"I've heard the stories, but-"

"I'm afraid they're all true, Admiral. In some cases, we have no idea why, they held on to our men. In this case, there's good reason to believe that they were trying to shove their murder of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest under the rug. Russian intelligence officers asked each of us if we had any knowledge of American officers being taken from Stalag XVII-B by German officers to visit the Katyn Forest."

"And had there been?"

"Yes, sir, there had. I I had. I was taken to the Katyn Forest by a German officer who had been a friend of my father's. He wanted to make sure, when the war was over, that the Germans weren't held responsible for that particular atrocity." had. I was taken to the Katyn Forest by a German officer who had been a friend of my father's. He wanted to make sure, when the war was over, that the Germans weren't held responsible for that particular atrocity."

"You were at Katyn?" the chief asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir. I was there. None of my officers, my fellow POWs, told the Russians I'd not only been taken from the Stalag but had in my possession photographs and other material which implicated the Russians in the murder of five thousand Polish officers, including two hundred and fifty cadets, none of them older than fifteen."

"Christ, you hear these stories, but . . ."

"Well, there I was," Bellmon went on, as if eager to relate the story, "at 1330, 8 April 1945, in a stone stable in Zwenkau-in the dark; the Russians had closed all the doors, and there were no windows-with two hundred thirty-eight other American officers, all prisoners of the Russians, with what I had seen at Katyn running through my mind, when I thought I was losing my mind. . . ."

"I can understand that," the Chairman said.

"First I heard a trumpet," Bellmon went on. "Playing 'When the Saints Come Marching In'-and then the enormous door of the stable came crashing down, and a half-track with a multiple .50-caliber machine-gun mount backed into the barn, and I thought the decision had been made to eliminate us all. Then I saw who the gunner was. He was about six feet three, weighed a good 250 pounds, and was as black as the ace of spades. And standing beside him was another enormous black trooper, blowing 'The Saints' on his trumpet."

"Elements of Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker's 393rd tank destroyer regiment," the chief said. "I'd heard that story, of course, Bob. But I had no idea until just now you were one of those he liberated."

Bellmon nodded.

"The half-track moved out of the barn," he went on, "and I staggered outside into the sunlight. My eyes grew accustomed to the light, and I saw another half-dozen tracks, and a sea of black faces, and in the middle of them, standing next to Colonel Parker, carrying a Thompson submachine gun, one skinny little white first lieutenant, who stood about five feet five."

He paused and looked at the Chairman.

"That was the first time I ever saw Sandy Felter, Admiral."

"What was he doing there?" the Chairman asked softly.

"He was a POW interrogator, and he'd found out about us. He'd taken the information to his division commander, General Waterford, together with a plan to send a flying column in to get us. General Waterford thought it would smack of favoritism-"

"What?" the Chairman asked.

"Charley," the chief said, "General Waterford was Bob's father-in-law."

The Chairman's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

"And-my father-in-law-nixed Felter's plan," Bellmon went on. "So Felter took it to Colonel Parker, who put it into execution, which almost certainly cost him the star-or stars-to which he was so certainly entitled."

He met the Chairman's eyes.

"Colonel Felter, Admiral, has been my friend since that time."

"Let me tell you, General, what this is all about," the Chairman said. "When Colonel Felter was named action officer for Dragon Rouge, I was curious about him. That's not the sort of responsibility normally given to a colonel. So I told my aide to get me his records. And then I forgot about it, since we were all up to our asses in alligators. But then, the day before yesterday, when Dragon Rouge was put in execution, I remembered about the records, and asked my aide about them."

"Yes, sir?"

"Ordinarily," the Chairman went on, "when an officer is detailed to the CIA, or another intelligence agency, his records are maintained there, and available to people on a need-to-know basis. Colonel Felter's records are maintained in the White House. When my aide asked for them, he was told he didn't have the need-to-know. When he explained that he was asking for me, he was told that my need-to-know would have to be approved by the President. Under the circumstances, I didn't pursue the issue."

"But you're the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Bellmon blurted.

