The Generals (24 page)

“I don’t want to be any bother.”

“Then ham and eggs,” Roxy said.

“Just a couple of eggs, Roxy, please. Scrambled.”

“Coming right up,” Roxy said, and turned to the stove.

“Have you got a place over there,” Felter said to MacMillan, “that can be quickly swept?”

“I thought we were going to meet at XVIII Corps,” MacMillan said. “But sure, Mouse.”

“Check on it, please, Mac,” Felter said. “Can you lay on a car?”

“In this heat I use mine,” MacMillan said. “It’s less trouble anyway. I had less trouble getting a staff car when I was a lieutenant than I do now.”

“I was hoping you’d make the offer,” Lowell said. “I
need
air-conditioning.”

“Mac, I wanted the car,” Roxy protested.

“You’ve got the Ford.”

“That damned thing is falling apart,” Roxy said, laying eggs before Felter.

“Thank you.”

“You can have the Caddie later,” MacMillan said.

“How am I supposed to pick up Sharon? In the Ford?”

“When is Sharon coming?” Felter asked.

“You tell me.”

“You can have the Caddie to pick up Sharon,” MacMillan said. “When she comes.”

Lowell was searching through his wallet. He came out with an American Express credit card and held it up to Roxy.

“Tell you what, Roxy,” he said. “You call up Hertz and have them send a Cadillac, if they have one. If they don’t, get the biggest car they have.”

“You know what they charge to deliver a rent-a-car?” Roxy asked, but she took the credit card.

“No,” Lowell said.

“Forgive me, I forgot, Mr. Rockefeller,” Roxy said.

“I should have rented one last night,” Lowell said. “But Mrs. Sims wanted to do something for me.”

“I hope you don’t mean that the way it sounded,” Roxy said, sharply.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Roxy,” Mac said.

“I’ve known lover boy since he wore short pants,” Roxy said. “I can tell him what I think.”

“I never wore short pants,” Lowell said.

“She’s nice, Craig,” Roxy said. “Really nice.”

“And her husband is down in ’Nam,” Lowell said. “You made your point, Roxy.”

“Jesus, Roxy,” MacMillan said.

The odd truth was, Lowell thought, that Mac had probably gotten more strange poontang in the last couple of years than he had. Maybe he was getting old. Or maybe ’Nam had done something to him. Whatever the reason, he hadn’t done any hunting at all. And he had even turned down offers.

The truth probably was that there was something to that old soldier’s tale that a man got X many pieces of ass per lifetime, and that he had run through his allocation while very young. He’d done a lot of plain and fancy screwing after Ilse had been killed, and then again after he had been left at the altar by Cynthia Thomas. Now it had to be something very special—without any complications whatever—before he’d have a go at it.

Maybe that was it; maybe his relative celibacy was a function of age and increased wisdom. He no longer jumped women where there was a chance of trouble, and he hadn’t met any women lately who met that carefree criterion. If that was the case, this Mrs. Sims was as safe as she could be. Only a fool who was also a three-star sonofabitch would play around with a POW’s wife.

“I’m sorry, Duke,” Roxy said. “But I know what that woman’s going through. It’s even worse for her than it was for Mac and me. When Mac was a prisoner in Germany, he got to send a postcard once a month; and I could send packages. He never got them, but I could send them. It’s not like those poor bastards in Vietnam. I don’t know how she stands it.”

“I’ll make those calls,” MacMillan said, ending the conversation.

(Five)
Headquarters
John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
0830 Hours, June 1969

The U.S. Army Center for Special Warfare, originally a well-weathered collection of World War II “temporary” frame barracks and office buildings, had received a massive infusion of funds under President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy believed that Special Forces—small teams of highly trained, highly motivated junior officers and senior noncoms—would be very effective in fighting the brushfire wars that he knew the United States could not help but be involved in.

It was generally believed that Kennedy had a powerful personal involvement with the young, unconventional warriors who wore green berets. Kennedy’s own wartime service had been as captain of a PT boat. And PT boats did at sea pretty much what Green Berets were supposed to do on land.

The Green Berets wore their cap “by Direction of the President.” There were powerful forces within the Army who did not like the Green Berets, period, and were offended by their “foreign type” headgear. As Commander in Chief, Kennedy had countermanded an order proscribing their wear.

Later Green Berets had carried their Commander in Chief to his grave at Arlington, and the U.S. Army Center for Special Warfare was soon after that named for him.

