"h.e.l.lo?"

"Major Dillon, please."

"This is Jake Dillon."

"Major, this is General Mclnerney. I'm in the lobby, and I'd like a moment of your time."

There was a perceptible pause before Dillon asked, "Would you like to come up, General?"

"I think it would better if you came down. I'll wait for you in the bar. The one on the second floor."

"I'll be right there, Sir."

A waiter did not appear to serve General Mclnerney until after Major Dillon walked in the room. Then one appeared almost immediately, carrying on a tray a drink Mclnerney knew Dillon hadn't had time to order.

"They do that," Dillon said. "They know what I like. Should I just let it sit there?"

He had used neither of the words "Sir" nor "General," Mclnerney noticed.

"This is not official," Mclnerney said. "Bring me a Jack Daniel's and water, please."

Dillon pushed his gla.s.s across the table to him.

"Please," he said. "Help yourself."

"I'll wait."

"Please take it. I'm trying to be ingratiating."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I think this has to do with Charley Galloway, not with me. He told me you'd come up to him in here."

"It has to do with both of you," Mclnerney said.

"What's the problem, General?"

"I don't know if there is one. I am curious what one of my sergeants is doing in here, sharing an expensive suite with a movie star, a field-grade officer, and a woman with rubies on her hand worth more money than he makes in a year."

"She's good for him. I wouldn't be surprised if she's in love with him. She keeps him on the straight and narrow."

"What about the field-grade officer?" Mclnerney said.

"I thought that's what this was about," Dillon said. "I didn't just come into the Corps, General. I just came back in the Corps. I know all about not crossing the line between officers and enlisted men."

"Then why are you crossing it?"

"You did say, General, that this conversation isn't official?"

"Not yet. I'm trying to keep Charley Galloway out of trouble. You too, if that can be arranged."

"Well, if there's going to be trouble about this, dump it on me. I invited Charley here, and when he said that might cause trouble, I told him we'd be careful, and that if something-like this-happened, I'd take the rap."

"What's your interest in Galloway?"

"I like him. We're pals."

"He's a sergeant and you're an officer,"

"I'm not really a major, I'm a flack wearing a Marine uniform."

"A what?"

"A press agent. My contribution to the war effort is getting people like Monique Pond to go to New River so she can flash her b.o.o.bs at the cameramen and get the Marine Corps in the newsreels. Charley, on the other hand, is one h.e.l.l of a Marine. He told me about flying the Wildcat out to the carrier off Pearl Harbor. But instead of commanding a fighter squadron, the Corps has him flying a bunch of bra.s.s hats and feather merchants around in a VIP transport airplane. So what we have here is an officer who should be an enlisted man, and a sergeant who should be an officer. So we hang around together. My idea, not his."

"What you're doing, both of you," General Mclnerney said, "is important."

Why did I say that? I don't believe it.

"General, I told Charley I would take the heat if something like this came up. I really would be grateful if you let me do that."

"Major Dillon," General Mclnerney said, after a long moment during which a few connections went click in his mind, "I really have no idea what you're talking about. The reason I asked to have a word with you, when I saw you come in here alone, was that I know you are in charge of the public-relations activities marking the bringing of the 1st Marine Division to wartime strength at New River tomorrow. I want to know if there is anything, anything at all, that Marine Corps Aviation can do to insure that the ceremonies are a rousing public-relations success."

Dillon's eyebrows rose thoughtfully.

"I can't think of a thing, Sir," he said.

"And to make sure there is absolutely no problem at all flying the VIPs back and forth to New River, I wanted to tell you that I have personally a.s.signed one of our finest enlisted pilots, Technical Sergeant Galloway, to the mission. If he has not reported to you yet, I am sure he will do so momentarily. I remind you that, as an officer, you are responsible for seeing that the Sergeant is properly quartered and rationed. If there are questions regarding how and where, in the necessarily extraordinary circ.u.mstances, you elect to do that, refer whoever raises them to me."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"That will be all, Major Dillon. Thank you."

"Yes, Sir."

Dillon stood up and started to leave. He had taken three steps when Mclnerney called his name.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Just between a couple of old Marines, Dillon, I don't like flying my G.o.dd.a.m.ned desk, either."

(Two) The Commandant's House United States Marine Corps Barracks Eighth and "I" Streets, S.E.

Washington, D.C.

2230 Hours 9 May 1942 A glistening black 1939 Packard 180 automobile pulled into the driveway and stopped before the Victorian mansion. Mounted above its front and rear b.u.mpers it had the three silver stars on a red plate identifying the occupant as a lieutenant general of the United States Marine Corps.

The driver, a lean, impeccably turned-out Marine staff sergeant, got quickly out from behind the wheel, but he was not quick enough to open the rear door before Thomas Holcomb, the first Marine ever promoted to lieutenant general, opened it himself. The Commandant was home.

