by Terry James
Lyndon Johnson ambled in a determined course toward the stairway. Several dark-suited young men, some carrying walkie-talkies, some carrying bags of different kinds, hurried to keep up with his long strides.
Mark’s knees felt a bit rubbery, like after a hard sortie of aerial combat practice. What was this all about? Him, a captain, standing almost by himself, with the President approaching, forevermore looking like John Wayne on a mission from which he wouldn’t be deterred.
“You will be contacted, son. You must do what they ask.”
The voice! He heard it as plainly as if the words were spoken right in front of his face. But, the voice wasn’t the guttural growl, like in the trance. It was the remembered voice of his dad!
“You must do what they ask,” he heard his father say again.
“You doing okay today, son?”
Lyndon Johnson’s shouted Texas drawl jerked Mark’s thoughts back. He snapped to attention and saluted the President, who half-waved, half-saluted back, and then stuck out his right hand.
“Yes, sir,” Mark said, burying his hand in the President’s huge, fleshy hand. The warm, enormous hand was unlike any he had shaken.
“You been waitin’ long, partner?” Johnson asked above the loud whine of the plush unit. He then shouted again before Mark could answer.
“You’re gonna be asked to do some special things for your country, son. I want you to show ‘em you’ve got what it takes.”
“Yes, sir,” Mark said, not knowing what else to say, not having even a spark of an idea what this giant presence of a man was talking about.
“Atta boy! Good!” the President said, smiling broadly and gripping Mark on both shoulders, and slapping him gently, as if trying to compress one shoulder together with the other.
Johnson turned to go to the stair ramp.
“Don’t let me down, now, Captain. Your President is countin’ on you. Your country is counting on you,” Lyndon Johnson said loudly, then bounded up the ramp and into Air Force One.
“Captain,” a voice behind Mark said after the President had moved through the aircraft’s rear hatch.
He turned to see a man of stocky build in a dark blue suit approach, a tight smile on his face.
“I’m Bob Cooper,” the short, graying middle-aged man said, offering his right hand.
Laura Morgan sat at the little table recessed in the apartment’s wall. She turned the page of the Bible and read in silence.
“Genesis 6:13: ‘And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’”
She looked up from the page with an expression of deep contemplation.
“What’s so interesting?” Lori, wearing her father’s big, well-worn blue terrycloth robe, took her seat in the booth bench across from her mother.
“Oh… good morning, baby,” Laura said, reaching across to pat, then squeeze her daughter’s hand, which held a mug of steaming black coffee.
“Just reading my Bible,” Laura said.
“Must be something pretty good this morning. You had a look of total concentration.”
“Our pastor has started giving sermons on something I’ve never heard, or even thought of.”
“Oh, yeah? Well that would probably cover just about everything in there for me,” Lori said lightly. She could see her flippant words did not please her mother.
“Sorry, Mom. I mean that I know I should read that book once in a while,” Lori said.
“Yes, you should,” Laura agreed. She smiled and reached again to squeeze the hand that held the mug on the booth tabletop.
“What’s he saying that has you so fascinated?”
“Out of the blue he started talking about prophecy. About how the Bible says things will again be like they were during Noah’s time,” Laura said.
Both were silent for a few seconds before Lori spoke.
“That’s just a story about the flood covering the whole earth, all the animals in the Ark.”
“No. I don’t think so,” Laura disagreed.
“Oh, Mom. I know it’s a story meant to teach a lesson. Make everybody do the right things, live right. But, surely you can’t believe that the whole earth was covered by water.”
Her mother said nothing, her expression saying she considered her daughter’s words, and rejected them.
“All those animals, Mother. How could Noah have even rounded them up? Much less gotten them in that boat. And, can you imagine the smell? The job of cleaning up after them?”
“Rev. Banyon says we should take the Word of God literally, except where the Bible expressly says it’s a parable, or allegory, or symbol,” Laura said.
Lori could see it would do no good to debate further, so she decided not to.
“He says in Noah’s time, just before the Flood, fallen angels came to… seduce… the daughters of men. He says that he believes this sort of thing will happen again, the nearer it comes to the second coming of Christ.”
“Angels are men? I thought angels are usually pictured as women,” Lori said before sipping the hot coffee.
“No. They are always depicted in the Bible as male,” her mother said.
“Then I’ve got one,” Lori said happily. “His name is Mark Lansing.”
Laura studied her daughter’s face, the wrinkle-free face of youth. Glowing and perfect, without a dab of make-up.
“You really like him?” Laura said as she sipped from her own mug of coffee.
“Mom.” Her voice became almost a whisper as she leaned forward and looked into her mother’s eyes. “Mark told me he loved me.”
“Loves you?!” Laura’s words came out louder than she intended. “You two have only known each other for a couple of days. How can he say he loves you?” Lori expected that reaction. Her mother’s surprised disbelief amused her.
