The Generals (21 page)

Sandy was standing outside the door, holding his briefcase. If you did not look close, you would not see the stainless steel cable coming out of his shirt cuff and connecting to the briefcase.

“Are you all right?” Sandy asked.

“I’m just fine,” Sharon said. “There’s an officer’s wife in there who’s sick to her stomach. This is her friend, and she’s on your plane to Atlanta, so I said I’d stay with her friend.”

“Your wife is very kind,” the woman said.

“I have to go, Sharon,” Sandy said.

“I know,” she said, and leaned on him, and kissed him. “Go on.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sandy said.

“Or the day after,” Sharon said. “Now go, the both of you.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman said, and impulsively kissed Sharon on the cheek.

“You’d do the same for me,” Sharon said.

“My name is Dorothy Sims,” the woman said.

“My name is Sharon,” Sharon said. She did not give her last name. She didn’t think Sandy would want her to.

“We’d better get going, Mrs. Sims,” Sandy Felter said. “Your luggage all checked through?”

“Through to Fayetteville,” Dorothy Sims said.

“Well, then, I’ll have the pleasure of your company all the way,” Sandy Felter said, and they headed from the Admiral’s lounge toward gate 13.

(Four)
Headquarters, XVIII Airborne Corps & Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1430 Hours, 7 June 1969

Headquarters, Fort Bragg and XVIII Airborne Corps occupied a three-story red brick building, which before World War II had been the post hospital. It was on a semicircular drive off the oak-shaded main street of main post, a pre-War II area of three-story brick barricks, parade ground, officer and NCO quarters, and chapel and post theater that looks far more like the campus of a small North Carolina college than an institution dedicated to the god of war.

The office of the commanding general, Fort Bragg, and the XVIII Airborne Corps is on the second floor of the old hospital building, in what had been a hospital ward, complete with sundeck at the end. From the windows of the sundeck, the commanding general could see both the barracks to the right and the parade ground, and beyond the parade ground the row of three-story, brick houses that made up Colonel’s Row.

Lieutenant General Robert F. Bellmon, who commanded Fort Bragg and the XVIII Airborne Corps—but not the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, although JFK was on his post—waited somewhat impatiently for Major General Paul Hanrahan, the JFK CG, whom he had just summoned to his office by the nearly irresistible means of sending his aide-de-camp to fetch him in a helicopter.

In the interests of security (the fewer copies around, the less the chance of loss or compromise) JFK and Bragg/XVIII A/BC had been furnished with just one copy of a document called
OPERATION MONTE CRISTO
. This was classified
TOP SECRET QUINCY/FOX
, which meant that personnel who wished access to the material must possess two additional security clearances,
QUINCY
and
FOX
, beyond
TOP SECRET
.

This did not mean that they had been adjudged more loyal, trustworthy, or free of psychological quirks than those with a mere
TOP SECRET
clearance. It simply meant that they had been judged worthy to be brought in on
WAR PLANS
generally
(QUINCY)
and on this operation particularly
(FOX)
.

Until ten minutes ago the copy furnished Bragg/XVIII A/BC and JFK had reposed in the Classified Documents Room of the old hospital, three floors below ground level. The two-inch-thick document, sealed with tape—which could not be removed without tearing into a heavy manila envelope—now reposed on General Bellmon’s desk. The envelope had a cover sheet taped to it made of light cardboard with
TOP SECRET
printed in large red letters at each end. Neatly lettered with a Speedball pen in the middle of the
TOP SECRET
cover sheet was
MONTE CRISTO
.

General Bellmon heard the fluckata-fluckata of approaching rotor blades. He glanced out the window and saw an LOH-6 zipping across the parade ground toward his building. The LOH-6 made a straight-in approach to a circle in which a large H had been whitewashed, then flared and settled to the ground. Ducking under the flashing low rotor blades, one hand holding his green beret on his head, Major General Paul T. Hanrahan ran toward the old hospital.

Lieutenant General Bellmon (three stars, one more than Hanrahan’s major general’s two) walked to his desk and pushed a button.

“Coffee, black, mugs, the moment General Hanrahan walks in here,” he ordered.

Hanrahan was a wiry Irishman, deeply tanned. He wore what were known as jungle ripstops and jungle boots. Jungle ripstops were of open-weave nylon, woven in a way that prevented rips. The jacket, which had four bellows pockets, the top ones angled, was tailored very much like the WWII paratrooper’s tunic, except that the old jump jacket had been made of heavy gabardine. The sleeves of Hanrahan’s jungle ripstops were folded in two two-inch folds above his elbows. The jungle boots had leather toes and heel pieces, but the rest was something like nylon netting so water could escape. There was a sheet of hardened steel between the cleated sole and the insole—for punji sticks—and there were eyelets for drainage on both sides of the arch.

General Bellmon thought that jungle ripstops (which came both in plain OD and camouflage material) were among the brighter ideas of the Quartermaster Corps. And so he had a half dozen sets. He was wearing, however, standard GI fatigues. It had been decided by some sonofabitch that the summer work uniform within Third Army would be standard fatigues. They were hot, bulky, and caused prickly heat, but budgetary considerations precluded the issue of the more comfortable ripstops to all troops.

