The New Breed

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Yes," he said finally. "I wouldn't want you there unless you understood the importance of what you were doing and were willing to take the assignment. I did not say 'wanted the assignment.' I said 'were willing to take' it. There's a distinction."

  "Have I the Colonel's permission to speak frankly?"

  "Certainly. "

  "Colonel, I am a soldier. I don't want to be a spy."

  "The first obligation of a soldier is to do what is best for the Army," Felter said. "Even if that includes being a spy. Or, for that matter, being a Counselor to the President."

  "It was not my intention to offend the Colonel, Sir."

  "When you offend me, you'll know," Felter said matter of factly. "Actually, I appreciate your candor."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Over the objections of a G-2 colonel, Wagner, who acted as if the KGB had been invited to bring their cameras while we showed them around the Situation Room. . ."

  "Sir?"

  "What?"

  "The Situation Room?"

  "It's next door, five floors underground. The Commander-in-Chief's CP."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "I was saying that you now have a Top Secret clearance, with an 'Eagle' endorsement," Felter said. "What follows is classified Top Secret Eagle. Do you understand?"

  "I do not understand the 'Eagle,' Sir."

  "Eagle is a contingency plan for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the ex-Congo Belge. I am the action officer, and so far, except for the President and my secretary, you are the only other person cleared for it."

  "I don't know what response is expected of me, Sir."

  "Just sit there and listen," Felter said, not unkindly. "I'll tell you when I want a response." Felter delivered a ten-minute lecture on the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from its birth, including a precise description of the mercenary operations, under Major Michael Hoare, in the Katanga Province.

  "If there is a resurgence of the Katanga rebellion, which I think possible, even likely," Felter said, "or some other internal warfare, which is less likely but still possible, I think Hoare will be involved again. I hate to use the word, because it makes me sound like a State Department bureaucrat, but if that happens, there will be important 'geopolitical' consequences."

  "Sir, I am ashamed to tell you I know little of the problems there."

  "You're not alone, Karl-Heinz," Felter said and chuckled.

  "But let me try to put it in military terms. It is of great importance, 'geopolitically,' for the President to know the capabilities of any new mercenary force that Hoare might organize-or even that we might ask him to organize-for employment in the ex-Congo Belge. I just came back from Africa and I wasn't at all impressed with the man the CIA has charged with keeping an eye on Hoare. For one thing he used to be a naval officer, and for another, I thought he was a Scheisskopf."

  "You want me to go to the Belgian Congo?" Wagner asked, but it was more of an accusation than a question.

  Felter nodded. "South Africa. Hoare's got a Rover agency in Durban. He has a loose collection of ex-mercenaries and would be mercenaries-not formally organized, but capable, I think, of being quickly pulled together whenever he wishes. If that happens, I need an evaluation-a soldier's evaluation-of that organization. From Hoare down to the private in the ranks, weapons, training, transportation, morale. . ."

  "Yes, Sir," Karl-Heinz said.

  "Pardon me?"

  "I said, 'Yes, Sir.' Have I the Colonel's permission to ask questions?"

  "Shoot?"

  "What will my Army status be?"

  "I haven't even outlined what role I would like you to play in this."

  "1 am to go South Africa as a defected officer of the DDR Volksarmee Pioneers," Karl-Heinz said. "And become a member of the loose organization Major Hoare has established." Felter nodded his head approvingly.

  "You will be assigned to the ROTC detachment at Texas A and M and placed on further TDY to the Army Language School at the Presidio of Monterey.

  And on further TDY here. I've arranged for you to be hired as an engineer for a West German company now building a bank in Durban. You will go from here to Germany and then travel to South Africa with a West German passport. That should cover your tracks. You will draw full pay and allowances, plus per diem, plus hazardous-duty pay. The checks will go to an account we'll open for you in the Riggs Bank here. And when you come back, I will write your efficiency report."

  "Yes, Sir," Wagner said.

  "I'm a little curious, Wagner.... A few minutes ago I had formed the opinion you would not be interested in this at all." Wagner understood the question but took a moment to frame his reply.

  "Sir, I have taken the oath. For a moment I forgot that I did, that I have been given a second chance as an officer."

  "If you're talking about swearing to obey the orders of officers appointed over me," Felter said, quoting the officer's oath of office, "I thought I had made it clear that if you take this job it will be as a volunteer. There's no order involved."

  "I have sworn," Karl-Heinz Wagner said, quoting," 'to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"

  "The phrase," Felter corrected him, "is to defend The Constitution, etcetera."

  "The meaning is the same," Wagner said seriously. "Without the Constitution, there would be no United States and nothing worth defending." Felter looked at him thoughtfully.

  His first thought bordered on the flippant: You can take a German out of the country, but you can't take the German out of the German. He immediately regretted it, and realized why it had come to his mind. Then he understood. Like most American officers he was uneasy when someone talked about the-officer's oath, or their obligations under it. It didn't mean that they held the oath, or their obligations, in scorn, but rather that it wasn't the sort of thing one talked about, for fear of sounding like a fool, a dunce wrapped in the flag and dancing to the sound of a trumpet.