“What happened? I mean, men will say a lot of things to…” She let the thought transfer to her daughter’s mind.
Lori calmly drank from the mug, watching her mother’s expression that said she awaited an answer.
“Mom. You just won’t believe it. He must be one of your angels. Not from the fallen angels, but from the others.”
She told her mother that she actually did sit up most of the night, waiting for the trance-like visitation that never came.
When Lori had told her mother all but the fact that her daughter had been willing, Laura said, more joking than serious, “Well, he’s a handsome rascal. You two could give us some great-looking grandkids.”
They both giggled.
“Lori,” Laura said, turning serious while she studied the coffee mug, before looking at her daughter.
“Daddy--he’s very worried about you, and your knowing so much about these…these strange things going on.”
Lori knew it was true. She and her father were close. Always had been. She was worried about him, too, but didn’t talk about it much, even with her mother. He had always been a strong male presence in her life, protective, yet at the same time totally loving. Not like so many fathers of the service brats she had known over the years.
Their fathers were usually heavily into drink. By the time their children were teenagers, they had hardly known their dads. Something about the military drove families apart. Probably the fact that military needs always came first, no matter what.
But her dad--he had never let anything stand between himself and her. Between himself and her mother.
The serious drinking had just begun about six months ago, which she now knew was the time when the nightmares, or whatever they were, began for him.
“He’s sleeping in today?” Lori said.
“Oh, you know better than that. He’s been up and gone since six.”
All sorties had been cancelled for the day. And, there were no classroom or simulator trainings scheduled. Student pilots and instructors were given a day of R & R, thanks to the President of the United States.
&nb
sp; James Morgan strode into the wing commander’s office, his angry thoughts trained on a purpose that assured confrontation. He had always been able to talk with Col. Ervin Beery, the wing commander for the T-37, T-38 and T-39 Air Training Command missions assigned to Randolph.
They--whomever “they” were, exactly--had overstepped bounds. Boundaries that he had always maintained around his wife and daughter. His rage had been building since Sunday afternoon, when he had been lectured like a junior high schoolboy in the principal’s office. There would be the devil to pay for their interloping.
“Hello, Kelli,” James said to Beery’s secretary, a WAF lieutenant younger than his own daughter.
“Colonel,” she said, sitting more erect, seeing the angry determination in his manner. He had sounded upset when he had phoned 30 minutes earlier for an appointment.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but Col. Beery had to leave…an emergency,” she lied, and knew that he knew. “I…I couldn’t reach you in time, sir.”
“Where is he?” he said, undeterred.
“Actually, sir, there is someone who wants to see you in his office,” the young woman said, looking sheepishly toward the door marked “Col. Ervin Beery” in black letters on its frosted glass top half.
She pushed an intercom button. “Sir. The colonel is here.”
The door opened, and Robert Cooper stood, smiling, and offering his hand.
“Col. Morgan. James. Nice to see you again,” the deputy director of Covert Operations for the U.S. Defense Department said, shaking James’ hand, then guiding him inside Beery’s office by his elbow.
“Colonel, I know you’re somewhat unhappy with us…with me…” Cooper took his seat behind Beery’s desk and sat stiffly upright in the brown leather chair. He fidgeted with the cuffs of the starched white shirt sticking from each sleeve of the dark blue suit.
“I’ll tell you, Mr. Director,” James said, standing with his fingertips supporting his upper body on the desktop. “I’m through with this cat and mouse game about the Roswell thing,” he said, his face reddened with anger.
Cooper said nothing, but sat farther back in Beery’s big chair, continuing to tug at the shirtsleeves and play with the expensive cufflinks.
“As soon as I talk to Col. Beery, I’m blowing the top completely off this insanity,” James said between clenched teeth.
Robert Cooper’s broad face, surrounding the silver-gray eyebrows and icy blue eyes, showed no emotion whatever. The fact angered James even more.
“You will not invade my life any more. Leave my wife and daughter out of this. And, just to make sure, I’m telling the world what I know, Mr. Director!”
Cooper stood from the chair and walked slowly about the room. He moved to the big window and spread the blinds to look out. He then faced James.
Cooper stared for a moment, sizing up the man in front of him.
“No one will believe you, Colonel,” he said, seeming to say it as a probing debate point rather than to make an absolute statement of fact.
“If you think that’s the case, why all the secrecy, Mr. Director? Why not just leave me alone, and let me shout it at the top of my lungs to all who will listen?”
The stocky man again was silent for a few moments.
“You will put your personal life above the nation’s security? That breaks your oath to service, Colonel.”
“No, sir! I didn’t take the commission to put my wife and daughter in danger.”
“They’re not in danger, James. All we ask is that they allow us to ensure their security. They won’t even know our people are anywhere around.”
“No, Mr. Cooper. That’s not America. That’s just another form of gulag,” James said. “They aren’t in the Air Force. I am.”
“And, why come to Col. Beery?”
James watched the emotionless face to try to analyze the scope of the question.
