"Probably a lot better, Mr. Secretary," Haughton said. "May I respectfully suggest that you get someone who could really take care of you, and perhaps arrange to send me to sea?"

"You can suggest it all you want, but you're stuck with me."

"Yes, Sir."

"Where now?" Knox asked.

"Across the street, Sir," Haughton said, and pointed toward the elegant brick facade of the Foster Lafayette Hotel. "Senator Fowler."

"I'd forgotten," Knox confessed.

"He didn't offer to come to your office, Mr. Secretary," Haughton said. "He usually does."

"No problem. We're here," Knox said, and then added, chuckling, "He has a nicer office than I do, anyway."

Senator Richmond K. Fowler, Republican of California, maintained a suite in the Foster Lafayette. Not an ordinary suite-though God knew suites in the Lafayette were as large and elegant as they came-but an apartment made up of a pair of suites. It was furnished with antiques that were the personal property of old Andrew Foster himself.

Fowler was quite wealthy, and unlike some of his peers in the Senate, he made no effort at all to conceal it. In many ways he was like Knox: He considered public service a privilege; living in Washington, D.C., even as well as he did, was the terrible price he had to pay for that privilege.

Fowler was also, in Knox's opinion, one of the better senators. He was enormously influential, but rarely used his influence like a club, or a baton of power. For example, he did not make telephone calls to the Secretary of the Navy- or to other senior executive department officials-just to hear the sound of own voice, to remind himself of his own importance, or as a fishing expedition. He called only when he had something to say, or wanted specific information he could not get elsewhere. Consequently, his calls were put through to Knox-and to others-when other senators would be told the Secretary had just left for a meeting.

Even more rarely, he requested a personal audience with Knox. He understood his time was precious, and that he could usually accomplish in ninety seconds on the telephone business that would take thirty minutes or an hour from the Secretary's available time if they met face to face.

So when he did ask to see Knox personally, the Secretary of the Navy was usually willing to give him the time he needed, if at all possible. There was some business that should not be discussed on the telephone. Fowler had proven over the years that he knew what that was.

The limousine pulled up before the marquee of the hotel, and a doorman, sweating in his uniform coat, opened the door.

"Welcome to the Lafayette, Mr. Secretary," he said.

"Thank you," Knox said and offered his hand. "How are you? Hot enough for you?"

"I didn't think I'd be this hot until after Saint Peter pointed toward the basement," the doorman said. He waited until Captain Haughton was out, and then spoke to the chauffeur: "Pull it up there where it says DIPLOMATIC CORPS ONLY."

A bellman spun the revolving glass door for Knox as he approached, and then smiled at him as he came through.

Knox walked across the quiet, heavily carpeted lobby to the bank of elevators.

"Eight," Captain Haughton ordered.

By the time the elevator reached the eighth floor, there had been a telephone call from the doorman. A large, very black man wearing a gray cotton jacket and a wide smile was standing by the open door of Senator Fowler's suite when the elevator door opened.

"Hello, Mr. Secretary Knox, Sir. Nice to see you again, Sir. And you too, Captain Haughton. The Senator's waiting for you."

"Hello, Franklin," Knox said. "How do you manage to look so cool on a day like this?"

"I just don't go outside in the heat, Sir," Fowler's butler chuckled.

Senator Richmond K. Fowler was in the sitting room. He was not alone. A tall, shapely, aristocratic woman was with him. She had silver hair, simply but elegantly coiffured, and she was wearing a cotton suit, with a high-necked white linen blouse under it. For jewelry, she wore a simple wedding band, a single strand of pearls, and a small, cheap pin on the lapel of her jacket. It held two blue stars on a white background and signified that two members of her immediate family were serving their country in uniform. Secretary Knox had not previously had the honor of the lady's acquaintance, but he knew who she was.

Her father owned the Foster Lafayette Hotel (and forty others), and her husband owned the Pacific & Far Eastern Shipping Corporation. She was, pro tempore, in her husband's absence, Chairman of the Board of P&FE. Her name was Patricia Foster (Mrs. Fleming) Pickering.

She stood up as Knox and Haughton entered the room, and the Secretary liked what he saw. Nice-looking woman, he thought. This was immediately followed by, Her presence here is not coincidental. I wonder what she wants?

"Hello, Frank," Senator Fowler said, walking up to him and offering his hand. "Thank you for finding time for me." He looked at. Captain Haughton, nodded, and said, "Haughton."

"Senator," Haughton replied.

