by Mike Jenne
The Renault truck—a durable GLR 8 Berliet diesel built in 1953—could readily haul eight tons, which was ideal for Henson’s purposes. Georges was delighted that Henson took such a keen interest in ensuring that his truck was kept in tiptop shape, even to the extent that he was willing to make a fairly substantial investment—by Gabonese standards—for long overdue engine repairs, transmission work, and new tires. Henson’s only stipulation was that the truck be available on short notice, with no questions asked.
“Dis-moi,” said Georges, casually steering with one hand as he held out a small burlap sack with the other. “So tell me, chef, we drive around all over the countryside and hand out these bags. Then we go to the marketplace tomorrow morning and wait for people to bring them to us full of dirt and rocks, and you pay them for them. Correct?”
“Exacte,” replied Henson. “But we only give the bags to people who legally own their property. If they don’t have a deed to the property, then their dirt is of no value to us.”
“Insensé.” Georges shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Tres insensé.”
Mayela, Gabon; 4:30 p.m.
After distributing sample bags most of the afternoon, they arrived at their campsite, a parcel of land owned by a farmer named Claude Biko. An old dirt airstrip, abandoned by the French when they left Gabon in 1960, ran through the center of Biko’s property.
Back in November, Henson had tentatively surveyed the strip as a possible emergency landing site, as well as a potential jumping-off spot to accommodate rescue operations in adjacent countries. It was suitably remote, plenty long enough to accommodate a DC-3 or Twin Otter, and could probably serve as a field for a C-130, if some simple improvements were made.
Fortunately for Henson, the strip’s hardpan surface was in good condition and free of any vegetation that would otherwise need to be cleared. Unfortunately for Biko, the French had apparently saturated the parcel with a potent defoliant to curtail weed growth. While Biko had paid only a seeming pittance for his land, he was unable to cultivate any crops of value, so he barely kept up with his mortgage payments. After once thinking he was a shrewd bargainer, Biko had since become the laughingstock of the district. Henson felt sorry for him, since the French had obviously had neglected to mention that they had permanently poisoned the land.
“Here we are,” said Georges, cutting off the engine and lighting an unfiltered Gitanes Brune cigarette. “Home sweet home.”
Henson stepped out of the cab and looked around. “Georges, you and Aymar unload those boxes and then find us some firewood for the evening, s’il vous plait.”
“Merde, those boxes are heavy! We just about broke our backs loading them on the truck. Why can’t we just leave them up there tonight?”
“I don’t like them weighing on the springs,” answered Henson.
Georges laughed. “You forget it’s my truck. They are not going to hurt my springs.”
“Please just do as I ask, Georges. Do you remember that I’m paying you extra?”
“As you wish, chef,” replied Georges, using a faded red bandana to wipe dust from his broad face. He and Aymar could be twins; both in their late twenties, they were a slight shade lighter and a couple of inches taller than Henson, with their dense hair cut close to their scalps. “So what’s in those crates, anyway?”
“My surveying tools and some ore comparison samples.” Henson heard voices and looked up to see Biko and his family approaching. “Georges, can you translate for me, s’il vous plait?”
Georges met them by the truck, listened to their request and then translated from an obscure Bantu dialect into French. “Biko says that he would be honored if you would join him for dinner.”
Henson looked at Biko and smiled hesitantly. Biko was small and gaunt, almost frail; his threadbare gray trousers were held up with a frayed piece of hemp rope. His emaciated wife, barely clothed in a tattered blue cotton dress, and six naked children looked like stick figures in an obscenely realistic cartoon.
Henson knew that if he dined with Biko, his family would probably go hungry tonight, and possibly for a day or two as well. But it was a tremendous insult to refuse such a heartfelt invitation, and he thought for some way to handle the dilemma without hurting Biko’s feelings.
Then an idea came to him, and he said, “Tell him that I would be honored to share a meal, but I must confess that I crave chicken, like my mother cooks back home. I had intended to buy one in the market and roast it over our campfire. Would it be too much to ask that his wife cook my chicken tonight? And also, since I miss my family so, could his wife and children join us also?”
