The Hunt aka 27 (53 page)

He turned to Penelope.

“So, what do we do about a ring, my darling?”

Willoughby reached into his vest pocket, took out a small black box and snapped it open. A blue diamond, half the size of a marble, gleamed on a bed of velvet.

“This should be appropriate. Two carats, perfect cut. Straight out of Tiffany’s tray.”

“How much did I spend for this?”

“A mere thirty thousand.”

Allenbee finally smiled.

He took Penelope’s hand, slid the ring on her finger, then pulled her to him and kissed her roughly on the mouth. As they separated, he said with a grin, “To a glorious future together, my darling.”

Allenbee sat on a fallen tree on the north beach of
Jekyll Island, peering through his binoculars, scanning the island a half mile to the north. It had been a balmy day but the wind was beginning to shift from the southeast and the air was getting crisper. The weather report was encouraging. A northeaster was moving in and by the next day the storm would hit, providing a moonless, rainy night for the lift.

He and Penelope had ridden the two miles to the north end on horseback; now she sat at his feet in the sand with a map spread out before her. There were several notations on the map, little things Allenbee wanted to remember. Although navigating the sound that separated St. Simons and Jekyll was the U-boat commander’s problem, Allenbee wanted to check everything.

Old Captain Horace Mackelwain, master of one of the yachts that had stopped en route to Palm Beach to drop off a couple of passengers, had explained the island’s peculiarities to them over dinner the night they arrived; how the channel that coursed through the sound between the islands was ninety feet deep and curved around the inland side of
Jekyll into a wide bay, providing easy access for yachts like the Vanderbilts’
Alva
and J. P. Morgan’s
Corsair III
how perfect the island was situated because even in a storm the channel was relatively calm and easy to maneuver; how the St. Simons lighthouse was a perfect landfall when entering the basin.

Allenbee swept the glasses to his right and checked out the lighthouse, then swung them back to the bay.

“How about the Coast Guard station?” Penelope asked, looking at the location on the St. Simons Island map.

“A good two miles up the beach on the ocean side,” Allenbee answered. “They have a small rescue boat, I doubt they’ll be out in stormy seas unless somebody’s in trouble.”

He lowered the glasses and continued to casually study the sound. He smiled to himself.

“A piece of cake,” he said. “The whole run won’t take more than an hour and we can ride the bad weather halfway to the Bahamas.”

Allenbee had been nervous ever since making contact with Willoughby and Penelope two weeks earlier. There had been the cocktail party to introduce him to the bluebloods and a full week of packing and waiting around before the train left. But once the long private train had pulled out of Grand Central Station, Allenbee had relaxed. He could not imagine a safer place to be than on a millionaire’s private Pullman car traveling south to the most isolated private playground in the world.

The trip had been a revelation, an introduction to a pampered world of self-indulgent wealth beyond his imagination. The private Pullman cars were a marvel of utilization. Every square inch seemed to be used up. Crammed into a sixty-five- foot car were a parlor, kitchen, dining room, two staterooms, a private bedroom and three toilets. Each car was unique. Tiffany glass fans and windows, chandeliers and candelabras, custom made Pintsch compressed oil lamps, a homage to earlier days, were common, as were electric fans since smoke and cinders from the engine made open windows hazardous and uncomfortable. The twelve private cars on the train had one thing in common—indulgent elegance.

Allenbee had used the train trip to familiarize himself with his wealthy victims. In the afternoons or after dinner in the evening he sat with them as they sipped Jameson’s Irish whiskey, Old Crow or John Dewar’s Extra Special scotch, smoked their Overland cigars, and subtly matched egos, each one casually trying to top the other.

Isolationism and profits dominated conversations. The talk was about impending war and the need for America to stay out of it. It quickly became obvious to Allenbee that most of these men wanted the U.S. to remain neutral. Allenbee listened, studying these men who mastered the country’s industry and finance. Fortunes—or greater fortunes—could be made by supplying the contestants on both sides without actively becoming involved in the wars now raging in both China and Europe.

On the last night, they were the guests of Grant Peabody, a Massachusetts industrialist who manufactured ball bearings and had the most opulent dining car on the train. It was mirrored, draped in scarlet with satinwood trim, had a crystal chandelier, gilded sconces, gold candelabras and Louis XIV furniture. Fresh flowers were provided at every stop. The meal was a connoisseur’s delight: a choice of oysters or terrapin soup, venison, pheasant or grilled salmon, several kinds of vegetables, Piper-Heidsieck Brut and G. H. Mumm extra dry champagnes, along with a variety of fresh berries for desert.

Throughout the meal, Allenbee quietly imagined how this pampered and self-indulgent millionaire would deal with the danger, the heat, the discomfort, the odors, the cramped quarters and rancid food of a U-boat on patrol.

