Part 77 (2/2)
She took a deep breath, exhaled audibly, took the handkerchief from her mouth, and looked up at him.
”Thank you,” she said. ”I'll be all right.”
He removed his arm from her shoulders.
The priest took up his position at the head of the casket and began the graveside service.
You're going to like this even less, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l. This usually takes about two minutes, tops.
In the limousine on the way back to the Ocean View, Mrs. Babs Mitch.e.l.l did not cry. She sat across from Pick with the folded flag in her lap, stroking it with her finger tips.
She had cried three times during the graveside ceremony. First when General Dawkins, on behalf of a grateful nation, handed her the folded flag.
Then she had cried when the bugler played taps.
I felt a little weepy then myself.
And she had cried when the firing squad did their little ballet, which had put Major Pickering in the probably prohibited-by-regulation position of holding a weeping female closely with his left arm while he saluted with his right. Every time there had been the crack of twenty blank cartridges going off simultaneously, Mrs. Babs Mitch.e.l.l had cringed, and he could feel her bosom pressing against him.
On the curved driveway outside the Ocean View, Major Pickering told Mrs. Babs Mitch.e.l.l that he was sorry but he was going to have to get back to the hospital.
”Are you all right?”
”I'm fine. But my pa.s.s is about to expire.”
”Thank you for coming,” Mrs. Babs Mitch.e.l.l said.
”It was an honor.”
”No, I mean it,” she said. ”Thank you.”
She stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, and he felt again the pressure of her bosom against him.
”I'll come to see you,” she said. ”All right?”
”That would be very nice.”
Now, why the f.u.c.k did I say that?
You're a highly skilled liar with a good imagination.
Why couldn't you come up with something clever that would cut this off once and for good right now?
He shook hands with Mrs. Babs Mitch.e.l.l's mother and Captain Mitch.e.l.l's parents, and turned and walked down the curved driveway toward a taxi stand without looking back.
XVIII.
[ONE].
THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE BLAIR HOUSE PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C. 1900 2 NOVEMBER 1950 ”Who's this Lieutenant Colonel . . . Vandenburg?” the President of the United States asked after reading McCoy's message.
”He's the officer the Pentagon sent to see if General Dean could be rescued,” Major General Ralph Howe said. ”I suggested that he be transferred to the CIA to keep him out of Willoughby's hands.”
”I remember now. It says here he's the Seoul station chief,” Truman said.
”After I got your message about him, Mr. President,” Walter Bedell Smith said, ”I told General Bradley that was your desire. He placed him on indefinite duty with the CIA, and I so notified General Pickering. I can only suppose General Pickering designated him as Seoul station chief.”
”Good man?”
”General Bradley thought he was the best man for that job,” Smith said. ”I mean, trying to get General Dean back.”
”Ralph?”
”First-cla.s.s man, Mr. President. I understand why he and the Killer get along so well.”
”So well that he'd go along with . . . I'm not going to call that young man 'Killer' . . . McCoy McCoy because they're pals?” because they're pals?”
”No, sir,” Howe said firmly. ”He would not.”
”Vandenburg's the fellow who stole General Walker's airplane, right?”
”Mr. President, I said nothing of the kind,” Howe said, smiling. ”But I admit that he's probably justifiably high on the list of suspects.”
”Huh,” the President snorted. ”Well, you say he's a good man, and he goes along with McCoy all the way. Where does that leave us?”
”I think there is no longer any question that there are substantial numbers of Red Chinese in Korea, Mr. President, ” Howe said.
”I never really doubted that. What about this business about the Chinese sending us a message?”
”I don't know, sir. I'd bet on McCoy.”
”Okay. Let's take that as a given. So what do we do about it?”
”First thing this morning, Mr. President,” Smith said, ”I checked with the Pentagon. There was nothing in the overnight messages from the Dai Ichi Building suggesting that the Supreme Command has changed its mind about the Red Chinese coming in.”
”That makes things difficult, doesn't it?” Truman said. ”I find myself in the position of agreeing with a major-and a lieutenant colonel-and disagreeing with a five-star general who Ralph, General Pickering, and ninety percent of the American people think is a military genius.”
”Mr. President, may I make a suggestion?”
”I'm wide open for suggestions.”
”You could have the Army urgent-message General MacArthur saying they have intelligence suggesting there has been a substantial movement of ChiCom forces to the border and probably across it. And what does General MacArthur think?”
”Why not just send him a message saying the CIA has interrogated four senior Chinese Communist officers?” Truman asked. Then he added: ”Don't bother to answer that. I can't do that, because they know who the CIA people there are, and we're right back to me telling a five-star military genius he's wrong.”
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