* * *
The agent on the bench reading the newspaper got up and went to the bank of telephone booths on the far side of the terminal while his companion kept his eye on the entrance to the Fred Harvey’s cafe across the concourse. The first agent dialled the director’s private office number. It took him a few minutes to place the call but he was finally connected and introduced himself. ‘I’m at San Francisco Airport, sir.’
‘What of it?’
‘We’ve been following the Brit.’
‘I know that. Fleming?’
‘Yes, sir. We’ve been discreet. I don’t think he’s noticed us, sir.’
‘Why don’t you get to the point?’ said Hoover testily. ‘You followed Fleming. He’s at the airport. Presumably he’s going somewhere.’
‘I’m not sure if he’s going anywhere, sir. But he did meet with two naval personnel a little while ago. They’re in the Fred Harvey’s here.’
‘What naval personnel?’
‘A lieutenant commander and a nurse, sir.’
‘How can you tell she’s a nurse?’
‘She’s in uniform as well, sir. My sister’s a nurse so—’
‘I don’t give a shit about your sister.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You think it might be Black and that woman?’
‘We only have a few surveillance photographs, sir. It’s hard to say.’
‘If it is they’ll probably go to ground somewhere.’
‘Well, that’s what I was thinking, sir. Do we stick with Fleming or follow the other two?’
‘Split up. One of you follows Fleming, the other keeps on the two navy types.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hoover hung up without saying anything else. The agent walked back to the bench and told his partner the score.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Thursday, December 4, 1941
San Francisco
Their conversation done, Fleming caught the next United Air Lines flight out of San Francisco to Washington, D.C. and Jane Todd and Detective Inspector Morris Black caught a cab. They drove along Highway 101 North, taking the South San Francisco turnoff and entering the city on Third Street. The cab driver was young, Chinese and talkative. The taxi itself was a bright yellow Dodge. The meter was huge and ticked away like an alarm clock.
‘Come a long way?’ he asked, glancing up into the rear-view mirror.
‘Los Angeles,’ said Jane.
‘Sounds more like New York to me.’
‘Does it really matter?’ asked Black.
The driver shrugged. ‘Not to me, pal. Just trying to make conversation. Make the trip a little more interesting.’
‘Why would knowing where we come from make the trip more interesting?’ asked Jane.
‘Well, you come from New York, that’s interesting. Your friend, he sounds English. Me, I never been anywhere. Never seen anything except Chinatown.’ He let out a bubbling laughing sound. ‘That’s a joke by the way.’
‘What’s your name?’ asked Jane.
‘Chu,’ said the young man. ‘Most people call me Chewie, sometimes Chuck. I like Chuck.’
‘You don’t have any Chinese accent,’ said Black.
‘Why should I? Never been to China.’ Chuck made the laughing noise again. ‘You got any Chinky Chinamen in England, mister?’
‘A few Chinese. Mostly in Limehouse. A few in Gerrard Street.’
‘Eat Chinese food a lot?’
‘Some.’
‘Better here in San Francisco.’
‘Better on Mott Street.’ Jane laughed.
‘That in New York?’
‘Sure is. Best chop suey in the world.’
‘Know what chop suey mean in Chinese?’ asked Chuck.
‘Do tell.’
‘Nice way to say it would be “leftovers.” The literal translation is probably closer to “garbage.” When the whites in New York and here in San Francisco first started thinking that eating Chinese was exotic, the people running the restaurants needed to serve them something that wouldn’t make them sick when they found out what it was, like chicken feet or pig intestine, so they made up the whole idea of chop suey.’
‘You’ve spent some time out of Chinatown,’ said Jane.
‘Physics Department at the University of California,’ he answered proudly. ‘I work with Professor Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Jane, not understanding what on earth he was talking about.
‘Interesting stuff,’ said Chuck. ‘Going to change the world one of these days. Sooner than you think maybe.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Jane looked out the window. It had been overcast at the airport; here it was rolling, dense fog. The city was packed in cotton wool.
‘You think we’re going to be able to fly out of this?’ she asked Black.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Flying the Clipper?’ said Chuck. ‘No problem, folks. No matter what kind of fog, they can see the tops of the pylons on the Golden Gate, so that’s what they aim for. Sometimes they go over, sometimes under.’
‘How very comforting,’ muttered Black.
‘Any reason anybody be following you two?’ asked Chuck as they made their way through the city.
‘Not that I know of,’ said Black. ‘Why?’
‘Well, there’s been a cab on our tail all the way from the airport. My cousin Moe. That’s Chu Yen Mo but we just call him Moe, like one of the Three Stooges, you know.’
‘You’re sure?’ said Jane.
‘You bet. Not that I blame him, you two are quite the pair.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘The uniform’s all wrong. Cap badge has the eagle pointing left when it should be right, the cuff insignia is dark yellow, not real gold braid, and he doesn’t have a white cover on the cap. Plus I can see the cement gluing his moustache on.’
‘What about me?’ said Jane.
‘Hair’s brown but you’ve got blue eyes and the hair on your arms is a lot lighter. Shows up against your tan and you didn’t get that in New York.’
