CHAPTER SIX

The helio was a meter off the ground and edging forward. Gasping for breath, he ran for it and jumped. He reached the hatch, but he couldn't hold on. Hands reached out, clutching his uniform. His legs were kicking in the air, trying to find the skid. His left foot connected. He grasped the side of the hatch and tried to pull himself in. Other hands grabbed him, straightening him. He was pushing with his foot and pulling with his hands when the next shell landed. 

The aircraft lurched wildly, hurling him backwards into the night...

I awoke from the dream sitting bolt upright in bed.  I was shaking badly, and hyperventilating; and I was drenched in sweat. 

As the fear subsided, I cupped my head in my hands and propped my elbows against my knees.  I sat there for a longtime, trembling violently. It was The Dream again, the one that had tormented me for fourteen years. 

The shaking gradually subsided, and as it did I realized that my skin was cold and clammy. I struggled out of bed, and in the darkness stumbled to the sink hidden in the alcove that housed the washer and dryer. 

I turned on the cold-water tap, and thrust my head underneath it.  As the frigid water cascaded across my head and down my back, I held tight to something deep within my own mind. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was all that stood between me and the horror that stalked my dreams.  And for that, I was deeply grateful. 

I kept my head underneath the water for as long as I could stand it. When the freezing pain became too much, I turned it off and arched my back into a standing position. Gripping the edge of the washbasin, I tilted my head back and breathed deeply. I stood there for a longtime, watching the faint light of winter’s dawn replace the darkness.  I was still standing there, dripping water upon the tiled floor, when the clock radio went off.  As the lyrics of Ghostbusters filtered through my basement room, I laughed at the sad irony.

Peering through the feeble light, I struggled to make out the luminous dial upon the face of the radio. It was 5:32 AM.

I looked at it, dumbfounded. There was no way in hell, I thought, that I would have set the alarm for this hour. But before I could wonder what had happened, I suddenly remembered my appointment with Gen. Richardson. Damn! Despite the obscenity of the hour, I realized that I had cut it close. If I was going to make it to the Marriott by 7:00, I would have to fly.

 As I nosed the Turismo out onto Route 50, I glanced down to check my watch.  It was by then 6:18 AM, which meant that I would not have time to stop at 7-11 for coffee.  Disappointed, I reached back behind the seat and felt for the jar of Folger's crystal’s that I kept there. Made clumsy by my gloves and overcoat, it took me several tries before I grasped it. But by the time I crossed under Glebe Road, I had the top off; and as I accelerated past a county sanitation truck, I tilted my head back and tapped it sharply.  A couple of teaspoons of crystals fell into my mouth, and I grimaced as I chewed them. With all the strength of character I could summon, I managed to force them down without retching. It was the disgusting trick I had learned in the Marine Corps; but it had the singular virtue of effectiveness.  In another 15 seconds, I would be wide-awake.

Shivering, I wiped the accumulated condensation from the interior of the windshield. It was a bitterly cold morning; and the defroster was making scant progress. I could see through the little patch I had cleared in front of me, but just barely. Since I didn’t have time to stop the car and wait for the remainder to clear, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

By the time I passed the Pentagon, I could see well enough drive comfortably. That was fortunate, for the traffic was surprisingly heavy; and I did not reach the 14th Street Bridge until 6:40. But it inexplicably eased as I passed over Constitution Avenue, and I made my turn onto K Street just slightly ahead of schedule.  Three blocks later I made an illegal left turn onto Vermont Avenue, and nosed my car into the underground parking garage in accordance with the General’s instructions.  Having informed the carhop that I would be back in an hour, I took the claim check and ran north along the street.  The Marriott appeared on my right, and I slowed to a trot as I entered the lobby. It was 6:59, and by all appearances I had made it first. 

I walked across the lobby and entered the restaurant, where I asked the maitre d’ for a table for two. As he picked up two menus, I heard the familiar voice of Gen. Richardson behind me. I turned and greeted him. "Good morning, Sir. I was just getting us a table."

The General chortled as he followed the maitre d' across the room. “Get some coffee too. I’m damn near frozen!”

The General was wearing a military overcoat without insignia; and so it wasn’t clear if the maitre d’ recognized him as a man of stature, or was merely impressed by his bearing. In either case, he scurried away with due haste; and coffee appeared with miraculous speed. The general glanced at the menu and informed the waiter he would have the breakfast buffet. When the waiter turned to me I nodded in assent, and followed the General across the room to the tables laden with food.

