Once Upon the Congo

by Applewhite, Claire; Harper, Chap

  Lu’s jet had landed at Gbadolite on what was once the longest airstrip in Central Africa—that was once. Now weeds had taken over, and the smooth concrete was compromised and invaded by rampant vegetation. The surface had pot holes from a combination of the jungle rains and lack of maintenance. Barbos had called some local friends to sweep away the junk. His prison inmate friend could only come up with a handful of people who appeared to be vagrants, and only two of them were armed with what looked like muskets from a distance. Barbos had images of spit and polish soldiers with pressed uniforms and superior firepower. That dream quickly faded. Bill, Lu’s pilot, was shaking when the jet came to a stop. He asked the soldiers if he could check the tires and landing gear for damage. They told him to stay put. Not a good sign.

  The girls were ordered out of the plane and into the back of a white pickup truck; the kind they use for war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gretchen and Angel had to lift Carol into the truck.

  “What wrong with her?” Barbos said.

  “I may be having a miscarriage. I can’t be sure,” Carol said.

  “What the fuck! That’s all I need. You better goddamn well stay alive until I get my diamonds. Gretchen, you’re a doctor. Patch her ass up,” Barbos yelled.

  Two smaller, dented, once white pickups drove to the airstrip. The rest of Barbos’s men climbed in back of them along with the vagrants. They dodged pot holes and rubble for a short distance and parked next to an old abandoned reception building near the airstrip. After being looted, the building had become an outhouse for men and goats. The women and two guards were let out there, and Barbos’s other forces were dropped off at various other buildings. Moanda, a small village about two miles south of Gbadolite, was the actual location for the airfield and associated buildings.

  Some of the drug dealer’s men arrived first, swept an area and made the ladies sit next to a wall that had been ornately decorated long ago.

  Gretchen talked to the two guards. She explained they needed privacy and things might get bloody if Carol was having a miscarriage. In an instant, the guards moved to another part of the building. Barbos was in the terminal next door, planning what would most likely be the fake exchange of kidnapped women for diamonds. He had placed snipers around two different buildings to take out Chris and the pilot, in case Chris was planning to sneak in some troops. One sniper was in the old airport tower and the other was on the roof of the terminal. The three structures were lined up in a row. Behind them were hangers and maintenance sheds. Barbos’s pilot had flown a fighter jet, but had not been trained in either of the couple’s jets. He thought he could figure it out. His ten men with guns were spread out in the reception building, terminal and airport tower. He had four people who were only armed with the pistols found in Lu’s plane. Barbos thought to himself, “I am royally screwed.”

  “Carol, are you really having a miscarriage? It couldn’t be Sony’s, there hasn’t been time. He is going to be pissed,” Charlie jabbered.

  “What’s happening, Carol?” Gretchen asked.

  “I think I’m allergic to chrome!”

  “Whatttttt?” Gretchen was stupefied.

  “Remember the little gun I had in my purse—the one Sony made fun of?”

  “So?” Gretchen asked.

  “When the guys made you turn in your purses, I stuck mine little gun in my underwear, only I forgot I was wearing a thong to impress Sony. He likes them.”

  “So what are you telling us?” Angel demanded.

  “I first just stuck the barrel part in my ‘who-ha’ to hide it.”

  At this point, Lu and Angel were pounding the floor in muted laughter. Gretchen was the professional trying to hold it together, but she couldn’t resist.

  “You know Carol; you give a new meaning to a “Pistol Packing Mama.” At that, the whole group except Carol was in pain from holding back laughter.

  “Look, doc, somehow the whole thing worked its way up there, and I can’t get it out. I’m scared it’s going to fire and shoot out one of my ovaries.” She tried to smile at this statement.

  Charlie, Lu, Zoe and Angel were useless, with the greatest comedy routine in history playing out in front of their eyes.

  Gretchen was allowed her medical bag, after they dumped it out and removed all the knives. She found something like a forceps and had Carol spread her legs.

  Gretchen was calmly working to grasp the gun with the forceps when Carol said, “I can’t believe my first baby is going to be a .22 automatic.”

