“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Patricia said, and hung up.
[FIVE]
THE DAI ICHI BUILDING TOKYO, JAPAN 0805 16 OCTOBER 1950
A chrome-helmeted MP stepped into the street and held up his hand somewhat imperiously to stop Pickering’s Buick.
“El Supremo’s coming,” Master Sergeant Paul Keller, who was in the front seat beside the driver, said. “Everybody look busy.”
Pickering and Hart, in the backseat, laughed. The sergeant driver—no one knew his name; they changed frequently, and were, not in their hearing, universally referred to as “the CIC guy”—looked at Hart, visibly surprised that a sergeant would dare mock the Supreme Commander, and even more so that a brigadier general and his aide-de-camp would laugh with him.
And it was indeed the Supreme Commander, United Nations Command & U.S. Forces, Far East, arriving at his headquarters.
Preceded by a jeep loaded with chrome-helmeted MPs, his black Cadillac limousine rolled regally past Pickering’s Buick, and other cars behind it, and up before the steps leading to the door of the Dai Ichi Building.
A crowd of people, mostly Japanese but including some Americans and others in uniform, waited on the sidewalk behind a line of MPs.
Two more chrome-helmeted MPs stood on the sidewalk at the spot where the rear door of the limousine would open. As it approached them, they raised their hands in salute and held it. The instant the Cadillac stopped, one of them opened the door while the other held his salute.
MacArthur came out of the limousine and, looking straight ahead, walked quickly up the stairs to the building. He acknowledged the salutes given him three times.
Colonel Sidney Huff, MacArthur’s senior aide-de-camp, got out of the limousine and followed MacArthur into the building.
The limousine drove off. The crowd—the show over— began to disperse. The MP who had stopped them now motioned just as regally for them to start moving.
When the car stopped before the building, Pickering was out of the backseat before either the CIC guy or Keller could get out of his seat to open it for him.
Trailed by Hart and Keller, Pickering walked across the lobby to the bank of elevators.
“If there’s anything of interest, bring it upstairs,” Pickering said to Keller.
“Yes, sir.”
Keller got on one elevator, which would carry him to the Communications/Cryptographic Center in the basement, and Pickering and Hart got on another, which carried them to the lobby outside the door of the Office of the Supreme Commander.
Hart walked quickly to the door, pushed it inward, and held it open for Pickering.
There were two outer offices, one manned by one of MacArthur’s junior aides, a receptionist, and other clerical types. Pickering strode purposefully through the first outer office into the second, which was occupied by Colonel Sidney Huff and some clerical types.
Shortly after arriving in Tokyo, he had decided that stopping in the outer office and asking to see Colonel Huff was not the thing to do. It gave him a place in the pecking order. He was not only a brigadier general but the Deputy Director of the CIA. He did not need to ask a major if he could see a colonel on MacArthur’s staff, even if that colonel was MacArthur’s aide-de-camp and a founding member of the Bataan Gang.
“Good morning, Sid,” Pickering said. “General MacArthur expects me. Would you tell him I’m here?”
“Good morning, sir,” Huff said. “Before you see the Supreme Commander, may I have a minute of your time?”
“Sure, Sid. What can I do for you?”
“I thought you would be interested in this, General,” Huff said. “And I don’t think I have to tell you we were all delighted to hear that Major Pickering came through his ordeal.”
“Thank you, Sid,” Pickering said, and reached out for the first of several documents Huff was obviously prepared to hand him.
SECRET
URGENT
FROM BADOENG STRAIT
0300 16 OCTOBER 1950
TO CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ATTN MAJGEN MASON
INFO CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
SUPREME COMMANDER UNC
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF PACIFIC
COMMANDANT USMC
1. REFERENCE YOUR URGENT DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT SUBJ: PICKERING, MAJ MALCOLM USMCR 15OCT50
2. SUBJECT OFFICER SUFFERED NO WOUNDS OR INJURIES DURING THE CRASH LANDING OF HIS AIRCRAFT OR IN THE PERIOD FOLLOWING UNTIL HIS RESCUE.
3. ON ARRIVAL BADOENG STRAIT SUBJECT OFFICER SUFFERED FROM EFFECTS OF MALNUTRITION AND DYSENTERY AND WAS INFESTED WITH INTESTINAL PARASITES. AS A RESULT OF THE FOREGOING, HE HAS LOST BOTH FAT AND MUSCLE TISSUE AND WEIGHS 58 (FIFTY-EIGHT) POUNDS LESS THAN HE DID AT THE TIME OF HIS LAST FLIGHT PHYSICAL EXAMINATION. IT IS NOT BELIEVED THAT