Leon Uris (12 page)

Pucky was ashen. He had too much truth in his words, but damned if she would stand by quietly watching during a cultural collapse.

Now Darnell Jefferson jumped in. “Wait! Wait!” he cried. “I’m getting a vision. Pawtucket has just opened a ten-plex movie house. I go to the movies. What picture?
Eight of them are buddy-uddy cop bang-bang films that must gross twenty million on the first weekend or die. Ah, at last a picture I want to see,
badly
. Passenger plane, a 747, off course, transatlantic flight. Somehow a half dozen terrorists get aboard with breakdown plastic guns. There is a case of deadly virus stored in the luggage compartment. If, oh God, the canister is found and opened by the vile terrorists…good-bye East Coast of America. The president of the United States is informed in his bad left ear while dozing in a reception line. Call a scramble to sitcomm.comm.comm.org, orders the president
over
the head of his chief of staff, Field Marshal Stoopnagel. Scramble the fighter planes of the famous Asshole Squadron. Shoot the motherfucker down if it gets closer than fifty miles off the coast. A sweet, innocent little girl in row twenty-two brushes the hair of her Barbie doll. ‘I’m going to see my daddy in Sing Sing.’”

Pucky and Thornton caught their breath and waited for Darnell to quit ranting. He didn’t. “Wait a minute, is this the movie where the poison was going to destroy the East Coast, or where it was carrying a load of kudzu seeds to strangle every tree in the South? Well, we know one thing, don’t we?
Only one man can save the situation
, Sylvester Ford Harrison, who has played in sixty films without smiling. He is lowered into the 747 toilet by a jet helicopter. You know, brother and sister, I left the tenplex rather disappointed, so when I got home I turned on the TV to get a breath of quality. They had an uptown audience of fourteen and sixteen-yearolds and on the stage in front of the camera a lot of fat people. Jenny Degenerate, the hostess, asked Hydrangea Flapjacks if she’d had incest with her brothers and father. The audience squealed! ‘Yes, ma’am, till I married my uncle.’”

“All right, enough, Darnell. We have been patient.
What are you trying to say?” Thornton demanded.

Darnell leaned over the table, and tears welled and perspiration dripped. “Thornton! For God’s sake! These pissy-ass movies and that pissy-ass television eat up more material in one day than was written by all the English authors during the entire Victorian era. Pucky is only trying to hold back an avalanche of ignorance.”

“All right,” Thornton said softly. “I want you to listen to something, and you tell me.”

He put a disk into the Bulldog’s CD-ROM and punched the required keys. In a few seconds music came over the speakers. It was sweet, melodic, dancy and teasy. It was pure Mozart.

Thornton changed the setting to what was obviously Beethoven. Pucky was caught up in trying to identify the symphony. It occurred to her that somehow, some unplayed and unpublished Mozart and Beethoven had been discovered. My God, it was world-shattering.

“That’s the future of music,” Thornton said. “It is already the future of writing, as you have just documented so well, Darnell. The Bulldog was programmed to log fifty hours of each composer, then compose something new using the composer’s structure.”

“The computer composed that!” Darnell cried.

“That’s the future. Want to see some non-paintings by Rembrandt or some non-statues by Michelangelo or maybe read a little non-Hemingway? Alas, the Bulldog is a little weak on Hemingway.”

Pucky looked around the office until she spotted the Ming vase she had bought at auction, snatched it from its stand, marched to his desk, lifted it over her head, and flung it into the monitor of the Bulldog.

MARINE CORPS AIR BASE, EL TORO,
CALIFORNIA—LATE 1970
s

Throughout the history of the republic, military mavericks have popped up, some with innovations that changed the nature of war. After World War I, an Army Air Force general, Billy Mitchell, demonstrated the impossible, that airplanes could sink a battleship.

The Navy’s most renowned off-horse appeared in the form of Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear submarine, who gave nightmares to his superiors and Congress.

Marine Major General Jeremiah Duncan was a lesser maverick, but a maverick nonetheless. By the time of the Great Depression the American military had fallen into a pathetic state. There was congressional pressure to disband the Marine Corps or reduce it to giving concerts on the Capitol steps and serving as embassy guards.

