The Line

by Bob Mayer

  Decker met his look. "I don't justify what I did. I did it, and it's done. I could have saved those men in the Ukraine and ordered you to abort, but that would have tipped our hand and the President and whole bunch of other people would be dead. I'm the one who has to live with it."

  "No, I have to live with it too," Boomer said. "Why me?" he asked. "Why did you use me?"

  "Because you were the right person in the right place at the right time." Decker explained. "We needed someone to go to the President. Someone who wasn't involved with us."

  Boomer looked about the room. He could see it all now. "Keyes and his A Team—the jump into North Shore?"

  "We set that up. We needed Keyes and his men here. To take down Hooker."

  "There never was a plot against the Vice President?"

  "Not as far as we know," Decker said.

  "What about the two men we killed that night?" Boomer asked Skibicki. "Were they more pawns to be sacrificed for the greater good?''

  "That's something that doesn't have to be on your conscience," Skibicki said. "Remember those men we killed the previous evening outside Major Trace's house? How we couldn't find their bodies and show them to the cops? They were the ones who had broken in and were ready to kill her. They worked for The Line. I hauled the bodies up to the point and dumped them. The whole firefight we had was a staged event. We were firing blanks and so were the men—members of Keyes team—shooting back at us."

  "So the message on the drop I broke out was a setup too," Boomer said.

  "We needed to get you thinking—and relay that thinking to the President—that something was going to happen," Decker confirmed. "As you can see, Colonel Falk and Colonel Coulder were in on it." He looked at General Maxwell. "If one of us had come to you, you might not have believed us and you certainly would have stopped our counteractions. But having Major Watson and Major Trace believe in the plot and trying to convince you allowed us to continue our counteractions without interference."

  General Maxwell looked at Boomer and Trace. "Yes, I believed them."

  "You can't use people like that," Boomer said.

  "We had no choice," Decker replied.

  "What about Colonel Rison being killed?" Trace asked. "Did you plan that too?"

  "That was unexpected," Decker said. "The Line has always had its own sources of information, and they were ahead of us there."

  "Damn right they were," Trace said. "They almost killed me."

  For the first time Decker showed some ignorance of events. "We don't know how The Line got onto you so quickly. You should have been able to get in and out with the diary. I don't know what happened at West Point."

  Trace had been doing a little bit of thinking on her own. "They must have gotten my license number when I went to visit Mrs. Howard—the woman who told me about The Line in the first place."

  "That was foolish on your part," Decker said. "They would have had an alert out for you there. We know about them killing her. It was unfortunate. We didn't think they would be that vindictive."

  "Vindictive? Foolish? Unfortunate?" Trace said, her voice rising. "This is all insane! You just killed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and you're telling me I was foolish? You're calling the deaths of innocent people unfortunate?"

  "I prefer to think of it as we just saved the President's life and prevented a coup which would have cost many more innocent people their lives," Decker calmly replied.

  "I'm sure you would," Boomer joined in. "But others might see it differently. I see it differently. I was directly responsible for the death of a friend of mine in the Ukraine. You set me up to do that. You put our lives on the line—Trace and me. Who the hell do you think you are? God?"

  "No," Decker said. "You put your lives on the line." He pointed at Trace. "No one said you had to write about what Mrs. Howard told you. That's what brought you into this. No one said you had to go to the mainland to see Colonel Rison." He shifted to Boomer. "You're the one that came up with the theory that the President was threatened. What if we had given you the real information? Would it have made any difference? The plot was real. The Line was real."

  "Gentlemen," General Maxwell interrupted. "We can sit here all day and argue the finer moral points of what has happened, but it has already happened. There are important issues that have to be decided very shortly, and I need to go back to the President and inform him of what has occurred."

  Decker nodded. "It is over."

  "What about Looking Glass?" Trace asked. "How are you going to explain that?"