  Karl-Heinz Wagner had been conditioned to quite the reverse.

  He had been raised in a totalitarian state. He had even prospered under the German Democratic Republic. He had been educated by it, commissioned into its army, and served it with distinction.

  And he had betrayed it. Not casually, Felter thought, but only after what must have been a good deal of painful thought, and not, Felter believed, for material reasons. But for freedom, another word that most American officers were reluctant to discuss seriously.

  The price of freedom for Karl-Heinz Wagner had been the loss . of his honor and his property. And if they had caught him, it would have meant his life. And that of his sister. It had taken courage to put his sister behind the cement bags in the truck he'd stolen to crash through the Berlin Wall. . . .

  When Felter reflected philosophically about his country, his thoughts usually turned to the revolution and to the revolutionaries. They had not been a bunch of malcontents hoping to get something material out of it when the revolution succeeded. They had been the aristocracy.

  And they had been, many of them, soldiers. Colonel George Washington had taken the King's shilling, swearing loyalty to the British State in the person of His Most Britannic Majesty, George III. He had been a rich Virginia planter, and so had Thomas Jefferson. When they had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they had something to lose, and they had not considered themselves too masculine, or too sophisticated, to use words like liberty and freedom and honor.

  Colonel George Washington, Felter decided, would both understand and approve of Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Wagner, and so did Colonel Sanford T. Felter.

  "OK," he said finally. "Thank you. I'll get the paperwork going. Any reason you can't leave Bragg in the next couple of days?"

  "No, Sir."

  "I've got an Afrikaans instructor laid on at the Language School," Felter said. "He says he can teach a German-speaker enough to get by in three weeks. You'll go there first."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "But now it's lunchtime
," Felter said. "I think under the circumstances that I should buy you a lunch."

  "The Colonel is very kind, but that is unnecessary."

  "I think we'll go to the Army-Navy Club. The food's not all that good, but I like to go there every once in a while and look at all the memorabilia. A career officer such as yourself, Lieutenant Wagner, should be able to say he's eaten lunch there at least once."

  One L-26 Aero Commander was assigned to the U.S. Army representative to the Federal Aviation Agency, a colonel, for-his use in the execution of his official duties. This surprised few soldiers, too. It was generally accepted that the Army representative to the FAA was the recruiting officer for the CIA's airline, Air America, and that he had other CIA connections.

  U.S. Army L-26 Tail Number 209 was at ten thousand feet over Eufaula when the pilot reached for his microphone.

  "Cairns, Army Two Oh Nine."

  "Two Oh Nine, Cairns," the tower came back immediately.

  "Cairns, Two Oh Nine is VFR at one zero thousand over Eufaula. Estimate Cairns ten minutes. Request approach and landing."

  "Two Oh Nine, Cairns, we have you on radar. Maintain your present heading. Descend to two thousand feet. Report five minutes out. The altimeter is three zero zero zero. The winds are negligible."

  "Cairns, Two Oh Nine, understand two thousand, three zero zero zero. There is a code six aboard. We will require ground transport at the board parking ramp. No honors." There was aboard L-26 Tail Number 209 a device known as a transponder. It was state of the art. When triggered by the Cairns Army Airfield radar it responded electronically in such a manner that the air-traffic controllers were informed what type aircraft it was and its call sign.

  Two Oh Nine had told the tower it had a full colonel (code six) aboard and that he wanted a staff car to meet him. Full colonels are not expected to stand around waiting for a bus or for someone to send a car for them. The "no honors" meant that the car was all the Colonel wanted; it would not be necessary for the AOD (Aerodrome Officer of the Day) to meet the airplane when it landed to officially welcome him to the Army Aviation Center.

  "Roger, Two Oh Nine," Cairns replied. "Sir, may I have the name of the code six?" The pilot of L-26 Tail Number 209 wore the silver eagles of a full colonel on the epaulets of the blouse on a hanger in the cabin behind him. The blouse also carried the crossed flags of the Signal Corps and an impressive array of colored ribbons, the ordinary "I Was There" ribbons, and five, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross, for valor. There were also parachutist's wings, the Combat Infantry Badge, and two silver badges testifying to the Colonel's skill with small arms.

  (Three)

  Cairns Army Airfield Fort Rucker, Alabama 19 January 1964

  The Army had purchased a half-dozen Aero Commanders sleek, lush, high-winged, relatively fast, twin-engine, six-place executive aircraft-"off-the-shelf" and designated the aircraft L-26. The justification of the purchase was that Beech Aircraft (which manufactured the military version of the Twin Bonanza, the L-23, which was the standard Army personnel transport) could not deliver sufficient quantities of them to meet the Army's needs. This was true, but few soldiers were surprised when the L- 26 Commanders wound up assigned to transport very senior officers. In some ways the Aero Commander became a sort of U.S. Army marshal's baton, a symbol of high rank and great responsibility.

