Retreat, Hell! Page 16

  If we get him back, Pickering thought, but said, “Was there ever any doubt about that in your mind?”

  Hart chuckled.

  They went down the staircase and walked to the Buick. Hart got in the front beside Keller. Keller started the engine, then turned and handed Pickering a sheet of paper, folded in thirds.

  “Came in an hour ago, General,” Keller said.

  Pickering shifted in the seat so that Jeanette could not see what it was when he unfolded it.

  TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL

  SPECIAL CHANNEL

  ONE COPY ONLY

  EYES ONLY BRIG GEN FLEMING PICKERING USMCR

  BLAIR HOUSE 0235 28 SEPTEMBER 1950

  IN THE ABSENCE OF A REALLY COMPELLING REASON PRECLUDING YOUR TRAVEL, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU HERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. BEST PERSONAL REGARDS HARRY S TRUMAN

  TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL

  Pickering refolded the message and handed it to Hart.

  “Read that, don’t comment,” he ordered, “and then do the magic trick for Jeanette.”

  “Magic trick?” Jeanette asked. “What was that? Am I allowed to ask?”

  “No, you’re not. Show her, George.”

  Hart read the message, then turned to the backseat. He waved the sheet of paper in his hand.

  “Now you see it, Jeanette . . .” he said.

  He produced a Zippo lighter, flicked it open, and touched the flame to the sheet of paper. There was a sudden white flash and a small cloud of smoke.

  The sheet of paper disappeared.

  “. . . and now you don’t,” Hart finished unnecessarily.

  “Jesus Christ, what was that?” Jeanette asked.

  “That would be telling, Jeanette,” Pickering said. “When we get to McCoy’s house, set that up, please, George, including the appropriate reply.”

  “Yes, sir. When do we go?”

  “I thought it said, ‘as soon as possible,’ ” Pickering said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  [FOUR]

  NO. 7 SAKU-TUN DENENCHOFU, TOKYO, JAPAN 1915 29 SEPTEMBER 1950

  A middle-aged Japanese woman in a black kimono came through the steel gate in the wall around McCoy’s house, bowed to the black Buick, then went back inside the wall. A moment later, the double gates farther down the wall opened, and Keller drove the car inside.

  Mrs. Ernestine Sage McCoy, who was standing outside the door of the sprawling, one-floor Japanese house, was also wearing a black kimono.

  Pickering decided she was wearing it as a maternity dress rather than a cultural statement of some kind. He also thought that it was true that being in the family way did indeed give women sort of a glow. Ernie looked radiant.

  She came down the shallow flight of stairs as Fleming, Jeanette, Hart, and Keller got out of the Buick.

  As Ernie hugged Fleming, he could feel the swelling of her belly against him.

  “How are you, sweetheart?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “The question seems to be, How are the men in our extended little family?”

  “Ken’s fine,” Jeanette answered for him. “He looked like a recruiting poster when I saw him. Pick is still among the missing.”

  “Ken told me they had missed him by no more than a couple of hours yesterday,” Pickering said. “They’ll find him, I’m sure.”

  “Well, come on in the house, all of you, and have a drink. I didn’t know how many of you were coming, or when, so dinner will have to be started from scratch.”

  “Then I’ll have time to take a shower?” Jeanette asked. “Shower, hell, a long hot bath?”

  “Come on with me,” Ernie said. “Uncle Flem, you know where the bar is.”

  She put her arm around Jeanette and started to lead her into the interior of the house.

  “Wow,” Ernie said, first sniffing and then wrinkling her nose. “You really do need a bath, don’t you?”

  “You can go to hell,” Jeanette said.

  The middle-aged Japanese woman and a younger Japanese woman were already in the living room when Pickering led the others in. There were four bottles on the bar: bourbon, scotch, vodka, and beer.

  The men indicated their choices—two scotches and a bourbon—by pointing. The young woman made the drinks, and the older woman put them on a tray and served them. The younger woman left the room, returning in a moment with a tray of bacon-wrapped smoked oysters.

