"Are you going to be in touch with Colonel Dunn?"


"I can get a message to him, sir. The Badoeng Strait's COD will be here in a couple of hours. I don't know if the colonel will be flying it again today-"


"Dunn was flying the Avenger?" Dunston asked, sur-prised.


"Yes, sir."


"Then he must be as anxious for a word with McCoy as I am," Dunston said. "Got a piece of paper and an enve-lope?"


"Yes, sir," Overton said, handed it over, and then mo-tioned for Dunston to take his seat so he would have a place to write.


Dunston wrote a short message on a sheet of lined paper, put it in an eight-by-ten-inch envelope-all Overton could offer-wrote Dunn's name on it, and then handed it to Overton.


"If Colonel Dunn is flying, tell him I don't know where McCoy is. I would tell him if I knew. And I would really be grateful if he finds McCoy before I do, if he would tell him to get in touch with me."


"Aye, aye, sir."


"Oh, you salty Marines," Dunston said. "That's what the note says. If Dunn comes here, burn the note. Otherwise, give it to the pilot of the COD and tell him to personally put it in Dunn's hand."


"Yes, sir."


"And if you see McCoy..."


"Have him get in touch with you. Yes, sir."


"I sort of like that `aye, aye' business," Dunston said. "And I just remembered what it means: `Order understood and will be carried out.' Right?"


"Yes, sir."


" `Yes, sir,' on the other hand means, `I heard what you said, and I will consider doing it.'"


Overton laughed.


"How about an `aye, aye, sir'?" Dunston asked. "This is really important, Overton."


"Aye, aye, sir."


[SIX]


COMMUNICATIONS CENTER EIGHTH UNITED STATES ARMY (REAR)


PUSAN, KOREA


0120 10 AUGUST 1950


Captain R. C. "Pete" Peters, Signal Corps, USA, was tak-ing a nap, lying on the counter of the outer room, when Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, and Technical Sergeant J. M. Jennings, USMC, entered. It was the first sleep he'd had in twenty-four hours, but he woke immedi-ately nevertheless when he heard the squeak of the door. And was momentarily startled, even a little frightened, when he saw the two Marines.


They were wearing black cotton shirts and trousers. The shirts were too small for them, and therefore unbuttoned, leaving their chests exposed. McCoy had a Garand hang-ing from his shoulder and Jennings was armed with a car-bine. There were two eight-round clips on the strap of McCoy's rifle, and Jennings's carbine had two fifteen-round magazines in the action, taped together, upside down, so that when one was emptied, the other could quickly be inserted.


"Jesus Christ, McCoy! What are you dressed up for?"


"Don't you ever go to spy movies? All we secret agents go around in disguise."


"Do you know that everybody and his brother is looking for you?" Peters asked, as he got off the counter.


"Does everybody and his brother have names?"


"Starting with your general," Peters said. "He calls-or his aide does-every four hours or so to remind me that I am to tell you, the minute I lay eyes on you, to call him."


"Anybody else?"


"Major Dunston of the Transportation Corps," Peters said, his tone of voice putting that name and identification in quotes. "And Captain Overton, of the Marines."


"Who's he?"


"The liaison officer at K-l," Peters said.


"Oh, yeah," McCoy said, remembering. "Did he say what he wanted?"


"You're supposed to get in touch with a Colonel Dunn at your earliest convenience."


"Okay, I'm going out there from here," McCoy said.


"What happened to your uniform? Am I allowed to ask?"


"Would you believe they got swept over the side while they were being washed? Or, actually, being dried? One moment, they were on the deck of our luxury liner, drying in the sun, and the next minute a wave came out of nowhere, and so long utilities."


"I don't think you're kidding," Peters said. "What were you doing on a boat?"


"That you're not allowed to ask," McCoy said.


"I am under the personal orders of a Marine brigadier general to get you on the horn to him thirty seconds after I lay eyes on you. That time is up."


"Before I call him, maybe you can help."


"What?"


"I need a part for an SCR-300," McCoy said.


"What part?"


"The oil-filled transformer," McCoy said.


"There are three oil-filled transformers in an SCR-300," Peters said. "Which one?"


"The one that looks like a square tin can."


"They all look like square tin cans," Peters said.


"Marvelous!" Jennings said.


"Then we'll have to have three of each."


"You don't happen to have the one that's broke?" Peters asked.


"No."


"When do you need them?"


"Now."


"I've got two SCR-300s here, about to go back to Japan for depot-level maintenance. I can take the transformers out of them, if that would help?"


"How would we know if they're any good?"


"We don't," Peters said. "But as a general rule of thumb,


if they haven't lost their oil, they run forever."


"That's what Sergeant Worley said, Captain," Jennings said. "He said it was the last thing he expected to fail."


"Are they hard to get out?"


"Unfasten a couple of screws, unsolder a couple of con-nections...."


"Give Sergeant Jennings a soldering iron and a screw-driver, and he can get started while I report in."


"If you'd like, I've got a pretty good sergeant who could take these out and put them in yours," Peters said.


"Mine is a long way away," McCoy said. "But thanks anyway."


"You know what you're looking for, Sergeant?"


"Yes, sir."


"They're out in back, I'll show you."


[SEVEN]


K-l USAF AIRFIELD


PUSAN, KOREA


0325 10 AUGUST 1950


The Transient Officers' Quarters at K-l was a dirt-floored U.S. Army squad tent. The tent was furnished with six folding wooden cots and one lightbulb.


Lieutenant (j.g.) Preston Haywood, USNR, hadn't planned to spend the night in Pusan, but he'd had a couple of red lights on the panel of his Avenger and by the time he'd gotten the Air Force mechanics to clear them, it had been too late to take the COD aircraft back to the USS Sicily.


Night landings on aircraft carriers are understandably more dangerous than daylight landings, and unless there was a good reason to make them, they were discouraged. In Lieutenant Haywood's judgment-discretion being the better part of valor-carrying half a dozen mail bags out to the Sicily was not a good enough reason to make a night landing on her.


After making sure that Aviation Motor Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Jos‚ Garcia, his crew chief, would have a place to sleep and be able to get something to eat, Haywood had taken advantage of the situation and gone to the K-l O Club, thinking, if nothing else, he could probably have a beer there. There was, of course, no beer, or any other kind of alcohol, aboard the Sicily.


He had four bottles of Asahi beer in the K-l O Club. And he had occasion to muse again that the Air Force didn't feed as well as the Navy. Supper had been two tough pork chops, mashed potatoes, and mushy green beans.


There being absolutely nothing else to do at K-l, when he'd finished his fourth beer, he'd gone to bed, which is to say he'd gone to the tent, stripped to his underwear, and lay down on the folding wooden cot, sharing it-there being nothing else he could find to do with his khakis and flight suit.


Haywood sat up abruptly when the bare lightbulb sud-denly turned on.


Two men had entered the Transient Officers Quarters. One he recognized as the Marine liaison officer. The other was a strange apparition, a white man wearing what looked like black pajamas, and with a Garand rifle slung from his shoulder. He was carrying, as was the Marine liaison offi-cer, a cardboard carton.


"Haywood, right?" the Marine liaison officer asked.


"Yes, sir."


"Haywood, this is Captain McCoy," the Marine liaison officer said.


"Yes, sir?" Haywood asked, wondering if he should try to get dressed.


"I need a ride out to the Badoeng Strait," the white man in the black pajamas said. "As soon as possible."


"Sir, I'm from the Sicily."


"Captain Overton told me," McCoy said. "I want to get there before the Marines fly their first flight of the morn-ing."


"Sir, I'm not sure I can do that," Haywood said. "For one thing..."


"You can do it," McCoy said. He handed Haywood a sheet of paper. "There's my authority."


Lieutenant Haywood's only previous experience with the Central Intelligence Agency had been watching it por-trayed in a movie, but he realized he was holding in his hand an order issued by the Director of the CIA-who was a rear admiral, USN. He knew there were no flag officers aboard Sicily, and he was almost positive there weren't any aboard Badoeng Strait either.


"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Haywood said. "Sir, I'll have to ask permission to land on Badoeng Strait."


"Hypothetically speaking, Mr. Haywood," McCoy said. "What would happen if you called Badoeng Strait and said you had an emergency and needed to land?"


"They'd give me permission, of course, sir."


"Okay, that's what we'll do."


"You don't want me to ask permission, sir?"


"They're liable to say `no,'" McCoy said. "Get dressed, Mr. Haywood, please."


[EIGHT]


THE USS BADOENG STRAIT


35 DEGREES 24 MINUTES NORTH IATITUDE,


129 DEGREES 65 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


THE SEA OF JAPAN


0420 10 AUGUST 1950


Lieutenant Haywood was wrong about there being no flag officers aboard Badoeng Strait. The Badoeng Strait was flying the red, single-starred flag of a Marine brigadier general.


Brigadier General Thomas A. Cushman, Assistant Com-mander, First Marine Air Wing, had flown aboard late the previous afternoon, piloting himself in an Avenger he'd borrowed from USN Base Kobe.


General Cushman wanted to be with his men. The previ-ous evening, he had dined in the chief petty officer's mess, which also served the Marine master sergeants aboard. He had taken dessert in the enlisted mess, and finally, he'd had coffee with the Marine officers in the Pilot's Ready Room and in the wardroom.


He had spent the night-although he had at first de-clined the offer-in the cabin of the Badoeng Strait's cap-tain. The captain, who had known General Cushman over the years, told him he preferred to use his sea cabin-a small cabin right off the bridge-anyway, and Cushman had accepted the offer.


Cushman had set his traveling alarm clock for 0400. The first Corsairs would be taking off at 0445, and he wanted to attend the briefing, and then see them off.


All the intelligence General Cushman had seen indi-cated that the North Koreans were aware that the longer they didn't succeed in pushing Eighth Army into the sea, the less the chance-American strength in the Pusan perimeter grew daily-that they would ever be able to do so.


Consequently, while perhaps not in desperation, but something close to it, they were attacking all the time, and on all fronts. The Marine Corsairs would have a busy day.


Cushman was surprised and pleased when he turned the lights on to see that someone had very quietly entered the cabin and left a silver coffee set on the captain's desk. He poured half a cup, then had a quick shower and shave, and wearing a freshly laundered and starched khaki uniform- courtesy of the captain's steward-left the captain's cabin and made his way to the bridge.


"Permission to come on the bridge, Captain?"


"Granted. Get a good night's sleep, General?"


"Very nice, and thank you for the coffee and your stew-ard's attention."


"My pleasure, sir. More coffee, sir?"


"Thank you," Cushman said, and one of the white caps on the bridge quickly handed him a china mug.


"Bridge, Air Ops," the loudspeaker blared.


"Go."


"We have a call from an Avenger declaring an emergency, and requesting immediate permission to land."


The captain and General Cushman looked at each other. The general's lower lip came out, expressing interest and surprise.


The captain pressed the lever on the communications device next to his chair.


"Inform the Avenger we are turning into the wind now," the captain said. Then he pushed the lever one stop farther, so that his voice would carry all over the ship.


"This is the captain speaking. Make all preparations to recover an Avenger who has declared an emergency," he said. He let the lever go.


"Turn us into the wind," he ordered.


"Turning into the. wind, aye, aye, sir" the helmsman replied.


The Badoeng Strait began a sharp turn.


The captain steadied himself, then gestured courteously to General Cushman to precede him to an area aft of the bridge, from which they could see the approach and land-ing of the Avenger.


By the time the Badoeng Strait had turned into the wind and was sailing in a straight line, frantic activity on the flight deck had prepared the ship to recover an aircraft un-der emergency conditions.


General Cushman turned to the officer actually in charge of the recovery operation, saw that he wasn't at that mo-ment busy, and asked, "Did he say what's wrong with him?"


"No, sir, and I asked him three times."


"There he is," the captain said.


General Cushman looked aft and saw an Avenger mak-ing what looked like a perfectly normal approach to the carrier.


A minute later, having made a nice, clean landing-his hook caught the first cable-the Avenger was aboard the Badoeng Strait surrounded by firefighters in aluminum heat-resistant suits, other specialists; and even a tractor prepared to push the aircraft over the side if that became necessary.


The door in the fuselage opened, and someone dressed in what looked like black pajamas backed out of it.


"What the hell is that?" General Cushman asked.


"If it's who I think it is, it's someone who's going to spend the next twenty years in Portsmouth Naval Prison," the captain said.


The character in black pajamas reached into the fuselage and took one cardboard carton, and then another, and fi-nally a U.S. Rifle, Caliber.30 Ml, to the strap of which were attached two eight-round ammunition clips.


"Excuse me, General," the captain said. "I'll deal with this. I was going to have him brought here, but I don't want that sonofa-character to foul my bridge."


The captain started down a ladder toward the flight deck. General Cushman looked at the character in the black paja-mas long enough to confirm his first identification of him, then started down the ladder.


As he reached the flight deck, General Cushman almost literally bumped into Lieutenant Colonel William C. Dunn, USMCR, who was suited up for the morning's first sortie.


"Good morning, sir," Colonel Dunn said.


"Billy, is that your friend Captain McCoy?"


"Yes, sir, it is."


"What's going on?" Cushman asked.


"I have no idea, sir," Dunn said.


"Let's go find out," Cushman said. "The captain's talk-ing about twenty years in Portsmouth for him."


Captain Kenneth R. McCoy was standing at attention be-fore the captain of the USS Badoeng Strait-who had his balled fists resting on his hips and was speaking in a rather loud tone of voice-when General Cushman and Lieu-tenant Colonel Dunn walked up.


On seeing General Cushman, the captain broke off whatever he was saying in midsentence.


"Captain, may I suggest that we get off the flight deck?" General Cushman said, politely.


The captain looked at him for a long moment, then fi-nally found his voice.


"Yes, sir," he said. "I agree. If you'll follow me, please?"


The captain, the general, and the lieutenant colonel started to march off the deck. The lieutenant colonel* sens-ing that the captain was not in the parade, looked over his shoulder.


McCoy had picked up one of the cardboard cartons.


"Colonel, I can't carry both of these myself," McCoy said, indicating the second carton.


Lieutenant Colonel Dunn walked quickly back to Mc-Coy, picked up the second carton, and joined the parade.


The captain led the way up interior ladders to his cabin. The others followed him inside. The captain closed the door. McCoy and Dunn put the cartons on the deck.


"Captain," General Cushman said. "May I suggest that since we all are anxious to ask Captain McCoy about a number of things, we probably would be better off to hold our questions until Captain McCoy explains his presence aboard Badoeng Strait?"


"Yes, sir. That would probably be best."


"All right, McCoy," General Cushman said.


"Sir, I felt it necessary to get here before Colonel Dunn took off on the morning's missions," McCoy said. "The only way I could see to do that was to commandeer that Avenger."


"'Commandeer that Avenger'?" the captain parroted. "Who the hell are you to commander anything? Who gave you that authority?"


"I thought we'd agreed to hold our questions," General Cushman said, courteously. "But I think we all would like to hear that one answered."


McCoy handed General Cushman what he thought of as the White House orders.


Cushman read them, raised his eyebrow, and handed them to the captain.


"I've seen them, sir," the captain said.


"Well, that would seem to give you the authority, Mc-Coy," General Cushman said. "But it doesn't answer why you felt you had to come aboard the Badoeng Strait, and why you felt declaring an emergency when there was none was justified."


"Sir, I was afraid we would be denied permission to land."


"And your purpose? What's so important?"


"Those cartons, sir, contain parts for an SCR-300 radio. I have to get them to... where the radio is as soon as pos-sible. I was going to have Colonel Dunn deliver them, sir."


"Deliver them where?"


"Sir," McCoy said, uncomfortably, "with all possible re-spect, I must inform you and the captain that what I am about to tell you is classified Top Secret/White House and cannot be divulged to anyone else without General Picker-ing's specific permission."


"Not even to General Craig?" Cushman asked.


"General Craig is in on this, sir," McCoy said. "But he's one of the very few."


"But the very few include Colonel Dunn?"


"The colonel knows some of this, sir."


"But not, presumably, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur?" the captain asked, coldly sarcastic. "The Supreme Commander?"


"As far as I know, no, sir," McCoy said.


The captain opened his mouth, but Cushman spoke be-fore he could.


"I acknowledge the classification," Cushman said. "Go on."


"Sir, there are islands in the Flying Fish Channel leading to Inchon...," McCoy began.


"Let me get this straight," Cushman said. "You have installed a handful of Marines on this island'- What's the name?"


"Tokchok-kundo, sir."


"And from which you intend to launch an operation to take..."


`Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, sir."


"And General MacArthur is unaware of this operation?" the captain asked, incredulously.


"I don't believe he is aware, sir."


"Who besides the people you've mentioned knows about this?" Cushman said.


"Just General Howe, sir."


"Who is he?" the captain demanded.


"An Army two-star, sir. He's on the same sort of mission for the President as General Pickering."


`To your knowledge, is the President aware of this oper-ation?" Cushman asked.


`To my knowledge, no, sir. But I'd bet he is."


"Why do you say that?" Cushman asked.


"Because both General Pickering and General Howe are on orders to tell the President anything they think he might like to know, sir."


"We've gone off at a tangent," Cushman said. "Picking up my original question where I think I left it: You have in-stalled your Marines on Tokchok-kundo-"


"And the South Korean national policemen, sir."


"And the South Korean national policemen, and after you got there, your radio was inoperable?"


"Yes, sir."


"And you want Colonel Dunn to airdrop whatever those things are in the cartons to your people?"


"Yes, sir."


"Can you do it, Billy?" Cushman asked.


"If I can find the island, yes, sir."


"I can show you the island on the aerials, Colonel," Mc-Coy said. "The word I left for Zimmerman is that when a Corsair flies over, he will spread a yellow panel between two houses on a hillside."


"I'd have to make three passes, then? One, fly over; two, spot the panel; three, drop your stuff. Won't that attract at-tention to the island?"


"I thought, sir, if you flew out of sight each time, for, say, five minutes..."


"I can do it, sir," Dunn said.


Cushman looked very thoughtful for a long moment.


"It looks to me that what we have here is a presidentially sanctioned covert mission that we are obliged to support," he said, finally. "Wouldn't you agree, Captain?"


It took the captain even longer to consider his reply.


"Yes, sir, I would agree," he said, finally.


"Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir," Dunn said.


"One other question, McCoy," Cushman said. "No, two.


Where do you go from here? And what's with the black pajamas? Where's your uniform?"


"The last time I saw it, it was sinking into the Yellow Sea, sir," McCoy said. "It was washed overboard on the way back from Tokchok-kundo."


"I'm sure the captain can find some khakis for you," Cushman said. "And then?"


"Back to Pusan, sir."


"And?"


"Catch a ride to Tokyo. I've got to report to General Pickering."


"I'll take you to Tokyo," Cushman said. "I'd like to see General Pickering myself."


"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."


"You can use my cabin to take a shower and shave," Dunn said. "I'll show you the way."


When they reached Lieutenant Colonel Dunn's cabin, Mc-Coy saw that the name of Major Malcolm S. Pickering had been removed from the sign outside.


Dunn went immediately to the cabin safe and took an envelope from it.


"Nobody but the two photo lab guys have seen this," Dunn said. "And they won't say anything to anybody."


McCoy opened the envelope and saw the picture of the muddy rice paddy in which someone had stamped out "PP" and an arrow.


"That was taken the day after Pick went down," he said. "The time and map coordinates are on the back."


McCoy looked at him in genuine surprise.


"You think he's still alive and running around loose up there?"


"You tell me, Killer. You're the expert."


"Jesus Christ!" McCoy said.


"Yeah," Dunn said, then patted McCoy on the arm and left his cabin.


Chapter Seventeen


[ONE]


HANEDA AIRFIELD


TOKYO, JAPAN


0805 10 AUGUST 1950


The Marine liaison officer at Haneda, having been ad-vised by approach control that an Avenger with a Code Seven aboard who did not wish honors but did require ground transportation was fifteen minutes out, had time to procure a staff car with a one-star plate from the Army, and see to it that the Marines who would meet the aircraft were shipshape and were standing at almost parade rest when the Avenger taxied up to the Navy hangar and stopped.


If the Marine liaison officer thought there was some-thing slightly odd about the man in the backseat of the Avenger who climbed down to the ground-that he was carrying an M-l rifle, for instance, and that when he took off his flight suit, he was wearing what looked like Navy khakis fresh from the clothing sales store, with no insignia of any kind-he asked no questions.


The Code Seven was Brigadier General Thomas A. Cushman, assistant commander of First Marine Air Wing. The Marine liaison officer recognized him.


Marine first lieutenants presume that Marine general of-ficers know what they are doing at all times, and that the latter will offer an explanation if they feel an explanation is required.


