MASH 11 MASH Goes To San Francisco

by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth

  “Frankly, no,” Jimmy de Wilde said.

  “Well, he has a radio, and they figure he must have heard about the Air Force’s orders.”

  “What about them?”

  “The Air Force has issued orders to shoot him down if he tries to fly under the Golden Gate. We figure he’s not that crazy.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Jimmy de Wilde said. “Have you a time for the arrival of the Reverend Mother’s plane?”

  “It’s due in in ... let me see ... in thirty minutes. I just got the word.”

  “Oh, my!” Jimmy de Wilde said. “I’ll just have time to get there. Bye-bye, Commish!”

  As the two Air Force F-101s raced through the Grand Canyon in hot, if futile, pursuit of Learjet Double-O Poppa, their maneuverings were watched from above by the passengers and crews of Air Hussid Eleven and Chevaux Petroleum One.

  Radio communication had been established between the two aircraft shortly after both had taken off from Spruce Harbor, Maine. Because the Chevaux 747 was faster than the Air Hussid Sabreliner, it had assumed the role of chase plane, catching up with Colonel Whiley just as he made his first loop through the St. Louis Arch and circling above the arch while he made the second loop.

  The Air Hussid aircraft had just appeared on the horizon when Colonel Whiley had set out for the Grand Canyon, and it hadn’t caught up again until Colonel Whiley, a little bored with dodging the Air Force airplanes and with an eye on his “Fuel Remaining” gauge, had suddenly pulled out and headed for San Francisco.

  “Air Defense Command, this is the commander, Fighter-Interceptor Flight Three.”

  “Go ahead, Fighter-Interceptor Three.”

  “Bandit has just left the Grand Canyon on a course of 270 degrees true. Estimated airspeed 560 knots, estimated altitude seventy-five feet. Efforts to order him to land have failed.”

  “Fighter-Interceptor Three, what do you mean, failed? Were you unable to establish communications with him?”

  “Oh, we established communications with him all right. I pulled up right alongside him and signalled him to land.”

  “And?”

  “He smiled and waved and then thumbed his nose at me, that’s what he did. We are in pursuit.”

  “Fighter-Interceptor Three, if bandit aircraft maintains his present course, and looks as if he intends to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge, remember that your orders are to shoot him down.”

  “What for? He’s not hurting anybody. As a matter of fact, he can really fly that Learjet. He’s just out for a good time, that’s all.”

  “It has been decided, Fighter-Interceptor Three, at the highest levels, that if it’s a choice between the Golden Gate Bridge and one lousy private pilot, it’s Sayonara, private pilot.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fighter-Interceptor Three replied. “I’ll shoot him down if he appears to be about to fly under the Golden Gate. And he’s headed right for it.”

  “Hawkeye, did you hear that?” Horsey radioed.

  “Just barely. Can you catch up to him before they shoot him down?”

  “I’m on my way,” Horsey replied.

  “Fighter-Interceptor Three, Air Defense Command.”

  “Go ahead, Air Defense.”

  “Radar advises, believe it or not, that they have a blip of a 747 aircraft that is apparently descending from three zero thousand feet, estimated air speed 610 knots, on an interception course.”

  “Roger, Air Defense, I have him in sight.”

  “This is the Air Defense Command,” the radio suddenly snapped. “All Air Force aircraft, stand by for an operational immediate message from headquarters, U.S. Air Force.”

  “Standing by,” replied about two hundred pilots, all at once.

  “Operational immediate message follows. From the Secretary of the Air Force, by direction of the President at the request of the Secretary of State. It has come to the attention of the President that General El Presidente Francisco Hermanez, of the Republic of San Sebastian, is en route to San Francisco, California, aboard a 747 aircraft bearing markings, Chevaux Petroleum Corporation Number One. It has also been reliably reported that the pilot of the 747 has been drinking. All aircraft are to make all necessary efforts to locate the aircraft and to insure that it reaches its destination safely. End message. Acknowledge.” About two hundred pilots, all at once, replied, “Roger, message received.”

