Overture to Disaster (Post Cold War Political Thriller Trilogy Book 3)

by Chester D. Campbell

  On a hot, muggy fall afternoon nearly three months after his retirement, something happened to turn his life around. Reflecting on it later, Roddy was astounded that he had acted as resolutely as he did.

  The bar was a long counter cluttered with napkins and ash trays and bowls of peanuts and bottles of hot peppers and other strange looking condiments. Perched precariously on a tall barstool, Roddy viewed the bartender with consternation. He had lost count of how many drinks he had consumed. In a thick-tongued voice, he argued with the thin, wiry young man, whose acne-pocked face resembled a moonscape.

  "Now le's be reason'ble, young man," he pleaded in a drunken slur. Then plea turned to challenge. "I ask ya, who in holy hell would know if he's had enough better than me? Huh? Tell me that."

  The bartender shook his head sadly. He had great respect for the military, and he had read about this pathetic man's tragic background. "Colonel, believe me, it's time you went home. Let me call you a cab."

  "I don' wanna damn cab," Roddy protested.

  Then through the alcoholic haze he saw the bartender staring beyond him and turned to see what had distracted him from this important discussion. He found a vaguely familiar figure slowly approaching.

  "They told me I'd probably find you here," said the stranger, shaking his head in consternation. "I hate to see you doing this to yourself, Colonel."

  Roddy blinked, hoping to clear the haze, but it was like flying through a cloud. He wasn't so far gone, though, that he didn't recognize the voice. "Dutch?"

  Peter Schuler took him by the arm and tugged, trying to dislodge him from the barstool. "Let's go home where we can talk."

  "Wha' the hell are you doin' here?"

  "After what they did to you," Schuler said, now realizing it had been even worse than he had thought, "I resigned my commission."

  Roddy's mouth dropped open in shock. It was more than his brain could absorb in its current state, and he found himself unable to muster a response. Meekly, like a child, he gave way to Dutch's tugging and stumbled with him toward the door.

  The apartment was a wreck. Clothes strewn about, dirty dishes in the sink, a half-opened ice cream sandwich on the counter melted into a soggy brown heap. Schuler found a can of coffee in the freezer compartment. At least Roddy had acted rationally sometime in the not too distant past. He started the coffee maker and sat down at the kitchen table across from his former aircraft commander, who now resembled a disheveled bum, at least two days' growth of beard scattered about his drawn face, the eyes watery and bloodshot, radiating red lines like highways on a sectional chart.

  "You resigned your commission...'cause of me?" That message had lodged in Roddy's mind like a truck parked sideways, blocking comprehension of anything else.

  "They treated you like dirt, Colonel. When I got back to California, I looked back and saw how they had manipulated me. They effectively kept me from having any contact with you before the trial." He shook his head in frustration. He would liked to have been there sooner to offer support.

  "But you're too young, Dutch...your career. You love flying...like me. What will you do?"

  As he forced coffee down the distraught figure, Schuler related his story, starting with the fact that he was in excellent shape financially. Since he had no family to support, he had invested a sizeable portion of his monthly pay the past several years through a friend who was a specialist in stock and commodity options. The result had been phenomenal.

  His nest egg had hatched into a flock of golden hens. As a result, he was in no rush to start on a new career. Physically he felt great for the first time since the crash in Iran a year ago. He was ready to concentrate on his tennis game.

  "Since you don't seem to have anything tying you down here," Schuler said, glancing around the untidy hovel, "why don't you come with me and help me get back into my game."

  "Come where?" The coffee had cut through the whiskey-borne fog, but he was hearing almost too much to take in at one swallow.

  "To Mexico."

  Dutch told about a girl he had dated whose father was a retired lieutenant general. The general and his wife were living near the town of Chapala, on the lake of the same name south of Guadalajara. In glowing terms, the girl had described a paradise where the weather was perfect, the people friendly and the cost of living unbelievably low compared to the U.S.

