“God, what a smile,” said Pembroke.
As the last Devastator completed its run, happy chatter spilled from Strawberry Eleven’s transceiver, five creatively fulfilled war reenactors singing their own praises.
“Powder river!”
“Golly, this is swell!”
“Got that baby comin’ and goin’!”
“Hot-cha-cha!”
“The beers’re on me, boys!”
Now the third Dauntless echelon moved into position, climbing swiftly to fifteen thousand feet. Through the haze of his fear, Oliver sensed that the raid was going well. He was particularly impressed by the forgotten art of dive-bombing, the skillful and reckless way the SBD pilots turned their planes into manned bullets, swooping out of the clouds, plunging headfirst toward the midriff, and, at the moment of payload release, pulling out just in time to avoid cracking up — a truly magnificent performance, almost worth the seventeen million dollars it was costing him.
The Dauntlesses peeled away and attacked, dropping their demolition bombs on the navel. Spewing flames and smoke, a seething orange tornado spun across God’s abdomen.
“It’s so beautiful!” gasped Pembroke.
“This is it, Sid — this is our masterpiece!” squealed Flume.
“We’ll never top it, never, even if we do a D-Day!”
“I’m so excited!”
A husky female voice shot from Strawberry Eleven’s transceiver. “Valparaíso to squadron leaders! Come in, squadron leaders!”
The head of Torpedo Six responded instantly. “Lieutenant Commander Lindsey here, United States Navy,” he said in a tone at once curious and hostile. “Go ahead, Valparaíso.”
“Captain Van Horne wishes to address you…”
The voice that now filled the PBY’s cabin was so enraged Oliver imagined the transceiver tubes exploding, spraying glass into the cockpit.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lindsey?!”
“My patriotic duty. Over.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you! Over.”
“You’ve got no right to destroy my cargo!”
“And you’ve got no right to destroy the American economy! I don’t care how good your English is! Can’t you Japs ever play fair? Over!”
“Japs? What’re you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” said Lindsey. “America first! Out!”
“Get back on the air, you dipshit!”
As the two squadrons turned west and headed for Point Luck, Strawberry Eleven circled the corpse, a slow, leisurely loop extending from nose to knees. The bellybutton, Oliver noted, was considerably larger now, a quarter-mile-wide crater into which the Norwegian Sea flowed like water spiraling into a bathtub drain. The neck sported a gaping cave, its portal a mass of shattered ice and shredded flesh. The only problem was that, in his admittedly inexpert judgment, God wasn’t sinking.
“They did a great job with the bellybutton,” said Pembroke.
“Navel warfare,” said Flume, deadpan.
“Hey, that’s a good one, Alby.”
“Why isn’t there more blood?” asked Oliver.
“Beats me,” said Pembroke, polishing off the macaroni salad.
“Is it frozen?”
“Bombs would’ve thawed it.”
“So where is it?”
“Probably it never had any,” said Flume. “Blood’s such complicated stuff — I’ll bet even Mitsubishi can’t make it.”
As the PBY glided across the body’s right nipple, her transceiver began broadcasting again. “Red Fox Leader to Mother Goose,” said Lindsey. “Red Fox Leader to Mother Goose.”
“Mother Goose here,” said Admiral Spruance’s portrayer aboard the Enterprise.
“We dropped our last egg ten minutes ago. Over.”
“What about Scout Bombing Six?”
“Likewise disarmed. We’re all headin’ home for another batch. Over.”
“How’s it going?”
“Sir, the Japs might be listening in.”
“No screening vessels, remember?” said Spruance. “No Bofors guns.”
“Targets A and B were hit hard, sir,” said Lindsey. “Real hard. Over.”
“Was Akagi shipping water when you left her?”
“No, sir.”
“Then we’re shifting to Op Plan 29-67,” said Spruance.
“Op Plan 29-67,” echoed Lindsey. “Dandy idea.”
“The second strike’s taking off now, McClusky commanding from his Dauntless section. We can begin recovering your planes any time after 0945 hours. Over.”
“Roger, Mother Goose. Out.”
“Now will you tell me about Op Plan 29-67?” asked Oliver.
“An emergency strategy,” explained Pembroke.
“What emergency strategy?”
“The swellest one ever,” said Flume.
At 1120 a new wave appeared along the western horizon — three V-formations of torpedo planes coming in near sea level while three echelons of dive bombers rendezvoused from several miles up.
“Commander McClusky, Air Group Six, to Captain Van Horne on Valparaíso,” came the actor’s reedy voice from the PBY’s transceiver. “You there, Van Horne? Over.”
“This is Van Horne, asshole.”
“Question, Captain. Is Valparaíso carrying a full complement of lifeboats?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’ll assume that means yes. Over.”
“Keep your paws off my cargo!”
“Captain, be advised that at 1150 hours we shall be implementing Op Plan 29-67, whereby Valparaíso comes under attack from a section of Devastators armed with Mk-XIII torpedoes. Repeat: at 1150, your ship comes under attack from a section of…”
Oliver lurched out of the mechanic’s station and scrambled toward the machine-gun blisters. “McClusky said he’s gonna hit the Valparaíso!”
“I know,” said Pembroke, grinning.
“Op Plan 29-67,” said Flume, winking.
“He can’t hit the Valparaíso!” moaned Oliver.
“Valparaíso, not ‘the’ Valparaíso.”
“He can’t!”
“Shhh,” said Pembroke.
“You have thirty minutes to abandon ship,” said McClusky from the transceiver. “We strongly recommend you keep your officers and crew out of the water, which we estimate to be about twenty degrees Fahrenheit. You’ll be rescued within two hours by the decommissioned aircraft carrier Enterprise. Over.”
“Like hell I’m gonna abandon ship!” said Van Horne.
“Have it your way, Captain. Out.”
“You can shove your torpedoes up your ass, McClusky!”
Pembroke ate a radish. “A desperate strategy,” he explained, “but unavoidable under the circumstances.”
“As the tanker sinks,” Flume elaborated, chewing on a chicken thigh, “she’ll drag the golem down with her, deep enough to swamp those wounds.”
“After which the lungs and stomach will finally start to fill.”
“And then—”
“Shazam — mission accomplished!”
Oliver grabbed Flume’s shoulders, shaking the war reenactor as if attempting to rouse him from a deep sleep. “My girlfriend’s on the Valparaíso!”
“Oh, sure,” said Pembroke.
“Let go of me this instant,” said Flume.
“I’m serious!” wailed Oliver, releasing Flume and rocking back on the balls of his feet. “Ask Van Horne! Ask him if he isn’t carrying somebody named Cassie Fowler!”
“Hey, take it easy.” Flume uncapped a Rheingold with a cast-iron Fred Astaire opener. “Nobody’ll get hurt. We’re giving the Japs plenty of time to save themselves. Want a beer? A Spam-and-onion sandwich?”
“You heard the captain! He’s not gonna abandon ship!”
“Once he absorbs a hit or two, I’m sure he’ll reconsider,” said Pembroke. “It takes hours for a big boat like Valparaíso to go down — hours.”
“You people are insane! You’re out of your fucking minds!”
“Hey, don’t get pissed at us,” said Flume.
“We’re only doing what you hired us to do,” said Pembroke.
“Contact Admiral Spruance! Tell him to call off the attack!”
“We never call off an attack,” said Flume, swishing his index finger back and forth. “Have a nice cold Rheingold, okay? You’ll feel much better.” The impresario snatched up his intercom mike.