Operations building from his first quick tour of the field—he had come on duty at 1615—there was a black Oldsmobile 98 with a blue sticker FORT RUCKER ALA 1 parked in the spot marked COMMANDING GENERAL.
McCarthy was made a little nervous, and was annoyed with the AOD he had relieved, who had said nothing about the general being on the program for the evening.
He got quickly out of the staff car—which had a large black-and -white checked flag flying from a mast on the rear bumper— and entered the building.
The sergeant on the desk pointed to the flight planning room, and Major McCarthy walked quickly to the door and pushed it open.
The general, a civilian, and a sergeant were bent over one of the worktables. Mrs. Bellmon and the general’s daughter were standing before a huge map of the southern portion of the United States, which filled a wall.
There were other pilots in the room, obviously trying to stay out of the general’s way.
Major McCarthy recognized the sergeant, despite the bandage over his nose. He had recently taken his annual instrument exam, and the sergeant had been in the office of the Instrument Board. McCarthy remembered someone telling him that he was a drafted airline pilot who had opted for two years’ service as an enlisted man, rather than three or more years as an officer/pilot.
That explained what he was doing, making a flight plan, but it didn’t mesh with McCarthy’s memory that the drafted airline pilot had been a just-out-of-basic-training private, not a Green Beret sergeant with two sets of parachutist’s wings.
“Good evening, General,” McCarthy said. “Major McCarthy, the AOD. Can I be of some help?”
Bellmon turned and looked at him.
“Thanks, but no thanks, Major,” he said, smiling. “But maybe the girls would like a Coke or a cup of coffee in the lounge.”
“My pleasure, sir,” Major McCarthy said. He turned to the women. “Would you like to come with me, ladies?”
“I’d like to see what’s Jack’s doing,” Marjorie said. “Would I be in the way?”
“Help yourself,” Jack said, and she walked to the table.
Barbara Bellmon smiled at Major McCarthy.
“I’ll pass on the coffee, but thank you, Major.”
Jack drew a straight line on a plastic-covered map of the area. It ran directly from Cairns Field to Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami. The route passed east of Crestview and Panama City, Florida, and then would take them over Appalachacola and the Gulf of Mexico, reaching land again northeast of Clearwater, Florida, and then across the Florida peninsula to Hollywood on the Atlantic coast.
“You’re not going IFR?”—instrument flight rules—General Bellmon asked, surprised, and just a little disapproving.
Jack shook his head, no.
“They’d vector me into Georgia,” he explained, drawing a course with his finger on the map. “And then down the peninsula. That’d add a couple of hundred miles, and this way I’ll pick up a tailwind.”
“That’s what?” General Bellmon asked, and made a compass of his fingers to measure the distance on the map. “That’s two hundred and something miles over the water.”
General Bellmon obviously did not approve of the flight plan, and Major McCarthy was surprised that the sergeant, ex-airline pilot or not, did not immediately concur with the general’s judgment.
“Daddy, Jack knows what he’s doing,” Marjorie said.
You said that because he’s your knight in shining armor, but the fact is that he probably does, General Bellmon thought. He’s got more hours in the air than I do.
“I’m sure he does,” Bellmon said, smiling with a visible effort, “and he’s the pilot.”
Well, Major McCarthy thought, if the sergeant is the pilot, that explains the Cessna 310H parked on the visitors’ tarmac, doesn’t it?
And what’s going on with him and the general’s daughter?
[ SIX ]
Over Hollywood, Florida
2125 3 December 1964
“Miami, Cessna Six-oh-one,” Jack said into the microphone.
“Six-oh-one, Miami.”
“I’m on a VFR “—Visual Flight Rules—” Direct Cairns Field Alabama-Hollywood. You got it?”
“Hold one,” the Miami controller said, and then, a moment later, “Got you, Six-oh-one.”
“I’m at seven thousand over Hollywood. I want to extend to a private strip about twenty miles south of Miami. Okay?”
“Permission granted. I have you on radar. Close out again when you’re on the ground.”
“Beginning descent at this time. And thank you, Miami,” Jack said, and turned to Geoff Craig.
“Okay, now what?”
Geoff handed him the Jeppesen chart for the Miami area and pointed out a private landing strip on a narrow reef a few miles east of Key Largo.
“A private strip?” Jack asked dubiously. “Has it got lights?”
“Oh, ye of little faith!” Geoff replied. He dialed a frequency