The advocate
by
bill mesce JR. and steven G. szilagyi


bill mesce JR. steven G. szilagyi

BANTAM BOOKS New York Toronto London Sydney Auckland
THE ADVOCATE A Bantam Book / September 2000

All rights reserved. Copyright 2000 by Bill Mesce Jr." and Steven G.  Szilagyi.

Map by Jeffrey L. Ward.

BOOK DESIGN BY GLEN M. EDEISTEIN.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by  any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,  or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission  in writing from
the publisher. For information address: Bantam  Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mesce, Bill.

The advocate / Bill Mesce, Jr." Steven G. Szilagyi p. em. ISBN  0-553-80118-X 1.
World War 1939-1945--Fiction. I. Szilagyi, Steve. II.
Title. PS3563.E74627A65 2000 813'.54--dc21 00-039764

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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To the three brothers, Bill Sr." Tommy, and "Shiekie":

They served.
You were right in that remark that you made last summer. I was booked  to make a
mistake.

I have lived too long in foreign parts.

Henry James, Daisy Miller
ENGLAND

AUGUST 1943
PART ONE:

THE ANGELS
CHAPTER ONE

THE SENESCHAL

the OLD MAN'S RITUAL WAS UNCHANGING. Each morning he brewed his tea  from a tin
of faded leaves and took a biscuit, fresh-cooked the night  before but now
crusty, from the bun warmer on the stove. He sat  hunched over his tea and
biscuit, at the scuffed table he'd built  himself back in the days when the
lumber he'd cut had seemed as light  and limber in his hands as child's clay.

The mutt sat eager and panting at his feet in his own morning canon,  envious
eyes glued to the food in the old man's hand.

When there was but one bite left to the biscuit, the old man paused to  study
the morsel reflectively. This was the dog's cue to stand,  wagging his tail
frantically, bright eyes locked on the treat. The old  man looked from the dog
to the biscuit and back to the dog, as if  weighing some great decision. Then,
he leaned over, he and his chair  creaking together, and held the biscuit over
the dog's head.

The old man raised one finger, and the dog, knowing his part well,  forced
himself to sit and be still. They held this frieze until the  old man felt the
animal had earned his reward.

"Oop wi' ye," the old man commanded, and the dog launched himself onto  his hind
legs, balancing in a waltzing step until the man dropped the  piece of biscuit
into the widespread jaws.

When the biscuit was gone, the dog looked up at the old man, tail  wagging, and
smiled with a mouth full of yellow teeth.

"You are the spoil'dest beast!" the old man said, and smiled back with  teeth
just as yellow. He ruffled the dog's limp ears, then massaged  the top of the
animal's head with his horny knuckles.

The old man finished his tea and brushed the crumbs from the table. He  left the
chipped teacup where it sat. By the time the woman awoke, the  leaves would be
dry and could be returned to their tin.

He wiped his hands on his ragged jersey and poked his head through the
curtained doorway of the bedroom. The cross mounted on the far wall  stood guard
over the woman snuggled in the center of the down-filled  bed. It looked like a
shadow in the gray light from the window facing  the Channel.

The stone walls of the cottage were cool, gathering in the moisture of  the
clammy morning. A breeze off the sea fluttered the thin curtains.  While the dog
watched patiently from the doorway, the old man tiptoed  clumsily to the window.

He tried to close it, but the sash was swollen with the damp and it  resisted
and groaned. He stopped, not wanting to wake the woman, and  pulled the curtains
closed. He reached for a handmade quilt atop the  neat pile of bedclothes at the
foot of the bed and gently drew it  across her shoulders.

He cut some cheese from the brick in the larder, took another biscuit  from the
warmer, and wrapped both in a damp cloth before tucking them  into his haversack
along with a small jug of water. He took his crook  from where it rested against
the wall, and his cap from the hook by the  door. He was halfway out the door
before he remembered his binoculars  on the wireless table.

Try as she might with her hand-tatted doilies, vases of marigolds, the
menagerie of ceramic animals, the woman had been unable to soften the  bleak
presumptuousness of the transmitter, or the grim black ranks of  aircraft
silhouettes on the recognition chart tacked to the wall, lined  up like cemetery
crosses. He slung the glasses round his neck, blew  out the lantern hanging over
the table, and went outside.

The dog spurted past him in the doorway, trotting to the edge of the  cliffs
where he paced back and forth near the steep drop. He left his
urinary 7

mark of proprietorship on the knots of weeds and shrubs growing twisted  in the
Channel winds. The gulls circling off the chalk bluffs ignored  his perfunctory
barks and continued with their breakfast, dropping  mussels on the boulders
strewn along the pebble beach, then diving to  pick at the meat amid the
shattered shells. Bored with the dawn and  the birds and the surf, the dog
trotted off to find the old man by the  chicken coop behind the cottage.

"Damn .. ."

The hens were out, bucbucbucing in a nagging cluster. A gap had been  clawed
between two of the floorboards. Bloodied feathers hung on the  splintered edges
and trailed along the shallow fox tracks that vanished  into the thick pasture
grass.

The old man turned an angry, disgusted look on the dog.

"Where the bloody 'ell were you?"

The dog dodged the old man's attempt to cuff him. He trotted off to a  safe
distance, then followed the old man toward the tool shanty, his  head bowed low
and sheepish.

"Better be sorry," the old man grumbled.

"Be bleedin" shamed o' yerself. That's yer modrern dog for ya. Not  like inna
olden times. Those were real dogs, dogs a man could count  on!"

The old man laid out a roll of rusting chicken wire, frowning when he  saw the
scant few feet left. He gauged by eye how much he'd need and  cut no more than
that. These were not days that tolerated waste or  excess.

"In olden times, a man and his dog went out side by side. Out inna  wars
together, side by side. Tough 'ey was. Slayin' infidels."

The old man went back to the coop. He nudged the hens out of the way  with his
boot and started tacking the patch of wire over the hole.

"Not like 'is easy farm work yer modrern dog's got.Yuh, slay a few  infidels 'n'
yer olden dog wouldna bother wino li'l of' fox.

"Neath 'im it was. Not like yer modrern dog, lays about all day,  lettin' the
sheep stray half ways to London, does." The old man turned  sharply to the dog.

"Buys 'em a rail ticket almost is what 'e does.Yup, that's yer modrern
dog.

"N' 'en 'e wants yer biscuit, too, don't 'e?"

The dog grinned in dumb apology.

The old man leaned over, nose to nose with the dog, and wagged a  reprimanding
finger.

"Old age don't let you out of nothing ya know."

The dog whipped his tongue out; it caught the old man in the eye.

The old man blinked and sighed and rubbed the dog's muzzle.

"Spoii'dest beast I ever seed!"

He shooed the hens back into the coop with his crook, then headed for  the sheep
pen. The dog was already there, maintaining an air of  diligence as he trotted
back and forth beside the rail fence, barking  officiously.

"Oh, e's onna job now, is 'e?" the old man said dryly as he swung open  the
gate.

He started prodding the animals out, occasionally giving his staff a  brisk
swing, feinting at the sheep.

"Ha, take 'at! Slashin' away at 'em! Infidels!"

Heading off the leaders, the dog steered the herd away from the  vegetable
garden in front of the cottage and guided them toward the  grassy hillocks a
safe distance from the cliffs. The flow of animals  broke up the last licks of
morning mist.

The old man trudged after them. A warming breeze blew over the herd,  bringing
him the familiar odors of moist soil, dewy grass, and sour  wool, and the soft
tinkle of collar bells. He could see the dog  handily controlling the
rambunctious elements beginning to stray from  the flock. At the rear, dancing
lambs, enjoying their first summer,  kicked their heels.

The old man selected a spot of thick grass atop a low knoll and sat,  unmindful
of the dampness seeping through his trousers. Wary of the  dog, the black,
teardrop faces of the sheep peeped up from behind each  other's sooty shanks as
he herded them into a small depression below  the old man.

The old man pulled off his jersey and bundled it into a cushion beneath  him.
The dog left the sheep to the business of grazing and lay beside  the old man,
panting with a laborer's pride.

"Old age don't let you out of nothin'," the old man repeated, stroking  the
dog's long, shaggy fur. He shifted on the bundled jersey, leaning  up against
the crook. The breeze, the sounds of surf and birds, were  lulling. Under their
caress, the old man's eyes began to close.

The dog's bark, sharp and agitated, reminded the old man of bloody  feathers,
and his eyes snapped open. The sheep were scattered below  him in the hollow,
gaping at the barking of the dog. No other threat  was in sight.

The old man saw that the dog was barking toward the cottage. Pulling  himself
stiffly up by his crook, he saw the lazy curl of smoke from the  chimney, the
woman out back where she'd been hanging the bedclothes on  a line for airing.
She was waving and calling to him. She pointed  toward the Channel.

He raised the binoculars and rolled the focus wheel. He scanned the  gray
stretch of water until he found the barest charcoal like wisp  hanging low over
the horizon line.

A finger of smoke reached down from the wisp, its tip hardening into  something
silvery, glinting in the dull morning sun. The wisp grew  larger as it neared,
and soon the old man could pick out the stubby  silhouette of a single-engine
aeroplane. A fighter, no doubt, and by  its coloring, aYank. It was heading
toward the old man, moving fast  and low, no more than 150 meters above the
water. The smoke he saw  came in a steady, thin stream from the bulbous,
black-painted nose of  the plane.

Half-tripping, half-shuffling, the old man charged down the slope,  trying to
avoid the dog, who circled and yipped, tangling himself in  leg and crook.

Wheezing and sweaty, the old man and the dog arrived at the door of the
cottage.

From inside came a ratcheting grind as the woman cranked the wireless
generator.

"There's more!" she called to him.

He raised his glasses again, sweeping until he saw two more of the  silvery
flecks materializing above the line of the water. They were in  staggered
formation, perhaps another fifty meters higher than the first  plane, closing
swiftly with the cripple, sniffing along its fragile  trail of smoke.

The old man drew himself up straight and forced himself to take long,  calming
breaths before he stepped inside. He did not want the woman to  see how winded
he was.

"

"E's 'urt. "The woman said it urgently.

"I know." He tossed his crook on the table and crossed to the  wireless. She had
already flipped the power switch for him. He pulled  the kapok-cushioned
headphones on, wincing at the hissing and crackling  of static in his ears. As
he fiddled with the frequency controls, he  looked out the window at the
approaching aircraft, then to the  recognition poster above the generator. He
picked up the heavy  microphone, cleared his throat self-importantly, and
pressed the  transmission button.

"This is Observer Three Baker Three to Three Baker Control. Come in  Three Baker
Control, over."

All three aircraft were still some miles out, but there was no  mistaking that
silhouette: beer-barrel fuselage; stubby, elliptical  wings.

"Three Boker Three," came a young, cool, woman's voice.

"This is Three Baker Control. Proceed, over."

The old man moved the family Bible aside to consult the direction  markers taped
to the wireless table.

"I have three American Pfortysevum Thunderbolts heading my position,  course two
seven zero. One aircraft is trailing smoke." Then, as the  trainer in the
village had taught him, he carefully repeated the  message.

"We are alerted. Three Baker Three. Will alert Air/ Sea Rescue. Keep  us copied.
Three Baker Control out."

The dog followed the old man and woman outside, to the verge of the  cliff.

Although the smoke from the lead ship had grown thicker, the faint buzz  of the
approaching engine remained smooth and steady. The first of the  two trailing
aircraft had closed to within a mile of its injured mate.  The old man nodded
approvingly.

"

"E'll be aw right he told the woman, noting how her fingers were  knotted
tensely together.

"We seen much worse."

He shifted closer to her to block her view down the coast toward the  point.

After three years, there wasn't much left of the plane on the rocks  below
except the tail section; a canted cross wedged upright in the  rocks with its
metal bleached bare of markings by sun and sea.

"

"At'sow 'ey do it, see?" He pointed to the follow plane closing with  the
smoking leader.

"When one of 'em is 'urt like 'at, 'ey come back wi' 'im.

Escorts.

"Ey look after each other like 'at."

The first follow plane was less than a hundred meters behind the  cripple, still
above it and off to the right of its tail. Then the  high plane gently dipped
its wing, flashing American stars, and slid  into a shallow dive.

The old man saw twinkling spots of light on the wings of the diving  plane, and
the shell casings showering from under the aircraft. A  moment later, muted by
the heavy air, the stuttering of the guns  reached him. The black cowling of the
crippled Thunderbolt blew free  with a dull crump. Licks of flame spat back from
the engine, sweeping  along the fuselage with thick, oily smoke, the stream
pierced by the  glittering shards of Plexiglas as the canopy shattered.

The crippled plane dropped toward the water and, in another easy  motion, the
attacker pulled smoothly out of his dive and began to climb  and bank. The sun
glinted on the aluminum skin, whiting out the stars  on the wings.

The old man could see the outline of a figure in the cockpit, sun  burning in
the lenses of the goggles pushed back on the leather-clad  head. The shining
glass eyes turned toward the old man, and the  Thunderbolt slid into another
dive.

He had watched it all, but it had not registered. Suddenly, he  understood.

"Run," he croaked to the woman.

"Run!"

They reached the doorway as the Thunderbolt opened fire. The old man  shoved her
through and to the right while he dove left. He hugged the  stone wall hard
enough to take the skin off his cheek. He squeezed his  eyes closed as the
stones at his back shuddered under the pounding of  the heavy bullets.

The Thunderbolt picked up its nose and the front windows of the cottage
imploded. The room flew apart. Dishes, cookware, furniture--all rose  up and
disintegrated, the air hazing with powdered wood and crockery.  The plane nosed
up another degree; the roof erupted in shredded  thatch-work and splinters of
beam.

The guns were drowned out as the roaring engine of the Thunderbolt  reached down
and washed over the small cottage, over the old man,  grabbing them both by
their ancient foundations, threatening to tear  them stone from stone, bone from
bone.

The old man's arms curled round his head and his knees came up to his  chest. He
squirmed against the cold stone of the wall and waited to  die.
CHAPTER TWO

THE JUSTICIAR

after HE WAS GONE, I CLIP CLOPPED my way back to the Annex. Don't know  why.
Scene of the crime and all that, I suppose. I was feeling a bit  mournful just
then.

Oh, not for poor old Harry. I'd hardly known him, really, though I'd  known him
well enough to know that that pile of respectable granite  walls and marbled
halls, the stained glass transoms and slate roofs of  the Annex, had been a sad
sort of pinnacle for him.

I stood across the lane where I could see past the gate to the court  beyond. I
looked to a high corner of the yard, to the brace of tall,  dusty windows that
marked his quarters, and then to the other side of  the yard to the single,
narrow window that signaled his office. Find  the tallest staircase, the
farthest end of the hall, the least  attractive view, the tightest quarters and
longest walk to the loo:  There you'd find poor old Harry Voss.

Poor old Harry. The deep, frowning furrows of his forehead, the few  strands of
hair trying vainly to breach the freckled bare pate, and  that plow-horse trudge
of his were guaranteed to pluck your pity  strings, even at a first glance. He'd
already looked worn and worried  when he landed in England, no doubt over the
security of his threadbare  law practice, his household, and the well-being of
the two warm-eyed  brats and the pear-shaped woman he'd left three thousand
miles  behind.

The white-helmeted Military Policemen at the Annex court gate nicked me  one of
those steely-eyed glares that I think they'd borrowed from the  busby-topped
guards at Buckingham Palace. I gave them a little smile,  just a polite
acknowledgment of their attention because I knew that  despite my having stood
in the same spot for half the week they'd  failed to recognize me. So, I smiled,
they glared, and I looked up at  poor old Harry's window and shook my head.

Poor, poor old Harry.

Having seen Harry's clerk--as I'd seen most of the other players in  this
drama--across the cobbles of the court, I could imagine poor old  Harry's pain
and sorrow when he discovered young Corporal Nagel each  morning dutifully
waiting at his station in the outer office; this  despite Harry's fervent
prayers the night before that one of Fat  Hermann's 2 50-kg. high-explosive
delights might go astray and find  the young Idahoan in his bed. Resigned to
another unanswered prayer,  Harry would grunt a perfunctory good morning to
Nagel, usher the  corporal off on his morning toddle to the Annex canteen, then
settle in  his tiny office. He would neatly hang his khaki jacket on a hanger
hooked to the back of the door, loosen his tie in a way that provided  the least
wrinkling, roll his sleeves with equal attention above his  hairy forearms,
careful to keep the folds straight and even.

In longer time than it should have taken, Corporal Nagel would duly  return and
hover over Harry with a cardboard tray of coffee and  doughnuts wobbling in his
anamorphic hands.

Harry had a plodding way about him. I can see him pushing himself  slowly away
from his typewriter table and sighing (he was a sighing  sort) at Nagel's
return.

He would pluck at his khaki shirt where it stuck in little damp spots  to his
sweaty paunch, and look sadly over the tops of his half-moon  reading glasses at
the tall pimply-faced corporal, gangly and stooped  like a broken umbrella arm.

Harry told me that the simple act of removing a coffee and a powdered  doughnut
from the tray and setting them down on the desk was, for  Nagel, the kind of
operation that required the fierce and painful  concentration of a bomb-disposal
expert. Doing his best not to make  any sudden moves that might startle the lad.
Harry would delicately  slide his legs as far as he could from where the
sloshing cup of coffee  was coming in for a bumpy landing.

Corporal Nagel could be relied on for at least one annoyance per day  and this
particular day he was in proper form.

"What's that you have in your mouth?"

Harry asked.

"Sir?"

Harry pushed his glasses back up on the damp bulb of his nose and  tugged at
where his shirt was sticking under his arms. It was quite  close in the small
office. Harry's one window was permanently wedged  open at a height of
twenty-one centimeters, and no amount of banging or  threats could move it
farther up or down. The room, an awkward  conversion of what Harry described as
"some old biddy's boo-dwah,"  still boasted very civilian floral wallpaper,
which only added to a  sense of hothouse suffocation. To remedy the stuffiness,
Harry had  been provided with a small desk fan whose scimitar blades adamantly
refused to turn. This, Maintenance explained without offering any  solutions,
was due to the warm humidity and/or cold damp--depending on  the current state
of the fickle English weather.

Harry took a deep breath and began again: "I said, what's that you have  in your
mouth? What are you chewing?"
The corporal's jaws froze. His eyes took on the fixed, wide-look that  cows must
have in that first moment after the butcher's mallet falls on  their heads.

"Chewing?"

"Corporal, would you like me to pry your mouth open and see what's in  there?"

"Bubba gum, sir. Fleers."

Harry reached for the Lucky Strike smoldering in his ashtray and took a  long,
tranquilizing draught.

"Bubble gum."

"Yes sir. My mama sent it. She--" "Nagel, I don't care where you got  the bubble
gum. Just don't chew it in my office." Harry harrumphed  and drew himself up in
his chair. One hand unconsciously moved to  fiddle with what there was of his
hair.

"Appearances to the contrary, Corporal, this is a law office. You do  not chew
gum in a law office. You can chew gum in the hall, you can  chew gum in the
latrine, in the street, or in bed, but you do not chew  gum in my law office.
Clear?"

"Yes sir. May I request permission to go out in the hall, sir?"

"No, you may not request permission to go out in the hall. You may  request
permission to go to work. You may request permission to work  on this!" Harry
nodded at the sheet of erasable bond wilting in his  Underwood.

"Do you see what this is?"

Nagel craned his head round for a look and Harry noticed how  appetizingly
exposed that left the corporal's jugular. Harry's stubby  fingers had produced a
page spurt led with smudges, erasures, and type  overs

"What is it?" Nagel asked.

"This is what you were supposed to be typing yesterday afternoon while  I was
over at the Provost's."

"That's not what I typed yesterday."

" I know!" From his desk, Harry grabbed a fistful of foolscap covered  with
notes and shoved it at Nagel.
"This is what you were supposed to be typing yesterday!

This is what you are going to type now!"

Nagel studied the notes, trying to camouflage a slow chew of his gum as  musing.

"Hmph," he said. He started to reach for the page in Harry's  typewriter.

"I

guess--" "I guess this is garbage!" Harry tore the page out of the  carriage,
crushed it in his sweaty palm, and dropped it in his  wastebasket.

"And Nagel?"

"Sir?"

"Get rid of the gum!"

Having shooed Corporal Nagel back to his own outer office. Harry took  another
draught of his cigarette, then picked up his doughnut and  kicked his wheeled
chair over to the narrow window. He propped his  heels on the sill among the
piles of overstuffed folders and bound  briefs, laid the back of his chair
against the desk, and regarded the  grim view of chimney pots and barrage
balloons through the little  panes, each crisscrossed with adhesive tape to
minimize flying glass in  the event of a nearby bomb blast. He took a bite of
the doughnut, then  reached back to his desk for his coffee. He leaned forward
slightly to  take a cautious sip.

"Ahhh!" Harry's head shot back from the hot coffee and some spilled on  his
trouser leg.

"Ohhh!"

"Watch that coffee, Major," Nagel called helpfully "It's hot."

Harry was still stomping round his office trying to keep the hot stain  on his
trousers off his skin when the telephone rang.

"I've got it!" he barked and scooped up the receiver.

"Major Voss."

"Hello, Harry-boy."

The purring, mocking voice was instantly familiar.
"What do you want?"

"That's no way to talk to your betters, Harry."

"Art" "What's on your desk?"

"Today? Or for a while?"

"Maybe a little while."

"Besides eighteen tons of paperwork?"

"Yes, Harry, besides eighteen tons of paperwork."

"Mostly flyweights. I've got a half-dozen D and D's, that statutory--"  "But if
you had to, you could dump everything on somebody else?"

"Well, most of it. If I had to. They're pretty routine. But I'd  prefer--" "I
may have something for you, Harry-boy. Meet me in the  yard in five minutes."

Harry looked down at his stained trousers.

"Five minutes?"

"Plan to spend the day, Harry."

"The day? I thought there was a case management--" "Five minutes,  Harry." The
caller rang off.

Harry slipped his glasses into his shirt pocket and brushed the crumbs  from his
shirtfront.

"Nagel? Nagel!"

"Yes sir!"

Frowning into the little mirror he kept in his desk drawer. Harry used  a pocket
comb to drag his meager ration of hair into a more strategic  pattern.

"I'm going to be with Colonel Ryan for the rest of the day, so if  anyone calls,
take a message. Get their number! OK? Corporal?"

"Yes sir."

Harry rolled down his sleeves, tightened his tie, and took his jacket  from the
hanger on the door. He stood in the doorway to the outer  office and scowled at
Nagel, who was wrestling with a fistful of jammed
typewriter keys.

"Nagel? Nagel!"

The corporal looked up, his skeletal hands fiddling with the log jammed  keys.

"Sir?"

"Those notes better be transcribed by noon. Corporal. Captain Brez,  whatever
the hell his name is--"

"Brezinzki."

"--is coming by for them at noon. They'd better be ready."

"Yes sir."

"Or when you thank your mother for the gum, you can write to her from  the
Aleutians."

"I understand, sir."

"That'd be a first." Harry headed for the door.

"After Captain--" "Brezinzki."

"--picks up that better-be-finished transcription, you go out."

"To lunch, sir?"

"To lunch, to dinner, to have tea with the Queen, I don't care. I  don't want
you in this office without a chaperone. Take the rest of  the day off. Go out
and assimilate the local culture. Go stand in a  queue at Covent Garden."

"What's a queue, sir?"

"A Chinaman's hair." Harry sighed and left.

Outwardly, Rosewood Court hadn't changed much since the arrival of the
Americans, but then the Victorian architects who had designed the  clustered
block of town houses and pie ds-a-terre a century earlier had  had the
distinctly Empire view that the world outside its gates was  more or less
irrelevant to those inside. Consequently,  brick-and-granite buildings of the
square had been built with their  bland backsides to the street while their
gargoyled cornices and  balustraded verandas faced each other round a cobbled
square, so the  trash men and postmen and de liverymen could discreetly carry on
their  dealings with house servants at the rear entrances, while the ladies
and gentlemen of Rosewood Court had only to face one another.

Those selfsame ladies and gents were gone now, withdrawn to their  country
estates within the previous year or two while their Court  residences had been
"donated" to the Allied war effort, and a great  deal of the yard's antiquarian
charm seemed to have departed along with  them. The ornate, two-tiered fountain
bubbling in the Court's center  was the first thing to go, along with the
prize-winning roses and their  trellises, all to make room for the jeeps, staff
cars, and 4x4's that  soon clotted the yard and left the venerable cobbles
stained with  rainbows of motor oil. The gate post ormolu lions were no longer
considered sentinel enough; they were joined by rotating shifts of  iron-faced
Military Policemen.

And then there were the signs: "Maintenance,"

"Paymaster,"

"Personnel," and so forth, each accompanied by smaller signs listing  various
departments subdivided into listings of individual personnel.  The grand pater
of them all was a monstrous thing two meters square set  by the gate that
announced Rosewood Court had been rechristened:

UNITED STATES ARMY GENERAL HEADQUARTERS ADMINISTRATION ANNEX

(Air Corps Inclusive) London

Harry, still plucking at the coffee stain on his trousers, stood on the  veranda
of a row house branded "Judge Advocate General----Building B."  (Building A was,
with the peculiar logic of the American military,  located clear across the
Court.) Pulled up before the steps was a  Chevrolet saloon decked in U.S. Army
olive drab with Colonel Joseph P.  Ryan sitting in the open rear door
pinwheeling one hand to wave Harry  on.

"C'mon, Harry-boy!" Ryan bellowed.

"Move that fat ass!"

Harry jounced down the steps, a sight that provoked a horselaugh from  Joe Ryan.

Harry hurried to slide in beside Ryan before the young buck sergeant at  the
wheel could go through the door-holding rigmarole that embarrassed  Harry so.

Ryan momentarily put on a serious face to salute the MP's as the car  sped out
the gate, then immediately switched to a smirk focused at the  blot on Harry's
trousers.
"Accident, Harry-boy? That's the first thing that goes at your age,  bucko; the
kidneys." He said it with a hideous Irish brogue he  reserved for such sporting
occasions.

"My age?" Harry said.

"As I recall, you are the one who's older by--" "I can get you an  office closer
to the latrine if you'd like, laddie.

"Tis no tribble at all."

"I'll settle for a new clerk. Get Nagel assigned to Goering's staff  and you'll
shorten the war by six months. At least."

"Oh, at least."

They tilted their heads in salute to each other's wit and shared a  chuckle.

"Now," Harry said, "do you mind cutting the blarney and telling me  what's going
on?"

"Oooh, look at those eyes flash!" Ryan's mock gravity played as badly  as his
brogue.

"Such an evil, suspicious mind! Evil! Perfect ingredients for a good  lawyer."

Harry leaned back, folded his hands neatly in his lap, and blandly  looked out
the window. This was his way of telling Ryan he'd wait as  long as he had to for
whatever Ryan had to say.

The saloon wove slowly through Home Defence roadblocks. Old men in  white
helmets and HD armbands were directing traffic. The saloon's  tires hissed
through water streaming from a broken main. Harry saw  where a stick of the
previous night's bombs had crashed among a row of  flats. One explosion had
blown a round walk-to-roof hole like a  Chinese door in the facades.

Ryan craned across him for a better look.

"Hear that one last night?" he asked boyishly.

"I thought only sex made the earth move like that!" His tanned face  puckered up
in an appreciative whistle.

Now, Harry saw rubble behind the exploded facade: bricks, broken  furniture,
painted fragments of wall. A piece of cloth--a sheet, or  maybe a woman's
dress--hung high on a point of jagged timber. A squad  of men followed an
eagerly sniffing collie about the heaped debris
until the dog stopped and began pawing at the toppled bricks, then the  men went
to work with picks and shovels. An ambulance crew emerged  from the wreckage of
a basement carrying a shrouded stretcher. A slim,  gray arm dangled from under
the stretcher blanket. Harry looked  away.

Ryan nodded at the stretcher bearers.

"How'd you like that job?"

"I assumed you asked me along for this little jaunt because there's  some
business you want to discuss?"

Ryan immediately switched into a businesslike demeanor.

"This rape thing; that the heaviest thing you have on the boards? How's  the
rape shape?"

"I told you: statutory."

"How statutory?"

"Completely."

Ryan permitted himself a thoroughly unbusinesslike smile.

"Boys will be boys."

"Well, this time it looks like girls will be girls, too."

Ryan laughed.

"I hope these kids of ours liberate Europe with the same energy they're
liberating the chastity of the locals. You won't have trouble passing  this off
to someone?"

Harry fidgeted in his seat.

"I'd prefer to keep--" "Don't want to lose that one, huh, Harry-boy? Be  a nice
big deal, hm? Look good on the old curriculum vitae, hm?"

Harry fidgeted some more and Ryan chuckled. "--get your name in the  Newark
Evening News, everybody running over to your wife's house going  on and on about
reading how her husband defended the virtue--" "Oh,  brother."

"--of some poor British maiden who succumbed--succumbed, I say--" Harry  had
gone back to staring out the window, ignoring Ryan.

Ryan laughed again. He tugged at Harry's sleeve.
"Who's your best friend, Harry?" and flashed his charming, gratingly
ingratiating smile.

Having suffered through Colonel Joseph Patrick Ryan and his bonhomie at  several
press and social functions, I must say the man set my teeth on  edge. He was
much too assured of his own charm, of his frightful good  looks, of his ability
to succeed on a polished flair for knowing the  right thing to say and the
correct gesture to make. The square,  handsome face was always nicely tanned,
lined as if for the express  intent of emphasizing a wide smile incorporating
annoyingly even white  teeth and sparkling green eyes. He carried a full,
coiffed head of red  hair ever-so-gently gray-flecked at the temples, and had
the trim  figure of a Wimbledon senior, which he emphasized with uniforms
tailored by a deft Savile Row hand. Watching him stroll along next to  the
squat, slogging form of Harry Voss only heightened Ryan's physical  attributes,
and made his habit of finding the most irritating approach  to a situation to
inflict on Harry seem all the more like a form of  bullying. But then he would
flash Harry his  you-can't-possibly-stay-angry-with-me little-boy smile, pour on
a  double dosage of Joe Ryan charm, and toss Harry some little plum to  turn
sour to sweet. Harry would fuss, fume, but always ultimately  forgive.

"Who's your best friend. Harry?" Ryan asked again.

"Sometimes I wonder."

"Me, of course!"

"I've got to start making more friends."

Ryan laughed. The teasing went on, interspersed with occasional bits  of
diligence as he grilled Harry on the disposition of his various  cases.

Then, they were out of London and the staff car was crackling to a stop  in a
graveled car park.

Harry followed Ryan out of the saloon and across the stones. Beyond  the scruffy
orchard lining the square Harry could see a wind sock  bobbing listlessly from a
pole.

"Oh-oh."

"It's two hours by car," Ryan said.

"I'm in no rush."

"A sense of adventure was never your strong suit, Harry-boy."
The ad hoc aerodrome on the other side of the trees was nothing more  than a
redressed cow pasture. At one end of the field, lean-looking  cattle grazed in
the shade of the flimsy wooden control tower,  thoroughly unimpressed by the
statuesque blue shadows of London a few  miles beyond. At the other end of the
field, pallets of fuel drums  were heaped under camouflage netting, and there
was a scattering of  nonmilitary-looking aircraft with military markings.

"Morning, Lieutenant," Ryan greeted the young man coming up from  beneath the
wind of an olive drab Piper Cub.

"Mornin', sir, sirs. All ready for ya." He was a blond, smiling youth  with a
gold second lieutenant's bar on his collar and a cap on his head  emblazoned
with the insignia of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Harry didn't  think the young man
looked old enough to drive a motor car, let alone  an aeroplane.

The young lieutenant held open the cabin door and Ryan climbed into the
backseat. Harry stood frozen under the wing, his white-knuckled hand  clamped on
one of the wing struts. He gave the strut a little tug: The  whole aircraft
quivered like a box kite:

"Major, sir? I'd really appreciate it if you didn't do that to my  airplane,
sir."

Harry lifted a leg into the doorway but then his eyes locked on patches  along
the fuselage that suggested a pattern of bullet holes.

"Krauts," the lieutenant explained blandly.

"But that was a while ago. They don't get through so much anymore."

"See, Harry-boy?" Ryan cackled.

"Hardly a t'in' to worry your wee head about."

Harry cleared his throat and climbed up, jamming himself in beside  Ryan.

The young pilot bounced into the front seat. He pulled on a set of  headphones
and aviator sunglasses, nipped some switches on the control  panel, and the
engine coughed, the propeller swung. A moment later the  plane was rocking
across a field dotted with cow manure.

"You let me know if you start feelin' sick-like. Major," the pilot  called back.

"I'll banker over so you can heave out the window. You wouldn't want  us all
sittin' in it."
Ryan gave Harry a grievous, admonishing look.

"That's right, Major. You wouldn't want that, now, would you?"

Harry was still trying to think of some bitingly witty retort when the  plane
started to lift.

"Ohhh .. ." Harry said, and closed his eyes so he wouldn't see the  neat little
fields pinwheeling below.

Joe Ryan laughed.

Ryan would later tell Harry they'd only been airborne less than thirty  minutes,
but Harry would swear a sacred oath that he'd counted at least  several
lifetimes pass before he felt the Piper Cub on the ground  again, bouncing along
another pasture as lumpy with cow manure as the  one they'd left outside London.
The aeroplane drew to a stop near a  pair of jeeps with Royal Army insignia, and
the pilot killed the  engine. The propeller was still windmilling when Harry
Voss reached  out the door and grabbed hold of a strut the way a drowning man
clutches a life preserver. He pulled himself out of the cabin and set  his feet
gingerly onto the grass as if terrified it would again spin  away beneath him.

"Aw, hell," he said, and Ryan chuckled when he saw poor Harry scraping  manure
off his shoe with a stick.

"C'mon, Harry," Ryan called.

"Stop dawdling."

Harry glared at the squadron of cows clustered in the shade of a tree,  then
followed Ryan toward the jeeps, trying to scrape his sole clean on  the pasture
grass as he walked.

There were a pair of Tommies lounging in the front seats of one of the  jeeps.

One eased himself out and gave Ryan a polite if perfunctory salute.

"Colonel Ryan, is it?" he asked. He handed Ryan a map.

"Just follow where it's marked, sir. And I've got a chit somewheres  for you to
sign for the jeep."

Harry climbed into the passenger seat of the other jeep. A copy of a  Spy
Smasher cartoon book lay on the floor. Harry held the magazine  up.
"This belong to anybody?" The two Tommies looked at each other and  both
pretended ignorance.

"You navigate," Ryan said and tossed the map to Harry as he slid behind  the
wheel. There was a manic grin on his face.

"Hey, Harry-boy, you think that buzz boy in the plane was something?"

"Joe, just take it--" The gears made painful sounds and Harry was flung  back
into his seat. He grabbed the map with one hand, his hat with the  other, and
rued not having a third with which to hold himself in his  seat. It seemed like
Ryan had the jeep half off the road more often  than not, with one set of wheels
bobbing over stones, exposed roots,  and small bushes, while the other set slid
and spun on the gravel  track.

"For God's sake, Joe--" "Is this our turn. Harry?"

Harry let go of the map and grabbed the windscreen to keep from being  hurled
out of the vehicle. The hinged windscreen flipped up in his  hands.

"Hey!" Ryan barked.

"What the hell're you doing? Trying to kill us?"

"You crazy--" They lurched through a hole and Harry let the windscreen  crash
down on the hood as he grabbed the sides of his seat.

Harry saw little of the surrounding country: a blur of small farms;

low, earth-colored barns; scattered livestock. The trees by the  roadside became
fewer, the fields less cultivated, the lush heather  coating the low hills gave
way to low, scraggly grass. Harry smelled  salt air. He wiped a squashed fly off
his face and prayed their  itinerary wouldn't include a bobbing boat ride.

Ryan turned onto a short straightaway and violently downshifted to a  halt in
front of a 4x4 pulled across the road, four Tommies posted  round it. It was
time for Harry to enjoy Ryan's discomfort; the Brits  wouldn't let them pass.

"No admittance, sir," a young lance corporal with a face full of  freckles told
Ryan.

"Sorry. Orders."

Ryan took a calming breath. What was amusing to see happen to others  lit a
short fuse in himself.
"Corporal, you better let me explain. I'm from the U.S. Army's Judge  Advocate
General's office. In London. From Headquarters. And--"

"Sorry, Colonel, but like I says; whole area's off limits. Orders."

Harry thought he saw the lance corporal suppressing a little grin at  the corner
of his lips. Belated revenge for the Revolution, no  doubt.

"You're not going to let me pass?" Ryan asked.

"Can't, sir. Sorry, sir. You'll just have to turner round--" "Stop  smirking,
Harry. Corporal, whose orders are these?"

"Cap'n Ottinger, sir--'e's me officer--'n' some Ya--uh, an American  cap'n--"
"Captain, hm?Well, Corporal, I'm a Yank, too; aYank colonel--"  "Colonel, I'm
sorry, but I've got--" "Fine!" Ryan threw the jeep into  reverse.

"It's a long trip from London to here, Corporal," he called out as he  wrestled
the jeep through an about-turn, "and it's a long trip back!  I'm going to be
thinking about you that whole, looong time!"

"Well, I'm aYank colonel," Harry mimicked as Ryan took the jeep down  the road.

It wasn't often he got to give it back to Ryan, and he was relishing  it.

"But I got me orders, sir," he responded to himself, his Cockney as  wretched as
Ryan's brogue.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder to the roadblock.

"Little bastards are all having a good laugh. Ha ha. You think it's  funny, too.
Harry?"

"Well--" The roadblock still in view, Ryan whipped the jeep off the  road. He
sent it bounding across the empty field, back past the  soldiers in the road.

Harry hugged his seat.

"Are you nuts?"

"What are they doing?" Ryan had to shout over the noise of engine and  wind. The
gleam in his eyes and dopey grin on his lips made Harry  think of opium fiends.

"They're waving at us. They're shouting something. One of them is
running after us."

"I hope it's that little snot corporal. Let the little bastard run.  Let 'im get
heatstroke. Is he laughing, Harry? I'll bet he's not  laughing now."

"Neither am I. He's raising his gun!"

"He'd never fire."

Something pinged into a rear fender.

"You were saying?"

"He's just trying to scare us," Ryan said.

Then, Ryan stamped on the brakes so hard he locked the wheels and  almost
vaulted them both over the hood. Ryan stood up in his seat,  shading his eyes to
look at something across the field. Another jeep  was coming toward them from
over the hills ahead.

Harry reached into his back pocket and pulled out his olive drab
government-issue handkerchief and waved it limply in the air.

"Never surrender, Harry," Ryan said, sliding back into his seat.

"Even to allies."

The jeep pulled up beside Ryan. Its driver was a pink-faced Royal Army  captain
not much older than the corporal at the roadblock. He was that  very proper
Royal Army type that the United Kingdom had been breeding  since William the
Conqueror:

a backbone like a steel rod, slicked hair parted with a razor slash,  and
probably a birthmark that spelled "Sandhurst" somewhere under his
knife-edge-creased uniform.

"Morning, gentlemen," the captain said blithely.

"Bit of trouble at the roadblock, wot? Indulging in some improper  procedure
here, are we? Eh?"

"Your boys are lousy shots," Ryan told him.

"Oh?" the captain said, nonplussed.

"Didn't they miss? I take it you're Colonel Ryan."

"And Major Voss."
"Captain Ottinger." The captain introduced himself with a tilt of his  head and
a touch of his quirt to the bill of his cap.

"Been waiting for you chaps. Sorry about the security. Orders from  your people
on high, wot? Why don't you follow me in?"

In convoy, the two jeeps bounced along over the knolls behind the  coastal
cliffs. Beyond them, to the horizon, sat the blue-gray slash  of the Channel. A
few minutes later they came to a stop.

They saw the garden, then the cottage. Every square meter--from where  they had
drawn up to the peak of the thatched roof--was pocked and  bullet-torn. In the
garden, something small and bloody lay under a  tarpaulin.

Harry moaned.

"They didn't tell me about this," Ryan said to no one in particular.

"I mean .. not this."

"Captain Bennett!" Ottinger called, climbing out of his jeep.

"He's from your H.Q.," he explained to Ryan and Harry.

An Army Air Corps captain pushed aside the bullet-riddled door which  hung from
one hinge. He stepped out, squinting into the bright  light.

Another young lad, as so many were in those days, early twenties, Harry
guessed, trying to hide his baby face behind a meager line of fuzz  along his
upper lip.

Bennett looked over at Harry and Ryan, then back to the scarred  cottage. He
took off his cap and ran a hand over the close-shaved hair  lying atop his skull
like a shadow.

"Captain Bennett," Ryan said, climbing out of the jeep.

"I'm Colonel Ryan and this is Major Voss. Judge Advocate's Bureau,  London."

There was no response from Bennett. He seemed mesmerized by the sight  of the
cottage.

"Captain Bennett!"

"Yes sir," he said blankly, finally.

"Colonel Ryan .. . yes."
"And this is Major Voss."

Bennett tried to shake off his daze.

"Judge Advocate's, you said?"

Ryan nodded.

Bennett let out a long breath.

"Christ .. ." He turned to Ottinger.

"Captain--you met Captain Ottinger? Of course. Captain, would you  stay with the
Greshams?"

Ottinger nodded and went inside.

Bennett stood himself up straight and set his cap levelly back on his  head.

"I'm from 518th Combat Wing Headquarters. General Halverson's staff.  How much
did they tell you?"

Ryan looked at the cottage and shook his head.

"Nobody said anything about another St. Valentine's Massacre. You  better take
it from scratch. Captain."

Bennett nodded. He beckoned for Ryan and Harry to follow him to the  cliff edge.

At the rim, they looked down at choppy water. About ten yards from the  pebble
beach, an aeroplane wallowed in the low surf. Gaping bullet  holes were stitched
across the sides of the silver fuselage. The  engine cowling had peeled away
along one side, and the propeller blades  were bent back in twisted mustaches. A
metal-wound tether had been  tied to the plane and ran to the small beach where
a squad of Tommies  sat checking the line.

"Thunderbolt?" Ryan squinted at the muscular fuselage.

Bennett nodded.

"What happened?"

"According to the witnesses--"

"Somebody lived through that?" Harry asked, nodding back at the  cottage.
"Two survivors," Bennett replied.

"Early this morning--this is their story--" He seemed eager to distance  himself
from the report. "--three P-47's are coming in.

One's trailing smoke. That one down there."

"And it crashed?"

"Not exactly. The witnesses say ... Well, they say one of the other  planes shot
it down."

"Wait a minute," said Ryan.

"You mean one of these other planes, one of these other American  planes--" "I'm
just telling you what they said. Sir." Hating the  message, Bennett had come to
hate the messengers as well as those  looking to corroborate it.

"I've sent for a flatbed truck and a crane. I guess you'll want the  plane for
the inquiry."

He led them back toward the cottage.

"The old guy is Charles Gresham. It's him and his wife. He's a  spotter for the
Home Defence."

Harry fumbled a small notepad from his jacket.

"What he says," Bennett continued, "is the pilot of the plane that  downed the
other 47, he saw him--saw Gresham and his wife, that is--and  made a strafing
run on 'em."

"They're all right?" Harry asked.

"Shook up quite a bit, but they're in one piece."

Harry fingered a bullet hole in one of the stones in the cottage wall  as they
stepped up to the door.

"Says something for good masonry."

Inside, the front room was freckled with daylight through the punctured  roof.

Dust motes danced in the columns of light. Every step brought the  crackle of
broken crockery from underfoot. Ottinger was standing by  the short, soft form
of Mrs. Gresham. She sat in a far corner in the  only intact chair, bleached
white and shivering despite the woolen Army
blanket pulled up to her chin. Charles Gresham was on his stomach near  the
fireplace. A medical corpsman was probing the old man's back. With  each stab of
the corpsman's fingers, the old man winced and groaned.

"I thought you said he was OK," Harry whispered to Bennett.

"Threw his back out carrying the body up from the beach."

"Body?"

Bennett led them past a bullet-riddled curtain into the bedroom. The  air here
tasted damp and salty. The window curtains had been drawn,  but in the spill of
light from the door Harry saw splotches of mud and  water on the floor leading
to a figure on the bed. On the wall above  the bed, Harry could pick out a cross
in the gloom, suspended upside  down, another casualty of the handful of rounds
that had found their  way into the bedroom.

Bennett went to the night table and lit a hurricane lamp. The blankets  beneath
the dead man on the bed were black with water and half-dried  blood. The
smoothness of the dead face--even smoother, now, in the  pallor of
death--bespoke youth, another fresh-faced warrior. The eyes  were partially
open, making him look bored and unconcerned and, even in  the low light of the
lamp, Harry could make out dark circles under the  dead boy's eyes. The hair and
clothes were still damp, the flight  coveralls splattered with large,
rust-colored stains. Someone had  pulled his flight kit clear and it sat,
dripping, in a puddle on the  floor.

Ryan stepped closer to study the body, but Harry remained in the  doorway.

Bennett went to the curtained window, lighting a cigarette.

"Positive identification: O'Connell, Dennis R,015392. Blood type, 0  positive.
Catholic. I left his tags on him for Graves Registration.  He's ... was a second
lieutenant with the 3 51 st Fighter Group, 518th  Wing, out of Donophan
Airfield. That's not far from here, maybe an  hour's drive."

Harry kept his eyes on his notebook and note-taking so he wouldn't have  to look
up and see the corpse.

"You, um, did you ID the other--" Bennett nodded and pulled out a  notebook of
his own.

"Major Albert Markham and Captain Jon-Jacob Anderson. Both with the 3  51 st."

"They're being held?"
" In quarters. Whole field's been sealed up."

"You OK? Harry?" It was Ryan.

"You don't look so--" "The heat, the trip out. I'll, um, be  outside."

Ryan nodded and Harry stepped back into the front room to a sight that  brought
him up short. The corpsman had Gresham on his feet in what  looked like a choke
hold. He pulled the old man's head up and back,  almost lifting his feet off the
floor, until there was an audible crack  of vertebrae slipping back into place.

The old man sighed with relief.

"Better, sir?" The corpsman set Gresham down on the edge of the raised  hearth.

"Good. Me dad's the same way." The corpsman was a flame-haired,  ruddy-faced
man, large and blocky but with careful, supple hands,

and older than Harry thought an enlisted man should be, particularly in  light
of all the youngsters running round with officer's pips on their  epaulets.
Harry was unaware, at the time, of how rarely young officers  lived to be old
officers.

"Guess 'e's made me an old 'and at it," the corpsman told Gresham.

"You just go easy for a bit."

Harry turned to the other side of the cottage, nudging the pile of  smashed
metal and tubes that had been a wireless with the tip of his  shoe. He knelt and
picked out the decapitated head of a porcelain  sheep. He set it back down in
the debris, stood, his knees cracking,  and found himself facing the riddled
recognition poster on the wall.

Something he half heard from the bedroom brought him out of his musing  and he
heard Ryan saying, "Yeah, there was something about Donophan  buzzing around the
quad. Didn't I hear Lord Haw Haw say something  about it?"

"Maybe," Bennett told Ryan.

"Krauts hit 'em pretty bad about a week ago. Planted a lot of gold  stars that
night. They didn't need this on top of it." The lamp went  out and Bennett led
Ryan back into the front room.

Ottinger was bent close over the old woman.
"Yes," he nodded to her soft words.

"I'll tell them. Not to worry." He made a show for her of going to  the open
front door.

"Here, you men! Have a care there! Out of the garden now! You're  tramping it
all up!" He turned back to the old woman and smiled  comfortingly.

"All right, missus?"

Harry noticed Ryan watching him, and only then did it occur to him that  the
next move was his. Harry walked over to the old man.

"How's your back, Mr. Gresham?"

"Still 'urts a bit."

"We'll see what we can have done for you. Mr. Gresham, I'm Major Voss  of the
U.S. Army, and this is Colonel Ryan. Can you tell me what  happened here?"

"I aw ready tol' 'im!" the old man said coldly, pointing at Ottinger.  "

"N' 'im!"

Bennett this time.

"I've had me fill o' tellin' it!

"N' if you don't mind me sayin' so, I've 'bout 'ad me fill o'Yanks  today as
well, thank you!"

Harry looked over at Ryan. Ryan continued to give him a
ball's-inyourcourtHarry-boy look.

Harry's knees cracked again as he knelt by the old man.

"Mr. Gresham, I know how you must feel right--" "Do you, now, laddie?  Lemme
tell you sum ping I been spottin' 'ere for more 'n' three years.  I serve me
country. I'll die for me King if of' George asks me. But  the first time I gets
me self shot at, it's from one o' you!" His  finger shot out and stopped just
short of Harry's chest.

"Do you know how that feels?"

"No. You're right, Mr. Gresham, I don't. But the only way these men  are going
to be punished, the men who did this to you and your wife, is  for me to find
out everything I can about what happened. That means
you telling me this story, and you're probably going to have to tell it  a
number of times after this. I'll do whatever I can to make it as  easy on you as
possible, but ... I don't think either of us really has  a choice, do you?"

The old man closed his eyes. "

"S all so bloody confusin'."

"Look, Mr. Gresham--can you get up? I mean your back--" "I'm aw  right

"Why don't you take your wife outside, OK? Get some air. Captain?"  Harry
gestured to Ottinger, and he and the corpsman escorted the two  old people
outside.

Harry sat back down at the hearth and massaged his knees.

Ryan propped a haunch on the splintered table, settling his weight  tentatively
until he was sure it would hold.

"Captain?"

"Yes, sir," mumbled Bennett.

"I think we ought to arrange quarters for the Greshams in London, get  them away
from here as soon as possible. I want them under protective  custody. No
visitors, no contacts."

"I'll get on that right now."

"And have a doctor give them a once-over. You know, shock, check out  the old
guy's back, whatever .. ."

Bennett nodded and left.

"You want my opinion?" Harry asked Ryan.

"More than Betty Grable."

"I think any statement either of those two old birds make is just going  to be
icing on the cake."

"How so?"

"Who does our lab work

Ryan shrugged, "We don't really have a precedent for this kind of  thing. If we
want, I imagine we could probably get Scotland Yard."
"Good. We get a full team to go over this place. The plane out there,  too. They
do ballistics comparisons on the slugs they dig out of here  with the guns of
those two flyboys, uh .. ." Harry flipped through his  notebook.

"Markham and Anderson," Ryan filled in.

"Yeah, Markham and Anderson. That should cinch it right there. And  those
planes've got those whatchamacallits--" "That's a technical term  I'm not
acquainted with, Harry."

"You know. The, um, those things. Gun cameras."

"Ah."

"There's your case. Or is it my case? Is that why I'm here?"

Harry had assumed it to be a rhetorical question, but when Ryan  hesitated, his
face squinched in some painful inner conflict, the  confidence Harry had felt
coming with the clarity of the case began to  ebb.

"Tell you what, Harry. See ifOttinger's got a radio for you. You get  on the
horn and get what you need out here."

The unfinished quality to what Ryan had said prompted Harry to prod,  "And then
what?"

"And then you come talk to me."

It occurs to me that--disliking the man as I did--I haven't been quite  fair to
Joe Ryan. One must give even the devil his due.

I imagine Joe Ryan, at that point, sitting uncomfortably atop the high  rail of
the fence of the empty sheep pen. Musing, he would look over  and see his old
friend Harry Voss scribbling his notes, making his  wireless calls, tending to
all the business that required tending, and  feel a sadness. You see, for all
the terrible jokes and jibes at old  Harry's expense, and his compulsive
goat-getting and not-so-gentle  mockery, Harry was, indeed, Ryan's friend; that
was why Ryan had  brought Harry to the cottage by the Channel, and that was why
Ryan now  faced a dilemma.

I don't know what the original message to Ryan was alerting him to the
situation at the coast, and there's no record of it to find, but I  would
imagine that in those excited, incomplete early moments it was as  simple as,
"One of our pilots has killed another of our pilots." For  all his deficiencies
of character, Joe Ryan was bright, certainly  cunning; he would have had no
problem in imagining the clear path to  conviction that Harry had outlined in
the Gresham cottage.
That was precisely why Ryan had fed the case to Harry. He had, in  fact, been
feeding Harry such plums for quite some time, including the  aforementioned rape
case; this was surely to be the juiciest plum of  all.

But his dilemma .. . Harry was not, by record, a criminal barrister.  Mortgages,
small contracts, the drafting of wills and loan documents  had been more Harry's
line of country. This was less a reflection of  some lack in Harry's
capabilities than a tribute to poor luck and  circumstance; both of which Joe
Ryan, in true friendship, had tried to  remedy through his position in the JAG.

The case of the dead pilot and his assailant (s) should have taken a
straightforward path to the bar and conviction and, quite possibly, the
gallows, but for one troubling detail. When the attacking Thunderbolt  had
turned its guns on Charles Gresham, his wife, and their home, the  neat scenario
Joe Ryan had projected unraveled like bad knitting. He'd  put the plum in
Harry's hands, let him feel its pliant ripeness, and  now he had to consider
pulling it away.

When Harry finished with his business, he found Ryan still atop that  sheep pen
fence. Harry stood below him trying to read the ill ease  clearly on his
friend's face. Ryan looked up from his musing and  forced a pale imitation of
his usual good-fellow smile.

"Let's take a walk. Harry."

They stood near the cliff's edge, then turned their backs to the wind  like a
pair of old cows while they hunched together as Ryan lit them  each a cigarette.

Ryan took a deep draught and let the smoke seep out his nostrils and  slightly
parted lips. He nodded over at Bennett.

"Look at him," Ryan said. The captain's face was in a sulking pout as  he gave
coordinating instructions over one of the jeep wireless sets.

"You ever handle a malpractice case. Harry? Ever try to get one  doctor to
testify against another?

To guys like that, this is a second skin. I don't expect you to  understand
that, considering you can hardly fit in your jacket," and  here he tapped one of
Harry's straining jacket buttons.

Harry sucked in his gut.

"There's a problem with how I'm handling this?"

"Nope."
"What goes? We were in the house cooking along just fine, then all of  a sudden
I get this feeling you don't think I'm up to this."

"You misconstrue, Harry-boy," Ryan said, delighting in the word.

"Misconstrue!

That was never my worry, Harry. Never." He looked over at Harry with  a
sincerity so rare in him as to be unsettling, then stepped to the  edge of the
cliff, spat, and watched it fall.

"You know what I envy about you.

Harry?"

"My good looks?"

Ryan chuckled.

"Besides that. You look around, you see the ocean, that little house,  those
trees. That's the extent of Major Voss's vision. Life is so  simple for you."

"That's about the nicest way I ever heard somebody called stupid."

Ryan smiled and ignored him.

"But Colonel Ryan, because he is a colonel, sits up higher and sees  more than
that. A lot more; the proverbial big picture. And it's not  always a very pretty
picture."

"Wake me up when you get to the point. I'd hate to miss it."

"OK, Harry. Having failed to reach you with poetry, let's try plain  English. A
lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic are not real  happy to see us here.

Some are locals getting a little sick and tired of seeing this island  fill up
with young, able-bodied GI's overflowing with candy bars, GI  pay, and hormones,
while their own--that is, the ones still in one  piece--are off in Africa, or
Burma, or some other godforsaken mudhole.  Some of those unhappy locals are down
in Whitehall and they're looking  at us strutting around, at Ike on the SHAEF
throne, and getting the  idea--an idea they do not like--that yeah, maybe the
sun does set on  the British Empire.

"There's people back home, too, Harry, and they're not all radio  crackpots like
Father Coughlin. There's people all up and down the DC  Mall who say this is
just the same old war between kings they've been  fighting over here since King
Arthur. Our problem is the Japs, these  people say. They're the ones dropping
bombs in our backyard."

Nothing Ryan had said was particularly revelatory to anyone who had  spent any
time at all in England in those days, including Harry. But  Ryan's unusual
glumness kept alerting Harry there must be some sort of  relevance here.

"What's any of that got to do with this?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Gresham are what that's got to do with this."

"What about them?"

"Maybe you missed it, but they're citizens of the realm. Subjects of  The
Empire.

Servants of the King. They're English, Harry."

Whatever Ryan's point was, Harry was still missing it.

"Joe, how many cases do we get every day where some civilian--" "You  get cases
where one of our boys knocked up some nice local girl; where  he had too much to
drink and cleaned some civilian's plow in a pub  brawl; he robbed a liquor
store, maybe somebody got knifed, somebody  got shot. What you don't get are
cases where our combat personnel, in  action, turn their combat machinery
against their allies. Civilian  allies.

"There's people over here who are going to use this to say. Look, see  what
happens when you let the bloody Yanks run the show? And there's  going to be
people back home who are going to look at it and say, See?  That wouldn't've
happened if we'd stayed home and minded our own  business.

"Now me, for my money, if the limeys want the whole war, they can have  it;

that's jake with me. Then I could go home. But you wear the uniform.  Your job
is to do what the guy who signs the checks says to do. And he  wants this
partnership to work."

"I don't see how that changes this case."

"It doesn't. It changes the handling of this case."

"How so?"

Ryan looked to the cottage. He nicked his cigarette out toward the  Channel, but
the breeze blew it back and it exploded in a burst of  sparks that quickly died
in the wet grass. Ryan nodded at Harry to  walk with him along the cliffs, away
from the cottage.

"It's got to be quick and quiet, and the person--or persons--who did  this have
to get nailed."

"You talking about going into the railroad business, Joe?"

"Look, Harry, the limeys are going to want blood over this and, looking  at this
mess, I don't have too many qualms about giving it to them. But  it's got to be
a solid case, so solid that nobody on our end'll have  any doubts that the
triggerman is getting his just deserts. Now, the  person-or persons--who did
this, Harry they've got to get their shake.  It's got to be done by the book, so
this thing can close completely and  close clean. And it's got to be disposed of
ASAP before it can fester.  And, it's got to be done on the q.t. No press, no
outsiders,  everything on a need-to-know basis."

"I understand."

"I don't think so, Harry." Ryan stopped and the two friends faced each  other. "
I have to consider whether to let you run with this or  not."

Harry tried to keep his stolid, professional face on, but he was taking  it
personally and it showed in his voice.

"I guess we're back to my first question.

Is it a matter of whether or not you think I'm up to this?"

Troubled as Ryan was, he was still Ryan: He smiled at Harry's  discomfort.

"Harry-boy, it's not a question of what I think. We're talking about  me handing
you a capital case when half my staff has more military-law  experience than
you.

Hell, Harry, I've got shave tails with more criminal law under their  belts! Not
that you could possibly get anything else under That belt!"  He chuckled and
poked at the equator of Harry's midriff.

"I give this mess to you, I'm going to take some flak for it. The  other
thing--and this puts the ball in your court--is not whether or  not I think you
can handle it, but do you really want to handle it?"

Harry began to speak but Ryan raised his hand.

"Understand this, Harry. Stop getting in a sweat about losing this and  just
listen. The guy that handles this, he's not going to get his name  in the papers
back home. This isn't the kind of thing anybody wants to  see in any papers
anywhere. But, the guy who takes care of this, does  a good job, makes everybody
happy with it ... he's going to have some  big-time friends on both sides of the
ocean. So, when this is all over  and we get to go home and that guy goes back
into civilian practice,  well, he's going to have some heavyweight endorsements.
And me,  without lifting a finger, I get my share of back-pats because I had the
wisdom and insight to pick such a capable joe for the job. But-"The  guy who
handles this and screws up, makes people unhappy ... I spend  the rest of my
life as a corporal shoveling snow in Greenland. And  that'll be heaven compared
to what they'd do to the poor fart who  actually bobbled the ball."

Harry let his cigarette fall and smothered it with the toe of his shoe.  He
could hear sheep bleating off somewhere behind the knolls.

"It could go That bad?"

"And I'm putting it in a good light."

"Bleah," Harry said.

They returned to the cottage, where Bennett was propped in the front  door
staring blankly out toward the Channel.

"Where are they now?" Harry asked.

"Sir? Who?"

"Markham and Anderson."

"I thought I told--" "Tell me again."

"At their field. DonophanThey're being held in their quarters."

"Then that's where I want them kept. Separately. And incommunicado."  Bennett's
head canted judgment ally

"Don't they get a lawyer?"

"They are not under arrest, Captain. They are just being held at the  disposal
of the Judge Advocate until we get some answers. So, for now,  they don't see
anybody, they don't talk to anybody, including each  other. If and when we
determine grounds for an arrest and charge,  they'll get their lawyer."

Harry checked that item off the list he'd made in his notebook.

"Those gun films of theirs--get them over to the JAG's in London, ASAP,  and
have them delivered to Colonel Ryan's office. He'll keep them  under lock and
key. Colonel Ryan'll also find a place for you to  deliver the plane. And I want
pictures of this place, every inch.  Nothing disturbed until the lab crews are
finished, and that includes  the body in the bedroom. Until then, tell Captain
Ottinger to keep  this area sealed off. And I'll need the 66-1 's on Markham and
Anderson and something about what their mission was today. Better get  me
O'Connell's file, too.

Captain, are you going to remember all this?"

Bennett gave a sullen nod and positioned himself at one of the jeep  wireless
sets.

Harry loosened his tie. The day was getting quite warm. He thought  about the
cool interior of the cottage, but then remembered the corpse  in the back room.

"I've got some chores for you, too, Joe," he said, turning to Ryan.

"I want a complete autopsy on O'Connell, and I want a mechanic to go  over that
Thunderbird. I don't want some snot defense counsel trying  to make out it just
got tired and fell down."

"Got it, Harry. Fall down. Go boom. Right. And Harry--it's a  Thunderbolt."

Harry took a deep breath.

"Now, let me talk to this old guy." Ottinger had taken a chair from  the cottage
for Mrs. Gresham and settled her in the shade of a tree.  The corpsman brought
over another blanket from his medical van.  Ottinger took the blanket and laid
it over her lap. The old woman  still shivered.

"Where's the husband?" Harry called. The corpsman pointed.

"Think he's after his sheep." Harry found the old man over the next  rise,
pushing the herd back toward the cottage with his crook. Harry
took a moment, steeling him 7

self. He'd managed to keep the war at arm's length. Bodies pulled out  of
collapsed buildings, rescue workers digging through the rubble, they  were only
occasional sights and then seen only from a distance. The  devastated cottage,
the angry old man, and his quaking wife had pushed  Harry's nose right up
against it.

"Mr. Gresham?"

"

"Aven't seen 'at damn dog o' mine, 'ave ya?"

Harry thought back to the bloody thing under the tarpaulin in the  garden.

"No, Mr. Gresham."

"Always off somewheres 'e is, doin' everythin' but 'is job."

" I thought we could have that talk now."

"Which talk is 'at?"

"About what happened."

"What 'appens to us, now? Me 'n' Molly?"

"You'll be taken care of. We "re going to prepare a place for you to  stay in
London."

Gresham waved his staff at the flock. "

"N' them? What's gonna--" "It'll all be taken care of, Mr. Gresham."

"Why can't we just stay--" "We'll need you in London. For the  investigation.
Besides, we'll be better able to look after you two  there."

"You mean protect me?

"The old man laughed.
CHAPTER THREE

DEUS VULT

I'M TOLD THAT WHEN THE donophan Airfield Military Police received their  orders
to put Markham and Anderson in custody, they found Markham  stretched out on the
cot in his tent. The major lay there with a  cigarette smoldering in his
fingers, still wearing his sweat-stained  flight coveralls though it'd been
nearly five hours since he'd returned  from the morning's mission. He seemed--so
I was told--as if he'd been  waiting all that time for this moment.

Anderson was with the MP's. They'd found him first, in what was left  of the
Officers Club. Freshly showered and in clean khakis, an  uncharacteristically
somber Anderson was treating himself to a solitary  lunch of a sandwich and a
pint as he potted about the scarred club  snooker table. A near miss during the
German raid a week earlier had  left the Officers Club missing two walls,
leaving it more a lean-to  than a cozy clapboard cubby, and had cost the snooker
table a leg,  since replaced with a pile of wobbling bricks.

When the lieutenant heading up the detachment of MP's broke the news to
Anderson, the latter--one of those undersized, volatile sorts oft  described as
"scrappy"--exploded. Anderson declared the situation "a  pile o' crap from those
brass asses in London!" then apologized for  taking it out on the lieutenant who
he realized was simply carrying out  an order.

"Let's go see what the Boss has to say," he declared, and he led them  across
the field to Major Markham's tent.

The flustered lieutenant stood in the open flap of Markham's tent,  unsure how
to begin. Markham swung his feet to the ground, and gave  him a smile described
to me as "forgiving."

"I know, Sandy," he said.

Anderson instantly began fulminating once again about the situation,  but
Markham tiredly raised a hand. "].]." please; you're giving me a  headache."
That was all it took from Markham to silence the steaming  Anderson. Markham
stubbed his cigarette out on the frame of his cot as  the lieutenant fumbled his
way through the announcement that the major  was to consider himself in custody
and so on and so forth. Markham  nodded along, as if agreeing to the particulars
of a marketing list.  When the lieutenant was finished, Markham was holding out
his  sidearm.

"Do it right, Sandy," the major said.

"You take this. Be sure you get Captain Anderson's, too."
There being nothing else, the lieutenant saluted.

Markham gave another one of his forgiving smiles.

"You don't salute an officer who's under arrest, Sandy."

"They didn't exactly say you were under arrest, Major."

And then, I'm told, Markham's smile turned more amused, though sadly  so. He
looked at his watch, nodded at a thought he shared with no one,  then stretched
back out on his cot and closed his eyes.

Harry could see the ruddy-faced corpsman helping Charles Gresham up  onto the
tailgate step of a Royal Army lorry. A soldier reached down  from the back of
the lorry and heaved the old man up, then helped him  to a seat on the bench by
his wife.

"They're not like your Scots sheep," Gresham called down to the  corpsman.

"They're randy, they'll bite each other's legs."

"I know me sheep, sir." The corpsman smiled up at him and tossed up to  the
Royal Army chaperone a cardboard suitcase full of necessaries he'd  packed for
the couple.

"I'll see to "em."

"

"N' no rich meats for the dog!"

The corpsman raised the tailgate and latched it shut.

"I'll treat 'im like me own Spotty." The corpsman stepped back and  waved to the
driver. The lorry engine sputtered and caught, gears  gnashed.

"

"E's not like your Scots dogs!"

"Understood, sir.

"N' we'll see to the chickens, too. You just look after yerselfand the  missus."

The old man put his arm around the shoulders of his wife as the lorry  lurched.
" "N' keep 'em all outta the garden!"
The corpsman waved until the lorry was out of sight. His ruddy face  went cold
and he turned to the group of soldiers sitting in the shade  of the stone
cottage, picking through their ration kits for  milk-and-nut. The corpsman
pulled a trenching tool from one of the  troopers' packs and went round to the
front of the cottage. He knelt  by the tarp in the garden, tucked it gingerly
round the small, bloody  body underneath, and scooped it into his arms. He
headed for the  woods.

Ryan and Ottinger had a map spread out on the hood of one of the jeeps.  They
were doing a lot of officious pointing and proclaiming.

"The kind of cordon sanitaire you're calling for is out of the  question!"

Ottinger protested.

"These men here are all I have, along with the men at the roadblocks!  That's
not even enough for an effective traveling cordon if--" "You  could request--"
"Colonel, to be perfectly candid, my people simply  won't spare that kind of
manpower. They don't have it to spare."

Harry was seated on a mossy rock amid the deep, waving grasses some  distance
from the cottage. Looking through his half-moon glasses at  the cartridge casing
he was rolling between his fingers, he upended the  casing and read the
engraving on the base for the third time. There  were dozens of them lying
scattered round his rock and across the  hundred yards between him and the
cottage, twinkling between the blades  of grass under the late morning sun.
Harry rose, dusted off the seat  of his trousers, and began walking toward
Ottinger and Ryan.

"Might I suggest," the British captain was saying, "there's a Home  Defence unit
nearby at--" "No!" Ryan snapped upright.

"No civilians! Until the word comes down saying otherwise, nobody on  the
outside is to know anything about this! You pass that on to your  men, Captain:
Clam up!"

"You'll get that confirmed from our command, yes?" Ottinger put just  enough
emphasis on the "our" to be insulting without being tactless.

Ryan indulged his own insulting, tactful moment: a pause showing  respect but no
great urgency.

"Of course. I'll also talk to my people when I get back to London and  see what
kind of units they can spare to augment. Maybe," and he  smiled here, too
disarming to be disarming, "we can take the whole load  off your hands."
"Appreciated," Ottinger said flatly.

Ryan looked about for Bennett and found the captain standing by the  edge of the
chalky cliffs.

"Captain Bennett!"

The captain seemed to shake himself awake. He noticed the cigarette  smoldering
between his fingers and tossed it off the cliff. He walked  over to the jeep.

"I was just telling Captain Ottinger here," Ryan said, "and I want you  to pass
it on to our people, everybody who knows about this so far:

Mouths shut. This is a security situation. Any breach is going to  bring holy
hell down on somebody's head. That especially goes for the  personnel out at the
airfield where these jokers came from."

Harry had, by now, slid himself into the passenger seat of the jeep.

"All of which brings a few things to mind," he said, taking out his  notebook to
tick over a new list.

"One, I want the field MP's at that airfield, the ones guarding Markham  and
Anderson, I want them pulled and replaced by a crew from the  Provost. I don't
want their jailers turning out to be their best  buddies."

"Pretty trusting, aren't you, Major?" Bennett said dourly.

Harry pointed to the bullet-pocked cottage behind Bennett.

"Offhand, I'd say Markham and Anderson had pretty much used up their  trust
quota for the day, wouldn't you, Captain? OK, Number Two: I also  want our MP's
guarding the planes that were involved until the  ballistics boys get to them.
Three: These guys fill out some kind of  report or something after a mission,
right?"

