"You went to Guadalcanal," she said.

Yeah, I did. And I was wrong.

"You allowed Moore to be sent to Guadalcanal because he posed a potential threat to your reputation, and MAGIC be damned."

"Flem, you were gone. I was lonely. He was persistent. It happened. I was trying to stop it. I knew it was wrong. All I was trying to do-"

"Was save your skin. And MAGIC be damned," Pickering interrupted her.

"Why don't you just have me shot, then?"

"I considered it. Banning would almost certainly see that as the best solution. It is still an option."

She looked at him, and he met her eyes. And after a moment he saw in them that she believed him. But he saw too, in her eyes, that she wasn't going to grant the point.

"We're both saying things we don't mean again, aren't we?"

"I have said nothing I don't mean. I'm getting tired of this, Ellen. You either accept the option of becoming our briefer, and thus saving Pluto's and Moore's time, as well as the careers of the people you've been sleeping with..."

"Including yours?"

"... or you don't."

"This conversation is unbelievable," Ellen said. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Fleming. I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to walk out of here and forget we ever had it."

She glared at him defiantly for a moment, as if waiting for his response. Then she turned and walked to the door.

Just as she reached it, it opened inward and three men in civilian clothing moved inside. One of them spun her around and twisted her arm behind her back. Ellen screamed. The man put his hand over her mouth. The second man pulled her uniform skirt up, high enough to clear her stocking. Then he jabbed a hypodermic needle like a dart into the skin of her upper thigh and carefully depressed the plunger.

He removed the needle, then looked at Ellen Feller's eyes.

The third man moved to Fleming Pickering.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Pickering glared at him.

"What was that he injected?"

"Not what it should have been," the man said. "It won't kill her."

"God damn it!"

The man walked past him and picked up the CIC report.

"What happens to that, now?" Pickering asked.

"I don't think we'll have to use it," the man said.

Pickering looked on while Ellen Feller, as if she were drunk, was half carried, half walked out of the house between the first two men. The man with the report walked after them. He stopped at the door and turned to face Pickering.

"General, for what it's worth, I've been thinking that this is the difference between us and the Japs. If I was in the Kempe Tai, she would be long dead. What we do with people like this is lock them up somewhere until the war is over, and then turn them loose."

Then he was gone.

Pickering moved to the bar and took a bottle of scotch and poured three inches in a water glass. Then he picked up the glass and very carefully poured the whiskey back into the bottle. He felt eyes on him, and looked over his shoulder.

George Hart had come into the room.

"They know what they're doing, don't they?" Hart said. "That was pretty impressive, the way they handled her."

Don't open your mouth, Fleming Pickering. No matter what comes out, it will be the wrong thing to say.

He turned back to the bottle and put his hand on it.

"I was talking with the Colonel before you came back," Hart said. "He used to be a homicide captain in Chicago."

"Ls that so?"

"Yeah, cops can spot each other. He was surprised that I hadn't gone in the Army, and the MPs."

"Well, now that you have learned what a sterling fellow and four-star hypocrite I am, Hart, would you like me to see if I can use my influence and have you transferred to the CIC?"

Hart didn't reply. He walked up to the bar, freed the bottle from Pickering's grip, and poured an inch in the glass.

"No, Sir," he said. "I'd like to stick around, if that's all right with you."

He put the glass in Pickering's hand.

"You know what my father told me when I joined the force?" he asked. "He said that I should never forget that women are twice as dangerous as men."

Pickering drained the glass.

"I'll try to remember that, George," Pickering said. "Thank you very much."

"What you should remember, General, is that she was really dangerous. I was hoping that the Colonel could talk you out of sending her home. She didn't give a good goddamn how many people she got killed."

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, looked at Second Lieutenant George Hart, USMCR, for a moment.

I'll be a sonofabitch, he means it! He thinks I should have gone along with that bastard's recommendation that I let them "remove" her.

At least I didn't do that.

So what does that make me, the Good Samaritan?

"Would you like a drink, George? And can we please change the subject?"

"Yes, Sir," Hart said, and reached for the bottle. "Except for one thing."

"Which is?"

"I don't think Lieut-Major Pluto or Moore could handle knowing about this. I don't think we should tell them. Let him think she got sick and they flew her home."

"Whatever you think, George. You're probably right."

"Can I ask, Sir, for a favor?"

"What?"

"I'd really like to have a couple copies of those pictures of me with General MacArthur to send to my folks. And my girl. Could I get some, do you think?"

"I'm sure we can," Pickering said. "The next time you're in the Palace, go to the Signal Section and tell them I sent you."

"Yes, Sir."

I wonder what El Supremo would think if he knew what just happened. Will he find out? Or is that something else not worthy of the Supreme Commander's attention, and from which he will be spared by his loyal staff?

If the decision was Mac Arthur's, would he have done what I did? Or would he have gone along with the Colonel and George and "removed" her?