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

«I know him,» Groscher said. Pickering understood that he had been interrupted in order to save time; an explanation of who Banning was and what he did would not be necessary.

«When he got to Chungking with the magic devices the President had sent to China, these two signal officers—and God only knows who else—knew all about it.»

«Who told them?» Groscher asked coldly.

«The Secretary of the JCS and the Deputy Director for Administration of the OSS,» Pickering said.

«My God!»

«Yeah,» Pickering agreed.

«What happened to them?» Groscher asked. «Admiral Nimitz will want to know.»

«The OSS fellow was sent to St. Elizabeth's,» Pickering said. «I don't know what's happened to General Adamson.»

«Adamson, Charles M?» Groscher asked. «Major General?»

Pickering nodded.

«They should have been shot,» Groscher said.

Pickering looked at him in surprise and realized Groscher was perfectly serious.

«Any explanation why they did what they did?» Groscher asked when Pickering didn't reply.

«None that made any sense to me,» Pickering said.

«I know Albright,» Groscher said. «I went to Washington when we were going to get magic devices here. He checked me out on them. Good man. He should have been a general long before this.»

«I like him,» Pickering agreed.

He looked out the window and saw they were pulling up before the two-story white masonry building that housed the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and his senior staff.

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPAC, was busy. When one of his aides put his head in the door of his office, a dozen officers were sitting at the conference table. Most of them were admirals and generals, but a few Navy captains and one Marine colonel were sprinkled among them.

«General Pickering and Captain Groscher are here, Admiral.» There were barely concealed looks of annoyance on the faces of the men at the table. They sensed an interruption to their labors and didn't like it. Nimitz understood. He really resented the interruption to his schedule that was about to take place, but it had to be done.

«Gentlemen,» he said. «Take a ten-minute coffee break. I'll be as quick as possible.»

Everyone began to stuff documents into briefcases. Almost all of the documents were stamped secret and top secret.

For a moment Nimitz considered telling them to belay that. Captain Groscher had already seen everything on the table, or soon would, and Pickering was cleared for anything classified. Time would be saved by telling his staff just to leave the documents where they were. But he immediately realized that that would set a bad precedent. If the Admiral was a little sloppy with classified material, that would constitute a license for the others to be sloppy.

He waited until all the documents had disappeared from sight, then stood at the door of his office until all the officers had filed through it.

«Welcome to beautiful Hawaii, again, Fleming,» he called. «Come on in. You, too, Groscher.»

«Good afternoon, sir,» Pickering said.

Nimitz closed the door himself. He saw the clock on the wall.

«Actually, it's the cocktail hour,» he said. «Can I offer you something stronger than coffee?»

«Sir, I think I'd rather wait until I talk to my people,» Pickering said.

«Okay, coffee it is,» the Admiral said, and walked to a table against the wall that held a coffee machine and a rack of standard Navy white china cups. He worked the lever, filling a cup, and then handed it to Pickering. He filled another, handed it to Groscher, and finally poured one for himself.

«Would you mind standing?» he asked. «My doctor's been telling me that sitting for long hours with my knees bent is bad for an old man's circulation.»

«You're not old, sir,» Pickering protested automatically.

«You've read the two messages?» Nimitz asked, getting to the point.

«Yes, sir.»

«Fill me in, please,» Nimitz said.

Pickering told him what he knew of the events in Chungking and Washington.

«How bad is it? How long can we continue to believe that the Japanese don't know about magic?»

«I just don't know, sir,» Pickering said.

«I think that's why George Marshall wants you in Chungking as quickly as possible,» Nimitz said. «For the damage evaluation.»

«Sir, I think that's why he promoted Colonel Albright,» Pickering said. «And is sending him to Chungking. He would be much better at that than me.»

«Groscher knows and likes this fellow. He told me he's just the man to keep the barn door closed. The question is, how many cows got out?»

«Let me give you the worst possible scenario, General,» Captain Groscher said. «That's my job.»

«And he's very good at it,» Nimitz said.

«The real harm those two in Washington did was to degrade the secrecy of magic,» Groscher began. «Remove the awe for it, if you like. It's obvious—to me, at least—that they regarded access to magic as a prerogative of rank or position, a marshal's baton, so to speak. They didn't really understand the necessity for keeping magic secret.»

«Yeah,» Pickering agreed thoughtfully.

«I would suppose that of the senior officers around here, ninety percent know something about magic, at least that it exists, and that only a very few, very senior officers—the Admiral and his chief of staff—and a handful of middle-level underlings like me have access to it. Everybody wants to be important, you follow me?»

Pickering shook his head sadly, in agreement, and blurted, «God, in Brisbane, MacArthur's G-2 pouted like a child until he got a magic clearance.»

«We have that situation here. It is reasonable to presume it exists in Chungking,» Groscher went on. «What was the USMMCHI's signal officer's name? Dempsey?» Groscher asked.

«Right,» Pickering said.

«General Dempsey almost certainly knew of the existence of magic and that only important people got access to it. The difference between here, Hawaii, and Brisbane is that the Admiral and General MacArthur knew of the importance of magic, and more important, the absolute necessity of keeping it secret…«

Groscher stopped. «How much do you know of the command structure over there?» he asked.

«Very little.»

«There is an overall command,» Admiral Nimitz said. «The China-Burma-India theatres of operation. Theatres, plural. Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten is the Supreme Commander. He's in New Delhi. As of this moment, he does not have magic, although over the objections of Admiral Leahy and General Marshall, he's going to get it.

«There is also, under CBI, the China theatre of operations, with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek the theatre commander. He asked for, and got, an American chief of staff. General Joseph Stillwell. Stillwell is also the commanding general of the U.S. military mission to China.

«The President has similarly decided that Chiang Kai-shek will be given magic access. Again over the objections of Admiral Leahy and General Marshall. Probably in the hope that the President can be persuaded to change his mind, neither Chiang Kai-shek nor General Stillwell, so far as I know, has been told either that magic exists or that they are to be given access to it,» Nimitz concluded, and then asked, «This is the first time you're hearing this?»

«I knew, sir, of Admiral Leahy's reluctance to give Mountbatten and Chiang Kai-shek magic access.»

«Inasmuch as General Stillwell knows nothing of magic—except probably that something with that name exists, classified Top Secret—there has been no reason for him to impress on his staff the absolute necessity to keep magic uncompromised. So far as General Stillwell is concerned, it is just one more Top Secret project, and he has filing cabinets full of those.»