Special Ops Read online

  ILS (Instrument Landing System), which permits an aircraft to land through fog without any visual reference to the ground until moments before touchdown, requires three things, in about equal priority: a high-quality, precision radar, so that the precise location of the aircraft is known second by second; a highly skilled ILS controller, who interprets the position (speed, altitude, attitude, and rate of descent) of the landing aircraft in relation to the runway; and a pilot of high skill who can instantly respond to the controller’s directions with precision.

  The controller, a plump, thirty-five-year-old sergeant first class, looked over and glared at them when they entered his preserve. They had no business there, but the aide-to-the-general is a more equal pig.

  “Is that General Hanrahan’s aircraft?” Oliver asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said impatiently. “He’s about five miles out.”

  Oliver then remained silent as Cessna Six-oh-three was talked down. It was not very exciting. The controller told the pilot what to do, and the pilot did it. Johnny was a little disappointed. He was pleased, of course, that everything went smoothly, but it would have been more of an education for Bobby had there been terse, quick commands to change altitude, or direction, or even an excited order to break it off.

  But there were no such commands. The first Cessna Six-oh-three was heard from was when Lieutenant Colonel Craig Lowell’s voice came over the speaker.

  “We have the runway in sight, thank you very much, ILS.”

  “My pleasure, sir,” the sergeant said.

  “We probably would have done much better if we were sober,” Colonel Lowell’s voice said.

  The sergeant laughed, and turned to them.

  “You know the colonel, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Quite a guy,” the sergeant said. “Hell, that landing was textbook. Couldn’t have been any better.”

  “We better go down and meet them,” Oliver said. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  They went down the stairwell, and then through the plate-glass doors leading to the transient ramp. As they pushed them open, the Cessna’s engines could be heard, and then it could be seen, taxiing from the active runway.

  “With a little bit of luck, Bobby,” Oliver teased, “Sergeant Portet will have been given a ride over here by the general. Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise?”

  “Shit!” Bobby said.

  General Robert F. Bellmon was finally reconciled to having his daughter marry a common enlisted man. Second Lieutenant Bobby Bellmon was not similarly adjusted, or even resigned, to having Jack Portet, the EM who had been fucking his sister outside the bonds of holy matrimony, accepted into the Bellmon platoon of The Long Gray Line.

  The Cessna taxied past them. Sergeant Jack Portet, smiling broadly, waved at them from the pilot’s seat.

  “Well,” Oliver said, chuckling. “That explains that textbook ILS, doesn’t it, Bobby?”

  “Goddamn it, will you stop calling me ‘Bobby’?”

  Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell came out of the sleek Cessna first. He was wearing civilian clothing: a Harris tweed jacket; gray flannel slacks; loafers; and an open-collared, yellow, button-down shirt. There was a paisley foulard around his neck.

  He stood on the wing root and stretched his arms over his head. Then he looked down at Captain Oliver and Second Lieutenant Bellmon and smiled.

  “Hello, Bobby,” Colonel Lowell called down cordially. “How nice of you to come out here in the rain to meet us.”

  “Hello, Uncle Craig,” Bobby said. He had known Lowell since he was a little boy; that, Oliver had noticed, gave Lowell the right to call him “Bobby” without his taking offense.

  Lowell came down off the wing and offered his hand to Johnny Oliver.

  “I thought you’d been retired,” he said. “But thanks anyway, Johnny.”

  “My pleasure, Colonel,” Johnny said. “How was the flight?”

  “Humbling,” Lowell said. “Safe, but humbling. You know we had to come in ILS?”

  “Yes, sir. We watched your approach. The ILS operator said it was textbook.”

  “What made it humbling was that he carried on a conversation with us while he was doing it,” Lowell said. “When I make an ILS approach in weather like this, I resent the intrusion on my concentration of a watch ticking.”

  Brigadier General Paul R. Hanrahan came out of the Cessna’s cabin next. He was in uniform, wearing only his combat-jump-starred parachutist’s wings and his Combat Infantry Badge with the star above the flintlock that indicated a second award.

