“Anything else?” Copeland prompted.
“No, sir.”
“How about his mental state?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist, Captain, but I’d say that on the morning I examined him his emotional state was about what one would expect in an individual under high stress. For what it’s worth, I suspect that Lieutenant Grafton is not the only aviator or naval flight officer on this ship who exhibits symptoms of stress.”
“What about his judgment?”
“I’m not trained to assess that. You gentlemen are as qualified to form an opinion about that as I am.”
“Thank you, Doctor. I would appreciate it if you would put your evaluation in writing and give it to one of my assistants.”
Captain Copeland glanced at the others in the room then instructed an aide to admit the men waiting outside. Copeland doodled on a legal pad while they all found seats.
“Gentlemen, this is an informal investigation ordered by the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet. It’s to be conducted in accordance with the Manual of the Judge Advocate General. I’m Captain Copeland and I’ve had conversations with almost everyone in this room during the last forty-eight hours. Some people I’ve visited with several times. I’ll make a report of my findings to CINCPAC, who will act on them as he sees fit. One of his options, I’d like to point out, is to convene general courts-martial.” His eyes traveled from face to face.
“My assistant here” he gestured with his left thumb “has in his briefcase blank permanent change-of station orders already signed by the chief of naval personnel. All I have to do is fill in the names. These orders are to places like Adak, Alaska, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the Canal Zone, and several other garden spots. If anyone here fails to cooperate fully with my investigation, he’ll be gone from this ship this afternoon and can count on rotting in one of those vacation spas while awaiting his court-martial or the processing of his resignation. I can tell you for a fact that it’ll take three or four years to procesSAResignation. I hope I’m making myself understood.
He drew a breath. “I assume you all wish to talk to me, so I’m going to skip the legal mumbo-jumbo about your right to consult a lawyer and remain silent. You should all consider yourselves under oath. By God, each of you will tell the whole truth and the truth, nothing but the truth. Is that clear?
Dead silence. Copeland then asked, “Clear, Mister Grafton?”
“Perfectly clear, sir.”
“Are you ready to answer my questions?”, “Yes, sir.”
“Have you ever attacked an unfragged target?”
Jake said, “Yessir, I have.”
“When and what was it?”
“About a week ago Lieutenant Cole and I hit the fragged target, saved eight bombs, and then took a shot at the National Assembly building in Hanoi. That’s it.”
“Just one mission?”
“Yessir- Just that one.”
“You’re damn sure about that.” Copeland’s mouth puckered into an O, then relaxed.
“Yessir.”
“Lieutenant, I certainly hope that you realize that now is the time to come clean. Jesus. You’re in a helluva lot of trouble, and if you don’t come clean you’re going to have every captain in the U. S. Navy fighting to be the president of Your court-martial. When this hearing is over, there’d better be no surprises, no revelations that crop up-something that slipped your mind.”
Copeland leaned forward and slammed his fist down. “I want the whole damned story here and now-teeth, hair, ass hole, and all -” The senior officers at the other table sat flagpole straight.
“You are getting the whole story, sir. There was only one mission.”
“Is that right, Mister Cole?”
“He said there was only one mission,” Cole answered.
Copeland’s arm shot out and he leveled his finger Tiger. “Mister Cole, you’re just one answer away from becoming the naval attache in Nepal. Now I’m going to ask you one more time. Is Lieutenant Grafton’s testemony correct?
“Yes, sir, it is. “You and he bombed one unauthorized target?”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain’s attention returned to Jake. “Did you report this strike at the intelligence debriefings?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you report it on your after-action report?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you tell anyone you were going to bomb an unauthorized target?”
“Mister Steiger, sir.”
“No one else knew what the hell you were doing?”
“Just Cole, Steiger, and me.”
“How about you, Cole? Have you shared the tale of your adventures with anyone?”
“No, sir. I haven’t. I’m naturally blabby, but I sat on this one.” That sally drew a frigid stare from Copeland as Cowboy Parker had a coughing fit and Camparelli turned red. Jake Grafton worried his lower lip and glanced at Sammy, who remained expressionless. Copeland finally subjected Cole to closer scrutiny as if to goad the lieutenant into trifling with him further, but Cole, impassive, said nothing else.
Copeland sipped a glass of water, then turned his attention to his legal pad and wrote some notes. Like most interrogators, he had apparently learned long ago that silence was a very effective weapon. Jake imagined, as he felt the tension grow in the silent room, that Copeland used it often on thieves, dope peddlers, embezzlers, fraudulent defense contractors-and the professionally doomed. At last Copeland broke the silence, asking Grafton, “And just how did you identify and target this blow for freedom?”
The pilot knew that the ice was thin and cracking. “We used charts, And photos we borrowed from the Intelligence Center.”
“Classified aerial reconnaissance photographs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You removed them from the Intelligence Center in violation of the security regulations?”
“Yes, sir.” Pilots often took them on daylight missions to help identify the target, but there was no sense bearding the lion.
“With Mister Steiger’s help?”
“Yes, sir. We needed his assistance. What we really wanted to attack in Hanoi was Communist Party Head quarters, but we couldn’t identify it. Even with his help.”
“Is that right, Mister Steiger?”
Behind his thick glasses Abe looked even more wide-eyed than usual.
“I didn’t hear your answer, Mister Steiger.”
“I helped Grafton and Cole plan their raid on Hanoi.”
“Thank you, Mister Steiger. I understand this matter came to light when Commander Camparelli examine the order-of-battle charts and the intelligence report and found, much to his surprise, that they didn’t show the SAM sites that shot at Grafton. You helped plan this raid, so why didn’t you fake those reports?”
Abe blinked behind his glasses. “I couldn’t do that. I knew where the missile sites were that had fired on Lieutenant Grafton.
They were already in the system as known sites. I couldn’t bring myself to put fake sites into the system.”
“Did you tell Grafton that you weren’t going to falsify the data?”
“No, sir. I didn’t discuss it with him. I didn’t have to. Lieutenant Grafton is a damn fine officer, regardless of what he’s done wrong, and I knew he’d rather risk being discovered than report false data.”
“What would be the danger in listing nonexistent SAM sites?”
“Bombardiers plan their routes to avoid the worst of the ground defenses.
I couldn’t take the chance that someone might fly near a real site in order to avoid a fake one.”
Copeland grunted. “That’s the only time you use good judgment in this escapade.” He sifted through some notes. To Jake’s ears the rustling of papers in the otherwise silent room sounded as loud as rifle shots.
