intelligence officer I ever met, and that includes Ed Banning.
McCoy set the briefcase down on the coffee table before the couch on which Pickering was sitting, worked the combination lock, and took from it a half-inch-thick stack of paper fastened together with a metal clip. He handed it to Pickering.
The document was covered with a sheet of manila board on which were printed three diagonal red stripes at either end of the words TOP SECRET.
“What’s this?” Pickering asked, as he started to flip through it.
The second page, which had TOP SECRET printed at the top and bottom, answered his question:
TOP SECRET
Document No. NE/May50/2333 Copy 3 of 4 Duplication Forbidden
Naval Element
Headquarters
The Supreme Commander for Allied Powers
Room 2022 The Dai Ichi Building,
Tokyo, Japan
(APO 901/FPO 3347, San Francisco, Cal.)
23 May 1950
SUBJECT: Intelligence Evaluation/Korea
TO: The Supreme Commander, Allied Powers
ATTN: Major General Charles A. Willoughby1. Forwarded herewith is “An Evaluation of Probable Hostile Action Within Ninety Days Against the Republic of South Korea by the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.”
2. The Evaluation, and Attachments I through VII, were prepared primarily by Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, of Naval Element, Hq, SCAP.
Edward C. Wilkerson
Edward C. Wilkerson
Captain, USN
Chief, Naval Element SCAP
One (1) Enclosure as follows:
Evaluation, Subject as above, w/attachments:
I: Summary, Agents’ Reports
II: North Korean Order of Battle (Including Strength), Infantry Units
IX: Chinese Communist Order of Battle (Including Strength) Infantry Units Within 300 miles of North Korean Border
X: ChiComOB Artillery Units Within 300 miles of NK Border
XI: ChiComOB Armored Units Within 300 miles of NK Border
XII: ChiComOB Motor Transport Within 300 miles of NK Border
XIII: ChiComOB Aviation Units Within 300 miles of NK Border
XIV: ChiComOB Logistic facilities (Rations, Medical, POW Compounds, Misc.) Within 300 miles of NK Border
TOP SECRET
“Jesus Christ!” Pickering said when he’d read the transmittal letter. “Are you sure, Ken?”
“About as sure as I can get, General.”
“Is that the report?” Ernie asked. “Do I get to see it?”
“No, baby. Sorry. It’s classified Top Secret.”
“Ken, I haven’t had a Top Secret clearance—any clearance—in years. Why are you showing this to me?”
“Maybe you can do something with it,” McCoy said.
“I don’t understand,” Pickering said. “I don’t understand any of this. ‘Do something with it’?”
“I can’t get it past Willoughby,” McCoy said, simply. “Which means it won’t get out of the Dai Ichi Building, and somebody at Eighth and Eye should know what’s coming down.”
Major General Charles A. Willoughby, who had been General Douglas A. MacArthur’s intelligence officer in the Philippines and throughout World War II, was now performing the same function for him in the grandly named Office of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, which was really the Army of Occupation in Japan.
Pickering had had more that one run-in with General Willoughby during the Second War; several of them had involved McCoy.
That sonofabitch again!
“He give you any reason, Ken?” Pickering asked, but before McCoy could reply, he asked, “Where did you get this?”
“I stole it,” McCoy said, simply.
“And what’s going to happen to you when it turns up missing? My God, Ken, you just can’t make off with Top Secret documents!”
“You can if the document doesn’t exist. That one doesn’t. There’s no longer a record of it.”
“Let me get this straight,” Pickering said. “You prepared this evaluation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“On your own, or officially?”
“The Korean part officially. The Chinese part on my own.”
“And you submitted it to this Captain Wilkerson?”
“And he sent it up to Willoughby. And the next day Wilkerson called me in and told me (a) I was relieved; (b) the evaluation didn’t exist; (c) I should start packing.”
“Why?”
“I can only guess,” McCoy said.
“Guess.”
“Remember when there was no possibility of guerrillas in the Philippines?” McCoy asked.
It had been the official position of the Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Ocean Areas—MacArthur— that it was absolutely impossible for any American guerrillas to function in the Japanese-occupied Philippine Islands.
“Before you went ashore on Mindanao and established contact with General Fertig, you mean?”
They were both smiling.
Goddamn it, why are we smiling? If that’s what’s going on, it isn’t funny.
“I think it’s entirely possible that Willoughby has just assured El Supremo that there is absolutely no risk of trouble in Korea,” McCoy said. “And doesn’t want his opinion challenged by a captain. I can’t think of any other reason. . . .”
“But what if you’re right?”
“The evaluation doesn’t exist. The worst scenario for him is to say he was completely surprised by what happened, and strongly hint that he