  With that statement, she lost the entire crowd, including herself. Gretchen was laughing so hard she could barely direct the forceps. Finally, she had a grip on the pistol. Gretchen had to say it—she couldn’t help it. “Would you like a butt baby or a barrel baby—I can do either?” The other girls were finding they were barely able to breathe in between their laughter.

  Gretchen removed the gun and announced it was a healthy Beretta Bobcat Inox. “Would anybody like to hold the baby?” To that, she got a lot of “Hell nos.”

  She wiped down the baby, took out the clip, put it back and moved a bullet into firing position.

  “These guys will kill us if they get the diamonds, or if they think they’ve been screwed. And here we sit with a tiny pistol and a handful of little bullets. I suggest when Chris gets here, we put a bullet in the brain of the nearest guards and take their weapons,” Angel said.

  “Maybe we’ll do that, Angel, and I will volunteer to be the shooter, but I have faith in Modesto. He knows everyone who can find embedded assets. It is possible one of those goofy conscripts who Barbos hired here is a Bruce Lee or Rambo. And, you know he has an alternate plan if it means having the Marines land on this God forsaken airport. I wish we could take out Barbos’s snipers. I wish we could do something. But I say, as Angel suggested, we take out our guards when Chris lands. A .22 pistol is the favorite weapon for hit men. They’re quiet—just the right caliber for a head shot,” Gretchen said. Everyone listened to her since she had been at war in Afghanistan. She received a medal for killing twenty Taliban soldiers while she was wounded.

  “We have about an hour before Chris gets here. Any suggestions where we hide Carol’s pistol until then?” Angel said. The laughter started all over again.

  “Carol, we have some suggestions for naming your baby when you really have one,” Charlie said.

  “Please, I am in enough pain without you guys helping.”

  The six ladies were all thinking, at least they got in a good laugh in before they died.

  Chapter 35

  A Diamond Ransom

  Modesto felt exhausted. He called in every favor he had generated through the years and then some. In part, the history of the spot on the map contributed to the resistance in helping him to get where they were asked to go.

  Gbadolite was an eyesore and political land mine for any public official in Africa. No one wanted to be associated with the place. The general feeling was, “let the jungle retake the city.” Under the dictator Mobutu, 35,000 people lived there. Mobutu made Gbadolite a place for conventions, parties and even vacations. Schools as well as the accommodations for visitors were first class. But, the economy was artificial and destined to fail. The city was a wild dream that a wacko dictator created with stolen money from a treasury loaded with disbursements from the U.S. and Europe.

  Mobutu Sese Seko would regularly fly his mistresses, including his wife’s twin sister, to his one hundred million dollar Gbadolite palace. The country Mobutu called Zaire was rich in diamonds, copper, cobalt and gold. The real treasure for Zaire was the billions received in aid from the U.S. and Europe to ward off Communism. He usually kept the peace during his reign as dictator; however, he was quick to call in outside troops to stop any force that smacked of left wing tendencies. Here was another dictator much like Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Papa Doc of Haiti, propped up as a champion against Communism. At some point, those feeding the monsters had to stop the flow of dollars. Mobutu was molded into place by the
CIA, and decades later finally rejected by most of the world. The end of the cold war caused the U.S. to finally reject leaders who had atrocious human rights records. They had ignored Mobutu’s strong man tactics for way too many years.

  Motubu “the Leopard” Sese Seko’s plane took off from the runway at Gbadolite on May 16, 1997. Finally rebel forces had made their move to take over the country, and they fired parting shots at his plane as it went airborne. Then, there was no place for his plane to land. Where would he be welcome? He went to Togo for a while and then to Morocco where he died from prostate cancer within six months of his arrival. Part of fortune he stole was still a mystery at his death and up to fifteen billion dollars were estimated to have fallen through the cracks of Zaire’s accounting system. Almost immediately after he died, there were attempts to freeze billions squirreled away in Swiss accounts. Since he rarely used his name on deeds and accounts, this made finding his wealth almost impossible.

