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

"Does it give room numbers?"

"Yes, sir. Four-oh-two for the deputy director, four-oh-six for the deputy director, administration."

Pickering walked to the door of the office and made a follow me motion with his hand and arm.

They followed him down the corridor toward the elevator, and then Pickering spotted and opened a door to a stairwell.

"It's only one flight down," he said.

One flight down, the door from the stairwell to the fourth floor could not be opened.

"Goddamn it!" Pickering said, and started down the stairwell, taking them two at a time, with Banning, McCoy, and Zimmerman on his tail.

The door from the stairwell to the lobby opened. Picker-ing started for the bank of elevators, and was intercepted by another guard in a police-type uniform before he could punch the button to summon the elevator.

"Excuse me, sir," the guard said. "May I see your badge, please?"

"I don't have a badge," Pickering said. "None of us have badges. It's one of the things I'm going to discuss with ei-ther Admiral Hillenkoetter or one of his deputies."

Another guard appeared.

"Sir, I can't permit you to get on the elevator without a badge, or an escort."

"Okay, escort me," Pickering said.

"Sir, I can't do that without permission from the party you wish to see."

"Okay. Get on the horn, call Admiral Hillenkoetter, or his deputy, or the deputy director for administration, and tell him that General Pickering wishes to see him."

"If you'll wait here, please," one of the guards said, and walked to the desk in the center of the lobby.

"How'd you get this far without a badge?" the other guard asked.

"I came down the goddamn chimney like Santa Claus," Pickering said.

Two minutes later, the first guard walked back over to them. He was carrying a clipboard.

"I'll have to see your ID cards," he said. "And then this officer will escort you to the office of the deputy director for administration."

That took another two minutes, but finally all five crowded into a small elevator.

They rose to the fourth floor, and the guard led them down the corridor to an office with a gold-lettered sign reading "Deputy Director, Administration" on the frosted glass of its door.

Inside was a reception room, occupied by a middle-aged secretary. A Navy captain stood beside her desk.

"General," he said. "I'm Captain Murfin, the deputy di-rector for administration. How can I help you?"

"Can we talk in there?" Pickering asked, pointing to the interior office.

"Yes, sir, of course. Can I offer you coffee?"

"That would be very nice, thank you," Pickering said. He followed Captain Murfin into his office.

"Captain, this is Colonel Banning, Captain McCoy, and Mr. Zimmerman. For lack of a better description, they are my staff."

They all shook hands. The secretary delivered coffee in mugs.

"Now, what's on your mind, General?" Captain Murfin asked.

"For openers, I will need, we will all need, identification badges. I'm getting tired of being escorted around by your guards."

"I'll arrange for temporary badges, of course."

"Does that imply you know we won't be around here long?" Pickering asked.

"No, sir. What it means is that I don't know how long you will be here."

"Or what I'll be doing?"

"That, too, General."

"Okay. Let me try to clarify that point. I am here and Captain McCoy is here at the order of the President of the United States..."

"So I understand, General."

"... and Colonel Banning and Mr. Zimmerman are here because they have been placed on indefinite TAD here, to work for me, by order of the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Orders to that effect are being cut today."

"Yes, sir. I suppose I can get you and the captain identity badges, but until I actually have the Colonel's and Mr. Zimmerman's orders in hand..."

`Tell me, Captain, is the deputy director in the build-ing?" Pickering interrupted.

"No, sir. He's not."

"And I understand the director is likewise off some-where?"

"He's at the Pentagon, sir."

"Which leaves you the senior officer on duty?"

"Yes, sir. I suppose I am running the store at the mo-ment."

"Well, Captain, in that case, let me tell you how you're going to run the store," Pickering said. "We are both in the Naval service, and I don't think I have to tell you that a brigadier general outranks a captain."

"Sir..."

"What you are going to do, Captain, is immediately take our photographs and fingerprints and whatever else you need to have ID cards printed up for all four of us. Those identity cards will be waiting for us in the lobby no later than 0800 tomorrow. You may consider that an order. If the director wishes to discuss this with me-or the deputy di-rector, presuming he is senior in rank to me-wishes to discuss this with me, I will be-we will all be-in my apartment in the Foster Lafayette hotel. Do you have any questions?"

The deputy director for administration considered his reply for at least twenty seconds. Then he said, "General, if you and these gentlemen will come with me, I'll take you to the photo lab."

"Certainly," Pickering said. "And there is one other thing, Captain."

"Yes, sir."

"Please get word to Admiral Hillenkoetter that I will be here at 0800 tomorrow, and respectfully request a few min-utes of his time as soon as possible thereafter."

"I'll give him that message, sir," Captain Murfin said.

[SIX]

THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE SUITE

THE FOSTER LAFAYETTE HOTEL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

1805 1 JULY 1950

"I really don't know what to think," Colonel Ed Banning said, popping a bacon-wrapped oyster in his mouth. "I wish I'd known about the Killer's assessment before now...."

"Goddamn it, are you never going to belay that Killer crap?" McCoy snapped.

"Sorry, Ken," Banning said.

"Never," Pickering said, "at least not among those who know you and love you so well."

"Sorry, Ken," Banning said, sincerely contrite. "It just slips out."

"Forget it," McCoy said.

"As you have forgotten that good Marine captains don't cuss at Marine colonels?" Pickering asked.

"Sir, Captain McCoy begs the colonel's pardon."

"It's Okay, Killer, forget it," Banning said.

That caused laughter.

The truth was while they were not drunk, they had been sitting, drinking, in the living room of Pickering's suite- technically, he had commented, his wife's suite; she was the chairman of Foster Hotels, Inc.-since 1645, when they had returned from the CIA complex, all the bureau-cratic necessities for the issuance of identity cards having taken a little more than an hour.

Some of their conversation had dealt with wondering where the women were; they should have been in the hotel by noon, but most of it had dealt with what was going on, both in Korea and with themselves.

A bellman had been dispatched to the National Geo-graphic Society building, several blocks away, to get a map of Korea-"On second thought, you'd better get half a dozen," Pickering had ordered. "Everything they've got, the coast of China from the Burmese border, near Ran-goon, to the Russian border, to the Sea of Okhotsk."

Using the maps, McCoy had delivered an hour-long briefing, entirely from memory, of the disposition of North Korean forces on the Korean peninsula; of Chinese and Russian forces up and down the coast of the Asian conti-nent; of U.S. Army forces in Korea-there were practically none in Korea-and Japan; and even of Nationalist Chi-nese forces on Formosa.

He traced the possible routes of invasion across the 38th parallel, and offered his assessment of the probable North Korean intentions.

"I don't think they expected the Americans to intervene, but I don't think that it will have any effect when we do. We probably can't get enough forces over there quickly enough to stop them. What we do send is likely to be pushed into the sea here, in the deep South, around Pusan."