Cushman said he needed the aircraft topped off, that he would return in an hour or two, and that something would be needed to "cover the Garand." A U.S. Army rubberized raincoat was quickly found, and General Cushman and the man with the Garand got in it and drove off.


[TWO]


THE IMPERIAL HOTEL


TOKYO, JAPAN


0905 10 AUGUST 1950


The CIC agent in the corridor of the Imperial Hotel had seen General Cushman in the Dai-Ichi Building and recog-nized him. And he recognized McCoy. He didn't even challenge them as they walked past him and McCoy raised the knocker on the door to the Dewey Suite.


But-he was a very thorough special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps-he did make note in his re-port that Captain McCoy was wearing an insignia-less uni-form and carrying a rifle, probably an M-l Garand, not very well concealed in a raincoat.


"Jesus Christ!" Captain George Hart exclaimed when he opened the door, and then he saw General Cushman. "Good morning, sir."


McCoy thought: At least he's in a pressed uniform with his tie pulled up.


Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, also in a freshly pressed uniform with his tie in place, appeared at Hart's shoulder.


"I didn't expect to see Captain McCoy until much later today," Pickering said. "And I didn't expect to see you at all, General."


"Catch you on the way out, Pickering?"


"Surprising the hell out of me, General MacArthur sent word that he would be pleased if I attended the meeting he's having with General Collins and Admiral Sherman," Pickering said.


"Can I have a few minutes?" Cushman asked, as he and Pickering shook hands. "Maybe ride over to the Dai Ichi Building with you? I have a car."


"Come on in," Pickering said. `Truth to tell, when the chime went off, I was thinking it might be a good idea if I was a little late for the meeting."


"Excuse me?"


"Something I learned from General Howe when Averell Harriman and General Ridgway were here," Pickering said. "If I'm on hand, all shined up like some corporal waiting for the first sergeant's morning inspection, when the distinguished visiting officers show up, they're going to take a quick look at my shined shoes-and my one lonely star-and logically conclude that I'm a minor glow in the galaxy surrounding the Supreme Commander, and there-fore to be ignored."


Cushman, warmly shaking Pickering's hand, chuckled.


"You like the prestige that goes with being the CIA's man for Asia? That's a little out of character for a spymaster, isn't it?"


"That's not all I'm doing over here, Tom," Pickering said, then turned to Hart. "Get us some coffee, George, please."


"McCoy mentioned something about that," Cushman said.


"Well, if he did, that's really out of character for him."


"He didn't want to, Fleming. The circumstances de-manded it."


"Did he also tell you what he was up to in Korea?"


Cushman nodded. "And that the operation is classified as Top Secret/White House."


"Okay," Pickering said. "Since the cow is out of the barn: Ken, an hour ago, we heard from Zimmerman."


"I guess those transformers got there, McCoy," Cush-man said.


Pickering looked at him, but didn't say anything.


"What did he say, sir?" McCoy asked.


"The entire message was `standing by,'" Pickering said. "How did he get his radio fixed so quickly? When I talked to you last night, you said you were going to have to figure out some way to get the parts to him."


"Sir, Colonel Dunn dropped the replacement transform-ers to them first thing this morning."


"How did Billy Dunn get involved?"


Cushman chuckled.


"At 0400, as Badoeng Strait was getting ready to launch aircraft for the first sorties of the day," he said, smiling, "an Avenger declared an emergency. All emergency proce-dures were put into operation. The Avenger came in, made a perfect landing, and McCoy, wearing black pajamas, and needing a bath and a shave, got out, carrying what looked like a half-dozen square tin cans."


"I thought you said the Avenger had declared an emer-gency," Pickering said.


"McCoy had commandeered the Avenger in Pusan. It belongs to the Sicily," Cushman said, "and to avoid the possibility that Badoeng Strait would refuse permission for it to land, had the pilot declare an emergency. Badoeng Strait's captain, as you can probably understand, was apoplectic."


"That was necessary, Ken?" Pickering asked, shaking his head.


"I wanted to get the transformers to Colonel Dunn be-fore he took off for the first sorties."


"And those were the circumstances under which Captain McCoy felt obliged to let me know what he was up to," Cushman said.


"What is it the Jesuits say? "The end justifies the means'?" Pickering asked.


"I hope this end does," Cushman said.


"In this case, I believe it does," Pickering said.


"McCoy said General MacArthur is not privy to his-I suppose your-clandestine operation, but he believes the President is?"


"He is. General Howe told him."


"That was the first I'd heard of General Howe," Cush-man said.


"A very good officer," Pickering said.


"Do I get to meet him?"


Hart handed Pickering and Cushman cups of coffee, then handed one to McCoy and took one himself.


"Certainly. When he comes back from Korea," Pickering said.


"General Howe is in Korea?" McCoy asked, surprised.


"He'll be back, he said, either tonight or tomorrow," Pickering said. He turned to Cushman and went on. "He went there to see General Walker. General Collins, and some others, think Walker should be removed. The Presi-dent wants Howe's opinion."


"Not yours?"


"I'm not qualified-or about-to voice an opinion of an Army commander's performance."


"And this General Howe is?"


"He commanded a division in Europe. He's far better qualified than I am, but he's damned uncomfortable with Truman's order. And since one of us had to stay here in Tokyo to keep an eye on Sherman and Collins, here I am."


"You think the Inchon invasion is a sure thing?"


"That's why I ordered this operation," Pickering said.


"And MacArthur doesn't know you're doing this?"


"As the Deputy Director of the CIA for Asia, I don't have to tell MacArthur of every small clandestine opera-tion I'm running."


"And what's going to happen when he finds out?"


"That's one of those bridges somewhere down the road," Pickering said.


"You're walking pretty close to the edge of a cliff, I guess you know."


"If I told him I thought these islands should be in our hands as soon as possible, I would be challenging the col-lective wisdom of his staff. Most of them were with him in the Philippines."


"And he would back them, of course."


Pickering nodded.


"Is there anything I can do to help?" Cushman asked.


"You already have. And since you are now in on this, I won't be reluctant now to ask for any help I think we need."


Pickering looked at his watch.


"Now we have to leave, George," he said. He turned to McCoy. "Go home, Ken. Get a little rest. Whatever you think you have to do will wait until I get back from the Dai-Ichi Building. Come back about 1300. Bring Ernie, if you like. We can have a room-service lunch and talk here."


"Aye, aye, sir."


"What's Taylor up to?" Pickering asked.


"He's sitting on Jeanette Priestly for me."


"I beg your pardon?"


"Until I talked to her, she was going to write a story about Pick getting shot down," McCoy said.


"And you were able to talk her out of it?" Pickering asked, surprised.


"I took her with us to Tokchok-kundo," McCoy said. "It was the only thing I could think of to do with her."


"So now she's in on everything?" Pickering said coldly.


McCoy met Pickering's eyes.


"I don't think we have to worry about her. I put her on the junk before I knew that she thinks she's in love with Pick," he said. And then he blurted, "Fuck it."


"Excuse me?" Pickering said, partly a question, mostly a reprove.


McCoy took a manila envelope from inside his shirt and handed it to Pickering.


"Billy gave me these just before he took off from the Ba-doeng Strait," McCoy said. "Nobody knows about these pictures but two guys in the photo lab on the Badoeng Strait, Dunn, me, and now you."


"What am I looking at?"


"These pictures were taken the day after Pick went down, near the spot. Somebody stamped `PP' and an arrow in a ruptured rice paddy."


"My God," Pickering said. "He's alive."


He handed the photographs to Cushman.


"Why weren't these photographs...," Cushman began. "Pickering, you have my word that every effort will be made-"


"Sir, with respect," McCoy said. "Colonel Dunn knew that if these pictures got out, a lot of people and, as impor-tant, the helicopters would be put at risk to try to get him."


"You're a Marine, Captain. You know our tradition...."


"Colonel Dunn knows the only way to look for Major Pickering, to get him out, would be with helicopters, and the only helicopters we have are carrying the wounded. Colonel Dunn knows, and I know, that Major Pickering wouldn't want that."


"And neither do I," General Pickering said. "I don't want helicopters put at risk looking for my son, General Cush-man. We'll think of something else."


"That's really not your decision to make, is it, Flem-ing?" Cushman argued.


"I think it is," Pickering said. "I would deeply appreciate your respecting my wishes in this matter."


Cushman met Pickering's eyes.


After a long moment, he said, "Of course."


"I've got a couple of ideas," McCoy said.


"And so far as you're concerned, Ken, the priority is the taking of Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do," Pickering said.


"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.


[THREE]


THE DEWEY SUITE


THE IMPERIAL HOTEL


TOKYO, JAPAN


1425 10 AUGUST 1950


Mrs. Ernestine McCoy was helping herself to another piece of pastry when the door chime went off, so she an-swered it.


It was Brigadier General Pickering, trailed by Captain Hart. Pickering kissed her on the cheek, looked around the room, and said, "You've eaten, good. The Grand Encounter lasted longer than it was supposed to."


"Ken wanted to wait," Ernie said.


"And you didn't," Pickering said. "Proving what I've suspected all along, that you're the smarter of the two."


He went to the room-service cart, opened silver covers until he found a bowl of salad, and popped a radish into his mouth. Then he turned to Hart.


"In this order, George, order us some lunch. A small steak, a tomato, more salad for me, hold the dressing. And coffee, of course. Then show McCoy where we've moved the typewriter. And then run down Sergeant Keller, and have him standing by here, and have a car standing by downstairs to carry him to the Dai-Ichi Building."


"Aye, aye, sir."


"Ken, you feel up to a little fast typing?"


"Yes, sir."


"Okay, let's get started. I want what happened at that meeting to be in the President's hands as soon as possible."


General Pickering had just finished his small steak when McCoy came back in the room with several sheets of type-writer paper in his hands. Pickering took them and read them.


"You're a great typist, McCoy," Pickering said, cheer-fully. "If you ever need work, we can always use a good typist at PandFE."


"I think I'd rather sell deodorant for American Personal Pharmaceuticals, but thanks just the same," McCoy replied.


"Uncle Flem," Ernie McCoy flared. "My God!"


"Sometimes my mouth runs away with itself," Pickering said. "Ken, I'm sorry. You know that was a bad shot at try-ing to be funny."


"It's Okay?" McCoy asked, indicating the material he'd typed.


"It's perfect," Pickering said, handing it back. "If you'd have made a couple of typos, I wouldn't have..."


McCoy took the sheets of paper from Pickering and handed them to Master Sergeant Keller.


"Take a look, Keller," McCoy ordered, "then stick them in an envelope and get them going."


Keller read them.


TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE


DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN ONE (1) COPY ONLY


DESTROY AFTER TRANSMISSION


TOKYO, JAPAN 0625 GREENWICH 10 AUGUST 1950


VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES


DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:


IT IS NOW ABOUT 3 PM TOKYO TIME. I HAVE JUST COME FROM THE DAI-ICHI BUILDING WHERE I ATTENDED THE MEETING BETWEEN GENERAL OF THE ARMY DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, GENERAL JOSEPH C. COLLINS, USA, AND AD-MIRAL FORREST SHERMAN, USN, AND OTHER SENIOR MEMBERS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE STAFFS. GENERAL HOWE IS IN KOREA, BUT I FEEL SURE, HAD HE BEEN PRESENT, HE WOULD CONCUR WITH THE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN HEREIN.


THE BASIC PURPOSE OF THE MEETING WAS TO GIVE GENERAL MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLAIN HIS PLAN TO MAKE THE AM-PHIBIOUS LANDING AT INCHON, SCHEDULED AT THE MOMENT FOR 15 SEPTEMBER 1950.


I HAD THE FEELING THAT BOTH COLLINS AND SHERMAN ENTERED THE MEETING STRONGLY OPPOSED ESPECIALLY TO THE IN-CHON LANDING (THE TIDES ARGUMENT, WITH WHICH YOU ARE FAMILIAR), AND GENERALLY OPPOSED TO ANY AMPHIBIOUS OPERATION UNTIL THE SITUATION IN THE PUSAN PERIMETER IS STABILIZED, PRIMARILY BE-CAUSE THE INCHON INVASION WILL REQUIRE THE USE OF THE MARINES NOW FIGHTING IN THE PUSAN PERIMETER.


I ALSO FELT THAT WHILE COLLINS LEFT THE MEETING UNSWAYED BY MACARTHUR'S-IN MY OPINION-COGENT AND BRILLIANT EXPLA-NATION OF WHY INCHON WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, SHERMAN HAD COME AROUND TO AT LEAST PARTIAL APPROVAL OF THE INCHON OPERATION. HE SAID NOTHING TO THIS EFFECT, BUT THE QUESTIONS HE ASKED OF MACARTHUR INDICATED HE DID NOT THINK INCHON IS AS HAREBRAINED AS COLLINS MADE CLEAR HE THINKS IT IS.


COLLINS VERY SKILLFULLY GAVE MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO LAY THE BLAME FOR OUR INITIAL REVERSES ON GENERAL WALKER. MACARTHUR STATED VERY CLEARLY THAT HE BELIEVED WALKER "HAD DONE AND IS DOING A REMARKABLE JOB, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS BEEN FACING AND WHAT HE HAS TO FACE IT WITH."


IF IT WAS COLLINS'S INTENTION TO HAVE MACARTHUR ACQUIESCE IN THE RELIEF OF WALKER, EITHER BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THAT WALKER HASN'T MEASURED UP, OR BE-CAUSE HIS RELIEF WOULD ALLOW HIM TO GIVE RIDGWAY, OR SOMEONE ELSE OF HIS LIKING, THE JOB, HE FAILED.


VERY EARLY THIS MORNING, GENERAL HOWE CALLED ME FROM KOREA ON A LINE THAT WE SUSPECTED WAS NOT AS SECURE AS WE WOULD HAVE LIKED. HE SAID THAT HE WOULD COMMUNICATE HIS THOUGHTS ON HIS MISSION THERE TO YOU AS SOON AS POSSI-BLE, BUT THAT, IF I SHOULD COMMUNICATE WITH YOU BEFORE HE WAS ABLE TO, I SHOULD GIVE YOU THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE:


"FROM WHAT I SEE, A CHANGE OF LEADER-SHIP AT THIS TIME WOULD BE UNJUSTIFIED AND ILL-ADVISED."


IT IS MY OPINION, MR. PRESIDENT, THAT, ABSENT SPECIFIC ORDERS NOT TO DO SO FROM YOURSELF AND/OR THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, MACARTHUR WILL PROCEED WITH HIS INTENTION TO LAND WITH TWO DIVI-SIONS AT INCHON ON 15 SEPTEMBER. IT IS ALSO MY OPINION THAT COLLINS WILL MAKE A STRONG CASE BEFORE THE JCS, AND PER-HAPS TO YOU PERSONALLY, TO FORBID IN-CHON, BUT THAT HE WILL NOT HAVE AS strong an ally in this in sherman as he probably hoped he would.


captain mccoy and lieutenant taylor re-turned from the island we hold in the flying fish channel this morning. he will return there shortly, and is pre-PARED TO LAUNCH HIS OPERATION WITHIN A WEEK. CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRED THAT BRIG GEN THOMAS CUSHMAN, USMC, ASSISTANT COMMANDER, 1ST MARINE AIR WING, BE IN-FORMED OF THAT MISSION, AND OF THE MIS-SIONS OF GENERAL HOWE AND MYSELF.


RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,


F. PICKERING, BRIG GEN USMCR


TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE


"This looks fine to me, Captain," Keller said.


"Go with him, George, will you?" McCoy ordered. "Now I'm going to have my coffee." He handed him more typewriter paper, torn in half. "This gets burned and shred-ded with the clean copy."


"What is it?"


"It's the version with the typos, before I retyped it," Mc-Coy said. He sat down at the table and reached for the cof-feepot.


"Ernie," a female voice cried, "did that husband of yours tell you what he did to me?"


His head snapped to the door.


Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune was com-ing through the door, trailed by Lieutenant (j.g.) David Taylor, USNR.


"Well, Jeanette," Ernie said, rising to the occasion. "How nice to see you again."


"I didn't expect you'd beat us here," Taylor said to Mc-Coy.


"Long story. I'll tell you later."


"What's this all about?"


"This would have been here sooner," Jeanette said, flashing McCoy a dazzling smile. "But this had to freshen up a little. And this must say that you look a lot better than the last time this saw you."


McCoy realized he was smiling.


The last time he had seen her, just before midnight at the Evening Star Hotel in Tongnae, she had been wearing U.S. Army fatigues and combat boots. She hadn't been near soap or running water for a week, and had spent all but an hour of the previous two and a half days on a junk running through some often rough water in the Yellow Sea. There had been a visible layer of dried saltwater spray all over her face, hands, and hair.


She was now clean, wearing makeup, an elegantly sim-ple black dress, high heels, and enough perfume so that McCoy could smell it across the room.


The only thing that was the same about her was the Leica camera in its battered case hanging around her neck.


"She insisted on coming here," Taylor said. "I didn't know what to do...."


Taylor was wearing one of his well-worn, but clean, khaki uniforms. `


"It's all right," General Pickering said. McCoy looked at him and saw he was smiling. "Hello, Miss Priestly."


He got a dazzling smile.


"How nice to see you again, General," she said.


"Zimmerman's on the air," McCoy said.


"That was quick," Taylor said, surprised. "That's damned good news."


"I'll want to know, in detail, exactly how you managed that," Jeanette said.


"Later," McCoy said.


"What can we do for you, Miss Priestly?" Pickering asked.


"Didn't Captain McCoy tell you?" she asked. "In ex-change for me not writing one story, he promised he would give me an exclusive story about something else I'm afraid to mention, not knowing how many secrets McCoy shares with his wife. No offense, Ernie."


General Pickering chuckled.


"I don't think Captain McCoy has any secrets from his wife," he said. "How was the cruise, Miss Priestly?"


"It was absolutely awful, frankly," she said. "Anyway, until what happens happens, I'm going to stick to these two"-she indicated McCoy and Taylor-"like glue."


"Fair enough," Pickering said.


"And I also wondered if there was any news about Pick."


Pickering signaled McCoy with his eyes not to mention the photographs McCoy had gotten from Dunn.


"Unfortunately, no," Pickering said.


"Damn," she said.


"Where's the film you shot on the Wind of Good For-tune?" McCoy asked.


"In here," she said, tapping her purse.


"I forgot to impound it," McCoy said. "Or to tell Taylor to. May I have it, please?"


"You still don't trust me?"


"Let's say I'm cautious by nature," McCoy said.


"Give them to me, please, Miss Priestly," Pickering said. "You have my word you'll get them back."


She shrugged, opened her purse, and took from it a rub-berized bag and handed it to Pickering.


"Thank you," he said.


"Is it really all right to talk?" she asked.


Pickering nodded.


"How are you coming with the boats?" she asked McCoy.


"What boats?" Pickering asked.


"Do you suppose I could have that roll?" Jeanette asked, pointing at one on Pickering's bread plate. "I'm really starved."


"Of course," Pickering said.


"You didn't eat?" McCoy said.


"We had some powdered eggs at K-l about 0500," Tay-lor said.


"Nothing here?" McCoy asked.


"I told you," Jeanette said. "This couldn't come here looking like this did when this got off the Queen Mary. That took a little time."


"You didn't eat either?" McCoy asked Taylor, smiling.


"You told me to sit on her," Taylor said, not amused. "I sat on her. I sat in her room in the Press Club while she had a bath, and the rest of it, and then I took her to my room while I had a quick shower. No, I didn't eat either."


"We can fix that," Ernie McCoy said, and walked to the telephone, picked it up, and, in Japanese, asked for room service.


"What boats?" General Pickering asked again.


"Didn't Ken tell you?" Jeanette said. "We're going to need a couple of boats to move the men from Tokchok-kundo to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do. We can't use the Wind of Good Fortune. Not only can't we count on having enough water under the rudder, but a junk makes a lousy landing craft."


" `We're going to need a couple of boats'?" Pickering parroted.


"You weren't listening, General, when I said I wasn't going to let Captain Bligh and Jean Lafitte out of my sight until this operation is over. That means when they go to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, the Chicago Tribune is go-ing to be there."


"Which one is Captain Bligh?" Pickering asked, smiling.


She pointed at Taylor.


"And it fits, too," she said. `Taylor told me Bligh was re-ally the good guy, and Fletcher Christian a mutineer who should have been hung."


Pickering chuckled.


"That's true," he said. "Bligh was also a hell of a sailor. He sailed the longboat from the Bounty a hell of a long way, after they put him over the side. Okay, Captain Bligh, tell me about the boats."


