"Sir, I brought Dr. Williams's jump boots with me on the Huey," Lunsford said. "He made his fifth, qualifying, jump last night."

"Everybody did this?" Felter asked incredulously.

"Yes, sir."

"When?"

"Well, sir, once they got the aircraft crated, and the communications up and running, there wasn't a hell of a lot for them to do-" Lunsford said.

"They all all volunteered?" Felter said. volunteered?" Felter said.

"To a man, sir," Lunsford said firmly.

Felter looked at Hanrahan.

"And DCSOPS gave you authority to conduct a jump school?"

"I'm afraid that's what some IG is going to ask me, Mouse," Hanrahan said.

"You can pin wings on them, I suppose," Felter said. "But how are you going to get it on their records so they can draw jump pay?"

"Major Lunsford has some very interesting ideas on how to do that, Colonel," Hanrahan said, looking at Lunsford.

"Well, if Major Lunsford's interesting ideas don't work, come to me. I think it was a good idea."

"Father sold me on the idea for team spirit," Hanrahan said.

"That, too, I suppose," Felter said thoughtfully, "but I was thinking of Mobutu and Colonel Supo," Felter said. "The brotherhood of those who jump out of airplanes." He smiled. "Can Peters travel?" he asked Lunsford.

"Tyler says he'll take the cast off in a week or ten days," Lunsford said.

"I mean right now?"

"Well, sir, he's on crutches," Lunsford said.

Felter took a sheet of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to Hanrahan, who read it, then passed it to Lunsford, who passed it to Portet.

SECRETCentral Intelligence Agency Langley, VirginiaFROM : Assistant Director For AdministrationFROM: 18 February 1965 1805 GMT 18 February 1965 1805 GMTSUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #58.) TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter Mr. Sanford T. Felter Counselor To The President Room 637, The Executive Office Building Washington, D.C.By CourierIn compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: "Ernesto 'Che' Guevara," dated 14 December 1964, the following information is furnished:(Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Dar es Salaam Tanzania) SUBJECT met with Demo KABILA, Tanzanian Foreign Minister and offered 30 (thirty) Cuban instructors and "appropriate arms" to "wage war against U.S. imperialism." KABILA accepted.(Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Dar es Salaam) In Dar es Salaam interview 16 February 1965 by Spanish language newspaper, Prensa Latina, SUBJECT was quoted as saying, "I am convinced that it is possible to create a common front of struggle against colonialism, imperialism and neocolonialism. "

Howard W. O'Connor HOWARD W. O'CONNORSECRET "There seems to be no question that Guevara's going over there," Felter said. "The only question now is when, and in what strength. I'm afraid we're going to have to play the old Army game of hurry up and wait. I want to send Father, Portet, Thomas, and Johnny Oliver's friend. . . . What's his name?"

"Captain Darrell J. Smythe," Lunsford furnished. "Aunt Jemima."

Felter nodded. "Smythe," he said. "He jumped too?"

"Yes, sir," Lunsford said.

". . . over there as soon as possible. I don't want to give Mobutu a chance to change his mind, for one thing, and I want to get Thomas together with Colonel Supo."

He turned to Jack Portet.

"I spoke with your father on the way down here this morning," he said. "He apparently put the Intercontinental Air 707 through a 100-hour check, and found some things that have to be repaired. But he'll have the airplane ready by the time the team comes back from leave. On reflection, it made more sense to fly everybody and everything over there at once, rather than infiltrate the men a few at a time and rely on the Air Force to get the equipment to us when they can find the space. I'd rather save our priority until we need it."

"Yes, sir."

"So you charm Mobutu, decide where you want the 707, et cetera. You'll be the advance party, so to speak."

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"Lowell told me he told you you would be here at least a month," Felter said. "Sorry, Jack, but it just can't be helped."

"I understand, sir," Jack said.

Felter looked as if he was going to say something else, something serious, but changed his mind.

"I want to tell you guys about Peters," he said, smiling. "He came over to my office from the White House and asked if he could speak to me personally. I said sure. He's always gone out of his way to take care of me."

"What was he doing in the White House?" Hanrahan asked.

"Making sure the President's communications don't break down," Felter said. "He had twenty guys working for him."

"So what's he doing here?" Hanrahan asked. "Why would he give that up for this?"

Felter smiled.

