“Can’t,” said the major. “Too much paper work. We’ve got twelve training missions scheduled. SAC says the crews have got to make up for the day they lost. Then the ferry operation starts tomorrow night.”
“All right,” the girl said. “I know there’s no use arguing. I’ll drive you both over to administration.”
And they rose and left. Twelve missions, Smith thought. Twelve missions meant forty-eight officers flying. Certainly three out of forty-eight would want coffee with their flight lunches. It would be a big day, the biggest ever. They’d all be crazy with fear and frustration by this time tomorrow. 2
When Katy dropped them at administration, Jesse Price returned to executive office while Lundstrom continued on down the hallway to the office of the commanding general. Even at this hour, ten minutes to one in the morning, there was a pleasant pulse of activity on the base. The flight crews named for the morning missions were still sleeping, and yet preparations for the missions were underway. Engines were being tested, fuel trucks drinking from enormous underground tanks, armorers drawing rockets and 20 millimeter ammunition, radar maintenance men conducting their endless examination of equipment. Reports were coming in to the executive office, orders flowing out.
At this moment, and until Buddy Conklin arrived to take over, Jesse Price was senior staff officer at Hibiscus. Under him was Captain Challon, the regular duty officer of the night, a lieutenant, two staff sergeants, and three or four airmen, one of whom shuttled between Jesse’s desk and the communications center. It had been a long time since Jesse had been in a post of command. His last command had blown up on the runway at Okinawa. He enjoyed command. He enjoyed making decisions, even when they were routine and trivial. He hoped that the bird colonel who was Buddy Conklin’s regular deputy, and exec, would tarry for a few days in New Mexico. The responsibilities of command divorced a man’s mind from problems and fears about which you could do nothing. Whether you flew a plane or a desk, the commander’s job was definite. It was right there in front of him—a course to steer, a message to send, an order to sign.
At 0140 a strange priority message came over the teletype from SAC headquarters in Omaha: “ATTENTION COMMANDING OFFICERS ALL DIVISIONS AND WINGS—THE FBI REPORTS THAT A CONTACT MAN FOR ENEMY AGENTS BLAMES SABOTAGE FOR THE LOSS OF THE B-99 BOMBERS. HE CLAIMS FOUR MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE. THE INFORMANT, NOW DECEASED, SAID HE MET ONE OF THE MEN, WHOSE NAME IS SMITH. THE FBI HOPES TO HAVE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS BY MONDAY. MAINTAIN YOUR CONDITION OF ALERT.”
Jesse called Challon to his desk and showed him the message. “Ever see anything like that?” he asked.
Challon, a young man from Chattanooga who had just returned from duty in the Midlands with dashing RAF mustaches, read the dispatch and said, “Never in my born days.”
“How many Smiths do we have on this base?”
Challon laughed. “I don’t know, Major. I had two in my last crew, and I know a couple more right here in administration.”
The message was crazy, all right, Jess thought, and yet the FBI wouldn’t send it along unless they had a few hard facts. A man’s death was a hard fact. Jesse wondered whether “informant, now deceased,” had been killed while escaping, or had killed himself, or been murdered, or simply died of natural causes. It was intriguing as a who-dun-it, but it was no help, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he had to worry about was Hibiscus Base. Somebody else would have to take care of the rest of the world.
Hibiscus Base was running smoothly until Lundstrom poked his head into the office and said, “Major Price, will you come out here, please?”
Jess went to the door. Lundstrom said, quietly, “We may have something downstairs in Air Police. Want to come down with me?”
“Yes.” Jess turned to Challon. “Take over for a while, will you, Captain?”
As they walked down the corridor, Lundstrom said, “Remember that Lieutenant Fischer—rangy, tanned boy at the gate the day you got here? Well, he just brought in a green-and-white Chevvy, an airman, and a suitcase.”
Jess looked at his watch. It was two-thirty. In thirty minutes the pilots and airmen would be roused for pre-flight briefing and checkouts. The first mission was due off at 0700. He began to think ahead. 3
The Air Police headquarters on the ground floor of administration included an interrogation room, its windows barred, and equipped with the bare essentials of furniture, including a wire recorder, a line of chairs, a stenographer’s desk with typewriter. A small group of men were already there. They included Lieutenant Fischer, Major Click, the base security officer, a master sergeant of the Air Police with a stenographer’s pad, two airmen with carbines, and the prisoner. On the table lay the oddly shaped suitcase, open.
Jesse Price was astonished. The prisoner, sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair, blotches on his face purplish under the bright fluorescent rods of light, looked like a high school senior who had been picked up, by accident, in a raid on a juke joint. His mouth was half open, his eyes glazed, and he was dumb with fright. Colonel Lundstrom said, “What’s this—juvenile delinquency week? What’s the story?”
Lieutenant Fischer told what there was to tell. Airman 2/c Cusack claimed that the car didn’t belong to him. He didn’t know anything about the suitcase, hadn’t seen it until he was picked up at the all-night garage in Orlando. He claimed that he had been working in the mess hall Thursday night, midnight to 0800. If that was true he had an absolute alibi, and was not the airman seen by the Marine.
“Shouldn’t be hard to check up,” said Lundstrom.
At first the sight of the five quart bottles nestled in their felt niches made no impression on Jesse, except that it looked like the luggage had been designed as part of an elaborate picnic outfit. Then their shape jostled cells of memory. The shape he had drawn on the blackboard in Buddy Conklin’s office, to illustrate the pressure bomb used by the Germans in Italy, was the shape of a thermos bottle. The pressure bombs that had blown the Cottontails’ old B-24’s out of the sky had also been cylindrical, and a bit more than a foot long. “What’s in those bottles, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“Nothing, Major. Nothing at all. I examined them all. Thought I might find heroin.”
“Lieutenant, have you checked the ownership of the car?” asked Lundstrom.
“The sergeant did, sir,” said Fischer. “It’s listed to Betty Jo Atkins, in Orlando, like this airman said. She doesn’t have a phone.”
Lundstrom turned on the boy. “What’s the name of your commanding officer?”
Cusack’s mouth opened and closed twice before any words came out. “Kuhn, sir,” he said finally. “Captain Kuhn. He’s mess officer.” 4
The orderly pattern of Captain Kuhn’s life had been badly disrupted for the entire week. Ever since Hibiscus lost its first two B-99’s, operation of the Officers’ Open Mess had become disorganized and complicated. There was a sudden influx of civilian technicians and factory men whom he was called upon to feed, and a procession of brass from Washington. His chit book system was in confusion, and he was sure his accounts would show a loss that he might have to make up out of his own pocket. Not a night passed without some panic or flap, such as providing flight lunches for generals, on five minutes’ notice. The whole business was unnerving.
Had Captain Kuhn been the brightest officer in the Air Force, he would not have been a captain, and a mess officer, at the age of forty-three. He wore battle stars from the Pacific and the Air Medal on his tunic, but his age in grade announced that somewhere in his career he had fouled up. When the telephone woke him, he looked at the clock, picked up the instrument, and, instead of saying, “Captain Kuhn,” he shouted, “who in hell’s calling at this hour?”