Retreat, Hell! Read online

That triggered a response. The Korean gestured, and the right half of the gate swung inward. The Korean motioned Raymond to drive through it.

  Inside, he saw a large stone European-looking house. There was a jeep and a Russian jeep parked to the left of the porte cochere in the center of the building. He remembered seeing a Russian jeep earlier at both the Capitol Building and Kimpo, and wondered if it was the same one. On the roof of the porte cochere an air-cooled .30-caliber machine gun had been set up behind sandbags. It was manned, and trained on the gate and the road from the gate. Raymond wondered if it was manned all the time, or whether his horn-blowing had been the trigger.

  He stopped in front of the porte cochere and looked over his shoulder for the enormous Korean. The Korean, who was right behind him, pulled his finger across his throat, a signal to cut the engine, then pointed at the door of the house.

  Then the Korean, the Thompson still resting on his hip, beat him to the door and motioned him through it.

  Inside was a large marble-floored foyer. Another Korean, much smaller than the one who had been at the gate, sat at the foot of a wide staircase with an automatic carbine on his lap. The large Korean led Raymond to a door off the foyer, rapped on it with his knuckles, and then pushed it open.

  Lieutenant Colonel Raymond was interested—perhaps even excited—to see what was in the room behind the door. The only previous contact he had had with the CIA was on paper. He had seen a number of their intelligence assessments, and he had met a number of CIA bureaucrats, some of whom had lectured at the Command & General Staff College when he had been a student there. But he had never before been in a CIA station and met actual CIA field officers.

  He walked into the room.

  There was a large dining table. On it sat two silver champagne coolers, each holding a liter bottle of Japanese Asahi beer. Two men in clean white T-shirts were sitting at the table, drinking beer, munching on Planters peanuts, and reading Stars and Stripes.

  They hurriedly rose to their feet.

  Those are enlisted men!

  “Can I help you, Colonel?” the taller of them asked courteously.

  “My name is Raymond,” he said. “I have a message for the station chief from General Almond.”

  The taller of them jerked his thumb at the other one, which was apparently a signal for him to get the station chief.

  “It’ll be a minute, Colonel,” the taller one said. “Can I offer you a beer?”

  “I’d kill for a cold beer, thank you,” Colonel Raymond blurted.

  It was not, he instantly realized, what he would have said if he had considered his reply carefully—or, for that matter, at all. He was on duty as the personal messenger of the Corps commander, for one thing, and for another, field-grade officers do not drink with enlisted men.

  But it had been a long day, and the beer looked so good.

  The tall man found a glass—

  That’s a highball glass, a crystal highball glass!

  Where are they getting all these creature comforts?

  —filled it carefully with beer, and handed it to Lieutenant Colonel Raymond.

  “There you go, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Raymond was on his second sip when three other men came into the room. They were also wearing crisp, clean white T-shirts. One was lithe and trim, the second barrel-chested and muscular—Raymond decided he, too, was an enlisted man, probably a senior sergeant—and the third was sort of pudgy and rumpled.

  “What can we do for you, Colonel?” the pudgy one asked. He walked to the champagne cooler, poured beer, and handed glasses to the others.

  “I have a message for the station chief from General Almond, ” Raymond said. “Is that you, sir?”

  “Who are you, Colonel?” the pudgy one asked.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Raymond, sir. I’m the assistant X Corps G-2.”

  “You work for Colonel Schneider, right?” the pudgy one said.

  “No, sir, for Colonel Scott.”

  The pudgy one nodded at the trim one and confirmed, “That’s the name of the X Corps G-2.”

  “Are you the station chief, sir?” Raymond asked the pudgy one.

  The pudgy one pointed at the lithe one, and the lithe one pointed at the pudgy one.

  Station Chief William R. Dunston had pointed at Major Kenneth R. McCoy for two reasons. First, he was always reluctant to identify himself to anyone—even an Army G- 2 light bird—as the station chief, and second, he considered Ken McCoy to be de facto the senior CIA officer in South Korea.

