Under Fire

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W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

THE CORPS is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Second Lieutenant Drew James Barrett III, USMC Company K, 3d Battalion, 26th Marines Born Denver, Colorado, 3 January 1945 Died Quang Nam Province, Republic of Vietnam, 27 February 1969 and Major Alfred Lee Butler III, USMC Headquarters 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit Born Washington, D.C., 4 September 1950 Died Beirut, Lebanon, 8 February 1984 and To the memory of Donald L. Schomp a Marine fighter pilot who became a legendary U.S. Army Master Aviator RIP 9 April 1989 "Semper Fi!"

Prologue

In 1944, Vice President Henry A. Wallace was perceived by many-perhaps most-highly placed Democrats to be a genuine threat to the reelection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He was cordially detested by the Republicans-and many conservative Southern Democrats-both for his lib-eral domestic policies and his unabashed admiration of the Soviet Union.

Perhaps equally important, the poor-and declining-health of President Roosevelt, while carefully concealed from the American public, was no secret to many Republi-cans, including their probable candidate for the presi-dency, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

There was a real threat that Dewey might make it an is-sue in the campaign: "Roosevelt, if reelected, probably won't live through his term. Do you want Henry Wallace in the Oval Office? Or me?"

Wallace, it was decided, had to go.

For his running mate, Roosevelt picked Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, who, while an important senator, was not part of the President's inner circle.

It was a brilliant political choice. Truman had earned nationwide recognition for his chairmanship of a Senate committee investigating fraud and waste by suppliers of war materials. "The Truman Committee" was a near-weekly feature on the newsreels at the nation's movie palaces, showing a nice-looking man visibly furious at contractors caught cheating the government and the mili-tary officers who'd let them get away with it.

And he couldn't be accused of being antimilitary, either, for he had served with distinction as a captain of artillery in France in World War I, and he had retired as a colonel from the Missouri National Guard.

The Roosevelt-Truman ticket won the election in a land-slide. Vice President Truman appeared with Roosevelt at the inauguration, and then was more or less politely told to go away and not make a nuisance of himself while Roo-sevelt and his far-better-qualified cronies ran the country.

During the first eighty-one days of his fourth term, Pres-ident Roosevelt met with Vice President Truman twice, and they were not alone on either occasion.

On the eighty-second day of his fourth term-April 12, 1945-while vacationing in Warm Springs, Georgia, with a lady not his wife, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died suddenly.

That made it urgently necessary to bring President Harry S. Truman up to speed on a number of matters it had been decided he really didn't have to know about, including a new weapon called the Atomic Bomb.

And to tell him of some disturbing theories advanced by the intelligence community-most significantly the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)-that Josef Stalin had no inten-tion of going back to Mother Russia to lick his war wounds, but rather saw the inevitable postwar chaos as an opportunity to bring the joys of communism to the rest of the world.

There had already been proof:

The U.S.S.R-which was to say Stalin-had forced the King of Romania to appoint a Communist-dominated gov-ernment; Tito's Communists had assumed control of Yu-goslavia; Communists were dominant in Hungary and Bulgaria (where a reported 20,000 people had been liqui-dated). In Poland, when Polish underground leaders ac-cepted an invitation to "consult" with Red Army officers, they had been arrested and most of them had then "van-ished."

And Stalin had made no secret of his intentions. Shortly before the end of the war, the OSS reported, he had told Yu-goslav Communist Milovan Djilas, "In this war each side imposes its system as far as its armies can reach. It cannot be otherwise."

President Harry S. Truman had been in office less than a month when-at 2:41 am. on May 8, 1945, at General Dwight Eisenhower's Reims, France, headquarters-Ger-many surrendered to the Allies.

Three days later, on May 11, 1945, Truman abruptly or-dered the termination of Lend-Lease aid to the U.S.S.R. But then, on the advice of left-leaning Harry Hopkins, Tru-man made what he later acknowledged was a major mis-take. To assure Stalin of American postwar goodwill, he kept silent about the "vanished" and imprisoned Polish leaders, and then recognized the "new" Polish government in Warsaw as legitimate, although he knew that it consisted almost entirely of Soviet surrogates.

In July, Truman met with Stalin at Potsdam, Germany, outside Berlin. Truman came away convinced that Roo-sevelt was wrong: "Uncle Joe" could not be treated like a difficult senator and bribed with a couple of highways and a new post office in his hometown; he had every intention of taking over the world.

Truman returned from Potsdam, thought it over, and or-dered that the atomic bomb be used against Japan. Use of the bomb would, he reasoned, primarily save the lives of the 500,000 American servicemen whom the military ex-perts expected to die in a "conventional" invasion of the Japanese home islands.

It might also, Truman hoped, convince "Uncle Joe" to behave. Only a fool or a maniac would risk war against a nation equipped with the most devastating weapon ever developed.

On August 6,1945, Hiroshima was literally obliterated by an atomic bomb. On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The next day, as the Red Army marched into Manchuria against the Kwantung Army, which could offer only token resistance, a B-29 dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

On September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Mis-souri, in Tokyo Harbor, Japanese foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru, on behalf of Emperor Hirohito, un-conditionally surrendered the Japanese empire to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, the officer Truman had designated as Supreme Commander, Allied Powers.

Even before the official Japanese surrender, senior Navy and Marine officers knew-again, substantially from re-ports of OSS agents in China-that the civil war in China, between the Communists under Mao Tse-tung, and the Na-tionalists under Chiang Kai-shek, was a threat to world stability that the United States was going to have to deal with, and that the Marines would most likely be sent there to do the dealing.

Less than forty-eight hours after the surrender, a warn-ing order was issued to the Marines-who had been gath-ered together in the III Amphibious Corps, and who had been training for the invasion of the Japanese home is-lands-to prepare to move to China.

In October 1945-a month later-Truman, by Presiden-tial Directive, "disestablished" the Office of Strategic Ser-vices (OSS).

The joke whispered around Washington was that it was the only way Truman could see to get rid of William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who had headed the organization since its birth-also by Presidential Directive-in June 1942.

Donovan, who had won the Medal of Honor in France in World War I, had been a law school classmate of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and a lifelong crony. While there was little doubt that it was an effective tool of war, it-and Donovan-was cordially detested by the military estab-lishment, and there is little doubt the very senior brass en-couraged the new Commander-in-Chief whenever they had his ear, to quickly put it out of business

Whatever the reasons, the OSS-its detractors said that OSS meant "Oh, So Social"-was "disestablished" and the vast majority of its 12,000 men and women almost in-stantly released to their civilian pursuits. The very small percentage of OSS personnel who were members of the "regular" military establishment were returned to the reg-ular Marine Corps, Army, and Navy, where they were most often greeted with less-than-wide-open welcoming arms.

Truman, who was never reluctant to admit he`d made a mistake, had by the early months of 1946 decided he'd made one in killing off the OSS.

By then, Soviet intentions were already becoming clear, and the bureaucratic infighting of the newly "freed" inde-pendent intelligence services of the Army, Navy, and State Department had made it clear that the nation did indeed need a central intelligence agency, whether or not the var-ious Princes of Intelligence liked it or not.

Truman, in yet another Presidential Directive, gave it one. He "established" the Central Intelligence Group and the National Intelligence Authority. Then, in 1947, he pushed through the Congress a bill making it law. The Central Intelligence Agency was born. Possibly as a sop to the regular military establishment, and possibly because he was singularly qualified for the post, Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, USN, was named first director of the CIA.

On March 5, 1946, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, British wartime Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill said, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

That was certainly true, but it wasn't Soviet Russia's only iron curtain.

There was another one in Korea, a peninsula extending into the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan from the Asian continent. It had been ruled, rather brutally, by Japan since 1895.

Almost casually, when the Soviet Union finally agreed to enter the war against Japan, it was decided that the Soviets would accept the surrender of Japanese forces in the north of Korea, and the Americans in the south. The 38th paral-lel divided Korea, just north of Seoul, into roughly equal halves, and the 38th parallel became the demarcation line.

Immediately upon moving into "their" sector of Korea, the Soviets put in power a Korean Marxist named Kim II Sung, and promptly turned the 38th parallel into an iron curtain just as impenetrable as the one in Europe.

The Soviet government expected that Japan would be di-vided as Germany had been, into four zones, each individ-ually controlled by the Four Powers-France, England, Russia, and the United States. But that wasn't going to happen.

The English and French presence in occupied Japan was negligible. Japan and the Japanese economy were in ruins. Japan could not be levied upon to support an occu-pation army, because they simply didn't have the where-withal. And the English and the French, themselves reeling from the expense of World War II, simply couldn't afford to pay for an Army of Occupation of Japan. The English were having great difficulty with India-which wanted out of the British Empire-and with the French, in what was known as Cochin-China and became known as Vietnam.

And, of course, the French and English had the expense of maintaining their armies in occupied Germany, now not so much to keep the defeated Germans in line as to prevent the Soviet Union from charging their armies through the Fulda Gap to take over continental Europe.

The British, additionally, were having a hard time sup-porting their forces in liberated Greece, where Communist forces-primarily Albanians supported by the Soviet Union-were trying to bring Greece into the Soviet orbit. In 1948, the British simply announced they could no longer afford to stay in Greece and were pulling out.

Truman picked up that responsibility, supplying the Greek army, and dispatching Lt. General James Van Fleet and an American military advisory group to Athens. The American anti-Communist battle in Greece-almost un-known to the American public-is considered by many to be the first "hot war" of the Cold War, and the American "advisors," many of whom fought in small groups "advis-ing" Greek units in the lines, as the precursor of U.S. Spe-cial Forces.

The absence of British and French forces in Japan made it easier for the Supreme Commander in Japan, Douglas MacArthur-who had no doubts of Soviet intentions, and didn't want his occupation of Japan facing the same prob-lems the Army of Occupation of Germany was facing vis-a--vis the Communists-simply to refuse to permit any Soviet presence in Japan.

The Soviets protested their being kept out of Japan to Truman, who ignored them.

Washington also ignored what was going on in Korea. The American commander, General John R. Hodge, in the absence of specific orders-in fact, any orders-from Washington, took matters into his own hands.

As early as late 1945, he began to establish, first, a South Korean police force, and then a South Korean army. To counter the Soviet surrogate, Kim II Sung, Hodge per-mitted an anti-Communist Korean, Syngman Rhee, then living in exile in the United States, to return to Korea.

By 1948, the division of Korea along the 38th parallel was complete. North and South Korea each had a presi-dent, a government, and armed forces, and each pro-claimed it was the sole legitimate government for the whole country.

The sole substantial difference between the two was that North Korea was far better armed-with captured Japa-nese and newly-furnished Soviet equipment-than South Korea. Fearing that the fiery Syngman Rhee would march against North Korea, the U.S. State Department prevailed upon Truman to deny South Korea heavy artillery, modern aircraft, and tanks, and ultimately to order all but a few hundred soldiers in a Greek-style "Korean military advi-sory group" out of the country.

Hostility between North and South Korea grew. In the eight months before June 1950, more than 3,000 South Ko-rean soldiers and border policemen died in "incidents" along the 38th parallel.

On January 12, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson outlined President Truman's Asian policy in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Acheson "drew a line" of countries the United States considered "essential to its national interests," a euphemism everyone understood to mean the United States would go to war to defend.

Acheson placed Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines within the American defense perimeter. Taiwan and Korea were not mentioned.

Five months later, on June 25, 1950, the North Koreans invaded across the 38th parallel.

Chapter One

[ONE]

ABOARD TRANS-GLOBAL AIRWAYS FLIGHT 907

NORTH LATITUDE 36 DEGREES 59 MINUTES,

EAST LONGITUDE 143 DEGREES 77 MINUTES

(ABOVE THE PACIFIC OCEAN, NEAR JAPAN)

1100 1 JUNE 1950

"This is the First Officer speaking," the copilot of Trans-Global Airways Flight 907 said into the public-address system microphone. "We are about to begin our descent into Tokyo's Haneda Airport, and have been advised it may get a little bumpy at lower altitudes. So please take your seats and fasten your seat belts, and very shortly we'll have you on the ground."

Trans-Global Flight 907 was a triple-tailed, five-months-old Lockheed L-1049 Constellation, christened Los Angeles.

The navigator, who wore pilot's wings, and who would move up to a copilot's seat when TGA accepted-next week, he hoped-what would be the eighteenth Constella-tion in the TGA fleet, did some calculations at his desk, then stood up and murmured, "Excuse me, sir," to the man in the jump seat.

The man in the jump seat (a fold-out seat between and immediately behind the pilot's and copilot's seats) looked over his shoulder at him in annoyance, finally realized what he wanted, muttered, "Sorry," and made room for the navigator to hand a sheet of paper to the copilot.

The navigator made his way back to his little desk, strapped himself in, and put on his earphones, in time to hear:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the First Officer again. I have just been advised by our navigator-this is all subject to official confirmation, of course-that it appears that a very, very favorable tailwind in the last few hours is proba-bly going to permit us to again set a world's record for the fastest regularly scheduled commercial flight time from San Francisco to Tokyo, with intermediate stops at Hon-olulu and Wake Island.

"The current speed record is held by a TGA Constella-tion flown by Captain M. S. Pickering, who is our captain today. If our computations are correct, and are confirmed by the appropriate authorities, TGA will be delighted to send each of you a certificate attesting to your presence aboard today. Keep your fingers crossed."

Captain M. S. Pickering turned and looked at the man in the jump seat.

"You'd better get in the back, Dad."

Fleming Pickering-a tall, large, well-tailored, silver-haired, rather handsome man who was, as he privately thought of it, One Year Past The Big Five Zero-nodded his acceptance of the order and moved to comply with it, al-though he had really hoped he would be permitted to keep the jump seat through the landing.

He wasn't wearing earphones and had not heard a word of either of the copilots' announcements.

He left the cockpit, musing that they were now starting to call it the "flight deck," and then, when he saw his seat and seatmate, musing that while there was a good deal to be said about the benefits of crossing the Pacific Ocean at 325 knots, there were certain drawbacks, high among them that if you found yourself seated beside a horse's ass when you first boarded the aircraft, you were stuck with the sonofabitch for the rest of the flight.

It was different on a ship; you could avoid people on a ship.

Had been different on a ship, he corrected himself. Pas-senger ships, ocean liners, were as obsolete as buggy whips. There once had been fourteen passenger ships in the Pacific and Far East fleet. Now there was one.

Pickering nodded politely at the horse's ass in the win-dow seat, sat down beside him, and fastened his seat belt.

"Up front, were you?" the horse's ass inquired. "I didn't know they let passengers go in the cockpit."

"My son is the pilot," Pickering said.

"And I guess if you're the pilot, you can break the rules for your old man, right?"

"And I work for the airline," Pickering said.

"No kidding? What do you do?"

"I'm in administration," Pickering said.

That was not the whole truth. Trans-Global Airways was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation. When the Wall Street Journal, in a story about Trans-Global, mentioned PandFE, it used the phrase "pri-vately held." The Pickering family owned PandFE, and Flem-ing Pickering, pater familias, was chairman of the board.

"So you're on a business trip?" the horse's ass asked.

"That's right," Pickering said, smiling with an effort.

That wasn't exactly true, either.

While it was true that he was going to Tokyo to participate in a conference between a dozen shipping companies-both air and what now had become "surface"-serving the Far East, it was also true that he was going to spend as little time as possible actually conferring with anyone. He was instead going to spend some time with a young couple-a Marine captain and his wife-who were stationed in Tokyo. He had never told either of them, but he regarded both of them as his children, although there was no blood connection.

When Pickering had been a young man, being groomed to take over PandFE from his father, Captain Richard Picker-ing, his father had told him over and over the basic rule of success as a mariner or a businessman: Find capable sub-ordinates, give them a clear mission, and then get out of their way and let them do their jobs.

Fleming Pickering had capable subordinates who knew what he expected of them. And-very likely, he thought, because he did not get in their way and let them do then-jobs-they did their jobs very well; in his opinion, far bet-ter than their peers elsewhere in the shipping business.

They would do the conferring in Tokyo, and he would not get in their way.

What had happened was, the previous Wednesday, Chairman of the Board Pickering had, as was his custom, arrived at his San Francisco office at precisely 9 a.m.

It was an impressive office, occupying the southwest quarter of the upper (tenth) story of the PandFE Building. In some ways, it was museumlike:

There were four glass cases. Two of the four held pre-cisely crafted models of each of the ninety-one vessels of the PandFE fleet, all built to the same scale, and each about two feet in length. There were tankers, bulk-carriers, freighters, and one passenger liner.

The other two glass cases held far larger models. In one was a six-foot-long, exquisitely detailed model of the clip-per ship Pacific Princess (Richard Pickering, Master), which had set-and still held-the San Francisco-Shanghai speed record for sailing vessels. The other glass case held a thirteen-foot-long model of the 51,000-ton SS Pacific Princess (Fleming Pickering, Master), a sleek passenger ship that had set-and still held-the San Francisco-Shang-hai speed record on her maiden voyage in 1941.

Hanging on nearly invisible wires above the clipper's glass case was a model of a Chance Vought Corsair F4U fighter aircraft. It had been built by the same firm of crafts-men who had built the ship models, and, like them, was correct in every detail. The legend "MARINES" was painted in large letters on the fuselage. Below it was let-tered VMF-229, and below the cockpit window was the legend "M.S. Pickering, Major, USMCR" and nine small representations of the Japanese battle flag, each signifying an enemy aircraft downed by Major Pickering.

Suspended above the glass case holding the model of the SS Pacific Princess, there was a model of the Trans-Global Airways Lockheed Model L049 Constellation San Francisco, a four-engined triple-tailed airliner, in which TGA Chief Pilot Captain Malcolm S. Pickering had set two world's records, one for fastest commercial aviation flight between San Francisco and Honolulu, and the other for fastest commercial aviation flight time between Hon-olulu and Shanghai. The latter record was probably going to be on the books for some time, because the Chinese Communists were now in Shanghai, and American air-lines were no longer welcome to land.

Behind the chairman's huge, antique mahogany desk, the huge wheel of the clipper ship Pacific Princess and her quarterdeck compass stood guarding an eight-by-twelve-foot map of the world

Every morning, at 6 a.m., just before the night opera-tions manager went off duty, he came up from the third floor, laid a copy of the more important overnight commu-nications-"the overnights"-on the chairman's desk, and then went to the map and moved ninety-one small ship models, on magnetic mounts, from one position to another on the map to correspond with their last reported position.

The previous Wednesday morning, at 9:01 a.m., Chair-man of the Board Pickering had taken a look at the map, read the overnights, poured himself a cup of coffee, and with that out of the way was, at 9:09 a.m., where he had been the day before at 9:09 a.m., and would almost cer-tainly be tomorrow at 9:09 a.m.

That is to say, bored stiff and without a goddamned thing to do for the rest of the day.

Unless one counted the Second Wednesday Luncheon of the Quarterback Club of the Greater San Francisco United Charities, Inc., and he hadn't even wanted to think about that.

Captain Richard Pickering had been right on the money about that sort of thing, too. "Flem," his father had coun-seled, "the trouble with giving people something is that, since they get it for nothing, they tend to consider it worth-less."

Fleming Pickering had long ago painfully come to conclude that what Greater San Francisco United Charities-and at least six other do-gooding or social or-ganizations-wanted of him was his name on the letter-head and his signature on substantial checks, and in exchange they were willing to listen politely to his sug-gestions at meetings, while reserving and invariably exer-cising their option to ignore them.

At 9:11 A.M., Mrs. Helen Florian, his secretary for more than two decades, had announced over the intercom, "Boss, Pick's on line three."

Pickering, who had been sitting with his feet on the windowsill, watching the activity-there hadn't been much-in San Francisco Bay, spun around, and grabbed the telephone. I am, he had realized, in one of my "Boy, do I feel sorry for Poor 0l' Flem Pickering " moods, and I don't want Pick picking up on that.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully. "What's up?" "Mom still in New York?" Pick asked. "I think today's Saint Louis," Pickering replied. "You know your mother."

A picture of his wife of thirty years-a tall, shapely, silver-haired woman with startlingly blue eyes-flashed through his mind. He missed her terribly, and not only be-cause she made him feel as if he were still twenty-one.

When Fleming Pickering had heard the sound of trum-pets and rushed off to the sound of musketry in World War II, Mrs. Patricia Foster Pickering had "temporarily" taken over for her husband as chairman of the PandFE board. Sur-prising everybody but her husband, she had not only imme-diately gathered the reins of authority in her delicate fingers, but pulled on them with consummate skill and artistry.

