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“What it is, Joe Louis, is that Lieutenant Kennedy and some other free-thinkers in Navy Blue,” Canidy said,“have the odd notion that the only way to take out Saint-Lazare is with a pilotless flying bomb.”

“Major,” Kennedy said sharply, angrily. “That’s classified Top Secret.”

“Yeah,” Canidy said. “I know. Tell you what, Kennedy. Come along with us, and you can talk to Doug on the way.”

“Dick, is that smart?” Whittaker asked.

“Lieutenant Kennedy’s father used to be the ambassador here,” Canidy said. “I think he can be trusted.”

“Dick, I really can’t leave here, for Christ’s sake. I’m the group commander, ” Douglass said.

“The base commander devoutly believes you have been summoned to brief certain unspecified big shots on Saint-Lazare,” Canidy said.

“Come along where?” Kennedy asked.

Canidy ignored the question.

“We’ll get you back however we get Douglass back,” Canidy said.

“I really would like no more than an hour of Major Douglass’s time right here and now,” Kennedy said.

“That’s not one of your options,” Canidy said. “Come or not, suit yourself.”

“This is official business,” Kennedy bluffed.

“No, it’s not,” Canidy said. “Doug is supposed to brief you people on Friday. You’re jumping the gun, Kennedy.”

Kennedy’s face again registered surprise at Canidy’s detailed knowledge of the project. Canidy saw it.

“Never lie to Canidy the Omniscient,” he said. “You coming or not?”

“I’m coming,” Kennedy said after a moment.

Chapter TWO

Whitbey House,

Kent, England

1015 Hours 25 December 1942

As Lt. Colonel Edmund T. Stevens and Captain Stanley S. Fine stepped out of a 1942 Ford four-door staff car at the entrance to Whitbey House, they were somewhat disconcerted by the roar of aircraft engines. They looked around for the source of the noise and spotted a B-25 Mitchell twin-engine bomber emerging from the cloud cover at about 1,000 feet.

Lt. Colonel Stevens was not pleased: The B-25 was attempting to land on the dirt runway built before the war by His Grace the Duke of Stanfield for his personal aircraft, a four-passenger single-engine Cessna. Engineering officers of the Eighth United States Air Force had recently examined the field in some detail. Their judgment was that the single runway was too short and too close to Whitbey House itself to be used by anything larger than single-engine observation aircraft. Furthermore, the experts said, improvement of the field was not feasible, because of the topography of the land. The strip could not be lengthened at the north-northeast end because of Whitbey House, nor at the south-southwest end because of the River Naer, whose steep banks were 135 yards from the end of the runway.

The experts had concluded that the field did not meet minimum safety standards even for an emergency landing strip and that it should thus be marked at both ends with at least fifty-foot-high X’s (whitewashed rocks were recommended) to warn aircraft commanders of the hazard.

There was no doubt in Lt. Colonel Stevens’s mind that the B-25 attempting to sit down on the closed and hazardous runway was the one that (not without difficulty) Dick Canidy had recently procured on indefinite loan from the Eighth United States Air Force and that Dick Canidy was flying it.

Why? No flights of the B-25 had been scheduled or authorized. It was supposed to be sitting in a revetment on the U.S. Army Air Corps base at East Grinstead, some thirty miles away.

A look at Captain Fine told Colonel Stevens that Fine had been considering the same possibilities, and was worried.

Worried not only that Canidy was attempting a dangerous landing, but more important (should he survive it) that he was about to be caught with his pants down by the Deputy Chief of the London Station of the OSS.

Colonel Stevens chose not to play the outraged senior officer. He pretended he’d never heard the B-25, prayed for Canidy’s safety, and walked inside the house and waited.

He was greeted at the door by Lieutenant Jamie Jamison and Captain the Duchess Stanfield, WRAC, who he suspected were considerably less than glad to see him, at this moment, than they attempted to be. Lt. Colonel Stevens did not ask about the present whereabouts of Major Canidy, nor did Lieutenant Jamison or Captain Stanfield volunteer any information.