"Good morning, Swede. No problem. I've been up for some time. What's up?"

"General, there's a lieutenant here asking for Sergeant Portet. I didn't know how to handle it."

"Very simple, Swede. We never heard of him."

"I tried that, General," Swenson said. "He says he knows Portet's here." He added: "He's one of ours, sir. I think he just came from where Portet came."

"Has 'one of ours' got a name, Swede?"

"Craig, sir. Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig."

"Damn!" Hanrahan said. He hesitated just perceptibly. "Okay, Swede. Send him over here."

He put the handset into its cradle and turned to look at Sergeant Jack Portet.

"Geoff Craig is here, Jack. Looking for you. Do you have any idea what that's all about?"

"No, sir."

"No idea at all?"

"Well, sir, it probably means that everybody's back. They came back via the Army Hospital in Frankfurt."

"Is there some kind of problem, honey?" Patricia asked.

"My orders are to keep Jack under a rock," Hanrahan said. "With a lot of people knowing he's here, that's getting to be difficult. "

"Do you think he has Ursula and the baby with him?" Marjorie asked.

"That's why I think everybody's here," Jack replied. "I can't imagine Geoff being here without them."

"He was with them in the Congo?" Hanrahan asked.

"They were flown to Leopoldville in the C-130s," Jack answered. "And then on Air Congo to Frankfurt. My stepmother and sister, too, and probably my father went along."

Hanrahan nodded, as if he agreed with Portet's thinking.

The telephone rang again, and Hanrahan snatched it almost angrily from its cradle, muttering, "Now what?"

"General Hanrahan," he snarled into the instrument.

His wife shook her head.

His caller chuckled.

"Should I call back later when you just haven't rolled out of the wrong side of the bed?"

He recognized the voice as that of Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell.

"I was actually in a very good mood until I heard your voice."

"Honest to God, Red, I waited until I thought you would be up before I called."

"I'm touched by your concern," Hanrahan said. "What's on your mind, Craig?"

"Where did you hide Portet? At Camp Mackall?"

"Uh-huh."

"How's his nose?"

"It's broken, but, aside from a bandage, there's nothing that can be done to it or for it."

"How long will it take to get him to Bragg from Mackall?"

"As a matter of fact, he's sitting here in my kitchen. Marjorie's here."

That caught the attention of Mrs. Hanrahan, Miss Bellmon, and Sergeant Portet, who looked at him.

Hanrahan covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

"Craig Lowell," he explained.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Lowell said, chuckling. "Listen, Red, Geoff Craig's on his way there. He should be there within the hour."

"He's here," Hanrahan interrupted.

"Pappy Hodges is with him," Lowell said. "They're in my Cessna."

"And?"

"Geoff's going to drop Pappy at Rucker, and then bring Portet here."

"Where's here?"

"Florida."

"Where in Florida? McDill?"

Lowell was the army aviation officer on the staff of the commanding general, U.S. Army Strike Command at McDill Air Force Base, Florida. Strike was an in-place headquarters organization commanded by a four-star general. When needed, tactical forces of all the armed services were placed under its command for operations around the world. It had been the headquarters for Operation Dragon Rouge.

"No. Actually, Miami. And actually a little south of Miami, near Key Largo. For a little well-deserved R and R."

"Craig, my orders are to keep him under a rock."

"Obviously, this has the blessing of His Holiness, Moses I," Lowell said. "He's here. You want me to put him on the horn, even if that means waking him from a sound sleep?"

Colonel Sanford T. Felter, Counselor to the President of the United States, had a staff of two. They were a bishop and nun, which he had to admit sounded a little funny, although he deeply regretted telling Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell where he had got them. Lowell thought it was hilarious, and had taken to calling Felter "His Holiness, Moses I, the First Jewish Pope."

The bishop was really a bishop, not of the Roman Catholic Church, but of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. James L. Finton was a career soldier who had risen to chief warrant officer, W-4, in twenty-three years. He was a cryptographer by training. Felter had found him in the Army Security Agency and arranged for his transfer to the White House Signal Detachment. He was a devout Mormon, and had told Felter that the church had saved his sanity after his wife had died of cancer. He spent his free time in one Mormon church function or another in the District. He had come to Felter with a Top Secret clearance, and a number of endorsements to that. He had a cryptographic endorsement, a nuclear endorsement, and several others.

The nun was really a nun, and of the Roman Catholic Church. Mary Margaret Dunne had been temporarily relieved of her vows to provide for her aged and senile father. When he died, she would return to the cloistered life as Sister Matthew. She spent her life in one of three places: with her father in a small apartment; on her knees in Saint Mary's church; or in Felter's small but ornate and high-ceilinged office in the old State, War and Navy Building.

Mary Margaret Dunne had been taken on by the Kennedy White House following a quiet word from the bishop. She needed a job, and could type. She had gone to work for Felter the same morning President Kennedy had introduced Felter at a briefing as the only man in the White House who didn't answer his phone.

