In Danger's Path Read online

  He took a uniform from a closet, still-in-its-fresh-from-the-dry-cleaners-paper-wrapping, ripped off the paper, and laid the uniform on the bed. With a skill born of long practice, he quickly affixed his insignia and ribbons to the tunic. His ribbons indicated, among other things, that he had seen Pacific service, during which he had twice suffered wounds entitling him to the Purple Heart Medal with one oak-leaf cluster.

  Next he took a fresh, stiffly starched khaki shirt from a drawer and quickly pinned a gold major’s oak leaf in the prescribed position on its collar points. He slipped on the shirt, buttoned it, tied a khaki field scarf in the prescribed manner and place, and put on the rest of his uniform. The last step before buttoning his tunic was to slip a Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP pistol into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back.

  The entire process, from the moment the telephone rang until he reached the apartment building’s curb where a light green Plymouth sedan was waiting for him, had taken just over eleven minutes.

  Though the car had civilian license plates, the driver, a wiry man in his thirties just then leaning on a fender, was a Marine technical sergeant. He was in uniform, which told Banning that when the call from the crypto room came in, no one around the office had been wearing civilian clothing—and there’d been no time to summon somebody in civvies. Standing operating procedure was that the unmarked cars were to be driven by personnel in civilian clothes. The sergeant straightened up, saluted, and then opened the door for him.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” Banning said, smiling, as he returned the salute.

  “The Colonel indicated you might be pissed, sir,” the sergeant said.

  “I left that goddamn place nine hours ago,” Banning said. “And now another eight hours!”

  “War is hell, isn’t it, sir?”

  “Oh, screw you, Rutterman,” Banning said.

  Sergeant Rutterman drove Major Banning to the Navy Building, where Banning underwent four separate security screenings before reaching his destination. The first was the more or less pro forma examination of his identity card before he could enter the building. The second, which took place on the ground floor, required him to produce a special identity card to gain access to the Secure Area. When this was done, he was permitted to enter the elevator to the second sub-basement. Once he was in the second sub-basement, armed sailors carefully matched a photo on his Cryptographic Area identification card against a five-by-seven card that held an identical photograph. The successful match allowed them to admit him to the area behind locked steel doors. The final security check was administered by a Navy warrant officer and a chief petty officer at a desk before still another heavy, vaultlike door.

  Although they both knew Banning by sight, and the warrant officer and Banning had often shared a drink, they subjected him to a detailed examination of the three identity cards and finally challenged him for his password. Only when that was done, and the chief petty officer started to unlock the door’s two locks—the door also had a combination lock, like a safe—did the warrant officer speak informally. “I can see how delighted you are to be back.”

  “Is he in there?” Banning said.

  “Oh, he’s been in there, Major, waiting for you.”

  There was no identifying sign on the steel door, and few people even knew of the existence of the “Special Communications Room.” Even fewer had any idea of its function.

  In one of the best-kept secrets of the war, cryptographers at Pearl Harbor had broken several of the codes used by the Japanese for communications between the Imperial General Staff and the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, as well as between Japanese diplomatic posts and Tokyo. Most, but not all, of the cryptographers involved in this breakthrough had been Navy personnel. One of the exceptions was an Army Signal Corps officer, a Korean-American named Lieutenant Hon Song Do.

  Intercepted and decrypted Japanese messages were classified TOP SECRET—MAGIC. The MAGIC window into the intentions of the enemy gave the upper hierarchy of the United States government a weapon beyond price. And it wasn’t a window into the Japanese intentions alone, for some of the intercepted messages reported what the Japanese Embassy in Berlin had been told by the German government. In other words, MAGIC also opened a small window on German intentions as well.

  But it was a window that would be rendered useless the moment the Japanese even suspected that their most secret messages were being read and analyzed by the Americans.

  The roster of personnel throughout the world who had access to MAGIC material fit with room to spare on two sheets of typewriter paper. It was headed by the name of President Roosevelt, then ranged downward through Admiral William Leahy, the President’s Chief of Staff; Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations; General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff; Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Navy Commander in Chief, Pacific; General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Area; and Major Edward J. Banning, USMC; then farther downward to the lowestranking individual, a Marine Corps Second Lieutenant named George F. Hart.

