Special Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  Obviously, if the Army was permitting a lieutenant to have his wife and infant child accompany him, wherever they were going couldn’t be all that rough.

  They had no way of knowing, of course, that the Army was permitting Mrs. Geoffrey Craig to join her husband because there was very little they could do to stop her, and could only hope that the situation vis-à-vis lieutenants’ wives of Special Forces Detachment 17 could be controlled somewhat better than it had been so far.

  They had not, of course, been privy to the telephone conversation between Captain Jean-Phillipe Portet of Intercontinental Air, Ltd., in Miami, and Colonel Sanford T. Felter, General Staff Corps, in Washington, D.C.

  “Ursula Craig put an interesting question to me last night, Sandy,” Jean-Philippe Portet had said.

  “She wants to know,” Felter asked immediately, “since Marjorie is over there, why she can’t be? I was waiting for that.”

  “Close, but not quite. She asked me if I would take her and Mary Magdalene on the 707, or should she make other arrangements. ”

  “Ursula Craig escaped from East Berlin by crashing through the Berlin Wall in a truck. She’s not going to consider sneaking into the Congo without a visa much of a problem,” Felter said. “Especially since Geoff—I’m sure—made sure she has access to lots of cash.”

  “If she wanted to go to Léopoldville—”

  “I don’t suppose we could get Hanni or Porter Craig—better yet, Helene Craig—to reason with her?” Felter interrupted.

  “That failed,” Jean-Phillipe said. “As I expected it would. Helene went berserk. Hanni finally managed to convince her that Ursula and the baby would be safe in Léopoldville.”

  “That’s a thought,” Felter said. “If we could get Marjorie out of Costermansville, to Léopoldville, that would be an improvement on what we have now,” Felter said. “They could both stay at your place, right?”

  “Of course. But how do we get them to do that?”

  “What we don’t do is order Marjorie to Léopoldville, or tell Ursula she can’t go over there. That would guarantee both of them in Costermansville.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Ursula and Mary Magdalene know what happened in Stanleyville—they were there,” Felter said. “I think they’d much rather be in Léopoldville. Maybe they can talk Marjorie into going there.”

  “So I should take them?”

  “What choice do we have?”

  As the 707 made its approach to Stanleyville, both Captain Dugan and Lieutenant Matthews noticed that both the blonde and the enormous black woman seemed disturbed, nervous; the black woman held the baby to her tightly, her lips pursed tightly, and the blonde woman seemed very tense.

  Both officers suspected that the women were probably afraid of flying generally, and landing in some strange airport compounded that fear.

  Once the 707 had stopped in front of the terminal, Captain Dugan and Lieutenant Matthews could see evidence of small-arms fire on the terminal building. And there were no Americans in sight, just Congolese paratroopers. Even more disconcerting, in the open door of a hangar just behind the terminal, a Congolese paratrooper was painting a somewhat crude coffin with what looked like flat black paint.

  A movable stairs mounted on a badly shot-up pickup truck was pushed to the side of the 707 by a dozen or more Congolese paratroopers. The truck had no tires; it was rolling on its rims.

  A stocky Congolese paratroop officer came quickly up the stairs.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” Lieutenant Matthews, who made sort of a hobby of knowing the rank insignia of foreign armies, said softly to Captain Dugan. Dugan nodded.

  The Congolese lieutenant colonel made his way past the L-19s and the crates and infant accoutrements toward the cockpit.

  He saw them.

  “The aircraft is now at the terminal,” he said in heavily sarcastic English. “The captain has extinguished the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign. What the hell are you two waiting for?”

  Captain Dugan and Lieutenant Matthews unfastened their seat belts and stood up.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” the Congolese lieutenant colonel said, in what sounded like Yankee English, to the blonde. “What are you two, gluttons for punishment?”

  Then he said something in a language neither officer had ever heard before to the enormous black woman, who smiled at him and replied. It was the first time either officer had seen the woman smile.

