The Company

by Robert Littell

  A voice boomed, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President and Mrs. Kennedy!”

  Elegant in white tie and tails, Jack Kennedy strode into the East Room of the White House as the Marine band, decked out in red dress uniforms, struck up “Mr. Wonderful.” Jackie, wearing green earrings and a pleated floor-length sea-green gown that bared one shoulder, clung to the President’s elbow. The eighty or so guests around the room applauded. Smiling broadly, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, Jack gathered his wife in his arms and started off the dancing.

  As the gala dragged on the couple separated to work the room. “Oh, thank you,” Jackie, slightly breathless, told a congressman who complimented her on the bash. “When the Eisenhowers were here we used to get invited to the White House. It was just unbearable. There was never anything served to drink and we made up our minds, when we moved to the White House, that nobody was ever going to be as bored as we’d been.”

  Jack was chatting with Senator Smathers from Florida when Bobby, also in white tie, motioned to him from the door. The two brothers met half way. “The shit has hit the fan,” Bobby told the President in a low voice. “The whole thing has turned sour in ways you won’t believe. Bissell and his people are coming over.” Bobby glanced at his wristwatch. “I’ve rounded up the usual suspects—everyone’ll be in the Cabinet Room at midnight.”

  Jack nodded. Forcing a smile onto his face, he turned to chat up the wife of a syndicated columnist.

  At two minutes to midnight the President, still in his tails, pushed through the doors into the Cabinet Room. Other guests from the evening gala were there already: Vice President Johnson, Secretaries Rusk and McNamara. General Lemnitzer and Admiral Burke, trailing after the President from the East Room and wearing formal dress uniforms with rows of medals glistening on their breasts, closed the doors behind them. A dozen or so aides from the White House, Defense and State had been summoned from their homes by the White House switchboard; most of them had thrown on corduroys and sweatshirts and looked as if they had been roused from a deep sleep. The CIA men—Bissell and Leo Kritzky and a handful of others—were unshaven and dressed in the same rumpled clothing they’d been sleeping in for days. They all climbed to their feet while the President made his way around to the head of the table. When Kennedy sank into a chair everyone except Bissell followed suit.

  “Mr. President, gentlemen, the news is not good,” the DD/O began.

  “That may be the understatement of the century,” Bobby Kennedy remarked. “This administration is ninety days old and you people—“

  Jack said patiently, “Let him tell us what’s happening.”

  Bissell, barely controlling his emotions, brought everyone up to date on the situation. Castro’s tanks and mortars had closed to within range of the two landing beaches. Casualties were heavy. The units blocking the causeways were running desperately low on ammunition. Roberto Escalona was rationing what was left—commanders begging for five mortar shells were lucky to get two. If the blocking units gave way, Castro’s tanks would roll down to the beaches in a matter of hours. The ships carrying spare ammunition had fled the bay after the two freighters were sunk. The Navy had talked them into returning but didn’t expect them to get there in time to save the situation. To complicate matters several members of the provisional government, under lock and key in a Miami hotel, were threatening to commit suicide if they weren’t allowed to join their comrades in the Bay of Pigs. In Guatemala, the Company liaison officers at the Retalhuleu airstrip were complaining that the pilots and crews, flying nonstop since Monday morning, were too exhausted to respond to the brigade’s appeals for air cover. A handful of American advisors, sheep-dipped from Alabama Air National guard units, were begging for permission to take the B-26s out in their place.

  “I trust you didn’t say yes,” Kennedy snapped.

  “I sent them a four-word response, Mr. President: ‘Out of the question.’”

  Secretary McNamara and General Lemnitzer pressed Bissell for details. When the DD/O, who hadn’t slept in days, hesitated, Leo, sitting next to him, scratched answers on a pad and Bissell, his memory refreshed, responded as best he could. There were roughly a hundred dead, twice that number of wounded, he said. Yes, there were brigade tanks on the beach but, due to the shortage of fuel, they had dug in and were being used as fixed artillery positions.

  “That is,” Bobby put in, “as long as their ammunition lasts.”

  “Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Attorney General,” Bissell said.

