"Yes, sir. Pretty much."

The president studied Castillo carefully for a moment and then asked, "You think you're up to what's being asked of you, Major?"

"Yes, sir," Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo said, confidently.

"Okay. It's settled," the president said. "I was about to say, 'Good luck, thank you for coming, and one of the Hueys will take you back to Fort Stewart to wait for Matt: for the secretary.'"

"There's no reason for him to stay at Fort Stewart, Mr. President," Hall said. "Actually, I promised him the long weekend off if we finished here quickly."

The president nodded, then asked Castillo: "Well, we are done. Any plans?"

"Yes, sir. I promised my grandmother a visit."

"She's where?"

"Outside San Antonio, sir."

"Would a chopper ride to Atlanta cut some travel time for you, Major?"

"Yes, sir. It would. But a ride back to Fort Stewart is all I'll need, sir."

"How's that?"

"Sir, I'm going to meet a cousin at Savannah. We're going to Texas together."

The president raised his voice. "Nathan!"

A very large, very black man appeared almost immediately from inside the house. He had an earphone in his ear and a bulge under his arm suggested the presence of either a large pistol or perhaps an Uzi. Right on his heels was one of the secretary's Secret Service bodyguards.

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"See that Major Castillo gets to a Huey and that it takes him back to Stewart," the president ordered.

"Yes, Mr. President."

The president offered Castillo his hand and put a hand on his shoulder.

"We'll see each other again," the president said. "Thank you."

"I'll do my best, Mr. President."

"I'm sure you will," the president said.

Secretary Hall shook Castillo's hand. Hall said: "See you in my office at noon on Tuesday."

A Secret Service Yukon rolled up a moment later. The president and Secretary Hall watched as Castillo got in the front seat and they waved as the SUV started off.

"A very interesting guy, Matt," the president said.

"The Secret Service dubbed him 'Don Juan,' " the secretary said. "I never asked them why."

The president chuckled.

"Where did you get him, Matt?"

"From General Naylor," the secretary said. "I got on my knees and told him I really needed him more than he did."

"That's right," the president said. "You and Naylor go back a long way, don't you?"

"To Vietnam," the secretary said. "He was a brand-new captain and I was a brand-new shake-and-bake buck sergeant."

"A what?" the president asked.

"They were so short of noncoms, Mr. President, that they had sort of an OCS to make them. I went there right out of basic training, got through it, and became what was somewhat contemptuously known as a 'shake-and-bake sergeant.' "

"Where did Naylor get him?" the president asked.

"Actually, he and Charley go a long way back, too," the secretary said.

" Charley?" the president parroted.

"He doesn't look much like a Carlos, does he?" the secretary said. "Yeah, I call him Charley."

"So where did Naylor get him? Where does he come from?"

"It's a long story, Mr. President," the secretary said. The president looked at his watch.

"If you're not in a rush to get back," the president said, motioning toward the wicker rockers and the tub of iced bottles of beer, "I have a little time."

[ONE]

Near Bad Hersfeld

Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg

Hesse, West Germany

1145 7 March 1981

"That has to be it, Netty," Mrs. Elaine Naylor, a trim, pale-faced redhead of thirty-four, said to Mrs. Natalie "Netty" Lustrous, a trim, black-haired lady of forty-four, pointing. "It's exactly three-point-three klicks from the little chapel."

"Yeah," Netty Lustrous said, slowing the nearly new black Mercedes-Benz 380SEL and then turning off the winding, narrow country road through an open gate in a ten-foot-high steel-mesh fence onto an even more narrow road.

Fifty yards down the road, a heavyset man stepped into the middle of it. He was wearing a heavy loden cloth jacket and cap and sturdy boots. A hunting rifle was slung muzzle downward from his shoulder.

Netty stopped the Mercedes and the man walked up to it.

" Guten tag, "the man said.

"Is this the road to the House in the Woods?" Netty asked, in German.

" Frau Lustrous?" the man asked.

"Jet."

" Willkomen, "the man said, stepped back, and somewhat grandly waved her down the road.

Netty smiled at him. " Danke schoen, "she replied and drove on.

"I didn't know anything was in season," Elaine said in obvious reference to the hunting rifle the man had been carrying.

"I don't think anything is," Netty chuckled. "But Jaegermeisters can carry weapons anytime in case they run into dangerous game in the woods."

"Or Americans without invitations?" Elaine asked.

"I wouldn't be surprised, from what Fred tells me, if there were three or four Jaegermeisters around here looking for things that don't belong."

The road wound upward for about a kilometer-which both women, as Army wives, had learned to call "a klick"-through an immaculate pine forest. And then the trees were gone and what had to be das Haus im Wald was visible.

It was large but simple. It looked, Netty thought, somehow out of place in the open country. Like a house from the city that had suddenly been transplanted to the country.

Halfway between the trees and the house was another Jaegermeister with a rifle slung from his shoulder. He didn't get into the road, but stepped to the side of it and took off his cap in respect as the Mercedes rolled past him.

The left of the double doors of das Haus im Wald opened and a slim woman in a black dress, her blond hair gathered in a bun at her neck, stepped out onto a small stone verandah, shrugging into a woolen shawl as she did so.

"Is that her?" Elaine asked.

"I don't know," Netty said. "I've never met her, and I don't think I've ever seen a picture of her. Fred knows her-or at least has met her. He knew her father pretty well."

Fred was Colonel Frederick J. Lustrous, Armor, United States Army, to whom Netty had been married for more than half her life.

Netty pulled the car in beside another Mercedes-which she recognized to be that of Oberburgermeister Eric Liptz of Fulda-and stopped as the blond woman in the shawl came off the verandah.

"That's the Liptzes' car, right?" Elaine asked. "Meaning Inge's here?"

"I hope so," Netty said. "But that's their car."

She unfastened her seat belt, opened the door, and got out.

"Mrs. Lustrous?" the slim blond woman asked in English.

"Netty Lustrous," Netty said.

"Welcome to the House in the Woods," the blond woman said, offering her hand. "I'm Erika Gossinger."

Her English is accentless, Netty thought. Neither Brit nor American.

And she didn't say "Erika von und zu Gossinger. " Interesting. On purpose?

The von und zu business reflected the German fascination – obsession?- with social class. It identified someone whose family had belonged to the landowning nobility.

Was it that Erika felt that was nonsense? Or that she was trying to be democratic? Or just that she had just dropped the phrase for convenience?

"Thank you having us," Netty said.

"Thank you for coming," Erika said.

Elaine came around the front of the Mercedes.

"This is my good friend Frau Elaine Naylor, Frau Gossinger," Netty said.

The invitation, engraved in German, had said that Frau Erika von und zu Gossinger would be pleased to receive at luncheon at das Haus im Wald Frauoberst Natalie Lustrous (and one lady friend). A separate engraved card in the envelope had a map, showing how to reach the property, which was several klicks outside Bad Hersfeld.