The Romanov succession

“Nuts. It’s not that easy and you know it. It’s pur money and our supplies that are keeping England alive right now. Put a hint of this operation in the press and what happens to the President’s Congressional support for his war measures? You know how thin the margin is at best. Give the isolationists ammunition like this and that’s the last we’d see of Lend-Lease or any other war-support program. England could go right down the tubes. That’s the real risk of it-that’s what concerns me.”

No, Buckner thought. What really concerned the Undersecretary was that he’d be charged with having had a role in the discredited scheme and his own head would tumble into the basket.

Buckner said, “There’s only one answer to that. We’ve got to make damned sure we keep the lid on it.”

“Easy to say.”

“We’re doing it. After all there’s damned few of us in on it. Six or seven of us including the President.”

“It’s not good enough, Glenn. We’ve got to have a back door.”

“Any suggestions?”

“You’re the expert in nihilistic machinations.”

“I’m just a country boy. Let’s keep it to words of two syllables.”

“There’s got to be a cancellation button.”

“Come again?”

“A button to push. To give us instant cancellation of the program. These people aren’t Americans-we can’t just order them to call it off on our say-so. We’ve got to have leverage.”

“You can relax then,” Buckner said. “That’s been taken care of.”

10

Pappy Johnson stood under the wing of the airplane exposing his teeth. He pulled his cigarettes out of the bicep pocket of his leather flight jacket and offered one to Calhoun.

“Thanks.” Calhoun took it and poked his face forward to accept a light from Johnson’s cupped match. Calhoun had a small triangular face and the black-nailed hands of a mechanic. He had arrived during the night by train from Glasgow where the flight from the States had dropped him off with his two companions.

“They’re your airplanes as of now,” Johnson told him. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to get them ready for training.”

“Well first off we’ll have to mount those turrets.” On the ferrying flight the dorsal and belly turrets of the B-17S had been removed and stowed inside to reduce air drag.

“Uh-huh. And you’re going to have to modify the C-Forty-sevens. Those cargo doors open outward. That’s no good for parachute drops.”

Calhoun didn’t even blink. “You want ‘em to slide or you want ‘em to open inward?”

“What’s faster?”

“Open inward. It’s still a welding job but we can handle it.”

“All right. Rig lines for the ripcord clips and run some benches down the insides for the men to sit on.”

“Full complement in each plane?”

“Just about. They’ll carry twenty-seven each, isn’t that the drill?”

“You can squeeze in more than that if you need to. Depends how far you’ve got to stretch your fuel,” Calhoun said. “Which reminds me, I can’t work on these engines unless I can run them up. What are we supposed to run them on, spit?”

“Use what you can find. We’ll have it pouring in by Monday.” He hoped it was true. All he knew was what General Danilov told him.

“Okay. Anything kick up on the way over here I should look into?”

“Mine was all right. The ferry pilot on the second Fort said his number three was running a little ragged-high head temps and he couldn’t keep it in synch.”

“I’ll tell Blazer to take a look. Most ground crews have to take an engine apart to find out what Blazer can tell just by listening to it run.”

Pappy Johnson dropped his cigarette and squeezed it under his boot. “They’re your babies. Nice meeting you. I got to get to work.”

He strode to the main hangar and waved vaguely to the two generals in the office-the Russian one and the American one-and went straight on back to the rear of the huge building.

Prince Felix Romanov was on his feet near one of the small windows. He was watching the Boeing arrivals across the field spread canvas over the engine nacelles of the big airplanes. The wiry prince was dressed in tailored coveralls that fitted like a tux; Johnson suppressed a smile.

The rest of them-the fourteen pilots-had cigarettes cupped in their hands and they looked ready to be bored. These were old-line combat pilots and he was going to have to shake them up.

“Good morning gentlemen.”

Some of them nodded; some of them murmured something or other. Prince Felix flashed a grin at him and took a seat at the end of the bench.

There was a blackboard and a little lecture podium. Johnson posted himself behind it. “It’s not an office party, gentlemen. Siddown.”

He waited for them to sort themselves out on the three long benches and then he said, “I’m sure there are at least a thousand men who know more about precision bombardment than I do.” He looked slowly from face to face. “However I don’t see any of them here.”

He had their attention. “Anybody have trouble understanding my English?”