Majic Man nh-10

by Max Allan Collins

  I laughed, once. “You can say that with a straight face, while Miss Yugoslavia 1946 is out in the other room buttering your scones?”

  He frowned and his close-set eyes almost crossed. “I’m not a public official.”

  “Jesus, Drew-can you imagine, a proud guy like Forrestal, responsible for the safety of his country, how a false accusation of base cowardice could affect him?”

  The smile returned; he looked like your rich uncle. “Please, Nathan. You don’t wear moral indignation very well. Come on, man! People forget that I’m trying to do something for my country, and the world.”

  “By lying to ruin a man’s reputation?”

  “In politics, questionable actions are often employed for desirable goals.”

  “The ends justify the means, you mean.”

  “Isn’t that how you operate? I’m well acquainted with your mode of operation, Nathan.”

  I sat forward. “What the hell’s the idea of putting all your muscle behind destroying an able, dedicated guy like Jim Forrestal?”

  “Sure he’s able,” Pearson huffed. “Of course he’s dedicated. But to what? He’s a man who lives only for himself. He’s broken his word, turned his back on his friends …”

  This was rich, coming from the guy who stole “Washington Merry-Go-Round” from Bob Allen.

  “… and he’s driven by one ambition and one ambition only: to be top man, first of Wall Street, then the cabinet, and now he’s got his eye on the presidency. And were he president, with his worldview that the godless, evil Soviet Union is on the verge of invading us, we’d find ourselves in a catalysmic world war. He has to be stopped. I have stopped him.”

  “You’ve crushed him, Drew.”

  “Then good for me.” Pearson was shaking his head. “He’s been a law unto himself, Nathan, and behavior like that can’t be countenanced.”

  “From a public official, you mean. It wins columnists Pulitzers.”

  “Listen, my friend, Jim Forrestal has nurtured, has created, this nightmarish Central Intelligence Agency, and mark my words, America will suffer the consequences for decades. And before he had that charming organization up and running, peddling its counterintelligence and counterinsurgency around the world, he would step in himself, raising huge funds from his rich friends to pay off railroad strikers in France, to buy off politicians in Italy-”

  “Save it for the broadcast.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “All right. Since you seem disapproving of my campaign-successful campaign-to induce Harry S. Truman to remove James V. Forrestal, I have to ask: why did you want to see me today?”

  “Why were you willing to see me?”

  The smile turned sly again; he stroked his purring pussy and said, “Well … I thought, as someone who’s spent time with Forrestal … who has his ear, his trust … you could, you might, let me know just how far around the bend he is.”

  “Why, so you can put it on the radio tonight?”

  “Yes,” he said, with no shame. “It appears to me that Forrestal has gone off his rocker. That he’s mad as a hatter. And if I could say that, with confidence, on the air, it would be a great service to our country.”

  “Jesus! Suppose the guy has lost his marbles … and I’m not confirming that, mind you … what purpose does it serve humiliating him further? You won, Drew! Isn’t that enough?”

  “You don’t think the country has a right to know that its Secretary of Defense is a madman? I want to know how long he’s been demented, I want to know what orders, policies, security breaches might be ascribed to his mental state! If a raving lunatic has made government policy, mightn’t we want to undertake a critical review of those policies?”

  “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I haven’t seen a ‘raving lunatic’-just a man battered down by years of hard work for his country, and maybe buckling a little under your barrage of bullshit.”

  He rocked gently. “I ask again, Nathan: why did you want to see me today?”

  “To ask you, out of common decency, not to broadcast any speculation about Jim Forrestal’s mental condition. He’s quitting tomorrow-give him a chance to go out with a little goddamn dignity.”

  Both eyebrows lifted. “This is unexpected, Nathan.”

  “What is?”

  “The milk of human kindness in one so monetary.”

  “Why don’t you surprise me, Drew, and behave like the liberal lover of mankind you pretend to be: give the guy a fucking break.”

  He thought about that, as he scratched his cat’s neck. Finally he said, “All right. But if Forrestal gets back into the political fray, all bets are off.”

