McCoy-the missing McCoy-was never out of his mind for long, and McCoy was the first thing that came to his lips when Brigadier General H. A. Albright, USA, and Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, came into Platt's office.
"You find McCoy, Ed?"
"I have no idea where he might be, General," Banning said.
"For the good news, General." Albright said.
"Let's have some of that," Pickering said.
"We talked to Dempsey and Newley. General Stillwell had them come to his office, and we talked in his conference room. Banning and I are agreed that they are telling the truth when they say that, with the exception of Dempsey's sergeant major, they told no one else about magic."
"And the sergeant major?"
"He told us that it went no further," Banning said. "I believe him."
"Maybe because he felt that was what you wanted to hear?"
"I don't think so, sir. I believe him."
"What do we do about him?" General Albright asked.
"That would seem to be up to you, Hugh," Pickering said. "You're going to need a sergeant major."
"I think I'll keep him," Albright said. "He understands the importance of magic now, for sure. Banning really read the riot act to him."
"Your decision, Hugh. But I think you had better apply that 'no duty in which there is any chance at all that he would be captured' restriction to the sergeant major."
"He was a cryptographer at one time," Albright said. "Since he already has his nose under the tent flap, how do you feel about getting him a magic clearance? Banning's going to need more people to handle the Special Channel than he has."
"Up to you."
"No, sir. It's up to you."
"Ed?"
"I'd go along with him," Banning said. "Rutterman likes him."
"Okay, then. I wouldn't even mention his name to Waterson when we tell him he can tell MacArthur we think the genie didn't get out of the bottle."
"You're going to have to let Washington know that, too," Albright said.
"Draft a message for me to Admiral Leahy, copy to Donovan, Ed, please, right here and now. I don't know the jargon."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"There's a typewriter over there," Pickering said, pointing. "Do it now, so I can have a look at it before I take Waterson to the airport."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"And there is more good news," Albright said. "Stillwell seemed pleased with Lieutenant Moore. He apparently fancies himself an analyst of the Japanese mind himself. And he told me I can consider myself his signal officer, not just acting."
"I like him," Pickering said. "In his shoes, I think I would have been just as angry."
There was another knock at the door. Banning opened it. Colonel Waterson was standing there.
"Sir, I'm going to have to leave for the airport right about now," he said.
"I'll see you off," Pickering said. "George, can you find the airport?"
"Yes, sir, I'm sure I can."
"Then get us one of those Studebakers, without a driver. Then I can talk to Colonel Waterson on the way."
"Aye, aye, sir."
General Pickering rode to the airfield with Colonel Waterson in the backseat of the Studebaker. After Waterson was safely aboard the B-17 and the aircraft had taken off, Pickering got in the front seat beside Hart for the trip back into town. Five hundred yards beyond the gate, as they drove down the dirt road paralleling the runway, Pickering became aware of a horn bleating imperiously behind them. He turned and looked out the rear window. "It's an ambulance with the red crosses painted over," he said. "Let him by, George."
"Goddamn Chinamen," Hart said, and steered to the left of the road. He cursed again when the Studebaker leaned precariously with its right wheels in the ditch beside the road. The ambulance pulled parallel but did not move ahead. Hart got a brief glimpse of a Chinese officer in the passenger seat. He was gesturing for Hart to pull over.
"I don't like this, General," Hart said. Hart's hand was inside his overcoat, obviously reaching for his pistol.
Then the ambulance cut them off, and Hart slammed on the brakes.
Pickering took out his pistol and worked the action. He noticed that Hart merely pulled the hammer back on his pistol. "You better charge that piece, George," he said.
"I carry it charged," Hart said matter-of-factly. He was now holding the pistol in a position essentially out of sight from outside, but from which he could easily fire it through his side window.
The passenger door of the ambulance opened and the Chinese officer stepped out and walked back toward the Studebaker. He was wearing a well-tailored Nationalist Chinese army uniform, complete to a shiny Sam Browne belt, from which hung a molded leather pistol holster.
"Oh, shit!" General Pickering said.
The Chinese officer walked to the driver's side of the Studebaker, leaned down to it, and smiled. Hart cranked the window down.
"Do you realize, young man," the Chinese officer said, "that you were going forty-five in a twenty-five mile zone?"
"McCoy, goddamn you," Brigadier General Pickering said. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Good afternoon, sir," McCoy said. "Sir, I didn't know for sure until about half past one that you were here."
"You sonofabitch," Pickering said. "I'm really glad to see you."
"I'm glad to see you, too, sir," McCoy said. "I'm even glad to see your dog-robber. You can put your pistol away now, George."
"He almost shot you," Pickering said. "Goddamn it!"
