Copyright © 2005 by John T. Cullen. All Rights Reserved.

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Intersect: Danger

a novel

by John T. Cullen

39.

July 15, 1945

Corie and her co-pilot, an older WAF, took turns at the controls. In the back were a half dozen Army nurses in their off-green uniforms, playing cards and laughing and smoking. The weather was uneventful through the whole trip. The giant B-29 droned high up in the sky over miles and miles of Pacific Ocean that looked like rippled dark green-blue glass.

Locked in a special compartment way in the back was the bullet that would be shot into the world’s first atomic bomb used in wartime. Corie knew she should feel relaxed, but she felt an odd sense of foreboding through the entire flight. Only Corie had clearance to know about the secret cargo. She went aft three or four times to sit with the bomb, which had been specially reassembled at Malmstrom Army Air Field in Great Falls. She’d flown back to Oakland a B-24 Liberator flown by a couple of joking civilian Lend-Lease pilots, with the bomb—or, as was rather loftily and vaguely explained to her by some Army Air Corps colonel with a doctorate in physics, it was a spare trigger for such a bomb—and Tim safely stashed on board,. At Oakland, she’d kissed Tim goodbye—a lingering, melancholy kiss, full of longing for them to be back together, and troubled by the ringing and ringing and ringing of the telephone at the Hotel Auger. Why wasn’t Meg answering? Was she sick? Was it another horrid session with the Bulgarians? God, how she longed for it all to be over. Then, as she sat alone piloting the plane over the vast ocean, she’d looked up at the stars and had that strange premonition that she’d never see Meg again. That tore through her heart like a knife. And Tim? What of him?

Next morning, she awakened groggily on a cot in back. The other WAF had been flying the box for several hours and wanted to make sure Corie could co-pilot in case something went wrong.

The descent and touchdown were flawless.

Several scientists and colonels in jeeps met the plane. A deuce and a half truck lumbered up, its canvas cover half off, its wooden ribs exposed and shaking. Several privates under the direction of a corporal and a major lifted the device off the plane and into the truck waiting below. Then they closed the canvas and off they all went, leaving Corie to her thoughts.

It was lonely without Tim and Meg. She tried having a drink at the base club, but only caused a fight between two groups of sailors. She sneaked out the back door as the MPs and the Shore Patrol showed up waving their white billyclubs. She heard one more chair fly through the air and shatter glass as she stuck her thumb out on the busy main drag and hitched a ride to the WAF V/BOQ.

Mutsev/Jaguar/Malone came by and spoke with her. “You should get back to San Francisco. That’s where Tim is headed on the Indianapolis after they pick up more wounded at Leyte.”

“Is that where he went?”

He nodded, looking at her in grave manner with his forehead lowered and his eyes boring into her soul.

Next morning, a low pressure cell pulled in fronts of rain squalls.

Orders arrived for her to fly a B-29 back to Frisco, but she demurred, saying she wasn’t up to it. She had that privilege once in a mind. If she had trouble on her mind, its name was Tim.

The travel office informed her: “Yes, the Indianapolis sailed out of here three days ago headed for Guam. She should be long on her way to Leyte.”

Corie shook her head. Something was wrong here. “Has there been any message or anything?”

“No,” the young Navy yeoman said, hustling back and forth in his white crackerjack uniform. “They are all under strict radio silence.” He made a face and looked left and right. By instinct, she stuck her head close to listen, just as he stuck his head close to whisper: “There is a rumor there was a distress call, but it was just a single short message, and Headquarters thinks it’s a Japanese hoax to draw innocent rescue ships in and then torpedo them.”

Corie stood on tiptoes. “Didn’t they send up at least one plane to check and make sure they’re okay?”

The clerk sadly shook his head. “Can’t spare a single aircraft.”

Corie hitched a ride back to her room from a fat sailor in a jeep. She dug her orders out of the trashcan and walked and ran down the runway to the travel section. She stood in line, twiddling her hair nervously, and when it was her turn, she shoved the orders across. “These came when I was still in the air. I missed this flight. Can you set me up with a new one?”

