I ended up having a drink or two too many and woke up sitting in my armchair about four in the morning, my notepad still in my lap. I shook myself awake and headed upstairs. I might as well get some work done. I told the security guys to get the ball rolling on a car, and took a shower and shaved, then dressed. I skipped breakfast other than some juice and Advils, and glanced out the front window. A few reporters were stirring, seeing the lights on in my house. I smirked at that. I told Jerry, “Let’s go.” We left the lights on and headed out the back door, through the back yard, and out a small gate in the fence. Then it was a ten foot hike through some brush to the street and into a car. As we drove down the street I glanced back and saw the reporters still standing there in the early morning chill.
We snuck into the Rayburn building through the garage. The only people in at that time of the morning were some very early staffers and some more reporters assigned to hang around my office. We brushed through them, ignoring their yelling, and closed them out.
“Jerry, you want to make a phone call and hustle up something to eat for us? McDonald’s would do. Just something,” I asked him.
He grabbed his phone and asked, “Anything particular in mind?”
I shrugged. “Something from the four major food groups, you know — salt, cholesterol, caffeine, and sugar.”
He laughed at that. “I’ll order some bagels and cream cheese up, too.”
“Fair enough. Thank you.”
While Jerry did his thing, I pulled the pages I had torn off my notepad and laid them on my desk. I was going to be making a lot of phone calls, and probably waking people up, but if I was going to get anything accomplished, I needed to start right now. At a minimum I needed to find out just what Clinton had leaked to the Times. The Army floats on a sea of paperwork, even if it is a classified sea. There must have been after action reports, JAG inquiries and investigations, documentation ordering us to do what we were doing. Only some of this seemed to be leaked. The only way to fight this was for me to do a full disclosure and technically violate my security oath. I found this mildly distasteful, but only mildly. Somebody else had really blown the doors open on this, so my keeping silent was useless now.
Anybody else keeping silent was also going to be useless. I still had contacts at the Pentagon from when I had been on the Armed Services Committee and Veterans Affairs Committee. What I needed now was names of people who could testify to what had happened. It had been 19 years. By now most would have left the military, even the lifers, with 20+ years in. A few might still be in. Simply because of time, some would have died and some would have moved and been lost track of. Still, the odds were that several of the guys who were in C Company would be available, and I trusted them more than I trusted Bill Clinton. Clinton would know he would need more than a 19 year old report to jam me up, too. He must have somebody on tap as the unnamed source in the cover-up. Who? It would have to be one of the bad guys. Hawkins getting me back for ’92? That shithead Provost Marshall or the numbnuts second john, whatever their names were? I was going to have to get copies of the records myself for review.
When my staff arrived, I greeted them and gave them all a basic rundown. No, I wasn’t a serial killer. Yes, I was being set up by the President. Yes, I needed their help, as much as possible. No, don’t say jack to the press. I was passed copies of the Times and the Washington Post, and found more information was being leaked. The basement of the Pentagon was being turned into a sieve. Sunday’s stuff was just the appetizer. Now there were intimations that I had managed, with collusion from high places, to block the JAG investigation back in 1981. How a fucking captain could do that was left unanswered. There were also two unnamed sources now, with more expected to come forth. Until now they were reportedly too afraid of my retribution to come out. Joy!
I also cut a cartoon out of the Post. It wasn’t the first cartoon of me. Those had started right after I was picked as George Bush’s VP pick. They generally portrayed me as tall and slender, sort of a trimmed down Karl Malden, balding, and with a noticeably busted up nose. Ever since I had rescued Stormy, Stormy had been appearing in some of the cartoons as a St. Bernard with a barrel under her neck labeled ‘Votes’. Today’s had me with a sweatband tied around my forehead, carrying a machine gun with ammo belts criss-crossing my bare chest. The caption? ‘Rambuckman!’
I made my immediate response team out of Marty, Frank, Carter, and Mindy, my long time secretary. Carter Braxton was nervous when he came in, but he thanked me for standing by him and said he would do the same for me. I thanked him and put him to work. I put everybody to work calling the Pentagon and the VA, to track down people. I needed a roster of names from C Company and Bravo Battery. Even if the Pentagon didn’t have current addresses, pension checks still needed to be mailed out.
While everybody was combing the bureaucracy for information, I took a slightly different tack. I called Newt Gingrich at his home in McLean, Virginia, one of the nicer Washington suburbs. I managed to catch him before he left for his think tank office. I wasn’t sure he would take my call, but if need be, I would head over there hat in hand. I had to talk to him.
“Newt, it’s Carl Buckman. Do you have a few minutes?”
He hesitated for a second. “Carl? I’ll be damned. What’s it been, two years?”
Thanks for the reminder, Newt. Yes, two years ago I helped maneuver you out of the Speakership and the House. Now, will you help me or shiv me? Who do you hate more, me or Bill Clinton? “Not quite. Year and a half, maybe. Got a few minutes?”
“Sorry you stopped the impeachment, are you?” he asked.
Yes, gloat, you fat bastard! If Newt Gingrich wanted me to eat some shit, I was going to have to smile and dig in. “I’m starting to wonder, I have to admit that. Yes, I am starting to wonder.”
“Well, I’m sure you didn’t call me so you could hear me tell you I told you so. What’s on your mind, Carl?”
“Newt, I need some help, and if listening to you chew on me is the price, I’ll pay it. Feel free to throw some dirt on my grave, because God knows there are other people ahead of you in line,” I admitted.
“What do you need, Carl?”
“Well, you know my problem. Now, back in ’92, when Clinton tried to run that asshole general into State, you were one of the people who got the Pentagon to verify my story. It was you and Boren. I need to know who you talked to and how you verified it,” I told him.
“You’re trying to figure out what was leaked, aren’t you?”
“It’s a starting point, anyway.”
“You’ll need the whole file. I’m not sure who’s running that section now, but you’ll need to talk to…” He gave me a couple of names and offices; I’d have to find the phone numbers myself. Convincing them to release the file to me was my problem.
“Newt, I appreciate it. When this is all over you’ll have to come out for dinner. Marilyn can hold me down while you kick me in the ass.”
“Count on it! Nice talking to you, Rambuckman.” Great! If it wasn’t such a mess, I’d laugh, too. He hung up and I started tracking down the file on this disaster.
All sorts of stuff gets classified, and not all classifications are the same. At the top of the list is code worded material. You might have a Top Secret security clearance, but a file might be ‘Top Secret — Pembrook’, which meant that even if you had a Top Secret clearance, unless you had Pembrook clearance you weren’t allowed to know about whatever Pembrook was. Likewise, Pembrook people might not be able to see Top Secret — Brookfield stuff without the Brookfield clearance. This was for the really important stuff, like the nuclear launch codes and the names of spies.