Captain Dugan was wearing the uniform of a major of Congolese paratroops, complete in every detail to the Browning 9-mm automatic pistol in a web holster. First Lieutenant Paul W. Matthews was wearing the uniform of a Congolese captain of paratroops.

As they had put on the uniforms, under the direction of a Congolese captain of paratroops named DeeGee, who confessed that he was really Sergeant First Class Andrew DeGrew of the 17th Special Forces Detachment, Lieutenant Matthews had made a little joke: "Yesterday, I ain't never even seen seen a captain of Congolese paratroops, and today I are one." a captain of Congolese paratroops, and today I are one."

When they had pressed Sergeant DeGrew for details of what was going on, DeGrew had politely told them that "The Major" would explain what was going on over dinner, which would be served at 2100 in Captain Portet's apartment.

Once satisfied with their appearance, DeeGee/DeGrew had left them alone in apartment 8-F with two bona fide Congolese paratroop sergeants, who would, DeGrew explained, serve as both their orderlies and their bodyguards. Using sign language, one of the sergeants had managed to communicate that there was beer, if the officers wished, and at 2050, the other had managed to communicate that it was time to go to dinner.

There were two paratroopers outside the door of Apartment 10-C, whom Dugan and Matthews judged to be bona fide because both bore facial scars obviously intended to enhance their beauty.

Captain DeeGee opened the door to them, a Car-16 slung from his shoulder, and indicated the direction of the living room.

A white man in a U.S. Army flight suit without any insignia of any kind was sitting on the floor playing patty-cake, patty-cake, with the blond infant who had been on the 707. The blonde was nowhere in sight.

There was a coffee table, on which had been arranged a selection of hors d'oeuvres, and a barefooted African in a starched white jacket was standing behind a small bar. The Congolese lieutenant colonel now identified as Major Lunsford was at the bar with two other men: the captain of the 707, and the Congolese captain who had been at the foot of the aircraft steps and told them saluting wasn't necessary, he was a Spec7.

And I never saw a Spec7 before today, either, although I've heard of them, Captain Dugan thought. Captain Dugan thought.

A second barefoot black man in a starched white jacket came into the room through a swinging door, carrying a huge platter holding a small roast pig with an apple in its mouth. The enormous black woman from the 707 followed him, and showed him where she wanted it laid on a large dining table. Then she followed him back through the swinging doors.

"Welcome," the airline captain said. "Come on over and have a drink."

They walked to the bar, "Good evening, sir," Captain Dugan said.

"Good evening, Captain," Lieutenant Matthews said.

"You're Major Lunsford, sir?" Captain Dugan asked, offering his hand.

"Welcome to the Congo, Captain," Lunsford said, shaking his hand, then offering his hand to Matthews with a nod.

"You've met Spec7 Peters, I understand?" Lunsford said.

"Yes, sir," they said in unison.

"The proud daddy on the floor is Lieutenant Geoff Craig, my exec."

Craig waved at them, then held the infant's arm so that the infant could wave, too.

"Which one of you is better at dropping things from L-19 hardpoints?" Craig asked. "Specifically, into a clearing maybe twice the size of this room? A clearing in some really heavy bush?"

Dugan and Matthews looked at each other, but neither replied.

"Hey, you were asked a question," Lunsford said.

"Sir, I haven't flown an L-19 in some time," Matthews said truthfully.

"You came from where?" Father asked.

"Headquarters, Third Army, sir."

"Been flying the brass around in L-23s?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you're the one from the Big Red One?" Lunsford asked Dugan.

"Yes, sir."

"And they have a lot of L-19s in the Big Red One, right?"

"Yes, sir. I've got some recent L-19 time."

"That means you don't get anything to drink, I'm afraid," Lunsford said.

"Sir?"

"At first light," Geoff said, "you and I are going to try to drop some batteries into a clearing in the bush. So we're shut off from the sauce tonight."

Mrs. Ursula Wagner Craig came into the room. She was wearing a simple, crisp-looking, yellow dress.

