The Line bo-2

by Bob Mayer

  “Ski told me your father was killed in Vietnam,” Maggie said.

  “My oldest son, Peter, died there too. Ski probably didn’t tell you that.”

  “No, he didn’t. I’m sorry,” Boomer said.

  “It’s strange. A generation either way, and we both lost someone in the same war. You know, my generation looks at that war differently than yours. For us it was this long, slow slide that didn’t make any sense. We grew up in the Depression and then went through the dark years of World War II. It was especially dark here in Hawaii where every day you could look out at the harbor and see how bad things were.

  “Then things turned around. Coral Sea. Midway. Guadalcanal.

  On through the islands. The war in Europe ended.

  Then the bomb. No one questioned the bomb back then.

  We were so tired of death and war. We just wanted it over.

  And after what the Japanese did here, we weren’t exactly in the mood to be very sympathetic.

  “After the war we all thought everything would be so bright and the world would be a better place. And it was.

  At least it appeared to be. The fifties were wonderful, but there was a cloud over everything. The Cold War. The war in Korea. No one quite understood that war. The Red Scare!” Maggie laughed.

  “It all seems so stupid now, but it was so real then.”

  She lit another cigarette, then pointed with the glowing end at the harbor.

  “But the question I’ve been asking myself:

  “Was it real?”

  “Boomer took a sip of hot coffee.

  “Was what real?”

  Maggie didn’t answer him directly.

  “I get up every morning at four-thirty and sit out here for an hour.

  I’ve been doing that for fifty-five years.” Maggie sighed.

  “You know, some people claim Roosevelt knew we were going to get attacked on December seventh and he let it happen.

  Did you ever hear that?”

  Boomer nodded.

  “I’ve heard it, but I never really got into it.”

  “Oh, there’s been volumes written about it,” Maggie said.

  “I’ve gotten into it,” she added.

  “I’ve read all the books and even done some studying on my own. It bothers Ski that I seem so obsessed by it all, so we don’t talk about it any more.

  “I was here when the bombs started falling. Ever since that morning I’ve never been asleep at dawn here in Hawaii.”

  She paused.

  “I wasn’t where I was supposed to be that morning.”

  She glanced over at Boomer, who was still, his head cocked attentively.

  “Ski told you my husband, George, was on the Enterprise and they were out at sea on the seventh.

  We lived down there in Pearl City in a nice little house we’d bought about six months earlier. But I wasn’t in my house, in my bed, on the morning of the seventh. I was over at the bachelor officers quarters at Pearl in someone else’s bed that morning.”

  Maggie paused again and Boomer didn’t know what to say. Maggie glanced at the darkened house, then back at Boomer.

  “I’ve never told Ski about all this. I wanted to years ago, but George told me it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. And then Peter, Ski’s brother, was killed in Vietnam and it seemed better to let it lie. But all that’s been happening the last couple of days, it just seems some of it is coming alive inside me again.”

  Boomer didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but he knew enough about people to keep quiet and let her say what she felt she had to.

  Her voice was wistful as she continued. “The man I was with was a lieutenant on the fleet staff — Jimmie. What a wild man. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I cut quite a figure back then.

  “Jimmie worked in Navy Intelligence. He certainly shouldn’t have been in bed with me on the morning of the seventh,” she added with a low chuckle. Her voice turned sad.

  “None of those boys should have been asleep that morning. Jimmie was the man who picked up the telegraphs when they came in and brought them to Admiral Kimmel’s G-2, so he was able to get a lot of information.”

  She poured a cup of coffee, then wearily leaned back against the wicker.

  “We all knew war was coming. It was inevitable. Europe was in flames.

  France had fallen. England was surrounded. The Japs were expanding everywhere.

  “We knew it was coming, but we didn’t think it was coming here. We thought the Japs would have to be crazy to attack here. All you had to do was look down in the harbor to know that. Those ships were so beautiful and proud.

  “Jimmie and I tajked about it a lot. He was stationed shoreside and George was always at sea so that made things convenient. Bull Halsey was in charge of the Enterprise task force and he ran his ships hard.

  He didn’t want to get caught here in the harbor at least.

  “Jimmie said that the Philippines would get attacked for sure. Wake. Singapore.

  Malaya. Hong Kong. But not Pearl he said. At least not until a month before the attack. Then he started saying things that worried me.” She paused and took a drag on her cigarette.

  “Did you ever hear of Magic?” Maggie asked, the question catching Boomer off-guard.

  “The Pacific version of Ultra?” he asked.

  Maggie nodded.

  “It was the codeword for the machine they used to break the Japanese code.” She stopped as if reconsidering what she was saying.

  “Listen, this Line organization that Ski says you think exists, didn’t Trace say it started before World War II?”

  “Yes. She says it started in the late twenties.”

  “With Marshall and other top people in the Army?”

  Maggie pressed.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “Marshall was chief of the Army at the time of Pearl Harbor. He was on the Ultra list that got to look at Magic intercepts.

