Special Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Interesting,” Lowell said. “Who is this doctor you keep mentioning? ”

  “Actually, he’s a physician,” Portet said. “He’s a Mormon. A missionary, I guess.”

  “And what’s his relationship to Mobutu?”

  “One of the few white men he trusts,” Portet said.

  “Like you and Jacques?” Felter asked.

  Lowell noticed that Jack had become Jacques.

  “More than that,” Captain Portet said. “He’s sort of a . . . Mormon Jesuit, I guess. Mobutu turns to him for advice.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Howard Dannelly,” Captain Portet said.

  “How do you get along with Dr. Dannelly?” Felter asked.

  “We know each other,” Captain Portet said. “He’s a good man. He’s good for Mobutu.”

  “How does Dr. Dannelly feel about Jacques?” Felter asked.

  “He’s . . . uh . . . not in Jacques’s legion of admirers,” Portet said.

  “Why not?” Felter asked.

  “Well,” Portet said, smiling. “You know the Mormons. They don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t believe in sex outside of marriage. You might not believe it, looking at clean-cut young Lieutenant Portet, but, pre-Marjorie, he drank like a fish, smoked big black cigars, and was working his way through the white female population of the Congo, without regard to anyone’s marriage vows.”

  Lowell laughed.

  “Was there something specific?” Felter asked, a tone of annoyance in his voice.

  “He was in Kolwezi one time, in the Hotel Leopold, with a friend, and Dr. Dannelly accosted him in the lobby and told him he and the friend should be ashamed of themselves, their conduct was inexcusable, and Jacques . . . told him to go fuck himself.”

  “The friend was female?” Lowell asked.

  Jack nodded.

  “So Dr. Dannelly is not about to give Jack a character reference? ” Lowell asked.

  “That would be highly unlikely,” Portet said, and then added: “I’ll talk to Mobutu if you want.”

  “That’s a thought,” Lowell said. “Particularly if you play the Mormon card, Sandy.”

  “Excuse me?” Captain Portet said.

  “Sandy, those Mormons are tight with each other. If we can get Finton to go with JP and Jack to see Mobutu . . .”

  “You’d be willing to go to Mobutu?” Felter asked.

  “I spent a large part of my life in the Congo,” Portet said. “I like it. I like the people. They don’t need a Cuban revolutionary making things worse than they already are.”

  “I told Finton to come here for lunch,” Felter said. “Let’s see what he thinks. Not during lunch. Afterward.”

  He paused and looked at Captain Portet.

  “A man who works for me is a devout Mormon,” he said. “When you meet him at lunch, try to guess how well he’d get along with Dr. Dannelly.”

  Captain Portet nodded.

  [ SIX ]

  The Hotel Washington

  Washington, D.C.

  1105 11 January 1965

  “Good morning,” Johnny Oliver said politely to the reception clerk at the Hotel Washington. “I’m Captain Oliver, and I believe you have reservations for myself and these officers?”

  “Yes, sir. We do. You’re in 914.”

  He passed out keys to each of them.

  “All of us?” Oliver said.

  “All of you,” the reception clerk said, and tapped the bell for a bellman to handle the luggage.

  “Why do I suspect the SWC has just run out of TDY money?” Oliver asked softly in the elevator. “Rank will have its privileges, gentlemen. I’m not going to share a bed with either of you.”

  “We should have told the guy to get us another room—rooms,” Jack Portet said.

  “Let’s take a look at this, and see what we’re going to need, and then call him on the phone?” Oliver suggested, but they both understood it to be an order.

  The bellman stopped his cart outside 914, then knocked at the door.

  “Come!” a male voice called.

  The bellman pushed the door open and waved them through.

  914 was a large, well—even luxuriously—furnished living room.

  “Oh, thank God, the lost birdmen have been found!” Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig called out.

  He was sitting in one corner of the room, in civilian clothing, about to finish a club sandwich. There was a coffee service on the coffee table. Major Pappy Hodges, sipping at a cup, was slumped into an armchair across from him.

