"OK, refuse. What about providing information?"

"I'll tell you or Mr. Finton anything you want to know."

"OK. I don't know right now how we'll arrange to pick your brain, or where, but you'll be told. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you'll be as helpful as you can. The minute I suspect you're playing games with us, you'll be-on the next plane to Vietnam. You read me?"

"Yes, Sir, loud and clear."

"You are to tell no one of the substance of the conversation between Mr. Finton and you or that you have talked to me. If somebody asks what Mr. Finton wanted with you, you say that it was in connection with your CIC background investigation."

"Yes, Sir."

"If it gets back to me that you've been running off at the mouth-and if you do, it will-you'll be running around two days later in the jungle in Vietnam."

"Why don't you just do that now?" Laughter came over the line.

"Finton Was right, I see," Felter said. "You are a real hardnose, aren't you? Sometimes that is an admirable quality. Put Mr. Finton back on the line, please, Portet. And watch yourself in jump school. I don't want you either dead or with a broken leg."

VII.

(One) Durban, South Africa 8 March 1964 D. Ingenieur Karl-Heinz Wagner of Hessische Schwere Konstniktion (Sud Afrika) was put up for a week in a small but pleasant and comfortable hotel room overlooking the beach and the Indian Ocean.

And then he found a small apartment not far from the hotel.

He could no longer see the beach, but he could smell the salt air.

The day he moved into the apartment, he was given the day off. And since there was nothing to do in the apartment but hang his clothing in the closets and stock the refrigerator, he had most of the day free. He went looking for an automobile.

He found the car, but he didn't find what he was really looking for at Durban Motor Cars, Ltd., on West Street. The car he decided to buy was a lemon yellow, right-hand drive, Volkswagen convertible. What he was looking for was Michael Hoare, late Major of the Katangese Army. But there was no one around the used-car showroom who looked even remotely like the photograph of Hoare Felter had shown him.

The car was priced at the Rand equivalent of $2200, but Wagner decided not to use the money Colonel Felter had given him to pay cash for it. The salesman patiently explained the hire purchase scheme available to him. One-third down would be required, with the balance to be paid over eighteen months at a 10 percent interest rate.

Karl-Heinz managed to feed the salesman the information that he was newly arrived in Durban, from Germany, as a new employee of Hessische Schwere Konstruktion (Sud Afrika). Wagner was sure that before they gave him the car on time, they would run a credit check on him. The result of that would be that HSK would not only vouch for his credit, but would relate the story of his defection from the East German Army and his crashing through the Berlin Wall. It was reasonable to presume that story would get to Hoare.

And Michael Hoare was there when Karl-Heinz went to take delivery of the Volkswagen. He introduced himself as the proprietor, but gave no indication that he knew anything more about Wagner than that he had just bought a Volkswagen on Hire Purchase.

Wagner's impression of Hoare was that he was highly intelligent and that he smelled like a soldier. He liked him.

It took him two weeks of saloon crawling to find where Hoare did his, drinking, and another four days before Hoare spoke to him.

"You're Mr. Wagner, aren't you?", Hoare said, coming to where Karl-Heinz stood at the bar. "I'm Michael Hoare. You bought your convertible from me." They shook hands.

"Give this gentleman another of what he's having," Hoare ordered.

"Right you are, Major," the bartender said.

"'Major'?" Karl-Heinz quoted questioningly.

"Late of the Chindits," Hoare said with a smile. "And more recently of the Katangese Army."

"I was a soldier," Karl-Heinz said. "In Germany."

"Were you really?" Hoare asked. He didn't seem to be especially interested, and Karl-Heinz volunteered nothing more.

Four days later he ran into Hoare at the Greyville Race Course, where according to Felter Hoare was a regular. Hoare was in a good mood, his horse had come in. He greeted Karl Heinz warmly and offered to buy him a drink. And there was another man with him, another man who smelled like a soldier.

"Edward Fitz-Mallory," Hoare made the introductions, "late lieutenant of Her Majesty's Special Air Service. Karl Wagner, late Oberleutnant of Herr Walter Ulbricht's East German Pioneer Corps." They had a couple of drinks at the racetrack bar. And Karl Heinz went home and sent a postcard to Edward T. Watson at the U.S. Embassy in Johannesburg.

"Finally getting the fish to bite. Wish you were here. W."

