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“You’ve got an airplane? You’re not flying in this shit?”

"Oh, ye of little faith! ” Whittaker said.

“But get dressed, Doug, it’s getting worse,” Canidy said.

Douglass looked at Kennedy as he pulled on clean Jockey shorts.

“You realize, of course, Lieutenant,” he said, “that running around with these two is going to ruin your naval career?”

“I don’t know who these gentlemen are,” Kennedy said somewhat stiffly, but smiling.

“We thought he was a pal of yours,” Whittaker said.

“My name is Kennedy,” the j.g. said. “I came here from London to talk to you, Major Douglass.”

“Talk to me? About what?”

“Saint-Lazare,” Kennedy said.

“You drove from London in the rain in that jeep?” Whittaker said incredulously.

“That’s right,” Kennedy said. “It’s really important.”

“I don’t want to talk about Saint-Lazare,” Douglass said coldly as he put his arms in the sleeves of a shirt.

"Your name is Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.,” Cani

dy said. “Right?”

“Yes, sir,” Kennedy said, visibly surprised that the major knew his name.

“I thought you said you didn’t know him?” Douglass asked.

“I know about him,” Canidy said.

“May I ask how?” Kennedy asked.

“I’m not sure you have the need to know,” Canidy said.

“I know him,” Whittaker said. “You went to school in Cambridge, right?”

“If you mean Harvard, yes, I did.”

“Jim Whittaker,” Whittaker said, putting out his hand. “’Thirty-nine. I thought you looked familiar.”

Kennedy shook the offered hand.

“I can’t place you,” he said. “Sorry.”

“You more than once knocked me on my ass playing lacrosse,” Whittaker said.

Kennedy still didn’t make any connection. He shrugged and shook his head. “No.”

“Well, I hate to cut off auld lang syne,” Canidy said, “but we have to get off the ground in the next ten minutes, or we will be stuck here until tomorrow. ”

“With respect, sir, I drove all the way from London to see Major Douglass,” Kennedy said. “I really have to talk to him.”

"Sorry,” Douglass said. “I am all talked out about Saint-Lazare.”