In Danger's Path (23 page)

“I couldn't do it alone, and I don't think Frank Knox could,” Pickering said. “We'll have to do it together. I'll worry about the door slamming in my face later.”

“You said ‘deal,'” Fowler said. “What kind of a deal? Frank Knox is not well-known for making deals. What do you want from Knox?”

“I want Fritz Rickabee promoted to brigadier general,” Pickering said. “And Ed Banning promoted to lieutenant colonel. Incidentally, I've decided I need Banning more than Rickabee does.”

“Why is this important to you?” Fowler asked.

“Fritz needs a star to run Management Analysis. If I have to point this out, he is far more entitled to a star than I am. And when I have to ask him for help, I would like him, frankly, to remember where his star came from.”

Fowler grunted.

“And Banning?”

“Several reasons. Some practical, some political. Banning knows China. He was an intelligence officer there for years. God, he had to leave his wife behind him in Shanghai—”

“I didn't know that,” Fowler interrupted. “She's a prisoner?”

“Nobody knows.”

Fowler shook his head.

“Anyway, I need Banning's brains and expertise. He has a
MAGIC
clearance, which will be useful.”

“Why should he be promoted? That might be difficult. The Marine Corps likes to decide who gets promoted, and when.”

“First of all, he's deserving of promotion,” Pickering said. “Secondly, I suspect there are a lot of majors in the OSS—the guy Donovan sent to replace Killer McCoy in the Philippines was a major—and I want my deputy to outrank them. As far as that goes, I'm bringing Jake Dillon into the OSS, and I think it's a good idea for him to be calling Ed Banning ‘sir' and ‘Colonel.'”

“Dillon?” Fowler asked doubtfully. “Your movie press agent friend?”

“Not only is Jake an old China Marine, but he did a hell of a job for me on several occasions,” Pickering said, “and he's loyal to me.”

Fowler shrugged.

“Don't tell me it can't be done, Dick,” Pickering said.

“It can be done. I think Frank Knox will go along with you. And the price will be antagonizing both Donovan and the entire OSS—and the Marine Corps.”

“I would worry a hell of a lot more about that if Archer Vandegrift wasn't going to become Commandant of the Marine Corps.”

Fowler grunted again.

“But speaking of the Marine Corps: Do you still have ‘U.S. Senator' license plates on your car?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I want to borrow your car this morning. I'm going to Eighth and I to see Jack Stecker, and—”

“You would like the word to rapidly spread that Jack Stecker has a friend who is a friend of a senator.”

“I'm just trying to save cab fare,” Pickering said.

“Why do you want to see Jack?”

“As soon as Vandegrift becomes Commandant, he's going to hear a litany of complaints about the OSS, and probably me, personally, especially about the promotions. So when he asks Jack, ‘Just what the hell is your friend Pickering up to?' I want Jack to be in a position to tell him.”

“You're going to tell him everything?”

“Everything I decide he has a need to know; as a practical matter, that means just about everything. Why Rickabee and Banning got promoted; all about this Gobi Desert business; everything.”

Fowler grunted.

“I strongly suspect,” Pickering went on, “that Vandegrift will make his manners to Admiral Nimitz in Pearl Harbor on his way home. And that Nimitz will explain to him the significance of the Gobi operation—and, more important, that he wanted me to run it. If I'm right, Vandegrift's blessing on the operation will grease a lot of skids. What I'm really trying to do is eliminate friction between the Corps and the OSS.”

Fowler met Pickering's eyes for a long moment.

“Maybe you're learning how the game is played, Flem,” he said, and turned to Fred: “See if you can get Secretary Knox on the phone, please, Fred. I'll speak with Captain Haughton if I have to, but tell him it's important that I speak to Knox personally.”

“Thank you, Dick,” Pickering said.

Senator Fowler shrugged. “The reason I keep getting reelected is that I have become known for my service to my constituents,” he said, straight-faced.

When he heard the door to his apartment open, General Pickering was examining the insignia and decorations on his tunic. He was doing that with great care; this morning he really wanted to look like a Marine general about to go on parade.

“In here, Fred,” he called out. “I'll be with you in a minute.”

“It's me, General,” Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR, replied.

What the hell is he doing here? He's supposed to be visiting his family in St. Louis
.

Pickering turned to his bedroom door and waited for Hart to appear.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Where the hell were you when I needed you, George?” Pickering asked, gesturing toward the tunic laid out on his bed.

Hart walked to the bed and carefully examined the placement of the insignia and decorations.

“Shipshape, sir,” he said, picked up the tunic, and held it out for Pickering.

“I didn't expect you so soon. You understand that?” Pickering asked as he slipped his arms into the sleeves.

“Well, I could say duty called, but the truth is my girl is in New York, and Washington is closer to New York than St. Louis.”

“Well, then why aren't you in New York?”

“I thought maybe you might need me,” Hart said.

“This morning, I do,” Pickering said. “And then you can go to New York.”

“What's happening this morning?”

“We're going to see Colonel Stecker at Eighth and I,” Pickering said, “and I really want to look like a general. And you can't look like a general, can you, without an aide-de-camp hovering around you?”

“Who are we trying to impress?” Hart asked, smiling.

“Every feather merchant at Eighth and I,” Pickering said. At that moment a thought occurred to him. He went to his briefcase and removed a legal pad. He handed it to Hart. “That's a list of the people we're taking into the OSS. I made it up last night. Have I left anybody off?”