It was incumbent upon a group of Marine officers, including Duncan, to reinvent the mission of the Corps and thereby save it from extinction.

Their thesis was simple but unique. In future wars, global in nature, tactics had to be developed to land men from the sea against fortified land positions.

The major test in World War I had taken place against the Turkish peninsula at Gallipoli. British naval gunfire bashed the Turkish forts and emplacements for weeks prior to a landing by Anzac, British,
and French forces. The Allied troops were cut to pieces, and ultimately the campaign ended in a disaster that resulted in Winston Churchill’s removal from the Admiralty.

Away from probing eyes on the island of Vieques, off the east coast of Puerto Rico, the Marines went about developing the tactics that would become a key to victory in future wars. Naval gunfire was moved in close and concentrated on a single beach or two, forcing the enemy to retreat inland temporarily. The Marines would then land infantry, set up a perimeter, and dig in to ward off the inevitable enemy counterattack. The key was holding a piece of turf, then moving inland.

All that was needed was a war to prove the thesis. It came along in good time.

It has been said that Jeremiah Duncan’s first words as an infant were “Semper Fidelis.” He became the first fighter pilot ace when he shot down five Japanese Zeros in a single day over Guadalcanal, but was shot down in turn and somehow escaped alive. An ace, but he could fly combat no more.

As a battalion commander in Korea, when he was advised that his men were surrounded, he said, “Good, that makes the tactical situation simpler.” Duncan led his mangled forces back from the Chosin Reservoir on the Chinese border to the sea in the dead of an icy winter.

In Vietnam he was moved from field command to staff to develop and improve new tactics against a tenacious and resourceful enemy.

Jeremiah Duncan’s chest bore a Congressional Medal of Honor, a Navy Cross, and three Purple Hearts. Known with affection throughout the Corps as Dogbreath, he now longed to retire to the Eastern
Shore, where he had a big old house, a dandy fishing boat, and scads of children and grandchildren.

His wife of thirty years upped and died tragically in a house fire, leaving him devastated and debilitated. The Corps hung on to him to get him through his bereavement.

Jeremiah never got to the Eastern Shore. He ended up with a vague title as adviser to planning at El Toro Marine Air Base. There on the outskirts of Los Angeles, he worked another innovation, the lightning strike force.

The Corps, along with Bell and Boeing, was developing a hybrid aircraft—the SCARAB, that could take off and land like a helicopter, then fly like a turbo-prop. It was designed to carry twenty-some Marines with medical, electronic, and specialty personnel.

As was his wont, Jeremiah was soon bucking heads with the top brass. As a lady colonel inched into his life, he finally requested his belated retirement.

It was no surprise when the commandant, General Keith Brickhouse, a gnarly specimen not unlike Duncan, showed up at El Toro. With a name like Brickhouse, the general had a reputation akin to Dogbreath’s.

“So, it’s you and Colonel Dorothy, eh? Getting hitched, Jeremiah?”

“If the Marine Corps wanted me to have another wife, they’d of issued me one. Cut to the chase, Keith, but let me advise you in advance—after Nam it took me six months to be able to write my name. Who sent you, Keith?”

“The President.”

“Well, you’ve got my attention.”

“As well as Defense, State, Joint Chiefs, and the CIA,” Brickhouse continued. “I didn’t assign you to
El Toro to play with the SCARAB by accident.”

“Any damned fool could tell you we had to develop a rapid-strike force. The SCARAB is interesting. Helicopter turned airplane turned helicopter and carrying more firepower than anything ten times its size, with the exception of nuclear weapons.”

“It’s more than that,” the commandant said. “Jeremiah, we’re heading into an era of an entirely different kind of warfare, vomit warfare.”

“Like?”