  One pilot did not. He got on the radio this way:

  “Air Defense Command, Fighter-Interceptor Three.”

  “Go ahead, Fighter-Interceptor Three.”

  “How about having it decided, at those highest levels you’re talking about, whether you want me to shoot down the Learjet or insure that the Chevaux 747 reaches its destination safely.”

  “Fighter-Interceptor Three, what are you talking about?”

  “Fighter-Interceptor Three advises Air Defense Command that a 747 aircraft bearing Chevaux Petroleum Corporation Number One markings has just leveled off at about one hundred feet, after diving from three zero thousand, and is directly above the Learjet with the crazy pilot aboard. I can’t even see the Learjet, much less shoot it down.”

  “Stay where you are, Horsey!”

  “Roger, Wilco, Hawkeye!”

  “Air Defense Command, Fighter-Interceptor Three advises that both the Chevaux 747 and the Learjet are approximately ninety seconds from the Golden Gate Bridge. Please advise what action is to be taken.”

  “Fighter-Interceptor Three. Pray.”

  “Chevaux Petroleum One, Chevaux Petroleum Three.”

  “Go ahead, Mort,” Horsey’s voice said.

  “We’re about five minutes out of ’Frisco, Horsey. You need any help?”

  “Thanks just the same, Mort. You go ahead and land. But tell Hot Lips not to leave the airport. She’s either going to have to bury this guy or give him a good talking-to.”

  “Is he really going under the Golden Gate Bridge, Horsey?”

  “Call me back in about fifteen seconds,” Horsey replied, “and I’ll let you know.”

  “California,” Colonel Whiley’s not entirely unpleasant singing voice came over the radio, “here I come, right back where I started from!”

  “By God,” said the now familiar voice of Fighter-Interceptor Three. “He did it! Nice flying, madman, whoever you are!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  San Francisco International, being a large airfield, has separate control facilities for aircraft in the air and aircraft on the ground. The ground-control operator seldom knows very much about what is happening in the air and cares less.

  And so it came to pass that when Chevaux Petroleum Number Three touched down and the ground controller looked out his window and saw that it was a Chevaux Petroleum aircraft and a 747, he naturally presumed that it was the aircraft with the foreign dignitary aboard, and he got on his radio and ordered it to follow taxiway three to remote area “B,” and there to shut down.

  As he was doing this, a Learjet came in low over the field, did a barrel roll, made a 180-degree turn, came in, and landed without permission. Ground-control operator number one, who had his orders, was busy telling both airport security and the gentleman from the State Department that the airplane they had been worrying about was on the ground and on its way to remote area “B.”

  Ground-control operator number two was in command when the Learjet came in and did its victory barrel roll over the field. He came to the conclusion that not only was the pilot in gross violation of flight safety regulations, he was also more than likely the crazy pilot who had been disrupting the tranquil flow of air traffic across the nation.

  “Crazy pilot of Learjet, you are ordered to taxi to remote area ‘A’, shut down, and await the arrival of law-enforcement officers. Boy, is your ass in a crack!” He had barely finished saying this when he saw a 747 with Chevaux Petroleum markings touch down. He came to the natural conclusion that ground-control operator number one, who wasn’t too reliable anyway, had missed the arrival of the airplane with the
VIP dignitary aboard.

  “Chevaux Petroleum aircraft, follow taxiway three to remote area ‘B,’ ” he ordered.

  “I heard you the first time,” was the reply.

  “Ah, Roger,” somebody else said.

  Police Commissioner Boulder J. Ohio, who had been monitoring the ground-control radio messages in his car, was making up his mind whether his duty lay with going to remote area “B” to supervise the security arrangements for the arriving VIP dignitary, or with going to remote area “A” to supervise the arrest of the maniac who had just done a barrel roll down the field, when his police radio sounded.

  “Investigators three,” the radio said, “for Commissioner Ohio.”

  “Go ahead,” the commissioner replied.

  “I thought we should report, Chief, that Dr. Grogarty just got here to the airfield.”

  “What’s he doing out here?”

  “Well, we told you that he’s been getting all these messages from something called Air Hussid Eleven.”

