Oh, what the hell. I'm going to infuriate him anyway. Why put it off for ten minutes?
"General, the point there is that the CIA wasn't here to assist you," Pickering said. "Not in the sense you're implying. You're suggesting that you considered them part of your staff, and that implies you controlled them."
"And you find something wrong with that?"
"To do their job properly, CIA people cannot be subor-dinate to the local commander," Pickering said.
"Even to someone like Douglas?" Jean MacArthur said loyally. "I can understand your position, I think, at division level, or corps level, but Douglas is the Supreme Comman-der!"
"That's the point, Jean," Pickering said. "The more im-portant, the more imposing, the local commander is-and I submit that your husband is the most important and most imposing of all the commanders I know of-the less likely the CIA man is to challenge his judgment. And he is sup-posed to think, and act, independently."
"Would you say that applies to our relationship?" MacArthur asked.
"Yes, sir, I would," Pickering said. "Our friendship aside, I really think you were happier before I came here, when the CIA station chief thought of himself-and you thought of him-as a member of your staff, and you both behaved accordingly."
"You apparently don't think much of your CIA station chief," MacArthur said.
"Or maybe Douglas, either," Jean said. "Fleming, I never thought I'd hear you talk like this-"
"Jean, you know better than that," Pickering interrupted. "My admiration for Douglas is bottomless, as an officer and a man."
"It certainly doesn't sound like it," she said.
Pickering turned to face MacArthur.
"The only reason I haven't relieved the station chief is that I'm afraid his replacement might be even worse."
"In what sense?" MacArthur said icily. "That he would be even more cooperative with the local commander?"
"I think it's perfectly natural for any senior officer-in-cluding you-to be uncomfortable with the notion of hav-ing people playing on their fields whom they do not control. And to do whatever they can to get that control. In the case of the Tokyo CIA station chief, you did just that. Or Charley Willoughby did, which is the same thing."
MacArthur stared at him icily for a moment.
"Granting, for the sake of argument, that I did, or Gen-eral Willoughby did, manage, so to speak, to bring your station chief to think of himself as a member of the team, what harm was done?"
"I was less than completely honest a moment ago when I implied I'm going to relieve the station chief for having allowed himself to be sucked into Charley Willoughby's- and your-orbit. The fact is that he was derelict-even criminally derelict-in the performance of his duties."
"That certainly deserves amplification," MacArthur said.
"In his case, it was an act of what I have to believe was intentional failure to do his job properly. It was either that, or he was, literally, so inept or so stupid that he didn't know what was going on."
"And what was going on?"
"A report was prepared by an intelligence officer on the staff of the Naval Element, SCAP, strongly indicating that the North Koreans had prepared an invasion force."
"I know of no such report, and, frankly, Pickering-"
"General, there was a report. I've seen it. You apparently didn't get to see it because General Willoughby ordered it destroyed."
"That's an outrageous accusation!"
"Unfortunately, it's true," Pickering said.
"What intelligence officer?" MacArthur said. "What we are going to do right now, General Pickering, tonight, is get General Willoughby and this intelligence officer of yours in here and get to the bottom of this. After which I will take whatever action seems appropriate."
"You can get Charley Willoughby in here, General, if you like, and I will repeat to him what I just told you. If that is your desire, I would suggest that you also summon Captain Edward C. Wilkerson-"
"Who's he?" MacArthur interrupted.
"The Chief of the Naval Element, SCAP He's the other villain in this sad affair. He acquiesced when General Willoughby ordered the report destroyed."
"I don't believe any of this," Jean MacArthur said.
From the look on Douglas MacArthur's face, neither did he.
"We will start with the intelligence officer who allegedly prepared this report," MacArthur said. "And then..."
"Unfortunately, he's not available tonight," Pickering said.
"Why not? Where is he?"
"On Tokchok-kundo Island," Pickering said.
"Where?"
"From which, early this morning, he launched an inva-sion of Taemuui-do, Yonghung-do, and Taebu-do islands in the Flying Fish Channel, which, as of 1500 this afternoon, are under our control."
MacArthur stared at him in disbelief.
"Do I understand you correctly, General Pickering, that you have launched an operation-without any consultation, much less permission from myself or anyone on my staff- that may-without question will-seriously impact the In-chon invasion?"
Pickering didn't immediately reply. But he smiled, which caused MacArthur's face to turn white.
"I fail to see the humor in any of this, so perhaps you would be good enough to tell me why you are smiling?"
"Forgive me," Pickering said. "I was thinking about General Patton's reply to General Bradley during the Sicil-ian campaign...."
MacArthur, after a moment, chuckled and then laughed.
"I don't understand," Jean MacArthur said.
"Bradley was concerned, darling," MacArthur ex-plained, "that the mutual dislike between George Patton and General Montgomery would see Georgie take extraor-dinary-possibly too risky-steps to be in Palermo before Montgomery could get there. So he messaged him words to the effect, `Do not do not take Palermo without my per-mission.' To which Georgie replied, `I hold Palermo, should I give it back?'"
She chuckled. "I'd never heard that before," she said.
"Would that this situation were as amusing," MacArthur said to Pickering.
"General, I think I should tell you that President Truman was aware of my plan," Pickering said.
"Would you tell me why you did it?" MacArthur asked.
"General, I've been privileged to be in on the planning of many of your invasions," Pickering said. "I like to think I learned from watching you."
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"Your staff was determined to take the islands on D Mi-nus One," Pickering said. "You agreed. I thought doing so would give the enemy twenty-four hours' notice of our in-tentions. That question had come up and been decided in favor of D Minus One. If I had come to you with this, you would have been forced to choose between your trusted staff and an amateur challenging their-and your-judg-ment."
"I have overridden my staff before, and you know that."
"I wasn't sure I could carry it off. Not me. Captain Mc-Coy. I thought it was worth the risk. If we failed, only a few men would be lost. If we succeeded..."
"And what makes you think the enemy won't immedi-ately take action to retake the islands?"
"The hope is that the enemy will believe it's nothing more than the South Koreans improving their positions along the Flying Fish Channel. They may not even take ac-tion. If they do, all they're going to find on the three islands are South Korean national police."