W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  Pick smiled at his father.

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

  "Yes, he did."

  [FOUR]

  NO. 7 SAKU-TUN

  DENENCHOFU, TOKYO, JAPAN

  1705 1 JUNE 1950

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

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

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

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

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

  "Captain McCoy," Pickering repeated very slowly.

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

  Pickering took a chance. He raised his voice.

  "Ernie?"

  There was no reply.

  "Ernie! It's Hem Pickering!"

  Now the female voice spoke English.

  "Oh, my God!"

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

  "Uncle Flem!" she cried.

  Her voice sounded broken.

  Jesus, I hope that's happiness!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Great!" McCoy said.

  His enthusiasm and his smile seemed strained.

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

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

  What did Ed Banning say that day in Washington ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  There were several charges, with murder heading the list.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "How so?" Pickering had asked.

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

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

  Banning nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

  "And he hadn't?"

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

  "Why hadn't they come forward earlier?"

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

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

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, was it self-defense or not?"

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

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

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

  "So there was no court-martial?"

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

  "Was it a Fairbairn?"

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

  "How did he get to know Fairbairn?"

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

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

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

  "Assigned to you?"

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

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

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

  "How did that happen?"

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

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

  "And he spoke some Chinese?"

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

  "And could he?"

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

  "So you put him to work?"

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

  "And the Chinese `bandit' incident?"

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

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

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

  "How did he get to become an officer?"

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

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

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

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

  "Well, he got through," Banning said.

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

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

  "I don't understand...."

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

  "As an interpreter, you mean?"

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

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

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

  "My God!"

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

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

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