[ TWELVE ]
SECRET
HELP0117 1905 ZULU 14 OCTOBER 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
INTELL REPORT #27
1. PERTINENT EXTRACT OF ASA DECRYPT OF RADIOTELETYPE MESSAGE FROM “TATU” (GUEVARA) IN LULUPLAT 1505 ZULU 14 OCTOBER 1965 TO CUBAN EMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM FOLLOWS:
BEGIN
CONCERNING FALL OF LUBONJA: OUR MEN’S ATTITUDE WAS WORSE THAN BAD. THEY LEFT WEAPONS THAT WERE UNDER THEIR RESPONSIBILITY, SUCH AS MORTARS, IN THE HANDS OF CONGOLESE AND THEY WERE LOST. THEY DIDN’T SHOW ANY FIGHTING SPIRIT. LIKE THE CONGOLESE, THEY THOUGHT ONLY ABOUT SAVING THEIR OWN SKINS, AND THE RETREAT WAS SO DISORGANIZED THAT WE LOST ONE MAN AND STILL DON’T KNOW HOW, BECAUSE HIS COMRADES DIDN’T KNOW IF HE GOT LOST, WAS WOUNDED OR WAS KILLED BY THE ENEMY. I HAVE DISARMED ALL THE CONGOLESE WHO SHOWED UP HERE. TATU.
END
HELPER SIX
SECRET
[ THIRTEEN ]
TOP SECRET
HELP0119 0855 ZULU 16 OCTOBER 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
INTELL REPORT #30
1. THE UNDERSIGNED HAS BEEN ADVISED BY COLONEL SUPO THAT HE HAS ORDERED “OPERATION SEVEN” TO BE EXECUTED AS OF 0001 ZULU 16 OCTOBER 1965.
2. THIS WILL BE A THREE-PRONGED ATTACK INTENDED TO DRIVE THE INSURGENTS TOWARD AN ENCIRCLEMENT ON THE SHORE OF LAKE TANGANYIKA. RECONNAISSANCE ELEMENTS OF THE FORCE, SUPPORTED BY SF DETACHMENT 17 AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE, ARE CONGOLESE PARATROOPS ADVISED BY OFFICERS AND NCOS OF SF DETACHTMENT 17.
3. THE MAIN ATTACK FORCE CONSISTS OF CONGOLESE PARATROOPS AND MERCENARY TROOPS UNDER MAJOR MICHAEL HOARE. ONCE TERRITORY FALLS UNDER THEIR CONTROL, THE MAIN ATTACK FORCE WILL BE REPLACED BY CONVENTIONAL CONGOLESE TROOPS.
END
HELPER SIX
TOP SECRET
[ FOURTEEN ]
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HELP0124 0855 ZULU 24 OCTOBER 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
INTELL REPORT #34
1. FOLLOWING RECEIVED FROM HELPER SIX IN THE LULUPLAT AREA.
BEGIN
1. AT 0535 ZULU 24 OCTOBER 1965 A RECON FORCE OF CONGOLESE PARATROOPS ADVISED BY MAJ G.W. LUNSFORD AND WOJG WILLIAM THOMAS ENTERED THE AREA IN LULUPLAT KNOWN TO BE THE HEADQUARTERS OF “TATU.”
2. THE INSURGENT FORCES BECAME AWARE OF THE APPROACH OF THE RECON FORCE WHEN IT WAS NECESSARY FOR THE RECON FORCE TO FIRE APPROXIMATELY TWO HUNDRED FIFTY (250) ROUNDS OF SMALL-ARMS FIRE AND TWELVE (12) HAND GRENADES AT WHAT WAS BELIEVED TO BE TWO (2) INSURGENT PICKETS ON PERIMETER GUARD. NO DEAD PICKETS WERE FOUND.
3. WHEN THE RECON FORCE ACTUALLY ENTERED THE HEADQUARTERS AREA, THE INSURGENTS HAD FLED INTO THE BUSH, AFTER SETTING "TATU’S” QUARTERS ON FIRE, AND ATTEMPTING OTHER DEMOLITION ACTIVITIES.
4. THE INSURGENTS LEFT BEHIND SUBSTANTIAL STOCKS OF WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION, FOOD STORES, RADIOTELETYPE EQUIPMENT, SOME DOCUMENTS POSSIBLY OF INTEL VALUE, AND TWO SPIDER MONKEYS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN THE PROPERTY OF “TATU.” SAID SIMIANS HAVE BEEN PLACED INTO THE CUSTODY OF WOJG THOMAS, WHO, FOR PURPOSES OF IDENTIFICATION, HAS NAMED THEM “FIDEL” AND “ERNESTO.”
