The Road to Gandolfo (3 page)

Fortunately, a superior officer in the inspector general’s command, who did not really understand a sense of justice that made Sam commit so many crimes, but did understand Sam’s legal and investigatory contributions to the
cause of the inspector general, came to Sam’s aid. Devereaux had actually filed more evidentiary material than any other legal officer in Southeast Asia; his work in the field made up for a great deal of inactivity in Washington.

So the superior officer allowed a little unofficial plea bargaining in Sam’s case. If Sam would accept disciplinary action at the hands of a furious Major General Heseltine Brokemichael in Bangkok, constituting a six-month loss of pay—no criminal charges would be brought. There was just one more condition: to continue his work for the inspector general’s office for an additional two years beyond the expiration of his army commitment. By that time, reasoned the superior officer, the mess in Indochina would be turned over to those messing, and the IG caseloads reduced or conveniently buried.

Reenlistment or Leavenworth.

So Major Sam Devereaux, patriotic citizen-soldier, extended his tour of duty. And the mess in Indochina was in no way lessened, but indeed turned over to the participants, and Devereaux was transferred back to Washington, D.C.

One month and three days to go, he mused, as he looked out his office window and watched the MPs at the guardhouse check the automobiles driving out. It was after five; he had to catch a plane at Dulles in two hours. He had packed that morning and brought his suitcase to the office.

The four years were coming to an end. Two plus two. The time spent, he reflected, might be resented, but it had not been wasted. The abyss of corruption that was Southeast Asia reached into the hierarchical corridors of Washington. The inhabitants of these corridors knew who he was; he had more offers from prestigious law firms than he could reply to, much less consider. And he did not want to consider them; he disapproved of them. Just as he disapproved of the current investigation on his desk.

The manipulators were at it again. This time it was the thorough discrediting of a career officer named Hawkins. Lieutenant General MacKenzie Hawkins.

At first Sam had been stunned. MacKenzie Hawkins was an original. A legend. The stuff of which cults were
born. Cults slightly to the political right of Attila the Hun.

Hawkins’s place in the military firmament was secure. Bantam Books published his biography—serialization and
Reader’s Digest
rights had been sold before a word was on paper. Hollywood gave obscene amounts of money to film his life story. And the antimilitarists made him an object of fascist-hatred.

The biography was not overly successful because the subject was not overly cooperative. Apparently there were certain personal idiosyncrasies that did not enhance the image, four wives paramount among them. The motion picture was less than triumphant insofar as it comprised endless battle scenes with little or no hint of the man other than an actor squinting through the battle dust, yelling to his men in a peculiar lisp to “get those Godless … [Roar of cannon] … who would tear down Old Glory! At ’em, boys!”

Hollywood, too, had discovered the four wives and certain other peculiarities of the studio’s on-the-set technical adviser. MacKenzie Hawkins went through starlets three at a time and had intercourse with the producer’s wife in the swimming pool while the producer watched in fury from the living room window.

He did not stop the picture, however. For Christ’s sake, it was costing damn near
six mill
!

These misfired endeavors might have caused another man to fade, if only from embarrassment, but not so Mac Hawkins. In private, among his peers, he ridiculed those responsible and regaled his associates with stories of Manhattan and Hollywood.

He was sent to the war college with a new specialization: intelligence, clandestine operations. His peers felt a little more secure with the charismatic Hawkins consigned to covert activities. And the colonel became a brigadier and absorbed all there was to learn of his new specialty. He spent two years grinding away, studying every phase of intelligence work until the instructors had no more to instruct him.

So he was sent to Saigon where the escalating hostilities had blossomed into a full-scale war. And in Vietnam—both
Vietnams, and Laos, and Cambodia, and Thailand, and Burma—Hawkins corrupted the corruptors and the ideologues alike. Reports of his behind-the-lines and across-the-neutral-borders activities made “protective reaction” seem like a logical strategy. So unorthodox, so blatantly criminal were his methods of operation that G-2, Saigon, found itself denying his existence. After all, there were limits. Even for clandestine activities.

