The Hunting Trip (9 page)

He remembered Fu Manchu saying, “Barman, inasmuch as Confucius has taught us that ‘Flight on one wing is difficult if not entirely impossible,' you'd better do that again.”

And after Phil had downed a third double Famous Pheasant, two ice cubes, water on the side, without touching the water, Phil remembered, if not very clearly, the following exchange:

“I've decided there is a place for you, Holden, my boy, laboring beside Geronimo and myself in the Lord's vineyards,” the diminutive Asian had said. “And as proof of my sincerity, you may now address me as ‘Angus.'”

“Why should I call you Angus?”

“Because you will be speaking to me, and my Christian name is
Angus. My surname is McTavish. Is that so difficult for you to comprehend, Newfound Friend Holden?”

“My name is not Holden. It's Philip. Philip Wallingford Williams the Third.”

“You won't mind if I call you Phil, I hope, as your entire moniker is a bit of a mouthful. I suspect that is the reason Geronimo has dubbed you Holden.”

“And while we're at it, why do you call him Geronimo?”

“Because that is my name,” Geronimo said. “Geronimo Lincoln Rutherford.”

“I can tell from the look of utter bafflement on ol' Phil's face that he is somewhat confused by all this. Inasmuch as it has a bearing on his future labors at our side doing the Lord's work, I suggest we clarify the matter for him.”

“You first, Angus.”

“If you insist. Phil, my grandfather, Fergus McTavish, was known professionally as Fearless Fergus. ‘Fearless Fergus and His Savage Beasts' was what was known as the center ring attraction of the Smith, Barney & Sons Three Ring Circus and Freak Show.

“Attired in riding britches and boots, a white polo shirt, and with a pith helmet on his head and holding a 1917 Colt revolver loaded with blank cartridges, he entered a cage and caused lions and tigers to jump through hoops, et cetera.

“One day, he looked out of the lion's cage to the attraction in the ring to his right. And then quickly looked away as he wasn't at all interested in vertically challenged Japanese jugglers or oversized sumo wrestlers.

“Then Grandpapa Fergus, as he often related, looked at the attraction ring to his left, in which a troupe of Chinese acrobats was doing their thing. His eye fell upon one of the latter, a young woman, and after she finished doing a dozen backward somersaults over Shetland
ponies and two men on miniature motorcycles and had regained her feet, their eyes met and locked.

“Grandmama Chu-hua—‘Chrysanthemum' in English—as we called her, said she knew it was love at first sight, and this made her sad, as she knew her family would never give their permission for her to wed a Scots-American, as they regarded all white men as crude savages and Scots-Americans as the worst of that entire ethnic subdivision.

“Grandpapa Fergus overcame Chu-hua's father's objections by taking his friend Oscar with him when he called on Chu-hua's father to ask for her hand in marriage. Permission came quickly when Oscar started to drag Chu-hua's brother, Desheng—that means Virtuous—out of the tent. At that point, Grandmama's father decided he'd rather feed a daughter to a Scots-American savage than a son to Grandpapa's Bengal tiger, Oscar.

“The couple was shortly afterward united in holy matrimony in the center ring while the Smith, Barney & Sons Three Ring Circus and Freak Show was playing Irvington, New Jersey.

“As the Irvington theological establishment refused to have anything to do with the circus—they objected strenuously to the bare-breasted Hawaiian hula dancers in the Freak Show—the ceremony was performed by the Reverend Wilson Graham, the circus chaplain.

“Brother Billy, as he liked to be called, had just started his evangelical career by talking John Smith—the Smith in Smith, Barney—into permitting him to set up a small tent on the circus grounds into which he attempted to lure sinners as they left the Freak Show.

“Grandpapa Fergus was surprised when the Japanese—both the vertically challenged and the sumo wrestlers—showed up for the wedding because he knew the Japanese and the Chinese were always saying unkind things about one another.

“Only much later did he learn that all Chinese did not dislike all
Japanese and vice versa, and that this was especially true under the Big Top. He did not realize how much they liked one another until I was born, and by then the die had been cast, so to speak.”

Phil remembered, somewhat vaguely, confessing he didn't understand.

