“Hey, that sergeant offered you a chance to run the confidence course.” Vorhees heard the snickers from his staff in the seats behind as the Gulfstream began to descend. “You didn’t take him up on that.”
Pig. Hill was treading water here, trying to make something of his new beat. The State Department had been a hell of a lot easier to cover than the Pentagon. At least there you could see the comings and goings of ambassadors and the like, things that gave an inkling if something was up. The wrong person in the right place at the wrong time could set the old noggin to thinking. That was the reporters’ sense. Somewhere after the sixth on the hierarchy of human senses, he figured. That ability, however, could not easily penetrate a stone wall, the likes of which Vorhees had erected around everything interesting on their short jaunt down South.
Well, so be it. Hill knew that if he couldn’t get information he could at least get denials to the right questions. “What about Delta?”
“Delta?” Vorhees asked with feigned ignorance. “What’s that?”
A smile. “Weren’t you observing a demonstration of their techniques?”
“Whose?” The game was fun to the congressman, a man who had developed a healthy disdain for the press during his tour in uniform. Plus, his professed lack of knowledge was the “literal” truth. The Army had no so-called Delta force. If that name stuck among its members, JSOC, and some uninformed members of the media, oh well. In the Pentagon’s nomenclature the unit once referred to as Special Operations Detachment Delta was now known as Special Operations Detachment Trumpet, and that designation would change again in three months. Delta hadn’t officially been “Delta” for quite some time, giving the politicos like himself a convenient answer when challenged on the existence of the unit. “Don’t know where you get your information, Chick.”
“Then there is no unit called Delta?”
A careful pause. “To my knowledge we have no unit that carries that designation.”
“To your knowledge?”
The congressman nodded.
Well, let’s try this. “I heard someone mention that ‘some unit’ you were observing took off pretty quick from Bragg. Anything to that?”
Vorhees had heard one of his aides let that slip and had chastised the staffer for it. “People on bases move at their own speed. Some slow, some fast. Everyone has someplace to go.”
Okay, there’s an opening. “Would they be going anywhere in particular? Maybe where the action is?”
Another laugh erupted from the jovial bureaucrat, giving him time to craft a response. “You give me more credit than I’m due, Chick. I’m a pencil pusher, remember?”
“Maybe Cuba?” It was a stretch, but he had to cast his line somewhere.
“Chick, come on. From what I can see that’s a coup d’état going on down there.” Vorhees had no knowledge of any American involvement, but the quick departure of Delta had made the same thought cross his mind. But speculation was not his job at the moment — deflection was. “You’re reaching on that one.”
Hill could accept that. It would do. Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Richard Vorhees, after a tour of facilities housing U.S. Special Operations Forces, denies that any of those forces are involved in the apparent coup under way in Cuba. Leads often generated as much information as digging for the story. He was certain he and his editors would be getting calls from the Hill concerning their “shoddy, speculative reporting.” At least the trip wouldn’t be a total waste.
The Gulfstream touched down with the rising sun behind it and turned off the runway toward the secure area of Andrews before backtracking along the taxiway toward the military VIP terminal.
“Jeez, she’s a big one, isn’t she?” one of the aides commented, looking out one of the aircraft’s left-side windows.
Chick turned his attention that way. The observation just heard was adequate, he thought. The white 747 with its long blue stripe running from tail to nose was being pulled from its hangar by a dark green tug. Within seconds of stopping, a truck with stairs mounted on its back pulled to the left — Hill reminded himself of the military jargon: port — side door. As the Gulfstream taxied by, a black limousine pulled up to the stairs and let out… Granger? He instinctively leaned closer to the window and squinted. It was Granger. That smooth head and blue uniform were unmistakable, his peaked cap in hand as he ran—ran? — up the steps into the… That’s not Air Force One. Hill cocked his head and looked as far to the Gulfstream’s front as he could through the small glass portal. It’s there. The President’s plane, a modified 747 designated VC-25A, was similar in appearance to the jet they were passing, but its long stripe flared upward near the nose to paint the entire upper front a bright blue. That plane was out on the tarmac in its usual place. The Post reporter looked back to the other aircraft, wondering…
The Doomsday Plane? It was a flowery, overly dramatic nickname that no Air Force officer would ever utter. The correct name was Kneecap, Hill knew. The National Emergency… Emergency? …Airborne Command Post. Why was it rolling out, and why was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff running up the stairs to it? Granger had been around long enough that everyone in D.C. knew he moved about as fast as he talked. That’s why he had chosen the Air Force for his military career path, the joke went, so he could let his fighters do the walking.
Hill kept his attention focused on the hangar where the — what was the damned military designation? E-4B. That was it. He scanned the area around the E-4B. There was nothing else untoward, just a few guards. That was to be expected, he figured. But something still was stuck in his nosy craw. Granger running? It wasn’t a story; it wasn’t even a lead. Yet.
The Gulfstream came to a stop five minutes later, more than two miles away from the aircraft that had sparked Chick Hill’s curiosity. The congressman politely accompanied him to the terminal, benignly thanking him for the company and bidding him an appropriately smiling farewell.
“Thanks for nothing, Dick,” Hill said after the congressman had gotten into the car waiting for him. I wonder why that perk hasn’t been cut. The Post reporter saw his perk waiting farther away.
“Welcome back,” the Jeep’s driver said when Hill climbed in, tossing his two-suiter in the back. The kid was low on the totem pole at the paper, hardly more than an intern, actually, and drew the gofer duties often. “Back to the grindstone.”
“No. Not just yet.” Hill took his cell out, an idea rising. “I’ve gotta check something out. You just drive.”
“Drive where?”
Hill told him as he plotted out what he’d have to do to get a story out of this, even if there wasn’t one. He almost laughed at that doubt. Anything could be made into a story.
Jenny MacNamara stared at the thirty-inch display like a child in awe of a new release from Nintendo. But this was no game.