W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  "What makes it worse," Pickering agreed, "is that Tay-lor's idea makes a hell of a lot more sense than what the Dai-Ichi planners want to do: take the islands on D Minus One."

  Howe looked at him intently for a moment.

  "Having granted my point, you still think it will work?"

  "Yeah, I do."

  "Is that what they call `faith'? As in `faith in God' or `faith in the Viceroy'?" Howe challenged, pleasantly.

  Or maybe I think it will work because I desperately want it to work, so that one of El Supremo's armored flying columns can liberate Pick from a POW camp?

  No. That's not it. I think it will work because MacArthur says it will. I thought that before tonight, even before Pick got shot down.

  "I'd like to think it's a calm, professional judgment, but since I'm not really a professional, and with my son miss-ing, I don't suppose I'm thinking very calmly-clearly- either."

  Howe opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when the door opened and George Hart came in.

  "That was quick, George," Pickering said.

  "Something was said about a drink," Hart said, and then blurted, "When I came back from the movie, and you weren't in the suite..."

  My God, he was really worried about me!

  "You must be the only man in the hotel who didn't know that Colonel Huff carried me off to meet with MacArthur," Pickering said.

  "That miserable sonofabitch!" Hart said, furiously.

  "Captain," General Howe said, amused, "you are refer-ring to the very senior aide-de-camp to the Supreme Com-mander of all he surveys. A little respect might be in order."

  "Very little," Pickering said.

  Christ, that was a dumb thing to say. You must be more than a little plastered, Fleming Pickering.

  "I'm talking about that CIC clown in the hall. I asked him if he had seen you, and he said he had no idea where you were."

  "So you went looking for me?" Pickering asked, softly.

  "Yes, sir. I thought maybe you took a walk, or some-thing."

  "Or was having a belt or two in the hotel bar? You looked for me there?"

  "Yes, sir. I was about to go to General Howe-I didn't know what the hell to do-when Charley... Sergeant Rogers... came in the suite."

  "I'm all right, George. MacArthur heard about Pick and wanted to express his concern."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Make yourself a drink, George," Howe said.

  He looked at Pickering as he spoke.

  My God, he's thinking the same thing I am. George was really concerned, really worried. More than that, he saw that George's concern went far beyond that of an aide-de-camp/bodyguard for his general. It was-what?-loving concern? Well, maybe not loving concern, more like the concern of a son for his father. But isn't that, by definition, loving concern?

  "No, thank you, sir," Hart said. "I'll just stick around un-til the boss decides to go to bed."

  "The boss has just decided to do just that," Pickering said, and drained his glass. He looked at Howe. "By your leave, sir?"

  "That sounded very military, Flem," Howe said. "Very professional, if you take my meaning. And just to keep things straight between us: I don't think you're capable of not thinking clearly. Goodnight, my friend."

  When Pickering got out of the shower and went into his bedroom, a crack of light under the door to the sitting room made him suspect that George was still in there.

  "Go to bed, Captain Hart!" he called.

  "Aye, aye, sir," Hart called back. "In just a minute."

  Pickering got in bed and turned out the light.

  It was three full minutes before the crack of light under the door went out.

  Well, if I think about it, it's not so strange that George thinks of me as a son thinks of a father. From the time the Killer re-cruited him from Parris Island, from the first day, he's been taking care of me. When I was sick in Washington. All through the war. After. I was his best man when he got mar-ried, because he'd lost his own father. His second son is Fleming Pickering Hart. And not to kiss my ass. On half a dozen occasions, I made it as clear as I could that I would be delighted to help-loan him money, give him money-and he always turned me down.

  And he was really uncomfortable when Patricia and I set up the trust funds for his kids.

  What does that mean?

  It means that while I may have-probably have-lost one son, I still have another. Named George.

  Jesus! Not one. Two! The Killer.

  The three of them were like brothers.

  Patricia was really upset when Ernie married the Killer and not Pick. I wasn't. As far as I was concerned, the Killer was family, and it didn't really matter whether Ernie married Pick or Ken McCoy.

  My God! The Pickering line ends here. And the Foster line.

  Now, obviously there is very little chance that there will ever be a squalling infant named either Malcolm S. Picker-ing Jr., or Fleming Pickering II. Or Foster Pickering. Any-thing like that.

  Does that matter to me?

  Pick being gone matters a hell of a lot. I really would have liked to see the family continue. Patricia will never be a grandmother of a child carrying her father's name.

  And that thought opens the door to another problem I never considered before: What happens to P&FE and Fos-ter Hotels, now that Pick won't be around to inherit them, the way that Patricia and I did?