When he'd come home, there had been some talk of the both of them working at PandFE, but Patricia had known from the start that, if their marriage was to endure, she would have to find something to do other than share the control of PandFE with her husband.

The temporary chairman of the board of PandFE had be-come the chairman of the board of Foster Hotels, Inc., in part because she was the only daughter of Andrew Foster, majority stockholder of the forty-two-hotel chain, and partly because her father-who had wanted to retire-had made the cold business decision that she was the best-qualified person he could find to run the company.

While Patricia Foster Pickering shared her husband's- and her father's-belief that the best way to run an organi-zation was to select the best possible subordinates and then get out of their way, she also shared her father's belief that the best way to make sure your subordinates were doing what you wanted them to do was to "drop in unannounced and make sure there are no dust balls under the beds and that the liquid in the liquor bottles isn't colored water."

Which meant that she was on the road a good deal, most often from Tuesday morning until Friday evening. Which meant that her husband was most often free to rattle around-alone-in either their penthouse apartment in the Foster San Franciscan or their home on the Pacific Ocean near Carmel from Tuesday morning until Friday evening.

While he frequently reminded himself that he really had nothing to complain about-that in addition to his consid-erable material possessions, he had a wife who loved him, a son who loved him and of whom he was immensely proud, and his health-the truth was that every once in a while, say once a month, he slipped into one of his "Boy, do I feel sorry for Poor Ol' Flem Pickering" moods and, logic aside, he really felt sorry for Poor 01' Flem Pickering.

"Let's go to Tokyo," Pick said.

"Why should I go to Tokyo?"

"Because your alternative is watching the waves go up and down in San Francisco Bay until Mom gets home," Pick went on. "Come on, Pop. Let her wait for you for once."

It probably makes me a terrible husband, Fleming Pick-ering thought, but there would be a certain justice in having Patti rattle around the apartment waiting for me for once.

He had another thought:

"I thought it was decided you weren't going to Tokyo," he said.

He hadn't ordered Pick not to go to the conference, but he had happened to mention what Pick's grandfather had had to say about picking competent subordinates and then getting out of their way.

"Bartram Stevens of Pacific Cathay is going to be there. Charley Ansley called me from Hong Kong last night and told me. Charley doesn't want him pulling rank and taking over the conference; he asked me to go."

Bartram Stevens was president of Pacific Cathay Air-ways, which was to Trans-Pacific Shipping what Trans-Global was to PandFE. J. Charles Ansley, who had been with PandFE longer than Pick was old, was general manager of Trans-Global.

Charley didn't call me. There's no reason he should have, I suppose; he was asking/telling Pick to go, and that would be Pick's decision, not mine.

But if I needed one more proof that I am now as useless as teats on a boar hog around here, voila!

"And if I showed up over there, wouldn't that be raising the stakes?" Fleming Pickering thought aloud.

"With all possible respect, General, sir, what I had in mind-and Charley agrees-is to stash you quietly in the Imperial, but let the word get out that you're there. In case, for example, Commodore Ford just happened to be in the neighborhood."

Commodore Hiram Ford was chairman of the board of Trans-Pacific Shipping.

And that sonofabitch is entirely capable of showing up there and trying to take over the conference.

"This your idea or Charley's?"

"Mine, Pop," Pick said. "Come on! What the hell! You could see the Killer and Ernie. And I'll have you back by next Thursday."

"If you and Charley agree that I should."

"We do," Pick said, firmly.

What the hell. The alternative is watching the waves go up and down in San Francisco Bay until Patti gets home. And it'll do her good to have to wait for me for once.

"I'm with the State Department, myself," the asshole in the window seat announced.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

"Are you really?"

"I've just been assigned to General MacArthur's staff."

"That should be an interesting assignment," Pickering said, politely.

"I'm to be his advisor on psychological warfare."

"Really?"

"I'm looking forward to working with him," the asshole said. "From what I understand, he's an incredible man."

"Yes, I would say he is," Pickering agreed.

And the first thing you're going to have to learn, you sim-pleton, is that no one works with El Supremo, they work for him.

And the second is that the only advice Douglas MacArthur listens to is that advice that completely agrees with his posi-tions in every minute detail.

[TWO]

HANEDA AIRFIELD

TOKYO, JAPAN

1155 1 JUNE 1950

Fleming Pickering politely shook the hand of the State De-partment asshole in the window seat-who actually thought Douglas MacArthur would be grateful for his ad-vice-and wished him good luck in his new assignment.

Then he walked forward to the cockpit and stood and waited while Pick went through the paperwork associated with the end of a Trans-Global flight. Then he followed

Pick and the rest of the crew down the ladder pushed up to the cockpit door.

Pick waited for him at the bottom of the ladder, touched his arm, and nodded across the tarmac toward two nattily dressed military policemen who stood guard over a well-polished Douglas C-54 that bore the bar-and-star insignia of an American military aircraft, and had "Bataan" lettered on either side of its nose.

"That's MacArthur's, right?" Pick asked. "It says `Bataan' on the nose," Pickering replied, gently sarcastic. "I think that's a fair assumption."

"Doesn't look like there's much wrong with it, does there?" Pick asked.

"I think that's probably the best-maintained airplane in the Orient," Pickering said. "What are you driving at?"

"Just before we came over here," Pick said, "I had a call from Lockheed. The military laid a priority on them for a new 1049, to replace the war-weary C-54 of your pal MacArthur. So Lockheed's going to give him the next one off the line, which was supposed to be mine, and which I need."

"He is the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers," Pick-ering said. "And you're just a lousy civilian."

"Spoken like a true general," Pick said, with a smile.

"Yes, indeed, and why aren't you standing at attention in my presence?"

Pick laughed and waved his father ahead of him toward

the door in the terminal marked customs air crews only.

Trans-Global's Tokyo station chief was waiting for them outside customs. Pickering didn't know him, but the man obviously knew who he was.

I suppose, as MacArthur is El Supremo of Japan, I am El Supremo of Pacific and Far East. But what does this guy think I'm going to do to him? Eat him alive?

"I'm Fleming Pickering," he said, offering his hand with a smile.

"Yes, sir, I know. Welcome to Tokyo. How was your

flight, sir?"

"Very nice," Pickering said. "Did you get the word about how little time it took us?"

"Yes, sir," the man said. "And we should have official confirmation within the hour." He turned to Pick. "Con-gratulations, Captain."

"Let's hold off on that until we get confirmation," Pick said. "But thanks anyway."

"Captain, Mr. Ansley asks that you come to base opera-tions. Apparently, there's some paperwork connected with certification...."

"I figured there would be," Pick said. "Dad, there's no reason why you have to wait around here for God knows how long." He turned to the station chief. "We have wheels to take my father to the hotel, right?"

"Right outside," the station chief confirmed.

"I'll see you at the hotel," Pick said.

The wheels turned out to be a 1941 Cadillac limousine. Pickering wasn't pleased with that, but realized that saying anything to the station chief would make him sound un-grateful.

"Charley Ansley's told me what a fine job you've been doing here," Pickering said, offering his hand to the station chief.

That wasn't exactly true. It was an inference: If this fel-low wasn't doing a hell of a good job, Charley Ansley would have canned him long ago.

"That's very kind of Mr. Ansley, sir," the station chief- whose name had never come up-replied, almost blushing with pleasure.

Pickering got into the backseat of the limousine. The station chief waited at the curb until the limousine was out of sight.

This is not the first time I've been driven from an airfield into Tokyo in a limousine. The circumstances were different the last time. The last time, Japanese soldiers and police and ordinary civilians lined the streets, bowing their heads toward the cars of their American conquerors.

I was involved in that goddamn war, literally from the first shots until the last act.

But that was a long time ago. General, and incidentally, General, you're not a general anymore.

On December 7,1941, wakened by the sound of low-flying aircraft, Fleming Pickering had gotten out of his bed in the penthouse suite of the Foster Waikiki Beach Hotel in Hon-olulu and watched the Japanese attack on the Navy base at Pearl Harbor.

He had been enraged, not only at the Japanese sneak at-tack, but also at what he perceived to be the nearly criminal incompetence of the senior military-especially the senior Naval-officers in Hawaii, who he felt had been derelict in allowing such an attack to happen.

He had sailed that night to Seattle, Washington, aboard the Pacific Princess, the flagship of the Pacific and Far East fleet, which had been commandeered by the U.S. Navy and was to be converted to a troop transport. Its speed, it was theorized-and later proven-would make it immune to Japanese submarine attack.

Once in the United States, Pickering had immediately gone to Washington to volunteer for service as a Marine again. Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney, USMC, with whom he had served-both of them sergeants-at Belleau Wood in France in the First World War, more or less gently told him there was no place in the Marine Corps for him, and that he could make a greater contribution to the war ef-fort by running Pacific and Far East.

It was the second time he had been, so to speak, rejected for government service.

Before the war had involved the United States-but when he had known that war was inevitable-he had been offered "a suitable position" in the "Office of the Coordina-tor of Information," later renamed the Office of Strategic Services. Swallowing his intense dislike of the Coordinator of Information himself, Colonel William "Wild Bill" Dono-van, he had gone to Washington for an interview and found that what Donovan had in mind was a bureaucratic post un-der a man for whom Pickering had a profound disgust.

Forced to admit that Mac Mclnerney was right-he was not qualified to be a Marine captain, much less a Marine colonel, which is what he had more than a little egotisti-cally had in mind-Pickering had gone from Mclnerney's Eighth and "I" Streets office to the Foster Lafayette Hotel, across from the White House, where he was staying in the apartment of his close friend, Senator Richardson K. Fowler (R., Cal.). Once there, nursing his rejection, he had promptly crawled most of the way into a quart bottle of the senator's Famous Grouse.

When Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox had appeared unannounced in the apartment to see Senator Fowler, Pick-ering had lost little time in sharing with the Secretary his opinion that "the Pearl Harbor admirals" should be court-martialed and that Knox himself should resign. Almost as an afterthought, he told Knox that he would fight the Navy's intention of commandeering the entire Pacific and Far East fleet-they could have the Pacific Princess and the other passenger ships, but that's all-all the way to the Supreme Court.

The next day, nursing a monumental hangover as he flew back to San Francisco, he was convinced that his drunken attack on Knox-for that's unquestionably what it had been-had ended once and for all any chance of his ever again serving in uniform.

He was wrong. A few days later, Helen Florian, his sec-retary, had put her head in his office and announced that Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was in her office and wanted to see him.

Pickering was convinced that it was payback time for their encounter in Senator Fowler's apartment. Knox was almost certainly going to tell him, with justified relish, that the U.S. Navy was commandeering every vessel in the PandFE fleet and the PandFE building, "for the duration," and that he was to be out of the building by five o'clock.

But that wasn't what Knox had had in mind at all.

Knox said that he suspected-human nature being what it was-that the reports he was getting-and would be get-ting-from the admirals in the Pacific-men with a life-long devotion to the Navy-would understandably paint

the situation to the advantage of the Navy, rather than as what it actually was.

What he had to have, Knox said, was a cold, expert ap-praisal of what was going on out there from someone who knew ships, and shipyards, and the Pacific, and wasn't cowed by thick rows of gold braid on admirals' sleeves.

Someone, for example, who had spent his lifetime in-volved with the Pacific Ocean; someone so unawed by rank and titles that he had told the Secretary of the Navy he should resign.

Within days, a hastily commissioned Captain Fleming S. Pickering, U.S. Navy Reserve, boarded a Navy plane for Hawaii, his orders identifying him as the Personal Repre-sentative of the Secretary of the Navy.

Pleased with the reports Pickering had furnished from Pearl Harbor, Knox ordered him to Australia to evaluate the harbors, shipyards, and other facilities there. He arrived shortly before General Douglas MacArthur did, having es-caped-at President Roosevelt's direct order-from the Philippines to set up his headquarters in Australia.

Pickering became an unofficial member of MacArthur's staff, but by the time of the First Marine Division's inva-sion of Guadalcanal, was convinced that his usefulness was pretty much at an end.

Aware-and not caring-that Knox would certainly be annoyed and probably would be furious, Pickering went ashore on Guadalcanal with the Marines. He offered his serv-ices to the First Marine Division commander, Major General A. A. Vandegrift, in any capacity where Vandegrift thought he might be useful, down to rifleman in a line company.

The First Division's intelligence officer had been killed in the first few hours of the invasion, and Vande-grift-who had come to admire Pickering's brains and savvy while they were planning the logistics of the inva-sion-named Pickering "temporarily, until a qualified re-placement could be flown in from the United States," to replace the fallen incumbent.

The day after his qualified replacement arrived, so did the U.S. Navy destroyer Gregory, under dual orders from the Navy Department: Deliver urgently needed aviation fuel to the island, and do not leave Guadalcanal until Cap-tain Fleming Pickering, USNR, is aboard.

En route to Pearl Harbor, the Gregory was attacked by Japanese bombers. Pickering was on her bridge with her captain when her captain was killed. Pickering, as senior officer of the line aboard-and an any ocean, any tonnage master mariner-assumed command of the destroyer, skill-fully maneuvering her until the attack was over, whereupon he passed out from loss of blood from the wounds he had suffered when the first bomb struck.

He was flown to the Navy Hospital in San Diego, where, as he recuperated, he decided that his wound would proba-bly spare him from a court-martial, and that he would qui-etly be released from the Navy.

He was, instead, summoned to Washington, where, on the Presidential yacht, Sequoia, President Roosevelt not only gave him-at the recommendation of the Navy's Commander-in-Chief, Pacific-the Silver Star for his valor in "assuming, despite his grievous wounds" command of the Gregory, but informed him that he had that day sent his name-at the request of Secretary Knox-to the Senate for their advice and consent to his appointment as Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. He would serve, the President told him, on Knox's personal staff.

He soon found out what Knox had in mind for him to do.

Literally hidden in one of the "temporary" wooden buildings erected during World War I on the Washington Mall was the USMC Office of Management Analysis, even its name intended to conceal its role as the personal covert intelligence operation of Secretary Knox.

Pickering, in addition to his other duties, was named its commander, and in effect became director of covert intelli-gence operations for the Navy.

In February 1943, after General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Ocean Area, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, U.S. Navy Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, had made it abundantly clear that neither would have anything to do with Colonel "Wild Bill" Donovan's Office of Strategic.Services in their theaters of opera-tion, President Roosevelt had solved that problem by issuing an executive order naming Brigadier General Fleming Pick-ering, USMCR, as OSS Deputy Director for the Pacific.

Although Pickering hated the appointment-before the war, he and Donovan had once almost come to blows in the lobby of New York City's Century Club, and he was still smarting over the insultingly low-level job Donovan had offered him before the war-Pickering had to admit it was Roosevelt at his Machiavellian best.

Neither MacArthur nor Nimitz would-or could- protest the appointment. MacArthur had written glowingly to Roosevelt about Pickering's service in Australia, and Nimitz had personally ordered Pickering decorated with the Silver Star for his valor on board the destroyer sent to bring him off Guadalcanal.

Pickering had served as the OSS's Deputy Director for the Pacific-which included, so far as the OSS was concerned, both China and India-for the rest of the war. The last time he had been in Tokyo had been as a member-arguably the second senior member-of the team flown into Japan to arrange the details of the surrender. He had left Japan two weeks later, and taken off his uniform a week after that.

[THREE]

THE DEWEY SUITE

THE IMPERIAL HOTEL

TOKYO, JAPAN

1430 1 JUNE 1950

"I think we did it," Malcolm S. "Pick" Pickering said to his father as he came through the door. "Made our time offi-cial, set another record, I mean."

"Who did this?" Pickering asked, gesturing around the huge, elegantly furnished suite.

"I hope so," Pick said, ignoring the question. "Ford is here. It would really piss him off."

"Who did this?" his father repeated. "Isn't this a bit much for one man?"

"Mom did it," Pick said, just a little sheepishly. "She knows the guy who owns it-or maybe the general man-ager, somebody at the top-and set it up. I think he owed her a favor, or something."

And what that does is get her off the guilt hook: If Flem is with Pick, and in the best suite in the best hotel in Tokyo, then there's no reason for me to feel guilty about leaving 0l' Flem alone.

"And what time do the geisha girls arrive?"

There was the sound of a gentle chime.

"That must be them," Pick said, smiling.

It was instead a full colonel of the United States Army, in a tropical worsted uniform, from the epaulets of which hung the aiguillette of an aide-de-camp, and on the lapels of which was a shield, in the center of which were five stars in a circle, which was the lapel insignia of an aide-de-camp to a general of the Army.

There aren't that many five-stars around anywhere, and only one in Japan. This guy is El Supremo's aide.

How the hell did he know I was here ?

"May I help you, Colonel?" Pickering asked.

"Sir, you're General Pickering?"

"That was a long time ago, Colonel."

"Sir, I'm Colonel Stanley. I'm an aide-de-camp to Gen-eral MacArthur...."

"I sort of guessed you were," Pickering said, chuckling, waving his hand at the colonel's uniform. He turned and motioned for the colonel to follow him into the suite.

"Colonel Stanley," Pickering went on, "this is my son, Captain Pickering, of Trans-Global Airways, who tells me he has reason to believe that he set a speed record today, bringing us here. We were about to have a drink to cele-brate that, and I hope you'll join us."

The colonel shook Pick's hand and said it was a pleasure and offered his congratulations, "but with your permission, General, I'll pass on the drink. It's a little early."

"Relax, Colonel," Pickering said. "I won't tell El Supremo. Scotch all right?"

"Yes, sir," the colonel said. "Scotch would be fine."

Pick went behind the bar.

"Dad," he said, amused, "there's a note here. It says, `When the services of a bartender are required, please press the button.' Do I press the button?"

"No," Pickering said, flatly. "Is there any Famous Grouse?"

"Your reputation and tastes precede you, General, sir," Pick said, and held up a bottle of Famous Grouse Scots whiskey.

"That all right with you, Colonel?"

"That would be fine, sir. Thank you," the colonel said, and then remembered his mission. He took a squarish en-velope from his pocket and handed it to Pickering. "The compliments of the Supreme Commander, General."

Pickering took the envelope and opened it.

The Supreme Commander and Mrs. Douglas MacArthur

request the honor of the presence of

Brig. Gen. Fleming Pickering, USMCR

At

Lunch/Cocktails/Dinner

Whatever is my old Comrade-in-Arms' pleasure

At the Supreme Commander's Residence

At

Whenever you can find the time.

Jean and I welcome you to Japan, my dear Fleming!!!!!

Just tell the colonel what is your pleasure.

Douglas

Dress

Pickering handed the invitation to his son, who took it, shrugged, and pursed his lips in amusement.

"Like I said, your reputation precedes you, General, sir."

"Colonel," Pickering said. "Would you be good enough to present my compliments to General MacArthur, and tell him that as soon as I know my schedule, I'll be in touch?"

"Yes, sir," the colonel said. "General, I think that the Supreme Commander had cocktails and dinner tonight in mind, sir."

"How do you know that?" Pickering asked, as if the question amused him.

"Colonel Huff mentioned it, sir."

"Good ol' Sid," Pickering replied, his tone suggesting that he didn't think of Huff that way at all. There was im-mediate confirmation of this: "He's still El Supremo's head dog robber, I gather?"

Colonel Stanley's face-just for a moment-showed that the question both surprised him and was one he would rather not answer directly. He took a notebook from his tu-nic pocket, wrote a number on it, and handed it to Picker-ing.

"That's Colonel Huff's private number, sir. Perhaps you could call him?"

"I didn't mean to put you on a spot, Colonel," Pickering said. "I go a long way back with Colonel Huff."

"I understand, sir," Stanley said.

He took a token sip from his drink and set it down.

"With your permission, General?" he asked.

"You don't need my permission to do anything, Colonel. It's been a long time since I was a general. And I under-stand you must have a busy schedule."

Stanley offered his hand to Pick.

"A pleasure to meet you, sir," he said. "And congratula-tions on the speed record."

"The thing to keep in mind, Colonel," Pick said, smiling, "is that my dad's bite is worse than his bark."

Stanley smiled, offered Pickering his hand, and left the suite.

Father and son exchanged glances. "Something amuses you, Captain?" Pickering asked. "Something awes me," Pick said. "I just realized I'm in the presence of the only man in Japan who would dare to tell Douglas MacArthur's aide that he'll see if he can fit the general into his schedule."

