In Danger's Path (54 page)

“A job involving a submarine and a Catalina rendezvousing at sea?” Galloway asked.

“Where did you hear that, Charley?” Lieutenant Lewis asked.

“At the O Club bar at Ewa,” Charley said.

“Tell me exactly, Charley,” Lewis said softly.

There was something in Lewis's voice that told Galloway he had touched a nerve. He shrugged and provided the detail. “A Catalina sat down with radio trouble. He couldn't talk to the tower at Pearl, so he landed at Ewa because there's less traffic. And then Big Steve told him we couldn't fix the radios until the next day. So he went to the club, had a couple of drinks, and told everybody, including me, what a lousy day he had had. First he had to take off before zero dark hundred and fly out over the ocean. Then he landed and met a submarine, and after fucking—excuse me, Flo—fiddling around for an hour or so, which included one of his Airedales falling off the wing into the sea, the morons on the submarine—one of them an admiral's aide and the other a Marine major—finally realized what he could have told them all along, that you have a hell of a lot of trouble running a half-inch fuel line across the high seas from a submarine to a Catalina.”

“Oh, shit,” Jake Dillon said.

“I'll have his ass,” Lewis said furiously. “Excuse me, Flo.”

Commander Kocharski made a gesture with her hand showing the apology was readily accepted.

“I don't want to get that pilot in trouble,” Galloway said.

“He was told what we were doing was secret and to keep his mouth shut. He's in trouble and he deserves to be,” Lewis said coldly. “Damn it!”

“I don't know what anybody's talking about,” Chief McGuire complained.

“You're not supposed to, Pete,” Commander Kocharski said. “That's what ‘classified' means. We don't have the Need To Know.”

Major Dillon and Lieutenant Lewis exchanged another look, this one a lot longer than the first.

“My decision, Lieutenant Lewis,” Jake said formally. “In case anyone asks.”

“For the record, I concur in your decision,” Lewis said. “And let the record show it came
after
it came to our attention that the
Sunfish
/Catalina operation had already been compromised by a Naval Aviator with a big mouth.”

Dillon nodded.

“The following is Top Secret,” Jake said, looking first at Charley Galloway and then at Chief McGuire. “Understood?”

Galloway nodded his understanding. After a moment, McGuire said, “Okay, Jake.”

“Would you like me to take a walk, Jake?” Commander Kocharski asked.

“As far as I'm concerned, Flo, you're the only one I really trust to keep her mouth shut.”

“I don't mind,” Flo said.

“Stay,” Jake said. “Okay, what we're doing,” he began, “what Flem Pickering is doing, with the blessing of CINCPAC—is sending a weather team into the Gobi Desert.”

It took him five minutes to explain exactly what they had been doing aboard the
Sunfish
when it met the Catalina at sea. Lewis was impressed. Jake's briefing was just as good a briefing as any given to CINCPAC by senior officers with years of experience.

If not as formal.

“The pilot with the big mouth was right,” he said. “Getting fuel aboard a Catalina from a submarine on the high seas is going to be a bitch. It may not be possible at all, which is really going to fu—foul—things up by the numbers. I've seen Pete find answers to problems when nobody else had a clue, so I sent for him.”

“Jake, not only do I hate airplanes, but I don't know the first goddamned thing about them,” Chief McGuire said. “
Or
submarines. So why send for me?”

“Like I said, Pete, I'm desperate. And I've seen you solve problems when no one else had a clue. I thought it was worth a shot.”

“Can I ask a question?” McGuire asked.

“Shoot.”

“Let me be sure I've got this straight,” McGuire said. “What you want to do is load people and equipment on an airplane—”

“Airplanes. Two airplanes,” Dillon interrupted. “Catalinas. The same kind of airplane that you flew on here.”

“Thanks to you, you bastard,” McGuire said. “Then you're going to land on the ocean, meet a submarine, and refuel the airplanes. Right?”

“Right.”

“And the problem is refueling the airplanes from the sub, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. I don't know from zilch about airplanes, so I'll ask what will probably sound like dumb questions.”

“Shoot,” Jake said.

