"Of course," J. Edward Winton said.

"I'm sure you understand my position, Stan. You know how the Director is." "Yes, I certainly do," Felter said," But if there's any problem about this, Ed-I need this stuff today--call, me- so I can get it straightened out, will you?"

"Absolutely."

They shook hands and smiled at each other then Felter left" the Deputy Director for Liaison 's office and got in his, battered and wheezing Volkswagen and. headed back for the District of Columbia," '" There was no doubt in his mind that the moment he'd walked out of the office, J. Edward Winton. had called his counterpart at the State Department and warned him that Felter was enroute; and more important that Felter had been in his office and: announced that he had been reappointed under President Johnson to the job "he'd held under Kennedy.

J. Edward Wintons' counterpart at State was another fucking bureaucrat, and fucking bureaucrats had remarkably similar-and predictable behavior patterns, one of which was that they took care to scratch each other's backs.

"Felter drove to the FBI, not to, the State Department. He knew there would be no trouble at the FBl about his access to, whatever he wanted to see. And when he didn't show up, at State when he was supposed to, J. Edward Winton's credibility would be lessened.

And he was sure that when he got to his office in the old State-War-and-Navy Building, there would be a neatly dressed man from the company sitting there waiting for him, with a briefcase stuffed with the material he had asked for.

IX.

(One) Fort Rucker, Alabama 18 April 1964 "General," Captain John C. Oliver said as he stood in Bellmon's office doorway, "they say they have no Colonel Felter."

"Are they still on the line?"

"No, Sir," Oliver said.

"Get the number again," Bellmon said and picked up his telephone. He listened as his secretary gave the Fort Rucker operator the number he wanted in Washington, D.C. The called party answered on the third ring.

"The White House. Good afternoon."

"I have a person-to-person call for Colonel Sanford I. Felter," the Fort Rucker operator said.

"One moment, please," the White House operator said, and then came back on the line a moment later. "I'm sorry, Operator. We have no one here by that name."

"This is Major General Robert F. Bellmon, United States Army," Bellmon said. "Please put me through to Colonel Felter."

"I'm sorry, Sir," the operator said. "There is no one here by that name."

"Put the duty officer on the line," Bellmon ordered.

"I beg your pardon, Sir?"

"I happen to know that the White House switchboard is operated by the Signal Corps and that a duty officer is always on duty. I wish to speak to him."

"One moment, please, Sir." It was a good thirty seconds, which seemed to Bellmon considerably longer than that, before a male voice came on the line.

"Major Lemes."

"Major, this is General Bellmon. I command the Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker."

"How can I be of assistance, Sir?"

"You can either tell the operator to put me through to Colonel Sanford T. Felter or you can call Colonel Felter and tell him I am trying to reach him on a "matter of some importance."

Major Lemes hesitated before replying.

"Will you hold, please, General?" Very faintly, as if Major Lemes had covered the mouthpiece of his telephone with his hand, Bellmon heard: "I need a location on the Mouse." And then there was nothing for a very long moment but a faint electronic hiss. And then the familiar voice.

"This is Colonel Felter, Sir."

"You're a, hard man to get on the phone, Sandy," Bellmon said."

"I'm sorry about that, Sir. You were on the old authorized list. Apparently you were dropped from a new one. I'll looking to it. It won't happen again. What can I do for you, General?"

"There's some bad news, Sandy," Bellman said. "I have just been informed of an airplane crash in Norman, Oklahoma. Both pilots of an L-23 engaged in a cross-country training flight have been killed."

"And the aircraft?"

"Totaled. "

"What happened?" Felter asked."

"I don't know," Bellmon said. "All I have is the report from the airport manager at Norman. He called the duty officer here. My Chief of Staff's on the line to Fort Sill right now, asking them to send their accident investigation crew to the site, to at least hold it down until I can get my accident people out there."

"What did the airport manager have to say?" Felter asked.

"Just that it crashed and burned. They had filed a flight plan to here. So he called us. Maybe they lost an engine on takeoff. . . . I just don't know, Sandy."

"Damn!" Felter said.

"Both were married and had small children," Bellmon said.

"I know."

"I assumed you would wish to hear about it as soon as possible."

"I don't know what can be done about an airplane," Felter said, as if thinking aloud. "Something, I'm sure. In the meantime, General, I would be grateful if you would make me up, a list of potential replacements. I'll get there as-soon as I can. I don't know when that will be. I'm. . . not in Washington, But replacements for plane and crew will have to be found right now:"

"That'll be difficult, I'm afraid."

