The Majors Page 23

  (Three)

  Kansas City, Missouri

  15 January 1957

  The sales manager of Twin-City Aviation, serving Kansas City, Missouri, and its twin across the river, Kansas City, Kansas, was three-quarters convinced that he was wasting his time with his present “up,” a walk-in customer who was making inquiries about either renting or buying an airplane.

  He had walked in the door at half past eight in the morning, half an hour before Twin-City Aviation officially opened. He was, well, a little flashily dressed (there were not many people who had the balls to wear a silk foulard in an open-collared dress shirt around KC) and had announced that since he would be in the area for the next ten months or so, he had been thinking about either renting or buying an airplane to “get around.”

  The sales manager told him that he had certainly come to the right place, and just what sort of airplane did he have in mind?

  The guy with the foulard and the tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves said he wasn’t sure, that the whole idea had just occurred to him.

  “You are a pilot, of course?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  The sales manager looked out the window to see what kind of a car he was driving. A four-door Chevy. A new one. Did that mean anything?

  It meant that he was a possible customer for a Cessna 172, a very nice little single-engine four-seater, with a complete set of Narco navigation equipment. Cruised out at 120 knots, burned about six gallons an hour.

  “Be happy to take you up for a little spin,” the sales manager said. “Now, I’m not trying to talk you into anything you don’t want to do, but if you’re going to be flying regular, renting is going to eat you up. We have to charge, you understand, for time you’d be sitting on the ground somewhere, in addition to the flight hours, which on a long term, regular basis, would run you $17.50 an hour.

  “I’ve never flown a 172,” the man said.

  “Easiest airplane in the world to fly,” the sales manager said. “You make a mistake, it gives you ten minutes to think it over.”

  “All right, let’s try it,” the man said.

  They flew for fifteen minutes up the river to Leavenworth, and that was when the sales manager learned that the guy was in the army, at the school the army ran at Leavenworth for people they thought might be full colonels and generals.

  “There’s a fleet of H-13s and L-19s there,” the guy said, “for proficiency flying. But I’m the junior aviator, which means I would have to get my proficiency time in from three to six on Sunday mornings.”

  “Oh, you’re in the army, are you?”

  “I’m a major. One of two in my class. Everybody else is a light bird.”

  Well, there goes the sale of this sonofabitch, the sales manager decided. There was no way a soldier could come up with the down payment on a 172, much less the payments, and no way he could afford the insurance and the maintenance. Not on army pay.

  Well, what the hell, he’d probably spring for maybe ten hours of rental before he decided he’d better do his flying free, even if that meant—what was it he had said—“from three to six on Sunday mornings.”

  “Had about enough?” the sales manager asked, already making a 180 degree turn back toward KC.

  “Yeah, this isn’t going to do it.”

  “Look,” the sales manager said. “There’s a couple of Pipers around I could let you have, if you agreed to take, say, fifty hours over six months, for about $12.50 an hour. Nice little airplanes.”

  “That wouldn’t do it either, I’m afraid,” the major said.

  They got back on the ground and parked the Cessna 172. The started walking back to the office.

  “What’s that?” the man said, turning to peer in the plexiglass window of an aircraft.

  “That’s an Aero Commander,” the sales manager said. “Just got it in.”

  “Beautiful,” Major Craig W. Lowell said. He had never seen one before. It was a sleek-looking, high-winged, twin-engined aircraft that looked, and probably was, fast. The one he was looking at was painted a high gloss white, with red trim.

  “Gorgeous,” the sales manager said. “That’s a classy airplane.”

  “You say it’s yours?”

  “Until I can sell it, it belongs to me and the First National Bank of KC,” the sales manager said.

  “How about taking me up in this?” Lowell asked.

  Jesus, the nerve of some people!

  “If I had it as a rental ship, out for rent, which I don’t, I’d have to charge a hundred an hour. You’re looking at a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of airplane, Major.”

  The major reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded wad of bills, and peeled off a hundred dollar bill.