  Because of Mit’s recent dive, he and Modesto, Sony, Roland and Peter landed by helicopter about three miles inland from the airstrip after a low level flight from Kisangani. Devil Man and Jackie had been dropped by the same chopper, closer to the reception building, but still out of sight. Osse and Jean-Jean were situated opposite the air strip in a forested area with a good view of all three buildings across the runway. The group from the quarry assembled about three miles northeast of the airport in the actual town of Gbadolite along a wide boulevard. They met with other forces that Modesto had talked into assisting them. There was one embedded asset, but he wasn’t actually part of Barbos’s little army.

  The airport did get some use, but mainly by small aircraft since people who lived in Gbadolite found it hard to get to the town without a flight. The majority of aircraft were commuter prop planes that pulled up to the old terminal which was usually locked. When the terminal wasn’t locked, there was a small operations office at the east end where the single airport employee had an office. This man maintained the flight schedule, ordered a refueling truck from Gbadolite when needed and kept track of hanger fees. The airport official was in a strategic position to observe who came in and went out. So the lucky guy collected checks from the DRC, CIA, Interpol and anyone willing to pay for information.

  Modesto had been put in touch with the man in charge on a satellite phone almost from the time the girls got off the plane. The airport employee, Thomas Habimana, had given Modesto the location of all Barbos’s men and the ladies. Thomas Habimana, Rwandan by birth, had been a resident of Gbadolite since the first days of construction. He had been the airport manager when the Air France Concorde flew in to take Mobutu’s wife shopping in Paris. Thomas had seen the city being built and rebels tear down most structures and loot the palaces. He longed for the good times to return. When Barbos arrived, he came out of his office and spoke to him briefly, then retreated behind a locked door. Barbos started to take him out but decided to kill him later.

  Chris’s jet was about to arrive, so Barbos made the rounds of his men to see the placement of his fire power. First, he checked the ladies and their guards and found the guards had moved some distance from them. Gretchen told him that Carol was feeling better, and thank goodness wasn’t having miscarriage. He ordered the guards back with the women. The guards looked relieved that a bloody fetus wasn’t going to be squirted out on the floor towards them. Next, he checked his sniper on the roof of the terminal building. Barbos walked to the tower and as he waved at the sniper. He knew that one sniper up there wasn’t enough.

  Devil Man and Jackie were going to protect the women in the reception building and put themselves, plus at least five other DRC troops, between the women and incoming fire. Peter didn’t give the impression of being a commando type, but he was into high-tech weapons. Yet in order to protect Charlie, he asked for a firing position that overlooked the building. Once his group of men crossed Highway 24, he found a place on top of a hanger at the rear of the complex. The weapon he held he had bought on line and had it shipped to a dealer in South Africa. The rifle had one of the most sophisticated firing systems outside of the military. It featured a networked tracking scope that allowed a red laser mark to be placed on a target then locked in place until you could get the hairs on the scope close, pull the trigger and the gun would do the rest. The weapon was a Precision Rifle .338 Lapua Magnum Surgeon with a 27 inch Krieger barrel, and it just didn’t miss. Peter began to search out targets as soon as he got in place but was told to hold off until Modesto gave the okay.

  Another group of military men from the Democratic Republic of the Congo had moved into position on the opposite side of the airport tower but stayed in the forest out of sight. The main force of twenty DRC soldiers was behind Mit, Modesto, Sony and Roland. They had moved quietly across the highway and were positioned behind the main hanger, directly in back of the terminal building.

  Barbos’s man in the airport tower had the best view of everything but kept moving around the large outside observation deck stepping over debris. The sniper finally decided to watch the airstrip to protect Barbos as he went out to meet the plane. If Barbos could have spared two men up there, all areas could have been watched simultaneously. The same could be said for the one sniper on the terminal, since he was just watching the runway and not behind his position.

