"Where can I reach him?"
"May I ask who this is?"
"Colonel Gregory." The name did not ring a bell.
"I'm sorry, Sir, I'm not permitted to divulge Major Banning's location.
May I take a message?"
" My name is not familiar to you, Lieutenant?"
"No, Sir. I'm sorry, but it's not." The phone went dead in his ear.
"Well, fuck you, too, Colonel Whatsyourname," Pluto said and hung the telephone back on the wall.
Fifteen minutes later, a.45 automatic jammed in the small of his back, a locked leather briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, Pluto made sure that everything was turned off. And then, feeling like Bulldog Drummond, Master Detective, he rigged a thread between a pin stuck in the brick wall and one of the chairs. If anyone entered the room, he would disturb the thread.
Banning's orders.
A little melodramatic, Pluto thought, but if Banning thought it was necessary...
He locked the door and went down the corridor to the guard post.
"Make sure you feed the dragon, Sergeant," he said to the senior guard as he signed himself out. "I thought I heard his tummy rumbling."
The little joke fell flat. The sergeant gave a small, just perceptible jerk of his head down the corridor. There was an officer down the way in the gloom.
One of the MP officers, Pluto decided, checking to see that the enlisted men are not cavorting with loose women.
"Lieutenant Hon, I'm Colonel Gregory," the officer said. He was a small, natty man in pinks and greens. A Lieutenant Colonel, not a full bird, wearing the insignia of the General Staff on his lapels.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Have you got a minute, Lieutenant?"
"Actually, Sir, no," Pluto said, holding up the briefcase.
Colonel Gregory held out a leather folder to Pluto. It held a badge and a photo identification card. It was something like the ones Banning and Moore carried, identifying them as Special Agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence. The credentials Gregory held out identified him as an Agent of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps.
"Yes, Sir," Pluto said.
"Ed Banning and I are sort of friends, Lieutenant. I really would like to talk to him."
"I'm sorry, Colonel, I can't help."
Gregory's eyes appraised him carefully.
"You going upstairs with that briefcase, Lieutenant? Or out to Water Lily Cottage?"
How the hell does this guy know about Water Lily Cottage?
More important, what the hell does he want?
When Gregory realized that Hon was not going to answer him, he said, "No offense, Pluto, but you look more like a Japanese spy than I do, don't you think?"
How the hell does he know that people call me Pluto?
"I don't know who you are, Colonel," Pluto said.
"I really hoped to avoid using the word until we were alone, but I'm here to talk about your Buka operation," Gregory said.
Shit! We're compromised. Who the hell told him?
The first possibility that came to his mind was Mrs. Ellen Feller, but that couldn't be. Banning had gotten her out of Water Lily Cottage before anyone mentioned the word Buka.
Then who? In a moment the answer came: That fucking Air Corps Colonel that MacArthur summoned to his office.
"You're not compromised," Colonel Gregory said, reading his mind. "Nobody knows a thing who is not supposed to. Are you going to Water Lily Cottage?" Pluto nodded.
"Let me ride out there with you then. We might have to get Moore involved in this anyway." This sonofabitch knows a hell of a lot about Water Lily Cottage.
"I don't know how long I'll be out there, Colonel. How would you get back?"
"We keep the cottage under surveillance. There'll be a car there to bring me back. Shall we go?"
"I'm not going to tell you where Major Banning is, Colonel."
"You've made that perfectly clear, Pluto," Gregory said.
Gregory volunteered to drive the Studebaker. After a moment's hesitation, Pluto agreed: He is a CIC type; he is not going to commandeer the car and take me someplace where they will stick lighted matches under my fingernails to make me tell them where Banning is. And besides, driving a car with a briefcase chained to your wrist is difficult, even dangerous.
It soon became apparent that Gregory not only knew where Water Lily Cottage was, but the shortest route.
"I've got a question," Gregory said.
"Sir?"
"Just idle curiosity. When you gave me the hard time on the phone and I realized that I was going to have to deal with you personally, I went to look at your personnel file. You don't have one. What do they do, keep it in Pearl Harbor or Washington?"
I honestly don't know.
"What I was wondering is, how do you get paid?"
"They send me a check," Pluto said. "I take it to Finance and they cash it."
Gregory grunted. Then he changed the subject.