"He wants to be a real real soldier," Felter said. "He said that when he came in the Army, he wanted to go Infantry, maybe even go to jump school. But he made the mistake of telling them he had a radio amateur's license. ASA is always looking for guys passing through reception centers who can read Morse soldier," Felter said. "He said that when he came in the Army, he wanted to go Infantry, maybe even go to jump school. But he made the mistake of telling them he had a radio amateur's license. ASA is always looking for guys passing through reception centers who can read Morse and and know about radios. So they put him in the Signal Corps and the ASA, and that's all he's done in the Army. Every time he applied for transfer, they told him he was essential. If he really raised hell, they promoted him. You know how few Spec7s there are in the Army? Probably less than a couple of hundred, and he's the youngest. Anyway, he told me he'd been reading my mail, knew what's going on with Operation Earnest, and knew that I levied the ASA for communications people. So he volunteered, and was told, again, he was essential. He said he knew I had the authority to levy him by name, and would I please do so, because I was his last chance of ever getting out of the ASA and 'back in the Army.' So I levied him by name, and the head of the ASA called me up and said I obviously didn't understand the situation, Peters was essential to the White House Signal Agency, and I just couldn't have him. I told him I had the priority, and wanted him. He said, 'Colonel, not as a threat, as a statement of fact, I'm going over your head with this one.' " know about radios. So they put him in the Signal Corps and the ASA, and that's all he's done in the Army. Every time he applied for transfer, they told him he was essential. If he really raised hell, they promoted him. You know how few Spec7s there are in the Army? Probably less than a couple of hundred, and he's the youngest. Anyway, he told me he'd been reading my mail, knew what's going on with Operation Earnest, and knew that I levied the ASA for communications people. So he volunteered, and was told, again, he was essential. He said he knew I had the authority to levy him by name, and would I please do so, because I was his last chance of ever getting out of the ASA and 'back in the Army.' So I levied him by name, and the head of the ASA called me up and said I obviously didn't understand the situation, Peters was essential to the White House Signal Agency, and I just couldn't have him. I told him I had the priority, and wanted him. He said, 'Colonel, not as a threat, as a statement of fact, I'm going over your head with this one.' "

"Obviously," Hanrahan said, chuckling, "he wasn't familiar with your chain of command."

"I don't think he was," Felter said, smiling. "And I don't know if General Sawyer actually went to President Johnson, but the day before Peters came down here, he showed up at my office- it was the first time I'd ever seen him in a uniform-came to attention and saluted, and said he was reporting for duty. Then he started worrying that he wouldn't measure up to being around Green Berets. I assured him he didn't have to worry, all he had to do was make sure the communications worked, nobody expected him to eat snakes or jump out of airplanes."

"And we turn him into a parachutist," Jack said.

"I hope he got hurt after he got his fifth jump in," Felter said. "I suspect he really really wants the wings and the shiny boots." wants the wings and the shiny boots."

"On his fifth," Lunsford said. "He's got his five jumps."

"Don't let him do it again, Father," Felter said. "He's too valuable. "

[ THREE ].

404 Avenue Leopold Leopoldville, Republic of the Congo 1320 26 February 1965 The international operator informed Jack Portet that there was a problem with the circuits at the moment, his call to Fayetteville, North Carolina, could not be completed at this time, and suggested he try again later.

"Merci beaucoup, mademoiselle," Jack said politely, hung up, and then angrily muttered, "Shit!" Jack said politely, hung up, and then angrily muttered, "Shit!"

Marjorie had taken the news that he was going to Africa now, rather than a month or so later, surprisingly calmly. It was nice to think that this was because she was, after all, an Army brat, and knew that Army wives have to get used to their husbands being sent off on short notice. But it was also possible that she was just putting on a bright face, and was pissed or hurt, or both.

But he had promised her that he would call the minute he got to Leopoldville, and he had had called just as soon as they'd gotten to the house and he'd had a shower, so he had called her within an hour and a half of getting off the UTA flight from Brussels, which was close enough, and now the fucking circuits were having a problem. called just as soon as they'd gotten to the house and he'd had a shower, so he had called her within an hour and a half of getting off the UTA flight from Brussels, which was close enough, and now the fucking circuits were having a problem.

He pulled open a shelf in his father's desk, found the number he was looking for on a typewritten list, and dialed it.

"Le residence du Chef de l' Armee de la Republique," a male voice announced. a male voice announced.

French, Jack thought. Jack thought. They hate the Belgians and anybody else who speaks French, but they answer the phone in French. They hate the Belgians and anybody else who speaks French, but they answer the phone in French.

"This is Captain Jacques Portet of Air Simba," Jack said in Swahili. "I would be very honored if General Mobutu could find a moment to speak to me."

There was a long-at least two-minute-period of silence and then the operator came back on the line.

"Regrettably, the General cannot take your call at this time," he said in French, "Would you be good enough to give General Mobutu a message for me?" Jack asked, again in Swahili.

"I will try," the operator said in French.

