In Danger's Path Page 14

  “It obviously didn’t hurt you any,” Kister said. “Maybe you should consider becoming a vegetarian.”

  “While I was munching on my pineapple, I used to have a dream. There I was, riding down the highway in my convertible Buick, with a pretty girl smiling at me. The girl, if you must know, looked much like this fine young Naval officer.”

  “In the unlikely event that you’re serious, you could probably get a deal on a Buick convertible.”

  “Is that so?”

  “They guzzle gas. Gas is rationed. And this is the middle of the winter. No one in his right mind wants a gas-guzzling Buick convertible in the middle of the winter.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” Weston said. “A Buick convertible it is.”

  “We’re back to ‘why do you need a car?’”

  “So I can drive up here on weekends and see Janice,” Weston said.

  Kister’s eyes swiveled back and forth between them.

  Janice blushed.

  “I think the time has come for me to fold my tent and silently steal away,” Commander Kister said.

  “Oh, doctor, don’t go, please,” Janice said.

  “Okay,” Kister said. “The three of us can go out and have a lobster.”

  He waited, with a straight face, until he saw the anguished looks on their faces. Then he chuckled, slapped Weston on the back, and walked out of the bar.

  [FOUR]

  The Marquis de Lafayette Suite

  The Foster Lafayette Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  1900 17 February 1943

  Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, was dozing when the telephone rang. He was almost instantly awake, but for a moment didn’t know where he was. A moment later he did realize where he was, and also realized that Ernie wasn’t in the bed with him. As he sat up and swung his feet out of the bed, he reached for the bedside telephone. The bathroom door was open, he noticed then, and Ernie was standing in it, naked except for a towel wrapped around her waist. She had another towel in her hand. As he watched, she resumed drying her hair with it.

  “I was wondering if you were going to answer that,” she said.

  My God, she’s beautiful!

  “I must have dropped off,” he said, and picked up the telephone.

  “Lieutenant McCoy,” he said.

  “That’s Captain McCoy, I think. Why don’t you write that on the back of your hand?” Captain Edward Sessions, USMC, said.

  “I guess I’m not used to being a captain,” McCoy said. “What’s up, Ed?”

  Ernie was now leaning on the door, listening to the conversation. Dressed as she was, wearing nothing but the towel around her waist, and with most of her left leg peeking out through the flap in the towel, she was incredibly erotic. Even if she didn’t mean to be.

  Or is she doing that because she knows damned well how it will excite me?

  “I’ve been appointed officer-in-charge of getting you off on your presidentially directed administrative leave,” Sessions said.

  “Which means what?”

  “I’ve got your orders, new ID card, new credentials, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “And money. Another partial pay.”

  “And you want me to come over there?”

  “No. I’ll come there if you want. But what Jeanne wants is for you and Ernie to come over here. To the apartment, I mean. For dinner.”

  “What is it?” Ernie asked.

  “Jeanne wants us to come for dinner,” McCoy said.

  “Great! I want to see the baby. Tell him yes.”

  “Unless, of course, we’d be interrupting something important,” Sessions said. “I would understand that.”

  “Screw you,” McCoy said.

  “Jeanne wants to show Ernie the baby,” Sessions said.

  “What time?”

  “How soon could you come? We could have a couple of drinks.”

  “How soon could you be ready?” McCoy asked Ernie.

  “Just as soon as I put some clothes on.”

  “Ernie says just as soon as she can get dressed,” McCoy said.

  “Damn you!” Ernie said. “You didn’t have to say that!”

  “Give me the address, again,” McCoy said, and reached for the pencil and notepad beside the telephone.

  Ernie removed the towel from around her waist, balled it up, and threw it at him. She waited long enough for him to dodge the towel and then turned back into the bathroom and closed the door after her. But not before offering him a good look at her fanny and hips.

  And she did that on purpose, too!

  What I really want to do is go in there after her, pick her up, and carry her back in here.

