Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  “That might not be a bad idea, Frank,” Roosevelt said thoughtfully, and then added, “Now that I think about it, if you can spare Fleming, he’s probably just the right man for the job. You were a Marine, Flem, after all.”

  “Yes, Sir, I was.”

  “I’ll send him out there tomorrow, Mr. President,” Knox said.

  “Good idea, Frank!”

  When they left the White House, Knox waited until they were in his limousine and then said, “I have a Commander Kramer who has all the background material on Major Carlson, the Raiders, and their target. An island called Makin. I’ll have him bring it around to your hotel tomorrow. And then you get on the Monday-morning courier plane to San Diego. I’m not really sure how I feel about the whole idea…. I understand why people may be dragging their feet; they think it’s both a waste of time and materiel and an idea that may go away…. But now I know that it’s important to Roosevelt. Given that, it’s important to you and me that you go out there and light a fire under people.”

  “I’m sympathetic to the notion that a victory, any kind of a victory, even a small one, is important right now.”

  “And it will be even more important when the Philippines fall,” Knox said. “So it’s important, for a number of reasons, that you go out there right away. We can get you an office and a secretary when you come back.”

  V

  (One)

  Security Intelligence Section

  U.S. Naval Communications

  Washington, D.C.

  0730 Hours 31 January 1942

  When Mrs. Glen T. (Ellen) Feller passed through the security gate on her way to work, the civilian guard smiled at her and handed her a note. It read, “Ellen, please see me at 0800.” It was initialed “AFK.” Commander A. F. Kramer was the officer-in-charge.

  Ellen Feller, who was tall and thirty, with pale skin and long, light brown hair which she normally wore in a bun, glanced at the note for a second. It sparked her curiosity, but it did not cause her any real concern. She often found essentially identical notes waiting for her as she came to work.

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling at the guard; then she entered the restricted area. She either nodded and smiled or said good morning to a dozen people as she made her way to her desk at the far end of the long and narrow room. People smiled back at her, some of them a little warily. Ellen was aware that her co-workers thought of her as devoutly religious. She had several times heard herself referred to as a “Christer.”

  Personnel records, and especially reports of what were known as Complete Background Investigations, are classified Confidential, the security classification a step below Secret. They were thus theoretically really confidential, and their contents were made available only to those with a “need to know,” who had been granted the appropriate security clearances.

  In practice, however, personnel records and reports, “interim” and “final,” of Complete Background Investigations of new or potential employees were available to anyone who was curious—even secretaries. This was especially the case in the Security Intelligence Section, where even the clerk-typists held Top Secret security clearances. There the Confidential classification was considered something of a joke.

  Before Mrs. Feller had reported for duty, some time ago, as an Oriental Languages Linguist, all the girls in the office knew that their new co-worker was married to the Reverend Glen T. Feller of the Christian & Missionary Alliance; that she had perfected her language skills in the Orient; and that until the previous May, she and her husband had operated a C&MA missionary school in China.

  They also knew that the Fellers had no children and that Reverend Feller was off doing the Lord’s work among the American Indians on a reservation in Arizona. Meanwhile, Mrs. Feller had noticed a classified advertisement placed by the U.S. Government seeking U.S. citizens with fluency in foreign languages, and she’d answered it.

  Soon after that, the Navy offered her a job as an Oriental Languages Linguist. It wasn’t known whether she accepted the job as a patriotic citizen; or because the Fellers needed the money; or because she didn’t want to live in the Arizona desert. Her application for employment stated simply that she “wanted to serve.”

  In fact, although the job paid her more than she’d expected, she had taken it for the very simple reason that she really didn’t want to go to Arizona. And that meant she had to find work.

  The actual fact was that Ellen Feller had absolutely no interest in doing the Lord’s work or, for that matter, in saving her immortal soul. And even more to the point, she loathed the Reverend Feller. She didn’t want to live with him in Arizona or anywhere else.

  Were it not for her father, who was rich and elderly—approaching the end of his time on earth—and a religious zealot, she would have divorced her husband. But a divorce would almost certainly inspire him to cut Ellen out of his will and leave all of his money to the Christian & Missionary Alliance. The way it stood now, he intended to leave half of his worldly goods to his daughter and her husband.

  With that understanding, and of course after days of prayerful consideration, the Reverend Feller had announced to the hierarchy of his denomination that it was God’s will for him to go alone to bring the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Navajos. His beloved wife would meanwhile make what contribution she could to the war effort in Washington, D.C. This move would cause them both a huge personal sacrifice, but they had prayerfully and tearfully decided to endure it.

  The Reverend Feller had been honestly unhappy to leave Ellen behind in Washington. Not because he particularly liked her, or even because he would be denied his connubial privileges, but because the old man was in a nursing home in Baltimore, forty miles from Washington. The Reverend was afraid that while he was off in Arizona, Ellen would attempt to poison her father against him with reports of his misbehavior, sexual and otherwise, in China.