  Schuler gave his best boyish grin. "How about it, Colonel? Shall I call the airline and make our reservations?"

  Roddy stared into the steaming, blackish brew. Now he had lost count of how many cups of coffee he had drunk. Would he ever get a handle on his life again? Karen had left him and moved to Gainesville to be near the girls. He was a civilian for the first time in twenty-five years, not of his own choosing. At forty-six, he was a has-been. It occurred to him that his life was a bigger mess than this ratty apartment, for which he felt a sudden, irrational loathing.

  "How about it, Colonel?" Schuler repeated. "I need your help."

  Somebody needed his help. Somebody he respected. Somebody whose life he had nearly ruined. Although he knew the ambush had not been his fault, he still felt a sense of guilt at having been the one who chose the crew members for the mission. Had he been in a little better shape to think things through objectively, he might not have come to the hasty conclusion that he did. But at the moment, seeing a glimmer of light out there like a beacon shining through the fog, he could think of nothing better to do.

  He nodded. "Okay, Dutch. Let's go."

  26

  As it turned out, Peter Schuler had regained his tennis prowess, but with not as much help as he had hoped from his old commander. Roddy's leg improved, though not enough to propel him around the court at his former speed. The most encouraging aspect of the venture was Roddy's discovery that he was not an alcoholic, only a problem drinker. As soon as he left his problems behind, he found he no longer felt the need to drown himself in alcohol. He learned to confine himself to an occasional beer or a glass of wine, or to a margarita at a party.

  Schuler soon became a good friend of retired General Wackenhut and his wife. Roddy declined to join him, though. He didn't feel comfortable in the company of an Air Force general, retired or otherwise. Meanwhile, the general's daughter became a more frequent visitor, causing the romance to blossom. And after a couple of years in Mexico, Dutch had proposed and followed her back to the States. By that time, Roddy had found the job flying helicopters and was back in his element. The one facet of the flying business that did not overly thrill him was the one he had taken on that afternoon, instructing beginning pilots who hardly knew the difference between a cyclic control and a throttle. Roddy was a stickler for detail, which was why he was still around. It got pretty tedious at times. After finishing with his students in late afternoon, he drove over to Tonalá on the southeastern side of Guadalajara, a haven for artists and craftsmen. The discussion at breakfast had reminded him of his promise to send Lila a graduation gift, a set of the black ceramic dinnerware that was produced here.

  Pleased with his selection, Roddy headed for the lake, stopping in Chapala at the home of a native friend who had loaned him several books on Mexican art and literature. They got into a lively discussion on the novels of Carlos Fuentes. By the time he got up to leave, he discovered he had been there nearly two hours.

  Arriving home, he found the red light on his answering machine flashing with its usual frenetic persistence. It always gave him the uneasy feeling that the relentless little bloodshot eye would keep right on winking to eternity unless the messages were promptly played back. He hit the playback button the moment he walked in.

  "Colonel Rodman, this is Sergeant Clint Black. We met this morning at breakfast. I have some information I doubt you are aware of. I think you ought to know about it. Call me when you get in." He left his number.

  Roddy played the message back again. There seemed to be a sense of urgency in the voice. Something he should know about? What kind of information could he have? Then he consider
ed where Black had been assigned, the office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence.

  He glanced at his watch. It was nearly nine. Normally he wouldn't have bothered to return a call at this time of night, but the message had heightened his curiosity. He wasn't about to sit around the remainder of the evening speculating on what it meant. Lifting the phone, he called the Sergeant.

  "Roddy Rodman," he began apologetically, "sorry to be calling so late, but I just got in and got your message."

  "No problem, Colonel Rod—"

  "Roddy," he fired back. He enjoyed the company of his ex-Air Force buddies, but dropping the rank was a way of distancing himself from his painful past. "I've been a civilian for a few years now, Clint. It's just plain old Roddy."

  "Sorry, sir. I'm new at this. You'll have to bear with me."