Hanrahan and his Green Berets wore ripstops and jungle boots. Though they were attached to Fort Bragg for rations and quarters, they took their orders directly from the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. Red Hanrahan had in effect told the CG, Third United States Army (who had issued the fatigues order) to go fuck himself. Green Berets would wear what Red Hanrahan thought they should wear. He could get away with it.

General Bellmon could have worn ripstops, too. General officers (so the hallowed legend went) were permitted to wear any uniform they chose. But Bellmon wore fatigues and jump boots and suffered prickly heat because the troops had to wear fatigues and suffer prickly heat. Bellmon had also made it plain that none of his officers had better be caught in ripstops.

Red Hanrahan appeared at the door, came to attention, and threw a snappy salute.

Bellmon returned it with a casual wave of his hand.

“I hope I didn’t take you from something important, Red,” he said.

“No, sir.”

“Sit down,” General Bellmon said, waving Hanrahan onto a leather couch. A balding staff sergeant appeared with a tray on which sat two cups of steaming coffee and two Coca-Colas. He set it on the coffee table before the couch and left the room, closing the door after him. Bellmon went to the couch and sat down beside Hanrahan.

“If I have a choice,” Hanrahan said, with an Irish lilt, “I’ll have both.”

He picked up the Coke and drank about half of it. “Hotter than hell. I’m dehydrated.”

“Are you aware of the Monte Cristo TWX?” General Bellmon asked.

“Execute Phase One, sir,” Hanrahan said. “They got word to me.”

It was
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
, the highest military priority. Yet Hanrahan wasn’t the slightest bit excited. That meant he obviously knew all about it. Or wanted to give the impression he did.

Bellmon stood up and walked to his desk to get the thick, sealed envelope. He took a black GI ballpoint pen from the pocket of his fatigue blouse, ripped loose the
TOP SECRET
cover sheet, and turned it over. He wrote on it the date, the time, and
BELLMON, LTGEN
. Then he handed the pen to Hanrahan, who wrote
HANRAHAN, MAJGEN
.

Then Bellmon tore open the envelope.

Inside were six smaller envelopes, each with a
TOP SECRET
cover sheet. The one on top had
MONTE CRISTO
on it. Bellmon tore that loose and they both repeated the business of writing date, time, and signature on the back. Then Bellmon tore the envelope open.

Inside was a thin sheaf of papers, held together with a metal clip. The words
TOP SECRET
were printed in inch-high red letters on the top and bottom of each page. The first page said:

There were six more pages in the
PHASE ONE
folder. The other five were blank.

“I guess you’ve seen this, Red?” General Bellmon asked, handing it to him.

“Yes, sir,” Hanrahan said. He looked at Bellmon, smiled, and added, “I wrote it, Bob.”

“I thought you probably had, when I saw what it was,” Bellmon replied. “Who’s Outfielder?”

“One of ours, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“All Mac said when he called is that he thought I’d like the ball game.”

“Mac
called?
” Bellmon asked, crisply incredulous.

“Mac is my guy in this,” Hanrahan said. “He called from Washington. From a pay phone in a Colonel Sanders Fried Chicken. He said that if it wasn’t raining, he’d like to play baseball, and that he had an outfield I wouldn’t believe.”

“Jesus Christ, Red! This
is
Top Secret.”

“Top Secret Quincy/Fox,” Hanrahan agreed. “But I don’t think my phone is tapped—I
know
my phone isn’t tapped. And I don’t think they’ve got a tap on every pay phone in every Colonel Sanders.”

“What did he mean about ‘you wouldn’t believe’ his outfield?”

“I said, ‘Is that so?’ and he said, ‘You’ll like it but you won’t believe it.’ I don’t know what that means, except that it wasn’t bad news.”

“Is he talking about you?”

“I wish he was, but I don’t think so,” Hanrahan said. “At least it looks like our ball game. No Air Force, no Marines.”

“Most of the people in the Hanoi Hilton are Air Force,” Bellmon said. “Or Navy.”

“But we are the guys with the rifles who take and hold that small important piece of real estate,” Hanrahan said.

“What do you need from me?” Bellmon asked.

“Right now, nothing, sir,” Hanrahan said. “Presuming I have your permission to use McCall for Home Base.”

“Sure,” Bellmon said. “I expected that.”

“I think McCall would attract less attention,” Hanrahan said. “We do all kinds of strange things out there.”

“Which of my officers is going to make himself known to me?” Bellmon asked. “Can you tell me?”

“I guess Mac is representing both of us, General,” General Hanrahan said, carefully.

“And is Outfielder going to go to you or me?”

“I’m sure he’ll come to you, sir,” Hanrahan said.

“Then all we can do is wait until he shows up?”

“I would think so, sir.”

“And there’s nothing I can do for you?”

“I would be grateful if the general could see his way clear to loaning me that LOH for a ride back out to McCall,” Hanrahan said, drolly.

“Help yourself, Red.”

You feisty little Irish bastard, you know a whole lot you’re not telling me. Half because you shouldn’t, and half because you like to rub it in my face that I’m too old to do anything but run a desk
.

(Five)