"Very well, thank you, Sir."

Pickering thought he detected an inflection in the President's voice that made it a real question, not a pro forma one. There came immediate proof.

"Malaria's all cleared up?" the President pursued. "Your wounds have healed?"

"I'm in fine shape, Sir."

"Then I can safely offer you a drink? Without invoking the rage of the Navy's surgeon general?"

"It is never safe to offer General Pickering a drink, Mr. President," Senator Fowler said.

"Well, I think I'll just take the chance, anyway," Roosevelt said.

A black steward in a white jacket appeared carrying a tray with two glasses on it.

"Frank and I started without you," Roosevelt said, spinning the wheelchair around and rolling it into the next room. Fowler and Pickering followed him.

As they entered, Knox rose from one of two matching leather armchairs. He had a drink in his hand. Admiral William D. Leahy rose from the other chair. He was a tall, lanky, sad-faced man whose title was Chief of Staff of the President. There was a coffee cup on the table beside him.

The men shook hands.

"How are you, General?" Admiral Leahy asked, and again Pickering sensed it was a real, rather than pro forma, question.

"I'm very well, thank you, Admiral," Pickering said.

"I already asked him, Admiral," Roosevelt said. "We apparently have standing before us a tribute to the efficacy of military medicine. As badly as he was wounded, as sick as he was with malaria, I am awed." He turned to Pickering, Knox, and Fowler, smiled, and went on: "The Admiral and I have had our schedule changed. You will be spared taking lunch with us."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. President," Senator Fowler said.

"Oh, no you're not," Roosevelt said. "With me gone, you three political crustaceans can sit here in my apartment and say unkind things about me."

There was the expected dutiful laughter.

"I hear laughter but no denials," Roosevelt said. "But before I leave you, I'd like to ask a favor of you, Fleming."

"Anything within my power, Mr. President," Pickering said.

"Could you find it in your heart to make peace with Bill Donovan?"

Is that what this is all about? Did that sonofabitch actually go to the President of the United States to complain about me?

"I wasn't aware that Mr. Donovan was displeased with me, Mr. President."

"It has come to his attention that you said unkind things about him to our friend Douglas MacArthur," Roosevelt said.

"Mr. President," Pickering said, softly but firmly, "to the best of my recollection, I have never discussed Mr. Donovan with General MacArthur."

Frank Knox coughed.

"Then tell me this, Fleming," the President said. "If I asked you to say something nice to Douglas MacArthur about Bill Donovan, would you?"

"I'm not sure I understand you, Mr. President."

"Frank will explain everything," Roosevelt said. "And when you see Douglas, give him my very best regards, won't you?"

The President rolled himself away before Pickering could say another word.

[ONE]

Guadalcanal

Solomon Islands

0450 Hours 13 October 1942

Major Jack (NMI) Stecker, USMCR, commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, Fifth Marines, woke at the first hint of morning light. He was a large, tall, straight-backed man who could look like a Marine even in sweat-soaked utilities-as the Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division recently noted privately to his Sergeant Major. The rest of the Division, including himself, the General went on to observe, looked like AWOLs from the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Major Stecker had been sleeping on a steel bed and mattress, formerly the property of the Imperial Japanese Army. A wooden crate served as Stecker's bedside table; it once contained canned smoked oysters intended for the Japanese garrison on Guadalcanal.

The "tabletop" held a Coleman lantern; a flashlight; an empty can of Planter's peanuts converted to an ashtray; a package of Chesterfield cigarettes; a Zippo lighter; and a U.S. Pistol, Caliber.45 ACP, Model 1911, with the hammer in the cocked position and the safety on.

On waking, Major Stecker sat up and reached for the pistol. He removed the magazine, worked the action to eject the chambered cartridge, and then loaded it back into the magazine. He let the slide go forward, lowered the hammer by pulling the trigger, and then reinserted the magazine into the pistol.

It was one thing, in Major Stecker's judgment, to have a pistol in the cocked and locked position when there was a good chance you might need it in a hurry, and quite another to carry a weapon that way when you were walking around wide awake.

Before retiring, he had removed his high-topped shoes-called boondockers- and his socks. Now he pulled on a fresh pair of socks-fresh in the sense that he had rinsed them, if not actually washed them in soap and water-and then the boondockers, carefully double-knotting their laces so they would not come undone. When he was satisfied with that, he slipped the Colt into its holster and then buckled his pistol belt around his waist.

He pushed aside the shelter-half that separated his sleeping quarters from the Battalion Command Post.

The Battalion S-3 (Plans and Training) Sergeant, who was sitting on a folding chair (Japanese) next to a folding table (Japanese) on which sat a Field Desk (U.S. Army), started to get to his feet. Stecker waved him back to his chair.

"Good morning, Sir."

"Good morning," Stecker said with a smile, then walked out of the CP and relieved himself against a palm tree. He went back into the CP, picked up a five-gallon water can, and poured from it two inches of water into a washbasin-a steel helmet inverted in a rough wooden frame.

He moved to his bedside table and reached inside for his toilet kit, a battered leather bag with mold growing green around the zipper. He lifted out shaving cream and a Gillette razor. Then he went back to the helmet washbasin, wet his face, and shaved himself as well as he could using a pocket-size, polished-metal mirror. He had come ashore with a small glass mirror, but the concussion from an incoming Japanese mortar round had shattered it.

He carried the helmet outside, tossed the water away, and returned to his bedside table. He reached inside for a towel, then wiped the vestiges of the shaving cream from his face.