Two hundred yards behind and out of sight of the last vehicle, he stopped the jeep in the middle of the road and got out. There was virtually no shoulder here; there was thick tropical growth within feet of both sides of the worn macadam two-lane road.

"We need to talk," Hoare said to Karl-Heinz. .

Hoare was carrying a Sten 9mm submachine gun suspended from his shoulder by a web strap. Even though the strap was there, he had his hand on it. There was no way to tell whether he had his hand on it that way to keep it from slipping off his shoulder or because he thought he might shortly -and suddenly - have to use it.

And in that instant Karl-Heinz knew that Hoare was not going to discuss the attack on Albertville.

He got out of the jeep, leaving his FN assault rifle behind. He had a Browning 9mm automatic in a canvas holster hanging from his web belt, but there was no way he could get near it.

"That's far enough, Karl," Hoare said when Karl-Heinz was perhaps ten feet from him.

"I beg your pardon?" Karl-Heinz said, but he stopped in his tracks.

"You're a good officer, Karl," Hoare said. "I'm sure you're familiar with what von Clausewitz had to say about surprises that a commander can't afford any."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"From this moment on, Wagner," Hoare said, "no evasions.

No playing around with words. We're about to get this show started and I don't have the time to toy with you." Karl-Heinz nodded.

"There is an ANC corporal who is really an American Green Beret," Hoare said. "A technical sergeant, I believe. He seems to know you rather well. I want an explanation of that." They locked eyes for a moment.

I cannot successfully lie to this man. More important, I do not want to.

"Sergeant Portley," Karl-Heinz said. "We served in Vietnam together."

"You told me-and somebody went to a good deal of trouble to make sure there were records to support it-that you had served in the East German Army and escaped over the Berlin Wall. You told me that, Karl, and I believed you."

"It's true, Mike," Karl-Heinz said.

"And now you're telling me you were a Green-Beret in the American Army?"

"I am," Karl-Heinz said. "I mean, I am presently a Green Beret officer. . . a lieutenant."

"CIA? Is that it?"

"No. Not CIA. The only man the CIA had on you is the one you suspected and left behind."

"Then what?"

"I was sent to South Africa to keep my eye on you. I can't tell you more than that except that it was not by the CIA."

"For what purpose?"

"There is a man. . . at the highest levels-do I make that point? -who wanted someone with you who could give him an accurate assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and plans."

"That's espionage," Hoare said.

"That's intelligence. Neutral. Espionage is conducted by an enemy. This man is not an enemy."

"And you have been making reports on us?" Karl-Heinz nodded.

"That's treason," Hoare said coldly.

"Same argument, Colonel," Karl-Heinz said. "I have not furnished information to your enemies."

"Can you give me one reason I should not end this academic discussion of who you are loyal to and why in what seems to me to be the only practical way?"

"My sister and nephew are in Stanleyville," Karl-Heinz said.

"Under those circumstances you could reasonably presume my unquestioning loyalty until we take Stanleyville."

Hoare's surprise showed on his face, but he didn't respond.

"And you need me, Colonel. Most of your officers are a joke." Hoare's eyes tightened.

"What are your sister-and your nephew, you said? doing in Stanleyville?"

"A UTA flight to Leopoldville stranded them there." Hoare exhaled audibly. "The bloody damned thing is that I want desperately to believe you."

"I have told you the truth, Colonel," Karl-Heinz said simply.

"You are a cold-blooded bastard, aren't you?" Hoare said, surprise and a touch of admiration in his voice. "You're not even afraid."

"I am very afraid," Karl-Heinz said. "Not so much of dying, but of dying before I can do something to help my sister and my nephew."

The two looked into each other's eyes for a moment.

And then Hoare shrugged. "I do need you," he said. "And I really would have hated to shoot you." He put out his hand.

"Thank you," Karl-Heinz said, and then, formally: "I stand at your orders, Colonel."

"Friendlies coming through!" an obviously American voice called out from ten feet inside the thick bush. "Friendlies coming through !" Mad Mike Hoare looked at Karl-Heinz Wagner, who was shaking his head and smiling.

Two black men in ANC uniforms crashed through the brush and onto the road, one of them a very small, fragile-appearing man wearing PFC stripes, the other "Corporal" Portley. They both carried FN 7mm assault rifles.

"I'm glad you and Dutch came to an agreement," Portley said.

"You look like a pretty good officer, Colonel. I would have hated to blow you away." Hoare looked as if he were going to say something and then changed his mind about saying what had popped into it.

"And you, I presume," he said to the very small, fragile-appearing PFC, "are also an American Green Beret sergeant?" The small man saluted crisply. "Actually, Sir, I'm a first lieutenant. Williamson is my name, Colonel."

