The Line bo-2

by Bob Mayer

  Boomer recognized the other major as a man he had gone through the Special Forces Qualification Course with, Frank Wilkerson. He looked none-too-happy at the moment.

  “Frank, how’s it going?”

  Wilkerson looked at’ Boomer long hair and glanced at his nametag. He tried in vain to crack a smile of greeting.

  “Boomer Watson, long time no-see.”

  The beret stuffed in Wilkerson’s pants cargo pocket had a yellow tab sewn behind the gold major’s leaf — another message that could be read by those in the fraternity.

  “Where are you assigned in 1st Group?” Boomer asked.

  “Fort Lewis or Okinawa?”

  “Okie,” Wilkerson said shortly.

  “Or perhaps it’s better to say I was.”

  “What do you do?” Boomer asked.

  Wilkerson’s jaw tightened.

  “I was the commander of A Company, 1st Battalion.”

  “You just changed command?” Boomer asked innocently.

  “No, I was just relieved two days ago.”

  Boomer had regretted his-question as soon as he had asked it.

  Wilkerson’s entire demeanor and tone had suggested bad news. Relief from command was an instant career-killer — about the worst thing that could happen to an officer short of death in combat, and there were many that probably would prefer the latter — at least it was honorable.

  Boomer was surprised: Wilkerson had been a squared-away and conscientious officer at the Q Course. To get relieved of command in peacetime usually required some gross violation of military regulations.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Wilkerson jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the office he had just left.

  “It’s bad enough I have to go back to Fort Lewis and get reamed out by the Group Commander when I get there, but this shithead has to have me come through here and stick his two cents in and he’s not even in the chain of command.”

  “Who’s that?” Boomer asked.

  “The CO here — Colonel Coulder. He’s a class-one prima donna. Thinks he’s actually in charge of something instead of simply being a beans and bullets guy.” Wilkerson slumped down in the chair Boomer had just vacated.

  “What the hell are you doing here anyway? I’ve never seen you here before and I come through here pretty often.”

  “I just got in today for some special work.” Boomer replied vaguely, knowing that Wilkerson was trying to make sense of his non-regulation hair and the Special Operations patch on his shoulder.

  “Beefing up for the President’s visit?” Wilkerson asked, almost to himself.

  “Everyone’s running scared after the incident in Turkey with the nuke.”

  He looked up, his thoughts returning to his own situation.

  “Well, I guess I won’t even be able to stay in the Reserves after this.

  My fucking career is over.”

  “What happened?” Boomer asked.

  Wilkerson glanced around, making sure no one else was in earshot.

  “It was bullshit, man. Pure bullshit. I was set up.”

  “Set up?”

  “I was assigned to take part in a command post exercise in Korea back in October. I got in-country, and they gave me my copies of the operations orders and play book and all that other classified stuff. I had it in a briefcase. Well, I was on South Post Yongsan and I stopped at the Burger King there to get something to eat before heading down to Taegu. I wasn’t in the place more than two minutes, and someone popped out the lock on the trunk and took the briefcase. Turns out it was CID. It was all a set-up. They nailed my ass for a security violation.”

  Boomer found it hard to generate sympathy. Being a courier for classified material meant never letting it out of your sight.

  “It was probably some sort of counterintelligence thing, Wilk. They do that stuff a lot in Korea.

  It’s a hot zone.”

  “I know it’s a hot zone,” Wilkerson hissed.

  “And I know that I fucked up by leaving the shit in the car, but I’m telling you it was deliberately set up to get me relieved.

  I was deliberately sent on that CPX to get me out of the way in the first place.”

  “Who would have done that?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s some weird shit going on.

  I’ve had unusually high turnover in my company and the sergeant major and battalion commander have been stacking two of my teams — assigning people directly to ODAS while I was deployed. When I complained, they sent me on the mission to Korea.” Wilkerson took another look around, then leaned forward.

  “You know what my company is?”

  Boomer frowned.

  “What do you mean’ what it is?” It’s a Special Forces company.”

  “Yeah, but do you know what our primary mission is?”

  Boomer shrugged, pretending to be uncertain about what his old comrade was talking about.

  “I don’t know. You guys out of Okie are targeted for Southeast Asia right?”

  “B and C Companies are.” Wilkerson’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  “A Company is the regional counter-terrorist reaction force. Just like Det A in Berlin was over in Europe.

  We work with Delta all the time. We’re the first response guys for half the fucking world if any high-speed shit goes down. And somebody wanted my ass out of that command.”

  Boomer had known exactly what A Company, 1st Battalion was. Part of the “secret” game, though, was to never let on that you knew anything.

  Boomer preferred to play at being stupid and to profess ignorance rather than try to do half-truths and explain what couldn’t be talked about. He’d never worked with A-l/1, but he knew other’s in his squadron of Delta had. A-ll’s job was to stabilize a threat situation in the Pacific until Delta could arrive on scene to deal with it. The five teams in the company were specially trained and equipped for the mission.

  Wilkerson leaned forward.

  “You should see the guy that took over for me. They’ve got two or three promotable captains in the battalion that they could have given the company to. Hell, my senior team leader is on the promotion list.

