"The woman is Jane Cassidy," Jane Jiggs said.
"Tom Cassidy's wife?" he blurted. She saw that she had surprised him.
She nodded. "Well, I'm right sorry to hear that," he said. "She has two kids, I think."
"So I understand," Jane said.
"Tom Cassidy's a fine fellow," Dutton said.
"I think they're all nice people," Jane said. "That's why I'm trying to help. Why I came to you."
"Well, I'm not much of a marriage counselor," Dutton said. "And I don't handle divorces."
"It's a long way from a divorce," Jane said. "And I want to keep it that way."
"Then Tom Cassidy doesn't know?"
"Nobody knows, yet," Jane said. "Not even my husband. Just Craig and Jane, and you and me." "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.
"Because Melody once told me that if I ever needed anything fixed, I should see her Daddy," Jane Jiggs said. "And I need this fixed, Mr. Dutton, before some very nice people, including two young kids, get hurt in a scandal."
"I guess you better tell me all you know," Howard Dutton said, draining his vodka tonic. "And then we'll see what can be done."
"I'm very grateful to you, Mayor Dutton," Jane Jiggs said.
"My pleasure, ma'am," he said.
In the end it was a simple thing to take care of. He had a word with the chief of police. He told the chief he wanted him to handle it personally. The chief understood.
Three days later, as Mrs. Jane Cassidy turned onto Highway 27 to return from Ozark to Enterprise, she was stopped for having a faulty taillight. The policeman was the chief of police himself. He seemed genuinely sorry to tell her that he smelled liquor on her breath and was going to have to ask her to leave her car by the side of the road and come to the police station with him, so that she could blow up a balloon which would tell exactly how much she had to drink.
She was taken to the police station, given the balloon test, and then put into a room.
An hour later, Mayor Howard Dutton came into the room.
"Jane," he said, "I'm sure as God sorry to see you in here."
"I'm not drunk, Howard," Jane protested. "No matter what that damn balloon test says."
"I don't think you're drunk, either," he said. "And I wouldn't be surprised if there was nothing wrong with your taillight." "I don't understand," she said, confused. "Chief Scott got born again last year," he said. "What's that got to do with anything?" she asked, angrily. "Well, I don't know exactly," he said. "But it's probably got something to do with finding his wife once upon a time where she shouldn't have been, if you take my meaning."
"What's that got to do with me?" "He told me that he's seen your car where he thinks it doesn't have a good' reason to be."
"This is outrageous!"
"Now I know and you know that you haven't been doing anything wrong," he said. "I'll talk to the judge about this drunk driving business, and you probably won't even have to go to court. But I'd be very careful where I parked my car in the future. It isn't what people know for sure that counts, Jane, it's what people think they know."
"Did he tell you where he thought he saw my car?"
"I didn't ask him," Howard Dutton said. "I don't want to know anything I don't have to."
"Of course, he didn't," Jane Cassidy protested. "Because I've done nothing wrong."
"I know that, Jane," Howard Dutton said. "And, none of this will go any further than it has to. I'll speak to the judge..
"I appreciate that, Howard."
"But I'm going to have to tell you, between us, that the judge and the chief are two of a kind. I don't know how much influence I would have the second time around. Or if something like this happened again when I was out of town."
"Well," she said, coldly, "since nothing happened this time, there is no chance of anything happening again."
"I'm glad to hear that, Jane," Mayor Howard Dutton said. "I would surely be sad to hear that anything was wrong with a fine marriage like yours and Tom's."
He looked into her eyes to let her know he knew. Then he left her. On the way out, he told the chief of police to leave her alone for an hour and then drive her back to her car and let her go.
(Three) Davis-Mont/ian Air Force Base, Arizona 141S Hours, 24 December
19S9
"Davis-Monthan," Lieutenant Commander Edward B. Eaglebury said to the old-fashioned hand-held microphone in the cockpit, "Navy Eight Twenty, an R4D aircraft, ten miles south of your station for landing."
He turned to his copilot, a tall, brown young man, dressed like It. Commander Eaglebury in a gray flight suit and a brown horsehide, fur-collared jacket. A patch, bearing gold stamped naval aviator's wings and the legend
"HORNE, ALEXANDERw. LT." usn," had been sewn to the jacket.
"Here we go, Franldin," Eaglebury said, "into the mouth of death. Will you please advise our passengers?"
Bill Franklin spoke into another microphone, addressing the passenger compartment via the public address system.
"We just contacted the tower," he said.
"Aircraft calling Davis-Monthan, say again," Davis-Monthan's tower replied.
It was not surprising that the Davis-Monthan tower was a little slow getting on the horn. It was after all a quarter after four on Christmas Eve. Little traffic was expected by the tower operators, who were to a man questioning the wisdom of a military career which saw them sitting in a glass box eighty feet above the ground on Christmas Eve while regular people were gathered around Christmas trees, listening to Perry Como sing Christmas carols on the television.
