W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  `Take a look at that, Admiral, if you would, please," Fowler said.

  Hillenkoetter opened the envelope and took out the sheaf of paper.

  "What is this?"

  "Before we talk about it, Admiral," Fowler said, "it might be a good idea for you to have some idea of what we're talking about."

  Hillenkoetter's lips tightened, but he didn't reply. It took him three minutes to read the document.

  "This would appear to be an intelligence assessment," he said finally. "But there's no heading, no transmission letter. Where did this come from?"

  "I had my secretary excerpt the pertinent data from the original," Pickering said.

  "From the original official document?"

  Pickering nodded.

  "Such a document would be classified," Hillenkoetter said, thinking out loud. "Secret, at least. How did you come into possession of the original?"

  "The original document was prepared by an officer who worked for me during the war," Pickering said. "I believe what he says in that assessment."

  "I've seen nothing from our people there, or from Gen-eral MacArthur's intelligence people, that suggests any-thing like this," Hillenkoetter said.

  "That assessment was given to General Willoughby," Pickering said. "Who not only ordered it destroyed, but had the officer who prepared it ordered from Japan."

  "That sounds like an accusation, General," Hillenkoetter said.

  "It's a statement of fact," Pickering said.

  "Why would he do something like that?"

  "God only knows," Pickering said. "The fact is, he did."

  "And the officer who prepared it, rather than destroying it, gave it to you? Is that about it?"

  "That's it," Pickering said.

  "General Willoughby is not only a fine officer, but I would say the most experienced intelligence officer in the Far East," Hillenkoetter said.

  "Does the name Wendell Fertig mean anything to you, Admiral?" Pickering asked.

  Hillenkoetter searched his mind.

  "The guerrilla in the Philippines?" He smiled, and added, "The reservist who promoted himself to general?"

  "The guerrilla in the Philippines who, when the Army fi-nally got back to Mindanao, had thirty thousand armed, uniformed, and organized troops under his command waiting for them," Pickering said. "During the war, he forced the Japanese to divert a quarter of a million men to dealing with him."

  Hillenkoetter, his face showing surprise at the coldly an-gry intensity of Pickering's response, looked at him and waited for him to continue.

  "Before, at President Roosevelt's direction, I sent a team of agents into Mindanao to establish contact with General Fertig, General Willoughby, speaking for MacArthur, stated flatly that there was no possibility of meaningful guerrilla operations in the Pacific."

  Hillenkoetter took a moment to digest that.

  "I gather your relationship with General MacArthur was difficult?" he asked.

  "Anyone's relationship with General MacArthur is diffi-cult," Pickering said. "But if you are asking what I think you are, our personal relationship was-is-just fine. I had dinner with him and Mrs. MacArthur last week."

  "And did you bring this... this assessment up to him?"

  "General MacArthur's loyalty to his staff, especially those who were with him in the Philippines, is legendary," Pickering said. "I know Douglas MacArthur well enough to know that it would have been a waste of time."

  "And, I daresay, he might have asked the uncomfortable question, how you came to be in possession of the assess-ment in the first place?"

  Pickering didn't reply.

  "The officer who gave you this assessment should not have done so," Hillenkoetter said.

  "Is that going to be your reaction to this, Admiral?" Pickering asked, coldly. "Someone dared to go out of channels, and therefore what he had to say is not relevant?"

  "Easy, Flem," Senator Fowler said.

  "I didn't say that, General," Hillenkoetter said.

  "That was the implication," Pickering said.

  "I'll need the officer's name," Hillenkoetter said.

  "I'm not going to give it to you," Pickering said, flatly.

  "I can get it," Hillenkoetter flared.

  "If you did that, Admiral, this whole thing would prob-ably wind up in the newspapers," Senator Fowler said. "I don't think you want that any more than we do."

  Hillenkoetter, while waiting to hear that the recording sys-tem was functioning, had gone over the CIA's most recent "informal biography" of Fowler, Richardson K. (R., Cal.) and was thus freshly reminded that the senator owned the San Francisco Courier-Herald, nine smaller newspapers, six radio stations, and five television stations, including one ra-dio station and one television station in Washington, D.C.

  "This is a matter of national security, Senator," Hil-lenkoetter said, and immediately regretted it.

  "That's why we're here, Admiral," Pickering said.

  Hillenkoetter glared at him, realized he was doing so, and turned to Fowler.

  "What is it you would like me to do, Senator?" he asked.

  "At the very least, light a fire under your people in Japan and Hong Kong and Formosa and see why they haven't come up with an assessment like this," Pickering said.

  "I was asking the senator, General," Hillenkoetter said.