5. “TATU” AND OTHER FORMER OCCUPANTS OF THE HEADQUARTERS AREA ARE APPARENTLY HEADED FOR LAKE TANGANYIKA. THEY ARE UNDER OUR AERIAL SURVEILLANCE, AND THIS RECON TEAM WILL PURSUE AT A DISCREET DISTANCE.
END
CRAIG FOR HELPER SIX
TOP SECRET
[ FIFTEEN ]
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EARNEST 0081 0910 ZULU 2 NOVEMBER 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: EARNEST SIX
TO: HELPER SIX
1. SECRETARY OF STATE HAS BEEN ADVISED BY U.S. AMBASSADOR, DAR ES SALAAM, THAT CUBAN AMBASSADOR TO TANGANYIKA WAS INFORMED 1600 ZULU 1 NOVEMBER 1965 BY TANGANYIKA FOREIGN MINISTER THAT TANGANYIKA HAS “DECIDED TO END THE NATURE OF THIS ASSISTANCE TO THE CONGOLESE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT.”
2. US AMBASSADOR WAS INFORMALLY TOLD THIS MEANS TANGANYIKA WILL NO LONGER PERMIT TRANSSHIPMENT OF PERSONNEL OR MATERIEL ACROSS ITS TERRITORY, BUT THAT AS A “HUMAN-ITARIAN” POLICY IT WILL GRANT “TEMPORARY” REFUGE TO ANYONE FLEEING THE CONGO WHO MAY HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN “LIBERATION” ACTIVITIES.
FINTON FOR EARNEST SIX
TOP SECRET
[ SIXTEEN ]
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HELP0191 1205 ZULU 4 NOVEMBER 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
1. FOLLOWING IS AN EXERPT OF DECRYPTED RADIOTELETYPE MESSAGE FROM OSCAR FERNÁNDEZ PADILLA, HEAD OF THE CUBAN INTELLIGENCE STATION IN DAR ES SALAAM, TO “TATU” (GUEVARA) (LOCATION UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME) 0900 ZULU 4 NOVEMBER 1965.
BEGIN
I AM SENDING YOU, VIA COURIER, A LETTER FROM FIDEL. ITS KEY POINTS ARE:
1. WE MUST DO EVERYTHING EXCEPT THAT WHICH IS FOOLHARDY.
2. IF TATU BELIEVES THAT OUR PRESENCE HAS BECOME EITHER UNJUSTIFIABLE OR POINTLESS, WE HAVE TO CONSIDER WITHDRAWING.
3. IF TATU THINKS WE SHOULD REMAIN WE WILL TRY TO SEND AS MANY MEN AND AS MUCH MATÉRIEL AS HE CONSIDERS NECESSARY.
4. WE ARE WORRIED THAT YOU MAY WRONGLY FEAR THAT YOUR DECISION MIGHT BE CONSIDERED DEFEATIST OR PESSIMISTIC.
5. IF TATU DECIDES TO LEAVE THE CONGO, HE CAN RETURN HERE OR GO SOMEWHERE ELSE WHILE WAITING FOR A NEW INTERNATIONALIST MISSION.
6. WE WILL SUPPORT WHATEVER DECISION TATU MAKES.
7. AVOID ANNIHILATION.
END
FATHER AND I FOUND PARA 5. INTERESTING
CRAIG FOR HELPER SIX
SECRET
[ SEVENTEEN ]
The Hotel du Lac
Costermansville, Kivu Province
Republic of the Congo
2045 20 November 1965
Captain Weewili/Spec7 Peters found Lieutenant Colonel Dahdi/Major Lunsford sitting on the patio overlooking the lake drinking coffee with Captain Darrell J. Smythe, and Lieutenants Geoffrey Craig and Jack Portet.
“What have you got, Peters?” Lunsford asked, both hope and impatience in his voice.
War is hell, and the worst part of the hell is the goddamned waiting.
Two days before, Guevara had radioed—a voice message in the clear; his cryptographic equipment apparently no longer available to him—to Kigoma, saying that he was withdrawing, and to prepare the launches for the evacuation.
There had been no reply to the message, but since it had been heard by three different American radio intercept teams—one of them now operating outside Kigoma—it seemed reasonable to presume that it had been received by the Cubans in Kigoma.
Unless, of course, the Tanganyikan government had gone further than ending “the nature of its assistance to the Congolese National Liberation Movement” and had shut down the Cuban radio station in Kigoma, or even arrested the Cubans.
That had posed an entirely new problem. If Guevara couldn’t get across Lake Tanganyika, that would, obviously, leave him in the Congo. And there was nothing he could do in the Congo but surrender, or do something stupid, like charging some of Supo’s troops, inviting them to shoot him.
