"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 PandFE 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 PandFE," 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 PandFE, 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.