Maybe, he thought, as he counted the rings to six, torn between disappoint-ment and relief, she's not home. Away for the weekend or something. Or maybe she's got a heavy date. Why not?
A woman's voice came on the line, her "Hello?" expressing a mixture of annoyance and concern.
Oh, God, I woke her up.
"Carolyn?"
Why did I make that a question? God knows, I recognized her voice.
"Oh, my God! Ed!"
"Did I wake you?"
"Where are you?"
"Washington."
"Since when?"
"Since about nine o'clock."
"This morning?"
"Tonight."
"I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and believe this is the first chance you've had to call me."
"It really was," he said. "They just left."
"They being?"
"Two bare-breasted girls in grass skirts and a jazz quartet."
"In other words, you don't want to tell me."
"Colonel Rickabee, Captain Sessions, some other people."
I purposely did not tell her the others were Senator Fowler and the Admin-istrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. Was that because of some noble concern with security, or because I am just too tired to get into an explanation?
"Where are you?"
"At the Foster Lafayette."
"Very nice!"
The Foster Lafayette was one of Washington's most prestigious-and inarguably one of its most expensive-hotels.
"You know why I'm here, Carolyn," he said.
Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was married to the only child of Andrew Foster, who owned the Foster Lafayette and forty-two other hotels. Foster had turned over to Pickering a Foster Lafayette suite for the dura-tion; and Pickering had left standing orders that the suite be used by the offi-cers on his staff when he wasn't actually using it himself.
"He's in the Pacific, isn't he?" Carolyn asked innocently. "Is anyone else there with you?"
"Christ, Carolyn, I don't think that's such a good idea," Banning said.
"If the bare-breasted girls in the grass skirts come back, tell them you've made other plans," she said, and hung up.
Banning stared for a moment at the dead phone in his hand, and then put it in its cradle.
"Jesus Christ!" he said, smiling.
The telephone rang.
He grabbed it.
"Major Banning."
"I forgot to tell you something," Carolyn said. "Welcome home. And I love you."
"You're something," he said, laughing.
"With just a little bit of luck, I can catch the one-oh-five milk train," she said, and hung up again.
He put the phone back in its cradle again, swung his feet up on the bed, and lowered his head onto the pillow.
He was almost instantly asleep.
[FIVE]
The Foster Lafayette Hotel
Washington, D.C.
0805 Hours 17 October 1942
When the telephone rang, Carolyn Spencer Howell, a tall, willowy thirty-two-year-old who wore her shoulder-length hair parted in the middle, woke imme-diately.
She glanced at the man in bed beside her with a sudden tenderness that made her want to cry, and then smiled, anticipating the look on his face when the telephone's ringing finally woke him up.
He slept on, oblivious to the sound.
Finally, she pushed him, at first gently and then quite hard. His only re-sponse was to grunt and roll over.
"I never really believed that cutting hair was what Delilah did to Sam-son," she said aloud. And then made a final attempt to wake him. She held his nostrils shut.
His response was to swat at whatever had landed on his face with his hand. The force of the swat was frightening.
"That was not a good idea," she said, then shrugged and reached for the telephone.
"Hello?"
She looked down at Ed's wristwatch on the bedside table. It was five min-utes past eight. She had been with him not quite four hours.
Should I be ashamed of myself for taking advantage of an exhausted man?
He didn't seem to mind.
But neither was there any of that postcoital cuddling, of fame and legend. He was sound asleep while I was still quivering.
"Who is this?" a somewhat impatient male voice demanded.
"Who are you?" Carolyn responded.
"My name is Rickabee. I was trying to reach Major Edward Banning."
"He's in the shower, Colonel Rickabee. May I take a message?"
"I'd hoped to see him. I'm downstairs."
"Why don't you give him five minutes and then come up?"
"Thank you," Rickabee said, and hung up.
She hung the telephone up, and then really tried to wake Ed. Tickling the inside of his feet-at some risk-finally worked. After thrashing his legs an-grily, he suddenly sat up, fully awake.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Your Colonel Rickabee is on his way up," Carolyn said.
"Christ! You talked to him?"
"You wouldn't wake up," she said.
"I wonder what the hell he wants?" Banning asked rhetorically, and stepped out of bed. He headed directly for the bathroom.
Carolyn picked up the telephone.
"Room Service, please," she told the operator, and then ordered coffee and breakfast rolls for three.
Ed came out of the bedroom as she was fastening her brassiere.
"Jesus, you're beautiful," he said.
"I ordered coffee and rolls," she said. "Would you like me to take a walk around the block, or what?"
"No," he said. "Don't be silly. You stay."
"I'm not being silly. Is this going to be awkward for you?"
"Don't be silly," he repeated, making a joke of it. "I'm a Marine, aren't I?"
In other words, yes, it is going to be embarrassing for you. But you are either the consummate gentleman, or you love me too much-maybe both-to consciously hurt my feelings. Whichever, Thank You, My Darling!
Almost precisely five minutes later, the door chimes of Suite 802 sounded.
Banning, by then dressed in a khaki shirt and green woolen uniform trou-sers, opened it to a tall, slight, pale-skinned, unhealthy-looking man in an ill-fitting suit.
He was not what Carolyn expected.
Ed was closemouthed about what he did in The Marine Corps. Even though she told herself she understood the necessity for tight lips, this frus-trated Carolyn. But she knew that Ed was in "Intelligence," even if she didn't know precisely what that meant, and that his immediate superior was Colonel F. L. Rickabee, whom he had once described as "the best intelligence officer in the business."
She had expected someone looking like Clark Gable in a Marine uniform. Or maybe an American version of David Niven in a splendidly tailored suit. Not this bland, pale man in a suit that looked like a gift from the Salvation Army.
"Good morning, Sir," Banning said. "I was in the shower."
"So I understand," Rickabee said. He looked at Carolyn.
"Honey," Banning said. "This is my boss, Colonel Rickabee. Colonel, my... Mrs. Carolyn Howell."