A tall, well-built, bespectacled man in the uniform of a Marine captain came out of an inner room. In the moment, Pickering recognized him as one of Roosevelt’s sons, he had no idea which one. The Captain said, "Good afternoon, Sir. Let me help you with your coat. Dad and Mr. Knox are right inside."
Pickering handed him his uniform cap and then took off his topcoat and handed that over. Captain Roosevelt handed both to the steward, then motioned Pickering ahead of him through a door.
The President of the United States, in a wheelchair, rolled across the room to him, his hand extended. Pickering knew, of course, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been crippled by polio, but the wheelchair surprised him. He was almost never photographed sitting in it.
"We’ve been talking about you, Captain," Roosevelt said as he shook Pickering’s hand in a very firm grip. "Have your ears been burning?"
"Good afternoon, Mr. President," Pickering said.
He heard his father-in-law Andrew Foster’s dry voice in his mind: "The sonofabitch is obviously a socialist, but giving the devil his due, he probably saved this country from going communist."
"Naval officers are forbidden to drink on duty," the President said, smiling warmly, "except, of course, when the Commander in Chief doesn’t want to drink alone."
Another steward appeared at that moment with a glass of whiskey on a small silver tray.
"Thank you," Pickering said, and raised the glass. "Your health, Sir," he said, then took a sip. It was Scotch, good Scotch.
"That all right?" Roosevelt asked. "Frank said you’re a Scotch drinker."
"This is fine, Sir."
"He also told me that you’d much rather be wearing a uniform like Jimmy’s," the President went on, "but that he’d convinced you you would be of greater use in the Navy."
"I was a Marine, Sir," Pickering said. "Once a Marine, always a Marine."
Roosevelt laughed.
"Frank also told me to watch out for you-that if I let my guard down, you’d probably ask me for a Letter of Marque."
Pickering glanced at Frank Knox, who smiled and shook his head.
"May I have one, Sir?" Pickering said.
Roosevelt laughed heartily.
"No, you may not," he said. "I admire your spirit, Pickering, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to fight this war like everybody else-including me-the way someone tells you to."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Pickering said, smiling.
I am being charmed. I wonder why.
"Why don’t we go to the table and sit down?" Roosevelt said, gesturing toward a small table near windows overlooking the White House lawn. Pickering saw there were only four places set.
Stewards immediately began placing small plates of hors d’oeuvres before them.
Roosevelt began to talk about the British commandos. Pickering quickly saw that he was very impressed with them-as much for the public’s perception of them as for any bona fide military capability.
"When Britain was reeling across Europe from the Nazi Blitzkrieg," Roosevelt announced, as if making a speech before a large audience, "when they were literally bloody and on their knees, and morale was completely collapsing, a few small commando operations, militarily insignificant in themselves, did wonders to restore civilian morale and faith in their government."
"I had really never thought of it in that context," Pickering said honestly. "But I can see your point."
Roosevelt, Pickering was perfectly willing to grant, was a genius at understanding-and molding-public opinion.
"A very few brave and resourceful men can change the path of history, Pickering," the President said sonorously. "And fortunately, right now we have two such men. You know Colonel Jim Doolittle, don’t you?"
"If you mean, Mr. President, the Jim Doolittle who used to be vice-president of Shell Oil, yes, Sir. I know him."
"I thought you might," the President said. "Two of a kind, you know, you two. Not thinking of the cut in pay that putting on a uniform meant, but rather rushing to answer the call of the trumpet."
I really am being charmed,Fleming Pickering decided. He wants something from me. I wonder what. Not the damned ships again!
"Frank, have you told Captain Pickering what Jim Doolittle’s up to?"
"It’s top secret, Mr. President," Secretary Knox replied.
"Well, I think we can trust Captain Pickering. . . . Captain Pickering, would you be offended if I called you by your Christian name?"
"Not at all, Mr. President."
"Well, Frank, if Flem’s going to be working for you, he’ll find out soon enough anyway. Wouldn’t you say?"
"Probably, Mr. President."
"Jim Doolittle, Flem, came to me with the idea that he can take B-25 Mitchell bombers off from the deck of an aircraft carrier."
"Sir?" Pickering asked, not understanding.
"The Japanese Emperor is sitting in his palace in Tokyo, convinced that he’s absolutely safe from American bombing. Colonel Doolittle and his brave men are about to disabuse him of that notion," Roosevelt said, cocking his cigarette holder almost vertically in his mouth as he smiled with pleasure.
"The idea, Pickering," Secretary Knox said, "is that we will carry Doolittle on a carrier within striking distance of Tokyo; they will launch from the carrier, bomb Tokyo, and then fly on to China."
"Fascinating," Pickering said, and then blurted, "but can Doolittle do it? Can you fly airplanes that large from aircraft carriers?"
