The Colonels Page 3

  It would have been pleasant to think that he had been assigned to the Special Warfare School despite his efficiency reports rather than because of them. But Hanrahan was a realist. He had been a lieutenant colonel longer than just about anyone in the army. It was entirely likely that he had risen as high in rank as he was going to rise. It was expected of West Point graduates that, at appropriate points in their career, they be given commands. The only commands Paul Hanrahan had ever had were of small detachments of advisors.

  Command, he sometimes thought bitterly, was judged by numbers of troops. Command of a 1,200-man battalion involved in maneuvers in Louisiana was considered far more important than command of a 50-man advisory detachment, even though the advisors might be in de facto command of a division and a half of indigenous troops in contact with a real enemy.

  Of course, it was possible that he would get the eagle of a full colonel. It was even possible that five years later he could get to be brigadier general. He was, after all, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, and there was the West Point Protective Association, which was supposed to see that West Pointers got promoted no matter what.

  It was also possible, Lt. Col. Paul “Red” Hanrahan thought, that a pig could be taught to say the rosary and then be taken bodily into heaven.

  He looked out the window of the Citroën at the rice paddies and told himself that in seventy-two hours, when he looked out a car window, he would see either a billboard urging some kind of beer on him, or a farmer riding a tractor, not one standing up to his hips in muddy water.

  Ten minutes later, roughly three-quarters of an hour from the plantation, as the two Citroëns drove at what Hanrahan thought was an excessive speed down the winding road between flooded rice paddies, the skin at the back of his neck began to crawl.

  The first thing he thought was that he was concerned with their speed.

  Vietnamese, particularly those at the wheel of a Westerner’s car, think that automobiles have two speeds, on and off.

  And then he realized it was more than just the speed. There was a reason for the speed.

  He turned over his shoulder and saw they were being followed by a General Motors Carryall.

  The sonofabitch is right on our bumper!

  And then he knew.

  “Get on the floor!” he ordered sharply.

  Patricia looked at him in disbelief.

  Hanrahan reached over his wife and put his hands on Rosemary’s shoulders, then jerked her violently out of the corner and threw her onto the floor of the car.

  “My God!” Patricia shrieked. “Paul, what in the world…”

  Hanrahan put his hands on his wife’s hair and pulled her downward to the floorboard.

  He felt the car brake, and then skid. Next he was flying forward, slamming into his wife, and then bouncing against the back of the front seat.

  “Stay where you are!” he ordered.

  Rosemary began to whimper.

  He got his hand on the .45, tugged it free of the holster, and worked the action. Then he opened the door and crawled quickly out between the two Citroëns. They had both skidded to a stop, crosswise on the road, facing in opposite directions.

  He got to his knees and moved to the rear of the car he had just left.

  Vietnamese in black pajamas were spilling from the GMC. The man in the lead was raising an American Thompson .45 caliber submachine gun to his shoulder, aiming it at the rear car.

  Hanrahan put both hands together on the .45 to steady it and shot the man twice, first in the chest and then again in the face.

  Then he ran the four steps to the edge of the road and dived into the ditch.

  There came the sound of submachine guns, not the slower blam-blam-blam a Thompson makes, but a lighter, ripping sound. And then other weapons were firing. His pistol held in both hands in front of him, Hanrahan popped up from the ditch.

  The firefight was over.

  Not all the Vietnamese in black pajamas had made it out of the GMC. Those that had were sprawled in spreading pools of blood behind the man with the Thompson he had dropped. The others were hanging at obscene angles from the open doors of the truck. The windows on the GMC were stitched with holes, and steam was rising from the hood and radiator.

  The Vietnamese in the Citroëns had not been “sharing a rice bowl,” he now realized; they’d been riding shotgun. Now they were advancing toward the GMC, holding French MAT-49 9 mm machine pistols in their hands. The man Hanrahan had shot was obviously dead; the .45 bullet had blown the back of his head away. There was some question about the others on the ground behind him, or hanging from the GMC.

