W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  "Pissed off about what?"

  "He had a reserve infantry company in St. Louis, which they just took away from him and turned over to Major Macklin to make a Richard Widmark movie."

  Speaking very rapidly, General Dawkins replied: "One, breaking up the units was a tough decision. It was the right one. Two, Eighth and Eye ordered that we support that movie. Understand?"

  "General, unless some action is taken, there will be a headline in tomorrow's St. Louis Post-Dispatch reading, `Over Bitter Objections of Commanding Officer, St. Louis Marine Reserve Company Broken Up; Men Scattered Through Marine Corps.' Or words to that effect."

  "Oh, Christ! Is that guy some kind of nut? Doesn't he know how to take orders?"

  "I don't think that he would obey an order not to talk to the press. It's the only option he sees to right what he really considers a wrong."

  "Jesus!"

  "Will you trust me on this, General?"

  "Okay. Why not?"

  "May I use your phone, sir?"

  Dawkins waved at the telephone on his desk.

  Banning dialed the operator.

  "Get me the Commandant in Washington, please. Colonel Edward Banning is calling."

  "Jesus Christ!" Dawkins exclaimed.

  Someone in Washington answered the telephone.

  "No, Major, I don't wish to tell you what I wish to speak to the Commandant about. Please tell him I'm calling in a matter connected with General Pickering."

  There was another pause.

  "Sir, I wouldn't bother you with this personally, except that I feel it's necessary."

  Pause.

  "Sir, Captain George F. Hart, who was General Picker-ing's aide-de-camp-actually bodyguard-in the last war has just reported on active duty. I can think of nowhere else in the Corps where he would be of more use than serving with General Pickering again, and I'd like to get him over there as soon as possible."

  Pause.

  "Yes, sir, there is. I'm in General Dawkins's office. Hold one, sir."

  He handed the telephone to Dawkins.

  "General Dawkins, sir."

  Pause.

  "Aye, aye, sir. Do you wish to speak to Colonel Banning again, sir?"

  The Commandant of the Marine Corps apparently had nothing else to say to Colonel Banning, for General Dawkins put the telephone back in its cradle.

  He looked at Banning, and then went to his office door and issued an order.

  "Come in here, please, Sergeant Major," he said. "You, too, Wise. Bring your pad." He paused and added. "You, too, Captain. You might as well hear this."

  The three trooped into the office.

  "Wise, take a memorandum, record of telecon."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "This date, this hour, between the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Deputy Commanding General, Camp Pendleton. The Commandant desires..." He paused. "What does the Commandant desire, Colonel Ban-ning?"

  "That appropriate orders be issued immediately detach-ing Captain George F. Hart from Replacement Battalion (Provisional) Camp Pendleton and attaching subject officer to the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., with further detachment to the staff of the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia, and directing subject officer to proceed by the first available air transportation to Tokyo, Japan. You get all that, Corporal?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Any questions, Captain Hart?" Banning asked.

  "Who is the... What did you say, Assistant Director of the CIA? What am I going to do there?"

  "That will be up to General Pickering, Captain. I'm sure that he can find something useful for you to do."

  "I'd like to say goodbye to my men," Hart said.

  "That can be arranged," Banning said.

  "You go with him, Sergeant Major," General Dawkins ordered. "See if you do a better job of explaining why the Corps has been forced to disband the reserve units than anybody else over there has."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "I'll go, too," Banning said.

  "I wish I had the time," General Dawkins said. "But..." He put out his hand to Hart. "My compliments to General Pickering, Hart. And good luck."

  Chapter Eleven

  [ONE]

  COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

  EIGHTH UNITED STATES ARMY (REAR)

  PUSAN, KOREA

  0730 2 AUGUST 1950

  Master Sergeant Paul T. Keller, twenty-nine years old, had been drafted into the U.S. Army almost immediately upon graduation from high school in June of 1942. After basic training, he had been trained as a high-speed radio opera-tor, and had been assigned to Major General I. D. White's 2nd Armored "Hell on Wheels" Division, ending up the war as a technical sergeant on the banks of the Elbe.

  A recruiter had argued that if he went home now-as his points entitled him to-and got out, he was going to find himself just one more ex-GI looking for a job. On the other hand, if he reenlisted, he would immediately be promoted to master sergeant. Moreover, he could go home by air-in-stead of on a troop ship-and go on a sixty-day reenlistment leave. After that, he could have his choice of both any course he wanted to attend at the Army Signal School at Fort Monmouth, and any post, camp, or station in the United States or around the world.

  Midway through his leave, Master Sergeant Keller elected to attend the Cryptographic School. He didn't know the first thing about cryptography, except what he'd seen in the movies, and had never heard of the Army Secu-rity Agency, but it sounded interesting-even exciting- and he'd had enough of supervising a room full of radio operators sitting at typewriters with cans on their ears. And he suspected that Germany was going to be a good place to be stationed, now that the war was over.

