Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  Commander Kramer, a tall, thin man with a pencil-line mustache, was not alone. He had with him a lieutenant junior grade and a woman. The JG was a muscular young man who was carrying a well-stuffed leather briefcase. Fleming would have given odds that he’d not only gone to Annapolis, but that he’d played football there.

  The woman, smooth-skinned, wearing little or no makeup, was in her middle thirties. She was wearing a hat—a real hat, not a decorative one—against the snow and cold. She had unbuttoned her overcoat, and Fleming Pickering noticed, en passant, that she had long, shapely calves and a nice set of breastworks.

  “I was just tying my tie,” Pickering said. “Come in.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Commander Kramer said, then thrust a small package at Pickering. “Sir, this is for you.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “The Secretary asked me to get those for you, Sir. They’re your ribbons. The Secretary said to tell you he noticed you weren’t wearing any.”

  “Would you say, Commander, that that’s in the order of a pointed suggestion?”

  “Actually, Sir,” Kramer said, “it’s probably more in the nature of a regal command.”

  Pickering chuckled. At least Kramer wasn’t afraid of him. Frank Knox had described Kramer as “the brightest of the lot,” and Pickering had jumped to the conclusion that Knox meant Kramer was sort of an academic egghead. He obviously wasn’t.

  “Captain, may I introduce Mrs. Ellen Feller? And Mr. Satterly?”

  “How do you do?”

  Mrs. Feller gave him her hand. He found it to be soft and warm. Lieutenant Satterly’s grip was conspicuously firm and masculine. Pickering suspected he would love to try a squeeze contest.

  “Let me finish, and I’ll be right with you,” Pickering said, and started to the bedroom.

  “Captain, may I have a word with you alone, Sir?” Kramer asked.

  “Come along.”

  He held the door to the bedroom open for Kramer, and closed it after he’d followed him through it.

  “Mrs. Feller is a candidate nominee, maybe, for your secretary, Captain,” Kramer said.

  “I wondered who she was.”

  “The Secretary said I should get you someone a little out of the ordinary,” Kramer said. “I took that to mean I should not offer you one of the career civil-service ladies.”

  “How did you get stuck with me, Kramer?”

  “I’m flattered that I did, Sir.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s always interesting to work with somebody who doesn’t have to clear his decisions with three levels of command above him.”

  “So it is,” Fleming said. “Tell me about Mrs.…what did you say?”

  “Feller, Captain. Ellen Feller. She’s been with us about six months.”

  “‘Us’ is who?” Pickering interrupted.

  “Naval Intelligence, Sir.”

  “OK.” He had figured as much.

  “She and her husband were missionaries in China before the war. She speaks two brands of Chinese, plus some Japanese.”

  “Now that you think about it, she does sort of smell of missionary.”

  “She doesn’t bring it to work, Sir. I can tell you that. She’s been working for me.”

  “Why are you so willing to give her up?” Pickering challenged, looking directly at Kramer.

  There was visible hesitation.

  “The lady has character traits you forgot to mention? She likes her gin, maybe?”

  “No, Sir. There’s an answer, Captain. But it sounds a bit trite.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “If I understand correctly what your role is going to be, you need her more than I do.”

  “Oh,” Pickering replied. “That’s very nice of you. I thought perhaps you might be giving her to me so she could tell you everything you wanted to know about me. And about what I’m doing.”

  “No, Sir,” Kramer smiled. “That’s not it.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Well, for one thing, Sir, I don’t need her for that purpose. The back-line cables will be full of reports on you.”

  “What’s a back-line cable?”

  “Non-official messages. Personal messages. What the admirals send to each other when they want to find out, or report, what’s really going on.”

  “OK,” Fleming said. “You’re a very interesting man, Commander.”

  “I don’t know about that. But I like what I’m doing, and I’m smart enough to know that if I got caught spying on you—as opposed to getting my hands on back-line cables—I would spend this war at someplace like Great Lakes, giving inspirational talks to boots.”

  “Did you ever consider selling life insurance?” Pickering asked. “You’re very convincing. People would trust you.”

