Semper Fi

Chapter Fourteen

(One)

Room 26, Temporary Building T-2032

Washington, D.C.

0945 Hours, 1 December 1941

McCoy had seen quite a few office doors during his time in the Corps. Most of them had a sign announcing in some detail not only what function was being carried out behind the door, but by whom.

The door to room 26 didn't even have a room number. McCoy had to find it by counting upward from room number 2, which had a sign: OFFICER s HEAD.

He thought he'd gotten it wrong even then, for what he thought was room 26 had two sturdy locks on it-a storeroom, in other words, full of mimeograph paper and quart bottles of ink. But with no other option that he could think of, he knocked on it.

As soon as he knocked, however, he heard movement inside, then the sound of dead-bolt locks being operated, and a moment later the door opened just wide enough to reveal the face of a grim-looking man. He said nothing, but the expression on his face asked McCoy to state his business.

"I'm looking for room 26," McCoy said.

The man nodded, waiting for McCoy to go on.

"I was ordered to report to room 26," McCoy said.

"What's your name, please?" the man asked.

"McCoy."

"May I see your identification, please?" the man asked.

McCoy handed over his brand-new officer's identification card. The man looked at it carefully, then at McCoy's face, and then opened the door wide enough for McCoy to enter.

Inside was a small area, just enough for a desk. On the other side of the room there was another door, again with double dead-bolt locks.

When the man walked to the telephone on the desk, McCoy saw that he had a.45 Colt 1911A1 on his hip. On his tail, really, and not in a GI holster, but in sort of a skeleton holster through which the front part of the pistol stuck out.

If he was wearing a jacket, McCoy thought, you'd never know he had a pistol.

"I have Lieutenant McCoy here," the man said to the telephone. "He's not due in until 15 December."

There was a pause.

"Well, shit, I suppose everybody's been told but us. What does he get?"

There was obviously a reply, but McCoy couldn't hear it. The man put the telephone down, and then reached into his desk and came out with a clipboard and a small plastic card affixed to an alligator clip.

"Sign here, please," he said. "Just your signature. Not your rank."

McCoy signed his name.

The man handed him the plastic card.

"You use this until we get you your own," he said. "Pin it on your blouse jacket."

_McCoy looked at it before he pinned it on. It was a simple piece of plastic-covered cardboard. It said "VISITOR" and there was the insignia of the Navy Department. It was overprinted with purple stripes.

"That's good anywhere in the building," the man said. "Or almost everywhere. But it's not good for ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence]. Until you get your credentials, you'd better avoid going over to ONI."

"Okay," McCoy said, wondering what was going on.

The man stuck out his hand.

"I'm Sergeant Ruttman," he said. "We didn't expect you until the fifteenth."

"So I heard you say," McCoy said.

"You just went through that course at Quantico, right?"

"That's right," McCoy said.

"Pain in the ass?"

"Yes, it was," McCoy said.

"They want to send me," Sergeant Ruttman said. "But I've been putting off going. I figure if they really want me to take a commission, they can give it to me. I already know about chickenshit."

"Good luck," McCoy said, wondering if Ruttman was just running off at the mouth, or whether he was telling the truth.

Ruttman replaced the clipboard in his desk, and then took keys from his pocket and unlocked both of the locks in the door.

"Follow me," he said.

Beyond the door was a strange assortment of machinery. There were typewriters and other standard office equipment. But there were also cameras; what McCoy guessed was a blueprint machine; a large photograph print dryer, a stainless-steel-drum affair larger than a desk; and a good deal of other equipment that looked expensive and complicated. McCoy couldn't even guess the purpose of some of it.

The equipment was being manned by a strange-looking assortment of people, all in civilian clothes, and all of them armed. Most of them had standard web belts and issue flapped holsters for the.45 191lAls they carried, but some carried the pistols the way Ruttman carried his, and others were armed with snub-nosed Smith Wesson revolvers. "What is this place, Sergeant?"

"The thing you're going to have to keep in mind, Lieutenant, is that it's just like boot camp at Parris Island. If they think you should know something, they'll tell you. Otherwise it's none of your business."

