The Line bo-2

by Bob Mayer

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.

  “Yes.” Boomer said.

  “And he allowed me to spend the night with him and leave my daughter home, knowing we were going to be attacked December seventh?”

  Boomer didn’t answer. Trace took Maggie in her arms as she surrendered to the anguish of fifty-four years of lies.

  Skibicki stood, putting the picture down on the coffee table and began pacing the room.

  “That means they set me up too. When Falk told me about the planned attack on the President, right before you showed me the message about the drop,” he added, looking at Boomer.

  “I thought that it was all above-board. At least from our end.”

  “It was,” Boomer said.

  “You just didn’t know that Senator Jordan was pulling the strings through Decker for his own motives.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Skibicki muttered.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Maggie pulled herself out of Trace’s arms and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

  “Will it ever end?”

  “General Maxwell, and through him, the President believe it’s over now,” Boomer said.

  “They’ve closed the book on this.”

  “Who has the diary?” Skibicki asked.

  “Senator Jordan,” Trace replied.

  “No shit,” Skibicki said.

  “It worked just like he wanted.”

  Boomer stood.

  “Any word on what happened at Hooker’s quarters?”

  “Keyes and his men were killed,” Skibicki said.

  “Vasquez was killed too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Boomer said.

  “I’m responsible for her,” Skibicki said.

  “I got her involved.

  They found her body in there, along with a whole bunch of people at Hooker’s V.I.P quarters. The people in the tunnel have broken everything down. Security folks at Pearl and Hickam are going crazy, what with the attack on the quarters and Looking Glass going down.”

  “Maxwell will cover all that,” Boomer said.

  “Hooker?” he asked again.

  “His body hasn’t been found yet. His jet’s at Hickam.”

  “I think they closed the book too fast,” Boomer said.

  “If Keyes and his men are all dead, who do they think fired the last shot?”

  “If Hooker’s still alive, I want him,” Skibicki said.

  “He’ll want to get out of here,” Boomer said.

  “Hickam,” Skibicki said, standing.

  HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE

  7 DECEMBER

  12:47 P.M.LOCAL 2247 ZULU

  “Hooker and Jordan,” Skibicki said, glaring out the windshield of his jeep at the Learjet.

  “Like you said in the tunnel, they think they’re fucking God. That they can use people, kill them, just to fit whatever plans they dream up.”

  The jet appeared to be deserted. They were parked off the end of the runway, about 200 feet from it. Boomer didn’t know — what to say to Skibicki. He himself was overwhelmed with all he had learned and experienced over the past several days. He couldn’t imagine how Skibicki felt after learning about Jordan and hearing about Vasquez’s death.

  “He knew about Pearl. Hell, they both knew about it,” Skibicki said.

  “Hooker and his pals might as well have been in Tokyo working with the Japanese Imperial staff.

  Then Jordan — fucking Jordan — allowed it to happen. He killed my sister!” Skibicki pounded the dashboard with his fist. Plastic splintered and blood seeped out where the skin tore. Boomer remained silent, watching the jet. Trace was in the back seat, but she’d been quiet ever since they’d left Maggie’s.

  Boomer tapped the sergeant major as a bus pulled up to the plane and two pilots stepped off. The bus pulled away as the two men began pre-flighting the aircraft.

  “Someone’s going somewhere,” Boomer said.

  “No they ain’t,” Skibicki vowed. He reached under his seat and pulled out the Calico.

  “There’s air police all around,” Boomer warned.

  “We’ll have to take him quietly.”

  Skibicki didn’t answer. His eyes were two black beads, peering straight at the jet. One of the pilots climbed in. The other removed the chocks from the wheels.

  Boomer looked around. A van was coming down the flight line. It stopped to the side of the jet. The driver hopped out and opened the side door. He offered his arm and an old man gingerly stepped out.

  “That’s Hooker,” Skibicki said. He started to get out of the jeep.

  “Hold it,” Boomer said, grabbing his arm.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “End it.” Skibicki pulled back the bolt on the Calico.

  “This won’t end it,” Boomer said.

  “I’ll end part of it.” He looked at Boomer.

  “The rest is on you.” He shrugged off Boomer’s hand. He began jogging toward the jet.

  “Stop him!” Trace slapped Boomer on the back.

  “No one can stop him,” Boomer said. They watched helplessly as Skibicki got closer to the plane.

  The driver saw Skibicki first. He had Hooker in his arms.

  He pushed the old man toward the stairs leading into the plane, and one of the pilots grabbed Hooker. The driver reached under his jacket for a weapon, but Skibicki, who was now only fifty meters away fired a burst. The rounds caught the driver in the chest, flipping him backwards.

