In Danger's Path (6 page)

To ensure accuracy, standing operating procedure was to decrypt a Presidential Special Channel after it had been encrypted, so that it could be compared with the original before it was transmitted. It was a time-consuming process, and Banning wasn't quite through when the sounds of keys in the locks and the twirling of the combination device announced the arrival of Colonel Rickabee.

“Almost finished, sir,” Banning said.

Rickabee waited more or less patiently for Banning to finish. And then, because it was quicker to do that than for Banning to make the comparison himself, he held the teletypewriter decryption while Banning read the original message aloud.

In what was for him was an extraordinary emotional reaction, Colonel F. L. Rickabee blurted, “I will be damned!”

“Yes, sir,” Banning said.

“You better take it to Radio, Ed,” Rickabee said. “I'll see that this stuff is shredded and burned.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Major Banning said, and reached for the phone to tell the chief to open it up.

[TWO]
Office of the Supreme Commander
Supreme Headquarters
South West Pacific Ocean Area
Brisbane, Australia
1505 8 February 1943

When the Military Police staff sergeant on duty in the corridor saw the Signal Corps officer approaching, he smiled at him and gave him permission to enter the outer office of the Supreme Commander with a wave of his hand.

By and large, the enlisted men of Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Ocean Area, liked Major Hon Song Do, Signal Corps, USAR. Not only was he a pleasant officer, who treated the troops like human beings, but he was known to be a thorn in the sides of a number of officers whom the troops by and large did not like.

“How goes it, Sergeant?” Major Hon Song Do greeted him, smiling.

He was carrying a battered, Army issue leather briefcase. It was held to his left wrist with a chain and a pair of handcuffs. The right lower pocket of his tunic sagged with the weight of a .1911A1 Colt automatic pistol.

“Can't complain, sir.”

Major Hon was a very large man, heavyset and muscular, with 210 pounds distributed over six feet two inches. His thick Boston accent was a consequence of his before-the-war years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had been a professor of theoretical mathematics.

Major Hon pushed open the door to the outer office of the Supreme Commander and walked across the room to a large desk. Behind the desk sat a tall, rather good-looking officer whose collar insignia identified him as a lieutenant colonel serving as aide-de-camp to a full (four-star) general.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the Major said. “I have a Special Channel for General MacArthur.”

Lieutenant Colonel Sidney Huff raised his eyes briefly from the typewritten document he was working on, then returned his attention to it. His actions were a hairsbreadth away from being insulting.

Finally, he raised his eyes to the Major. “I'll see if the Supreme Commander will see you, Major.”

Now that's bullshit, Huff, and you know it. You and I
both
know that the arrival of a Special Channel gets El Supremo's immediate attention, ahead of anything else
.

Except perhaps if he is occupying the throne in the Supreme Crapper when it gets delivered, in which case it will have to wait until he's finished taking his regal dump
.

“Thank you, sir.”

Major Hon was not sure why Lieutenant Colonel Huff disliked him.

One possibility was that Huff disliked Orientals, and it didn't matter whether an Oriental was the Emperor of Japan or—as he was—a Korean-American born to second-generation American-citizen parents in Hawaii, and a duly commissioned officer and gentleman by Act of Congress.

A second possibility was that it was dislike by association. Major Hon—as were the others associated with
MAGIC
—was assigned to the Office of Management Analysis, and were not members of MacArthur's staff. Hon's immediate superior officer was Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, Director of the Office of Management Analysis, who didn't think much of Colonel Huff, and did not try very hard to conceal his opinion.

A third possibility—and Major Hon was growing more and more convinced this was the real reason—was that he played bridge at least once a week with the Supreme Commander and Mrs. MacArthur, and they both called him by his nickname, “Pluto.” This really offended Huff's sense of propriety. A reserve officer—maybe even worse, an academic—who had not been in the Philippines with El Supremo getting close to MacArthur violated all that Huff held dear.

Colonel Huff knocked at the Supreme Commander's closed door, opened it, stepped inside, and closed the door.