"Yes," the Chairman said. "Anyway, I mentioned this to Bob, here, and he told me he thought you and Felter were friends. So I thought I could get a picture of him from you, out of school, without having to go to the President to ask for a look at his records."

"I understand, sir. But there's not much I can tell you."

"You said you've been friends for years," the Chairman countered. "How did he wind up as counsel to Presidents?"

"I have an idea, sir, but it's a rather long story."

"We have all the time we need. They know where to find me if they need me," the Chairman said. "Start at the beginning, please."

[FIVE].

Office of the Deputy Director The Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia 26 November 1964 "Come on in, Howard," the deputy director said to Howard W. O'Connor, the assistant director for administration of the Central Intelligence Agency. "What have you got?"

The deputy director was a slight man in his early fifties who wore his still-blond hair very short. O'Connor was a stocky, ruddy-faced man with a full mane of white curly hair.

O'Connor waved a long sheet of teletypewriter paper.

"The manifest of the Americans rescued from Stanleyville, being flown via Frankfurt to the States," he said. "It just came in from Leopoldville."

"Something, someone, on it is interesting?"

"A woman named Hanni Portet and her daughter, Jeanine," O'Connor said. "Mrs. Portet is a German national, married to a chap named Jean-Phillipe Portet. He's an American-he was Belgian, but served in our Army Air Corps in World War II and got his citizenship that way. The little girl-she's eleven-got her citizenship via the father. There is also a son, Jacques, also an American citizen whom the long arm of the draft caught in Leopoldville, and when last heard of was at Camp Polk, Louisiana, taking basic training."

"Why are the Portets of interest?"

"We've been looking around for someone to bankroll in setting up Air America II," O'Connor said.

"Don't call it that, Howard. Air America is a painful subject. No one was supposed to know of our interest in it. We need an airline that doesn't have parenthesis CIA close parenthesis painted on the tail of its airplanes."

"There have been several suggestions," O'Connor said. "The one I like best is 'Intercontinental Air Cargo.' We can set it up in Miami; there's half a hundred one- and two-airplane 'airlines' operating out of Miami."

"What about just 'Intercontinental Air'?"

"There is already an Intercontinental Air," O'Connor said. "That was one of the reasons I like 'Intercontinental Air Cargo.' We can even hide behind their logo and color scheme."

"Why don't we just buy into Intercontinental Air?"

"The people that own it aren't interested in partners," O'Con-nor said. "They're willing to sell, but we need somebody to buy it who can't be tied to us."

"This guy Portet?"

"Yeah. Right now he's chief pilot for Air Congo, but he also has his own two-bit airline, Air Simba, flying mostly World War II Boeing C-46s around Southern Africa."

"You think he'd be interested?"

"Things are not good in the Congo," O'Connor said. "And they're unlikely to get better, whether or not Che Guevara goes over there and starts causing trouble."

"That's not funny, Howard," the deputy director said. "We told the President that's not going to happen."

"I think Portet would be very interested," O'Connor said. "I wanted your permission to approach him."

"You want to go over there?"

"No. He's coming here with his family. I want J. Richard Leonard of the Gresham Investment Corporation to approach him."

"Do it. Do you know when and where he's going to be in the United States?"

"We're the CIA, Paul. We can find out."

"Do it, and let me know what happens," the deputy director said.

[SIX].

Office of the Commanding General Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina 1520 1 December 1964 Brigadier General Matthew Hollostone, USAF, the forty-two-year -old general officer commanding Pope AF Base, was at his desk reading with fascination a rather detailed report by the Fort Bragg provost marshal.

On the one hand, it was encouraging to be reassured that the fighting spirit was as present in this generation of junior officers as it had been in his, when he had been a twenty-two-year-old captain. The detailed list the provost marshal furnished of the damage done to a Fayetteville night spot when a local beauty had aroused the mating instinct simultaneously in one of Pope's pilots and one of Bragg's parachutists was clear proof of that.

On the other hand, there was no question that the behavior chronicled by the provost marshal was conduct unbecoming officers and gentlemen, and he would have to come to some understanding with the commanding general of Fort Bragg vis-a-vis a suitable punishment for both miscreants.

