Muller’s eyes, very cold, met Canidy’s, but he didn’t say anything.
“At the risk of repeating myself,” Canidy said, “it may be necessary to do whatever is necessary to keep Fulmar and the professor from falling into the hands of the SS. But I will make that decision.”
Muller snorted again, and pursed his lips.
“When I first saw you, Major,” Muller said finally, “what I thought was they had sent an amateur. Obviously, I was wrong.”
[ EIGHT ]
Captain Stanley S. Fine resisted the temptation to let It. Colonel Peter Douglass, Jr.” who was riding as copilot, land the B-17F. Doug Douglass, despite the expected fighter pilot’s denigration of the “flying barge,” was obviously fascinated with the bomber. He would have liked to make the landing, and he probably would have handled it onto the wide and long runway without any trouble at all. He was an experienced pilot, and he had been an apt pupil.
But the moment they had taken off from Fersfield, Fine had been very much aware that they had crossed a line. From now on, everything was dead serious. There was no excuse whatever for taking any kind of a chance, no matter how slight.
Nothing had been said between them, but Douglass had seemed to understand and had conducted himself as a copilot should, making no control movements at all without first getting Fine’s permission.
Fine set the B-17F down smoothly within two hundred feet of the threshold, then lowered it gently down onto the tail wheel.
“Call the tower?” Douglass’s voice came over the intercom.
“Please,” Fine said.
“Cairo, Army Triple Zero Four on the ground at twenty-five past the hour,” Douglass said.
“Request taxi instructions.”
“Triple Zero Four, take Taxiway Two Right and find yourself a place to park with the other B-17s on the line.”
Douglass looked over at Fine. He was surprised. Ten minutes before, Cairo had acknowledged the “This is Eighth Air Force Plight Five Six Six” message that was supposed to alert OSS Cairo that they had arrived. Douglass did not expect the B-17 to be ordered to find itself a place to park with the other 17s on the line.
Fine looked surprised, too.
Douglass pressed the mike button.
“Cairo, Triple Zero Four, say again your last transmission. You were garbled.”
Cairo repeated the order.
There were a dozen B-17s and B-24s, and twice that many other transient aircraft on the parking line, but there was no sign of Canidy’s B-25.
Fine taxied the B-17 to the end of the line, parked it in a line with another B-17, shut it down, and prepared the flight documents.
A gas truck, a brand-new General Motors semitrailer, stopped just off the taxiway in front of them, and a crew got off and began to unroll fueling hoses.
“I’ll go see what’s going on,” Fine said, unstrapping his harness.
“I think we had better keep our passengers aboard.”
Fine opened the access hatch and lowered himself through it. Douglass went through the bomb bay into the rear of the fuselage. The team was peering out the gun ports.
“Colonel?” Janos asked.
“Can we get off?”
“Not yet,” Douglass said.
“Somebody fucked up. There’s nobody here to meet us.”
“That figures,” Janos said.
It was already getting hot in the fuselage; Douglass felt sweat under his arms and on his forehead as he saw it pop out on Janos’s face.
“Fuck it,” he said.
“I don’t see any point in melting. Get out, get in the shade of the wing, but don’t stray off. And don’t take anything with you.”
He went to the side door in the fuselage and opened it, then waited until the last of the team had gotten out before getting out himself.
The team was gone when he got outside, and he saw that a Dodge ambulance had been backed up to the nose of the B-17. Normally, Dodge ambulance bodies had huge red crosses painted on their sides and roof; this one did not.
“You get to ride in front, Colonel,” a voice called, and he saw a hand gesture toward the front of the vehicle.
Douglass walked to the ambulance and got in.