W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  "Based on damned little," Pickering interjected, "except my memory of taking a P&FE freighter in there before the war-and aground on the mudflats."

  "Sir, there's a guy," McCoy said. "A Navy officer-I talked to him a couple of times-who was in there a lot on an LST," McCoy said. "He knows all about Inchon, and the channel islands."

  "You have his name?' Howe asked. "Where is he?"

  `Taylor," McCoy said. "David R. Taylor, Lieutenant, USNR. I don't know where he is. Naval Element, SCAP would probably know." He paused and added, "He's a Mus-tang."

  "A what?" Howe asked.

  "He was an enlisted man, sir," McCoy said.

  "Yeah, that's right, isn't it? That's what the Navy and the Marines call somebody who's come out of the ranks. `Mustang' seems to suggest they're not as well-bred as somebody from the Naval Academy, a little wild, maybe uncontrollable, likely to cause trouble to the established order of things."

  McCoy and Hart looked uncomfortable. General Pickering was about to reply when General Howe went on: "Well, then, he'll be right at home with this bunch, won't he? Un-less I'm wrong, we all belong to that exclusive club."

  He turned to Master Sergeant Rogers.

  "Charley, call SCAP Naval Element and have this guy placed on TDY to us as soon as possible. Like as of eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Have him report to the hotel. He doesn't need to know about this place."

  Master Sergeant Rogers nodded, and wrote on his lined pad.

  General Howe saw the look on McCoy's face.

  "Yeah, I can do that, McCoy," he said. "Before I came here, Admiral Sherman-the chief of naval operations- sent a commander to see the admiral, to tell him that by di-rection of the President, I'm to get whatever I ask for from the Navy, and that SCAP is not to be told what I asked for."

  "Yes, sir," McCoy said.

  "What's left?" Howe asked. "Oh, yeah. Communica-tions. The problem with cryptography, sending encoded messages, Mrs. McCoy, is that the technicians who do the encoding obviously get to read the message. General Pick-ering tells me that during War Two, when he was dealing with the MAGIC business, he had his own cryptographers."

  "Including George," McCoy said, nodding at Hart.

  "We talked about that," Howe said. "The equipment Hart used is no longer in service. And I'm concerned that any-thing we send through the SCAP crypto room will be read by people who'll pass it on to people here. I may be wrong, but I can't take that chance. Charley called the Army Secu-rity Agency, and they're going to send us a cryptographer, one we know won't share what he's read with anybody. But I don't know how long that will take-if he can get here be-fore we start to need him. Suggestions?"

  "Ken," Zimmerman said. "Keller?"

  "Who's Keller?" General Pickering asked.

  "The crypto guy in Pusan," McCoy said. "Eighth Army Rear. Master Sergeant. The one you talked to... the 're-turn immediately, repeat immediately' message?"

  "Very obliging," Pickering said. "What about him?"

  "General, he just got to Pusan," Zimmerman said. "He's new, not part of the SCAP setup."

  "Good man, I think," McCoy said.

  "Why do you say that?" Howe asked.

  "He talked me out of my National Match Garand," Mc-Coy said, smiling. "And when I asked him why somebody as smart as he was wasn't a Marine, he said he didn't qual-ify for the Corps; his parents were married."

  Howe laughed.

  "That's terrible," Mrs. McCoy said, smiling.

  "Charley?" Howe asked.

  "He'd have the right clearances, General," Master Sergeant Rogers said. His voice was very deep and reso-nant. "And I could have a word with him about keeping his mouth shut."

  That's the first time he's said a word, McCoy realized.

  "You have the number of the SCAP Army Security Agency guy?" Howe asked.

  Rogers nodded.

  "Call him and have him send this fellow here on the next plane," Howe ordered.

  Rogers nodded, and wrote on his lined pad.

  "Have the message say, `Bring Marine weapons,'" Zim-merman said.

  "Weapons? More than one?" Rogers asked.

  "He's got my Thompson, too," Zimmerman said.

  "This has to be one hell of a man," Pickering said, "to talk these two out of their weapons."

  Howe chuckled.

  Chapter Twelve

  [ONE]

  THE DEWEY SUITE

  THE IMPERIAL HOTEL

  TOKYO, JAPAN

  0755 3 AUGUST 1950

  Lieutenant David R. Taylor, USNR, a stocky, ruddy-faced thirty-two-year-old, walked down the corridor of the hotel and raised his eyebrows in a not entirely friendly manner when the young American in a business suit rose from a chair in the corridor and blocked his way.

  "May I help you, sir?"

  "If you can show me where the Dewey Suite is, that'd help."

  "And you are, sir?"

  "Who're you?"

  The CIC agent produced his credentials, a thin folding wallet, with a badge pinned to one half and a photo ID card on the other.

  Taylor was not surprised. He had spent the last four days in the Dai-Ichi Building, working on the plans to stage an amphibious landing at Inchon. The corridor out-side the G-3 section had half a dozen young men like this one in it around the clock.