"Doolittle thinks so. They’re down in Florida now, in the Panhandle, learning how," Knox said. "Yes, I think it can be done."
"Christ, that’s good news!" Pickering said excitedly. "So far, all we’ve done is take a licking."
"And there will be other reverses in the near future, I am very much afraid," Roosevelt said.
"The Philippines, you mean?" Pickering asked.
"You don’t believe that Douglas MacArthur will be able to hold the Philippines?" Roosevelt asked. He was still smiling, but there was a hint of coldness in his voice.
Jesus Christ, my mouth has run away with me again!
"Mr. President, I don’t pretend to know anything about our forces in the Philippines, but I do know that they will require supplies. I do know something about shipping. I know that there are not enough bottoms to supply a large military force, and even if there were, there are not enough warships after Pearl Harbor to protect the sea lanes to the Philippines."
"Aren’t you concerned, talking like that," Roosevelt asked, carefully, "that someone who doesn’t know you might think you’re a defeatist?"
"If I have spoken out of turn, Mr. President . . ."
Roosevelt looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment before he spoke again.
"I said, a while ago, we have two brave and resourceful men," he said. "Jimmy here is allied with the other one. And don’t tell me this is top secret, too, Frank. I know."
"Yes, Mr. President," Knox replied.
"The commander of the Marine Guard at White Sulphur Springs a few years back," Roosevelt said, "was a man named Evans Carlson. You happen to know him?"
"No, Sir."
"Major Carlson is now out in San Diego, starting up a unit I think of as American Commandos. But I don’t want it to appear as if we’re slavishly copying our British cousins, so we’re calling them Raiders. All volunteers, highly trained, who will hit the Japanese and then run."
"Sounds very interesting," Pickering said.
I wonder how he’s going to move them around? It’s thirty, forty miles from the English coast to the French. Distances in the Pacific are measured in multiple hundreds, multiple thousands, of miles.
"Frank had the Navy yards convert some old four-stacker destroyers to high-speed transports," Roosevelt said.
He’s reading my mind,Pickering thought.
"The idea, Flem," Captain Roosevelt said, "is that by striking the Japanese where they don’t expect it, in addition to what damage we do there, we will force the Japanese to put forces they could u
se elsewhere to work guarding all of their islands."
"I see," Pickering said.
"And, Flem," the President said passionately, "think of what it will do for morale! As you just said, all we’ve done so far in this war is take a licking and lick our wounds!"
"Yes, Sir. I understand."
"Well, I’m sorry to tell you that my enthusiasm is not shared by either the Navy or the Marine Corps," the President said.
"Now, Frank," Secretary Knox said, "that’s not true."
"They are dancing with Evans Carlson with all the enthusiasm of a fourteen-year-old in dancing school paired off with a fat girl," Roosevelt said, and everyone laughed. "They have to do it, but they don’t have to like it."
"Frank," Secretary Knox said, "if you really think that’s the case, I’ll send Captain Pickering out there to see what needs straightening out."
Roosevelt looked as if he had just heard a startlingly brilliant suggestion for the first time.
You fraudulent old sonofabitch,Pickering thought, that’s what this whole thing with your boy here for a private lunch is all about. Knox brought me here to let you know what he intended to do with me, and you’ll let him, providing I take care of this Major Evans Carlson. Tit for tat I haven’t been here a week, and I’m already in politics.
"That might not be a bad idea, Frank," Roosevelt said thoughtfully, and then added, "Now that I think about it, if you can spare Fleming, he’s probably just the right man for the job. You were a Marine, Flem, after all."
"Yes, Sir, I was."
"I’ll send him out there tomorrow, Mr. President," Knox said.
"Good idea, Frank!"
When they left the White House, Knox waited until they were in his limousine and then said, "I have a Commander Kramer who has all the background material on Major Carlson, the Raiders, and their target. An island called Makin. I’ll have him bring it around to your hotel tomorrow. And then you get on the Monday-morning courier plane to San Diego. I’m not really sure how I feel about the whole idea.... I understand why people may be dragging their feet; they think it’s both a waste of time and materiel and an idea that may go away. .. . But now I know that it’s important to Roosevelt. Given that, it’s important to you and me that you go out there and light a fire under people."
"I’m sympathetic to the notion that a victory, any kind of a victory, even a small one, is important right now."
"And it will be even more important when the Philippines fall," Knox said. "So it’s important, for a number of reasons, that you go out there right away. We can get you an office and a secretary when you come back."
Chapter Five
(One)
Security Intelligence Section
U.S. Naval Communications
Washington, D.C.