"Please inform General Mobutu that I am in Leopoldville, at my home, and would be honored if he could find the time to telephone me," Jack said in Swahili, then spelled his name and gave the number-three times, before the operator managed to get it right.

He put the telephone in its cradle and walked through the French doors to the verandah, then down to the swimming pool, where, as Spec7 Peters, his leg in a now-soiled cast that ran most of the way up his calf, watched from an umbrellaed table as Major Lunsford and Captain Smythe tried unsuccessfully to wrest a pink rubber swan from the massive arms of Master Sergeant Thomas.

"Get through?" Lunsford called to Jack.

"No."

"Hey, if Special Forces wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one," Lunsford said.

Jack gave him the finger.

"And Mobutu wasn't available," Jack added.

"Meaning?"

"He may call this afternoon. He may call tomorrow, or three days from now, or he may never call," Jack said. "Two variables affect the equation: One, they may not have passed my message on to him, and, two, presuming they did, he may not return the call for hours, or days, to make the point that he is important and I am not."

"You're going to have to try tomorrow if he doesn't call back today," Lunsford said.

Jack nodded, and sat down beside Peters.

"Anything I can get for you, Peters?"

"No, sir."

"Hungry?"

"I could eat a little something, yes, sir."

Jack looked up at the house, saw Nimbi, the houseboy, and mimed eating. Nimbi trotted to the table, and Jack spoke to him in Swahili. Nimbi nodded and trotted back to the house.

"Beer now," Jack said. "Steak and a salad in twenty minutes. Okay?"

"Sounds good."

When the beer was delivered, it drew Father, Doubting Thomas, and Aunt Jemima from the pool like a magnet.

Lunsford held up his bottle of beer.

"We're going to have to start paying you for the beer, accommodations, and chow," he said.

"Forget it," Jack said.

"No, it's one of the things we have to figure out," Lunsford said. "We're on separate rations, which means, apparently because the State Department has somebody who figures this out, we get standard separate rations pay, plus forty percent, because Leopoldville- all the Congo-is forty percent more expensive to live in than Washington, D.C. Same thing for the quarters allowance."

"Really?" Jack said, interested. He'd never thought of the subject before.

"Really," Lunsford said. "As of this moment, in addition to your other duties, you are Rations and Quarters Officer of Detachment 17. Once a month you will, as Rations and Quarters Officer, present a statement to me, stating that adequate quarters and messing facilities were not available. I will sign the first endorsement thereto, forwarding it to the military attache for action, whereupon he will lay money on you, which you will then disperse to the troops."

"I have to do that?" Jack said.

"Yes, Lieutenant, you do," Lunsford said. "That's why we have junior lieutenants, to relieve their senior officers of dealing with petty administrative problems. Maybe, if you behave between now and then, I will assign the duty to one of the other pilots when they get here. But for now, you're it. Say 'yes, sir.' "

"Yes, sir," Jack said, chuckling, and then asked, "Even if we eat the rations they're going to ship us?"

"I don't want to eat them unless we have to," Lunsford said. "But once rations like that are issued, they're no longer accountable for. I thought they might be handy to pass out to our Congolese allies, but that would mean we'll have to find our own chow. What do you think?"

"Well, I don't mind eating lion," Jack said. "Or, for that matter, monkey or gorilla, but I don't know about the others."

There was silence.

"You got 'em," Lunsford said. "I thought Gimpy Peters's eyes were going to come out of his head when you said 'monkey or gorilla.' "

"If we're in Stanleyville, there will be lots of first-class cooks looking for work," Jack said. "Vegetables and fish and eggs and pork won't be any problem, but we're going to have to figure out some way of getting in beef."

"That going to be expensive?"

"I don't think so. Ninety percent of the Belgians are gone from Stanleyville, and there was a food system that supplied them that no longer has customers. Everything but beef was available in Stanleyville, and still should be-or at least enough to feed the Detachment. They grow beef around Costermansville, and same story: Belgians gone, and the farmers looking for customers."

"The farmers weren't Belgians?" Peters asked.

"I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be pretty surprised if, after Mike Hoare's mercenaries ran the Simbas out, that the number-one boys on the farms didn't come out of the bush and go back to work, whether the boss was there or not. They make their living off the farms and ranches, too, and the number-one boys know as much about running the operation as the owners did."

"Interesting," Lunsford said.

"Don't take any heavy bets that I'm right," Jack said. "We'll only know for sure when we get there. In Costermansville, if that's where we wind up-Colonel Supo has his headquarters there-we can just take over a floor in the Hotel du Lac."

"Nice place," Lunsford said.

"You know it?" Jack asked, surprised.