  “Oh, hell,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to come out to meet me,” he said. “All we asked for was a ride.”

  “Our pleasure, General,” Oliver said, saluting.

  “And you, too, Bobby. Well, I appreciate it,” Hanrahan said as he came off the wing root.

  Lowell went to the baggage compartment and took out their luggage.

  Sergeant Jack Portet came out last. He stood on the wing root and pulled up his tie, rolled down and buttoned his shirt cuffs, and then reached back into the airplane for his uniform blouse. He put that on and buttoned it, then reached inside a last time and came out with a green beret. He put that on, then stooped to adjust the “blouse” of his trousers around the top of his highly polished parachutist’s “jump” boots.

  He came off the wing root and saluted Johnny Oliver.

  “Hello, Jack,” Oliver said, returning the salute and then offering his hand. “That was a nice ILS.”

  “That wasn’t quite what I hoped to hear,” Portet said.

  “So far as I know, she’s at Quarters One.”

  “And doesn’t know I’m coming?”

  “She probably does by now,” Oliver said. “I called Quarters One.”

  Jack mockingly saluted Second Lieutenant Bellmon.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” he said. “How are you, today?”

  Not knowing what else to do, Bobby returned the salute. Hanrahan and Lowell smiled at Oliver. Lowell winked.

  Portet went to a compartment in the side of the airplane and took out wheel chocks and a cover for the pitot tube, then walked around the plane, putting them in place. While he was doing that, Oliver took tie-down ropes from the compartment and tied the wings down. Then they walked together toward Base Operations.

  “Now, let’s get this show on the road,” General Hanrahan said. “The first priority, Johnny, when it can be arranged with his schedule, I’d like a few minutes with General Bellmon, the sooner the better.”

  “I don’t think that will be a problem, sir,” Oliver said. “You’re in the Magnolia House. Why don’t you call him when you get there?”

  “Okay,” Hanrahan said. “How did he react to the news that you’re coming to work for me?”

  “I haven’t told him, sir,” Oliver said.

  “You haven’t?” Hanrahan asked sharply. “Why not?”

  “I . . . sir, I was about to say there hasn’t been the opportunity. But the truth is, I haven’t made the opportunity. I plan to tell him tonight at his party.”

  “He already knows,” Hanrahan said. “The orders were changed by DA TWX. I have a copy.”

  “Oh, God!” Oliver said.

  “You should have told him, Oliver,” Hanrahan said.

  “Yes, sir, I should have.”

  Hanrahan started to say something else, but stopped when Marjorie Bellmon came out the door of the Base Operations building.

  “The USO has arrived,” Lowell said sotto voce. He shifted into a thick, but credible, southern accent. “Why, Miss Marjorie, whatever brings you heah?”

  “Oh, shut up, Uncle Craig,” Marjorie Bellmon said. She went to General Hanrahan and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Thank me, it’s my airplane,” Lowell said. He extended his cheek.

  “Okay,” she said, and kissed him. “Thank you, too.”

  Then she went to Jack Portet and kissed him, lightly, on the cheek. And l
ooked out of her intelligent gray eyes into his for a moment, and kissed him again.

  She put her hand under Jack Portet’s arm and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “May I presume,” Lowell said, “from that awful display of affection, that I will not have to concern myself with Sergeant Portet’s well-being while we’re here?”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Marjorie said. “You won’t have to worry about him at all.”

  “In that case, let’s get out of here,” Hanrahan said.

  [ FIVE ]

  Daleville, Alabama

  1615 18 December 1964

  Jack Portet, as they rode in Marjorie’s MG-B through Daleville, the small town that sits between Cairns Army Airfield and Fort Rucker—known as “The Post”—decided that discretion was the better part of lust, and did not, as he was sorely tempted to do, put his hand on Miss Bellmon’s knee.

  “I’ve got to stop by the officers’ sales store, baby,” he said.

  “Will it wait? It’s quarter after four.”

  “Mine not to reason why, mine but to gallop into the valley of the officers’ sales store,” Jack said.

  “He’s got you running errands, doesn’t he?” she said, annoyed, but then added, “But I will forgive him, for he has brought my baby to me.”

