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  “Hello, Johnny,” Hanrahan said.

  “Good evening, General.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Yes, sir. My privilege.”

  “Keep an eye on Colonel Lowell, amuse him, see if you can keep him out of trouble.”

  “I’ll do what I can, sir,” Oliver chuckled.

  The two bachelors entered Dining Room A. Captain Oliver spotted Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell at almost the instant Lowell spotted him. Lowell was standing near the bar, holding a drink in his hand. He looked, Oliver thought, splendiferous in his uniform. He was in the center of a group of people, predominantly female. Oliver remembered what Mrs. Bellmon had said about Lowell attracting the ladies as a candle draws moths.

  Lowell beckoned to Oliver with his index finger. The three of them walked over.

  “Good evening, sir,” Oliver said.

  “Lieutenant Bellmon,” Lowell said by way of greeting. “Now that you’re here, go around and locate our place cards—mine, Oliver’s, Lieutenant Portet’s, Marjorie’s and yours—and relocate them to one of the tables at the rear of the room.”

  “Sir?” Bobby said.

  “See if you can explain what I thought was a simple command to him, will you, Captain?”

  Oliver chuckled.

  “Do it, Bobby,” he said.

  Lowell turned to the others he was standing with.

  “I have a standing rule at official dinners,” he explained, “to sit as close to the back of the room, and the exit, as possible.”

  There was laughter, some genuine, some a little nervous. Bobby, visibly uncomfortable, started to comply with his orders.

  Major General Bellmon stood up and looked around the room. Some conversation stopped, but by no means all of it. Bellmon tapped on an empty wine bottle with the handle of a knife until the room fell silent.

  “You all have met General Hanrahan,” he said. “And I know that many of you are wondering what he’s doing here.”

  He gave that a moment to sink in, and for a scattering of applause to die down.

  “One rumor I heard going around is that they ran out of rattlesnakes for General Hanrahan’s Green Berets to eat in North Carolina, and that he’s here to talk me out of some of ours,” Bellmon went on.

  There came the expected laughter.

  “That’s not true, of course,” Bellmon said. “The truth is that this party has very strong personal meaning for Mrs. Bellmon and myself. It’s become, for us, a family affair, and as General Hanrahan is a longtime friend of the family, he belongs here with us.”

  There was some applause.

  “During the past year, as you all know,” Bellmon went on, “Captain John S. Oliver has had the toughest job on the post— he’s been my aide-de-camp. When General Hanrahan unfailingly mentioned Captain Oliver’s all-around competence and high intelligence, I simply chalked that up as Captain Oliver’s due. For he has indeed been a fine aide, and I like to think a friend, too. We will all miss him. The command group, my family, everybody on the post.”

  There was a round of applause and heads turned, looking for him.

  “As those of you who have been around a couple of years know, there’s sort of a new custom: At this Christmas Dinner, with everybody gathered together, I announce my departing aide’s new assignment. There are many places in the Army where an officer of Captain Oliver’s experience, devotion to duty, and extraordinary competence could be assigned. I made several recommendations along that line. Captain Oliver, will you please stand up?”

  Oliver stood up.

  “Attention to orders,” Bellmon said, and read from a sheet of paper: " ’Headquarters, Department of the Army, 29 November 1964. General Order 297, Paragraph 23. Captain John S. Oliver, Armor, is relieved of present assignment and transferred to Headquarters, John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, Fort Bragg, N.C., effective 1 January 1965.’ ”

  There was a scattering of applause, several audible snorts.

  “General Hanrahan tells me that you will be assigned as the aviation officer on his special staff,” Bellmon went on. “And I’m sure you will serve him as well and faithfully as you have served me, and that he will in time become as fond of you as is the Bellmon family.”

  There was more applause.

  “Now if you’ll come up here, Johnny, we have a few little things to prepare you for your new assignment. There’s a snakebite kit, and a Bowie knife, and an earring, and a book entitled 101 Tasty Rattlesnake Recipes.”

  Captain Johnny Oliver looked at Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell.

  “He really is still pissed, isn’t he?” Lowell said softly.

  Oliver looked at him a moment, then started walking toward the head table.

  General Hanrahan got to his feet as Oliver approached the head table. He smiled and handed Oliver a green beret.

  “Put it on, Johnny,” Mrs. Barbara Bellmon said. Oliver did so, and turned to face the room.

  There was applause, in which General Bellmon joined. But when Oliver looked at him, there was no laughter in his eyes.

  “I think I should point out that Captain Oliver is entitled to the Green Beret,” Bellmon said. “He earned it the hard way, by on-the -job training. He was shot down in Vietnam, flying a D-Model Huey, while trying to extract a Special Forces A Team behind the enemy’s lines. Because the A Team commander was rather badly wounded, Oliver assumed command and led the team, on foot, through enemy-held territory to safety. His valor earned him the Silver Star and the Combat Infantry Badge.

  “General Hanrahan and Special Forces think of him as one of their own, but, whether General Hanrahan likes it or not, I will— Army Aviators will—continue to regard him as one of our own.”

  There was a good deal of applause at that, and people got to their feet.

  “And finally, there is another Special Forces officer here tonight, in the rear of the room, for whom Mrs. Bellmon and I have a great deal of affection, and our daughter Marjorie has even more affection. Lieutenant Portet, will you stand up, please?”

  Jack got uncomfortably to his feet.

  “Lieutenant Portet was supposed to be sitting at the head table tonight, because he will shortly be our son-in-law, and it was my intention to introduce him to everybody.”

  More applause.

  “But he’s a Green Beret, and we all know about Green Berets. They do what they want to do, not what someone else wants them to do, so he’s sitting in the back of the room where he wants to be.”

  There was nervous laughter at this.

  “With him is another old and dear friend of the family—our children call him ‘Uncle Craig’—who is more or less one of us, an old-time Army Aviator who now wears a Green Beret, Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell. And our son, Bobby, who very recently won his wings and became one of us.”

  There was polite applause at this.

  “And I would like, in the friendliest possible way, to suggest to General Hanrahan, and Colonel Lowell, and Captain Oliver, and Lieutenant Portet, that if I hear even the hint of a rumor that they are trying to get my son to go to Fort Bragg with them and become a snake-eater like they are, when I am through with them, they will be the first male soprano quartet in the history of the U.S. Army.”

  There was laughter, some hearty and some a little nervous, that the commanding general would, even as a joke, threaten to castrate anybody.

  And only Colonel Lowell and Lieutenant Bellmon knew, of course, that Bobby had three minutes before asked Uncle Craig what he thought about his applying for Special Forces, and would he help get him in?

  [ THREE ]

  SECRET

  Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia

  FROM : Assistant Director For Administration

  FROM: 19 December 1964 1505 GMT

  SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #2.)

  TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter

  Counselor To The President

  Room 637, The Executive Office Building

 
Washington, D.C.

  By Courier

  In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, the following information is furnished:1. (Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA, Paris, France) SUBJECT and party landed at Orly Field, Paris, France, 2305 GMT 18 December 1964. They were met by Cuban Ambassador to France and French Foreign Ministry officials. They were taken to VIP waiting room, and at 0315 19 December 1964, they boarded Air France Flight 1727 for Algiers, Algeria.

  2. CIA surveillance was terminated at this time. CIA Algiers, Algeria has been advised, and will attempt to pick up surveillance in Algiers.

  Howard W. O’Connor

  HOWARD W. O’CONNOR

  SECRET

  [ FOUR ]

  Room 2012

  The Daleville Inn

  Daleville, Alabama

  0555 20 December 1964

  There had been verbal orders from Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell to augment the Department of the Army Special Orders vis-à-vis 1st Lt. PORTET, Jacques E., which explained his presence in the Daleville Inn.

  “From now on, Jack,” Lowell said as they had flown to Cairns Field in Lowell’s Cessna 310-H, “the name of the game is not attracting attention to yourself. The reason you’re on per diem, for example, is not to provide you with a place to fool around with Marjorie at government expense, but to keep you out of the BOQ.”

  Jack knew he could not indignantly proclaim his and Marjorie’s innocence. Marjorie had, after all, followed Lowell’s map at Ocean Reef, and Lowell knew it.

  Lowell had smiled at him and then gone on:

  “The BOQs are full of lieutenants undergoing flight training, and the sudden appearance in their midst of a Special Forces lieutenant taking a special flight training program would make them naturally curious, and they would ask questions which you could not answer. Get the picture?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This way, in the Daleville Inn, it will look like you’re staying there waiting for the glorious day of your being joined in holy matrimony to the beautiful Miss Marjorie.”

  “I get the picture, sir.”

  “There will be a telephone in your room, a private number, not going through the switchboard. It won’t be a secure line, but it will be a lot more private than the phone on the wall of the corridor in a BOQ.”

  That telephone had rung at 2135 the previous evening, shortly after Miss Marjorie and Jack had entered the room “to watch a little TV.”

  Jack had picked it up on the second ring.

  “Hello!?”

  “The way that’s done, Lieutenant,” Major Pappy Hodges’s gruff voice had announced, “is ‘Lieutenant Portet,’ or even better, “Lieutenant Portet speaking, sir.’ ”

  He wondered how Pappy had known (a) that he had been commissioned; (b) was in the Daleville Inn; and (c) the number of the private telephone line. He hadn’t seen Pappy since Kamina, in the Congo. That made him wonder why Pappy hadn’t been at General Bellmon’s party; they were friends.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The door to the bathroom opened, and Miss Marjorie stood there wearing a look of curiosity on her face, and a pair of black panties (and nothing else) on her body.

  Goddamn, she’s beautiful!

  “Have you got a flight suit and a helmet?” Pappy asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll meet you at the Board at 0630,” Pappy said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh-six-thirty at the Board,” Pappy had said. “If you eat breakfast, have it eaten by then.”

  The phone had clicked in Jack’s ear. Pappy had hung up.

  “Who was that?” Marjorie asked.

  “Pappy Hodges,” Jack said. “Apparently we’re going flying in the morning. Oh-six-thirty, as we officers and gentlemen say.”

  Marjorie nodded, then went back into the bathroom.

  “Either turn the light off, or put your eyes back in your head,” she called to him.

  She didn’t stay in the bathroom long, but she was no longer in the bed when the desk called to tell him it was his five-minutes-to -six wake-up call. But the smell of her was, and Jack shamelessly buried his nose in the pillow where her head had lain before getting up.

  There was also a Kleenex with her lipstick on it in the bathroom, and, when he picked up his hairbrush, several of her hairs.

  As he showered, he thought, All things considered, living with Marjorie is going to be great, and it’s really going to be nice to wake up and find her beside me.

  When Jack pulled the Jaguar into a RESERVED FOR STAFF parking slot at the Instrument Examiner Board building, Pappy was already there, leaning against the fender of his car.

  Jack got out and walked up to him and saluted.

  “Good morning, sir,” Jack said.

  Pappy snorted as he returned the salute almost contemptuously.

  “You have egg yolk on your chin,” Pappy said, and walked away, around the corner of the building to the Board’s aircraft parking area.

  Jack wiped the yolk off his chin and hurried after him.

  The Board had been assigned what amounted to a private fleet of Army Aircraft to discharge its responsibilities of making sure pilots who would fly in instrument conditions were qualified to do so.

