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

Commander Kramer, a tall, thin man with a pencil-line mustache, was not alone. He had with him a lieutenant junior grade and a woman. The JG was a muscular young man who was carrying a well-stuffed leather briefcase. Fleming would have given odds that he’d not only gone to Annapolis, but that he’d played football there.

The woman, smooth-skinned, wearing little or no makeup, was in her middle thirties. She was wearing a hat-a real hat, not a decorative one-against the snow and cold. She had unbuttoned her overcoat, and Fleming Pickering noticed, en passant, that she had long, shapely calves and a nice set of breastworks.

"I was just tying my tie," Pickering said. "Come in."

"Yes, Sir," Commander Kramer said, then thrust a small package at Pickering. "Sir, this is for you."

"Oh? What is it?"

"The Secretary asked me to get those for you, Sir. They’re your ribbons. The Secretary said to tell you he noticed you weren’t wearing any."

"Would you say, Commander, that that’s in the order of a pointed suggestion?"

"Actually, Sir," Kramer said, "it’s probably more in the nature of a regal command."

Pickering chuckled. At least Kramer wasn’t afraid of him. Frank Knox had described Kramer as "the brightest of the lot," and Pickering had jumped to the conclusion that Knox meant Kramer was sort of an academic egghead. He obviously wasn’t.

"Captain, may I introduce Mrs. Ellen Feller? And Mr. Satterly?"

"How do you do?"

Mrs. Feller gave him her hand. He found it to be soft and warm. Lieutenant Satterly’s grip was conspicuously firm and masculine. Pickering suspected he would love to try a squeeze contest.

"Let me finish, and I’ll be right with you," Pickering said, and started to the bedroom.

"Captain, may I have a word with you alone, Sir?" Kramer asked.

"Come along."

He held the door to the bedroom open for Kramer, and closed it after he’d followed him through it.

"Mrs. Feller is a candidate nominee, maybe, for your secretary, Captain," Kramer said.

"I wondered who she was."

"The Secretary said I should get you someone a little out of the ordinary," Kramer said. "I took that to mean I should not offer you one of the career civil-service ladies."

"How did you get stuck with me, Kramer?"

"I’m flattered that I did, Sir."

"Really?"

"It’s always interesting to work with somebody who doesn’t have to clear his decisions with three levels of command above him."

"So it is," Fleming said. "Tell me about Mrs. . . . what did you say?"

"Feller, Captain. Ellen Feller. She’s been with us about six months."

" ‘Us’ is who?" Pickering interrupted.

"Naval Intelligence, Sir."

"OK." He had figured as much.

"She and her husband were missionaries in China before the war. She speaks two brands of Chinese, plus some Japanese."

"Now that you think about it, she does sort of smell of missionary."

"She doesn’t bring it to work, Sir. I can tell you that. She’s been working for me."

"Why are you so willing to give her up?" Pickering challenged, looking directly at Kramer.

There was visible hesitation.

"The lady has character traits you forgot to mention? She likes her gin, maybe?"

"No, Sir. There’s an answer, Captain. But it sounds a bit trite."

"Let’s hear it."

"If I understand correctly what your role is going to be, you need her more than I do."

"Oh," Pickering replied. "That’s very nice of you. I thought perhaps you might be giving her to me so she could tell you everything you wanted to know about me. And about what I’m doing."

"No, Sir," Kramer smiled. "That’s not it."

"How do I know that?"

"Well, for one thing, Sir, I don’t need her for that purpose. The back-line cables will be full of reports on you."

"What’s a back-line cable?"

"Non-official messages. Personal messages. What the admirals send to each other when they want to find out, or report, what’s really going on."

"OK," Fleming said. "You’re a very interesting man, Commander."

"I don’t know about that. But I like what I’m doing, and I’m smart enough to know that if I got caught spying on you-as opposed to getting my hands on back-line cables-I would spend this war at someplace like Great Lakes, giving inspirational talks to boots."

"Did you ever consider selling life insurance?" Pickering asked. "You’re very convincing. People would trust you."

"Some people can. People I admire can trust me completely."

"How do I rate on your scale of admiration?"

"Way at the top."

"Is that what the Navy calls soft-soap?"

"I really admire the Secretary," Kramer said. "He admires you, or you wouldn’t be here. Call it ‘admiration by association.’ And then there are these."

He walked to the dresser where Pickering had laid the small package Kramer had given him. He opened it and took out two rows of multicolored ribbons.

"These are very impressive, Captain. You didn’t get these behind a desk."

Pickering went to him and took them, then looked at them with interest.

"I don’t even know what they all are," he said.

"Turn them the other way around," Kramer said, chuckling. "They’re upside down. And then, from the left, we have the Silver Star, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters. . . ."

"I never got a medal called the Purple Heart," Pickering interrupted.

"It’s for wounds received in action," Kramer said. "It was originally a medal for valor conceived by General Washington himself in 1782. In 1932, on the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth, it was revived. It is now awarded, as I said, for wounds received in action."

"We had wound stripes," Pickering said softly, and pointed at his jacket cuff. "Embroidered pieces of cloth. Worn down here."

"Yes, Sir. I know. You had three. Now you have a Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters. On the left of the lower row, Captain, is your World War I Victory Medal, and then your French medals, the Legion d’Honneur in the grade of Chevalier, and finally the Croix de Guerre. A very impressive display, Sir."

"Kramer, I was an eighteen-year-old kid. . . ."

"Yes, Sir. I know. But I suspect the Secretary feels, and I agree, that someone who has never heard a shot fired in anger- and we have many senior officers in that category, Sir-will not automatically categorize as a goddamn civilian in uniform a man who was wounded three times while earning three medals for valor."

Pickering met Kramer’s eyes, but didn’t respond.

"You’ve noticed, Sir, that the Secretary wears his Purple Heart ribbon in his buttonhole?"

"No, I didn’t. I saw it. I didn’t know what the hell it was."

"The Secretary got that, Sir, as a sergeant in the Rough Riders in Cuba in 1899."

"OK. You and the Secretary have made your point. Now what about the young officer?"

"He’s carrying the bag. I didn’t know what you were interested in, so I brought everything you might be. It’s a heavy bag. You pick out what you want, and he’ll return the rest. Do you have a weapon, Sir?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Are you armed? Do you have a gun?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Am I going to need one?"

"Much of that material is top secret, Captain. It either has to be in a secure facility or charged to someone who has the appropriate security clearance and is armed."

"My pistol is stolen," Fleming Pickering said.

"Sir?"

"I brought it home from France in 1919," Pickering said. "It’s stamped ‘U.S. Property.’"

Kramer chuckled and smiled. "I’m sure the Statute of Limitations would apply, Sir. A Colt .45?"

"Yeah," Pickering said He went to a chest of drawers, opened it, and held up a Colt Model 1911 pistol.