  “Any time,” Bobby shot back.

  “The bottom line, Mr. President,” Bissell said, trying to ignore Bobby, “is that the operation can still be saved.”

  “I’d certainly like to know how,” Kennedy said.

  “It can be saved if you authorize jets from the Essex to fly combat missions over the beaches. It would take them forty-five minutes to clean out the causeways.”

  Bissell found an unlikely ally in Admiral Burke. “Let me have two jets and I’ll shoot down anything Castro throws at us,” declared the gruff Chief of Naval Operations.

  “No,” Kennedy said flatly. “I want to remind you all of what I said over and over—I will not commit American armed forces to combat to save this operation.”

  Bobby remarked, “The problem, as I see it, is that the CIA and Admiral Burke are still hoping to salvage the situation. The President wants to find a way to cut our losses. There’s a whole world out there waiting to rub our noses in this if we let them.”

  Burke shook his head in disbelief. “One destroyer opening fire from the bay could knock the hell out of Castro’s tanks. It could change the course of the battle—“

  Jack Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. “Burke, I don’t want the United States involved in this. Period.”

  Arleigh Burke wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Hell, Mr. President, we are involved.”

  Secretary of State Rusk jotted some words on a pad and passed the slip of paper to Kennedy. On it he had written: “What about the hills?”

  Kennedy looked across the table at Bissell, still the only person in the room on his feet. “Dick, I think the time has come for the brigade to go guerrilla, don’t you?”

  Everyone in the room appeared to be hanging on the answer to the President’s question. Leo glanced at his chief out of the corner of an eye; Bissell was terribly alone, a bone-weary emotional wreck of a man. Swaying slightly as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, he seemed close to tears. “Mr. President, going guerrilla is not possible—“

  Kennedy appeared confused. “I always thought…you assured me…” He looked around the table for support.

  General Lemnitzer leveled an accusing finger at Bissell. “You specifically said that, in a worst-case scenario, the brigade could fade into the Escambray Mountains and go guerrilla.”

  Bissell, barely audible now, said, “That was a worst-case option in the Trinidad plan, which we shelved at the request of the President. From the Bay of Pigs, the brigade would have to fight its way across eighty miles of swamp to get to the mountains.” Bissell looked around desperately and saw the chair behind him and collapsed back into it. “Mr. President—“

  “I’m listening, Dick.”

  “Mr. President, to put a fine point on it, our people are trapped on the beaches. Castro has massed twenty thousand troops in the area. If we can keep Castro’s forces—keep his tanks—at bay, keep them pinned to the causeways, why, we could bring in the ammunition ships, couldn’t we? The brigade could regroup, get a second wind.” Around the table people were starting to stare at the walls or the ceiling. Bissell, too, was getting a second wind. “The Provisional Government could set up shop, Mr. President. We’d have our foothold on the island—“

  “You mean toehold—” Bobby interrupted, but Bissell, oblivious to the sarcasm, rushed on.

  “Once the Provisional Government is in place Castro’s troops will desert in droves. It’s all down here in black and white, isn’t it, Leo? W
here’s that briefing paper we worked up?” Leo went through the motions of riffling through a pile of file folders. Bissell, impatient, began quoting from memory. “Sabotage is frequent, for God’s sake. Church attendance is at record highs and can be interpreted as opposition to the regime. Disenchantment of the peasants has spread to all the regions of Cuba. Castro’s government ministries and regular army have been penetrated by opposition groups. When the time comes for the brigade to break out of the beachhead, they can be counted on to muddy the waters…” Bissell looked around the table. “Muddy the waters,” he repeated weakly. Then he shut his mouth.

  A leaden silence filled the Cabinet Room. The President cleared his throat. “Burke, I’ll let you put six jet fighters over the beach for one hour tomorrow morning on the absolute condition that their American markings are painted out. They are not to attack ground targets—“

  “What if they’re fired on, Mr. President?” asked Admiral Burke.

