The Secret Warriors - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,101
he apparently immediately concluded that Gardiner Cowles had offered her a job just to make him angry.
Now that I think about it, the sonofabitch is perfectly capable of doing just that!
“Just for the sake of argument, what would Gardiner Cowles have you doing?” Brandon Chambers asked, making a valiant effort to sound only mildly curious.
“Women’s-interest things, the WACs, the WAVEs, and whatever it is they’re going to call the lady Marines,” Ann said.
“And you would really work for Gardiner Cowles?” he asked.
“I would work for the Daily Worker if they agreed to send me to Europe,” Ann said.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“I’ll try to get home before I go,” Ann said.
They locked eyes for a moment, and then Brandon Chambers said, “Greg Lohmer, who runs our radio stations, is sending a news announcer, a man named Meachum Hope, over to London from WRKL in New Orleans. He’ll make a nightly broadcast via shortwave which all the stations will carry. Greg Lohmer says the fellow has a splendid voice but some difficulty with basic journalism. He’ll need somebody to write his scripts. If I could somehow arrange to send you over there to write his scripts—call you a technician or something, maybe administrative assistant—would you be interested?”
“Gardiner Cowles,” Ann said, “is arranging for my correspondent’s accreditation right now. How can he do that if you can’t?”
“Why don’t I call him and ask?” he said.
“Why don’t you?” Ann said.
“It would have to be clearly understood between us, Ann,” her father said, in conditional surrender, “that you would be going over there to write Meachum Hope’s scripts.”
“Until other arrangements can be made,” Ann said. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to your mother,” he said.
“You’re a very clever man, Daddy. You’ll think of something.”
PART TEN
1
CROYDON AIRFIELD
LONDON, ENGLAND
AUGUST 7, 1942
It was raining softly but steadily when the Curtiss Commando with Naval Air Transport Command lettered along its fuselage landed. When they stopped on a taxiway and just sat there, Canidy went forward to the cockpit to see what was going on.
Making it plain he resented being questioned, the pilot told Canidy he had been ordered by the tower, without explanation, to hold where he was. This wasn’t the first trouble the pilot had given them. He was a regular navy full commander who Canidy suspected had put in a lot of time flying long, slow Catalina patrols before the war had promoted him to pilot in command of transoceanic NATC aircraft.
The pep talk ONI had given the man in Washington hadn’t taken very well. Even before they left Washington he had made it plain that so far as he was concerned, this flight to carry some foreign admiral, his tiny staff, and a handful of relatively junior American officers to London was a typical Washington boondoggle diverting an important aviator like himself and his important aircraft from making an important contribution to the important war being fought in the Pacific.
Between Gander, Newfoundland, and Prestwick, Scotland, their European landfall, Canidy had gone forward to offer to relieve one of the pilots at the controls.
“Do you have any time in the C-46, Major?” the pilot had asked.
“About twenty hours,” Canidy said. “I’m rated in it.”
“Not with twenty hours you’re not, not by Navy standards,” the commander had told him abruptly.
Between Prestwick, where they had refueled, and London, Colonel Stevens had politely asked the commander to come into the cabin. He told him then that in London the aircraft would be taken to a hangar, where the seats would be removed and auxiliary fuel tanks installed. During this time quarters for him and his crew would be provided at Croydon, where they were to hold themselves in readiness for departure on twelve hours’ notice.
“I’m afraid I would require authority from a competent naval authority before I could permit any modifications to the aircraft,” the commander said.
Stevens handed the commander a Top Secret order on the stationery of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It directed the movement of the aircraft “to such places as Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens might deem necessary in the execution of his mission,” and directed “all United States military bases and facilities to render any and all support as Lieutenant Colonel Stevens might request.”
“I’m not entirely sure I understand this,” the commander said.
“Let me make it simple for you,” Stevens snapped icily. “So far as you’re concerned, Commander, until I relieve you, I’m the Chief of Naval Operations.”