Griffin W.E.B.: Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

He smiled with satisfaction. This idea of his had worked too. When the wire was fully extended, the force exerted by moving through the air at 120 miles per hour was enough to tear off the drogue chute. Otherwise, what Chief Schultz referred to as "the straight-wire antenna" would have gyrated wildly, and would not have been a "straight wire."

He had also solved the problem of dealing with the wire before landing, during which it would have posed problems. After Chief Schultz and the Argentine ex-Sergeant Major spent hours trying to come up with a crank to pull it back inside, he suggested they "just cut the sonofabitch; we have plenty of wire."

The suggestion earned him the highest possible praise from Chief Schultz: "Coming from a second lieutenant, that ain't too dumb an idea, Mr. Pelosi."

Tony went back through the cabin to the cockpit. "You couldn't put the straight wire out by yourself, either, Clete," he said.

"Where there's a will, there's a way, Lieutenant Pelosi," Clete replied, and picked up a microphone.

"Peter, this is Paul. How do you read? Over."

“'Paul, Peter," Chief Schultz's voice came back immediately. "Five-by-five."

"Peter, Paul, out," Clete said, set the microphone down, and turned to Tony.

"Be so good, Lieutenant Pelosi, as to cut the wire. Then we'll go home."

"Yes, Sir," Tony said.

[EIGHT]

Samboromb?n Bay

0325 2 January 1943

"Put the wire out, Tony," Clete ordered. "There's just enough light for us to find the sonofabitch."

"Ain't we lucky?" Tony said, and got up from the co-pilot's seat and went into the cabin.

Two minutes later he was back. He nodded at Clete, who picked up the microphone.

"Peter, Paul. How do you read?"

"Paul, Peter, five-by-five."

"Peter clear."

"Paul standing by."

"That was Ettinger," Tony observed. "I wonder where the Chief is."

"I know where he is, he went for a cerveza."

Tony laughed out loud, and Clete joined him. The laughter was contagious and hysterical.

A manifestation,Clete thought, of extreme stress.

He consulted his Hamilton and his chart, and then five minutes later consulted them again.

"That's where the sonofabitch was," Clete said. "Where did you go, you sonofabitch?"

"There it is," Tony said, pointing downward.

Clete looked. He could make out the shape of ship. There were no running lights or other visible activity. But it was the Reine de la Mer.

"I wonder why they didn't move," Clete said, and the answer came, but he kept it to himself.

They didn't move because they're not at all afraid of a single-engine civilian aircraft about to drop incendiaries on them. Or at them.

They're getting ready for a little target practice.

There's probably some sonofabitch down there with binoculars looking for us. Ach du lieber, I hope he hasn't changed his mind and doesn't come. I was so looking forward to a little sport!"

He picked up the microphone.

"Peter, Paul."

"Go," Ettinger's voice came back immediately.

"Position unchanged."

"Hold one."

The holding took three minutes, before Ettinger's voice came over the radio.

"Paul, Peter, they want fifteen minutes."

"Understand fifteen, repeat, fifteen minutes."

"Right."

"Paul clear and standing by."

Clete pushed the button on the Hamilton that started the stopwatch function.

"We have fifteen minutes," he said.

"I heard."

"You know what I was thinking, Clete?"

"I'm afraid to ask."

"I was thinking that maybe this would be a good place—Argentina, I mean—to live."

"Right now, Mr. Pelosi, I am of the belief that practically anywhere would be a good place to live. Considering the alternatives, of course."

"No. I mean it. I was thinking that they probably don't have a good demolitions company down here."

“You want to blow up Buenos Aires, Mr. Pelosi? Is that what you're saying?"

"There's a lot of old buildings here that have to come down. They probably take them down the way they put them up, one brick at a time."

"And you could improve on that system?"

"I'm pretty good at what I do, as a matter of fact," Tony said.

"Yes, Tony, you are."

"What the hell, it don't cost to dream, does it?"

"Not a dime."

"I'm really stuck on Maria-Teresa, Clete. It's not her fault she had to do what she did with that bastard Mallin."

"You are speaking of my future father-in-law, Mr. Pelosi."

"No shit? You're really going to marry that girl?"

"That thought has been running through my mind."

"What the hell, why not? If you love her, that's all that really matters, right?"

"My sentiments exactly, Mr. Pelosi."

"You be my best man, and I'll be yours, deal?" Tony said cheerfully, and put out his hand.

Clete shook it.

"Deal."

After a moment, Tony said, "So we're pissing in the wind. So what?"

They did not exchange another word for another twelve minutes, when Clete said, "I think you better go get set up, Tony."

"Yeah, right."

The first antiaircraft weapon on the Reine de la Mer to come into action was a heavy machine gun mounted above her bridge. It was firing one-in-five tracers. These arched through the sky and then seemed to die a hundred yards or so below the Beechcraft.

After the tracer charge burns out,Clete thought, the projectile — plus, of course, the projectiles that don't contain a tracer element, four times as many of those— continue on their trajectory.

Clete waited as long as he could after two other machine guns opened fire, and after first one and then the other of the Bofors 40-mm Cannon began to fire, before calling, "GO!"

He held the Beechcraft as steady as he could for fifteen seconds, then turned to look over his shoulder at Tony.

Tony was reloading the chute with the second dozen flares.

I can't believe we haven't been hit!

There was a faint but perceptible yellow brightness, reflected off the underside of the upper wing, and then a much brighter glow as the magnesium of the flares ignited.

He dropped his eyes in ritual habit to the control panel. There were red lights all over it,Oil Pressure Failure being the most significant of them.

The engine coughed and died.

The wind whistling through the guy wires of the wings was eerie.

"Tony!" Clete called. "Dump the flares, we have engine failure."

"What?"

"Dump the goddamned flares, and put your goddamned life jacket on!"

He made a shallow turn to the left, away from the Reine de la Mer and its cannon and machine guns.

The engine nacelle suddenly glowed and then there were flames licking out its rear.

Tony came and stood behind him, trying to tie the cords of the ancient, cork-filled life jacket.

"Jesus!"

"I'm going to have to put it in the water," Clete said. "If those flames reach the fuel tanks, we're fucked."

He pushed the nose over and watched the airspeed indicator climb to the red mark and then beyond.

He was hoping that the rush of air would extinguish the blazing engine. It didn't. The fuel lines were apparently ruptured and feeding the fire.

"There was a submarine down there," Tony said.

"There was supposed to be," Clete said.

"I mean one of theirs, alongside that fucker."

"Go back and brace your back against my seat," Clete ordered.

Clete brought the Beechcraft out of its dive. If the wings came off, there would be no chance for them at all. As opposed to one chance in, say, two million.

The flame from the engine now licked at the windshield, blackening it, distorting it, finally burning through in front of the copilot's seat.

"Shit!"

The altimeter showed three hundred feet.

He pushed the nose down, watched the water approach, and praying that he had judged the distance with some accuracy, pulled the nose up and waited for it to stall.