"I like Douglas MacArthur," Pickering said. "And Jean. And I'll see them while I'm here, but I came here to see Ernie and Ken. Now, how do we do that?"

"Something wrong with the limo? Mom set that up, too. I'm reliably informed it's one of the two 1941 Cadillac limousines in Japan. And at this moment it's parked out-side waiting to take you to Ken's house." "You're not going with me?"

"Charley Ansley wants me to come to the Hotel Hokkaido-that's where the conference is-to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is dotted on the certification. Be-fore we rub our new speed record in Trans-Pacific's face. He said something about a press conference. I'll come out to Ken's place as soon as that's over." He paused. "Unless you want to go to the Hokkaido with me?"

Pickering considered that a moment. "I'm not going to show up at the Killer's door in a chauffeur-driven limousine. If you've got his address, I'll take a cab."

"Great. I'll take the limo to the Hokkaido. I laid on a Ford sedan for me. You can use that."

Pickering considered that a moment, then nodded. He had a fresh thought.

"I didn't think about bringing anything for them."

"There's a case of Famous Grouse in the trunk of the limo. You want me to have it moved to the Ford, or should I bring it when I come?"

"Put it in the Ford."

"You're going out there right now?"

"Just as soon as I shower and change my clothes."

"Pop, remember not to call him `Killer.'"

"He doesn't mind. I'm one of the privileged few."

"Ernie minds."

"I stand corrected. And you remember to try to look humble at the press conference."

"You know what Frank Lloyd Wright said about that: `It's hard to be humble when you're great.'"

"He is great. What you are is an aerial bus driver who caught a tailwind."

Pick smiled at his father.

"Wright designed this place, didn't he?" he asked, ges-turing around the suite.

"Yes, he did."

[FOUR]

NO. 7 SAKU-TUN

DENENCHOFU, TOKYO, JAPAN

1705 1 JUNE 1950

When the 1946 Ford Fordor pulled to the curb of a narrow, cobblestoned street before a stone wall bearing a wooden sign-"Captain K. R. McCoy USMC"-the driver practi-cally leapt from behind the wheel, dashed around the front of the car, pulled Pickering's door open, and, smiling broadly, bowed to his passenger.

Pickering smiled at him, then went to the trunk to get the case of Famous Grouse. The driver wrestled it away from him after a thirty-second tug-of-war, and Pickering went to the steel door in the fence, where he finally found a wire loop that might be a doorbell.

When he pulled on it, there was a muted jangling. Sixty seconds later, a middle-aged Japanese woman in a black kimono opened the steel door and, first bowing, looked at him curiously.

"I'd like to see either Captain or Mrs. McCoy," Picker-ing said.

It was obvious that she didn't know a word of English.

"Captain McCoy," Pickering repeated very slowly.

Then there was the sound of a female voice. It was a young voice, and speaking Japanese, probably asking a question.

Pickering took a chance. He raised his voice.

"Ernie?"

There was no reply.

"Ernie! It's Hem Pickering!"

Now the female voice spoke English.

"Oh, my God!"

A moment later a strikingly beautiful young woman, her black hair cut in a pageboy, ran through the door and threw herself into his arms.

"Uncle Flem!" she cried.

Her voice sounded broken.

Jesus, I hope that's happiness!

A moment later, over Ernie's shoulder, Pickering saw her husband. He was a well-built-but lithe, rather than muscular-even-featured, fair-skinned crew-cutted man in Marine Corps khaki shirt and trousers.

"How are you, Ken?" Pickering asked, getting free of Ernie to offer him his hand.

"You're the last person in the world I expected to see, General," McCoy said.

" `General' was a long time ago, Ken," Pickering said.

There's something wrong here. What did I do, walk into the middle of a family squabble?

"Did I drop in uninvited at an awkward time?"

"Don't be silly, Uncle Flem," Ernie said. "Come on in the house."

"It's just that... you're the last person in the world I ex-pected to see," McCoy repeated.

"Pick'll be along in a while," Pickering said. "He just set another speed record getting us here, and he and Charley Ansley are in the process of making it official."

"Great!" McCoy said.

His enthusiasm and his smile seemed strained.

That's strange. You usually never know what he's thinking.

That's the mark-not being able to tell what they're thinking-of good poker players and intelligence officers. And Ken McCoy is both.

What did Ed Banning say that day in Washington ?

"It's as if he was born to be an intelligence officer."

Obviously that doesn't apply to poker players or intelli-gence officers when they're fighting with their wives.

Well, what the hell, married people fight. This is just an-other example of your lousy timing, showing up in the mid-dle of one.

Ernestine Sage McCoy was the closest thing Fleming Pick-ering had to a daughter. Her mother and Patricia Foster Fleming had been roommates at Sarah Lawrence. He had literally walked the floor of the hospital with Ernie's father the night she was born.

Although he had never put it into words, Pickering thought of Kenneth R. McCoy as a second son, and he was sure that Pick thought of Ken as his brother. Patricia Flem-ing liked Ken, but she was never quite able to forgive him for marrying Ernie. Elaine Sage, Ernie's mother, and Patri-cia had decided, when both of their children were still in diapers, that Ernie and Pick would-should-marry.

But Pick had met Ken in Marine Corps Officer Candi-date School, and become buddies, and then Pick had intro-duced his buddy to Ernie, and that had blown the idea of Ernie marrying Pick out of the water.

Fleming Pickering had inherited newly promoted First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy when he had been given command of the U.S. Marine Corps Office of Manage-ment Analysis.

And quickly learned far more about him than Pick had ever told him, probably because Pick had decided the less said about Ken's background the better.

Ernie had almost immediately announced on meeting Ken that she had met the man with whom she intended to spend the rest of her life, a declaration that had done the opposite of delighting her parents, and Patricia Fleming.

For one thing, he had neither a college education nor any money. That was enough to make the Sages uncomfort-able. Learning that "Killer" McCoy was something of a legend in the Marine Corps, and why, would only make things worse.

Brigadier General Pickering had gotten most of the de-tails of Lieutenant McCoy's background from another offi-cer assigned to the Office of Management Analysis, then Major Ed Banning, who was himself something of a leg-end in the Marine Corps.

Pickering had gotten the details of Banning's exploits first: He had been the 4th Marine Regiment's intelligence officer in Shanghai and gone with it to the Philippines, where he had been temporarily blinded in action against the Japanese. He-and a dozen other blinded men and offi-cers-had been evacuated from the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Harbor just before Corregidor fell.

When his sight returned, Banning had, perhaps pre-dictably, been assigned to the Office of Management Analysis, where he immediately set about looking for Lieutenant McCoy to have him assigned to the intelligence unit.

He had found Second Lieutenant McCoy in the Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor, recovering from wounds suffered with the Marine Raiders during their daring attack on Makin Island.

It had taken some doing to pry the details of McCoy's background from Banning, who felt-and said-that they should be allowed to remain obscure. But finally Pickering had gotten Banning to open up.

Then-Captain Banning had met then-Corporal K. R. McCoy in Shanghai. He had been appointed "in addition to his other duties" to serve as defense counsel for the ac-cused in the court-martial case of The United States vs. Corporal K. R. McCoy, USMC.

There were several charges, with murder heading the list.

As the case was explained to Captain Banning, a tough little corporal in one of the line companies had knifed an Italian Marine to death, and damned near killed two other Eye-Tie so-called Marines in the same fight.

It never was said in so many words, of course, but what would be clearly in the interests of the Marine Corps would be to sweep the international incident as quickly as possible under the diplomatic rug. To that end, if Banning could get the troublemaking corporal to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, the colonel "on review" would reduce whatever the sentence was to a relatively mild five to ten years in the Portsmouth Naval Prison; he could be out of prison in two, maybe three years.

Before actually going to see McCoy, Banning first went over the official reports of the incident and the evidence. There was no question at all that one Italian Marine had died of knife wounds, and that McCoy had wielded the knife. Then he went over McCoy's records. He learned that McCoy had enlisted in the Corps at seventeen, immedi-ately after graduating from high school in a Philadelphia industrial suburb. He hadn't been in trouble previously, and had in fact made corporal in a remarkably short time, before his first enlistment was over. Normally, it took six to eight years-sometimes even longer-to make corporal.

Finally, Banning had gone to see Corporal McCoy in the brig, and had seen that McCoy was indeed a tough little streetwise character. And smart, but not smart enough to realize the serious trouble he was in.

A conviction for murder would see him sent to Portsmouth for twenty years to life.

McCoy, making it obvious that he trusted Banning not quite as far as he could throw the six-foot, 200-pound offi-cer, his tone bordering on the offense known as "silent in-solence," had rejected the offer.

`No, thank you, sir, don't try to make a deal for me for a light sentence, sir. With respect, sir, it was self-defense, sir, and I'll take my chances at the court-martial, sir."

Banning admitted to Pickering that he had managed only with an effort not to lose his temper with the insolent young corporal.

"But it wasn't stupidity, General," Banning said, now smiling about the incident. "McCoy was a step-a couple of steps-ahead of me."

"How so?" Pickering had asked.

"When I got back to my office, there was a message ask-ing me to call Captain Bruce Fairbairn. Does the general know who I mean?"

"The English Captain Fairbairn? The head of the Shang-hai Police?"

Banning nodded.

"And the inventor of scientific knife-fighting," Banning said. "And the Fairbairn knife. Does that ring a bell, Gen-eral?"

"I've had drinks and dinner with Fairbairn several times in Shanghai, and I've heard of his knives, of course, every-one has, but I've never seen one."

"The third one I had ever seen I had seen that morning," Banning said, with a smile. "When examining the evidence against Corporal McCoy."

Pickering had thought: Now that he understands that he has no choice but to tell me all about Killer McCoy, he seems to be enjoying it.

"I didn't want to believe it was a Fairbairn," Banning went on. "Fairbairn didn't sell his knifes. He issued them to his policemen, and only after they had gone through his knife-fighting course. When I saw the knife McCoy had used on the Italian, I decided, on the very long shot that it was a Fairbairn, that McCoy had stolen it somewhere."

"And he hadn't?"

"When I called Fairbairn, he very politely said that he thought he should tell me that if the Marines persisted with the foolish notion of court-martialing McCoy, three of his policemen were prepared to testify under oath that they had seen the whole incident, and that McCoy had done nothing more than defend himself."

"Why hadn't they come forward earlier?"

"Fairbairn-the Brits can be marvelously indirect-said that his policemen `were prepared to testify under oath' that they had seen the incident...."

"Which is not the same thing as saying they had seen it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, was it self-defense or not?"

"McCoy-later, when I had come to know him well- told me it was self-defense. I believe him."

" `Had come to know him well'?" Pickering quoted.

"I went to the colonel and told him that not only had McCoy refused to plead guilty, but also that Fairbairn's po-lice were going to testify for him. Under those circum-stances, there was no way the incident could be swept under the rug."

"So there was no court-martial?"

"No court-martial. McCoy even got his knife back."

"Was it a Fairbairn?"

"It was, and he'd gotten it the same way Fairbairn's po-lice got theirs, by proving he knew how to use it."

"How did he get to know Fairbairn?"

"There was a high-stakes poker game every Friday night at the Metropol Hotel."

"He was only a corporal," Pickering said. "Major, I used to be a corporal. I never played poker with officers."

"McCoy was a very unusual corporal," Banning said, smiling, "as I quickly found out when he was assigned to me."

"Assigned to you?"

"The colonel took pains to make it clear that there had better not be another incident involving Corporal Killer McCoy."

"That's why they called him `Killer'? Because he killed the Italian?"

"That was the beginning of it, I suppose, but it really stuck on him after he wiped out, practically by himself, a reinforced platoon of Chinese `bandits' working for the Kempae Tai." The Japanese secret police. "There were twenty bodies in that `incident.'"

"How did that happen?"

"When he reported to me-and he didn't like that; he liked being in the weapons company, where he planned to be a sergeant before his second hitch was up-I told him frankly that all I expected of him was to stay out of trouble until I could figure out something to do with him. He was obviously, I told him, not going to be of much use to me. I

was the intelligence officer, and someone who didn't speak Chinese or Japanese obviously couldn't be of much use."

"And he spoke some Chinese?"

"He told me he could read and write Cantonese and Mandarin, plus Japanese, plus French and German and even some Russian, but was having trouble with the Cyril-lic alphabet."

"And could he?"

"Natural flair for languages. Maybe natural is not the right word. Supernatural flair, maybe. Eerie flair."

"So you put him to work?"

"I had to do so without letting the colonel know," Ban-ning said. "So what I did was send him on the regular truck convoys we ran between Shanghai and Peking, and other places. They took anywhere from five days to a couple of weeks. McCoy would disappear from the convoy for a few hours-or a few days-and have a look at what the Japs were up to. God, he was good at it!"

"And the Chinese `bandit' incident?"

"The Kempae Tai would hire Chinese bandits to attack us whenever they thought they could get away with it. They particularly liked to attack the convoys. The Japs paid them, and what was on the trucks was theirs. They made the mistake of attacking one that McCoy was on. He and a buck sergeant named Zimmerman were waiting for them with Thompsons. And they were very good with Thompsons. The `bandits' left twenty bodies behind them. McCoy and Zimmerman loaded them on trucks and took them to Peking. That, sir, is where `Killer' got his name."

Pickering had not yet told Banning that Lieutenants Pickering and McCoy were friends, but he had Pick in his mind as Banning spoke of Killer McCoy.

It meant, of course, that when Malcolm S. Pickering had been in his first year at Harvard, starting to work his way through the pro* forma resistance to copulation of the nu-bile maidens of Wellesley, Sarah Lawrence, and other in-stitutions of higher learning for the female offspring of the moneyed classes, McCoy had been a Marine in China; that when Pick had been earning a four-goal handicap on the polo fields at Ramapo Valley, Palm Beach, and Los Ange-les, McCoy had been riding Mongolian ponies through the China countryside keeping an eye on the Imperial Japanese Army at a considerable risk to his life.

"How did he get to become an officer?"

"The Corps put out the word to recommend NCOs for Officer Candidate School. I thought McCoy would make a fine officer. The colonel saw sending him to the States as a good way to get him out of Shanghai. I think I was the only officer in the Marine Corps who thought he would get through officer training."

"He had some trouble getting through," Pickering said. "With some officers who didn't think a corporal with no college degree should become a Marine officer."

"How do-?" Banning blurted, and stopped.

" `How the hell do you know that'?" Pickering finished the uncompleted question. "My son was in his class; they became quite close. They are quite close."

"Well, he got through," Banning said.

"And then he volunteered for the Marine Raiders?" Pickering asked, but it was more of a statement than a question. He knew that McCoy had been a Raider.

"Yes, sir. But not quite the way that sounds."

"I don't understand...."

"McCoy's language skills-and his China service- came to the attention of the G-2," Banning said. "He de-cided McCoy was just the man he was looking for."

"As an interpreter, you mean?"

"No, sir. To keep an eye on Colonel Evans Carlson, the commander of the Marine Raiders."

"Now, that I don't understand," Pickering said.

"There were a number of officers in the Marine Corps who thought that Carlson had dangerous ideas," Banning said. "And some who suspected he was a Communist."

"My God!"

"So the G-2 called McCoy in and asked him to take that assignment."

"I knew McCoy was in the Raiders," Pickering said. "But I didn't know about this."

"He came back from the Makin Raid-where he was hit, by the way-and reported that Colonel Carson was not a Communist. And then I found him in the hospital in San Diego and had him transferred here. He was hoping to stay with the Raiders, but he belongs here."

"Yes, I'm sure he does," Pickering replied.

"It's... as if he was born to be an intelligence officer," Banning said.

"It sounds that way, doesn't it?" Pickering had agreed.

Chapter Two

[ONE]

NO. 7 SAKU-TUN DENENCHOFU,

TOKYO, JAPAN

1745 1 JUNE 1950

Ernestine Sage McCoy spoke to the woman who had come to the door in the wall-in what sounded to Pickering like fluent Japanese-and very quickly, before McCoy had fin-ished making Pickering a drink, a plate of hors d'oeuvres appeared.

"Welcome to our home, General," McCoy said, touch-ing his glass to Pickering's.

"General is a long time ago, Ken," Pickering said. "What I am now is a figurehead. You know what a figure-head is? The wooden-headed figure on the bow of a ship?"

There was dutiful laughter.

Not only dutiful, but strained.

Neither one of them is in a laughing mood.

Christ, I must have walked in here just before she was going to throw a frying pan at him. I wonder what the hell he did?

Or what she did?

Pickering relayed the love of his wife, and told her that Patricia, the last time he heard, had been going to have din-ner with her father and mother in New York, and Ernie said" to give Patricia their love when he got home.

"How long are you going to stay in Japan, General?" Ken McCoy asked.

"Three or four days, no more."

This was followed by a painful silence.

Pickering searched his mind for something to say, and found it:

"I thought I'd look around," he said, and added, "The last time I was here, I arrived five days before the war was over."

"I remember," McCoy said.

"Five days before the war was over?"

"Right."

"I never heard that story," Ernie said.

"You said," McCoy said, and for the first time there was a suggestion of a smile on his face, "that it was the first time El Supremo ever asked for an OSS intel report."

"First and only," Pickering said.

`Tell me about it," Ernie said.

At least it will break the silence.

"Major McCoy and I were on Okinawa," Pickering be-gan.

And the first word out of your mouth is a disaster, re-minding him, reminding them, that he was busted back to captain after the war.

"... and Sid Huff..."

"Who?"

"MacArthur's aide."

"He still is," Ernie said.

"So I heard," Pickering said. "Anyway, Sid showed up on

Okinawa, from Manila, where El Supremo was at the time. He announced that MacArthur wanted me to go in on the first plane. Of course, he couldn't phrase it that simply...."

" `General,'" McCoy said, accurately mimicking Huff's somewhat pompous manner of speech, " `it is the Supreme Commander's desire that you proceed to Tokyo with the initial party...'"

"Very good, Ken," Pickering said, chuckling.

"What happened, sweetheart," McCoy said, "is that El Supremo originally intended to send Huff, but changed his mind at the last minute and told him to ask the Boss here..."

Sweetheart? That means he's in the doghouse. I wonder what he did. Or she thinks he did.

"Darling, let him tell the story."

Darling? That doesn't sound like a grossly annoyed wife.

"He won't tell all of it, baby," McCoy said. "Huff couldn't make up his mind whether he was unhappy at being denied the chance to be on the first plane to land in Japan, or happy. There was a lot of talk that the Japs were out of control, and the first Americans to land might get their heads chopped off. In that case, Huff figured better that the Boss's head roll..."

Sweetheart? Darling? Baby? These two aren't fighting, at least with each other. What the hell is going on?

"I will give Colonel Huff the benefit of the doubt that he was disappointed at being denied the chance to be on that C-46," Pickering said.

"What's a C-46?"

"Curtiss Commando. Two-engine transport," McCoy replied.

"But what C-46?"

"I don't remember the date, exactly, but it was after we dropped the second atomic bomb, and the Emperor de-cided to surrender, August fifteenth, `forty-five, I think."

"15 August 1945," McCoy confirmed.

"My husband remembers every date he's ever heard, ex-cept two," Ernie said, smiling at McCoy. "Our anniversary and my birthday."

Whatever he did, he's apparently forgiven.

"So on the twenty-sixth, I remember that date, it had been decided to send in one airplane, to Atsugi, on the twenty-eighth, to get the lay of the land," Pickering went on. "I thought about going, but decided against it. There were better-qualified people than me who should have gone."

" `General, it is the Supreme Commander's desire that you proceed to Tokyo with the initial party...'" McCoy parroted again.

"So I went," Pickering said. "We left Okinawa at oh dark hundred..."

"Oh four hundred," McCoy corrected.

"And flew into Atsugui, where the Japs met us with bowed heads."

"I would have guessed there was a fifty-fifty chance that something would happen," McCoy said.

"Proving, of course, that K. McCoy, the perfect intelli-gence officer, has in fact made a bad guess at least once," Pickering said, chuckling. "Absolutely nothing happened. I got in a car-an old English limousine, not a Rolls, some-thing else-and a Jap drove me to the Imperial Hotel, where I reserved a wing for Major McCoy and other de-serving OSS types, soon to arrive from Okinawa...."

McCoy and his wife exchanged glances.

What the hell did I say to cause that?

What the hell is going on?

