In Danger's Path (19 page)

Pickering learned for the first time that the Soviet Union was holding close to one hundred American airmen (and no one knew how many British or other allied airmen) who for one reason or another had landed on Soviet territory. Predictably, the Soviets denied this, even when presented with names, ranks, serial numbers, aircraft tail numbers, and in some cases photographs of the downed airmen in Russia.

“By a process of elimination,” Captain Groscher said, “that leaves the Gobi Desert.”

Pickering next learned that the Gobi Desert was not, as he had previously pictured in his mind's eye, a vast area of shifting sands. Actually it had very little sand. The terrain was rock, most of it flat. It was possible, he learned, to drive an ordinary automobile for hundreds of miles in any direction without difficulty. Presuming, of course, one had fuel.

As it had been for a thousand years, the area was regularly traversed east to west, and north to south, by camel caravans. The first contact with the handful of Americans who were wandering around in the vast rocky Gobi Desert had been messages sent out on several camel caravans that had reached India.

There had been three messages, Groscher reported. Each had said about the same thing: There were retired U.S. military personnel in the desert. They were trying to reach Allied lines. They had a shortwave receiver and would monitor a frequency in the twenty-meter band at 1200 Greenwich time whenever possible.

Each message was signed differently, Groscher went on. With the rank and initials (not the full name) of individuals who had retired from the Yangtze River patrol, the 15th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment, and the 4th Marines.

“From the available records,” Groscher said, “we determined that indeed there was a Chief Motor Machinist's Mate Frederick C. Brewer—corresponding with the initials FCB on one message—who retired from the Yangtze River patrol. And a Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr.—corresponding with the initials WTCJr on another—who retired from the 17th Infantry. And there was a Sergeant James R. Sweatley—corresponding with the initials on the third message—who was assigned to the Marine detachment in Peking, and was presumed to have become a Japanese POW.”

“When contact was first established with Fertig in the Philippines,” Pickering observed, “there was some question whether it might be a Japanese trick.”

“Our gut feeling has been that's not the case here,” Groscher replied. “Meanwhile, we were investigating ways to get radio transmitters in to these people, when they suddenly came on the air themselves. Their radio equipment is almost certainly cobbled together from whatever they could lay their hands on, is not very good when it works, and doesn't work very often. But it does give us a communications link with them.”

“The transmitter Fertig used to first establish contact with the outside was built by a Filipino sergeant with parts from the sound apparatus of a movie projector,” Pickering said.

“The one in the Gobi was probably built by some retired electrician's mate,” Groscher said. “Most of these people are probably Yangtze River patrol sailors.”

“Why do you say that?” Nimitz asked, as Pickering opened his mouth to ask the same thing.

“Sir, the records indicate that there are far more retired Yangtze sailors in China than Marines, by a factor of five; and by a factor of seven, more river patrol retirees than soldiers.”

“Is that somehow significant?” Pickering asked.

“Sailors rarely have—what shall I say?—‘the live off the land skills,' or the ability to function as infantry that Marines and soldiers may be presumed to have,” Groscher said. “Consequently, when we have to ask the question ‘what shape are these people in?' we are forced to operate on the least pleasant likelihood. That is to say, these people are probably more on the order of a group of nomads than anything resembling a military force of any description, especially considering that they are accompanied by women and children.”

“A point which the Army Air Corps has made, time and again, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Nimitz said. “And, I'm afraid, with justification.”

“I've been around the fringes of this, Admiral,” Pickering said. “But until now I didn't know what it was really all about.”

“Politics are at play, of course,” Nimitz interrupted him. “The State Department doesn't want to do or say anything that might annoy our Russian allies, which means we can forget about sending anyone into Mongolia through the Soviet Union. The Army Air Corps are convinced that they should be in charge of this, but they don't really have any sense of urgency. B-29s are not going to bomb the Japanese home islands this year, and probably not until late in 1944. The Navy needs a weather station
now
.”

Nimitz
, Pickering thought,
probably figures that I will now have Donovan's ear, and will be able to plead his case to him. That's why he brought Groscher here
.

The problem is that my support of a project like this—my advocacy of any project, for that matter—would be the kiss of death for it in Donovan's eyes
.

