Bradley thought back over the precise words Mac had used. He hadn't tried to memorize the message, but he felt he recalled the sense of the short document.

"No," Bradley responded quietly, "it was less than his usual splendid rhetoric, and there were some big ifs implied in it. If I recall correctly, the gist of it was that he prayed for victory, but did not guarantee it."

"Exactly. General MacArthur started out this summer by saying the invasion of Kyushu would be a cakewalk, and that the Japs would run and quit. Now he's saying we should win, but we just might not. He's finally admitting there are a lot more Japs on Kyushu than anyone dared admit to him, and that the situation could be quite grave. Tell me, General Bradley, what's the largest army Mac's ever commanded?"

The question puzzled Bradley. "Maybe half a million in the Philippines last year. No, the Philippine campaign was smaller than that. Maybe three hundred thousand."

"Yes, and now he has more than twice that. And don't forget he's sixty-five years old, the same age as I am. It's the time where most people are thinking of retirement, not commanding vast armies in major campaigns. God knows I wonder if I could do what he is trying to do."

Marshall grimaced in distaste. "Also, he thinks both Ike and I hate him because of the things he's said about us earlier in our careers. As a result, he thinks I left him and his army out to dry in Bataan in 1942. I am more and more convinced that MacArthur thinks everyone in Washington and the Pentagon is out to get him. I can't prove it, but I wonder if the man's paranoid."

"I'm curious," Bradley said. "I know he referred to Ike as the best clerk he'd ever had, but what about you?"

Marshall chuckled briefly. "He said I'd never rise to anything higher than a regimental command. Now, of course, I've got five stars like he does, and he's under my command. Therefore, he thinks I'm out to humiliate him in a quest for revenge."

Bradley smiled. He'd heard the story before, but only through the rumor mill. "That makes him a lousy judge of character, but do you really think he thinks you're out for him?"

Marshall nodded grimly. "Yes, and from 1942 on."

Bradley whistled tunelessly. "And for that reason you think he thinks you've set him up to fail? You're making it sound like we've indeed got an aging paranoid who's in over his head and commanding the American army that just invaded Japan."

Marshall nodded. Bradley sank back in his seat. "Good grief, General, but just where do I come in?"

Marshall looked at him grimly. "General Bradley, I want you to do only the minimum necessary work at the VA. For the next couple of weeks, I want you to learn as much as you can about Operations Downfall and Olympic. The implications are obvious. If MacArthur falters or collapses from the strain, and I feel both are very possible, we'll need someone to step in and take over."

Gen. Omar Bradley looked out the window at the passing Washington scene. They had crossed the Arlington Bridge and were headed toward the Pentagon. Bradley felt as if a tremendous weight had landed on his shoulders and then slid down to the pit of his stomach. He had wanted to be rid of the Veterans Administration assignment and now it seemed he might be relieved of it. But what on earth might he get in return?

The angry bark of a rifle sent scores of soldiers sprawling on the ground. "Sniper!" someone yelled, and a fusillade of bullets, this time from American guns, filled the air. There was silence and then someone screamed for a medic.

Lt. Paul Morrell raised himself to his hands and knees and tried to see what had happened. They had been climbing a heavily shrubbed but not particularly steep hill near Miyazaki in Kyushu, and the men had been moving out in skirmish formation when the shot had been fired.

There was motion to Paul's left so he slithered over in that direction. Other prone soldiers grudgingly moved out of his way.

"Over here, Lieutenant." It was Wills, the medic.

There was more firing and Sergeant Collins profanely called for the men to stop. Paul got up and ran hunched over, expecting every second to be shot by the sniper. He made it safely to where Wills was working on a soldier who lay on his back. Paul threw himself down beside the two men.

It was Haskins, a young PFC about twenty. His throat looked as if it had exploded, and Wills was frantically trying to stop the blood that was gushing out over both of them. Paul tried not to look at the ripped and torn cartilage that was exposed just beneath the young man's chin. Haskins's mouth was flapping and it looked as if he was trying to say something; he couldn't, except for a low gurgling. Haskins's eyes fixed on Paul, silently imploring him to get him out of the mess he found himself in.

Paul looked at the medic, who shook his head. "I gave him morphine. A lot of it." A few seconds later, Haskins's eyes glazed over and he stopped breathing. "Nothing I could do, sir," Wills said, and he began to gather up his gear.

"You did your best," Paul said, conscious of the emptiness of the comment.

Wills didn't respond. Nothing would be said about the overdose of morphine that had hastened Haskins's death. Many of the soldiers carried extra morphine to put either themselves or a buddy out of misery in the event of an awful wound. It was something else the people at home didn't know about.

Haskins was the platoon's first fatality since landing on Kyushu almost a week earlier. A couple men had been wounded, but none killed. They'd been fortunate. The powers that directed their lives had kept their battalion as a regimental reserve until earlier in the day. Thus, they'd left reserve status and moved up to the front only a few hours earlier.

Paul moved a few feet away from the dead soldier and sat down in the dirt. He really didn't know Haskins well at all. He'd been a quiet kid who just did what he had to and pretty much stayed out of trouble. He'd been a late arrival to the company and had replaced one of the earlier men who'd been a total screwup. Now, because he was more competent than the dud whose place he'd taken, he was lying dead on the ground with his throat ripped out.

Sergeant Collins flopped down beside Paul. "We got the sniper, sir. Wanna see?"

Paul realized that he did want to see the Jap who'd killed Haskins. "Yeah."

Collins led him up the hill about a hundred yards to where a couple of men stared at the ground. A body lay half out of a hole. The upper torso, riddled with bullets, barely looked human. Leaves and branches jutted from the webbing of the Jap's helmet, part of his camouflage. The man's rifle lay beside him.

Collins kicked at the corpse and it slid back into its hole. "He wasn't very smart. He was pretty well hidden and should have waited until we passed. Then he could have hopped out and shot a couple of us before we got him. I think he panicked."

Wonderful, Paul thought, and shuddered. He hoped none of the Jap soldiers had the balls to wait while the army had passed by and over them.

Captain Ruger approached and found him deep in thought. "Shake it, Paul. You lost a man. It was your first and it won't be your last."

"I know, Captain. We lost our first American and we just killed our first Jap. That's one for one. Tell me, how many Japs are there on this stinking island?"

"A lot," Ruger said.

"Yeah, just a few minutes on the line and we've got a dead kid. Now I've got to write a letter to his family telling them that he was brave and died both instantly and painlessly, when we all know he was scared to death for several agonizing minutes and flopping like a fish. And all the while he was trying to say something through a hole in his neck that was so big you could stick your fist in it."