said, smiling. “You know the Mormons. They don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t believe in sex outside of marriage. You might not believe it, looking at clean-cut young Lieutenant Portet, but, pre-Marjorie, he drank like a fish, smoked big black cigars, and was working his way through the white female population of the Congo, without regard to anyone’s marriage vows.”
Lowell laughed.
“Was there something specific?” Felter asked, a tone of annoyance in his voice.
“He was in Kolwezi one time, in the Hotel Leopold, with a friend, and Dr. Dannelly accosted him in the lobby and told him he and the friend should be ashamed of themselves, their conduct was inexcusable, and Jacques . . . told him to go fuck himself.”
“The friend was female?” Lowell asked.
Jack nodded.
“So Dr. Dannelly is not about to give Jack a character reference? ” Lowell asked.
“That would be highly unlikely,” Portet said, and then added: “I’ll talk to Mobutu if you want.”
“That’s a thought,” Lowell said. “Particularly if you play the Mormon card, Sandy.”
“Excuse me?” Captain Portet said.
“Sandy, those Mormons are tight with each other. If we can get Finton to go with JP and Jack to see Mobutu . . .”
“You’d be willing to go to Mobutu?” Felter asked.
“I spent a large part of my life in the Congo,” Portet said. “I like it. I like the people. They don’t need a Cuban revolutionary making things worse than they already are.”
“I told Finton to come here for lunch,” Felter said. “Let’s see what he thinks. Not during lunch. Afterward.”
He paused and looked at Captain Portet.
“A man who works for me is a devout Mormon,” he said. “When you meet him at lunch, try to guess how well he’d get along with Dr. Dannelly.”
Captain Portet nodded.
[ SIX ]
The Hotel Washington
Washington, D.C.
1105 11 January 1965
“Good morning,” Johnny Oliver said politely to the reception clerk at the Hotel Washington. “I’m Captain Oliver, and I believe you have reservations for myself and these officers?”
“Yes, sir. We do. You’re in 914.”
He passed out keys to each of them.
“All of us?” Oliver said.
“All of you,” the reception clerk said, and tapped the bell for a bellman to handle the luggage.
“Why do I suspect the SWC has just run out of TDY money?” Oliver asked softly in the elevator. “Rank will have its privileges, gentlemen. I’m not going to share a bed with either of you.”
“We should have told the guy to get us another room—rooms,” Jack Portet said.
“Let’s take a look at this, and see what we’re going to need, and then call him on the phone?” Oliver suggested, but they both understood it to be an order.
The bellman stopped his cart outside 914, then knocked at the door.
“Come!” a male voice called.
The bellman pushed the door open and waved them through.
914 was a large, well—even luxuriously—furnished living room.
“Oh, thank God, the lost birdmen have been found!” Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig called out.
He was sitting in one corner of the room, in civilian clothing, about to finish a club sandwich. There was a coffee service on the coffee table. Major Pappy Hodges, sipping at a cup, was slumped into an armchair across from him.
“What do you mean, lost?” Johnny Oliver asked. “What is this, old home week?”
He walked to Pappy and shook his hand.
“Good to see you, Johnny,” Pappy said, then raised his voice: “You, Portet, change clothes right now and go see Felter in the Aviation Club.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said. “Where do I do that?”
“Top floor.”
“I meant change out of uniform?”
“There’s four bedrooms in here,” Geoff said. “Wherever you find that ugly luggage of yours is yours.”
“What is this place, anyway?” Jack asked.
“It belongs to the firm,” Geoff said.
Jack found his luggage in a large L-shaped bedroom furnished with two king-size beds, a desk, a wet bar, and an upholstered chair and table set that made the room, in effect, a small suite.
He wondered if he had time for a quick shower, and decided he didn’t; Pappy had said “right away.” He shaved quickly with an electric razor, sprayed himself with cologne, changed into a sports jacket and tie, and went back into the living room.
Pappy was on the telephone. He waved impatiently for Jack to get moving.
As he left the room, he heard Pappy say, “Colonel, he should be there any second. . . .”
He wondered what Colonel Lowell wanted with him; he was, except for Enrico de la Santiago, the least experienced of all of them. And this, he sensed, was business, not social. He got in the