W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels

by The Colonels(Lit)

  He saw the canopies, three of them, pop open. And as if the popping open of the canopies was a cue, he heard the faint sound of truck engines coming up the hill.

  The two parachutists and the cargo bag landed almost in the center of the field. They did not run (as Ellis thought they would) for the tree line at either edge of the field. He saw SFC Haywood, whom he had sent to the far edge of the field, standing at the tree line frantically waving a handkerchief.

  But the parachutists looking down the hill did not see him. And apparently they couldn't hear him. They stood where they were and divested themselves of the leather HALO gear. And left it where they were.

  They were, Ellis saw, in civilian clothing: flower-printed shirts and cotton pants. They were not armed, either, he saw with surprise. What they took from the cargo container was suitcases. They were either Cubans or Americans intending to pass themselves off as Cubans.

  Cursing his stupidity for not thinking of it before, he realized that the jumpers had seen the trucks coming up the mountain and had realized that it was more important to get off the field immediately, even though that meant the inevitable discovery of the chutes and other equipment later.

  It was also entirely possible, Ellis realized, that even though they had popped their chutes no more than 800 feet off the ground, the chutes had been seen by the truckloads of farm girls and their escorts from the People's Revolutionary Militia.

  Why they didn't run instantly for the woods became immediately evident.

  A pickup carrying a cabful of revolutionary guards appeared on the road. The jumpers apparently had decided that they would appear less suspicious walking down the road than running for the trees.

  It took the revolutionary guards longer to spot the two men walking down the road than Ellis thought it would. But when they saw them, the driver immediately raced toward them, skidded the truck sideward on the road, and stopped.

  The guards leaped from the truck brandishing their weapons. The two parachutists, who had made no attempt to run, put their hands in the air.

  Ellis slid down the tree and ran back through the woods to the road. It was further than he thought it was and when he finally reached the road, he understood why. He had become disoriented in the woods, and was much further down the hill than he had planned to be. He didn't know exactly where he was, only that he was further down the hill than the two men he had left to guard it.

  He ran up the road, once almost dropping his Thompson.45 ACP submachine gun. He had been given his choice of weapons, and he had elected to take a stockless Thompson with a 50-round drum magazine, for no better reason that he had once seen Alan Ladd use one against the Japanese on a late, late movie on television.

  He heard the truck coming down the hill.

  He kept running up the hill.

  He saw a familiar stand of trees. He was almost to the men he had left by the side of the road. But there was no time to talk to them, to explain what had happened.

  Now that he was faced with it, he knew there was no chance at all that he could stand in the road and mow the bad guys down with the tommy gun. For one thing, if he did manage to hit the pickup truck, he would more than likely kill the people he was trying to save.

  He ran to the side of the road and dropped the Thompson in a ditch Then he tore off his fatigue jacket and dropped it on the road as he ran.

  When he saw the truck, he ran up the middle of the road toward it, frantically waving his arms.

  The truck skidded to a halt. Two revolutionary heroes were in the back of the truck training their weapons, a Thompson and a Garand, on the two prisoners in the bed of the truck. One of them very nearly lost his seat as the truck skidded to a stop.

  The driver opened the door and stepped onto the running board.

  "Qupasa?" he demanded.

  "There's more of them," Ellis shouted in Spanish. "Fifty of them!

  Maybe a hundred!" He gestured excitedly behind him toward the woods.

  The two men in the back of the truck stood up to get a better look. The driver of the truck ran toward Ellis, taking a Model 191 IAl Colt from a holster as he ran. He was in the process of chambering a round when the first machine gun burst came. It struck him four times in the chest and face. He stopped and dropped to his knees, a surprised look on his face, and then fell forward.

  Before the driver had dropped to his knees, there was a second and longer burst of machine-gun fire from the opposite side of the road. It knocked one of the revolutionary guards out of the truck and blew off the top of the head of the second one.

  Ellis ran to the truck.

  The prisoners jumped out of the bed. Ellis recognized one of them, a little Jew.

  "God, Ellis," It. Colonel Sanford T. Felter said, "am I glad to see you!"

  It was the little Jew who had been given a green beret the day Ellis had graduated from Mccall. Ellis, with an OCS reflex, saluted.

  Felter smiled, and returned it casually. Then he jumped into the cab of the pickup truck and raced the engine, furiously. He jumped out, raised the hood, and looked inside.

  "Nothing wrong with this except old age," he announced. Ellis saw that burst of machine-gun fire which had taken out the driver had stitched the pickup truck. But the damage was to the door, which had been open, and there was only one neat hole in the windshield.

  Felter went to the bed of the truck and handed Ellis one of the suitcases.

  "There's a transmitter in there for you," he said. "When you get it on the air, tell him we're on our way to Objective Delta. Your orders remain otherwise unchanged."

  By then the man with him was in the driver's seat of the pickup truck.

  Felter ran around to the other side and jumped in. The truck spun its wheels and headed down the hill.

  Ellis ran into the trees and lay down, his chest heaving, his eyes fuzzy.

