In Danger's Path (88 page)

“I thought, sir, that the plan prepared by the OSS station chief in Chungking had a greater chance of success,” Donovan said. “Unfortunately, it looks as if I was right.”

“What did Pickering find wrong with the other plan?”

“He thought it would call too much attention to the weather station, sir.”

“And what makes you think Pickering's plan has failed?”

“McCoy had orders to maintain communications with Pearl Harbor—his messages to be forwarded Special Channel to Pickering in Chungking—and he has failed to do so.”

“He hasn't been heard from at all?”

“No, Mr. President.”

“And what happens now? Plan Two is put into execution?”

“Yes, sir. Before Pickering's men started out, another two sets of meteorological equipment and the personnel to operate it were procured. The people and the equipment are at the moment en route to Chungking—they're due there April thirtieth. When they arrive, we'll put the OSS plan into execution.”

“The OSS plan versus the Pickering plan?” the President said. “Odd, Bill, I was under the impression that I had named Fleming Pickering Deputy Director of the OSS for Pacific Operations. Wouldn't that make his plan an OSS plan, too?”

“That was an unfortunate choice of words, Mr. President,” Donovan said.

“Yes, it was,” Roosevelt agreed. “And I was also under the impression that you and Pickering had put your differences aside for the duration.”

“We have, sir. I take no pleasure in the failure of his plan.”

“What exactly do you think has happened to young McCoy?”

“I have no idea, sir. There are bandits operating all over that area. That's one possibility. Another is that they had the bad luck to run into a Japanese patrol.”

“You have no idea?” Roosevelt said sarcastically. “But, Bill, I count on you to know what I want to know. You're the director of the OSS.”

“I'm sure that as soon as General Pickering hears anything, he will advise me.”

“What about the supply convoy McCoy was with? Have they been heard from? Do they know anything?”

“The convoy will return to Yümen about the thirtieth, sir.”

“Do you think that Fleming Pickering will have someone there to meet them, to see what they might know?”

“I'm sure he will, sir.”

“How can you be sure?” Roosevelt asked. “You don't seem to have much faith in his ability to run an operation like this.”

“I will recommend to General Pickering, sir, that he have someone on hand.”

“Do that,” Roosevelt said. “But don't make it a recommendation. He has a tendency, apparently, to ignore your recommendations. Tell him I said to do it.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Thank you for coming in, Colonel,” the President said, and turned his wheelchair back to the window overlooking the garden.

[THREE]

[FOUR]
Kiangpeh, Chungking, China
1325 26 April 1943

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was playing chess with Second Lieutenant George F. Hart—not with any interest, but rather because he could think of absolutely nothing else to do—when Lieutenant Colonel Edward Banning, USMCR, knocked at his open door.

“Ed, I hope you're going to tell me you've heard from McCoy,” Pickering said.

“No, sir. Not a peep. But this just came in, and I thought you'd better see it right away.

Pickering looked up at Banning as he handed the Special Channel to Hart.

“I sent the ‘we got it', sir,” Banning said.

“I'd like to go up there myself,” Pickering said. “God knows, I feel as useless as teats on a boar hog around here.”

“You can't do that, sir,” Hart said.

“I could send Colonel Platt,” Pickering said.

“I wouldn't give the sonofabitch the satisfaction, sir,” Banning said.

“‘Son of a bitch'?” Pickering quoted.

“You know the expression ‘crocodile tears'?” Banning asked. “He calls twice a day to ask if we have any word from McCoy. He is always so very sorry to hear we haven't.”

“Sampson is with McCoy,” Pickering said.

“Sampson is the price he's perfectly willing to pay for having everybody know he was right in the first place.”

“I hope you have been able to keep your distaste for Colonel Platt to yourself, Colonel,” Pickering said.

“With great effort, sir.”

After a moment, Pickering went on: “Easterbrook doesn't speak Chinese, and neither does George. Moore does, but Stillwell likes to bounce ideas about the Japanese mind off him. Rutterman doesn't speak Chinese. And I don't want to send any of Platt's people up there, unsure as I am about where their loyalties lie. That leaves you, Ed.”

“Aye, aye, sir. What about getting there?”