"I was right across the street," Knox said. "And anytime, Richmond."

"I don't believe you know each other, do you?"

"I know who the lady is," Knox said. "How do you do, Mrs. Pickering? I'm pleased that I'm being given the chance to meet you."

"How do you do, Mr. Knox?" Patricia Pickering said, giving him her hand.

She's striking now, Knox thought. She must have been a real beauty when she was twenty.

She turned to Haughton. "My husband has often spoken of you, Captain Haughton. How do you do?"

"Very well, thank you," Haughton said.

"Would you do any better if we got you something cold to drink?"

"Oh, yes, Ma'am," he said.

"Franklin?" Patricia Pickering said, and the butler appeared.

"I hope that offer includes me," Knox said.

"Oh, yes. We intend to ply you with liquor and anything else that might please you," she said.

"Do you really?" Knox said, taken a little aback.

"I've been drinking-what is this, Franklin?"

"An Orange Special, Miss Patricia."

"Orange juice, club soda, and a hooker of rum," she said. "I can't handle gin, for some reason."

"That sounds wonderful," Knox said.

"Make a pitcherful, please," she ordered.

"Patricia is in town for a meeting of the War Shipping Board," Senator Fowler said.

"That's not quite true," she said. "What I did, Mr. Knox, was take one of the three airline ticket priorities they gave P&FE to send people to the WSB meeting, so that I could come here and see Senator Fowler."

"But you are a member of the War Shipping Board," Fowler protested.

"Yes, I am. In the same way that I am chairman of P&FE," she said. "But I don't like sailing under false colors."

"I don't think I know quite what you mean, Mrs. Pickering," Knox said. There was something about this woman, beyond her grace and her beauty, that he instinctively liked.

"I am not foolish enough to think that I can run P&FE, Mr. Knox," she said evenly. "And only fools think I do. Despite the title. My position, I've come to think, is analogous to that of the King. I understand that every day they bring him a red box containing important state documents. They make sure he knows what's going on. But they don't let him run the British Empire."

"Well, then, may I say that you make a lovely queen?" Knox said.

She smiled at him, a genuine smile. "Richmond is supposed to be the politician," she said. "Saying, as a reflex action, what he thinks people want to hear."

"She was a sweet child when I first met her, Frank," Fowler said. "And then she married Flem Pickering, who has poisoned her against public servants."

"That's not true," she said. "Flem Pickering proposed because my father had already told me about public servants."

"I'm afraid to ask what he told you," Knox said.

"He started by saying that one should regard them as used car salesmen in one-tone shoes," she said. "And then, I'm afraid, he became somewhat cynical."

Knox laughed.

"But here you are, seeing Senator Fowler," he said.

"My father and my husband feel he's the exception to the rule," she said. "And he tells me you are, too."

Franklin, the butler, appeared with a pitcher and glasses on a tray. It occurred to Knox that since there hadn't been time to make it, obviously Franklin had prepared it beforehand, probably on orders from Patricia Pickering.

Knox took one of the glasses and raised it. "Your health, Ma'am."

"Thank you," she said. "Would that include my peace of mind?"

"Certainly," Knox said, smiling.

"You can do something about that," she said. "You can tell me where he is and what he's doing."

"He's in the Pacific, as you know," Knox said. "As my personal representative."

"A week ago, I had a message from him saying that he was going to sea for a while and would be out of touch," Patricia Pickering said. "And now the radio tells me that we have invaded Guadalcanal in the Solomons. And I have learned that my husband is no longer in Australia. I want to know where he is and what he's doing. And Richmond tells me that you're the only man who knows."

"Are you sure he's no longer in Australia?" Knox replied. "I'm curious. How could you know that?"

"The Pacific Endeavor is now in Melbourne. I radioed a message there to be relayed to my husband; and her master replied that his whereabouts are unknown to our agent there. And that MacArthur's headquarters denied any knowledge of him."

Use of Maritime Radio for transmission of personal messages had been forbidden since the United States had entered the war, but Knox was not surprised to hear what she just told him. The master of the Pacific Endeavor was not going to ignore a message from her owner, or refuse to do whatever the message ordered him to do, whether or not the U.S. Navy liked it.

Patricia Pickering read his mind. "Please don't tell me I wasn't supposed to do that."

"I have the feeling, Mrs. Pickering," Knox said, "that anything I say wouldn't make very much difference to you."

"I would take your word if you tell me there were good reasons why my husband disappeared from the face of the earth," she said. "Is that what it is?"