  Orders came assigning him to the Army Security Agency, and his parents and brother told him the FBI had been asking questions of everybody about him, "in con-nection with a high-level security clearance."

  The clearance-Top Secret, Cryptographic I-came through when he was at Fort Monmouth taking Phase I of the course. By then he'd learned once you were in the ASA, had been granted the clearance, you stayed in the ASA. That meant that although he would be in Germany, he wouldn't be assigned there. He would be assigned to the ASA Head-quarters, in Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia, outside Wash-ington, with "duty station wherever."

  It turned out that he had a flair for cryptography. After be-ing the honor graduate of Phase II of the course, at Vint Hill Farms, he was sent to work at Headquarters, U.S. Forces, European Theater, in the Farben Building in Frankfurt, Ger-many. After two months there, the ASA changed his "duty assignment" to "Crypto NCO for the U.S. Element, Allied Commandatura, Berlin."

  That was really good duty. He had his own apartment, and there were none of the annoying details usually associ-ated with Army life, standing formations, pulling staff duty NCO, that sort of thing. All he had to do was let them know where he was twenty-four hours a day in case something hot had to go out, or came in.

  And the Berlin girls were beautiful. So beautiful that he really had to take care not to fall for one of them. The CIC kept a close eye on everybody in the ASA and especially on crypto people. Keller didn't know if it was true, but the CIC thought the Russians were using good-looking frauleins to put ASA/Crypto people in compromising posi-tions. If it looked to the CIC that you were getting too close to a fraulein, you got your security clearance jerked-by then his clearance was Top Secret/Crypto IV, which meant he was cleared to en- and decrypt anything-and losing that meant it would be back to some radio room.

  The ASA assigned him temporary duty stations all over Europe-Vienna, Budapest, Moscow-filling in for other crypto people on leave or sick or whatever.

  He was really unhappy when in late 1949, the ASA called him back to Vint Hill Farms to be an instructor. But even that proved to be very good duty. It was a good place to be stationed, near Washington, and he could go home to Philadelphia just about whenever he wanted.

  Two weeks before, the First Soldier had called him in. With a five-day delay-en-route leave, he
was to report to the transportation officer, Fort Lewis, Washington, for fur-ther shipment by air to Headquarters, Eighth United States Army, which had an urgent priority for crypto people.

  This was not like Frankfurt or Berlin. They took him from the airport outside Tokyo, to Camp Drake, where they took his personal possessions from him for storage, and is-sued him two sets of fatigues, field gear, combat boots, and an Ml Garand, the first one he'd held in his hands since 1943. And then put him on another airplane the same day and flew him to K-l, the airport outside Pusan.

  He quickly learned the Eighth Army (Rear) really did have "an urgent need" for crypto people. Things were fucked up beyond description. When he got there, he saw that Operational Immediate messages, which were supposed to get encrypted and transmitted right then, took hours- even days-to get out.

  It would take him a couple of days to straighten things out, but he knew he could do it.

  It was going to be a lousy assignment, living in a god-damn tent, sleeping on a no-mattress cot, eating off stainless-steel trays, taking a crap in a wooden-holer GI outhouse, but that's the way it was. It was payback, he de-cided philosophically, for all the good times.

  The first thing he did was get rid of the Garand. Crypto centers needed to be protected, sure, but not by the NCOIC carrying a Garand. There were guards on the door, armed with Thompson submachine guns. Keller got a Thompson for himself, plus a.45 pistol.

  The second thing he did to speed things up was to get the signal officer to agree that since Operational Immediates-and for that matter, Urgents-should really get im-mediate encryption and transmission, the authority to classify messages should be restricted to officers senior enough to know what an Operational Immediate really was. Henceforth, the signal officer agreed, Operational Immediates would require the signature of a full bull colonel, or better, and Urgents, the signature of at least a light colonel.

  Within twenty-four hours-once the backlog had been cleared-Operational Immediates and Urgents were going out in minutes. Which meant that before senior officers had started to sign off on them, most of the messages with that priority really shouldn't have been Operational Immediate and Urgent.

  Master Sergeant Keller was surprised when the door opened and two Marines came in. After a moment, he saw that one of them had captain's bars painted in black on the collar points of his fatigue jacket. He remembered that the Marines called fatigues "utilities." The other one had metal warrant officer's bars pinned on his collar points.

  Keller knew the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was coming to Pusan-he had personally decrypted the Top Secret Urgent from the convoy commander, saying when they would arrive, and the reply from the Marine general saying they should be prepared to get off the ships ready to fight-but they'd been scheduled to arrive in thirty min-utes.

  And these two looked like they'd been in Korea for weeks, and up with the infantry, not as if they'd just gotten off a ship. They were sweat-soaked, looked tired, and the captain had a Garand slung from his shoulder, with two spare clips clipped on the strap. Grenades bulged in the warrant officer's pockets.

  Whenever they'd gotten here, they should not be in here. What the hell's the matter with the guards?

