Джон Болл - The First Team

He had almost reached the piano bar when he felt his arm touched; he turned and there was Scott, dressed in casual sports attire which suited him well. “Buy you a drink, Hew?” he offered.

For a moment Hewlitt looked slightly startled. It was perfectly genuine; he had not expected a possible contact to be made so soon. Then he shook hands. “Let’s go in back if you don’t mind,” he suggested. “I feel like sitting down quietly.”

The small rear lounge was largely empty. A corner table invited them with a frosted glass candle holder glowing softly in the semidarkness. As Hewlitt sat down he admired the easy way that Scott put down his own drink and drew up a chair. “On the town, Hew?” the captain asked.

Hewlitt shook his head. “I dropped in at a friend’s house for a little while, that’s all.”

Scott signaled to the cocktail waitress. “I was supposed to play bridge tonight, but the fourth didn’t show up. Do you play, Hew?” The question remained unanswered while the girl came over and took the order for a drink for Hewlitt and a fresh one for Scott. When she had retreated in a swirl of miniskirt and black pantihose, Hewlitt picked up the conversation. “Sometimes, Phil; it depends. Not much lately.”

For a full half hour the conversation remained sterile: the casual comments of two men concerned with matters of much more moment than the things they had chosen to talk about. Hewlitt did not have to remember the role assigned to him; the more he sat in Scott’s company the more he found himself establishing empathy with the man. Although his presence there was almost a total betrayal, he forced that thought out of his mind and considered only that they had met casually. Then he began to hope, almost to pray, that their meeting had been exactly as Scott had indicated that it was, a completely accidental encounter. He liked Scott, he wanted him to be cleared of suspicion. In the underground he could be damn valuable and he had the guts to do things — he had already proven that.

“Hew,” Scott said, “I was wondering: do you expect this thing to last forever?”

Hewlitt glanced around automatically to be sure that they were not being overheard. “Nothing ever does,” he answered cautiously. “But I have a feeling that we have a lot worse ahead of us before it all ends, one way or another.”

Scott nodded over his drink. “You’re right, you’ve got to be. But, Hew, it doesn’t make sense.” He stopped and visibly put down the anger which was trying to edge his voice. “Look, we’ve got a helluva big and powerful country here, two hundred million of us live in it, and I don’t care what the box score says, nobody can take over an establishment like that and make it stick.”

‘They had colonialism in Southeast Asia for two hundred years,” Hewlitt said. “The people there had nothing to start with, but eventually the European powers had to get out. The Dutch out of Java, the French out of Indo-China, the British out of Burma.”

“True, but in some of those places the commies came in — they backed Ho in Indo-China, for example. Nobody that I know of is going to back us; we got ourselves into this corner and we’re going to have to get ourselves out.”

Hewlitt toyed with his glass. “You’re in the Air Force,” he said. “You tell me how.”

“There’s too many of us; some of the people who believed what Fitzhugh told them know better now; even Wattles has lost his black following.”

“The Air Force is great — the best,” Hewlitt told him, “but what are you going to fly — Ramrods?”

Scott leaned closer and looked down at his glass for a moment. “Hew, look at it this way: there are a lot of them here, but they’re still outnumbered something like ten thousand to one or better. That’s just a guess, of course. With all their planes that our brilliant Mr. McNamara thought were obsolete, and their missiles, and their navy, and their garrison troops, they still don’t have enough to keep us in tow, not if we choose to do something about it.”

Hewlitt carefully made no answer; he did not want to commit himself that soon.

“At the moment the Air Force is down, but it isn’t out. We still have some resources left.”

Hewlitt looked up at that. “Can you make them count?”

This time Scott remained silent for several seconds, then he said, “Damn right.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Consider what happened, Hew,” Scott continued. “When they pointed the loaded gun at us, and we were stuck with the Ramrod as our principal air superiority system, the President made that speech about saving human life and plain gave in. Well, the armed forces aren’t in being to say that a war that’s forced on us is too risky and then bow out. But the President is the commander in chief — or he was. He put out the order to lay down our weapons and it was a court-martial offense not to do so — we are the instrument of national policy. The whole damn Sixth Fleet had to put into port in the Med without firing a shot, because the order was final and absolute. Even the nuc subs had to turn themselves in.”

“There wasn’t much choice about that part,” Hewlitt said. “The terms weren’t published, but they knew exactly how many we had and they laid down the law: if every one of them wasn’t in port and surrendered within fifteen days, then the ICBM’s would be let loose.”

Scott dropped his voice to a confidential level even lower than it had been before. “I heard that two of them were scuttled by their skippers just the same.”

“Four,” Hewlitt corrected. “They made port as ordered, then opened the sea cocks or whatever they do and scuttled right at the docks. As soon as the salt water hit them they were so much expensive junk.”

“Hurrah for the Navy,” Scott said. “Let’s have one more for them.”

“For the Navy, yes,” Hewlitt agreed.

He caught the girl’s eye and indicated another round. Neither man said anything until the drinks had been served, then when the pianist began to play “Ebb Tide” Scott used the sound of the music to cover his voice.

“Hew, I think that there’s something going already. In a lot of different places. I told you that we’re not through yet, and you can bank on that. The Navy will have a few tricks up its sleeve, too. I’m darned sorry that Haymarket was killed, he was one guy they never buffaloed. He told Fitzhugh to cut his throat — remember?”

“Of course.”

“Well, there are other guys as good or pretty near as good. I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t trust you, but I’m working on a few contacts now.”

“If I can help you, let me know,” Hewlitt said. He did not have enough time to consider that before he had the words out, but he decided that it was about the only thing he could have said. It had committed him, but not too deeply, and it had been a natural reaction.

“Maybe you can,” Scott said slowly. “It could be. If you hear of anything…” He shook his head. “I’d better not,” he concluded.

“As you like,” Hewlitt replied. His orders had been to follow Scott’s lead and not to improvise.

“Hell,” Scott said, “I don’t know why I’m playing chintzy with you. In your job you had to have every clearance that there is.”

Hewlitt said nothing.

“You’re in a pretty sensitive spot right now. You know what’s going on as much as anyone. Well, there’s an opposition shaping up; Bob Landers was part of it until he got caught in a million-to-one fluke — he left a note in a drop and one of their surveillance people shooting for something else entirely just happened to catch a frame of him doing it. It wouldn’t happen again in ten thousand years.”

“God, what a break!” Hewlitt said, barely voicing the words.