“I reserve the right to kidnap you at any time. It was in the small print of your commissioning oath. Have a seat. Let’s eat.”

General Duncan took the third chair at the table. With the wave of his hand the servant appeared, bringing him an iced tea, followed by a second servant who carried a tray with three plates of food. The plates were covered by the kind of metal lids that were often found on hotel room-service food. The servant set the plates delicately onto the table before each of them and lifted off the metal lids one at a time, revealing a pretty fine meal of beef stroganoff and mixed vegetables.

As the plates arrived, Condley watched the etched face of his longtime friend and then let his eyes drop down to the eight rows of ribbons on Duncan’s chest. He was remembering all the months they were together before, when it had been too hot to eat during the day and too dangerous to cook over a little tin stove made of a punctured C-ration can at night. They’d both lost twenty pounds very quickly, even before Condley caught hookworms from the wormy water and lost ten more.

Duncan was a fighter, one of the best company commanders of that long-ago war. And he had been smart enough and smooth enough and lucky enough over the ensuing years to have made it past all the wickets, the little traps in the promotion process where the gunfighters so often fell prey to the shrewdness of accomplished staff officers. Not only to make general officer, but to have commanded a division after that, then a Marine Expeditionary Force, and now all of the Marine Corps forces in the entire Pacific.

“So I can swear in front of your wife?”

Maureen laughed throatily, fully relaxed now that Duncan had arrived. “I taught high school for twenty years, Mr. Condley. I don’t think there’s much you can do that would surprise me.”

“Don’t give him a challenge!” roared General Duncan, his face afire with memories. “The boy has a very active imagination. Believe me, Maureen, he could surprise you.” He softened, slapping Condley on a shoulder. “It’s good to see you, even if I did have to arrest you in order to buy you lunch.”

“Nice place you’ve got here,” teased Condley as the servants again disappeared. “Kind of reminds me of Gone With the Wind. Do the slaves turn back your bed at night? Leave a little mint on your pillow?”

“Actually the mess attendants are here in your honor,” said Duncan dryly. “I fragged them from the flag mess for a VIP lunch.”

And finally Condley could hold it back no longer. “Skipper, what do you want? I haven’t had food like this in years.”

“I want you to enjoy a good meal,” said the general. “And we’ll talk when we’re done.”