"And this, of course, is Miss-Mrs.-Stanleyville of 1965," Lunsford said. "Otherwise known as Mrs. Ursula Craig."

The enormous black woman came into the room, snatched the infant from the floor, and left with it.

"And that is the one meanest black lady I have ever met," Lunsford said. "The first time I met her, I came through that door"-he pointed-"doing my John Wayne act with a FN automatic rifle, and Mary Magdalene came through that one"-he pointed at the swinging door-"with murder in her eye, and a butcher knife in each hand. I have never been so scared in my life."

"She was protecting the baby," Ursula Craig said.

"Jacques said that when he got here," the airline captain said, "she scared him out of his wits, and she raised him."

"A word to the wise, therefore, gentlemen," Father said. "Don't cross Mary Magdalene. Understand?"

"No, sir," Captain Dugan said. "With respect, sir, I don't understand any of this. I don't know what's going on, and I'm not sure I even know where we are."

"Okay," Lunsford said. "I'll try to make this quick so we can eat. You read in the papers about the Simbas, the people who occupied Stanleyville, and most of this part of the Congo, until the Belgians jumped on Stanleyville?"

"Yes, sir."

"Captain Portet's wife, Ursula, the baby, and Mary Magdalene were trapped here when the Simbas came. In this apartment. It belongs to Captain Portet. When the Belgians jumped, Jack Portet-he's Captain Portet's son and a Special Forces officer- jumped with them, and of course headed right for the Immoquateur because his mother and Ursula and the baby were here, presuming the Simbas hadn't had their livers for lunch in the town square."

"Father, my God!" Ursula protested.

"They wanted to know what's going on here," Lunsford said, unabashed. "I'm telling them."

"Sir, with respect, and forgive me, Mrs. Craig," Captain Dugan said, "but you're not saying these people actually practiced cannibalism, are you?"

"Yes, I am," Lunsford said. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Sir, didn't I understand you to say you were here, too?" Matthews asked.

Lunsford nodded.

"Then you jumped with the Belgians, too?"

"No. He was here when the Belgians got here," Geoff Craig said. "He was running around in the bush with the Simbas."

"We had Special Forces here then?" Matthews asked, genuinely surprised.

"And some people from the Army Security Agency," Spec7 Peters said.

"And some people from the Army Security Agency," Lunsford agreed, smiling.

"We often work with Special Forces," Spec7 Peters explained with as much modesty as he could muster.

Craig and Lunsford exchanged glances but said nothing.

Geoff Craig had a flattering-from his perspective-thought: If that skinny little bastard-especially since he's earned his jump wings-doesn't get himself blown away over here, there's no way he's going back to the White House Signal Agency. If that skinny little bastard-especially since he's earned his jump wings-doesn't get himself blown away over here, there's no way he's going back to the White House Signal Agency.

"Sir, what I don't understand is what Special Forces is doing here now," Matthews said. "Haven't the Simbas been . . . broken up? Don't the Congolese have the situation under control?"

"Well, if it wasn't for Che Guevara thinking that the way to bring the joys of Communism to the rest of the world is by encouraging the savages here to eat some more white people's livers, they would."

"Ach, du lieber Gott, Vater," Ursula protested, so unhappy and disturbed that she reverted to her native German. Ursula protested, so unhappy and disturbed that she reverted to her native German.

"You're not talking about the Cuban?" Captain Dugan asked incredulously. "The guy with the beard?"

Lunsford nodded.

"That's hard to believe," Dugan said.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," Lunsford said. "Write that down."

"My God, you're serious," Matthews said.

"Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, M.D.-who naively thinks we don't know-is at this very moment on a farm outside of Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, preparing to lead his quote 'forces of liberation' unquote across Lake Tanganyika into the Congo," Father said.

"He's a doctor?" Lieutenant Matthews asked incredulously.

"I'll be damned," Captain Dugan said.

"We have an ASA intercept team on him," Spec7 Peters said.

