Subsequent operations in Beirut, the Gaza, Osaka, Singapore, and Basking Ridge, New Jersey, only added to the unit’s reputation. They had managed to infiltrate and draw out many of the world’s most savage criminals, from drug runners and arms merchants to contract killers and real estate developers, and throughout these hazardous missions they had suffered no casualties whatsoever.
They had also never fired a gun, or unleashed a knife, or thrown a grenade. However, only one man knew that—the reinstated Brigadier General Ethelred Brokemichael. It was such a disgrace! The famed Suicidal Six, that assumed paragon of those lethal death squads, had never wasted anybody—had talked their way into and out of every potentially fatal assignment they were given. It was utterly humiliating!
When Secretary of State Warren Pease arrived at Fort Benning and drove in a two-man Jeep to the farthest point of the ninety-eight thousand acres that was the army preserve to deliver his top-secret instructions to Brokemichael, did Ethelred see the light at the end of his own personal tunnel, his own very private revenge! The conversation went as follows.
«I’ve cleared it with our people in Sweden,» said Pease. «They’ll tell the Nobel committee that it’s a national crisis, and how much herring do we have to import anyhow? Then your boys fly up from Washington, not Stockholm, presumably having talked to the President, and the mayor of Boston greets them at the airport with a press conference and limousines and motorcycle escorts, the whole enchilada.»
«Why Boston?»
«Because it’s the Athens of America, the seat of learning, the place where such a delegation should speak from.»
«Also maybe where Hawkins happens to be?»
«We think it’s possible,» interrupted the Secretary of State. «What’s certain, however, is that he can’t walk away from that award.»
«For God’s sake, the Hawk would bust out of a compound in Hanoi and swim across the Pacific to get it! Jesus, the Soldier of the Century! Old Georgie Patton will be sending down lightning bolts.»
«And once he shows up, your boys take him and we’re off across the Atlantic heading north, far north. Along with every one of the unpatriotic bastards who works for him.»
«Who might they be?» asked General Brokemichael, only mildly interested.
«Well, the first is a Boston attorney who defended Hawkins in Beijing, a lawyer named Devereaux—»
«Aurragh!» screamed the brigadier, his roar only to be compared to a nuclear blast on a desert. «The Harvard prick?» he shrieked, the veins in his elderly throat so pronounced that the Secretary of State thought he might expire on the adjacent patch of wildflowers.
«Yes, I believe he went to Harvard.»
«He’s dead, dead, dead!» yelled the general, suddenly punching the Georgia air with his fists and kicking up the dirt with his quite unnecessary paratrooper boots. «He’s history, I promise you!… Brian Donlevy said that at Zindelneuf in Beau Geste.»
Marlon, Dustin, Telly, and The Duke sat facing one another in the four front sweel chairs of Air Force II while Sylvester and Sir Larry were at the small conference table in the center of the plane. All kept going over their written lines as well as the improv lead-ins that would result in spontaneous rambling conversations. As the official aircraft began its initial descent into the Boston area, the babble of six different voices was heard, all heavily laced with individual interpretations of a Swedish dialect as applied to the English language. Eight-inch by ten-inch mirrors were also held in front of each face as the warriors of the Suicidal Six checked their makeup—three chin beards, two mustaches, and a toupee for Sir Larry.
«Hi, there!» yelled a youngish blond-haired man emerging from a closed cabin door at the rear of the plane. «The pilot said I could come out now.»
The cacophony of voices subsided as the Vice-President of the United States walked, grinning, into the wide body of the aircraft. «Isn’t this fun?» he said brightly.
«Who’s him?» asked Sylvester.
«He,» corrected Sir Larry, adjusting his toupee. «Who’s he, Sly.»
«Yeah, sure, but what is it?»
«This is my plane,» replied the heir apparent to the Oval Office. «Isn’t it great?»
«Take a seat, pilgrim,» said The Duke. «If you want some grub or a bottle of rot gut, just press one of the buttons over there.»
«I know, I know. All these swell guys are my crew!»
«He—he—he—he’s the—the—Vice—Vice—Vice … you know,» cried Dustin, shaking his head not back and forth but in circles. «He was born at precisely—precisely—precisely eleven twenty-two in the morning in 1951—–exactly six—six—six years, twelve days, seven hours—hours—hours and twenty-two—two—two minutes after the Japanese—Japanese—Japanese surrendered on the battleship—ship—ship Missouri.»
«G’wan, Dusty!» shouted Marlon, scratching his left armpit with his right hand. «I’m sick of that bit—bit—bit, you got an understanding of wherefrom I’m coming from, huh, Dusty?»
«You and your streetcar—streetcar—streetcar!»
«Hey, come on, baby face, you wanna lollipop?» asked Telly, grinning at the Veep, but with eyes that were not smiling at all. «You’re okay, kid, but sit down and close the choppers, all right? We got work to do, you dig?»
«I was told you’re actors!» said the Vice-President, lurching into an aisle seat across from the foursome, his expression alive with excitement. «I’ve often thought I’d like to be an actor. You know, a lot of people think I look like that movie star—»
«He can’t act!» pronounced Sir Larry in high British dudgeon from the table behind. «It was all luck and pull and that stupid, implausible face of his, totally devoid of character.»
«A passable director—director—director,» offered Dustin.
«Wadda you, crazy?» belched Marlon. «That was casting. The actors carried him!»
«Maybe he cast ’em,» suggested Sylvester. «Y’know, it’s possible-like, man.»
«You listen to me, pilgrims,» said The Duke, squinting, his eyes roving around the chairs. «It’s all that dirty business in those offices of them land-grabbin’, cattle-rustlin’ agents. It’s what they call ‘pyramid deals.’ You get the star, you take all the crap beneath.»
«Boy, this is real actor talk!» exploded the Vice-President.
«It’s shit, baby, and don’t get your pretty face near it.»
«Telly!» cried Sir Larry angrily. «How many times have I told you that some people can get away with obscenity, but you can’t, dear heart! From you, it’s offensive.»
«Hey, man,» intruded Marlon, making facial contortions into his mirror. «What the hell is he supposed to say? ‘Fie on you, great Caesar?’ I tried that a couple of times and it din’t work.»
«You don’t speak so good, Marley,» said Sylvester, gluing on his chin beard. «You gotta speak real good to make them stupid words make sense.»