“Sir,” Pickering said. “I'm probably missing something here. But what has this got to do with me?”

“I had a Special Channel from Admiral Leahy two days ago,” Nimitz said. “It was the decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the responsibility for determining whether or not the Americans in the Gobi Desert can be used to set up a weather station and get it running will be given to the OSS.”

“Admiral, I'm sure that the OSS will do whatever it can.”

“Yesterday I sent Admiral Leahy a special channel message expressing my belief that you were the obvious choice within the OSS to assume this responsibility, and asked him to exert his influence to see that you are so assigned.”

“I wish I shared your confidence in me,” Pickering said. “And I am sure Mr. Donovan doesn't.”

“I ask very few favors of Admiral Leahy,” Nimitz said. “He generally gives me what I ask for. And so far as Mr. Donovan is concerned, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Admiral Leahy brought the matter up with the President before he discussed your participation in it with Mr. Donovan. And the President, to my knowledge, has never refused Admiral Leahy anything he's asked for.”

“I'm back to repeating I wish I shared your confidence in me,” Pickering said.

“It should go without saying that CINCPAC will support you in any way we can,” Nimitz said. “Groscher has a
MAGIC
clearance, so you can communicate with him using the Special Channel. And Admiral Wagam will coordinate things, and advise me of any problems.”

“Yes, sir,” Pickering said. “Sir, may I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“For the sake of argument, suppose that I can—the OSS can—establish contact with these people. Then what? According to Captain Groscher, the odds are that they're nothing more than—what did you say, Groscher?—nomads.”

Nimitz acted as if the question—or perhaps Pickering's naïveté—surprised him.

“Fleming, the situation is very much like what you just did with this Fertig fellow on Mindanao. Once you have sent people in to meet with these people and established reliable two-way radio communication with them, we will have a force—a
Naval force
—in position. Then the Navy can reinforce that force. I'm sure that I will be able to convince Admiral Leahy that reinforcing a force in being is a far more sound proposition than waiting for our Russian allies to permit the Air Corps to establish a weather station on their territory.”

“Yes, sir,” Pickering said.

[ONE]
Carlucci's Bar & Grill
South Fourth Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1615 18 February 1943

“Why are we stopping here?” Janice asked dubiously.

Carlucci's Bar & Grill did not look like the sort of place one took young ladies for a romantic cocktail and supper.

“I have to go in here for a minute,” Weston said. “Would you like to wait in the car?”

Just over two hours previously, when Captain James B. Weston, USMCR, had taken possession of it, the interior of the 1941 dark green Buick Roadmaster convertible had reeked of tanned leather. It now smelled of whatever perfume Lieutenant (j.g.) Janice Hardison, NNC, had dabbed behind her ears—or in more intimate places—just before meeting him outside the gate of the Philadelphia U.S. Navy Hospital.

It was a significant improvement, although, pre-Janice, Weston had always had a soft place in his heart for the smell of leather in a convertible.

“You're going in there?” Janice asked. “Why?”

“It affects our future life together,” he said. “Beyond that, I'd rather not say. And I don't think you would want to know.”

“Jim, what are you up to?” she asked, half annoyed, half plaintive.

“It won't take me long,” he said, and stepped out of the car.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You're not leaving me here alone.”

Carlucci's Bar & Grill smelled primarily of beer and cigarette and cigar smoke, although there was a more subtle odor both Janice and Jim associated with Italian restaurants. Most of the seats at the long bar were occupied by large males, who looked as if they worked in the Naval shipyard, Janice thought, or possibly as stevedores on the Philadelphia waterfront. They found seats near the far end of the bar.

A very large, swarthy bartender who needed a shave put both hands on the bar and leaned toward them to inquire, “What'll it be?”

“Scotch, twice,” Weston said. “One light, one heavy.”

The drinks were served. Weston laid currency on the bar.

“Anything else I can do for you, pal?”

“I was hoping I could talk to Mario,” Weston said.

“You're a friend of Dominic's, right?”

“Right. You're Mario?”

The two men shook hands.

Mario turned to the cash register behind him, opened it, lifted an interior drawer, took an envelope from it, and handed it to Weston, who glanced quickly at what it contained, then put it into an inner pocket of his tunic.

“And you got something for me, right?” Mario asked.

