Fowler shrugged and followed Pickering.
The maitre d’hotel saw them coming. Smiling as he unhooked the velvet rope, he greeted them:
“General, Senator, your table is ready.”
That was not the unvarnished truth. The Oak Grill customarily placed brass RESERVED signs on a few tables more than were actually reserved. Such tables were required for those people who came without reservations and were too important to stand in line. Before General Pickering had taken up residence in the Lafayette, Senator Fowler’s name had headed the list of those who got tables before anyone else, reservation or no. Now Fleming Pickering’s name was at the top.
A waiter appeared before Pickering and Fowler had time to slide onto the leather-cushioned banquette seats.
“Luncheon, gentlemen?”
“No, thank you,” Pickering said. “What we need desperately is a quick drink.”
“Don’t bring the bottle,” Senator Fowler said.
The management of the Oak Grill was aware that when General Pickering asked for a drink, he was actually requesting a glass, a bowl of ice, a pitcher of water, and a bottle of Famous Grouse scotch. Two of these, from the General’s private stock, were kept out of sight under the bar.
The waiter looked to Pickering for guidance.
“Just the drinks, please,” Pickering ordered. When the waiter was gone he added, “I really hadn’t planned to get plastered.”
“There are those, you know, who would be reluctant to show up across the street reeking of booze.”
“You don’t say?”
“And, you know, most general officers ride in the backseat, beside their aides, while their sergeant drives.”
“My aide and my sergeant have more important things to do,” Pickering said, and then added, “Speaking of which…”
He took a thin sheet of paper from the left bellows pocket of his tunic and handed it to Fowler.
=SECRET=
NOT LOGGED
ONE COPY ONLY
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FOLLOWING IS DECRYPTION OF MSG 234707 RECEIVED 091142 1105 GREENWICH
FROM SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA
091142 1325 GREENWICH VIA PEARL HARBOR
FOR SECNAV WASHINGTON DC
EYES ONLY BRIG GEN FLEMING PICKERING USMCR
OFFICE MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS HQ USMC
GREYHOUND RETURNED SAFELY TO KENNEL XXX PUPS A LITTLE WORSE FOR WEAR BUT HEALTHY XXX
BEST PERSONAL REGARDS FROM ALL HANDS XXX SIGNATURE BANNING
=SECRET=
Senator Fowler read it and handed it back to Pickering.
“Aside from recognizing the somewhat grandiose title Douglas MacArthur has given himself, I haven’t the foggiest idea what I just read,” he said. “But are you supposed to carry something marked ‘Secret’ around in your pocket so casually?”
Pickering looked at him and smiled.
“Watch this,” he said.
He crumpled the sheet of paper and put it in the ashtray. Then he took a gold Dunhill lighter from his pocket, got it working, and touched the flame to the crumpled paper. There was a flash of light, and the paper disappeared in a small cloud of white smoke.
“Christ!” Fowler said, surprised.
Heads elsewhere in the Oak Grill turned, startled by the light.
“They treat it chemically somehow,” Pickering said, pleased. “The coal on a cigarette will set it off. You don’t need a flame.”
“How clever,” Fowler said drolly as the waiter delivered the drinks. He picked up his and raised it. “To Pick, Flem. May God protect him.”
Pickering met his eyes and then touched glasses.
“That came in a moment before you called,” he said. “We put a couple of Marines-precisely, I put a couple of Marines-onto an island called Buka, not far from the Japanese base at Rabaul. The Australians left people behind when the Japanese occupied it-”
“You put somebody onto a Japanese-occupied island?” Fowler interrupted.
Pickering nodded. “They call these people Coastwatchers. They have radios, and provide our people with early warning of Japanese movement, air and ship. This fellow’s radio went out, so we sent him a new one, a Hallicrafters-”
” ‘You’ or ‘we,’ which?” Fowler interrupted again.
“Me,” Pickering said. “I asked a couple of Marines to volunteer to parachute onto Buka with a new radio. Then I found out that the Australians were infected with the British notion that no sacrifice is too great for King and Country…”
“Meaning what?”
“That they were going to leave my Marines there until they were either killed by the Japanese or died of disease or starvation. Goddamn them!”