Bennett nodded.

"G-2 conducts a debriefing after every mission. That's SOP."

"OK, when you have those gun films picked up, I want the debriefing  reports
impounded, too. What was that, Three? OK, this is Four," and,  relishing the
drama of the moment the way one who gets few such moments  does, Harry placed
the cartridge casing on the prone windshield,  carefully balancing it on its
base.

Bennett stared at it for a moment. Then he picked up the casing,  turned it
over, and read the engraving. His eyebrows came together,
and he handed the casing to Ryan.

"U.S. Army ordnance," Harry told them.

"You can still smell the powder. They're all over out there, I guess  from the
plane that made the run on the house. I don't want those  shells touched until
the photo crews get pictures, then I want a detail  to scrounge up as many of
them as they can find for Scotland Yard's lab  people along with slugs from the
house and grounds. Captain, I think  you should get started on that MP business
ASAP" Bennett nodded. He  shuffled off to the radio on the other jeep.

Ryan gave out a proud-dad smile.

"You're really something to watch at work, Harry-boy."

"Flattery will get you everywhere."

"One of us should start coordinating the London end of this thing."

Harry climbed out of the jeep.

"That's what I thought," Ryan said, climbing behind the wheel.

"Look, Harry, take as long as you need out here, but try to make it  back for
the case management meeting. I'll hold it off till 1800 if I  have to, which
won't make anybody happy, but we've got to talk about  redistributing your
caseload--" "And get me some support staff."

Ryan took on a look not unlike the one on Harry's face when he'd  stepped off
the little Piper Cub into cow manure.

"I was hoping to keep the number of mouths around this thing to a  minimum."

"I believe you were the one who said this should proceed  'expeditiously." To do
that, I'm going to need help with the  legwork."

"Hoisted with my own petard, eh? OK, we'll deal with that at the  meeting, then
me and you can talk it over at The Old Eagle. You want I  should send the plane
back for--" "No! I'll hitch a ride back with the  lab teams."

Ryan laughed.

"See you in the funny papers!" he said and drove off.

Harry was glad Ryan was gone. Considering his concern for limiting the  number
of mouths--as well as eyes and ears--privy to the incident at
the

Gresham cottage, his old friend would have had a heart attack at the  parade
that followed. There were the serious-looking men in medical  white come for
O'Connell's body, and more serious-looking men in dark  suits spilling out of a
convoy of police Wolseys from Scotland Yard's  forensics departments, and then a
lorry ful of eternally serious MP's,  now seriously surly when set prowling
about on their knees to dig spent  bullets out of the earth.

Overseeing the parade had taken Harry into the afternoon. He was now  hungry and
thirsty, and too uncomfortable with the idea of approaching  Ottinger or his
men, who seemed to be the only group with the foresight  to have brought along
something to eat and drink. The late-day heat  began to make him feel gritty,
headachy, and a little weak-kneed. He  took a moment for himself, sitting in the
cool front room of the  cottage. On the bullet-riddled table. Harry had placed
the jagged  pieces of the porcelain sheep, picked out of the splinters and dust
on  the floor, and now he poked at them with a stubby forefinger, moving  them
together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

The dark-suited serious men worked soundlessly round him, floating  about like
shadows, taking photographs, prying bullets out of walls and  furniture,
dropping them with somber little clunks into metal  buckets.

"Scuse, sir," one of the shadows murmured, and Harry rose and stepped  out of
the way so the shadow could dig bullets out of the table. He  almost backed into
two of the white coats carrying a covered stretcher  out of the bedroom.

"Need another look 'fore we take him out, sir?" one of the white coats  asked.

Harry shook his head. He watched the stretcher float out the door and  into the
bright glare outside/A moment later he heard the ambulance  engine stutter off.

Then, Ottinger was in the doorway.

"Ready for you at the plane, sir." Harry followed him outside, careful  to skirt
the squad of MP's digging bullets out of the dirt and clunking  them into their
upended white helmets. One picked up a pulped squash  and held it out to one of
his mates.

"Hey, Coop, imagine if that'd been your noggin!"

"Be an improvement!" another said, and they all laughed.

There was a long, flatbed U.S. Army lorry parked near the cliffs. Next
to it an Army crane chattered and clanked as it swung its arm out over  the
chalk rim.

Conducting the operation was a bare-chested Army engineer,

his arms going this way and that like a rabid Stokowski.The engineer  had tied
his olive drab handkerchief round his head and a set of  technical sergeant
stripes were pinned to it over his forehead like an  extra set of eyebrows.

"Swing it this way!" the sergeant screamed at the crane.

"Right, stupid-ass, right! No, stupid ass my right, my right! OK,  there! Drop
it!"

Harry followed the cable from the arm of the crane down to the small  beach. The
squad of engineers and some ofOttinger's men had pulled the  plane almost to
shore and gotten a lift girdle round it. One man stood  on a wing, attaching the
crane hook to the girdle. The others stood on  the shore, holding lines attached
to the aeroplane's wings they would  use to keep the craft from swinging into
the cliff face. The cable  attached, the man on the wing waved to the sergeant
and jumped clear.

The sergeant turned to bellow toward the cottage.

"Hey, Major--Oh! There you are! We wuz just waitin' for you, Major.  You said
you wanted to be--" Harry cut him off with an impatient nod.

The sergeant, with the intolerance of one absolutely sure he's the only  one who
knows what he's about, issued a haughty sniff, then turned back  to the work at
hand.

"Awright, you goofballs; up!"

"Go easy," Harry cautioned.

"Hey, Major, I don't tell you how to do whatever it is you do, right?  Trust me.

Nice 'n' easy for the major, Jimbo!"

The crane motor revved and the exhaust streamed blue smoke as the cable  went
taut. The plane started to rise, sucking clear of the surf,  streams of seawater
draining from its wounds.

"Away from the cliff, you stupid ass Away!"

The crane groaned against the weight and the rear ends of its treads  began to
peel from the ground. The aeroplane began to swing; Harry  closed his eyes. He
heard the sergeant curse the men below, the men
curse back, and the crane operator curse them all. Then, there was  only the
growl of the crane's gears and Harry felt a cooling shadow  pass over his face.
He opened his eyes. He saw the Thunderbolt  pendulating above them, spraying
water on him and the sergeant.

From the cliff top, wallowing in the low waves, the aeroplane hadn't  looked
like much, just another piece of flotsam washed in to shore like  a twisted
piece of driftwood. But now, watching it sway above him,  the

Thunderbolt's great bulk and massive engine, visible through the  peeled-away
cowling, seemed incredibly oversized for the purpose of  sending one puny human
being into the air.

The engineer sergeant picked absently at the mat of hair on his chest  with one
hand while he guided the crane operator with the other. The  plane swung over
the flatbed. The sergeant noted the anguished look on  Harry's face and
hand-signaled some "Don't worry" braggadocio, hardly  justified by the way the
Thunderbolt came down so hard that Harry was  certain the spine of the lorry
would snap.

"Sorry!" Jimbo called from the operator's cab.

"I want to get a look inside," Harry said.

"Better wait'll we get 'er secured, Major," the sergeant advised.

"She looks a little rocky up there."

"I want pictures," Harry said. He was standing by one of the wings,  looking up
at a cluster of bullet holes near the cockpit.

"I seen some o' them suits with cameras over by the house," the  sergeant told
him.

"Should I--" "Yeah, yeah, I want the whole thing covered. Inside and  out."

"Yeah, we wanna get a shot, too."

Harry turned and looked down at the hairy sergeant.

"What shot?"

"Ah, we always take one with a job, a little group shot. You know, the  boys and
me standin' 'round the--" "Those photographers are here  strictly on JAG
business!"

"I know that," the sergeant said with his haughty little sniff.
"We got our own camera. Hey, Jimbo!" and Jimbo climbed out of the cab  proudly
holding up a little Brownie box.

"What the hell kind of security--" ' "Hey, Major, it's not like we're  gonna run
it in Stars and Stripes. We know the drill; this is all  strictly on the q.t."
right? This'll just be for us."

"No pictures!" Ignoring the sergeant's hurt look, Harry held on to the
overhanging wing to steady himself. The engineer's idea of security  had joined
with his own hunger and thirst to send his head spinning  again.

Men were pushing Harry out of the way now, as they started strapping  the plane
to the loading bed. The engineer sergeant boosted Harry up  onto the loading
bed.

Harry stepped up on the wing and the metal boomed hollowly underfoot as  the
plane tottered. He stepped up to the cockpit and stuck his head in  past the
remaining shards of Plexiglas. Dials stared back at him from  what was left of
the control panel. The violence of the moment of  impact was still there, frozen
in time, the punctures in the side of  the cockpit and control panel trailing
rigid tendrils of metal  suspended in space. Up on the other wing, the sergeant
whistled  appreciatively and drew Harry's attention to the back of the pilot's
seat. It had been pierced four times, clear through the seat armor. A  few
traces of blood were splattered on the canopy, but anything more  had been
washed away by the sea.

The cab left Harry at the Annex gate a few minutes before six. Joe  Ryan
intercepted him on a staircase as he hurried to the conference  room at the top
floor of JAG Building A. "Where the heli've you been?  What's with this chit for
a cab? This is like a chit from Magellan!  You take this cab around the Horn?
You couldn't take one of their  jeeps back? Where the heli've you been? I
haven't heard from you  since this morning!"

Ryan was a believer in the philosophy that one never allows one's  juniors to
see their leader flustered. Without waiting for Harry's  response, he took a
moment to straighten his uniform as well as his  usual grinning composure and
then, with a whispered, "We'll talk about  it later," entered through the double
mahogany doors of the conference  room with Harry in tow.

The room had once been a comfortable den, now made cramped by the  conference
table occupying most of the floor space. The civilian  tenants had cleared the
shelving of their treasured tomes, but those  same shelves now made a suitable
home for the JAG's law volumes, giving  the room double duty as a research
library. The weekly case management  meetings held here were intended to keep
Ryan apprised of the status of  the London JAG's various cases, but it usually
became an opportunity
for his juniors to try to impress him--and each other--over a buffet of  coffee
and doughnuts.

Ryan took his seat at the head of the table with Harry on his right.  Around the
table were the other JAG barristers: another major, three  captains, and two
lieutenants, all young, all feeling they deserved  better than to absorb Harry's
caseload for the unspoken but obvious  reason of clearing his way for a major
case, all hungry for--and  feeling worthier of--that same case. Joe Ryan
listened to their  complaints, nodded with grave understanding and deep concern,
then  responded that he was a colonel and they were not; end of debate. Any
queries from "outside" about the case reassignments were to be referred
directly to him. There would be no idle speculation or conference  outside the
room on the matter. Period.

Not long after, Harry and Ryan were parked in their usual corner booth  of The
Old Eagle, a dowdy pub not far from the Annex, at the end of an  ignored
cul-de-sac lined with similarly dowdy shops that sold old  bottles, chipped
dishware, and other assorted bric-a-brac. It was that  ignored and forgotten air
of The Old Eagle that appealed to Harry and  Ryan, as it provided a welcome
relief from the constant sight of  American uniforms, which filled the city in
those days.

Harry and Joe Ryan routinely huddled at The Old Eagle, lost among the  few old
duffers mumbling cricket scores to each other. Harry would  nurse a toby of ale
while Ryan worked his way through a pitcher, and  they ate shepherd's pie and
small sandwiches which, for all the  culinary deficiencies of the
barman/cook/waiter/clean-up man--and  English cuisine in general--was still a
change from the Annex canteen.  Sometimes they would sit and not talk at all,
because sometimes that's  all old friends need to do.

And it was an old, dear friendship, for all the jibes and teasing. You  could
hear it in the reflective pause before every "Joe Ryan" part of  the story Harry
told me.

It went back to boyhood. Harry, son of Russian immigrants unhappy with  the
czar, and Joe Ryan, son of Dubliners equally unhappy over  Victoria's handling
of the Irish Question" found each other as fellow  outsiders in a Newark, New
Jersey slum dominated by Italian immigrants.  I surmise it was a chum ship
founded on complementary parts--the  convivial, glad-handing, easily athletic
Ryan who glided through his  forms with a minimum of effort, and Harry, the
plumpish, well-meaning  tagalong swot.

I never found what drew them each to the law, but it made sense to me  that Ryan
would opt for a military practice, providing him with  security and prestige
without the difficulties of attaining both in  private practice. In Ryan, one
sensed a man who always opted for the  path of least resistance.
Harry the plow horse, on the other hand, set up his little office,  asked his
wife, Cynthia, to come in on occasion to play secretary and  make a good
impression on new clients, and worked long hours  uncomplainingly, assuming that
these were the rough early years that  would eventually pass. But then came '29
and the Crash, and the rough  years were there to stay.

Then there came the war. By then Harry no longer had only himself and  his wife
to consider, but two young boys. The service, as illustrated  by his friend Joe
Ryan, could provide his family a comfort--and a  security-his little practice
couldn't.

One of those evenings in The Old Eagle, with too much ale in him, Ryan  had
confessed: "I knew you'd be along, then, after Pearl Harbor. I  knew you'd be
the first one down at the enlistment center once they  pushed the age limit up
to forty-five. You know, Cynthia came to me  when you went to sign up. You know
why, Harry?

"Cause no matter what the age limit was, no matter how badly the Army  needed
bodies, you weren't going to be able to get in without someone  pulling a few
strings."

Harry didn't have to tell me how much he must have reddened on hearing  that.

"I

didn't ask her to talk to you."

Ryan would have given out an irritating chortle when he said, "Harry,  she came
to ask me to keep you out!" But Ryan, so Ryan said, was  Harry's friend. He
would have held Cynthia by her shoulders and said,  open-faced and sincerely,
"I'll do what I can," then turned round and  done what his friend needed without
being asked: Pull the strings he  could pull and put a word where a word was
needed.

Then he would have turned back to Cynthia, again with great sincerity,  and
said, "I did what I could."

What gnawed at Harry after that confession of Ryan's was not that he'd  helped
without being asked, but knowing that with an entire world at  war, Harry Voss
still could not have passed military muster without a  kind word spoken in high
places.

So, they came to sit together. Harry and Joe Ryan, in corner booths in  far-off
places to talk the way they would have talked at home, in this  way bringing a
little of home across the sea to themselves and, for a  brief while, being just
that less lonely for it. The ale gone, they  would walk slowly and, in Ryan's
case, perhaps with a slight waver and
an arm draped round Harry's shoulder, as they headed back to the  Annex.

There was a narrow building pinched into a perpetually shadowed corner  of the
Court, not a home as most of the other Rosewood buildings had  been, but
apartments for short city visits by landed gentry. The  apartments lent
themselves more easily to individual quarters than the  town houses, so the
American QM had descended on the building and duly  carved it up into an
officers' billet.

Harry and Ryan had rooms on the top floor, two of the better apartments  whose
comforts were somewhat offset by the four flights of stairs it  took to reach
them, an even harder climb when dragging along a friend  sodden with a pitcher
of warm ale. Harry put Ryan to bed in his  quarters at the front of the
building, a room with a delightful view  down the tree-shaded lane that fronted
the Court.

After that, he retired to his room at the rear with, as one would  expect of
poor old Harry, a less than stellar view of the vehicle  parking area in the
yard below.

In the early months of their London posting, Ryan and Harry had done  the
expected, hurrying here and there to see the sights, clicking off  photos of one
or the other smiling dumbly while standing in front of  postcard icons like
Buckingham, Parliament, the Tower of London,  Westminster, etcetera, each under
their respective umbrellas of barrage  balloons. The photos went home to Cynthia
and the boys, usually with  Ryan having scrawled something clever across the
back. But Harry soon  grew self-conscious over these jaunts, guilty over acting
as if he were  on holiday while the world was blowing itself apart, and every
letter  from Cynthia told of some new item gone from store shelves, and each
photograph showed her growing rounder with the carbohydrate-rich  wartime diet.

The atmosphere of the Officers' Quarters at Rosewood Court did little  to break
a mood of homesick reflection. Dark and gloomy, even during  the height of the
day, having only narrow windows front and rear, the  exotic woods of the carved
ceilings, paneling, and staircases seemed to  soak up what little light seeped
into that corner of the Court. Nights  were worse. Sealed inside blackout
curtains, air quickly grew stale  and warm, and the electric lights gave off a
feeble and flickering glow  as electricity was drawn off for higher priorities.
A murk rose from  the corners like a tide. With it came whispering sounds that
might be  quiet conversation behind closed doors, a low-tuned wireless,
maybe--as  Maintenance alleged--mice, or--according to a slightly woozy
Ryan--the  ghosts of generations of Rosewoodarians gone by.

With a last look out at the dark buildings of the Court, Harry drew his
blackout curtains, disregarded cautions about conserving electricity,  and
turned on every one of his few lights. He fiddled with the knobs  of the regal
cathedral wireless on his dresser.

"Bwono Sayrah," came the voice of "Colonel Stevens," one of the BBC's  beacons
to the conquered countries to the east. In Italian maimed by a  House, of Lords
accent, Stevens gave the Italians the Allies'  adulterated version of the
supposedly unadulterated news. What Stevens  said and how well he said it was
irrelevant to Harry. He just needed a  human voice to cover the sourceless
murmurings and scratchings out in  the corridor.

Harry stripped to his undergarments, pulled back the hand-stitched  duvet on his
four-poster, and lay on his bed with a copy of The Dain  Curse propped in front
of him. He read until the letters danced, then  turned out the lights and opened
the curtains. He lay back down to  sleep, left the wireless on, now softly
playing music. Soon, he was  asleep.

Peter Ricks found his way quite easily to the motor pool garage by  following
the sound of whoops and hollers. The garage was a long, low  shed just a block
from the Annex, shadowy despite the tall windows that  admitted the bright
summer morning. Ricks walked past lend-leased  Royal Army trucks and jeeps
parked in neat rows on the oil-stained  concrete. The smell of gas and grease
gave way to one of sweat.

Ricks took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the gloom of the garage  before
advancing toward an ad hoc gymnasium that had been flung  together at the far
end of the shed. Someone had nicked some Indian  clubs from somewhere, and
barbells had been improvised out of pipes and  wheel rims. A few sea bags filled
with sand hung from the rafters and  served as punching bags. A corner of the
garage had been roped off and  the floor covered with sheets of canvas. The
echoing shouts Ricks  heard were coming from a crowd of cheering British junior
officers  crowded along the perimeter of this makeshift ring, the object of
their  attentions being an enormous fellow with the bulk and coloring of a  side
of raw beef.

His opponent had skeletal limbs and an ashen pallor that would have  looked
quite natural on a coroner's slab. The only fleshy part of his  body was a roll
of beer fat that sat on his hips like a life preserver.  But as obviously
outgunned as Armando Grassi was, the little man did  not back off from his
towering assailant.

He would wait for the beefy man to swing and--providing the big man  missed,
which was not always the case--Grassi would use that opening to  close and
deliver a flurry of blows. Unfortunately, Grassi's small  hands, lost in their
gloves, did nothing but irritate the big man much  like an annoying gnat in need
of squashing.

"Armando has this wild, curly hair, jet-black, and it was shooting up  in all
directions," Ricks told me when he remembered that meeting.

"He looked positively rabid. You didn't have to know much about boxing  to know
Armando didn't know what the hell he was doing. You just had  to look at his
face." By the time Ricks appeared after just three  rounds, Grassi was sporting
a massive welt across one cheek, a split  lip, and an impressively blackening
eye.

Ricks seemed to be the only man in the garage disturbed at Grassi's  condition.

Even the one other American in the garage--a young PFC Ricks recognized  from
the orderly room acting as Grassi's corner man-seemed to be  rooting for the big
Englishman.

The PFC began to snap to attention at the sight of Ricks; Ricks waved  at him to
relax. There had been too little time between Stanford Law  School and his Army
captaincy for Ricks to adjust to the weight of the  captain's bars on his
shoulders.

"How's he doing?" Ricks asked the PFC.

The PFC was setting out iodine and great wads of cotton.

"Primo Camera he ain't, sir."

One of the British officers had an eye on his watch. He signaled the  end of the
round by clanging a wrench against a wheel rim.

Grassi shuffled back to his corner. He spotted Ricks and smiled  through a
bloodstained mouthpiece.

"Mornin'," he grunted, holding out one of his gloves for a welcoming  handshake.

"Ca'n Rick', in' it?"

"What do you think you're doing?" Ricks asked.

Grassi dropped heavily onto the stool the PFC had set down in his ring  corner.

"Wha" i' loo' li'?"

"Suicide," the PFC supplied. He caught the mouthpiece as Grassi spat  it out,
then started dabbing stinging iodine at Grassi's wounds while  Grassi rinsed his
mouth from a water bottle. The water he spat out had  a pinkish hue.

Grassi wiped at the sweat on his forehead with a gloved hand.

"I'm trying to prove Might doesn't make Right."

Ricks looked over at the other boxer. The big Englishman and his  corner man
seemed to be doing quite a bit of laughing.

"You're not presenting a very good case."

"Oh, wait'll you get a load of my summation."

Ricks started to point to his watch and say something urgent; the  timekeeper
clanged his wheel rim again.

"Excuse me, Cap'n, this shouldn't take long," Grassi said with  groundless
optimism. The PFC slipped Grassi's mouthpiece back into  place and scrambled out
of the ring, pulling the stool after him.  Grassi, grunting ferociously through
his mouthpiece, charged the big  boxer.

The bout lasted a single punch more, delivered quite tellingly by the
Englishman.

"Poor Armando," Ricks told me later in earnest sympathy.

"He saw so many stars they must've been forming constellations."

At a glance, the wide, blocky figure of Peter Ricks would seem more at  home in
the ring than that of his junior colleague. The square face  looked capable of
withstanding a blow from a mallet, let alone a fist.  But to talk to him even
for a few minutes would leave one wondering if,  in fact, he wouldn't've been
carried out of the ring in even worse  shape. Soft-spoken, reflective,
unfailingly polite, from a proper,  well-to-do, unfailingly polite San
Franciscan family of lawyers, Ricks  seemed too courteous to punch, and too
trusting to defend, never  believing someone could be so mean-spirited or so
pointlessly brutal as  to want to beat him bloody.

Armando Grassi was not soft-spoken, reflective, or polite, nor was he  from a
family of distinguished lawyers. His upbringing in the woollier  parts of the
Chicago slums had left him tough enough to climb out of  the streets and put
himself through law school. It had also left him
daring, quick, a trifle tactless, and with a taste for the jugular  that even
the proprieties of law school never tempered. Perhaps it was  the inequities
he'd seen between the world of tenements and those who  owned them that had
ingrained in Grassi a nearly psychopathic  compulsion to take the role of David
against any Goliath he could  find--or imagine he'd found. Or--another
perhaps--being saddled with a  name like "Armando" had gotten him into enough
scrapes to develop a  combative attitude. The trait had gotten him into
kickabouts with  senior officers over junior officer housing, treatment of the
mess  boys, military court procedure, and a host of other causes. And he was
not above taking his crusading stances against America's allies with  equal
abrasiveness, assailing British military personnel with  beer-fueled critiques
over the moral bankruptcy of the monarchy and The  Empire, aristocratic
effetism, English social castes, and the like.  These debates frequently
resulted in an escalation of tempers, a rashly  thrown punch here and there,
and--as on this occasion--a duel or two.

Following Grassi's disastrous defense of his principles in the motor  pool gym,
his corner man helped him back to his room in the junior  officers' BOQ. Ricks
followed after detouring by the canteen for a  basin of ice. While Grassi sat on
the cold tile floor of the shower  room letting the fitfully hot spray wash away
blood and massage  bruises, Ricks waited in Grassi's room, wrapping ice in a
towel.

Ricks stayed to the side of the room belonging to Grassi's absent  bunkmate,
where everything was squared away as stipulated in the Army  manual. Grassi's
side looked as if a grenade had gone off inside a bin  of dirty laundry. His
desk was hidden under a pile of files and  papers. His locker top clattered with
an outrageous collection of  scents, lotions, and toilet waters, most of them
uncapped, their aromas  mixing in a noxious perfume. Over the unmade bunk was a
mural of  girlie photographs from the obligatory Betty Grable to a surprising
Penny Singleton. All looked down at the debris on Grassi's half of the  room
with delighted smiles.

Ricks shook his head over the sight and kicked a toe less sock. He  heard the
shower spray die and the slap of Grassi's wet feet coming  down the hall. Grassi
appeared in the doorway. He had not bothered to  wrap a bath towel round
himself.

His eyes, both the swollen and un swollen one, were half closed. He  lowered
himself gingerly onto the dirty clothes littering his bunk.

"Does anyone ever inspect this place?" Ricks asked.

"I think someone came down last week. He's probably still in here  somewhere. If
you see him, let me know."

Ricks did not want to cross into the infected areas of the room, so he  tossed
his impromptu ice bag over and it bounced once on Grass!"s belly  before coming
to rest. Grassi slid the towel up to the bruises on his  face.

"Thanks," Grassi said.

"Now, Cap'n, was there something I could do for you? Or are you just a  fight
fan?"

"I was on my way over to Major Voss's office. It was my impression  that we were
both supposed to go over there this morning. On  assignment." Ricks looked at
his watch and his face became pained.

"We were supposed to be in the major's office six minutes ago."

"I guess we're late for that, Cap'n. Why don't you go on ahead--"  "Would you
just hurry. Lieutenant? Please?"

"Is that an order? Sir?"

Exercising his rank ran so counter to Ricks's genteel upbringing that  his
response was merely to redden and shuffle his feet.

Grassi was in a merciful mood. He pulled himself painfully off his  cot.

"Since you asked nice .. ." He opened his locker, drew his bony white  body up
to its full, stunted height, and regarded it admiringly in the  full-length
mirror mounted inside die door. He wiggled his hips,  swaying his genitalia
round, then grinned and jerked a thumb at the  beaming pin-ups on the wall.

"Now you know what keeps 'em smiling!"

The red-faced Ricks was already halfway out the door.

"I'll wait upstairs."

Grassi laughed.

Poor old Harry swung the door of his outer office open that morning to  find
that, once again, Corporal Nagel had defied Harry's prayers and  presented
himself for duty. This particular morning, young Nagel,  screwdriver in hand,
was brazenly stabbing at the bowels of his  intercom through its exposed back.

Nagel, intent on the operation, was oblivious to the appalled look on  Harry's
face.

"You're late," Nagel announced.

"Yes, Nagel, I'm late, thank you. Mind if I ask what you're doing?"
S

"Busted, sir. I'm fixing it."

Like Canute stopped the tide. Harry thought.

"Colonel Ryan was supposed to send some staff over to me today. I  don't see
them."

"Nobody's showed up here, sir. Except me. They must be late, too."

It was a typically Nagelesque belaboring of the obvious and it sent  Harry to
his office shaking his head.

"Get me Colonel Ryan on the phone."

"Yes sir," Nagel said and went back to stabbing at the entrails of the  intercom
box.

"Now would be a good time, Nagel."

Harry found six manila folders on his desk with an accompanying note  from
Captain Bennett, and a pair of phone messages covered with Nagels  squiggly
handwriting taped to his chair.

"Nagel!"

"Oh, sir, a messenger came by yesterday with those files from--" "What  the hell
are these messages?"

"Phone messages."

"I don't read Sanskrit, Nagel."

"Sir?"

"I can't make these out!"

"One's from Colonel Ryan."

"Colonel Ryan? When did he call?"

"This morning, just after I got--" "What's this other one? Something  Bill? From
S-2? G-2?" Harry turned the paper on its side and  squinted.

"E-2?"

"Captain Dell. From G-2. He called this morning, too."
"You're supposed to put the date and time--Forget it. Did this Captain  Dell say
what he wanted?"

"No, sir, just that he'd call back."

Harry started to unbutton his jacket, then stopped and listened. He  could hear
Nagel still poking around in the intercom.

"I'm ready for that call to Colonel Ryan now. Corporal, as in now!"

He had just finished his morning ritual of sleeve-rolling and  tie-loosening
when he picked up the phone to talk to Joe Ryan.

"TT ">*'

"Hold on a second, Joe. Nagel! Are you still playing with that  thing?" Harry
heard the screwdriver drop.

"Go get Maintenance to fix it, Nagel. Don't use the phone. Go get  them! Now!"

When Harry heard the outer door close, he turned back to the phone.

"Sorry, Joe.

G'ahead."

"Ricks and Grassi there yet?"

At Grassi's name, Harry winced.

"Grassi?"

"Sorry, Harry, but everybody's already screaming about taking on your  caseload.

How do I tell them that, on top of that they get stuck with Grassi? I  don't
want to risk somebody getting mad enough to take a squawk over my  head. Not on
this case."

"Grassi, Joe?"

"Look, I'm no fan of his either. In fact, I think the little pain is a  Red. If
I could find a way to sideline him that didn't draw more  attention than it
threw off, I'd do it. But listen to me, Harry: You  make sure Grassi keeps that
yap of his shut. You make sure!"

Ryan was being more than routinely emphatic and they knew each other  too well
for Harry not to see it as a sign.
"Something's happened."

Ryan groaned.

"Some newshound's been snooping around up at Wing."

"You're sure?"

"No, I'm not sure. I just know some guy flashing a press pass has been  fishing
around. The CID boys are checking him out now."

"Did he know anything?"

"He obviously knows something. If he does, what I don't want is him  finding out
any more than he already knows. And that won't exactly  take too much effort on
his part. It's all over Wing."

"I like your idea of keeping a secret."

"Don't you start. I've been getting it from Halverson since sunup.  What does he
want from me? Between Ottinger's crew, those mopes out at  Donophan, the MP's,
Scotland Yard, Halverson's own staff .. ." Ryan  sighed.

"Christmas, I'm surprised the story's not on the front page of every  rag on
Fleet Street by now!"

"It's still early in the day."

"That's not funny, Harry."

"If this gets out and we get caught trying to hold a lid on it, we're  going to
look pretty--" "I know, I know. I'm supposed to go over to  the pro's and help
draft some kind of statement we can shovel to the  press, something for 'em to
chew on for a bit. Halverson's going to  contact Whitehall and see if we can't
get them to go to this bozo's  editor and whisper 'national security' and
"official secrets' in his  ear. And, speaking of cross-cultural diplomacy, I
want you to go to  dinner with me tonight."

"That doesn't sound so diplomatic. It doesn't even sound romantic."

"I'm supposed to 'entertain' some Lord and Lady Whosis. That's at the  request
of the people up top which makes it more than a request. I'll  be damned if I'm
spending the night with a pair of rigor mortises by  myself."

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Harry said.

"Busy, busy--" "Harry-boy," and there was that annoying brogue, "did
this colonel give the major the impression he was asking?"

Now it was Harry's turn to sigh.

"What time?"

"I'll pick you up at 1700. Try to look nice. No embarrassing stains.  Next
topic:

You get what you asked for from Bennett?"

Harry fingered the captain's note:

Major Voss-H/w 66-1 s on all concerned incl. 2 KlA's and mission  profile.
--Bennett

Harry wondered who the additional KlA's were.

"I've got those files. I'll go over them, then brief Ricks and Grassi  before I
go to G-2. I need to talk to somebody over there about their  debriefing
statements, see what else they can tell me about these three  guys and their
mission. What about those gun films?"

"Anderson's is in my safe. I never got Markham's."

Harry's fingers moved to the phone message from the mysterious Captain  Dell at
G-2. "I'll find out about that."

They rang off and Harry started to thumb through the six files. In  addition to
the mission profile, there was one for Markham, one for  Anderson, another for
O'Connell, and then two more presumably for the  Killed In Actions: two
lieutenants named Jacobs and McLagen.

According to the mission profile, these five pilots from the 351st  Fighter
Group had mounted a raid against a fuel depot somewhere in  Belgium the previous
morning. The attack force had consisted of two  sections: Anderson and O'Connell
comprised the section code-named Angel  Blue, and Markham led the two KlA's in
Angel Red.

There was a knock at the outside door, followed by the entrance of a
crisp-looking Ricks and a battered-but-unbowed Grassi. Setting the  files aside,
Harry leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands over the  bulge of his belly,
and glowered at them over the tops of his  glasses.

"You gentlemen are late."

"Yes sir, my fault, sir," Grassi replied.

"I overslept, sir, and when Captain Ricks came looking for me, I--"
"You get that shiner oversleeping?"

"Slipped in the shower, sir," Grassi said blithely.

"Uh-huh." Harry nodded.

"Do you think you could manage not to slip in the shower while you're  assigned
to me?"

"Do my best, sir."

They dragged a pair of chairs into the office and made themselves as
comfortable as the cramped quarters allowed. Before they could get  down to
business, however, Nagel clomped back into the outer office.

"Major? Maintenance won't be able to get somebody up here till-Oh!  These must
be your fellas!"

"Must be, Nagel. Go on down to the canteen and see about some coffee  and
doughnuts for everybody." Harry felt that was a complex enough  assignment to
keep Nagel out of the office for a good half hour.

Grassi clucked his tongue after Nagel left.

"Regular mastermind you got yourself--"The reprimanding look from Harry
silenced him abruptly.

"Sorry, sir."

"Lieutenant, you haven't been in this office five minutes and I'm  already tired
of hearing you say you're sorry. I've got a case, a  priority, and I need
footmen. Good ones. Grassi, I didn't pick you,  but I've got you and I'm not
going to have any more problems with you.  Am I?"

Grassi smiled innocently.

"Why should there be any--" "Because if I do have one, it'll be the  lost one I
have. Understand?"

Harry told them as little as they needed to know about the job. Major  Markham
and Captain Anderson might be involved in the death of  Lieutenant O'Connell. He
said nothing about the attack on the  Greshams. He needed Ricks and Grassi to go
out to Donophan, talk to  any of the men there who knew the men involved, and
work up some sort  of character profile. It was swot work and Grassi sighed,
anticipating  the boredom of it all, but Harry lectured on about how personnel
files  usually only told half the story and so on and so forth.

Harry watched them scribble away on their foolscap pads. Ironically,
the notepad of the immaculate Ricks was a mess of hasty scribbles, with  arrows
darting here and there, margins jammed with afterthoughts, while  the rumpled
Grassi wrote in a clear, bold script. But then, that was  the thorough Ricks, a
seine scooping up everything, ignoring nothing;

Grassi was a killer, interested only in the jugular.

"Some of these Donophan people may still be in the hospital," Harry  continued.

"I understand the field got nailed pretty bad a couple of weeks ago.  Also check
into any civilian contacts--" "Girlfriends?" Grassi's  eyebrows rose hopefully.

"Whoever you can find." Harry kept his tone businesslike.

"And leave whoever is in command out there to me."

"Keeping the choice bits for yourself, eh, Boss?" Grassi said.

Harry rubbed a beginning throb in his head. Joe Ryan was going to owe  him big
for Grassi.

"Now here's the big point. The big point, as in you mess up here and  you
explain it to Colonel Ryan. While you are conducting this  investigation, you
will say as little--correction-you will say nothing  about this case to anybody.
Other than the questions you ask, you  explain nothing to the people you
interview, you say nothing to other  members of the JAG staff, nothing to
girlfriends, nothing in letters  home, nothing to nobody! This will be a mistake
"I'm sorry' won't  cover."

Grassi nodded without great concern, either not understanding or not  caring
about the direct reference.

"Markham and Anderson--who's their counsel?" Ricks asked.

Harry shuffled the papers on his desk.

"No formal charges have been filed yet."

"Does that mean they have no counsel?"

"Right now, their status is that they're confined to quarters pending  the
results of this investigation. They'll have plenty of time to  establish a
defense in conjunction with counsel once charges have been  preferred."

Ricks was obviously unhappy with the response. Nonetheless, he did not  question
his superior.
The look on Ricks's face provoked a twinge of guilt in Harry, but he  comforted
himself with the thought that while some of his tactics were,  as they said back
home, "dirty pool," he was still within the legal  framework of military law.

What he could not find comfort for was the conspiratorial wink Grassi  flashed
him with his good eye. The idea that he and Grassi had some  common ethic--or
lack thereof--chilled him.

"All right," Harry concluded.

"I'm hoping we'll have the ballistics and autopsy prelim by tomorrow  and then
we can start putting it all together. We'll touch base  tomorrow morning first
thing. OK, gentlemen, you've got a lot of work  to do."

Ricks left, but Grassi lingered in the doorway.

"Hey, Boss, did I mention how much I like your wallpaper?"

"Good-bye, Lieutenant."

Then Grassi was gone, and Nagel was back with a dangerously overloaded  tray of
doughnuts and coffee.

"Where'd they go?" Nagel asked. He seemed offended.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

Harry grabbed coffee and a doughnut, then waved Nagel away. He soon  heard Nagel
in the outer office renewing his operations with the  screwdriver.

"Will you leave that thing alone! Call the orderly room at my BOQ and  have them
send someone up to my quarters. I need my Class A's cleaned,  pressed, and
returned no later than 1600 hours. And when Maintenance  comes up to fix your
box, would you kindly point out to them that this  office was supposed to have
been painted six weeks ago!"

Harry calmed himself with a bite of his doughnut, brushed the crumbs  off the
desk, and turned to the stack of files. He sifted through the  folders until he
found the mission profile. There were several maps in  the file: one covering
southern England and the northern France/  Belgium area; a detail map of central
Belgium; a more detailed map of  the area between Ghent and Brussels. The maps
were crossed with red  lines marking flight paths. At intervals along the lines
were  four-digit numbers:

military times signifying the aircraft being at specific points at  specific
times. Harry searched his memory for anything about Belgium:  All he came up
with was that it was where Brussels sprouts had  originated. He spread the maps
along the head of his desk for easy  reference, then turned back to the mission
profile.

Angel Blue, consisting of Anderson and O'Connell, and Angel Red, with  Markham
leading Jacobs and McLagen, had been scheduled to leave  Donophan Airfield,
located down in Sussex, at 0700 hours with Blue in  the lead. Keeping as close
to the ground as possible to avoid German  radar detection, the five planes were
to have followed a southeasterly  course across the Channel, making landfall on
the French coast just  south of Boulogne-sur-Mer. They were to have continued on
about  twenty-five kilometers inland before heading northeast on a course
taking them straight on to their target. They would have crossed the  Belgian
border just north of Tourcoing, dropped their auxiliary fuel  tanks a few
kilometers short of the target, then closed for the attack.  Angel Blue would
have pressed in first with Red flying top cover, then  they would have reversed
positions.

Their target was a fuel depot at the Belgian town ofHelsvagen, which  sat about
thirty kilometers southwest of Ghent; seventy kilometers  northwest of Brussels
and its renowned sprouts. Helsvagen was a  pinpoint so small it appeared only on
the two detail maps.

The withdrawal route was a mirror of the attack path. Both sections  would leave
the target area on a northwesterly course, turning  southwest at another
pinpoint--Roselare--and head back across France.  They'd hit the French coast
just south of Dunkirk and head home. The  whole mission was to have taken no
more than an hour.

As Harry studied the plan and maps and course lines, it occurred to him  that
all this flying about willy-nilly seemed somewhat extraneous  considering the
target lay a little over 280 kilometers practically due  east of Donophan. He
pondered the arcane and often pointlessly complex  workings of the military
mind.

Something about the course lines tugged at him, and was still nagging  at him
when the phone rang. It rang quite a few times before he  remembered that Nagel
was off on his assigned scavenger hunt. Harry  scooped the phone out of its
cradle.

"Voss."

"Major Voss?" The voice was young.

"This is Captain James Dell. I called earlier--" "Oh, right, right.  What can I
do for you. Captain?"

"Captain Bennett from Wing said you'd want to talk to me. I'm the G-2  liaison
and briefing officer for the 351st. I debriefed Major Markham  and Captain
Anderson yesterday."

"Ah! I was coming over to your offices in a bit. We can talk then."

"Major Van Damm--my CO--he thought maybe it'd be better if I came over  there. I
have those debriefing reports. They just finished typing  them up this morning.
I understand you want those."

"I'd appreciate that, Captain, thank you. I want to talk to your Major  Van
Damm, first. Meet me in my office in forty-five minutes?"

"If you're going to talk to Major Van Damm, you better figure on an  hour or so.

Major. Trust me."

Harry smiled.

"All right. Captain. See you in an hour."

Harry set the phone in its cradle and turned back to the maps. Where  was the
Gresham cottage? He drew out his notes from the day before,  made some rough
calculations, and penciled in a small X on the large  map; a rough approximate
of the coastal crash site. Even allowing for  his not being a navigator of any
sort, it was obvious that neither of  the planned flight paths--the one out of
England from Donophan or the  one back--came anywhere near Charlie Gresham s
cottage in East  Sussex.

By the time Harry was trundling out of the Annex, he was facing another
problem, although this was one of which he was still unaware. That  "newshound"
Ryan had referred to had picked up enough of a scent to  follow him to his
meeting with

G-2.

That other problem for poor old Harry was me.
CHAPTER FOUR

EX CATHEDRA

within HOURS OF THE DEATH OF Dennis O'Connell, the news hounds-as Joe  Ryan
disdainfully described them--had sensed something was amiss. The  American press
officers had informed the members of the press pools  that the affair in East
Sussex was simply the routine recovery of a  downed American pilot. But that
news didn't fit with the glum faces  behind the podia, and the "No comment" 's
that stifled any query for  further information. But what intrigued the hounds
most was the  question of what sort of routine recovery operation required an
impenetrable cordon of American and British troops round the crash  site, the
involvement of the Judge Advocate, Provost Marshal, and  forensic teams from
Scotland Yard, and the entire staff of the 188th  Combat Wing (the unit that
incorporated the late Dennis O'Connell's  351st Fighter Group) scurrying about
like Charlie Gresham's stampeded  sheep. And to any query in that regard came
yet another "No  comment."

For a journalist, that kind of evasion was a waving red flag in front  of a
bull.

In short order, the hounds were sniffing about trying to find a trail  that
would lead them to at least some part of the truth of the events  inside that
cordon in East Sussex. In all that trolling, stalking, and  sniffing, the paths
of Harry Voss and myself first crossed.

The day following young O'Connell's death--16 August--my colleagues and  I were
already selecting our perches. Some planted themselves at 188th  Combat Wing
Headquarters, some in Chillingham where they could eye  Donophan Airfield,
others at Scotland Yard. I was among a group that  posted themselves outside
Rosewood Court, home of the Judge Advocate's  office; a likely station
considering that whatever had occurred the  previous day seemed to have involved
possible criminal action by  American military personnel.

Many of us who had even occasionally covered the goings-on of the Yanks  in
London had at least a passing acquaintance with Joe Ryan. That was  enough to
know that the dark glower and strident jogs across the  cobbles we witnessed
were a noteworthy change from his usual  grin-and-wave bonhomie. Then there were
the two junior officers (Ricks  and Grassi, I later learned, the latter sporting
a face like a bruised  peach) climbing into a jeep and roaring out of the Court
with a serious  urgency. We on station across from the gate sensed that all that
seriousness and urgency had something to do with whatever was brewing,  and that
was enough to send my colleagues after them on their  respective two good legs.

Which was what held me to the Court; I didn't have two good legs. I
stood there, cursing the awkwardness of the wooden contraption that now  served
as a limb. I was still cursing it when Harry Voss strode out  the Court gate and
headed toward the complex in Grosvenor Square, which  housed the Supreme
Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force. As  a major from the JAG's
offices, Harry seemed of sufficient rank for me  to reasonably suspicion him as
a part of whatever was stirring all the  rumble. But perhaps what made him an
even more attractive lead to me  was that even I could keep up with that
waddling trudge of his: I  followed Harry because I could.

I trailed him as far as the entrance to the collection of buildings  serving the
SHAEF staff. Standing at a discreet distance, so as not to  alarm the sentries,
I saw him pass through the entrance that would take  him down into die shadowy
realm of the Intelligence boffins, what the  American military nomenclature
designated as "G-2." I was now  reasonably certain that I was on to something,
and poor old Harry  had--for the moment--become my unwitting guide.

American engineers had gone down into the cellars under Grosvenor  Square,
knocked down turn-of-the-century walls, dug and tunneled  through London's
ancient earth, and interlocked the various chambers in  a subterranean complex
protected against both Goering's bombs and  prying domestic eyes by yards of
soil, and old stone walls reinforced  with brand-new concrete. Each day those
labyrinthine corridors and  chambers filled with the dull stutter of stone
drills and cement mixers  at work behind noise-dampening drapes. Each and every
day, the maze of  partitions, filing cabinets, desks and tables, drafting boards
and map  easels expanded along with the war effort.

It was a place peopled by shadows. The shadows sat wreathed in  cigarette smoke
and hunched over lowered desk lamps and glowing light  tables studying
photographs, maps, teletypes, ticker tapes, diagrams,  telegrams, predictions,
calculations, estimations, and all forms and  vehicles of information and
analysis, then glided from one pool of  darkness to another.

Harry's guide deposited him at a small, windowed cubicle, its windows  blanked
by drawn blinds, before disappearing back into the gloom,  leaving him in the
care of a bulldog-faced sergeant stationed at a desk  in front of the cubicle's
closed door; an appropriate Cerberus for such  Stygian surroundings.

"Major Voss? Major Van Damm will be with you in a moment, sir."

Harry saw no place to sit and the sergeant offered no chair. Harry  fidgeted
like a man waiting for a bus: His eyes drifted to a youthful  captain, the
gnawed stub of a pencil tucked behind his ear, dancing a  set of calipers across
the scroll-like map overwhelming his desk.

The sergeant cleared his throat theatrically, reminding Harry that this
was a place where wandering eyes required a signed authorization. Harry  nodded
an apology and stepped back to the sergeant's desk.

From somewhere behind him--he dared not turn to see and risk another  growling
rebuke from the sergeant--he picked out fragments of  conversation. He heard a
voice--still with an adolescent crack--try to  coax aWAC into an evening at
dinner. Harry smiled; even in that  eternal underground gloaming, with half the
world in flames, some  things went on as always.

The cubicle door swung open and a cloud of stinging cigar smoke rolled  out
followed by a blue-faced captain gasping for breath. The captain  vanished off
into the darkness; the sergeant nodded at Harry.

"He's all yours, Major."

The brightness of the cubicle was painful after the dimness outside,  and
equally distressing was the smell: stale air; old food and  coffee;

sweat; cheap cigars.

I had seen Major Christian Van Damm at several briefings for the press  pools.

Even in public and on his best behavior, Van Damm was still prone to  that cocky
impudence of so many young Americans, an undisguised disdain  for the protocols
and diplomacies that made the simple unnecessarily  complex, and an irritating
impatience for any intellect moving slower  than his own quicksilver pace. Van
Damm, in the privacy of his sanctum  sancto rum below the venerable Georgian
buildings of Grosvenor Square,  sole ruler over his spectral kingdom, allowed
his eccentricities full  rein.

At Harry's entrance, the major barely hoisted himself to his feet from  behind a
desk that had disappeared beneath a mass of paper flowing  uninterruptedly onto
and across the floor, and then up onto  caster-mounted cork boards covered by
layers of maps. Van Damm shook  Harry's hand, gestured at him to shut the door,
and crashed back into  his chair, a preposterously huge, wing-backed affair, its
plush padding  covered with a faded pattern of twining leaves. Harry guessed it
had  been liberated from one of the stately residences aboveground.

"Welcome to G-2, Major." Van Damm punctuated his greeting with a  forceful puff
on the cigar stub clamped in his tobacco-stained teeth.

Harry smiled a hello, tiptoeing round piles of photographs to the  office's only
other chair; strictly government issue and not nearly as  comfortable as Van
Damm's.
"First time down here? What do you think of our little operation?"

"A bit spooky." Having had time to let his eyes adjust to the  cubicle's glare.

Harry could see that the major was not much older than Ricks or Grassi,  though
his pasty pallor had thrown Harry's initial estimate higher.

Van Damm chuckled, proudly flashing his stained teeth.

"Spooky. That's a good word for it."

"And not so little."

"A growing concern, Major, a growing concern. We're not even settled  in here
and now they tell us to start re conning some territory out in  Kingston. Ike
wants to move the whole shebang out there with him. He's  got this philosophy
against the brass getting too settled. We also  serve who pack and move, I
guess. I imagine your visit's got something  to do with that little do down on
the coast yesterday."

Harry looked pained.

"Tell me," he asked, "is there anybody who doesn't know about this  mess?"

"This is G-2"Voss. Intelligence. The Spy Brigade. What the hell  kinda spies
would we be if we didn't even know what was goin' on in our  own backyard, huh?

Don't worry. It's also our job to keep secrets.

"Course, that's not Operations' job. Keeping secrets."

"They know, too?"

"And Communications, the Provost--well, that would figure, right?-and
Transport--" Harry groaned.

"Frankly, I'd be surprised if by tomorrow, all of Wing staff didn't  know! You
talk to my boy Dell yet?"

"Captain Dell? Not yet. I'm supposed to meet with him later--" "He's  got those
debriefing reports, and those gun films were turned over to  Ryan. Some droop
named Bennett--he your man?"

"Bennett belongs to General Halverson, but I asked him to--" "Well,  Bennett was
moping around here yesterday trying to get hold of that  stuff but I sent 'im
packing. I didn't like his puss. I had Dell hand  it all straight to Ryan. Now,
Major Voss," Van Damm said, "what can I
do you for?"

Harry fumbled with his briefcase for his notes and pencil and pad.

"I suppose we could start by talking about the 351st."

"You've got the--hey, is this smoke bothering you?" Van Damm switched  on a
small desk fan seemingly oblivious to the commotion it created  among the papers
on his desk. He seemed oblivious as well to the fact  that the lazily whirling
blades had no place to send the thick cloud of  smoke and merely circulated it
about the room.

"I was saying--you've got the wrong boy. I can tell you that they--the
351st-they were the last of Halverson's groups to be activated, back in  May or
June, I think. I can tell you they were his ace group. They  were on that last
Essen raid, got themselves a unit citation for that  one, and I can tell you
they earned it, too. And that is about all I  can tell you. You need to talk to
Dell. He's a good kid. Bright."

Harry repressed another smile. It was odd hearing someone as young as  Van Damm
refer to another presumed adult as a "kid."

"Dell worked with them directly," Van Damm continued.

"He was Johnny On the Spot, on a regular basis."

"I gather you're saying, then, that you didn't deal with the group?"

"Me? Nah, not directly. On an occasional basis. And then only with  senior
staff."

"Senior staff. Major Markham?"

"Markham, Frank Adams, that adjutant what's his face  Corkscasomething--" "Wait
a minute. Who's this Frank--" "Lieutenant  Colonel Frank Adams. Commanding
officer."

"Commanding .. . ? I thought Markham--" "Oh, no, no, no. Markham was  the air
exec, the number two man. Adams ran the show. Markham was the  heir apparent."

"What do you mean?"

"There was a lot of good talk floating around about Frank Adams. The  351st was
an A-Number-One group 'cause Adams was a crack CO, on top of  which Adams and
Halverson were buddy-buddy from back before they  invented the wheel. Grapevine
had it that Adams was being groomed for  a slot at Wing HQ, maybe even go bird
colonel and get the Wing when  Halverson moved up. The way Halverson talked up
Adams was the same way  Adams talked up Markham. If Adams moved up .. ." Van
Damm finished
with an eloquent shrug.

"I get the picture. Where s this Colonel Adams been through all  this?"

Van Damm removed his cigar and stared at the glowing tip.

"I imagine his box should be home by now."

"His box?"

"He's dead."

"Oh."

Van Damm sighed.

"So, Markham got the group anyway. Hit Halverson pretty hard, about  Adams. I
think the whole thing unhinged him a little bit, at least in  my opinion."

"What whole thing?"

"Frank Adams and the group going up in one big flash. The bombing.  What was it,
last week? You heard about that, didn't you? About  Donophan being hit?"

"Right, OK. So that's when Colonel Adams was killed?"

"He had plenty of company. Killed and wounded, Donophan lost eighty to
eighty-five percent of their combat effectives--" Van Damm snapped his  fingers.

"Got pasted six ways to Sunday."

Harry nodded and wiped at his eyes. The smoke was making him tear. He  pointed
at the fan.

"Do we really need this?"

Van Damm smiled and leaned forward to flick off the fan.

Harry flipped back through his notes.

"You, um, said something about Colonel Halverson--" "It's General  Halverson.
Got his star just a coupla days before the 351st got hit.  How's that for your
tragic ironies!"

"--about Halverson becoming 'unhinged'--" "The man loses his best est  group and
his best est buddy in one big boom. You blame him?"
"No, but what exactly did you mean by--" "What I meant was that the  next
day--the very next morning--I've got the general on the blower,  practically
foaming at the mouth, bending my ear about what he called  'reactive strikes."
Do you believe that?" Van Damm shook his head,  still not believing it himself.

"Not with his other groups, mind you, but with the 351st! What was  left of it."

Van Damm's cigar was dead. He weighed relighting it, seemed to decide  the stub
wasn't worth it, moved some papers uncovering an old cup of  coffee serving as
an ashtray, and dropped it in.

"So, I tell the general," Van Damm went on, "I says, Look, I'm senior  staff,
I'm chief Intelligence officer, I've got an obligation to point  out that I
don't think Markham's playing with all fifty-two cards, OK?"  He began rooting
through his desk drawers.

"The krauts gut Markham's group and now he's talking 'bout going back  over
there and messing up their brilliantine a little bit? That's what  it came down
to. HeyVoss;

want one?"

To Harry's dismay, Van Damm produced a fresh cigar from one of his desk
drawers.

Harry shook his head politely but vigorously. Van Damm shrugged, then  carefully
began peeling the cellophane off the cigar.

"Tampa Nuggets," he rhapsodized.

"Nobody makes a cheap cigar like the good of' U.S. of A. I have my wife  send
'em over. Helps kill the stink down here." He bit the tip off  the cigar, spat
it out on the floor, then touched a match to the end,  basking in the fresh,
blue haze.

"Hell, last time I had a shower was the last time it rained; went  outside and
strolled around in it for a few minutes. You'd be  surprised how little the
brass comes down here to bother me."

"I don't think I--" "Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, so the general  says to me,
he says, Fine, you fulfilled your filial obligations. Van  Damm, you said your
piece, now shuddup and do what I tell you. Or  words to that effect. Well, Voss,
the boss may not be always right,  but the boss is always the boss."

"What was it he told you to do?"
"He wanted targets."

"And you gave him this fuel depot in Belgium--" "I gave him what he  wanted: a
shopping list. He wanted a spread of easy-to-hit stuff,  low-priority targets,
highly vulnerable, well within fighter range. I  gave him six targets."

"Could I see that target information?"

Van Damm nodded and barked an order into his intercom.

"The general picked the fuel depot out of those six?" Harry asked.

"The place in Belgium?"

"Him. Or Markham. The orders came to me from Halverson, but I don't  know whose
hands are dirty with what."

"You didn't approve of the target choice?"

"I thought the whole mission was a stupid idea! Look, we don't have  much
experience in this 'fighter sweep' business. We've been doing a  lot of talking
about it, but so far the fighters have been pretty much  relegated to
bomber-escort duty But the first time we let our fighters  loose at something on
the ground, I'd want to do it when we've got a  more definite air superiority
and do it with something more than five  lousy planes! You want there to be
enough so that if things go bad,  they can at least protect themselves, fight
their way out. And five of  'em ain't enough, especially without air
superiority."

"You explained all this to General--" Van Damm rocked in his chair with  the
unhappy smugness of a proven Cassandra.

"About half a second after he told me what he was up to. Emphatically.  But,
hey, look, I get paid to give opinions; nobody gets paid to take  'em. And now
he's out three more pilots, right? If the brass hats  want to throw people away
like that, that's Jake with me, but if you  ask me, I think everybody who
touched this thing--from Halverson on  down--should be strung up by his tender
parts for letting that thing go  ahead."

" If it was clearly such a bad idea, why do you think Halverson--" "I  dunno!"
Van Damm jabbed the red tip of his Tampa Nugget at Harry for  emphasis.

"I tell ya, I think he just went a little flak-happy over this thing!

All Halverson wanted to hear from me was target recommendations, and  did I
think Markham's plan would bring the boys home."
"Was it sound? The plan?"

"Actually, it wasn't bad as far as it went." Van Damm's intercom  buzzed and he
stood.

"C'mon, it's visual-aids time. I'm gonna give you a crash course in  being a
member of the Spy Brigade. I hope you brought your decoder  ring with you."

Harry took his pad and pencil with him as he followed Van Damm out into  the
comparatively fresh air of the cellar maze.

The desk sergeant outside held up a fistful of folders to Van Damm. The  latter
riffled through them, extracted one, and told the sergeant to  leave the rest on
Harry's chair. Then, with a follow-me nod to Harry,  Van Damm steamed off into
the dark, his cigar leaving a trail of  locomotive puffs behind. They stopped
near a group of officers staring  bleary-eyed into photographs laid out on a
bank of light tables. Van  Damm tapped one of the officers atop his head. He was
a lieutenant,  and even in the harsh glare of the light table Harry could see
large  bags under his watery eyes, the ghostly pale skin. He wondered if Van
Damm or any of his minions saw much sunlight.

"You could use a break, Bennie,"Van Damm said.

"Oh, does it show?" the lieutenant said dryly.

"I need a detail map, Bennie. The Channel, covering southeast England,
northwest France, western Belgium."

Off Bennie went.

"And see if you can find where that blackboard walked off to." Van  Damm pulled
up a stool and plopped Harry on it near the light table. He  moved the photos
that Bennie had been studying out of the way, then  drew another set from the
file he'd carried with him, setting them out  on the iridescent glass.

"Here's what it's all about," Van Damm said.

The composition and scale of each photograph was different, but the  subject of
each was the same: a crosshatched blob indicating the  boundaries and streets of
a residential area. There weren't that many  crosshatches, which Harry guessed
made it a fairly small town. Not far  from the town was some sort of
construction site.

"Your first Spy Brigade lesson," Van Damm began, setting a magnifier  over the
photographs.

"Aerial photographic interpretation."
Harry leaned forward and squinted through the glass. He was treated to  the
sight of a mountain-sized pencil point as Van Damm pointed his way  through the
grainy image.

"This up here, this is the town ofHelsvagen. Sits on the crossroads  between
Ghent and Brussels. One of those little jerkwater farm towns  out in the middle
of nowhere. Just outside the southwest side of town,  this is the fuel dump.
Most of these pictures were taken back in '40  by the R.A.F when they were doing
recon on Jerry's prep for an invasion  of the islands. This fuel dump was one of
a bunch of satellite  stations supplying the Ghent/ Brussels sector. The krauts
figured  spreading their gas around in these small dumps was safer than putting
it all in one basket. They were just building this at the time. You  can see
them digging foundations. Here's some heavy earth-moving  stuff, bulldozers or
something. Here's another R.A.F picture from  about two years ago. You can see
the finished product."

Van Damm's pencil point traced a neat rectangle that had replaced the
construction site.

"Here's the perimeter fence." Inside the rectangle were two  circles--"Fuel
storage tanks"--and several little rectangles along the  fence closest to the
town--"Barracks, admin building, motor pool."

"That's the most recent picture you have?"

" This place is so low on the priority list nobody's seen fit to risk  an
air-recon crew for better pictures. We've gotten some intelligence  on the place
from time to time and, apparently, it hasn't changed much  since these pictures
were taken. If anything, the krauts have stripped  out some of the manpower and
heavy AA guns the way they've stripped  every place else along the Western Wall
to feed the Russian front."

Lieutenant Bennie had returned with the requested map and a large  chalkboard on
wheels.

"You want some Java or something, Voss? No? Bennie, get me a cup,  wouldja?

Thanks."

Harry looked up from the magnifier and rubbed his eyes.

"And this place fit the bill for what Halverson and Markham wanted?"

"It was an easy reach for a P-47, and it didn't look like there was  much there
in the way of AA defense. And, it's just plain easy to hit.  I could've hung a
Boy Scout from a box kite and sent him in there with  a book of matches and
knocked that place out."
"I saw their flight plan. If it was that easy, I don't understand why  they
didn't just zip in and zip out."

Van Damm smiled tolerantly.

"Because, my dear Voss, we are in a war, and the enemy looks  unfavorably upon
Allied aircraft 'zipping' around at will." He spread  the map out on the light
table and started to sketch in the two course  routes that had been planned to
take Markham's Thunderbolts to the  target in Belgium and back home.

"Uh, Major?" Bennie had returned with a cup of black coffee.

"You told me to warn you about drawing on the maps."

Van Damm took the coffee and nodded without heeding.

"You've got a stack of them all marked up--" Van Damm irritably shooed  him
away. Bennie propped himself on a corner of a nearby desk and  turned to the
sympathetically nodding WAC sitting there.

"I knew he'd get mad. He told me to stop him, but I knew he'd get  mad."

Van Damm took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, then nodded at the  finished pencil
lines on the map.

"KISS;" he pronounced.

"Excuse me?" Harry asked.

"KISS. The primary rule of military strategy that almost everyone with  brass on
his collar ignores: Keep It Simple, Stupid. This is how it  looks when you don't
ignore it. They head southeasterly out  ofDonophan, staying in the grass--below
radar--and hit France just  below Boulogne. Now, providing they make the coast
without being  spotted by the cap's--" "Caps?"

"Combat Air Patrols. The krauts run regular air patrols up and down  the coastal
corridor, plus they got E-boats crawling around all the  time.

OK, so providing our guys make the coast without one of these patrols  spotting
'em, they're certainly gonna be seen by the joes manning the  coast defenses. In
fact, Markham counts on it. The coast makes the  call to the Luftwaffe sector
controller that there's five 47's heading  southeast. The Jerries alert their
people all along this line."

Harry brightened.
"But Germans never find Markham and his men anywhere on that line."

"Attaboy, Voss, you're getting the hang of this. Twenty miles in, our  guys hit
their first IP. This is all open country here. Some farms,  lotta swampland. The
Jerries have let the Lys River flood as a  'disincentive' to paratroop and
glider landings. The upshot is  nobody's gonna be there to see 'em make their
pivot. So, when our 47's  get to Helsvagen, they show up unannounced. Surprise,
fellas!

Boom! Same thing on this dogleg home. If the krauts at Helsvagen get  the word
out, they report that the 47's are withdrawing to the  northwest--" "And as soon
as Markham and company are out of sight of  Helsvagen, they change course and
hopefully get home without any  problems."

"Bingo."

"Sounds like a good plan to me."

"It had a nice, simple elegance, I think; very much a Markham  trademark." Van
Damm turned to the chalkboard and found a  thimble-sized stub of chalk on the
sill. He drew an erratic circle up  in the right-hand corner, labeling it "H."

"Helsvagen?" Harry offered.

"You get any better at this and the union says I gotta pay you." Van  Damm next
drew a rectangle southwest of "H," then two circles along the  southwest side of
the rectangle. Harry recognized the fuel depot.

"Each of these tanks," Van Damm tapped the circles, "carries about  twenty
thousand gallons of vehicular gasoline. Each of the planes is  carrying twelve
3.24-inch rockets. One of those'll open a Sherman tank  like a can of sardines.

Markham's boys are fighter jockeys, not bombardiers. This way, they  don't have
to finagle with the complexities of a bomb run and drop  trajectories and all
that malarkey. Rockets being a directional  weapon, all our fellows gotta do is
come in just like on a strafing  run. They come up on the tanks just by holding
their northeast  approach, let go, and then it's good night, Irene. Angel Blue
makes  the first approach while Markham takes Angel Red upstairs to fly top
cover. Blue pumps their rockets into the tanks, then they fly cover  while Red
hits whatever's left. If it took 'em three minutes to do the  job, I'd be
surprised.

Since the krauts were considerate enough to build this place a coupla  hundred
yards away from the town, there's no worries about incidental  damage to the
people and property of the good town of Helsvagen. Those
two hundred Krauts shoulda been sitting ducks."

"So, what went wrong?" Harry asked.

"Something did." He pointed to a spot on the English coast.

"This is where O'Connell went down."

Van Damm moved Harry's fingertip a few millimeters.

"More like there."

"Which is nowhere near where they should've been coming back."

Van Damm nodded, his brooding eyes fixed to the spot on the map.

"Well, according to their debriefing--Dell'll go over all that with  you-when
the tanks went up, O'Connell got his nose a little too close  to the fire. Took
a piece of something in the engine. O'Connell  panicked-which, I'm told, is no
big surprise coming from him--and  scrammed outta there. I guess he was worried
about his engine holding  up, so he bee lined his way home. Now, even if his
buddies thought he  had what you might call an intestinal-fortitude problem, you
still  don't leave one of your own open like that. The others lit out after  him
to cover him."

"So they aborted their part of--" Van Damm waved carelessly.

"Those tanks were the first things hit and once they went up, that  place was
gone! One big barbecue. Even if they'd stayed, there wasn't  anything left for
them to shoot at. It was that easy. That's why I  put it on the list for
Halverson."

"And what happened to the other two pilots? Jacobs and--"  "McLagen?"Van Damm
frowned.

"That's what I was worried about from the get-go.

That's why I was so steamed at Halverson for letting--" Belatedly, he  realized
Harry had no clue what he was talking about.

"They got jumped," he explained, pointing to another spot on the map
approximately halfway between Helsvagen and the French coast.

"Gaggle of kraut fighters bounced Angel Red around here, somewhere  between
Waregem and the Schelde. We're not sure, exactly. They were  coming out the way
they'd gone in--low--which didn't give 'em any  maneuvering room. The Jerries
had 'em nailed to the floor. With just  five of 'em--and one of 'em a
cripple--well, Markham did well to come  home with as many as he did. SNAFU,
Voss: Situation Normal: All Fucked
Up. Pardon my French."

Van Damm stood back from the light table, studying the points and lines  on the
map. He took a few meditative puffs on his cigar, then shook  his head.

"Whatever else happened yesterday, you got two cases of negligence on  top of
it: Markham and Halverson. I hope you string 'em both up by  their balls. Pardon
my French, again."

The Spy Brigade tutorial over. Harry gathered up the photographs and  followed
Van Damm back to his acrid sanctum.

"Am I cleared for this stuff?" Harry thumbed through the target files  on his
chair.

"You get higher priority poop on bubba gum cards. Just sign a chit for  'em at
the desk outside, don't mess 'em up, and remember to bring 'em  back."

"This looks pretty technical."

"The important stuff is clear enough. You have a problem with  anything, gimme a
blast."

Van Damm snuffed out the remains of his cigar. He reached for a desk  drawer and
a fresh Tampa Nugget. At that, Harry crammed the files into  his briefcase
posthaste.

"I want to thank you. Major."

" For what?" Van Damm asked blithely.

"You underrate yourself." Harry buckled his case and patted it like a  stuffed
treasure chest.

"It's been a very informative visit."

Van Damm stood and shook Harry's hand.

"If you had fun, tell your friends, bring 'em by. We're open all day,  every
day, all year round."

Back at the Annex, Captain James Dell was sitting in Harry's outside  office,
sipping on a bottle of Coca-Cola. At Harry's entrance, the  young captain set
down his soda and his briefcase, and got to his feet.  His arm came up in a
nicely deferential salute.

Nagel, however, did not stand or salute. Instead, he whined: "You  didn't say
you were going to be so long. You should have told me--"
"Thank you for your concern, Corporal," Harry said and turned to  Dell.

"Sorry I kept you waiting, Captain. At ease. Hope you weren't here  too long?"

"No bother, sir." He was young, polite, a moon-face sitting awkwardly  atop a
thin neck, his complexion spotted along his collar line.

Harry had Dell drag his chair into the inner office, then took a moment  to
steel himself before turning back to Nagel.

"I take it Maintenance hasn't seen fit to come up here and fix that  thing."

"They told me they were coming right up," Nagel said, gesturing at his
dismembered intercom.

"They told me that when you left."

"Call them again."

"That just gets them mad."

"Call them again."

i<IT > Yes sir.

"And hold all my calls."

Dell was standing by his chair in Harry's office, briefcase under one  arm, his
Coca-Cola bottle at Present Arms. Harry squeezed by him to  get behind his desk.

"Relax, Captain. Sit. Just give me a second to get settled. To tell  you the
truth, I wasn't expecting somebody from Major Van Damm's  section to be so ...
formal."

Dell had a little shock of hair on his forehead. He set his briefcase  on the
floor and brushed the hair away from his eyes as he sat.

"I guess the major is a bit of a character."

Harry peeled off his jacket.

"A bit."

"But he knows his stuff."

Harry grunted in agreement as he wrestled with his window.
"You want me to try that, sir?" the captain volunteered.

"Forget it. I think they built it that way." Harry gave up on the  window. His
attention focused on a phone message taped to his chair  stating that Joe Ryan
had rung him.

"One more second, Captain. Nagel! Is this a new message?"

"Sir?"

"This message about Colonel Ryan. This isn't the same one from this  morning, is
it? I talked to him this morning, remember?"

"Oh, no, sir, that's a new one. He called again right after you  left--" "I told
you about putting the times on these things, didn't

I?"

"Should I get him on the--" "No!" Harry smiled apologetically at Dell,  and the
captain offered a politely sympathetic one in return as he took  another sip of
his Coca-Cola.

"Captain, you know what this is about, don't you?"

Dell squirmed in his seat.

"I guess."

"Don't be self-conscious. Captain. If you'd said no, you would've  been the only
guy in London who didn't know." Harry took his place at  his desk and drew out
his package of Lucky Strikes, proffering them to  Dell. Dell nodded a no-thanks.

Harry lit one for himself, drew a clean pad of foolscap in front of  him, pulled
on his glasses, and picked up a pencil.

"There was one thing in particular that Major Van Damm thought you  could help
me with."

"Do my best, sir."

"Van Damm says that you know the men out at the 351st better than he  does, that
you deal with them personally."