Thirty minutes later The Congo Foreign Legion, following a softening attack with rockets, bombs, and machine-gun fire from T-28 aircraft, marched on Albertville, essentially following the American tactic of reconnaissance by fire. They fired at everything that moved and at every place that might have housed a machine-gun position, or a rifleman, or a half-naked African armed with a spear. In an hour they had swept the city clean of Simbas. No prisoners were taken.

(Two) The Presidential Apartments The White House Washington, D.C. 2100 Hours 1 September 1964 When the Director of the United States Information Agency was ushered into the Presidential sitting room, he tried but did net quite manage to keep a look of annoyance and displeasure off his face-he saw that he was not to have five minutes alone with the President of the United States. Colonel Sanford T. Felter was in the room, sitting on the edge of an armchair, talking on the telephone.

"Get him a cup of coffee," the President said to a white jacketed steward as he waved an impatient finger at the Director of the USIA. Then he looked at him. "Be right with you, Earl," he said.

The implication was clear. Everything was on hold until Felter got off the telephone.

"OK," Felter said, and hung up without saying good-bye. He looked at the President and shook his head. The President shrugged, as if he expected bad news.

"OK, Earl. What's up?"

"I appreciate your making time for me, Mr. President," the Director of the USIA said. "I really thought it was necessary."

"I'm sure you did," the President said impatiently.

The Director of the USIA waited just long enough to be sure that Felter was not going to leave.

"I'm sure, Mr. President," the USIA chief said, "that you are familiar with the Leo cable concerning the missionary report that the rebels intend to hold all Stanleyville Americans and Europeans hostage?" The President nodded. The USIA chief handed him, nevertheless, a copy of the cable, and then went on: "And with the one from the Ambassador in Bujumbura, vis-a-vis the plea of the Catholic bishop?" He handed a second cable to the President, who glanced a1 it quickly and then handed both to Felter.

Felter glanced over them. He had seen both of them hours before. The cable from the U.S. Embassy in Leopoldville simply passed on to the State Department what had been reported to it by both (American) Roman Catholic and Christian Missionary Alliance missionaries; that they had heard the rebel-controlled Radio Stanleyville announce that Europeans and Americans in Stanleyville would be held hostage until Moishe Tshombe's government stopped using mercenaries. Radio Stanleyville, referring to the mercenaries as HLes Affreux,"

"The Horrible Ones," had gone on for nearly an hour about the criminal and uncivilized behavior of the mercenaries who had retaken Albertville.

The cable from the U.S. Embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi, relayed an appeal from the (Italian) Roman Catholic Bishop of Uvira addressed to the President of the United States. The Bishop said that following the bombing and strafing attack on Uvira, the "People's Liberation Army" had summarily executed. two Italians. On behalf of himself, twelve priests, nine nuns, and six laymen, the Bishop pleaded with the President of the United States to call off all bombing.

"We've seen these, Earl," the President said. "So what's on your mind?"

"It has come to my attention, Mr. President," the USIA chief said, "that the bishop-the Italian one-has sent a copy of this cable to the Vatican and to the Maryknoll religious community here. I don't know what the Vatican will do, of course, but I have it on very reliable authority that the Maryknoll priests plan to call a news conference, in which they will condemn all United States military intervention in the Congo."

"Let me tell you something, Earl," the President said. "Pay attention. There's two things going on in the Congo. One, which pisses me off mightily, is a bunch of jungle bunnies invading a U.S. Consulate and pissing on the American flag. I would love to do something about that. But I'm the President of the United States, and my name is Johnson, not Teddy Roosevelt; and this is now, not a long time ago; and I can't send the Marines-as much as I'd like to. . . . But understand me good, Earl. What the Maryknoll priests or the Vatican think is right or wrong has nothing to do with that decision. You understand all that?"

"Yes, of course, Mr. President," the Director of the USIA said. His lips were tight.

"The other thing that's going on in the Congo," the President said, "is that the Chinese communists, cheered on by the Soviets, are behind that lunatic Olenga. It's entirely likely that they'll misjudge me and go further than the President of the United States can let them go. If that happens, if it looks to me as if they stand a chance to take over the Congo, I'll do whatever I think is in the best interests of the United States. By that I mean military intervention. And if the Maryknoll priests, or anybody else, don't like it, fuck 'em. If they want to run things, let them run for office. Right now I hold the office."

"I brought the issue up, Mr. President," the Director of the USIA said, "solely to inform you of a potentially difficult public relations situation. I believe that is my duty."