Angus McTavish answered: “My father, an only child, was perfectly normal, physically speaking, except that he suffered terribly from ailurophobia and was thus unable to follow in Grandpapa's footsteps into the lion's cage. But the circus was in Daddy's blood, and he remained with Smith, Barney, first playing the double bell euphonium in the circus band, then becoming ringmaster at a very young age, and ultimately becoming, following the deaths of first Barney and then Smith, chief executive of the circus, making him the Big Shot of the Big Top, as it were.

“My mother similarly was of perfectly normal height and weight, of good solid Midwest Polish-German stock. My father met her when she had run away to join the circus, and he had given her employment as a bare-breasted Hawaiian hula dancer in the Freak Show.

“When I was five years old I was considerably shorter than other five-year-olds, and conspicuously heavier in weight than my peers, and was putting away a quart of
chankonabe
at both lunch and dinner . . .”

The next morning, Phil remembered that he had confessed his ignorance
vis-à-vis
chankonabe
, and that Angus McTavish had explained it was a stew made from a variety of meats, fish, and vegetables all cooked in a broth and served with numerous side dishes.

And that Angus had gone on: “Where was I? Oh, yes. At that point, aware as he was of the genetic teachings of Augustinian Friar Gregor Johann Mendel, my father began to suspect that unbeknownst to Grandmama Chu-hua, certain of her female antecedents had been a lot cozier with the Japanese jugglers and sumo wrestlers, with whom
they shared the Big Top, than anyone had suspected at the time. He didn't know who, of course, but he did know that the genes causing vertical insufficiency and gross obesity in his first—and as it turned out only—son had not come from his side of the family.”

At that point, they had another round, and that was the last thing Phil could remember the next morning when he was rudely awakened by Geronimo pouring cold water from a small wastebasket onto him.

“Rise and shine, Holden, it's zero-eight-hundred and zero-eight-hundred means ROTPIP time.”

“Why did you pour cold water on me?”

“It was the only thing I could think of after pushing, shouting, and twisting your big toe failed to call you from slumber. How's your head?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was afraid you might have hurt it when you fell off the Clydesdale at the Pferd und Frauen.”

Holden had no idea what he was talking about, but could not ask as he had a sudden urgent need of the sanitary facilities in their shared bathroom.

[ FOUR ]

A
bout an hour later, as they drove down Karl-Marx-Strasse in the Spandau district, Phil asked, “May I ask where we are going?”

“Back to Block One, ‘Familiarization with Berlin,' of your ROTPIP.”

“I don't understand.”

“As Angus explained to you last night, you will almost certainly be
assigned duties as a courier, in addition to your other duties, whatever they may turn out to be. Couriers take things from one place to another. And if you think about it, Holden, you can't take something somewhere if you don't know where somewhere is, can you?”

“I guess not.”

At about this time, Phil solemnly vowed that as long as he lived to
Never again consume more than four Famous Pheasant doubles, two ice cubes, water on the side—or equivalent—in a twenty-four-hour period, So Help Me, God.

(Truth being stranger than fiction, Phil has lived up to his vow—with a few rare exceptions—to this day.)

It was not only Phil's four-star hangover that caused him to swear partial abstention in perpetuity but also that he had blacked out, was confused, and had hallucinated.

While he was sure that he had indeed had drinks and dinner, and then “gone on the town” with G. Lincoln and a diminutive Asian gentleman named Angus McTavish, and that Angus did indeed look like a miniature sumo wrestler, Phil had no idea whether Angus was pulling his leg with the explanation he offered or whether Angus was in fact the grandson of a lion tamer named Fergus who had married a Chinese acrobat whose grandmother had fooled around with both Japanese sumo wrestlers and dwarf jugglers.

That was a bit hard to believe, but not in the same league, incredibility-wise, as a clear memory he had of having been taken from the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation by Angus and G. Lincoln and driven to a bar just off the Kurfürstendamm.

The establishment—in what Phil decided was not a simple memory, but a memory of an alcohol-induced hallucination—was called Pferd und Frauen. In it, six white Clydesdale horses marched proudly around in a circle to the music from the beginning of Act III of the opera
Die Walküre
, which is often called
The Ride of the Valkyries
.