He turned his attention from McCoy to the drawer of a desk. He took a loose-leaf notebook from it and two blank forms, one of them a card with purple stripes like his "VISITOR" badge, and the other a Navy identification card of some sort.

"Before I fuck things up," he called out, raising his voice, "has anybody made out any of these and not logged them in the book?"

There was no response to the inquiry, and he put both identification cards in a typewriter and typed briefly and rapidly on them.

"I need an officer to sign these!" he called out again, and one of the civilians, a slight, tall man, walked to the desk.

Despite the Smith Wesson.38 snub-nose revolver on his hip, he looked like a clerk. He waited until Ruttman finished typing, and then took the card from him and scrawled his name on it. Then he looked at McCoy.

"You're McCoy?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Not that I'm not glad to see you, but you weren't due to report in until the fifteenth."

"I reported in early, sir."

"You'll regret that," the officer said. " 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!' "

He walked back where he had come from. McCoy saw that he was making notations on a large map. Next to the map were aerial photographs and a stack of teletype paper liberally stamped "SECRET" in large letters.

"You want to sign this, Lieutenant?" Sergeant Ruttman asked.

There was space for two signatures on the identification: the holder and the issuing officer. The tall skinny civilian had already signed it. According to the card, he was Lieutenant Colonel F.L. Rickabee, USMC. He sure as Christ didn't look like any lieutenant colonel McCoy had ever seen before. He didn't even look much like a Marine.

"Just your signature, again," Ruttman said. "No rank."

"You didn't give me back my ID card," McCoy said.

"You don't get it back," Ruttman said, and then apparently had doubts. He raised his voice. "Does he get his ID card back?"

"No," the tall thin man who looked like a clerk called back. "Not anymore. They changed the policy."

As if McCoy hadn't heard the exchange, Ruttman said, "You don't get it back, Lieutenant."

The tall skinny clerk-type had another thought and turned from his map and SECRET teletype messages.

"How long is it going to take to get him his credentials?"

"I'm just about to take his picture," Ruttman said.

"Today, you mean? He'll get his credentials today?"

"He'll have them by lunchtime," Ruttman said, confidently.

"Okay," the clerk-type said, and returned his attention to the map.

Based on the total absence of military courtesy (Ruttman had not once said "sir," much less "aye, aye, sir," to him, and the clerk-type hadn't seemed to care) McCoy decided that the clerk-type was not Lieutenant Colonel F.L. Rickabee, USMC. It was common practice for junior officers to sign senior officers' names to routine forms, sometimes initialing the signature and sometimes not. He went further with his theory: The tall skinny clerk was probably a warrant officer. Warrant officers were old-time noncoms, generally with some special skill. They wore officer's uniforms, could go to the Officers' Club, and were entitled to a salute, but the most senior chief warrant officer ranked below the most junior second lieutenant. And a warrant officer, particularly a new one, would probably not get all excited if an old-time noncom like Ruttman didn't treat him as if he was a lieutenant or a captain.

Ruttman stood McCoy against a backdrop, at which was pointed a Speed Graphic four-by-five-inch plate camera-

"Take off your blouse and your field scarf, and the bars," Ruttman ordered, "and put this on."

He handed McCoy a soiled, well-worn, striped necktie.

McCoy looked at him in disbelief.

"The way I'll shoot this," Ruttman explained, "that shirt'll look just like an Arrow."

He took McCoy's picture twice, "to make sure I get it," then led him to a table where he inked his fingers. He put his thumb print on both of the ID cards, and then took another full set on a standard fingerprint card.

Ruttman handed him a towel and bottle of alcohol to clean his hands, and then said, "That's it, here, Lieutenant. Now you go see Major Almond. He's in the last office down the passageway."

There was no sign hanging on Major J.J. Almond's door, either; but aside from that, he was what McCoy expected a Marine major to be. He was a short man, but muscular, and so erect he seemed taller than he was. And he was in uniform. His desk was shipshape, and two flags were on poles behind his desk, the Marine flag and the national colors.

