The Generals (5 page)

Denn was surprised at the almost formal respect paid Colonel Parker.

“It would seem that the system should have been checked before you took off,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” the handsome one said. “I should have done that.”

“It’s very good to see you, Craig,” Colonel Parker said, finally relenting and offering his hand.

“You remember Mac, of course, Colonel,” Craig Lowell said, “but I don’t believe you know General Hanrahan, Lieutenant Wood, or Mr. Wojinski.”

General Hanrahan offered his hand.

“I’m glad to finally meet you, Colonel,” he said.

“The honor, General, is mine,” Parker said.

“And this is Lieutenant Charley Wood, my aide-de-camp,” Hanrahan said.

“You, at least, Lieutenant,” Colonel Parker said, “look young enough to retain bladder control.”

Wood looked embarrassed. The others smiled discreetly at the starchy old soldier.

“It was a very long flight, Colonel,” Lowell said.

“It would have been a short walk to the terminal,” Colonel Parker said. He offered his hand to Wojinski, the enormous man in the tweed jacket.

“How do you do, Mr. Wojinski?” he said.

“I’m real pleased to meet you, Colonel,” Wojinski said. “Phil’s talked a lot about you.”

“My son tends to talk too much,” Colonel Parker said.

Denn walked up to them.

“General Hanrahan?” Denn asked.

The Irish-looking man seemed surprised. “I’m Hanrahan,” he said. “But you’re probably looking for him.” He nodded toward the handsome man with the mustache.

“Who are you?” the man with the mustache asked.

“My name is Denn,” he said. “I’m from Continental Illinois Bank.”

The blond man also seemed surprised. “From the bank?”

Denn handed him his card. The handsome blond man glanced at it and handed it back. If he was impressed by being met by a CONTBANK vice president, it didn’t show.

“I thought we’d get a caretaker,” he said, offering his hand. “My name is Lowell.”

His handshake was warm and firm.

“We’re happy to have you with us, Colonel,” Denn said. “Gentlemen.”

Denn had decided quickly that the tall officer with the blond mustache was in charge of this group, though he didn’t quite understand why. There was a general, and generals ranked much higher in the army than lieutenant colonels. Still, Lowell was behaving with the assurance that came only with a great deal of clout.

“Thank you,” Lowell said. “What’s the schedule?”

“Well, I thought we’d have dinner…. You are hungry?”

“Starved,” Lowell said.

“Well, there’s a place called the Copper Kettle here,” Denn said. “We can get dinner there, and then go out to the Farm.”

“Licenses?” Lowell asked.

“All taken care of,” Denn said.

“Well, you guys get the stuff out of the airplane,” Lowell said. “And I’ll get the bird topped off.”

That proved it, Denn decided. Lieutenant Colonel Lowell was obviously the man in charge. General Hanrahan was the first of them to start unloading baggage.

“Put what luggage will fit in the trunk of my car, Lieutenant, please,” Colonel Parker ordered. “With the general’s permission, he and Colonel Lowell will ride with me.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” General Hanrahan said.

“Yes, sir,” Wood said.

Denn corrected himself, wryly. The old black man was in charge. He issued orders with assurance.

He wondered again who Lowell was, and the explanation came immediately. Lowell handed a credit card to the gas truck driver, who dropped it. Denn quickly picked it up. It was an American Express card, and it bore the raised legend, “CRAIG W. LOWELL Vice Chairman of the Board, Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes, Inc.”

Then what the hell was this “Colonel” business?

Thirty minutes later, three tables had been pushed together to accommodate all of them at the Copper Kettle restaurant.

“I don’t know about Mr. Denn,” Lowell said, “but bring the rest of us Johnny Walker Black.” Then he looked at Colonel Parker. “Excuse me, Colonel,” he said. “Is that all right?”

“Fine,” Colonel Parker said.

“Fine with me, too,” Denn said.

“And run separate checks, please,” General Hanrahan said.

“Gentlemen, you’re guests of Continental Illinois Bank,” Denn said quickly.

“One check, and give it to me,” Lowell said.

“One check,” Colonel Parker said. “And give it to me.”

“I really insist,” Denn said.

“I will pay the bill,” Colonel Parker said, flatly.

“Want to flip for it, Colonel?” Lowell asked mischievously.

“No,” Colonel Parker said. “I will not ‘flip’ for it. I will settle it.”

“Yes, sir,” Lowell said.

“I see it’s true, Colonel,” General Hanrahan said.

“What is true, General?”

“That you’re one of the two officers who can tell Lowell what to do—the other being E. Z. Black—and not get an argument.”

