The Corp - Counterattack Part 5

"You were about to tell me, I think, what you're going to do for Donovan."

"Nothing. I decided I didn't want to work for him. Or maybe vice versa. Anyway, I'm not going to work for him."

"Won't you have enough to do running your company? h.e.l.l, transportation is going to win-or lose-this war."

"I sold the pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps, at least the larger ones, to the Navy," Pickering replied. "And the freighters and tankers will probably go on long-term charter to either the Navy or the Maritime Administration-the ones that aren't already, that is. There's not a h.e.l.l of a lot for me to do."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Strange, General, that you should ask that question," Pickering said.

"What's on your mind, Flem?" Mclnerney asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice.

"How about 'Once a Marine, always a Marine'?"

Mclnerney looked at him with disbelief and uneasiness in his eyes.

"Flem, you're not talking about you coming back in the Corps, are you? Are you serious?"

"Yes, I am, and yes, I am," Pickering said. "Why is that so- to judge from the look in your eyes and your tone of voice-incredible?"

"Come on, Flem," Mclnerney said. "You've been out of the Corps since 1919-and then, forgive me, you were a corporal."

"There should be some job where I could be useful," Pickering said. "Christ, I've been running eighty-one s.h.i.+ps. And their crews. And all the sh.o.r.e facilities."

"I'm sure the Navy would love to commission someone with your kind of experience. Or, for that matter, the Transportation Corps of the Army."

"I don't want to be a G.o.dd.a.m.n sailor."

"Think it through," Mclnerney said. "Flem, I'm telling you the way it is."

"So tell me. I'm apparently a little dense."

"Your experience, your s.h.i.+pping business experience, is in what I think of as Base Logistics. Moving large amounts of heavy cargo by sea from one place to another. The Navy does that for the Marine Corps."

"It occurred to me that I could be one h.e.l.l of a division supply officer, division quartermaster, whatever they call it."

"That calls for a lieutenant colonel, maybe a full colonel. If there was strong resistance among the palace guard to commissioning people-Marines, like Jack Stecker, a master gunnery sergeant-as captains, what makes you think they'd commission a civilian, a former corporal, as a lieutenant colonel?"

"I'm willing to start at the bottom. I don't have to be a lieutenant colonel."

Mclnerney laughed. "I think you really believe that."

"Yes, I do."

"As a major? A captain? That your idea of starting at the bottom?"

"Why not?"

"Flem, when was the last time someone told you what to do, gave you an order?"

"Well, just for the sake of argument, I think I can still take orders, but I have the feeling that I'm just wasting my breath."

"You want the truth from me, old buddy, or bulls.h.i.+t from some paper pusher?"

"That would depend on what the bulls.h.i.+t was."

" 'Why, we would love to have you, Mr. Pickering,' followed by an a.s.signment as, say, a major, and deputy a.s.sistant maintenance officer for mess-kit rehabilitation at Barstow, or some other supply depot. Where you would do a h.e.l.l of a job rehabilitating mess kits, and be an all-around pain in the a.s.s the rest of the time. You want to march off to war again, Flem, and that's just not going to happen. Unless, of course, you go to the Navy. They really would love to have you."

"f.u.c.k the Navy," Fleming Pickering said.

He stood up. General Mclnerney eyed him warily.

"I suppose I've made a real fool of myself, haven't I, Doc?" Pickering said calmly.

"No, not at all. I'm just sorry things are ... the way things are."

"Well, I've kept my master's ticket up. And I still own some s.h.i.+ps. Taking a s.h.i.+p to sea is better than being ... what did you say, 'a deputy a.s.sistant mess-kit-repair officer'?"

"Yes, of course it is. But I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, that the Navy would love to have you."

"And I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, f.u.c.k the Navy.'"

Mclnerney laughed.

"Have it your way, Flem. But they are on our side in this war."

"Well, then, G.o.d help us. I was at Pearl Harbor."

"Is it fair to blame Pearl Harbor on the Navy?"

