“So?”
“So they told him to deliver the word in person, and orders are orders in our league, too. He was stuck in Sioux Falls, so the mountain had to go to Mohammed. I drove there.”
That reminded Bourke of something that had happened to him once in London, and he killed a few minutes telling us about it. I don’t remember what it was, but I don’t think it could have been very exciting.
When he was done, O’Gara asked me where I stood.
“I go along,” I said. “Our office seems to be taking this Texas bit more seriously than I thought. It sounds as though they have half the state roped off.”
“Beautiful.”
“Uh-huh. I go along, I stay out of your way but I make myself generally useful, whatever that means. My main function is liaison. They’re keeping a line open for me, and whenever we stop to take a leak I call home.”
“It’s our job, but your people want to watch us do it.”
I nodded. “That’s about the size of it. I had no sleep and it’s how far to Amarillo? Seven hundred miles?”
“If you’re a crow,” O’Gara said. “Our route, we figure closer to nine.”
“What do you figure to average? Forty-five?”
“Forty-five, but I’d settle for an honest forty. Figure an ETA of 5 A.M. tomorrow. Twenty, twenty-two hours on the road.”
I looked at him.
“If you want dexedrine—”
“I’ve got bennies, but there’s a limit anyway. I wish to hell I’d slept last night.” I hesitated. “If I didn’t have to drive, it would not exactly break my heart.”
“You’d rather not take your car?”
“That says it.”
They looked at each other. “I’d ask you to come with us—”
“I’d accept.”
“—but I don’t know that I can, Dick. We’ll bend regs if we can get away with it. In this case it would be a clear contravention of orders. It’s supposed to be Phil and me in that car and nobody else, and we’d get called down. We could stretch a point if you were military, but you’re not, and it’s our ass if they find out.”
“Would they have to find out?”
“No way to keep it from them. I’m afraid there’s no choice.”
Bourke nodded in agreement. “We could grab a kid and have him drive for you,” he suggested. “Give you a chance to sleep as far as Omaha, say, and then you could drop the kid off and take over.”
That was just what I didn’t want. It would lengthen the odds by one more man. I pretended to think about it. “I’ll tell you,” I said, “it’s the stretch after Omaha that I’m worried about. I’m all right now, I’m just worried that the bennies might give out on me sooner or later. Suppose I take the car myself, and if I’m beat when we hit Omaha I pick up a driver there.”
“Anyway you want it.”
We left it at that, and I was where I’d started, no better and no worse. I hadn’t expected them to let me tag along in their car. George and I had figured that as the best possible break, and had allowed for it as a chance, but we weren’t counting on it.
“Let’s give the routine a once-over,” I suggested. “If there’s time. I wasn’t paying much attention yesterday to the original convoy setup, you know, from here to Omaha.”
“That’s the easy part.”
“I realize that, but I’d like to know the order of vehicles and whatever emergency procedure you’ve arranged. Are you last in line or do you follow the Amarillo car? Or is the Amarillo vehicle last anyway? And where do you want me to be?”
We went into an all-purpose office and they laid it out for me with pencil and paper. The Amarillo truck was to be placed last in line, so that their Ford could ride on its tail and bring up the rear all at the same time. Later, when they picked up other convoy vehicles and got rid of the other three trucks, the procedure would be changed. I could ride almost anywhere else in the procession I wanted, except that they did not want me in the lead, directly in front of the Amarillo truck, or between it and them.
“So I can be the caboose?”
They said I could. We went over a few other points, and then I had another idea.
“Suppose I ride in the Amarillo truck?”
“It only seats two, Dick.”
“I mean in the back,” I said. “You’ve got four men with M-14s, a fifth hand wouldn’t hurt. I could sit and doze, and if anything came up there would be one more man with a gun.”
“No room,” Bourke said. “They’re cramped with four.”
“Are you sure? I could curl up on top of a crate, as far as that goes.”
It was over-ruled, which didn’t surprise me. They pointed out that I wasn’t authorized to ride in army transport. Besides that, any spare space belonged to the guards. I made the point that it might be a better idea to load the guards in Omaha, so that they would be fresh for the last leg of the trip. They had already thought of this and planned to switch guards at the Omaha stop. Then why, I wondered, have guards along at all on the first stage of the journey?
They exchanged a long look. “That’s a point,” O’Gara admitted. “You know how we got to it, of course. We decided on guards, then we decided on a fresh detail going south from Omaha, and now we’re stuck with four clowns who’ll be riding to Omaha for no real purpose.”
“Why not bump them?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They’re up, they know the drill, they’ve been issued guns and ammo.” A snort. “The army way. If we drop them now we’ll get static from the Bald Windbag, you can bet on it. Don’t tell those boys, but they’re along for the ride because it’s easier than dropping them at this point.”
I worked at it a little, but I didn’t want to push it too hard. The boys with the M-14s were the one element we hadn’t counted on in our original calculations, and even with our modifications since then I couldn’t discount them as a major source of trouble. Still, there was a limit to the amount of static I could raise over them. You don’t win men’s confidence by telling them to take the bullets out of their guns. Sooner or later they start wondering what your angle might be.
It had been worth a try, like riding with them or in the truck. But I hadn’t expected it to work, and it hadn’t, and the status remained quo.
By now Sprague’s truck should have arrived on the scene. By now George was supposed to be in position, ready to put the ball in play.
If not—
Every once in a while the Army does something on time. It happens just often enough so that the possibility can never entirely be ruled out. This was one of those times. After a lot of backing and maneuvering in the yard, the four trucks lined up facing the main gate. I went to my car and started the engine, and I pulled into position and let the motor idle with the choke about halfway out. Phil Bourke pulled their Ford up alongside me. O’Gara was running around outside like a football coach, shouting last-minute instructions to the drivers.
He hurried back, called something to me that was lost in a sudden gust of wind. Then he was inside his car.
I looked at my watch. At 6:30, right on the dot, the lead truck lurched forward and passed through the gate.
And I heard O’Gara talking in the car beside me. “Camelback Leader to Control,” he was saying. “Camelback Leader to Control. We’re going where it’s warm, you poor suffering bastards. Six hundred thirty hours, six three zero and away we go—”
A radio. He was talking on a radio.
We hadn’t figured on a radio.
Thirteen
My car cleared the main gate a dozen or so yards behind Bourke and O’Gara’s Ford. I dropped a little farther to the rear, reached inside my coat and took out the Magnum. I put it on the seat beside me.
The snow had let up again, but it hardly mattered. There was a steady wind blowing across from the southwest, driving loose snow across the windshield. I was wearing gloves, thin leather driving gloves, and my hands kept a tight grip on the steering wheel.