by W. T. Tyler
“We finally worked out a system. We watched his daily appointment schedule. If he’d met with the Belgians, we’d dig up all we could about what the French were doing and have it for him the next morning. If the Israeli Ambassador had been in, we’d cram the morning brief with what the Arabs were up to. For a time after the sixty-seven Israeli war all he cared about were UN and OAU questions. He could never make up his mind about the Sinai, whether it was in Africa or the Middle East. ‘How many Bantus are there in the Sinai?’ he asked N’Sika one day, and we knew the Israelis had gotten their teeth into him again. The sixty-seven war was a royal mess. Israelis in French Mirages and American Phantoms, Jordanians in American Pattons and British Centurians, Egyptians in MIG’s, Jordanians in British Hawkers—who could make sense of it? Not him. Senility was getting to him, and that made it worse. He began to forget things, but that just made him slyer. Today is all he knows, and he’s just hanging on.”
He lifted his glass and drank, Reddish watching him silently from across the table.
“It was a regular Comédie Française,” de Vaux resumed. “‘Worry about the Portuguese in Angola,’ N’Sika muttered one day while the old man was lecturing us about the Chinese in Burundi, and the old man must have heard him. ‘Your stomach growls,’ he told N’Sika the following day. ‘Get out.’ It was the ulcer. He saw a MIG-17 over Brazzaville one afternoon as he was returning from the OAU meeting in Addis Ababa, and that worried him. It was after that that he began looking for someone to give him ground-to-air missiles. He asked the Israelis. He knew the Americans wouldn’t supply them. N’Sika had told him that. After the coup attempt in Brazza last year, he asked for M-16 rifles for the para brigade and the palace guard, remember? You chaps came through in the end, and for a month or so he was his old self again.”
The State Department had denied the M-16 request for policy reasons, a breach of the embargo on sophisticated weaponry for Africa. At Haversham’s insistence, Reddish had contacted a former Agency colleague who worked for Euroarm, a Luxembourg-based arms broker, and the M-16s had come through commercial channels, bought in Hanoi.
“They say he’s worse now than ever,” de Vaux was saying. “He believes what he wants to believe. Fear poisons every cup you take him. God knows how the internal security people put up with it, but they do, every morning when they give him the internal security brief. Guns in every commune every day, old Simbas returning from the north every night with new Kalashnikovs on their backs, about to retake Kisangani.”
Reddish watched de Vaux’s face silently, knowing the falsity of much of his characterization but puzzled by something else. Sedition was in his words, but he spoke in the same level tone.
“What he wanted was what they all want, men like him—absolute security, someone to tell him he’ll never die. And what does that mean for the poor sods around him? Absolute terror, every day. But your ambassador isn’t like that. He’s a sensible man. That makes it a simpler world. That’s what N’Sika and I wanted too. What’s a simpler world than one you make yourself, eh, like the para hilltop. Don’t worry about guns. Tell your ambassador that—”
The phone rang and de Vaux picked it up, his eyes still on Reddish. “Oui, oui,” he said easily. “C’est ça. Non, non. Pas du tout. Rien. Je suis sur—oui—à cinq heures.” He looked at his watch.
The voice hadn’t changed, moving with the same fluency with which he’d dominated their conversation, and Reddish was struck by the ease of de Vaux’s transition, moving from one interlocutor to the other, from English to French, with no change in tone or register.
“Oui, Colonel. Oui. Bon …”
The tone puzzled Reddish: the same casualness, the same familiarity, moving from Reddish, an outsider, to a fellow officer and colleague with the same ease. The caller was his confidant and Reddish wasn’t; yet he might have been talking to either.
Or to no one, he thought suddenly, and he realized then that he’d been listening to a man wholly alone with his own ambition, as Michaux had said.
They crossed the porch and went out into the sunlit yard toward the car. Reddish had been right. De Vaux’s caller was Colonel N’Sika, summoning him to para headquarters down the sand road in the center of the compound.
Reddish stopped at the edge of the oyster-shell drive, looking south along the road toward the dense growth of trees where the maximum security prison was located. De Vaux paused too, following his gaze.
“It’s been a long time since I was up here,” Reddish said. “Is the prison still being used back there, below the crown of the hill?”
“Still used.”
“I wonder if Cobby Molloy is still there with the other mercenaries. He sent me a note a few months back asking for help.”
“Crocodile tears, eh? Had to wring it out to read it, did you? Probably peed all over it.”
“Still there?”
De Vaux shrugged, pulling on his beret, his gray eyes even blanker in the piercing sunlight. “Could be. I don’t follow it. The ministry can tell you.”
“I knew Cobby better than the others. Maybe I should try to see him. A little mixed up maybe, but not a killer.”
“Our mates never are,” de Vaux said dryly.
“I suppose they’ve learned their lesson, the rest of them—that they know the old days are over now, finished.”
“It’s not lessons we give them,” de Vaux muttered indifferently, “just rag gravy and prison clogs.”
Banda had said that the mercenaries would be involved too, but that made no sense either. Nothing did. He’d seen no emotion in de Vaux’s face, but he remembered what Michaux had told him that day at Kindu months earlier, how de Vaux had looked through him as he stood in the jeep beyond the cercle gate with the blindfolded witch doctor in the back seat.
Michaux had been right. De Vaux wasn’t a man of trifling ambition, whatever else he was, no more a man to find release in the hero’s welcome given him by a grateful bush town than he would in the hot, empty silence of a hillside military camp that had rescued him from the President’s paranoia.
“If not, we can teach them again,” de Vaux added as he climbed into his own jeep, but Reddish only nodded as he went back to his car, still troubled.