  One of the Vietnamese matter of factly ejected the clip from his MAT-49, inserted a fresh one, and then emptied it into the bodies.

  “Formidable, mon Colonel,” Jean-Philippe Jannier said, and then switched to English. “But I fear you have dirtied your suit.”

  He had a MAT-49 hanging loosely at his side. Hanrahan saw vestiges of smoke curling from the open action.

  “Fuck my suit,” Hanrahan said. He rushed to the Citroën, and for a moment his heart stopped. Patricia and Rosemary were not moving.

  “Oh, my God!” Hanrahan wailed.

  And then Patricia looked up at him, wide-eyed, terrified, unbelieving.

  “Honey?” she asked, and then she repeated herself.

  “It’s OK, Patty,” he said. “It’s all over.”

  “Honey?” she asked again.

  When she saw the bodies on the road, Patricia became nauseous, and that caused a sympathetic reaction in Rosemary.

  There was more carnage than anyone would have thought possible. He was able to reconstruct what had happened: it was an ambush, a carefully planned ambush, probably intended to get Jean-Philippe Jannier, and probably because of his grandfather. The ambushers had known the cars were coming. They had waited along the road to positively identify Jannier, and then chased him in the GMC. The GMC also served as a signal to men on the highway. When they saw it coming, they turned a bullock-drawn cart across the road to block it. The car had then been pinned between the GMC and the cart.

  If there had been just one car, if Jannier had been traveling alone, the ambush would have succeeded. He would have been caught the moment he stopped.

  But there had been a moment’s hesitation when the two cars had skidded to a stop, sufficient time for the bodyguard in the rear car to direct his fire against the GMC. It was possible, Hanrahan decided, that he had been unnecessary, that the man in his car could have taken care of the man he had shot.

  He was suddenly violently angry that the Janniers could put his wife and his children in such jeopardy.

  But then he realized that was emotion speaking, not reason. They had done nothing of the kind.

  The bullocks were unhurt. They hadn’t even run. One of the Vietnamese went to them, urged them into motion, and got the cart off the road. The others picked up the weapons of the ambushers and loaded them into the trunks of the Citroëns. Then they resumed their journey to Saigon.

  Before they got to Saigon, Hanrahan had calmed down enough to realize that there would very likely be all kinds of Vietnamese officialdom interested in what had happened on the road. If that happened, their departure would be delayed. He told the driver to signal the other car to stop so he could discuss the problem with Jean-Philippe Jannier.

  “I can look into the future, mon Colonel,” Jannier said immediately. “Two hours from now, as they return from an uneventful trip to Saigon, my father’s cars will be assaulted without warning. Unfortunately, lives will be lost.”

  “That sounds too simple to be workable,” Hanrahan said.

  “Put the matter from your mind, mon Colonel,” Jannier said. “It might be wise to have a word with Madame Hanrahan. And perhaps leave the children somewhere while we are at le cocktail.”

  In the end, a generous bribe put the children in the billiard room while le cocktail was being held. And Paul’s dirty suit was explained by a story of a flat tire.

  Kevin Hanrahan, looking at the door of the billiard room, saw his father making his way to the men’s room. He came running in after him, wrapped his ams around his father’s leg, and hung on tightly.

  “I don’t ever want to come back,” Kevin said.

  (Three)

  Honolulu, Hawaii

  27 December 1958

  The Hanrahans were less than twenty-four hours out of Saigon, but they had crossed the international date line. December 26 had forever vanished from their lives.

  They were not supposed to deplane at Honolulu, which was simply a fueling stop. Kevin and Rosemary slept through the landing.

  The stewardess came down the aisle.

  “There is an urgent telephone call for you, Colonel,” she said.

  “I guess the Embassy heard about the attack,” Paul, Jr., said evenly. “And now we’ll have to go back for the investigation.”