To hell with it. All they can do is tell me to butt out!

"Will somebody please tell me what's going on here? What's wrong?"

"Sir?" McCoy asked.

Too innocently.

Pickering looked at Ernie. She looked close to tears.

"What's up, honey?" Pickering asked, gently.

She looked between Pickering and her husband for a moment.

"They're throwing us out of the goddamned Corps, Un-cle Flem," she said. "That's what's up."

I can't have heard that right.

"I didn't get that, honey," he said.

"They're throwing us out of the goddamned Marine Corps," Ernie said, clearly. "We're being shipped home. They're taking Ken's commission."

"What the hell happened?" Pickering asked.

"He wrote a report that nobody liked," she said. "And re-fused to change it."

"A report on what?"

"He won't tell me," she said. "But I know it's about Ko-rea."

Pickering looked at McCoy.

"They're throwing you out of the Marine Corps? You're not talking about a court-martial?"

"I'm talking about a TWX from Eighth and Eye," Ernie said.

A TWX was a teletype message. Eighth and Eye meant Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, which is at Eighth and I Streets in Washington, D.C.

"A TWX saying what?" Pickering asked.

" `You are relieved of your present duties and reassigned to Camp Pendleton, California, effective immediately. You are being involuntarily released from active duty as cap-tain, USMCR, effective 1 July 1950, and are advised that an evaluation of your records is under way to determine in which enlisted grade you may elect to enlist, if that is your desire, following your separation. I have the goddamned thing committed to memory."

"This is hard to believe," Pickering said.

"Isn't it?" she said, bitterly.

"I shouldn't have to say this," Pickering said, "but what-ever I can do to help, I'll do."

He said it first to Ernie, then looked at McCoy. McCoy looked at him, but it was impossible to read what the look meant.

Then McCoy got out of his chair and walked out of the room.

"He doesn't like it that I told you," Ernie said.

"Hey! I'm glad you did. You're family, Ernie. You and Ken."

She smiled wanly at him.

McCoy returned a moment later, carrying a leather briefcase. A handcuff on a steel cable hung down from it.

I haven't seen one of those in a long time.

What the hell is the matter with the goddamned Marine Corps? Ken McCoy is the best intelligence officer I ever met, and that includes Ed Banning.

McCoy set the briefcase down on the coffee table be-fore the couch on which Pickering was sitting, worked the combination lock, and took from it a half-inch-thick stack of paper fastened together with a metal clip. He handed it to Pickering.

The document was covered with a sheet of manila board on which were printed three diagonal red stripes at either end of the words TOP SECRET.

"What's this?" Pickering asked, as he started to flip through it.

The second page, which had TOP SECRET printed at the top and bottom, answered his question:

TOP SECRET

Document No. NE/May50/2333 Copy 3 of 4

Duplication Forbidden

Naval Element

Headquarters

The Supreme Commander for Allied Powers

Room 2022 The Dai Ichi Building,

Tokyo, Japan

(APO 901/FPO 3347, San Francisco, Cal.)

23 May 1950

SUBJECT: Intelligence Evaluation/Korea

TO: The Supreme Commander, Allied Powers

ATTN: Major General Charles A. Willoughby

Forwarded herewith is "An Evaluation of Probable Hostile Action Within Ninety Days Against the Republic of South Korea by the People's Democratic Republic of Korea."

The Evaluation, and Attachments I through VII, were prepared primarily by Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, of Naval Element, Hq, SCAP.

Edward C. Wilkerson

Captain, USN

Chief, Naval Element SCAP

One (1) Enclosure as follows:

Evaluation, Subject as above, w/at-tachments:

I: Summary, Agents' Reports

II: North Korean Order of Battle (In-cluding Strength), Infantry Units

III: NKOB(IS), Artillery Units

IV: NKOB(IS), Armored Units

V: NKOB(IS), Motor Transport

VI: NKOB (IS), Aviation Units

VII: NKOB Depots, POL, Ammunition

VIII: NKOB: Logistic facilities (R,a-tions, Medical, POW Compounds, Misc.)

IX: Chinese Communist Order of Battle (Including Strength) Infantry Units Within 300 miles of North

Korean Border

X: ChiComOB Artillery Units Within 300 miles of NK Border

XI: ChiComOB Armored Units Within 300 miles of NK Border

XII: ChiComOB Motor Transport Within 300 miles of NK Border

XIII: ChiComOB Aviation Units Within 300 miles of NK Border

XIV: ChiComOB Logistic facilities (Ra-tions, Medical, POW Compounds, Misc.) Within 300 miles of

NK Border

TOP SECRET

"Jesus Christ!" Pickering said when he'd read the transmittal letter. "Are you sure, Ken?"

"About as sure as I can get, General."

"Is that the report?" Ernie asked. "Do I get to see it?"

"No, baby. Sorry. It's classified Top Secret."

"Ken, I haven't had a Top Secret clearance-any clear-ance-in years. Why are you showing this to me?"

"Maybe you can do something with it," McCoy said.

"I don't understand," Pickering said. "I don't understand any of this. `Do something with it'?"

"I can't get it past Willoughby," McCoy said, simply. "Which means it won't get out of the Dai Ichi Building, and somebody at Eighth and Eye should know what's coming down."

Major General Charles A. Willoughby, who had been General Douglas A. MacArthur's intelligence officer in the Philippines and throughout World War II, was now per-forming the same function for him in the grandly named Office of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, which was really the Army of Occupation in Japan.

Pickering had had more that one run-in with General Willoughby during the Second War; several of them had involved McCoy.

That sonofabitch again!

"He give you any reason, Ken?" Pickering asked, but be-fore McCoy could reply, he asked, "Where did you get this?"

"I stole it," McCoy said, simply.

"And what's going to happen to you when it turns up missing? My God, Ken, you just can't make off with Top Secret documents!"

"You can if the document doesn't exist. That one doesn't. There's no longer a record of it."

"Let me get this straight," Pickering said. "You prepared this evaluation?"

"Yes, sir."

"On your own, or officially?"

"The Korean part officially. The Chinese part on my own."

"And you submitted it to this Captain Wilkerson?"

"And he sent it up to Willoughby. And the next day Wilkerson called me in and told me (a) I was relieved; (b) the evaluation didn't exist; (c) I should start packing."

"Why?"

"I can only guess," McCoy said.

"Guess."

"Remember when there was no possibility of guerrillas in the Philippines?" McCoy asked.

It had been the official position of the Supreme Com-mander, Southwest Pacific Ocean Areas-MacArthur- that it was absolutely impossible for any American guerrillas to function in the Japanese-occupied Philippine Islands.

"Before you went ashore on Mindanao and established contact with General Fertig, you mean?"

They were both smiling.

Goddamn it, why are we smiling? If that's what's going on, it isn't funny.

"I think it's entirely possible that Willoughby has just as-sured El Supremo that there is absolutely no risk of trouble in Korea," McCoy said. "And doesn't want his opinion challenged by a captain. I can't think of any other reason...."

"But what if you're right?"

"The evaluation doesn't exist. The worst scenario for him is to say he was completely surprised by what hap-pened, and strongly hint that he was let down by incompe-tent junior intelligence officers."

"But your evaluation..."

"Doesn't exist," McCoy said.

Pickering looked at his watch.

"Pick's liable to walk in any minute," he said. "We can't let him know about this."

"Why not?" McCoy asked.

"You'll show it to Pick and not to Ernie?" Pickering challenged.

McCoy went to Pickering, took the report, and handed it to his wife.

She had just begun to read it when the bells tinkled.

"You go," Ernie ordered. "I'm reading this."

Pick Pickering came into the room a moment later.

He and McCoy embraced.

"You may now call me `Speedy' Pickering," Pick said. "It's official."

Pickering handed him the sheet of notebook paper on which Colonel Stanley had written Colonel Huff's private telephone number.

"Call Colonel Huff, identify yourself as Captain Picker-ing, calling for me-for General Pickering-and say that I would be honored if General and Mrs. MacArthur would join me for cocktails and dinner at the Imperial-"

"Boss, El Supremo never goes to the Imperial," McCoy interrupted. "Or anywhere else, either, really."

"So I read in Time," Pickering said. "Make the call, Pick."

"What the hell is going on?" Pick asked.

"Make the call, and then we'll bring you up to speed," Pickering said. "But for a quick answer, it seems like old times."

[TWO]

NO. 7 SAKU-TUN

DENENCHOFU, TOKYO, JATAN

1805 1 JUNE 1950

The Japanese housekeeper came into the room and said something in Japanese to Ernie Sage McCoy.

"Colonel Huff for you, Captain Pickering," Ernie trans-lated. "There's an extension by Ken's chair."

"Huff is calling to say that Supreme Commander and Mrs. MacArthur would much prefer that you come to the Embassy," Ken McCoy said.

"Probably," Fleming Pickering said, with a smile. He followed Pick to the telephone on the table beside Ken Mc-Coy's armchair.

Pick picked up the telephone.

"Captain Pickering," he said.

He held the phone away from his ear so that his father could overhear the conversation.

"This is Colonel Huff, Captain."

"How are you, Colonel?"

"Captain, I relayed General Pickering's invitation to the Supreme Commander. He asked me to get word to General Pickering that he and Mrs. MacArthur would much prefer that the general come to the Supreme Commander's quar-ters for cocktails and dinner. Is that going to pose a prob-lem for the General?"

"I'll have to ask him, Colonel. Would you please hold?"

It was not the reply Colonel Huff had expected. This was clear in his voice as he said, "Of course."

Pick covered the microphone with his hand, then whis-pered, "How long are we going to make him wait?"

"Sixty seconds," Fleming Pickering said, with a smile. "Sixty seconds is a very long time when you're hanging on a phone."

Pick put the telephone on his shoulder, holding it in place with his chin, and then pushed the button on his aviator's chronometer that caused the sweep second hand to start moving.

Sixty seconds seemed like a long time. Ernie Sage Mc-Coy shook her head and smiled at her husband.

Finally Pick took the telephone from his shoulder.

"That will be fine, Colonel. What time would General MacArthur like my father to be there?"

"The Supreme Commander's limousine will be at the Hotel Imperial at 1900. Would that be convenient?"

Fleming Pickering touched Pick's arm and shook his head, "no."

"Dad's not at the Imperial, Colonel."

"Oh?"

It was obviously a request for information. Pickering shook his head "no" again.

"And he has a car," Pick said. "I'm sure he would prefer to have it with him. I don't know what his schedule is after dinner, but I'm sure there will be something."

"The Embassy at 1930, then," Huff said. There was a tone of annoyance, slight but unmistakable, in his voice. "Would that be convenient?"

"If something comes up, Colonel, I'll call. But I feel sure Dad can meet that schedule."

"Thank you very much, Captain."

"Not at all, Colonel."

Pick hung the phone up.

"How'd I do?"

"You annoyed Huff. There will be a reward in heaven," Pickering said.

Ernie Sage McCoy, smiling, shook her head again.

The maid reappeared almost immediately, and delivered another message in Japanese.

"Another call for Captain Pickering," Ernie translated.

"I'll bet I know who that is, Ken," Fleming Pickering said, and when he had McCoy's attention, went on in a credible mockery of General Charles Willoughby's pro-nounced German accent: " `Ven der Supreme Commander says he vill send hiss limousine, Cheneral Pickering vill ride in der limousine, or I vill haf him shot!'"

McCoy chuckled.

Pick picked up the telephone.

"Captain Pickering," he said, then: "Oh, hello, Uncle Charley. What's up?"

There was a pause.

"Oh, hell, I thought you forgot about that. And there's no way I can get out of it?"

Another pause.

"Okay. I'll be right there. But see how short you can make it, okay? I want to have dinner with the guy who married my childhood sweetheart."

He chuckled and hung up.

"Charley Ansley says `Hi, Ernie,'" he said.

"And?" Ernie said.

"There's going to be a press conference, and the entire fu-ture of Trans-Global Airways depends on my being there."

"Why don't you take Ken and Ernie with you," Fleming Pickering said. "And then out to dinner."

He could tell from McCoy's face that he didn't want to go. And from Ernie's that she did.

"Honey?" she asked.

"Sure, why not?" McCoy said.

[THREE]

THE RESIDENCE OF THE SUPREME COMMANDER, ALLIED POWERS

TOKYO, JAPAN

1930 1 JUNE 1950

The two impeccably turned-out Army military policemen at the gate to what had been the U.S. Embassy compound and was now the residence of the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, who had been at Parade Rest-standing stiffly erect, with the hands folded on the small of the back-came, very precisely and very slowly, to attention and very slowly raised their hands in salute as the 1941 Cadillac limousine approached the gate.

They held the salute until the gate opened and the lim-ousine passed through, before very slowly bringing their rigid hands down from the forward lip of their chromed steel helmets and returning to Parade Rest.

The motions were artificial, more like ballet movements than a military gesture-

Like, the passenger of the limousine thought, somewhat unkindly, like those clowns standing in front of Bucking-ham Palace in those comic opera bearskin hats.

What's that all about? Does El Supremo think he's the Mikado? They already have an emperor of Japan, I just drove past his palace.

Yeah, but the truth of the matter is, that ridiculous em-peror doesn't have any power, and this one, El Supremo, does.

He is the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers.

He sends for the Emperor-I saw that in the newspa-per-and the Emperor comes. Jesus Christ, Douglas MacArthur is the king of Japan.

Watch your temper, Fleming Pickering!

You`re here to help Killer McCoy, not to tell El Supremo what a pompous ass he is.

There were a second matched set of MPs standing at either side of the door of what had been the U.S. Ambassador's residence, and they, too, repeated the slow-motion salute as the limousine pulled up before the building and an offi-cer-a major in the regalia of an aide-de-camp-came quickly down the shallow flight of steps.

He pulled the passenger door open and stood at atten-tion.

"Good evening, General Pickering," he said. "The Supreme Commander expects you, sir. If you'll be good enough to come with me?"

"Thank you," Pickering said, got out of the limousine, and walked into the residence ahead of the major.

Colonel Stanley, who had come to the Imperial Hotel, was waiting for Pickering in the main corridor of the building.

"Good evening, General," he said, offering his hand. "The Supreme Commander and Mrs. MacArthur are in the library."

"Hello, Colonel," Pickering said.

Stanley pushed open double doors, stepped into the cen-ter of the opening, and announced:

"Brigadier General Pickering, USMC!"

The only thing missing is four clowns in purple tights blowing trumpets with flags on them.

A white-jacketed steward-obviously a Filipino, but not the Philippine Scouts Master Sergeant Pickering remem-bered as MacArthur's personal servant-stood almost at attention before a sideboard on which bottles, glasses, and silver bowls of ice, lemons, and maraschino cherries were laid out.

MacArthur stood with his wife and three officers at the far end of a long, rather narrow table on which sat a silver-flowered bowl. Pickering knew two of the three officers, Major General Charles A. Willoughby and Colonel Sidney Huff. The third officer, a stocky, somewhat pale-faced ma-jor general, he had never seen before.

He missed and looked for Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland, who had been MacArthur's chief of staff throughout World War II, until he remembered reading that Sutherland had been returned home for unspecified reasons of health.

Sutherland, Willoughby, and Huff-and their under-lings-had been "The Bataan Gang," MacArthur's inti-mate circle.

If that two-star is here, with the Bataan Gang, he must be Sutherland's replacement.

"Fleming, my friend," MacArthur called in his sonorous voice. "How wonderful to see you!"

Pickering walked along the table toward him.

"It's good to see you, General," he said, offering his hand.

Jean MacArthur stepped close, offering her hand and then her cheek.

"Jean, you look wonderful," Pickering said, as he kissed her cheek.

"General," Willoughby said. He was a large, imposing, erect man.

"General" came out "Cheneral." / wonder if Ol' Charley knew that, behind his back, he had been known-and prob-ably still is-as "Adolf and "Der Fuhrer."

"General," Pickering replied, then turned to Colonel Huff.

"Good to see you, Sid," he said. "How are you?"

"General," Huff said. His smile was strained.

"And you don't know General Almond," MacArthur said. "Ned took Dick Sutherland's place as chief of staff."

Almond offered his hand.

"I've heard a good deal about you, General," he said.

"If you've heard it from these two," Pickering said, indi-cating Huff and Willoughby, "then I deny everything."

Jean MacArthur laughed. MacArthur smiled, and so did Huff and Willoughby, but for them it was visibly an effort.

A photographer, a middle-aged master sergeant, ap-peared, holding a Speed Graphic camera.

The subjects of the photography were posed in three different positions: all the officers standing together, with MacArthur and Pickering in the middle; MacArthur and Pickering standing together; and MacArthur, Mrs. MacArthur, and Pickering with Mrs. MacArthur in the middle.

The photographer left and the Filipino steward served drinks. Pickering was not offered a choice, but when he sipped at his whiskey and water the taste was familiar.

Somewhere, obviously, it has been filed away that Picker-ing, Fleming BG, USMCR, likes Famous Grouse whiskey.

"Old times, my dear Fleming," MacArthur said, raising his glass.

"Old times, General," Pickering repeated.

"I was just telling Almond," MacArthur said, "that you were in Australia when, having been ordered from Corregidor, Jean and I and the others arrived."

"I remember it well," Pickering said.

"What I remember was that you were a Navy captain," Jean MacArthur said, "who I remembered as a friend, as a merchant marine captain in Manila. And then you went to the Guadalcanal invasion, and the next time I saw you, you were a Marine general officer. I never quite understood that."

"Either did I, Jean," Pickering said. "There were a lot of us who received commissions in the services for which we were clearly not qualified."

"Now, that's simply not true," MacArthur said. "You were a splendid officer. Your contributions, not only to my campaigns, but to the entire war effort in the Pacific, prove that beyond any question."

He turned to General Almond.

"General Pickering was not only deeply involved in the planning of my invasion of Guadalcanal, but went ashore with the first wave of Marines to make that landing..."

That's not true.

I was involved in the planning, but only because I knew shipping and the practical knowledge of the subject on the part of most of the logisticians involved-Army, Navy, and Marine Corps-was practically nonexistent.

And I was not in the first wave of Marines to land on Guadalcanal, or the second, or the third. I didn't go ashore until I heard that the mccawley was about to sail away, leaving the Marines on the beach, and I realized that I couldn't live with myself if I sailed with her. Then I went ashore.

"... where General Vandegrift immediately put him into the breach as his intelligence officer, to replace an officer who fell in action..."

Well, that's true. .

"... and, when leaving Guadalcanal on a destroyer," MacArthur went on sonorously, "despite grievous wounds, Pickering assumed command when her captain was killed in a Japanese attack..."

It wasn't anywhere near as heroic as you`re making it sound. I was on the bridge when her captain was killed; I'm a master mariner; and when a ship's master can't per-form his duties, the next best qualified man takes over. That goes back to the Phoenicians. That's all I did.

"... for which he was decorated at the personal order of Admiral Nimitz," MacArthur continued.

And I've always wondered if Nimitz didn't regret having done so, when Roosevelt shoved the OSS down his throat on my back.

"And of the many Distinguished Service Medals it was my privilege to award, Fleming, I can think of none more deserving than yours."

What did the Killer say about the DSM? "It's the senior officers' Good Conduct Medal, awarded to rear-area chair-warmers who have gone three consecutive months without catching the clap."

"That's very kind of you, General," Pickering said. He turned to General Almond. "What happened was that Sec-retary of the Navy Knox wanted me to do some intelli-gence work for him, and decided that I could do that job better as a Marine."

"You were never a Marine, previously?" Almond asked, surprised.

"In the First World War, I was a teenaged Marine buck sergeant," Pickering said.

"And in the First World War, as a teenaged enlisted man, General Pickering was awarded the Navy Cross," MacArthur said, almost triumphantly, as if winning an ar-gument. "I really don't understand you, Fleming. Modesty is certainly a virtue, but denying that you're not every bit as much a soldier as anyone in this room is simply absurd." He paused and then drove home his point. "You're one of us, Fleming. Wouldn't you agree, Willoughby?"

"Yes, sir, I agree," General Willoughby said.

"Huff?"

"Absolutely, General," Colonel Huff said.

"You're all very kind to think of me that way," Pickering said.

And there is absolutely no chance of me getting MacArthur alone for a minute to talk to him about McCoy and the North Koreans. These three are going to be here all night-this is obviously a command performance for them.

