The Generals (29 page)

(Four)
Camp McCall, North Carolina
1415 Hours, 11 June 1969

Colonel Rudolph G. MacMillan and Colonel Craig W. Lowell, red-faced and puffing slightly from the six-story climb up rough wooden stairs, emerged at the top of the rappelling tower. Colonel Sanford Felter and two Green Beret noncoms, a big, flat-nosed master sergeant and a younger kid who wore the stripes of a staff sergeant, came to attention and saluted crisply.

“Afternoon,” Lowell said, returning the salutes.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you looking like a soldier,” Felter said.

“So this is how the other half lives,” Lowell replied.

The rappelling tower was a wooden structure—heavy planks bolted to huge telephone poles—rising more than sixty feet above the sandy ground. There were large coils of darkish brown nylon rope on the flat, plank roof. The top of the tower was forty feet square, and it smelled faintly of creosote.

Lowell saw, over the trees, the mock-up of the POW camp. He walked closer to the edge, and stared at the mock-up, careful not to look over the side of the tower.

“I don’t see anybody working,” he said to Felter, who walked over with the master sergeant.

“They finished just before noon,” Felter said. “We’re running a little ahead of schedule.”

“We’ll lose that,” Lowell said. He turned to the master sergeant. “OK, Sergeant. Somewhat reluctantly, I place myself in your hands.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “I’m sure the colonel remembers most of the way it’s done.”

“Sergeant,” Lowell said. “I’m afraid I’m traveling under false colors.”

“Sir?”

“All of this is new to me. The only time I’ve ever seen this sort of thing is in the movies.”

“Yes, sir,” the master sergeant said. There was a faint but unmistakable change in his attitude. Lowell knew that he had been judged by the green beret, the ripstops, and the parachutist’s badge sewn below his CIB and above his master aviator’s wings on the ripstop tunic.

“I am a Green Beret,” Lowell said, “solely because of a very loose interpretation of the rules by General Hanrahan and this fat colonel. I have made one—one only—parachute jump. When his fat colonel had me thrown out of an airplane.”

“Oh shit, Duke,” MacMillan said. “But since he brought it up, Sergeant, he’s qualified. He got that third CIB from First Group, and the one jump he made was a HALO from thirty-two thousand feet.”

“I know who the colonel is, sir,” the sergeant said. “Mr. Wojinski told me about him.”

“Nevertheless, Sergeant,” Lowell insisted, “I want you to keep what I said in mind when we do what you have in mind for me to do.”

Lowell saw the coils of rope were no longer where they had been. They now trailed over the sheer edge of the building. He walked across and looked over the edge.

“Oh, good God!” he said. “A man could break his ass here!”

The master sergeant chuckled again. Lowell sensed that he was back in the sergeant’s esteem.

“OK, Sergeant,” Lowell said. “Bearing in mind that I’m old and fragile, let’s get on with it.”

“Yes, sir,” the master sergeant said, crisply. “If you’ll just watch, Colonel, Sergeant Quinn will rig Colonel MacMillan. Is that all right, Colonel?”

MacMillan nodded. The staff sergeant wrapped a short length of the nylon rope around MacMillan’s back and legs, making a seat harness, which he fastened with a D ring.

“The rate of descent is controlled by friction,” the master sergeant explained. “You can stop yourself at will. There is a stretch factor in the line, however, which you will learn by experience. In other words be careful as you approach the ground.”

“You have never been careful before, Sergeant,” Lowell said. “Believe me.”

MacMillan waddled to the edge of the tower; and looking somewhat bored, he picked up the rope that hung over the edge, wrapped it around his waist, snapped it into the D ring, adjusted it so that it was taut, and then leaned backward over the side.

“Watch carefully, Duke,” he said. “I’m not going to climb those damned stairs again.”

The master sergeant handed Mac a leather work glove, and he put it on his right hand. Then he simply jumped backward off the six-story rappelling tower. Fifteen feet down, he bounced against the side, and then pushed himself away again.

“Jesus Christ!” Lowell said. Looking over the edge made him dizzy.

“It’s not as bad as it looks, Colonel,” the master sergeant said. “Just don’t look down at first if it makes you dizzy.”

