elevator and rode up to the National Aviation Club.
The receptionist expected him.
“You’re Captain Portet, right?”
“No. I used to be. Now I’m Lieutenant Portet,” Jack said.
“If you’ll come with me, please?” she said, smiling strangely at him.
She led him through the bar to a corridor, then knocked at a door.
“Yes?”
“Lieutenant Portet is here, Colonel,” she said, and then, to Jack, “Go on in.”
Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell was sitting at a table with Colonel Sanford T. Felter, which surprised him a little, and so was Captain Jean-Philippe Portet, which surprised him a great deal.
Completely ignoring what he thought was probably the proper military protocol, he went directly to his father, and they hugged and kissed in the European manner.
“And how is married life?” his father said.
“I think I better salute, or do whatever else I’m supposed to do in a situation like this, before I get into that,” Jack said.
“Now that everybody’s here, why don’t we order drinks?” Lowell suggested.
“It’s not even noon,” Felter protested. “Do you need the alcohol? ”
Lowell ignored him.
“Scotch for you, right, Jean-Philippe?” Lowell asked.
“Please.”
“Jack?” Lowell asked, and then when he saw the look on his face, added, “Go ahead, you’re not going to be flying anytime soon.”
“Then please,” Jack said.
“Mouse?”
“Get me a cup of tea, please,” Felter said.
Lowell picked up a telephone.
“Bring in a bottle of scotch, please. Is any of mine left? And the necessary ancillary equipment.” He hung up the phone and looked at Felter. “You don’t need tea, Mouse. You need a drink.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Felter said.
“You are a sonofabitch, Mouse. Everybody knows that,” Lowell said unctuously.
Felter glared at him.
“ ‘Mouse’?” Captain Portet asked.
“He’s the only sonofabitch in the world who can call me that to my face.”
“I see,” Captain Portet said.
“And you, Lieutenant,” Lowell said, “may call Colonel Felter, and myself, either ‘Colonel’ or ‘sir.’ ”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Portet chuckled.
“That line’s not original,” Lowell said. “I heard it first years ago—from your mother-in-law’s father, Jack—and I thought of it a couple of days ago in Buenos Aires, when Pistarini, the commander-in-chief of their army, wanted us all to be buddies.”
“You didn’t call him Pascual?” Felter asked, smiling.
“I can’t vouch for the hours between two and four A.M., but the rest of the time I made a real effort to call him mi general,” Lowell said.
There was a knock at the door, and a waiter appeared carrying a tray on which sat a bottle of the same obscure Scottish distillery whiskey Lowell had given Portet in Florida, a bowl of ice, and both a water pitcher and a soda siphon.
“We’ll do it, thanks,” Lowell said to the waiter, and poured generous drinks in each of the glasses.
When the waiter was out of the room, he turned to Jack.
“Your father has been regaling us with tales of your romantic escapades in the Congo,” Lowell said.
Jack looked at his father in surprise.
“Which, he suggests, have put you on Dr. Dannelly’s shitlist.”
“Which is important, Jack,” Lowell went on, “because Colonel Felter has just learned that Mobutu threw our ambassador out of his office when he asked for his help with Operation Earnest.”
“Shit!” Jack said. “That sounds like Dannelly. And he’s got Mobutu’s ear.”
“My original thought was to send you there, with Father, to talk to Mobutu,” Felter said.
“Colonel, I’m sorry, but if Dannelly is involved, me showing up would only make matters worse. I . . . uh . . . once told him, in a hotel lobby—”
“To go fuck himself,” Felter interrupted. “We know.” He paused. “Your father has volunteered to go to Léopoldville and speak with Mobutu.”
“You told him what’s going on?” Jack asked.
Felter nodded.
“What do you think?” Lowell asked.
“If anybody can get Joseph to change his mind, he can.”
“Would you recommend that he go alone? Or that you go with him?”
“If Dannelly’s going to be there, alone,” Jack said without hesitation.
Felter nodded.
“We may have one more hole card,” Felter said. “I don’t know if we’ll get to play it.”
“Sir?”
“Mr. Finton is a highly respected member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints,” Felter said. “A bishop.”
“He’s coming to lunch, Jack,” Lowell said. “We want you and your dad to try to guess how well he would get along with Dr. Dannelly. Separate opinions, please. Don’t compare notes.”
“Yes, sir.”
[ SEVEN ]
Room 914
The Hotel Washington
Washington, D.C.
1250 11 January 1965
One of the rooms opening off the sitting room was a conference room with a huge mahogany table and a dozen red leather-upholstered captain’s tables. Its windows, too, overlooked the roof of the U.S. Mint, with the White