  "What General Pickering suggests seems like a good first step," Fowler said. "Followed closely by step two, which would be keeping me advised, on a daily basis, of what your people develop."

  "Senator, my channel to the Senate is via the Senate Oversight Committee on Intelligence. I'm not sure I'm au-thorized to do that."

  "Well, I certainly wouldn't want you to do anything you're not authorized to do," Fowler said, reasonably. "So what I'm apparently going to have to do is go to Senator Driggs, whom I had appointed to the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee, and ask him to give you permission to give me what I want. I think Jack Driggs would want to know why I'm interested."

  "Another option would be to bring this to the attention of the President," Hillenkoetter said.

  "Whatever you think is best for all concerned," Fowler said. "I'm going to have lunch with President Truman at half past twelve. Would you like me to bring it up with him then?"

  They locked eyes for a moment.

  "Senator," Hillenkoetter said, "I mean this as a compliment. You really know how to play hardball, don't you?"

  "I've heard that unfounded accusation before," Fowler said.

  "May I speak out of school?" Admiral Hillenkoetter asked.

  "I thought I'd made it clear this whole conversation is out of school," Fowler said.

  "With all respect to General Pickering, and his former subordinate, the officer who prepared this assessment, I'm having a great deal of trouble placing much credence in it."

  "See here, Admiral-" Pickering flared.

  "Flem, let him finish," Fowler said sharply.

  "For one thing," Hillenkoetter went on, "I can't believe that General Willoughby would suppress something like this, and for another, as I said before, I've received nothing remotely approaching this assessment from my own people in the Orient."

  "So?" Fowler asked.

  "On the other hand, it comes to me not only from a... the former... deputy director of the OSS for the Pacific, but via a senator, for whom I not only have a great deal of respect, but who apparently believes there is something to the assessment. Under that circumstance, I will immedi-ately take action to see what I can find out myself."

  "How?" Pickering asked, sarcastically. "By sending Willoughby a radio message?"

  "Flem, goddamn it!" Fowler said.

  "By dispatching my deputy director for Asiatic Activi-ties-your replacement, so to speak, General-over there as soon as I can get him on a plane, with instructions to- what was your phrase, General? `light a fire'?-light afire under our people in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul to re-fresh their efforts."

  "All right," Fowler said.

  "It
would facilitate things if they could talk with the au-thor of this," Hillenkoetter went on, tapping his fingertips on the assessment. `To do that, I'd have to have his name."

  "Flem?" Fowler asked.

  Pickering thought it over.

  "No," he said, finally, "for a number of reasons, prima-rily because everything he knows is in the assessment. What they would really want from him is his sources, and I don't think he'd be willing to tell them."

  "We're supposed to be on the same side, General," Hil-lenkoetter said.

  "I'm not entirely convinced of that, frankly," Pickering said. "Anyway, my... friend... would not give up his sources unless I told him to, and I'm not willing to do that. At least, right now."

  Hillenkoetter shrugged.

  "I may keep this, right?" he asked, tapping the assess-ment again.

  "I've been thinking about that," Pickering said. "Could I have your word that you'll use it to pose specific ques-tions-about the order of battle, that sort of thing?-I mean, that you won't turn it over as is to your people? They wouldn't have to be rocket scientists to figure out who wrote it if they had the entire document."

  "And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Hil-lenkoetter asked. "It might wind up in the newspapers."

  Fowler smiled.

  "You have my word, General," Hillenkoetter said. "And would you agree, Senator, that we don't have to worry the President about this just now?"

  "Not for the time being," Fowler said, and rose from his chair. "Thank you, Admiral, for your consideration, and for seeing us on short notice. And I'll expect to hear from you shortly, right?"

  "Absolutely," Hillenkoetter said, and offered his hand to Pickering.

  "It was a pleasure to meet you, General."

  "Was it really?" Pickering asked.

  Hillenkoetter laughed, a little uneasily, and walked Pick-ering and Fowler to his office door.

  As he watched them walk through his outer office, there was an unexpected bulletin from his memory bank.

  Christ! The Gobi Desert weather station. The OSS- Pickering-put that in, in the middle of Japanese-occupied Mongolia. Nobody thought he could do it, much less keep it up. But he did, right through the end of the war. The B-29 bombing of the Japanese home islands could not have taken place without it. And we're still using it.

  Whatever else Pickering may be, he's no amateur.

  Maybe there is something to this assessment.

  But why would Charley Willoughby sit on it?

  He became aware that Mrs. Warburg, his executive as-sistant, was looking at him, waiting for orders.

  "Call Mr. Jacobs, please, Mrs. Warburg," he said. "Ask him to come up as soon as he can. And call transportation and start working on tickets for him to Hong Kong."

  "Yes, sir," she said.

