In Danger's Path (29 page)

“We need him here, and now,” Banning said, “which means we're going to have to find him. I'll go see General Rickabee and see what he can do.”

McCoy nodded.

“I need a big favor from you, Ken,” Banning said.

“Yes, sir.”

“When you brief the team tomorrow morning, and you will, I want you to leave Milla and the possibility that she might be with Zimmerman's wife out.”

“Okay. But why?”

“Because if either the DDO or General Pickering hears that my wife is involved in this, they'll take me off this operation. It would be too much of an emotional involvement for me to function rationally. You understand?”

“If I can get to Zimmerman first,” McCoy said. “I'll tell him to leave Milla out.”

“I'll do my damnedest to arrange that,” Banning said.

“Ed, don't get your hopes up,” McCoy said.

That's the first time since I first laid eyes on him that he's ever called me by my first name
, Banning thought.

“I won't. I understand the odds.”

McCoy nodded.

But what if he's wrong? What if the long shot comes in? What if Milla is alive? What do I tell Carolyn?

“I'm going over to T-2032,” Banning said. “We really need Zimmerman. Can you handle the cleaning by yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then go home and ask Ernie to do something for that sunburn. We can't afford to have you in the hospital.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

[ONE]
USMC Transient Barracks
U.S. Naval Station
San Diego, California
0720 4 March 1943

Staff Sergeant Karl Krantz had been a clerk for the Delaware & Lackawanna Railroad before a surge of patriotism sent him to the Marine Recruiting Office on December 9, 1941. After graduating from Parris Island, he had been a clerk in the Marine Corps.

That hadn't kept him from being wounded on Guadalcanal; but it had kept him from carrying a rifle on the line. Having seen what happened on the line to people who carried rifles, he was now profoundly grateful for that.

He had been wounded by bomb shrapnel during a Japanese raid on Henderson Field. A half-inch chunk of jagged shrapnel had struck him in the left buttock—which was not nearly as funny as it sounds. In due course, Corporal Krantz was sent to the Navy Hospital at Pearl Harbor. And on discharge from the hospital, he had been declared “limited duty.” He could walk, but not very far, and it hurt when he did.

After three months as a clerk at Pearl Harbor—long enough to make sergeant—they sent him home, thus allowing some fully fit sergeant clerk to be sent to the war zone. Back in the States, he had been assigned to San Diego, doing much the same thing he had done for the Delaware & Lackawanna—except here it was people getting on and off ships and airplanes, as well as trains.

He thought of himself as sort of an expediter. He was good at it and took his responsibilities seriously, and this had gotten him another stripe.

Which explained his presence at the office at 0720 on a Sunday morning. The man with the duty—Corporal Vito Martino, who had also been in the wrong place at the wrong time on the 'Canal, and who now had a wired-together jaw that gave him a perpetual leer—did not, in Staff Sergeant Krantz's opinion, have either the dedication or the brains to be relied upon. Sergeant Krantz was not surprised to find Corporal Martino sound asleep on a cot behind the
ENLISTED TRANSIENTS REPORT HERE
counter. That in itself did not bother him—there was nothing wrong with crapping out if nothing was coming in or going out. What bothered him was that Martino had slept through breakfast. He would, in other words, really rather crap out than eat.

Sergeant Krantz woke Corporal Martino up by kicking the legs of the cot. Corporal Martino opened his eyes, then pushed himself up on the cot, supporting himself with his elbows.

“Hey, Sarge, what's up?”

“That was what I intended to ask you. Anything happen?”

“The 2100 Coronado from Pearl was damned near two hours late. They was getting real worried. But it got here, and I was up to damned near midnight working it.”

“Any problems?”

“No. Usual thing. Some brass, some guys who got hit. Customs caught two guys trying to smuggle in Nambu pistols. The usual shit,” Corporal Martino said, and then remembered something. “There was a gunny on it, mean-looking fucker, with some really strange orders.”

“What do you mean, ‘really strange orders'?”

“They're over there, in the Incoming Enlisted box,” Corporal Martino said, pointing.

Staff Sergeant Krantz went to the counter and found the orders Martino considered damned strange.

Staff Sergeant Krantz had seen the orders before. Five days earlier Staff Sergeant Koffler and his wife had passed through San Diego. Koffler looked as if he had left boot camp about that long ago, and his wife was an Aussie girl who looked as if she was going to be a mother in the
next
five days.

And now the gunny on the same orders had apparently shown up.

“You should have called me, Martino,” Sergeant Krantz said.

“It was midnight, Sergeant,” Martino said. “I figured you'd be in the sack.”

“Anytime you get something out of the ordinary like this, you call me. Understand?”

“You got it, Sarge.”

“You got him into the hospital okay?” Krantz asked.

“Hospital? No. He said he was going into 'Diego and see if he could find a poker game.”

“What?”