"Yes, sir, I'm their G-2 liaison. I bring mission information out to  them,
maybe conduct part of the briefing, handle the debriefing ... I  see them pretty
regularly Or I did till the krauts hit em. You know  about that, don't you,
sir?"
Harry nodded.

"How long have you been working with the 351st?"

"Since I came over. That'd be June, mid-June. Not really that long  after they
were activated." A Coca-Cola burp snuck out of the  captain's lips.

"Sorry, sir."

Harry let it pass with a smile.

"Know the men well?"

"Sort of. Some. Not many, not real personal. I'd see them before  they went up,
and talk to them when they got back. A debriefing .. .  well, a fella's not
always at his best sometimes, a time like that. I  guess that doesn't really
answer your question." He stared down into  the neck of his Coca-Cola bottle.

"How about Major Markham? Did you know him well?"

Dell shrugged. Harry could read the signs; there was something on the  young
man's mind. Dell saw the way Harry was looking at him, waiting,  and made the
plunge.

"I should tell you," he began.

"When I went out there .. ."

"Yes?"

"This last time," Dell said, sounding puzzled.

"I went out there yesterday to debrief them." He reached into his  briefcase and
set two folders on Harry's desk.

"Those are the debriefing reports."

"And you turned the gun films over to Colonel Ryan."

"What there was. Lieutenant O'Connell's film was ruined by the  seawater. I gave
Colonel Ryan Captain Anderson's."

"What about Major Markham's?"

"I don't know. I mean, that's the thing. It wasn't there."

"Define 'wasn't there."
" "The film magazines were waiting for my pickup. I didn't check them  until I
got back to London. There was no need to. Like I said, we  cracked O'Connell's
and--" "Never mind O'Connell's."

"The magazine for Markham's was empty."

"How often does something like that happen?"

"It's not supposed to happen at all."

"Did Markham have an explanation?"

"Like I said, I didn't know until I got back to London. By then, the  MP's were
already holding Markham and I couldn't get through to him.  So, we only had
Anderson's film to go on instead of a BDA run and--"  "BDArun?"

"Bomb Damage Assessment. Post-strike aerial-photo reconnaisance," Dell
explained.

"OK. Is that a standard kind of thing?"

"Depends on how bad you want to know what kind of damage you did."

"And Markham hadn't scheduled one of these BDA things to follow  yesterday's
mission to Helsvagen?"

"I don't know who made the decision, but the order came down from  General
Halverson that they didn't want a BDA run. The general said  the target was such
a low priority, and since we did have Anderson's  film, it didn't make much
sense to risk a recon plane on it."

"I see. Who normally removes the film magazines from the planes?"

"The ground crews."

"And where does the film go from there?"

"I usually pick the magazines up at the admin building. Maybe the CO's  got
them, maybe the adjutant is holding them--" "This time."

"The films were waiting for me in the admin building, like always."

"Who had access to them?"

"I don't know. Anybody, I think. It's been a little loose out there  since .. .

well, you know about the Germans--" "Yes." Harry stared down at his  desk,
tapping his pencil point on the pad.
"I guess that doesn't make Major Markham look too good," Dell said. It  saddened
him to say it.

Harry cleared his throat and looked up at Dell.

"Major Van Damm tells me Markham reported his flight was jumped on the  trip
back."

"Yes, sir. The major reported they were bounced by a gaggle of enemy
fighters--Do you have a map, sir?" He used the small map Harry fished  out of
the attack-profile folder.

"Somewhere about here," and he pointed to the same general area Van  Damm had
designated.

"Major Markham really wasn't too sure, though. Nobody was sighting  landmarks
when it happened. The krauts sixed 'em, coming down out of  the sun. The major
says he didn't even know they were on 'em until  Jacobs's plane flamed.
Markham's guys mixed it up with 'em, tried to  fight 'em off. Him, O'Connell,
and Anderson made it out. McLagen  didn't." Dell stared pensively off. The name
seemed to bring up a  memory.

"Markham say anything about .. . what happened to O'Connell?"

"No.

"Course, we didn't know about what happened when we had the debriefing.  I mean,
the major didn't know anybody else knew. Just said O'Connell  splashed near the
coast. Said he tried to radio Air/ Sea Rescue but  couldn't raise 'em.

Interference. I didn't think much of it then, but looking back on it,  I guess
that sounds pretty lame, huh?"

"Were you friends with these men? The five that went out yesterday?"

"Not really." Dell frowned, trying to puzzle out a proper  description.

"If they were going to fly, if they were even planning to fly, I sat  with them.
Before and after. You don't become friends or anything,  but you start getting
.. . you know. Like doing business with the same  people."

"What can you tell me about them? What about McLagen?"

Dell nodded hopelessly.
"I don't know, Major. He was one of thirty-odd fellas.

What I remember is he was a nice guy. Jacobs? Another familiar face  sitting
around the debriefing table. Hi, how'd it go? Was it rough?  That's all."

"You must've known Major Markham better than that."

Dell smiled, clearly relieved to have something firm to offer.

"A really good joe. A helluva fella, if you don't mind my saying."

Harry nodded at him to go on.

"Everybody's nuts about the major. His men, Colonel Adams, Wing staff.  Terrific
pilot, too. Loves to fly. I mean, this fella loves to fly!  Up in the air all
the time, joyriding between missions, he likes it  that much. I think the major
has more flight time logged than anybody  in the group, including Colonel Adams.
That was sad about him, about  the colonel. He was a right guy, too. You heard
what happened to him?  He was a little more GI than the major, but he was an OK
guy."

"Major Van Damm was of the opinion that Colonel Adams thought quite  highly of
Major Markham."

"That's no surprise. The colonel and the major were pretty close. You  could see
it."

"Pals?"

Dell nodded.

"Anyhow, when I'd be doing the debriefing interviews, I always had to  do
Markham last. That's the kind of guy he is; the minute he's down  and out of his
plane, he's all over the place, checking on each man,  running over to the
hospital with the wounded, checking in with Rescue  if somebody splashed.... I
don't want to get too corny or anything,  Major, but he really loves those guys.

It's not like Colonel Adams didn't care, but Major Markham shows it  more. And
when somebody doesn't come home .. . Well, you can see it  hurts. Every time."

"And Captain Anderson?"

Dell almost laughed aloud.

"Tarzan. That's what I called him. Real crazy guy. I mean, not  really crazy,
not medically--" Harry smiled disarmingly.
"Gotcha."

"He called his squadron "Anderson's Apaches," and him and all his  fellas had
that on their flight jackets and planes. The R.A.F has  radio monitoring
stations along the coast, and they follow all the  radio traffic. You have to
hear this guy, him and his whole squadron.  They go into a dogfight and they
start doing these Indian whoops on the  radio. Captain Anderson is pals with
Major Markham, too, but not like  the major and Colonel Adams. Different."

"How so?"

"Oh, like .. . like when you were back in high school? The little kid  that
always hung around the quarterback? Anything I can do for you,  champ?"

"I got the picture."

"Anderson goes everywhere the major does. Markham goes over to the  hospital
every day to visit the wounded, so does Anderson. Only,  Markham goes because he
wants to. Anderson goes--" "Just because  Markham does."

"Yeah."

"Now we come to Lieutenant O'Connell."

"Sergeant Sadapple." As soon as he said it, Dell's lips tightened in
self-reprimand.

"Sorry."

"That's what they called O'Connell? Sadapple?"

"I don't want to talk bad about some fella who didn't come home."

"It's OK, Captain."

"Well, that's how I thought of him." He shook his head, angry at  himself.

"Ah, I don't know. Maybe I'm not being fair. It's no easy row for  anybody to
hoe, any of those fellas that go up there. You come back  and that night you're
looking around the mess table and there's some  faces aren't there. What those
fellas face up there, no wonder some of  'em, like Anderson, they go a little
squirrelly. All of those fly boys  are at least a little crazy, Major. They have
to be. I sit down with  them when they come home and you see it gets to all of
them. Some try  to hide it, they try to laugh stuff off. One of their buddies
goes  down and they just go--" he shrugged his shoulders "--and have a drink
and chalk it up to a roll of the dice or something.

"They make it a game. They shoot down a plane, it's just another point  they
rack up. You hear 'em talk about it and it's like listening to  somebody talk
about how the Giants outplayed the Dodgers. Then I  remember that every one of
those little swastikas they paint under  their cockpits was some fella, and that
any one of these boys at the  table could wind up a little American flag under
some kraut's cockpit.  You get all that buzzing around in your head and you
can't help but go  a little 'khaki wacky."

" It took Harry a moment to regain himself: Spotty-faced young boys  should not
have such weighty matters in their tousled heads, he'd been  thinking. He
announced a return to the business at hand with a  clearing of the throat.

"Do you think it would get to you, like it did to O'Connell?"

"Like I said, Major, it gets to all of them. It just doesn't always  come out
the same way."

That was all for the young captain. He made his exit in the proper  military
manner, with a crisp salute before making a smart turn toward  the door and out,
leaving his Coca-Cola bottle behind, tottering on  Harry's desk. Harry reached
out to still the rattling wobble of glass  on wood. The caramel dregs rolling
round the thick bottom made him  suddenly thirsty. He released the bottle and
leaned back in his chair,  closing his eyes, allowing a moment to let the image
of young Captain  Dell's tainted innocence clear from his mind.

He turned to the target profiles Van Damm had provided, spreading them  out on
his desk, flipping through them. There was an E-boat repair  station near
Ostende, and a rail causeway that breached a section of  the swamps created in
Normandy where the Germans had allowed the Dives  valley to flood as an
anti-invasion measure. Another target was a  radio monitoring station near
Calais. All three were much closer to  Donophan than the Helsvagen fuel depot.

The other two targets that had been passed by were satellite fuel  depots
similar to the one at Helsvagen:

one northwest of Brussels, about halfway along the road to Mechelen,  and the
other just west of Bastogne. There seemed no obvious  reason-other than, in some
cases, possibly distance--for the selection  of Helsvagen above the other
targets. Ah, Harry thought, the vagaries  of the military mind.

"Nagel!"

He heard Nagel's chair scrape back from the desk.
"Don't come in here! I want you to call the acting CO of the 351st  Fighter
Group at Donophan Airfield. Tell him I'll be out there  tomorrow afternoon to
talk to him. Get directions! And tell General  Halverson's Wing headquarters I'm
on my way over."

"What about Colonel Ryan?"

"What about him?"

"You owe him a call. Should I get him--" "No."

"Do I know where you are if he calls again?"

"No. Did you call Halverson's office?"

"If you don't mind my saying so, sir, generals usually like you to make
appointments."

"Make the damn call."" Harry bellowed back down the hall, and then he  was gone.

St. Aloysius Academy for Young Men sat in proud isolation in the  rolling
country west of London. Ivy-clad granite walls with turrets  and machicolations,
steeply raked slate roofs, narrow, high windows of  stained glass--the Academy
looked a combination of castle and cathedral  and, in the way it had tutored and
counseled English young in the High  Tory ideals of empire-ruling, it had been
both.

Now, The Empire was a bit in need of repair, and the school desks were  stored
in the cellars along with the tapestries that had hung in the  marble halls
detailing grand episodes in British history. According to  the sign posted on
the whitewashed stakes pounded into the once  immaculate sod round the great
arched entrance, St. Aloysius had  become home to the "188th Combat Wing
Headquarters."

Corporal Nagel's warning notwithstanding, a young lieutenant stood  waiting on
the wide front stairs to usher Harry through the paneled  entrance hall and up
the marble stairs straight to what had been the  headmaster's office.

Behind the monolithic oaken desk where generations of headmasters had  once
stood beneath the school's coat of arms surrounded by rich, dark  woodwork and
floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound volumes, now sat  Brigadier General
Russell Halverson. Harry knew the general from  routine JAG dealings in the
past, but this Russell Halverson he barely  recognized. In better days,
Halverson was trim, erect, handsome in an  unobtrusive way, and sincerely polite
in a cool fashion his British  colleagues considered admirably un-American. But
this day Harry saw a  pale, rumpled, sagging man. Halverson resembled a bronze
bust returned
to the furnace, its features running under the great heat.

The air in the office was rife with the smell of cigarette ash. The  teletype
and its alert bell were strangely silent, as were the rank of  telephones on the
generals desk. Paperwork sat scattered across his  baize blotter like autumn
leaves. The only movement in the office were  the dust motes dancing in the bars
of colored light angling down  through the stained glass.

"Good to see you again. Major," the general said, rising behind his  desk.

"I wish the circumstances were better, sir." Harry was glad to  retrieve his
hand from the general's unexpectedly soft clasp.

"So do I." He nicked a wry twist of a smile, then beckoned Harry to a
comfortable, cushioned chair by his desk. They both sat.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, sir."

Halverson nodded with an officious smile. He pushed a pack of Camels  toward
Harry and they each lighted one. As Harry went to drop his  match, he noticed
the overflowing ashtray on the desk.

"How's the case going?" the general asked quietly.

"All right, sir."

"I understand they haven't been formally arrested yet."

"We're still in the investigation process, sir."

"I spoke to Colonel Ryan earlier. He said it looked pretty  open-and-shut."

Harry cleared his throat.

"Just a few loose ends to tie up. I'd hate to hurt a prosecution by  going too
fast."

"When are you going to talk to them?"

"If I talk to Markham and Anderson now, I'll have to offer counsel, and  once
they have that they're going to start building a defense. If I  talk to them
without offering them counsel, well, we're open to an  appeal down the road on
the basis that their rights were infringed.  Unless they request counsel, I'm
not compelled to offer it to them  until they're formally arrested. By then,
though, we'll have a solid  groundwork in place before they can effectively
counter. I don't want  to talk to them until then."
Halverson nodded deeply, understanding, but then became quite still and
concerned.

"You may not have much time with this, Major."

"I know."

Halverson leaned back in his chair and drew deeply on his cigarette.

"I'd like to ask you a question. Maybe you can explain something to  me."

"If I can, sir."

"There's war parties gathering at SHAEF ready to go after Patton's  scalp
because he slapped a couple ofGI's in Sicily. You heard about  that, of course.
Who hasn't? So, here he is on the verge of giving  them the damned island, but
he spanks these two kids .. . well, that's  something you just don't do." He
shook his head.

"Meanwhile, about two weeks ago, Ninth Bomber Command in North Africa  hit the
Rumanian oil fields at Ploesti. They lost over thirty percent  of their
aircraft--over five hundred men--in a half-hour raid. They're  pinning medals on
that bunch."

Halverson's face was tired and sad, yet he grinned over the pathetic  humor of
the point.

"I'd really appreciate somebody explaining that scale to me, Major.

If you can, maybe you can tell me where I fall on it."

"General, I'm not investigating you."

"It's early yet. I'll bet Major Van Damm thinks you should."

Harry fiddled with his notepad. The foolscap seemed too bright, a  rainbow
garland at a wake.

"I'm being impolitic, hm? Not to mention impolite." Halverson smirked  at his
discomfort.

"What is it I can do for you, Major? Can I begin by offering you a  drink?"

"A little too early for me, sir."

Halverson nodded and reached into a bottom desk drawer. He pulled out  a nearly
empty bottle of brandy.

"It's always later than you think. Did you see my glass anywhere?  Ah!"

He took the bottle with him over to the row of windows that ran along  one side
of the office. Tall and arched at the top, sections of red,  blue, and green
glass created haloed figures in robes emblazoned with  the cross of Saint
George.

All brandished swords and heraldic shields and penn anted lances.  Halverson
nursed the first sip, staring blankly through one of the open  panes at the trim
lawn outside.

"I don't like this heat," he said, absently patting at the moisture on  his
upper lip with the back of his hand.

"You'd think out here in the country it'd be cooler." He took another  sip and
topped his glass again.

"You have questions?"

"Several, if you please. General. Major Van Damm--" "I find the major  tends to
the histrionic, don't you?"

"Perhaps. He seems capable enough."

"So did the G-2 section of the Ninth."

Harry stubbed out his cigarette and began to slide his pad back into  his
briefcase.

"General, this is obviously a bad time--" Halverson held up his hand.

"I apologize. Major. That was uncalled-for. These haven't been my  best days."
He returned to his seat, setting his glass and bottle on  the desk in front of
him.

"You're right about Van Damm. The major has, some might think, a  rather
flamboyant way of putting his case, but he is capable. Very."

"The way the major explained the command structure .. Well, I assume  that since
Major Markham was senior staff at the 351st, you were  acquainted with him."

"Somewhat. Markham was Frank Adams's exec. Inevitably, Markham and I  met a
number of times. Briefings, staff meetings, the odd social  occasion."

"What about these other men involved in the mission yesterday? This  Captain
Anderson--" "Anderson I'd met a few times, usually official. He  was one of the
squadron commanders out there. Can't say I really knew  the man, though, if you
know what I mean. I decorated him once."

"Really?"

"Early on, one of the group's first missions, shepherding some bombers  down to
Brest, I think it was. Anderson had to nurse two of his pilots  home after their
planes were hit. He wound up going against a pair of  Messerschmitts, bluffing
them out with empty guns. I remember  Frank--Colonel Adams--saying in passing
that Anderson was something of  a free-wheeler, tugged at the leash a little too
much, but that's all I  know."

"And Lieutenant O'Connell?"

Halverson took another sip of his drink.

"Never had the pleasure."

"These other two fliers? McLagen and Jacobs?"

Halverson shook his head.

"Major Van Damm mentioned that you were friends with Colonel Adams."

"For a very long time. Very long. I--both my wife and myself,  actually--we were
very close with Frank Adams and his wife. Old  friends. That made it very hard .
writing her."

Harry meekly cleared his throat, feeling painfully intrusive.

"I'm also told that Colonel Adams was good friends with Major  Markham."

"Oh, yes, yes. Frank talked about the major a good deal. I think he'd  taken
quite a shine to him, in a sort of paternal way. And he  considered Markham
top-drawer material as a pilot and a commander. If  you'd known Frank Adams,
you'd know just how impressive a  recommendation that was. As I said, I've met
the major a number of  times. He seems a nice enough fellow, very bright, very
congenial  without being sycophantic about it, which was refreshing. Markham
wasn't the one that actually did the shooting, was he?"

"I won't know for sure who did the shooting until the ballistics  analysis comes
back from Scotland Yard."

Halverson shook his head.

"I can't say that either Markham or Captain Anderson--what little I  know of
him--seemed the type to be involved in this sort of thing. Then  again, I have a
wife who doesn't think I'm the kind of man who sends  boys out to die."

"I think that's an oversimplification. General. One that's a little  unfair to
yourself."

Halverson nodded appreciatively and took a long, slow sip from his  glass.

"That's what I do for a living, isn't it? I send men out to do a job,  and part
of that job is that some of them will die. If that becomes  your chief concern,
then you can't do your job effectively. You start  holding back, which means
targets aren't hit square, defenses are left  intact. The consequent irony is
you then lose more men by trying to  save them. So, you strike some sort of
balance, an unspoken agreement  that your men will follow your orders because
they believe you won't  waste them;

you balance getting the job done with giving these youngsters a fair  chance of
getting home. I didn't do that job too badly. Major. That's  why they gave me
this just a few weeks ago." He flicked a finger at  the star on his collar tab.

"I was going to be moved up to GHQ at the end of the month."

"And Colonel Adams was going to get the Wing?"

"Hm?" Halverson, his sense of propriety offended by his own  self-flagellating
lecture, had leveled an accusing stare at the brandy  bottle.

"Colonel Adams was to be given command of the Wing?"
"You heard? No official announcement had been cut, but the paper 9

work on his full colonelcy was already in the pipe." Halverson smiled  ruefully.

"If the papers had moved a little faster, Frank Adams would've been  here
instead of at Donophan the night the Germans hit. He'd still be  alive and you'd
be here talking to him, while I'd be the one at GHQ  siccing you on him."

"Nobody's siccing me on anybody, General. In fact, you initiated the
investigation--so, for now, I'm working for you."

Halverson's smile turned cruel.

"Of course. How so very forgetful of me." The smile faded.

"Anyway, Frank was going to get the Wing, and we planned to give  Markham the
group for a probationary period."

"Probation? From what I've heard, Markham sounded capable enough."

"Frank had one reservation and, after he laid it out for me, I shared  it with
him. Markham is extraordinarily close to his men. There may  be worse faults,
and I'm sure there are those who'd say that's no fault  at all, but it can be a
problem--a big problem--in a line commander."

"Is it? A problem with Markham?"

"Markham has beefs--always on behalf of the men, mind you--and some of  those
beefs come to me. He can be pretty adamant about them, sometimes  to the point
of being an irritation, but nothing I thought was out of  line. Even Frank said
he saw no evidence it was interfering with  Markham's across-the-board
responsibilities. Frank worked closely with  Markham, I deferred to his
judgment, and that judgment was it was best  to err on the side of caution. We
planned a trial period. It never  got to that."

"Because the Germans hit Donophan."

"Three days before we were going -to make the announcements. Are you  sure I
can't persuade you to have a drink, Major?" Halverson didn't  wait for a reply
before he poured the last dregs into his glass. He  looked mournfully at the
empty bottle and set it aside.

"Major Van Damm seemed to have trouble seeing any justification for  your
authorizing the August fifteenth raids."

"He did."
"He seemed to think they were .. . ill-advised."

Halverson couldn't restrain a blurting laugh. He held his glass up in  salute.

"To your tact. Major. Van Damm was a touch more emphatic when he  broached that
particular point to me. In retrospect, I'd be an ass to  take issue with him."

"You obviously had a different opinion beforehand."

"Obviously."

"Well, on what basis did you decide--" "Major Markham decided. That's  not to
absolve myself, Major. I am Markham's commander. Markham may  have persuaded me
to go along with his decision, but, ultimately, it  was my call. And, any day
now, somebody--maybe you--from the JAG is  going to come banging on my door and
point that salient fact out to me.  It's funny, but that's the same reason I
agreed to the missions."

Harry shook his head, confused.

Halverson leaned forward with arch conspiratoriality.

"The military, my dear Major, has a long, illustrious history of  crucifixion.
Kimmel couldn't've really done anything to save the Navy  at Pearl, and there
wasn't squat Fredendall could've done about  Kasserine, but they both wound up
on a cross. The night Donophan went  up ... that was my Kasserine. Markham made
the point that the only way  for me to mitigate the situation--if there was any
way to mitigate the  situation--was with some sort of a stunt. Something that
would play  very nicely in Life:

"The Fighting 351st: Broken But Unbowed." Extremely inspirational.  People do
not crucify inspirations."

"And you believed Markham."

"Because I wanted to, I suppose." Halverson's voice was no longer that  of
conspirator, but the intimate, aching confessor.

"Major, I've been in the Army all my adult life. I don't know anything  else. I
could try to make myself look a little less selfish, I  suppose, and make the
whole sick affair seem somewhat more noble by  saying I did it for the men. And
that'd at least be partly true.

"Do you know what the average age of the pilots in my command is?  Twenty. I've
got a son older than that flying Marine Corsairs in the  Solomons. If something
happened to my kid, I know I'd want somebody  to--Let's just say I felt I owed
the 351st something more than taking
that kind of beating like a whipped dog.

Those boys deserved better than that.

"Or maybe I could say I did it because Frank Adams was my friend,

and when I see his wife I want to be able to say to her that we got  something
back for him, blood for blood."

Halverson stirred restlessly, finally pulling himself from his chair to  return
to the windows. The general lit a fresh cigarette, blowing the  smoke out
through an open pane of crimson glass.

"You have more questions?"

"How badly was Donophan hit?"

"There's a folder on my desk. Take it with you if you like. It's the  report on
their losses. Donophan was caught flat-footed. The Germans  knocked out the RAP
radar station near Hawkinge, then came through the  hole with the raid on the
field. The station's comm links had been  knocked out. By the time they got the
word to R.A.F sector control,  and they notified their superiors, then passed
the word to their  liaison to contact our liaison .. ." Halverson turned to
Harry;

he smiled sadly.

"And so forth. I was told with sincere regret and condolences by the  R.A.F that
their people and our people have yet to work out a 'smoothly  integrated
communications structure." The short of it is that by the  time Donophan got the
word, the German bombs were coming through their  roof."

He turned back to the window and waved at someone Harry couldn't see.

"Over thirty percent support personnel killed or wounded; nearly half  of all
facilities destroyed or damaged; all on-site fuel and ordnance  supplies
destroyed; almost two thirds of all aircraft damaged or  destroyed. If the
Germans had perfected that kind of operation during  the Blitz, we'd be fighting
them from Greenland by now." Halverson  flicked his cigarette out the open pane.

"Most of them were together in one shelter and the Germans pasted it  square,"
he said.

"That left them with only five duty-fit pilots."

"Markham, Anderson, O'Connell, Jacobs, and McLagen."

Halverson nodded.
"You didn't waste much time in deciding to go ahead with the operation.  Van
Damm says the request for targets came down--" "The following  morning, yes.
August the ninth. I wouldn't say I'd made up my mind at  that point, though.
Actually, I never did. I was afraid not to go  ahead with it, and once it began,
I was afraid to stop it. The sin of  omission as opposed to commission."
Halverson sat in his chair, looked  to his glass, but made no move toward it.

"In any case, we felt we had to move quickly. There was a lot of work  to do and
we were operating under the impression that we didn't have  much time to do it.
The 351st didn't have the on-hand materiel to  mount the raid. Fuel, ordnance,
and so on had to be requisitioned and  brought in. And, I wanted a target
selection and mission plan from  Markham that was going to bring everybody home
safe. We needed all  this before General DiGarre made a decision on the
disposition of the  group. The same morning I asked Van Damm for targets, the
general was  asking me for an assessment of the damage to the 351st, and a
recommendation on either deactivating the group and replacing it with a  fresh
one from the States, or rebuilding it around the surviving core.  In either
case, he would've stood the 351st down until they were up to  operational
strength. By that time, we expected that I would be  deactivated and replaced,
too.. .. Funny how it worked out.

The earliest we could get the mission together was Saturday morning:  the
thirteenth. I stalled on my report to DiGarre as long as I could,  finally sent
it up Friday, hoping it would take him a day or two to  make a decision, which
would still give us the mission."

" But it rained Saturday."

"Maybe that was somebody's way of telling me I should've just scrubbed  the
whole thing."

"You held off until Monday."

"We needed a day for things to dry out. The auxiliary fuel tanks for  the planes
are made of some sort of heavy resin-treated paper. That's  what we're using
until they start delivering metal tanks. You need a  fairly dry field to operate
without metal tanks. So, Monday."

"And General DiGarre didn't say anything in all that time?"

"If General DiGarre had so much as frowned, that would've been all it  would've
taken for me to scrub."

"I was looking over the different targets that Major Van Damm had  selected. Why
the depot at Helsvagen? How was that target chosen?"

"Simple pragmatics. We discounted the French targets because although
they were closer, the fuel depots were easier targets. Touching off  those fuel
storage tanks isn't as tricky as getting bombs on the money  with those other
targets. Of the fuel depots, the one at Helsvagen was  closest. And--" Halverson
sighed "--God help me, we did think that  when one of the depots went up, it
would have a certain necessary ..  .

'spectacle." Bombing a bridge in the middle of a swamp hardly seems  what the
broken but unbowed do, does it. Major?"

Harry ignored the question.

"One more thing, General. About the BDA flight over the target  afterward. Or
rather, why there wasn't one. Whose decision was  that?"

"Like everything else, strictly speaking, it was mine. We had agreed,  Al
Markham and I, during the planning stages, that the mission was such  a low
priority, and the target so open, that it wouldn't require a BDA  flight. He was
pretty sure--and I agreed with him--that the gun films  from the raid would
suffice. But we also agreed that we'd wait and  see. If there was a need
afterward we'd send one out."

"And how was that need to be determined?"

"It was Markham's call; he was the man on the spot."

"So, when he returned, he contacted you and said it wouldn't be  necessary."

"Right."

"Did you know the film magazine from Major Markham's gun camera was  found
empty?"

Halverson frowned.

"No, I didn't."

They were done. As Harry packed his things Halverson got to his  feet.

"Major, I have no intention of disavowing any responsibility I have in  this
matter."

"Of course, sir."

"I don't know what your intentions or instructions are, other than  those from
Colonel Ryan and myself--" "Sir, I have no--" "--but let's  go on the assumption
-that, as you said, for now you're working for me.
Major Markham cost me three men yesterday I didn't have to lose."  Halverson
waited for a few seconds for the tacit writ to sink in.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said quietly.

"Whatever it takes. Major. If you need anything from me .. ."

Harry nodded. At the door, he stopped. The general had lowered  himself back
into his chair, cradling his glass in his hands.

"General? I'm .. . sorry for your troubles, sir."

Halverson nodded listlessly "Have a safe drive back."

As Harry stood by his jeep in the car park he looked up at the windows
ofHalverson's office. The general's pale face was in one of the clear  panes,
lost in the mosaic of colored glass. Harry waved a farewell but  Halverson made
no sign that he'd seen him, his gaze locked on some  point beyond the west
horizon.

The charm which had served Joe Ryan so well for most of his life--the  graceful
bearing, the bright smile, the well-chosen bon mot--was also,  in a way, his
curse. Whenever his senior officers required one of  their number to hobnob with
the wing-collar-and-tiara set for purposes  of diplomacy, or to entice an
agreement for use of lands or other  assets, or, simply--in a gesture of
goodwill--to give a host and  hostess an American officer to show off to their
guests over cocktails,  Ryan was the preferred tool. But even a born hobnobber
like Ryan could  grow tired of being displayed like the latest high-priced
trinket from  Harrods. Thus, his "invitation" to Harry to join him in such
engagements.

"If they turn out to be jerks," he'd told Harry on previous occasions,  "at
least I can talk to you."

Which is why Harry, clad in GI socks and GI underwear and a GI  bathrobe, was
standing before the mirror in his quarters practicing his  bow. He tried a
shallow, curt move, just a cock of his head, really,  something he remembered
from a Claude Rains film.

"How pleased to meet you, my lord, and this must be your lovely wife?"  But then
he worried that it would be considered forward to declare a  lord's wife
"lovely."

He tried a deeper bow, something along the lines of Paul Henreid.

"How do you do, my lord?" and offered his hand. Or perhaps he  shouldn't offer
his hand. Who was supposed to offer a hand first and
to whom?

A sharp and formal bow this time: Conrad Veidt. No, it didn't feel  right
without a click of the heels, and he thought it quite  inappropriate for the
Allies to click heels.

"A sincere pleasure to meet you, my lord."

"That's not how you do it." Nagel was suddenly in the doorway with  Harry's
cleaned Class A's on a hanger draped over his shoulder.

"You're ruining the crease," Harry snapped and grabbed the uniform  away.

"Don't you knock? Were you born in a barn or something?"

"I may not know when to knock, but I know how to do it."

"Do what? Nagel, are you sure these are my pants?" Harry was working  up a sweat
tugging on his trousers.

"You're sure those clowns down there--" "That is not how you greet  royalty,"
Nagel interrupted, speaking with uncharacteristic  conviction.

"Didn't I tell you to tell those clowns in the cleaning shop 1600  hours? Do you
know what time it is? If I'm late, I'm going to skin--"  "I told them 1600
hours--" "Damn!" Harry sucked in his belly and  fastened the buckle. Had they
done something to shrink his trousers?  With a wheeze, he bent over to pull his
shoes on. He managed only one  before he had to come up for air. The air went
right back out of him  in a sigh when he saw Nagel still loitering in the
doorway.

"OK, Nagel, if it'll make you happy. How do you greet royalty?"

Nagel's face broke into a satisfied smile. He bowed steeply, swept one  arm
across his middle and extended the other out behind him while one  of his size
twelves gingerly slid out in front of him. When he reached  the farthest
extremity of his dip, he lowered his voice and intoned,  "Good evening, m'Luhd."

He looked up and saw Harry staring at him in unhappy amazement.

"That," Nagel announced, "is how it's done. Didn't you ever see Robin  Hood?" He
repeated the demonstration.

"Good evening, m'Luhd."

"Good-bye, Nagel."
After chasing Nagel out. Harry pulled on his shirt and waddled into  the
bathroom to comb what there was of his hair. When he returned to  the bedroom,
Joe Ryan was perched on a corner of his dresser.

"Jeez, you scared me! You trying to give me a heart attack or  something?"

"I don't need to," Ryan said, pointing at Harry's straining trouser  buckle.

"Looks like you're eating your way into one."

"It's the damned cleaners. They did something to these pants."

"Now, isn't that funny! That's the first thing I thought, too. Joe, I  said to
myself, I'll bet those guys in the laundry did something to  poor Harry's pants.

I mean it couldn't be that poor Harry is so god-almighty huge, could  it? It
must be those guys in the--" "Why don't you knock? Doesn't  anybody around here
knock?"

"C'mon, Harry, shake a leg. Should I get you a crowbar?"

Harry's thumb was stuck in the knot he tried to make in his tie.

"Don't give me any of this hurry-up stuff. You're five minutes  early."

Ryan held up his wrist, pulled up his sleeve with a Houdini-like  flourish, and
pointed to the face of his watch.

"See this, Harry? This is a colonel's watch.

When I'm with a major, the major's watch is always wrong, and this  watch is
always right. This watch says I'm on time. The only time  this watch is wrong is
when a general's watch says different. Speaking  of which, I had a very
innnnteresting chat with a certain two-star  general this morning."

Harry swallowed.

"DiGarre?"

"I tried to get in touch with you about it this morning, but--" "You  know how
full my hands have been--" "I know, I know, and that's exactly  what I told the
general. But you have to understand, Harry; DiGarre's  concerned. He's concerned
because SHAEF's concerned. That s right.  Harry. The word's gotten that high up.
I warned you that a lot of  bigwigs were going to take an interest--" "What 'd
he want?"
"He wanted to know how things were going. How are things going,  Harry?"

Harry sat on the edge of his bed. The general may have been a general  but that
didn't keep Harry from being annoyed with him.

"How are things going? I've been on this thing all of a day and a  half--" "And
in DiGarre's eyes, that's a day and a half too long. Don't  bark at me.

Harry, I'm with you. But I told you they'd get nervous. I guess the  general
just wants to know that everything's going along OK. Everything  is going along
OK, isn't it?"

Harry shrugged.

"Do you think you can be a little more specific?"

"The more I think about it, the more it doesn't make sense."

"The 'it' in question being? .. ."

"Something's come up."

"Something."

"I don't know if it makes a difference, but .. . did you know that  Markham's
gun film is missing?"

"No, I didn't know that."

"G-2 opened up the film magazines when they got them back to London.  Markham's
was empty."

Ryan processed Harry's nagging little item and found a reason to  grin.

"Missing means nobody knows what happened to the film. It's not  missing. Harry.
You know what happened to it. That little fink  destroyed it."

Harry shrugged again.

Once more with peace of mind, Ryan interlaced his fingers and bent them
backward until the knuckles gave up a relaxing crack.

"If you ask me, that makes things even more clear-cut. Markham's the  trigger
man, making a pretty poor job of trying to cover his tracks."
"Maybe. But I keep running it over and over in my head and it doesn't  quite all
fit together. I mean, why would Markham destroy the film?"

"Harry, that better be a rhetorical question, or else I think I've  grievously
overestimated your abilities."

"Humor me. Why destroy the film?"

"To conceal his dastardly crimes, of course."

"But there's witnesses. Eyewitnesses. They saw him and he knows  it."

"Which, no doubt, is why he tried to assassinate them."

"The Greshams were inside the house. He couldn't be sure he'd gotten  them."

"And he couldn't be sure he hadn't. He had to play it safe, so he  destroyed the
film." Ryan slid his cap back and massaged his  forehead.

"Why do you have to aggravate me like this. Harry?"

"So, he destroys the film, thinks he's taken care of the witnesses,  then leaves
a ton of ballistics evidence at the scene of the crime."

Ryan stood, brusquely brushing off the seat of his trousers.

"Don't you ever get anybody to dust in here?" he said tersely. He  moved to the
window and lit a cigarette, and considered. Then,  "Markham's a pilot, Harry,
not a policeman.

Maybe he doesn't know as much about criminal ballistics analysis as you  and me.

Maybe it never occurred to him that the shells and slugs at the cottage  could
be traced to his guns."

"OK, let's grant that. But he knows he left a bucketful of cartridge  casings on
the Gresham lawn that have U.S. Army ordnance markings."

"So maybe in the heat of the moment--" "No! Not him! Not this guy!  You should
read this guy's file some time. I've only had time to flip  through his 66-1,
but every page is high marks.

Talk to some of the people who know him. Markham's top of the line,  Joe. You
don't get to be a combat officer with his ratings by losing  your head when the
heat gets hot." The room felt close just then, and  Harry only now realized how
his pursuit of the point was pressing Ryan.
He changed his tone and smiled mockingly "Or do you? How'd you get all  that
brass?"

Ryan welcomed the opportunity for a grin.

"I live right. So ... what're you getting at with all this?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe it's nothing."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Harry, don't run me through the wringer and  wind up
with that! You make it pretty damned hard to be  sympathetic."

"If there is something going on here, Markham and Anderson are the only  two who
know what it is. I'd like to be on an even footing with them  before I give them
a chance to get their defense together."

Ryan pondered the point for a moment, then flicked his cigarette out  the window
and shook his head unhappily.

"You can't hold somebody without probable cause.

Harry. Not even in the Army. If this were any DA's office back home,  we
would've had to let these two go this morning."

"This isn't and we don't. Nobody's questioned them, nobody's tried to  get them
to incriminate themselves. They're merely confined to  quarters pending--"
"Pending what. Harry?" Ryan's voice was harsh and  demanding.

"That's what I want to know! That's what General DiGorre wants to  know! Give me
something I can go to him with! I'm not going in there  and say, "We've got
murder suspects concealing evidence and all my guy  can do is look at that and
go, Hmmmm, interesting." I'm not going to  do that!"

"There's something at work here, Joe. It's like when you know  something's
moving around in the shadows. You can't see it, but you  know it's there."

"This Markham guy and Anderson do they know each other?"

"Flew in the Eagle Squadron together, according to their records."

"Maybe .. ." Ryan was still hunting for the neat ribbon that would  reseal all
of the little Pandora beasties Harry seemed to be trying so  diligently to stir
out of their box.

"Maybe Markham's covering for Anderson."
"But we've got Anderson's film. That clears him."

"Only if it is Anderson's film. Harry, the G-2 guys go out there to  pick up
these films, they don't know whose is whose; just what they're  told. Maybe it's
Markham's film we have, and Anderson is the one short  of an alibi. Markham
wants to bail his buddy out, so he says the film  we have belongs to Anderson."

"I hadn't thought of that. That's a possibility."

"Either way, that's no reason to drag your feet," Ryan said with  finality.

"Scotland Yard should have at least the prelim ballistics and autopsy  reports
for you tomorrow. That'll decide who did what to who. But you  have enough on
hand not to have to wait that long. Unless there's  something else .. ."

The business with the missing gun film still nagged at Harry. But he  knew Ryan
was right in saying that it represented no substantive reason  not to move
forward; at least none that would sit well with generals.  Harry slid from the
windowsill to his escritoire, picked up the  telephone there, and dialed the
Provost Marshal's office.

"Major Posner?This is Major Voss at the JAG's office. Yes, it's about  those two
men you have under guard out at Donophan. I'm issuing the  order to place them
under arrest.. .. Yes, bring them in. The charges  are murder and attempted
murder." He ticked off the necessary  particulars, then hung up and turned to
Ryan.

"Happy now?"

"Very."

"I should be here when they bring them in. In case they want to make  any kind
of statement or--" "It'll wait till tomorrow. They're not  going anywhere. Now,
fix your hair, Harry-boy. Tonight, we dine with  the nobility."

I happened to have been on station at the Annex that evening, idling  across the
street from the Court gates from where I could see Harry's  chuffy figure follow
Ryan's across the cobbles to the butter-colored  Rolls Royce that had been sent
for them. Ryan's head was jauntily  cocked;

his stride was a broad, aristocratic swagger. As he approached the  aged
chauffeur standing by the open passenger door, Ryan touched his  finger to the
brim of his cap, accompanying the gesture with a superior  sniff and an
unbelievably bad House of Lords accent as he called over  his shoulder, "Do
buddy along, Haddold." Then, to the chauffeur, "What
am I to do with him?" The chauffeur, being a properly bred British  servant,
betrayed no more emotion than a slight flaring of his pinched  nostrils. Harry's
smiled apology on behalf of his commander was  ignored with equal stoicism.

Then off they went to dine--as Ryan had said--with the nobility I  assumed the
day's actions were probably over at that point, and headed  home to a somewhat
less soigne evening of my own: a tin of Spam warmed  over a gas ring, a bracing
dose of scotch, and a few hours of  pondering.

I'd sit on my windowsill, watching the coming night, nurse my glass of
harder-and-harder-to-find good scotch, and wonder about that  unexplained cordon
down in East Sussex, all the related fuss among the  Allied senior ranks and
Scotland Yard, about the waddling little man  I'd followed to Grosvenor Square
that morning.

And maybe by the second or third glass, I'd ponder that insulting  little stump
peeking out beneath my robe.

All I ever remember is a flash, a concussion, then blackness, until  that moment
days later when I could lift my head from the hospital  pillow and see the ridge
of blanket that was my right leg, and the flat  expanse where my left should
have been.

After another drink, I'd wonder how Cathryn made her nights pass.

When Harry told me the story of that evening, he told of how out of  place he'd
felt on the Roller's plush rear bench, the passenger  compartment smelling of
venerable leather, aged tobacco, and the brandy  Joe Ryan had found tucked in
the fold-out bar. Behind the thick window  glass, the ride was smooth and the
only sound that of the traditional  Rolls purr. Below the rim of his window,
Harry saw the swept lines of  the automobile gleaming like freshly poured steel
in the red of the  late-day sun.

On the other side of the glass, pasty-faced women in faded dresses,  squalling
infants in their arms, waited in line for a ration of water  from lorries
stationed in neighborhoods where the water lines had been  lost in some past
bombing. Ragged children scampered about the debris  of bombed-out buildings,
shouting at the long, humming limousine as it  passed. Constables, wrinkled and
past the age of military service,  touched the brim of their helmets, and
workmen in threadbare trousers  doffed their caps.

Harry was struck by the lack of rancor or jealousy afforded their way  as the
Rolls passed. Centuries of rank and order had done their job,  and instead of
anger and envy Harry saw eyes dipped in conditioned  respect. He hoped the
people outside could not see who it really was  they were saluting.
Ryan suffered no such pang. His attention focused almost exclusively  on the
brandy nip perking and neat little snifters in their  velour-cushioned niches in
the bar. He dipped into that bar more than  once while he briefed Harry on the
evening's program.

SirWhosis--as Ryan enjoyed calling him--was one of those wealthy  emeritus types
who owned a stretch of land in the downs, south of  London. The Grosvenor Square
brass had decided that despite the  acreage already at their disposal, this
particular lot was  indispensable for some upcoming maneuvers. Sir Whosis was
not averse  to granting use of the land, but felt, by virtue of his title, that
a  little fawning and groveling was due first. Ryan and Harry were to do  the
fawning and groveling.

The Rolls took them to a neighborhood in Bloomsbury scarred by a few  sticks of
bombs (strays, presumably, unless Jerry had gotten the idea  that giving a few
quaint restaurants the chop was the way to undermine  British determination).
The limo drew to a stop in front of a  nondescript building on one of the quiet,
narrow streets near the  British Museum. The building's lower windows were
filled with  sandbags, and the upper story's were planked over. Chunks of
plaster  were chipped off the facade, and a tattered awning proclaimed the name
of the restaurant in gold lettering too faded to decipher. The  chauffeur held
the limousine's door for them, and the restaurant door  was tended by a
stooped-over old gent dressed in ill-fitting livery as  something vaguely akin
to an eighteenth-century chasseur.

The deferential maitre d' led them through the dark, heavily draped  foyer into
the high-ceilinged dining room. This, in surprising  contrast to the scarred
exterior, glittered: crystal chandeliers,  golden sconces on the walls, brass
serving carts, waiters in  gold-braided dinner jackets, flashing silverware. All
about were carts  laden with marbled slabs of beef, dripping poultry, steaming
vegetables, and squat pastries on engraved silver trays.

Harry was about to make some wry comment about what kind of coupon book  was
required for such sumptuous rations, but Ryan was already smiling  and waving at
a diminutive figure in evening dress. Sir Whosis had  pink, watery eyes, very
little hair, not all the best teeth, and a  handshake that was scarcely a
squeeze.

The gent's lady was a mousy, unprepossessing woman, coated in a veneer  of silk
and quite a few sparkling stones. She acknowledged the  Americans with a
tight-lipped smile, but held Harry's hand in a way  that seemed--particularly
after her husband's brief  touch-and-go-improperly long and firm.

Sir Whosis proved to be an inveterate--and horrible--storyteller, with  an
inexhaustible fund of meaningless, humorless anecdotes. Harry
listened to the knight's babble and Ryan's murmurs of interest the way  he
listened to the radio, just enough to provide an occasional nod when  called
upon.

As course after course of food piled on their table, and the wine  steward
ensured their glasses were always fueled, Harry felt a twinge,  remembering his
wife's letters and tales of waiting in long lines for  her ration of beef. Here
was enough meat, vegetables, sugar, butter,  bread, fruit, and biscuits laid on
to get Cynthia and the boys through  a month.

His guilty reverie was broken by a grinning Sir Whosis, gesturing at  him with
his long-stemmed glass of Baccarat crystal, drunkenly saying,  "The fox, yes?
The fox?"

Harry looked helplessly at Ryan, who semaphored that Harry should  respond with
humor, and Harry mustered a "Ha ha!"

Perhaps it was the rich food, or the wine, or both, but Harry's stomach  began
to churn. He turned to excuse himself to Dame Whosis, but she  had already
vanished.

The restaurant was crowded, each table a replica of his own with a mix  of swank
evening clothes and uniforms of all sorts in attendance. A  hallway took him off
the main dining room. He padded down thick carpet  and tried a few
likely-looking doors, discovering an office and a broom  closet. He turned round
back the way he thought he'd come, pushed  through a door he didn't remember
passing, and found himself in another  dining room, this one quiet, dark, and
empty, apparently reserved for  private affairs. A couple stood across the room
in the shadows,  embracing. The man was young, mustachioed, and striking in his
R.A.F  uniform. Most striking of all about him was that the woman in his arms
was the much older Dame Whosis. Harry took an involuntary step  backward and
bumped into a table. Crystal and silver rattled, and the  woman turned. Her
jewels sparkled, even in the darkness, and her  diadem swam loosely in her
unraveling coif. She gave Harry a  conspiratorial look, a smile that frightened
him with its knowledge  that he'd never tell.

He fumbled his way back through the door, hurrying until he finally  collared a
busboy who directed him to the nearest toilet, the staff loo  in the basement.

Harry relieved himself among mops and cans of disinfectant, then sat  for a long
while enjoying the cool of the little room. When the  rebellious movements of
his stomach ceased, he wound his way back to  his table where Sir Whosis's wife
was already seated, composed and  smiling collegially at Harry.

In the Rolls, Dame Whosis clung to the arm of her husband, who had sunk  into a
wine-induced snooze, and chatted charmingly as if nothing were  amiss.

"Naturally, there will be no problem with your maneuvers," the lady  said
graciously as Harry and Ryan were dropped at the Annex gate.

"Just ring first."

She smiled, and her mousy features receded into the darkness of the  passenger
compartment as the Rolls purred off.

They were tired and sot ted and their path past the gate sentries and  across
the Court wavered, taking them into several near-collisions with  parked
vehicles.

They tossed off buoyant good-evenings to the men in the orderly room of  their
BOQ as they headed for the stairs. But one of the orderlies  stopped them with
news that the Provost Marshal had rung for Colonel  Ryan and urgently needed the
call returned. Repeat: urgently.

Ryan made the call from the orderly room and Harry, not sure he could  make the
stairs without Ryan's assistance, and certain Ryan could not  make them without
his assistance, parked himself on a nearby bench. At  that late hour, filled
with wine and heavy food, it was all he could do  to keep an eye open. He wasn't
even aware that the call had finished  and Ryan was standing over him, weaving
on his own unsteady legs, until  Ryan poked him in the shoulder.

"Wake up, Harry. That was Posner."

Harry forced his eyes open.

"C'mon, Harry. Up! Get on the horn and tell those two beauties  working for you
to meet us over at the Provost. I'll see what I can do  about scrounging up a
steno."

"You mean now?" Harry's eyes were finally open, but he was hardly  fully awake.

"Now."

"Why?"

Ryan dropped onto the bench next to him. Harry tried to force himself
completely alert and to focus on Ryan's face and its mix of fatigue,
puzzlement, and even a little pleasure.

"Major Markham has decided to make everybody's life a little simpler,"  Ryan
said.

"He told Major Posner he wants to confess."
CHAPTER FIVE

IN HOC SIGNO VINCES

himself--the old boss, THE lord and Master--had been the only familiar  face
waiting on the dock when my hospital ship pulled into Southampton.  He was--as
I'd fully expected-untouched by the sight of me hobbling  down the gangway on my
new crutches, the left trouser leg of my pajamas  neatly pinned up behind what
remained of my leg. He had spent thirty  years chronicling the human race's
catalog of incivilities. Next to  famine, massacre, and the hangings of deranged
sex criminals, a lost  leg deserved little note. In fact, I was surprised--and
even a bit  touched--that Himself had seen it worthy enough to show up at all.

(Not long after, I called his attention to what I thought to be a  rising tide
of sentimentality in him. I twitted him then, wondering if  perhaps his new
softness was a product of advancing senility,  bolstering my case by pointing to
the touching little tribute he  himself had penned for the paper, welcoming me
home.

With typical sangfroid, he shrugged me off and pointed to how the  notice was
buried near the end of the first section.

"Hardly room for it at all, my son.

Lucky we could fit it anywhere.") Later, fitted with my contraption and  back in
the office, he sat across from me for "a bit of chat about your  future, my
son." He dipped into his bottom desk drawer for the bottle  of twelve-year-old
he saved for notable occasions and splashed some  into a pair of chipped teacups
he kept on hand (to this day I have no  idea what pretense about his fairly
regular nips the teacups were there  to maintain).

"Eh, Ahab, if you think you're for being some old pensioner feeding the  pigeons
in Hyde Park, you've got it wrong," he informed me.

"We're not done wi' you yet, my son. Soon's you're up to it, you buff  up yer
new pin and hop on back to work." The caustic insensitivity was  calculated to
confer a sense of business as usual. But both he and I  were aware that the game
had changed irrevocably for me. I knew, and  he knew I knew, that he would look
at me adjusting my squeaking new  limb and decide my globe-trotting days were
fini.

I was retained with all the honors and respect due my long tenure, and  there
was a form of work for me, though my new provenance was the local  scene: the
bores of Parliament, a coven of old biddies commemorating  the Duchess of
Bedford's inception of afternoon tea, and the like. I'm  sure Himself considered
it a favor that there was any work at all for  me, but for me it was a form of
slow suffocation.
On that morning when Dennis O'Connell was pulled dripping wet and dead  from his
aeroplane off the English coast--Monday, 15 August-- I was, in  fact, typing up
just one of a series of airy-fairy pieces Himself had  dubbed Stiff Upper Lips:

items that showed English fortitude at its best. This particular piece
concerned an elderly pub foursome in the South End who had kept  blithely at
their best-of-nine-frames snooker match during the last air  raid. A stick of
near misses served only to spark a debate among the  geezers on whether movement
of the balls by the nearby explosions  constituted some sort of foul. (In the
spirit of its being a Stiff  Upper Lip piece, I discreetly neglected mentioning
that at least part  of the quartet's nerve in the face of enemy fire seemed to
have come  from the half-dozen or so pints of ale each had downed before the
raid.) Listlessly pecking out the prose, I overheard word buzzing about  the
office of the affair on the Sussex coast. I had lost my leg, but  not my
instinct for the hunt, so, along with the other Fleet Street  hounds, I was
quickly off to find out what I could. I was back at it  the next day as well and
had fully intended to go it again a third day,  but on that day Himself saw fit
to push another view.

I had meant to breeze through the office that morning, just long enough  to
check for messages and then be off.

"Could I trouble you?" he called from the doorway of his office. He  had the
gift of making requests sound like commands.

In his office he sat back in the cracked leather of his chair, his  stubby
fingers laced across the protruding crest of his substantial  stomach, and
smiled at me, his eyes crinkling behind his bottle-thick  glasses. Though the
clock had yet to strike nine, the twelve-year-old  was already on the desk and
the teacups had been dosed. He nodded for  me to close the door behind me.

"Getting on all right then, my son? Been having fun stalking about,  have you?"

"I've kept meselfbusy."

"All good things must come to an end."

"And I'm more than happy to let them come to their natural end," and I  raised
my cup in salute to the sentiment.

"I've got a box to fill and that snooker bit'd see it right."

"Won't take but a minute."

"And I've got another box for tomorrow--" I held up a hand.
"Shall we .. . ?" I made a twirling motion of my finger indicating an  interest
in leaping ahead.

He seemed genuinely pleased.

"Oh, let's do."

"Something happened down at the coast on Monday."

"Old Rob the janitor knows as much."

"I checked with the locals, and the only human inhabitants in the area  are an
old spotter and his wife. Now, either this spotter saw  something, or something
happened to him, and it involves the Americans  because within hours the Yanks
were a-swarming out there. And whatever  happened wasn't strictly within bounds,
because they've put their legal  apparatus into high gear, from the little
snowdrops to dapper Joe  Ryan."

He knew the name. He was, after all, The Old Boss, Lord and Master,  etc.

"I'm not sure what's on over there, but all my usual snitches have  locked the
trap," I said.

"At their press office, they all have this grim look, as if the  family's found
out Daddy's been buggering the neighbor's goats, but  they won't say a word. Not
even lies."

He let out a meditative, "Hmph," and sipped at his cup.

"I have Brannagh on this, you know."

Brannagh was getting a lot of the assignments I'd gotten in my  two-legged days.

"Irish toff. He's never met a nauseatingly bright tie he didn't  like."

"Quite."

"But very good."

"Thank you for saying. In Brannagh's view, the Yanks' attitude  indicates some
desperate damage control. Something quite dicky has  happened and they've turned
to slash-and-burn so's not to leave a  trace."

"Sounds right."
"In which case, so Brannagh says, one could play fox-and-geese with the  Yanks
till Doomsday without turning a lead. You can't follow the  clues, my son,
unless they let you see the clues, and that doesn't look  likely at this point.
It would seem, then, that there are more  productive things my personnel could
be doing with themselves, don't  you think? Such as those stories they've been
assigned."

"The snooker match."

"Touche." He took another sip from his teacup, studying the whirling  liquid as
he tilted the cup this way and that. Finally, he gave up an  assenting grunt.

"I'll strike a bargain. You can play with this till close of business  Friday.

Then, old son, you go back to working for a living. And you'll be  handing me
that snooker piece before you're off, eh?"

He played the hard-arse, but I suppose he was turning into an old foof  after
all. His decision had little to do with serving the paper, or  journalistic
dedication, or any other practical or idealistic purpose.  In fact, it was quite
obvious he expected the story to go nowhere as,  frankly, did I. For me, it was
finding out if I'd left more than my leg  in a bomb crater on the far side of
the world. And Himself, bless him,  was willing to let me.

Harry Voss pulled back the blackout curtains and pushed open the  window. Big
Ben was chiming five, and the morning breeze was cool and  clean. Down in the
Annex court, night still eddied so heavily he could  barely make out Albert
Markham and his Military Police escorts crossing  the cobbles toward the gate.

Harry stretched and tried to soothe the tired muscles in his neck by  rolling
his head. His mouth carried the horrible taste of coffee and  cigarettes mixed
with food and liquor. The coffee, hastily brewed by  the night orderlies, hadn't
done much to settle the dicey situation in  his stomach. A whistle from the
courtyard focused his groggy vision on  an MP below, signaling him to close the
blackout drapes.

He pulled the thick shrouds shut and turned back to the conference  room. The
long table was littered with empty coffee cups, overflowing  ashtrays, and
scribble-covered notepads. The air carried the blue haze  of dead cigarettes,
and the lacy tendrils of live ones. The staff  sergeant stenographer was still
trying to pack up his machine while  Ryan was shoving him out the door.

When he wasn't using his hands to push at the bewildered steno, Ryan  was
rubbing them together and bubbling like a winner of the Irish  Sweepstakes.
"I want a full transcript of that no later than 0900, you understand?  Good!" he
said, without waiting for a response, tearing the door open  and shoving the
sergeant clear.

"And that's your-eyes-only! The original and the steno record go  straight to
me, and photostats hand-delivered to Major Voss, General  Halverson, and General
DiGarre. Got it?" Again, without waiting for a  response, "And keep your lip
buttoned on this!" he commanded and  slammed the door closed. He turned his
beaming face toward the room.

Grassi, in a uniform that looked like--and probably was--something he'd  fallen
asleep in, sat slouched at the table, looking over his notes,  and shaking his
head with pleased amazement. Peter Ricks was there as  well, eerily composed and
cleanly pressed for the hour, his face marked  with grim resignation and
finality.

Harry considered those contented and/or resigned faces. Is it just me?  he
wondered. Am I the only one who feels it?

Joe Ryan had called for the stenographer, stirred the orderlies after a  coffee
urn, had Harry call for Ricks and Grassi, all the time keeping  Markham and his
MP escort waiting in the JAG building's vestibule.

Harry had fretted about giving Markham enough time to change his  mind.

"You haven't played in this league before," Ryan lectured Harry as he  bustled
about his preparations in the conference room.

"Half the game is psychology. We let this joker cool his heels a  while, give
him time to sweat.

When we finally let him in here, you want him to see that we're ready  for him.

You want him to know he's outgunned."

To which end Ryan had clustered his troops in a tight knot at one end  of the
table, Ricks and Grassi to his left, Harry at his right, giving  himself the
head chair. Markham's place was reserved at the far-off  foot of the table, his
only company to be the stenographer, whom Ryan  had positioned to crowd the
major.

But whatever intimidating effect all this was intended to have, Albert  Markham
entered the room under his MP escort no more impressed than a  diner who has
been informed that his table is now ready.

Other than the major's composure, remarkable in a man facing a han  gable
offense.
Harry found himself surprisingly underwhelmed by the man. Having  gleaned bits
and pieces of Markham's daring aviation exploits, his list
of--evidently--well-earned decorations, he'd expected a World War  I-style
knight-errant of the air: dashing good looks, a sparkling  smile, trailing white
scarf, and so on.

But the Albert Quincy Markham Harry met in those predawn hours of  Wednesday, 17
August, was impressively unimpressive. A bit short, the  twenty-seven-year-old's
athletic days were long behind him, and his  middle was a bit thick and a touch
soft, his chin beginning to sag. His  mousy hair was a short, efficient,
unflattering bristle. Hours of sun  glare through cockpit canopies had left
squint lines round small, pale  eyes, but the puffy face showed little else in
the way of character.

He shuffled in between his guards, fingering his cap awkwardly. But at  sight of
Ryan and his cadre, he immediately straightened to attention  and snapped out a
crisp salute. For the moment, something in his  bearing, in his--Harry searched
for the word--conviction, showed him  more matched to the uniform than any
lantern-jawed, square-shouldered  caricature on a recruiting poster.

Ryan tossed off an acknowledging salute, nodded Markham to the witness  chair,
and signaled the MP's to wait outside, closing the doors behind  them.

Markham stood by his designated chair, still at attention. Ryan fixed  him with
a practiced glare, the objective being to start the accused  trembling in his
shoes. Ryan theatrically cleared his throat and Harry  knew they were in for
some prepared, prosecutorial speech, but before  the colonel could open his
mouth, Markham spoke.

"I want to apologize for disturbing all of you at this time of night,"  Markham
said. His voice, marked by a Midwestern drone--was so soft  that the four men at
the other end of the table simultaneously leaned  forward to hear better.

"I know you don't owe me this kind of consideration. You don't owe me  much of
anything, I suppose, so I appreciate you meeting with me. I  just figured the
sooner we cleared this up the better for all of us."

He spoke haltingly, uncomfortable with occasions for oratory.

Ryan gave a harrumphing agreement, obviously irritated that Markham had
undercut his momentum, but, again, before he could launch into his  opening
remarks, Markham--in his usual, deferential way--cut him off.

"Sorry, sir, but is it OK if I have some of this coffee? Anybody else  want a
cup? Oh, you've got some?

"To the steno: "How about you, Sarge? No? I don't worry about it  keeping me up.
I haven't slept a peaceful hour since this whole thing  started." His small
mouth flicked in a sad, sheepish grin.

"I guess that's guilt, huh?"

"As you say, Major," Ryan said, making a display of looking at his  watch, "it
is late."

Harry thought Ryan sounded surprisingly tentative. Poor guy. Harry  thought,
studying his friend. The colonel looked almost ready to break  into a run, so
eager was he to get Markham's confession down on paper  before the flier could
reconsider. And yet, Ryan wanted to be careful  to do nothing to push Markham to
that reconsideration.

"We should get started, huh?" Markham stood over the indicated seat,  took a
deep breath, then sat. He carefully arranged his cap to one  side, his coffee to
the other.

"If I get the mumbles or you miss something," he said to the steno,  "you let me
know, Sarge."

The steno, surprised at being thought of as something other than  hearing-room
furniture, looked to the officers at the other end of the  table, unsure of an
appropriate response.

"Um, sure, sir."

"So," the flier said with a tense clearing of his throat, "how do we do  this?"

Ryan signaled the stenographer to begin recording, then made a rather  stuffy
introduction opening the proceedings and properly identifying  those in
attendance.

"Do I have to put my hand on a Bible or something like that?" Markham  asked.

"Oh, hell," Ryan said.

"I forgot all about that. Anybody see a Bible around?"

"Should I go look for one?" Ricks asked, rising in his chair. Harry  signaled
him back into his chair with a shake of his head.

"It's the Army," Grassi said wryly.

"I don't think you'll find many just laying around."

"I don't think we need all the froufrous Ryan said to Markham, "do  you.

Major? You promise to tell the truth, don't you?"

Markham slowly raised his right hand.

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the  truth." His
right hand came down, the fingers tucked in except for his  index digit, which
made a small crisscross on his chest.

"Cross my heart--" he paused, seemed inwardly amused at the phrase  "--and hope
to die." To Ryan: "That should do it, shouldn't it.  Colonel?" For a moment,
Markham's self-conscious awkwardness had  faded.

Ryan looked to Harry, obviously impressed with this sudden  demonstration of
Markham's coolness.

"Now, Major Markham--" "Um, Colonel?" It was Ricks.

"Yes, Captain?"

"I hate to interrupt.. ."

Ryan, who hated even more to be interrupted, frowned at yet another  delay in
getting on with the business of the occasion. He nodded at  Ricks to proceed.

"I'm wondering if Major Markham has been cautioned as to the  evidentiary status
of any statement he might make--" Ryan's frown  deepened into a sharp glower. He
turned to Harry.

" It might be better for the record," Harry said soothingly.

"For the record?"

Harry was offering more than a balm. It was typical Harry-esque  diligence. He
knew any irregularity or impropriety could turn the  hoped-for case-settling
confession into the basis for a future  appeal.

Ryan took a breath.

"All right, for the record. Major Markham: You are making a formal,  sworn, and
voluntary statement regarding charges of criminal action  against you. This
statement can be used against you as evidence in any  future proceeding. Short
and sweet, to make sure there's no  misunderstanding: Whatever you say right now
is gospel. There's not  going to be any taking it back tomorrow." Ryan looked
back to Ricks as  if to ask, "Is that good enough for you?" Ricks sheepishly
dropped his  eyes to his lap.

"I understand, sir," Markham replied.

"I appreciate you making the point clear to me."

He is something, Harry thought, studying the aviator. Neither  impatient nor
reluctant. Uncomfortable, but not nervous, nor at some  icy remove. Perfect
balance. Harry looked round his end of the  table-Ryan, champing at the bit and
fretting at the same time; Grassi,  smelling blood, even more rabid than Ryan;

Ricks, dutifully observing the proprieties. We're children next to  him, he
thought.

"Any other point of order I might have missed?" Ryan asked Ricks.

Red-faced as Ricks now was, he didn't hesitate.

"Um, well, yes .. ."

Ryan groaned.

"Oh, brother," Grassi said.

Harry looked down the table at Markham. The flier was smiling, but  there was a
gallows-humor grimness to it. And something else.

"It was like him and me were outside it all," Harry told me.

"You could see it in his eyes, him saying, "Isn't it a shame we have to  go
through all this song-and-dance?"

" "All right, Captain," an annoyed Ryan continued.

"What is it?"

"The major is entitled to legal counsel. He doesn't have to do this  without
having counsel present--" Ryan's eyes darted round the table as  if looking for
something to hurl at Ricks.

Grassi's fingers drummed impatiently on the table, freezing in mid-air  when
Ryan's angry eyes fixed on him. Again, Ryan turned to Harry.

"Well, he is," Harry said, almost smiling at Ryan's growing are.

"What's a lawyer going to tell me?" Markham asked.

"He's going to tell me to keep my mouth shut. And I think we'd all  just like to
get this over with. I know I would. Besides, there's  enough lawyers in here
already." His face took on a sad softness as he  looked at Ricks.

"I'm sure if things don't go quite according to the book, somebody'll  let out a
holler. I mean--" the grim smile again; that strange  beyond-it-all connection
to Harry again "--how much more trouble could  I possibly get into?

"To Ryan: "Why don't we just get down to this thing."

Ryan seemed momentarily puzzled to find his strongest ally sitting at  the
opposite end of the table. He quickly composed himself.

"Why not. Major? You're being charged with the murder of Lieutenant
O'Connell--" "Second Lieutenant Dennis F. O'Connell," Markham  interjected.

"It's for the record, right? His whole name should be there."

"Fine, Second Lieutenant Dennis F. O'Connell," Ryan continued.

"You are also charged with the attempted murder of two British  civilians--Mr.
and Mrs. Charles Gresham--both incidents arising from  an operation you
conducted on August fifteenth. You admit that--"  "Um," Markham said, holding up
a finger to call a pause.

Ryan sighed.

"Yes, Major?"

" I thought this was his case." The upraised finger fell toward Harry.  " I
don't know if it makes a difference. I just wondered .. ."

Ryan closed his eyes a moment to rein in his temper. He opened them  and drew up
a coolly polite smile.

"Good point, Major Markham. Major Voss, why don't you take over?"

"All right. Major," Harry began, "we'll just go through this thing ABC  to make
sure everything goes down as clear as possible, OK? Good. You  were in command
of the 351st on the date in question? On August  fifteenth?"

"Acting command," Markham corrected.

"I was air exec for the 351st. When Colonel Adams was killed, command  fell to
me, but I was never formally given the group."

"You were the one who organized and led the mission on the  fifteenth?"

Markham frowned and his eyes dropped to the tabletop. He nodded  gravely.

"Your answers need to be verbal," Ryan said, nodding at the steno.

"I know," Markham said.

"It's just.. ." He took a deep breath, looked up and into Harry's  eyes.

"On top of everything else, that's another thing I should be held  accountable
for."
S

"I'm not sure I understand," Harry said.

"That mission should never have gone off. I don't know what word you  want to
use: ill-advised, misjudged, a mistake. The plain fact is, it  was wrong."

Ricks started to open his mouth but a glare from Ryan silenced him.

Markham hadn't missed it.

"I know what you're going to say, Captain.

"Hold up, talk to a lawyer'; all that. But what you don't understand  is all of
this has been burning a hole in my gut since it started. I  haven't been able
to--" Markham cut himself off, shaking his head in  self-admonishment. " I don't
want anybody's sympathy here. I just  want this out and done. The mission
shouldn't've happened, and it  wasn't General Halverson's fault that it did. The
way I got him to  agree was what I guess you'd call 'emotional blackmail," the
way I told  him this was the only way to save his command. I've never been a
book  officer; I don't know if that's a crime. But if it is, it's my crime.  All
I know is three men are dead that wouldn't be if I hadn't led them  out that
morning."

He had spoken quietly, almost sheepishly, as if afraid that any aspect  of the
confession might reflect well upon him. He fell quiet for a  long moment,
staring back down at the tabletop. The four officers at  the other end of the
table looked confusedly at one another. Accused  murderers taking on additional
guilt was not a commonplace  occurrence.

Harry led Markham through an account of the action on the fifteenth.  Markham
described the mission, in the main, much as Van Damm had  imparted to Harry
earlier with Angel Blue and Angel Red having reached  Helsvagen without
incident;

O'Connell's P-47 subsequently being struck by debris on the first  attack by
Angel Blue; O'Connell's request for permission to abort the  remainder of the
mission, then exiting the target area at full speed  without awaiting a
response.

It was readily apparent to Markham that Angel Blue had effectively  destroyed
the depot on its first pass. That being the case, Markham's  priority became
O'Connell's vulnerability flying alone in a crippled  aeroplane. Markham ordered
Jacobs and McLagen to jettison their  rockets, and, joined by Anderson, they all
flew off to locate and cover  O'Connell on the return trip. En route, they were
attacked by German  fighters.
At that point in his narrative, Markham paused. He drained his coffee,  then
held up the cup and nodded at the urn.

"May I? .. ."

Harry nodded and Markham poured himself a fresh cup. " I trained Ray  Jacobs,"
Markham said, eyes downcast into his cup, his back to the  table.

"I'm sorry, sir," the steno said.

"I didn't get that."

Markham turned, smiled apologetically to the steno.

"Sorry, Sarge. I said I trained Ray Jacobs. And Andy McLagen ... I  remember
when Andy got his silver bar ." Markham frowned in a way that  made Harry wonder
if the flier was trying to remember, or trying harder  to forget. When he spoke,
his voice sounded distant.

