Chapter 4

Vella La Cava

VMF 214 HQ

Here comes Colonel Lard – there goes Kate

"Colonel! Good to see you!" Greg forced the greeting as Colonel Lard marched into the Sheep Pen.

"No, it isn't and you know it," Lard said. He had the pinched look of a man who didn't feel well but wasn't going to admit it.

Greg ignored the man's bluster. "What brings you to our little corner of the war?" He knew without a doubt Lard was there to grill him on two subjects: K.C. Cameron and what the boys had started calling Operation Ghost Recon. It was a stupid name but damned if it didn't fit.

He was prepared with answers for Lard on the former topic. They were all lies but sometimes you'll have that. He had nothing on the latter. Nothing, anyway, the top brass would want to hear. Kate's belief that her dream prophesied the survival of at least some members of the 237 was a catch-22: she was adamant they were alive but couldn't tell him where.

"Have a seat, Colonel. Can I get you a drink?" Greg leaned over the bar and snagged a bottle of Scotch.

"This isn't a social call, Boyington."

"Well, sir, as much as I hate to drink alone, it's been a long month this week so I hope you don't mind." Greg opened the bottle and tipped a healthy two fingers into a tumbler. He pulled up a chair and sat opposite the colonel, who was studying the scantily clad pin-ups tacked to the walls with horrified fascination. "What's on your mind?"

Lard pulled his eyes back from Betty Grable's curves. "K.C. Cameron, that's who's on my mind. I need to speak with him."

"Cameron? I'm afraid he's not here, sir. If you'd called first—

"If I'd called first, you wouldn't be here either. I need to talk to that man. His coverage of this band of flying misfits is nothing less than—" the colonel waved a hand, at a loss for words to apply to the misfits.

"Incredible? Yes, sir, I agree." Greg sipped his whisky and enjoyed the sight of Colonel Lard turning an alarming color of puce. "You couldn't have found a better reporter to embed with the Black Sheep."

Lard glared.

"Are you sure you don't want a drink, sir?"

"What I want is for this Cameron fellow to stop making the 214 sound like the hottest thing in the Southwest Pacific."

"We are the hottest thing in the Southwest Pacific," Greg said levelly. "Our kill ratio is unparalleled. Our mission success is in the top percentile. We bring home more pilots and planes than any other unit in this part of the theatre."

"Then why the hell haven't you found out what's going on at those coordinates Moore gave you last week?" Lard glanced around the interior of the Sheep Pen as if he suspected Japanese spies of hiding in the walls.

"Because there's nothing to find." Greg hoped Lard didn't pick up on his forced confidence. It wasn't just Kate's insistence there were survivors out there. Deep in his gut, he felt it, too, and he'd learned a long time ago to follow those gut instincts. But why couldn't they find anything? It was like chasing mist that burned away in the sunshine. There, then not there. He woke up at night hearing the three dash-three dot-three dash distress signal echoing in his skull and knew the boys did, too. If they didn't find some kind of resolution soon, they'd all go mad.

"Then how do you explain the recurring SOS?" Lard demanded. "I know you've heard it. It's in all your reports, for what they're worth."

"Ghosts, sir." The only thing that allowed Greg to say it with a straight face was the fact he had absolutely no other answer.

"Ghosts!" Lard spat. "You expect me to believe that?"

"You can believe whatever you like," Greg said, his eyes unwavering and his mouth a tight line. "I've flown over every inch of that atoll and There. Is. Nothing. There. We'll sweep it one more time tomorrow and you'll have my final report on your desk by 1200 hours. Then we're done. You asked me to investigate and I did. I'm tired of setting my boys up for an ambush trying to find things that don't exist. I don't care if Halsey likes it or not."

Lard recognized defeat when he saw it. "Fine. I'll run your final report up through channels and someone else can deal with it. But where is Cameron? Every time I come over here, the man is off on a junket to some other base. Damn it, he's supposed to be stationed here."

"You know what the press is like, sir." Greg shrugged. "Cameron does as he pleases. But I didn't think you liked his style of coverage."

"I don't!" Lard looked petulant. "But everyone else does. They're crazy about him in the States. I'm to the point I don't care what he writes about this meatball circus. I just want to meet the man because the only way he could have gotten along with you for this long is if he was just like you and that would mean there are two of you and I can't . . ." Lard realized he was babbling and stopped.

"I wouldn't recommend it, sir," Greg said. "Meeting him, I mean."

"Why not?"

"He, uh, drinks a bit," Greg said gravely and checked his watch. "In fact, he's sloshed by now most days. Can't hold his liquor and when he's drunk, he tells off-color stories. And sings. Badly."

"I can see this trip was a waste of my time." Lard pushed his chair back. "Next time, I'll have Cameron report to me on Espritos."

