"Because the Volksarmee is a communist army, and all communist armies are shit."

"Oddly enough," Michael Hoare said, "my sentiments exactly. I've often thought how much it had to cost you when you came over the Berlin Wall. That took balls."

"Not really," Karl-Heinz said. "I just couldn't take it anymore. If I hadn't left, it was just a question of time until I had too much to drink and-started running off at the mouth."

"Huh," Hoare grunted.

Near Pietermaritzburg, which is about forty-five miles from Durban, Hoare touched Karl-Heinz's arm and told him to take the next dirt road to the left. Half a mile down the road they came to a steep, natural clay cliff. Two cars and a van were already there, and a sheet of plywood had been set up as a table on sawhorses.

The table held handguns, two Colt .45 M1911 Al automatics and an assortment of others, including several small snub-nosed .38s and an enormous Smith & Wesson revolver. There was a large supply of ammunition, some of it in what appeared to be Army cans, and other shooting paraphernalia, earmuffs, cleaning rods, and so on.

Two half sheets of plywood had been set up against the clay bank. Each had a life-size silhouette target stapled to it.

Karl-Heinz recognized none of the men who came up to the car. They were all English or South African. Or maybe Irish, like Hoare. Two of them looked intelligent, somehow cultured. The third, although he was cleanly shaven, struck Karl-Heinz as a thug. He sensed that he was being evaluated by all three, and that there was a degree of resentment on the part of the thug.

They fired the pistols. Karl-Heinz was not a good pistol shot, which became quickly evident, and he was afraid he was losing stature.

"If anybody ever asks you," Michael Hoare said, "you did not see what you are about to see, Karl. Understand?" Karl-Heinz nodded. Hoare motioned with his head toward the van, and the thug, whom by now Karl-Heinz could identify as a Dutchman named Erik, went to it, opened a compartment in the floor, and came up with three weapons wrapped in canvas. He laid them on the table and unwrapped the canvas. One was an FN7mm automatic rifle, the second a Russian Kalashnikov AK-47, and the third a U.S. Army M16Al.

"The authorities take a dim view of automatic weapons," Hoare said. "You're supposed to have a permit." Karl-Heinz picked up the AK-47 and saw that it had been made in China.

"You ever see one of these?" Hoare asked, holding out the M16A.

Karl-Heinz nodded and took it from him.

"And the Fabrique Nationale?" Hoare asked.

"I've heard about them," Karl-Heinz said, and laid the M16A down and took the Belgian rifle. He had in fact put a hundred rounds through one at Fort Bragg, but he could not remember if the FN had been in foreign-weapons orientation class in East Germany.

It was a good weapon, well made and simple.

"Put a clip through it," Hoare said, indicating the cans of ammunition on the table.

Karl-Heinz removed the magazine from the FN, found 7mm ammunition, saw that the ammo had been made in China, and started thumbing cartridges into the magazine.

The thug did the same thing with an M16A magazine and then put it in the weapon and worked the action.

"Watch that muzzle," Karl-Heinz said softly but firmly.

"What?"

"Don't point that thing at me!"

"I know what I'm doing," the thug said.

"Not if you're pointing it at me, you don't."

"Shit!" the thug said.

Karl-Heinz grabbed the M16Al barrel, jerked the weapon out of the thug's hands, removed the magazine, worked the action to eject the cartridge in the magazine, and then tossed the M16Al to Hoare.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't like the way your friend handles weapons."

"You sonofabitch!" the thug said. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Someone who doesn't want to get shot in the belly by an asshole," Karl-Heinz said.

"I'll cut you a new asshole, you sonofabitch!" the thug said, squatted, and came out of the squat with a knife in his hand. He had apparently had it strapped to his ankle.

Karl-Heinz turned his back on him and faced Hoare.

"Mike, you better tell your friend to put that thing away before I stick it up his ass." He heard footsteps behind, spun around, and saw the thug, his face contorted by fury and excitement, coming toward him in a crouch; Karl-Heinz squatted quickly, scooped up a handful of sand, and threw it in the thug's face as he got to his feet. Then he kicked him in the crotch, bent over the writhing man, snatched the knife from him, and threw it toward the targets.