  In the end, he had acquiesced to the move solely because Ellen had threatened to go to the authorities, both governmental and ecclesiastical, and inform them of some of the lesser-known facts about her husband’s activities in China. From the day they had entered that country, for example, he had been involved in the illegal export to the United States of Chinese archeological treasures looted from tombs.

  The Reverend Feller had gone to great lengths to conceal what he called his “personal pension plan” from his wife. He had therefore been astonished to learn that she knew about it. He incorrectly suspected that one of the Chinese had told her. She had actually learned about it from an American Marine. As one of their last missions before being transferred to the Philippines, the 4th Marines had provided a guard detachment for the convoy of missionary vehicles as they left for home.

  Ellen Feller had had a brief fling in those days with one of the young Marines. She now realized the affair had been both foolish and stupid; but at the time she had endured a long abstinence from men, the Marine himself was extraordinarily fascinating, and she’d imagined that the odds were very much against her ever seeing him again.

  When she first saw him staring with interest at her body, she presumed he was a simple Marine in charge of the Marine trucks. It was only after they’d made the beast with two backs half a dozen times that she learned that Corporal Kenneth R. “Killer” McCoy, USMC, wasn’t anything of the kind.

  He was, in fact, on an intelligence-gathering mission for the 4th Marines. His mission was concerned both with the location of Japanese army units in the area he was passing through—and with reports that missionaries were smuggling out of China valuable Chinese artifacts: jade, pottery, and other items.

  Until she was actually aboard the ship that brought her home, Ellen Feller managed to convince Ken McCoy that she was fonder of him than was the case. Largely because of that, she was reasonably assured that he did not report to his superiors that some of the shipping containers the Marines had obligingly transported for them to Tientsin contained material having nothing to do with the work of the Christian & Missi
onary Alliance.

  But of course, she couldn’t be sure.

  Her concern diminished with time, and especially when she learned that the 4th Marines had indeed been transferred from China to the Philippines as scheduled. It was about that time that she entered the Navy’s employ.

  Just before Pearl Harbor, however, she was instructed to deliver to the office of the officer in charge, Commander A. F. Kramer, a packet of classified documents that were to be transported to the Far East by officer courier. The officer courier turned out to be Killer McCoy, now wearing the uniform of a Marine lieutenant.

  Since McCoy was driven directly from the office to meet his airplane, there was no time then for Ellen Feller to do anything but make it plain to him that she was perfectly willing—even anxious—to resume their intimate relationship. There was enough time, nevertheless, for her to reassure herself that McCoy had still not informed anyone about the material her husband had illegally brought into the United States.

  Not long after that, there was a cable reporting that Lieutenant McCoy was missing in action in the Philippines and presumed dead—news that for a few days flooded Ellen Feller with considerable relief. The matter was finally over and done with, she told herself.

  But then McCoy dropped out of the blue alive and well, and that put her back on square one. Beyond that, McCoy showed no interest whatever in resuming their relationship. And soon after that, McCoy disappeared from Washington. There was a credible rumor (which she now thought of as “scuttlebutt”) that McCoy was on a confidential, undercover mission in California.

  Ellen Feller was nothing if not resourceful. A short time later—though after a good deal of thought—she came up with a reasonable plan in the event McCoy reported the crates. First of all, there was a good chance that he would not report them at all. If he did, the question would naturally arise as to why he hadn’t made his report to the proper authorities in China; his failure to do so would constitute, almost by definition, dereliction of duty.

  And even if he did report them, it would come down to his word against hers and the Reverend Feller’s. Besides, Ellen Feller had so far been unable to locate the crates, although she’d tried very hard to find them. Her husband had obviously hidden them well. Under the present circumstances, she doubted that anyone in the government would spend a lot of time looking for them—or that they could find them if they did. Glen Feller might be a miserable sonofabitch, but he was not stupid.

  And even if the crates did show up, she could profess to know nothing whatever about them; or alternatively, she could claim that she had reported the matter to McCoy. What was important, she concluded, was to earn the reputation of being a simple, loyal, hardworking employee, who was so devoutly religious that she could not possibly be involved in anything dishonest.

  It was not difficult for her to play this role. In China she had successfully played the role of a pious, hardworking, good Christian woman for years.

  Playing it in Washington turned out to be even easier. In fact, partially because of the mushrooming of the Intelligence staff, it produced unexpected benefits. Other linguists came aboard after she did, and many of them, like her, were former missionaries. Soon she was given greater responsibility: since there was neither time nor need to translate every Chinese or Japanese document that came into their hands, Ellen Feller became sort of an editor. She separated those documents that would be of interest to the Navy from the others, which were discarded, and then she assigned the job of translating the important ones to someone or other. She rarely made the actual translations herself. Because she had taken on greater responsibility, her official job description was changed, and this resulted in a promotion.

