Retreat, Hell! Part 27

"Aye, aye, sir," Hart said.

"Good," Pickering said. "And just for the record, George, Fowler's right. What you do for me is important. I don't know what the h.e.l.l I would do without you."

Hart nodded.

"General," Banning said, "have you got anything for General Howe? Or McCoy? I've got to get back to Pendleton. "

Pickering thought it over.

"Message them Hart and I made it this far and will be in Washington tomorrow," he said. "But that's about it."

"Aye, aye, sir."

[THREE].

Fleming Pickering marched into the kitchen of The Penthouse, freshly bathed, shaven, and attired in a fresh white T-shirt, boxer shorts, and stockings held up with garters.

"I still don't have a uniform?" he demanded of Captain Hart. "For Christ's sake, all they had to do was press the spare in the suitcase."

"And I'm sure they're working on doing just that," Senator Fowler said. "Have a cup of coffee and calm down."

He pointed to a coffee service on the kitchen table.

"You've got a clean uniform," Pickering said accusingly, to Hart.

"I didn't have mine pressed," Hart said. "You said you wanted yours pressed."

"And he didn't spill his breakfast on his," Fowler offered helpfully.

Pickering glared at him.

"I've got to call Patricia," he said.

"I did that for you. She'll be at the Lafayette when you get there," Fowler said. And then he giggled as much as a dignified U.S. Senator can giggle. "I told her about . . . your uniform difficulties, and that you were in the shower."

That earned Senator Fowler another dirty look.

"Jesus, I've got to call Ernie Sage. I promised Ernie I would as soon as I got here."

He went to the wall-mounted telephone and connected with the long-distance operator, who said she was required to ask, because of the increased telephone traffic caused by the war, if the call was necessary.

"Trust me, Operator, I know there's a war, and this call is necessary."

He then informed her that he wished to be connected, person-to-person, with Mr. Ernest Sage at the corporate headquarters of American Personal Pharmaceuticals in New York City.

The call to Mr. Sage's office went through quickly enough, but Mr. Sage's secretary, he was told, "was away from her desk" and her telephone was being answered by someone else, who, to the scarcely concealed amus.e.m.e.nt of Senator Fowler and Captain Hart, had never heard of Fleming Pickering, and more or less politely demanded to know what it was that he wished to speak to Mr. Sage about.

"I brushed my teeth with your lousy toothpaste and my teeth fell out," General Pickering replied. "Now, get him on the phone!"

The someone else answering the telephone decided that she had best at least relay the information that some furiously angry man was on the phone to Mr. Sage's secretary, who had accompanied her boss to an important staff meeting, and did so.

That lady came next on the line, and asked Pickering if he could possibly call back later, as Mr. Sage was conducting a very important meeting and she hated to disturb him.

"I don't give a d.a.m.n if he's conducting the New York Philharmonic," Pickering replied. "Get him on the phone now!"

Mr. Sage then came on the line.

"Is something wrong, Fleming?"

"Not at all. I just thought you would be interested in a report about your daughter."

"Flem, could I ask you to call Elaine?"

"And report to her, you mean?"

"Yeah. I'm really up to my ears in this meeting, Flem."

"Ernie, I will not call Elaine and tell her myself," Pickering said, "because I can tell you what I have to say in two seconds, and it would take twenty minutes to tell Elaine, and I don't have any more time to waste."

"Well, Jesus, Flem, don't take my head off."

"That's not what I would like to cut off, Ernie," Pickering said. "Now, listen carefully. Write this down. Ernie is fine. She sends her love. Got it?"

"You did try, right, Flem, to get her to come home?"

"Yes, I did. And she said no. I have to go, Ernie. Go back to your meeting."

Pickering hung up the telephone.

"You were a little rough on Sage, Flem," Fowler said.

"If I had a six-months-pregnant daughter halfway around the world and someone called me to report on her, any G.o.dd.a.m.ned meeting I was having would have to wait."

Fowler shrugged.

The service elevator door opened and two bellmen carrying freshly pressed uniforms came in.

"Finally," Pickering said.

He took the uniforms from them and walked out of the kitchen.

Senator Fowler waited until Pickering was out of earshot, then asked, "Is he all right, George?"

"He's fine, sir."

"How the h.e.l.l can he be fine when no one knows where Pick is? Or even if he's alive."

"McCoy and Zimmerman think he's alive," Hart said. "On the run, but alive."

"So Banning told me," Fowler said. "What do you think his chances are?"

"If he's made it this far, pretty good. That war's just about over."

"I devoutly pray you're right, George."

The telephone on a side table in the living room rang several minutes later as two bellmen were laying out their lunch.

Fowler was closest to it, so he answered it.

"Just a moment, please," he said, and then, to Hart: "Go tell him he's got a phone call."

Pickering, now wearing trousers and a shirt, came into the living room.

"That G.o.dd.a.m.n well better not be Elaine Sage," he said, taking the telephone from Fowler.

"It's not," Fowler said.

"Pickering," he snarled into the telephone, then: "Yes, Brigadier General Pickering."

Then he said quietly in an aside to Hart and Fowler, "Jesus Christ, it's Truman."

Then he said into the phone, "Good afternoon, Mr. President. I'm very sorry, sir, about the delay in getting to the airport. I was just about to reschedule. We can be in the air in no more than two . . ."

There was a short pause as Fleming listened to the President.

"It's not?"

A pause.

"The last sighting of the signs he's leaving was several days ago, Mr. President, so we know he was alive then. Major McCoy seems to feel there's a good chance of getting him back."

A very long pause, followed by a barely audible sigh from Fleming.

"That's very kind of you, Mr. President. I'm convinced that everything that can be done is being done. I'm deeply touched by your interest."

Brief pause.

"Yes, sir, Mr. President, I look forward to seeing you soon, too. Good afternoon, Mr. President."

He put the telephone in its cradle.

"I was rough on Ernie Sage, was I? That sonofab.i.t.c.h didn't even ask about Pick. The President of the United States just did."

Fowler looked at Pickering, then turned to Hart.

"George, unless I'm mistaken, there's a two-year supply of Famous Grouse in the last cabinet on the left of the sink. Why don't you make us all a little nip?"

"Aye, aye, sir," Hart said.

[FOUR].

BASE OPERATIONS KIMPO AIRFIELD (K-14) SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 0405 4 OCTOBER 1950.

Lieutenant Colonel Allan C. Lowman, USAF, a tall, good-looking thirty-five-year-old, who would have much preferred to be flying Sabrejets but who the powers that be had decided could make a greater contribution to the Air Force and the war as Commander, K-14 USAF Base, had elected to set up his cot in an unused-at-the-moment radio van mounted on a GMC 6 6 truck.

There were several advantages to this. The van had its own electrical generator, driven by a gasoline engine. The generator was primarily intended to power the radio equipment, but it also provided electric lights and the current necessary to operate his electric razor, an electric hot plate, and his Zenith Transoceanic portable radio, on which it was possible to listen-usually-to the Armed Forces Network Radio Station in Tokyo, and even-sometimes- civilian radio stations as far away as Hawaii and the West Coast.

When someone knocked at the rear door of the van, waking him, the luminescent hands of his Rolex-a gift from his wife-told him it was a little after 0400.

He had left orders with the duty NCO to wake him at 0500, so this was obviously a problem of some sort. The question was what kind of a problem.

Feeling a little foolish-it was probably the duty NCO bearing an early-morning teletype message that required his attention-he felt around on the floor until he found his .45, took it from the holster, pulled the slide back, chambered a cartridge, and only then got off the cot and walked barefoot in his underwear to the door.

"Who is it?"

"Sergeant Alvarez, Colonel."

Colonel Lowman put his right arm-and the .45-behind his back and then opened the door.

It was Sergeant Alvarez, all right, but with him were three officers, all majors. Two of them were Army-a plump, rumpled Army major and an Army aviator. The third was a Marine who had a Thompson submachine gun slung from his shoulder.

"These officers insisted on seeing you, Colonel," Sergeant Alvarez said.

"What can I do for you?" Colonel Lowman asked, aware that he felt a little foolish standing there in his underwear with his pistol hidden behind his back.

"May we come in, please, sir?" the Marine asked.

Colonel Lowman could not think of an excuse not to let them into the van. He backed up and gestured for them to climb up the short flight of stairs.

"Thank you, Sergeant," the Marine said.

"If you'll pull that door closed, we can turn the lights on," Lowman said.

The Marine pulled the door closed and latched it. Lowman switched the lights on.

The rumpled, stout major held out a small leather wallet to Lowman.

Lowman saw the credentials of a Special Agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. It was his first contact of any kind with the CIA.

"How can I help the CIA?" Lowman asked.

"In that hangar across the field, Colonel, as I'm sure you know, are two Sikorsky helicopters," the Marine said.

"Yeah, I know. This has to do with them?"

"What we want to do, in the next few minutes, is get them out of here with as few people as possible knowing about it," the Marine said.

"I'm not sure I understand," Lowman confessed.