  "I know. It's sort of a culture shock. What's this information you mentioned?"

  Black's voice turned cautious. "First, let me be sure you're who I think you are. The former Colonel Warren Rodman of the Spec Ops Command? Operation Easy Street?"

  Roddy closed his eyes and got a brief flashback of a panel of stern-faced officers staring coldly as the verdict was read. It was a subject nobody had mentioned in quite awhile, something he hadn't chosen to dwell on either. He spoke the word that echoed in his ears. "Guilty."

  That caught Black off guard. He stammered, "I didn't mean to...that is..."

  "Don't worry about it. I've developed a pretty thick skin. I'm not even sure I still hate the Air Force."

  "I can understand why you would. The reason I called, one of the people I worked with occasionally at the Pentagon was Lt. Col. Juan Bolivar."

  Roddy could see the nervous figure on the witness stand, the troubled, dark eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. "When did he get promoted?"

  "Shortly after your court-martial. Were you aware that he died recently?"

  "Bolivar died? What of?"

  "He committed suicide. They found an empty pill bottle beside his bed. I believe it was a prescription sleeping drug called Dalmane."

  "The hell you say." His first reaction was serves the bastard right. Then he began to wonder why the young officer would have done such a thing? Had his conscience finally gotten the best of him? Did he leave a note of confession that he had lied under oath? No, Roddy realized. He would have heard if that had happened.

  "It was around three months ago," Black said, a note of sadness in his voice. "It was the main reason I chose to take my retirement now."

  "Your retirement? I don't understand."

  "Despite my dark skin, with a name like Clint Black a lot of people didn't realize I was part Hispanic. But Colonel Bolivar knew. He looked on me as the only fellow Mexican-American around there. He often stopped by to chat. When things recently got rough for him, he decided to confide in me. It really wasn't all that surprising. I'm a pretty good listener. They used to call me 'Dan Landers' around the intelligence shop. I didn't think much about it at first. Several times he mentioned that something had been bugging him badly. It got to the point that he knew he was going to have to do something, but he couldn't decide what.

  "Colonel Bolivar was a bachelor. I knew he'd been pretty much of a loner. He finally asked if I would meet him one Saturday morning. It was at a shopping center near where I lived at Tysons Corner, Virginia. When he told me his story, it shocked the hell out of me."

  Roddy dropped onto the chair beside the telephone and pressed the instrument hard against his ear. He hadn't listened to anything so intently since the day he had heard that court-martial verdict in Florida. "What did he say?"

  "He apologized first for burdening me with his troubles but said I was the only one he felt comfortable talking to. He wanted my opinion of what he should do. Said he had confessed to his priest, but he didn't feel that was enough. Colonel Bolivar said he didn't know for sure just why it had happened, but that General Patton had not told him about that change in the communications channel you were supposedly briefed on."

  "Patton hadn't told him?"

  "That's right."

  Roddy was incredulous. "He admitted he lied at my court-martial?" It was something he had always hoped for deep in his heart, but something he had never expected to happen. He tried to fight back the rising tide of elation he knew was premature.

  "Yes. He said as soon as he arrived back at Andrews from the Persian Gulf, he was whisked off to General Patton's office. The General warned him to say nothing about the operation to anyone until he received further instructions. Then he got a call from a man who said he was acting on behalf of the General. He met with him over in Maryland, said it was a hide and seek thing like something out of a spy novel. The guy really gave him the creeps. He told the Colonel there had been an unavoidable screw-up, that he was supposed to have been instructed to brief you on a change in the alternate frequency for the national command channel. The man said if anyone questioned him, he was to confirm that General Patton had told him about the change, and he was to say he had relayed it to you."

  "Damn." Roddy groaned, remembering Bolivar's performance at the trial. "I thought it sounded like he was repeating somebody else's words on the stand. Why the hell did he agree to do it?"