“And let the ground come up as a surprise?” he asked.

“You’ll sense when you’re close to the ground,” the master sergeant said. “Would you like to watch it again?”

“Absolutely,” Lowell said. He nodded at Felter. “If he doesn’t go, I don’t go.”

Felter, grinning, allowed himself to be roped into a harness, and then went over the edge with as much ease as MacMillan had.

“It’s not hard, Colonel,” the master sergeant said.

“Colonels Felter and MacMillan are well known for their insanity,” Lowell said. Then: “OK, let’s do it.”

The staff sergeant roped him in the harness, while the master sergeant wrapped himself.

“I’ll go down with you, Colonel,” he said. “If you want to stop yourself, just do it. No problem.”

“As the bishop said to the nun,” Lowell said.

He made the rope taut, put on a leather-palmed glove, and forced himself to stand, backward, on the edge of the platform. He looked down at the rope and the harness. The way it fit around his midsection, it bunched the ripstops into what looked like an oversized camouflage jockstrap.

He remembered the touch of Dorothy Sims’s hand. She had indeed made him feel young enough to be doing something like this. What the hell! He pushed himself into space, and almost immediately applied friction. He fell about three feet.

“You can give it a little more, Colonel,” the master sergeant said. He let loose, pushed himself away from the wall, and let himself fall as far as he dared. There was an elastic sensation, as if he were at the end of an enormous rubber band.

“You’ve got the idea, Colonel,” the master sergeant said.

“It’s as easy as falling off a six-story building,” Lowell said. He was now pleased with himself. Four bounds later—too soon—he sensed that he was getting close to the ground. When he looked down, he saw it was five feet below him.

He had just been set to push himself off again for a long swoop. If he had done that, he would have crashed heavily into the ground.

Felter and MacMillan watched him, smiling, as he opened the D ring and got loose of the rope.

“Now that wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, was it, son?” MacMillan said, mockingly solicitous.

“I think I’ll do it again,” Lowell said. “If I can make it up the stairs.”

He climbed the stairs with his mind full of Dorothy Sims. Logic told him that it had been her long abstinence rather than anything he had done…but there was no denying that having a woman thrashing beneath him in glorious passion did wonderful things for his ego. That had been one hell of a piece of ass.

Or was she just an oversexed lady who latched onto visiting officers? She was, he supposed, about thirty-five. Women were supposed to be at their sexual peak in those years. What was she supposed to do, with her husband gone, use a banana?

In fact, he believed what she said about getting a divorce. When Tom came home.

If Tom came home.

If they were successful.

According to Sandy’s list, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas B. Sims, USAF, was in the Hanoi Hilton.

Hang tight, Colonel. The Green Berets are on the way, after a brief pause for station identification, during which I am diddling your loving wife.

Welcome home, darling. You will be hearing from my lawyers.

The staff sergeant was waiting for him on the top of the rappelling tower. Lowell was pleased to see that the master sergeant was huffing and puffing as much as he was when he came through the stairwell.

He went down the rope four more times, until he felt very confident. The last two trips were from the skid of a Huey, which had been mounted to the tower on four by eights so that it was five feet away from the wall of the tower. You could still stop yourself whenever you wanted to, but there was no wall to plant your feet against and stop the oscillation. You swung back and forth like a rock tied to the end of a string.

Whether by coincidence, or more likely by intent, a Huey—an HU-1D—appeared. It fluttered near the mock-up while Lowell was catching his breath after the fourth trip up the stairs.

When he slid to the ground the final time, still wearing the rope harness and D ring, they walked over to the Huey. The pilot, who was sitting on the floor of the cargo compartment, stood up when he saw them coming. He saluted.

“Nice to see you again, Colonel Lowell,” he said, putting out his hand. “I heard you were in on this.”

Lowell looked at Felter, who nodded, a signal the pilot had been cleared for Operation Monte Cristo.

“I’m glad you are,” Lowell said. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

“The way this works, Colonel,” the pilot said, “is that I will hover somewhere around one hundred feet over the roof—you know how hard that is to do—to keep your oscillation down. You will not be given the word to go down the rope until we’re in the best hover I can manage. Once you get the word from the crew chief, get out as quick as you can. There will be some movement of the aircraft from the imbalance. Once you start to oscillate, the only way you can stop it is to start down the rope again in the middle of the swing. You understand, sir?”