On the Clydesdales were six blond Valkyries wearing nothing but derby hats and patent leather knee-high riding boots. In his hallucination, Phil remembered having nimbly leapt up onto one of the Clydesdales and wrapping his arms around the
Walküre
already sitting there.

Phil remembered G. Lincoln, shortly after he'd poured the ice water on him, having said something about his having fallen from a horse.

“G. Lincoln, you said something earlier about my having fallen from a horse?”

“Right. One moment there you were in Pferd und Frauen, up on the Clydesdale, hanging on to the Valkyrie's boobs, and yelling ‘Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!” Everybody cheered, and the next moment you were passed out in the sawdust. Angus picked you up and we brought you home.”

“I guess I embarrassed you and Angus, as well as disgraced myself, and my CIC career is about to end in shame and dismissal?”

“Not at all. You made a very good impression on Angus last night. He thought your imbibing was in keeping—especially when you started drinking what you called Spritzers . . .”

“Spritzers?”

“You showed us how to make them. Two three-ounce hookers of Slivovitz added to a liter of beer, along with a
soupçon
of Pernod. Quite tasty. But I digress. Angus said your imbibing, and your capacity, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the agency.”

Holden then and there made another solemn vow, this one to never imbibe a Spritzer again in his lifetime.

“By the agency, I gather you mean the Central Intelligence Agency?”

“Bite your tongue, Holden! We of the agency never say that out loud!”

“Sorry.”

“Perhaps I should have said ‘the highest traditions of the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation,' which is what we call ‘the beard' for that organization the name of which is never supposed to pass our lips. But I digress yet again.

“Angus said that I should make every effort to hasten your passage through your ROTPIP. The sooner you do, the quicker you can start assisting in the saving of souls.”

“I don't know what that means,” Phil confessed.

“In layman's parlance, it means causing some
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
Russian to change sides. Ol' J.C. Three is the master of that—”

“Last night, I asked you who ol' J.C. Three is,” Phil interrupted.

“And I told you four times that he is Supervisory Special Agent Jonathan Fitzwater Caldwell the Third, who is also a lieutenant colonel of cavalry, pay grade O-5, both identities being the beard for his being presiding pastor of the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation, which itself is the beard for his being the Berlin station chief of that organization whose name is never supposed to pass our lips.”

“It must have slipped my mind.”

“I'm not surprised. You were pretty well occupied most of the evening trying to have bareback carnal congress with the Valkyrie.”

Oh, my God!
Phil suddenly thought.
What if I succeeded?

Is it possible that I finally lost my status as the world's only seventeen-year-old virgin yet can't remember even one lousy lewd and lascivious detail of doing so?

And I can't ask, obviously, for clarification.

If one passes a milestone of life like that, one is expected to remember it!

I may have to give up all intoxicants of any kind!!!

“And who is PL?” Phil asked. “Did you tell me that, too?”

“Four times. PL, which stands for Pugnacious Leprechaun, is
Lieutenant Colonel William ‘Don't Call Me Bill' O'Reilly. That's not a beard for anything. He's pugnacious, and looks like a leprechaun.
Ergo sum
it fits.”

“I think you meant to say, ‘
Id est
, it fits,'” Phil said. “
Ergo sum
is two-thirds of the Latin phrase
cogito, ergo sum
, which means ‘I think, therefore I am.'”

“I think I am going to regret you coming into my life, Holden. One thing I can't stand is a smart-ass who talks Latin.”

IV

PHIL MEETS THE WRATH OF GOD

Berlin, Germany

Monday, May 19, 1947

W
hile Phil was having breakfast alone the following Monday morning, First Sergeant/Special Agent Dumbrowski stopped at his table and inquired, “Where is your accomplice in absolutely disgusting public behavior to the detriment of good military order and discipline, Administrator Williams?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Specifically, where is Administrator Rutherford?”

“I don't know specifically where he is, First Sergeant, but he left a note for me, written in soap, on our communal bathroom mirror saying there would be no ROTPIP for me today as he would be busy.”

“Busy doing what?”