  Almost as soon as the system to encrypt and transmit MAGIC messages had been put in place, the senior officers with access to it—from Roosevelt on down—had realized that MAGIC also gave them a means to communicate with each other rapidly and with the highest possible level of security. The result was that nearly as many “backchannel” messages were sent over the system as there were intercepted Japanese messages.

  “Okay, Major,” the chief petty officer said to Banning, and swung the vaultlike door open. Banning stepped inside and the chief swung the door closed after him. Banning heard the bolts slip into place.

  Inside the room were two desks placed side by side, a safe, and two straight-backed chairs. The MAGIC cryptographic machine was on one of the desks, along with a typewriter and three telephones, one of them red and without a dial.

  A Navy lieutenant commander rose from one of the chairs. His uniform bore the silver aiguillettes signifying a Naval aide to the President, and he carried a .45 ACP pistol in a leather holster suspended from a web belt.

  “Good morning,” Banning said.

  He had seen the lieutenant commander a dozen times before and didn’t like him.

  “It was my understanding that this facility was to be manned twenty-four hours a day,” the lieutenant commander snapped.

  Banning looked at him carefully. He reminded himself to control his temper.

  “Ordinarily, it is,” he said. “In this instance, one of your swabbies got sick to his tummy, and the Marines had to fill in for him.”

  “It is also my understanding that the officer in charge will be armed,” the lieutenant commander said.

  “I’m armed. Do you want to see it, or will you take my word as a fellow officer of the Naval establishment?”

  The lieutenant commander looked for a moment as if he intended to reply to the comment, but then changed his mind.

  “Well, let’s have it, Commander,” Banning said. “Time is fleeting.”

  The lieutenant commander unlocked the handcuff that attached his briefcase to his wrist. After he had placed the briefcase on the table, he unlocked the briefcase itself.

  He took from it a clipboard and a large manila envelope, unmarked except for a piece of paper affixed to it in such a way that no one could open it without tearing the paper. To facilitate that, the paper was perforated in its center.

  He handed Banning the envelope. Banning wrote his name on one half of the paper. Then he sealed the envelope, tore it loose, and handed it to the lieutenant commander. The lieutenant commander handed him the clipboard, and Banning signed the form it contained, acknowledging his receipt of the envelope and the time he had accepted it. Then he picked up one of the black telephones, dialed two digits, and ordered, “Open it up, Chief.”

  They could hear keys in the locks, followed by the faint whisper of the combination lock.

  Banning ripped open t
he manila envelope. It contained another manila envelope, nearly as large. This one was stamped TOP SECRET in red ink four times on each side, and sealed with cellophane tape imprinted TOP SECRET.

  He didn’t open this envelope until the lieutenant commander had left the room and the chief had closed and locked the door after him again. He had to use a pocketknife to cut through the cellophane tape, very careful not to damage whatever the envelope held. Finally, he held several sheets of paper in his hand. They were typed on White House stationery, and bore the signature of Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief.

  Each page was stamped, top and bottom:

  TOP SECRET

  COPY 2 OF 2

  SPECIAL CHANNEL TRANSMISSION

  DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

  Banning read the message through, said, “I’ll be damned!” and then reached for the telephone and dialed a number from memory.

  “Liberty 3-2908,” a familiar voice answered.

  “Sir, I respectfully suggest you come over here. Right now.”

  There was a pause, long enough for Banning to consider whether or not Colonel Rickabee was going to accept the suggestion.

  “On my way,” Colonel Rickabee said finally, and hung up.

  Banning laid the message on White House stationery beside the MAGIC encryption device, made the necessary adjustments to the mechanism, and began to type. From the far side of the encryption device, a sheet of teletypewriter paper began to emerge. It was covered with apparently meaningless five-character words, in one block after another. When that process was complete, Banning tore the teletypewriter paper from the device, laid it on top of the original message, threw several switches, and began to type the encoded message back into the machine.