"He's probably a lousy shot, sir."
"Was this necessary?" Pickering said. "Why didn't you just go to the OSS house?"
"I'm not one of Colonel Platt's favorite people, sir. And I wanted to talk to you before he made good on his promise to have me thrown in the stockade."
"Who's driving the ambulance?" Pickering asked.
"Zimmerman, sir."
"Well, tell him to follow us to the OSS house," Pickering said. "And then get in here."
"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said. Then he added, to Lieutenant Hart, "You have an honest face, young man. I'm going to let you off with a warning this time."
"Fuck you, McCoy!"
McCoy laughed and walked to the ambulance, which immediately started to move out of the way. He started back to the Studebaker.
"I'll be a sonofabitch if he doesn't look like a Chinese, dressed up that way," Hart said. "I wonder what the hell that's all about?"
"Me, too, George," Pickering said, and waited for McCoy to get in the backseat.
McCoy got in the backseat of the car and closed the door. Pickering turned to look at him, resting his arm on the back of the front seat. "First things first, Ken," he began. "Tell me about your run-in with Colonel Platt."
"Sir, I don't know how much Colonel Banning told you about telling me to make myself scarce?"
"You tell me, Ken."
"First, he told me that Zimmerman and I were detached from the guard detail. Then he told me that he had been ordered-by the army signal officer here, the one that's in arrest to quarters now. What's that all about?"
"One thing at a time, Ken."
"Yes, sir. Then he told me he had been ordered by the signal officer here to order me to report to OSS station Chungking. But that since I had been detached, he could no longer give me orders. Can I talk out of school?"
"You can always talk out of school to me, Ken," Pickering said.
"That wasn't hard to figure out. Colonel Banning didn't want me to report to the OSS here. Until that moment, I didn't even know there was an OSS station here."
"Neither did Banning until he got that order from General Dempsey," Pickering said.
"He told me that, sir."
"And neither did I. If it makes you feel any better. Ken, the man responsible for not telling us, your friend the OSS Deputy Director for Administration, is now in St. Elizabeth's."
"For not telling you about an OSS station here?" McCoy asked incredulously, and then, a m
oment later, added, "Oh."
My God, he knows!
"Explain that 'Oh!', Ken."
"I'm guessing, sir."
"Guess."
"I heard-what, four, five days later-that General Dempsey and the other one?"
"Newley?"
"Yes, sir. That they had been placed in arrest to quarters. That had to be serious; they don't relieve general officers without good reason. And then Colonel Waterson shows up from Brisbane, and right after him, Colonel Albright, now a general himself, and takes General Dempsey's place. And now you tell me that the guy from the OSS has been put in St. Elizabeth's. The only explanation for that is magic."
"What do you know about magic, Ken?"
"It's only another guess, sir," McCoy replied.
"Guess."
"First of all, it's a special cryptographic system, one that regular crypto people don't know anything about. With special crypto devices. Which we brought here."
"Anything else?"
"It has something to do with Japanese cryptography. Pluto and Moore are analysts, as well as crypto people. That looks to me like we've broken Japanese codes, are reading their communications, and damned sure don't want them to even suspect we are."
"I'm not going to comment on your guesses, Captain McCoy," Pickering said. "But I am going to give you a direct order."
"Yes, sir?"
"You are forbidden to discuss with anyone, except Colonel Banning or myself, in any manner whatsoever, anything connected with magic."
"Aye, aye, sir."
All I have done, of course, is let him know his guesses are right on the money.
"How did you hear about General Dempsey being placed in arrest?"
"I sent Zimmerman to the NCO Club to find out whatever he could."
"In uniform presumably, and freshly shaven?"
"Yes, sir, the beards were the first thing to go. They made us stand out like a couple of whores in church."
"And the word was out that General Dempsey had been relieved?"
"Yes, sir. Nobody seems to know why. I sent Zimmerman back another time to see if he could find out, and what the NCO's were saying. I'm not sure you want to hear this, General."
"Yes, I do."
"That they were queer," McCoy said.
"magic never came up?"
"No, sir."
"Go on, Ken."
"So I put on my uniform and went to the OSS house to see what I could find out. I was hoping to see Colonel Banning, but he wasn't there. Colonel Platt was."
"And?"
"I showed him my ONI credentials and told him I was Navy Intelligence, and was looking for Colonel Banning. That didn't work too well. He had my name from someplace. Probably this General Dempsey gave it to him. And he told me he knew that I was in the OSS, that he knew all about Operation Gobi, and told me I was now under the orders of the OSS station here. Meaning him. I told him, with respect, that I couldn't put myself or Zimmerman under his orders."
