W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

"Good morning, Mrs. Howell," the doorman had politely greeted Carolyn. "It's a little nippy. Shall I call a cab?"

"No, thank you," Carolyn had said. "I'll walk."

The doorman's face had been expressionless. Or at least his eyebrows had not risen when he recognized Mrs. Carolyn Howell coming out of the building with a Marine. Nevertheless, Carolyn's face had colored, and Banning had seen that she was embarrassed.

She had quickly recovered, however, and almost defiantly took his arm before they walked down the street.

The sex had been precisely what the doctor had ordered. From me moment he had kissed her in the elevator on the way up, there had been no false modesty, no pushing him away, no questions about what kind of a woman did he think she was. She wanted him-or at least a man-just about as bad as he had wanted her-or at least a woman.

She had told him later, and he had believed her, that it had been the first time for her since the trouble with her husband.

"It is like riding a bicycle, isn't it?" she had asked, with a delightfully naughty-and pleased-smile as she forked a shrimp from one of the little cardboard Chinese take-out containers. "You don't forget how. Except that I feel, with you, like you've just won the Tour de France."

And it had been, aside from the sex, a very interesting (or perverse?) experience to lie naked in Carolyn's bed and tell her about Milla, while she, with genuine sympathy in her eyes, was kneeling naked beside him. To think that Milla would like Carolyn, and Carolyn would like Milla. And to wonder if he was really a sonofabitch for feeling that somehow Milla, if she knew about Carolyn, would not be all that hurt, or pissed off. That she might even be happy for him.

He reached his room, found the key, and pushed the gray metal door open.

The BOQ room was furnished with a bed; a straight-backed chair, a chest of drawers; a chrome-and-plastic armchair, a small wooden desk; and a framed photograph of a broadly smiling Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Lieutenant Colonel F. L. Rickabee, USMC, in uniform, was sitting in the straight-backed chair, his feet on the bed, reading the New York Tunes. He had removed his uniform blouse, revealing that he used suspenders to hold up his trousers. There were other straps around his torso, which only after a moment Banning recognized as the kind that belonged to a shoulder holster.

"Ah, Banning," Rickabee said, "there you are. All things come to him who waits."

"Good morning, sir."

"I feel constrained to tell you that I caught the four A.M. milk train from Sodom on the Potomac in the naive belief that by so doing I could catch you before you went out."

"If you had called, sir…" Banning said.

Rickabee swung his feet off the bed, refolded the newspaper carefully, and tossed it on the bed. When he faced Banning, Banning saw the butt of what he thought was probably a Smith Wesson Chief's Special in the shoulder holster.

"No problem," Rickabee said. "It gave me the chance to talk with Captain Toland about you, which was also on my agenda. And it also gave me my very first chance to play secret agent."

"Sir?"

"I asked the white hat on duty downstairs to let me into your room. He told me it was absolutely against regulations." He bent over the bed, took what looked like a wallet from his blouse, and tossed it to Banning. "So I got to show him that. He was awed."

Banning caught it and opened it. Inside was a gold badge and a sealed-in-plastic identification card. The card, which carried the seal of the Navy Department, held a photograph of Rickabee, and identified him as a special agent of the Secretary of the Navy, all questions about whom were to be referred to the Director of Naval Intelligence.

Banning looked at Rickabee.

"I think I could have ordered him to set the building afire," Rickabee said. "It had an amazing effect on him. You could almost hear the trumpets." He held his hand out for Banning to return the identification.

Banning chuckled and tossed the small folder back to him.

"Very impressive, sir," he said.

"In the wrong hands, a card like that could be a dangerous thing," Rickabee said.

"Yes, sir, I can see that," Banning said.

A leather folder came flying across the room. Banning just managed to catch it.

"That's yours," Rickabee said. "You're a field-grade officer now, so I suppose it won't be necessary to tell you to be careful with it."

Close to astonishment, Banning opened the folder. It held the same badge and card, except that his photograph peered at him from it.

"You also get a pistol," Rickabee said, pointing to a large, apparently full, leather briefcase. "Since I didn't think you'd have to repel boarders between here and San Diego, I took the liberty of getting you a little Smith Wesson like mine."

A dozen questions popped into Banning's mind.

"Sir- " he began.

"Let me talk first, Ed," Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee interrupted him. "It will probably save time."

"Yes, sir," Banning said.

"General Forrest sent me here," Rickabee said. "My first priority was to settle to my own satisfaction the question of your mental stability. Dr. Toland's diagnosis-that there is nothing wrong with you that a good piece of ass wouldn't cure-confirmed my own. Toland told me that the way you handled yourself when you thought you were blind was as tough a test of your stability as he could think of."

Banning waited for Rickabee to go on.

"So you are now officially certified as an officer who, because of the extraordinary faith placed in his ability and trustworthiness by both the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Marine Corps, and the Commandant, can be entrusted with the highest-level secrets of the Corps, and with some extraordinary authority," Rickabee said.

"Jesus Christ," Banning said. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Just what I said," Rickabee said. "Secret one is that General Forrest at this time yesterday morning was cleaning out his desk and wondering how he was going to tell his wife that he was being retired from the Corps in disgrace-a disgrace that was no less shameful because the reasons were secret."

"Forrest? Christ, he's a good man. What the hell-"

"At two yesterday afternoon, the Commandant summoned General Forrest to his office and told him that be had reconsidered; that the needs of the Corps right now-there being no one available with his qualifications and experience to replace him-were such that he would not be retired."

"Colonel," Banning said, "I don't have any idea-"

"Major General Paul H. Lesterby was retired from the Corps as of oh-oh-oh-one hours this morning," Rickabee went on. "Colonel Thomas C. Wesley-"

"Used to be with Fleet Marine Force Atlantic?" Banning interrupted.

Rickabee nodded. "And more recently, he was Plans and Projects in the Commandant's office. Wesley is now on a train" for California, where he will function as special assistant to the commanding officer of the supply depot there until the Commandant makes up his mind whether he will be retired, or court-martialed. The Commandant was honest enough to tell Wesley that he would prefer to court-martial him, and the only thing that was stopping him was the good of the Corps."

"What the hell did he do?"

"You know Evans Carlson, I understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"From this point, Ed, as you will see, we are getting into an even more sensitive area," Rickabee said, and went into his briefcase. First he took out a small revolver in a shoulder holster and laid it on the bed. Then he handed Banning a thick stack of papers. "These documents were given to the Commandant the day before yesterday. I can't let them out of my hands. You'll have to read them now. When I get back to Washington, the whole file will be burned, and I am to personally report to the Commandant that it has been burned."