“Would the people support you? Could you foster a general uprising?”
“We have major support for our cause in the outlands, along the river communities. The farther away from Sierra City, the stronger our support. But out here the government has little control. Few of the four thousand soldiers seldom get far from Sierra City. Still, the very number of them is a problem for us.”
“One thing I know, I’m not used to this humid weather,” Adams said. “Would you have anything cold to drink on board?”
“Oh, damn. My responsibility as a host is plainly deficient. Yes, of course, we have three brands of American beer, Coke, and four other soft drinks for your enjoyment.”
“A cold Coke would be delightful. But we need to keep talking. I have to decide how I evaluate you by the time we get to your camp. You used the term camp, so I assume you are in the jungle somewhere up a tributary off this main river?”
“Quite right, Mr. Vice President. Nothing as primitive as you had to endure in Vietnam, but not the Hilton Hotel either.”
“You know I was in Nam?”
“Yes. When I heard you were coming to my country, I learned everything I could. A friend in Sierra City has the Web, and she brings reports to me at regular intervals that she downloads and prints out. It’s amazing what you can learn there. I just hope that your wife and two girls are not traumatized by this side trip of yours. That’s partly why I want you to talk to your office as quickly as you can. I would imagine that your aide has reported your detour to the White House already via the SATCOM they have at the embassy.”
Adams chuckled. “Mojombo, you are a highly organized man who thoroughly researches his projects. Sierra Bijimi was added to my agenda only a week before we left. And that was less than a month ago.”
“The Internet and the Web are amazingly fast,” Mojombo said. “I also have several friends in Washington who e-mail me reports and will answer any questions I ask them.”
“Amazing. You are truly a talented young man, Mojombo Washington. It’s taken me some time, but now I’m one jump ahead of you. I’m to be your pawn, your chip of great price that you can use to bargain with the United States for help in your crusade down here.”
Mojombo smiled, his dark eyes glistening with a sudden surge of emotion.
“Exactly right, Mr. Vice President. No President or Vice President of the United States has ever been, let’s say, detained in a foreign nation before. It’s historic. And it should be worth a lot of help from your Air Force, your Navy, and even your Marines. What do you think? Do I have a chance to get some military help down here to aid in my revolution?”
The Vice President smiled. “Mojombo, it’s far better if the mouse does not know that he’s the mouse in a cat-and-mouse game. I know. So how things go from here on will depend to a great degree what I say and how I say it on the SATCOM when we get to your camp. Are you going to tell me what to say with a .45 at my head?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Are you going to make a number of demands from the United States that must be met before I am returned?”
“Absolutely not at this time.”
“Do you think that the force of your personality is so great that you can convince me of your sincerity and your plans for your nation and that you can win me over to be a proponent of your cause during the rest of this short trip?”
“I believe that when you see my camp, and my army, and the people we are fighting for, that you will understand our cause and that you will soon be on our side. I understand that you were not pleased with your meeting with our illustrious President last night.”
“Not at all. He seems to be a drunk who enjoys watching young girls blow their brains out in a betting arena.”
A look of surprise and then disgust washed over Mojombo’s face. “He took you there?”
“He did, and two men had to carry him out after the girl died. He wasn’t faint with pity or remorse. He was stone-dead sloppy drunk and couldn’t stand up or walk.”
“That’s our boy, our glorious President. I also know that you were upset by the twelve million dollars his regime squandered and stole from the Farm Project.”
The Vice President chuckled again. “Mojombo, you don’t miss much, do you? Yes, I’m still angry about that. Not a lot of money in terms of some of the massive foreign assistance programs we have, but to have him simply steal it is unforgivable.”
“Do you know that we no longer have a national school system? Each province is supposed to have an elected school board and to build and run schools. Six years ago, President Kolda withdrew all of the federal money from the school system. The entire education system failed and over two thousand schools closed.”
“Switzerland?”
“Probably that’s where most of the stolen money goes. Or a half-dozen other safe-money countries.”
“Taxes. I’ll bet Kolda’s Administration is remarkably brilliant about levying and collecting taxes.”
This time it was Mojombo’s turn to laugh, but it had a bitter edge to it. “Absolutely right, Mr. Vice President Adams. He bleeds every bit of money he can from the people, and rewards them by raising the tax rates again. Nobody has any idea how many millions of dollars this man and his cohorts have stolen from my country. We probably never will know.”
Mojombo went forward and spoke with the captain at the wheel a moment, then came back. He brought with him the SATCOM that had been in the limousine. “I bet you know how to work this, Mr. Vice President.”
“I’ve seen it done.”
“We have detailed and complete operating instructions on working the SATCOM. We got it off the Web straight from the maker of the radio.” He grinned, clean white teeth flashing in his dark smile. “We try to be as efficient as possible.”
“I’m starting to believe you. We had a report that some terrorists attacked the city two days before we arrived. Stormed the Central Police Station and raided it for weapons, and then proceeded to slip into a large military post on the outskirts of town, where they stole two truckloads of weapons, ammunition, and food supplies.”