"And what did he say?"
"First, if I "remained insubordinate' he would court-martial me, and then if I tried to leave the OSS compound, he would have me shot. He was really pissed. He actually took his pistol out when I started to leave."
"You weren't worried that he would actually shoot you?"
"He's not the type to shoot somebody," McCoy said. "And neither was the captain -Sampson, I think-in his office. But if he'd had a couple of MPs around, he would have ordered them to throw me in the stockade."
"So then what happened?"
"Well, I started making preparations to go into the Gobi."
"General," Hart said. "We're getting close to the house. Do you want me to drive around the block?"
"Go very slow for a minute, George," Pickering ordered. "How did you know I was here, Ken?"
"I had a couple of Chinese boys watching the airport, sir," McCoy said. "And a couple more watching the OSS compound. When they reported that a tall American general got off an enormous airplane, and General Albright and Colonel Waterson met him and took him to the OSS house, I thought it would probably be you."
"You've been spying on the OSS?" Pickering asked.
"I thought some 'discreet surveillance' wouldn't hurt anything, sir. I didn't get the reports about you until about an hour and a half ago. I came as soon as I could. When I got to the OSS house, I saw you driving out with Colonel Waterson, so I followed you to the airfield."
"Sir, we're at the gate," Hart said. "What do I do?"
"Go in, George," Pickering ordered. "I want to properly introduce Captain McCoy to Colonel Platt and Captain Sampson."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Hart stopped the car before the OSS compound gate. One of the Chinese guards came out of the guard shack and ambled slowly to the gate in the wall.
McCoy rolled down the window and barked something in Mandarin.
The guard spun around, came to quivering attention, and saluted.
McCoy said something else in Mandarin.
The guard saluted again and hastily opened the gate.
"What was that all about?" Pickering asked.
"Nothing important, sir."
"I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much, Captain McCoy."
"I told him to pass the ambulance, he's with us, sir," McCoy said.
"He didn't pop to attention like that because you told him to pass the ambulance through," Pickering said.
"I also told him that if he ever fails to salute you again, I will send his private parts back to his commanding officer on the point of a bayonet," McCoy said. "In the Chinese army, they take threats like that seriously."
The Chinese sentry saluted crisply when the Studebaker rolled through the gate, and again when the unmarked ambulance passed.
"Oh, I'm glad you're still here, Ed," General Pickering said to Banning when he pushed open the door to Platt's office and found Banning, Platt, and Sampson standing before a map of northern China on one of the easels. "Look who found me."
"I'll be goddamned," Lieutenant Colonel Banning said.
"Good afternoon, sir," McCoy said, smiling.
"Colonel Platt, I understand you and Captain Sampson have met Captain McCoy," Pickering said. "But I don't think you've met Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman."
Platt and Sampson were literally wide-eyed at the sight of the two American Marines wearing the uniforms of officers of the Nationalist Chinese Army. "Captain," Colonel Platt said uneasily, "I hope you understand that when we met, I wasn't fully aware of the situation."
"Yes, sir," McCoy said.
"I was about to clear the air between you two, Colonel," Pickering said, "to tell you that Captain McCoy was correct in his decision not to place himself under the authority of OSS Chungking, but just now I had an unpleasant thought."
"Sir?" Platt asked.
"Captain McCoy tells me that when he showed you his ONI credentials that you already knew his name?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where did you get his name?"
"General Dempsey telephoned me about Captain McCoy, sir."
"And what exactly did he say?"
"He said there were two OSS agents, one of them Captain McCoy, whom he had ordered to report to me, and that he hoped that I would quickly order them to shave and get into uniform."
"I thought that might be it," Pickering said. "I have something to say about that. Until just this moment, I was actually very sympathetic about General Dempsey. Maybe, as an individual, I still am. But as an officer, I just lost my sympathy for him. Captain McCoy's orders were issued by the JCS and were classified Top Secret. General Dempsey did not have the authority-and damned sure should have known he did not-to pass on to you any Top Secret information that had come into his hands just because he knew you had a Top Secret clearance and thought you should know what was in Banning's and McCoy's orders."
"Sir, with respect," Platt said, "I'm the Chungking station chief. Are you saying. ?"
"I'm saying, Colonel, that you had no right to know
anything about Banning's and McCoy's Top Secret orders until it was determined by competent authority that you had the Need To Know. Banning has the authority to show you his orders-or anyone else he deems has the Need To Know. That's spelled out in the orders. General Dempsey did not have that authority, but he assumed it. Presumably because he thought that as a major general he had that authority. It has nothing to do with rank, and everything with the Need To Know."
W E B Griffin - Corp 08 - In Dangers Path Page 62