The Berets

by W. E. B Griffin

  “It’s classified, Craig,” Roberts repeated.

  “This place is probably more secure than the Situation Room in the White House,” Lowell said. “Full of clever little gadgets that detect monitoring devices.”

  “Your participation in the Eagle flight program was considered, Craig,” Bob Bellmon said, “and decided against. And I think we should change the subject.”

  “What’s the Eagle flight program?” Barbara asked.

  “We’re sending aircraft and three hundred pilots to Vietnam,” Lowell told her. “And I am not on the list.”

  “That was a flagrant breech of security,” Bellmon said. “Do you realize that?”

  “Come on, Bob,” Lowell said. “Don’t evade the issue’ by starting that.”

  Bellmon glowered at him.

  “That major of yours, what’s-his-name? Brokenhammer?” Lowell said to Bill Roberts. “The one who’s always sucking on a noisy pipe?”

  “Brochhammer,” General Roberts corrected him automatically.

  “Brochhammer, then. There’s no reason he can’t do what you’ve got me doing. He can do it better.”

  Roberts did not reply.

  “Phil Parker’s going,” Lowell said.

  “You saw the list?” Bellmon asked.

  “Sure, I saw the list,” Lowell said.

  “I’d love to know who showed it to you,” Bellmon said angrily.

  “Somebody who was as surprised as I am that I’m not on it,” Lowell said.

  “I told you the decision has been made,” Bellmon said.

  “I think I’m entitled to an explanation,” Lowell said.

  “What gives you that idea?” Bellmon said. “‘Entitled’!”

  Barbara was now alarmed. The situation was on the edge of getting out of control.

  “Craig,” General Roberts said, “if it will bring this awkward situation to an end, I’ll give you an explanation.”

  “Okay,” Lowell said.

  “There is reason to believe that both you and Jim Brochhammer are very shortly going to be involved in something in which the both of you can make a greater contribution than you could flying in Indochina.”

  “Doing what?” Lowell asked. “Shuffling more paper?”

  Roberts was about to reply when there was the sound of a key in the door.

  Roberts stopped, mouth open and looked at the door.

  A stocky, well-dressed man in his forties pushed the door open. He was having trouble getting the key out of the lock, and it was a moment before he realized there were people in the room. A look of annoyance flickered across his face, quickly replaced by a forced smile.

  He was Porter Craig, Craig Lowell’s cousin, the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes, 13 Wall Street.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  “Your timing, Porter,” Craig Lowell said sharply, “is superb.”

  “I would say, Colonel,” General Bellmon said, “that he got here just in time. Hello, Porter.”

  “Did I interrupt anything?”

  “Did you ever,” Barbara said.

  “Come in and choke yourself on a toothpick, Porter,” Lowell said.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Porter Craig asked as he absently went to the man and woman and shook their hands.

  Lowell didn’t reply.

  “When I finally found where you were supposed to be in the Pentagon, they said you were at home; so I called here, and there was never an answer.”

  “That may be because I disconnected the phone,” Lowell said. “I was working here.”

  “Is it connected now?” Porter Craig asked, alarmed. “I’ve got calls in to both senators, and they’ll call me here.”

  “It’s connected,” Lowell said. “What’s going on?”

  “The army has Geoff in jail at Fort Jackson,” Porter Craig said.

  “That was quick,” Lowell said, amused. “He’s only been in two months.”

  “It’s not funny, goddamn you,” Porter said. “He’s facing twenty years in Leavenworth.”

  “What did he do?” Barbara Bellmon asked.

  She got a withering look from her husband. She understood it. He was afraid that he would become involved in whatever difficulty Geoffrey Craig was in at Fort Jackson. Porter Craig did not understand the army: A general officer could not intercede on behalf of an enlisted man.

  “There’s half a dozen charges,” Porter said, “the significant one being assault on a noncommissioned officer.”

  “He slugged a sergeant,” Lowell translated. “I didn’t think he had it in him.”

  “Craig!” Sharon said.

  “I had to call Dorothy’s doctor for her,” Porter Craig said. “She’s hysterical.”

