The Secret Warriors - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,102
at Colonel Stevens’s reaction to the commander’s density. And he was also sure that as soon as the commander had the chance, he would get in contact with the highest-ranking Naval officer he could find. With a little bit of luck, he might even get to an admiral to relate his tale of woe. Eventually he would be told that so far as he was concerned, Stevens was in truth speaking with the authority of the Chief of Naval Operations, and his ass would be thoroughly chewed for talking about a mission he had been specifically ordered not to talk about.
On the other hand, if the C-46 was needed to fly to Africa, the commander probably was just the guy they needed, someone with a lot of experience in flying great distances where there would be no navigational aids worth speaking about. He had probably, Canidy thought, been selected for just that reason. Douglass had requested from the Navy—which really meant Eddie Bitter’s Vice Admiral Hawley—the best C-46 they had and the best crew to fly it. Hawley had provided a nearly new C-46 and the commander.
But after a minute, when he thought about it, having the commander get his ass chewed—however delightful a prospect that was—was not worth the risk of the bastard compromising the mission by running off at the mouth. He decided he would have to mention this to Colonel Stevens.
“Our minds run in similar paths,” Stevens said with a smile. “I was just thinking that I should talk with the commander and give him the ‘loose lips sink ships’ speech suitably revised for the circumstances.”
When they landed at Croydon, they sat on the taxiway for fifteen minutes before the tower directed them to a hangar some distance from the terminal building. There a small caravan of vehicles was waiting for them: an English limousine with its fenders outlined in white reflective paint; an Army three-quarter-ton truck; and four American Ford staff cars.
The moment the plane door opened, Canidy realized he was back in the war. There was a familiar, pervasive odor of burning and open sewage. The smell of burning he remembered from Burma and China. It was the aftermath of bombing. The sewers had already been open in Burma and China. Here the smell came from sewers ruptured by bombs.
Two colonels wearing the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) patch spoke briefly with Colonel Stevens, who then came back on the airplane and said that he was going to take Admiral de Verbey with them, and Canidy should come along to the Dorchester with the others when the plane had been unloaded.
The limousine, preceded and trailed by two of the Ford staff cars, each occupied by three men wearing U.S. Army uniforms with civilian technician insignia,11 drove off into the rain.
When the truck had been loaded, the remaining Fords drove them into London. Almost immediately they saw signs of the bombing. There were fire-scarred holes, like missing teeth, where German bombs had landed on row houses. They passed a bomb crater from which the rear of a bus still protruded, and when they got to the Dorchester Hotel, the entrance was piled high with sandbags.
Canidy saw there remnants of what must have been prewar splendor—there was an elaborately uniformed doorman in a top hat, and small uniformed boys who came out to unload the truck—but the hotel was war-tarnished, and the lobby was crowded with headquarters types.
One of the civilian technicians from Croydon was waiting for them inside, and led them to an elevator. There was another civilian technician sitting at a small desk in the corridorof the sixth floor, barring access to the wing where Colonel Stevens, alone, was waiting for them. The civilian technician who had met them in the lobby was introduced as Mr. Zigler of the Counterintelligence Corps.
Zigler told him that he would be responsible for Admiral de Verbey until Canidy felt that the security of Whitby House was such that he could take over. Zigler explained that after a survey of the estate, he’d made certain recommendations for its security. The first elements of the infantry battalion had begun arriving that morning.
“If you feel up to it, Dick,” Stevens said, “I thought you might go out there first thing in the morning. You could drop Martin and Fulmar off at Station IX on your way. There will be a car for you here at eight o’clock.”
“Fine,” Canidy agreed, although he would have preferred to sleep for twenty-four hours.