"Lieutenant Portet, Master Sergeant Thomas," Father said.

"How are you, Lieutenant?" Thomas said. "I didn't know they taught Swahili in college."

"They do at the Florida Baptist College," Father answered for him. "The lieutenant was studying to be a missionary in Africa when he got drafted, and decided he'd rather fly airplanes. Isn't that so, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"He had just finished flight school when the AG found him. I asked for black guys, but they sent him anyway. No offense, Lieutenant."

"None taken, sir."

"And since he had flown all the way here from Rucker, I figured nothing would be lost if I showed him around. If nothing else, he'll see if anybody understands him when he tries to speak Swahili."

"I get the idea, sir," Thomas said.

"I'll remind you again, Lieutenant," Lunsford said, "that anything you see here is classified, you're not to discuss it with anyone-are you married?"

"No, sir."

"You seemed to hesitate, Lieutenant."

"I'm about to married, sir-23 December, sir."

"That will probably keep you from being assigned to us," Lunsford said thoughtfully. "Maybe we shouldn't show you around. Oh, to hell with it. We're here. To get back to what I was saying: You will not discuss anything you see here in any way with anyone, and that includes your fiancee, or, when she becomes your wife, with your wife. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Does the young lady speak Swahili?"

"No, sir."

"I thought perhaps she was also studying to be a missionary," Lunsford said. "Okay, Sergeant, if you'll give the lieutenant a thirty-minute tour of the establishment, I'll have time to snoop around here and see how you've been screwing things up."

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Thomas said.

"Make sure he speaks to every man," Lunsford said. "Have everybody on the team explain his function. In Swahili."

"Yes, sir. If you'll get in the jeep with me, Lieutenant?"

When Master Sergeant Thomas was sure they had driven far enough to be out of Major Lunsford's sight, he turned to Jack.

"Lieutenant, is your Swahili good enough for you to understand what I'll be saying? No offense, sir."

"I'm having a little trouble understanding you, Sergeant," Jack said. "But maybe if you spoke slowly . . ."

"I'll try, sir," Sergeant Thomas said. "Now, what we are trying to do here, Lieutenant, is simulate, as well as we can, what life would be like for a Special Forces team operating clandestinely in a sub-Saharan African country."

"Very interesting," Jack said.

When they returned to the landing strip, and the small collection of tarpaper-roofed crude frame buildings around it, thirty minutes later, they found Lunsford sitting on the steps to one of the buildings.

He did not get up as they approached, and returned their salutes with a casual wave of the hand.

"See anything interesting, Lieutenant Portet?" he asked in Swahili.

"Yes, sir. It was very interesting."

"And did the lieutenant have any trouble conversing with you, or any of the men, in Swahili?"

"Not much, sir," Master Sergeant Thomas answered graciously.

Lunsford raised his hand in the manner of a clergyman blessing his flock.

"By the power vested in me by God, the President of the United States, and General Hanrahan, I declare a training schedule amnesty for all hands," Lunsford said. "You will go get them, Sergeant Thomas, and bring them back here. And when you do, Lieutenant Portet will critique our little operation."

"Sir?" Thomas asked incredulously.

"It's truth time, Sergeant Thomas," Lunsford said. "And the first truthful answer I would like from you is whether you have had your run today."

"No, sir," Thomas said.

"Then why don't you kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and jog out to the men, and lead them as they jog back here for the lieutenant's critique?" He turned to Jack. "We in Special Forces have found, Lieutenant," he went on, "that a daily jog of no more than five miles keeps the body in tip-top shape for our strenuous duties. Isn't that so, Sergeant Thomas?"

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Thomas said.

"Put your heart in it, Sergeant," Lunsford said. "We don't want to keep Lieutenant Portet waiting around, do we?"

"No, sir," Sergeant Thomas said, visibly fuming.

He turned and started to trot off down the road.

Jack looked at Lunsford.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"This is what is known as setting the stage, Lieutenant," Lunsford said. "Unless I am truly mistaken, what Sergeant Thomas is going to do, when he arrives, huffing and puffing, at the campsite, is say, 'You're not going to believe this, but what we're going to do is jog back to the airstrip where that honky-motherfucker of a candy-ass airplane driver is going to tell us what we're doing wrong,' or words to that effect."

Jack chuckled.

"Why are you trying to piss him-everybody-off?"

Lunsford said, "If you're trying to teach somebody something-anything-" Lunsford said, very seriously, "the first thing you have to do is get their attention. That's particularly true with a group like this. The junior man out there is a staff sergeant. They're all fully qualified Green Berets, and with more than a little justification, they think-they know-they're pretty hot stuff. And unless I can get their attention, that's likely to get them killed."

He pushed himself off the stairs.

"Come on," he said. "I'll need some help, and I think Thomas-who is about as good a noncom as I've ever known- is going to set a speed record out there and back."

He led Jack into one of the tarpaper-roofed buildings. There was a huge refrigerator in one room, and a huge freezer sat beside it. The doors to both were locked shut with heavy chains through their handles, and secured with massive padlocks.

Lunsford opened both.

He pointed to two galvanized iron washtubs.

"I load," he said. "You chop the ice."

The freezer held huge blocks of ice, and the refrigerators cases of beer, as well as food.

There were ice tongs in the freezer, and Jack picked them up. "Shit!" he proclaimed. They had frozen to his hand.

"You don't look that stupid," Lunsford said, and hurried him to a water spigot and got him unfrozen after a moment.

"I don't think you'll have to write this down, Lieutenant, having had a painful lesson, which caught your attention, but metal at forty degrees below zero sticks to the hand."

