Then he tracked the others. After about five minutes, he was able to judge that about fifty men were making their way across the field, and, in his professional judgment, doing so pretty professionally. None of them—and the light was right for him to get a good look through the Bausch & Lomb sight—looked at all like Dr. Ernesto Guevara. For that matter, he hadn’t seen anyone who didn’t look as if he was black.
“Hunter, One, about fifty, I’d guess,” the radio announced. “And it looks as if that’s all of them.”
“I’m going to let them get a little closer,” Thomas replied. He looked through the scope again, and called to Jette. “The sixth man behind the point man is mine, too, Jette.”
“Yes, Major, sir.”
Thomas reached into one of the pockets of the cotton bandolier and took out the two five-round clipper clips it held, then took another two clips out. He pulled the bolt of the ’03-A4 back, charged the magazine, and then slid the bolt handle forward and down. Then he reached for and took off the safety.
He flexed his shoulders, squirmed around on his belly, and did the other little things a marksman of his caliber and experience does to prepare to fire.
Then, close, there was a burst of automatic rifle fire and a siren began to growl.
Goddamn it, one of those mercenaries was wider awake than I thought he would be! Or maybe that mercenary sergeant wasn’t as dumb as he looks, suspected something was coming off, and told the others to really keep their eyes open.
He swept the field through the scope, wondering if, once they had been fired on, and heard the squealing siren, if they would just retreat back into the bushes.
And all this fucking work will be for nothing!
But the attacking force was attacking, not retreating. And on their feet, rushing across the field toward the power station.
And there were half a dozen people waving their arms at the others, encouraging them to move forward.
Like that stupid fucking statue at the Infantry School. “Follow me, men! This way to where you get your ass blown away.”
“Jette, shoot anybody wearing boots!” he called.
He found the man with the binoculars again, took in a breath, let half of it out, put the intersection of the crosshairs on the man’s chest, six inches below his chin, and squeezed one off.
A half second later, he heard Jette’s ’03A4 firing.
Goddamn loud! Oh, shit, after all the speeches I made to Jette, I forgot to put my goddamned earplugs in my ears!
Here lies Master Sergeant William Thomas, who was run over by a Mack truck he didn’t hear coming because he was as deaf as a fucking post because he was too fucking dumb to use his earplugs!
By the time he had worked the action and found another target, he could hear the sound of the machine guns, and as he tightened his finger on the trigger again—but before he could squeeze one off—his target dropped his rifle, slid to his knees, and then fell forward on his face.
It took him almost five seconds to find another target, and he had to take that one down by laying the crosshairs on his back, twelve inches from the base of his skull.
XXV
[ ONE ]
The Oval Office
The White House
Washington, D.C.
0930 1 July 1965
“Mr. President,” the Secret Service agent announced, “the Secretary of State is here.”
“Send him in,” the President said impatiently. “You know I sent for him.”
“And Colonel Felter, sir.”
“Him, too, for Christ’s sake!” the President said.
The Secretary of State entered the Oval Office, followed by Colonel Sanford T. Felter. He looked around and saw the Director of the Central Agency was also in the room.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” the Secretary said.
The President grunted,
“Good morning, sir,” Colonel Felter said.
The President grunted again, and waved both men onto the couch across from the coffee table. He was sitting by the table in one of two identical armchairs. The Director was in the other.
The President slid a sheet of radio-teletype paper across the glass-topped coffee table to the Secretary.
“Now let those lying bastards try to tell us they aren’t helping the bastards in the Congo, and ‘have no knowledge’ of any Cubans in either the Congo or Tanganyika,” the President said.
The Secretary picked up the message and read it.
TOP SECRET
2015 GREENWICH 30 JUNE 1965
00066
FROM STATION CHIEF, LÉOPOLDVILLE
TO DIRECTOR, CIA, LANGLEY
COPIES TO SOUTH AMERICAN DESK
MR SANFORD T FELTER, COUNSELOR TO
THE PRESIDENT
THE EXECTUVIE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON
1. REFERENCE MY 00031 8 JUNE 1965
2. DURING THE PERIOD 25-28 JUNE HUNTER AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE SURVEILLED WHAT WAS BELIEVED TO BE AN INSURRECTIONIST FORCE NUMBERING APPROXIMATELY THREE HUNDRED (300) MOVING COVERTLY FROM LULUABOURG TOWARD BENDERA IN KATANGA PROVINCE INTENDING TO ATTACK BOTH THE CITY OF BENDERA AND THE HYDROELECTRIC PLANT FOUR (4) KILOMETERS FROM BENDERA. AT 1600 GREENWICH 28 JUNE 1965 THE FORCE WAS LOCATED TWO (2) KILOMETERS FROM THE HYDROELECTRIC STATION.