  Boomer looked to his right. An Air Police vehicle was racing toward the scene. At the jet, the pilot was lifting Hooker inside. Boomer could hear the jet engines running.

  The other pilot was at the controls.

  Skibicki was in an all-out sprint now. He fired at the cockpit and Plexiglas shattered. He was only ten meters away and must have been out of ammunition because he threw down the Calico.

  The police car screeched to a halt at the wingtip and the two cops leaped out, weapons at the ready.

  “Freeze!” they both screamed.

  Skibicki ignored them. The co-pilot jumped between him and Hooker, who was leaning
against the stairs. Skibicki went through him like he wasn’t there, his fists flailing, the man falling to the ground.

  A knife appeared in Skibicki’s hand and he grabbed Hooker drawing him toward him.

  “Drop the knife!” the cops yelled, edging closer.

  “Shoot him!” Hooker called out.

  “I am General Hooker, and I order you to shoot him!”

  Skibicki smiled. He drew the knife across Hooker’s throat, and blood gushed forth. The police shot, the rounds knocking Skibicki back against the skin of the plane. He slid down, his body on top of Hooker’s.

  Boomer slumped back in the seat. Other Air Police cars were arriving, surrounding the jet.

  “We need to get out of here,” Trace said gently.

  “Boomer?”

  “Yeah.” Boomer pressed the starter for the jeep, put it into gear, and slowly drove away.

  They were silent for a while, until Trace spoke.

  “Skibicki was right.”

  “About what?” Boomer wearily asked.

  “About not letting it go. About not letting this disappear into the blackness of secrecy again.”

  “Hooker’s dead,” Boomer said.

  “It’s over.”

  “No, it’s not over,” Trace said.

  “What are we going to do?” Boomer asked.

  “Whatever we can,” Trace said.

  “Whatever we can.”

  CHAPTER 31

  AIRSPACE, TEN MILES SOUTH OF MONTPELIER, VERMONT

  8 JANUARY 1996

  7:45 A.M.LOCAL 1245 ZULU

  Having gained sufficient altitude. Senator James Jordan turned on the autopilot of his Learjet 25B and leaned back in the pilot’s seat. He was on his way back to Washington after Christmas break in Vermont. He had returned home to Vermont for Christmas for the past forty-two years.

  The jet was his pride, and joy and had almost cost him the election four years ago. His opponent had pointed to it as a sign that Jordan had lost touch with the common man of Vermont. Jordan had been forced to retaliate by trotting out the trip logs for the aircraft proving that his ownership of the plane had actually saved the taxpayers money because he used it for much of his professional traveling at his own expense.

  Jordan looked out the right window of the cockpit at the Green Mountains. There was a fresh covering of snow, and he could see skiers sliding down the slopes of Sugarbush.

  There was a scraping noise from the back of the plane and Jordan’s head snapped around, staring at the door leading to the main cabin. He frowned as he stood up. Some of his baggage must have fallen over. He hadn’t used the cargo compartment since he had the entire plane to himself.

  He’d simply dumped his bags in the first row of seats. The FAA wouldn’t approve, he knew, but the FAA didn’t look in his plane.

  Jordan slid the door open, stepped into the main cabin, and froze at the sight of a man pointing a pistol at him. He recognized the face and he staggered back a step.

  “Subsonic dum-dum bullets,” Boomer said, waggling the pistol slightly.

  “It’ll make a big hole in you but won’t go through the skin of the plane and depressurize us.”

  “What are you doing here?” Jordan demanded.

  “I was in the cargo compartment. You really ought to stow your gear,” Boomer said.

  “What do you want?”

  “Did you know Earl Skibicki? I think you knew his mother, Maggie.

  Pearl Harbor? 1941?”

  Jordan didn’t say anything.

  “You knew her, right?” Boomer insisted. He cocked the pistol.

  “Yes.” Jordan swallowed.

  “What do you want?”

  “Did you know about her daughter getting killed?”

  “What do you want?” Jordan repeated, his eyes casting about, searching for anything he could use as a weapon.

  “Did you know about her daughter. Earl Skibicki’s sister, being strafed by Japanese planes and killed on the morning of December seventh, 1945?” Boomer asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know about Skibicki’s half-brother — your son — being killed in Vietnam in the la Drang Valley?”

  “What?” Jordan said, his eyes stopping their search and fixing on Boomer.

  “What did you say?”

  “You didn’t even keep track of your own son, did you?” Boomer said.

  “Maggie told me you didn’t, but I couldn’t believe that. That a man wouldn’t even give a shit about his own flesh and blood. You just don’t give a shit about anyone, do you?”

  Boomer shook his head.

  “All the things you’ve done over the years. All the bodies. All the pain and suffering.

  You are a sorry sack of shit, Mr. Senator.”

  “What do you want?” Jordan said.