  Hanrahan thought angrily that such a sophisticated analysis from a kid that age was less an indication of his intelligence than proof that he had taken his kids where they shouldn’t have gone.

  “‘Never take counsel of your fears,’” Hanrahan quoted. “General George S. Patton.”

  “What are you going to do if they have?”

  “Tell the truth,” Hanrahan said. “I didn’t volunteer any information, but I didn’t withhold any, either.”

  “That logic is invalid,” Paul, Jr., said.

  “You spent too much time with the Jesuits,” his father said.

  “The truth is the truth.”

  “Truth is a perception,” Hanrahan said to his son, as he pulled up his necktie, and gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile to Patricia.

  “What does that mean?” Paul, Jr., asked.

&nbsp
; “Ask the Jesuits,” Hanrahan said, and then he walked down the aisle and down the ladder into the inhospitable atmosphere of a deserted airport.

  There was a white telephone immediately inside the terminal building. He picked it up.

  “This is Colonel Hanrahan,” he said. “Have you a call for me?”

  “I have a call for Lieutenant Colonel Paul. T. Hanrahan,” the operator said.

  “This is he,” he said.

  He felt like a fool, as if he’d been caught in a pretense. According to army regulations, the “lieutenant prefix is customarily not used in informal communication.” He was right by the book, but he felt like an ass.

  “One moment, please,” the operator said. And after a pause: “I have Lieutenant Colonel Hanrahan for you.”

  A male voice demanded: “Is this Lieutenant Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is Major Ford, sir. I’m the field-grade duty officer at Headquarters, USARPAC.”

  If Headquarters, U.S. Army, Pacific, had bothered to stop him en route home, his ass was obviously in a deeper crack than he had thought.

  “What can I do for you, Major?”

  “DA has advised by radio of a change in your orders, Lieutenant Colonel Hanrahan, and directed Headquarters, USARPAC, to relay them to you.”

  Hanrahan picked up on the “lieutenant colonel” business. Maybe USARPAC had a local rule that lieutenant colonels be fully identified.

  “I was afraid of that,” Hanrahan said, “when I was damned near home.”

  “May I read them to you, Lieutenant Colonel Hanrahan?”

  That’s what it was, a local rule. Maybe it made sense. He would have to think about it.

  “Please,” Hanrahan said.

  “I’ll just touch on the highlights, Lieutenant Colonel,” the major said.

  “Go ahead,” Hanrahan said, impatiently. What he was going to hear was that he was to interrupt his travel, and report to Hq USARPAC to await further orders.

  “So much of Paragraph 34, General Order 203, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington 25, D.C., dated 1 November 1958,” the major read, “as pertains to Lieutenant Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan, Signal Corps, is amended to read, ‘Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan, Signal Corps, detailed Infantry,’ and so much of subject paragraph as pertains to subject officer reporting for duty with USASWS is amended to read ‘to assume command of USASWS.’”

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Hanrahan said. “I wasn’t even on the list.”

  “You were on somebody’s list, Colonel,” the major said, with a chuckle. “Am I the first to be able to congratulate you?”

  “Yes,” Hanrahan said.

  “My congratulations, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Hanrahan said.

  Actually stunned, Hanrahan hung the telephone up without even saying good-bye.

  He stood with his head bent looking at the telephone.

  “Bad, honey?” Patricia’s voice said behind him.

  He turned and saw the concern in her eyes. It took him a moment to find his voice.

  “How would you like to kiss a bird fucking colonel?” he asked.

  Her eyebrows went up.

  “Failing that, how about the new commanding officer of the Special Warfare School?” he said.

  She ran to his arms.

  And then, after a moment, very softly, she whispered in his ear: “If I had my druthers, I’d rather fuck the full fucking colonel.”

