The Hunt

He did not walk into the Killarney Rose, he swaggered. There was arrogance in every step as if he were defying everyone in the bar not to know who he was. His dress was almost sloppy. A pair of baggy tweed pants atop scuffed-up cowboy boots, a bright red flannel shirt with a white silk scarf draped from under its turned- up collar, a scruffy leather flying jacket with a pair of Air Corps wings over the heart and an army officer’s cap, its crown crushed down around his ears.

In his early thirties, Keegan guessed, tallish and well built with auburn-red hair and a pleasant, cherub face, a cocky grin and twinkling blue eyes; a man who looked like he had the world where it hurts. He swaggered straight to the back end of the bar and took a bar stool across from Tiny.

“Canadian on ice in a highball glass, General, Coke on the side,” he said, then spun the stool around and sat with his back to the bar, checking the place out. His eyes fixed on Keegan. He smiled and pointed a finger at him.

“I’ll bet you’re Francis Keegan,” he said. His accent was soft Boston, not quite the long A’s and E’s, but enough of a twang to root him somewhere in New England.

“What makes you think so?” Keegan asked, returning the smile.

“Well sir, you look like you own the place and since Keegan owns this place, I figure you must be him,” he said.

“That’s pretty good, pal. And who might you be?”

He walked over to Keegan’s table, put his two glasses down and stuck out his hand.

“Captain John Dryman, United States Army Air Corps.”

“It’s a pleasure, Cap’n,” Keegan said, looking over the flier’s clothes. “Are you on furlough?”

“T.D.,” he answered and took a long pull at the whiskey.

“Oh yeah? Where?”

“Here”

“In New York?”

Dryman looked surprised. “Right here. In this bar. With you. I am on temporary duty here as of,” he looked at his watch, “one hour from now.”

Keegan’s brow furrowed. “To do what?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me that. Look, I’m not complaining, Mr. Keegan, I got six months left on this tour and then I’m off to China.”

“Maybe you haven’t heard, there’s a war going on in China.”

Dryman winked. “Yes sir, sure is. Ever hear of Major Claire Chennault? The Flying Tigers? He’s started his own little air force over there. As of January 1, I will be in Kunming, teaching the Japs a few tricks. Meantime I have been assigned to something called White House Security and I’m to take my orders from you. And Boss,” he looked around and giggled joyfully to himself, “I can’t think of a better place 1o finish out my tour. The plane’s out at Mitchell Field.”

“Plane?”

“Old Delilah, a two-seat AT-6. I wouldn’t go anywhere without her.” He stopped and checked out the bar again. “I have a hard time believing this,” he said. “Let me tell you, this is a pilot’s dream. I mean, to get assigned to a bar taking orders from the owner. The guys will never believe this.”

“The guys aren’t going to know anything about it, Cap’n,” Keegan said seriously. “From now until you’re off buzzing the Himalayas you’re going to forget everything you see, hear and do. Okay? That’s the first and probably last order you’ll get from me.”

Dryman looked over both shoulders, then leaned over and whispered, “Is this some kind of spy stuff? I mean, the bar, these plain clothes, uh . . . you. What’s it all about?”

“You’ll find out in due time. What do they call you?”

“H.P.”

“H.P.? I thought your name was John.”

“It is,” he said, still grinning his cherub grin. “H.P.—for Hot Pilot, a nickname, incidentally, I have earned the hard way.

Ten years in the Air Corps, the last two instructing snotty college kids, hoping they’ll stay alive through the course. I was a test pilot for two years, had my own squadron for a while. Hell, I am so hot, Mr. Keegan, I could set this place on fire with the seat of my pants.”

Keegan was astounded. Smith actually had an Air Corps pilot and plane assigned to him. His respect for dog robbers was growing by the day.

“So tell me, H.P.,” Keegan said. “If you’re so hot, why are you flying courier duty for the White House?”

Dryman shoved his cap to the back of his head and leaned back in the booth.

“Actually ... I was grounded when the White House called.”

“Grounded!” Keegan said with a note of alarm. “For what?”

“I think the specific charge was ‘Unauthorized Flying Procedures,’” Dryman said, taking another swig of whiskey.

“And what specifically were these unusual flying procedures?”

“Unauthorized,” he corrected. “Everything I do in an airplane is unusual, Mr. Keegan. There’re only two things I do well. Flying’s one of them—and I do it a helluva lot better than anything else. Let me tell you, I can fly anything that has a motor and two wings and I can fly it anywhere, anytime and in any kind of weather. I was made to fly’ Mr. Keegan, I’m happiest when my feet are about ten thousand feet off the ground.”

“That’s very interesting but it doesn’t answer my question.”

“Flight instructing is shitty business, Mr. Keegan—and boring. The same thing day after day. You got to set a good example for the cadets, do everything by the book. Hell, I came off a year flying airmail in weather so bad I’d put a cup of coffee in my lap to make sure I wasn’t flying upside down! Then all of a sudden I’m down in Florida wet-nursing a bunch of college boys. So to blow off a little steam, four of us instructors decided to have a race. Thirty miles. The finish line was a bridge out on the coast highway. Well, hell, I could have flown the last five upside down, there wasn’t anybody even close to me.”

He paused to finish his whiskey and chase it with a sip of Coke.

“Unfortunately,” he went on, “my CO. was driving over the bridge at exactly the same time I decided to fly under it. Colonel Frederick Metz. No sense of humor. He never saw the other boys, he was too busy ripping out his mustache when he saw me go under him. I said, ‘Colonel, what can I say, I got a wild hair up my ass.’ He says to me, ‘You got more than a wild hair up your ass, Dryman, you also got grounded for ninety days.’ Ninety days! Christ, a lifetime! And then He leaned back with his flashy grin, “. . . God smiled on me.”

He waved an arm grandly around the room.

“And what exactly were you told?” Keegan asked, wondering what Smith’s instructions to this crazy man were—and how Smith even found him.

“I was told I was a White House courier—how about that, courier—and that I was to come here and report to you and do whatever you said. . . within reason.” He chuckled. “Whatever that means.”

“It means don’t get us killed, H.P.”

“Never happen,” Dryman said, brushing off the remark as if the idea were ludicrous. “Now, what’s the first thing! have to know?”

“For the time being, here’s all you have to know. I’m looking for a guy. I don’t know what he looks like, what his name is, what he does, or where we might find him. And the way things are looking in the world these days, I probably don’t have a lot of time to track him down.”

Dryman stared at Keegan across the table for several seconds and then he snickered.

“O-kay.” He leaned across the table. “What are we really going to do?”

“That’s it, H.P. I have no idea where we’re going to end up, but we’re going to start by flying to Washington tomorrow morning. You’ll stay in my guest room in the penthouse upstairs and you’ll be on call twenty-four hours a day. When we’re not working, I don’t care what you do. I have three cars, you can use the Rolls. I don’t drive it much anymore.”

A look of awe crossed Dryman’s face.

“Rolls?” he asked reverently. “As in Rolls-Royce?”

“Yeah.”

Dryman’s grin broadened to a laugh and then a bellow. He looked around The Rose again and said, “So this is what it looks like.”

“What?” Keegan asked.

“Why, heaven, Boss,” Dryman cried out through tears of joy. “Hea-VEN!”