"No, sir, I didn't."

"Banning said that he thought I should have you transferred to this lash-up and that I should consider, somewhere down the line, even sending you to officer candidate school."

McCoy didn't know how to respond.

In Japanese, Colonel Rickabee said, "I understand you're reasonably fluent in Japanese and Chinese."

"I wouldn't say fluent, sir-"

"Say it in Japanese," Rickabee interrupted.

"I can't read very much Japanese, sir," McCoy said, in Japanese. "And my Chinese isn't much better."

Rickabee nodded approvingly. "That's good enough," he continued in Japanese, and then switched to English. "We can use that talent. But there's a question of priorities. When we knew you were coming here, McCoy, what we planned to do with you was to have you replace Sergeant Ruttman. I want to run him through Quantico, too. He thinks he's been successfully evading it. The truth is that I needed somebody to take his place while he was gone. You seemed ideal to do that. You're a hardnose, and it would give you a chance to see how things are done here. But the best-laid plans, as they say. There are higher priorities. Specifically, the boss has levied on us-and I mean the boss personally, not one of his staff-for three officer couriers. We're moving a lot of paper back and forth between here and Pearl and here and Manila, especially now that the Fourth is in the Philippines. You're elected as one of the three, McCoy."

"Sir, I don't know what an officer courier is."

"There are some highly classified documents, and sometimes material, that have to pass from hand to hand, from a specific officer here to a specific officer someplace else-as opposed to headquarters to headquarters. That material has to be transported by an officer.''

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"There's one other factor in the equation," Rickabee said. "The Pacific-especially Pearl Harbor, but Cavite too-has been playing dirty pool. We have sent officer couriers out there with the understanding that they would make one trip and then return to their primary duty. What Pearl has done twice, and Cavite once, is to keep our couriers and send the homeward-bound mail in the company of an officer they didn't particularly need. We have lost two cryptographic officers and one very good intercept officer that way."

McCoy knew that a cryptographic officer dealt with secret codes, but he had no ideas what an "intercept" officer was.

"I've complained, of course, and eventually we'll get them back, after everything has moved, slowly, through channels. But I can't afford to lose people for sixty, ninety days. Not now. So there had to be a solution, and Major Almond found it."

McCoy said nothing.

"Aren't you even curious, McCoy?" Rickabee asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Every officer in the Marine Corps is required to obey the orders of any officer superior to him, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"If the orders conflict, he is required to obey the orders given him by the most senior officer, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Wrong," Rickabee said. "Or at least, there is an interesting variation. There is a small, generally unknown group of people in the Corps who don't have to obey the orders of superior officers, unless that officer happens to be the chief of intelligence. Their ranks aren't even known. Just their name and photo and thumbprint is on their ID cards. And the ID cards say that the bearer is a Special Agent of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, USMC, and subject only to his orders."

"Yes, sir."

"Congratulations, Lieutenant McCoy, you are now-or you will be when Ruttman finishes your credentials-a Special Agent of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. If anybody at Pearl or Cavite knows, or finds out, that you speak Japanese and decides they just can't afford to lose you, you will show them your identification and tell them you are sorry, but you are not subject to their orders."

Rickabee saw the confusion on McCoy's face.

"Question, McCoy?"

"Am I going to Pearl Harbor, sir?"

"And Cavite," Rickabee said. "More important, I think you will be coming back from Pearl and Cavite."

"And you can get away with giving me one of these cards?"

"For the time being," Rickabee said. "When they catch us, I'm sure Major Almond will think of something else clever."

"Let me make it clear, Lieutenant McCoy," Major Almond said, "that the identification, and the authority that goes with it, is perfectly legitimate. The personnel engaged in counterespionage activity who are issued such credentials are under this office."

"Major Almond pointed out to me, McCoy, that I had the discretionary authority to issue as many of them as I saw fit."

"Yes, sir."

"We don't wish to call attention to the fact that people like you will have them," Rickabee said. "For obvious reasons. You will travel in uniform on regular travel orders, and you will not show the identification unless you have to. You understand that?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't know how long we'll have to keep you doing this, McCoy," Colonel Rickabee said. "We have a certain priority for personnel, but so do other people. And that FBI background check takes time. And the FBI is overloaded with them. You'll just have to take my word for it that as soon as I can get you off messenger-boy duty and put you to work doing something useful to us, I will."

"Yes, sir."

"What's his schedule, Jake?" Rickabee asked.

"Well, today of course there are administrative things to do. Get him a pistol, get his orders cut. That may run into tomorrow morning. He'll need some time to get his personal affairs in order. But there's no reason he can't leave here on Wednesday night, Thursday morning at the latest. Presuming there's not fifty people ahead of him in San Francisco also with AAA priority, that should put him in Pearl no later than Monday, December eighth, and into Manila on the tenth."

"Is that cutting it too close for you, McCoy?" Colonel Rickabee asked.

"No, sir," McCoy said, immediately.

Rickabee nodded.

"Take him to lunch at the Army-Navy Club, Jake," Colonel Rickabee ordered. "Sign my name to the chit."

"Aye, aye, sir," Major Almond said.

"I like to do that myself," Rickabee said, turning to McCoy. "We don't have time for many customs of the service around here; but when I can, I like to have a newly reported-aboard officer to dinner. Or at least take him to lunch. But I just don't have the time today. Won't have it before you go to Pearl. I'm really sorry."

Then he stood up and offered his hand.

"Welcome aboard, McCoy," he said. "I'm sorry your first assignment is such a lousy one. But it happens sometimes that way in the Corps."

He headed out of his office, and then stopped at the door.

"Get him out of the BOQ before he goes," he said. "If there's no time to find a place for him, have his gear brought here, and we'll stow it while he's gone, until we can find something."

"He's got a room in the Lafayette, sir."

"I'll be damned," Colonel Rickabee said. "But then Ed Banning did say I would find you extraordinary."

For some reason, McCoy thought, it was no longer hard to think of F.L. Rickabee as a lieutenant colonel of Marines.

(Three)

Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was sitting in the maid's room's sole armchair, his feet up on the cot. When Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, carrying a briefcase, entered the room, Pickering was in the act of replacing a bottle of ale in an ice-filled silver wine-cooler he had borrowed from the bridal suite.

"What the hell are you doing with a briefcase?" Pick asked.

"That's not all," McCoy said. "Wait till I tell-"

Pickering shut him off by holding up his hand.

"Wait a minute," he said. "I've got if not bad then discomfitting news."