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

"What's important, George?" McCoy asked.

"He asked me," Zimmerman said. "Hart did. We thought we should come."

"To do what?"

Watch your goddamn temper. They're just trying to be helpful. .

"Lieutenant Taylor has some ideas about the islands in the Flying Fish Channel," Hart said.

"Right now, I don't give a rat's ass about the islands in the Flying Fish Channel," McCoy said.

"You better hear him out, Ken," Zimmerman said.

McCoy, just in time, bit off what came to his lips-"Go fuck yourself-and said nothing.

Instead, he opened one cabinet after another until he found the liquor supply, found a bottle of Famous Grouse-

"You drink scotch, Taylor? There's everything."

"Scotch is fine," Taylor said.

-set it on the butcher's block, and then went back to cabinets to find glasses. He put the glasses on the butcher's block, poured Famous Grouse an inch deep in each, and wordlessly passed them out.

"To Pick, wherever he is," he said.

The others raised their glasses. Zimmerman and Hart said, "Pick."

"The general said he's probably a prisoner," Zimmer-man said.

"That's good news?"

"Considering the alternatives," Zimmerman said, "yeah."

"So what's so important?" McCoy said.

"If you want to be pissed at somebody, be pissed at me," Hart said. "This was my idea."

"What was your idea, goddamn it, George?"

"I asked Taylor what sort of a plan he had, and he said it was sort of like a Marine Raider operation in War Two," Hart said. "So I told him he ought to talk to Zimmerman and you; you were in the Raiders."

"For a cop, George, you have a big mouth," McCoy said.

"So I got Zimmerman in the room, and Taylor told him what he was thinking, and Zimmerman said, `We got to show this to Kil-McCoy.'"

"Why?" McCoy asked.

"Because Taylor has to show it to the boss and that Army general, and probably by seventeen hundred," Zim-merman said. "And the first thing the boss is going to do- and you know it, Killer-is ask you what you think."

"I think the idea will work," Taylor said.

"So do I," Zimmerman interjected.

"You do, huh?" McCoy said.

"... and I don't want the idea shot down just because some Army colonel or Annapolis captain didn't think of it first, or it's not according to the book," Taylor finished.

Mrs. Ernestine McCoy came into the kitchen. There was no sign of the tears that had run down her cheeks, but her mascara and eye shadow were mussed, and her eyes were red.

"Hey, Ernie," Zimmerman said. "Sorry about Pick."

He went to her and with surprising delicacy, put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

"I heard someone come in," she said. "I didn't know who it was." She put her hand out to Lieutenant Taylor. "I'm Ernie McCoy."

"Sony to barge in like this, Mrs. McCoy. I'm David Tay-lor."

"Hello, George," Ernie said. "Rotten news, huh?"

"What am I, the only one in the room who hasn't given up on him? Christ, he walks through raindrops. He always has. You know that."

"I haven't given up on him, goddamn it," McCoy said.

"None of us have, George," Ernie McCoy said. "I just talked to his mother. She wanted to come over here."

"Did you manage to talk her out of it?" McCoy asked.

"Yes, I did. I told her she'd only be in the way; that you and Uncle Flem... General Pickering... were already working on the problem. Is that-I hope-what this is?"

"Not exactly," McCoy said. "Taylor has an idea about a major problem with the Inchon landing, and these two think I should have a look at it." He saw the look of sur-prise on Taylor's face, and added: "General Howe has granted my wife a Top Secret/White House, Mr. Taylor."

"Probably because he knows you can't keep a secret from a woman," Zimmerman said.

"Screw you, Zimmerman," Ernie McCoy said, conversa-tionally. "I think I'll have one of those," she added, and reached for the bottle of Famous Grouse. "And then, if you don't think I should know about this, I'll fold my tent and silently steal away."

Fuck it, why not? If she walks out of here, she'll go to the bedroom and start crying again. I can't stand to hear her cry.

"OK, Taylor, let's hear the idea," McCoy said. "Honey, will you take notes?"

"You want to do it in here, or in the dining room?" Ernie asked.

"The dining room," McCoy said.

"I'll send Kon San and the others shopping," Ernie said. "And get a pad and pencil. If you're going to drink in there, you bring the bottle and glasses."

[THREE]

"Let's start from scratch," Taylor said, pointing with a pen-cil at a map laid out on the dining room table. "Here's Taemuui-do Island and here's Yonghung-do Island, both of which have to be taken before the invasion fleet can make it into Inchon.

"If they're taken on D Minus One, as the brass wants to do, that means the North Koreans will know about the in-vasion twenty-four hours before it happens, and damned sure will be waiting for the invasion. So the thing to do, it seems to me, is take them just as soon as we can."

"Wouldn't that give the North Koreans even more notice of the invasion?" Ernie McCoy asked.

It was evident on Taylor's face that he was not accus-tomed to having a woman-even an officer's wife-just join in a discussion of a military operation.

"It would, Mrs. McCoy-"

"Please call me `Ernie,'" she interrupted.

"Okay. It would, Ernie, if the Army did it. Or the Marines. But if they thought it was a South Korean operation, they might-probably would-think it was just that. And if their intelligence didn't come up with any unusual Naval activity in the next week, ten days, they'd probably relax again."

"I see a couple of problems with that," McCoy said, "starting with the fact that the South Koreans don't have any forces to spare, and if they did, they wouldn't know to attack an island."

"I'm not thinking of the South Korean Army, McCoy," Taylor said. "I want to do this with irregulars, guerrillas, militia, whatever the right word is."

"Where are they going to come from?" McCoy said.

"We recruit them, train them..."

"Who's we?" McCoy asked. "You and me?"

"Give me a chance with this, will you, McCoy?" Taylor said.

"Go ahead," McCoy said. "Convince me."

"There are hardly any troops on these islands. Maybe a platoon, maybe a reinforced platoon on Taemuui-do, and even fewer men on Yonghung-do. And they're not first-class troops, either. Some of them are North Korean na-tional police."

"How do you know that?"

"I know," Taylor said.

"As of when?"

"As of ten days ago," Taylor said.

"That's what's known as old intelligence," McCoy said. "A lot can happen in ten days."

"Mr. Taylor, he's always doing that," Zimmerman said. "Looking for the worst thing. Trust me, he's good at this sort of sh-operation."

"But keep in mind, Taylor," Hart said, "that his bite is re-ally worse man his bark."

There were chuckles.

"On the Tokchok-kundo islands...," Taylor said, point-ing at the map again, "here, in addition to the natives, there're a lot of refugees from the mainland. And fisher-men from Inchon, and up and down the coast, are always going there. Going off at a tangent, the fishermen should

be put to work keeping us aware of what's going on in the area; they're always going in and out of Inchon, and the North Koreans leave them alone, by and large."

"Are you talking about recruiting the natives and the refugees?" McCoy asked.

"Something wrong with that? Those people don't want the North Koreans to win. They know what will happen to them."

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with it," McCoy said.

"Ken, you and I could go have a look," Zimmerman said.

"Yeah," McCoy said, thoughtfully.

"If we could recruit these people, quietly," Taylor urged, "arm them, train them, and maybe get a destroyer to pro-vide some naval gunfire-it wouldn't take much-we could-they could-take both Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, and the North Koreans would think the South Koreans were doing it because they thought they could get away with it."