  Ernie came in as the oysters were being served.

  “I would really like a very stiff one of those,” she said. “But I am being the perfect pregnant woman.”

  “Good for you, sweetheart,” Pickering said. “How about an oyster and a glass of soda?”

  “Take what you can, when you can get it,” Ernie said, and said something in Japanese to the younger woman, who started to fill a glass with soda water.

  She turned to Pickering.

  “Was Ken telling Jeanette the truth about Pick? Or whistling in the wind to make her feel good?”

  “The truth, I’m sure,” Pickering said.

  “I really feel sorry for her,” Ernie said.

  “Ernie, two things. Thank you for dinner, but no thank you. MacArthur has invited me for dinner, and George and Paul have got things to do.”

  “Things that won’t wait until they can eat?”

  “That’s the second thing. No, they can’t wait. Don’t tell Jeanette, but there’s been a message from the President; he wants me in Washington as soon as I can get there.”

  “What’s that all about?”

  “I really don’t know. But he’s the President, Ernie. I do what he tells me to do.”

  “Don’t tell Jeanette?”

  “She’s a reporter.”

  “She’s Pick’s . . . I was about to say girlfriend, but she’s much more than that.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I still don’t want you to tell her.”

  “About you going to Washington, or about anything?”

  “This will sound cruel, perhaps, but the less Jeanette knows about anything, the better. Let me, or Ken, decide what she can know.”

  “You’re going to Washington, and Ken’s in Korea,” Ernie replied.

  “Come to Washington with me,” Pickering said.

  “No.”

  “You could see your parents for at least a couple of days.”

  “No.”

  “And then come back here, if you’d like.”

  “No, Uncle Flem. Thank you, but no.”

  “You want to tell me why?”

  “Ken’s here. This is our home.”

  “A couple of days with your parents would be good for all concerned,” Pickering argued.

  “They would spend all their time arguing that I should stay with them, and then be really hurt when I wouldn’t. It’s better the way it is.”

  “You don’t want your mother here when the time comes?”

  “Not unless Ken’s here, too. Then, sure.”

  “If she decides to come, you can’t stop her, Ernie.”

  “She knows how I feel. Can we get off this subject?”

  “Got your Minox, George?” Pickering asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then take a couple of pictures of me and the hard-headed pregnant lady in the kimono.”

  “Okay,” Ernie said, and smiled.

  “And then we have to get out of here, sweetheart,” Pickering said. “If you need anything, tell Paul. And if he can’t get what you need, he knows how to contact General Howe, and Howe will get it for you.”

  “Thanks, Paul.”

  “Anything you need, Ernie,” Paul Keller said. “Anything. ”

  Pickering stood up and put his arm around Ernie’s shoulders, and George Hart took three shots of them with the tiny Minox.

  [FIVE]

  HANGAR 13 KIMPO AIRFIELD (K-14) SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 0815 30 SEPTEMBER 1950

  Captain Howard C. Dunwood, USMCR, was having breakfast—ham chunks with raisin sauce, out of a can—with Major Alex Donald, U.S. Arm
y, when the small door in the left hangar door opened and a Marine corporal, a very large fair-skinned man in his early twenties, his field cap perched precariously on his head, came through, followed by four other men.

  “Heads up!” Major Donald whispered. “That must be the people I was told to expect.”

  Captain Dunwood said nothing.

  After a moment, he recognized two of the men. He had seen them before, the last time when Baker Company had landed on Tokchok-Kundo Island in the Flying Fish Channel leading to Pusan. At that time, both had been wearing black cotton pajamas, with bands of the same material wrapped around their foreheads. The tall and lanky one was now dressed in crisply starched utilities, with the chevrons of a technical sergeant painted on the sleeves. The other character who had been wearing black pajamas on the island was now in crisp utilities, with the gold leaves of a major pinned to his collar points.

  Dunwood had seen that one once before Tokchok-Kundo.