"She said it, sir," Taylor said. "We're going to need a couple of boats. Maybe small lifeboats. Just large enough to carry eight, ten, men and their equipment. It would be better if they had small engines, maybe even outboards- it's a long row from Tokchok-kundo to either Taemuui-do or Yonghung-do. But in a pinch we can make do with just oars."


"The first thing I thought was `no problem,'" Pickering said. "We'll see if PandFE here can't come up with a couple of boats. But that doesn't answer the question of how to get them to Tokchok-kundo, and quickly and quietly, does it?"


"No, sir," McCoy said. "And if we go to the Navy, they'd want to know what we want them for."


"And even if we could talk our way around that, we still would have to get them to Tokchok-kundo," Pickering said.


"Yes, sir."


"I just thought of a long shot," Pickering said. `Taylor, do you know who Admiral Matthews is?"


"The Englishman?"


Pickering nodded.


"Yes, sir."


"Is there anybody you could call at the Dai-Ichi Build-ing and get his number, without it getting around that you asked for it?"


"Is he in town, sir?"


"He was at the meeting this morning," Pickering said.


"Who is he?" McCoy asked.


"He commands the UN fleet blockading the west coast of Korea," Pickering said.


Five minutes later, Taylor had the telephone number of Ad-miral William G. Matthews, and three minutes after that, the Admiral came on the line.


"Yes, of course, I remember you, Pickering. You were one of the very few people in that room this morning who seemed to understand that tides rise as well as fall."


"Admiral, could I have a few minutes of your time?"


"I was about to leave for Sasebo, but yes, certainly, if you could come here right away. You know where I am?"


"Yes, sir. And I will leave right away."


"I'll even buy you a drink. God knows we earned one in that bloody roomful of fools this morning."


"Thank you, sir," Pickering said, and hung up.


He turned to the others.


"We may just have gotten lucky," he said. "And no, Miss Priestly, you may not go. But you have my word that I will bring Captain Bligh and... who was it, Bluebeard the Pi-rate?... back to you."


"Jean Lafitte, sir," McCoy said.


[FOUR]


THE OFFICE OF THE NAVAL ATTACHE


HM DELEGATION TO THE SUPREME COMMAND,


ALLIED POWERS IN JAPAN


TOKYO, JAPAN


1605 10 AUGUST 1950


"Ah, Pickering!" Admiral Sir William G. Matthews, RN, said, getting to his feet as Pickering was shown in. Then he saw Taylor and McCoy, and added: "I didn't know you were bringing these gentlemen with you. Now I will have to mind my manners. And my mouth."


"I apologize, sir."


"It doesn't matter," Matthews said. "I am so glad to be out of that bloody room that I'll give them a drink, too."


"Very kind of you, sir," Pickering said. "And please feel free to say anything you like. Both Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor know how I feel about that bloody meet-ing, too."


Matthews growled.


A Japanese in a white coat appeared and took drink or-ders. Matthews waited until he had finished, then ordered another double for himself.


"I was just telling Fitzwater here," he said, pointing to a very slim, very tall Royal Navy captain, "that I'd finally found a Marine who'd actually been to sea. God, I had trouble keeping my temper when that Army general started lecturing me on the hazards of tides."


"Actually, sir," Pickering said, "I'm more of a seaman than a Marine."


"How's that?"


"I was about to tell Sir William, sir," Captain Fitzwater said, "that unless I was mistaken, you are connected with Pacific and Far East Shipping. Was I correct?"


"So far as I know," Pickering said, "I am the only PandFE master who has run his vessel aground on the Inchon mud-flats."


"Really?" Admiral Matthews asked. "How did that hap-pen?"


"I was a little younger at the time," Pickering said. "And thus far more impressed with myself as a mariner than the facts warranted."


"So what the hell were you doing dressed up in a Ma-rine's uniform in that bloody room?"


"Admiral, I'm the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia," Pickering said.


"Ah!!" the admiral said.


"I was hoping you would offer that information, Gen-eral," Captain Fitzwater said. "Otherwise, I would have had to whisper it in Sir William's ear."


"And are these two spies as well?" the admiral asked. "That one looks like a sailor."


"Lieutenant Taylor, sir," Taylor said.


"Actually, he's a hell of a sailor," Pickering said. "He just returned from sailing a junk in the Yellow Sea."


"Really? What was that about? A junk, you say?"


"I'd love to tell you, Sir William," Pickering said, stop-ping when the steward handed him his drink.


"Cheers!" Admiral Matthews said when he had raised his fresh drink. "And you would love to tell me, but?"


"I would hate to have it get back to anyone in that bloody room. For that matter, to leave this room."


"Ah, the plot darkens," the admiral said, and thought over what Pickering was clearly asking. "You have my word, sir."


"Would you prefer that I..." Captain Fitzwater asked.


"No," Pickering said, "but if you could give me your word?"


"Of course," Fitzwater said.


Pickering had decided it made more sense to have Fitzwater on his honor not to repeat what he heard than to really arouse his curiosity by asking him to leave. Picker-ing thought he was obviously some sort of intelligence of-ficer-he had known about PandFE and the CIA-and he would go snooping, with no restrictions on disseminating what he found out. And Pickering was pleased when he saw approval on McCoy's face.


"Lieutenant Taylor just sailed the junk Wind of Good Fortune to Tokchok-kundo Island," Pickering said. "Aboard were four Marines, in addition to Captain McCoy, and eight South Korean national policemen."


"How interesting," the admiral said.


"With which Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor plan, just as soon as they can, to occupy Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do Islands, and thus deny the North Koreans a platform from which to fire upon vessels navigating the Flying Fish Channel."


"You know the plan calls for the neutralization of those islands on D Minus One?"


"Yes, I do."


"You got them to change their minds about that?"


"No, sir. They do not know about this operation."


"Ah!" Admiral Sir William Matthews said.


"And what about the lighthouse?" Captain Fitzwater asked.


"On the night of 13-14 September," Taylor said. "Pre-suming we can take Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do without attracting too much North Korean attention, we'll take that, too."


"And why is it, if I may ask, you don't want this operation of yours to come to the attention of the fools in the Dai-Ichi Building?"


"Because I know they would object to it," Pickering said. "Probably forbid me to go on with it."


"They almost certainly would object, and object rather strenuously, for the very good reason that it makes a bloody hell of a lot more sense than what they're propos-ing. Your intention is to present them with a fait accom-pli?"


"Yes, it is."


"How can I help without-how do I phrase this deli-cately?-without exposing my scrotum to the butcher's ax on the chopping block to the degree you are?"


"Taylor," Pickering said. "Tell the admiral what you need."


"Two small boats, sir, lifeboats would do. Capable of carrying eight or ten men and their equipment. Preferably with an auxiliary engine-"


"No problem," the admiral interrupted.


"-delivered as soon as possible as near as possible to Tokchok-kundo," Taylor finished.


"Ah!" the admiral said.


He looked around for his drink, found it, took a sip, and then frowned.


"Fitz, when is Charity due to leave Sasebo?" he asked, finally.


"At first light on the sixteenth, sir."


"Round figures, she should be able to make twenty knots easily; it's about five hundred miles to Inchon. That would put her off the Flying Fish Channel lighthouse twenty-four hours later. At first light, and I don't think Mr. Taylor wants to do this in the daylight."


The admiral paused, and everyone waited for him to go on.


"Signal the yardmaster at Sasebo that (one) I should be seriously distressed to hear Charity didn't make that at-first-light departure schedule, and (two) before she sails, he is to mount on her two ten-man open boats with functioning auxiliary engines-emphasize functioning-in such a manner that they may be launched quickly on the high seas."


"Yes, sir."


"And when he inquires, as he doubtless will, what in the hell is going on, as politely as you can, hint that I have been at the gin again, and you haven't an idea what it's all about."


"Yes, sir."


The admiral turned to Taylor.


"HMS Charity is a destroyer. Before she leaves Sasebo to return to her blockade duty in the Yellow Sea, I will have a private word with her captain-or Fitz will, he's his brother-in-law and that might attract less attention-telling him, (one) that two Americans will board her as super-cargo on the night of August fifteenth, for a purpose to be revealed to no one but him until after she is under way, and (two) that he is to authorized to make whatever speed is necessary to put Charity three miles off the Flying Fish Channel lighthouse not later than 0300 17 August, where he will put the boats and the Americans over the side."


He paused again.


"This all presumes that nothing will go awry," he went on, "as it almost certainly will. But it is the best I can do under the circumstances. Will that be satisfactory?"


"I don't know how to thank you, Admiral," Pickering said.


"One way would be to make sure that when Charity starts down the Flying Fish Channel on fifteen September, the lighthouse will be operating, and she will not come un-der artillery fire."


Chapter Eighteen


[ONE]


HANEDA AIRFIELD


TOKYO, JAPAN


1530 15 AUGUST 1950


There were seven officers-the senior of them a captain and eleven enlisted men-ranging in rank from, technical sergeant to corporal-in USMC Platoon Aug9-2 (Provi-sional). The platoon was the second of two that had been organized at the Replacement Battalion (Provisional) at Camp Joseph J. Pendleton, California, six days before, on August 9. All of the members of Aug9-2 were Marine re-servists, involuntarily called to active duty by order of the President of the United States for the duration of the pres-ent conflict, plus six months, unless sooner released for the convenience of the government.


Both platoons had the same purpose, to get replace-ments to the First Marine Brigade (Provisional) in Pusan, South Korea, as expeditiously as possible. The size of Aug9-2 had been determined by the number of seats avail-able on Trans-Global Airways Flight 1440, San Francisco to Tokyo, with intermediate stops at Honolulu, Hawaii, and Wake Island.


Platoon Aug9-2 had been formed at 0715 in the morn-ing, and had departed Camp Pendleton by Greyhound Bus for San Francisco at 0755. Travel was in utilities. The trip took a little more than ten hours, including a thirty-minute stop for a hamburger-and-Coke lunch outside Los Angeles.


There was just time enough at the airfield in San Fran-cisco for the members of Aug9-2 to make a brief telephone call to their families. Most of them did so, and although each member of Aug9-2 had been admonished not to in-form their family members of their destination until they reached it, with the exception of one officer, a second lieu-tenant, all of them told their family members they were in San Francisco about to get on an airplane for Tokyo and eventually South Korea.


Why the hell not? Who did the goddamn Crotch think it was fooling? What was the big goddamn secret? Where else would the goddamn Crotch be sending people except to goddamn Korea?


The flight aboard Trans-Global Airways Flight 1440 was a pleasant surprise. It was a glistening-apparently not long from the assembly line-Lockheed Constellation. There was a plaque mounted on the bulkhead just inside the door, stating that on June 1,1950, the City of Los Ange-les had set the record for the fastest flight time between San Francisco and Tokyo.


The seats were comfortable, the stewardesses good-looking and charming. Almost as soon as they were in the air, the stewardesses came by asking for drink orders. Drinks were complimentary.


One of the staff sergeants of Aug9-2, who three weeks before had been a maritime insurance adjuster in Seattle, and often flew to Honolulu on Trans-Global and other airlines, was surprised that Trans-Global was passing out free booze in tourist class, and asked about it.


"I don't really know," she said. "I heard something that the president of the company was a Marine, or something. All I know is that all our military passengers get compli-mentary refreshments."


The military passengers in tourist class also got the same meal-filet mignon, baked potato, and a choice of wine-that was being served in first class. The civilians in the back got a chicken leg and no wine.


Still, with the fuel stops in Hawaii and Wake Island, it was a hell of a long flight to Tokyo, and all of Aug9-2 got off the plane at Haneda on 12 August tired, needing a bath and a shave, and in many cases, more than a little hung-over.


They were taken by U.S. Army bus to Camp Drake, out-side Tokyo, for processing, which included a review of the inoculation records; their service record; an opportunity for those who didn't have it to take out an insurance policy that would pay their survivors $10,000 in the case of their death; zeroing their individual weapons; issuance of 782 gear and a basic load of ammunition; and two hour-long lectures.


One of the lectures, by an Army captain, told them what they could expect to find, in a military sense, once they got to Korea. It surprised none of them, for they had all read the newspapers.


The goddamned Army was getting the shit kicked out of it, and-what else?-had turned to the goddamn U.S. Ma-rine Crotch to save its ass.


The second lecture, by a Navy chaplain, told them what they could expect to find in Korea in a sexually-transmitted-diseases sense. It included a twenty-minute color motion picture of individuals in the terminal stages of syphilis, and of other individuals whose genitalia were covered with suppurating scabs.


At 1200 15 August 1950, Marine Corps Platoon Aug9-2 (Provisional) was fed a steak-and-eggs luncheon, causing many of its members to quip cleverly that the condemned men were getting the traditional hearty last meal.


Then they were loaded on an Army bus that took them back to the Haneda Airfield. There, they were told, they would board a Naval Air Transport Command Douglas R5D, which would depart at 1400, and after several inter-mediate stops-Osaka, Kobe, and Sasebo-would deposit them at K-l Airfield, Pusan, South Korea, where they would be met by a Marine liaison officer who would get them to the First Marine Brigade (Provisional), where Aug9-2 would be disestablished, and they would be as-signed billets in the brigade according to the needs of the brigade at the moment.


Shortly after boarding the aircraft-half of the fuselage was devoted to cargo-they were told there was an unex-pected delay in the departure time, they were going to have to wait for some big shot, and since it was going to get hot as hell in the aircraft, those who wished could get off and wait in the shade offered by a hangar.


The lieutenant (j.g.) who gave them this word also re-minded them that anyone who missed the departure of the aircraft would be subject to far more severe penalty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 1948, than provided for simple absence without leave. Missing this flight would be construed as absence without leave to avoid hazardous service.


All of Aug9-2 got off the airplane and sat down in the shade on the concrete before the doors of an enormous hangar.


At 1525, the big shot they were holding the flight for showed up in a two-U.S.-Army-staff-car convoy. The first of the two glistening olive-drab 1949 Chevrolet staff cars had the single-starred flag of a brigadier general flying from a short staff mounted to the fender.


An Army sergeant jumped out and opened the door. A Marine brigadier general got out, and then a Marine cap-tain, and then a Navy lieutenant. The sergeant opened the trunk, and the Navy officer took a suitcase from it.


A Marine captain-wearing, like the other Marine offi-cers, a crisply pressed uniform-got out of the second staff car and went to the trunk. Then a-Jesus H. Christ, will you look at that?-well-dressed, quite beautiful American woman got out of the car and watched the captain take a suitcase from the trunk.


She walked with him as he walked to the brigadier gen-eral. They exchanged salutes. The general shook hands with the captain and the Naval officer. The captain touched the cheek of the goddamn beautiful woman, and then she threw herself into his arms, and he held her for a moment.


Then he and the naval officer walked to the airplane and went up the ladder. The general put his arm around the beautiful woman in a fatherly, comforting manner.


The Navy officer who'd told them they could wait in the shade appeared at the door of the airplane and waved at USMC Platoon Aug9-2 (Provisional), signaling them that it was now time for them to reboard the aircraft.


They did so.


McCoy leaned across Taylor and waved at Ernie, although he was reasonably sure that she couldn't see him.


"That's tough on you, isn't it, Ken?" Taylor asked, thoughtfully. "Having her here, and you commuting to the war?"


"What about the Air Force guys?" McCoy responded. "They do it every day: `How was your day, honey?' `Oh, I bombed a couple of bridges, shot up a convoy, took a little antiaircraft in my landing gear, and had to land wheels-up. Nothing special. How about you?' `My day was just awful. Ellsworth, Junior, kicked Marybelle Smith, Colonel Smith's little girl, and you have to call Mrs. Smith and apologize. The battery's dead in the car, and the PX doesn't know when they're going to get the right one. They want you on the PTA committee, and I didn't know how to tell them no-`"


He was interrupted by the roar of the engines as the pilot set the throttles to takeoff power, but Taylor had heard enough to laugh.


The R5D began its takeoff roll.


When McCoy decided that the roar of the engine had gone down enough for Taylor to hear him, McCoy said: "All we have to worry about now is (one) whether Jennings and the other guys and the stuff from Pusan made it to Sasebo, and (two) whether we'll be allowed to take them and it with us on the destroyer. I wish the general had been able to come to Sasebo. People usually find it hard to say `no' to gener-als."


"I wonder what the hell Howe's doing for so long in Ko-rea?" Taylor asked. Howe being in Korea was the reason Pickering had to stay in Tokyo.


McCoy shrugged.


"I don't know. But whatever it is, he thinks it's impor-tant. He's a good man."


"I think Jennings will be waiting for us at Sasebo," Tay-lor said. "The Marine guy at K-l... ?"


"Captain Overton," McCoy furnished.


Taylor nodded and went on: ".., told me that a lot, prob-ably most, of the Air Force and Navy transports that land at K-l don't fuel up there. They head for Sasebo, which is both the closest field for large aircraft, and has a pretty good off-the-tanker-and-into-the-airplanes fueling setup. K-l, you saw that, doesn't. They don't even have a decent tank farm for avgas...."


"You are a fountain of information I really don't give a damn about, aren't you, Mr. Taylor?"


"You care about this, Mr. McCoy, because the aircraft that fly from K-l to Sasebo to take on fuel are very often empty. That means Jennings will be able to find space for himself, the other jarheads, the camouflage nets, the ra-tions, the medical supplies, and whatever else he stole from the Army aboard one of these empty airplanes headed for Sasebo."


"I stand corrected, sir," McCoy said.


"And I don't think Her Majesty's Navy's going to give us any trouble about taking Jennings, et cetera, aboard the Charity with us," Taylor said. "But let's say they do..."


"In which case we're fucked. The Brits are going to give us lifeboats. You can't hide a lifeboat on Tokchok-kundo.


And that means the North Koreans will learn sooner or later, probably sooner, that there're two lifeboats on Tokchok-kundo and start wondering why."


"In which case-I admit this is a desperate measure- we get General Pickering to get us an airplane to fly the stuff back to Pusan, and ship it to Tokchok-kundo on the Wind of Good Fortune."


"I thought about that. There's a few little things wrong with it. If Pickering asks for an airplane, they'll want to know what for, and this is supposed to be a secret opera-tion. And who would sail it?"


"Her. Sail her. Either of those two Koreans we had aboard is capable of sailing her to Tokchok-kundo."


"Okay. Let's say we did that, and it worked. The Wind of Good Fortune couldn't make it to Tokchok-kundo until we'd been there-which means the lifeboats would have been there, exposed to the curious eyes of every sonofabitch in the Flying Fish Channel-three or four, maybe five days-"


"Hi," someone said. "I'm Howard Dunwood."


McCoy turned and found himself looking at the smiling face of one of the Marine officers he'd seen waiting in the shade of the hangar at Haneda.


Three weeks before, Howard Dunwood had had a reserved parking spot for his top-of-the-line DeSoto automobile- identified as being reserved for "Salesman of the Month"- at Mike O'Brien's DeSoto-Plymouth in East Orange, New Jersey.


He had been just about to leave the dealership for an early-afternoon drink at the Brick Church Lounge and Grill-he was actually outside the showroom, about to get in his car-when there came a person-to-person long- distance telephone call for him.


A week after that, Captain Howard Dunwood, USMCR, had reported to the Replacement Battalion (Provisional) at Camp Joseph J. Pendleton, California. On 9 August, Dun-wood had been given command of USMC Platoon Aug9-2.


High above the Pacific Ocean seventy-four hours later, as Trans-Global Airways Flight 1440 was nearing the end of its journey to Tokyo, Captain Dunwood had had the foresight aboard to slip into his utilities jacket pockets eight miniature bottles of Jack Daniels' sour mash whiskey.


You never know, he had reasoned, when a little belt would be nice.


He had consumed four of the miniatures at Camp Drake, two of them in the darkened auditorium during the motion picture portion of the chaplain's presentation. He had con-sumed two on the bus to Haneda, and the last two while in the shade of the hangar, waiting for the big shots to come so they could take off.


What the hell, the veteran of four World War II amphibi-ous invasions-including Tawara and Iwo Jima-had rea-soned, why not? I suspect they're going to be shooting at me in Korea, and you don't want to be half-shitfaced when people are shooting at you.


There were, of course, no refreshments of any kind aboard NATS Flight 2022, except for a water Thermos mounted on the wall. But there was an illuminated fasten seat belts sign, and when, several minutes into the flight, he had seen the light go off, Captain Howard C. Dunwood, USMCR, the commanding officer of USMC Platoon Aug9-2 (Provisional), had unfastened his seat belt and walked down the short aisle to the seats in which the two candy-asses in their neatly pressed uniforms were sitting.


He squatted in the aisle, smiled, and put out his hand.