  I hadn’t expected it to be this easy; frankly, I hadn’t expected him to go along with me at all.

  “Understood,” I said.

  “But … I need a favor of you, in return.”

  So much for the milk of human kindness.

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Your presence in Washington is fortuitous, Nathan.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. I’d like you to do a job for me. Today. This afternoon.”

  “… What kind of job?”

  He folded his hands prayerfully on the desktop. “I want you to talk to somebody for me. I don’t want to be seen talking to this individual myself, and I don’t even want my staff knowing about this particular … subject matter.”

  That didn’t surprise me. Pearson had a conspiratorial managing style, never letting an investigator or legman know what each other was up to.

  I asked, “What subject matter is that?”

  He spoke very softly: “In researching your client, Secretary Forrestal, I stumbled onto some information that is either the biggest story of the century … or an attempt to make such a fool out of me that I would be discredited, once and for all.”

  “All right. You’ve got my attention. But, favor or no favor, my fee is a hundred a day.”

  Immediately, he reached in a desk drawer, withdrew a checkbook and began filling out a check, asking, “You want that made out to the A-1 or to yourself?”

  “A-1 will be fine … but make it four hundred, to bring your account up to date.”

  Pearson shrugged. “All right.”

  My jaw dropped. “Now you really have my attention….”

  He handed the check across to me, its black ink glistening wetly. “No further expenses, though … for right now, this is a one-day affair, and you can buy your own damn meals.”

  “Fair enough. Who do I talk to, and on what subject?”

  He rocked back, folded his arms. “Let’s start with the subject. Nathan … what do you know about flying saucers?”

  I winced. Weren’t Commies, Zionists and Nazis enough? Must I add spacemen to the list?

  “Nathan, please … answer the question.”

  Money was money. “Well … last year or two, there have been a lot of sightings of flying saucers, flying discs, flying cigars, whatever, some of ’em by fairly reputable types. I figure it’s some kind of postwar hysteria-like the gremlins pilots in the war talk about seeing. I saw ’em myself.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, in Bugs Bunny cartoons.”

  Pearson shuffled through some manila file folders on his desk, came up with a thick one, folded it open and began thumbing through; I hoped it wasn’t my FBI file again.

  “The first published report of a saucer sighting was in June of ’47,” he said, “by an air rescue pilot-Kenneth Arnold, of Boise, Idaho-who said he saw nine flying saucers flying at twelve hundred miles per hour over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, in formations, shifting positions like … what’s it say, here, where is it … ‘like the tail of a kite.’ This seemed to trigger sightings, with saucers spotted in Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, Idaho, Missouri, Colorado, California, Arizona, Nebraska …”

  I nodded. “Yeah, for a few months there, if you wanted to see your name in the paper, all you had to do was just call in and say you saw an unidentified flying what�
�s-it.”

  “Your attitude mirrors my own, essentially; but some of these sightings are from credible sources-a United Airlines pilot, a National Guard captain-and I’ve learned that the U.S. Air Force is studying and cataloguing these sightings.”

  “Or pretending to-after all, these ‘saucers’ could be some new experimental top-secret aircraft or weapon of ours. The kind of thing a civilian might easily misconstrue.”

  Pearson nodded. “And the inquiry into ‘saucer’ sightings could be a military screen of ‘black propaganda’-lies. In any case, that effort-whether sincere, or simply cosmetic-started in December ’47, as Project Sign, but it’s evolved into something called Project Grudge.”

  “That sounds like the code name for your Forrestal crusade.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Well, Secretary Forrestal is involved in this matter.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all. As I said, I came across this information in my investigation of Forrestal…. Take a look at this, Nathan.”

  Pearson handed me a photostat from his folder; it was of a single sheet of stationery, rubber-stamped at the top: top secret/majic eyes only.

  White House stationery.

  The date was September 24, 1947, and the contents were as follows:

  MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

  Dear Secretary Forrestal:

  As per our recent conversation on this matter, you are hereby authorized to proceed with all due speed and caution upon your undertaking. Hereafter this matter shall be referred to only as Operation Majestic Twelve.

