The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) (47 page)

“I asked him where the guy was, and his reply was, ‘Just up the road, in
Washington.’ That hit me like a ton of bricks. Our instructors continuously stressed that assassinations would take place only on foreign soil. If a requirement came up that involved a killing in the
US, they said that ‘underworld’ personnel would handle it. When I pointed this out to Brannan, he chuckled. ‘Things change,’ he said. Then his face darkened. ‘It’s impossible for me to conceive that you, a highly decorated officer in an elite force, can refuse an assignment that’s central to your country’s security. Please don’t pick nits with me on this.’”

“That pissed me off, maybe more than it should’ve, but it did, and in spades. ‘I don’t call obeying orders nit-picking, Ed,’ I told him, doing my best not to get too hot. ‘If I understood you correctly, you want me to volunteer to do something that’s against my express orders. I took an oath that says I won’t do that, and I don’t want any part of an assignment that would involve my doing it. With all due respect, what made you think that I would?’”

“‘We have a situation here, Captain,’ he said, ‘that’s immediate. I have neither the time nor the inclination to bandy words with you. Your refusal of the assignment’s noted. Please remember that everything that’s been said here is classified. Now I must ask you to excuse me; please keep your seat and finish your beer.’ Shaking my hand, and already looking toward the door, he said, ‘Nice to have met you.’ Then, goddam if he didn’t go right back to his spot outside the bar, and a couple of minutes later in he comes again, with a guy whom I’d seen a time or two on the Hill. Never knew his name, and never saw him again.”

“You think he took the job?” Jack asked.

“Can’t say for sure, but there are a couple of things I can say. One, Underhill’s a pretty uncommon name. After Brannan said it, another word started bouncing around in the back of my head along with it, while Brannan went on with his spiel: ‘Underhill; undertaker. Underhill; undertaker.’ Not all that funny in retrospect, but I wasn’t likely to forget the name right away. Two, the day before I called you I was reading an article on the Vietnam student protest marches in New York and San Francisco in The Washington Post, and when I turned to the page that the article was continued on, I saw this.” Getting out of his chair, he went to his briefcase that lay open on the other bed and took out a page of newsprint. Handing it to Jack, he indicated a small article that had been circled with a red ballpoint pen.

The page was from the May 9th issue of the Post. Under the headline Post Staffer Succumbs, the article continued: “May 9, 1964-
Post Assistant Editor John Garrett (Gary) Underhill, 48, was found dead yesterday in his
Washington
apartment. Prior to joining the Post, Mr. Underhill was an Associate at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies; he was Military Editor at Life magazine before serving in Military Intelligence during World War II. Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.”

Looking up from the paper, Jack said, “If this isn’t the guy your CIA friend described to you, it’s one hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Damn right it is; too much of one, for my money. And that article says absolutely nothing about how he died; you can bet if it was the work of anyone trained at Bragg, it could easily have been made to look like suicide. And one other thing’s for sure; the CIA’s got the assassin’s balls in its pocket. If they want that guy to do someone else, or a series of someone elses, what’s he gonna say? No? In a pig’s eye he is; they own his ass.”

“And how about you?” Jack asked. “The CIA recruiter told you Underhill’s name. What do you think the chances are that they’ll want to silence you- in a permanent way?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure, but if I were at CIA and making the decision was my responsibility, I’d shy away from unnecessary killing, particularly when an Army officer’s involved. I’ve run it back and forth countless times in my mind, and the conclusion that I’ve come to is that Brannan’s probably keeping mum that he slipped up and gave me the name. He’s probably counting on my respecting the security classification of what he told me to keep my mouth shut. Besides, what are the chances of my seeing a tiny article in the back pages of an out-of-town newspaper?”

“Pretty damn slim, seems to me,” Jack said. “How’d you happen to be reading the Post, anyway?”

“Went to Saturday brunch the O Club. Stopped by the reading room and picked it up when I saw the ‘Vietnam Protest’ headline.”