"Hi," he said. "I'm Howard Dunwood."


"How are you?" McCoy said.


"You don't look like you're going to Korea."


"No, we're not," McCoy said.


"I sort of didn't think so," Dunwood said. "No weapons, and the wrong kind of uniform."


McCoy didn't reply.


"Stationed in Japan, are you? I couldn't help but notice the lady. Your wife, was she? Maybe the general's daugh-ter?"


"What's on your mind, Captain?" McCoy asked.


"I'm just a little curious about you," Dunwood said. "We're both Marine officers, right?"


"Okay, we're both Marine officers."


"Well, I was just wondering what the hell you're doing in Japan that's so important they hold up a plane taking Marines to Korea for more than an hour to wait for you."


"Captain, you've had a couple of drinks," McCoy said. "Why don't you go back to your seat and sleep them off before you get to Korea?"


"And why should I do that, you candy-ass sonofabitch?"


And then Captain Dunwood yelped in pain, and ex-claimed, "Goddamn you!"


Taylor, who had been studiously ignoring the exchange between the two Marine officers-by looking out the win-dow, from which he could see Mount Fuji-now snapped his head toward the aisle, and saw that McCoy had grabbed the index finger of the captain who had been squatting in the aisle looking for a fight, moved it behind his back, and forced him from his squatting position to his knees.


"Okay. I'm a candy-ass and you're drunk," McCoy said. "Agreed?"


"Fuck you, candy-ass!"


Captain Dunwood then yelped in pain again, almost a shriek.


"Agreed?" McCoy asked.


"Agreed, Okay. Agreed. Let go of my finger!"


Two other officers of Aug9-2 came down the aisle.


"What the hell?" one of them-a large lieutenant, who looked like a football tackle-asked.


McCoy let go of Dunwood's finger. Dunwood looked at the finger McCoy had held, then moved it, then yelped, not so loud this time, in pain.


`Take the captain back to his seat and make sure he stays there," McCoy ordered.


"What the hell happened?"


"Nothing happened. Just put him back in his seat before something does."


"Well, Okay," the large lieutenant answered, a little re-luctantly.


" `Well, Okay'? Is that the way you acknowledge an or-der?" McCoy snapped.


"No, sir. Aye, aye, sir."


The two lieutenants helped Dunwood to his feet-he was still staring at his hand in disbelief-and started him down the aisle.


"Jesus Christ," Taylor asked. "What the hell was that all about?"


"Nobody likes a candy-ass," McCoy said. "And you and I, to a bunch of Marines headed for Korea, look like candy-asses."


"Did you really break his finger?"


"I started to disjoint it," McCoy said, matter-of-factly. "It'll probably go back in by itself. If it doesn't, any corps-man can put it back in place."


"Jesus," Taylor said, chuckling.


"We were talking about how to hide the lifeboats, I think," McCoy said.


[TWO]


U.S. NAVY BASE SASEBO


SASEBO, KYUSHU, JAPAN


1740 15 AUGUST 1950


Lieutenant Commander Darwin Jones-Fortin, RN, who was well over six feet tall, obviously weighed no more than 145 pounds, and was wearing a white open-collared shirt, white shorts, and white knee-high stockings, was standing outside the passenger terminal when McCoy and Taylor came down the ladder.


"I think that's our captain," Taylor said softly, as he started down the stairs.


"Let's hope my friend doesn't see him," McCoy said.


"If he's commanding a destroyer, he's no candy-ass," Taylor said.


"Appearances are often deceiving," McCoy said. "Didn't you ever hear that?"


When he saw Taylor and McCoy come down the ladder, Captain Darwin-Jones walked toward them from the pas-senger terminal and met them halfway.


"I suspect you two gentlemen are my supercargo," he said. "My name is Jones-Fortin."


"My name is Taylor, Captain," Taylor said, returning the salute and putting out his hand. "And this is Captain Mc-Coy."


"Delighted to meet you both," Jones-Fortin said. "Cap-tain, there's a Marine sergeant in there..."


Jones-Fortin nodded toward the terminal building.


"... who asked if I was from Charity. I thought it a bit odd."


"Captain McCoy and I were just discussing the best way to bring this up to you, Captain," Taylor said.


"Let me make a stab in the dark," Jones-Fortin said. "You would like to bring him and that mountain of what-ever that is"-he nodded his head toward a stack of crates and a camouflage net sitting next to the small passenger terminal-"wherever you're going."


McCoy smiled.


"You don't know where we're going, Captain?" he asked.


"I was under the impression that it was a military se-cret," Jones-Fortin said.


"Yes, we really would, sir," Taylor said. "Will that be possible?"


"I've had a chance to think about that," Jones-Fortin said. "I believe it falls within my orders from Admiral Matthews to make Charity as useful as possible."


"Thank you, Captain," Taylor said. "That's a large weight off our shoulders."


"I made discreet inquiries," Jones-Fortin said. "There are apparently three Marines in addition to the one I spoke with."


"Let me see what's going on, sir," McCoy said, and started toward the terminal.


As he did, Technical Sergeant J. M. Jennings, USMC, came out and saluted.


"Well, I see you made it here," McCoy said.


"It was easy, Captain," Jennings replied. "There's a lot of transports leaving K-l empty that come here..."


"I know," McCoy said, smiling. "How'd you know about the Charity?"


"I went out to the wharfs," Jennings said. "And there was this Limey destroyer, and swabbies lashing a couple of lifeboats to her."


"You are a clever man, Sergeant Jennings," McCoy said. "And where're the other guys?"


"In the Metropole Hotel, sir. I thought it better to get them off the base."


"How'd you know about the hotel?"


"I was here before, sir, in `48. I was the gunny of the Marines on board the Midway."


"Okay. Come with me, I'll introduce you to the captain of the Charity. And don't use the word `Limey.'"


"Aye, aye, sir."


"Ah, yes," Lieutenant Commander Jones-Fortin said, "the Hotel Metropole. If I may make a suggestion, gentlemen?"


"Of course, sir," Taylor said.


"Your people here were kind enough to provide me with a lorry. A weapons carrier, I believe you call them?"


"Yes, sir."


"I propose that we load your materiel onto the lorry. I think it will hold it all. Then we will drop you gentlemen and the sergeant off at the Metropole. Then I will have the materiel loaded aboard Charity. When it is dark, I will have you picked up at the Metropole. I would be pleased if you were to join me for dinner at the Officers' Club, and after that, we can board Charity."


"That's fine, Captain, except that we insist you be our guest at dinner," Taylor said.


"We can argue that later," Jones-Fortin said. "Shall we deal with whatever it is?"


[THREE]


There was a neatly lettered sign mounted on the wall next to the reception desk in the Hotel Metropole.


IMPORTANT NOTICE !!!


ALL LADIES USED IN THE HOTEL


MUST BE


PROVIDED BY THE MANAGEMENT!!!


NO EXCEPTIONS


THANK YOU. THE MANAGEMENT


Technical Sergeant J. M. Jennings, USMC, opened the door to Room 215 and bellowed, "Ah-ten-hut on deck!" just before Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor marched in.


There is something essentially ludicrous in the sight of three naked men standing rigidly at attention, especially when two of the three have naked Japanese women hang-ing from their necks, and Captain McCoy was not able to resist the temptation to smile.


"As you were," he managed to say, which caused the two Marines with the ladies dangling from their necks to disen-gage themselves and all three Marines to quickly attempt to cover their genital areas with their hands.


Captain McCoy found it necessary to cough; Lieutenant Taylor found it necessary to turn and look through the door.


"Lieutenant Taylor and I are pleased to see that you've taken advantage of your spare time to sample the cultural delights of Sasebo," McCoy said. "But all good things must come to an end."


The three Marines looked at him, stone-faced.


"Shortly after dark, a weapons carrier will be here to take-"


"I like the Marine," one of the ladies said to one of her sisters, speaking, of course, in Japanese.


"Thank you very much," McCoy replied, in Japanese. "And I like you, too, but I am a married man."


All three ladies tittered behind their hands.


"So what?" the first lady asked.


"My wife is much stronger and larger than I am, and when she is angry she beats me severely," McCoy said.


All three ladies tittered delightedly again, and Taylor laughed. The three Marines looked baffled and very curi-ous.


"... as I was saying before the lady asked me if all Marines have dongs the size of their little fingers, or whether you three were just shortchanged-"


"She didn't ask that," one of the Marines challenged, se-riously. "Did she, sir?"


"You don't think I made that up, do you, Sergeant?"


After a long moment, the sergeant said, "No, sir, I guess not."


He looked at his lady, then dropped his eyes to his geni-tals.


"As I was saying," McCoy went on, "a weapons carrier will be here shortly after dark to take us where we are go-ing. I don't think the chow there will be as good as the chow Sergeant Jennings tells me you can get here. Your choice. But you're finished with the booze, and in an hour, you will be all dressed and sober and with all the bills paid. Are there any questions?"


All three said, "No, sir."


"You have anything, Mr. Taylor?"


"I think you covered everything," Taylor said.


"Sergeant Jennings?"


"No, sir."


"In that case, men, carry on," McCoy said. "I will see you in an hour."


He did an about-face and marched out of the room, with Taylor and Jennings marching after him.


[FOUR]


ABOARD HMS CHARITT


33 DEGREES 10 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


129 DEGREES 63 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


(THE EAST CHINA SEA)


0635 16 AUGUST 1950


Lieutenant Commander Darwin Jones-Fortin, RN, saw the face of Lieutenant David R. Taylor, USNR, peering through the round window in the interior bulkhead. He waved at him, then pointed first at the door in the bulk-head-Taylor nodded his understanding-and then at the sailor standing behind the helmsman, indicating that he should go to the door and help undog it.


Undogged and unlatched, the heavy steel door swung open as Charity buried her bow in the sea, and it was all the sailor could do to hold it. Taylor came onto the bridge and leaned against the bulkhead, then was followed by McCoy.


"Permission to come on the bridge, sir?" Taylor called out. "Permission granted," Jones-Fortin said. "Both of you." Taylor waited until the moment was right, then came quickly across the deck to where Jones-Fortin sat in his cap-tain's chair. McCoy followed him. The ship moved, and Mc-Coy half slid, half fell across the deck, ending up crashing into Taylor.


"Smooth as a millpond, what?" Jones-Fortin said. "Seri-ously, is this weather going to be a problem? I'm afraid we're in for a bit of it. Possibly, very possibly, worse than what we're getting now."


"Are we?" Taylor said.


"And Charity is of course a destroyer," Jones-Fortin added. "She doesn't ride as well as the Queen Mary, or, come to think of it, better than any other man-of-war that comes to mind."


"Try a destroyer escort sometime, Captain," Taylor said. "Or even better, an LST. Although calling an LST a man-of-war is stretching the term considerably."


"Is that the voice of experience speaking?"


"I had a DE during the war," Taylor said. "And LSTs since."


"I was the first lieutenant on a DE some time ago. I've always thought the RN assigned to DEs people they hoped would get washed over the side. I've never been aboard an LST in weather."


`Truth being stranger than fiction, when I was sailing LSTs through these waters after the war*" Taylor said, "I used to think back fondly on the smooth sailing characteris-tics in rough seas of the Joseph J. Isaacs, DE-403. In weather like this, the movement of an LST has to be experi-enced to be believed."


"I wonder how my men took to waking up in a storm like this," McCoy said. "They were still feeling pretty good when we came aboard."


"Didn't someone once say, `the wages of sin are death'?" Jones-Fortin said. "I suspect that a number of my crew are in the same shape." McCoy chuckled.


"But I'm afraid, McCoy," Jones-Fortin went on, "that I have to correct you. This isn't the storm. This is what they call `the edges' of the storm. The storm itself is farther north, coming down from China into the Yellow Sea."


"Right on our course to Inchon, right?" Taylor said.


"I'm afraid so," Jones-Fortin said. "There's an overlay of the latest weather projection on the chart. Perhaps you'd like to have a look. We have a decision to make." He indicated the chart room, aft of the wheel.


"Thank you, sir," Taylor said, and went for a look.


"Did you see what I saw?" Jones-Fortin asked when Taylor returned.


"I think so, sir," Taylor said, and turned to McCoy: "Ken, the way the storm is moving-and as the captain said, it's a bad one-I don't think we can put the boats over the side tomorrow morning. And maybe not even the morning after that."


"You mean it would be risky, or we just can't do it?"


"Tomorrow, we just can't do it. Period. The morning af-ter that, maybe, with more of a chance of something going wrong than I like."


"So what do we do?" McCoy asked.


"That's up to Captain Jones-Fortin," Taylor said.


"It's a bit over six hundred miles," Jones-Fortin said. "I think Charity can make fifteen knots, even through the storm. A little less when it gets as bad as I suspect it's going to get, a bit more when there are periods of relative calm. That would put us off the Flying Fish Channel lighthouse in forty hours-sometime before midnight on 18 August. As Mr. Taylor saw, the storm will still be in the area at that time. Whether or not it will have subsided enough for us to safely put the boats over the side-or for you to be able to safely make Tokchok-kundo in them-by 0300 of the nineteenth is something we won't know until then."


"And if it doesn't clear, sir, then what?" McCoy asked.


"Then we shall have to spend the daylight hours of the nineteenth steaming in wide circles offshore. Or, for that matter, we could steam farther south, to the northern edge of the storm, and follow its movement southward and see where we are, and when."


"You mean we would move at the speed of the storm, sir?" McCoy asked.


"It's moving now," Taylor said, "somewhere between fifteen and twenty miles an hour."


"As we followed it, we'd be out of it?" McCoy asked.


"That would depend, Ken," Taylor said, tolerantly, as if explaining something to a backward child, "on how close we were to it as we followed it."


"I will, of course, defer to the judgment of Captain Jones-Fortin," McCoy said. "And even to yours, Mr. Tay-lor. But if there were some way we could get out of the storm, that would be this landlubber's choice."


"Well, Mr. Taylor," Captain Jones-Fortin said, "another option would be to steam on an east-northeasterly course, hoping to find calmer waters on the storm's eastern edge."


"Your decision, of course, Captain," Taylor said, but his tone of voice made it clear what he hoped Jones-Fortin's decision would be.


"Then that's what we'll do," Jones-Fortin said.


"What that means, Ken," Taylor said, "is that it probably won't get much worse than it is now."


"Wonderful," McCoy said.


[FIVE]


ABOARD HMS CHARITY


39 DEGREES 06 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


123 DEGREES 25 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


(THE YELLOW SEA)


0405 19 AUGUST 1950


"Have a look at that, Mr. McCoy," Captain Jones-Fortin said, pointing out the spray-soaked window of the bridge. "What is it they say, `all good things come to those who wait'?"


There was a bright glow of light coming through the cloud cover.


"Is that the northern edge of the storm?" McCoy said.


"Not exactly," Jones-Fortin said. "We are in the northern edge of the storm-I'm sure you will not be much surprised to learn that the weather people have finally decided what we have been steaming through is a hurricane-and that light you see is dawn coming up over what I devoutly hope will be calm waters."


"Me, too."


The Charity didn't seem to be tossing as much as she had been for the past forty hours, but McCoy wasn't sure if this was the case, or wishful thinking.


Ten minutes later, Jones-Fortin turned to McCoy again.


"Master mariner that I am, Mr. McCoy, it is my profes-sional judgment that in, say, ten minutes, it will be safe to step into my shower and have a wash and a shave. If you feel a similar need, may I suggest you go to your cabin, and then join me for breakfast in the wardroom in twenty minutes?"


"Thank you, sir."


"If you'd be so kind, ask Mr. Taylor to join us."


"Yes, sir, of course."


Jones-Fortin raised his voice. "Number One, you have the conn. I will be in my cabin."


"Aye, aye, sir."


"If, in your judgment, the situation continues to im-prove, in ten minutes order the mess to prepare the break-fast meal."


"Aye, aye, sir."


Twenty minutes later, McCoy and Taylor walked into the wardroom. Jones-Fortin was already there, wearing a fresh, crisply starched uniform of open-collared white shirt, shorts, and knee-length white socks. Taylor was in his usual washed soft khakis, and McCoy in Marine Corps utilities.


A white-jacketed steward handed them a neatly typed breakfast menu the moment they sat down, and poured tea from a silver pitcher for them.


A moment later, another steward delivered what McCoy at first thought was breakfast for all of them. But he set the entire contents of his tray-toast, six fried eggs on one plate, and a ten-inch-wide, quarter-inch-thick slice of ham on another-before the captain, then turned to McCoy and Taylor.


"And what can I have Cooky prepare for you, gentle-men?"


They gave him their order.


"Shortly after joining His Majesty's Navy," Jones-Fortin said, as he stuffed a yolk-soaked piece of toast into his mouth, "I learned that the hoary adage, `If you keep your stomach full, you do not suffer from mal de mer,' did not apply at all to Midshipman the Honorable Darwin Jones-Fortin. Quite the contrary. If I eat so much as a piece of dry toast in weather such as we have just experienced, I turn green and am out of the game. I trust you will forgive this display of gluttony. I haven't had a thing to eat since we left Sasebo."


"I haven't been exactly hungry myself, sir," McCoy said.


"On the subject of food," Jones-Fortin said. "Is there anything we can give you from Charity's stores to better the fare on Tokchok-kundo?"


"You're very kind, Captain," Taylor said.


"Bread, sir," McCoy said. "The one thing I really miss when I'm... I really miss fresh bread."


"I'll see to it."


"When do you think we'll be getting to the Flying Fish, sir?" Taylor asked.


"It's about two hundred twenty miles. The storm is mov-ing southward at about fifteen knots. That should put us off the lighthouse somewhere around 2100. It'll be dark then, and I think the seas will have subsided."


"But how would we find Tokchok-kundo in the dark?" McCoy asked. "The original idea was to head for shore in the dark, but to arrive there as it was getting light."


"And I think we had best stick to that, too," Taylor said. "I don't want to try running in the channel in the dark."


"Then that means we'll have to arrange things to arrive at the original hour."


"Three days late," McCoy said.


"Unfortunately," Jones-Fortin agreed.


"They'll be worried about us," McCoy said. "On Tokchok-kundo and in Tokyo."


"They'll know, of course, about the storm," Jones-Fortin said. "Tokchok-kundo's been in it."


"And General Pickering will be worried about that, too," McCoy said.


"He does have quite a bit on his plate, doesn't he?"


Jones-Fortin said.


There was something in his voice that made McCoy look at him.


"It came out somehow," Jones-Fortin said. "Fitz-Tony Fitzwater, my brother-in-law-said that Sir William had heard that General Pickering's son had gone down."


"That's right," McCoy said.


"That's rotten luck," Jones-Fortin said. "It must be really tough for a senior officer to lose a son. I mean, more so than for someone not in the service."


"There's a chance that Pick-Major Malcolm Pickering, who's my best friend-"


"Oh, God, I am treading on glass, aren't I?" Jones-Fortin interrupted.


"-may walk through raindrops again," McCoy fin-ished.


"Oh?"


"There's some reason to believe he survived the crash," McCoy said. "I think he has. He's done that before. And is running around behind the enemy's lines waiting for some-one to come get him before the North Koreans capture him."


"And they really can't go looking for him, can they?" Jones-Fortin said, sympathetically.


"If I wasn't on my way to Tokchok-kundo, I'd be look-ing for him," McCoy said.


"I thought, when we were in Pusan, that you told Dunston to ratchet up the search operation?" Taylor said. "You don't think that's going to work?"


"That was a tough call," McCoy said. "I don't know who Dunston's agents are, or who they're working for. Agents have been known to change sides. Ratcheting up the search also ratcheted up the risk that the North Koreans will learn we're looking for someone, and they would know we would only be running an operation like this for someone important. All I may have done is ratchet up the search for him by the North Koreans, if they even had one going. Or, if they've already caught him, it would let them know they have an important prisoner."


"And yet you ordered this... search?" Jones-Fortin asked.


McCoy nodded.


"I decided if I was in his shoes..."


`Tough call, Ken," Taylor said. "But I'd have made the same one."


"I rather think that I would have, too," Jones-Fortin said. "Thank God, I didn't have to."


[SIX]


ABOARD HMS CHARITT


37 DEGREES 41 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


126 DEGREES 58 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


(THE YELLOW SEA)


0405 20 AUGUST 1950


HMS Charity was dead in the water.


Captain the Honorable Darwin Jones-Fortin, RN, in starched and immaculate white uniform, Lieutenant (j.g) David R. Taylor, USNR, and Captain K. R. McCoy, USMCR-both in Marine utilities-were on her flying bridge, looking down to the main deck where, in the glare of floodlights, a work gang was loading the supplies into the two lifeboats bobbing alongside.


