The Fighting Agents Part 31

"Probably because of his father," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "Or maybe just because he's d.i.c.k's good buddy, and d.i.c.k just uses that for an excuse, whenever Doug goes off on a mission, Eighth Air Force tells us. And they tell us when he comes back. TWX to Berkeley Square with info copy here. He flew a mission today. He made it back, but his executive officer was killed. I saw the TWX just before you got here. Under the circ.u.mstances, I don't think he's out . . . how did you put it? . . . 'spreading pollen.' "

"Thank you," Charity said, almost solemnly.

"You want the bubble bath?" the d.u.c.h.ess asked.

"What I would really like is a drink," Charity said, suddenly standing up and reaching for the flexible-pipe showerhead to rinse herself off. "I'll save the bubble bath for sometime when it'll be useful."

"That I can offer," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "We have a nice bar here, and sometimes even a piano player."

3.

Lieutenant Ferenc "Freddy" Janos, the piano player, was a very large man. Which was, he thought, the reason he had broken his ankle. If one was six feet four inches tall and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, one could not expect to be lowered to the ground by parachute as gently as could someone who weighed, say, one hundred sixty pounds.

And it wasn't really that bad. The doctor had, perhaps predictably, told him that it "could have been a lot worse." It had hurt like h.e.l.l on the drop zone, and while the medics, heaving with the exertion, had carried him to the ambulance. But once they'd gotten a cast on it, there had been virtually no pain. A maddening itch under the cast, but no pain.

And the X rays had shown a simple fracture of one of the major bones; he'd been told that "knitting, for someone of your age and physical condition," would be rapid. It was an inconvenience, nothing more. It had, of course, kept him from going operational. The bad landing and the resulting broken ankle had taken him off the team. He had been replaced by a lieutenant flown hastily from the United States.

Going operational would have to wait until they took the cast off-in three days; today was Tuesday, and the cast would come off on Friday-and probably for a couple of weeks after that; a week to become intimate with a new team, and however long it took after that to schedule and arrange for a mission.

The major problem that faced Lt. Ferenc "Freddy" Janos, as he saw it, was arranging to get laid between the time the cast came off and the time he went operational. That would require getting to London, and that was going to pose a problem, for the OSS did not like its people going into London once they had been made privy to a certain level of cla.s.sified operational information.

He had been made privy to that level of cla.s.sified information two days before the bad landing. It had then been intended that the men on his team parachute into Yugoslavia three days later. They had been taught-and had committed to memory in case the drop had not gone as planned-several alternate means to establish contact with the guerrilla forces of Colonel Draa Mihajlovi.

This information was quite sensitive, and those in possession of it could not be trusted to go off and tie one on in London, or for that matter, anywhere off the Whitbey House estate. Freddy Janos understood the reasoning, for lives were literally at stake, and he was perfectly willing to grant that liquor loosened tongues, especially his. But he thought it would be a truly unfortunate circ.u.mstance if he had to jump in Yugoslavia following a long period of enforced celibacy. G.o.d alone knew how he could get his ashes hauled in Yugoslavia.

It wasn't that there were not a number of females here at Whitbey House-including two leaning on the piano at that moment as he played-who could with relatively little effort be enticed into his room. But he had what he thought of as his standards. For one thing, he did not think officers should make the beast with two backs with enlisted women.

This belief had not come from The Officer's Guide, which had euphemistically dealt with the subject, but from Lt. Janos's own experience as an enlisted man. He had been enraged when he had suspected that his officers were dazzling enlisted women into their beds with their exalted position, and he was unwilling to enrage the enlisted men here by doing the same thing himself. He had even gone further than that. He had had a word with several officers about the matter; he had let them know their behavior displeased him, and that when he was displeased, he sometimes had trouble keeping his displeasure nonviolent.

