The Line

CHAPTER 29

Boomer and Trace dropped General Maxwell off in the underground garage of the Royal Hawaiian. They watched as he went into the elevator to go to talk to the President.

They knew that the men in the underground room at Pearl Harbor were scattering, covering their tracks.

Trace turned to Boomer in the car where they sat.

“Since you’ve had time to consider this, what do you think?”

“I hate to say it,” Boomer said, “but I have to agree with Colonel Decker’s plan. We keep the lid on this whole incident. We mourn the loss of General Martin and the others on board the E-4B as a tragic accident. Then we move on. Quite frankly, there’s no other option.”

“And how do we stop this from occurring again?” Trace asked.

“I don’t like the idea of a cover-up; even the word bothers me,” Boomer agreed.

“But if we expose what has just happened, then we will eventually be forced to reveal all that was in the diary, and that is unacceptable.”

“Why?” The edge in Trace’s voice surprised him.

“It was secrecy that shrouded The Line for so many years and allowed it to grow and fester. Now we’re doing the same thing.”

“It would tear this country apart to find out what was in that diary,” Boomer said.

Trace looked at him.

“You were very big on expediency being no excuse, yet here we are talking about expediency requiring…” Trace searched for the right words… “requiring a bodyguard of lies.”

“Secrecy was The Line’s strength while it was alive,” Boomer acknowledged.

“But there are those who do know the truth,” he continued.

“You and I know what happened.”

“Fat lot of good that will do,” Trace said.

“Colonel Rison knew the truth, and it didn’t stop anything. And he eventually died because of this. How do we know The Line is finished?

They haven’t found Hooker’s body. We don’t even know if Hooker was the main man behind The Line.

Maybe there are others in other places.” Trace shivered.

“To think this all started at West Point.”

Boomer’s face was drawn with exhaustion, but he had been doing some hard thinking in the past few hours.

“It would be easy to say getting rid of the academies would prevent this from happening again, but I’m not sure they were the problem.

There definitely need to be some changes made. An opening up of the curriculum and more interaction between the military and the civilian community. Right now we have two separate societies in our country and it’s particularly pronounced in the officer corps. We need to get the people who guard our country more in tune with the country and out of their own separate existence.

“We need to remember something else,” he said.

“The people who stopped The Line were mostly Academy graduates also.

Let’s not condemn the system because, as the facts have shown, the system did indeed work.”

Boomer shrugged.

“But I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to happen.” Boomer put his hand on Trace’s shoulder.

“How do you feel?”

Trace shook her head.

“I don’t feel like I helped save the country. I feel like a sponge that was dipped in dirty water and rung out a few times too many.”

Boomer felt the same.

“We don’t have to wait here for Maxwell. He’s probably going to be with the President quite a while.”

“Just give me a couple of minutes,” Trace said.

“I don’t feel too good. I didn’t feel good listening to Decker in that underground bunker, and I still don’t feel right.”

Trace had touched on something that had bothered Boomer also.

“There was too much explanation by Decker,” Boomer said.

“I agree with you: It doesn’t feel right. I still don’t understand why we got involved.”

“They, the Special Op people, didn’t involve us,” Trace said.

“The Line did when they found out about my book.”

Boomer disagreed.

“No, Decker set me up for a reason even before that.” He remembered something he’d forgotten to ask her in the excitement of the morning.

“Why did you write that note on the pages you gave Harry?”

“Things didn’t seem right,” Trace said.

“The inflight refueling seemed a bit much for Skibicki to arrange, but after hearing Decker’s explanation, I guess that part fits together now. Plus, what was on those pages made me nervous.”

“What do you mean?” Boomer asked.

“The whole Pearl Harbor thing,” Trace said.

“What are you talking about?” Boomer was lost.

“You didn’t read the pages themselves?” Trace asked.

“No, just your note.”

“You need to read them,” Trace said.

Boomer pulled the Ziploc bag out of his pocket. He opened it and pulled out the wrinkled pages.

“Oh my God” Boomer said looking at Hooker’s handwriting.

“I can’t believe they knew about the attack and allowed it to happen”

Trace said.

“No,” Boomer said.

“That’s not it. This Navy lieutenant. I know who he is.” Boomer paused as a limousine pulled into the underground garage and came to a halt on the far side. The doors swung open and a man got out. he leaned over and talked to someone still in the car. through a lowered window.

It all came together for “Boomer then. Trace follwed his eyes.

“What’s the matter?”

“I correct my last statement,” Boomer said.

“I know who the lieutenant is now.” He pointed.

“Senator Jordan?” Trace asked incredulously.

“He’s the lieutenant who withheld the Magic intercepts?”

“Not only is he responsible for that,” Boomer said, “but he’s also the one who got you and I involved in this. He’s been running everyone.”

Boomer remember the abandoned ammo depot.

“The son of a bitch! He ordered me killed.”

“What?” Trace asked.

“What are you talking about?

How do you know he was that lieutenant, and why would he want us involved?”

“To get his hands on the diary,” Boomer replied. He watched as Jordan shut the limousine door and got onto the elevator. The large car swung around and headed for the exit. As the window Jordan had talked through powered up. Boomer was not all surprised to see Colonel Decker seated in the back of the limousine, smoking a large cigar.