“Vietnam. By ’sixty-five, he was on the ground there, in Laos, Thailand, wherever he could do the most good. He was one of two or three guys who invented Air America, the CIA-fronted airline that flew people, equipment, drugs, and all sorts of contraband all over Southeast Asia. He made some money out of that, legend has it.”

“Was he motivated by money?”

“Not at first, probably, but agents in that sort of situation suddenly start seeing it lying around on the ground in neatly tied bundles, and it’s hard not to pick up some of it. Stan spent it as fast as he made or stole it, though; he had an establishment in Saigon that included a townhouse that had formerly belonged to a French governor, a chauffeured Rolls-Royce of a certain vintage, and a mistress who was said to be the most beautiful and the most sexually adventurous female for a thousand miles in any direction. He entertained on a scale not often seen outside the loftier regions of French society—a superb cellar had come with the house—and his guests included everybody of importance who came through the city: journalists, presidential advisiors, senior military figures. It was said that the only reason Hanoi never tried to blow the house to smithereens was that all the servants were Viet Cong, and they reported everything that happened there. Stan, of course, maintained he was running them as double agents.”

Stone had to laugh.

“When the whole thing finally came crashing down, Stan got out on the last helicopter leaving the embassy. You remember a photograph of an American slugging somebody who was clinging to the chopper as it rose?”

“Yes.”

“Look closely, allow for age, and you’ll see that it was Stan. It made him more famous than ever, in certain circles.”

“What happened to the mistress?”

“Funny you should ask. Stan abandoned her at the end, but it’s said that, within a week of the fall of Saigon, she was living with the commandant of what had suddenly become Ho Chi Min City. She had the house all ready and waiting for him. Eventually, she got out of the country and ended up in LA, where she is now running the most exotic bordello the town has ever seen. I’ll give you the number, if you’re going to be out there anytime soon.”

“You never know. What did he do after Vietnam?”

“He had a number of dull postings after that, kept his head down until nobody remembered whose fault Vietnam had been. I met him in the early eighties, when I arrived at the Farm.”

“What farm was that?”

“The Farm is the training school for the covert side of the agency, and by that time, Stan was running it. It’s the intelligence equivalent of an army officer becoming the commandant at West Point.”

“I see.”