  He started to close his office door, but she held it open.

  Then she stepped inside the office and closed the door.

  "Admiral, the tape recorder didn't get shut down," she said.

  He looked at her.

  "There was something in your voice when you said to shut it down," she said.

  "You heard that conversation?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  "No, you didn't, Martha," he said. "And I want you per-sonally to get that tape, shred it, and burn it. And make sure there are no copies."

  "Yes, sir," she said. "Do I get to read the assessment?"

  "It's on my desk. You can read it, but I want zero copies made."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You did the right thing, Martha," Hillenkoetter said. "But this... situation... is extraordinary."

  "Yes, sir," Mrs. Warburg said, and walked to his desk to read the assessment.

  Chapter Four

  [ONE]

  THE WILLIAM BANNING HOUSE

  66 SOUTH BATTERY

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  1630 17 JUNE 1950

  When they saw the Buick station wagon pull to the curb, both "Mother" Banning and her daughter-in-law, "Luddy," rose from the rocking chairs in which they had been sit-ting. Mother Banning folded her hands on her stomach. Luddy Banning clapped hers together, producing a sound like a pistol shot, and then, a moment later, a dignified, gray-haired black man in a gray cotton jacket appeared from in-side the house.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Stanley, our guests have arrived," Luddy Banning said.

  "Please inform the colonel, and send someone to take care of their car and luggage."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Mother Banning and Luddy Banning were the mother and the wife, respectively, of Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, who was both commanding officer of Marine Bar-racks, Charleston, and Adjunct Professor of Naval Science at his alma mater, officially the Military College of South Carolina, but far better known as the Citadel.

  Colonel Banning was a graduate of the Citadel, (`26) as his father (`05), grandfather (`80). and great-grandfather (`55) had been. On April 12, 1861, Great-Grandfather Matthew Banning had stood where Mother and Luddy Ban-ning now stood on the piazza and watched as the first shots of the War of the Secession were fired on Fort Sumter.

  He had then gone off as a twenty-five-year-old major to command the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd South Carolina Dragoons. When released from Union captivity in 1865, the conditions of his release required him to swear fealty to the United States of America, and to remove the insignia of a major general from his gray Confederate uniform. For the rest of his life, however, he was addressed as General Banning, and referred to by his friends as "The General."

  Grandfather Matthew Banning, Jr., had answered the call of his friend Theodore Roosevelt and gone off to the Spanish American War as a major with the First U.S. Vol-unteer Cavalry. Family legend held that Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Banning had been one of the only two First Volun-teer Cavalry officers actually to be astride a horse during the charge up Kettle and San Juan Hills. There was a large oil painting of that engagement in the living room of the house on the Battery, showing Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Banning and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt leading the charge. For the rest of his life, he was addressed as Colonel and referred to by his friends as "The Colonel."

  Matthew Banning III elected to accept a commission in the Cavalry of the Regular Army of the United States on his graduation from the Citadel in June 1905, the alternative be-ing going to work for his father in one or another of the Banning family businesses. He had been a first lieutenant for twelve years when the United States entered World War I in 1917. When the Armistice was signed the next year, the sil-ver eagles of a full colonel of the Tank Corps were on the epaulets of his tunic, and a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts were on the chest.

  With The Colonel still running the family businesses, Colonel Banning III remained in service after the war, even though it meant accepting a reduction from colonel to ma-jor. By 1926, he had been repromoted to colonel, and on the parade ground at the Citadel had sworn his son, Ed-ward J. Banning, into the United States Marine Corps as a second lieutenant upon his graduation from the Citadel.

  Like his father before him, Matthew Banning III had been addressed as Colonel for the rest of his life, and re-ferred to by his friends as "The Colonel."

  The Colonel lived long enough (1946) to see his first grandson, and his son-with the eagles of a Marine colonel on his epaulets-assigned as a Professor of Mili-tary Science at the Citadel.

  For a while, the likelihood of either thing happening had seemed remote. For one thing, Edward Banning had not married as the next step after graduating from the Citadel, as had all his antecedents.

  He was thirty-six, a captain serving with the 4th Marines in Shanghai, before he marched to the altar, and that only days before he went to the Philippines with the 4th Marines, leaving his White Russian bride in Shanghai at the mercy-if that word applied at all-of the Japanese.

  Captain Banning was blinded by Japanese artillery in the Philippines and evacuated by submarine. His sight re-turned, and he was given duties he would not talk about, but
which The Colonel understood meant Intelligence with a capital I.

  Once, on the piazza of the house on the Battery, just be-fore he went-for the fourth or fifth time-to the war in the Orient, then Major Banning confided in The Colonel that, realistically, he held little hope that he would ever see his wife again. There had been no word of her at all.