Sitting on the credenza behind General Hollostone's desk was a small Air Force blue box containing a speaker. It brought to General Hollostone the radio traffic of the Pope control tower. It was on all the time, but very rarely did anything being said come to General Hollostone's conscious attention.

He was a command pilot with more than five thousand hours in the air, and over the years had learned to listen subconsciously to radio traffic. In other words, he heard only those things that had an effect on him. It was not an uncommon characteristic, or ability, of pilots, but the only other people he had ever seen do something similar were experienced radio telegraph operators, who could carry on a conversation with one part of their brain while transcribing the dots and dashes of Morse code at forty words a minute.

What the speaker transmitted now- "Pope, Air Force Three Eleven, a Learjet, at flight level two five thousand sixty miles north of your station. Estimate ten minutes. Approach and landing, please."

-caused him to stop thinking about suitable punishments for the battling junior officers and consciously await the reply of the Pope control tower operator.

There were very few Learjets in the U.S. Air Force, and as far as General Hollostone knew, all but two of the small, fast little airplanes were assigned to the special missions squadron in Washington. The other two were assigned to the four-star generals commanding the U.S. Air Force, Pacific, and the U.S. Air Force, Europe.

It was illogical to think that the commanding generals of the Air Force in the Pacific or Europe were about to drop in unannounced at Pope Air Force Base, but that left open the logical probability that the Learjet was carrying someone of the upper echelon of the military establishment, ranging downward from the Secretary of Defense to a lowly lieutenant general representing a four-star general.

No one with fewer than three stars would be aboard the Learjet. Riding in a Learjet was a symbol of power.

Hollostone waited until the Pope tower had told Air Force Three Eleven how to get on the ground at Pope, then stood up. He walked into his outer office, which was occupied by his secretary, his sergeant major, and his aide-de-camp.

"Steve," General Hollostone ordered, "get on the horn and tell Bragg there's a Learjet nine minutes out, and we don't know who is aboard."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant major said, and reached for the telephone. He understood that Bragg meant the Office of the Commanding General XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, who would also be interested to hear that a Learjet was about to touch down at Pope.

"You and I will just be walking out of Base Ops when the mysterious stranger arrives," General Hollostone said to his aide-de-camp. "Make sure the car is available."

"Yes, sir," the aide-de-camp said.

Seven and a half minutes later, General Hollostone marched through the door of Base Operations onto the tarmac in front of it. He looked first skyward, and picked out a tiny shining object that had to be the Learjet.

Then he looked around him, to see if there was anything in front of Base Ops that shouldn't be there.

There was.

There was a soldier-a soldier, not an airman-in fatigue uniform, green beret, and parachutist's jump boots leaning against the concrete blocks of the Base Ops building.

And he didn't even come to attention when he saw a general officer. That's unusual. Usually the Army-especially the paratroops at Bragg-carries that sort of thing too far.

Then General Hollostone understood why the Green Beret in fatigues hadn't popped to attention when he saw a general officer. He was not required to do so, because he was senior by three months to Brigadier General Hollostone.

Salutes were exchanged.

"It's cold out here, Red," General Hollostone said. "Why didn't you go inside?"

Inside Base Ops was a VIP lounge for colonels and up.

"I didn't want to get your carpet muddy," Brigadier General Paul "Red" Hanrahan, the slight, wiry forty-three-year-old who was commandant of the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, said as they shook hands.

"What brings you here?" Hollostone asked.

Hanrahan pointed skyward.

The tiny shining object had grown into a recognizable Learjet making its approach to Pope AF Base.

"Anyone I know aboard?" Hollostone asked.

"I don't think so, Matt," Hanrahan said, chuckling. "Several of my people."

"Nobody important, in other words?"

"Probably not to you, Matt," Hanrahan replied. There was reproof, perhaps even contempt, in his voice.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Red," Hollostone said.

"Good," Hanrahan replied.

"Anything you need, Red? Anything I can do for you?"

"No. But thanks anyway, Matt."

"Come see us," General Hollostone said.