"Yes, I know," General McClintock said. "Thank you."

He walked down the corridor, his rubber-heeled and -soled shoes making faint squeaking noises on the waxed linoleum.

When he pushed open the door to 421, there were three men inside, including the patient, who was sitting, dressed in civilian clothing, smoking a very large light green cigar, on the bed. The patient started to get off the bed when he saw General McClintock, but McClintock, smiling, quickly put up his hand to stop him.

"Stay where you are, Captain," McClintock said.

General McClintock saw that the room was decorated for the holiday season as seen through the eyes of an officer like this one. The patient had obviously visited the Post Exchange Branch, where he had purchased not only a plastic model of the HU-1B "Huey" but four adorable little dolls. One of them was Santa Claus; two were dressed as nurses and one as a doctor.

The Huey was hanging from the central light fixture. The adorable nurse and doctor dolls were hanging, their necks realistically broken, from pipe-cleaner nooses attached to the Huey's skids. Santa Claus straddled the tail boom of the helicopter, cradling a machine gun in his arms.

The chart described the patient as a Negro male, twenty-six years old, five feet eleven and one half inches tall, weight 144 pounds. There was a note stating that this was twenty-one pounds less than he had weighed at his last annual physical examination.

Dr. McClintock noted quickly, professionally, that the patient's eyeballs were clear. When they had brought him in, he looked as if he had been liable to bleed to death through the eyeballs. And he had been ten pounds lighter then than he was now.

Dr. McClintock guessed the patient's visitors to be his father and brother, not because they looked alike, but because he had been ordered to restrict his visitors to his immediate family. The younger of them, the brother, a tall, light-skinned, hawk-faced man, was well, even elegantly, dressed in a superbly tailored glen plaid suit and a white-collared faintly striped blue shirt. The father was short, squat, flat-faced, very dark, and what Dr. McClintock thought of as "comfortably crumpled." He wore a tweed jacket, rumpled flannels, rubber soled "health" shoes and a button-down collar tattersall shirt without a necktie.

"How do you feel, Captain?" Dr. McClintock asked.

"Frankly, sir," Captain Lunsford said politely, "not quite as happy as I was an hour ago, when I thought I was being turned loose."

Dr. McClintock raised his eyes from Lunsford's chart and smiled. "All things come to he who waits, Captain," he said. "We're still going to turn you loose. But not just now. Soon."

"Today?" Lunsford asked.

"Today," McClintock said. "Shortly."

"May I see the chart, Doctor?" Lunsford's father asked. When McClintock looked at him in surprise, he added, "I'm a physician. "

"Excuse my manners, General," George Washington Lunsford said. "Doctor, may I present my father, Dr. Lunsford? And my brother, Dr. Lunsford?"

"How do you do, Doctor?" McClintock said, handing the elder Dr. Lunsford the chart.

"Dad is a surgeon, Doctor. My brother is a shrink," Lunsford said. Then, when McClintock smiled, he added, "Before Charley became a shrink, Dad used to say that shrinks were failed surgeons. "

"George, for Christ's sake!" the younger Dr. Lunsford snapped.

"I've heard that," Dr. McClintock said, smiling, "but rarely when one of them was in the same room."

"My God!" the elder Dr. Lunsford said. "I have never seen a case of that before." He extended the chart to Dr. McClintock, pointing at a line with his finger.

"It's pretty rare," Dr. McClintock said. "Your son has been regarded as a gift from heaven by our parasitologists. I understand he has his own refrigerator in their lab."

"I'll bet he does," the elder Dr. Lunsford said, and showed the chart to his other son, who shook his head in disbelief.

"And they are going to give him his own glass cabinet in the Armed Forces Museum of Pathology," Dr. McClintock said, smiling. "Several of our intense young researchers suggested, more or less seriously, that we just keep him here as a living specimen bank."

"Do you realize realize how sick you were?" Dr. Lunsford demanded of his son. "For that matter, still are?" how sick you were?" Dr. Lunsford demanded of his son. "For that matter, still are?"

"I didn't really feel chipper, chipper, now that you mention it, Dad," Captain Lunsford said, "but there is a silver lining in the cloud. I have been given so many different antibiotics that it is not only absolutely impossible for me to have any known social disease, but I may spread pollen, so to speak, for the next six months or so without any worry about catching anything." now that you mention it, Dad," Captain Lunsford said, "but there is a silver lining in the cloud. I have been given so many different antibiotics that it is not only absolutely impossible for me to have any known social disease, but I may spread pollen, so to speak, for the next six months or so without any worry about catching anything."

Dr. McClintock and the elder Dr. Lunsford chuckled. The younger Dr. Lunsford shook his head in disgust.

"We think, Doctor," Dr. McClintock said, "that everything is under control. We were a little worried, frankly, about the liver, but that seems to have responded remarkably-"

He stopped in midsentence as the door to the room opened suddenly and two men in gray suits walked briskly in. One of them quickly scrutinized the people in the room, then walked quickly to the bathroom, pulled the door open, and looked around inside. Then he stepped inside and pushed the white shower curtain aside.

The other went to the window and closed the vertical blinds, then turned to Dr. McClintock.

"Who are these people, General?" he demanded.

"Who the hell are you?" you?" Captain Lunsford demanded icily. Captain Lunsford demanded icily.

The wide, glossily varnished wooden door to the corridor opened again.

The President of the United States walked in. On his heels was Colonel Sanford T. Felter, who was wearing a rumpled and ill-fitting suit.

"You can leave, thank you," the President said.

"Mr. President-" one of the Secret Service men began to protest.

"Goddamn it, you heard me!"

