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

"Yes, sir," Pick said.

"There's always tit-for-tat," Almond said to Pickering. "Okay?"

"What can I do for you, General?" Pickering replied.

"I'd like to see McCoy's-and, come to think of it, Ma-jor Pickering's-reports on what they find. Unofficially. I sometimes wonder if the reports we're getting at the daily briefings are designed to spare General MacArthur unnec-essary concern."

In other words, you suspect-with damned good reason- that Willoughby isn't reporting anything to MacArthur he doesn't think he should know.

"I'll see you get them," Pickering said.

Almond nodded.

"Major," he said to Pick, "it might be a good idea if you happened to be around the SCAP hangar at Haneda, in case Captain Haig might show up there."

"Yes, sir, I'll be there," Pick said.

Almond walked to the door and opened it. Then he turned and, in a voice loud enough to ensure the CIC could hear it, said, "I'll take your request to the Supreme Com-mander as soon as I can."

"Thank you, sir," Pickering said.

They smiled at each other, and then Almond went through the door.

[TWO]

THE PRESS CLUB

TOKYO, JAPAN

1530 28 JULY 1950

It was alleged by many of Miss Jeanette Priestly's associ-ates in the SCAP (and now UN Command) press corps- all of whom were male-that the Chicago Tribune's war correspondent had a Jesuit-like attitude regarding the de-velopment of her sources. That, in other words, the end justified the means.

While it was obviously not true that Miss Priestly would fuck a gorilla to get a story-as was sometimes alleged around the press club bar-it was on the other hand true that Miss Priestly was not above looking soulfully into the eyes of some virile major-or general or, for that matter, PFC-simultaneously allowing him to glimpse down her blouse at her bosom, onto which she often sprayed Chanel No. 5, and perhaps even laying a soft hand on his, if she thought the individual concerned was possessed of knowl-edge that would give her a story. Or, more recently, in Ko-rea, if he had access to a Jeep, or space on an airplane.

But she did not take these sources of news or air passage space to bed in payment for their cooperation. While it had been some time since she had lost the moral right to virginal white, the facts were that the urge and the opportu-nity had not coincided for quite some time.

Jeanette was honest enough to admit to herself that she had been strongly drawn to Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMC, probably because he had seemed like the only man in Korea who knew what he was doing. And he was cute. But he hadn't made a pass at her, and if he had, where could they have gone to share carnal bliss?

The green rice fields of Korea in the summer are fertil-ized with human feces, the smell from which tends to dampen romantic ardor.

And since they had been together in Korea, she had never seen McCoy again, so he was added in her mind to her long list of missed opportunities.

And sometimes, when everything else was right, some-thing in her psyche made her back off. There was no deny-ing that the Trans-Global Airways pilot, the one who had set the speed record, and whose father was a buddy of MacArthur, Pickering, was the legendary answer to a maiden's prayer. Tall, good-looking, wicked eyes, and with an undeniable charm. And rich.

Pickering had obviously been smitten with her. If he'd been a horse, he would have been neighing and tearing up the carpet with his hooves. And, if she had been willing to drop her almost maidenly reticence, there would have been a soft bed in the Imperial Hotel, with room service cham-pagne. And she had heard somewhere that airline pilots could provide free tickets, which was something to think about, too.

But there was something about Captain Pickering of Trans-Global Airways that turned on her alarm system. She had not become a foreign-now war-correspondent for the Tribune by making herself vulnerable. As the boys in the press club bar would phrase it, she knew how to keep her ass covered, literally and figuratively.

She could have made an ass of herself over Pickering, and she rarely put herself in that position. And anyway, he was gone. Since it was unlikely that she would ever see him again, she put him out of her mind.

Jeanette had learned that her best sources of information came from men who both lusted after her and were pissed off about something, who wanted to tell her something that she would write about, and put somebody else's ass in a crack.

When she saw Major Lem T. Scott, Signal Corps, U.S. Army, smile at her as she walked into the press club bar, she knew that in addition to whatever lustful fantasies might be running through his head, he was really there to tell her something.

Major Scott was a tall, rather good-looking man in his early thirties. He was an Army aviator, which gained him sort of unofficial membership in the press club. No journal-ist was going to kick an Army aviator out of the press club. Sooner or later, every journalist had to beg a ride in one of the Army's fleet of light aircraft. In the sure and certain knowledge that some journalist would stand drinks for them on the expense account, Army aviators often went to the press club bar.

It took Jeanette about thirty minutes to get from Major Scott what he had obviously come to the press club bar to tell her, "accidentally, in conversation."

Major Scott was attached to the Flight Section, Head-quarters, SCAP. Most of the light Army aircraft, and then-pilots, had been sent to Korea by General Almond. General MacArthur's personal light aircraft, a North American L-17 Navion, had not, and consequently neither had Major Scott, who was MacArthur's Navion pilot.

Possibly, Jeanette thought somewhat unkindly, because he had not been there, Major Scott wanted to be in action in Korea. It wouldn't be so bad, he said, if he was actually flying the Supreme Commander around, but he wasn't even doing that. The Supreme Commander had loaned his Navion to the CIA, and he had absolutely nothing to do, except once in a while fly one of the two L-19s that were left at the SCAP flight section.

Jeanette had long ago learned that letting a source think you know more than you actually do was a way to put them at ease. All she knew about the CIA in Japan was that it was rumored that MacArthur's economic advisor, Jonathan Loomis, was the CIA Tokyo station chief.

"What do you suppose Jonathan Loomis is doing with the general's Navion?"

"It's not Loomis," Scott said. "It's his boss, a Marine general named Pickering. He lives in the Imperial Hotel."

This was the first Miss Priestly had heard that General Fleming Pickering had any connection with the CIA at all. He'd even denied being a general.

The sonofabitch!

"Well, what do you suppose that General Pickering's doing with the Supreme Commander's Navion?"

"I don't know. He's got some Marine major flying it. He brings it back to Haneda for service. I know he's been in Korea. And all over Japan. I don't know who, if anybody, he's had with him.... The CIA doesn't say much."

"Huh," Jeanette said, thoughtfully.

"Just before I came here this afternoon," Scott added. "I found out this major is flying the Navion to Kobe first thing in the morning."

That was interesting. Another source had told her that the aviation elements of the First Provisional Marine Brigade would arrive at Kobe two days from now. She had already made reservations to take the train to Kobe to meet them.

"Anyone going with him?"

"I don't know, but if you're thinking of trying to catch a ride with him, forget it. Whatever they're doing, they don't want anyone to know about it."

In another five minutes, Jeanette was sure that she had extracted from Major Scott all that interested her, and, try-ing to sound as sincere as possible, told him she was really sorry she couldn't have dinner with him. Another time.