“How much of a problem would it be to move the people and the equipment from the submarine to the airplanes in rubber boats?” Chief McGuire asked.

“A lot less of a problem,” Lewis said, and then understood the implications. “Damn it!”

“I say something wrong?” Chief McGuire said.

“Steve,” Dillon said, “tell me about auxiliary fuel tanks carried inside a Catalina.”

“It's been a long time since I flew a Cat, or had anything to do with one,” Big Steve said. “But the last I heard, there aren't any designed for the Cat.”

“Damn,” Jake said.

“But you could build them without much trouble,” Big Steve said. “BuAir would have a fit. It would be an unauthorized modification; but it could be done.”

“You're saying you could build such tanks?”

“If I had the stuff, aluminum, aluminum stringers, something to seal them. Sure.”

“And that fuel could be pumped up into the wing tanks?” Lewis asked.

“It could, sure. Or you could add pumps and valves to feed the engines directly.”

“
You
could do that, Steve?” Dillon asked softly.

Big Steve nodded.

Lieutenant Lewis pushed himself out of his chair and walked to the low wall that bordered the flagstone patio. He sat on the wall and dialed a number.

“Let me speak to the AAOD, please,” he said, referring to the Air (or Aviation) Officer of the Day. After a short delay, Lewis went on. “Sir, this is Lieutenant C. D. Lewis, aide-de-camp to Admiral Wagam, and speaking at his direction. There are two Catalina aircraft at Pearl reserved for a mission of the Admiral's. Both of them are to be at the Ewa Marine Air Station at the earliest possible time tomorrow morning. And please arrange ground transportation to return their crews to Pearl Harbor. And, sir, you may consider this an order from Admiral Wagam: The crews are to be informed that they will not, under penalty of court-martial, tell anyone where they took the Catalinas.” There was another pause, and then Lewis said, “Thank you very much, sir,” and hung up.

“It would have been nice, Lieutenant Lewis,” Galloway said, “if you had
asked
me for the services of Mr. Oblensky.”

“I knew in my heart, Captain Galloway, that you would readily volunteer anything you could to this noble purpose of ours.”

“Screw you.”

“You can fly Catalinas, right?” Dillon asked.

“I can, but I'm hoping nobody remembers that I can,” Galloway said.

“Why?”

“You don't know about McInerney's little TWX? Seeking volunteers with Catalina pilot-in-command time for a classified mission involving great personal risk?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dillon said.

“Jake, I like what I'm doing. I don't want to fly a Catalina into the Gobi Desert,” Galloway said.

“McInerney's asking for volunteers. Don't volunteer.”

“If McInerney doesn't get the volunteers he needs, he'll go looking.”

“Charley, you're safe. When I saw McInerney, he told me you're the only man in the Corps who could command your squadron of bums.”

Galloway looked at Dillon long enough to be assured that he was hearing the truth.

“I'll feel safe when I see the Cats take off for the Gobi with somebody else flying them,” he said.

“Chief,” Big Steve asked, “you got any experience working with aluminum?”

“Not much,” McGuire said. “I've made car bodies out of it. Stuff like that. And once a motorboat. With a V-8 Cadillac in it.”

“For Clark Gable, right?” Dillon said, remembering.

“Yeah. I owed him a big one.”

“Jake, do I get to use the chief?” Big Steve asked.

“He's yours,” Jake said.

“I want one thing understood from right now,” Chief McGuire said. “I am not going to get in another goddamned airplane. Not now. Not ever.”

“I will take your desires under consideration, Chief McGuire,” Major Dillon said.

[ONE]
The Gentleman's Bar
The Country Club
Memphis, Tennessee
1730 27 March 1943

“I have a matter of some delicacy to discuss with you, Jesse,” Braxton V. Lipscomb, President of the Planter's Bank & Trust Company of Memphis, announced to Rear Admiral Jesse R. Ball, USN, Flag Officer Commanding Naval Air Station, Memphis. The two men were in golf clothing, sitting in leather-upholstered captain's chairs at one of the dozen or so tables in the paneled barroom. It had been chilly on the links, and they had decided to have a little taste before taking a shower.