I could, of course, ask him for a moment alone, and bring up the subject. But that would make it clear that Mc-Coy had gone "out of channels," and the fact is, I shouldn't know what I do. McCoy still thinks of me as "his general," but he's wrong. I'm not his general, and he should not have shown me that. Jesus H. Christ! What the hell am I going to do ?

[FOUR]

CONFERENCE ROOM B

THE HOTEL HOKKAIDO

TOKYO, JAPAN

1715 1 JUNE 1950

Charley Ansley was waiting for Pick in the corridor out-side the hastily rented room in which a tablecloth-draped table had been set up facing four rows of folding chairs.

When he saw Ernie Sage McCoy and Ken McCoy with Pick, he smiled. He had come to know both well in the early years of World War II, when, at Fleming Pickering's request, he had given them the use of his cabin cruiser in San Diego. Housing in San Diego at that time had been in very short supply, and absolutely unavailable to couples who were not legally joined in matrimony.

He had been at their wedding, when Ken came home from a hush-hush mission in the Gobi Desert with brand new major's leaves on his uniform.

"God, it's good to see you," he said, extending his left arm to embrace Ernie as he extended his hand to McCoy. "How's my favorite Marine?"

"I thought I was your favorite Marine," Pick said.

"No, you're my favorite Trans-Global pilot, and not only because you are going to go in there and smile, and be modest, and restrain your well-known tendency to be a wiseass."

"Nice to see you, Mr. Ansley," McCoy said, smiling.

"Maybe not `Uncle Charley,' like the prodigal son here, but at least `Charley,' Okay?"

McCoy nodded.

"Pick," Ansley asked, "do you think your father would mind if I called die Imperial and had them set up a bar, and hors d'oeuvres, in his suite?"

"Yes," Pick said, simply, smiling.

"The public relations guy says he'd like to get him in-volved in this, and I know damned well he wouldn't come here."

"No, he wouldn't," Pick said.

"So you're saying I shouldn't do it?"

"No, I think it's a good idea. What I said was he won't like it, and I agree that he wouldn't come here except at the point of a bayonet. But if I have to go in there and be charming and modest, the least the old man can do is smile at the press and whoever."

"The charm comes easily," Ernie said. "It's the modesty that gives him problems."

"Thank you, Killer, for taking this forked-tongue female off my hands," Pick said.

"Don't call him `Killer,' goddamn you!" Ernie snapped.

"It's okay, baby," McCoy said.

"We're ready for you, Captain," a man in a gray suit said.

"And now, I think Captain Pickering will take a few ques-tions," the man in the gray suit announced. "And then we've got cars arranged to take everybody to the Imperial for a little liquid courage."

Predictably, Pick thought, the questions were pre-dictable:

Q. (Fat little bespectacled fart) Isn't this really show-boating? Putting the passengers in danger?

A. The safety of our passengers is our primary concern; we have not and will not increase any risk to them.

Q. (Tall, thin, pasty-faced. Was probably a classroom monitor in high school) But speed records imply racing, racing is by definition dangerous, so how can you say this wasn't dangerous?

A. The aeronautical engineers of the manufacturer, Lockheed, and our own aeronautical engineers have come up with what they call an "envelope." It sets forth the con-ditions in which flight is safe. Airspeed, engine rpm, that sort of thing. We were never "out of the envelope"; if we had been, the record wouldn't have counted.

Q. (Pasty-face follow-up) But then why try to set speed records?

A. We didn't try to set a speed record. We tried to bring our passengers here as quickly-and comfortably-as pos-sible within the safe-flight envelope. We did that, and it happened to set a speed record.

Q. (Nice-looking. Great boobs) Aren't you a little young to be a captain?

A. Excuse me?

Q. (Great boobs follow-up. Nice face, too) The popular image of an airline captain-especially of one making across-the-ocean flights like this one-is, oh, forty-ish, fifty-ish, gray temples, a look of experience.

A. I must be the exception to that rule.

Q. (Nice boobs, plus nice teeth in a very nice mouth, follow-up) How did you get to be a captain? Did you fly transports or bombers when you were in the service?

A. No, ma'am, I did not fly multiengined aircraft, bombers or transports, in the service.

Q. (Nice boobs, face, teeth, nice everything, follow-up) Then how did you get to be a captain so young?

A. My daddy loaned me the money to start Trans-Global.

Q. (Nice, better than nice, everything, follow-up) I don't think you're kidding.

A. Boy Scout's honor, ma'am.

Q. (Nice everything follow-up) Who's your daddy?

A. His name is Fleming Pickering.

Q. There's a rumor floating that he's in Tokyo. True?

A. (Man in gray suit) We're going to have to cut this off, ladies and gentlemen, we're running out of time. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The cars are waiting in front of the hotel, and will wait at the Imperial to bring you back here.

"Except for that crack about your daddy loaning you the money to start the airline, you did very well, Pick. I'm proud of you," Ernie said, as they walked along the street to where Pick had parked the Ford.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Is that crap really important?" McCoy asked.

"According to Charley it is. It sells seats, and that's the name of the game."

"Hey, Captain Pickering, hold up a minute!"

Pick looked over his shoulder to find the source of the female voice. Nice Everything was coming down the side-walk toward them.

Nice legs, too. Damn nice legs.

"Believe it or not, that was a legitimate question," Nice Everything said.

"What was a legitimate question?"

"You are-at least you look-too young to be an airline captain."

"I don't think I caught the name," Pick said.

"Jeanette Priestly, Chicago Tribune," she said, giving him her hand.

Nice, soft, warm hand.

"My friends call me `Pick,'" he said. "These are my friends, Captain and Mrs. McCoy. Ken and Ernie."

"Which one's Ernie?"

"I am."

Nice Everything turned to McCoy.

"You're also a pilot?"

"I'm a Marine, not a pilot."

Jeanette turned to Pick.

"The public relations guy told me why you didn't fly `multiengine' planes when you were a Marine," Jeanette said. "You should have told me. It would have made a great lead: `Marine Fighter Ace Sets Trans-Pacific Airliner Speed Record.'"

"You have to understand," Ernie said, straight-faced, "that when you look in the dictionary under `modest,' you see our hero's picture."

The two women smiled at each other.

"And so was the question about your father being here legitimate," Jeanette said. "I'd really like to interview him."

"I don't know about an interview," Pick said. "But if you want to come with us to the Imperial-presuming the old man is back from dinner-I'll introduce you."

"Dinner with MacArthur, right?" she asked.

Pick didn't reply.

"Hey, I'm good at what I do, too," Jeanette said. "Yes, thank you ever so much, Captain Pickering, I would love to go to the Imperial with you."

"And afterward, how about dinner?"

"If I'm in a good mood-and getting to talk to your daddy would put me in a very good mood-I would be de-lighted."

[FIVE]

THE DEWEY SUITE

THE IMPERIAL HOTEL

TOKYO, JAPAN

2245 1 JUNE 1950

In the limousine on the way to the Hotel Imperial, Fleming Pickering had consoled himself with the thought that while he had absolutely no idea what to do about McCoy's predicament, he didn't have to face him right now with that announcement. What he was going to do now was have a drink-maybe two, but certainly one really stiff one-and fall into bed.

Sometimes, perhaps even often, he went to bed facing a problem that seemed to have no solution and when he woke in the morning-for that matter, sometimes at three a.m.-he had found one. He couldn't explain it, except perhaps to wonder if the brain continued to work while one was asleep, but it happened, and with a little bit of luck it would happen tonight.

He heard the sound of a party as he walked down the corridor toward the Dewey Suite, and as he felt for his key, was surprised to realize that it was coming from his suite.

What the hell?

He had just put the key in the lock when it was opened for him by a white-jacketed Japanese barman.

Pickering looked quickly around the room and saw there were two dozen or more people in the living room, includ-ing Charley Ansley and the station manager who had met them at the airport, and whose name he still didn't know. After a moment, he recognized Pick's copilot on the flight.

The record-setting flight. That's what this is all about. Charley's throwing a party for the crew, the people who run the operation in Tokyo, and, more than likely, for the press.

Seeming to confirm this, there was a bartender now be-hind the bar, and another white-jacketed Japanese was walking through the room carrying a tray of hors d'oeuvres.

Jesus! Just what I need! Like a third leg.

He saw Pick paying rapt attention to a tall, graceful brunette, and then, surprising him, he saw Captain and Mrs. Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR.

Pick and Charley Ansley saw him at the same time, and Ansley, a portly man in his fifties who combed what was left of his hair over the top of his skull, started toward him.

"Hail the father of our conquering hero," Charley said.

Pickering smiled, hoping it didn't look as insincere as it felt, and put out his hand.

"Good to see you, Charley," he said.

"This was the best place I could think of to do this..."

"They don't have party rooms at the Hotel Hokkaido?"

"... and even if they did, you probably would not have come over there, and I would have had to invite Bart Stevens, which I didn't want to do."

"It was a good idea, Charley," Pickering said.

"How did things go with MacArthur?" Charley asked.

"He's an amazing man," Pickering said.

"If you're talking about the Supreme Commander," Pick said, "Jeanette here would be ever so grateful for details."

Pickering had not seen Pick and the lanky brunette walk up.

"Jeanette, this is my dad," Pick went on. "Pop, this is Jeanette Priestly."

She put out her hand to him.

"Pick tells me you just had dinner with General MacArthur. True?"

"Miss Priestly, I feel morally bound to tell you that one-especially if one is a very attractive young woman- should never trust anything my son says."

`True or not?" she pursued.

"Jeanette's interest is professional," Pick said. "She's a reporter."

"Chicago Tribune," she furnished.

"It was a private dinner between old friends,'" Pickering said. "General MacArthur said nothing newsworthy."

And even if he had, despite that brilliant smile you're flashing me, did you really think I would tell you?

"Whatever General MacArthur says is newsworthy," she said, with a smile.

"How did it go, Pop?" Pick asked.

"A trip down memory lane," Pickering replied.

"Just you and MacArthur and Mrs. Supreme Comman-der?"

He's doing this to get on the right side of the girl. Well, why not?

"We had drinks, first," Pickering said. "General Willoughby, Colonel Huff, and MacArthur's chief of staff, General Almond. I'd never met him before. It was just the MacArthurs and me for dinner."

"What did you think of General Almond?" Jeanette asked.

"He's an army officer, a senior one, and he must be com-petent, or he wouldn't be MacArthur's chief of staff. Nice fellow, I thought. And you may quote me, Miss Priestly."

"There's a story going around about General Almond," she said. "I'd love to know if it's true or not."

"I really don't think I want to hear the story," Pickering said, rather coldly. "Isn't that what they call muckraking?"

"I know nothing but nice things about General Almond," she said. "But his previous-to being chief of staff to the Supreme Commander-claim to fame was that he had one of the two Negro divisions in Italy during World War II."

"I don't think I follow you," Pickering said.

"Are you being diplomatically dense, General?"

"Please don't call me `General,' Miss Priestly, it's been a long time since I wore a uniform."

"Sorry," she said, and then smiled at him. "You make it sound like something you're ashamed about."

"I meant to imply, Miss Priestly," Pickering said coldly, "that `General' is a title of honor to which I am no longer entitled."

Well, aren't you the pompous ass, Fleming Pickering?

Goddamn, she made me mad.

And, I think, on purpose.

Get the old fart mad, and he's liable to say something he shouldn't.

"And I don't know what `diplomatically dense' means," Pickering said.

"That's when you pretend not to understand what some-one has just told you."

"I understood that General Almond commanded a Ne-gro division in Italy. I don't understand the significance of that."

"Really? Or is that diplomatic density?"

He didn't reply.

"Is this history lesson boring you, General?"

He looked at her for a long moment before replying.

"No. If you wanted to get my attention, you've suc-ceeded. Please go on."

"Okay," she said, then waited as Pickering grabbed a wandering waiter.

"Famous Grouse, double, water on the side," he ordered

"Yes, sir."

`Two," Jeanette said.

"Three," Pick said.

"Oh, what the hell," Charley Ansley said. "Four."

"Please continue, Miss Priestly," Pickering said.

"You can call me `Jeanette,'" she said. "What should I call you?"

" `Sir' would be nice."

Charley Ansley chuckled.

"Score one for sir," Jeanette said. "The game ain't over...".

"Until the fat lady sings?" Pick offered.

"And half a point for Little Sir," Jeanette said.

Pickering chuckled. Jeanette smiled at him.

That smile she meant.

"We're waiting, with somewhat bated breath, for your history lesson, Jeanette."

"Okay, sir. Consider the end of World War Two."

"Sir was on the first plane to land in Japan," Pick said.

"How fascinating. Next time, raise your hand before you interrupt me."

"Score one for Jeanette," Pickering said.

"We have two five-stars, Eisenhower in Germany, specifically in Frankfurt, and El Supremo here. Each has a three-star chief of staff. Ike had Walter Bedell Smith, who had been his chief of staff throughout the European war, and MacArthur had Sutherland here."

"Okay," Pickering said.

"Just before he died, Roosevelt appointed another three-star, Lucius D. Clay, a heavy hitter who had been in charge of Army procurement throughout the war, to be deputy military governor of Germany under Ike. When Ike went home to be chief of staff, Clay replaced him as Commander-in-Chief, Europe. Truman gave Clay a fourth star, and sent him a succession of three-stars to command Seventh Army."

"You've done your homework, obviously," Pickering thought aloud.

"I work hard at what I do for a living, sir. Like you, sir."

Pick chuckled.

"Walter Bedell Smith, known as `The Beetle' for rea-sons I can't imagine, went home with Ike. First, he was made DCSOPS... You know what that is, sir?"

Pickering shook his head, "no."

"Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations," Jeanette said. "Then Truman named him Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Now there's talk of naming him Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to replace Admiral Hillenkoetter."

"This is all very fascinating, Jeanette," Pickering said, smiling, "and I'm sure that somewhere down the road, you'll make your point."

"Yes, sir," she said, smiling back. "Now, at this end of the world, we had General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, and his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland. General Sutherland went home for'reasons of health'-and I'd love to know what was behind that. He thereupon disappeared from sight. No job in the Pentagon, nothing."

"Maybe he was ill," Pickering said.

"Maybe," Jeanette went on. "Leaving one three-star here under MacArthur, Lieutenant General Walton H. `Johnny' Walker, who commands the Eighth Army. I don't suppose he was at dinner tonight?"

Pickering shook his head, "no."

"Not surprising. He is not a member of the elite, other-wise known as the `Bataan Gang.'"

"There is a point to all this, right?" Pickering said.

"One would logically assume, wouldn't one, that the five-star Supreme Commander in Japan would be entitled to the same sort of staff as the five-star commander-in-chief in Europe?"

"One might."

"A four-star, like Lucius Clay, would be appropriate, no?"

"One would think so."

"Failing a four-star, then a three-star, right?"

`That would seem logical."

"And failing a three-star, then a hotshot two-star with lots more stars clearly on his horizon. Max Taylor comes to mind. So does I. D. White."

"Who?" Pick asked.

"Max Taylor commanded the 101st Airborne Division; White commanded the 2nd `Hell on Wheels' Armored Di-vision. He would have liberated Paris if he hadn't had to let the French pass through his lines to get the glory, and he had his lead tanks across the Elbe River and was prepared to take Berlin when Dee told him to let the Russians do it. It's a sure thing that both of them will get a third star, a good chance that they'll both get four, and even money that one or the other will be chief of staff of the Army. And what better way to learn that trade than by being chief of staff to MacArthur?"

"That would seem to make sense," Pickering said.

"So who does the Army-which means Eisenhower, onetime aide to MacArthur-send to the Supreme Com-mander? Edward M. Almond, whose claim to fame was commanding one of the two Negro divisions in Italy. With-out much wild acclaim, by the way. He did his job, but he wasn't a hotshot. I don't think he's even a West Pointer. I think he's either VMI or the Citadel."

Mention of the Citadel made him think of Colonel Ed Banning, one of the finest officers he had ever known.

"And you've drawn some sort of a conclusion from this?" Pickering asked.

"If I were Douglas MacArthur, I'd think I was being in-sulted."

"If Douglas MacArthur thought having General Almond assigned to him was insulting, General Almond would not be his chief of staff," Pickering said.

I don't believe that; so why did I say it? MacArthur's re-action to insults is to ignore them. He knew damned well they called him "Dugout Doug," and pretended he didn't. It wasn't fair, anyway. He took stupid chances by staying in the line of fire-artillery and small arms-when he should have been in a dugout.

"Huh!" Jeanette snorted.

"And what's wrong with VMI and the Citadel?" Picker-ing challenged. "George Catlett Marshall went to VMI. And I personally know a number of fine officers who went to VMI and Norwich."

"Point granted," Jeanette said. "I. D. White went to Norwich. You don't see anything petty-not to mention sinis-ter-in Almond's assignment to MacArthur?"

"Nothing at all."

Why did I say that? I believe the story that MacArthur, when he was chief of staff, wrote an efficiency report on Marshall, then a colonel, saying he should not be given command of anything larger than a regiment. There was really bad blood between the two. One of Marshall's acolytes-maybe even Eisenhower himself-could have re-paid the Marshall insult by sending him a two-star non-West Pointer whose sole claim to fame was command-ing a colored division.

But I'm not going to admit that to this woman, this jour-nalist.

Why not?

Because it would air the dirty linen of the general offi-cers corps in public, and I don't want to do that.

Why?

Because, I suppose, I used to be called General Picker-ing. I guess that's like Once A Marine, Always A Marine.

But my fellow generals can be petty. Stupidly petty.

El Supremo refused to give the 4th Marines the Distin-guished Unit Citation for Corregidor, even though every-body else on the island got it. When I asked him why, he told me the Marines already had enough medals.

And Charley Willoughby is stupid enough, and petty enough, to ignore McCoy's report-have it destroyed-be-cause it disagrees with his assessment of the situation. Or admit that he didn't even have an assessment. Captains are not supposed to disagree with generals, much less point out that generals have done their jobs badly, or not at all.

What the hell am I going to do with that report?

And what the hell can I do to help McCoy?

"From what I've seen of General Almond, General," McCoy said, "he's as smart as they come."

Pickering was surprised that McCoy had volunteered anything, much less offered an opinion of a general officer.

Why did he do that?

To tell me something he thought I should know?

To challenge this female's theory that there was some-thing sinister in Almond's assignment?

And why, if he likes Almond, didn't he take his report to him, bypassing Willoughby?

Because that's known as going out of channels, and in the military that's like raping a nun in church.

Pickering looked at McCoy.

And had another thought:

Almond must have a hard time with Willoughby, even though the G-2 is under the chief of staff. Not only does Willoughby have MacArthur's ear, but he's the senior mem-ber of the Bataan Gang, who can do no wrong in El Supremo's eyes.

"Jeanette," Pick said. "Now that you've talked to Sir, are you going to live up to your end of the bargain?"

"What bargain was that?"

"Dinner. I'm starved. The last thing I had to eat was a stale sandwich on the airplane."

"A deal's a deal," Jeanette said.

"Dad, do you want to go with us?"

"I've eaten, thank you. And I'm tired. The restaurant here's supposed to be pretty good."

"Ken says he knows a Japanese place," Pick said.

Jeanette Priestly put out her hand to Pickering.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, General," she said. "Maybe we'll see each other again sometime."

"It was my pleasure," Pickering said.

[SIX]

THE DEWEY SUITE

THE IMPERIAL HOTEL

TOKYO, JAPAN

0140 2 JUNE 1950

Both father and son were surprised to see the other when Pick Pickering entered the living room of the Dewey Suite. Pick had assumed that his father would have long before gone to bed, and his father had assumed more or less the same thing about his son: that at this hour, Pick would also be in bed-Jeanette Priestly's bed.

"Still up, Pop, huh?" Pick asked.

"No, what you see is an illusion," Pickering said, getting out of an armchair and walking to the bar. He picked up a bottle of Famous Grouse. "Nightcap?"

"Why not? Just a little water, no ice," Pick said, and walked toward his father.

Pickering handed him a drink.

"Ida M. Tarbell turned you down, huh?" Pickering asked.

"What? Who?"

"Ida M. Tarbell, the first of the lady muckrakers," his fa-ther explained.

"Her name is Jeanette Priestly," Pick said. "And yes, since you asked, she turned me down."

"I can't imagine why," Pickering said.

"She said I was good-looking, charming, intelligent, dashing, and rich, and under those circumstances, she ob-viously could not take the risk of getting involved."

Pickering smiled.

"She really said that?"

"That's almost a direct quote."

