remark had been entered into the service-record jackets.
That remark was still in Captain Hart’s service records, and he knew that both his first sergeant and the gunnery sergeant had taken a look at his records, and suspected his officers had, too. In their shoes, he would have taken a look.
There were other remarks entered sequentially in his jacket, after the “detached to OSS” entry, that he knew his men had seen:
5 May 1944 Promoted Captain 4 October 1945 Relieved of Detachment to OSS 4 October 1945 Detached to USMC Inactive Reserve 18 April 1946 Detached to USMC Organized Reserve 18 April 1946 Attached Company B, 55th Marines, USMC Reserve, St. Louis, Mo., as Commanding Officer
Hart knew that his service records jacket, combined with everyone’s knowledge that he was the Chief of the St. Louis Homicide Bureau, painted a picture of George Hart that was far more glamorous than the facts: a decorated, wounded Marine who had been an OSS agent in the War had come home to the police force, and for patriotic reasons had joined the active reserve.
There had been questions, of course, about his wartime service, which he had declined to answer.
How could he have answered them?
I wasn’t really an OSS agent, fellas. What I was was a bodyguard to a general who had a MAGIC clearance.
What’s MAGIC?
He could not have answered that question. In 1946, anything connected to MAGIC was classified; as far as he knew, it still was.
It was far easier to say what he had said.
“I’d rather not talk about that, you understand.”
They understood. They had all seen the movies about the OSS. OSS agents didn’t talk about the OSS.
Until now, it hadn’t made any difference. He had joined the Marine Corps Organized Reserve because the recruiter who had made the pitch had pointed out that he would draw a day’s pay and allowances for one four-hour training session a week, plus two weeks in the summer, which wasn’t bad money, especially since he had acquired a wife and ultimately three children to support on a police lieutenant’s pay.
And if he put in a total of twenty years combined active duty and reserve service, there would be a pension when he turned sixty, something to consider, since police pensions were anything but generous.
On assuming command of Baker Company, he had had virtually no idea what a company commander was supposed to do, or how to do it. But he’d inherited a first sergeant who did have an idea, and who initially led him by the hand through the intricacies of commanding a company.
And he had taken correspondence courses in all kinds of military subjects from the Marine Corps Institute. And he asked questions of the regular Marine Corps officer assigned as instructor/inspector at the Navy/Marine Corps Reserve Training Center.
The I&I was an Annapolis graduate, but he had never been in a war, and he treated Captain Hart, who had, with respect and a presumption of knowledge on Captain Hart’s part that Hart knew he really didn’t deserve.
But with a lot of hard work, the I&I and Hart had turned Baker Company into a first-class reserve infantry company, at 94 percent of authorized strength, with everybody but the kids-yet-to-go-to-boot-camp trained in their specialty.
Which was not, Hart realized, the same thing as saying Baker Company was prepared to go to war under the command of Captain George S. Hart. It looked like that was going to happen.
Hart had just finished tucking his shirt into his trousers, and making sure the shirt placket was precisely aligned with his belt and fly, when there was a discreet knock on the glass pane of his door.
“Captain? You in there, sir?”
Hart recognized the I&I’s voice.
“Come in, Peterson,” Hart called.
“Good evening, sir,” First Lieutenant Paul T. Peterson, USMC, USNA ’46, a slim, good-looking twenty-five-year-old, said as he came through the door.
Hart could see that the platoon sergeants were forming the men on the glossy varnished floor.
“How goes it, Paul?” Hart asked.
“I don’t know,” Peterson said, turning from closing the door. “This Korea thing . . .”
“Yeah,” Hart said.
“What do you think?” Peterson asked.
“I think we’re going to get involved over there,” Hart said.
“You hear anything, sir?”
Hart shook his head, “no.”
But the White House—Jesus Christ, The White House!!!— was looking for Killer McCoy, and the Killer hadn’t come by St. Louis with his wife as he said he was going to.
The Killer, the last I heard before he called and said he was coming to St. Louis, was stationed in Tokyo. As an