If
America First
was a maxim—and it was—Hawkins saw no reason why it should not apply to the filthy world of covert operations.

And for Hawkins, America
was
first. Ir-re-fucking-gardless!

So Sam Devereaux thought it was all a little sad that such a man was about to be knocked out of the box by the manipulators who got to where they were by draping the flag so gloriously and generously around themselves. Hawkins was now an offending lion in the diplomatic arena and had to be eliminated in the cause of double-think. The men who should have been upholding the general’s point of honor were doing their best to sink him fast—in ten days, to be precise.

Normally Sam would have taken pleasure out of building a case against a messianic ass like Hawkins; and regardless of his feelings to the contrary, he would build a case against him. It was his last file for the inspector general’s office, and he was not going to risk another two-year alternative. But he was still sad. The Hawk, as he was known—misguided fanatic as he might be—deserved better than what he was getting.

Perhaps, thought Sam, his depression was brought about by the last “operative” instruction from the White House: find something in the morals area Hawkins can’t deny. Check to see if he was ever in the care of a psychiatrist.

A psychiatrist! Jesus! They
never
learned.

In the meantime, Sam had dispatched a team of IG investigators to Saigon to see if they could dig up a few negative specifics. And he was off to Dulles airport to catch a plane to Los Angeles.

All of Hawkins’s ex-wives lived within a radius of thirty
miles of each other, from Malibu to Beverly Hills. They’d be better than any psychiatrist. Christ! A psychiatrist!

At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., they were all novocained above the shoulders.

“My name is Lin Shoo,” said the uniformed Communist softly, slant-eyeing the large, disheveled American soldier who sat in a leather chair, holding a glass of whiskey in one hand and a well-chewed cigar in the other. “I am commander of the People’s Police, Peking. And you are under house arrest at this moment. There is no point in being abusive, these are merely formalities.”

“Formalities for what?” MacKenzie Hawkins shouted from his armchair—the only occidental piece of furniture in the oriental house. He put his heavy boot on a black lacquered table and flung his hand over the leather back, the lighted cigar dangerously close to a silk screen room divider. “There aren’t any goddamned formalities except through the diplomatic mission. Go down there and make your complaints. You’ll probably have to get in line.”

Hawkins chuckled and drank from his glass.

“You have chosen to reside outside the mission,” continued the Chinese named Lin Shoo, his eyes darting between the cigar and the screen. “Therefore you are not technically within United States territory. So you are subject to the disciplines of the People’s Police. However, we know you will not go anywhere, General. That is why I say it is a formality.”

“What have you got out there?” Hawkins waved his cigar toward the thin, rectangular windows.

“There are two patrols on each side of your residence. Eight in all.”

“That’s a big fucking guard detail for someone who’s not going anywhere.”

“Small liberties. Photographically, two is more desirable than one and three is menacing.”

“You taking liberties?” Hawkins drew on his cigar and again rested his hand over the back of the leather chair. The lighted butt was no more than an inch from the silk.

“The Ministry of Education has done so, yes. You will admit, General, your place of isolation is most pleasant, is it not? This is a lovely house on a lovely hill. So very peaceful, and with a fine view.” Lin Shoo walked around the chair and unobtrusively moved the panel of the silk screen away from Hawkins’s cigar. It was too late; the heat of the butt had caused a small circular burn in the fabric.

“It’s a high-rent district,” replied Hawkins. “Somebody in this people’s paradise, where nobody owns anything but everyone owns everything, is making a fast buck. Four hundred of ’em every month.”

“You were fortunate to find it. Property can be purchased by collectives. A collective is not private ownership.” The police officer walked to the narrow opening that led to the single sleeping room of the house. It was dark; where sunlight should have been streaming through the wide window there was a blanket nailed across the frame into the thin surrounding wall. On the floor a number of mats had been piled one on top of another; wrappings from American candy bars were scattered about and there was a distinct odor of whiskey.

“Why the photographs?”

The Chinese turned from the unpleasant sight. “To show the world that we are treating you better than you treated us. This house is not a tiger cage in Saigon, nor is it a dungeon in the shark-infested waters of Holcotaz.”