  “If you don’t have anything else to do,” he said. “I’d really like to take a ride in that.”

  What the hell, the sales manager thought. Why not? That way the morning won’t be a complete loss.

  “I’ll get the key,” he said, and pocketed the hundred dollar bill.

  “It feels as if you’re dragging your ass on the ground, doesn’t it?” the major said, when they were taking off.

  He didn’t ask to fly the airplane, and the sales manager didn’t offer to let him fly until the hour (well, forty-five minutes, who was looking at a clock?) was just about over.

  He let the major land the airplane. He had a little trouble getting it on the ground. The Aero Commander’s fuselage was eighteen inches off the ground, and that took some getting used to. For the first couple of landings, it was like you were going to fly right through the runway.

  When they had it back in line and the engines were shut down, the sales manager could see the major was really reluctant to get out. He turned around in the copilot’s seat and looked at the passenger compartment, with its elegant paneling, and ran his hand almost lovingly over the closest of the four glove-leather upholstered seats.

  “This is a very fine airplane,” he said.

  “It sure is,” the sales manager said.

  “And frankly, I like the panel,” the major said, turning to point at the instrument panel, which had a full array of the latest Aircraft Radio Corporation communication and navigation equipment.

  That’s very gracious of you, Mac, the sales manager thought, as he heaved himself out of the pilot’s seat and then walked down the aisle to the door.

  The major stayed another two minutes, which seemed a lot longer, before he got out of the copilot’s seat and reluctantly got out of the airplane.

  “What did you say it’s worth?”

  “It lists out, with all the equipment, at $129,480,” the sales manager said.

  “But you would take $125,000 cash, right?” the major asked, jokingly.

  “Right,” the sales manager replied, with a smile.

  “How about $120,000, even?” the major said.

  “As a special favor to you, I’d take $120,000 cash,” the sales manager said. He was feeling pretty good. The bottom line was that he’d gotten nearly an hour in the Commander, which was a jewel to fly, and this guy had paid for it.

  When they got back in the office, and the sales manager was getting paper and pencil out to rough out some figures for a fifty-hour use of a Piper, the major asked if he could use his telephone for a collect call.

  “Sure,” the sales manager said.

  The major called a New York City number, collect to Porter Craig from Major Craig W. Lowell.

  “Porter,” he said, when his party came on the line, “I’m in Kansas City. Who do we do business with out here?”

  Then he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and spoke to the sales manager: “You did say the First National Bank of Kansas City was your bank, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” the sales manager said. “That’s what I said.”

  “I’m about to write a rather substantial check, Porter,” the major said. “Specifically, one for $120,000. And I don’t want to wait until it clears. Would y
ou call the First National Bank here and do whatever has to be done?”

  The sales manager looked at him in confusion and disbelief.

  “I’m buying an airplane, Porter, is what I’m doing,” the major said. “Have the bank call a Mr. Sewell at Twin City Aviation and tell him my check is good, will you?”

  Then he asked the sales manager for a blank check and filled it out. It was for $120,000. Where the name of the bank was supposed to be, he had written Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes, N.Y.C.

  “What’s this here, instead of the bank’s name?” the sales manager asked.

  “That’s a bank. Or rather a firm of investment bankers,” Major Lowell explained.

  “Never heard of it,” the sales manager said.

  “Few people have,” Major Lowell said. “Listen, I think it will take maybe thirty minutes to arrange for that check. I’m on my way to New Orleans. I’ll need charts, and I’d like to read the Dash-One on that for a few minutes. Would it be all right if I took the keys and went out to it?”

  The major was wrong about it taking thirty minutes to arrange for his check to be cleared. Five minutes later, the executive vice president of the First National Bank of Kansas City telephoned the sales manager of Twin City Aviation and told him the bank had received a telephone call from the chairman of the board of Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes, the New York investment bankers, and that he could accept any check drawn against them by Major Craig W. Lowell, up to a quarter of a million dollars.