“World terrorism. We must get a leg up. This Palestine Liberation Organization is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg. Playing by no rules and operating covertly, they can multiply like roaches. Every dingy little organization with a beef will feel free to call themselves Heroes of God on Tuesday and blow up a civilian aircraft and rename themselves Liberation Unit Twenty on Wednesday and take a classroom of kids as hostages. The bad news is that the Warsaw Pact nations and the Islamic states are giving them sanctuary, training camps, money, diplomatic passports, weapons. Thus far terrorist activity has been outside of the States. At the moment there is no way we can make the American public believe we are not immune. But something’s going to happen inside America, and sooner rather than later. It’s up to us to have something in the ready.”

“Let me finish this for you,” Duncan interrupted. “The President wants me to create a small, secret, lightning strike force. Once we identify a perpetrator of a terrorist act, we will hit a preplanned target in reprisal.”

“You heard that from you, not me,” the commandant retorted. “How do you think the SCARAB would fit in?”

Jeremiah did not have to stretch far to grasp that one. “The SCARAB could be a big part of the Marines’ future.”

“We’re thinking of ordering five hundred of them,” Brickhouse retorted.

Jeremiah had enjoyed playing with the SCARAB in the tightly guarded hangar. It brought him back to a first love, aviation. He had already surmised what the craft’s future role might be. The notion of marrying a lady colonel and retiring did not entirely appeal to him. The alternative was staying in the Corps.

“The SCARAB has potential. To do the rapid-force mission I want something faster, lighter, and with high-end missiles. I could soup the engines up. I’d want a titanium wing and install the new TAD laser bomb-guidance system,” he said.

“I’ll get the funding,” the commandant said quickly.

“I didn’t say I’d do it, Keith. I said I’d think it over.”

The commandant knew that either Jeremiah would agree or he would have to be retired. He waited.

“I want to build my own team,” Jeremiah snapped, “and I don’t want a fucking congressional oversight committee buggering me—”

“Deal,” Keith interrupted.

“I’ll give you a list of the key people I need,” Jeremiah said, already caught up in the venture.

“If we’re staying top secret, it has to be an all volunteer force,” the commandant said.

“Sure, fine. I’ll volunteer them,” Jeremiah answered.

*  *  *

Master Technical Sergeant Quinn Patrick O’Connell
was the man to see at the El Toro helicopter command. He received new craft, oversaw electronic installations, personally ran all serviced ’copters through their test drills, kept the manuals up to date, and pulled the best safety record in the Corps.

Quinn’s relationship with Major General Jeremiah Duncan formally began when the general’s personal ’copter pilot took ill. He knew Dogbreath was playing around with some kind of flying egg crate in Q Hangar and ’coptered often to Camp Pendleton, a skip down the coast and over to a semi-mysterious Marine Corps facility near Barstow in the Mojave Desert.

They flew together so often, a confidence between the two came naturally and was cemented when Quinn flew the boss to Vegas for a rendezvous with Colonel Dorothy.

Shortly after General Brickhouse’s visit, Jeremiah called the commander of El Toro. “I need to borrow a ’copter pilot for a month or so. Send me Sergeant O’Connell and put him on detached duty.”

“I can’t spare him for a month, Jeremiah,” the commander retorted. “He’s key personnel.”

“Then I’ll appreciate it doubly.”

“Don’t you Dogbreath me!”

“Shall we put this down as a request and not an order?”

“I hear you, I hear you.”

“Sir!” Quinn snapped, coming to attention before Duncan’s desk.

“Sit down, son.”

Oh, Christ, Quinn thought as the general reached out to shake his hand, I’m going to get my pockets picked.

“My ’copter pilot has the crud. I’m going to need
you for a month or so. Detached duty has been cleared. I trust you have no objections.”

“I understand your words, a month, but I don’t understand how long ‘or so’ might be.”

“Or so means or so.”

“I’m checking out a half dozen new men. A couple of them are real joy-stick freaks. Let me pick you a gung-ho man,” Quinn said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Can I have four or five days to brief the new NCO at the ’copter compound?” Quinn asked.

“Take two.”

“Sir, uh…”

“What, son, what!”

“On your ’copter, sir, I’d like to select the copilot.”

“In actual fact,” Jeremiah answered, “I’ll copilot.”

