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

«I don't like this, General,» Hart said. Hart's hand was inside his overcoat, obviously reaching for his pistol.

Then the ambulance cut them off, and Hart slammed on the brakes.

Pickering took out his pistol and worked the action. He noticed that Hart merely pulled the hammer back on his pistol. «You better charge that piece, George,» he said.

«I carry it charged,» Hart said matter-of-factly. He was now holding the pistol in a position essentially out of sight from outside, but from which he could easily fire it through his side window.

The passenger door of the ambulance opened and the Chinese officer stepped out and walked back toward the Studebaker. He was wearing a well-tailored Nationalist Chinese army uniform, complete to a shiny Sam Browne belt, from which hung a molded leather pistol holster.

«Oh, shit!» General Pickering said.

The Chinese officer walked to the driver's side of the Studebaker, leaned down to it, and smiled. Hart cranked the window down.

«Do you realize, young man,» the Chinese officer said, «that you were going forty-five in a twenty-five mile zone?»

«McCoy, goddamn you,» Brigadier General Pickering said. «Where the hell have you been?»

«Good afternoon, sir,» McCoy said. «Sir, I didn't know for sure until about half past one that you were here.»

«You sonofabitch,» Pickering said. «I'm really glad to see you.»

«I'm glad to see you, too, sir,» McCoy said. «I'm even glad to see your dog-robber. You can put your pistol away now, George.»

«He almost shot you,» Pickering said. «Goddamn it!»

«He's probably a lousy shot, sir.»

«Was this necessary?» Pickering said. «Why didn't you just go to the OSS house?»

«I'm not one of Colonel Platt's favorite people, sir. And I wanted to talk to you before he made good on his promise to have me thrown in the stockade.»

«Who's driving the ambulance?» Pickering asked.

«Zimmerman, sir.»

«Well, tell him to follow us to the OSS house,» Pickering said. «And then get in here.»

«Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said. Then he added, to Lieutenant Hart, «You have an honest face, young man. I'm going to let you off with a warning this time.»

«Fuck you, McCoy!»

McCoy laughed and walked to the ambulance, which immediately started to move out of the way. He started back to the Studebaker.

«I'll be a sonofabitch if he doesn't look like a Chinese, dressed up that way,» Hart said. «I wonder what the hell that's all about?»

«Me, too, George,» Pickering said, and waited for McCoy to get in the backseat.

McCoy got in the backseat of the car and closed the door. Pickering turned to look at him, resting his arm on the back of the front seat. «First things first, Ken,» he began. «Tell me about your run-in with Colonel Platt.»

«Sir, I don't know how much Colonel Banning told you about telling me to make myself scarce?»

«You tell me, Ken.»

«First, he told me that Zimmerman and I were detached from the guard detail. Then he told me that he had been ordered—by the army signal officer here, the one that's in arrest to quarters now… What's that all about?»

«One thing at a time, Ken.»

«Yes, sir. Then he told me he had been ordered by the signal officer here to order me to report to OSS station Chungking. But that since I had been detached, he could no longer give me orders. Can I talk out of school?»

«You can always talk out of school to me, Ken,» Pickering said.

«That wasn't hard to figure out. Colonel Banning didn't want me to report to the OSS here. Until that moment, I didn't even know there was an OSS station here.»

«Neither did Banning until he got that order from General Dempsey,» Pickering said.

«He told me that, sir.»

«And neither did I. If it makes you feel any better. Ken, the man responsible for not telling us, your friend the OSS Deputy Director for Administration, is now in St. Elizabeth's.»

«For not telling you about an OSS station here?» McCoy asked incredulously, and then, a moment later, added, «Oh.»

My God, he knows!

«Explain that 'Oh!', Ken.»

«I'm guessing, sir.»

«Guess.»

«I heard—what, four, five days later—that General Dempsey and the other one?»

«Newley?»

«Yes, sir. That they had been placed in arrest to quarters. That had to be serious; they don't relieve general officers without good reason. And then Colonel Waterson shows up from Brisbane, and right after him, Colonel Albright, now a general himself, and takes General Dempsey's place. And now you tell me that the guy from the OSS has been put in St. Elizabeth's. The only explanation for that is magic.»

«What do you know about magic, Ken?»

«It's only another guess, sir,» McCoy replied.

«Guess.»

«First of all, it's a special cryptographic system, one that regular crypto people don't know anything about. With special crypto devices. Which we brought here.»

«Anything else?»

«It has something to do with Japanese cryptography. Pluto and Moore are analysts, as well as crypto people. That looks to me like we've broken Japanese codes, are reading their communications, and damned sure don't want them to even suspect we are.»

«I'm not going to comment on your guesses, Captain McCoy,» Pickering said. «But I am going to give you a direct order.»

«Yes, sir?»

«You are forbidden to discuss with anyone, except Colonel Banning or myself, in any manner whatsoever, anything connected with magic.»

«Aye, aye, sir.»

All I have done, of course, is let him know his guesses are right on the money.

«How did you hear about General Dempsey being placed in arrest?»

«I sent Zimmerman to the NCO Club to find out whatever he could.»

«In uniform presumably, and freshly shaven?»

«Yes, sir, the beards were the first thing to go. They made us stand out like a couple of whores in church.»

«And the word was out that General Dempsey had been relieved?»

«Yes, sir. Nobody seems to know why. I sent Zimmerman back another time to see if he could find out, and what the NCO's were saying… I'm not sure you want to hear this, General.»

«Yes, I do.»

«That they were queer,» McCoy said.

«magic never came up?»

«No, sir.»

«Go on, Ken.»

«So I put on my uniform and went to the OSS house to see what I could find out. I was hoping to see Colonel Banning, but he wasn't there. Colonel Platt was.»

«And?»

«I showed him my ONI credentials and told him I was Navy Intelligence, and was looking for Colonel Banning. That didn't work too well. He had my name from someplace. Probably this General Dempsey gave it to him. And he told me he knew that I was in the OSS, that he knew all about Operation Gobi, and told me I was now under the orders of the OSS station here. Meaning him. I told him, with respect, that I couldn't put myself or Zimmerman under his orders.»

«And what did he say?»

«First, if I «remained insubordinate' he would court-martial me, and then if I tried to leave the OSS compound, he would have me shot. He was really pissed. He actually took his pistol out when I started to leave.»

«You weren't worried that he would actually shoot you?»

«He's not the type to shoot somebody,» McCoy said. «And neither was the captain —Sampson, I think—in his office. But if he'd had a couple of MPs around, he

would

have ordered them to throw me in the stockade.»

«So then what happened?»

«Well, I started making preparations to go into the Gobi.»

«General,» Hart said. «We're getting close to the house. Do you want me to drive around the block?»

«Go very slow for a minute, George,» Pickering ordered. «How did you know I was here, Ken?»