"I didn't even know we'd been bounced until I saw Ray Jacobss ship  cross under
me. Everything from the nose past the cockpit was burning.  I could see him in
there. Then I heard Andy on the radio calling them  out, bandits, bandits on our
six and high, coming out of the sun. I  banked around, Andy was already up after
them. But you don't win an  uphill fight like that, not against FW's, not that
many of them. There  were three or four all over him. I didn't see him go down.
But .. ."  Then, to himself, "Oh, Andy .. ." Markham spent a moment on the
reverie, only slowly reawakening to the presence of the other men in  the room.
Again, the apologetic smile that was becoming more familiar  to Harry, and just
as predictable.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen."

Markham returned to his seat. He described how he and Anderson evaded  the
German fighters, then cautiously "cloud-skipped" out of the battle  area,
occasionally dropping into the clear to look for O'Connell. They  finally
spotted his aircraft trailing thick smoke, as they crossed the  French coast,
and did not close with him until near landfall England.

Markham paused again. Several times he made as if to continue his  story, but
the words didn't come. The smile, again.

"This is harder than I thought it was going to be. Could I impose on  somebody
for a smoke?"

Harry rose and walked to the other end of the table. He shook a  cigarette out
of his pack of Camels, then extended a match and lit the  end for Markham.
"Thank you. Major Voss. I don't know where mine got to. I can't  believe I went
through a whole--"The smile.

"Well, thanks."

Harry nodded. He returned to his seat.

Markham took a deep breath.

"Where was I? We were at the Channel. It took a good part of the  Channel
transit for us to close with O'Connell. His ship was going  flat out, which was
probably why she was making so much smoke. Hit  like she was, she probably
couldn't handle those kind of revs. By the  time we caught up with him I figured
we were far enough away from the  mainland that I could break radio silence. I
ordered him--ordered him  several times--to ditch once we were close to
landfall. I couldn't  tell how bad off his ship was, but it looked bad. I didn't
think he'd  make Donophan and, well, frankly, I didn't think he was a good
enough  flier that he'd be able to keep his head when the time came. You lose
your engine and very quickly--" Markham snapped his fingers several  times in
rapid succession "--you have to find yourself a good spot, if  there is one, set
her down dead stick--no power--and maybe you even  have to go in wheel up and
let her down on her belly.

That's hard enough for a pilot who knows what he's doing, but for  O'Connell ...
I thought maybe it'd just be easier for him to put down  in the water."

Markham bowed his head, massaging a temple as if he was suffering a  pain.

"You've got to understand I had promised General Halverson that if he  gave me
this mission, there'd be no losses. And here I was already  leaving Ray Jacobs
and Andy McLagen behind. If O'Connell didn't put  down in the water I was sure I
was going to have to report another loss  to the general. But I never got an
answer from O'Connell over the  radio. I pulled up and tried to hand signal him.

Maybe he didn't see me because of the smoke from his engine. I  couldn't tell.
So ."

A long pause, so long that Harry felt compelled to nudge Markham along  with a
soft, "And so. Major?"

Markham nodded. He shook his head as if even he couldn't quite believe  what had
transpired and was replaying now before his mind's eye.

"I thought ... I thought maybe if I could put a burst across his nose,  maybe
that would drive him down.
Or maybe that's what I've been telling myself I was thinking."

He turned to Harry, his face and tone seeming to say, "You explain it!  You make
me understand it! Because I can't!"

"The way I was feeling right then," Markham went on, "the way I'd been  feeling
about O'Connell ever since the krauts hit us .. ."

"And how was that?" Harry asked.

"How did you feel about O'Connell?"

Markham's face turned contemplative.

"Nobody wonts to go up there. Most of the boys forced themselves.  O'Connell
couldn't. After the German raid ... a lot of those other  boys were dead."

"But not O'Connell."

"I guess I hated him for living through it. That wasn't right of me.  But that's
what it was." He straightened a little in his seat.

"I can't say that none of that didn't affect my aim, not and be honest  about
this. Does that sound crazy?

Maybe I've just been going crazy trying to figure it out.

"Then, he was down, in the water. I could see he was still alive. I  saw him
fighting with the canopy, trying to get it open. There were  two people standing
on the cliff, civilians. It was going through my  head, the minute I saw
O'Connell's ship going down, it hit me I was  going to have to tell the general
that this loss, this last man down,  that was my responsibility. They all were,
I know that, but this one,  O'Connell .. . that was blood on my hands." Markham
licked dry lips.  He looked to his coffee cup but it was empty. He took a last
drag on  the cigarette then dropped it in his cup.

"After," he went on, "I could understand how they must've felt. Scared.  Scared,
hell; terrified. But at the time all I saw was two people  standing there
instead of helping. I have to make them move, I was  thinking. I have to make
them move!"

Markham closed his eyes. He sat silently.

"So you fired on them," Harry finally said.

Markham, still with his eyes closed.
"So, I fired on them." His eyes opened.

"Of course they ran. I would've run if I'd been in their place. But  at the time
all I could see-- ... I fired on the house to drive them  out. Stupid. Stupid! I
wasn't even thinking; that's just what came.  Maybe I was so mad at them for not
helping ... maybe I was just so  damned mad! At the way it was all turning out!

At me!"

Markham looked down at his palms, rubbed them together as if cleaning  them.

"Look, I'm not trying to make this sound like I was out of my head so I  can
take a walk on this. I was in command. I made the bad choices. I  failed General
Halverson. I failed my men. Poor J. J.-Captain  Anderson--he's just been trying
to be a good friend covering for me. He  had no hand in any of this. Whatever
failures there were that day are  completely mine. My men--none of them--deserve
the way I've dirtied  them like this."

When Markham had finished, he sat at his end of the table,  slump-shouldered,
seemingly drained.

At the other end of the table, Harry and the others sat, surprised to  find that
Markham had left them with nothing more to ask.

"Um," Ricks began, and Markham tiredly raised his head.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Can Captain Anderson corroborate any of your statement?"

Which earned Ricks another of those baleful glares from Ryan. Markham  had
delivered himself up in toto and beribboned; Ryan saw no reason to  tempt
complications.

"Do you really need him to?" Markham asked, looking pained.

"I know this isn't going to make you fellas happy, but I've advised him  to keep
his mouth shut."

Markham took one of his head-bowing pauses before continuing.

"J. J."s a good friend. He's already got himself in trouble trying to  protect
me. He'd probably do it again, even if I told him not to. I'll  confess to
whatever you need me to confess to. I'll sign whatever you  want me to sign. But
I'm not going to let any more of my people put  themselves on the line for me. I
think they've been through enough."
Harry would show me the typed deposition. The document concludes:

"Freely given and signed to this date August 17, 1943 by Maj. A. Q.  Markham
0152793, 351st Fighter Group, Donophan Airfield," followed by  Markham's precise
signature, and those of the witnesses: Col. J. P.  Ryan, Maj. H. J.Voss, Capt.
P. L. Ricks, and It. A. G. Grassi.

It was a masterful performance, and Harry had no doubt it was a  performance,
otherwise all those niggling bits of the case that told  him all was not what it
seemed to be were meaningless.

"He never let the seams show," Harry told me.

"He signed his copy of the deposition as soon as the messenger brought  it to
him."

Peter Ricks, however, viewed Markham's confessional somewhat  differently.

"I

have to believe part of it was true," he told me.

"Which part?"

"The pain."

"OK, OK, OK!" Ryan percolated, striding up and down the room with a  happy
bounce.

"Let's take some time to clean up, catch a few winks, then we meet back  here at
1000. I'll have some breakfast brought up, we'll go over the  regs, see which
articles apply, and see if we can't get a presentation  together for Halverson
and DiGarre by this evening.

Hell, there's no reason we can't have this whole mess wrapped up by the
weekend."

"Um," Harry said.

Ryan's enthusiastic pacing ceased abruptly "Um?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"It's just that, well, I have some things I still wanted to follow up  on."

"Some follow-up things?"
"I should be done in time to make the presentation to Halverson and  DiGarre,
but I'd just like to, um--" "Follow up on a few things?"

"Right."

Ryan looked to Grassi and Ricks, but Ricks s puzzlement and Grassi's
exasperation confirmed for Ryan that Harry was a lone madman.

"What things, Harry? Haven't you been listening? It's over,  understand? The man
confessed!

What is it? You've got that puss on again, the same puss you had on  when you
were fussing about that gun film. You going to start up on  that again?"

"It's just that, well, I'm sitting here watching this guy. He hasn't  seen the
evidence we have, he doesn't know what we've got on him. For  a guy who doesn't
even know if we've got a case he seems awfully eager  to get himself hung."

Grassi slouched still further, and made a peevish noise with his  mouth.

"Markham's nailed and he knows it! He's just tryin' to make himself  look as
good as he can. You know--doin' the honorable thing and all  that crap, hoping
it'll be appreciated enough where maybe he'll only  have to do twenty years in
Leavenworth instead of ten minutes on the  gallows."

"A four-oh guy like Markham scratches a foul-up like O'Connell;

they won't hang him and he knows it," Ryan declared.

"This is a smart guy, Harry. He may sit there giving up that
I-wannacomecleanfellas song, but he knows what he's doing."

It had troubled Harry like a barely heard off-note from the orchestra,  but only
now had Ryan clarified it for him.

"He is a smart guy, isn't he?" he mused aloud.

"They'll bust him, tag him for murder two, then plop him in Leav en  worth at
least for the duration. That," Ryan continued, "will just  about satisfy all
parties concerned: our brass, the limeys,  everybody."

But Harry retained the "puss" Ryan found so objectionable. The colonel  sighed
heavily and dropped into a chair.
"OK, Harry. Shoot. You got a case to make?

Make it."

"First-year law school. Professor Dunlap, remember? The three  components to
establish the basis for a criminal case."

Grassi groaned.

"Oh, gee, I didn't know there was gonna be a pop quiz!"

"Shuddup," Ryan told him.

Harry continued.

"Number One: means--" "I would call eight fifty-caliber machine guns  ample
means," Ryan contributed.

"--opportunity--" "His own confession corroborated by two eyeball
witnesses--whom he also took a shot at--place him at the scene."

"--and motive."

"You've got his confession--" "Which does not provide motive."

"He says he lost his head and--" "No! Not him! Not this guy!"

"Why not this guy?" Ryan was barking now.

"Joe, you've seen Markham's record. He's got a chest full of ribbons,  he's been
a combat leader for seven years--" "Seven years is a long  time," Ricks offered.

"Maybe too long."

"Yeah!" Grassi chimed in.

"C'mon, Major, one night this guy sees all his best est buddies get  blown into
itsy-bitsy bits, and then he's got this washout O'Connell  left. He's already
predisposed against this guy. You look at it all  and you say.

Who wouldn't we taken a shot at O'Connell? Then you throw in those  seven years,
maybe the guy's flak-happy on top of everything else."

"Believe me, Harry, I can see where a commanding officer might just get  fed
up."

Ryan said it pointedly enough to make Harry wince.

"Look, we've got a confession. We've got physical evidence. Frankly,  I don't
give a damn why he killed the little bastard. He did it and  we've got him.
Closed case."

"OK," Harry said, then took a moment to get it clear in his head before  he
continued.

"Let's say he can't stand O'Connell anymore. The sight of him makes  him sick.
Joe, you said it yourself: This is a smart guy. He'd have  to be. You don't get
to be a line commander with Markham's ratings  without having something
upstairs. So, put everything else aside--the  means, opportunity, and motive
thing, the gun film, all of that--and  ask yourself why a guy that smart commits
murder in front of two  witnesses."

"Maybe he didn't know the Greshams were going to be--" "Never mind the
Greshams. Why not put O'Connell down across the Channel where nobody's  ever
going to know? Unless you want to say Albert Markham, with his  experience and
ratings, went completely out of his skull for a single  morning--that for one
brief moment, everything that this guy is went  out the window. Unless you say
that, none of it adds up."

The others went very quiet and very still.

But Grassi was desperate to maintain his belief in Santa Claus.

"Look, Major, with all due respect and all that, when a guy goes off  his nut
enough to start shooting people, he's capable--" Ryan waved  listlessly at
Grassi to silence him.

"OK, Harry." His tone had altered now, to one of reasoned argument.

"We've still got his confession and the evidence."

"You've got his confession until he recants."

Ryan grimaced.

"You'll jinx this thing, you talk like that."

Ricks was nodding gravely.

"If a man confesses for no apparent reason, it's not an unreasonable  concern
that he could withdraw the confession for no reason."

"He could tell us moon men knocked O'Connell down, for all anybody  cares,"
Grassi rebutted.

"That won't change the evidence. The only thing the confession gets us  is we
don't have to go through all the fuss of a trial."

Ricks pursed his lips.

"Considering the major's point that Markham's confession seems  premature, that
raises the possibility he's confessed as a kind of  smoke screen. Giving us what
he thinks we want, he'd expect us to  truncate the investigation. That'd buy him
time."

"Now I've got two of them to deal with," Ryan said, frowning at Ricks.  Ricks
flushed and looked down into his lap.

"Buy time for what?"

Ricks shrugged.

"A better story."

"Or maybe Anderson's complicity." Harry's confidence was building.  Hearing
Ricks voice qualms made him feel less lonely.

"You back to that damned film. Harry?"

Harry walked round the table and pulled up a chair by Ryan.

"I don't know what Markham's up to, Joe. But I don't like him  preempting us by
shutting Anderson up. That smells awfully funny for a  guy putting on a big show
about coming clean. Maybe you're right;  maybe I'm worried about nothing. But if
he is up to something, I don't  want to get caught flat-footed. I'd like another
day or two--" Ryan  closed his eyes painfully.

"Two doys?"

"Let me finish my interviews, let the boys here finish their  groundwork. That
way, ifMarkham pulls some last-minute moves, we're  ready. If nothing else,
maybe him knowing we're ready to jump on him  the minute he tries to pull back
from his deposition will keep him from  recanting."

With a finger, Ryan traced the rings on the table left by the coffee  cups. He
was going over Harry's reasoning, evaluating his options, no  doubt looking for
the avenue that would cover him best.

"C'mon, Joe," Harry persisted.

"Even if this runs into next week it's still going to be a land-speed  record.
If we go too fast we can run right by a hole that Markham can  crawl through.
Then how'll we look?"

The point hit its mark. After a moment, Ryan let out a massive yawn  and
stretched his arms so far he almost--and possibly  deliberately-punched Harry on
the cheek. Ryan stood.

"I'm setting up a meeting with the generals for tomorrow evening. I'm  going to
tell them what the disposition on this thing is going to be  and give them a
schedule. I want to know what you've got before then,  by 1700 hours today.
Seventeen hundred's your deadline, Harry. I've  got killers walking around here
with smoking guns; you're lucky I'm  giving you that much. You got a perfect
setup here, Harry. Don't  screw it up."

The door closed behind Ryan. Ricks and Grassi looked at each other,  then to
"How do we proceed, Major?" Ricks asked.

"Keep doing what you've been doing. Only do it faster." Harry looked  at his
watch and moaned.

"Meaning that if either of you were thinking of catching any sack time,  forget
about it." And he left.
E

Harry barely remembered stumbling across the Annex yard to his office.  Even
with the blackout curtains open, the small room was dark and  shadowy. He called
down to the orderly room for a breakfast of toast  and coffee, then sat back in
his chair, facing the window, watching the  sky lighten from predawn gray. He
fished in his pocket and found a  last cigarette. It was not until the back of
his chair thunked against  the rim of his desk, jarring him awake, that he knew
he'd been asleep.  He stood, rubbed his eyes, and lit his cigarette. He welcomed
the  appearance of the orderly with his pot of coffee and toast, didn't  bother
with the toast, but downed two cups of coffee as fast as the hot  liquid would
permit.

He brought out all the files and notes on the case. Years ago, in his  law
school days. Harry had developed a technique to help him in his  case studies.
He took each relevant fact of the case, boiled it down  to a few words he wrote
in bold, block letters on an index card. Once  done, he set all the cards down
on the floor. The cards were pieces of  a puzzle, and Harry believed that if he
could study them in such a  fashion-moving this one here, that one there--he
could at least begin  to deduce the finished picture.

He was still nota ting the cards when the stenographer who had taken  Markham's
statement knocked on the door. Harry sent the sergeant back  to a warm bed after
relieving him of the sealed envelope containing his  copy of Markham's
confession.

Harry went down the hall to the latrine, the envelope tucked securely  under his
arm, threw water on his face, then returned to his office and  propped himself
against one of his file cabinets, the open documents on  top of the cabinet
before him, a fresh cup of coffee nearby. He did  not want to risk sitting and
possibly lapsing into another doze.

Now, that quiet, deferential Midwestern voice came back to Harry as he  read
over the deposition, freckled with erasures and typos, evidence of  the steno's
own fatigue and Ryan's command for haste. It was a  remarkable document in which
Markham--to use Harry's wry exaggeration--  "confessed to everything but the
Chicago Fire and Teapot Dome."

Harry was still mulling over the deposition when there came a knock at
the outer door. It was one of the mail clerks with a sealed manila  envelope
from Scotland Yard. Harry signed for the envelope, shooed the  messenger out,
and closed the door behind him.

Harry sat at his desk with his coffee, Markham's confession, and the  Scotland
Yard documents in front of him. He rang the Annex switchboard  and had them put
him through to Van Damm's BOQ, where he was told that  Major Van Damm
had--unsurprisingly--spent the night in the G-2 complex.  Harry rang him there.

While he waited for the G-2 staff to find Van Damm, Harry opened the  envelope
from the Yard. Inside were two smaller, sealed envelopes.  Harry opened the
first, saw autopsy sketches, and set it aside. He was  opening the second when
Van Damm came on the line.

"Hey.Voss, what's up?"

"Did I wake you up?"

"Up? I haven't been to bed yet. What can I do you for?"

"When I was talking to your Captain Dell, he said something yesterday  about a
radio monitoring station on the coast."

"We've got a chain of 'em up and down our side of the Ditch. You want  to know
if we got something on the Monday raid, right? Gimme an hour  and meet me in the
officers' mess. I've been living on doughnuts and  Hershey bars for days. I
gotta have me some real food."

Harry rang off and opened the second envelope. It contained a  preliminary
ballistics report. According to the Yard, investigators  had retrieved over a
hundred spent bullets from the exterior, interior,  and grounds of the Gresham
cottage. They had also recovered a similar  number of ejected shell casings.

Another seven bullets had been extracted from O'Connell's ship.

SUMMARY:

Casings--Preliminary comparison between random sample of twelve  recovered
casings and casings from test firings show marked similarity  in ejector
markings. Indicates casings came from one or another of the  eight SO-caliber
automatic weapons mounted on Ship #1 (Markham's).  Gresham
Residence--Preliminary comparison between random sample of 12  identifiable
bullets recovered from structure interior, 12 from  structure exterior, 12 from
vicinity, and bullets from test firings  show several points of similarity in
rifling indicating bullets fired  from one or another guns # 1-8 on Ship # 1.

Victim Ship--Four of the seven bullets recovered malformed on impact
preventing effective identification comparisons. Bullet recovered from  fuselage
bears rifling marks consistent with Ship #1 Gun #4. Bullet  recovered from
engine area bears rifling marks consistent with Ship #1  Gun#5.... All of which
eliminated the possibility that any of Markham's  actions were some sort of
cover for Anderson.

Reluctantly, Harry turned to the autopsy report. He skimmed through  the neat
block paragraphs and the anatomical sketches: "Victim received  five bullet
wounds from a point above and behind to the right at a  descending angie of
between 30 and 40 degrees with a similar transverse  ... signs of having been
inflicted by a large-bore, high-powered weapon  at close range... pierced body
armor at back, completely transiting  body and exiting body armor at front ...
severe tangential tissue  damage along each projectile path indicating high
velocity and  malformation caused by impact on body armor ... cause of death
attributed to grievous gunshot wounds..."

The text was cold and inanimate, the diagrams a poor cartoon, but as  Harry's
eyes flicked from one square of text to the next, his mind's  eye saw the pale
young man on the Gresham bed, still damp with blood  and seawater.

He tossed the autopsy report aside, tossed his reading glasses after  it, leaned
back in his chair and rubbed his burning eyes, then absently  flicked the stub
of his cigarette out the window. Down in the court, a  pair of PFC's were
watering the sunflower planters in front of his  building. The cigarette floated
by.

"Hey!" one of the men shouted angrily, and Harry leaned away from the  window so
they wouldn't see him.

He forced himself ahead, continuing to fill out his little index cards  as he
worked his way through the materials on his desk. After a bit,  the outside
office door rattled. He assumed it was Nagel, shouted at  him-or whoever it
was--to come back in an hour, and answered the  puzzled mumbling that followed
with another demand to go away, all  without looking up from his cards.

When the cards were done he spread them out on the floor, then propped  his
elbows on his knees, and let his eyes ramble about the splayed  cards. He bent
over, wheezing, and moved them about, rearranging them,  hoping that--as in the
past--the connections would emerge, slowly and  vaguely at first, then with
growing clarity.

This time, however, the magic didn't happen. The cards sat there  obstinately
separate, like pieces from a half-dozen different puzzles  tossed randomly
together.

Albert Markham's killing of Dennis O'Connell bespoke a man acting out  of pique,
but what Harry knew of Markham suggested a man who didn't act
out of pique. It was a rash and desperate act by a man who, from what  Harry had
thus far learned, didn't act rashly, or desperately. In the  wake of the German
raid on Donophan, presumably distraught over the  loss of dozens of
comrades--including his friend Frank Adams-- Markham  was capable of putting
together an attack marked--in Van Damm's  words--by "a nice, simple elegance."
Even his confession came across  as well thought-out, well reasoned, carefully
addressing every point  and question that had arisen over the course of the
investigation thus  far.

But it was just that last point that so troubled Harry: The confession  was too
well thought-out, too well reasoned, and too carefully answered  every question.

Whatever piece would bring all the rest together into a picture that  made
sense, Harry didn't have it. Or, he considered, maybe it was  there, sitting
plainly in front of him, but he was just too tired to  see it. Where-and at
what--hodn't he looked?

Before Markham had been brought in for his deposition, Harry had had a  few
minutes with Ricks and Grassi in which they'd given him a quick  catch-up on
what they'd compiled that day on the men involved.

Harry picked up his phone and had the Annex exchange first ring  Grassi's
office, and failing to get an answer there, his quarters.  While the phone
rang--and it rang a long time before a groggy Grassi  picked up his end--Harry
parked the receiver on his shoulder, scooped  up his cards from the floor and
tucked them inside his jacket, then  locked the two Scotland Yard reports and
Markham's deposition in his  file cabinet.

"Would it kill you to let me get even five minutes of shut-eye?" Grassi
grumbled when Harry identified himself.

"Can't this case spare me those five lousy minutes?"

"No," Harry answered.

"Earlier tonight, you told me--"

"This morning. Boss. That was this morning, when all good lawyers  should've
been snug in their--" "You said something about O'Connell.  Something about a
girlfriend .. ."

Still half asleep, Grassi spoke through a yawn: "I did?"

"I said," Major Van Damm repeated, trying to speak through a mouth  filled with
an oversized bit of fried egg sandwich, "you look like you  could use a shave."
Harry self-consciously rubbed his stubble-roughened chin.

"I can imagine."

Van Damm hadn't swallowed before he began on the second of the two  sandwiches
on his plate. "

"S just nice to see somebody in worse shape than me."

"Anything I can do."

They had found a quiet corner of the officers' mess. Remembering Van  Damm's
cigars and un showered scent, Harry had picked a table by the  window.

"Those radio intercepts," Harry began.

"What radio intercepts? There were no intercepts. Not from the Angel  flights.

"Course, that's no big surprise. First order of business for them  would've been
maintaining radio silence."

Harry flipped through his note cards.

"Markham says that O'Connell radioed him--while they were over the  target, over
this fuel dump at Helsvagen--and requested permission to  abort."

Before Harry had finished his sentence. Van Damm was shaking his  head.

"We didn't pick it up. That doesn't mean he did, that doesn't mean he  didn't.
It just means we didn't pick it up. They were a hundred and  forty miles away,
deep in the grass. Routine jamming, atmospherics--"  "Markham also says he
radioed O'Connell to ditch just off the coast--"  Van Damm washed the last of
his sandwich down with a slurp of coffee.

"It's not just a matter of range. It was hot, it was humid. All in  all, a
pretty lousy day for radio transmission. It's not like we have  this sponge that
soaks up everything that's in the air. You get some,  you lose some, OK? The
only traffic we picked up was out of Helsvagen  and that was pretty blotchy."

"Out ofHelsvagen?You mean from the Germans?"

Van Damm nodded. "

"Bout what you'd expect. Reports they'd been hit, requests for help.  Sounded
like they'd been hit as hard as we thought. They were asking
for everything: field hospitals, kitchens, tents, clothes, blankets,
fire-fighting equipment, the whole shopping list, soup to nuts. And  they
weren't quiet about it, either. The calls went out uncoded. They  don't usually
like us picking up on bad news, so for them to put out a  call like that in the
clear, they must've been really hurting. Things  quieted down by night; probably
re-established hard line communications  they lost in the raid. One thing I
could kick myself for, though."

"What's that?"

Van Damm slumped back in his chair, licking streaks of yolk from his  fingers.
He sighed contentedly.

"Damn, I needed that. You got a smoke? I left my cigars back at the  office. I
could really use a smoke right now."

Remembering the noxious episode in Van Damm's office, Harry would've  lied if
he'd had one.

"You were saying?"

"Oh, yeah. Remember me saying we'd originally pegged the kraut  personnel count
at about two hundred, right? And my Spy Brigade guess  was that it was probably
less by now?"

"Right."

"Well, spank me, I missed that one by the proverbial country mile. From  what we
could pick up, the Germans at Helsvagen were reporting  casualties in the
neighborhood of four hundred plus."

Thanks to Harry's shortcomings in map-reading, his drive from London to  Lewes
was longer and more winding than it need have been. Six times,  he pulled his
jeep to the side of the road, grappled with his map, and  looked vainly for
landmarks along the tree-lined lanes that crossed the  downs, each frustratingly
like another. Then, reminiscing mournfully  over the precision-engineered
Rolls-Royce of the night before, he  arm-wrestled the rebellious stick shift
into gear and off he rambled.

Still, the ride was not altogether unpleasant. The day was bright, the  colors
of the fields and trees, and the cows and sheep, quite vivid,  the terrals that
gently rocked the jeep were filled with the sweet  smells of earth and pasture.

There was something liberating about being far from the gray stoneworks  of
London and the even more drab uniform-filled corridors and court of  the Annex.

Close to noon Harry finally drew up in front of a millinery shop on one  of
Chillingham's side streets. He tapped on the dusty shop glass and a
woman's face have into view: a porcelain-white orb marred by the black  slash of
an eye patch.

Grassi's quick brief hadn't mentioned an injury and, for a moment,  Harry was
not sure how to react. He produced a well-meaning smile and  spoke slowly and
loudly, moving his lips in exaggerated fashion so even  if she couldn't hear him
through the glass, she could read his lips. He  pointed at her and asked,
"Elisabeth McAnn?"

She nodded with a smile--it surprised him that a young girl's face  marred by
that square of black cloth could smile--glanced at her watch,  then held up five
fingers.

He nodded and toddled off, found himself a news kiosk, bought a pack of  Players
for lack of anything American, then staked himself out a  lamppost and lit
himself a cigarette. When Elisabeth McAnn touched his  elbow, he was nearly
asleep.

"I think you're on fire," she said.

Harry batted at the smoldering cigarette caught in the folds of his  jacket. He
refrained from cursing in front of her and forced a  smile.

"Just mildly scorched," he said, frowning at a burnt smudge. As his  eyes came
up from his jacket he saw that she was leaning heavily on a  cane.

"Miss McAnn, I want to thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I  know
this isn't the best time. I mean, please accept my condolences  about
Lieutenant--" She smiled tolerantly, and interrupted him.

"Major Voss, is it? How did you get here? Did you drive? You must've  been on
the road for hours. I'm sure you could do with something to  eat. There's a fair
little tea shop round the corner if that's all  right?"

"I'm not too sure anything's going to sit well on my stomach. Rough  night."

She noted his haggard appearance with a nod and her smile turned  sympathetic.

"Frankly, I've been feeling a bit off myself, but I should have  something. Do
you mind .. . ?" She raised her arm, and Harry thought  she was offering it to
him as some ladylike gesture, but when he took  it, she leaned heavily against
him, limping as she walked, hanging the  cane in the crook of her arm.

The tea shop was small and quiet, just a few tables, each decked with a
fresh daisy in a water glass. The matronly little woman behind the  counter came
over to their table, nodding a familiar maternal smile at  the girl.

"Early lunch today, dear?"

"Just some tea and dry toast, please."

"And the gentleman? We have a plate of dainties you might like."

"Just tea, please."

"We only have saccharine, I'm afraid."

"That's fine, thanks."

The woman waddled off behind the counter. The girl pulled an empty  chair close,
hung her cane on the back, and propped her bad leg up on  the seat, tucking her
skirt up a few inches. Harry took care not to  let his eyes wander to the
exposed knee.

"On the phone you said you were from the Judge something-or-another,"  she said.

"I'm afraid I didn't take it all in."

"It sounded like I woke you up. Sorry."

She nodded it away as a trifle.

She was young, he thought, but he wasn't quite sure how much so. He'd  take in
the smooth skin, the slight cushion of baby fat in her cheeks,  and think she
wasn't yet twenty, but then focus on that black square  over a missing eye and
think she was years older ... or should have  been. She had a pleasant face made
striking by the contrast between  its whiteness and the jet hair that fell
straight round her face to her  shoulders, the sharp slash of matching eyebrows,
and the one eye, brown  but so dark as to look black. There was a lilt to her
voice, a subtle  un-English cadence.

"I'm with the Judge Advocate's Bureau."

"That sounds threateningly legal."

"I'm a lawyer with the Army."

"Oh," she said, raising her eyebrows slightly.

Elisabeth McAnn had a knack. Harry told me, of seeming, at first, as  ingenuous
as one would think natural for such a young girl. But in
that eye was a sharpness, a shrewdness, a knowing. And, just beneath  any other
feeling, easy to tap ... a sadness.

"And you're looking into his death, is that it? I was told he was  killed in a
crash. I didn't know there was anything .. ."--a flicker  of a mocking smile
here--".. . requiring the attention of, well, of  you."

"There's just been some questions over the crash--" "Nothing you can  discuss,
of course."

Harry blushed.

"Security and all that," she said.

He looked to her for any sign of rancor, but she merely seemed amused  at his
discomfiture.

"I wish I could tell you more--" he began.

Again, that dismissive nod, that it wasn't important. Or maybe just  not
unexpected.

Harry sat awkwardly silent for a moment, hesitant to push on.

She took the lead.

"Since I obviously know so little, Major, I don't see how I can help  you."

"I'm just trying to learn a little more about Lieutenant O'Connell. I
understand you two were, well .. ."

She nodded, amused again, smiling, again.

"I'm kind of surprised to see you back at work so soon. I thought  you'd take a
few days .. ."

"To mourn? Life marches on."

"So they say."

"Stiff upper lip and all that. Head up, give out with a verse or two  of
"There'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover," and press  on, eh?" She
said it casually, but Harry saw a cold flash in that one  dark eye.

"Well, that's the English way, they say. That must be my problem. Not  quite
English through and through."
"Irish, right? I could hear it."

"My Da," and the word touched that easy-to-reach sadness. She passed  it off
with a quick sigh.

"Mum was from over here. We came over before the war. Da was a  collier at one
of the mines, then the mine closed. Mum had a brother  who said he could get Da
a job in a shoe factory. In Coventry. Now,  there is no more Coventry."

Which, Harry took to mean, there was also no longer a shoe factory, a  Mum, or a
Da. All gone, he guessed, under the same rain of bombs that  had taken Elisabeth
McAnn's eye and maimed her leg.

"How well did you know Lieutenant O'Connell?"

"I loved him."

It was a bit more forthright than Harry had been prepared for. He  nodded,
clumsily trying to maintain a sense of savoir faire.

"You, um, couldn't have known him very long. I believe he'd only just  come
over--"

"They arrived in May. I met him in late June."

"Well, that' sum that isn't very long, is it?" he asked tentatively.

That amused smile, again, and that sadness, again: "How long did it  take you to
know you were in love with your wife?"

Harry reflexively moved his ring hand under the table.

"I didn't need to see the ring. There's a look about you."

"What kind of look?"

"A married look."

He laughed.

Their tea came. Harry stirred in some milk and saccharine. She took  one bite of
her toast, then set the bread down on the little serving  plate.

"Major, where is he?" she asked.

"Now?"

"Um, well, Scotland Yard. They have a ... facility." He didn't want
to use the word "morgue."

"Would it be possible for me to see him?"

Harry assumed he could arrange such a visit, but he had no wish for her  to see
the clinical butchery of a police postmortem.

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Miss McAnn. Just next of kin. I'm  sorry" "I
see. Perhaps that's best.

"Remember him as he was," isn't that what they always say? I saw him  just
before, you know. Yes, it would've been the day before. Sunday.  Because of the
rain. They had postponed the mission and given him an  overnight pass. We spent
it together." She stared off through the tea  shop window, off somewhere,
nowhere, as musing people do, missing  Harry's red-faced reaction to her
revelation. Her eye regained its  focus and turned back to Harry.

"What will happen to him?"

"I imagine they'll ship him home.-To his family so they can--" "They  won't want
him."

"Oh. In that case, the Army will arrange something."

"I wouldn't think he'd like that. Then again, I suppose he would be  the first
to appreciate the irony of it; the people he liked least  taking care of his
afterlife and such."

The conversation drifted after that, and Harry was reluctant to steer  it back
to business. She queried him about home, his wife and  children. Harry produced
the cracked photos tucked in his billfold. He  almost asked about her family,
but then remembered the look on her  face, the tone in her voice when she had
mentioned Coventry.

There was a pause in the chitchat and Harry thought perhaps this was  the time
to get back to the matter at hand, but then she asked how he  had traveled to
Chillingham.

"I have a jeep."

"Would you mind a short ride? I'm inside all day."

"How much longer do you have for lunch?"

"Bernice--she's the girl I work with--she went to great pains to make  it clear
I owe myself an indulgence or two."

"Then let's go," Harry said and paid the bill.
They did not drive far. Still, she seemed to enjoy the ride. She  slouched in
the seat, her head back, heedless of the wind whipping her  dark hair into a
tangle, turning her face toward the sun, where it met  the warm rays with a
closed eye and feline smile. She asked Harry to  pull to the side of the road
just outside of town. She kicked off her  shoes and held out her arm.

"Can I borrow you, again? I hate that thing," and she nodded at the  cane she'd
tossed in the back of the jeep.

Harry held out his arm, she took a firm and practiced grip and, leaning  against
him, they started through the thick grass, kicking up flurries  of small, pale
butterflies as they went. She directed them up a low  knoll overlooking the road
that wound south. They paused at the top  and she sagged against him to catch
her breath. Feeling the curve of  her breast against him. Harry held his
supporting arm away from his  body, inserting some prudent space between them.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded and stepped away, on her own, favoring the scarred leg. She  lowered
herself onto the grass facing away from the road, not bothering  to tuck her
hems properly about her. She scratched at where the grass  had licked at her
shins and Harry, for the first time, noticed that her  legs were bare, starkly
white except for the purplish parenthetical  scars about the one knee.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" she said.

Harry took in the expanse of open country, the hillocks sheathed in  waving
heather, the casual splay of an orchard, the flat mirror of a  pond, the shadows
of clouds slipping across the grasslands.

"Do you see that? Down there?" She pointed to a pile of brown stones  below,
almost invisible beneath tall weeds and shrubs.

"It goes back to the time of William the Conqueror. At least, that's  what they
say. Someone's home, they say.

I imagine all this must've looked much the same back then, don't you?  Do you
see the pond down there? On the other side of the orchard?  Sometimes this is
where we'd come. We liked it out here so much that  even when I wasn't working
he'd hire a bicycle, a tandem, and we'd come  out here with a basket of food.
And after, we'd go down and nick a few  apples from the orchard, and we'd swim
in the pond. From the road, no  one can see you."

The sun slipped into its next orbital degree and the little pond  suddenly lit
up like a flare, the sun dancing in a thousand glistening  fragments on the
minute wavelets stirred up by the wind. Harry
considered her reference to its privacy and wondered if that implied  that the
trysts in the water were more intimate than simple swimming.  He looked to see
if she'd noticed his discomfort, but she seemed lost  in memory.

They sat quietly for a few moments. Harry heard the distant buzz of an
aeroplane engine. He thought the noise drew a moan from the girl, but  then he
saw the lowing cows, their legs folded under them as they  nestled under the
apple trees, their tails flipping idly at flies as  their jaws ground at their
curls. He turned to her to make some droll  comment about the hard life of cows,
but stopped himself when he saw  her face. Perhaps it had been her he'd heard
after all.

She asked for a cigarette and Harry offered her one of his Players.

"I was hoping they'd be American," she said.

He apologized, but she took it anyway and he lit it for her. He didn't  like the
way the cigarette sat naturally between her little-girl  fingers, adding a
sullen maturity to her.

"You said you wanted to ask me about him?"

"Whatever you can tell me. Was there any .. . friction between him and  any of
the other men in his outfit?"

"Well, if you mean did anybody hate him, yes."

"Who?"

"All of them." She smiled at the uncomprehending look on his face.

"He wasn't like them. Major. He was no soldier. He didn't belong  here."

"I thought all pilots were volunteers."

She shrugged, offering no explanation.

"You said something about his family, about them not wanting him back.  Was
there a problem in the family?"

"He never said directly, but I gathered .. The same shrug.

"He doesn't seem to have volunteered much about himself."

"I didn't ask." She turned that one eye on Harry, and it grew dark and  hard.

"Look at me. Major. And tell me what you see."
Taken aback, Harry cleared his throat, smiled in a puzzled sort of way,  but she
didn't allow him to fumble his way to an answer.

"Eventually," she said, "you'll say something along the lines of, "I  see a very
pretty, very brave young girl." Someone like you would  probably be overly
polite and say 'young Jady." But you wouldn't say  'scarred." You wouldn't say
'crippled." But that's the truth of it,  eh? And if you're crippled and scarred
. The polite young men ignore  me. The softhearted ones pity me. And the
not-so-polite, well, some  have a sick idea of sport."

"Dennis O'Connell was different."

"He was different. He took me as I was. And I took him as he was."

"Meaning no questions."

"Meaning no questions." She closed her eye. A hand came up to massage  the
broad, white forehead as if she were in pain.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked her.

Her head came up and she smiled, a bit forced.

"Fine, thank you." She turned, looking back down at the lazing cows  below.

"The first time I saw him ... I let a bed sit above a pub here in town.  I was
just home from the shop and some of your lads from the field were  in the bar.
He was alone in a crowded room, if that makes any sense to  you. You could see
he wasn't one of them. They were all on about this  and that, flying, playing
darts, so on, playing at the war being quite  the game, working very hard at not
letting on how afraid they really  all are.. .. There's an old piano in the pub.
I don't know why; no  one ever plays it. I don't remember that anyone ever had.
He was  sitting at it. The poor old thing is so out of tune, but he could play
it well enough that you didn't hear it. Nice music. Not the popular  things his
mates wanted to hear. Classical, eh?

And to them, that was just a reason to mock him.

"Hey, Mozart, how about something that doesn't put people to sleep!  "You
understand? Then, later .. ."

"After the Germans hit Donophan?"

She looked off, to someplace west of the small town behind them, to  where,
Harry guessed, the aerodrome sat. Almost lost among the distant  trees and tall
grass he could see a broad, open expanse, a scattering
of low buildings marked by a military dullness, a crisscross of wide  tarmac
paths.

"We all knew," she said.

"Everyone in Chillingham. We could all see it that night. The  explosions. The
flames. Sometimes, when the wind is right, you can  still smell it.... All the
next day, until he could get me word, I  wondered ... I tried to prepare
myself.. ." She seemed to drift for a  moment, then remembered Harry and the
cigarette in her fingers. She  took a last puff then stubbed it out on the
ground.

"Even before that. They thought he was a coward. They said it to his  face."

"Was he?"

The amused smile flashed.

"How eagerly do you want to die, Major?"

He shrugged, conceding the point.

"I tried to talk him into deserting, you know. I still have family in  Ireland.

They'd've taken us in. But he'd have none of it."

"Why?"

"Obligation?" She considered that a moment, then shook her head, the  question
still unanswered.

"He kept putting in for a transfer, but they wouldn't let him go. I  had the
feeling they were going to keep him there until they turned him  into what they
wanted, or until the war ate them all up." The sadness  was back in her face.

"I suppose I'd been waiting for this. I knew one day he wouldn't come  back.
That was just .. . the way for him." Her eye closed, squeezed  hard, as if
whatever pain had been prodding at her now gave her a  sharp, deep stab.

"How much can they take from you .. ." It was whispered, not intended  to be
spoken aloud. She looked up, then held out her arm for his  assistance.

"I should get back."

He drove her back to the shop and walked her to the door.
"Thank you for taking the time."

"It didn't seem like so much."

"It was a help, though. Believe me."

"A coward would've run, wouldn't he, Major? Every day he looked the  other men
in the eye and said, "I don't want to do this." That's a  courage of a sort,
isn't it?"

Harry made a helpless gesture; it was a question too far outside his
provenance.

"You'll let me know how things are going? When there's something you  can tell
me?"

"Of course," he said.

"Then," and she surprised him by rising on the toes other good leg and  giving
him a little peck on the cheek, "good luck and good hunting."

He could feel his cheeks grow warm.

"Tallyho."

She gave him a last farewell grin and limped into the shop, the little  bell
over the door tinkling behind her. It was only then he realized  she'd never
spoken Dennis O'Connell's name.

The 351st had arrived on station in the sylvan fields outside of  Chillingham,
about thirty kilometers south of London, in late spring of  1943, and was
operational by June. They christened their aerodrome  after the first of their
number to lose his life in service of the  cause: a flame-haired
twenty-two-year-old from Decatur, Illinois, named  Wayne L. Donophan.

Ironically, Donophan had not died in combat, but in a training flight  gone
wrong a few weeks before the 351st had shipped out from America.  Naming the
field after him was the close-knit unit's way of keeping  alive a man who had
trained and flown by their side since the 3 51 st  was formed. Few in the group
had the experience to know that within a  month of becoming operational, there
would be more appropriate  candidates for canonization. In fact, depleted by
combat losses, and  rotations home of the grievously wounded and the blessed few
who  survived a full duty tour, by August first, few on the 351st's roster
remembered, or had even known, young Donophan.

The fields around Donophan no longer smelled sweetly of headier and
wildflowers.
Now the acrid smell of defeat was there, oily on Harry's skin even  before his
jeep reached the Chillingham crossing sometime that  mid-afternoon: that
nose-wrinkling stench of burnt petrol and scorched  wood. As he drew closer to
the aerodrome, the smell of a past burning  grew stingingly strong.

Harry girded himself for a scene of carnage, but as he drew up to the  aerodrome
gate he was surprised to see little beyond the perimeter  fence. To one side was
the flat expanse of the field, empty of  aircraft and people, the strips of
tarmac hidden by tall grass. To the  other side, haphazard earthworks just
inside the fence blocked his  view. He jerked the jeep to a halt at the gate.
Over the idle of its  engine he heard the sounds of construction--hammers and
saws--and above  the earthworks could see the flexing arm of some sort of
earth-moving  machine.

The sun was painfully bright on the white helmets of the gate

MP's. One detached himself from the cluster by the sentry box and  approached
Harry's jeep. Passing clouds dulled the sun long enough for  Harry to catch a
quick glimpse of the figure beneath the helmet: a  crisp, clean, razor-creased
uniform, neat coils of gold braid hanging  from a right-angled shoulder, buck
sergeant's stripes creased cleanly  through the apex of the chevrons, a holster
of burnished white leather,  boots that glowed as brightly as the helmet, and
the bold  black-and-white MP brassard. The MP studied Harry's AGO card for a
long time before handing it back and snapping out a precise salute.

Harry flapped a salute back, then started arm-wrestling with the jeep's  gear
stick, trying to coax the vehicle through the gate. After a  half-minute of gear
grinding that set the teeth of the gate MP's on  edge, Harry mercifully jiggled
the stick into gear. The jeep lurched  forward a meter and stalled.

"Tell you what, sir," the MP sergeant said.

"Just leave it here. One of the boys'll park it for you. It's not a  very long
walk. You can find Major Korczukowski in the Headquarters  building right over
there."

Harry mumbled a flustered thanks, grabbed his briefcase, and clambered  out. A
few steps through the gate and past the mounds of earth  blocking his view, and
Harry's pace faltered. The MP's posted at the  gate were the polished machines
of the Provost Marshal's office, he now  realized. Nothing that spit-and-polish
could be native to Donophan  Airfield.

And it was not the sounds of construction that Harry had heard, but
deconstruction. Beyond the piles of earth, few solid structures still
stood, and those only barely. The sounds of hammers and saws, the  groaning of
crowbars were the work of labor crews stripping their  remains, vultures picking
among broken bones for scraps.

A new smell arose from the mounds where the earthmover was working, a  sickening
rot that went immediately to his stomach. Amidst the piles  of dirt a Negro
soldier sat atop a backhoe clawing at the ground. A  squad of other workers
clustered round, some carrying picks and  shovels. All had rags wrapped round
their faces, covering their noses  and mouths. A corpse, its wrapping of white
canvas streaming dirt,  rose from a hole in the earth. The wrapping was still
bright;  interment had been recent. The workers standing round the rim carried
the body to where two dozen other bundles lay neatly arranged side by  side. The
soldiers set the corpse down among its fellows and returned  to where the
backhoe was opening a fresh hole.

Harry held a handkerchief over his mouth and nose and nodded one of the
soldiers over.

"What's going on?"

"Ey's goin' home," the soldier replied.

Headquarters was an ugly, one-story clapboard building. From somewhere  inside,
above the sound of hammers and crowbars at work, Harry could  hear the faint
crackling of a wireless newscast. He stepped inside the  screen door to stand
before an empty reception desk. There was a  bulletin board behind the desk with
the usual layer of yellowed sheets  tacked to it: memoranda, scores from the
inter squadron softball  league, notes of items for sale or purchase. A poster
warned pilots to  "Avoid performing aerobatics at low altitudes--Hitler laughs
every time  we crash." The main hall of the building was cut short by a
tarpaulin  hung from the ceiling. There were doors on either side of the hall,
some barred by planks nailed across them. The door marked "Adjutant"  was
unobstructed. The hammering seemed to be coming from just the  other side. Harry
stepped up to the door and knocked.

When there was no answer he swung the door open and found himself  staring into
blue sky and emerald fields. The rear half of the  building had been blown away.

Fresh dirt had been poured to fill the bomb crater. A labor crew was
dismantling the building one plank at a time, saving the nails in  coffee cans
and putting the wood in neat piles.

"Where's Major Korczukowski?" Harry asked.

The crew shrugged.

"Maybe inside?" one ventured.
"Yeah?"

Harry turned at the voice behind him to find a broad figure propped in  the door
stenciled "Commanding Officer."

"Major Korczukowski?"

"You must beVoss." Leo Korczukowski nodded Harry into the office.

"I've been using the CO's office while mine's being .. . redecorated.  Grab a
seat while I turn this off." There was a small wireless set in  a corner of the
office. Harry couldn't quite make out what the excited  newscaster was going on
about, drowned out as he was by the sounds of  cheering and marching bands in
the background.

"Sounds like good news."

Korczukowski switched off the wireless. He eased himself into the  squeaking
swivel chair behind the wooden desk.

"Patton marched into Messina this morning. Sicily's ours."

"That is good news."

Korczukowski shrugged with little apparent concern. From across the  hall, Harry
had thought the adjutant's rugger build intimidating, but,  up close, the major
was not unlike the buildings Harry could see  through the screened windows
behind the desk: still standing but  battered, scarred. Despite the natural way
his uniform hung on his  broad shoulders, the admirably erect bearing, and the
piercing dark  eyes, Leo Korczukowski was no soldier. Like so many of his
countrymen,  he had only taken up the uniform in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
Before  that, he'd run a family business making and selling furniture, and at
the time Harry met with him, more than any other time in his military  service,
he hungrily ached for home.

The adjutant nodded Harry toward a chair across the desk. Harry took a  few
steps into the office but did not sit.

He felt every bit as intrusive as he had at Halverson's office, with  that same
sense of stumbling upon a mourner. He fidgeted on his feet  by the proffered
chair and let his eyes wander round the office,  avoiding those weary, annoyed
eyes across from him.

It was a small room with bare wooden walls marked by dark-colored  squares where
framed items had once hung. The top of the large,  scuffed desk was clear but
for a pack of Camels and a Zippo lighter.  Behind Harry a large, framed map of
Europe hung on the wall. Red  ribbon marked paths Harry recognized as the
approach and return courses
of the Monday raid. But the major attraction was behind Korczukowski,  framed by
three screened windows in a hellish triptych: Donophan  Airfield.

In every direction the field was pocked with the earthen blotches of  filled-in
bomb craters. Vehicles, blown to pieces, had been dragged  into tidy rows to be
stripped of usable parts. Other  debris--splintered and burnt lumber, twisted
metal lockers, shredded  bedding, the broken eggshells of blasted Quonset
huts--had been  bulldozed together into tangled piles. Fire, shrapnel, and
concussion  had tainted everything, even those buildings still standing. And
beyond that, the backhoe heaved and flexed and lifted another  canvas-wrapped
bundle from the dirt.

"If you're staying," Korczukowski said dryly, "you might as well have a  seat."

they're going to do with us. Save the pieces and build it up again, or  just
wrap it up and send it home."

He said "home" and Harry heard the sputter of the backhoe.

Korczukowski bent his head, a debate going on within himself, then he  held out
the pack of Camels to Harry. Harry drew one, Korczukowski lit  it for him, and
they started walking again.

"What do you want to know?" the adjutant repeated.

"Tell me about Colonel Adams and Major MarkhamThey were good friends, I
understand."

"From the start. Not just friends. They respected each other. Frank  Adams was a
good commander. Fair. Not one of those brass hats likes  to bark just to see you
jump. But he knew he was green, that he didn't  know much more about actual
combat flying than the boys under his  command. Al had been logging combat time
since Spain, all the way back  to the beginning, I think, in '36. Frank wasn't
going to act like a  hotshot just because he had brass on his shoulder. That's
not how he  was. When he didn't know something, he turned to Al and said, "I
don't  know; teach me You could tell Al hadn't met too many officers like  that.

"You know, they actually met each other--Al and Frank--long before the  group
was formed up. When Al and J. J.-Captain Anderson-dropped out of  the Eagle
Squadron to join up with our air, they were assigned to teach  fighter tactics
in Oklahoma. Frank was there to learn, and that's  where he bumped into Al for
the first time. That would've been in '41,  even before Pearl. Then, they
transfer Frank here, move him there--you  know the way the Army does--and then
they send him to Texas to head up  a new group. This would've been last summer.
Frank found out that Al
had been transferred to the fighter school in San Antonio. He couldn't  think of
anybody better to help him bring the group up, so he wangled a  transfer for Al.
He brought him on as a squadron commander. A month  after we activated here he
was air exec, the number two man."

"And Anderson?"

"J. J. was Al's idea. I think Frank thought he might be a bit much,  you know?
J. J."s all right, don't get me wrong. A little wild,  upstairs and on the
ground, but you get pilots like that. Feel if  they're not raising hell, why
bother to get up in the morning? Al  could keep him from getting in too much
trouble, so Frank went along  with it when he asked that J. J. come in with him.
Tolerated him, I  guess is the best way to put it."

Korczukowski shook his head in amusement.

"Great combat flier, J. J. Lousy officer." He paused and sighed  wistfully.

"This group," he nodded at the field around them, "no matter what the  roster
said about who was the CO and who was the exec, Frank and Al  commanded it
together." He spat out a flake of tobacco.

"Not that you haven't heard this already, but for the record: They  didn't come
much better than Frank Adams, except maybe for Al Markham.  I'll tell you
something else you probably already know: If there's a  better pilot than Al,
you and me don't know him. Not Bong, not  Gabreski, not Boyington. Nobody's
better."

"That's pretty much what I've heard."

"Then you heard right."

"In fact, I've only heard one major criticism of Markham--"  Korczukowski
stopped and faced Harry.

"All that crap about Al being too close to the men? Yeah, I know about  that.
I'm the adjutant here, Voss. I see all the paper that goes in  and out of here.
Officer Fitness reports, Officer Evaluation sheets,  memos, letters .. . You
want the poop on that? Al squawked about  defective tracers, gun stoppages,
props running wild on takeoff... When  what we had worked, he squawked about
what we didn't have: self-sealing  fuel tanks, metal drop tanks, whole milk,
chow that didn't look like  dog food, indoor plumbing .. . Sure, if you're
sitting up at Wing you  start thinking. Boy, this guy Markham's a royal pain in
the can, ain't  he? He's always up here with some beef! But we weren't up at HQ.
It  didn't look like he was being a pain to us, and it sure as hell didn't  look
that way to the kids that had to go upstairs."
The words had come in a heated burst. Belatedly, Korczukowski realized  that
Harry had merely made a statement, not an accusation. He began  walking again.

"If it was such a big, happy family here," Harry posed, "what about  Dennis
O'Connell?"

A dark cloud passed over Korczukowski's face; he'd apparently spent  much time
brooding over that same subject himself.

"That poor kid was a disaster waiting to happen. It didn't take long  to see it
coming."

"O'Connell wanted out of the group?"

"Toward the end seemed like week in, week out he was in my office with  a new
request for a transfer."

"But Markham kept him here."

The superior twist of Korczukowski's lips was that of someone who knows  what
the interrogator fails to understand.

"For one thing, Al wasn't going to dump his problems on another outfit.  You
must've done enough nosing around to know that he wasn't that kind  of guy. For
another, he didn't think Dennis O'Connell was the foul-up  everybody else
figured he was. Frank Adams did. Frank went one  better: he thought O'Connell
was a gutless wonder, pure and simple.  Wanted to bust him, tag him for
Leavenworth. A lot of the other guys  picked up on that, gave O'Connell a rough
time. Can't say I blame  them. You go up and damned near get your tail shot off,
then come home  to find out this guy aborted before he even got to the Channel
because  some wire in his radio jiggled itself loose ... or one morning he
sticks his finger down his throat, pukes, and puts himself on sick call  so he
doesn't have to fly. Your temper's going to wear a little thin,  right? Voss,
nobody particularly gives a damn what your problems are  up there.

They go and you don't, and that's all that counts. They try and you  don't. That
keeps up and one day somebody's going to throw a punch."

"But that's not how Markham felt?"

"First mission, Dennis O'Connell was textbook. He scored the group's  first
kill.

Didn't know that, did you? Then .. . something happened. Jekyll and  Hyde. The
kid who flew that first sortie was not the kid who flew that  last one."
"He got scared?"

Korczukowski looked surprised, then smiled his superior smile again.

"Nobody wants to die, Voss. You're fighting the cold, the g's, the  krauts, you
mix it up a mile in the air and in a few minutes either  you're coming home a
hero or you're not coming home at all. Only the  psycho cases aren't scared.
You'd have to be crazy not to crap in your  pants up there." Korczukowski tilted
his head back and watched a  flight of sparrows dart low across the field.

"Sometimes they just wear out. The medics call it 'combat fatigue." Or  maybe
O'Connell did just get scared. One day, a guy wakes up and it  occurs to him if
he goes out enough times the odds say he won't come  back. Whatever it is you
have to put on the shelf so you can keep  doing what these kids have to do,
well, he couldn't put it on the  shelf; not and keep it there. He was a
sensitive kid, Voss. And what  makes you a good poet makes you a lousy soldier."
Korczukowski gave an  embarrassed smile, self-conscious over his brief attack of
lyricism.

"Al tried to turn him around. He looked at how the kid started and  tried to get
him back to that."

"Teach him to be a good soldier for his own good, right?"

Korczukowski studied Harry closely for a sign of skepticism.

"Voss, Al tried to be there for all his men. All of them. You know,  once he
made air exec, his kill rate went straight down the toilet. He  wasn't up there
chasing bandits anymore.

He didn't care about running up a score, not that he ever did. He was  all over
the sky, watching after his boys, keeping their tails clear,  babying the hurt
ones home. And he was up there every day he could go,  more than Frank Adams
wanted, more than the medics said was safe."

"Maybe too much."

"Maybe. Maybe Frank Adams and the medics and the brass hats at Wing  were right.

Maybe Al's way wasn't the best way to run the show. I don't know. But  that's
the way it was run here and it worked. You never get over being  afraid of dying
unless, like I said, you're some kind of Section Eight.  But they were never
afraid to go up with him. They didn't go up for  God or the United States or FDR
or the flag or their mothers. They  went up for him, Voss, because he was the
one who'd watch their  asses."

"So, for whatever reason, Markham wanted O'Connell kept here. And
Adams let him have his way."

"Well, they fought about it. A lot. Especially as time went by and it  looked
like O'Connell was getting worse. But this was Frank's first  combat command
and, like I said, Al had been at this for a lot of  years. I think Frank gave in
to that." Korczukowski's face twisted.

"Something else?" Harry nudged.

"I knew that kid, Voss. I was the one he came to with his transfer  requests.

Whatever was eating at him, you could see he wasn't cutting it.  Sometimes he'd
come in, he was practically in tears. And it was  getting to the other pilots.

Nobody wanted to fly with him. If O'Connell was on your wing you  couldn't trust
him to keep your tail clear. Forget what it was doing  to morale: Upstairs, he
risked getting somebody killed. I'd  think--like you--let's just get rid of him.

You don't want to bust him, fine, let's send him to ATE, let him fly  cargo for
the duration. It didn't look like keeping him here was doing  anybody any good.

Including himself. I wonder about it, and I think, maybe, what it was  .. ."

Harry waited patiently while Korczukowski sought the right words.

"Those things O'Connell couldn't put on the shelf?" the adjutant  continued.

"Al's been putting them there a long time. Maybe convincing O'Connell  was a way
of keeping himself convinced."

They were by the cemetery now, watching the work gang. The rank of  shrouded
corpses had grown quite long, a corduroy road leading home.

"You know what I think hurt Al most?" Korczukowski nodded at the white  bundles
laid elbow to elbow.

"That he couldn't do anything to help them that night. This was a guy,  when
someone in his outfit went down, he wrote the letter home himself.  But this ..
. After that night, he couldn't even look over here."

Harry turned away from the graves. Across the field the sun touched  two
aluminum bodies and a pair off-47 Thunderbolts lit up like flame.

"Those their ships?" he asked.
Korczukowski turned, saw where Harry was looking, and nodded. Without  being
asked, the adjutant led the way across the grass, past the  blackened, roofless
ribs of the hangars and the scorched revetments.  Two open-backed trucks were
parked by a tangled mountain of debris  piled on the charred and patched grounds
of the apron. Harry could see  the mound was made up of what had been the
aircraft of the 351st  Fighter Group. Each craft had been surgically stripped of
all usable  parts: spinners, propellers, exhaust pipes, landing wheels, canopy
stripping. The hulks themselves were being loaded piecemeal onto the  trucks.

They would be carted away to foundries, stripped even further, and then  melted
down. The aluminium would go into new aircraft bodies; me  Plexiglas into new
cockpits and gun blisters; me rubber into oxygen  masks, truck tires, periscope
eye cups; die steel into trucks, tanks,  bomb casings, perhaps to wind up
another burned-out hulk, to be  stripped and sent through me cycle again.

Harry reached into his jacket for his note cards. He leafed through  them as he
and Korczukowski walked, checking to see if any points  remained to be covered
with the adjutant. Again, he had that sense of  puzzle pieces all there but
refusing to come together. He flipped to  the cards based on his interview with
General Halverson.

"There's some chronology I'd like to get straight," Harry said.

"Shoot."

"The raid on Helsvagen was initially set for Saturday morning."

" It rained Saturday, then we needed a day for the field to dry."

"I know. General Halverson told me he sent his report--an assessment  General
DiGarre wanted on the group--Halverson sent that up to DiGarre  on Friday."

Korczukowski shrugged.

"I guess."

"You didn't know about that?"

"I knew about the report. I helped Al put the info together for it,  then sent
it up to Wing. That would've been Wednesday, Wednesday  night. I dragged my feet
on it. We all did. We were figuring once  DiGarre had the numbers in front of
him he'd do something to make us  scrub."

Harry flipped through his note cards.
"Did you ever hear from DiGarre's office?

Did anybody from GHQ ever contact Donophan?"

"Not that I know of. Something like that, especially if it had to do  with the
shape we were in, if it didn't go through me I would've at  least been party to
it."

"Did all the dealings with DiGarre go through Halverson?"

"That's the normal chain of command. From us to Wing, Wing to  Division. I don't
know why that's bothering you."

"I would think, considering how badly you were hit, just because of the  extent
of, well .. ." Harry held up his hand and offered the  devastated aerodrome.

"The general might've taken a more, oh, personal interest."

"I do not pretend to be able to understand the minds of generals."

Fair enough, Harry thought, but .. . "Halverson dragged his feet on  that
report, too. He saw things the way you did; that once DiGarre saw  the report,
he'd stand-down the 351st. Halverson didn't send his  report up to DiGarre until
Friday, assuming that it would still be too  late for DiGarre to do anything to
interfere with the Saturday mission.  But the mission didn't go off until
Monday.

That seems like an awful long time for DiGarre to be sitting with that  report."

It was Korczukowski's turn to frown.

"It does." He shrugged again.

"Generals," he said, as if that could explain anything.

They stopped before the two P-47's parked wingtip to wingtip in a  remote corner
of the apron, their black-painted muzzles turned slightly  toward each other. A
half-dozen of the spit-shined Provost MP's were  picketed round the aeroplanes.

Harry's ID got him past the MP's but the adjutant chose not to follow.  Harry
stood between the uplifted black noses of the Thunderbolts. Their  cockpit
canopies were peeled back, and the inspection ports in the  wings were still
open from when Scotland Yard's ballistics personnel  had extracted their guns.
Harry stepped closer, standing beneath the  two great propellers.
"Were all the ships in the group the same?"

"What?" Korczukowski hadn't heard him; Harry had been unable to turn  away from
the cyclopean stare of the air intakes.

"Were all the ships in the group the same?" he asked again.

"We were phasing out the D-25's with E's," Korczukowski replied.

"There were still a few--" Perhaps it was the psychological effect of  looking
up at the two craft looming over him high on their landing  gear, solid and
thick with muscle, but when Harry thought back to the  broken-backed wreck of
O'Connell's plane it came to him twisted and  dwarfish.

"I saw O'Connell's ship. It looked smaller."

"Shouldn't be."

Harry moved closer. He could see the open ports in the wings where the  guns had
been set, and next to them where the ponderous metal-link  ammunition belts had
been neatly laid, fold upon fold. And there,  under the wings, were the
extraction slots where the empty casings  tumbled out.

From a distance, the sun had given the ships a pristine glow, as if  they'd come
freshly poured from the foundry, but now Harry could see  each ship's battle
wear. The shining aluminum showed scuffs, and  around the exhausts were smoke
and oil stains. The once smooth, ovoid  bodies were blemished with dents.
Patches of metal were bolted here  and there on the wings and fuselages, and
there was a scattering of  small holes--bullet holes, he guessed--too fresh to
have been patched.  But even marred, unmanned, and unarmed as the planes were.
Harry felt  puny and vulnerable before them.

I've stood before a Thunderbolt and I've felt the same way. The P-47  looks as
if nothing will get it off the ground. Its elliptical wings  look too frail and
short to generate enough lift to push the thick body  into the air; it waddles
about taxiways like a lost farmyard orphan.  There was so much difficulty seeing
over the bulbous nose that  ground-crew men were required to stand to the side
where they could be  seen from the cockpit in order to guide the pilots along
the tarmac.  The men who flew her and the ground crews who cared for her had
nicknamed her "the Jug" and despite an evolving series of modifications  since
Number One had rolled off the production line two years before;  in August of
1941, the Thunderbolt was still the largest, heaviest, and  most heavily armored
single-seat, single-engine fighter anywhere in the  world.

She was also the ugliest. She'd been built a brute to do a brutish
job, but if that made her stagger along on the ground like a wounded  bird, she
became a different animal in the air. The model in use by  the 3 S 1 st was
powered by a 2000-hp Pratt Whitney Double Wasp radial  engine giving her a
top-rated speed, in level flight, of over 540 kph,  meaning that in those days
the fattest, ugliest fighter in the world  also happened to be one of the
swiftest. The great weight that so  bogged her down on the ground also meant
that no other aircraft, with  the possible exception of the twin-boomed Lockheed
P-38 Lightning,  could match her in a dive. (I'd heard that the "hotshot" pilots
who'd  first tested her had, off the record, pushed her diving speed close to
1000 kph.) She could cover over 1000 kilometers on the petrol she  carried on
board, and had wing and belly stations for either auxiliary  tanks to stretch
that range, or for bombs or rockets.

The truly brutish part of her job was to provide a platform for the  battery of
guns set in her wings: eight M2 .50-caliber machine guns  sighted on convergent
lines of fire and fed by 2400 rounds of  ammunition. The manual will tell you
that each of those weapons can  fire a variety of steel-jacketed ammunition up
to a maximum range of  almost 7000 meters at a rate of 450 rounds per minute.

Smiling young men who a few months before were chasing ponytailed bobby  soxers
told me that with as much pressure as it takes to flick a fly  from your tea
cake, a touch of the firing button, held for a  three-second burst, will produce
approximately forty kilos of lead.  They will tell you that when forty kilos of
steel-jacketed lead  traveling at high velocity meets a German aircraft at the
point where  the eight lines of fire converge, a target disintegrates.

Harry had seen O'Connell's body, the holes punched in his ship, through  his
seat and body armor. He had seen the Gresham household. He knew  the capacity of
the napping guard dogs looking down on him.

"We had more planes than pilots after the krauts hit us," Korczukowski  said.

"A

stick of bombs went right through the barracks quad where the pilots  slept.

That's how we lost so many of them. The extras, the other planes,  they've
already been flown off as replacements to the other groups.  Anderson flew that
one. It wasn't his, his was lost in the kraut raid.  But Al flew his own ship."

Harry edged toward the aeroplane with "Markham" stenciled below the rim  of the
cockpit. His kills had been laid out just underneath, canted  swastikas arranged
below the flags under which he'd earned them: one  under the flag of the Spanish
king, two under the French tricolor,
twenty-one under the British jack, and six under the Stars and Stripes.  Toward
the nose. The Cleveland Indian had been painted in fire-engine  red. Below was
pictured a hawk-faced caricature of an American Indian  in a Cleveland baseball
uniform, a brave's feather stuck in his cap.  The Indian was grinning
feverishly, his mouth full of massive white  teeth, as he cocked his bat and
sighted on an oncoming baseball. The  ball wore a swastika on its rear; on its
front was a Hitler face full  of horrified anticipation.

Korczukowski gestured at the artwork on the ship's nose.

"Some of these kids blew a month's pay to get somebody to do a good job  like
that. But that was Al's ground crew's idea. Even the name. They  were proud they
were his crew, Voss. If you asked him, I'll bet he  couldn't even tell you how
many kills he has. I don't think he wants  to know."

Harry pulled himself up on the low trailing edge of the wing. He  walked along
the root of the wing, his fingers tracing along the  sun-warmed aluminum of the
fuselage. The cockpit smelled of leather,  oil, and sweat. The seat was faded
and cracked by the sun, the leather  indelibly imprinted with a human form
impressed by hours of piloted  flight. Peering into Dennis O'Connell's cockpit
two days earlier,  Harry had been too distracted by other matters to notice the
cramped  quarters, but now, in Markham's ship, he shuddered claustrophobically.
He reached into the cockpit and his index finger rested on the firing  button of
the control stick. He looked over his shoulder to the open  gun ports, assuring
himself that there was nothing there, then pushed  the button. It didn't take
much pressure at all. Even a child .. .

Korczukowski went for his Camels but the package was empty. He  crumpled the
package, prepared to toss it, but then thought better of  it and tucked the
crackling ball of cellophane into a trouser pocket.

"Would you like to stop in and say hello to Fritz? We set him up in  the mess
tent."

Harry climbed down from the wing. It took him a moment to recall the
Katzenjammer reference.

"Which one's Fritz?"

"The nice one."

"Ah. Captain Ricks. Where'd you put Hans Grassi?"

"Nowhere. He didn't come in today. You didn't know that?"

"No," "Maybe the little fella's playing hooky."

"If he is, the little fella's going to get a good talking-to."

They ended at Harry's jeep, parked not far from the gate by the sentry  MP's.

Harry proffered his own package of cigarettes.

"They're Players, I'm afraid."

Korczukowski smiled appreciatively and drew one.

"They'll do. Thanks." He lit the cigarette, then turned to where the  backhoe
was still at work.

"I keep meaning to write to their folks. But forty-seven letters is a  lot of
letters to write. The way the Army does it ... "The Secretary  of War regrets to
inform you ."

" The adjutant was referring to the little Western Union scooter that  would
put-put down a street, people growing quiet as they stood by  their curtains to
see if it would stop or go by. Then the put-put  would cease and it was like
counting until thunder came after the  lightning, those few seconds needed to
read the Army's terse form of  sympathy, then would come that high, pained wail.

"Anybody deserves better than that. Even O'Connell. I don't know what  to tell
them. Especially O'Connell's folks."

"I'd prefer you didn't tell them anything. Any of the families. At  least until
this is cleared up."

"Is that an order?"