He had said nothing to Hoare, or his salesman, about being from East Germany or about having been an officer in the Pioneer Corps. Hoare had apparently checked him out.

(Two) Dothan, Alabama 3 April 1964 Whether his experience is limited to a Piper Cub or whether he is deadheading to Frisco to be pilot-in-command of a Pan American Airways 707 on the Over-the-Pole Route to Tokyo, only one pilot in five hundred ever completely trusts any other pilot to make a safe landing.

Newly designated Light Weapons Infantryman (Airborne) Private Jacques Emile Portet was no exception. As Southern Airlines Flight 321, thirty minutes out of Columbus, Georgia, turned on its final approach to Dothan, he sat tensely in the last single seat on the left side of the Super DC-3's cabin and peered with rapt fascination out the window, seriously questioning the ability of the pilot, who was obviously either sick or drunk, to get the ancient Gooney-Bird back on the ground in one piece.

Private Portet was fully accoutered with the regalia to which he was now entitled. His feet were shod in spit-shined Corcoran jump boots. There was a strip reading "Airborne" sewn to the shoulder seam of his blouse sleeve, and a circular embroidered representation of a parachute was sewn to his overseas cap. Plus, of course, the silver wings of a parachutist were pinned to his breast.

He had never heard of Dothan, Alabama, until yesterday, when he had been summoned to the orderly room and presented with a set of orders relieving him from 3rd Replacement Company, 3rd Armored Division (Training) Fort Knox, Kentucky, and TDY to the U.S. Army Infantry School and transferring him in grade to the U.S. Army Aviation Board, Fort Rucker, Alabama. The First Sergeant said it was a hundred miles or so down the road, and that he would be flown from Columbus, which was outside Fort Benning, to Dothan, Alabama, the nearest commercial airport to Fort Rucker. There would be an Army bus to carry him from the Dothan Airport to Fort Rucker.

Aside from Colonel Marx, there had been only one thing to recommend Fort Knox. It was reasonably close to Louisville, which, if it wasn't Brussels, at least offered decent hotels and good places to eat. So far as Jack had been able to determine, Columbus, Georgia, offered neither. And from what, he had seen of the metropolis while the pilot flew over it hoping to come across the airport, neither would Dothan, Alabama.

As the Super DC-3 pilot finally got the wings more or less parallel to the ground and remembered at the last possible moment to lower the wheels, he told himself that he should stop bitching. He could be landing in San Francisco, where after a splendid meal in a superb restaurant, the Army would load him on a plane for Saigon.

He didn't know what the Army was going to do with or to him at Fort Rucker, and he now knew enough not to get his hopes high, but it was unlikely that anyone would be shooting at him.

The Super DC-3 pilot finally got it on the runway, the tail too high. It was so far down the runway they would probably have to layover while the brakes were replaced.

Then he taxied it to the terminal, which had apparently been acquired as Army surplus. There were two Army helicopters, a Huey, the standard light-transport chopper, and a plastic-bubbled Bell two-seater sitting on the parking ramp beside a motley collection of light civilian aircraft. As Jack had walked out to board the aircraft at Columbus, he had seen two lieutenant colonels looking out the windows; the choppers were apparently waiting for them.

The moment the airplane stopped moving, almost all the passengers got to their feet and started to retrieve coats and packages. Jack stayed where he was. He often thought that if there was one thing he had learned from his lifelong experience with commercial aviation, it was that standing in the aisle didn't get you off the airplane much quicker than keeping your seat and waiting for the herd to get off.

He looked out the window at tile Huey and wondered if he was going to get a chance to fly one.

Jack presumed that his assignment to the Aviation Center meant that Colonel Marx had done something for him. Otherwise he would be boarding a charter flight in Frisco for Saigon, or Mr. Finton or Mr. Felter, whoever the hell he was, would have had the Army send him someplace else.

There had been a somewhat smug character in-basic training who had let it be known that on graduation he would be assigned to the CIC Center, so the Army apparently had a post set aside for their Intelligence people. It was entirely likely that as soon as he unpacked his duffle bag at Fort Rucker, there would be another set of orders sending him to the CIC Center to have his brains picked. As he forced the faint hope that the Army would relent and let him fly as his two-year contribution to National Defense, he turned his eyes from the window and found himself looking at a young woman.