  At Haneda. On 15 August, the day I arrived in Japan from the States. Six weeks ago. It seems like a hell of a lot longer.

  At Haneda the major had been wearing a tropical worsted uniform and the insignia of a captain. A Marine brigadier general and a strikingly beautiful woman had put him and a Navy lieutenant on a C-54 bound for Sasebo.

  And I was half in the bag, and pegged him as a candy-ass chair warmer and made an ass of myself on the airplane, for which I paid with a dislocated thumb that still hurts sometimes. I suppose it’s too much to hope he doesn’t remember that incident.

  Dunwood had no idea who the other two were—a Marine master gunner and an Army Transportation Corps major in a rumpled uniform—and absolutely no idea what was going on.

  Major Donald—subtly making it clear that he was privy to highly classified information that he could, of course, not share with a lowly Marine captain—had told him only that “there had been a change of plans” and that “sometime in the immediate future, I will be contacted with further orders reflecting that change.”

  Major Donald put down his can of ham chunks in raisin sauce and marched to meet the newcomers. The crews of the two helicopters, who were also having their breakfast, sitting on the floor of their aircraft, watched with interest.

  Dunwood shrugged, put his can of ham chunks in raisin sauce down, and walked after Major Donald. When Donald became aware he was being trailed, he turned to look at Dunwood.

  And here’s where the sonofabitch tells me to butt out.

  “Hello, Dunwood. How are you?” McCoy said.

  Dunwood saluted.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “You know Sergeant Jennings,” McCoy said. “That’s Gunner Zimmerman and that’s Major Dunston.”

  “My name is Donald, Major.”

  “You’re in charge of these aircraft?” McCoy asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And I understand you were told you’d be contacted about them?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Well, here we are,” McCoy said. “My name is McCoy.”

  “I wonder if I might see some identification?” Donald said.

  “Ernie,” McCoy said.

  Zimmerman took a small leather wallet from his breast pocket, opened it, and held it so Donald could see it.

  “Thank you,” Donald said, then looked at McCoy. “I’m at your orders, sir.”

  “How much have you told anybody about any of this?” McCoy asked.

  “Not a word to anyone, Major.”

  “I’d like to speak to the aircraft people right now,” McCoy said. “Dunwood, you listen, and you decide which of your Marines you can tell, and what.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Donald walked to the closest of the H-19s and gestured for the men gathered around the second helicopter to come over.

  When they were finally assembled, McCoy saw there were four pilots, two enlisted men also wearing flight suits, and half a dozen maintenance personnel, all noncoms but one, who was a warrant officer.

  Donald barked “Atten-hut” and, when everybody was at attention, said, “This is Major McCoy.”

  “Stand at ease,” McCoy ordered. “I’m sure you’re all wondering what’s going on. I’ll tell you what I know, which frankly isn’t much. What follows is classified Top Secret, and I don’t know how many of you have that security clearance. For the time being, it should be enough to tell you that nothing about this operation is to be told to anyone. As I’m sure you all know, divulging Top Secret information will see you standing before a General Court-Martial. I’m dead serious about that. You don’t tell your pals about this, and you don’t write home telling your mother, your wife, or anyone else. If you do, we’ll find out about it and you’ll find yourself in front of a General Court. No second chances. We cannot afford to have loose mouths. Pay attention. The lives you’ll save by keeping your mouths shut will be your own.” He paused. “Any questions?”

  He took the time to make eye contact with everyone, including Major Donald, and then went on.

  “These aircraft, and all of you, have been assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency. You will continue to receive your orders from Major Donald, who will get his from the CIA station chief. Any questions?”

  One of the pilots raised his hand.

  “Okay,” McCoy said.

  “Sir, I always thought you had to volunteer for something like this.”

  “If you always thought that, Captain, you were always wrong,” McCoy said.

  There were chuckles from most of them.

  Another hand went up.

  “Sir, can I ask what we’ll be doing?”

  “Aside from flying those helicopters, no.”

  More chuckles.

  A voice from somewhere called, jokingly, “How do we get out of this chickenshit outfit?”

