The Generals (34 page)

“I’m serious, damn you,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I realize the whole damned fool thing of pinching pennies was a charade. My brother and I are going to get our parents’ money, and the kids are going to get their own. It was going to come to a head soon, anyway.”

“You’ve lost me,” Lowell said.

“We’re going to have two kids in college at once,” she said. “And you have to send them to the best place they can get in. Try doing that on Air Force pay. And I’ve been spending a hell of a lot of money running around with the POW Wives. That money didn’t come out of the check I get every month.”

“Rich women should marry rich men,” Lowell said. “Leave it at that.”

“But it does make me a bitch to think like that, doesn’t it?”

“It makes you a realist,” Lowell said. “I have wondered, from time to time, whether some of my lady acquaintances would have been as willing to join me in the Budget Motel as they were to join me in the Regency Hyatt House.”

“You bastard, you,” she said. “There, too?”

“I only met you the day before yesterday, relatively speaking,” Lowell said. “But, for what it’s worth, since I came home from ’Nam and met you, I’ve been damned near as chaste as a monk.”

“Why?” she asked. The announcement had pleased her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But don’t let it go to your head. I have not taken a vow of celibacy. I thought it was old age. But then I met you, and I’m suddenly as randy as a twenty-year-old.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.

“It was intended as one,” he said.

“How would you feel about a vow of fidelity?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I have all those noble notions running through my head. Forsaking all others, et cetera.”

“If I would cheat on Tom, what makes you think I wouldn’t cheat on you?”

“I don’t think you’re cheating on Tom,” Lowell said.

“You didn’t exactly carry me out of the barroom on your shoulders and rape me,” she said.

“Do you really need all this reassurance?” he asked.

“I guess I do,” she said.

“OK,” he said. “You wanted to get laid. Which is certainly not the first time that’s happened to a POW wife. I’ve heard—”

“What have you heard?” she said, suddenly furious and hurt.

“I have a very good friend,” he said. “A doctor. Who has sort of become an expert in dealing with POW wives. And their problems, sexual and otherwise.”

“And this doctor can’t wait to come and tell you that some poor, lonely, frightened POW wife has climbed into somebody’s bed? Because she’s easy prey to some bastard? Or because she needs to feel a man’s arm around her? That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of. I really hope you had a good laugh.”

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “It’s not that way at all.”

“How is it, then?” she asked. She was so angry he felt her spittle on his face. “God, you make me sick!”

He wiped his face on the pillow.

“The doctor’s husband is in Dak Tae with your husband,” Lowell said. “Don’t jump to the wrong fucking conclusion.”

The flush in her face vanished.

“She needs somebody to talk to,” Lowell said. “And I listen. OK?”

“How do you know where Tom is?” Dorothy asked. It was more of an accusation.

“I don’t,” he said, automatically.

“Yes, you do. You said ‘Dak’ something. You
know
, Craig.”

“OK,” he said. “I know. But leave it there, Dorothy.”

“‘
Leave it there?
’ How is he? If you know where he is, you know something more, too.
How is he?
The government, god damn them, hasn’t even confirmed he’s alive. Just ‘reported’ to be alive.”

“So far as I know, he’s all right,” Lowell said.

“And you’re going to go after him, aren’t you?” she said. “That’s really a joke. My lover is going to rescue my husband, after which my husband will shoot my lover for playing around.”

“You’re hysterical,” Lowell said.

“That’s what this is all about!” she said. “All this Air Force-Army cooperation. What you’re doing at Hurlbert.”

“For Christ’s sake, Dorothy,” he said. “Shut up. I just turned in my cousin Craig, who is a young captain of whom I’m extraordinarily fond, and a major, who is one of my best friends, for making guesses about what’s going on. I don’t want to turn you in, but I will.”

She looked at him, and saw how serious he was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Subject closed, OK?”

(One)
The Grand Hotel
Point Clear, Alabama
27 June 1969

It started to thunder about midnight, a mass of cold air from somewhere in Canada colliding with a mass of warm wet air from the southern Atlantic in the Gulf. When Lowell saw the lightning out the plate glass windows in the Bird Cage Lounge in the Grand Hotel, he recalled the weather briefing he’d had that morning at Hurlbert Field.