And to the left of Major Almond's desk was a door with another sign: LT. COL. F.L. RICKABEE, USMC, COMMANDING. It was clear to McCoy now that he'd just gone through some sort of administrative service office where they made out ID cards and did that sort of thing, and that he was now about to face his new commanding officer.

"Let me say, McCoy," Major J.J. Almond said, "that I appreciate your appearance. You look and conduct yourself as a Marine officer should. As you may have noticed, there is a lamentable tendency around here to let things slip. Because of what we do here, we can't run this place like a line company. But we go too far, I think, far too often. I am going to rely on you, Lieutenant, to both set an example for the men and to correct, on the spot, whomever you see failing to live up to the standards of the Corps."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

"Now, before we get started, you reported in early."

"Yes, sir."

"You are entitled to a fourteen-day leave. If it is your intention to apply for that leave now that you have reported aboard, I would like to know that now."

"No, sir."

"You're in the BOQ at the Barracks, I presume?"

"No, sir."

"Where are you?"

"In a hotel, sir."

"I don't want to go through this, McCoy, pulling one fact after another from you."

"I'm in the Hotel Lafayette, sir. Sharing a room with another officer, sir. Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, sir."

"Well, that is fortuitous," Major Almond announced. "It is the policy of this command that both officer and enlisted personnel live off the base. You will draw pay in lieu of quarters. Will that pay be enough to pay for your hotel room?"

"Yes, sir."

"What's your room number?" Almond asked. "And I'll need the hotel telephone number."

"I don't know the phone number, sir," McCoy said. "We're living in the maid's room of the bridal suite, sir."

Major Almond smiled and nodded approvingly.

"Very enterprising," he said. "I wondered how you could afford to live in the Lafayette."

He reached into his desk drawer and came out with a three-inch-thick manila folder. He saw his name lettered on it, and that it was stamped "SECRET-COMPLETE BACKGROUND INVESTIGATION

"This is the report of the FBI's investigation of you, Lieutenant," he said. "It is classified SECRET, and you are not authorized access to it. I show it to you to show how carefully they have gone into your background." McCoy had no idea what was going on. Major Almond then handed him a printed form. "In normal circumstances, the procedure would have been for you to complete this form before the FBI did its complete background check. But the circumstances have not been normal. Time was important. The FBI had to, so to speak, start from scratch using existing records. So what has happened is that I have had our clerks prepare your background statement using existing records and the FBI report. Are you following me, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," McCoy said. "I think so, sir." ' "The standing operating procedure requires that your completed background statement be in the files," Major Almond said. "Now, while I am sure that the FBI has done their usual thorough job, I am nearly as sure that they have missed something. What I want you to do is take your background statement to the desk over there and go over it with great care. If there is anything on it that is not absolutely correct, I want you to mark it. We will then discuss it. More important, I want you to pay particular attention to omissions, particularly of a nonflattering nature." "Sir?"

"I want you to make sure that all the blemishes on your record are visible," Major Almond said. "The next step in the administrative procedure is to evaluate your record and judge whether or not you are qualified to be granted a top secret, and other, security clearances. If it came out later that there are blemishes which do not appear on the record, that would cause trouble, do you understand?" "Yes, sir."

"The sergeant will give you a lined pad and pencils," Major Almond said. "Make your notations on the lined pad, not on the form."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

"Work steadily, but carefully," Major Almond said. "Time is of the essence."

"Aye, aye, sir."

McCoy wondered if they had found out that he'd been under charges in Shanghai about the Italian marines, and whether or not he should tell them if they weren't. The charges had been dropped. Did that mean they didn't count? Was getting charged with murder a "blemish" if they dropped the charges?

He sat down at the desk and looked at the form.

It was immediately apparent that they knew more about him than he knew himself. He didn't know his mother's date of birth, or his father's, but they were in the blocks on the form. And so were Anne-Marie's and Tommy's, and even Anne-Marie's husband's.