  “There’s no reason for them to be fired on if they stay out of range of Castro’s antiaircraft batteries. Dick, you can bring in the brigade’s B-26s from Guatemala during that hour. The jets off the Essex will cover them. If any of Castro’s T-33s or Sea Furies turn up the jets have permission to shoot them down. Just that. Only that.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Burke said.

  “Thank you for that, Mr. President,” Bissell mumbled.

  As the meeting was breaking up, a National Security aide rushed up to the President with a message board. Kennedy read it and, shaking his head in disbelief, passed the board on to Bobby. Sensing that something important had happened, several of the participants gathered around the President and his brother. Bobby said, “Jesus! Four of those Alabama National Guard pilots who were training the Cubans in Guatemala have taken matters into their own hands—they flew a sortie in two B-26s. Both bombers were shot down over Cuba.”

  “What happened to the pilots?” asked General Lemnitzer.

  “Nobody knows,” Bobby said. The President’s brother turned on Bissell. “Those American pilots had better goddamned well be dead,” he fumed, his voice pitched high into a hatchet man’s killer octave.

  By midday Wednesday what was left of the units blocking the causeways had began pulling back toward Girón. When word of this reached the beaches, panic spread. Castro’s tanks, pushing down the road from the airport, were firing at line-of-sight targets. Blanco’s Bar was bracketed and Jack and his radioman decided the time had come to join Roberto Escalona, who was crouching with a handful of fighters at the water’s edge. Shells were bursting around them, kicking up gusts of sand and dust that blotted out the sun but causing relatively few injuries because the beach tended to dampen the explosions.

  “Darkness at noon,” Jack called over the din of combat.

  Roberto, clutching a BAR with two almost empty ammunition belts crisscrossing his chest, stared out to sea through the sooty air. An American destroyer, its hull number painted out, was patrolling a mile off shore. Jack shouted, “I can get them to come in close and take us all off.”

  Roberto shook his head. “If it has to end, let it end here.”

  The brigade’s fate had been sealed earlier in the morning when Bissell’s topside planners in Washington, dazed from lack of sleep, forgot there was a one-hour difference in time zones between Cuba and Guatemala. The six carrier-based A4Ds with their American markings painted out had turned up over the beaches an hour early for the rendezvous with the B-26s flying in from Retalhuleu. When the brigade’s planes did show up, the American jets were on the way back to the Essex and Castro’s T-birds had a field day, shooting down two more B-26s.

  At the water’s edge a half-crazed Cuban fighter crouching near Jack screamed obscenities at the American destroyer, then leveled his rifle at the hull and managed to shoot off two rounds before Roberto punched the barrel down. On either side, as far as the eye could see, men were scurrying in every direction, leaping in and out of shallow craters gouged in the dunes by the bursting shells. Orlando, monitoring the radio through earphones, grabbed Jack’s arm to get his attention. “Quieren hablar con usted, señor,” he cried. Jack pressed one of the earphones to an ear. A static-filled squeal made him wince. Then a voice forced its way through the static: “Carpet Bagger, this is Whiskey Sour patrolling off Blue Beach. Do you read me?”

  Jack grasped the microphone and waded into the water, with Orlando right behind him. “Whiskey Sour, this is Carpet Bagger. I read you. Over.”

  “Carpet Bagger, I have orders for you from Kermit Coffin. You are instructed to leave the beach immediately. I repeat—“

  Jack interrupted. “Whiskey Sour, no way am I leaving this beach by myself.”

  Roberto came up behind Jack. “Get your ass out of here,” he yelled. “You can’t help us anymore.”

  “Jesus H. Christ, I’ll leave when everyone leaves.”

  Two shells exploded, one hard on the heels of the other, scooping shallow craters on either side of the group. For a moment the sandstorm obscured everything. As it settled, a bearded fighter, blood spilling from a gaping wound where his ear had been, stumbled toward them, then fell face down in the sand. Another soldier rolled the wounded man onto his back, looked over toward Roberto and shook his head. Jack became aware of a sticky wetness on his thigh. Looking down, he saw that shrapnel had grazed his leg, shredding his trousers, lacerating the skin. Roberto, cracking like porcelain, snatched the .45 from the holster on Jack’s web belt and pointed it at the American’s head. “Castro captures you,” he cried, his voice breaking, tears of frustration streaking his sand-stained cheeks, “he’ll tell the world we were led by American officers. For Christ’s sake, Jack, don’t take away our dignity. It’s the last thing we have left. Okay, Jack? You hearing me, Jack? I swear to you—I’ll kill you before I let you fall into their hands alive.”

