ARE CONFIRMED BUT PRELIMINARY, AND ADDITIONAL LOSSES OF KIA, MIA, AND A/C SHOULD BE ANTICIPATED.
5. AN AFTER ACTION REPORT WILL BE FURNISHED ON COMPLETION.
GREGORY, MAJ GEN, USA
J-3 USMAC VIETNAM
SECRET
“That was delivered by one of the chief’s aides,” Felter said. “I’ve known him for a long time; he was one of my instructors at Beast Barracks at West Point, when I was a plebe.”
Lowell’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything.
“I remember him with his nose against mine,” Felter went on, “his spittle spraying my face. He told me I shouldn’t expect to be around long—there was no room for wiseass New York Hebrews in his army. I don’t think he’s changed his opinion of me over the years; I don’t think he’s among my legion of admirers.”
“Hell, Mouse, you won. He’s the errand boy. And the chief is, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you that.”
“I’d like to know if the chief sent me that because he thinks I’m a soldier, or because—obviously—the President wants me at the meeting he’s called in response to this.”
“You have the admiration of a lot of good soldiers, Mouse. Bellmon, Hanrahan, many others, and of course me,” Lowell said. “What does this VC attack mean?”
“It means the commitment of more troops is now a certainty, rather than a possibility. The Marines are forming a reinforced regimental-size Expeditionary Force, the Ninth, for ‘possible use’ in Vietnam. Now they’ll go for sure, and more troops—Marine and Army—will follow.”
“Is this going to have any effect on us?”
“It already has. Finton got a call two days ago from the Air Force, saying that the C-130 that was supposed to pick up the black L-19 at Bragg won’t, having been diverted to a mission with a higher priority, and that this unspecified higher-priority mission—obviously Vietnam—will also almost certainly delay indefinitely the airlift I asked for to take the Beaver, the H-13, et cetera et cetera to the Congo.”
“I thought you had all the priority you needed?” Lowell countered.
Felter looked at him almost tolerantly, as if pained to realize that anyone he knew so well could be so dense.
“ ‘You know what we did last week?’ ” he mock-quoted. “ ‘While people are getting killed in Vietnam, while we have to replace the ten airplanes that got blown up in Pleiku, we flew to fucking Africa with a fucking L-19 and half a dozen grunts in the back.’”
He paused and went on.
“How long do you think that secret mission would stay secret? ” he asked. “I may have to do it, but I really don’t want to.”
“Maybe that’s not going to be as much of a problem as you think, Mouse,” Lowell said. “Presuming you can come up with the money to charter a 707 from Intercontinental Air, Ltd.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Captain Jean-Philippe Portet is now president and chief executive officer of Intercontinental Air, Ltd. That’s the rest of the good news I flew all the way up here to tell you in person,” Lowell said.
“He found the money to buy an airline with a 707?” Felter asked. A smile crossed his face.
“He didn’t find it,” Lowell said. “Our friends from Langley came to Florida, checkbook in hand, practically forcing it on him.”
“This is a done deal?” Felter asked.
“It’s a done deal,” Lowell said. “And Cousin Porter done the deal, which means he really put the screws to the Agency. It may take them a while to figure it out, but Porter really screwed them. They provided the money, and they don’t have any control whatever. ”
“And you really think this is a good thing?” Felter asked softly.
“You don’t?”
“If you’d asked me, I would have told you under no circumstances to get Captain Portet involved with the Agency.”
“Ah, come on, Mouse. They’re always screwing us, and waiting for their next chance to do it again. Fuck them. For once we had the chance to screw them.”
“They’re not the enemy, goddamn it,” Felter said. “There’s a lot of good people over there.”
“Name one.”
“Stephens, for example. You told me he was helpful as hell in Buenos Aires. And Colby, for example.”
“Who?”
“Bill Colby, the CIA station chief in Saigon.”
“Oh, yeah. But, hell, he’s one of us. He jumped into France in World War II with the OSS. He’s not what you could call a standard Langley candy-ass chair warmer. Name somebody else.”
“I don’t want to debate this with you,” Felter said. “But get this straight, Craig, get out of your ‘Fuck you, CIA’ frame of mind. That’s not a