He wasted no time in getting to the subject at hand. As soon as we had re-seated ourselves at the table, he asked me if I remembered Jim Angleton. The question was ludicrous, for no one who had met Angleton could possibly forget him. He had a paradoxical presence that was at once imposing and humble; but a mere moment of conversation was enough to take his measure. For as his friends boasted and his foes grudgingly conceded, he was a man of extraordinary brilliance. 

But the general knew that, and so I assumed that he was merely being polite. I nodded affirmatively. "Yes, Sir. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the American Security Council."

After taking a drink of his orange juice, the General nodded in return. "Well then you know that Colby pushed him out the door at CIA back in...What was it? 1973? Or 1974?"

"Yes, Sir. 1973, if I recall correctly." 

The General nodded. "Yeah, I think that’s right. Anyway, Angleton and Colby got into it over a defector named Golitsyn. I'm not sure of all the particulars, but Colby was the Director of Central Intelligence and Jim was Chief of Counterintelligence. So Colby pulled rank, and fired him.”

I nodded. "Yes, Sir. That was really unfortunate. I understand that there have been problems ever since."

The General started to answer, but shot backwards in his chair. The piece of toast he had been eating had broken apart and bits of it had fallen on his tie. "Ah, shit!"

As he dabbed his napkin in his water glass he said, "Now that goddamn figures. First I freeze my ass off, then I dump butter all over my fucking tie." He shook his head in disgust.

"Anyway," he said, "after Jim got the boot things really went to hell out there at Langley." He looked at me, as if to make his point. " I didn’t really follow it very carefully - it was a CIA matter, after all, and I had never kept up with the spooks out there - but Senator Church opened hearings on some CIA stuff a couple of years later and really tore the place apart. Some asinine congressman - Pike, Otis Pike - did the same thing on the other side of the building. ..

"Now as I said, I didn’t follow it very carefully, but Jim and most of the other old spooks think they put the Agency in the shitter. To make a bad situation worse, Carter appointed Admiral Turner to run the CIA in 77 - and he didn’t know the first thing about intelligence. He seems to have believed everything he heard about the Agency running amok, so he purged the place. Two thousand spooks were tossed out on their ears, and all of them from the Counterintelligence shop or from Covert Operations...

"Some of these guys were indicted for some horseshit Carter's people claimed was illegal, and about a dozen or so were hauled into federal court. It was all bullshit, but it cost them a fortune to defend themselves...

"To help out, Jim set up the Security and Intelligence Fund to raise money to cover their legal expenses, and he asked me to be the Secretary-Treasurer. So that’s how I got involved in the spook world...

"Anyway, we raised a lot of money through direct mail appeals and helped them out quite a bit. You know those guys never made any money doing government work, and a lot of them were looking at pulling their kids out of college and selling their homes just to cover their legal fees. So it was important...

"But that eventually went away, and we were left with the organizational structure. It’s technically a tax-exempt charity, and we thought we should continue with it in some way or another. As a premium to our contributors, Charlie Murphy was writing a quarterly publication called Situation Report and it has been very well received. Jim and Charlie get together every couple of months and put together an eight page paper on what they think the Soviets are really up to."

He was referring to Colonel Charles J. V. Murphy, the former Editor-in-Chief of Fortune magazine. Murphy was a hell of a writer, and he had become famous as the authorized biographer of the Duke of Windsor. I didn’t recall having met him at ASC, but I had known that he was involved with that operation in some capacity.

I nodded. "Well that would be a shame to shut something like that down. Is there any chance of keeping it going?"

By this time the General had finished eating, and he pushed his plate away. "Well that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We have filed all the legal paper work to change the name and status of the corporation to the Security and Intelligence Foundation, and it will all be approved in a few days. But Bill Casey – that’s the new CIA Director – asked Angleton to come back, and help him get the place unfucked. So Jim is spending most of his time out at Langley, and he doesn’t have time to run it. We - the Board of Directors - have all agreed that we need a young guy in there like you who can work the operation full time. We'd like to make it grow."

I sat back in my seat, stunned. Holy shit, I thought, manna from Heaven. Through sheer dumb luck, the opportunity of a lifetime had just fallen out of the sky and hit me on the head. It took more than a moment for me to believe it. 

"Well, Sir...I’m really not quite sure what to say. It sounds intriguing, to say the least!"

Much to my surprise, the General tried to sell me outright. "Charlie, this thing has potential. The Soviet's have been raising hell all over the world since Viet Nam went down the tubes. And so far, nobody has done a fucking thing...

"Publicly, anyway...There is some talk going around town that the Reagan Administration is about to go on the offensive but so far that’s just talk. In the meantime, the Soviets are kicking our ass all over the planet and a big part of the reason is the CIA is all screwed up."

