an attack just before we landed at Cairo from Vis," Darmstadter said, and then answered Canidy's question: "I couldn't kick the equipment bags out myself."

  Two of the parachutists appeared at the door of the aircraft. They had stripped out of their black coveralls and except for the carbines they held in their hands looked like civilians.

  "Jesus!" one of them said when he saw Dolan.

  Canidy got off his knees and looked around the cabin for something to put over Dolan's body. He saw nothing.

  "Give them the equipment bags," Canidy said to Darmstadter, then turned to the team.

  "Take them into the woods. I don't suppose there's an ax in there?"

  "Whole fucking kit of engineer tools. Even a power saw," one of them replied as Darmstadter lowered one of the long, padded bags onto his shoulders.

  "And C-2?" Canidy asked.

  "Hundred pounds of C-2, in two-pound blocks," the parachutist said as he headed for the cover of the pine forest, staggering under the weight.

  The second parachutist took a bag as the other two members of the team trotted up.

  "The lieutenant's in pain," he said.

  "Pretty bad. Should we give him morphine?"

  "Not yet," Canidy said.

  The parachutist gave Canidy a dirty look.

  "Christ, he hurts! They never should have made him make this fucking jump!"

  "He's not dead," Canidy said.

  "We'll be, if we don't get this airplane out of here before it's spotted."

  Then he looked at Darmstadter.

  "You can get it out of here?"

  "No problem," Darmstadter said immediately, confidently.

  A wild thought popped into Canidy's mind, and he asked the question:

  "Loaded?"

  "With what?"

  "People. The team. Three others."

  "Yeah," Darmstadter said, and then anticipated the next question: "I've got about two hours' fuel aboard. If I can find Vis, that gives me a thirty-minute reserve."

  "What do you mean, if you can find it?"

  Darmstadter pointed out the door. Canidy looked. It had begun to snow:

  large, soft-looking flakes.

  "Dolan was navigating by reference to the ground," Darmstadter said.

  "Roads and railroads. I won't be able to see the ground. And I'm not sure I can find Vis just using a compass."

  "That kind of snow won't last long," Canidy said reassuringly.

  ... fine, he thought angrily, that fucking snow is just what we don't need!

  And then he realized that exactly the opposite was true. The snow was just what he did need. It would obscure the tracks the landing gear had made on the meadow. And, if he was right, and it left just a dusting of fresh snow atop the inch or two on the ground, it wouldn't interfere with a takeoff.

  "Start it up," he ordered.

  "I'm going to find a place to hide this big sonofabitch."

  As he ran into the center of the meadow, looking for a break in the trees, someplace where the C-47 could be taxied to, he wondered whether his decision to use the Gooney Bird to get out of here was based on sound military reason (Darmstadter couldn't find Vis--he could; it was an available asset and should be used) or whether he subconsciously saw it as a lifeboat with himself as a drowning sailor, and was irrationally refusing to let it go, as drowning sailors will fight to get into an already loaded lifeboat, not caring that their weight will swamp it.

  He snapped out of that by telling himself the decision had been made and there was no going back on it now.

  He found no place to hide the airplane, now sitting where it had stopped with engines idling and Darmstadter looking out the window, waiting for instructions.

  Canidy ran back to it and signaled Darmstadter to turn i
t around, then guided him to the edge of the forest, stopping him only when the nose was in the trees and the propeller on the right engine was spinning two feet from a thick pine trunk.

  Three of the team members were watching him. He wondered if they were simply curious or had already decided he was crazy.

  "You said there was a power saw," he said.

  "Get it. Cover as much of this thing as you can with the largest boughs you can."

  "Why don't you just blow it?" one of them, the one who was so concerned about Janos being in pain, said.

  "You already got one fire."

  "Everybody gets one question," Canidy said.

  "That was yours. I don't want to hear another. The answer to your question is we're going to get out of here on that Gooney Bird."

  "You'll never get that off the ground in that short a distance," the parachutist said.

  "That was an opinion," Canidy said icily.

  "You get one, only, of those, too.

  The next time I want to see your mouth open is when I ask you a question."

  The parachutist glared at him but said nothing.

  "Get going!" Canidy said.

  "I want the snow to cover the boughs."

  "There's an auxiliary fuel system," Darmstadter said.

  "A fifty-five-gallon barrel connected to the main tanks. You want me to try to get it out?"

  "That and anything else heavy we don't absolutely need."

  "You're not talking about Commander Dolan?" Darmstadter flared.

  "No," Canidy said.

  "We'll take Dolan with us."

  The Countess's housekeeper appeared in the main room of the lodge when Canidy, Alois, and Freddy Janos, white-faced, his arms around their shoulders, walked into it.

  She put a balled fist to her mouth. Canidy could not tell whether she was manifesting sympathy or fear.

  "Major," Janos said, embarrassed, "I think I'm going to pass out."

  "I'm going to give you something for pain just as soon as I get you in bed."