  "The same way The Line got rid of so many of its enemies over the years. We will control the report issued by the investigation board. They won't find much of the E-4B to investigate anyway. It went down over deep water. We regret the loss of the crew, but we had no choice. They were preparing to cut in to the satellite media coverage of the ceremony and broadcast a message from General Martin. It would have blown the lid off this country. We couldn't allow that. We also couldn't allow the Joint Chiefs to survive."

  "Most of the people who were on board the SHARCC and the Barbel submarine didn't know what they were involved in." He looked at Boomer and Trace. "They were simply following orders. They'll be quietly transferred."

  "The DIA men?" Boomer asked.

  "They were The Line's agents," Skibicki answered. "The rest of them will be taken care of."

  Decker pointed about the room. "This group of people will go back to their lives and their careers, and that is why, General Maxwell, you are here. You need to go to the President and tell him it is over. He has Hooker's diary. I assume he does not want that information made public. Neither do we wish our activities made public. It's over."

  Lieutenant Colonel Falk suddenly spoke from where he had been monitoring the radios. "Keyes and his team are all dead."

  Boomer stood. "Playing God didn't work out too well, did it?"

  "What about Hooker?" Decker asked. "Did they get him?"

  "I'm listening to the naval security frequency," Falk said. "I can't tell. There are a lot of bodies there. Sounds like it was a bloodbath. They probably got him."

  CHAPTER 29

  OAHU, HAWAII

  7 DECEMBER

  10:32 A.M. LOCAL/ 2032 ZULU

  Boomer and Trace dropped General Maxwell off in the underground garage of the Royal Hawaiian. They watched as he went into the elevator to go and talk to the President. They knew that the men in the underground room at Pearl Harbor were scattering, covering their tracks.

  Trace turned to Boomer in the car where they sat. "Since you've had time to consider this, what do you think?"

  "I hate to say it," Boomer said, "but I have to agree with Colonel Decker's plan. We keep the lid on this whole incident. We mourn the loss of General Martin and the others on board the E-4B as a tragic accident. Then we move on. Quite frankly, there's no other option."

  "And how do we stop this from occurring again?" Trace asked.

  "I don't like the idea of a cover-up; even the word bothers me," Boomer agreed. "But if we expose what has just happened, then we will eventually be forced to reveal all that was in the diary, and that is unacceptable."

  "Why?" The edge in Trace's voice surprised him. "It was secrecy that shrouded The Line for so many years and allowed it to grow and fester. Now we're doing the same thing."

  "It would tear this country apart to find out what was in that diary," Boomer said.

  Trace looked at him. "You were very big on expediency being no excuse, yet here we are talking about expediency requiring . . ." Trace searched for the right words. . . "requiring a bodyguard of lies."

  "Secrecy was The Line's strength while it was alive," Boomer acknowledged. "But there are those who do know the truth," he continued. "You and I know what happened."

  "Fat lot of good that will do," Trace said. "Colonel Rison knew the truth, and it didn't stop anything. And he eventually died because of this. How do we know The Line is finished? They haven't found Hooker's body. We don't ev
en know if Hooker was the main man behind The Line. Maybe there are others in other places." Trace shivered. "To think this all started at West Point."

  Boomer's face was drawn with exhaustion, but he had been doing some hard thinking in the past few hours. "It would be easy to say getting rid of the academies would prevent this from happening again, but I'm not sure they were the problem. There definitely need to be some changes made. An opening up of the curriculum and more interaction between the military and the civilian community. Right now we have two separate societies in our country and it's particularly pronounced in the officer corps. We need to get the people who guard our country more in tune with the country and out of their own separate existence."

  "We need to remember something else," he said. "The people who stopped The Line were mostly Academy graduates also. Let's not condemn the system because, as the facts have shown, the system did indeed work."

  Boomer shrugged. "But I don't know. I don't know what is going to happen." Boomer put his hand on Trace's shoulder. "How do you feel?"

  Trace shook her head. "I don't feel like I helped save the country. I feel like a sponge that was dipped in dirty water and rung out a few times too many."

  Boomer felt the same. "We don't have to wait here for Maxwell. He's probably going to be with the President quite a while."

