Lincoln's got clothes on; his balls
don't show! It's not the samel"
"Nevertheless, the White House thinks
the parallel is justified, sir. The
President wants Hawkins removed. More
than removed, actually, he wants him
cashiered. Courtmartial and all.
Publicly."
"Oh, for Christ's sake, that's out of
the question." Symington leaned back in
his chair and breathed deeply, trying
to control himself. He reached out for
the report on his desk. "We'll transfer
him. With a reprimand. We'll 7
-
send transcripts of the censure, we'll
call it a censure to Peking."
"That's not strong enough, sir. The
State Department made it clear. The
President concurs. We have trade
agreements pending "
"For Christ's sake, Lieutenant!"
interrupted the brigadier. "Will someone
tell that spinning top in the Oval
Office that he can't have it on all
points of the compass! Mac Hawkins was
selected. From twenty-seven candidates.
I remember exactly what the President
said. Exactly. 'That mother's perfect!'
That's what he said."
"That's inoperative now, sir. He feels
the trade agreements take precedent over
prior considerations." The lieutenant
was beginning to perspire.
"You bastards kill me," said Symington,
lowering his voice ominously. "You
really frost my apricots. How do you
figure to do that? Make it
'inoperative,' I mean. Hawkins may be a
sharp pain in your diplomatic ass right
now, but that doesn't wash away what was
operative. He was a Bucking teen-age
hero at the Battle of the Bulge and West
Point football; and if they gave medals
for what he did in Southeast Asia, even
Mac Hawkins isn't strong enough to wear
all that hardware! He makes John Wayne
look like a pansy! He's real; that's why
that Oval Yo-yo picked him!"
"I really think the office of the
presidency regardless of what you may
think of the mamas commander in chief he
"Horse shit!" The brigadier general
roared again, separating the words in
equal emphasis, giving the crudity of
his oath the sound of a military
cadence. "I'm simply explaining to
you in the strongest terms I know that
you don't publicly court-martial a
MacKenzie Hawkins to satisfy a Peking
complaint, no matter how many goddamned
trade agreements are floating round. Do
you know why, Lieutenant?"
- lbe young officer replied softly,
sure of his accuracy.
"Because he would make an issue of it.
Publicly."
"Bing-go." Symington's comment sprang
out in a highpitched monotone. "The
Hawkinses of this country have a 8
constituency, Lieutenant. That's
precisely why our commander in chief
picked himlHe's a political
palliative.. And if you don't think
Mac Hawkins knows it, wel~you didn't
have to recruit him. I did."
"We are prepared for that reaction,
General." The lieutenant's words were
barely audible.
The brigadier leaned forward,
careful not to put his elbows in the
shattered glass. "I didn't get that."
"The State Department anticipated a
hard-line counterthrust. Therefore we
must institute an aggressive coun-
terraction to that thrust. The White
House regrets the necessity but at
this point in time recognizes the
crisis quotient."
"That's what I thought I was going
to get." Symington's words were less
audible than the lieutenant's. "Spell
it out. How are you going to ream
him?"
The lieutenant hesitated. "Forgive
me, sir, but the object is not to ream
General Hawkins. We are in a
provocatively delicate position. The
People's ReDublic demands
satisfaction. Rightly so; it was a
crude, vulgar act on General Hawkins's
part. Yet he refuses to make a public
apology." ,
Symington looked at the report still
in his right hand. "Does it say why in
here?"
"General Hawkins claims it was a
trap. His statement's on page three."
The brigadier flipped to the page
and read. The lieutenant drew out a
handkerchief and blotted his chin.
Symington put down the report
carefully on the shattered glass and
looked up.
'If what Mac says is true, it was a
trap. Broadcast his side of the
story."
"He has no side, General. He was
drunk."
"Mac says~dr~gged. Not drunk,
Lieutenant."
"They were drinking, sir."
"And he was drugged. I'd guess
Hawkins would know the difference.
I've seen him sweat sour mash."
"He does not deny the charge,
however."