With a call to Halverson's office. Harry could've seen that it was.

"A request," he said, sliding behind the wheel of his jeep.

Korczukowski looked from Harry to the cemetery, then back to Harry.

"OK'Voss. A request. Granted."

Then Korczukowski was heading back toward the Headquarters building.  Harry's
foot went for the starter but stopped.

His exhaustion rose up in him, and that and his exchange with the sad  figure of
the adjutant left him drained. He glanced at his watch; it  was after three. He
had less than two hours before Joe Ryan's deadline  for closing his
investigation, and he was no closer to the key he had  sought than he had been
in the conference room seven hours earlier.

Were Harry an experienced criminal solicitor, the case might well have  ended
that afternoon, for Ryan was right: with means, opportunity, and  even a
serviceable--if arguable--motive. Harry had all he needed for a  court-martial
panel to put the accused promptly on the gallows.

But Harry was not an experienced criminal solicitor. His livelihood  had been
deeds and documents, legal swot work. Harry had lived by his  ability to see
every t crossed and each i neatly dotted. Sitting there  in his jeep,
contemplating his case, he kept coming across t's that  adamantly refused to be
crossed, and i's that would not dot.

Once again he pulled his note cards from his jacket. He would have  preferred to
lay them out on the grass of the aerodrome but images of  himself chasing
wind-tossed cards across the field to the amusement of  the gate MP's
discouraged the impulse. He slipped on his reading  glasses and nipped through
the deck of cards.

Al Markham had murdered O'Connell; the physical evidence was clear. But
everything Harry had learned about Markham indicated the flier would  have been
more likely to throw himself in the way of guns aimed at the  luckless
lieutenant than to be the man behind them. Harry could not  accept the
contention that a man who had fought courageously in two  wars, survived nearly
seven years of combat by his superb flying skill,  had been cited by four air
forces for his valor and leadership, and was  a wizard pilot rated Double First
as a commander by his peers, could  have suddenly--and briefly--gone completely
potty and downed O'Connell  and attacked the Greshams.

Let's dispense with the Markhamgoesberserkfortwo-minutes theory, he  thought. He
closed his eyes, and tried to send his tired mind back  through his mental
files.

The shootings on the coast had seemed desperate. Anyone can be  desperate: even
a Markham. Desperation is simply the last act left to  someone who considers all
reasonable actions exhausted. But desperate  to accomplish what? There was that
troublesome question of motive  again.

Back to basics, he thought. Why do people murder?

Rage. Anger. Revenge. Jealousy. Gain. Self-defense.

Doesn't apply here. Why else?

Fear. To silence someone. To conceal something. A secret.

What would make Markham desperate enough to kill O'Connell so rashly  when,
where, and how he did would be to keep O'Connell from revealing  something that
had occurred earlier in the mission. That, in turn,  meant the thing that
required concealing--the motive--lay somewhere on  the other side of the
Channel.

"Excuse me. Major."

The delicate poke at his shoulder snapped Harry's eyes open. He turned  and saw
the concerned face of the MP sergeant from the gate.

"You all right, sir? You having a problem with the jeep again? I saw  you--"
"Fine, fine. Did you see which way Major Korczukowski went?

"Then Harry was off to find the adjutant to ask him for use of a  telephone.

Korczukowski escorted him to the field tent serving as communications  center,
then discreetly ushered the comm personnel out, leaving Harry  alone with a
telephone and his call to General Halverson.

"General, remember you said that whatever I needed to--" "I know what I  said.
Major. What do you need?"

"Well, it's a pretty big request."

"Go ahead."

" I need an aerial photo reconnaissance flight, maybe more than one.  Maybe a
single flight can cover it all."

"Cover what all?

"The general's voice was irritated. Harry couldn't tell if it was the  size of
the request or its vagueness that was the cause.

"I need them to cover Markham's return route from the Helsvagen fuel  dump. At
least the area where Markham says they were jumped by the  Germans. And, I
suppose, they should get pictures of Helsvagen,  too."

"You suppose?"

"They should."

Thereafter, there were those who would say that Harry had acted  recklessly,
that his obsession to make a bigger case overrode any other  consideration. But
in truth, he had no real idea what he was after. He  was just being his usual
conscientious, diligent self. Despite his  uniform, Harry was no soldier, and so
had not even the experience to  contemplate the eventual truth.

So, when General Halverson objected that such a recon was unnecessary  because
Jon-Jacob Anderson's gun film plainly showed the attack on the  fuel depot.
Harry persisted that photos should still be taken of  Helsvagen. He pushed not
out of suspicion, but out of the very  Harry-like desire to be comprehensive.

"The gun films only cover the fuel dump," he explained to Halverson.

"I need pictures of the area around the town."

Consequently, no one was more surprised than Harry when the recon  photos came
back later that day to show that the Belgian village of  Helsvagen was burning.
PART TWO:

THE FALL
CHAPTER SIX

ULTIMA RATIO RE GUM

they WERE ALL GATHERED IN THE briefing amphitheater of the G-2 complex  beneath
Grosvenor Square. Voices rebounded harshly off the raw walls  still awaiting a
coat of acoustic tiles. Scuffed and cramped school  writing desks were filling
in for the planned padded seats, and raked  desks with little attached reading
lamps. The portals for the  unfinished projection room were boarded over, and
Major Christian Van  Damm stood at the front of the room trying to make do with
a small  motion picture screen whose tripod tottered on the bare floor.
Roughhewn as it was, however, the briefing theater, off in a freshly  dug but as
yet uninhabited part of the subterranean sprawl, provided a  measure of desired
privacy.

Van Damm's audience was sunk in darkness, betrayed only by curls of  cigarette
smoke snaking through the projector's beam, and the clearing  of throats
irritated by the cement dust shedding from the walls  whenever the muffled
drills were at work elsewhere in the complex.  Grassi was there, co-opted by Van
Damm to operate the projectors set on  a rolling cart, and so was Ricks, alone
in a far corner of the room.  Harry sat with Joe Ryan, close to the projectors.
Harry's attention  was on the screen but he could hear the tap-tap-tap of the
legs of  Ryan's chair as the colonel nervously rocked back and forth on the
uneven floor. And General Halverson was there, sitting alone near the  room's
center, above and behind them all, his only visible sign the  glowing tip of his
cigarette, pulsing like a stuttering heart.

Van Damm's pointer floated into the ray of light and toward the screen  as
Grassi fed the first photo into an opaque projector.

"These were taken just about three hours ago," Van Damm began.

"They're of the general vicinity where Markham claims he was bounced by  kraut
fighters. The photo passes were made at about five thousand  feet, which allowed
us to cover a good amount of area in the least  amount of time. That seemed the
best way to handle the run since we  didn't know how long the krauts were going
to let us dawdle out  there.

"That we didn't find anything doesn't prove much either way. Markham's  not sure
where the intercept took place. We're working on a best-guess  and that means we
could've missed the actual crash site by miles. We've  got the added problem
that we're not looking for much:

wreckage from two burned-out fighters. Two days after the fact those
Thunderbolts could've already been carted off for scrap, so, even if we  were in
the right spot, there might not be anything there left to see."  Van Damm
signaled to Grassi with the pointer and the lieutenant ran
several aerial photographs through the projector, each showing an  unblemished
checkerboard of cultivated fields and irrigation ditches,  each accompanied by
his announcement:

"See? Nothing .. . Nothing .. . Nothing .. ."

Van Damm had Grassi turn off the opaque projector, and the film  projector
sitting next to it flickered to life.

"What you're going to see now, gentlemen, is Captain Anderson's gun  film from
the mission on August fifteenth, two days ago."

The grainy film image was disorienting, fields and trees moving closely  beneath
the camera so swiftly as to be only slightly more than a  blur.

"Here's his first pass," Van Damm told them.

"The approach is low, under a hundred feet maybe, as down in the grass  as you
can go without wheels, and he's coming in flat out, maybe four  hundred per or
more. Chances are they never heard or saw him coming.  He's coming up out of the
southwest. You can't see the village, it's  too low, on the other side of the
fuel dump. All you're going to be  able to make out are the tanks.

You'll just have a second--" Van Damm's pointer darted at some gray  smudges and
then the image shuddered, the picture flashed and white  columns streaked from
both sides of the screen, converging on the  image's vanishing point.

"OK," Van Damm said, speaking urgently now.

"These are the trails from Anderson's rockets and these here, up in the  corner,
those are from O'Connell's--And boom, there go the fuel  tanks!"

The image shook again: The gray smudges vanished in two enormous,  swelling
mushrooms of fire.

Ryan's chair stopped rocking. Grassi whistled appreciatively. Ricks's  voice was
a prayerful, "Good God ..." Harry looked back into the dark  toward where
Halverson was sitting, but there was no sound; just the  sporadic pulsing of the
general's cigarette tip.

Harry turned back to the screen. The camera angle was shifting sharply  skyward,
clouds darting by, capturing Anderson's extreme maneuvering to  avoid the
fireballs that were still rising, spreading, licking at the  edge of the frame.

"Now he comes around, steadies himself, and this is his second and
final pass.

According to Anderson's debriefing statement, at this point O'Connell's  already
on his way home. Now here, he's working over this line of  buildings across from
where the tanks used to be. There's not much  left. You can see they're already
burning, but he hits them anyway,  first with the rest of his rockets and then
with strafing. You can see  his tracers working them over: headquarters, comm
shack, barracks,  motor pool, so on."

The image quivered from the recoil of Anderson's wing guns. Harry saw  little
balls of light, the tracers, floating earthward to disappear  into the maelstrom
of smoke and flames and fresh explosions that now  completely obscured the
ground. In a gap in the smoke he caught a  fleeting glimpse of a human figure,
the only one he'd seen, then the  tracers kicked up a line of dust enveloping
the man. The figure's  knees began to buckle, but before he could hit the ground
the camera  had moved on.

"Lieutenant? Can you freeze it? Yeah, that knob there. Run it back a  bit, then
hold it. See these? All these little blobs? Here, here,  and here? Tracers from
the ground. AA fire is sporadic and  uncoordinated. These little bitty ones,
that's machine-gun fire. These  bigger ones, I would guess twenty-millimeter.
There's nothing heavier  coming up. Probably wasn't much left to shoot back with
after those  tanks went up, but--you should remember for later--they still had
working guns down there.

"OK, Lieutenant, roll it ahead but stop when I tell you. Right there!  Freeze
it!

Take a good look. This is the tail end of Anderson pass. The run  along the
building line is a diagonal, southeast to northwest. You can  see he's climbing
after the run and banking hard over to his right.  That points him toward the
town. Look up here in the corner. You can  just see a piece of the village.

Lieutenant, kill it and turn the opaque back on. Take the top picture  out of
that next file. OK, good. This is a blowup of that last frame  you saw from
Anderson's gun film."

Grassi turned the photo on end: Now the village was sitting properly on  the
horizontal. The enlarged grain of the 16-mm motion-picture film  broke the image
into dissoluble bits of light and dark. Only Van  Damm's guiding pointer tip
held shapes together, outlining cottages,  walkups, the dark finger of a church
steeple truncated just before the  pinnacle by the frame's edge.

"What is it you don't see here?" Van Damm asked. No one offered an  answer.
"Remember Markham and Anderson's debriefing. O'Connell's already gone.  Anderson
makes his last run, then heads out after O'Connell.What  happens to Markham and
Angel Red? Markham says they abort the rest of  the attack. Angel Red dumps
their rockets and takes off after Anderson  and O'Connell. That's what they
say."

The pointer tapped the screen.

"Now take a good look at that town. What you don't see is smoke, fire,  any
perceptible damage. That place is intact." Van Damm gave them a  moment to make
the required study. Then, "Lieutenant, next folder  please. Start with the top
picture. Gentlemen, this is Helsvagen less  than three hours ago."

Van Damm went silent. Any comment or analyses would have been  redundant. Even a
novice like Harry could decipher the image now on  the screen. In the lower
left-hand corner of the picture, where Harry  guessed the burning fuel depot
was, smoke poured diagonally up and  across the frame, devouring space like a
rampant cancer. Thick and  invasive as it was, there were still gaps. Through
them Harry could  see that the neat grid of streets that had comprised the
village had  been violently disrupted. Streets ended in jumble, as if the
loosely  knit grain of the enlarged film had disintegrated. Building facades
abruptly broke off. The smoke hovering over the village did not all  come from
the burning depot. Several pyres pointed downward inside the  perimeter
ofHelsvagen.

Twenty years earlier, in the sun-baked square of a Mexican village, I  stood
looking up at the bloated bodies of six Villa sympathizers  hanging from a
cottonwood tree, left there the week before by Huerta's  men under the order
that the corpses hang until they rotted. That was  the first time I looked into
the animal eye of Man. One doesn't react  at first;

there's no shock, no pity, no revulsion. There's not even anger. One  can't
react until one can comprehend, and those first moments of that  first encounter
defy comprehension--there is no answer to Why this?

And so Harry sat curiously impassive to what was presented on that  wobbling
screen. In fact, he seemed more affected relating this all to  me later on.

Harry looked about to see how the others were responding. Van Damm's  pointer
dropped, like the dipping of the colors at a passing funeral  cortege. In the
light spill from the projector Grassi was for  once-astoundingly--speechless.

Ryan remained a cipher, the darkness in the room so complete as to  conceal his
face even though he sat at Harry's shoulder. Harry heard  him sag into his seat
with a wheezing sigh akin to that of a collapsing  balloon.

Van Damm took a breath, and his pointer returned to the screen.

"This is from about five thousand feet--" "Jesus Christ on a crutch!"
Halverson's oath was almost lost in the explosive sound of one chair  violently
colliding with another, and then both splintering on the hard  floor.

A startled silence followed. Harry looked in Halverson's direction.  The glow of
the cigarette was gone. Presently, a match flared, bright  and alone, and Harry
had a brief glance of painfully narrowed eyes, a  jerky nod of the head to Van
Damm to proceed.

Van Damm cleared his throat and resumed.

"Here's the depot down here in the lower left-hand corner. The tanks  must've
been at or close to full capacity for them to still be burning  after all this
time. The wind is out of the southeast, blowing the  smoke toward the town, and
that makes it hard to get a clear picture.  Here, we're just starting to lose
the sun, but through these holes in  the smoke you can see fires inside the
town. And through here what  appears to be battle damage. Next picture, please.

"This is lower, somewhere around three thousand. Through these gaps  you can see
better. This isn't a collapsed building; look at the way  the debris sprays
across the street. That indicates explosive impact.  Here, more fires.

"This last picture is down around fifteen hundred feet. These are the  fields
northwest of town, out from under the smoke. Field hospital  here, though by
this time most of the wounded have probably been  evacuated to Brussels. Tent
city here, this looks like a field  kitchen, water trucks here. Now this
blotchy-looking area looks to be  freshly turned earth. If I had to guess, under
these circumstances,  I'd say a mass grave. Look by this bulldozer. See this
ditch? Lined  up here, nearby, these are bodies, apparently under blankets. Next
picture. Lieutenant."

"How do you know--" General Halverson began, then stopped, as if  uncertain he
wanted to hear the answer. Then, "How do you know that  those 'bodies' aren't
wounded men?"

"You don't cover a wounded man's face and leave him out in the open for  two
days." Van Damm said it emotionlessly. " Look closely here. See  these men
working down in the ditch? They're spreading something  around, something
light-colored. Quicklime would be my guess." Van  Damm paused again.

After a moment, the general tiredly asked, "Anything else?"

"The first radio intercepts we had of calls for assistance to Helsvagen  were
disproportionate to the number of military personnel we estimated  on-station,
but they would seem consistent with the apparent damage to  the town. Those
transmissions went out in the clear. I guess they  were pretty desperate that
first day."

"Any follow-up to that?" the general asked.

"No, sir. They probably restored hard-line communications within  hours."

"What about civilian radio? Nothing on the propaganda broadcasts?  Goebbels
would have a field day with something like this."

"That was my first thought, too, sir, but it's not going to do Joe  Goebbels and
Fat Hermann and the other boys any good for their people
to know that American fighters are roaming free and clear and hit 3

ting civilian targets at will. In the last year the krauts have lost  North
Africa and Sicily, and we'll be in Italy in a month--which I'm  sure they
expect--and the Russkies have been kicking their collective  ass pretty steadily
since Stalingrad. Goebbels is having enough  problems explaining to Mrs.

Shickelgruber what Allied bombers are doing over Germany, let alone  fighters
roaming around Belgium. And he's got Hamburg to account  for."

At the mention, Harry heard Halverson stir in his seat.

"That's not for here.

Major."

"Yes, sir."

"Do we still need that?"

Van Damm knew what he meant. He had Grassi kill the projector while he  found
the room lights. The cold fluorescents nickered on.

As Harry's eyes adjusted he could see all the players now. Ricks was  leaning
forward, his forearms propped on the writing arm of his chair,  his eyes lost to
some point on the walls. Grassi, too, was remarkably  introspective, but Harry
saw his eyes (one still framed by a bruise  from his unsuccessful boxing stint)
darting here and there, his  predatory instinct already working at the
double-quick. Van Damm stood  by the blank screen rolling his pointer idly
between his fingers. He  began to reach for one of the cellophane-wrapped cigars
in his breast  pocket, but with his fingers hovering over his pocket he thought
better  of it.

Halverson was slumped in his seat, cigarette smoldering in one hand,  his other
slowly massaging his forehead. On the tier below him two  broken chairs lay
where they had tangled after the blow from his  foot.

"The point is," Van Damm continued, "the krauts might figure that what  they
gain in outrage they lose in panic. And, you've got the  embarrassment factor
here.

The air-defense commanders for this area have to explain how our guys  flew
halfway across Belgium unmolested and took this place out. It's  even possible
that Berlin doesn't know about this. An air commander  who lets this happen, and
lets that news get back to the brass .. .  that guy could definitely find
himself trying to improve his work
skills against the Russians. It wouldn't be hard to localize this: a  place out
in the middle of nowhere, not on any of their major supply  routes, and since
the dump is a storage facility, not a fueling  station, it's rarely used. Other
than the dump, Helsvagen has no real  military value. As rigidly controlled as
the information flow is over  there, public and military, if they don't tell
anybody, chances are  nobody outside the immediate area is going to know about
it."

A long minute went by before Halverson spoke.

"How do you account for the two missing pilots?"

"Jacobs and McLagen? That gets a bit more problematic. There's no  sign of them
in these pictures, but if they went down in the town,  well, they might just be
lost in all the mess. Remember: Even after  the fuel tanks went up, there was
still working double-A fire coming up  from the dump."

"Enough to bring two planes down?"

Van Damm shrugged.

"Or maybe they're not there at all," Halverson said.

"Maybe. Maybe they really did get bounced on the way home; maybe  they're down
somewhere else. On that point, there's nothing we can  find to corroborate or
refute Markham's story."

"What about this Anderson fella?" Halverson asked Harry.

"He must have something to say."

Harry shrugged.

"If he does, he's keeping it to himself. Since his initial debriefing,  he's
clammed up. At this point, knowing anything he says is probably  going to be
self-incriminating, I doubt he's going to supply us with  anything useful."

Halverson nodded grimly. To Van Damm: "Tell me about the recon  flight."

"We used a three-plane flight out ofManston. Mosquitos. One camera  ship, two
flying cover." Van Damm turned to Harry and Ryan.

"We use the Mosquitos on a lot of BDA runs because they're long on  range, fast,
maneuverable, and primarily made of plywood, which means a  low radar return.
Poststrike, the krauts are usually looking for a  recon flight, so if you can
get in and out without provoking them--"  "Mosquitos," Halverson mulled
uncomfortably.

"Does that mean an R.A.F involvement?"

"The Mosquitos are on loan. It was our people in the cockpits."

"Can they keep their mouths shut? The crews?"

"They're my people, General. They keep their mouths shut all the  time."

"How much do they know?"

"To them, this was a routine BDA flight consequent to a routine attack  mission
on a legitimate target."

"I don't want them to think otherwise."

Yes, sir.

"Where are the crews now?"

"The crews from the camera ship and one of the cover planes are waiting  for
debriefing."

"The third crew?"

"Well, like I said, the krauts are looking for a post strike  evaluation. Our
boys saw FW's coming up from the fighter field outside  Ghent, made their last
fly-by--we're lucky they got the pictures they  did--and lit out. They had to
mix it up before they could duck into  the clouds. One of the cover ships got
chopped up a little bit. They  made it back, but both those boys are in the
hospital."

"They'll be all right?" the general asked, his voice strained.

Van Damm paused, weighing how much to say.

"They'll be laid up for a while," he said, trying to make his voice  casual,
"but they'll be OK."

Halverson nodded, relieved. He cleared his throat and sat erect in his  chair.

When he spoke, his voice had regained the hard burnish of command,  "Major, are
these pictures everything you have?"

"These are the best from the run."

"Are the rest secure?"

"In my safe, sir."

"I want you to take all of the pictures, the gun film, the negatives  and all
prints, everything you've got on this, and I want them in that  safe, too."

"Yes--" "Nobody--and I mean nobody--gets access without a written and  confirmed
order from me."

Before Van Damm could answer, Grassi's hand was up.

"General." Grassi drew himself up to what there was of his height.

"We're going to need those pictures."

Harry winced. It was a legitimate point, but it was delivered with the  tone of
a flat and discourteous demand. Harry wasn't sure, but later  he'd swear to me
he heard Ryan whisper, "Oh-oh."

Halverson slid his long legs out from under the writing arm of the desk  and
stood. He walked casually down the center aisle of the auditorium,  absently
tugging at the hem of his tunic, pulling the wrinkles out of  the fabric. He
walked directly past Grassi, making no sign he was even  aware of the
lieutenant's presence. The general stepped into the  speaker's area, dropped his
cigarette on the floor, and gently snuffed  it out with the toe of his polished
shoe. Pulling a fresh smoke from  the pack in his breast pocket, he spoke
quietly to Van Damm.

"I'm going to need your room for a few minutes, Major, if you don't  mind."

"Of course, sir." As Van Damm scooped up the pictures and film from  the
projector stand, Harry thought the major seemed relieved at the  dismissal. From
the look on Grassi's face Harry thought, for a moment,  that the little
lieutenant was going to say--or worse, do--something to  stop Van Damm from
removing the material. He almost sighed audibly in  relief when the
briefing-room door closed behind the major without  incident.

Halverson faced the room, his feet slightly apart, casual but firm, one  hand
slipped into his trouser pocket, the other a home for his  cigarette.

"I believe you had something to say, Lieutenant?"

"We're going to need those pictures. General," Grassi declared.

"Those pictures are evidence. It's customary to have access to  evidence to
prepare a case!"

"Is that a fact?"

Harry shrank back in his seat, awaiting the explosion.

"We have the legal authority to demand--" "Demand?"

Grassi stopped himself. Even he knows he's overstepped, Harry  thought.

But the explosion never came. Instead, Halverson smiled slightly,  coldly.

"Lieutenant, you have as much authority as the Army lets you have. So,  if I
were you, I'd learn to get by without those pictures for now."

"General--" "None of those pictures are going to see the light of day  until
they have to.

The day you need them in court is the day they come out of the safe and  not
before."

Grassi looked to Harry for support. It was a rare occasion: Harry
sympathized with the lieutenant. They should have access to the photo  iby
graphs. But it was painfully obvious to Harry that General  Halverson's mind was
as closed to the idea as Major Van Damm's safe.  Now, what Harry was trying to
signal to the lieutenant with frantic  looks was not to annoy the general any
further. The case had suddenly  grown wildly beyond his expectations and Harry
felt that, more than  ever before, he was going to need Halverson's goodwill on
his side.

Grassi looked from Harry to the general, then back to Harry. Finally,  he
smiled, gave a barely perceptible nod, and parked against the  wall.

Halverson acknowledged the surrender with a tight smile of his own. He  turned
to Harry and the smile was gone.

"Major, I take it, then, that your supposition is this O'Connell kid  was killed
to conceal all this," and he nodded at the blank projection  screen.

Harry stood.

"Uh, yes, sir, that does bring the pieces together."

"What about a motive, Major? Why this?" and he nodded at the screen  again.

Harry's mouth opened reflexively but he had nothing to say.

"Um, sir?" Ricks came to his feet.

"A motive is always a useful element of prosecution, but it's not a
prerequisite."

"I know that. Captain." Halverson turned to the empty screen. Was  he, too,
looking for nonexistent answers?

"I was just curious."

Ryan cleared his throat. He did not stand. For the first time since  the lights
had come up. Harry had time to regard his friend. He found  the sight unnerving.

Joe Ryan was slumped in his seat, his face slack and pale, his eyes  shining
with a shocked, unfocused glaze. A cigarette burned forgotten  between his
fingers.

"Something to say. Colonel?" Halverson asked.

Ryan cleared his throat again.
"The captain's right." His voice was faint, his tone tentative.

"I can't hear you, Colonel."

"If you've got the evidence to make the case, the captain's right. I  mean, what
he said about motive. But we don't have the evidence."

"You don't."

"When the time comes to introduce them, we've got these photographs,"  Ryan
said.

"That's not proof positive. There's no precedent for using this kind  of
material as evidence of--" "Set one," Halverson decreed. Sir

"Set a precedent. That's how you get a precedent, right? Somebody  does it
first?

Be the first."

It was obvious to Ryan--to all of them--that Halverson was not looking  to
debate the point. Ryan sank back into his chair.

Halverson turned to Harry.

"Major, how long to trial?"

"We haven't even drawn up an indictment--" "I didn't ask you about an
indictment, Major!" The general was growing peevish.

"If you told me you could be in court by tomorrow morning, I'd say, "Do  it!"
Can you be in court tomorrow?"

"With all due respect," Ryan interjected, "normally, what with all the
paperwork, if we could pull it together in four weeks--" "Half of  that's
protocol, waiting for signatures, that kind of stuff," Grassi  interrupted,
ignoring Ryan's glare.

"We can get off the dime and cut that down by a week. Maybe two  without a
problem."

"Tomorrow," Halverson counter offered grimly, still focused on Harry.

"General," Harry pleaded, "I can understand the urgency here, but--"  "No, you
can't. Saturday" "General," Ricks put in, "the faster we go,  the greater our
chances of leaving some opening for an appeal so that  even if we get a
conviction--" "Let someone else worry about the damned  appeal, Captain!" The
rebuff exploded so curtly that Ricks's head  snapped back, his eyes blinking, as
if he'd suffered a physical blow.  Halverson was back to Harry again.
"OK, here's how it's going to be: I want this thing in court bright and  early
Monday morning. I don't care how many hours you work or what you  have to do.
Whatever you need to get it done, call me, but get it  done! In court on Monday!
If you don't think you can handle that,  tell me now and I'll find someone who
can."

Harry exchanged a quick look with Grassi and Ricks but knew before  their eyes
locked what he'd find. Grassi's face was wide-eyed with  adrenaline; if
Halverson had told them to be in court the following  morning, Grassi would've
been happy for the early debut. Ricks, on the  other hand, wore a hangdog look
that seemed to be hanging lower with  each passing moment. Harry's feeling may
have been more aesthetic than  moral (as Ricks had said, such speed almost
guaranteed a host of  procedural errors that could turn a conviction into a
nightmare of  appeals) but he agreed with the captain that this was not the way
the  law--even Army law--was supposed to be.

Yet Halverson had been quite clear on their options.

"Monday morning, sir." Harry glumly nodded an assent.

"Colonel Ryan, you'll naturally do whatever you can to expedite the  matter.
I'll look to you to see that the accused are secured counsel  and whatever else
they need to be in court Monday a.m."

"Yes sir," Ryan murmured.

Halverson stood with his hand on the doorknob. He turned and smiled at  the four
officers among the school chairs. All looked a bit lost. It  was an odd smile,
sad, as if he alone knew a sad truth.

"Believe me, Major Voss, if you don't get this to court by Monday, you  may
never get it to court at all." And he left.

Harry looked back to Ricks. The captain's look was part indictment,  part
resignation, and the rest represented by a silent sigh and small  shake of the
head that made Harry want to say, out loud, "I'm sorry.  It's not my fault, but
I'm sorry."

They were silent for a long while, and then Grassi spoke, swaggering  down to
the front of the room, an annoying, cocky smile on his lips. He  opened his
mouth, no doubt prepared to say something acidic.

"Shuddup!" Ryan snarled.

"I swear to Christ, Lieutenant, unless the next words out of your mouth  are
"Good-bye," you don't want to say them!"

Grassi's mouth closed, slowly, and his smile evaporated.
Ryan turned to Harry, his face a fiery red, looking ready to tear into  his
friend next.

"Harry--" The briefing-room door squeaked open; Van Damm leaned in.

"I saw the general leave. You gentlemen going to be much longer? I  need this
room."

"We've got to talk," Ryan hissed. He gave Harry enough time to tell  Grassi and
Ricks to wait in his quarters, then dragged Harry out the  door by his arm and
through the G-2 darkness. Harry wasn't quite sure  where they were going, or
even if they were going anywhere, but he  eventually realized that Ryan's
frantic zigs and zags were a search for  privacy that finally ended with them
bursting through the door of a  glaringly lit latrine.

A second lieutenant stood at a urinal. He looked over his shoulder and  saw
Harry and Ryan glaring at each other, waiting. With all the  expertise of his
Intelligence-staffer status, the lieutenant deftly  interpreted the situation,
forced an abrupt halt to operations, and  scooted past them.

As soon as the latrine door clicked shut behind the lieutenant, Ryan  detonated.

"What the hell is going on?" The words reverberated off the concrete  walls of
the loo like artillery rounds.

Harry stood dazed and blinking, partly from the shock of the noise,  partly in
earnest confusion.

"What do you mean--" "You waltz me around with all this "Just a few  more days'
crap!

"Oh, Joe, pretty please, oh, I need just a little more time--' " Harry
bristled.

"You wouldn't mind telling me what this is all about, would you?"

It occurred to Ryan that he had not adequately secured the premises;

now he began to look under the doors of the stalls.

"That's my question, Harry!

You should've come to me first, you really should've, before you went  flapping
your gums to Halverson--" "Come to you first about what?"

"Don't play games with me, Harry!"
It was Harry's turn to shout.

"I'm not playing any games! I don't know what you're--" "How long have  you been
sitting on this thing?"

"Sitting on what?"

"Dammit, Harry--" Ryan's voice dropped to a comparatively discreet  hiss.

"That butcher's orgy we just saw!"

"Joe, I knew about it when you did; when Van Damm put those pictures  on--"
"You've been stretching me out all along, telling me you had  questions--"
"That's right! Questions! And I got the answers a few  minutes ago, right along
with you! I didn't know where they were  going. That's why they were questions.

You think I was holding back--" The latrine door opened; Harry cut  himself off.
This time, it was a young captain. As quick-witted as  his colleague the
lieutenant, he took an instant to analyze the  situation, then about-faced and
exited.

Harry understood now--or thought he did. In the beginning, two days  ago, Ryan
had been bestowing a gift. But Ryan had not expected the  gift to turn into a
coup.

"I get it!" Harry said.

"Joe, I know this is a lot bigger than how it started. You think I  don't know
who I owe? If you want a piece of this, all you--" "A piece  of this? Harry, I
wouldn't go near this thing in an asbestos suit! You  really have no idea what
you've gotten yourself into. Let me clear it  up for you: You're in the shit, my
friend, right up to your  eyeballs!"

"Instead of browbeating me," Harry persisted, "why don't you try  explaining--"
"Don't do anything!" Ryan bellowed, driving the point  home with a painful jab
of his index finger to Harry's chest.

"Not until you hear from me."

"What do you mean, don't do--" "I mean don't make a move, don't do a  goddamned
thing on this case, don't talk to anybody--" "What about  Halverson? If he asks
how it's going, do I just say, "Well, General,  I've just been sitting around
twiddling my thumbs because Colonel  Ryan--' " The possibility of such an
attribution struck a responding  chord in Ryan. He sprang back to Harry.
"All right, all right, you go ahead and keep moving the paperwork  along, but
before you make any big moves you talk to me. Understand?

Before you get us in this mess any deeper, let me see if I can get us  out."

"I still don't understand what you're--" Ryan wasn't waiting; he was  already at
the door.

"You're putting yourself in a corner where I can't help you, Harry. I  won't!"

Then Ryan was gone and Harry was standing alone in the loo, more at sea  than
when he'd entered. He was still standing there when the patient  but anxious
captain, the one who'd bounced in and immediately backed  out, stuck his head
inside.

"All clear, sir? We're developing a line out here."

He held the door respectfully as Harry passed stonily through.

I had just emptied a tin of kippers into the small skillet atop my  little gas
ring and had left the door open to help dissipate the  consequent smell, when
Himself was suddenly there in my doorway. He  scarcely waited for my nodded
welcome before he stepped inside, the  door sighing shut behind him as if closed
by his immortal will. He  fleetingly smiled a greeting and set himself in my
most comfortable  chair, resting an ankle across a knee, and parking his trilby
on the  upraised toe of his shoe. He nodded at the kippers sizzling
malodorously in what should have been sweet butter but, in its rationed
absence, was margarine.

"That'd be dinner?" Himself asked.

"Afraid so." I prodded the kippers with a fork.

"Care to partake?"

"Oh, I think not."

I looked down at the kippers curling in the crackling margarine and saw  his
point.

He felt an obligation not to be deprecating in my home, however, and  justified
his refusal with, "The missus has one other usual culinary  monstrosities
waiting for me. She was never what you'd call your  gourmet, but I think all the
rationing has completely done her in. The  nice thing about me being late home
is it gives her an alibi for damage  done.

"Of course it tastes off, ya silly clod!"

" he said a la his wife. I'd seen her in the office once or twice and  his
mimicry of her voice--the trilling shrillness and barbed  declaratives--was more
impressionistic than accurate. "

"It always tastes off when it's been sitting about cold half the  night!" Ah,
well," he sighed, then his eyes darted about hopefully.

"Um, there wouldn't be a taste about, eh? Something to numb the palate  for
what's to come?"

It seemed a good idea for both of us. I turned off the gas ring but  the kippers
continued to crackle and smoke, throwing off a dockside  smell thickening inside
the closed blackout curtains. I produced a  pair of glasses and a fair bottle of
scotch, not as good as the one he  kept in his desk drawer, but then again an
editor's purse stood a bit  thicker than mine. I poured the drinks and dragged a
chair close by.  We raised our glasses, nodded solemnly, and sipped with equal
devotion.

"Ahhh," he said and I agreed.

"You see Cathryn?" he asked.

"Since the divorce?"

"I'd like to think you'd seen a bit of her before, you silly git."

"Permit me to amplify: since the divorce, or since my triumphal  return?"

"Either or."

"Yes, no, respectively."

He set his glass down on the lamp table by the chair and absently drew  a
triskelion in the dust there. Perhaps it was the thick coat of dust,  something
one would never have seen in Cathryn's house, that prompted  him to say, "I miss
that one. Good lass, her."

"They're all good lasses after they're gone."

"I'll toast that, my son. How about another? Mine seems to have  evaporated. Ah,
thanks. She were a good one, though, Cathryn. Any  chance at that? A
resurrection, I mean? You're on the list, you know,  my preferred list when one
of the editorial desks opens. Old Glatley's  practically at death's door. Don't
know why the old duffer doesn't  just take his pension and race his damned
pigeons. Be that as it may,  it's yours come the time. No more gadding round the
world then, eh?  She'd like that, I fancy. Maybe not you, not at first, all that
sitting'd be quite a change, eh? But you're good enough for the desk,  my son,
always thought so, you being right for the desk once you got  the gallivants out
of yourself. Any chance with her, then? Or is that  all tick, eh?"

"One of the things I admired most about Cathryn was her good sense."

"Ah, then she won't be back."

"I think not."

"Well, as you say, she were always a sensible girl, wot?"

"Aye. Not to be rude, or to suspect your goodwill, but was there some  business?

Or is this just a friendly chat?"

"There are no friendly chats in business, my son, particularly in this  line of
country." He sighed.

"It's off. The story. Close the book." He finished his drink in a  gulp and set
the glass down on the dusty tabletop with a rap of  finality.

"You said I had until--" "Two drinks does not interfere with my recall,  my son.
It's not you, if that's your concern. In fact, I've been  quite happy to see you
running with the hounds again. Put a bit of  color back in your cheeks, it has.
No, no, not you at all.

Not my decision, so you know. It's just the word."

"From?"

"From the people that give one the word.

"National interest' and all that, a call from the general-list blokes,  waving
the flag and the Official Secrets Act, vital military  information and all that
rot. You know the program. Off-limits and  such."

The tactic itself didn't disturb me. One bounded into it rather  regularly
covering the war. What took me aback was that I could see  nothing in this
particular story to merit such severe treatment.

Himself pretended a tone of polite, disinterested conversation when he  asked
his next question, but it was still the good reporter at work.

"Had you come across anything of note?"

"I thought the story was over."

"Academic interest, my son."

I smiled and poured another pair of fresh drinks.

"Since last we joined our heroes, it seems we have one American  aeroplane--a
Thunderbolt, a wreck--sitting in a Scotland Yard warehouse  aswarm with the
Yard's ballistics boffins. They've been whiling away  the hours digging through
it for bullets. I've also found out that the  Yard has brought in the guns from
some other Yank aeroplanes to do  ballistic comparisons."

He tried not to express interest. He was a good editor: Let the  reporter work
to convince that there is a worthy story here.

"What else?"

"You remember that spotter I told you about? Name's Gresham. He and  his wife,
they lived down on the coast where whatever happened  happened. The bogies
spirited the Greshams away somewhere, where  they're being kept under lock and
key. And there's a dead Yank in the  Yard morgue been put through a postmortem.

And--this is the plum part--two American pilots were taken by their  Provost
Marshal and tossed in the clink. They're from the 351st Group,  down by
Chillingham."

"Where the blazes is Chillingham?"

"East Sussex, a few hours south of here. They were the unit that took  such a
drubbing about a week or so ago."

He nodded. He wasn't bothering with feigned disinterest now; the story  had been
sold.

"Who's the poor bloke on the PM. table?"

"I don't know yet. Quite honestly, I'm surprised I've gotten this  much. It's
been like trying to infiltrate the 33rd Degree of Masons.  This isn't just
people not talking. It's been tightening. The press  officers have gone from
keeping a secret to building walls."

"As if they've come across something they didn't know they had at  first."

I nodded.

"Any idea who's running this show for the Yanks?"

"There's a JAG major named Voss. He has a couple of legmen: a captain  named
Ricks and a Lieutenant Grassi. I've heard Grassi's name before  and not by
favorable mention. Bolshie, anarchist, Bluebeard--" "Not  well loved, then, eh?"

"Hardly. But the indications are that all the big movements--the
lip-tightening, the new walls--are not coming from this Voss bloke."

"That JAG dandy? Ryan?"

"Perhaps even higher. Earlier this evening they were all at that nest  they have
under Grosvenor Square."

"Intelligence?" He frowned.

"What would Intelligence have to do with .. . well, with anything  criminal?"

"My question exactly. And when they came out, they were all looking  quite off.
I got the distinct feeling something had rattled their  cages. But to your point
about who's directing the show; immediately  afterward, Ryan made expeditiously
for a very tete-a-tete meeting at  General DiGarre's digs after which, within an
hour, the new silent  curtain fell."

"When was this?"

"As I said; early this evening. About seven."

"Hm. That was when Fleet Street started getting the calls from the War  Office
to be on best behavior. Quite queer, eh? One wants to think a  murder, all the
elements seem there. That could be a sensitive bit,  but it hardly seems dodgy
enough to justify all this, eh? All this  business with Intelligence, and
caballing with DiGarre."

"You think there's something else about?"

"I'm inclined to think there'd almost have to be."

"Seems worth carrying on, eh? Just out of' academic curiosity'?"

Himself smiled briefly, sympathetic to the notion, but then the smile  vanished,
and he grunted to his feet.

"Afraid not, my son. The 'request' has been made by those on high, and  as
dutiful Englishmen, we have agreed."

I stood with him.

"Need I remind you, I'm not English."

"You're still a citizen of The Empire. Leave it be, my son. You done  a good
job. Shame to turn it off, but .. . Jump in the kip, sleep  late. You owe
yourself a reward. Then back to work. I think you've  covered your last snooker
championship." He smiled, then, and began to  leave, but stopped in the doorway,
well understanding the dramatic  effect of the pause. He cast a condemnatory eye
round my hovel,  settling it at last upon the now-still skillet of kippers.

"Do try to get the old girl back, my son. The bachelor life isn't for  you." And
he left.

The kippers looked rather less appetizing after lying half-cooked in  the
skillet than they had in their tin. I hesitated before I relit the  flame. I
turned out the lights so I could cook with the heavy curtains  pulled back.
Another drink helped dampen the dissuading effects of the  kippers' smell and
shriveled appearance.

I was not happy the story had been killed, but I was reconciled. It  was not the
first time; it would not be the last. In fact, I gave more  thought to Himself's
acknowledgment that I now rated better than royal  teas and flower shows. By the
time my head hit the pillow that night,  I was giving the matter of the killed
story very little thought at  all.
CHAPTER SEVEN

THE VARANGIANS

about THE TIME I WAS HAVING my little confabulation with The Boss,  Harry Voss
was arriving back at the Annex, his head still awhirl with  his latrine
face-to-face with Ryan. He made the long trudge up the  stairs contemplating the
splendor of falling face forward onto his bed  without the bother of disrobing
or wash up but the door to his quarters  swung open and there he unhappily saw
Ricks and Grassi.

Ricks sat in the room's one chair--the one at Harry's escritoire--and  had moved
it a few inches away from the desk, turning it respectfully  away from the
writing surface to show he had no interest in Harry's  personal affairs. Grassi,
on the other hand, was sprawled across  Harry's bed as if it were his own, atop
the pile of mail left there by  the orderlies, leafing through Harry's newly
delivered copy of Life.

Ricks saw the befuddlement on Harry's wan face as he groped through the  cobwebs
of fatigue for some reason for them to be there.

"You told us to wait for you here, sir?" he offered.

"Back there at the briefing room?"

Harry remembered with a moan.

"Would you like us to come back?"

Harry shook his head, then went to the loo to splash some water on his  face.

"Whaddaya think, Boss?" a leering Grassi asked when he returned to the  room.

"You think she's really naked under there?" Grassi had the magazine  turned to a
double-page spread of Hollywood showgirls and his blackened  eye narrowed in a
particularly lewd squint. There was Gene Tierney  who, according to the caption,
servicemen considered "The Girl We'd  Most Like to Guard on a Lonely Pacific
Isle." Veronica Lake was "The  Girl We'd Most Like to Make Our Objective."
Grassi s attention was  devoted to Maureen O'Sullivan: "The Girl We'd Most Like
to Ride with on  a Bumpy African Road." In Miss O'Sullivan's photo, she was
bare-shouldered, looking down into a mirrored tabletop that obscured  the rest
of her body from view. Grassi's thumb was caressing the naked  shoulders.

"How 'bout it, Boss? Hey, Cap'n, whaddayou think?"

"Of course not."

"Are you sure? How do you know?" Grassi brought the magazine closer  to his
face.

"She could be naked under there. You see that little thing she wore in  those
Tarzan pictures? She's the type; I wouldn't put it past her. She  should be
bare-ass naked under there!"

Ricks shook his head.

"You are a sick individual, Lieutenant. Sick."

Grassi responded with wagging eyebrows and "whoo-hoo'"s co-opted from  Daffy
Duck cartoons.

Harry ended the performance with a backhanded slap across the  lieutenant's
thighs.

"Get off my mail!" Grassi popped off the bed and Harry angrily  snatched his
Life back.

"Get your own damned magazine!"

"My, my, don't we get grumpy when we've missed our nap," Grassi said,  but found
himself a perch on the windowsill.

Harry took a seat on the bed.

"And now," he said, kicking off his shoes, "if it's not too much  trouble, do
you think we could get to work?"

Notebooks flipped open, throats were cleared, and then Ricks and Grassi  briefed
Harry on what they'd learned of the five young men who'd flown  against
Helsvagen on August 15.

Name: First Lieutenant Raymond Daniel Jacobs Born: October 11,1917  Place of
Birth: Quincy, Washington

Not shy, but deliberately quiet and reserved, the man from the
Washington forests never allowed an address more informal than  "Raymond His
nominal birthplace was a spot found only on the best and  most detailed map, but
Quincy was listed more for the convenience of  record-keepers than for accuracy.
Jacobs had been born and spent his  early years some miles away, actually, amid
the tall trees and crags of  the Cascades.

His mother, of whom little was known, had died with his birth, and his  father
was a flinty, spare man who eked out a living hunting, skinning,  and
occasionally scouting for logging companies. While Jacobs never  explained what
drew him out of the mountains, one could guess at a  typical adolescent
restlessness fueling a desire to see if there were  more to the world than the
monastic life he shared with an  uncommunicative father in a rustic cabin walled
in by timber and steep  cliffs, and capped by the dark, tumultuous skies of the
American  Northwest. In any case, at the age of fifteen he came down out of the
mountains to Quincy and never looked back. At the time of his  enlistment nine
years later, in 1941, Jacobs could not even answer as  to whether or not his
father was still alive.

While there are no records of formal education, Jacobs was, evidently,
sufficiently self-taught so that when he appeared in Seattle in the  early
1930's he was competently equipped with the abilities of reading,  writing, and
math.

And, perhaps from his association with the lumbermen with whom his  father
sometimes worked, and from toying with the various machines that  served their
trade, he also evidenced by that time a fair ability with  things mechanical. It
is a measure of those skills that, young as he  was, and at a time when lines of
men looking for work were more common  than work, he soon found positions as an
apprentice engineer among the  coastal steamers plodding up and down the West
Coast from Alaska to  Panama.

Another gap in his sketchy record leaves unanswered the question of  what moved
him from steamers to aeroplanes, but by late 1936, Jacobs  was no longer signing
on with any further crews. After another blank  in his chronology, he surfaced
as an aeroplane maintenance engineer at  Los Angeles Airport in 1938. Soon
after, he signed on with Chennault  when the flamboyant general began enlisting
personnel to fight for the  Chinese as the American Volunteer Group, known more
colorfully as "The  Flying Tigers."

Jacobs served in China until Pearl Harbor, when America formally  entered the
war and most of the AVG personnel gravitated back to the  States to serve in the
American military. Jacobs's performance,  according to Chennault's staff, was
commendable. The AVG fields were  always under manned ill equipped, and badly
supplied, but Jacobs proved  a wizard at scavenging--or forging--the parts to
repair what most  mechanics considered irreparable. On returning to the States
he, like  many of his fellow AVG alumni, enlisted with the Air Corps and put in
for fighter pilot training. Despite his lack of formal schooling, his  service
with Chennault stood him in good stead and he was accepted. He  struggled a bit
with the book work but proved himself able enough in  the air and completed
training at the fighter pilot school in San  Antonio in mid-1942, in time to be
assigned to the then-forming 351st  Fighter Group.

Jacobs's record with the 351st showed an unexceptional but reliable  pilot, a
bit more unflappable and less reckless than most, a product of  his natural
reserve one would guess, or perhaps due to his comparative  maturity, there
being an average difference of five years between him  and the scrappy Young
Turks filling most of the group's cockpits.

There was an earnest, if lighthearted, respect among the younger men  for his
ability and a service record that extended back to the  legendary AVG. They
called him "Pappy" and "Methuselah," and subjected  him to his fair share of
pranks. And, while he did not join his  comrades on their excursions to pubs and
whorehouses, nor indulge in  their rabid pranksterism, keeping to himself much
of the time, he did  overcome his natural reserve to tolerate the jibes and
tricks with good  nature.

After all, he had come from the hot flats of Texas with them, fought  their
first battles with them, and despite any difference in  personality or
background, any gap in age and experience, they had been  bloodied together. It
would not have bothered his solitude, one might  think, to know that he had come
to rest with many of them as well.

Name: Second Lieutenant Andrew Pani McLagen, Jr.

Born: May 19,1924 Place of Birth: Boydton, Virginia

Even after his facing German fighters (and downing two of them),  soaring
tracers, and ugly blotches of flak in eleven sorties over the
Conti l j nent, even after his drunken, giggling mates had trundled  him down to
a Brighton brothel to celebrate his nineteenth birthday  with the end of his
virginity, "Andy" McLagen still retained enough of  his native shyness that, in
conversation even with his closest  acquaintances, he would still avert his
eyes, shuffle his feet, mumble  his drawling responses.

He was second born--first to survive--of six children delivered of  God-fearing
Baptists, his father being a tenant farmer on a stretch of  tobacco land not far
from the North Carolina border. Mother and Father  McLagen taught their children
to pray before every meal, and at night  before climbing into the straw-filled
pallets the young ones shared,  and when they woke every morning, especially on
Sunday when they hiked  en masse down the red clay road to a sun-baked clapboard
church where  they sweated through hours of sermonizing by a flushed-faced,
button-straining minister. If they forgot to pray, or did not pray  with
accepted sincerity, they were ordered to bend over a rail fence  and
spirituality was branded on their bottoms with a whipping cane.

As the eldest, it was Andy's responsibility to shepherd his siblings  down that
same road every day, rain or shine, hot or cold, in mud and  dust, to the
one-room schoolhouse standing across from the church, and  shepherd them home in
the afternoon, after which he took his place by  his father in the fields. At
night, by the light of a kerosene lantern  (electricity was a luxury held only
by the most affluent Boydton  townspeople) he did his lessons and practiced his
reading on passages  of the Bible until Mother McLagen was satisfied and ushered
him off to  evening prayers and bed.

He showed a flair for machines as a young boy. His father and the  other tenants
would squat on their haunches, scratching in the dust  with twigs as they stared
dumbly at the inert tractor they shared, but  young Andy could puzzle out a
function, remove and dissect its pieces,  and replace them healthy and whole.

Out in the fields, he looked across the sprouting tobacco leaves and  saw crop
dusters seaming the fields with their sprays, rising in and  sliding out of the
sky with the ease of the angels cited from the  pulpit every Sunday. As he had
puzzled out the tractor's engine, so he  puzzled out that his mechanical talents
could take him beyond the world  of a sharecropper's tin-roofed shack.

A likable and deferential sort, and quick to learn what he didn't  already know,
it was easy for young Andy to find work with the  itinerant fliers.

It was not long before he knew his way round the engine of a Curtis  Jenny as
well as that of a John Deere tractor. To his parents' dismay,  however, the boy
was all too willing to exchange his work not for badly  needed cash, but for a
ride in the forward cockpit with the control  stick in his adolescent hand for a
brief minute or so. Such  dereliction earned him a caning or two, but he
considered that a fair  price for an exhilarating, if stomach-churning, trip
through a high,  ascending loop from whose peak he could see that the few square
miles  of Virginia he knew were just a small corner of the world; not the  whole
of it.

On December 7, 1941, men on horseback rode through the countryside  round
Boydton to spread the word received through the few wireless sets  in town: The
U.S. was at war. Andy, along with nearly every other male  in the county,
including his fifteen-year-old brother and  forty-five-year-old slope-backed
father, gathered at the church that  night to pray and await the Army enlistment
clerk who arrived the  following morning.

Father McLagen took his rejection with stoic resignation, compensating  himself
with the unbounded pride of his eldest boy's enlistment. He  and Mother McLagen
prayed for their boy's safe return, escorted him to  the Boydton train station,
thrust the family Bible in his hands, warned  him against fancy women and
liquor, then wished him well and reminded  him not to forget his daily prayers.

Though Andy McLagen had not completed his formal schooling, his  mechanical
skills were plain and his experience valued. His battery  tests placed him in
aircraft mechanic school, and by the end of 1942 he  was proudly writing his
parents in his simple, block lettering that he  had earned his sergeant's
stripes. The following year, the "Flying  Sergeants" program was instituted to
cull flight-worthy noncoms from  the ranks to replace the growing losses in the
expanding air offensive  against Hitler's Festung Europa. Andy McLagen was
accepted into the  program, earned his wings, and by spring 1943 was transferred
to a  fighter pilot replacement pool in London. Just a few weeks before the
351st began combat operations, he was assigned to the group to replace  a lost
wingman (the ill-fated Wayne Donophan, ironically enough).

He quickly proved his mettle, gaining a reputation as one of the  steadiest of
the new pilots. On his third mission, his element  leader's aeroplane was struck
in the engine. The leader ordered  McLagen to stay with the group while he tried
for home. Albert  Markham, who was leading the mission, issued the same order,
taking on  the responsibility of escorting the crippled ship home. But Andy
McLagen didn't go, and when a gaggle of FW-190's pounced he didn't  flinch,
fighting them off alongside Markham.

A few days later, Markham and Colonel Adams called the youngster into  the CO's
office.

"The kid was so nervous I thought he was going to pee in his pants,"
Korczukowski chuckled, as he relived the story for listeners some time  after.

"I

guess he thought Al and the old man were going to prang him for  disobeying
orders. And they knew he was sweating, too. They let him  sit out in my office
and stew, and when they finally called him in they  were sitting there
stone-faced. Like the Inquisition."

When finally McLagen was admitted, Adams cowed him immediately,  declaring,
"I've got the best boys in the world flying for me! They're  too good to have
some low-rent striper flying on their wing!"

"I swear," Korczukowski told me, grinning, "you could see that kid's  arms
flinch, like those sergeant's stripes were biting him."

Then Al Markham, without so much as the flicker of a smile, handed Andy  the
gold bars of a second lieutenant.

"There," he said.

"That takes care of that."

The battlefield commission was a long way to come for somebody from a  family
that had yet to produce a member who had finished his schooling  or seen much
beyond a few miles of Virginia and North Carolina. Andy's  mates were just as
proud of him as he was of himself. He became  something of a mascot to them,
being the youngest in his squadron, and,  arguably, the most naive. For all the
miles he'd logged he'd seen  precious little: mostly military installations and
a few tentative,  excitingly sinful forays into saloons with his comrades. The
story  went that even on the excursion to the Brighton brothel, wherein his
squadron fellows conspired with a prostitute to finally deflower the  lad, Andy
remained a gentleman behind the closed door of the lady's  boudoir, exchanging
nothing more than conversation with her. When  affectionately badgered about the
encounter, he blushed and dissembled  for, whatever the truth of the matter was,
he still remained too much  the good child of his parents to divulge details of
his personal  affairs.

Six weeks later he was gone, and those of his mates who had survived  the
bombing of Donophan thought back to the blushing youngster from  tobacco
country, and wondered if he'd died still the virgin boy.

Name: Second Lieutenant Dennis Francis O'Connell Born: September  23,1920 Place
of Birth: Boston, Massachusetts

Dennis O'Connell's father was a stonecutter who had left Ireland during  the
Easter Rebellion for Boston, where he regularly gathered with other  expatriates
and descendants of expatriates in corner bars and argued  adamantly for the
cause they'd left. Of his father O'Connell had  little to say, other than vague
complaints of oppression and ignorance.  Of his mother, another Irish emigre, he
said even less; she might very  well have disappeared for as much as he
mentioned her. It was not a  dismissal but rather, it seemed, a memory he
savored privately and  quietly, as one might worship one's private saint.

His father enrolled him in Boston College but O'Connell chafed under  the
Jesuits and, against his father's wishes, enrolled in the  Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; if his father wished to push him  toward Catholic
divinity, then O'Connell would strike back with  heartless science. When his
father came to accept the change, and even  boast of his boy's progress,
O'Connell left school to pick up work as a  day laborer here and there while
roaming up and down the East Coast.  His occasional visits home lasted only long
enough to antagonize his  father with his apparent shiftlessness.

A year of roaming in those hard Depression days was enough for  O'Connell, and
in 1939 he turned to the same avenue as that of many  other rootless young men
of the time: the military. His smattering of  university and the results of his
battery tests landed him in flight  training. He emerged an adequate pilot
assigned to the Air Transport  Command, where he was quite content to enjoy the
myriad sights of the  country as he shuttled men and materiel about the States.

As the war in Europe grew more ravenous, threatening to draw in  America, he
betrayed no sign of anxiety in his visits home, but  privately he began counting
the days until the end of his enlistment.

Like certain Irish constituencies, O'Connell's father saw the war as an
opportunity for Ireland to break the bonds of English fiefdom. So
reflex i /

ively opposed to his father was O'Connell that he could not resist  touting
English resilience in the war, and boasted that America would  soon be rallying
to the Royal Family's side to roll back Ireland's  potential liberators. It was
then that Dennis O'Connell's father  finally and permanently closed his door on
his son.

The war did come and O'Connell, along with every other man in uniform,  whether
he had two years or two hours left on his term of service, was  now in uniform
for the duration. His enthusiasm for the war against  the Hun in Europe (or any
other for that matter), with which O'Connell  had tweaked his father, waned
abruptly.

Although the American Air Corps was the first military arm extended  overseas,
with their bombers flying out of England by the summer of  1942, O'Connell
continued to play the role of aerial lorry driver  safely back in the States.

However, the considerable pilot losses of those early days of the  American
bomber offensive sparked a search through the service's ranks  for qualified
fliers with multi engine aircraft experience. A number  ofATC pilots fit the
bill, including O'Connell, but he sidestepped  reassignment by putting in for a
transfer to fighter pilot training, a  move misinterpreted by his seniors as
evidence of an admirable  ambition. Eventually, the bottomless manpower needs
overseas expanded  to include fighter pilots as well.

He received transfer orders late in '42 to a unit already operating in  England.

O'Connell claimed hardship, saying his family's poverty and mother's  ill health
required him stateside. Without his father's knowledge, he  obtained a
corroborating letter from his mother, and the transfer was  canceled. Early in
'43 he was ordered to San Antonio to replace a  351st Fighter Group pilot
injured in a ground mishap. Again, O'Connell  claimed hardship, but this time
his father intercepted his son's  request to his mother for a second
corroboration, and supplied his own  document to the Air Corps in which he
frankly claimed his son's only  hardship was an inability to find a family
member to lie for him.

At San Antonio, O'Connell was assigned to Al Markham's squadron just as  a
transfer to combat operations in England was in the offing.  O'Connell's
ambition to avoid combat remained unabated. He  investigated conscientious
objection; he pleaded to the base  psychiatrist that he was mentally unfit; he
put in for transfer back to  his ATE unit.

According to Leo Korczukowski, O'Connell's frantic maneuvering to avoid  combat
duty hardly went unnoticed. One hot April afternoon, Al Markham  took him under
his arm and walked him off to a far corner of the field.  What transpired
between them neither Markham nor O'Connell ever shared  with anyone else.
Whatever it was, O'Connell's attempts to leave the 3  51 st ceased immediately.
His conduct on the ground and in the air  improved. He fulfilled his
responsibilities unenthusiastically but  reliably, and continued to do so
through his first combat sortie.  Thereafter, whatever equilibrium Markham had
given the boy rapidly  evaporated; this time no walk to a quiet corner of the
field would put  things right.

Some thought they could see O'Connell deteriorate with every sortie.  Though
Markham had continued to try to turn the boy round, Adams, with  his promotion
to Wing in sight, declared that the O'Connell situation  had to be resolved
before his departure. Markham agreed. That  discussion, to which Korczukowski,
Markham, and Adams were party, took  place at evening mess on August 8. The
group had been alerted for a  mission the following day, and Markham suggested
that further  discussion of the matter be put off to the following morning so
they  could dedicate their evening to the usual pre operation activities.  Adams
assented.

Approximately six hours later, the Germans bombed Donophan and Colonel  Adams
was dead. Seven days later, so was Lieutenant Dennis  O'Connell.

Name: Captain Jon-Jacob Anderson Born: May 12,1920 Place of Birth:  Matson,
Kansas

There were seven children on the Anderson farm--five boys, two  girls-all with
the same azure eyes and cornsilk hair. J. J." as they  called him, was the runt,
and as such was determined to prove himself  the equal--or better--of his litter
mates Meaning: If the other  children were jumping from the barn loft into the
straw, J. J. would  leap from the rafters, flashing his consequent broken arm
like a Medal  of Honor; if his older, taller brothers made the school basketball
team, then basketball became a sport for nancy boys, and J. J. threw  his
undersized body into the grinding gears of football.
i y

With a boy so adventurous and impulsive, it was unsurprising for him to  be
attracted to the air circus that drifted across Kansas during the  summer season
of county fairs. Once J. J. tasted the scent of seat  leather and gasoline
fumes, and felt the rush of air past an open  cockpit, the farm lost him
forever. His parents managed to hold on to  his leash long enough for him to
finish his schooling, but thereafter,  he was with a troupe of barnstormers
crisscrossing the farm country.

But for someone like J. J." the derring-do of flying loops over county  fairs
could not compare with the tests of aerial combat. One summer  morning in 1940,
J. J."s mates awoke to find one of their pilots  missing, along with one of the
show's aeroplanes. The craft was  located a week later, abandoned in a fallow
field outside Toronto.

Toronto was his gateway to the R.A.F's Ferry Command, flying Hudson  bombers to
England. J. J."s interest surpassed being a mere "airplane  cabbie" (his
disparaging self-description); it was simply a vehicle to  get him across the
Atlantic. That done, he soon after appeared in  R.A.F uniform, where his story
intertwines with that ofAl Markham.

Name: Major Albert Quincy Markham Born: November 11,1915 Place of  Birth:
Euclid, Ohio

Al Markham was the middle child--book ended by sisters--of the owner of  a small
hardware shop. His father worked hard, his mother alongside  him, and, as the
children grew old enough and capable, each took a  place behind the counter. The
shop had always struggled, then  struggled still more come the Crash of '2 9.
The Markhams did without,  worked longer hours, and did not complain. Their
mother died the  following year. (This event Markham related stoically to
acquaintances  thusly: "She just worked herself out for us.") Despite the
demands of  keeping house with his siblings, and shop-keeping with his father,
Markham managed to maintain respectable marks in his schooling, and  made a name
as a running back on the school football team. His grades  and athletic skills
earned him a partial scholarship from Ohio State  University But Markham's
interests had already been waylaid by an odd  bloke identified in Markham's
tales only by the colorful sobriquet  "Skipjack Bailey."

Mr. Bailey, it seems, was a one-man aviation industry who encamped at  a small
aerodrome outside Euclid every spring. Throughout the season  and into summer
and fall, Mr. Bailey secured a living with his  patched, creaking Curtis Jenny,
performing aerial displays on festive  occasions, aerial sightseeing tours, and
crop-dusting. Markham never  said what first attracted him to Bailey and his
patchwork flying  machine. What attracts a young man to any first love? It
happens.

When Markham could cadge time away from the shop and the schooling and
the athletic field, he was with Bailey, learning to make aeroplanes  run, to
make broken aeroplanes run again, and eventually to fly them.  However taken
Markham was with Bailey and his shopworn Jenny, so Mr.  Bailey was taken with
his young disciple. By the time Markham was  seventeen, he was Bailey's partner
during the flying season, sharing  flying time and profits. To atone for his
increasing absence from the  family shop, Markham unhesitatingly turned over
most of his earnings to  his father, putting aside for himself only a small
cache for upcoming  university expenses.

But the university could not compete with flying. Markham left OSU  early in his
second term, on the eve of the spring flying season, to  join Bailey full-time.

But just a few months after the lad returned to the aerodrome outside  Euclid,
Skipjack Bailey--with as much irony as one could want--was  struck down by a
bus.

Bailey's death took the pleasure out of the little business, and for a  bit
Markham was all at sixes and sevens as to what to do with himself.  His father
offered him a place at his shop, but Markham still felt  drawn to the air. With
his extensive experience it was not difficult  for him to secure a position with
one of the many birthing airlines  that made most of their money flying the
mails while experimenting with  the concept of air passenger travel on the side.

Markham's particular route was among the cities of the Great Lakes  region, and
he quickly attained a reputation as a welcome crewman in  the copilot seat where
all newcomers served their apprenticeship. With  many new pilots coming from the
likes of barnstormers and crop dusters,  pilot trainers always anticipated
investing a certain measure of time  disciplining the air-circus lone-wolf
tendencies out of their pupils,  but Markham, from the outset, showed a welcome
ease at taking the  subordinate seat. If Markham served with a pilot who trol of
the  aeroplane God-given and as such not to be shared with any other human
being (including his second), Markham did not complain, and diligently  applied
himself to his logbook and control checks. And, when flying  with a generous
captain who would benevolently turn to him and say,  "OK, kid, take 'er for a
while," he took the control yoke like a  veteran.

He had an admirable and remarkable cool about him. Bad weather left  him un
flustered bad airfields with bad winds and bad runways he met  with thought and
calculation instead of anguish and worry; a peculiar  vibration in an aeroplane
was a puzzle to deduce, not a reason to fret.  The airline was sorry to lose him
to a competing offer.

Hitler's was a name that made little impression across the oceans in  those
days, and the events in China were tragic, yes, but it was only  yellow men
killing yellow men, and the bloodshed had been going on for
so long that it had become as unexceptional a part of the news reports  as
sports scores. And as for the Italian excursion in Abyssinia, well,  the
cribbage chat ran along the lines that the idea of the fuzzies and  Eye-ties
chasing each other round the bush seemed downright comical.  But in 1936, all
that kindling finally birthed the first licks of flame  as Spain fell into civil
war.

On the other side of the Pond, young men in the doldrums of the  Depression
became caught up in the classic American adventure tale:

overbearing bad guys (the "Insurgents," comprised of rather nasty  Fascists)
besieging outgunned good guys (the Loyalists) to whose rescue  the stouthearted
cavalry could ride. Three thousand American idealists  read Hemingway's reports
of blood, regarded Capa's stunned Spanish foot  soldier--an explosion of splayed
arms and legs--dropping to the ground,  but saw only the glamour of a grand
cause and pretty nurses with  lilting Spanish accents, soothing "a mere flesh
wound" with soft,  loving hands. Brave, foolhardy, and naive, they gave
themselves over  to the illegal recruitment that violated America's neutrality
policy,  and were smuggled across the Franco/ Spanish border. Twenty-one
year-old Al Markham was one of them.

To any young flier, aerobatics, dusting fields, the routine of domestic  air
routes--all paled at the idea of combat in the air a la  Rickenbacker and von
Richthofen. Even the normally cool and  responsible Al Markham could not resist
that allure. But aerobatics  are not the same as air combat tactics. Markham was
new to the game  and discovered--with the first thunk-thunk-thunk of German
7.9-mm  machine-gun bullets into the fuselage of his I-16 fighter--that what
went on in the Spanish skies was not a game or the chivalric jousting  of von
Richthofen's day. Markham grappled with the same epiphany that  finds every new
warrior: Across from him, men he did not know, and  would probably never see,
were as blindly committed as a thunderstorm  to depriving him of his life.

A person's world changes in that moment; the moral compass he has been  raised
and lived with goes madly spinning. Understanding that there  are those who wish
to kill one, one now needs to set oneself seriously  to developing the skills to
kill them first.

The German Condor Legion providing air support for the Insurgents had  the
Loyalists out-trained and out-equipped. The plucky little I-16's  fell regularly
to the guns of the German Messerschmitts. Markham was  game, and he had a raw
ability, enough to gain a kill ("More luck than  skill," he often related
humbly), but he had yet to perfect that  ability. Consequently, in April of
1937, his 1-16 plowed a long furrow  in the dry Spanish earth, though he managed
to turn what should have  been a crash into a crash-landing. He hobbled away
from his burning  ship with a horrendous gash in his right leg, a wound that
would still  give him a twinge in bad weather. (Markham's fellows would often
remark of the invitingly casual air he exuded when one entered his  office and
saw him leaning back in his chair, one leg propped on an  open desk drawer; but
that devil-may-care pose had less to do with ease  than easing the pain in his
old wound.) A few weeks later, on April 26,  Markham was still recovering in a
small hospital in a Basque village  thirty kilometers from the combat lines. It
was Monday, a market day,  and Markham first thought the church bells he heard
late that afternoon  had something to do with the festive air of the crowd
milling among the  costermongers in the square. A few minutes later he was
tragically  corrected by a flight of Condor He-111 bombers which, after they
emptied their bomb bays, turned round to strafe. After the Heinkels  were gone,
Ju-52's arrived with loads of incendiaries, and then it was  their turn to
strafe as well. When the Germans were done three hours  later, nearly one-third
of the seven thousand Basques who lived in  Guernica were dead or wounded.

The war had changed, and so hadAl Markham. Still limping, he took up a  rifle
and returned to the battle line.

He finished the Spanish Civil War in 3 9 with a letter of commendation  from the
deposed Diaz government, a recurring pain in his leg, and the  fervent belief
that the Germans were far from finished. It had been  too easy for them; they
would come for more. He looked at the map,  calculated the possibilities, and
settled in France.

He applied to and was accepted by the Armee de 1"Air, who, while  sharing the
prevailing French thinking that the Boche would never  attempt to penetrate the
impenetrable Maginot Line, were nonetheless  happy to have Markham's experience
against the Germans on their  rolls.

The French were correct in one assumption: Jerry didn't come through  the
Maginot. Instead, von Rundstedt's forty-four divisions blazed  through the
Belgian Ardennes and, with Guderian's panzers in the  spearhead, punched through
at Sedan, flanked the Maginot, and opened  northern France like a tin of
kippers.

As the French collapsed less than four weeks after the German  breakthrough,
Markham, along with a number of his dispossessed French  colleagues and a mixed
bag of refugee combatants from Belgium, the  Netherlands, Poland, and the rest
of the Reich's shopping list, escaped  through Cherbourg a step ahead of the
Germans and made the short  journey across the Channel with an aim toward--as
the saying  goes--fighting again another day.

He joined the R.A.F and was assigned to the 501 st Hurricane squadron  at
Gravesend, directly in the path of the Luftwaffe strikes on London.  Not long
after Markham started flying with the 501st he received a new  wingman, also an
expatriate American: Jon-Jacob Anderson.