  "Just give me a couple of minutes," Trace said. "I don't feel too good. I didn't feel good listening to Decker in that underground bunker, and I still don't feel right."

  Trace had touched on something that had bothered Boomer also. "There was too much explanation by Decker," Boomer said. "I agree with you: It doesn't feel right. I still don't understand why we got involved."

  "They, the Special Op people, didn't involve us," Trace said. "The Line did when they found out about my book."

  Boomer disagreed. "No, Decker set me up for a reason even before that." He remembered something he'd forgotten to ask her in the excitement of the morning. "Why did you write that note on the pages you gave Harry?"

  "Things didn't seem right," Trace said. "The in-flight refueling seemed a bit much for Skibicki to arrange, but after hearing Decker's explanation, I guess that part fits together now. Plus, what was on those pages made me nervous."

  "What do you mean?" Boomer asked. "The whole Pearl Harbor thing," Trace said. "What are you talking about?" Boomer was lost. "You didn't read the pages themselves?" Trace asked. "No, just your note." "You need to read them," Trace said. Boomer pulled the Ziploc bag out of his pocket. He opened it and pulled out the wrinkled pages.

  15 November 1941

  Getting Roosevelt to act is like trying to lead a stubborn mule. The State Department still thinks we can do things the old way, with nicely worded telegraphs. Tell that to the people of Nanking in China. When will the fools in the country see reality?

  18 November 1941

  With or without the President, war is coming. The consensus of the staff is that we must enter it as prepared as possible, but more importantly, the country must enter it whole-heartedly. It is obvious from the Magic intercepts what is going to happen. The chief can’t believe the audacity of the Japanese—to strike directly at Pearl is daring, but ultimately stupid

  20 November 1941

  The chief wants to hold the Magic intercepts. Keep Kimmel and Short out in Oahu in the dark. I told him that we couldn’t hold them all. In fact, we have to make sure that the paper trail doesn’t lead back to us. He assigned me to find a better means of doing it. I’ll be leaving for Hawaii shortly.

  26 November 1941

  I found the perfect way. I’ve made a connection with the Navy lieutenant who picks up the classified telegrams and transports them to the Navy G-2 at Pearl who forwards a copy to Army G-2. I have let him in on what we are trying to do and he sees the wisdom of it and has agreed to help us. We’ll keep Admiral Kimmel in the dark, although, as agreed by the staff, I did brief Admiral Halsey, and he will keep the carrier fleet safe out at sea. Now we have the added bonus of getting rid of Kimmel and replacing him with one of our own after the Japanese strike.

  "Oh my God," Boomer said looking at Hooker's handwriting.

  "I can't believe they knew about the attack and allowed it to happen," Trace said.

  "No," Boomer said. "That's not it. This Navy lieutenant. I know who he is." Boomer paused as a limousine pulled into the underground garage and came to a halt on the far side. The doors swung open and a man got out. He leaned over and talked to someone still in the car through a lowered window.

  It all came together for Boomer then. Trace followed his eyes. "What's the matter?"

  "I correct my last statement," Boomer said. "I know who the lieutenant is now." He pointed.

  "Senator Jordan?" Trace asked incredulously. "He's the lieutenant who withheld the Magic intercepts?"

  "Not only is he responsible for that," Boomer said, "but he's also the one who got you and I involved in this. He's been running everyone." Boomer remembered the abandoned ammo depot. "The son of a bitch! He ordered me killed."

  "What?" Trace asked. "What are you talking about? How do you know he was that lieutenant, and why would he want us involved?"

  "To get his hands on the diary," Boomer replied. He watched as Jordan shut the limousine door and got onto the elevator. The large car swung around and headed for the exit. As the window Jordan had talked through powered up. Boomer was not all surprised to see Colonel Decker seated in the back of the limousine, smoking a large cigar.