  II

  (One)

  Hartwell Field

  Atlanta, Georgia

  1615 Hours, 28 December 1958

  There had not been time in San Francisco to get on the telephone to Bob Bellmon, and there had not been time here in Atlanta to make any calls before Captain Jean-Philippe Jannier had to board the Southern Airlines DC-3 which would carry him to Dothan, Alabama, the nearest field to Fort Rucker. There was barely going to be enough time now, before they had to board Piedmont to fly to Fayetteville, N.C., the last leg of their journey to Fort Bragg; but Hanrahan thought he should at least try.

  A surly attendant at the newsstand changed a ten dollar bill into quarters for him. After some difficulty in finding a telephone booth, rather than what looked like giant clam shells mounted to the walls, he began to make his call. With a little bit of luck, he could catch Bellmon and have him send someone to meet Jannier’s plane.

  There was no answer at Bellmon’s quarters. Next he called Combat Developments, but a none-too-bright sergeant who was in charge of quarters informed him that “the general and his wife is at the funeral, probably.”

  “I’m asking for Colonel Bellmon, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. They made him a general, as of this morning.”

  “You say he’s at a funeral?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Greer’s.”

  “Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”

  “No telling, sir. It’s a great big funeral, with the band and everything. The place is crawling with brass.”

  Hanrahan was curious about that “great big funeral, with the band and everything” for a simple lieutenant, but he didn’t have the time to pursue his curiosity.

  “Sergeant, have you got a pencil?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My name is Hanrahan,” he said. “I’ll spell it for you.” He did. “Will you please give General Bellmon a note saying that I telephoned, that I extend my congratulations on his promotion, and that I will call again.”

  “Yes, sir. Be happy to.”

  “Thank you very much,” Hanrahan said, and hung up.

  It wasn’t the end of the world. He could call again, as soon as he got to Fayetteville, and still have someone call Jannier and welcome him to Rucker once he was actually there. Certainly someone official would meet him, and Captain Jean-Philippe Jannier was not an innocent second lieutenant. He could make it from the airport to the post by himself.

  Then Hanrahan thought of Sandy Felter.

  Now that he was out of Vietnam, he knew he simply could not forget the ambush on the road. He had realized on the plane that he had erred in not reporting it. He should have stayed and dealt with it, no matter what a pain in the ass that would have been.

  The attack itself was worthy of official note. The Vietminh, if that’s what they were, had made a daylight assassination attempt on a Frenchman. Even more important, it followed that if they knew as much about Captain Jean-Philippe Jannier’s movements as they obviously did, then they knew that the guests of the Janniers were an American MAG officer and his family: That had not stopped them. That was something new. Felter had told him the communists were going out of their way not to attack Americans.

  The very least he could do was tell Felter. Perhaps that would, in some small way, permit him to squirm out of his failure to do in Saigon what he knew damned well was the correct thing to do.

  He took out his address book again and found a Washington number that Felter had told him was sort of an answering service. The operator took what seemed like an endless amount of quarters, and then put the call through.

  “Liberty 7—1221,” a pleasant female voice said.

  “Major Felter, please,” Hanrahan said.

  “May I ask who is calling, please?”

  “This is Colonel Paul Hanrahan.”

  “One moment, please, Colonel,” the woman said.

  The woman wore the five stripes of a sergeant first class on her khaki shirt, and she was sitting with three other soldiers before a switchboard in a small room with eight-foot-thick walls fifty feet under the White House.

  She raised her hand over her head and snapped her fingers to attract the attention of a young Signal Corps captain who was in charge. He walked quickly over to her.

  “Colonel Paul Hanrahan for Felter,” she said. “There’s a Lieutenant Colonel Hanrahan, Paul T., on the list.” She pointed out a name in a loose-leaf notebook in front of her. These were the names and telephone numbers of those that the fifty-odd people on what was known as “the A List” (those with unlimited access to the White House communications system) might wish to talk to. “But the number here is in Saigon.”

  “Probably the same guy,” the captain decided. “Put him through.”