He wondered what Ed Mitchell thought of his cap. He had never asked.

General Hanrahan and Colonel Mitchell had a standing golf date for 1300 on Wednesdays. There was almost a military purpose to it. For one thing, with command came a lot of time sitting on your ass; and if nothing else golf provided the exercise of a long walk. And playing on Wednesday afternoons served two purposes: It broke the workweek exactly in half. And the course was not busy in the middle of the week. That kept him from competing for available weekend space with officers and soldiers who did not have the prerogative of commanding officers to take off when they damned well pleased. And finally, they always played alone, which allowed them to exchange confidences as they walked down the fairways that would have been difficult to discuss elsewhere. Hanrahan ran the school; Mitchell commanded the resident group. They usually had a lot to talk about.

And finally, since they played together, no one was privy to their scorecards. This removed the temptation of their juniors to mock them. It was a rare day indeed when either of them managed to get a round in under ninety.

They had just moved from the first green to the second tee when a jeep came cutting across the grass toward them. Hanrahan glanced at it and saw it was festooned with antennae. His aide de-camp was sitting beside the driver. He drove saluted.

Hanrahan returned it.

"I don't think you're required to salute people wearing plaid hats with tassels," Hanrahan said. "But thank you anyway. What's up, Charley?"

"A chief warrant officer named Finton called, Sir. Colonel Mitchell is to stand by at Pope from 1415. He is to have uniforms for five days."

"Who the hell is CWO Finton?" Ed Mitchell asked.

"Sandy Felter's gofer," Hanrahan said. "I gather this was in the nature of an order, Charley?"

"Yes, Sir. He said that if you, General, have any questions, Colonel Felter will answer them sometime later today when he has access to a scrambler phone."

"That's a little autocratic, isn't it?" Mitchell said.

Hanrahan looked at his watch. "You've got an hour and ten minutes, Ed," he said. "Is that going to be enough?"

"Yes, Sir." They put their golf bags into the jeep. Colonel Mitchell and the aide-de-camp crowded uncomfortably into the back seat and General Hanrahan got in the front. The jeep returned in the direction it had come. As it moved across the course, a golf cart driven by an obviously annoyed master sergeant, the golf course manager, headed to intercept it. That goddamned jeep is leaving ruts all over my goddamned fairway! And then he saw who was in the front seat and turned away.

When Colonel Mitchell got to Base Operations at Pope Air Force Base at 1355, there was an Air Force CT-39E, a small, twin-engine jet transport, waiting for him. An hour and fifteen minutes later it dropped him off before Base Operations at McDill Air Force Base, Florida.

At 1525, two hours and twenty-five minutes from the moment he had teed off at the Fort Bragg golf course, Colonel Mitchell entered the office of the Commander-in-Chief, United States Strike Command.

The STRICOM 1-2, Colonel Sanford T. Felter, Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell, and a major whom Colonel Mitchell did not recognize were on their knees, bent over a half-dozen maps which took up about all the floor space there was between the furniture.

Colonel Ed Mitchell did not think, under the circumstances, that he should salute.

"Good afternoon, General," he said.

General Matthew L. Evans, CINC STRICOM, who was supporting himself on all fours, looked up.

"Hello, Ed," he said. "I understand we got you off the golf course."

"No problem, Sir."

"You heard about the Americans in Stanleyville, I suppose?"

"Yes, Sir."

"There is a possibility, repeat, possibility, that we may be authorized to go get them," General Evans said. "Felter rates the chances at one in three."

"Yes, Sir?"

"Get down on your knees with the rest of us, Ed, take a quick look, and then tell us if you think you could get in there with two, three, maybe four A-Teams and carry it off."

"Yes, Sir." It was not the first time that Colonel Ed Mitchell had seen a map of Stanleyville or considered how he would go about getting the U.S. Consular staff out. He had given it a good deal of thought from the time he had seen the first stories in the newspapers. But no one had asked him whether he had thought about it and he did not volunteer the information.

He studied the maps for about ten minutes.

"Has anyone given this any previous study?" he asked. "Not in specifics," General Evans said. "Off the top of your head, Ed, please."

"I would night-drop three teams on the Stanleyville side of the Congo River, by moonlight if possible, if not then with a good radar vector," Mitchell said. "They would go downriver in rubber boats, infiltrate the consulate compound, secure it, and radio for extraction by H-34s orbiting out of sound. With a little bit of luck the infiltration of the consulate compound could be accomplished silently. If that were possible, then the first warning the Simbas would have that something was going on would be when the choppers started landing. In the worst possible scenario...fighting into the compound and then holding it . . . we would have the advantage of darkness. I don't want to sound esoteric, but if we had half a dozen infrared-scoped rifles, I don't think the Simbas would be too eager to attack in the dark."

"Why do I suspect, Ed," Craig Lowell asked, "that this has run through your mind before?"

"I've got two hot A-Teams just looking for honest employment, Lowell," Mitchell said.

"You're talking about landing upstream and floating downstream?" the J-2 asked.

"Yes, Sir."

"What about the Stanley Falls?" Lowell asked.

"What about them?" General Evans asked.

"Can you get over them? For that matter, where exactly are they?"

"Major?" General Evans asked.

"Sir," the Major said, visibly discomfited, "I just don't know."

"You're supposed to be the AIS," Felter said coldly-the Area Intelligence Specialist.

