Crowe muttered darkly but harmlessly and the other team members drew back to give him room to perform his absolution. He peeled off his gloves, dropped to the prone and banged out twenty-five Marine-regulation push-ups. The last six were somewhat sloppy.
“Excellent,” said Donny. “Maybe you’re not a girl after all. All right, let’s—”
But at this moment, the company commander’s orderly, the bespectacled PFC Welch, suddenly appeared at Donny’s right shoulder.
“Hey, Corporal,” he whispered, “CO wants to see you.”
Shit, thought Donny, what the hell have I done now?
“Ohhh,” somebody sang, “somebody’s in trouble.”
“Hey, Donny, maybe they’re going to give you another medal.”
“It’s his Hollywood contract, it’s finally come.”
“You know what it’s about?” asked Donny of Welch, who was a prime source of scuttlebutt.
“No idea. Some Navy guys, that’s all I know. It’s ASAP, though.”
“I’m on my way. Bascombe, you take over. Another twenty minutes. Focus on the face-out of the hearse that seems to have Crowe so baffled. Then take ’em to chow. I’ll catch up when I can.”
“Yes, Corporal.”
Donny straightened his starched shirt, adjusted the gig line, wondered if he had time to change shirts, decided he didn’t, and took off.
He headed across the parade deck, passing among other drilling Marines. The showboats of Company A, the silent drill rifle team, were going through their elaborate pantomime; the color guard people were mastering the intricacies of flag work; another platoon had moved on to riot control and was stomping furiously down Troop Walk, bent double under combat gear.
Donny reached Center Walk, turned and headed into the barracks proper, only crossing paths with half a dozen officers in the salute-crazed Corps and having to toss up a stiff right hand for their response. He entered the building, turned right and went through the open hatch — Marine for “door”—and down the hall. It was dark and the gleamy swirls of good buffer work on the wax of the linoleum shone up at him. Along the green government bulkheads were photos of various Marine activities supplied by an aggressive Public Information Office for morale purposes, at which they utterly failed. At last, he turned into the door marked COMMANDING OFFICER, and under that CAPTAIN M. C. DOGWOOD, USMC. The outer office was empty, because PFC Welch was still running errands.
“Fenn?” came the call from the inner office. “In here.”
Donny stepped into the office, a kind of ghostly crypt to the joint vanities of Marine machismo and bureaucratic efficiency, to discover the ramrod-stiff Captain Morton Dogwood sitting with a slender young man in the summer tans of a lieutenant commander in the Navy and an even younger man in an ensign’s uniform.
“Sir,” said Donny, going to attention, “Corporal Fenn reporting as ordered, sir.”
As he was unarmed, he did not salute.
“Fenn, this is Commander Bonson and Ensign Weber,” said Dogwood.
“Sirs,” said Donny to the naval officers.
“Commander Bonson and his associate are from the Naval Investigative Service,” said Dogwood.
Oh, shit, thought Donny.
The room was dark, the shades drawn. The captain’s meager assembly of service medals hung in a frame on the wall behind him, as well as an announcement of his degree in International Finance from George Washington University. His desk was shiny and almost clear except for the polished 105mm howitzer shell that had been cut down to a paper clip cup and was everybody’s souvenir from service in RSVN, and pictures of a pretty wife and two baby girls.
“Sit down, Fenn,” said Bonson, not looking up from documents he was studying, which, as Donny saw, were his own jacket, or personnel records.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Donny. He found a chair and set himself into it stiffly, facing the three men who seemed to hold his destiny in their hands. Outside, the shouts of drill came through the windows; outside it was bright and hot and the day was filled with duty. Donny felt in murky waters here; what the hell was this all about?
“Good record,” said Bonson. “Excellent job in country. Good record here in the barracks. Your hitch is up when, Fenn?”
“Sir, May seventy-two.”
“Hate to see you leave, Fenn. The Corps needs good men like you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Donny, wondering if this was some — no, no, it couldn’t be a recruiting pitch. NIS was the Navy and the Corps’s own, tinny version of the FBI: they investigated, they didn’t recruit. “I’m engaged to be married. I’ve already been accepted back at the University of Arizona.”
“What will you study?” asked the commander.
“Sir, pre-law, I think.”
“You know, Fenn, you’ll probably get out a corporal. Rank is hard to come by in the Corps, because it’s so small and there just aren’t the positions available, no matter the talent and the commitment.”
“Yes, sir,” said Donny.
“Only about eight percent of four-year enlistees come out higher than corporal. That is, as a sergeant or higher.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fenn, think how it would help your law career if you made sergeant. You’d be one of an incredibly small number of men to do so. You’d truly be in an elite.”
“Ah—” Donny hardly knew what to say.
“The officers have a tremendous opportunity for you, Fenn,” said Captain Dogwood. “You’d do well to hear them out.”
“Yes, sir,” said Donny.
“Corporal Fenn, we have a leak. A bad leak. We want you to plug it.”
“A leak, sir?” said Donny.
“Yes. You know we have sources into most of the major peace groups. And you’ve heard rumors that on May Day, they’re going to try to shut the city down and bring the war to a halt by destroying the head of the machine.”
Rumors like that flew through the air. The Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, SNICC, they were going to close down Washington, levitate the Pentagon or bury it in rose petals, break into the armories and lead armed insurrection. It just meant that Bravo Company was always on alert status and nobody could get any serious liberty time.
“I’ve heard.” His girlfriend was headed in for the May Day weekend. It would be great to see her, if he wasn’t stuck on alert or, worse, sleeping under a desk in some building near the White House.
“Well, it’s true. May Day. The communist holiday. They have the biggest mobilization of the war planned. They really mean to close us down and keep us closed down.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Our job is simple,” said Lieutenant Commander Bonson. “It’s to stop them.”
Such determination in the man’s voice, even a little tremble. His eyes seemed to burn with old-fashioned Iwo Jima — style zeal. At the same time, Donny couldn’t help notice the lack of an RSVN service ribbon on the khaki of his chest.
“Remember November?” asked Bonson.
“Yes, sir,” said Donny, and indeed he did. It stuck in his mind, not the whole thing, really, but one ludicrous moment.
It was late, near 2400, midnight in the American soul, and the Marines of Bravo in full combat gear were filing into the Treasury Building, adjacent to the White House, for protective duties against the possibilities of the next morning in a city where 200,000 angry kids had camped on the mall. A bone-dry moon shone above; the weather was crisp but not yet brutal. The Marines debarked from their trucks, holding their M14s at the high port, bayonets fixed, but still wearing their metal scabbards.
As Donny led his men downward toward the entrance, his eye was caught by light and he looked up. The abutment at the end of the ramp was brick and, being situated between the oh-so-white White House on the left and the oh-so-dark Treasury on the right, yielded a perspective on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the architects of the crusade for peace had organized a silent candlelight vigil.