W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

"What makes you so sure U.S. Forces in the Philippines is not 'a military force which threatens us'?" Ieyasu demanded.

"Well, for one thing," Saikaku said, "we have been reading all their com-munications traffic with the Americans in Australia. They keep asking for sup-plies, including such basic items as radios and radio codes; and Australia keeps replying that their requests are being considered."

"I personally found that interesting, Major Ieyasu," Colonel Tange said. "If this man Fertig-and especially if he were actually a general officer-was sent here, or was left behind when the Americans surrendered, it would seem logical that he would have been provided with both good radios and a crypto-graphic system."

"Exactly," Captain Saikaku said.

"Perhaps, Captain Saikaku," Major Ieyasu said sarcastically, "you would be good enough to tell us how you would recommend the Colonel deal with this matter?"

"I am sure the Colonel has already decided how to do that," Saikaku said smoothly.

"Let's hear what you have to say, Saikaku," Colonel Tange said.

"Sir, I would arrest all the able-bodied males within a five-mile area of the robbery site-"

"Robbery and murder site," Major Ieyasu interrupted.

"-robbery and murder site," Saikaku went on. "And subject them to intensive interrogation. A thorough and skillful interrogation, by which I mean there would be no evident marks on their bodies on their release."

"On their release? In other words, before we arrest them, you don't think a 'thorough and skillful interrogation' will come up with anything?"

"I doubt that it will, Major Ieyasu," Saikaku replied. "But I think we have to try. We may find some information, perhaps nothing useful now, but useful to us later. Then we release the prisoners. By arresting them, and then releasing them without serious physical harm, we will accomplish several things. First, we will establish our authority by the very act of arresting them. Second, they will learn-and may be counted on to pass on-just how uncomfortable a Kempeitai thorough and professional interrogation can be. And finally, by releasing them, we will prove that while we are firm, we are just."

"Very interesting," Colonel Tange said. "I wish to consider that at my leisure."

Everyone in the room understood that Colonel Tange's decision would look very much like what Captain Saikaku had suggested-either because that was what he had already come up with on his own, or because Saikaku's ideas seemed to be the best offered. But to make that announcement now would cause Major Ieyasu to lose face.

"You said Lieutenant Hideyori is outside, Captain Saikaku?" Colonel Tange went on. "Has he something to report?"

"No, Sir. I spoke with him at length before I came here. Should the Colo-nel desire, I am prepared to give a brief report on his failure. I ordered him to be here in case the Colonel, or Major Ieyasu, would like to talk with him person-ally."

"Let's have the brief report," Tange ordered.

"There have been fewer and fewer communications between Fertig and Australia. I alluded to this before. He asks for supplies; they reply that his re-quest is being considered, and give him a time for his next transmission. The time between such contacts seems to be growing longer.

"This, however, makes Lieutenant Hideyori's efforts to locate the trans-mitter much more difficult, as Fertig seems to be moving his transmitter after every exchange with Australia. He moves the transmitter within an area thirty miles wide east to west and seventy miles north to south, and always where there are few roads."

"In other words, he's no closer to finding the transmitter than ever?" Col-onel Tange asked.

"I regret that seems to be the case," Saikaku replied. "Shall I send for him, Colonel?"

"In your judgment, is he doing everything he should be doing?"

"Yes, Sir. He is."

"Then there's really no point in wasting my time talking to him, is there?"

"I would not think so, Sir."

"Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all," Colonel Tange said. "Major Ieyasu, would you please stay behind?"

[TWO]

Rocky Fields Farm

Bernardsville, New Jersey

1615 Hours 25 October 1942

Miss Ernestine Sage stepped out of her bathroom stark naked, in the process of toweling her hair, having decided it made sense to bathe now, while her father and Ken McCoy were trying to fit in an hour or so of hunting before supper, rather than before she went to bed.

As soon as dinner was over, she intended to announce that she was tired, they all had a busy day tomorrow, and why didn't everybody go to bed?

Thirty minutes after that, she planned to sneak as quietly as possible down the corridor past her parents' bedroom and into the guest bedroom. Ken would not expect her to do that, and it would be a pleasant, if discomfiting, surprise for him. And she had no intention of going back to her bedroom, no matter what his protests.

If her parents heard her, that would be unfortunate. She was not going to lose the opportunity to sleep with her man when she had the chance, no matter what the circumstances. She didn't want to be here anyway; her father had shown up at her apartment in Manhattan early that morning and practically dragged both of them into his car to bring them here.

She glanced idly out the window to see how dark it was, to make sure there was time to finish her toilette before they returned. Her father and Ken were perhaps five hundred yards from the house, walking through the stubble of a cornfield, obviously headed for home. She'd thought she'd have at least half an hour, that they wouldn't return until it was really getting dark.

Oh, God, I hope Daddy didn't say anything to Ken that made him mad!

"Damn!" she said, and increased the vigor of her toweling.

She dressed as quickly as she could, in a brown tweed skirt and a light-green, high-collared sweater, slipped her bare feet into a pair of loafers, quickly applied lipstick, and went downstairs.

She found them in the gunroom. Ken was peering down the barrels of a shotgun. Her father was scrubbing the action of the gun with a toothbrush.

"Home are the hunters, home from the field," she said. "Much sooner than expected."

"It didn't take long," Ernest Sage said, watching with what Ernie knew was discomfort as she went to Ken and kissed him.

Ernest Sage was a slightly built, very intense man of forty-eight, who wore his full head of black hair slicked back with Vitahair. Vitahair was one of the 209 widely distributed products of American Personal Pharmaceuticals, of which he was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer.

"Tell me," Ernie said.

"We were fifty yards into the first field. Two cocks jumped up. Before I could get my gun up, Ken got both of them."

"He's a Marine, Daddy. What did you expect?"

"He's a hell of a shot, honey," Ernest Sage said. "I'll tell you that."

Ernest Sage did not rise to the top of APP solely because he was the largest individual stockholder in the corporation founded by his grandfather, Ezekiel Handley, M.D. He thought of himself as an ordinarily competent, decently educated individual, who had somehow acquired an ability to get people to do what he wanted them to do, and to like doing it. Or the reverse, to not do what he thought they should not do, and believe that not doing it was the logical and reasonable thing to do.

He had often joked that there were only two people in the world he could not control, his wife and his only child. But even when he said that, he knew he had his wife pretty well under control.

Ernie was the one who did what she wanted to do, and didn't do what she didn't want to do, completely oblivious to the desires and manipulative efforts of her father.

Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, obviously confirmed that per-ception.