  It continues to be my feeling that any future considerations relative to the ultimate disposition of this matter should rest solely with the Office of the President following appropriate discussions with yourself, Dr. Bush and the Director of Central Intelligence.

  And it was signed, with a flourish: “Harry Truman.”

  “This doesn’t say anything about flying saucers,” I said.

  “Indeed it doesn’t. But a Pentagon source has informed me that Operation Majestic Twelve is a government research and development project formed with exploring the ‘flying saucer’ problem as its mandate.”

  I reread the letter, then asked, “Who’s this Dr. Bush?”

  “Dr. Bush is, with Forrestal, one of the twelve-the ‘Majestic Twelve’-that is, key government, scientific and military figures. Bush is former dean of MIT; he led the development of the atomic bomb, radar, the proximity fuse, the analog computer, and much more. The top government science mind.”

  I tossed the photostat back on his desk. “Do you believe your source?”

  “You know what they say-in Washington, if your mother says she loves you, get a second source to corroborate it.”

  “Glad to see you checking your facts, for a change.”

  He sighed rather heavily. “Nathan, as I said, I suspect this may be an effort to make a colossal boob out of me. But if what I’ve been told does prove correct, our government may have in its possession technology from another planet, which they are intending to capitalize upon for military purposes.”

  “I’m gonna vote for the colossal boob theory on this one.”

  Pearson was shaking his head. “I know, I know-it sounds incredible, even bizarre … but it all seems to stem from one incident-the crash of an unidentified flying object in Roswell, New Mexico, in July of ’47.”

  I shifted in my chair. “Not a sighting-a crash….”

  “Yes-a crash by an alien spacecraft.”

  “And Forrestal is nuts? Drew, you thought about trying a smoking jacket that buttons up the back?”

  “The Air Force base at Roswell-the 509th Bomb Group, who incidentally are the only squadron in the world armed and ready to drop atomic bombs-issued a public statement to the effect that a flying saucer had crashed, and its wreckage been recovered … a statement that was, within hours, withdrawn by the powers-that-be.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “No. I’ll give you my clipping file to take with you, on your way.”

  “My way where?”

  “To talk to the Air Force major who says he found the saucer. Sure you won’t have a cookie?”

  7

  Due west of the white-marble temple of the Lincoln Memorial, and bordering the low-slung but formidable granite-and-concrete Arlington Bridge, yawned a convex arc of granite steps known as the Water Gate. A couple hundred feet wide at the top, fanning out gently to maybe another thirty feet wide at bottom, these steep steps formed an ornamental buttress between the bridge and the roadway ramp angling from the memorial toward Rock Creek Park. The Water Gate was designed, in part, to serve as an outdoor amphitheater; in the summer, a barge outfitted with a band shell would be anchored at the foot of these forty or so steps as a stage for concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra, among others. But late March was too early for the band-shell barge and the only stage that stretched out in front of the scattering of Sunday-afternoon loungers seated there was the sun-shimmering gray-blue Potomac itself, where pleasure boats-mostly canoes streaking by-were the featured attraction.

  He was easy enough to spot, as I came down the steps: seated alone, a third of the way down, a small, even mousy-looking man in a light tan short-sleeve sportshirt with a wide pointed collar and brown corduroy slacks. His hair was dark brown and cropped short, his forehead high, and-I noted when he turned to see who’d sat down next to him-his eyes were buggy, nose beaky, chin rather weak.

  Major Jesse Marcel would have been unimpressive if I hadn’t read the material in the file folder Pearson had given me, a combination of newspaper clippings and background check, which I’d perused when I parked the rental Ford over by Honest Abe’s memorial.

  Marcel had entered the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942; he had both studied and taught at the Air Intelligence School at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where his civilian experience with Shell Oil, making maps from aerial photographs, soon developed into a much-valued expertise in mapping, and photographic reconnaissance and interpretation. His duties in the South Pacific had included serving as squadron intelligence officer as well as flying several combat missions in B-24s, winning two Air Medals.