  He thought about that for a moment, then stood up, walked to the bathroom and pulled open the door, and scooped her off her feet.

  “What took you so long?” Ernie laughed. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d lost interest.”

  [FIVE]

  There are two things wrong with babies, Captain McCoy thought, as he watched Ernie making cooing noises to the Sessionses’ infant. One, they make me uncomfortable. Second, sure as Christ made little apples, it will start Ernie off again, wanting one of her own. Our own. Damn!

  “Cute kid,” he said to Captain Sessions.

  “You ought to have one of your own,” Sessions said.

  Thanks a lot, pal.

  “Listen to the man, Ken,” Ernie said.

  I’d like to break his fucking arm!

  “You said you have a new ID for me?” McCoy said.

  “Yeah, come on in the study. I’ve got a briefcase full of stuff for you,” Sessions said.

  “Oh, you’re so precious!” Ernie said to Edward F. Sessions, Jr.

  Ed Sessions stopped in his living room long enough to make drinks for both of them, then led McCoy into his study, which was slightly larger than a closet, and motioned McCoy into its one upholstered chair.

  He picked a briefcase up from the floor, set it on his small desk, and began taking things from it. “You really should, you know,” he said, looking at McCoy.

  “I really should what?”

  “Marry her. Have a baby. That’s what’s it’s all about, Ken.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! What do you think my chances are of coming through this war alive, in one piece? The one thing I don’t want for Ernie is to be a widow with a baby. Or a loyal wife taking care of a one-legged, or vegetable, war veteran for the rest of her life.”

  “You’ve got to take the chance, Ken.”

  “Can we change the subject, please, before I punch you out?”

  “That would be assault upon a superior officer, punishable by death, or such lesser punishment as a court-martial may decree,” Sessions said solemnly. “Besides, I’m larger, stronger, and smarter than you are, capable, in other words, of whipping your ass. You should take that into consideration.”

  “Can we get on with this?” McCoy said, with a glance in the direction of the briefcase.

  “Okay. Except that I have to say that with the exception, of course, of Jeanne, they don’t come any better than the one you walked in here with just now.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I can’t marry her. What’s all that stuff?”

  Sessions flipped him a plastic card.

  “New identity card, to reflect the new railroad tracks on your shoulders. Incidentally, congratulations, Captain McCoy.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if the Corps knew what it was doing,” McCoy said. “I don’t think I’m qualified to be a captain.”

  “That’s horseshit. You’re better qualified to be a captain than ninety percent of the people walking around with captain’s bars.”

  “Captains command companies. Do you really think I’m qualified to command a company?”

  “Maybe the advanced officer course would do you some good,” Sessions said after a moment, and very seriously. “But you already have a more important qualification they can’t teach you at
Quantico.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?”

  “You know how to give orders,” Sessions said. “When you tell people to do something, they just do it, and think about whether it’s smart later. Most people, most captains, including me, don’t have that ability.”

  McCoy met his eyes for a moment. “What other goodies have you got for me?” he asked.

  Sessions handed him a stack of mimeographed orders. “That’s your leave orders. Fifteen days. Administrative leave. It doesn’t get charged against your accrued leave. DP.”

  “DP? What’s that?”

  “Direction of the President. Your pal Major Roosevelt called the Colonel and said his father ordered that personally.”

  “He’s not my pal. I was a second lieutenant on the Makin raid. Specs was the skipper, and a captain.”

  “Tell him that. He thinks he’s a pal of yours.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Gasoline ration coupons, two hundred gallons’ worth.”

  “My car’s up on blocks at Ernie’s parents’ place in New Jersey.”

  “Take it off the blocks. Or aren’t you planning to spend your leave with her?”

  “What I meant was that it probably doesn’t have plates on it.”

  “If I were Ernie, I would have paid for plates. That would get her gasoline coupons for her own car.”

  “And I’m sure my driver’s license has expired.”

