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.
"I got a copy of that Transfer of Detainee form that Moore signed for Mrs. Farnsworth. The Kangaroo FBI sent it to the Provost Marshal, and he didn't know what to do with it, so he sent it to me. What the hell was that all about?"
"The Kangaroo FBI?"
"His Majesty's Royal Australian Constabulary," Gregory said. "What are you going to do with her?"
Pluto again elected not to reply.
"I know she's staying in the cottage, for Christ's sake," Gregory said.
"I told you we keep it under surveillance. At Ed Banning's request."
"She's a fine young woman," Pluto said. "Her heinous crime was to get herself impregnated by one of our Marines. Banning didn't know that when he sent word we wanted to talk to her. The Kangaroo FBI, as you so aptly describe them, went overboard."
"They tend to do that," Gregory replied. He didn't speak for a moment or two. "And so she'll become one of yours, I presume?" he asked when he was ready to talk again. "As in Special Detachment 14, rather than The U.S. Marine Corps generally?"
"Right, I think we'll hire Mrs. Farnsworth."
"As soon as Banning gets back from wherever he is?"
Pluto declined to reply.
Gregory chuckled, and then remained silent until they pulled up the drive to Water Lily Cottage and stopped. As Pluto reached for the car door handle, he touched his arm.
"Do you think we could send the ladies shopping or something? I'd really rather have our little chat in private."
"Well, Lieutenant," Colonel Gregory said to Moore as soon as the Studebaker with Barbara Cotter, Joanne Miller, and Daphne Farnsworth in it had nosed out of the driveway, "you seem to have recovered from your recurrence of malaria. And congratulations on your promotion."
"You seem to know a hell of a lot about me, Colonel," Moore said.
"You provided my people with a lot of laughs when you were here the first time... humping Mrs. Feller," Gregory said.
"Son of a bitch!" Moore blurted.
"From the look on your face, Pluto, I don't think you knew that, did you? I guess Banning decided you didn't have the Need to Know," Gregory said.
He chuckled at Moore's flushing face.
"Your secret is-secrets are-safe with me. Believe it or not, I was reluctant to bring that up, but I wanted to make the point quickly that I know a good deal about you-and about what goes on here-because Ed Banning wanted me to know."
"What the hell is this all about?" Pluto asked.
"This is a very delicate situation, gentlemen," Gregory said.
"One of those aberrations where people of our lowly ranks and positions have to make decisions involving our superiors."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Pluto said.
"At his first opportunity, Colonel Armstrong went to General McKinney and told him he had been ordered by the Supreme Commander to stage diversionary air attacks in connection with a clandestine operation being conducted in or around Buka-"
"That must be the Air Corps officer who was in General MacArthur's office?" Pluto interrupted.
"Right," Gregory said, "-under the auspices of Lieutenant Hon. Or Banning, who is Hon's boss. I don't mean to sound cynical, but that sounds like bullshit to me; Ed Banning is a nice guy, but he's only a major. I'd like to know what authority, if any, there is for this operation." Moore looked at Hon for instruction.