"Yes, I suppose it will. I'll be in touch as soon as I know something," Felter said. "General, have you called McDill? I mean, have you informed Lowell?"

"No, but if you want me to, I will," Bellmon said.

"Would you please? And thank you for Calling me, General. And please extend my condolences to the families."

Bellmon put the telephone back into its cradle and then slumped back in his chair. He turned in order the face the window. He could see the flagpole from his office window, and the headquarters parade ground. There was the reveille and retreat cannon. A Huey sat on the grass, waiting for General Bellmon, as a jeep had once waited for another General Bellmon at Fort Knox, and a stallion had once waited for still another General Bellmon at Fort Riley.

He wondered if his father and his grandfather felt as he did now, that the toughest job in the Army had nothing to do with the battlefield. He sat there for a moment deep in thought, his shoulders slumped. And then he pushed himself out of his chair.

"Johnny!" he called. "Are we ready to go?"

"Yes, Sir," his aide-de-camp said. "The chaplain and the surgeon are here, and Mrs. Bellmon will be waiting for us on Red Cloud Road." The toughest job in the Army is knocking on the door of dependent quarters to tell the occupants that their sponsor will not be returning. Ever.

You don't have to tell them, Bellmon thought. They know the moment they open the door and see the General, and the General's wife, and the aide and the chaplain and the surgeon standing there.

(Two) The Texas White House 18 April 1964 When the White House Communications Agency put through the call from General Bellman, Colonel Felter was in the company of the President of the United States. The President was in a good mood. He had not only just knocked a little of the smugness out of three members of the Secret Service., but had won twenty-six dollars in the process.

The President had challenged three off-duty members of his protective staff to shoot a little trap. ..

"Me and Felter," the President had said. "And you three. Dollar a bird. Winner takes all. And me and Felter will shoot from the twenty-yard line. How 'bout it?" The Secret Service agents had all been thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, including shotguns, of course. And, in addition, one of them thought of himself as a pretty good trapshooter.

His concern as they began to shoot, was how the President of the United States was going to react if he was beaten and, if the President was serious about the dollar a bird, what he should do if the President started handing him money.

The Secret Service agent's fears that his superior marksmanship might somehow humiliate the President were soon proved to be invalid. Sharing the President's well-worn Winchester Model 12 pump gun, and firing from the twenty-yard line, the President and Colonel Felter both went straight during the first round. That is to say that fifty clay pigeons were thrown into the air and neither President nor Colonel Felter missed one of them.

Of the seventy five birds thrown from the sixteen-yard line for the three Secret Service agents to shoot at with Remington Model 1100s, ten birds sailed unscathed through the rain of number seven-and-a-half shot.

The second round was just about as humiliating for the agents.

Colonel Felter dropped two birds from twenty yards and the President missed one. The Secret Service dropped fourteen from the sixteen-yard line.

The trapshooting Secret Service agent's question as to whether the President was serious about a dollar a bird was answered when he saw him extending his hand, palm upward, toward Colonel Felter, and then saw Felter put two dollar-bills into it, one for each of his misses.

At that point the telephone rang. More accurately, it buzzed, and began flashing a small red light on its side. The telephone was on a long cable that connected to a box in the ground, and the box connected to the switchboard. Both the President and Felter looked peevishly toward the phone. The President had left word that he didn't want to be bothered, when he was On the trap range.

One of the on-duty Secret Service agents answered it, then handed it to the man with the bag, today an Army Lieutenant colonel charged with carrying the bag containing today's firing codes for nuclear weapons. His orders were never to be more than three seconds from the Commander-in-Chief.

"Colonel Felter," the Lieutenant Colonel called out, "it's a General Bellmon for you. Will you take it, Sir?" Felter went to the telephone.

When he was finished, he walked back to the President, who was folding into a neat oblong the money he had just accepted from the Secret Service.

He looked at Felter with his bushy eyebrows raised.

"You look a little unhappy, Sandy" the President said. "Anything wrong?" The President liked Felter. Deep in his gut he liked the hardass little guy. And he was aware that it was strange that he should, and he wondered why he did. The best answer he, had come up with was that he could trust Felter.

"An Army aircraft has crashed, Sir, killing the two. pilots aboard."

"You on the notification list for airplane crashes, Colonel?"

"No, Sir," Felter said. "This was a special situation."