She had been looking at him, but had quickly, rather suavely, Jack thought approvingly, looked away. She was beautiful. Black haired. Absolutely fascinating face. Smooth-skinned, just the right amount of tan. Gray, soft, intelligent eyes. Wholesome. Gentle. And absolutely marvelous knockers.

And then the stewardess remembered how to get the door open, and the girl went down the aisle and got off. Jack watched with rapt fascination as she walked from the airplane to the terminal. Her gait was graceful, and her derriere was every bit as much an example of-God's genius as her breasts. Jesus H. Christ!

Then he got up and got off the airplane himself and walked into the terminal. He looked for her at the baggage counter, but she wasn't there.

"Going out to Rucker, son?" Jack turned to see that one of the lieutenant colonels was talking to him.

"Yes, Sir."

"We've got room on a Huey if you'd like to come along."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you very much." There was a Spec-4 in a space helmet on the Huey. A crew chief. Jack hadn't known that Hueys came with crew chiefs. He let his hopes rise. At least the Army ought to give him a shot at that, without demanding another two or three years of his life.

And if he was a crew chief, the odds were that he would run into a friendly pilot who, as a fraternal gesture between pilots, would give him a little bootleg time.

There was a whine of a starter engine as he sat down on an aluminum-pipe-and-nylon-cloth seat, and almost immediately the rotor blades began to turn. His ears told him that the Huey had a turbine engine rather than pistons, and he hadn't known that either. And then they lifted off, just a couple of feet off the ground, and the pilot turned" it into the wind and dropped the nose and moved across the field, gathering speed. And then it just soared into the air.

"Where are you headed?" It was the Lieutenant Colonel again.

Jack took his orders from his inside pocket and handed them to him.

"Right on my way," the Lieutenant Colonel said. "My wife's meeting me. We'll give you a ride."

"Thank you, Sir." It was a very short flight, and then the Huey Sat down on. the grass between a runway and a parking ramp at what was obviously a very busy airport. There were too many airplanes and helicopters to count.

There was a base operations building with a control tower on top. There was a sign reading CAIRNS ARMY AIRFIELD and another reading WELCOME TO THE u.s. ARMY- AVIATION CENTER: The Lieutenant Colonel's wife was, driving a Ford station wagon, and she was equipped with an interesting set of mammary glands, too. "It's not so much that I am coveting my neighbor's wife, Jack thought", but rather that I am suffering from a near-fatal case of Lackanookie. And then there was that absolutely ravishing creature on the Gooney-Bird, which started the juices flowing. I am, going to have to get the ashes hauled as a matter of the first priority.

"That's the Board," the Lieutenant Colonel said, pointing, to a two-story, obviously brand-new concrete-block building. "Where you'll be working. But the troops are housed on the main post, and I expect you're" expected to report in there."

"Yes, Sir," Jack said, although he head absolutely no idea what the Lieutenant Colonel was talking about. They left the airfield and passed through a small town which seemed to be devoted to trailer parks, gas stations, and hockshops, and then under a sign reading FORT RUCKER, ALABAMA, HOME OF ARMY AVIATION ABOVE THE BEST.

A mile or so inside the post, the Lieutenant Colonel dropped him off in an area of freshly painted World War II-era barracks.

There was an orderly room building identified as HEADQUARTERS COMPANY, U.S. ARMY AVIATION BOARD.

The First Sergeant looked like Jack expected a first sergeant to look, but he was apparently not as prone to breathe fire as the other first sergeants with whom Jack had had contact.

He sent an Sp-5 clerk with Jack to help him draw bedding and get set up in the barracks. Compared to the double-decker bunks two feet from the next double-decker Jack had known at Knox and Benning, the squad bay looked. deserted. There were only eight single bunks in the whole place. The clerk waited while Jack made up the bunk and hung his uniforms in the wall locker, and then took him back to the orderly room.

"Colonel McNair's sent his car for you," the First Sergeant said. "I told him you had reported in, and he wants to talk to you." Then he handed Jack a small piece of cardboard. "Pass," he explained. "It's good anytime you're not on duty. You have to sign out and sign in, but you can do it by phone. I wrote the number on the back."

"Thank you," Jack said.

"You can wait outside if you want. Just keep your eyes open for a Chevy staff car with a lot of aerials on it." Jack walked from the orderly room to the main thoroughfare.