“He didn't say, First Sergeant, but I would hazard the guess that he is about the Lord's work.”

“I would hazard the guess that the
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
bribed my
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
company clerk to keep him abreast of any developments in my office that might affect him, and that my
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
company clerk tipped him to the fact that Supervisory Special Agent O'Reilly is in possession of a photograph of you in
Berlin am Nacht
—which means
Berlin at Night
—magazine, said photograph showing you in your
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
birthday suit fondling the bosom of a naked blonde while the both of you are on the back of a
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
horse.”

Phil's stomach suddenly ached as it had the morning after the incident First Sergeant Dumbrowski was apparently describing, although since then absolutely nothing stronger than Listerine mouthwash had passed his lips.

“And I would hazard the further guess that once he was so tipped, he found something to do that would keep him from having to discuss what the caption on the aforementioned photograph describes as ‘Horny Horseplay in the Pferd und Frauen,'” Dumbrowski went on. “That guess ring any bells, Lone Ranger?”

“I really don't know where he is, First Sergeant.”

“Then you will have to face Supervisory Special Agent O'Reilly on your lonesome, Administrator Williams, which you will do now. And may God have mercy on your soul.”

“Yes, First Sergeant.”

—

“If I had my druthers,
Administrator Williams,” Supervisory Special Agent William “Don't Call Me Bill” O'Reilly began a few minutes later, “I would immediately ship you, you miserable Protestant sexual deviate
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
, on the next plane to Fort Benning, Georgia—after I busted your miserable
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
to
Recruit, of course—in the perhaps wishful-thinking hope that the rigorous training and disciplinary measures available at the U.S. School of Infantry Excellence might turn you into a soldier.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don't interrupt me while I'm chewing your
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
, Williams!”

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.”

“Unfortunately, there is a protocol in place here in the Thirty-third which I must follow. This misguided document requires that when drastic disciplinary action is proposed for a miserable
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
such as yourself, it must be reviewed—a last court of appeal, so to speak—by Supervisory Special Agent Jonathan Fitzwater Caldwell the Third.

“Don't get your hopes up, you oversexed underage deviate, that when he is apprised of your outrageous behavior, Supervisory Special Agent Caldwell . . . Did I mention he is a lieutenant of cavalry, pay grade O-5?”

“No, sir. You didn't mention that.”

“Where was I? Oh. Don't get your hopes up that Colonel Caldwell will temper the action I am proposing with mercy. He is deeply offended by sexual misbehavior of any kind, and they don't call him ‘The Wrath of God' for nothing.

“So, what's going to happen now is that you will be taken to Supervisory Special Agent Caldwell the Third's office for the
pro forma
review I have mentioned, following which you will be returned here to pack your duffel bag and get on the plane to Fort Benning.

“Be prepared to say
Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin,
you miserable Protestant sexual degenerate.”

“Yes, sir.”

—

Phil was driven
to Colonel Caldwell's office in an olive-drab Volkswagen by the field first sergeant, a huge bull of a man who was not known for his intellectual ability.

He guided Phil with a massive hand on his arm into a building in the
kaserne
housing the Office of the Chief, Military Government, and then into an office with a sign identifying it as the Office of Liaison Coordination, and finally into an office with a sign identifying it as the Office of the Deputy Liaison Coordination Coordinator.

It was empty.

The “field first,” as he was known to his underlings, sat Phil down in a straight-backed chair beside a desk with a sign that identified it as that of Captain J. K. Brewster, Cavalry.

“Stay there,
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
head. Somebody will come and get you.”

“Yes, Field First.”

After several minutes, Phil's eye naturally wandered.

It fell upon the “Out” basket on Captain Brewster's desk. He quickly averted his glance as a document in the “Out” basket was stamped Top Secret and it seemed pretty clear to Phil that the loss of his Top Secret clearance was looming, if it had not already been jerked.

A minute or so later, reasoning he didn't
know
that his Top Secret clearance had been jerked, only that it seemed entirely likely, he had another look in the “Out” basket. On the document's cover sheet was a red-lead pencil. Phil picked it up to get it out of the way and then lifted the cover sheet.

