My King The President (24 page)

All this took more than an hour, and when we took our seats again, and were served soft drinks, my lasting thought, which I quietly verbalized, was to wonder how in hell the beast ever got off the ground in the first place. Franklin laughed and told us that any two of the General Electric jet engines, each of which could generate up to nearly fifty-seven thousand pounds of thrust, could lift and fly the 231 foot-long Goliath. “It also has the capability for in-flight refueling, and, since she carries enough food for two thousand meals, could fly practically indefinitely—if it ever becomes necessary.

Saying he had some calls of his own to make, Franklin left us alone for a while, and I asked Mackenzie, “What impresses you the most, Sarge?”

“This thing has six toilets.
Six!
The folks who fly in this baby must have real stress problems.”

His comment reminded me of my own stress. My mind drifted back over our Camp David talks, which, now in the clear light of day, seemed so preposterous, so insane, they could only be pure, horrific fantasy. Like a child’s nightmare. “Do you really, honestly think such a coup was actually possible, Sarge?”

Mackenzie looked down between his knees, as if he were studying his shoes for a speck that might have marred their spit-shined perfection. Slowly, his head moved up and down. “They coulda done it, all right. I spent almost all my life in the military. Loved it. I loved the Army, and I know there were thousands like me that hated to see it going to hell in a hand basket, while the politicians divvied up barrel after barrel of the nation’s pork. They didn’t mind one bit putting
our
asses on the line anywhere in the world, but never wanted to spend ten lousy bucks to give us what we needed to back it all up, not to mention decent pay. They treated us like we were third class citizens, and I’m talkin’ from the generals on down, and have for thirty years.”

“Fight. Since Lincoln’s time, Americans don’t have no idea of what it’s like to have a real live shootin’ war in their own town. Their own neighborhood. See their own American Dream houses blasted around their ears. Their own grandmas and grandpas blown away. Their own children frying like little chunks of crispy bacon. Go hungry day after day. Go for a year without taking a bath. Oh, yeah, they could’ve pulled it off, and I don’t doubt for one minute that if General Tyndall hadn’t got shot, he might have yanked the chain, sooner or later.”

A cold shudder ran through me. Again. Mackenzie fell silent. So did I, for several minutes, then, for some odd reason, I felt like looking once more at Walt’s list of dead dwarfs. The sheets were still in my pocket. I took them out and studied the names over and over. Clifford Mansfield, Carl Torrence, General Turnberry, Paul Church, Edwin Sneed. Could any besides Ferris have had (or even suspected) any notion of what they were unwittingly helping to set up? Was that why they had all been systematically—and permanently—removed from the nation’s bosom?

While pondering those unanswerable questions, I happened to glance at the third sheet, which I hadn’t paid much attention to before:

HETTIE KEELER: This one’s a mystery, Jeb. Couldn’t find anything about her anywhere. Like she doesn’t exist at all! Only record I could trace of any Hettie Keeler was a three year-old child who had died with mother and two other kids forty years ago in a tenement fire in Harlem. Literal dead-end. Sorry. I’ll keep trying if you think I should
.

The President, her entourage, and the press people came back before I had much of a chance to ponder the riddle of Hettie Keeler. President Fordham, walking briskly past us with a cell phone at her ear, gave me the beginnings of a smile and a quick wink before disappearing aft. As before, the few staff members and press corps people clattering behind her ignored us, this time muttering among themselves what a silly waste of time the Norfolk visit had been. I caught enough over-whispered, profanity-laced sentences that, added up, told me how disappointed they were. There was certainly no story there. She had sailed in, shaken a few hands, taken one fast boat ride around the harbor, promised to come back again soon, shaken a few more hands, and departed as rapidly as she had appeared, leaving the Navy brass just as bewildered as they were. For a moment, I forgot about my private thoughts and enjoyed the hell out of the surly scene like the all-knowing Cheshire cat. Faster than I would have thought possible, we were moving again, and within minutes, were airborne.