  “You shouldn’t have told her,” Craig Lowell said. “You’re pretty hysterical yourself. It was obviously contagious.”

  “Goddamn, if it was your son…!” Porter Craig said.

  “Have a little champagne,” Lowell said. “Better yet, have a drink. Calm down and then start at the beginning.”

  “I don’t want a goddamned drink!” Porter Craig said.

  “Have one anyway,” Lowell said, and went to a bar and returned with a glass half full of Scotch. “Drink it, Porter,” he said. “If you want to help Geoff, you’re going to have to calm down. You’ve already done one damned dumb thing.”

  Porter took a swallow of the whiskey.

  “What was that?”

  “If you want the brass at Jackson to stick it in Geoff, have your senators put their two cents in,” Lowell said. “I hope you haven’t been able to get through to them.”

  Porter Craig shook his head. “One of them is ‘unavailable at the moment.’ I suppose that means he’s fallen down drunk again. And the other one is going to dinner and then some goddamned play. My secretary is trying to run them down.”

  “Well, if she does find them, and they call here, tell them you just wanted to say hello,” Lowell said.

  “Did you hear what I said? Geoff’s facing twenty years in prison.”

  “Tell me how you heard about all this? Did Geoff call up and tell you all this?”

  “Geoff hasn’t said a word,” Porter Craig said. “And when I called down there, they wouldn’t even let me talk to him.”

  “What do you know for sure,” Lowell asked, “and how do you know it?”

  “Geoff wrote a check to a lawyer down there. Fifteen hundred dollars,” Porter Craig said. “They thought it was unusual and showed it to me. So I tried to call Geoff, and I got some sergeant on the line who told me he was ‘confined’ and that I couldn’t talk to him. And then I got the runaround and wound up talking to some lieutenant colonel, who said that he couldn’t discuss the case with me. Finally I called the lawyer, who’s from Columbia, and he gave me the runaround. But finally he told me what was going on. At that point I tried to call you, but you had unplugged the telephone.”

  Barbara felt sorry for him.

  “Perhaps it’s not as bad as it looks,” she said.

  “There’s one way to find out,” Lowell said. He sat down on the couch and pulled the telephone on the coffee table to him.

  “What are you doing?” General Bellmon asked.

  “I’m calling Jackson,” Lowell said as he dialed for the operator.

  Porter Craig sat beside him.

  “I think maybe we should call this evening off,” General Bellmon said softly to General Roberts.

  “Don’t be silly,” Lowell said. “You didn’t slug a sergeant. Eat an oyster or something; this won’t take long.”

  Barbara Bellmon went to the table, placed half a dozen of the tiny sandwiches on a plate, and carried them to Porter Craig. He shook his head.

  “You haven’t had anything to eat,” she said. “And you’ve had the whiskey.”

  “Bring me a couple of those, will you, please?” Lowell said. And then to the telephone: “Fort Jackson, South Carolina, station to station,” he said
.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Bob Bellmon said.

  “Nobody asked you,” Barbara said to him. They locked eyes for a moment, and then he shrugged and went to the buffet and helped himself to cherrystone clams.

  “Post stockade, please,” Lowell said…. “Put the duty officer on, please, Sergeant,” he said…. “Lieutenant, this is Colonel Lowell. You have a prisoner in there named Craig, Geoffrey, II. What’s he charged with?…Of course, you can tell me, Lieutenant. It’s not classified information…. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  He hung the telephone up.

  “He is to be tried before a general court on several charges,” he said, as much to Bellmon and Roberts as to Porter Craig, “the most significant of which is that he committed an assault upon a noncommissioned officer in the execution of his office.”

  “A general court?” General Roberts asked. There are three levels of army courts-martial: summary, special, and general. General courts-martial are those empowered to impose the most severe penalties.

  “They’re apparently trying to sock it to him,” Lowell said. He heard what he said. “No pun intended.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I better go down there,” Lowell said.

  “Craig…” Roberts began, and then stopped.

  “Duty first, General,” Lowell said. “I know.”