Each night during the five-day trip, Allenbee—and he
was
Allenbee now, immediately entrenched in his new identity— Penelope and Sir Colin gathered in Willoughby’s stateroom to discuss the individual millionaires and revise the list of the twenty-seven men they would kidnap.

Now, sitting on the beach, he was savoring the mission, the power of knowing that the fate of America’s wealthiest men was literally in the palm of his hand.

Penelope suddenly shuddered.

“Are you getting cold?” Allenbee asked.

She shook her head. “I was just thinking about the submarine. It terrifies me.”

“Don’t worry about it. Leiger’s the best skipper in the whole
Unterseeboot
command.”

“I tend to be a bit claustrophobic.”

“Well, you’d better get over it by tomorrow night,” he responded brusquely.

Since they had arrived three days earlier, he and Penelope had been the talk of the island. Like true lovers, they wandered around the small residential compound, arm in arm, smiling, amiable, whispering to each other as lovers do, except their whispers were hardly the stuff of lovers. Allenbee had observed every facet of life on this secluded isle, revising every phase of their operation to conform to layout, temperament and time.

They had located the radio room, the phone exchange, the gun room, where most of the hunting weapons were displayed in locked glass cabinets. They studied the access to the dock, distances from one place to another, and the idiosyncrasies of the individuals. The previous night they had charted the route of the three guards, who were unarmed.

Allenbee leaned over and stared down at the map. They had walked off the various distances from place to place. The yacht dock, which was empty now, was two hundred yards from the clubhouse dining room. The radio room was a hundred yards beyond the clubhouse adjacent to the indoor tennis courts. The guards spent most of their time on the dock, making a sweep around the cottages, the Sans Souci apartments and the clubhouse, once an hour.

He would make his move after 6:30 when everyone was in the dining room. He had to take out the three guards and the radio operator, destroy the radio and the phone switchboard, and be back to seize the dining room by 7:30, when the U-boat was supposed to dock. Then he would hold everyone at bay until the U-boat patrol came ashore to help load the hostages aboard. He could not count on Willoughby or the woman for anything except to get the kitchen help, children and servants into the main dining room at precisely 7:30.

He looked at his watch. At ten, the radio operator would close down his station for the night. He would have to break into the radio shack and radio the U-boat:

“One, seven... the ghost has
ris
en.”

Decoded:
U-17.
. .
all clear for 19:30 tomorrow.

At one A.M., Keegan and Vanessa were in his kitchen making dressing for the Thanksgiving turkey. He stood over a wooden chopping block, dicing celery. Vanessa was sitting on the counter behind him, massaging his back with her feet. They had decided to cook dinner for Marilyn and her husband and Dryman, who had decided to spend his separation furlough in Keegan’s guest room.

“1 had to give up my plane, but I don’t have to give up the bar and the Rolls-Royce yet” is how he had put it.

“You’re sure this can’t wait until morning?” Vanessa asked.

“This is an old family recipe,” Keegan answered. “It has to
bubble all night.” He plunged his hands into the bready mixture and began kneading it. “I promise you, the meal I cook tomorrow will make the chef on Jekyll Island look like a dishwasher. You’ll be glad you stayed here.”

“I’m already glad I stayed here.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“A fine time to get cozy,” he said, holding up his sticky hands. He twisted his head around and kissed her. “You’re sure you don’t miss the old days?”

“This year there are thirty-eight or thirty-nine plus guests,” she said. “It’ll be a zoo.”

“I would really have fit in well,” said Keegan. “Walking around in my knickers swatting golf balls.”

She looked at him slyly.

“You could flirt with the ladies.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“There’s one, Lady Penelope Traynor. She’d catch your eye.”

“What’s her father do, supply gold to the treasury?”

“He’s a journalist. She travels with him everywhere. If he weren’t so old I’d suspect incest.”

“You really are bitchy at times, Vannie.”

“I know,” she said with a laugh. “Anyway, you wouldn’t have a chance with her, she’s found a beau.” She arched her eyebrows and looked down her nose at Keegan, “John Ward Allenbee, the Third.”

“The Third, no less.”

“They make a grand couple, a union conceived in boredom. That cocktail party the other night cured me forever. It was so boring it was sinful.”

“I thought they were old friends of yours.”

“She is.
. .
well, not an
old
friend. She and her father have been going down to the island for years. Usually as guests of Grant Peabody. Everybody coddles old Willoughby because of that column he writes in the newspaper. She’s quite a dish, but a very cold dish.”

“What’s her old man’s name?”

“Willoughby. Sir Colin Willoughby.”

He went to the sink and washed off his hands.

