The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga)

by Stan Hayes

  Jack laughed in spite of himself. “A good career move? What the fuck’re you talking about? How’s that gonna show up in your service jacket? ‘Highly adaptable, kills on command.’?”

  Rick acknowledged the irony with a split-second smile. “In my case, it’d be a 201 file. If I were writing it, I might say ‘Does what’s necessary with little need for supervision,’ or something like that. See, the deal I made was the Underhill job in exchange for an officer slot in CIA. It was my way of getting out of the assassin game.”

  Jack blinked inadvertently, then produced a thin smile of his own. “Ever the joiner. That your idea of fun?”

  “What it is, is my idea of serving my country in as effective a way as I possibly can. You see what happened with Cuba; the Cold War came within a gnat’s ass of becoming a hot war. They’ll be trying it again, who knows where, and I want to be in a position to stick it in their eye, every time they try it. And now that you mention it, I do expect to have a little fun along the way. Just as you will with your Lear Jet.”

  “Well, I hope it won’t involve assassinating a President. Or anyone else, for that matter.” Leaning back in his chair, Jack exhaled deeply, willing tension to drain out of his body. Then his head swung up as he said, “Jesus Christ, Rick! The bastards killed Jack Kennedy in cold blood, and you’re part of the fucking cleanup crew? He was no favorite of mine, but killing a president is about as wrong as you can get.”

  “In a vacuum, I’d agree with you, but politics doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Kennedy’s old man had Sam Giancana, the Chicago mob boss, get enough ballot boxes stuffed to put Illinois in the Kennedy column and win the election for him. And once he got in, it didn’t take him long to show his true colors. Stranded the Cuban exile force by shutting down air support at the Bay of Pigs. Then saying he’d ‘scatter the CIA to the four winds’ and pull American forces out of Vietnam ASAP. His bubble-headed economists had him convinced that the oil companies’ depletion allowance should be scrubbed. Kicking the props, in other words, out from under this country’s military establishment. He had to go.”

  “You believe that.”

  “I do. And here’s the best part; Kennedy and Giancana had been boffing the same babe for a couple of years. And on top of that, he and his little brother took turns for a while on Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Sounds like what we’d do- if we could,” Jack muttered.

  “So- you met the plane in Bisque?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you know it was headed there? Their destination was Miami.”

  “They were coming up for Thanksgiving, after dropping the passengers and refueling. Thought it’d be a nice touch; traditional Thanksgiving with my partners in the old home town, which one of them had never seen, and no bookings until December.”

  “But then they showed up with three corpses and a bunch of hardware. How’s that work?”

  “One of the ‘passengers’ shot Linda with some kind of dart when she came back in the cabin to see what was causing the aircraft to yaw. Killed her on the spot, or so they thought. Another one came up to the cockpit to bitch at Pete, saying that she was dead and that they’d damn well been briefed that the crew was to stay out of the cabin. When he heard that Linda’d been killed, Pete lost it and pulled the yoke back hard, which dumped them all into the tail. Then he put it on autopilot, set his MAC-10 on full-auto and shot all three of them. Then he went back to the cockpit, sat for a while, and figured he’d just head straight for Bisque. He radioed Bisque airport, gave them an ETA, and Gene Debs- he manages the airport now- called me at the house. They showed up, I hopped in and we took off.”

  “Where to?”

  Jack wagged a finger at his boyhood pal. “That I’ll keep to myself. Didn’t the CIA tell you about ‘need to know’?”

  Rick struggled to control himself. “Unless we can be sure that these damn women will put a sock in it- permanently- eventually the word’ll get to one or the other of the control group, and people you choose to call ‘the cleanup crew’ will deal with everyone who’s involved, and maybe a few who aren’t involved, just for good measure. Whatta you think it’ll take to keep ’em quiet?”

  “Well, we could marry ’em.”

  “D’you think they’d go for it? Ah, shit. Sure, they’re spooky, they’re smart, they look great, they fuck like minks, but marry ’em? Jump in that looney bin for a lifetime?

  “I said we could. That’d be one way, at least from a legal perspective.”