"He denies the responsibility of his
actions. Hawkins was the finest
intelligence strategist in Indochina.
He's
drugged couriers and pouch men in
Cambodia, Laos, both Vietnams,and
probably across the Manchurian
borders. He knows the goddamned
difference."
"I'm afraid his knowing it doesn't
make any difference sir. The crisis
quotient demands our acceding to
Peking's wishes. The trade agreements
are paramount. Frankly, sir, we need
gas."
"Jesus! I figured that was one thing
you had."
The lieutenant replaced the
handkerchief in his pocket and smiled
wanly. "The levity is called for, I
realize that. However, we have just
ten days to bring everything into
focus; to make our inputs and come up
with a positive print.
Symington stared at the young
officer; his expression that of a
grown man about to cry. "What does
that mean?"
"It's a harsh thing to say, but
General Hawkins has placed his own
interests above those of his duty.
We'll have to make an example. For
everybody's sake."
"An example? For wanting the truth
out?"
"There's a higher duty, General.'
"I know," said the brigadier wearily.
"To the trade greements. To the gas.
"Quite frankly, yes. There are times
when symbols have to be traded off for
pragmatic objectives. Team players
understand."
"All right. But Mac won't lie down
and play busted symbol for you. So
what's the input?"
"The inspector general," said the
lieutenant, as an obnoxious student
might, holding up a severed tapeworm
in Biology 1. "We
re running an
in-depth data trace on him. We know he
was involved in questionable
activities in Indochina. We have
reason to believe he violated interna-
tional codes of conduct."
"You bet your ass he did! He was one
of the best!"
"There's no statute on those codes.
The IG specialists have caseloads
going back much further than General
Hawkins's ez-o~icio activities." The
lieutenant smiled. It was a genuine
smile; he was a happy person.
"So you're going to hang him with
clandestine operations that half the
joint chiefs and most of the CIA know
would bring him a truckload of
citations if they could talk 10
about them. You bastards kill me."
Symington nodded his head, agreeing
with himself.
"Perhaps you could save us time,
General. Can you provide us with some
specifics?"
"Oh, no! You want to crucify the son
of a bitch, you build your own crossI"
'You do understand the situation,
don't you, sir?"
The brigadier moved his chair back
and kicked fragments of glass from
under his feet. "I'll tell you some-
thing," he said. "I haven't understood
anything since nineteen forty-five."
He glared at the young officer. "I
know you're with Sixteen-hundred, but
are you regular army?
"No, sir. Reserve status, temporary
assignment. I'm on a leave of absence
from Y. I and B. To put out fires
before they burn up the flagpoles, as
it were."
"Y. I and B. I don't know that
division."
"Not a division, sir. Youngblood,
laker, and Blowe, in Los Angeles.
We're the top ad agency on the Coast."
General Arnold Symington's face
slowly took on the expression of a
distressed basset hound. '1he uniform
looks real nice, Lieutenant." The
brigadier paused, then shook his head.
"Nineteen forty-five," he said.
Major Sam Devereaux, field
investigator for the Office of the
Inspector General, looked across the
room at the calendar on his wall. He
got up from the chair behind his desk,
walked over to it, and Xed the day's
date. One month and three days and he
would be a civilian again.
Not that he was ever a soldier. Not
really; certainly not spiritually. He
was a military accident. A fracture
compounded by a huge mistake that
resulted in an extension of his tour
of service. It had been a simple
choice of alternatives: Reenlistment
or Leavenworth.
Sam was a lawyer, a damn fine
attorney specializing in criminal law.
Years ago he had held a series of
Selective Service deferments through
Harvard College and Harvard Law
School; then two years of postgraduate
specialization and clerking; finally
into the fourteenth month of practice
with the prestigious Boston law firm
of Aaron Pinkus Associates.
11
The army had faded into a vaguely
disagreeable shadow across his life;
he had forgotten about the long series
of deferments.
The United States Army, however, did
not forget.