“General Black,” Colonel Parker said dryly, smiling at Lowell, “leads me to believe that is not always the case.”

“Well, since the colonel is paying for this,” Lowell said, “bring me the largest steak on the menu. Anything but a filet mignon. Pink in the middle.”

“Unless there is objection,” Colonel Parker said, “bring us all the same thing.”

There was no objection.

“I’m sorry Colonel Felter couldn’t come with you,” Colonel Parker said.

“Felter thinks the slaying of pheasant is beastly,” Lowell said.

“Did he say that?” Parker asked.

“No, sir,” Lowell said, “what he said—and I forgot to relay his compliments, sir—is that when he has time off, he feels obliged to spend it with Mrs. Felter.”

“The President keeps him pretty busy, Colonel,” General Hanrahan said.

John H. Denn decided Hanrahan could not mean the President of the United States. He was wrong. Lieutenant Colonel Sanford T. Felter was for President Kennedy what he had been for President Eisenhower: He had been appointed (the appointment itself classified “Top Secret-Presidential”) the “President’s Personal Liaison to the Intelligence Community with Rank as Counselor to the President.”

“I’m surprised, considering the state of events in Cuba, that any of you could get away to go hunting,” Colonel Parker said. He saw General Hanrahan’s eyebrows go up, and added, “No offense, certainly, sir.”

“None taken, Colonel,” Hanrahan said. “But I spoke with Felter several days ago, and he told me that nothing’s going to happen just now.”

He thought—hoped—that was true. He was the Commandant, U.S. Army Special Warfare Center, and nothing big “officially” was happening. And even if Felter, who was pretty damned closemouthed, hadn’t said anything, Hanrahan had other sources. Colonel Mac MacMillan, for instance, had friends in the 82nd Airborne Division (the guys who would certainly go in first), and they would have told him. It might not be what the Counterintelligence people liked, but when a Medal of Honor winner asked questions, he almost always got the answer, no matter what the security classification. An invasion of Cuba without Green Beret involvement was unthinkable.

“I surmised as much when you came out here,” Colonel Parker said. “But I wonder if delaying the inevitable makes much sense.”

“You think we’ll have to invade, Colonel?” MacMillan asked.

That seemed to prove it, Hanrahan thought. Mac didn’t know anything, or he would not have asked that question.

“I think we should have put the 82nd Airborne into Havana on January 3, 1960,” Colonel Parker said. “If they had done that, the Bay of Pigs fiasco would not have been necessary. No civilization that has employed mercenaries has ever endured for long. You’ve read Gibbon, General. Certainly you agree?”

General Hanrahan looked uncomfortable.

“They weren’t mercenaries, sir,” Lowell said. “There were some, of course, but the bulk of the people we tried to put ashore were Cubans.”

“They weren’t Americans, Craig,” Colonel Parker said. “We should have sent Americans.”

“We sent some Americans,” MacMillan said. “At the end, even Felter went in.”

“And so did these two,” General Hanrahan said, pointing at Lowell and Mr. Wojinski. “They went in and got Felter out.”

Colonel Parker’s eyebrows raised. “Indeed?” he asked.

“To get back to where we were,” Hanrahan said. “I checked with the acting post commander before we left to come out here. He gave me absolutely no indication that anything is going on.”

“If Kennedy believes the Russians are not as quickly as they can going to turn Cuba into a military base capable of controlling the Caribbean basin, he is more a fool than he appears on the surface,” Colonel Parker said.

“Well, I don’t think anything’s going to happen soon,” Hanrahan said.

“You would not tell us if there was,” Colonel Parker said.

“No,” Hanrahan said, with a smile. “But I wouldn’t be here if there was.”

“Someone,” Colonel Parker said, “should give Kennedy a copy of Clausewitz and underline for him the passages about the longer you give the enemy to prepare the greater your casualties when you finally attack.”

“I think we’re embarrassing Mr. Denn,” General Hanrahan said. “May I suggest that we change the subject.”

It was a very tactfully put reproof, Denn realized, to Colonel Parker.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Colonel Parker said.

“Some information has just come to my attention,” General Hanrahan said, “that bodes ill for the Army of the future.”

Colonel Parker took him seriously. “Indeed?”

“The bottom of the barrel has been scraped; we have another Craig in the officer corps.”

Lowell looked at him with fresh interest. “He got a commission?” he asked, obviously surprised.

“After successfully defending a mountain redoubt against far superior forces, assuming command of a mixed U.S. Indigenous command when its officers were killed.”

