“Sounds like something out of Terry and the Pirates,” Donald said, referring to Milton Caniff’s popular comic strip.
“Why Socho-Ri?” McCoy asked. “Why there?”
Dunston went to the stack of aerials, searched through them, and slipped one under the viewing device.
“For several reasons,” he said. “For one thing, it’s tiny. For another, it’s about fifteen miles south of the 38th Parallel. Highway Five runs up to the border, but—since it had nowhere to go beyond the border—the closer it got to the border it was less traveled and not maintained. And even better, between the highway and the shoreline”—he took a pencil and used it as a pointer on the aerial—“there’s this line of hills. You can’t tell from the aerial, but they’re (a) too steep-sided to build rice paddies on them and (b) from 100 to 200 feet high, so that you can’t see the village from Highway 5.”
McCoy touched Donald’s shoulder. Donald moved his head out of the way, and McCoy studied the aerial.
“I’m surprised I don’t see much of a road,” he said.
“We didn’t use the road—actually just a path—unless we had to. We supplied the place using the Wind of Good Fortune.”
“Okay,” McCoy said.
“When I found Socho-Ri,” Dunston went on, “there were about a dozen fishermen and their families in the village. They not only hated the North Koreans but were delighted to find someone willing to buy their dried fish from them, and at a better price than they had been able to get after having to take it by oxcart south to Kangnung, the closest ‘city,’ thirty miles to the south.
“So I hired the fishermen to build four more stone, thatch-roofed houses, and to repair the existing, fallen-into -disrepair-because-their-small-boats-didn’t-need-it wharf so the Wind of Good Fortune could tie up to it,” Dunston went on. “And then went to work.”
“How did it work?” McCoy asked.
“The Wind of Good Fortune called on Socho-Ri on an irregular basis. Sometimes once a week, sometimes twice, sometimes not for two weeks. She sailed into Socho-Ri late in the afternoon, unloaded rice, live chickens, the occasional porker, and started taking aboard dried fish. And, at first light the next morning, sailed away.”
“And during the night . . .” McCoy began admiringly.
Dunston smiled.
“We fired up her diesels and did our business up north. Always being careful to be back at Socho-Ri before dawn.”
“And you never got caught?” Zimmerman asked.
“Honestly, Zimmerman, I don’t think they suspected a thing,” Dunston said. “Not even when we built the new buildings. They were visible from the sea.”
“And used for what?” Donald asked.
“They housed a diesel generator, radios, weapons, and a detachment of from four to six agents.”
“And what do you see when you look at these aerials?” McCoy asked.
“Twenty burned-out hootches, and no people,” Dunston said.
“Alex,” McCoy asked. “Are these aerials going to help you find this place?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Well, then, I guess we’ll find out what happened at Socho-Ri in the morning, won’t we?” McCoy said.
[SEVEN]
NEAR SOCHO-RI, SOUTH KOREA 0805 1 OCTOBER 1950
The view afforded the observer—Major Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR—in the backseat of the high-winged, two-place, single-engine L-19 was all that could be asked for. But despite looking very carefully, and twice making the pilot—Major Alex Donald, USA—turn around for a better, lower-level look, McCoy didn’t see any sign of Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, in the one hour and twenty minutes it took them to fly from the Municipal Race Track in Seoul to the east coast just above Kangnung.
There, north of the city on Highway 5, they could look down on what were apparently elements of the South Korean army, but attempts to make radio contact with what they saw failed, and there didn’t seem to be a place where Donald could safely land the airplane.
They flew north.
“There it is,” Donald said, pointing.
“Can you land there?” McCoy asked.
“I’ll make a couple of passes and see,” Donald said. “But I have to tell you, when we leave, we’re going to have to fly straight back to Seoul. We have less than half fuel.”
“Okay.”
Alex made two low-level passes over the tiny village, then turned a final time and touched down smoothly on a narrow, half-sand, half-grassed field.
McCoy raised the side window of the L-19, then opened the door, got out, and reached back inside and came out with a Thompson submachine gun. Then he waited for Donald to get out.
Donald nodded at the Thompson.
“If we’re going to be doing more of this sort of thing, I’d be more comfortable if I had one of those.”
“Can you shoot one?”
“I had, you know, familiarization.”
“I’ll have Jennings get you an automatic carbine,” McCoy said. “Thompsons are a lot harder to shoot than it seems in the movies.”
He started walking toward the burned-out hootches.
Before they reached it, there was the smell of putrefying flesh, and then they came across the first, near-skeletal body.
“Jesus Christ!” Donald exclaimed, fighting back nausea.
McCoy didn’t reply.
He walked into the village, where there were more bodies, including three with their hands tied behind them.
“Jesus, what happened here?” Donald asked.
“If I had to guess, I would guess that a North Korean patrol, covering the flanks, or maybe just coming down the coastline, came here, found something—the generator, the radios, anything—that suggested these people had some government connection.”
“You mean, they knew what this place was used for?”
