Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

There was a long silence.

«That will be all,» Admiral Leahy said. «You are dismissed.»

«Yes, sir.»

«Donovan,» Admiral Leahy said, as he walked into the transcription room, «we have to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again in the future.»

«Yes, sir,» Donovan said.

«I think you'd do better talking to Colonel Albright than I would, Colonel.»

«Yes, sir,» Donovan said, handed his headset to the Admiral, and walked into the White Room.

«I don't like to think, Pickering,» Admiral Leahy said, «what would have happened if your Colonel Banning had been cowed by General Dempsey.»

«What's going to happen to General Adamson, sir?»

«In any army but ours, he would be handed a pistol and expected to do the right thing. I'm not sure if he's a colonel or a lieutenant colonel in the regular army. I suppose he'll wind up as commanding officer, or executive officer, of a POW camp. Something like that.»

«That's sad.»

«Yes, it is,» Leahy said. «Eisenhower has already reduced six general officers to their permanent grade and sent them home for not being able to keep their mouths shut.»

«I didn't know that.»

«General, it's not the sort of thing they issue press releases about,» Leahy said, and put his headset on.

«To get right to the point, Colonel Albright,» Donovan's voice came over the earphones, «it has come to my attention that a back-channel message was sent to the signal officer, Eyes Only, Major General Dempsey, of the military mission to China, which among other things announced the imminent arrival of magic devices and personnel to operate the Special Channel. Did you have anything to do with that message?»

«No, sir,» Colonel H. A. Albright said immediately.

«Do you know anything about such a message?»

«No, sir,» Albright said immediately.

«Have you any idea who could have sent such a message.»

Colonel Albright did not reply.

«Colonel, do you have any idea who could have sent such a message?» Donovan asked, impatience in his voice.

«I don't like to speculate about that sort of thing, Colonel.»

«Let me rephrase, Colonel. I am not asking for a name. Do you have any private suspicions about who would have sent such a message?»

Again Albright didn't reply.

«Yes or no, Colonel?» Donovan asked, not unkindly.

After a perceptible hesitation, Albright replied, «Colonel, to repeat myself, I don't like to speculate about such matters.»

«Yes or no?»

«If I have your word, Colonel, that you will not ask me for a name?»

«You have my word.»

«Yes, sir, I think I could make a good guess who would send such a message.»

«But you won't give me the name?»

«That's correct.»

«I could get General Adamson in here and have him order you to give a name. For God's sake, Albright, we're talking about the compromise of magic.»

Albright didn't reply.

«If you refused a legal order from General Adamson, you would, as I'm sure you realize, be opening yourself up for disciplinary action?»

«Any accusation—and that's what it would be—I would make without knowledge of the facts would ruin someone's career, even if I was wrong. In that circumstance…«

«Wait here, please, Colonel,» Donovan said. «I'll be back in a moment.»

«If you're going for General Adamson, Colonel,» Colonel Albright said, «I can probably save you time. I won't answer the question from him, either.»

«Just wait here, please, Colonel,» Donovan said.

«I feel like Diogenes,» Donovan said when he walked into the transcription room. «I've just found an honest—read, ethical—man.»

«In the Navy, they call that loyalty upward. It's commendable,» Admiral Leahy said. «But is this the exception that proves the rule?»

«The question is,» Pickering said, «did Albright know about the heads-up? If he did and didn't report it, he's wrong. If he didn't, the question is what would he have done if he did know about it.»

«Do you think he knew, Pickering?» Leahy asked.

«No, I don't,» Pickering said thoughtfully, and only then remembered to add, «Sir.»

Leahy pointed at Second Lieutenant Hart.

«I should have asked that question of you first, son,» he said. «So your answer would not be colored by hearing what General Pickering said.»

«He would have told somebody, sir,» Hart replied. «He guards magic like a lioness guards her cubs. And he was almost like one of us, sir. That message could have fucked up McCoy and Zimmerman. Whatever it cost him, he'd have done whatever he had to do to keep that from happening.»

«General Rickabee?»

My God, I forgot he's here

, Pickering thought, actually surprised to see him, and even more surprised to realize that he had been there all the time.

And he has never opened his mouth.

Does that mean he was cowed by Donovan and Leahy?

Or that he had nothing to say? With the implication he approved of the way Donovan has conducted the questioning?

«Admiral, I'd bet on Albright,» Rickabee replied. «He knows when to keep his mouth shut.»

So much for my theory that Fritz is cowed by Admiral Leahy.

«Colonel Donovan?» Leahy asked.

«If I had to bet on it, sir—and that's what we're doing, isn't it? Taking a chance with other people's lives?—I don't think Albright knew, and I think if he knew. he would have done whatever had to be done.»

«That makes it unanimous, gentlemen,» Admiral Leahy said.

«So what do we do now?» Pickering asked. «The way I read Colonel Banning's back channel, anything we send over the Special Channel to Chungking will be read by Dempsey and/or his deputy.»

«Can we get something to your station chief in Chungking, Donovan, with any assurance that it won't be read by anyone else?» Leahy asked.

«I know very little about the Chungking Station, or how it operates,» Pickering said coldly. «The first time I heard we have—more correctly, that I have—an OSS station in Chungking was in Banning's Special Channel.»

«You have station chiefs all over the Pacific, General,» Donovan said. «Including one in Chungking. You were supposed to be briefed on that. I presumed that you had been.»

«Who was supposed to brief me, your Deputy Director (Administration)?» Pickering asked sarcastically.

«As a matter of fact, yes.»

«Well, goddamn it, I wasn't,» Pickering said. «Now I'm starting to wonder what else I should know that I haven't been told.»

«Your position, Colonel Donovan,» Leahy asked, «is that General Pickering's—what shall I say, 'inadequate briefing'?—was another failure on the part of your Director for Administration, and that until just now, you knew nothing about it?»

«It's a failure on my part, Admiral,» Donovan said sincerely. «It was my responsibility to make sure that

my

DDA did what he was supposed to do. And I just didn't do it.»

«What's the damage assessment?» Leahy asked, looking at Pickering.

«Reading between the lines of Colonel Banning's back-channel, Admiral, what he's done has told McCoy and Zimmerman to make themselves scarce while he waits to see what I'm going to be able to do for them.»

«There was supposed be a message to the Chungking station chief giving him a heads-up that Banning and the others were coming,» Donovan said.

«By

name

?» Admiral Leahy asked softly. But there was enormous menace in his voice.

«No, sir,» Donovan said. «The standard phraseology would be 'you will be contacted by an officer whose orders will be self-explanatory,' or words to that effect.»

«Was this message sent?» Leahy asked.