She had his zipper open. His erect organ sprang out. “Will you look at that!” Cynthia said.
,You’re lewd and shameless,” he said, pushing her away, getting to his feet.
“And doesn’t that make you happy?” she asked.
She walked around to the other side of the bed, slipped under the covers, and watched him finish undressing.
When he was done, she threw the covers off herself and held out her arms to him. In a moment he had entered the incredible wann soft wetness of her. At the same moment, tragically, his body had had enough.
He cried out, and the god damned headache he had been trying to avoid all day finally struck him-with a vengeance. He’d never known pain so sudden and so sharp.
And then he was dead.
“Chesty? Chesty, what’s the matter?” she asked.
She worked her way out from under him and sat up. Then with all her energy she rolled him over on his back. His eyes stared at her, but she instantly knew he did not see her.
“Oh, Chesty! ” she said, putting her balled fists to her mouth. As she had been taught to do, she felt the artery in his neck for a pulse There was none, After a few minutes, Cynthia pulled her robe on, and with infinite tenderness, as tears ran down her cheeks, she pulled Chesty,s eyelids shut.
The White House Washington, D.C. 7:05 Pm., December 7, 1941
Captain Peter Stuart Douglass, USN, was in the White House because he had become de facto deputy director of the Office of the Coordinator of Information. It hadn’t been planned that way. The original notion was that he would be assigned to Donovan because it would take him (and the fission-bomb project) out from under ONI and put it under Donovan, who had the car of the President.
But in the beginning of the fission project, there really hadn’t been much to do beyond sending the people to England to see what could be learned of English and German efforts and to wait for the results of the experiments being conducted at the University of Chicago.
So he had started doing one thing and another for Donovan, and later it had seemed perfectly logical for him to assume duty as acting deputy director of Col until Donovan could find the proper man for the slot.
Then, the week before, the President had decided to place the entire fission project under a group of academics headed by Dr. J. B. Conant, of Harvard. This had the logical cover of a scientific pro-gram being run by the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
The change had taken place as of December 6, 194 1, and Douglass had not moved over to OSRD.
“Pete, you’re not a physicist, and I need you more than they do,” D0110van had said, with irrefutable logic.
-Colonel, I’d like to go back to the Navy.”
,Come on, Pete, I need you more than the Navy,” Donovan said. –I can’t do without you, and you know it.”
“I’d hoped for a command, Colonel,” Douglass said.
-Think that through, Pete,” Donovan said. “If you went back to the Navy, it would be to ONI. They’re not going to give you a sea command. You’re too valuable as an intelligence officer. And you would be of more value here than you would be in the Navy.”
Donovan was of course right. And what that meant was that after a lifetime of preparing for war at sea, Captain Peter Douglass was going to spend the war behind a desk. His friends and peers would be on the bridges of ships while he stayed in Washington. And the price he was going to pay for working for Donovan, he clearly understood, was that he could never make admiral.
When the telephone call came for Donovan, Douglass took it. And then he quietly opened the door to the Oval Office and stepped inside. The office was heavy with cigarette smoke, and although there had been a steady stream of stewards passing in and out, doing their best to keep it shipshape, the place was a mess. Sandwich remnants and empty coffee cups on every flat surface but the President’s desk itself. That was covered with sheets of paper and a large map.