"On who, then?" Fleming Pickering said, and put out his hand. "Thank you for seeing me, Doc. And for doing what you did for Pick."

"If you were twenty-one, I'd get you in flight school, too. No thanks required. Keep in touch, Flem."

(Four) The Foster Lafayette Hotel Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

20 December 1941 "Thank you very much," Fleming Pickering said politely, then took the receiver from his ear and placed it, with elaborate care, in its base. It was one of two telephones on the coffee table in the sitting room of Senator Richardson Fowler's suite. Then he said, quite clearly, "Well, I'll be a sonofab.i.t.c.h!" Transcontinental and Western Airlines had just told him that even though he already had his ticket for a flight between New York and San Francisco, with intermediate stops at Chicago and Denver, he could not be boarded without a priority. He had explained to them that he had come from San Francisco with a priority and was simply trying to get home, and that he had presumed that the priority which had brought him to Was.h.i.+ngton also applied to his return trip. TWA had told him that was not the case; he would need another priority to do so.

Fleming Pickering considered his predicament and swore again.

"That G.o.dd.a.m.ned sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

He was referring to Colonel William J. Donovan, Coordinator of Information to the President of the United States. This was his fault. Donovan should have arranged for him to get home, gotten him a priority to do so. While he didn't think it was likely the ambulance-chasing sonofab.i.t.c.h was vindictive enough to have canceled his return-trip priority after their unpleasant encounter that morning, it was possible. And whether he had canceled the priority or simply neglected to arrange for one, what this meant for Fleming Pickering was that unless he wanted to spend four days crossing the country by train-and they probably pa.s.sed out compartments on the train to people with priorities, which might well mean sitting up in a coach all the way across the country-he was going to have to call the b.a.s.t.a.r.d up and politely beg him to get him a priority to go home.

There was no question in Pickering's mind that Donovan would get him a priority, and no question either that Donovan would take the opportunity to remind Pickering that priorities were intended for people who were making a contribution to the war effort, not for people who placed their own desires and ambitions above the common good, by, for example, declining to serve with the Office of the Coordinator of Information.

Then Fleming Pickering had another thought: Richardson Fowler could probably get him a priority. d.i.c.k was a politician. Whatever law the politicians wrote, or whatever they authorized some agency of the government to implement-such as setting up an air-travel priority system-those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would take care of themselves first.

The thought pa.s.sed through his mind, and was quickly dismissed, that perhaps he was being a horse's a.s.s, that he was not working for the government and therefore had no right to a priority, and that getting one through Fowler's political influence would deprive of a seat some brave soldier en route to battle the Treacherous j.a.p. He was not going to California to lie on the beach. He still had a s.h.i.+pping company to run; coming here had taken him away from that.

There came a knock at the door. Pickering looked at it, and then at his watch. It was probably d.i.c.k Fowler. But why would Fowler knock?

"Come!"

It was Max Telford.

"h.e.l.lo, Max, what's up?"

"I have a somewhat delicate matter I thought I should bring to your attention," Telford said.

"Will it wait until I pour us a drink? I've had a bad day and desperately need one."

"I could use a little taste myself," Telford said. "Thank you."

"Scotch?"

"Please."

When Pickering handed him his drink, Telford handed him a woman's red leather wallet.

"What's this?"

"It belongs to Miss Ernestine Sage," Telford said.

Ernestine "Ernie" Sage was the daughter of Patricia Pickering's college roommate.

"Where'd you get it?" Pickering asked.

"Miss Sage left it behind when she left the inn. The wallet and some other things."

"I don't quite follow you."

"She was not registered, Mr. Pickering," Telford said carefully.

"She was here with Pick?" Fleming Pickering's eyes lit up. He liked Ernie Sage, and there had been more than a tiny seed of hope in the jokes over the years, as Ernie and Pick had been growing up, that they could be paired off permanently. Still, it was a dumb thing for Pick to do. Ernest Sage, Ernie's father, was Chairman of the Board of American Personal Pharmaceuticals. And he routinely stayed in the Foster Lafayette. Pick should have known she would be recognized.