3. HAVING BEEN ADVISED BY MAJOR G.W. LUNSFORD THAT SUCH AN ATTACK WAS HIGHLY LIKELY COLONEL JEAN-BAPTISTE SUPO SECRETLY REINFORCED THE MERCENARY AND CONGOLESE GARRISON WITH APPROXIMATELY FIFTY CONGOLESE PARATROOPERS ADVISED BY MSGT WILLIAM THOMAS, SFC OMAR KELLY AND SSGT LEANDER KNOWLES OF SEPCIAL FORCES DETACHMENT 17.
4. MAJOR LUNSFORD AND COLONEL SUPO WERE IN AGREEMENT THAT THE ATTACK WOULD PROBABLY BE IN TWO PHASES, AN ASSAULT ON THE HYDROELECTRIC PLANT OUTSIDE BENDERA, TO BE FOLLOWED, ONCE THE PLANT WAS IN INSURGENT HANDS, BY AN ATTACK ON THE CITY, AND SUPO ORDERED THAT THE AMERICAN-ADVISED FORCE OF CONGOLESE PARATROOPS BE DEPLOYED AT THE POWER-GENERATING STATION.
5. THE INSURGENT ATTACK BEGAN AT APPROXIMATELY 0600 GREENWICH 29 JUNE, WHEN APPROXIMATELY FIFTY (50) INSURGENTS ATTACKED THE HYDROELECTRIC PLANT. BY 0615 THE ATTACK HAD BEEN REPELLED, WITH A LOSS TO THE INSURGENTS OF NINETEEN (19) KIA AND FOURTEEN (14) WIA, ALL OF THE LATTER BEING TAKEN PRISONER. THERE WERE NO FRIENDLY KIA OR WIA. THE REMAINDER OF THE INSURGENT FORCE ATTACKING THE POWER PLANT RETREATED INTO THE BUSH.
6. AT 0630 A FORCE OF ONE HUNDRED (100) CONGOLESE AND FORTY (40) MERCENARIES BEGAN TO PURSUE FROM BENDERA THE BULK OF THE INSURGENT FORCE WHO ALSO RETREATED INTO THE BUSH.
7. A SEARCH OF THE KIA ESTABLISHED FROM IDENTITY DOCUMENTS THAT FOUR (4) WERE CUBAN, AND AN ADDITIONAL THREE (3) WERE PROBABLY CUBAN. A DIARY RECOVERED FROM THE BODY OF SERGEANT EDUARDO TORRES FERRER TRACED IN DETAIL HIS MOVEMENT AND THAT OF CAPTAIN VICTOR DREKE AND OTHERS FROM PITA CAMP #1 IN CUBA TO THE CONGO VIA PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND DAR ES SALAAM, TANGANYIKA. THE IDENTITY DOCUMENTS OF ALL CONFIRMED CUBANS AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF THEIR CORPSES ARE IN THE HANDS OF MAJOR LUNSFORD PENDING INSTRUCTIONS.
8. INTERCEPTED RADIO MESSAGE FROM CAPTAIN VICTOR DREKE IN BUSH NEAR BENDERA TO GUEVERA AT LULUPLAT REPORTED FAILURE OF ATTACK, AND SAID THAT ONCE FIRING STARTED, MANY RWANDANS HAD FLED ABANDONING THEIR WEAPONS, AND MANY CONGOLESE INSURGENTS HAD REFUSED TO FIGHT AT ALL.
9. INTERCEPTED RADIO-TELETYPE MESSAGE FROM GUEVARA IN LULUPLAT TO CUBAN EMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM RELAYED REPORT OF FAILED ATTACK AND STATED GUEVARA’S POSITION THAT IF COLONEL LAURANCE MUNDANDI HAD NOT DENIED HIM PERMISSION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE ATTACK “EVEN AS POLITICAL COMMISSAR” THE ATTACK WOULD HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL AS HE “COULD HAVE INSPIRED REVOLUTIONARY FERVOR IN THE ATTACKERS. ” COMPLETE TRANSCRIPTS OF THE EIGHT (8) MESSAGES WILL BE FURNISHED AS AVAILABLE.