  A moment later, two more pickups came around the turn. There were two short bursts of machine-gun fire, and one more long one. And then, a moment after that, a two- or three-shot burst.

  When he got to his feet, he saw that the two trucks had gone off the road, one on each side. The five men they had held were all dead. He wondered if that had been the smart thing to do, or whether it would have been better to just let the trucks pass.

  It- didn't matter. He went onto the road where the machine gunners could see him. He made a gesture, "pack it up, get away," and then he ran down the road until he found his Alan Ladd tommy gun. He picked it up and ran into the woods.

  It occurred to him that he had just been in his first combat, his first fire fight and he had not fired a round.

  When they got back to the camp, Lieutenant Ellis found that the blisters he earned carrying the suitcase with the transmitter in it were in vain. There were two barely visible holes in the cheap artificial leather. Two.308 inch diameter, bullets had gone through the transmitter before passing out the other side.

  There was nothing to do but sit tight, hoping that when they discovered the fight, Castro's soldiers would decide that whoever had been in the area had left in the missing pickup truck.

  (Three) 227 Melody Lane Ozark, Alabama 2030 Hours, 16 April 1961

  "He's got a visitor," Jane Jiggs said to her husband as she turned off Melody Lane and into the driveway of 227 Melody Lane. There was a Cadillac already there.

  "It doesn't have a post sticker," Paul Jiggs said. Then he saw the CD plate. "Diplomatic plates," he added. "It must be Jannier. I heard they were back."

  Major General Paul Jiggs started to open his door.

  "Let's get this over with," he said.

  "I don't want to block that car," Jane Jiggs said.

  She backed out the driveway and parked the car on the street. Her husband and the two men in the back seat, a colonel and a master sergeant, got out of the car and walked across the lawn toward the house.

  They were, she knew, a notification team. An ad hoc, unofficial notification team, but nevertheless a notification team about to discharge
an unpleasant duty.

  They had left her behind. Not out of discourtesy, she thought, but because their minds were on something else.

  She caught up with them at the door in time to hear Colonel Paul Hanrahan say to MI Sgt Wojinski, "Push the doorbell, Ski." Wojinski an illuminated button by the door. Chimes sounded.

  Major Craig W. Lowell appeared at the door in a powder blue polo shirt and pale yellow pants. When he saw them, he smiled broadly.

  "My God!" he said. "This is wonderful! We'll really have to kill a fatted calf. Jean-Philippe and Melody just this moment got here!"

  There was no reply.

  "To judge by your faces," he said, "old Silver Cloud Lowell has jumped to the wrong conclusion again. Now I'm afraid to ask why you're here."

  Colonel Hanrahan handed him the yellow teletype message:

  SECRET

  CIA MCLEAN VA VIA DEFENSE COMM AGENCY

  FOR COMMANDING GENERAL FORT RUCKER ALA

  FOLLOWING CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET EYES ONLY COMGEN FORT

  RUCKER QUOTE PLEASE PASS SOONEST FOR ACTION TO COL PAUL

  T. HANRAHAN BELIEVED TO BE AT YOUR STATION: THE DEPUTY

  DIRECTOR THE CIA REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT LT COL SANFORD T FELTER

  PRESENTLY SERVING WITH THIS AGENCY IS MISSING ON A FOREIGN ASSIGNMENT

  AND MAY BE PRESUMED DEAD.

  NO FURTHER INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. THE DIRECTOR

  BELIEVES THE ARMY IS THE AGENCY WHICH SHOULD

  INFORM SURVIVORS. ANY FURTHER INFORMATION RECEIVED WILL

  BE RELAYED AS RECEIVED. END QUOTE END TOPSECRET PORTION.

  IF COL HANRAHAN NOT PRESENT YOUR STATION PLEASE ADVISE

  4S2

  MEANS. FOR THE DIRECTOR. JAMES

  W STEM ME DEPDIR FOR ADMINISTRATION.

  "Oh, shit!" Lowell said.

  He turned from the door and went into the house. The others trooped after him.

  Madame Melody Dutton Greer Jannier, very pregnant, and her husband were in the living room.

  Jane Jiggs went to her and kissed her.

  "How are you, honey?" she asked.

  Melody gave her an impatient smile.

  "What's wrong, Craig?" Melody asked. He handed her the TWX. She read it, said

  "Damn!" and handed it to her husband.

  Both Major General Jiggs and Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan were uncomfortable with Lowell's violation of Security regulations. Neither Jean-Philippe nor Melody should have been shown a Top Secret TWX.

  "Ah, mon Dieu," said Jean-Philippe Jannier. "C'est le petit Ju ffrroce, nest-ce pas?" "Right," Lowell said very bitterly. "The ferocious little Jew. I think he would like that for an epitaph." "We thought," Jane Jiggs said, "that you might want to tell Sharon."

  "I've got a 23 laid on to take you to Atlanta," Paul Jiggs said.

  "No way," Lowell said, firmly, coldly. "I did that the last time the Mouse was playing hero and they thought he'd gotten himself blown away."

  There was no reply.

  Major Lowell said

  "Shit!" again, and there were tears in his eyes.