"No, Sir. I mean-I'm standing in for him," the Major stammered.

"I sent the AIS over there to work with Dills," General Evans said. "Major Ashe is just filling in. And he's done a good job, too."

"Sorry, Major," Felter said. "I didn't mean to jump on you. But, Jesus Christ, everybody in the world has heard of the Stanley Falls, and here we sit ready to jump on them, and apparently nobody knows exactly what or where they are!"

"Sandy, I've looked," Mitchell said. "I even looked in the goddamned National Geographic."

"We can have an answer-probably-from Leopoldville in twelve hours. Less, if you want to radio for it," the J-2 said.

"Or I can get the AIS back here in say thirty-six hours," General Evans said.

"I respectfully suggest, Sir," Felter said, "that the AIS is of more use where he is." Then he chuckled.

"What's funny?" General Evans said.

"I'm about to utter a military profundity," Felter said. "If you don't know what you're doing, ask a PFC." The J-2, Colonel Ed Mitchell, and the AIS Major looked at him in confusion. Lieutenant Colonel Lowell and then General Evans chuckled.

Felter reached for one of the telephones on General Evans's desk. "Sergeant, this is Colonel Felter. Rig up a scrambler to CWO Finton in my office in Washington, will you, please?"

"Ed," Felter said, "while you're doing your planning, have a shot about infiltrating the Immoquateur Apartment Building. . ." He stopped and leaned forward and pointed it out on the map. And picking up a half-dozen American dependents, either on the way in, your way out, or as a separate, concurrent operation."

"OK," Colonel Mitchell said. "What are dependents doing?"

He was interrupted by the intercom.

"Colonel Felter, the scrambler line is in, but Mr. Finton is not available. I have a Miss Dunne on the line."

Felter stood up and picked up the telephone.

"Mary Margaret, do you know where to find Finton?" he asked. She replied and then Felter said, "Well, get over then. Don't phone, go. And tell him I said, as priority one, to have him get PFC Portet on the first plane out of Berlin to Bragg. He is to report to Colonel Edwin Mitchell-that's right, two ells-at the ..the Special Forces Group. And then when you've done that, please call my wife and tell her there's no way I can get home before Sunday. Tell her I'm sorry, but something has come up and she'll have to go to temple alone."

"Who is this PFC Port-What did you say?" Ed Mitchell asked.

"Portet," Lowell replied. "He's one of our more traveled PfCs, Ed. More to the point, he knows Stanleyville."

"More to the point, Ed," Felter said, "his stepmother and half sister are in the Immoquateur Apartment."

"What's he doing in Berlin?" Mitchell asked.

"Sandy sent him there to hide him from the hand-wringers and other spineless types in the State Department, the JCS, and the President," CINC STRICOM said.

Fayetteville Municipal Airport Fayetteville, North Carolina September 1964 PFC Jack Portet was tired. His uniform was not only mussed and soaked by the rain between the Piedmont airplane and the terminal. And he needed a shave. But first things first. He collected his duffel bag from the baggage carousel, threw it over his shoulder, and looked for a telephone.

"Seventh Group, Sergeant Major Oliver, Sir!"

"Sergeant, my name is Portet. PFC Portet. I was told to call this number."

"Where are you?"

"the airport in Fayetteville."

"Hold on," the Sergeant Major said. And then, as if he had put his hand over the microphone, Jack could hear him go on: "Colonel, Portet's at the Fayetteville airport. What do I do now? They can't fly in this shit."

"Go in the coffee shop and wait," the Sergeant Major went on, his voice now clear. "You in uniform?"

"Yes."

"EUCOM patch? Berlin rope?" Members of the Berlin garrison were part of the European Command and wore that shoulder insignia. In addition they wore from their right epaulet a red, black, and white fourragere, a woven, black, red, and white cord with a brass tip.

"Yes."

"Somebody will be there to fetch you in twenty minutes," the Sergeant Major said and hung up.

Jack started to bend over and pick up his duffel bag and then changed his mind. He counted the change in his pocket, then he went and changed two dollars into quarters.

"First National Bank."

"Deposit two dollars and forty cents, please."

"Miss Marjorie Bellmon, please." Two eons and a century and a half later: "Marjorie Bellmon." There was no immediate reply. "Hello?"

"Hi."

"Jack!"

"Hi."

"Honey, where are you?"

"In the airport at Fayetteville, North Carolina."

"What are you doing there?"

"I don't know," he said. "I can make some interesting guesses."

"How long have you been in the States?"

"About five hours," he said. "I'm waiting for somebody to pick me up."

"You don't know who? Or you can't tell me?"

"They gave me the phone number of some colonel-Mitchell -and my orders read '7th SFG,' whatever the hell that means."

"Seventh Special Forces Group," she said. "That'd be Colonel Ed Mitchell. He's a friend of Daddy's and of Uncle Sandy's."

"I wonder why that doesn't surprise me. Anyway, you didn't hear it from me. And for God's sake don't tell your father." She giggled.

"How's the car?"

"Not 'How are you?' Just how's the car?"

"What did you do, run it into something?"

"You can go to hell, Jack Portet!"

"I love you," he said. "Was that what you were fishing for?"

"Absolutely."

"And now I wait, with bated breath, for a reply in kind."

"I can't do that, for the obvious reason."

"I don't care if anybody knows," he said. "You do, I guess."

"I love you," she said.

"Much better."