"Well, I knew from the moment I saw her that she was an intelligent female," Pickering said. "Sometimes, as I suppose you know, that's a ploy. Telling someone who is good-looking, charming, et cetera, `no' may in fact be step one in a hastily organized plan to get you to the altar."

"I don't think so," Pick replied, seriously. "I don't think she wants someone in her life."

"But you are planning to see her again?"

"I don't know, Pop," Pick said, still seriously, his atti-tude telling his father that the Priestly girl, either intention-ally or not, had gotten more of his son's attention than most young women ever did.

"What are you going to do about the Killer?" Pick asked.

"I've been sitting here thinking about that."

"And?"

"There's really two problems," Pickering said. "Ken get-ting reduced to the ranks..."

"Sonofabitch, that makes me mad!"

"... and his report. Whatever the Killer is, he's not a fool. If he thinks the North Koreans are going to start a war, the odds are that they will."

"So?"

"I just sent Dick Fowler a radiogram, telling him I have to see him the minute I get to the States, and asking him to call the office and let Mrs. Florian know where he is."

Senator Richardson K. Fowler (R., Cal.) a somewhat portly, silver-haired, regal-looking 67-year-old, once de-scribed by Time magazine as "one of the three most power-ful members of the World's Most Exclusive Club," was one of Fleming Pickering's closest friends.

"I was sort of hoping you could get to MacArthur at din-ner," Pick said.

"So was I," his father replied. "But it... just wouldn't have worked. He would have backed Willoughby, and been pissed with me. Not that that would bother me, but it would certainly have made the Killer's situation worse."

"I had-just now, as I headed home, with my masculine ego dragging on the ground-what may be a disloyal thought."

"What?"

"Fuck the Marine Corps. If they don't recognize what they've got in the Killer, don't appreciate what he's done, and want to bust him down to sergeant, then fuck the Ma-rine Corps."

Pickering looked at his son for a moment before replying.

"I had a somewhat similar thought," Pickering said. "Ken doesn't need the Marine Corps to make a living."

"He doesn't want to live on Ernie's money," Pick said.

"Ken is a very capable fellow. He would do well at what-ever he put his mind to. And I think they've come to some sort of understanding about her money. The furniture in their house-did you notice?-didn't come from the Sal-vation Army."

"And what did the guy say? `Money may not be every-thing, but it's way ahead of whatever's in second place'?"

Pickering chuckled.

"Have you got a place for him in Trans-Global?"

"I thought about that, too. Yeah. Sure. There's half a dozen places where he really could do a job. The problem is that he would think it was charity." He paused. "God damn the Marine Corps!"

"It's not the Corps, Pick," Pickering said. "It's some chair-warmer in the Corps who has caved in to whoever here decided McCoy was a thorn under MacArthur's sad-dle blanket, and for the good of the Corps has to go." He paused. "If General Vandegrift was Commandant, I could-I would-go to him. But I don't even know who the present Commandant is."

"Cates," Pick furnished. "You didn't know?"

"Cliff Cates?" Pickering asked. Pick nodded. "I didn't know, but I do know him. He commanded the 1st Marines when we landed at Guadalcanal. And didn't make much of a secret he thought Vandegrift could have done a hell of a lot better in picking a replacement for the Division G-2 than your old man." He paused. "But he's a good Marine. A good officer. I think he'd see me-more important, listen to me. I'll ask Dick Fowler what he thinks."

Pick nodded.

"I didn't ask Ken when they're actually going home," Pickering thought aloud.

"The day after tomorrow, with us," Pick furnished.

Pickering looked at him in surprise.

"It sort of came up at dinner," Pick explained. "The Killer excused himself, and came back in a couple of min-utes and said his boss-some Navy captain-had given him permission to return to the States on commercial transportation, which means us. I guess the sonofabitch figures the sooner he gets the Killer out of Japan, the better for him."

"And when are we going home?"

"Day after tomorrow. Trans-Global Airways, as you should know, Mr. Chairman of the Board, operates a thrice-weekly luxury service flight schedule in both direc-tions between San Francisco and Tokyo."

"And is this thrice-weekly luxury service making us any money?"

"Yeah. A lot more money than we thought it would, at first."

"Don't say anything to Ken about this conversation," Pickering said.

"No. Of course not. I'm going out there tomorrow to help them pack."

"I'll go with you," Pickering said.

"What if he asks you what you're going to do?"

"He won't," Pickering said. "He trusts me to do what-ever I think is appropriate, even if it's nothing. He didn't come to me about his getting busted back to the ranks- that's not his style. But he thinks there's going to be a war, and that somebody should give the Corps a heads-up."

"Pop, do you think he's stupid enough to take the bust? To be Staff Sergeant-or Gunnery Sergeant-McCoy?"

"I don't think he thinks there's anything for a gunnery sergeant to be ashamed of."

"Either do I, but the Killer should be a colonel, not a fucking sergeant."

"If he gets out, it will be because he thinks Ernie would be uncomfortable as a gunnery sergeant's wife. Not that she wouldn't try to make it work..."

"God damn the Marine Corps!" Pick said, bitterly.

"Let's see what happens, Pick, after I talk with Dick Fowler."

Chapter Three

[ONE]

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY CHIEF FOR OFFICER RECORDS

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-l

HEADQUARTERS, CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA

0705 7 JUNE 1950

Major Robert B. Macklin, USMC, parked his dark green 1949 Buick Roadmaster sedan in the parking place re-served for the Deputy Chief of Officer Records, walked around to the front of the frame building, and entered.

Major Macklin knew that people sometimes said, not unkindly, that he looked like an actor sent by Central Cast-ing to a Hollywood motion picture set in response to a re-quest for an extra to play a Marine officer. Major Macklin was not at all unhappy to have people think he looked like what a Marine Corps officer should look like.

He was a tall and well-built, thirty-five-year-old, not quite handsome, fine-featured man who wore his brown hair in a crew cut. There was a ring signifying his gradua-tion from the United States Naval Academy on his finger, and the breast of his well-tailored, short-sleeved, summer-undress tropical worsted shirt bore a rather impressive dis-play of ribbons attesting to his service.

They were topped with the Purple Heart medal, testify-ing that he had shed blood for his country and the Corps in combat. His Asiatic-Pacific service ribbon bore stars indi-cating that he had participated in every World War II cam-paign in the Pacific.

There were two enlisted men just inside the door. One was Staff Sergeant John B. Adair, USMC, who had had the overnight duty NCO, and the other was PFC Wilson J. Coughlin, USMC, who had had the overnight duty as driver of the 1949 Chevrolet staff car, should that vehicle be required in the discharge of Staff Sergeant Adair's duty.

When Staff Sergeant Adair-who was short, squat, starting to bald, and did not look as if he had been sent over from Central Casting to play a Marine sergeant-saw Major Macklin, he popped to attention and bellowed, "At-tention on deck!"

PFC Coughlin popped to attention.

There were only two ribbons on PFC Coughlin's shirt, but Staff Sergeant Adair's display was even more impres-sive than Major Macklin's. His was topped by the ribbon signifying that he had been awarded the Silver Star Medal. Adair also had the Purple Heart, but with two clusters, in-dicating he had been wounded three times.

Very privately-although he knew his opinion was shared by most of his peers-Staff Sergeant Adair thought Major Robert B. Macklin was a chickenshit prick.

"As you were," Major Macklin said, and marched through the outer office of the G-l's office into the Officer Personnel Section, and between the desks of that section to his office, which was at the end of the room.

He put his fore-and-aft cap on a clothes tree and sat down at his desk. The desk was nearly bare. Macklin liked to keep things shipshape. There was an elaborately carved nameplate he'd had made for a package of cigarettes in Tientsin, China, after the war. There was a telephone and a desk pad of artificial leather holding a sheet of green blot-ter paper. There was a wooden In box on the left corner of the desk and an Out box on the right corner of the desk. The Out box was empty. The In box contained a curling sheet of teletypewriter paper.

Major Macklin opened the upper right-hand drawer of his desk and took from it a large ashtray, which had a box of matches in its center. He placed this on the right side of his desk, then went back into the drawer and came out with a straight-stemmed pipe and a leather tobacco pouch. He filled the pipe, carefully tamping the tobacco, and then lit it with one of the wooden matches from the ashtray. Then he returned the tobacco pouch to the drawer and reached for the teletype message, which had apparently come in overnight.

ROUTINE

HQ USMC WASH DC 1405 6 JUNE 1950

TO COMMANDING GENERAL

CAMP PENDLETON, CAL

ATTN: G-l

REFERENCE IS MADE TO MESSAGE HQ USMC DATED 27 MAY 1950 RELIEVING CAPT K. R. MCCOY FROM NAVAL ELEMENT HQ SCAP TOKYO JAPAN AND ASSIGNING HIM TO CAMP PENDLETON CAL FOR SEPARATION FROM AC-TIVE DUTY.

SUBJECT OFFICER, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS DEPENDENT WIFE, DEPARTED TOKYO JAPAN FOR CAMP PENDLETON VIA COMMERCIAL AIR 4 JUN 1950. EN ROUTE TRAVEL TIME ESTI-MATED AT NINETY-SIX (96) HOURS.

SUBJECT OFFICER'S SERVICE RECORDS ARE CURRENTLY BEING EVALUATED BY ENLISTED PERSONNEL SECTION, G-l, HQ USMC TO DE-TERMINE AT WHAT ENLISTED RANK OFFICER WILL BE PERMITTED TO ENLIST, SHOULD HE SO DESIRE, AFTER HIS SEPARATION FROM COMMISSIONED STATUS. PRIOR TO ENTERING UPON TEMPORARY ACTIVE DUTY AS A COM-MISSIONED OFFICER IN 1941, SUBJECT OF-FICER WAS CORPORAL, USMC.

ON ARRIVAL AT CAMP PENDLETON CAPT MC-COY SHOULD BE COUNSELED BY AN OFFICER OF EQUAL OR SUPERIOR RANK MAKING CLEAR TO HIM THE FOLLOWING:

HQ USMC DOES NOT WISH TO ENTERTAIN ANY REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATON OF HIS RE-LEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY AS A COMMISSIONED OFFICER. HE WILL BE SEPARATED FROM THE USMC NOT LATER THAN 30 JUNE 1950.

IT IS THE INTENTION OF THE G-l SECTION USMC TO DETERMINE AT WHICH ENLISTED GRADE CAPT MCCOY MAY ELECT TO ENLIST ON SEPARATION AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE TIME. SUCH DETERMINATION WILL BE FUR-NISHED BY TELETYPE MESSAGE TO G-l CAMP PENDLETON, AND IT IS ANTICIPATED THIS WILL OCCUR BEFORE 30 JUNE. ON RECEIPT OF ENLISTMENT OPTION, CAPT MCCOY WILL BE OFFERED THE OPTION OF IMMEDIATE RE-LEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENLISTING IN THE USMC; OR OF IMMEDI-ATELY BEING SEPARATED FROM THE NAVAL SERVICE TO ENTER CIVILIAN LIFE. SHOULD CAPT MCCOY ELECT TO DO SO HE MAY REMAIN ON ACTIVE DUTY UNTIL 30 JUNE 1950.

CAPT MCCOY HAS TWENTY-NINE (29) DAYS OF ACCRUED LEAVE. HE SHOULD BE OFFERED THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO ON LEAVE STATUS IF HE SO DESIRES UNTIL HE ACCEPTS OR DECLINES REENLISTMENT IN THE GRADE TO BE OF-FERED, OR UNTIL 28 JUNE 1950 WHEN AB-SENT PRIOR SEPARATION AS OUTLINED ABOVE HIS SEPARATION PROCESS MUST COMMENCE.

FOR THE COMMANDANT:

ROSCOE L. QUINCY LT COL USMC

ASST CHIEF OFFICER PERSONNEL OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-l

HQ USMC

ROUTINE

Major Macklin puffed thoughtfully on his pipe as he considered the message, then read it again to fix the details in his mind.

Although this was not mirrored on his face, Major Macklin had an emotional reaction to the message. He was surprised at its intensity.

At 0735, five minutes after Lieutenant Colonel Peter S. Brewer, USMC-a short, muscular, thirty-seven-year-old-who was Chief of Officer Records and Major Macklin's immediate superior, had entered his office, he saw Major Macklin in the open door of the office, waiting for permission to enter.

He waved him in.

"Good morning, Macklin," Lieutenant Colonel Brewer said. "Something?"

"Good morning, sir," Macklin replied. "I wondered if the colonel had seen this?"

He handed Brewer the TWX from Eighth and Eye.

Brewer read it, then looked up at Macklin to see what he had tp say about it.

"The phrase about encouraging this officer to take leave before he's separated, sir."

"What about it?"

"Sir, I'd like to find something for this officer to do around here, so that he wouldn't have to take leave."

"Why?"

"Sir, I know this officer. May I speak frankly?"

Lieutenant Colonel Brewer made a "come-on" gesture with his left hand.

"Sir, McCoy was commissioned when the Corps really needed officers. And, frankly, he was one of those who never should have been commissioned."

"Why not?"

"Well, sir, he lacks the education to be an officer, and... this is difficult to put in words. He doesn't really under-stand the unwritten rules on which an officer has to pattern his life. He's not an officer and a gentleman, sir, if you take my meaning."

"Where are you going with this, Macklin?" Lieutenant Colonel Brewer asked.

"I know McCoy well enough to know he's living from payday to payday," Macklin said. "You know the type, sir. Not a thought for tomorrow..."

"Okay, so what?"

"My thought, sir, is that if McCoy doesn't take leave, he'll be paid for it when he's separated. Whether he leaves the Corps or reenlists, I'm sure that he'd like to have-is really going to need-a month's pay in cash."

Lieutenant Colonel Brewer considered that a moment, first thinking that it was really nice of Macklin to take an interest like this-he didn't seem the type-and then con-sidering what he was asking for.

The Eighth and Eye TWX had said McCoy "should be of-fered the opportunity" to take leave; it didn't make it an or-der.

"Sure," Lieutenant Colonel Brewer said. "Why not? Have him inventory supply rooms or something. There's always a need for someone to do that."

"And, sir, with your permission, I'd rather not have him get the idea we're doing this out of-what... pity, I sup-pose, is the word."

Brewer considered that for a moment.

"Handle it any way you think is best, Macklin."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. With your permission, sir?"

Lieutenant Colonel Brewer gave Major Macklin permis-sion to withdraw with a wave of his hand.

Major Macklin returned to his office quite pleased with himself.

"Killer" McCoy getting himself booted out of the Corps was really no surprise. The miserable little sono-fabitch should never have been a commissioned officer in the first place. I'm only surprised that he lasted as long as he did.

Having him assigned here, under my command, for his last twenty-nine days as an officer is really poetic justice. I owe him.

An officer and a gentleman would never have done to a brother officer what that lowlife sonofabitch did to me. And got away with.

Until now.

The next twenty-nine days are mine.

It's payback time.

As he sat behind his desk, he had another thought that pleased him even more:

If he does accept whatever stripes Eighth and Eye de-cides he's worth, and enlists-and how else can he earn a living?-maybe I could arrange to have him stationed here.

"Reduced to the ranks"? I'd like to see the sonofabitch busted down to PFC.

And with a little luck, I might be able to do just that.

[TWO]

THROUGH WITH ENGINES

NEAR CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, CALIFORNIA

0905 7 JUNE 1950

As Trans-Global Airways' Flight 637, Luxury Service Be-tween Tokyo and San Francisco, began the last (Hon-olulu-San Francisco) leg of the flight, Fleming Pickering had taken advantage of Ken McCoy's visit to the rest room and had brought up the subject of Through with Engines to Ernie Sage McCoy.

Through with Engines was the more-or-less 110-acre Pickering estate near Carmel. On it was a large, rambling, but not pretentious single-floor house, designed to provide as many of its rooms as possible with the best possible view of the Pacific Ocean; a boathouse; a small airplane hangar; a small cottage for the servants; and a shedlike building used to house the grass-cutting-and other es-tate-machinery and a garage. None of the buildings-or the Pacific Ocean-could be seen from the road.

The land, which at the time had held only what was now the servants' cottage, and the boathouse had been the wed-ding gift of Andrew Foster to Patricia, his only daughter, on her marriage to Fleming Pickering. The house-actually the first four rooms thereof; eight more having been added, often one at a time, over the years-had been the gift of Commodore Pickering to his son Fleming on the occasion of his successful passage of the U.S. Coast Guard examina-tions leading to his licensing as an Any Ocean, Any Ton-nage Master Mariner, his right to call himself "Captain," and his first command of a Pacific and Far East vessel.

It was originally used by the young couple as somewhere they could go for privacy when he returned from a voyage, and Patricia had almost immediately pointed out that, since there were no street numbers, and nothing could be seen from the highway, the place needed a name. And it also needed signs to inform the public that it was private property.

Patricia Foster Pickering had thought her husband's sug-gestion of "Through with Engines"-the last signal sent from the bridge to the engine room at the conclusion of a voyage-was rather sweet, and told him she'd see about having a sign made.

"You'll need a lot more than one sign," he had replied. "I'll take care of it."

She thought that was sweet, too, until, on her next visit to what she thought of as "the beach place," she found the road lined at 100-yard intervals with four-by-eight-foot sheets of plywood signs, painted yellow, red, and black, reading:

PRIVATE PROPERTY

THROUGH WITH ENGINES

NO TRESPASSING UNDER

PENALTY OF LAW

They had come from the painting shop of the PandFE maintenance yard, and consequently were of the highest quality, and designed to resist the ravages of storms at sea.

It had taken Patricia most of Pick Pickering's life to get rid of the signs and replace them with something a little more attractive-and a little less belligerent. One original sign survived, and was now mounted on the wall of what she thought of as "the playroom," and her husband referred to as the "big bar," there being another-the "little bar"-by the swimming pool.

"Honey," Fleming Pickering said to Ernie McCoy, "I just had a great idea. Why don't you stay at Through with Engines while Ken's at Camp Pendleton?"

She smiled at him, but there was an I know what you`re up to look in her eyes.

What the hell, when in doubt, tell the truth.

"It won't be much fun for you down there, Ernie," he said. "And Patricia-if she's not already back-will want to see you."

And want to talk to you, especially after I tell her about Ken being reduced to the ranks. It's absolutely true that she thinks of you as a daughter. And talking to Patricia would certainly be a very good thing for you.

"I go where Ken goes," Ernie said. "But thanks, Uncle Flem."

"Have you considered that he might want you to stay at Through with Engines?"

"Pick said that, when he offered us Through with En-gines," Ernie said. "Your minds run in similar paths." She paused, then repeated, "I go where Ken goes."

"Okay."

"Pick's going to fly us down there in his airplane," she said. "We're going from the airport to Through with Engines, spend the night, fly down to San Diego-North Island Naval Air Station-in the morning. Pick will then run the girls out of his suite in the Coronado Beach, and turn it over to us."

"I didn't know," Pickering said.

"That way, I'll have a little time with Aunt Pat," Ernie went on. "The Pickerings are taking good care of the Mc-Coys, Uncle Flem, and the McCoys really appreciate it."

"Ernie, I don't know how much good I'll be able to do Ken," Pickering said.

"I know you'll do what you can," she said, and then Ken had appeared in the aisle and he changed the subject.

Pick's airplane was a Staggerwing Beechcraft, so called because the upper wing of the single-engine biplane was mounted farther aft than the lower. It was painted bright yellow, and there was a legend painted in script on the en-gine nacelle, "Once Is Enough."

"I'll bite," Ernie McCoy said, pointing to the legend af-ter her husband and Pick Pickering had rolled the aircraft from the hangar behind the main house of Through with Engines. "Once what is enough?"

"Once under the Golden Gate Bridge," Ken McCoy said, smiling at her.

"Mom's father gave me the Beech when I came home from the Pacific," Pick said. "It used to be Foster Hotel's. Now they have an R4D. Together with a long `once is enough' speech. So I had it painted on the nacelle."

"Once what is enough?" Ernie said.

"I told you, baby," McCoy said, smiling at her. "Once under the Golden Gate Bridge."

"He flew this under the Golden Gate Bridge?" Ernie asked, incredulously.

"With poor George Hart with him," McCoy said, chuck-ling at the memory.

"At the time it seemed like a splendid idea," Pick said.

"George had just gone to work for the Boss," McCoy said. "Colonel Rickabee decided the Boss needed a body-guard, so I went to Parris Island and found George in boot camp. He'd been a detective in Saint Louis...."

