"No," Bill said, and then, thinking aloud, "That's an odd question."
"You were seen leaving the area."
"So?"
"The officer who saw you leave could not tell whether you had lost your windshield. You were too far apart."
"Who was that?"
"I don't think we'd better get into that."
"But he thought I was running, right?"
"Were you?"
"I don't know."
"That's not a very good answer, you realize?"
"Sorry about that."
"You don't seem overly disturbed at what could be an accusation of cowardice in the face of the enemy."
"Fuck you, Lieutenant."
"You can't talk to me that way!"
"If I'm to be charged with cowardice in the face of the enemy, what's the difference what I say to you?"
After a long pause, the Naval Intelligence Officer said, "I didn't say anything about you being charged with anything."
"No witnesses, right? Everybody's dead?"
"If you're through with my patient, Lieutenant," another voice said, from behind Dunn, "I'd like to put him aboard the PBY."
"You're being flown to Pearl Harbor," the Intelligence Officer said to Dunn.
"I'd prefer to stay with the squadron," Bill said.
"You won't be flying for a while. Three weeks anyway," the voice behind him said.
"And there's no squadron to stay with," the Naval Intelligence Officer said.
"Moving is going to be painful," the voice behind him, now much closer, said. "I can give you some morphine, if you like."
"How painful?"
"You're pretty well stitched up, particularly on the legs. Any movement will be painful."
"Then you'd better give me the shot," Bill Dunn said.
Chapter Two
(One)
MENZIES HOTEL
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
1040 HOURS 8 JUNE 1942
When the knock came at his door, Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, was relaxing with his jacket off and his tie pulled down, tilting back in a chair, his feet on the windowsill of his seventh-floor suite, and balancing a cup of coffee on his stomach. Even that way he looked tall and distinguished; and it would have taken a moment of indecision before you concluded he was a man in his early forties. At first glance he appeared younger than that.
Rooms-much less suites-in the Menzies Hotel, now the Headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Areas, were not ordinarily assigned to lowly Navy Captains. But Captain Pickering was not an ordinary officer, or for that matter, an ordinary man.
Six months before, he had been Chairman of the Board, Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation. He had been known as Captain Pickering then, too, preferring the title to the more grandiose Commodore which many ship owners adopt, whether or not they have ever gone to sea. Fleming Pickering had received his Master, Any Ocean, Any Tonnage, license from the U.S. Coast Guard when he was twenty-six. He was entitled to be called Captain.
The Corporation he chaired was in many ways as singular as he was. PandFE did not for instance issue an annual stockholders' report detailing the financial condition of its assets (which included fifty-two ships and a good deal of real estate in the United States and abroad). The majority stockholders did not consider such a report necessary. Captain Pickering and his wife owned seventy-five percent of the outstanding shares, and controlled voting rights to the other twenty-five percent, which had been placed in trust for their only child.
Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, was, in other words, an important and influential man in his own right. But what made him unique, in the military pecking order, were the orders he carried in his pocket:
THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
WASHINGTON, D.C.
30 JANUARY 1942
CAPTAIN FLEMING W. PICKERING, USNR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, WILL PROCEED BY MILITARY AND/OR CIVILIAN RAIL, ROAD, SEA, AND AIR TRANSPORTATION (PRIORITY AAAAA-1) TO SUCH POINTS AS HE DEEMS NECESSARY IN CARRYING OUT THE MISSION ASSIGNED TO HIM BY THE UNDERSIGNED.
UNITED STATES NAVAL COMMANDS ARE DIRECTED TO PROVIDE HIM WITH SUCH SUPPORT AS HE MAY REQUEST. OTHER UNITED STATES AGENCIES ARE REQUESTED TO CONSIDER CAPTAIN PICKERING THE PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNDERSIGNED AND TO PROVIDE TO HIM APPROPRIATE SERVICES AND AMENITIES.
CAPTAIN PICKERING HAS UNRESTRICTED TOP SECRET SECURITY CLEARANCE. ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING HISMISSION WILL BE DIRECTED TO THE UNDERSIGNED.
FRANK KNOX
SECRETARY
Very soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Navy Secretary Frank Knox came to realize that the information about Naval operations in the Pacific he was getting-and would get-from regular Navy officers was understandably slanted to reflect well on the U.S. Navy. These reports tended to gloss over any facts or opinions that might suggest that the Navy was less than perfect. What he needed, he concluded, was someone to report to him directly, and someone who not only was not a member of the Navy establishment, but who would know what he was looking at.
Knox met Pickering through their mutual friend, Senator Richmond Fowler (Republican-California). He decided immediately that Pickering was the man he was looking for. It was less Pickering's nautical experience that appealed to him than Pickering's strongly stated conviction that after Pearl Harbor, Knox should have resigned and the admirals at Pearl Harbor should have been shot. It was in vino truth: The day Secretary Knox met him, Pickering was treating a sorely bruised male ego with large doses of Old Grouse Scotch whiskey. The PandFE Chairman, a much decorated Marine corporal in France during the First War, had just been told the Marine Corps could not use his services in World War II.
Two weeks later, Knox offered Pickering a commission as his personal representative, with captain's stripes to go with it. To Knox's surprise, Pickering immediately accepted. Shortly thereafter he left for the Pacific.
"Come!" Captain Pickering called; and carefully, so as not to spill the coffee, he looked over his shoulder.
A youthful-looking Navy officer somewhat hesitantly stuck his head in the door.
"Captain Pickering?"
"Yes," Pickering said. "Come on in."
His visitor's sleeves, Pickering saw with surprise, carried the stripes of a full commander. He didn't look old enough to be a commander, Pickering thought. Even more surprising was the manner in which the commander carried his large, apparently full briefcase. It was attached to his wrist by a chain and a handcuff.
"You are Captain Pickering?" the young-looking commander asked.
"Guilty," Pickering said. "Who are you?"
"Sir, may I trouble you for some identification?"
"Jesus," Pickering said, and carefully removing himself from the tilted back chair, went to his uniform jacket and took out a wallet. The breast of the jacket carried ribbons for both valor and for wounds received in action in what had now become the First World War. He offered the young commander his Navy Department identification card, and then, because he already had his hands on it, his local identity card.
That one, with red diagonal stripes across the photograph and data blocks, told the Military Police he had been authorized unlimited access to all areas of MacArthur's headquarters. The red stripes seemed to awe people, Fleming had noticed. It should satisfy this young man.