looked five sizes too big for him. The other man was white, and wearing a strange, none-too-clean parachutist’s uniform. After a moment, General Hollostone recognized it to be that of the Belgian Paracommando Regiment. The Belgian paratrooper had a bandaged nose.
The door of the Learjet closed and the plane immediately began to taxi off. General Hanrahan made a signal with his hand, and a Chevrolet staff car appeared around the corner of the Base Ops building.
It was not flying the checked flag required of all vehicles driving on the flight line.
It’s a clear violation of safety regulations. And that goddamned Hanrahan, who knows better, should have his ass burned.
But if I personally report him, he will think I’m chickenshit. And who do I report him to? He’s not under the command of the commanding general of Fort Bragg. He gets his orders directly from the chief of staff of the Army.
I am not about to call the chief of staff of the U.S. Army and announce that I am an Air Force brigadier onto whose tarmac Red goddamn Hanrahan drove his staff car without flying a checkered flag.
And who was the black guy in the white suit? Probably the same Congolese, with something to do with Operation Dragon Rouge.
It has to be something like that.
The black guy in the white suit meets the chief of staff of the Army at a cocktail party, says he’d like to see Green Beret training, and the chief says, “My pleasure, Mr. Prime Minister/Your Excellency/Mr. Secretary./Whatever the hell. I will call the Special Missions Squadron of the Air Force and see if they won’t give you a Learjet to fly you down there.”
It has to be something like that. You don’t get to ride in a Learjet unless you are unquestionably a VIP. Or a four-star.
Brigadier General Hanrahan turned from the front passenger seat of the Chevrolet staff car to the black gentleman in the far-too -large-for-him white suit.
“Father,” he said. “You look like death warmed over.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, mon général,” Captain George Washington Lunsford said. Only close friends and commanding generals got to call him by his nickname, a shorthand for “Father of His Country,” derived from the obvious source.
“Have you been drinking, Father?” Hanrahan asked.
“I cannot, mon général, in the noble tradition of my namesake, tell a lie. Yes, I have. And, if this could be arranged, I would be ever so grateful for a little belt right now.”
“Not right now, I don’t think, Captain Lunsford,” Hanrahan said. “I think what you need right now is a cup of black coffee.”
In the interests of good military order and discipline, General Hanrahan decided it would be far better if, when the word got around that Father Lunsford had returned alive from a really hairy assignment, it was not gleefully bandied about that he had returned in a white suit that didn’t fit, and as drunk as an owl.
He touched his driver, a nice-looking young Green Beret sergeant, on his sleeve.
“You better take us to the house, Tony.”
“Yes, sir.”
“First things first,” General Hanrahan said as he walked into the sun porch of Quarters 107, a two-story brick home that had been built in 1938 as quarters suitable for a captain. “Your coffee, Captain Lunsford.”
Lunsford, who was slumped in a wicker armchair, reached for it.
My God, he really looks awful.
“Merci, mon général.”
“Where’d you get the suit?”
“It belongs to Jack’s father. It was in his apartment in the Immoquateur—that’s the apartment building in Stanleyville?”
Hanrahan nodded his understanding.
“When the C130s started dropping the Belgians, I was wearing my Simba uniform, and I knew that the first Belgian to see me would take a shot at me, so I borrowed it from Jack’s stepmother, ” Lunsford explained.
“Tony,” Hanrahan said to his driver. “Go find the sergeant major. Tell him Captain Lunsford needs a clean uniform. There’s a duplicate key to the captain’s locker in my safe.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Sergeant, on your way back, stop by Class VI and pick up a bottle of scotch, will you?” Captain Lunsford said.
Hanrahan looked closely at Lunsford.
“You need a drink that bad, do you?”
“I really would like a little taste, General.”
“I’ll give you a drink,” Hanrahan said. “Tony, get him his uniform. ”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.
Hanrahan poured scotch into three glasses, handed one to Lunsford and the other to Jack Portet, and then raised his own.
“Welcome home, the both of you,” he said.
Portet took a sip of the straight scotch. Lunsford downed all of his at once.