—when she was forced to reverse it. The hospital commander, Captain F. Howard Schermer, MC, USN, was now standing at her nurses' station.
With him was a very pretty, very pregnant young woman.
"Good afternoon, sir," Lieutenant Hills said.
"This is Mrs. McCoy, Lieutenant," Captain Schermer said. "She is to be the exception to the Restricted Visitors on Major Pickering. They're old friends, and she just came from Tokyo to see him."
Schermer had received a telephone call that morning from Major Pickering's father, who was a Marine brigadier, saying that Mrs. McCoy, "the wife of one of my officers," was on the way to Sasebo to see his son.
"They're very close, they grew up together. They're like brother and sister."
"We'll be happy to take care of her, General."
"You may have to. She's very pregnant and traveling against medical advice."
"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hills said.
"Four oh four, right?" Captain Schermer asked.
"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hills said. "Captain, Major Pickering already has a visitor."
"Who would that be?" Captain Schermer asked, not very pleasantly. "You were aware, were you not, of the Restricted Visitors?"
"Sir, I tried to tell him, but he just ignored me."
"A journalist? Was the person who ignored you a journalist? Is that why he thought he could ignore you? Because he was a journalist?"
"No, sir. Sir, it's a Marine, a master gunner Marine. . . ."
"About this tall?" Mrs. McCoy said, holding up her hand. "Built like a tank?"
Lieutenant Hills smiled and nodded.
"That has to be Ernie Zimmerman," Mrs. McCoy said. She turned to Captain Schermer and added, "He works for General Pickering."
"I see," Captain Schermer said with a somewhat strained smile. "Well, why don't we ... ?" He waved Mrs. McCoy down the corridor toward 404.
Master Gunner Zimmerman stopped in midsentence as the door swung open. Major Malcolm S. Pickering looked angrily at Captain F. Howard Schermer, USN, and was about to say something when Mrs. K. R. McCoy brushed past the captain.
I've seen you looking better," she said, and went to the bed and bent over him and kissed him. "But I'm glad to see you anyway."
"I guess you haven't heard, huh?" Pick said.
"Heard what?" Ernie replied, and turned to Zimmerman. "What's going on, Ernie?"
"Obviously, you haven't," Pick said. "Carry on, Mr. Zimmerman. Maybe you better start from the top again." Then he looked at Ernie McCoy and added: "I think maybe you better sit down, mother-to-be. I don't think you're going to like this." He gestured toward a folding chair, then made a go on gesture to Zimmerman.
"Well," Zimmerman began, "we don't know how she got from Pusan to Seoul—"
"She being Jeanette?" Ernie McCoy asked. "You mean Jeanette doesn't know we've got Pick back yet? Jesus Christ, why not?"
"Let him finish, Ernie," Pick said. "And I meant it, sit down."
"I think I will," Ernie said, and lowered herself into the folding chair.
"—whether on the Air Corps medical Gooney Bird or some other way," Zimmerman went on. "She wasn't on any manifest that we could find."
"Okay," Pick said. "But clever fucking OSS agent that you are, you have deduced that she was on the fucking medical Gooney Bird when it took off from Seoul for Wonsan, right? Because she was on it when it crashed?"
"Oh, my God!" Ernie said. "Is she all right?"
Zimmerman looked at her.
"Sorry, Ernie," Zimmerman said.
"You were saying, Mr. Zimmerman?" Pick said.
"What Dunston did was, when the general found out we hadn't told her about you and sent him to find her, was go out to K-16 and ask the Air Corps guy what possibilities there were," Zimmerman said. "The only thing he could think of was that maybe she'd hitched a ride aboard the Gooney Bird that had gone missing. Then he—the Air Force guy—found out they'd located the crash site."
"What made him think Jeanette was on this plane?" Ernie McCoy asked.
Zimmerman ignored the question.
"They'd gone looking for it after it had gone missing," he went on. "There were no Maydays or anything. Anyway, they found the crash site near the top of a goddamn mountain, but (a) they hadn't been able to get anybody to it, because it was in middle of nowhere, and (b) it had exploded and burned, and there were no signs of survivors, and it was . . . Getting to the site could wait until they'd been to other crash sites where there could be survivors."
"So?" Pick asked.
"So Dunston called me—"
"Where's the Killer been all this time?" Pick interrupted.
Zimmerman took a look at Captain Schermer, then shrugged.
"He's in North Korea, listening to the Russians," Zimmerman said. "We're going to pick him up tomorrow morning at first light."
"You had to tell her that, right?" Pick snapped. "Sometimes you have the sensitivity of an alligator."
"I'm a big girl, Pick," Ernie said. "I know what Ken does."
"Captain," Zimmerman said to Schermer. "With respect, do I have to tell you that whatever is said in here has to stay here?"
"I understand," Schermer said.
"So Dunston called me, gave me the coordinates, and at first light this morning, we went to the site."
"We is who?" Ernie McCoy asked. "And I thought you said getting to the site was difficult?"
"We is me, a doggie major—real good guy—named Alex Donald, who flew the Big Black Bird, and four Marines in case they were needed."
"By which, Ernie, he means a great big Sikorsky helicopter painted black," Pick said. "Your husband has a couple of them."
"And?" Ernie replied, impatience in her voice.
"Well, we found the crash site. The Gooney Bird clipped the top of a mountain, went in, exploded, and then slid down the mountain. Nobody walked away from the crash. And it was quick. No question about that."
"Well, that's comforting," Pick said sarcastically. "To know it was quick. And you found—what's the euphemism?—the remains of those on board?"
"We found four bodies," Zimmerman said. "There was a three-man crew on the Gooney Bird. We figured, even before I found the camera, that the fourth had to be Jeanette."
"You couldn't tell?" Ernie asked.
"There was a lot of fuel on the Gooney Bird," Zimmerman said. "They topped off their tanks at K-16. They were planning to go on to Pusan, and maybe all the way to Japan, after Wonsan. There wasn't much left of the bodies."
"So where are the remains?" Pick asked.
"We took them to Seoul, to Eighth Army Graves Registration. It'll take them at least a couple of days to identify them."
"Well, that's no problem, really, is it?" Pick said. "There's no rush, right? As a matter of fact, who the hell cares?"
"Pick," Ernie McCoy said. "Oh, Pick, I'm so sorry."
“Yeah, so am I," Pick said unpleasantly. "But I should have known better. Something that good was never really going to happen to me."
"Pick," she said, and started to push herself out of the chair. Her face suddenly showed pain and went pale. "Oh, for Christ's sake!" she said faintly but angrily.
"Mrs. McCoy, are you all right?" Captain Schermer said as he walked across the room to her.
"No, I don't think I am," Ernie said. "Goddamn it all to hell!"
Captain Schermer took a close, if brief, look at her.
"Young woman, you stay right where you are," he ordered, and then went to the door.
"Nurse!" he called loudly. "Get a gurney in here!"
He went back to Ernie.
"Doctor, I don't want to lose this baby," she said softly.
"Of course you don't," Captain Schermer said. "And we're going to do everything we can to see that you don't.'