  "He refused at first. Said he couldn't lie like that, even for General Patton. Then the guy got nasty. Told him if he didn't, his career was over. Said they would charge him with being gay. And, if necessary, they would come up with photographs to prove it. Colonel Bolivar denied he was homosexual, but said he had no doubt the man was capable of forcing him into some kind of staged situation. And that wasn't all. The Colonel's father worked at a military base in Texas. The man threatened to have his father fired as well. Said he might even come home some day and find his house burned to the ground."

  Roddy had begun to feel a touch of sympathy for the tormented young officer. But his distaste for General Wing Patton was becoming unbearable. Patton was responsible for the death of Sergeant Barry Nickens and all the others. He also started having some misgivings about Chief Master Sergeant Clint Black.

  "Didn't you feel any compulsion to report what he had said to somebody? Like the IG?"

  "Oh, I thought about it plenty. I told the Colonel I was sorry, it was too big a problem for me to advise him on. I had enough trouble trying to decide what I should do myself. I thought about what might happen to Colonel Bolivar if I officially reported it. And, frankly, I had some thoughts about what it might mean for me. Like a visit from that shady character who had threatened the Colonel. But before I could sort it all out, I got the news he had committed suicide."

  Roddy shook his head. "Did he leave any kind of note?"

  "Yes. It said he had some unsolvable personal problems. Probably wouldn't have done you much good even if he had confessed the truth."

  "Why?"

  "The note wasn't signed. Wasn't even in his handwriting. Just printed out on his dot matrix printer."

  "Shit!" There went his hopes. "That made it pretty moot for you, too, didn't it?"

  "Made it my word against a dead man. I knew what I had to do, though. I really loved the Air Force, but I couldn't stay there any longer knowing what I knew about General Patton. That was one of the main reasons for choosing Guadalajara. I figured my wife and I would get as far away from it as we could, come down here and forget. I never dreamed I'd run into you. When I met you this morning, I realized what I had to say probably couldn't help. But I thought it might make things a little more understandable."

  "You're damned right about that, Clint. And I thank you for having the guts to tell me."

  Roddy lay in bed for a long time rehashing the dreadful ordeal from start to finish. Now at last he was able to fit all the distressing pieces into their proper places. And at last he knew the real culprit, the august General Wing Patton. He also knew that the tragic operation called Easy Street had claimed yet another victim, Lt. Col. Juan Antonio Bolivar.

  When he finally dozed off, he was wondering if he should write Kar
en and tell her what he had learned. Maybe not, he thought. What good would it do if he couldn't prove anything? At any rate, he would have to wait for Lila to send him their new address. She and her mother had just moved to the Washington area, where she had landed a teaching job. Renee, who had finished college two years earlier, lived in the Virginia suburbs with her new husband, a young lawyer on the staff of Florida's senior senator.

  27

  When Roddy arrived at the operations counter in the Aeronautica Jalisco hangar one afternoon the following week, María, an attractive black-haired girl with a perennial smile, informed him there was a "gringo writer" in the lounge who wanted to look around Tequila. He found a short, chubby man in his mid-thirties waiting. Obviously no sun worshipper, he had a pale white complexion and an upturned nose that went along with a skeptic's questioning gaze. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses he had donned to cope with the glare of the blazing Mexican afternoon sun.

  Roddy approached with an outstretched hand. "I'm your pilot, Roddy Rodman."

  "Bryan Janney," the plump man said with a pouting sort of frown. "They told me you were former military. Army?"

  "Air Force."

  "Rescue?"

  "Nope. The other kind."

  "Meaning special operations, clandestine variety." Janney nodded knowingly.

  "Sounds like you know your Air Force, Mr. Janney. I understand you're a writer. That takes in a multitude of sins."

  "I was the top investigative reporter in New York City," he said with no hint of humility. "That was before I got too deeply into the wrong story."

  "What was wrong with it?"

  "It was one the paper didn't want to pursue. I thought they were idiots. When I found out the real reason, I quit in disgust. But it made me more curious than ever."