“I guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” McCoy said, and smiled, took the sheet of paper from Dunn, and handed it to the commo officer.
“Will you encrypt this and send it Operational Immediate, please?”
The commo officer took it, read it, looked at McCoy, and then sat down at the cryptographic machine and began to enter McCoy’s message.
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
1320 14OCT1950
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM OFFICER IN CHARGE CIA SEOUL ABOARD USS BADOENG STRAIT
EYES ONLY MASTER SERGEANT PAUL T
KELLER USA COMMUNICATIONS CENTER
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS UNITED NATIONS
COMMAND TOKYO
ENCRYPT USING SPECIAL CODE AND TRANSMIT AS OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE THE FOLLOWING
MESSAGE BEGINS
EYES ONLY
DIRECTOR CIA WASHINGTON DC
DEPUTY DIRECTOR CIA FOR ASIA
CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL MISSION TO KOREA
SEOUL
CIA STATION CHIEF SEOUL
COMMANDANT USMC WASHINGTON DC
MAJOR MALCOLM S. PICKERING USMCR
RETURNED TO US CONTROL 1200 14OCT1950.
TRANSPORTED USS BADOENG STRAIT AS OF
1300 14OCT1950.
SUBJECT OFFICER IS DIRTY, UNSHAVEN, AND VERY HUNGRY, BUT IS UNWOUNDED, UNINJURED, AND IN SOUND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION.
FOLLOWING CIVILIAN PERSONNEL SHOULD BE CONTACTED BY MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS, ASKED NOT TO DISSEMINATE INFORMATION ABOVE TO OTHERS AND ON AGREEMENT BE NOTIFIED OF SUBJECT OFFICER’S RETURN AND CONDITION.
MRS FLEMING PICKERING C/O FOSTER HOTELS SAN FRANCISCO CAL
MRS K.R. MCCOY, TOKYO, JAPAN
MISS JEANETTE PRIESTLY C/O PRESS RELATIONS OFFICER, SUPREME HEADQUARTERS UNITED NATIONS COMMAND TOKYO
MCCOY MAJ USMCR
MESSAGE ENDS
K.R. MCCOY
MAJOR USMCR
[FIVE]
The captain, who was sitting in his chair facing aft, as if expecting them, waved Lieutenant Colonel Dunn and Major McCoy onto the bridge.
“Colonel Dunn get you everything you needed, Major?” the captain asked.
“Yes, sir, thank you,” McCoy said.
“The ship’s surgeon was just here,” the captain said. “There’s nothing life-threatening wrong with Major Pickering. But that’s because he’s here. The doc said he wouldn’t like to hazard a guess how much longer he would have lasted if you hadn’t found him when you did.” He paused, and shook his head. “And what a way to die that would have been.”
“Sir?”
“I suppose I’m violating the major’s privacy, but I think you have a right to know, if I do. What was really threatening his life was dehydration. He has dysentery. That’s unpleasant anytime, but it usually won’t kill you, according to the doc, if you have enough liquids. Pickering heard somewhere that you get dysentery from bad water—and he’d had some bad water and had dysentery—so what he decided to do was not drink water he hadn’t boiled. That might not cure the dysentery, but it might. Drinking more bad water would not cure it.”
“My God!” Dunn said.
“Major Pickering told the doc,” the captain went on, “that he’d run out of boiled water four, five days ago, and hadn’t had a chance to boil any more. So he didn’t drink anything. Meanwhile, the dysentery continued to drain what liquids were left in his body. They’re dripping glucose into both arms now, and the doc says he should have the dysentery under control shortly. The doc also says he belongs on a hospital ship, not here.”
“Sir, I knew you had the communications I needed,” McCoy said.
“I won’t ask you questions, McCoy, that I know you won’t answer. But those pajamas of yours do make me curious. ”
“When I put them on this morning, sir, I had no intention of going aboard a man-of-war.”
“Meaning you’re not going to explain them, right?” the captain said, smiling.
“They’re sort of a disguise, sir. I can’t pass for an Asiatic in the daylight, but at night, in clothes like this, if they can’t get a good look at me, I can.”
“Until you open your mouth, you mean?”
“I speak Korean, sir.”
“Who don’t you want to spot you as an American? Can I ask that?”
“At first light this morning, sir, we inserted agents north of Wonsan,” McCoy said.
“Using that black Sikorsky?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were on the ground, behind enemy lines, this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How often do you do that sort of thing?”
“It’s what we do, sir. We do it just about daily.”
“You’re a braver man than I am, Gunga Din,” the captain said.
“It’s not what you think, sir. If you know what you’re doing, it’s not all that dangerous.”
The captain snorted.
“I’m not being modest, sir. What scared me was just now.”
“Excuse me?”
“When we came out to the Badoeng Strait, sir, and Major Donald told me he had no idea how we were going to land on a carrier. That was high-pucker-factor time for me, sir.”
The captain smiled. “I took the liberty of seeing what I could do about that,” he said. “Take a look.”
He pointed down to the flight deck. McCoy followed his finger and saw Major Alex Donald and two other men in flight suits standing near the H-19A.