Weston took a thick wad of bills from his pocket, peeled money from it, and laid it on the bar.

Mario picked the money up and put it in his trousers pocket.

“I can take care of your other problem, too, if you want,” Mario said.

“The sooner the better,” Jim said.

“Right now soon enough?”

“How long would that take?”

“Not longer than it would take you to have some pasta,” Mario said, nodding at four tables just beyond the extreme end of the bar. “If you don't gulp it down.”

“How do you feel about pasta, Janice?” Jim Weston inquired.

“We also got sausage, pepper, and onions,” Mario suggested helpfully.

“Fine!” Janice said, without much conviction.

Weston reached into his pocket and handed Mario the keys to the Buick. Mario walked down the bar, spoke softly to an equally large man sipping a beer, and handed him the keys. The man walked out of the bar.

Mario returned to Janice and Jim.

“If you don't like pasta,” he said to Janice, “the sausage and peppers is really nice.”

“Thank you,” Janice said.

“Are you going to tell me what's going on?” Janice asked, almost whispered, after their order had been taken by a very large middle-aged woman in a big white apron. “What's in that envelope that man gave you? Where is the other man going with your car?”

“You are an officer and gentlelady of the Naval Service,” Jim said. “You don't want to know. Besides, haven't you seen the poster? ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships!'?”

“Jim, I want to know!” Janice said, in such a manner that Jim understood she really wanted to know.

He handed her the envelope. She looked into it, then quickly handed it back.

She looked at him, shaking her head in disbelief.

“That's dishonest!” she said. “I can't believe you did that!”

“It's
not
dishonest,” he said. “Dishonesty, by definition, means telling people lies. He had something I wanted, and I paid him what he wanted for it. Where's the dishonesty?”

“It's…it's unpatriotic!”

“There's a war on, right?”

“Yes, there is, and the armed forces need every gallon of gasoline they can get, and here you are—”

“The armed forces get all the gasoline they need,” Weston said. “The shortage is of rubber. The thinking is that the less people drive, the less they will wear out their tires. I can understand that.”

“But you're going to drive…. My God, I don't know how many gasoline ration coupons were in that envelope!”

“There's supposed to be enough to buy a thousand gallons of gas,” Jim said. “I didn't count them. Mario, I thought, has an honest face.”

“But you're going to wear out your tires. Doesn't that bother you?”

“I'm going to contribute my already worn-out tires—the ones that came with the car—to the very next rubber-salvage campaign I come across. Unless, of course, Mario's friend takes care of that for me.”

She looked at him for just a moment until she took his meaning.

“Is that where he went with your car? To put new tires on it?”

“God, I hope they're new. But anything would be better than the tires that came with it. I'd never have made it out of Philadelphia on those tires, much less to the wilds of West Virginia. Much less back here to see you.”

“You're absolutely incredible!”

“Thank you!”

“I meant to say ‘shameless,'” Janice said.

“Shamelessly in love with you,” he said. “What would you have preferred? That I die of a broken heart in Sulfuric Acid Springs, West Virginia?”

“White Sulphur Springs,” she corrected him.

“Because, because of a few lousy gallons of gasoline, and four tires, I was separated from her whom I love beyond measure?”

“Will you please knock off that ‘you love me' business?” Janice said, but Jim didn't think she really meant it. He thought he saw that in her eyes.

[TWO]
The 21 Club
21 West Fifty-second Street
New York City, New York
1745 18 February 1943

Ernest Sage was sitting at the extreme end of the bar, his back against the wall, sipping his second martini. He was a superbly tailored, slightly built, and very intense man, a month shy of his fiftieth birthday, and wore his black hair slicked straight back with generous applications of Smootheee, one of the 213 personal products of American Personal Pharmaceuticals, the company whose board he chaired. He was, as well, its chief executive officer.

When his only child, Ernestine, and her gentleman friend, Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, entered the room, he fixed a not entirely genuine smile on his face and raised his right arm to attract their attention. His daughter smiled warmly and genuinely when she saw him. As always, this warmed him.

Captain McCoy's smile was as strained as Ernest Sage's.

“Hiya, Daddy,” Ernestine said, and kissed him.

“Hello, Princess,” he said, and hugged her.

Oh, Princess, why did you have to get yourself involved with this character?