“All things considered, I’d rather be driving,” Lowell said.

The pilot smiled at him, and went on. “Get out of the harness immediately. There will be another change of center of gravity the moment you touch down and the rope goes slack. Unless you get free of the rope right away, you’re liable to be dragged off the roof.”

“You’re just a fountain of pleasant information, aren’t you?” Lowell said.

“We’ll be a little light, with just the five of us,” MacMillan said. “Did you bring ballast?”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot said. “Everybody’s in there. A thousand pounds of sand, and all the field equipment.”

For the first time, Lowell looked closely inside the fuselage. There was a pile of field equipment, web belts and ammo pouches, even weapons. And strapped to the nylon-and-aluminum seats were bags, each stenciled
BALLAST 50 POUNDS
.

The crew chief stood at the door holding out a set of web equipment. Lowell reached for it. It was suspenders, a web belt with a .45 in a holster, several magazine pouches for the M-16 rifle, and even two concussion grenades taped to the suspenders. He strapped the suspenders on. It had been a very long time since he had worn web equipment. This was brand-new stuff, nylon. He wondered idly if nylon was such a good idea. Nylon burns. He didn’t think the old stuff—what was it, cotton?—would burn.

The crew chief handed him an M-16 rifle. Loosening the strap, he put it across his shoulders. He was the last one finished dressing. The others didn’t tease him about it or offer to help. They just waited. There’s one guy in every squad, Lowell thought, who is always last.

He stepped inside the Huey. He had a lot of time in Hueys, but very little time in the back seat of one. The crew chief indicated where he was to sit, between two of the seats stacked with fifty pounds of ballast.

The turbine began to whine, and the rotor blades slowly began to revolve. He looked up and saw the crew chief touch his mike button, apparently telling the pilot they were ready any time he was.

The pitch of the turbine and the rotor changed, and Lowell felt the chopper grow light on the skids. The pilot picked it two feet off the ground, lowered the nose, and made a running takeoff in the direction of the mock-up, keeping low across the ground until he had the speed he wanted, then pulling up on the cyclic, jerking the bird into the air.

They passed over the mock-up at fifty feet. Lowell wished he were closer to the door so that he could get a better look at it, but then reminded himself he would in a couple of minutes be on it, where he could take a really close-up look at it.

The Huey banked, maybe half a mile from the mock-up, at five hundred feet now, and out the open door Lowell could see that the area was ringed with concertina: barbed wire in three-foot coils. Not the old barbed wire but the new stuff, flat ribbons of razor-sharp steel. He thought he saw a guard post, but he wasn’t sure. They were certainly there, because Sandy Felter certainly would have sealed off the entire area like a drum.

The Huey leveled off and slowed down.

The crew chief, in an olive drab flying helmet that concealed most of his head, made a “get-up” signal with his hands. They were making a slow, flat descent back to the mock-up. Apparently on orders from the pilot, the crew chief threw a coil of rope out each door, outside the skid so the rope could not interfere with the VHF antenna mounted on the bottom of the fuselage.

MacMillan and the staff sergeant hooked the rope to their D rings and stood facing inward, holding themselves in place with a hand placed flat against the top of the door opening, looking over their shoulders.

The Huey’s engine pitch changed. The most difficult maneuver of a helicopter is a hover outside ground effect. This was what the pilot was now attempting. Lowell could sense the minute changes he was making with the cyclic and with the stick. He could not, for the life of him, remember the pilot’s name, but he remembered he was a good one.

And then all of a sudden, simultaneously, MacMillan and the staff sergeant launched themselves into the air, jumping backward over the skid. Lowell thought he could detect a slight upward (as their weight left the helicopter) and then downward (as they brought their weight back by stopping their descent movement), but he wasn’t sure.

He stepped closer to the door and saw the staff sergeant first, and then MacMillan, land on the flat roof of the mock-up. Immediately, they unstrapped their rifles and moved to the edges of the roof, MacMillan training his rifle on the courtyard, and the sergeant pointing his at the ground outside.