you’ve ever done since I’ve known you has been in any book,” Pickering said.
“What they do, General,” Vandenburg said, “is find someplace where they won’t be seen—where nobody would expect them to be—and then they just listen. The last thing they want to do is get in a firefight. There’s no way they could win.”
“How do you know where to put them?” Pickering said.
“We fly over in the daytime in one of the L-19s,” McCoy said. “Zimmerman or I go along in the backseat. We point out to the pilot where we would like to leave them— usually on some hilltop—and the pilot—who will fly the Big Black Bird—decides if he can go in there or not.”
“You’re landing helicopters on mountaintops?” Pickering demanded of Major Alex Donald.
“Most of the time we just hover, sir,” Donald said. “A couple of feet off the ground. There’s no place to touch the wheels down.”
“You’ve been making these flights?” Pickering asked.
“Most of them,” McCoy answered for him.
“And this works?”
“Not all the time. But it’s all we’ve got,” McCoy said.
“Did you know about this?” Pickering asked Howe.
Howe shook his head no. “This is not my area of expertise, ” he said.
“What did you mean, Ken, when you said ‘a new can of worms’?” Pickering asked.
“Well, sir, when we did it north of the line, Zimmerman and I and some of the original Marines from the Flying Fish Channel operation, plus, of course, our Koreans, did it. We never did it with the Marines we borrowed from the 5th Marines.”
“Why not?”
“Our Marines are volunteers, sir. The guys we borrowed from the 5th Marines didn’t volunteer for anything. I don’t think we should send people to do something like this if they’re not volunteers.”
“Why not?” Howe said. “I don’t remember anybody saying ‘volunteers take one step forward’ when the 5th Marines were ordered to land at Inchon.”
“If our guys are discovered, sir, that’s just about it for them. That’s not like Inchon. We can’t go get them.”
“And you don’t think they’d volunteer if they were asked?”
“I think they probably would, sir, but . . .”
“But what?”
“We borrowed them, sir. The 5th Marines expect them back. What do we say if we can’t return them? That they’re missing on a mission we can’t talk about?”
“Why not?” Howe asked.
“The Marines don’t leave people behind, sir. There would be a lot of questions asked we couldn’t answer. But people would keep asking them. Pretty soon, a lot of eyes—angry eyes—would be looking at us, looking damned close at us, and we just can’t afford that.”
“There wouldn’t be that problem, would there, if the men from the 5th Marines were no longer assigned to the 5th Marines?” Howe asked.
“What are you thinking, Ralph?” Pickering asked.
“I think McCoy should go to Socho-Ri, explain what he wants these guys to do, explain why they can only do it if they’re in the CIA, ask if anyone wants to be in the CIA, and send the names of those that do to Tokyo. Between you and me, Fleming, with an Operational Immediate message or two, they can be in the CIA by this time tomorrow.”
Pickering happened to glance at Colonel Vandenburg.
“You’ve been pretty quiet through all this, Colonel,” Pickering said.
“Sir, no one’s said anything I disagree with,” Vandenburg said.
“And you have no suggestion or comment to make?”
“Yes, sir. I suggest you get on the 1700 courier with General Howe, so you can run this transfer to the CIA business through from Tokyo. McCoy’s right—we have to get off the dime. Either do this, if these men volunteer, or think of something else. And right now, I can’t think of anything else.”
“That’ll teach you to ask questions, Fleming,” General Howe said.
[FIVE]
EMERGENCY ROOM U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 2305 27 OCTOBER 1950 (1505 28 OCTOBER 1950 SOCHO-RI LOCAL TIME)
“What the hell is this?” Lieutenant Marjorie Wallace, NC, USN, asked of Lieutenant (j.g.) James C. Levell, MC, USNR, pointing out the door.
Lieutenant (j.g.) Levell was the medical officer on duty in the emergency room, and Lieutenant Wallace the nurse in charge. They were in a small glass-walled cubicle savoring a rare moment of respite from their late-evening emergency room duties.
A Packard limousine had stopped outside the emergency room. A civilian couple—a tall, slim, silver-haired woman in her fifties, and a portly, dignified, somewhat jowly man who looked about ten years older—were marching purposefully into the emergency room entrance lobby.
“I’ve seen him before, somewhere,” Lieutenant (j.g.) Levell said, adding, “Let the Corpsman handle it.”