Mrs. Jacques Emile Portet leaned over her husband, who was asleep on his back, took his nipple between her fingers, and pinched it.
“Mon Dieu!” he yelped, and sat up. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Oh, I like it when you talk French!” she said. “Good morning, husband. Sleep well?”
“Oh, yeah. And you obviously have something against that?”
“No, not at all,” Marjorie said. “But now that we are married, and that marriage has been duly—and I must say well—consummated . . .”
“Thank you very much. Be sure to tell your friends.”
“We have to talk, and the way you looked, you were going to sleep until noon.”
“Talk about what?”
“What happens now.”
“I think the plan was to get up, have breakfast, and take off for Ocean Reef.”
“I mean, after Ocean Reef.”
“We go back to Rucker. I have to be there January second— but, as we discussed, wife, we could go back in time for New Year’s Eve at the club, if that is your desire.”
“Then?”
“Then Pappy and I go out to Wichita and pick up an L-23 at the Beechcraft plant, which I will then fly back to Rucker. I will then stand around the SCATSA hangar and watch them do whatever they’re going to do with the L-23. And when they’ve finished doing whatever they’re going to do with the L-23, I will take it to Bragg, while my bride drives the family Jaguar up there.”
̒̒̒̒“ ‘ Family Jaguar’? Didn’t I hear you say, before God and a chapel full of people, that you were about to endow me with all your worldly goods?”
“I wasn’t thinking about my Jaguar when I made that promise, ” he said. He paused. “But if you want the Jag, baby, it’s yours. Wedding present. And if driving it up there bothers you, honey, I could deliver the L-23 up there, catch a commercial flight back to Rucker, and we could drive up there together, in your Jaguar.”
“You do understand I was pulling your leg?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have much experience dealing with a wife.”
“So far, you’re doing very well,” she said. “And now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, I sort of like the sound of ‘family Jaguar.’ ”
“Whatever I have is yours, baby,” Jack said.
She lowered her face to his and kissed him, at first very tenderly.
Five minutes later, lying with her face against his chest, she asked:
“What’s that all about?”
“What’s what all about?”
“The L-23.”
“I don’t really know,” he said.
“You don’t really know, or it’s classified, and you don’t think you can tell me?”
“I’m sure it’s classified,” he said. “Everything around Colonel Felter seems to be classified Top Secret.”
“First reminding you that your wife is not some airhead you picked up in a honky-tonk outside the gate, but a fifth-generation Army brat who knows all about security classifications, and is not going to say anything about anything to anybody, are you going to tell me or not?”
“I wondered about that,” he said seriously. “Every time they tell you a secret, the usual line is ‘This goes no further, and that includes your wife.’ And I wondered how I would handle that with you.”
“And?”
“And, I figured, fuck it, I’ll tell her everything.”
“I don’t like the language, but I approve of the decision,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“So what’s with the L-23?”
“I really don’t know. It’s a Felter operation. He told Pappy to pick up the airplane at Beech, take it to SCATSA—what the hell is SCATSA, anyway?”
“It stands for Signal Corps Aviation Test and Support Activity, ” Marjorie said. “It’s not under Fort Rucker. It’s what they call a Class II activity; it takes its orders from the chief signal officer. Among other things, it provides avionic support to the Aviation Test Board and Combat Developments. And this won’t be the first nobody-talks-about-it job they’ve done for Uncle Sandy. You don’t know what they’re going to do to it?”
“Equip it with navigation equipment, and maybe auxiliary fuel tanks so that it can be ferried to Argentina and used there.”
“What’s that got to do with you? Which raises the question: What are you going to be doing at Fort Bragg?”
“I can’t imagine how it will have anything to do with me. I think all I’m going to do is fly it up there. Felter probably has some other iron in the fire. And what I’m going to be doing at Bragg has its own security clearance. Top Secret Slash Earnest. Felter found out somewhere that Che Guevara—Ernesto Guevara, hence Earnest—is going to