  “The diary,” Boomer snapped. He smiled as Jordan’s eyes flickered toward his snakeskin briefcase.

  “You’re stupider than I thought. You should have destroyed it, but I knew you’d still have it. You wanted to keep it because you never know, right? Might need it some day?”

  Boomer grabbed the briefcase with his free hand and set it down on a seat next to him. He pulled out a knife and cut through the locked flap, pulling out Hooker’s diary. He stuffed it inside his parka.

  “But that’s not really why I came here,” he said.

  “I really wanted you.”

  “We can work this out,” Jordan said.

  “The Line is finished.

  I did the right thing. I helped the President and General Maxwell too—”

  “Spare me the bullshit. You don’t have much time left.

  Better use it to pray. You tried to kill me once. Now I’m returning the favor.”

  “I beg of you — I can make it right — I can—”

  “You can’t make the dead come back to life,” Boomer said. He tucked the gun into his belt, and Jordan breathed a sigh of relief.

  Boomer took one step closer to the senator, then spun, his right leg lashing out and the boot slamming into Jordan’s chest, forcefully expelling the air Jordan had just so gratefully inhaled.

  Jordan crumpled down the floor, gasping in pain as the jagged edges of his broken ribs cut into his lungs.

  “Please,” he gasped.

  “Please.”

  “Shut up,” Boomer snapped. He pulled a parachute out of the cargo bay and buckled it on over his parka, making sure all the straps were tight. Then he turned back to Jordan lying on the floor.

  “Come on, senator. You’ve got a plane to fly,” Boomer said, grabbing the other man by the lapels and pulling him into the cockpit.

  Jordan tried to scream as Boomer threw him into the pilot’s seat, but the act of screaming hurt as much as the movement. Boomer carefully buckled up the senator’s shoulder straps, making sure he was securely fastened to the seat.

  “What are — you — doing?” Jordan managed to say, his hands gripping the armrests of his seat so hard the whites of his knuckles showed.

  In response. Boomer knifed down with the outer edge of his right hand onto the senator’s left wrist. Bones cracked with an audible snap.

  Before Jordan fully realized what had happened. Boomer did the same to the senator’s right wrist.

  “Oh God!” Jordan screamed, his hands dangling helplessly.

  “Please, please, don’t do this!”

  “Have a good flight,” Boomer said. He reached over and flipped off the autopilot. Then he jammed the yoke all the way forward and the plane nosed over. Grabbing a hold of the doorjamb. Boomer pulled himself into the main cabin, where he hit the emergency opening on the crew door. It swung open and slammed tight against the outside of the plane. He could hear the senator screaming in the cockpit, and as he pulled himself out of the plane. Boomer idly wondered if the man had the guts to try and use his broken limbs to regain control.

  Boomer was out into the wind stream and he spread his arms and legs until he stopped tumbling and was stable. He pulled
his ripcord and gained positive control of his canopy.

  He looked about and spotted the Learjet 2,000 feet below him, still in a steep dive. It hit into the snow-covered slopes of the Green Mountains and exploded.

  “No fucking guts,” Boomer said as he turned his chute away from the mountains toward his landing zone and waiting jeep.

  EPILOGUE

  UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY WEST POINT, NEW YORK

  26 FEBRUARY 1996

  7:00 P.M.LOCAL 2400 ZULU

  Eisenhower Hall is the West Point equivalent of a student center. It houses several restaurants and meeting areas and it is there dances for underclass cadets are held on weekends.

  It also houses a 4,500-seat auditorium and for the past twenty minutes the Corps of Cadets all 4,200 strong — had been filing in with military efficiency, filling the seats from front to rear., General Maxwell, the recently confirmed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff settled into a back row seat and watched the process. By protocol he shouldn’t be in the auditorium. He should wait until all others were seated, then make an entrance, requiring all inside to pop to their feet at attention and hold it until he gave them at ease. But he wasn’t the reason the cadets were here this evening. He was neglecting protocol, because he wanted the young men and women in front of him to realize the seriousness of this evening.

  Down the back aisle from him were several members of the press corps from New York City. They were a bit confused by the lack of protocol also, but for a different reason.

  They were here because Maxwell was here. A short press release issued by the public affairs officer at West Point earlier in the day had simply stated that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be giving a lecture to the Corps of Cadets. With the MRA still a hot issue, even in modified form, in the Senate, the reporters were hoping for a good quote or two from Maxwell.

  The previous superintendent had surprisingly resigned for “health” reasons just after the new year. The new superintendent was a hard-charging young two-star direct from command of the 101st Airborne Division — General Turnbull. And it was Turnbull who took the stage as the last of the cadets took his or her place exactly on time.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy,” the cadet adjutant announced.