10. COLONEL SUPO BELIEVES (LUNSFORD CONCURS) THAT COMPLETE ANNIHILATION OF RETREATING INSURGENT FORCE WOULD BE LESS PRODUCTIVE THAN PERMITTING FORTY TO FIFTY (40 TO 50) PERCENT OF FORCE TO RETURN TO LULUPLAT, AS THIS WILL INSURE NEWS OF DEFEAT WILL QUICKLY SPREAD THROUGHOUT BOTH INSURGENT COMMUNITY AND NATIVE POPULATION AND IS PROCEEDING ACCORDINGLY.
STATION CHIEF LÉOPOLDVILLE
TOP SECRET
“You’ve seen that, right, Felter?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“What would you have me do, Mr. President?” the Secretary asked.
“If we told your man Taylor right now to get those identity documents, the diary, and the pictures of the dead Cubans here, how long would that take?” Then he saw the smile on the Director’s face. “Did I say something funny?”
“Mr. President, my ‘man’ in the Congo is actually a woman,” the Director said.
“Really? I’ll be damned! And how does she get along with Major Lunsford?”
“Sir, there is every indication that Major Lunsford and Miss Taylor are working very well together,” Felter said.
“How long?” the President said.
“Well, sir, material of that sort has to be handled carefully,” the Secretary said. “If there is a State Department courier in Léopoldville, or the area, it would be approximately twenty-four hours from the time he received the material until he could deliver it here.”
“And if there’s not a State Department courier handy?” the President asked. There was a tone of impatience in his voice.
“Then add, sir, the time it would take to get a courier to Léopoldville, from wherever we locate one, to that twenty-four hours.”
“That’s bullshit!” the President snapped. “Christ, how many officers do we have in Léopoldville right now? What’s wrong with, say, one of the military officers, the military attaché, bringing it here?”
“That could be done, I’m sure, Mr. President,” the Secretary said.
“Then do it. And no more than twenty-four hours after we have a look at those documents, to make sure we’re not being sucker-punched, I want you—you, personally—doing a Joe McCarthy at the United Nations.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
The President stood up, waving imaginary papers over his head in his hand.
“I have in my hand here proof that the Cubans are in the Congo,” he said, “stirring up trouble, attacking the legal government of the Congo, and that—despite the repeated denials of the government of Tanganyika—they are doing so with the approval and support of the government of Tanganyika.”
He looked at everybody triumphantly, then added: “The difference between you and Senator McCarthy, of course, will be that we do have the goddamn proof. Major Lunsford got it for us.”
The President sat down.
“I’d like to think about that a moment, Mr. President,” the Secretary said uneasily.
The President looked at Felter.
“For Christ’s sake, Felter, don’t tell me that you, of all goddamned people, agree with him?”
“Sir, it’s not my position to offer—”
“You don’t think it’s a good idea to take this diary, the ID cards, all of it to the UN? Yes or no, goddamnit! Your position, Colonel, is whatever I tell you it is.”
“No, sir. I don’t, not at this time. I think we should get this material to the States as quickly as we can, but I don’t think we should rush to the UN with it.”
“You going to tell me why not?”
“Well, for one thing, even with the proof, they could—probably would—continue to deny it, sir. And if what we’re after is to get the Tanganyikan—and Congo Brazzaville—governments to stop permitting the Cubans to use their ports to move men and matériel, I think the way to do that is without a confrontation. They’re both liable to get their backs up—that would earn them, they might think, the admiration of other African nations for standing up to us—and they know we already disapprove, so they have nothing to lose. Right now, our interdiction efforts are apparently successful, and the insurgents’ ‘liberation’ campaign is getting nowhere. And they know that, too. It very well might occur to them that since there is no apparent good—from their perspective—resulting from their cooperation with the Cubans, it would be in their interest to shut off the routes, which would (a) allow them to claim they’re doing everything to claim to help the cause of peace, and (b) remove the threat that we are capable of going before the UN and proving to the world that they were lying.”
The President looked at him, dubiously thoughtful.
“Mr. President, I rather agree with Colonel Felter,” the Secretary said.
“Now, that really makes me suspicious,” Johnson said.
They all waited for him to go on.
“How long would it take to get our ambassador to Tanganyika here?” he asked.
“Twenty-four, thirty-six hours, sir,” the Secretary said.
“Why don’t we get him here and see what he has to say?” Johnson said.
“Mr. President, if I may make a suggestion?” the Director said.
“Why not?”
“Miss Taylor, until very recently, was my station chief in Dar es Salaam. She probably has a very good idea of current Tanganyikan thinking?”
