W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels Read online

  "And after that, probably more of the scotch," Jiggs sai Parker made him a drink and handed it to him. "Thank you," Jiggs said, with a smile, and then looked Felter. "Major, if you please?"

  Felter followed Jiggs out of the room and down the coi of the building and then outside, so they were standing una the covered walkway that had been built to roll body carts fro one part of the hospital to another.

  "This is far enough," Jiggs said.

  "Yes, sir," Major Felter said.

  Jigg thought that Felter looked as if he was wearing his older brother's, or at least somebody else's uniform. Felter was greens, and the tunic was loaded with an impressive medals, insignia, and devices.

  To the shoulders were sewn patches of the 40th Armored Division, in which Felter served as a young lieutenant in the waning days of World War II; that of the Military District of Washington; and a cur'," strip with the word RANGER embroidered on it.

  There were four rows of ribbons above the breast pock representing the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Purple Heart, and others representing medals awarded by Greek, French, and Korean governments.

  There was an Exp Combat Infantry Badge with a star signifying the second awa There ere U.S. and French parachutist's wings. On the lan was the starred insignia of the General Staff Corps, and tunic pocket the medallion signifying three years' service the General Staff.

  Hanging from the right epaulet was a hea' woven golden rope, the insignia of an aide-de-camp to President of the United States. On his finger was the ring worn by graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

  There was an automatic reflex on Jiggs's part: The insignia on the lapels was wrong. He should be wearing insignia of an aide-de-camp to the President.

  But Jiggs immediately remembered that there was no one who was about to correct Major Felter. Felter was assigned to the General Staff Corps, and he was in fact an aid to the President of the United States. Not the sort of aid however, who stood tall behind the President in his dress blu or the even more ornate blue mess uniform, whispering names of distinguished visitors. Nor was he expected to dance with the ugly daughter of the Swedish ambassador to the music of the Marine Corps Band in the Blue Room. Major Felter was a very special kind of aide.

  In each of the files of the directors of the C I A, the F B I, and the defense Agency, and of the chiefs of Army, Force, and State Department Intelligence, there was written note on the President's personal stationery:

  Major Sanford T. Felter, GSC, USA, is appointed as my personal liaison officer to the inteligence community with rank of Counselor to the president. No public announcement of this apppointment will be made.

  DDE

  Felter did not wear his medals, or his uniform, on

  Paul Jiggs had heard that Felter was coming to Rucker, ion curious to know why. Jane Jiggs had found out for Barbara Bellmon. incidence, many of Felter's old friends were for va mis at Rucker, and Roxy Macmillan had impulsively called and asked her to come down for the New Year's At first the idea had seemed absurd on its face, but Felter had realized how very much she wanted to, after all she was, an officer's lady, rather than what her neighbors thought she was, the wife of a middle-ranking analistt at the C I A. Sharon very much wanted to walk into the officer's mess for the traditional New Year's party on the arm of her dress-uniformed, highly decorated husband. Sharon confessed to Barbara Bellmon that she had had to be drunk to find the courage to demand of her husband to take her to Rucker. But it had worked. Felter had agreed. They had arrived at Rucker just before Ed Grear hadd crashed to his death. And their arrival had been preceded ye from the Defense Communications Agency callostallation of a secure radiotelephone, radio teletype

  Felter's exclusive use. The nature of his were sucn mar Felter was never supposed to be more econ ds away from a commo link to the White House, never more than 120 seconds from a secure, scrambler nection to the commander in chief.

  He didn't look like a Counselor to the President. thought, or a highly regarded, very influential inti officer. He would never be asked to pose for a rec poster. Ranger-qualified majors with the Combat Infantry and the DSC are supposed to look like John Wayne, hnd Sanford T. Felter was a stoop-shouldered, balding, besp cled little Jew.

  "Yes, sir?" Felter asked politely.

  "If you are in a position to do so, Major," General said, "I would like you to tell me what happened bei Lowell and General Black."

  Jiggs was aware that Felter was considering should answer the question.

  It took him a long momeni.

  "Craig's story is that the army couldn't afford, in a person ell relations sense, to court-martial him," Felter said, fis

  "That, in effect, Colonel Tim F. Brandon-saved his skir

  Colonel Tim F. Brandon was the Pentagon public rela officer handling the rocket-armed helicopter "problem." "Is that what he told you?" Jiggs asked.

  "No, sir, he told me what really happened."

  "And you are not in a position to tell me?"

  "I've been considering if I should," Felter said, fra

  "Apparently what happened, General, is a combinati things. The root of General Black's anger with him was on Lowell's direct disobedience to an order of Ge Black's."

  "What order was that?" "General Black thought it best that Lowell keep his distance from me.

  He ordered him to do so."

  "I hadn't heard about that," Jiggs said. "Why? Because of where you work?" "Primarily that, of course," Felter said. "But also, It because of Craig's involvement with the rocket-armed cho From the general's point of view, of course, it was 1

  "And, of course, Lowell didn't keep his

  "He came to see me, and my wife and children often the swimming pool at his house in Georgetown."