During one of those logistic crunches
that episodically grip the military,
the Pentagon discovered it had a
sudden dearth of lawyers. The
Department of Military Justice was in
a bind hundreds of courts-martial on
bases all over the globe were
suspended for lack of judge advocates
and defense attorneys. The stockades
were crowded. So the Pentagon scoured
the long-forgotten series of
deferments and scores of young
unattached, childless
lawyers obtainable meat were sent
unrefusable invitations in which was
explained the meaning of the word
"deferment" as opposed to the word
"annulment."
That was the accident. Devereaux's
mistake came later. Much later. Seven
thousand miles away on the converging
borders of Laos, Burma, and Thailand.
- The Golden Triangle.
Devereaux for reasons known only to
God and military logistics never saw a
court-martial, much less tried one. He
was assigned to the Legal
Investigations Division of the Office
of the Inspector General and sent to
Saigon to see what laws were being
violated.
There were so many there was no way
to count. And since drugs took
precedence over the black market there
were simply too many American
entrepreneurs in the latter his
inquiries took him to the Golden
Triangle where one-fifth of the
world's narcotics were being funneled
out, courtesy of powerful men in
Saigon, Washington, Vientiane, and
Hong Kong.
Sam was conscientious. He didn't like
drug peddlers and he threw the
investigatory books at them, careful
to make sure his briefs to Saigon were
transmitted operationally within the
confused chain of command.
No report signatures. just names and
violations. After all, he could get
shot or knifed at the least,
ostracized for such behavior. It was
an education in covert activities.
His trophies included seven ARVN
generals, thirty-one representatives
in Thieu s congress, twelve U. S. Army
colonels light and full three
brigadiers, and fifty-eight 12
assorted majors, captains,
lieutenants, and master sergeants.
Added to these were five congressmen,
four senators a member of the
President's cabinet, eleven corpora-
tion executives with American
companies overseas six of which
already had enough trouble in the area
of campaign contributions and a
squarejawed Baptist minister with a
large national following.
To the best of Sam's knowledge one
second lieutenant and two master
sergeants were indicted. The rest were
"pending."
So Sam Devereaux committed his
mistake. He was so incensed that the
wheels of Southeast Asian justice spun
off the tracks at the first hint of
influence that he decided to trap a
very big fish in the corruption net
and make an example. He chose a major
general in Bangkok. A man named
Heseltine Brokemichael. Major General
Heseltine Brokemichael, West Point'43.
Sam had the evidence, mounds of it.
Through a series of elaborate
entrapments in which he himself acted
as the "connection " a participant who
could swear under oath to the
generals
malfeasance, he built his case
thoroughly. There could not possibly
be two General Brokemichaels and Sam
was an avenging angel of a prosecutor,
circling in for his kill.
But there were. Two. Two major
generals named BrokemichaeWone
Heseltine, one Ethelred! Apparently
cousins. And the one in
Bangkok Heseltine was not the one in
Vientiane Ethelred. The Vientiane
Brokemichael was the felon. Not his
cousin. Further, the Brokemichael in
Bangkok was more an avenger than Sam.
He believed he was gathering evidence
on a corrupt IG investigator. And he
was. Devereaux had violated most of
the international contraband laws and
all of the United States government's.
Sam was arrested by the MPs, thrown
into a maximum security cell,- and
told he could look forward to the
better part of his lifetime in
Leavenworth.
Fortunately, a superior officer in
the inspector general's command, who
did not really understand a sense of
justice that made Sam commit so many
crimes, but did understand Sam's legal
and.investigatory contributions to the
13
cause of the inspector general, came
to Sam's aid. Devereaux had actually
filed more evidentiary material than
any other legal officer in Southeast
Asia; his work in the field made up
for a great deal of inactivity in
Washington.
So the superior officer allowed a
little unofficial plea bargaining in
Sam's case. If Sam would disciplinary
action at the hands of a furious Major
General Heseltine Brokemichael in
Bangkok, constituting a six-month loss
Robert Ludlum - Road To Gandolfo.txt Page 2