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"Another option would be to bring this to the attention of the President," Hillenkoetter said.

"Whatever you think is best for all concerned," Fowler said. "I'm going to have lunch with President Truman at half past twelve. Would you like me to bring it up with him then?"

They locked eyes for a moment.

"Senator," Hillenkoetter said, "I mean this as a compliment. You really know how to play hardball, don't you?"

"I've heard that unfounded accusation before," Fowler said.

"May I speak out of school?" Admiral Hillenkoetter asked.

"I thought I'd made it clear this whole conversation is out of school," Fowler said.

"With all respect to General Pickering, and his former subordinate, the officer who prepared this assessment, I'm having a great deal of trouble placing much credence in it."

"See here, Admiral-" Pickering flared.

"Flem, let him finish," Fowler said sharply.

"For one thing," Hillenkoetter went on, "I can't believe that General Willoughby would suppress something like this, and for another, as I said before, I've received nothing remotely approaching this assessment from my own people in the Orient."

"So?" Fowler asked.

"On the other hand, it comes to me not only from a... the former... deputy director of the OSS for the Pacific, but via a senator, for whom I not only have a great deal of respect, but who apparently believes there is something to the assessment. Under that circumstance, I will immedi-ately take action to see what I can find out myself."

"How?" Pickering asked, sarcastically. "By sending Willoughby a radio message?"

"Flem, goddamn it!" Fowler said.

"By dispatching my deputy director for Asiatic Activi-ties-your replacement, so to speak, General-over there as soon as I can get him on a plane, with instructions to- what was your phrase, General? `light a fire'?-light afire under our people in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul to re-fresh their efforts."

"All right," Fowler said.

"It would facilitate things if they could talk with the au-thor of this," Hillenkoetter went on, tapping his fingertips on the assessment. `To do that, I'd have to have his name."

"Flem?" Fowler asked.

Pickering thought it over.

"No," he said, finally, "for a number of reasons, prima-rily because everything he knows is in the assessment. What they would really want from him is his sources, and I don't think he'd be willing to tell them."

"We're supposed to be on the same side, General," Hil-lenkoetter said.

"I'm not entirely convinced of that, frankly," Pickering said. "Anyway, my... friend... would not give up his sources unless I told him to, and I'm not willing to do that. At least, right now."

Hillenkoetter shrugged.

"I may keep this, right?" he asked, tapping the assess-ment again.

"I've been thinking about that," Pickering said. "Could I have your word that you'll use it to pose specific ques-tions-about the order of battle, that sort of thing?-I mean, that you won't turn it over as is to your people? They wouldn't have to be rocket scientists to figure out who wrote it if they had the entire document."

"And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Hil-lenkoetter asked. "It might wind up in the newspapers."

Fowler smiled.

"You have my word, General," Hillenkoetter said. "And would you agree, Senator, that we don't have to worry the President about this just now?"

"Not for the time being," Fowler said, and rose from his chair. "Thank you, Admiral, for your consideration, and for seeing us on short notice. And I'll expect to hear from you shortly, right?"

"Absolutely," Hillenkoetter said, and offered his hand to Pickering.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, General."

"Was it really?" Pickering asked.

Hillenkoetter laughed, a little uneasily, and walked Pick-ering and Fowler to his office door.

As he watched them walk through his outer office, there was an unexpected bulletin from his memory bank.

Christ! The Gobi Desert weather station. The OSS- Pickering-put that in, in the middle of Japanese-occupied Mongolia. Nobody thought he could do it, much less keep it up. But he did, right through the end of the war. The B-29 bombing of the Japanese home islands could not have taken place without it. And we're still using it.

Whatever else Pickering may be, he's no amateur.

Maybe there is something to this assessment.

But why would Charley Willoughby sit on it?

He became aware that Mrs. Warburg, his executive as-sistant, was looking at him, waiting for orders.

"Call Mr. Jacobs, please, Mrs. Warburg," he said. "Ask him to come up as soon as he can. And call transportation and start working on tickets for him to Hong Kong."

"Yes, sir," she said.

He started to close his office door, but she held it open.

Then she stepped inside the office and closed the door.

"Admiral, the tape recorder didn't get shut down," she said.

He looked at her.

"There was something in your voice when you said to shut it down," she said.

"You heard that conversation?" he asked.

She nodded.

"No, you didn't, Martha," he said. "And I want you per-sonally to get that tape, shred it, and burn it. And make sure there are no copies."

"Yes, sir," she said. "Do I get to read the assessment?"

"It's on my desk. You can read it, but I want zero copies made."

"Yes, sir."

"You did the right thing, Martha," Hillenkoetter said. "But this... situation... is extraordinary."

"Yes, sir," Mrs. Warburg said, and walked to his desk to read the assessment.

Chapter Four

[ONE]

THE WILLIAM BANNING HOUSE

66 SOUTH BATTERY

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

1630 17 JUNE 1950

When they saw the Buick station wagon pull to the curb, both "Mother" Banning and her daughter-in-law, "Luddy," rose from the rocking chairs in which they had been sit-ting. Mother Banning folded her hands on her stomach. Luddy Banning clapped hers together, producing a sound like a pistol shot, and then, a moment later, a dignified, gray-haired black man in a gray cotton jacket appeared from in-side the house.

"Ma'am?"

"Stanley, our guests have arrived," Luddy Banning said.

"Please inform the colonel, and send someone to take care of their car and luggage."

"Yes, ma'am."

Mother Banning and Luddy Banning were the mother and the wife, respectively, of Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, who was both commanding officer of Marine Bar-racks, Charleston, and Adjunct Professor of Naval Science at his alma mater, officially the Military College of South Carolina, but far better known as the Citadel.

Colonel Banning was a graduate of the Citadel, (`26) as his father (`05), grandfather (`80). and great-grandfather (`55) had been. On April 12, 1861, Great-Grandfather Matthew Banning had stood where Mother and Luddy Ban-ning now stood on the piazza and watched as the first shots of the War of the Secession were fired on Fort Sumter.

He had then gone off as a twenty-five-year-old major to command the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd South Carolina Dragoons. When released from Union captivity in 1865, the conditions of his release required him to swear fealty to the United States of America, and to remove the insignia of a major general from his gray Confederate uniform. For the rest of his life, however, he was addressed as General Banning, and referred to by his friends as "The General."