McCoy got in the backseat of the car and closed the door. Pickering turned to look at him, resting his arm on the back of the front seat. «First things first, Ken,» he began. «Tell me about your run-in with Colonel Platt.»
«Sir, I don't know how much Colonel Banning told you about telling me to make myself scarce?»
«You tell me, Ken.»
«First, he told me that Zimmerman and I were detached from the guard detail. Then he told me that he had been ordered—by the army signal officer here, the one that's in arrest to quarters now… What's that all about?»
«One thing at a time, Ken.»
«Yes, sir. Then he told me he had been ordered by the signal officer here to order me to report to OSS station Chungking. But that since I had been detached, he could no longer give me orders. Can I talk out of school?»
«You can always talk out of school to me, Ken,» Pickering said.
«That wasn't hard to figure out. Colonel Banning didn't want me to report to the OSS here. Until that moment, I didn't even know there was an OSS station here.»
«Neither did Banning until he got that order from General Dempsey,» Pickering said.
«He told me that, sir.»
«And neither did I. If it makes you feel any better. Ken, the man responsible for not telling us, your friend the OSS Deputy Director for Administration, is now in St. Elizabeth's.»
«For not telling you about an OSS station here?» McCoy asked incredulously, and then, a moment later, added, «Oh.»
My God, he knows!
«Explain that 'Oh!', Ken.»
«I'm guessing, sir.»
«Guess.»
«I heard—what, four, five days later—that General Dempsey and the other one?»
«Newley?»
«Yes, sir. That they had been placed in arrest to quarters. That had to be serious; they don't relieve general officers without good reason. And then Colonel Waterson shows up from Brisbane, and right after him, Colonel Albright, now a general himself, and takes General Dempsey's place. And now you tell me that the guy from the OSS has been put in St. Elizabeth's. The only explanation for that is magic.»
«What do you know about magic, Ken?»
«It's only another guess, sir,» McCoy replied.
«Guess.»
«First of all, it's a special cryptographic system, one that regular crypto people don't know anything about. With special crypto devices. Which we brought here.»
«Anything else?»
«It has something to do with Japanese cryptography. Pluto and Moore are analysts, as well as crypto people. That looks to me like we've broken Japanese codes, are reading their communications, and damned sure don't want them to even suspect we are.»
«I'm not going to comment on your guesses, Captain McCoy,» Pickering said. «But I am going to give you a direct order.»
«Yes, sir?»
«You are forbidden to discuss with anyone, except Colonel Banning or myself, in any manner whatsoever, anything connected with magic.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
All I have done, of course, is let him know his guesses are right on the money.
«How did you hear about General Dempsey being placed in arrest?»
«I sent Zimmerman to the NCO Club to find out whatever he could.»
«In uniform presumably, and freshly shaven?»
«Yes, sir, the beards were the first thing to go. They made us stand out like a couple of whores in church.»
«And the word was out that General Dempsey had been relieved?»
«Yes, sir. Nobody seems to know why. I sent Zimmerman back another time to see if he could find out, and what the NCO's were saying… I'm not sure you want to hear this, General.»
«Yes, I do.»
«That they were queer,» McCoy said.
«magic never came up?»
«No, sir.»
«Go on, Ken.»
«So I put on my uniform and went to the OSS house to see what I could find out. I was hoping to see Colonel Banning, but he wasn't there. Colonel Platt was.»
«And?»
«I showed him my ONI credentials and told him I was Navy Intelligence, and was looking for Colonel Banning. That didn't work too well. He had my name from someplace. Probably this General Dempsey gave it to him. And he told me he knew that I was in the OSS, that he knew all about Operation Gobi, and told me I was now under the orders of the OSS station here. Meaning him. I told him, with respect, that I couldn't put myself or Zimmerman under his orders.»
«And what did he say?»
«First, if I «remained insubordinate' he would court-martial me, and then if I tried to leave the OSS compound, he would have me shot. He was really pissed. He actually took his pistol out when I started to leave.»
«You weren't worried that he would actually shoot you?»
«He's not the type to shoot somebody,» McCoy said. «And neither was the captain —Sampson, I think—in his office. But if he'd had a couple of MPs around, he
would
have ordered them to throw me in the stockade.»
«So then what happened?»
«Well, I started making preparations to go into the Gobi.»
«General,» Hart said. «We're getting close to the house. Do you want me to drive around the block?»
«Go very slow for a minute, George,» Pickering ordered. «How did you know I was here, Ken?»
«I had a couple of Chinese boys watching the airport, sir,» McCoy said. «And a couple more watching the OSS compound. When they reported that a tall American general got off an enormous airplane, and General Albright and Colonel Waterson met him and took him to the OSS house, I thought it would probably be you.»
«You've been spying on the OSS?» Pickering asked.
«I thought some 'discreet surveillance' wouldn't hurt anything, sir. I didn't get the reports about you until about an hour and a half ago. I came as soon as I could. When I got to the OSS house, I saw you driving out with Colonel Waterson, so I followed you to the airfield.»
«Sir, we're at the gate,» Hart said. «What do I do?»
«Go in, George,» Pickering ordered. «I want to properly introduce Captain McCoy to Colonel Platt and Captain Sampson.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
Hart stopped the car before the OSS compound gate. One of the Chinese guards came out of the guard shack and ambled slowly to the gate in the wall.
McCoy rolled down the window and barked something in Mandarin.
The guard spun around, came to quivering attention, and saluted.
McCoy said something else in Mandarin.
The guard saluted again and hastily opened the gate.
«What was that all about?» Pickering asked.
«Nothing important, sir.»
«I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much, Captain McCoy.»
«I told him to pass the ambulance, he's with us, sir,» McCoy said.
«He didn't pop to attention like that because you told him to pass the ambulance through,» Pickering said.
«I also told him that if he ever fails to salute you again, I will send his private parts back to his commanding officer on the point of a bayonet,» McCoy said. «In the Chinese army, they take threats like that seriously.»
The Chinese sentry saluted crisply when the Studebaker rolled through the gate, and again when the unmarked ambulance passed.