“You’re correct, Mr. Vice President, with the exception that the raiders were not terrorists, they were Loyalists. We were highly efficient on that raid, and lucky at the same time. They still haven’t realized that we are a solid military organization that won’t go away. Those supplies are part of our lifeline.”
“Why hasn’t that little general we met loaded up fifty boats and stormed up the river and wiped out everything that moved? He could do it with his twelve thousand troops.”
“General Assaba tried it two weeks ago, but he only brought fifty men in three boats. We had advance warning that he was coming. Our men were hiding in the trees along the river waiting for him. Fish in a barrel, Mr. Vice President. He tried to attack us, but we routed him with at least fifty-percent casualties. We had one man wounded in the leg, and no KIAs. He must have learned a lesson.”
“But could he come with a huge force?”
“Not with the boats he has now. He has no real Navy, and only six river patrol boats. He might move three hundred men if he was lucky. We could handle them, probably sink most of the boats with RPGs before he got within fifteen miles of our camp.”
“He knows that?”
“He should.”
Adams watched out the window, and saw that the boat turned into a tributary of the larger river. This one was much smaller, and the dense jungle grew down almost to the water’s edge on both sides.
“In a setting like this you might recall the missions you ran for the Navy on the Nam rivers,” Mojombo said.
For a moment Commander Marshall Adams was back on a Black Navy killer boat on a Nam river and the rifle fire coming at them from the dense growth was murderous. Not even their .50-caliber cutting swaths through the jungle with the large-caliber bullets could slow down the Vietcong firing. More than once they had to turn downstream and race away from sudden death.
Adams looked a
t Mojombo Washington. “You won’t tell me what to say on the SATCOM when I talk to the White House? You won’t advise or pressure me in any way?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good. How much farther to your camp?”
“Another hour, almost seven miles up this river.”
“It doesn’t look that deep out there.”
“This is a water-jet-powered boat,” Mojombo said. “It can keep moving in less than a foot of water. No propeller to worry about, just a powerful jet of water rushing out the tubes in back.”
Adams watched the young man. He was confident, he was intelligent, and he evidently had some military training. But could he lead a ragtag bunch of citizen soldiers in a virtual revolution against the entrenched and powerful current government?
“You must have had some military training.”
Mojombo nodded. “Yes. Since I wasn’t a citizen, I couldn’t enroll in ROTC at college, but they allowed me to audit any courses that I wanted to. I took them all, so theoretically I’m at least a first lieutenant by now.”
“You do plan ahead, don’t you?”
Vice President Adams heard shouting from the shore, and he looked out the window. There was a rickety dock along a strip of open land. He saw many fires and huts and one frame building.
The boat eased up to the dock. Mojombo went out of the cabin and shouted at the people. They shouted back and chanted something over and over again.
Adams went aft to see better. Quickly the people on shore brought baskets of goods to the boat and handed them on board. Mojombo spoke to the thirty people who had gathered at the landing. Most were men, but there were a few women and children. Adams had a feeling that the whole village had turned out for the event.
After Mojombo spoke, he moved back a step on the boat and waved. Men on the dock cast off the lines and the engine revved up, and the boat edged back into the current, then powered upstream.
Mojombo came back into the cabin smiling. He carried two cold Cokes with him, and handed one to the Vice President.
“Those are some of my supporters. Whenever we pass going upstream they give us food and any supplies they think we might need. There are a dozen or so groups like this along this river and the larger one downstream. You asked if the people would support a revolution. What do you think?”
“Impressive, Mr. Washington. It couldn’t have gone better if you had staged it for my benefit.”
“Do you think I staged it?”
Adams watched the black man. He had never grown up around African Americans. Over the years he had made some contact with the black caucuses and other black groups in his political dealings, but he’d never had a good black friend. He knew he had a lot to learn, and a lot of prejudices to unfetter that had been foisted on him by his parents. He tried hard to evaluate this situation.
“No, Mojombo, I don’t think you staged that little rally. It seemed to come from the heart. It was impressive.”
“I’m pleased. Enjoy your Coke before it gets warm.”
Ten minutes later, the jet-propelled craft skidded over two sandbars. The engine powered up, and Adams could feel the flat hull of the boat nudge the bars and the bottom slide over the sand, scraping it all the way.
Mojombo grinned at the sound. “That is the noise of a perfect defense,” he said. “No boat with a propeller could possibly get over those sandbars or another one upstream.”
Vice President Adams nodded slowly. He was becoming more and more impressed with this young revolutionary, this Loyalist Party leader.
Twenty minutes later the boat eased up to a sturdy dock at the edge of the stream. It was only ten feet long, but built well, and would last for years even though it was made of poles and wooden decking.
Ten men dressed in jungle-print cammies ran to the boat, unloaded the food and supplies the villagers had provided, and hurried with the baskets up a trail into the jungle.