“I didn't think you invited me out here just to give me your money,” Admiral Ball replied. At five dollars a point, their scores had been 85 for the Admiral and 97 for the banker, who just couldn't seem to get out of the sand trap on the fourteenth hole. “What's on your mind, Braxton?”

“Let me set the stage,” Lipscomb said. “Identify the players, so to speak.”

Admiral Ball nodded, took a sip of his Jack Daniel's, and waited for the banker to proceed.

“The first vice president of Planter's Bank and Trust is a fellow named Quincy T. Megham, Jr. They call him ‘Quincy Junior.' I don't suppose you know him?”

Admiral Ball shook his head, “no.”

“The main reason they call him Quincy Junior is that his father, the president before I took over, was naturally Quincy Senior.”

“Makes sense,” Admiral Ball said.

“The main reason Quincy Senior was president was that he and his family are the largest stockholders in the bank.” He clarified: “Not the majority, but the largest.”

“That makes sense, too.”

“Now, Quincy Senior was a
banker
,” Lipscomb said. “He taught me just about everything I know about banking.”

Admiral Ball nodded again, and waited somewhat impatiently for the banker to go on. Admiral Ball was a Yankee. He had been appointed to the Naval Academy from Rhode Island, and his assignment to command the Memphis NAS had been the first time he had ever been stationed in the South. It had taken him two weeks to decide that civilian Rebels were just like the Rebels he had known in the Navy. They never got to the point without looking for at least two bushes to beat around.

“Well, he apparently did a good job,” Admiral Ball said.

“Quincy Junior is not really a chip off the old block, unfortunately. He was not prepared to take over the bank when his daddy went to his reward.”

“But he still owned a good deal of stock in the bank?”

“So we named him first vice president,” Braxton Lipscomb said. “And I stepped into his daddy's shoes. The arrangement works. Quincy Junior is not really all that interested in the bank. But he has a title and an office, and it's something for him to do, somewhere for him to go, when he wakes up in the morning.”

“I see.”

“He does ‘public relations' work, I guess you'd call it. He's a good-looking fellow, and he gives a pretty good speech, and the bank needs something like that.”

“I understand.”

“About a year ago, when the Tennessee Bankers Association needed someone to head up the Governmental Relations Committee, everybody agreed that Quincy Junior was just the man to head it up. Like I said, he gives a good speech, and he is the first vice president of Planter's Bank and Trust.”

“What exactly does this Governmental Relations Committee do?”

“Most of it has to do with helping the war effort. Getting school kids to invest part of their allowances in War Bond Savings Stamps.”

“They glue twenty-five-cent stamps in a book, and when they get twenty-five dollars' worth, they turn them in and get a twenty-five-dollar War Bond?”

“Actually, they get a twenty-five-dollar War Bond for eighteen dollars and fifty cents' worth of stamps. In ten years when they cash in the bond, they get the full amount, twenty-five dollars.”

“I see.”

“Quincy Junior also handles War Bond tours. You know, when Hollywood stars come around, or war heroes? He sets up the tour and handles the details.”

“Sounds like valuable work,” Admiral Ball said.

“It is. It is valuable, and it's right down Quincy Junior's alley.”

“I can see where it would be.”

Especially since good ol' Quincy Junior is not, unfortunately, a chip off Quincy Senior's block
.

“It gets him out of town a good deal,” Lipscomb said.

“I can see where it would.”

“That's probably got something to do with the problem we have, him being away from home so much.”

“What problem are we talking about?”

“Elizabeth-Sue Megham, Quincy Junior's wife. I can see where she would get lonely. It's natural.”

“I don't think I'm following you, Braxton.”

“Elizabeth-Sue is considerably younger than Quincy Junior. He's forty-five, she's thirty-three, maybe thirty-two.”

“I see.”

“To get right to the point, Jesse…”

Finally?

“…Elizabeth-Sue seems to have gotten herself involved with one of your officers from the air station.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“It's a delicate situation for all concerned.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering. He's a Marine.”

“He's a fine young officer, Brax. He served with distinction on Guadalcanal. He's an aviator. An ace, as a matter of fact.”
Who is obviously screwing this female, who is at least ten years younger than her husband, who is apparently a jerk
. Admiral Ball thought of something else. “His father is a Marine general,” he added.