“I told him to check back at 0900 Monday, by then his tickets would probably be ready, and he could draw a partial pay, and I asked him if he wanted a ride to the Staff NCO quarters. And he said no, he was going to catch the bus, go into 'Diego, and see if he could find a poker game.”

“Jesus Christ, I don't believe you,” Krantz said. “Didn't you read the goddamned orders? This guy is either an escaped POW—which seems likely, since he doesn't have his service records—or he was doing something behind the enemy's lines.”

“So?”

Krantz walked to the wall of the office, took down a clipboard, and threw it to Corporal Martino. “You are supposed to read the goddamned thing every day. If you ever did, you would know people like that get special treatment. First, they go to the hospital, then they go to some rest hotel in West Virginia.
Jesus
, Martino!”

Staff Sergeant Krantz picked up the telephone and dialed a number from memory. “Sir, sorry to bother you at this hour, and on Sunday, but we have a little problem down here. I think you had better come down here, sir.”

Captain Roger Marshutz, an enormous man with a temper to match, arrived at the office ten minutes later. After hearing what had happened, he delivered a verbal chastisement to Corporal Martino that Martino would remember for a long time.

Then he set about solving the problem. He personally visited both the officer of the guard and the Shore Patrol Detachment duty officer and explained the predicament. Both officers were sympathetic and promised to do their very best to locate gunny Sergeant Zimmerman. He was not, of course, to be arrested. You don't arrest somebody who just got out of a POW camp, or wherever the hell he had been, and throw him in the back of a jeep. Whoever found him was to politely inform Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman that a little problem had come up, and would he please come with them and help them to straighten it out?

Captain Marshutz waited around the office until 1330, in the vain hope that Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman would be located and delivered to him. Then he went to his quarters, with orders to summon him immediately when anything came up.

Staff Sergeant Krantz waited around the office until 1630, in the same vain hope. Then he went to his quarters. Before he left, he informed Corporal Martino that he didn't give a good goddamn that he had previously promised Corporal Martino the day off, he would stay there for fucking ever, if necessary, until Gunnery Zimmerman was located.

Both Captain Marshutz and Staff Sergeant Krantz were back at the office at 0730 Monday morning. With a little bit of luck, they told themselves, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, in compliance with that idiot Martino's instructions, just might show up at 0900 to pick up his tickets and partial pay.

Oh nine hundred came and passed. And so did 0930 and 1000. At 1025, just as Captain Marshutz was about to pick up the telephone and inform Lieutenant Colonel Oswald that they were having a little problem, and he thought he had better discuss it personally with the Colonel, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman walked into the office, looked at Staff Sergeant Krantz, burped, and announced he had been told that by now he could pick up his tickets and draw a partial pay.

“Your name is Zimmerman, Gunny?” Captain Marshutz asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you mind telling me where you've been?”

“No, sir.”

“You don't want to tell me?”

“Sir, the Captain asked if I would mind telling him.”

“So tell me.”

“Sir, I went downtown for a while, sir, and then I tried to get a hotel, but they wanted two dollars and fifty cents, so I told myself fuck that, sir, and come back out here and got a bunk in the transient Staff NCO quarters.”

“You've been in the Staff NCO quarters all this time?”

“Yes, sir. I told that fucking feather merchant in charge of quarters to wake me up so's I could be here at 0900, and the fucker didn't do it. If the Captain is pissed because I'm late, I respectfully ask the Captain to get that little shit in here and ask
him
didn't I tell him to wake me up so's I could be here on time.”

“I'll take your word for it, Gunny,” Captain Marshutz said. “But there is a little problem.”

“Yes, sir?”

“There's a special program for men like yourself, recently escaped POW's…”

“Begging the Captain's pardon, sir. I was never no POW.”

“But you were behind the enemy's lines?”

“Yes, sir. Twice. First, on the 'Canal, with the Second Raiders, and the last time we was on Mindanao.”

“In the Philippines?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you escaped from the Philippines?”

“Begging the Captain's pardon, sir. Not escaped. They sent us in on a submarine, and then they sent the submarine back and it brung us out. What was the name of that fucking pigboat? The
Sunfish
. That's what it was, the
Sunfish
.”

“Well, welcome home, Gunny.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“As I was saying before, Gunny, there's a special program for men like yourself….”

“Yes, sir.”

“First, we run you through the hospital, to make sure you're shipshape, physically, and then you go to a hotel in West Virginia—all expenses paid, of course—for a month.”

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir'?”

“Sir, begging the Captain's pardon, the General told me the first thing I do is go to Washington and check in with Major Banning.”

“Well, perhaps ‘the General' wasn't aware of this program, Gunny. It's relatively recent.”

“With all respect, sir, ‘An order received will be obeyed unless countermanded by an officer of senior grade.' The General told me to go to Washington and check in with Major Banning. Them's my orders, sir. With all respect, sir.”

Christ, he memorized that
.