Buchanan filled his glass again before replying.
"I thought about that, General," he said.
"It may be... maybe even probably is... a reply to your message to the Secretary of War. And it just might mean exactly what it says."
"That we should be patient, that they are sending help?"
"I wonder at what point you want something so desperately that you lose sight of reality and imagine you see what you're looking for behind every bush," Buchanan said.
"But?"
"The message is from the Joint Chiefs," Buchanan said.
"And we have a 'we are pissed' message from MacArthur. Which just might mean MacArthur has been asked to explain why no help has been sent to us. Or even that he has been ordered to get off his ass and send some."
"Yes," Fertig said softly, thoughtfully.
"Could be."
"And if I wanted to get a message to somebody who doesn't have any cryptographic equipment worth a damn," Buchanan went on, "it would run through my mind to send a message in slang, in the clear, and hope that the Japs wouldn't understand the slang, and would try to decode the slang."
"We have heard from MacArthur about the Secretary of War message," Fertig said, "and there was no reply to our message about VD medicine."
"That might be because it would be beneath the generalissimo's dignity to acknowledge. Nobody talks to MacArthur that way."
"You really think there was more to that message than what we got-specifically, a rank and a job title?" Fertig asked.
"I think there just had to be."
"If there was a message, it seems common decency would have required MacArthur, or Willoughby, to relay it to us. To make sure we got it."
Buchanan shrugged.
""Common decency,"" he parroted bitterly.
"The last time I saw the Generalissimo," Fertig said, "was in the Manila Club. There was a buffet. MacArthur, of course, and his queen and the crown prince didn't stand in the line. But I went through it with my wife. And as we walked to our table, we had to squeeze around their table. He was in a planter's white suit. I had a large bowl of shrimp bisque. I will regret for the rest of my life not having had an accident with it."
Buchanan laughed.
"It may be, Buchanan," Fertig said, "that help is on the way. But I think it
more likely that you and I are sitting here with five ounces of Orfett's pineapple white lightning in us, seeing things we want to see behind bushes that just aren't there. I don't want any of this to go any further than you or me."
"No, Sir," Buchanan said. And then he blurted, "But sooner or later, Christ, they're going to have to do something, aren't they?"
"Sooner or later," Fertig said.
[SEVEN]
Batthyany Palace
Standartenfuhrer SS-SD Johann Muller came into the sitting room of the Countess's apartment in Batthyany Palace and quickly glanced around the room, taking in Canidy and Ferniany, who were sitting on a couch before a gilt coffee table.
/> There was no expression on his face.
'"Tag," he said, then started to unbutton his black leather overcoat. He hung it carefully on the back of a Louis XIV chair and then moved the chair to a position near one of the two white porcelain stoves. Then he moved the chair a foot farther away.
"If you get it too close, it cracks and dries the leather," he explained.