  Promoted to group intelligence officer and transferred stateside, Marcel was involved with radar navigation study at Langley Field when his unit, the 509th, dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Shortly thereafter he was named intelligence officer for the bomb group; his first assignment: observer at the atomic tests at Bikini.

  Right now Major Marcel was assigned to Strategic Air Command headquarters here in Washington: the officer in charge of the War Room, Intelligence Branch Operations Division, AFOAT-1. Apparently this mousy little guy was head of something called the Long Range Detection Program, intended to alert the U.S. to any atomic explosions elsewhere in the world, in particular the Soviet Union.

  This latter information was probably classified, at least, and possibly top-secret; and I had to wonder if Pearson had gotten it from Marcel himself-and why a guy so tied to intelligence work would share it with a muckraker like Pearson.

  Also, my neck was getting prickly with apprehension at atomic bomb stuff turning up again, even in this sidebar to the Forrestal investigation: first Frank Wilson of the Atomic Energy Commission, and now SAC’s atom bomb watchdog, Major Marcel.

  Who said, in a husky tenor, “Jesse Marcel, Mr. Heller. You are Mr. Heller?”

  His tan sportshirt was a print design of cartoony representations of vacation spots: Miami, Cuba, Rio, palm trees, volcanoes, hotels.

  “Nathan Heller, yes,” I said, shaking the hand he offered.

  His smile was friendly but nervous. “Mind if I see some identification?”

  “Not at all.” I got out my wallet, showed him my Illinois private operator’s ticket.

  “No offense,” he said, and sucked on the stub of his cigarette. “Can’t be too careful. Swell day, huh? Nice breeze-my wife and son are over at the park, so we should have plenty of time to talk.”

>   “Major,” I said, slipping my wallet back in my hip pocket, “I read the newspaper accounts about the incident at Roswell, but considering the inconsistencies … I’d really like to hear your version of it.”

  “Call me Jesse,” he said, dropping the spent cigarette to the granite, heeling it out. “We seem to be pretty much by ourselves here, but let’s keep it un-military, all right? You prefer Nathan or Nate?”

  “Nate’ll do. Jesse, if you’re planning to reveal anything of a classified nature, I’ll have Pearson send somebody else over to talk to you.”

  He shook his head, as he plucked a Camel out of a half-used pack. “Smoke?”

  “No thanks.”

  “None of this is classified, Nate, or top-secret or anything. But it’s military matters just the same, and I’m in intelligence, and I might get a tit in the wringer if it was known I was a damn source for ‘Washington Merry-Go-Round.’”

  “Understood. I just have no desire to see the inside of Fort Leavenworth.”

  “You’re comin’ in loud and clear on that one.” He fired up his Camel with a silver Zippo, which he snapped shut. “No, they clamped the lid on this thing, but oddly, I never got any kind of serious debriefing or orders to clam up or anything. But, understand, this deal blew over real quick.”

  And it had. One day the headlines were trumpeting AIR FORCE CAPTURES FLYING SAUCER ON RANCH IN ROSWELL, the next ARMY DEBUNKS ROSWELL FLYING DISK AS WORLD SIMMERS WITH EXCITEMENT and GENERAL RAMEY EMPTIES ROSWELL SAUCER. These had been the headlines of Roswell’s own Daily Record and Dispatch, but the story had been carried via the Associated Press and United Press, and spread worldwide-the Pearson file had clips from Rome, London, Paris, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Tokyo-creating a momentary sensation, only to be laughed off as a fluke of the flying saucer “craze.”

  “So what really happened at Roswell, Jesse?” I was getting out my small spiral notebook.

  “No notes, Nate. We’re just two pals chatting, okay?”

  “Sure.” I put the spiral pad away.

  He plucked tobacco flakes off his tongue. “I can only tell you my part of it; I’ve heard of some fantastic things that other people witnessed, but I’m not gonna pass that along to you. If you’re interested, you can go talk to ’em in Roswell; I’ll even give you, or Mr. Pearson, a list of names. Make some calls for you-pave the way. But I’m in the intelligence game myself, Nate-and I’m not going to insult your intelligence with hearsay.”