  Then he asked: "How do we know he's dead?"

  "They must have a pretty good idea, Craig," Hanrahan said, "or they wouldn't have sent the TWX."

  "Well, I'm not going to put Sharon through that ordeal again on the strength of a CIA guess," Lowell said, flatly.

  He went to the bar and set glasses neatly in a line, one for everyone present, and poured brandy in each glass.

  He picked his up and sipped at it. "There's soda and ice, if anybody wants it." No one moved until Jane Jiggs picked up one of the glasses and drank it down neat. Then she poured more. After that Jiggs, Hanrahan, and Wojinski helped themselves.

  "Sharon has a right to be told," Jane said.

  "Let me tell you something about Sharon, Jane," Lowell said. "Every time the Mouse goes off on one of his little trips, Sharon is convinced she's seen him for the last time. I'm not going to be responsible for telling her he's dead for sure until I know for sure. I repeat, "How do we know he's dead?" "Because the CIA says so," Jiggs said.

  "Screw the CIA," Lowell said. "What do we know for sure?"

  Hanrahan started to speak, stopped, and looked at Paul Jiggs, who nodded his permission. The security dam had been breached; they might as well go all the way.

  "We know Sandy jumped into Cuba on the morning of 7 April," Hanrahan said.

  "He jumped into Cuba? In Christ's name, why?" Lowell exploded.

  "Because Eaglebury was captured and executed," Hanrahan said.

  "Did you get that from the CIA, too?" Lowell asked, bitterly. "Or is that a fact?"

  "Unfortunately, it's a fact," Jiggs said. "The Mexican ambassador gave the State Department a photograph. Which came into their hands from unspecified Cuban sources. Apparently they wanted to inform us they know of certain plans."

  "A photograph of what?"

  "Of Commander Eaglebury after he had been tortured and shot through the back of his neck," Hanrahan said..

  "Oh, my God!" Jane Jiggs said. She had not heard that before.

  "He was the man you stole the radios with?" Melody Dutton Jannier asked.

  Jiggs and Hanrahan looked at her in confusion. "Yes, ma'am," MI Sgt Wojinski said.

  "The CIA is apparently going on the assumption that during Eaglebury's interrogation, other things came out," Hanrahan said, carefully.

  "That means the Mouse jumped right into the bastards' arms," Lowell said. "With all he knew, he shouldn't have gone anywhere near Cuba!" "I can't comment on that, Craig," Hanrahan said. "Did you know he was relieved as Action Officer?"

  "No, I didn't," Lowell said. "Why?"

  "When Kennedy took office, they put the whole thing in the hands of the

  CIA."

  "Those bastards play games," Lowell said. "Are you suggesting that he was set up?" "I am not," Hanrahan said. "He must have been picked up in the execution of his mission."

  "Which was?"

  "Obviously what Eaglebury failed to do. I can't tell you more than that, Craig," Hanrahan said. "I don't even know i-f what I was told was the truth." "Jesus Christ!" Lowell said, angrily. He glowered for a moment at the TWX, and then went on. "But we don't know for sure that he's dead, right? For all we know, he could be sitting with Ellis and that god damned nay-aid in the mountains." "What makes you think he's with Ellis?" Hanrahan asked. "I set up that nay-aid mission," Lowell said. "And I know Eaglebury jumped in with it."

  There was no reply.

  "Well, do we? What do they have to say?" Lowell snapped.

  "Communication with Ellis is limited," Hanrahan said. "He doesn't have a transmitter. Felter took him one, but it hasn't been on the air."

  Lowell screwed up his face thoughtfully, poured himself another drink, and then poured it back into the bottle.

  "Someone's going to have to tell Sharon," Jane Jiggs said, softly.

  "Not me," Lowell said. "And I don't think anybody else should, either, at least not until I get back." "Back from where?" asked Jiggs.

  Lowell looked at him and raised his eyebrows at what he obviously considered a dumb question.

  "General, I respectfully request ten days' ordinary leave," Lowell said. "I have something like ninety days accumulated leave to my credit."

  "Don't be an ass, Craig," Jiggs said. "What the hell could you do down there?" "I won't know until I get there," Lowell said.

  "That show is about to get going," Jiggs said.

  "Within the next couple of days, I would guess," Lowell agreed, "if Ellis and his guys are still there... They can't stay forever."

  "Next Monday," Hanrahan said. It was Thursday. Jiggs, startled, gave him a dirty look, started to say something, and then changed his mind.

  "Then I'll have plenty of time to get down there," Lowell said.

  "I officially forbid you to go anywhere near there, Craig," Paul Jiggs said. "I'm sorry, Craig."

  "What the hell can you do to me?" Lowell asked.

  "Court-
martial you, if it comes to that." "Let me tell you something, Paul," Lowell said. "Just before I left Hawaii, I had a couple of drinks and made a telephone call. I told my cousin to get our senator on the horn and discreetly inquire when I could expect to be promoted. Black's going to send an aviation battalion to Vietnam. In my innocence and since Black had just expressed his deep appreciation for my splendid services I thought, if I could get that little silver leaf, I could command it."