  “Some people can. People I admire can trust me completely.”

  “How do I rate on your scale of admiration?”

  “Way at the top.”

  “Is that what the Navy calls soft-soap?”

  “I really admire the Secretary,” Kramer said. “He admires you, or you wouldn’t be here. Call it ‘admiration by association.’ And then there are these.”

  He walked to the dresser where Pickering had laid the small package Kramer had given him. He opened it and took out two rows of multicolored ribbons.

  “These are very impressive, Captain. You didn’t get these behind a desk.”

  Pickering went to him and took them, then looked at them with interest.

  “I don’t even know what they all are,” he said.

  “Turn them the other way around,” Kramer said, chuckling. “They’re upside down. And then, from the left, we have the Silver Star, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters….”

  “I never got a medal called the Purple Heart,” Pickering interrupted.

  “It’s for wounds received in action,” Kramer said. “It was originally a medal for valor conceived by General Washington himself in 1782. In 1932, on the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth, it was revived. It is now awarded, as I said, for wounds received in action.”

  “We had wound stripes,” Pickering said softly, and pointed at his jacket cuff. “Embroidered pieces of cloth. Worn down here.”

  “Yes, Sir. I know. You had three. Now you have a Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters. On the left of the lower row, Captain, is your World War I Victory Medal, and then your French medals, the Legion d’Honneur in the grade of Chevalier, and finally the Croix de Guerre. A very impressive display, Sir.”

  “Kramer, I was an eighteen-year-old kid….”

  “Yes, Sir. I know. But I suspect the Secretary feels, and I agree, that someone who has never heard a shot fired in anger—and we have many senior officers in that category, Sir—will not automatically categorize as a goddamn civilian in uniform a man who was wounded three times while earning three medals for valor.”

  Pickering met Kramer’s eyes, but didn’t respond.

  “You’ve noticed, Sir, that the Secretary wears his Purple Heart ribbon in his buttonhole?”

  “No, I didn’t. I saw it. I didn’t know what the hell it was.”

  “The Secretary got that, Sir, as a sergeant in the Rough Riders in Cuba in 1899.”

  “OK. You and the Secretary have made your point. Now what about the young officer?”

  “He’s carrying the bag. I didn’t know what you were interested in, so I brought everything you might be. It’s a heavy bag. You pick out what you want, and he’ll return the rest. Do you have a weapon, Sir?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you armed? Do you have a gun?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Am I going to need one?”

  “Much of that material is top secret, Captain. It either has to be in a secure facility or charged to someone who has the appropriate security clearance and is armed.”

  “My pistol is stolen,” Fleming Pickering said.

  “Sir?”

&
nbsp; “I brought it home from France in 1919,” Pickering said. “It’s stamped ‘U.S. Property.’”

  Kramer chuckled and smiled. “I’m sure the Statute of Limitations would apply, Sir. A Colt .45?”

  “Yeah,” Pickering said. He went to a chest of drawers, opened it, and held up a Colt Model 1911 pistol.

  “Well, we’ll get you another one, Captain. But that should do for the time being.”

  “Is there any reason I can’t just read this stuff here and give it all back?”

  “None that I can think of, Sir. May I make a suggestion?”

  “Sure.”

  “Make a quick survey, select what you want, and then we’ll send Mr. Satterly back to the office with the rest. For that matter, I could go with him. And then—presuming you find Mrs. Feller at least temporarily satisfactory—she could stay here until you’re finished, then bring the rest back.”

  “What would Mrs. Feller do about a gun?” Pickering asked dryly.

  “She carries one in her purse, Sir.”

  “I’ll be damned!”

  Pickering put the Colt automatic back in the drawer and closed it. Then he examined his tie, straightened it, and shrugged into his uniform jacket.

  “Let me help you with your ribbons,” Kramer said.

  He pinned them on for Pickering, then they went into the sitting room.

  “Mrs. Feller,” Pickering said, “Commander Kramer speaks very highly of you. If you think it’s worth trying, I’d be grateful if you would come on board to help me.”

  “If you’re not pleased with how I work out, Captain Pickering,” she said, “I’ll understand.”