(Two)

An hour later, he had worked his way through the six-page form to a section headed, "Arrests, Detentions, Indictments, Charges, et cetera."

They knew about the charges in China. (Not Prosecuted, initial facts in error.) And they knew about the old man signing the warrant for his arrest (Nol prossed on condition enlistment, USMC.) And they knew about speeding tickets, reckless driving, and even two charges of malicious mischief and being found in possession of a Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun in violation of the city ordinances of Norristown, Pa. (Nol prossed. BB Gun confiscated. Released in custody of parents.) It was absolutely incredible how much they knew about I him. He wondered what was going to happen when whoever previewed his records came to the business about the Marines in China. Was that going to keep him from getting a security clearance?

The door opened and the tall skinny clerk-type walked in.

Without knocking, McCoy saw. In the same moment Major Almond rose to his feet. He is about to get his ass eaten out. The clerk-type walked toward the door of Lieutenant Colonel F.L. Rickabee and put his hand on the knob. For all intents and purposes he looked as if he was going to barge in there, too, without knocking. Then he stopped, turned to McCoy, and smiled.

"Come on in, McCoy," he said. "Whatever that is, it'll wait." Then he looked at Major Almond. "What the hell is that?" he demanded.

"Sir, it's Lieutenant McCoy's background statement."

"Isn't that a waste of his time?" Rickabee demanded sharply. "And ours? When I read the FBI report I had the feeling they knew everything there is to know about him."

Major Almond seemed to have difficulty framing a reply.

"I know, Jake," Colonel Rickabee said, more kindly. "It's regulation."

"Yes, sir."

"Come on in, McCoy, and you, too, Jake. It'll save time."

"Aye, aye, sir," Major Almond said.

Rickabee sat down behind his desk.

"For openers, McCoy, despite that inexcusable outburst of mine, let me make it clear that Major Almond is what keeps this lash-up of ours functioning. Without him, it would be complete, rather than seventy-five percent, chaos. I didn't mean to jump your ass, Jake. I've had a bad morning."

"Yes, sir. I know, sir," Major Almond said. "No apology is necessary, sir."

Colonel Rickabee turned to McCoy.

"With a three-inch-thick FBI report on you in Major Almond's safe, McCoy, we won't have to waste much time asking and answering questions about your background. And in addition to the official report, I have two personal reports on you. You made one hell of an impression on the boss in Philadelphia."

"Sir?" McCoy asked.

"You apparently delivered quite a lecture on the high state of discipline in the Imperial Japanese Army and how they were going to be formidable foes. Since the one true test of an intelligent man is how much he agrees with you, the boss thinks you're a genius."

" 'The boss,' sir?"

"The chief of intelligence," Rickabee said. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"No, sir."

"Let it pass, then," Rickabee said, smiling. "Newly commissioned second lieutenants should not be praised. It tends to swell their heads. I had another personal report on you just a week ago. Ed Banning wrote me from Manila… you knew that the fourth has been shipped to the Philippines?"

"No, sir, I didn't."

"Banning said that he thought I should have you transferred to this lash-up and that I should consider, somewhere down the line, even sending you to officer candidate school."

McCoy didn't know how to respond.

In Japanese, Colonel Rickabee said, "I understand you're reasonably fluent in Japanese and Chinese."

"I wouldn't say fluent, sir-"

"Say it in Japanese," Rickabee interrupted.

"I can't read very much Japanese, sir," McCoy said, in Japanese. "And my Chinese isn't much better."

Rickabee nodded approvingly. "That's good enough," he continued in Japanese, and then switched to English. "We can use that talent. But there's a question of priorities. When we knew you were coming here, McCoy, what we planned to do with you was to have you replace Sergeant Ruttman. I want to run him through Quantico, too. He thinks he's been successfully evading it. The truth is that I needed somebody to take his place while he was gone. You seemed ideal to do that. You're a hardnose, and it would give you a chance to see how things are done here. But the best-laid plans, as they say. There are higher priorities. Specifically, the boss has levied on us-and I mean the boss personally, not one of his staff-for three officer couriers. We're moving a lot of paper back and forth between here and Pearl and here and Manila, especially now that the Fourth is in the Philippines. You're elected as one of the three, McCoy."