  "You didn't know about Black's order?"

  "No, sir." Black, Jiggs thought, was not about to tell a man who briefed the President of the United States at least once a day who he could see, even if that man was only a major. I thought the real reason they were throwing him out of the Army Jiggs said was the specific reason was Craig's affair with the senator's r said. "The straw that broke the camel's back." talk to General Black," Jiggs said. "Lowell is just an officer to lose just because he satisfied some woman who happened to be a senator's wife. He wouldn't hear me out." minded me that I am a major," Felter said, "when I sak to him about Lowell." what changed his mind?" Jiggs asked. This was the tie hoped he would be able to ask Major Sanford T. told me that General Black told him that he had oderstand that he had violated a basic principle of sir," Felter said.

  "That one should never issue an one knows cannot be obeyed. Lowell is closer to my daildren, and to me, than to anyone else in the world.

  best intentions, he could not cut us out of his life. Black apparently finally understood this. That, in any what he told Lowell. I believe it to be the case." how do you see his putting Lowell in charge of the helicopter program?" aeve the general was rather pleased with Major Lowmonstration of the capability of the rocket-armed helpelter said, dryly. "I don't see, now, how the air take it away from us."

  Jiggs said, "neither do I." And then he added, can question, Major?"

  sir?" did you decide to tell me this?"

  "t know of anyone Lowell respects more than he does

  "Felter said. "I hoped that you might he able to nun, to convince him that this is, in fact, his last all you what I'm going to do, Major," General.liggs m going to go back in there and get drunk with him, war stories, and then tomorrow morning, when we're over, I'm going to call Duke Lowell into my office n the riot act like he's never heard it before. When I get through with that sonofabitch, he'll rush right over to chaplain's office and sign up for the men's choir."

  "I believe, sir, the general has a splendid idea," Felter said.

  (Three) Fayeneville, North Carolina 1945 Hours, 28 December 1958

  The five Hanrahans father, mother, two sons, and baby, a daughter aged ten came down the ladder from P mont Righ
t 223, a turboprop Convair, into the surprisil bitter cold. They were mussed, tired, and groggy.

  They shuffled into the terminal.

  There were two signs just inside the terminal. One pointe the baggage pickup area, and the other had an arrow pointi a shallow angle toward a telephone booth. The legend on the said: TELEPHONE FOR INCOMING

  MILITARY PERSONNEL FOR PC

  BRAGG.

  "Paul, go with your mother and help with the bags," C net Paul T.

  Hanrahan said. "I'll call and get us some wheel

  Patricia Hanrahan, holding the hands of her youngest dren, marched off to the baggage pickup area while her of child walked tiredly behind her. In seventy-some hours. had traveled 10,000 miles, and they were still some from bed. They hadn't eaten since lunch, and both Kevin Rosemary were getting whiny.

  Hanrahan went to the telephone booth, closed the door, sat down. He expected a pay telephone, but the booth offe instead a dial less desk telephone firmly bolted to a tiny There was a sign on the wall. He studied it:

  MILITARY PERSONNEL REPORTING TO FORT BRAGG ON

  TRAVEL ORDERS:

  Between 0730 1630 Hours, Weekdays: Officers: Call Ext. 3546. EM: Call Ext. 3606. Between 1630 0730 Hours, Weekdays: Officers: Call Ext.

  3202.

  Call Ext. 3290.

  adays, Sundays, and Holidays:

  Personnel Call Ext. 4333.

  "I'll have to figure that out." battered package of cigarettes in his mussed suit marched for a match. Then he read the sign again. holiday or isn't it?" he asked aloud. And then heit," and stood up and opened the door and left the ondl for more signs, and found the one-he was RENTAL CARS Through The CORRIDOR." brough the corridor and looked at the rental car mug over Hertz and Avis for Econo-Car. They Irfed just as much as Hertz or Avis, he thought, three people in line ahead of him. waited, he kept looking toward the baggage ii was entirely possible, he thought, that Fayettehave baggage handlers of extraordinary zeal who e bags to Patricia before he.

  expected they would. wouldn't know where the hell he was. it was his turn. a car, please," he said. took out a sheath of forms. have an Econo-Car card, sir?" a what?" our credit cards," she explained impatiently.

  an Express, Visa, Air Travel?"

  hem will be a one hundred dollar deposit, sir." he said. !asn't all there was to it. She wanted his driver's me, and when he presented his New York State op emit it was two years out of date. He gave her his neral's Office identification card (AGO card), which him as a lieutenant colonel of the regular army, and explained to her that according to the laws of the State of New York, military personnel returning from service outside the country have thirty days in which to renew expired driver's licenses.

  She had to check on that. While she was calling her superiors at Econo-Car in Raleigh, Paul, Jr." found him, and delivered the latest bulletin. They now had their luggage, except for one piece which had apparently not been loaded on the plane in Atlanta. It would be delivered the next day. And Rosemary had shit in her pants.

  "Don't say that word," Paul Hanrahan said.

  "Mother wants to know how long it's going to take them to send a car."