‘Smart boy.’
‘You good guys or bad guys?’ asked Chuck.
‘Depends on how you look at it,’ Jane answered, glancing at Black. ‘Yesterday we stole an FBI car and held one of their agents at gunpoint. All in a good cause.’
‘Well, hell then,’ said Chuck. ‘Let’s lose him.’
‘How?’
‘Watch.’
They were on Mission at Sixteenth Street. Chuck found a hole in traffic and made a screaming turn left on Sixteenth, narrowly missing a big International Harvester open-sided Coca-Cola truck that sent crates of soda spilling off onto the street, covering the asphalt with a foaming tidal wave of crates, soda and broken glass. Their physicist driver put the taxi into a bootlegger’s turn and jammed on the brakes. Suddenly they were facing in the opposite direction and found themselves nose to nose with the other cab. Chuck jumped out of the car and his cousin leapt out of his cab. Behind them the Coca-Cola delivery man was staring at his ruined load as it ran off in thick rivulets towards the storm sewers.
The two young Chinese men stood together in the middle of the street, blocking traffic and screaming at each other, shaking their fists in each other’s face. This went on for half a minute and then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Chuck came trotting back to the cab, climbed in and gunned the engine. A few moments later they’d turned off onto a narrow side street. Jane looked back through the rear windshield. There was no sign of the other taxi.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ she said.
‘Only way to talk to him up close, tell him the situation,’ Chuck answered.
‘Sounded like you were screaming at him,’ said Black.
‘I was.’ Chuck grinned. ‘You speak Chinese loud enough everyone thinks you’re fighting.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him to take his passenger for a ride. A long one.’
‘You give him a reason?’ Jane asked.
‘Don’t need one,’ said Chuck with a laugh. ‘I’m Moe’s cousin. His passenger’s a gwai lo, no offence.’
‘Gwai lo?’ Jane asked.
‘Round eye,’ Black responded.
‘Hey!’ said Chuck. ‘Pretty good for a white man!’
They reached the bridge approaches at Fifth and Bryant and Chuck handed the quarter toll to the uniformed man in the booth. They reached the ramp, slipped into the traffic stream and headed out over the suspension bridge that crossed half the bay.
A few minutes later, after an uneventful, foggy trip, Chuck took the exit ramp off the bridge just before the road dipped down into the tunnel under Yerba Buena Island. He drove around the perimeter of the Naval Reservation to the causeway connecting Yerba Buena to the artificially created Treasure Island, recently home to the Golden Gate International Exposition, which had run in tandem with the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Half the buildings had already been demolished and the place had a run-down, almost desperate feeling to it, especially wreathed as it was in shroud-like rags of fog.
‘Doesn’t make the future look too bright, does it?’ said Jane as they made their way through the old walkways and thoroughfares of the ghostly site.
‘You think there’s going to be a war?’ asked Chuck, easing off on his speed as he drove across the exposition site.
‘There already is a war,’ said Black, ice in his voice. ‘You’re just not fighting it yet.’
‘Yeah, there’s going to be a war, Chuck. Our own war.’
‘Well, I’m ready,’ said the Chinese taxi driver. He let out his strange laugh again. ‘So is Professor Lawrence, if what I hear is true.’
The taxi turned in between two hangar-like buildings and Jane and Black caught their first glimpse of the Honolulu Clipper moored to a long concrete pier. He pulled up beside half a dozen other Yellow Cabs and helped his passengers fetch their bags from the trunk.
The Clipper was bigger than the Sunderland Black had flown in – the wingspan a full 152 feet across with a fuselage 106 feet long. It was the largest aeroplane ever made in the United States and one of the three largest in the world. It could carry seventy passengers on daylight flights or forty on overnight flights with sleeping berths.
A pair of stewards in white jackets were waiting on the pier beside a wide, floating gangway that led up at a slight angle to the hatchway door. One of the stewards took their bags and went nimbly up the gangway while the other man checked their tickets.
‘We’ll be taking off soon,’ said the steward on the pier. ‘You can go aboard any time you like.’
‘Thank you.’ Black turned to pay off the cab driver but Jane had already taken care of it.
‘Goodbye, you two,’ said the young man. ‘Wish I was going with you.’
‘If you only knew, my lad,’ Black muttered. But he managed a wave as well. Letting Jane lead the way, he went up the gangway, ducking his head as he went inside.
The interior of the big aeroplane was surprisingly roomy and well lit. There was a small entrance vestibule with a set of metal stairs leading up to the flight compartment and the bridge, with a large hatchway to the left leading into several passenger compartments that ran the length of the aircraft. The fabric-covered walls were a pale cream colour, the carpeted floors were a dark green and most of the seating was in deep ‘Pan American Blue’ decorated with a pattern of stars.
They made their way down a short corridor with the galley on their left and the men’s room on their right, went through another open hatchway and found themselves in the first of several passenger compartments fitted out with very modern-looking aluminium-framed chairs and writing desks.