At first, one would have thought them as likely to shoot at each other  as at
the Germans. Anderson was a loud braggart, bridling at his  junior status on
someone's wing. More than once, he went off chasing  German aeroplanes instead
of holding the confining but necessary  confines of the wingman's slot keeping
his element leader's tail clear.  Quiet, well reasoned, Markham often seemed
more concerned about his  compatriots than his score. At first, the mix of the
two was decidedly  volatile.

In a little-known incident the R.A.F preferred to keep tactfully  quiet-and
which Anderson saw no reason to resurrect, and Markham was  too discreet to
reveal--Markham taught Anderson a lesson in  responsibility the second time he
found his wingman off hunting down a  kill and leaving him vulnerable. Taking
off after Anderson, Markham  sent a short burst through Andersen's tail.

"Now," Markham supposedly told him, "you know how it feels."

That took care of the obedience issue. It did not take Anderson long,  flying on
Markham's wing during those exhausting, countless sorties  that made up the
Battle of Britain, to develop respect. And, finally,  as Anderson began to curb
his more erratic and extreme tendencies--in  the air, at least--the respect
became mutual. From there it evolved  into friendship. When the first of the
R.A.F's three all-American  Eagle Squadrons was formed in September 1940,
Markham and Anderson  transferred together.

During his R.A.F days, Markham came of age. His flying had always been  capable,
but over the months of combat his instinctive talents became  honed. His actions
in the air, even when appearing rash and desperate,  were always based on calm
consideration of the capabilities of his  machine and skills, and those of his
adversary. More than one R.A.F  colleague described Markham s removal of enemy
aircraft from the sky as  "surgery."

It was not only Markham's expertise that was maturing. Flying with the  Spanish,
and later the French, had been different from his R.A.F  service. The
separations of culture and language did not allow anything  more than a
superficial fraternity between him and his fellow pilots.  But with the R.A.F,
and especially in his days with the Eagles, Markham  experienced that iron bond
that occurs between men who fight and face  death together. If that brotherhood
was fueled on the one hand by the  spirit of adventure that brought so many
young men across the sea, and  on the other by their repugnance for the
indiscriminate devastation  inflicted during the Blitz, then Markham could add,
in his own case,  what he'd lived through at Guernica and in France.

The rhetoric tossed about by political and military leaders on all  sides was
just background static in his ears. While Markham was too  truly humble to think
of himself as in the service of the Forces of  Good, he had seen too much to
think of the enemy as anything less than  truly evil. That belief strengthened
not only the conviction of his  fight, but the bond between him and his
comrades, for that belief
positioned them as

the thin, defensive line between what--with all its foibles and  frailties-still
passed for decency and what was certainly obscene.

Anderson learned at Markham's elbow and became not a perfect officer  but an
inspiring leader. In the air, his rabid energy compensated for  his deficiencies
at the stick. He still gloried in his reputation as a  reckless madman with no
concept of mortality, but from his mentor he  took on a semblance of discipline
and teamwork. Perhaps it was  precisely those peculiarities of his nature,
including his earthbound  peccadilloes, that were part of his attraction to the
more staid  Markham. One was the free spirit the other envied; the other the
all-American hero one aspired to be.

Perhaps their most defining difference came in their relationship to  fear.

Fearlessness is the product of romantic fable-tellers more interested  in
box-office receipts and book sales than truth. Only certified  nutters are
without fear. Markham understood fear. When the 3 51 st  became operational, he
took the mechanics aside and quietly told them  that after a mission there would
always be some red-faced pilots who  climbed out of their cockpits and left some
mess behind. Perhaps  they'd been sick, or their bowels had shuddered loose when
they felt  Luftwaffe bullets punching through the thin aluminum skin of their
ships. The mechanics were to clean the mess and be silent.

"One wisecrack," Markham warned, "and the guy who says it spends the  duration
shoveling snow in the Aleutians."

Anderson, like so many other young and eager types with a head full of  myths
gleaned from the flickers and pulp novels, denied his fear. The  camouflage was
the rows in pubs, the constant run-ins with the military  and civilian
constabulary, the female conquests, the Apache yell over  his wireless in combat
(issued even as his cockpit filled with the  bodily smells of fear).

One wag, describing their differences, said, "Watchin' those two was  like
watchin' your grandpa walking his grandkid's new puppy. There's  this little
pooch strainin' at the leash, and Grandpa's doin' his best  to get it to heel."

After Pearl Harbor, Markham, Anderson, and the other Eagles were  absorbed into
the U.S. Air Corps as part of the Fourth Fighter Group.  However, by dint of
their collective experience, they were singled out  and transferred to teach
aerial combat tactics in Oklahoma. There they  had their premier encounter with
Frank Adams.

"You think I made it through all that just to wind up a wet-nurse?"
Anderson would gripe, his standing lament concerning his removal from  the war.
But Markham took the posting with no misgiving. Combat was  also Markham's
preference, but he understood the importance of blooded  pilots mentoring new
fliers. Markham was always the good soldier, and  the good soldier looks after
his fellows.

Some months later, they found themselves instructors in San Antonio  where the 3
51 st was being formed up. Adams had no trouble  remembering the cool headed
adept and likable Markham from Oklahoma.  Had he been more forgetful, Markham
and Anderson might've remained in  Texas, and there this story could have ended
much to the satisfaction  of all concerned.

"I don't think he heard half of what we told him that night," Ricks  related to
me.

"The poor old fella was nodding off right in front of us."

Harry didn't remember when the briefing had ended, or when Ricks and  Grassi
left. All he knew was that when the harsh alarm of his  telephone woke him a
little after eight, he found himself still wearing  his wrinkled and stale
uniform, and his shoulders and neck were  achingly stiff. It did little for his
waking irritability to find that  the voice on the other end of the wire
belonged to Corporal Nagel.

The corporal began with a long litany of apologies and excuses, which  only
vexed Harry further.

"Just tell me what in hell you want!"

"It's late, sir. I just wanted to know if you're coming in today."

"Of course I'm coming in today. I just overslept a--" "Because you got  a
message from General DiGarre's office and I didn't know what to  tell--"
"General DiGarre?What'd he want?"

"I don't know what he wants, but his office said for you to come in."

Harry sat up in his bed, swinging his feet to the floor and smoothing  out the
wayward strands of his sleep-tangled hair.

"General DiGarre wants to see me?"

"It was his office, so I guess--" "Where and when, Nagel?"

"In his office, they said. At 1400, they said. When you didn't come  in, I
didn't know what to tell them so--" Oh, God, Harry thought.

"What did you tell them, Nagel? Never mind. I don't want to know.  Just call
them--now--and confirm I'll be there."
"So that means you're coming in?"

"Why don't I just surprise you, Nagel," and Harry rang off.

He could think of no good reason for such a summons, but Ryan's ranting  in the
G-2 latrine had demonstrated the possibility for bad ones. He  lay back down on
the bed, and for a half hour he forced his eyes closed  and tried to clear his
mind, but his thoughts kept racing ahead to the  meeting. So, like a nervous
student preparing to sit exams, he gave up  the bed, sat at his escritoire and
began going through his case notes,  studying, Around noon he shaved, showered,
polished his shoes, then  dressed himself carefully in a fresh set of Class A's.
He neatly  packed his briefcase, then sat quietly by the window, smoking and
listening to the radio until 1:30. His nervousness did not even allow  him to
think about lunch.

As soon as Harry's shoes touched the cobbles of the Annex court, a gust  of wind
took his cap and sent it skidding across the car park. Harry  lumbered after his
cap, chasing it about the parked machines, and, in  just a few seconds, the
neat--if portly--image of professional  deportment he'd taken so much time to
compose had blown away as well.

The Ganymede Club was one of the many private clubs that had sprung up  during
the Victorian era like churches of a fevered religion, a shrine  to The Empire.

Within its carved cornices and gargoyles and colonnaded entry ways was  the
evidence of British global hegemony:

marble table tops from the quarries of the Middle East; handwoven rugs  from
Egypt spread across parquet floors; mahogany wainscoting from the  East Indies;

lion's-paw chairs of Malaysian teak; finishings of African ivory;  embroidered
napkins of Indian silk; engraved brass servants' bells from  the Middle East;
and at the bar, thickly sweet rum from the  Caribbean.

When Air Vice Marshal Dowding's office requested the club members  "contribute"
their building to the war effort, the gray-temp led ranks,  too old to carry
weapons themselves, were proud to do their bit. They  set down their briar
pipes, poured themselves a round of B & S's, and  toasted the health of the
King, the Union Jack, and a quick end to the  war. Then they solemnly folded up
the club colors and sent a telegram  to Dowding's office, a verse of typical
lordly brio: "She's all yours,  sir; have at it."

But "Stuffy" Dowding had not requested the club for the home team. The  old club
members huddled together across Park Lane under the shade
trees of Hyde Park, and nipped at toddy-filled thermoses for sorely  needed
comfort as they watched the pagans invade their venerable  shrine.

Blasphemous gum-snapping Yanks clomped about on the hand-woven rugs,  scraping
the parquet floors with metal file cabinets, piling the  marble-topped chess
tables in the cellar to make room for  government-issue desks, taking down the
wall hangings and life-sized  portraits of venerable past Ganymedians to make
way for situation maps  and Status of Operations charts. The aroma of pipe
tobacco and Havana  cigars was replaced by the sting of American cigarettes, the
civilized  shuffle of whist made way for paper-pushing bother, and the soft
click  of billiards was exchanged for clacking typewriters, teletype alert
bells, and jangling telephones.

Harry threaded his way through the clerical warren that now wound  through the
high-ceilinged salons. On his way up the wide, sweeping  stairs to DiGarre's
top-floor office, he passed General Halverson on  his way down. Halverson didn't
notice, not until Harry called after  him. The general stopped and turned,
presenting Harry with a face even  more ashen and haunted than when Harry had
seen it last in the briefing  theater. The general's eyes appeared weak and
empty until they focused  on Harry, then they grew hard.

"Hello, Major," Halverson said tonelessly.

"Being called before the bar?"

Harry shrugged.

"Keep this in your head," the general said, looking up from his  position
several steps below.

"Remember what your job is. And do it." Then, without bothering with  further
explanation, Halverson headed down the stairs.

With a wave, the captain at the desk outside DiGarre's office stopped  Harry
from sitting on the anteroom divan and nodded him straight  through the tall
double doors. Harry passed his hand a last time over  his scant hair, tugged at
his jacket, and entered the office. The  captain closed the doors behind him.

The room within looked to have been some sort of grand salon or study  at one
time; high-ceilinged, thickly carpeted, the walls dark with wood  paneling.
There was a long conference table to one side of the room  under low-slung
billiard lamps, a chattering teleprinter nearby;

along the other side ran tall windows overlooking Hyde Park, their  panes marked
by a lattice of masking tape. At the head of the room,  facing Harry, was a wall
map of Europe with the German-occupied
territories-running from a wavering line through the Russian steppes to  the
English Channel; Norway to Italy--shaded in gray.

Beneath the mural-like map sat a massive desk of mirror-finished oak, a  goodly
portion of its vast surface covered with papers and file  folders. Joe Ryan,
looking humbled before the monolithic desk, was  seated before it, his head
turned awkwardly away from Harry. Harry  could see another man sitting, against
the wall under the map, in the  cross-hatching formed by shadow and sun coming
through the latticed  windows at a sharp oblique that left half the room dark.

Harry could only dimly make out an RAP captain's uniform.

Harry stood at attention in front of the desk, but DiGarre, without  rising from
his studded leather chair, waved Harry to an empty seat  directly before him and
said, with a slight drawl, "Take it easy.  Major, or we'll never get anything
done."

Throughout his tenure in Europe, Lieutenant General Thomas Quinton  DiGarre
remained quite the enigma. He regularly absented himself from  the usual
ambassadorial activities and even the most major press  briefings, socialized
little, and only did so quietly among the closed  circles of the upper echelons.

At times, he was so rarely seen one could easily wonder the general  existed at
all. His official biography--three neatly typed paragraphs  consigning
twenty-five years' military service to a single page--gave  little clue to the
man. He was "... a native of Versailles, Kentucky,"  and ".. .a graduate of
significant standing in the Virginia Military  Institute's Class of '16." His
military career properly began with his  service as a pilot with Rickenbacker's
"Hat in the Circle" squadron in  the First War, but the following twenty-two
years, from the Armistice  to DiGarre's promotion to brigadier in 1940, were, in
that same bio,  described thusly: "He was thereafter promoted regularly as he
ably  fulfilled his responsibilities in a variety of posts." A woeful
understatement that did not account for the military and political  skills that
brought a man up so steadily through the ranks in peacetime  (particularly in a
service, as the crucifixion of Billy Mitchell  illustrated, still striving for
legitimacy) and landed him an  appointment to the U.S. military attache in
London during the Blitz.

Of his attache service, my London colleagues were able to amplify the  official
record. DiGarre's role at the time was to closely study R.A.F  operations both
in fighter defense and, later, in its first bomber  forays against the Germans.
He became a regular nuisance to Fighter  Command, poking about the entire strata
of the organization, from  individual aerodromes to old Stuffy s offices; from
sector station  operations hutments to the Cabinet War Rooms under Parliament
Square.  There is an unsubstantiated but oft-told tale of DiGarre nearly
instigating a diplomatic flap--the Americans then still being
officially neutral--by contriving his presence aboard a Wellington to  on-hand
observe one of the first R.A.F offensive raids against German  industrial
targets in the Ruhr in the fall of 1940.

Summer the following year, DiGarre was using that acquired expertise to  help
plan the Eighth Air Force's first tentative B-17 strikes against  the European
mainland. By February '43 he was back in the States,  given his second star and
command of his own air division, which began  operations in England that spring.

"Ably fulfilled" indeed!

On the rare occasions I had glimpsed the man I felt-as Harry did on  that first
meeting--that Thomas DiGarre was something of a physical  disappointment. Short,
pudgy, practically bald, he had small,  colorless eyes squinting behind
steel-rimmed spectacles. He had a  stubby nose and feral canines visible only
during his rare, quick-flash  smiles. But, also like Harry, I sensed a man well
aware that he had  found his place in the commander's seat. This was not a Joe
Ryan who  had worked his way up on a winning way, or a Patton or Montgomery
driven by an addiction to the limelight. Command came as naturally to  DiGarre
as breathing, and he needed no acknowledgment of his  abilities--no medals, no
headlines or parades--to confirm it. That  ease with power made his attempt at
cordiality feel feigned and  unnatural to Harry.

"Nice of you to come." The general's voice was raspy from whiskey and  cigars,
thick with the sound of Kentucky.

"I wasn't aware I had a choice, sir."

DiGarre's smile made its momentary flash, so fleeting as to almost seem  a tic.

He tapped the stars on his collar.

"One of the benefits of these. I never have to worry about my invites  being
refused. Drinks, anybody? I know it's a bit early in the day,  but if anyone's
so inclined, feel free."

"Scotch and water," Ryan said.

"I'll pass, sir." Harry pointed to his stomach and made uneasy motions  with his
hand by way of explanation.

DiGarre nodded understandingly.

"Let me have that, Captain; I'll freshener up for you," and he took a  glass
from the R.A.F officer to a brass-and-glass liquor stand in a  corner.
"Captain, this is the infamous Major Voss you've been hearing so much  about.
Major, Captain LeightonDunne, my RAP liaison."

The British captain nodded from his seat and Harry nodded back, his  eyes
narrowing as he tried to piece together the figure of the R.A.F  man, separated
into slices of light and dark by the shadow of the tape  on the windows. It was
clear to Harry from the soft shape he could see  inside the man's blue uniform
that his flying days--if there ever had  been any--were long past. Harry saw the
glint of wildly uneven eyes,  the shadow of a skewed nose.

"Voss," the R.A.F man said.

"German, isn't it?"

"Russian, actually," Harry replied.

"My family changed it when--" "Russian," the R.A.F captain  interrupted.

"Yes."

The general set a glass down in front of Harry.

"In case you change your mind."

He distributed the other drinks then returned to his chair, cupping a  tumbler
of whiskey and water. He took a sip.

"Good, but it's not bourbon. I'm a bourbon man myself. Was raised on  that good
bonded stuff with a little branch water thrown in. Doesn't  get any better than
that, but to each his own. Right, Captain?"

The R.A.F captain shrugged.

Harry cleared his throat.

"I noticed General Halverson--" "He have anything to say?"

"Not much. But he didn't look very happy."

DiGarre pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"General Halverson is not a very happy man. Can't say I am, either. Of  late,
we're not operating under very happy circumstances. Cigar?" No  one accepted the
invitation. DiGarre drew one from the embroidered  humidor on his desk, snipped
the end with a silver clipper, and was  soon enjoying a rising cloud of bluish
smoke, a lush fragrance quite a  few notches above that produced by Major Van
Damm'sTampa Nuggets. The
general nodded at the humidor.

"Maybe in a few hundred years we'll have that kind of--" He looked
questioningly at the R.A.F captain.

"Panache?" the captain offered.

DiGarre smiled and nodded again.

"Panache."

"About General Halverson--" "You mind if I call you Harry? Harry, a  lot of the
other air commanders think I'm pretty lucky. They're  jealous because my Wings
are situated so as to make London the best  location for my headquarters, while
they're all stuck out there in the  boondocks. This puts me nice and close to
all the goodies London's got  to offer. Also puts me in a good position to get
the inside dope on  what's going on over at SHAEF. I may be close to SHAEF, but
that also  means SHAEF is close to me. Understand?"

"I think so."

"When I lose a whole group, Harry--a third of one of my Wings-on the  ground in
one fell swoop no less, well, my bosses down the street find  out about it
pretty damned quick. They want an accounting from me.  That means I'm going to
want an accounting of my own."

"From General Halverson."

"The 351st was one of his groups." DiGarre twirled his glass, looking  down into
his drink.

"You a friend of the general?"

"No, sir."

"But you have sympathy for him. Laudable. But whether he just had a  case of the
bad breaks or no, Halverson's got a responsibility to me  and to the men I
entrust to him. There are things that have happened  subsequently--the things
you've been poking into--for which he is  accountable. That, I imagine, is why
he's so unhappy these days." The  general flashed his quick, lupine smile again.

"But that's not really your concern, is it, Harry? So let's discuss  something
that is. I think we'll be more comfortable over there,  gentlemen. Bring your
drinks."

A stack of files in one hand, his drink in the other, DiGarre led them  to a
collection of lion's-paw furniture nestled round a marble-topped  coffee table
under the windows. Harry hesitated, taking an opportunity
for a better look at the R.A.F captain as he passed into the  mote-filled
columns of light from the windows. Early thirties, Harry  guessed. Moving
stiffly as if each movement pained. The face was truly  misshapen, each of his
features unnaturally uneven, and made to look  more so by an odd paleness. Harry
thought back to his attempt at  reassembling the broken porcelain sheep in the
shattered front room of  the Gresham cottage, and that thought cued his eyes to
the barely  perceptible lines in the captain's face--like seams--that might have
been scars, and which the captain had tried to dampen with face powder  (Harry
could see the residue on the man's collar).

Harry and Ryan shared a settee while the general and the R.A.F captain  took
cushioned chairs across from them. DiGarre set his files down on  the table and
nodded at a crumbly cake on a silver salver.

"Piece of cake. Harry? My wife sent it. It's very good, and you  don't have to
agree with me just because I'm your boss."

"Thank you, sir, but I don't feel all that hungry."

"Well, you feel the urge, you help yourself." DiGarre slipped off his  glasses
and set them carefully on the table, then took a pair of  half-moon reading
spectacles from his pocket. He flipped open one of  the folders, reading as he
enjoyed a few puffs on his cigar and another  sip of his drink. Harry took the
moment to look over at Ryan for a  clue as to the nature of the proceedings, but
Ryan's face was slack and  colorless, the usually glinting eyes now flat and
lost in the swirls of  the Persian rug.

"Yes, well .. ." DiGarre said. He sat back in his chair and eyed  Harry over the
rims of his reading spectacles.

"I've been reviewing your case, along with Colonel Ryan and Captain
Leighton-Dunne here. I want to go over it with you to make sure we're  all on
the same trail, so to speak. If there's something you don't  think I have down
right, you let out a holler."

"All right, sir."

DiGarre leaned forward again, running a finger along the typed sheets  in the
folder.

"Let's see.. The way it looks, seems there was some kind of bad blood  all along
between this Lieutenant O'Connell and Major Markham. But, uh,  as I understand
your premise--you correct me, now,

if I don't have this right--you don't think that's why he was killed,  or
because Markham was a little het up that this O'Connell fella lived  through the
kraut raid while a lot of his other boys didn't. What was  it? Something like
forty-odd dead? And then there's the wounded.. ..  But you think it was because
of thisum supposed 'business' out at  Helsvagen."

"It was forty-seven dead, sir. And yes, that's the way the facts--"

"We'll get to the facts in a bit, Major. That's essentially your  case?"

Yes, sir.

"And then you go on that Markham destroyed his gun film not to hide the  attacks
on O'Connell and these other two folks, this Gresham fella and  his wife, but to
hide this Helsvagen thing. I'm supposed to say  'alleged," right, Colonel?

"Allegedly' destroyed his gun film?"

Ryan forced a weak smile in response.

Harry looked over at Ryan but Ryan's eyes were still swimming among the  dark
colors of the rug. There was something about the dry, quiet way  DiGarre ticked
off each element of the case that made them sound  suddenly fragile. He looked
back to DiGarre, his eyes darting between  the general and the R.A.F captain,
both of them barely more than  silhouettes against the sun-filled windows.

"And your evidence of this 'alleged Helsvagen thing--" DiGarre pulled a  folder
out of the pile and opened it. Harry recognized Van Damm's  reconnaissance
photos. "--is based on these recon photos taken  yesterday afternoon, and Major
Van Damm's interpretation of same."

"Yes, sir."

"The way I get it, even Major Van Damm doesn't think these pictures are  exactly
Grade-A quality."

"We always have the option of another recon flyby."

DiGarre nodded, not looking up from the open files.

"Van Damm says that at this late date it's doubtful they'd show  anything
conclusive." The general poked the top several photos out of  the file,
spreading them out on the marble table.

Harry recognized them as the photos of the field representing Markham s
approximate position at the time he claimed Angel Red had been attacked  by
German fighters.

"We have these, but Van Damm doesn't consider them indicative, for a  number of
reasons that I understand he laid out to you, not the least  of which is Markham
isn't sure where he was jumped. And then there's  these .. ." Now he fanned out
the smoke-blotted pictures of the  burning village.

"Know what these show, Harry?

They show a town on fire, a few hundred yards downwind of forty  thousand
gallons of exploding gasoline." Harry felt his evidence go  from fragile to
brittle as old biscuits.

"Those pictures also show collapsed buildings," Harry said.

"Fire doesn't knock a building down."

DiGarre sat back in his chair.

"No, it doesn't. It con weaken one till it can't hold itself up  anymore. Or, it
con get knocked down by somebody trying to create a  firebreak. And this is an
old place. Van Damm tells me. He says a  lot of the buildings there are maybe a
couple hundred years old. The  concussion of forty thousand gallons of gas going
up just next door  might could blow some of them right over. At least that's
what Captain  Leighton-Dunne here tells me. He saw enough of the Blitz close up
to  be an expert."

Harry scratched at an itch over his brow. His fingertips came away  damp.

"There's the radio traffic that came out ofHelsvagen--" "And Major Van  Damm's
interpretation of it, which, to my mind, is another way of  saying informed
speculation. As somebody who has to deal with his hits  and misses, I ought to
know. Van Damm's taking guesses here based on a  three-year-old R.A.F file on
this place; that and kraut tendencies. I  think it's worth noting, Harry, that
despite Major Van Damm's 'feeling'  that Helsvagen has been stripped over the
last few years, these  pictures--and Captain Anderson's gun film--show
antiaircraft guns that  weren't there three years ago. The major does have his
misses."

DiGarre slid the photographs back into their file and closed it. He  took a sip
of his drink and let the liquor sit on his tongue a few  seconds before he
swallowed.

"And there's this." He pulled out still another folder and nudged it  toward
Harry.

"You're pretty thorough, I hear; you would've come across this  eventually, but
let me save you some time and trouble. When Mr.  Gresham spotted the incoming
flight, he routinely contacted his sector  Air Traffic Controller.

The ATE alerted Air/ Sea Rescue, then contacted O'Connell. What you  have there
is a photostat of the official log of the ATE station  covering that sector."

Harry flipped open the folder and slipped on his own reading glasses to  study
the white-on-black image:

0824: Station 3-B-3 confirm visual 3 US P47 course 270 range speed  unreptd. 1
ship trailing smoke. 0827: Alert ASR possble splash Sector  3-B. 0830: Contact
47, self-ID radio desig Angel Blue Baker  (confrm-elmnt 351 grp Don). Reprt no
injury, minor engine damage;

safe ETA Don 5 mins. 0832: Attmpt contact other craft--N/R 0834:  Attmpt contact
Angel Blue Baker--N/R 0835: Attmpt contact Station  3-B-3--N/R 0838: Alert RA
133rd Inf. Regmnt, request investigate.  0842: Infrmed by 351 grp HQ Angel Blue
Baker splash Sector 3-B.

Harry closed the folder. He pushed it back toward DiGarre.

The general let loose a thin stream of cigar smoke before speaking.

"So, you say Markham splashes O'Connell because of what O'Connell saw  at
Helsvagen. According to that log, the RAP was in voice contact with  O'Connell,
but he didn't say anything about it to them. O'Connell was  in range of every
radio receiver in the south of England, in fact, and  didn't say squat. Why do
you think that was.

Harry? It leads a fella to entertain the notion that maybe O'Connell  didn't say
anything because O'Connell didn't have anything to say."

The general paused, but Harry said nothing.

"I'm no lawyer," the general continued, "and I don't pretend to be. I'm  just a
civilian--in that regard--and that's how I'm looking at this.  But I've been
going over this with Colonel Ryan and, for my money, I'd  have to say an awful
lot of what you've got here. Harry, is, oh, I  believe the proper term is
'circumstantial."

" Harry reached for his drink, concentrating on making the move look  smooth and
relaxed.

"Is that Colonel Ryan's opinion, too?" Again, he looked over at Ryan,  only to
find the colonel's eyes fixed on the floor.

DiGarre's response was a shrug.

"I didn't ask him."

Harry shifted in his chair, trying to portray an image of confidence he  no
longer felt.

"A preponderance of circumstantial evidence in a criminal case is  hardly rare,
General. I'm sure if you'd asked, the colonel would've  told you as much. And,
talking the case out like this isn't the same
thing as a proper presentation in front of a jury--" /

"Oh, did I overlook something?" DiGarre went through a show of  concerned alarm
as he riffled through the files.

"Is there some material I don't have here? No?

Then I can only go on what I see, Harry. And I can tell you that the  officers
in my command--the officers who'll probably find themselves  sitting in judgment
on this thing--are no more lawyers than I am. I'd  be inclined to think they'd
look at all this the same way I do."

Harry took another sip of his drink, a slow one. Where the general was  going
was now clear, however obscure his motive remained. Harry  mustered what he
thought was a savvy smile.

"If you don't mind my saying so, General, you're taking the long way  around to
tell me to back off."

DiGarre seemed neither offended nor surprised at Harry's presumption.

"Oh?"

"In which case I have to ask: If that's what you want, why don't you  just order
me to back off? Better yet: Have me relieved from the  case."

The R.A.F captain let out an audible and impatient sigh.

DiGarre ignored the captain, and presented Harry with his furtive  little smile.

"Truthfully, I considered it. Problem is a lot of people got to where  they know
about this thing. Oh, not all of it, especially this end of  it, but a lot of
people know something's cooking. We're not looking to  pull something that's
going to make those people even more curious.  So, we're looking for a way to
bring this whole mess to a close.  Quickly--" "And cleanly," Harry said.

"Right?"

"Hit the nail right on the head, Harry. Can't close this in a way that  leaves
more questions than it answers."

"Which means you remain on the case." The R.A.F captain's voice was  cold,
passionless, the ferretlike teeth in his mouth showing the  lifeless gleam of
porcelain.

"It also means that you must be the one to decide its disposition.

Willingly."

"Willingly," Harry said, nodding. He set his glass down on the table  and
smiled.

"A silent Harry is a happy Harry, right? And this subtle piece of  extortion is
supposed to make me 'willing'?" Harry was frankly  astonished at his own
effrontery. Perhaps he'd taken one sip too many  of his drink.
E

If his abruptness troubled DiGarre, the general didn't show it.

"Extortion?

Harry, we're just taking the time to lay out the situation the way we  see it.

I'm not sure you appreciate the predicament you're in."

DiGarre fingered out and opened another folder. Harry could see his  own ID
photo in a corner of the typed cover form.

"I hear from Colonel Ryan you're pretty good at what you do. But  you're no Tom
Dewey, and Ryan also tells me this'd be a tricky case  even for an old hand. No
offense, Harry, but I see you haven't had  much heavy criminal trial experience,
in or out of the service. We're  all worried that you--what's the phrase? That
your reach might be  exceeding your grasp?"

It was at that point, so Harry told me later, when the scotch might've  gotten
the better of him, and his anger flared.

"You're asking me-- 'nicely'--to close up shop and let Markham and  Anderson
walk, right? Is that it?"

DiGarre s look of shock and dismay seemed no more sincere than his  earlier warm
welcome.

"No, no, no, of course not! Sorry to give you that impression. Harry  I guess we
hadn't gotten to that yet. Colonel Ryan, I believe we're in  your territory
now."

Ryan cleared his throat. He tried to face Harry, but his eyes kept  wandering
back to the rug.

"We'd still like you to prosecute the case."

"That's practically a precondition. Harry," said DiGarre.

Harry shook his head, thoroughly confused.

"Prosecute what case?"

Ryan cleared his throat again.

"The O'Connell murder. The attack on the Greshams. Both are more  substantive
cases. Airtight, actually. The general, he' sum sure that  any jury panel would
convict."

DiGarre nodded in agreement.

"I'd be willing to bet they'd convict that Anderson character in the  bargain,
too. Accessory, complicity, whatever it is. You boys know  the right legal
term."

"It's a solution which would see the situation right all round," the  RAP
captain said.

"Even for you, I'd imagine."

DiGarre nodded again, quite pleased with the offered tertium quid.

"The Army enforces discipline, our Allies are assured of our good  intentions,
and you .. Suffice to say that such a conviction would be  appreciated top to
bottom.

That's what you're worried about, isn't it. Harry? Making sure you  get that
conviction?"

"C'mon, Harry, don't play the virgin." Ryan smiled weakly, a pitiful  ghost of
his usual style.
"It's no different from a plea bargain, and you w know as well as I  do how many
times we plea 'em down just to clear the docket.

And it's not like they'll come out of this with just a rap on the  wrist. A
conviction on O'Connell and the Gresham attack .. They go all  the way on that."

"After all, Major," the R.A.F captain sniffed, "you can only hang them  once."

Harry sat for a long moment, taking in the presentation.

"You don't care if they're guilty or not. You'd hang these guys for  something
they didn't do just to hush this up? Why? Why?"

The large room went quiet. There was Ryan, slumped and weak in his  chair.

DiGarre sat studying him with careful calculation. And there was the  R.A.F
captain.

"It's not a matter of caring," the R.A.F captain said finally.

"I can see that," Harry said.

"It's a question of priorities," the R.A.F captain said.

"At this particular juncture, their guilt or innocence is, at best, of  only
secondary importance."

"Captain's right, Harry," DiGarre said.

"It doesn't matter what they did. The issue is that they would even be  charged
with this; that they would even be suspect in this kind of  action."

"I can't say you gentlemen have persuaded me," Harry said, "but you  sure as
hell have me bamboozled."

DiGarre nodded in genuine sympathy.

"We have, at this moment, two central priorities, Harry. One is the
preservation of the Alliance. You know, people back home look at us as  one
great army making war on the Hun. The sad truth is that destroying  the Germans
is just about the only thing we agree on. On its best  days, this grand alliance
is nothing more than a very shaky  coalition."

"Colonel Ryan explained the diplomatic problems to me."
"No, Harry. Ryan explained some diplomatic problems to you. We've got  De Gaulle
and his Free French making more trouble for us than Vichy.  There's Czech units,
Polish units, and God knows who else jammed on  this island, and they've all got
something to say about what we do,  when we do it, how, where, and every other
damned thing. We've got the  Bolshies and they've been rabid paranoid since
1917.

It doesn't matter that a lot of their predicament is their own damned  fault.

They figure the ten or fifteen million people they've lost in this war  so far
is atonement enough. Hitler's throwing almost eighty percent of  his war effort
at the East right now, and the Reds aren't too subtle  about accusing us of
letting them wear the krauts down with Russian  blood. There's a lot of people
looking for us to make a misstep and  use it as proof that we don't know what
the hell we're doing."

DiGarre paused to allow Harry to absorb that much. He tilted his head  back,
took a puff on his cigar, and let the smoke out to gather over  his head like a
luminous cloud.

"Harry, there's military targets in every one of the occupied  countries. Some
have civilian laborers, some use slave labor. Some  are close to residential
areas and historical landmarks. Our allies  accept the fact that hitting those
targets means hitting things we wish  we didn't have to, even in their home
countries. It means people who  shouldn't suffer are going to suffer, and they
accept that, too. Even  the people on the ground--the poor slobs drafted into
building the sub  pens at Calais, the dock workers at Antwerp, the guys just
doing their  jobs in the stockyards at Rouen--they all know they're going to
take a  beating right along with the krauts. They take it because they figure
we wouldn't do it if we didn't have to; that's the implied contract.  The
question is, would they take it if they thought we were just laying  our eggs
anywhere we damned well pleased? Would they take it if they  thought we'd broken
the faith?"

"If we become suspect in that regard," the R.A.F captain broke in, "we  risk
balkanizing the alliance still further. And there's the question  of certain
strategic neutrals, such as Spain and Turkey. If the  Germans make the claim
against us, in all probability it will be  dismissed as typical Nazi folderol.

But if we indict, we substantiate the German claim and give over a  propaganda
weapon possibly strong enough to move the neutrals further  from us and closer
to the Axis. It could be just the tool someone like  Mr. De Valera, for example,
and his cronies in Dublin could get no end  of use from to further their
separatist movement at our expense."

"What's the reaction of the Belgians?" Harry asked.
"The target is in their country."

"That's all we'd need," DiGarre sighed.

"Another country heard from."

The R.A.F captain twitched in his seat, prodded by those deep aches  Harry had
glimpsed in him earlier. He took a small pillbox from his  breast pocket, a cue
for DiGarre, who crossed back to the liquor stand  and returned with a glass of
water.

"There is no official Belgian government-in exile," the R.A.F captain's  flat
voice stated.

"As for King Leopold, our information is that he may be--and the  Germans
suspect as much--some sort of component in the Belgian  resistance despite
claiming otherwise. That being the case, and if the  Germans have informed him
of the incident, and even if he believes  them, it's doubtful that he'd make any
statement that would compromise  us. The King wants the Germans out of Belgium
as much as we do." The  R.A.F captain placed two small white tablets from the
pillbox on his  tongue and washed them down with the water.

DiGarre's cigar had grown short. He stubbed it out, walked to his  desk, and
drew another from the humidor.

"I wish you'd try a piece of that cake. Harry." He took a moment to  light his
fresh Havana, then asked, "You think we'll win the war? I'm  asking you
straight. I don't want all that Why We Fight stuff about  Mom and apple pie or
God being on our side and all. Practical,  strategic point of view--we going to
win?"

The question seemed so irrelevant that Harry was at a loss for an  answer.

DiGarre waited patiently.

"I'm not a strategist, sir, but I'd say so. We seem to have the  industry, the
manpower--" "The leadership?" DiGarre smiled wryly.

"Yes, we'll win. Eventually. Maybe in three years, maybe five. That's  a long
time. I really wish you'd try that cake, It was obviously more  than a casual
suggestion, so Harry cut himself a sliver and took a  bite, "You were right.
Your wife is a good cook."

"Thank you, Harry. Tastes different, doesn't it?"

"Different?"

"From the way that cake would've tasted a year and a half ago. It  should taste
different. No eggs, no butter, no milk. They gave that  up, Harry. They give us
their old pots and pans and steel wool. They  have meatless days and grow
vegetables in their backyards. Women wait  in line for hours for one pair of
rationed nylons so we can have silk  for parachutes. Women are building
airplanes and tanks; they get  together in clubs and roll bandages. I was just
reading about  someplace up in Oregon where the ladies stick their kids in
twenty-four-hour playrooms so they can work three shifts building  Liberty
ships.

They give us their sons. Harry. They give up a lot. You see this map  behind me?

Take a good look. We had a good year this year. The pendulum is  finally
swinging our way. In the Pacific, Guadalcanal's ours  andYamamoto's dead. On
this side of the world the krauts have lost so  many subs that Doenitz has
pulled his U-boats out of the North  Atlantic." He raised the red tip of his
cigar toward the map.

"The Germans have been backing out of Russia since they lost Stalingrad  and the
Reds broke the siege at Leningrad. We took back North Africa  and Sicily, and
I'm not giving away any big military secret when I tell  you we'll be on the
Italian boot inside a month. But see all this.  Harry? This shaded area? All
this in gray?" Emphatically, then: "Do  you see it?"

"I see it, sir."

"That's the territory that's still occupied, dominated, or allied with  the
krauts. That's what the German Reich is today. Most of  continental Europe, in
fact. Quite a piece of grazing land, wouldn't  you say? A lot of fighting left."

"Yes, sir."

"They sacrifice because we're on a sacred crusade, Harry. To them,  it's Good
versus Evil and nothing less. It doesn't register with them  that the Reds were
no friends of ours before the war and they probably  won't be after, or that
nobody elected De Gaulle or that we may just be  fighting to save our own hides.

They sacrifice because they believe in what we're doing. Harry. That's  our
other priority: making them believers. Taint the crusade, and you  create doubt.
Doubt begets hesitation. You know the old ditty about  for want of a nail the
shoe was lost?"

"Are you telling me," Harry said incredulously, "that you think the  whole
Allied war effort is going to grind to a halt because of--"  "Hell, no, Harry!
Hell, no!" DiGarre chuckled.

"Tell you the truth, nobody has the vaguest idea of what would happen.  Could be
that whole Murrow bunch beats a big drum for this and it  wouldn't bring sweat
on a cow's brow."

"You just think it's an unacceptable risk."

DiGarre wandered to the conference table and scanned the piled yellow  paper
spewing out of the teleprinter, then resumed his seat at the  marble table, his
face now quite cold. " I think if the possibility  exists that this could cause
just one American boy in a foxhole to so  much as nick his finger--that this war
could go on for one second  longer than it needs to--then it's an unacceptable
risk."
"As we told you. Major Voss," the R.A.F captain said, "we're  discussing
priorities."

"I'm well aware of what we're discussing," Harry said.

"See here. Major," the R.A.F captain went on.

"Jerry has been doing this sort of thing since Spain, and the Eye-ties  since
Ethiopia, and the Nips of course--" "I wasn't aware that the  actions of the
Axis powers constituted a mitigating factor," Harry  snapped.

The captain's small, lopsided mouth twisted in a caustic smile. He  made no
pretense at concealing his disdain.

"The Royal Air Force has been engaged in nighttime area bombing over  German
population centers since we began our air counteroffensive in  1940."

"We're not talking about the R.A.F," Harry responded.

The R.A.F captain's smile twisted a little tighter.

"Ever since your people mounted the first American air raid little more  than a
year ago they've been trying to prove the efficacy of daylight  precision
bombing. You may've heard of the results at Ploesti and  Schweinfurt. Quite
cost-ineffective, to say the least."

DiGarre's shoulders heaved in begrudgingly agreement.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to start taking another tack."

"Shall I tell him?" the R.A.F captain asked, almost eagerly The  general took a
moment to weigh the strategic value of proceeding. He  nodded as he inhaled from
his cigar, then said, through a cloud of  acrid blue smoke, "Harry, what you're
about to hear is classified. Any  breach of security means the next
court-martial you work on will be  your own."

The R.A.F captain shifted in his seat, trying to make himself more  comfortable.

"Approximately three weeks ago, beginning the night of 24 July, the  R.A.F was
joined by elements of the American Eighth Air Force in  bombing the German city
of Hamburg. They bombed the city that night,  then again on the following day
and the day after, and then again on  the night of 27-28. The newsreels have
depicted the event as yet  another successful air attack against the Reich with
no further  details. As for those omitted details: Reports from our agents in
Germany are still rather sketchy, but what we know thus far is that the  initial
destruction from the sustained bombing was devastating. There  were also some
unanticipated secondary effects. Apparently, some  manner of freak weather
condition was at work in the target area,  something to do with odd winds or
some such. In any case, coupled with  the enormous destructive force of the
bombings and resultant fires,  some sort of blast furnace effect was created.
Our Intelligence people  have been using the word 'firestorm." This 'storm'
generated heat to  one thousand degrees centigrade. People were incinerated in
their  shelters. The updraft was great enough to pull trees from the ground.
One report cited that even the river running through the city was  afire. Our
assumption is that the oil spillage from the ships at the  docks combusted from
the heat.

Reconnaissance photos show half the city of Hamburg is gone.  Approximately
eight hundred thousand Germans have lost their homes,  between thirty and fifty
thousand inhabitants are probably dead, which  means the Germans suffered more
dead in four days than we did during  any one month of the Blitz. While the
participation of your Air Force  in such actions is singular to date, we feel
they will now be seriously  considering their enormous impact on the enemy in
light of their  comparatively light cost."

Harry looked to DiGarre.

"It has to be considered," the general said.

"If the people back home have to choose between their sons and kraut  civilians,
the hausfrau is going to lose."

"I think you'll find," the RAP captain continued, "that to the public  at
large--at least here, where the bombs fall--the Germans are the  enemy. Not the
German Luftwaffe, not the German Wehrmacht, but the  Germans."

"We're not talking about Germans here," Harry said through clenched  jaws.

"Yes," the RAP captain mused.

"That does bring up the point as to whether you would press this case  as you
have if we were. And if not, then it's apparently not the act  itself that
troubles you, eh, Major? I suppose that hypocrisy is like  influenza; even the
doctor gets it."

Harry's mouth began to open and he could feel his vocal chords tighten  in
preparation for something shrill and nasty, but DiGarre stepped in  first.

"What we're talking about is easing the American public into a frame of  mind
that'll tolerate the deliberate infliction of massive civilian  casualties and
equally massive collateral damage. Now, obviously, the  boys who flew those
planes are the ones going eyeball-to-eyeball with  the krauts and frankly,
Harry, the boys are not squawking. They'd  rather fly another Hamburg milk run
than go through the meat grinder  again over Schweinfurt."

DiGarre left Harry to his thoughts for a moment as he finished his  drink,
studying him over the tops of his spectacles.

"Well, Harry?"

"That's a hell of an agenda you have. General."

"That's what they pay me for," the general said grimly.

They had shown Harry how calculating they could be and in doing so,  he'd begun
to appreciate how extensive those calculations were. The  thought that came to
him so stunned him that he wasn't, at first, aware  that he'd spoken aloud.

"You set Halverson up."

"What do you mean," said DiGarre, his voice soothingly inquisitive, by'  set him
up'?"

"Harry," Ryan cautioned.

But Harry didn't hear Ryan's warning.

"You asked General Halverson for an assessment on the 351st after the  Germans
hit them. He stalled to buy time for the raid. He didn't send  the report up
until the day before the raid was scheduled, thinking  it'd be too late for you
to scrub the mission. But they had to  postpone. You had an extra two days--"
"Major," the general said  heavily, "I'll bet enough paper crosses my desk each
day to give every  man, woman, and child in my grand home state of Kentucky
something new  to read each week."

"No," Harry said.

"You would've been looking for this. Like you said; you have  accounting to do.
I can't believe you wouldn't've read the report as  soon as Halverson's
messenger showed up. If the raid had come off,  everybody would've been a hero.
The guys on the raid'd get a medal or  something, the heat would've been off
Halverson. And you would've been  in the clear, too. But if the raid went sour,
you could just say you  didn't know anything about it. It would all fall on
Halverson's  head."

Harry braced himself for the retaliatory fusillade. The sun moved  another
degree in the sky and a painfully bright glare swept across the  windows behind
the general. The rows of taped crosses dissolved in the  glare.

"Harry," DiGarre said, "we've hit you with an awful lot here. Why  don't you
think over everything we've talked about. Talk it over with  your two
associates. They have a stake in this too, you know. This  could be very
beneficial for all of you. Then, come by sometime  tomorrow and let me know your
thinking on the matter. Fair enough?  Thank you for coming."

It was a dismissal. Harry stood. There wasn't much room between the  settee and
the table and he barked his shins on the sharp, stone edge.  With his hand on
the gnarled brass knob of one of the double doors, he  hesitated, then faced
back toward them. Ryan was at the liquor stand,  and the R.A.F captain was
standing by the windows, massaging the small  of his back. DiGarre sat like some
divinely appointed king, sunk deep  in his chair, an ankle carelessly tossed
across the opposite knee, his  fingers knitted across his chest, his smoldering
cigar rolling slowly  from one corner of his mouth to the other.

Harry left.

If Harry seems naive, a bit oblivious to what we might condescendingly  point
out to him was painfully obvious--"War is hell, old boy!"--he  merely shared
what remains a prevailing schizophrenia regarding some of  combat's more
unsavory truths.

At the time a benumbed Harry was leaving General DiGarre's office,  millions
back in his home country paid their two bits to sit riveted by  the film
Destination Tokyo. They huddled in darkened cinemas and  cheered Cary Grant and
his submarine crew of fresh-faced lads as they  slunk about under the sea. They
cheered their torpedo ambush of  defenseless Japanese cargo ships. Sorry, Tojo,
but war is hell, you  know!

Afterward, they crossed the way to another cinema, set down another two  bits
for Action in the North Atlantic (from the very same studio, no  less), where
this time the fresh-faced young Americans manned a cargo  ship, and were
fighting off skulking German submarines. Curiously,  cinema fans did not accept
the actions of the U-boats and their  sneery-faced Kapitans as more war is hell.
They booed and hissed what  they considered to be Teutonic villainy.

A year earlier I'd been sharing drinks with a colleague from the  American photo
magazine Life, and he told me of a complaint they had  received concerning a
particular photograph they had run. The picture
was of a British tank officer in hospital, wounded during the North

African campaign. The young captain's arm and eye were swathed in  bandages, and
he lay between two other gauze-draped men. After  publication, there came a
letter objecting to the running of such  material for the sake of other young
soldiers.

"Must they," wrote the correspondent, a woman from Rochester, New York,  "go to
fight with a horrible ending in their minds?"

So, don't condescend to poor old Harry. If any number of us truly  believed that
war is hell, how could we ever have permitted another war  after the first one?

On that score, we are hypocrites and liars all.

As he left the Ganymede, Harry was barely aware of the salutes of the  guards at
the wrought-iron gates. Without conscious direction, he  passed through Brook
Gate into Hyde Park, wandering until he found  himself on the esplanade along
the Serpentine. Sticky, hot, and very,  very tired, he found an isolated bench
by the water and sat himself  down.

The warm afternoon made his eyes heavy. A breeze stirred the lake,  nudging the
water into the bank with quiet, licking noises. Across the  lake, Harry could
see a nanny feeding the swans with her two preschool  charges. The children
squealed nervously, thrilled and terrified at  the closeness of the large white
birds.

Above, marring the pastel blue sky, were the brooding gray shapes of  barrage
balloons staggered out over London in a swaying phalanx. But  if Harry dropped
his gaze just a few degrees, the city vanished.  Brompton, Belgravia, Mayfair
and General DiGarre's headquarters, the  looming balloons ... all disappeared
behind the thick branches of the  trees about the park, and the only noises he
could hear were the  lapping water, the chiming laughter of the children, the
trumpeting of  the swans.

A tune, a faint whistle, came to him on the breeze. It took Harry's  fogbound
mind a moment to remember the words:

In Dublin's fair city Where girls are so pretty I first set my eyes on  sweet
Molly Molone... Harry turned, following the whistling, and saw a  man on the
esplanade. He was perhaps Harry's age, though the face  showed a good deal more
weathering (no doubt as much a product of  scotch and cigarettes as wind and
rain). He wore a shapeless dark suit  that had been out of style even before
wartime rationing had made  matters of style academic, and a fraying Panama hat.
He walked with an  odd, rolling gait, almost a limp.

I whistled the next verse:

As she wheeled her wheelbarrow Through streets broad and narrow Crying  cockles,
and mussels Alive, alive-o ...
CHAPTER EIGHT

FIDEI DEFENSOR

himself AND HIS MENTION OF cathryn had touched a chord of loneliness in  me that
evening, and it had resonated through a restless sleep.  Eventually, I slid out
of bed, not bothering to strap on the apparatus.  I hopped to the table where
I'd left the bottle Himself and I had  shared, then hopped over to the window
where the blackout curtains were  open and London lay outside dark and quiet.

I sat on the sill and poured myself a small dose and lit an American  cigarette.

The street below was empty but for a couple, young I assumed by their  cooing
and smothered giggles. He was in uniform, though what kind I  couldn't tell in
the darkness. They circled each other, pretending a  chase. He would grab her
about the ribs in a thinly disguised attempt  to touch her up, and she'd laugh,
then he'd allow her to wriggle free.  She'd run along the cobbles, her tam
hanging oddly from her hair, held  in place by a hat ping mocking and teasing
him to spur him to chase her  again.

From the other end of the street, out of sight from my flat window,  came the
slow, steady rhythm of heavy boots. I saw the boy and girl  recompose themselves
like errant children hoping to throw off any  suspicion of naughtiness, and
then, trying to restrain giggles, they  toddled off hand in hand.

The owner of the boots wore a cocked helmet, held an unlit torch in his  hand,
and had a gas mask satchel on his hip. His tread bespoke an  older man. Home
Guard, I thought. He stopped on the walk below me,  glanced up and down the
street, then upward. He must've seen the glow  from my fag. He raised his torch
to the brim of his helmet. I waved  the amber tip of the cigarette back in
returned salute, then he trudged  off.

Thereafter I had more of the scotch than I should have.

I fobbed off, appearing at the office that morning with a vague tale of  a lead
on a new story, and returned to my observer's station across  from the Annex. It
soon became obvious to me from the lack of the  bustle and urgency that had
marked the courtyard in recent days that  whatever story had been a-brewing
seemed to be finished. Still, I  stayed until Harry Voss appeared as nattily put
together as I'd seen  him since the case began. The reason for his attentiveness
to  appearance became clear as I followed him to General DiGarre's
headquarters.

I was still there when he exited a short time later looking very much a  man
adrift.

None of it--the lying in wait, the surreptitious following of Harry to
DiGarre's offices and then, afterward, into the park--had anything to  do with
the story.

If asked I would've said otherwise, something to the effect of these  simply
being the actions of a damned dogged journalist and if there  were a story
about, by heaven, no warning from Himself, Whitehall, or  the Almighty would
hold me off. But it was none of that.

Harry was different from those bubbly cohorts of his who looked at  their
stationing in England as some grand holiday adventure. Nor did  he have the
swagger of those who considered themselves the heirs  presumptive to a fading
Empire. From the first day I saw him--and even  more so since I'd seen him
emerge from the Grosvenor Square complex  after seeing the photographs of a
burning Helsvagen--he looked like a  man who would rather be at home. And more
and more, I was feeling like  a man who longed for one.

Sitting by the Serpentine, sunk within himself, he seemed painfully  alone.

Without really being conscious of the act, out came my whistling:

a contact. He looked over to where I was on the esplanade. I nodded  and smiled,
and he smiled back. And then--again not even really
consider THE ADVULAlt,

ing it--I made over to him and tipped my head toward the empty side of  his
bench. He shrugged in return and scooted over, and I sat.

Across the water, the children were running at the swans, only to run  off
shrieking, terrified by the flapping of large, warning wings.

"They'll get themselves in a bit of trouble," I said.

"Excuse me?" Harry said.

"The wee tykes there. Those birds are under protection of the Crown.  All the
swans in England, actually. Property of the King.  Foul-tempered beasts, too.
Odd what a person'll care to protect.  That's the sort of queer business I
suppose a visitor would describe as  'quaint." And you do appear to be a
visitor."

He looked down and seemed surprised to find himself in uniform.

"Oh, yes."

"They'll be all over the park soon, I imagine."

"Who? The swans?"

I laughed.

"The wee ones. They plopped most of 'em down in the countryside in the  early
days. Blitz Babies, they called 'em. Some went overseas.  Australia.

Canada. Some even to the States, so thank you for that. Oddly, the  ones who
stayed seem to have thought the whole affair a jolly pink tea.  Enjoyed
themselves immensely, climbing about the rubble, scavenging,  dodging school,
the whole lot of it quite fun. Too young to know any  better, I suppose."

Harry squinted across the lake. The nanny had grabbed the children by  their
hands, scolding them for abusing the birds as she led them off.

"Do you think they ever grow out of it?"

"Some do." I held out a hand.

"Eddy," I said in introduction. He took the hand.

I nodded at the insignia on his shoulder.

"Major, is it?" I asked, affecting a certain naive earnestness.
"Harry. You're .. . Scottish? I hear the brogue."

"Burr. It's a Scottish burr. The Irish have a brogue, the Scots a  burr. And you
have a good ear. Harry." I looked after the receding  nanny and her charges.

"Aye, they'll all be coming back. Already started, it has. Bombs'll  be a
lullaby to that lot running amuck. You have kids?"

"Two."

"Then you know I'm spot on about the rumpus."

"They do get noisy." He smiled wistfully.

"Pictures?"

He hesitated, not wanting to appear another boringly boastful parent,  then he
drew out his billfold, opening it to the transparent sleeves  that housed his
family. There were the boys, then the wife, then the  boys and wife.

"Nice lot, that," I said.

"Prettier than you, I dare say."

It was his turn to laugh.

"I agree. I wonder if I'll recognize them when I get home. It's been  so long."

"Oh, you will."

He nodded, still doubtful, then took another glance at the pictures  before he
tucked the billfold safely away.

I thought ofCathryn and mishandled welcome-home's.

"There's always an awkward bit at first."

"It passes?"

His eyes were still across the lake and that gave me a chance to study  his soft
face. I could see it there: I should never have come home,  and he should never
have left.

"For you," I told him, "it'll pass rather quickly, I should think."

We sat a few minutes more, exchanging bits of inane conversation, but
the chat seemed to please him. I offered him something from the tea  stall at
the end of the lake, but he glanced at his watch, then shook  his head.

"Things to do," he explained sadly.

"Too many."

I rose with him.

"Ach, I know the feeling. A day like today you could almost forget it  was on,
eh? The war, I mean. You should come back, Harry. When it's  over. It's like
this all the time, then." I pointed at the quiet,  green park.

He grinned.

"Except for the kids."

"Well, aye, except for that."

We wished each other a pleasant day and he moved on. When I thought a  discreet
distance had appeared between us, I followed. Again, I told  myself it was only
business.

At the Annex, Harry put in calls to Ricks and Grassi to meet him in his
quarters immediately. While he waited for them he went back over the  case
material for the nth time.

He was looking for two things:

Paramount was the answer to DiGarre's riddle concerning Dennis  O'Connell's
wireless silence on the return trip from Helsvagen. A  mechanic's report on
O'Connell's aircraft stated that the damage to  O'Connell's wireless equipment
had been inflicted both by the burst of  gunfire that downed the aeroplane, and
by the final crash into the sea.  Ergo, O'Connell had had a working wireless on
his way home. So,  DiGarre's question gnawed at him: Why was O'Connell silent?

Beyond that, he was hoping that by going through the material again he  could
find the solidarity it'd had before DiGarre had pummeled it into  bread pudding
with his subtly deprecating voice and dissecting gaze.

Finding neither, Harry was left looking for a third thing: What to do  next.

When Ricks and Grassi arrived. Harry made sure the door was closed  firmly
behind them before outlining their current position. DiGarre's  warning in mind,
he avoided any mention of Hamburg. But he did state,  in vague but forceful
terms.
Headquarters' objection to pursuing the Helsvagen matter, and DiGarre's  offer
of a quick conviction on O'Connell's murder and the attack on the  Greshams in
exchange for not charging Markham and Anderson with an  attack on the village of
Helsvagen. So there'd be no illusions as to  the risk involved. Harry also
presented his own view that--win or  lose--there existed a strong possibility of
punitive measures against  them afterward, official and otherwise, if they
prosecuted  Helsvagen-related charges.

Harry's warning of the danger of prosecuting the Helsvagen case only  roiled
Grassi.

"You know what that is?" he declared heatedly, pacing about Harry's  room.

"You know what all that crap is? That crap is obstructing justice is  what that
crap is!"

"It doesn't matter," Ricks said tiredly, but before he could continue,  Grassi
was waving a finger in his face.

"What the hell do you mean 'it doesn't matter'? We should slap these  sons of
bitches with a restraining order and have the whole bunch of  them yanked clear
of this case!"

"A restraining order." Ricks rolled his eyes.

"A restraining order."

"Or something!" Grassi declared.

"File for conflict of interest, get Ryan recused .. ." Grassi was  fueling his
anger to the point where he almost couldn't speak. He took  a deep breath.

"We're holding onto a case bigger than Scopes, Leopold and Loeb, and  Baby
lindbergh all rolled into one, and maybe you don't care if these  bozos want to
pull it out from under us--" Grassi stopped, struck by a  thought. His tone
turned accusing.

"You don't care! You've been gun-shy on this thing from the  beginning--" "And
where are you going to go to get your restraining  order?" Ricks snapped back.

"Where are you going to find the referee to slap them down?" The  unprecedented
burst of anger from the usually reserved captain set  Grassi back on his heels.
Ricks recomposed himself, speaking quietly,  but firmly: "Think a minute,
Armando! This is Army law! You can't  protect this case without the cooperation
of the same people who are
trying to suppress it! They run the game.

They are the referees."

Ricks turned to Harry, curious as to his senior's silence. He marked  it strange
that Harry had made none of his usual attempts to quiet  Grassi down.

"If you two are done with the free-for-all," Harry said impassively, "I  want us
all to have a clear picture of where we're at right now, and  then maybe we can
figure out where we go from here. I want to hear  everybody's thoughts. What
about you, Pete?"

Ricks remembered it as the first instance of Harry addressing him by  his
Christian name.

"Maybe I'm just imagining it," he told me, "but it almost felt like he  was
asking me .. . asking anybody what the right thing was to do."

With a certain degree of embarrassment Ricks told me he could only  muster a
confused shrug. Harry continued to stand over him, not  pressing, but hoping.

Ricks cleared his throat and stood. He began to pace; a convenient  vehicle for
getting out from under Harry's beseeching eyes.

"First," he began, his voice somewhat strained, "we have to decide on  our
priorities." Armando Grassi was already rolling his eyes  impatiently.

"If our first priority is a conviction, then, obviously, the strategic  thing to
do is to accept the general's-- " "And just forget everything  else?" Grassi
exploded, shooting to his feet.

"Armando--" "Don't "Armando' me!"

"You know as well as I do that what someone did, and what is vi ably
prosecutable, are not the same thing. You look at what you have and  try the
best case--" "And that's what you want to do? Let them off--"  "This has got
nothing to do with what anybody wants to do!" Ricks  tried unsuccessfully to
keep his voice from rising.

"If we're interested in a felony conviction and appropriate sentencing,  the
most practical course--" "Meaning the safest."

"In terms of--" "In terms of saving your own ass!"

"Enough!" Harry snapped, stepping between them.

"I think we've got enough to worry about without having to worry about
each other. Agreed?"

Like schoolboys caught fighting, they shamefacedly nodded, then nodded
apologies in each other's direction. Grass! backed away, and Ricks  returned to
his chair.

Harry walked to a far corner of the room to gather himself. They were  three men
squabbling in a small boat and if the fighting didn't stop,  the boat would
capsize and drown them all. Think, he told himself.  It's just another case.

Study it, think it through, and look at it like just another case. He  lit
himself a cigarette.

"All right, then," he said quietly. Then more firmly: "You're right,  Peter,
about setting priorities. Number one is let's get our house in  order. I don't
have to give an answer to DiGarre until tomorrow. We'll  meet here at 1200
tomorrow and when we do, I don't want to hear moral  indignation, or right makes
might. I want to hear practical courtroom  strategy. I want to hear solid triol
orgument. I want to hear the  charge, the defense's counter, our rebuttal. How
do we handle a  prosecution on O'Connell? On Helsvagen? What are the possible
combinations? Is there another avenue we haven't yet considered?

" Both of you can start by addressing yourselves to this little hole in  our
case the general sprang on me. Go see that sector ATE," he  commanded.

"Get a look at the original air traffic log if you can. See if the  controller's
got anything to add. Go back to the mechanic who drafted  that report on
O'Connell's plane. Is it possible there was  something-anything--wrong with
O'Connell's radio before his ship was  hit? Get me some radio expert; is it
possible O'Connell did transmit  something before he went down but nobody picked
it up? Go back to old  man Gresham. Is he sure O'Connell didn't say anything
before he died?  Maybe he mumbled something and the old man didn't think it
meant  anything, but it might mean something to us. Failing all that, craft  me
a good reason why the man we say was killed because he witnessed a  massacre
didn't see fit to make a peep about it!"

They had been scribbling notes furiously, Grass! on a piece of paper  cribbed
from Ricks and with a pencil fished out of Harry's escritoire.  When he looked
up, he was startled to find Harry's hard face a few  inches from his.

"You win a case. Lieutenant," Harry said, "not because you're right,  but
because you make a better case than the other guy. Make me a  better case."

"You got it. Boss."
"We'll see. I also want you both to seriously consider possible  repercussions
to yourselves. If we get involved in a Helsvagen case in  any way, there's going
to be hell to pay You better start thinking  about how high a price you'll be
willing to pay. Now go to work."

As they started to leave. Harry made a slight motion of his head to  Ricks.
Ricks told Grassi he needed to use Harry's loo; he'd meet up  with him in a
minute.

After Grassi was gone, Harry nodded Ricks into a chair and pulled  another close
by. He offered the captain a cigarette and lit one for  each of them.

"Grassi s not hard to understand," Harry said, waving out his match.

"Grassi's--Well, Grassi's Grassi. If he'd said anything even remotely
reasonable a few minutes ago I would've fallen over dead from shock."  Harry
smiled but Ricks didn't see the joke.

"I don't agree with him that you're just concerned with saving your own  tail."

Ricks nodded appreciatively, but he looked past Harry, trying not to  meet his
eyes.

"Come on, Pete. What is it?"

Ricks stood to pace again, feeling hemmed in by Harry sitting so  close.

"I've always thought if we could just present this case in front of an
impartial jury without having to concern ourselves with everybody  else's
agenda, then everything'd work out the way it's supposed to."

"If that was an option, it'd be my first choice."

The captain's face reddened.

"You asked us to consider what price we would pay. If I end up  directing
traffic on the Burma Road, I suppose I could live with that.  Permanent latrine
officer in Benghazi, Eskimo liaison in the  Aleutians--" "It seems like you've
given this a lot of thought." Harry  smiled.

But again Ricks didn't see the humor.

"I've done nothing but think about what could happen to us ... since  Major Van
Damm showed us those photos yesterday.
Major, you've got more time in than I do. Grass! may not understand,  but I
shouldn't have to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"How much are you willing to pay?" Ricks shook his head, embarrassed  by his own
boldness.

"I don't mean any disrespect. Major--but if you work for a law firm,  and they
don't like what you're doing, you either leave or they fire  you. Then, you go
to another firm, or set up your own shop. But this  is the Army, Major.

The Army! For the duration, they own us! One day you forget to shine  your shoes
for inspection, and by the time the Army's done with it,  it's insubordination
and a court-martial offense. Don't laugh. Major!  You know they can do it! Look
at how some of this case has been  handled! You can end up home, dishonorably
discharged, maybe even  looking at disbarment."

Ricks stopped his pacing, his eyes to the floor, running his cap round  and
round through his fingers so hard Harry thought he would crush the  wire grommet
"cheater" in its crown.

"If I lost the law, Major ... I wouldn't know what else to do." Slowly,  he
raised his head and asked, hungrily curious, "Would you? If that's  the price
... I don't know if I can afford it."

It was Harry's turn to flush. He was angry. Not with Ricks; with  himself. The
captain was right: Ricks should not have had to spell out  the obvious for
Harry.

Harry may have made a proper speech about understanding the risks of  pressing
this case, but now he sharply realized that he'd never really  understood how
great those risks could be. He'd spent most of his time  in service under Ryan's
sheltering wing, forgetting what life in the  Army universe could be like out
from under that wing.

He was angry with himself for having forgotten. And angry for now  being as
fearful as Ricks.

"When the major asked me what to do," Peter Ricks said to me later,  still
filled with self-recrimination, "all I could think was, Don't  look at me, old
man! You got us into this; you get us out!" Harry had  asked for help and the
young man had been afraid to offer it. Looking  back on that day.

Ricks felt he'd failed not only Harry, but himself.

"Armando was right about me," he said, his voice thick with
self-disgust.

It had been a very human stumble in an otherwise fine young man and it
disturbed me to see him flog himself so. So I asked him what, with the  benefit
of hindsight, he could have done differently that, considering  the course
events came to follow, could possibly have made any  difference?

He shrugged.

"But I might've felt better."

After Ricks left. Harry returned to the case files. Just three days  earlier
there had been no file; only a few scribbles in his pocket  notebook. Now there
were personnel files, diagrams, annotated maps,  photostats, reports from
Scotland Yard, Markham's deposition, and page  after page of notes. He sifted
through the pile of paper looking for  the answers to the questions he'd posed
for Ricks and Grassi. But  there was something less concrete he was after as
well.

"Somewhere in here," and he tapped his head as he related this to me  later, "I
was telling myself I was just trying to make sure I had a  case against Markham
and Anderson so damning I couldn't turn away from  it. But I don't think that
was it, not now." He hung his head,  shaking it.

"I was hoping--no, I was looking for the flaws that'd tell me I had to  be out
of my mind to push that case. When Peter Ricks walked out of  there that day, I
was looking for something, a reason--an excuse--to  drop it, so I could say
that's why. And not because I was a coward."

Which was typically Harry, ruthlessly--and unnecessarily--castigating  himself.

He was wrong to do so: Cowardice is about self-preservation, and it was  not
himself Harry was so fearful of preserving.

As the afternoon wound on, and the scribbled notes and typed words  began to
dance in front of his eyes, he pushed the paperwork aside. He  reached into his
trouser pocket for his billfold and extracted two  photographs, which he laid on
the desktop.

They were two of the photos he'd shown me as we sat by the Serpentine  earlier
that day, products of the family Brownie box, cracked from  years riding on
Harry's hip. One was taken the winter before Harry's  enlistment, in early '42.

There's two small boys in the photo. The smaller,

perhaps four years of age, sits on a sled on a field of snow, and his
brother, a year or so older, is tugging on the tow ropes. Both are  grinning and
waving at the camera. They are so bundled in winter  garb-coats, hats, scarves,
mittens--that they are barely  distinguishable from each other, and the faces,
tiny in the small  frame, are a blurred grouping of eyes and smiles.

The other photo is Cynthia Voss. It is an older picture, taken at some  sort of
festive occasion. The photo shows a woman in her mid-thirties,  the line of her
jaw going soft, her fair hair pulled back with a ribbon  in a style one would
expect in a younger woman. A shrewd eye would  estimate that the features of her
broad face, while not unpleasant,  would generally be described as plain, but it
would take a shrewd eye  because her smile transformed her face into something
light and  gracious and warm.

I'll always remember that last glance Harry gave the photos as we sat  by the
Serpentine, before he tucked the billfold back in his pocket. He  looked at that
slightly plump woman and his two tykes, and despite the  many years of marriage,
and the many months of separation, he wore, for  a moment, the face of a school
lad gazing at a picture of his first  love.

Peter Ricks had fretted about what future he'd have if the Army took  the law
away from him. But Peter Ricks was still a young man with most  of his life
before him. For Harry, the answer to that same question  was decidedly bleaker.

Most of Harry's years were behind him. There would be no time to start  afresh.

Ironically, the stakes for Harry that were highest were also the most  banal.
The issue was no longer one of a career-making case, or a deft  exercise in
jurisprudence, or even one of moral argument. The issue  was rent and groceries.

He turned to the 66-1 files on each of the four pilots involved in the  attack
on Helsvagen. He withdrew their identification photos and laid  them out in a
squared quartet on the escritoire. He set down Markham  alongside Anderson, a
handsome fellow with loose blond hair that almost  glowed. Even in the ID photo,
Anderson couldn't repress a cocky smirk.  Below them he set Jacobs and McLagen.

Jacobs was a lean-looking sort, sunken-cheeked and hollow-eyed, his  long face
topped by a tuft of bristly hair that looked as if he'd cut  it himself. McLagen
was victim of either an inept photographer or his  own small stature, for his
photo showed an inordinate amount of  headroom. The round face lost at the
bottom of the frame was dappled  with freckles and a few pimples, and his smile
was that of a boy posed  for a school photograph.
On the right-hand side of his desk Harry imagined the recon photos  Christian
Van Damm had splashed on the projection screen in the G-2  briefing
amphitheater: the crosshatched village streets interrupted by  collapsed walls,
blanketed by the malignant smoke of the burning  depot.

He looked again and again from the four young fliers to that empty  square of
desktop where he imagined the burning village. As a  group-despite their
individual distinctions--the four were wholly  unexceptional. Harry could have
reached into any military unit in any  theater of me war and, at random, drawn
out a similar handful of men.  But there had to be one unique note, he was
convinced, some quality  that made the connection possible between those four
faces and the pyre  at Helsvagen.

