Paul Kavanagh - Such Men Are Dangerous

“Our idea,” he explained. “We shifted the load, apportioned a few cases among the three other trucks.”

“Won’t that screw things up?”

O’Gara shook his head. “We shifted goods the truck was heavy on,” he said. “Some chemical stuff that’ll never see use anywhere, and some of the gas grenades. We’ve corrected the invoices accordingly, so that no one in Amarillo will start raising hell. They can always adjust quantities later on, ship stuff from other bases to Amarillo, but I don’t really think they’ll bother.”

“Probably not,” Bourke agreed. “The important thing is that we’ve made room in this truck for four men armed with M-14s. That’s plenty of insurance, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh. They ride in back?”

“Right. They’ll get bumped around, but that’s army life for you. If any crackpot patriots open this rig before the truck gets to Amarillo, they won’t even know what hit them.”

“Beautiful.”

“Of course there’ll be an armed man sitting next to the driver all the way,” O’Gara said. “The same as the other three.”

“And we’ll follow this one down.”

“In a car?”

He nodded. “We’ll keep all four trucks together as far as Omaha. At that point number one heads due east, number three swings southeast, and number four goes west to California. Our baby keeps on going south and we ride her tail all the way home.” He grinned at me. “We’ve got a sheaf of maps where we’re bedded down. If you want to come along, we’ll give you a quick briefing on the route.”

We took their car, and it wasn’t hard to spot it as government issue; it was the current year’s Ford, the bottom of the line, with absolutely no extras. Not even an ashtray. Their quarters were on the base, a single squat concrete block cube designed by the same imaginative genius who had created the rest of the base.

We spread maps on O’Gara’s bed and the two of them took turns explaining the proposed route to me. I had to pay closest attention to the part that interested me least, the route of the Texas-bound truck after the convoy broke up in Omaha. The part I cared about they covered in a few words, and it was as I had figured; the four trucks would move together along the fifteen-mile stretch. After that it all became academic as far as I was concerned.

But I had to pretend to pay attention. “Now here’s where we go a few extra miles,” Phil Bourke showed me. “From Omaha, the most natural route would take us almost due southwest toward Amarillo. But instead we’re routing the truck along the Missouri as far as Kansas City, Kansas. Then we head straight down to Tulsa, then over to Oklahoma City. Get the point? The roads are bigger and better, and they have more traffic. I don’t think they’d be fool enough to try anything north of the Texas line, but this makes it just that much safer.”

I agreed that this made a lot of sense.

“There are two ways to bring the goods through to Amarillo. We can come due south through Stratford and Moore or cut in from the east through Canadian, Pampa and White Deer. That way’s a little longer, but again we take advantage of better roads. Also, we’ll be picking up two escort jeeps in Fort Jeffrey Hillary just east of the border, see? And by the time—”

I let them give me the full rundown, and I asked most of the right questions. They weren’t making provision for air cover, that would be handled by the receiving unit out of Amarillo. All four trucks would receive air spotting throughout the trip once they separated in Omaha.

Finally they finished and asked me how it looked, and I said it looked airtight to me. No questions? Just one, I said, and they couldn’t answer it — where did I fit in?

“The answer’s probably in your pocket, Dick.”

“How’s that?”

“Your telegram. You figure they’ll send you along?”

“Damned if I know. I can’t see the point myself.”

“It’s a long trip, if they make you take your own car. At least the boys in the trucks will be splitting the driving, and so will Phil and I in our car. Maybe they’ll let you ride with us.”

We all laughed at that. They drove me back to my office, and on the way I asked the question that had been on my mind for most of the past hour. “Not that I’m complaining,” I said, “but how come you brought me in on all this?”

They glanced quickly at each other, then at me. “No reason not to,” Larry said. “We aren’t telling you anything you won’t know anyway.”

“True, but—”

“And inter-service rivalry doesn’t quite enter the picture this time, does it? We’re no saints, we hate to see you boys grab all the glory, but there’s not going to be any glory in this one, not up here in South Dakota. The trucks leave here on schedule. If the Texas truck arrives on time, that’s routine. If somebody makes a play for it, then whoever’s on the spot can be glorious. And if a long shot comes through and the crackpots pull it off, they won’t be passing out glory. They’ll be pouring out shit with a ladle.”

“Oh,” I said.

Larry O’Gara grinned. “So naturally we want you in on the planning,” he said. “You’ll be one more person for them to pour the shit on.”

I went to my office and closed the door. I opened the telegram. For the first time it wasn’t even coded. It said SCRATCH UNDERDOG SIT TIGHT.

I still had the telegram in my hand when the door opened. It was O’Gara. “We just got one of those ourselves,” he said. “I hope to Christ I never become a general. I’d hate to spend my declining years acting like an idiot. Did you get the same news we got?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I decided the hell with it and handed him the wire. “You tell me,” I said.

He read it. “Uh-huh. Well, that’s half of it. Underdog meant the original shipping date, right?”

It didn’t, but I nodded.

“You’ll probably get the rest in a few minutes, unless your people don’t have it yet. You knew of course that shipping date was Thursday.”

“I don’t recall anybody mentioning it.”

“No, we didn’t tell you and you didn’t tell us. Actually we took it for granted that you knew, and you realize how secrecy becomes a habit in this game. Well, they moved it up.”

“Wednesday?”

He shook his head. “Tomorrow morning. Six hundred thirty hours.” He heaved a sigh. “Phil’s on the line now trying to change their minds for them. We haven’t even lined up our drivers yet, let alone the four clowns who’ll sit in back with the M-14s. I told Phil he was wasting his time.”

“Six-thirty,” I said.

“That’s the word. That’s what? Twenty hours from now? Not even that. “He shook his head. “Got to go. Let me know when you get the word. If they tell you a different time, for God’s sake let me hear about it.”

He left, drawing the door shut after him. I burned the telegram and dropped the ashes in the wastebasket. Scratch underdog sit tight. The score was less than twenty hours away and Dattner’s arrival was scrambled, and I was supposed to sit tight.

I got in the car and went to the motel. I lay down on the bed and looked at the ceiling. When in doubt, do nothing.

That was where I was, and that was what I did.

i must have called the base half a dozen times just to find out if there were any messages for me. There never were. The last time, around five-thirty, I had them get hold of Bourke for me. He wanted to know what I’d heard from my office. I told him they hadn’t given me a thing since I talked to O’Gara.

“We’ve had confirmation,” he said. “We roll at six-thirty in the morning. All appeals denied. I don’t like it.”