  There was one exception. By direction of the Chief of Staff, Colonel Richard C. Fulbright believed that if you've got 'em, flaunt 'em.

  He was a tall, lithe, ruddy-faced officer with intelligent eyes and a mischievous smile.

  He flashed the smile as he looked, his eyebrows raised in question, at the man in the copilot's seat. This was another full colonel. His blouse, on its hanger in the cabin, wore the crossed rifles of infantry, parachutist's wings, and the Combat Infantry Badge, but no ribbons. L Colonel Sanford T. Felter indicated with his finger that Colonel Richard C. Fulbright should identify himself as the code six aboard.

  "Christ," Colonel Fulbright said, "if I didn't know better, I might think you're a spy or something." Then he pushed the mike button.

  "Cairns, Two Oh Nine. Fulbright. I spell. Eff You Ell Bee Are Eye Gee Aicht Tee."

  "I think, Colonel," Felter said, smiling, "the way you're supposed to do that is Foxtrot Uncle Love etcetera."

  "Fuck 'em," Colonel Fulbright said cheerfully. "You realize you just ruined Bob Bellmon's day?"

  "Bob loves you, Dick," Felter said, chuckling. "Everybody knows that."

  "Two Oh Nine, Cairns. Colonel Fulbright, ground transportation will be waiting for you at the board ramp."

  "Cairns, Two Oh Nine, Roger. Passing through eight thousand. " It was the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the Cairns tower to report by telephone the arrival of any full colonel or more senior officer to the office of the Fort Rucker Commanding General, specifically to his aide-de-camp.

  They did so now.

  Captain John C. Oliver, a good-looking, young, recently returned from Vietnam Armor officer who was aide-de-camp to Major General Robert F. Bellmon, walked into the General's office and waited until General Bellmon raised his eyes from a staff study, an inch-thick stack of typewritten pages held together with a sheet-metal clip.

  "Sir, a Colonel Fulbright is about to land at Cairns," Oliver said.

  "Johnny," General Bellmon said almost kindly, "there is only one Colonel Fulbright liable to come here."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "I think it highly unlikely that Colonel Fulbright will do me the honor of paying his respects. either to the Commanding General or to me personally, but if he does show up here, we will keep the sonofabitch waiting at least fifteen minutes."

  "Yes, Sir," Captain Oliver said, smiling.

  "Anything on Colonel Felter?" Bellmon asked.

  "No, Sir. With your permission, Sir, I thought I'd take the H-13 and meet the Southern 1430 flight in Dothan." The H-13 was a two-place, bubble-canopied Bell helicopter.

  "Go ahead, Johnny," Bellmon said. "I won't be needing you." Bellmon knew that one of two things was true about Oliver wanting to take the Bell to meet the Southern Airlines flight from Atlanta on which Sandy Felter might, just might, be arriving.

  One was that he was just doing his job, that he understood that Colonel Felter was entitled to VIP treatment not only because he was in a very high place, indeed, but also because he was ~n old, close friend of Bellmon. The other was that if he took the Bell, rather than laying on someone else, it would give him a chance to fly. Not much, but fly. As his aide-de-camp he didn't get much chance to fly.

  Bellmon liked Captain Johnny Oliver. Not only was he a very bright young officer who had done well in Nam and almost certainly had a rewarding career ahead of him, but he was a pleasant, happy, and so far as Bellmon knew, highly moral young man. It had entered his mind more than once that Johnny Oliver would make a welcome addition to the family as the husband of his only daughter, Marjorie. Oliver was Regular Army, and a graduate of Norwich University, which to Bellmon's mind was the equivalent qualification for a potential son-in-law as being a West Pointer. The Military College of Vermont had been turning out regular Army Cavalry and Armor officers of distinction for a long time. Bellmon had served in the 2nd Armored "Hell on Wheels" Division until he had been captured in North Africa. His division commander had been Major General Ernest Harmon. Harmon was now President of Norwich. And he had turned over the 2nd Armored to another Norwich graduate, I. D. White, who had wound up with four stars on his epaulets. Marjorie could do a lot worse than Johnny Oliver.

  Marjorie had, at twenty, just graduated from college, Southern Methodist, getting through in three and a half years with a 3.8 grade average. She was going to need a strong, intelligent man, somebody like Johnny Oliver. Bellmon agreed with his wife that the worst thing he could do would be to let either one of them know how he felt, but he thought about it. God forbid that she fall for one of the locals and be doomed to spend her life in Ozark, Alabama. It was a po
ssibility. Marjorie had taken a job with the First National Bank of Ozark, and the locals seemed to be fascinated with her.

  Fifteen minutes later Johnny Oliver walked back into Bellmon's office.

  "General," he said, "Colonel Felter is here." Felter walked into the office and saluted.

  Bellmon made a vague gesture in the general direction of his forehead as he got up and came around the desk.

  "How are you, Sandy?" he asked, punching Felter's shoulder.

  "It's good to see you."

  "Good to see you, General," Felter said.

  "Johnny, you haven't met Colonel Felter, have you?"