"Thank you, sir," Pickering said. "I was afraid it might be something like that. May I ask another question?''
"Shoot."
"How long will I be assigned here? I mean, you said something about deciding what to do with me. How long will that take?"
"That depends on what you would like to do, and whether or not you're qualified to do it. Presumably, you learned at Quantico that leading a platoon of riflemen is not quite the fun and games the recruiter may have painted it."
"Yes, sir."
"Have you ever thought of going to flight school?" General Mclnerney asked.
"No, sir," Pickering confessed.
General Mclnerney was a little disappointed to hear that, but decided that Fleming Pickering's kid meant what he said: that he simply had not thought of going to flight school-not that he had considered the notion and discarded it because he didn't like the idea of flying.
"That's an option," General Mclnerney said. "But only if you could pass the flight physical. On your way out, have Sergeant Wallace set up an appointment for a flight physical. And then take the rest of the day off, son, and get yourself settled. I'm talking about your friend, too, of course."
"I'll check out of the hotel, too, of course," Pickering said.
"Don't do it on my account," General Mclnerney said. "So far as I'm concerned, I'd be delighted to have you in there, in case my wife and I wanted to make reservations for dinner.''
General Mclnerney stood up and offered his hand.
"Welcome aboard," he said. "You're your father's son, and that's intended as a compliment."
Chapter Fourteen
(One)
Room 26, Temporary Building T-2032
Washington, D.C.
0945 Hours, 1 December 1941
McCoy had seen quite a few office doors during his time in the Corps. Most of them had a sign announcing in some detail not only what function was being carried out behind the door, but by whom.
The door to room 26 didn't even have a room number. McCoy had to find it by counting upward from room number 2, which had a sign: OFFICER s HEAD.
He thought he'd gotten it wrong even then, for what he thought was room 26 had two sturdy locks on it-a storeroom, in other words, full of mimeograph paper and quart bottles of ink. But with no other option that he could think of, he knocked on it.
As soon as he knocked, however, he heard movement inside, then the sound of dead-bolt locks being operated, and a moment later the door opened just wide enough to reveal the face of a grim-looking man. He said nothing, but the expression on his face asked McCoy to state his business.
"I'm looking for room 26," McCoy said.
The man nodded, waiting for McCoy to go on.
"I was ordered to report to room 26," McCoy said.
"What's your name, please?" the man asked.
"McCoy."
"May I see your identification, please?" the man asked.
McCoy handed over his brand-new officer's identification card. The man looked at it carefully, then at McCoy's face, and then opened the door wide enough for McCoy to enter.
Inside was a small area, just enough for a desk. On the other side of the room there was another door, again with double dead-bolt locks.
When the man walked to the telephone on the desk, McCoy saw that he had a.45 Colt 1911A1 on his hip. On his tail, really, and not in a GI holster, but in sort of a skeleton holster through which the front part of the pistol stuck out.
If he was wearing a jacket, McCoy thought, you'd never know he had a pistol.
"I have Lieutenant McCoy here," the man said to the telephone. "He's not due in until 15 December."
There was a pause.
"Well, shit, I suppose everybody's been told but us. What does he get?"
There was obviously a reply, but McCoy couldn't hear it. The man put the telephone down, and then reached into his desk and came out with a clipboard and a small plastic card affixed to an alligator clip.
"Sign here, please," he said. "Just your signature. Not your rank."
McCoy signed his name.
The man handed him the plastic card.
"You use this until we get you your own," he said. "Pin it on your blouse jacket."
_McCoy looked at it before he pinned it on. It was a simple piece of plastic-covered cardboard. It said "VISITOR" and there was the insignia of the Navy Department. It was overprinted with purple stripes.
"That's good anywhere in the building," the man said. "Or almost everywhere. But it's not good for ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence]. Until you get your credentials, you'd better avoid going over to ONI."
"Okay," McCoy said, wondering what was going on.
The man stuck out his hand.
"I'm Sergeant Ruttman," he said. "We didn't expect you until the fifteenth."
"So I heard you say," McCoy said.
"You just went through that course at Quantico, right?"
"That's right," McCoy said.
"Pain in the ass?"
"Yes, it was," McCoy said.
"They want to send me," Sergeant Ruttman said. "But I've been putting off going. I figure if they really want me to take a commission, they can give it to me. I already know about chickenshit."
"Good luck," McCoy said, wondering if Ruttman was just running off at the mouth, or whether he was telling the truth.
Ruttman replaced the clipboard in his desk, and then took keys from his pocket and unlocked both of the locks in the door.
"Follow me," he said.
Beyond the door was a strange assortment of machinery. There were typewriters and other standard office equipment. But there were also cameras; what McCoy guessed was a blueprint machine; a large photograph print dryer, a stainless-steel-drum affair larger than a desk; and a good deal of other equipment that looked expensive and complicated. McCoy couldn't even guess the purpose of some of it.
The equipment was being manned by a strange-looking assortment of people, all in civilian clothes, and all of them armed. Most of them had standard web belts and issue flapped holsters for the.45 191lAls they carried, but some carried the pistols the way Ruttman carried his, and others were armed with snub-nosed Smith Wesson revolvers. "What is this place, Sergeant?"
"The thing you're going to have to keep in mind, Lieutenant, is that it's just like boot camp at Parris Island. If they think you should know something, they'll tell you. Otherwise it's none of your business."
He turned his attention from McCoy to the drawer of a desk. He took a loose-leaf notebook from it and two blank forms, one of them a card with purple stripes like his "VISITOR" badge, and the other a Navy identification card of some sort.
"Before I fuck things up," he called out, raising his voice, "has anybody made out any of these and not logged them in the book?"
There was no response to the inquiry, and he put both identification cards in a typewriter and typed briefly and rapidly on them.
"I need an officer to sign these!" he called out again, and one of the civilians, a slight, tall man, walked to the desk.
Despite the Smith Wesson.38 snub-nose revolver on his hip, he looked like a clerk. He waited until Ruttman finished typing, and then took the card from him and scrawled his name on it. Then he looked at McCoy.
"You're McCoy?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Not that I'm not glad to see you, but you weren't due to report in until the fifteenth."
"I reported in early, sir."
"You'll regret that," the officer said. " 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!' "
He walked back where he had come from. McCoy saw that he was making notations on a large map. Next to the map were aerial photographs and a stack of teletype paper liberally stamped "SECRET" in large letters.