“We got the weapons carrier first,” Zimmerman said. “It’s had a couple of hours to dry. Besides, if it looks a little dirty—”
“It would probably look a little less suspicious than a fresh paint job,” Dunston said, in Korean. “You seem to be everything I’ve heard about you, Mr. Zimmerman. That you are very good at what you do.”
McCoy chuckled.
Zimmerman looked confused.
“May I see you a moment, gentlemen?” McCoy ordered, gesturing toward a far corner of the warehouse, as he started walking to it.
Zimmerman and Taylor followed him.
“Who is that guy?” Zimmerman asked.
“The Pusan CIA station chief,” McCoy said. “I sort of like him, but I don’t want him to know about the Channel Islands. He thinks we’re here to see if we can get Pick back.”
Zimmerman nodded.
“You went to him?” Taylor asked.
“The general sent him a TWX telling him to give us anything we need. He went looking for me.”
“How did he find you?” Zimmerman asked.
“He not only found me, he knew where to find you,” McCoy said, chuckling. “I guess you could say he’s very good at what he does.”
“Okay.”
“How much did you tell these guys?”
“I was waiting for you to do that.”
“What’s with Sergeant Jennings? Why did you send him to K-1?”
“I knew him at Parris Island,” Zimmerman said. “Good man.”
“Can he keep his mouth shut? My brain was out of gear when I landed at K-1 and I told him what we’re really going to do.”
“Yeah,” Zimmerman said. “He can. I’ll tell him right now.”
“Dunston’s going to be useful. He’s got a place we can use outside of town, and a junk with a two hundred-horsepower Caterpillar, and a national police major he says can be trusted.”
“Well, the junk will come in handy,” Taylor said.
“Maybe he trusts this Korean to report on everything we do?” Zimmerman asked.
“Probably. So the thing we do is make the we’re-going-to -try-to-rescue-Pickering story credible.”
Zimmerman nodded.
“So what do we do now?”
McCoy pointed across the room, where a canvas tarpaulin shrouded a five-foot-high stack of crates.
“What’s in those?”
“Rations, some Japanese Arisaka rifles, ammo for them, beer, and a brand-new SCR-300 transceiver.”
“Well, start loading that stuff in the weapons carrier and a trailer, and we’ll go look at our new home. We can take Jennings with us, so he knows how to find this place. I want to get out of here before we all wind up in an Army stockade.”
There was little sign of life in the village of Tongnae except for a Korean national policeman standing in the center of the major intersection. He had a Japanese Arisaka rifle hanging from his shoulder, and was wearing what McCoy recognized as a Japanese army cartridge belt. He was wearing rubber sandals, and he didn’t move as Dunston’s Jeep and then the weapons carrier drove past him.
“What’s that awful stink?” Jennings asked from the backseat, where he was sitting with Taylor.
“Korea, the land of the morning calm and many awful stinks,” Taylor said. “What we’re smelling now is drying fish. They put their catches on racks on roofs and dry them. They don’t rot, for some reason. I’ve wondered how they do that.”
Dunston drove down deserted streets and finally stopped before a double door in a stone wall. He blew the horn, and after a moment the doors were opened by a national police sergeant who didn’t look old enough to be wearing a uniform, or large enough to be able to fire the Garand he held in his hands.
He took his right hand from the Garand and saluted awkwardly as Dunston drove the Jeep past him.
Inside the wall was a rambling one-story wooden building with a wide verandah. As McCoy looked at it, a door slid open and a Korean appeared. He was slight, bare-chested, wearing only U.S. Army fatigue trousers and rubber sandals. He held a Thompson submachine gun in his hand. He saluted.
There was something about him that told McCoy he was looking at Major Kim Pak Su.
Dunston got out of the Jeep and walked to Major Kim.
“Who’s here tonight besides you?” he asked, in Korean.
“No one’s here but me,” Kim said. “Who are these people? ”
“They’re working with me, or more accurately, I’m working with them,” Dunston said, and switched to English. “Captain McCoy, this is Major Kim.”
“How do you do?” Kim said, in British-accented English.
“Very well, thank you,” McCoy said, in Korean. “This is my deputy, Master Gunner Zimmerman, and Lieutenant Taylor, of