The clerk, a female lieutenant with freckles, checked her notebooks and a clipboard. “Hmm...Ma’am, there is not another B-29 ready to go. I do have a B-24 Liberator that’s got to go to Leyte.”

“Perfect! I’ll take it.”

“Oops. I don’t have a co-pilot lined up. You’ll have to wait a day or two for a flight plan.”

“Can’t.”

“But Ma’am, regulations...”

“Gotta go, honey. Just clock me in and I’ll sign any paperwork I need to. I’ll bring my own co-pilot and navigator, don’t worry.”

She left the young officer looking perplexed as she rushed to the airstrip. There, she checked in copies of her orders, signed in, and then got suited up for her flight.

Corie hotwired a jeep and drove it, no lights, top down, through stinging drizzle out onto the tarmac, far from the tower. Corie climbed from the jeep without bothering to shut it off.

A B-24 sat on the flight pad. It had apparently been newly refurbished, checked out, and fueled up. Mechanics were still oiling one of its four powerful engines. She was an aesthetically lovely craft, with big strong wings and a twin tail like two coins standing on edge. She handled well and had a lot of range.

Corie climbed on board, wearing her overalls and a heavy parachute. She started up the engines and checked out the systems one by one. A mechanic came on board and said: “Ma’am, where is your flight crew?”

“They’ll be here any minute. I’m just warming her up.”

“Let me know if I can help,” he said, looking cocky.

“I’ll be fine,” she said offering that sunny little wink that made guys like him wilt or want to conquer worlds for her. “You can finish checking out the wing fuel pods and the RADAR scoop. But first, would you take that jeep I came in, and drive to the tower to pick up my flight crew. They’ll have the papers. You can drive the jeep to the motor pool and you’re free to go.”

“Will do, Ma’am. Thank you!” he said, clambering happily down the ladder. That would keep him busy long enough, Corie thought as she busied herself in the cockpit. To rescue Tim, she must have a good, operative airplane. Satisfied, she slammed the cockpit door shut and put on her earphones. She strapped herself in and put her feet on the floor pedals. She’d flown at least 25 missions in this type, and she knew the plane well. It took her five or ten minutes of walking her fingertips around to get rid of the feel of B-29 and whatever else she’d flown lately and get the Liberator feeling back in her soul. Humming to herself, she released the brakes. The plane began to taxi. She radioed the tower and told them she and her flight crew were ready for takeoff.

“Negative, Liberator. We do not have a flight plan on deck.”

“You have it right there in front of you.”

“Liberator, negative.”

“Take another look. It’s right there where I put it not 30 minutes ago.”

There was a brief silence. During that time, she revved the four engines so that they laid down a deafening carpet of noise on the otherwise quiet and empty night strip.

“Liberator, stand down.”

Corie took off her headgear and dropped it by her side. Gripping the wheel with both hands, working the foot pedals, she took that big stallion between her legs and started down the runway—like no nonsense, get out of my way. In five minutes, she was doing a hundred knots and the plane’s nose was tilting up ready to start gulping clouds.

She caught a brief glimpse of twirling red lights pouring out of a hangar and following her down the runway but she reached up and adjusted her ailerons. It was a little bit tricky working foot pedals, side sticks, and overhead levers, but she’d brought in planes on one engine, planes on one wheel, planes with half a wing missing, and this was nothing. She grinned broadly as that big bird drew in laminar airflow over its skin like a woman wanting to be caressed. Steadily, she thundered up, higher and higher, into the night sky and then leveled off at 30,000 feet in the direction of Leyte. That would be a long haul, but she was well rested, and she’d take her lumps when she landed. They might ground her, but they needed all the pilots like her that they could find. Besides, after the war they’d want to send her back to a sewing machine in Long Island, and she already knew that would be impossible for her. Not after helping to win World War II.