  (Four)

  Fort Benning, Georgia

  15 January 1957

  Lieutenant Colonel J. Peter Hawkins, Deputy Chief of the Platoon Tactics Branch, Tactics Division, of the U.S. Army Infantry School, had six months previously submitted (under the provisions of AR 615-301, and Department of Army Personnel Pamphlet 615–15) an application for consideration for assignment as a military attaché.

  Shortly afterward, he became aware that he was the subject of a new complete background investigation, conducted among the military by personnel of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps and in civilian areas by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Lt. Colonel Hawkins already had undergone a complete background investigation and held a Top Secret security clearance. That wasn’t enough, apparently.

  Two months before, he had been placed on orders to the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea. Although he presumed that to mean he had not been selected for duty as a military attaché, he had not been so officially notified. He had prepared to move to Korea, which meant that he had had to find off-post housing for his wife and children. Dependents were not authorized in Korea, and government quarters were authorized only for personnel assigned to a post.

  He had purchased a four-bedroom, two-bath ranch house in the Riverview subdivision of Columbus, Georgia, taking over the mortgage from an ordnance major who had been reassigned to the Redstone, Alabama, Ordnance Depot.

  And then his orders to the 2nd Infantry Division were cancelled. He received a telephone call from the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Personnel, in the Pentagon, saying that he might expect other orders in the near future. The caller could give Lt. Colonel Hawkins no indication of what those orders might be.

  Four days previously, there had been a TWX:

  HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY

  CG FT BENNING & THE INF CENTER, GA

  IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT LT COL J. PETER HAWKINS 0386567 INF THE INF SCHOOL WILL BE ORDERED TO AN OVERSEAS POST WITH FOURTEEN (14) DAYS. DEPENDENTS WILL REPEAT WILL BE AUTH TO ACCOMP OFF. TVL BY MIL AND/OR CIV AIR IS ANTICIPATED. OFF WILL INSURE DEPENDENTS POSSESS PROPER PASSPORTS AND HAVE COMPLETED IMMUNIZATION SERIES. THIS IS ALL THE INFORMATION PRESENTLY AVAILABLE AND INQUIRIES ARE NOT DESIRED AND WILL NOT BE ENTERTAINED.

  FOR THE ASST C/S PERSONNEL:

  STEPHEN MASON

  LT COL, AGC

  And last night there had been a telephone call from the aide-de-camp to the post commander. He was to be at the army airfield at Fort Benning at 1000 hours. He was to be in a Class “A” uniform. He was to take with him enough linen and extra uniforms to spend three days away from Fort Benning. Transportation from Benning to where he was going would be by military air. The aide-de-camp had no further information.

  When Lt. Colonel Hawkins went to Base Operations at 0915 the next morning and identified himself, they had no information to give him. They knew nothing.

  At 0955 hours, Lt. Colonel Hawkins watched as a very unusual airplane taxied up to Base Operations. It was an Aero Commander. Colonel Hawkins had not known that the army had acquired any Aero Commanders, which were high-priced civilian business aircraft, the kind used by corporate big shots too impatient to take airliners. From the markings there was no question, however, that this was an army aircraft, for it was painted in army colors. But Colonel Hawkins had never seen any other army aircraft painted like this one. The paint was glossy, not flat, and most of it was gleaming white, not olive-drab. While it had the standard star-and-bars identification on the fuselage, the insignia looked much smaller than normal. The only place it said US ARMY was on the vertical stabilizer, high up, in letters no more than four inches tall.

  A VIP aircraft, obviously. But there was no general officer’s starred plaque mounted anywhere on the fuselage.

  The door in the fuselage behind the high wing opened and an officer got out. He was wearing a Class “A” uniform, not a flight suit. There were wings on the tunic, so it was logical to presume he was the pilot, or copilot. In an airplane like that, obviously, flight suits were not necessary.

