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But when Agnes parked beside the sandbag revetment where the B-17 sat, Pete Douglass, not Fine, emerged from the Packard.
“Anchors aweigh, you-all,” Douglass called out. Then Dolan and Joe Kennedy also appeared from inside the B-17. “And who is this booze-nosed old salt all dressed up to go flying?” Douglass asked.
“Why,” Dolan said, chuckling, “I thought the major knew Lieutenant Kennedy.” And then he corrected himself. " ’The colonel,’ that is. When did that happen?”
"Yesterday,” Douglass said. “It will not be necessary for you to prostrate yourself. Kissing my hand will suffice.”
“Congratulations, Pete,” Bitter said. “Well deserved.”
“Don’t get carried away,” Douglass said, suddenly bitter. “Eighth Air Force has a regulation. Lose half your command on a dumb mission, but come back yourself, and you get promoted.”
“You were promoted because you deserved it,” Bitter insisted loyally.
“Good morning,” Agnes Draper said as she walked up to them.
“Good morning, Sergeant,” Bitter said.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” Canidy quoted as he shook Dolan’s and Kennedy’s hand,“whene’er we try to deceive.”
Bitter glowered at him. Agnes Draper showed no reaction at all.
“The radio types aren’t here?” Canidy asked.
“Inside,” Dolan said, jerking his thumb up at the B-17. “You want to have a look?”
“Yeah,” Canidy said. “And so does the colonel. I figured maybe he’d see something we don’t.”
“Christ,” Douglass said, looking up at the B-17. “Will this fugitive from the boneyard actually fly?”
It was less a flippant remark than a statement of fact. The B-17 had been reclaimed from the salvage yard. There were crude patches riveted to the fuselage and wings where it had been struck by antiaircraft and machine-gun fire. Just below the pilot’s side window, a shiny new duralumin patch covered about half of the representation of a large-bosomed, scantily dressed female. It cut off her head, one breast, most of the legend—“Miss Twen” was all that was left—and what looked like half of a row of small bombs representing missions.
There were other crude patches fairing over what had been the Plexiglas in the nose and the gun positions in the fuselage. The fuselage and the wings had been painted white. But there had not been enough paint to do the job properly, and what paint there was had been more solvent than pigment.
“This is one of our better ones, Colonel,” Joe Kennedy said to Douglass.
“I’d hate to see one of the worst ones,” Douglass said.
Kennedy took his arm and led him out to a position on the taxiway that would let them see into the two adjacent revetments. One of them held an even more battered B-17. The other held Canidy’s—technically, the OSS’s— B-25.
“All we want from them is six hours,” Kennedy said. “Just six more hours.”
Douglass shook his head and walked back into the revetment. Canidy was no longer in sight. Sergeant Draper pointed up at the battered B-17, and Douglass climbed the aluminum ladder hanging from the fuselage under the nose.
There was barely room for him once he got inside. Four people were crowded into the cockpit area. And the flight engineer’s station was packed with mattress covers. Figures, obviously representing weight, were crudely painted on these. Douglass wondered what they were using to duplicate the weight and bulk of the Torpex explosive that would be loaded into the operational aircraft.
He looked back into the fuselage. With its openings faired over, it was dark, except where the sun made beams of light through open rivet holes and unrepaired bullet and shrapnel holes. The fuselage was packed nearly shoulder high with more mattress covers stuffed with whatever they were using to duplicate Torpex.
A tiny Air Corps captain with horn-rimmed glasses was explaining to Canidy the function of the radio-controlled servomechanisms. These, it was hoped, would let the chase plane fly the B-17 by remote control.
&
nbsp; “Take a look at this, Doug,” Canidy said, and the two sergeants with the captain made room for him the only way they could, by climbing down out of the B-17.
The servomechanisms were simpler than Douglass expected them to be. They were in effect just electric motors whose direction of revolution could be reversed.
“And now let’s go see how Captain Allen and his stalwart troops have fucked up my pretty B-25,” Canidy said.
The tiny Air Corps captain smiled.