  To ensure accuracy, standing operating procedure was to decrypt a Presidential Special Channel after it had been encrypted, so that it could be compared with the original before it was transmitted. It was a time-consuming process, and Banning wasn’t quite through when the sounds of keys in the locks and the twirling of the combination device announced the arrival of Colonel Rickabee.

  “Almost finished, sir,” Banning said.

  Rickabee waited more or less patiently for Banning to finish. And then, because it was quicker to do that than for Banning to make the comparison himself, he held the teletypewriter decryption while Banning read the original message aloud.

  * * *

  T O P S E C R E T

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON

  0900 8 FEBRUARY 1943

  VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL

  GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

  SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA

  FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM THE PRESIDENT TO GENERAL MACARTHUR

  MY DEAR DOUGLAS:

  I’M SURE THAT YOU WILL AGREE THE FOLLOWING IS SOMETHING AT LEAST ONE OF US SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF SOME TIME AGO. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR GETTING THIS INTO FLEMING PICKERING’S HANDS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

  ELEANOR JOINS ME IN EXTENDING THE MOST CORDIAL GREETINGS TO YOU AND JEAN.

  AS EVER,

  FRANKLIN

  END PERSONAL FROM THE PRESIDENT TO GENERAL MACARTHUR

  FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM THE PRESIDENT TO BRIG GEN PICKERING

  MY DEAR FLEMING:

  FIRST LET ME EXPRESS MY GREAT ADMIRATION FOR THE MANNER IN WHICH YOUR PEOPLE CONDUCTED THE OPERATION TO ESTABLISH CONTACT WITH WENDELL FERTIG IN THE PHILIPPINES AND MY PERSONAL DELIGHT THAT JIMMY’S COMRADE-IN-ARMS CAPTAIN MCCOY AND HIS BRAVE TEAM HAVE BEEN SAFELY EVACUATED. PLEASE RELAY TO EVERYONE CONCERNED MY VERY BEST WISHES AND GRATITUDE FOR A JOB WELL DONE.

  SECOND, LET ME EXPRESS MY CHAGRIN AT NOT SEEING THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEM VIS A VIS OSS OPERATIONS IN THE PACIFIC UNTIL, LITERALLY, LAST NIGHT. I WOULD NOT HAVE DREAMED OF COURSE OF OVER-RIDING THE WHOLLY UNDERSTANDABLE CONCERNS OF GENERAL MACARTHUR AND ADMIRAL NIMITZ THAT HAVING THE OSS OPERATE IN THEIR AREAS OF COMMAND WOULD MEAN THE INTRUSION OF STRANGERS WHICH MIGHT INTERFERE WITH THEIR OPERATIONS. IN THEIR SHOES, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SIMILARLY CONCERNED.

  WHAT IS NEEDED OF COURSE IS SOMEONE WHO ENJOYS THE COMPLETE TRUST OF BOTH ADMIRAL NIMITZ, GENERAL MACARTHUR, AND DIRECTOR DONOVAN. I HAD FRANKLY DESPAIRED OF FINDING SUCH A PERSON UNTIL LAST NIGHT WHEN I WAS STRUCK BY SOMETHING CLOSE TO A DIVINE REVELATION WHILE HAVING DINNER WITH OUR GOOD FRIEND SENATOR RICHARDSON FOWLER AND REALIZED THAT HE…YOU…HAD BEEN STANDING IN FRONT OF ALL OF US ALL THE TIME.

  I HAVE TODAY ISSUED AN EXECUTIVE ORDER APPOINTING YOU DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES FOR PACIFIC OPERATIONS. I AM SURE THAT GENERAL MACARTHUR AND ADMIRAL NIMITZ WILL BE AS ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT THIS APPOINTMENT AS WAS DIRECTOR DONOVAN. I HAVE FURTHER INSTRUCTED ADMIRAL LEAHY TO TRANSFER ALL PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT OF USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT SIXTEEN TO YOU, AND TO ARRANGE FOR THE TRANSFER OF ANY OTHER PERSONNEL YOU MAY FEEL ARE NECESSARY.