"Still is," Pick said. "I saw him there a couple of months ago. He's twice a captain, once in the cops, and once in the Corps Reserve. He's got an infantry company."

"I didn't know that," McCoy said. "Anyway, one day George is a boot, and the next day he's a sergeant bodyguard protecting the Boss, and the day after that, the Boss col-lapses-malaria and exhaustion; that was right after he was hit on the tin can leaving Guadalcanal, and they made him a Brigadier-in the suite in the Foster Lafayette in Washing-ton and winds up in the hospital. Rickabee sends George out here to tell the lunatic here that his father's going to be all right, and the lunatic here loads him in this-which he stole from his grandfather for the occasion, by the way-and flies under the Golden Gate. George told me he prayed to be able to go back to the safety of boot camp on Parris Island."

"Hart was with your dad all through the war, wasn't he?" Ernie asked.

"All the way, right to the end. He was even on the plane when the Old Man went into Japan before the surrender," Pick said. "Good man, George."

"And you got away with it?" Ernie asked. "You flew un-der the bridge, and got away with it?"

"I was a newly rated Marine aviator," Pick said. "With probably two hundred hours' total time, and therefore con-vinced I could fly anything anywhere..."

"By the skin of his teeth," McCoy said, "and with the considerable assistance of Senator Fowler."

"I don't like the look in your eyes, Pick," Ernie said. "Nothing smart-ass with the airplane today, Okay?"

"Nothing could possibly be further from my mind," Pick said, smiling wickedly.

"She means it, Pick," McCoy said. "Nothing cute with the airplane."

Pick looked at McCoy, surprised at his seriousness.

"Ernie's pregnant," McCoy said. "This is the fourth time; the first three didn't-"

"Jesus H. Christ!" Pick said. "Jesus, Ernie, you didn't say anything...."

"The first time, I told everybody, and everybody was re-ally sympathetic when I miscarried," Ernie said. "Like it says, `once is enough.'"

"You're the only one who knows," McCoy said. "Don't make us sorry we told you."

Pick looked between the two of them for a moment.

"Would congratulations be in order?"

"Nice thought," Ernie said. "But a little premature. Wait six months, and have another shot at it."

[THREE]

NORTH ISLAND NAVAL AIR STATION

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

1400 8 JUNE 1950

"North Island," Pick Pickering said into his microphone. "Beech Two Oh Two."

Pick was wearing a flamboyantly flowered Hawaiian shirt, yellow slacks, and loafers without socks.

Ernie McCoy was sitting beside him, wearing a dress. Pick had refused, considering her delicate condition, to let her defer to the rule that men sat in the front of a vehicle- wheeled or winged-and women in the back. McCoy, wearing his uniform, was in the back with the luggage that wouldn't fit in the baggage compartment.

"Civilian aircraft calling North Island. Go ahead."

Ernie could hear the conversation over her headset.

"North Island, this is Beech Two Oh Two, VFR at 4,500 over the beautiful blue drink, about ten miles north of your station, request approach and landing, please."

"Beach Two Oh Two, North Island is a Navy field, closed to civilian traffic. Suggest you contact Lindbergh Field on 214.6."

"North, Two Oh Two, suggest you contact whoever has the exception to the rules book, and then give me approach and landing."

"Hold One, Two Oh Two."

There was a sixty-second pause.

`Two Oh Two, North."

"Go ahead."

"North clears Beech Two Oh Two to descend to 2,500 feet for an approach to Runway One Eight. Report when you have the field in sight."

"Roger. Understand 2,500, Runway One Eight. Begin-ning descent at this time."

"Aircraft in the North pattern, be advised that a civilian single Beech biplane will be in the landing pattern."

"North, Two Oh Two, at 2,500, course one eight zero, I have the runway in sight."

`Two Oh Two, North. You are cleared as number one for a straight-in approach and landing on Runway One Eight. Be advised that high-performance piston-and-jet aircraft are operating in the area."

"North, Two Oh Two, understand Number One to One Eight. I am over the outer marker."

"Two Oh Two, North. Be advised that Lieutenant Colonel Dunn will meet your aircraft at Base Ops."

"Thank you, North."

There was no headset in the back of the Staggerwing, and McCoy had not heard the conversation between the North Island control tower and Pick Pickering. And because he was in the rear of the fuselage, when the airplane stopped and he heard the engine dying, he reached over, unlatched the door, and backed out of the airplane. When his feet touched the ground, he turned around and was more than a little startled to see a light colonel standing there wearing the gold wings of a Naval aviator, a chest full of fruit salad, and a displeased look on his face that, combined with the fact he had his hands on his hips, suggested he was dis-pleased with something.

Probably Pick. This is a Naval air station, and you're not supposed to land civilian airplanes on Naval air stations.

Captain McCoy did the only thing he could think to do under the circumstances. He saluted crisply and said, "Good afternoon, sir."

At that point, recognition, belatedly, dawned. It had been a long time.

Lieutenant Colonel William C. Dunn, USMC, who car-ried 138 pounds on his slim, five-foot-six frame, returned the salute crisply.

"How are you, McCoy?" he asked, and then stepped around McCoy to assist Mrs. McCoy in leaving the aircraft.

"Oh, Bill," Ernie said. "What a-pleasant surprise!"

"You're as beautiful as ever," Lieutenant Colonel Dunn said, "and as careless as ever about the company you keep."

Pick Pickering got out of the airplane.

"Wee Willy!" he cried happily, wrapped his arms around Lieutenant Colonel Dunn, and kissed him wetly on the forehead.

Second Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, had been First Lieutenant William C. Dunn's wingman, in VMF-229, flying Grumman Wildcats off of Fighter One, on Guadalcanal. They had become aces within days of one another. Dunn had gone on to become a double ace. The Navy Cross, the nation's second-highest award for valor in the Naval service, topped Dunn's four rows of fruit salad.

Dunn freed himself from Pickering's embrace.

"You're a disgrace to the Marine Corps," Dunn said, fail-ing to express the indignation he felt was called for, but did not in fact feel. "My God, you're not even wearing socks!"

"I don't have a loving wife and helpmeet to care for me," Pick said. "How's the bride?"

"About to make me a father for the fourth time," Dunn said, "and unaware I'm on this side of the country."

"What are you doing here-on this side of the coun-try-and here?"

"Here," Dunn said, gesturing to indicate the airfield, or maybe southern California, "because I need to borrow, beg, or, ultimately, steal Corsair parts from our brothers in the Navy, and here here"-he pointed at the ground- "because when I landed I called the Coronado to see if you might be in town, and they said you were expected about now. So I checked with Base Ops to see if they had an inbound Corsair. The AOD was all upset about some civilian airplane about to land. I knew it had to be you."

"As a token of the Navy's respect for the Marine Corps re-serve, I have permission to land here in connection with my re-serve duties," Pick said. "It's all perfectly legal, Colonel, sir."

"I've heard that before," Dunn said.

"Ken's reporting into Pendleton," Pick said. "We all just came from Japan-and on the way over, immodesty com-pels me to state, I set a new record...."

"The most violently airsick passengers on one airplane in the history of commercial aviation?" Dunn asked, innocently.

McCoy laughed.

"Those who have nothing to boast about mock those who do," Pickering said, piously. "But since you ask, there is a new speed record to Japan."

"Inspired, no doubt, by a platoon of angry husbands chasing the pilot?" Dunn said.

McCoy laughed again.

"You understand, Ernie," Pickering said, as if sad and mystified, "that these two-Sarcastic Sam and Laughing Boy-are supposed to be my best friends?"

"The way I heard it, they're your only friends," Ernie said.

"Et tu, Brutus?" Pick said.

Dunn laughed, then turned to McCoy.

"What are they going to have you doing at Pendleton, Ken?" Dunn asked.

"I really don't know, Colonel," McCoy replied.

Dunn didn't press McCoy. As long as Dunn had known him-and he had met him on Guadalcanal-he had been involved in classified operations of one kind or another that couldn't be talked about.

"Captain McCoy," Pick said. "If you would be so kind, go into Base Ops and call us a cab while the colonel and I tie down the airplane. We have to eat, and the food is much better at the Coronado Beach than in the O Club here."

Pickering walked around the nose of the Staggerwing to where Dunn was really stretching to insert a tie-down rope into a link on the wing.

"Bill, so you don't say anything in innocence.... What the Killer's going to do at Pendleton is make up his mind whether he wants to go back to the ranks."

"Jesus Christ!" Dunn said, in surprise. "I thought he at least would be the exception to the rule...."

"What rule?"

"Commissioned officers have to have a college degree," Dunn said. "I've lost four pilots in the last three months to that policy. But I thought they'd make an exception for somebody like McCoy."

Pickering had not heard about that policy.

But if I let Wee Willy think that's the reason the god damn Corps is giving him the boot, I won't have to get into the Killer's "There Will be a War in Korea in Ninety Days or Less" theory. Which, of course, I can't anyway.

"I guess not," Pickering said.

"Is he going to take stripes? Or get out?"

"I don't know. I don't think it would bother him to be a gunny, but Ernie..."

"Well, at least they don't have any kids to worry about," Dunn said.

"No, they don't."

Dunn looked at him thoughtfully.

"Pick, I can easily get a field-grade BOQ. If things would be awkward at the hotel."

"Don't be silly. There's plenty of room, and I think hav-ing you around will be good for both of them."

"What the hell is McCoy going to do outside the Corps? It's all he knows."

Pick Pickering threw up his hands in a gesture of help-lessness.

Then the two of them started to walk toward Base Ops.

Lieutenant Colonel Dunn was having thoughts vis-a-vis Major Pickering he did not-could not-share with him.

I love Pick, I really do. But the cold truth is that he is a lousy field-grade officer. A superb pilot-a natural pilot- and as far as courage goes, he makes John Wayne look like a pansy.

But, my God, he's a Marine major, and he lands at a Navy field barefooted and dressed like a Hawaiian pimp in an airplane that he once flew under the Golden Gate Bridge-I got that incredible tale from George Hart, so it's absolutely true.

I will, therefore, not tell Major Pickering that we have an old comrade-in-arms at Camp Pendleton who just might be able to turn the G-l around about reducing Mc-Coy to the ranks, and failing that, will certainly make his passage through the separation process at Pendleton as painless as possible.

If I told Pick, he'd hop in a cab, go out to Pendleton, in his Hawaiian pimp's shirt and bare feet, march into the general's office, and begin the conversation. "Clyde, you won't believe what a fucking dumb thing the Corps has done this time..."

Well, maybe it wouldn't be that bad, but it would be out-rageous and thus counterproductive, and therefore I will not tell him what I'm going to do.

Not, of course, that there's much chance that I will be able to do anything at all.

[FOUR]

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERAL

CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA

1520 8 JUNE 1950

Captain Arthur McGowan, USMC, aide-de-camp to the Deputy Commanding General, a tall, slim, twenty-nine-year-old, put his head inside the general's door.

"General, Colonel Dunn's on the horn," he said.

"I was getting a little worried," Brigadier General Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC, replied. He was a tall, tanned, thin, sharp-featured man who had just celebrated his fortieth birthday.

He signaled with his index finger for Captain McGowan to enter the office, close the door behind him, and listen to the conversation on the extension telephone on a coffee table.

General Dawkins waited until McGowan had the phone to his ear before he picked up his own.

"I was getting a little worried, Bill," General Dawkins said. "Your ETA was noon. Where are you?"

"At the Coronado Beach, sir."

"I sort of thought you would be at Miramar," General Dawkins said.

The Miramar Naval Air Station was the other side of San Diego-about fifteen miles distant.

"Bill," the general went on before Dunn could answer, "you're not going to tell me Pickering's involved in this lit-tle operation of yours?"

"No, sir. But I'm in the suite. So's Pick. And until three minutes ago, so was Killer McCoy. And his wife."

General Dawkins was familiar with "the suite" in the Coronado Beach Hotel. Its fifteen rooms occupied about half of the fourth floor of the beachfront hotel, and was permanently leased to the Trans-Global Airways division of the Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation.

At one time, before World War II, it had been leased to the Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation for the use of the masters and chief engineers of PandFE vessels, and to house important passengers of the PandFE passenger fleet.

During World War II, on a space-available basis, its rooms had been made available to Marine and Navy officers with some connection to PandFE, or the Pickering family per-sonally. That, in turn, had evolved into "the suite" becoming the unofficial quarters of Marine aviators, especially those who had served with VMF-229 on Guadalcanal, when they were assigned to-or passing through-one or another of San Diego's Marine and Navy installations.

General Dawkins had many fond memories of the suite, and usually the first one that came to mind was of the harem of stunningly beautiful girls at one wartime party who had gathered like moths at a candle flame around Ty-rone Power and MacDonald Carey, both of whom had put their Hollywood careers on hold to serve as Marine avia-tors.

Sometimes he remembered the party where the star had been the actor Sterling Hayden, who'd been a Marine offi-cer, but in the OSS, not an aviator.

Now General Dawkins regarded the suite as a time bomb about to explode. The final evolution had been into where the Marine Reserve aviators stayed when in the area, at the invitation of Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR.

Although it had not come to General Dawkins's official attention, he had no reason to doubt the rumors that, espe-cially during the two weeks of summer training many Ma-rine Corps Reserve aviators attended in the San Diego Area, considerable quantities of intoxicating spirits were consumed by them in the suite, in the company of young ladies who, despite their beauty, were not the type one took home to meet one's mother. Or one's wife.

"No kidding?" General Dawkins said. "Give him my best regards. McCoy, I mean."

"Actually, sir, I'm calling about McCoy."

"First things first, Bill," Dawkins said. "There is at this moment in Hangar 212 at Miramar eight crates...."

"Yes, sir, I know."

"I don't know, and don't want to know, what they con-tain."

"Sir, they will be picked up first thing in the morning. My Gooney-Bird lost the oil pump in the port engine, and was delayed in Kansas City. Its ETA here-North Island- is 0500 tomorrow morning. Figure an hour to fuel it, and I'll have it on the deck at Miramar at 0630, and with any luck at all, I'll be wheels-up from Miramar at 0730."

" `I'll be wheels-up'?" Dawkins parroted. "You'll be flying the Gooney-Bird?"

The Gooney-Bird was R4D, the Navy/Marine version of the Douglas DC-3 twin-engine transport.

"Yes, sir. I came out here in a Corsair. One of my kids will take that back."

"And you don't think anyone will wonder why a light colonel is flying a R4D?"

"I thought the Navy might be less prone to question a lieutenant colonel, sir," Dunn said.

That's probably true. But the real reason, Wee Willy, that you`ll be flying the R4D is because you don't want one of your officers catching the flak if this midnight requisi-tion of ours goes awry; you`ll take the rap. You're a good officer, Dunn.

"If you're not wheels-up by 0830, give me-or Art McGowan-a heads-up, and I'll start the damage control."

"General, I really appreciate-"

"Save that until you're back at Beaufort," Dawkins said. "Save it until two weeks after you're back at Beaufort."

"General, even with cannibalizing, I can only get fifty-five percent of my Corsairs in the air-"

"I seem to recall, Colonel, your mentioning this before," Dawkins interrupted him. "And, to save a little time here, ensuring that you will be wheels-up at Miramar with these crates aboard by 0830 tomorrow, let's change the subject."

"Yes, sir."

`Tell me about the Killer," Dawkins said.

"He's being reduced to the ranks," Dunn said.

"That goddarnn college-degree nonsense again?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, Jesus, Bill."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I've had a shot at it, but I don't think I'll be able to do much good. All I get is the same speech-there's no money, we have to reduce the number of officers, and one of the elimination criteria is education."

"Yes, sir. And actually, I think it's too late to help the Killer. He was ordered home from Japan, to Pendleton, for separation not later than 30 June."

"We're going to wind up with an officer corps consisting mainly of college graduates who can't find their ass with both hands," Dawkins said, bitterly.

"General, what I was hoping you could do is spare the Killer as much of the separation nonsense as possible. It has to be a humiliation for someone like the Killer to be told the Corps doesn't want him as an officer anymore."

"What the hell is he going to do as a civilian?" Dawkins asked, rhetorically.

"Well, in the sense he doesn't need a job, he's a lot bet-ter off than some of the people caught in the reduction."

It took Dawkins a moment to sort that out.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. His wife has money, doesn't she?"

"Her father is chairman of American Personal Pharma-ceutical," Dunn said. "I understand there are two majority stockholders: Ernie McCoy's father, and Ernie McCoy."

"That much, huh? I'd heard something, but I had no idea she had that kind of money."

"And even if that wasn't true, the Pickerings, father and son, would make sure the Killer doesn't go hungry."

"And I think we can presume that when General Pickering heard the Corps was giving the Killer the boot, he did his best to see that it wouldn't happen."

"I'm sure he did, sir."

"And couldn't help, either," Dawkins added, bitterly.

"It doesn't look that way, sir."

"So what can I do for the Killer, Bill?"

"Maybe have a word with the G-l, sir. Speed him through the process."

"Done, Bill," General Dawkins said.

"Thank you, sir."

"When does he report in here?"

"He's on his way out there right now, sir."

"Then I'd better get off my ass, hadn't I? Make sure you're wheels-up by 0830, Bill, or we're both liable to be reporting to the G-l for involuntary separation."

"I'll do my best, sir. And thank you, sir."

"Have a nice slow flight across the country, Colonel," General Dawkins said. He hung up the telephone and turned to his aide. "Get the car, Art."

"Aye, aye, sir."

[FIVE]

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-l

HEADQUARTERS

CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA

1545 8 JUNE 1950

The usual practice when one of Camp Pendleton's general officers had business to transact with the G-l was that the G-l, who was a full colonel, went to their offices. Thus, the G-l, Colonel C. Harry Wade, USMC, was surprised to hear someone bark, `Ten-hut on deck," a command given only when someone senior to the senior officer on duty-in this case Colonel C. Harry Wade-came into the building.

Wade looked through his open office door to see what the hell was going on and saw Brigadier General Clyde Dawkins marching purposefully toward his office, trailed by his aide-de-camp.

Colonel Wade rose quickly to his feet.

"Got a minute for me, Harry?" General Dawkins asked, as he entered Wade's office.

"Good afternoon, General," Wade said. "Of course, sir. Can I offer you some coffee?"

"No, thanks," Dawkins said. "I'm coffee-ed out. Art, will you close the door, please?"

Captain McGowan closed the door.

"I'm not sure, Harry," General Dawkins said, "whether this is what you could call `for the good of the Corps,' or personal. But I'm here."

"How can I help, sir?"

"This goddamn college-degree nonsense has just gotten one more damned good Marine officer."

"We've talked about that, General," Wade said. "If this is a special case, I'll get on the horn to Eighth and Eye. But I think I can tell you what they're going to say."

"Yes, I think I know, too," Dawkins said. "I think it's too late for anything to be done about this."

"Yes, sir?"

"Does `Killer McCoy' mean anything to you, Harry?"

"I've heard about him. He made the Makin Island raid, didn't he? With Major Jimmy Roosevelt?"

"The Makin Island raid, and a hell of a lot else," Dawkins said. "During the war, the Killer spent more time behind enemy lines than most people you and I know spent in the Corps."

"Yes, sir. I know who he is. I've never met him."

"You're about to," Dawkins said. "He's on his way out here from Diego for involuntary separation. He's a captain. He used to be a major. They took that away from him, and now they want to send him back to the ranks."

"I don't know what to say," Colonel Wade said. "You could tell me this college-degree thing is stupid, but you'd be preaching to the choir."

"I want his passage through your separation process greased," Dawkins said. "And I don't want him to suspect it was greased because somebody feels sorry for him."

Wade did not reply directly.

"What the hell can a man like that do on civvy street?" he asked, as if of himself.

"1 just found out he's the opposite of hurting for money," Dawkins said. "For whatever consolation that might be. His wife owns a large chunk of American Personal Phar-maceuticals, and the rest of it is apparently owned by her father."

"In other words, he's in the Corps because he wants to be," Wade said.

"Exactly," Dawkins said. "And now he's getting the boot. I want that exit to be as painless as possible."

"With your permission, sir," Wade said, "I'd like to get Lieutenant Colonel Brewer in here. He's in charge of in-voluntary officer separations."

Dawkins thought that over for a moment. There was no question in his mind that Colonel Wade would relay his desires to the lieutenant colonel. But it would take only another couple of minutes of his time, and the lieutenant colonel would have no question in his mind what the Deputy Commanding General wanted. "Good idea, Harry," Dawkins said.

