W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps V - Line of Fire

There was no way they were going to get out of the Philippines, not with the Japanese there. And even if he survived the war, no one would care about jade removed illegally from China in 1941.

The trouble was that McCoy seemed to have nine lives. He got out of the Philippines somehow and showed up in Washington, as a fresh-from-OCS second lieutenant. The last she heard of him he was in the 2nd Raider Battalion. He survived the Makin Island raid, too, just as he'd survived the Philippines.

The bastard has more lives than a cat!

And what is he... what are all of them doing here now?

"Who's the sergeant with McCoy?" Banning asked.

"Interesting guy," Dillon said. "He used to be a detective on the vice squad in St. Louis. Rickabee plucked him out of Parris Island and made him Pickering's bodyguard."

"What's he doing here?" Banning asked.

"He's here because he told Brigadier General Pickering that he wanted to come," he said, using the line he'd used for Moore, "and Brigadier General Pickering said, `Good boy."

"In other words, you're not going to tell me?"

"Not until McCoy and Hart get here, and Mrs. Feller goes shopping or something," Dillon said.

"Major Dillon," Ellen Feller said coldly, "I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but I hold the same security clearances as Major Banning,"

"I didn't know that, Mrs. Feller," Jake said. "But what I do know is that General Pickering told me that the less you know about this the better."

"You won't mind, will you, Major," she said, "if I verify that with General Pickering?"

"I wish you would," Dillon said- calmly. "But for the moment, I'd be grateful if you could find something else to do for an hour or two. Here comes a truck. I suspect McCoy and Hart are on it."

"How am I supposed to do my job if I am denied access to... whatever is going on around here?"

"Mrs. Feller, I'm just a simple Marine," Jake Dillon said. "General Pickering gave me an order and I'm going to carry it out. He said that the less you know about this, the better."

She stood up, her face white.

Whatever you do now, don't lose your temper! Just get out of here, calm down, and think this through. There is absolutely no reason to think you won't be able to deal with this offensive bastard.

"Major Banning, may I use the Studebaker?" Ellen asked

"Are we going to need wheels, Jake?"

"Possibly," Dillon said. "Can't you call and get a staff car?"

"You can't get a staff car this time of night, and you know it!"

Careful, Ellen! They would love it if you lost your temper!

"I think I can get you one, Mrs. Feller," Lieutenant Pluto Hon said, and walked to the telephone.

[Three]

LADIES' BAR

MCSHAY'S SALOON and CAFE

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

2005 HOURS 29 SEPTEM13ER 1942

"What are we doing in here?" ` Major Ed Banning asked Lieutenant Ken McCoy as McCoy led him into the room and to a table.

"There aren't as many people in here as in the other bar," McCoy said. "I looked through the window."

A waitress came to the table. She stood about five feet tall and measured nearly that distance around,

"And what can I get for the Yanks?"

"I want a beer, please," McCoy said. "And how about something to eat?"

What would you like, love?"

"I would like a steak about that thick," he said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch and a half apart. "Medium."

The waitress laughed. "But you'd settle, right, for fish and chips?"

"How about scrambled eggs and chips?"

The waitress nodded.

"And for you, love?"

"Just the beer, please," Banning said. He waited until she was out of earshot, then asked, "Is that why we left the house?" "You were hungry?"

"I got you out of there because you were about to get into it with Dillon and say something you would regret," McCoy said. "And because I'm starved."

"You understand," Banning said, "that I will have to ask to be relieved?"

"Shit," McCoy said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"That I was right in getting you out of there," McCoy said.

The beer was delivered in two enormous, foamy mugs.

McCoy took a swallow of his and made a face.

"It's warm," he said.

"The Aussies like it that way," Banning said.

"Jesus!"

"They get that from the English," Banning said, and then returned to his original topic. "It has been made perfectly clear that there is considerable doubt in my ability to perform my assigned duties. Under the circumstances I have no choice but to request to be relieved. Can't you see that?"

"Drink your beer," McCoy said.

"I can't understand your reaction to Pickering's idiotic idea," Banning said. "You actually seem to think it can be carried off."

"One, I'm just a simple Mustang who does what he's ordered to do. And, two, yeah, I think it can be carried off."

"Not by me!"

"If you're not going to play by my rules, I'm going to take my ball and go home, and fuck all of you!" Right?"

"McCoy, we've been friends for a long time, but don't push it! I'm not a child, and this is not a goddamned game!"

"It really hasn't been a long time, but it does seem like fucking forever, doesn't it?" McCoy said. "My ambition in Shanghai was maybe to make staff sergeant before I retired."

"It's hard to believe all that's happened in the last year, eighteen months."

"I wonder what's happening in Shanghai tonight?"

"Some Jap sonofabitch is driving my Pontiac down the Bund," Banning said, chuckling. "And will probably get laid in my bed later on."

"You never heard anything about Mrs. Banning?"

"No," Banning said softly, flatly.

"White Russians seem able to deal with bad situations," McCoy said.

"What do they call that, `Whistling in the dark'?"

"She made it from Russia to Shanghai," McCoy said. "That took some doing."

"You don't think Shanghai, under the Japs, would be worse for a white woman?"

"Was that a question or what?"

"A question."

"I don't think the Japs are standing every white face they see against a wall, which is what the communists did to the White Russians. For all you know, she's just in some internment camp with other Americans."

"She's not an American."

"She's an American officer's wife. She can say she lost her passport and her other identification. I think that's what she probably tried to do, and I think she can probably get away with it." Banning held his empty beer mug over his head.

"Right you are, love," the waitress bellowed.

"I am going to request that I be relieved," Banning said.

"Can't you see that I have to?"

"We need you for this goddamned operation, don't be silly."

"That's why Pickering sent Dillon over here, right?"

"Pickering thinks you became too professional, too cold blooded, and fell under the evil influence of the Australian swabbie."

"What the hell does that mean'?"

"What's his name?"

"Feldt, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, and I would appreciate it if you didn't call him an Australian swabbie."

"Pickering thinks that Feldt is too willing to write these guys off. Pickering is thinking like he's still a corporal in France, running around no-man's-land picking up the wounded. The difference, the important difference, is that Pickering has the influence. He's a general."

"What's influence got to do with it?"

"If your man Feldt gets in the way, he's going to get run over. "

"That would really be the cherry on the cake," Banning said.

"If it wasn't for Feldt there wouldn't be a Coastwatcher Establishment. If they relieve him, it would collapse."

"Then you better tell him not to cross Dillon, because that's the same as crossing Pickering. If he does, he's out on his ass. Your man Feldt works for the Australian Admiral with two names-"