Across it was an apparently not-in-use landing strip. Toward the end, of it he saw construction equipment in use, doing something that would take the strip permanently out of service.

And then he saw a bright-red MGB coming down the road, just like the one he had delivered to K. N. Swayer in Albertville.

He remembered what Swayer had said: "Isn't that the cutest little fucker you ever saw?" and smiled.

And then the red MGB passed him, and he saw who was driving. The goddess from the Gooney-Bird. She of the trimmest ass this side of heaven. And she looked at him with something like recognition on her face.

Come back! I love you! We will ride off in your little red MGR together!

A horn blew behind Jack as the MGB disappeared down the road.

"You the guy Colonel McNair sent me to fetch?" Jack nodded.

He remembered what the First Sergeant had said about looking for a Chevy staff car with a lot of aerials. This one had a Collins aircraft antenna mounted on its roof and several whip antennae Jack didn't recognize. He got in the front seat with the driver, an Sp-4, who drove him back out to the airfield and deposited him before the concrete block building. There was a sign on this one, too: UNITED STATES ARMY AVIATION BOARD.

Wondering what that was, and who Colonel McNair was, Jack pushed open the glass door and walked inside.

Colonel John W "Mac" McNair promptly and snappily returned the salute rendered by Private Jacques Emile Portet when Jack marched in and reported to him, but kept him standing at attention for a long moment before he finally told him to stand at ease.

McNair reminded Jack of a bantam rooster. He was about five feet five inches tall, trim, redheaded and freckle-faced.

"Curiosity damned near overwhelms me, Portet," he said.

"But I have been told to keep it under control Colonel Sandy Felter is an old pal of mine, as you mayor may not know, but he tells nobody, including old pals, anything he doesn't have to." it was the first Jack had heard that? Felter was a colonel "Well, to hell with it, I'm going to ask anyway," Colonel McNair went on." "You won't fly, but you just went through jump school. You want to explain that to me?"

"Sir?"

"Simple question," Colonel McNair said, on the edge-of sarcasm. "It's my understanding that you don't wan't to fly" and yet, according to your orders, you just went through parachute school at Benning. And according to your records, you're a multiengine pilot with an ATR rating. And according to a TWX that came in here yesterday, you have a Top Secret clearance, with an, Operation Eagle endorsement, I don't even 'know' what Operation: Eagle is, but as a general rule of thumb, people with a Top Secret clearance are not considered threats to the security of the United States. So how come you're not an-officer and a pilot?"

"Sir, I'd love- to. fly," Jack said. "I just don't want to spend four years and some months more in the Army."

"That, I don't understand." Jack explained the Army's personnel, regulations as he understood how they were applied to him.

"I'll be damned," Colonel McNair said. "I didn't know that." Then he seemed to get angry. He raised his voice: "Annie!" A good looking, statuesque blonde with her hair in a bun at the base of her neck put her head in the door.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Get this young man's records, and then get together with the Adjutant and see what you can find out about his eligibility; for a direct commission, or a direct warrant. I just can't believe-what he just told me. . .1 believe him, that he's telling me what he.. has been told. I just don't believe what he was told."

"Yes, Sir."

"Between Mrs. Caskey and the Adjutant, if it's in the regulations they'll find it," Colonel McNair said. "I'm confident of that. " Jack was confident that Mrs. Caskey and the Adjutant were going to find exactly what Colonel Marx had found, that there was no way the Army was going to let him fly unless he gave, them another four years of his life, but he didn't think he should say so.

"Yes, Sir," Jack said again.

"Well, I presume Colonel Felter has told you what is expected of you here. . ."

"No, Sir."

"No, Sir?" McNair quoted incredulously.

"No, Sir," Jack repeated.

"Well, then, I'll tell you. One of my pilots has been given the additional duty of training two pilots for their expected duties in the Congo. Now, why this should be classified Secret, I have no idea. But since you are cleared for Top Secret, I feel safe in confiding in you. What you are, to do is help my man-Major Pappy Hodges-train these two officers."

"Yes, Sir."

"Could I make a wild stab in the dark and guess that you have some experience with the Douglas DC-3? The R-4D?"

"Yes, Sir," Jack said. "A couple of hundred hours in them."

"As pilot-in-command, probably?" McNair asked dryly.