Banning didn’t reply.
“Does she know that you know?”
“Yes, Sir. When I found out she stood idly by when they sent Moore to Guadalcanal, I lost my temper and it slipped out.”
“You lost your temper?”
“She was more worried about getting caught with Moore in her bed than she was about MAGIC. Yes, Sir, I was mad; I lost my temper. I told her what I thought of her.”
Pickering looked at him for a moment, and then laughed.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,” he said. “You have been a thorn in my side for a long time, Banning. I find it very comforting to learn that you, the perfect Marine, the perfect intelligence officer, can lose your temper and do something dumb.”
“General, if an apology is in or-”
“The subject is closed, Ed,” Pickering interrupted. “I will deal with Mrs. Feller when I get to Brisbane.”
“I’m sorry I had to get into this-”
Pickering interrupted him again: “Looking at your face just now, I would never have guessed that.” He touched Banning’s shoulder. “Let’s see how many photos we have, Ed. And then we’ll see about getting you a shower and a shave before you catch your plane.”
He went to the door and then stopped.
“Curiosity overwhelms me. Not you, too?”
“No, Sir,” Banning said after hesitating. “But there were what could have been offers.”
“And now you’ll never know what you missed, Ed. The price of perfection is high.”
[SIX]
Muku Muku
Oahu, Territory of Hawaii
1645 Hours 15 October 1942
Wearing a red knit polo shirt and a pair of light-blue golf pants, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering walked out onto the shaded flagstone patio of a sprawling house on the coast. Five hundred yards down the steep, lush slope, large waves crashed onto a wide white sand beach.
Major Jake Dillon, USMCR, was sitting on a stool. A glass dark with whiskey was in his hand; a barber’s drape covered his body. He was having his hair cut by a silver-haired black man in a white jacket.
“You find enough hair to cut, Denny?” Pickering asked.
“He’s got more than enough around the neck, Captain,” the black man said to Pickering with a smile. “Excuse me, General,” he corrected himself; to his mind Pickering would always be Captain of his merchant fleet. “We just won’t mention the top.”
“If you didn’t have that razor in your hand,” Dillon said, “I’d tell you to go to hell.”
Denny laughed.
“Very nice, General,” Jake Dillon teased. “What is this place?”
“This is Muku Muku, Major,” the black man said. “Pretty famous around the Pacific.”
“What the hell is it?”
“My grandfather bought this, all of it,” Pickering said and made a sweeping gesture, “years ago. Now they’ve turned it into Beverly Hills.”
Dillon laughed. “You make Beverly Hills sound like a slum, the way you said that.”
“What I meant was very large houses on very small lots,” Pickering said. “I can’t understand why people do that.”
Another elderly-looking black man in a white jacket opened one of a long line of sliding plate-glass doors onto the patio. Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy walked outside. He was wearing obviously brand-new khakis.
“You find everything you need, Ken?” Pickering asked.
“Yes, Sir,” McCoy said. “Thank you.”
“Can I offer you something to drink, Lieutenant?” the black man said. “You, Captain?”
“I’ll have whatever the balding man is having,” Pickering said.
“That’s fine,” McCoy said. “General, what is this place?”
“It’s Muku Muku,” Dillon said. “I got that far.”
“My grandfather bought it,” Pickering said. “As sort of a rest camp for our masters, and our chief engineers, when they made the Islands… the Sandwich Islands then. In the old days, the sailing days, they were at sea for months at a time.”
“I sailed under the Commodore, the Captain’s grandfather,” the black man working on Dillon said. “The Genevieve. The last of our four-masters. Went around the Horn on her.”
“That’s right, isn’t it?” Pickering said. “I’d forgotten that, Denny.”
“And I retired off the Pacific Endeavour, ” Denny said. “From sail to air-conditioning.” He looked over at McCoy. “Just as soon as I’m through with this gentleman, Sir, I’ll be ready for you.”