Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

"That miserable sonofabitch!" Hart said, furiously.

"Captain," General Howe said, amused, "you are refer-ring to the very senior aide-de-camp to the Supreme Com-mander of all he surveys. A little respect might be in order."

"Very little," Pickering said.

Christ, that was a dumb thing to say. You must be more than a little plastered, Fleming Pickering.

"I'm talking about that CIC clown in the hall. I asked him if he had seen you, and he said he had no idea where you were."

"So you went looking for me?" Pickering asked, softly.

"Yes, sir. I thought maybe you took a walk, or some-thing."

"Or was having a belt or two in the hotel bar? You looked for me there?"

"Yes, sir. I was about to go to General Howe-I didn't know what the hell to do-when Charley... Sergeant Rogers... came in the suite."

"I'm all right, George. MacArthur heard about Pick and wanted to express his concern."

"Yes, sir."

"Make yourself a drink, George," Howe said.

He looked at Pickering as he spoke.

My God, he's thinking the same thing I am. George was really concerned, really worried. More than that, he saw that George's concern went far beyond that of an aide-de-camp/bodyguard for his general. It was-what?-loving concern? Well, maybe not loving concern, more like the concern of a son for his father. But isn't that, by definition, loving concern?

"No, thank you, sir," Hart said. "I'll just stick around un-til the boss decides to go to bed."

"The boss has just decided to do just that," Pickering said, and drained his glass. He looked at Howe. "By your leave, sir?"

"That sounded very military, Flem," Howe said. "Very professional, if you take my meaning. And just to keep things straight between us: I don't think you're capable of not thinking clearly. Goodnight, my friend."

When Pickering got out of the shower and went into his bedroom, a crack of light under the door to the sitting room made him suspect that George was still in there.

"Go to bed, Captain Hart!" he called.

"Aye, aye, sir," Hart called back. "In just a minute."

Pickering got in bed and turned out the light.

It was three full minutes before the crack of light under the door went out.

Well, if I think about it, it's not so strange that George thinks of me as a son thinks of a father. From the time the Killer re-cruited him from Parris Island, from the first day, he's been taking care of me. When I was sick in Washington. All through the war. After. I was his best man when he got mar-ried, because he'd lost his own father. His second son is Fleming Pickering Hart. And not to kiss my ass. On half a dozen occasions, I made it as clear as I could that I would be delighted to help-loan him money, give him money-and he always turned me down.

And he was really uncomfortable when Patricia and I set up the trust funds for his kids.

What does that mean?

It means that while I may have-probably have-lost one son, I still have another. Named George.

Jesus! Not one. Two! The Killer.

The three of them were like brothers.

Patricia was really upset when Ernie married the Killer and not Pick. I wasn't. As far as I was concerned, the Killer was family, and it didn't really matter whether Ernie married Pick or Ken McCoy.

My God! The Pickering line ends here. And the Foster line.

Now, obviously there is very little chance that there will ever be a squalling infant named either Malcolm S. Picker-ing Jr., or Fleming Pickering II. Or Foster Pickering. Any-thing like that.

Does that matter to me?

Pick being gone matters a hell of a lot. I really would have liked to see the family continue. Patricia will never be a grandmother of a child carrying her father's name.

And that thought opens the door to another problem I never considered before: What happens to PandFE and Fos-ter Hotels, now that Pick won't be around to inherit them, the way that Patricia and I did?

Jesus H. Christ, all the time and money we spent on lawyers to make sure that when Patricia and I were gone, Pick would get PandFE, and Foster Hotels, Inc., and not the goddamn government.

That's all down the tube.

What does it matter?

Who cares?

Something will have to be done.

I will be goddamned if the government gets PandFE and Foster. Or one of those goddamned charities of Greater San Francisco United Charities, Inc.!!!

Leave it to George and the Killer?

Suddenly dumping enormous sums of money on some-one whose previous experience with money is worrying about how to make the mortgage and the car payments is a sure blueprint for disaster.

If we split it between George and the Killer, Ernie could handle the Killer's share, but George?

That will require some thought. Just as soon as this mess is over-hell, before it's over-I'm going to have to get with the goddamn lawyers....

Jesus Christ, Pickering, you are drunk!

You don't even know that Pick is dead, and you're wor-rying about what's going to happen to his inheritance.

Oh, Pick, goddamn it!

Why you and not me? My life's about over, and yours was just starting!

He felt a sudden pain in his stomach, and he was having trouble breathing, and his throat convulsed, and his eyes watered.

Jesus Christ, I'm crying!

Dear God, please let Pick be alive!

[THREE]

EVENING STAR HOTEL

TONGNAE, SOUTH KOREA

0605 5 AUGUST 1950

Captain Kenneth R. McCoy went from sleep to full wakefulness in no more than five seconds. It had nothing to do with where he was, or any subconscious perception of dan-ger. That was just the way he woke. Sometimes it annoyed his wife, who took anywhere from three to thirty minutes to be fully awake, and was not prepared to report, for example, what the guy at the garage had said about the condition of the brakes on the car, the moment she opened her eyes.

Without moving his head, McCoy looked around the room, establishing where he was. Next he looked at his wristwatch, establishing the time, and a moment later, kicked off the sheet covering him and swung his legs out of the bed.

He had slept naked, anticipating a hot and humid night. That hadn't happened. The hotel was not only close enough to the water to get a breeze from it, but some clever Orien-tal-he wondered if it was a clever Japanese or a clever Ko-rean; but whoever had built the "rest house" for the officers of the Emperor's army-had rigged some sort of power-less device that directed the breeze into the rooms.

He was in one of the better rooms-perhaps the best-in the hotel. It had its own bathroom, toilet, washbasin, and tub and shower, as opposed to most of the others, which had only toilets and washbasins, according to Major Kim Pak Su while conducting a tour of the place the night before.

McCoy tested the water, and after a moment it turned hot. He got a safety razor from his duffel bag and shaved while showering. When he returned to the bedroom, the bed had been stripped, and a freshly pressed set of utilities had been laid on it. And a freshly pressed T-shirt and drawers.

He wondered how many Marines in the 1st Brigade would wear freshly washed-much less pressed-utilities and underwear today. -

And he was just a little uncomfortable with the knowledge that someone in the hotel was watching him closely enough to know when he'd gotten out of bed, and that he hadn't heard anyone enter the room while he was showering.

He put on the underwear, then strapped his Fairbairn to his lower left arm, put on the utilities, and supped his bare feet into rubber sandals. Then he went looking for the din-ing room.

There were five oblong, six-place tables in the room. Major Kim, Lieutenant Taylor, and Master Gunner Zim-merman were sitting at one of them. The chair at the head of the table was empty. McCoy wondered if that was a co-incidence or if it had been left empty for him, as recogni-tion that he was in charge. The Marines recruited from the 1st Brigade were spread among the other tables.