There were three small windows on either side of each compartment covered over with Venetian blinds, and like the train compartment they’d briefly shared on the Super Chief, the ashtrays were mounted on the bulkheads in several convenient positions. There was a Pullman-style berth that pulled down from the outer bulkhead and a second berth beneath it created by a removable section that combined with the lower bulkhead seats.
As they made their way through the first two compartments looking for their seats, both Jane Todd and Morris Black noted that the passengers seemed to be almost evenly divided between uniformed naval personnel and people who were clearly going on a holiday excursion. The naval men, all petty officers, sat together talking quietly while the others seemed to be in a much more festive mood, consulting brochures, looking out the windows and chatting happily. The noncoms saluted Black as he went by and Black stiffly saluted them in return, hoping he was doing it correctly.
They passed through the dining lounge, which was divided up into a number of both large and small booth-style dining areas with a central aisle to provide easy access from the galley, and then stepped into the third passenger compartment, which was already almost full.
Their seats were on the port side and looked out on the foggy bay rather than the steel and concrete pilings that surrounded the artificial island. Directly across from them on the other side of the compartment two men sat facing each other. Both were dressed in dark blue suits, appeared to be in their early thirties and had briefcases on their laps. They were neither naval-looking nor festive. Jane wondered if they were more FBI. Doubtful, unless they’d booked onto the flight for some other reason than the pursuit of Jane Todd and Morris Black.
Suddenly, one at a time, the massive 1,500-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines began to turn and fire, the giant propellers whirling, dissipating the fog that lay around the mooring and the pier. Even with the sound of the engines steadily beginning to increase, Jane could hear someone yelling instructions and then they began to edge away from the pier in a slow arc to the left. As they moved, the engines took on a deep-throated tone and a few moments later they headed around the lee side of the man-made island and motored into the much choppier waters of San Francisco Bay.
Spray started to splatter against the windows, and the hull of the aircraft began to rock back and forth slightly, like a ship at sea. Jane took a quick look at their friends on the opposite side of the compartment but if they were feeling any fear they weren’t showing it. Both men could have been cut from stone.
The tone of the engines became more strident and the beat of the water against the hull became a little more violent. The sounds from the other compartments began to die off, followed by complete silence throughout the aircraft except for the faint rattle of crockery coming from the forward galley.
Even if the day had been clear and bright, the lashings of spray against the windows would have made the view impenetrable. Jane noticed that Black’s fingers were gripping the armrests of his chair so tightly his knuckles had gone white and then she noticed that she was doing exactly the same thing.
She hadn’t done a lot of flying in her life but it was comforting to know that if you were going to spend twenty hours in the air over the largest ocean in the world, at least you were doing it in an aeroplane that was built like a boat. On the other hand, how far could an aeroplane as big as a house glide before it dropped out of the sky like a rock?
She blanked the thought out of her mind and then, with a sudden freeing lurch, they were airborne. The spray was torn away from the windows and the fog broke on the bay just in time for her to see the bleak pile of rock that was Alcatraz and then they were climbing even farther upward, the bright, newly painted towers of the Golden Gate Bridge passing under their wings and the deep blue emptiness of the Pacific Ocean ahead of them.
Jane felt the tension go out of her fingers and watched as Black loosened his own hands.
‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘I could almost do that all over again.’
‘It was exciting, wasn’t it?’ said Black dryly. ‘The last time I did something like that it was pitch dark and the bloody aeroplane didn’t have any windows.’
A faint musical note pinged on the public-address system, as though someone had struck a tria
ngle, and then the steward announced that those who smoked could now do so and that coffee was being served in the dining lounge if anyone was interested. Jane and Black immediately lit up, climbed out of their seats and headed forward.
As they passed, Jane checked their two fellow travellers again. Neither one was smoking and neither seemed to show any inclination to get up and go to the dining lounge. They remained exactly where they were, dull-eyed and expressionless, the blinds shut over the windows beside them.
Jane and Black went through the open hatchway and stepped into the dining lounge. People were beginning to filter into the nicely decorated room from both fore and aft but they managed to find a small table and a pair of seats in the corner.
‘What do you think of our two stony friends?’ Jane asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Black answered. ‘They certainly don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the passengers.’
‘You think they’re following us?’
‘Possible,’ said Black as the steward appeared to take their order. ‘But there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it now, is there?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Then,’ said Black, smiling, ‘I propose that we forget about everything we’ve been thinking about for the moment and simply enjoy the ride.’ The steward took their order for coffee and whatever pastry was on hand and turned to the next table. ‘Honolulu holiday.’ Black grinned. ‘Sounds like one of those idiotic short subjects they show at the cinema in the dead of winter. If only I could send postcards to all my old friends at the Yard.’
Chapter Thirty
Friday, December 5, 1941
Oahu, Territory of Hawaii
At eight thirty a.m. Hawaiian time, the Pan American Airways Honolulu Clipper reached landfall, coming in on its approach directly over the northern tip of the island at Kahuku Point, gathering a few appreciative waves from early riser golf fanatics playing through the eighth hole at the Kahuku Public Golf Course.
The House of Special Purpose Page 29
