Anchor In The Storm Part 44

"They're trying to shoot out the lock. Do you have a pen, paper? I need you to take this down."

"Y-yes."

More thumping and rattling in the back.

Lillian squelched the urge to run. She had to pa.s.s on the message, even if she died. "Write this down. Dixon runs the drug ring. Charles Leary is Scar. Talk to Arch Vandenberg on the Ettinger."

The operator repeated back, her voice shaky.

Another shot, a thump, a crack, a slam of a door against a wall.

Oh no. They'd gotten out. Her breath raced.

A scrabbling sound. Two screams, two thumps. Hank and Shorty moaned and cussed. They must have slipped on the marbles. Good.

"I'm leaving now. Please. Send the police." Lillian worked her way around the counter. To the door, to the door.

"The gun," Hank groaned. "Where's the gun?"

"Can't see." Shorty cursed the broken flashlight.

Lillian found the doork.n.o.b, but it was stiff. "Lord, help me!"

"Gotta get that clipboard. It's got our names on it. Where'd it go?"

More foul words. "That girl. I'm gonna kill her."

She strained her fingers to get a solid grip, and she leaned to the side to get enough rotation on the doork.n.o.b. There! It twisted open.

Outside at last, but hardly free. "Police! Police! They've got a gun! Help me!"

She hopped down Main Street toward City Square, where people might be out this time of night, and she screamed for help.

A middle-aged gentleman poked his head out of a house, then pulled back in alarm.

She must look a sight, one-legged, tied up. "Please, sir. Help me. They have a gun. Call the police."

"Okay." He darted inside, his door open, and a middle-aged lady peeked out.

Lillian hopped closer. "Please, ma'am. Let me in. They're trying to kill me."

She covered her mouth with one hand, then motioned Lillian to her with the other. "Oh no. What did they do to you?"

Two men came running up Main from City Square. Police officers, guns drawn.

"Help me!" Lillian tried to wave with her bound hands. "They're at Dixon's Drugs. Two men with a gun. There's a side door as well. Get them."

They stopped and stared at Lillian. "Ma'am, are you-"

"Get them!" She motioned with her head toward the store. "They murdered that sailor this morning. Don't let them get away."

"Yes, ma'am." They ran up the street.

"Miss?" The middle-aged lady inched closer. "What did they . . . what did they do to your leg?"

"They took off my pros-pros-my prosthesis." Her breath quickened, racing out of control. "Please. Please untie me."

"Let's get you safe inside, honey." She looped her arm around Lillian's waist and helped her to the steps of the house.

"I can't-I can't hop up stairs. I need-I need to sit." Lillian turned and sat hard, b.u.mping her tailbone. "Please. Please un . . . un . . ."

"Yes, honey." Her voice cooed, and she worked on the knot in the twine. "Everything's going to be all right now. Everything's going to be all right."

Her hands free, Lillian hugged her knee and hunched over, her breath chuffing. She was going to live. She was actually going to live. "Thank you. Thank you, Lord."

43.

US Naval Hospital, Brooklyn, New York

Thursday, June 11, 1942

Pain awakened him. Deep, aching pain throbbed in his head.

Soft voices broke through, male and female, and the tinkling sound of silverware on tin plates.

Arch opened his eyes. A blur of muted whites, and he blinked to bring them into focus. White walls, pale white light through tall windows, and rows of white beds. A hospital.

How did he . . . ? Yes, on the Ettinger. The engine room. The sh.e.l.l from the U-boat. The shrapnel hitting him in the face.

His vision seemed flat-only from his right eye. He extracted his hand from under the blankets. A thick ma.s.s of bandages bound the top and the left side of his head.

They were wound too tight. The pain. His skull would crack like an overboiled egg.

He moaned and worked his fingers under the bandages to loosen them.

"Mr. Vandenberg?" A pretty brunette in a white nurse's uniform leaned over the bed. "Good morning, sir. I'm Nurse Green."

"Too tight. Hurts."

The nurse pulled his hand away from the bandages. "Would you like more morphine?"

After all he'd seen the past few months, his instinctual reaction was to refuse the drug, but the pain sickened him. "Yes, please. And loosen the bandages."

She probed the rim of the dressing with cool fingers. "They're fine. Remember, you took quite a blow to the head. You've had a bad concussion, fractures, and surgery. I'm afraid you'll be in pain for a while."

"Surgery?"

Her smile faltered. "Dr. Kendrick did a marvelous job. I-I'll go get him. He's been waiting for you to wake up."

"How long?" The words vibrated more pain through his cheekbone.

"Let's see." She picked up a clipboard. "You were injured on Tuesday night, had surgery yesterday morning. Today's Thursday."

