In Danger's Path (15 page)

“What did you expect?”

“Not that,” he said. “When do you want to get married?”

“Good night, Captain Weston,” Janice said. “Sleep well.”

“After that? Don't be absurd.”

“That was nothing special.”

“When can I expect special?”

“Never,” she said. “Go to bed.”

She marched toward the door of the Female Officers' Quarters. When she had pulled it open, she turned and looked back at the parking lot.

He was still standing where she had left him, looking at her.

She looked at him for a long moment before she went into the building.

[ONE]
The White House
Washington, D.C.
1420 17 February 1943

“Jim was right about you, Captain,” the President of the United States said, gesturing toward a tall, slender, bald man in the uniform of a Marine major. “You are a remarkable young man, a fine Marine.”

“Hear, hear,” Senator Richardson K. Fowler (R.-Cal.) said. Fowler, sometimes described by President Roosevelt as “the chief of my more or less loyal opposition” and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, had been close friends for thirty years.

“He was a Raider, Dad,” Major James Roosevelt said. “What did you expect?”

“Well, in that case, I presume, as one Raider to another, you will make sure that Captain McCoy is well taken care of tonight? And that, by order of the Commander in Chief, he gets some well-deserved time off?”

“With pleasure,” Major Roosevelt said.

The President had a tangential thought. Looking first at Senator Fowler and Navy Secretary Frank Knox, and then at McCoy, he asked: “Tell me, Captain, how do you feel about your assignment to the OSS?”

“I'm a Marine, sir,” McCoy said.

“Does that mean you'd really prefer to go back to the Raiders?”

“Sir, I would like to go back to the Raiders, but what I meant was I'm a Marine officer, and I do what I'm ordered to do.”

“I wish there was some way I could make that splendid attitude contagious around here,” the President said. He leaned forward in his wheelchair and offered McCoy his hand. “Thank you very much, Captain,” he said, “not only for the briefing, but also for what you and the others did when you went into the Philippines to hook up with this Fertig chap.”

“He told you, Dad,” the President's son said. “He's a Marine officer. He does what he's told to do. ‘Get in the rubber boat and start paddling.' Right, Killer?”

“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.

“‘Killer'?” the President quoted. “I think I'd like to hear about that.”

“No, you wouldn't,” Major Roosevelt said.

But the President was already turning his attention to the Secretary of the Navy. “I'd like a few minutes of your time, Frank, please,” he said.

“Of course, Mr. President,” the Secretary of the Navy replied.

McCoy sensed that he was being dismissed. Confirmation came a second later as Major Roosevelt touched his arm and nodded toward the door of the upstairs sitting room. He saluted and marched out of the room. Major Roosevelt and Senator Fowler followed him.

As they entered the corridor, a Secret Service man closed the door after them.

“Good job, McCoy,” Major Roosevelt said. “You really impressed the Old Man.”

McCoy blurted what he was thinking, “It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.”

Senator Fowler chuckled. “Jimmy's father can charm the socks off you, if he's so inclined,” he said. “You have to remember to ask for your shoes back. I didn't say that, Jimmy.”

Major Roosevelt laughed. “I won't tell him what you said, and I won't tell you what he says about you.”

“Fair enough,” Fowler said.

“Okay,” Roosevelt said. “Now we have to find a place where the Killer can rest his weary head.”

“I thought you weren't supposed to call him that,” Fowler said.

“Those rules don't apply to Raiders,” Roosevelt replied. “So what's your pleasure, Killer? I'm sure we can put you up here, but I'll tell you I don't stay here myself unless I'm forced to. And there aren't very many nubile young things prowling these historic corridors.”

“Ken's taken care of,” Fowler said.

“Oh, really?”

“Across the street,” Fowler said, “in General Pickering's apartment.”

“Well, I can't top that offer,” Roosevelt said. “But what about money? Have you been paid lately?”

“I'm all right for money,” McCoy said. “I drew a partial pay at Pearl Harbor.”

“Anything? Incidentally, my father meant it when he said to take some time off. Take at least two weeks off, and tell anybody who asks that it's administrative leave, not chargeable as ordinary leave. By direction of the President.”

“Can I get away with that?”

“Yes, you can,” Roosevelt said firmly. “The least I can do is get you a car to drive across the street.”

“I've got my car, but thank you just the same,” Fowler said.

Roosevelt put out his hand to McCoy. “It was good to see you, Ken. And when you see Zimmerman, tell him I sent my best regards. He's still in Australia?”

“With this OSS business, there's no telling,” McCoy said. “It was good to see you again, too, Major.”

“I'll walk you downstairs,” Roosevelt said, putting an arm around his shoulders.

[TWO]
The Marquis de Lafayette Suite
The Foster Lafayette hotel
Washington, D.C.
1445 17 February 1943

A soft chime sounded, announcing that someone was in the sixth-floor corridor seeking entrance. The three men in the sitting room of the six-room suite looked at the door. Major Edward J. Banning put his drink on the coffee table in front of the red leather armchair where he was sitting, walked to the door, and opened it. He was in uniform, but had removed his tunic, pulled his field scarf loose, and turned up the cuffs of his shirt.

“Good afternoon, Senator,” Banning said politely, and smiled at Captain McCoy.

“Hello, Banning,” Senator Fowler said. “I return this young man to your capable custody.”

“He looks to me as if he could use a drink,” Banning said.

“We both could,” Fowler said, and stepped into the room.

The other two men rose to their feet. One of them, Captain Edward Sessions, USMC, was a tall, lithely muscular, well-set-up Marine captain in his late twenties. He, too, had removed his uniform tunic. A ring on his finger identified him as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. An intelligence officer assigned to the Office of Management Analysis, he had met McCoy during a covert operation staged by Banning in China before the war.