“No. I mean they thought it was a government outpost of some sort. So, to make everybody understand the rules of the liberation, they shot everybody they could find, then burned the place down.”
“And didn’t bury the bodies.”
“They may not have had the time,” McCoy said, “or there may have been a political officer who decided that rotting bodies would really send the message he wanted to send.”
Donald blurted what he was thinking. “You don’t seem overly upset about this.”
“Alex, you have no idea how close I am to tossing my cookies,” McCoy said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
They trotted back to the L-19.
[EIGHT]
NEAR SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 0935 1 OCTOBER 1950
McCoy pressed the black button on his microphone and asked Donald, “Is there some reason we can’t land at Kimpo, K-14?”
“No. You want to go to the hangar?”
“I’ve just decided I’m going to use some of the Marines there before they take them away from me,” McCoy said.
“I thought the general said he was going to speak to the CG of the Marine Division about them.”
“He did. And the 1st MarDiv CG may say, ‘Not only no, but hell no.’ Take us to the hangar.”
“Captain,” Major McCoy said to Captain Howard C. Dunwood, USMCR, as they stood outside the hangar, “I don’t know what, if any, authority I have over you and your Marines, but—”
“Sir, I can answer that question.”
“Okay, Captain, answer it.”
“There was a captain from 1st MarDiv G-3 here yesterday, sir. He said my orders, until I hear to the contrary, are to take my orders from you.”
“Yesterday, you said? Not today?”
“Late yesterday afternoon, sir.”
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Captain. Write that down.”
Dunwood smiled.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“There’s a tiny fishing village on the east coast called Socho-Ri. I want you to leave enough men here to keep the curious away from the helos, and make for this village with the rest. Take everything with you we
got from the dumps. Don’t take any chances. If you run into North Koreans, turn around and run. Getting to this village is the priority. By the time you’re loaded up, Master Gunner Zimmerman will be here. He’ll have maps, radios, et cetera.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you get to the village, clean it up—there’s bodies all over it. Find someplace to bury them, and do what you can to collect identification, et cetera.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Then set up a perimeter guard, and stay there. I’ll be in touch.”
“Can I ask what this is all about, Major?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell you when I can.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
VII
[ONE]
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 1145 3 OCTOBER 1950
Two cars, a black Chevrolet with the insignia of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service painted on its doors and a black Lincoln limousine bearing the California license plate US SEN 1, followed a Ford truck with stairs mounted in back toward the City of Los Angeles as the aircraft shut down its engines.
An INS officer and an officer from the Bureau of Customs got out of the Chevrolet, and a Marine colonel got out of the limousine. As soon as the stairs had been put in place against the Constellation and the rear door had been opened, they all went up the stairs.
They found Brigadier General Fleming Pickering in seat 1-A.
“That’s all the hell I need,” Pickering said to the Marine colonel as he put out his hand, “a full bull colonel of the Regular Marine Corps to look askance at my appearance.”
Two hours into the final Honolulu-San Francisco leg of his flight, as he was having his breakfast, there was unexpected turbulence, and the front of his uniform jacket still showed—despite the frenzied, even valiant efforts of two stewardi—the remnants of most of a cup of coffee, a half-glass of tomato juice, and two poached eggs.
“You look shipshape to me, General,” Colonel Edward J. Banning, an erect, stocky, six-foot-tall, 200-pound forty-five -year-old, said with a straight face.
Pickering snorted, then asked, “What’s going on here, Ed? Isn’t that Senator Fowler’s car?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Fowler’s car? Or Fowler himself?” Pickering asked.
“Senator Fowler himself, General.”
“What the hell does he want?” Pickering asked rhetorically.
“General,” the customs officer said, extending a printed form to him. “If you’ll just sign this, sir, it will complete the Customs and Immigration procedure.”
Pickering scrawled his signature on the form and handed it and the pen back to the customs officer.
“What about our luggage?” Pickering asked, looking at Banning.
“It’ll be off-loaded first, sir. While you’re still on the tarmac.”
“Well, at least that will limit the number of people who’ll get a look at this,” Pickering said, gesturing with both hands toward the mess on his tunic. “Let’s go, George.”
“Had a little accident, did you, sir?” the INS officer asked sympathetically.
“ ‘Little’ isn’t the word,” Pickering said sharply, and then added: “But it certainly wasn’t your fault. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
The INS officer raised both hands, palms outward, indicating the apology wasn’t necessary, then stepped out of the way so Hart and Pickering could precede him off the airplane.
Fred Delmore, a tall, gray-haired black man who had been Senator Fowler’s chauffeur for twenty years, had the rear door of the limousine open before Pickering reached it. Pickering motioned for Banning to get in first, then followed him. Hart ran around and got in the front passenger seat.
Senator Richardson K. Fowler, a tall, silver-haired, regal-looking sixty-seven-year-old, was sitting on the right side. He and Pickering looked at each other but didn’t speak for a moment.
“I was just wondering, Flem,” the senator said finally, “if you’d had your breakfast. I suppose I have the answer before me.”
