“He came to you?” Bellmon asked, genuinely surprised. “He had his assignment. George Rand, who is writing his own TO and E, came up with an ‘executive assistant’ slot for him. It’s a damned good assignment.”
“He came to me,” Hanrahan repeated.
“I just don’t understand that,” Bellmon said.
“Well, he got together with his pal Lunsford—” Hanrahan said.
“He’s mentioned him. Who is he?” Bellmon interrupted.
“They knew each other in ’Nam. He was the A Team commander Johnny was trying to extract when he got shot down. Felter had him in the Congo, walking around in the woods with the Simbas. He got a Silver Star for it . . . from the President, incidentally. Who put him on the major’s list. Good officer.”
“And this is his idea, then?” Bellmon asked.
“No, it was Oliver’s idea. They showed up drunk.”
“Drunk?”
“Drunk. That didn’t surprise me about Lunsford, but I was surprised about Oliver. And then it occurred to me, Bob, that he was damned near as emotionally exhausted as Lunsford.”
“You’re suggesting I burned him out?” Bellmon asked coldly.
“I’m suggesting he broke his hump working for you,” Hanrahan said. “He thinks the only reason you don’t walk on water is that you don’t like wet shoes. And then he had some personal problems.”
“You mean the reluctant widow?” Bellmon asked.
“Yeah,” Hanrahan said. “She told him fish or cut bait. Her and the kid, or him and the Army. He chose the Army.”
“And then there was the beloved sister,” Lowell said.
“I don’t know about that,” Bellmon said.
“When he wouldn’t let her cheat him out of a million point three, she told him what an ungrateful sonofabitch he was.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” Bellmon said. “There was something about a sister, but—”
“From what I hear, she is a real bitch,” Lowell said. “But she did raise Johnny from a kid. . . . I know why it bothers him.”
“He told you all this?” Bellmon asked.
“No. He told Father Lunsford, and when I asked Father why Oliver wanted to join the Foreign Legion, he told me.”
“Tell me?”
“Right now, it’s those two against the world,” Hanrahan said. “Lunsford’s on the outs with his family—or some of them, anyway. And Oliver has been kicked in the balls by both his sister and the widow.”
“And he thinks running around in the woods with you guys, eating snakes, is going to make things better?”
“They both need a rest,” Hanrahan said. “After which, I can find something for them to do. I don’t intend to have them running around eating snakes. They’ve had all the on-the-job training they need in that area.”
“If he goes to work for George Rand,” Bellmon said firmly, “there is absolutely no question in my mind that he would make the major’s five-percent list in a year. I just wrote him one hell of an efficiency report.”
“What he does not need at this point in his career is another year or so of sixteen-hour days working for a general officer,” Hanrahan said just as firmly. “Can’t you see that? As soon as he gets home from ’Nam, you put him to work. He would work just as hard for George Rand. And with his lady love giving him the boot . . . That’s a prescription for a breakdown if I ever heard one.”
“I vote with the redhead,” Lowell said.
Bellmon looked at him coldly, shrugged, and then turned back to Hanrahan.
“So what would you do with him? Notice the tense. If you had him. I am still ten seconds away from calling the chief of staff.”
“I think you better tell him, Red,” Lowell said.
Hanrahan looked at Lowell for a long moment, obviously making up his mind.
“I suppose Bob will get involved sooner or later, won’t he?” he said finally, and looked at Bellmon.
“Involved with what?” Bellmon asked.
“Operation Earnest,” Hanrahan said. “It’s a Felter operation. And it’s classified Top Secret/Earnest.”
“What the hell is it?” Bellmon asked.
“Lunsford’s the action officer, and Oliver will be handling the aviation for him.”
“I asked what the hell it is,” Bellmon said impatiently. “What is ‘Operation Earnest’?”
Hanrahan looked at Lowell before replying. Lowell shrugged.
“Felter has information that Che Guevara’s going to Africa to cause trouble. They’re going to keep an eye on him,” Hanrahan said.