  At precisely five minutes before eight, Ellen Feller rose from her desk and visited the ladies’ room to inspect her hair and general appearance. She was generally pleased with what she saw in the mirror, yet she wished, as she almost always did, that she could wear lipstick without destroying the image she was forced to convey. Without it, she thought, she looked like a drab.

  She checked very carefully to make sure that no part of her lingerie was visible. She took what she was perfectly willing to admit was a perverse pleasure in wearing black, lacy lingerie. It made her feel like a woman. But of course she didn’t want anyone, especially Commander Kramer, to see it.

  When she finished, she went to Commander Kramer’s office, stood in the open doorway, and knocked on the jamb.

  “Come in, Ellen,” Commander Kramer said, smiling. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Sir,” she said, and stepped inside.

  There was a captain in the office, who rose as she entered.

  “Ellen, this is Captain Haughton, of Secretary Knox’s office. Captain, Mrs. Ellen Feller.”

  Haughton, Ellen saw, was examining her carefully. There was a moment’s concern (What does someone from the office of the Secretary of the Navy want with me?) but it passed immediately. She sensed that Captain Haughton liked what he saw.

  “Good morning, Sir,” Ellen Feller said politely. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  (Two)

  The Foster Lafayette Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  31 January 1942

  Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, had been talking with his wife in San Francisco. Just after he put the telephone handset back in its cradle, the telephone rang again.

  The ring disturbed him. During the last few minutes of his call he had said some unflattering things about the President of the United States, and he’d performed a rather credible mimicry of both the President’s and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt’s voices. As he did that, it occurred to him that his telephone might be tapped, and that Roosevelt would shortly hear what Fleming Pickering thought of him.

  The possibility that his telephone might indeed be tapped was no longer a paranoid fantasy. Telephones were being tapped. The nation was at war. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI had been given extraordinary authority. And so, certainly, had the counterintelligence services of the Army and Navy. The Constitution was now being selective in whose rights it protected.

  The great proof of that was just then happening in Pickering’s home state. A hysterical Army lieutenant general in California had decided that no one of Japanese ancestry could be trusted. And he had been joined in this hysteria by California’s Attorney General, a Republican named Earl Warren. Warren was more than just an acquaintance of Fleming Pickering’s. Pickering had played golf with him—and actually voted for him.

  “To protect the nation,” the Army lieutenant general and the California Attorney General had decided to scoop up all the West Coast Japanese, enemy alien and native-born American alike, and put them in “relocation camps.”

  Just the West Coast Japanese. Not Japanese elsewhere in the United States. Or, for that matter, Japanese in Hawaii. And not Germans or Italians either…even though it wasn’t many months earlier that the German-American Bund was marching around Madison Square Garden in New York, wearing swastika-bedecked uniforms, singing “Deutschland Über Alles,” and saluting with the straight-armed Nazi salute.

  It was governmental insanity, and it was frightening.

  Pickering had already concluded that if he were J. Edgar Hoover—or one of his counterintelligence underlings (or for that matter, some captain in Naval Intelligence)—and had learned that Fleming Pickering, Esq., had appeared out of nowhere, been commissioned as a captain directly and personally by the Secretary of the Navy, and was obviously about to move around the upper echelons of the defense establishment with a Top Secret clearance, he would want to learn instantly as much as he could about Pickering and his thoughts and opinions. The easy way to do that was to tap his telephone.

  Among the many opinions Pickering had broadcast over the phone moments earlier, he’d said that “the President of the United States is either the salvation of the nation, or he’s quite as mad as Adolph Hitler, and I don’t know which.” And “if he goes ahead with this so-called relocation
of the Japanese, especially the ones who are citizens, and isn’t stopped, I can’t see a hell of a lot of difference between him and Hitler. The law is going to be what he says it is.”

  Fortunately, he’d sensed that he was upsetting Patricia, so he’d switched to mimicking Roosevelt’s and Eleanor’s quirks of speech. He knew that always made her laugh.

  Of course, he had not informed Patricia of the subjects discussed over lunch in the Presidential Apartments. Without giving it much solemn thought, he’d decided that anything the Commander in Chief had said to the Secretary of the Navy and a Navy Reserve captain was none of the captain’s wife’s business.

  “Hello,” he said, picking up the telephone.

  “Captain Pickering, please.”

  “This is Captain Pickering.”

  “Sir, this is Commander Kramer. I’m in the lobby.”

  Oh, Christ. I should have answered the telephone in The Navy Manner. This isn’t the Adams Suite in the Lafayette. This is the quarters of Captain F. Pickering, USNR, and I should have answered the phone by saying “Captain Pickering.”

  “Please come up, Commander.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  Pickering pushed himself out of the upholstered chair in the sitting room and went into the bedroom to put on his uniform. Commander Kramer had probably already decided he had been selected by ill fortune to baby-sit another goddamned civilian in uniform. Opening the door to him while wearing a Sulka’s silk dressing robe would confirm that opinion beyond redemption.

  The door chimes went off while Pickering was still tying his tie. He muttered, “Damn,” then went to the door and pulled it open.