“Sir, the Corps was desperately short of officers at the time, scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Quantico sergeant major, for example, was a sergeant major one day and a lieutenant colonel the next.”
“Really? What was his name? Do you remember?”
“Yes, sir. Stecker. Jack NMI Stecker.”
“You serve with McCoy anywhere else, Macklin?”
“When the OSS was formed, sir, there was a levy on the Corps for officers with intelligence experience in China. And/or who had some knowledge of Oriental languages. Both McCoy and I were assigned to the OSS. He had some smattering knowledge of Chinese, I believe.”
“And that’s how you came to understand his personal characteristics, his ‘payday-to-payday’ philosophy of life?”
“Yes, sir. I suppose it is. May I ask—?”
Brewer put his hand up to silence him.
“I hardly know where to begin, Major Macklin,” he said. “Let me start with Brigadier General Jack NMI Stecker, holder of the Medal of Honor, under whom it was my privilege to serve when he was special assistant to General Vandegrift, when he was Commandant of the Corps. You weren’t suggesting, a moment ago, that he was something like Captain McCoy, someone who really shouldn’t have been an officer in the first place, much less a lieutenant colonel and ultimately a brigadier general, were you?”
“No, sir. General Stecker was a fine Marine officer. But, if I may say so, he was sort of the exception to the rule.”
“Not like McCoy, is what you’re saying?”
“Not at all like McCoy, sir.”
“Would you be interested to learn that whatever other problems Captain McCoy has at the moment, paying the rent is not one of them?”
"Sir?”
“I just came from Colonel Wade’s office, Macklin, where I very much fear I left General Dawkins with the impression that I don’t know what’s going on around here.”
“Sir?”
“Both General Dawkins—who is obviously personally acquainted with Captain McCoy—and Colonel Wade— who had a somewhat different opinion from yours of Mc-Coy’s service to the Corps even before we had a look at his records—are convinced the Corps is making a stupid mistake in separating Captain McCoy from the service.”
“I can only suggest, sir, that the general and the colonel are privy to information about Captain McCoy that I’m not.”
“You didn’t know that he was both wounded and decorated for valor when the Marine Raiders made the Makin Island raid?”
“That never came to my attention, sir.”
“Did it ever come to your attention that Captain McCoy was awarded the Victoria Cross by the Brits for his service to the Australian coastwatcher service?”
“No, sir, it did not.”
“How about his award of the Distinguished Service Medal for his having established a weather station in the Gobi Desert in Japanese-occupied Manchuria?”
“No, sir.”
“There are several possibilities here, Major,” Colonel Brewer said, almost conversationally.
“Sir?”
“One of which is that you are the most stupid sonofabitch ever to wear the insignia of a Marine major. Among the others are that you are a lying sonofabitch with a personal vendetta—for reasons I don’t even want to think about—against Captain McCoy.”
“Sir—”
“Shut your mouth, Major,” Brewer snapped. “Until I make up my mind which it is, and what I’m going to do about it, you will report to the Headquarters Commandant for an indefinite period of temporary duty. I don’t know what else he will have you doing, but you will start by inventorying every company supply room on the base. You are dismissed, Major.”
[SEVEN]
THE DIRECTOR’S OFFICE EAST BUILDING, THE CIA COMPLEX 2430 E STREET WASHINGTON, D.C. 0930 9 JUNE 1950
“The Director will see you now, Senator,” the executive assistant to the Director of the CIA said, and held open the door to an inner office.
Senator Richardson K. Fowler and Fleming Pickering rose from a dark green leather couch and walked toward the office.
Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, a tall, imposing, silver-haired man, came from around his desk with his hand extended.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Senator,” he said.
Pickering and Fowler had been in the outer office no more than three minutes.
In holders behind the admiral’s desk were three flags: the national colors, the CIA flag, and a blue flag with the two stars of a rear admiral.
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Admiral, ” Fowler said.
“Anytime, Senator, you know that,” Hillenkoetter said, and extended his hand to Pickering.
“This is my very good friend, Fleming Pickering,” Fowler said.
“How do you do, sir?” Hillenkoetter said. “What is it they say, ‘any friend of . . .’ ? I’m trying to place the name.”
“I’m chairman of the board of Pacific and Far East