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“Operative words, Colonel, ‘would even consider staying.’”
Again, Ashton didn’t reply.
“If nothing else, you can now, for the rest of your life, legitimately refer to yourself as ‘colonel’ when telling tales of your valiant service in World War Two to Cuban señoritas whom you wish to despoil before marriage.”
“Sometimes it was really rough,” Ashton said. “Either the steak would be overcooked, or the wine improperly chilled. Once, I even fell off my polo pony.”
“Modesty becomes you, but we both know what you did in Argentina.”
“And once I was struck by a hit-and-run driver while getting out of a taxi.”
“That, too.”
“I really wish, Admiral, that you meant what you said to the adjutant general.”
“Excuse me?”
“That you desperately need me.”
“They say, and I believe, that no man is indispensable. But that said, I really wish you weren’t—what?—‘champing at the bit’ to hang up your uniform. With you and Frade both getting out—and Cletus wouldn’t stay on active duty if they made him a major general—finding someone to run Operation Ost down there is going to be one hell of a problem.”
Ashton raised his hand over his head.
When Souers looked at him in curiosity, he said, nodding toward the toilet, “No, sir. I am not asking permission to go back in there.”
“This is what they call an ‘unforeseen happenstance,’” Admiral Souers said after a moment. “You’re really willing to stay on active duty?”
Ashton nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“I have to ask why, Max.”
“When I thought about it, I realized I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life making rum, or growing sugarcane,” Ashton said. “And I really would like to get the bastards who did this to me.”
He raised both the en-casted arm resting on his chest and his en-casted broken leg.
“I was hoping you would say because you see it as your duty, or that you realize how important Operation Ost is, something along those lines.”
“Who was it who said ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’?”
“Samuel Johnson said it. I’m not sure I agree with it. And I won’t insult you, Max, by suggesting you are unaware of the importance of Operation Ost. But I have to point out Romans 12:19.” When he saw the confusion on Ashton’s face, the admiral went on: “‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ Or words to that effect.”
“The Lord can have his after I have mine,” Ashton said. “When do you become our nation’s spymaster?”
“That title belongs to General Donovan, and always will,” Souers said. “If you’re asking when the President will issue his Executive Order establishing the United States Directorate of Central Intelligence, January first.”
“Let me ask the rude question, sir,” Ashton said. “And how does General Donovan feel about that?”
“Well, the Directorate will be pretty much what he recommended. Starting, of course, with that it will be a separate intelligence agency answering only to the President.”
“I meant to ask, sir, how he feels about not being named director?”
Souers considered his reply before giving it.
“Not to go outside this room, I suspect he’s deeply disappointed and probably regrets taking on J. Edgar Hoover. My personal feeling is that the President would have given General Donovan the Directorate if it wasn’t for Hoover.”
“The President is afraid of Hoover?”