A band in the Bird Cage Lounge played music from the forties and fifties, catering to the fiftyish and older clientele of the Grand Hotel. There were several couples who were younger, but who were obviously newlyweds, experiencing luxury on their honeymoon that they probably wouldn’t be able to afford again until they were in
their
fifties.

He looked at one kid, who was staring with awe in his eyes at the girl in his arms, this creature who not only had just promised to love him and honor him and cherish him until death did them part, but who had, as obviously, just given him what he knew was the best piece of ass any man ever had in the evolution of the species.

Me too, kid, Lowell thought. The only difference between you and me is that society is shouting hurray at you, and I don’t think it would be likely to smile knowingly at me if they knew the lady was legally mated to somebody else. And he thought of another difference: “Until death do you part” is nothing more for you than a quaint, touching, but very remote phrase—part of the ceremony. It’s a little more real, a little more immediate threat to me.

Not that I can find fault with this little Vietnamese jaunt I’m about to take. The man who laid it out, the man who will lead it, is not only the recognized expert in operations of this type, but a warrior of considerable experience as well. Your humble servant, sir.

Whose considerable experience and recognized expertise have in the last two or three weeks—since a stray piece of tail turned into something quite extraordinary, not to mention wholly unexpected—have forced him to conclude that the way that the ol’ ball sometimes bounces is for Lady Luck to snatch something away from you right after she has given you just enough of a taste to make you desperately, hungrily want more. Your life, for example.

Good old Sergeant Benedict, that methodical sonofabitch, kept a score during Tour Two on the colonel’s birds. One hundred fifty-one fuselage punctures believed to be .50 caliber or larger. Three hundred fifty-one fuselage punctures believed to be .30 caliber. Six forced landings in hostile-held terrain. Two HU-1B gunships; one HU-1D (Command and Control); one Chinook, one gloriously aflame HU-1G Huey Cobra, and one lumbering Caribou that had fifty-eight total hours on the airframe when he laid the thermite grenade on the wing over the fuel tanks and blew it up.

Viewed objectively, that was tempting the actuarial statistics.

Fuck George Patton!
I
don’t want to die with the last bullet fired in the last battle.

“What are you thinking about?” Dorothy asked, leaning forward and touching his hand.

“I was just thinking that George Patton was a damned fool,” Lowell said. He turned his hand over and caught hers, then stood up and bowed. Dorothy made a mock curtsy, and came into his arms. The Jack Normand Trio was playing “I’m Gonna Buy a Paper Doll That I Can Call My Own.”

“We’re going to get rained on,” he said, his lips against her cool ear.

“Ummmm,” she said. “I like the sound of rain on the roof.”

“I love you,” he said.

“Ummm,” she said. “I like the sound of that, too.” And then she said, “Honey, you’re holding me too tight. I can’t breathe.”

The rain started about half past one, a heavy drumming rain. They could hear the water cascading from the gutters onto the ground.

They slept together naked (she had come to bed in a night-gown; he had it off her in ten seconds) like honeymooners, and like honeymooners they began the following day with the act of love. But when that was over, it was still raining. After he had called the FAA weather station at the airport in Mobile and learned that they were in for more of the same, it no longer seemed like a charming romantic idea to have breakfast in bed. So they dressed and went downstairs and had an enormous breakfast in the huge dining room.

They lingered over their coffee, watching the rain drench the paths alongside the bay, watching the other guests watching the rain drench the paths.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Lowell said. “I’m getting depressed.”

“I was afraid to say something,” Dorothy said. “And I really should go fetch the kids.”

They went back to the room and called the pilot he had hired to fly his Cessna 310. He would be at the airport in an hour. The pilot was obviously relieved not to have to sit around his motel room in the rain all day.

And then Lowell impulsively picked up the telephone and gave the hotel operator the number at Hurlbert. What he wanted to do was fly back with Dorothy; at the least, he could have Sandy send a plane for him now.

“Colonel Lowell for Colonel Felter,” he said.

“Sorry, sir, the colonel’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t tell you that.”