  "My name is Taylor," he said.

  "May I see some identification, sir?"

  Taylor produced his Department of the Navy officer's identification card.

  The CIC agent examined it.

  "They're expecting you, Lieutenant," he said. "Second door on the left."

  Taylor walked down the corridor, and knocked at the door.

  Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was in a crisp, tieless shirt, with the silver star of his rank on both sides of the collar.

  I would have sworn they said Major General.

  "My name is Taylor, sir," he said. "I was ordered to re-port to Major General Howe."

  "We've been expecting you, Lieutenant," Pickering said. "Come on in. General Howe's taking a shave." He pointed into the room, where Howe, draped in a white sheet, was being shaved by a Japanese barber, a woman. "My name is Pickering."

  Pickering offered Taylor his hand, and was pleased but not surprised at the firmness of his grip. He had decided the moment he'd seen Taylor at the door that he was prob-ably going to like him.

  Taylor's khaki uniform was clean but rumpled. The gold strap and the insignia on his brimmed cap was anything but new. It looked, Pickering decided, one sailor judging an-other, that Taylor would be far more comfortable on the bridge of a ship than he would be sitting at a desk, and cer-tainly more comfortable on a bridge than reporting-rea-son unstated-to an Army major general in one of the most luxurious suites in the Imperial Hotel.

  "Be with you in a minute," Howe called from his chair. "Have you had breakfast?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, there's coffee, and if you change your mind, there's stuff on a steam table in the dining room."

  Pickering smiled at Taylor, and motioned for him to fol-low him.

  "You're the first to show up," Pickering said. "The oth-ers will be here soon."

  Pickering went to a silver coffee service, poured two cups of coffee, and handed one to Taylor.

  "Black okay?"

  "I'm a sailor, sir. Sailors get used to black coffee."

  "I know," Pickering said. "Once upon a time, I was an honest sailor-man myself."

  What the hell does that mean?

  "Yes, sir," Taylor said.

  The first of "the others" to arrive was a Marine captain, who walked into the dining room and headed straight for the coffee.

  "You got him, George?" Pickering asked when he had finished pouring coffee.

  "Sergeant Rogers is having a word with him," the Ma-rine captain said.

  Lieutenant Taylor was surprised that the captain had not said, "Sir," and even more surprised when he took off his tunic and pulled down his tie, and then still more when he saw that the c
aptain had a.45 ACP pistol in a skeleton hol-ster in the small of his back.

  General Howe came into the dining room.

  "Did you get him, George?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir. Charley's having a word with him," Hart replied.

  "McCoy and Zimmerman?" Howe asked.

  "They should be here now, Ralph," Pickering said.

  "Should I call?" the captain asked.

  "What Ernie's going to say," Pickering replied, "is that they're on the way, and should be here now."

  The captain went to a telephone-one of four-on the sideboard and dialed a number.

  "Could you get him out of bed, Ernie?" he said when someone answered.

  Howe chuckled.

  "Okay, sorry to bother you," the captain said, and hung up.

  "And?" Pickering asked.

  "They left early because of the traffic and should be here any minute," Hart reported.

  Pickering spread his hands in a What did I tell you? ges-ture.

  Howe chuckled again.

  "We'll wait," he said. "Then we'll only have to do the welcoming ceremony once."

  "I thought that's what Charley was doing to Keller," Hart said.

  "No, what Charley is doing to Sergeant Keller is im-pressing upon him the wisdom of paying close attention to the welcoming ceremony," Howe said. He looked at Taylor and walked over to him. "My name is Howe, Lieutenant."

  "Yes, sir."

  A barrel-chested Marine master gunner with a chest full of ribbons came into the dining room.

  "We got stuck in traffic," he announced. "Sorry."

  "No problem, you're here," Howe said. "Zimmerman, this is Lieutenant Taylor."

  Zimmerman wordlessly shook Taylor's hand.

  Now this is the kind of jarhead with whom a wise sailor does not get into a barroom argument. And this kind of jarhead is the last kind of jarhead you expect to find in a room in the Imperial Hotel with two generals.

  Another Marine captain came in the room.

  Christ, I know who he is. He's the guy-McCoy is his name-who asked me, two, three times-once in Taipei, another time in Hong Kong, and some other place, places, I forget, the sonofabitch was all over the Far East-always the same question, Had I seen any unusual activity in North Korea, or along the China Coast?

  And I told him yeah, I had. Why not? He had an ID card that said he was with Naval Element, SCAR

  But then there was some scuttlebutt that they gave some Marine captain in Naval Element SCAP the shitty end of the stick when he tried to tell them this goddamn war was coming, and I figured it had to be the guy asking the ques-tions. The scuttlebutt was that he pissed off, big time, some big brass, and they sent him home; kicked him out of the Marine Corps. So what the hell is he doing here with an Army general? What the hell is going on here?

  "Sorry, sir," McCoy said. "The traffic-"

  Howe gestured that it was not important.