  Jesus H. Christ, all the time and money we spent on lawyers to make sure that when Patricia and I were gone, Pick would get P&FE, and Foster Hotels, Inc., and not the goddamn government.

  That's all down the tube.

  What does it matter?

  Who cares?

  Something will have to be done.

  I will be goddamned if the government gets P&FE and Foster. Or one of those goddamned charities of Greater San Francisco United Charities, Inc.!!!

  Leave it to George and the Killer?

  Suddenly dumping enormous sums of money on some-one whose previous experience with money is worrying about how to make the mortgage and the car payments is a sure blueprint for disaster.

  If we split it between George and the Killer, Ernie could handle the Killer's share, but George?

  That will require some thought. Just as soon as this mess is over-hell, before it's over-I'm going to have to get with the goddamn lawyers....

  Jesus Christ, Pickering, you are drunk!

  You don't even know that Pick is dead, and you're wor-rying about what's going to happen to his inheritance.

  Oh, Pick, goddamn it!

  Why you and not me? My life's about over, and yours was just starting!

  He felt a sudden pain in his stomach, and he was having trouble breathing, and his throat convulsed, and his eyes watered.

  Jesus Christ, I'm crying!

  Dear God, please let Pick be alive!

  [THREE]

  EVENING STAR HOTEL

  TONGNAE, SOUTH KOREA

  0605 5 AUGUST 1950

  Captain Kenneth R. McCoy went from sleep to full wakefulness in no more than five seconds. It had nothing to do with where he was, or any subconscious perception of dan-ger. That was just the way he woke. Sometimes it annoyed his wife, who took anywhere from three to thirty minutes to be fully awake, and was not prepared to report, for example, what the guy at the garage had said about the condition of the brakes on the car, the moment she opened her eyes.

  Without moving his head, McCoy looked around the room, establishing where he was. Next he looked at his wristwatch, establishing the time, and a moment later, kicked off the sheet covering him and swung his legs out of the bed.

  He had slept naked, anticipating a hot and humid night. That hadn't happened. The hotel was not only close enough to the water to get a breeze from it, but some clever Orien-tal-he wondered if it was a clever Japanese or a clever Ko-rean; but whoever had built the "rest house" for the officers of the Emperor's army-had rigged some sort of power-less device that directed the breeze into the rooms.

  He was in one of the bette
r rooms-perhaps the best-in the hotel. It had its own bathroom, toilet, washbasin, and tub and shower, as opposed to most of the others, which had only toilets and washbasins, according to Major Kim Pak Su while conducting a tour of the place the night before.

  McCoy tested the water, and after a moment it turned hot. He got a safety razor from his duffel bag and shaved while showering. When he returned to the bedroom, the bed had been stripped, and a freshly pressed set of utilities had been laid on it. And a freshly pressed T-shirt and drawers.

  He wondered how many Marines in the 1st Brigade would wear freshly washed-much less pressed-utilities and underwear today. -

  And he was just a little uncomfortable with the knowledge that someone in the hotel was watching him closely enough to know when he'd gotten out of bed, and that he hadn't heard anyone enter the room while he was showering.

  He put on the underwear, then strapped his Fairbairn to his lower left arm, put on the utilities, and supped his bare feet into rubber sandals. Then he went looking for the din-ing room.

  There were five oblong, six-place tables in the room. Major Kim, Lieutenant Taylor, and Master Gunner Zim-merman were sitting at one of them. The chair at the head of the table was empty. McCoy wondered if that was a co-incidence or if it had been left empty for him, as recogni-tion that he was in charge. The Marines recruited from the 1st Brigade were spread among the other tables.

  They were, McCoy noticed, all wearing freshly laun-dered utilities.

  Zimmerman rose as McCoy approached the table. After a moment, Major Kim got up, and finally Taylor.

  "Good morning, sir," Zimmerman said.

  That explained the empty chair at the head of the table.

  It was Zimmerman's method of making the pecking order clear to all hands.

  "Good morning, gentlemen," McCoy replied, as he sat down at the head of the table. "Please take your seats."

  A young Korean woman in a white ankle-length dress and white apron immediately appeared with a pitcher of coffee. She was no beauty, but she was female and young, and McCoy made a mental note to pass the word to the Marines that the help was off-limits.

  Breakfast was in keeping with what were apparently the standards of life in the hotel; it was not at all like what the rest of the Marines in Korea were getting. They were eating powdered eggs with chopped Spam off stainless-steel trays and drinking black coffee from canteen cups. McCoy was served two fried eggs and two slices of Spam on a china plate. Another plate held toast. There was both orange mar-malade and butter.

  It was too much for McCoy to let pass without com-ment.

  "I'm delighted the Navy has taken over the mess, Mr. Tay-lor," he said. "We Marines are not used to living like this."