"With Pick's friend," Telford said. "Lieutenant McCoy."

"I know him," Pickering said, without thinking. "He's a nice kid."

Pick and McCoy had gone through the Officer Candidate School at the Marine base at Quantico together. They had nothing in common. McCoy had been a corporal in the peacetime Marine Corps, and what he had, he had earned himself. But Pickering had not been surprised when he'd met McCoy and seen the affection between him and his son. Doc Mclnerney and Flem Pickering had become lifelong friends in the Corps in France, despite a wide disparity in backgrounds.

"Then you know he was wounded," Telford said.

"No. I hadn't heard about that."

"I don't have all the details," Telford said. "I didn't want to pry, but McCoy is apparently some sort of officer courier. He was in the Pacific when the war started, and Pick got one of those 'missing and presumed dead' telegrams. He was pretty shook up about it. And then McCoy called from the West Coast and said he was back. Anyway, Pick came to me and said that McCoy was on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton, and if there was ever a time a Foster hotel should offer its very best, it was now, to McCoy. And his lady friend. And that all charges should be put on his account."

"And the lady friend turned out to be Ernestine Sage?"

"Yes, Sir. I recognized her immediately, but I don't know if she knows I knew who she is."

"And they were here for a while? Lots of room service?"

"Yes. That's a nice way to put it."

"Andrew Foster once told me that so far as he's concerned, he's prepared to offer accommodations to two female elephants in heat, plus a bull elephant, just as long as they pay the bill and don't soil the carpets," Pickering said. "So what's the problem?"

Telford laughed. "He told me a variant of that philosophy. It was two swans in heat, so long as they paid the bill and didn't flap their wings and lay eggs in the elevators."

Pickering chuckled, and then repeated, "So what's the problem? I'd rather my wife didn't hear about this, but so far as I'm concerned, whatever Ernie Sage did in here with Lieutenant McCoy is their business and no one else's."

"The problem is how to return Miss Sage's property to her," Telford said. "The only address I have for either of them is the one on her driver's license. That's in Bernardsville, New Jersey. Her parents' home, I think."

"Telford, your discretion is in keeping with the highest traditions of the innkeeping trade," Pickering said, meaning it. "If Ernest Sage found out-or even suspected-that his only child, his precious little Ernie, was shacked up with a Marine officer in a hotel in Was.h.i.+ngton, there would be h.e.l.l to pay. Let me think."

He did just that, as he took a deep pull at his drink. "Ernie works for an advertising agency in New York," he said, after a moment. "J. Walter Thompson. It's on Madison Avenue. Check the phone book. Send it to her there, special delivery, and put Pick's address on it as the return address."

"All I have for that would be 'Pensacola, Florida.' "

"Add 'Student, Flight Training Program, U.S. Navy Air Station,' " Pickering said.

"I'm glad I brought this to your attention," Telford said.

"So am I. You about ready for another of these?"

"No, thank you."

The door opened and Senator Richardson Fowler walked in. There was someone with him, a stocky, well-dressed man in his sixties. He stopped inside the door, took gold-rimmed pince-nez from a vest pocket, polished them quickly with a handkerchief, and then put them on his nose.

"Good evening, Mr. Secretary," Telford said. "It's nice to see you, Sir."

"h.e.l.lo, Telford, how are you?" said Secretary of the Navy Frank W. Knox.

"Fine, and on my out, Sir," Telford said. "Is there anything I can send up?"

"All we want right now is a drink, Max, thanks," Fowler said. He waited until Telford had left, closing the door behind him, and then went on, "Frank told me at lunch, to my surprise, that you two don't know each other."

"Only by reputation," Pickering said, crossing the room to Knox and giving him his hand.

"I was about to say just that," Knox said. "How do you do, Pickering?"

The two examined each other with unabashed curiosity. "Scotch for you, Frank?" Senator Fowler asked, looking over his shoulder from the array of bottles.

"Please," Knox said absently, and then, "d.i.c.k tells me you're going to work for Bill Donovan."