A major of Congolese paratroops in crisply starched camouflage fatigues stepped out from behind one of the gateposts.
“The lady is known to me, Lieutenant,” he said in Swahili. “The man I never saw before. Check him carefully.”
“Yes, my major,” the lieutenant said, and did so.
Two minutes later—which seemed longer—it was apparent to the lieutenant that the man’s papers were in order. He reported this to the major.
“Let them pass, then,” the major said.
The car began to move.
As it passed the gatepost, the black lady ordered, rather imperatively, the driver to stop. The Chevrolet jerked to a stop. The lady rolled the window down.
“Well, look who got himself a pair of shoes,” she said, and then, before he could reply, ordered the driver to drive on.
There were three houseboys in immaculate, stiffly starched jackets, black trousers, and no shoes, inside the door of the Portet home.
“Good evening, sir,” Nimbi said, in French, to Howard W. O’-Connor and his guest. “If you will be good enough to follow Ali, cocktails are being served by the pool.”
Ali smiled at the two Americans and signaled to them that he would lead them to the pool.
O’Connor saw that a bar had been set up at the pool, that beyond the pool were two tennis courts, and beyond the tennis courts, the area was ringed by Congolese paratroops, one every fifteen yards, keeping the fence under surveillance.
A strikingly beautiful young woman greeted them as they reached the pool.
“You must be Mr. O’Connor,” she said.
“Yes, I am, and this is Mr. O’Hara.”
“I’m Marjorie Portet,” she said. “Welcome to my home . . . actually, my father- and mother-in-law’s home. And welcome to the Congo, too, I suppose.”
“Thank you very much,” O’Connor said. “We’re delighted to be here. Is there a Mr. Lowell here?”
“There’s a Colonel Lowell here,” Marjorie said. “Actually, tonight is his idea. He’s over there with General Mobutu and Colonel Supo.”
She inclined her head to indicate the bar.
O’Connor saw a tall, handsome white man in a white dinner jacket, the lapel of which sagged under the weight of an impressive array of miniature medals. There was an enormous medal of some sort hanging around his neck from a purple sash.
With him were two other white men in dinner jackets, and two Congolese officers, one in what in the U.S. Army would be called a Class A uniform, and the other in starched camouflage fatigues. The latter O’Connor recognized from his photos as Lieutenant General Joseph Désiré Mobutu, Minister for Defense and Chief of Staff of the Armée National Congolaise.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Marjorie said. “Everybody’s here but the people from Dar es Salaam, I think. I’ll introduce you.”
“Thank you very much,” O’Connor said.
They started toward the group at the bar.
At the opposite end of the pool, there was another small group of people. Two white men in suits not unlike those of O’Connor and O’Hara, and two more in white dinner jackets were sitting at a table with a blond young woman. There was an infant on the table, being fed a banana by an enormous black woman.
The two men in the dark business suits got to their feet when they saw O’Connor and O’Hara, and intercepted them before they got to the bar.
“Good evening, sir,” one of them said respectfully to O’Con-nor.
“Hello, Charley,” O’Connor said to the CIA station chief, Léopoldville. He nodded at his deputy.
He desperately wanted to ask him what was going on, but with Madame Portet with them, that was obviously out of the question.
“We’re about to meet General Mobutu,” O’Connor said. “Have you met him?”
“Tonight,” Charley said. “For the first time.”
O’Connor resumed his walk toward Mobutu.
Craig Lowell smiled at O’Connor when he saw him coming.
A smile, O’Connor decided, that is less an offer of friendship than one of amusement, and amusement at the expense of Howard W. O’Connor. I came here to do business, not attend a pool party.
“And this, my general,” Lowell said in French, and gesturing with his martini glass at O’Connor, “is the distinguished Howard W. O’Connor, Deputy Director of our Central Intelligence Agency.”
“How do you do, General?” O’Connor said. “May I present my colleague Mr. O’Hara?”
Mobutu shook their hands and said, “And these are my friends Dr. Dannelly and Colonel Jean-Baptiste Supo,” Mobutu said.