A moment later, a sonorous but pleasant voice called cheerfully through the door, “Come on in, Pluto!”

Pluto Hon pushed open the door and stepped inside.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said.

General Douglas MacArthur, wearing his usual washed-thin-and-soft khakis, was at a large, map-covered table. A thick document stamped
TOP SECRET
that was almost certainly an Operations Order also lay on the table. “Set it on the table, Pluto,” MacArthur ordered, pointing at the briefcase with a thin, black, six-inch-long, freshly lit cigar. “I suppose it would be too much to hope that it's good news for a change?”

“At first glance, sir, it strikes me as lousy news,” Pluto said.

That earned him a dirty look from Colonel Huff.

Pluto set the briefcase on the table, unlocked a small padlock, removed the padlock, delved inside, and came out with a sealed manila envelope, stamped
TOP SECRET
in red letters. He handed it to MacArthur, who nodded his thanks, tore it open, took out two sheets of typewriter paper, and read them.

“I see what you mean, Pluto,” the Supreme Commander said. “I will, pardon the French, be damned.”

“Yes, sir,” Pluto replied. “My sentiments exactly.” He glanced at Colonel Huff, whose frustrated curiosity was evident on his face.

Another reason good ol' Sid doesn't like me. I get to know a number of things he doesn't get to know. And will not get to know unless El Supremo decides he has a reason to know
.

There were only two officers in Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA, authorized access to Special Channel communications: MacArthur and his G-2 (Intelligence Officer) Brigadier General Charles A. Willoughby.

Plus, of course, the people at SWPOA who handled the actual encryption and decryption of Special Channel messages (by means of codes used for no other purpose). There were only three of them: Major Hon Song Do, USAR; First Lieutenant John Marston Moore, USMCR; and Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR.

Major Hon had been recruited from MIT to apply his knowledge of theoretical mathematics to code breaking. Cryptography and mathematics were not, however, his only talents. He was also a linguist—fluent in Korean, Japanese, and several Chinese languages. And equally important, he was an analyst of intercepted Japanese messages. He had been sent from Hawaii to Australia not only to encrypt and decrypt
MAGIC
messages to and from MacArthur, but also to lend his knowledge of the Japanese to the analysis of intercepted Japanese messages.

Lieutenant John Marston Moore was primarily an analyst. Because he had lived for years in Japan with his missionary parents, studied at Tokyo University, and was completely fluent in Japanese, he was deeply familiar with Japanese culture, which meant he also knew something about the Japanese mind. On the other hand, though he had learned the mechanics of cryptography, he did not, like Pluto Hon, understand the theories and mathematics behind it.

The third of Pickering's men with authorized access to
MAGIC
, and thus the Special Channel, was Lieutenant George F. Hart. Hart spoke only English, and had a mechanical knowledge—only—of the
MAGIC
cryptographic device. Officially General Pickering's aide-de-camp, he was really a former St. Louis police detective who had been recruited from Marine Boot Camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, to serve as Pickering's bodyguard. As Hart thought of it, he had been taught to “operate the machine” because there was just too much work for Pluto and Moore.

Pickering himself, who was Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox's Personal Representative to both SWPOA (MacArthur) and CINCPAC (Nimitz), also had
MAGIC
clearance.

“Do you suppose, Pluto,” MacArthur asked thoughtfully, waving the Special Channel, “that General Pickering had any inkling of this?”

“I don't think so, General,” Pluto replied. “I don't think the possibility ever entered his mind.”

MacArthur grunted. “No,” he said, almost to himself. “Neither do I. One generally knows precisely what Pickering is thinking.”

“Yes, sir,” Pluto said, chuckling.

Lieutenant Colonel Huff's curiosity was nearly out of control.

MacArthur either saw this and took pity on him, or perhaps simply decided that this was a
MAGIC
Special Channel message that his aide-de-camp should be familiar with. He handed it to him.

“Take a look at this, Huff,” he said.

Huff took the two sheets of teletypewriter paper containing President Roosevelt's Special Channel Personal to General Douglas MacArthur and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering.