"I spoke with the Colonel briefly on the telephone, Sir."
"Sandy, Johnny Oliver. I probably shouldn't say this where he can hear it, but he's the best aide I've ever had." They shook hands.
"I've heard a good deal about you, Sir," Oliver said. "I'm pleased to meet you."
"Coffee, Sandy?" Bellmon asked. "Sit down."
"I'm coffeed out, General," Felter said. "Thank you, anyway.
There were two thermoses-thermi? in the plane, and we emptied both of them."
"Fulbright's airplane?" Bellmon asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"Johnny, let this be a lesson to you," Bellmon said. "You cannot always judge a man by his friends. Despite the friends he keeps, Colonel Felter is really a very nice fellow and a good officer. "
"Yes, Sir," Oliver said, smiling.
"Colonel Fulbright asked me to pay his respects," Felter said.
"While he's down here stealing my best pilots, right?" Bellmon said.
"Is that what he's doing?" Felter inquired innocently.
"There is a rumor around that he's the recruiting officer for Air America," Bellmon said dryly. "Otherwise known as the CIA Air Force."
"Is there really?" Felter said. "I wonder how that got started?"
"To change to a less obscene subject, Sandy," Bellmon said, "what can I do for you?"
"After that, General, I'm almost afraid to bring it up." Bellmon looked at him curiously but didn't reply. He looked at his watch, then leaned forward and dialed one of the three telephones on his desk.
"Oh," he said, when someone answered. "You're home. Good. Uncle Sandy just walked in the door. I was going to ask your mother to meet us at the club for lunch. Have you got time, too?" He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said, "Marjorie." Felter nodded and smiled."
"Well, bring her, too," Bellmon ordered the telephone. "Obviously. Twenty minutes." He hung up.
"Marjorie's got the afternoon off," he explained. "She has to work Saturday mornings, so they give her one afternoon off."
"Where's she working?"
"At the bank in Ozark," Bellmon said. "She's got Ursula Craig with her. They've become pals."
"Oh, good," Felter said. "I was going to call them of course."
"How long can you stay?"
"My ride's leaving tomorrow afternoon," Felter said, smiling.
"You were telling me what we can do for you?"
"I'm recruiting, too," Felter said.
"Not for Fulbright?" Bellmon challenged.
"No," Felter said. "For something else." He stopped. "I was about to ask you to excuse us, Captain, but I suppose both 'that you have been' cleared for Top Secret-"
"Yes, Sir," Johnny Oliver said.
"-and that you might as well hear this, anyway," Felter finished.
"I'd be happy to leave, Sir," Oliver said.
Felter shook his head no and then went on: "The staff of the Military Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Leopoldville, Democratic Republic of the Congo, is about to be augmented by one L-23 and two pilots to fly it. It's in connection with Operation Eagle, but the Military Attache doesn't know that. The L-23 and the two other pilots were on his wish list, and so far as he knows he's getting what he asked for."
"'Operation Eagle'?" General Bellmon asked.
"It's a classified operation," Felter said, "and that's all you have to know about it right now." Bellmon's face showed that he didn't like being denied the
secret, but he simply nodded his head in understanding.
"The airplane has been acquired 'off-the-shelf,'" Felter said.
"It's at Beech in Wichita. They're installing auxiliary fuel tanks so that it can be flown over there. It will have to be brought here and painted in Army colors. He whose name cannot be safely mentioned will arrange with SCATSA to equip it with radios and navigation equipment necessary for operation over there." The Signal Corps Aviation Test and Support Activity, an agency of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army, was stationed at Fort Rucker to provide avionic support to the Army Aviation Board. It was whispered about that its highly skilled technicians did work on aircraft not assigned to the Board, or even the Army, which arrived and left by night.
Bellmon smiled and chuckled at the "he whose name can not be mentioned," but then the smile vanished.
"In other words it is one of Dick Fulbright's operations? I think I have the right then, to know more about it."
"It's my operation, General," Felter said. "The only thing Fulbright has to do with it was acquiring the aircraft with his funds and having it run through SCATSA."
"OK," General Bellmon said, "so what does it have to do with us? Why are you telling me all this?"
"DCS Pers," Felter said, referring to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, pronounced Dee Cee Ess Purse, "has come up with the names of three aviators, here, who are about to be reassigned and meet the qualifications for the assignment. They are L-23-qualified, have done a Vietnam tour, and speak French."
"In other words," Bellmon said coldly, "I am about to lose another two highly qualified pilots to Fulbright and the CIA?"
"No," Felter said. "They will not be under the CIA. This is a routine assignment. They will be designated assistant Army attaches and have diplomatic status."
"Fulbright provides the aircraft, SCATSA provides special electronics, and you're involved. And I'm to believe the CIA isn't involved?" Felter shrugged but did not reply to the question.
"I want to talk to all three of them, pick the best two, and make sure they are the ones that go, that they are not suddenly declared essential and replaced by two bodies two jumps ahead of an elimination board."
"What if they were legitimately essential?" Bellmon asked.
Felter ignored this question, too.
"In the Congo, they will work for Colonel Tony Dills, who is the STRICOM officer in that area," Felter said.
"General Evans is on this?" Bellmon asked.
"He knows about it," Felter said. "Craig Lowell's handling it for him at McDill. "
"And Lowell doesn't know what's going on over there either, right?" Bellmon asked sarcastically.
"He knows precisely what I'm telling you and no more," Felter said. He gave Bellmon the opportunity to look at him and then went on: "So far as I know, really, nothing is going on over there, but I have a gut feeling something is going to happen, and I want good men who know the area on the site."
"'Know the area' can be interpreted in a number of ways," Bellmon said.
"They will be expected to do nothing more than assistant military attaches do anywhere," Felter said. "Keep their eyes and their ears open, of course, and make the usual reports. I don't want them for agents."
"I don't suppose it would matter if you did, would it?"
"No, but I'm telling you the truth." Bellmon looked at Felter thoughtfully.
"You didn't have to say that," he said. "And if you hadn't shown up with 'he whose name cannot be safely mentioned,' I don't think I would have given you such a hard time."
"They also serve who skulk and spy," Felter said with a smile.
Bellmon chuckled.
"All you want to do is talk to these three officers and pick your best two, is that it?"
"They'll have to be trained in long-distance flight without the usual navigation aids. Will that be any trouble to arrange?" Bellmon shook his head no.
"I thought you could have me introduced to them as the Army liaison officer to the State Department," Felter said. "Sent here to interview them."
"Sure," Bellmon said. "Have you got their names?" Felter reached in his pocket and handed Bellmon a sheet of paper.
"You want to use my office, Sandy?" Bellmon asked.
"Let's keep it informal. What about over a beer, at the club, after lunch?" Bellmon nodded and handed the list to Captain Oliver.
"Johnny, get in touch with these people. Go through their department heads and inform them it is the General's desire that they attend him in .the bar of the club at 1330
. If you're asked for details, as I suspect you will be, tell them there is some Washington big shot here who wants to talk to them. OK, Sandy?"
"Make that State Department big shot," Felter said, smiling.
VI
(One)
Washington, D. C.7 February 1964
When First Lieutenant Karl-Beinz Wagner came to Washington from the Army Language School in California, he traveled in civilian clothing. He took a taxi from Washington National Airport into the District of Columbia, and to a somewhat seedy motel almost on the Maryland border. There he called the number he had been given.
Colonel Sanford T. Felter, in a baggy suit, arrived at the wheel of a battered Volkswagen thirty minutes later.
"You just leave your uniforms here and I'll take yare of them;" Felter said. "What did you tell Ursula?"
"That I was going to Panama on TDY to the Jungle Training" School and that I would probably be gone six months."
"And she believed you?"
"My sister does not expect me to lie to her," Wagner said evenly.
Felter nodded.
"We're going to go from here to the airport," Felter said.
"You'll take the shuttle to New York, to LaGuardia and then take the bus to Kennedy. You're on the seven-eighteen Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. When you have cleared customs, put your American passport in this and drop it in the Poste Restante."
"Yes, Sir."
Felter then handed Karl-Heinz a manila envelope that looked German-slicker, less substantial-than an American envelope. It had a Frankfurt address written on it and there were German stamps on it.
"Yes, Sir,"
Wagner repeated and put the envelope in his jacket pocket.
Felter handed Karl-Heinz a second, smaller envelope. It contained a West German passport, issued in West Berlin.
"Is this counterfeit?" Karl-Heinz asked.
"No. Not the passport. The, Exit Berlin stamp is homemade, but that's all."
"That suggests, Sir, that the German government is involved?" Karl-Heinz said, making it a question.
"Just one very highly placed German, in whom I have absolute confidence."
"And some members of his staff."
"Just one man," Felter conceded. "This is a private operation." Karl-Heinz nodded.
"After you've gotten rid of the American passport, take the bus into Frankfurt. Buy some clothes. Something that exOberleutnant Wagner would buy. Not that I don't admire the suede jacket. . . ."
Wagner smiled. "Danke schon, Herr Oberst."
"Then go to..the offices of Hessische Schwere Konstruktion," Felter went on. "It's on the sixteenth floor, Erschenheimeclandstrasse 190. That's not far from the Farben Building, so there will be a slight risk you might run into somebody you know. Be prepared for that." Felter looked up to see if Wagner understood. He nodded once that he did. What he understood was that during the war, the enormous corporate headquarters of the I. G. Farben corporation was purposefully spared destruction when Frankfurt was bombed so that it could be used as the American headquarters for occupied Germany. The U.S. Army has occupied it since 1945.
"When you get to HSK," Felter went on, "ask for Herr Neider. He will expect you, and he will be, under the impression that you've just come from Berlin." Wagner nodded.
"They will put you up for a day or two while they take care of the paperwork and then give you a ticket to Durban via Johannesburg," Felter went on. He handed Wagner two envelopes.
"There's five thousand dollars in American money in one and the equivalent in South Africa rand in the other."
"What is it for?"
"Necessary expenses," Felter said, and then added dryly, "The clothing, for one thing."
"Very nice."
"There is an elaborate accounting procedure set up for these funds, Karl-Heinz, but no one has ever asked me how they were actually spent, beyond 'necessary expenses.' Far be it from me to suggest that you consider them a bonus, and I have every confidence that you won't spend a dime of it that is not in the interest of the United States government."
"It would be suspicious if a recent East German defector had a lot of cash."
"On the other hand it might explain why he defected," Felter said. "People are generally far more willing to accept that a man is a thief or an embezzler than that he risked his skin for something as unimportant as freedom."
"You think that is what I should say?" Karl-Heinz asked.
"I think you should think about it. You know what you're supposed to do. How you do it is up to you. ]f you really get into trouble, or learn something you feel I should know right away, contact the Embassy in Johannesburg. Ask to speak to Mr. Edward T. Watson."
"Who is he?"
"He doesn't exist," Felter said. "But that will get you put through to either the Ambassador, the Charge d'affaires, or the CIA Station Chief. When you get through to one of them, tell them to open the Eagle envelope. That will be in the Ambassador's safe. It will inform them who you are and that you are working for me, and instruct them to immediately do what they can for you, and to get in touch with me. It also directs them to transmit whatever message you want to send. But until that envelope is opened, no one at the embassy will know you're in South Africa."
"Edward T. Watson," Wagner said, and then repeated it several times to fix it. in his memory.
"Durban is a resort town," Felter said. "Vacationers send a lot of postcards. You will send one every week to Mr. Watson. If there is no postcard from Mr. Watson in any seven-day period, the Ambassador has been instructed to open the Eagle envelope."
"OK."
"I wish I had some clever suggestion, beyond buying a car from him, about how to get you up close to Michael Hoare," Felter said. "But I don't."
"If there are soldiers or ex-soldiers, in Durban," Karl-Heinz said, "there will be a soldiers bar. I will find it."
Felter grunted his approval.
Forty-five minutes later Karl-Heinz Wagner boarded the Eastern Airlines New York shuttle at Washington National Airport.
(Two)
The U.S. Army Armor Center Fort Knox, Kentucky 18 February 1964
Recruit Jacques Emile Portet was in the sixth week of the eight-week basic training cycle which would see him designated as a light weapons infantryman when he was called out of a lecture on the care and cleaning of the U.S. Rifle M16Al and ordered to report to the orderly room.
He found the First Sergeant, the Company Commander, and a young man in civilian clothing about his own age waiting for him.
"This is Mr. Gregory;" the Company Commander said. "You are to go with him." Mr. Gregory did not smile or offer his hand. Instead, he gave Jack a brief glimpse of a gold badge and an identification card in a leather folder.
"Will you come with me, please?" he asked.
Gregory had a car. It was a Ford four-door sedan, and it was immediately clear to Jack that before it had been repainted an unpleasant shade of blue, it had been painted olive drab. Gregory; who seemed very impressed with his own status, was obviously some kind of an Army cop, an Army detective. Jack was curious rather than upset.
I have the strength often, he thought, amused, because in my heart I'm pure.
Since his run-in with the medic who had tried to give him the full array of inoculations at Fort Leonard Wood, he had stayed out of trouble with the Army. Indeed, he was privileged to be the platoon guidon bearer as an indication of his Platoon Sergeant's opinion that he was less a complete fuck-up than his peers.
The 3rd Armored Division (Training) was housed, several miles from the main post, in frame buildings, their paint showing the ravages of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had passed through them since the early days of World War II.
Mr. Gregory, without saying a word to Jack, drove him to the main post, which Jack had seen before only out the windows of a bus or from the back of a truck.
It was a pleasant, tree-shaded area looking very much like an upper-class neighborhood of Saint Louis, its streets lined with
substantial red-brick office buildings and homes and even a theater. There were women pushing baby carriages on sidewalks. It was civilization, Jack thought.
Gregory parked the robin's-egg-blue staff car behind one of the Williamsburg-style office buildings and spoke Jack's name for the first time.
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