Pickering knew this would annoy the Palace Guard, who would have greatly preferred to have his car with the others. His single star would have seen his car five or six cars behind MacArthur's limousine, reminding him that he was actually just a minor planet revolving around MacArthur.
MacArthur's staff—and, for that matter, El Supremo himself—really didn't like having anyone in their midst who did not have a precisely defined place in the hierarchy of the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers.
There were two such burrs under the saddles of the Supreme Commander and the Palace Guard, Major General Ralph Howe, NGUS, and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR. Neither was subordinate to MacArthur, and both reported directly to the President of the United States.
Pickering had not been at all surprised when he came to Tokyo that the Palace Guard had immediately begun to attempt to get some degree of control over him—the more the better, obviously, from their point of view—and had been prepared to fight that battle, confident that he could win it again, as he had in the Second War.
The Buick—and his and George Hart's fur-collared Naval aviators' leather jackets—were more or less subtle statements that he was not subordinate to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers.
The Buick was his. He owned it.
When he had first come to Japan, he had been provided with an olive-drab Chevrolet staff car and a sergeant to drive it, and asked when it would be convenient for him to have the housing officer show him what government quarters were available for an officer of his rank, so that he could make a choice between them.
There was no question in Pickering's mind that the staff car drivers—three of them, on a rotating basis—were agents of the Counter-intelligence Corps, and thus reporting to Major General Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur's chief intelligence officer.
He had politely thanked the Headquarters Commandant for the offer of government quarters, but said that would prefer to stay where he was, in a suite in the Imperial Hotel. And he had sent an urgent radio message to Colonel Ed Banning, who was at Camp Pendleton, ordering him to immediately buy a small Buick or Oldsmobile and have it placed aboard the very next P&FE freighter bound for Japan, even if he had to drive to San Francisco to get it on the next ship.
Colonel Banning had, with the word "immediately" in his mind, looked at the small Buicks and Oldsmobiles available in San Diego, decided "The General" would really not like any of them—he could not imagine "The General" riding around Tokyo in a bright yellow little Olds, or a two-tone, mostly lavender little Buick—and instead, eight hours after getting his orders, had stood on a wharf watching the black Buick Roadmaster being lifted aboard the Pacific Clipper, which he had been assured was among the fastest vessels in the P&FE fleet.
As soon as the car arrived, Pickering had told the Headquarters Commandant he would no longer need the staff car; he would drive his own car. The Headquarters Commandant told him he'd really be more comfortable if he continued to provide drivers, just in case Pickering might find them useful.
Pickering could not think of a reason to decline the "courteous, innocent" offer, so the "drivers" remained assigned to him. They usually spent their entire tour of duty reading newspapers and magazines while sitting on a couch in the corridor outside his suite. But sometimes he did use them. One of them had driven the Buick to Haneda in the morning, and had brought the car back to carry him to the hotel now.
That had solved the problem of the CIC agent drivers reporting his every move to Willoughby, and McCoy had solved what Pickering knew was a major problem—how to keep the messages he and Howe were sending to Truman really secret.
Despite the TOP SECRET EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT classification, eyes other than Truman's would see the messages both in Tokyo, where they would be encrypted and transmitted, and at Camp Pendleton, California, where they would be decrypted, typed, and dispatched by Marine officer courier to the White House.
Pickering was confident that there would be no leaks at Pendleton, where a Marine cryptographer working only for Colonel Ed Banning would handle the decryption, and just about as sure their messages would be read in the Dai Ichi Building communications center by people other than the cryptographers. An army sergeant was unlikely to chase away a colonel with all the security clearances—or, for that matter, Major General Charles Willoughby himself— when he was reading over his shoulder.
In Pusan, McCoy had run across a just-rushed-from-Germany-to-Korea Army Security Agency cryptographer, Master Sergeant Paul T. Keller, who didn't even know any of the Dai Ichi Building cryptographers. A message from General Howe to the Army Chief of Staff in Washington had seen Keller the next day transferred to the CIA, with a further assignment to the staff of the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia.
Keller was told—more than likely unnecessarily—that if there were any leaks of EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT messages they would know who had done the leaking.
Pickering also suspected that Willoughby was entirely capable of both tapping the telephones in his hotel suite and bugging the suite itself. Master Sergeant Keller had "swept" the hotel suite and found several microphones, which might, or might not, have been left over from the days of the Kempai-Tai, the Japanese Imperial Secret Police.
There was no way of finding out for sure without tearing walls down to trace the wires, so they had left them in place. When Pickering had something to say he didn't want Willoughby to hear, he held the conversation in the bathroom, with the shower running, the toilet flushing, and a roll of toilet tissue around the microphone in the left of the two lights on either side of the mirror.
Most of the time, however, when there was a meeting they didn't want overheard, they held the meeting in McCoy's house in Denenchofu. Keller swept the house on a regular basis.
The Bataan stopped, and the engines died.
General MacArthur looked at his watch, then stood up and stretched.
"Jean and I would be pleased if you could come for dinner, Fleming. No one else will be there. Would eight be convenient for you?"
"Thank you," Pickering said. "I'd be delighted."
There was a discreet knock at the compartment door, and Huff's voice calling, "We're ready for you anytime, General."
MacArthur nodded at Pickering, pushed the door open, and went through it.
Pickering looked out the window again. Master Sergeant Keller was leaning on the Buick's fender.
That means he either has a message for me, or that he got a little bored in the hotel and decided to drive the Buick out here himself.
Pickering waited until all the brass had deplaned and gotten into their cars, then stood up and went into the aisle. Captain George F. Hart and Miss Jeanette Priestly were waiting for him.
"Keller's driving the car," Hart said.
"I saw," Pickering said.
"George said you were going to see Ernie," Jeanette said. "Can I bum a ride?"
"Your wish is my command, Fair Lady," Pickering said.
"Despite what people say about you, I think you'll be a fine father-in-law," she said.
If we get him back, Pickering thought, but said, "Was there ever any doubt about that in your mind?"
Hart chuckled.
They went down the staircase and walked to the Buick. Hart got in the front beside Keller. Keller started the engine, then turned and handed Pickering a sheet of paper, folded in thirds.