"Davis-Monthan," It. Commander Edward B. Eaglebury repeated, "Navy Eight Twenty, an R4D aircraft, ten miles south of your station for landing."
As Commander Eaglebury spoke, CWO(2) Franldin jiggled the connection of his radio transmitter microphone in quick twisting motions. This served to introduce spurious electronic impulses into the circuit.
"Aircraft calling Davis-Monthan," the tower operator said. "Your transmission is garbled. Say again. I say again, you are garbled."
There were four passengers in the passenger compartment of the R4D. One of them a very large, Slavic-appearing individual was asleep and snoring loudly on a leather couch with which Navy Eight Twenty had been equipped for service as a V. I.P transport aircraft. He wore no insignia of rank on his flight suit, which had been dyed black; but he was a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant, and his name was Stefan Wojinski.
The other three passengers were field-grade officers. They were It. Col. Rudolph G. Macmillan, Deputy Commandant for Special Projects of the U.S. Army Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, N. C.; It. Colonel Augustus Charles, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Army Signal Aviation Test and Support Activity, Fort Rucker, Ala.; and Major C.W. Lowell, Chief, Rocket Armed Helicopter Branch, Aircraft Test Division, U.S. Army Aviation Board, Fort Rucker, Ala.
Major Lowell and Colonel Charles were seated in leather chairs, so configured that when pressure was applied to the back of the seat, a foot rest unfolded from the base. Colonel Macmillan was sitting on a couch immediately across the cabin from the one on which M/Sgt Wojinski snored.
They were looking out the windows when the air base appeared in view.
It. Col. Macmillan, who had reconnoitered the objective three days before from a Beaver, was displeased with what he saw. He picked up a telephone which was actually an intercom device connected to a loudspeaker in the cabin.
"Do a 180," he ordered, "and then come in from the south."
"I am coming in from the south," It. Commander Eaglebury objected.
"You're not south enough," Macmillan replied. "Try southwest."
"Yes, sir, Colonel, sir," It. Commander Eaglebury replied. The old, but well maintained ex-V. I.P transport began a slow turn toward the south.
M/Sgt Wojinski grumbled in his sleep, snorted, and then resumed his snoring.
It. Col. Macmillan picked up the telephone again.
"How steep can you bank one of these things?"
It. Commander Eaglebury demonstrated, standing the Gooney-bird on its right wing tip.
The remnants of the passengers' and crew's dinner (provided by Executive Aircraft Catering, Inc." of Love Field, Dallas, Texas their Number Seven, "Deluxe Assortment of cold cuts, turkey, ham, roast beef, salami, cheeses, fresh fruits, and Beluga caviar, $15.95 per person"
which had been Major Lowell's little Christmas gift to the expedition) slid off the table onto the floor.
In the rear of the cabin, two forty-pound, 24-volt nickel cadmium aircraft batteries, equipped with a web harness for easy handling, slid from one side of the cabin to the other. And a moment later, at the low point of the incline, a Winchester Model 1897 12-gauge trench and riot gun, w/bayonet attachment, slid after the batteries.
The aircraft straightened up. The degree of bank and the rapidity with which the aircraft had reached it was impressive, but it was not precisely what It. Col. Macmillan had had in mind.
"Now do it the other way," he ordered.
"The United States Navy strives to please," It. Commander Eaglebury replied, and this time stood the Gooney-bird on its left wing tip.
In obedience to the immutable laws of physics M/Sgt Wojinski began to move the instant the effect of gravity overcame the friction which held his 230-pound body to the smooth leather of the couch.
A moment later, he landed on the floor and woke with a somewhat profane expression of surprise and annoyance.
The aircraft straightened up.
"Wojinski," It. Col. Macmillan said, innocently. "We're getting ready to land. Would you mind getting off the floor?"
Biting their lips, Colonel Charles and Major Lowell looked out the windows.
They were approaching the base again. There were literally thousands of aircraft parked on the desert: Davis-Monthan was the military service's aviation graveyard. The year-round temperature and atmosphere of the base was such that virtually no deterioration to aircraft or their on-board equipment occurred. All the military services sent aircraft to Davis-Monthan for disposal: they were flown in and taxied for miles to a parking space; the engines were shut down, the batteries disconnected, and the fuel was drained; and then the aircraft were just left where they had stopped.
Some aircraft were kept more or less in a state of readiness, and "cannibalizing" then was forbidden. Other aircraft were stripped as needed of whatever parts were functional. Only when it became absolutely certain that no military service or other governmental agency would ever have use for them (the State Department, for example, often gave them to friendly foreign powers) were they scrapped.
The R4D flew over row after row of B-29 "Super Fortress" bombers, perhaps three hundred of them, parked in a group next to perhaps twice that number of twin-engined B-26s; then a hundred or more B-25s. Next came more modem bombers, then a vast array of piston-engined fighter planes, then also the jets, air force and navy. There were trainers, observation aircraft, everything in the post-War II military aircraft inventory that had either completed its useful life or was considered obsolete or surplus to needs.
And transports, which is what It. Col. Macmillan was looking for.
