The American Mission

by Matthew Palmer

  Alex knew this was the RSO’s idea of the soft sell, but it still came across as an outrageous and naked threat.

  “Just so I understand. Is this in the category of friendly advice, or is this an order from the Ambassador?”

  “For now, let’s just call it friendly advice.”

  “Thanks, Rick. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  • • •

  That afternoon, Alex received a last-minute summons to join the Ambassador for a meeting in the Bubble. Peggy could not tell him the subject of the meeting, but she made it clear that it was a command performance.

  The secure conference room—really a room within a room—was on the fourth floor of the chancery, down the corridor from the Front Office behind an inconspicuous unmarked door with its own cipher lock. At the appointed hour, Alex keyed in the combination, one of a dozen or so that he had had to commit to memory. A second door, this one steel rather than wood, led to a large room. A small set of steps led up to the hatch of the Bubble, a self-contained conference room suspended six inches off the floor by thick bands of an elastic composite to reduce vibrations. It was the only place in the Embassy, in the whole country, for that matter, where it was possible to talk openly at a Top Secret level.

  The room holding the Bubble throbbed with the combined sound of the chillers and the white-noise generators. Alex lifted the heavy arm bar that locked the hatch shut and stepped across the Bubble’s raised threshold. The space inside was surprisingly small, an indication of the thickness of the walls. A long conference table filled the room. There was just enough space to squeeze between the chair backs and the side walls to make it down to the far end. The walls were lined with noise-reducing foam panels. With the hatch closed and locked, the ambient noise was reduced to a tolerable level.

  Jonah Keeler was already there, along with Bob Jeffries, Colonel Fessler, Viggiano, and the Embassy’s Economic and Commercial Counselor, Angela Constantinos. The ECON office was responsible both for reporting on the economic situation in the Congo and for advocating on behalf of American business. In the DRC, that meant primarily resource-extraction industries: oil and gas, mining, and logging. Outside of that, the country really didn’t have much of an economy to speak of.

  Alex nodded hello to the group at the table and took his seat immediately to the right of the DCM. Although the only assigned seat was the Ambassador’s, which was at the head of the table, the country team in just about every embassy developed its own informal seating chart. Alex had not only inherited Julian Wells’s office, house, and car, he had also inherited his seat at the conference table. In bureaucratic terms, it was a good chair, reflecting Alex’s relatively senior position within the mission hierarchy.

  “Anyone know what we are talking about?” Alex asked the group. Most of them shook their heads. Viggiano ignored him. Jeffries was conspicuously silent.

  “Haven’t got the foggiest,” said Deborah Fessler. “I suppose we’ll find out when the Ambassador gets here.”

  The arm bar on the hatch made a sharp clapping sound as it snapped up. Ambassador Spencer strode in, followed by the diminutive Henri Saillard, looking natty in a lightweight charcoal gray suit. His pocket square matched the yellow and blue squares on his expensive-looking tie. Saillard was carrying a three-foot-long mailing tube. Everyone at the table stood up when the Ambassador entered the room. This was long-standing State Department protocol. No one at the table seemed particularly surprised or unhappy at the appearance of Saillard. No one without a security clearance was supposed to be inside the Bubble. No one without a clearance was even supposed to know that there was a Bubble. This was Viggiano’s patch, however, not Alex’s. He wouldn’t want the RSO analyzing election results, and Alex had no intention of playing security officer.

  Saillard sat to Spence’s left, a seat that ordinarily would have gone to the head of the public affairs section, had she been present. It was a desirable chair.

  “Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Spence began. “And I apologize for the secrecy. Henri and I have had a couple of meetings this morning about a potentially significant development that I have only just learned about. I want to get your input and develop an action plan. Henri, why don’t you bring the team up to date.”

  Saillard pulled the cap off one end of the mailing tube and pulled out a map, which he unrolled on the conference table. Weighted corners held the map flat.

  “Our survey teams have recently identified an extraordinarily rich deposit of copper ore in the Mongala River Valley region. There are also preliminary indications of exploitable quantities of rubidium and tungsten.” Saillard pointed to a spot on the map not far from the confluence of the Mongala and the Congo Rivers. “We estimate that full production at the Mongala site could produce approximately one hundred thousand tons of refined copper annually. That’s nearly half a billion dollars at current market prices.

  “The Mongala River Valley lies outside the area of Consolidated Mining’s current concession. Exploiting this deposit will require reaching agreement with the government to extend our exclusive mineral rights into this region. The initial outlay will be considerable and we can only do this if we can lock in an exclusive arrangement for at least the next fifteen years.”

  “Have you done the research for the environmental impact statement?” Angela Constantinos asked. “That’s now a World Trade Organization requirement.”

  “Which can be waived by national governments,” Saillard replied. “We will be soliciting your help in getting Kinshasa to agree to waive the impact statement.”

  “What kind of operation do you have in mind for this deposit?” Constantinos asked.

  “Open-pit with on-site refining.”

