“Yes, sir,” McCoy said. “I think so, sir.”
“The standing operating procedure requires that your completed background statement be in the files,” Major Almond said. “Now, while I am sure that the FBI has done their usual thorough job, I am nearly as sure that they have missed something. What I want you to do is take your background statement to the desk over there and go over it with great care. If there is anything on it that is not absolutely correct, I want you to mark it. We will then discuss it. More important, I want you to pay particular attention to omissions, particularly of a nonflattering nature.”
“Sir?”
“I want you to make sure that all the blemishes on your record are visible,” Major Almond said. “The next step in the administrative procedure is to evaluate your record and judge whether or not you are qualified to be granted a top secret, and other, security clearances. If it came out later that there are blemishes which do not appear on the record, that would cause trouble, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The sergeant will give you a lined pad and pencils,” Major Almond said. “Make your notations on the lined pad, not on the form.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said.
“Work steadily, but carefully,” Major Almond said. “Time is of the essence.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
McCoy wondered if they had found out that he’d been under charges in Shanghai about the Italian marines, and whether or not he should tell them if they weren’t. The charges had been dropped. Did that mean they didn’t count? Was getting charged with murder a “blemish” if they dropped the charges?
He sat down at the desk and looked at the form.
It was immediately apparent that they knew more about him than he knew himself. He didn’t know his mother’s date of birth, or his father’s, but they were in the blocks on the form. And so were Anne-Marie’s and Tommy’s, and even Anne-Marie’s husband’s.
(Two)
An hour later, he had worked his way through the six-page form to a section headed, “Arrests, Detentions, Indictments, Charges, et cetera.”
They knew about the charges in China. (Not Prosecuted, initial facts in error.) And they knew about the old man signing the warrant for his arrest (Nol prossed on condition enlistment, USMC.) And they knew about speeding tickets, reckless driving, and even two charges of malicious mischief and being found in possession of a Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun in violation of the city ordinances of Norristown, Pa. (Nol prossed. BB Gun confiscated. Released in custody of parents.)
It was absolutely incredible how much they knew about him. He wondered what was going to happen when whoever reviewed his records came to the business about the Marines in China. Was that going to keep him from getting a security clearance?
The door opened and the tall skinny clerk-type walked in.
Without knocking, McCoy saw. In the same moment Major Almond rose to his feet.
He is about to get his ass eaten out.
The clerk-type walked toward the door of Lieutenant Colonel F.L. Rickabee and put his hand on the knob. For all intents and purposes he looked as if he was going to barge in there, too, without knocking. Then he stopped, turned to McCoy, and smiled.
“Come on in, McCoy,” he said. “Whatever that is, it’ll wait.” Then he looked at Major Almond. “What the hell is that?” he demanded.
“Sir, it’s Lieutenant McCoy’s background statement.”
“Isn’t that a waste of his time?” Rickabee demanded sharply. “And ours? When I read the FBI report I had the feeling they knew everything there is to know about him.”
Major Almond seemed to have difficulty framing a reply.
“I know, Jake,” Colonel Rickabee said, more kindly. “It’s regulation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come on in, McCoy, and you, too, Jake. It’ll save time.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Major Almond said.
Rickabee sat down behind his desk.
“For openers, McCoy, despite that inexcusable outburst of mine, let me make it clear that Major Almond is what keeps this lash-up of ours functioning. Without him, it would be complete, rather than seventy-five percent, chaos. I didn’t mean to jump your ass, Jake. I’ve had a bad morning.”
“Yes, sir. I know, sir,” Major Almond said. “No apology is necessary, sir.”
Colonel Rickabee turned to McCoy.
“With a three-inch-thick FBI report on you in Major Almond’s safe, McCoy, we won’t have to waste much time asking and answering questions about your background. And in addition to the official report, I have two personal reports on you. You made one hell of an impression on the boss in Philadelphia.”
“Sir?” McCoy asked.
“You apparently delivered quite a lecture on the high state of discipline in the Imperial Japanese Army and how they were going to be formidable foes. Since the one true test of an intelligent man is how much he agrees with you, the boss thinks you’re a genius.”
“‘The boss,’ sir?”
“The chief of intelligence,” Rickabee said. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Let it pass, then,” Rickabee said, smiling. “Newly commissioned second lieutenants should not be praised. It tends to swell their heads. I had another personal report on you just a week ago. Ed Banning wrote me from Manila…you knew that the fourth has been shipped to the Philippines?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Banning said that he thought I should have you transferred to this lash-up and that I should consider, somewhere down the line, even sending you to officer candidate school.”
McCoy didn’t know how to respond.
In Japanese, Colonel Rickabee said, “I understand you’re reasonably fluent in Japanese and Chinese.”
“I wouldn’t say fluent, sir—”
“Say it in Japanese,” Rickabee interrupted.
“I can’t read very much Japanese, sir,” McCoy said, in Japanese. “And my Chinese isn’t much better.”