As Georges translated, Henson glanced at the Biko’s spindly wife; trying hard not to smile outright, she was clearly salivating at the tantalizing notion of fresh chicken for supper.
The driver listened to the Biko’s reply, and relayed it to Henson. “He said that chicken would be very nice, and that his wife would be honored to cook it for you.”
Covering his heart with his hand, Henson nodded at Biko and smiled. “Tres bon. Merci.”
As Biko and his family padded away on bare feet, Henson peeled off francs and put them in Georges’ hand. “I’ll wait here,” he said. “Go to the market and buy the two biggest chickens that you can find. And some vegetables: plantains, yams, avocadoes, whatever they have today.”
Grinning, Georges smiled broadly and nodded his head.
“And since I know that you’re going to do it anyway and try to hide it from me, buy Aymar and yourself a bottle to stay warm tonight. Buy yourself a chicken as well. And no women, Georges. Don’t you dare bring any women around here. I need my sleep and don’t need to be kept up all night with your partying. Understood?”
“Sous-entendu.”
11:23 p.m.
Passed out in the Renault’s cab, Georges snored loudly. Aymar was curled up in a fetal position by the smoldering remnants of the fire, also sleeping soundly. Moving slowly so as not to disturb them, Henson unlocked one of the six boxes and removed five old coffee cans, a liter-sized fuel can, and a high-powered flashlight.
He walked out on the disused airstrip, carefully pacing out distances, and arranged the cans in the designated pattern. The bottom of each coffee can was lined with an inch of sand, into which he poured a small amount of oil mixed with gasoline.
Checking the luminous hands on his watch, he lit the cans at the appointed time. From high overhead, the smudge pots would stand out as bright markers against the dark landscape, but they were virtually invisible from the ground. Right on schedule, he heard the increasing drone of an approaching MC-130E Combat Talon’s turboprop engines. Using a shrouded flashlight, he repeatedly blinked the Morse code letter “P”—dot-dash-dash-dot—to the unseen pilots.
As the plane roared overhead in the faint moonlight, Henson counted six parachutes. Over the next few hours, as his companions slept, he located each bundle and manhandled it to their campsite. For each package, he unlocked and opened one of the six boxes, removed the heavy sandbags that were contained within, scattered their contents in the undergrowth near the road, and then refilled the box with the contents of the supply bundle and rolled up parachute.
Henson was already awake at sunrise, tending to a pot of coffee over a small campfire, when Georges and Aymar came to life, both groaning from hangovers.
“Mon dieux!” exclaimed Georges, tugging on his plaid cotton shirt, not realizing that he was putting it on inside out. “They must have put something in that bottle last night.”
“Oui,” said Henson, pouring himself a mug of coffee. “It was a terrible poison called alcohol. Now, those boxes aren’t going to jump back on that truck by themselves. We have to be at the market in an hour, so to work, you two!”
Doing as they were told, the two dusky men struggled to load the cumbersome boxes on the truck. “Have these things gotten heavier overnight?” grumbled bleary-eyed Aymar, massaging his temples and panting after loading the first two.
“More likely
that you have grown weaker overnight,” chided Henson. “Hustle! And push them all the way to the front, s’il vous plait. We have a lot of samples to collect today.”
As he tore off a hunk of bread for breakfast, Henson noticed Biko approaching. “Georges,” he said. “Please see what Monsieur Biko wants.”
“Gladly,” said Georges. He spoke to Biko, then to Henson. “He said he has heard that you are paying for soil samples. He wants to know if you want a sample from his land.”
Henson laughed and replied, “But of course! I should have already asked.”
Smiling, the unshod and hapless farmer accepted a sample bag, and then made a great show of strolling around the extent of his sterile acres, periodically stooping over to collect an interesting stone or choice clod. In a few minutes, he returned with the bag full.
Henson filled out a tag and tied it to the sample before digging some francs out of his wallet. He paid Biko three times what he normally paid for the samples, plus a generous amount for using his property as a campsite, and profusely thanked him for his kind hospitality.