  “In handcuffs, a coffin, or when you retire,” McCoy said, smiling. Now there was laughter. “I’ll tell you what I can when I can. But for the time being, that’s it.”

  “I’d like to see you alone, please, Major,” McCoy said to Donald, and started walking toward the rear of the hangar. Dunston, Zimmerman, and Jennings followed him, and in a moment, so did Donald and Dunwood.

  “Major,” Donald said when they were out of earshot of the others, “if I’m . . . You can’t tell me what we’ll be doing, either?”

  “Because that hasn’t been decided,” McCoy said. “We didn’t know we were getting you and these aircraft until seventeen thirty yesterday. I don’t think you should share that information.”

  “I understand.”

  “We have some ideas, but we won’t know if they’re any good until we know what these machines can and can’t do. I never saw one of them until I walked into the hangar. Can we start with that?”

  “Yes, sir. What would you like to know?”

  “Everything,” McCoy said.

  Donald looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then began what McCoy quickly decided was a recitation he had given before.

  “These are Sikorsky H-19A helicopters,” Donald recited. “They are powered by a Wright R 1340-57 550-horsepower engine, which gives them a maximum speed of 98 mph, a cruising speed of 80 mph, and a range of about 410 miles. The helicopter itself is 42 feet long and has a wingspan of 53 feet. The empty weight is 5,250 pounds and the maximum takeoff weight 7,500 pounds. There is a three-man crew, pilot, copilot, and crew chief. It can carry ten men, in addition to the crew.”

  McCoy smiled.

  “I think you and Mr. Zimmerman will get along, Major. He, too, is a walking encyclopedia of technical information. ” He paused and then went on. “On the other hand, I have to have things explained to me.”

  “Ask away.”

  “You said the empty weight was . . .”

  “Fifty-two hundred and fifty pounds,” Donald furnished.

  “And the maximum takeoff weight 7,500 pounds. Does that mean these things will carry—what is that?—2,250 pounds?”

  “You have to deduct the weight o
f the fuel,” Donald explained. "AvGas weighs about seven pounds a gallon.”

  “Okay. You said it will carry ten men. Riflemen? With their weapons? Ammo? Rations?”

  “That figure is based on an average weight, man and equipment, of 180 pounds.”

  “But these things will carry 1,800 pounds of whatever 180 miles someplace, and then be able to return?”

  “That would be pushing the envelope a little,” Donald said.

  “The what?” Zimmerman asked.

  “They call the capabilities of aircraft ‘the envelope,’ ” Donald explained. “Just about everything affects everything else. The more you exceed the cruising speed, for example, the more fuel you burn and the less range you get.”

  “What about carrying 1,500 pounds 150 miles and back?” McCoy asked.

  “That could usually be done,” Donald said.

  “Do you need the crew chief?” McCoy asked. “If he weighs 180, that’s twenty-five gallons of gas.”

  “Crew chiefs are handy if the bird breaks,” Donald said. “And they have other in-flight duties.”

  “Essential, yes or no?” McCoy pressed.

  “Desirable, not absolutely essential.”

  “And the second pilot? That’s another twenty-five gallons of gas.”

  “Same answer. There is also the possibility that pilots take hits, and a spare pilot is a nice thing to have.”

  “Desirable, but not absolutely essential?” McCoy pressed again.

  “Right.”

  “You can fly one of these?” McCoy asked.

  “Yes. I was the assistant project officer on this aircraft.”

  “Can you fly it without help?”

  “If necessary. Why do you ask? If I can ask that.”

  “I’d like to see what you can see from the pilot’s seat. I don’t think anybody can see very much looking out the side door.”

  Donald nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Do you have another pilot who can fly one of these things by himself?”

  “They all can.”

  “Are these things fueled up and ready to go?”

  “I had them topped off yesterday afternoon.”

  “When you flew them here, did you fly over Inchon?”

  “I really don’t know what route they took. I’ll have to ask one of the pilots who did fly in here.”