  “You say that like you know another way.”

  Bringing steepled fingers up to his lips, Jack smiled behind them at his boyhood chum. “Maybe. Might be worth a try. Let’s take the twins, Trisha, and my Mom out to Montauk for the weekend. Some friends of mine’ll meet us in a nice big craft sitting off the Point. I’ll rent a Twin Beech over at Teterboro.”

  “What good do you think that’ll do?”

  Jack smiled as his eyes went skyward. “You’ll see.”

  THE END

  EPILOGUE

  Gil dropped into the Cunningham’s passenger seat at Mile Marker 105 outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Jack, en route to Wichita, had by then put an hour or so of fresh US Interstate Highway 64 concrete under his wheels. “How’s she feeling?”

  “Not bad.” Jack glanced at the speedometer to confirm a steady 90. “It felt pretty much OK when I drove it off the Naval Station’s holding lot, but I thought it’d be a good idea to have it gone over before a 1400-mile run. The Norfolk Chrysler shop’s service writer said that the carbs weren’t too far off sync, which is amazing considering the circumstances.”

  “Yeah, Harry sort of left you high and dry with that handful of carburetors.”

  Jack turned to his passenger, who had chosen what looked to be a regulation tan Navy flight suit for the trip, or whatever part of the trek to Wichita that Gil intended to share with him. “At least I had all day that Sunday to figure it out. And damn if I didn’t need something to take my mind off Harry’s getting packed off to Fort Brooke. I didn’t hear any more about it until Monday, when I went down to the hangar and saw that they’d taken me off the flight schedule. When I went up to Ops to see what was going on, they told me to lay down to Admin, where Matt Brok was laying for me, you should pardon the pun, and told me to go get changed into the Uniform of the Day and stand by in my quarters until he called.” Jack paused to look over at Gil. “Hey; you must remember all this, don’t you?”

  “Some I do, some I don’t; don’t forget, it’s been quite a while since I was in your shoes. Bottom line, you and Harry are out of the Navy and moving on. I’d like to talk about what happened during your and his visit to Mom.”

  Behind the ghost of a smile, Jack said, “Don’t you mean you’d like to talk about Hap being our Daddy?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do for starters. Then maybe we should chat about how this might change the situation between you and Harry. But let’s begin with the obvious. Goes without saying that Harry’s blithe reference to your and Hap’s striking resemblance gave you a lot to think about while you and he were knocking around New York.”

  “You’re goddam right it did! You’ve known it all along, and didn’t tell me. No. I had hear it from Harry, drunk as a goat, and have it shock the living shit out of me.”

  “Total, three out of four in the room. And four out of four, as soon as Harry sobered up. Like any other fact, this one’s undeniable; it just took a while to come home to roost. Since this was one of the very few times that you’d actually seen Hap, close-up, since you were a baby, it’s understandable that Mom probably kept putting off telling you about hers and Hap’s affair while they were all still at Columbia- Mom, the guy we’ve known as Dad, Hap and his wife Maggie- thinking that you might never see him.”

  “And I hope that I never do- again. I won’t be looking Mom up any time soon, either. And I’m damn glad to have a few days away from Harry, while he visits his son down in Memphis.”

  “As time passes, you’ll see it di
fferently, I promise you.”

  Jack gave him as long a stare as he dared before switching his gaze back to the road. “Of course! I keep forgetting- you know every fucking thing that’s going to happen to me, as I gradually merge, day by day, into you. Tell me something; from your multimillennial perspective, is it worth it?”

  “Does living beat dying? As long as you’re not in too much pain. You- and I- we’ll have to take it as it comes. You took a gut-level shot in New York, but the more time passes, the more you’ll see your parents- and I use the term advisedly- as peers, and as human beings who, like all of us, are prone to error. And on the Watkins side of our family, I must say we’re goddam prone, at least in the sex department.”

  Well, speaking of sex maniacs, how long do you suppose my buddies’re going to be happy in the ol’ Scow?”