  Canidy said.

  "Tell him to tell her to keep her mouth shut."

  They half carried Janos to the bed in which Canidy had slept and laid him flat on it. Canidy, as gently as he could, cut the boot from his leg, then pulled a coarsely woven cotton sock--Hungarian, rather than GI wool-cushion-soled-from it. Somewhere in Janos's gear was a pair of Hungarian shoes that the plan called for him to put on once he was on the ground. The notion that jump boots might protect his ankle hadn't worked.

  The ankle was blue and swollen, but there didn't seem to be any bones threatening to break through the skin.

  Canidy opened a flat metal can, sealed with tape, and took a morphine syringe from it. He pushed Janos's trouser leg up as far as he could and shoved the needle into his calf. It would take a little longer for the morphine to take effect that way, but it would be less painful for Janos than moving his body around to get at his upper arm or buttock.

  "That'll take a minute or two," Canidy said.

  "I'll be back."

  "I'm getting sick to my stomach,"Janos said.

  "Tell him," Canidy said, nodding at Alois.

  "He'll get you something to throw up in."

  Then he went looking for the Countess and von HeurtenMitnitz.

  It was not necessary under the circumstances, he decided, to bother knocking on doors and politely "waiting for permission to enter.

  He found them behind the third door he opened, nearly hidden under a goose-down comforter.

  "Good morning," he said.

  Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz suddenly erupted from under the comforter, reaching for his Walther pistol as his eyes swept around the room.

  The movement took the comforter off both of them. They were both naked.

  The Countess, as Canidy had thought she might be, was a baroque work of art. His Excellency was a white-skinned, skinny man, from whose chest sprouted no more than a dozen long black hairs.

  "What's all this?" von Heurten-Mitnitz demanded in outrage as he put the pistol down and pulled the comforter over himself and the Countess.

  "The team is here," Canidy said.

  "I presume you mean Ferniany," von Heurten-Mitnitz said, "No, I mean the team," Canidy said.

  "They were dropped about thirty minutes ago. I think you ought to get dressed and get out of here right away."

  I have just decided, Canidy realized, that I am not going to tell them about the Gooney Bird.

  "Did everything go all right? "the Countess Batthyany asked.

  "One of them has a broken ankle," Canidy said.

  "I brought him here."

  "Where did you put him?" she asked.

  "In my bed," Canidy said.

  The Countess slid out from under the comforter, modestly turned her back to Canidy, and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. She found shoes, worked her feet into them, and, brushing her magnificent mop of red hair off her face, walked out of the room.

  Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz got out the other side of the bed and started to dress. Naked, Canidy thought, and in his underwear--a sleeveless undershirt and baggy drawers, plus stockings held up by rubber suspenders on his skinny calves--von Heurten-Mitnitz was not at all impressive.

  "We have one dead man, too," Canidy said.

  "What happened?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

  "Natural causes," Canidy said.

  "A heart attack."

  Von Heurten-Mitnitz didn't seem at all surprised by that announcement, which surprised Canidy.

  "What are you going to do with the body?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

  "Or the man with the injured... leg, you said?"

  "Ankle," Canidy said.

  "I haven't made up my mind yet. The first priority, I think, is for you and the Countess to get back to Budapest."

  "I think you're right," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

  Canidy returned to his room.

  "You landed the airplane," the Countess greeted him, looking up from the bed, where she was prodding and pulling on the ankle of the now unconscious Janos.

  Alois had apparently told her, and she would now certainly tell von HeurtenMitnitz.

  "Yes," Canidy said.

  "I will remain here while Herr von Heurten-Mitnitz returns to Budapest," she said.

  "It would be better, if I were here when... if... the authorities come."

  "I think it would be better if you went to Budapest," Canidy said.

  "Just as soon as you can."

  She ignored him.

  "I have sent for rubber bandage," she said.

  "I'm sure there's some here. I think about all we can do for this man is to wrap the ankle tightly, then stiffen the ankle. You take my meaning?"

  "Splint it," Canidy said, nodding.

  "Thank you."

  Alois came into the room with von Heurten-Mitnitz on his heels.

  "Their airplane landed," the Countess said.

  Von Heurten-Mitnitz looked at Canidy, surprised.

  "Intact?" he asked.

  "Yes," Canidy said.

  "And you plan to use it to leave?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

  Canidy nodded.

  "If we can."

  "I think it would be best if you took Beatrice with you," von HeurtenMitnitz said.

  "No," the Countess said.

  "I am staying here to do what I can while you go to Budapest. But I am not leaving with them."

  "I don't see any way that what has happened here can be hidden," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

  "Then you leave, too," the Countess said.

  "There is a good chance that no one knows about either the drop or the plane landing," Canidy said.

  "I think that is highly unlikely," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

  "You and the Countess slept through two passes and the landing itself," Canidy said.

  Von Heurten-Mitnitz grunted, reluctantly granting the point.