Jeanette. The next time you see Tokchok-kundo will be from the deck of the Mount McKinley on 15 September.”
“What’s the Mount McKinley?” Dunston asked.
“The command ship for the Inchon invasion.”
“The Palace Guard will make sure I don’t get a press space for that,” Jeanette said.
“You’ll have a CIA space,” Pickering said. “Sid Huff called me and said El Supremo told him to ask me how many cabins I would require on the Mount McKinley. I told him I would have two people with me and would need two cabins. You’re one of the two people. Trust me, Jeanette, it will take a direct order from MacArthur to keep you off the Mount McKinley.”
She looked at him closely for a moment and then said, “Well, maybe you’re not such an unmitigated sonofabitch after all.”
“So the invasion is definitely on for the fifteenth?” Dunston asked.
“And so, unless we can grab those islands beforehand, is the planned attack on them on D Minus One,” Pickering said. “Which brings us back to the people we may have on Tokchok-kundo without a radio. What George and I came up with is to have only one American—to operate the radio—aboard. He will go on the air to report that they’re about to reach the island. Then he will make himself as invisible as possible while your South Korean crew sails her into Tokchok-kundo. If our people are there, we’re home free.”
“And if they’re not?” Jeanette said.
“With a little luck, the junk simply goes back to sea,” Pickering said.
“And if Lady Luck is looking the other way,” Jeanette said, “everybody on the Wind of Good Fortune gets bagged, and after interrogation, gets shot as spies.”
“She’s right, boss,” Hart said.
Pickering started to say something in reply, and then didn’t. He turned instead to Dunston.
“Do you think the idea has merit, Dunston?”
“Yes, sir, it does,” Dunston said.
“And would you be willing to take the junk there?”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“That would be stupid,” Hart announced.
“Excuse me?”
“For one thing, it would be foolish to risk his getting bagged. The NKs must know who he is. For another, you need him here. I’ll ride the goddamn boat.”
“That’s out of the question,” Pickering said, without thinking.
“Why? Who else have you got?” Hart said. “I can be spared, and I can do it. That looks pretty simple to me.”
“I guess you’re not, either,” Jeanette said.
“Either what?”
“An unmitigated sonofabitch,” Jeanette said.
“Are you sure, George?” Pickering asked.
“I’m sure, boss,” Hart said.
XX
[ONE]
TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND 0605 24 AUGUST 1950
Major Kim Pak Su, Korean national police, Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, Lieutenant David Taylor, USNR, and Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, all attired in black cotton shirts and trousers, stood looking down at the two panels laid on the ground between the two houses on the hill.
On one panel was written the letters R, A, and D, and on the other the letters I and O. The letters were written large, from the tops of the eight-by-ten-foot panels to their bottoms. They were written in mud, of which there was an abundant supply, and was the only thing they had.
Master Gunner Zimmerman was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of using the panels to make a message board as soon—twenty-four hours before McCoy and Taylor had arrived—as the storm had taken out the generator, but McCoy pointed out that the rain had stopped only hours before his arrival, and that the rain would have washed the letters away as soon as they could be written.
“Anyway, Ernie, it’s a hell of a long shot,” McCoy said. “We don’t know when there will be another flyover, or whether he will be taking aerials, or whether he . . .”
There was the sound of aircraft engines.
The three officers moved to the side of the area between the houses and started to scan the sky.
Not quite two minutes later, two Corsairs suddenly appeared, flying down the Flying Fish Channel from the lighthouse at five hundred feet, making maybe 250 knots. Not flat out, in other words, but slower than they would have been flying had they not been interested in the islands around the Flying Fish Channel, and still fast enough so that if anyone on the North Korean-held shore happened to see them, it would not appear they were having a really good, close look at the Channel Islands and wonder why.
They didn’t divert from their course, and thirty seconds after they appeared, they disappeared in the direction of Inchon.
They would, McCoy suspected, engage targets of opportunity in Inchon before either flying a