The Fighting Agents (Men at War 4)

"In that case, you can buy your own hamburgers," Whittaker said as he took his tunic from a bentwood coatrack.

An hour and a half later, a lieutenant commander signed them into his log, then took them past a Marine MP guarding access to a gray painted steel door

With RADIO ROOM--POSITIVELY NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS painted On it.

The officer on watch, a young lieutenant j.g. with a blond crew cut, got up from his desk and walked to meet them.

"These people wish to use one of your transmitters," the lieutenant commander said.

"They have their own operator."

"Sir?" the j.g. asked, not sure he had heard correctly.

"We'd like to use that Collins, Lieutenant," Chief Ellis said, nodding his head toward one of a row of transmitters lining the wall.

The j.g. looked at the lieutenant commander for instructions. Strange people coming into the transmitter room was unusual; it was absolutely out of the lieutenant's experience that they should be given access to the equipment.

"Do it, Mr. Fenway," the lieutenant commander said.

"Aye, aye, Sir," the j.g. said, and motioned Garvey to follow him. He led him to a small cubicle holding a telegrapher's key, a typewriter, and a control panel. Garvey, still wearing his peacoat, pulled up a chair and reached for a set of earphones.

He tapped the key tentatively, then adjusted set screws on its base and tried it again. He rolled paper into the typewriter, then tuned both the receiver and the transmitter.

Then he started to tap the key.

Ellis and Whittaker walked and stood behind him, and looked over his shoulder.

"All they've got is an old M94," Ellis said.

"There's no sense even trying to encrypt. We're talking in the clear."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Whittaker said.

"It's a coding device," Ellis explained.

"But we have to presume the Japs got at least one of them."

"Oh," Whittaker said.

"When we raise them, you're going to have to think of some way to find out if this Withers guy is the one you were with, and do it so the Japs will be as confused as possible."

"Ask him if he still has the watch," Whittaker said.

"Call him Sergeant Boomboom. Sign it, Polo."

Garvey's fingers flew over the typewriter keys. It was an automatic reaction to what he had heard in his earphones. Ellis and Whittaker looked at what he had typed:

MFS FOR KGS BY

"Send "For Sergeant Boomboom,"" Ellis ordered, ""Have you got the watch.

Signed Polo."" Garvey tapped the message out with his key.

"What's with the watch?" Ellis asked.

"I gave him my watch, just before I left," Whittaker said.

There was a long wait before Garvey started typing again.