  “I…uh…don’t like—”

  “‘Aircraft Procurement Projections Through Fiscal 1965,’” Lowell said, “classified secret, in quintuplicate, are in my safe.”

  “You’re finished?” Roberts asked, genuinely surprised.

  “And you didn’t believe me, did you, when I said I could work more efficiently here?”

  “I’m surprised,” Roberts said. Even as a rush-rush job, he had not expected the report for another three or four days.

  “I’m sorry,” Lowell said.

  “What?”

  “If I had known my paper-shuffling skill would keep me from flying like an eagle, General, I would have been far, far less dedicated.”

  “You’re thinking of going there tonight?” Bellmon asked. It was more of an accusation.

  “If I’m there first thing in the morning,” Lowell said. “I can be back here by 1300, maybe a little later. That will give your Major Brokenhammer all morning to find fault with ‘Projections Through ’65.’”

  “Brochhammer,” Roberts corrected him again automatically.

  “You’ve been drinking,” Bellmon said. “You shouldn’t fly.”

  “I’ll get a pilot from Butler Aviation,” Lowell said. “There’s always somebody over there who wants to pick up the time.” He looked at Porter Craig.

  “You’ll get the bill for that, Porter. And you can ride out to the airport with me and catch the shuttle back to New York.”

  “Thank you, Craig,” Porter said.

  “Before you get all wet-eyed, Porter,” Lowell said, “if Geoff is guilty as charged, he’s probably going to go to jail. And I won’t do anything about that. What I’ll do is go down there and make sure he’s not being crapped on. But that’s all I’ll do.”

  “He’s just a kid, for Christ’s sake, Craig.”

  “When he came in the army, they read him the rules,” Lowell said. “High on the list of no-no’s is beating up your sergeant.”

  “How do you know he did that?”

  “The lieutenant on the phone just now said ‘Oh, that’s the wise-ass who put his sergeant in the hospital with a broken jaw.’”

  “If that’s the case,” Porter Craig said loyally, “he must have had his reasons.”

  “I’m sure he thinks he does,” Lowell said. “But what I’m afraid of is that his reasons won’t wash. The only excuse that counts is self-defense.”

  He walked out of the room and into the office, returning a minute or so later with a briefcase.

  “Here’s the fiscal ’65 projections, Bill,” he said, handing them to Roberts.

  “What am I supposed to do with them?”

  “You don’t really want this grounded eagle to answer that, General, do you?” Lowell replied. “If I did, Bellmon would have me in the stockade with Cousin Geoff.”

  Jeanne Roberts tittered. Barbara Bellmon chuckled. Their husbands glowered at them.

  Porter Craig looked confused.

  Barbara Bellmon walked to the buffet and picked up the magnum of champagne. “Champagne, anyone?” she cheerfully inquired.

  (Two)

  Near Durham, North Carolina

  0415 Hours, 11 December 1961

  The farmer who owned the field they were standing and waiting in offered Lieutenant Tom Ellis a quart mason jar containing a clear liquid. The farmer had served with the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment of the Eighty-second Airborne Division during War II. He now was sixty pounds heavier than he had been in 1945, and much balder.

  “Clears the sinuses,” he said. “Made it myself.”

  “Thank you,” Lieutenant Ellis said politely, and took a swallow, prepared for a burning sensation.

  It was not nearly as bad as he expected. His experience with “white lightning” was limited, and what he’d had before had seared his throat and seized his brain like the punishment of the damned. This was pretty good stuff, and he said so.

  “You can make better than you can buy,” the farmer told him. “The secret is cleanliness. Stainless-steel retort, copper pipes, and cleanliness. And then you have to age it. That’s more than a year old.”

  “Very good,” Lieutenant Ellis said.

  They were standing next to Lieutenant Ellis’s automobile. It was a Jaguar XK-120, which five days before had been the property of a captain of the 505th Parachute Infantry who had placed entirely too much faith in three queens. Lieutenant Ellis held a king-high straight.