Everybody shook hands.
“And I think you know Mr. Finton, don’t you?” Lowell asked.
“Good evening, sir,” Finton said.
A houseboy appeared for their drink order.
O’Connor debated asking for something soft, but lost his resolve and ordered a gin and tonic. O’Hara followed his lead.
“I’ve been telling the general,” Lowell said. “That you have taken the time from your very busy schedule to come here to coordinate our mutual efforts with regard to Señor Guevara and his friends.”
“That’s true,” O’Connor said, and blurted, “And when are we going to have the time for that, Colonel?”
“I thought we’d do it over after-dinner coffee,” Lowell said. “I met with Colonel Supo and Major Lunsford this afternoon, and went over their plans. All we have to do is fit the CIA and its assets into the plan. That shouldn’t take long.”
O’Connor searched for words to reply.
“As I told the General,” Lowell went on, “Colonel Felter meant it when he said this is a cooperative effort and we are going to have no secrets from Colonel Supo or General Mobutu. You don’t have any problems with that, do you, Mr. O’Connor?”
Goddamn! O’Connor thought. What the hell is wrong with the Director? He should have known Felter would sandbag him!
“No, of course not,” O’Connor said as sincerely as he could.
Lowell smiled at him, then looked over his shoulder.
“Well, everybody’s here, I see,” he said.
The secretary to the Consul General of the United States in Dar es Salaam and that luminary himself were being escorted across the lawn toward them.
“General,” O’Connor said, “this is Mr. James Foster, the United States Consul General in Dar es Salaam, and his assistant, Miss Cecilia Taylor.”
“How do you do?” Mobutu said, and there was another round of introductions, during which Lieutenant Colonel Dahdi—who had had to walk from the gate to the house—showed up.
“Actually, General,” O’Connor announced, “Mr. Foster has duties beyond Consul General in Dar es Salaam.”
“You are right, Major,” General Mobutu said in Swahili, “she really is something to look at! An absolute beauty!”
“Well, since it’s truth time,” Lowell said, “why don’t we confide in General Mobutu that Miss Taylor is actually the Dar es Salaam CIA station chief?”
“So Major Lunsford led me to believe,” Mobutu said in French.
“Unfortunately, General,” Cecilia Taylor said in perfect Swahili, “Major Lunsford talks too much.”
Mobutu laughed out loud.
“You speak Swahili very well, mademoiselle,” Mobutu said in French. “Are you familiar with the Swahili saying?”—he gave the saying in Swahili.
Dannelly and Supo laughed. Supo waved his finger—naughty boy—at Father Lunsford, who looked very uncomfortable.
“I’ve heard that, yes,” Cecilia replied in French, and looked very uncomfortable.
“I don’t speak Swahili,” Lowell said.
“Or I,” O’Connor said.
“What does it mean, Father?” Lowell asked.
“Not me,” Father said.
“You may consider that an order to translate the General’s comments, Major Lunsford,” Lowell said.
For a moment, it looked as if Lunsford was going to refuse th
e order. Then he looked at Cecilia Taylor, who said, “Don’t you dare!”
“Man who thinks he’s in love can be counted upon to behave like orangutan in heat,” he translated, “and show the world his red ass.”
“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” Cecilia said, “I think I will go powder my nose.”
“Thanks a lot, General,” Father said when she was out of sight.
“I wouldn’t worry, my friend,” Mobutu said. “She likes you. I could see it in her eyes. Women can sense warriors, and warriors attract women.”
[ FIVE ]
Immediately after the dessert plates had been cleared from the table, as houseboys served both coffee and cognac, two Congolese paratroopers carried first a tripod, and then a map board, into the dining room.
I’ll be a sonofabitch! He’s actually going to do it! Howard W. O’Connor thought.
Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell stood up, cradling a cognac glass in his hand, rolling the cognac around in the glass.
“This is where, in times past,” Lowell said, looking at O’Con-nor, “the ladies retired, while the gentlemen sipped at their cognac and puffed on their cigars. But times have changed, and I would like to begin this session by offering my thanks, and that of Colonel Felter, to Marjorie and Ursula. Major Lunsford has told me how much they have contributed to Operation Earnest. Thank you, ladies.”
