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Board involved would only release a steamroller that could bury these guys."
    Hammond wilted. The admiral was right. Sticking his nose into this was a mistake. It would be better to close the book and forget it, Jan's feelings notwithstanding. He was tempted.       
    "Excuse me, Nicky, for getting personal, but this whole thing is kind of funny."
    "How so, sir?"
    "Your ex-girl friend's husband—and you're going out of your way to help him? That's what I call chivalry."
    "Would you mind, sir, if I spend some time on it?"
    "And what am I supposed to do with Okinawa? Certainly not!"
    "Spare time, sir."       
    "You have spare time?" Gault chuckled in his throat.
    "I'll give up going to the can." Hammond hated having to resort to jokes, but Gault wouldn't take this seriously.
    "Exactly what do you want to do?"
    "Run down that code number."
    Gault grunted. There was a silence as he covered the mouthpiece, then Hammond heard him come back. "You leave for Okinawa in forty-eight hours. What you do until then is your business, but if it doesn't turn out to be NIS business, drop it."
    Hammond hung up, unnerved, and turned his attention back to the code number. He studied it for a few minutes, trying to shake Gault's warning from his mind, then called the Office of Naval Research and asked for the Code Division. A young civilian bureaucrat politely informed him, "Sorry, sir, that doesn't come under ONR jurisdiction. Better check with NAVINTCOM."
    Hammond groaned and hung up, then ripped through the directory. Under NAVINTCOM there were two possibilities: Intelligence Research Department and Internal Cryptography. He mumbled to himself about the idiotic proliferation of bureaus within bureaus, then tried Internal Cryptography. Dead end. They turned out to be a merry little band whose job it was to create codes for Naval Intelligence use only, not for the Navy at large.
    A lieutenant in the Intelligence Research Department listened to him describe the code, then said in hushed tones, "Can't handle that over the phone, Commander."
    "For Christ's sake," yelled Hammond, "this is the fucking Pentagon!"
    "Sorry, sir. You'll have to appear in person."
    Hammond stormed down one floor to the offices occupied by Naval Intelligence Command. He found the Research Department and confronted the lieutenant, who looked to be a recent college graduate. Fresh-faced, crew-cut, crisply uniformed, Lieutenant Armbruster completely disregarded Hammond's demands and asked why he wanted to have the information.
    Hammond restrained himself and said calmly, "Before you decide that it's classified, why don't we find out what it is?"
    With Hammond breathing over his shoulder, Lieutenant Armbruster researched the code-number digits and came up empty-handed, and deeply concerned.
    "This is a special setup," he admitted. "Obviously designed to be closed to scrutiny."
    "That's what a code usually is," cracked Hammond.
    "Well, I've never come across a designation quite like it."
    What? In all your years? Hammond was tempted to ask. Instead he said, "Then how was it set up in the Navy computers?"
    Armbruster was upset. He had no idea.  
    "Sorry I ruined your day," said Hammond. "If you do come up with the answer, let me know. And, Armbruster, keep it at your level. Don't let it get any higher."
    "Yes, sir. I'll track it down if it takes me a week."
    A week, thought Hammond. The guy could be on this job till he retires.
     
    Hammond was in a dark mood as he returned to the NIS complex. The receptionist held up several sheets of Xerox paper. "Someone from NAVSEACOM dropped these off for you," she said.
    Hammond examined them as he walked back to his cubicle, his stomach growling for lunch. Now he had the list of ships he had requested, the names "and numbers of every destroyer escort stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard between 1951 and 1953. He sat at his desk and pored through them, looking for something even vaguely familiar. It seemed hopeless.
    He was