  “Well, we’ll give it our best shot,” Pickering said. “Mr. Satterly, you want to hand me that briefcase?”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Lieutenant Satterly said. For the first time, Pickering saw that the briefcase was attached to Satterly’s wrist with a length of stainless steel cable and a handcuff.

  “Mrs. Feller,” Pickering said, “why don’t you call room service and order some coffee?”

  “Just for the two of you,” Kramer explained. “Ellen, you’ll stay and see what Captain Pickering decides to send back with you to the office.”

  She nodded. As Pickering dipped into the briefcase, he heard her ask the operator for room service.

  A moment or two later, he glanced around for Commander Kramer to ask him a question. Before he found Kramer, however, his eyes went up Ellen Feller’s dress. Quite innocently, he was sure, she was sitting in such a way that he could see that her lingerie was lace and black.

  I’ll be damned, a missionary lady who wears black lace underwear and carries a gun in her purse.

  “Commander, would you tell me what the hell this is, please?” he said, turning his attention to the business at hand.

  (Three)

  Headquarters, 2nd Joint Training Force

  Camp Elliott, California

  1005 Hours 2 February 1942

  Offices in Marine headquarters are usually well equipped with signs identifying the various functions performed therein. And often the signs identify the name of the functionary as well. That didn’t seem to be true of Headquarters, 2nd Joint Training Force. There were sign brackets mounted over the doors, but no signs hung from them.

  Second Joint Training Force, whatever the hell that was, was either moving in or moving out, Staff Sergeant Joe Howard decided. He was not surprised. The whole Corps seemed to be in a state of upheaval.

  Though Staff Sergeant Joe Howard normally took a great deal of professional pride in his appearance, he looked slovenly now, and he knew it. He needed a shave, for one thing, and his greens were mussed and bore the stain of a spilled cup of coffee.

  Howard had just flown into San Diego from Pearl Harbor on a Martin PBM-3R Mariner. The Mariner was a “flying boat,” a seaplane. Most of the twin-engined, gull-winged aircraft had a crew of seven. They were armed with one .30- and five .50-caliber machine guns and had provision to carry and drop a ton of ordnance, either bombs or depth charges.

  The one Howard had flown from Pearl Harbor, however, was the unarmed transport version, the “Dash-Three-R.” But this one wasn’t a standard Dash-Three-R. It had been fitted up inside for Navy brass. For admirals or better, Joe judged from the comfortable leather seats, the steward, and even an airborne crapper. There were sixteen passengers aboard, including a rear admiral, a half-dozen Navy captains, three Marine and one Army full colonels, and some lesser brass. And two enlisted men. The other one was a gold-stripe Navy Chief Radioman who had made it plain even before they were taken out to the airplane at Pearl that he was not interested in conversation.

  Rank didn’t get you on the Mariner, the priority on your orders did. They left a roomful of brass behind them at Pearl, including a highly pissed Marine lieutenant colonel who had strongly asserted that there was something seriously wrong with a system that made him give up his seat to a lowly staff sergeant.

  It had been Joe Howard’s first ride on an airplane of any kind. As a consequence, he had not been aware that aircraft have a tendency to make sudden rapid ascents and descents while proceeding in level flight. The price he paid to gain such an awareness was a nearly full cup of coffee spilled on his chest, soiling his shirt, field scarf, and blouse, and painfully scalding his skin. All this took place while the gold-stripe Chief Radioman watched him scornfully.

  A heavyset, middle-aged master gunnery sergeant came down the deserted, signless corridor.

  “Gunny, excuse me, I’m looking for Captain Stecker in Special Planning,” Staff Sergeant Joe Howard said to him.

  The Gunny examined him carefully, critically. There was no way he could miss the stubble on Howard’s face or the brown stains on his field scarf and khaki shirt.

  I am now going to get my ass eaten out, and this sonofabitch looks like he’s had a lot of practice.

  “You’re Howard, right?” the Gunny said.

  “That’s right,” Joe said, and then blurred, “They just flew me in from Pearl, Gunny. That’s when I spilled coffee on me.”

