The Secret Warriors Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  PART THREE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  PART SIX

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  PART SEVEN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  PART EIGHT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  PART NINE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  PART TEN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  PART ELEVEN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  PART TWELVE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  END NOTE

  “W.E.B. Griffin is the best chronicler of the U.S. military ever

  to put pen to paper—and rates among the best storytellers in

  any genre.” —The Phoenix Gazette

  Praise for the Men at War novels by W.E.B. Griffin . . .

  THE LAST HEROES

  THE SECRET WARRIORS

  THE SOLDIER SPIES

  THE FIGHTING AGENTS

  THE SABOTEURS

  THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  “WRITTEN WITH A SPECIAL FLAIR for the military heart and mind.”—The Winfield (KS) Daily Courier

  “SHREWD, SHARP, ROUSING ENTERTAINMENT.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “CAMEOS BY SUCH HISTORICAL FIGURES as William ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., David Niven, and Peter Ustinov lend color . . . suspenseful.”—Publishers Weekly

  W.E.B. GRIFFIN’S CLASSIC SERIES

  PRESIDENTIAL AGENT

  Griffin’s electrifying new series of Homeland Security . . .

  “The prolific, megaselling Griffin is well on his way to a credible American James Bond franchise. It’s slick as hell.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “Told in Griffin’s trademark clean and compelling prose, studded with convincing insider details.”—Publishers Weekly

  THE CORPS

  The bestselling saga of the heroes we call Marines . . .

  “GREAT READING. A superb job of mingling fact and fiction . . . [Griffin’s] characters come to life.”

  —The Sunday Oklahoman

  “THIS MAN HAS REALLY DONE HIS HOMEWORK . . . I confess to impatiently awaiting the appearance of succeeding books in the series.”—The Washington Post

  “ACTION-PACKED . . . DIFFICULT TO PUT DOWN.”

  —Marine Corps Gazette

  HONOR BOUND

  The high drama and real heroes of World War II . . .

  “ROUSING . . . AN IMMENSELY ENTERTAINING ADVENTURE.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “A TAUTLY WRITTEN STORY whose twists and turns will keep readers guessing until the last page.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A SUPERIOR WAR STORY.”—Library Journal

  BROTHERHOOD OF WAR

  The series that launched W.E.B. Griffin’s

  phenomenal career . . .

  “AN AMERICAN EPIC.”—Tom Clancy

  “FIRST-RATE. Griffin, a former soldier, skillfully sets the stage, melding credible characters, a good eye for detail, and colorful, gritty dialogue into a readable and entertaining story.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “ABSORBING, salted-peanuts reading filled with detailed and fascinating descriptions of weapons, tactics, Green Beret training, army life, and battle.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  BADGE OF HONOR

  Griffin’s electrifying epic series of a big-city police force . . .

  “DAMN EFFECTIVE . . . He captivates you with characters the way few authors can.”—Tom Clancy

  “TOUGH, AUTHENTIC . . . POLICE DRAMA AT ITS BEST . . . Readers will feel as if they’re part of the investigation, and the true-to-life characters will soon feel like old friends. Excellent reading.”—Dale Brown

  “COLORFUL . . . GRITTY . . . TENSE.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “A REAL WINNER.”—New York Daily News

  TITLES BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  HONOR BOUND

  HONOR BOUND

  BLOOD AND HONOR

  SECRET HONOR

  BROTHERHOOD

  OF WAR

  BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS

  BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS

  BOOK III: THE MAJORS

  BOOK IV: THE COLONELS

  BOOK V: THE BERETS

  BOOK VI: THE GENERALS

  BOOK VII: THE NEW BREED

  BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS

  BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS

  THE CORPS

  BOOK I: SEMPER FI

  BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS

  BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK

  BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND

  BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE

  BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT

  BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES

  BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH

  BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE

  BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!

  BADGE OF HONOR

  BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE

  BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS

  BOOK III: THE VICTIM

  BOOK IV: THE WITNESS

  BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN

  BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS

  BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS

  BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE

  MEN AT WAR

  BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES

  BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS

  BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES

  BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS

  BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS

  BOOK VI: THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  PRESIDENTIAL AGENT

  BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT

  BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE

  BOOK III: THE HUNTERS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE SECRET WARRIORS

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1985 by W.E.B. Griffin.

  Originally published under the pseudonym Alex Baldwin.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-0-515-12490-3

  JOVE®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “J” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  FOR LIEUTENANT AARON BANK,

  INFANTRY, AUS, DETAILED OSS

  (Later, Colonel, Special Forces)

  AND

  LIEUTENANT WILLAIM B. COLBY,

  INFANTRY, AUS, DETAILED OSS

  (Later, Ambassador and Director, CIA)

  PART ONE

  1

  ALAMEDA NAVAL AIR STATION

  ALAMEDA, CALIFORNIA

  APRIL 4, 1942

  Although there were four passengers aboard the U.S. Navy PBY-5 from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, most of the plane’s cargo weight was mailbags—regular mail from the fleet, official mail from various Army and Navy headquarters all over the Pacific, some from even as far away as Australia.

  The Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina flying boat had been designed not as a transport but as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft. It had two 1,200-hp Twin Wasp radial engines mounted on its high wing. Two struts on each side reinforced the wing, the interior of which contained huge fuel tanks. What every Catalina pilot dreaded was landing shortly after takeoff, when the fuel tanks were full—and thus heavy. If the plane could not be greased in, all that weight was likely to tear the wings off.

  There was little danger of that now. The fuel tanks were indicating close to empty. A head wind had been with them all the way across the Pacific from Hawaii. The pilot had even worried for a few rough minutes that he would not have enough fuel to make it to Alameda. A few hundred miles from the coast, the navigator had wordlessly laid his calculation on the pilot’s lap. His projection was that they would run out of fuel an hour and fifteen minutes short of Alameda.

