W E B Griffin – Men at War 4 – The Fighting Agents

“I told him I thought it was a splendid idea,” Chesty’d said.

“Actually, what I said making my little joke, was ‘name the first son after me.”” “Oh, damn you!” she’d said, and she’d started to cry, and he’d held her.

Three months after that happened, Chesty Haywood Whittaker had dropped dead. And he had not made provision for her in his will, and she was as poor as a church mouse.

Cynthia decided not to make an issue of the Theodore Roosevelt Suite. It would be pointless to protest, for one thing, and for another, it wasn’t as if there was a suggestion he would share it with her. He had just made a generous gesture. In the family tradition, she thought. In many ways, Jimmy reminded her of Chesty.

The Navy sent a Plymouth staff car to carry them from the Mark Hopkins to Mare Island. Waiting for them in a hangar there, guarded by a platoon of Marines under a gunnery sergeant, was a five-foot-high stack of wooden crates that would at 0500 the next morning be loaded aboard the Naval Air Transport Service Douglas C-54 that would carry them to Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands.

Jimmy, very seriously, ordered Radioman Second Class Joe Garvey to take charge of the guard detail. Cynthia had to restrain a smile at the slight sailor’s obvious feeling of importance at being given the responsibility.

Garvey’s status was still undecided. Since he had correctly deduced that Whittaker and Hammersmith were going into the Philippines, he could not be simply returned to duty. But on the other hand, it had not been decided that he would go with Whittaker and Hammersmith. For the meantime, taking him with them to San Francisco and Hawaii would serve two purposes. An extra hand was going to be helpful, and he already knew what was going on. And if he was with them, he was considered to be secure. He could, at any point, be put on ice if it was ultimately decided not to take him to Mindanao.

They then went to the Mare Island Officers’ Club for dinner. Whittaker ordered a steak dinner with all the trimmings to go, and sent their Navy driver to the hangar to deliver it to Garvey.

There was an orchestra in the club. After dinner, after first, with great mock courtesy, asking Whittaker’s permission, Greg asked Cynthia to dance.

Whittaker graciously gave his permission, then rose and gave a little bow as cg led her off to the dance floor.

Then it was Jimmy’s turn to dance with her. Thirty seconds after he had put his arms around her, she had felt his erection stabbing at her stomach. He didn’t grab her and press her close or try to move his hands so they would come against her breasts, but he had an erection, and it was obvious that he was not only not embarrassed by it, but seemed pleased that she had no choice but to be aware of it.

And since she had learned in a class euphemistically called “Human Hygiene” in college that the male erection was an “involuntary vascular reaction,” she had not been able to tell him to “stop that.”

He held her hand as they returned to the table.

Jimmy picked up his glass and, smiling, looked over the rim of it at Greg.

“I have been thinking, Ronald Reagan–” he began.

“I saw the furrowed brow,” Hammersmith interrupted, “and it’s “Greg Hammer.”

Ronny Reagan is the one they call the “Errol Flynn of the B movies.”” “Right,” Whittaker said.

“Hammer, as in the baking soda.”

“Now you’ve got it,” Hammersmith said.

“What have you been thinking, 0 worthy leader?”

“That despite my initial unflattering impression of you, you may be reasonably trustworthy after all.”

“Oh, thank you. Sir.”

“To the point where I would feel comfortable in leaving you in sole charge of Radioman Garvey while I escort the lady to her hotel.”

“I can get to the hotel by myself,” Cynthia protested.

They ignored her.

“So that you can protect our girl from the unwanted attentions of sailors in the Mark Hopkins?”

“Correct,” Whittaker said.

“I have heard all sorts of tales about sex-starved naval officers making indecent proposals to unaccompanied young ladies such as Miss Chenowith, right in the lobby of the Mark Hopkins.”

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