Whip (3 page)

Whip shook his head. For this moment he had shifted from the rough jeep ride to the north, beyond Australia and across the Coral Sea to Papua and that triple-damned operations area of Port Moresby. Those mechanics…

"Lou, you know what's worse than all this?" Whip waved his hand to take in all the wretchedness and scrubland and rotten facilities. "Here, and at Seven-Mile, and wherever else we've been in this godawful country?"

"I think I do," the colonel said warily, "and when I think about it I get sick."

Whip couldn't hold back the words. There was just no goddamned escape from this crap.

"It's the men, Lou. What the hell keeps them going? Working for us, the pilots and crews, the way they do?" He spread his hands and looked at the palms as if seeing them for the first time. "I've had these guys working with open cuts and sores in their hands, for Christ's sake."

Goodman nodded. "Despite the fact that almost every man jack out here feels he's been written off."

Goodman motioned for the driver to turn back to the right, to take them through the B-17 dispersal area. The Fortresses were great ships but Russel was glad he didn't have to drag one of those big bastards and their four engines through the air. It was like trying to run a railroad when you flew a bomber that big. And when you sat in that left seat on the flight deck you didn't really have the chance to fly
and
fight, you could only fly, while a whole team did battle. It made you feel like a sitting duck. Not that these Fortresses were doing very much of fighting a war, either like a sitting duck or a busted swan. There wasn't a single bomber in commission, and —

"What?" Whip turned suddenly at the sound of Lou Goodman's voice. "Sorry, Lou, I was looking at — "

"I know. A mess."

"What were you saying?"

"That we almost had a riot on our hands here last month."

"Here?" Whip looked around at the great expanse of nothingness. "What the hell about?"

Goodman shook his head. "Not here. Some of the men wanted to go south to Brisbane and a few other cities and bomb the waterfront."

The incredulous look on Whip Russel's face spoke his questions without need for words.

"Oh, they've managed to keep it pretty quiet, and, well," Goodman hesitated, "when you've been fighting side by side with the Aussies, it seems almost impossible to believe, and — "

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Would you believe," Goodman sighed, "that the Australian dock workers refused to unload some ammo ships?"

"Refused?" Whip knew his echoing sounded stupid, but he couldn't figure what Goodman was trying to —

"There were some ships in Melbourne. Bombs, ammo, spares; the lot. We had trucks, even a few planes, waiting to rush the stuff up here. Then it started to rain. The stevedores walked off the job."

Whip stared at the other man. "I don't believe it."

"You'd better. I was there, trying to hustle the stuff back up here. I
saw
it, Whip." He motioned at his face. "With my own two beady eyes. They had a union contract that they didn't have to work in the rain and so they walked off the job."

"Just like that?"

"You called it."

"I hope what happened is what I think happened."

Goodman laughed. "I didn't even recognize myself. I was speechless when it happened.

I've heard of union rules but this was just so ridiculous it went beyond — "

"I wouldn't call it ridiculous. Or insane. There's another word for it. Treason."

"Just how I felt. Next thing I knew I had that damned forty-five in my hand and I was climbing onto the ship, and I went into the cab of that crane, you know, the one that unloads from the cargo holds?"

Whip nodded.

Goodman chuckled with the memory. "I never thought, not once, about what I was doing. But I went into the cab of that crane, or boom, or whatever the hell it is, and I stuck the barrel of the forty-five in the guy's ear, the operator in there, and I told him quietly, very quietly, I think, that if that crane wasn't working in two seconds flat I would smear his head all over the windows of his cab."

Whip paused. He had a thin smile on his face. "Would you have pulled the trigger, Lou?"

Goodman didn't return the smile. "You've seen how my men live. You bet your sweet ass I'd have pulled."

Whip's smile broadened. "I really think you would at that." He slapped Lou Goodman's shoulder, then changed the subject, pointing to a weird antenna jutting upward from several camouflaged vehicles. "What the hell is that?"

"Our pride and joy, Captain. That is a radar set. The finest in the world, I'm led to believe."

"Radar? You mean you can get warning of somebody in the air with that thing? Long before they're in sight?"

"So they tell me."