He paused for a moment before continuing. "Anyway, that’s how Jim and the other spooks see it. They think that the Agency could play a big role in turning the tide if they could get their act together. But without political support - that is, popular support from outside the Beltway - it just isn’t going to happen. That’s what the new Security and Intelligence Foundation is all about. We want to put some heat on Congress, to see if we can get them to straighten out the mess they’ve  made."

Suddenly serious, I nodded thoughtfully. "General, I think I'd like to take a shot at it. Is there any chance I can stop by the office and take a look at it?"

The General signaled for the check, and reached for his wallet. "Thats exactly what I had in mind. After we left the ASC, the Heritage Foundation put us up for a while until High Frontier could get its feet on the ground. We are doing pretty well now, and we've leased the 10th floor of the building across the street. SIF has moved in with us, and it looks like that will be a permanent arrangement...

He pushed his chair back. "Ready to go?" 

I sloshed down the last of my coffee, and followed him out outside. 

The General pointed across the street. "That’s our building." And as an afterthought, "I hope the damned elevators are working today. The sonofabitches were down yesterday, and I’m too goddamn old to hike up and down 10 flights of stairs without a good fucking reason."

I had to laugh. The General may have been getting up there in years - he was pushing 70 at the time, and had become a little round about the waist - but I knew that he was in damned good shape. He was a fighter pilot through and through, and tough as nails. The thought crossed my mind that he might be in better shape than I was.

"Sir, I do have a question. This sounds like an interesting opportunity but I do need to make a few bucks along the way. It has to pay at least 40K to make it worth my while."

The General shrugged. "That’s up to you. Hell, I don’t care what you pay yourself as long as you raise the money, and I don’t think anyone else does either."

I nodded. "Well, lets take a look."

We crossed the street together, dodging rush hour traffic and the bicycle couriers that wove in and out of the traffic at suicidal speeds. When we reached the entrance, the General held it open for me. I walked in ahead of, and surveyed the lobby.

An elevator door opened and dislodged a half dozen passengers. We entered it with a half dozen more, and after three or four stops reached the tenth floor. 

As I stepped out into the hallway behind the General, my mouth dropped. Washington was known for the beautiful young girls it attracted from all over the country; and in my experience, those that had been drawn to town by the Reagan Revolution were often stunning. But even with that knowledge, I was totally unprepared for what I found at High Frontier.

At that point the organization employed about 50 people, and most of them were young girls in their early twenties. As I walked down the short hallway to the main offices of High Frontier, I found myself awash in a sea of feminine beauty.

"Jesus, General, how the hell do you get any work done in this place?" He looked at me and grinned. "That’s another advantage to SIF. Pretty good scenery."

I laughed. "Damn, I wont be able to think straight! How do you manage it?

The General shrugged. "Yeah, well, you know I’m married and these are just kids. But if I was young and free like you...

His voice trailed off as another young beauty cut us off, swinging her admirable hips with practiced intent. "Come on Charlie, lets see if Gen. Graham is busy."

We turned left into the main office section, and headed down to the general's offices. We stopped briefly, so that I could be introduced to their shared administrative assistant. An attractive blonde then in her mid 40's, Bernice Coakley had been with the generals for several years. As far as I could tell, she was the only other adult in the entire organization.

Gen. Richardson knocked on Gen. Graham's door, then opened it and proceeded inside. "Danny, I brought Charlie along from breakfast. I've briefed him on the situation, and he's indicated some interest in taking over SIF. Anything you want to say to him?"

Gen. Graham greeted me heartily. Although he stood barely 5'2", he had a booming voice. "Charlie, how the hell are you? I’m glad to see you made it back to town!"

I thanked him, and asked him how he'd been. He rolled his eyes, mistaking my personal question for an organizational enquiry. "Ah, shit, nothing but trouble. The President is behind the Strategic Defense Initiative all the way but those Liberal bastards up on the Hill are doing everything they can to block it. The fucking idiots seem to think that we can negotiate with our fine Soviet friends" He let out a huge laugh. "Same shit, different day, huh??"

I laughed myself. Despite all the time, energy and political capital President Reagan had put into restoring the national defense there was remarkably little to show for it thus far. That might change, but I had been around the Washington block enough times to be skeptical. Holding my breath wasn’t much of an option. 

"You know Charlie, I was Deputy Director of CIA before I made Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. What Jim Angleton is preaching may be a bit overstated, but the Agency is in deep trouble. The Counterintelligence Shop has been disbanded, and Covert Operations is out of business for all practical purposes. The rank and file out at Langley are so scared of Congress these days that they won’t go to the can without a hall pass from the President. Think you can do anything about it?"