  Did you know that President Roosevelt was taken off the Ultra list for a while just prior to the attack here?”

  Maggie leaned forward, not waiting for an answer. “Jimmie saw all the Magic intercepts. The ones they forwarded here to Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the Navy and Army commanders on the island. He was only a messenger but he was in a position to see a lot.

  “But more important than the ones they forwarded are the ones they didn’t forward. Many historians have looked at the record and deduced that Army and Navy headquarters in Washington had sufficient information to indicate that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent.

  That’s why some believe the President was the one who decided to withhold the information in order to drag us into war.

  “But no one has even considered the fact that maybe it all stopped at Marshall’s desk. That maybe the President didn’t know beforehand either. It was the military’s responsibility to know and they did know. And they allowed it to happen.

  “And why?” Maggie asked, her voice rising.

  “Because although we all felt war was inevitable, most people didn’t want it. Isolationism was at an alltime high. We didn’t want war and nothing short of what happened out there”-she pointed out to the harbor—“could have galvanized the country into war fever. We went from a depression and isolationism in three short years to become the most powerful military force on the face of the planet!”

  Her words chilled Boomer. Since hearing about The Line he had only obliquely considered what such an organization would have done. To think that military men would have allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to occur when they had foreknowledge was abhorrent to him and his training. But Boomer also remembered his words at the airport to Trace about the bombing of Coventry.

  “Surely they wouldn’t have allowed such a devastating defeat,” he objected.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie replied.

  “On one hand, I don’t think they thought it would be the disaster it was. Jimmie told me that the Navy was sure that the ha
rbor was too shallow for torpedoes to be used and since dive bombing was still very inaccurate they felt the fleet was relatively safe in the harbor. But on the other hand, my husband told me that when Task Force 8, the Enterprise task force, sailed out of Pearl before the seventh, Admiral Halsey put them on full war footing. Any ships they spotted were to be sunk, any aircraft shot down.

  “So why the two different attitudes? Here at Pearl we were asleep. On board the carriers, the heart of the fleet and the true objective of the Japanese attack, they were on full alert, ready to fight.

  “And Marshall did send an alert message to General Short and Admiral Kimmel on the morning of the seventh.

  A message that arrived in time only to become a historical document after the fact, rather than a warning. A cover your-ass telegram that was used to relieve Kimmel and Short from their commands in the aftermath.” The chair creaked as Maggie shifted position.

  “You know, not only was there ample evidence pointing to foreknowledge of the attack in Washington, but they did things here that almost aided in the attack.

  “The night of the sixth, the radio station here, KGMB, stayed on all night, broadcasting. It usually went off the air for the early morning hours, but that night the Army paid for it to stay on. Their reason was to help guide in some B-17s flying in from the mainland, but those radio waves also helped guide the attacking Japanese force to the island.

  “And did you know that the tunnel you’re working in now was where the radar element up at Kahuku Point called to warn of the incoming attack flights? And that some Army officer there, ignored the warning? But what if he didn’t just blow it off out of ignorance?”

  Maggie shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. It’s so confusing and there are so many strange things that happened that day that I guess I see a conspirator behind everything. I do know what happened to me that morning though.

  “I was in the BOQ at Pearl when the first bombs fell.

  Seven-fifty-four A.M.on Sunday.” She looked up at Boomer with tears in her eyes.

  “I’d left my daughter in the care of our Filipino housekeeper. When we heard the first explosions, we thought it was a drill. Jimmie ran to the window and saw what was happening, and he ran out the door half-dressed, going to his post at headquarters. I looked out. It was unbelievable. There was smoke and fire everywhere. The Japanese were flying just like a practice drill in perfect formation and the ships were sitting ducks.

  “When the Arizona got hit, the concussion blew out the windows in the room and jarred me out of my shock. I was cut and bleeding, but it got me moving. I threw on my clothes and ran out. I remembered when I got out, that I’d left my car at the house. Jimmie had driven me and he’d taken his car to headquarters. I started running through the streets.”

  Maggie shook her head slowly.

  “My housekeeper took my daughter and tried to drive away to the hills.

  I guess she thought the island was getting invaded. I didn’t find the car until the next day. I spent twenty-four hours wandering the streets, looking, until a neighbor took me in his car to look for them.

  We found my car inland. A Japanese pilot must have strafed it. Maybe he thought it was servicemen heading for Schofield Barracks. Maybe just to get rid of ammunition before heading back to his carrier.

  “They were both dead. It was my fault. I should have been with them.

  I had to tell George when he got back.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “God bless his heart. He stayed with me.”

  She looked up at Boomer with tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

  “It was my fault, but my daughter wasn’t the only one who died that day. They were still hearing the desperate taps from sailors trapped in some of those ships for weeks, until they finally died. And if this Line exists and it knew about the attack beforehand and allowed it to happen, then there’s no place in hell hot enough for those bastards!”

  CHAPTER 14

  PACIFIC PALISADES

  2 DECEMBER

  7:00 A.M.LOCAL 1700 ZULU

  The satellite dish in Maggie’s backyard shifted position slightly, then settled in place. Inside the house. Boomer sat on the couch and watched the pre-game show for the Army Navy game.

