“Lieutenant Colonel Myers here, is room service still available? Excellent.” He cupped the phone and asked her, “What would you like, my dear?” She just shook her head and looked down. Irish smiled, “I’ll order.” He uncovered the phone and said, “My good man, I’m quite hungry. Is the full menu available? Outstanding. We’ll start with caviar and a magnum of champagne. For the main course, I would like two lobsters and the Chateaubriand. Yes, with the Béarnaise sauce. We will stick with the champagne for the lobster and have a nice Valle de Cachapoal red with the Chateaubriand. Yes, yes. What kind do you have? One of each … yes, of each, and a sweet Liebfraumilch, in honor of our German friends, with desert … forty-five minutes … could you bring the caviar and champagne first? Buenos notches, señor.” Irish hung up the phone.
“Normally, I know the name of a young lady I’m about to dine with.”
She smiled. “Maria.”
“Buenos notches, Señorita Maria. Mi nombre es Jim.” He clapped his hands and said, “Now, let me give you the tour.”
He showed Maria around the large presidential suite. She stood in the doorway and stared at the incredible bathroom. She had heard luxury like this existed but didn’t believe it. Irish nudged her forward, and she walked to the white tub, trailing her fingers over the smooth marble, making Irish laugh out loud.
“Take a bath,” he said.
“Oh, no, I—” The day had restored her innocence; her virtue, even if only to her, had always remained intact. If anyone could understand, it was Irish Myers. He had been orphaned during the troubles of Northern Ireland and raised by Catholic nuns until he left to serve in WWI. He volunteered to be a pilot and survived, and now he had nearly survived all of WWII. It was not without cost; his guilt ran deep. So many friends, men he thought better than he, had died in front of his eyes. And yet, he was still here. Still living. Reaching over the tub he turned on the water and poured in some French bubble bath. He adjusted the water until the temperature was perfect, and they stood side by side watching the bubbles grow. Satisfied, he left, closing the door behind him.
Maria swirled her fingers through the bubbles. She had never in her life felt anything like it. She never dared dream such extravagance existed. She stripped and dipped a toe into the water. It was divine. She stepped in and lowered herself until the silky water caressed her entire body, its warmth enveloping her, wrapping her in an aura of luxury and a sense of security she had never experienced. Never imagined she would ever feel. A champagne cork popped in the suite, and a moment later came a soft knock at the door.
“Come in.” Maria slipped low in the bubbles until they flocked around her neck. Irish entered balancing a silver tray on which sat a bowl of caviar and two flutes of effervescing champagne. He set the tray on a small glass table next to the bath and then disappeared back into the suite. When he returned, he held a delicate candelabrum, and, turning off the electric lights as he entered, sat on a pink velvet stool next to her. Candles flickered apprehensively in her eyes, and he smiled at her trepidation. Handing her a flute of champagne, he then spooned some caviar on a cracker. She peered over the side of the tub.
“It looks like fish eggs,” she whispered.
“It is,” he answered cheerfully. Without lifting her head, she glanced up at him through damp locks as if he were teasing her. Again he laughed out loud.
“Do you trust me?” She nodded slowly. “Open your mouth.” Her eyes held his as she submitted. He gently placed a spoonful on her tongue. “Close your mouth and feel the caviar. Now sip some champagne.” The salty caviar comingled with the fizzing liquid until each minute orb erupted in her mouth, tiny explosions of taste. She closed her eyes and leaned back, shuddering slightly as she swallowed.
“Mmmm, may I have more?”
Forty minutes later Maria came out of the bathroom wearing a thick white robe. She watched Irish set the table, as a mixture of delicious aromas filled the air. He looked up, and his breath hitched in his throat. He was captivated. Her dark skin against the plain white robe, no makeup, no flash, and yet her beauty was primordial, raw, overwhelming.
Maria’s dark eyes revealed a depth that threatened to drown him; she was the essence of woman. Her presence sliced his soul wide open, and he was startled by the intensity of feeling. Pulling out her chair, Irish presented the seat with an exaggerated wave of his hand. She sat self-consciously, her back straight, almost rigid as he laid a napkin across her lap.