“Hell, I know them,” he said. “Met them once..
.
my God, it would have been the summer of ‘34. Longchamp racetrack, I think. Her husband was a soldier..
.
no, he was a test pilot. Got killed.”

“That’s right, she’s a widow. Well anyway, it just isn’t like the old days.”

“The old days? You
just turned thirty, my dear, how old can the days be?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. The old gang was fun. You would have liked them. From the time I was six until I was sixteen, it was a wonderful trip. We went for Thanksgiving and came back at Easter. Had our own little schoolhouse, our own teachers. Nobody was ever in a hurry. Everybody was friendly and got along. Oh, they used to have silly little spats. I remember once, Uncle Billy and Vincent got in this awful argument because Vincent parked his yacht in front of the Vanderbilt place and spoiled the view. Silly stuff like that.”

“Uh huh.”

“You know, Vannie, I keep forgetting how stinking rich you are.

“Look who’s talking!”

“No, I’m talking about rich-rich. The Astors, the Vanderbi
lt
s, those guys own the part of the world with the grass. And your old man’s one of them. How many of these rich guys were in the ‘old gang’ as you put it?”

“Well, let’s see, there was Cornelius Lee, Mr. Morgan.
.

“J. P. Morgan?”

“Junior,” she nodded.

“Jesus! How about King Midas, did he drop by?”

She giggled. “No, but there were the Goodyears, Ed Gould, Jr., Charlie Maurice, the Rockefellers, Mr. Jim Hill
. .

“Plus these royal social climbers. Lady Penelope and Whatsisname the Third.”

“Hardly social climbers, my dear. Willoughby’s a Knight, Kee.”

“Hell, half the plumbers in England are Knights,” Keegan said.

“Well, I will say they were both incorrigible name-droppers. And the new fiancé isn’t much better.”

“Really? What kind of names does he drop?”

“How about the Prince of Wales.”

“You mean Edward, the one that quit?”

“Yes.”

“How does one go about dropping the name of the former King of England?”

“We were admiring his cigarette lighter and he casually pointed out that it was a gift from the prince.”

“What kind of lighters does Prince Edward give out as gifts?” Keegan asked, sticking his hands back into the stuffing.

“Gold, of course.”

“What else? I’d like to know—just in case I do Eddie a favor.”

“
I
t was a Dunhill, I think,” Vannie said. “Yes. That’s right. A Dunhill. With a wolf’s head on the top. It was really quite.
.

Keegan couldn’t hear her anymore. His heart was pounding too loud.

“Listen,” he said, his voice demanding, his expression intense. “This guy with the lighter, does he have three scars on the side of his face?”

“Three scars?” She stared into space for a long time, trying to picture him. “He has a beard,” she said. “I couldn’t tell. Kee, what’s gotten into you?”

“Jesus! This old gang you were talking about that used to go down to Jekyll, how many were there Vannie? Exactly?”

“Exactly? Let’s see, there was Uncle Joe and

“My God, do you have to count them all?”

She closed her eyes, counting faces in her mind, and shook a hand at him. “Just a minute, just a minute
. . .
uh, twenty-five

twenty-six..
.
and old Crane, the toilet man we used to call him. His cottage has all gold fixtures in the bathrooms and..

“There were twenty-seven of them?”

“As close as I can remember

But Keegan wasn’t really interested in the answer. His mind was racing now.
Twenty-seven millionaires,
he thought.
On a remote island off the coast of Georgia.

“My God, that’s it!” Keegan cried out. “That’s
got
to be it. What’s his name again?”

“Who?”

“The one who’s marrying he stopped again. “Jesus,” he said aloud, “they must be in on it, too. They set i
t
up! They’re the connection!”

“Kee..
.“

“Christ, it was probably Willoughby’s idea!”

“Francis, whatever
are
you talking about?”

Twenty-seven of the richest men in America,
he said to himself.
My God, could that be it?

He wasn’t thinking about their names anymore, he was thinking about associations: steel, railroads, shipping, newspapers, the stock market, oil, automobiles, coal, banking, real estate. You name it, they were there.

Twenty-seven of the richest, most powerful people in the United States. People who controlled almost every facet of business and banking in the country. Isolated on an island two miles wide and five miles long.

Twenty-seven!

Twenty-seven
millionaires!
Siebenundzwanzig
was going to neutralize America—and how better than to take these twenty- seven men and hold them hostage on that island!

But.
. .
that wouldn’t work. Couldn’t. One man could not hold the whole island captive. Stupid notion, he thought.

Unless he planned to take them off the island.
.

He dug out an atlas and found Brunswick, Ga. The island was a mere spot on the map. For the next thirty minutes, Keegan was on the phone. But at one in the morning on the night before a holiday, he could not raise Smith and finally gave up.