“Send a Special Channel to Donovan over my signature. Tell him that I'm sending you. Take this Special Channel, and the one to Donovan, and show them to General Stillwell. He'll either get you on a plane, or get you your own plane. The Commander in Chief has spoken.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Banning said. Something in his tone caught Pickering's attention.

“Say it, Ed,” Pickering said.

“You don't want to go see General Stillwell yourself, sir?”

“I don't have the balls,” Pickering confessed. “I just about promised him he wouldn't have to come up with two companies of Chinese infantry he can't spare, and now it looks like I'm going to have to ask him to do just that.”

[FIVE]

[SIX]
Somewhere in the Gobi Desert
Mongolia
0900 1 May 1943

Nothing but snow could be seen in any direction. Three days before, the skies had cleared following two days of intermittent blowing small-flake snow. When the sun came out, it came out brightly, reflecting off the snow. It didn't quite blind them, but it effectively limited their vision to about one thousand yards, less sometimes when the wind blew the snow especially hard.

McCoy's decision was to keep moving day and night, despite the snowfall.

It was very cold. The ambulance—designed to provide as much comfort as possible for the wounded—had a heater mounted on the firewall. The weapons carrier had an open cab and no heater. But those crowded onto the seat—McCoy, Sampson, and two of the Chinese—found a certain amount of warmth from the engine and transmission by draping a blanket over their laps.

They moved on what McCoy hoped was a dead easterly course, determined by a U.S. Army-issue compass. McCoy had no idea how much the metal mass of the weapons carrier was affecting the compass, but at least they were moving in a straight line. They used a kind of stop-and-go technique. That is to say, the ambulance would be stopped and used as a reference point while McCoy drove the weapons carrier ahead, making every effort to keep the tracks through the snow perfectly straight, moving as slowly as he could in third gear to conserve fuel.

In order to keep further control of all this, he also stationed one of the Chinese on top of the mountain of supplies and jerry cans in the back of the truck, with orders to instantly report if the tracks didn't make a straight line, or if he lost sight of the ambulance.

At night, they drove without headlights. Doing that proved to be not so difficult as he feared, after Zimmerman removed the lenses of a “blackout light” mounted on the front of the weapons carrier, from one at the rear, and from the one mounted on the front of the ambulance. The bare bulb on the front of the weapons carrier and the ambulance provided enough light for steering, and the bare bulb on the rear of the weapons carrier was bright enough to guide the driver of the ambulance—even at a thousand yards.

Anytime he had difficulty seeing the ambulance during the day—or its bare bulb at night—McCoy stopped and shut down the engine. The ambulance then caught up with him.

Because Zimmerman maintained—with the certainty of an article of religious faith—that after sixty seconds, more fuel was conserved by shutting an engine down and then starting it again, than by letting it idle, McCoy decreed to do that…but only so long as the batteries held up. And under no circumstances would both batteries be shut down at once. That way they could attempt to start a vehicle whose battery was exhausted by pushing it with the other vehicle.

In third gear each truck would go about fifteen miles per hour. That meant it took not quite three minutes for McCoy to drive the weapons carrier as far as he could without losing sight of the ambulance, and then it took the ambulance about that long to catch up. Thus the engines of each vehicle could be shut down for nearly three minutes during each stop-and-go cycle.

So far, the batteries of both vehicles seemed to be holding up, and McCoy was beginning to hope that the fuel-saving technique would work indefinitely. If a battery did become exhausted, he decided, he would get the vehicle started by pushing it. And then he'd try shutting the engines down every other time, or every third time. That way they'd have a running time of six or nine minutes to keep the batteries charged.

The move-stop-wait, move-stop-wait routine quickly became automatic and boring.

McCoy was startled when the Chinese lookout came crawling down from his perch.

He braked to a stop as the lookout began to climb over the passengers and windshield onto the hood, in the process striking with his boot the head of the Chinese soldier sitting next to Sampson. “Your mother is a whore who fucks dogs,” the one kicked muttered in Cantonese.

After a glance at the rearview mirror, which proved he could see the ambulance clearly, McCoy turned his full attention to the lookout, who had by now made it onto the hood of the weapons carrier. He was pointing into the distance. McCoy stared hard but could see nothing.

Sampson stood up, awkwardly hanging on to the windshield frame. “There's a guy on a horse out there,” he said, and corrected himself: “On a pony.”