  “Good afternoon, Major Lunsford,” the blonde said. “How nice to see you again.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Major Lunsford?” Captain Dugan wondered.

  “Oh, Jesus, honey, don’t do that,” Lunsford said, and put his arms around her and the baby.

  “I’m all right, Father,” she said.

  “Father?” Lieutenant Matthews wondered.

  “Trust me, honey,” Lunsford said. “Things are changed from the last time you were here.”

  He saw Captain Dugan and Lieutenant Matthews looking at them.

  “What do I have to do, stick a boot up your ass to get you off the airplane?”

  Captain Dugan and Lieutenant Matthews descended the ladder. A slight Congolese paratroop captain waited at the bottom.

  Lieutenant Matthews saluted him, and a moment later Captain Dugan did so, too.

  The Congolese returned the salute.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Captain Weewili said, smiling. “I’m actually a Spec7.”

  [ TWO ]

  5 Degrees 27 Minutes 08 Seconds South Latitude

  29 Degrees 11 Minutes 19 Seconds East Longitude

  (The Bush, Near Lake Tanganyika, Kivu Province, Congo)

  1550 8 April 1965

  It was not the almost impenetrable jungle that Hollywood Tarzan movies have taught us to envision when “African jungle” is mentioned. It was closer to “virgin forest.” More trees—many of them ancient and enormous—than vines. A vast assortment of bushes—hence the term “the bush”—and a two- or three-inch-thick padding underfoot of rotting leaves and branches. It was warm—they were five degrees south of the Equator—but not oppressively so, and they were about five thousand feet above sea level, so while the humidity was high, it was not as oppressive as, say, the Florida panhandle, where Special Forces troops are trained in “jungle warfare.”

  Sergeant First Jette had not spoken more than a dozen words to Major Tomas since they had left Outpost George and crossed Route 5 and gone into the bush. When it had been necessary to communicate—not often: “Stop.” “That way.” “Listen.” “Move.”—he had done so with hand movements.

  The Simbas were herding half a dozen head of cattle ahead of them, and the trail had not been at all hard to follow.

  Jette had set the pace, a sort of a lope, and it had been all Doubting Thomas could do to keep up with him.

  Jette put his left hand to his ear. “Listen.”

  Thomas heard the sound of mooing cattle, and he nodded.

  Jette made signs indicating the direction, and that they should move. The path he chose was in the bush, parallel to the track, and his pace picked up.

  By the time Jette held up his hand, “Stop” again, Doubting Thomas was breathing hard.

  Thomas could now hear voices in addition to the mooing of the cattle, but he could not make out what was being said.

  Jette began to move again, this time slowly and carefully, and then held up his hand again, “Stop,” and pointed. He dropped to the ground and moved on his hands and knees through the bush, and finally signaled another “Stop.”

  The Simbas were no more than twenty yards away. There were nine of them, ambling along both sides of the cattle and to the rear of them. They were all armed, with an assortment of both rifles and machetes. A few had pistols, and one had a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. Most of them had some piece of uniform clothing—Belgian officers’ brimmed caps with the insignia missing; dress uniform tunics; camouflage fatigue jackets or trousers; Sam Browne belts—but not one
of them was completely uniformed.

  It would have been easy to take them all out, Doubting Thomas judged professionally, but that wouldn’t make much sense. He looked at Jette for any sign that he wasn’t going to obey the one order “Major Tomas” had given him: “Unless we’re attacked, you will not shoot without my specific permission.”

  Jette was lying on his stomach, his arms folded in front of him, resting his chin on his hands.

  He knows what he’s doing, Thomas thought approvingly. There was no sense in going back into the bush. If the Simbas hadn’t seen them yet, it was unlikely they would before, in their own good time, they ambled out of sight tending the cattle.

  As Thomas started to lie down near Jette, the rain started. It had been threatening to rain for an hour. It began with a few large drops, and then it came in a torrent. There was no way the Simbas would see them now. The rain would last no more than an hour or so.