“Colonel Myers, I …”
“My dear, it is Jim or Irish. This is not difficult. I will show you.” She looked at him, smiling as he sat down.
“I shall call you James.”
“James!” He laughed. “Only the nuns called me James.”
“Then it is ordained.” She looked nervously at the place setting. Irish read her mind and spoke softly but with the authority of a flight instructor.
“It’s easy, a few tricks.” He served the first course, expertly breaking off the lobster tail and setting it on her plate with the claws. Maria looked at the creature and her nose involuntarily wrinkled in distress, causing Irish to laugh out loud again. “Here is secret number one: start with the outside utensil and move in.” Irish held up the lobster fork and showed her how to separate the meat from the shell by splitting it with a knife. She wielded her utensils with the determination of a new surgeon, and enjoyed every course as Irish told her about the wines and why each was served with a specific food. Then he pushed back from the table and lit a cigarette. He swirled his red wine and then sipped at it contentedly.
“See, it’s easy to be rich,” Irish retorted, and Maria laughed.
“Then why do they think they are so much better than everyone else?”
Irish didn’t hesitate with his response. “Inferiority complex.”
Maria just stared at him.
“Many wealthy, most in fact, have inherited what they have. They have accomplished nothing themselves. Usually, some ancestor made the money, and that man would have been more like you and me.”
“They should be happy, no?”
“People given everything, whether a lot or a little, rarely are. They have no stake in life. They are observers, freeloaders. Ultimately things won’t make you happy. You and your choices must do that.”
Maria looked down, suddenly ashamed. Irish looked at her, saddened that something he said had hurt her. He reached across the table, gently lifting her chin.
“Survival is never a bad choice. I have killed many men, Maria. I am not proud of it. They come to me now that I’m older; they will haunt me the rest of my days—and nights. Sometimes our only choice is to survive or not. I choose to survive. I choose life.”
She contemplated his words, swirling the red wine as he had taught her. “Do you save me because of them?”
It was his turn to fall silent. He stared at her, memorizing her face. Finally he spoke. His voice was thick with emotion as he reached out and squeezed her hand.
“I saw you in the light and thought you were an angel. You chose survival. You chose life. I merely set you free.”
CHAPTER 13
23:45 Local, 9 May, 1945 (14:45 GMT, 10MAY)
USS Suwannee, off the coast of Okinawa
A Hellcat prowled the darkness, midnight, all lights off. Inside Kid Brennan watched the crescent moon rise, and it reminded him of a book his father had read to him and his older brother years ago. They were both gone now, shot down by the Japanese early in the war. His mood darkened like the skies overhead, but he had already slaked his vengeance, and he set those thoughts aside, concentrating on his current predicament.
If his godfather, Irish Myers, hadn’t given him an instrument rating he’d be safely tucked in his rack. He’d been taught by the best and had survived so far, despite getting shot down, ditching in the ocean, and spending a hellish night waiting for rescue. He knew he’d have to use all his experience and training to survive this night.
“Vampire one; Jenks holds a bogey bearing one, two, zero. Snap
vector one, zero, zero.”
Jenks was setting up an intercept course for Kid to the bogey just as they had briefed. Kid pushed the power up on the Pratt & Whitney R-2800-10W engine, pulling his Hellcat faster toward the enemy.
“Bogey dope?” Kid asked, needing more information on the unknown aircraft.
“Single; one, two, zero for fifty miles, angels twenty.”
“Declare.”
An authoritative voice came over the radio. “Vampire, this is Red Crown, declare hostile. Weapons red and free.”
Okay, Kid thought. Concentrate. I’ve got a single aircraft bearing 120 at 20,000 feet. Red Crown declared it hostile, so it’s now a bandit. Kid armed and charged his guns. Automatically, without thinking, he jettisoned his auxiliary fuel tank.
“Damn it,” he swore to himself. “I forgot to transfer the gas out of it!”
He gently pushed the nose over to descend to 20,000 from his perch of 25,000, knowing he had just put himself in a jam. He would now be tight on fuel.
“Snap; zero, nine, zero. Bandit 40.”