"It is-and you do it well. But let me add to your burden, Earl. [ have it on very reliable authority that until Felter managed to get it on hold-not stop it, just put it on hold-tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, plus of course the Washington Post, and every other major newspaper in the country, would have carried a full-page advertisement, signed by some of the most prominent people in the country. Under a banner headline reading "Shame!" it would have questioned this administration's handling of the Stanleyville Problem."

"I don't understand, Mr. President." the chief of USIA said.

"You ever heard of Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes, Earl?"

"The investment bankers?" The President nodded. "The Chairman of the Board is a man named Porter Craig. His daughter-in-law and his first and only grandchild-a baby boy-are in Stanleyville. I knew he was rich and powerful, Earl, but I was surprised to find how many prominent Democrats are more afraid of him than they are of me . . . and were willing to sign their names to his advertisement." The announcement obviously greatly surprised the Director of the USIA.

"Did I understand you to say, Mr. President, that the advertisement will not run?"

"Felter's got it on hold, I said. I don't know how long that will last."

"How did you do that?" the Director of the USIA asked Felter, greatly surprised.

Felter looked at the President.

"Tell him," Johnson ordered.

"Mr. Porter Craig is close to an Army officer," Felter said carefully. "I managed to convince that officer that we are already doing everything that can be done, and that such an advertisement, at this time, would be counterproductive."

"Watch out, Earl," the President said. "I'm getting the idea that Felter's pretty good doing what you're supposed to do. Maybe he's really after your job."

"Mr. President," Felter asked, "may I show the Director the U Thant intercept?"

"Yeah, why not?" the President said after a moment's hesitation.

It was the first document classified Top Secret-Presidential Eyes Only that the head of the USIA had ever seen.

It reported that at 1705 Hours 30 September the Defense Intelligence Agency had intercepted and decrypted a message from the Swiss Foreign Ministry to the Swiss Ambassador to the United States. The Swiss Ambassador was directed to pass on to UN General Secretary U Thant a message from Lieutenant General Nicholas Olenga, Commander-in-Chief of the People's Army of Liberation in Stanleyville. In the message Olenga warned U Thant that he was holding five hundred hostages-"white men, women, and children"-against "any air raids by the Congolese government." He accused the UN, the International Red Cross, and the World Health Organization of an "imperialist plot."

"Well," the USIA chief said, "this will help of course. World opinion will go against him. In a public-relations sense, threatening women and children is not the thing to do."

"You can't use it," the President said. "Not until-if-U Thant releases it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"And I wouldn't take any heavy bets that he will ever release it," the President said. "He's had it since seven o'clock last night, and so far not a peep out of him. I think the sonofabitch agrees with your assessment that threatening children is stupid, and he wants to protect those bastards from their own stupidity."

"But Mr. President, we have it!" the USIA chief said.

"It was a tough call," the President said. "In the end I decided the price was too high. If we let that out, the Swiss will know we've broken their unbreakable code. Not only would that highly piss them off, but we wouldn't get to read any more of their mail for a while. Some of the Swiss mail is very interesting, Earl." The telephone rang. The President pushed the flashing button and picked the instrument up. "Yeah?" he said, listened a moment. "OK. Delay him a couple of minutes and then send him up. McCone, too, when he gets here." He replaced the phone.

"That's General Wheeler," the President said to Felter. "Do you want to see him?"

"No, Sir."

"OK," the President said. "Do what has to be done, Felter."

"Yes, Sir."

"Mr. President," the head of the USIA said. "How am I supposed to handle this?"

"Just keep pissing on the flaming embers, Earl. And keep your mouth shut about that U Thant intercept. So far, in the White House only you, me, and Felter have seen it."

(Three) Fort Bragg, North Carolina 1305 Hours 2 September 1964 The Commanding General of the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center (ex officio, the senior Green Beret of the U.S. Army) and the Commanding Officer of the 7th Special Forces Group did not at the moment look either ferocious or even much like professional warriors.

Brigadier General Paul T. Hanrahan was wearing a pale yellow, short-sleeved, knit-cotton shirt over aquamarine trousers.

Colonel Edwin P. Mitchell was wearing an orange short-sleeved shirt over blue-and-yellow plaid trousers. They were wearing identical caps, blue, and yellow plaid with a fuzzy yellow tassel.

Their wives, separately and coincidentally, had bought the caps for them on sale in the PX.

When General Hanrahan told his wife that Ed Mitchell had an identical cap, she said she was surprised. Patricia Hanrahan said she personally thought it so ugly that no one else would buy one. It had, she pointed out, been marked down three times from $6.95 to ninety-nine cents. And she added that she had bought it as a joke, never thinking he would have the balls to actually wear it in public.

It had not been a very satisfactory husband-wife confrontation.

And, of course, after that he had to wear it.