"Sir, I don't know what an officer courier is."

"There are some highly classified documents, and sometimes material, that have to pass from hand to hand, from a specific officer here to a specific officer someplace else-as opposed to headquarters to headquarters. That material has to be transported by an officer.''

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"There's one other factor in the equation," Rickabee said. "The Pacific-especially Pearl Harbor, but Cavite too-has been playing dirty pool. We have sent officer couriers out there with the understanding that they would make one trip and then return to their primary duty. What Pearl has done twice, and Cavite once, is to keep our couriers and send the homeward-bound mail in the company of an officer they didn't particularly need. We have lost two cryptographic officers and one very good intercept officer that way."

McCoy knew that a cryptographic officer dealt with secret codes, but he had no ideas what an "intercept" officer was.

"I've complained, of course, and eventually we'll get them back, after everything has moved, slowly, through channels. But I can't afford to lose people for sixty, ninety days. Not now. So there had to be a solution, and Major Almond found it."

McCoy said nothing.

"Aren't you even curious, McCoy?" Rickabee asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Every officer in the Marine Corps is required to obey the orders of any officer superior to him, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"If the orders conflict, he is required to obey the orders given him by the most senior officer, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Wrong," Rickabee said. "Or at least, there is an interesting variation. There is a small, generally unknown group of people in the Corps who don't have to obey the orders of superior officers, unless that officer happens to be the chief of intelligence. Their ranks aren't even known. Just their name and photo and thumbprint is on their ID cards. And the ID cards say that the bearer is a Special Agent of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, USMC, and subject only to his orders."

"Yes, sir."

"Congratulations, Lieutenant McCoy, you are now-or you will be when Ruttman finishes your credentials-a Special Agent of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. If anybody at Pearl or Cavite knows, or finds out, that you speak Japanese and decides they just can't afford to lose you, you will show them your identification and tell them you are sorry, but you are not subject to their orders."

Rickabee saw the confusion on McCoy's face.

"Question, McCoy?"

"Am I going to Pearl Harbor, sir?"

"And Cavite," Rickabee said. "More important, I think you will be coming back from Pearl and Cavite."

"And you can get away with giving me one of these cards?"

"For the time being," Rickabee said. "When they catch us, I'm sure Major Almond will think of something else clever."

"Let me make it clear, Lieutenant McCoy," Major Almond said, "that the identification, and the authority that goes with it, is perfectly legitimate. The personnel engaged in counterespionage activity who are issued such credentials are under this office."

"Major Almond pointed out to me, McCoy, that I had the discretionary authority to issue as many of them as I saw fit."

"Yes, sir."

"We don't wish to call attention to the fact that people like you will have them," Rickabee said. "For obvious reasons. You will travel in uniform on regular travel orders, and you will not show the identification unless you have to. You understand that?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't know how long we'll have to keep you doing this, McCoy," Colonel Rickabee said. "We have a certain priority for personnel, but so do other people. And that FBI background check takes time. And the FBI is overloaded with them. You'll just have to take my word for it that as soon as I can get you off messenger-boy duty and put you to work doing something useful to us, I will."

"Yes, sir."

"What's his schedule, Jake?" Rickabee asked.

"Well, today of course there are administrative things to do. Get him a pistol, get his orders cut. That may run into tomorrow morning. He'll need some time to get his personal affairs in order. But there's no reason he can't leave here on Wednesday night, Thursday morning at the latest. Presuming there's not fifty people ahead of him in San Francisco also with AAA priority, that should put him in Pearl no later than Monday, December eighth, and into Manila on the tenth."

"Is that cutting it too close for you, McCoy?" Colonel Rickabee asked.

"No, sir," McCoy said, immediately.

Rickabee nodded.

"Take him to lunch at the Army-Navy Club, Jake," Colonel Rickabee ordered. "Sign my name to the chit."