  “No, you haven’t told me anything of the kind,” the commissioner replied.

  “Harry, I thought you were supposed to have been telling the commissioner . . .” the radio said. Then, “Little slip-up, Commissioner. I thought Harry was doing it, and Harry thought I was doing it. You know how it is when you’re conducting an around-the-clock surveillance....”

  “Get to the point, you idiot!”

  “Well, all these messages say is that you-know-who is getting closer to San Francisco.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “No you don’t what?”

  “Know who you-know-who is,” the commissioner replied.

  “Neither do we, Chief,” Harry confessed. “All we know is that when he got the last message—it said ‘You-know-who is about thirty minutes out’—Dr. Grogarty got in an ambulance and rushed out here, sirens screaming.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “We don’t know, Chief,” Harry said. “One of the traffic cops heard the siren and stopped traffic to let the ambulance through. We’re stuck in a traffic jam.”

  “San Francisco ground control, Air Hussid Eleven requests taxi and parking instructions.”

  “Air Hussid Eleven, did we know you were coming?”

  “Negative.”

  “You just can’t land here uninvited and without reservations,” ground control replied. “San Francisco International is a busy, busy airport. You should have known better.”

  “Sorry,” Air Hussid said, “but we don’t have enough fuel to go anyplace else. What should we do, sit here on the runway?”

  “No, indeed,” ground-control operator number two replied somewhat huffily. “You take taxiway three to remote area ‘A’ and shut down there. Just as soon as they finish arresting a crazy pilot, the airport police will get to you and issue a summons for landing without invitation.”

  Police Commissioner Boulder J. Ohio, his massive brow furrowed with thought, now made a decision. He would fix Dr. Aloysius J. Grogarty. He would arrest him instantly. If that didn’t force him to divulge the whereabouts of Colonel C. Edward Whiley and Dr. Cornelius E. Sattyn-Whiley, he would take a drastic step. He would deliver the doctor to Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley. If anybody could make him ’fess up, she could.

  “Attention,” the commissioner said, somewhat sonorously, into his microphone. “All police in San Francisco International Airport, locate and apprehend Dr. Aloysius J. Grogarty, a white male Irishman with a prominent red nose. Notify me, the commissioner, personally, as soon as this is done. He was last seen in an ambulance.”

  He laid the microphone down. “Sweeney,” he said. “Run over to remote area ‘B’ and we’ll see that the arrival of the foreign dignitary goes smoothly. Thank God, we can be rid of him before the Reverend Mother gets here.”

  With a growl of its siren, the commissioner’s official limousine raced toward remote area “B.”

  At just about that moment, patrol car Adam and Eve Six (manned by patrolman Sean O’Casey and Patrick F. O’Malley), which was on temporary duty at the airfield, saw a white Cadillac ambulance with THE GROGARTY CLINIC painted on its doors speeding down a taxiway.

  “By God and begorra,” patrolman O’Casey said to patrolman O’Malley, “there’s a Grogarty Clinic ambulance. I’ll bet me life O’Grogarty hisself is in it.”

  With a squeal of tires, its fights flashing and its whooper whooping, Adam and Eve Six set out in hot pursuit. In just a matter of moments, it had drawn up beside the ambulance and ordered it to a halt. Patrolmen O’Malley and O’Casey leaped from their car and rushed to the ambulance.

  “And good day to ye, Aloysius,” O’Malley said.

  “I’m glad to see you, Sean,” Dr. Grogarty said.

  “I don’t know how to tell ye this, Aloysius,” O’Casey said. “It could very well be that he’s been at the bottle again, but the thing is, Ohio, that lousy Englishman, has just issued an all-points bulletin for yer arrest. Now if ye’ll jest get in the back of the car, we’ll carry you back to the clinic, or wherever you want us to take you.”

  “I’m here to pick up a patient,” Grogarty said. “I’ve got to get him to the hospital right away.”

  “Where is he?” O’Casey said. “We’ll run interference for you, of course.”

  “I don’t know. Could you find out where a just-landed Learjet is parked?”

