He appeared on the ground shortly afterward walking around the tail section of the aircraft, holding his cap on his head with his hand against the prop blast of the idling engines. He was wearing a tropical worsted shirt and trousers and a horsehide leather A-2 jacket.
He saluted Canidy.
“Is there something I can do for you, Major?”
“We’ve met, Captain Fine,” Canidy said. Fine’s eyebrows rose in question. “The first time was when Eric Fulmar and I tried to burn down Cedar Rapids. The last time was in Washington the spring before the war.
We had dinner with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan and Cynthia Chenowith.”
“Dick Canidy,” Captain Fine said, extending his hand.
“I don’t know Why I didn’t recognize you, I guess I expected you to be halfway around the world.”
“I’m much better-looking than I used to be,” Canidy said.
Fine laughed.
“I saw in the papers, of course, that Jim Whittaker got out of the Philippines. I wondered what happened to you.”
“I got out of China,” Canidy said. “But you were in the Navy,” Fine questioned, indicating Canidy’s Air Corps uniform. “And you were a lawyer,” Canidy said as they shook hands, “Things change. The war, I hear, has something to do with that.” Fine laughed again, then said, “Well, I’m glad you did, and I’m glad to see you. But I suspect this is not a coincidence.”
“Can your copilot handle parking that aircraft?” Canidy asked.
“Interesting question,” Fine said dryly “I suppose he has to learn sometime, doesn’t he?” He turned to the airplane and made gestures telling the copilot to take the airplane to its parking place.
“Curiosity is about to overwhelm me,” Fine said to Canidy. The conversation was interrupted by a roar from the B- 17’s outboard port engine. The copilot, Canidy thought, was running the engine much too fast to taxi. The copilot retarded his throttle to a more reasonable level, and the B-17E began to move. Fine and Canidy exchanged the smug smiles of veteran pilots over the foibles of new ones. Then Fine said, “He’s got a hundred thirty hours’ total time. He’ll learn.”
“Can we talk in your BOQ? Do you have a roommate?”
“We can talk there,” Fine said.
Fine’s room was in a frame building so new it smelled of freshly sawed lumber. Fine led Canidy to his spartan quarters-two small rooms, with the studs exposed, and a shared bathroom with a tin-walled shower-and told him to make himself comfortable. “Close and lock the door, please, Stan,” Canidy said, then reached into his tunic and took from it a tiny American flag on an eight-inch pole. He waved it at Fine.
“In case you miss the symbolism,” he said, I’m waving the flag at you.
THE SECRET WARRIORS 0 IRS “I don’t think I’m going to like this,” Fine said, laughing. “You always carry a flag around?”
“No,” Canidy said.
“I stole this one from your group commander’s desk while he left me to check out my orders.” Fine smiled.
“They apparently checked out,” he said.
“What do they say?” Canidy handed him the orders. “They don’t say much, do they?” Fine said when he had read them. “Except that whatever you’re doing has the approval of the Air Corps. And that it’s secret. I used to be in the motion-picture business, you remember, and this has all the earmarks of a Grade B adventure thriller. A mysterious officer appears, carrying secret orders. Are you now going to ask me to volunteer for a secret, dangerous mission, from which there is rtually no chance of returning alive?” VI idy said, “that you’ll get back “I’d say the chances are sixty-forty,” Can all right.”
Fine looked at him long enough to see that he was serious. “I’ll be damned!” he said. “There’s a mission, a long-distance flight, that we would like you to undertake, Canidy said. “We?” Fine asked. “@”,o’s ‘we’?”
“I can’t tell you that yet,” Canidy said. “Hey, come on! ” Canidy shrugged and smiled. “Well, let’s see, Dick,” Fine said.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Colonel Donovan, would it?”
“Colonel who?” Canidy asked innocently. “And you are also forbidden to tell me where I would be going, or for how long, or why. Right?”