“The Secret Service sent over the passes?” Donovan asked.
“I’ll check on that, too, Sir,” Ellis said.
“I don’t want to find myself waving bye-bye on the platform as the President goes off to Georgia by himself,” Donovan said.
“No, Sir, I’ll see we’re aboard the train,” Ellis said.
Donovan and Douglass got out of the car and entered the turn-of-the-century mansion through the kitchen door. The kitchen was enormous and furnished with restaurant-size stoves and refrigerators.
A tall young woman with blond hair hanging to her shoulders came into the room. She wore a simple black dress, a single string of pearls, and just above her right breast a miniature pair of pilot’s wings. Captain Douglass’s eyes betrayed a moment’s surprise and special interest in the wings. He was sure he knew their source: His wife had an identical pair, sent from London by their son. What seemed like last week, their son had seemed an eager-eyed West Point cadet; and now, at twenty-five, he was a lieutenant colonel. His son also liked this girl very much.
“Good evening,” Charity Hoche said with a radiant smile. Her accent betrayed her origins: Charity Hoche had been raised on a twenty-acre estate in Wallingford, which was one of the plusher suburbs of Philadelphia, and educated at Bryn Mawr.
“No, Sir,” she said. “And no calls, either. From him.”
“Time and J. Edgar Hoover wait for no man,” Donovan said. “What are we going to feed him?”
“Capon,” she said. “And wild rice.”
“Good.” Donovan chuckled. “Eating chicken with a knife and fork is not one of J. Edgar’s strong points. He always makes me feel he’d rather eat one with his hands. After biting off the head, of course.”
“And,” Charity said, “a very nice Chateau de Long Chablis, ’35.”
“Where the hell did we get that?” Donovan asked.
“Actually, I brought it from home,” Charity said. “I knew this was important.”
“And you wanted to butter up the boss, too,” Donovan said.
“Guilty,” Charity said with a smile.
“I might decide to keep you here for your father’s cellar, ” Donovan said.
“As opposed to what?” Douglass asked.
“Charity wants to go to England,” Donovan said. “I can’t imagine why.”
Charity chuckled deep in her throat.
A very sexual young woman, Captain Douglass thought. Not quite what he had hoped for Peter Douglass, Jr. He wanted for Doug a girl just like the girl who had married dear old dad when he’d been an ensign fresh from Annapolis. Not this Main Line socialite who was used to spending more money on her clothing than Doug (even as an Air Corps lieutenant colonel drawing flight pay) made in a year. And who, according to the FBI’s CBI (Complete Background Investigation) on her, was a long way from having any claim to a virginal white bridal dress.
He was really worried, he thought, that Charity looked on Doug as this year’s chic catch, a dashing hero, rather than as someone whose life she would share.
“There have been some cables from London,” Charity said. “Nothing important, except that Fulmar and Fine have left for Lisbon. And there’s one from Cairo, with Jimmy Whittaker’s ETA.”
“Good,” Donovan said. “I wasn’t sure we could catch him.”
“Apparently, they had some trouble finding him,” Charity said. “The cable said that he had not checked in with them, which is why he wasn’t on an earlier plane.”
“I wonder what her name was?” Donovan chuckled.
“Jeanine d’Autrey-Lascal,” Charity furnished. “Her husband ran a bank there before the war and is now with General de Gaulle.”
“Wilkins sent that, too?” Donovan chuckled. “Thorough, isn’t he?”
“Wilkins described her as Jimmy’s ‘good friend,’ ” Charity said.
“Pilots do get around, don’t they, Charity?” Donovan teased.
“Until they’re finally forced to land,” Charity said. “What goes up, they say, has to come down. Eventually, if they’re lucky, a Delilah comes into their lives.”
“As in Samson-and?” Donovan chuckled. “You’re planning on giving young Douglass a haircut?”
“I don’t really think that’s what Delilah did to Samson,” Charity said. “But if that’s what it takes . . .”
Both Donovan and Douglass laughed, but Douglass’s laughter seemed a little strained. If he had correctly understood Charity, and he was afraid he had, she had as much as said that she was going to drain Doug sexually to the point where straying would be physically impossible.
A buzzer buzzed four times.
“The Director has arrived,” Charity said. “Are you going to meet him outside, or would it be better if we all prostrated ourselves in the entrance foyer?”
Donovan laughed heartily. He genuinely enjoyed Charity Hoche.