  She reached over and caught his hand, and squeezed it, and when she let go to downshift, it was over her knee, and he gave in to the temptation and let it drop onto her knee. After a moment, her hand covered his.

  “I wonder what you and I can do to pass the time when everybody else is at Johnny’s farewell party?” she asked innocently.

  The MP at the gate spotted the blue officer’s sticker on the MG-B’s bumper, popped to attention, and saluted.

  Jack returned it.

  “I don’t know if sergeants are supposed to do that or not,” Jack said. “But if I were on the gate, and saluted another EM, I would be annoyed.”

  “It’s supposed to be ‘a greeting between warriors,’ ” Marjorie said.

  The staff sergeant in charge of the officers’ sales store saw Marjorie’s car pull up outside and had time to go in the back and tell the lieutenant in charge that the general’s daughter was coming into the store.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Bellmon,” the lieutenant said when Jack and Marjorie walked in. “How can I be of service?”

  “I’m with the sergeant,” Marjorie said. “Thanks anyway.”

  I wonder what the hell that’s all about? the lieutenant thought, but he smiled at Jack and asked, “How can I help you, Sergeant?”

  “I’ll probably need one of everything,” Jack said. “But I think I’ll leave precisely what up to Miss Bellmon.”

  He handed Marjorie a thick sheaf of mimeographed paper. She looked at him curiously and then read it.

  HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY WASHINGTON, D.C.

  16 December 1964

  SPECIAL ORDERS

  NUMBER 307

  E * X * T * R * A * C * T

  101. SERGEANT Jacques Emile PORTET, US52397606, Hq & Hq Company USAAVN Center Fort Rucker, Ala is HONORABLY DISCHARGED from the military service for the convenience of the government under the provisions of AR 615-365. EM auth travel pay and appropriate per diem to his Home of Record, 404 Avenue Leopold, Léopoldville, Republic of the Congo.

  102. FIRST LIEUTENANT Jacques Emile PORTET, Inf, 0-391123, US Army Reserve, having reported for extended active duty for a period of no less than three (3) years is assigned to Hq & Hq Company, John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, Fort Bragg, N.C. Travel pay and appropriate per diem from officer’s Home of Record, 404 Avenue Leopold, Léopoldville, Republic of the Congo, is authorized.

  103. FIRST LIEUTENANT Jacques Emile PORTET, Inf, 0-391123, Hq & Hq Company, JFK Center for Spec War, Ft Bragg, NC, is placed on TDY for a period not to exceed forty-five (45) days and will proceed USAAVN Center, Fort Rucker, Ala for the purpose of undergoing special flight training by the Ft Rucker Instrument Flight Examiner Board leading to his designation as an Army Aviator, fixed and rotary wing, single and multi-engine with Special Instrument Rating. Off is auth per diem and travel by Privately Owned Vehicle. AUTH: Verbal Orders of the Chief of Staff, US Army to Comm Gen JFK Center for Special Warfare Ft Bragg, NC 0830 Hours 15 Dec 1964.

  E * X * T * R * A * C * T

  OFFICIAL:

  John B. Stevenson

  MAJOR GENERAL, THE ADJUTANT GENERAL

  Distribution:

  Special 201-Portet, Jacques E., 0-391123

  “Oh, my God!” Marjorie said.

  She looked at Jack, and he shrugged and smiled.

  “You did this for me!” she accused. “Oh, Jack, you damned fool!”

  “I did it because Colonel Felter said he needs me,” Jack said. “And I think he does. I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Pleased that you’re going to be around Sandy and Craig and Geoff and the rest of those snake-eating lunatics?” she asked incredulously. “I wanted you safe and sound at that goddamned Instrument Examiner Board!”

  She thrust his orders at him as if they burned her.

  Jack turned to the quartermaster lieutenant and handed him the orders.

  “I’m going to need uniforms,” he said. “And one Class A right now. I’m a 42-long. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “We can take care of everything but cuffing the pants, Lieutenant, ” the QM officer said. “The seamstress has already taken off for the day.”