Mojombo set up the SATCOM on the sturdy dock and turned the satellite dish until he picked up the orbiter and the set beeped.
“Mr. Vice President Adams, I believe the radio is ready for you to set the frequency for the White House and to start your broadcast. To be sure they are receiving you, it would be good to call them and ask for a response.”
Marshall Adams took the microphone that Mojombo handed him, moved the dial to the correct numbers, and pushed the send button.
“Calling the White House. This is Vice President Adams calling the White House.”
6
Washington, D.C.
Wally’s frantic message from Air Force Two to the White House set off a near panic. President Randolph Edwards called his top advisors together at once, and they sat in the Oval Office staring at each other.
“It’s a kidnapping pure and simple,” Johnson from State said.
“But from what Wally said, the man was literate, spoke perfect English, and his gunmen did not harm any of the Vice President’s party or the newspeople with them.” The comment came from the CIA representative, Donaldson. “Doesn’t sound like a terrorist to me. Terrorists would have killed everyone in the motorcade after they captured the Vice President.”
“Wally said there were no ransom demands,” the President said, reading from some papers. “That the man who spoke English was the leader of a group called the Bijimi Loyalist Party. Have we ever heard of them?” He turned to the man from the State Department.
“No, we’ve hardly heard of Sierra Bijimi,” Johnson said.
“What’s our course of action?” General Lawford, the president’s National Defense Advisor, asked.
“Hell, what can we do? Damn near nothing,” FBI Director Worthington said. “Somebody snatched the Vice President. We’ve never heard of the grabber. He’s not with the government of that nation, so we have no clout and no target there. Damn little we can do now until we hear from the people who hold the Vice President.”
Donaldson tapped his pen on his pad of paper. The CIA man nodded grimly. “Got to admit it was a delicate and finely planned operation. Tree down across the road. The rigs all stopped. Snipers take out the twelve soldiers before they can fire a shot. Well-placed rounds that didn’t even come close to the two cars in the middle. That takes disciplined, well-trained troops. Then their leader gets the drop on the Secret Service men and it’s all over.”
“You know that Wally is reliable as the Vice President’s top aide,” the President said. “They checked the limo after they found it at the end of the road at the river landing. Evidently the kidnappers took the Vice President upstream to their strong point. Wally says the group has vanished up there before after making a raid in the city or against the Army. He also said the SATCOM radio is missing from its spot in the limo. Maybe we’ll be hearing directly from the kidnapper on the SATCOM. Make sure we keep an open channel for that set at all times.”
“Taken care of that, Mr. President,” Sage Billings said. He was the President’s Chief of Staff.
“Goddamnit, Mr. President,” General Lawford said. “We should send in a dozen of our river patrol boats and blast everything in sight until they give up the Vice President. We’ve got to show a strong hand or they’ll try to bleed us dry.”
“Easy, General. Easy. So far we don’t know what is happening. We need to find out what these Loyalists want first, before we can decide anything.”
Billings caught the President’s attention. “Sir, what about our long-standing and well-voiced policy of never negotiating with terrorists? Does that include the people who are now holding the Vice President of our nation against his will?”
President Edwards shook his head, his lips a firm angry line. “I just don’t know, Sage. I don’t know. First we have to determine that these men who have Vice President Adams are terrorists. Perhaps this no-negotiating problem will just go away.”
“Vietnam,” General Lawford said. Everyone looked up. “Reminds me of how the SEALs worked the war in Vietnam. They made the rivers their highways, charged up and
down them getting their jobs done neatly and swiftly. I’d suggest we send in our special platoon of SEALs to be on station there in Sierra City, even before we decide what we need to do. Anything we come up with, they probably would be involved with anyway.”
Lawford looked around the table. “Mr. Donaldson, could you get your favorite SEAL platoon over to Sierra City in twenty-four hours?”
“We could.” He looked at the head of the table. “Mr. President, I’m liking what General Lawford just said more and more. Fact is, we can put the SEALs on the scene, and use them for recon if nothing else. They can get in and out of a rat trap and not even bother the cheese.”
The President looked around the table. He saw three of the men nod. Worthington bobbed his head. “Let’s do it, then see what else we can do when we need to do it,” he said.
“Are there any Naval units in that area?” the President asked.
“We utilized some of our assets last week up near Spain, which are the closest ones to this problem,” Johnson said. “I remember the CNO saying he had no units south of there, so we would have to fly south off a carrier.”
“Spain is how far from West Africa?” General Lawford asked.
Donaldson frowned. “Just a minute.” He wrinkled his brow and rubbed his forehead. “Even with some flyovers, it would be over three thousand miles from the task force in place to that small country. We would do better to fly in some Rangers from Germany with a couple of stopovers.”
“Premature,” the President said. “First we find out what this guy wants, and then we talk with him.”
“We try to figure out a new policy about negotiating with terrorists?” the CIA man, Donaldson, asked.
“We’re not negotiating, and we don’t know that he’s a terrorist,” the FBI director said. “First we wait and see what we have here.”
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