"Just a moment," Jim said, and covered the microphone with his hand. "She wants to know if I can get away next weekend."
Bolemann looked at him thoughtfully. "You really wouldn't want to hear my initial reaction to that," he said, and motioned for Weston to give him the telephone.
"This is Dr. Bolemann, Janice," he said. "I really don't think I could authorize Jim to drive all that way and back over the weekend. But I think there is a Greyhound bus he could take. If there is, could you meet him at the bus station?"
Janice apparently expressed her willingness to do that.
"Very well, then, we'll check into it and Jim will call you. Here he is."
"Hi!"
"I'll meet you at the bus station." Janice said. "I'll get a forty-eight-hour pass."
"Fine."
"Jim, I think I love you, too," Janice said, and the phone went dead.
Weston put the phone in its cradle.
"You're a lousy liar," Dr. Bolemann said. "If she wasn't in love with you, you'd never have gotten away with that car-trouble-in-Wheeling bullshit. I would be very distressed if you were just fucking around with that girl. She's as nice as they come."
"I love her," Weston said.
Bolemann nodded. "What are you plans for 0800?" he asked.
"I plan to be sound asleep," Weston said. "I drove straight through from Pensacola."
"Tell me, which do you like better, tennis or volleyball?"
"Sir?"
"You heard me. Answer the question."
"Tennis, I suppose, sir."
"Splendid. At 0755, Captain Weston, you will be at the volleyball courts, suitably attired to participate. You will enthusiastically participate until the noon hour, or until your ass is really dragging, whichever comes last. Do I make myself clear?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Be there, Captain Weston," Commander Bolemann said, and pointed to the door.
[TWO]
The White Room
The Office of Strategic Services
The National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.
0930 8 March 1943
Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, looked distinctly uncomfortable as he followed Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, and Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, down the fifth-floor corridor to the White Room. Like many enlisted men of the regular, prewar Marine Corps, he devoutly believed that the route to happiness in the Corps was to stay as far away as possible from officers you don't really know. He had been told who was going to be at the briefing, and he didn't hardly know any of the fuckers.
Colonel Banning and McCoy were, of course, not threatening. He had worked for then Captain Banning in the 4th Marines in Shanghai where Banning had been the 4th Marine's G-2. He liked and trusted Banning.
He also liked and trusted Captain McCoy, of course, but McCoy wasn't a real officer. The Corps had hung officer's insignia on McCoy because of the war, but that was just temporary. Just as soon as the war was over and things got back to normal, the Killer would go back to the ranks. Probably as a staff sergeant. Maybe, if he got lucky, they'd make him a technical sergeant. He himself would be perfectly happy, when the war was over and things went back to normal, if he got to keep staff sergeant's stripes. That way, with a little bit of luck, he could make technical sergeant himself before he retired.
The Corps really went ape-shit in war time. They'd even pinned a lieutenant's bar on that kid, the Easterbunny. He was living in the hotel too, running around all dressed up in an officer's uniform, Sam Browne belt and lieutenant's bars and all. There was nothing wrong with the Easterbunny. The gutsy little shit had proved he had the balls of a gorilla-and earned that 2nd Raider Battalion patch-on Bloody Ridge, trying to carry his officer down that fucking hill with every fucking Jap this side of Tokyo shooting at him. But that didn't make him no officer.
And they were even going to make a temporary officer out of Koffler, when he finished officer school at Quantico. Koffler was a good kid, a good Marine-he'd probably make a good corporal. But an officer? No fucking way!
And the officers he was going to have to face today were all going to be real officers. real senior officers. And the only way to get along with real senior officers was to stay as fucking far away from them as you could get.
Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman was splendidly turned out in a brand-new, freshly tailored-to-fit uniform. Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker had shown up at the hotel with a supply sergeant from Eighth & I in tow. The supply sergeant had measured Zimmerman, and then written down all his qualifications and decorations, and then come back no more than four hours later with two complete sets of greens with everything all sewn or pinned on. Stripes, 2nd Raider Battalion shoulder patch, fruit salad, marksmanship badges, hash marks, everything.
While he was examining himself in the mirror, Zimmerman had had to admit that he looked pretty fucking sharp and shipshape.
He also thought that the red-striped badge with his picture on it that McCoy had pinned to the pocket of his new tunic made him look like a fucking dummy in a clothing-store window.
Two guys in cop-type uniforms at a little counter went through some bullshit about comparing his face and signature on some cards they had in a file with his picture and signature on the badge. As they did that, Zimmerman wondered where the hell they had got his signature from. And then one of the cops unlocked the door and motioned them inside.
"Sorry to be late, gentlemen," Banning said. "Would you believe a flat tire?"
