“Meaning I didn’t have to stand out there and get rained on?” Pickering snapped.
“Now that I think of it, General . . .”
Keller chuckled.
“I don’t know why I put up with either one of you,” Pickering said.
“Maybe because we’re lovable, sir?” Hart asked.
“I’m going to really give McCoy hell—if he’s on that airplane—and I will be highly annoyed if either of you acts as if it’s funny,” Pickering said.
“General . . .” Hart said.
“What?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Out with it, goddamn it, George!”
“General, you’ve told me—Christ, I don’t know how many times—never to give an order you know won’t be obeyed.”
“And I should have known McCoy was not going to obey that order? Is that what you’re saying?”
“General, you asked me,” Hart said.
“Here it comes,” Keller said, pointing out the window, as the Bataan turned off the taxiway and approached the tarmac in front of the hangar.
“You two stay in the car,” Pickering ordered. “If McCoy is on the Bataan, I’m going to take him under the wing and bite off a large chunk of his ass, and I don’t want an audience.”
Ground crewmen rolled up movable steps to the rear door of the airplane. Pickering got out of the front seat and walked toward it.
The Bataan’s door opened and four military policemen, wearing steel helmets and other battlefield accoutrements, and carrying Thompson submachine guns, came down the stairs and quickly assumed positions facing the stairs.
What the hell is going on here?
McCoy appeared at the door, a Thompson hanging from his shoulder. He looked around the area, then started down the stairs. Then he saw General Pickering. He smiled and raised his hand in salute.
That smile’s not going to do you a goddamn bit of good, McCoy!
Your ass is mine. You won’t forget this ass-chewing for the rest of your life.
Pickering marched coldly toward the stairs.
He watched McCoy start down the stairs again, saw him slip, or stagger, saw him grab the railing, and then fall. He ended up sprawled on his stomach at the foot of the stairs.
Two of the MPs rushed to help him.
“Back where you were!” McCoy snapped, and tried to push himself up. And fell back down again.
Pickering rushed to him. He heard two car door slams, which told him that Hart and Keller had seen what happened, and were coming.
“You all right, Ken?” Pickering heard himself asking with concern.
There goes the goddamned ass-chewing.
“Let me sit here a second, sir,” McCoy said. “I’ll be all right.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I guess I got a little dizzy, sir,” McCoy said.
“Keller wants you to do it again, Killer,” Hart said as he came up. “All he saw was the crash landing.” And then he saw McCoy’s face. “Jesus Christ! Did you break something? ”
“No,” McCoy said. “I don’t think I did my fucking leg any good, but I don’t think anything’s broken.” He looked up at Pickering. “If you’ll take the Thompson, sir, these two can get me on my feet.”
Pickering took the submachine gun.
Hart went behind McCoy, wrapped his arms around his middle, and with no apparent effort hoisted him erect.
“You’re sure nothing’s broken?” he asked.
“I would know,” McCoy said. But he didn’t protest when Hart grasped his right upper arm firmly, and motioned for Keller to do the same thing with the left one.
There was the sound of sirens, and moments later, four Military Police jeeps came onto the tarmac from behind the hangar.
“Well,” McCoy said. “I’m glad nothing was really wrong. They took their sweet time getting here.”
“What’s going on?” Pickering asked.
“I had the pilot tell the tower to send MP jeeps here,” McCoy explained.
Four MPs, one of them a lieutenant, all in sharply creased olive-drab Class A uniforms, with white leather accoutrements and plastic covers on their brimmed caps against the rain, rushed up.
“What’s going on here?” the lieutenant demanded, and belatedly recognizing the star on Pickering’s collar points and epaulets, added as he saluted, “Sir? Good evening, sir.”
“I’m going to need a forty-passenger bus,” McCoy said. “And an MP escort to the Dai Ichi Building,” McCoy said.
“What for, Ken?” Pickering asked softly.
“To transport thirty-two Red Chinese prisoners of war, sir. They were captured this morning. I understand General Willoughby doesn’t think the Chinese are in the war. If this doesn’t convince him, I don’t know what will.”
The lieutenant looked at General Pickering. “Sir, I don’t know—”
“It looks simple enough to me, Lieutenant,” Pickering said. “You heard the major. Get a bus, and get it right now.”