“Good to see you, Jimmy,” he said. “How did you find the place in Virginia?”
“I’d been there before,” Jimmy said. “And Staley drew a map. No problem.”
“Why do I suspect you purposely misunderstood me?” Donovan asked.
“You mean ‘what did I think of the place’?”
Donovan nodded.
“Baker and I crossed swords again,” Whittaker said. “He seems to feel I ‘manifested a belligerent and uncooperative attitude.’ I also ‘subjected a trainee to public humiliation.’ ”
“Oh, Jimmy,” Donovan said, both angry and resigned. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Well, the belligerent and uncooperative attitude is something that seems to happen when I get in the same room with Baker,” Whittaker said. “It seems to be contagious. Canidy has the same thing happen to him.”
“We’re talking about you, not Dick Canidy,” Donovan said. “What happened with the trainee? What was he doing so wrong you felt you had to humiliate him?”
“Her,” Whittaker corrected him. “I kissed her.”
“Cynthia?” Donovan asked. Whittaker nodded. “I don’t know why I’m smiling,” Donovan added. “I’m sure she didn’t think it was funny. You’ll notice that I am assuming she didn’t want to be kissed.”
“That girl doesn’t know what she wants,” Whittaker said. “For example, she has some absurd notion that she wants to go operational. When I saw her, she was all dressed up in fatigues and carrying a Springfield at port arms. I found her irresistible. I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of that?”
“You made your peace with Baker?” Donovan asked.
“I left,” Whittaker said. “He’s probably still mad.”
“You left?” Donovan asked, confused. “You mean, when Ellis came for you?”
“I left about thirty minutes after I got there,” Whittaker said. “I’ve been at the house.”
“I left orders that you were to be taken out there,” Donovan said coldly.
“Staley told me,” Whittaker said. “He was pretty insistent. ”
Donovan looked at him coldly, waiting for a further explanation.
“I could offer some excuse, like I would probably have broken Baker’s arms if I stayed, but the real reason I left was that Baker was acting as if he was controlling me.”
“That’s what he’s paid to do,” Donovan said sharply.
“I don’t know what you’ve got planned for me, why I’m here and not in Australia, but if it means that Baker is my control, you’re going to have to get yourself another boy.”
“You can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, Jim,” Donovan said. “And this is one of them. Just who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
Whittaker’s reply came a long moment later.
“I know I’m talking to the head of the OSS,” he said. “Not Uncle Bill, who used to bounce me on his knee. I’m not asking for any special treatment. I don’t know what my alternatives are, but whatever they are, I’ll take them, rather than go anywhere with him as my control.”
Donovan glared at him.
“You have a reason for feeling that way, I presume?”
“There are two kinds of controls,” Whittaker said. “Both profess great sadness when somebody gets bagged. One kind means it. Baker is the other kind. Baker is too willing to accept risks with somebody else’s life. He sees ‘the big picture’ much too clearly.”
They locked eyes for a moment, and then Donovan asked, “Did Ellis mention anything about dinner tonight?”
The question surprised Whittaker.
“No,” he said. “He didn’t.” Then he thought a moment. “Don’t tell me I’m to have dinner with Baker?”
“Not with Baker,” Donovan said. And then, when he was sure in his own mind that Ellis hadn’t said anything about the dinner and that Whittaker in fact did not know, he added, “With the President.”
“Oh?” Whittaker said.
“There will be no repetition, nothing remotely resembling a repetition of what happened the last time you had dinner with him,” Donovan said.
“I was a little crazy the last time,” Whittaker said. “And I don’t want to find myself locked up in a loony bin again.”
“You take my point,” Donovan said evenly.
Whittaker nodded. “Is dinner his idea, or yours?” he asked.
“His idea,” Donovan said. “But when I told him you were in Washington, I was pretty sure he’d want to see you.”
“You’re being devious again,” Whittaker said.
“Trust me, Jimmy,” Donovan said, smiling.
“You, I trust,” Whittaker said.
“Ellis has some dossiers, and some other material, I want you to look at,” Donovan said. “By the time you’re finished, I should be finished here; and we can go over to the house.”
The President of the United States traveled from 1600 Pennsylvania to Embassy Row in a four-car convoy: There was a District of Columbia police