  Constantinos grimaced. “That means essentially chopping off the tops of at least two of these peaks. That’s going to produce considerable rubble as a by-product of operations. It’s going to be hard to get an environmental waiver for something this big.”

  “We are confident you will be able to carry this off,” Saillard replied. “Consolidated Mining will also be making its own approach to the government on this particular issue.” Alex knew that this “approach” would likely involve thick envelopes of cash. Nobody would say this out loud; it was a violation of U.S. as well as local law. But it was also de rigueur for big business deals in the region.

  Alex took a hard look at the map. “I see at least half a dozen villages inside the zone you have blocked off for mining operations. How do you propose to handle that?”

  “Three of the villages can be converted into work camps for the miners. Three of the villages will have to be relocated. Consolidated is prepared to assist in that admittedly painful process. The villages are not large. The largest village, I believe it is called Busu-Mouli, has maybe fifteen hundred residents. In total, we anticipate that no more than four or five thousand people will be affected by this.” Saillard was matter-of-fact about the need to uproot thousands of people to make room for the mine. It was clear that he had done this before.

  “Of course,” he continued, “it will be easier if we can get the local authorities to recognize that it is ultimately in their own interest to cooperate with us. The mining operation will create jobs and opportunities. We can also help provide security against the activities of some of the more unpleasant paramilitary groups in the region.”

  The Ambassador spoke up. “This will actually be your job, Alex. I’d like you to serve as the liaison with the local chiefs and convince them to support this project.”

  Alex nodded, but didn’t say anything. He understood the need to support U.S. business interests. It was one of the core missions of every embassy. But he hated what the mining company was planning to do.

  The group spent the next thirty minutes analyzing the political, economic, and security aspects of the deal. This was just a preliminary set of ideas. There were a thousand hoops to jump th
rough before an agreement could be signed. But at the end of the session, they had fleshed out a rough strategy. One of the elements of their approach called for Alex to travel to the region to meet with the local chiefs and lay out the benefits of cooperating with Consolidated. Spence asked Angela to write up a synopsis of the agreed strategy and called an end to the meeting.

  “Alex, would you stick around for a few minutes?” he asked, as the mission staff began to file out of the Bubble.

  “Of course.”

  After a moment, Spence and Alex were alone in the Bubble. With only the two of them in the room, the noise from the machinery was all the more noticeable.

  “I just wanted to make sure that you understood the reasons why I elected not to send in your cable on the Manamakimba mission. You did an absolutely fantastic job, Alex, and it was an excellent cable. I decided to hold off sending the front-channel report only because I didn’t want to raise too many red flags in Washington right now about mining company operations in the Congo. If this rises too high on the radar, it’ll bring the White House and Commerce into the picture, and they’d almost certainly find a way to screw up the Consolidated deal. This is too big an opportunity to lose because of ham-fisted handling from Washington.”

  “Thanks, Spence. I’m grateful for your confidence. This is your mission. Ultimately, it’s your decision as to what we report. I have no problem with that.”

  “Even so, it must be somewhat disappointing. I understand your desire to get back in the game, and I promise you that by the end of this, you are going to be back in the middle of things. I’m just about at the end of my string in any event. I expect to be looking for some cushy academic job or consulting position when I’m done here. You have another thirty years ahead of you.”

  “You make it sound like a sentence.”

  Alex and Spence both laughed.

  “In some ways, maybe it is.”

  It was only after Alex got back to his office that he realized there was something odd about what Spence had said. He had told everyone at the strategy session that he had just learned about the Consolidated find. How could that have factored into his decision last week not to send Alex’s report?

  • • •

  Just as Alex was closing up for the evening and sweeping his office for any stray classified documents that he might have forgotten to lock in his safe, Jonah Keeler stuck his head in.

  “Hey, Alex. You got a minute?”

  “Sure thing. What’s up?”

  “Well . . . I ran Marie Tsiolo’s name by some friends in the local services. They found her for me.”

  “Hey, that’s excellent. Thank you.”

  “Don’t be so quick to thank me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Alex. She’s from Busu-Mouli. Your new friend, Saillard, wants to bury her village beneath a million tons of crushed rock.”

  “Shit.”

  11

  JUNE 25, 2009

  BUSU-MOULI

  Marie couldn’t shake the feeling that all she had done was to buy a little time. Her village was, she feared, doomed.

  It was hard, however, to be too gloomy on such a beautiful morning. She sat on the porch of her father’s house drinking instant coffee sweetened with condensed milk and watching the village children play soccer with a ball she had brought back from South Africa. It had been only five days since she and the American had negotiated the freedom of the mining company team, but it already felt like something in the distant past.

  Her father was awake now. She could hear him puttering in the kitchen area. A few moments later he joined her on the porch, a wooden mug of goat’s milk in his hand. He was getting on in years, Marie thought. His hair was now mostly gray and there were new lines in his face that could only be partially ascribed to the burden of leadership. He was wearing a pair of faded canvas pants with a rope belt. The pants reached only as far as his calves. He wore no shoes. Marie thought of the trim black capri pants she had purchased on her last trip to Johannesburg and smiled softly. Her father was naked from the waist up. At nearly sixty, he was still wiry and strong, but his ribs were more prominent than Marie remembered. He was losing weight. This was worrisome.