There were three American female officers and one British at Whitbey House, but the American WACs did not measure up to Freddy Janos's standard for a bed partner, and the British officer, Captain the d.u.c.h.ess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Stanfield, WRAC, whom Freddy Janos would have loved to know much better, had proven to be the exception to the rule that upper-cla.s.s women, when he looked at them with his large, sad, dark eyes, usually wished to comfort him with all the means at their disposal.

Freddy Janos had learned about the effect of his large, sad, dark eyes on women when he was fifteen. At fifteen, he was already nearly six feet tall and pus.h.i.+ng one hundred eighty pounds. He had been accepted as a "protege" piano student at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. He had still spoken with something of an accent then, his father having brought them from Budapest to accept an appointment as concertmaster of the Cleveland Symphony only four years before.

Arrangements had been made for him to stay with friends of the family in a large and comfortable apartment on Riverside Drive overlooking the Hudson River. The friends had also been Hungarians and musicians, and it was their custom to hold Sunday-afternoon musicales, in the European manner, sometimes trios, sometimes quartets, sometimes quintets; and he was naturally asked to play when a piano was required.

After one musicale, Mrs. Lizbeth Vernon, the lady in 6-B, one floor up, a tall, lithe woman of thirty-four, whom he had noticed smiling softly at him when he played, came to him and told him how much she had enjoyed his playing. And she went on to say that sometime when he had a few minutes, she hoped he would drop by her apartment and see if her piano was in tune. She had just had it tuned, but it didn't sound right, and she wanted a second opinion before she called Steinway & Sons and complained.

When he went to her apartment the next day after school, Lizbeth Vernon answered the door in a thin silk robe and told him that she had been under the sunlamp and hoped he wasn't embarra.s.sed. Lizbeth also told him that she thought he was lonely, that she had seen it in his eyes, and that she understood his loneliness, because her husband, a regional manager for Merrill Lynch, the stockbrokers, was on the road from Monday to Thursday, so she was lonely herself.

There were a couple of awkward moments that afternoon, after Lizbeth learned that not only was he only fifteen but that he had never been with a woman before.

"Jesus Christ," Lizbeth said, horrified, as they lay sated in the biggest bed he had ever seen.

But she quickly recovered.

"Well, I'll say this," Lizbeth said, laughing deep in her throat as she grabbed him, "you are are big for your age. And you are a protege, aren't you?" big for your age. And you are a protege, aren't you?"

And Lizbeth told him that what had "driven me crazy" from the first moment she'd seen him was his eyes.

That had been, from beginning to end, a fine relations.h.i.+p. And it had lasted long after his "protege" status had ended. Two years at Juilliard had convinced everybody, his father included, that despite his "early promise," he just didn't have what it would take to become a concert pianist.

He had often come down to Manhattan to visit Lizbeth-when her husband was out of town over a weekend, when Freddy had been at Yale, working toward a degree in European history with a minor in Slavic languages-and there'd been harsh words between them only twice: once when she had come to New Haven to surprise him and had found him in bed with a red-haired, white-skinned, Irish Sarah Lawrence student who had amazingly freckled b.r.e.a.s.t.s; and the other, in January 1942, when he had told her that he was going to enlist rather than wait until he graduated the following June.

Lizbeth had told him-actually screamed at him-that he was going to regret it when he woke up and found out what the Army was all about. If he had any sense at all, he would at least stay in school until he graduated and could get an officer's commission.

The Army had sent him to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for basic training, and then to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for tank training. He had loved all of it, even basic training. There was something about it that had made him feel for the first time in his life-out of bed-like a man. Piano proteges play pianos, not baseball or football, and as lousy as the Yale football team was, there had been no place on it for someone even of his size who had never handled a football.

He had made expert with the Garand rifle in basic training, the first firearm he had ever touched, and to his great delight and satisfaction had proven to be just as skilled firing the 75mm tube on the M4A3 tank on the ranges at Knox. His record, education, and physical condition quickly got him into Officer Candidate School, and he was the Honor Graduate of his cla.s.s of "ninety-day wonders."

