examination of his identity card before he could enter the building. The second, which took place on the ground floor, required him to produce a special identity card to gain access to the Secure Area. When this was done, he was permitted to enter the elevator to the second sub-basement. Once he was in the second sub-basement, armed sailors carefully matched a photo on his Cryptographic Area identification card against a five-by-seven card that held an identical photograph. The successful match allowed them to admit him to the area behind locked steel doors. The final security check was administered by a Navy warrant officer and a chief petty officer at a desk before still another heavy, vaultlike door.
Although they both knew Banning by sight, and the warrant officer and Banning had often shared a drink, they subjected him to a detailed examination of the three identity cards and finally challenged him for his password. Only when that was done, and the chief petty officer started to unlock the door's two locks— the door also had a combination lock, like a safe—did the warrant officer speak informally. «I can see how delighted you are to be back.»
«Is he in there?» Banning said.
«Oh, he's been in there, Major, waiting for you.»
There was no identifying sign on the steel door, and few people even knew of the existence of the «Special Communications Room.» Even fewer had any idea of its function.
In one of the best-kept secrets of the war, cryptographers at Pearl Harbor had broken several of the codes used by the Japanese for communications between the Imperial General Staff and the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, as well as between Japanese diplomatic posts and Tokyo. Most, but not all, of the cryptographers involved in this breakthrough had been Navy personnel. One of the exceptions was an Army Signal Corps officer, a Korean-American named Lieutenant Hon Song Do.
Intercepted and decrypted Japanese messages were classified top secret— magic. The magic window into the intentions of the enemy gave the upper hierarchy of the United States government a weapon beyond price. And it wasn't a window into the Japanese intentions alone, for some of the intercepted messages reported what the Japanese Embassy in Berlin had been told by the German government. In other words, magic also opened a small window on German intentions as well.
But it was a window that would be rendered useless the moment the Japanese even suspected that their most secret messages were being read and analyzed by the Americans.
The roster of personnel throughout the world who had access to magic material fit with room to spare on two sheets of typewriter paper. It was headed by the name of President Roosevelt, then ranged downward through Admiral William Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff; Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations; General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff; Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Navy Commander in Chief, Pacific; General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Area; and Major Edward J. Banning, USMC; then farther downward to the lowest-ranking individual, a Marine Corps Second Lieutenant named George F. Hart.
Almost as soon as the system to encrypt and transmit magic messages had been put in place, the senior officers with access to it—from Roosevelt on down—had realized that magic also gave them a means to communicate with each other rapidly and with the highest possible level of security. The result was that nearly as many «back-channel» messages were sent over the system as there were intercepted Japanese messages.
«Okay, Major,» the chief petty officer said to Banning, and swung the vaultlike door open. Banning stepped inside and the chief swung the door closed after him. Banning heard the bolts slip into place.
Inside the room were two desks placed side by side, a safe, and two straight-backed chairs. The magic cryptographic machine was on one of the desks, along with a typewriter and three telephones, one of them red and without a dial.
A Navy lieutenant commander rose from one of the chairs. His uniform bore the silver aiguillettes signifying a Naval aide to the President, and he carried a .45 ACP pistol in a leather holster suspended from a web belt.
«Good morning,» Banning said.
He had seen the lieutenant commander a dozen times before and didn't like him.
«It was my understanding that this facility was to be manned twenty-four hours a day,» the lieutenant commander snapped.
Banning looked at him carefully. He reminded himself to control his temper.
«Ordinarily, it is,» he said. «In this instance, one of your swabbies got sick to his tummy, and the Marines had to fill in for him.»
«It is also my understanding that the officer in charge will be armed,» the lieutenant commander said.
«I'm armed. Do you want to see it, or will you take my word as a fellow officer of the Naval establishment?»
The lieutenant commander looked for a moment as if he intended to reply to the comment, but then changed his mind.
«Well, let's have it, Commander,» Banning said. «Time is fleeting.»
The lieutenant commander unlocked the handcuff that attached his briefcase to his wrist. After he had placed the briefcase on the table, he unlocked the briefcase itself.
He took from it a clipboard and a large manila envelope, unmarked except for a piece of paper affixed to it in such a way that no one could open it without tearing the paper. To facilitate that, the paper was perforated in its center.
He handed Banning the envelope. Banning wrote his name on one half of the paper. Then he sealed the envelope, tore it loose, and handed it to the lieutenant commander. The lieutenant commander handed him the clipboard, and Banning signed the form it contained, acknowledging his receipt of the envelope and the time he had accepted it. Then he picked up one of the black telephones, dialed two digits, and ordered, «Open it up, Chief.»
They could hear keys in the locks, followed by the faint whisper of the combination lock.
Banning ripped open the manila envelope. It contained another manila envelope, nearly as large. This one was stamped top secret in red ink four times on each side, and sealed with cellophane tape imprinted top secret.
He didn't open this envelope until the lieutenant commander had left the room and the chief had closed and locked the door after him again. He had to use a pock-etknife to cut through the cellophane tape, very careful not to damage whatever the envelope held. Finally, he held several sheets of paper in his hand. They were typed on White House stationery, and bore the signature of Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief.
Each page was stamped, top and bottom:
TOP SECRET COPY 2 OF 2
SPECIAL CHANNEL TRANSMISSION DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
Banning read the message through, said, «I'll be damned!» and then reached for the telephone and dialed a number from memory.
«Liberty 3-2908,» a familiar voice answered.
«Sir, I respectfully suggest you come over here. Right now.»
There was a pause, long enough for Banning to consider whether or not Colonel Rickabee was going to accept the suggestion.
«On my way,» Colonel Rickabee said finally, and hung up.
Banning laid the message on White House stationery beside the magic encryp-tion device, made the necessary adjustments to the mechanism, and began to type. From the far side of the encryption device, a sheet of teletypewriter paper began to emerge. It was covered with apparently meaningless five-character words, in one block after another. When that process was complete, Banning tore the teletypewriter paper from the device, laid it on top of the original message, threw several switches, and began to type the encoded message back into the machine.