"How do you do, Mrs. Howell?"
"How do you do?" Carolyn replied, offering her hand.
Rickabee's hand was as she thought it might be. Cold.
Carolyn Spencer Howell was, in the flesh, very much as Rickabee thought she would be. He knew a good deal about her. He was a good intelligence officer.
When Banning first became involved with her, Rickabee asked the FBI for a report on her. And the FBI's New York Field Office turned the investigation over to the Army's Counterintelligence Corps, a move that annoyed Rickabee, although he could not fault the thorough, professional job the CIC did on her:
Carolyn Spencer Howell came from a respected upper-middle-class fam-ily. Shortly after graduating cum laude from Sarah Lawrence (where she was apolitical), she married James Stevens Howell, an investment banker ten years her senior. Mr. Howell's interest in younger women apparently did not dimin-ish with marriage; and after nearly a decade of marriage, Mrs. Howell caught her husband in bed with a lady not far over the age of legal consent.
As a result of encouragement by his employers to be generous in the divorce settlement-philandering vice presidents do not do much for the image of investment banking-Mrs. Howell became a rather wealthy woman. She took employment in the New York Public Library, more for something to do than the need of income, and there she met Major Ed Banning, and took him into her bed.
So far as the CIC was able to determine, Banning was the only man to ever spend the night in Mrs. Howell's apartment. And Banning, meanwhile, was honest with her, telling her up front that there was a Mrs. Edward Banning, whom he had last seen standing on a quai in Shanghai, and whose present whereabouts were not known.
For Rickabee's purposes, Mrs. Howell was ideal for Banning. So long as he was, in his way, faithful to her, which seemed to be the case, he was unlikely to go off the deep end with a dangerous floozy, or even, conceivably, with an enemy agent. There was talk around, which Rickabee believed, that Ambassa-dor Kennedy's son, the second one, John, had been sent to the Pacific after becoming entirely too friendly with a redhead who had ties with the wrong governments.
"I'm really very sorry to intrude," Rickabee said, meaning it. "And I wouldn't have come if it wasn't necessary. But the thing is, Mrs. Howell, I need about thirty minutes of Ed's time now, and about that much time at half past ten."
"I was just telling Ed that I was going to take a walk around," Carolyn said. "Have a look at the White House, maybe."
"It's raining," Rickabee said. "Walking may not be such a good idea. But if you could read the newspaper over a cup of coffee in the lobby..."
"My pleasure," Carolyn said. She smiled and left.
Rickabee waited until the door closed after her.
"Haughton called," he said. "There's a special channel from Brisbane. He's going to bring it by the office."
Captain David Haughton, USN, was Administrative Assistant to Navy Secretary Frank Knox. A "special channel" was a message encrypted in a spe-cial code whose use was limited to the most senior members of the military and naval hierarchy-or more junior officers, for example Colonel Rickabee and Brigadier General Pickering, whose immediate superiors were at the top of the hierarchy. Since Pickering was in Brisbane, the special channel was almost certainly from him. The only other person authorized access to the special channel in Brisbane was General Douglas MacArthur, who was the Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Area. It was unlikely that MacArthur would be sending messages to a lowly Marine colonel.
"Yes, Sir."
"I thought you had better be there, in case something needs clarification."
"Yes, Sir."
"And it's possible that Haughton may want to talk about the Mongolian Operation. If that's the case, I thought it would be better if you were up to date on it, changes, et cetera, since you left."
"Yes, Sir."
"As soon as we're finished with Haughton, you're finished. Take the week I mentioned last night."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Do you think you could rustle up some coffee, Ed?"
The door chimes sounded.
Banning opened the door to admit the waiter with the coffee Carolyn had ordered from room service.
"Your wish, Sir," Banning said, chuckling, "is my command. I trust the Colonel will pardon the delay?"
[SIX]
Temporary Building T-2032
The Mall, Washington, D.C.
1045 Hours 17 October 1942
Captain David W. Haughton, USNA '22, a tall, slim, intelligent-looking Naval officer, had called for a Navy car to take him to The Mall, where a large collec-tion of "temporary" frame buildings built to house the swollen Washington bureaucracy during World War I were now occupied by the swollen-and still swelling-bureaucracy considered necessary to wage World War II.
A 1941 Packard Clipper, painted Navy gray, with enlisted chauffeur, was immediately provided. This was not in deference to Captain Haughton's rank-it was said there were enough captains and admirals in Washington to fully man all the enlisted billets provided for on a battleship-but to the rank of his boss.
Captain Haughton, who would have much preferred to be at sea as a lieu-tenant commander in command of a destroyer-as he had once been-was Ad-ministrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Frank Knox.
There were, of course, official automobiles assigned to the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, including two limousines. One of these was at the mo-ment in use by Secretary Knox, and the second was in the Cadillac dealership having a bad clutch repaired. There were also two 1942 Plymouth sedans painted Navy gray. Chief Petty Officer Stanley Hansen, USN, Haughton's chief assistant, regarded one of these as his personal vehicle, and Haughton was reluctant to challenge the Chief's perquisites. And he was reluctant to use the second Plymouth because he regarded it as a necessary spare. The Secre-tary's limousine-or Chief Hansen's Plymouth-might collapse somewhere.
And finally, he had requested a car from the motor pool for an admittedly petty, selfish reason. It had rained hard all day, and he thought it was unlikely to stop. He correctly suspected that the motor pool would dispatch a car much like the Packard that was in fact sent, a large car, reserved for admirals, and consequently equipped, fore and aft, with a holder for the starred plates admi-rals were entitled to affix to their automobiles. When an admiral was not actu-ally in his car, the holder was covered.
The Shore Patrol, which patrolled the area of The Mall where Haughton was headed, would, he thought, be somewhat reluctant to challenge an illegally parked Packard with a flag officer's plate holder on it-even if the admiral's stars were covered. He could thus tell the driver to park right in front of Tem-porary Building T-2032, where he had business to transact with the Marine Corps Office of Management Analysis. This would spare him a long walk in the rain to and from the parking lot where lowly captains were supposed to park.
The Packard pulled to the curb before one of the many identical two-story frame buildings, and the driver started to get out to open Haughton's door.
"Stay in the car, son," Haughton ordered, opened the door himself, and, a heavy black Navy-issue briefcase in his left hand, ran through the rain down a short concrete path to the building and stepped inside into a vestibule.
There was a sign reading "ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE" on the door to the stairway of the two-floor frame building.