Fort Belvoir is the Army Engineer Center, but its Army airfield served primarily as the primary (and again, technically illegal) air terminus for the Pentagon. When the Beaver touched down, there were perhaps thirty Army aircraft Beechcraft twin-engine L-23s, more Beavers, and a flock of Cessna L-19s, single-engine, two-seater observation aircraft, sitting on the transient ramp. Their vertical stabilizers bore representations of all the armies and of all the divisions based in the United States.

The Pentagon operated regularly scheduled bus service between Belvoir and Washington and assigned a half dozen olive drab staff cars to ferry colonels and generals arriving at the Belvoir airstrip to the five-sided building on the other side of the Potomac from the District of Columbia.

Lieutenant Wagner, who had never been to either the Pentagon or Washington before, was told about the bus, told to take it to the Pentagon, and once inside to look for a map of the building hung on a wall. That would show him how to get where he was supposed to go.

But when he climbed down from the Beaver, a black civilian wearing a blue suit was waiting for him.

"Lieutenant Wagner?"

"That's right."

"I been sent to fetch you."

"To take me to the Pentagon?"

"To fetch you," the black man repeated. "You got any bags or anything I can help you with?"

"Just this," Karl-Heinz replied, holding up his "I Had My Car Painted by Earl Schieb" plastic overnight bag.

He got in the front seat of the new-model, but already well worn (like the taxi it was), olive-drab Ford staff car. Within minutes they were on a heavily traveled expressway, and not long afterward, the Pentagon building appeared on the left.

It grew larger as they approached, and Karl-Heinz had time to reflect on just how huge it was.

It was surrounded by a complicated system of access roads, and Karl-Heinz was not particularly surprised when the Pentagon fell behind. He had learned that on American expressways it was often necessary to head in the opposite direction to ultimately reach your intended destination.

But then they crossed a bridge, and there was a sign, WELCOME TO OUR NATION'S CAPITAL.

"Hey," he said. "We passed the Pentagon."

"You ain't going to the Pentagon," the driver said.

"I'm supposed to go to the Pentagon," Karl-Heinz said flatly.

"Your name Lieutenant Karl Dash Heinz Wagner?"

"That's right."

"Then you ain't supposed to go to the Pentagon," the driver said with absolute certainty. "You going to State-War-and-Navy." When he looked at the driver, he gave him a broad, if tolerant, smile- the city boy dealing with the country boy unfamiliar with the big city.

The Ford turned left, and almost immediately Karl-Heinz realized that they were driving past the White House. He looked at the building with fascination, wondering if the President of the United States was in there at this moment. Then he noticed a sparse line of men and women, some neatly dressed and others looking like beggars, all of them carrying signs, marching slowly and unevenly on the sidewalk outside the fence.

Gottverdammte Kommunisten! he muttered.

"Communists or cowards," the driver said. "One or the other." Karl-Heinz looked at him curiously.

"I done my hitch in Nam," the driver said.

Karl-Heinz was surprised but said nothing.

They turned left again, right then, and stopped before a substantial, steel-barred fence. A policeman came to the car, carrying a clipboard The driver rolled down his window.

"Wagner," he said to the policeman. "Lieutenant Karl Dash Heinz."

The policeman ran his finger down a list on his clipboard and then lowered his head to look through the window.

"May I see your AGO card, please, Lieutenant?" As Karl-Heinz fished it out, he glanced at the driver, who had pushed himself out of the way so that Karl-Heinz could hand the identity card to the policeman. In doing so, his jacket opened.

The driver had a .45 Colt Model 1911 Al pistol in a cross-draw holster on his left hip.

The policeman compared the photograph on the AGO card with Karl-Heinz's face and then gave it back. He gave a signal and the sturdy gate rolled open to the left.

They went inside the compound and stopped before the broad sandstone stairs of a large, and Karl-Heinz thought, quite ugly Victorian building.