The work was being supervised by a wiry chief petty of-ficer, also in immaculate whites, who stood no taller than five feet three and weighed no more than 120 pounds, but whose bull-like "instructions" to his work detail could be easily heard on the flying bridge.


"I've always felt," Captain Jones-Fortin said, "that this sort of thing is best handled by a competent petty officer; that the only thing an officer attempting to supervise the accomplishment of something about which he knows very little does is to create confusion."


"How about `chaos,' sir?" McCoy replied.


"The voice of experience, Captain?" Jones-Fortin asked dryly.


"Unfortunately," McCoy said. "I can still remember some spectacular examples from my days as a corporal."


The chief jumped nimbly into one of the lifeboats, started its engine, motioned for two of the Marines stand-ing on the deck to get into the boat, waited until they were in it, sitting where he thought they should be sitting, and then he nimbly moved to the second boat and-this time with some difficulty-got the engine started.


He motioned for the other two Marines on deck to get into the boat, seated them, then looked up toward the flying bridge.


"We seem to be ready for the officers, Captain," he called, in a deep voice that did not need the amplification of a bullhorn.


"They will be down directly," Jones-Fortin called. "Good show, Chief!"


Jones-Fortin offered his hand first to Taylor and then to McCoy.


"Best of luck," he said. "We'll see you again soon."


The chief watched from the deck as Taylor-nimbly-and McCoy-very carefully-both got into one boat.


Taylor checked McCoy out on the engine controls again, then signaled to the chief to let loose the lines. Then, very carefully, he took the tiller and moved the boat alongside the second.


"Just follow me, Ken," he said. "You steered the Wind of Good Fortune-you can steer this."


McCoy nodded and took the tiller.


Taylor jumped into the second boat, signaled for its lines to be let loose, and then shoved it away from Charity's hull with a shove with his foot. Then he took the tiller, ad-vanced the throttle, and moved away from Charity.


McCoy waited until ten feet separated the boats, then advanced his throttle.


The floodlights went out a moment later. It took Mc-Coy's eyes what seemed like a very long time to adjust to the darkness. When they had, he saw that Taylor's boat was getting farther away.


He eased the throttle forward a hair.


Moments after that, Jones-Fortin's amplified voice called, "Godspeed, gentlemen!" across the darkness.


When McCoy looked over his shoulder, he could barely see HMS Charity.


Thirty minutes later, a bump on the just barely visible hori-zon changed slowly into the lighthouse at the entrance to the Flying Fish Channel.


And thirty minutes after that-by then it was light-the houses on the shore of Tokchok-kundo came into view. As they came closer, the damage the storm had caused became visible.


The roofs of two of the houses were gone, and the doors and windows of most of them.


They were almost at the wharf before anyone appeared, and then it was Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC.


He stood on the wharf and saluted as Lieutenant Taylor skillfully brought his lifeboat up it, and managed to keep a straight face when the boat conned by Captain McCoy rammed into Taylor's boat, knocking Taylor off his feet.


Chapter Nineteen


[ONE]


THE DAI-ICHI BUILDING


TOKYO, JAPAN


0905 20 AUGUST 1950


The two-starred red flag of a major general flew from a small staff on the right front fender of the glistening olive-drab Buick staff car. Even before it stopped before the main entrance of the Dai Ichi Building, a captain of what was usually referred to as the Honor Guard-or, less re-spectfully, as the Palace Guard, and, even less respectfully, as the "Chrome Domes"-sent two members of the guard trotting quickly down the stairs so they would be in posi-tion to open the staff car's doors when it stopped.


The "Chrome Domes" appellation made reference to the chrome-plated steel helmets worn by the troops who guarded the headquarters of the Supreme Commander, and the Supreme Commander himself. The rest of their uni-forms were equally splendiferous. They wore infantry blue silk scarves in the open necks of their form-fitting and stiffly starched khaki shirts. Their razor-creased khaki trousers were "bloused" neatly into the tops of glistening parachutist's boots. This was accomplished by using the weight of a coiled spring inside the leg to hold the trousers in place.


Not all of the Chrome Domes were parachutists entitled to wear Corcoran "jump" boots. The basic criteria for their selection was that they be between five feet eleven and six feet one in height, between 165 and 190 pounds in weight, and possessed of what the selection officers deemed to be a military carriage and demeanor.


The standard-issue boot for nonparachutists was known as the "combat boot." It consisted of a rough-side-out ankle-high shoe, to which was sewn a smooth-side-out up-per with two buckles.


The combat boot was practical, of course, but the rough-side-out boot was difficult to shine, and it was not really suited to be part of the uniform of the elite troops selected to guard the Supreme Commander and his headquarters, and jump boots were selected to replace them.


The brown laces of the Corcoran boots were also re-placed, with white nylon cord salvaged from parachutes no longer considered safe to use. The "laces" were worn in an elaborate crossed pattern.


Officers of the Palace Guard wore Sam Browne leather belts, which had gone out of use in the U.S. Army in the early days of World War II. Enlisted members of the Chrome Domes wore standard pistol belts, but they were painted white, as were the accoutrements thereof-the leather pistol holster, and two pouches for spare pistol magazines.


The Buick stopped. The doors were opened, and three men got out. One of them was Colonel Sidney Huff, senior aide to General Douglas MacArthur. He was in his usual splendidly tailored tropical worsted tunic and blouse, from which hung all the especial insignia decreed for the uni-form of an aide-de-camp to a five-star general. Colonel Huff was not armed.


The second man out of the Buick was wearing some-what soiled fatigues and mud-splattered combat boots, into which the hem of his trousers had not been stuffed. The chevrons of a master sergeant were sewn to his sleeves. He was armed with a Model 1928 Thompson.45 ACP caliber submachine gun and a Model 1911A1 Pistol, Caliber.45 ACP, worn in a shoulder holster. The pockets of his fatigue jacket bulged with spare magazines for both weapons.


The third man was dressed identically to the master ser-geant-including jacket pockets bulging with spare maga-zines-with these exceptions: He was carrying a submachine gun, M3, caliber.45 ACP, instead of a Thomp-son. The M3, developed in World War II, was built cheaply of mostly stamped parts, and was known as a "grease gun" because it looked like a grease gun. And instead of chevrons indicating enlisted rank, there were two silver stars on each of his fatigue jacket collar points.


Major General Ralph Howe, NGUS, returned the salute of the Chrome Dome holding open his door and started to follow Colonel Huff up the stairs and into the Dai Ichi Building. Master Sergeant Charley Rogers brought up the rear.


Standing just outside the door itself were six more Chrome Domes and the Chrome Dome officer, already saluting, and two more were holding the door itself open.


"Perhaps," Colonel Huff said, in the Supreme Commander's outer office, "it would be best if you left your weapons with your sergeant."


"Colonel, I really hadn't planned to shoot General MacArthur," Howe said. He handed Rogers the grease gun, but made no move with regard to his pistol.


"Colonel, how about seeing if you can have someone send something up here for Charley to eat? Neither one of us could handle the powdered eggs they were feeding at K-l."


Huff's face tightened.


"Yes, sir," he said, then went to the right of the double doors, knocked twice, and pushed it open before Howe heard a reply.


"General, Major General Howe," Huff announced.


He indicated that Howe should enter the office.


MacArthur, who was behind his desk in his washed-soft khaki, tieless uniform, rose as Howe entered the room. Howe saluted. MacArthur returned it, then came around the desk and offered Howe his hand.


"Thank you for coming so soon, General," MacArthur said. "I didn't think, frankly, it would be this soon."


"I came right from the airport, sir. Your colonel, at Haneda, said you wanted to see me `at my earliest conve-nience.' Coming from you, I interpreted that you meant you wanted to see me immediately."


"I would have understood certainly that you might have taken time to freshen yourself," MacArthur said.


"If I had known that, sir, I would have stopped for break-fast," Howe said.


"Can I get you something here?" MacArthur asked.


"General, I would just about kill for a fried-egg sand-wich, a glass of milk, and a cup of coffee."


Howe saw the look of surprise that flashed across MacArthur's face.


I was supposed to say, "No thank you, sir, but thank you just the same." Right? You're not supposed to order a snack in El Supremo's office, right?


MacArthur turned and pushed a button on the desk.


Colonel Huff appeared immediately.


"Huff, have the mess send a fried-egg sandwich-make that two; no, make it three, I'm suddenly hungry myself- a glass of milk, and coffee up, will you, please?"


Colonel Huff wasn't entirely able to keep his face from registering surprise.


"Right away, General," he said.


"It should be here shortly," MacArthur said. "Is it too early in the morning for you, General, for a cigar?"


"It's never too early or too late for a good cigar or a good woman, sir," Howe said.


MacArthur laughed, then turned to his desk again, picked up a small humidor, and offered it to Howe. Howe took one of the long, black, thin cigars, sniffed it, then rolled it between his fingers.


"Philippine," MacArthur said. "I smoked them all through the war, courtesy of our friend Pickering."


"How's that, sir?"


"The Pacific Princess brought one of the first troop ship-ments to Australia shortly after we arrived there. Fleming, in his role as commodore of the PandFE Fleet, emptied her humidor of cigars and enough of that scotch he drinks..."


"Famous Grouse, sir," Howe furnished.


"... and I now do... to carry the both of us for the rest of the war."


He's going out of his way to make the point that he and Pickering are pals. I wonder where that's leading?


MacArthur handed him first a cutter, then a lighter.


"Very nice," Howe said after taking his first puff. `Thank you."


MacArthur made a deprecating gesture.


"I had occasion several times while you were in Ko-rea-about every time that Colonel Huff stuck his head in the door to tell me you were still there-to reflect on those times, and the role of the aide-de-camp in the army."


Howe looked at him and waited for him to go on.


"This is in no way a reflection on Colonel Huff-I don't know what I'd do without him-but I thought that his role as my aide-de-camp represents a considerable change from the role of aides-de-camp in the past, and from your, and Fleming Pickering's, roles here. And during World War Two."


"How is that, sir?"


Here it comes, but what the hell is it?


"Think about it, Howe. Napoleon's aides-de-camp-for that matter, probably those of Hannibal, marching with his elephants into the Pyrenees in 218-were far more than of-ficers who saw to their general's comfort. They were his eyes and his ears, and when they were in the field, they spoke with his authority."


"Neither General Pickering nor I have any authority, General, to issue orders to anyone," Howe argued.


"The difference there is that when one of Hannibal's aides was in the field, he was not in communication with Hannibal. You are in communication with our Commander-in-Chief. Pickering was in private communication with President Roosevelt all through the war until Roosevelt died. If he then, or you now, told me it was the President's desire that I do, or not do, thus and so, I would consider it an order."


Where the hell is he going?


"I can't imagine that happening, General," Howe said.


"Neither can I," MacArthur said. "The other difference being that if the Commander-in-chief wishes to issue an order to me, or anyone else, directly, he now has the means to do so. But that wasn't really the point of this."


Okay. Finally, here it comes.


"Oh?"


"I was leading up to the other function of aides-de-camp: being the commander's eyes and ears. Has it oc-curred to you that that's what you're doing? You and Pickering?"


"Yes, sir. It has. Our mission is to report to the President anything he tells us to look into, or what we see and hear that we feel would interest him."


"Of course, Fleming Picking has the additional duty-or maybe it's his primary duty; it doesn't matter here for the moment-of running the CIA and its covert intelligence, and other operations."


"That's true, sir," Howe said.


Okay. Now we have a direction. I think.


There was a knock at the door, and a white-jacketed Japanese entered bearing a tray on which was a silver cof-fee set and a plate covered with a silver dome.


"Our egg sandwiches, I believe," MacArthur said. "Just set that on the table please."


"That was quick," Howe said.


"It's nice to be the Emperor," MacArthur said, straight-faced, and then when he saw the look on Howe's face, suddenly shifting into a broad smile, showing he had made a little joke.


"I suppose it is, sir."


"I am a soldier, nothing more," MacArthur said. "And I really have done my best to discourage people from think-ing I am anything more, and more important, than I think I am."


I don't know whether to believe that or not. But I guess I do.


MacArthur lifted the dome over the plate.


"Help yourself," he said. "They are much better when hot."


"Thank you, sir."


"They take me back to West Point," MacArthur said. "My mother had the idea I wasn't being properly nour-ished in the cadet mess, and when I went to see her at night in the Hotel Thayer, she would have egg sandwiches sent up."


Howe remembered hearing that MacArthur's mother had lived in the Hotel Thayer at West Point during all of his four years there. He had a sudden mental image of a photo-graph he had once seen of Douglas MacArthur as a cadet.


He looked like an arrogant sonofabitch then, too. And a little phony. How many other cadets were coddled by their mothers, and fed fried-egg sandwiches at night?


And why did he tell me that?


Ralph, you're out of your league with this man. Watch yourself!


The Supreme Commander Allied Powers in Japan and United Nations Command thrust most of a triangular piece of fried-egg sandwich into a wide-open mouth, chewed ap-preciatively, and announced.


"Very nice. I'm glad you thought of this, Howe."


"I learned to really loathe powdered eggs during the war," Howe said. "That was the menu at K-l."


"Not a criticism of you, of course, Howe, but whenever I am served something I don't like, I remember when we were down to a three-eighths ration on Bataan and Corregidor, and suddenly I am not so displeased."


Was that simply an observation, or is he reminding me that I am eating a fried-egg sandwich in the presence of the Hero of Bataan and Corregidor?


"Powdered eggs aside, I ate better in Korea just now than I often ate in Italy," Howe said.


"That's good to hear, Howe, and it actually brings us to the point of this somewhat rambling conversation we've been having."


Is this it, finally?


"What occurred to me, Howe," MacArthur went on, "is that Hannibal, Napoleon, and Roosevelt had-and Presi-dent Truman now has-something I don't, and, I am now convinced, I really should have."


"What's that, sir?"


"And, come to think of it, that General Montgomery was wise enough to have during his campaigns in the Second War: experienced, trusted officers-aides-de-camp in the historical sense of the term-who moved around the bat-tlefield as his eyes and ears, and reported to him what they thought he should know, as differentiated from telling him what they think he would like to hear."


"Yes, sir, I suppose that's true."


"I don't know where I am going to find such officers to fulfill that role for me-it will have to be someone who is not presently on my staff-but I will. And just as soon as I can."


Here it comes.


But what did that "it will have to be someone who is not presently on my staff" crack mean?


"I'm sure that you would find that useful, sir."


"In the meantime, Howe, with the understanding that I am fully aware that your reports to President Truman enjoy the highest possible level of confidentiality, and that I would not ask you to violate that confidence in any way, I sent Colonel Huff to Haneda to ask you to come to see me in the hope that you would be able to share with me what you saw, and felt, in Korea."


The sonofabitch wants me to tell him what I'm reporting to Truman. Jesus Christ!


"I can see on your face that the idea makes you uncom-fortable, Howe, and I completely understand that. Let me bring you up to date on what has happened since you've been in Korea, to give you an idea what I'm interested in, and then I will ask you some questions. If you feel free to answer them, fine. If you don't, I will understand."


"Yes, sir," Howe said.


"I don't think I managed to convince General Collins that the Inchon invasion is the wisest course of action to take-" MacArthur interrupted himself, went to his desk and pulled open a drawer, took out a radio teletype mes-sage, and then walked around the desk and handed it to Howe. "Read this, Howe."


It was an eight-paragraph Top Secret "Eyes Only MacArthur" message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. MacArthur waited patiently until Howe had read it.


"Stripped of the diplomatic language, I think you will agree, Howe," MacArthur said, "that what that doesn't say is that the JCS approves of Inchon. That they agree with Collins that the invasion-and they don't even call it an `invasion' but rather a `turning operation'-should take place somewhere, preferably at Kunsan, but anywhere but Inchon."


"That's what it sounds like to me, sir," Howe agreed.


"But what it also doesn't say," MacArthur went on, `Is that I am being denied permission to make the Inchon landing. That suggests to me, frankly, that someone in Washington is reluctant to challenge my judgment about Inchon-and that someone is the President himself. Who else could challenge the judgment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but the President? And why would the President, ab-sent advice he's getting from person or persons he trusts that I'm right about Inchon and General Collins is wrong, challenge the judgment of the JCS?"


I'll be damned. He knows-doesn't know, but has fig-ured out-that Pickering and I both messaged Truman that we think the Inchon invasion makes sense.


"I don't expect a reply to that, Howe," MacArthur said. "But let's say this: Absent orders to the contrary from the Commander-in-Chief, I will put ashore a two-division force at Inchon 15 September."


Howe looked at him, but didn't respond.


He must know that I'll message Truman that he said that. But Harry's no dummy. He knows that already.


"There are several interrelated problems connected with that," MacArthur said. "If you feel free to comment on them, I would welcome your observations. If you feel it would be inappropriate for you to do so, I will understand."


"Yes, sir?"


"The first deals with General Walker. I am sometimes, perhaps justifiably, accused of being too loyal to my subor-dinates. There has been some suggestion that otherwise I would have relieved General Walker."


"General, I'm not qualified to comment on the perform-ance of an Army commander."


"All right, I understand your position. But I hope you can answer this one for me. General Almond, for whom I have great respect, feels he needs the First Marine Division to lead the invasion. That means taking the 1st Marine Brigade-which is, as you know, essentially the Fifth Ma-rine Regiment, Reinforced-from Pusan, and assigning it-reassigning it-to the First Marine Division. General Walker, for whose judgment I have equal respect, states flatly that he cannot guarantee the integrity of his Pusan positions if he loses the 1st Marine Brigade to the invasion force-which has now been designated as X Corps, by the way. That problem is compounded by the fact that Gener-als Walker and Almond are not mutual admirers."


Howe looked at MacArthur without speaking.


"No comment again?" MacArthur asked.


"General, you're certainly not asking me for advice?"


"I suppose what I'm asking-the decision has been made, by the way-is what, if you were in my shoes, you would have done."


"I can only offer what any smart second lieutenant could suggest, General, that you had to make a decision between which was more important, a greater risk to the Pusan perimeter by pulling the Marines out of there, or a greater risk to the Inchon invasion because the Marines were short a regiment."


"And what do you think your hypothetical second lieu-tenant would decide?"


Howe met MacArthur's eyes for a moment before reply-ing.


`To send the Marines to Inchon, sir."


"And Major General Howe, after seeing what he saw in the Pusan perimeter?"


`To send the Marines to Inchon, sir," Howe said.


"History will tell us, I suppose, whether the hypothetical second lieutenant, the aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, and the commander forced to make the decision were right, won't it? X Corps will land at Inchon with the full-strength First Marine Division as the vanguard."


MacArthur picked up the coffee pitcher and added some to Howe's cup, then refreshed his own.


"There's one more delicate question, Howe, that you may not wish to answer."


"Yes, sir?"


"It has come to the attention of my staff that our friend Fleming Pickering has mounted one of his clandestine op-erations. I don't know how reliable the information my staff has is, but there is some concern that it might in some way impact on Inchon."


In other words, Charley Willoughby's snoops have heard something-how much?-about the Flying Fish Channel operation. Why should that be a surprise? They've been fol-lowing us around the way the KGB followed me around at Potsdam.


"I thought perhaps this operation might be connected with Pickering's son," MacArthur went on. "Who is not just a Marine aviator, but the son of the CIA's Director of Asian Operations."


So why don't you ask Pickering yourself?


"General Pickering doesn't tell me much about his CIA covert operations, General," Howe said. "But I'm sure there's more than one of them, any-or all-of which might have an impact on Inchon. If any of them did, I'm sure he would tell you."


"Well, perhaps after you tell him-you will tell him?- that the Inchon invasion is on, he'll come to me. If he has something to come to me with."


"I will tell him, General," Howe said.


MacArthur put his coffee cup down.


"Thank you for coming to see me, and with such alacrity," MacArthur said.


Well, I have just been dismissed.


How much did I give him that I should not have?


"I hope it was worth your time, General," Howe said.


MacArthur put his hand on Howe's shoulder and guided him to the door.


"Thank you again," he said, and offered him his hand.


Major General Charles A. Willoughby was in the outer office waiting to see MacArthur.


And probably to find out what MacArthur got from me.


"Come on, Charley," Howe said, looking at Willoughby, and waiting until Master Sergeant Charley Rogers had got-ten quickly from his seat and handed him his grease gun before adding, "Good morning, General Willoughby."


[TWO]


COMMAND POST


COMPANY C, 1ST BATTALION,


5TH MARINES FIRST MARINE BRIGADE (PROVISIONAL)


OBONG-NI, THE NAKTONG BULGE, SOUTH KOREA


1155 20 AUGUST 1950


The battalion exec found Charley Company's commander lying in the shade of a piece of tenting half supported by poles and half by the wall of a badly shot-up stone Korean farmhouse.