“His Christian name,” Lowell said dryly, “is Ernesto.”
“I’m not quite sure I understand,” Bellmon said. He obviously did not like what he had heard. “You’re going to try to locate him, is that what you’re saying? Isn’t that the CIA’s business?”
Hanrahan shrugged.
“What are you going to do if you find him?”
“Reason with him,” Lowell said dryly. “Try to point out the error of his ways. He wasn’t always a murderous sonofabitch who beats prisoners to death with baseball bats; and as Father Whatsisname of Boys’ Town said, ‘there is no such thing as a bad boy.’”
“You mean assassinate him,” Bellmon said.
“No, that’s absolutely not an option,” Lowell said. “I told you what the orders are. Keep an eye on him. Maybe cause him a little trouble, but that’s all.”
“That’s the CIA’s business,” Bellmon argued.
“The President gave the job to Felter,” Hanrahan said.
Clearly, Bellmon thought, after the Felter-run operation to rescue hostages from Stanleyville had gone off so well, he enjoyed, for the moment at least, the admiration of the President. The President admired results.
“If the CIA had to run around in the Africa jungle,” Lowell offered, “keeping an eye on Guevara, they’d get mud on their shiny loafers. Couldn’t have that, could we?”
“I don’t see why Felter would put Johnny Oliver in something like that,” Bellmon said. “He has neither the training nor the experience for something like that.”
When neither Hanrahan nor Lowell replied, Bellmon added, “I still think he’d be better off working for George Rand.”
“It’s done, Bob,” Hanrahan said. “If you raised a lot of hell about it, you might get it undone. But I’m not sure. Why don’t you just let it be? If nothing else, for his sake, give him a little time to get over the woman. I’m probably betraying a confidence when I say this, but Major Lunsford told me he broke down and cried like a baby.”
Bellmon looked at him. It was a moment before he spoke.
“Just within these walls, I am about out of patience with that goddamned widow.” Then he shrugged. “Okay. If the best thing for Johnny to do is go eat snakes, bon appétit!”
“There’s one more thing, Bob,” Lowell said. “He had planned to tell you about this tonight. Apparently, he was afraid of your reaction. Red told him you already knew—that he’d gotten a copy of the TWX changing his orders.”
“I’m not about to add to the poor guy’s problems. A crazy widow and you two, plus Felter, is more than enough of a burden for a young captain to bear.”
Lowell smiled and chuckled.
“Well, now that we’re all old pals again,” Lowell said, “would anybody like another drink?”
“Please,” Generals Bellmon and Hanrahan said, almost in unison.
V
[ ONE ]
Quarters One
Fort Rucker, Alabama
1825 18 December 1964
Second Lieutenant Robert F. Bellmon entered his parents’ home via the kitchen door and found Jacques Portet standing on the kitchen table, and his sister fussing with Jack’s trousers’ cuffs.
“What the hell is going on?” Bobby demanded.
“Ask the lieutenant,” Marjorie said.
“Jack, what the hell is going on?”
“That’s ‘what the hell is going on, sir?’ ” Jack said
. “See if you can remember that in the future.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Marjorie said disgustedly. But there was a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Those are officer’s trousers,” Bobby observed in surprise, having seen the black stripe down the trousers’ seam that differentiates officer’s trousers from those of enlisted men.
“Splendid!” Jack said. “Perception is a characteristic to be encouraged in junior officers.”
“Marjorie?” Bobby asked, sounding young and confused.
“The damned fool took a commission,” Marjorie said.
“Took a commission?”
“As a first lieutenant,” Jack said. “You don’t have to stand at attention in my presence, Bobby, but a little respect would be in order.”
“You can get off the table,” Marjorie said. “And put your other pants back on.”
Jack jumped nimbly off the table.
“Stick around, Bobby,” Jack said. “I need a favor.”
He walked out of the kitchen, and Marjorie followed him.
Two minutes later, he walked back in. He laid a uniform tunic and a handful of plastic-boxed insignia on the table.