  “It’s good for the duration plus six months,” Sessions said. “Is there some reason you don’t want to drive your car?”

  “No, of course not,” McCoy said. “You know, aside from my uniforms, things like that, that car is the only thing I own. I bought it when I came back from China. It’s a 1939 LaSalle convertible. Silver.”

  “Really?”

  “I paid five hundred twenty-five dollars for it,” McCoy said. “It was the first decent car I ever owned, and I didn’t want to sell it when I went overseas, and Ernie said I could leave it at the farm, so I did.”

  “So now you have a car. Enjoy it.”

  “Yeah,” McCoy said thoughtfully. “I’ll ask Ernie how much trouble it would be to get it off the blocks.”

  Sessions tossed him a small leather folder.

  “New credentials. That was the Colonel’s idea. He said the photograph on your old ones made you look like a high school cheerleader.”

  McCoy opened the folder. It contained a badge and a card sealed in plastic identifying McCoy, Kenneth R., as a Special Agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

  “I’ll have to have the old one back,” Sessions said.

  “I don’t have them.”

  “Ken, they’re not supposed to leave your person,” Sessions said.

  “I didn’t think I’d need them in the Philippines, so I left them in the safe in Water Lily Cottage in Brisbane. And forgot about them.”

  “The Colonel will be thrilled to hear that,” Sessions said.

  “I don’t think it makes any difference,” McCoy said. “Maybe you better keep these.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “After he showed me that Special Channel from the President, the first thing General Pickering said was ‘welcome to the OSS, Captain McCoy.’ I don’t think I belong to Colonel Rickabee anymore.”

  “Did the General say anything about taking Management Analysis into the OSS lock, stock, and barrel?”

  “No,” McCoy said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, though. I think he would have said something.”

  “Rickabee’s worried about that,” Sessions said. “The guy who runs the OSS has been trying to get us all along. Or shut us down.”

  “I don’t think that will happen.”

  “I hope you’re right, Ken. God knows, I don’t…”

  “…want to go in the OSS?” McCoy finished. “Well, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “What have you got against the OSS?” Sessions said.

  “The only nice thing I can think of about being in the OSS is that probably, now, I won’t get parachuted into the Gobi Desert…which is what you bastards had in mind for me.”

  “The last scuttlebutt I heard about that was that the Army Air Corps got to Admiral Leahy, and he told the Navy, which means Management Analysis, to butt out. The Air Corps’s going to set up a weather station in Russia.”

  “Good luck to them!” McCoy said.

  “Pickering didn’t tell you what you’ll be doing?”

  “I don’t think he knows. I don’t think he knows what he’ll be doing.”

  Sessions grunted but said nothing. He went back into the briefcase and came out with a stuffed business-size envelope.

  “And this little jewel contains your partial pay. One thousand bucks.”

  “I drew a partial in Pearl Harbor,” McCoy said. “But as you pointed out, I will be spending some time with Ernie, which means I’m going to need this. Thank you.”

  “That’s about it,” Sessions said. “I think you better keep those credentials.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “How do you feel about lying to me?”

  “Not good. About what?”

  “You could tell me you destroyed your credentials before going into the Philippines. Or while you were there. And then I’ll send a Special Channel to Pluto, and tell him to go in the safe, find your credentials, and burn them. It would keep you out of hot water with the Colonel.”

  “What’s he going to do? Send me to the OSS?”

  Sessions chuckled, then detected an odd tone in the way McCoy was looking at him.

  “What, Ken?”

  “You’ve been in Washington too long, Ed. You’re learning to lie like the rest of the bastards around here.”

  “I was just trying to be helpful,” Sessions said.

  “Yeah, I know you were,” McCoy said. He held up his nearly empty glass. “You got any more of this stuff?”

  “Absolutely,” Sessions said, and went to fix fresh drinks.