The company commander's uniform was streaked with dried mud, and he was unshaven and looked like hell, which was, of course, to be expected under the circum-stances. But nevertheless, when the company commander saw the battalion exec, he started to get up.


The exec gestured for him to stay where he was, dropped to his knees, and crawled under the canvas with him.


The company commander saluted, lying down, and the exec returned it.


"You look beat, Captain," the exec said.


"I guess I'm not used to this heat, sir."


"I don't think anybody is," the exec said. "It was a little cooler during the storm-"


He broke off when the captain's eyes told him he was monumentally uninterested in small talk.


"How badly were you hurt?" the exec asked, meaning the company, not the company commander personally.


"I lost a little more than half of my men, and two of my officers. Fourteen enlisted and one officer KIA. Some of those who went down went down with heat exhaustion."


The exec nodded.


At 0800, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines had attacked North Korean positions on Obong-ni Ridge. There had been a preliminary 105-mm howitzer barrage, and a mortar bar-rage, on the enemy positions, after which the 5th had at-tacked across a rice paddy and then up the steep slopes of the ridge. In that attack, Company A had been in the van, with B Company following and C Company in reserve.


The colonel had thought that order of battle best, primar-ily because the Charley Company commander had been on the job only a couple of days.


The colonel had found it necessary to employ his re-serve, for by the time Able Company reached the crest of the ridge, more than half its men were down, either from enemy fire or heat exhaustion, and by the time Baker Com-pany got there, they had lost a fifth of their men, mostly to exhaustion, and what was left was put to work carrying the dead and wounded off the slopes of the ridge, with Charley Company now needed to protect them.


And then the colonel had ordered everybody off Obong-ni Ridge when it was apparent to him that the men holding the crest were not going to be able to repel a North Korean counterattack.


Once everyone was back, reasonably safe, in the posi-tions they had left to begin the attack, the artillery was called in again, and the mortars, and the North Korean po-sitions on Obong-ni Ridge again came under fire.


Following which, the 1st Battalion attacked again, this time with what was left of Able and Baker Companies in the van, and with Charley Company following, and with Headquarters and Service Company in reserve.


By the time the 1st Marines again gained the crest of the hill, their strength had been reduced by 40 percent, and Charley Company had lost almost that many, but there was enough of them left, in the colonel's judgment, so they stood a reasonable chance of turning the North Korean counterattack when it inevitably came, and he had ordered the Charley Company commander to take command of the Marines on the crest and defend it to the best of his ability.


Thirty minutes after the North Korean counterattack be-gan, the colonel began receiving reports of the casualties suffered and of the ammunition running low. The colonel knew he didn't have the manpower to get ammunition in the quantities requested up the crest of Obong-ni Ridge.


He called Brigade and explained the situation. Brigade said the 2nd Battalion would be immediately sent to the area, and as soon as they arrived, he had permission to or-der his Marines back off the bill. And ordered him to make every effort to see they brought their dead and wounded back with them.


Once back, they would re-form. There were some re-placements, not as many as he would like, but that was all there was, and they would be sent as soon as possible.


`Trucks are coming," the exec said. "They're having a hell of a time getting through the mud, but they'll be here shortly."


The company commander did not reply.


"They're bringing the noon meal, and some replace-ments," the exec said. "And following an artillery softening-up, 2nd Battalion will attack through the 1st at 1600. Charley Company will lead."


"Major, I have, counting me, two officers and a platoon and a half of men."


"You'll have some of the people who went down with the heat back by then, and as I say, some replacements."


"Aye, aye, sir," the company commander said.


"And the softening barrage may be more effective this time. We've been promised a bunch-including some 155-mm-from the Army, and half the ammunition will be fused for airburst, which should do a better job on the far slopes. And it will be TOT." (Time On Target. All artillery pieces fire their tubes at the same predeter-mined instant. Among other things, this takes the enemy by surprise, and keeps him from seeking shelter before more shells land. It also has an of-ten terrifying psychological effect.)


"I wondered if anyone here had ever heard of airbursts, or thought about TOT," the company commander said.


"We're hurting them, too, Captain," the exec said.


"Yes, sir, but there seems to be a lot more of them than us," the company commander said.


"I'll be back before you move out. The 1st is up there. I don't think the NKs will try to come this way. Get the men as much rest as you can."


"Aye, aye, sir."


"You hurt your hand, Captain? You seem to be favoring it."


"My finger was hurt on the airplane on the way over here, sir. Little sore, nothing serious."


But if I ever see that candy-ass captain who did this to me again, I'm going to pull his arm off and shove it up his ass.


I wonder what that cocksucker's doing right now. Prob-ably playing tennis with his wife, the general's daughter.


Goddamn the U.S. Marine Corps.'


[THREE]


TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND


1215 20 AUGUST 1950


"A little problem, Mr. Zimmerman?" Captain McCoy asked, surveying what was left of the small stone, thatch-roofed building that had housed the small German diesel generator and, the last time McCoy had been there, the SCR-300 radio. "I would say we have a world-class, A-Number-One fucking problem."


There was nothing left of the building but three walls, one of them on the edge of falling over, and the generator, which now lay on its side. The floor of the building-and the generator-was covered with a six-inch-thick layer of foul-smelling mud.


"When the storm really started getting bad, we moved the SCR-300 up the hill," Zimmerman said. "We didn't have the muscle to move the generator. By then, anyway, there was three feet of water in here. I mean all the time. When the waves hit, it was deeper; you had a hard time standing up."


Ernie means, "I had a hard time standing up," McCoy decided. I left him in charge, and he met that responsibility as best he could.


He had a mental picture of the barrel-chested Marine gunner standing in water up to his waist trying to salvage something, anything, in the generator building from the fury of the storm.


"I guess the diesel fuel's gone, too? Even if we can get that generator running again."


Zimmerman nodded.


"Everything that wasn't up the hill got washed away," he said. "Including most of the ammo for the Jap weapons."


"What about food?"


"We moved the rations up the hill, including the rice the Koreans had. And a couple of their boats are left. They were starting to try to get them back in the water when we saw you. Major Kim says he thinks they can catch enough fish to feed them and us."


"Anybody get hurt?"


Zimmerman shook his head, "no."


"I was thinking that maybe if we hit one of their is-lands-Taemuui-do is closest-maybe they'd have some diesel fuel," Zimmerman said.


If they had diesel fuel in the first place, what makes you think they'd still have it? Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do got hit by the storm as hard as Tokchok-kundo did. And if we hit Taemuui-do now, and didn't hit Yonghung-do immedi-ately afterward, when we finally did hit it, they'd be expect-ing an attack, and certainly would have reported that right after the storm somebody took Taemuui-do. They'd be curi-ous as hell about that.


Dumb idea, Ernie.


"Do you think that diesel's going to run after being un-der water for hours?"


"We'll have to take it apart and make sure there's no wa-ter in the cylinders. And then who knows?"


"Let's hold off on getting diesel for a diesel engine we're not sure can be fixed," McCoy said.


Zimmerman nodded.


"There are engines in the lifeboats," McCoy said. "Can we use those to power the SCR-300?"


"Wrong voltage, I'll bet," Zimmerman said. "But maybe we can rig something."


"Okay. First things first," McCoy ordered. "Put people to work helping Taylor unload the lifeboats, and then drag them on shore and get them covered. Then get the Korean fisherman's boats in the water. Send Major Kim with one of them. Maybe he will see what the storm did to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do."


"And then what?"


"Ernie, I don't have the faintest fucking idea," McCoy said. "Right now, it looks like we're stranded on this beau-tiful tropical island."


[FOUR]


THE DEWEY SUITE


THE IMPERIAL HOTEL


TOKYO, JAPAN


1315 20 AUGUST 1950


Major General Ralph Howe, NGUS, was sitting in one of the green leather armchairs in the sitting room when the door opened and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering walked in, trailed by Captain George F. Hart.


"I let myself in, Flem," Howe said. "I hope that's all right?"


"Don't be silly," Pickering said. "When did you get back?' He waved at Master Sergeant Rogers. "Hello, Charley."


"After hanging around K-l most of last night waiting for a break in the storm, we finally got off, and landed at Haneda a little after eight," Howe said, and added, "where Colonel Sidney Huff was waiting for me, to tell me El Supremo would be pleased if I would join him at my earli-est opportunity."


Pickering's lower lip came out momentarily.


"What was that all about?"


"I'm not sure I know," Howe said, "and I have been thinking about it ever since I was dismissed from the throne room. About the only thing I am sure about is that Willoughby is onto your Flying Fish Channel operation."


"I suppose that was inevitable. Is that what he called you in for, to ask you what you knew about that?"


"I don't know, Flem. Let me tell you what happened, and you tell me."


"Will it wait until I have my twelve-hundred snort?" Pickering asked. He walked to the sideboard and picked up a bottle of Famous Grouse. "Would you like one?"


"Why not?" Howe said. "God knows I deserve one." Then he asked," `Twelve-hundred snort'?"


"I found that unless I went on a schedule, I was prone to keep nipping all day," Pickering said. "I think with a little effort, I could easily become an alcoholic."


"I don't believe that for a minute," Howe said. "You've had a lot on your mind, Flem."


"I have one at twelve," Pickering said, ignoring him, "another at five, a brandy after dinner, and sometimes a nightcap. That way, I can go to sleep reasonably sure of what my name is and where I am. Tell me about your ses-sion with El Supremo."


"Well," Howe said, and chuckled. "It began, if you can believe this, with a fried-egg sandwich, just like Mommy used to make for him when he was at West Point, and Han-nibal's elephants..."


"I don't know either," Pickering said when Howe had fin-ished. "It's entirely possible he wanted to hear what you might have to say about Korea. But more likely-now that I've had a minute to think about it-it was his back-channel response to the JCS message he showed you. I think it's sig-nificant that he showed it to you. He knows you report to the President, which means you'd report what he said, and what he said was that unless he is expressly forbidden to do so, he's going to ignore what Collins and the JCS think, and send two divisions ashore at Inchon on 15 September. He got his message to the President without sending the Presi-dent a message through channels."


Howe grunted.


"That's what Charley thinks, too," he said, and added: "You've heard me observe that the true test of another man's intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with you? I seem to be surrounded by geniuses."


Pickering and Rogers chuckled.


"You don't think-maybe in addition to the above-that he wanted to send you an ever-so-subtle warning that he was on to your Flying Fish Channel operation? He said he was concerned about its possible `impact' on Inchon. Maybe it's time for you to tell him about it?"


"I don't think the Flying Fish operation is going to have, any impact on the Inchon invasion at all," Pickering said.


"I don't like what I think I'm hearing," Howe said.


"We have not heard from Zimmerman for four days,"


Pickering said. "Since his 0730 call on the sixteenth. You know how that works?"


Howe shook his head, "no."


"We transmit a code phrase at a predetermined time. Zimmerman's radioman, who is monitoring the frequency, responds with a two-word code phrase, repeated twice. The idea is to reduce the chance of the North Koreans hearing a radio transmission at all, and if they should get lucky and hear it, not to give them time to locate the transmitter by triangulation."


Howe nodded his understanding.


"There has been no response from Tokchok-kundo since 0730 on the sixteenth," Pickering went on. "This morning, we got the code word message `Egg Laid 0430' from HMS Charity. At the time we coined the code word, we thought it was rather clever for the meaning: `McCoy, Taylor and all hands have been successfully put over the side at half past four.' It should have taken them no more than an hour to make Tokchok-kundo. On their arrival, Zimmerman was to transmit a code phrase meaning they had arrived. There has been no such transmission."


"The storm could have knocked out their radio," Howe suggested.


"That's a possibility. The other possibility that has to be considered is that the North Koreans discovered our people on Tokchok-kundo,- took the island, and McCoy and Taylor sailed into the North Koreans' lap."


"You don't know that, Fleming," Howe said.


"We set up another message, an emergency message, a phrase meaning change your frequency to another and be prepared to communicate. George and I just came from the commo center, where we watched Sergeant Keller send that code phrase every ten minutes for an hour and a half. There was no response."


"Which proves, I suggest, only that Zimmerman's radio is out again. There was trouble with it before, wasn't there?"


"You always look for a silver lining in situations like this," Pickering said. "What I'm hoping now is that if the North Koreans went to Tokchok-kundo and discovered our people there, they will think that it was nothing more than an intelligence-gathering outpost, and won't make a con-nection with the invasion of Inchon."


The first thing Howe thought was that Pickering was be-ing unduly pessimistic, but then he remembered that this wasn't the first covert operation Pickering had run, and that his pessimism was based on experience.


"Goddamn it," Howe said, and then asked, "What are you going to do?"


"For the next twenty-four hours, I'm going to hope- pray-that you-and George-are right, and that the only problem is Zimmerman's radio."


"And then?"


"I'm going to Pusan to see what my station chief there thinks about sending the Wind of Good Fortune back up there."


[FIVE]


EVENING STAR HOTEL


TONGNAE, SOUTH KOREA


2105 23 AUGUST 1950


"Oh, shit!" Captain George F. Hart said, as the headlights of the Jeep swept across the courtyard of the hotel.


"Oh, shit what, George?" Brigadier General Fleming Pickering asked.


"Pick's..." Hart said, and stopped.


"Pick's what?" Pickering said.


"I was about to say Pick's girlfriend is here," Hart said. "Or maybe it's somebody else with a war correspondent's Jeep. At the corner?"


"I don't need her right now," Pickering said. "But I'm afraid you're right."


"Maybe Major Whatsisname..."


"Dunston," Pickering furnished.


"... Dunston's got a Jeep like that," Hart said, as he pulled the nose of the Jeep, which had been more or less cheerfully furnished to them-along with directions to the hotel-by Captain James Overton, the Marine liaison offi-cer at K-l.


"Could be," Pickering said. "I really hope it's not her." "She was a little excited the last time we saw her, wasn't she, boss?" Hart asked.


"It has been some time since I have been called `a treacherous sonofabitch,"' Pickering said. "Especially with such sincerity."


"I think her exact words were `you miserable, treacher-ous sonsofbitches,' plural," Hart said. "She seemed to be a little annoyed with me, too."


"Well, I couldn't let her go back to Tokchok-kundo, even if the English would have let her get on the de-stroyer."


"No, you couldn't," Hart said seriously, as he pulled the nose of the Jeep up to the wall of the hotel. "And I don't think you could have explained that to her."


Before they reached the door, other headlights an-nounced the arrival of another Jeep at the hotel.


"That must be him," Hart said. "The Killer said he looked like an Army Transportation Corps major."


"Ken also said he struck him as very bright," Pickering said. "Keep that in mind."


"Major" William Dunston walked up to them. "General, I'm Bill Dunston, your station chief here. I'm sorry you got here before I did, and delighted that you could find the place at all."


"George is a cop when he's not working for me," Picker-ing said. "He's good at finding things."


"Bill Dunston, Captain," Dunston said, offering Hart his hand. "I understand you've been with the general a long time."


"Yeah, we go back a ways," Hart said. "How are you?


Who's the war correspondent?"


"Jeanette Priestly," Dunston said.


"What's she doing here?" Pickering asked.


"The bottom line is that I didn't know to keep her away," Dunston said.


"What she asked for was if she could stay here rather than in the press center. What she's doing, obvi-ously, is hanging around here as probably the best place to learn what's going on in the Flying Fish Channel. She said that you wouldn't let her go back up there."


"I don't think she put it that diplomatically, did she?" Pickering asked.


"The words `betrayed' and `broken promises' did enter our conversation," Dunston said. He hesitated, then went on: "One of the reasons I wasn't here at eight-thirty, as you requested in your message, was that I was hoping to have word of Major Pickering. I had some agents come back across the line at nightfall..."


"And?"


"The good news is that there's no intel that the NKs have a Marine pilot in their POW lockups," Dunston said. "The bad news is that's all the intel. I'm sorry, sir. I think every-thing that can be done is being done."


"I'm sure it is," Pickering said. "Thank you."


"How good are your sources?" Hart asked.


"I own an NK field police major," Dunston said. "If there was a Marine pilot POW, he'd know."


"And he'd tell you?" Hart pursued, more than a little sar-castically.


"Hey, George," Pickering cautioned.


"It's all right, sir," Dunston said. "Yeah, he'd tell me. I have his father."


"Captain McCoy said you were very good at what you do," Pickering said.


"I seem to be laying one egg after another about Major Pickering, sir."


"Well, keep working on it, please," Pickering said.


"General, how much can I tell Miss Priestly about Major Pickering?"


"How much have you told her so far?"


"Only that we're looking for him."


`Tell her what you find out," Pickering ordered.


"In all circumstances, sir?"


"If we're both thinking the same thing, tell me before


you tell her. If at all possible, I'd like to... break the news of that circumstance to her personally."


"Yes, sir."


"Am I allowed to ask what's going on in the Flying Fish Channel?"


"That's why I'm here," Pickering said. "There's a very good chance that the operation is blown. We haven't heard from Zimmerman in seven days. McCoy and Taylor were put off a British destroyer at 0430 on the twentieth and should have reached Tokchok-kundo an hour later. There has been no word of them, either."


"The storm may have knocked out their radio," Dunston said. "Or it simply failed again."


"We're working on that slim possibility. I wanted to..."


There was a flash of light as the hotel door opened.


Jeanette Priestly, in Army fatigues, was standing in the door, holding a carbine in one hand.


"Well, look who's here," she said.


"Hello, Jeanette," Pickering said.


"I'd ask what's going on, except I know that I couldn't believe a goddamn word any of you said."


"I really like a woman who can hold a grudge," Hart said.


"Shut up, George," Pickering said. "I'll tell you what's going on, Jeanette, and you can make up your mind whether to believe me or not."


She turned and went inside the hotel. The men followed her inside.


"Oh, Jesus," Jeanette said. "Everything is really fucked up, isn't it?"


"We don't know that," Dunston said. "I keep getting back to the idea that their radio is out."


"Again, admitting that slim possibility," Pickering said, "then the solution is to get them another radio. There are problems with that. I am unable to get my hands on a ra-dio right now that is (a) suitable to be dropped onto Tokchok-kundo from a Marine aircraft, and is (b) powerful enough to communicate with either Pusan or Japan. All that's available that can be dropped with a reasonable chance of it landing intact are the standard emergency ground-to-air radios carried in airplanes. They have the power to communicate only with another airplane operat-ing in the area. If we have aircraft orbiting over Tokchok-kundo, the NKs are going to know it and wonder why. So that's out.


"The Army has some experimental radios that may work, operative words, `may work,' and they're being air-shipped to Tokyo. But the shortest time in which it is reasonable to expect them is six days from yesterday. Sometime tonight-it may already be here-the Yokohama signal depot is ship-ping another SCR-300 and a gasoline generator to power it to K-l. Our thought was that if we could get that loaded aboard the junk tonight, and the junk could sail in the morn-ing, it could make Tokchok-kundo in thirty-odd hours."


"If the Wind of Good Fortune goes, I go," Jeanette an-nounced.


"No, you don't," Pickering said. "The last thing we want to do is give the NKs the war correspondent of the Chicago Tribune."


"I'm willing to take my chances on that," Jeanette said.


"I'm not," Pickering said. "The NKs would wonder what was so important about Tokchok-kundo that a war correspondent had ridden a junk up there. That's not open for discussion, Jeanette. The next time you see Tokchok-kundo will be from the deck of the Mount McKinley on 15 September."


"What's the Mount McKinley?" Dunston asked.


"The command ship for the Inchon invasion."


"The Palace Guard will make sure I don't get a press space for that," Jeanette said.


"You'll have a CIA space," Pickering said. "Sid Huff called me and said El Supremo told him to ask me how many cabins I would require on the Mount McKinley. I told him I would have two people with me and would need two cabins. You're one of the two people. Trust me, Jeanette, it will take a direct order from MacArthur to keep you off the Mount McKinley."


She looked at him closely for a moment and then said, "Well, maybe you're not such an unmitigated sonofabitch after all."


"So the invasion is definitely on for the fifteenth?" Dunston asked.


"And so, unless we can grab those islands beforehand, is the planned attack on them on D Minus One," Pickering said. "Which brings us back to the people we may have on Tokchok-kundo without a radio. What George and I came up with is to have only one American-to operate the ra-dio-aboard. He will go on the air to report that they're about to reach the island. Then he will make himself as in-visible as possible while your South Korean crew sails her into Tokchok-kundo. If our people are there, we're home free."


"And if they're not?" Jeanette said.


"With a little luck, the junk simply goes back to sea," Pickering said.