Rickabee nodded approvingly. “That’s good enough,” he continued in Japanese, and then switched to English. “We can use that talent. But there’s a question of priorities. When we knew you were coming here, McCoy, what we planned to do with you was to have you replace Sergeant Ruttman. I want to run him through Quantico, too. He thinks he’s been successfully evading it. The truth is that I needed somebody to take his place while he was gone. You seemed ideal to do that. You’re a hardnose, and it would give you a chance to see how things are done here. But the best-laid plans, as they say. There are higher priorities. Specifically, the boss has levied on us—and I mean the boss personally, not one of his staff—for three officer couriers. We’re moving a lot of paper back and forth between here and Pearl and here and Manila, especially now that the Fourth is in the Philippines. You’re elected as one of the three, McCoy.”
“Sir, I don’t know what an officer courier is.”
“There are some highly classified documents, and sometimes material, that have to pass from hand to hand, from a specific officer here to a specific officer someplace else—as opposed to headquarters to headquarters. That material has to be transported by an officer.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“There’s one other factor in the equation,” Rickabee said. “The Pacific—especially Pearl Harbor, but Cavite too—has been playing dirty pool. We have sent officer couriers out there with the understanding that they would make one trip and then return to their primary duty. What Pearl has done twice, and Cavite once, is to keep our couriers and send the homeward-bound mail in the company of an officer they didn’t particularly need. We have lost two cryptographic officers and one very good intercept officer that way.”
McCoy knew that a cryptographic officer dealt with secret codes, but he had no ideas what an “intercept” officer was.
“I’ve complained, of course, and eventually we’ll get them back, after everythi
ng has moved, slowly, through channels. But I can’t afford to lose people for sixty, ninety days. Not now. So there had to be a solution, and Major Almond found it.”
McCoy said nothing.
“Aren’t you even curious, McCoy?” Rickabee asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Every officer in the Marine Corps is required to obey the orders of any officer superior to him, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If the orders conflict, he is required to obey the orders given him by the most senior officer, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wrong,” Rickabee said. “Or at least, there is an interesting variation. There is a small, generally unknown group of people in the Corps who don’t have to obey the orders of superior officers, unless that officer happens to be the chief of intelligence. Their ranks aren’t even known. Just their name and photo and thumbprint is on their ID cards. And the ID cards say that the bearer is a Special Agent of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, USMC, and subject only to his orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Congratulations, Lieutenant McCoy, you are now—or you will be when Ruttman finishes your credentials—a Special Agent of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. If anybody at Pearl or Cavite knows, or finds out, that you speak Japanese and decides they just can’t afford to lose you, you will show them your identification and tell them you are sorry, but you are not subject to their orders.”
Rickabee saw the confusion on McCoy’s face.
“Question, McCoy?”
“Am I going to Pearl Harbor, sir?”
“And Cavite,” Rickabee said. “More important, I think you will be coming back from Pearl and Cavite.”
“And you can get away with giving me one of these cards?”
“For the time being,” Rickabee said. “When they catch us, I’m sure Major Almond will think of something else clever.”
“Let me make it clear, Lieutenant McCoy,” Major Almond said, “that the identification, and the authority that goes with it, is perfectly legitimate. The personnel engaged in courterespionage activity who are issued such credentials are under this office.”
“Major Almond pointed out to me, McCoy, that I had the discretionary authority to issue as many of them as I saw fit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We don’t wish to call attention to the fact that people like you will have them,” Rickabee said. “For obvious reasons. You will travel in uniform on regular travel orders, and you will not show the identification unless you have to. You understand that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll have to keep you doing this, McCoy,” Colonel Rickabee said. “We have a certain priority for personnel, but so do other people. And that FBI background check takes time. And the FBI is overloaded with them. You’ll just have to take my word for it that as soon as I can get you off messenger-boy duty and put you to work doing something useful to us, I will.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s his schedule, Jake?” Rickabee asked.
“Well, today of course there are administrative things to do. Get him a pistol, get his orders cut. That may run into tomorrow morning. He’ll need some time to get his personal affairs in order. But there’s no reason he can’t leave here on Wednesday night, Thursday morning at the latest. Presuming there’s not fifty people ahead of him in San Francisco also with AAA priority, that should put him in Pearl no later than Monday, December eighth, and into Manila on the tenth.”
“Is that cutting it too close for you, McCoy?” Colonel Rickabee asked.
“No, sir,” McCoy said, immediately.
Rickabee nodded.
“Take him to lunch at the Army-Navy Club, Jake,” Colonel Rickabee ordered. “Sign my name to the chit.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Major Almond said.
“I like to do that myself,” Rickabee said, turning to McCoy. “We don’t have time for many customs of the service around here; but when I can, I like to have a newly reported-aboard officer to dinner. Or at least take him to lunch. But I just don’t have the time today. Won’t have it before you go to Pearl. I’m really sorry.”
