Bellmon looked at him.

"You're implying Mrs. Bellmon wasn't invited?" Bellmon asked.

Jack didn't reply.

"Since you're about to join the family, Jack," Bellmon said, "let me tell you about my wife and Colonel Lowell. Anything she wants, she can have. I think he does it to piss me off. We have an open invitation to Ocean Reef-my wife does. If one of the houses isn't available, they put us up in a hotel."

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"And the way it works, Jack, is that women do weddings. All the man has to do is show up sober at the church."

He smiled at his own wit, then touched Jack's arm and prodded him toward the door.

Captain Hornsby rose from his desk as they came into the outer office.

"If anybody wants me, I'll be at my quarters," General Bellmon said.

"Yes, sir."

"And Dick, call the post chaplain. Give him a heads-up. Mrs.

Bellmon will probably call him tomorrow about a wedding."

"Yes, sir."

[ FIVE ].

Base Operations Cairns Army Airfield Fort Rucker, Alabama 1710 3 December 1964 When Major Daniel McCarthy, the AOD (Airfield Officer of the Day) returned to the Base Operations building from his first quick tour of the field-he had come on duty at 1615-there was a black Oldsmobile 98 with a blue sticker FORT RUCKER ALA 1 parked in the spot marked COMMANDING GENERAL.

McCarthy was made a little nervous, and was annoyed with the AOD he had relieved, who had said nothing about the general being on the program for the evening.

He got quickly out of the staff car-which had a large black-and -white checked flag flying from a mast on the rear bumper- and entered the building.

The sergeant on the desk pointed to the flight planning room, and Major McCarthy walked quickly to the door and pushed it open.

The general, a civilian, and a sergeant were bent over one of the worktables. Mrs. Bellmon and the general's daughter were standing before a huge map of the southern portion of the United States, which filled a wall.

There were other pilots in the room, obviously trying to stay out of the general's way.

Major McCarthy recognized the sergeant, despite the bandage over his nose. He had recently taken his annual instrument exam, and the sergeant had been in the office of the Instrument Board. McCarthy remembered someone telling him that he was a drafted airline pilot who had opted for two years' service as an enlisted man, rather than three or more years as an officer/pilot.

That explained what he was doing, making a flight plan, but it didn't mesh with McCarthy's memory that the drafted airline pilot had been a just-out-of-basic-training private, not a Green Beret sergeant with two sets of parachutist's wings.

"Good evening, General," McCarthy said. "Major McCarthy, the AOD. Can I be of some help?"

Bellmon turned and looked at him.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Major," he said, smiling. "But maybe the girls would like a Coke or a cup of coffee in the lounge."

"My pleasure, sir," Major McCarthy said. He turned to the women. "Would you like to come with me, ladies?"

"I'd like to see what's Jack's doing," Marjorie said. "Would I be in the way?"

"Help yourself," Jack said, and she walked to the table.

Barbara Bellmon smiled at Major McCarthy.

"I'll pass on the coffee, but thank you, Major."

Jack drew a straight line on a plastic-covered map of the area. It ran directly from Cairns Field to Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami. The route passed east of Crestview and Panama City, Florida, and then would take them over Appalachacola and the Gulf of Mexico, reaching land again northeast of Clearwater, Florida, and then across the Florida peninsula to Hollywood on the Atlantic coast.

"You're not going IFR?"-instrument flight rules-General Bellmon asked, surprised, and just a little disapproving.

Jack shook his head, no.

"They'd vector me into Georgia," he explained, drawing a course with his finger on the map. "And then down the peninsula. That'd add a couple of hundred miles, and this way I'll pick up a tailwind."

"That's what?" General Bellmon asked, and made a compass of his fingers to measure the distance on the map. "That's two hundred and something miles over the water."

General Bellmon obviously did not approve of the flight plan, and Major McCarthy was surprised that the sergeant, ex-airline pilot or not, did not immediately concur with the general's judgment.

"Daddy, Jack knows what he's doing," Marjorie said.

You said that because he's your knight in shining armor, but the fact is that he probably does, General Bellmon thought. General Bellmon thought. He's got more hours in the air than I do. He's got more hours in the air than I do.

"I'm sure he does," Bellmon said, smiling with a visible effort, "and he's the pilot."

Well, Major McCarthy thought, Major McCarthy thought, if the sergeant is the pilot, that explains the Cessna 310H parked on the visitors' tarmac, doesn't it? if the sergeant is the pilot, that explains the Cessna 310H parked on the visitors' tarmac, doesn't it?

And what's going on with him and the general's daughter?

[ SIX ].

Over Hollywood, Florida 2125 3 December 1964 "Miami, Cessna Six-oh-one," Jack said into the microphone.

"Six-oh-one, Miami."

"I'm on a VFR "-Visual Flight Rules-" Direct Cairns Field Alabama-Hollywood. You got it?"

"Hold one," the Miami controller said, and then, a moment later, "Got you, Six-oh-one."

"I'm at seven thousand over Hollywood. I want to extend to a private strip about twenty miles south of Miami. Okay?"