"And if Lady Luck is looking the other way," Jeanette said, "everybody on the Wind of Good Fortune gets bagged, and after interrogation, gets shot as spies."


"She's right, boss," Hart said.


Pickering started to say something in reply, and then didn't. He turned instead to Dunston.


"Do you think the idea has merit, Dunston?"


"Yes, sir, it does," Dunston said.


"And would you be willing to take the junk there?"


"Yes, sir, of course."


"That would be stupid," Hart announced.


"Excuse me?"


"For one thing, it would be foolish to risk his getting bagged. The NKs must know who he is. For another, you need him here. I'll ride the goddamn boat."


"That's out of the question," Pickering said, without thinking.


"Why? Who else have you got?" Hart said. "I can be spared, and I can do it. That looks pretty simple to me."


"I guess you're not, either," Jeanette said.


"Either what?"


"An unmitigated sonofabitch," Jeanette said.


"Are you sure, George?" Pickering asked.


"I'm sure, boss," Hart said.


Chapter Twenty


[ONE]


TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND


0605 24 AUGUST 1950


Major Kim Pak Su, Korean national police, Captain Ken-neth R. McCoy, USMCR, Lieutenant David Taylor, USNR, and Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, all at-tired in black cotton shirts and trousers, stood looking down at the two panels laid on the ground between the two houses on the hill.


On one panel was written the letters R, A, and D, and on the other the letters I and O. The letters were written large, from the tops of the eight-by-ten-foot panels to their bot-toms. They were written in mud, of which there was an abundant supply, and was the only thing they had.


Master Gunner Zimmerman was embarrassed that he hadn't thought of using the panels to make a message board as soon-twenty-four hours before McCoy and Taylor had arrived-as the storm had taken out the gen-erator, but McCoy pointed out that the rain had stopped only hours before his arrival, and that the rain would have washed the letters away as soon as they could be written.


"Anyway, Ernie, it's a hell of a long shot," McCoy said. "We don't know when there will be another flyover, or whether he will be taking aerials, or whether he..."


There was the sound of aircraft engines.


The three officers moved to the side of the area between the houses and started to scan the sky.


Not quite two minutes later, two Corsairs suddenly ap-peared, flying down the Flying Fish Channel from the lighthouse at five hundred feet, making maybe 250 knots. Not flat out, in other words, but slower than they would have been flying had they not been interested in the islands around the Flying Fish Channel, and still fast enough so that if anyone on the North Korean-held shore happened to see them, it would not appear they were having a really good, close look at the Channel Islands and wonder why.


They didn't divert from their course, and thirty seconds after they appeared, they disappeared in the direction of In-chon.


They would, McCoy suspected, engage targets of oppor-tunity in Inchon before either flying a little farther north, or returning directly to their carrier, once they had, so to speak, justified their presence in the area to the enemy.


"You were saying, Mr. McCoy?" Taylor said.


"We don't know if those guys either (a) saw the panels, or if they did, could make sense of them, or (b) were taking pictures," McCoy said. "Or, (c) if they were taking pic-tures, that they got a shot of the panels clear enough to be read by the photo interpreters, or (d) if they saw them, and could read them, that the pictures'd wind up in the hands of someone who can do us any good. As I just observed to Mr. Zimmerman, Mr. Taylor, it's a long shot, a very long shot."


"What the hell, Killer, we gave it a shot," Zimmerman said. "We'll just have to wait and see."


"I don't like the idea of just sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop," McCoy said.


"Meaning what, Ken?" Taylor asked.


"Correct me if I'm wrong, Major Kim, but your best guess of the North Korean strength on Taemuui-do is thirty people, under a sergeant, with their heaviest weapons a couple of machine guns?"


"That's my best information," Major Kim said.


"And on Yonghung-do?"


"There were a total of twenty-six men, including the lieutenant in charge and his sergeant. But we also learned that they've put people on Taebu-do-"


"Which is the little island to the south?" McCoy inter-rupted.


"From here, moving north, the nearest island is Taemuui-do, then Taebu-do, and then Yonghung-do. I would guess-if I were the lieutenant, it's what I would do-that he probably sent six, seven, eight men, under his sergeant, to the smaller island. That would leave him sixteen men, plus himself. And he's got two machine guns-"


"He probably sent one of them to the little island," Zim-merman chimed in.


"That's a total of fifty-six NK soldiers, give or take, right?" Taylor said. "We have ten Marines, counting you two, and fifteen national policemen, including the major..."


"And, of course, you," McCoy replied. "And the local militia..."


"Cut to the chase," Taylor said. "What are you thinking, McCoy?"


"That if the NKs have a radio, or had one, it-and the generator for it, and fuel for the generator-would proba-bly be with the lieutenant," McCoy said.


"And if they lost theirs, too, in the storm?" Taylor asked.


"Then we're no worse off than we are now," McCoy said.


"Let me make sure I understand you," Taylor said. "What you're suggesting is that-"


"We get off the dime," McCoy interrupted. "And it's not a suggestion, Dave."


Taylor ignored that, and continued:


"-we load our twenty-six people in the lifeboats, and try to take Yonghung-do-the most distant island-first-"


"Because that's where their CP and their radio, if they have one, is."


Taylor ignored that, too, and went on:


"-to do that, our little invasion fleet would have to sneak past both Taemuui-do and Taebu-do, which means we'd have to do that in the dark because if we did it in the daylight, two lifeboats and three fishing boats under sail-"


"I guess you weren't listening when I said this is not a suggestion, Dave," McCoy said.


"It's not?"


"No, it's not," McCoy said, evenly, but there was a steely I will be obeyed tone of command in his voice.


Taylor met his eyes for a long moment.


"Can I ask why Yonghung-do first?" he asked, finally.


"If we took Taemuui-do first, the lieutenant on Yonghung-do would know it. If nothing else, he would hear the gunfire. And we'll probably have to use grenades if they put up much of a scrap. If he has a radio, he'd report that to the mainland. And then would probably try to send help to Taemuui-do, whether or not he got orders from the mainland. This way, we'll knock out the radio, if there is one, and the lieutenant, too. And from what I've seen of the North Koreans, the sergeants on the other islands aren't going to do anything without orders."


"Moving the Koreans over there without getting spotted is going to be tough, Killer," Zimmerman said. `Taylor's right. You can see a sail a long way off, and if they see two sailboats headed even for Taemuui-do, they're going to know something's up."


"Your militia's our second wave, Ernie," McCoy said. "They won't even put out from here until daylight. By then we should have taken Yonghung-do. They go ashore there and garrison it, and we head back this way, bypassing the little island, and take Taemuui-do. Then the Koreans garri-son that, and finally we take the little island."


"We leave just the Koreans on the islands?" Taylor asked.


"I think what Captain McCoy has in mind," Major Kim said, "is that if the North Koreans counterattack from the mainland, and do so successfully, they would not find any Americans."


McCoy nodded.


"When do we go, Killer?" Zimmerman asked.


"You got heavy plans for 0400 tomorrow that you can't break?"


[TWO]


PHOTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY


USS BADOENG STRAIT


35 DEGREES 48 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


129 DEGREES 91 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


THE SEA OF JAPAN


1105 24 AUGUST 1950


"Hey, Mac," Chief Photographer's Mate Young called to Master Sergeant P. P. McGrory. "Have a look at this."


"What am I looking for?"


Chief Young pointed.


"RAD on one panel, IO on the other," he said. "See it?"


"Yeah. Radio."


"That's the guys on that island Colonel Dunn dropped the radio parts to," Chief Young said. "They probably broke their radio again."


"He'll want to see this," McGrory said. "Right away."


"They're about to launch aircraft," Young said.


McGrory grabbed the print from the table and left the photo lab on the run.


He was winded when he reached the flight deck.


"Where's Colonel Billy?" he shouted, over the roar of starting aircraft engines.


The mechanic pointed.


Dunn was standing at the wing root of his Corsair, being helped into his flight gear.


"This just out of the soup, Colonel," McGrory said, handing it to him.


Dunn took one look at the picture.


"Stick this in an envelope, give it to the COD driver, and tell him to get it to the Marine liaison officer as soon as possible. On the envelope, write Major William Dunston, Army Transportation Corps."


"Aye, aye, sir," McGrory said.


Dunn saw the look on his face.


"No, Mac," he said. "Sorry, you can't ask what that's all about."


[THREE]


THE DEWEY SUITE


THE IMPERIAL HOTEL


TOKYO, JAPAN


1525 24 AUGUST 1950


"I didn't expect to see you back so soon," Major General Ralph Howe said when Brigadier General Fleming Picker-ing knocked at his door. He was sitting in an armchair, feet on a bolster, reading the Stars and Stripes. "Come on in. Tell me what's going on."


"I didn't want to come back at all," Pickering said.


"Then why did you?"


"I've been asked to supper at the Residence," Pickering said.


"You are already famous as the only man in Japan who dares tell El Supremo `Sorry, I have a previous engage-ment,' " Howe said. It was an unspoken question.


"Two reasons, Ralph," Pickering said. "I didn't want him wondering what my previous engagement was, and second, I was following my father's-now my own-ad-vice about getting out of the way of the competent people who work for you, and letting them do their job."


"Have you had your twelve o'clock snort already? And if so, is half past three too early for your five o'clock?"


"No, and no," Pickering said. "Keep your seat, Ralph, I'll make them."


"Where's our usual bartender?"


"Somewhere in the East China Sea. I hope to know pre-cisely where in the East China Sea shortly after nine tonight," Pickering said.


"What have you got him doing there?" Howe asked.


"Right now, he's on the junk, headed for Tokchok-kundo," Pickering said. "It was the only thing we could think to do to find out what's happened on the island, and, presuming McCoy and company are there, and the problem is a malfunctioning radio, to get another to them."


"Why Hart?"


"Because he made the point that he could be better spared-we both knew he meant `is more expendable'- than Dunston, my station chief in Pusan," Pickering said, as he made their drinks. "Dunston was willing to go. George, with somewhat less than overwhelming tact for a captain speaking to his general, correctly pointed out that sending Dunston would be stupid."


He handed Howe his drink, and they touched glasses.


"What are you going to do if El Supremo asks you flat-out about this operation tonight? I suspect he's going to do just that."


"I've been thinking about that," Pickering said. "I guess-"


The door opened, and Master Sergeant Charley Rogers came in.


"I didn't know you were back, General. There's a Major Dunston on that back-channel telephone line from Pusan.


When they couldn't find you or Hart, he asked to speak to General Howe."


"Can I take it in here?"


"I don't think it makes much difference," Rogers said, more than a little bitterly. "There's a tap on all our lines."


He walked to the telephone, picked it up, said, "Put my call in here, please," and held the telephone out to Picker-ing.


"Dunston," Pickering said to the telephone, "I don't think this is a secure line."


"Yes, sir," Dunston said. "General, I'm looking at an aerial our friend Dunn sent us. It was taken early this morning. Can you guess where?"


"I've got a pretty good idea," Pickering said.


"The shot shows a panel on which someone has written 'radio,'" Dunston said. "It also shows, faintly, what looks like a man in black pajamas."


"Interesting," Pickering said.


"I thought you'd want to know, General."


"Thank you. Everything is ready on your end for 2100 tonight?"


"Yes, sir."


"Let me know as soon as you know anything, will you?"


"Yes, sir, of course."


"Thank you, Bill."


"Yes, sir," Dunston said, and the connection broke.


"Charley, is Sergeant Keller handy?"


"I'll get him, General," Rogers said, and left the room.


"Good news?" Howe asked.


"Very good," Pickering said.


"About your son?" Howe asked.


"No. The best news I have about Pick is that Dunston says he's pretty sure Pick is not a POW."


"What was that call?"


Master Sergeant Keller came into the room.


"Yes, sir?"


"I need a message to go-it doesn't have to be classi-fied, but send it Urgent, Immediate Personal Attention of Lieutenant Colonel William Dunn, aboard the Badoeng Strait."


"Yes, sir?"


"Message is, quote, Many thanks. Radio is on the way. Signature, Pickering, Brigadier General, USMC, unquote. Got it?"


"I'll get it right out, sir," Keller said.


Pickering turned to Howe.


"One of the aerials Colonel Dunn took this morning of Tokchok-kundo shows a panel on which the word 'radio' is written," Pickering said.


"Then maybe-presuming Charley is right, and I'm afraid he is, and someone was listening to your phone con-versation-El Supremo will think it had to do with looking for your son."


"Oh, to hell with it, Ralph. If he asks me, I'm going to tell him," Pickering said.


[FOUR]


ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE


34 DEGREES 20 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


126 DEGREES 29 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


THE YELLOW SEA


2050 24 AUGUST 1950


Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, who was leaning on the railing on the aft of the high stern of the Wind of Good For-tune, next to the Korean sailor on the tiller, became aware that he could now see the light illuminating the compass in the small control compartment on the forward edge of the stern's deck.


He looked at his watch, then pushed himself off the rail-ing and walked across the deck to the captain, whose name was Kim, as were the names of two of the four Korean sea-men aboard. The fourth seaman, the cook, was named Lee.


He touched Captain Kim on the shoulder and mimed-first by pointing at his watch, then pointing below, and fi-nally by holding a make-believe microphone in front of his face-that it was time for him to report their position to their higher headquarters.


Captain Kim nodded, and either cleared his throat or grunted.


Hart took a chart from the pocket of his tunic. Surprising him, after a long, hot humid day, it had actually gotten chilly on the stern about half past five, and he had gone be-low to his cabin to get the tunic.


He held the chart out to Captain Kim, who studied it a moment, and then pointed out their position with a surpris-ingly delicate finger. They were slightly southwest of the extreme tip of the Korean peninsula. They had, in other words, just begun to sail northward up the Korean Penin-sula, far enough out to sea so it was unlikely that anyone on the shore could see the Wind of Good Fortune.


They weren't, technically, sailing. The sails had been lowered as soon as they were out of sight of Pusan, and they had moved under diesel power since.


Hart went to his-the captain's-cabin, closed the door and turned on the light. The SCR-300, still on a shipping pallet, was lashed to the deck. On top of it was a non-GI Hallicrafters communications receiver, also carefully lashed in place.


The radios had been installed in the wee hours of the morning personally by Captain R. C. "Pete" Peters, Signal Corps, USA, of die 8th Army (Rear) Communications Center. And he had personally supervised the installation of the antennae at first light in the morning. Then he had established radio contact with his radio room.


The radios had worked then, which did not mean, Hart thought, that they would work now, either because some-thing was wrong with them, or more likely because he didn't really have a clue how to work the sonofabitch, de-spite Captain Peters's instructions, each step of which Hart had carefully written down in a notebook.


Hart laid the chart on top of the radio, then took a large sheet of translucent paper from his tunic pocket and care-fully laid this on top of the chart. It was an overlay. The night before, "Major" Dunston had spent two hours care-fully preparing overlays. There were two sets of them, one set for the waters offshore the Korean peninsula, and the other set for the islands in the Flying Fish Channel. The overlays in each set were identical. On each were drawn a number of boxes, each one labeled with numbers. The numbers were-intentionally-in no way sequential. "063," for example, was surrounded by "109," "040," "101," and "171."


When he placed the overlay on the chart, Hart saw mat the position Captain Kim had pointed out to him was in-side the box numbered "091." Hart wrote the number in his notebook, then carefully folded the chart and the overlay and put them back in bis tunic pocket, with the aerial photo of the Flying Fish Channel islands and its overlay.


Then, carefully studying the first of the notes he had made during Captain Peters's very patient orientation, he threw bottom left-hand switch on the Hallicrafter and was relieved and pleasantly surprised when the dials im-mediately lit up.


Three minutes later, all the dials and gauges on both the transmitter and the receiver were lit up, and indicating what Hart's notes said they should.


He put on his earphones, and heard a hiss.


He picked up the microphone, pressed the press to talk switch, and said, "Dispatch, Dispatch, H-l, H-l."


H-l was the radio call sign assigned to the chief of the homicide bureau of the St. Louis police department. When the question of radio call signs for the good ship Wind of Good Fortune had come up about 0300 that morning, H-l had seemed be as good a call sign as any of the others sug-gested, and a lot better than some. And, Hart knew, he was unlikely to forget it.


He thought about this now, and of St. Louis, and its po-lice department, and asked aloud, "What the fuck am I do-ing here?"


The hiss in his earphone vanished suddenly, and a voice so loud it actually hurt his ears said, "Dispatch. Go ahead."


"Zero Niner One," Hart said into the microphone, and then repeated it.


"Dispatch understands Zero Niner One, Confirm," the too loud, very clear voice said in Hart's earphones.


"Confirm, confirm," Hart said into the microphone.


"Dispatch clear," the too loud voice said, and the hiss came back to Hart's earphones.


Hart put the microphone on top of the SCR-300, then carefully studied the front of the Hallicrafters, finally set-tling on a round knob. He moved it very carefully. The hiss in his earphones diminished. He started to leave the knob where it was, but on reflection-If I turn it too far down, I might not be able to hear him the next time-turned it back up-Then, consulting his notes, he began to shut the radio down.


[FIVE]


TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND


0405 25 AUGUST 1950


They had spent most of the previous day rehearsing how to get the boats into the water, and their equipment into the boats, and what ran through Captain Kenneth R. McCoy's mind as he jumped from the wharf into Boat Two was that at least the boat part of the operation wasn't going to cause any problems.


He pushed the starter button on the control panel, and the lifeboat's engine, after a few anemic gasps, came to life.


The rehearsals for getting the boats into the water had been sort of fun, although smiling at the men's activities would have been inappropriate.


He had begun the exercise by explaining that they weren't actually going to remove the camouflage netting over the boats-because the boats might then be seen-they were going to mimic uncovering them, and getting them into the water, and getting the equipment into them once they were in the water.


Everyone seemed to agree that was a logical approach to the problem.


As the boats when they were really put into the water would have to be carried there, they started with that. They were heavy, and would require eight men on each side to carry them.


The men were assigned numbers, Left #1 through Left #8, Right #1 through Right #8.


After Boat One was in the water, Boat Two would be uncovered and put in the water. Whereupon Left #7 and Left #8 would remain in Boat Two, Right #7 and Right #8 would move to Boat One, and everybody else would form a line to the now-roofless house where their weapons, am-munition, and everything else they were taking with them had been laid out in a precise pattern. Then, first each indi-vidual weapon would be passed from man to man down and into the boats, and then each man's equipment.


Setting the system up and running through it, even in mime, had taken all morning, and through the lunch break, and then they had rehearsed how they would assault Yonghung-do.


About 1700, McCoy had gathered everybody together and gone through what Major Kim had learned of the dis-position of the physical characteristics of the island, the lo-cation of the North Korean troops on the island, and the plan: Yonghung-do was about three miles long, north to south, and shaped something like an hourglass. Each end of the island was about a mile wide, and each had a 250- to 300-foot hill in its center. About in its middle, the island narrowed to a few hundred feet.


"That's where We'll land," McCoy said, pointing to a drawing he'd made of the island in the now-dried mud. "They won't expect us, and we can land there without be-ing seen. We'll leave a four-man team there-the.30 Browning machine-gun team plus one BAR and one rifleman-plus eight of Major Kim's men, under Mr. Taylor. Their job will be to keep the NKs in the village at the north end of the island, Nae-ri, from coming to help the NKs in the village, Oe-Ri, on the south end of the island.


"With a little bit of luck, the people we leave on the beach won't have anything to do. If we can move that mile over the hill quietly-no one fires a round by mistake, or Mr. Zimmerman doesn't fart-"


He got the expected laughter, waited for it to subside, and then went on:


"They won't expect us, and we can take them without firing a shot. `Them' is their lieutenant, one of their ma-chine guns, probably the ammo supply for all the islands, and their radio, with maybe a generator we can use to power ours. We're not going into that village shooting. If there's a radio, or diesel fuel, I don't want it full of bullet holes. There's also about two hundred civilians. I will re-ally have the ass of anyone who pops a civilian.


"Okay, once we have secured the southern village, we leave Major Kim's people there, go back to the landing beach, pick up everybody except the machine-gun team and Mr. Taylor, head norm, go over the other hill, and se-cure the other village, Nae-ri. Once we do that, a volunteer will run happily back over the hill to the beach and tell Mr. Taylor, who will then bring the boats to Nae-ri, and haul us-less Major Kim and his policemen, who will be stay-ing until we can get the militia in there-out. Any ques-tions?"


There had been no questions.


"Well, in that case, before it gets really dark, I think we ought to have one more-maybe even two more-dry runs of the boat launching," McCoy said.


There were groans. Once the system had been set up and tried and it worked once, and then twice, and then three times, it had become a flaming, stupid, pain-in-the-ass chickenshit exercise.