"There's a reception desk right inside," the driver said. "Just give her your name." Five minutes later, wearing a visitor's badge and accompanied by a White House policeman, Karl-Heinz Wagner was shown into the small and simple office of Sanford T. Felter.

The last time he had seen Felter had been what now seemed to be a very long time ago, at Fort Bragg, when Karl-Heinz had been just about to graduate from the Basic Course at Camp Mackall, and Felter had recruited him to go to Berlin. Felter was now in civilian clothes, but Wagner saluted him anyway.

There was a flicker of surprise on Felter's face, but he returned the salute.

"How are you, Wagner?" he asked. "Good to see you again."

"Fine, thank you, Sir."

"I just heard the good news in the Craig family," Felter said, motioning for Wagner to sit down.

"My sister, you mean, Sir?"

"Yes, of course. I saw Colonel Lowell at McDill, at STRICOM, and he is now acting very much like a prospective grandfather."

Wagner could think of nothing to say in reply.

"How's Camp Mackall?"

"I would rather be in Vietnam, Sir," Wagner said.

"So would I," Felter said, "but that wasn't my question."

"It is difficult to make the men serious," Wagner said. "To make them understand what they will be facing."

"I suspect that someone like you in Roman Legions said very much the same thing about Centurion boot camp," Felter said. "The human mind tends to alter that which it does not want to believe."

"May I ask why you sent for me, Sir?" Wagner asked.

"I have a job for you, if you'd be interested."

"Sir, with respect, I am a soldier."

"So'm I," Felter said. "Soldiers do what they're ordered to do."

"I am not, then, being given a choice? With regard to the job you mentioned?" It was a moment before Felter replied.

"Yes," he said finally. "I wouldn't want you there unless you understood the importance of what you were doing and were willing to take the assignment. I did not say 'wanted the assignment.' I said 'were willing to take' it. There's a distinction."

"Have I the Colonel's permission to speak frankly?"

"Certainly. "

"Colonel, I am a soldier. I don't want to be a spy."

"The first obligation of a soldier is to do what is best for the Army," Felter said. "Even if that includes being a spy. Or, for that matter, being a Counselor to the President."

"It was not my intention to offend the Colonel, Sir."

"When you offend me, you'll know," Felter said matter of factly. "Actually, I appreciate your candor."

"Yes, Sir."

"Over the objections of a G-2 colonel, Wagner, who acted as if the KGB had been invited to bring their cameras while we showed them around the Situation Room. . ."

"Sir?"

"What?"

"The Situation Room?"

"It's next door, five floors underground. The Commander-in-Chief's CP."

"Yes, Sir."

"I was saying that you now have a Top Secret clearance, with an 'Eagle' endorsement," Felter said. "What follows is classified Top Secret Eagle. Do you understand?"

"I do not understand the 'Eagle,' Sir."

"Eagle is a contingency plan for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the ex-Congo Belge. I am the action officer, and so far, except for the President and my secretary, you are the only other person cleared for it."

"I don't know what response is expected of me, Sir."

"Just sit there and listen," Felter said, not unkindly. "I'll tell you when I want a response." Felter delivered a ten-minute lecture on the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from its birth, including a precise description of the mercenary operations, under Major Michael Hoare, in the Katanga Province.

"If there is a resurgence of the Katanga rebellion, which I think possible, even likely," Felter said, "or some other internal warfare, which is less likely but still possible, I think Hoare will be involved again. I hate to use the word, because it makes me sound like a State Department bureaucrat, but if that happens, there will be important 'geopolitical' consequences."

"Sir, I am ashamed to tell you I know little of the problems there."

"You're not alone, Karl-Heinz," Felter said and chuckled.

"But let me try to put it in military terms. It is of great importance, 'geopolitically,' for the President to know the capabilities of any new mercenary force that Hoare might organize-or even that we might ask him to organize-for employment in the ex-Congo Belge. I just came back from Africa and I wasn't at all impressed with the man the CIA has charged with keeping an eye on Hoare. For one thing he used to be a naval officer, and for another, I thought he was a Scheisskopf."

