"You know, every time I go south of Brownsville, I see all these Latin American generals marching around, covered from eyeball to belly button with medals, and I know most-maybe none-of them never heard a shot fired in anger."

"I've noticed, sir," Lowell said.

"Why didn't you take it?" Johnson asked.

"I was under orders to maintain as low a profile as possible, sir."

"Your low profile didn't escape the attention of the secretary of state, Colonel. He thinks you two were pissing on his grass."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

"Before you and he hit the bottle, how was this Pistarini planning on dealing with Senor Guevara?"

"He was not to be allowed to enter Argentina alive, Mr. President, " Lowell said. "And General Pistarini told me that should Dr. Guevara meet an accident anywhere, not only would he not be unhappy, but also that the accident would be investigated by the Argentine intelligence service-it's called SIDE-who would find, and announce, that they had found absolutely nothing suspicious about it."

"And after you'd had a couple of belts?"

"He and the man who runs SIDE became convinced that your feeling that Guevara should be kept alive and allowed to fall on his face was in everybody's best interests."

"Can we do that, Lunsford?" the President asked. "Make the sonofabitch fall on his face in the Congo?"

"Yes, sir. I think we can. I'm building a pretty capable team at Fort Bragg."

"Did Colonel Felter make it clear to you that nobody can find out we're involved?"

"Yes, sir."

"You think-all three of you-that this Pistarini character can be trusted?"

"Yes, sir, I do," Lunsford said, and then Felter and Lowell chimed in simultaneously with the same reply.

"Okay. That's it," Johnson said. "If the secretary of state is still waiting outside the Oval Office, and I know goddamned well he will be, I'll tell him what I told the Joint Chiefs Chairman yesterday. "

He looked at Felter.

"Which is, Mr. President?" Felter asked.

"That I know all about what you're doing for me, that they're to give you anything you ask for, and that I don't want to talk about it."

"Thank you, sir," Felter said.

"One more thing," Johnson said, turning to Lowell and Lunsford. "I don't want to have to pin another medal on either of you. Or send one to your next of kin. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

He shook their hands, then marched out of the small office.

X.

[ ONE ].

Room 1322 The Fountainbleau Hotel Miami Beach, Florida 1605 9 January 1965 J. Richard Leonard of the Gresham Investment Corporation, a somewhat portly forty-five-year-old, came out of the shower with a towel around his middle.

He sat down on the double bed and reached for the telephone.

There was a knock at the door.

"Room service."

Leonard went to the door, admitted a bellman carrying a champagne cooler holding four bottles of Bass Ale, signed the tab, and handed it to the bellman.

"That was quick, thank you," he said.

He had ordered the ale before going into the shower, thinking it would take at least half an hour for it to be delivered.

"Anything else I can get for you, sir?" the bellman asked suggestively.

A lone forty-five-year-old businessman in a nice suite often wanted more in Miami Beach than sand and sun.

"No, thank you," Leonard said. "I like to catch my females on the hoof."

"Well, if you change your mind, ask for Richard," the bellman said, and left.

Leonard found a bottle opener in the bathroom, opened a bottle of the ale, and went back to the bed and picked up the telephone again. He gave the operator a number in northern Virginia.

"Twenty," a female voice answered.

"Dick Leonard, sweetheart, is the boss available?"

"I'll see."

Howard W. O'Connor came on the line a moment later.

"What's up, Dick?"

"I spoke with Captain Portet this afternoon," Leonard said. "Which was more difficult than I thought it would be. There's a place down here called Ocean Reef-"

"I know it. When Nixon was Vice President, he used to go there with his buddy Bebe Rebozo. Very nice."

"Also hard to get into," Leonard said. "Anyway, Portet's got a house there. I think he's renting it to give his family a vacation."

"Well, that blows your 'he's probably broke' theory, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it does. Anyway, after heavily bribing the security guard to let me in, I went to his house this morning, just as he was leaving. So I followed him. He went to the airport in Miami and was nosing around, asking about used airplanes. I struck up a conversation with him in a coffee shop, and made a preliminary pitch, told him Gresham was thinking of buying into a small airline, or starting one up, and that I'd gotten his name because of what he's been doing in the Congo."

