The Hunting Trip by III William E. Butterworth Page B

as “ringing doorbells” because the CIC special agents conducted these investigations by going to the neighbors of those being investigated, ringing their doorbells, and then when the door was opened making a presentation from a script they had memorized along these lines:
    Good afternoon (or morning), ma’am (or sir). I am Special Agent (Insert Name) of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps. (Show CIC credentials folder.)
    Your neighbor, John (or Mary) (Insert Last Name), who is now a PFC (or second lieutenant) in the U.S. Army, is being considered for assignment to duties which will give him (or her) access to classified information.
    The U.S. Army would be very grateful for your opinion of John (or Mary) and whether or not you think it would be safe for us to entrust him (or her) with the nation’s secrets.
    We are especially interested in what you may have heard (or suspect) about John’s (or Mary’s) character flaws, such as, but not limited to, tendencies to write “Insufficient Funds” checks, imbibe intoxicants to an excessive degree, or engage in abnormal sexual activity either within or without the bonds of matrimony.
    Your answers will of course be held strictly confidential.
    Phil, who had by then accepted the CIC premise that the worst scenario of any situation was nine times out of ten the one right on the money, saw himself spending the foreseeable future in Sunny Lakes, Wisconsin, or some similar bucolic metropolis in the middle of the corn belt, preparing the reports of CIC agents who had spent their days ringing doorbells.
    He was wrong.
    When graduation day from CIC Administrator School came, and with it both his promotion to corporal and his assignment orders, the latter read:
    17. CPL Williams, Philip W., 142-22-0136 detchd Co B CICC&S trf in gr wp XXXIII CIC Det APO 09237. Tvl by CIV AT in CIV clothing dir. 10 DDERL Auth. PP Auth. CIV Clothing Allow of $350 auth. Approp. 99-99999999903 (Secret).
    Because he had paid attention while a CIC administrator in training, Phil had no difficulty at all in deciphering his orders. He was a bit surprised to see that Sunny Lakes, Wisconsin, or whatever bucolic village in the Great American Midwest he was to be banished to hadits own Army Post Office (APO) number, but the rest of his orders he understood.
    He was being detached from Company B, CIC Center & School, and transferred in grade and would proceed to the 33rd CIC Detachment (for reasons never explained, the CIC used Roman, rather than Arabic, numbers on its CIC detachments). Travel by civilian air transportation in civilian clothing was directed. Ten days of delay-en-route leave were authorized, and so were a passport and a $350 allowance to buy the civilian clothing. The money was to come from Congressional Appropriation 99-99999999903, which was classified Secret because Congress didn’t want the Russians and the other un-friendlies to know how much they were willing to pay to keep the U.S. Army’s secrets secret.
    As soon as he could, Phil found the book listing all APO numbers and the physical locations thereof. With a feeling of great foreboding, he ran his finger down the list of numbers until he came to 09237.
    When he found it, he exclaimed, “I’ll be a EXPLETIVE DELETED!! I’m not going to EXPLETIVE DELETED!! Sunny Lakes, or any other EXPLETIVE DELETED!! place in the EXPLETIVE DELETED!! Midwest! I’m going to Berlin! Berlin,
Germany
! Not the Berlin in EXPLETIVE DELETED!! New Hampshire!”
    â€œWatch your mouth, Corporal!” a stern voice chided him.
    Phil turned to see that he was being addressed by a second lieutenant who was wearing the identification badge of a CIC agent in training.
    â€œYou’re in the CIC now,” the second lieutenant went on. “We of the CIC do not use obscene language such as ‘ EXPLETIVE DELETED!! New Hampshire,’ which is one of the United States we are sworn to defend from undue Soviet