Our landing at Seymour Johnson was smooth as satin, and once more Mackenzie and I hung back, watching the President and her trailing hounds depart. After a ten-minute interval, we also trooped down the steps and headed toward a lone figure still waiting on the now empty tarmac, standing beside a blue staff car. He was tall, trim, with iron gray hair showing around his temples, and had more stripes on his sleeves than a zebra has on his back. Master Sergeant Kenneth Lyman greeted and shook hands with former Master Sergeant Joseph Mackenzie as if they were brothers who hadn’t seen each other in twenty years. Lyman gave me one noncommittal, polite nod and held the back door of the car open for me. Mackenzie got in the front, and Lyman got behind the wheel.

“Okay, buddy,” he said to Mackenzie as he drove toward the gate, “What can I do for you? Must be important. First time I ever got a personal call from a Commander-in-Chief, let alone one in skirts.”

Mackenzie laughed. “I figured if anybody around this base knew where we can get our hands on some uniforms and certain other supplies we need, it’d be you. Has to be a surplus store somewhere nearby.”

Lyman nodded. “I know just the place. Smitty’s Army-Navy. ’Bout ten miles from here. You want to go there now?”

“Yeah, Sarge,” Mackenzie answered. “We ain’t got a whole helluva lotta time, neither. This Smitty guy runs that store, he do tailoring too?”

“Yep.”

“Doctoring, too?”

This time Sergeant Lyman glanced sideways. His profile showed no surprise, only mild curiosity, but he instinctively knew better than to ask any questions. “If you got the right price, he does. What do you need?”

“ID cards and the other usual stuff.” He jerked his thumb backwards. “Also, I need to borrow your office typewriter, and before he gets his picture taken, we need to get him a GI shave and a haircut.”

Mackenzie nodded. “Feels
damn
good.”

I believed him.

Chapter 23

The three-hour period Mackenzie had requested was barely enough. If it hadn’t been for Sergeant Lyman’s local knowledge and influence (and a good sized chunk of President Fordham’s money) we would never have made it. Smitty’s in-house tailor measured Old Sarge and me carefully, and while he got busy working on the uniforms, Lyman drove us to a nearby barber shop where I lost my beard and all the hair that had grown back in the vicinity of my ears. I enjoyed the temporary luxury of being shaved and barbered, but when I was spun around to see the results in the mirror, it was something of a shock. I felt practically naked. Worse, perhaps once again recognizable.

I didn’t have time to worry about it, though, since I was immediately whisked back to Smitty’s. We were photographed by the close-mouthed proprietor himself, in a small room in the back of his large store that was cleverly camouflaged by house-cleaning supplies; mops, buckets, and strong smelling disinfectant, some of which had to be moved to get to the connecting cubicle that served as his darkroom. While Smitty was busy inside it, Lyman and Mackenzie explained to me that rather than getting chewed out by superiors when a soldier lost his ID, or had it stolen from him, (a black mark on the record) it was a fairly simple—if costly—matter to have people like Smitty make up a forged one. “It’s done everywhere there’s a big military base, Jeb,” Mackenzie said, with Lyman nodding his silent agreement. “Lots less grief involved, and good ‘doctors’ like Smitty can fix ’em so you can’t tell the difference. Lamination and all.”

It wasn’t long before I was staring at myself in another mirror. This time a full length one, dressed in the hastily but expertly tailored winter uniform of a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, with gleaming shoes and silver braided cap to match. Mackenzie, now decked out in his own new uniform, showed his satisfaction at the tailor’s work and explained, pointing at my lapels and shoulders, “That insignia shows you to be a JAG light Colonel.”

“JAG?”

Judge Advocate General’s office. Military lawyer. The ribbons you’re wearing ain’t much, but they’re about right for your time and grade. Nametag reads Col. James Will, close enough to Jeb Willard, I reckon, and that’s what your ID will show. Found you a beat-up GI briefcase out front, too, and soon as I can get to Sergeant Lyman’s office typewriter, you’ll have pretty authentic TDY orders to go in it.” He glanced back into the mirror, making me feel like I was Prokoviev’s fictional Lieutenant Kije “I guess you can pass for the real thing.” He turned to Lyman. “What do you think, Top?”