The two Secret Service men, visibly annoyed, left the room.

"How do you feel, son?" the President asked Captain Lunsford with what sounded like genuine concern in his voice.

"I'm all right, sir, thank you," Lunsford replied, a tone of surprise in his voice.

"This your dad?" the President asked.

"Yes, sir, and my brother."

"Well, you can be proud of this boy, Mr. Lunsford," the President said. "He's something special."

"It's 'Dr.' Lunsford, Mr. President," Captain Lunsford said.

"No offense, Doctor," the President said. "I didn't know. Usually Colonel Felter tells me things I should know, like that."

"None taken, Mr. President," Dr. Lunsford said.

The President turned to Captain Lunsford.

"I'm having a little trouble with Congress about your Belgian and Congolese medals," he said. "You'll get the authorization- you and the sergeant-but it may take a while. So, in the meantime, I thought maybe this might make up for it."

He held out his right arm behind him. Felter put an oblong blue box in it. The President opened the lid and took out a medal.

"That's the Silver Star, Captain," the President said. "I understand it will be your third. I can't believe the others are more well-deserved than this one."

He stepped to Lunsford and pinned the medal to the lapel of his coat. He did not do so properly; it promptly fell off. Lunsford, in a reflex action, grabbed for it, and the open pin buried itself in the heel of his hand.

"Shit!" he said involuntarily, and then, immediately, "Excuse me, sir."

"I understand," the President said, chuckling, "that 'it's the thought that counts.' " And then there was concern in his voice, as Lunsford pulled the pin free from his hand. "You all right, son?"

"Yes, sir," Lunsford said.

"I told the chief of staff to find out if there is some reason your name can't be on the next promotion list to major. I have the feeling he's not going to find any."

Lunsford looked at him but didn't say anything.

"You're one hell of a man, Captain," the President said. "I'm grateful to you. Your country is grateful."

He shook Lunsford's hand, then punched him affectionately on the shoulder, and then shook the hands of Lunsford's father and brother.

The President nodded at Dr. McClintock, murmured, "General, " and, adding, "Let's go, Felter," walked out of the room.

"See you soon, Father," Felter said, and followed the President out of the room.

"It was very good of you, Mr. President, to make the time for Captain Lunsford. I appreciate it," Colonel Felter said as the presidential limousine headed back to the White House.

"If I had the time, I'd go to Fort Bragg and pin a medal on that sergeant who parachuted with the Belgians, too," the President said. "Goddamn, men like that make you proud to be an American. "

"Yes, sir, I agree," Felter said.

"What's going to happen to him now? When he's fit for service? "

"He'll be an instructor at the Special Warfare Center at Bragg."

"Teaching what?" The President chuckled. "How to run around in a leopard skin in the jungles of Africa and stay alive?"

"Yes, sir. That sort of thing."

"I thought I was making a joke. You're implying we're going to continue to be involved in the Congo."

"In sub-Saharan Africa, yes, sir, I'm afraid we will be."

"But the Simbas are finished," the President argued, and then asked, almost menacingly, "Aren't they?"

"I think it's safe to say that Olenga is finished, Mr. President. But I think there will be others like him, and the next time, the Soviets will be prepared to help them."

"Why didn't they do more for Olenga?"

"I think they were as surprised by Olenga as we were, Mr. President. He really came out of nowhere-"

"That's not the answer I was looking for, Felter," the President interrupted.

"Sir?"

"The Russians knew I wouldn't stand for anything like that," the President said. "That's why they didn't supply him with arms."

Felter said nothing.

"Goddamn you, Felter," the President said after a long moment, "you can say more with your mouth closed and that dumb look on your face than most members of Congress can say in a two-hour speech."

Felter said nothing.

"Felter, you're paid to tell me what you think, not what you think I want to hear."

Felter looked at him.

"Mr. President, before Dragon Rouge, there were four Soviet transports flying weapons from Algeria into Uganda-"

"According to the CIA, there were reports reports of of one or two one or two airplanes, which may or airplanes, which may or may not may not be Soviet aircraft which be Soviet aircraft which may have may have carried weapons. . . ." carried weapons. . . ."

Felter almost visibly chose his words carefully before replying: "Mr. President, the CIA is constrained by their obligation to give you facts. I believe you wish me to tell you what I think."

"What do you think, Colonel?" the President snapped sarcastically.

"I believe that at the time Dragon Rouge occurred, at least two-and most probably four-Ilyushin-18s, which is a turboprop transport much like our C-130s, were engaged in transporting arms from Algeria to the Arau air base in northern Uganda. The aircraft were black-"

"A figure of speech?" the President interrupted. "Or really black?"

"They were painted black, Mr. President," Felter said. "To make them black, if you follow my meaning."

"In other words, you've seen them? You know know they were painted black?" they were painted black?"

"I didn't see them personally, but I trust my source."

"Which is?"

"With all respect, Mr. President, I'd rather not say."

"You are aware that the President is the ultimate authority on need-to-know? I I decide who needs to know, not you." decide who needs to know, not you."

"I would prefer that the CIA didn't learn of my source, Mr. President."

"You and the CIA are supposed to be on the same side, something you don't always remember," the President said. "Let me spell it out for you, Colonel. You will tell me, and I will decide whether or not I'll tell the CIA. Got it?"

"Yes, sir. The West Germans have an agent in the East German Embassy in Algeria. His intelligence was passed on to me."

"Why shouldn't I tell the CIA that?"

"Because the CIA would pressure the Germans to use him, sir."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"If that happened, in this case, sir, I think it would shut off my flow of information from Bonn."