Hart studied the list. “Two questions,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“The sergeant—maybe I should say the lieutenant—who was with Weston in the Philippines. Everly.
Percy
L. Everly?”

“Why him?”

“Killer McCoy told me he told him he was going to try to get him out of the Philippines.”

“He should be brought out,” Pickering thought out loud. “Weston told me about him.”

“The Killer must think he's okay. They were in the Fourth Marines in Shanghai. Anyway, just a question.”

“McCoy didn't say anything to me about getting him out.”

“Once you told him he was going to have to brief the President, the Killer wasn't really himself.”

Pickering chuckled.

“He did that very well, by the way,” Pickering said. “The President told Admiral Leahy to radio both MacArthur and Nimitz that support of U.S. forces in the Philippines is to be considered essential. Okay. Add his name to the list. If we get him out—
when
we get him out—he finds out he's in the OSS.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You said you had two questions, George?”

“I noticed Lieutenant Easterbrook's name on the list,” Hart said evenly.

Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook, USMCR (who was known to his friends as “the Easterbunny”), had been a combat correspondent on Guadalcanal. After a Marine who had won the Medal of Honor on Bloody Ridge described him as “the bravest man on Bloody Ridge,” he had been directly commissioned as an officer. Easterbrook was nineteen years old.

Making him an officer looked good in the newspapers, but Pickering, who knew and admired Easterbrook, thought making him an officer just about headed the list of stupid acts perpetrated by the feather merchants at Eighth and I.

When he heard the Marine Corps was about to send the boy back to the Pacific in command of a team of combat correspondents—an act that would almost certainly get him, and the men under him, killed—he had decided that Lieutenant Easterbrook could make a far greater contribution to the war effort in the OSS.

It was a moment before Pickering replied.

“We're going to make history, George, and I have decided that we need someone with us to photograph it all for posterity.”

“Yes, sir.” Hart chuckled.

“If anybody at Eighth and I, or at the OSS, asks you what you know about Easterbrook, you know nothing.”

“Yes, sir. Off the record, sir?

“Yeah, sure.”

“I approve, and so will Pick when he hears,” Hart said. “He was really worried about the Easterbunny going back over there and getting himself killed trying to prove he's really a Marine officer.”

The door opened again; this time it was Fred. “Anytime you're ready, General,” he called.

“We're ready now,” Pickering said.

[TWO]
Headquarters, United States Marine Corps
Eighth and I Streets, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0955 25 February 1943

The Marine guards at the gate of the compound were armed with pistols suspended from web belts. They were also wearing steel helmets, the new style. Pickering thought of this as “German style,” as opposed to the old style, which General Pickering had worn both in France and on Guadalcanal and thought of as “Limey style.”

He also thought that wearing helmets here was a little absurd. Their primary purpose was to protect the skull from artillery and mortar shrapnel, or from pieces of exploded antiaircraft shells falling back to earth. And none of that was liable to happen right now in the District of Columbia.

Fowler's 1942 Packard 280 limousine had a license plate:
U.S. SENATE
12. The Marine sergeant who approached it was already prepared to be very polite to the august personage the vehicle was carrying.

His determination to be very polite increased by at least fifty percent when he saw the passenger was a Marine brigadier general. He saluted crisply. “Good morning, sir!” he barked. “How may the sergeant assist the General, Sir?”

Pickering returned the salute.

“Good morning, Sergeant. I'm here to see Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker.”

When Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker, USMC, was a young sergeant in France in World War I, he had won the Medal of Honor. Sergeant Fleming Pickering and Corporal D. G. McInerney had been with him in the action.

“Yes, sir. May the sergeant trouble the General, Sir, for his identification? Regulations, sir.”

It is, I suppose, possible that the Axis Powers would, for some nefarious purpose, attempt to gain entrance to Headquarters, USMC, by sending in the agent wearing a Marine brigadier's uniform and in a car they stole from a senator
.

“Certainly,” Pickering said, removing his wallet and nudging George Hart with his elbow to do the same thing.

The sergeant examined both ID cards carefully.

“Thank you, sir,” the sergeant said, handing them back. “One moment, sir, and I'll try to locate Colonel—Stecker, you said?—for you.”

“Stecker,” Pickering confirmed. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

The sergeant walked quickly to the guard shack and consulted a mimeographed list mounted on a clipboard. After a moment, it was evident from his face that he couldn't find what he expected to find.

He checked again, carefully, and then, looking worried, returned to the rear window of Fowler's long black Packard limousine.

“Sir, the sergeant probably misunderstood the General, Sir. The name of the colonel the General wishes to see is?”

“Stecker, Sergeant. Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker,” Pickering said.

“Sir, I couldn't find a Colonel Stecker on my list, sir.”

“I know he's here, Sergeant,” Pickering said. “Why don't you call the Office of the Commandant and ask the sergeant major?”

“Aye aye, sir,” the sergeant said, and trotted quickly back to the guard shack.

A minute later, he was back. “Sir, if the General will be good enough to wait, the Office of the Commandant is sending someone down, sir, to take you to Colonel Stecker.”

“Thank you very much, Sergeant,” Pickering said.

Three minutes later a very natty Marine major walked up to the limousine and saluted.

He's a chair-warmer
, Pickering decided, somewhat unkindly, and not only because none of the ribbons on the major's chest indicated he had seen foreign service.