"Colonel," Brigadier General Fleming Pickering said, standing up. "I never look a gift horse in the mouth." He turned to look at the others sitting around the table:
The Deputy Director (Operations) of the Office of Strategic Services; Brigadier General F. L. Rickabee, USMC; Captain David W. Haughton, USN; Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker, USMCR; Major Jake Dillon, USMCR; 2nd Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR; and an Army Air Corps officer, whose identification badge identified him as Lt. Col. H. J. Hazeltine USAAC. Rickabee, Stecker, and Haughton were wearing VISITOR 5th Floor Only badges; the others had red-striped any area any time badges.
This told Pickering that Colonel Hazeltine was assigned to the OSS, and not as an Air Corps representative to the meeting.
Pickering went to Zimmerman and shook his hand, then put his arm around his shoulder.
"Gentlemen, there has been a good deal in the newspapers of late about 'old-breed Marines.' Here's one in the flesh, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, whom I'm proud to say I know and consider my friend."
Zimmerman looked very uncomfortable.
"I think everybody knows everybody else, except. Ken, do you know the OSS's weather expert. Colonel Hazeltine?"
"No, sir."
Hazeltine stood up and walked to McCoy and gave him his hand.
"I've heard a lot about you, Captain," he said.
"How do you do, sir?"
Hazeltine turned to Zimmerman.
"And you, too, Sergeant," he said.
"Yes, sir," Zimmerman said.
Hazeltine restrained a smile. Pickering had warned everyone that all they were going to hear from Gunny Zimmerman was "Yes, sir."
"No, sir," or "Aye aye, sir," unless it was pried-or dynamited-out of him.
"How do you want to handle this, Ed?" Pickering asked.
"Sir, I thought I would sort of conduct the briefing myself, with the understanding that Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman will interrupt me if I leave anything out, or if-when-I get something wrong."
"Sounds fine. Have at it."
"Jake, I need the number-three China map on the screen," Banning said.
Jake Dillon had once been a sergeant in the 4th Marines in Shanghai. To the surprise of many people-including himself-he'd been directly commissioned as a major, USMCR. At that time, he was Vice President, Public Relations, of Metro-Magnum Motion Picture Studios. It had been the belief of certain senior officers within the Marine Corps that he would be of great value performing similar dutie
s for the Marine Corps.
In that capacity, he had led a team of still and motion picture cameramen onto the beach during the invasion of Guadalcanal. But then he had been pressed into service by General Pickering-they were friends before the war-when Pickering was staging a covert operation on the Japanese-occupied island of Buka. He proved as adept at covert operations as at placing the names of motion picture stars onto the front pages of newspapers. To the great annoyance of the Marine Corps publicity people Pickering had again pressed him into service, this time permanently, by having him transferred to the OSS shortly after Pickering's presidential appointment.
"Aye, aye, sir," Dillon said, and went to the slide projector. In a moment a map of the northern area of China, from Peking (Beijing) north across Mongolia (including the Gobi Desert) to the Russian border, and west to the borders of Kazakhstan and Kyr.
"Captain McCoy, Gunny Zimmerman, and I," Banning began, "have spent most of the past two days discussing this area, with emphasis on the Gobi Desert, which is where Howard thinks we need a weather station."
"Right in the middle of it would be nice, Ed," Colonel H. J. Hazeltine said.
"Gunny Zimmerman is personally familiar with the area," Banning said. "Which means we can send the National Geographic magazines back to the library."
There were appreciative chuckles.
"How well do you know the area, Sergeant?" the Deputy Director (Operations) asked.
There was a silence.
"Sir, Zimmerman has made two trips across the desert with camel caravans," McCoy answered for him. "One to the Russian border, and one to the Indian border."
"Yes, sir," Zimmerman confirmed.
"How did that come to be, Sergeant?" the DDO asked.
"Sir, Gunny Zimmerman operated what you might call an import-export business," Banning answered for Zimmerman.
The DDO looked at Zimmerman, who nodded his head.
"The details of which are not, in my judgment, important to us here," Banning went on. Zimmerman looked relieved. "What is important is that Zimmerman is familiar with the workings of the cross-border import-export business and, probably more important, is personally acquainted with a number of people in the business."
Banning waited for that to sink in, then added: "And so is his wife. Who Zimmerman believes may be in a small village, Paotow-Zi, which is twenty or thirty miles downriver from Baotou."
He indicated the position on the map.
"I don't know if I should ask you, Ed, or Zimmerman, but why does he think his wife is in this village?" Rickabee asked.
"Sir," McCoy said, "Zimmerman owns a farm there, and a sausage factory. When we pulled out of Shanghai, he told her to go there."
"'Pulled out of Shanghai'?" the DDO asked. "What do you mean by that, Captain?"
"When the Fourth Marines were sent to the Philippines, sir," McCoy said.
"Did you know about Zimmerman's wife, Ed?" Rickabee asked.
"No, sir."
"Pity, she might have been useful."