“Looks so much like an officer, I feel like fucking saluting,” he answered, laughing. “But what about you, buddy? Looks like you’ve demoted yourself. Ain’t you missin’ a few stripes? And about a dozen years worth of hash marks?”

“Yep. Wouldn’t do for me to show my true rank. I’m just the Colonel’s driver, remember? I also ain’t wearing half my campaign ribbons, but what the hell, I reckon we’ll pass muster for what we’re gonna do.” He turned to Smitty and the slender, aging tailor, whose name was never mentioned. “You guys done a good job. Now, all we need is a couple clothes bags to put this stuff in.”

Dressed as we had been before and carrying our new duds, we made it back to the big plane five minutes before President Fordham and the others re-boarded. When we climbed the steps and were once again enveloped inside its cavernous womb, I felt a great sense of relief. Here, I felt absolutely safe. Secure as I had felt at Camp David. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been chased or shot at for several days now. That light-headed feeling passed as quickly as it had come, however. Agent Bert Franklin, noticing my slick jaws and chin, gave me an icy look of disapproval and overt suspicion, and my apprehension returned in a hurry. But he was the only one who really noticed me. No one returning in the Presidential party gave me so much as a single glance. They were in no mood to note the change in my appearance, especially Connie Ferris, whose own square face, now a livid red, showed he had apparently just been told we were going to Fort Bragg, not Fort Benning.

Old Braxton Bragg’s bearded face, Mackenzie told me, had looked a lot like Abraham Lincoln’s. “He wasn’t near as tall, but his pictures show that he could’ve passed for Abe’s brother. Damn fine General, too. Took over from Beauregard after Shiloh, then liberated the whole State of Tennessee and most of Kentucky before his army ran outa gas. Probably was the high-water point of the Confederacy’s big push. I imagine Abe would’ve liked to have had him leadin’ Union troops.”

I had no idea that Fort Bragg had been named for a Confederate General, and was further impressed at Joe Mackenzie’s knowledge of Civil War history, and told him so as we circled for our approach into Pope Air Force Base, which joins Fort Bragg on its northern edge.

“Military history’s been my hobby since day one, Jeb.”

“So, who was Pope named for?”

“A young Flying Officer who crashed his Jenny into the Cape Fear River back in 1919.” He pointed through the window. “Right over there. General Bragg was born a ways right up that same river, in Warrenton. You bein’ a Tar Heel, I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

I had to laugh, and admit, “Joe, what I know about the military wouldn’t fill up a shot glass, and pretty soon I’m going to have to pose as a regular Officer and a Gentleman. Think I can do it?”

“Shouldn’t be no harder than posing as a priest. Act like you’re superior to anybody you see that don’t wear eagles or stars and you’ll be fine. Just don’t come on like John Wayne. Besides,” he added with a smirk, “You ain’t supposed to be regular Army anyway, just a hot shot lawyer in uniform.”

Put in my place, I smiled back at him just as the big bird’s wheels touched down—with no more of a bump than before. Air Force One hadn’t even come to a complete stop when President Fordham came out of her quarters, this time dressed in slacks and sweater, heading for the main door. Mackenzie and I watched her de-plane, followed once more by Connie Ferris and the entire string of grousing guests. We waited only five minutes, and then took our clothes bags into the dining room where Bert Franklin silently watched us change clothes. I glanced at myself in the mirror on the back of the door, took a deep breath, and told Mackenzie, “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

“Good luck, guys,” Franklin said as we walked to the ramp. “The Boss talked to me some. Told me she was going to ask for a demo drop. 82
^nd
Airborne. You’ll probably have three, maybe four hours.”

“We’ll be back in two, I hope,” I said, “Either in person or in body bags.”

Franklin didn’t think that was funny…

The hardest part was the long walk to the motor pool, which was at least half a mile from the busy runways and hangars. My new shoes were a good fit, though, and my muscles needed the stretch. The laid-back sergeant at the gate of the motor pool took one look at Mackenzie’s pass and TDY orders, one at my rank, then merely asked if we wanted a car or a jeep. Joe told him we needed a car.