The other was a tall, slight, pale-skinned, unhealthy-looking man, wearing glasses and an ill-fitting gray suit.

“Good afternoon, Senator,” Colonel F. L. Rickabee, USMC, said.

“Good to see you, Colonel,” Fowler said. “And to quickly put your mind at rest, Ken did himself proud.”

“I expected nothing less,” Rickabee said, “but I think we can give him a drink nevertheless.”

“I'll even make them,” Captain Sessions said. “What's your pleasure, gentlemen?”

“I don't know about Ken,” Fowler said. “But I think I will dip once again into General Pickering's bottomless well of Famous Grouse.”

“Ken?” Sessions asked.

McCoy nodded.

Sessions walked to a rolling cart on which sat a dozen or so bottles of whisky, glasses, a soda siphon, and the other paraphernalia of a bar.

“It went well?” Colonel Rickabee asked as he sat down again.

“I bear orders from the Commander in Chief,” Fowler said. “This ‘remarkable young man, this fine Marine' is to get ‘some well-deserved time off.'”

“Consider it done, Senator,” Colonel Rickabee said.

“I told you you'd live through it, Ken,” Major Banning said.

McCoy looked at him. “Specs was there,” McCoy said. “That helped a lot.”

“Specs?” Banning asked.

“Major Roosevelt,” McCoy said. “He was the only guy on the Makin Raid who wore glasses. We called him ‘Specs' behind his back.”

Sessions handed McCoy a squat glass dark with whisky.

“You hungry, Ken?”

McCoy nodded. “Yeah, a little.”

“You didn't have any lunch,” Sessions said.

“Get on the horn, Sessions,” Colonel Rickabee ordered, “and order up a steak for this ‘remarkable young man, this fine Marine.'”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Sessions said.

“A large steak, Ed,” Major Banning said, “big enough for two people, and a dozen oysters on the half shell.”

“I don't know about the oysters,” McCoy said.

“Don't let those brand-new railroad tracks go to your head, Captain McCoy,” Colonel Rickabee said. “When a superior officer tells you to eat oysters, it's because he thinks you need oysters. What you say is, ‘Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir,' and eat them.”

For some reason, Colonel Rickabee, Major Banning, and Captain Sessions looked very pleased with themselves.

Sessions called room service and ordered a very large steak and a dozen oysters, the larger the better. Then he turned to Colonel Rickabee. “Can I fix you another drink, Colonel?”

“No. No, thank you. We're going back to the office. I think this remarkable young man, this fine Marine, needs some time to himself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I've got to go back to work, too,” Senator Fowler said. “Ken, do I have to tell you if I can be of any help, in any way, all you have to do is call?”

“Thank you, sir,” McCoy said.

“Duty calls, gentlemen,” Rickabee said, stood up, and gestured for them to precede him out of the apartment.

“If you get bored later on, Ken,” Captain Sessions said, “call me at the apartment after seventeen thirty.”

“Why should he get bored?” Major Banning said. “He's a remarkable young man, a fine Marine. That means he should be able to find something to do to keep himself from getting bored.”

“I don't want to see your smiling face for at least two weeks, Captain McCoy. Consider that an order,” Colonel Rickabee said.

“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said.

“On the other hand, let us know where we can get in touch with you,” Rickabee said.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

In a moment, McCoy was alone. He took off his tunic, tossed it on the couch, pulled down his tie, and carried his drink over to the windows overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House.

Jesus H. Christ! I really was in that building, with the President of the United States
.

You're a long goddamned way from the machine-gun section of Baker Company, 4th Marines, in Shanghai, Corporal McCoy
.

He slowly sipped his drink.

When the chime sounded, he was in the process of making himself another.

He opened the door and the floor-service waiter wheeled in a cart loaded with silver lidded dishes, cutlery, a vase holding a single rose, and a towel-wrapped bottle in a silver wine cooler.

“May I open the champagne for you, sir?”

“No. No, thank you.”

I don't want any champagne. I don't even like champagne
.

“Is there anything else you require, sir?”

“No, thank you. This is fine.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir.”

The waiter left.

No check was presented. There was a standing rule in the Foster Lafayette Hotel from Mr. Foster himself. No check would ever be presented to anyone staying in the Marquis de Lafayette suite as a guest of Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR. Foster's only child, his daughter Patricia, was married to Pickering.

McCoy lifted the lids on the plates. The steak was enormous. And so were the dozen oysters on their bed of ice under another lid. He dropped the lid over the oysters back in place, sat down on the couch, and reached for the telephone on the coffee table. “Person-to-person to Miss Ernestine Sage,” he ordered. “Try her first at J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency, in New York City. I don't know the number. If she's not there, try Gramercy 5-4777. If there's no answer there, try the Sage residence in Bernardsville, New Jersey. I don't know that number either.”

He put the telephone in its cradle, leaned back against the cushions of the couch, and closed his eyes.

He opened them quickly and sat up when he heard the sound of a door being opened.

A young woman was walking across the sitting room toward him. She had jet-black hair, worn in a pageboy, and she was wearing a black negligee that was almost invisible in the light coming through the windows behind her.

She picked up the telephone. “You can cancel that call to Miss Sage, please, operator,” she said.

She looked down at McCoy. “Well, now I know,” she said.

“You know what?”

“That I
am
more important to you than eating a steak.”

His face contorted. His chest shook. He began to sob.

“Oh, baby,” Ernie Sage said, and went to the couch and put her arms around him.

He tried to sit up. “I'm sorry, honey! I'm…”