  “What do you mean, lost?” Johnny Oliver asked. “What is this, old home week?”

  He walked to Pappy and shook his hand.

  “Good to see you, Johnny,” Pappy said, then raised his voice: “You, Portet, change clothes right now and go see Felter in the Aviation Club.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said. “Where do I do that?”

  “Top floor.”

  “I meant change out of uniform?”

  “There’s four bedrooms in here,” Geoff said. “Wherever you find that ugly luggage of yours is yours.”

  “What is this place, anyway?” Jack asked.

  “It belongs to the firm,” Geoff said.

  Jack found his luggage in a large L-shaped bedroom furnished with two king-size beds, a desk, a wet bar, and an upholstered chair and table set that made the room, in effect, a small suite.

  He wondered if he had time for a quick shower, and decided he didn’t; Pappy had said “right away.” He shaved quickly with an electric razor, sprayed himself with cologne, changed into a sports jacket and tie, and went back into the living room.

  Pappy was on the telephone. He waved impatiently for Jack to get moving.

  As he left the room, he heard Pappy say, “Colonel, he should be there any second. . . .”

  He wondered what Colonel Lowell wanted with him; he was, except for Enrico de la Santiago, the least experienced of all of them. And this, he sensed, was business, not social. He got in the elevator and rode up to the National Aviation Club.

  The receptionist expected him.

  “You’re Captain Portet, right?”

  “No. I used to be. Now I’m Lieutenant Portet,” Jack said.

  “If you’ll come with me, please?” she said, smiling strangely at him.

  She led him through the bar to a corridor, then knocked at a door.

  “Yes?”

  “Lieutenant Portet is here, Colonel,” she said, and then, to Jack, “Go on in.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell was sitting at a table with Colonel Sanford T. Felter, which surprised him a little, and so was Captain Jean-Philippe Portet, which surprised him a great deal.

  Completely ignoring what he thought was probably the proper military protocol, he went directly to his father, and they hugged and kissed in the European manner.

  “And how is married life?” his father said.

  “I think I better salute, or do whatever else I’m supposed to do in a situation like this, before I get into that,” Jack said.

  “Now that everybody’s here, why don’t we order drinks?” Lowell suggested.

  “It’s not even noon,” Felter protested. “Do you need the alcohol? ”

  Lowell ignored him.

  “Scotch for you, right, Jean-Philippe?” Lowell asked.

  “Please.”

  “Jack?” Lowell asked, and then when he saw the look on his face, added, “Go ahead, you’re not going to be flying anytime soon.”

  “Then please,” Jack said.

  “Mouse?”

  “Get me a cup of tea, please,” Felter said.

  Lowell picked up a telephone.

  “Bring in a bottle of scotch, please. Is any of mine left? And the necessary ancillary equipment.” He hung up the phone and looked at Felter. “You don’t need tea, Mouse. You need a drink.”

  “I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Felter said.

  “You are a sonofabitch, Mouse. Everybody knows that,” Lowell said
unctuously.

  Felter glared at him.

  “ ‘Mouse’?” Captain Portet asked.

  “He’s the only sonofabitch in the world who can call me that to my face.”

  “I see,” Captain Portet said.

  “And you, Lieutenant,” Lowell said, “may call Colonel Felter, and myself, either ‘Colonel’ or ‘sir.’ ”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Portet chuckled.

  “That line’s not original,” Lowell said. “I heard it first years ago—from your mother-in-law’s father, Jack—and I thought of it a couple of days ago in Buenos Aires, when Pistarini, the commander-in-chief of their army, wanted us all to be buddies.”

  “You didn’t call him Pascual?” Felter asked, smiling.

  “I can’t vouch for the hours between two and four A.M., but the rest of the time I made a real effort to call him mi general,” Lowell said.

  There was a knock at the door, and a waiter appeared carrying a tray on which sat a bottle of the same obscure Scottish distillery whiskey Lowell had given Portet in Florida, a bowl of ice, and both a water pitcher and a soda siphon.