“Hello, Ken,” he said, offering his hand. “It's good to see you. Welcome home.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Charley, see what the Lieutenant will have,” Sage said to the bartender.

“It's
Captain
, Daddy,” Ernie said. “
One
silver bar, first lieutenant.
Two
silver bars, captain.”

Oh shit. I knew that. Every time I get around him, I make an ass of myself
.

“Well, then, I guess congratulations are in order.”

“They certainly are,” Ernie said. “And notice the new fruit salad,” Ernie said, pointing at McCoy's ribbon-bedecked tunic. “That's the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration for valor.”

“Oh, Christ, Ernie,” McCoy said.

“He got it from General MacArthur personally,” Ernie went on, undaunted.

“Scotch,” McCoy, now very uncomfortable, said to the bartender. “Famous Grouse if you have it. A double.”

“Ernie, you're embarrassing Captain McCoy,” her father said.

“You can call him ‘Ken,' Daddy. We're lovers.”

“Jesus, Ernie!” McCoy protested.

Ernest Sage pretended he had not heard his daughter. “You got to meet General MacArthur, did you, Ken?”

“And yesterday he briefed President Roosevelt,” Ernie said. “In the White House.”

“Did he really?” Sage asked, and then curiosity got the best of him. “I'm not sure what that means, ‘briefed.'”

“It's sort of a report, sir.”

“A report on what?”

McCoy hesitated before answering. The operation had been classified Top Secret, but that was no longer the case. After McCoy's briefing, the President had ordered Navy Secretary Knox to put out a press release: “It will do great things for morale, Frank,” President Roosevelt had said, “for the public to learn that these brave men refused to surrender and are carrying on the fight against the Japanese in the Philippines.”

“There's a guerrilla force operating in the Philippines,” McCoy said.

“A gorilla force?” Sage asked, dubiously.

Ernie laughed at him. She started pounding her chest with balled fists.

“Hundreds of King Kong's cousins,” she said, “beating their chests. And looking for Japanese to rip apart.
Guerrillas
, Daddy. Probably from the French
guerre
, meaning ‘war.'”

Ernest Sage saw that
Captain
McCoy was smiling, approvingly and fondly, at his only child. “I hadn't heard that,” Ernest Sage said.

“It was classified until yesterday,” McCoy said.

“And how did you come to know about these
guerrillas
, Ken?”

“He went into the Philippines and made contact with them,” Ernie said.

“That's enough, Ernie,” McCoy said flatly. “Put a lid on it.”

Ernie looked stricken. She did not like McCoy's disapproval.

“Am I asking questions I shouldn't be asking?” Ernest Sage said.

“Sir, I really don't know how much of this is still classified,” McCoy said.

The waiter delivered McCoy's double Famous Grouse and stood poised over it with a small silver water pitcher in one hand and a soda siphon bottle in the other.

McCoy held up his hand to signify he wanted neither, then picked up the glass and took a sip.

“What can I get you, Miss Sage?” the bartender asked.

“I'll just help myself to his. He had several…too many…on the train on the way up here.”

McCoy overrode this decision by signaling the bartender to give her her own drink. She did not press the issue.

“Daddy, to change the subject, what about Ken's car?”

At last, a safe subject
.

“I called the man at the Cadillac place in Summit,” Sage said. “He's sending a mechanic out to the farm. You should have it tomorrow morning sometime.”

“I was hoping we could have it today,” Ernie said.

“Princess, it's too late for you two to drive anywhere today,” Sage said. “This way, we can go out to the farm, have a nice dinner—your mother is making a welcome-home dinner for Ken, turkey—get a good night's sleep….”

“Ken's only got fifteen days, Daddy!”

“It's all right,” McCoy said. “Thank you, Mr. Sage.”

Sage nodded his acceptance of the thanks and went on: “And I have gasoline ration coupons—don't ask me where I got them—for a hundred gallons of gas.”

“You bought them on the black market,” Ernie said. “To replace the ration coupons—
Ken's
ration coupons—you ‘borrowed' from me.” Ernest Sage raised his eyebrows.

“I wasn't going to renew the license plates, honey,” Ernie went on. “But Daddy talked me into it. He said we could use the gasoline ration coupons.”