  WHILE YOU WILL BE REPORTING DIRECTLY TO DIRECTOR DONOVAN, LET ME ASSURE YOU THAT MY DOOR WILL ALWAYS BE OPEN TO YOU AT ALL TIMES. I LOOK FORWARD TO DISCUSSING FUTURE OPERATIONS WITH YOU JUST AS SOON AS YOU FEEL YOU CAN LEAVE BRISBANE.

  WITH MY WARMEST REGARDS

  FRANKLIN

  END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT TO BRIG GEN PICKERING

  BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT

  LEAHY, ADMIRAL, USN

  CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE PRESIDENT

  T O P S E C R E T

  * * *

  In what was for him was an extraordinary emotional reaction, Colonel F. L. Rickabee blurted, “I will be damned!”

  “Yes, sir,” Banning said.

  “You better take it to Radio, Ed,” Rickabee said. “I’ll see that this stuff is shredded and burned.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Major Banning said, and reached for the phone to tell the chief to open it up.

  [TWO]

  Office of the Supreme Commander

  Supreme Headquarters

  South West Pacific Ocean Area

  Brisbane, Australia

  1505 8 February 1943

  When the Military Police staff sergeant on duty in the corridor saw the Signal Corps officer approaching, he smiled at him and gave him permission to enter the outer office of the Supreme Commander with a wave of his hand.

  By and large, the enlisted men of Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Ocean Area, liked Major Hon Song Do, Signal Corps, USAR. Not only was he a pleasant officer, who treated the troops like human beings, but he was known to be a thorn in the sides of a number of officers whom the troops by and large did not like.

  “How goes it, Sergeant?” Major Hon Song Do greeted him, smiling.

  He was carrying a battered, Army issue leather briefcase. It was held to his left wrist with a chain and a pair of handcuffs. The right lower pocket of his tunic sagged with the weight of a .1911A1 Colt automatic pistol.

  “Can’t complain, sir.”

  Major Hon was a very large man, heavyset and muscular, with 210 pounds distributed over six feet two inches. His thick Boston accent was a consequence of his before-the-war years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had been a professor of theoretical mathematics.

  Major Hon pushed open the door to the outer office of the Supreme Commander and walked across the room to a large desk. Behind the desk sat a tall, rather good-looking officer whose collar insignia identified him as a lieutenant colonel serving as aide-de-camp to a full (four-star) general.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” the Major said. “I have a Special Channel for General MacArthur.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Sidney Huff raised his eyes briefly from the typewritten document he was working on, then returned his attention to it. His actions were a hairsbreadth away from being insulting.

  Finally, he raised his eyes to the Major. “I’ll see if the Supreme Commander will see you, Major.”

  Now that’s bullshit, Huff, and you know it. You and I both know that the arrival of a Special Channel gets El Supremo’s immediate attention, ahead of anything else.

  Except perhaps if he is occupyin
g the throne in the Supreme Crapper when it gets delivered, in which case it will have to wait until he’s finished taking his regal dump.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Major Hon was not sure why Lieutenant Colonel Huff disliked him.

  One possibility was that Huff disliked Orientals, and it didn’t matter whether an Oriental was the Emperor of Japan or—as he was—a Korean-American born to second-generation American-citizen parents in Hawaii, and a duly commissioned officer and gentleman by Act of Congress.

  A second possibility was that it was dislike by association. Major Hon—as were the others associated with MAGIC—was assigned to the Office of Management Analysis, and were not members of MacArthur’s staff. Hon’s immediate superior officer was Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, Director of the Office of Management Analysis, who didn’t think much of Colonel Huff, and did not try very hard to conceal his opinion.

  A third possibility—and Major Hon was growing more and more convinced this was the real reason—was that he played bridge at least once a week with the Supreme Commander and Mrs. MacArthur, and they both called him by his nickname, “Pluto.” This really offended Huff’s sense of propriety. A reserve officer—maybe even worse, an academic—who had not been in the Philippines with El Supremo getting close to MacArthur violated all that Huff held dear.

  Colonel Huff knocked at the Supreme Commander’s closed door, opened it, stepped inside, and closed the door.