Jamison called impatiently.
“Open the damned door! Whittaker tried to open the door just wide enough to see what the sonofabitch wanted, but Jamison pushed his way inside, looked in genuine surprise at the duchess, and thereafter pretended she was invisible. “Colonel Stevens was just on the horn,” he said.
“You’re to come to the hangar at Croydon as soon as you can get there.”
“He say why?”
“No,” he said.
“But he said bring a change of clothes, and either come by jeep or bring somebody along to drive the Ford back here.”
“Go take the tarpaulin off,” the duchess of Stan field said. “I can drive the Ford.” Then she got out of bed and trotted regally, stark naked, across the room to retrieve her bathrobe from where she had dropped it on the floor. X X11
ONE I Croydon Airfield London, England 0915 Hours August 19, 1942
They had a bit of trouble, as it turned out, gaining entrance to the field itself. The red-hatted soldiers of His Majesty’s Military Police, who guarded it, had been ordered to be on the lookout for a stolen American Ford staff car meeting the description of the one they were driving. The MP officer of the guard, however, backed down before the icy indignation of Captain the Duchess Stan field, V@RAC, who was driving the car. Her Grace was incensed that anyone could imagine for a moment that she could possibly be found in the company of a car thief.
And they were passed on to the field. The C-46 was out of the hangar, and a snub-nosed English fuel truck was parked beside it. Its hose led to the auxiliary fuel tanks inside the fuselage. Canidy was standing in the aircraft door watching the proceedings. When he saw the Ford drive up, he came down the ladder. “What’s going on?” Whittaker asked. “I hate to say this, but the duchess doesn’t have the need to know,” Canidy said.
“The War Office and the OSS agreed that any actions taken with regard to Admiral de Verbey would be a joint decision,” the duchess said.
“So file an official complaint,” Canidy said, and took Whittaker by the arm and led him inside the hangar. “The captain,” he said to the guards loud enough for the duchess to hear him, “is not authorized to enter the hangar.” Inside, Whittaker saw Colonel Stevens standing expectantly beside a telephone. Next to him, a cigarette dangling from his lips, was the London chief of station. “Are they down?” Whittaker asked. That could be the only explanation for their summons in the middle of the night to Croydon. Something had happened to Fine’s airplane, and the backup was needed. “They’re overdue at Bissau,” Canidy said, “They will run out of fuel in about fifteen minutes.”
“So the backup flight is on?”
“Well, that’s being decided,” Canidy said dryly, nodding toward Colonel Stevens and the chief of station, “at the highest levels. Things are just fucked up, Jimmy.”
“Well, then, tell me what’s going on,” Whittaker said reasonably.
“I’ll start from the beginning,” Canidy said, “At seventeen hundred hours yesterday, purely as a precautionary measure, Colonel Stevens called over here and asked to speak to Commander Whatsisname. He wanted to put him on a six-as opposed to a twelve-hour alert. The flight engineer told him that Commander Whatsisnarne was with Captain Somebody at the moment.
So Stevens, being a nice guy, said that’s all right, when he comes back, tell him he’s now on a six-hour alert, and ask him to call me for details. That’s fuckup number one.”
“How?” Whittaker asked. “Bear with me,” Canidy said.
“Then he went over to meet me at the Dorchester, where he told me that Scotland Yard is on the case of the stolen Ford, and that they expect to have the criminal behind bars in the immediate future.”
“Are you serious “Dead serious,” Canidy said. “Christ, and Elizabeth’s going to drive it back to Whitby House.”
“I’m fascinated to hear you refer to her as Elizabeth,” Canidy said.
“But I thought you wanted to hear about this.”
“Go on.”
“We had a drink, and then he took me upstairs to a just-swept room, THE SECRET WARRIORS a 29a where I was, as they say, brought into the big picture. That was fucki number two.”