The corporal looked to Captain Allen for guidance. Allen nodded. The corporal cranked the generator handle on the side of the leather-cased EE-8.
“Patch me through to Regiment,” he ordered after a moment, and then, a moment after that, he ordered, “Patch me through to Division.”
McCoy walked to him and took the handset from him.
“Wolf Two, please,” he said.
Twenty miles away, in a small village called Anyang, seven miles or so south of Seoul, in what had been built to be the waiting room of the railway station, Technical Sergeant Richard Ward picked up the handset of one of three EE-8 field telephones on the shelf of his small, folding wooden field desk.
“Wolf Two, Sergeant Ward, sir.”
“Trojan Horse Six for the colonel, Sergeant,” McCoy said.
“Hold one,” Ward said, and extended the handset to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Lemuleson, a short, thin forty-year -old in too large fatigues, who was the intelligence officer of the 25th Division.
“For you, Colonel,” Ward said, and added, “Trojan Horse Six.”
Colonel Lemuleson turned from the map board leaning against the wall.
“Good!” he said. “I was getting worried.”
He took the handset, pressed the butterfly switch, and said, “Wolf Two.”
“Trojan Horse Six, sir. Good evening, sir.”
Captain Allen handed Major McCoy a china mug of steaming coffee. McCoy smiled his thanks.
“Welcome home,” Colonel Lemuleson’s voice came somewhat metallically over the landline. “You’re all right? Where are you?”
“At a roadblock south of Suwon, sir. We just came through.”
“And apparently nobody shot at you. I was concerned about that.”
“Yes, sir, that was a concern.”
“I’ve got a message for you. Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“ ‘Kimpo oh nine hundred twenty-nine September. Acknowledge. Confirm. Signature Hart, Capt., USMCR, for Admiral Dewey.’ Got it?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Got that just after you left,” Colonel Lemuleson said. “It was in the clear. Couldn’t get you on the radio.”
“It was in the clear” meant that the message had not been encrypted, which meant further that someone had decided there wasn’t time to go through the encryption process. And that it wasn’t encrypted explained “Admiral Dewey.” Captain George S. Hart, USMCR, aide-de-camp (and bodyguard) to Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, Assistant Director for Asia of the Central Intelligence Agency, did not want to use Pickering’s name in a non-encrypted message.
“The radio in the jeep went out before we were out of Seoul, sir,” McCoy said. “Can you take a reply, sir?”
“Shoot.”
“Acknowledge and confirm Kimpo oh nine hundred twenty-nine September. All well. Fresh eggs but no ham. Signature, McCoy.”
Lieutenant Colonel Lemuleson said, “Got it,” read it back for confirmation, and then asked, “Are you going to explain the ham and eggs business, McCoy? And who the hell is Admiral Dewey?”
“I better not, sir. But if memory serves, Admiral Dewey won the battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War.”
Lemuleson chuckled. “I knew I’d heard the name someplace. Anything else I can do for you, McCoy?”
“Yes, sir, there is. Sir, if I’m to be at Kimpo at 0900, I’d like to go there tonight—”
“That may be risky, McCoy,” Lemuleson said. “I don’t want to get a report in the morning that somebody shot first before asking any questions.”
“Yes, sir. But I don’t think I have much choice. Making things more difficult is that we picked up some prisoners. What I’d like to do is send four of them to you with one of my sergeants. You could give him that envelope—”
“It’s under a thermite grenade in my safe,” Lemuleson interrupted.
“—and he could bring it to us in Seoul at first light.”
“And if you need some identification tonight?”
“I’ll have to take that chance, sir.”
“Your call, McCoy,” Lemuleson said. “Done.”
“May I have that phone, please, Major?” Major Masters asked. It was more of an order.
McCoy considered the request for a moment, then said, “Hold one, sir, please. Major Masters wants to talk to you.”
“What the hell is he doing there?” Lemuleson said.
McCoy handed the handset to Masters.
“Masters, sir. These people have five prisoners, one of them a lieutenant colonel, and Major McCoy refuses to turn him over to me.”
He looked triumphantly at McCoy.
McCoy and the others could hear only one side of the ensuing conversation.
“Trying to stay on the top of the situation, sir,” Major Masters said, and then, “Yes, sir.”
And then, “Yes, sir.”
And then, “Yes, sir.”
And then, “Yes, sir, I’ll do that, sir.”
Then he handed the handset back to McCoy.
“The colonel wants to speak to you, Major,” he said.
“Yes, sir?” McCoy said.
“Sorry about that, McCoy. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and for obvious reasons—God save us all from well-meaning idiots—I