But he couldn't see it.

He slipped Cynthia and the boys carefully back into their cellophane  sleeves
and returned them to his wallet.

He gathered up the 66-1's and reached for his cap. For his unanswered
questions.

Harry could only go to the source.

There was a knock at the conference room door, then an MP stepped  inside,
ushering Albert Markham into the room. Harry nodded the MP out  and the guard
closed the door behind him. Markham stood at attention,  his cap tucked under
his arm.

"Relax, Major," Harry said. He was standing by one end of the table,  the four
66-1's open in front of him.

"No reason we have to be so formal." Emphasizing the point, Harry slid  a
package of cigarettes across the polished wood toward Markham.  Markham nodded a
thanks, set his cap down on the table, lit himself a  cigarette, and slid the
package back.

"Just us today," Markham said without looking round the empty  conference room.

He nodded at the chair at the far end of the table.

"Do I take my usual seat?"

"Wherever you're comfortable, Major."

Evidently, Markham was, for the moment, comfortable where he was.

"The way Colonel Ryan was acting in here the other day, you'd think
this was his baby. He's the boss, but you're really the guy who'll get  credit
for the kill, right?

"There was no bitterness in the way he said it. No sarcasm. It was  simply a
flat statement of fact. It was the choice of words that stung  Harry.

"I don't know that I'd put it like that, but it's my case, yes."

"Mind if I ask you a question, Major?"

Harry nodded.

"Is that what this is? You trying to run up a score? Or is it serious  for you?"

Harry weighed an answer.

"At this point, something in between."

Markham nodded appreciatively.

"That's honest."

Markham found an ashtray and carried it with him as he walked to the  end of the
table.

"My little friend isn't here today." He mimed an industrious  stenographer.

"This is more of an informal little chat."

Markham nodded.

"Does that mean I don't need a lawyer? Your boss sent J. J. and me  word that we
should start thinking about that. He said if we didn't  have anybody in mind to
represent us, that he could appoint somebody.  Can I trust your Colonel Ryan to
look after us like that?"

"Do you have any reason not to trust him?"

"I don't know. Should I?"

They both smiled.

"If you want a lawyer," Harry began to offer, but Markham shook his  head.

"I may come back to you on that, but not today."
Markham's head cocked and, at first, Harry didn't hear the sound, but  then,
through the open windows, a faint, lazy drone. Markham, still  carrying his
ashtray, careful not to dribble any ash from his  cigarette, moved to the
windows.

"An L-l. Some general going fishing."

"You could see that?" Harry asked, his eyes roaming the skies until he  found
the far-off dot poking about over the London roofs.

"You get to know the sounds. Do you mind .. . ?" He gestured that  he'd like to
lean against the conference table. Harry nodded that it  was all right. Markham
parked a haunch on the table and reached down  to massage his right leg. Harry
remembered the six-year-old injury  from the war in Spain.

"You know what a soldier's job is, Major?" Markham asked.

"His job is to kill, and sometimes to die. An officer's job is to tell  a
soldier when to kill, and when to die. I've had both jobs and I  didn't much
care for either of 'em. This is a vacation for me."

"Vacation? You've got a hell of a sense of understatement, Major. Or  is this
that vaunted Al Markham courage everybody keeps telling me  about? Keeps his
cool, cracks wise even when the heat's on."

Markham flushed.

"Nothing like that. Major. But, even looking at a gallows, any day  off the
flight line is a vacation to me." Markham sighed, tiredly,  looked up again to
follow the progress of the small plane in the  distance. He noticed his
cigarette was growing short, stubbed it out  in the ashtray He pointed
questioningly at the pack sitting in front of  Harry and Harry slid it over to
him.

"You believe I used to play ball when I was a kid?" Markham said as he  lit
another cigarette. Markham took a draught on the cigarette and  poked at his
thick middle with a finger.

"Look at that. All soft. And my wind's shot. Too many of these, I  guess," and
he indicated the cigarette.

"I really should lay off these things. Now, Major Voss, what can I do  for you?"

Harry glanced down at the open files. He noticed Markham's face  growing soft as
he recognized the identification photos.

"We know what happened out there. Major." Markham looked up at him,  confused.
"Recon photos ofHelsvagen," Harry explained.

Markham smiled. Harry noticed that a Markham smile always seemed to  have a
touch of resignation to it. It was as if he'd already  anticipated every word
out of Harry's mouth, every maneuver, and pitied  him for it.

"You don't know. You think you do, but you don't."

"Believe what you want. The fact is, however much trouble you thought  you were
in before, you're in a whole lot more now. When you finally  get around to
getting a lawyer, if he's any good he'll tell you not to  count on your glowing
record to get you through this."

"The record is yesterday. Today's a new day, right?"

"That's right. Don't have any illusions of you somehow coming through  this
thing OK. It's in your interest to help me get a better picture  of this whole
.. ."

Harry sought for the word.

"Mess?

"There was that Markham smile, again.

"I'm not going to ask you anything incriminatory. Major, but maybe you  can help
me with this." Harry gestured at the files.

"All I really want is you to tell me a little about these men."

"Tell you what? You guys've been pretty thorough poking around on all  of us."

"You're an officer. Major, a commander. You know as well as I do--"

"That you can't boil somebody down to his personnel file."

(t- r *t Yes.

Markham looked back out the window and shook his head.

"I don't know what I could tell you. J. J."s my friend. Maybe his  loyalty's a
little misplaced, but he's the best friend I got. He's a  good joe They were all
good joes. That's all you need to know."

"EvenO'Connell?"

Markham's face clouded.
"In his way, yeah. I know it doesn't mean anything, not in a legal  way, and you
may not even believe me, but I'm sorry he's dead. And not  just because I may
get hung for it." He smiled ruefully.

"I'm sorry about a lot of things."

Major-"I haven't told my father about any of this. If I do get hung,  does the
Army tell him? I mean .. . how do they do that?"

"I don't know."

"That part of it isn't your job?"

"I've never tried a capital case before."

"This is a first for both of us, then. I've never been tried in a  capital case
before."

It was Harry's turn to sigh.

"You're not going to help me, are you?"

Markham stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

"Major, you already know everything you need to know. What you want  has got
nothing to do with those files. You want to understand what  happened out
there." Markham shook his head.

"You just think you do. Believe me;

you don't." Markham stood, straightened his jacket, and turned from  the window.

"I could talk to you about what really happened out there, I could talk  to you
about each of those men day in and day out until you walk me up  the gallows,
and you're not going to understand anything any better  then than you do now."
If there was any emotion to his voice at all,  it was sympathy.

"But I'll make you an offer," Markham continued.

"You pick up a weapon. Spill some blood. Then, you come find me if  I'm still
around. Then we'll have something to talk about." Markham  picked up his cap and
knocked on the conference room door. The MP  appeared in the doorway.

"All done, sir?" the MP asked Harry.

Markham turned to Harry, his look asking the same question.
Glumly, Harry nodded.

Markham cast a last look out the window, at the pastel August sky.

"You know, all I ever wanted to do was fly."

After the door closed behind Markham, Harry looked down at the open  files on
the table and closed them, one by one.

Back in his quarters, Harry went over the case files again, and kept at  it
until the orderlies made their dusk rounds warning that it was time  to draw the
blackout curtains.

He considered a walk to the canteen for a light supper but balked at  the
possibility of bumping into Ryan. He took up his tie, jacket, and  cap and left
the Annex. Outside the court his steps felt lighter, his  mood less fatigued.
The moon was rising, sharply articulated stars  appearing early, un eclipsed by
blacked-out streetlamps and city  lights. Harry considered an ale and a meal at
The Old Eagle but again,  the specter of Ryan pushed him elsewhere.

He felt compelled to put some distance between himself and Mayfair. He  wandered
the dark streets until he came to an Underground station;  Oxford Circus, I
imagine, as the line took him to Embankment Station.  He remembered this put him
near the Strand and he climbed back to the  street and made his way up Charing
Cross. Only an occasional  cat's-eyed cab and horse-drawn tram traveled the
road, and the  sidewalks carried only a thin sprinkling of couples moving like
shadows  through the gloom.

Harry felt uncomfortable alone on the dark street and nosed into the  first
cinema he came across, catching the last half of a British  production about
hijinks between competing fire crews during the Blitz,  and then Mrs. Miniver.
At that moment, however, he was not  particularly receptive to confronting the
war with a stoic attitude and  stiff upper lip, and Greer Garson's upper-crust
diction reminded him  awfully ofSirWhosis.

What made the film palatable at all to him was knowing it was something  Cynthia
would have liked. He knew where she would have sniffled with  emotion, slipped
her fingers in his, and held her breath, moved during  the climax when a
minister stands over the graves of civilians lost in  the bombing declaring,
"This is the people's war! Fight it with all  that is in us--and may God defend
the right!"

After, Harry treated himself to dinner at a small restaurant admirably  lacking
any of the pretentious airs ofSirWhosis's dining palace. He  had just begun
digging into a rather desiccated fruit compote when  sirens began their low moan
far off across the City. They rose into a
mourner's keening. The lights in the restaurant went out as the  waiters glided
familiarly through the darkness to light candles at each  table.

There was another sound, a high tinkle, like a persistent alarm. Harry  looked
down and in the flicker of candlelight saw his hand shaking, the  spoon in his
fingers vibrating against the rim of the dessert cup. He  dropped the spoon and
stood abruptly, letting his napkin fall from his  lap. His waiter, an old
Cockney, emerged from the dark and took him by  the elbow, lowering him back
into his seat.

"

"Ere. Not to worry, sar. Sounds like 'ey's off a ways, 'ey are. Give  St.

Paul's a knock again, sounds like. I'll get ya a clean spoon, sar, 'n'  ya just
relax 'n' enjoy yer meal."

The thudding of the antiaircraft batteries started, throwing up a flak  umbrella
over the far end of the City. Then, in harmony with the  sirens, came the
overhead thrum of aircraft engines.

In the candlelight Harry saw shapes bent over their tables, sipping  their
drinks, dining without pause, dispassionately discussing the  night's possible
targets. A few diners gathered at. one of the  restaurant's tall windows,
dabbing their lips with napkins and peeping  round the blackout curtains through
the starburst pattern of tape on  the glass. The first bombs whistled down and
the explosions sent lurid  red and yellow flashes across the City that lit up
the faces at the  window.

Harry felt sweat breaking out all over his body.

"Ya han't finished yer meal, sar." The waiter was back at his elbow.

"No, no," Harry stammered, making a poor pretense at simulating the  calm of the
other diners.

"I'm, uh, I have to go. I'm late, see--" "0' course, sarI need my  check,
please."

"Well, then, I'll be right along wi' it." The waiter took a few steps,  then
turned back, dropping his voice confidentially.

"Ifya feel the need, sar, there's an Underground just down the way."

Sirens started going off closer. A bomb--a stray. Harry hoped--fell  close;
windows, dishes, and silverware rattled.

"Might' near nicked us 'at time!" someone in the dark chuckled.

Harry threw some pound notes on the table and left.

Out on the street, a few brazen individuals and couples, some giddily  giggling
at their own daring, stood, looking at the sky show:

beacons rolling crazily back and forth; dissipating ack-ack bursts  glowing with
moonlight; an orange glow showing along the skyline toward  the river.

The waiter had said something about a shelter but Harry couldn't recall  it.

Seeing the steeple of a small church silhouetted against the fire glow,  he
headed for it.

The church was a dark, granite pile, its steeple a blunt, glowering  pyramid.

Harry took the church steps two at a time, then gripped the  wrought-iron
handles of the massive doors and pulled. The doors did  not open. He looked
helplessly up at the steeple and tugged again.  Now, sirens were sounding all
round him. He looked about and saw the  streets were empty.

An Underground; that was what the waiter had said! He ran, past a  90-mm
antiaircraft gun in its sandbagged pit, the crew frantically  swiveling the
tall, graceful barrel of their piece into place in  response to the commands of
the "talker" taking his instructions over  his headset from the RDF controllers.

Beyond the gun he saw the sandbagged entrance of Embankment Station. He
stumbled through the entryway and down the steps to the platform  below.

Candle flames dotted the platform, fragile circles of amber glow, and  he saw a
match flare to light up a cigarette, and over there a covered  torch, but for
the most part the platform was dark. Harry could sense  the people crowded on
the platform, the air stale with body odor and  sweat. Just a few steps from the
stairway his shoes began nudging  bodies.

"Ave a care there, mate!"

"Sorry," Harry mumbled and went back to the bottom of the stairs.  Leaning
against the wall he could feel the pulsing of the earth on the  other side of
the tile as the antiaircraft guns nearby began pumping
fire into the night; first the high-shooting 90-mm guns, then the
thud-thud-thud of the Bofors guns, then the clatter of the Oerlikons  and quad
.5 0's as the bombers pressed in.

"Ruddy great racket, eh?

"There was something familiar about the voice. In the blackness across  from
him. Harry could not make out anything more than a shadow.

"Ruddy great waste, too," the voice added cheerfully.

"A waste?" another voice asked from somewhere on the platform.

"I hear they don't really expect to hit anything with all this," the  first
voice replied.

"Morale, you understand. Makes us all feel a bit better hearing the  guns bang
away on our behalf. So they say."

"I know I feel a 'elluva lot better wifit," the second voice said.

"Oh-oh," a third voice warned.

There was a second chorus of humming engines now, detached from the  heavy main
droning south of the river, sounding deeper, closer.

"They're lost," the first voice said.

"That's for us," said the second voice.

"Here it comes!"

The bombs began whistling down close by and these weren't odd strays.  They came
down in a close-knit stick. The pulses of the AA guns were  washed out by the
quaking of bomb explosions. Harry pressed himself  against the wall and fought
to keep a tight rein on his bowels. Men  came running down the Underground
stairs, silhouetted against the  flashes of bombs landing nearby Harry heard a
child cry.

It sounded like a little girl.

"Here, lass." Harry heard the first voice, and now he identified the  Scottish
burr.

"Lose your mum, eh?"

He saw the shadowy figure across from him stoop, then rise, a small  bundle in
its arms. He could see the cradled child heaving with  sobs.
"Your mum'll be along, girl, so for now you just stay with me. You  sing a song
with me and you won't even be hearing all this fuss, eh?  It's not worse than a
thunderstorm. Sing with me, girl." And they  sang:

In Dublin's fair city Where girls are so pretty I first set my eyes on  sweet
Molly Malone... A bomb crashed, so close that Harry felt the  tiles against his
back crack and buckle. The crowd hiding in the dark  murmured and shuffled. He
heard the droning of prayers.

The crying little girl hugged the Scot tightly, but calmly he sang  on:

Crying cockles, and mussels, Alive, alive-o.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry was standing on the sidewalk near the  Underground
entrance, mopping at the sweat lying thick on his hatband.  Behind him people
filed out of the station--those who weren't among the  bombed-out souls forced
to take up permanent residence there--and  headed back to homes they hoped were
still standing.

As close as the crashing bombs had felt. Harry saw little damage on  the street.

Concussions had shaken a good deal of window glass onto the sidewalks,  and far
down the block, beyond the 90-mm gun crew openly praising God  for their good
fortune, a smoking crater reached curb to curb, arcing  geysers of water
spurting from a ruptured water line. Wherever the  bombs had come down was
already the target for the sounds of fire  engine and ambulance bells.

Harry put his cap on and walked round the station to the Embankment.  Across the
river, toward Southwark, tall flames rose from among the  buildings there, and
alarm bells clanged. The spray of the hoses shone  in the firelight.

"After the dock lands is my guess," came the Scottish burr. The  moonlight
helped Harry pick out the features of the man from Hyde Park.  The Scot held out
a pack of cigarettes.

"Not that awful Brit stuff, if that's your worry," the Scot promised.  Harry
nodded and took one. His hand was shaking so much he almost  dropped the
cigarette. The Scot drew one for himself. Harry extracted  his own matches from
his breast pocket. He had trouble keeping his  hands steady enough to strike the
match. He felt a strong, callused  hand come round his and hold the match
steady, then the Scot bent down  to the flame. Harry tried to get a glimpse of
the man's face by the  match light, but the wide brim of the frayed Panama hat
blocked Harry's  view. The Scot pulled the match from Harry's fingers before he
burned  himself, then took the book of matches and struck a fresh light,
holding it out for Harry.

"You look like a man who could use a drink," I said.

He nodded.

I found us an outside table at a pleasant little osteria I knew just a  block
away. Harry said nothing until I had the waiter set a second  sherry in front of
him, then, plainly embarrassed, he said, "I'm afraid  I've forgotten your name."

"Eddy" He nodded.

"Sorry. I feel like an idiot."

"This can all be a wee distracting. This can't have been your first.  How long
have you been here?"

"I came over in January. I've been through them before, but .. ." He  turned
toward the gentle rumble of flames and the clanging alarms  across the river.

"Never this close. I don't care how long I'm here, I don't think I'll  ever get
used to them."

"Some never do. Then there's those--Ach, you'd be surprised what some  get used
to. During the Blitz they were coming over every night, Jerry  was, every night
all night it seemed. After a bit, I knew people who  couldn't sleep without it."

"You almost sound like you miss it."

I shook my head.

"But it was history, eh?"

"I'm still not sorry I missed it."

"Typical American. No sense of history."

Harry was silent. By his third sherry he had finally stopped  shaking.

"Do you live around here?"

I laughed.

"Aye, that'd be the ticket, eh? Me in this neighborhood? Picture me  ensconced
at the old Savoy, eh? I'd like that, I would."

"I'll take that as a no."

I thought of offering some sort of fat tale about who I was and how I'd  come to
be there, but I saw that despite his having stopped shaking he  still held his
wineglass hard and close to him. I'd followed him all  the evening, seeing how
alone he was, and now seeing how afraid he was.  He didn't need a lie or two
added to his burden.

"Let's just say it's a small world," I told him.

We chatted; nothing important or intrusive. He spoke of Cynthia and  his
children; I told him of my disaster with Cathryn. I told him of  Scotland, and
how the small gravel beach where, as a boy, I'd skipped  stones, was now behind
the perimeter fence of an Air/ Sea Rescue  base;

he told me how grand hotels in the coast towns of his youth--places  like
Atlantic City--were now massive hospitals for wounded GI's  returned from
Europe.

It was the first time in a long time I could remember sitting at a  table in
conversation having nothing to do with my work. We were just  two old duffers
alone and far from home, keeping each other company.

After a bit, we felt the need to stir the blood and took to our feet.  For the
first time he noticed my gait.

"Are you all right?"

I rapped on the limb and the sound of wood made him flinch.

"Don't let it worry you. Harry. Rare's the good Scots pubster not  born with a
hollow leg as standard kit."

We made our way down to the Embankment. There were few people down  there; the
hour had grown late and the sight of flames was no longer  the novel attraction
it would have been three years earlier. At the  sound of another fire engine
clanging along behind us, streaking toward  the small conflagration on our side
of the Thames, Harry jumped.

"Chap I know in Whitehall says the whole bloody mess started as  accidents," I
said. He looked at me quizzically, so I explained: "Back  in the beginning,
during the Blitz, Jerry would come over and there'd  be strays. Then, we'd go
give it 'em back and there'd be more strays.  Then chaps on both sides got a bit
wrought up over all these  noisemakers going astray, so they started dropping
them all about with  what you might describe as concerted effort and
determination."

He leaned on the wall over the river and repeated what he'd said  earlier, about
never growing used to it. He said it with his gaze  fixed across the river, the
flames a sorrowful glow in his eyes. He  asked if I was used to it.

"You get used to the fact that it's done, and that it's going to be  done. You
don't get over being terrified of someone dropping a bomb on  your bean."

"You didn't seem terrified down in die Underground tonight."

"You don't have to look afraid to be afraid, Harry. They start going
off right over your noggin and it sounds like Death himself stomping i  round up
there looking for you, you'd have to be a bit of a loon not to  be afraid.

"Death plucks my ear," said the old poet, 'and says. Live--I am  coming." I
always remember that afterward."

Harry yawned.

"It's late," he said apologetically, squinting at his watch face in the
moonlight.

"The full name's Eddy Owen." I held out my hand in reintroduction.

"Harry Voss," he said and took my hand, then we bid each other good  night.

The Annex court was dark but not empty. Two men on one of the stoops  quietly
debated the respective merits of Glen Miller's version of "In  the Mood" versus
Tex Beneke's. Another of the Annex's occupants  reclined in the passenger seat
of one of the parked jeeps, smoking a  cigarette, his head tilted musingly
toward the moon. Behind  blacked-out windows Harry heard a laugh, the clatter of
poker chips,  orchestral strains from a wireless.

The two duty PFC's in the orderly room of his BOQ were being regaled by  a third
man Harry vaguely recognized as a captain quartered there. The  captain's
dressing gown was splotched with dampness and there were  little patches of
drying soapsuds in the captain's hair. He wore  slippers.

"Y'all believe these sum bitches he demanded of the giggling  orderlies.

"Ah mean, do y'all be-lee ve "em?" He was a youngish sort, loud, with  a
crawling Oklahoma drawl.

"Ahim waitin' thu-ree weeks for 'em to run the watch lawng 'nuff to  take a damn
bath--How do they say it ovah heah?" The captain stuck his  nose up in the air
and held it even higher with the tip of his index  finger.

"Draw me a bah th Reginahid!" The two PFC's howled.

"So Ahim sittin' there soapin' my best parts 'n' that's when the sum  bitches
start to get all military! Ah damn neah didn't make the  shelteh 'cause 'o all
that damn soap in mah eyes' The captain finally  noticed Harry in the orderly
room door.

"Ten-hut!" he called out and all three snapped to.

Harry nodded at the robe.

"You out of uniform?"

The captain grinned.

"Not really, suh. It's government issue."

Harry grinned back and went up to his room.

He left the lights out and pulled back the blackout curtains. The  courtyard
slowly emptied and went quiet except for soft music from a  wireless somewhere.
He heard a cry above him, sounding like a child.  He looked up and saw a hawk,
aglow with the moon, carrying off a small  wren.

From the wireless, Ted Lewis finished his song and asked, "Is everybody  happy?"

A breeze whiffled the mustaches of the elderly Home Guardsman standing  in front
of Harry's jeep, carrying toward Harry the sting of smoke and  the taste of
cinders. Harry had sampled that same taste all night, and  it had been there
when he had awakened from his fitful sleep.

He had not bothered with breakfast or a morning brush up but had  clambered
unwashed into yesterday's clothes. He was sure that any  distraction--even
something as trivial as a cup of coffee--would lead  to some reason for him to
abort his journey. I asked him what he  thought he'd find there.

"I wanted to see," he explained simply. So, within twenty minutes of  waking he
was driving across Westminster Bridge and heading east toward  the dock lands
driving until he'd been stopped by a Guardsman at a line  of barricades hung
with warning signs.

"Can't get through here," said the old man from under his oversized  white
helmet.

"Jerry paid a visit last night, 'e did. Lot o' cleanin' up to do, 'n'  the UXB
chaps is all at it, too, 'n' 'ere's the casualties ya see, 'n'  all that.

Won't be able to get in for quite a bit, I'd say." The man leaned  close.

"If it's important, try goin' round t'over side; down by the river.  It's all
open down there."

Harry nodded a thanks, shifted the jeep into reverse, and turned the  vehicle
round as the old man waved him on his way.

Cobblestones paved the narrow streets that led down to the river, which  glared
with a sheen of oil and grease. Skeletal dogs trotted furtively  alongside the
houses, ducking into alleys as Harry drove past.  Adolescents stared. Between
houses lines of laundry hung like tattered  flags, threadbare shirts and
knickers and dresses waving wearily. Here,  the smell of the breeze mingled with
coal smoke, septic refuse, slum  cooking. The closer Harry drew to the river,
the narrower the streets  became, the fewer the people, the danker the stones,
the more
oppressive the shabby buildings pressing in on him from either side.  The
gloomy, twisting streets brought back a memory from university  days: something
about the Minoan labyrinth and the beast preying  within.

Harry stopped his jeep, stood up on the seat, and looked about. Behind  him rose
dark blocks of dingy flats. To one side were abandoned  houses; plain, brick
hovels with grass tangled round their facades. To  the other were old maritime
warehouses with rusting hoists and lopsided  shutters. Beyond their dull, brick
silhouettes, shining in the  interstices, was a golden plain, stretching off
under a sky of lowering  clouds to a horizon of dust dancing in the wind, and
gleaming like a  revelation.

Harry slid back behind the wheel and turned the jeep toward the  glittering
expanse. Was it a few hundred yards to those low,  blue-shadow buildings poking
through the dust clouds on the other side  of the clearing? Or a few thousand?

Except for an occasional patch of scrappy brush and wildflowers his  view was of
a vast, unbroken stretch of emptiness carpeted with cracked  bricks and
splinters and twinkling bits of broken glass.

There had been warehouses there, some from the time when they had  housed goods
from the American colonies. Harry pondered the years, the  money, the material
and blood, the expenditure of human genius required  to erase so completely a
few centuries of history. He turned round to  look back across the river, at
familiar London. There was the dome of  St. Paul's, and the spires of Parliament
framed by Victoria Tower and  Big Ben. Turning round again he saw emptiness, the
dirt and clay and  shattered glass underlying it all. Here, the City had been
rubbed  raw.

Harry set off toward where columns of dirty black smoke boiled up from  a line
of buildings. His jeep lurched out of the dust and into a world  of cobblestones
and shadows, fire and brick, and human faces streaked  with soot and sweat.

Firemen stood by the smoking ruins. Rooster tails of shimmering water  hung high
in the air and thundered down on the smoldering wreckage of a  house, a garage,
a shop, the hulking shell of a warehouse. Men in  white helmets walked solemnly
up the inclines of broken walls, or  picked their way through mounds of plaster
and lathing. With hands  cupped about their mouths they looked down at their
feet and shouted,  "BoyI BoyI" and listened for an answering call from under the
debris.

Others followed the sniffing noses of dogs hunting human scent. Still  others,
with hooks and joists, peeled back crumbling floors to reveal  dusty sacks of
cloth and hair; corpses that flailed awkward limbs when  hauled from their
burrows. Hitched to a horse lazily twitching its
tail at a cloud of flies, a wagon stood nearby. The corpses were piled  neatly
in the wagon. Civilians, returning to what remained of their  homes, shufed past
Harry's jeep, ignoring his uniform, and delicately  picked through the wreckage,
salvaging a framed photo here, a box or  brooch there.

The reedy exhalation of bagpipes sailed eerily over the sound of  falling water
and grumbling flame, the shifting of debris and the  shouting of orders.
Spinning the steering wheel. Harry followed the  music. It was a song he'd often
heard after a bombing, a  dirge--"Flowers of the Forest."

The piper led a small procession of men in ill-fitting, working-class  suits,
and women in dark, old dresses. Some of the women held  handkerchiefs to their
eyes.

Two of the men pulled a dogcart with rubber automobile tires, which  bounced
over the bricks and timbers in the road. On the cart were  three bundles wrapped
tightly in winding sheets. The diminutive size  of one of the wrapped bundles
revealed a child. Harry turned away.

A church bell sounded, merrily it seemed, in incongruous contrast to  the fading
bagpipes. Harry followed the chiming down a dead end and a  blocked street
before coming upon a small chapel standing between two  ruined walls. Its bell
hung from jerry-rigged timbers atop the shaky  stump of a steeple. A little
crowd was gathered round the cockeyed  doors. From beneath a sign reading,
"Dangerous:

Unstable Structure--Do Not Enter," a bride and groom appeared, she  cloaked in
yellowing lace and he in the uniform of a Royal Army  private. Both smiled shyly
under the cheers and confetti of their  well-wishers.

Harry quietly moved the jeep off, down one after another of the  strange,
desolate, half-inhabited streets until he came upon a lone  fireman sitting on a
crate before an empty lot.

"I'm lost," Harry said.

For a moment, the old fireman's sooty features seemed intent on the  scarred
hands folded over his knees. Then, the firefighter lifted his  head and his
exhausted face rolled into a cordial smile.

"You look lost, Yank."

Harry had imagined himself an image of brazen defiance, standing before  General
DiGarre's massive desk in his rumpled uniform still smudged  with the dust and
soot of the fires of the South End. But, when the  time came to actually stand
in front of the general's polished wooden  altar in his rough clothes, Harry
felt only pathetic.

Again, Harry had been ushered in without waiting. DiGarre was waiting  for him
at his desk. The general was not alone. Round the long  conference table a
collection of senior officers (Harry noted oak  leaves, eagles, and five-pointed
stars winking at him from the host of  collar tabs) huddled under a haze of
cigarette smoke. The harsh light  of the billiard lamps drained their faces of
color and sank their  features into bottomless black shadow. They looked up at
him only  briefly, fixing him for the shortest of moments with the dark chasms
that had replaced their eyes before turning back to the paperwork that
whispered back and forth among them across the table.

DiGarre was slouched deep in his desk chair, the stub of a cigar in one  hand, a
whiskey tumbler in the other. The sleeves of his wrinkled  shirt were rolled up
past his sinewy, hirsute forearms, and his tie  hung low and loose. Harry noted
the red-rimmed eyes, the stubble on  the general's chin, the before-breakfast
drink, and concluded the gener  ai not been to sleep. Perhaps none of the men in
the room had been to  sleep; the air in the office was stale and ripe, and
despite the  morning hour, the blackout curtains remained drawn.

Harry stood at attention, his arm raised in salute, before the  general's desk.

The general smiled without humor.

"Sit yourself on down, Major." Not "Harry" this time. The lilting,  coddling
tones of yesterday's genial host were gone.

Harry remained standing.

DiGarre nodded. He pulled himself up in his seat, removed his  spectacles, and
tiredly massaged the bridge of his nose.

"You're here to tell me you're going to be a pain in my old ass,  right?"

The general's prescience left Harry with nothing to say. He heard the  flutter
of birds against the windows on the other side of the curtains,  hunkering down
on the sills for the storm. The first tumbling roll of  thunder sounded
distantly.

"That's what I thought," the general said. He replaced his spectacles,  snuffed
out the stub of his cigar, and drew a fresh one from his  humidor.

"I'm not doing this to be trouble. General, but--" DiGarre chuckled.

"Your friend Colonel Ryan's got a lot of faults, Major, but I figured  him for a
better judge of character. He was sure you'd bite at our  offer. Said you'd be
worried about your career and taking care of your  family and all that."

Harry wished he'd taken the general's invitation to sit.

"Well, I'm going to have to take another look at the colonel's ratings,  because
I knew the minute we all sat down you were going to be a pain  in my old ass. I
don't know how long Joe Ryan's known you, but the  first time you opened your
yap I said to myself, "This fella's going to  be a real tick about this thing;
he's not going to let go." I probably  knew it before you did. You've got
integrity.

Major." The general's lips twitched.

"You stink of it. More integrity than good sense." The general took  several
starter puffs on his fresh cigar.

"Bet you don't think much of mine."

"General, I'll leave that to you and your conscience."

DiGarre's head lolled as he laughed. The laugh became a cough. The  general
stood and walked to his liquor stand. He poured himself a  glass of water and
took a sip to soothe his throat. He went to the  windows and pulled one of the
curtains aside. The windowpanes rattled  as the first drops of rain slapped
against the glass.

"Know something, Harry? There's no second-place over here; no  consolation
prize.

I for one will get no satisfaction from posterity proclaiming, "Well,  they
lost, but by God they fought fair!" My Conscience'll rest easy,  Major." The
general looked back up at the dark clouds, then sighed and  let the curtain fall
back across the window.

"All right, Major, you said your piece." The general joined the other  officers
around the conference table. It took Harry a moment to  realize he'd been
dismissed.

There was a message waiting for Harry with the BOQ orderlies that  General
Halverson had called twice during his absence. Harry called  the general's
office from his room.

"He's gone, sir," replied the callow voice on the phone.

"Oh. Well, can I reach him at his quarters?"

"The general's not there, sir. Didn't you hear?"

"I know he was relieved."

"Relieved and transferred, sir. Cut his orders late last night. We  were up till
all hours packing his stuff. They had him on a plane for  Iceland about an hour
ago."

"Iceland? Is that where he's been transferred?"

"That's just a stopover, sir. General Halverson's on his way home."

" I see." Harry lowered himself into a chair and reached for his  cigarettes.

"He tried to call me this morning, but--" "You said your name wasVoss?  The
Judge Advocate's, right? Yes, sir, General Halverson left a  message for you,
Major Voss. Uh, it just says, "Good luck," sir.  That's all. That's funny, isn't
it, sir? The general saying 'good  luck' to you? Seems like that's the kind of
thing you say to the  person what's leaving."
CHAPTER NINE

DROIT DU SEIGNEUR

summoned AT MIDDAY, ricks AND grassi found Harry waiting for them in  the
conference room. Shaved, showered, and attired in a clean, pressed  uniform,
Harry was moving deliberately along the conference table  slapping down files
and sheaves of paper. There on the table went the  mechanic's report on
O'Connell's aeroplane; here went the postmortem;  over here, the ballistics
report; here, the analysis of Anderson gun  film .. . The decisive flavor of his
movements indicated there was a  carefully conceived plan at work, one he was
keeping to himself. Harry  made no acknowledgment of the presence of his two
juniors.

The fog that had clouded and oppressed him just the day before as he  had sat in
Hyde Park was gone. Now, his mind was possessed of a  remarkable clarity. Like a
man jumped, pushed, or fallen off a cliff,  for good or ill he realized he was
now committed. His only chance to  survive was to manage the fall as best he
could. He was, at the table,  applying the same method for formulating a trial
strategy as he'd used  a few days earlier when he'd spread index cards on the
floor before  him, trying to formulate his case. He had his case now. Now he was
looking for the picture that would win it for him.

Both young men were startled when Harry said: "In reflecting on our  little
predicament, it occurs to me that while your respective opinions  are always
appreciated, whatever we do and however we do it is,  ultimately, my decision. I
have reached that decision. We're going  ahead with a Helsvagen prosecution."

Ricks was nonplussed, and wondered if in Harry's statement there was  some
subtle rebuke to the captain's conduct the day before. As for  Grassi, the
lieutenant harbored no doubts about his own feelings or  Harry's decision.

"Now that calls for a celebration!" the lieutenant said. He breezed  to the
sideboard and held up half of a bologna sandwich in salute.

" Before you get yourself all a-quiver, Lieutenant," admonished Harry,  "let me
repeat what I said yesterday. Win or lose, we go into the  Army's crapper on
this. If anybody wants out, just say the word. No  hard feelings. I don't want
anybody getting burned that didn't want to  go into the kitchen in the first
place."

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Grassi said through a mouthful of  sandwich.

"That's what makes the world go round. Right, Cap'n?"

Harry ignored Grassi; there'd been no question in his mind about the
lieutenant's inclinations. But toward Ricks there was no remonstrance,  no
bitterness. You were right, the captain felt Harry was telling him  now. It is
my call. And if you wont out, it's all right.

"Anybody can pull out," Harry repeated.

"At any time. Understood?"

"Understood," Ricks replied.

Harry nodded. He had finished arranging the documents on the table. He  touched
a single sheet of paper covered with the notes he'd made after  his first visit
with DiGarre.

"What about that sector ATE? The one who picked up O'Connell?"

"Checks out with the general's story," Grassi said.

Harry touched Charlie Gresham's deposition.

"And Gresham?"

"O'Connell was dead by the time he got him to the beach," said Ricks.

"If he said anything, the old man didn't hear it."

"The mechanic's report?"

Grassi again: "O'Connell's radio should've been working SxS, right up  until
Major Markham punched some .50-caliber holes in it."

Harry propped himself against the edge of the table.

"That brings us to the problem of O'Connell's silence. Something,  Captain? A
theory?"

"Just a thought. Nothing for the courtroom."

"We're not in the courtroom."

"You said this girlfriend of O'Connell's offered him a chance to go  over the
hill. He didn't go."

"He was too yellow to fly and too yellow to run," Grassi said  dismissively. He
reached for a second half-sandwich.

"Maybe," mused Ricks.

"I just wonder if maybe he still felt some kind of obligation to the  men he
served with. That's why he kept going up. Maybe that's why he
didn't say anything. Maybe he even understood why they did what they  did."

"I wish he was around to explain it to me," Harry said.

"OK, so we've still got to come up with something to fill that hole.  We'll come
back to it. The way I see it, there's a way we can pull  this thing off and
still maybe come out of it with our hides. To do  that we've got to accomplish
two things, the most obvious of which is  to make as tight a legal case as we
can. To do that with the jury  panel DiGarre's probably going to stick us with
means we won't be able  to rely on circumstantial evidence. These guys are going
to be looking  for holes to let Markham and Anderson squirm through. That also
means  keeping conclusions to a minimum. Anything we can't substantiate with  at
least one half-decent piece of direct evidence we have to drop. If  Van Damm can
only point with certitude to twenty bodies on his recon  photos, then we only go
with twenty murder counts. If he says he can  only--" Grassi tossed his sandwich
down with a disgusted flop.

"You've got a whole damned town on fire--" "That's how it's going to  be!" Harry
spoke with a quiet firmness that carried enough of an edge  to silence the
lieutenant.

"And before we even go that far we're going back to Van Damm and ask,  "How do
you know those're civilian bodies?

Why can't they be military bodies?" I want answers from him and every  other
so-called expert we can grab that won't flap around in the wind.  We only go
with what's sound and sure.

"That's the legal end. The other side is this: Forget the law, right,  wrong,
and check the moral issues at the door. The brass are looking  at this case from
a point of military practicality, and right now they  have a compelling military
reason not to convict. So, the game is for  us to advance a compelling military
argument for conviction. So forget  about making a big song and dance about Al
Markham being the greatest  mass murderer since Jack the Ripper. We don't care.

He could've butchered puppy dogs and eaten children. That's not the  Army's
concern; it's not our concern. The main thrust of our  prosecution will be that
Al Markham exceeded his authority; that he was  derelict in his duty; that his
willful neglect cost the U.S. Army Air  Corps Jacobs and McLagen, two good
pilots who represented a substantial  investment of government resources, as
well as two very expensive  aircraft.

"Is there enough to push for manslaughter charges on Jacobs and  McLagen? If
not, what con we get? Wrongful death? Negligence?  Destruction of government
property?
Any damned thing, I don't care, but that's where the heart of our case  is now.

From now on, there is only one moral question in this case: whether or  not Al
Markham acted as a competent commander. Anything else, if it  isn't irrelevant,
is secondary."

It was a major adjustment for them to make, and Harry gave them time to  absorb
it. Ricks considered, but Grassi had made his appraisal even  before Harry was
finished. It was plainly evident on Grassi's face  that the lieutenant's verdict
was negative.

Harry ignored him.

"Our one ace to play is that the jury panel has to convict on  O'Connell.
Between the evidence and Markham's confession, that's a  given. That gives us a
strong base to build on. We have to establish  O'Connell as the climax of a
pattern of abrogated responsibility. The  Army may not have a conscience, but it
does have a soul, and gentlemen,  that soul is discipline. Disobedience will
always be the military's  mortal sin."

It was a perfectly logical strategy, but Grassi--as Harry  anticipated-was not
responding to logic. He saw only the largest prize  slipping away.

"You take that route," he said glumly, "and you might just get a  conviction on
everything but Helsvagen. By the time you're done  hammering all this home, they
might not give half a damn about what  really happened out there!"

"I've considered that," Harry said coolly.

" Then what in Christ's name is the point?" Grassi demanded.

"As I said, anytime anybody's not happy with the way things are going  .. ." He
concluded by pointing to the door, which was enough to bring  Grassi's hands up
in surrender. Harry nodded, then gestured to the  documentation spread across
the table.

"Our case is there, gentlemen. You two start assembling it. I'm going  to try to
get us another ace to play. No matter what a court-martial  panel wants to do,
they can't contravene a confession."

"Anderson?" Ricks guessed.

"Jesus!" Grassi stormed, flopping his sandwich down again.

"You're not going to offer that flak-happy cowboy a deal, are you?"
Harry was unfazed by the outburst.

"It's a gambit. I have to figure what we could gain against what we  lose."

"He's an accomplice," Ricks said.

"His testimony--" "Isn't enough to convict, but with the recon photos  as
corroboration, I think Markham's nailed. I'm willing to trade  Anderson s
conviction for Markham's, because if we can turn Anderson,  Markham has no
defense. That's worth a deal."

"To you, maybe," Grassi said sourly.

"That's right. To me. Remember, Lieutenant, my opinion's the only one  that
counts."

Later, reminiscing about that moment, Ricks told me that in those few  minutes
in the conference room Harry Voss was no longer the slightly  comic picture of a
pudgy, middle-aged codger squeezed into a uniform.

"For that moment," Ricks said reverentially, "he was the kind of lawyer  I'd
always hoped to be."

The Provost Marshal was housed in a former police station unobtrusively
situated on a side street just fifteen minutes' walk from the Annex, a  cottage
like structure of red brick wrapped in ivy. Inside the station  Harry stopped at
the front desk, shaking water from his brolly much to  the disapproval of the
young MP private at the counter, who scowled at  the puddle Harry made on the
wooden floor. Beyond the counter was a  barred door leading to the cellar
stairs. From below. Harry heard a  faint and thin voice with only the most
tentative hold on a melody,  singing a few bars from "Someone's Rocking My
Dreamboat."

Major Posner, the Provost, was on an inspection tour but in his stead  the
counter MP offered a smooth-faced lieutenant wearing an Officer of  the Day
brassard.

"Lieutenant Mathias," the officer introduced himself, trying to drop  his reedy
adolescent voice an octave or so.

"Major Voss, JAG," Harry replied and displayed his ID.

"You're holding a Captain Anderson for us. I'd like to talk to him. If  you'll
check your records you'll see he's part of a case of mine."

Mathias went to one of the desks behind the counter and nipped through  a
leather-bound ledger.

"So he is," he said finally.
"We were just about to start serving the prisoners lunch."

"It is important." Harry tried not to sound dismissive of the  lieutenant's
priorities.

"I'll have to ask him if he wants to see you." Mathias took note of  Harry's
irritation.

"Sorry, Major. It's your case and my jail, but it's his right."

The lieutenant headed for the barred cellar stairs. Harry called to  him:

"Lieutenant! If he says yes .. . someplace with a little privacy?"

Harry passed the wait shifting from one foot to the other. The rain  had soaked
through his shoes and his feet were cold and uncomfortable.  He glanced about
the foyer but there was no place to sit.

The phone rang. The desk private grunted a few acknowledgments into  the
receiver, rang off, and turned to Harry.

"Follow me, Major? Oh, and um, why don't you leave the umbrella  here?"

The private left him in a small interior room Harry guessed was used  for
interrogations. The four walls were blank, and there was scarcely  room for the
scuffed wooden table and two equally scuffed chairs. On  the table was a
C-ration can crammed with a half-dozen extinguished  cigarettes. Harry lit
himself a cigarette and left the package and  matches on the table. He sat in
one of the chairs and squeezed the  cuff of one of his trouser legs. Water
dripped steadily from the  cloth.

He stirred at the sound of the door opening behind him. When it shut,  there was
Captain Jon-Jacob Anderson, his shirt, untucked and  unbuttoned, advertising his
muscled chest, his hands thrust into his  pockets, leaning against the door as
casually as a man waiting for a  tram.

If Markham had offered a disappointing portrait of an air ace, Anderson  seemed
to have walked off the cinema screen. He was small-bodied but  muscular, blessed
with silky yellow hair, sparkling cornflower eyes,  and a wide, cocky smile of
bright, ruler-straight teeth. Hours of sun  under a cockpit canopy had been
gentle on his still-boyish looks, and  afforded him a lustrous tan and a few
lines of character about his  eyes, the corners of his mouth, and across his
forehead. When he  smiled, the lines deepened in a pattern bespeaking good cheer
rather  than erosion.
"My guess," he said in his flat Kansas twang, "is y'ain't the Fuller  Brush
man."

Harry smiled politely. He nodded at the chair across the table.

"Nothing says we can't be comfortable."

"I consider spendin' time in the calaboose a real big obstacle to being  '
comfortable." Anderson reached across himself to scratch his left  arm, which
Harry noted hung at an unnaturally akimbo angle. He  remembered the story of the
Anderson youngster vaulting out of a Kansas  hayloft, earning a compound
fracture of the arm in the process.

Anderson shuffled by the table to the open chair. As he passed, Harry  noted
that the shuffling and pocketed hands had less to do with  affecting an
unconcerned air than they had practical application; his  trouser belt and
shoelaces had been confiscated.

"Just a precaution," the Provost would tell Harry later.

"He seemed a little hinky down there in the cells. Made me nervous  just to
watch him."

Anderson's face lit up at the sight of the package of cigarettes. One  of his
arms shot out, scooped up the package with the exclamation,  "Fenhunks!" and he
was soon puffing on one. He tossed the package  back to Harry's side of the
table.

"That's something' I learned from ya Jersey boys. I hear that's where  ya from,
right? Jersey? Had a Jersey boy in the outfit way back  when."

"Don't believe I'm acquainted with the ritual."

Anderson chuckled. "

"Acquainted with the ritual'. Jesus, ya even talk like a lawyer, lemme  tell ya.
He told me it was like callin' dibs on something'. Means ya  gotta share."

Harry shrugged.

"I was going to offer you one."

"Welll, in that case .. ." Anderson tipped a few extra cigarettes out.  He
dropped them into his breast pocket.

"Help yourself."
"

"Predate it. Hey, it still rainin' outside?"

"Still."

"Good. Give the fellows a chance to stand down for a day or so. Cool  things
off, too. Not that we need to in here. Where we're at  downstairs, it don't ever
really get all that warm, lemme tell ya. I  guess being' in the jug worked out
aw right for me, huh? Down there  where it's all nice 'n' cool, let all the rest
o' ya poor bastards  suffer through the summer."

"I'm glad this is working out so well for you," Harry said. He let a  moment
pass in which he held himself still.

Anderson shifted in his seat, and he scratched at his crooked arm.

"So, at long last, huh?"

"At long last. I should remind you that you don't have to speak to me
without--" Anderson waved his cigarette dismissively about.

"A lawyer's what ya need when ya got trouble."

"You don't think you're in trouble?"

Anderson's grin widened. He lapsed into a fair imitation of Curly of  The Three
Stooges: "I'm a victim ofcoicumstance!"The grin faded a  bit.

"Heard the news 'bout takin' Sicily coupla days ago. Guess it won't be  too long
'fore we're on the mainland, hm? So, whatcha think? Think  the war'll be over by
the time I get outta here?"

Harry shrugged.

"

"At could mean a short stay or a looong war."

"It could mean it's up to you."

Anderson's grin turned wary "Ah." One hand reached out and toyed with  the book
of matches on the table; Harry noticed the fingernails, bitten  to the quick.

"Now we're getting' to it, huh? I figgered on this."

"You're a pretty smart guy, then."
"I thought so," he chuckled as he brushed at the cigarette ashes  dribbling onto
the table, "till I got myself put up in here. For  nothin'! How smart can a guy
be to wind up in the can for nothin' ?"

"You hoping that if you say that often enough it'll come true?"

Anderson laughed, but there was an edge to it.

"Ya just don't give up, do ya, Major? Lemme tell ya, I admire 'at! I  wish ya'd
use it on somebody a little more deservin', but I still  admire 'at." He leaned
forward, studying Harry with earnest curiosity,  "Lemme ask ya; why ya got it in
for us so bad? I heard 'bout ya, how  back home ya was on yer uppers 'n' all.
So's, I figger, OK, this guy  wants to make himself a name or something', I
understand 'at. I don't  like it, but I understand it. But now I'm sittin' here
lookin' at ya  'n' I don't see it.

You don't look the shark type, so what is it?"

"They call you J.J.?"

"Used to be "Jon-Jacob!" when my daddy got all steamed.

Jon Jacob ya get yer bee-hind in this house right now, boy!" But to be
friendly, make it J. J."

"Let's keep it friendly then. J. ]." I'm not in this to see how many  scalps I
can put on my belt. I don't want to hang somebody that  shouldn't be hung."

"Oh, ya think somebody's gonna hang?

"Cause a' what? I know what you think you got. I heard ya got yerself  some
pitchers from that whiz kid Van Damm got you thinkin' you got  something' The
captain stood. He wanted to pace but there were just a  few steps to any wall.
Instead, he propped himself in a corner away  from Harry, caressing his arm
again as if to disperse a chill.

"Lemme tell ya. Major, I seen those pitchers! Lemme tell ya  something' else: I
was there! Boy, oh boy, ya guys .. ."

"What guys?"

"All ya guys! Ya fly a desk 'n' ya think ya know something'! I was  there when
'em tanks went up! Nothin' happened out there 'at wan'  suppose' to happen 'n'
lemme tell ya; when I saw those pitchers? I was  surprised the place looked that
goddamn good!

"At happens to be what the war looks like, Major."
Harry's cigarette began to taste flat and acrid. He dropped it into  the
C-ration can.

"Sorry, J. J." I don't buy it. You're right: I don't know what  happened out
there. I've just got the evidence to go on. But don't  tell me what I saw and
Major Van Damm saw in those pictures is the way  things are supposed to look out
there. Make it make sense to me. Look,  maybe it was a few strays. Maybe
somebody got a head of steam up and  couldn't stop. I don't know. You tell me."

"Al and me been tellin' ya! But y'ain't gonna hear what ya don't wanna  hear!"

Anderson shook his head as if he hadn't expected anything else. He sat  back at
the table, pulled two fresh cigarettes from Harry's pack,  slipping one behind
his right ear and lighting the second with the stub  of the one he'd been
smoking.

"Lemme tell ya, Major, I ain't afraid ofya. They always say if yer  innocent ya
got nothin' to worry 'bout 'n' I-am-innocent! Ya can't  hang a fella for what he
didn't do." Anderson spat out a fleck of  tobacco. His grin turned malevolent.

"Lemme tell ya who in this room is scared. You Major.

"At's why yer here."

"J-J-, you get an earful of one of the cracker-barrel jailhouse lawyers  that
hang around a place like this and you think he sounds like he  knows what he's
talking about so you listen to him. Let me clear up a  point or two for you upon
which your legal advisor of the moment may  have failed to enlighten you. The
least I have Markham for is killing  Dennis O'Connell. I've got that locked up
with ballistics evidence and  testimony from two eyewitnesses--whom your friend
also tried to take  out!"

Harry leaned forward in his chair, crossing his arms in front of him on  the
table.

"Here's the part you really need to listen to, J. J. You were there.  You
watched it, you didn't do a damned thing to stop it, you didn't  even do a
damned thing to report it. That's conspiracy, complicity,  aiding and abetting,
compounding a felony, accessory after the fact,  concealing evidence, making
false reports, conduct unbecoming, and I  can probably make it into a few other
things, too. Forget everything  else: On just O'Connell's murder, if by some
miracle you don't hang,  you won't see daylight until you're old enough to try
out Mr.  Roosevelt's Social Security program." He leaned back and softened his
tone.
"You made some bad choices, but I understand; Al is your buddy. You  served
together, you fought together. That doesn't mean you have to go  to the gallows
together."

For the first time Anderson's grin disappeared.

Harry continued.

"I've got more than O'Connell's death. General DiGarre doesn't seem to  think my
case is as shaky as you do. In fact, he's so afraid it'll  stick he's willing to
promise me that you and Markham'll go to the  gallows if I don't bring up
Helsvagen. That solves an awful lot of  messy problems for them, J. J. So that's
it. No matter how I  prosecute, Al Markham's a dead man. I don't lift a finger
and he hangs  on O'Connell. The only question for you is. Do you want to hang
with  him?"

They sat for a long while. Harry watching Anderson, Anderson watching  the
cigarette in his fingers burn down. Then the captain nicked the  long ash onto
the table and reached across to scratch at his misaligned  elbow.

"What it is is ya want me to sell him out."

"I want you to testify for the Judge Advocate."

"I finger 'im for ya 'n' ya go easy on me."

"I want you to tell the truth."

"Truth is," and Anderson looked up, his blue eyes wide and fixed on  Harry's, "I
don't know what happened out there."

Harry blinked, confused.

"Come again?"

"I don't know what happened, Major. I testify for ya, 'at's gonna be a  lie. I
testify for Al, 'n' 'at'll be a lie, too."

"Captain, your debriefing report states that after you made your runs  on
Helsvagen, you flew top cover for Angel Red--Markham's section-and  then
withdrew with Markham.What're you saying now?"

"I wanted to stay withAl, but he ordered me to light out after  O'Connell. He
knew O'Connell's ship was hurt 'n' he wanted me to fly  cover for 'im. Me? I
coulda given less a damn 'bout O'Connell. Little  turd goes down? Fuck 'im. But
lemme tell ya, Al wouldn't have it, no  sir. Ordered me out after 'im. I didn't
tell nobody 'cause 'at meant
Al's section went in on their runs with their ass wide open. It was  stupid for
'im to go in open like 'at, 'n' I figgered he was in deep  enough trouble, so I
said I was there. Truth is. Major, I don't have  the goddamnedest idea what went
on at Helsvagen after I left."

Had Anderson punched Harry square on the nose, it wouldn't've left him  any more
flummoxed. It was a perfectly logical, perfectly plausible,  perfectly
inarguable story, and it left Harry absolutely no maneuvering  room. Harry could
see Anderson's eyes narrowing in study. Don't show  him he rocked you, he told
himself. He settled in his chair, relaxed,  smiled as he shook his head
appreciatively.

"That's a hell of a story. Captain. A hell of a story! But get this  through
that plowboy head of yours: Even if a jury panel buys it, that  doesn't get you
off the hook for O'Connell.Your only way out on that  one is me."

Anderson's face turned sad. He stood and shuffled to the door and  knocked. The
door opened, revealing the escorting turnkey outside.  Anderson sniffed at a
heavy aroma of hash and potatoes in the air and  his grin returned.

"Ahh.

Luncheon is served. Would you like me to ask 'em to set another plate.  Major?"

Harry stood and tossed the package of cigarettes to Anderson.

"For dessert."

"Obliged."

The turnkey stood at Anderson's elbow and followed him down the hall.  Harry
tailing behind. At the counter, the turnkey led Anderson to the  barred door
leading to the cells downstairs.

"Hey, Major," Anderson called, "let's say you win this thing, 'n' me  'n' Al ..
well, you know .. ." He smiled as he drew his index finger  across his throat.

"Whatcha gonna do when you find out you was wrong? You sleep on 'at  tonight,
Major." Anderson made a pistol of his throat-slashing hand,  aimed it at Harry,
and fired.

Harry watched the heavy door clang shut behind them and heard the  captain's
tenor on the stairwell: singing about someone rocking his  dream boat

"It's simple," Grassi declared.
"He's cutting Markham loose. He knows it's time to save his own  ass."

Harry had found Grassi and Ricks still hard at work in the conference  room. He
sat on the windowsill, enjoying the breezes that had come  with the rain, and
recounted his conversation with Jon-Jacob Anderson.  Ricks had taken the story
with his usual quiet contemplation, but  Grassi had a ready opinion.

"That was my first thought," Harry responded.

"But you want to hear something funny? After they took Anderson back  to his
cell I sent word to Markham that I wanted to talk to him.  Thought I'd bounce
all this off him and see what happened, maybe shake  him up a bit. Markham
wouldn't see me. So, I sent down a note with  the gist of Anderson's story. He
still wouldn't see me."

"He didn't believe it," Grassi explained, untroubled.

"Maybe," Harry said.

"I asked the guards down there to keep an eye on the two of them, let  me know
if they talked to each other. Not the content of the  conversation," he added in
deference to the perturbed look on Ricks's  face.

"We wouldn't want to intrude on a private conversation, would we? Just  if they
talked." Harry glanced at his watch.

"It's almost an hour and I haven't gotten a call. If I was sitting  where
Markham is, and I got word that my codefendant--and my only  defense
corroboration-was throwing me to the wolves, I'd want to ask  him about it.
These two have been flying buddies for four years. You  think one of them would
at least say, "How'd it go?" when the other  one comes back from a meeting with
the prosecutor. But not even a  hello."

"Look, Boss, you're the one that's always going on about what a cool  cookie
Markham is," said Grassi.

"Maybe he just doesn't want us to know he's spooked."

"There's another possibility," Ricks said.

"Markham's been taking us through a series of fallback positions, only  giving
ground when he has to. He comes back from the August fifteenth  raid, MP's show
up to hold him, but he doesn't open his mouth. We  press harder, and he cops to
O'Connell's murder, hoping that's where we'll stop. But we get beyond  that. So
now he has to retrench again. It's possible he and Anderson  rigged this story
together about Anderson cutting out."

"Why?" Grassi demanded.

"There's no direct evidence putting Anderson in the air at Helsvagen  during
Markham's attack," Ricks replied.

"There's not even a circumstantial tie. His debriefing says he was  there and
saw nothing, now he says he wasn't there, that he was already  on his way home
when Markham's section attacked. Threatening him with  filing a false report is
hardly going to shake him up, not when the  alternative is a charge of accessory
to multiple murder counts. If  Anderson holds to this story that he wasn't
there, and we can't crack  it, it removes him as a defense witness and as a
possible prosecution  tool."

Grassi was shaking his head, not wanting to accept an unpalatable  possibility.

"You said that was only part of it."

Ricks and Harry exchanged a look of understanding. Harry took up the  thread
now.

"Anderson s Markham's friend. It's not Anderson cutting Markham loose.  It's the
other way around. Markham's trying to save Anderson."

"And there's always this, Harry," Ricks said.

"We have to consider the possibility--unpleasant as it may be for  you--that
Anderson's telling the truth."

"Truth? Never heard of it. Not in this case." Grassi turned to  Harry.

"So the trip to Anderson is a scratch."

"Not quite." The rain had tapered to a sporadic dappling, and great  seams of
warm light were beginning to lance through the cloud cover.  Harry slid from the
windowsill.

"Damn." Dampness had seeped along the sill, leaving a wet stripe  across the
seat of his trousers.

"You were saying," Grassi prodded, unconcerned with Harry's  predicament.

"No matter what Markham wants and Anderson says, Anderson is in the
crosshairs on O'Connell." Harry thought back to the captain's sun  lined but
youthful face.

It was not unflappable, he was certain of it.

"Let him stew for a while. It might take him a bit to see how far in  the frying
pan he's sitting. Now, why don't you boys show me what  you've put together for
me so far?"

I found myself spending the better part of the day watching the rain  sluice
through the soot on the windowpanes of our Fleet Street offices.  I would look
at my familiar desk and all the other familiar desks about  me in the newsroom
manned by familiar faces doing familiar tasks and I  thought how nice it would
be, even for a moment, not to be so familiar  with it all.

"You seem to be taking an inordinate interest in the weather," Himself  noted,
drawing a chair up to my desk.

"Thinking of writing the meteorological column?"

Normally such lackadaisical conduct would have earned me a frown from  The Boss,
along with a growling ha-rumph and possibly some drollery  about how perhaps he
could grant me more time to pursue this new  climatological interest of mine by
relieving me of the burdens of a  job. But instead came a dark, concerned look
under the heavy brow.  He'd never seen me behave this way and, frankly, it was
new--and  equally unsettling--to me as well. He sat quietly for the moment, not
looking to probe, waiting for me to volunteer, but all I could offer  was a
shrug.

"You haven't had a proper holiday since you've been back," he finally  said.

"Perhaps it's due."

I began to say something along the lines of how unnecessary the offer  was, that
it was, oh, just the effect of the weather, my leg, the  weather on my leg, too
much scotch, a coming illness, whatever, but he  spoke over me.

"No need to play good soldier, my son. I'm sure a few days holiday'll  see you
right. Do something new with the time; try to enjoy yourself."  Then he grunted
out of his seat and began to walk past, back to his  sanctum. I felt him stop
behind me, saw his hand out of the corner of  my eye hover over my shoulder,
unsure, then it came down in a fleeting,  awkward pat.

"Maybe see some old friends," he mumbled and left.
He meant one old acquaintance, really. I headed home. But the thought  of
another evening of kippers and whiskey stopped me and turned me  round toward
Mayfair. I reached the Annex gate not long after the rain  had lifted. I sent
word through the sentries to Harry, and soon he was  carefully stepping across
the rain-glistened cobbles. As soon as he  was close enough to recognize me, his
jowled face broke into a  welcoming smile.

"I thought since it's turning into an absolutely wizard evening you  might care
to dine alfresco tonight."

"Al-who?"

"Out-of-doors."

He seemed enthused at the prospect and left me for a moment while he  ran back
inside for his hat and jacket. As I watched him skirt the  puddles in the Annex
yard and try not to slip on the court's stones,  Mr. Dodgson's verse came
discomfortingly to me:

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things..."

We took the Underground to Baker Street and, returning to the street,  found the
evening brightening and fresh after the rain. I treated us  to newspaper funnels
of fish and chips and two bottles of ale from the  shops. We strolled along
Marylebone Road, munching on the greasy bits  of fish, enjoying the buskers.
Here was a young flautist, and a bit  beyond him some ancient duffer with a
banjo affecting a bad American  Southern accent. One of us would toss a few
pence into the upturned  hat at their feet and on we'd go. I navigated us into
Regent's Park,  past the marshy patches left by the rains, across York Bridge
and into  Queen Mary's Gardens. We found a bench and sat, finishing our food,
sipping our ale, enjoying the scents of the garden's blooms. From the  other
side of the Inner Circle, beyond the hedges, we could hear a  recitation of some
sort at the open-air theater. The sun dipped below  the horizon, and the sky's
rich mauve began to slip into the blue of  early night. We wiped the grease from
our hands with our  handkerchiefs, disposed of the wrappings in a nearby bin,
then reclined  on our bench to savor the remains of our ale and an occasionally
well-delivered phrase of the Bard from the theater. I lit us  cigarettes.

"That was a nice change of pace," Harry said through a satisfied sigh,  sucking
at a bit of food caught between his teeth.

"Aye, I'm for that as well," I said.

"Rarely have the time, I'm afraid. I'm sure you know the feeling."

He shrugged.
"I mean," I continued, "you have been a busy sort of late, eh?"

It began to register with him that this was not just a point of idle
conversation.

"What makes you say that?"

It was my turn to shrug.

He frowned.

"Are you some kind of spy?"

"Not quite." And then I told him what I was. I knew it would sting  but the
honesty leavened, for the first time, the mood I'd felt all  day.

His face had gone oddly blank. I'm not sure he knew how to take it.  After a
bit, he slowly set his ale down on the bench, then looked  upward to the first
stars poking through the darkening canopy.

"You've been following me all along," he said softly.

"Even before the other day in the park."

"I'm caught then."

He lowered his head and cleared his throat, and assumed a rather  diffident
cordiality.

"And your interest in me would be .. , ?"

"What would you think?" It was the old familiar journalistic game, and  I was
sorry to see us become players. I wished I'd found another way  to broach the
subject, but the habits of the profession were hard to  break. He said nothing
and so it was my move again: "Perhaps the  Greshams. Perhaps that dead flier of
yours who's on the postmortem  table at the Yard. Or perhaps something else.

Something that would cause a frightful lot of running between Rosewood  Court
and General DiGarre's HQ and the Provost Marshal and G-2 .. ."

It may not have been much--just bits and pieces, really--but he was  clearly
surprised at how much someone knew outside the Annex cloister.  For a moment I
thought he'd tell all. It was in his eyes: He wanted it  out, clean singly
exposed, as I had with my own nasty secret. But the  moment passed and he stood,
straightening his uniform jacket. He  snuffed his cigarette out.
"Any questions about possible Judge Advocate General investigations  should be
addressed to the Press Office--" "Sit down. Harry.  Please."

Instead, he took a few slow, backward steps, as if afraid to turn his  back on
me, the way one would back away from a growling dog.

"Harry, I'm not your enemy. I'm not here to hurt you. We've been  talking as
mates. I'd like that to stay the case. Please, sit."

After a hesitation he did. I handed him his bottle of ale.

"Drink your drink," I said, raising my own bottle.

"How much do you really know?" he asked, not taking his.

"You know the stories about the monster at Loch Ness? I don't know  that there
is any such beastie but I know there's something big afoot  round the loch
because something's been leaving bloody great tracks.  That's what I see in your
neighborhood, my friend. I don't know what  you're all on about over there, not
entirely, but there is definitely  something big afoot. I don't know how well
acquainted you are with big  things afoot, Harry, so I wanted to tell you, to
advise you; walk  carefully round them. It's times like this when you discover
too many  of your colleagues-people like your friend Colonel Ryan--have a bit of
the Vicar of Bray about them."

He cocked his head in question.

I smiled.

"There's an old English verse about Symon Symonds who managed to keep  his
church office under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Bloody Mary, and  Elizabeth.

Symonds was Catholic when he needed to be Catholic, and Protestant when  he
needed to be Protestant.

"If I changed my religion'--this is how the verse goes--"I am sure I  kept true
to my principle, which is to live and die the Vicar of Bray'  Understand?"

He nodded glumly.

"If you need me, Harry .. . even just to talk," and I told him how to  reach me.

We finished our ales and I walked with him, back to the Underground and  then to
the Annex gate. After he showed his identification, the  sentries opened the
gate for him but he didn't pass through
immediately.

"Can I trust you?" he asked.

"You can trust me to tell you when you can't."

He nodded a good night and was off, the heavy iron gate clanging shut  behind
him.

Harry slept fitfully, no doubt a result of our conversation that  evening.

Consequently, he was so fagged out the following morning that he slept  through
reveille, the orderlies' morning wake-up rounds, and his own  alarm clock. He
would've slept through the ringing of his telephone  except that the ringing
went on so insistently long. Groggy and  irritable, he fumbled the receiver out
of its cradle and then fell back  on his pillow with it nestled near his ear.

"Are you coming to work today?" came a churlishly abrupt voice.

"Nagel?"

"I shouldn't have to keep calling you to ask you this every--" "What  time is
it?"

"Oh nine hundred. Nine a.m."

"I know what time 0900 is," Harry growled.

"Yeah, I'll be in."

"There's a messenger on his way to you. He was over here with a sealed  YEO
envelope. He wouldn't let me--"

"YEO?"

"Your Eyes Only. He wouldn't let me sign for it so he's on his way  over to you
now. He thought you'd be in your office since it's  already--" "If you tell me
the time again, Nagel, I'll hurt you. I'll  be there as soon as--"There was a
knock at his door.

"Bye, Nagel."

Nagel began to say something more but Harry had already dropped the  receiver
into its cradle.

The knock was, indeed, the messenger Nagel had mentioned. Harry signed  a chit
for a thin manila envelope sealed with red security tape and  marked to: major
harold j. voss, jag, eyes only.
Far later. Harry was charging across the Annex toward "Judge Advocate
General--Building A" in clothes hastily drawn on, the sheaf of flimsies  from
the envelope clutched in an angry fist. He pushed through the  door stenciled
"Col.

J. P. Ryan, Judge Advocate." In the outer office, a razor-creased  corporal sat
outside Ryan's door. The corporal rose, waving halting  hands at Harry, but
Harry brushed him aside and stormed into Ryan's  sanctum. Sitting with Ryan in
his spacious, airy office were a captain  and a lieutenant Harry recognized from
the JAG staff. Harry held up  his fistful of flimsies.

"What the hell is this?"

Ryan raised himself slowly from behind his desk, his face hard with  anger and
annoyance.

"This--" and he waved his hand at the captain and the lieutenant, "--is  a
conference. Major."

"Now you're in conference with me!" Harry declared.

Harry's uncharacteristic assertiveness took Ryan aback and it was a  moment
before he recovered. He weighed his options, then nodded the  other two officers
outside.

Harry waited for the door to close behind them, then started jabbing  the wad of
flimsies at Ryan. " Now what is--" "Before you even get  started, be quiet and
listen!" Ryan snapped. He parried Harry's  thrusting fist of paper with his own
jabbing index finger.

"At General DiGarre's perfectly legitimate request, I rendered a  perfectly
legitimate opinion."

"I should've been consulted! This is my case, and I--" "I apologize  for the
lapse in protocol, Major, but maybe you didn't notice the sign  on my door: I'm
the Judge Advocate here. Let me put that in plainer  terms:

I'm the boss!" Ryan dabbed at the spittle gathering at the corners of  his
mouth.

He forced control on his voice.

"Nothing's changed on this case. You're still free to pursue your  investigation
and file whatever charges you see fit. But right now,  you could tell me those
two were planning to assassinate Elsenhower and  I wouldn't have the authority
to detain them, not with DiGarre having  authorized their release."

"You could make a case that--" "As long as they make their appearances,  I'm not
going to make word one!"

"You could make a case to continue their detention here."

"I could. But I've got no cause to get into another fight I can't  win."

"All right," Harry steamed.

"All right! Just so I know what kind of crap I'm dealing with!"

Ryan's eyes came up now, locking unflinchingly with Harry's.

"Major," he said icily, "this kind of crap is exactly the same kind of  crap
that's been going on since this thing started! Don't play the  bleeding virgin
with me just because you've got yourself on the wrong  side of it now!"

"You interfere with my case, and after I nail these guys--and I will--  I swear
to God, Joe, I'll come after you--with contempt, abuse of  authority, a baseball
bat! I will come after you!"

Harry slammed the door so hard behind him he was surprised it didn't  shatter.

He later showed me those flimsies. I render copies herewith:

MEMORANDUM to : Colonel Joseph E Ryan cc: Maj. H J. Voss, JAG Judge  Advocate
from: It. Gen. T. Q. DiGarre

DATE: 8/19/43

re: Markham/Anderson Investigation

Since the combat operations of my division must naturally take  precedence over
all other administrative matters, the continued  effective management of my
combat forces requires I get from you ASAP a  rendering on this matter. Reply
forthwith.

