The back ramp of the helicopter came down and she saw the refueling nozzle.
Trace had heard about Special Operations Chinooks being modified to accomplish inflight refueling of other helicopters and she had no doubt that this particular helicopter — coming from the Nightstalkers of Task Force 160, the secret Army helicopter unit — was a specially modified MH-47. The Chinooks own refueling probe in front,
not standard equipment on regular CH-47s, reinforced that identification.
Harry came back from the cockpit.
“Doing all right?”
Trace nodded.
“As well as can be expected. My leg is starting to itch.” She pointed out the window.
“Where’d that come from?
“We can’t make it on one tank of gas, and we don’t want to be landing, so I asked Skibicki if he could get us some help.”
“Is that how we got this plane?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Trace wondered. Skibicki might be a sergeant major, but he certainly did not have the power to order an experimental aircraft to fly such a mission or to get the inflight refueling.
She felt a tremor of unease in her gut that Harry believed that.
Harry stood.
“We’ll be in Hawaii in about eight hours.
Try to get some more rest. You won’t be getting much when we land.” He went back to the cockpit.
Trace looked about at the interior of the Osprey, then out the window again at the Special Operations Chinook. The plastic box with the diary in it was on the seat next to her.
She opened the box and pulled it out. Trace turned to the first page.
The words were written in very neat, block letters and Trace read the initial entry:
12 June 1930 I will indeed mis my “rockbound highland home” above the Hudson, but I must admit to a certain degree of anticipation for the assignments that await me. I have become a man at West Point, and as a mman I will take my allotted place in the long Gray Line.
I thought my heart would burst today as we sat on the Plain and listened to Secretary Hurley give the graduation address. I find it difficult to believe four years have gon so quickly, yet looking at the faces of my classmates on either side I can see the changes wrought in us by the years. We came hera as boys we leave as warriors. And I have been fortunate enough to be the first of the chosen ones. I have received my instructions and training beyond that of my peers for the past two years. Now I am finally ready to go out into the Army as one of the Line.
Trace scanned slowly, reading Hooker’s account of his graduation. She paused and leaned back in the seat, feeling the throbbing from her legs. This was real. She was almost afraid to continue. Hooker was part of The Line. It was no longer a fanciful idea for a novel.
Indeed, she could see that she had had it wrong in her own writing.
Hooker had not been approached the night before graduation. He’d been part of The Line for two years prior. It made sense. They’d want to draw the cadets in and make them feel something even more special than being part of the Corps. Trace wondered when The Line approached cadets. Maybe Ring Weekend, when the new third-year cadets received their band of gold marrying them to the Academy and the Army.
She wished Hooker’s diary had started at the beginning of his association with The Line, but she realized it made little difference.
The important question was what had The Line done over the years. The part of her that was afraid to know grew stronger. Then she remembered Mrs. Howard lying in her bed in Maryland, telling her story of Patton and his death. Trace turned the page She scanned Hooker’s account of fulfilling his Rhodes Scholarship. There was no further reference to The Line.
Impatient, Trace flipped the pages. Where was Mrs. Howard’s story?
The story that had started all this. She found it a quarter of the way in:
18 December 1945
Only that damn fool Patton could break his neck and stay alive. If only George could have kept his mouth shut. If only he could have handled the Task Force Baum mishap better. I told the staff eight months ago that George was a liability and that the best thing to do was to have him die “honorably”. Perhaps a plane crash. We’ve done it before, and that would have been that. He would have had a great funeral, everyone would have said great things, and he would be remembered as a hero. Now we have this mess. he’s caused us grief for a half a year now and he’s still alive, damn it! Bernie and his complicated schemes. Just kill the son of a bitch, that’s what George himself would have said. Now I have to go over there and do damage control, and there’s so much to do here. The chief has got some really great plans to get Europe on its feet and to counter weight the Russians. I need to be here, not making sure some old fool doesn’t open his mouth.
21 December 1945
I’m exhausted. The flight over with Mrs. Patton and the doctor certainly wasn the most enjoyable experience. Went in to see General Patton right away. he’s in bad shape, and the doctor assures me he won’t see Christmas alive. Bernie did a good job isolating him. We’ve kept anyone he might want to talk to away. I had to talk to him about Baum. He wasn’t happy. He doesn’t give a damn about the gold or the men killed. All he cares about is his reputation. Christ, some of these prima donnas. He got to lead the third army. I had to stay in D.C. and do the chief’s and the staff’s dirty work all those years. I feel confident, though, that all is secure here.
21 December 1945
It is done. Time to get back to work. I’ve got to go to London and talk to Ike about the chief’s plan. The staff approved it after a long argument, there is quite a bit of fear about the Continent. After all we’ve already fought two wars here this century.
Some wanted to let it rot. But those with a little more vision can see the threat in the Soviet Union, and we need Europe as a buffer. As long as we have the bomb and bases in Europe we are safe. Mrs. Patton wanted to return the body to the States. I was willing to do it, but Ike was quite upset when I talked to him on the land line. He was adamant, SHAEF policy is all who die here get buried here and making one exception would open the floodgates. So George gets to rest overseas. Glad to be done with it. I chewed Bernie’s ass. Told him next time he needed a job done, pick someone who know how to do it right.
Mrs. Howard’s story was true. And fifty years later she died because she repeated it. Trace knew there would be time later to go through the diary in detail. Now she just wanted a feel for what they were up against. Trace turned a chunk of pages, jumping several years. Her eye caught an entry on the bottom of the page, dated 1951:
April 1951
Truman relieved MacArthur. The “Generalisimo” always was a damn prima donna and would never listen. We tried to help him, but he was always too bitter about losing the Phillipines and that we supported Ike first and not him in the war. Of course, behind it all was MacArthur’s simple resistance to taking advice or even listening to those who graduated after him. The last time I saw the “gernealisimo”
I warned him both of the Chinese and of Truman; to keep the balance in that pisspot country and remember Europe was the main scene; and he reminded me that he was superintendent of the Academy while I was still in grade school. As if that mattered. Our original decision to go with Ike certainly is justified now beyond any reason abel doubt.
Will have to throw a bone to the general though, will have to meet with the staff to see what to do. Terry knows the general well from the war, he’ll know what to do. The good thing is that Truman has torpedoed himself with this. Couldn’t have planned it more perfectly.