In Danger's Path (44 page)

“As you know, I've become rather friendly with the Deputy Director for Administration at the OSS,” General Adamson said.

Colonel Albright had first met the OSS Deputy Director (Administration)—whom he had immediately disliked—when he had been ordered to make
MAGIC
material available to OSS Director Donovan. He had dealt with him again—and learned to like him even less—when he had been ordered to provide a
MAGIC
device, for training purposes, to the OSS training camp in Maryland.

The
MAGIC
device at the Congressional Country Club had nothing to do with
MAGIC
material being exchanged between Hawaii, Brisbane, and Washington. It was instead shown to OSS agents who were to be sent into Europe. If they came across such a device, they all had orders to make every effort to steal it. The order had come from Admiral Leahy, but it had originated with Albright, who thought it entirely likely the Germans had come up with improvements to their devices that he wanted to know about.

That figures
, Colonel Albright thought.
You're two of a kind. Two asshole paper pushers, highly skilled in protecting your own asses
.

“You know what I'm talking about, Augie. He hears things, and passes them on to me, and I hear things….”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is one of those times when it is easier to go along than to say no, according to my friend. Admiral Leahy didn't want to say no to Admiral Nimitz; the President didn't want to say no to Admiral Leahy; and OSS Director Donovan, of course, couldn't say no to either the President or Admiral Leahy.”

“No about what, sir?”

“General Pickering has been charged with setting up a Navy weather station in the Gobi Desert.”

I suppose it's dishonest of me not to tell him that Banning told me all about Operation Gobi when he went to Monmouth to pick radios for the operation
.

But then, Banning wasn't simply running off at the
mouth. He needed my help to get radios and decided (a) that if Fritz Rickabee trusts me, he could trust me; and (b) authority or not, I had a bona fide Need To Know. I'm not going to get him in trouble because of that
.

“In the Gobi Desert?”

“From what I've heard about this operation, it's really out of left field. Your two Marines are going to try to make their way to the Gobi Desert…masquerading as members of a camel caravan! The idea is to establish contact with a group of Americans supposedly wandering around in there, to be followed by the flying in of a weather station.”

“That sounds like a tough operation, sir.”

“My friend tells me his personal assessment of the chances of success range from one in a thousand to none.”

“It sounds pretty—”

“It sounds suicidal to me,” General Adamson said. “Not to mention the waste of assets that could better be expended elsewhere. General Pickering's reason for taking the long way around to Chungking is to stop off at Pearl Harbor to discuss getting a submarine for Operation Gobi. The submarine is to rendezvous in the Yellow Sea a hundred miles off the China coast with a couple of Catalinas. After being refueled by the submarine, the airplanes will then fly across China and land in the Gobi Desert. They will not fly out again, of course. The distances are too great.”

“It does sound more than a little risky, sir.”

“Risky's not the word for it. Insanity would be more accurate.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So it behooves you and me, Augie, in case Operation Gobi is not successful, to make sure no one can point a finger at us and say that
we
somehow dropped the ball.”

You don't give a damn about McCoy and Zimmerman, or the people who will fly the airplanes on a one-way mission, or the sailors trying to refuel airplanes on the high seas in the middle of winter. All you're worried about is covering your own ass
.

“Yes, sir.”

“Every
t
crossed, Augie, a dot over every
i
.”

“Yes, sir.”

General Adamson dropped his eyes to Opplan China Clipper.

“Your Opplan states that the devices will be guarded by individuals who have qualified within the last six months with the weapon with which they will be armed. I presume you checked that?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“That paragraph came from London Fog. I found out that two of the CIC agents we used there were ex-cops who had gone directly into the CIC. I learned too late to do anything about it that neither of them had ever fired a Thompson submachine gun.”

“What's that got to do with this?”

“All of these people, including Colonel Banning, are (a) Marines and (b) have seen combat at least once. They know all about weapons.”

“Indulge me, Augie. When you go out there today, make sure they qualify with whatever weapons they are going to have with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have another copy of this?” General Adamson asked, tapping Opplan China Clipper with his fingers.

“Yes, sir.”

“Leave this one with me, then, please, Augie. I'll take a close look at it, and if I come up with something, I'll give you a ring out there.”

“Yes, sir.”

[TWO]
The Congressional Country Club
Bethesda, Maryland
0905 15 March 1943

Captain Kenneth R. McCoy was wearing a white button-down-collar shirt, no necktie, a gray V-necked woolen sweater, gray flannel slacks, and a week's growth of beard when he opened the door of his room and found Harry W. Rutterman, USMC—closely shaven, and immaculately attired in a new uniform—standing in the corridor.

“Hey, Harry,” McCoy said. “Come on in. What's up?”

“Banning just called. He's on his way out here with Colonel Albright, and he told me to make sure everybody was in the billiards room at ten. Where's the gunny?”

“In the armory,” McCoy replied. “Banning say what's going on?”

“No,” Rutterman said simply. He looked around the room and asked: “What the hell are you doing?”

The sitting room of the two room suite was furnished with a library table and a desk. Both were covered with books and maps.

“You mean you can't tell?” McCoy said. “I'm studying for sophomore geography. What do you want to know about Mongolia?” He leaned over the library table and read, “‘The average elevation is fifty-one hundred feet.' How about that? You want to know what goes on there? ‘They'—they being the Khalkha Mongols, who speak a language called Khalkha Mongolian—‘spend their time grazing sheep, goats, cattle, horses, yaks'—what the hell a yak is, I have no idea—‘and of course, camels.'”