“This is Monte Cristo Five,” Lowell said, frantically taking out the Signal Operating Code and making the mental transformation from the numbers written down to what they represented. “Fourteen seventeen zero one,” he said. “Get me through to Monte Cristo Outfielder.”

“Hold on, sir.” There came the sound of metallic clicking, and electronic pings.

“Home Base,” a voice finally said.

“Monte Cristo Five,” Lowell said. “Fourteen. Seventeen. Zero. One. Verify.”

The verification came back. The voice changed. It was now the voice of Lieutenant General Robert Bellmon. What the hell was he doing in the conference room at half past ten on Sunday morning?

“Go ahead, Five.”

“Is Outfielder available?”

“Negative. What is your location?”

“I’m still here,” Lowell said. “But I wanted to cancel my airplane ticket. I am proceeding directly to Home Base. ETA about three hours thirty.”

“Outfielder expects you to be at Site Four at seventeen hundred,” Bellmon said.

“I’m proceeding directly to Home Base, please advise Outfielder,” Lowell said.

“Acknowledged,” Bellmon said. Bellmon wasn’t in command. He couldn’t order him to go to Hurlbert.

Lowell dropped the telephone in its cradle, and looked up at Dorothy and smiled at her.

“I’ll ride up with you,” he said. “You can drop me at Fayetteville.”

She smiled faintly, and then said, “I wished you’d asked me,” she said. “The pilot will see you.”

His reply wasn’t directly to her. He was thinking aloud.

“If I really have to be at Hurlbert at five, they can take me down in a jet.”

Lowell rode to Fayetteville in the right seat working the radios. He was worried about the weather. It was turning worse, and the last thing he wanted was to have to abort the flight.

It was raining when they reached Fayetteville. He got soaked getting his luggage out of the nose. He walked inside the office of the Business Aviation hangar and watched the Cessna take off. Dorothy was going to her parents’ to pick up her kids.

He asked if he could get a cab, and they called one for him; but before the cab got there, he saw MacMillan’s Cadillac splashing down the narrow macadam road from the main terminal. When it stopped in front of the building, MacMillan jumped out and ran into the building.

“How’d you know I was coming?” MacMillan asked.

“I didn’t,” Lowell said, and canceled the taxicab. He turned to MacMillan. “How did
you
know
I
was coming?”

“I knew. We knew.”

“Here, I mean.”

“We figured you would have to file Instruments,” MacMillan said. “We just asked Regional Control for a report.”

“And now I have to go back to Florida? Is that why you’re here?”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” MacMillan said, and Lowell sensed that he was pissed about something.

In the car, headed toward Bragg, they did not turn off where they should have to go to Lowell’s apartment.

“You missed the turn,” Lowell said.

“Bellmon wants to see you,” MacMillan said.

“What about?”

“He’ll tell you,” MacMillan said, coldly.

“If you didn’t want to meet me, you could have sent a car and a driver,” Lowell said.

“I wanted to meet you,” MacMillan said.

“Hadn’t I better put on my uniform?” Lowell asked.

“You’re all right the way you are,” MacMillan said, coldly.

“What’s going on, Mac?” Lowell asked.

“Do me a favor, Lowell,” MacMillan said. “Just shut up.”

He has found out that I’m going to run this show, and he’s pissed. Well, he was going to have to find out eventually
.

MacMillan drove them to the JFK Special Warfare Center Headquarters Building.

There were three Berets at the entrance to the corridor leading to Conference Room II, a master sergeant and two sergeants first class, each with an Uzi 9-mm submachine gun hanging on a strap from their shoulders.

“Excuse me, Colonel,” the master sergeant said. “But I’ll have to see your ID card.”

The master sergeant, who knew Lowell, examined the card, and then nodded “OK.” Lowell followed MacMillan down the corridor to the conference room.

Lieutenant General Robert F. Bellmon and Major General Paul Hanrahan were at the conference table, Bellmon in a class “A” uniform and Hanrahan in his ripstops.

“Anything interesting happening?” Lowell asked cheerfully.

“Where is Mrs. Sims?” Bellmon asked.

“He was alone at the airport, General,” MacMillan said. “I thought I saw his plane taking off again.”