"So they
tell
you?"

"We have a problem. It doesn't work. There are no parts and there's no manual to run the thing and nobody has ever seen one before. But it's pretty, isn't it?"

Whip shook his head. "You got flak positions scattered pretty good around here. I knew the Japs had torn hell out of Darwin. You getting any company in here?"

"Not that much, really. We have people stationed up the coast and we've equipped some boats with radio gear. We use the old Chinese system of lookouts calling in by radio or land line. The Japs have sent in a couple of long-range flying boats to try to catch us napping. They can be pretty mean, especially if they ever get through without warning.

I've never seen anything like them. They're faster than you'd believe."

"You get any of them?"

Goodman shook his head. "No such luck. But we just happened to have a bunch of B-26s coming down from Moresby when two of those things made a pass at us and lit out for home. The 26s went after them with everything wide open. They chewed one to pieces and the other made it away in some clouds."

"You lead an interesting life, Lou."

The jeep pulled up before a primitive mishmash of weathered boards, tarpaper and canvas. Goodman climbed heavily from the front seat and nodded his head in the direction of the structure.

"Be it ever so humble, Captain, this is it."

4

Plywood sheets divided the interior of the makeshift headquarters into office cubicles.

Lou Goodman nodded to his staff as he led Whip to the rear of the building and went through the one interior door into what passed for his office. He closed the door behind them and waited several moments for Whip to look around. What he saw was an utter shambles. Or what passed for one, with plywood filing cabinets and a bulletin board that filled an entire wall with notes and work orders. Yet Whip knew that where Lou Goodman was concerned appearances were deceiving. He remembered other offices just as much of a mess as this one, but the man who sat behind the weathered desk knew where everything belonged. And that from the paper jungle there emerged a pattern of orders with meaning and purpose.

"It stinks, but it's home," the colonel said without apology.

Whip draped his body across a couch assembled from packing-crate boards. "All you're missing, old man, is that cold beer you promised."

Goodman grinned at him. He crossed the room to a curtain strung from a cable. "Whip, my lad, you know I never jest about serious matters. Behold my pride and joy." He pulled aside the curtain to reveal coiled tubing, copper tubs coated with dripping condensation and a small motor that thumped noisily, rattling the floor beneath. "The best of Rube Goldberg," Goodman admitted. "One of our mechanics was a refrigerator repairman. He rigged up a cold box for us. Once in a while, by persons unknown, whose names I am sworn forever never to reveal, I am brought certain luxuries of a life we may remember dimly from our past, and — "

"Lou, do you really have a cold beer inside that thing?"

"I have."

"Well, Jesus, man, I mean — "

Goodman opened a heavy door. Even from across the room Whip felt the unspeakably delicious draft of cold air. Goodman turned with a flourish, holding forth a beer can in each hand.

"You look like you're seeing a ghost."

"I
am
."

Goodman punched open the cans. Whip held the cold metal to his lips for a long moment. He took his first sip slowly, incredulous that the taste could be so alien, so marvelous to him. The cold liquid struck his throat with a feeling of pain. He swallowed several times, slowly, then released his breath in a long sigh. "I still don't believe this," he said at last.

It was the moment for a long pause, to open mental doors and bring the past into the room with them. No more colonel and captain, two old friends looked across the room at one another.

"It's been a long time, Whip."

The younger man finished a long swallow and gestured with the beer can. "Yeah. It's been that, all right. A long time and a lot of miles and maybe a couple of lifetimes."

Whip tilted his head slightly to one side in a gesture the colonel remembered from way back when. "When was it I last saw you?" Whip asked, and in bridging the past, he was suddenly softer, a bit warmer, Goodman reckoned, than any of his crews had ever seen him. Whatever he said, Lou Goodman knew how to judge men, and this was an old friend, and he was coming to realize just how stiff and Prussian this captain was — had to be — to keep his men alive.

Goodman chewed'the question. "It was that last big rally, wasn't it?" he ventured. "Three hundred mean and lean cats on motorcycles. The whole Hellfire Club, if I recall."