"And he was interested?"

"A little," Leonard said. "I didn't get the enthusiasm I sort of expected. He told me to make him a proposition, and he'd think it over."

"Well, make him one, and let me know what happens. We have to get this thing moving, Dick."

"I'm going to hang around here a couple of days more, snoop around a little more. I don't want to seem too eager."

"Just don't sit on the dime, Dick," Howard W. O'Connor said, and hung up.

[ TWO ].

"Bonne Visage" (aka House A) 24 Golf Club Lane The Ocean Reef Club Key Largo, Florida 1820 10 January 1965 Captain Jean-Philippe Portet had just gone to the poolside wet bar and made himself a drink when the door chimes went off.

"There's the door," he called, in case Madam Portet hadn't heard it.

"Get it," Hanni called back from their bedroom. "I'm not dressed."

"Give whoever it is a thrill."

"Mein Gott!"

Captain Portet walked through the house to the front door and opened it.

Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell was standing there, in uniform. His enormous ancient Packard was in the drive.

God, he's got more medals than Patton.

"Excuse me for just showing up like this, JP," Lowell said, smiling. "I am about my master's work, and there is no rest for the weary."

"Oddly enough, I was just thinking about you," Portet said. "We need to talk."

"That's my line," Lowell said. "Look JP, I put this uniform on in Buenos Aires. I need a shower badly. What I'd like to do is buy you dinner, if that would be possible. But before that, could you come with me to my place while I change clothes? What I have to say won't take long, but it's the sort of thing I'd rather Hanni and the girl didn't hear."

Why the hell not? What I have to say won't take long, either.

He pushed the TALK and MASTER SUITE buttons on the intercom panel mounted to the exterior wall by the door.

"Hanni, baby," he announced. "I'm going over to Colonel Lowell's place for a couple of minutes. We'll be back in a little while. And then we're going to dinner."

As he was closing the door, Hanni pushed the TALK and FRONT DOOR buttons on the intercom panel mounted on the wall and inquired, incredulously, "What did you say?"

Captain Portet did not respond, but instead walked to the Packard and got in.

I am almost certainly going to piss Lowell-probably his whole family-off, and/or cut off my own nose to spite my face- Hanni really loves that house-but I know myself well enough to know that if I don't get this straight between us, it will get much worse. It's better to settle it right here and now.

"I came down in a Learjet," Lowell said. "A little less than two hours from wheels up."

"I thought you said you just came from Argentina," Portet replied.

"Buenos Aires, Miami; Miami, Washington; Washington, here. I am worn out and need a drink and shower badly," Lowell said. "And in that order, I have just decided."

"What were you doing in Argentina?" Portet asked, his curiosity overwhelming his intention to be polite but distant.

"I hope I succeeded in talking the Argentines out of blowing Che Guevara away," Lowell said.

"I don't think I understand that."

"I shouldn't have told you that much," Lowell said. "Can you forget I said that?"

"Certainly," Portet said.

"There's an operation going on," Lowell said. "If you're willing to come to Washington, Colonel Felter will explain it all to you."

"Why would he do that?"

"We need your help," Lowell said. "That's why I'm here. To ask for it."

Lowell pulled up in front of 12 Surf Point Drive (aka House C). The lights were on, and as they got out of the car, the door was opened by a white-jacketed young man.

"Welcome home, Colonel," he said. "How long will you be with us?"

"If I don't leave tonight, I'll be out of here before daylight," Lowell said.

"I put things for breakfast in the refrigerator, Colonel."

"You better come back tomorrow and freeze what you can, and get rid of the rest," Lowell said. "And put the car back in the garage, too. I'll leave it at the strip."

"I saw that Air Force Lear come in. Was that you?"

"Yeah. And honest to God, this is business," Lowell said.

"Yes, sir. Will there be anything else, Colonel?"

"That'll do it. Thank you very much."

"Good night, gentlemen," the young man said, and walked to a golf cart and drove off.

"You didn't tip him," Portet said.

"No, we don't tip here," Lowell said. "Oh, God! JP, have you been trying to grease palms? I should have said something."

"No problem," Portet said. "But I didn't know."