But instead of being ordered to a tank company, Second Lieutenant Ferenc Janos was ordered to the 576th Military, Government Detachment at Fort Benjamin Harrison, at Indianapolis, Indiana. There, a very military lieutenant colonel who four months before had never worn a uniform crisply informed him he was an officer now, and the Army made the decision about officer a.s.signments. He spoke Hungarian and Croatian and German, and his services would be required to govern a defeated Germany and/or a defeated Hungary.

He had been compiling a list-because of his musical background-of German, Austrian, Hungarian, Bohemian, Moravian, and Yugoslavian church organs of historical and/or cultural importance when he had seen a notice on the bulletin board at Fort Benjamin Harrison that applications from officers speaking any of a list of foreign languages would be accepted for an unspecified a.s.signment involving "great personal risk."

The lieutenant colonel who had told him that the Army made the decisions about officer a.s.signment now told him that his application "bordered on the disloyal" and that he felt he should tell him that he would do everything in his power to have the application disapproved.

Two weeks later, Freddy Janos had found himself reporting to a requisitioned estate in Virginia, known as OSS Virginia Station. As far as Freddy Janos was concerned, it was even better than Forts Dix and Knox. Here he was taught really fascinating things, such as how to blow up bridges, and parachute from airplanes, and kill people with your bare hands.

And then, just before he was to go back to Hungary, he broke his G.o.dd.a.m.ned ankle.

"Hey, Freddy!" an officer called in disgust from across the room. "Jesus Christ!"

It took Freddy Janos just a moment to understand the nature of the complaint. Lost in thought, wallowing in self-pity over his enforced celibacy, he had without thinking gone from Gershwin to Prokofiev. He listened to what his subconscious had selected for him to play. He smiled. It was the Sonatina in G Minor, Opus 54, Number Two, from "Visions Fugitives." Very appropriate.

"You just ain't got no couth, Sanderson," Freddy called back, and then segued into "I'm Gonna Buy a Paper Doll."

He smiled at the two women leaning on the piano.

And then he looked beyond them to the bar. Captain the d.u.c.h.ess Stanfield was walking up to it, and she was not alone.

Absolutely gorgeous! G.o.d was obviously feeling good when he made that one!

And an officer! No restrictions!

What he would do, Freddy decided, was wait until they got their drinks and sat down someplace. Then he would just wander over and say, "Hi!"

It was too much to hope that they would come by the piano, where he would have a chance to dazzle the absolutely ravis.h.i.+ng blonde with some piano pyrotechnics and then smile sadly at her.

But they did just that.

G.o.d is on my side! Virtue is its own reward!

"h.e.l.lo, Freddy," the d.u.c.h.ess said as she hopped onto the piano itself.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

"Charity, this is Freddy Janos," the d.u.c.h.ess said.

"h.e.l.lo," Charity said, smiling at him, giving him her hand, meeting his eyes.

"I'm overcome," Freddy said, taking her hand, marveling at the softness of it, the warmth, the utter femininity utter femininity of it. of it.

"Freddy has a broken ankle," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "I'd get my hand back if I were you, but after that you're fairly safe; he can't run at all well."

"How did you break your ankle?" Charity asked, compa.s.sion and sympathy in her eyes and voice.

And where there is compa.s.sion and sympathy, can pa.s.sion be far behind?

"Small accident, landing by parachute," Freddy said, with a smile and what he thought was just the right touch of becoming modesty.

"Oh, Jesus!" Charity breathed.

Freddy hadn't expected quite that reaction and looked at her in surprise. She wasn't looking at him, but over his shoulder at the door.

A flyboy had come into the bar. Freddy had seen him before. He was a buddy of Canidy, the headman. It was rumored that he was the son of some big shot in the higher echelons of the OSS. He was also supposed to be an ex- Flying Tiger. He was also pretty G.o.dd.a.m.ned young to be a lieutenant colonel.

He headed straight for the bar, without looking toward the piano.

"Doug!" the absolutely stunning blonde called. Or tried to call. She seemed to be having trouble with her voice.