  "But you can get used to it in a hurry, right?" Taylor said. "Actually, you have Major Kim to thank."

  "Then thank you, Major Kim," McCoy said, in Korean.

  Kim shrugged to suggest thanks were not necessary.

  "Major Dunston said whatever I could do to..."

  "Did he get into what we're supposed to do here?"

  "No, sir."

  "A Marine pilot has been shot down," McCoy said. "Near Taejon. There is reason to believe he survived the crash and may still be alive. For reasons I can't get into, it is important that we get him back. Or have proof that he's dead."

  "If he has been taken prisoner," Kim said, immediately, "we can probably find that out, and also, probably, where he is being held. But... the Communists often do not take prisoners...."

  "And they don't keep records of which prisoners were shot and where," McCoy finished for him.

  Kim nodded.

  "Right after breakfast," McCoy said, "you and I are going into Pusan. Major Dunston's been working on this overnight, and maybe you'll be able to help," McCoy said.

  "Yes, sir."

  I think he swallowed that.

  "If we can locate him," McCoy went on. "My men here are trained to operate behind the enemy's lines. We may try to go get him."

  Major Kim said nothing.

  He thinks that's a stupid idea. But I think he believes me, which is important.

  "The junk here, if we decide to go after this pilot, would be useful in infiltrating the team," McCoy said. "So while we are in Pusan, Lieutenant Taylor is going to see what shape it's in. If there's something wrong with it, it will have to be repaired. If it's seaworthy, we'll take it out for a dry run as soon as we can. Maybe as soon as this afternoon. Time is important."

  Major Kim nodded.

  "On the dry run-the practice run, the rehearsal run- we'll take half of the Marines and eight or ten of your men with us," McCoy said.

  "May I ask why?"

  "In the Marine Corps, we try to make a dry run as much like the real thing as we can," McCoy said.

  "I will tell my lieutenant to prepare the men," Kim said.

  And he swallowed that, too. So far, so good.

  "I don't know how much, if any, fuel is aboard the junk," Taylor said. "Or available here."

  "Give that problem to Sergeant Jennings, Mr. Zimmer-man," McCoy said. "Have it solved by the time we get back from Pusan."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Zimmerman said.

  McCoy looked down at his plate and was surprised to see he had finished eating.

  He stood up.

  "Let's get this show on the road," he said.

  [FOUR]

  MARINE LIAISON OFFICE USAF

  AIRFIELD K-l

  PUSAN, KOREA

  1105 5 AUGUST 1950

  "The Badoeng Strait's COD isn't here yet, McCoy," Cap-tain Kenneth Overton said when McCoy and Zimmerman walked into his office.

  "Colonel Dunn said `by twelve hundred,'" McCoy replied.

  "But you have an envelope," Overton said, smiling somewhat smugly, and handed McCoy a business-size en-velope, with "Capt K. McCoy, USMC" written on it in pencil.

  McCoy took it and opened it. There was a note, written in pencil.

  K-l, 0800 5 AUG

  McCoy: I want to know what's happened to Pick Pickering.

  I know what his father really does for a living.

  The PIO at Eighth Army will know where I am.

  If I don't hear from you, I will write my story on what I do know.

  Jeanette Priestly Chicago Tribune

  "Shit," McCoy said, and handed the note to Zimmer-man.

  "Oh, Jesus!" Zimmerman said.

  "When was she here?" McCoy asked of Captain Over-ton.

  "She was here twice. Last night, right after you were. And again this morning. She was asking about a Major Pickering."

  "What was she asking about Pickering?"

  "If I'd heard anything about him."

  "And had you?"

  "Isn't he the guy who's been busting all the locomo-tives?"

  "That's all you know about him?"

  "I had the feeling the lady has the hots for him. She said he was aboard the Badoeng Strait, and she wanted a ride out to her."

  "And?"

  "Last night, I told her there wouldn't be a COD until first thing this morning. She was back here at oh seven hundred. A COD from the Sicily landed at oh seven thirty and she leaned hard on the pilot to take her out to the Ba-doeng Strait."

  "And?"

  "She's a persuasive lady. Good-looking lady, too. The Sicily pilot caved in enough to get the Air Force to radio for permission. It was denied. Then she asked if I ever saw you around here."

  "And you told her `yeah'?" McCoy asked, icily.

  "I told her you'd been here."

  "And that I would be back before noon?"

  "No. Just that you came by sometimes. And then she wrote that note and told me to give it to you."

  "What are you going to do, Ken?" Zimmerman asked.

  "I know what I'd like to do to her," McCoy replied.

  "You and every other Marine in Korea," Captain Over-ton said.