He waited until they had subsided.


"On the other hand," McCoy went on, straight-faced, "maybe it would just be easier to put the boats in the water now, load the gear in them, put the camo nets over them, and then all we'd have to do in the morning would be get in them, take off the nets, and take off."


There was a moment's shocked silence, and then mur-murs.


McCoy pointed his finger at one of the Marines, a tech-nical sergeant who had been a Marine Raider.


"What did you say, Sergeant?"


"I didn't say anything, sir."


"That's odd," McCoy said. "I could have sworn I heard you say, `Oh, what a pity our beloved and brilliant com-mander didn't think of that earlier!' Or words to that ef-fect."


"Yes, sir, words to that effect."


"What happens now is that you, Sergeant, will run out to the end of the wharf, taking these with you..."


He tossed him his binoculars.


"... through which you will scan the sea. When you are absolutely sure there is nothing out there, you will make an appropriate signal..."


McCoy had put his arms over his head and waved them.


"... whereupon the rest of this magnificent Marine ex-peditionary force, having assembled by Boat One, will get the camo off and get it into the water as soon as they can, load the gear in it, put the camo back on, and then look at you again. If you are not making some sort of signal sug-gesting that there's a boat out there, they will then repeat the operation with Boat Two.


"If you see a boat while they're doing their thing, you will signal, but they will finish loading the boat and cover-ing it with the camo net before getting out of sight. Any questions?"


"No, sir," the sergeant said.


"Let's do it," McCoy said.


The sergeant took off in a fast trot for the wharf, and then down it.


Twenty minutes later, both boats were in the water, loaded, and covered with camouflaged netting.


McCoy signaled for the sergeant at the end of the wharf to come back.


"To answer the questions you're afraid to ask," McCoy said. "You went through that mimicry business so that it would be second nature when you actually did it. And we didn't do the real thing until now. It's almost dark. Even if a boat did show up, I don't think they could see the lifeboats at the wharf unless they came into the harbor. Any questions?"


There had been no questions.


"Are you ready, Captain McCoy?" Lieutenant Taylor called.


"Ready."


The sound of the engine in Taylor's boat changed as he put it in gear.


McCoy saw that the two Marines holding the lines hold-ing the boat to the wharf were looking at him.


"Let loose the lines," McCoy called. "Shove us off."


Both Marines pushed the boat away with the wharf with their feet.


McCoy pulled the transmission lever away from him, into forward.


There was immediately the screech of tortured metal.


He had no idea what it was, but it was obviously time to put the transmission in neutral. He pushed it forward, and the screaming stopped.


"What the fuck was that?" someone in the boat said.


Taylor made a tight circle with his lifeboat, pulled up beside McCoy's boat, and nimbly jumped into it.


"I don't know what the hell...," McCoy said.


Taylor moved the transmission control into forward, and then immediately back out as the screeching started again.


"You got the shaft, I think," Taylor said. "I hope that's all that's wrong."


"Is it serious?"


"It means we're not going anywhere this morning," Tay-lor said. "I can't even look at it until it's out of the water and there's light."


[SIX]


TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND


0725 25 AUGUST 1950


Boat Two was now on the shore, upside down, with the camouflage net suspended over it from the wall of the gen-erator building.


Boat One was still in the water, loaded and under a cam-ouflage net. It had been a gamble lost. McCoy-and Tay-lor, too, although he kept it to himself-desperately had hoped that whatever was wrong with the boat would be able to be fixed quickly, so the operation could go on. That seemed to justify the risk of leaving Boat One in the water, where it might-almost certainly would-look very suspi-cious to anyone coming close to Tokchok-kundo.


By the time they had gotten Boat Two unloaded, so that it could be brought ashore, the predawn darkness had given way to dawn, and that meant the operation had to be scratched. There was no way to sneak past Taemuui-do and Taebu-do in daylight.


Neither was the damage to Boat Two something that could quickly be repaired, if it could be repaired at all. The shaft, coming through the hull to the propeller, had some-how been bent.


To repair it would mean removing it from the boat, heat-ing it, beating it with hammers until it was straight again, and then putting it back in the boat. Taylor was not at all sure it could be done, and told McCoy so.


"We can't tow this with the other boat?" McCoy asked.


Taylor shook his head, "no."


"Maybe in the open sea," he said. "But not with the tides in the channel."


"Then I guess we'll have to fix this one," McCoy said.


When they heard the sound of aircraft engines, they had gotten as far as removing the bent shaft from the boat, and building a makeshift forge and anvil, both from rocks. The shaft would have to be heated first until it was glowing red before an attempt could be made to straighten it.


There was considerable doubt that the shaft could be heated hot enough on the wood fire, and neither Taylor nor the Korean, who had some experience with rudimentary metalworking, could even make a guess as to how often the heating/hammering process would have to be repeated, if, indeed, the heating could be done at all.


Two Corsairs appeared where the Corsairs had appeared the day before, coming down the Flying Fish Channel from the lighthouse. But today one of them was much lower, not more than 300 feet off the water, and with his landing gear down.


"Jesus," McCoy said, softly, to Taylor and Zimmerman, "do you think he's going to drop us a radio?"


"He's going to drop something," Zimmerman said.


McCoy stared intently at the approaching airplane, but could see nothing but ordnance hanging from the hard-points under its wings.


And then something did come off the aircraft, some-thing small, at the end of what looked like a ribbon.


The moment the object started to fall, the landing gear of the Corsair started to retract into the wings, and the air-craft banked to the left to avoid the hill and began to pick up altitude.


The object dropped from the Corsair lost its forward ve-locity and then dropped straight down, landing ten yards from the wharf and twenty yards from the shore. The rib-bon, or whatever it was, now lay on the surface of the mud left by the receding tide. Whatever it was attached to was buried in the mud.


McCoy turned to look at Zimmerman. He was sitting on the ground, pulling his boondockers and socks off. Then he stripped out of the black pajama shirt and trousers and then his underpants.


Zimmerman started wading out through the mud toward the ribbon. He sank over his ankles in the mud, and once, for a moment, it looked as if he was stuck in the mud and about to fall. But he regained his balance, and finally had his hand on the white ribbon. He started to pull on it, and then met more resistance than he thought he would. So he waded farther out, to where the ribbon's end entered the mud. He carefully began to haul upward on the ribbon. Thirty seconds later, he was holding something in his hand.


"It's a fucking flashlight!" he called in disgust.


"Bring it ashore," McCoy called, and Zimmerman started to wade back toward the shore, winding the ribbon around the "flashlight" as he moved.


He finally came ashore, puffing from the exertion.


"How'm I going to get this stinking fucking muck off my legs?" he asked, and tossed the "flashlight" and the muddy ribbon around it to McCoy.


The ribbon, McCoy immediately saw, was parachute silk. He unwound it from around the "flashlight," and saw that it was indeed a flashlight, a big four battery-size one from some mechanic's tool kit. The twenty-foot-long strip of parachute silk had been attached to the flashlight's cylinder with heavy tape.


He moved the switch. There was no light.


He unscrewed the head and saw that one of the batteries had been removed, and that there was a piece of folded pa-per where it had been. He carefully removed it and un-folded it. It was a message written in grease pencil:


From Pickering


"Radio on the way.


Hang In There.


Semper Fi


Dunn


Lieutenant Taylor, Major Kim, and Master Gunner Zim-merman-who was still naked, and had both hands cov-ered with the mud he had tried unsuccessfully to wipe from his legs-walked up to McCoy.


"What the hell is it?" Taylor asked.


McCoy handed the note to him. Taylor read it and started to hand it to Zimmerman, changed his mind, and held it in front of Zimmerman's face so that he could read it.


"Mr. Zimmerman, if you don't mind my saying so," Mc-Coy said. "You smell of dead fish and other rotten things I don't even want to think about."


"Fuck you, Killer," Zimmerman said, but he had to smile.


Taylor handed the note to Major Kim.


" `On the way' doesn't tell us when," Taylor said. "Or how."


"If General Pickering says a radio is on the way, a radio is on the way," McCoy said. "That's good news."


"And what do we do until the good news arrives?" Zim-merman asked.


"You, Mr. Zimmerman, will make every effort to make yourself presentable," McCoy said. "The rest of us will try to fix the boat, meanwhile hoping that nobody goes sailing by and wonders what the hell the natives here have con-cealed under that camouflage net by the wharf."


"With the tide out like this," Taylor thought aloud, "we can't get it ashore, either."


"Let's get started on the boat," McCoy said. "Major Kim, would you put a couple of people out on the wharf to give us warning if we're going to have visitors?"


[SEVEN]


ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE


37 DEGREES 38 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


126 DEGREES 57 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


THE YELLOW SEA


1500 25 AUGUST 1950


Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, now attired in black cot-ton pajamas, with a band of the same material around his forehead, nodded when Captain Kim pointed at a landmass on the horizon. Then he mimed making his radio report by holding an imaginary microphone in front of his mouth. Captain Kim nodded, and either cleared his throat or grunted.


Hart went down the ladder to his cabin, turned on the light, took out his notebook, and went through each step necessary to turn the radio on. Then he put on the headset and picked up the microphone.


"Dispatch, Dispatch, H-l, H-l," he said.


There was an immediate response, which this time- Hart having acquired faith in his ability to control the vol-ume in his headset-did not hurt his ears.


"H-l, Dispatch, go."


"One Seven Three," Hart said into the microphone. "I say again, One Seven Three."


"Dispatch understands One Seven Three, confirm," the voice in Hart's earphones said.


"Confirm, confirm," Hart said into the microphone.


"H-l, Dispatch. Stand by to copy."


That was the first time he'd heard that order, and he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to reply.


"Okay, Dispatch," he said into the microphone.


"Message begins, Proceed your discretion with great caution. Report immediately. Godspeed. The Boss, Mes-sage ends. Acknowledge."


"Acknowledged," Hart said, without really thinking about it.


"Dispatch clear."


The hiss came back to Hart's earphones.


Hart laid the microphone down, took off the headset, and then shut the radio down.


He went back on deck.


Captain Kim looked at him with a question in his eyes.


He wants to know if I've finished.


Hart nodded.


The question on Captain Kim's face was still there.


Hart made a cutting motion across his throat, which he hoped Captain Kim would interpret to mean that he had finished making his report.


Captain Kim began to shout.


What the hell is that all about?


One of the other Kims, and Lee, the cook, suddenly ap-peared in the forecastle door, and looked up at Captain Kim for orders. He shouted something, and they immedi-ately went to the forward mast and started to raise the venetian blindlike sail.


Captain Kim reached into the control compartment and shut down the diesel engine.


Within minutes, all the sails were up, and the Wind of Good Fortune was moving toward the landmass under sail.


Three minutes later, Hart was able to pick out the light-house that marked the entrance to the Flying Fish Channel.


He went over the message from General Pickering in his mind.


He didn't have to tell me to proceed at my discretion and with great caution. I don't have any "discretion." I told him I would sail into Tokchok-kundo on this thing and get the SCR to McCoy, presuming he and the others are still there, which means I have to do it, and there's no discre-tion involved.


Great caution? I'm not, and he knows I'm not, John Wayne. Of course I'm going to be careful.


Report immediately? He should have known I'd do that, anyway. The only reason I'm bringing the goddamn radio is so that he'll have contact with McCoy, and McCoy- presuming he's there-wouldn't wait until Thursday of next week to get in contact.


What's the variable meaning? What am I missing?


Okay. McCoy is not there. He and Taylor never made it to the island from the destroyer, or they made it and were grabbed by the North Koreans. If that's the case, Zimmer-man and the others have also been grabbed by the NKs.


Wishful thinking aside, that's the most likely situation.


So we sail in there, fat, dumb, and happy, and we get grabbed. And get shot as spies, especially me in these god-damn pajamas.


Oh, shit! Report immediately means that if he doesn't hear from me, immediately, I will have been grabbed-which would mean that everybody else has been grabbed, too-and that would mean this whole operation has gone down the toilet.


Of course, he'd want to know that immediately. Maybe there would be time to try something else, maybe not, but he would want to know right away.


So what's the point of the great caution?


If the NKs are holding Tokchok-kundo, is there any chance I could see them before they see me and get out of there with my ass intact?


About as much chance as there is of me being taken bod-ily into heaven.


So what this really boils down to is we go in there and (a) McCoy greets me with a brass band and asks me what took me so long, or (b) we go in there and half the North Korean army greets me with a couple of machine guns.


And after a suitable interrogation, shoots me-which they have every right to do, with me in my spy pajamas.


I don't want to be interrogated; somehow I suspect I won't be able to claim my constitutional right to refuse to answer any questions on the grounds they may tend to in-criminate me.


So what else is there I can do?


I can get out of these fucking pajamas, is what I can do. And if I am going, to get blown away, maybe I can take some of them with me before I go. And get buried in a Ma-rine uniform.


Ten minutes later, Captain George F. Hart came on the stern again. He was now in the prescribed semi-dress uni-form for the summer months of the year for officers of the U.S. Marine Corps, including a field scarf. The uniform had lost its press and was not very clean. A Thompson Submachine Gun Model 1928 Caliber.45 ACP was hang-ing from his shoulder on a web strap.


When he looked around, the Flying Fish Channel light-house was behind him to his left.


There was a nautical way to say that, but he couldn't think what it was.


[EIGHT]


TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND


1535 25 AUGUST 1950


One of the two national policemen Major Kim had sta-tioned on the end of the wharf came running down the wharf to where Kim was watching another of his men hammering at the dull red-not heated quite enough- shaft of Boat Two.


He reported that a junk was on the horizon, coming down the Flying Fish Channel, but that it was too early to tell whether it was headed for Tokchok-kundo.


Major Kim started to make the translation, then stopped when McCoy held up his hand.


`Thank you," McCoy said, in Korean, to the national po-liceman. "I would be grateful if you would return to your post and perhaps climb down from the wharf itself, so that anyone looking might not see you. And please tell us what else you see."


The national policeman saluted and ran back out onto the wharf.


"So what do we do," Zimmerman said, "if it comes here, or even close enough to get a look?"


"Dave, could you climb onto that junk from the lifeboat if it was, say, fifty yards offshore?"


"I could if there weren't people on the deck shooting at me," Taylor replied.


"Zimmerman and I will try to make sure there's nobody on the deck alive," McCoy said. "We'll go halfway up the hill, Ernie, so we'll have a good shot at the deck...."


"We could do sort of a TOT on it," Zimmerman sug-gested. "We have enough firepower to really sweep it clean."


"There's probably no more than four or five people on it," McCoy said. "I'll start at the stern, you start at the bow."


Zimmerman nodded his acceptance.


"I don't want a sudden burst of small-arms fire to attract anybody else's attention," McCoy said, then turned to Ma-jor Kim: "Major Kim, see how well you can hide this"-he gestured at the upside-down lifeboat and the makeshift forge-"and then make sure everybody's out of sight."


Major Kim nodded.


"If we take it just as it approaches the wharf," McCoy said to Zimmerman, "it would be moving slowly. And it would be, I'd say, about two hundred yards from halfway up the hill."


"I'd make it two hundred yards," Zimmerman agreed.


"Hold fire until I fire," McCoy said.


Ten minutes later, from his firing position-behind a knee-high rock halfway up the hill-McCoy surveyed the vil-lage below him. There was no one in sight, no sign of activity at all.


He pulled the operating rod lever of his National Match Garand far enough back so that he could see the gleam of a cartridge halfway in the chamber, and then, after letting the operating rod slide forward again, hit it with the heel of his hand to make sure it was fully closed.


Then he took a quick sight-primarily to make sure he had a good firing position-at the end of the wharf, then carefully laid the rifle on the rock.


Then he put his binoculars to bis eyes and took a good look at the junk, starting at the bow.


Then he said, "I'll be a sonofabitch."


"What?" Zimmerman asked from his position, twenty yards to McCoy's left.


"I was just about to shoot George," McCoy said, laugh-ing, and got to his feet, picked up the Garand, put the safety back on, and started to go as fast as he could down the hill.


Zimmerman put his binoculars to his eyes and looked at the junk, then shook his head and got to his feet, and started after McCoy.


"Dispatch, Dispatch, H-l, H-l," Hart said into his micro-phone.


"H-l, Dispatch, go."


"Five, I say again, Five," Hart said.


Five was a code phrase-one of eight hastily prepared in Pusan-that stood for: "In Tokchok-kundo. McCoy party safe."


"H-l, understand Five, Five, confirm."


"Confirm, confirm."


"Standby."


"Standing by."


A new voice with a strong British accent came over the air.


"H-l, this is Saint Bernard. H-l, this is Saint Bernard."


"Jesus, who the hell is that?" Hart asked, and told Mc-Coy what he had heard over his earphones.


McCoy gestured for him to hand over the headset and the microphone.


"Station calling H-l, go ahead," McCoy said.


"Delighted to hear you're all right, my friend," the voice said. "We were getting a bit concerned."


"It's Captain Jones-Fortin," McCoy said.


"My present position is Four Zero Three," Jones-Fortin said.


"Hold one," McCoy said. "George, give me your chart and the overlay."


"Understand Four Zero Three," McCoy said to the mi-crophone.


It took Hart at least a minute to unfold the chart and get the overlay in place. It seemed like much longer.


"I have your location."


"Could you possibly come there at nine tonight? We need to talk."


"Dave, can you find that place in the dark?"


"I think so. It's about ten miles off the lighthouse, just about due west."


"Affirmative, affirmative," McCoy said.


"See you then," Jones-Fortin said. "Saint Bernard Clear." "George, do you know anything about this?" McCoy asked. Hart shook his shoulders helplessly.


Chapter Twenty-one


[ONE]


ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE


37 DEGREES 36 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,


126 DEGREES 53 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE


THE YELLOW SEA


2055 25 AUGUST 1950


"You understand this is dead-reckoning navigation," Lieu-tenant David Taylor, USNR, said to Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR. "Sometimes known as by-guess-and-by-golly navigation."


They were standing by the forward rail of the "bridge" on the high stern of the Wind of Good Fortune with Major Kim. A Korean seaman had the tiller, and two more had been posted as lookouts, one high on the rearward mast, the other on the forecastle.


They had been at sea since shortly after their radio con-tact with HMS Charity at 1800. McCoy hadn't wanted to have the Wind of Good Fortune at the wharf in Tokchok-kundo, where it might be seen, and Taylor said the simplest way of concealing her would be to sail her back down the Flying Fish Channel into the Yellow Sea, out of sight of the Korean peninsula.


McCoy had again left Zimmerman in charge on Tokchok-kundo, because he was obviously better qualified to have that command than George Hart, but after thinking about taking Hart with them on the Wind of Good Fortune, realized that Hart would be more useful on the island with Zimmerman, if for no other reason than Zimmerman could bring him up to date on what was planned. Hart was a Ma-rine, and all Marines can fire rifles, and when they finally went to seize Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, Hart would be needed.


Only after it had grown dark had Taylor set a course that would take them to the rendezvous at sea with HMS Char-ity.


"I'm afraid you're going to tell me what that means," McCoy said.


"We don't know precisely where we are," Taylor said. "We have been sailing a compass course, which may or may not have taken us precisely where we want to go. There may be-probably are-currents moving us off course."


"What do we have to do to establish `precisely'?" Mc-Coy asked.


"Shoot the stars with a sextant is the usual means," Tay-lor said. "But we don't have a sextant."


A few minutes later, there was a flash of white light to port. It seemed to be pointed right at them. It was followed at ten-second intervals by a flash of light that seemed to be pointed ahead of them, then directly away from them, then behind them.


Then the light went out and stayed out.


"Are you trying to make this exciting for me, or don't you know what that is?" McCoy asked.


"Make for the lights," Taylor called in Korean to the Ko-rean on the tiller.


"That's the Charity?' McCoy asked.


"God, I hope so," Taylor said piously.


Taylor reached into the control compartment and came up with a four-cell flashlight. He flashed it-sending, Mc-Coy realized after a moment, the Morse code short and long flashes spelling M C-to port.


"Is that the flashlight Dunn dropped to us?" McCoy asked.


"All it needed was one battery, and it was as good as new," Taylor said, somewhat smugly. "I had batteries."


Now there came a light aimed directly at them, spelling C.


The C message was repeated once every sixty seconds after that. Five minutes later, just as McCoy began to think he could make out the ship on the horizon, floodlights mounted fore, aft, and amidship on the Charity lit the hull for five seconds and then went off again. It was now possi-ble to judge the distance-no more than two hundred yards-separating the sleek, dead-in-the-water destroyer from the junk.


A small spotlight flashed on and off at them until they were quite close to the Charity, and then floodlights illuminated a ladder swung over her side.

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