  At that point the pilot had had two options: He could throw excess cargo out, or he could try fiddling with the engines to decrease fuel consumption, and thus increase range. Since neither the official mailbags nor, obviously, the passengers could be thrown over the side, the only “excess” cargo that could be jettisoned was the fleet mailbags. The pilot was reluctant to throw away several thousand servicemen’s letters home, so he elected to try the unusual.

  He retarded the throttles, thinned the mixture more than he knew he was supposed to, and dropped from 8,000 feet to less than a thousand. The miles he gained by this maneuver would put them that many miles closer to the California coast, and thus increase their chances of rescue if he had to set down in the drink and wait for someone to come looking for them.

  Since it was daylight and he was forced to fly dead reckoning, he had no reliable means of knowing whether or not what he was trying was working. He was flying on a course of 89 degrees magnetic at an indicated airspeed of 140 knots. Simple arithmetic told him where he should be. But if he was, say, flying into a 30-knot head wind—which, very likely, he was—then he was making only 110 miles an hour over the water. And if the head wind was not coming directly at him, but from the side, he was liable to be far off his intended course.

  He was genuinely thrilled, as well as enormously relieved, when the radio operator came forward and, without asking permission, switched the frequency, and over his headset he could hear a marvelously unctuous, pure candy-ass voice announce that San Francisco could expect to experience evening temperatures of 68 degrees Fahrenheit with a slim possibility of early-evening fog.

  “I make it about eighty-six degrees from here, Skipper,” the radio operator said. Mounted on the wing, between the engines, was a loop radio antenna that, rotated until a signal-strength meter reached a high point, indicated the direction to the radio transmitter.

  “How far?” the pilot asked as he made the necessary small course correction to 86 degrees.

  “Don’t know,” the radio operator said. “I tried to raise Alameda, and couldn’t. I’ll try it again in a couple of minutes.”

  The radio operator went back to his desk. His voice came over the intercom in a moment.

  “I’d suggest another degree north,” he said. “To eighty-five degrees.”

  “Okay. You try Alameda?”

  “No reply,” the radio operator said.

  Which meant, of course, that they were still at least 150 miles at sea. The commercial broadcast station had a greater range than the shortwave transmitter at Alameda Naval Air Station.

  But then, minutes later, Sparks’s voice came over his cans again.

  “Got ’em,” he announced. “They can’t read us, but we have them.”

  “Thank you, Sparks,” the pilot said. “Keep us advised.”

  The pilot looked at the copilot to make sure he was awake, then pushed himself out of his seat. He was now going to make the required airline pilot-type speech to the passengers.

  Thank you for flying Transpacific Airways; we hope you have found our food and beverage service to your liking, and that you will give us the favor of your air travel business in the future.

  The four passengers were all captains. Three were Navy four-stripers from BUSHIPS1 in Washington, sent to Pearl to see what could be done to speed up the repairs to U.S. Pacific Fleet battleships damaged and sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor four months before. Their party had originally been made up of three BUSHIPS captains and one BUSHIPS commander; but, over howls of outrage from the BUSHIPS captains, the BUSHIPS commander had been bumped from the flight by the fourth captain now aboard the PBY-5.

  The PBY pilot found this one very interesting. The fourth captain was an Army captain, which meant that he was two grades junior to the BUSHIPS commander he had bumped. But he was also an aviator, and seeing a fellow airman bump the Engineering Corps commander had not displeased the pilot.

  And, although the Army captain was wearing wings on his ill-fitting, dirty, and mussed tropical worsted uniform, he was also wearing the crossed sabers of cavalry. The pilot had wondered about that. The crossed cavalry sabers had the numerals 26 affixed to them, identifying an officer of the 26th Cavalry. The 26th had not long before been caught in the Philippines and apparently wiped out on the Bataan Peninsula. But this captain clearly hadn’t come out of the Philippines, because no one had come out of the Philippines. The poor bastards had been deserted there.

  No one, of course, except General Douglas MacArthur, his wife and child, the child’s nurse, and some brass hats, who had escaped from Corregidor on Navy PT boats. The pilot decided it was possible, though unlikely, that the Army captain was someho
w connected with MacArthur. That seemed even more possible to the pilot when he considered the captain’s travel priority. The end of the shouting session in Pearl Harbor over whether or not he was to go on the Catalina came after the admiral summoned to resolve the dispute read his orders and announced to the BUSHIPS senior brass hat, “Captain, it’s not a question whether this officer is going with you or not, but whom you wish to send in the available space on the plane with him.”

  The pilot had planned to have a chat with the Army officer once they were airborne. But the first time he’d gone back into the fuselage, the captain was sound asleep.

  He had made himself a bed of mailbags in the tail of the aircraft, wrapped himself in three blankets, and was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted—and more, the sleep of the ill. His eyes were shrunken, and he was as skinny as a rail. He clearly needed rest, and the pilot didn’t have the heart to wake him.

  Though there was evidence he had eaten the box lunches provided, every time the pilot had gone back the Army officer had been asleep. There was also proof that the captain was traveling armed. An enormous old-fashioned World War I Colt revolver lay on one of the mailbags beside him. No holster, which meant that the captain had been carrying the pistol under his blouse, stuck in his waistband.

  Steadying himself by holding his hand flat against the fuselage skin above him, the pilot now made his way down the fuselage to the senior of the BUSHIPS captains and made his airline pilot’s speech.

  The other two Navy captains leaned forward in their seats to hear what he had to say. The Army captain did not wake up.

  “Sir,” he said, “we have just picked up Alameda. I thought you’d like to know.”