"I hope you're feeling better soon, sir."

"Who said I wasn't feeling well?" Lard snapped and stomped out of the Sheep Pen, yelling for his driver.

XXX

Kate parked the jeep under a clump of trees behind the hospital wing that housed the nurses' quarters, collected her shower bucket and using the key Lieutenant Dee Ryan had provided, let herself into the dim, quiet interior.

"Hey! I wasn't expecting to see you today," a voice said behind her.

Kate jumped, then collapsed against the wall as Dee materialized out of the shadows. "I'm avoiding Colonel Lard, who just showed up unannounced. Greg will cover for me but I wouldn't put it past Lard to search the base anyway. This is the only place that's safe. What are you doing? I thought you were on shift this evening."

"Pulled a double last night so Delmonte, in a fit of uncharacteristic generosity and kindness, gave me the day off." Dee paused. "I thought Colonel Lard was in the hospital on Espritos with an ulcer attack, thanks to K.C. Cameron's spectacular writing."

"I guess he's feeling good enough to come for a visit. I've got a feeling he wants to talk to K.C. Cameron about that spectacular writing." Kate shrugged. "I can't help it if the boys come off looking good. They are good." She grinned. "As long as you don't look too closely at their after-hours activities. That's what they're best at."

"Did you send Lard a get-well card?" Dee asked.

"I did not."

"Very thoughtless of you, after he all the work he did to get you posted with the 214," Dee teased.

"Aren't you funny. I'm pretty sure that's not working out like he planned."

"Hey," Dee sobered for a minute. "Casey says the boys have been flying top secret missions all week but he won't tell me anything else. Can you—"

"No." Kate grimaced. "I'm sorry, Dee, I really can't. Moore read me in at the beginning but it was on the condition I wouldn't say or write anything until it's over. All I can tell you is it hasn't been a smashing success. It was a weird assignment at the start and it's only gotten weirder. Everyone's on edge and Greg's ready to be done with it, but Lard will throw a rod if there aren't any definite findings to report to Halsey."

The two girls made their way down the hall to Dee's suite. Unlike the nurses who served at the Navy hospital in six-week rotations, Dee had permanent private quarters. The bedroom and adjoining bath were small but convenient when it came to entertaining her steady beau, Casey, and—more importantly to Kate's way of thinking—providing a private shower that came with genuine hot water and without the accompaniment of Black Sheep.

"What was going on that you worked a double yesterday?" Kate called through the open bathroom door as she pulled off her clothes and stepped into the bliss of the shower. "There aren't any big campaigns going on right now."

"We had some infantry boys come in off a hospital ship," Dee called back. "They'd been chasing saboteurs somewhere on the Marshall Islands."

Kate lathered from head to toe and reveled in the pressurized water blasting soap from her skin. After the 214's gravity-fed, passive solar-heated showers, actual hot water from a tap was divine.

"Wait, did you say the Marshalls? We just took some ground there from the Japanese, didn't we?"

"Yep," Dee said proudly. "The Japanese figured if they couldn't have it, no one else could, either. The dropped a commando unit to plant explosives and destroy infrastructure."

Kate turned off the water with a sigh of regret and grabbed her towel.

"Our boys went after them like terriers after rats," Dee continued. "Literally. The enemy was right under their feet, in tunnels, until one them caved in from all the rain we've had and—"

"Did you say they were in tunnels?" Kate interrupted. She dressed with the efficiency born of showering on the base, and pulled a comb through her wet hair.

"Yeah. There was a whole network of them under a couple of the bases the Allies—

"Tunnels." Kate stopped, a sock dangling from her hand. The dream flashed again through her mind, her limp body caught in a powerful current, hands pulling her onto the sand and water foaming around her thighs as she struggled to escape the beach head. She stared at her friend. "And high tide or a storm surge that was strong enough to push everything inland. Either that or rip currents that pulled it all back out. That's why there wasn't any debris on the beach."

Dee blinked. "What are you talking about? How much have you had to drink today?"

Kate grasped Dee by the shoulders and pulled her into a quick jig around the room. "That's it! Thank you! I'm fine. Never better. Really." She yanked on the sock, jammed her feet into her boots, grabbed her gear and bolted.

"What—?" Dee started but her friend was already gone.

XXX

Kate gunned the jeep back toward the base. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the L5 lifting off the La Cava runway and wondered what excuse Greg had given Lard to cover K.C. Cameron's absence from the base—again. As a war correspondent, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that K.C. would travel to other parts of the theatre to pursue a story but his—her—major assignment was on La Cava, covering the Black Sheep. Another bullet dodged, she thought, but she had more on her mind than Lard's ridiculous pursuit of meeting her face to face. A single correspondent wasn't that big of an issue in the grand scheme of things. Didn't the man have a war to run? She downshifted and brought the jeep to a sliding stop in front of ops.

