“I’ll have to go to the Director and try to pour oil on the troubled waters,” Felter said. “He’ll be at Camp David this afternoon. ”
“What do you want me to do about Intercontinental Air, Ltd.?”
“If you took the wings off a Beaver, could you get it in Portet’s 707?”
Lowell considered the question.
“You’d probably have to take the landing gear off, too,” he said. “Put it on some kind of skid, pallet, but yeah, I think so.”
“Have Mr. Finton issue a purchase order,” Felter said. “And for God’s sake, don’t take this as a license to steal from the government. ”
“Yes, sir.”
“And make a real effort to think things through before you jump into something else, will you?”
“If I fucked up, Mouse,” Lowell said. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Felter said. “Whenever I hear the phrase ‘loose cannon,’ I see your face.”
Felter looked at his watch, nodded at Lowell, and walked out of his office without another word.
[ SEVEN ]
Office of the Commanding General
John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1300 8 February 1965
“Major Lunsford requests a few minutes of your time, General, ” Captain Stefan Zabrewski boomed into Brigadier General Paul R. Hanrahan’s office from the door.
Hanrahan, who was deep into paperwork, made a “let him in” sign with his fingers, but did not raise his eyes from the paperwork for perhaps sixty seconds. When he did, he saw Lunsford standing at rigid attention ten inches from his desk, his right hand holding a stiff-fingered salute.
Hanrahan returned it with a casual wave in the general direction of his forehead.
“The major is grateful the general is willing to give the major some of his valuable time without an appointment,” Father said.
“I’m up to my ass in paper and in no mood for your sophomoric humor,” Hanrahan said.
“May the major take that as permission to assume the position of Parade Rest, sir?”
“The major better have something pretty damned important on his so-called mind when he sits down,” Hanrahan said.
“Thank you, sir,” Father said, and slumped into the chair before Hanrahan’s desk.
“Well?” Hanrahan asked impatiently.
“Sir, the major believes he will not be wasting the general’s time. Sir, the major believes that an incipient rebellion, perhaps even a mutiny, is worthy of the general’s time.”
“Now you’re really not funny, Father,” Hanrahan said.
“What happened is that one of the cadre, a staff sergeant whose name I know but would prefer not to reveal, mistook a couple of the ASA guys for privates on a labor detail, and did the standard ‘you and you come with me’ routine, whereupon the senior of the ASA guys said, “Go fuck yourself, I’m sick of you and your fucking kind,’ or words to that effect.”
“That’s insubordination,” Hanrahan said.
“Not if you’re a Spec7,” Father said, “and the guy you told to go fuck himself is a staff sergeant, E-6. I think that may be conduct unbecoming an NCO, but I don’t really know. In defense of the sergeant, the ASA Spec7 was not wearing stripes.”
“So what happened?” Hanrahan asked.
“The sergeant went looking for the Doubting Thomas, who he correctly believed was in the charge of the legs at Mackall to report the insubordination and the ASA guys went to Aunt Jemima, where he repeated that he and the other ASA guys were sick of being fucked with by every other Green Beanie with a room-temperature IQ, and they were right on the edge of unvolunteering for overseas duty of a classified and hazardous nature.”
The Army Security Agency had provided Operation Earnest with twelve enlisted men, all of African heritage, all of whom were either skilled electronic technicians or high-speed radiotelegraph operators, and in many cases both.
“They’re serious, or just pissed?” Hanrahan asked, now concerned.
“The Spec7 volunteered out of the White House Signal Agency, where he went to work every day in a suit, and had coffee served to him on duty from the presidential kitchen. That was the reason he didn’t have stripes on his fatigues; he hasn’t owned fatigues for years, and the Mackall supply room didn’t have any Spec7 stripes to issue him when they issued the fatigues. There are just over a hundred Spec7’s in the entire U.S. Army, I learned today. He’s pissed and serious.”
“Nobody told your guys who the ASA guys were?” Hanrahan asked.
“My guys know. The Mackall cadre does not. They didn’t have the need-to-know.”