Mr. Foster appeared a moment later. He was a black man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a flamboyantly colored, diagonally striped shirt, yellow walking shorts, knee-length white stocks with a tassel at the top, and tasseled loafers.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you much time,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve a luncheon appointment.”
“I need just a moment of your time, privately,” Jack said. “Could we step in there just a moment?”
The reception room had three small cubicles against one wall.
“Well, if you think it’s important,” Mr. Foster said.
He bowed Jack into the room ahead of him, followed him in, and was greatly surprised when the white American’s boy followed him inside.
“Is uh . . . he . . . necessary for this?” Mr. Foster replied.
“I love those loafers,” the boy said. “But where the hell did you get that shirt?”
“May I present Major George Washington Lunsford?” Jack said, smiling.
“Cutting to the chase,” Father said. “I command Special Forces Detachment 17, in Costermansville, in the Congo. And you’re the CIA station chief, and you’ve got Guevara and Dreke and some others under surveillance in a farm near Morogoro, about seventy-five miles from here.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, of course,” Foster said.
“Right,” Father said. “This is Lieutenant Jack Portet, one of my officers.”
“How did you get in the country?”
“He got in by flying an Air Simba C-46—that’s his cover. And I got in by riding in the back. I guess you could say I’m passing for a native.”
“Have you got some sort of identification?”
“Oh, come on,” Lunsford said. “You have diplomatic immunity. I don’t. And I don’t want to get shot as a spy because the locals found an AGO card in my wallet. How long have you been a spook, anyway?”
“What can I do for you, Major?” Foster asked.
“First, can we find someplace larger than this phone booth, and secure? My lieutenant reeks of his wife’s cologne, and it has a distressing erotic effect on me. And I don’t want that splendidly stacked receptionist of yours taking notes.”
“No problem there,” Foster said. “She gets her paycheck from the same place I do. She’s from Philadelphia.”
He pushed open the door, waved them out.
“Close us for lunch, please,” he said to the receptionist, “and then come on in.”
“Ah, would that we were meeting elsewhere,” Father said when the woman came into Foster’s office. “Bookbinder’s, perhaps. The one on South Broad Street.”
He smiled, expecting her shocked reaction.
She smiled.
“But we’re not, are we?” she replied. “And the last time I was in Bookbinder’s you had to wear shoes.”
Father was only momentarily taken aback.
“Major George Washington Lunsford at your service, ma’am,” he said, and made a sweeping bow.
“What’s going on?” she asked of Foster.
“The rumor going around that there are Special Forces in the Congo? It’s apparently true.”
“If the Tanzanians catch you here, it would be awkward, as I suppose you know,” she said.
“It would also probably be painful, so let’s do what we can to keep that from happening, shall we?” Lunsford replied. “Are you going to tell me your name?”
“I don’t think you have the need-to-know,” she said.
“You’re legal as far as the flight is concerned?” Foster asked.
“I’m here trying to buy aircraft engine parts,” Jack said. “Major Lunsford is illegal.”
“You’re both illegal,” she said. “You can probably get away with it. I’m not so sure about barefoot boy here.”
“What is it you want?” Foster said.
“My mission is to frustrate Guevara’s plans for the Congo,” Lunsford said. When he saw something in her face, he added: “Yeah, we know he’s here, and that you have him under surveillance on a farm near Morogoro.”
“I’d love to know where you heard that,” she said.
“The operative word is ’frustrate,’ ” Lunsford said. “We want him to return to Cuba alive and with his tail between his legs. That restriction does not apply to other Cubans, of whom, eventually, there will be about two hundred.”
“I didn’t hear that figure,” she said.
“I can have nothing to do with that,” Foster said, “with . . . uh . . . armed action against the Cubans, or anyone else.”
“It will be a lot easier for us to interdict the movement of his people, and their supplies, if we have an eye on that farm,” Lunsford said. “And it would be a lot easier for you to keep an eye on that farm if you had an intercept team listening