  Jack backed away. Water swirled around his knees. “You’re a shit,” he yelled at Roberto.

  “Gringo carajo! I’ll blow your head off, you’ll be just another body floating in the surf.”

  Jack turned and waded deeper into the water, then lost his footing and began to dogpaddle away from the beach. From time to time he glanced back. The first of Castro’s Stalin III tanks, their cannons spurting flames, were lumbering through the lanes between the concrete bungalows. One of the brigade tanks dug into the sand exploded; the mangled turret slid off to one side and its cannon nosed into the sand. Troops, running low and shouting in Spanish, poured onto the dunes behind the tanks. Along the beach, men were emerging from holes and slit trenches with their hands stretched high over their heads. Jack turned back and went on paddling. He saw a raft up ahead, partially inflated and half submerged, and made for it. Squirming onto it, he lay there for a long time, his face turned toward the sun, his eyes tightly shut. Visions of riot clashed with images of Millie slithering slowly up his body, cauterizing his wounds with her burning lips.

  Jack lost track of time. He raised himself on an elbow and looked back at the beach. The shooting had stopped. Lines of men, their hands clasped on their heads, were being prodded at bayonetpoint up the dunes. Floating not far from the raft was a broken plank—it must have come from the wooden benches in one of the sunken LCUs. Jack retrieved it and, lying flat so he couldn’t be seen from the beach, began to paddle out to sea. After a while blisters formed on his hands and burst, and the makeshift paddle became slick with blood. Slivers of sunlight glancing off the bay blinded him. When he was able to see he caught a glimpse of the destroyer riding on its inverted reflection. The sun scorched the back of his neck. From time to time, despite the heat, he shivered uncontrollably, calming down only when he summoned images of Millie’s long body fitted against his. He could hear her voice in his ear: Come home when you can, Jack. I couldn’t bear it if…

  When he looked up again, the destroyer was near enough to make out the fresh paint on the bow where the hull number had been blotted out. On the fantail sailors were shouting encouragement at him. He gues
sed that there was enough distance between the raft and the beach for him to sit up now. Punctuating each stroke with a rasping grunt, Jack made a clean catch and felt his blade lock onto a swell of sea water. A splinter of pain stabbed at the rib that had mended and broken and mended again. His head reeled. He thought he heard hoarse shrieks from the students lining the banks of the river. Coiling and uncoiling his limbs in long fluid motions, he caught sight of the finish line ahead.

  And then the plank in Jack’s hands became stuck in the water and it dawned on him that he wasn’t rowing in a sleek-sculled eight on the Charles after all. He tugged at the plank but couldn’t pull it free. He looked over the side—there was something queer about the water. It was a dirty red and washing through a mass of greenish gulfweed. And then he saw that the tip of the plank had embedded itself in the stomach of a bloated corpse that was tangled in the weed. Jack let go of the plank and gagged and turned and vomited, and vomited again in long spasms, the pain searing his throat, until he felt that nothing could be left inside him—no heart or lungs or stomach or intestines.

  This sense of perfect emptiness overwhelmed him and he blacked out.

  Ebby rang up Elizabet from his office in mid afternoon. “Have you been listening to the news?” he asked.

  “Everyone at State’s glued to the radio,” she said. “UPI is talking about hundreds of casualties and more than a thousand taken prisoner.”

  “All hell’s broken loose here,” Ebby said. “I can’t talk now. Leo and I think it might be a good idea for you to pick up Adelle and drive over to Millie’s to hold her hand.”

  “How come she’s home?”

  “She called in sick this morning. She said there was nothing wrong physically—given what’s happening she just couldn’t concentrate.”

  Elizabet didn’t dare breath. “Is there bad news?”