“Ohh.”

“I note a drop of enthusiasm in your voice,” the general grumbled. Receiving no answer, he bellowed, “Well!”

“General Duncan, this here Corps holds you in the same reverence as Joe Foss, Marian Carl, and Pappy Boyington’s Black Sheep. Sir, it was a glorious day in our aviation history when you became the first American ace in a single day. However, General, World War II ended thirty-five years ago, and with these new systems you couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle.”

Duncan’s voice went from grumble to gurgle to rumble.

“Sir, there is a new poster on the far wall. Kindly read the top line of it from here.”

Duncan squinted, and squinted, then drummed the top of his desk ominously.

“What’s this all about, sir?”

“I need you,” Jeremiah said dead-on. “I’m putting together a special all-volunteer force, about two paltoons’
worth, and I want you to volunteer.”

“Volunteer to do what?”

“I’d rather not have to explain,” he finally said, simmering down. “The nature of our mission requires utmost secrecy. I can’t tell you unless you volunteer.”

Quinn browsed back over their relationship, the Corps, and the present conversation. “Sir, my hitch is up in five months.”

“Then I’m asking you to ship over.”

“Sir, I love the Corps. It salvaged my life. When I find out what I’m good for in this world, a lot of my strength will have been born in the Marines. However, I’m not a career man.”

“Somehow, I prayed that you would be,” Jeremiah said somewhat sadly. “You’re as smart as they come, O’Connell. You’ll be a wild-ass success and make a great fortune on the outside.”

“I don’t believe that money is my motivation,” Quinn said.

“And that’s why I thought you’d choose a career in the Corps.”

“You’ve a great way of choking my windpipe, sir.”

“Sorry. You told me you were orphaned at birth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My old man,” the general said, “worked Texas ranches and, believe it or not, was a Baptist preacher on Sundays. We’re all looking for our father, one way or the other. Always trying to do something to make him proud of us. My father never made it big, nor did he live to see me get the first star pinned on my shoulder. First time I was supposed to retire, a long time ago, I got offers for positions not only from every defense plant, but from an airline, an oil company, a chain of ice cream stores. I received over thirty job offers, some at the kind of money I didn’t know
existed. I just knew I couldn’t taste ice cream flavors for the rest of my life. What the hell could I do with money, anyhow?”

“With your permission, sir,” Quinn said, standing.

“Sure,” he answered with a wave of the hand, “go.”

Quinn could not open the door. He tottered. “Sir.”

“You still here?”

“Sir, tell me the truth, just this once,” Quinn said.

Jeremiah grunted a smile. “I’ll try.”

“This mission?”

“It is the highest priority at the command of the President. I consider it about as important as anything any Marine alive could become involved in. And moreover, it’s a Marine’s fantasy.”

“I, uh, could extend my enlistment for two years.”

“You’ve made old Dogbreath very happy,” the general said. “First thing is to get those stripes off your sleeve. I’m skipping you over second lieutenant to first lieut.”

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, sir…”

“But…”

“There’s too much, too much…”

“Back-biting, regulations, kiss-my-ass?” the general volunteered.

“Something like that.”

“You’re a mustang,” Duncan said in reference to enlisted men who always stayed enlisted at heart, no matter their rank. “When I hit the same fork in the road,” he continued, “I sure as hell didn’t need regulations on how to bow on lady’s night. So, they made me a Marine gunner,” he said in reference to a special warrant officer rank above the enlisted men but below the officers, like a bridge between the two. The exploding-bomb insignias on their epaulets were highly respected.

“Marine gunner,” Quinn said. “I like that, sir.”

“Gunner O’Connell it is,” Duncan said. “And thanks, Marine.”

Quinn knew what Jeremiah meant.

Thus, Jeremiah Duncan’s Recreation and Morale Unit was formed. RAM Company occupied a remote space at Pendleton and in the desert, and its fighters endured a regimen that would make the Navy Seals and Army Rangers cringe. These were light men so as not to add too much weight to the SCARAB load. Major Hugo Grubb, another mustang, honed them to a razor’s edge.