  Lined up before the Board building were three twin-engine airplanes: a Grumman Mohawk, an ominous-looking twin turbojet electronic surveillance aircraft; a sleek high-wing L-26 Aero Commander; and a Beechcraft L23D “Twin Bonanza.” There were three helicopters: a Bell UH-1D “Huey,” the mainstay of the Army’s rotary wing fleet; a Boeing Vertol Model 114/CH-47 Chinook, a large, dual-rotor helicopter capable of carrying a 105-mm howitzer, its crew, and a basic load of ammunition; and a Hughes OH-6, called the “Loach,” a fast, high-performance single-rotor aircraft. There were three single-engine fixed-wing aircraft: There was the de Havilland U-1A “Otter,” the largest single-engine aircraft in the world, capable of short-field performance carrying up to ten passengers. Beside the “Otter” sat its older little brother, the de Havilland L-20 “Beaver,” a six-place short-field-capable aircraft originally developed for use in the Canadian and Alaskan bush, and used extensively by the Army in the Korean war.

  And at the far end of the line sat a Cessna L-19, a small two-place, high-wing observation and liaison aircraft, also used for basic fixed-wing flight training. The Instrument Board’s L-19 had been equipped with the radios and other instruments necessary for instrument flight.

  “Preflight the L-19,” Pappy Hodges ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And prepare an instrument flight plan from here to Pope Air Force Base, with a fuel stop at Fort Gordon, Georgia.”

  “We’re going on instruments in this weather?” Jack asked incredulously. He had called for the FAA weather prediction from the Daleville Inn. It couldn’t be any nicer, and was almost certainly going to stay that way for forty-eight hours.

  Pappy nodded. Jack shrugged, then remembered where Pope Air Force Base was, how far away it was.

  “In the Cessna?” Jack asked incredulously. “At eighty-five miles an hour?”

  “The way it works, Lieutenant,” Pappy said, “is the major tells the lieutenant what to do, and the lieutenant says, ‘Yes, sir.’ Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I wonder what I’ve done to piss him off? There’s more to this than his getting out of the wrong side of the bed.

  Pappy was waiting for him in the flight planning room, and stood over his shoulder as he made out his instrument flight plan. Pappy said nothing when he was finished, simply walked out of the room and the building carrying his parachute and a small bag. Jack grabbed a parachute and walked quickly after him.

  Pappy climbed in the rear seat of the small airplane and strapped himself in.

  Jack decided the best thing to do under the circumstances was to cross every t and dot every i in the procedure to fly an aircraft under instrument flight conditions, an
d did so.

  There was not a peep from the backseat.

  At 5,000 feet over Eufala, Alabama, on a course for Fort Gordon, Georgia, Jack turned in his seat to see what Pappy was doing. Pappy’s little bag had apparently contained a rubber pillow, for Pappy, his head resting against a rubber pillow, was sound asleep.

  Jack almost gave in to the temptation to wake Pappy by making a hard landing at Gordon, considered this briefly, and then did the opposite. He greased it in, and the proof that it was a greaser came when he turned and looked, at the end of the landing roll, and Pappy was still asleep.

  They were directed to a parking space at the Fort Gordon airstrip—and it wasn’t much of an airstrip, Jack noted—by a soldier, and Jack started to shut the aircraft down.

  Pappy’s voice came metallically in his earphones. “How much fuel do you have remaining, Lieutenant?”

  “About forty minutes, sir.”

  “That should be sufficient, Lieutenant,” Pappy ordered. “It is my professional opinion, as an instructor pilot in L-19 Series aircraft, that I have given you sufficient instruction and that you have demonstrated sufficient basic piloting skills to be allowed to attempt solo flight.”

  “What?” Jack blurted.

  “As soon as I exit the aircraft, Lieutenant, you will attempt solo flight as follows: You will request permission to taxi to the end of the runway, where you will request to take off under visual flight rules for a local flight. When permission is granted, you will take off, climb to three thousand feet on a due north course, and then request permission to shoot a touch-and-go landing. When permission is granted, you will make such a touch-and-go landing, and again climb to three thousand feet, at which point you will request permission to land. You will then land. Got that all? Won’t it be necessary for you to write your orders down?”