  “Consider it done,” O’Malley said, and got on the radio. Moments later, with Adam and Eve Six leading and with siren screaming and lights flashing, the Grogarty Clinic ambulance headed for remote area “A.” Meanwhile, looking somewhat the worse for wear,* the chief deputy assistant under-secretary for petroleum affairs waited impatiently for the stairs to be placed against the side of a Chevaux Petroleum Corporation 747.

  (* In order to get him to San Francisco from Spruce Harbor in time to meet the airplane carrying General El Presidente Francisco Hermanez, it had been necessary for him to fly to Westover Air Force Base in a small aircraft and then to transfer to the fastest airplane in the Air Force inventory, an F-111 fighter bomber. The F-111 is a one-seat airplane, however, and although the pilot who had sat on his lap all the way from Westover to San Francisco was the smallest the Air Force had been able to find on short notice, it was still a long trip to make with a 168-pound pilot, in all his equipment, sitting on one’s lap.)

  Finally they were, and the door opened.

  The chief deputy assistant under-secretary for petroleum affairs saw an ornately costumed figure appear in the door of the stairs. He did not, actually, see this figure too clearly, for he had lost his contact lenses somewhere over Hobbs, New Mexico, and had been unable to find them in the cockpit of the F-111. However, this was a 747, and the individual at the door must be the ranking person aboard, because, following protocol, he had paused at the door and raised both arms in greeting. It was natural to presume that it was indeed General El Presidente Francisco Hermanez.

  The chief deputy assistant under-secretary for petroleum affairs rushed up the stairway, bowed low, and made his little speech.

  “Your Excellency,” he said, “welcome to the United States. I bring the personal greetings of the President himself.”

  “Well, how sweet of you, and him too, of course,” the Reverend Mother Emeritus said.

  At that point, a man broke through the police lines. “Margaret!” he cried. “It is I, your Frank!”

  He was immediately wrestled to the ground by two of San Francisco’s finest, who, with eyes born of long experience with kooks and nuts, had been keeping a close watch on him.

  The Reverend Mother didn’t even see what was happening. She was, also from long experience, drawn to the sound of ambulance sirens. She looked across the grassy area separating remote area “A” from remote area “B” and saw the Grogarty ambulance, preceded by the police car, race up and skid to a stop beside a small jet airplane.

  If she had not recognized Dr. Grogarty himself, she probably would not have done anything more about it, but she ins
tantly realized that if Dr. Grogarty himself were attending to a patient, it must be a major medical catastrophe.

  She turned to the nearest of the founding disciples —he was the football player who had remained behind in San Francisco with the writer to found the First Missionary Church, and as such he was accorded a place of honor in the arrival festivities.

  “Butch,” she said, “duty calls. I have to get over to that ambulance. Will you run interference for me?”

  “You got it, Hot Lips . . . Reverend Mother,” he said, and, raising his elbows to the defense position, trotted down the stairs and scattered those few spectators who had not fled at the sight of him from Hot Lips’ path.

  “It’s me, Dr. Grogarty,” Hot Lips shouted. “I’m coming!”

  At that moment, the two policemen sitting on Dr. Frank Burns, M.D., rolled him over to get a good look at him.

  “Now see here,” Frank Burns said. “I’m Dr. Frank Burns, M.D.”

  “Like hell you are,” the one policeman said. “I heard what the lady just shouted. You’re Dr. Grogarty, and we’ve been looking for you.”

  He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt. “Commissioner Ohio, we got your Dr. Grogarty.”

  “Good work, men,” Commissioner Ohio’s voice came back immediately. “Tell him this is his last chance to tell me where Colonel Whiley is!”

  “Where’s Colonel Whiley?” the policeman dutifully inquired of Frank Bums.

  “Where’s who?”

  “He won’t talk, Commissioner!”

  “Put him in handcuffs and deliver him to Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley at the Sattyn-Whiley mansion,” the commissioner replied.

  “He’s already handcuffed,” the policeman replied. “Well, then, chain him!” the commissioner replied. As one of the policemen jerked Frank Burns to his feet, a representative of the San Francisco Daily Bulletin appeared.