  The pilot, a young captain, wearing the Military District of Washington shoulder insignia and a West Point ring came into Base Operations. He took one look at Lt. Colonel Hawkins and walked right to him. He saluted.

  “Colonel Hawkins?”

  Ask not, Lt. Col. Hawkins thought, for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

  “Yes, I am,” he said.

  “Good morning, sir. Are you ready to go? Can I help you with your luggage?”

  “Where are we going?” Lt. Colonel Hawkins asked.

  “Let me have that bag, Colonel,” the captain said, and then held the door out to the flight line open for him.

  The captain stowed Colonel Hawkins’s bag in the rear of the cabin and then walked forward.

  “Good morning, Colonel,” a little Jew in civilian clothing said. “I’m Sanford Felter.”

  “How do you do?” Lt. Colonel Hawkins asked, wondering just who the hell he was. There were two other passengers on the airplane.

  “May I present General de Brigade des Fernauds?” the little Jew said, and then switched to French. “Mon Général, je présente le Colonel Hawkins.”

  Hawkins had kept up his French. Four years of it at the Point, further practiced when he’d been in Germany.

  “I am honored, my General,” Hawkins said in French.

  “I am very happy to meet you, Colonel,” the French brigadier said, in English.

  “General des Fernauds is the military attaché,” the little Jew said.

  The Aero Commander was already moving.

  “Everybody ready back there?” the pilot called. Lt. Colonel Hawkins slipped into a seat. He just had time to fasten the belt when the plane turned, the engines roared, and it began to race down the runway.

  Lt. Colonel Hawkins realized he still had no idea where they were going.

  Thirty minutes later, they landed at Camp Rucker, Alabama.

  Out the window, Lt. Colonel Hawkins saw workmen erecting a sign on the Base Operations building: LAIRD ARMY AIRFIELD. He remembered hearing somewhere that the field had been renamed in honor of Scotty Laird.

  The captain who had fetched him at Benning came down the aisle again, but before he reached the door it was opened from the outside and a warrant officer stuck his head in.

  “I didn’t know they let lousy civilians on military airplanes,” he said.

  “Bonjour, mon petit,” the Jew said, smiling broadly, looking almost playful.

>   The warrant officer climbed inside and was followed by a major. Hawkins saw, with the surprise that comes even to old soldiers when they actually see one, the blue-starred ribbon of the Medal of Honor among the major’s many other decorations.

  “I swore I’d never get on another plane with you,” the major said to the little Jew. “The last time, you nearly got my balls blown off.”

  “It’s nice to see you, too, Major MacMillan,” the little Jew said, with a wide smile.

  “What the hell is all this, anyway? Bellmon’s going to blow his cork when he comes back and finds both of us run off with you.”

  “Get on, sit down, and shut up,” the Jew said to him. “Try to remember that you’re supposed to be an officer and a gentleman.”

  When the warrant officer came into the cabin, he saw the French general.

  “Pardonez-moi, mon Général,” he said.

  “Hello, Greer,” the French general said. “It’s good to see you again, my friend.”

  The warrant officer slipped into a seat across from Lt. Colonel Hawkins.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said, formally.

  “Good morning,” Lt. Colonel Hawkins said. The Aero Commander was already turning away from the Base Operations building.

  Not two hours later, the Aero Commander turned off a taxiway at New Orleans Lake Front Airport and parked beside a civilian Aero Commander. A tall man, blond and mustached, was leaning against its nose.

  Felter was the first one out of the airplane. Lt. Colonel Hawkins followed him out the door.

  Felter walked up to the civilian and they shook hands.

  “I thought you were coming in commercial,” Felter said to him. “What brings you here?”

  “I just landed,” the man said. “I heard your pilot give his ten-minutes-out report, and I had a hunch it was you.”

  “What did you do, rent a plane?” Felter asked, a hint of tolerant disgust in his voice.

  “Actually, I just bought it,” the man said. “Just this morning. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s more ostentatious than Patton’s polo ponies,” Felter said.