“I don’t know where that stuff goes, Bobby,” Jack said. “Would you show me?”
“You’re really an officer?” Bobby asked.
Jack nodded.
Bobby regained his composure.
“Then let me offer my congratulations, Jack.”
He put out his hand, and Jack took it.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “Your sister is less than thrilled, as you may have noticed.”
“What’s that all about?” Bobby asked.
“She wanted me safe and sound at the Instrument Examiner Board,” Jack said.
Major General Robert F. Bellmon entered the kitchen a few minutes later. Bobby was bent over the kitchen table, pinning the crossed rifles of Infantry to the lapels of Jack’s tunic.
“Hello, Jack,” he said, offering his hand.
“Good evening, sir,” Jack said. “I’d hoped to have this finished before you got home.”
“What’s going on?” Bellmon said.
“Bobby’s pinning my new insignia on for me,” Jack said. “I don’t know where it all goes.”
Bellmon looked at the tunic and then at Jack.
Jack handed him a copy of his orders.
“Felter?” he asked when he had read them.
“Yes, sir,” Jack said. “Colonel Felter thought it would solve a lot of problems if I was commissioned.”
“And he arranged it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does Marjorie know?”
“Marjorie’s pissed,” Bobby said. “She called him a ‘damned fool.’ ”
Bellmon shook his head, then looked at Jack.
“May I show these to Bobby?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Bellmon handed the orders to Bobby, then turned to Jack.
“There’s no question in my mind that, with your professional qualifications and character, you’ll make a fine officer, Jack,” he said, and put out his hand. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jack said.
“And it will solve a lot of problems about your marriage, won’t it?” Bellmon said.
“That may be on hold, sir,” Jack said.
Bellmon looked at him for a moment.
“Marjorie’ll come around,” Bellmon said. “I think what she had in mind was you being out at the Instrument Examiner Board, and not in Vietnam, and is honest enough to admit it.”
“Yes, sir. I think that’s it.”
“You start working for Felter, you may both wish you were in Vietnam,” Bellmon said, then added: “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just found out that Johnny Oliver is also going to work for Colonel Felter, and I’m a little less than thrilled about that.”
“Yes, sir, I’d heard.”
“Well, first things first,” Bellmon said, and went to a cupboard and took out a bottle of Martel cognac and three snifter glasses. He poured drinks and handed glasses to Jack and Bobby.
“A successful career, Jack,” he said.
“Hear, hear,” Bobby said, then touched glasses.
“When you have Lieutenant Portet’s insignia where it should be, Bobby, call Captain Hornsby, and tell him to provide places at the head table tonight for Lieutenant Portet and his lady,” General Bellmon said.
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said.
[ TWO ]
Dining Room A
The Officers’ Open Mess
Fort Rucker, Alabama
2115 18 December 1964
Dining Room A of the officers’ open mess was usually the cafeteria. It was on the main floor of the club, separated from it by folding doors. When it was in use for a more formal purpose, such as the Commanding General’s Christmas Dinner-Dance, the glass-covered steam trays of the cafeteria serving line were hidden by folding screens, and the plastic-topped tables rearranged and covered with linen.
The tables tonight had been arranged in a long-sided U, with a shorter line of tables in the middle of the U. Seating was determined by protocol, modified slightly by the unanticipated presence of Brigadier General Paul Hanrahan and First Lieutenant Portet and his lady.
The commanding general and his lady sat, naturally, at the head of the table, in the center of the U. To their left sat the chief of staff and his lady, and to the right, Brigadier General Hanrahan. No one sat across from the general officers and their ladies.
People were seated on both sides of the legs of the U, their proximity to the head of the table determined, for the most part, by their rank, and sometimes by their seniority within that rank.
A corkboard the size of a sheet of plywood mounted on the wall of the small office of General Bellmon’s aide-de-camp had been used. Every invitee was represented by a small piece of cardboard on which had been typed his name, grade, and date of rank. These were thumbtacked to the corkboard onto a representation of the arrangement of the tables in Dining Room A, and rearranged as necessary.
