The Black Gate Read Online Free PDF Page B

else?”
    “A leather suitcase with your personal effects is waiting for you on the plane,” the woman said. “You wouldn’t be traveling to a new posting with nothing but the uniform on your back. The suitcase has spare uniforms and clothing, shaving kit, and toiletries.”
    “There’s also this, sir.” Bob reached into his coat and pulled out a Luger pistol and handed it to Peter, who looked it over, then slipped it into the leather holster on his waist belt. “Trust me. It works.”
    The woman gave him a last look. “That’s it, then.”
    The woman turned Peter over to the dressers, who helped him don a bulky padded jump suit after he slipped on the SS overcoat.  
    “Here, sir,” one of them said. “Let me have that.” He took Peter’s cap and tucked it carefully into the suit next to Peter’s chest before zipping it up. “Watch that doesn’t get mashed up, sir.”
    The last part of the jump ensemble was a rubber helmet, which the other dresser strapped on Peter’s head.
    Then, to Peter’s amazement, they began to help Bob into a similar suit.
    “You’re jumping in with me?” Peter asked in a hopeful voice.
    “Oh, no, sir! Not me.” He grinned. “Not this time, at least. General Donovan tasked me with getting you as far as I could, under my own direct supervision, he said. So I’ll be in the plane with you and kick you out the door, if you don’t mind the turn of phrase. This suit business is just to keep my ass from freezing off. It’s cold in those damn planes.”
    Once Bob was dressed, the dressers escorted the two men to the door.  
    “Good luck,” the woman said, reaching out to shake Peter’s hand, then Bob’s.  
    “Thanks,” Peter told her, surprised at the look of compassion in her eyes.
    Then they were back out in the cold February air for the handful of paces it took them to reach the waiting car. Both men got into the back seat, and the driver headed across the darkened airfield, guided only by the meager bit of light coming through the slitted covers over the headlights.
    Peter heard the sound of aircraft engines growing louder, and by the time the driver pulled to a stop, the car was vibrating under the force of the rumbling.
    “Here we are, sir,” Bob shouted. He got out on his side, while the driver opened the door for Peter.
    They had stopped next to the slab-sided fuselage of a B-24 Liberator bomber, whose four engines were idling at a deafening roar. The prop wash from the four enormous propeller blades blew frigid air across the exposed skin of Peter’s face like a winter gale.
    Looking up at the plane, he could see little more than a shadow that blotted out some of the stars in the partly cloudy sky above. The light from a quarter moon that hung halfway up from the eastern horizon glinted on the clear Perspex of the dorsal gun turret.
    He felt a tug on his sleeve, and turned to find Bob gesturing for him to come. Following Bob’s lead, Peter duck walked under the bomber’s belly, then clambered up the ladder through the hatch aft of the waist gun positions.
    “Welcome aboard,” the crew chief said as he helped Peter up. Making sure the hatchway was clear, the crew chief hauled up the steps before closing and securing the hatch.  
    “Sit yourself down there, sir,” Bob said, and Peter sat down on a distinctly uncomfortable looking rig of metal tubing and canvas that could only loosely be called a seat. The crew chief buckled him in.
    “The skipper would have my head if you went bouncing around back here, sir,” the man said with a smile, his face bathed in the red glow from the flashlight he carried, the bulb covered with a red lens. Eyeing Peter one more time to make sure he was in place, he flicked off the light.
    The engines roared louder and the plane began to move forward. Peter wanted to unbuckle and go stand at the Perspex covering the waist gun positions so he could see out, even though there was little to see over the darkened landscape. He was