Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

«Frank Knox would not stand still for that,» Senator Fowler said, thinking out loud.

«The President gives the orders,» Donovan said. «Except, of course, to senators.»

It didn't take long before we came to serious disagreement, did it

? Pickering thought.

Well, to hell with being polite. Get it on the table

.

«I think that Management Analysis should stay right where it is,» Pickering said.

«Is that so?» Donovan said coldly. «Why?»

«It's up and running,» Pickering said. «I don't want to see it swallowed by the OSS bureaucracy.»

«You're now part of that OSS bureaucracy, General,» Donovan said, his face whitening.

«I am going to ask Colonel Rickabee if he will give me a couple of people over there,» Pickering said. «And there are several other people I'd like to have. But I oppose taking the Office of Management Analysis away from Frank Knox.»

It was obvious that Donovan didn't like the response, but he didn't press it.

If I had any tact, and the brains to use it, I would have used words like «think.»

«suggest,» et cetera. Fuck it. Let Donovan know what I think.

«Why don't we reschedule your arrival at the office until, say, half past twelve tomorrow?» Donovan said. «That would give you time to ask Rickabee who he's willing to give you.»

«Fine,» Pickering said.

«We'll have to do some schedule shuffling to move them through the Country Club,» Donovan said. «We'll need your list as soon as possible. This Gobi operation is on the front burner.»

«Excuse me?» Pickering asked, confused.

«The OSS training base. Before the war, it was the Congressional Country Club. Everybody who comes into the OSS has to go through it. With very rare exceptions, like you.»

My God, McCoy comes home from his third rubber-boat trip onto hostile shores and Donovan wants to send him to basic training?

Senator Fowler saw the look on Pickering's face. «Are you two about ready to eat?» he asked quickly.

This is not the time

, Pickering decided,

to debate the wisdom of sending McCoy and Jake to

—

what did he call it

?—

the «Country Club

.»

«Anytime, Dick,» Pickering said.

«Actually, I was hoping the subject of eating would come up soon,» Donovan said. «I've got a couple of more stops to make tonight.»

«And I have a telephone call to make,» Fowler said. «Our mutual friend across the street is staying close to the telephone, waiting for my report on how this went.»

«I was right, then?» Donovan chuckled. «You're to be the referee?»

«What he did, Bill, was wave his cigarette holder at me, and smile that smile of his, and ask me—since he and I have a civilized gentleman's armistice—if he was being unreasonable in expecting you two to do the same.»

«I knew it,» Donovan said.

«I will now be able to happily tell him that you two have kissed and made up.»

«Good God!» Pickering said.

Chapter Eight

note 30

The Foster Lafayette Hotel

Washington, D.C.

0805 25 February 1943

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, the Washington

Star

in hand, was sitting in the marble walled bathroom of his apartment, waiting for his bowels to move, when the telephone rang. He dropped the

Star

onto the floor and gazed, with a sense of moral triumph, at the telephone mounted on the wall.

Men of less imagination and determination

, he thought,

in a similar circumstance, would be nonplussed. They would be forced to decide between hastily abandoning their attempt to vacate their bowels, or just letting the damned telephone ring

.

They

would not have installed a phone in the John, as

he

had, over Patricia's firm objections. For reasons he did not pretend to understand, Patricia thought using a telephone in the bathroom was tantamount to using the facilities with the door wide open.

The telephone, which was mounted on the wall beside the water closet, was equipped with a red light, a green light, and a switch. The green light indicated the incoming call was from the hotel switchboard; the red that it was coming in over the private, unlisted line.

The red light was blinking.

With a little bit of luck, that will be my bride, and I can open the conversation by asking her if she can guess where I am.

He flipped the switch to the private line and picked up the receiver.

«Good morning!» he cried cheerfully.

«General Pickering, please,» a male voice he didn't recognize replied.

Who the hell is this? Not ten people have this number.

«Who is this?»

«Am I speaking with General Pickering?»

It's that goddamned Wild Bill Donovan, that's who it is! A little demonstration of his ability to do things like get unlisted telephone numbers. And that he's too important to dial the number himself and has some flunky to do it for him.

And, if he senses this has annoyed me, he will have accomplished his purpose.

«This is General Pickering,» he said as charmingly as he could manage under the circumstances.

«One moment, please, General,» Donovan's flunky said.

«Certainly,» General Pickering said graciously.

And before that sonofabitch comes on the line, he'll keep me waiting as long

—

«I didn't get you out of bed, I hope, Fleming?»

This voice Pickering recognized, and it wasn't that of Wild Bill Donovan.

«No, Mr. President, I've been up for some time. Good morning, Mr. President.»

«I just called to tell you how delighted I was to hear from Dick Fowler that you and Bill Donovan have established an amicable relationship.»

«We had a very pleasant dinner, Mr. President.»

«So Dick told me. There's one other thing, Fleming. I meant it when I said that my door will always be open to you, if you have something you wish to share with me.»

«That's very kind of you, Mr. President.»

«Bill and I have been friends for years,» President Roosevelt said. «And I therefore know better than most people how obdurate he can be.»

«I defer, of course, to your greater knowledge, Mr. President.»

Roosevelt laughed. «As soon as it can be arranged, you'll have to come for dinner.»

«I know how you busy you are, Mr. President.»

«Never too busy for you, Fleming,» Roosevelt said, and the line went dead.

Pickering put the handset back in its cradle.

What the hell was that all about?

You know what the hell that was all about.

Roosevelt being Machiavellian again.

During dinner the night before, Donovan had spoken, with barely concealed anger, of his relationship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It wasn't that he disliked Hoover—he had been instrumental in having Hoover named head of the FBI—but that Roosevelt refused to clear up a jurisdictional dispute between the FBI and the OSS.

The FBI was charged with intelligence and counterespionage in the Western Hemisphere. The OSS was charged with the same thing worldwide, with the exception of the United States. So far as Donovan was concerned, that meant exactly what it said. So far as Hoover was concerned, the FBI was in charge of espionage and counterespionage everywhere in the Western Hemisphere, which meant that the OSS was marching on the FBI's turf when it operated anywhere in Canada, Central America, or South America.

«Franklin just wants you and Edgar to compete, Bill.» Senator Fowler had said, «to see who gets the gold star to take home for Mommy.»