"Just before I quit last night, Sir, I checked with Hawaii to make sure I had all the MAGIC intercepts they had."
"Sir, can I ask what a MAGIC intercept is?" Hart asked.
"OK," Pickering said. "Let's do that right now. Give him Haughton's radio, Pluto."
Pluto handed it over, and Hart read it, and then looked at Pickering for an explanation.
"Paragraph e, I think it was e," Pickering began, "where Mr. Knox authorized me to grant you access to certain classified information, is the important one."
"Yes, Sir?"
"If I don't explain this correctly, Pluto," Pickering went on, "please correct me."
Pluto nodded.
"There is no way the Japanese can stop anyone with the right kind of radio from listening to their radio messages," Pickering began. "Just as there's no way we can stop the Japanese from listening to ours. As a consequence, even relatively unimportant messages, on both sides, are coded. The word Pluto and Moore use is 'encrypted.'
"However, probably the most important secret of this war, George, and I'm not exaggerating in the least, is that Navy cryptographers at Pearl Harbor have broken many-by no means all, but many-of the important Japanese codes."
"Jesus!" Hart said.
"The program is called MAGIC," Pickering went on. "A MAGIC intercept is a Japanese message we have intercepted and decoded. Such messages have the highest possible security classification. If the Japanese even suspect that we have broken their codes, they will of course change them. I really don't understand why they hold to the notion that their encryption is so perfect that it cannot be broken...."
"Face, Sir, I think," Pluto said. "Pride. Ego. It is their code, conceived by Japanese minds, and therefore beyond the capacity of the barbarians to comprehend."
"That's as good a reason as any, I suppose," Pickering said. "Do you agree, Moore?"
"Japanese face is certainly involved," Moore said. "But when I think about it, what makes most sense to me is a variation on that idea: Absent any suspicion that we have cracked their codes (and I would say almost certainly ignoring the advice of our counterparts, Japanese encryption people), there is no Japanese officer of senior enough rank to be listened to, who has the nerve to suggest to the really big brass that their encryption isn't really as secure as some other big brass has touted it to be. Admitting error, the way we do, is absolutely alien to the Japanese. You are either right, or you are in disgrace for having made a bad decision earlier on."
"I don't understand a thing you said," Hart confessed.
"OK," Moore said. "Japanese are not stupid. I'll bet my last dime that somewhere in Japan right now there are a dozen cryptographic lieutenants-maybe even majors, people like us-who know damned well that in time you crack any code. But they can't go to IJGS and say 'we think it's logical that by now the Americans have broken this code.' They don't have enough rank to go to the IJGS and say anything. And they can't go to their own brass, either-their colonels and buck generals- and make their suspicions known. They know that will open them to accusations of harboring a defeatist attitude, having a disrespectful opinion of their seniors, that sort of thing. And even if they went to their colonels and generals, and were believed, the colonels and generals know that if they go up the chain of command to somebody who can order new codes, they will be open to the same charges. So everybody keeps their mouths shut, and we get to keep reading their mail."
"Uh," Hart grunted.
"That, what you just heard, George, was analysis," Pickering offered. "Pluto and Moore are more than cryptographers. They-plus the people in Hawaii, of course-read the MAGIC intercepts and try to understand their meaning. Their analyses are made available to three people, three people only, in SWPOA. General MacArthur, his G-2 General Willoughby, and me."
"That's all?" Hart asked, surprised.
"They're the only people authorized access to MAGIC," Pickering explained. "In addition, of course, to Pluto and Moore, and now you."
"And Mrs. Feller, Sir," Moore said.
"I haven't forgotten her, Moore," Pickering said. "Is she back yet?"
"Yes, Sir. She came back from Melbourne on the evening train."
"OK. Then I'll deal with her today. That will leave it the way I said it, Hart. The three of you have access. And MacArthur, Willoughby, and me. If anyone else ever mentions MAGIC to you, in any connection whatever, you will instantly report that to either Pluto or Moore or me. You understand?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Let's get back to what's going on at Guadalcanal. I don't think it will be long before there's a call from El Supremo."
"I checked with Hawaii last night before I closed down," Pluto said. "We have all their MAGICs. None were to Generals Hyakutake, Sumiyoshi, or Maruyama. Or from them. We have to presume, therefore, that the original orders-"
"Which called for the attack on 18 October," Pickering interrupted.
"-which called for the attack to be launched 18 October," Pluto affirmed. "We have to presume that they remain in force. And that there has been no request by Hyakutake to IJGS for a delay in execution. I think we can further infer that IJGS, having had no word from Hyakutake to the contrary, believes the attack is underway."
"Moore?" Pickering asked.
Moore shrugged, looked thoughtful for a moment, then made a gesture with his fist balled, thumb up.
"Absolute agreement?" Pickering challenged.
"We talked about it last night," Moore said. "It fits in with the most logical scenario on Guadalcanal."
"Which is?" Pickering asked.
Hart noticed that the relationship between the three of them had subtly changed, as if they had changed from uniforms into casual clothes. It was not a couple of junior officers talking to a general-they had even stopped using the terms "Sir" and "General"-but rather three equals dealing with a subject as dispassionately as biologists discussing mysterious lesions on a frog.
"They're obviously having more trouble moving through the mountains than they thought they would," Moore went on, "especially their artillery. If they had moved it as easily as they thought they could-were ordered to-the attack would have started. But to make it official that they hadn't would mean a loss of face all around-for Maruyama for having failed, for Hyakutake for having issued an order that has not been obeyed. Et cetera."
"You're saying there won't be an attack?"
"No. They'll attack," Pluto said. "If it's a six-man squad with one mortar. But the attack is not on schedule. And from that I think we can safely infer that when launched it will not be in the strength they anticipated. And I think it will be very uncoordinated...."
"When?"
"Today," Moore said firmly.
"Tomorrow," Pluto said, equally firmly.
"And that's what I tell El Supremo?" Pickering asked.
"It's our best shot," Pluto said.
"OK," Pickering said. "Now, how long will it take you to get Hart up to speed on the machine?"
"Not long. He can already type. Not as long as it will take to get him into an officer's uniform, and through the paper shuffling at SWPOA."
"Can I help with that?" Pickering asked.
"Yes, Sir. A word in General Sutherland's ear..."
"No," Pickering said, and smiled at him. "You're a major now, Major. You see what you can do. If you have trouble, then I'll go to Sutherland."