[SIX]
THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE SUITE
THE FOSTER LAFAYETTE HOTEL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1805 1 JULY 1950
"I really don't know what to think," Colonel Ed Banning said, popping a bacon-wrapped oyster in his mouth. "I wish I'd known about the Killer's assessment before now...."
"Goddamn it, are you never going to belay that Killer crap?" McCoy snapped.
"Sorry, Ken," Banning said.
"Never," Pickering said, "at least not among those who know you and love you so well."
"Sorry, Ken," Banning said, sincerely contrite. "It just slips out."
"Forget it," McCoy said.
"As you have forgotten that good Marine captains don't cuss at Marine colonels?" Pickering asked.
"Sir, Captain McCoy begs the colonel's pardon."
"It's Okay, Killer, forget it," Banning said.
That caused laughter.
The truth was while they were not drunk, they had been sitting, drinking, in the living room of Pickering's suite- technically, he had commented, his wife's suite; she was the chairman of Foster Hotels, Inc.-since 1645, when they had returned from the CIA complex, all the bureau-cratic necessities for the issuance of identity cards having taken a little more than an hour.
Some of their conversation had dealt with wondering where the women were; they should have been in the hotel by noon, but most of it had dealt with what was going on, both in Korea and with themselves.
A bellman had been dispatched to the National Geo-graphic Society building, several blocks away, to get a map of Korea-"On second thought, you'd better get half a dozen," Pickering had ordered. "Everything they've got, the coast of China from the Burmese border, near Ran-goon, to the Russian border, to the Sea of Okhotsk."
Using the maps, McCoy had delivered an hour-long briefing, entirely from memory, of the disposition of North Korean forces on the Korean peninsula; of Chinese and Russian forces up and down the coast of the Asian conti-nent; of U.S. Army forces in Korea-there were practically none in Korea-and Japan; and even of Nationalist Chi-nese forces on Formosa.
He traced the possible routes of invasion across the 38th parallel, and offered his assessment of the probable North Korean intentions.
"I don't think they expected the Americans to intervene, but I don't think that it will have any effect when we do. We probably can't get enough forces over there quickly enough to stop them. What we do send is likely to be pushed into the sea here, in the deep South, around Pusan."
He discussed the possibility of support from Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army on Formosa, and dismissed it as probably not going to be worth very much. And his opinion of the war-fighting capabilities of the Eighth U.S. Army in Korea was anything but flattering.
"Their equipment is old, their training is inadequate, and they don't have any armor to match the Russian T-34s the North Koreans have. The bridges in Japan won't take the weight of an M-26, which is arguably as good as the T-34, so there are no M-26s. The M-24s they do have are light tanks that don't stand a chance against the T-34."
That was frustrating to hear, of course, and so was con-templation of what they were all going to be doing in the CIA.
Banning agreed that it was possible, even likely, that Ad-miral Hillenkoetter would be fired for not being able to predict the sudden North Korea attack.
"Probably," Banning said, "not right away. If the Presi-dent is worried about a Pearl Harbor reaction to the attack, the last thing he wants to do is fire the Director of the CIA. That makes what General Cates said, that he's thinking of you to replace Hillenkoetter, make a kind of sense."
"I'm not equipped to run the CIA."
"One scenario is that Hillenkoetter will stay on until you feel you can take over," Banning argued. The door chime sounded.
"The ladies, I hope," Pickering said, and went to the door.
Patricia Foster Pickering and Ernestine Sage McCoy walked into the room, trailed by four bellmen carrying luggage and cardboard boxes from Brooks Brothers. Both women looked around the mess in the room, and the four Marines, all of whom had their field scarves pulled down, their collars unbuttoned, and their sleeves rolled up.
"I hope we're not interrupting anything," Patricia Pick-ering said, lightly sarcastic.
"We were getting worried," Pickering said.
"I'm sure you were," Patricia Pickering said, now seri-ously sarcastic. "If there's any scotch left, I really would like a drink."
Her husband scurried to get her a drink. McCoy went to his wife and kissed her.
"How many have you had?" Ernie asked.
"A couple," he confessed.
"There is a difference between a couple, which is two, and several, which is any number three or greater."
"Several," McCoy said.
Ernie laughed. "Aunt Pat, I told you. They can't be trusted alone, but they don't lie."
"What's in the boxes?" McCoy asked.
"We went by Brooks Brothers and got you some uni-forms," Ernie said.
"Good little camp followers that we are," Patricia said. She went to Ed Banning. "I see that you-smell that you- can't be trusted out of Milla's sight, either."
But she kissed his cheek nevertheless, and then Zimmer-man's.
"And for lunch we had a hot dog with sauerkraut and a Coke on the sidewalk outside Brooks Brothers," Patricia said. "It was good, but it wasn't enough. Plan on an earlier dinner, boys."
Pickering handed his wife a drink. "Here you go, sweetheart," he said.
"You don't have one?"
"On the coffee table."
"Make it last," she said. "That's your last. I didn't fly across the country in the middle of the night, and then spend the morning in Brooks Brothers and the afternoon driving here from Manhattan just for the privilege of watching you snore in an armchair."
"Yes, dear," Pickering said, mockingly. He was more amused than annoyed, and certainly didn't appear chas-tised.
Patricia turned to McCoy.
"Say, `thank you, Ernie, for coming and going to Brooks Brothers for me.'"
"Thank you, honey, for coming and going to Brooks Brothers for me," McCoy said, with a smile.
"You're welcome," Ernie said.
The telephone rang.
Banning answered it, then extended it to Pickering.
"Senator Fowler, sir," he said.
Mrs. Pickering looked annoyed.
Pickering took the phone.
"Hello, Dick," he said. "Come down the corridor and have a drink with us. Patricia just walked in the door."
Fowler's end of the conversation could not be heard by Patricia Pickering, although she tried hard.
"Dick, I really don't want to do that. Patricia is in one of her fire-breathing moods....
"Hey, don't you listen? I said I didn't want to.
"Oh, goddamn it, Dick. All right. We'll be there in a minute." He put the phone down and looked at his wife. "Our senator wants to see me for a minute. Ken and me. He says it's important."
She didn't reply.
"I owe him a couple of favors," he said.
"Like him getting you back into your goddamn Marine Corps?"
They locked eyes for a moment, and then Pickering said, rather firmly, "Patricia, we'll only be a few minutes. Why don't you order dinner?"
He motioned for McCoy to follow him, and they left the room.
" `Goddamn Marine Corps,' Aunt Pat?" Ernie said.