  Thomas touched Jette’s leg and signaled that they were to move back into the bush. Jette nodded and said nothing, but there was a look in his eyes that told Thomas that Jette had no idea what he was up to.

  Thomas walked 122 paces—he counted them—before he found what he was looking for: a natural clearing in the bush open to the sky.

  He unbuckled and shrugged out of the backpack radio and then his web gear, then hung it all on a broken-off limb on a tree. Then he took his compass—he carried this hanging around his neck, next to his dog tags—and sighted it back to the trail the Simbas were using.

  Sergeant First Jette squatted on the ground, holding his rifle between his knees, and watched him with unconcealed curiosity. He did not take off his pack.

  “When do we kill the Simbas, Major, sir?” he asked.

  “Not now, Sergeant First Jette,” Thomas said. “First we must talk and think and see what weapons are available to us.”

  “Yes, Major, sir.”

  “Is there any question in your mind that you can track the Simbas to their base?” Thomas asked.

  “It is not hard to track cattle, Major, sir.”

  “Do you think the Simba will stop for the night if they cannot reach their base by dark?”

  “I think they will reach their base by dark.”

  “I was told it’s fifty miles, eighty kilometers, from Route Five to the shore of Lake Tanganyika. We have come . . . what?”

  It was obvious the question was difficult for Sergeant First Jette.

  “Would you agree if I said we have come perhaps fifteen kilometers? ”

  “Yes, Major, sir.”

  Shit, he’d agree if I said we’d come two klicks, or two hundred.

  “Why do you think the Simba base is so close to Route Five?”

  “Far enough in the bush to make finding it hard, close enough to cross Route Five to steal cattle and easily drive them to the base.”

  That makes sense. I should have figured that out myself.

  “I don’t think this will work, but what the hell, I may get lucky,” Thomas said, thinking out loud.

  “Major, sir?”

  Thomas went to his backpack radio, let the flexible antennae loose so that it popped erect, then turned the radio on and selected a frequency.

  “George, George, Hunter One,” he said to the microphone.

  There was no answer, even after several tries.

  He turned the radio off.

  “Which means, Sergeant First Jette, that George’s radios are not working; or that this radio is not working; or that this radio is working, but these fucking trees are in the way.”

  “Yes, Major, sir.”

  “And I really hate to climb trees,” Thomas said, looked around the clearing, selected a large tall tree with sturdy limbs near one side of it, and, motioning Jette to follow him, walked to it, carrying the radio with him.

  Jette boosted him onto a lower limb and Thomas climbed the tree. When he thought he was high enough, he dropped a nylon cord weighted with his pistol to the ground. Jette tied the cord to the backpack radio, the pistol to the radio, and Thomas hauled both into the tree.

  “George, George, Hunter One,” he called into the microphone.

  There was no reply.

  “George, George, Hunter One.”

  Shit.

  “George, George, Hunter One.”

  This time there was a reply, an unexpected one.

  “Hunter One, this is Birddog Three.”

  “Birddog Three, Hunter One, how do you read?”

  “Five by five, Hunter.”

  “Can you raise George?”

  “Negative. I am over George. No radios. The reaction force is there. Who is this?”

  “Doubting Thomas.”

  “Geoff Craig. Where the hell are you?”

  “About fifteen klicks, I think, in the Bush east of George.”

  “You think?”

  “How are you fixed for fuel?”

  “A little more than an hour. I’m about to sit down at George— they have fuel. I can see a truck loaded with jerry cans. What do you need?”

  “What I’d like to do is pop a smoke grenade and see if you can find me.”

  “You need help?”

  “What I’d like is for you to mark my location on a map, and send the reaction force here.”

  “You found the Simbas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, aren’t you clever?”

  “You going to try to find me or not?”

  “I’m headed that way right now.”

  “It would be better if you didn’t overshoot this location.”

  “Understood. Pop smoke in five minutes. You got any yellow?”