"Early tomorrow, Chet," General Holcomb said to his driver. "Five o'clock."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

The general's senior aide-de-camp, a very thin lieutenant colonel, slid across the seat and got out.

"Goodnight, Chet," General Holcomb said.

"Goodnight, Sir."

"I don't see any need for you to come in, Bob," General Holcomb said to his aide. "I'm for bed."

The porch lights came on. General Holcomb's orderlies had seen the headlights.

"General," the aide said, "I took the liberty of telling Captain Steward to be prepared to brief you on the Coral Sea battle. He's probably inside, Sir."

"OK," Holcomb said wearily. He was tired. It had been a long day, ending with a long and tiring automobile ride back to Washington from Norfolk, where there had been an interservice conference at Fortress Monroe. Whatever had happened in the Coral Sea had already happened; he didn't have to learn all the details tonight. But young Captain Steward had apparently worked long and hard preparing the briefing, and it would not do right now to tell him it wasn't considered important.

Besides, I'll have to take the briefing sooner or later anyway, why not now and get it over with?

The Commandant raised his eyes to the porch, intending to order, as cheerfully as he could manage, that the orderly put on the coffeepot. There was someone on the porch he didn't expect to see, and really would rather not have seen.

"h.e.l.lo, Doc," he called to Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney. "Did I send for you?"

"No, Sir. I took the chance that you might have a minute to spare for me."

Good G.o.d, a long day of the problems of Navy Ordnance and the Army's Coast Artillery Corps is enough. And here comes Marine Aviation wanting something!

"Sure. Come on in the house. I was about to order up some coffee, but now that you're here, I expect Tommy had better break out the bourbon."

"Coffee would be fine, Sir."

"Don't be n.o.ble, Doc. G.o.d hates a hypocrite."

"A little bourbon would go down very nicely, Sir."

"I'm about to be briefed on a battle in the Coral Sea. You familiar with it?"

"Only that we lost the Lexington, Sir."

"Yeah. Well, you can sit in on the briefing," Holcomb said. He led the small procession into the house, handed his uniform cap to an orderly, and then went into the parlor.

"Good evening, Sir," Captain Steward said. Holcomb saw that Steward had come with all the trappings: an easel, covered now with a sheet of oilcloth bearing the Marine Corps insignia; a large round leather map case containing a detailed map; and a dozen folders covered with TOP SECRET cover sheets-probably the immediate, radioed after-action reports themselves.

"h.e.l.lo, Stew," he said. "Sorry to keep you up this late. You know General Mclnerney."

"Yes, Sir. Good evening, General."

"Is there anything in there General Mclnerney is not supposed to hear?"

"No, Sir. General Mclnerney is on the Albatross list."

The Albatross list was a short list of those officers who were privy to the fact that the Navy codebreakers at Pearl had broken several of the most important j.a.panese naval codes.

That's a pretty short list, General Holcomb remembered now, a G.o.dd.a.m.ned short list, and for very good reason. If the j.a.panese don't find out we're reading their mail, it's hard to overestimate the importance of the broken codes. But the more people who know a secret, the greater the risk it won't stay a secret long.

"How is that, Doc?" Holcomb asked evenly. "Why are you cleared for Albatross?"

"General Forrest brought me in on that, Sir."

The Commandant considered that for a moment, and decided to give Brigadier General Horace W. T. Forrest, a.s.sistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the benefit of the doubt.

If Forrest told Doc, he must have had his reasons.

The Commandant turned to one of the orderlies. "Coffee ready?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, bring it in, please. And a bottle of bourbon. And then see that we're not disturbed."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"While we're waiting, Stew, why don't you pa.s.s around those after-actions. That's what they are, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

Captain Steward divided the half-dozen doc.u.ments with the TOP SECRET cover sheets between Generals Holcomb and Mclnerney. Before they had a chance to read more than a few lines, the orderly pushed in a cart with a coffee service, a bottle of bourbon, gla.s.ses, and a silver ice bucket. It had obviously been set up beforehand.

"Tommy must have been a Boy Scout," Holcomb said.

"He's always prepared. We'll take care of ourselves, Tommy. Thank you."

The orderly left the room, closing the sliding doors from outside.

Holcomb closed his folder.

"Let's have it, Stew. I can probably get by without reading all that." "Yes, Sir."

Captain Steward went to the easel and raised the oilskin cover. Beneath it was a simple map of the Coral Sea area. A slim strip of northern Australia was visible, as was the southern tip of New Guinea. Above New Guinea lay the southern tip of New Ireland and all of New Britain. Rabaul, which was situated at the northern tip of New Britain, was prominently labeled; it had fallen to the j.a.panese and was being rapidly built up as a major port for them.

To the east were the Solomon Islands. The major ones were labeled: Bougainville was the most northerly; then they went south through Choiseul, New Georgia, Santa Isabel, Tulagi, Guadalca.n.a.l, Florida, and Malaita, to San Cristobal, the most southerly.

"Keep it simple, Stew, but start at the beginning," the Commandant ordered.