  Or even moved someone in from Japan or Korea.

  But instead they bring some guy straight from Benning.”

  “Who’s that?” Boomer asked, glancing over at the door Falk had disappeared through, hoping the XO would come back soon and get him out of this awkward conversation.

  “Some fellow named Keyes. Major Geoffrey Keyes. I checked with some of my buddies at Bragg and they don’t even think this guy is S-F-qualified.”

  That caught Boomer’s attention. Keyes was a classmate of his from West Point. Boomer remembered him well-Keyes had been ranked number one in Infantry Branch and number three overall in the class at graduation. At Ranger school Keyes had been in Boomer’s platoon and had earned a reputation as a dick. Boomer had watched Keyes skate his way through, putting out effort whenever he was in charge of a patrol and being evaluated, but slacking off whenever he wasn’t. Despite that, Keyes had been one of those glad handers that walked on water and received maximum ratings. Someone who looked good but lacked substance.

  Boomer had not heard of Keyes going to the Special Forces Qualification Course. Last he had heard, Keyes was in the Ranger Battalion at Fort Benning, punching his regular Army career ticket in the elite infantry unit.

  “Does he have an S-F Tab?” Boomer asked, referring to the cloth tab awarded to graduates of the S-F School.

  “Yeah, he’s got one. But hell. Boomer, you can buy one of those at clothing sales and sew it on. No one I know of ever saw him in a group. He’s coming right from the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Benning.

  That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Boomer commiserated with Wilkerson while he waited for Colonel Falk to return, half his mind marveling at the tremendous capability of people to deny reality. First, Wilkerson had screwed up by leaving the classified material in his car unattended. Sec
ond, why would anyone want Wilkerson removed from command? Third, why would someone send a non-S-F-qualified officer to take command of a Special Forces company?

  Sounded like Army politics to Boomer, but the bottom line was that Wilkerson had been wrong to leave the classified material in the trunk.

  Boomer was relieved when Colonel Palk returned and Major Wilkerson wandered off to nurse his bitterness elsewhere.

  Falk scratched his scant hair and peered at his desk, lost in thought for a few seconds.

  “So what have I told you so far?” he asked.

  “You said I could call you sir, sir.”

  “That’s it?” Falk sat down.

  “I got forty-five balls in the air right now and I’m dropping half of them so don’t take it too seriously when I start ranting and raving.

  OK, Boomer, here’s the deal. Everybody’s jumping through their butt over the President’s upcoming visit. JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command, got tagged to pick up some of the security out at Pearl since that’s the military’s turf.

  There’s some other training operations going on, which you don’t have a need to know about,” he continued vaguely, “that’s eating up all our time.

  “So I need someone to take care of our normal message traffic and screen it for hand grenades with short fuses. Go through our incoming message traffic every morning when it comes in and see if there’s anything that looks like it needs immediate attention and let me know.

  That shouldn’t be too hard. To fill up the rest of your time, I also need our classified files purged.”

  “I’ve got a top secret Q clearance, sir,” Boomer said, a bit surprised at the comment about training missions he wasn’t cleared for.

  “I know. That’s why I’m having you look at the message traffic.” Falk popped to his feet, and Boomer followed him into a side tunnel which opened onto a parallel tunnel, identical to the first one. Locked four-drawer filing cabinets lined one of the sides, while desks lined the other. A few officers and senior NCOS were at work there.

  Falk pointed at the cabinets.

  “You can start at one end and work your way through. Don’t worry if you don’t make it through,” he added with a smile.

  “Anything you do will be an improvement. No one’s been through that stuff in years.”

  Falk looked up at the large clock on the wall.

  “The Old Man’s got a briefing here in four minutes and I have to go down to USPACOM and take his place for the weekly staff meeting.” He tapped Boomer on the shoulder.

  “Glad to have you.”

  Boomer watched Falk walk out of the tunnel, then turned to the file cabinets. He ran a hand through his long hair and smiled ruefully.

  Paperwork. Just as he’d expected.

  CHAPTER 4

  HONOLULU, OAHU, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

  29 NOVEMBER

  7:00 P.M.LOCAL 0500 ZULU

  Boomer had a hard time finding a place to park his rental car until he realized that with the temporary military parking pass he’d been issued at Fort Shafter, he could park it in one of the restricted lots on Fort Derussy, right across the street from the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

  In the less than ten hours he’d been in Hawaii, one thing that had already impressed Boomer was how strong a presence the military was “on the island. From Pearl Harbor and Hickam Air Force Base in the south center, to Schofield Barracks taking up most of the interior, to Port Derussy and the military’s Hale Koa Hotel staking claim to some of the most prime real estate in downtown Honolulu and along Waikiki Beach, there was no doubt that the U.S. military was the second largest industry in the islands after the tourism trade.

  Boomer crossed from one industry to the other as he left the parking lot and neatly cut grass of Fort Derussy and crossed the street where an auditorium with bright signs advertised Don Ho’s Hawaiian Extravaganza at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Directly ahead, he spotted the main lobby for the massive hotel complex. A piano bar beckoned off to one side and Boomer went in, scanning the tables. It was early and the bartender was watching a TV mounted at the end of the bar as he catered to the sparse crowd.