  Ellis had, as a gentleman, given the captain three days to come up with the thousand dollars the captain had used as a symbol of his faith in three queens (pledging equity in the Jaguar in lieu of cash); and when the cash itself turned out to not be forthcoming, the captain and Ellis had gone to the Fort Bragg branch of the First National Bank of Fayetteville and sorted the situation out. The captain then drove away from the bank at the wheel of what until then had been Lieutenant Ellis’s car, an MG TD. And Lieutenant Ellis and the bank now owned just about equal parts of the Jaguar XK-120.

  The drive from Fort Bragg to Durham the previous afternoon had been very pleasant in the Jaguar, although it drank considerably more high-test gasoline than the MG consumed of regular. Since his mission to Durham was official, a jeep had been reserved for his use. But he had two missions in Durham, one official and one personal, and he needed for that one personal wheels, so the jeep sat in the motor pool at Bragg.

  On his arrival, per his instructions, he had made contact with “the host”—the farmer—and the host had insisted that he come for dinner. The host had a large family, but two of his sons were put together, so that Lieutenant Ellis could sleep in their bed.

  There were large lithographs of Jesus Christ hung on various walls in the farmhouse, and a lengthy grace was offered before an enormous meal. After dinner a scrapbook was brought out, and the host traced his World War II service with the Eighty-second from North Africa to Berlin. The first Kodak Baby Brownie photographs were sort of fuzzy, but in North Africa the host had liberated a Leica camera, and thereafter they were actually of high technical and gradually improving artistic quality.

  At 0345 the next morning, Lieutenant Ellis was awakened by the Host’s dog, a large short-haired brown and black animal that enthusiastically licked Ellis’s face.

  “Half an hour until they drop ’em,” the Host announced happily from the door a few seconds later.

  Ellis quickly showered and shaved and dressed in fatigues. He would dearly have liked a cup of coffee, but the Host announced they would have breakfast after the drop.

  In the field the host handed the quart of white lightning back to Ellis, who politely took another s
wallow.

  “I put a couple of quarts in the trunk,” the Host said. “You can take it with you.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Ellis said.

  “Hell, I want to,” the Host said.

  Faintly, far off, Ellis heard the sound of an aircraft engine.

  “Hell, that ain’t them,” the Host announced. “That’s a pair of little bitty one-engine airplanes.”

  Ellis urgently searched the sky for the aircraft the Host had found so quickly. He found them finally, approaching from the Southeast. Two Beavers. It was them.

  “They’re Beavers,” Ellis explained to the Host. “One engine, but they carry five people.”

  “In those little bitty airplanes?”

  “They’re bigger than they look,” Ellis said.

  “I’ll be damned,” the Host said. He took another pull at the white lightning and handed it to Ellis.

  “I really don’t need any more of this,” Ellis said.

  “Hell, boy, my motto is ‘Get all you can while you can.’”

  Ellis was aware that a warm glow in his stomach was spreading throughout his body. And he was aware that it was getting pretty close to the time for the drop.

  He opened the door and reached into the back of the Jaguar. The Host’s dog, which was sitting upright there, felt like licking his face. Ellis pushed the dog out of the way and picked up an Angry Nine, more formally known as the Army-Navy Ground Radio Communications Set, Model 9, or AN/GRC-9.

  He pulled out of the car, leaned against the hood, turned the radio on, and put the headset to his ear.

  Just in time.

  “If you’re down there and awake, Ellis, they just went out the door!” the voice of one of the pilots came metallically over the radio.

  “Roger,” Ellis said to the microphone, and then pointed up at the aircraft. The Host let his dog out of the car. The dog immediately raised his leg and decorated the Jaguar’s lovely yellow lacquer near the rear right wheel.

  “I don’t see anything,” the Host said. But then: “I’ll be damned, there they are!”

  A line of parachutes had opened in the early-morning sky. Ellis counted them. Eleven. Nine personnel chutes and two small cargo chutes.

  “Now we sit here and hope nobody goes into the trees and breaks his leg,” Ellis said. He devoutly hoped that would not happen. If somebody got hurt, it would be necessary to arrange for an ambulance, and then to accompany him to a local hospital, to notify Bragg, and to fill out a voluminous report. That would take most of the day, and he had something more important to do.