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grin, called Jason Monk. Within a year she could avow she had never heard a foreigner speak French like him. The talent had to be natural; it could not be inherited. But it was there, not just a mastery of the grammar and the syntax, but an ability to copy the accent to perfection.
    In his last year at County High, he would visit her house and they would read Mairaux, Proust, Gide, and Sartre (who was incredibly erotic for those days) but their mutual favorites were the older romantic poets, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Verlaine, and De Vigny. It was not intended to happen but it did. Perhaps the poets were to blame, but despite the age gap, which worried neither of them, they had a brief affair.
    By the time he was eighteen Jason Monk could do two things unusual in teenagers of Southern Virginia; he could speak French and make love, each with considerable skill. At eighteen he joined the army.
    In 1968 the Vietnam War was very much in full flow. Many young Americans were trying to avoid serving there. Those who presented themselves as volunteers, signing on for three years, were welcomed with open arms.
    Monk did his basic training and somewhere along the line he filled in his résumé. Under the question “foreign languages” he filled in “French.” He was summoned to the office of the Camp Adjutant.
    “You really speak French?” asked the officer. Monk explained. The adjutant called Charlottesville High and spoke with the school secretary. She contacted Mrs. Brady. Then she rang back. This took a day. Monk was told to report again. This time there was a major from G2, Army Intelligence, present.
    Apart from speaking Vietnamese, most people of a certain age in this former French colony spoke French. Monk was flown to Saigon. He did two tours, with a gap in between back in the States.
    On the day of his release, the C.O. ordered him to report to his office. There were two civilians present. The colonel left.
    “Please, sergeant, take a seat,” said the older and more genial of the two men. He toyed with a briar pipe while the more earnest one broke into a torrent of French. Monk replied in like vein. This went on for ten minutes. Then the French speaker gave a grin and turned to his colleague.
    “He’s good, Carey, he’s damn good.” Then he too left.
    “So, what do you think of Vietnam?” asked the remaining man. He was then about forty, with a lined, amused face. It was 1971.
    “It’s a house of cards, sir,” said Monk. “And it’s falling down. Two more years and we’ll have to get out of there.”
    Carey seemed to agree. He nodded several times.
    “You’re right, but don’t tell the army. What are you going to do now?”
    “I haven’t made up my mind, sir.”
    “Well, I can’t make it up for you. But you have a gift. I don’t even have it myself. My friend out there is as American as you and me, but he was raised in France for twenty years. If he says you’re good, that’s enough for me. So why not continue?
    “You mean college, sir?”
    “I do. The G.I. Bill will pick up most of the tab. Uncle Sam feels you’ve earned it. Take advantage.”
    During his years in the army Monk had sent most of his spare cash home to his mother to help raise the other children.
    “Even the G.I. Bill requires a thousand dollars in cash,” he said.
    Carey shrugged. “I guess a thousand dollars can be raised. If you’ll major in Russian.”
    “And if I do?”
    “Then give me a call. The outfit I work for might be able to offer you something.”
    “It could take four years, sir.”
    “Oh, we’re patient folk where I work.”
    “How did you know about me, sir?”
    “Down in Vietnam, some of our people in the Phoenix Program spotted you and your work. You got some good tips on the VC. They liked that.”
    “It’s Langley, isn’t it, sir? You’re the CIA.”
    “Oh, not all of it. Just a small cog.”
    Carey Jordan was actually much more than a small cog. He would go on to become Deputy Director