"I was about to suggest we take these three sharpshooters up to the house and buy them a drink with their own money;" the President said, "but I wanted to talk to you about Army airplanes anyhow, and this is as good a time as any. " He turned to the Secret Service agents. "Thanks, fellas, I enjoyed it. We'll have to do it again sometime after you've had some practice and can come up with some more money." They laughed dutifully. The President handed the nearest agent the Winchester Model 12. "Put that in the rack when it's clean, will you?"

"Yes, Mr. President," the agent said.

The President, his arm around Felter's shoulder, started for the house. The man with the bag followed him. The Secret Service agent with the telephone put it in the box in the ground and then ran after him, his walkie-talkie to his mouth, relaying to the other agents the information that John Wayne and the Mouse were en route to the house. The Presidential trapshooting bothered the Secret. Service, for by definition it meant that someone with a loaded weapon and with a finger, on the trigger would be in range of the President. It didn't matter that three of the other four shooters were Secret Service agents. There could be an accident. And Colonel Felter was not in the Secret Service.

It had been proposed-and at the last moment decided against-posting an agent with a telescopically equipped highpowered rifle. His mission would have been to keep Colonel Felter in the crosshairs so long as he held a weapon in his hand.

In the end, because John Wayne was liable to hear about it and blow his cork, the decision was not to use the sharpshooter, but rather to instruct the Secret Service trapshooters to go to the range with their revolvers and to keep an eye on the Mouse.

Inside the house, the President ordered the Navy Filipino mess steward to prepare drinks, after which he left the room to wash his hands. When he returned to the living room he announced, "Everybody out, I want to talk to Felter." When they were alone he said, "That was good for them. A little humility is good for the soul. And it cost them. Not much. But enough so they'll remember it. Win or lose, if it's for free, it don't mean a goddamned thing." Felter smiled.

"Where'd you learn to shoot like that, Felter?"

"A friend taught me," Felter said. "An officer named Craig Lowell. He has a trap range very much like this one."

"That's the one who owns most of downtown New York City?"

"So it is alleged, Sir," Felter said with a smile.

"Where's he now?"

"He's at McDill Air Force Base, Sir. He's the Army Aviation Officer on the staff of General Evans at STRICOM."

"Then he wasn't one of the pilots killed in the plane crash?"

"No, Sir."

"I thought it might have been him," the President said. "Since General Bellmon called you. . . here. . . about it."

"No, Sir."

"I'm a little curious, Felter, about what you're up to."

"Sir?"

"Both the Army Chief of Staff and the head of the CIA are curious, too," the President said. "Both of them have made a point of telling me they could be more helpful if they knew what you were up to. I just smiled my shit-eating grin at them and said thank you. But what the hell are you up to?"

Felter hesitated. "I'd rather not make that an order, Colonel," the President said, a tinge of impatience in his voice.

"Nothing that should concern the Director ,or the Chief of Staff, Sir. I'm sorry their intelligence about me is so good."

"I'd hate to think you were pissing around the bush with me, Felter," the President said. "I would be very disappointed with you."

"When I was over there, I wasn't particularly impressed with the CIA people in South Africa or in Leopoldville, ex -Belgian Congo. So I put my own man in Durban and had Special Forces, through General Evans at STRICOM, put a couple more A-Teams into the Congo. I was about to send another airplane and a couple. of pilots to the Congo so they would have a means to get around if necessary.

That was the plane that crashed. They were on a training flight long-distance flight by the seat of their pants."

"You think something's going to happen over there, don't you?"

"Yes, Sir," Felter said. "There's no doubt that we're going to have trouble over there."

"Gimmea for example?"

"Both the Russians and the Chinese communists stand to gain from any trouble they can cause in Africa, and they can cause trouble both cheaply and in ways that will not arouse public opinion against them. Not that they are, generally speaking, much concerned with public opinion," Felter said.

"Keep talking," the President said.

"The Chinese, for example-and I believe, Mr. President, that we're going to have more trouble from them than from the Soviets-are already extending the band of socialist brotherhood all over Africa. There's a racial element, of course, which they have been clever enough: to exploit: the yellow and black brothers against the white man. The Chicom embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi, which abuts the x-Belgian Congo-the whole country is about as big as New Jersey-is three hundred men strong. They've sent doctors and teachers and are building dams and roads. The CIA has evidence that some of the crates they've shipped into Burundi, allegedly containing construction equipment, actually contain small arms and ammunition-"

"I've seen the reports," the President interrupted.