  “We’ll do it, thanks,” Lowell said to the waiter, and poured generous drinks in each of the glasses.

  When the waiter was out of the room, he turned to Jack.

  “Your father has been regaling us with tales of your romantic escapades in the Congo,” Lowell said.

  Jack looked at his father in surprise.

  “Which, he suggests, have put you on Dr. Dannelly’s shitlist.”

  “Which is important, Jack,” Lowell went on, “because Colonel Felter has just learned that Mobutu threw our ambassador out of his office when he asked for his help with Operation Earnest.”

  “Shit!” Jack said. “That sounds like Dannelly. And he’s got Mobutu’s ear.”

  “My original thought was to send you there, with Father, to talk to Mobutu,” Felter said.

  “Colonel, I’m sorry, but if Dannelly is involved, me showing up would only make matters worse. I . . . uh . . . once told him, in a hotel lobby—”

  “To go fuck himself,” Felter interrupted. “We know.” He paused. “Your father has volunteered to go to Léopoldville and speak with Mobutu.”

  “You told him what’s going on?” Jack asked.

  Felter nodded.

  “What do you think?” Lowell asked.

  “If anybody can get Joseph to change his mind, he can.”

  “Would you recommend that he go alone? Or that you go with him?”

  “If Dannelly’s going to be there, alone,” Jack said without hesitation.

  Felter nodded.

  “We may have one more hole card,” Felter said. “I don’t know if we’ll get to play it.”

  “Sir?”

  “Mr. Finton is a highly respected member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints,” Felter said. “A bishop.”

  “He’s coming to lunch, Jack,” Lowell said. “We want you and your dad to try to guess how well he would get along with Dr. Dannelly. Separate opinions, please. Don’t compare notes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  [ SEVEN ]

  Room 914

  The Hotel Washington

  Washington, D.C.

  1250 11 January 1965

  One of the rooms opening off the sitting room was a conference room with a huge mahogany table and a dozen red leather-upholstered captain’s tables. Its windows, too, overlooked the roof of the U.S. Mint, with the White House visible farther down Pennsylvania Avenue.

  The table was now set for lunch, and there were two rolling steam carts standing against one wall. Pappy Hodges, Father Lunsford, Geoff Craig, Enrico de la Santiago, and Johnny Oliver were sitting at the table.

  “You didn’t have to wait for us,” Felter said as he led Lowell and the Portets into the room. “Help yourselves, and let’s get this started. We have a lot to talk about.”

  He led by example by raising the chrome domes of the steam tables and picking up a plate. There was a tureen of clam chowder, bowls of vegetables, and platters of baked ham and roast beef.

  Everybody but de la Santiago had, so to speak, gone through the chow line when Chief Warrant Officer W-4 James L. Finton came into the room. He was a lithe, sharp-featured man in his early forties, wearing a gray suit, a crisp white shirt, and a dark blue necktie.

  Without a word, he went to the windows, closed the drapes, and then went to the steam tables. He bent over, raised the linen drapes on one table, peered under the table intently, and then repeated the process on the second table. Finally, he took a plate and helped himself to food.

  “ASA swept this room at ten, Colonel,” he announced as he sat down. “Anyone been in here alone since?”

  Felter shook his head, no.

  “Then I would say we’re secure,” Finton said.

  “Thank you,” Felter said.

  Finton bowed his head, put his fingertips together, and closed his eyes. He was obviously saying grace.

  Then he opened his eyes and reached for his knife and fork.

  Felter laid down his soup spoon and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.

  “I’m going to go over where we are and where we’re going,” he said. “I suppose Argentina’s as good a place as any to start. Lowell and Lunsford did a good job down there; the Argentines are on board. The next step is to get the L-23 down there. Finton is working on finding us a Spanish-speaking Army aviator who will be the pilot down there, diverting, it is to be hoped, attention from de la Santiago. We also need one with a Top Secret security clearance—not for Top Secret/Earnest; this guy will be told as little as possible about that, but because it’s a requirement for anyone assigned to an embassy. So the pilot may not be immediately available. Oliver, Portet, and de la Santiago will fly it down there, taking with them Warrant Officer Zammoro from Bragg, Master Sergeant Thomas, and one of Father’s guys . . .”