"Hey, Casey, do we have tide charts from two weeks ago?" She burst through the door into the room where the tow-headed pilot was on comms duty. He looked up from the magazine he was reading, eyes wide in surprise at her abrupt entrance.

"Why?"

Kate rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Why does everyone around here answer a question with a question? Do we have them or don't we?"

"Um, yeah. They're in here somewhere. I think."

When he didn't move, Kate stamped a foot in impatience. "Could you find them for me? Now?"

Casey set the front legs of his chair down with a thump. He kept a wary eye on her as he moved to the end of the room where a profusion of rolled up maps and charts bristled like porcupine quills from shelves. "You got a specific date in mind?"

"Oct. 17, the day the 237 disappeared. It's been two weeks, you haven't thrown it out, have you?"

"Does it look like we ever throw anything out?" Casey said as he continued searching. He pulled out, then re-placed a number of charts before saying, "Here." He turned and handed her a large, rolled sheet of paper, tied with string.

"Help me flatten it." Kate untied the string and they unrolled the chart on the table, pinning the corners with their hands.

"What do you need—?" Casey started, then seeing the steely focus in her eyes, shut his mouth.

"Good lord, how do you read this thing?" Kate muttered, tracing a finger along lines and columns indicating the nautical time, latitude and longitude, water temperature and entirely more math than she'd anticipated.

Casey studied it briefly, then tapped a finger on one column. "Here. This is Oct. 17. The high tide was at 0900. See this number—ten feet? That shows the estimated height above sea line."

"I grew up in North Dakota. This is gibberish," Kate said. "We had tornadoes, not tides."

"Can I ask why the sudden interest in tides?"

Kate held up a hand. Casey decided discretion was the better part of valor and didn't pursue the question. Kate stared at the chart a few more minutes, biting her lip in concentration, then jabbed a finger victoriously on the column indicating Oct. 17.

"So these numbers are based on data that's been collected and averaged over the years?"

"I think so," Casey said. "It's for this quadrant of the theatre overall, not a specific island. But I grew up in Oklahoma. I don't know much more about this than you do."

"So these are predictions, like a forecast, not the actual recordings from that day?" Kate continued. When he nodded, she went on, muttering more to herself than to Casey. "The times would be accurate but the measurements wouldn't take into account the actual weather on that date. There was a full moon that night so the tides would be higher than normal and if there was a major storm, the numbers would change even more. The weather would impact the currents as well as the tidal surge."

"Um . . . Katie . . . what's this all about?" Casey ventured.

"Thanks! I owe you one!" She released her end of the chart, which rolled up so fast it slapped Casey's knuckles. She gave him an impetuous kiss on the cheek and raced out, leaving the 214's de facto company clerk staring in bewilderment. If he lived to be 100, he would never understand women. Never.

A minute later, Kate burst into Greg's tent, breathless and exultant.

"Welcome back, Cameron. Lard sends his regards." Greg looked up from the pile of requisitions littering his desk. Jim tipped back in an adjoining chair and Meatball sprawled on Greg's cot.

"Tunnels!" she said, breathless. "They're hiding in tunnels!"

Greg put his pencil down. "What are you talking about?"

"McBride's squadron. They made it to that atoll west of Rendova and they're hiding in tunnels. That big storm that knocked them down is why you can't find any surface evidence. The storm surge either shoved it up under the tree canopy or pulled it all back out to sea. The men go underground when they hear aircraft. That close to enemy territory they aren't taking any chances on being seen just in case it's not Allied planes. You said yourself, the Japanese would send patrols to intercept any future rescuers. It's just a fluke you haven't run into any of them."

"Those islands were never occupied, darlin'," Jim said. "The Japanese wouldn't have dug tunnels there."

"All right then, caves!" Kate shot back. "They're made of volcanic rock, there are bound to be plenty of caves."

"Slow down," Greg said. "Where'd you come up with this?"

"I was at the hospital, visiting Dee and avoiding Lard," Kate said, pacing. "Dee told me about caring for an infantry company who'd just come in off a hospital ship. They'd been rounding up enemy saboteurs in tunnels under bases in the Marshalls. That got me thinking about men hiding in tunnels."

"Go on." Greg crossed his arms. Jim's scowl lessened marginally. Even Meatball looked interested.