"If he wasn't a friend of yours, I would have cut his balls off," he said to Hoare.

The other two applauded.

"Erik," Michael Hoare said to the man on the ground, his voice flat and cold, "when you can move, get in the van and stay there." He turned to face Karl-Heinz. "You're very good," he said.

"I think maybe you better take me home," Karl-Heinz said. "I don't know what's going on here, but I don't like it."

"Nothing else like that will happen," Hoare said. "I give you my word." He smiled. "Don't you want to fire the FN?"

"Why not?" Karl-Heinz said after a moment. He put the magazine in the FN, put the rifle to his shoulder, and fired two bursts at the knife lying on the sand in front of the targets. He didn't know if he had hit it or not, but when the dust subsided, the knife was no longer in sight.

"Erik," Hoare said to the thug, who by then was sitting up, white-faced, "I think you should also remember that Lieutenant Wagner doesn't forget quickly." Then he turned to Karl-Heinz again. Smiling broadly, as if making it a joke, he said solemnly, "Let me say, Lieutenant Wagner, on behalf of myself and my staff, that we are delighted that you have changed sides."

"Hear, hear," the other two said.

"And with that, gentlemen," Hoare said, we will take our leave." The other two came to attention, stamped their feet in the military manner, and barked, "Sir!" In the Porsche, Karl-Heinz said, "Are you going to tell me what the hell that was all about?" Hoare looked at him and smiled. "I'm glad you didn't cut Erik's balls off. Good ordnance sergeants are hard to come by."

"Ordnance sergeants?"

"You have been in South Africa long enough to hear that when I'm not selling cars, I am the infamous Major Hoare of the Katanga mercenaries," Hoare said. "Why is it that you've never mentioned it?"

"I figured if you wanted to talk about it, you would."

"Now's the time, then," Hoare said. "Charley-the tall one was my GSO-2-intelligence officer. And Reggie was my personnel officer."

"Was?" Karl-Heinz said.

"There is no question in my mind that very shortly a situation will develop in the ex-Congo Belge which the armed forces of me Democratic Republic will not be able to handle."

"I don't think I want to hear any more of this."

"Let me finish," Hoare said. "The same thought has run through the minds of certain members of the Congo government. Funds have been made available to me to begin setting up another force-"

"I don't want anything to do with it."

"-which would permit me to pay my GSO-3-plans and manning officer-two thousand dollars a month. For what really would be part-time work."

"Dollars? American dollars?" the funds are available in Switzerland, in dollars," Hoare said.

"I don't want to go to a South African jail," Karl-Heinz said. "And if Hessische Schwere Konstruktion heard of it, I would lose my job."

"We will violate no South African law," Hoare said. "But believe me, Karl-Heinz, unless they heard we were plotting the overthrow of the Pretoria government, there's no way the South Africans are going to bother us. They don't want a communist government on their northern border."

"What kind of communists?"

"Chinese, Russian, Czech, and possibly East German. I would bet on the Russians or East Germans. Would that pose any problems for you-the East Germans?"

"Is that why you want me? Because I'm an East German?"

"What I need is someone to come up with a training schedule," Hoare said, "together with a table of organization and equipment, and then to oversee the receipt of the equipment when it arrives." Karl-Heinz said nothing.

"I took you to meet Charley and Reggie so they could have a look at you," Hoare said: "After the way you handled Erikwell, that's all they had to see."

"Most of your troops are like Erik?" Karl-Heinz asked.

"Knife-wielding thugs?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Hoare replied honestly. "They need really special officers to keep them in line. You're obviously the kind of officer we need."

"Ach, Gott!"

"I have two more arguments," Hoare said. "I am in a position to pay a recruitment bonus-"

"What kind of a bonus? How much?"

"You're driving it," Hoare said. "And if it becomes necessary to field the commando, the two thousand five hundred dollars will seem like peanuts."

