Belgrade hedged. “It’s all here. In the files.”
“How about just the highlights?”
Belgrade sighed and gazed quickly over his shoulder as if expecting someone to be there. “MacNuts, you opened up a can of worms with this thing big enough to fish the whole damn Mississippi. Follow me close now, ’cause I ain’t tellin’ this story twice. The Indianapolis dropped her bombs at Tinian and proceeded as planned to Guam. Then she got routed without explanation — or escort — to Leyte.”
“You mean they sent her out there with their secret weapon still aboard?”
“Your secret weapon, not theirs. Anyway she was sunk just before midnight and the captain responded by sending a distress signal. The SOS was picked up within five minutes at Tolosa and was taken to the commander personally.”
“He turn a deaf ear, did he?”
“And a blind eye. Ordered no reply to be made or response team sent. Told the yeoman to notify him and only him if any further messages were received.”
“He sent no help to a ship sinking in the middle of the Pacific?”
“Not a single vessel. Don’t ask me to explain that or how it was covered up at the naval board of inquiry.”
“Wow …”
“It gets worse. It’s a pretty safe bet that if the Indianapolis’s distress signal reached Tolosa, it reached plenty of other places as well, but no one acted, no one.”
“But Tolosa’s the only one we can be sure of.”
“Yes and no.”
“What do you mean?”
“That by the time the board of inquiry was held, the base commander was dead and the radio log at Tolosa destroyed. Everything else was hearsay.”
“How convenient …”
“I’ll leave the editorializing to you, MacNuts. Plenty of balls to bust here, for sure, and more to come. A day later a pilot flying four hundred miles out of Manila came upon pieces of the wreckage that had been adrift….”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess. His report was dismissed as well.”
“On the money, MacNuts, but remember to forget where you heard it.”
“None of this is classified anymore, though.”
“Sure. Except you’d have to know where to look, and there aren’t many people who do. In fact, you can count ’em on one hand.”
“How was it the surviving crew members of the Indianapolis ever got rescued?”
“A young pilot flying a Ventura caught sight of them on routine patrol and called for a rescue effort without going through channels.”
“Bold young man.”
“He was praised for it, but it’s my guess he had the boys in Washington seething. Only three hundred of the twelve hundred crew members survived, but a day or two more would have claimed them as well.”
“Seems to me, Hank, that our government was determined to make sure no trace of the Indianapolis ever made it back, crew included. That Japanese sub that sank her did Uncle Sam and Harry Truman a whopping big favor.”
“That’s a ludicrous proposition. No one even thought to consider it.”
“Until now,” McCracken told him.
To Evira the fresh air and sunlight had never felt more welcome on her face. After four days of being confined to Kourosh’s small room, she at last felt well enough to venture outside. Kourosh had learned that the general was hosting a gala dinner party for the highest ranking Iranian officials in his continued attempt to reunify the country. The dinner was scheduled for tomorrow, which meant Evira had only today to acclimate herself to the setting and prepare a plan. With the maid’s uniform the boy had stolen from a laundry, she could get inside through the servants’ entrance and blend with others on duty. She would have to go in weaponless, though, because a thorough search of anyone entering the palace grounds seemed a certainty. But finding a weapon did not concern her as much as the chance that one of the supervisors might realize she didn’t belong. She would have to hope the hectic pace of such a huge event would be sufficient cover.
That morning Kourosh had supplied her with heavy, drab clothes, including the typical shawl and veil of an impoverished Iranian woman. Many such women lingered outside the walls of Hassani’s palace these days. It caused more trouble to shoo the people away, so the Revolutionary Guardsmen let them stay most of the time.
The hardest task before them was getting there. The Niavarin district was three hours from Naziabad under present conditions. Kourosh led her on a long walk to the nearest bus stop, where her heart sank at the sight of the dozens in line ahead of them.
“Make believe you’re blind,” he instructed her.
“Blind?”
“Do it! Hurry! Before we’re noticed!”
Evira did her best. The boy pretended to be her son, and because of her handicap even the poor of Tehran let them go to the front of the line. Furthermore, once on board the jam-packed bus, they were given seats. Four more bus changes followed with long walks in between. Finding herself utterly exhausted, Evira could do nothing but rely on already depleted reserves of energy; she began to fear she would not have the strength to complete her mission.
Secretly she was hoping she and Kourosh would run into one of the “students” who had taught the boy English and given him those comic books. In the back of her mind the anomalous presence of significant numbers of Israelis in the city continued to nag at her. Who were they? What were they there for? Her sources in Mossad knew of no operation, and she was unable to imagine what a small complement of Israelis could accomplish anyway.
“Here we are,” Kourosh told her. “You can look up now. Nobody’s watching.”
Evira turned her eyes slowly upward toward the main entrance of the royal palace. From this far away, the fifteen-foot security wall obscured much of the white-stone structure. But the distance could not hide the fact that Kourosh’s drawings had not done justice to the scope of the complex. Her heart sank at the huge amount of territory, gardens and greenery, that lay between the wall and the palace itself. Already she was rethinking her plans. Making use of the servant’s uniform remained critical, but clearly she needed a new scheme to gain access.
What would Blaine McCracken do?
Take matters one step at a time, to begin with. He would think only as far ahead as the next corner. Alternatives always presented themselves. The key was to keep the mind open enough to seize the proper one.
“You said there were tunnels running beneath the palace,” she said to Kourosh. “What if you found me an entrance to them? Could I get into the palace that way?”
The boy shrugged. “If you didn’t get lost. The chances you would are too great. And even if you succeeded—”
“Here now,” a husky voice said from behind them, “what have we here?”
Evira went back into her blind woman act and grasped Kourosh’s shoulder.
“This blind hag your mother, young one?” a second man asked, this one bearded and smelly, bigger than the first.
“Lucky to be blind, too, she is, so she can’t see how ugly you are,” Kourosh responded.
The first one laughed and then the bigger one joined in.
“You’ve got lots of spunk, don’t you, young one? Need some discipline, though, you do.” He winked to his fellow. “And then we’ll see about your mother.”
His hand lashed out at Kourosh, knuckles whipping toward the boy’s cheek. At the last, the very last, Evira moved her fingers from Kourosh’s shoulder and grabbed the hand in midair. She twisted the captured wrist violently and the bone cracked in an instant, drawing a howl of agony from the big man. The smaller one lunged at her and Evira countered with a foot that lodged squarely and expertly in his groin, doubling him over.