Then he stood up and offered his hand.
“Welcome aboard, McCoy,” he said. “I’m sorry your first assignment is such a lousy one. But it happens sometimes that way in the Corps.”
He headed out of his office, and then stopped at the door.
“Get him out of the BOQ before he goes,” he said. “If there’s no time to find a place for him, have his gear brought here, and we’ll stow it while he’s gone, until we can find something.”
“He’s got a room in the Lafayette, sir.”
“I’ll be damned,” Colonel Rickabee said. “But then Ed Banning did say I would find you extraordinary.”
For some reason, McCoy thought, it was no longer hard to think of F.L. Rickabee as a lieutenant colonel of Marines.
(Three)
Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was sitting in the maid’s room’s sole armchair, his feet up on the cot. When Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, carrying a briefcase, entered the room, Pickering was in the act of replacing a bottle of ale in an ice-filled silver wine-cooler he had borrowed from the bridal suite.
“What the hell are you doing with a briefcase?” Pick asked.
“That’s not all,” McCoy said. “Wait till I tell—”
Pickering shut him off by holding up his hand.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve got if not bad then discomfitting news.”
“Discomfit me, then,” McCoy mocked him. “Fuck up what otherwise has been a glorious day.”
“My general thinks you should move into the BOQ,” Pickering said.
“Oh, shit!” McCoy said. “What the fuck business is it of his, anyway?”
“He’s a nice guy,” Pickering said. “He and my father were corporals together, and he stayed in the Corps. He’s trying to be nice.”
“Sure,” McCoy said. “Just a friendly word of advice, my boy. An officer is judged by the company he keeps. Disassociate yourself from that former enlisted man.”
“Jesus Christ,” Pick said without thinking. “You do have a runaway social inferiority complex, don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” McCoy said.
“It’s not like that at all, goddamn your thick head. What he’s worried about is getting you in trouble with Intelligence.”
“What?” McCoy asked.
“I don’t know if you know this or not,” Pickering said. “But the Corps has intelligence agents, counterintelligence agents. What they do is look for security risks.”
“No shit?” McCoy asked.
“Listen to me, goddamn you!” Pickering said. “What these guys do is look for something unusual. Like second lieutenants living in hotels like the Lafayette. Expensive hotels. They would start asking where you got the money to pay for the bill.”
“Special agents of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, USMC, you mean?” McCoy asked, smiling broadly.
“You know about them, then? Goddamn it, Ken, it’s not funny.”
“It’s the funniest thing I heard of all day,” McCoy said. He took off his jacket, and then opened the briefcase.
“What the hell are you doing?” Pickering asked.
McCoy took a leather-and-rubber strap arrangement that only after a moment Pickering recognized as a shoulder holster. He slipped his arms in it, and then took a Colt 1911A1 from the briefcase and put it in the holster. Then he put his tunic back on.
“Goddamn you, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said,” Pickering said.
“Well, I may be dumb,” McCoy said. “But you’re a Japanese spy if I ever saw one. Come with me, young man. If you cooperate, it will go easier on you.”
It was some kind of joke, obviously, but Pickering didn’t have any idea where the humor lay.
McCoy took a small leather folder from his hip pocket, opened it,
and shoved it in Pickering’s face.
“Special Agent McCoy,” he announced triumphantly. “You’re a dead man, you filthy Jap spy!”
“What the hell is that?” Pickering asked, snatching it out of his hand, and then looking at it carefully. “Is this for real? What is it?”
“It’s for real,” McCoy said. “And it’s my ticket to sunny Hawaii and other spots in the romantic Orient.”
“It’s for real?” Pickering repeated, in disbelief.
“Well, not really real,” McCoy said. “I mean it’s genuine, but I’m not in counterintelligence. I’m an officer courier. They gave me that so no one will fuck with me on the swift completion of my appointed rounds.”
Pickering demanded a more detailed explanation of what had gone on.
“But how did you get involved in intelligence in the first place?”
“That’s what I did in China,” McCoy said.
It was the first time he had ever told anyone that. He remembered just before he’d boarded the Charles E. Whaley, Captain Banning ordering him not to tell anyone in or out of the Corps about it. But that order had been superceded by his most recent order, from Major J.J. Almond:
“You’ll have to tell your roommate something, McCoy. You can say where you work, advising him that it is classified information. And what you do, because that in itself is not classified.”
And with the 4th Marines gone from Shanghai, there didn’t seem to be any point in pretending that he hadn’t done what he had done. And it was nice to have an appreciative audience, an audience that had previously believed he had been a truck driver.
“The important thing,” he said finally, when he realized that he was tooting his own horn too much, “is that my colonel doesn’t want me in the BOQ. So where does that leave us?”
Pickering reached for the telephone.
“This is Malcolm Pickering,” he said. “Will you get the resident manager on here, please?”
Semper Fi Page 35