The JFK Center was a collection of modern buildings, connected by concrete walkways crossing wide expanses of neatly cropped grass. The Headquarters building—one storied and rambling—shows the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright. Some of the exterior walls are tinted glass, and much of the masonry construction is of exposed aggregate.

Deep inside the Headquarters Building is Conference Room II. In the conference room is a huge oak table surrounded by comfortable upholstered chairs. It is equipped for rear-screen projection. And at the drop of a button, microphones descend automatically from the ceiling so that the words spoken by each conference participant can be faithfully recorded.

Major General Paul Hanrahan, Commanding General, the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, hands on his hips, in ripstops and jungle boots, stood at the beginning of the corridor leading to the only entrance to Conference Room II.

A table had been set up, occupied by a sergeant major. Around his waist was a web belt and a leather-holstered .45 pistol. Two sergeants, both approaching middle age, leaned on the wall behind General Hanrahan. Each was armed with an Uzi 9-mm machine pistol, hanging on a web strap from his shoulders.

There was also a neatly lettered sign reading:
ABSOLUTELY NO ADMISSION. CLASSIFIED CONFERENCE IN SESSION
. The classified documents officer from the night before, a .45 in a holster around his waist, sat on a chrome-and-plastic seat. He had Felter’s briefcase and the cut-down Colt .45 automatic on his lap.

Colonels Felter, MacMillan, and Lowell came down the corridor and stopped when they saw Hanrahan and the guards just inside the corridor.

“Morning, sir!” MacMillan boomed.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” General Hanrahan said. “I had this set up. I thought you’d want it. How are you, Mouse?”

“Good to see you, General,” Felter said, shaking his hand. He then turned to the CDO and took from him his attaché case, checking to see the seals were intact.

“Major,” Felter said, “this’ll be going back in the vault. I’m afraid you’ll have to stick around awhile.”

“I’m at your service, Colonel.”

“Sergeant,” General Hanrahan said. “I will personally vouch for these officers. It has been my unfortunate fate to know Colonels Felter and Lowell for many years. And of course, we all know Colonel MacMillan. How do you want to check out the Air Force, Mouse?”

“I’ll identify them. I’ve got some ID in here.” He tapped the briefcase. “For everybody but General Bellmon. You’ve had the room swept?”

“The room and the building, the room ten minutes ago.”

“Here comes the Air Force,” MacMillan said,
sotto voce
.

Accompanied by an armed Green Beret sergeant, two Air Force Officers came down the corridor. One was in tropical worsted and the other was in the camouflage ripstops and Aussie (brim fastened to the crown on one side) hat of the Air Commandos.

“You find a place to park your horse?” Colonel MacMillan inquired courteously.

“Go to hell, Mac,” the Air Commando colonel said, and then he noticed General Hanrahan. “Good morning, General.”

“That’s everybody, except for General Bellmon,” Felter said. “We might as well get started. No access, Sergeant, for anybody except General Bellmon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re going to start without him?” Hanrahan asked. Before Felter could reply, Lieutenant General Robert Bellmon, trailed by an aide, came down the corridor.

“The general’s aide, sir?” the sergeant major asked.

Felter shook his head no.

Introductions were performed inside. General Bellmon knew the Air Force colonel from Pope, but he had not met the Air Commando. He knew everybody else. He and MacMillan had been prisoners of the Germans together in World War II. And Felter had been instrumental, as a first lieutenant, in freeing him from “Russian liberation.” He had known Craig Lowell since Lowell was a second lieutenant. And Lowell’s father-in-law, Generalleutnant Graf Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg even longer. Von Greiffenberg had been Bellmon’s and MacMillan’s jailer near Stettin, Poland, during War II.

Despite the connections, Bellmon didn’t really like Duke Lowell. There were things about him (he was a superb officer, smart as a whip, make no mistake,
but
) that were just not right—starting with his well-earned (after his wife had been so tragically killed in an auto accident) reputation for fucking anything in a skirt.

“How are you, Craig?” General Bellmon politely inquired.

“Good morning, General.”

Sandy Felter was something else. The Mouse was one of General Bellmon’s favorite people.

“We don’t often have the opportunity to see you in a uniform, Colonel Felter,” he said. “I’m impressed. How the hell are you, Sandy?”