I’ll be a sonofabitch! O’Connor thought again.
Colonel Supo clapped his hands, and in a moment, General Mobutu joined in.
This has gone too goddamn far!
“Colonel,” O’Connor said. “I feel that I have to raise the question of security.”
“This place is secure, Howard,” Lowell said. “With General Mobutu here, it’s probably the most secure place in the Congo.”
I didn’t tell this sonofabitch he could call me by my Christian name!
“I was referring to the ladies’ security clearances,” O’Connor said.
“Oh. Well, Howard, the ladies have Top Secret/Earnest clearances. ”
“But they’re not government employees, Colonel, they’re dependents. ”
“Major Lunsford, who granted the clearances, knew that, Howard,” Lowell said. “Anything else?”
O’Connor shook his head, no, but then asked, “Lunsford has the authority to grant clearances?”
“Three of us do,” Lowell said. “Colonel Felter, Major Lunsford, and myself. It’s all in order, Howard.”
“Mon general,” Lowell asked in French. “Would you like to say anything before we begin?”
Mobutu shook his head, no.
“Mon colonel?”
Supo shook his head, no.
“I understand you would like to have Major Lunsford take this over?”
“I have not the good English,” Supo explained.
“Major Lunsford?” Lowell said, motioning Lunsford to his feet and then helping him pull the sheet of oilcloth that covered the map over the top of the map board. Lunsford then stepped in front of the map. He held part of a billiards cue in his hand, to use as a pointer.
“Guevara and the other Cubans,” he said in French, “who entered the Congo on 23 April reached Luluabourg . . . here”—he pointed out Luluabourg with the cue—“in the early-morning hours of 7 May, yesterday. A second group of approximately 130 Cubans, under Captain Santiago Terry, debarked from the Cuban vessel Uvera in Pointe Noire, Congo Brazzaville, at 0600 6 May. Nineteen of them, under Captain Terry, were immediately trucked to the Congo River, near Matadi”—he used the pointer again—“and entered the Congo here, where they were met by Laurent Mitoudidi, who calls himself ‘general’ and is chef de cabinet of the revolutionary staff military council. . . .”
“May I ask, Major,” O’Hara asked in not very good French, “the source of your intelligence?”
“Colonel Supo,” Lunsford replied.
“We are not completely without intelligence sources,” Mobutu said, sarcastically, in French.
“We believe they will reach Luluabourg either today or early tomorrow,” Lunsford went on. “Orders have been issued to the roadblocks to let them pass.”
“May I ask why?” O’Connor asked.
“One,” Lunsford said, “nineteen Cubans aren’t going to make a perceptible change in the insurgent forces; two, this way, we’ll have all the Cubans in one place; and three, they will not be aware that we have them under surveillance. And, maybe, four: there were 130 men and a quantity of arms on the Uvera. Inasmuch as they think their route into the Congo is secure, they will probably use the same route to move both men and matériel in a truck convoy, bypassing the roadblocks when possible, and overrunning the roadblocks they can’t bypass. We’re working on a plan to have the convoy disappear.”
“Disappear?” O’Connor asked.
“We will surveil their progress from the entry point at the Congo River to Luluabourg. They don’t have many options so far as a route goes—it’s either National Route Five, Sixteen, or Twenty—and at the appropriate point, we will simply make the supply convoy disappear. The Cubans will be moved somewhere—probably Stanleyville—where they can be secretly court-martialed—”
“Court-martialed?” O’Connor interrupted. “Secretly court-martialed? ”
“International law permits the court-martial of armed foreign nationals detected in a country during an armed insurrection, with the intent of supporting the insurrection,” Lunsford said as if delivering a classroom lecture. “The details of the court-martial—court -martials—do not have to be made public until the insurrection has been suppressed, and law and order restored, when they are required to be furnished to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”
“In other words, you intend to shoot the Cubans?” O’Connor said.
