call back later when you just haven’t rolled out of the wrong side of the bed?”
He recognized the voice as that of Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell.
“I was actually in a very good mood until I heard your voice.”
“Honest to God, Red, I waited until I thought you would be up before I called.”
“I’m touched by your concern,” Hanrahan said. “What’s on your mind, Craig?”
“Where did you hide Portet? At Camp Mackall?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’s his nose?”
“It’s broken, but, aside from a bandage, there’s nothing that can be done to it or for it.”
“How long will it take to get him to Bragg from Mackall?”
“As a matter of fact, he’s sitting here in my kitchen. Marjorie’s here.”
That caught the attention of Mrs. Hanrahan, Miss Bellmon, and Sergeant Portet, who looked at him.
Hanrahan covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
“Craig Lowell,” he explained.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Lowell said, chuckling. “Listen, Red, Geoff Craig’s on his way there. He should be there within the hour.”
“He’s here,” Hanrahan interrupted.
“Pappy Hodges is with him,” Lowell said. “They’re in my Cessna.”
“And?”
“Geoff’s going to drop Pappy at Rucker, and then bring Portet here.”
“Where’s here?”
“Florida.”
“Where in Florida? McDill?”
Lowell was the army aviation officer on the staff of the commanding general, U.S. Army Strike Command at McDill Air Force Base, Florida. Strike was an in-place headquarters organization commanded by a four-star general. When needed, tactical forces of all the armed services were placed under its command for operations around the world. It had been the headquarters for Operation Dragon Rouge.
“No. Actually, Miami. And actually a little south of Miami, near Key Largo. For a little well-deserved R and R.”
“Craig, my orders are to keep him under a rock.”
“Obviously, this has the blessing of His Holiness, Moses I,” Lowell said. “He’s here. You want me to put him on the horn, even if that means waking him from a sound sleep?”
Colonel Sanford T. Felter, Counselor to the President of the United States, had a staff of two. They were a bishop and nun, which he had to admit sounded a little funny, although he deeply regretted telling Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell where he had got them. Lowell thought it was hilarious, and had taken to calling Felter “His Holiness, Moses I, the First Jewish Pope.”
The bishop was really a bishop, not of the Roman Catholic Church, but of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. James L. Finton was a career soldier who had risen to chief warrant officer, W-4, in twenty-three years. He was a cryptographer by training. Felter had found him in the Army Security Agency and arranged for his transfer to the White House Signal Detachment. He was a devout Mormon, and had told Felter that the church had saved his sanity after his wife had died of cancer. He spent his free time in one Mormon church function or another in the District. He had come to Felter with a Top Secret clearance, and a number of endorsements to that. He had a cryptographic endorsement, a nuclear endorsement, and several others.
The nun was really a nun, and of the Roman Catholic Church. Mary Margaret Dunne had been temporarily relieved of her vows to provide for her aged and senile father. When he died, she would return to the cloistered life as Sister Matthew. She spent her life in one of three places: with her father in a small apartment; on her knees in Saint Mary’s church; or in Felter’s small but ornate and high-ceilinged office in the old State, War and Navy Building.
Mary Margaret Dunne had been taken on by the Kennedy White House following a quiet word from the bishop. She needed a job, and could type. She had gone to work for Felter the same morning President Kennedy had introduced Felter at a briefing as the only man in the White House who didn’t answer his phone.
They were fiercely devoted to Felter, and, about as important, were both quietly convinced that the Communists were the Antichrist, and that what Felter was doing, what they were helping him do, was as much the Lord’s work as it was the government’s.
“Sandy’s in Miami, with you?”
“We’re at McDill. The R and R will be in Miami. Portet’s mother and father are there. My cousin Porter and his wife— Geoff’s parents—are there. Geoff’s wife and baby are there. Okay?”
“How long will he be gone?”
“Sandy hasn’t made up his mind where to assign him.”
“I thought he was here on TDY only until Dragon Rouge was over.”