"I checked with Casey. There was a full moon the night of the storm, so that means the tides were higher than usual. The 237 flew that mission at 0600, right? The storm front moved in earlier than predicted, it caught them before they could get clear. What if they pushed for Rendova, then got blown off course and knew they weren't going to make it. High tide was at 0900. If they bailed, the tide and ocean currents would have carried them to those islands." She stopped short of adding whether they were alive or not, then went on. "That was one hell of a storm system across the Solomons. It lifted part of the roof off the Sheep Pen and we nearly lost the mess tent. And it was worse south of here. Any debris that washed up on the beaches would have been well above the water line and pushed higher by the storm surge. McBride's pilots could scavenged whatever they could from the wreckage and shoved the rest back in the water for the current to pull back out. Lord knows Corsairs don't float. If they could have saved a radio . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"That's a lot of ifs," Greg said slowly. "Sixteen birds and sixteen men. What are the odds the entire squadron jumped clear and made it to land?"

Not likely. But Kate had spent enough time with the Black Sheep to know they'd lay odds on anything.

"How low are you going on your sweeps?" she asked, looking from Greg to Jim.

"Two angels, give or take," Jim said. "We take a real dim view of being shot at."

"Has anyone shot at you?"

"No. But—"

Kate held up a hand for him to be quiet.

"Bossy woman," he said, but held his tongue.

"They're underground, in caves or whatever. They're not taking chances any motion could be spotted from above. Even if they had a spotter hiding outside who ID'd you as friendlies, they didn't want to take a chance on giving up their exact location in case it turned out some crazy Japanese outfit had stolen a bunch of Corsairs. Don't you see—the blind SOS is the only way they can call for help and still have a prayer of being alive when it comes."

Jim opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. The Black Sheep had flown a mission in stolen Japanese aircraft once so Kate's reasoning wasn't out of the question.

"So why don't they answer when we try to establish radio contact?" he asked instead. "All we get is dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot."

"I don't know. Their radio must be damaged." She turned to Greg. "If you go in low tonight, you could drop food and medicine on the beach above the tide line, then go back in the morning and see if it's gone. If so, get on the horn to Espritos and they'll get a rescue ship out there. If they're still there, untouched . . . well . . . then no one's there and I've been out in the sun too long." She stopped, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

"Now the press is giving orders," Jim grumbled. "That's a pretty far-fetched idea, Katie."

Kate bit the inside of her lip. Far-fetched was putting it mildly and all three of them knew it.

Greg paced the length of the tent, then spun on his heel. He gripped her shoulders and the heat of his blue gaze held her motionless. "How sure of this are you?"

"It's a gut feeling," she said without wavering, "and after the dream, I know I'm right."

"A dream? What dream?" Jim asked. "Now we're running missions based on dreams?"

"Long story," Greg said. Keeping hold of her shoulders, he asked, "Tell me more about these gut feelings."

Kate swallowed. "The last one I had was three months ago."

"Hell, Katie, you weren't even here three months ago," Jim grumbled.

"I know," she said quietly, holding Greg's eyes. "But that's when Lard contacted my editor in Great Britain about transferring out here. I took the assignment because I had a gut feeling this was where I needed to be, that there was a reason I needed to be here. And I dreamed about you and Meatball before I ever got here."

No one spoke. Kate felt the weight of Greg's decision pressing not only on his shoulders but those of the whole unit. Whatever direction he took, they would all live with it. Every time the boys climbed into the cockpit, there was the chance they weren't coming back. And now she was asking him to send them out again for nothing more than a shadow that flitted like a ghost through her mind and refused to leave.

"I was absolutely right," she whispered. "This is where I need to be."

Greg leaned in, kissed her hard and almost before she could respond, shifted her to one side.

"Jim, find Casey and get him on the horn to the hospital. Tell them we want rescue packs down here on the double. Food, medical supplies, blankets and radios. Cameron, run out to the line and shake Micklin up. Tell him I want wheels up in twenty, as soon as the aid packs get here. Tell Hutch we'll rig them into the bomb mounts. There's enough daylight left, we can go in low and make multiple drops. There's no telling exactly where they're holed up."

Kate breathed a sigh of relief. There was no turning back and a feeling of rightness sang in her blood like bells pealing in celebration.

Jim rose and headed out of the tent. At the door, he stopped. His mouth was set in a hard line. "Dreams and gut feelings. This is the craziest damn idea I've ever heard. But I hope somebody'd do the same for us." He left at a jog.

Kate turned back to find Greg already stripped to his skivvies and pulling on a flight suit.

"Did you really dream about me before you came out here?" he said softly.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I didn't want it to go to your head."

"I swear to God, Katie . . ." Greg gave her a scowl that would have made his men snap to attention but only lit her face with a smile.

She didn't find out exactly what he swore because he stepped forward, kissed her lightly and slapped her on the rump. "Get out here."

Kate bolted for the line, driven by fear and hope.

—To be continued—