“That’s the coincidence of the fucking year! Did you mention any of this to anyone at Bragg?”

“Not bloody likely,” Rick scoffed. “To tell you the truth, I won’t be surprised if my room’s bugged by the time I get back. And I don’t like the thought of that worth a shit, or any of the rest of the CIA’s messing around with the Special Forces’ mission. We’ve had ’em in
Laos
and
Vietnam
all along, and they’ve been close to worthless, but yet they’re still able to pull the string on us anytime it suits ’em, and that’s bullshit. So I’m going to get out of the Army before I have any more time invested. Then I’ll see what I can do about letting the public know how their taxes and their sons’ lives are being wasted by people who don’t know shit from Shinola. And now they’re ready to send Army officers out to assassinate American citizens. It’s got to stop, and it won’t unless people like me, who’ve been there, start shining the light on what’s going on.” Rick paused, his face flushed, and drained his glass. “That’s why I’m here, buddy; to ask you what you’d do in my shoes.”

Jack got on his feet, talking over his shoulder as he set about making fresh drinks. “Well, from what I’ve seen of senior officers- let’s say Lieutenant Commander and above- they have their minds primarily on doing what it takes to move them up in the pecking order. Can’t be much different in the Army; if a Captain makes waves, he’s likely to be overtly run out, or be given shit duty stations ’til he gets the message and quits. Maybe that’s why they call it ‘the Army game.’ Anyway, if I were in your shoes, those shoes would be walking into civilian life ASAP.” Handing Rick a frigid new Martini, he said, “Particularly after you’ve heard my latest brainstorm.”

Waiting until he’d followed a hefty sip of icy rum with an approving nod, Rick said, “Oh, hell, what’re you cooking up now?”

“How’d you like to fly a jet for a living?”

“How’d I like to fuck Ava Gardner for a living? Silly boy. How do you propose to make that happen?”

Jack grinned, unreservedly, for the first time that morning. “Well, I talked to a guy in
Wichita,
Kansas
this week. His company’s building an executive jet, they call it a Lear Jet, that’s small, fast and, he says, more fun to fly than a fighter jet on jungle juice. It’ll take five fat cats wherever they want to go at the better part of Mach 1.”

“Holy shit! What do they want for one?”

“560 big ones. With half-decent luck, we’ll pay it off in three years. I wired him a deposit for the second production aircraft; it’ll be ready in late November. If you were out by 1 July, you could head on down to Bisque and start your flight training with Gene Debs. If you work at it, you could have your Private ticket and be close to flying a check for your Commercial. We’ll start running a little ad schedule during the fourth quarter of this year in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and- I don’t know, maybe National Geographic. Sy Szymanski, FlexAir’s Chief Pilot, and I’ll go to
Wichita, check out in the aircraft for three weeks or so, then pick you up in Bisque. We’ll ease on down to Tamiami and, with any luck at all, start flying a schedule. And in the meantime, you’ll be checking out in the Lear Jet on revenue flights, and training flights when the schedule’s thin. You could be a fully checked-out Lear Jet pilot by this time next year. I’d say it beats working.”

Rick smiled, moving his head gently from side to side. “I’d say it sounds damn good. Not that you haven’t come up with a few wild-ass ideas in the past, buddy, but this takes the cake. How’d you come up with this one?”

“Saw an article on the Lear Jet in Aviation Week. They make it sound too good to be true, and it damn near is. They got hold of the design and tooling for an aborted Swiss jet fighter project, and really didn’t change it all that much.” Jack reached into the rum box, pulling out the Aviation Week issue in question. “Here, take a look for yourself.”

“Damn! That sucker looks like it’s doing Mach 1 just standing still. Hey, listen; you’re talking about anteing up a pretty huge chunk of change to get rolling on this project. I wanta be sure that I pull my weight. To begin with, how do we know that I’ll be a decent pilot?”

“Ah, hell- a natural athlete like you? I don’t think there’s much question of that.” Jack paused briefly, thinking. “Have you got enough leave on the books to take another week?”

