Read Online A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror by Larry Crane - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Larry Crane
Tags: Espionage, Military, Revenge, Politics, Terrorism, Betrayal, Army, Army Ranger, strike team, collateral damage
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L & M,
I spoke much too soon on your invite. Sorry, we can’t come. We already had something else going. Have a great weekend. Love ya.
Sherm & Virg.
The sun was down and lights were popping up across the lake. In the dining room, Lou and Mag sat next to a window where they could see the lights reflecting off the water. The summer tourist season was ahead of them. The hotel was coming back alive after a long winter season, and city dwellers with cabin fever were beginning to arrive to savor the open space and first crocus buds.
Lou had met Sherm during his second tour in Vietnam, when they’d shared a room in the MACV compound in Plieku. Sherm got his BA at Columbia and then went on to Harvard law. Having exhausted all opportunities to avoid military service, he’d found himself in the Army with the Psychological Warfare Unit, dropping surrender leaflets into the jungle from a push-pull Cessna. More often than not, he also dropped his cookies through the chute on the floor of the tiny craft as it bounced above the endless, green canopy.
Lou and Sherm had soon discovered they were both from New Jersey and both their wives were there now, each with two kids. They’d bonded immediately, despite their vastly different backgrounds and educations, and spent hours talking whenever Lou wasn’t out traipsing around the Central Highlands with his battalion.
Mag and Virg met before the two returned, so it was natural they would continue the friendship as couples. Sherm Wellington became a portfolio manager at Moore, Crawford, and Bender at the same time Lou was stationed at Fort Dix. Sunday dinners led to family picnics and reciprocal babysitting. They had no secrets. They worked at keeping in touch no matter how far Lou’s Army career took him from Glen Rock. And when they’d returned to the area after Lou was released, they’d immediately found each other again.
Sherm was a large man whose personality was defined by the force of his imagination and his willingness to lower all barriers to new experiences. He was a man capable of completely surrendering control just to find out what would happen without it. Such spontaneity couldn’t be farther from Lou’s ability to do these same things.
Sherm was a practical joker of massive dimensions. He was always at the center of some gargantuan plot—in which at least ten or twelve other friends played a part—to lead another of his many friends into a web of complexities. Like the time he printed up and delivered invitations, ostensibly from Mayor Ed Koch, to all his friends, inviting them to join the mayor and other prominent politicos at the West Side Cafe on Forty-second Street to celebrate the emergence of the city from financial bankruptcy. With everyone there properly bedecked and tuxedoed, Sherm led them all in a conga dance rendition of I Ain’t Got Nobody behind a Koch-like midget in a jumpsuit.
While Lou was at Dix—a temporary captive of the Army, minuscule paychecks, and a straitjacket of rules and regulations—he remained an integral part of Sherm’s circle and was included in all of these crazy shenanigans.
“Your time will come, Lou, when you decide to start living,” Sherm roared. “Friends are friends.”
But when Lou joined Pierson Browne, the relationship changed; not because Sherm had changed, but because the pauper’s veil that was so easy for Lou to wear while he was in the Army was impossible to wear as a stockbroker. It was his turn, but he couldn’t take his turn. Embarrassed, he’d slid further and further away; but now, he grabbed at the chance to make up for lost time. He was back.
Lou ordered a bottle of Schwartze Katz Liebfraumilch , a name from out of the past. It was the only name he could think of, but the Inn didn’t have it. For a moment, he began to hector the college-kid waiter.
Okay. Order something else, then. What was it again? Something French. Chateau...?
I spoke much too soon on your invite. Sorry, we can’t come. We already had something else going. Have a great weekend. Love ya.
Sherm & Virg.
The sun was down and lights were popping up across the lake. In the dining room, Lou and Mag sat next to a window where they could see the lights reflecting off the water. The summer tourist season was ahead of them. The hotel was coming back alive after a long winter season, and city dwellers with cabin fever were beginning to arrive to savor the open space and first crocus buds.
Lou had met Sherm during his second tour in Vietnam, when they’d shared a room in the MACV compound in Plieku. Sherm got his BA at Columbia and then went on to Harvard law. Having exhausted all opportunities to avoid military service, he’d found himself in the Army with the Psychological Warfare Unit, dropping surrender leaflets into the jungle from a push-pull Cessna. More often than not, he also dropped his cookies through the chute on the floor of the tiny craft as it bounced above the endless, green canopy.
Lou and Sherm had soon discovered they were both from New Jersey and both their wives were there now, each with two kids. They’d bonded immediately, despite their vastly different backgrounds and educations, and spent hours talking whenever Lou wasn’t out traipsing around the Central Highlands with his battalion.
Mag and Virg met before the two returned, so it was natural they would continue the friendship as couples. Sherm Wellington became a portfolio manager at Moore, Crawford, and Bender at the same time Lou was stationed at Fort Dix. Sunday dinners led to family picnics and reciprocal babysitting. They had no secrets. They worked at keeping in touch no matter how far Lou’s Army career took him from Glen Rock. And when they’d returned to the area after Lou was released, they’d immediately found each other again.
Sherm was a large man whose personality was defined by the force of his imagination and his willingness to lower all barriers to new experiences. He was a man capable of completely surrendering control just to find out what would happen without it. Such spontaneity couldn’t be farther from Lou’s ability to do these same things.
Sherm was a practical joker of massive dimensions. He was always at the center of some gargantuan plot—in which at least ten or twelve other friends played a part—to lead another of his many friends into a web of complexities. Like the time he printed up and delivered invitations, ostensibly from Mayor Ed Koch, to all his friends, inviting them to join the mayor and other prominent politicos at the West Side Cafe on Forty-second Street to celebrate the emergence of the city from financial bankruptcy. With everyone there properly bedecked and tuxedoed, Sherm led them all in a conga dance rendition of I Ain’t Got Nobody behind a Koch-like midget in a jumpsuit.
While Lou was at Dix—a temporary captive of the Army, minuscule paychecks, and a straitjacket of rules and regulations—he remained an integral part of Sherm’s circle and was included in all of these crazy shenanigans.
“Your time will come, Lou, when you decide to start living,” Sherm roared. “Friends are friends.”
But when Lou joined Pierson Browne, the relationship changed; not because Sherm had changed, but because the pauper’s veil that was so easy for Lou to wear while he was in the Army was impossible to wear as a stockbroker. It was his turn, but he couldn’t take his turn. Embarrassed, he’d slid further and further away; but now, he grabbed at the chance to make up for lost time. He was back.
Lou ordered a bottle of Schwartze Katz Liebfraumilch , a name from out of the past. It was the only name he could think of, but the Inn didn’t have it. For a moment, he began to hector the college-kid waiter.
Okay. Order something else, then. What was it again? Something French. Chateau...?
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