"Zimmerman told his wife," Banning said, "to try to make it into India when she thought it would be safe to try it. She would then find an American consulate, or legation-some American agency-and give them the name of Zimmerman's mother here. The idea was to get Mrs. Zimmerman and their children to the United States."
"That hasn't happened, I gather," the DDO said. "I mean, there has been no word from Mrs. Zimmerman?"
"No, sir," Banning said.
"Does that mean we can presume she's still in this village? Paotow-Zi, you said?"
"No, sir."
"Fritz-excuse me, General-have you any assets in that area? Can we find out?" Haughton asked.
"You can call me Fritz in here, David," Rickabee said. "We're among friends. But don't forget to kiss my stars when you leave the room." He waited for the chuckles to die down, then went on: "Simple answer is 'yes.' It would mean diverting them from other things. for what, ten days, two weeks? It would probably be three weeks before we had an answer. How important is finding out?"
"Let's come back to that in a minute," Pickering said.
"Aye, aye, sir," Rickabee said. "But, Gunny, as soon as possible, go to Management Analysis and tell Captain Sessions everything you can about your wife and children and this village."
"Aye, aye, sir," Zimmerman said.
"I told Ed that, as I see it, our first priority is to establish contact with the people in the Gobi Desert," General Pickering went on. "And to see what ideas Zimmerman had about how to do that."
"McCoy," Banning said.
"Sir," McCoy began, "Zimmerman feels-with a lot of ifs, and a lot of money-that it may be possible to get radios into the people in the Gobi Desert."
"Money's not a problem," the DDO said. "What are the other ifs?"
"The first is a question, sir," McCoy said. "What kind of radios do we send them? They'd have to be transported by camel. Weight would be a problem. We'd have to talk to some expert in Navy Communications-maybe, better, the Army's Signal Corps."
"Collins Radio," Captain Haughton said. "In Cedar Rapids, Iowa."
"What about Collins Radio?" Pickering asked.
"You remember when Admiral Byrd went to the Antarctic a couple of years before the war?"
Grunts indicated everyone remembered Admiral Byrd's Antarctic expedition. Some of them were dubious: What the hell does Admiral Byrd and the Antarctic have to do with this?
"Well, the Navy couldn't maintain radio communication with him. The communications experts were very embarrassed. But a radio amateur, a chap named Collins, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, could talk to Byrd. And did. Just about all the time. That was even more embarrassing. But the point of this is that after this happened, the Navy has spent a lot of money with Collins. He's become the expert in difficult radio communications."
"Wouldn't his equipment be heavy-duty stuff?" Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker asked. "We're talking about moving this stuff on camels."
"We won't know what he's got, will we, until we ask him?" Pickering said. "Specifically, until Banning asks him." He looked at Banning and added, "As soon as possible."
"Aye, aye, sir," Banning said.
"Jumping way ahead," Colonel Hazeltine said. "Presuming we establish contact with these people and provide them with the necessary meteorological equipment, could we move their expendables into them by camel caravan?"
"I don't think we'd better count on that," Pickering said. "But let's get back to Zimmerman's plan to get the first radio in to these people?"
"Radios, sir," McCoy said. "Zimmerman thinks the way to do this is to join up with caravans about to go back into Mongolia. Three, four different caravans, maybe as many as six. When they bring back evidence that they delivered the radios to Americans in the Gobi, we give them money-which means gold- enough to make them hungry for more."
"But. I see what you mean, Captain, by 'a lot of ifs'. but if we get the radios to these people, wouldn't they get on the air to us?" the DDO asked. "We would know if they had them. We'd be talking to them."
"Yes, sir. But Zimmerman said if we pay them anyway, they would be available to carry other stuff in. I don't know what the Colonel meant by 'expendables'."
"Balloons, for example. To check the winds aloft," Colonel Hazeltine explained.
"Okay," Pickering said.
"Then there's the problem of cryptography," Haughton said. "We don't dare send in a code book."
"Sir, we figure the simple substitution code we used for Buka and Mindanao will work just fine here."
"I don't understand what you're talking about," the DDO said.
"Sir," McCoy said, "we worked out a system to establish as secure as possible communication with a Coastwatcher team on Buka. And we used the same system to communicate with General Fertig on Mindanao. It worked twice, and there's no reason it wouldn't work here."
"How does it work?" the DDO asked.
"Sir, it's a simple substitution code, using personal data of people we both know and the
Japanese have no way of knowing-their mother's maiden name, the name of somebody, or something."
"Any simple substitution code is easy to crack." the DDO said.
"Yes, sir," McCoy agreed. "But it enables us to establish initial contact. It would be enough for them to tell us where they are, and for us to tell them when the weather team is coming in."
"Zimmerman," Pickering asked, "you think we can get radios into these people?"
W E B Griffin - Corp 08 - In Dangers Path Page 29