Makokou, Gabon; 8:05 a.m., Saturday, February 15, 1969
Makokou’s Saturday market was alive with activity. Throngs of people, apparently oblivious to the oppressive heat, milled through the maze of stands, shopping for the week’s groceries. Ebony children frolicked noisily in the dust. A wizened old man, dressed in native garb of garish colors, roasted peanuts over glowing charcoals and sold them by the handful. A gaggle of elderly women jabbered about the poor quality of cassava this season. A meat vendor wielded a large knife to slice a rear quarter from a goat carcass. A swarm of black flies buzzed incessantly around the butchered goat.
As the morning drew on, the equatorial sun glared down in force, so Henson and his two cohorts sought refuge under the shade of an old French Army tarp, flimsily suspended by four lengths of bailing twine. A pair of comely Bantu lasses eyed Georges and Aymar, giggling coyly. Stripped to their waists, the cousins responded by enthusiastically flirting and flexing their ropy black muscles.
A steady stream of property owners formed a line to deliver their bags of soil. Henson methodically labeled every single bag and then denoted the corresponding property on an old French Survey topographic map before compensating the owner with a fair sum at least commensurate with walking to the market to deposit the sample. In accordance with Henson’s instructions, Georges placed the bags in neatly ordered rows alongside the truck.
As he bought samples, Henson noticed two men talking in a dialect that he didn’t recognize. Occasionally, the men smiled and laughed while pointing at him. “Georges,” he said quietly. “What is so funny? Am I doing something wrong? Am I violating some sort of local custom?”
“Attendre, chef, s’il vous plait,” replied Georges, casually flicking away an expended Gitanes. A curious child scampered to grab the discarded cigarette. “Wait, boss, I’ll find out.”
Georges went to speak to the boisterous men. The three chattered and laughed as if they were sharing a private joke. He returned to the table and quietly confided, “Chef, it’s a cultural thing. Those men are brothers, and they have it in their heads that they’re superior to you.”
“Superior to me?” asked Henson. “Why on earth would they think that?”
Obviously uncomfortable, Georges looked down and scraped his foot in the soil. “Chef, they’re directly descended from a clan that raided villages and sold other tribes to the Portuguese and Dutch, to be shipped to the Americas.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“They said that since you are American and black-skinned, then it was likely that their ancestors captured your ancestors and sold them into slavery. They were joking that since you had shown up back in Africa, they could claim title to you and compel you to till their land.”
For a moment, Henson fumed with anger, but then just as quickly settled down. Turning to Georges, he subtly twisted his watch around on his wrist, so that the dial was on the inside of his forearm, and then said quietly, “Do me a favor. Bring my field pack from the truck cab, s’il vous plait. It’s tucked under the seat.”
Henson waited patiently until the smirking brothers reached the front of the line. Maintaining a deadpan expression, he treated them no differently than anyone else. He asked them to verify their property on his map, and then he opened their bag to examine the soil sample. Looking inside, he quietly exclaimed, “Intéressant! Tres intéressant!” Mumbling under his breath, he reached into his khaki canvas field bag, pulled out a large magnifying glass, and pretended to examine the soil even more closely.
Smiling, delighted that Henson would be so interested in their specimen, the men leaned forward, paying rapt attention. Staring through the looking glass, Henson creased his brow, frowned, and gasped. Then he reached into his field pack and extracted a small Geiger counter.
Switching the machine on, he held the sample bag open with his left hand and his waved the radiation detector’s probe over the dirt with his right. The little yellow box clicked ominously. “Mon dieu! Radioactives!” asserted Henson, with all the scientific authority of the esteemed Madame Curie herself.
Dismayed, the men stepped back from the table. Murmuring quietly. The other people in line drifted away from them, shunning the pair as if they were stricken with smallpox or the plague.
Feigning his grimmest expression, Henson stood up and walked over to one of the men. Clasping the man’s white cotton shirt with his left hand, he swept the Geiger counter’s wand over his chest. The machine ticked again, even faster than before. He repeated the gesture with his brother, with the same results.
