"My name is Taylor, sir," he said. "I was ordered to re-port to Major General Howe."
"We've been expecting you, Lieutenant," Pickering said. "Come on in. General Howe's taking a shave." He pointed into the room, where Howe, draped in a white sheet, was being shaved by a Japanese barber, a woman. "My name is Pickering."
Pickering offered Taylor his hand, and was pleased but not surprised at the firmness of his grip. He had decided the moment he'd seen Taylor at the door that he was prob-ably going to like him.
Taylor's khaki uniform was clean but rumpled. The gold strap and the insignia on his brimmed cap was anything but new. It looked, Pickering decided, one sailor judging an-other, that Taylor would be far more comfortable on the bridge of a ship than he would be sitting at a desk, and cer-tainly more comfortable on a bridge than reporting-rea-son unstated-to an Army major general in one of the most luxurious suites in the Imperial Hotel.
"Be with you in a minute," Howe called from his chair. "Have you had breakfast?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, there's coffee, and if you change your mind, there's stuff on a steam table in the dining room."
Pickering smiled at Taylor, and motioned for him to fol-low him.
"You're the first to show up," Pickering said. "The oth-ers will be here soon."
Pickering went to a silver coffee service, poured two cups of coffee, and handed one to Taylor.
"Black okay?"
"I'm a sailor, sir. Sailors get used to black coffee."
"I know," Pickering said. "Once upon a time, I was an honest sailor-man myself."
What the hell does that mean?
"Yes, sir," Taylor said.
The first of "the others" to arrive was a Marine captain, who walked into the dining room and headed straight for the coffee.
"You got him, George?" Pickering asked when he had finished pouring coffee.
"Sergeant Rogers is having a word with him," the Ma-rine captain said.
Lieutenant Taylor was surprised that the captain had not said, "Sir," and even more surprised when he took off his tunic and pulled down his tie, and then still more when he saw that the captain had a.45 ACP pistol in a skeleton hol-ster in the small of his back.
General Howe came into the dining room.
"Did you get him, George?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Charley's having a word with him," Hart replied.
"McCoy and Zimmerman?" Howe asked.
"They should be here now, Ralph," Pickering said.
"Should I call?" the captain asked.
"What Ernie's going to say," Pickering replied, "is that they're on the way, and should be here now."
The captain went to a telephone-one of four-on the sideboard and dialed a number.
"Could you get him out of bed, Ernie?" he said when someone answered.
Howe chuckled.
"Okay, sorry to bother you," the captain said, and hung up.
"And?" Pickering asked.
"They left early because of the traffic and should be here any minute," Hart reported.
Pickering spread his hands in a What did I tell you? ges-ture.
Howe chuckled again.
"We'll wait," he said. "Then we'll only have to do the welcoming ceremony once."
"I thought that's what Charley was doing to Keller," Hart said.
"No, what Charley is doing to Sergeant Keller is im-pressing upon him the wisdom of paying close attention to the welcoming ceremony," Howe said. He looked at Taylor and walked over to him. "My name is Howe, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir."
A barrel-chested Marine master gunner with a chest full of ribbons came into the dining room.
"We got stuck in traffic," he announced. "Sorry."
"No problem, you're here," Howe said. "Zimmerman, this is Lieutenant Taylor."
Zimmerman wordlessly shook Taylor's hand.
Now this is the kind of jarhead with whom a wise sailor does not get into a barroom argument. And this kind of jarhead is the last kind of jarhead you expect to find in a room in the Imperial Hotel with two generals.
Another Marine captain came in the room.
Christ, I know who he is. He's the guy-McCoy is his name-who asked me, two, three times-once in Taipei, another time in Hong Kong, and some other place, places, I forget, the sonofabitch was all over the Far East-always the same question, Had I seen any unusual activity in North Korea, or along the China Coast?
And I told him yeah, I had. Why not? He had an ID card that said he was with Naval Element, SCAR
But then there was some scuttlebutt that they gave some Marine captain in Naval Element SCAP the shitty end of the stick when he tried to tell them this goddamn war was coming, and I figured it had to be the guy asking the ques-tions. The scuttlebutt was that he pissed off, big time, some big brass, and they sent him home; kicked him out of the Marine Corps. So what the hell is he doing here with an Army general? What the hell is going on here?
"Sorry, sir," McCoy said. "The traffic-"
Howe gestured that it was not important.
"Hart, go get Charley and the sergeant," he ordered.
"Hello, Taylor, how are you?" McCoy said.
"McCoy," Taylor replied.
McCoy had just enough time to pour himself a cup of coffee before the other Marine captain returned with two Army master sergeants in tow.
The one in the Class A uniform looks old enough to have been at Valley Forge; the one in fatigues doesn't look old enough to be a master sergeant. And fatigues in a fancy suite in the Imperial?
"My name is Pickering, Sergeant Keller," the Marine one-star said. "We've talked on the telephone. This is Gen-eral Howe, and I think you know everybody else but Lieu-tenant Taylor."
Everybody shook hands.
"You have the weapons, Keller, right?" McCoy said. "You can look forward to spending the rest of your life singing baritone?"
"I've got them, sir," the young master sergeant said.
Everybody but Taylor-who had no idea why this was funny-chuckled.
"Okay," General Howe said. "Let's get this started. Sergeant Keller, did Sergeant Rogers clue you in on what's going on here?"
"Yes, sir," Keller said.
"Did he show you our orders?"
"No, sir," Keller said.
Howe reached into his shirt pocket and came out with a squarish white envelope. He handed it to Keller.
"When you're through, show that to Lieutenant Taylor," Howe said.
"Yes, sir."
There was a knock at the door.
"Jesus, now what?" Howe asked, in great annoyance.
Hart went to the door.
The CIC agent was standing there with an Army signal corps captain.
"This officer has an Urgent for General Pickering," the CIC agent said.
Pickering motioned for the captain to enter the room. He entered, saluted, and handed Pickering a sealed eight-by-ten-inch manila envelope, on which SECRET was stamped, top and bottom, in red ink.
Pickering tore the envelope open, took the carbon of a radio teletype message from it, read it, and then slipped it back in the envelope.
"Anything important, Fleming?" Howe asked.
"No, sir. It will wait," Pickering said. Then he added, to the Signal Corps officer, "Answer is, Thank you. Picker-ing, Brigadier General, USMCR."
"Yes, sir, I'll get that right out," the Signal Corps captain said. He saluted and left the room.