"David," Knox said, turning to Captain Haughton, "would you show Mrs. Pickering our last message from Captain Pickering?"

Haughton opened his briefcase, took out a two-inch thick sheaf of papers, looked through it, and pulled a file from it. The file cover sheet was marked with diagonal red stripes across its face and TOP SECRET was stamped at the top and bottom. He handed it to Patricia Pickering.

TOP SECRET.

Eyes Only-The Secretary of the Navy DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN.

ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAVY.

Aboard USS McCawley Off Guadalcanal 1430 Hours 9 August 1942 Dear Frank: This is written rather in haste, and will be brief because I know of the volume of radio traffic that' s being sent, most of it unnecessarily.

As far as I am concerned the Battle of Guadalcanal began on 31 July when the first Army Air Corps B-17 raid was conducted. They have bombed steadily for a week. I mention this because I suspect the Navy might forget the bombing in their reports. They were MacA's B-17s and he supplied them willingly. That might be forgotten, too.

The same day, 31 July, the Amphibious Force left Koro in the Fijis, after the rehearsal. On 2 August, the long awaited and desperately needed Marine Observation Squadron (VMO-251, sixteen F4 F3-Photo recon versions of the Wildcat) landed on the new airbase at Espiritu Santo. Without the required wing tanks. They are essentially useless until they get wing tanks. A head should roll over that one.

The day before yesterday, Friday, Aug 7, the invasion began. The Amphibious Force was off Savo Island, on schedule at 0200.

The 1st Marine Raider Bn under Lt Col Red Mike Merritt landed on Tulagi and have done well.

The 1st Parachute Bn (fighting as infantrymen) landed on Gavutu, a tiny island two miles away. So far they have been decimated, and will almost certainly suffer worse losses than this before it's over for them.

The 1st and 3rd Bns, 5th Marines, landed on the Northern Coast of Guadalcanal, west of Lunga Point, to not very much initial resistance. They were attacked by Japanese twenty-five to thirty twin-engine bombers from Rabaul, at half past eleven.

I can't really tell you what happened the first afternoon and through the first night, except to say the Marines were on the beach and more were landing.

Just before eleven in the morning yesterday (8 Aug), we were alerted (by the Coastwatchers on Buka, where Banning sent the radio) to a 45-bomber force launched from Kavieng, New Ireland (across the channel from Rabaul). They arrived just before noon and caused some damage. Our carriers of course sent fighters aloft to attack them, and some of our fighters were shot down.

At six o'clock last night Admiral Fletcher radioed Ghormley that he had lost 21 of 99 planes, was low on fuel, and wants to leave.

I am so angry I don't dare write what I would like to write. Let me say that in my humble opinion the Admiral' s estimates of his losses are over generous, and his estimates of his fuel supply rather miserly. Ghormley, not knowing of this departure from the facts, gave him the necessary permission. General Vandergrift came aboard the McCawley a little before midnight last night and was informed by Admiral Fletcher that the Navy is turning chicken and pulling out.

This is before, I want you to understand, in case this becomes a bit obfuscated in the official Navy reports-before we took such a whipping this morning at Savo Island. As I understand it we lost two US Cruisers (Vincennes and Quincy) within an hour, and the Australian cruiser Canberra was set on fire. The Astoria was sunk about two hours ago, just after noon.

In thirty minutes, most of the invasion fleet is pulling out. Ten transports, four destroyers, and a cruiser are going to run first, and what's left will be gone by 1830.

The ships are taking with them rations, food, ammunition, and Marines desperately needed on the beach at Guadalcanal. There is no telling what the Marines will use to fight with; and there' s not even a promise from Fletcher about a date when he will feel safe to resupply the Marines. If the decision to return is left up to Admiral Fletcher, I suppose that we can expect resupply by sometime in 1945 or 1950.

I say "we" because I find it impossible to sail off into the sunset on a Navy ship, leaving Marines stranded on the beach.

I remember what I said to you about the Admirals when we first met. I was right, Frank.

Best Personal Regards, Fleming Pickering, Captain, USNR TOP SECRET.

Patricia Pickering looked at Frank Knox. "I didn't know that we lost three cruisers. My God!" She may not consider herself qualified to run Pacific & Far East Shipping, Knox thought, but she knows what a cruiser is, and what the loss of those three cruisers means to the Pacific Fleet.

"That was very bad news," Knox said.

"And they had to leave, to avoid the risk of losing even more ships?"