"Worse. You might as well put on a life jacket. Get me one too."
Macurdy followed his advice. Trosza's aura told him his captive's grip on life was tenuous, and he decided not to struggle him into a life jacket unless it became necessary. Instead he worked again on the chaotic energy threads in the vicinity of the damage. The disorganization was more severe and widespread than before, and the threads, when he adjusted them, didn't remain adjusted even for a moment.
Glumly he quit, thinking that at least the Voitu wasn't airsick, and sat down beside MacNab again. He remembered something Arbel had told him: A body can be too damaged to save, a shaman had to be prepared for that.
Closing his eyes, Macurdy dozed, to dream about the fuel gauge.
After an uncertain time, he awoke to dawnlight, gray and grim, and with an odd sense of detachment watched the slatecolored Adriatic for several minutes. The fuel gauge needle was very near the peg.
"How are we doing?" he asked.
"Better than I'd expected. We're almost far enough south to angle toward the coast. Better put a life jacket on your passenger though."
Macurdy got in back with Trosza. What Arbel had termed "the spirit aura" was gone, and properly speaking the body aura too. All that was left was residue: the energy of tissues that survived, temporarily, the death of the integrated organism.
Meanwhile MacNab radioed a mayday call, giving their location, bearing, and intended course, then reported "urgent living cargo." Macurdy removed the handcuffs and put a life jacket on the corpse; a lot better to bring in a dead Voitu than none at all. When he had the laces tied, he got back in front again. "How's your goat-eared buddy?" MacNab asked.
"Dead. His name was Trosza. He wished me well, and shook my hand. That's when I did it to him."
MacNab recognized contrition when he heard it; he nodded and said nothing more until, a few minutes later, he repeated his mayday with a new location and bearing. And got an answer. Three destroyer escorts operating out of Termoli were on an intercept course. Macurdy resisted asking what the prospects were. In the distance he could see the Abruzzi coast now, farther ahead than he liked.
Again MacNab repeated his mayday, with location and bearing. "I'm at 3,600 feet," he finished, "and starting my letdown."
"The engine hasn't quit," Macurdy pointed out.
"I have to land crosswind, and have fuel left to maintain steerageway. Otherwise forget it. The weather's worse than predicted. Those are storm seas down there."
Several miles farther on, Macurdy made out the three warships moving toward them in the distance, and wondered if they'd seen or heard the plane. The altimeter read 640 feet, and MacNab had cut power, radioing that the shi s were in sight and on course. Short minutes later they were dose above the water. No way in hell, Macurdy realized, could they refuel in waves like those. MacNab touched her down, running parallel with the seas along a crest, skipping once. Contact slowed them abruptly, and shortly they were an enclosed boat, not an aircraft. Rolling heavily, they rose like a cork on a large wave, then slid sideways into the trough. Macurdy didn't know if they were in trouble or not.
"How's it look?" he asked.
"If the fuel holds out, we should be okay."
"Should I inflate a life raft?"
"Not in the plane. I'll tell you when."
The fuel nearly did hold out. The destroyer escorts were perhaps a half-mile away when the engine quit. Almost at once the Widgeon weather-vaned, the wind on the rudder surface turning her into the seas. She nosed into the next wave, water washing over the windshield. With a pang of fear, Macurdy wondered if they'd recover, but the plane rose, shedding gray-green sea water, then slid into the trough and buried her nose in the next wave, staggering again as it washed over her.
"Get in back," MacNab ordered, "and be ready to evacuate through the cabin door, with the life raft. I'll tell you when. It'll be a helluva lot easier for them to take us aboard from a raft than from the plane. As you go out, then pull the inflation cord- and for chrissake hang onto the lifeline! Pull yourself on if you can, but the important thing is to hang on to that lifeline."
"What about you?"
"I'll be right behind you."
"What about Trosza?"
"I'll bring him out. You get the raft out."
Macurdy waited at the door, the pilot close behind, gripping Trosza's collar. "Now!" MacNab barked, and Macurdy opened the cabin door just as the Widgeon nosed downward into the trough. The abrupt change in tilt drove him back, and briefly water poured in. As the plane rose again, he made it out the door, face down on the rubber raft, gripping the lifeline with one hand, pulling the inflation cord with the other. Then he was in the water and under it, shocked by its cold. The raft popped to the surface, Macurdy somehow spread-eagled on top. MacNab was not with him, and he looked re around as best he could.
Long seconds later Macurdy saw him; he'd gotten out. The plane was riding another wave, tail higher, the open cabin door briefly clear of the water again, then it behind the crest. Macurdy rolled off the raft on the side toward the pilot, who was swimming laboriously toward him. Keeping a death grip on the lifeline, Macurdy tried with some success to stroke toward him. After a minute their hands -met and gripped, then MacNab reached the lifeline and held on, coughing and gagging on salt water.
He didn't try to climb on, just held on. The Widgeon crested another wave, tail skyward now. They didn't see her again. What they could see were two circling DEs, with the other moving in on them at "slow ahead," men in life jackets and swimming trunks at the rail.
"Sorry," MacNab said. "About what?"
"That I didn't get your goat-eared buddy out. She was tilting to the bow too much, and I had to let him go. It was that or we'd both go down."
"He was dead anyway," Macurdy answered. He wished to hell he had the body though. It would make his story a lot more convincing.
Then the DE was beside them, and seamen jumped in with lines. A couple of minutes later, they were hoisted aboard.
They got some strange looks from the crew and officers- Macurdy in jumpsuit and jump boots, MacNab in a kilt. Macurdy found himself grinning despite his loss. At least I've got another witness to what they look like, he told himself. That wouldn't answer the questions the general wanted asked, but Donovan would still okay the other half of the bargain.
The thought didn't actually convince Macurdy, but it made him feel better.
33
Bypassing Authority
It was Thursday the 27th of April, when Macurdy and MacNab arrived back at OSS headquarters in Grosvenor Square. Both were debriefed by Von Lutzow, MacNab first. Then the pilot was sent to the medical officer, because he'd come down with a bad cold and sore throat. When it was Macurdy's turn, he asked if Donovan was going to sit in. No, Von Lutzow said, the general couldn't be there. He'd read the debrief later.
It wasn't till afterward that Vonnie told him the general had been called to Washington, and wasn't expected back for a week or ten days.
Which left Macurdy apprehensive. "We had an oral agreement," he said. "If I pulled this mission off I could do a second one. And I kind of did, but not entirely. I hoped I could do the follow up."
He described his discussion with the general. "Don't worry about it," Von Lutzow told him. "I've got to write up my comments on your debriefs now -your's and MacNab's-but you and I will talk in the morning."
Macurdy took that as hopeful, and looked up Anna. She'd already had supper, but went to a restaurant with him, to keep him company while he ate. She'd been signed on as a civilian internal security specialist, she told him. There was nothing like that on the TO; but after she'd demonstrated her talent for him, the general had improvised.