  “Well, if Trisha and Rick’s experience is anything like Linda’s and Pete’s, I’d be hard put to imagine that they won’t enjoy it. Since they’re not pilots, they may not get into flying the scout ships the way Linda and Pete have, but they’ll certainly have some fun rides, to say nothing of high living of one sort and another. The question is, at what point is it safe for them to re-enter society without any great fear of being done away with, as so many witnesses to the JFK coup have been, and will continue to be? Given the memory tweaks, of course, Rick and Trisha could come back tomorrow, but I think a little decompression’s in order. I have-n’t told them about you and me yet, but I think it might solve more problems than it creates. Do you have an opinion about that?”

  Jack chuckled. “Hell, I’m for it. At least they won’t be sending messages to me through you.”

  “In that case, I shall. I think on balance they’ll be happier. One thing’s for sure- Rick’s going to be a lot happier without the memory of killing Underhill to contend with. After my little memory sweep at CIA, all he is, as far as the government’s concerned, is an honorably discharged Captain, United States Army. Recognizing Pete as a live-and-kicking Moses Kubielski was a bit of a hit for all of your Twin Beech crew, to say nothing of coming to grips with Naz and his history. K2 tells me that Rick and Trisha have both had a couple of scout ship hops, with Pete as pilot; it is, you’ll remember, one hell of a ride. But I shouldn’t tantalize you as you come to grips with the Lear Jet. In any case, you’ll be seeing quite a bit of them as time goes on; Pete requested the same level of bodily upgrading that Linda necessarily add last November 22nd.”

  This time, Jack laughed out loud. “Shit, that’s terrific! How’s it feel to be God? I’m going to have some company in the fifth milennium.”

  Echoing Jack’s laughter, Gil said, “Make that god with a small g. I’ll just say that the three of you have quite a bit of history in front of you. And of course, there’re the others to consider.”

  “Yeah- Mom, er- Dad, Rick, Trisha and the twins.”

  “Exactly. The twins have been relieved of their visions of your and Rick’s role in the murders, so there’s plenty of time for them, Mom and Dad to decide what kind of life span they’d like to have. And believe me, there’ll be varying points of view on that question.”

  Jack glanced at Gil. “Well, I’m a ways from getting my arms around how long this can go on without, you know, upsetting the cosmic applecart.”

  “I’d be surprised if you felt differently at this point. You’re- we’re- not scientists, so I’ll be brief for now; Einstein and his peers may have started us down the road to cosmological truth, but they left a lot on the table.”

  “Like teleportation.”

  “Like teleportation. And the subatomic goodies- quanta, particles- and what Einstein wanted most- the derivation of what he called the Unified Field Theory. Better known these days as the Theory of Everything. And the manipulation of mass, enabled through the discovery of what you’ll be hearing about when a little item called the Higgs Boson emerges. And, by the way, VSL- the varying speed of light. What have I left out? Oh, hell, plenty. All together, though, humanity’s eventual mastery of its physical environment gave us what we need to venture out among the stars. To say nothing of getting a pretty big toe in the water in time travel, which we’d never have been able to do without near-zero mass and VSL.”

  “And having Late Barbarian Age sex again, which I’m sure you’d never sneeze at. So what about you- and me? How long can we go on being Gil and Jack? Is there going to be a point that we merge, or what?”

  “You’ve got me there, kid, but believe me, I’m working on it; I’m definitely working on it. See you in a couple of weeks; I need a change of scenery, and ancient Egypt beckons. Just keep an eye out for a Packard Caribbean some warm evening when your Irish’s up.”

  “Think it might show up in little old Wichita?”

  “Could be; the Midwest’s a hotbed of high school athletics.”

  “Well, hell, bring Naz along; could be you can scare him up a blondie campus queen for a change.”

  Laughing, Gil said, “Well, it’d be a fresh application of the old "Take, eat; this is my body," line, wouldn’t it?

  “Get ‘im some sixties duds, and I’m betting he’ll do the rest.”

  “All in good time. Just fly the airplane, bubba, and let me handle the physics for now.”

  “With pleasure. Give my regards to the Scow-riders!”