  "Good morning, Sergeant," the captain said.

  "Good morning, sir," Master Sergeant Keller replied. "Sir, you really shouldn't be in here. How'd you get in?"

  "Through the door," the captain replied, somewhat sar-castically. "I just want to use the landline."

  There was a secure landline, connected to the Commu-nications Center in the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo. But it wasn't really secure, and it was intended primarily to keep the technicians in Pusan in touch with the technicians in Tokyo.

  "Sir, there's no landline available," Keller said. "And, sir, I'm going to have to insist that you leave. This is a re-stricted area."

  "Yeah, I know," the captain said. "Maybe you better call your officer, Sergeant."

  Master Sergeant Keller went into the encryption room itself, and signaled the duty officer, Captain R. C. "Pete" Peters, SigC, USA, that he needed a word with him.

  The captain went into the outer room.

  "Hey, McCoy," Captain Peters greeted the two Marines with a smile. "What can we do for the Marines this morn-ing?"

  "You might want to thank God, Pete," the captain said. "The Marines are about to land."

  "That's not funny, McCoy," Captain Peters said. "I hope to Christ they got here in time. What can I do for you?"

  "I need to make a quick call on your landline," Captain Kenneth R. McCoy said.

  "Help yourself," Captain Peters said, and then saw the look on Master Sergeant Keller's face. "It's okay, Keller," he said. "He and Master Gunner Zimmerman are cleared for whatever they ask for."

  "Yes, sir," Keller said.

  Captain McCoy picked up the telephone. It was a direct line, and when the receiver was lifted, the communications switchboard operator in Tokyo answered.

  "Patch me through to the Hotel Imperial, please," Mc-Coy said. A moment later, he added, "Captain McCoy for General Pickering."

  And a moment after that, he repeated those exact words, then: "When will he be back, do you know?" Another pause, then: "No. No message, thank you."

  He turned to the other Marine.

  "Not there, and no ETA."

  "Oplmmediate him," the Marine warrant officer sug-gested.

  "Yeah," McCoy said, and picked up a lined pad, wrote quickly on it, and handed it to Master Sergeant Keller.

  Operational Immediate

  Unclassified

  HqSCAP

  Eyes only Brig General Pickering, USMC

  Telephoning failed 0730 2 Aug.

  Going to pier to meet 1st Provisional Marine Brigade. Request permission for Zimmerman and me to tem-porarily attach ourselves to Gen Craig to make ourselves useful. Will continue to report.

  McCoy, Capt, USMCR

  "You want this to go Operational Immediate?" Master Sergeant Keller asked, a little dubiously.

  "He has the authority," Captain Peters said. "I guess I should have said there's an exception to the colonel's rule. Captain McCoy."

  "And Mr. Zimmerman," McCoy said.

  "And Mr. Zimmerman," Captain Peters echoed.

  "I'll get this right out," Keller said, and went into the ra-dio room. When he came out, the two Marines were gone.

  "What's with those two?" Keller asked.

  "CIA," Captain Peters said.

  He was not really surprised. He'd handled a lot of traffic for CIA agents when he was in Europe, especially in Berlin.

  "They're not Marines?"

  "They're Marines, and they're CIA. If you really want to know what's going on here, you ought to encrypt their re-ports yourself."

  "Interesting."

  Keller decided he would do just that.

  [TWO]

  PIER THREE

  PUSAN, KOREA

  0805 2 AUGUST 1950

  Captain McCoy found Brigadier General Edward A. Craig, USMC-in utilities, sitting in a U.S. Army Jeep that he was apparently driving himself-on the wharf, looking more than a little unhappy as he watched the USS George Clymer (APA-27) being tied up, her rails lined with utilities-clad Marines acting for all the world as if they were being docked at a liberty port.

  McCoy and Zimmerman got out of their "borrowed" U.S. Army Jeep-the lettering on the bumpers of which identified it as belonging to Fox Company, 21st Infantry- and approached Craig's Jeep. Craig heard them coming and looked over his shoulder.

  McCoy and Zimmerman saluted.

  "Good morning, sir," McCoy said.

  Craig returned the salute.

  "You two look like you need a bath," he said.

  "We were up at Taejon, sir," McCoy said. "We wanted to see this," he gestured at the Clymer and the USS Pickaway (APA-222), another attack transport, which was tying up farther down the pier, "and there's something else...."

  `Take a good look at those happy tourists, McCoy," General Craig said, a l
ittle bitterly. "Would you suspect that I sent them a radio ordering that ammo be issued and they debark prepared to fight?"

  McCoy was trying to frame a reply to that when Zim-merman laughed, and said, "Jesus, will you look at that!"

  A military unit was marching down the pier, between the warehouses and the ships. There was a color guard, in mussed and baggy khakis, carrying the flags of the United States, Korea, and the United Nations. Marching behind them, in U.S. Army fatigues, was a Korean Army military band, playing what could have been-and then, on the other hand, might not have been-the Marine Hymn.