MEMORANDUM to: Lt. Gen. T. Q. DiGarre cc: Maj. H.J. Voss, JAG  Divisional HQ
from: Col. Joseph E Ryan, JAG

DATE: 8/19/43

re: Markham/Anderson Investigation

Under separate cover you will be receiving a formal filing by the JAG
requesting and granting a motion for dismissal without prejudice  concerning
charges thus far raised against Markham/Anderson. So you  may better understand
the legal ramifications of this filing: This in  no way dispenses the case
against Markham/Anderson. This motion  provides only a temporary dismissal and
allows a revival of charges at  a later date.

Since the scope of the initial JAG investigation has obviously expanded  past
the expectations of all concerned, this would permit the 10 to  more properly
revisit evidence thus far uncovered for a more  appropriate application of
charges. I would estimate this renewed  investigation to produce grounds for
formal charges in 3-6 weeks.

MEMORANDUM to: Colonel Joseph P. Ryan cc: Maj. H.J. Voss, JAG Judge  Advocate
from: It. Gen. T. Q. DiGarre date: 8/20/43 re:  Markham/Anderson Investigation

Have received your formal rendering and concur. In interim, as no  charges are
currently outstanding, there remains no justification for  continued detention
of Markham/Anderson, Consequently, I

am authorizing their release. Pressing need for combat pilots mandates
returning Markham/Anderson to active duty pending reapplication of  charges, but
they will remain at JAG disposal as required.

ORDER #16/8/20/43

TO: It. Col. James T. Eckhardt cc: Maj. H.J.Voss, JAG CO 52 Group  Elsworth
Airfield from: It. GenT. Q. DiGarre date: 8/20/43 re:  Personnel Assignment

Be apprised that Maj. A. Q. Markham, Capt. J. J. Anderson herewith  assigned
your group.

Markham/Anderson are subjects in JAG proceeding. Decision not  forthcoming
before 3 weeks. Recognize your need for qualified combat  pilots. Have taken
liberty of assigning Markham/Anderson your unit  pending decision on their case.

Markham/Anderson should not be subject to question re: case by field  personnel,
yourself included. Suggest you quarter together and assign  as unit.

Markham/Anderson to have functioning authority of 1st It. Duty  assignments to
be made at your discretion, however Markham/ Anderson  shall make themselves
available as required by JAG.

ORDER #17/8/20/43

TO: Maj. A. Q. Markham bee: Maj. H.J.Voss, JAG Capt. J. J. Anderson  from: It.
GenT. Q. DiGarre date: 8/20/43 re: Reassignment

JAG has rendered temporary repeat temporary dismissal of charges  against you
effective as of now. It is expected that formal charges  will

: be refiled within several weeks with anticipated probability of  court-martial
proceedings soon to follow.

In interim you are hereby ordered to present yourselves ASAP for active  duty
assignment to CO 52 Group, Elsworth And. However, you will at all  times hold
yourselves at disposal of JAG pursuant to your case. While  your actions with
the 5 2 cannot be admitted in your favor, poor  performance and failure to meet
JAG requirements cannot help but  prejudice your case. Recommend you continue to
conduct yourselves in  manner that best reflects on yourselves, your unit, and
your service.
CHAPTER TEN

THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

the negro MESS BOYS WERE BUSY with mops and rags, replenishing the  sparkle of
the canteen tables, floors, and counters in preparation for  noon mess. Alone
except for the mess boys, Harry, Ricks, and Grassi  sat with their coffee and
cigarettes in a corner of the canteen.

"What I got was the back-and-forth between Ryan and DiGarre happened  late last
night," said Grassi. Every word out of his mouth, point of  information or no,
was a snarling accusation.

"Get this: They handed the release order to the Provost at 0430 this  morning.
Talk about sneaking them off in the dead of night!

Do you believe these sons of bitches? They were dressed, packed, and  on their
way in ten minutes." Grassi glanced at his watch.

"They should be nice and settled in by now. Charlie Paddock should  move this
fast. Goddamn these guys!

They make pirates look respectable!"

The frowning Ricks nodded in glum agreement.

Throughout Grassi's fulminations and Ricks's brooding concern, Harry  had sat
blank-faced, staring out the canteen window. It was actually  quite a nice day
out there, fresh and vibrant from the rain the day  before. He wanted to be as
angry as Grassi, rant about Ryan and  DiGarre and the whole HQ cabal and their
sly maneuverings, but he  knew--as he'd known the first time he had faced
DiGarre--that anger,  effrontery, righteous indignation, no matter how well
warranted,  wouldn't win him his case.

Think ... "What do we do now?" Grassi fumed.

"Go back to DiGarre and his deal? Do you think that deal is even still  on the
table?"

"Probably," Harry said, with what Grassi no doubt interpreted as  misplaced
unconcern but what was really careful thoughtfulness.

"It's in his interest to leave that option to us. It'll be there at  least up to
trial."

Grassi shook his head in disbelief.

"What trial? Correct me if I'm wrong. Boss, but didn't the bogeymen  sneak over
to the Provost's in the wee dark hours and spirit off our
defendants?"

"I don't know about you fellows, but I'm not that well acquainted with  this
'dismissal without prejudice' business," Ricks said.

"So I've been doing a little homework. As I understand it, it's only a
temporary--" "Temporary shmemporary!" Grassi blurted.

"Hey, you know where this Elsworth Field is? I checked. All the way  the hell up
past Norwich, maybe a hundred and fifty miles north of  here! Hold themselves at
our disposal my ass! I can see how this is  going to run.

"Excuse me, the JAG would like Major Markham and Captain Anderson to  present
themselves for a deposition. Could you please have them come  down to London for
us?"

"Oh, sorry, Bud, they're off beating back the filthy Hun today. I'll  give them
the message when they come in."

" "Then we go up there," Ricks said.

"They have to come back sometime from beating back the filthy Hun."

Grassi had a caustic rejoinder half out of his mouth, but Harry raised  a hand
for silence. He nodded toward Ricks.

"You were saying about 'dismissal without prejudice."

" "It's normally a bid to keep the prosecutor's hand in a case that  hasn't
jelled yet. The prosecutor's saying, "All right, we made  charges, we
investigated, we haven't found enough to make the charges  stick. But there's
enough here for us to keep looking, and if we find  something we'll be back."

Harry turned to Grassi.

"Before you get yourself any further into a lather, have you asked  yourself why
Ryan didn't just quash this thing?"

Grassi's mouth opened but, as was often the case, he had done so  without
considering what he'd actually say. His mouth closed.

"Let's not take these memos at face value," Harry said.

"Assume there's a conversation behind them. You can bet your GI shirt  a
flat-out dismissal was high on DiGarre's Christmas list, and you can  also bet
Ryan would've given his eyeteeth to give him one. But there's  too much evidence
on the table. My sense from DiGarre is there's a lot  of parties interested in
this case. Maybe that interest runs to SHAEF,
maybe Whitehall, maybe further. People want to know what went wrong  when the
351st got pasted last week, what's gone wrong with it this  week, and what's
somebody going to do about it. DiGarre's no dummy,  trust me, but he may have
painted himself into a corner here. He  precipitated when he sacked Halverson.
Now he's got no fall guy; he's  the one on the spot now. He can't just turn the
investigation off.  Think about it:

Halverson starts the investigation, DiGarre cans Halverson, then calls  it off?

That's a sequence that screams that the general's got something to  hide. We can
claim he squelched the investigation to cover his own  butt, and that's how
it'll look. DiGarre's got to let this go to trial  and hope for an acquittal.
He's got no choice; that's the only thing  that permanently puts all questions
to rest. If we lose, any  complaints we make get written off as plain old sour
grapes."

"If we lose?" Grassi mocked.

"If I was the general I wouldn't sweat that too much."

"I don't think we're played out yet," Harry said.

"You still think that discipline argument has a chance?" Ricks asked  him.

"It's not quite the blasphemy of murder and mayhem DiGarre's expecting  us to
present."

Grassi, as most fervent men are, was reluctant to give up his fervor.

"What about Markham and Anderson

"What about them?" Harry asked casually.

"We still don't have access, not unless you want to take the captain's  advice
and spend the next three weeks sitting on our duffs up at  Elsworth trying to
catch them."

"To hell with Markham and Anderson," Harry said.

"Unless one of them confesses, which I'm sure you'll agree is unlikely,  all
you'll get from a trip up there is more b.s. All we really need to  do over the
next few weeks is show the flag up there, and that's  primarily for Anderson s
benefit. Right now, I'll bet that little  cracker's thinking he's clear of this.

We need to let J. J. know we haven't forgotten him. Let him sweat a  bit over
the next couple of weeks. That's a long time to sweat."
Harry fell silent. Then he said, "They're desperate. This was just  the first
round. It was a good one for them, but all Ryan could do was  provide DiGarre
with some breathing space to try to figure a next move.  As long as they're
providing that kind of time, let's use it to our  advantage.

"Pete, in the beginning you were worried we were moving too fast. Now  we've got
the time to go back over our evidence carefully, time to go  back to our
witnesses and talk to them again, a proper followup, now  that we know what
we're dealing with. Maybe Van Damm and those whiz  kids of his have come up with
something new for us. They can't close  the door all the way on us fellas, so
let's see if we can't push it  back open a bit."

"As long as we have this kind of time, maybe we can take a little  breather
ourselves," Grassi said with a yawn.

"The way we've been going, everything's starting to run together in my  head."

"I'm surprised to hear myself admit it," Ricks said, "but I agree with  Armando.

If I might make a prudent suggestion--" "Do you ever do anything but?"  Grassi
jibed.

Ricks ignored him. "--a little time off might not be a bad idea. Tired  men make
mistakes. Say we resume tomorrow after Sunday services?"

Grassi smiled mockingly. If he worshiped at all on Sunday mornings it  was from
his bunk.

Harry stood.

"It has been a bear of a week. Why don't we make it Monday morning?"

"No argument there!" Grassi trumpeted.

Ricks turned to Grassi, feigning a look of being impressed.

"No argument? What a welcome change of pace!"

"Hey, Boss, hear that?" Grassi hooted.

"The captain made a funny!"

Harry allowed himself a small chuckle.

But Harry did not heed his own advice. He did not put the case away
but sat in his quarters poking through his notes and files. He  considered going
down to the canteen for something to eat, or maybe  even a stroll to The Old
Eagle, but standing at his window he saw Ryan  down in the yard crossing the
cobbles for the gates, and decided  instead to have the canteen bring food up.

After dining in his quarters he slid open one of his escritoire drawers  and
drew out a framed photograph of Cynthia and the children. In the  photo all
three were standing in a park against a field of blossoming  cherry trees.
Evidently they had come straight from church, Cynthia  wearing a dark suit with
a matching ribbon in her hair, and the boys  flanking her with forced smiles as
they chafed in their miniature  suits. In the black-and-white photo, the slender
streaks of gray in  her hair had disappeared. He had made a practice of not
displaying the  photo as the other married men did, keeping it something
private.  Leaving the photo out, he drew a sheet of V-mail paper from the
escritoire and began to write:

Cyn-- I miss you.

Nothing else came. He thought of crumpling it up, but then thought the  better
of it, signed it, and sealed the fragile little message in an  envelope. He
called for an orderly and had the envelope placed with  the outgoing post.

The fine day began to come to a premature close late in the afternoon  as a
fresh rank of storm clouds pushed in over the city. With the  early dusk, Harry
tuned the wireless to soft music, sat at his lamp  table, drew on his reading
spectacles, and turned to The Dain Curse,  which he had set down five nights
before. As he tried to pick up the  thread of the story, struggling to recall
what he'd already read, those  five nights began to feel like an eon.

When he awoke, the book had toppled to the floor, the sky was black,  and the
breeze through the open window was damp with rain. Distant  thunder rumbled like
far-off artillery, and lightning presented a  shortlived frieze of rooftops and
clouds capes framed by Harry's  window. He was surprised that no one on the
night watch had called to  him to draw his blackout curtains or douse his
lamplight.

Perhaps in the rain such precautions were academic. He glanced at his  watch but
it had wound down, stilled just before midnight. He guessed  it to be quite late
since there was no music from the wireless, only a  low hum broken by a crackle
of static sparked by the flashes of  lightning. He picked up his volume of
Hammett, set it down on the lamp  table and his spectacles alongside. He sat a
moment, rubbing his tired  eyes, then switched off the lamp.

At first he thought the rattle came from his fumbling for the lamp  chain, but
then he realized it came from elsewhere in the room: the
door. The noise stopped and he sat still in his chair. Someone  passing in the
hall? Or, he thought only half facetiously, ghosts. But  ghosts did not leave
shadows and, in the dim light under his door,  Harry could see a shadow.

It was too dark to see but Harry heard the doorknob turning, first one  way,
then another. Another thing ghosts did not do was fumble for  keys, and now
Harry heard them jangling as they stabbed at the lock.

He stood, telling himself there was no reason to be afraid, this was  obviously
a simple mistake on someone's part, nothing more. But his  heart accelerated,
beating a little harder, sounding a little louder in  his ears.

Now he heard the sounds of someone trying to force the key into the  lock.

Harry turned off the wireless, thinking this might help inform the key  holder
that the room was already occupied. The scratching at the lock  didn't stop.

"Yes?" Harry called out, his voice tight and high enough to embarrass  him.

The noises stopped.

Curious now, Harry took a few steps toward the door, his hand reaching  for the
glass knob. As his fingers touched it, the knob jumped in his  hand as something
akin to a cannonball pounded the other side of the  door. Harry jumped back.

Bong! It came again, the door shuddering, and then again.

His mind was oddly clear. He was terrified, yet another part of his  brain was
scientifically analytical about what was being used on the  door. What could the
intruder have found in the hall to use? A chair?  Yet still another part of his
mind declared that only a complete loon  would calmly stand by investing his
time in such pointless  observations.

He went to the window and tried calling across the courtyard to the  gate MP's,
but his voice was lost in the storm. He went to his  telephone and dialed the
orderly room. He held a hand over his heart,  but it didn't deaden the pounding
in his ears and he could barely hear  the answering voice in the receiver.

"This is Major Voss in--" He blinked. Now, wasn't that funny? He  couldn't
remember his room number.

"Yes, Major?"
They'd know the number, he told himself. Of course.

"There's someone trying to break into my room." He strained to keep  his voice
even.

"Now?"

"Yes, they're in the hall right now. Could you send someone up as soon  as
possible?"

"On the--" Lightning flared, very close this time, and instead of a  dull
rumble, the thunder came as a sharp, startling crack! that  rattled the
windowpanes. The phone went dead. Harry set the receiver  down. He turned to the
door.

The pounding had continued but a new noise had been added: a cracking  and
splintering of wood. In the next flash of lightning Harry could  see the door
beginning to buckle down the middle. He found himself  stepping backward until
he was against the wall farthest from the  door.

New sounds: footsteps. Then scuffling. Then silence.

A knock.

"Major Voss?"

It took Harry a few seconds to find his voice.

"Yes?"

"Corporal Yelavich, Major. Military Police."

Harry suddenly realized he was panting.

In the hall, beams of electric torches flashed about. In the swaths of  light
Harry could make out three MP's: the corporal at the door and two  others
standing over a figure slumped on the floor. Harry recognized  him as the
captain from Oklahoma he'd found sitting in his damp  bathrobe in the orderly
room the night of the air raid. The captain  smelled heavily of whiskey and was
mumbling drunkenly into his collar.  Nearby, Harry could see a fire extinguisher
on the floor, its bottom  rim dented and scuffed.

"You all right. Major?

"The MP corporal looked concerned.

Harry could feel the sheet of sweat across his forehead.
"Sure. Fine. What happened to the--"

The lights flickered and resumed their liverish glow.

"Ah, here they come," the corporal said.

"Musta been the storm. You sure you're OK, Major? He give you a  scare, sir?"

Harry shrugged.

The corporal pointed to the captain.

"Captain Bowman," and the corporal made some bottle-tipping motions.

"Overdid it a bit, know what I mean? It happens.

He's got the room right below yours. Got himself a little confused is  all. We
can haul 'im down to the Provost if you wanna press  charges."

"No, no, that won't be necessary. Just get him to bed."

"By tomorrow, he may not even 'member he did this. I'll see he knows,  make sure
he apologizes."

"No need."

"I'll have someone come up about the door in the morning."

"All right. Thanks, Corporal."

"Have a good night. Major."

"Right. Thanks."

It was hours before Harry fell asleep. Though he didn't remember his  dreams,
they must have been nightmares; he was drenched with sweat when  he awoke the
next morning.

As a rule. Harry had not attended Sunday services since coming  overseas earlier
that year. In part, this was because of the  difficulty of finding a practicing
Russian Orthodox congregation in  central London. But there was another more
important reason. He had,  on occasion, sat in a variety of churches, even
attended a service at  Westminster. But church service had reminded him of
worship at home,  his wife on one side, his older boy to the other, and his
youngest son  on his lap. The memory offered more heartache than solace.
This Sunday, he enjoyed breakfast at his window, drinking in the  rain-burnished
morning along with his somewhat less savory plate of  Spam and powdered eggs,
then tended to his morning toilet, pulled on a  fresh uniform, and attended
services at a small Anglican chapel a few  blocks from the Annex. Heartache or
no, it was still a touch of home  and this day he found himself sorely needing
it, for he had lost Joe  Ryan.

Harry could never forgive Ryan's conduct over those last few days, but  neither
could he forget a lifelong friendship. They'd grown up  together, and Ryan had
been just about Harry's only friend since he'd  come into the service, and
particularly during their time in London.  Though caustic and condescending,
self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and  self-seeking, Ryan had always been his
guardian, getting him into the  Army, helping him to his majority, feeding him
choice cases including,  ironically enough, this last one. To Harry, who had
never been farther  than a few hours' drive from his home, Ryan's companionship
throughout  these months overseas, and that bit of home he represented, had kept
him from going half-mad with homesickness.

Now, Ryan was gone, aligned against Harry with what was beginning to  seem like
the entire rank of Allied military chiefs.

Harry had had, until then, little responsibility for the welfare of  others. The
only impact his actions normally had was on whatever  defendant was sitting
across from him. But now he had to consider more  far-reaching impacts. Ryan
had, all along, told him what the  professional consequences of the affair could
mean.

Harry's concern had always been less what they could mean for himself  than what
they could mean for Cynthia and his sons.

There was also Ricks and Grassi. Harry's decision could very well blot  their
ledgers as well. Ricks had stepped back from sharing that  responsibility with
him, and Grassi, with his nearly sociopathic lack  of empathy for the situation
of others, could never be a true sharer.

And there was my contribution. A friendly hand extended from a cordial  stranger
had turned out to be the hand of a spy, a peeper.

All in all. Harry had never felt so woefully, vulnerably far from  home.

He tried to chase the feeling away all that long, empty day with a trip  to the
cinema, with strolls in the park, with closeting himself in his  quarters poring
over the case information for the hundredth and  hundred-and-first times. But as
surely as the ghosts of Rosewood Court  reasserted themselves in the shadows of
the waning day, back came that  haunting heartache, that emptiness, and with it
doubt.

There was no chorus of support for him, Ricks, and Grassi; no  concession from
any quarter that there was any merit to their  arguments. As he had in those
early-morning hours when he had first  detected the discordant notes in
Markham's confession. Harry wondered.
Is it just me? He wondered if that's how madmen thought.

All of which was why dusk found him stretched out on his bed, his head  bobbing
to the music from the wireless, a half-empty bottle of Black &  White on his
nightstand, a glass of same sloshing in his hand. He  closed his eyes and
reached through a liquory haze for the memory of a  place near a lodge on Lake
Hopatcong in the New Jersey woodlands where  he and Cynthia had sometimes gone.
On the wireless was a tune from  those days, Bunny Berrigan tooting his way
through "I Can't Get  Started."

Harry reached for the Black & White and freshened his drink. He took a  sip,
chased it with a drink from the water glass on the nightstand,  then lay back on
his bed until the liquor stopped churning in his  stomach.

It wasn't true, he mused, no, no, no, that one could forget with booze.  In
fact, it was stirring up old memories--along with his treacherous  stomach--and
bringing them up quite clearly. He could smell the old  varnished wood smell of
his desk in third grade, the arid smell of  chalk dust, the stale scent of Miss
Friedlander's five-and-dime perfume  as she stood at the head of the class and
had them recite "I'm a Little  Teapot." That was some teacher, that Miss
Friedlander, Harry  reflected. Sweater girl. Knockers like footballs.

The name of that place in the Jersey woods came back to him now:

"Freddy "HiYa!" Watha's Wahoo Palace." A place worth forgetting,  perhaps, with
its faded paper streamers and insect-filled Chinese  lanterns, but worth
recalling--especially now--for the balm of the lake  licking at the beams of the
dance floor that extended over the water, a  whipped-cream moon glade floating
on the waves. Across the lake they  could hear the discordant mesh of ballroom
orchestras from the  first-class hotels along the lakeshore, the places visited
by the likes  of the Rockefellers and celebrities like stripper Sally Rand: the
Bon  Air, the Mt. Arlington, the Alamac and its gardens Cynthia naively  likened
to those of a French palace, the Westerley looking like a  fairyland castle
sprawling down one of the lakeshore hills to the  water.

But Freddy's and its adequate but spirited band was palace enough for  Cynthia
and Harry. They swayed on the dance floor, over the lake,

until the band went home, then drifted back to their room at the  Sunny-side (a
bit more within their means than the likes of the  Westerley) to tumble together
like bobby-soxers in a cinema balcony.  Another drink of Black & White and he
could recall the cold, mossy  smell of the lake, the mustiness of the warped
boards of the dance  floor, Cynthia's scent of Ivory soap and talcum and rose
water and the  vaguely erotic air of summer perspiration.

Another drink and his head was spinning. He swung his feet to the  floor, trying
to anchor himself, closing his eyes until the shadows  twirling about him ceased
moving. He opened his eyes to the darkness,  to the ghosts fluttering the open
curtain, to the dull, grinning glow  of the wireless dials.

Open on the bed next to him was a letter that had come with the day's  post. A
photograph had been enclosed showing a stretch of Branch Brook  Park not far
from their four-room walk-up. In the background Harry  could see furrows and
support sticks for tomato plants and people  working the ground with hoes and
rakes. In the foreground stood  Cynthia in smudged coveralls and dirty gardening
gloves.

Her hair was tied up in a kerchief. Harry thought of Rosie the Riveter  posters.

The boys flanked her, Ricky sporting an exaggerated Bugs Bunny grin and
Jerry--always the shy one--trying to slip behind his mother. The  letter read:

There's so little open ground in this part of town the city is letting  us use
that part of the park up by Factory Street as a neighborhood  Victory Garden.

Father DeStasio from St. Lucy's has been teaching us all one end of a  hoe from
another. Don't worry. I don't think he's trying to convert  us--it's just none
of the Orthodox priests seem to know much about  farming.

Don't forget to send something to Jerry for his birthday. I've been  saving up
my red points and might have enough gas to take the boys down  the shore before
it gets too cold.. ..

For the tenth time since he'd opened the letter he peered closely at  the
picture, at the three faces squinting and smiling into the sun. He  studied its
background, picking out the playground where he'd taken the  boys so many times.

His mind's eye took him beyond to the field where he'd
zsi played softball with them in summer and football in the fall; he  could see
the old reservoir where all of them--Cynthia, too--skated in  the winter; beyond
that was the boathouse where they paddled in rented  boats about the winding
pond, looking over trees budding with spring to  the spires of Sacred Heart
Cathedral, Tears came.

He heard a shuffling of feet in the hall and thought perhaps the Court
ghosts--or an inebriated Captain Bowman--had presented themselves for a  visit.

"It's Ricks, Major. May I... The door creaked open and a blade of  light from
the hall cut across the dusky shadows of the room.

Harry groaned and closed his eyes.

"Major?" The room went dark and footsteps crossed to the window. Ricks  reached
for the blackout curtains.

"Whadderya doin'?"

"I was going to turn on the light."

"No."

"I tried calling."

"Something's wrong with the phone."

Through slitted eyes Harry saw Ricks "s silhouette cross the windows,  pick the
telephone receiver off his nightstand, and set it quietly in  its cradle.

"Is this what you've been doing all day?"

Harry shrugged.

"You want to tell me what this is about?"

"I don't want to think anymore," Harry grumbled.

"I'm tired of thinking. This seemed like a good way to make it  stop."

"Is it working?"

"Not yet. I'm still conscious. Want a shot?"

" No, thank you."

"Then gimme that!" Ricks handed the bottle over and Harry splashed a  fresh dose
into his glass.

Ricks walked to the wireless.

"Are you listening to this?"

"Leave it alone," Harry said.

Ricks found a chair by the open window and sat. He leaned his head  back toward
the window.

Harry fumbled about his nightstand.

"I need a cigarette. I can't find my damned cigarettes."

Ricks found Harry's cigarettes on the escritoire. He stepped across  the room,
handed Harry one, and lit it for him.

Ricks picked up the whiskey bottle and filled Harry's glass halfway,  then took
the glass with him back to his chair by the window.

"My father's been practicing law for thirty-five years. He says, over  time you
discover there's no such thing as right and wrong, just one  side and the other
side. Not long after I came over, I was out in the  country just north of here.
A German plane had gone down in one of the  fields. I saw some of the people
from the farms around there, people  just like old Charlie Gresham, a whole
crowd of them. They were  marching through the village square with the head of
the pilot stuck on  a pitchfork. That won't make the newsreels back home. You
can say  they did a horrible thing, but we weren't here for the Blitz."

"So that makes them right?"

Ricks shrugged. He took another sip of his drink.

"We can still take General DiGarre's deal. At least that'll finish it.  Or play
it out. But, whatever you decide, I'll ride this case out with  you."

Ricks held up his glass. Harry his bottle, and they exchanged a salute  and a
smile.

"After that," Ricks said, his smile fading, his eyes drifting to the  drink in
his hands, "I'm putting in my papers. I'm transferring out of  the JAG. I don't
imagine Colonel Ryan'll put up much of a squawk."

"Transfer to where?"

"The 34th Infantry Division is slated for Italy. They'll need  officers."

Harry shook his head and climbed off the bed. He scooped up an old  lace
antimacassar from the back of a chair and swiped at the sweat on  his forehead.

"It wouldn't be right for you to wind up pronged on some Hitler  Jugend's
bayonet, Pete. What would that solve?"

"Nothing."

"Then why?"

"Clarity" The telephone rang.

Harry, slumped in his chair, barely heard it. Ricks crossed to the  nightstand,
picked up the phone, spoke briefly, and rang off.

"Major?"

Harry had lolled his head toward the window, letting the cool breeze  dry the
dampness on his face.
z j

"Major!"

"What?" Harry snapped irritably.

"That was the orderly room at my BOQ. They've been calling all over  trying to
find me. They have a message from Armando for me. He's at  some hospital--" "A
hospital?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Somebody catch 'im ca noodling with his girl? Or did he just open  that trap of
his to the wrong person again?"

"It's the girl. Elisabeth McAnn."

The liquor in Harry's stomach coalesced into a cold lump.

"What about her?"

"I don't know the whole--" "What happened?"

" Looks like she tried to commit suicide."

Harry grabbed his stomach, clapped his other hand over his mouth, and  ran for
the loo.

Harry remembered little of the two-hour journey: Ricks riding heavily  on the
accelerator of the jeep, a blur of empty road in the hoarded  slats of light
from the car's eyes, pulling to the roadside several  times so Harry could be
sick.

Chillingham had only a local doctor's surgery, so the girl had been  taken to
the nearest hospital at Lewes. The signposts had been removed  back in 1940 in
the hopes of confusing the spearhead of what had then  seemed an imminent German
invasion, and now the effort was  unfortunately successful in sending Harry and
Ricks first up one  street, then down another, until they eventually stumbled
across the  hospital. The lights inside barely illuminated brown tile walls and
long benches alongside the admitting desk where a solitary nurse sat  nipping
without interest through a magazine.

On one of the benches sat Armando Grassi, tapping his feet, drumming  his
fingers, and occasionally allowing his face to collapse into a  silent howl like
a figure from The Lost Judgment. Grassi looked up at  the sound of Harry's and
Ricks's footsteps. While Ricks dealt with the  admitting nurse. Harry looked
over to Grassi, who squhmed in his seat  as if looking for some way to submerge
himself in the creaking  woodwork. Harry started for him, but Ricks waved him to
consult with  the white-coated, silver-haired man in wire-rimmed glasses now
standing  with him.

"Major," said Ricks, "this is Doctor Pratt."

"How is she?" Harry asked.

"Is she .. . ?"

"She's alive, Major. Are you all ... friends of Miss McAnn?" There  was
something accusatory in the way he said "friends."

"Was one of you the friend that gave her these?

"The doctor held out a small pill bottle.

"That's a U.S. Army Medical Corps prescription label, if I'm not  mistaken."

Harry looked at the bottle.

"There was a boy, a pilot. They were very close. He died a few days  ago."

"Oh." From caustic to contrite in a single syllable.

"How is she?"

"She'll be all right. In a bit."

"Can I see her?"

"She's still unconscious. I would think she'll probably sleep on  through
tomorrow at least. Seems she's been taking these pills for a  while. That worked
in our favor: She has somethiing of a tolerance for  diem, and there weren't
very many left."

Harry grabbed a pencil and paper from the nurse's desk.

"Look, Doctor--what is it? Pratt?--if she needs anything, I can be  reached at
this number in London. If she needs anything--" "I'll be  sure to call," the
doctor said.

"There'sum one other thing, I'm afraid." Uncomfortable now.

"Yes?"

"Yes, well, I don't know how well you gentlemen know Miss McAnn .. .  It's just,
well, I don't know if she knew herself--" "Didn't know  what?"

"Miss McAnn was pregnant. Unfortunately, the incident instigated a  spontaneous
abortion. I was wondering if perhaps either of you knew  she was pregnant?"

How much con they take from you ... she'd asked, days ago, on the knoll  that
looked down on her try sting place with O'Connell. He reached out  a hand to
steady himself against the admitting desk.

"You see, it's possible," the doctor went on, "she may not have known  herself.

I'd say she probably hadn't been any further along than six weeks or  so.
Perhaps eight."


"Doctor, you know more about obstetrics than we do," Ricks said, "but  wouldn't
she have missed .. . you know .. ."

The doctor shrugged.

"What with rationing, typical wartime stress, now you tell me about  this
fellow's death ... An irregular menstrual cycle wouldn't've been  anomalous.
Actually, that's why I bring it up at all. I'm wondering  if--" "No," Harry
said.

"I don't think she knew. I can't think of any good reason why she  should know
now."

"Quite."

Harry faced Grassi.The little lieutenant was standing now, feet braced,  face
defensive yet defiant, waiting for him. Harry turned away, fought  his way
through the tangled blackout curtains and through the emergency  entrance doors.

He stood in the drive outside breathing greedily, tasting dew-dampened  meadows
in the dark. The night sky was clear and the fields  surrounding die little
clinic were bone-white under the moon.

Grassi's voice behind him: "You got something to say. Boss, say it."

"What did you do?"

"You were painting us into a corner, Boss. We needed--" "What did you  do?"
Harry reeled and grabbed Grassi by his collar, stumbling as he  backed the
lieutenant against an empty ambulance.

Grassi shrank fearfully, but only at first.

"I told her about DiGarre's deal. I told her how you passed on it, and  how if
we didn't take it we were screwed. It didn't look like anything  we said to you
was going to change your mind, so--" "Why didn't you  talk to me? Why didn't you
say something to me?"

"Because I read you, Boss! Like I said, I could see once you got an  idea in
your hard head you weren't going to listen to--" Harry didn't  want to hear
Grassi finish.

"Then what happened?"

"I thought she'd come up to London, maybe bat that big eye at you, turn  on the
tears, and get you to ... But she just went into the other room  ..." Grassi let
out a low whistle.
"Man, the last thing I thought she was going to do .. ."

Harry was seething to the point where he could barely see. He could  feel his
trembling hands closing into fists.

"You .. . told .. . her--" "Don't get pissed at me. Boss! We had a  chance--one
chance--to nail both those guys and you were losing it! We  could've got them,
and you were losing it!"

Then, cruelly, "She deserved to know that! And I had a right to try to  salvage
us! Hell, Boss," and now Grassi's lips twisted into an ugly  sneer, "it's not
like she was ever going to get the straight dope from  you, right?"

Grassi tried to brush past Harry, and Harry pushed him back against the
ambulance and cocked a fist by his ear, sighting it on Grassi's nose.

Grassi's face had screwed up in painful expectation, but then it  relaxed as he
watched the fist, poised and quivering, finally lower to  Harry's side.

"Come on. Harry," Ricks warned from the emergency doors.

"I should've known," Grassi sniffed.

"You don't have the balls--" Harry pulled Grassi round by his shoulder.  Harry
was not a skilled boxer so there was nothing pretty about the  blow, but there
was a great deal of heart behind it. There was a  sickening crunch as his
knuckles met Grassi's jaw, and the lieutenant  went airborne for a second before
falling back squarely on his arse.  There was another nasty crack as Grassi
continued to topple rearward  and his head collided sharply with the pavement.

"Hmm," Ricks said in quiet, approving appraisal. He went to Harry, who  was
cradling his throbbing right hand.

"Let me have a look at that."

"You better have a look at him, first."

"Only if you insist." Harry insisted.

Ricks knelt over the figure sprawled in the dark. Harry heard a  moan.

"Well, he'll live," Ricks said, returning to Harry, "but I'm not sure  that's
good news.

Let me see that hand. Does it hurt badly?"
"Damn!"

"I think you've broken it. We better have the doctor look at it."

"Get him inside first," Harry said, nodding at Grassi. Ricks shrugged,
unconvinced, but went inside for help. Grassi stirred. He tried to  speak but
his broken jaw allowed only a low moan.

Harry ignored him. He sat down on the curb of the drive, his hand  carefully
cradled in his lap. He took off his cap, hung it on his  knee, and smoothed his
hair with his good hand. He heard the rustle of  the breeze through the
hedgerows of the hospital gardens, the drone of  a solitary aeroplane, a
shifting of gears as a far-off lorry struggled  uphill. Between these sounds was
a long silence which, at that moment,  he loved dearly.

I drew open the blackout curtains to vent the grim odors of intimate
desperation: cigarette smoke, perspiration, liquor, tea. I was  surprised to see
the eastern sky tattered with a rising orange. Sunday  was gone, and perhaps God
along with it, leaving us to our own  resources for the new week. From my flat I
could see down to the  Thames. The riverfront was lost beyond the roofs along
the way, but I  saw the explosion of wrens that burst from Big Ben at the first
tolling  of the hour, saw them whirl about Parliament Square till the bell had
tolled six times and they resettled amongst the spires of Parliament. I  lit a
fresh cigarette, turned back, and tossed the package onto the  table in front of
He had appeared at my door at some godforsaken hour  of the deep night, his face
racked by more than the pain of his hand in  its pristine cast. He shuffled in,
apologizing for waking me, flushing  with embarrassment at the sight of me in my
dressing gown, eyes blank  with sleep, balancing on one leg. He turned his back
as I affixed the  limb. I drew on trousers to save him the discomfort of
watching the  mechanism at work. Then, he spent the remainder of the night, me
feeding him cigarettes and tea laced with my whiskey as he talked.

It was more than storytelling. It was a verbal purging of the weight  he'd
carried too long alone; of the haunting guilt of possible missteps  and
miscalculations; of a course that, as he regarded it at that  moment, had
produced nothing but a wake of collateral damage and a  growing casualty list.

Upon concluding his tale he seemed to collapse in exhausted relief at  having
the whole bloody mess in the open. His eyes closed and I  thought the poor
bugger would nod off at my table. But the chimes of  Big Ben spurred a fleeting
thought in him and his eyes opened slowly.

"Do you go to church, Eddy?" he asked.

The non sequitur took me by surprise.
"Hm?"

"Church. Do you go to church?"

I shook my head.

"Did you know that the first bombards were cast by the same men who  cast church
bells?"

"Bombards?"

A fresh kettle whistled on my gas ring. I poured us each another cup  of tea
with its required dose from the whiskey bottle, then sat across  from him at the
little table.

"The first cannon," I explained.

"The Chinese had used black powder to scare away evil spirits. Traders  brought
it to the West, where we had more temporal concerns. The old  bombard was
nothing more than a church bell put on its side and stuffed  with powder and
stone projectiles. One day you're building something  to praise God, the next
you turn it on end and make it something to  send more of His worshipers into
His company."

He was unamused by the historical footnote. His face twisted in pain  and he
held his cast to his chest. Whatever the good Doctor Pratt had  given him for
the ache of his broken hand was wearing off, and my  whiskey offered a poor
substitute. He looked up at me, awaiting my  response to his story I had yet to
find a palatable way--palatable for  me-to respond.

"You're an interesting man, Harry. You think the truth will set you  free. But
whatever it does, that's not it."

He continued to await my answer.

I took a sip of my tea and a puff of my cigarette, and then there was  nothing
for it but to tell him.

"If I turn this story over to my editor, and if through some burst of
journalistic altruism he were to actually run it, I would lose my job,  he his,
the publisher would suffer a blistering censure from Whitehall  and quite
probably be permanently excluded from military press pools.  There could be a
diplomatic flap between our respective governments.  Have you considered, old
man, how two old duffers like ourselves would  fare in the dock at the Old
Bailey? Violation of the Official Secrets  Act and all that?"

"I thought you wanted this story!"
"Ach, I wanted a story. The one I had in mind had your flyboys trying  to top
each other off, then maybe trying to give the chop to a pair of  citizens of the
realm, the poor old Greshams. Scandalous,  inflammatory, aye; but not
seditious."

I had looked generals and princes in the eye before, and faced down  their
accusation of my being everything from a scandalmongering  bedroom-peeper to the
spawn of the Tawny Prince himself. I had grinned  and retorted, "Sorry, laddie;

simply doing my job." But I could not bear the eyes of the poor old  sod across
from me just then. I could find nothing to say of solace to  either of us.

"You'd be surprised what you can live with, Harry," I said.

"I've seen things you couldn't imagine in your worst dreams; things  that make
this--" I tapped my hollow leg "--look as trivial as a child  tearing the wings
off flies.

It's an old war. Harry. There's no novelty left in it."

"I've already been lectured once this week. Spain, China .. . I've  heard it. I
don't need to hear it again."

I smiled mirthlessly.

"Oh, this is a much older war than that."

"How far back do you want to go?" he snapped.

"Versailles? Bismarck?"

"You're thinking on the wrong scale, Harry. Charlemagne was only  yesterday and
so was Caesar. Go back before Cain co shed poor Abel,  before Paradise, to the
first war when the angels fought. That's a lot  of blood over the dam since
then.

This isn't even a ripple in the flood. Let it go."

The truth of it withered him like a collapsing balloon.

"Can I ask you something? I've been doing my lessons, and as I  understand your
courts-martial, the officer who calls for the trial--"  "The Convening
Authority."

"Yes, well, he's the chap that picks the officers for the jury.  Originally,
that would've been Halverson, but when DiGarre sacked him,  that fell to
DiGarre, so he would've been the man picking your jurors.
Both counsel can challenge any juror, but DiGarre would pick the  replacements,
correct?"

"Yes."

"And all courts-martial verdicts automatically go to the Court of  Military
Review before being set, and the defendant can take his case  further, to the
Court of Military Appeal, and even all the way up to  your Supreme Court. You
couldn't possibly have expected a guilty  verdict to stand up to all that, could
you? Providing you could  somehow coax, arm-twist, and/or beg a conviction out
of a DiGarre jury?  Well, did you honestly think you could get it to stand up?
You  couldn't actually have thought you'd win?"

He shook his head slowly.

"It would have been on the record that no matter what else happens in  this war,
what happened at Helsvagen on August fifteenth, 1943, was not  an act of war
committed by soldiers. They murdered a town, Eddy! It  would've been on the
record that even in a war, you are accountable for  your crimes."

"That would've been enough for you?"

He shrugged bleakly.

"It would've been something."

It was all so painfully clear on his face: the frustration, the  self-doubt, and
the nearly complete lack of comprehension. That  complicity of agonies elicited
a pang of recognition and when he turned  to me, surprised, I realized it was in
response to my sigh. I had felt  everything he felt, only it had been a long
time ago.

"You're feeling like the sole rational voice among the insane," I said,  and he
nodded.

"You wonder why you're the only one who can see the great wrong here.

You wonder how such things can happen. What kind of men do such  things? What
moves them? I'll wager you've been over the biographies  of these men a dozen
times, thinking there must be some clue there,  some taint of villainy,
something that makes them different from you or  me. But you're looking for
order in a disordered universe. There is  no 'us' and 'them." Just us."

He began to shake his head, but I cut him off.

"I told you. Harry: I've witnessed every malfeasance one human being  can visit
on another; experienced one or two--" I tapped my wooden leg
in illustration "--close up. I've recorded it all and sent it home for  the
entertainment of my readers, this gallery of the grotesque we call  'news,"
because that's my job. And from that vast, unpleasant  experience I can tell you
that if you're looking for that definitive  insight that will let you sleep at
night, you won't find it. You want  to know why such things happen? They
happen."

"It's not that simple."

I shrugged grimly.

"It only sounds simple. Before this war is over, there'll be a million  Major
Markhams, maybe more. They'll all have done something they wish  they hadn't,
something they'll want to forget, something they'll never  tell their children.
They'll do those things because that's their job.  And by that time, what may or
may not have happened at Helsvagen will  be just a raindrop in the flood.

"It may also very well be by that time--and I suppose this is a sad  thing--you
will come to stop wondering about these things. You grow ..  . numb."

I reached out a comforting hand and laid it on his forearm.

"Sorry, old man. If you want comfort, don't ask for the truth. Ask  for this." I
poured him another splash from the bottle.

We finished a last drink, and then he let me guide him to my bed,

dumbly shuffling along as I pushed him down atop the bedclothes. By  the time
I'd loosened his tie and pulled off his shoes, he was  asleep.

He did not sleep long, and when he awakened I invited him to join me  for
breakfast at a patisserie I knew, but he declined. I suggested an  afternoon at
the pubs come opening time, sitting outside in the summer  air sipping pints of
Courage ale until we became silly and shrugged off  the dark humors with a good
hinge. But he'd have none of it and I  knew--knew even then--it would take more
than a pint of Courage to  clean out what gnawed at his vitals.

"I just want to go home," he said.

I promised to ring him on the morrow for lunch and he nodded  agreeably.

Big Ben had come round to another hour as I watched him trudge off from  my
window, his slope-shouldered, stodgy form growing smaller down the  street. He
brought to mind a verse from Thomas Gray:
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly  o'er
the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves  the world to
darkness and to me.

I crawled into my kip and was soon asleep, but found no rest in it.  Toward late
afternoon I roused myself, had some lunch and a pint at a  nearby pub, and then
afternoon became evening and I was still at the  pub.

What had I used to do with myself? I wondered. Those days when there  wasn't
some story to chase, a column to write? There were colleagues I  could join at
the pub, us buying each other rounds and grousing about  "the job," but
colleagues weren't friends. Family? My parents rested  under a moss-crusted
marker in a Stonehaven graveyard I'd not laid eyes  on in years. Except for
Cathryn, it hardly seemed to have been much of  a life.

Such grim musing kept the drinks going down until I stumbled home late  that
evening and dropped into bed in a blissfully blank liquored  stupor. Only an
urgent knocking at the door stirred me the following  morning.

I answered the door snarling and growling, but froze at the sight of  the
messenger in the hall. I recognized him from Harry's narrative,  this gawky
figure in American uniform, corporal's chevrons, and  confused demeanor: the
infamous Corporal Nagel. He carried a sealed  manila envelope marked with my
name and the caution "Personal." The  corporal offered no explanation other than
to say that Major Voss had  ordered him to see that the envelope was placed
directly in my hands.  It was the major's last instruction.

"They shipped him out," Nagel explained.

"Orders came in yesterday. He just about grabbed the train for  Liverpool. He
went out last night on an OH convoy for the States."

I thanked him and he asked if I wanted him to wait. I couldn't imagine  what he
imagined I would want him to wait for, and I began to  understand why Harry
could not mention his corporal without wincing.  Before I could shoo the young
man away he begged my pardon and told me  he couldn't stay.

"Got another fella coming in later this week, they tell me," he said.

"Got to get the office ready for him," and off he went.

I closed the door, sat on my bed and opened the envelope. Inside was a  file
folder, and in the folder photostats of what seemed to be some  sort of
after-operations report. There was also a scribbled note:
Eddy Tried calling but no answer. No time to come by. The girl should  know
about this. Tell her for me. Take care.

--Harry

Then, scribbled across the bottom of the page in what, compared to the  measured
script above, appeared to be a hasty afterthought:

Do what you can for her.

At approximately five o'clock the morning before, during the very same  time
when Harry was spinning out his long and woeful story to me, an  orderly at
Elsworth Airfield, lighting his way with an electric torch,  entered the dark,
shared room of Major Albert Markham and Captain Jon  Jacob Anderson to nudge
them awake for their first mission with their  new unit. The orderly woke
Markham first, and would remember that it  took considerable shaking to rouse
the major from his deep sleep.

"There's few sleep that good before a mission," he'd recall. Then he  turned to
Anderson.

The captain was already awake, and it was the orderly's impression that  the
captain had been awake for some time. The orderly noted a faint  glimmer in the
gloom of the floor, and his light illuminated a piece of  hammered tin by the
captain's bunk that had been used as an ashtray. It  was filled to the brim with
butts. As the beam of the orderly's torch  swept across the captain, Anderson's
face glittered with beads of  perspiration. Later that morning, when the orderly
returned to make up  the bunks, he would notice a human outline left on the
captain's  bedclothes, a silhouette imprinted by sweat.

After the orderly made his rounds of billets in the Quonset hut, he  returned to
each room to see if any of the pilots required assistance  suiting up. Markham
dismissed him with a polite and appreciative  smile, assuring him they were just
fine on their own as he and Anderson  helped each other on with their burdensome
flight kit: thermal  underwear, flight overalls, .45 automatic pistol in a
shoulder holster,  heavy fleece-lined flight trousers, and boots. The rest of
their kit  they carried over their shoulders to morning mess.

Heeding the 52nd Fighter Group's CO's admonitions, contacts with  Markham and
Anderson had been friendly but reserved since the duo had  arrived at the
aerodrome two days earlier. Still, there had been  discreet tokens of support
from their fellow fliers: a round of drinks  at the Officers Club,
conspiratorial winks. The men of the unit didn't  know the details of Markham's
and Anderson's predicament, but knew all  too well that it was two brother
warriors on one side and "deskbound  brass hats" on the other. They didn't need
to know more than that to  extend their support. Their squadron commander, a
heavy-browed captain  from Colorado named Matthew "Big Matt" Berger, told both
with
inordinate deference that if they required anything they should not  hesitate to
ask.

Markham, it would be remembered, was friendly, open, relaxed, made a  point of
wishing all who made greeting good luck on the day. Anderson  made the same
attempt, but there was a tinny quality to his jests and  apparent enthusiasm for
the day's action. Still, they thought he--like  any of them--was entitled to
deal with his stresses as he saw fit. So  they played along, commenting
appreciatively on his hearty appetite  when he forced down a second helping of
breakfast that day; the young  flight lieutenant the captain hadn't noticed in a
corner stall of the  latrine would not mention to his fellows seeing Anderson
vomit up that  very same breakfast not long after.

After morning mess they all trekked to the briefing hall, where they  took notes
on the small pads clipped to their legs regarding the target  (U-boat pens at
Emden), weather conditions along the line of flight,  course changes and escort
assignments, altitudes, radio frequencies,  code designations, flak and enemy
fighter concentrations, time and  point of rendezvous with the B-17 's coming up
from Bushy Park, notes  on developing enemy tactics. Then it was on with the
rest of their  equipment-the heavy flight jacket, the dragging parachute, the
bright  yellow Mae West--after which jeeps ferried them to the flight line.

The sun was up now, the morning growing warm and humid, more so for the  pilots
encased in their fleece-lined flying clothes. The coveralls of  the ground crews
were already dappled with sweat from the fueling and  gun-loading procedures.
The ground crews had just finished the  preflight cockpit checks as the pilots
drove up.

Anderson, still playing the jaunty cavalier, called his crew to help  his
foreshortened figure--weighed down with his flight kit--onto the  wing of his
ship. He made some lighthearted remark that perhaps as the  armor-drenched
knights of old had been horsed, the ground crews should  similarly use a winch
to raise up the pilots and lower them into their  cockpits. The ground crew
laughed.

"Good idea. Cap!" one called out.

Markham's ground crew chief was a weather-beaten mechanic from Idaho  with a son
half the age of his pilot. The crew chief greeted his new  charge with a proper
salute, which Markham returned, but then he broke  the formalities by taking the
chief's hand in a warm handshake.

"Always like to stay friendly with the people who make sure it flies."  Markham
smiled and nodded at his P-47.

The crew chief, who would long remember the incredible poise of the  young
major, stood on the wing by the open cockpit as the other crew  members helped
strap Markham into the cockpit. Another crew member ran
strips of adhesive tape over the muzzles of the ship's eight  .50-caliber guns
to keep out dust during takeoff. The chief reported a  satisfactory preflight
cockpit check. Markham nodded again and thanked  him, then pulled on his lined
gauntlets, throat transmitter, and  leather flying helmet. Connections were made
for Markham's transmitter  and helmet earphones.

Then, the crew cleared the ship and the chief leaned over into the  cockpit.

He explained how Elsworth was an old R.A.F aerodrome and the runways  had not
been designed with the weighty P-47 in mind.

"Till you get used to it, the line chief'll be at the runway," he told  Markham.

"You watch him. He'll have you cranker up higher 'n' you're used to,  but you
wait 'n' he'll give you the signal to let her roll. After a  coupla times you
won't have no trouble."

Markham thanked the chief for his consideration and said, "See you  soon." The
chief clambered off the wing and joined the other ground  crew members along the
taxiway.

At 0802 a green flare was fired from the control tower mezzanine. All  along the
flight line pilots clicked their ignition switch to  "starter," energizers
whined, then the switch went to "engine," and  with a cough and plumes of blue
exhaust the four-bladed propellers  began to windmill. Engines caught, roared,
propeller blades  disappeared in transparent, glimmering discs. Leather-clad
heads bowed  in the cockpits to check gauges, fingers flicking at the glass
dials to  make sure indicator needles swung freely. One by one, as the engine
mercury rose halfway to the red line, pilots raised a gauntleted hand  to signal
"ready."

Markham's crew chief would remember his pilot holding his hand above  the rim of
the open cockpit, cupping his fingers to catch the prop wash  like a child
catching the breeze out the window of a speeding  automobile.

"Uke he didn't have no care in the world," he would recall.

The crew chief signaled his men to pull the wheel chocks clear. With a  second
flare from the tower, the line of Thunderbolts began to slowly  rumble down the
taxiway Each moved in a sluggish zigzag to keep the  following aeroplane from
being buffeted by its prop wash. Ground crew  walked along each side of the
tarmac as markers for their pilots who  couldn't see the borders of the taxiway
over the thick nose of the

P-47.

The slightly understrength group--thirty-two ships in all--moved onto  the
runway in two-ship elements. Markham and Anderson moved on  together, the fourth
pair of the second squadron. They wheeled their  ships to point down the stretch
of tarmac and cranked their cockpit  canopies closed. They looked for the line
chief by the side of the  runway, spied him whirling a small red hand flag in
rapid circles,  signaling them to rev their engines higher. They moved their
throttles  to full rich and stood on their brakes as their ships began to
shudder  and buck with the rising crescendo of the engines. When the line chief
was pleased with the pitch of the engines, he brought his flag down in  a slash
and Markham and Anderson released their brakes and began  trundling down the
runway. Slowly, each eased six tons of aluminum,  steel, petrol, and ammunition
into the heavy morning air. The landing  gear retreated into its wells and soon
Markham and Anderson had joined  the fighters above the field, where they
circled until the entire group  was airborne and assembled.

The group flew east, picking up their B-17 Flying Fortress charges  heading
northeast over the Channel in just a few minutes. The fighter  squadrons
separated into their assignments with Markham and Anderson an  element in the
high squadron. They armed the electrical firing systems  for their wing guns,
each letting loose a short test burst, then flew  well clear of the Fortresses
while the bomber gunners test-fired their  own guns.

The mission's first Initial Point turned the formation east, the  Thunderbolts
above and below the Fortresses, jinking to keep pace with  the slower bombers.

The flight was quiet, with the exception of some scattered and  ineffectual
ack-ack from the coastal defenses west of Amsterdam. East  of Amsterdam, after
crossing over the IJsselmeer, the formation hit  their second Initial Point and
turned northeast. Only a few minutes  after their turn. Big Matt Berger's
wingman flipped his motor to get  the captain's attention. He directed Berger's
gaze to the two  Thunderbolts slowly pulling away from the formation. The two
fighters  had the sun behind them so Berger could not identify them. He
hand-signaled and then waggled his wings to get their attention, but  the
fighters continued drifting off. Berger contemplated breaking  radio silence to
call the ships in, or even flying over to herd the  pair back into formation,
but his paramount responsibility was to the  bombers. He held his position.

A minute or so after Big Matt Berger had been warned about the drifting
aeroplanes he saw them both fly into a cloud, a small, solitary nimbus  that
seemed to be waiting for them. He could hear no noise above the
din of his engine, but within the cloud he saw a sudden ex zy/

plosive flash; moments later, bits of shining aluminum rained out of  the cloud,
fluttering earthward like metallic snow.

Before the incident truly registered with him, "Bandits!" crackled  over his
headset, and he saw the low squadron dropping their belly  tanks and peeling off
to engage a gaggle of Focke-Wulfs hurtling upward  at the bombers. Berger loosed
his own drop tank, his squadron  following suit, and followed them into the
fray.

It was not until Berger had returned to Elsworth some forty-seven  minutes later
and made an accounting of his unit that he realized the  two aircraft lost in
the cloud belonged to Markham and Anderson.

It had been a fortnight since the German raid on Donophan, and one  week--nearly
to the hour--since the raid on Helsvagen. There would  still be paperwork to
clear up, formalities to attend to, procedures to  execute, but for all intents
and purposes the matter was now closed.

I followed the nurse's instructions and found her in a hedged  cul-de-sac in a
secluded corner of the hospital gardens. She was  reclining in a cushioned
garden lounger, snuggled deep in a blue  dressing gown with blankets over her
legs. A magazine lay open and  ignored on her lap, and atop its glossy pages sat
a teacup. Her cane  was propped against the lounger, but the eye patch was gone,
her eyes  now hidden by a pair of tinted spectacles. Her head lay back, her face
turned toward the bright but cool morning sun. She gave no notice  she'd heard
me come up to her; behind those opaque lenses she could  very well have been
asleep.

Miles beyond, from someplace below the distant line of trees, came the  stirring
of aeroplane engines. I could see the first ships arc  skyward, small fighters
glinting in the sunlight.

I took a moment to study her. Her black hair was straight and a bit  matted. I
could see the smooth line of her jaw and saw that it would  continue round to
form a neat oval of smooth whiteness. Black Irish, I  thought. The story was the
Black Irish were descendants of survivors  of the Spanish Armada who had come
ashore and never left. Black  Irish:

bastard children with no native home of their own.

"Yes?" It issued from her as a sigh. She must have heard me.

"Miss Elisabeth McAnn?"

She made a vague motion of her hand in acknowledgment. I walked  closer,
standing by a bronze sundial. The cement base of the podium  was crumbling and
the tarnished dial was tilted and unreadable.

"My name is Edward Owen," I said, removing my hat.

"I'm a friend of Harry Voss."

She gave no sign the words registered; her face remained turned to the  sun. I
looked for some record on it of the last days, a sign of  sadness, anger, pain.

If it had been there, it had been consumed by something deeper, some  dark,
bottomless pit: Mater Tenebrarum. Mother of Darkness.

"How is the good major?" she asked.

"Do you mind .. . ?" and I gestured toward a nearby lawn chair. Again,  that
vague movement of her hand. I pulled the chair close and sat.

"They sent him home."

"How nice for him."

"He wanted me to ask after you. How are you getting on?"

"Did your friend the major tell you why I'm here? They keep asking me  if I
intend to 'try something foolish' again." There was a flicker of  a grim smile,
then that dark blankness again.

"Curious phrase, don't you think?

"Try something foolish'? You can tell them for me, Mr. Owen, if they  ask, not
to worry. No more foolishness."

"Harry would want me to apologize for his not coming by. They  transferred him
quite suddenly last week; the night after, well, after  you were brought here.

But he wanted me to come by--" "So you said."

"If there s anything you need--" "Mr. Owen, I think the major has done  quite
enough on my behalf."

The sun was losing its summer glare. The warm, humid mornings had  given way to
dawns of cold dampness and the first touches of color had  begun to tint the
trees.

"Aren't you chilly out here?" I asked her.

She shook her head.

The wind made dry, rustling noises as it passed through the dying  leaves. The
sound of engines was getting louder. I turned in my seat  and saw the growing
circle of aeroplanes over the aerodrome tucked  behind the trees.

"Shame, that," I said.

"Quite mucks up the view."

"They've only just started," she said.

"A new airfield. Opened just a fortnight or so ago, I'm told. Now  they seem to
fly out more and more. Sometimes more than once in a day.  One learns to ignore
it after a bit. You're down from London, then? I  remember this time when I was
a girl. Mum packed a basket with food  and we went down to London, made a day of
it at the zoo. Is it true  about the zoo? I heard they killed all the snakes."

I nodded.

"During the Blitz. People were afraid of them getting loose if a stray  bomb hit
the snake house."

"They killed the snakes. But they kept the lions?" A small flash of a  smile.

"Queer, don't you think?"

"The main reason Harry wanted me to come round was there's something he  thought
you should know." I held out the file containing the photo  stated after-action
report. For a moment, she did not take it, as if  to say there was nothing I
could offer she needed to know, then she  reached out slowly, took the file, and
began reading.

When she finished she let her head fall back, the closed folder held  close to
her chest.

"They're dead, then?"

"Major Albert Q. Markham and Captain Jon-Jacob Anderson are missing,  presumed
dead," I clarified.

"The Red Cross hasn't reported their capture or that any bodies were  recovered.
Someone I know in Geneva says that even if Jerry had found  them--one way or
another--the Germans may just not have gotten round to  making the proper
notifications. He says they have a tendency to be  uncooperative."

"But the Army thinks--" "I'm told the chances of surviving a midair  collision
.. . well ..." I shrugged and she seemed satisfied with  that.

She handed the file back.

"Thank you for coming by, Mr. Owen."

"May I ask a question? About Dennis O'Connell? Harry ... he confided  in me, you
might say. About what he was working on."

She was still, waiting for me to proceed.

"Harry's supposition was that what happened to Dennis was because of  something
Dennis saw, to prevent him from saying anything when he  returned. But the
wireless in Dennis's aeroplane was operational until  he crashed. If he had seen
something, he could've signaled it home.  The American Military Police could've
been waiting for Markham and  Anderson when they landed."

"Really?" She sounded amused.

"Yes."

"Maybe the major was wrong all along. Maybe Dennis hadn't seen  anything."

"Then he'd still be alive."

Elisabeth's chin touched her chest in thought, then she laid her head  back
against the chair.

"Maybe he didn't care."

"Didn't care?"

"Or maybe he didn't think anyone else would." The amused quality  returned to
her.

"It is a puzzlement, isn't it?"

I made my good-byes and rose.

"Where will you go when you're released? The doctor said you should be  able to
leave--" "Soon, yes. I still have family in Ireland."

"Getting a visa for Ireland can be a bit dicey these days."

"Somehow I don't think anyone's going to mind my leaving England. Do  you?"

"If I can help, I'm sure Harry would've wanted--" "I'm tired, Mr. Owen.  Would
you mind?"

I tucked the file under my arm, returned my hat to my head, and went  back down
the walk the way I'd come.

She was right, of course, about her leaving. Within days other  discharge from
the hospital, she'd be back in Ireland, and the powers  that he would follow her
lead, scattering the other witnesses to their  complicity.

Before his jaw had healed, Armando Grassi would be tucked away at a  post at
Godthab, Greenland, a speck you'll find only in the best  Britannica, and Peter
Ricks would get his combat assignment, coming  ashore at Salerno the following
month. I understand he lost his left  arm below the elbow the next May at
Cassino.

The 351st was disbanded. Its duty-fit survivors--like Leo  Korczukowski--were
distributed to commands in the various combat  theaters, while the luckless
General Halverson would ultimately find  himself commanding six antiquated
P-40's protecting bauxite mines in  the Amazonian jungles.

As for the unfortunate Greshams, the missus never quite recovered from  the
attack and Charlie could not persuade her to return to their  seaside cottage.
She died in London the following year of heart failure, jui with her  husband at
her side, after which Charlie did return to the Sussex  meadows. Compensated by
the Americans with a new flock, he may still  be tending them to this day.

And poor old Harry? He was posted to Fort Dix, New Jersey, just a  short drive
from his family. Perhaps the posting was a bribe, or a  reminder of what he'd
been missing--and would miss again with another  transfer. That was enough to
secure his future silence. Or, perhaps  like Dennis O'Connell, by war's end.

Harry didn't care any longer ... or thought no one else would care.

By 1945, against the complete gutting of such metropolises as Berlin,  Cologne,
and Dresden and their tens of thousands of civilian dead, the  thousand or so
who died at Helsvagen hardly seemed worth the bother. In  the closing act of the
war in the Pacific, Curtis LeMay sent his B-29  Superfortresses, their bellies
filled with incendiaries, against a rota  of Japanese cities of paper and wood,
burning away sixteen square miles  of Tokyo; a third of Yokohama; two thirds
ofShizuoka.

Kobe was torched, Nagoya, Osaka, Kawasaki, and when the great cities  were
cinders, LeMay worked his way through the smaller ones: over half  of Tsu burned
away; two thirds ofAomori; three quarters of  Ichinomiya;

nearly all of Toyama. Just a few weeks before the dropping of the  first atomic
bomb on August 6, 1945, Fifth Air Force Intelligence would  issue the following
statement:

There are no civilians in Japan. We are making War and making it in  the all-out
fashion that saves American lives, shortens the agony which  War is, and seeks
to bring about an enduring Peace. We intend to seek  out and destroy the enemy
wherever he or she is, in the greatest  possible numbers, in the shortest
possible time.

Were anyone to show regrets over such an attitude, the response would  be to
look at what had happened at Nanking, or the Blitz, the Bataan  Death March, the
Malmedy massacre, the rape of Manila, and Auschwitz,  Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald,
Treblinka, and all those other blasphemies.  After all: War Is Hell.

My cab was waiting where I'd asked, in the hospital car park. The  cabbie saw me
and started the engine but I did not climb in  immediately. I took off my hat
and let the breeze ruffle my hair. Even  over the chugging engine of the cab I
could hear the growing din of  engines overhead.

I felt tired. Years tired.

Perhaps I had left my stamina back in Singapore with the rest of my  leg. Or
perhaps watching poor sad, mad Harry fight for the quaint  belief that with the
world afire from one end to the other, right could  still be right and wrong
still wrong had exhausted my ability to find  amusement in man's
self-destruction. The dark humor and condescending  remarks no longer
anesthetized me against the real pain beneath a  catchy headline. Every vessel
has its brim and I had filled to mine.

Himself was right. It was time to sit together, chipped teacups in  hand, and
discuss the possibility of an editor's desk. He was right  about something else:

Cathryn. I didn't seem to do so well without her.

The fighters were in formation now, climbing, a raft of small, silvery  crosses
slipping across the sky, off to rendezvous with their bombers  somewhere over
the Channel, and then on to points east.

It seemed to me I'd never seen quite so many of them before.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There is an idea that writing is a lonely profession, reinforced by the  image
of a scribbler hunched over his or her keyboard alone with their  creative muse.

While there is a time in the life of every work when it is solely in  the hands
of the writer, only the most self-aggrandizing author--or  authors--would claim,
"I do it alone."

First and foremost among our team would be Kate Miciak, our editor at  Bantam.

Kate would probably slash through here with her red pencil, urging us  to make
this short and to the point, but that would be doing a  disservice to her. Kate
has a remarkable deftness with language,  knowing the line between succinct
clarity and the perfunctory, between  poetry and a writer's indulgence. She
shows a wonderful respect for  the intent of the author, and knows how to take a
writer where he needs  to be as gently and in as supportive a manner as one
could want.

This would not be the book it is without her.

And not far behind her is our copy editor Connie Munro. Long after  Steve and I
couldn't abide another review of the manuscript, Connie was  still policing each
page to ensure that we would appear as literate as  we like to think we are.

There would be no book at all if it wasn't for my agent, Richard Derus,  and the
support of his colleague, Claudia Menza. Richard literally  pulled the
manuscript out of a pile, saw the possibilities, and made  the first editorial
suggestions.

That is what a good agent does. A great agent--which Richard is--also  provides
much needed hand-holding and shoulder-crying services to  nervous, despairing
authors.

We wouldn't have met Richard were it not for Bob Cope, founder and  president of
The Writers Foundation. Bob and his annual "America's  Best" competition have
long been providing a rare venue, as well as  moral support, for new writers.

Thank you. Bob.

Although The Advocate is a work of fiction, Steve and I have done our  best to
accurately portray the historical period as well as re-create  the singular
psyche of the time. We would be remiss not to express our  appreciation for the
talented and diligent authors whose work helped  provide us with that basis, as
well as those friends and family who  shared their experiences:

BOOKS:

Alien, William L. Anzio: Edge of Disaster. New York: Elsevier-Dutton,  1978.

Collier, Richard. Eogle Day: The Battle of Britain. New York: Dutton,  1980.

Doyle, Edward, and Stephen Weiss. A Collision of Cultures: The Vietnam
Experience. Boston: Boston Publishing Co." 1984. Elsenhower, David  E.
Eisenhower: At War 1943-1945. New York: Random House, 1986.

Farago, Ladislaw. Patton: Ordeal and Triumph. New York: Ivan  Obolensky, 1963.

Gann, Ernest K. Fate Is the Hunter. New York: Ballantine, 1972.  Goodwin, Doris
Kearns. No Ordinary Time. New York: Simon & Schuster,  1994.

Jablonski, Edward. Airwar. 4 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1971. Jones,  Ken D."
and Arthur F. McClure. Hollywood atWor. Cranbury, NJ.: A. S.  Barnes, 1974.

Katz, Robert. Death in Rome. New York: Pyramid, 1968. Kemp, Peter.  Decision at
Sea: The Convoy Escorts. New York: ElsevierDutton, 1978.  Kershaw, Andrew, ed.
1939-1945War Planes: History of the World  Wars--Special Edition. Hicksville,
N.Y: Marshall Cavendish, 1973.

--------. Weapons of War. History of the World Wars--Special  Edition.

Hicksville, N.Y: Marshall Cavendish, 1973. Lord, Walter. Day of  Infamy New
York: Bantam, 1970.

--------. Incredible Victory New York: Pocket, 1968.

Manvell, Roger. Films and the Second World War. Cranbury, NJ.: A. S.  Barnes,
1974. Nalty, Bernard, and Carl Berger. The Men Who Bombed the  Reich. New York:

Elsevier-Dutton, 1978.

Nalty, Bernard. Tigers Over Asia. New York: Elsevier-Dutton, 1978.  Rivkin,
Robert S. The Rights of Servicemen. New York: Baron, 1973.  Ryan, Cornelius. The
Longest Doy. New York: Pocket, 1969. Schoenburg,  David. Soldiers of the Night:

The Story of the French Resistonce. New York: Dutton, 1980.

Terkel, Studs. TheGoodWar. New York: Pantheon, 1984. U.S. Naval  Institute. The
Bluejackets' Manual 20th ed. Annapolis, Md.: USN.L,  1981.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

Church, George J. "Overpaid, Oversexed, Over Here." Time. May 28,  1984:33.

Dalton, Susan Elizabeth.

"Bugs and Daffy Go to War." The Velvet Light Trop, 4 (Spring, 1972).  Rpt. in
The American Animated Cartoon. Ed. Gerald Peary and Danny  Peary New York:
Dutton, 1980: IS 8-61.

Gold, Philip.

"Courts-Martial." Insight. April 13, 1987: 24-25.

Gordon, William.

"Victory At Sea." The Newark Star-Ledger (New Jersey). May 27, 1993:  85+.

--------. "Grand Hotel: Return of an Era." The Newark Star-Ledger  (New Jersey)
June IS, 1993: 37+.

History of the Second World War. Battle of Britain issue. Part 9.

Home, Alistair.

"Breakthrough at Sedan." History of the Second World War. Part 5.

Jenkins, Patrick.

"Pentagon Salutes Atlantic City WW II Service." The Newark Star-Ledger  (New
Jersey). July 31, 1992: 31.

"The Kaiser Experiment." Ms. Gazette. April 1978: 83-84.

Life. World War II special issue. 1985.

Naval Education and Training Program Development Center. The Low of  Armed
Conflict, Washington, DC.: U.S. Government Printing Office,  1980.

Turner, Patricia C. "War Effort." The Newark Star-Ledger (New Jersey).  December
9, 1991:25.

OTHER SOURCES:

The Imperial War Museum, London The Museum of London

RESEARCH ASSISTANCE:

John Armor, USAF. Josephine Esposito Don Hanie, USAF. Lucy Mesce  Marie Mesce
Thomas Mesce, USN. Faye Palazzo Mark Peters, USAF. Robert  Shanahan, Esq.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

bill mesce jr." lives in New Jersey with his wife and children.

steven G. szilagyi is a novelist, critic, and journalist living in  Cleveland,
Ohio. His novel, Photographing Fairies, was made into a  film. He is at work on
a novel about a black regiment in the Civil  War.