  "I'm renting one," he said. "Tell your mother that."

  There was one other problem. He didn't know where he was going.

  When the Econo-Car girl came back, visibly surprised to have been informed that his driver's license was indeed valid, he asked her about a motel.

  "The biggest is the Fayetteville Inn," she said. "On Bragg Boulevard."

  "Could we call them, and ask if there's room?"

  "You'll find a pay telephone in the main lobby, sir," the girl said.

  "Thank you for renting from Econo-Car."

  He didn't call first. When he found his family, Rosemary was weeping from her humiliation.

  "It was that whatever-it-was they gave us on the plane from San Francisco," Paul Hanrahan said. "It almost got me, too." "She stinks," Kevin said.

  "Shut up, Kevin," Paul Hanrahan said. "We're on our way to a motel."

  To Patricia, he explained: "I'm too beat to go out to the post."

  She nodded her understanding.

  They loaded everybody in a Chevrolet. Kevin was right. Rosemary, sitting beside her father, stank.

  It was fifteen minutes from the airport to Bragg Boulevard and another five before he found the Fayetteville Inn, a large motel with a complex of two-story buildings.

  He went in. They could give him a room with two double beds and put a cot in it for only six times what it would have cost him to go to Fort Bragg and put up in the officer's guest house, a barracks converted into apartments to provide tempo ray accommodation for newly arriving officers and their families.

  The cot was delivered while Patricia was cleaning up Rosemary in the bathroom. When she came out, he saw that her chest was beginning to swell under her little girl's undershirt. You're getting old, Hanrahan. The last of your children is really growing up. And you were just too old and tired to comply with your orders.

  "Well, let's go someplace and get some dinner, and then hit the sack." - "You promised," Kevin, hurt and angry, challenged.

  "What did I promise?"

  "You said that when we got here, I could have a hamburger."

  "If nothing else, I am a man of my word. A hamburger joint it is." "Her stomach Patricia said.

  "She can have something else," Hanrahan said.

  "I want a hamburger, too," Rosemary said.

  They went out and got in the rented Chevrolet. A mile from the Fayetteville Inn, he found a large hamburger joint, a white concrete building with an enormous tin hamburger outlined with neon lights on its roof.

  It was called the Para Burger Fort Bragg, N. C." was the home of the paratroops.

  When they walked inside and he smelled the burning ground beef and the onions, his mouth watered and he was amused at himself. They crowded into one of the booths, and a waitress promptly arrived to take their order. Kevin ordered a Super - Para Burger with french fries and a chocolate ice cream soda. That meant that Kevin was probably going to run to form, gulp too much food down, and then throw it up. All the same Paul didn't even warn the kid to take it easy.

  The hamburger joint in a sense was really coming home, and he didn't want to be a spoilsport.

  A great bull of a man came to the booth. He was florid faced and crew cut, and the skin of his neck hung in folds. He wore a plaid sports coat with a blue shirt collar spread on it, and he was towing a tall, skinny woman with a nervous smile.

  "Colonel Hanrahan?" the man asked.

  "Yes," Hanrahan said, forcing a smile, getting to his feet, and offering his hand.

  "Sergeant Wojinski, sir," the bull of a man said. "I thought it was you, Colonel."

  "It's good to see you again, Sergeant," Hanrahan said. But it would have been better at some other time. "I'm sure the colonel doesn't remember me..

  You're familiar; I've seen that bulineck before. But where? Greece!

  "You were with the 119th Regiment, 27th Royal Hellenic," Colonel Hanrahan said.

  "Well, goddamn, Colonel, I'm flattered," Sergeant Wojinski said. "That was a couple of wars ago." "I remember you," Hanrahan said, "very well."

  "Colonel, couldi let you meet my wife?" Wojinski blurted. "How do you do, Mrs. Wojinski?" Hanrahan said. "We didn't want to bother you, or nothing," Mrs. Wojinski said, "but Ski says, "that's the colonel, I know goddamn well it is," and I couldn't stop him." "I'm very glad you didn't," Hanrahan said. "And this is my wife, Patricia, and Paul, Jr." Kevin, and Rosemary." "I'm pleased to meet you, I'm sure," Mrs. Wojinski said. "You have a real nice family, Miz Hanrahan."

  "Thank you," Patricia Hanrahan said, with a smile. "Won't you sit down?"

  "Thanks just the same, but we was just leavin'," Mrs. Wojinski said.

  "Another time, then," Hanrahan said. "I'll probably see you out at the post, Ski. We're just reporting in. Where are you?" "Special Warfare School, sir," Wojinski said.

  "Well, th
en, I will see you. That's where I'm going."

  Wojinski gave him a funny look.

  "You got any idea what you'll be doing there, Colonel?" he asked.

  "I'll be running it, Ski," Hanrahan said.

  "Commanding officer?"

  "They call it "commandant," " Hanrahan said. "Colonel, I'm glad to hear that Wojinski said. "Real glad." "I was, too, Ski," Hanrahan said. "I only found out a couple of days ago. On our way here, as a matter of fact."