"It's seen better days, Sir."
"I heard the typewriter, the noise, and thought you could probably use some coffee," Pickering said, holding up a silver coffeepot in one hand and two coffee cups in the other. And then he told the truth. "I'd like to talk to you, Ken."
"Yes, Sir?"
"But it will hold. Finish what you're doing."
"This will hold," McCoy said. "It's only a letter to Ernie."
" 'Only a letter to Ernie'?" Pickering parroted. "That's not important anymore?"
McCoy reached into his open collar and came out with a round silver me-dallion on a silver chain.
"I'm writing a thank-you for this," he said. "I really don't know what to say."
"What is it?"
"It's an Episcopal serviceman's cross," McCoy said. "It was in that pack-age Sessions brought me."
"You're Episcopal?"
"I'm not much of anything. Most people hear McCoy, think it's Irish, and that I'm Catholic. But I'm Scotch, and that's Presbyterian, and I never had much to do with them."
"Ernie's Episcopal," Pickering said. "So am I. Would you believe that Pick sang in the choir, that he was an altar boy?"
"Pick's behind this," McCoy said. "Charley Galloway's girlfriend sent him one. Pick saw Galloway's on the Buka Operation and decided he wanted one. He wrote and asked his mother for one. She told Ernie's mother, Ernie's mother told Ernie, and here is mine. It came in a little red velvet bag with 'Tif-fany and Company' printed on it."
"Well, I think it's a very nice gesture. It can't hurt, Ken." He paused, and then went on. "You're not religious? Is that the problem?"
"Oh, I believe in God, I suppose. But I think there's a lot of guys in graves on Guadalcanal, and in the Philippines, who did a lot of hard praying just before they were blown away."
"I have my problems with organized religion," Pickering said. "But I'm a sailor. I don't see how anyone who has counted the stars on a clear night on the high seas or watched the sun come up in the middle of an ocean can doubt the existence of a superior power."
McCoy chuckled. "Me either. My problem is that I really don't believe that God is all that interested in Ken McCoy, personally."
"Did you pray when you were hit?" Pickering asked.
McCoy shook his head, no. "But I said 'thank you' when I got back to Washington and Ernie was waiting for me."
"I said 'thank you' when El Supremo told me VMF-229 was relieved on the 'Canal, and that Pick had come through all right. And when you all came back from Buka in one piece."
"Not when you got hit?" McCoy asked.
"You mean this time?" Pickering asked, and then went on before McCoy could reply. "I suppose I did. I probably did. I don't really remember. At my age, you say 'thank you' for other people's lives. I figure I've had my fair share and more."
McCoy looked at him in curiosity.
"I didn't really expect to come back from France," Pickering said. "When I did, when I came out of the trenches for the last time, I figured what-ever came afterward would be gravy. And it turned out that way."
"It was bad in France, huh?"
"The artillery was terrible," Pickering said evenly. "Especially when we were moving. But what really terrified me was the poison gas. I watched peo-ple die that way. I didn't want that to happen to me. That thought scared me bad."
McCoy nodded his understanding.
"I'm not particularly afraid of dying," McCoy said. "What scares me is dying slowly, hanging upside down on a rope while some Jap uses me for bay-onet practice."
"They do that?"
"Sometimes they use their rifle butts to see how many bones they can break before the prisoner dies."
Pickering nodded his understanding.
"You said you wanted to talk to me, Sir?"
The exchange of confidences was over.
"I'm going to have to ask you to go into the Philippines, Ken," Pickering said.
McCoy nodded. "I figured that when I heard we lost the OSS major."
"I think we have to do whatever we can to help Fertig and his people."
"Yes, Sir. I agree."
"I wish the other one had been on the B-17," Pickering said.
McCoy chuckled.
"That thought occurred to me, too, General."
"But he didn't, and..."
"I was going to come to you, Sir, and tell you that I thought I better go with them, even before I heard the B-17 went down."
"It's still a volunteer mission, Ken. You don't have to go."
"Who else is there?" McCoy replied.
"Is that why you're having a hard time with your letter to Ernie?" Picker-ing asked. "You wrote and told her you would be coming home, and now you have to write and tell her you won't be?"
McCoy met Pickering's eyes.
"I was pretty vague about when I was coming home. Getting relieved seemed to be too good to be true."
"I'll have a word with Captain Macklin and tell him who's really in charge."
"I can handle Macklin."
"Have you seen him?"
"No, Sir. I've been avoiding that."
"How are you going to handle him?"
"If I have to, I'll kill him."
Pickering looked into McCoy's eyes.
"It would be awkward if that was necessary."
"I won't, unless I have to."
"Anything I can do?"
"I want Zimmerman, and I don't want Koffler."
"Because it would be unfair to Koffler?"
"Because he wants to be an officer, and I'm afraid he thinks the way he can do that is to be a hero. Heroes get people killed."
"They're working on Zimmerman. There's an admiral coming in today from CINCPAC who wants to talk about the submarine. I don't think we can get one for another week or ten days. Zimmerman certainly should be here by then."
"It'll take me another five, six days to get everything ready anyhow."
"Pluto has been having trouble getting a radio operator from SWPOA. I'm going to El Supremo this morning to ask him personally. I think he'll come through."
McCoy nodded.
"I really hate having to ask you to go, Ken."
"I really hate to go," McCoy said. "But there's no other solution that I can see."
Pickering met McCoy's eyes. They held for a moment, then Pickering nodded and started out of the library.
Over his shoulder, he called, "Tell Ernie I said hello."
[SIX]
Cryptographic Center
Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Ocean Area
0905 Hours 29 November 1942
When Major Hon Son Do slid open the tiny steel window in the steel door and saw Brigadier General Fleming Pickering's face, he knew that something had happened that Pickering didn't like at all.
He slid the bars out of place and pulled the heavy door inward.
"I didn't expect to see you here, Sir."
"I have just come from the throne of God," Pickering said. "I humbly requested an audience with El Supremo, and, feeling gracious, he granted me one."
When there was no elaboration on this, Pluto went to one of the two type-writers on the desk and jerked a sheet of paper from it. "Is this about what you want, Sir?" Pickering took the sheet of paper from him and read it.