  There was no question in Dunston’s mind that if there was an argument between him and McCoy, and General Pickering had to choose between them, McCoy would prevail. He had served under Pickering in the OSS in the Second World War, and they were personal friends as well.

  Major McCoy had pointed at Dunston because Dunston was the station chief, even though both of them knew McCoy was calling the shots.

  The chunky, muscular enlisted man chuckled when he saw the exchange.

  “Mr. Zimmerman, it is not nice to mock your superiors, ” the lithe one said, which caused the other two enlisted men to laugh.

  “May I presume that one of you is the station chief?” Lieutenant Colonel Raymond said. He realized he was smiling.

  What did I expect to find in here? A Humphrey Bogart type in a trench coat?

  “You may,” the lithe one said, and put out his hand. “My name is McCoy. That’s Major Dunston,” he added, pointing, “and Master Gunner Zimmerman, Technical Sergeant Jennings, and Sergeant Cole.”

  “What’s your message, Colonel?” Dunston asked.

  Raymond ran it through his brain first before reciting, “ ‘Classification Top Secret. As of 1445 hours this date, by order of the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, two H- 19 helicopters, together with their crews, maintenance personnel, and all available supporting equipment, have been transferred to you. The officer-in-charge has been notified and is awaiting your orders in the hangar across from base operations at Kimpo Airfield. Signature, Almond, Major General, Chief of Staff, Allied Powers.’ ”

  “Jesus!” Zimmerman said. “Helos? Two helos?”

  “Could you do that again, please, Colonel?” McCoy asked.

  Raymond did so.

  “Did General Almond say what we’re supposed to do with these helicopters?” Dunston asked.

  “If these are the two big Sikorskys that flew into Kimpo this morning, I know what we can do with them,” McCoy said.

  “Yeah,” Zimmerman said.

  “That’s General Almond’s entire message, sir,” Raymond said.

  “Colonel, have you had your supper?” McCoy asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “For two reasons, I hope you can have it with us,” McCoy said. “The first is to thank you for the helos, and the second is that I think you’re just the actor we need for a little amateur theatrical we’re staging.”

  “Yeah,” Zimmerman said. “And, Killer, if we can find Howe’s stars—and I’ll bet there’s a spare set in his luggage—we can pin them on him.”

  “Even better,” McCoy said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lieutenant Colonel Raymond confessed.

  “Colonel, we have a prisoner in the basement. A North Korean colonel,” McCoy explained. “We’re just about convinced (a) he’s a high-level intelligence officer and (b) that he knows something about either a planned Chinese Communist intervention or the situation which will trigger such an intervention. We’ve been working on him without much success. The one thing we do know for sure is that he has an ego. He wants us to know how important he is. What we’ve got set up for tonight is a dinner—”

  “A dinner?” Raymond asked in disbelief.

  “Roast beef, potatoes, rice, wine—lots of wine—and all served with as much class as we can muster.”

  Raymond had been eating his meals—prepared from Ten-In-One rations—off of a steel tray. There had been an infrequent beer, but it had b
een warm and in a can.

  “Can I ask where you’re getting all . . . of this?” he asked.

  McCoy looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled. He said: “Dunston’s people managed to hide a lot of the crystal and silver and even some of the wine before the North Koreans took Seoul, and the day before yesterday Sergeants Jennings and Cole toured Inchon Harbor, swapping North Korean souvenirs—flags, weapons, et cetera—with the crews of the cargo ships. You’d be surprised what a good Marine noncom can get for a Sudarev PPS-43 submachine gun.”

  Raymond chuckled.

  “Jennings and Cole,” McCoy went on, “came back with a weapons carrier—and its trailer—full of frozen food and beer. The freezers and the reefers here still work, so we’re in pretty good shape for a while.”

  “So the idea is, you’re going to feed this NK colonel and try to get him drunk?”

