W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps IV - Battleground

Knox spoke aloud what came into his mind: "What the hell would I do without you, David?"

"Probably a lot better, Mr. Secretary," Haughton said. "May I respectfully suggest that you get someone who could really take care of you, and perhaps arrange to send me to sea?"

"You can suggest it all you want, but you're stuck with me."

"Yes, Sir."

"Where now?" Knox asked.

"Across the street, Sir," Haughton said, and pointed toward the elegant brick facade of the Foster Lafayette Hotel. "Senator Fowler."

"I'd forgotten," Knox confessed.

"He didn't offer to come to your office, Mr. Secretary," Haughton said. "He usually does."

"No problem. We're here," Knox said, and then added, chuckling, "He has a nicer office than I do, anyway."

Senator Richmond K. Fowler, Republican of California, maintained a suite in the Foster Lafayette. Not an ordinary suite-though God knew suites in the Lafayette were as large and elegant as they came-but an apartment made up of a pair of suites. It was furnished with antiques that were the personal property of old Andrew Foster himself.

Fowler was quite wealthy, and unlike some of his peers in the Senate, he made no effort at all to conceal it. In many ways he was like Knox: He considered public service a privilege; living in Washington, D.C., even as well as he did, was the terrible price he had to pay for that privilege.

Fowler was also, in Knox's opinion, one of the better senators. He was enormously influential, but rarely used his influence like a club, or a baton of power. For example, he did not make telephone calls to the Secretary of the Navy- or to other senior executive department officials-just to hear the sound of own voice, to remind himself of his own importance, or as a fishing expedition. He called only when he had something to say, or wanted specific information he could not get elsewhere. Consequently, his calls were put through to Knox-and to others-when other senators would be told the Secretary had just left for a meeting.

Even more rarely, he requested a personal audience with Knox. He understood his time was precious, and that he could usually accomplish in ninety seconds on the telephone business that would take thirty minutes or an hour from the Secretary's available time if they met face to face.

So when he did ask to see Knox personally, the Secretary of the Navy was usually willing to give him the time he needed, if at all possible. There was some business that should not be discussed on the telephone. Fowler had proven over the years that he knew what that was.

The limousine pulled up before the marquee of the hotel, and a doorman, sweating in his uniform coat, opened the door.

"Welcome to the Lafayette, Mr. Secretary," he said.

"Thank you," Knox said and offered his hand. "How are you? Hot enough for you?"

"I didn't think I'd be this hot until after Saint Peter pointed toward the basement," the doorman said. He waited until Captain Haughton was out, and then spoke to the chauffeur: "Pull it up there where it says DIPLOMATIC CORPS ONLY."

A bellman spun the revolving glass door for Knox as he approached, and then smiled at him as he came through.

Knox walked across the quiet, heavily carpeted lobby to the bank of elevators.

"Eight," Captain Haughton ordered.

By the time the elevator reached the eighth floor, there had been a telephone call from the doorman. A large, very black man wearing a gray cotton jacket and a wide smile was standing by the open door of Senator Fowler's suite when the elevator door opened.

"Hello, Mr. Secretary Knox, Sir. Nice to see you again, Sir. And you too, Captain Haughton. The Senator's waiting for you."

"Hello, Franklin," Knox said. "How do you manage to look so cool on a day like this?"

"I just don't go outside in the heat, Sir," Fowler's butler chuckled.

Senator Richmond K. Fowler was in the sitting room. He was not alone. A tall, shapely, aristocratic woman was with him. She had silver hair, simply but elegantly coiffured, and she was wearing a cotton suit, with a high-necked white linen blouse under it. For jewelry, she wore a simple wedding band, a single strand of pearls, and a small, cheap pin on the lapel of her jacket. It held two blue stars on a white background and signified that two members of her immediate family were serving their country in uniform. Secretary Knox had not previously had the honor of the lady's acquaintance, but he knew who she was.

Her father owned the Foster Lafayette Hotel (and forty others), and her husband owned the Pacific and Far Eastern Shipping Corporation. She was, pro tempore, in her husband's absence, Chairman of the Board of PandFE. Her name was Patricia Foster (Mrs. Fleming) Pickering.

She stood up as Knox and Haughton entered the room, and the Secretary liked what he saw. Nice-looking woman, he thought. This was immediately followed by, Her presence here is not coincidental. I wonder what she wants?

"Hello, Frank," Senator Fowler said, walking up to him and offering his hand. "Thank you for finding time for me." He looked at. Captain Haughton, nodded, and said, "Haughton."

"Senator," Haughton replied.

"I was right across the street," Knox said. "And anytime, Richmond."

"I don't believe you know each other, do you?"

"I know who the lady is," Knox said. "How do you do, Mrs. Pickering? I'm pleased that I'm being given the chance to meet you."

"How do you do, Mr. Knox?" Patricia Pickering said, giving him her hand.

She's striking now, Knox thought. She must have been a real beauty when she was twenty.

She turned to Haughton. "My husband has often spoken of you, Captain Haughton. How do you do?"

"Very well, thank you," Haughton said.

"Would you do any better if we got you something cold to drink?"

"Oh, yes, Ma'am," he said.

"Franklin?" Patricia Pickering said, and the butler appeared.

"I hope that offer includes me," Knox said.

"Oh, yes. We intend to ply you with liquor and anything else that might please you," she said.

"Do you really?" Knox said, taken a little aback.

"I've been drinking-what is this, Franklin?"

"An Orange Special, Miss Patricia."

"Orange juice, club soda, and a hooker of rum," she said. "I can't handle gin, for some reason."

"That sounds wonderful," Knox said.

"Make a pitcherful, please," she ordered.

"Patricia is in town for a meeting of the War Shipping Board," Senator Fowler said.

"That's not quite true," she said. "What I did, Mr. Knox, was take one of the three airline ticket priorities they gave PandFE to send people to the WSB meeting, so that I could come here and see Senator Fowler."

"But you are a member of the War Shipping Board," Fowler protested.

"Yes, I am. In the same way that I am chairman of PandFE," she said. "But I don't like sailing under false colors."

"I don't think I know quite what you mean, Mrs. Pickering," Knox said. There was something about this woman, beyond her grace and her beauty, that he instinctively liked.

"I am not foolish enough to think that I can run PandFE, Mr. Knox," she said evenly. "And only fools think I do. Despite the title. My position, I've come to think, is analogous to that of the King. I understand that every day they bring him a red box containing important state documents. They make sure he knows what's going on. But they don't let him run the British Empire."

"Well, then, may I say that you make a lovely queen?" Knox said.

She smiled at him, a genuine smile. "Richmond is supposed to be the politician," she said. "Saying, as a reflex action, what he thinks people want to hear."

"She was a sweet child when I first met her, Frank," Fowler said. "And then she married Flem Pickering, who has poisoned her against public servants."

"That's not true," she said. "Flem Pickering proposed because my father had already told me about public servants."