Bellmon looked at Lowell. Lowell said nothing. He was surprised that they had been found out. It didn’t matter how. But it was clear that everyone was furious.

“Where is Mrs. Sims, Craig?” Bellmon asked, icily. When it was obvious Lowell wasn’t going to reply, Bellmon’s face tightened with anger.

“I asked you a question, Colonel,” he said. “Where is Mrs. Sims?”

“With all respect, General,” Lowell said, carefully, “I can’t see where that’s any business of yours.”

“You’re in no position to be insolent, Colonel,” Bellmon said, in a cold fury. Bellmon seemed to be having trouble controlling his temper. He gestured at the four enlisted men in the room.

“You guys get a cup of coffee or something,” he said. “I’ll handle the phones. I’ll send for you when I need you.”

General Bellmon waited until the enlisted men had gone, closing the door behind them, leaving the two general officers, Rudy MacMillan, and Lowell alone.

“Now, Lowell,” Bellmon said. “Where is Mrs. Sims?”

“I must again respectfully decline to answer the question,” Lowell said. “My personal life is my own business.”

“The hell it is!” Hanrahan snapped. “We’re about to abort this operation because of your ‘personal life.’ Now stop fucking around, Craig!”

“Abort the operation? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Colonel Lowell,” Bellmon said. “Mrs. Bellmon and I were entertained at dinner last night at the Club on Pope Air Force Base. While Mrs. Bellmon was in the ladies’ room, she overheard a conversation between two Air Force officers’ wives not known to her. They were commenting that Mrs. Sims was really in the middle, with her boyfriend about to try to get her husband out of a POW camp.”

Lowell didn’t say anything for a moment. Bellmon, and Hanrahan too, were really enraged. Bellmon was being very formal, “Colonel” and “Mrs. Bellmon.” They were among his oldest, closest friends. He knew they would be unhappy when they learned—as they inevitably would—about Dorothy, but he had not expected this cold rage.

Choosing each word carefully, Lowell said, “General, I can assure you that she didn’t hear anything from Mrs. Sims.”

“Where is she, God damn it? You’re not qualified to make that judgment,” Bellmon snapped.

“Has Monte Cristo been aborted?” Lowell asked.

“
Where is she?
”

That answered the question. If Monte Cristo had been aborted, they wouldn’t care where she was.

“With her parents, sir, in Winston-Salem,” Lowell said. He moved his eyes to the clock. “That’s about a hundred miles. She should just be getting there.”

“Get on the telephone,” Bellmon said. “And get her back down here right away. I don’t care what you tell her, just get her back down here.”

Bellmon used a telephone across the conference table. “You understand that we’ll have to talk to her.”

“I don’t know the number,” Lowell said. “And I don’t know her maiden name.”

Hanrahan reached across the conference table and pulled the telephone back to him. He consulted a directory, and started to dial a number.

“That’s the outside line, General,” MacMillan said.

“Goddamn,” Hanrahan said, then reached for another telephone and dialed a number. “This is General Hanrahan, Captain,” he said. “I need the next of kin of an Air Force dependent wife, Mrs. Thomas Sims. Her husband is Lieutenant Colonel. Her first name is Dorothy. I don’t have a serial number. I’ll stay on the line.”

“When you get her—” Bellmon said, and then interrupted himself. “I presume Mac was right, she’s traveling in your airplane?” Lowell nodded. “Tell her you’ll meet her in Fayetteville. Tell her to leave her children where they are.”

“I’m not sure she’ll do that, General,” Lowell replied.

“Why not? She was willing to cache them to spend the weekend with you. You’re obviously very persuasive, Lowell. Talk her into it.”

Lowell was about to say, “I resent the implication of that, General.” But he stopped himself in time.

Hanrahan wrote something with a red nylon-tipped pen on a sheet of lined paper and slid the pad and the outside-line telephone across the table to Lowell. Lowell dialed the number.

“Persons’ residence,” a deep, sonorous—probably black—male voice answered.

“Mrs. Thomas Sims, please,” Lowell said. “Colonel Lowell is calling.”

There was a small squeal, feedback, toward the end of his sentence. Bellmon had thrown a switch to amplify both ends of the conversation over loudspeakers.