The mission, of course, was to chase the bastard out of the Congo with his tail between his legs, not disappear, and certainly not to get himself on the front pages of the world’s newspapers—
GUEVERA, FAMED FREEDOM FIGHTER, PERISHES IN HEROIC FIGHT TO THE DEATH IN CONGO
About 1600 that afternoon, the ASA intercept operators had intercepted another message—in Morse code, not encrypted— from Guevara, to someone named Changa, who was apparently in charge of the launches in Kigoma. Guevara said that he had two hundred men to evacuate and to send the launches.
This time, there had been a reply. “Changa” reported that he had been “detained” by Tanganyikan authorities, but had been released, and would attempt to cross the lake “tonight.�
��
There had been no further messages, and none from Thomas or any of the others who were following the retreating Cubans and Simbas.
“Mr. Thomas called—voice message in the clear—sir, relayed from Outpost Mike—that’s all he can talk to,” Peters said. “He wants to know if you can come talk to him.”
“He wants me to come there?” Lunsford asked incredulously.
“Yes, sir,” Peters said. “He gave the coordinates.”
Peters laid a map on the table and pointed.
“He said he walked the road; you can land on it.”
“For Christ’s sake, it’s dark,” Lunsford muttered.
Jack Portet got out of his chair and bent over the map. Thomas was pointing to a road near the shore of Lake Tanganyika, about ten kilometers south of Kibamba.
“I know that road,” he said. “I can get in there—presuming he can light the runway with gasoline—in an L-19.”
Lunsford looked at him dubiously.
“I can even get in there in the Beaver,” Portet added. “It’s mostly clear in that area, nothing on either side of the road, no power lines, et cetera.”
“Doubting Thomas wouldn’t want me there unless he has a problem,” Lunsford thought aloud. “You really can get in there?”
Portet nodded.
“If you’re going in the Beaver,” Spec7 Peters said, “there’d probably be room for a radio. We could talk to the guys in Kigoma with it, without a relay.”
“A radio you’d have to operate, right?” Lunsford challenged. “You have some kind of a death wish, Peters?”
“Or, for that matter, sir,” Peters argued, “to Kamina, in case you wanted to call in T-28s or B-26s.”
Lunsford gave him a look of mystification.
“As well, of course, to Colonel Supo,” Peters said. “The radios Mr. Thomas has with him won’t do that.”
“If Portet can get in there in a Beaver, Aunt Jemima,” Lunsford asked, “presumably you could get in there in an L-19?”
“I was about to suggest, sir,” Captain Smythe said, “that Lieutenant Portet go in first in an L-19, possibly taking Peters—or maybe Peters’s radio—with him, and once we know we can make a landing, I bring you and whoever else in the Beaver.”
“I’ll go with Portet and the radio in the Beaver,” Lunsford said. “You bring Peters in an L-19.” He turned to Craig. “You hold the fort, Geoff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long will it take to get there?” Lunsford asked of Jack Portet.
“Thirty-five, forty minutes,” Jack replied. “About an hour, counting time to get from here to the farm strip.”
“Message Mr. Thomas to prepare the strip and to shoot a flare,” Lunsford ordered. “ETA one hour, we’ll call him from the area.”
Major Lunsford looked out the copilot’s window and saw the Beaver’s wing strut and right wheel, and absolutely nothing else. He pushed himself up in the seat and got a better look out the windscreen, and saw absolutely nothing but the whirling propeller.
“I know exactly where I am,” Major Lunsford said to Lieutenant Portet. “This is Africa. Somewhere to the left is Lake Tanganyika. But I wonder about you. How the hell are you going to find this road?”
Portet smiled at him, then reached for the microphone on the control yoke.
“Hunter One, Teeny-weeny Airlines One,” he called.
“Go, Teeny-weeny,” Thomas voice came back immediately.
“Hold your mike open for sixty seconds, please,” Portet said.
“Acknowledged,” Thomas replied.
Jack touched Lunsford’s shoulder and pointed to the Radio Direction Finder indicator.
“He’s over there somewhere,” he said, and banked the Beaver to the left until the needle was where he wanted it.
“Hunter One, pop the flare when you hear me,” Portet called, and reached over his shoulder for the trim control, putting the Beaver into a shallow descent.
“Acknowledge,” Thomas replied.
“How are you going to keep from flying into the ground?” Lunsford asked, genuinely curious.
“I know the altitude of the lake from the charts,” Portet said. “I will just make sure I’m fifteen hundred feet above the lake.” He pointed to the altimeter.
Three minutes later, to their right, a bright yellow light appeared in the sky, and then slowly began to descend.
“I have your flare,” Jack said to the microphone as he turned the Beaver toward the flare. Then he turned to Lunsford. “The trick here is to tell him when to light the gasoline,” Jack said. “The sooner I see it the better, but I don’t want the lights to go out just when I turn on final.”
