“So you got them out? The greyhound and the pups? That’s what they meant?”
Pickering nodded. “We replaced them. Took the first Marines out and sent some others in. I was worried about it; it was a hairy operation. And the moment after the courier handed me Banning’s message and I could exhale, I got your ‘come as soon as possible’ message. I thought that Pick… I thought the other shoe had dropped. I stuffed that in my pocket without thinking.”
“Pick, like his old man, will walk between raindrops,” Fowler said. “To quote myself.”
Pickering looked at him for a moment, then raised his glass.
“I could use another one of these.”
“No,” Fowler said, then repeated it. “No, Flem.”
Pickering shrugged.
Fowler’s 1941 Cadillac limousine was at the curb when they came out of the lobby.
“I gather it’s beneath the dignity of a United States senator to arrive at the White House in anything less than a limousine?” Pickering asked as he started to get in.
“It is beneath this United States senator’s dignity to call upon the President soaked to the skin,” Fowler replied. “They would make you park your car yourself if you drove over there. And, you may have noticed, it’s raining.”
Pickering didn’t reply.
“How are you, Fred?” he cheerfully asked Fowler’s chauffeur.
“Just fine, General, thank you.”
The limousine was stopped at the gate. Before passing them onto the White House grounds, a muscular man in a snap-brim hat and a rain-soaked trench coat scanned their personal identification, then checked their names against a list on a clipboard.
A Marine sergeant opened the limousine door when they stopped under the White House portico, then saluted when Pickering got out.
Pickering returned the salute. “How are you, Sergeant?” he asked.
The sergeant seemed surprised at being spoken to. “Just fine, Sir.”
A White House butler opened the door as they approached it.
“Senator, General. If you’ll follow me, please?”
He took them via an elevator to the second floor, where another muscular man in civilian clothing examined them carefully before stepping aside.
The butler knocked at a double door, then opened it without waiting for an order.
“Mr. President,” he announced, “Senator Fowler and General Pickering.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt rolled his wheelchair toward the door.
“My two favorite members of the loyal opposition,” he said, beaming. “Thank you for coming.”
“Mr. President,” Fowler and Pickering said, almost in unison.
“Fleming, how are you?” Roosevelt asked as he offered his hand.
“Very well, thank you, Sir.”
Pickering thought he detected an inflection in the President’s voice that made it a real question, not a pro forma one. There came immediate proof.
“Malaria’s all cleared up?” the President pursued. “Your wounds have healed?”
“I’m in fine shape, Sir.”
“Then I can safely offer you a drink? Without invoking the rage of the Navy’s surgeon general?”
“It is never safe to offer General Pickering a drink, Mr. President,” Senator Fowler said.
“Well, I think I’ll just take the chance, anyway,” Roosevelt said.
A black steward in a white jacket appeared carrying a tray with two glasses on it.
“Frank and I started without you,” Roosevelt said, spinning the wheelchair around and rolling it into the next room. Fowler and Pickering followed him.
As they entered, Knox rose from one of two matching leather armchairs. He had a drink in his hand. Admiral William D. Leahy rose from the other chair. He was a tall, lanky, sad-faced man whose title was Chief of Staff of the President. There was a coffee cup on the table beside him.
The men shook hands.
“How are you, General?” Admiral Leahy asked, and again Pickering sensed it was a real, rather than pro forma, question.
“I’m very well, thank you, Admiral,” Pickering said.
“I already asked him, Admiral,” Roosevelt said. “We apparently have standing before us a tribute to the efficacy of military medicine. As badly as he was wounded, as sick as he was with malaria, I am awed.” He turned to Pickering, Knox, and Fowler, smiled, and went on: “The Admiral and I have had our schedule changed. You will be spared taking lunch with us.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. President,” Senator Fowler said.