“The shot shows a panel on which someone has written ’Radio,’ ” Dunston said. “It also shows, faintly, what looks like a man in black pajamas.”
“Interesting,” Pickering said.
“I thought you’d want to know, General.”
“Thank you. Everything is ready on your end for 2100 tonight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me know as soon as you know anything, will you?”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“Thank you, Bill.”
“Yes, sir,” Dunston said, and the connection broke.
“Charley, is Sergeant Keller handy?”
“I’ll get him, General,” Rogers said, and left the room.
“Good news?” Howe asked.
“Very good,” Pickering said.
“About your son?” Howe asked.
“No. The best news I have about Pick is that Dunston says he’s pretty sure Pick is not a POW.”
“What was that call?”
Master Sergeant Keller came into the room.
“Yes, sir?”
“I need a message to go—it doesn’t have to be classified, but send it Urgent, Immediate Personal Attention of Lieutenant Colonel William Dunn, aboard the Badoeng Strait.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Message is, quote, Many thanks. Radio is on the way. Signature, Pickering, Brigadier General, USMC, unquote. Got it?”
“I’ll get it right out, sir,” Keller said.
Pickering turned to Howe.
“One of the aerials Colonel Dunn took this morning of Tokchok-kundo shows a panel on which the word ‘radio’ is written,” Pickering said.
“Then maybe—presuming Charley is right, and I’m afraid he is, and someone was listening to your phone conversation—El Supremo will think it had to do with looking for your son.”
“Oh, to hell with it, Ralph. If he asks me, I’m going to tell him,” Pickering said.
[FOUR]
ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE 34 DEGREES 20 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE, 126 DEGREES 29 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE THE YELLOW SEA 2050 24 AUGUST 1950
Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, who was leaning on the railing on the aft of the high stern of the Wind of Good Fortune, next to the Korean sailor on the tiller, became aware that he could now see the light illuminating the compass in the small control compartment on the forward edge of the stern’s deck.
He looked at his watch, then pushed himself off the railing and walked across the deck to the captain, whose name was Kim, as were the names of two of the four Korean seamen aboard. The fourth seaman, the cook, was named Lee.
He touched Captain Kim on the shoulder and mimed— first by pointing at his watch, then pointing below, and finally by holding a make-believe microphone in front of his face—that it was time for him to report their position to their higher headquarters.
Captain Kim nodded, and either cleared his throat or grunted.
Hart took a chart from the pocket of his tunic. Surprising him, after a long, hot humid day, it had actually gotten chilly on the stern about half past five, and he had gone below to his cabin to get the tunic.
He held the chart out to Captain Kim, who studied it a moment, and then pointed out their position with a surprisingly delicate finger. They were slightly southwest of the extreme tip of the Korean peninsula. They had, in other words, just begun to sail northward up the Korean Peninsula, far enough out to sea so it was unlikely that anyone on the shore could see the Wind of Good Fortune.
They weren’t, technically, sailing. The sails had been lowered as soon as they were out of sight of Pusan, and they had moved under diesel power since.
Hart went to his—the captain’s—cabin, closed the door and turned on the light. The SCR-300, still on a shipping pallet, was lashed to the deck. On top of it was a non-GI Hallicrafters communications receiver, also carefully lashed in place.
The radios had been installed in the wee hours of the morning personally by Captain R. C. “Pete” Peters, Signal Corps, USA, of the 8th Army (Rear) Communications Center. And he had personally supervised the installation of the antennae at first light in the morning. Then he had established radio contact with his radio room.
The radios had worked then, which did not mean, Hart thought, that they would work now, either because something was wrong with them, or more likely because he didn’t really have a clue how to work the sonofabitch, despite Captain Peters’s instructions, each step of which Hart had carefully written down in a notebook.
Hart laid the chart on top of the radio, then took a large sheet of translucent paper from his tunic pocket and carefully laid this on top of the chart. It was an overlay. The night before, “Major” Dunston had spent two hours carefully