She flew into a high, solid gray front. It looked like a wall of gray smoke, reaching out to embrace her, to welcome her into its dour embrace.

Already, lightning flashed.

She had her radio on, skimming the airwaves for any sound of U.S.S. Indianapolis. Nothing. Not a peep. She caught Tokyo Rose, AFN Pearl Harbor, a short-wave sender from Seattle—but no Indianapolis. She’d have to drop down and look visually. Rain started peppering the glass windows. The Liberator had a high, generous cockpit with plenty of overhead visibility. She could put it on autopilot too and go down to peer through the machinegun blisters in the nose, tail, top, and under the fuselage.

Wind started buffeting the plane, and water rocketed around her. Corie strapped herself in and flew lower. The lower she went, the thicker and rougher the air got. Rain rocketed against the windows. The fuselage made loud banging and pinging noises as its skin changed shape cooling off on its metal skeleton.

Once or twice, the whistling on the radios seemed to be interrupted by static, and amid the static she could hear voices talking. Sometimes it was Japanese, sometimes English, sometimes Dutch, sometimes Venusian or something. Yiddish? Armenian? Hard to say.

Her dials jumped in unison each time she hit a little bump in the air and the plane rattled as if it had flown through someone’s window. Same crash like broken glass, but it was just the equipment, the radio tubes, the glasses in the aft galley. Once she heard a crack, and knew a mirror had broken in the mid-fuselage head. Not worth getting up to check into.

By her reckoning, she was now in the area where Indianapolis should be if the ship were still steaming full flank to avoid Jap subs.

That feeling of dread gripped her gut again. That, and the baby she was carrying. It was Tim’s, no doubt about it. She’d been a good girl and slept with Meg very quietly, comforting her, when Tim was gone. Now she was carrying Tim’s baby and she had to find him and get him to understand he must come back.

The storm kept smashing against the fuselage, and the wings whipped up and down as if she were a bird trying to flap, but this bird was built to endure, and she kept on gloriously flying through the night.

By dawn, the storm’s fury had lessened. The lightning had stopped. Gray dawn light poured down into the cockpit, where Corie sat singing to herself. “Rock-a-bye baby, in your crib...”

She looked out at the citron sun ball trying to poke through bad cigar clouds and sang: “Tim, darling, talk to me baby, talk to me honey, give me a sign...” There—in the water, she spotted a box. The box, with one corner sticking up, rocked strongly up and down in the waves. She circled around several times, but could not make out any symbols. Dammit, too bad this wasn’t a clipper or she’d set it down and clamber down to look.

The awful truth began to dawn on her as she saw more bits of wreckage. A big ship had gone down here. A black slick, yellow with sunshine, spread its evil and frightful fingers on the sea below. It was full of lumpy things.

She soared down for a look, skimming as low as she dared. Not a soul waved to her. Nothing, nobody alive in all that fuel and diesel oil.

She bit her lip, and a tear rolled down. “Tim, your baby and I are here. Where are you?” She picked up her headset and twiddled with the dials, but the radio was out. Silence or not, it didn’t matter any more.

She circled for hours, navigating by the sun and her chronometer. Rain squalls came and went, peppering her windows like tears. One thing was sure now. Indianapolis wasn’t going to make Leyte, not today, not this week, not in this lifetime. And that was all she had, this lifetime.

She thought she might have gotten her short-wave working, and tried tapping out a Morse code message, but no reply came. She kept tapping out S.O.S., S.O.S., S.O.S., and the coordinates, until one by one the engines fell silent, and in one last lunge the plane made some clunking noises as the wings cooled, and down she went, in a cartwheel, sending up emerald sheets of spray full of lace stitchings like a sewing machine, and that was that. How cold it was here, like this. Water poured in like a huge jade waterfall. Japanese wind chimes tinkled—dark, and sinking fast. Tim, it’s your baby and me...looking for you, honey...