They were fiercely devoted to Felter, and, about as important, were both quietly convinced that the Communists were the Antichrist, and that what Felter was doing, what they were helping him do, was as much the Lord's work as it was the government's.

"Sandy's in Miami, with you?"

"We're at McDill. The R and R will be in Miami. Portet's mother and father are there. My cousin Porter and his wife- Geoff's parents-are there. Geoff's wife and baby are there. Okay?"

"How long will he be gone?"

"Sandy hasn't made up his mind where to assign him."

"I thought he was here on TDY only until Dragon Rouge was over."

"Sandy hasn't made up his mind where to assign him," Lowell repeated, and Hanrahan understood there was something going on that Lowell was unwilling to talk about on the telephone.

"Okay."

"So he'll probably be coming back there," Lowell said. "In a week, ten days, something like that."

"Okay. I don't know how he's fixed for uniforms. Can he travel in fatigues?"

"No problem. We can get him something to wear here."

"Okay. He'll be ready when Craig gets here, which should be any minute. Anything else?"

"Is Patricia handy?"

"Hang on," Hanrahan said, and handed the telephone to his wife, who beamed when he handed her the phone, and whose affection for Craig Lowell was evident in her voice and visible on her face.

He had no idea what Lowell said to his wife, although it produced peals of laughter, and when he had finished speaking with her, she handed the telephone to Marjorie.

He had no idea what Uncle Craig said to Marjorie, but at one point she blushed attractively and stole a look at Jack Portet, and when she was finished she handed the telephone to Jack.

He had no idea what Lieutenant Colonel Lowell said to Sergeant Portet, but it had Jack chuckling.

Finally, Jack put the telephone in its cradle.

"The condition of your nose permitting, Sergeant Portet, you are about to take an R and R in the vicinity of Key Largo, Florida," Hanrahan said.

"An R and R?" Jack questioned curiously.

"It stands for Rest and Recuperation Leave," Hanrahan said.

It is sometimes called I&I, which stands for Intercourse and Intoxication. I am looking at the only Special Forces sergeant in history who doesn't know that.

But on the other hand, there are a number of Special Forces sergeants who have never heard a shot fired in anger. This one, according to Father Lunsford, behaved damned well when he was being shot at.

General Hanrahan had more or less the same thought when, a few minutes later, he opened his door to a tanned young man in expensive civilian clothing: This one behaved well, too, although to look at him, you would never suspect that he's a Green Beret officer, and a Vietnam veteran who's entitled to wear a Combat Infantry Badge, the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and three Purple Hearts.

Geoffrey Craig had been a sergeant with an eight-man A Team on an isolated hilltop. They had fifty of the Mung tribesmen with them. The Vietcong had attacked with a battalion. Geoff and twenty-odd Mung had lived through the assault, and he had come off the hilltop with a Silver Star, his third Purple Heart, and a battlefield commission.

"Hey, Geoff," Hanrahan said, putting out his hand. "We've been expecting you."

"Good morning, sir," Geoff Craig said. "I hope going by the headquarters was the right thing to do?"

"Absolutely. Come on in. Have you had your breakfast?"

"Coffee and a fried egg sandwich, sir."

"Patricia will be happy to remedy that," Hanrahan said, then asked, "I thought Pappy Hodges was with you?"

"He has friends here, sir. We're to meet him at Pope at eleven hundred. Will that give us time to get Portet in from Mackall?"

"He's here. And so is Marjorie Bellmon."

"I saw the car," Craig said, inclining his head toward the driveway, where a red Jaguar convertible was parked.

Hanrahan hadn't noticed the car when Marjorie arrived.

"She drove up last night," Hanrahan said.

And won't that give my neighbors something to talk about over their morning coffee. "Did you see the Jaguar, with the enlisted man's sticker, in the Hanrahan driveway? I wonder what that's all about?"

"Jack told us that Ursula and the baby came through that nightmare all right," Patricia Hanrahan said as he walked into the kitchen. "I'm so happy for you, Geoff."

"Thank you. They're at Ocean Reef with my father and mother. And Jack's folks. That's where we're headed," he said, and went to Jack Portet, who stood up as he approached. They embraced each other briefly and wordlessly, but the affection between them was clear.

"And Miss Marjorie," Geoff said, turning to her. "You're a long way from the bank, aren't you?"

"If I wasn't so glad to see you, I'd tell you to go to hell," Marjorie said. "Ursula and the baby are really all right?"

"Absolutely. No small thanks to your boyfriend. You heard about his John Wayne act?"

"Why don't you shut up, Geoff?" Jack Portet said.

"No, I haven't," Marjorie said.

"Quickly changing the subject-" Jack said.

"Cutting to the chase," Geoff said, interrupting him, amused. "He's about to be invested in the Order of Leopold, in the grade of Chevalier, for conspicuous gallantry in action-"

"Jesus!" Jack said.

"But the gratitude of the King of the Belgians toward our modest hero is nothing like that of my parents. You are really going to have a good time in Florida, Marj, basking in the reflected glory of our Jacques."