went on, “I can’t believe that General Willoughby would suppress something like this, and for another, as I said before, I’ve received nothing remotely approaching this assessment from my own people in the Orient.”
“So?” Fowler asked.
“On the other hand, it comes to me not only from a . . . the former . . . deputy director of the OSS for the Pacific, but via a senator, for whom I not only have a great deal of respect, but who apparently believes there is something to the assessment. Under that circumstance, I will immediately take action to see what I can find out myself.”
“How?” Pickering asked, sarcastically. “By sending Willoughby a radio message?”
“Flem, goddamn it!” Fowler said.
“By dispatching my deputy director for Asiatic Activities—your replacement, so to speak, General—over there as soon as I can get him on a plane, with instructions to— what was your phrase, General? ‘light a fire’?—light a fire under our people in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul to refresh their efforts.”
“All right,” Fowler said.
“It would facilitate things if they could talk with the author of this,” Hillenkoetter went on, tapping his fingertips on the assessment. “To do that, I’d have to have his name.”
“Flem?” Fowler asked.
Pickering thought it over.
“No,” he said, finally, “for a number of reasons, primarily because everything he knows is in the assessment. What they would really want from him is his sources, and I don’t think he’d be willing to tell them.”
“We’re supposed to be on the same side, General,” Hillenkoetter said.
“I’m not entirely convinced of that, frankly,” Pickering said. “Anyway, my . . . friend . . . would not give up his sources unless I told him to, and I’m not willing to do that. At least, right now.”
Hillenkoetter shrugged.
“I may keep this, right?” he asked, tapping the assessment again.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Pickering said. “Could I have your word that you’ll use it to pose specific questions—about the order of battle, that sort of thing?—I mean, that you won’t turn it over as is to your people? They wouldn’t have to be rocket scientists to figure out who wrote it if they had the entire document.”
“And we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?” Hillenkoetter asked. “It might wind up in the newspapers.”
Fowler smiled.
“You have my word, General,” Hillenkoetter said. “And would you agree, Senator, that we don’t have to worry the President about this just now?”
“Not for the time being,” Fowler said, and rose from his chair. “Thank you, Admiral, for your consideration, and for seeing us on short notice. And I’ll expect to hear from you shortly, right?”
“Absolutely,” Hillenkoetter said, and offered his hand to Pickering.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, General.”
“Was it really?” Pickering asked.
Hillenkoetter laughed, a little uneasily, and walked Pickering and Fowler to his office door.
As he watched them walk through his outer office, there was an unexpected bulletin from his memory bank.
Christ! The Gobi Desert weather station. The OSS— Pickering—put that in, in the middle of Japanese-occupied Mongolia. Nobody thought he could do it, much less keep it up. But he did, right through the end of the war. The B-29 bombing of the Japanese home islands could not have taken place without it. And we’re still using it.
Whatever else Pickering may be, he’s no amateur. Maybe there is something to this assessment.
But why would Charley Willoughby sit on it?
He became aware that Mrs. Warburg, his executive assistant, was looking at him, waiting for orders.
“Call Mr. Jacobs, please, Mrs. Warburg,” he said. “Ask him to come up as soon as he can. And call transportation and start working on tickets for him to Hong Kong.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
He started to close his office door, but she held it open.
Then she stepped inside the office and closed the door.
“Admiral, the tape recorder didn’t get shut down,” she said.
He looked at her.
“There was something in your voice when you said to shut it down,” she said.
“You heard that conversation?” he asked.
She nodded.
“No, you didn’t, Martha,” he said. “And I want you personally to get that tape, shred it, and burn it. And make sure there are no copies.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Do I get to read the assessment?”
“It’s on my desk. You can read it, but I want zero copies made.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You did the right thing, Martha,” Hillenkoetter said. “But this . . . situation . . . is extraordinary.”
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Warburg said, and walked to his desk to read the assessment.
IV
[ONE]
THE WILLIAM BANNING HOUSE 66 SOUTH BATTERY CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA