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This must be the straight poop, he said. KLW is a Lieutenant Commander named Ken Waldman. In MAGIC. How can you be sure? Pickering asked, and then, without waiting for a reply, asked, You know him? Who else would have this much hard data this quick? Yeah, I know him. He was at MIT, too. He held one sheet of the onion skin over a metal waste basket and touched the flame of his Zippo to it. It caught fire so quickly that Pickering suspected it had been chemically treated to do that. Hon lit another sheet. You get this from that commander who flew in this morning? Yeah. A commander. Mine had a briefcase chained to his wrist and a gun, Hon said. He stopped in here and asked where he could find you before he gave me his stuff. Must be the same guy. What s the personals? One to Nimitz. Powerful words of congratulation, Pickering said, and handed the envelope to Hon. Hon tore it open and started to read it. What s the other one? Personal to Marshall. What s it say? I don t know, it s sealed, Pickering said, and handed it to him. Hon read it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it to Pickering. Based on my vast professional military experience, I don t think he s going to get away with that. Battleground / 27 Pickering was reluctant to take the document, but curiosity overwhelmed his reticence. His curiosity was rationalized by his orders stating that it would be pre- sumed he had the Need to Know anything that interested him. And as Hon turned to his cryptographic machine to encode the Personal to Nimitz, he read the Personal to Marshall. FROM SUPREME HQ SWPOA TO WAR DEPARTMENT WASH DC FOLLOWING EYES ONLY GENERAL GEORGE C. MARSHALL CHIEF OF STAFF PERSONAL FOR GENERAL MARSHALL MY DEAR GEORGE X I HAVE TODAY DISPATCHED VIA OFFICER COURIER INITIAL PLANS FOR AN OPERATION I WOULD LIKE TO COMMENCE AS SOON AS I CAN OBTAIN AUTHORITY FROM THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF X IT IS MY INTENTION TO STRIKE IN THE NEW BRITAIN DASH NEW IRELAND AREA USING THE US 32ND AND 41ST INFANTRY DIVISIONS AND THE AUSTRALIAN 7TH DIVISION ALL PRESENTLY IN AUSTRALIA X ONCE DRIVEN FROM NEW BRITAIN DASH NEW IRELAND THE JAPANESE WOULD BE FORCED BACK TO TRUK X TO ACCOMPLISH THE INITIAL ASSAULT AND FOR A PERIOD NOT TO EXCEED THIRTY DAYS THEREAFTER MY PLAN WOULD REQUIRE THE USE OF PAREN A PAREN ONE INFANTRY DIVISION TRAINED AND EQUIPPED FOR AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS X PAREN B PAREN AIR COVER FROM CARRIER BASED AIRCRAFT X PAREN C PAREN A SUITABLE NAVAL FORCE TO BOMBARD THE HOSTILE SHORE AND GUARD SHIPPING LANES X ONCE THE BEACHHEAD IS ESTABLISHED I CAN QUICKLY BEGIN AERIAL OPERATIONS FROM EXISTING FIELDS AND WILL NOT HAVE FURTHER NEED OF NAVAL ASSISTANCE X I MOST EARNESTLY SOLICIT NOT ONLY YOUR SUPPORT BUT ONCE YOU HAVE READ THE DETAILED PLANS YOUR WISE COUNSEL AS TO THEIR EFFICACY X TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE X WITH MY MOST SINCERE EXPRESSION OF REGARD I REMAIN AS ALWAYS FAITHFULLY DOUGLAS X END PERSONAL TO GENERAL MARSHALL The Navy s not going to loan him the First Marines and a couple of aircraft carriers, Hon said when he was sure Pickering had had time to read the Personal to Marshall. Are they? His fingers were still flying over the cryptographic machine s typewriter keys as he talked. Hon always baffled Pickering when he did that. How could one part of his brain type while another part engaged in conversation? Not willingly, Pickering replied. And he doesn t know that? I think he knows it, Pickering said. I am always astonished when I find something he doesn t know. 28 / W. E. B. Griffin And, he thought, after that cable The Emperor just sent him, when Admiral Nimitz bitterly objects to this plan, he will not be as abrupt as he would otherwise have been. It doesn t even make much sense, does it? Yeah. I think it does. But I agree with you that the Navy will have a fit when they get this. I think they d rather scuttle an aircraft carrier than loan it to MacAr- thur. What is that shit all about? Pluto asked. Can t the brass understand they re on the same side? That the goddamn Japs are whose throats they re supposed to cut? Yours and mine Pluto, is not to reason why, Pickering said. Can I change my mind about those peanuts? III (One) ROOM 26, TEMPORARY BUILDING T-2032 WASHINGTON, D.C. 0845 HOURS 15 JUNE 1942 Bingo! Technical Sergeant Harry Rutterman, USMC, said softly, nodding his head with satisfaction. Rutterman, a wiry man in his early thirties, raised his eyes from his desk and looked down the narrow, crowded room to an office at the end. The door was cracked open. That meant Captain Ed Sessions was in there; if he was gone, the door would have been closed and locked with iron bars and padlocks. Rutterman lifted himself out of his chair and took the uppermost of a stack of yellow teletype sheets from his desk. He was wearing green trousers and a khaki shirt. His field scarf was pulled down, which was unusual for a regular Marine non-com; the manner in which he was armed would also be considered unusual elsewhere in the Corps. The pistol was a standard issue Colt Model 1911A1, but instead of the flapped leather holster and web belt, its standard accoutrements, Rutterman had his pistol in a skeleton holster clipped to the rear of the waistband of his trousers; the pistol was inside his trousers with only the butt in sight. He went to Captain Sessions s door, rapped it with his knuckles, and announced, Rutterman, Sir. Come, Sessions answered, and Rutterman pushed the door open. Captain Edward M. Sessions, USMC, was a tall, lithely muscular young officer, not exactly handsome, but attractive to women all the same. Like Rutterman, he had removed his blouse and pulled his tie down; and like Rutterman, he was armed in a manner not common in the Corps. He was wearing a leather shoulder holster, which held a short-barrelled Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Revolver. He had expected to spend his career as a Marine officer who followed the usual progression: from infantry platoon leader, to assistant staff officer of some sort at battalion level, and then to executive officer and company commander. He had in fact commanded a platoon, but while serving as an assistant S-2 of Third Battalion, Second Marines, he had attracted the attention of the Marine Intelligence Community by the literary quality of the routine reports and evaluations he was required to write. These were written in a style that was the antithesis of the fancy prose that the word literary usually calls to mind. His words were short and simple; he came right to the point; and there was little chance of mistaking what he meant. 29 30 / W. E. B. Griffin Instead of returning to a line company following his eighteen-month assignment as an assistant S-2, he was relieved from the assignment after only a year. First, he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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