Colonel Wade walked to his office door and opened it, and spoke to his administrative assistant.

"Sergeant, run over to Colonel Brewer's office and tell him I'd like to see him right now."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"And if he has a file on a Captain McCoy, tell him to bring that with him."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Three minutes later, Lieutenant Colonel Brewer entered Colonel Wade's office, carrying a large manila folder on which was lettered "MCCOY, K. R. CAPT USMCR."

He was visibly surprised to find the deputy commanding general resting his rear end on Colonel Wade's desk.

"You know the general, of course, Brewer?"

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Colonel Brewer said. He had met Dawkins for no more than two minutes when reporting aboard Camp Pendleton.

"That's McCoy's file?" Dawkins asked.

"Yes, sir."

He offered it to Dawkins, who took it.

"The general is interested in seeing that Captain Mc-Coy's separation from the Corps be conducted as expeditiously as possible," Colonel Wade said.

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"You understand what?" Dawkins said.

"Sir, Captain McCoy's reputation precedes him," Lieu-tenant Colonel Brewer said.

"You bet your life it does," Dawkins said, "but there is something in your tone of voice, Colonel..."

"Sir?"

"What exactly do you know about Captain McCoy?" Dawkins asked.

"Well, sir, from what I understand of Captain McCoy, he was lucky to be retained on active duty as an officer as long as he was."

"Anything else?" Dawkins asked, softly.

"Sir, as I understand the situation," Colonel Brewer be-gan, slowly, having sensed that he was marching on very thin ice, and having absolutely no idea why that should be, "Captain McCoy was commissioned from enlisted status in the early days of World War Two when the Corps was desperately seeking officers."

"And we commissioned practically anybody who could see lightning and hear thunder?" Dawkins asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?" Dawkins asked.

"Well, sir, it's come to my attention that he's... uh... in a financial position where he would be better off to spend his last twenty-nine days in the Corps on duty, rather than on leave. So that he could be paid for his unused ac-crued leave on separation, sir."

"And what would you have Captain McCoy doing on his last twenty-nine days of active service, Colonel?"

"Well, sir, as I'm sure you know, there's always some-thing an officer can do. Inventory supply rooms. The Ex-change. That sort of thing."

"Colonel," Dawkins said. "Listen to me carefully. I'll tell you what you are going to do vis-a-vis Captain McCoy, who is at this moment en route here. You will immediately receive him in your office. Ninety seconds after you re-ceive him in your office, he will depart your office on leave until the last day of his active service as an officer. When he reports back here on that last day of service, you will have arranged for the hospital to give him his separation physical examination on a personal basis-that is to say, it will take no longer than sixty minutes. If the hospital has any problem with that, have them contact me. When Cap-tain McCoy has his separation physical in hand, you will personally hand him his final pay and his travel orders to his home of record, and wish him well in his civilian ca-reer. You understand all that?"

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Colonel Brewer said.

"See that it happens, Harry," Dawkins said to Colonel Wade.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Come on, Art," General Dawkins said to Captain McGowan, and walked out of the room.

[SIX]

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF FOR OFFICER RECORDS

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF,

G-l HEADQUARTERS

CAMI PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA

1610 8 JUNE 1950

"You wanted to see me, Colonel?" Major Robert B. Macklin, USMC, inquired of Lieutenant Colonel Peter S. Brewer, USMC, from Brewer's open office door.

"Come in, Macklin," Brewer said, "and close the door."

"Yes, sir."

"About this Captain McCoy, Macklin..."

"Yes, sir?"

"I want to make sure I have this straight in my mind," Brewer said. "From what you told me, you served with him. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where was that?"

"I was on several occasions stationed in the same places as McCoy, sir, but I don't know if that could be construed as `serving with' him, sir."

"For example?"

"The first time I ran into McCoy, sir, I was in intelli-gence in the 4th Marines in Shanghai, and he was a machine-gun section leader in one of the companies. I knew of his reputation there."

"Which was?"

"Sir, I... uh... I'm a bit reluctant, under the circum-stances..."

"This is just between you and me, Macklin. Let's have it."

"He was known as `the Killer,' sir. He got into a knife fight-a drunken brawl, as I understand it-with some Italian Marines, and killed one of them. I was surprised that he wasn't court-martialed for that, and even more sur-prised when I was an instructor at the Officer Candidate School at Quantico, when McCoy showed up there."

"I see."

"At the time, knowing what kind of a man he was, I rec-ommended that he be dropped from the officer training program. I just didn't think he was officer material, sir."

"But he was commissioned anyway, despite your rec-ommendation?"

"Sir, the Corps was desperately short of officers at the time, scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Quantico ser-geant major, for example, was a sergeant major one day and a lieutenant colonel the next."

"Really? What was his name? Do you remember?"

"Yes, sir. Stecker. Jack NMI Stecker."

"You serve with McCoy anywhere else, Macklin?"

"When the OSS was formed, sir, there was a levy on the Corps for officers with intelligence experience in China. And/or who had some knowledge of Oriental languages. Both McCoy and I were assigned to the OSS. He had some smattering knowledge of Chinese, I believe."

"And that's how you came to understand his personal characteristics, his `payday-to-payday' philosophy of life?"

"Yes, sir. I suppose it is. May I ask-?"

Brewer put his hand up to silence him. "I hardly know where to begin, Major Macklin," he said. "Let me start with Brigadier General Jack NMI Stecker, holder of the Medal of Honor, under whom it was my priv-ilege to serve when he was special assistant to General Vandegrift, when he was Commandant of the Corps. You weren't suggesting, a moment ago, that he was something like Captain McCoy, someone who really shouldn't have been an officer in the first place, much less a lieutenant colonel and ultimately a brigadier general, were you?"

"No, sir. General Stecker was a fine Marine officer. But, if I may say so, he was sort of the exception to the rule."

"Not like McCoy, is what you're saying?"

"Not at all like McCoy, sir."

"Would you be interested to learn that whatever other problems Captain McCoy has at the moment, paying the rent is not one of them?"

"Sir?"

"I just came from Colonel Wade's office, Macklin, where I very much fear I left General Dawkins with the impres-sion that I don't know what's going on around here."

"Sir?"

"Both General Dawkins-who is obviously personally acquainted with Captain McCoy-and Colonel Wade- who had a somewhat different opinion from yours of Mc-Coy's service to the Corps even before we had a look at his records-are convinced the Corps is making a stupid mis-take in separating Captain McCoy from the service."

"I can only suggest, sir, that the general and the colonel are privy to information about Captain McCoy that I'm not."

"You didn't know that he was both wounded and deco-rated for valor when the Marine Raiders made the Makin Island raid?"

"That never came to my attention, sir."

"Did it ever come to your attention that Captain McCoy was awarded the Victoria Cross by the Brits for his service to the Australian coastwatcher service?"

"No, sir, it did not."

"How about his award of the Distinguished Service Medal for his having established a weather station in the Gobi Desert in Japanese-occupied Manchuria?"

"No, sir."

"There are several possibilities here, Major," Colonel Brewer said, almost conversationally.

"Sir?"

"One of which is that you are the most stupid sonofabitch ever to wear the insignia of a Marine major. Among the others are that you are a lying sonofabitch with a per-sonal vendetta-for reasons I don't even want to think about-against Captain McCoy."

"Sir-"

"Shut your mouth, Major," Brewer snapped. "Until I make up my mind which it is, and what I'm going to do about it, you will report to the Headquarters Commandant for an indefinite period of temporary duty. I don't know what else he will have you doing, but you will start by inventorying every company supply room on the base. You are dismissed, Major."

[SEVEN]

THE DIRECTOR'S OFFICE

EAST BUILDING, THE CIA COMPLEX

2430 E STREET

WASHINGTON, D.C.

0930 9 JUNE 1950

"The Director will see you now, Senator," the executive as-sistant to the Director of the CIA said, and held open the door to an inner office.

Senator Richardson K. Fowler and Fleming Pickering rose from a dark green leather couch and walked toward the office.

Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, a tall, imposing, silver-haired man, came from around his desk with his hand extended.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Senator," he said.

Pickering and Fowler had been in the outer office no more than three minutes.

In holders behind the admiral's desk were three flags: the national colors, the CIA flag, and a blue flag with the two stars of a rear admiral.

"Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Admi-ral," Fowler said.

"Anytime, Senator, you know that," Hillenkoetter said, and extended his hand to Pickering.

`This is my very good friend, Fleming Pickering," Fowler said.

"How do you do, sir?" Hillenkoetter said. "What is it they say, `any friend of...' ? I'm trying to place the name."

"I'm chairman of the board of Pacific and Far East Ship-ping," Pickering said.

That, too, rings a bell, but no prize. There's something else. What?

"First, let me offer coffee," Hillenkoetter said, "and then you can tell me how I can be of service."

A younger woman than the admiral's executive assistant appeared with a silver coffee service. There was silence as she served coffee. Pickering, Pickering, where have I heard that name be-fore?

Oh, yeah!

Pearl Harbor. Right after the attack. He was a reserve four-striper; Navy Secretary Knox's personal representa-tive. Abrasive bastard. Thought he knew everything, and didn't like anything the Navy was doing. Or had done. And after that, what?

He was in the OSS. He was the deputy director of the OSS for the Pacific. Or was he ? The OSS guy was a Marine brigadier, not a Navy captain.

Admiral Nimitz liked the OSS guy. Maybe there's two Pickerings-brothers, maybe. What is he after, a job? The young woman left the office. "You were the assistant director of the OSS in the Pa-cific," Hillenkoetter said. "Isn't that right, Mr. Pickering?"

"General Pickering was the assistant director for the Pa-cific," Fowler corrected him.

"Excuse me," Hillenkoetter said. "For the Pacific." "Yes, I was," Pickering said.

"General Pickering has just come from Tokyo," Fowler said.

"Is that so?"

"Admiral, before we go any further," Fowler said. "If you have a recorder operating, please turn it off."

"I beg your pardon?" Hillenkoetter asked, surprised and indignant.

"If you have a recorder operating," Fowler repeated, "please turn it off."

Hillenkoetter didn't reply; he didn't trust himself to speak.

Who does this arrogant sonofabitch think he is, coming into my office and telling me to turn off my recorder?

"Franklin Roosevelt had the Oval Office wired to record interesting conversations," Fowler went on, amiably, rea-sonably. "I have no reason to believe Harry Truman had it removed. If I were in your shoes, I'd have such a device. I suspect you do, and I'm asking you to turn it off. There are some things that should not be recorded for posterity."

Hillenkoetter felt his temper rise.

Like a senator pressuring me to give his buddy a job, for example?

Who does he think he is?

He thinks he's a power in the Senate. He knows he's a power in the Senate. Ergo sum, one of the most powerful men in the country.

Hillenkoetter pressed a lever on his intercom box.

"Mrs. Warburg, would you please turn off the recording device?"

"Yes, sir," Mrs. Warburg replied.

Her surprise was evident in her voice. One of the rea-sons the admiral had kept Senator Fowler waiting was to make sure the recorder was working.

One did not let one's guard down when a senator-any senator, much less Richardson K. Fowler (R., Cal.)-called one at one's home and asked for a meeting at your earliest convenience, say, nine o `clock tomorrow morning.

"Thank you," Fowler said.

Hillenkoetter didn't reply.

Fowler looked at Pickering and made a give it to me mo-tion with his index finger.

Pickering took a fat business-size envelope from his in-terior jacket pocket and handed it to Fowler. Fowler handed it to Hillenkoetter.

`Take a look at that, Admiral, if you would, please," Fowler said.

Hillenkoetter opened the envelope and took out the sheaf of paper.

"What is this?"

"Before we talk about it, Admiral," Fowler said, "it might be a good idea for you to have some idea of what we're talking about."

Hillenkoetter's lips tightened, but he didn't reply. It took him three minutes to read the document.

"This would appear to be an intelligence assessment," he said finally. "But there's no heading, no transmission letter. Where did this come from?"

"I had my secretary excerpt the pertinent data from the original," Pickering said.

"From the original official document?"

Pickering nodded.

"Such a document would be classified," Hillenkoetter said, thinking out loud. "Secret, at least. How did you come into possession of the original?"

"The original document was prepared by an officer who worked for me during the war," Pickering said. "I believe what he says in that assessment."

"I've seen nothing from our people there, or from Gen-eral MacArthur's intelligence people, that suggests any-thing like this," Hillenkoetter said.

"That assessment was given to General Willoughby," Pickering said. "Who not only ordered it destroyed, but had the officer who prepared it ordered from Japan."

"That sounds like an accusation, General," Hillenkoetter said.

"It's a statement of fact," Pickering said.

"Why would he do something like that?"

"God only knows," Pickering said. "The fact is, he did."

"And the officer who prepared it, rather than destroying it, gave it to you? Is that about it?"

"That's it," Pickering said.

"General Willoughby is not only a fine officer, but I would say the most experienced intelligence officer in the Far East," Hillenkoetter said.

"Does the name Wendell Fertig mean anything to you, Admiral?" Pickering asked.

Hillenkoetter searched his mind.

"The guerrilla in the Philippines?" He smiled, and added, "The reservist who promoted himself to general?"

"The guerrilla in the Philippines who, when the Army fi-nally got back to Mindanao, had thirty thousand armed, uniformed, and organized troops under his command waiting for them," Pickering said. "During the war, he forced the Japanese to divert a quarter of a million men to dealing with him."

Hillenkoetter, his face showing surprise at the coldly an-gry intensity of Pickering's response, looked at him and waited for him to continue.

"Before, at President Roosevelt's direction, I sent a team of agents into Mindanao to establish contact with General Fertig, General Willoughby, speaking for MacArthur, stated flatly that there was no possibility of meaningful guerrilla operations in the Pacific."

Hillenkoetter took a moment to digest that.

"I gather your relationship with General MacArthur was difficult?" he asked.

"Anyone's relationship with General MacArthur is diffi-cult," Pickering said. "But if you are asking what I think you are, our personal relationship was-is-just fine. I had dinner with him and Mrs. MacArthur last week."

"And did you bring this... this assessment up to him?"

"General MacArthur's loyalty to his staff, especially those who were with him in the Philippines, is legendary," Pickering said. "I know Douglas MacArthur well enough to know that it would have been a waste of time."

"And, I daresay, he might have asked the uncomfortable question, how you came to be in possession of the assess-ment in the first place?"

Pickering didn't reply.

"The officer who gave you this assessment should not have done so," Hillenkoetter said.

"Is that going to be your reaction to this, Admiral?" Pickering asked, coldly. "Someone dared to go out of channels, and therefore what he had to say is not relevant?"

"Easy, Flem," Senator Fowler said.

"I didn't say that, General," Hillenkoetter said.

"That was the implication," Pickering said.

"I'll need the officer's name," Hillenkoetter said.

"I'm not going to give it to you," Pickering said, flatly.

"I can get it," Hillenkoetter flared.

"If you did that, Admiral, this whole thing would prob-ably wind up in the newspapers," Senator Fowler said. "I don't think you want that any more than we do."

Hillenkoetter, while waiting to hear that the recording sys-tem was functioning, had gone over the CIA's most recent "informal biography" of Fowler, Richardson K. (R., Cal.) and was thus freshly reminded that the senator owned the San Francisco Courier-Herald, nine smaller newspapers, six radio stations, and five television stations, including one ra-dio station and one television station in Washington, D.C.

"This is a matter of national security, Senator," Hil-lenkoetter said, and immediately regretted it.

"That's why we're here, Admiral," Pickering said.

Hillenkoetter glared at him, realized he was doing so, and turned to Fowler.

"What is it you would like me to do, Senator?" he asked.

"At the very least, light a fire under your people in Japan and Hong Kong and Formosa and see why they haven't come up with an assessment like this," Pickering said.

"I was asking the senator, General," Hillenkoetter said.

"What General Pickering suggests seems like a good first step," Fowler said. "Followed closely by step two, which would be keeping me advised, on a daily basis, of what your people develop."

"Senator, my channel to the Senate is via the Senate Oversight Committee on Intelligence. I'm not sure I'm au-thorized to do that."

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want you to do anything you're not authorized to do," Fowler said, reasonably. "So what I'm apparently going to have to do is go to Senator Driggs, whom I had appointed to the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee, and ask him to give you permission to give me what I want. I think Jack Driggs would want to know why I'm interested."

"Another option would be to bring this to the attention of the President," Hillenkoetter said.

"Whatever you think is best for all concerned," Fowler said. "I'm going to have lunch with President Truman at half past twelve. Would you like me to bring it up with him then?"

They locked eyes for a moment.

"Senator," Hillenkoetter said, "I mean this as a compliment. You really know how to play hardball, don't you?"

"I've heard that unfounded accusation before," Fowler said.

"May I speak out of school?" Admiral Hillenkoetter asked.

"I thought I'd made it clear this whole conversation is out of school," Fowler said.

"With all respect to General Pickering, and his former subordinate, the officer who prepared this assessment, I'm having a great deal of trouble placing much credence in it."

"See here, Admiral-" Pickering flared.

"Flem, let him finish," Fowler said sharply.

"For one thing," Hillenkoetter went on, "I can't believe that General Willoughby would suppress something like this, and for another, as I said before, I've received nothing remotely approaching this assessment from my own people in the Orient."

"So?" Fowler asked.

"On the other hand, it comes to me not only from a... the former... deputy director of the OSS for the Pacific, but via a senator, for whom I not only have a great deal of respect, but who apparently believes there is something to the assessment. Under that circumstance, I will immedi-ately take action to see what I can find out myself."

"How?" Pickering asked, sarcastically. "By sending Willoughby a radio message?"

"Flem, goddamn it!" Fowler said.

"By dispatching my deputy director for Asiatic Activi-ties-your replacement, so to speak, General-over there as soon as I can get him on a plane, with instructions to- what was your phrase, General? `light a fire'?-light afire under our people in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul to re-fresh their efforts."

"All right," Fowler said.

"It would facilitate things if they could talk with the au-thor of this," Hillenkoetter went on, tapping his fingertips on the assessment. `To do that, I'd have to have his name."

"Flem?" Fowler asked.

Pickering thought it over.

"No," he said, finally, "for a number of reasons, prima-rily because everything he knows is in the assessment. What they would really want from him is his sources, and I don't think he'd be willing to tell them."

"We're supposed to be on the same side, General," Hil-lenkoetter said.

"I'm not entirely convinced of that, frankly," Pickering said. "Anyway, my... friend... would not give up his sources unless I told him to, and I'm not willing to do that. At least, right now."

Hillenkoetter shrugged.

"I may keep this, right?" he asked, tapping the assess-ment again.

"I've been thinking about that," Pickering said. "Could I have your word that you'll use it to pose specific ques-tions-about the order of battle, that sort of thing?-I mean, that you won't turn it over as is to your people? They wouldn't have to be rocket scientists to figure out who wrote it if they had the entire document."

"And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Hil-lenkoetter asked. "It might wind up in the newspapers."

Fowler smiled.

"You have my word, General," Hillenkoetter said. "And would you agree, Senator, that we don't have to worry the President about this just now?"

"Not for the time being," Fowler said, and rose from his chair. "Thank you, Admiral, for your consideration, and for seeing us on short notice. And I'll expect to hear from you shortly, right?"

"Absolutely," Hillenkoetter said, and offered his hand to Pickering.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, General."

"Was it really?" Pickering asked.

Hillenkoetter laughed, a little uneasily, and walked Pick-ering and Fowler to his office door.

As he watched them walk through his outer office, there was an unexpected bulletin from his memory bank.

Christ! The Gobi Desert weather station. The OSS- Pickering-put that in, in the middle of Japanese-occupied Mongolia. Nobody thought he could do it, much less keep it up. But he did, right through the end of the war. The B-29 bombing of the Japanese home islands could not have taken place without it. And we're still using it.

Whatever else Pickering may be, he's no amateur.

Maybe there is something to this assessment.

But why would Charley Willoughby sit on it?

He became aware that Mrs. Warburg, his executive as-sistant, was looking at him, waiting for orders.

"Call Mr. Jacobs, please, Mrs. Warburg," he said. "Ask him to come up as soon as he can. And call transportation and start working on tickets for him to Hong Kong."

"Yes, sir," she said.

He started to close his office door, but she held it open.

Then she stepped inside the office and closed the door.