“It’s good to see you, sir,” Felter said.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” General Bellmon said. He put his hand on Felter’s shoulders, led him down the corridor to Conference Room II, and installed him in a seat beside the head of the table. One of Hanrahan’s sergeants closed the door.

“Be seated, gentlemen,” General Bellmon said.

All eyes were on Sandy Felter. He worked the combination of the cable harness first. Then he took a small, golden penknife from his pocket and slit the seals. He unlocked the briefcase, took out an envelope, and handed it along with the penknife to Bellmon. Bellmon slit the envelope open, took out a single sheet of paper, read it quickly, and then again, aloud.

“Attention to orders, gentlemen,” he read. “‘The White House. Washington. 7 June 1969. Operation Monte Cristo is approved. Colonel Sanford T. Felter, General Staff Corps, U.S. Army, is named action officer under my personal direction.’ It is signed, Richard M. Nixon, Commander in Chief.”

General Bellmon passed the letter to the Air Commando colonel, who had taken the seat to his immediate right. Then he stood up, and gestured for Sandy Felter to swap seats with him.

“The chair at the head of the table is yours, Sandy,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” Felter said, and went to take it. “The reason advanced to me for giving me the responsibility for this operation,” Felter said, “was that I was in the best position to run this operation non-parochially. I’m sure I will have all your cooperation.”

“Sandy,” the Air Commando colonel said, “what happened, did the Navy take their ball and go home?” He half expected a laugh for a reply.

“Right about this time, I would guess,” Felter replied seriously, “a Marine battalion at Turtle Neck, Virginia, is beginning training to conduct a hit-and-run amphibious operation on North Vietnam. It will provide valuable training, I am sure, and it will also serve, it is hoped, as a diversion. I think I should tell you, gentlemen, that I recommended the Marines for the job.”

Hanrahan and Bellmon gave him surprised and angry looks.

“The final decision—which was made by the President, after he heard all the arguments—was aerial, rotary-wing, assault, utilizing Special Forces only,” Felter said.

“Only?” the Air Commando colonel asked.

“Only. The ground element will be Special Forces.”

“And am I supposed to go home and start running some cockamamie phony training program?” the Air Commando colonel said.

“You’re supposed to sit here, Colonel,” Colonel Felter said, with a steel, an ice, a fury in his voice that made everyone uncomfortable, “and do what I order you to do.”

There was a long pause that grew longer as the others became aware of it.

Finally, flush-faced, the Air Commando colonel realized what was required of him.

He stood up and came to attention.

“Colonel Felter, sir,” he said. “I apologize. No excuse, sir.”

Felter examined papers before him for another thirty seconds, an eternity. He wondered if his own furious outburst had been intentional—as he would like to think: a “leadership technique” designed to make it clear who was in charge—or whether it was really something more out of control that reflected his own uneasiness.

As he looked around the room, he thought of something he hoped would not occur to the others. Despite the dazzling display of decorations on his. breast, he had never personally commanded more than a handful of men, never a unit as large as a platoon, much less a company.

Bellmon, at twenty-five, had been a major commanding a tank battalion in North Africa when he was captured. He had had a regiment in the last days of the Korean War, and he had been promoted to Lieutenant General after command of a division in Vietnam. He was now commanding the two-division (plus supporting troops) XVIII Airborne Corps.

MacMillan had been platoon sergeant of the Pathfinder Platoon of the 508th Parachute Infantry on four of the regiment’s jumps with the 82nd Airborne Division in War II. When the platoon leader had been killed on the fifth jump, the ill-fated jump across the Rhine, he’d assumed command and won both a second lieutenant’s bar and the Medal of Honor. MacMillan had also recently returned from Vietnam, where he had commanded the First Special Forces Group—all the Green Berets in Vietnam.

Lowell, as a badly wounded eighteen-year-old second lieutenant, had taken over command of a company of Greek mountain infantry when their officers had been killed, and he’d done so well the King of the Hellenes had given him the five-inch-across gold medal of the Order of St. George and St. Andrew. As a twenty-four-year-old captain in Korea, he had led a battalion-strength tank task force with enough skill and valor to earn him a major’s leaf and his first DSC. When the Army finally got around to giving Lowell another command, it had been of an aviation battalion in Vietnam. He had done that so well that he’d been given his second DSC, God only knew how many air medals, his colonel’s silver eagle, and command of an aviation group—roughly equivalent to a regiment.