"Permission granted. I have you on radar. Close out again when you're on the ground."

"Beginning descent at this time. And thank you, Miami," Jack said, and turned to Geoff Craig.

"Okay, now what?"

Geoff handed him the Jeppesen chart for the Miami area and pointed out a private landing strip on a narrow reef a few miles east of Key Largo.

"A private strip?" Jack asked dubiously. "Has it got lights?"

"Oh, ye of little faith!" Geoff replied. He dialed a frequency on the transceiver and picked up the microphone.

"Ocean Reef, Cessna Six-oh-one."

"Ocean Reef, go ahead."

"We're over Hollywood. Estimate fifteen minutes. Will you light it up in a couple of minutes and call Mr. Porter Craig and tell him we're on our way in?"

"Certainly. Give us a call, please, when you get close."

"Will do. Thank you, Ocean Reef," Geoff said, and turned to Jack. "You may start going down now, sir. In that direction, sir."

He pointed down with his index finger.

Jack smiled, shook his head, and put the Cessna into a gentle descent.

The hotels and condominiums along the beach, and Miami itself, were visible to their right, as were airliners making their descents toward Miami International.

"It's beautiful!" Marjorie said, leaning forward from the rear seat. Her fingers grazed Jack's neck. He shifted his neck backward to press against them.

Two minutes later, Geoff picked up the microphone again.

"Ocean Reef, Six-oh-one at 5,000. We have Miami in sight."

"Six-oh-one, Ocean Reef, we're lighting up now. The winds are five, gusting to fifteen, from the south. You will be met."

"Thank you kindly," Geoff said, and turned to Jack again. "The way I usually find it is to find A1A, and then Key Largo. We're about ten miles south."

He pointed vaguely to the southwest, and then to the southeast. Jack nodded.

"You better strap yourself in, Marjorie," Jack said, turning his head. She caressed his neck a moment more, then her fingers were gone.

A moment later, Geoff said, pointing to parallel rows of landing lights, "Either that's it or somebody's really really got their boats in a row." got their boats in a row."

"Oh, Jesus," Jack said disgustedly, and turned slightly to the right to line up with the runway.

Three minutes later, the sleek twin-engine aircraft touched down smoothly just past the clearly marked threshold of what turned out to be a narrow but smoothly paved runway.

Jack saw that there was one small hangar; a neat-looking operations building with a small control tower on top of it; and maybe a dozen aircraft, mostly small, expensive light twins like the one he was flying, on the ramp.

It was, he decided, a very nice little airport.

A man in a sport shirt holding lighted lamps appeared on the runway and directed him to a parking space.

He got on the horn and told Miami he was on the ground, then went through the shutdown procedures.

"That's Uncle Craig," Marjorie said happily, and Jack looked out the side window of the airplane and saw that the man with the wands was indeed Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell.

He was the last person out of the airplane, and, deciding that caution was the better part of valor, Jack saluted him.

Lowell returned the salute.

"That's very nice, Sergeant, but we don't do very much of that around here." He paused and added, amused, "But I must say, Sergeant, that you really look awesomely military. Doesn't he, Geoff? A regular recruiting poster for Special Forces!"

"Well, he certainly would scare me to death," Geoff said.

"Leave him alone, Uncle Craig," Marjorie said. "And you, too, Geoff."

"Said the bride-to-be, protecting her man," Lowell went on, unabashed. "My, you two have had a busy, busy day, haven't you?"

"Craig, is that what I think it is?" Barbara Bellmon asked.

"Is what what you think it is?"

She pointed to an ancient, enormous, canary-yellow convertible sedan parked just off the runway.

"It is!" she said. "God, I thought it would be in a museum by now!"

"What is that?" Jack asked.

"It's a 1941 Packard 180 with a body by Rollson," Lowell said. "I will not explain further, because I am sure the mother of the bride-to-be will do so later in great detail. But I will say, Madame Bellmon, that the last offer I had for it-an excited little bald-headed man actually chased me down the highway in Key Largo waving his checkbook-was ten times what I paid for it in Louisville."

"It's beautiful," Jack said. "I don't think I've ever seen one before. "

"They made only thirty-two of them, the four-door," Lowell said. "Okay, here's the game plan. Jack's family are in House A. The Bellmon ladies will stay with them. Geoff-the whole Craig family-are in his parents' place, hereinafter referred to as House B. What we are going to do now is drop everybody off at House B, where festivities are already in progress. Except Jack and me, who will instead proceed to my house, House C, where Jack will be staying with me. There he will divest himself of his martial garb, slip into something more suitable, and then we will proceed to House B, where, unfortunately, Jack, you will receive a long, and probably tearful, speech of gratitude from Geoff's mother for saving her grandchild from the Simbas."

"I didn't do anything like that-" Jack started to protest.

"Yeah, you did," Geoff said. "Ursula told me."

"Colonel, I don't have anything to change into," Jack said.

"Your ever-efficient stepmother took care of that," she said. "You have a full set of gear awaiting."

He gestured toward the car.

[ SEVEN ].