W.E.B. Griffin - Retreat, Hell!

I'M GOING TO SHOW PICKERING THIS BEFORE I SEND IT, LARGELY BECAUSE I WANT HIM TO KNOW WHAT I'M TELLING YOU.

RESPECTFULLY, AND WITH BEST REGARDS TO BESS

RALPH

END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENERAL HOWE

TOP SECRET/PRESIDENTIAL

Pickering raised his eyes to Howe.

"Jesus, Ralph," he said.

"Is there anything in there you disagree with?" Howe asked.

"No," Pickering said simply. "Except you wanting to leave me here to face the lions all by myself."

"I've outlived my usefulness," Howe said. "And I really think you can do anything for the President that I can."

He put out his hand for the message, and when Pickering handed it to him, he turned to Di-san. She was sitting at the keyboard of the decryption machine, her fingers flying over the keys.

As they watched, the electric typewriter section of the machine began to clat­ter as it typed the now decrypted message.

She waited until it had finished, then ripped the yellow paper from the ma­chine and handed it to Howe.

"Thank you," he said, and handed her his message. "Put the correct date time block on this, please, and send it."

Di-san nodded and turned back to the keyboard.

Howe read the back-channel, then handed it to Pickering.

FROM KELLER

TO ROGERS OR JENNINGS

PASS TO GEN PICKERING ON ARRIVAL: COL HUFF CAME TO IMPERIAL LOOKING FOR HIM. HE FINALLY TOLD ME WHY. MACARTHUR HAD SENT HIM TO TELL THE GENERAL THAT MAJ PICKERING WAS TRANSFERRED FROM THE CARRIER TO THE DESTROYER MANSFIELD AT 1500. MANSFIELD IS EN ROUTE PUSAN, ETA EARLY TOMORROW. MAJ PICKERING WILL BE FLOWN IN HOSPITAL PLANE TO SASEBO, AND THEN ON TO THE NAVY HOSPITAL IN SAN DIEGO. TELL THE GENERAL I THOUGHT ERNIE AND MRS PICKERING WOULD WANT TO KNOW, AND SO I HAVE PASSED THE WORD.

"Well," Howe said, "I guess you'll want to be in Pusan when he gets there."

"I'll have Hart get us seats on the Round Robin in the morning," Picker­ing said.

"The Beaver's at your disposal, Flem," Howe said. "If you want, you can use that."

"I hadn't thought about that," Pickering replied. "I guess what I could do is leave early, and go to Pusan by way of Socho-Ri. Would that be possible?"

"You could also wait to go to Socho-Ri after you see your boy," Howe said. "Your call, Flem."

"Let's go see what the pilot says," Pickering said, and then had another thought. "Keller didn't mention Jeanette Priestly. I'm sure Pick's lady friend'll want to see him. She's in Wonsan, right? Maybe we could pick her up at the same time."

"I don't know if she's in Wonsan or not," Howe said. "Or, for that matter, where she is."

"Really?" His surprise showed in his voice.

"I know Dunston and McCoy were looking for her, but I never heard where they found her."

"Well, let's go find out," Pickering said. "I think Pick will be far more in­terested in seeing her than me."

"General," Bill Dunston said a little uncomfortably. "The first thing I did when I got the Killer's Operational Immediate was call the Press Center at Eighth Army Rear in Pusan. They told me they expected her but she hadn't ar­rived yet. I left word for her to call me the minute she got in."

"And she didn't call?" Pickering said.

"No, she didn't. So—maybe around suppertime—I went there myself. She had been there—they told me they had given her my message, and that she had signed on to the roster for a Gooney Bird flight to Wonsan. They said it was a long roster and she almost certainly wouldn't get out the next day, more likely the day after that. They didn't know where she was. So I called around town, and couldn't find her."

"And you left it there?" Colonel Ed Banning inquired, not pleasantly.

Dunston replied, "You don't know this lady, Banning ..."

Pickering picked up on that—"Banning," not "Colonel"—and thought, Dunstons resentment is starting to show.

". . . she's a free spirit," Dunston went on. "There's no telling where she would be. I figured maybe she arranged her own ride to Wonsan—she doesn't like waiting—and that that had happened in such a way that she didn't have time to call me. Or didn't want to."

"So you stopped looking?" Banning asked.

"What I did, Banning, was get on the horn to Wonsan, specifically to the Capital ROK Division—we have a friend there, a colonel named Pak—and asked him to look for her, to have her call me, and then I called Zimmerman at Socho-Ri. Ernie knew about the major having been picked up, and he had already started checking around for the Priestly woman. I told him to keep look­ing, and to give me a yell if he found her."

"And he never called, Bill?" Pickering asked.

"He never called."

"Gunner Zimmerman looked all over for her, sir," Jennings said, "and when I came here, he told me to call him and let him know where she was. I guess he figured if she wasn't in Wonsan, or anywhere on the east coast, she had to be either here or in Pusan."

"So the bottom line," Banning began unpleasantly, "is that you were ordered to find Miss Priestly, and not only haven't done so, but didn't inform anyone that you failed—"

"That will enough, Colonel," Pickering interrupted him, coldly.

Banning was visibly surprised by both the order and the tone of Pickering's voice.

"He's right, General," Dunston said. "I guess I dropped the ball."

"I don't look at it that way," Pickering said. "You did what you thought had to be done. But I'm open for suggestions."

"I'll go out to K-16 and check with the Air Force," Dunston said. "The base commander is a pretty good guy. And while I'm doing that, Jennings is first going to get on the horn to Zimmerman, and then start calling all the division public information officers. She has to be here somewhere."

"When are you going to do this?" Pickering asked.

"That whoosh you hear, General, is me going out the door," Dunston said. He put his champagne glass on the table. "I'll finish this," he said, "when I have put my hands on the lady."

He walked out of the dining room. Zimmerman followed him.

Pickering looked at Banning.

"Come with me, please, Colonel," he said.

He walked out of the dining room with Banning on his heels, and led him out of the building into the courtyard. He stopped in the middle.

"Okay, Ed," he said. "You've got a hair up your ass. Tell me what it's all about."

"Sir, I don't know what you—"

"You've been pissing everybody off with your attitude since you got here, and I want to know why."

"With respect, sir, I don't—"

"You can either tell me what's bothering you, Ed, or I'm going to tell George to get you a seat on the first flight out of here tomorrow, and that will be the first leg of your flight to the States. I like you, we're—I have always thought— old and good friends, but I cannot afford to have you come in here with an at­titude that's pissing off good people. You understand me?"

They locked eyes.

"That was a question, Colonel," Pickering said.

Banning exhaled audibly.

"Milla's in the hospital," he said softly.

"Milla's in the hospital? When did this happen?"

"She went in yesterday, or the day before—I don't even know what day it is in the States, much less what time—to have a lump removed from her breast. Or maybe the whole breast, depending on what they find."

"Then what the hell are you doing here?" Pickering said.

"You sent for me," Banning said simply.

"Jesus H. Christ! If I had known about your wife . . ."

"I'm a Marine officer," Banning said.

"And a good one. But as a human being, you're a goddamn fool," Picker­ing said.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, sir," Banning said.

"Where is she? What hospital?"

"Charleston," Banning said.

"These are your orders, Colonel. You are to go up to the third floor of this building. There you will find a Korean woman named Di-san. You will order her to send an Urgent Message to the Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Charleston. Quote—Urgently require report status Mrs. Milla Banning, presently in Whateverthehell Hospital Charleston. Update hourly or more fre­quently, as necessary, until notified otherwise. Signature, Pickering, Brig. Gen. CIA Deputy Director for Asia—Unquote."