Chapter 15

* * * *

November 8, 1960, Alexandria, Va.

Liz sat in her parlor with the television turned to the election results. It was still too close to call but it looked like Kennedy had done it. Now with a new administration maybe Kennedy and his team of university educated whiz kids will reign in some of the wild cowboys who happened to be her bosses at the Agency.

* * * * *

November 9, 1960, 2:30 am, CIA Headquarters, 2430 E Street NW, Washington, DC.

The man known to the world as "Norman Smith" sat in a small conference room in the basement of CIA headquarters. In Agency parlance it was a "situation room." There were several other men present. All of them were Case Officers. That is, they were the equivalent of trusted middle level managers. They each had a number of field operatives reporting to them or through them, but were close enough to the rank and file level in the Agency that they themselves might, and did, on occasion, take on a particularly interesting field assignment when appropriate. These rather unique individuals, the truly hard-core "spooks" of the Agency, were sitting around having a poker and bull session, while watching the election returns on the bank of television receivers tuned to the three networks' news casts.

"Goddamn it! I can't believe Kennedy's winning," Smith groused around the stump of a cigar clenched in his teeth. "I'll see you ten and raise five more."

"Well, believe it, buddy. And you're gonna owe me once it's declared official. I told you Nixon couldn't take the South," Bobby, the man to his right, chimed in. After a final appraising glance at his hand, he tossed in his cards, disgustedly. "At least I'll get some of my money back."

"Never should have taken that bet once Johnson was on the ticket," Joe, a third player said. He dribbled some chips into the pot, calling the bet.

"Well, if it hadn't been for Daley and the mob, even Johnson wouldn't have helped that rich Irish Crossback," Smith said. He spread his hand on the table. "Full house. Threes over nines."

Everyone else threw in their hands and Smith raked in the pot.

"I'm just wondering what's going to come down from on high now that we've got a bunch of Democrats in charge," a man known only as Red commented. He was a member of Operation 40, the Agency’s assassination branch, which pretty much translated into 'designated Castro watcher' at this point in time.

"At least Ike appreciated the value of good intel. Hell, he practically gave Bill Donovan a blank check back during the war. And Dulles and Ike understand each other; the Director produces the goods and Ike leaves him alone to do his job.” Red sighed somewhat wistfully. “Damn shame is that Nixon would have been almost as good as the old general. He’s one of us; thinks just like we do; the man’s mind has more twists than a hula dancer. Who knows what Kennedy and his bright boys will expect of us now?"

Another player snorted at Red's remark. "Kennedy's sure as shit no Eisenhower. So what if he did make all that fuss about the missile gap in those speeches. That was just election talk. He's probably too aristocratic to dirty his hands on the kind of in-country operations the old OSS used to pull under Wild Bill. And he sure as hell wouldn’t have gone along with PBSUCCESS or AJAX. Boy, those were the days.” All the men nodded agreement, thinking of the good old days of the Guatemalan and Iranian coups which CIA had orchestrated. “He'll want to keep it clean and 'intellectual' with aerial surveillance and the like. He's not going to rely on our people in place."

"Well, hell, sometimes you can't blame him!" Bobby said. "Stunts like those poison cigars for Castro just sound stupid when you hear 'em. Goddamn! We can only hope word of THAT doesn't get out to the public.”

Red's cheeks colored. He had actually been in favor of the cigar plan; it was just unfortunate that it hadn’t succeeded. “Sure that was a long shot but at least us guys in Op-40 get to take action.” He glanced at Smith and grinned good-naturedly. “You guys in Mockingbird with your propaganda and psychological warfare get the real Lu-Lu’s. Whoever thought up that crazy-assed scheme they've dumped in your lap must have had their head up their ass at the time!”

"Well now, it's not all that crazy-assed, Red,” Norm leaned back and smiled broadly. He and Red had shared a friendly rivalry for years. Red was the closest Smith had to an actual friend in the whole world. Of course he’d have killed Red in a minute if ordered to do so – such was the life of a hard core Agency man. “I was a bit skeptical at first, but you'd be surprised what that little jet jockey looks like now," Smith winked and let out a wolf whistle. “She’s right tempting, I’m telling you.”

There was a general chorus of laughter and lewd comments. Smith basked in the male version of approval.

"Well, gentlemen, let's play some cards. Whose deal is it?"

* * * * *

November 18, 1960, National Airport, Arlington, Va.

"Well, congratulations on your promotion, Miss Alice," Senator Denny said, while indicating with his eyes Agnes typing away at Alice's old desk.

This was their first meeting since Alice had been in the hospital. Denny had been off on the campaign trail, making sure of his reelection, as well as throwing his support behind various other candidates of the Democratic party.

"Thank you, Senator," Alice replied. "And congratulations to you and your party. Quite a big win for the Democrats."

Denny beamed. "Oh those boys in the GOP will be back. And loaded for bear too, I expect. They just need to find somebody a little more presidential than Richard Nixon for a candidate. Can you imagine this country putting that man in the White House?" Then he added with a sly grin and a wink, "But don't you dare quote me on that, or I'll have to deny everything."

Alice grinned and shook her head.

"But a pretty little lady like you isn't interested in boring talk about politics. Shall we proceed with today's lesson?"

They went through the familiar preflight checks and were soon airborne. Their flight plan involved a stop at a tiny airport in an outlying hamlet called Easton on the opposite shore of the Chesapeake Bay. After the hour flight and letter perfect landing, Alice directed Denny to taxi over near the tower.