"I feel like a fucking fool," Jack said, examining his angry red fingers. "I knew better than that."

"Feeling like a fucking fool is the first step to acquiring-more important, remembering-knowledge," Lunsford said unctuously. "Can I trust you with the ice pick, or will you stab yourself in the hand with it?"

Jack picked up one of the blocks of ice, put it into the galvanized tub, and began hacking at it.

"After you ram knowledge down the throats of the unwilling to learn, it is necessary to pat them on the head," Lunsford said. "It's something like giving a dog a bone. Unfortunately, the Army doesn't recognize this universal truth, and officers have to pay for the beer themselves."

When there were three cases of beer covered with ice in the tubs, Lunsford carefully chained the refrigerator and freezer doors again.

"Now we go outside, and act as if we haven't moved, until our reluctant students show up, huffing and puffing and feeling sorry for themselves," he said.

With Thomas leading the column, the men trotted up to them five minutes later.

Master Sergeant Thomas saluted.

"Sir, the detail is formed," he said.

Lunsford returned the salute casually. He did not get up.

"Put the men at at ease, please, Sergeant," Lunsford said.

Thomas executed an about-face movement and bellowed, "At ease!"

The men relaxed, and put their hands behind their backs.

"As Sergeant Thomas may have told you," Lunsford said. "Lieutenant Portet will now critique our little operation. Lieutenant, will you please stand up and face the men?"

Jack, feeling very awkward, got to his feet and looked at fifteen black, scornful, unfriendly faces.

"We are now going to play truth or consequences," Lunsford said. "And we will start with Lieutenant Portet. Lieutenant, what is the first thing you think of when you hear Sergeant Thomas attempt to speak Swahili?"

Jack looked at Thomas and was horrified to hear himself blurt, "He sounds like a white man."

That was too much for Master Sergeant Thomas.

"With all respect, Lieutenant, I think I learned my Swahili the same way you learned yours, from a missionary."

"At the Presidio, you mean, Sergeant Thomas?" Lunsford asked sympathetically.

The Army Language School was at the Presidio, in San Francisco, California.

"Yes, sir," Thomas said righteously. "The instructor told us he learned Swahili as a missionary in the Congo."

"All those who remember what I said to you the first time we met about 'never trust anyone,' and 'always remember that things are very seldom what they first appear to be,' raise your hands," Lunsford said.

One by one, fourteen soldiers, feeling like schoolchildren, raised their hands.

"You don't remember me saying that, Sergeant Thomas?" Lunsford asked.

Sergeant Thomas raised his hand.

"You may now lower your hands," Lunsford said.

There were some smiles as they did so.

"Since you all obviously need it, I will now prove that you should never trust anyone," Lunsford said. "I told Sergeant Thomas that Lieutenant Portet was studying to be a missionary, and that he learned how to speak Swahili in the Florida Baptist College. I lied."

He let that sink in a moment.

"He is not, in other words, what he appears to be. I happen to know his teacher, and she assures me that Lieutenant Portet speaks Swahili, and several other Congolese dialects, as well as anyone born and raised there. Lieutenant Portet wasn't born there, but he was raised there. He learned how to speak Swahili at the knee of the toughest black lady I have ever met. Her name is Mary Magdalene Lotetse. She's got three inches and fifty pounds on Sergeant Thomas, and if she says Lieutenant Portet's Swahili is perfect, I am not about to argue with her. But just for the record, I know his Swahili is better than mine."

He let that sink in for a moment.

"Is there among this band of would-be warriors, Lieutenant Portet, in your judgment, any one who would not be spotted as a tool of the Imperialist Devils-the prize for which, gentlemen, is having your head sliced open, or off, on the spot, with a dull machete-the minute he opened his mouth in the woods around Stanleyville?"

Two of the men had spoken surprisingly good Congolese, and Jack found their faces. He could not recall their names, but that didn't matter, he realized with relief, because Lunsford had said they were all at least sergeants.

"The sergeant there, sir," Jack said, pointing. "And the sergeant there, sir. They could, with a little luck, pass themselves off as Congolese."

"Let the record show the witness identified Sergeant First Class DeGrew," Lunsford said. "And Staff Sergeant Williams. Try to remember their names, Lieutenant. I know all we Negroes look alike to you honkies, but if you're going to be with us, I would appreciate it if you would try to learn people's names."

Now there were a number of smiles. The major's giving it to the lieutenant, too. The major's giving it to the lieutenant, too.

"Sergeant DeGrew and Sergeant Williams, you have an additional duty from this moment forward," Lunsford said. "Every time, and I mean every time, you hear anyone-including our beloved Master Sergeant Thomas-saying anything wrong in Swahili, you will not only correct him on the spot, but make him repeat it and repeat it for however long it takes until he's got it right. Clear?"

"Yes, sir," Williams and DeGrew said in unison.

"The U.S. government has invested a lot of my tax dollars in you people," Lunsford said. "And I don't want it flushed down the toilet, as it would be if you're running around the bush, open your mouth to some bona fide African, and he says, 'Hey, that brother speaks Congolese like a honky' or words to that effect, and cuts your stupid head off. Clear?"

There were shrugs of acknowledgment, admitting the logic behind Lunsford's orders.

"And now another show of hands, please. If I announced that this honky airplane driver wants to join our little private army, but that I was leaving it up to you, how many of you would vote to take him?"

After a long pause, one hand went up, and it was evident from the look on his face that he had done it to get a laugh. He got it.