  “I don’t think he’ll let us get him drunk, but he might take a little more wine than he should,” McCoy said. “Enough to let something slip. Particularly if he thought he was impressing someone important. You’re a distinguished-looking man, Colonel. Asiatics—who don’t have much facial hair—are impressed with large mustaches. If we pin General Howe’s stars on you, I think he’ll buy you as a general officer.”

  “He speaks English?”

  “I think he does, but won’t admit it. Dunston, Zimmerman, and I speak Korean. I suppose it’s too much to hope—”

  “Nothing but German—I was there for four years—and not very good German.”

  In German, McCoy asked, “But if I said ‘Look doubtful, ’ you’d understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you could say, in German, ‘What did he say?’ when I give you the nod?”

  “Yes, I guess I could.”

  "Colonel, I really hope you can stay for supper,” McCoy said.

  Why not? Raymond thought. As long as I get back to the CP by twenty-four hundred, so I can relieve the colonel. . . .

  “If you think it would be useful, I will,” Lieutenant Colonel Raymond said.

  “You’re really going into the general’s luggage and borrow his insignia?” Dunston said.

  “Unless you’ve got a better idea where we can get a set of general’s stars,” McCoy said.

  Lieutenant Colonel Raymond decided that the lithe one, McCoy, was the station chief. He was the one giving the orders.

  [THREE]

  HANEDA AIRFIELD TOKYO, JAPAN 1805 29 SEPTEMBER 1950

  Fleming Pickering glanced out the window as the Bataan taxied toward the hangar that served as the departure and arrival point for the Supreme Commander and his entourage.

  He saw the line of staff cars lined up awaiting the Bataan’s passengers. MacArthur’s black Cadillac limousine was first, and the cars of the other brass were behind it, strictly according to the rank of their intended passengers. Pickering saw his black Buick Roadmaster sitting alone in front of the hangar, facing in the opposite direction from the others.

  Pickering knew this would annoy the Palace Guard, who would have greatly preferred to have his car with the others. His single star would have seen his car five or six cars behind MacArthur’s limousine, reminding him that he was actually just a minor planet revolving around MacArthur.

  MacArthur’s staff—and, for that matter, El Supremo himself—really didn’t like having anyone in their midst who did not have a precisely defined place in the hierarchy of the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers.

  There were two such burrs under the saddles of the Supreme Commander and the Palace Guard, Major General Ralph Howe, NGUS, and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR. Neither was subordinate to MacArthur, and both reported directly to the President of the United States.

  Pickering had not been at all surprised when he came to Tokyo that the Palace Guard had immediately begun to attempt to get some degree of control over him—the more the better, obviously, from their point of view—and had been prepared to fight that battle, confident that he could win it again, as he had in the Second War.

  The Buick—and his and George Hart’s fur-collared Naval aviators’ leather jackets—were more or less subtle statements that he was not subordinate to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers.

  The Buick was his. He owned it.

  When he had first come to Japan, he had been provided with an olive-drab Chevrolet staff car and a sergeant to drive it, and asked when it would be convenient for him to have the housing officer show him what government quarters were available for an officer of his rank, so that he could make a choice between them.

  There was no question in Pickering’s mind that the staff car drivers—three of them, on a rotating basis—were agents of the Counterintelligence Corps, and thus reporting to Major General Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur’s chief intelligence officer.

  He had politely thanked the Headquarters Commandant for the offer of government quarters, but said that he would prefer to stay where he was, in a suite in the Imperial Hotel. And he had sent an urgent radio message to Colonel Ed Banning, who was at Camp Pendleton, ordering him to immediately buy a small Buick or Oldsmobile and have it placed aboard the very next P&FE freighter bound for Japan, even if he had to drive to San Francisco to get it on the next ship.

  Colonel Banning had, with the word “immediately” in his mind, looked at the small Buicks and Oldsmobiles available in San Diego, decided “The General” would really not like any of them—he could not imagine “The General” riding around Tokyo in a bright yellow little Olds, or a two-tone, mostly lavender little Buick—and instead, eight hours after getting his orders, had stood on a wharf watching the black Buick Roadmaster being lifted aboard the Pacific Clipper, which he had been assured was among the fastest vessels in the P&FE fleet.

