Page 26

“I’m not every—” Canidy said to Group Captain Tugnutt before he realized others in the room were watching their interaction and he stopped.

“Captain,” he began again, calmly, “could we have a private moment?”

“I believe our business here is complete, Major.”

“Captain,” Canidy replied evenly and with a forced smile, “it would really be in the best interests of both of us.” He paused, then nodded toward the small adjoining office. “Please.”

Captain Tugnutt’s bony face contorted to show his obvious annoyance. He finally said, “Very well.”

“Thank you, sir,” Canidy said loudly, more for the benefit of those in the room than for Tugnutt.

In the office, Captain Tugnutt said, “Now, Major—”

“Captain,” Canidy interrupted, his voice low as he spoke with an edge to his words, “know that I share this with great reluctance.”

Canidy produced a small leather wallet containing his OSS anywhere-anytime-anyfuckingthing credentials.

“You get me on that plane, sir,” Canidy added, “or we get the air vice marshall on the horn.”

The AOD raised an eyebrow as he reviewed the credentials—twice, since it was clear he had never seen any like them before—before he handed them back.

“If you’d made these available from the start, Major,” Captain Tugnutt said snottily, “there’d been no problem, and certainly no call for threats.”

It was all Canidy could do not to suggest that the captain make himself genuinely useful to at least one person by going off and performing on himself what his surname implied.

But Canidy wanted on that damned airplane—and out of Gander—and impressed himself by keeping his automatic mouth shut for once.

As Canidy climbed aboard the about-to-depart flight, he realized that his problems would likely not end with the fastening of his lap belt. He saw his open seat—the only open seat on the whole aircraft—and it was right next to a lieutenant colonel who had a very sour look.

He clearly was not at all happy that his traveling buddy, also a light bird, had been bumped—and, worse than bumped, made to get off of the plane—to make room for a lowly major.

Canidy, not in any mood to deal with another by-the-book type, dealt with the situation in what he felt was the best manner: He ignored it.

Then he thought, Why the hell not? I’m ordered home to take my medicine, so what’s the worst that can happen? They send me back to fight the Krauts?

Canidy pulled a silver flask from his tunic, lifted it toward the prickly lieutenant colonel as if in a toast, said with a smile, “For medicinal purposes,” then, in three healthy swigs, drained half of the scotch contained therein, put the flask back in his tunic pocket, pulled his cap down so the brim covered his eyes, and with vivid memories of the bittersweet hours in the arms of Ann Chambers at her flat the previous night—Or was it thenight before? Jesus, I hate this travel—he slid into a deep sleep.

[ FIVE ]

Anacostia Naval Air Station

Washington, D.C.

1520 5 March 1943

The change in pitch of the four Twin Wasp radial engines on the Air Transport Command C-54 when the pilot throttled back for a slow descent from its cruising altitude of nine thousand feet caused Major Richard Canidy, USAAF, to stir from his sleep. He had awakened briefly once before when he thought he may have felt another odd vibration, but all engines continued to turn and he had dozed off again.

He cracked open one eye now, then the other, and after his pupils adjusted to the painfully bright afternoon sunlight that was flooding into his window he glanced out over the right wing. He could see a beautiful blanket of snow covering everything on the ground of what he guessed was Delaware. No, Maryland, he corrected himself when he recognized the geography of the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay.

The pilot banked a bit to the right, and when the brilliant sun reflected off the wing, Canidy winced, then turned away from the window.

The lieutenant colonel was still strapped in next to Canidy, and though he did not seem to be as much out of sorts as he had been at takeoff, he was not exactly about to offer, say, his services as a D.C. tour guide—or even share transportation into the district.

Sharing transportation, Canidy saw as he carried his duffel on his shoulder down the aircraft steps behind the lieutenant colonel, was not going to be a problem.

There, parked among a line of olive drab Chevrolet staff cars, was a 1941 Packard 280 convertible coupe. Leaning on its fender, reading a copy of the Washington Star, was a stocky chief boatswain’s mate wearing an expensively tailored United States Navy uniform. On the chief’s sleeve were stitched twenty-four years’ worth of hash marks.

Canidy realized that the scene fascinated the lieutenant colonel, and he intentionally picked up his pace across the tarmac enough to move ahead of the lieutenant colonel.