“I had 60 days backed up before taking this week; I’m pretty sure I can work that out.”

“Well, let’s give Gene Debs a call and see what his calendar’s looking like; he could help you settle that question with a few flights, all of which would go against your Private Pilot training time. What else?”

Rick leaned forward, fixing his eyes on Jack’s. “Let’s assume that I can do it; that I’m potentially a decent pilot. You’re still taking a risk with me that you wouldn’t be taking with someone that’s already qualified. If we do this, I don’t want to go on the FlxAir payroll until I’m checked out in the Lear Jet. Can you live with that?”

Returning his gaze, Jack said, “You want to live off your hump for a year?”

Rick chuckled. “If that’s what it takes. You aren’t the only one with a few bucks in the bank, buddy. Remember when the Bishop girls told us that they’d trade commodities for us if we just opened up an account and put 10 grand in it?”

“Yeah, I do, sort of. That was during the first visit we paid them in
New York, wasn’t it?”

“Yep. Guess I was more of a believer than you were in that commodity trading mumbo-jumbo.”

“Hell,” Jack said, “Sometimes being a cynic’s expensive. You made money, huh?”

“More than I ever could’ve imagined. When either one of those girls’ psychic powers are at their peak, they can call commodity prices all day long. I don’t doubt that they could buy a couple of Lear Jets and never feel it. Anyway, I certainly won’t have a problem staying out of your pocket for a year. As a matter of fact, if you want a partner in this little venture, we could set the same terms; if I check out in the Lear Jet, I’ll ante up my piece of the capital, if there turns out to be a piece of FlxAir for sale.”

“Done!” Jack barked, flashing the widest grin of the day and extending his right hand, “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you take my check for 10 grand with you and open up an account for me with the girls. “I’ll just have to take way too much shit from ’em if I call ’em up to do it.”

“Which means that you’ll only have to take way too much shit from me,” Rick chuckled. Hey.”

“What?”

“Why’d we think this was gonna take a week?”

29 ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING

 “Hey! D’jou get her little ass off to work?” Jack’s voice was slightly strained as he lay on the bed nearest the balcony in room 512, easing out a fart as he spoke.

“No problemo, buddy,” Rick said as he moved to mix a fresh drink. “And her ass wasn’t that little; you were just dealing with an Amazon.”

“They’ll be back Wednesday, so we can always swap if you want a shot at the big one. You know who she reminded me of?”

“Who?”

“Good ol’ Maybelle, with the Austin-Healey.”

“Whoa! Why the hell didn’t I notice that? They could be sisters. This one would be the baby sister, of course. Wonder what’s become of her?”

“Probably chasing 2-3 kids down there in- where was it, Montezuma?

Sitting down on the side of the other bed, Rick said, “Hazlehurst, I think. God almighty; only girl I ever fucked in her sleep. Drinking that goddam peach brandy. And ol’ Mose, that classy bastard, bought two of my team member tickets to the Sugar Bowl and then didn’t use them. Gave me money and elbow room, too. That was some weekend in
New Orleans! Jesus, I’m sorry he’s gone.”

“Yeah,” Jack said as he swung his legs down to sit up on the side of the bed. “Me too.”

“Buddy, you’ve had more than your share of bad luck with your flying pals. I was sick when you told me Linda was lost, and your other pilot- Pete?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “Pete Weller.”

“And they never found out anything more about where they went down?”

“Not a clue; no wreckage, life jackets, anything at all. I can tell you one thing, based on the many times that I’ve flown its perimeter; the Gulf’s big water when you’re looking for debris like that.”

“I remember you saying that there were passengers, too.”

“Yeah, there were, at least as far as we know. Two guys on a fishing trip to Bimini; pickup at
Galveston. That’s the strange part; when our insurance company tried to get hold of next-of-kin of either of them, they hit a blank wall. No such people at the addresses or phone numbers that they gave Vickie, our secretary.”

“Damn! They were really taking a chance that she didn’t need to call them back.”