"So the question before you, Captain Dugan and Lieutenant Matthews, is do you want to stay here and help us stop the sonofabitch, at considerable risk to your skin, and no bands playing when you get home-if you get home-or do you want to get on the 707 when it goes back to the States tomorrow?"

"Sir, we volunteered for this assignment," Matthews said.

"You just think you did," Lunsford said. "You were recruited by Pappy Hodges, who could show the Virgin Mary how he'd marked his cards, then talk her into playing strip poker with him."

"Father, that's terrible!" Mrs. Craig said, but she was smiling.

"I don't want anyone here who doesn't want to be here," Father said. "And I think anyone who would want to be here is certifiable. "

Matthews and Dugan looked at each other but said nothing. "Just to make sure you know what you might be letting yourself in for," Lunsford said. "That coffin you saw us making at the field? We're sending a damned good soldier home in it with Captain Portet. He was on an outpost; the Congolese soldiers with him got scared and took off. He stayed and fought, and lost, and after he was dead, I hope, they cut off his head."

Captain James J. Dugan looked at Lieutenant Matthews, then at Lieutenant Craig.

He wet his lips.

"What time did you say we were taking off in the morning, Lieutenant?" he asked.

[ EIGHT ].

SECRET SECRETCentral Intelligence Agency Langley, VirginiaFROM: Assistant Director For Administration Assistant Director For AdministrationFROM: 8 April 1965 2330 GMT 8 April 1965 2330 GMTSUBJECT: Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #72.) Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #72.) TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter Mr. Sanford T. Felter Counselor To The President Room 637, The Executive Office Building Washington, D.C.By Officer CourierIn compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: "Ernesto 'Che' Guevara," dated 14 December 1964, the following information is being furnished:.From CIA Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika (Reliability Scale Five):1. In the last 96 hours thirty Negro males of military age bearing Cuban passports have arrived in Dar es Salaam, all on tourist visas issued by the Tanganyikan Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. No names are available at this time.2. They arrived variously, in groups no larger than six, aboard various commercial flights from Cairo, Egypt (3); Prague, Czechoslovakia (3); and Paris, France (2).3. Immediately on arrival all were transported by car or light truck to the farm in the vicinity of Morogoro, where Guevara and Dreke are known to be.4. It is the opinion of the undersigned that most, if not all, of the group will leave the farm within the next seven days and attempt to enter the Congo, probably by crossing Lake Tanganyika from Kigoma in the Western Province.

Howard W. O'Connor HOWARD W. O'CONNORSECRET

XXII.

[ ONE ].

5 Degrees 27 Minutes 08 Seconds South Latitude 29 Degrees 11 Minutes 19 Seconds East Longitude (The Bush, Near Lake Tanganyika, Kivu Province, Congo) 0440 9 April 1965 Doubting Thomas was surprised, and at first annoyed, that Lieutenant Colonel Henri Coizi, Colonel Supo's Chef de Cabinet, who had elected to personally command the reaction force, had also elected to personally command the reinforcement force of twenty shooters he had asked for.

Like most senior sergeants with something important to do, Master Sergeant Thomas believed the last thing needed to accomplish his mission was a goddamned lieutenant colonel to get in the way.

But at least the bastard's leading the column on foot, Thomas thought when first he saw Colonel Coizi, Thomas thought when first he saw Colonel Coizi, not riding standing up in the jeep, like Patton. not riding standing up in the jeep, like Patton.

He had then stepped out of the bush.

Here lies Master Sergeant William Thomas, who was shot in the middle of the jungle at oh dark hundred by a trigger-happy African.

"Hold fire!" Lieutenant Colonel Coizi barked in a command voice that would have made him perfectly at home on the parade grounds of Fort Bragg.

Thomas saluted crisply.

"Good morning, sir."

Coizi returned the salute as crisply.

"Major," he said.

"I expected the colonel a little earlier," Thomas said politely.

Like maybe at ten o'clock last night.