"Not a little," Canidy said.
He let that sink in, and waited for an angry response. He was surprised when none came.
"Right up there in importance with getting Fulmar and Dyer out," Canidy said, "is getting them out without calling anybody's attention to the fact that they are anything but what they were--thanks to your stupidity, we should keep that in mind--arrested for: black marketeers. Don't you think the Germans would be goddamned curious to learn why two people--who just happen to fit the descriptions of two men the whole goddamned SS is looking for--were busted out of an obscure Hungarian prison with more shooting and dead bodies strewn all over than in a Jimmy Cagney gangster movie?"
Ferniany's face colored with anger.
"I'm right on the edge of telling you to go fuck yourself, Canidy," Ferniany said.
"You really wouldn't want to do that, would you?" Canidy asked primly.
"Why wouldn't I?" Ferniany said.
"According to you, I don't do anything right." He paused, but then was carried along by his momentum: "Fuck you, Canidy. Stick this whole operation up your ass. I'd like to hear how you plan to get them out, you wiseass sonofabitch."
"Now you've gone and done it," Canidy said, even more primly.
"Done what?" Ferniany said, curiously, a smile forming on his face.
"Used naughty words in front of the enlisted men," Canidy said, gesturing to Alois and the men from the underground, who had been fascinated by the angry exchange, not a word of which they understood.
"Whatever will they think?"
Ferniany looked at the four Hungarians. Then, although he tried not to, the innocent curiosity on their faces made him laugh.
That seemed to reassure the Hungarians. The looks of puzzlement were replaced by broad smiles.
"I would be fascinated. Major Canidy, Sir," Ferniany said, "to learn precisely how the Major plans to carry out this mission."
XIV
lONE]
Near San Juan, Island of Mindanao Commonwealth of the Philippines
The commanding general of United States forces in the Philippines had climbed a tree. It wasn't a very tall tree, and he hadn't been able to climb very far up it, but it was on the highest point he could find on a bluff thirty feet above a narrow sandy beach, and he was sure that it was giving him the best possible view of the sea.
It was growing dark. In fifteen minutes, it would be completely dark. Moving through the jungle at any time was difficult, and when it was dark, damned near impossible.
He knew he had made a bad decision coming here at all. What he should have done was send Withers and one or two of his men down here to see what happened, not come himself.
But he had wanted so desperately to believe that something would happen.
So he had come himself, and brought an unnecessarily large force with him. He knew it was because he wanted witnesses that his hopes had come true. But what else was there for him to do?
He put the one and only pair of binoculars in the hands of U.S. forces in the Philippines to his eyes.
He would search the open sea one more time, until his eyes started to tear from fatigue, he decided, and then he would order the withdrawal of this force by night to the mountains, and on the way maybe he'd think of one more credible excuse why "the aid" hadn't come this night either, one more reason to hope that maybe tomorrow-There wasn't one miserable fucking thing on the surface of the water.
Somebody tugged on his shoe. He looked down in annoyance.
It was Master Sergeant Withers. He was pointing down at the beach, his hand shaking, and with tears running down his cheeks.
There was a submarine down there, in far closer to the beach than Fertig would have believed it
possible for a submarine to maneuver. Torrents of water still gushed from ports in its side, but there were people on the conning tower, and then the colors went up on a mast over the conning tower.
Fertig's eyes filled with tears.