“You can start at one end and work your way through. Don’t worry if you don’t make it through,” he added with a smile.
“Anything you do will be an improvement. No one’s been through that stuff in years.”
Falk looked up at the large clock on the wall.
“The Old Man’s got a briefing here in four minutes and I have to go down to USPACOM and take his place for the weekly staff meeting.” He tapped Boomer on the shoulder.
“Glad to have you.”
Boomer watched Falk walk out of the tunnel, then turned to the file cabinets. He ran a hand through his long hair and smiled ruefully.
Paperwork. Just as he’d expected.
CHAPTER 4
Boomer had a hard time finding a place to park his rental car until he realized that with the temporary military parking pass he’d been issued at Fort Shafter, he could park it in one of the restricted lots on Fort Derussy, right across the street from the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
In the less than ten hours he’d been in Hawaii, one thing that had already impressed Boomer was how strong a presence the military was “on the island. From Pearl Harbor and Hickam Air Force Base in the south center, to Schofield Barracks taking up most of the interior, to Port Derussy and the military’s Hale Koa Hotel staking claim to some of the most prime real estate in downtown Honolulu and along Waikiki Beach, there was no doubt that the U.S. military was the second largest industry in the islands after the tourism trade.
Boomer crossed from one industry to the other as he left the parking lot and neatly cut grass of Fort Derussy and crossed the street where an auditorium with bright signs advertised Don Ho’s Hawaiian Extravaganza at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Directly ahead, he spotted the main lobby for the massive hotel complex. A piano bar beckoned off to one side and Boomer went in, scanning the tables. It was early and the bartender was watching a TV mounted at the end of the bar as he catered to the sparse crowd.
Trace was seated at the end of the bar and she waved him over, rising to greet him. She was dressed in slacks and a short sleeve blouse, a large shoulder bag was lying on a chair next to her. Boomer wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet with an exuberant hug.
“Easy there,” Trace laughed.
“Nice outfit,” she commented.
Boomer let her down and turned, modeling the garishly colored shorts and shirt he’d bought earlier at one of the downtown markets.
“Pretty neat, huh?”
“It’s definitely you.” Trace pulled him down into a seat.
“So tell me, what have you been up to?”
“You first,” Boomer countered, not quite ready to get into his own story.
“Last time we talked you were still at Fort Meade. I got a postcard with your new address and number here in Hawaii a month or so ago, but it didn’t tell much. Where are you assigned now?”
Trace shook her head and her tone of voice indicated displeasure with her current assignment.
“USPACOM at Camp Smith.”
“Pacific Command?” Boomer repeated.
“What do you do there?”
“Public relations,” Trace said, as she signaled to the bartender. After ordering two beers, they turned back to each other.
“I didn’t know the Army had a public relations specialty,” Boomer replied.
“And even if they did, that isn’t what you trained for.”
“They don’t. Technically, I’m assigned as the assistant PA COM J-l — Personnel. But considering the Unified Commands don’t control people in peacetime, there isn’t too much for me to do other than sit around and dust off the war plans every once in a while. Thus my real Job of public relations for the PA COM commander. Once they saw that I worked in the public affairs office at Fort Meade before CGSC, I was doomed.”
“You couldn’t get a flying job?” he asked.
“The people in D.C. figured that this was a good opportunity for me to gain experience working at a unified command. Learn what the other services are about and all that good stuff. That’s the big push in the real Army now,” Trace said. “No aviation battalion commander is screaming for me to be in their unit. This assignment’s my latest exile.”
“What do you do besides work?” Boomer asked.
“I write.”
“Write?” Boomer repeated, surprised. His question had been more directed toward her personal life. This was an unexpected development.
“I’m working on a novel,” Trace said.
“Well, sort of a novel.”
Boomer grabbed the two mugs the bartender brought and slid one in front of her.
“Here’s to old friendships.”
They tapped glasses and were silent for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts and memories.
“So, what about you?” Trace asked, breaking the silence.
“If you tell me what you do, will you have to kill me?”
“Pretty close,” Boomer replied.
“Kill you, cut off your head, and lock it in a safe.”
“Sounds like I don’t want to know.”
“You don’t,” Boomer said.
“Something’s wrong,” Trace quietly said.
“I could tell by the tone of your voice on the phone earlier today. And you don’t look happy to be here in paradise or to see me.”
“I am happy to see you,” Boomer insisted.
“I’m just beat. I was in the air all night and I didn’t have much sleep before that.”
“In the air coming from where?” Trace asked.
“So what’s this book you’re writing about?” Boomer attempted.
Trace smiled.
“You’re not very good at changing the subject. Don’t they teach you guys a course on that at Bragg? The art of evasive conversation?” She didn’t expect an answer.
“I’ve only just started it. It’s about West Point.
Well, not exactly West Point. About a group of West Pointers who influence the country’s policies in favor of the military.”
“The infamous WPPA?” Boomer asked. When he had first come on active duty he’d never heard the term — West Point Protective Association — despite four years at the Academy. As far as Boomer could tell, the WPPA was an informal organization that existed wherever West Pointers scratched each other’s back.
Trace picked her words carefully as she answered his question.
“No, not exactly the WPPA. It’s about a secret organization called The Line that’s been in existence for over sixty years and really came into power after World War II Boomer was interested despite his own personal problems.
“So how’d you think this up?”
“I didn’t think it up,” Trace said. She leaned forward.
“Just before I left Fort Meade I was briefly assigned as Post Public Affairs Officer. While I was there we received a strange letter at the office. It was from this woman, Mrs.
Howard, who was a nurse in the European Theater during World War II. In the letter she claimed to have been one of the nurses assigned to General Patton after his accident in 1945.”
Trace paused in thought.
“To make a long story short, she claims that just before his death, Patton told her’ about this organization called The Line that had been formed in the late twenties. And that it was getting ready to really expand its power at the end of the Second World War. So I took her story and I’ve been trying to make a novel out of it. Sort of ‘whatiffing’ it out, as if it were true.”
“Why’d she send the PAO this letter?”
Trace shrugged.
“She was sending letters to a whole bunch of people — the Pentagon, Fort Lee, everywhere. I just happened to be the only person who read it and bothered to talk to her. It was a pretty wacko letter but I thought it was kind of interesting. Plus, she was this nice old lady living in this home out in the country. No family, no, friends. I guess I just felt sorry for’ her Boomer smiled, remembering Trace as the sort of person who took stray cats in even at West Point where it had gotten her in trouble.