“It’s my understanding, Howard,” Lowell said, “that with the exception of Guevara, whom the Congolese government, like our own, does not wish to make into a martyr, the Congolese government intends to court-martial any foreign national who comes to the Congo armed, and intending to join or assist the insurgents. What punishment will be meted out is, of course, something the Congolese will determine.”
In other words, yes, you’re going to shoot the Cubans.
“That’s one of the places where you, or at least your airplanes, come in, Howard,” Lowell went on. “Colonel Supo may have to move a company-size force in a hurry, and he’ll need your C-47s to do that. This plan presumes he’ll have access to three C-47s for twenty-four hours when he calls for them. Is there going to be a problem with that?”
O’Connor turned to the CIA station chief, Léopoldville.
“Charley?”
“The C-47s have more on their plate than they can handle, sir,” Charley said, “supporting Hoare’s mercenary force in their suppression of the insurgents in the Luluabourg area.”
“I’m sure that Major Hoare would be delighted to give up his air transport for a twenty-four-hour period if that meant the interdiction of a convoy of men and matériel intended to reinforce the insurgents he’s dealing with,” Lowell said. “I know I would.”
“Make the aircraft available to Major Lunsford,” O’Connor ordered.
“We won’t know where to hit the convoy until Colonel Supo makes that decision,” Lunsford said.
You mean, O’Connor thought, until you make that decision.,
“. . . which means,” Lunsford went on, “that we won’t know which of the airfields we’ll use until just before we use them. What we would like to do is send Portet to Kamina. He knows just about every field in the area; he’s landed at just about every field in the area.”
The translation of that is you want your guy at Kamina to make sure Charley’s aviation people “cooperate fully” with your request for Charley’s C-47s.
“Any problem with that, Howard?” Lowell asked.
“I can’t think of any,” O’Connor said. “Charley?”
“I was wondering, frankly, why you can’t use Portet’s—Air Si
mba’s—C-46s for this.”
“They’re being used, openly, under contract to the Congolese Army, to supply Colonel Supo’s forces,” Lunsford said. “And, of course, they’re supporting, covertly, our covert operations. Once we have the convoy in our hands, they can be used to take the prisoners to Stanleyville, and to distribute the war matériel wherever Colonel Supo wants it, but they can’t be used to transport a company of paratroopers; we need the C-47s for that.”
“Hoare won’t like it,” Charley said.
“It doesn’t matter what Major Hoare likes or dislikes,” General Mobutu said. “He is in the employ of the Congolese Army; he will take orders from the Congolese Army.”
“I presume that question is settled?” Lowell asked after a moment, then, when O’Connor nodded, added: “Go on, please, Major Lunsford.”
“Colonel Supo has some agents with the insurgents in the Luluabourg area,” Lunsford said. “The problem with them is getting their intel out in time for it to be of any use. The way Colonel Supo plans to deal with that is—with our assistance—to establish two outposts in the area around Luluabourg, one of the low land and the other on the plateau, which is five thousand feet above.
“We have reason to believe—Colonel Supo’s agents have told us—that Mitoudidi plans to retake Albertville, in Katanga Province, here”—he pointed to Albertville, which was at the midpoint of the shore of Lake Tanganyika—“because (a) it will give him a port for resupply from Tanganyika; (b) restore the credibility the insurgents lost when Major Hoare’s men ran him out of it; and (c) because he believes the Cubans will give him the necessary muscle to do so.”
“And you think he can take it back from Hoare?” O’Connor asked. “And what about the Congolese Army?”
“Colonel Supo,” Lowell said, “who, as I think you know, was recently given responsibility for Katanga Province, believes that he can keep Albertville from being taken again, with the forces he is in the process of moving there. If the Cubans participate in the attack—and Colonel Supo believes Mitoudidi will not attack without the Cubans—and that attack is a spectacular failure, Colonel Supo believes this will destroy the credibility of the Cubans with the insurgents, and the credibility of ‘General’ Mitoudidi with the Congolese people. The advantages of that, obviously, would be enormous.
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