“Radioactives!” hissed a toothless old crone in the crowd. She removed a purple kerchief from her head and swished it at the men like she was shooing away a litter of sickly hyena pups.
Translating for Henson, Georges politely told the pair that Apex Minerals Exploration wasn’t interested in their sample and requested that they please take their bag away, preferably as far as possible. Grabbing their burlap sack, the slave traders’ descendants did just that, scurrying out of the market as swiftly as they could.
Henson used a small whiskbroom to sweep off the surface of the table and then rinsed his hands with water from his canteen. Then he consulted his watch, noting the time on its radium-painted hands, and waved for the next property owner to come forward with his sample.
Libreville, Gabon; 5:48 p.m., Saturday, February 15, 1969
Driving into the outskirts of Libreville, the truck was stopped by a gendarme patrol. “What’s in the truck?” demanded a corporal. He wore a faded French “lizard pattern” camouflage uniform and a moth-eaten maroon beret, as did his two subordinates. The three carried well-worn French MAT 49 submachine guns and looked very hot and very bored. In the distance, undulating heat waves roiled up from the road’s scorching macadam surface.
“Sol,” replied Henson, offering the corporal his canteen. “Dirt. Soil samples for ore analysis.”
“C’est du sol, d’accord,” confirmed a gendarme private, using a stick to prod the burgeoning heap of burlap bags in the wooden bed of the truck. “Beaucoup de sol.”
“Oh, so you’re that crazy bastard who travels around buying dirt?” asked the gendarme corporal. He guzzled water from the aluminum canteen, replaced the cap, and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve before handing the flask back to Henson.
“Oui,” replied Henson, with a grandiose flourish worthy of Marcel Marceau. “C’est moi. J’achète du sol.”
“Pass, imbecile,” muttered the listless corporal, laughing, waving his hand like a traffic cop and pointing toward Libreville.
9:30 p.m.
Henson sat at a makeshift table, examining his map. Georges and Aymar had unloaded the boxes from the truck into his small warehouse and had departed for home over an hour ago.
The old sheet metal building retained most of the heat from the day and felt like the Devil’s own sauna. The place stank like old tires, whic
h had been stored here long before it fell into disuse. Henson heard the squeak of an unoiled door hinge and looked up to see four white men—all dressed in work clothes—emerging from a storeroom in the back of the building.
“Henson?” asked one of the men. In his late twenties, he was tall and thin, with blonde hair, a closely cropped beard, and spoke with a pronounced Midwestern accent. “Matt Henson? I thought I recognized your voice. You were in my assessment cycle back at Aux One-Oh.”
“Aux One-Oh? Yeah, I do vaguely recall . . .”
“Remember? We did a search together. We always wondered what happened to you. You were doing so well, and then you just suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. The scuttlebutt was that you took a swing at Captain Lewis and were shipped off to Leavenworth.”
“Oh . . . Finn,” replied Henson, finally recognizing his former classmate. He removed his HF radio set and portable TACAN beacon from one of the boxes. “Good to see you again, Ulf. I’ve just been busy. Look, this box is all my stuff. Your gear is in those five boxes over there. Check it out and then we’ll move it to a hide site for safekeeping. So you’re one of the scouts?”
“Yeah. Me and Davis. Baker and Nicholson will stay here with the gear and monitor the radio. The other guys are scattered all over, and some won’t be in until tomorrow night.”
Henson nodded and pointed to some boxes toward the back of the warehouse. “There’s food and water in there. There’s an outhouse out back. Make yourselves at home.”
As Henson studied his map and made notes, the men unpacked their boxes. Two held a variety of small arms—a couple of .30 caliber Browning machine guns, six .45 caliber Thompson submachine guns, and several venerable M1 Garand rifles. The guns weren’t top-of-the-line modern hardware like the stuff they carried at Aux One-Oh, but plenty formidable to stand up to any firepower that they might face in this part of the world. Other boxes contained ammunition, tactical radios, field gear, batteries, and enough essential supplies to outfit a squad for a commando raid or rescue mission.
