Dean Hughes - Saboteur: A Novel of Love and War

Hughes, Dean, 1943

Saboteur: a novel of love and war / Dean Hughes.

p. cm.

ISBN-10 1-59038-619-1 (hardbound : alk. paper)

ISBN-13 978-1-59038-619-4 (hardbound : alk.paper)

1.MormonsFiction. 2. JapaneseAmericansEvacuation and relocation,

1942-1945Fiction. [1.World War, 1939-1945Fiction.] I. Title.

PS3558.U36S232006

813'.54dc22 2006013668

Printed in the United States of America

R. R. Donnelley and Sons,Crawfordsville, IN

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my grandson
Steven Hughes

Chapter 1

Andy Gledhill stood under the columned portico at thefront of the Hay-Adams Hotel. He had turned his back to the wind andfolded his arms across his chest, but he was still shivering. He had alwayswanted to visit Washington, and now he was just across Lafayette Park from theWhite House, but he had no overcoat, and a cold, wind-driven rain hadbeen falling since he had arrived the day before. He had wanted to look arounda little, but not in this weather, and he was too nervous anyway. What am I doing here? he keptasking himself.

When he had arrived at the hotel, hed taken a look at theWhite House, dim in the gray light of the December afternoon. Hed alwaysthought it was bigger, grander. Iveseen nicer houses than that in Salt Lake, hed found himself thinking. But his brain had felt as dullas the light outside. He had spent the previous night sitting up on a trainfrom Georgia to North Carolina, only to learn that he had to board a bus andride all day to Washington. He had gone to bed immediately and stayed there fortwelve hours, but he had slept fitfully and then awakened suddenly, alarmeduntil he remembered where he was. He felt out of place in a room with suchornate draperies and plaster moldings on the ceiling. As a boy, in the desertof central Utah, he had liked to sleep under the stars in a sleeping bag,wriggling until the sand fit his back. He wished he were there now.

A groggy buzz still filled Andys head as he waited in frontof the hotel. Hed gone outside to be sure he didnt miss the car that wascoming for him, but the doorman had been too attentive, so he had steppedfarther away. Now, however, the cold had penetrated even the heavy wool of hisarmy dress uniform. His kneecaps were jerking, his hands shaking. He liked tobe in control of his life; since his first day of boot camp at Fort Ord,California, the previous winter, he had hated the sense that someone was alwaysmaking up his mind for himscheduling his days, deciding whathe would do and when and even why.

A gray Chevrolet arrived on timeat 0900hoursbut with nothing to identify it as a government car. Andywaited as the driver leaned across the seat, took a cigarette from his lips,and said, Are you Lieutenanthe glanced at a sheet of paper lying onthe seatAnder Gledhill?

Its Andr.

Yeah... well.

Andy pulled off his hat, then reached for the front doorhandle, but the driver motioned with his thumb to the backseat. The car wasfilled with smoke as gray as the seat covers. On the train, and then again onthe bus, almost everyone around him had smoked continually. He had had enoughof it.

Can you tell me where were going?

Headquarters. The driver was a man in his late forties ormaybe older. He had a bald spot in back, and his scalp was pink and rough, thesame as his face. Andy rolled down his window a crack and tried to breathe somebetter air. He had been in the army a year, and he figured by now he should beused to cigarette smoke, but his eyes always swelled in a smoky room and histhroat constricted, the same as when sagebrush put out its pollen.

What headquarters? Andy asked.

OSS.

What is that exactly? I never heard of it until yesterday.

The man looked in the rearview mirror, his eyes squinted asthough he wanted to get a good look at the idiot in the backseat. You mean youdont even know what it means?

I know its the Office of Strategic Services, but thatcould be almost anything.

I guess.

Andy hated how condescending the man sounded, but it was atone he had almost come to expecteven from a working stifflike this guy.

The driver shifted the car into gear and drove out fromunder the portico, then glanced over his shoulder to check for traffic. In afriendlier voice, he added, Some guys say that OSS means Oh, So Social. Youknow, because all those jerks down at the E Street Complex keep their nosesstuck so high in the air.

Andy had no idea what the E Street Complex was, but hedidnt ask. He wasnt going to sound stupid again. It was just like the army totell a guy to go somewhere and not tell him why.

The driver turned right onto H Street and then glanced overhis shoulder again. OSS is brand-new, from what Ihearbut no one tells me much of anything. The word goingaround is, they train people to be spies.

That was what Andy had figured. He had also made some otherassumptionsand they all bothered him. I dont have to volunteer for anything, he told himself, andthen he rolled his window down a little more.

This smoke bothering you? the man asked.

Yeah, actually, it is. Andy had rarely said anything likethat, but he was feeling this morning that he needed to speak up for himself alittle more.

The driver stubbed out his cigarette and opened his own windowa crack, but he didnt say another word, which was fine with Andy. On the carradio, playing softly, he could hear a manDick Haymes, hethoughtsinging It Had to Be You. Whisper Harris liked thatsong; he remembered dancing to it at Vans Dance Hall in Delta. He wished hecould breathe a little more of thatairthe sweet scent of her shampooed hair. He thought ofthe big mirror ball, the colored lights reflecting off it and off all the othermirrors in the room, everything turning into a shimmering glow.

The driver made a couple of turns, and then Andy saw EStreet on a corner sign. They continued west a couple of blocks and turned intoa driveway with a gate that read National Health Institute across the top.The car stopped in front of a small but stately two-story buildingwith marble columns at the entrance. The driver said, This is it, no matterwhat the sign says. Tell the receptionistthe girl just insidethe front doorwhat youre here for. Shell get you to theright office.

Okay, thanks. Andy walked fast up the steps as the rainblew against the side of his face. He pushed his way through the front door,tucked his officers hat under his arm, and stepped in front of a gray metaldesk.

The receptionista dark-hairedgirl close to his own agepaid no attention for a time, butwhen she looked up, her eyelashes fluttered. Andy didnt mind lipstick, butgirls in the East smeared it on like grease on an axle, bloodred. Whisper worea little lipstick when she dressed up, but what Andy liked better was thesmoothness of her bare lips, and he loved her creamy skin, even her freckles.He had known her all his life, but he had kissed her for the first time only afew weeks before he had left home.