“It’s in the trunk,” McCoy said, sarcastically. “And I think the driver’s going to want this back.”
He started unzipping the high-altitude flight suit.
The pilot came down the ladder and helped him, then climbed back up the ladder carrying the suit with him.
McCoy saw that the ground crew had hooked up a heavy cable to the fuselage. The Secret Service man touched Mc-Coy’s arm, and when McCoy looked at him, nodded toward the Base Operations building.
McCoy nodded back and started to walk. He did not think he was being abducted by gypsies to be held for ransom. The Secret Service credentials looked legitimate, and probably were, but that was not the same thing as saying he was in the hands of the Secret Service. When he had been first with the Office of Management Analysis and later the OSS, he had had bona fide credentials as an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence and as a U.S. Marshal, and had never been either.
These two guys were probably CIA agents with Secret Service credentials. So far as he knew, the Secret Service was responsible for chasing counterfeiters of money and protecting the President. He didn’t have any phony money, and he couldn’t imagine anyone suspecting him of being a threat to the President.
Their “car” was a black Chevrolet Suburban, with several shortwave antennae mounted on it. They loaded him into the rear, and he heard the door lock click after he got in.
And he knew Washington, so when they headed toward it on Highway 4, which turned into Pennsylvania Avenue before the District Line, he became more convinced that they were headed to the CIA office, which was in the 2400 block of E Street.
They stayed on Pennsylvania Avenue, and when he saw the White House through the windshield, he turned on his seat for a better look.
He didn’t get one. The Suburban made a sudden turn to the right, and then before he could orient himself, a turn left into an alley, and then another left and then a right.
And then it stopped, and he heard the click as the rear door was unlocked. The door opened, and the larger of the “Secret Service” agents motioned him to get out.
They were in a courtyard of a house.
“Where are we?” McCoy asked. “What’s this?”
“If you’ll follow Agent Taylor, please, Captain?” the smaller agent said, and pointed. McCoy followed Taylor through a ground-floor steel door, down a corridor, then up a flight of carpeted stairs, and finally into a small room furnished with a small leather armchair, a small desk, a chair for that, and, on a table against the wall, a telephone.
“Please wait here, Captain,” Agent Taylor said. “We’ll be just outside.”
By now, McCoy was convinced he was in the hands of the CIA, because the two clowns with Secret Service badges were behaving much like the OSS clowns—most of whom, in the beginning, had never seen a Jap or heard a weapon fired in anger—had behaved, copying their cloak-and -dagger behavior from watching spy movies.
He walked to the desk, rested his buttocks and his hands on it, and waited for Spy Movie, Act Two.
The door opened.
The President of the United States walked in.
It took McCoy a moment to believe what his eyes saw, and then he popped to attention.
“Stand at ease, Captain,” the President said, offering his hand. “What did they do, sneak you in the back door?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How was the flight?” the President asked.
“Very interesting, sir,” McCoy replied, truthfully. “It’s hard to believe you’re moving that fast.” And then he had another thought. “Mr. President, my uniform’s a mess. . . .”
“There were many occasions, Captain McCoy, when it was Captain Truman of Battery B, that my uniform was, with good reason, a mess.”
McCoy didn’t reply.
“I’ve seen your assessment of war in Korea in ninety days, Captain,” the President said. “I wanted to have a look at you.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“I don’t want you to think before you answer these questions, Captain. I want you to say the first thing that comes to your mind. Understand?”
"Yes, sir.”
"Do you think General MacArthur has seen your assessment? ”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“I think he would have called me in, if he’d seen it.”
“Why do you think he hasn’t seen it?”
“General Willoughby didn’t want him to see it; didn’t give it to him.”
“Why not?”
“I can only guess, sir.”
“Guess.”
“He had only recently given MacArthur an everything-is -peachy assessment.”