  CHAPTER 30

  OAHU, HAWAII

  7 DECEMBER

  12:15 p.m. LOCAL/2215 ZULU

  "It all makes sense now," Boomer said as he swung onto Kalakau Avenue and headed west. "The diary is the key to all this."

  "It doesn't make sense to me," Trace replied. "This whole thing was just to get that diary? Killing the Joint Chiefs? The plot against the President? All of it was a setup to get us to get Rison to give up the diary?"

  Boomer shook his head. "No. All that was real. The Line was real too. And they did have a plot against the President. But you and I, we were brought into it to get the diary. That's what made me feel uncomfortable down in that briefing room. I didn't buy Decker's explanation that I was involved just to go to the President with a warning. They could have picked anyone for that."

  "But how could they have found out about you and me?" Trace asked.

  "They did it backwards," Boomer said. "Skibicki wasn't in on it either. Not in the beginning. In fact he was the key, and they used him too. Jordan must have known about the diary, and he knew it would destroy him if it was ever made public." Boomer tapped his pocket. "Obviously, according to Hooker, Jordan also knew about The Line way back in 1941."

  "Back up," Trace demanded. "How do you know Jordan is this lieutenant?"

  Boomer quickly related the story that Maggie had told him about her lover and the picture in her bedroom of a young Jimmie Jordan. "I thought I recognized the face. Now I know for sure."

  "So Jordan was the father of Skibicki's half-brother?" Trace asked.

  "Right. And not only that," Boomer said, "but he was directly responsible for the death of Ski's sister."

  Boomer sorted it all out in his mind and spoke slowly, fitting the pieces together. "Jordan knew the only way to get the diary was through Rison. Everyone who knew about the diary knew that. The Line was willing to have a truce with Rison as long as he kept quiet. But Jordan couldn't. Maybe Hooker was even blackmailing him about his previous collaboration with The Line in allowing the attack on Pearl to occur so long ago. Trying to pressure Jordan to get to the President. In fact, if Jordan refused to accede to The Line, it could have precipitated the drastic action here in Hawaii."

  "The diary was a huge threat to Jordan. And he knew about Rison. And the best way to get to Rison was through Skibicki. But Skibicki wouldn't just let anyone go to Rison. He had to have a reason. So Jordan must have had Skibicki checked, and they found out about my dad and then me. And then when they checked me out, they
found out about you."

  "Don't you think that's a bit much?" Trace asked.

  "Not for a man with the power that Senator Jordan wields. I'll bet you every dime I have that he had you set up with Mrs. Howard and the letter and interview. He was trying to kill two birds with one stone. Flush out the diary through you and me, and also try to fight The Line, because now that he's in the position he's in, he's on the other side, working with the President. Look at what The Line did to Eisenhower with the U-2 incident. I think Jordan was in bed with The Line until his close friend got elected President, then things got sticky for him, and he had to decide which side he was on."

  "So many people have died," Trace said. "I don't know any more who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. You're telling me that The Line did plot to kill the President, right?"

  Boomer remembered the struggle in the water just a few hours ago. "Correct."

  "But you're also saying that Senator Jordan, the President's right-hand man, was working to get back evidence that he had collaborated with The Line in allowing the attack on Pearl Harbor fifty-four years ago."

  "Right." Boomer took the turn off to head into Pacific Palisades.

  "So what are you going to do about this?" Trace asked.

  "I don't know quite yet. But I do know someone who has some decisions to make and is entitled to this information right now."

  PACIFIC PALISADES

  7 December

  12:30 p.m. LOCAL/ 2230 ZULU

  Skibicki looked at his mother. "Is it true? You told me the man in the picture was just an old friend of dad's."

  In reply, Maggie went to her bedroom and returned with the photo that Boomer had seen and handed it to her son. "I let go of my memories of Jimmie Jordan until I saw his name in the paper years ago when he was first elected to the Senate. And then I simply avoided thinking about it." She looked at Boomer. "Let me see those pages." Maggie took the papers and read them, tears forming in her eyes. "So Jimmie really did know about the attack?" she asked, handing them back.