“Is this guy at the Presidio?”
“Yes.”
“Great, the Commander of the Presidio, General Perry Williams, is an old friend of the CNO’s. I’ll give his Aide de Camp a call immediately.”
The receptionist at the D.I.A. office looked up to see a full bird Colonel in the Army, and six military police carrying M-1 Carbines burst into her office.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m Colonel Bradley Robertson, Executive Officer to the Commandant of the Presidio, General Perry Williams. Is a John Thompson present?”
“Yes, I’ll get him for you.”
A minute later, a large man in an ill fitting civilian suit walked through the doorway into the receptionist’s area. “I’m John Thompson, Can I help you?”
“I understand that you have a naval officer in custody by the name of Aloysius Liu. Is that correct?”
“Do you mean that Chinaman I picked up this morning?”
“Thompson, I’m not here to play games with you. I have it on good authority that you are holding an officer in the armed forces of the United States. If you have Ensign Liu in custody, you had better have one hell of a good reason.”
“That Chinaman is being held on suspicion of espionage.”
“On whose authority?”
“On my authority!”
Robertson, a former green beret and a holder of many decorations including the Silver Star, was not normally prone to excitement. However, before him stood the very reason he, at times, hated the service; it allowed racist creeps like John Thompson to hide in its crevices like so many cockroaches. Swiftly grabbing the labels of Thompson’s cheap suit, Robertson pulled the face of John Thompson close to his. The intermingled smells of body odor of someone accustomed to drinking cheap wine, smoking cheap stale cigars, and even cheaper whiskey was overpowering.
The urge to physically teach Thompson a valuable lesson in sensitivity was almost overwhelming, but Robertson spoke softly and deliberately.
“Listen you dumb fuck, do you know who you are holding? Ensign Liu is a NAVFAC officer on special assignment to the Oceanographer of the Navy for a top secret project. Your little adventure has already brought discredit to my boss, the Commandant of the Presidio; the CNO’s office called this morning and all hell is breaking loose. It would give me no small amount of pleasure to take that fucking red neck of yours and break it in two. Am I making myself sufficiently clear?”
With that Robertson threw the portly 250 pound Thompson against the wall with a loud thud.
Robertson thought to himself: shit, I didn’t know I had that much strength.
Dusting off his hands and straightening out his dress uniform, Robertson addressed the now cowed John Thompson, “Now will you please get Ensign Liu for me? Oh! By the way, don’t ever use the term ‘Chinaman’ again. If I ever find out you have, I will find you and I won’t be in my dress uniform.”
Just about this time, Clyde Hopkins, Thompson’s partner burst into the room with his revolver drawn. As he looked up, he stared into the muzzles of six M-1 Carbines.
“Drop your weapon,” demanded Robertson. Hopkins complied with that request.
With his hands in the air, Hopkins asked Thompson, “What the hell is happening?”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Clyde. These fellas want that Chinese guy, now!” sputtered a defiant Thompson.
“What is your name?” asked Robertson.
“Clyde Hopkins, Sergeant First Class, United States Army,” replied Hopkins.
“What is your rank and service, Thompson?”
“Master Sergeant, U.S. Army.”
“Sergeant Wills, please take Hopkins and go look for Ensign Liu.”
“Hopkins, before you go, both you and Thompson are hereby relieved of your duties as agents of the Defense Intelligence Agency and are remanded to the custody of the Provost Marshal. I’ll have formal charges as soon as possible, probably something like federal kidnapping or disrespect of a commissioned officer, if I can’t think of any legit charges I’ll make up some. Take this shit away, Sergeant it’s beginning to smell in here.”
In a few minutes, a disheveled, unshaven and visibly irritated Mike was brought into the receptionist office.
Robertson greeted him in Mandarin, “Nee how mah, Liu shan sen?”
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” said Mike, caught unawares by this Caucasian speaking his mother tongue. “Where did you learn to speak like that?”
“I learned it at the U.S. Army language school in Monterey, California. I’m Brad Robertson, Executive Officer at the Presidio, sorry about your rather unfortunate welcome to the Presidio, Mister Liu.”
“I gotta tell you that was something I expected in the deepest part of the South, not in California. Who turned these apes on?”
“As far as we have been able to determine, someone overheard you asking directions to MacAlear Aviation where they are working on a super secret system of some sort. That someone — maybe the motel clerk — called Thompson and his sidekick. Thompson followed you and Sevson for a couple of hours, saw you go into the Oasis, where anti-war activists hang out and decided that you were a spy. With the Viet Nam war raging on, everyone thinks every oriental is a Viet Cong. It’s stupid, but it happens. I’ll have one of my men take you back to your motel so you can change and then down to Sunnyvale. Tom Sevson is waiting for you at MacAlear.”
“Thanks for your help, Colonel. What’s going to happen to these two creeps?”
“Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do since their defense will be they were just doing their job. However, I’ll see to it that they are relieved of their assignment with the D.I.A. They’ll probably go back to some military police assignment somewhere. With a little bit of help, I’m sure we will be able to find a suitable next post for them. Maybe Thule, Greenland. That sounds good.”
“Thanks again.”
The green Army sedan turned into the guard gate at the MacAlear Aviation facility in Sunnyvale, California, not too far from the Ames Naval Air Station at Moffett Field. Like the Ames facility, the MacAlear compound consisted of several buildings and two large hangers. The guard at the gate, a young civilian in a white shirt and blue trousers, examined the identification cards of all the occupants of the sedan. He then directed the sedan to Building A2, a barracks like building constructed of white clapboard with a grayish composite slate roof. The three story building was labeled, “Project Squid.”
Mike got out of the Army sedan and thanked the two Sergeants who had assured his safe arrival and walked up the concrete steps to the door of the reception area.
Inside in contrast to its drab exterior, the reception area was brightly decorated in earth tones, sand colored walls and maple stained wood work. The receptionist’s desk was blond teak wood, as were the Danish style sofa and chairs. Contrasting with the blond teak wood were royal blue sack cloth cushions and backs.
On the coffee table were magazines and other reading material such as Sunset, technical journals, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Alumni Weekly from Stanford University. Hanging from pots in macramé pot hangers were several plants. On the walls were colorful posters of the Redwoods in Muir Woods, Earth Day — 1967 showing the rising earth from moon orbit, and a poster displaying fish of the Pacific Ocean.
The pleasant atmosphere of the office was completed by a potpourri of spices and other fragrances sitting in an open bowl on the credenza.
“Hello, I’m Mike Liu. I’m here to see Ed Robison.”
The receptionist, a California girl with honey blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and bright blue eyes took Mike’s name and called Ed Robison’s secretary. “Janey, there’s a Mike Liu here to see Ed.”