No one else would believe him. He had no credentials. And that left him only one choice.

Dryman had been asleep about fifteen minutes when Keegan burst in the room with Vanessa close behind. He had a mug of black coffee and two aspirin in hand.

“H.P., it’s Keegan. Wake up.”

Dryman was dead to the world. He didn’t even groan. Keegan shook him roughly.

“Dryman!” he yelled. “Reveille!”

“Huh,” the pilot muttered without opening his eyes.

“Coffee in bed,” Vanessa said sweetly.

Dryman rolled over and peered through one half-open eye.

“Wha’time’sit?”

“It’s late,” Keegan said. “Here, wash these aspirin down with this coffee. You’ll feel much better.”

“G’way. S’a holiday.”

“Listen to me, H.P. Wake up!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled.

“Are you awake?”

“I’m awake.”

“H.P. I know what Twenty-seven means. I know who he is, where he is and what he’s going to do.”

Dryman’s bleary eyes began to clear. He stared at Keegan.

“You been in the champagne.”

“You heard me right, pal. He’s on
J
ekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. He calls himself John Ward Allenbee, the Third.

“Uh huh. And what’s he going to do?”

“He’s going to take the twenty-seven richest men in America hostage.”

“Aw Christ, Kee. That’s bullshit. It’s one-thirty in the damn morning and you want to pull practical jokes.”

“I couldn’t be more serious. You remember me telling you Vannie had been invited on a Thanksgiving trip with a bunch of rich boys?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, they’re not
just
rich boys! They control shipping, railroads, oil.
. .
My God, if and when we do go to war, these men will run our war machine. And they’re all on one island off the coast of Georgia. Think about it, H.P. They’re sitting out in the ocean with no protection and our Friend Twenty-seven is right in the middle of them.”

“How did you come up with
.

“Listen, Captain, I can’t get Smith. Everybody with any muscle is off for the holidays. The FBI would laugh me off the face of the earth if I told them this. If I call down there, they’ll hang up on me. We’ve got to fly down there.”

“Damn it, Kee, it’s all over. We’re out of it. You don’t even have any credentials. All you’ve got is this cockamamie story. I’m on furlough and I’ll be a civilian in another month. And we
ain’t got no airplane!
Are you forgetting I had to give Delilah back to the Air Corps?”

“Drink your coffee. It’s not over until it’s over, pal. We got a plane ride ahead of us.”

“That’s a thousand miles down there.”

“About seven-fifty as the crow flies

“What’re we gonna do, jump off the roof and flap our arms?”

“We need an airplane.”

“Where are we gonna find an airplane on Thanksgiving Day? And anyway, who’s gonna loan us their plane. I don’t know anybody who even
rents
airplanes.”

“C’mon, think. You must know
somebody,
H.P

The town of Farmingdale was little more than a crossroads on Long Island an hour’s drive out Jericho Turnpike. Dryman turned down a dirt road toward a hangar. It was a
dilapidated
arc of wood and corrugated metal patched with rusty signs and it stood in the middle of a sprawling farm. At rest for the winter, its fields boasted only dead cornstalks and dried-up tomato plants which added to the gloomy atmosphere of the place. The wind sock, a tattered cone of parachute silk, flopped lazily in the calm morning air.

A narrow alleyway had been cut through the fields and leveled off.

“That’s the strip,” Dryman said with scorn.

“How long have you known this guy?” Keegan asked.

“We flew together for a while. He took the roof off the Officers’ Club down in Panama City and they grounded him for life. When his tour was up, he retired.”

“Don’t they have any sane pilots in the Air Corps, H.P.?”

“I heard there was one up at Westover Field but it’s only a rumor.”

Barney Garrison was waiting inside the hangar office, huddled between an oil stove and the ruin of a desk. He flashed a winning smile when Dryman and Keegan entered the tiny room.

“Son-bitch, H.P., never thought I’d see you again.”

“How’s it goin’, Loop?” Dryman said, giving his lean, freckled, weather
-
beaten ex-wingman a bear hug and introducing him to Keegan.

“Can’t complain. Do a little farmin’, little crop dustin’. I’m doin’ okay. Better’n taking a lot of guff from some chicken shit ground officer. I’m surprised you’re s
ti
ll playin’ soldier boy.”

“I’m on separation furlough. Right after Christmas I’m off for China.”

“You gonna fly with Chennault?”

Dryman nodded. “You ought to think about it, Loop. Pay’s great. They got P-40’s. Gonna be a picnic.”

Garrison snorted and shook his head. “Hell, I thought maybe you’d gotten over being crazy by now. China, my ass! Bunch of noodle eaters. Well, come here, take a look at the old lady.”