“You’re not suggesting, I hope, that your station chief is more tuned in than my ambassador?” the Secretary said.
“I was thinking, simply, that she has the knowledge, and that she could bring the diaries, photographs, et cetera, with her,” the Director said.
“Mr. President,” Felter said. “At about this time, our supply plane is approaching Stanleyville. It will return to the States as soon as it’s serviced.”
“And could bring this lady? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send her a satellite message to her to be on that plane,” the President ordered. “With the ID cards, the diaries, and the photographs. ”
“Yes, sir,” the Director said.
“And tell her to bring Major Lunsford with her,” the President said. “I want his assessment of the situation.”
[ TWO ]
Old Original Bookbinder’s Restaurant
South Broad Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1745 5 July 1965
Of those invited, H. Wilson Lunsford, M.D., and Mrs. Lunsford arrived first. They were accompanied by Charlene Lunsford Miller, Ph.D., Stanley Grottstein Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College, who had not been invited and whom Father Lunsford really wished hadn’t invited herself.
He rose as his father walked to the table in the upstairs private room, shook his hand, hugged him, and then embraced his mother, a slight, trim, light-skinned, gray-haired woman.
“What’s going on, George?” his father asked.
Miss Cecilia Taylor looked a bit uncomfortable under the frankly curious gaze of Dr. and Mrs. Lunsford and the even more fascinated gaze of the woman who had to be the sister George had described as being politically located somewhere to the left of Vladimir Ilich Lenin.
“There’s someone I wanted you to meet,” Father said.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘hello’ to your sister, George?” Mrs. Lunsford asked.
“Hi, Charley,” Father said. “What’s new at Joe Stalin U?”
“Behave, George, for God’s sake!” Cecilia ordered in Swahili.
Dr. Miller did not reply, but she looked at Cecilia with even greater curiosity.
“Mother, Dad,” Father said. “This is Cecilia Taylor.”
“I’m very happy to meet you, Miss Taylor,” Dr. Lunsford said sincerely.
“And so am I,” Mrs. Lunsford said. “I’m Esther Lunsford.”
“How do you do?” Dr. Miller said.
“In here, Daddy!” Cecilia said, as a couple walked past the open door of the private dining room.
“Where the hell is the champagne?” Major Lunsford inquired as L. Charles Taylor, a very tall, light-skinned man who looked like the successful attorney he was, came into the room followed by his wife, also tall, and a waiter carrying a champagne cooler in each arm.
“Hey, Wilson,” Mr. Taylor said. “How are you?”
Mrs. Taylor kissed Mrs. Lunsford on the cheek, and then Dr. Miller.
/> “Why am I not surprised?” Major Lunsford asked in Swahili.
“Ssssh,” Miss Taylor said, in what could have been just about any language.
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Taylor asked.
“I don’t get kissed?” Miss Taylor asked.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Mr. Taylor said, and bent over and kissed her.
“What are you doing here?” Mr. Taylor asked.
“Whatever it is, Charley,” Dr. Lunsford said, sounding very happy, “it involves your daughter and my son and champagne.”
“Jesus Christ!” Mr. Taylor said, taking a good look at Major Lunsford, who was in a light blue seersucker suit.
“Daddy, this is George,” Cecilia said.
“I knew you in short pants, George,” Mr. Taylor said, offering him his hand. “The last I heard, you had gone in the Army. What are you doing now? A doctor like your dad?”
“I’m still in the Army, sir,” Major Lunsford said.
“Are you really?” Mr. Taylor said. He sounded surprised.
“We would both like to apologize for this,” Cecilia said. “But it was either do it this way, or go back to the Congo without seeing you all, and together, and telling you.”
“Telling us what, darling?” Mrs. Taylor asked, sounding a bit uneasy.
“Go back to the Congo?” Dr. Miller asked.
“We’re on the six-o’clock Pan American flight to Durban in the morning,” Cecilia said. “From New York.”
“Tell us what, darling?” Mrs. Taylor repeated.
Cecilia extended her left hand, on which was a diamond engagement ring. She had had it on her finger for just over five hours.
“Oh, my God!” Mrs. Taylor said.
“I’ll be damned!” Mr. Taylor said.
“Well, well,” Dr. Lunsford said, beaming.
“What are you doing in the Congo?” Dr. Miller asked.
“I’m with the embassy there,” Cecilia said.
“Are you really?” Dr. Lunsford asked. “And that’s where you two met?”
“Right,” Major Lunsford said.
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