“He’s my wing commander. We’ve been close…”
“He already knows, Colonel,” Cooper interrupted. “I’ve informed him.”
“Then, you won’t mind if I discuss the matter with him,” James shot back before Cooper’s words had gotten out of his mouth.
“No, not at all, Col. Morgan.”
Cooper moved to behind the desk and was again seated. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desktop.
“As a matter of fact, he wants to talk with you about the whole matter. He asked that I tell you that he’s on the flight line, getting ready to test-flight an aircraft. Wants you to meet him over there. At the T-38 section, I think he said.”
James turned toward the door, stopped, and then half-turned to look at the deputy director, who sat looking at him, the gray-blue eyes masking any emotion he might have. The man was perfect for his freedom-destroying work, James thought.
“What about my wife and daughter? Will you leave them out of it?” James said, his tone a bit less hostile.
“We have no intention of interfering in your…” Cooper searched for and found the right word. “…of interfering further in your life.”
Chapter 7
“We’ve got to talk,” Mark Lansing said, holding the phone receiver to his right ear and pacing as far as the cord would allow.
“Is something wrong?” Lori, who had decided to get another hour of sleep, said, coming to a new level of alertness from her drowsiness.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking around the area surrounding the several pay phones against the hangar building’s outer wall.
“My orders have been changed. I’ll have to leave soon.”
Lori sat up in the middle of the bed, trying to clear her mind to better understand. The first thing that entered her reviving brain was Vietnam.
“Southeast Asia?” she asked.
“No. It’s not a combat assignment. If it were Vietnam, that wouldn’t surprise me. This is, well, I don’t think we should talk now. I’ll be at the snack bar. The one where you found me the other morning.”
Col. Ervin Beery stood going through the checklist for the T-38 he was about to test fly. He then sat behind the line chief’s desk and sipped the coffee the chief master sergeant had offered him a few seconds earlier. He continued to flip the pages laminated in clear plastic.
Gunthaar Helstrom drank from the mug of just-made coffee and thumbed through the aircraft’s loose-leaf form.
“She’s ready whenever you are, Colonel,” Helstrom said, letting the form plop on the desk within Beery’s reach.
“The bird looks good to go, Swede,” Beery said, addressing the T-38-line chief by his nickname.
“Any sign of Morgan yet?” Beery looked out the window of the hangar office to see two men preparing the T-38 he would fly.
“No.”
“Good thing the President got out of here early,” the colonel said.
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve got a granddaughter’s birthday party to attend this afternoon. His going back to DC early cleared the way for me to get in these flying hours, and do you guys a favor at the same time.”
“Yes, sir. The President was very thoughtful to leave early,” Helstrom said in his raspy voice, chuckling.
Beery grinned and stood from the desk chair. “There he is!” the wing commander said, seeing James Morgan come through the doorway.
Both men greeted James, who only wanted to talk about matters involved in his troubled thoughts.
“Sir, I was talking to Deputy Director Cooper. He said you are aware of the things…the things that have been happening.”
“Yes, James,” Beery said, pouring himself another cup of coffee from the big coffee maker against one wall.
“You feel like flying?” Beery said as he drank from the mug.
Surprise flashed across Morgan’s face, then he understood that the wing commander wanted to discuss the matter while in flight.
“Yes, sir. I’m always ready to fly,” James said.
“I just happen to have a flight suit and all the fixings in your size,�
� the colonel said with a wry smile.
The wing commander had planned it. Planned for the two of them to make the test flight. And talk about the…problem…while in the air, putting the Talon through its paces.
Mark was standing just outside the door to the snack bar when Lori pulled the TR-5 into the parking lot. They embraced, and kissed, then he took her hand and walked away from the overhanging, weather-shielded area surrounding the snack bar’s front door.
“Let’s talk in the car,” he said, opening the passenger-side door for Lori, then walking around the front of the car and sitting behind the wheel. He reached beneath the seat to trip the lever that allowed the seat to slide backward for legroom.
“What’s going on, Mark?”
“Like I said, orders were issued that change everything, I guess,” he said, handing several sheets of papers to her.
Lori looked them over, seeing that his new assignment was Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
“When?” she asked, further scanning the pages.
She saw the date of assignment at the same time he said, “Says ‘immediately.’”
“You report tomorrow?” Her question was put with exasperation. “What’s going on?!”
“It’s weird. And getting weirder.”
She could see in his face that he was not just being dramatic. He looked uneasy, she thought.
“Mark, what is it? Can you tell me? I mean, it’s not classified, is it?”
“It is, but, you know what, that’s another thing that’s so strange. They told me it’s…that it has top security classification, but that it’s okay for me to tell you. Have you ever heard of that in the military? Something is top secret, but it’s okay for a civilian to know about it?”
“Who? Who told you that you could tell me?”
“One of the top guys at the Defense Department.”
She was silent, trying to make sense of his words.
