The Fighting Agents Part 48

"The lieutenant's in pain," he said. "Pretty bad. Should we give him morphine?"

"Not yet," Canidy said.

The parachutist gave Canidy a dirty look.

"Christ, he hurts! They never should have made him make this f.u.c.king jump!"

"He's not dead," Canidy said. "We'll be, if we don't get this airplane out of here before it's spotted."

Then he looked at Darmstadter.

"You can can get it out of here?" get it out of here?"

"No problem," Darmstadter said immediately, confidently.

A wild thought popped into Canidy's mind, and he asked the question: "Loaded?"

"With what?"

"People. The team. Three others."

"Yeah," Darmstadter said, and then antic.i.p.ated the next question: "I've got about two hours' fuel aboard. If I can find Vis, that gives me a thirty-minute reserve."

"What do you mean, if you can find it?"

Darmstadter pointed out the door. Canidy looked. It had begun to snow: large, soft-looking flakes.

"Dolan was navigating by reference to the ground," Darmstadter said. "Roads and railroads. I won't be able to see the ground. And I'm not sure I can find Vis just using a compa.s.s."

"That kind of snow won't last long," Canidy said rea.s.suringly.

But, he thought angrily, he thought angrily, that f.u.c.king snow is just what we don't need! that f.u.c.king snow is just what we don't need!

And then he realized that exactly the opposite was true. The snow was just what he did did need. It would obscure the tracks the landing gear had made on the meadow. And, if he was right, and it left just a dusting of fresh snow atop the inch or two on the ground, it wouldn't interfere with a takeoff. need. It would obscure the tracks the landing gear had made on the meadow. And, if he was right, and it left just a dusting of fresh snow atop the inch or two on the ground, it wouldn't interfere with a takeoff.

"Start it up," he ordered. "I'm going to find a place to hide this big sonofab.i.t.c.h."

As he ran into the center of the meadow, looking for a break in the trees, someplace where the C-47 could be taxied to, he wondered whether his decision to use the Gooney Bird to get out of here was based on sound military reason (Darmstadter couldn't find Vis-he could; it was an available a.s.set and should be used) or whether he subconsciously saw it as a lifeboat with himself as a drowning sailor, and was irrationally refusing to let it go, as drowning sailors will fight to get into an already loaded lifeboat, not caring that their weight will swamp it.

He snapped out of that by telling himself the decision had been made and there was no going back on it now.

He found no place to hide the airplane, now sitting where it had stopped with engines idling and Darmstadter looking out the window, waiting for instructions.

Canidy ran back to it and signaled Darmstadter to turn it around, then guided him to the edge of the forest, stopping him only when the nose was in the trees and the propeller on the right engine was spinning two feet from a thick pine trunk.

Three of the team members were watching him. He wondered if they were simply curious or had already decided he was crazy.

"You said there was a power saw," he said. "Get it. Cover as much of this thing as you can with the largest boughs you can."

"Why don't you just blow it?" one of them, the one who was so concerned about Janos being in pain, said. "You already got one fire."

"Everybody gets one question," Canidy said. "That was yours. I don't want to hear another. The answer to your question is we're going to get out of here on that Gooney Bird."

"You'll never get that off the ground in that short a distance, " the parachutist said.

"That was an opinion," Canidy said icily. "You get one, only, of those, too. The next time I want to see your mouth open is when I ask you a question."

The parachutist glared at him but said nothing.

"Get going!" Canidy said. "I want the snow to cover the boughs."

"There's an auxiliary fuel system," Darmstadter said. "A fifty-five-gallon barrel connected to the main tanks. You want me to try to get it out?"

"That and anything else heavy we don't absolutely need."

"You're not talking about Commander Dolan?" Darmstadter flared.

"No," Canidy said. "We'll take Dolan with us."

The Countess's housekeeper appeared in the main room of the lodge when Canidy, Alois, and Freddy Janos, white-faced, his arms around their shoulders, walked into it.

She put a balled fist to her mouth. Canidy could not tell whether she was manifesting sympathy or fear.

"Major," Janos said, embarra.s.sed, "I think I'm going to pa.s.s out."

"I'm going to give you something for pain just as soon as I get you in bed," Canidy said. "Tell him to tell her to keep her mouth shut."

They half carried Janos to the bed in which Canidy had slept and laid him flat on it. Canidy, as gently as he could, cut the boot from his leg, then pulled a coa.r.s.ely woven cotton sock-Hungarian, rather than GI wool-cus.h.i.+on-soled-from it. Somewhere in Janos's gear was a pair of Hungarian shoes that the plan called for him to put on once he was on the ground. The notion that jump boots might protect his ankle hadn't worked.

The ankle was blue and swollen, but there didn't seem to be any bones threatening to break through the skin.

