That would do away with having to have large, heavily guarded stockades, with barbed wire, chain-link fences, guard towers, and everything else that went with them all over the Army, and having to take a hundred or so men on each post away from their normal duties on any given day to serve as prisoner chasers.

It might also result in an Army where most soldiers believed that cheerful, willing obedience to a lawful order was really not such a bad idea.

The new personnel policy was implemented. Post stockade populations dropped precipitously all over the Army, including Fort Bragg, at just about the time the new, supersecret Delta Force was formed.

It was decided that Delta Force should have a very secure base, isolated from the rest of sprawling Fort Bragg, protected by a double line of chain-link fences topped with razor wire, with floodlights, guard towers, and the like, and that inside the fence there should be barracks, a mess hall, supply buildings, and so on.

Someone then pointed out that a system designed to keep people in, like the Fort Bragg stockade, would probably, with minor modifications, be entirely suitable to keep people out.

Delta Force moved into the old stockade.

Most of the Delta Force people, who were of course the cream of Special Forces, thought moving into the stockade was not only hilarious but also had the additional benefit of keeping Fort Bragg's complement of candy-ass officers from snooping around to see where they could apply chickenshit.

No one was allowed in the Delta Force compound without specific authorization and only a few senior officers had the authority to issue that authorization, and, as a rule of thumb, they checked with Delta Force officers before granting it.

From his seat in the motor pool van, Major C. G. Castillo, who had done his time in the Fort Bragg stockade, was not at all surprised to see a tall, muscular lieutenant colonel wearing a green beret and a shoulder holster standing inside the outer fence of the Delta Force compound, or that the gate in the twelve-foot, razor wire-topped fence was closed.

Floodlights pushed back the deep darkness of the North Carolina night to provide enough illumination to make the signs hanging from the chain-link fence every twenty feet clearly legible.

They read:

Castillo got out of the back of the van, marched up to the outer fence, and saluted crisply. The tall officer returned the salute casually.

"Colonel Fortinot?" Castillo asked.

The tall officer nodded, just perceptibly.

"Sir, my name is Castillo:"

"Stop right there, Major," Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot said. "This is a restricted area. You need written authorization to enter this area. Do you have such authority?"

"No, sir. I do not."

Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot pointed at Captain Brewster.

"Are you the officer who called the duty officer here, asking that I come here?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're General Gonzalez's aide?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you should know better than bringing any unauthorized personnel out here. I think you can count on General Gonzalez getting a memo for record reporting this incident. Good night, gentlemen."

He turned, marched toward the inner gate, and made an "open it up" gesture.

"Colonel," Castillo called out. "Before you go through that gate, I respectfully suggest you hear me out."

Colonel Fortinot continued walking.

"Sir," Castillo called, "I'm privy to the Gray Fox op in progress."

Colonel Fortinot stopped, turned, and walked back to the fence. He looked intently at Castillo for a moment. "Major, I don't nave any idea what you re talking about. Gray Fox? Never heard of it."

Then he turned and made another "open it up" gesture toward the compound.

The gate began to swing inward.

A barrel-chested, very short, totally bald civilian-in a red polo shirt and khaki trousers and carrying a CAR-4 in his hand-came out.

"Goddamn, I thought that was you!" CWO-5 Victor D'Alessandro, USA, Retired, called. "How the hell are you, Charley?"

"Hello, Vic," Castillo called.

Saved by the goddamned bell!

D'Alessandro marched through the inner gate, made an "open it up" gesture over his head, and marched toward the outer gate, which swung inward as he approached.

He walked up to Charley, looked at him carefully for a moment, said, "You looked better with the beard. What the fuck are you doing here?"

Then he wrapped his arms around Castillo, which placed his face against Castillo's chest, and lifted him off the ground.

"Presumably, Mr. D'Alessandro, you know this officer?" Colonel Fortinot said.

"Goddamn right, Colonel," D'Alessandro said, dropping Castillo to the ground. "Charley and I go way back. Word I had was that he was in Washington trying to learn how to act like a lieutenant colonel."

"Something like that, Vic," Castillo said, chuckling.

"The major does not have authorization to be here," Fortinot said.

"He does now," D'Alessandro said and turned to Charley. "They made me retire when I came back from Afghanistan the last time, Charley. So I hired on as a fucking double-dipper. I'm director of security for the stockade. GS-fucking fifteen. I'm an assimilated full fucking bird colonel. Isn't that right, Colonel?"

Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot nodded.

"You came at a bad time, Charley-knowing you, no fucking surprise-we got a Gray Fox going," D'Alessandro said.

"That's why I'm here, Vic," Castillo said. "I came up with the intel that set that off."

"Again, knowing you, no fucking surprise. So what do you need?"

"Have you got a link to General McNab?"

"Data, imagery, voice. You wouldn't believe the gear your pal Casey has come up with."

"I'd like to talk to him," Castillo said.

"No problem. He's getting ready to go wheels-up in Morocco with the backup team. I think there's still an open link. Come on. We'll see." Then he had a second thought and pointed at Captain Brewster. "Who you be, Captain?"

"My name is Brewster:"

"Gonzalez's aide?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're on the Snoopy list," D'Alessandro said. Then he said, "D'Alessandro coming in with two. On my authority."

Castillo noticed for the first time that D'Alessandro had what looked like a flesh-colored hearing aid in his right ear and that a barely visible cord ran from it into the collar of his polo shirt. There was obviously a microphone under the shirt.

"Sir," Castillo said to Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot, "may I suggest you come with us?"

Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot nodded just perceptibly and then followed D'Alessandro, Castillo, and Brewster into the compound. First the outer gate, and then the inner gate, swung closed as they marched toward the single-story brick building that had once been the headquarters of the U.S. Army Stockade, Fort Bragg.

D'Alessandro led them down a corridor to a door guarded by a sergeant who had a CAR-4 cradled in his arm like a hunter's shotgun.

"They're with me," D'Alessandro said, and then added, to the microphone under his shirt, "Open the goddamned door!"

There was a sound of a deadbolt being released and then the door opened inward.

The room was square, about twenty-five feet to a side. In the center was a very large oblong table, with room for perhaps twenty people. There were six people sitting at it. There were paper maps on one wall and video monitors showing maps of various parts of the world-including the area around Abeche, Chad-on another. There was a row of twenty-four-inch video monitors showing areas in and around the compound. Charley could see the van in which they'd come.