Laughter spilled easily from Whip. "They were all lean and mean except you, Lou. You were mean enough, but — "

"I know, I know," Lou chuckled. "You used to say half of me hung over the sides of the bike when I rode."

"You were something, that's for sure." Whip studied Goodman. "You know something, Lou? You're… different. I'm trying to figure it. What's different, I mean. I think, maybe, you
care
now about what's going on."

Goodman didn't answer for several moments. "Could be. You're not the same cat with a chain on the end of a billy club either."

"No, I guess not." Whip took another long pull from his beer can. "The flying is when it all began. The changing, I mean. For me, for you. Most of the guys."

"Uh huh."

They didn't need to verbalize that period of change. Whip Russel and a mob of toughs were the first real motorcycle gang in southern California. They were more hell-raisers than people on the make for trouble. But when you've got that many free-wheelers out in a bunch, clogging the roads and scaring motorists half to death, the fireworks were inevitable, and they had their private rumbles with other fast-growing clubs, and a lot of heads got bashed and bones broken, and
then
there was the law.

In southern California, in 1939 and 1940, the cops could be and often were mean. Very mean. The busted heads were shared on both sides. It could have been the last wrong road to follow except that Lou Goodman ran both a sprawling motorcycle shop in south Los Angeles and a private airport thirty miles beyond. Whip and his cohorts knew Goodman from the bike shop, and they trusted the big, fat man who was as quick to cover for them with the law as he was to chew them out personally. When they'd had a particularly bad time with another club, and Whip and three other riders had ended up killing one of their friendly enemies, they lit out for a place to hide. At four in the morning they rode into Goodman's airport, lights off, busted off the lock from a hangar and stashed their bikes inside.

Lou Goodman got to the field at eight. He'd heard about the confrontation. The killing gave the cops every advantage they needed to crack down, and no one was out to protect a gang of marauding bikers. Lou Goodman told Whip and his three friends that a whole convoy of police was scouring the local countryside and working their way right to where they were at that moment.

"No use cutting south or east," Goodman told Whip. "They've got roadblocks on every road that way, and there's no country you can break out from." He smiled without humor. "And you sure can't cut west. Those bikes don't float very well."

It was then, for the first and the last time in the years that he knew him, that Whip Russel laid it on the line. "We need your help, Lou."

Goodman studied the small, wiry kid with so wild an aura about him. He was different this moment. He still had that awesome energy within him, that indefinable charge of leadership, but he was idling his power, running his personality in a gentle cruise rather than throwing everything he had at Goodman in an effort to secure the big man's assistance. Goodman looked from Russel to the three toughs with him. They
were
mean bastards, but their blank faces told him only what he already knew. Whatever came by the boards with Whip was the way they'd go.

Goodman sighed. "I'll hate myself for this." He started for the hangar where the motorcycles had been hidden, then turned. The four bikers hadn't moved an inch.

Sudden fury assailed them from the fat man. "You asked for my help," Goodman snarled. "Now
trust
me, goddamnit."

Whip led off, the others following. In the hangar, working against time, Goodman and the four bikers heaped dust and sawdust from the floor onto the motorcycles. Rags and a canvas cover were tossed loosely onto the bikes and the floor surrounding. Without saying another word Goodman led the way to the rear of the hangar, motioning the foursome to climb through the entrance door of a silvery twin-engined Lockheed 10. Still angry at what he was doing, bewildered by his motivation, Goodman yanked the chocks and entered the airplane, stomping up the narrow aisleway to the cockpit. He hardly noticed Whip cautiously easing into the copilot's seat, he was so busy in his mixture of self-anger and starting up the Lockheed. The engines banged into life and with only a passing glance at the gauges Goodman taxied toward the active runway. He was turning into the wind for his run-up when he saw a dust cloud rapidly approaching the field.

"Shit." He said only that one word, fed power to the right engine and rolled onto the runway, violating the cardinal rule of checking out the engines and aircraft systems. No time. He knew, and so did the others the moment they saw the nearing cloud, that the police were rushing toward the field. It didn't matter any longer. No one had seen Whip and his toughs come onto the airport. If the motorcycles were found, they had already cooled and their metal would be cold to the touch. Even if the cops saw through the dust and rags tossed about.