  Trace was seated at the end of the bar and she waved him over, rising to greet him. She was dressed in slacks and a short sleeve blouse, a large shoulder bag was lying on a chair next to her. Boomer wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet with an exuberant hug.

  “Easy there,” Trace laughed.

  “Nice outfit,” she commented.

  Boomer let her down and turned, modeling the garishly colored shorts and shirt he’d bought earlier at one of the downtown markets.

  “Pretty neat, huh?”

  “It’s definitely you.” Trace pulled him down into a seat.

  “So tell me, what have you been up to?”

  “You first,” Boomer countered, not quite ready to get into his own story.

  “Last time we talked you were still at Fort Meade. I got a postcard with your new address and number here in Hawaii a month or so ago, but it didn’t tell much. Where are you assigned now?”

  Trace shook her head and her tone of voice indicated displeasure with her current assignment.

  “USPACOM at Camp Smith.”

  “Pacific Command?” Boomer repeated.

  “What do you do there?”

  “Public relations,” Trace said, as she signaled to the bartender. After ordering two beers, they turned back to each other.

  “I didn’t know the Army had a public relations specialty,” Boomer replied.

  “And even if they did, that isn’t what you trained for.”

  “They don’t. Technically, I’m assigned as the assistant PA COM J-l — Personnel. But considering the Unified Commands don’t control people in peacetime, there isn’t too much for me to do other than sit around and dust off the war plans every once in a while. Thus my real Job of public relations for the PA COM commander. Once they saw that I worked in the public affairs office at Fort Meade before CGSC, I was doomed.”

  “You couldn’t get a flying job?” he asked.

  “The people in D.C. figured that this was a good opportunity for me to gain experience working at a unified command. Learn what the other services are about and all that good stuff. That’s the big push in the real Army now,” Trace said. “No aviation battalion commander is screaming for me to be in their unit. This assignment’s my latest exile.”

  “What do you do besides work?” Boomer asked.

  “I write.”

  “Write?” Boomer repeated, surprised. His question had been more directed toward her personal life. This was an unexpected development.

  “I’m working on a novel,” Trace said.

  “Well, sort of a novel.”

  Boomer grabbed the two mugs the bartender brought and slid one in front of her.

  “Here’s to old friendships.”

  They tapped glasses and were silent for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts and memories.

  “So, what about you?” Trace asked, breaking the silence.

  “If you tell me what you do, will you have to kill me?”

  “Pretty close,” Boomer replied.

  “Kill you, cut off your head, and lock it in a safe.”

  “Sounds like I don’t want to know.”

  “You don’t,” Boomer said.

  “Something’s wrong,” Trace quietly said.

  “I could tell by the tone of your voice on the phone earlier today. And you don’t look happy to be here in paradise or to see me.”

  “I am happy to see you,” Boomer insisted.

  “I’m just beat. I was in the air all night and I didn’t have much sleep before that.”

  “In the air coming from where?” Trace asked.

  “So what’s this book you’re writing about?” Boomer attempted.

  Trace smiled.

  “You’re not very good at changing the subject. Don’t they teach you guys a course on that at Bragg? The art of evasive conversation?
” She didn’t expect an answer.

  “I’ve only just started it. It’s about West Point.

  Well, not exactly West Point. About a group of West Pointers who influence the country’s policies in favor of the military.”

  “The infamous WPPA?” Boomer asked. When he had first come on active duty he’d never heard the term — West Point Protective Association — despite four years at the Academy. As far as Boomer could tell, the WPPA was an informal organization that existed wherever West Pointers scratched each other’s back.

  Trace picked her words carefully as she answered his question.

  “No, not exactly the WPPA. It’s about a secret organization called The Line that’s been in existence for over sixty years and really came into power after World War II Boomer was interested despite his own personal problems.

  “So how’d you think this up?”

  “I didn’t think it up,” Trace said. She leaned forward.

  “Just before I left Fort Meade I was briefly assigned as Post Public Affairs Officer. While I was there we received a strange letter at the office. It was from this woman, Mrs.

  Howard, who was a nurse in the European Theater during World War II. In the letter she claimed to have been one of the nurses assigned to General Patton after his accident in 1945.”

  Trace paused in thought.

  “To make a long story short, she claims that just before his death, Patton told her’ about this organization called The Line that had been formed in the late twenties. And that it was getting ready to really expand its power at the end of the Second World War. So I took her story and I’ve been trying to make a novel out of it. Sort of ‘whatiffing’ it out, as if it were true.”

  “Why’d she send the PAO this letter?”

  Trace shrugged.

  “She was sending letters to a whole bunch of people — the Pentagon, Fort Lee, everywhere. I just happened to be the only person who read it and bothered to talk to her. It was a pretty wacko letter but I thought it was kind of interesting. Plus, she was this nice old lady living in this home out in the country. No family, no, friends. I guess I just felt sorry for’ her Boomer smiled, remembering Trace as the sort of person who took stray cats in even at West Point where it had gotten her in trouble.