"Thanks," McCoy said.
As soon as the door had closed behind the bellboy, the bedroom door opened.
"Isn't that nice?" Ernie said. "Why don't you just roll that in here?"
"I've had worse offers," McCoy said.
The telephone rang. Ernie picked up the phone on the bedside table.
"Hello?" she said, and then extended it to McCoy.
"Lieutenant McCoy."
"Yes, Sir. I'll be there."
"Sir, I have someone with me. A friend of General Pickering's. She would like to visit with him. Would that be possible?"
"Try to keep me away! I'm not in the goddamned Marines! Ernie announced.
"Yes, Sir. I understand. Thank you, Sir.
"Whichever would be easier, Sir. I'll be here. Yes, Sir. Good night, Sir."
"You understand what'?" Ernie said when he put the telephone down.
"You can see him for thirty minutes at half past seven in the morning."
"Oh, I'm so grateful!"
"Hey, I told you this was duty."
"What's it all about?"
"I don't know. I'm-which does not mean `you'-about to find out. Captain Sessions is coming over here."
"Great!" Ernie said sarcastically.
"He could have made me go to the office. You're getting to be a pain in the ass, Ernie." Her face tightened. She opened her mouth to reply, then visibly changed her mind.
"Sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry I said that," McCoy said, genuinely contrite.
She waved her hand, signifying it didn't matter.
"When's Ed Sessions coming?"
"It'll probably take him thirty minutes, maybe forty-five. He's got some stuff the Colonel wants me to read before We see General Pickering."
"I don't know about you, baby," Ernie said, "but on general principles, I have nothing against a quickie."
When Captain Edward Sessions walked into suite 614, Lieutenant K. R. McCoy and Miss Ernestine Sage, fully clothed, were sitting on the couch in the sitting room, working on an enormous platter of shrimp and oysters. It did not escape his attention, however, that despite the early hour, the bed he could see through a partially opened door seemed to have been slept in.
"Good to see you, Ernie," he said, and she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
"Would you be crushed, Ed, if I told you I suspect something is about to happen that I'm not going to like at all?"
"No," he said.
He fumbled in his pocket for the key to the handcuff which chained his briefcase to his wrist, freed his wrist, and handed the briefcase to McCoy.
"If some kind soul were to offer me a drink and an oyster, I could occupy myself while you read that, Ken," Sessions said.
"We just had a bottle of champagne," Ernie said. "I would order another, but I don't think we have anything to celebrate.
"Scotch, Ed?"
"Please," he said.
McCoy settled himself in a corner of the couch and opened the briefcase. Before she made Sessions' drink, Ernie looked long enough to see TOP SECRET cover sheets on the manila folder he took from the briefcase. After a moment's thought she made one for herself.
She glanced at Ken. She recognized the look of absolute concentration on his face. She knew he would be annoyed if she offered him a drink or even handed him one.
She gave Ed Sessions his drink.
"How's Jeanne, Ed?"
"Great. If she knew you were here, she would have come. She'll be sorry to have missed you."
Five minutes later McCoy raised his eyes from the stack of folders on his lap.
"OK. I gave it a quick once-over. What's this got to do with me?"
"All I know is that General Pickering told the Colonel to send for you," Sessions said.
"Is Banning behind that?" McCoy asked.
Sessions shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know. All I know is that the Colonel wants you `conversant' with that stuff before we see The General in the morning."
"We who?"
"The Colonel, me, and you," Sessions said.
"I can't memorize all this by morning."