"You want me to go to the Belgian Congo?" Wagner asked, but it was more of an accusation than a question.

Felter nodded. "South Africa. Hoare's got a Rover agency in Durban. He has a loose collection of ex-mercenaries and would be mercenaries-not formally organized, but capable, I think, of being quickly pulled together whenever he wishes. If that happens, I need an evaluation-a soldier's evaluation-of that organization. From Hoare down to the private in the ranks, weapons, training, transportation, morale. . ."

"Yes, Sir," Karl-Heinz said.

"Pardon me?"

"I said, 'Yes, Sir.' Have I the Colonel's permission to ask questions?"

"Shoot?"

"What will my Army status be?"

"I haven't even outlined what role I would like you to play in this."

"1 am to go South Africa as a defected officer of the DDR Volksarmee Pioneers," Karl-Heinz said. "And become a member of the loose organization Major Hoare has established." Felter nodded his head approvingly.

"You will be assigned to the ROTC detachment at Texas A and M and placed on further TDY to the Army Language School at the Presidio of Monterey.

And on further TDY here. I've arranged for you to be hired as an engineer for a West German company now building a bank in Durban. You will go from here to Germany and then travel to South Africa with a West German passport. That should cover your tracks. You will draw full pay and allowances, plus per diem, plus hazardous-duty pay. The checks will go to an account we'll open for you in the Riggs Bank here. And when you come back, I will write your efficiency report."

"Yes, Sir," Wagner said.

"I'm a little curious, Wagner.... A few minutes ago I had formed the opinion you would not be interested in this at all." Wagner understood the question but took a moment to frame his reply.

"Sir, I have taken the oath. For a moment I forgot that I did, that I have been given a second chance as an officer."

"If you're talking about swearing to obey the orders of officers appointed over me," Felter said, quoting the officer's oath of office, "I thought I had made it clear that if you take this job it will be as a volunteer. There's no order involved."

"I have sworn," Karl-Heinz Wagner said, quoting," 'to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"

"The phrase," Felter corrected him, "is to defend The Constitution, etcetera."

"The meaning is the same," Wagner said seriously. "Without the Constitution, there would be no United States and nothing worth defending." Felter looked at him thoughtfully.

His first thought bordered on the flippant: You can take a German out of the country, but you can't take the German out of the German. He immediately regretted it, and realized why it had come to his mind. Then he understood. Like most American officers he was uneasy when someone talked about the-officer's oath, or their obligations under it. It didn't mean that they held the oath, or their obligations, in scorn, but rather that it wasn't the sort of thing one talked about, for fear of sounding like a fool, a dunce wrapped in the flag and dancing to the sound of a trumpet.

Karl-Heinz Wagner had been conditioned to quite the reverse.

He had been raised in a totalitarian state. He had even prospered under the German Democratic Republic. He had been educated by it, commissioned into its army, and served it with distinction.

And he had betrayed it. Not casually, Felter thought, but only after what must have been a good deal of painful thought, and not, Felter believed, for material reasons. But for freedom, another word that most American officers were reluctant to discuss seriously.

The price of freedom for Karl-Heinz Wagner had been the loss . of his honor and his property. And if they had caught him, it would have meant his life. And that of his sister. It had taken courage to put his sister behind the cement bags in the truck he'd stolen to crash through the Berlin Wall. . . .

When Felter reflected philosophically about his country, his thoughts usually turned to the revolution and to the revolutionaries. They had not been a bunch of malcontents hoping to get something material out of it when the revolution succeeded. They had been the aristocracy.

And they had been, many of them, soldiers. Colonel George Washington had taken the King's shilling, swearing loyalty to the British State in the person of His Most Britannic Majesty, George III. He had been a rich Virginia planter, and so had Thomas Jefferson. When they had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they had something to lose, and they had not considered themselves too masculine, or too sophisticated, to use words like liberty and freedom and honor.

Colonel George Washington, Felter decided, would both understand and approve of Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Wagner, and so did Colonel Sanford T. Felter.