In Danger's Path Page 20

  Stecker shook his head in resignation.

  [THREE]

  Office of the Director

  The Office of Strategic Services

  Washington, D.C.

  1425 25 February 1943

  The guard who brought them from the lobby was armed, and he had a badge on the chest of his blue, police-type uniform. Pickering—who was idly curious about him, and the OSS security system generally—wasn’t sure if he was some sort of a cop, a member of a separate OSS security force, or maybe hired from one of the commercial security outfits like Brink’s, or more likely Pinkerton. Pinkerton’s Washington/governmental activities went back to the Civil War when they’d worked for Abraham Lincoln.

  Whoever was providing security was doing a good job. When he and George Hart arrived in the lobby and announced he had an appointment with Mr. Donovan, it was first determined that he did in fact have an appointment. Then permission to admit Second Lieutenant George Hart had to be obtained, since his name was not on the list of expected visitors. Next, they were asked to provide identification. Once that was carefully examined and accepted, they were asked to sign two forms on clipboards. The first acknowledged their receipt of yellow-bordered badges reading “VISITOR 5th Floor Only.” One of the guards—this one wearing a gold badge and a lieutenant’s bar—alligator-clipped these to the flap of the right chest pocket of their tunics. The second listed their names, the date and time, the person they wished to see, and the purpose of the visit.

  After a moment’s thought, Pickering wrote “W. Donovan” and “social call” in the appropriate blocks.

  They were then turned over to a guard, who led them to the bank of elevators, rode with them to the fifth floor, then led them down a corridor to a door with an “Office of the Director” sign hanging over it. He pushed open the door, stepped inside, then held the door for Pickering and Hart and said, “General Pickering, to see the Director.”

  A plump, gray-haired, middle-aged woman moved her lips in a pro forma welcoming smile, then pushed a lever on her intercom box. “General Pickering is here,” she announced.

  Pickering noticed that she wore an identification badge with her photograph on it; it had diagonal blue lines running through it.

  “Send him in,” a metallic voice responded.

  “Through the door, please, General.”

  Pickering pushed the door open and walked through, thinking he was about to face the lion in his den.

  He found himself instead looking at a tall man in a well-cut suit. A bronze plate on his desk identified him as the Deputy Director (Administration). The identification badge pinned to his jacket pocket showed his photograph and had diagonal red lines running through it.

  “I’m Fleming Pickering.”

  “The Director was expecting you at twelve-thirty, General.”

  “Yes, I know,” Pickering said. “I was delayed.”

  “The Director doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “Does anyone?” Pickering asked.

  Well, I’m off on the wrong foot with this character, aren’t I? Well, screw him. I am not going to start off on the right foot, if that means I have to set the precedent of explaining my actions to this guy. Or did he really expect me to apologize to him?

  After looking at Pickering long enough to understand Pickering was not going to offer an explanation for being late, the Deputy Director (Administration) picked up a red, dial-less telephone on his desk.

  “General Pickering is here, sir,” he announced. After a brief pause while Donovan replied, he added, “Yes, sir,” and hung up.

  He stood up and gestured to an unmarked door. “This way, please, General. If you wish, your aide may wait here.”

  “George goes everywhere I go,” Pickering said. “Come with me, George.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Colonel Donovan was not alone in his office. Another well-tailored man in his fifties was with him, sitting slumped, his legs extended, his feet crossed, in one of two green leather armchairs arranged to face Donovan’s desk. He rose to his feet when Pickering and Hart entered the room and looked at Pickering carefully.

  “Hello, Bill,” Pickering said. “Sorry to be late.”

  “First things first,” Donovan said, coming from behind his desk to offer Pickering his hand. Then he introduced the new Deputy Director (Pacific) to the Deputy Director (Operations). The two men shook hands.

  The reaction of both men to each other was almost identical: I think I’m going to like this guy.

  Once he had learned that Pickering was joining the OSS, the DDO had taken the trouble to make discreet inquiries about him. They had many mutual acquaintances, and even a few mutual friends, and they all reported essentially the same things about him and about his wife: that Fleming Pickering had done a better job running P&FE than his father, even from the beginning (he had taken over at twenty-six). In this he’d received no little help from his wife. The proof of Patricia Fleming’s ability came when she stepped into her husband’s shoes after he went to work for Frank Knox.

  From the moment he took over, Pickering had preached efficiency (which usually meant the fast turnaround of ships) and had spent a lot of money (quickly recovered) to acquire the most up-to-date technologies and have these installed in P&FE’s major terminals throughout the Pacific.

  His other crusade was to break the long-standing tradition that the officers of a particular ship “owned it.” That is, they stayed with a particular vessel for years. When it was out of service for any reason, so were they, meanwhile continuing to draw their union-guaranteed pay. Under Fleming Pickering, P&FE’s officers (and many seamen, just about all of whom expected one day to be a P&FE officer) were expected to sail whichever ship needed their services, whenever those services were needed.

  It was an obvious tribute to Pickering’s leadership skills that he was able to carry that off, in the face of strong opposition from the Masters & Mates Union, the Maritime Engineer’s Union, and the International Brotherhood of Seafarers.