  Like more than a million other Congolese, Chief Moise Tsiolo was HIV-positive. Unlike most, he had access to medications that had so far kept him alive. His daughter had made sure of it.

  “Good morning, Papa,” Marie offered in the Luba language.

  “Good morning, daughter. You’re up early.” Her father replied in French. He had always insisted on speaking French to her, having observed once that there were no great universities holding their classes in Luba.

  “Busy day. I need to bury a big hole.”

  Her father laughed.

  “Don’t be hasty, my sweet girl. You’ve only just gotten home. And don’t make any decisions just yet. There have been some changes while you were away.”

  “I’m sure. I hadn’t expected that you would all just sit around and wait for me.”

  “Some have been waiting. And some things don’t change. Jean-Baptiste has been asking for you. He knows you are home.”

  Marie frowned slightly at this. She and Jean-Baptiste A Nyembo had been briefly involved nearly a decade ago. Papa liked Jean-Baptiste and had not understood why Marie had broken it off. That Marie herself did not fully understand why had made it difficult to explain.

  “And just how did he find that out, Papa?” Marie asked.

  “It’s a small town, Marie. People talk.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  After a breakfast of fruit and liboke, a whole river fish wrapped in banana leaves and grilled over hot coals, Marie kissed her father on the cheek, grabbed her backpack, and set off across the village. She had almost forgotten how much she loved this place. The village was perched on a hillside along the Mongala, one of the Congo River’s major tributaries. Villagers fished for perch in the Mongala River and raised yams and corn in terraced fields built into the hill.

  The village was not wealthy, but Marie had seen an opportunity for Busu-Mouli to build the clinics and schools and fishing fleets that would transform the lives of the freehold farmers who served as the backbone of the community. Copper and rubber were the traditional sources of wealth in the Congo, and Marie had hoped that the chalcopyrite deposit she had found would liberate her people and allow them to achieve their full potential. But it was not turning out as she had planned.

  Marie climbed the steep and narrow path that led up to the mine site. She stopped to chat with a number of friends and neighbors along the way. The unhurried pace of village life was one of its greatest appeals. It took her more than an hour to make the trip. By the time she reached the mine, the day’s work was well under way. Young men were attacking the cliff face with steel tools and filling wicker baskets with raw ore. Marie recognized many of them. Two of them were her cousins. The men carrying the ore baskets downhill to the smelter balanced the load on their backs and carried the weight with a rope or knotted cloth stretched across their foreheads. Their bulging trapezius muscles testified to the grueling demands of the job. There was a hole in the cliff face approximately three meters across. Marie could hear the dull slap of metal on rock and the curses of tired men coming from inside.

  An older man stood to one side watching the younger men toiling in the sun. He saw Marie approaching and a grin spread across his face. He walked over to meet her, wrapped her in a tight hug, and kissed her violently on both cheeks. Thomas Katanga was her mother’s brother. He was also her father’s right-hand man and now the pit boss for the mine. Marie’s mine.

  “Welcome home, my dear Marie. I heard that you had come back to your father’s house. This is a blessing. We prayed to so many different gods for your safe return that there seemed a risk of setting them against each other.”

  “It’s good to be back.
I missed you all terribly.” They spoke Luba together, and for Marie, the language was a taste of home.

  “So tell me, Uncle Thomas,” Marie continued, “how’s my baby?”

  “On balance, pretty good. The tunnel is reasonably stable and the roof seems to be holding. We are using timber to shore it up. It’s your design and so far it is working well. My carpenters can build it. We are just going to have to trust your math.”

  “I’ve always been good with numbers, Uncle. Don’t you worry about that.”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  “You’re damn right I do.”

  Thomas Katanga led Marie on a tour of the mine she had conceived and midwifed but had never seen. The path up to the mine entrance was strewn with broken pieces of ore. Marie picked up a stone and held it close. The rock was a dull yellow, but the brassy metallic streaks of pyrite running through the stone caught the sun and glowed. Even in its raw form, it was clear to Marie just how rich a vein this was.

  The mine entrance itself was a perfect half circle. Timber supports formed an inverted V inside the tunnel, theoretically minimizing the risk of a cave-in. It was a simple design that Marie had seen in her textbooks but never in stone and wood.

  “We’ve taken most of the easily accessible ore from the face,” Katanga observed. “Now we need to follow the richer veins into the mountain. It was slow going at first and we had a couple of accidents, but the boys are learning a few tricks. Most important, they are learning to be careful. This is never an easy thing to teach young men.”

  “What kind of progress have you been able to make?”

  “Maybe two and a half meters a day. Our real bottleneck is the smelting. There’s no point bringing out the ore faster than we can process it. Our total daily output is about one hundred kilograms of pure metal. Not bad. But we are hoping some of the equipment your mining friends have will let us quadruple that.”