"Aye, aye, sir," Major Almond said.

"I like to do that myself," Rickabee said, turning to McCoy. "We don't have time for many customs of the service around here; but when I can, I like to have a newly reported-aboard officer to dinner. Or at least take him to lunch. But I just don't have the time today. Won't have it before you go to Pearl. I'm really sorry."

Then he stood up and offered his hand.

"Welcome aboard, McCoy," he said. "I'm sorry your first assignment is such a lousy one. But it happens sometimes that way in the Corps."

He headed out of his office, and then stopped at the door.

"Get him out of the BOQ before he goes," he said. "If there's no time to find a place for him, have his gear brought here, and we'll stow it while he's gone, until we can find something."

"He's got a room in the Lafayette, sir."

"I'll be damned," Colonel Rickabee said. "But then Ed Banning did say I would find you extraordinary."

For some reason, McCoy thought, it was no longer hard to think of F.L. Rickabee as a lieutenant colonel of Marines.

(Three)

Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was sitting in the maid's room's sole armchair, his feet up on the cot. When Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, carrying a briefcase, entered the room, Pickering was in the act of replacing a bottle of ale in an ice-filled silver wine-cooler he had borrowed from the bridal suite.

"What the hell are you doing with a briefcase?" Pick asked.

"That's not all," McCoy said. "Wait till I tell-"

Pickering shut him off by holding up his hand.

"Wait a minute," he said. "I've got if not bad then discomfitting news."

"Discomfit me, then," McCoy mocked him. "Fuck up what otherwise has been a glorious day."

"My general thinks you should move into the BOQ," Pickering said.

"Oh, shit!" McCoy said. "What the fuck business is it of his, anyway?"

"He's a nice guy," Pickering said. "He and my father were corporals together, and he stayed in the Corps. He's trying to be nice."

"Sure," McCoy said. "Just a friendly word of advice, my boy. An officer is judged by the company he keeps. Disassociate yourself from that former enlisted man."

"Jesus Christ," Pick said without thinking. "You do have a runaway social inferiority complex, don't you?"

"Fuck you," McCoy said.

"It's not like that at all, goddamn your thick head. What he's worried about is getting you in trouble with Intelligence."

"What?" McCoy asked.

"I don't know if you know this or not," Pickering said. "But the Corps has intelligence agents, counterintelligence agents. What they do is look for security risks."

"No shit?" McCoy asked.

"Listen to me, goddamn you!" Pickering said. "What these guys do is look for something unusual. Like second lieutenants living in hotels like the Lafayette. Expensive hotels. They would start asking where you got the money to pay for the bill."

"Special agents of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, USMC, you mean?" McCoy asked, smiling broadly.

"You know about them, then? Goddamn it, Ken, it's not funny."

"It's the funniest thing I heard of all day," McCoy said. He took off his jacket, and then opened the briefcase.

"What the hell are you doing?" Pickering asked.

McCoy took a leather-and-rubber strap arrangement that only after a moment Pickering recognized as a shoulder holster. He slipped his arms in it, and then took a Colt 1911A1 from the briefcase and put it in the holster. Then he put his tunic back on.

"Goddamn you, you haven't listened to a word I've said," Pickering said.

"Well, I may be dumb," McCoy said. "But you're a Japanese spy if I ever saw one. Come with me, young man. If you cooperate, it will go easier on you."

It was some kind of joke, obviously, but Pickering didn't have any idea where the humor lay.

McCoy took a small leather folder from his hip pocket, opened it, and shoved it in Pickering's face.

"Special Agent McCoy," he announced triumphantly. "You're a dead man, you filthy Jap spy!"

"What the hell is that?" Pickering asked, snatching it out of his hand, and then looking at it carefully. "Is this for real? What is it?"

"It's for real," McCoy said. "And it's my ticket to sunny Hawaii and other spots in the romantic Orient." "It's for real?" Pickering repeated, in disbelief. "Well, not really real," McCoy said. "I mean it's genuine, but I'm not in counterintelligence. I'm an officer courier. They gave me that so no one will fuck with me on the swift completion of my appointed rounds."

