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

"Put a generous hooker of cognac in a cup of black coffee, please."

"Where the hell have you been?" Senator Fowler asked.

"At Arlington. At a funeral. Standing in a snowdrift."

"You’d better change your trousers, too," Ellen said, as she poured coffee into a cup.

"A funeral? Anybody I know?" Senator Fowler asked.

"The last time I counted, I owned three pairs of trousers. I refuse to believe that the other two are already back from the cleaners."

"Count again," Ellen chuckled. "There was an enormous package from Brooks Brothers, I counted three bluejackets and six pairs of blue trousers when I hung it all up."

"Thank God! Finally!" Pickering said, and picked up his shoes and socks and went into the master bedroom.

Senator Fowler went to Mrs. Feller, took the brandy-laced coffee from her with a smile, and carried it into the bedroom. Pickering was in his shorts, buttoning braces to a pair of uniform trousers.

He took the coffee, nodded his thanks, and took a sip.

"Thank you," he said.

"Who were you burying?"

"A Marine lieutenant colonel. Fellow named Neville. His parachute didn’t open."

"I saw that in the paper," Fowler said. "You knew him?"

"I was there representing Frank Knox. Frank knew him. He said he would have preferred to go himself, but if he did, it would be setting a precedent; he would be expected to show up every time they buried a lieutenant colonel or a commander."

"You didn’t seem grief-stricken," Fowler said dryly.

"From what I hear, he did it to himself," Pickering said.

"Suicide?"

"Jake Dillon told me ‘he got so carried away with his role that he got run over by the camera,’ " Pickering said, chuckling.

"Jake Dillon? The press agent?"

"Yeah. He’s a major in the Corps."

"I didn’t know, and I didn’t know you knew him."

"Oh, sure. Jake shoots skeet with Bob Stack. That’s how I met him. Interesting man. He stayed at the house in ‘39, he and the Stacks, when we had the state championships in San Francisco. Anyway, Jake was sort of running the burial ceremony. Newsreel cameras, three buglers, an honor guard of Marine parachutists, a firing squad, and a cast of thousands. Look for me at your local movie. I will be the handsome Naval person saluting solemnly as I stand there up to my ass in snow."

"I thought you said this man committed suicide?"

"No. Not the way that sounded. What Jake said was that when he found out Life wasn’t going to take his picture, he flipped. He figured if he was the first man out of the airplane when they jumped, they’d have to take his picture. So he pushed the kid who was supposed to be first out of the way, and jumped himself. The wind, or the prop blast, caught him the wrong way and threw him into the horizontal stabilizer. The autopsy showed that hitting the horizontal stabilizer killed him. Not the sudden stop when he hit the ground."

"You sound pretty goddamned coldblooded, Flem, do you realize that?" Senator Fowler said.

Pickering, who was pulling on his trousers, didn’t reply until he had the braces in place, the shirttail tucked in, and the zipper closed.

"Before I went out to Arlington," he said in an even voice, "I was reading a pretty reliable report that the Japs just executed two-hundred-odd American civilians-the labor force we took out to Wake Island to fortify it and then permitted to get captured when we didn’t reinforce Wake. They shot them out of hand. I find it a trifle difficult to get worked up over a light colonel here who did it to himself."

"Jesus Christ!" Fowler said, shocked.

"And an hour before that," Pickering went on dryly, "I had a telephone call from my wife, who is finding it difficult to understand why I didn’t telephone her when I was on the West Coast. I was seen having lunch at the Coronado Beach Hotel, but I didn’t have time for her. . . ."

"Tell me about the civilians on Wake."

"No. I shouldn’t have said that much."

"Why not?"

"Senator, you just don’t have the right to know," Pickering said.

"The operative word in that sentence, Flem, is ‘Senator,’" Fowler said flatly.

Pickering looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

"As in ‘United States Senator, representing the people,’" Fowler went on. "If a United States Senator doesn’t have ‘the right to know,’ who does?"

"Interesting point," Pickering said. "Fortunately, I am not at what is known as the policy-making level, and don’t have to make judgments like that. I just do what I’m told."

"How much do you know that I don’t?" Fowler asked.

"Probably a hell of a lot," Pickering said.

"I want to know about the civilians on Wake Island," Fowler said. "I won’t let anyone know where I got it, if that’s bothering you."

"About ten people, including the cryptographers, know about it. If Frank Knox finds out you know about it, he’ll know damned well where you got it."

"You wouldn’t be a captain in the Navy, Flem, working for Knox, if I hadn’t brought him here," Fowler said. "And it seems to me that the American people have a right to know if the Japanese are committing atrocities against civilian prisoners."

"They do, but they can’t be told," Pickering said.

"Why not?"

"Because ... do you realize what a goddamned spot you’re putting me on, you sonofabitch?"

"Yes, I do," Fowler said.

"Oh, goddamn it!"

"I am rapidly getting the idea that you don’t think I can be trusted with something like this," Senator Fowler said. "I can tolerate your contempt for Congress, generally. But this is getting personal. I don’t think you question my patriotism, so it has to be my judgment you question."

"Shit!" Pickering said in frustration. He picked up and drained the brandy-laced cup of coffee, then turned to face Fowler. "We have broken the Japanese naval code. The information about the Japs shooting the civilians came from what they call an ‘intercept.’ If the Japanese find out we know about them shooting the civilians, they’ll know we broke their code. And I can’t tell you how valuable reading their radio traffic is to us."

"Thank you," Fowler said, seriously. "That will, of course, go no further than these walls."

Pickering nodded.

"Unless, of course, Mrs. Feller, in her role as oh-so-efficient secretary, has been eavesdropping at the door," Fowler added.

"I don’t think she has," Pickering said. "But she knows."

"They really shot two hundred civilians?"

"Made them dig their graves, twenty at a time, and then shot them. Too much trouble to feed, you understand."

"Goddamnthem!"

"I wonder what Frank’ll do with me now?" Pickering said, as he pulled fresh stockings on his feet. "Let me out of the Navy, in which case I could go back to running Pacific and Far East, or send me to Iceland, someplace like that, as an example?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Obviously, I’m going to have to tell Knox that I told you about what happened on Wake. And about our having broken the Japanese code."

"Why?" Fowler asked.

"I realize the concept is seldom mentioned around Washington, but, ethically, I have to. He made me privy to this-"

"Flem," Fowler interrupted him. "Christ, you’re naive!"

"I haven’t been accused of that in a long time."

"I know Frank Knox pretty well, too, you know," Fowler said. "Much better than you do, as a matter of fact. And he knows that we’re very good friends. It hasn’t occurred to you that he told you about Wake, and probably about some other things, pretty sure that you would tell me? Hoping you would?"

Pickering raised his eyes to Fowler. After a moment he said, "I am having trouble following that convoluted line of reasoning."

"I think Frank Knox wants me to know about Wake Island. And about a lot of other things the Secretary of the Navy cannot conveniently-or maybe even legally-tell the Junior Senator from California. And now I do, and Frank can lay his hand on a Bible and swear he didn’t tell me."