"Well, look who's awake." A silver-haired man stood at the foot of Arch's bed, wearing a white coat and a stethoscope over the Navy officer's blue trousers and white shirt. "How's the pain?"

Arch moaned.

"I was about to get him some morphine." Nurse Green headed down the aisle.

Dr. Kendrick rounded the bed and inspected Arch's bandages, his black tie flopping in front of Arch's face. "Yes, yes. No signs of bleeding or infection. Healing nicely."

Surgery? Arch's mind swam. How bad were his injuries? How deformed was he? While he'd never been vain about his looks, he did enjoy being considered handsome. Of course, deformity would drive away some of the gold diggers. "What happened, sir? How bad?"

"Yes. Well. This is never easy." The physician wrote on his clipboard. "You had extensive fractures around the eye socket. We were able to repair the bones, pin them in place, good as new. But we did have to remove the eye."

Arch clapped his hand over his left eye. "My eye? Removed?" It was . . . gone?

"Not as bad as it sounds." He continued to write in the chart. "In a few weeks when the swelling goes down, we'll fit you with an orbital prosthesis, a gla.s.s eye. They're quite realistic. No one will be able to tell by looking at you."

A gla.s.s eye. Two-dimensional vision for the rest of his life. Yet only one thought took hold, swirling into nauseating certainty. "The Navy."

Arch closed his eyes-no, his only remaining eye. He already knew the answer. His weak nerves hadn't cost him his commission, but this would. The Navy had no use for one-eyed officers.

His moan settled deep into his soul.

"Here you go, sir." A cool hand rotated his arm and something cold rubbed inside his elbow, followed by a p.r.i.c.k of pain, a rush of warmth.

He didn't care. He'd lost the only thing he had left in this life.

"This is always hardest on the Academy boys," the doctor said. "But don't worry. A bright young man with a war record like yours will have no trouble getting a job."

Arch groaned. He would get a job. That was the trouble.

"Pardon me?" Arch touched the sleeve of Nurse Holloway, the afternoon nurse. "Do you have any word?"

She smiled, plain-faced but kindhearted. "When I hear, I'll tell you."

"Thank you." All day, between bouts of nausea, drug-induced grogginess, and unrelenting pain, he'd been trying to find out if Lillian had been warned. If she was all right.

Even the loss of his eye and his career seemed unimportant once he remembered the drug ring. He was already responsible for Palonsky's death. How could he bear it if anything happened to Lillian?

"Dr. Kendrick?" Nurse Holloway called. "Mr. Vandenberg is asking again."

"Is he oriented enough?"

The nurse's pale cheeks turned pink. "He wants to know, sir."

"Do you have any news?" Arch pushed himself up on one elbow, wincing from the redistribution of pain in his skull. "I need to talk to the police, get word to Lillian-"

"The police wish to speak to you, but I told them you're in no condition-"

"Please, sir. It's a matter of life and death."

The doctor held up one hand. "Your captain said to tell you that he gave the police your report. He's waiting outside with another officer. I wanted to send them away, but they insisted I ask-"

"Send them in." The volume of his own voice provoked a wave of pain, but he bit back his groan. The other officer-it had to be Jim. "Please, sir. I need to see them. My ship. The case. I need to know. I-I'll heal better if I know."

Dr. Kendrick chuckled. "I see his mental faculties are intact. I'll send them in."

"Thank you, sir."

Nurse Holloway eased Arch up to sitting and placed more pillows behind his back. "How is that, sir?"

"Better. Thanks." Being slightly vertical felt more dignified.

It had to be Jim. It had to. Whatever grief Jim gave him would be a small price to pay for news about Lillian.

Two officers came down the aisle of the ward in dress whites, one short with a purposeful stride, one tall with an easygoing gait. Captain Buckner and Jim.

As soon as they reached the foot of his bed, Arch pushed himself higher. "Lil-"

"As you can see, the Ettinger made it through." Captain Buckner grinned.

It was only polite, only right to inquire about his ship and crew. "What happened? I pa.s.sed out, I'm afraid."

"We sank one of the U-boats and drove the other away. She used up so many sh.e.l.ls, she'll have to go back to Germany." The captain clapped Jim on the shoulder. "Thanks to some excellent gunnery from Mr. Avery. I'm grateful for your suggestion to send him to the director."

"He's the right man." Arch gave his old friend a nod.

Jim returned the gesture, his gaze unnaturally inscrutable. "I'm sorry to tell you we lost three men. Mr. Gannett and two signalmen. And about twenty men were wounded."

Captain Buckner clasped his hands behind him. "The ship will be at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs for a while, but she'll be back in the fight before you know it."