“Alcatraz. The Indians got it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. You’re making a big splash with this thing, aren’t you?”

Lin Shoo was silent for a moment; it was the pause before profundity. “Should someone—who has for years publicly denounced the deeply felt objectives of your beloved motherland—dynamite your Lin-Kolon Memorial inside your Washington Square within your state of Columbia, the robed barbarians on your Court of Supreme Justice would, no doubt, have executed him by now.” The Chinese smiled and smoothed the tunic of his Mao uniform.
“We do not behave in such primitive ways. All life is precious. Even a diseased dog, such as you.”

“And you gooks never denounced anybody, is that it?”

“Our leaders reveal only truth. That is common knowledge throughout the world; the lessons of the infallible chairman. Truth is not denunciation, General. It is merely truth. All knowing.”

“like my state of Columbia,” muttered Hawkins, removing his foot from the lacquered table. “Why the hell did you pick me out? A lot of people have done a lot of goddamned denouncing. Why am I so special?”

“Because they are not so famous. Or infamous, if you will—. Although I did enjoy the film of your life. Very artistic; a poem of violence.”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Privately. Certain portions were extracted. Those showing the actor portraying you murdering our heroic youth. Very savage, General.” The Communist circled the black lacquered table and smiled again. “Yes, you are an infamous man. And now you have insulted us by destroying a revered monument—”

“Come off it. I don’t even know what happened. I was drugged and you goddamned well know it. I was with your General Lu Sin. With
his
broads, in
his
house.”

“You must give us our honor back again, General Hawkins. Can’t you see that?” Lin Shoo spoke quietly, as though Hawkins had not interrupted. “It would be a simple matter for you to render an apology. A ceremony has been planned. With a small contingent of the press in attendance. We have written out the words for you.”

“
Oh, boy!
” Hawkins sprang out of the chair, towering over the policeman. “We’re back to that again! How many times do I have to tell you bastards?
Americans don’t crawl!
In any goddamned ceremony, with or without the goddamned press! Read that straight, you puke-skinned dwarf!”

“Do not upset yourself. You place far too much emphasis on a mere ceremonial function; you place everyone—
all of us
—in most difficult positions. A small ceremony; so little, so simple—–”

“Not to me it isn’t! I represent the armed forces of the
United States and nothing’s little or simple to us! We don’t trip easy, buddy boy; we march straight to the drums!”

“I beg your pardon?”

Hawkins shrugged, a touch bewildered by his own words. “Never mind. The answer’s no. You may scare the lace-pants boys down at the mission, but you don’t shake me.”

“
They
appealed to you because they were instructed to do so. Certainly that must have occurred to you.”

“Double bullshit!” Hawkins walked around to the fireplace, drank from his glass and placed it on the mantel next to a brightly colored box. “Those fags were cooking up something with that group of queens at State. Wait’ll the White House—wait’ll the
Pentagon
reads
my
report. Oh, boy! You bowlegged runts will hightail it to the mountains and then we’ll blow
them
up!” Hawkins grinned, his eyes bright.

“You are so abusive,” said Lin Shoo quietly, shaking his head sadly. He picked up the brightly colored box next to the general’s glass. “Tsing Taow firecrackers. The finest made in the world. So loud, so bright with white light when they go
bang, bang, bang
. Very lovely to watch and to hear.”

“Yeah,” agreed Hawkins, slightly confused by the change of subject. “Lu Sin gave ’em to me. We shot off a motherload the other night. Before the fucker drugged me.”

“Very beautiful, General Hawkins. They are a fine gift.”

“Christ knows he owed me
something
.”

“But do you not see?” continued the police officer. “They sound like—explosives. Look like—detonating ammunition, but they are neither. They are only show. Semblances of something else. Real in themselves but only an
illusion
of
another
reality. Not dangerous at all.”

“So?”

“That is precisely what you are being asked to give. The semblance, not the reality. You have only to
pretend
. In a short, simple ceremony with but a few words that
you
know are only an illusion. Not dangerous at all. And very polite.”