One of the things that would be useful to him in his later career that Johnny Oliver had learned during his tour as aide-de-camp was that General Robert F. Bellmon looked forward to the official parties (there were half a dozen a year) with slightly less enthusiasm than he would look forward to a session with the post-dental surgeon where the agenda was the removal, without anesthesia, of all of his teeth.
This was not evident to the guests, or to their wives. Bellmon had decided that the parties, which were more or less an Army tradition, were part of his duties, and his duty was very important to him. He and Mrs. Bellmon, and the chief of staff and his wife (and both aides-de-camp, who took turns discreetly whispering the invitees last name, read from invitations), stood in the foyer for forty-five minutes, shaking hands with, and smiling at, and more often than not coming up with a personal word of greeting for everybody who showed up.
Once, sometime during Johnny Oliver’s year’s tour as aide-de-camp, General Bellmon had come to his office late at night and found Oliver standing before the corkboard rearranging the guests for an official affair.
“It began, these official damned dinners, with the Brits,” Bellmon told him. “Regimental ‘dining in’ once a month. Good idea. Once a month they got together, shoptalk was forbidden, and they got a little tight. And it worked here, before the war, when there was rarely more than a regiment on a post. Thirty, forty officers on a post, including all the second lieutenants. This is out of hand, of course. But how the hell can you stop it? If it wasn’t for these damned things, a field-grade officer could do a three-year tour on the post and never get to see the commanding general except maybe at an inspection, or a briefing. And the wife never would. The most important element in command, Johnny, is making the subordinate believe he’s doing something important. If he doesn’t feel he knows the commanding officer . . .”
Johnny Oliver had also learned that sometimes getting to person
ally know the commanding general could get out of hand. Officers’ wives were the worst offenders, but not by much. One of the aides’ functions at official dinners was to rescue the general from people who had backed him into a corner, either to dazzle him with their charm and wit, or to make a pitch for some pet project of theirs, ranging from getting use of the post theatre for amateur theatrics, to revamping the entire pilot training program.
“General, excuse me, sir,” Captain Oliver had often said, to separate General Bellmon from pressing admirers, “General Facility is calling.”
General Facility was a white china plumbing apparatus hung on the gentlemen’s rest room tiled wall.
Nobody in the men’s room would bend his ear while the general was taking a leak. But from what Oliver had seen of the women, especially with a couple of drinks in them, the general would not be equally safe in the ladies’ room.
When Johnny Oliver entered the club, Captain Richard Hornsby, the new aide-de-camp—wearing, Oliver knew, his dress mess uniform for the first time—was standing, where Oliver had stood so often, behind General Bellmon, with a clipboard and a stack of invitations in his hand. He smiled, and softly said, “Captain Oliver and Lieutenant Bellmon.”
General Bellmon put out his hand.
“Good evening, sir,” Johnny Oliver said.
“Good evening, Captain,” Bellmon said. “An officer is judged by the company he keeps. Try to remember that.”
Then he withdrew his hand and offered it to his son.
“Good evening, sir,” Bobby said.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” Bellmon said. “I’m glad you could make it.”
Barbara Bellmon violated protocol. After she took Captain Oliver’s hand, she pulled him to her and kissed his cheek.
“We’re going to miss you, Johnny,” she said.
“Me, too,” John Oliver said.
“So will I, Oliver,” the chief of staff said.
“Thank you, General,” Oliver said, touched by the comment.
“Well,” Mrs. Chief of Staff said, “you’re only going to Benning. We’ll see you.”
Next in the reception line was Brigadier General Paul R. Hanrahan. Oliver knew that he was in the reception line only because Bellmon had insisted that he be there. If it was true that it was a good thing for officers remote from the command post to shake the hand, and look in the eye, of the commanding general, it therefore followed that it was a good thing for officers to do the same thing with visiting (and in Hanrahan’s case, near-legendary) general officers.
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