“I think this is where I came in,” MacMillan said.

Wojinski chuckled. “It must run in the family. They’re queer for sticking their ass out.”

Lowell gave both of them a dirty look. “Did he get hurt?” he asked.

“Superficial wounds to the face,” Hanrahan said.

“Christ, wait till his father hears about this,” Lowell said. “I’ll be drummed out of the family.”

“I had a talk with Dave Mennen on MARS
*
,” General Hanrahan said. “He was in the highlands—”

“Mr. Denn,” Lowell interrupted, “to bring you in on this, we’re talking about Porter Craig’s boy. He’s a Special Forces sergeant—”

“He’s a Special Forces
lieutenant
,” MacMillan corrected him.

“—in the highlands in Vietnam,” Lowell finished.

“Splendid troops,” Colonel Parker said, “and a fine idea!”

The idea that Porter Craig’s son was an enlisted man, much less in Special Forces, took some moments for John H. Denn to get used to.

“You’re talking about the ones who wear the berets, the green berets?” Denn asked.

“Yes, indeed,” General Hanrahan said, and then resumed his story. “Dave told me to tell you, Craig, that he really did a good job.”

“I’ll be damned,” Lowell said. “Could he stop the telegram?”

“That’s why he got on MARS,” General Hanrahan said. “He thought it would be better if either you or I told his father. If you don’t want to, I’ll call them.”

Lowell thought that over. “I’ll call him,” he said. “If you called him, Porter would call me anyway.”

“I’ve heard,” John H. Denn said, “and read about the Green Berets. Are they really what they say they are?”

Lowell looked at him. “You’re asking, ‘Do they really eat babies for breakfast?’ That sort of thing?”

Denn was a little uncomfortable. “Well, some of the stories one hears….” he said.

“Why don’t you ask General Hanrahan? He’s the head Green Beret,
ex officio
the chief baby-eater,” Lowell said.

From the look on General Hanrahan’s face, Denn saw that Lowell was telling the truth.

“Not very funny, Craig,” Hanrahan said, a little stiffly. “But we only eat babies, Mr. Denn, when we’re on duty.”

“But an officer is never off duty,” Lowell went on. “Isn’t that so, Colonel Parker?”

“An officer is never off duty until he retires,” Colonel Parker agreed, but sensing it was time to do so, he was willing to change the subject. Not completely off the Army, but to a previous war.

“I got out my great-grandfather’s maps when I found we were coming here,” he said. “I’ll show them to you tonight, if you’re interested.”

“I’d be fascinated,” Lowell said.

“Me, too,” Hanrahan said.

“What maps?” MacMillan asked, confused.

“My great-grandfather, Colonel,” Colonel Parker said with quiet pride, “served with the 10th Cavalry, ‘the Buffalo Soldiers.’ They campaigned through this part of the world in the Indian Wars.”

“And you have his maps?” Denn asked. “I’d love to see them.”

“Why did they call them ‘Buffalo Soldiers,’ Colonel?” Lieutenant Wood asked. “Because they lived off buffalos?”

“Actually, Lieutenant,” Colonel Parker said, “the name was given to them by the Sioux, or else the Chiricahua, no one seems to be sure. It made reference to the similarity between the fur of the buffalo and the curly hair of the Negro troopers.”

“Oh,” Wood said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“They weren’t offended by it,” Colonel Parker said. “It was a proud thing for a Negro to be a Buffalo Soldier.”

(Two)
Near Wessington Springs, South Dakota
1430 Hours, 22 October 1962

The days had been good, and just about identical. Everyone rose about nine-thirty and sat down to enormous breakfasts of ham, eggs, sausage, and pancakes. At half past eleven, they got dressed, assembled outside, and were driven to where they would shoot.

Most of the shooting was through cornfields. The hunting party would walk (“beat”) their way through corn higher than they were tall, with the Labradors trotting after them, toward the end of the field. Two or three hunters served as backup there. Backup was usually considered the best spot, for that was where most of the shooting happened, but that was not the way it was with these people.

Because of the thickness and height of the cornstalks (though they could be heard scurrying ahead of the hunters) pheasant were visible when they flushed for only seconds. Then they flew away, most often toward the far end of the field, where the backup hunters waited. In the moment the bird was visible, the beaters had to throw their shotguns to their shoulders, determine that the bird was not a hen but a legal cock, and fire. Despite the difficulty of the shots, these beaters were taking pheasants three times out of four. And they were taking them clean: there would be a small cloud of feathers, and then the birds would drop like stones. The backup hunters had very few shots.