In order for McCoy to gain entrance to the White Room, it was necessary for one of the two armed guards on duty outside the unmarked door to compare his face with the photo on the identification badge, and then to check a typewritten list under a top secret cover sheet to make sure his name was on the list. He then nodded to the other security officer, who unlocked the door to the room.
The room was windowless, illuminated with concealed lighting. Thick carpets covered the floor and sound-absorbing material was on the walls. A lectern and a projection screen were at one end of the room, a motion picture and slide projector at the other. The large central conference table showed signs of use; it was littered with paper, some of it crumpled, dirty coffee cups, and empty Coke bottles.
The door was closed, and immediately a whirring noise came from the film and slide projectors. The projectors were automatically shut off when the door was opened, McCoy realized. A moment later, a map flashed onto the screen.
Shit, that's the goddamned Gobi Desert! 1 thought that operation was canceled, or at least on hold!
Well, what the hell did I expect?
«We've been in here for the best part of two days,» Banning said. «Without accomplishing very much. You are hereby appointed,
vice
Lieutenant Colonel Banning, cleaning officer.»
«Which means?»
«You will pick up every scrap of paper and put it in a burn bag. You will then telephone Classified Files—the number's on the phone—and they will come and collect everything—maps, slides, notes, and the burn bag, or bags—and haul it off. Then you will go outside and sign a certificate stating that the White Room is clean—meaning of classified material; somebody will come and deal with the Coke bottles and coffee cups—and it is available for use by others.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
«Let me give you a quick run-through of where we are on Operation Gobi — which frankly is nowhere. And then you can perform your cleaning officer duties and go home. Where is home, by the way?»
«I'm at the Lafayette,» Ken said.
«If you're uncomfortable in the General's apartment, you can bunk with me for a couple of days until we can find you something.»
«I'm not in General Pickering's apartment,» McCoy said. «I'm in the American Personal Pharmaceuticals suite.»
«Ernie's with you?»
McCoy nodded.
«Then you go home to Ernie and tell her to do something about your sunburn. You really look awful.»
«I feel awful.»
Banning walked to one end of the room and stood in front of the map projected on the screen. «What is needed, Ken, is a weather station in this area,» he gestured at the map, «to give what Colonel Hazeltine describes as reports of atmospheric fronts and conditions there.
«Now, we have reason to believe that a few Americans are already in the neighborhood, some former Marine guards at the Peking legation, the rest retired Marines, soldiers, and Yangtze River patrol sailors. And their wives and children.» He paused. «At any point, Ken, ask questions.»
«Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said. He slipped into one of the upholstered chairs and reached for a coffee pitcher.
«Communication with them is spotty at best, and we don't know where they are, and we can't ask them, because they have no cryptographic capability. And, to repeat, the communications are lousy.
«Ideally, we would make up a meteorological team—that's a minimum of four men, and about a ton of equipment, much of it expendable: weather balloons, for example, which will be consumed at the rate of two or three a day, and have to be resupplied, if we ever get that far—and send it in by airplane. Since no airplane has the range to make it back and forth from one of our bases, even if it wasn't intercepted, that means it would be a one-way mission.
«But since we don't know where our people are, or where the Japanese are, it doesn't make any sense to send in a team on an expendable airplane. Or should I say an expendable team on an expendable airplane? We need knowledge of the terrain, and the disposition of Japanese forces. We have neither.»
«Zimmerman spent four months in the Gobi Desert,» McCoy said.
«What?» Banning asked in disbelief.
«When he first went to the Fourth Marines, 1938, somewhere around then, there was a bunch of people from the
National Geographic
magazine who went up there. The Fourth Marines provided the truck drivers. Zimmerman was one of them.»
«You sure about that, Ken?» Pickering asked.
«Yes, sir. He told me about it. There's hardly any sand, he told me, it's mostly flat and rocky.» He hesitated. «I think he went back up there after the explorers left.»
«Why do you say that?»
«Out of school?»
«Sure.»
«I think he was involved in smuggling,» McCoy said.
«Smuggling what? And from where to where?»
«Jade and fancy vases out of China into India, and gold back from India. Or stuff from Russia, through some other country inside Russia.»
«Kazakhstan?»
«I think so.»
«You're telling me Zimmerman was on a caravan smuggling things into India and the Soviet Union?»
«No, sir. Zimmerman was bankrolling the smugglers—actually his woman was. with Zimmerman's money. He—or Mae Su—bought the jade and the vases et cetera, in China, and then sent them out on caravans. The caravan guys got a percentage of what they sold it for.»
«How did he know he would ever see the caravan people again?» Banning asked incredulously.
«Sometimes… when
everybody's
making money, people are honest,» McCoy said. «And Zimmerman's not the sort of guy anyone wants to cross.» he added matter-of-factly.
«In other words, you believe this story?»
McCoy nodded.
«This wasn't big time stuff. Nothing more than a couple of hundred dollars at a time,» McCoy said. «But he and Mae Su have a pretty good-size farm in her village. I went up there a couple of times. They even have a little sausage factory. And they lived good in Shanghai—a lot better than he could live on a corporal's pay. He told me he was saving money for when he retired.»
«But you're sure he's been in contact with smugglers?»
McCoy nodded. «And then they would buy the stuff—mostly icons. You know what they are? Sort of folding pictures of saints painted on wood?»
«I know what they are,» Banning said.
«They would bring the icons smuggled out of Russia, bring them to Shanghai, and sell them to the antique dealers.»
«I don't suppose you were involved in this?» Banning said.
«I thought about it, but I didn't like the odds,» McCoy replied.
«This Chinese wife of his,» Banning asked, thinking out loud. «Where do you think she is?»
«Well, maybe… no, probably, she's playing it safe in the village,» McCoy said. «It's called Paotow-Zi, on the Yellow River twenty, thirty miles from the nearest city. Baotou.»
«Show me on the map,» Banning ordered, went to the table and flipped through a half-dozen large maps until he found what he was looking for, then pulled it from the others and laid it on top.
McCoy found what he was looking for quickly, and held his finger on it for Banning to see. Banning took a compass and made some quick measurements.