"Well, Sir...On the basis of Gen. Richardson's briefing I'd say they need some serious political support. My guess is that any pro-intelligence legislators on the Hill won’t stick their necks out to reconstitute the lost capabilities without either a major disaster or a groundswell of public opinion. And I take it that the new purpose of SIF is to generate that groundswell before the shit really hits the fan."

Gen. Graham nodded approvingly. "That’s a tough trick...To get that support you have to make public aware of the actual situation, but that’s classified for the most part. So you are going to have to come up with some pretext or another to make the relevant points without getting your ass thrown in the slammer...

"Jim Angleton and I have already talked about this, and we will try to help you as much as we can. But for the most part you are going to have to come up with something based upon public sources...

He turned around and reached for his suit coat. "And watch your fingers and toes while you are at it." He turned around as he pulled the coat on. "This is going to irritate a lot of hotshots in the bureaucracy and on the Hill. They aren’t going to like us pissing in their pond."

As he brushed past me, he told Gen. Richardson that he had an appointment at the White House.
 " I’ll be back by noon at the latest, General...

"And Charlie...Good to see you. Glad to have you back onboard!"

I looked at Gen. Richardson, and he looked at me. "Hey that was easy. Gen. Graham thinks you are just the man for the job...

"Now come on, let me show you the rest of the place."

I followed Gen. Richardson back out into the hallway, and walked beside him past the elevators. He wheeled into the first room on the left, interrupting the chatter of several girls gathered in the small two-room suite. Ignoring two of the three as they hurried out the door, he introduced me to SIF's secretary.

I smiled and shook her hand. Her name was Pam Simpkins, and she had been working at SIF part-time for several months. She had gotten the job through her sister, Judy, who worked at High Frontier in some capacity. As she later told me, she liked SIF because the hours were good, the work non-existent, and the meager pay sufficient for her needs. She had just graduated from a small Bible college in rural Virginia, and she was living at home with her parents and three sisters. She had no real interest in working; and she freely informed me that her first and only priority was finding a husband to marry.

From my unstated reaction, she must have realized that her comfortable circumstances at SIF were about to change, and she made no effort to hide her pique. She became rude to the point of insult; and so I made a mental note to dismiss her at the earliest opportunity. 

Unlike most of the other girls I had seen so far, Pam fell short of my feminine ideal. She had sandy brown hair and light brown eyes, and stood about 5'4"; but her otherwise pretty smile - forced, for the occasion - was marred by a gap in her front teeth. She was thin, and somewhat boxy; and the breasts that barely protruded from behind her heavy sweater fell somewhere on the scale between tiny and minute. But it was her hair and makeup that bothered me the most about her appearance.

As I had already deduced, Pam was a devout fundamentalist Christian; and not surprisingly for that time and place, a devotee of Jim Bakker's PTL Club. Consciously or not, I would come to suspect that she sought to emulate Rev. Bakker's outrageous wife, Tammy Fay. For they both appeared to apply their makeup with a trowel; and they used so much spray to hold their hair in place that a Fire Marshall might have arrested them. Had either come anywhere near an open flame, a Michael Jackson experience would have been a definite possibility.

Be that as it may, the real issue was my own conceit. I had just had a birthday; and at 33 my confidence bordered upon open arrogance. At that stage of my life I had not learned to appreciate country people and their simple ways. It took me a great deal of time to realize that Pam was making an earnest and commendable effort to appear fashionable and chic; and that I should encourage her in this effort although, perhaps, in a more restrained direction.

But I had already made the decision to dismiss her on the basis of her attitude, and for that reason I put her out of mind. I was far more concerned about pulling the books and arranging for the obligatory audit, as a necessary preface to taking the helm. 

Once the customary small talk died down, the General asked me if I wished to see anything else. I shook my head to the contrary and told him that I had seen enough to be satisfied. I then asked him when he wanted me to report for work.

The General informed me that it would be a couple of days. He had to talk to the other members of the Board of Directors and arrange for the audit. It was then Tuesday, and he thought everything could be squared away by Thursday. One of the things he had to do was track down Bill Gertz and let him know that he had finally been relieved. Gertz was then a young reporter for the Washington Times, covering national security issues. He was an exceptionally talented journalist; and like the newspaper he worked for, staunchly conservative. According to the General, he had cultivated Angleton as a source of background information on intelligence issues, and in the process he had been shanghaied to serve as the part-time executive director of SIF. It was a meaningless job under the circumstances, but the General felt he should give him a heads up call before I took the reins.