His eyes widened as he read what was typed on the sheet under the cover sheet:

I really shouldn't be reading this,
Phil thought,
whether or not my Top Secret clearance has been jerked.

But on the other hand, it can't be the real thing.

The real thing wouldn't be lying around in an “Out” basket in an empty office.

Probably it's only a sample, an example of how this sort of thing should be done.

And this is as close as I'm ever going to get in my life to even an example of how a real one should be done.

He took the document from the “Out” basket and put it in his lap, and then, without thinking about it, picked up the red pencil. Then he began to slowly examine the document.

He was so engaged ten minutes later when someone came into the office.

“Well, I must say this, young fellow,” the newcomer, a
pleasant-looking gentleman in his late thirties, said, “I like your taste in sports jackets.”

Phil was momentarily confused until he realized that both he and the man were wearing identical sports jackets, light brown herringbone tweed with brown calf leather sewn into the seams. Phil recalled the J. Press salesman having told him it was—they were—called the “Skull and Bones Two Button with Leather.”

“And I admire yours, sir.”

“What are you doing in here, son?” the man asked. “And what is that in your lap?”

Phil held it up and showed him.

The man snatched it from his hands.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was in the ‘Out' basket, sir.”

“And what are you doing with it?” the man asked, and before Phil could reply, asked, as if of himself, “And what are these notations in red pencil?”

“Sir, they indicate the six ambiguities and four grammatical errors I found. I didn't have time to get all the way through it, of course.”

“Why were you looking for ambiguities and grammatical errors?”

“Sir, I was trained as a CIC administrator. That's what CIC administrators do.”

“Son, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. They may strike you as a bit odd, especially considering your youth, but please answer them as best you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me, my boy, as incredible as this might sound, have you ever gone horseback riding with a naked lady?”

“Yes, sir. I'm afraid I have.”

“And are you familiar with an officer by the name of O'Reilly? Lieutenant Colonel William ‘Don't Call Me Bill' O'Reilly?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“And when did you last see Colonel O'Reilly?”

“Earlier this morning, sir. Just before he sent me over here.”

“In connection with your equestrian escapade in the Pferd und Frauen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And one last question. If you have been here less than two weeks, I wonder how you managed to find your way to the Pferd und Frauen?”

“Sir, I was taken there by two friends.”

“One of them about so high?” the man asked, holding his hand about four feet off the ground. “And the other, by chance, called Geronimo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And one final thing. Would you be good enough to point out to me the six ambiguities and four grammatical errors you say you found in this document?”

“Yes, sir,” Phil said, and proceeded to so.

“I'll be a
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
,” the man said.

It was the first time he had used an expletive. But that would soon change.

“Come with me, son,” the man said. “And bring that report with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man led Phil out of the office and down the corridor, and finally into another office. Two officers, a major and a captain, jumped to their feet when they saw the man.

“Good morning, Colonel, sir,” they said in chorus.

“In no
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
way can this be judged a good
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
morning,” the man replied. “Where's that
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
idiot Captain Brewster?”

“Sir, I believe the captain is checking on the arrangements for the regular Monday West Point Alumni luncheon,” the major replied.

“Major, you get your
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
over there and drag the
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
back by his
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
testicles,” the man ordered. “When you get him here, find a
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
blackboard and some
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
chalk and have the incompetent
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
write ‘I will not leave documents classified Top Secret unattended in my Out box.' Have the stupid
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
write that fifteen hundred
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
times. Clear?”

“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,” the major said.

“And you, Captain, will get your
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
out of that
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
chair and go find
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
Angus McTavish and
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
G. Lincoln Rutherford, wherever the little
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
may be hiding. Drag them back here by their you-know-whats. Get two more
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
blackboards and more
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
chalk, and have them write ‘For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23' fifteen hundred
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
times.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,” the captain said.

“And while you are so occupied, I'm going to take this splendid young man—who kept me from sending Deputy Director Ralph Peters in Langley a report containing six ambiguities and four grammatical errors—home with me for coffee and croissants. While we are there, I will prevail upon him to finish his examination of said report to see how
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
many more
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
ambiguities and/or grammatical errors that
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
moron Brewster missed.”