“I'm sure he's a fine young man,” Lipscomb said. “And—I like to think of myself as a man of the world—these things happen between young people. But the potential for real trouble—”

“I'll deal with it, Braxton,” Admiral Ball interrupted.

“—is there, and we're going to have to do something about it, you and I.”

“I said I'd deal with it,” Admiral Ball said.

“I knew I could count on you,” Braxton Lipscomb said.

[TWO]
The Marquis de Lafayette Suite
The Foster Lafayette Hotel
Washington, D.C.
1140 28 March 1943

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was sitting in a red leather armchair in the library, a long thin black cigar in his mouth, his feet up on a matching foot-stool, and reading the
Washington Star
. Except for his tunic, he was in uniform. Hart had that laid out on a library table, making sure that all of its insignia, plus the three-by-five-inch array of ribbons, were precisely in position.

Hart's own uniform, complete to the cord identifying him as an aide-de-camp to a general officer, was fresh from the hotel valet.

Four new, identical canvas suitcases had been placed in a row by the door to the sitting room. When they returned from lunch, they would immediately leave for Anacostia Naval Air Station. A Naval Air Transport Command R4-D had been provided to take Pickering to the West Coast. It would also carry just over two tons of meteorological equipment and shortwave radios, plus two Navy meteorologists. They would pick up three more Navy meteorologists at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station outside Chicago.

They were all enlisted men. One of those waiting at Anacostia was a chief weatherman, an old salt with eighteen years in the Navy. With him was a weatherman third class who had been a meteorologist before being drafted into the Navy eight months previously. The men they would pick up en route to San Diego were apprentice seamen who had been meteorologists before they were drafted into the Navy. All had volunteered for a “classified mission outside the continental United States involving great personal risk.” None of them yet knew they were going into the Gobi Desert to operate a weather station—more accurately, that it was
hoped
they could be sent there. Pickering planned to tell them what they had volunteered for on the long flight from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.

Since their route to Chicago would make a stop at the Memphis Naval Air Station almost convenient—they had to refuel someplace en route, and Memphis was a good choice—Pickering had told Captain David Haughton, Navy Secretary Frank Knox's administrative assistant, to schedule an overnight stop at Memphis.

He wanted to have dinner with Pick before departing again for the Pacific. After wondering whether he was taking advantage of his position in arranging it, he decided to hell with it. He wanted to have dinner with Pick. There was no telling when they would get together again. There was also no telling, in fact, when he'd see his wife again. She was too tied up in San Francisco, she told him, to come to San Diego to see him off.

The chime sounded. Pickering looked up at Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR. “With a little bit of luck, that will be someone regretting that lunch is off,” he said, “and we can get the hell out of here now.” He immediately regretted saying that. Hart was really looking forward to the luncheon. He had even told his father and mother about it.

Hart walked quickly out of the library to answer the door.

A moment later, Brigadier General F. L. Rickabee, USMC, entered the library, wearing his customary mussed and somewhat ill-fitting suit. He carried a briefcase chained to his wrist, and there was a bulge in his left armpit Pickering knew was a .45 pistol in a shoulder holster.

“Hello, Fritz,” Pickering said cordially. “What's up?”

“I'm glad I caught you,” Rickabee said, setting the briefcase on the library table and unlocking the handcuff.

“I was hoping you were a messenger telling me I didn't have to go,” Pickering said without thinking.

Rickabee worked the combination lock on the battered briefcase, took from it a single sheet of paper, and handed it to Pickering. “I don't like to think how this came into my hands,” Rickabee said.

“What is it?” Pickering asked, as he started to read it.

“What the hell is this all about?” Pickering asked. He passed the document to Hart.

“It means
MAGIC
may damned well be compromised,” Rickabee said.

“Yeah,” Pickering agreed thoughtfully.

“Who told this General Dempsey?” Pickering asked, then warmed to his anger. “And where did he get the idea he has the authority to tell my people what to do? And what the hell is this ‘OSS station Chungking'?
What
OSS station Chungking?”