  “I’ll cuff your goddamned pants for you, Lieutenant,” Marjorie said. “Oh, Jack, why?”

  [ SIX ]

  The Magnolia House

  Fort Rucker, Alabama

  1715 18 December 1964

  Major General Robert F. Bellmon pulled his Oldsmobile into the driveway of Magnolia House—the transient quarters for visiting general officers and VIPs—got out, and walked quickly to the door. He knocked at the door, but entered without waiting for a reply.

  He found Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell in the sitting room, in civilian clothing. He was watching the news on the television, holding a drink in his hand. His dress mess uniform was hanging on a hanger over the door to what was probably his bedroom.

  “Hello, Craig,” he said, signaling for him to remain seated. “Where’s Red?”

  “On the horn, checking in with his wife,” Lowell said. “Would you like a little taste?”

  “Please,” Bellmon said. “What are you having?”

  “Scotch,” Lowell said. He got up and walked to a sideboard on which sat a row of bottles and shining silver accoutrements. Before he got there, the steward, a moonlighting GI in the employ of the officers’ club, came into the room from the dining room. He wore a white jacket and shirt and a bow tie.

  “That’s all right, Sergeant,” Lowell said. “I’ll pour the drinks. As a matter of fact, why don’t you just pack it in?”

  The steward, surprised, looked at General Bellmon for guidance.

  “I’ve known these gentlemen long enough, Sergeant,” Bellmon said, “to know they need absolutely no help in getting at the whiskey. Why don’t you go over to the club, and see if you can’t help out with the bar for my party?”

  “Yes, sir,” the steward said with a smile.

  Lowell mixed a scotch and soda and handed it to Bellmon.

  “Mud in your eye, Robert,” he said.

  “Nastrovya,” Bellmon said, and took a sip. “That’s good. What is it?”

  “McNeil’s,” Lowell said.

  “Never heard of it,” Bellmon said.

  “I have it sent over,” Lowell said.

  “From Scotland, you mean?” Bellmon asked. Lowell nodded. Bellmon shook his head from side to side.

  “It must be nice to be rich,” Bellmon said.

  “It is, as you well know,” Lowell said, smiling. “Don’t poor-mouth me, Bob. I know better.”

  “Not that I’m not delighted to see you, Craig,” Bellmon said, just a little sarcastically. “Especially since you bro
ught your mess dress . . . I presume you brought the golden saucer, too?”

  “I never leave home without it,” Lowell said, gesturing toward one of the armchairs. On it, suspended from a purple sash, was the four-inches-across golden symbol of membership in the Greek Order of Saint Michael and Saint George.

  “That always gives people something to talk about when the conversation pales,” Bellmon said.

  “A regular conversation piece,” Lowell said.

  “As I was saying, while I’m thrilled you’re here, I can’t help but wonder why you’re here.”

  “Well, I was invited, for one thing,” Lowell said.

  “You know what I mean,” Bellmon said.

  “Okay. I suspected you were going to be annoyed with Red about now, and I came here to protect him from your righteous wrath.”

  “Then you know? Maybe you’re involved?”

  “Tangentially,” Lowell said. “Peripherally.”

  “Well, Red better have a damned good explanation, or I’m going to fight it, right up to the chief of staff, if necessary. I like Johnny Oliver, and I’m not going to see him throw his career down the toilet . . . have it thrown down the toilet by you cowboys.”

  Brigadier General Paul R. Hanrahan appeared at the living room. He was in his shirtsleeves.

  “Howdy, Tex,” Lowell said. “Go for your gun. It’s high noon. I told you he was going to be pissed.”

  Bellmon flashed Lowell a coldly furious look, then faced Hanrahan.

  “Goddamn it, Red, I wasn’t even consulted!”

  “I think I better have a drink,” Hanrahan said.

  “I think you better tell me what the hell you’re trying to do to Johnny Oliver,” Bellmon said.

  “All right,” Hanrahan said as he mixed himself a drink. “Captain Oliver came to me, asked if he thought there was someplace around the Center where he could be useful, and I said there was.”