“Fuck you, Dick,” General Pickering said.
“My, we are back in the Marines, aren’t we?” Fowler said. “Such language!”
“Fuck you twice, Dick,” Pickering said.
“Is he always this way, George?” Fowler asked innocently. “Or has he been at the booze?”
“Not yet,” Pickering replied. “To what do I owe this dubious honor, Dick?”
Fowler shook his head in resignation and smiled.
“As a courtesy, one of Truman’s people called to tell me you were on your way, and when, but that they doubted there would be time to meet, as you were to be immediately transferred to Travis Air Force Base for your trip to Washington. An Air Force plane—”
“Not that again,” Pickering interrupted.
“Not what again?”
“The last time he sent for me, I flew across the country in the backseat of an Air Force jet.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. Today, I understand, we will travel in a backup airplane—one of the big Douglases—to the Independence.”
“We will travel?”
“We. I invited myself to go with you. I thought you might need some moral support. As I was saying, your aircraft awaits at Travis.”
“Sir,” Colonel Banning said, “if I may interrupt, I think you’d better take a look at this.”
He handed Pickering a sealed, business-size envelope.
Pickering opened the envelope, read the message it contained, and then handed it to Hart.
“That’s already in Washington, sir,” Banning said.
Hart put the message back in the envelope and handed it back to Banning, who put it carefully into his hip pocket.
“I suppose what that is is none of my business,” Senator Fowler said.
“Dick, you’re putting me on a spot,” Pickering said.
“And what the hell, I’m only a United States Senator, right?”
“Let him see it, Ed,” Pickering ordered.
Banning handed Fowler the envelope.
“That’s from General Howe to Truman,” Pickering said. "MacArthur plans to reembark X Corps and reland it far up the east coast.”
“I know you won’t believe this, Fleming, but I do know how to read,” Fowler said as he took the message from the envelope.
He read it, put in back in the envelope, and handed it to Banning.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Fowler said, then turned to Pickering. “What’s the significance of that?”
“I think Howe wants the President to know MacArthur may take his time ‘advising’ the Joint Chiefs of his intentions,” Pickering said. “They have a tendency to want to take time to consider things carefully, and MacArthur (a) likes to strike when the iron is hot and (b) does not like the idea of having to ask permission to do something in ‘his’ war.”
“And whose side are you on?”
“The Joint Chiefs were the opposite of enthusiastic about the landing at Inchon. MacArthur is difficult, but he’s one hell of a general.”
There was the sound of the trunk slamming.
“That’s the luggage, sir,” Hart said.
“Okay, Fred,” Senator Fowler said. “Travis Air Force Base.”
“No, Fred,” Pickering said. “Take us to the San Franciscan. ”
He turned to Fowler. “That’ll just have to wait. I need a bath, George needs a bath, and, as you were so kind to point out, I need a clean uniform.”
“You don’t think it behooves you to instantly comply with an order from your Commander-in-Chief?”
“Fuck you yet again, Dick,” Pickering said. “A whole cup of coffee went down my front. . . .”
“And some tomato juice,” Hart offered helpfully from the front seat.
Pickering pointed a threatening finger at Hart.
“The San Franciscan, please, Fred,” Pickering ordered.
Fowler nodded. The limousine started to move.
�
��What’s the President want from me, anyway, Dick?” Pickering asked. “What’s this all about?”
“I think he’s going to offer you the CIA,” Fowler said. “Actually, I’m pretty positive he will.”
“Well, we can handle that with a telephone call,” Pickering said. “I don’t want the CIA.”
“I don’t think ‘No, thank you’ is one of your options,” Fowler said. “What I can probably help you to do is get some concessions vis-à-vis what you’ll do with it, what your authority will be, when you get it.”
Pickering looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “That’s another reason I’m not going to jump on another airplane right now. We’re going to have to talk about this, Dick.”
Fowler nodded.
“Thank you,” Pickering said.
Fowler nodded again.
[TWO]
THE PENTHOUSE THE FOSTER SAN FRANCISCAN HOTEL NOB HILL, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 1250 3 OCTOBER 1950
The husband of the chairwoman of the board of the Foster Hotel Corporation entered the Foster San Franciscan Hotel through the rear basement door normally used to remove garbage from the kitchen, and rode to what for tax purposes was known as “The Foster Hotel Corporation Executive Conference Center” in the service elevator.
There was a large conference room in what everyone called “The Penthouse,” and two or three times a year it was actually used for that purpose. With that exception, however, The Penthouse was de facto the Pickering’s San Francisco apartment.
Pickering started to get out of his soiled uniform the moment he stepped off the service elevator into the kitchen. He was trailed by Hart—carrying their two Valv-Paks—and Fowler and Banning.
Pickering laid his tunic on the kitchen table and started to untie his necktie.
“George,” he said, turning to Hart, “in this order. Get on the horn and call Travis Air Force Base and tell them we’ll be delayed, probably overnight.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Then get on the house phone and tell the manager we have urgent need of the valet, coffee, and some lunch. . . .”
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