Pickering demanded a more detailed explanation of what had gone on.

"But how did you get involved in intelligence in the first place?"

"That's what I did in China," McCoy said. It was the first time he had ever told anyone that. He remembered just before he'd boarded the Charles E. Whaley, Captain Banning ordering him not to tell anyone in or out of the Corps about it. But that order had been superceded by his most recent order, from Major J.J. Almond:

"You'll have to tell your roommate something, McCoy. You can say where you work, advising him that it is classified information. And what you do, because that in itself is not classified."

And with the 4th Marines gone from Shanghai, there didn't seem to be any point in pretending that he hadn't done what he had done. And it was nice to have an appreciative audience, an audience that had previously believed he had been a truck driver.

"The important thing," he said finally, when he realized that he was tooting his own horn too much, "is that my colonel doesn't want me in the BOQ. So where does that leave us?"

Pickering reached for the telephone.

"This is Malcolm Pickering," he said. "Will you get the resident manager on here, please?"

When the resident manager came on the line, Pickering told him there had been "another change in plans."

"I will need that suite," he said. "Lieutenant McCoy and I will be here for the indefinite future."

They went down to dinner. There Pickering talked about flight school.

"I'm going to take a flight physical Thursday afternoon," he said. "If I pass it, I think I'm going to go for it."

And then they began a lengthy, and ultimately futile, search for a couple of skirts to lift.

It did not dampen their spirits at all. There was always tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the week after that. There were supposed to be twice as many women as men in Washington…

Despite the legend, McCoy said, it had been his experience that a Marine uniform was a bar to getting laid. When he came back from Hawaii and Manila, they would do their pussy-chasing in civilian clothes.

(Four)

Security Intelligence Section

U.S. Naval Communications

Washington, D.C.

1540 Hours, Wednesday, 3 December 1941

The sign on the door said OP-20-G, and there was a little window in it, like a speak-easy. When McCoy rang the bell, a face appeared in it.

"Lieutenant McCoy to see Commander Kramer," McCoy announced

"I'll need to see your ID, Lieutenant," the face said.

McCoy held the little leather folder up to the window. The man took his sweet time examining it, but finally the door opened.

"The commander expected you five minutes ago," the face said. The face was now revealed as a chief radioman.

"The traffic was bad," McCoy said.

He followed the chief down a passageway, where the chief knocked at a door. When he announced who he was, there was the sound of a solenoid opening a bolt.

"Lieutenant McCoy, Commander," the chief said. "His ID checks."

"I'm sure he won't mind if I check it again," a somewhat nasal voice said.

Commander Kramer was a tall, thin officer with a pencil-line mustache. He looked at McCoy's credentials and then handed them back.

"I was about to say that we don't get many second lieutenants as couriers," Kramer said. "That is now changed to 'we don't get to see much identification like that.' "

"No, sir," McCoy said.

"Are you armed, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you're leaving when?"

"At sixteen-thirty, sir."

"From Anacostia, you mean?"

"Yes, sir. Naval aircraft at least as far as San Francisco."

"You normally work for Colonel Rickabee, is that it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I heard that they had levied him for officer couriers," Kramer said. "I'm sorry you were caught in the net. But it wouldn't have been done if it wasn't necessary."

"I don't mind, sir," McCoy said, solemnly.

Instead of heading around the world by airplane, I would of course prefer to be here in Washington inventorying paper clips. Or better than that, at Camp LeJeune running around in the boondocks, practicing "the infantry platoon in the assault."

"Your briefcase is going to be stuffed," Kramer said. "She was sealing the envelopes just now. I'll have her bring them in."

He pushed a lever on an intercom.

"Mrs. Feller, the courier is here. Would you bring the material for Pearl Harbor in here, please?"

Mrs. Feller?

Ellen Feller backed into Commander Kramer's office with a ten-inch-thick stack of heavy manila envelopes held against her breast.

"Mrs. Feller, this is Lieutenant McCoy," Commander Kramer said.