Kid’s Hellcat built speed as he ran down the enemy aircraft. He trimmed the aircraft so that he could fly it with his fingertips, and slid his left hand to the APS-6 control unit and toggled from beacon to radar. He selected 65 on the rotary switch. In front of him the indicator unit glowed a ghostly green, showing the bandit as two dots. On the left it depicted azimuth, or alignment, to Kid’s aircraft. The right dot showed altitude. Kid passed the code word to Jenks to let him know he had the target on radar and needed no further radio calls.
“Vampire one, Judy.”
He was closing quickly and rotated the scale to twenty-five miles. He had the bandit level and on his nose, and as it reached the bottom of the indicator, he selected five miles on the range.
“Vampire one, V sub C high.”
Kid was reaching overload and couldn’t remember what V sub C was. The dot began to run on the screen, and he flipped the scale to one mile; it was gone. Velocity of closure! Shit, I’m about to run into the Bandit. He instantaneously pulled off hard left and jerked the throttle to idle. After settling his Hellcat, he confessed to Jenks. “Vampire clean.” He no longer had the Bandit on his scope. Not only that, the violent maneuver had tumbled his internal gyros. He now had vertigo.
“Snap vector; one, two, zero. Bandit is three miles level, speed two hundred.”
Kid went back to the five-mile scale and gently turned his aircraft to the heading as he slowed to 210 knots. Centering the target he carefully monitored his speed as he methodically drew the electronic specter to his guns. When it was near the bottom of the screen, he selected one mile.
“Judy!”
At a half mile he slowed to 205 knots and switched to gun aim mode on the auxiliary control unit, positioned over the throttle. Carefully closing until the radar return filled the reticule, Kid stabilized in a perfect gun aim position. Each wingtip touched a line of the gun aim range rings etched on the scope, meaning the Bandit was at 250 yards. Kid squeezed the trigger; four .50-caliber Browning M-2 machine guns and two 20- millimeter AN/M2 cannons ripped open the darkness. The combined muzzle flash was bright, but the retinal overload created by the exploding bandit rendered him completely blind, and he jerked the Hellcat away from the newborn nova. Uncoordinated and rough, he lost control of the aircraft and began a spiral toward the black ocean below. Realizing he could do nothing while blind but make things worse, he let go of the controls. Instead he concentrated on finding the thunderstorm lights that would bathe his cockpit in bright white light, allowing him to see again.
Fumbling around, he finally found it and turned on the lights. Bright light fed constricted eyes, and he could see the instruments. Even though his head told him he was spiraling to the left, his instruments showed right. Trust the instruments, he told himself. Kid took the controls gingerly and began to recover as he turned the lights to dim. Once level he flipped his lights back to red, and his eyes recovered rapidly. Still the only light outside of the cockpit was the flaming Bandit. He watched as it impacted the ocean, instantly smothering the flames. A transient memory flashed through his consciousness of shooting a Roman candle into the Red River as his father steadied his hand. The sudden reminiscence reinforced his mixed feelings for the Japanese crew that had just perished at his hand. By extension they had killed his father and brother in China three years earlier. Lieutenant David “Kid” Brennan had come to the Pacific for vengeance, and he had reaped it often. But everything changed after what he had seen on Okinawa.
He’d been tasked with doing a reconnaissance flight over a troop presence on the southern cliffs. But it wasn’t troops. It was women, some holding babies to their breasts, jumping to their deaths on the rocks below. What had they been told would happen to them if the Americans took the island? he often wondered. As he’d flown by, he’d locked eyes with one of the women, a mother holding her child. A mother not unlike Theresa. A child not unlike his son.
It was shocking, even in this tropical meat grinder, and his recurring nightmare started after that. It wasn’t the Japanese woman jumping; it was his Theresa, clinging to their son as she flung herself from the same cliff. I have to get my head back in the game, he told himself. A night carrier landing loomed ahead in the darkness. That was nightmare enough.
10:00 Local, 10 May, 1945 (15:00 GMT, 10MAY)
Diego De Almagro, Santiago de Chile
Ten clear strikes rang out from Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago’s bell tower. Irish rolled over and found Maria’s deep brown eyes watching him. They were filled with a sadness he could feel.