Canidy opened a flat metal can, sealed with tape, and took a morphine syringe from it. He pushed Janos's trouser leg up as far as he could and shoved the needle into his calf. It would take a little longer for the morphine to take effect that way, but it would be less painful for Janos than moving his body around to get at his upper arm or b.u.t.tock.

"That'll take a minute or two," Canidy said. "I'll be back."

"I'm getting sick to my stomach," Janos said.

"Tell him," Canidy said, nodding at Alois. "He'll get you something to throw up in."

Then he went looking for the Countess and von Heurten-Mitnitz.

It was not necessary under the circ.u.mstances, he decided, to bother knocking on doors and politely waiting for permission to enter.

He found them behind the third door he opened, nearly hidden under a goose-down comforter.

"Good morning," he said.

Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz suddenly erupted from under the comforter, reaching for his Walther pistol as his eyes swept around the room.

The movement took the comforter off both of them. They were both naked.

The Countess, as Canidy had thought she might be, was a baroque work of art. His Excellency was a white-skinned, skinny man, from whose chest sprouted no more than a dozen long black hairs.

"What's all this?" von Heurten-Mitnitz demanded in outrage as he put the pistol down and pulled the comforter over himself and the Countess.

"The team is here," Canidy said.

"I presume you mean Ferniany," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

"No, I mean the team," Canidy said. "They were dropped about thirty minutes ago. I think you ought to get dressed and get out of here right away."

I have just decided, Canidy realized, Canidy realized, that I am not going to tell them about the Gooney Bird that I am not going to tell them about the Gooney Bird.

"Did everything go all right?" the Countess Batthyany asked.

"One of them has a broken ankle," Canidy said. "I brought him here."

"Where did you put him?" she asked.

"In my bed," Canidy said.

The Countess slid out from under the comforter, modestly turned her back to Canidy, and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. She found shoes, worked her feet into them, and, brus.h.i.+ng her magnificent mop of red hair off her face, walked out of the room.

Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz got out the other side of the bed and started to dress. Naked, Canidy thought, and in his underwear-a sleeveless unders.h.i.+rt and baggy drawers, plus stockings held up by rubber suspenders on his skinny calves-von Heurten-Mitnitz was not at all impressive.

"We have one dead man, too," Canidy said.

"What happened?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

"Natural causes," Canidy said. "A heart attack."

Von Heurten-Mitnitz didn't seem at all surprised by that announcement, which surprised Canidy.

"What are you going to do with the body?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked. "Or the man with the injured . . . leg, you said?"

"Ankle," Canidy said. "I haven't made up my mind yet. The first priority, I think, is for you and the Countess to get back to Budapest."

"I think you're right," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

Canidy returned to his room.

"You landed the airplane," the Countess greeted him, looking up from the bed, where she was prodding and pulling on the ankle of the now unconscious Janos.

Alois had apparently told her, and she would now certainly tell von Heurten-Mitnitz.

"Yes," Canidy said.

"I will remain here while Herr von Heurten-Mitnitz returns to Budapest," she said. "It would be better, if I were here when . . . if . . . the authorities come."

"I think it would be better if you went to Budapest," Canidy said. "Just as soon as you can."

She ignored him.

"I have sent for rubber bandage," she said. "I'm sure there's some here. I think about all we can do for this man is to wrap the ankle tightly, then stiffen the ankle. You take my meaning?"

"Splint it," Canidy said, nodding. "Thank you."

Alois came into the room with von Heurten-Mitnitz on his heels.

"Their airplane landed," the Countess said.

Von Heurten-Mitnitz looked at Canidy, surprised.

"Intact?" he asked.

"Yes," Canidy said.

"And you plan to use it to leave?" von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.

Canidy nodded. "If we can."

"I think it would be best if you took Beatrice with you," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

"No," the Countess said. "I am staying here to do what I can while you go to Budapest. But I am not leaving with them."

"I don't see any way that what has happened here can be hidden," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

"Then you leave, too," the Countess said.

"There is a good chance that no one knows about either the drop or the plane landing," Canidy said.

"I think that is highly unlikely," von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

"You and the Countess slept through two pa.s.ses and the landing itself," Canidy said.

Von Heurten-Mitnitz grunted, reluctantly granting the point.

"I don't want to have to worry about you, Countess," Canidy said, "while we're getting Eric and the professor out of St. Gertrud's. I want you to go to Budapest, and now."

She met his eyes for a moment.

"All right," she said finally. "Just let me do what I can for him."

Twenty minutes later, the Opel Admiral drove away from the lodge. By then, it had stopped snowing. Canidy wondered if enough snow had fallen to conceal the tracks the C-47 had made on the meadow, or to obscure the outline of the aircraft under the pine boughs.

Since Ferniany hadn't shown up, there was nothing else to do, so he went to see.