“Fascinating!” Rutterman said. “Can I have some of that coffee?”

“Help yourself,” McCoy said. “How's the Easterbunny doing?”

“Doing what?”

“Learning how to operate that machine I'm not supposed to know about. How's he doing?”

“Come on, McCoy, you know I can't talk about that.”

“Okay. Sorry. Changing the subject: The only camel I have ever seen up close was in a circus in Philadelphia when I was a kid. The sonofabitch looked me right in the eye and spit in my face.”

“No shit?” Rutterman chuckled.

“Would I lie to you, Harry?”

“Yes, you would, McCoy,” Rutterman said, and held up a coffee cup. “You want some of this?”

“Please,” McCoy said. “I shit you not, Harry. That goddamned animal leaned down to me—I thought he wanted me to pet him, or rub his ears—and when he was about five feet away, he hit me with a goober that was probably a quart.”

Rutterman laughed. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean, what did I do? Nothing. I was twelve years old. What the hell could I do? But I'll tell you this, I have never smoked Camel cigarettes.”

Rutterman chuckled, then asked, “What's Zimmerman doing in the armory?”

“He went nosing around and found they've got all sorts of weapons. He found some Chinese copies of Mauser Broomhandle machine pistols—they fire that Luger nine-millimeter Parabellum cartridge—and he's working them over to make sure they shoot.”

“What's that all about?”

“Zimmerman says that's what the camel drivers carry, and he wants to look like a camel driver.”

At ten minutes to ten, Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, walked into the billiards room of the Congressional Country Club. He was wearing a brown sport coat, brown gabardine trousers, and a yellow shirt with a polka dot (white on blue) necktie. He smelled of bore cleaner and Hoppe's #9. “I was going to test-fire them Broomhandles,” he announced somewhat indignantly.

“It will have to wait. Banning said he wanted everybody here at ten.”

“What's up?”

McCoy shrugged, indicating he didn't have any idea. He looked at his watch, then went to one of the tables and started folding the oilcloth that covered it.

Zimmerman examined a rack of cues mounted on the wall, rejecting three of them before finding one that matched his standards. Then he walked to the table.

“There's no fucking holes!” he announced, surprised and annoyed.

“They call this ‘billiards,'” McCoy said.

“How the fuck do you play it?”

“I have no idea,” McCoy confessed. “I think you have to hit three cushions and then another ball.”

“Fuck that,” Zimmerman said. “I'll play you close-to-the cushion for a nickel a shot.”

“A quarter,” McCoy countered.

“You ain't that good, Killer.”

Why is Ernie the only man in the world who doesn't piss me off when he calls me “Killer”? Maybe because he was there and knows I only did what I had to do? Or is it because he is such a simple sonofabitch that I hate to jump on him?

“Knowing you're playing for a quarter, are going to
lose a whole quarter
, will make you so nervous a six-year-old could beat you.”

“Fuck you, Killer,” Zimmerman said. “Get yourself a fucking cue stick.”

Ten minutes later, McCoy blew the shot he was making when Zimmerman suddenly barked, “Ten-hut!”

As he came to attention, he saw that Colonel Edward Banning, USMC, and Colonel H. A. Albright, USA, had entered the billiards room.

“Stand at ease,” Banning said. “Go on with your game. The others will be here in a minute.”

“Yes, sir,” McCoy said, and then, turning to Zimmerman, said in Wu, “Ernie, try to remember you don't call ‘attention' when you're in civvies, will you?”

“Sorry,” Zimmerman said in Wu, sounding as if he meant it. Then he asked, “What's that fat doggie colonel got to do with us? That's the third time I've seen him with Banning.”

“I think he's in charge of getting us to China,” McCoy replied. “He must be all right. Banning seems to like him. My shot, right?”

“Your shot, my ass, Killer! You blew your fucking shot!”

“Only because you shouted ‘attention' in my ear when Banning and the doggie colonel came in here,” McCoy replied.

Colonel H. A. Albright had learned to speak Wu (and some Cantonese and Mandarin) during a three-year tour with the 15th Infantry in China. Even though he understood what Zimmerman had said about him, he was not really offended. Neither Zimmerman nor McCoy had any reason to suspect that he spoke Wu; very few Americans did, even those soldiers, Marines, and sailors who had spent long years in China.

Their ability to speak Chinese probably explained why they were being sent into Japanese-occupied Mongolia. That and the fact that they had both worked for Banning in Shanghai before the war. He wondered if they knew—or, for that matter, if Banning knew—what the Deputy Director (Administration) of the OSS thought of their chances of getting back alive.

Five minutes later, Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook and Master Gunner Harry Rutterman entered the room.
Rutterman looks old enough to be Easterbrook's father, Banning thought
.

“Sorry to be late, sir,” Easterbrook said to Banning. “I was in the commo section.”

“Problem with the radios?” Banning asked.

“No, sir. We were testing the packaging.”

“How?”

Easterbrook looked uncomfortable.

“‘
How
'?” Banning repeated.

“Actually, sir, we disassembled one of them—took the tubes out, like that—packed everything in the bags with foam rubber, and then I stood on a table and dropped all the bags onto the floor a half-dozen times. Then we put the radio back together to see if it would still work.”