  He paused and looked at Lunsford.

  “Sergeant First Class Otmanio,” Lunsford furnished.

  “. . . who, it turns out, speaks Spanish Harlem Spanish,” Felter finished. “Zammoro was a major in the Cuban army, making it possible he’s friendly with some Argentine army officers. As a young officer, he went to a couple of schools down there. Which is why he’s going. He may stay, but right now, the only ones we know that are going to stay down there are de la Santiago and Otmanio.”

  He paused again.

  “Questions?”

  There were no questions.

  “So what we need from you, Pappy, is to make sure the L-23 is all right to make the trip. And lay out the flight plan. And we have to get de la Santiago rated as an L-23 pilot, the sooner the better.”

  “Can we talk about that?” Pappy asked.

  Felter made a come-on-with-it gesture with his hand and returned to his clam chowder.

  “These hurry-up, rate-them-yesterday, screw-the-regulations, Mickey Mouse pilot-qualification courses of yours are about to blow up in your face,” Pappy said.

  “How’s that, Pappy?” Lowell asked. “What we’ve been trying to do is comply with the regulations. And none of these people learned to fly last week. So what’s the problem?”

  “Geoff learned to fly last week,” Pappy said.

  “You’re saying he’s not qualified?” Felter asked.

  “Can he fly twin-engine airplanes? Yeah, he can. But he was sent to Rucker to learn to fly helicopters. Students are expressly forbidden to take private instruction. Geoff started taking private fixed-wing lessons about the day after he got to Rucker, and people know about that. They also know that half the time, Lowell’s Cessna is at the Ozark airport, and that Geoff is flying it, which is also against the rules. Students are forbidden to fly private aircraft while they’re students. And those rules were always enforced. Until now.”

  “Well, that’s water under the dam, isn’t it?” Lowell asked. “I thought you were about to give him his L-23 check ride?”

  “I am,” Pappy said.

 
“When you pass him, he’s gone from Rucker, right? So what’s the problem?”

  “They also know that Jack, who last week was a PFC, and is now Bellmon’s son-in-law, suddenly shows up as an officer and gets himself rated in just about everything in a Mickey Mouse course.”

  “Okay,” Felter said. “And?”

  “And now Enrico shows up, to go through another Mickey Mouse course to get himself rated.”

  “Go on,” Felter said.

  “I happen to know there have been bitches to Bellmon,” Pappy said.

  “General Bellmon (a) has orders to give us whatever we need and (b) knows why all of this was necessary,” Felter replied.

  “And, being the good guy Bob Bellmon is, he’s prepared to swallow the gossip that he’s giving special treatment to his son-in -law. That hurts him.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lowell said.

  “And Bellmon, of course, can’t tell the people who asked him what the hell is going on what’s behind it, and since they don’t know, they can’t explain it to the guys who have been bitching to them, who are understandably pissed. And sooner or later, probably sooner, one of them—maybe three or four of them—are going to go to the IG about it. Then what?”

  “Oh, goddamn it!” Lowell said. “I never thought of that.”

  The inspector generals of the Army, almost invariably experienced senior officers, are in a sense ombudsmen. They investigate complaints of unfairness, illegality, and so on. They are on the staff of the local commander, but have the authority— and the duty—should the local commander not rectify a situation to their satisfaction, or be at fault himself, to take the issue to higher headquarters, and ultimately to the inspector general of the Army, who takes his orders only from the chief of staff of the Army.

  The problem was not that anything Felter had done, including what Pappy called the “Mickey Mouse special courses,” was illegal—he was acting with the authority of the President, the Commander-in-Chief; that was all the authority he needed.

  But the inspector general at Rucker would certainly investigate allegations that officers were being rated as aviators without following the regulations prescribing precisely how this should be done, and further, perhaps reluctantly, but with no less dedication, that the commanding general’s son-in-law had been given special treatment.