"What does that mean?"

"To the victor goes the spoils," Hoare said evenly.

"And if HSK finds out and I get fired, then what?"

"I think it would be best if you stayed on with HSK," Hoare said. "But if something should happen, no problem. You'd have a job the next day." He put out his hand. After a moment Karl-Heinz took his hand from the leather-covered steering wheel of the Porsche and shook it.

(Two) Rhine Main Air Base Frankfurt am Main, Germany 16 May 1964 Barbara and Marjorie Bellmon had driven Mrs. Louise Hodges and Mrs. Ursula Craig to the airport in Dothan and put them aboard a Southern Airways flight to Atlanta. There they changed to Eastern and flew to Newark. From Newark they traveled by bus to McGuire Air Force Base, which is adjacent to Fort Dix, New Jersey. At McGuire, when Mrs. Craig's condition was noticed-as coached by Mesdames Bellmon and Hodges-she firmly stated she was five months, no more, into her pregnancy.

A visibly disbelieving medical officer finally cleared her to board a DC-8 of World Airlines, under government charter, for the flight to Frankfurt am Main.

Ursula was uncomfortable in her narrow seat and could not sleep, but there were no real problems. She didn't even get sick to her stomach, and she would have bet that she would. In the Military Terminal at Rhine Main, an Army Transportation Corps sergeant examined their orders and issued them a voucher. Lufthansa would honor that, he said, and issue their tickets from Frankfurt to Brussels and from Brussels to the Congo. He pointed out the door through which they should go to find a bus to the civilian side of the field and added that he was sorry but they were going to have to worry about getting their luggage over to Lufthansa themselves.

They got on the bus, rode across the field, and unloaded their luggage at the Lufthansa Terminal.

"You sit on the bags, honey," Louise Hodges ordered. "I'll go see what's going on. You all right?"

"Fine," Ursula said, forcing a smile.

Louise Hodges didn't see anything resembling a skycap inside the Lufthansa Terminal, so she went to the neatest counter and spoke to a rather startlingly beautiful black-haired counter girl.

"I'm going to need some help with some luggage."

"Are you booked on Lufthansa?"

"I will be as soon as I hand over an Army travel voucher," Louise said a little snappishly.

"May I see the voucher, please?" the beautiful girl said.

Louise handed it over.

"Hurry it up, will you?" Louise said. "The lady with me is in the family way." There was a near miraculous change in attitude, but it was not caused, as Louise thought, by sisterly concern for a pregnant woman.

"Just one moment, please, Mrs. Hodges, the beautiful girl said with a warm smile. She disappeared through a door. When she returned, she was accompanied by a well-dressed man holding a rose in each hand, and a nurse in whites.

"My dear Mrs. Hodges," he said. "Welcome to Germany!" He handed her a rose.

"And where is Mrs. Craig?"

"Outside, sitting on our bags," Louise said, eyeing the rose almost suspiciously.

"Oh, my," he said. "I trust everything is all right?"

He headed for the door, trailed by the nurse, the beautiful young woman, and two baggage handlers. He went to Ursula, bowed, and handed her a rose. The nurse grabbed the hand holding the rose and took Ursula's purse. There followed a three-way conversation in German, far too fast for Louise to comprehend.

"What's going on?" Louise Hodges asked.

Ursula looked a little uncomfortable.

"I just told them I'm fine and that I don't want to go to a hotel here," Ursula said.

"They're giving you trouble about getting on the plane?" Louise asked.

"Oh, no," Ursula answered. "He wants to know if I would be more comfortable on a helicopter between here and Brussels."

"I'm sure you would," Louise said. "How much would that cost?"

"It's been taken care of," Ursula said softly.

"Geoff?" Louise asked.

"Geoff's father."

"Oh. "

"And a car will meet us in Brussels and take us to the Westbury Hotel for the night, then back to the airport in the morning," Ursula said. "There will be another nurse, and a doctor if I need one. What should I do, Louise?"