He didn't hear her.

"Colonel Dougla.s.s!" the d.u.c.h.ess called in her clear, crisp voice.

The flyboy looked for her, found her, and waved casually, dismissing her.

And then did a double take.

Then he walked to the piano, right to the blonde. He didn't look at anyone else, and he didn't speak.

He put his hand up, very slowly, very carefully, as if afraid when he made contact that the apparition would disappear, as does a soap bubble when touched, and touched the blonde's cheek.

"Doug," the blonde said again, as if she was about to cry.

The flyboy took his fingers from the blonde's cheek and reached down and caught her hand, and led her wordlessly out of the room.

"Sorry about that," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "I saw your eyes light up."

"One gathers they have met before," Freddy said.

The d.u.c.h.ess chuckled.

"Did my eyes really light up?" he asked.

"Yes, they did," she said.

"Why are you so sure they didn't light up for you?"

She met his eyes.

"Sorry, Freddy," the d.u.c.h.ess said.

She had sad eyes, he saw. There was something in them that made him want to comfort her. Really comfort her, not screw her. Well, maybe both, but first comfort her. And then he saw in her eyes that she was neither going to let him comfort her nor screw her.

"Me, too," Freddy said.

4.

THE ISLAND OF VIS 0525 HOURS 17 FEBRUARY 1943.

Canidy was sitting on a ten-foot-tall boulder, half buried in the side of the valley, his legs dangling over the side, sipping coffee from a gray pottery mug. Ferniany was sitting beside him, and Capt. Hughson was standing behind them.

Canidy winced when the B-25 on its landing roll came to the shallow stream in the middle of the runway and set up an enormous cascade of water.

But the B-25 did not deviate from its path.

It rolled another thirty yards, braking hard, so that inertia depressed the piston on the nose gear almost completely. Then it stopped and turned, and began taxiing back down the runway.

When it pa.s.sed the boulder, Dolan, in the copilot's seat, made a "what now?" gesture with his hands, holding them out palms up, and shrugged.

Canidy made a "take it up" gesture, followed by a "bye-bye" wave. Dolan nodded and smiled, then put his hands over his face in an Oh my G.o.d! we're going to cras.h.!.+ Oh my G.o.d! we're going to cras.h.!.+ gesture. gesture.

The B-25 reached the inland end of the runway sixty seconds later, turned, ran up its engines, and then started to move. As it pa.s.sed the boulder, Canidy could see the expressionless face of Gisella Dyer through the Plexiglas window in the fuselage. He waved at her. There was no response.

There was another eruption of water when the B-25 pa.s.sed through the stream again, and it visibly slowed. But then it picked up speed again quickly, the nosewheel left the ground, and a moment later it was airborne.

The wheels went up, and the flaps, and then it climbed steeply.

Canidy watched for a minute until the plane was barely visible, and then he stood up, draining the coffee mug.

"Okay, Ferniany," he said, "let's get our show on the road."

They walked off the top of the boulder where it joined the wall of the valley, then slid rather than walked to the valley floor. A three-wheel German Hanomag truck, sort of an oversize three-wheel motorcycle, was parked there. The Hanomag had a canvas-covered truck bed; Canidy and Ferniany got in the back and closed the canvas tail-curtain over them, then Hughson kicked the engine into life and got behind the steering wheel.

They made their way about four miles down a path that turned first into a narrow cobblestone road and then into a rough macadam street. In a little while, they turned off onto a steep, narrow dirt path that led them to the water's edge.

When Canidy climbed out of the Hanomag, he saw a thirty-eight-foot, high-prowed fis.h.i.+ng boat two hundred yards offsh.o.r.e dragging a net to the regular explosive snorting of a two-cylinder diesel engine. Just as he thought he saw the glint of binoculars in the small wheelhouse, the sound of the diesel engine changed pitch, the fis.h.i.+ng boat slowed and then went dead in the water, and men started to retrieve the net.