W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

"And when Pick comes home from the war, he can run it?"

Pickering met his eyes. "Sure. Why not? I don’t intend to dwell on the other possibility."

"I don’t know why I feel awkward saying this," Senator Fowler said, "but I pray for him, Flem."

"Thank you," Pickering said. "So do I."

"So what are you doing in Washington?" Fowler said, to change the subject.

"You know a lawyer named Bill Donovan? Wall Street?"

"Sure."

"You know what he’s doing these days?"

"Where did you think he’s getting the money to do it?" He examined his now-empty glass. "I’m going to build another one of these. You want one?"

"Please, Dick."

"You think you’d make a good spy?" Senator Fowler asked.

"No."

"Then why are you going to see Donovan?"

"He called me. Once before December seventh, and twice since. Once when Patricia and I were still in Honolulu, and the second the day before yesterday, in Frisco. He got me the priority to fly in here."

"Do you know what he’s doing?"

"I figured you would."

Fowler grunted as he refilled their glasses. He handed Pickering his drink, and then went on, "Right now, he’s the Coordinator of Information. For a dollar a year. It was Franklin Roosevelt’s idea."

"That sounds like a propaganda outfit."

"I think maybe it’s supposed to. He’s got Robert Sherwood, the playwright, and some other people like that, who will do propaganda. They’ve moved into the National Institutes of Health building. But there’s another angle to it, an intelligence angle. He’s gathered together a group of experts-he’s got nine or ten, and he’s shooting for a dozen, and this is probably what he has in mind for you-who are going to collect all the information generated by all the intelligence services, you know, the Army’s G-2, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI, the State Department, everybody, and try to make some overall, global sense out of it. For presentation to the President."

"I don’t think I understand," Pickering confessed.

"Donovan makes the point, and I think he’s right, that the service intelligence operations are too parochial, that they have blinders on them like a carriage horse. They see the war only from the viewpoint of the Navy or the Army or whatever."

The Senator looked at Pickering to see if he was getting through. Pickering made a "come on, tell me more" gesture with his hand.

"OK. Let’s say the Navy finds out, as they did, that the Germans had established a weather station and aerial navigation facilities in Greenland. The Navy solution to the problem would be to send a battleship to blow it up-"

"Where would they get one? The Navy’s fresh out of battleships. The Japanese used them for target practice."

"You want to hear this or not?"

"Sorry."

"You’re going to have to learn to curb your lip, Flem, if you’re going to go to work for Bill Donovan. Or anywhere else in the government."

"What happened to free speech?"

"It went out the same window with Franklin Roosevelt’s pledge that our boys would never fight on foreign soil," the Senator said.

"I’m not working for him yet," Pickering said.

Smiling, Senator Fowler shook his head, and then went on, "As I was saying, if Navy Intelligence finds something, they propose a Navy solution. If the Army Air Corps had found out about the Germans on Greenland, they would have proposed sending bombers to eliminate them. Am I getting through to you?"

Pickering nodded.

"The idea is that Donovan’s people-his ‘twelve disciples,’ as they’re called-will get intelligence information from every source, evaluate it, and make a strategic recommendation. In other words, after the Navy found the Greenland Germans, Donovan’s people might have recommended sending Army Air Corps bombers."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"It is, but I don’t think it will work."

"Why not?"

"Interservice rivalry, primarily. And that now includes J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Until Bill Donovan showed up, Edgar thought that if war came, the FBI would be in charge of intelligence, period. Edgar is a very dangerous man if crossed."

"The story I got was that Donovan got Hoover his job, running the FBI."

"That was yesterday. In Washington, the question is, ‘What have you done for me today, and what can you do for me tomorrow?’ Anyway, the facts are that everybody has drawn their knives to cut Donovan’s throat. I’m betting on Donovan, but I’ve been wrong before."

"Really?" Pickering teased.

"That’s what you’d be getting into if you went to work for him, Flem. When do you see him?"

"He wanted me to have dinner with him tonight, but I wasn’t in the mood. I told him I would come to his office in the morning."

"Boy, have you got a lot to learn!" Fowler said.

"Meaning I should have shown up, grateful for the privilege of a free meal from the great man?"

"Yeah. Exactly."

"Fuck him," Fleming Pickering said. "So far as I’m concerned, Bill Donovan is just one more overpaid ambulance chaser."

"You’d better hope he doesn’t know you think that."

"He already does. I already told him."

"You did?" Senator Fowler asked, deciding as he spoke that it was probably true.

"He represented us before the International Maritime Court when a Pacific and Orient tanker rammed our Hawaiian Trader. You wouldn’t believe the bill that sonofabitch sent me."

"I hope you paid it," Fowler said wryly.

"I did," Pickering said, "but not before I called him up and told him what I thought of it. And him."

"Oh, Christ, Flem, you’re something!" Fowler said, laughing.

"I couldn’t get near the club car, much less the dining car, on the train from New York," Pickering said. "All I’ve had to eat all day is a roll on the airplane and some hors d’oeuvres. I’m starving. You have any plans for dinner?"

Fowler shook his head no.

"Until you graced me with your presence, I was going to take my shoes off, collapse on the couch, and get something from room service."

There was a knock at the door. It was Max Telford.

"Come on in, Max," Pickering called. "The Senator was just extolling the virtues of your room service."

"I’ve got someone with me," Telford said, and a very large, very black man, in the traditional chefs uniform of starched white hat and jacket and striped gray trousers, pushed a rolling cart loaded with silver food warmers into the room.

"Hello, Jefferson," Pickering said, as he crossed the room to him and offered his hand. "How the hell are you? I thought you were in New York."

"No, Sir. I’ve been here about three months," the chef said. "I heard you were in the house, and thought maybe you’d like something more than crackers and cheese to munch on."

"Great, I’m starving. Do you know the Senator?"

"I know who the Senator is," Jefferson Dittler said.

"Dick, Jefferson Dittler. Jefferson succeeded where Patricia failed; he got Pick to wash dishes."

"Lots of dishes," Dittler laughed. "Then I taught him a little about cooking."

"Oh, I’ve heard about you," Senator Fowler said, shaking hands. "You’re the fellow who taught Pick how to make hollandaise in a Waring Blender."

"That was supposed to be a professional secret," Dittler said.

"Well, Pick betrayed your confidence," Fowler said. "He taught that trick to my wife."

"He’s a nice boy," Dittler said.

Pickering turned from the array of bottles and handed Dittler a glass dark with whiskey. "That’s that awful fermented corn you like, distilled in a moldy old barrel in some Kentucky holler."

"That’s why it’s so good," Dittler said. "The moldy old barrel’s the secret." He raised his glass. ‘To Pick. May God be with him."

"Here, here," Senator Fowler said.