ought not to have done, and we have not done those things we ought to have done’—and the next day, before a priest, I swore to God that I would be faithful to my wife. The line is ‘keep myself only unto her.’ I’m really going to try to keep that promise.”
Jack thought: The strange thing is, I meant that; I didn’t say it to get on the right side of this guy.
“I am happy for you, then,” Finton said. “If you keep that vow, it will give you joy in this world and the next.”
“I hope so,” Jack said.
“You might consider giving up alcohol,” Finton said.
“How about ‘take a little wine for your stomach’s sake and thine other infirmities’? Didn’t Christ say that?” Jack quipped.
Oh, shit, my mouth ran away with me again.
“Probably, if you’d limited yourself to a little wine, you wouldn’t have found yourself locking horns with Dr. Dannelly,” Finton said, smiling.
“Okay,” Felter said. “How do we convince Dr. Dannelly that Jacques has turned from his wicked ways?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Colonel,” Finton said, “but what you’re really asking is if I will help you do that, as a bishop of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.”
“Yes, I am,” Felter said seriously.
“I will have to ask God’s guidance about that,” Finton said.
“Our cause here is noble, Jim,” Felter reasoned. “We’ve talked about that.”
“I will have to ask God’s guidance,” Finton repeated. “I will let you have my decision in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
“And now I’d better go back to the office,” Finton said, “and see how Mary Margaret is coming with your appointment to see the chief. Would you like me to send her here with the letter for Colonel Lowell?”
“Please,” Felter said.
Finton came to a position close to attention.
“With your permission, sir?”
“Granted. Thank you, Mr. Finton,” Felter said.
Finton left the room.
“Interesting man,” Captain Portet said. “And just for the record, Jacques, I’m glad you have turned from your wicked ways.”
“What are you going to do if he says no?” Lowell asked.
“Try to do it without him, obviously,” Felter said. “The next question is Father Lunsford. How do you think Mobutu would react to him?”
“Tough one,” Captain Portet said. “I don’t know how it would go, whether he would look at Lunsford as a fellow black soldier—he’s in love with his own parachutists—or whether he would look at him as a mercenary. And he’s death, literally, on them.”
“Jacques?” Felter asked.
“Father speaks pretty good Swahili; that would go well with Mobutu. And we know he’s impressed with what Father did before we jumped on Stanleyville.”
“I go with the fellow parachutist notion,” Lowell said. “All you parachute nuts recognize each other. It’s you against the rest of the sane world.”
“Okay,” Felter said. “Father goes. I think it’s important that Mobutu know him. Anybody else? Should we start infiltrating the team now?”
“I think you’d better wait to see how Mobutu reacts to this,” Jack said. “If he goes along, it will make things a lot easier.”
“You’re going to go ahead with this in any event?” Captain Portet asked.
“We have to,” Felter said.
XI
[ ONE ]
Room 914
The Hotel Washington
Washington, D.C.
0805 12 January 1965
“Good morning,” Colonel Sanford T. Felter said as he came through the door to the living room.
Major G. W. Lunsford, Captain John S. Oliver, and WOJG Enrico de la Santiago quickly stood up, and a moment later, so did Lieutenant Jacques Portet.
Felter impatiently waved them back into the seats. He was wearing the same mussed suit he had worn the day before. The others were in their shirtsleeves.
Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig was on the telephone.
“We’re ordering breakfast, Colonel,” he said. “What would you like?”
“Toast and tea, please,” Felter said. “My wife made breakfast at home.”
Felter turned to Captain Portet and smiled.
“I think you may have been a good—or should I say ‘sobering’? —influence on these hoodlums, JP,” he said. “I see few of the usual signs of debauchery on their smiling faces.”
“We went to the movies,” JP said. “Topkapi. With Peter Ustinov. Pretty good.”
“About a jewel robbery,” Lunsford furnished. “And then we came back here and, with enormous patience, Captain Portet let me grill him about the Congo.”
“I asked you to call me JP, Father,” Captain Portet said.
“You’re like the colonel, Captain, one of those people people like me have trouble calling by anything but their rank.”
“You mean I’m stuffy?”
“No, I mean you’re one of those people—like the colonel— people like me have trouble calling by anything but their rank. It was intended as a compliment.”