  “Popping yellow in five minutes,” Thomas said, turned the radio off, and started down the tree.

  He took two yellow smoke grenades—all he had—and half a dozen others from his rucksack and gave them to Sergeant First Jette.

  “You stand in the middle of the clearing, and when I yell down, pull this thing, and then toss it on the ground,” he said. “It won’t blow up.”

  “Yes, Major, sir,” Sergeant First Jette said, dubiously.

  “If I yell again, pull the pin on another yellow. Then any of the others.”

  “They will not blow up, Major, sir?”

  “I give you my word of honor as a former Boy Scout,” Thomas said, and motioned for Jette to give him another boost into the tree.

  “Birddog, Hunter.”

  “Read you loud and clear, but I don’t see no smoke.”

  “Popping smoke,” Thomas replied. He looked down. “Pull the pin, Sergeant First Jette!” he called.

  Sergeant First Jette pulled the pin, tossed the grenade onto the ground, and then ran as fast as he could to the shelter of a tree. After a moment, he cautiously peered around the tree as yellow smoke billowed from the grenade.

  “I don’t see no smoke,” Birddog Three announced.

  “Keep looking,” Thomas said.

  “Ah, there you are, you elusive clever devil!”

  For the first time, Thomas could now hear the sound of the L-19’s engine. But he couldn’t see it, even when the sound told him Geoff Craig had flown directly over him.

  “There’s a trail about one hundred meters due south of the smoke. Can you see it?”

  There was a pause before Birddog replied.

  “You said a hundred meters south?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “All I can see is treetops.”

  “Can you see the ground where I pulled the yellow?”

  “I saw a little clearing when I flew over. I didn’t see you.”

  “I’m in a tree. You got enough to mark your map?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, maybe they can find the track we followed. The Simbas are herding a half-dozen cows.”

  “Tell me what you want done, Thomas.”

  “Go to George. See if you get them on the air. That would solve a lot of problems. Show them where we are, and have them start this way.”

  �
�You want all of them?”

  “How many are there?”

  “Looks like a company: three big trucks, two pickups, and a jeep.”

  “I’d like to have about twenty shooters, maybe a .30-caliber Browning. No more than that.”

  “Can trucks use this track if they find it?”

  “No, but the jeep might be able to make it. That would come in handy if somebody got dinged. Is it towing a trailer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell them to try to bring the jeep and the trailer.”

  “You want them now?”

  “You might as well get them started now. But I don’t want to start anything today. It’s too close to dark. If we can get them assembled here, by the time they get here, I’ll reconnoiter the Simba camp.”

  “I thought you said you found them.”

  “I did, but we stopped trailing just before I got on the horn. We don’t think the camp is far from here. I’ll have to check that out.”

  “Okay, Thomas. Watch your ass. If they get can’t get their radios working, I’ll come back.”

  “Thank you. Out.”

  “Birddog out.”

  Thomas took a small coil of nylon cord from his pocket and used it to lash the backpack radio more securely to the tree. Then he climbed down to the ground. He went to his rucksack and took from it a small, squarish pack, three inches thick and roughly a foot square.

  Sergeant First Jette squatted on the ground, holding his rifle between his knees, and watched him with unconcealed curiosity.

  Jette’s eyes widened when Thomas unfolded the pack, turning it into a tent of sorts. There was a flat roof, held up by nylon lines tied to the trees Thomas had looked for and found. The walls were nylon netting reaching to the ground. The floor was separate, and held in place by tree branches Thomas cut and then sharpened and drove into the ground with the heel of his boot.

  Thomas went back to his rucksack and took from it the aerosol can of insect spray he had used on Withers’s corpse; a plastic bottle that had once contained shampoo; and another, smaller pouch. He went to the tent, raised the netting, sprayed it thoroughly, and then went inside, taking his rifle and pistol with him.

  He was now out of the rain in an insect-free environment. Sergeant First Jette was squatting in pouring rain, slapping at an assortment of native insects upon which the rain had no apparent effect.