  “Captain Stecker’s the third door on the right, Howard,” the Gunny said, turning and pointing. “You bring your records jacket with you?”

  “Yeah,” Howard said, surprised. An enlisted man’s records were not ordinarily put into his hands when he was transferred. They either found some officer going to the same place and gave them to him, or they sent them by registered mail. But Howard had been handed his along with the set of orders transferring him to 2nd Joint Training Force.

  “Good,” the Gunny said, and walked down the corridor.

  How the hell does he know about my records? Or my name?

  Joe went to the third door on the right and knocked.

  “Come!”

  It was Jack NMI Stecker’s familiar voice. But it was no longer Gunny Stecker, his friend from Benning and Quantico. It was now Captain Jack NMI Stecker.

  Joe opened the door, marched in, and reported to Stecker as a Marine sergeant is supposed to report to a Marine captain.

  “Jesus, you’re a mess,” Stecker said. It was an observation, not a criticism; and there was gentle laughter in his voice when Stecker added, “You may stand at ease, Sergeant.”

  Howard dropped his eyes to Stecker’s, and saw that he was smiling at him.

  “What did you spill on yourself, Joe?” Stecker asked.

  “A whole goddamned cup of coffee,” Joe said, and remembered to add, “Sir.”

  “Well, come on,” Stecker said, “we’ll get you cleaned up. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said.

  “You look sorry,” Stecker chuckled.

  He led him out of the building, opened the trunk of a 1939 Ford coupe, and motioned for him to put his bag in the back. At Quantico, Joe remembered, Stecker had driven an enormous black Packard Phaeton.

  “I left Elly the Packard,” Stecker said, as if reading his mind. Elly was his wife. “She went to Pennsylvania for a
while. I bought this when I got here.”

  “How’s she doing?” Howard asked uneasily. He knew that the Steckers’ son, Ensign Jack NMI Stecker, Jr., USN, had been killed on the Arizona.

  “All right,” Stecker said evenly. “I suppose it’s tougher on a mother than the father.”

  That’s bullshit, Howard thought.

  “How are you doing?” Joe asked.

  “Well, I seem to be getting used to it,” Stecker said. “At least I don’t salute lieutenants anymore.”

  Joe chuckled, as he knew he was expected to. And he knew that Jack NMI Stecker had purposefully misunderstood him, in order to change the subject from the death of his son.

  It doesn’t matter, Howard thought. I had to ask, and I asked, and he knows I’m sorry as hell about his kid. That’s enough.

  “How was the flight? Aside from the coffee?” Stecker asked.

  “It was a fancied-up Mariner. Real nice. They put a lieutenant colonel off it to put me on.”

  “Is that so?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “That airplane used to belong to the Rear Admiral at Guantanamo,” Stecker said. “They took it away from him to use it as a courier plane between here and Pearl.”

  “That’s not what I was asking,” Howard said.

  “I know,” Stecker chuckled. “Well, here we are. Home sweet home.”

  Howard saw that they were pulling into a dirt parking lot beside three newly built frame two-story buildings. There was a plywood sign reading, BACHELOR OFFICERS’ QUARTERS.

  It was the first time Joe Howard had ever been in Officers’ Country for any purpose. For what he understood was good reason, these were off limits to enlisted men. If it had been anyone but Captain Jack NMI Stecker, he would have asked what he was doing here now.

  Stecker’s quarters inside were not fancy—the opposite, in fact. The studs in the wall were exposed. There were no doors on the closets, but just a piece of cloth hung on a wire. There was a bed, an upholstered chair, a folding metal chair, and a chest of drawers. In a small alcove there was a desk and another folding metal chair.

  Only a few things in the room had not been issued. There were graduation pictures of Stecker’s sons: one of Jack Junior in his brand-new ensign’s uniform, taken at Annapolis; and another of Second Lieutenant Richard S. Stecker, USMC, his dress blue uniform making him stand out from his fellow graduates at the Military Academy at West Point. There was also a picture of Stecker and Elly and the boys when they were just kids. It was taken on a beach somewhere, and everybody was in bathing suits.