0730 Hours 31 January 1942
When Mrs. Glen T. (Ellen) Feller passed through the security gate on her way to work, the civilian guard smiled at her and handed her a note. It read, "Ellen, please see me at 0800." It was initialed "AFK." Commander A. F. Kramer was the officer-in-charge.
Ellen Feller, who was tall and thirty, with pale skin and long, light brown hair which she normally wore in a bun, glanced at the note for a second. It sparked her curiosity, but it did not cause her any real concern. She often found essentially identical notes waiting for her as she came to work.
"Thank you," she said, smiling at the guard; then she entered the restricted area. She either nodded and smiled or said good morning to a dozen people as she made her way to her desk at the far end of the long and narrow room. People smiled back at her, some of them a little warily. Ellen was aware that her co-workers thought of her as devoutly religious. She had several times heard herself referred to as a "Christer."
Personnel records, and especially reports of what were known as Complete Background Investigations, are classified Confidential, the security classification a step below Secret. They were thus theoretically really confidential, and their contents were made available only to those with a "need to know," who had been granted the appropriate security clearances.
In practice, however, personnel records and reports, "interim" and "final," of Complete Background Investigations of new or potential employees were available to anyone who was curious-even secretaries. This was especially the case in the Security Intelligence Section, where even the clerk-typists held Top Secret security clearances. There the Confidential classification was considered something of a joke.
Before Mrs. Feller had reported for duty, some time ago, as an Oriental Languages Linguist, all the girls in the office knew that their new co-worker was married to the Reverend Glen T. Feller of the Christian and Missionary Alliance; that she had perfected her language skills in the Orient; and that until the previous May, she and her husband had operated a CandMA missionary school in China.
They also knew that the Fellers had no children and that Reverend Feller was off doing the Lord’s work among the American Indians on a reservation in Arizona. Meanwhile, Mrs. Feller had noticed a classified advertisement placed by the U.S. Government seeking U.S. citizens with fluency in foreign languages, and she’d answered it.
Soon after that, the Navy offered her a job as an Oriental Languages Linguist. It wasn’t known whether she accepted the job as a patriotic citizen; or because the Fellers needed the money; or because she didn’t want to live in the Arizona desert. Her application for employment stated simply that she "wanted to serve."
In fact, although the job paid her more than she’d expected, she had taken it for the very simple reason that she really didn’t want to go to Arizona. And that meant she had to find work.
The actual fact was that Ellen Feller had absolutely no interest in doing the Lord’s work or, for that matter, in saving her immortal soul. And even more to the point, she loathed the Reverend Feller. She didn’t want to live with him in Arizona or anywhere else.
Were it not for her father, who was rich and elderly-approaching the end of his time on earth-and a religious zealot, she would have divorced her husband. But a divorce would almost certainly inspire him to cut Ellen out of his will and leave all of his money to the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The way it stood now, he intended to leave half of his worldly goods to his daughter and her husband.
With that understanding, and of course after days of prayerful consideration, the Reverend Feller had announced to the hierarchy of his denomination that it was God’s will for him to go alone to bring the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Navajos. His beloved wife would meanwhile make what contribution she could to the war effort in Washington, D.C. This move would cause them both a huge personal sacrifice, but they had prayerfully and tearfully decided to endure it.
The Reverend Feller had been honestly unhappy to leave Ellen behind in Washington. Not because he particularly liked her, or even because he would be denied his connubial privileges, but because the old man was in a nursing home in Baltimore, forty miles from Washington. The Reverend was afraid that while he was off in Arizona, Ellen would attempt to poison her father against him with reports of his misbehavior, sexual and otherwise, in China.
In the end, he had acquiesced to the move solely because Ellen had threatened to go to the authorities, both governmental and ecclesiastical, and inform them of some of the lesser-known facts about her husband’s activities in China. From the day they had entered that country, for example, he had been involved in the illegal export to the United States of Chinese archeological treasures looted from tombs.
The Reverend Feller had gone to great lengths to conceal what he called his "personal pension plan" from his wife. He had therefore been astonished to learn that she knew about it. He incorrectly suspected that one of the Chinese had told her. She had actually learned about it from an American Marine. As one of their last missions before being transferred to the Philippines, the 4thMarines had provided a guard detachment for the convoy of missionary vehicles as they left for home.
Ellen Feller had had a brief fl
ing in those days with one of the young Marines. She now realized the affair had been both foolish and stupid; but at the time she had endured a long abstinence from men, the Marine himself was extraordinarily fascinating, and she’d imagined that the odds were very much against her ever seeing him again.
When she first saw him staring with interest at her body, she presumed he was a simple Marine in charge of the Marine trucks. It was only after they’d made the beast with two backs half a dozen times that she learned that Corporal Kenneth R. "Killer" McCoy, USMC, wasn’t anything of the kind.
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