"Haywood, right?" the Marine liaison officer asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Haywood, this is Captain McCoy," the Marine liaison officer said.
"Yes, sir?" Haywood asked, wondering if he should try to get dressed.
"I need a ride out to the Badoeng Strait," the white man in the black pajamas said. "As soon as possible."
"Sir, I'm from the Sicily."
"Captain Overton told me," McCoy said. "I want to get there before the Marines fly their first flight of the morn-ing."
"Sir, I'm not sure I can do that," Haywood said. "For one thing..."
"You can do it," McCoy said. He handed Haywood a sheet of paper. "There's my authority."
Lieutenant Haywood's only previous experience with the Central Intelligence Agency had been watching it por-trayed in a movie, but he realized he was holding in his hand an order issued by the Director of the CIA-who was a rear admiral, USN. He knew there were no flag officers aboard Sicily, and he was almost positive there weren't any aboard Badoeng Strait either.
"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Haywood said. "Sir, I'll have to ask permission to land on Badoeng Strait."
"Hypothetically speaking, Mr. Haywood," McCoy said. "What would happen if you called Badoeng Strait and said you had an emergency and needed to land?"
"They'd give me permission, of course, sir."
"Okay, that's what we'll do."
"You don't want me to ask permission, sir?"
"They're liable to say `no,'" McCoy said. "Get dressed, Mr. Haywood, please."
[EIGHT]
THE USS BADOENG STRAIT
35 DEGREES 24 MINUTES NORTH IATITUDE,
129 DEGREES 65 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE
THE SEA OF JAPAN
0420 10 AUGUST 1950
Lieutenant Haywood was wrong about there being no flag officers aboard Badoeng Strait. The Badoeng Strait was flying the red, single-starred flag of a Marine brigadier general.
Brigadier General Thomas A. Cushman, Assistant Com-mander, First Marine Air Wing, had flown aboard late the previous afternoon, piloting himself in an Avenger he'd borrowed from USN Base Kobe.
General Cushman wanted to be with his men. The previ-ous evening, he had dined in the chief petty officer's mess, which also served the Marine master sergeants aboard. He had taken dessert in the enlisted mess, and finally, he'd had coffee with the Marine officers in the Pilot's Ready Room and in the wardroom.
He had spent the night-although he had at first de-clined the offer-in the cabin of the Badoeng Strait's cap-tain. The captain, who had known General Cushman over the years, told him he preferred to use his sea cabin-a small cabin right off the bridge-anyway, and Cushman had accepted the offer.
Cushman had set his traveling alarm clock for 0400. The first Corsairs would be taking off at 0445, and he wanted to attend the briefing, and then see them off.
All the intelligence General Cushman had seen indi-cated that the North Koreans were aware that the longer they didn't succeed in pushing Eighth Army into the sea, the less the chance-American strength in the Pusan perimeter grew daily-that they would ever be able to do so.
Consequently, while perhaps not in desperation, but something close to it, they were attacking all the time, and on all fronts. The Marine Corsairs would have a busy day.
Cushman was surprised and pleased when he turned the lights on to see that someone had very quietly entered the cabin and left a silver coffee set on the captain's desk. He poured half a cup, then had a quick shower and shave, and wearing a freshly laundered and starched khaki uniform- courtesy of the captain's steward-left the captain's cabin and made his way to the bridge.
"Permission to come on the bridge, Captain?"
"Granted. Get a good night's sleep, General?"
"Very nice, and thank you for the coffee and your stew-ard's attention."
"My pleasure, sir. More coffee, sir?"
"Thank you," Cushman said, and one of the white caps on the bridge quickly handed him a china mug.
"Bridge, Air Ops," the loudspeaker blared.
"Go."
"We have a call from an Avenger declaring an emergency, and requesting immediate permission to land."
The captain and General Cushman looked at each other. The general's lower lip came out, expressing interest and surprise.
The captain pressed the lever on the communications device next to his chair.
"Inform the Avenger we are turning into the wind now," the captain said. Then he pushed the lever one stop farther, so that his voice would carry all over the ship.
"This is the captain speaking. Make all preparations to recover an Avenger who has declared an emergency," he said. He let the lever go.
"Turn us into the wind," he ordered.
"Turning into the. wind, aye, aye, sir" the helmsman replied.
The Badoeng Strait began a sharp turn.
The captain steadied himself, then gestured courteously to General Cushman to precede him to an area aft of the bridge, from which they could see the approach and land-ing of the Avenger.
By the time the Badoeng Strait had turned into the wind and was sailing in a straight line, frantic activity on the flight deck had prepared the ship to recover an aircraft un-der emergency conditions.
General Cushman turned to the officer actually in charge of the recovery operation, saw that he wasn't at that mo-ment busy, and asked, "Did he say what's wrong with him?"
"No, sir, and I asked him three times."
"There he is," the captain said.
General Cushman looked aft and saw an Avenger mak-ing what looked like a perfectly normal approach to the carrier.
A minute later, having made a nice, clean landing-his hook caught the first cable-the Avenger was aboard the Badoeng Strait surrounded by firefighters in aluminum heat-resistant suits, other specialists; and even a tractor prepared to push the aircraft over the side if that became necessary.
The door in the fuselage opened, and someone dressed in what looked like black pajamas backed out of it.
"What the hell is that?" General Cushman asked.
"If it's who I think it is, it's someone who's going to spend the next twenty years in Portsmouth Naval Prison," the captain said.
The character in black pajamas reached into the fuselage and took one cardboard carton, and then another, and fi-nally a U.S. Rifle, Caliber.30 Ml, to the strap of which were attached two eight-round ammunition clips.
"Excuse me, General," the captain said. "I'll deal with this. I was going to have him brought here, but I don't want that sonofa-character to foul my bridge."
The captain started down a ladder toward the flight deck. General Cushman looked at the character in the black paja-mas long enough to confirm his first identification of him, then started down the ladder.
As he reached the flight deck, General Cushman almost literally bumped into Lieutenant Colonel William C. Dunn, USMCR, who was suited up for the morning's first sortie.
"Good morning, sir," Colonel Dunn said.
"Billy, is that your friend Captain McCoy?"
"Yes, sir, it is."
"What's going on?" Cushman asked.