“This is a cruel fantasy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I am a woman and a whore. I cannot own property, and no man will want me.” She rolled away from him, pulled her legs up to her chest, and wept silently. Irish could feel her body shudder, and it tore at him in a way he didn’t fully understand. He eased out of bed, sliding effortlessly from between the silk sheets, and went into the living room. For a long while he stood over the telephone, staring at it, lost in deep contemplation. With resolution he seized the phone and dialed.
“Spike? Irish. I need a favor.”
01:55 Local, 10 May, 1945 (16:55 GMT, 10MAY)
USS Suwannee, off the coast of Okinawa
Kid trimmed the Hellcat hands off and dimmed the cockpit lights as much as he could. His eyes had recovered, but it was dark—a total darkness like he had never seen. An hour earlier he had watched the crescent moon set. All visual reference and his heart sank with it. There was no horizon, no up, no down. Nothing but black. And it was time to land. His only allies were his Hellcat’s flight instruments and his own skill. Kid feared he didn’t have enough of either. And he was low on gas. The gauges glowed blood red: wings, level; airspeed, 80 knots; altitude, level at 500 feet; gear and flaps down. He felt like he was clinging to the gauges by his fingernails, barely hanging on, barely able to decipher their code, barely able to determine what to do next.
“Vampire one; two miles, descend to approach altitude.”
The radio crackled to life; the voice was a gift in the dark. He had set the AN/APS-6 back to transponder mode to allow the controller to closely track him and line him up behind the Suwannee. Kid eased off a little power, set a 500-feet per minute descent on his vertical speed indicator, and started down into the abyss.
“Vampire, you are one mile.”
Kid took a peek and saw the deck lights come on; he also uncaged his internal gyro and began to get rough. He kept looking out, trying to fly his Hellcat with no reference, trying to get reference from the ship. His instrument scan broke down, and his flight control inputs became exaggerated by fear.
“Vampire is a half mile.”
His control stick moved violently as he tried to average out the inputs, and he knew he was really killing snakes in the cockpit now. The term pilots used about when they got rough, as if they were trying to club snakes with the control stick, didn’t seem
funny now. He had a full-fledged case of vertigo, too.
“One quarter mile!”
The controller’s nervous voice raised the stress level. On the port edge of the Suwannee’s deck, just past the edge or ramp, was a small LSO platform. On it stood Landing Signal Officer Lieutenant Jim “Hoffer” Hoffman, also known as Paddles. His job was to guide Kid onto the deck of the Suwannee. Also a pilot, he flew dive bombers on his off days, and he felt for Kid as only another naval aviator could.
“Kid’s losing it. Light me up.”
A Third Class Petty Officer threw a switch that lit the lights on his night LSO suit. Its arms and legs had yellow lights, and the paddles he held in his hands were orange. Hoffer held them out, forming an illuminated Roman Cross. Kid’s approach was un-salvageable, and Hoffer began to slowly wave his arms over his head. The signal was a wave-off command, a mandatory go-around. But Kid kept it coming. Hoffer walked out onto the landing area, frantically waving his arms. Inside the Hellcat, Kid recognized the signal with a jolt of cognition and immediately jammed the throttle forward. Too much! rattled through his brain, but it was also too late.
Horsepower generated by the Pratt Whitney R-2800-10W Double Wasp engine spiked as the turbo charger kicked in and instantly converted to torque through the Hamilton Standard four-bladed propeller. Its force caused the aircraft to rotate around the propeller, literally rolling Kid’s Hellcat inverted. Hoffer saw the wingtip lights slowly roll until they were reversed and off the port side.
“Easy with it!” he futilely yelled into the dark night.
Kid was in deep shit and knew it; he was much closer to death than earlier in the night. Much closer than he had ever been in this endless war. He had passed its edge, penetrating the very threshold of his demise. He’d been shot down, but with his parachute, he’d hit the water and survived. This time, there would be no chance. This time, the ocean would swallow him whole.
Code Name: Infamy (Aviator Book 4) Page 7