"The lieutenant and I are old friends," Ellen said.

"Really?"

"We got to know one another rather well in China, didn't we, Ken?"

"You don't seem very surprised to see me," McCoy said.

"I knew you were here," she said. "I didn't expect to see you so soon, but I did hope to see you."

"May I suggest you get on with the document transfer?" Commander Kramer said, a tinge of annoyance in his voice. "Lieutenant McCoy has a sixteen-thirty plane to catch at Anacostia."

There were thirteen envelopes in the stack Ellen Feller laid on Commander Kramer's desk. There was a numbered receipt to be signed for each of them, and McCoy had to place his signature across the tape sealing the flap at the place where it would be broken if the envelope was opened.

It took some time to go through the paperwork and stuff the unyielding envelopes into the briefcase. Enough time for Commander Kramer to regret jumping on both of them.

"Ellen," he said. "If you wished to continue your reunion with the lieutenant, there's no reason you can't ride out to Anacostia with him."

"Oh, I'd like that," Ellen said.

McCoy took the handcuffs from his hip pocket and looped one cuff through the handle of the briefcase, then held out his wrist for Kramer to loop the other cuff around it.

"Have a good trip, Lieutenant," Commander Kramer said, offering his hand. He then held the door for both of them to pass through.

"My coat's just down the corridor," Ellen said.

A Navy gray Plymouth station wagon and a sailor driver waited for them at the entrance. McCoy had ridden over to OP-20-G in the front seat with him, but when the sailor saw Ellen Feller, he ran around and held the back door open for her. McCoy hesitated a moment before he got in beside her, holding the heavy briefcase on his lap.

"You were right," Ellen said, as they drove off.

"About what?"

"That I could probably find a job because I speak Chinese." She switched to Chinese. "The first place I applied was to the Navy, and they hired me right on. As a translator. But there's not that much to translate, so I've become sort of office manager. I'm a GS-6."

"I don't know what that means," McCoy said, relieved that they could speak Chinese and the driver wouldn't understand them. "Where's your husband?"

"He's in New York, busy with his work," she said.

"You manage to smuggle the vase in all right?" McCoy asked

She raised her eyebrows at the question, but didn't answer it.

"I have a nice little apartment here," she said. "You'll have to come see it."

"The last time I saw you, you-seemed damned glad to be getting rid of me."

"Well, my God, you remember what happened the day before," she said. "That was quite a shock."

"Yeah," he said, sarcastically. "Sure."

"I was upset, Ken," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Forget it," he said. "Those things happen."

"I understand why you're… angry," she said.

He didn't reply.

She turned on the seat and caught his hand in both of hers.

"I said, I'm sorry," she said.

"Nothing to be sorry about," he said.

"If you're still angry, then there is," she said.

"I'm not angry," he said.

She rubbed his hand against her cheek and then let him go.

"Not everything that happened the day before was unpleasant, of course," she said.

He didn't reply.

"Do you remember what happened just before?".

You were blowing me, that's what happened just before.

"No," he said.

"I often think about it," she said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," McCoy said.

Fuck you, lady. You get to screw old McCoy just once. I'm not about to start up anything with you again!

"Don't you really?" Ellen asked, and then sat forward on the seat to give the driver instructions: "Stay on Pennsylvania," she ordered. "It's faster this time of day."

"Yes, ma'am," the driver said.

When she slid back against the seat, her hand went under the skirt of McCoy's tunic and closed around his erection.

"Liar," she said softly.

"For God's sake," he said, pushing her hand away.

"Pity there's not more time, isn't it? But you won't be gone all that long, will you?"

At least with her, I know what she's after. It's not like with Pick's rich-bitch friend.

And thirty minutes in the sack with the old vacuum cleaner, and I won't even be able to remember Miss Ernestine Sage's name, much less remember what she looked like.

"No," he said. "A couple of weeks, is all. No more than three."

"That'll give us both something to look forward to, won't it?" Ellen Feller said.

McCoy reached out for her hand and put it back under the skirt of his blouse.