"This is it, Senator. You're ready for your final solo. In fact, you've been ready for some time now, we've just had to follow FAA procedures to meet your flight time requirements."

She opened the door of the Cessna and stepped out onto the runway.

"Good luck, Senator!"

He waved and taxied over to prepare for his takeoff. Alice, meanwhile, entered the little side building that served as a tower.

She listened to the radio as Denny went through all the formalities of requesting permission for takeoff. Then he was up and flying the standard pattern around the field. He performed all the required solo maneuvers flawlessly and eventually taxied back to a halt near the tower.

Alice was all smiles. "Congratulations again, Senator. I'll be signing off on your certification. Welcome to the club."

Denny was preening like a peacock. In characteristic fashion, he turned it into another attempt to crack through Alice's armor. He said, "Why thank you, Miss Alice. It's a tribute to your skill as an instructor that an old fool like myself could pass that test."

Old fool my foot, Alice thought. He's probably one of the top five shrewdest men in the country. But aloud she said, "Senator, you flatter me. I merely went along for the ride whenever we had a lesson."

Denny grinned, his southern nature loved dramatically downplaying any achievement of his -- it just made it seem that much more impressive if he wasn't impressed by it at all. He put on a mock severe expression and said, "Well, young lady, if a United States Senator says you're a fine instructor you should just smile and take the compliment." Then he adopted his affable good old boy routine and said, "Why not help me celebrate my final exam and let me take you out to lunch? I know a little place right near here that serves a fine crab soup."

Alice wavered only a moment. Why not? she thought. Denny was certainly fascinating and she was reasonably sure she'd long since pulled his fangs. Plus it might come in handy to have a ‘friend’ in the Senate once the female astronaut program got rolling; who knew? She favored him with a sunny smile and said, "Why I'd be honored, Senator."

Denny made arrangements with the tower to rent the loaner car that many small airports had on hand for just such an eventuality. Then they were off down back country roads in an old battered Buick.

"Sometimes I come here for duck and goose hunting," he confided to Alice, as he drove, seemingly familiar with the territory and their destination. "With constituents from back home mostly."

Alice thought to herself that those "constituents" were surely heavy contributors to Denny's reelection campaigns.

"Anyway," Denny continued, "Some of the locals told me about this place. I have to warn you, it's not much to look at but it really has some fine cooking."

Eventually they arrived at the town of Oxford. It was a tiny little waterfront community, mostly consisting of what the locals called "watermen", people who made their living from the Bay, catching crabs in the summer and dredging oysters in the winter. A shabby, run down shack of a restaurant which fronted right up on the water was their destination. "Pier Street Marina," said the sign over the door.

“This time of year this place is only open for lunch to catch the hunters coming in from the goose blinds. They’ll close up for good until the spring in a couple more weeks,” Denny said as he held the door open for Alice.

The restaurant's dining area was no more than a screened-in porch type affair with a bare concrete floor. The buidling came right up to within two feet of a bulkhead at the water's edge. There were boats tied up at a rickety dock, that was less than ten steps from the back door. The screens were now covered by translucent plastic stapled up to keep the chill November wind out, but it was still chilly inside and both Alice and Denny kept their coats on. They were seated at a picnic table covered in a cheap checkered cloth and handed menus that consisted of a single worn, hand-lettered cardboard sheet, front side for entrees, back for appetizers, beverages and desserts.

Denny recommended the oysters and a cup of crab soup so that's what they both ordered, although Alice ordered her oysters fried while Denny leeringly asked for his on the half shell.

Over their meal, which Alice had to admit was absolutely delicious, Denny seemed to probe Alice for information about her background. He couched it in terms of polite curiosity, as: "Well, Miss Alice, my life's an open book, it's a matter of public record, but what about you? How did a pretty young lady like yourself get interested in aviation?"

Alice answered cautiously, parroting her CIA prepackaged background. She couldn't help but wonder what Denny was up to. He was a longstanding member of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee as well as the chairman of the recently formed Joint Advisory Committee for Space Technology. He potentially had access to information about her that only a select few individuals knew about. Did he know her secret? Much more likely, he was such a busy man that he didn't have the time or the inclination to delve into every minor project the CIA cooked up. But she couldn't help but wonder.

Eventually they were both finished with their food and Denny escorted her back to the car. He was the perfect gentleman, helping her into the car and closing her door for her.

Alice thought to herself, if he did know or suspect something wasn't entirely as it seemed with her, he certainly didn’t show it. She wondered if he knew and had been testing her to see how well she maintained her character. On the other hand he might simply be acting the southern rake and attempting to learn more about her so he could formulate his next line of advances. The world had become a lot more complex place back in May, when she suspected the Agency of "eliminating" a Security risk in the person of Gunter Herschloff. Ever since, she had been driving herself to distraction with speculation of plots within plots.

When they eventually returned to National Airport, it was with mixed relief and regret that Alice prepared to bid farewell to Senator Denny.

He surprised her though.

"So, Miss Alice, it seems a shame to end our little occasional outings together."

She smiled up at him. "Yes, it does, Senator. But you'll have your private certification now and there's no more need for my services."

Denny seemed to consider this a minute, then he said, "In that case, I think it might be a good idea to go for my multiengine rating too. I believe I heard you say you're qualified as an instructor for that class of craft as well?"

"Why, yes. Yes I am, Senator," Alice said calmly. Inside she was wondering frantically, what sort of game is he playing with me?

"Well then, I'll have my staff get in touch with your secretary when I have an open date on my calendar."

Alice just stared silently as he walked off, whistling contentedly to himself.

* * * * *

To be continued...