He pressed the microphone button again.
“Can you give me the winds, please?” he asked.
“From the south,” Thomas replied. “Not much.”
“You copy, Aunt Jemima?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, and I have the flare, too.”
“When you have the field in sight,” Jack ordered, “do three-minute three-sixties at the north end. Do not try to follow me in. We’ll replenish the lights.”
“Got it,” Aunt Jemima said.
The flare disappeared.
“Shit,” Jack said. “Thomas, I’ve lost the flare. Pop another one.”
There was no acknowledgment, but thirty seconds later another bright light appeared in the sky, close enough so they could see the parachute under which it floated.
“Got it, light it up,” Portet ordered.
There was a sixty-second wait, and then an orange light appeared on the ground and quickly turned into a line of fire. A moment later, another light appeared, and the second line chased after the first.
“You may begin praying now, Major,” Portet said as he turned on final. He turned on the landing light, but Lunsford could see only the two parallel lines of burning gasoline.
Thirty seconds later, there was a rumble as the landing gear touched down on Katanga Provincial Route 23.
Jack stopped the airplane, turned it around, and taxied down the “runway” toward the headlights of a jeep. By the time he reached it, the gasoline “runway lights” were flickering out.
The jeep—now visible in the landing light—was parked to the side of the road. Portet taxied past it fifty yards farther down the road, turned around again, and shut down.
By the time they climbed down from the Beaver, Thomas was waiting for them.
He saluted Lunsford as a reflex action, and Lunsford returned it.
“I thought you’d come in an L-19,” Thomas said.
“Aunt Jemima’s up there in an L-19,” Jack said. “Can we light the runway again?”
Thomas shouted orders in Swahili, and two jeeps—both with pedestal-mounted air-cooled .30-caliber Browning machine guns—that neither Lunsford or Portet had seen, suddenly started their engines and turned on their headlights, and started moving slowly along the runway. Congolese paratroopers kneeling in the rear seat poured gasoline from five-gallon jerry cans.
“Why the Beaver?” Thomas asked.
“Weewili suggested we could use a better radio to talk to Kamina or Colonel Supo,” Lunsford said. “Weewili’s in the L-19 with Aunt Jemima.”
“That’s good news,” Thomas said. “Boss, you’re going to have to talk to Supo.”
“About what?”
“The situation is this,” Thomas said. “Guevara and maybe thirty Cubans and a mixture of maybe two hundred, maybe more, Simbas and Tutsis are on the lakeshore about eight klicks from here. Kelly and Jette—you know Jette?”
Lunsford nodded.
“SFC Kelly, Jette, and another tracker are in a tree keeping an eye on them. The bad guys are all fucked up. Chaos time. They know the boats are coming for them tonight, and they suspect there’s not going to be room for everybody.
“When I was up there a while ago, with SFC Kelly—he understands Spanish—he told me he heard Guevara trying to talk himself into staying—doing a George Armstrong Cu
ster at the Little Big Horn—but that Dreke finally talked him out of it.”
“Good,” Lunsford said.
“The problem is the Congolese—our Congolese—and the mercenaries. They’re about twenty klicks from the beach. They smell blood. The Congolese I understand—the Simbas have been killing their people, raping their women, and they want revenge for that, plus they have this warrior idea that when you have the chance, you kill your enemy. I don’t know what’s with the mercenaries, but they want to wipe everybody out, too. I had a nasty session with a mercenary ‘captain’—who just about told me to go fuck myself when I said the plan was to let everybody get in the boats.”
“Shit,” Lunsford said.
“Major,” Thomas said, very seriously, “Colonel Supo told me I had his permission to take down any mercenary who refused my orders.”
“Hoare told me that was his version of Company Punishment,” Lunsford interrupted.
“Now, I’ll do it, if you tell me to—”
“No. Once Aunt Jemima gets on the ground with Peters, we can get on the radio with Supo. He can deal with his troops and the mercenaries.”
“They should be about through pouring gas . . . ,” Jack said.
“Get on the horn with Aunt Jemima and tell him,” Lunsford ordered.
Jack crawled back into the Beaver and turned on the master buss.
Lunsford turned to Thomas.
“Bill, you did the right thing, telling me to come here.”
“I want to go back to the shore, okay?”
“If you think that’s where you should be,” Lunsford said.
“That’s where I belong, Father,” Thomas said.
“Mr. Thomas,” Major Lunsford said formally, “your orders are to take whatever action you deem necessary to ensure that Guevara is allowed to get on a launch.”
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “And Captain Dreke? Is he on the protected-species list too?”
Lunsford took a moment to reply.
“Let them go, Mr. Thomas,” he said. “All of them. And that applies to Kelly and the two trackers.”
Special Ops Page 80