  Peter had found both snipers and knew that Osse most likely had the tower in his sights from the other side of the runway. It would be a 300 to 400 yard shot for the Barrett but well within the gun’s effective range. There was a good chance the DRC soldiers in the forested area also had the sniper in their sights. Peter’s shot on the man on the roof was only 150 yards but a prone target with a shallow angle.

  Devil Man and Jackie could see the people inside the reception center but didn’t have a good shot. They would have to get closer. The two Haitian fighters noticed a wall in the back with no windows, so they crawled behind tall weeds and brushed against the wall, causing a carpet viper to slither away making a sizzling sound as its scales rubbed together. Since no one mowed or cut weeds anymore, there was plenty of cover and an abundance of snakes.

  Modesto was concerned about synchronizing the action, so he had open mikes from the other soldiers to give orders as he called them. The mikes would tell Osse, Jean-Jean, Peter, the DRC men in the forest and Devil Man when to shoot. Barbos would certainly be armed. Jean-Jean, who was paired with Osse, had a powerful assault rifle across the runway. If he could get a bead, he would take a shot. If Peter could take the first target, he should have time to shoot Barbos. Or, Isaac was armed and acting as copilot, so maybe he could kill him. Nothing ever worked according to plan when hostages were involved, but at least there was a plan. Everyone predicted Barbos would make things difficult for any preplanning exercise.

  Chris announced to Modesto they were approaching the airstrip and to fill him in on the situation. Modesto told him about Barbos’s snipers, the men placed to counter them and where Modesto had his forces. He warned that Barbos would be very tough and, without a doubt, would kill Chris and all the hostages with or without the diamonds. “Anything can go wrong and probably will,” Modesto said forcing a mild laugh.

  From a distance, everyone could hear the high whine of the jet circling to come in on the runway marked 25. The jet touched down hot and used a lot of runway, then turned and taxied to the tarmac in front of the terminal building. First, Chris could see some old Soviet jets parked on the side of the tarmac. They had been stripped down embarrassingly naked and exposed to the African sun. The plane parked parallel to the building and lowered its boarding ladder. Chris could see Barbos holding a pistol with several soldiers standing behind him. Barbos turned around and parted the soldiers, grabbed the arm of a woman and started dragging her towards the plane. It was Lu dressed in brand new African safari shorts.

  Chris and Isaac walked down the ladder. Isaac had on a pilot’s uniform, but Chris’s real pilot Bonte Ballo was hidden in a wall behind the restroom. Isaac had a gun in his belt behin
d him but knew it would be risky with Lu as a hostage. Chris held a bag of diamonds in his hand.

  Barbos walked to the plane to talk to Chris, holding Lu who was remarkably calm and didn’t have her hands bound. Two of his soldiers were just a few paces behind them. As Barbos approached, Chris knew there were snipers keyed on him, Barbos and probably everyone who was exposed at that airport. One wrong move and a lot of people died. He could only hope it was the right people.

  “Barbos! Why do the Vieux brothers always have the hots for my wife? You’ve got money, surely you can get a date,” Chris said watching every move Barbos made.

  “Lu is so pretty. We can’t resist trying to get something we can’t have. And who knows? Maybe she has a thing for Haitian men,” Barbos said as he reached for Chris’s bag.

  Chris moved the bag out of his reach. “I would like to see if the rest of the ladies are unharmed.”

  “Certainly, Chris.”

  Barbos waived his hand towards the reception center building, and the two guards pushed the five women out the front door with guns at their backs.

  “Satisfied? Now may I look at the diamonds?” Barbos took the bag. For a second he let go of Lu’s hand as he stuck his hand into the three pounds of uncut diamonds, letting them run through his fingers. When he looked up, Lu had a small pistol in his face, and she started firing as fast as she could. Chris grabbed her, threw her to the ground and pounced on top of her. Isaac had his gun out but splattered blood and torn flesh flew off of the two soldiers, so he didn’t need to shoot. It seemed that hundreds of rounds were going off all around them. Devil man and Jackie had rushed around from the back of the reception building, let go with automatic fire on the two guards and then pushed the women back inside for safety. Several DRC soldiers followed them in and shielded them from gunfire.