  VI

  [ONE]

  Muku-Muku

  Oahu, Territory of Hawaii

  1345 17 February 1943

  When Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR, saw Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, walk onto the patio at Muku-Muku wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe, he quickly slid out of the inner tube he had been floating in, swam to the side of the pool, and hoisted himself out. He almost lost his borrowed, too-large swimming trunks in the process.

  “You manage to get some sleep, sir?” he asked, as he pulled the trunks up.

  “Not a goddamn wink, thank you just the same,” Pickering said. “Every time I closed my eyes, there was Wild Bill Donovan leering at me from the fires of hell.”

  Hart chuckled. “Now what, sir?”

  “You get on the horn, George, call the flag secretary at CINCPAC and ask if Admiral Nimitz can give me ten or fifteen minutes to make my manners. And then we’ll have some lunch. Or did you eat?”

  “I thought I’d wait for you, sir.”

  “Did you check on our flight?”

  “Yes, sir, it’s laid on for 1945.”

  “You better tell the flag secretary that time,” Pickering said.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Pickering nodded, slipped out of the terry-cloth robe, and took a running dive into the pool. He swam the length of the large pool in a smooth breaststroke, turned, swam back, and repeated the process. He hauled himself out of the pool, put the terry-cloth robe back on, and looked at Hart, who pointed at the telephone.

  “I’m waiting for it to…” Hart began. The telephone rang. Hart picked it up. “General Pickering’s quarters, Lieutenant Hart speaking, sir.” He listened a moment. “I’m sure the General will find that convenient, sir. Thank you very much.” He replaced the telephone in its cradle.

  “What time will he see me, George?”

  “‘If General Pickering does not find this inconvenient, CINCPAC and Admiral Wagam will call on him at 1600,’” Hart quoted.

  “You made it
clear, I hope, George, that I wanted to go into Pearl Harbor?”

  “Yes, sir. The flag secretary told me he would speak with Admiral Nimitz and see what could be arranged. And call me back. He just did.”

  “I wonder what they want?”

  “They probably want an excuse to get out of CINCPAC for an hour or so,” Hart said.

  Pickering walked to the wall beside the glass doors leading into the house and pushed a button mounted on it.

  Denny Williamson appeared almost immediately. “Ready for a little lunch, Captain?” he asked.

  “Denny, I done told you two times already,” Hart said, smiling. “I ain’t gonna tell you no more. It’s General Pickering.”

  “Maybe to you, young man,” the elderly black man said. “Not to me.”

  “Admirals Nimitz and Wagam will be here at four, Denny,” Pickering said. “I don’t know how long they’ll stay, but be prepared for a light supper. Hart and I have to be at Pearl Harbor by quarter to seven.”

  “What you should do, you know, is not be at Pearl Harbor tonight, and not tomorrow night, either. You need a couple of days off,” Denny said.

  “You sound like my wife.”

  “I got my orders from Mrs. Pickering. You show up here, I’m supposed to keep you for a couple of days.”

  “I really wish I could stay a couple of days, Denny.”

  “We’ll lose the whole war if you do, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Pickering said. “Could you broil a piece of fish for lunch, Denny? Maybe with a salad?”

  “Yes, sir, Captain. Anything special for you, young man?”

  “That sounds good to me, Denny.”

  [TWO]

  Admirals Nimitz and Wagam arrived in separate cars at almost precisely four P.M. Nimitz was riding in a black 1939 Cadillac sedan, from the front fender of which flew a blue flag with four stars. Wagam was in a Navy, gray Plymouth, which carried a blue plate with two stars where a license plate would normally go.

  A portly captain Pickering did not recognize was in the Cadillac with Nimitz. Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III, whom Pickering and Hart had last seen in Brisbane, was in the backseat of the Plymouth with Wagam.

  Pickering, who had been waiting on the mansion’s wide verandah, walked down the shallow flight of stairs in time to meet Nimitz’s Cadillac when it stopped. Nimitz stepped out, Pickering saluted, and Nimitz returned it, then offered his hand.