W E B Griffin – Men at War 4 – The Fighting Agents

“You said there was a power saw,” he said.

“Get it. Cover as much of this thing as you can with the largest boughs you can.”

“Why don’t you just blow it?” one of them, the one who was so concerned about Janos being in pain, said.

“You already got one fire.”

“Everybody gets one question,” Canidy said.

“That was yours. I don’t want to hear another. The answer to your question is we’re going to get out of here on that Gooney Bird.”

“You’ll never get that off the ground in that short a distance,” the parachutist said.

“That was an opinion,” Canidy said icily.

“You get one, only, of those, too.

The next time I want to see your mouth open is when I ask you a question.”

The parachutist glared at him but said nothing.

“Get going!” Canidy said.

“I want the snow to cover the boughs.”

“There’s an auxiliary fuel system,” Darmstadter said.

“A fifty-five-gallon barrel connected to the main tanks. You want me to try to get it out?”

“That and anything else heavy we don’t absolutely need.”

“You’re not talking about Commander Dolan?” Darmstadter flared.

“No,” Canidy said.

“We’ll take Dolan with us.”

The Countess’s housekeeper appeared in the main room of the lodge when Canidy, Alois, and Freddy Janos, white-faced, his arms around their shoulders, walked into it.

She put a balled fist to her mouth. Canidy could not tell whether she was manifesting sympathy or fear.

“Major,” Janos said, embarrassed, “I think I’m going to pass out.”

“I’m going to give you something for pain just as soon as I get you in bed.”

Canidy said.

“Tell him to tell her to keep her mouth shut.”

They half carried Janos to the bed in which Canidy had slept and laid him flat on it. Canidy, as gently as he could, cut the boot from his leg, then pulled a coarsely woven cotton sock–Hungarian, rather than GI wool-cushion-soled-from it. Somewhere in Janos’s gear was a pair of Hungarian shoes that the plan called for him to put on once he was on the ground. The notion that jump boots might protect his ankle hadn’t worked.

The ankle was blue and swollen, but there didn’t seem to be any bones threatening to break through the skin.

Canidy opened a flat metal can, sealed with tape, and took a morphine syringe from it. He pushed Janos’s trouser leg up as far as he could and shoved the needle into his calf. It would take a little longer for the morphine to take effect that way, but it would be less painful for Janos than moving his body around to get at his upper arm or buttock.

“That’ll take a minute or two,” Canidy said.

“I’ll be back.”

“I’m getting sick to my stomach,”Janos said.

“Tell him,” Canidy said, nodding at Alois.

“He’ll get you something to throw up in.”

Then he went looking for the Countess and von HeurtenMitnitz.

It was not necessary under the circumstances, he decided, to bother knocking on doors and politely “waiting for permission to enter.

He found them behind the third door he opened, nearly hidden under a goose-down comforter.

“Good morning,” he said.

Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz suddenly erupted from under the comforter, reaching for his Walther pistol as his eyes swept around the room.

The movement took the comforter off both of them. They were both naked.

The Countess, as Canidy had thought she might be, was a baroque work of art. His Excellency was a white-skinned, skinny man, from whose chest sprouted no more than a dozen long black hairs.

“What’s all this?” von Heurten-Mitnitz demanded in outrage as he put the pistol down and pulled the comforter over himself and the Countess.

“The team is here,” Canidy said.

“I presume you mean Ferniany,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said, “No, I mean the team,” Canidy said.

“They were dropped about thirty minutes ago. I think you ought to get dressed and get out of here right away.”

I have just decided, Canidy realized, that I am not going to tell them about the Gooney Bird.

“Did everything go all right? “the Countess Batthyany asked.

“One of them has a broken ankle,” Canidy said.

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