  Despite the sometimes strong pressure from these unions, his officers and sailors trusted him. They knew him well and that he had sailed with them, in every position from Seaman Apprentice to Master Mariner, Any Tonnage, Any Ocean. But, the DDO decided, after sixty seconds of examining Pickering face to face, they trusted him even more because he was that rare man whose character shows on his face and in his eyes, and whom people immediately trust.

  Many sources had also pointed out to the DDO that Pickering’s success with P&FE had not contributed much to his modesty. He was strong-willed, opinionated, and did not suffer fools.

  It was therefore not surprising that Donovan and Pickering had clashed. They were two of a kind. Strong, very successful men who were used to giving—but not taking—orders, and who did not like to have their decisions questioned. He wondered what would happen now that they were in the same ring.

  “I’m sure the delay was outside your control, Fleming,” Donovan said, and then indicated the empty green leather-upholstered armchair. “Sit down. Coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” Pickering said, and sat down.

  “It was a presidential summons,” he went on. “Roosevelt wanted to know what I thought about Frank Knox’s objections to taking the Office of Management Analysis into the OSS.”

  “Oh, really?” Donovan asked. His face whitened.

  “I told George to call and tell you we would be late,” Pickering said. “I didn’t know the protocol of talking about the President’s plans on the telephone, so I decided to be careful and explain why we were late when we finally got here.”

  I think Wild Bill is about to erupt, the DDO decided. He and Charley thought that was a done deal.

  “And you told the President that you didn’t think bringing Management Analysis in here was a very good idea? Is that about it?”

  “Actually, I told him it would be a very bad idea,” Pickering said evenly.

  “Certainly, General, you were aware that
the Director thought it was a very good idea?” the Deputy Director (Administration) asked.

  “The President didn’t ask me that,” Pickering explained, as if to a small child. “He asked me what I thought.”

  The DDO suddenly had a fit of coughing. The look the Deputy Director (Administration) gave him was not one of sympathy.

  “I’m sure you considered that the assets of Management Analysis might have been very useful to you in Operation Gobi,” Donovan said.

  “Frank Knox made a point of telling the President—and me—that the assets of Management Analysis would be available to the OSS for the weather station operation,” Pickering said. “And, as I told you over dinner, I am bringing some people from Management Analysis and elsewhere into the OSS. George has a list of their names.”

  “Give it to Charley,” Donovan ordered. “I presume they’re Marines?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Charley deals with the Marine Corps in personnel matters,” Donovan said.

  “I wish I’d known that,” Pickering said. “It would have saved me a trip to Eighth and I this morning. They have the list George has. And I don’t anticipate any trouble having the people I want transferred over here.”

  “There’s only so many training spaces available at the Country Club. Squeezing them in is going to cause some problems,” Donovan said thoughtfully. “Nothing that can’t be sorted out, but it will be a problem.”

  I was again wrong about Wild Bill, the DDO decided. Wild Bill did not blow his cork. And I really shouldn’t be surprised. He knows when erupting will be advantageous and when it won’t.

  If Charley came in here with high hopes—and I’m damned sure he did—that General Fleming Pickering was going to come in here and be immediately and firmly put in his place, he’s going to be very disappointed.

  “Did I detect at Dick Fowler’s dinner,” Donovan went on, “some question about your people going through the Country Club training program?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I’m glad you brought that up,” Pickering said. “In the case of two of my officers it seems to me that it would be a waste of time and money. Particularly since, as you said, there’s a shortage of training spaces.”

  “And why would that be, General?” the DDA asked smoothly.

  Be careful here, Pickering, the Country Club is Wild Bill’s pride and joy. He really thinks it turns nice boys from the better families into the sort of cold-blooded killers the OSS needs.

  “Major Ed Banning—he’s about to be a lieutenant colonel—and George here have MAGIC clearances. They cannot go operational, so why train them?”

  “The Lieutenant has a MAGIC clearance?” the DDA blurted.

  In OSS headquarters, only Director Donovan and the DDA had MAGIC clearances. The DDA considered it an indication of his importance…and had successfully argued to Director Donovan that the DDO didn’t need it, both because Donovan could make him privy to any MAGIC material he needed to know, and because having it would restrict his movements.

  “Yes, he does,” Pickering said. “I didn’t see how he could work efficiently for me without one.”

  Why do I suspect, Charley, that you are now really unhappy about how this meeting is going?

  “That makes sense,” Donovan agreed. “That was all there was to your objections about sending your people through training?”

  “There was a little more,” Pickering said. “I was thinking that some of the men I’m bringing in with me would make excellent instructors at the training school; they don’t really need basic training.”

  “You don’t think your men could learn anything at the training school?” the DDA asked.

  “Most of the people I’m bringing in with me, including George here, have at least one behind-the-lines operation behind them. Several of them two, and in one case, three,” Pickering said. “But, obviously, everybody can always learn something. I have no objection to them learning as much as they can, time and the Gobi operation permitting.”

  “You can work that out with Charley,” Donovan said. “That, and the other administrative details.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what they are,” Pickering said.