  As soon as the car arrived, Pickering had told the Headquarters Commandant he would no longer need the staff car; he would drive his own car. The Headquarters Commandant told him he’d really be more comfortable if he continued to provide drivers, just in case Pickering might find them useful.

  Pickering could not think of a reason to decline the “courteous, innocent” offer, so the “drivers” remained assigned to him. They usually spent their entire tour of duty reading newspapers and magazines while sitting on a couch in the corridor outside his suite. But sometimes he did use them. One of them had driven the Buick to Haneda in the morning, and had brought the car back to carry him to the hotel now.

  That had solved the problem of the CIC agent drivers reporting his every move to Willoughby, and McCoy had solved what Pickering knew was a major problem—how to keep the messages he and Howe were sending to Truman really secret.

  Despite the TOP SECRET EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT classification, eyes other than Truman’s would see the messages both in Tokyo, where they would be encrypted and transmitted, and at Camp Pendleton, California, where they would be decrypted, typed, and dispatched by Marine officer courier to the White House.

  Pickering was confident that there would be no leaks at Pendleton, where a Marine cryptographer working only for Colonel Ed Banning would handle the decryption, and just about as sure their messages would be read in the Dai Ichi Building communications center by people other than the cryptographers. An Army sergeant was unlikely to chase away a colonel with all the security clearances—or, for that matter, Major General Charles Willoughby himself— when he was reading over his shoulder.

  In Pusan, McCoy had run across a just-rushed-from-Germany -to-Korea Army Security Agency cryptographer, Master Sergeant Paul T. Keller, who didn’t even know any of the Dai Ichi Building cryptographers. A message from General Howe to the Army Chief of Staff in Washington had seen Keller the next day transferred to the CIA, with a further assignment to the staff of the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia.

  Keller was told—more than likely unnecessarily—that if there were any leaks of EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT messages they would know who had done the leaking.

  Pickering also suspected that Willoughby
was entirely capable of both tapping the telephones in his hotel suite and bugging the suite itself. Master Sergeant Keller had “swept” the hotel suite and found several microphones, which might, or might not, have been left over from the days of the Kempai-Tai, the Japanese Imperial Secret Police.

  There was no way of finding out for sure without tearing walls down to trace the wires, so they had left them in place. When Pickering had something to say he didn’t want Willoughby to hear, he held the conversation in the bathroom, with the shower running, the toilet flushing, and a roll of toilet tissue around the microphone in the left of the two lights on either side of the mirror.

  Most of the time, however, when there was a meeting they didn’t want overheard, they held the meeting in Mc-Coy’s house in Denenchofu. Keller swept the house on a regular basis.

  The Bataan stopped, and the engines died.

  General MacArthur looked at his watch, then stood up and stretched.

  “Jean and I would be pleased if you could come for dinner, Fleming. No one else will be there. Would eight be convenient for you?”

  “Thank you,” Pickering said. “I’d be delighted.”

  There was a discreet knock at the compartment door, and Huff’s voice calling, “We’re ready for you anytime, General.”

  MacArthur nodded at Pickering, pushed the door open, and went through it.

  Pickering looked out the window again. Master Sergeant Keller was leaning on the Buick’s fender.

  That means he either has a message for me, or that he got a little bored in the hotel and decided to drive the Buick out here himself.

  Pickering waited until all the brass had deplaned and gotten into their cars, then stood up and went into the aisle. Captain George F. Hart and Miss Jeanette Priestly were waiting for him.

  “Keller’s driving the car,” Hart said.

  “I saw,” Pickering said.

  “George said you were going to see Ernie,” Jeanette said. “Can I bum a ride?”

  “Your wish is my command, Fair Lady,” Pickering said.

  “Despite what people say about you, I think you’ll be a fine father-in-law,” she said.