"What can we do for you, Miss Priestly?” Pickering asked.
“Didn’t Captain McCoy tell you?” she asked. “In exchange for me not writing one story, he promised he would give me an exclusive story about something else I’m afraid to mention, not knowing how many secrets McCoy shares with his wife. No offense, Ernie.”
General Pickering chuckled.
“I don’t think Captain McCoy has any secrets from his wife,” he said. “How was the cruise, Miss Priestly?”
“It was absolutely awful, frankly,” she said. “Anyway, until what happens happens, I’m going to stick to these two”—she indicated McCoy and Taylor—“like glue.”
“Fair enough,” Pickering said.
“And I also wondered if there was any news about Pick.”
Pickering signaled McCoy with his eyes not to mention the photographs McCoy had gotten from Dunn.
“Unfortunately, no,” Pickering said.
“Damn,” she said.
“Where’s the film you shot on the Wind of Good Fortune? ” McCoy asked.
“In here,” she said, tapping her purse.
“I forgot to impound it,” McCoy said. “Or to tell Taylor to. May I have it, please?”
“You still don’t trust me?”
“Let’s say I’m cautious by nature,” McCoy said.
“Give them to me, please, Miss Priestly,” Pickering said. “You have my word you’ll get them back.”
She shrugged, opened her purse, and took from it a rubberized bag and handed it to Pickering.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Is it really all right to talk?” she asked.
Pickering nodded.
“How are you coming with the boats?” she asked McCoy.
“What boats?” Pickering asked.
“Do you suppose I could have that roll?” Jeanette asked, pointing at one on Pickering’s bread plate. “I’m really starved.”
“Of course,” Pickering said.
“You didn’t eat?” McCoy said.
"We had some powdered eggs at K-1 about 0500,” Taylor said.
“Nothing here?” McCoy asked.
“I told you,” Jeanette said. “This couldn’t come here looking like this did when this got off the Queen Mary. That took a little time.”
“You told me to sit on her,” Taylor said, not amused. “I sat on her. I sat in her room in the Press Club while she had a bath, and the rest of it, and then I took her to my room while I had a quick shower. No, I didn’t eat either.”
“We can fix that,” Ernie McCoy said, and walked to the telephone, picked it up, and, in Japanese, asked for room service.
“What boats?” General Pickering asked again.
“Didn’t Ken tell you?” Jeanette said. “We’re going to need a couple of boats to move the men from Tokchok-kundo to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do. We can’t use the Wind of Good Fortune. Not only can’t we count on having enough water under the rudder, but a junk makes a lousy landing craft.”
“ ‘We’re going to need a couple of boats’?” Pickering parroted.
“You weren’t listening, General, when I said I wasn’t going to let Captain Bligh and Jean Lafitte out of my sight until this operation is over. That means when they go to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, the Chicago Tribune is going to be there.”
“Which one is Captain Bligh?” Pickering asked, smiling.
She pointed at Taylor.
“And it fits, too,” she said. “Taylor told me Bligh was really the good guy, and Fletcher Christian a mutineer who should have been hung.”
Pickering chuckled.
“That’s true,” he said. “Bligh was also a hell of a sailor. He sailed the longboat from the Bounty a hell of a long way, after they put him over the side. Okay, Captain Bligh, tell me about the boats.”
“She said it, sir,” Taylor said. “We’re going to need a couple of boats. Maybe small lifeboats. Just large enough to carry eight, ten, men and their equipment. It would be better if they had small engines, maybe even outboards— it’s a long row from Tokchok-kundo to either Taemuui-do or Yonghung-do. But in a pinch we can make do with just oars.”
“The first thing I thought was ‘no problem,’ ” Pickering said. “We’ll see if P&FE here can’t come up with a couple of boats. But that doesn’t answer the question of how to get them to Tokchok-kundo, and quickly and quietly, does it?”
“No, sir,” McCoy said. “And if we go to the Navy, they’d want to know what we want them for.”
“And even if we could talk our way around that, we still would have to get them to Tokchok-kundo,” Pickering said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I just thought of a long shot,” Pickering said. “Taylor, do you know who Admiral Matthews is?”
“The Englishman?”
Pickering nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there anybody you could call at the Dai-Ichi Building and get his number, without it getting around that you asked for it?”