"I see them, Mac," Eaglebury reported, his voice serious now. Mac reached for the intercom telephone.
"Put us right in the middle of the C-54s," Macmillan ordered.
"I'll do my best," Eaglebury reported. And then he picked up the transmitter microphone.
"Davis-Monthan, Navy Eight Twenty.
"Go ahead, Navy Eight Twenty."
"Davis-Monthan, Navy Eight Twenty is apparently above your station, on a course of just about due north. I'm over a bunch of airplanes.
Request landing instructions, please."
"Navy Eight Twenty, we have you on radar," the tower operator reported, somewhat tartly. "You are approximately three miles from the active."
"Roger. Request winds and landing."
"Navy Eight Twenty, what is the nature of your business at this station?"
"Require fuel and someone to look at my radios."
"You are not on a ferry flight?"
"Negative, this is not, I say again, not, a ferry flight."
"Navy Eight Twenty, this station is not open to transient aircraft without prior approval."
"Davis, I can't help that. I need gas and someone to look at my radios."
"Navy Eight Twenty, are you declaring an emergency?"
"Davis, negative.
I will wait until I run out of gas, and then I will declare an emergency. For Christ's sake, it's Christmas Eve."
"Navy Eight Twenty, stand by."
"Navy Eight Twenty advises I have thirty minutes' fuel on board."
"Stand by, Navy Eight Twenty."
Eaglebury put his flaps and his wheels down, slowed the Gooney-bird as much as he could, and moved in a serpentine pattern over the field.
Macmillan came to the cockpit and stood between the seats, while they decided what they would do when he got it on the ground.
"Navy Eight Twenty," the radio called.
"Eight Twenty."
"Navy Eight Twenty is cleared as number one to land on runway eight four. The winds are negligible. The altimeter is three zero zero zero."
"Understand eight four," Franldin said to his microphone as Eaglebury turned the aircraft.
"Navy Eight Twenty, suggest you land long," the tower went on. "There is no Follow-Me available at this time. Take taxiway zero two right, which is at the extreme west end of the active."
Franidin, Eaglebury, and Macmillan looked at each other and beamed. If there was no Follow-Me, it would be considerably easier for them to get lost. If there had been one, Contingency Plan B which was both a royal pain in the ass and much trickier would have had to have been put into play.
"Roger," Eaglebury said to the microphone. He looked at Bill Franklin and made a twisting gesture with his fingers. Franldin nodded.
When Navy Eight Twenty reported turning on final, his transmission was garbled.
Navy Eight Twenty landed short, very short; and then, damned near standing the Gooney-bird on its nose, Eaglebury braked hard and turned onto taxiway two eight left. Taxiway two eight left was at the opposite end of the runway, which had been built to accommodate B-52 aircraft and was 3.2 miles long. It led in the opposite direction from taxiway zero two right.
Navy Eight Twenty proceeded down taxiway two eight left at a very high rate of speed, far in excess of good taxiing procedure.
It passed long lines of dead aircraft, Navy biplane trainers first, a flock of them giving way to some old-air force Ryans, and then at least one hundred Beechcraft C-45 twin-engine navigation trainers.
"Navy Eight Twenty, we do not have you in sight. Are you on the ground?"
It. Commander Eaglebury made the twisting motion with his fingers, and then spoke to his microphone.
"Eight Twenty," the tower responded, in disgust. "You're garbled."
Eaglebury made a cutting motion with his hand. Franidin stopped twisting the microphone connector.
"Davis-Monthan," It. Commander Eaglebury said, "say again your last transmission, you are garbled."
They were in the graveyard for transports now. There were at least a hundred Gooney-birds, either R4Ds or the air force version of the Douglas DC-3, the C-47.
Eaglebury taxied past them, then past a fleet of Lockheed Constellations, some of them long-range reconnaissance aircraft equipped with grotesque radar domes sprouting out of the top of the fuselage.
And then they were among the C-54s known as the R6D in the navy and as the DC-4 by its manufacturer, Douglas, and by the airlines that had flown them immediately after World War II. The C-54 was essentially a bigger version of the DC3/C-471R4D. It had four engines instead of two. The fuselage was larger, longer, and wider. It sat on a tricycle gear, rather than main gear and a tail wheel. But there was no mistaking it for what it was, the Gooney-bird's big brother.
"OK?" Eaglebury asked.
"Good enough," Macmill
an said, and turned and went back into the cabin.
Eaglebury let the Gooney-bird slow, and then braked it to a stop and killed the right engine.
Master Sergeant Wojinski lowered the stair-door. Then he easily picked up the two forty-pound aircraft batteries, one in each hand, and went down the steps. He began to trot, holding the heavy batteries away from his body so that, swinging, they would not hit him.
He trotted three rows deep into the parked C-54s and put the batteries behind the landing gear of one of them. It. Colonels Charles and Macmillan ran after him. Charles had a large avionic technician's tool kit, ametal box two feet long and a foot high, cradled in his arms.
W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels Page 47