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ah, Radio Research Detachment in Vietnam rather than a combat unit—”
    Kelly nodded calmly. “Right,” he interrupted, “I was with the National Security Agency then, just like I was up to five years ago.”
    “But I gather you did have some combat experience,” General Pedler said. “I believe there was even a Silver Star. I know what that means, especially for an enlisted man as you were.”
    Captain Laidlaw started to hand one of the folders to his superior. It was red-bordered and stamped Top Secret, unlike a standard 201 Personnel File. The Defense Attaché waved it off without taking his eyes away from Kelly.
    “I’d admire to know what’s in that file,” the civilian said, but it wasn’t a real request. He looked at the wall, at a framed photograph of General Pedler as a younger man, grinning beside the nose of an F-100. “That was at Fort Defiance,” he said. “They named it that because they dug the Squadron in with a pair of 8-inch howitzers, right in the middle of War Zone C. They dared the dinks to come get us. They did, too; the Lord knows, they did that.” He caught the general’s eyes. “I didn’t get that medal for fighting. I got it because somebody had to guide in the medevac birds with a pair of light wands, and it turned out to be me. I guess I’m about as proud of that as I am of anything I ever did in my life, if you want to know the truth . . . but I’m not looking for a chance to do anything like it again.”
    “We need,’’ the general said, “someone to manage the defection of a Soviet Bloc citizen in a third country. That will require a certain facility with languages, which you have; but that could be supplied by a number of other persons with active security clearances—yes, yours still is, Mr. Kelly. The—mission, Project Skyripper—the mission, however, must be developed with speed rather than finesse. As I understand it, your name was suggested by General Redstone, who had served with you at one time.”
    Kelly broke into a smile. “That bastard made general? I’ll be damned! I’d heard the Special Operations Group was pretty much a dead end for your career in the brass. Seemed like the folks who’d been running missions into Laos scared the crap out of the War College types back in the World when they got a few drinks in them and started telling stories.” The smile broadened. “And Red has some stories to tell, that’s God’s truth.”
    “You accept the mission, then?” broke in the Naval Attaché, still smiling to hide his discomfort.
    Kelly shrugged restively, looking at the picture again. “Five years ago, the NSA decided it didn’t need a cowboy,” he said. His hands, unnoticed, were still playing with the red and silver knife. “Right now, this cowboy doesn’t need the NSA—or any other part”—he glared at Pedler—“of the fucking US Government. Oh, sure, you’ll pay me—but last year I cleared, what, $37,000 it’d come to, cleared it honest without anybody trying to grease me or throw me under the jail.” Kelly leaned forward in the chair, the words cracking out like shots. “If I want excitement—and I don’t—I can get that walking the Genoa docks. Anything in the fucking world I want, I want , and I can get it or I know a guy who can get it for me. What do I need the USG for now, except another chance to get the shaft? Why do I need you ?”
    “You don’t,” General Pedler said, his voice a calm contrast to the civilian’s spewing words and the anger growing on Laidlaw’s face. “You didn’t need a medevac bird in the jungle, either. You weren’t wounded. You don’t need your country at all; but she needs you. And that’s enough, or you wouldn’t have flown in from Basel when we contacted you. Would you?”
    Kelly slapped the arm of his chair. “Don’t give me that crap!” he said. “The country needs a few wogs blown away, so let’s get Tom Kelly, he’s good at it? No thanks. I had my share of that sort of