  “Pay, service records—we keep all service records here—that sort of thing, plus of course deciding who gets which badges,” Donovan said, pointing at the “VISITOR 5th Floor Only” badge hanging from Pickering’s tunic pocket.

  “These are known as ‘the barber’s pole special,’” the DDO said, tapping his own red-striped identification badge, fully aware that what he was about to say would further add to Charley’s unhappiness. “With one of them you have access to any OSS facility anywhere at any time. You’ll need one of these, of course, and the lieutenant will, and your deputy—Colonel Banning, you said?”

  Pickering nodded.

  “But probably all of your people won’t need that kind of unlimited access. Just tell Charley who you think should have what.”

  “We try to limit the Any Area Any Time badges to those who really have a need for them,” the DDA said.

  Pickering was obviously thinking that over. Finally he looked at Donovan.

  “I’m thinking, Bill, that if getting this operation off the ground as quickly as possible is as important as Admiral Leahy thinks it is, it might save time to give all of my people one of these—what did you call them, ‘barber’s pole specials’? That way, if it becomes necessary to take one of my people to some area, we wouldn’t have to run to Charley and get him the proper badge.”

  “We have never issued anyone at the Country Club a badge giving them access to this building, much less Any Area Any Time,” the DDA said.

  “Nevertheless, Charley,” Donovan said. “General Pickering’s point is well taken. Give all of his people Any Area Any Time access.”

  Charley, this is just not your day, is it? the DDO thought.

  “General,” the DDO said, “when you’re finished here with Bill, perhaps we could get together for a little while and try to figure out where we go from here.”

  “Certainly,” Pickering said. “Thank you.”

  “You can have him right now,” Donovan said. “Unless you have something else, Fleming?”

  “No, sir. I can’t think of anything.”

  “When you two have something on paper about where you want to go on this operation, and how you want to get there, let me see it,” Donovan ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering said, and pushed himself out of the green leather-upholstered armchair.

  IX

  [ONE]

  The Peabody Hotel

  Memphis, Tennessee

  1655 28 February 1943

  First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, was out of uniform: It was expressly forbidden for officers to appear in public places wearing flight gear, a regulation that both the Shore Patrol and the Army’s Military Police (in a spirit of interservice cooperation) enforced with what Pick thought was uncalled-for zealousness.

  He had given this regulation—and the zeal with which it was enforced—some thought before deciding to hell with it, and leaving Memphis Naval Air Station attired in a gabardine Suit, Flyers, Temperate Climate and a furcollared horsehide Jacket, Flyers, Intermediate, Type G1.

  After the fourth time he was written up—three times by the Shore Patrol and once by MPs—for being similarly attired in public places, his squadron commander, Captain Billy Dunn—he had been Dunn’s wingman on Guadalcanal—was really getting pissed about wasting his time answering “reply by endorsement hereto” correspondence stating that he had counseled and reprimanded the offending officer and was considering other disciplinary action.

  But he had told Elizabeth-Sue Megham, a statuesque Memphis belle with long blond hair, that he would meet her in the Peabody Bar at 5:30, and he didn’t want to be late. Since he was sure that Elizabeth-Sue would not wait for him, he took the chance.

  On a scale of one to ten—ten being a sure thing—Elizabeth-Sue was a nine. He had met her the previous
Friday evening at a service club dance on the Air Station. She had been one of four Memphis matrons chaperoning a busload of Nice Young Memphis Girls making their contribution to the war effort by going out to the air station on Friday nights to dance with white hats and enlisted Marines.

  Billy Dunn had assigned him to perform roughly similar duties, with orders to make damned sure none of the enlisted men of VMF-262 consumed intoxicants, behaved in an unsuitable manner, or tried to drag one of the Nice Young Memphis Girls off into the bushes, even, Billy had emphasized, if the Nice Young Girl was suffering from raving carnal lust.

  Although it was not officially stated, Pick was well aware that his assignment to this duty was punishment for his last encounter with the Shore Patrol while wearing flight clothing. The correspondence from the Naval District had landed on Billy Dunn’s desk while Pick had been in California, and Billy had been waiting for him on the flight line when he’d landed the Corsair.

  Greatly pissed was a massive understatement.

  It wasn’t that he was chasing married women, Pick told himself. He had danced with Mrs. Quincy T. Megham, Jr., as the polite thing to do to his civilian counterpart. And of course they had talked. He let her know, for instance, how much the men enjoyed the dances—even though he knew the statement was far from true: ninety percent of the men who showed up did it only because they couldn’t get a pass, or because they were broke. He also told her that chaperoning the dances was a fine thing and that the Marine Corps was really grateful.

  “Oh, I like to do it,” Elizabeth-Sue said. “My husband is out of town frequently these days. When he is, I’m bored and always looking for a little activity.”

  She doesn’t mean that the way it sounds, Pick decided just then. Not only is she a respectable Memphis belle, but we haven’t known each other five minutes.

  “I’ll bet you get bored out here, too, don’t you?” Elizabeth-Sue asked. “All alone in your room?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said.

  “I’ve heard that Bachelor Officers’ Quarters are—what is it they say, ‘out of limits’?—for lady guests. Is that true?”