  The front door opened and Skibicki walked in, looking like he had not had a moment of sleep.

  “What’s up, sergeant major?”

  Skibicki gratefully accepted the mug of coffee Maggie handed him.

  “Thanks. Nothing. Everything’s quiet.” He looked at the screen.

  “Let’s hope Trace made it there.”

  “What’s the plan for today?” Boomer asked.

  “I talked to Vasquez. She’s doing some more snooping.”

  He threw a newspaper down on the table.

  “I noticed an interesting article in the back pages. We’ve been concentrating so hard in one area, we’ve lost track of some other aspects of this whole situation.”

  Boomer tore his eyes from the screen.

  “What do you mean?”

  Skibicki sat at the table and Boomer joined him.

  “If there is a plot to get to the President, then what?”

  “I don’t think the plot is directly against the President,” Boomer said.

  “Just play along with me, then,” Skibicki bargained.

  “All right,” Boomer said, “what if there is a plot to attack the President? What are you talking about?”

  “I mean, what would their plan be after they got rid of the President?”

  Skibicki said.

  “They’re not going to do this in a vacuum. If the President disappears or is killed, what happens?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  “The Vice President takes over. And guess where the Vice President is going to be this weekend?” He tapped the newspaper.

  “Vacationing on the North Shore of this island at the Turtle Bay Resort playing golf.”

  “No shit?” Boomer grabbed the paper.

  “Hell, he’s arriving this morning.” He looked up at Skibicki.

  “Maybe those guys jumping in this morning weren’t going after the President. Maybe they had responsibility for a secondary target right where they came in.”

  Skibicki nodded.

  “That’s why I got Vasquez checking the Intel nets. We may have had tunnel vision about this jump, thinking it was the main event, but it just might be the sideshow.”

  The sound of the football announcers filled the silence in the room.

  “That sub,” Boomer said, breaking the quiet, “the one Vasquez said her friend had on the SOS US but wasn’t listed in the Navy books. That might be part of this.”

  “Already thought of that,” Skibicki said.

  “I’m having her do a complete check of the sea around the island. Not just what SOS US has, but imagery from the Intelsat. I’d love to have her do a Keyhole look at the island itself to see if we could find where those jumpers and their boats went to earth, but doing that would raise red flags all the way to the Pentagon. Plus, I don’t know if any of the Keyholes pass over here.”

  “A Keyhole look,” Boomer said, referring to the latest spy satellite that could read the information off a cigarette pack, “wouldn’t be much good here. They probably sunk the Zodiacs anyway,” Boomer said.

  “If they’re using F-470s, they can waterproof the engines, sink the boats, and then recover them when they need them using CO;, canisters on board.”

  Skibicki nodded.

  “Yeah, and the guys on land would be deep under cover.”

  “You two can sit here and speculate all day,” Maggie said, her attention on the TV screen, “but if your cute young friend doesn’t get some solid information about The

  Line from this colonel of Ski’s, you might as well be whistling in the dark.”

  The doorbell rang and Skibicki opened it. Vasquez walked in. She had a briefcase that she carried directly to the table and opened. The others gathered round.
r />   “Got some strange stuff going on at sea,” she began.

  “That unidentified SOS US contact I told you about is closing in on the island. About two hundred kilometers due east now. Now there’s a second submarine contact.”

  “Another unknown friendly?” Skibicki asked.

  “Negative, sergeant major. This one is listed. The USS Sam Houston. I looked it up,” she added.

  “It’s a missile carrier.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Boomer interrupted, catching Vasquez by surprise.

  “The Sam Houston is an Ethan Alien Class sub.

  They used to carry Polaris missiles, but those are out of date now. The Sam Houston was taken out of service in the early eighties and reconfigured for Special Operations.

  They removed the missile control system and most of the empty missile tubes. Some of the missile tubes were converted to act as air locks for swimmer exit. It’s also fitted to accept two DDS assemblies.”

  Seeing Vasquez’s blank stare. Boomer explained.

  “DDS stands for dry dock shelter. It’s something the Navy’s developed to be mounted on the deck of submarines to carry SDVS — swimmer delivery vehicles. You can go directly from the inside of the sub into the DDS, and load up the SDV while maintaining an airtight environment.

  “You can also use the DDS to lock out a large number of swimmers from the sub, all at the same time.”

  “Lock out?” Vasquez repeated.

  “Exit the submarine while it’s still submerged,” Skibicki explained.

  “So this sub is one of the ones the Navy has modified for Special Operations?” he asked.

  Boomer nodded.

  “After they retired the USS Greyback, the first Special Operations submarine, they converted the Sam Houston and the John Marshall, both Ethan Alien Class. They’ve also modified about eight of their Sturgeon Class to mount the DDS. I’ve done some work on the John Marshall,” he added to explain his knowledge.

  Skibicki considered the information and tallied it with what he knew from joint exercises on the island.