  "Hart, go get Charley and the sergeant," he ordered.

  "Hello, Taylor, how are you?" McCoy said.

  "McCoy," Taylor replied.

  McCoy had just enough time to pour himself a cup of coffee before the other Marine captain returned with two Army master sergeants in tow.

  The one in the Class A uniform looks old enough to have been at Valley Forge; the one in fatigues doesn't look old enough to be a master sergeant. And fatigues in a fancy suite in the Imperial?

  "My name is Pickering, Sergeant Keller," the Marine one-star said. "We've talked on the telephone. This is Gen-eral Howe, and I think you know everybody else but Lieu-tenant Taylor."

  Everybody shook hands.

  "You have the weapons, Keller, right?" McCoy said. "You can look forward to spending the rest of your life singing baritone?"

  "I've got them, sir," the young master sergeant said.

  Everybody but Taylor-who had no idea why this was funny-chuckled.

  "Okay," General Howe said. "Let's get this started. Sergeant Keller, did Sergeant Rogers clue you in on what's going on here?"

  "Yes, sir," Keller said.

  "Did he show you our orders?"

  "No, sir," Keller said.

  Howe reached into his shirt pocket and came out with a squarish white envelope. He handed it to Keller.

  "When you're through, show that to Lieutenant Taylor," Howe said.

  "Yes, sir."

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Jesus, now what?" Howe asked, in great annoyance.

  Hart went to the door.

  The CIC agent was standing there with an Army signal corps captain.

  "This officer has an Urgent for General Pickering," the CIC agent said.

  Pickering motioned for the captain to enter the room. He entered, saluted, and handed Pickering a sealed eight-by-ten-inch manila envelope, on which SECRET was stamped, top and bottom, in red ink.

  Pickering tore the envelope open, took the carbon of a radio teletype message from it, read it, and then slipped it back in the envelope.

  "Anything important, Fleming?" Howe asked.

  "No, sir. It will wait," Pickering said. Then he added, to the Signal Corps officer, "Answer is, Thank you. Picker-ing, Brigadier General, USMCR."

  "Yes, sir, I'll get that right out," the Signal Corps captain said. He saluted and left the room.

  "Lieutenant?" Master Sergeant Keller said and, when he had his attention, handed him the squarish envelope.

  Taylor took it and read it.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  JULY 8, 1950

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  MAJOR GENERAL RALPH HOWE, USAR, IN CONNECTION WITH HIS MISSION FOR ME, WILL TRAVEL TO SUCH PLACES AT SUCH TIMES AS HE FEELS APPROPRIATE, ACCOMPA-NIED BY SUCH STAFF AS HE DESIRES.

  GENERAL HOWE IS GRANTED HEREWITH A TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE CLEARANCE, AND MAY, AT HIS OPTION, GRANT SUCH CLEARANCE TO HIS STAFF.

  U.S. MILITARY AND GOVERNMENTAL AGEN-CIES ARE DIRECTED TO PROVIDE GENERAL HOWE AND HIS STAFF WITH WHATEVER SUP-PORT THEY MAY REQUIRE.

  Harry S. Truman

  HARRY S. TRUMAN

  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  "Jesus Christ!" Taylor blurted.

  Howe said, "General Pickering has identical orders, with only the name changed."

  "Yes, sir," Taylor said, and handed the orders back.

  "As far as Sergeant Keller is concerned," Howe said, "he's on indefinite temporary duty to us. `Us' is defined as what-ever General Pickering and I decide that it means. You're also on indefinite temporary duty to us, Lieutenant, but right now I don't know for how long that may be. But so far as both of you are concerned, so long as you are assigned to us, that means your chain of command is directly through either General Pickering or myself, and then the President of the United States. You are not subordinate to the orders of any-one but General Pickering and myself. Anyone else includes General MacArthur and any and all members of the SCAP headquarters and subordinate units. Is that clear?"

  Master Sergeant Keller said, "Yes, sir."

  Howe looked at Taylor, who said, "I understand, sir."

  "You will consider anything you hear or see in connec-tion with your duties here to be classified Top Secret/White House, and you will not share that information with any-one, repeat anyone, who doesn't have a Top Secret/White House clearance, and I have been informed that no one in SCAP, including the Supreme Commander, has such a clearance. Is that clear?"

  This time the two said "Yes, sir" almost in unison.

  "Okay. Early tomorrow morning, Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and General Matthew B. Ridgway are going to get on an airplane in Washington to fly here. Am-bassador Harriman is going to inform General MacArthur, in his role as Supreme Allied Powers-and now UN Com-mand-Commander that the President does not wish Gen-eral MacArthur to employ in any shape or manner Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese troops. Ambassador Harri-man will report to the President his assessment of how General MacArthur receives this order, and probably what he thinks MacArthur will do. I thi
nk it highly probable that after receiving the Ambassador's report, the President will wish to comment on it, and perhaps give the Ambassador supplemental orders.