Chapter Six
After Reddish disappeared down the sand road toward the front gate, de Vaux drove to Colonel N’Sika’s headquarters in the center of the compound. Three jeeps, a gray Mercedes, and a weapons carrier were parked in the circular drive outlined with whitewashed rocks. The low whitewashed stucco building had once been a Belgian officers’ club. An outdoor dance floor and open terrace lay to one side under the raffia palms. A few idle para officers sat behind the dusty shrubbery drinking beer. Two corporals stood on the wide porch, caps low over their eyes, watching the road. Inside the building, the NCO at the orderly table had been replaced by two para lieutenants with side arms. More officers waited in the rooms along the central corridor, four and five to an office, sitting on chairs and desks or leaning against the wall waiting, weapons in hand.
De Vaux entered Colonel N’Sika’s conference room at the back of the hall. The iron shutters had been drawn and the room, airless and warm, was lit by the ceiling fixture overhead. Colonel N’Sika sat at the head of the table, a large man with powerful shoulders, neck, and arms, his glossy black face glistening in the heat, the color and texture of an eggplant. His short-sleeved khaki shirt was wet under the arms and along the V of the neck. On the table in front of him was a holstered side arm. At his side, drawn up on a chair, was a portable radio tuned to a security channel. Three other para officers, all majors, sat along the table in front of him, their holstered arms also on the table. They looked on suspiciously as de Vaux took his seat at the end of the table. On the wall behind him was the portrait of the President in morning coat and the blue and yellow sash of the republic, the colors muddy and indistinct, the face as lifeless as a rotogravure photo.
“He said nothing, you told me,” N’Sika began curtly, his dark iri
sless eyes fixed on de Vaux. His voice was deep, carrying effortlessly across the room. “You said nothing has changed. What did he say?”
“He had a report Soviet guns were hidden in the capital, brought from across the river.”
“He knows then.”
“He suspects something.”
“How does he suspect, why?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Finished then.” Major Fumbe sighed. He was a short moonfaced officer, with bulbous eyes giving him the look of sleepy gluttony. “Finished.”
“So what will he do?” N’Sika demanded, turning to him. “Send in C-130s, Belgian paras, Green Berets now, like you claim? Like Stanleyville? Crush you like the Simbas. Of course, when you talk like that.” He turned back to de Vaux. “What did he say he would do, what did he threaten?”
“Nothing, no threats,” de Vaux said. “We talked. He’s worried about the embassy and his ambassador. His ambassador is worried. That’s all he cares about.”
The door opened and a major joined them, sweating and out of breath from his jog through the trees from the motor pool, where the trucks were assembled. Seeing the holstered side arms on the table, he unbelted his own and sat down heavily.
“Take off your hat,” N’Sika ordered. Sheepishly, like a forgetful schoolboy, he pulled off his cap. “What else did he say?” N’Sika asked.
“Just that. He’s worried about the safety of the embassy and the ambassador. That’s why he came.”
“He?” Major Lutete leaned forward. “He? He is the ambassador. El Capo. Numero uno.” He was thin, his skin pale and pockmarked, like a métis. “Of course.”
“Who?” asked the newly arrived major.
“Reddish,” Lutete replied. “CIA.” He pronounced it as a single word, in two syllables. “Of course.”
“So what will he do now?” N’Sika asked.
“He’ll tell his ambassador not to be worried.”
“What did he say about the President? What did he ask?”
“I told him the President was sick, senile, useless, an old man corrupted by fear and everything else. He understood.”
“And what did he say?” N’Sika asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
The room was silent. The four majors gazed at de Vaux suspiciously. From beyond the door the para officers were talking softly among themselves, waiting.
N’Sika leaned forward, almost angrily: “And so what else did he tell you? ‘Go do this thing, but do it silently, like a dead man’s sleep, a virgin’s dream, no blood spilled, no American blood, no President’s blood!’”
The four majors were suddenly uncomfortable; de Vaux’s face was as cool as ever. “No, not a word about that. How it’s done isn’t his business. It’s the way it is with men like that.”
N’Sika sat back slowly, his eyes still on de Vaux; but Major Lutete wasn’t satisfied. “And after it is done, what will he do? He will tell his government, he will tell Washington. Then Brussels will know, Paris, everyone—”
“Afterwards doesn’t matter,” N’Sika said. “By then it will be too late.” He looked at Lutete’s pale face. “Besides, what will he tell them? The President moves three million dollars to Zurich—dollars, not francs. Everyone knows—the ministry, the Central Bank, even my chauffeur. Even your driver. But what does this man Reddish do? What do the Americans do? Nothing. Nothing except give him more dollars for the rural roads, ten million this time. Jean-Bernard is right. That’s the way it is with men like that, your friend one minute, your assassin the next. Open the shades, open the windows.”
Major Fumbe and de Vaux rose and pulled open the iron shutters as the others watched. Sunlight flooded the room, lighting up the presidential portrait and the map of the capital positioned on the tripod to the left of N’Sika’s chair. Suddenly conscious of the President’s glazed, dusty stare, one of the majors got to his feet and pulled the frame from the wall.
“If the Americans care nothing, as de Vaux says,” Major Fumbe grumbled, returning to his chair, “why do we bother with Masakita and the jeunesse?” He sat down heavily, the bulbous eyes heavily lidded, gluttony gone, face glistening with water. “Why not go directly to the présidence.”
N’Sika turned in irritation. “And what would the army do then? Where would GHQ send its helicopters? To kill you, me, and the rest of the paras. If the President’s generals and the rest of the army need a reason not to fight us, Masakita is the reason—”
“Lutete could go now, talk to the chief of staff—”
“It is too late!”
“It is not such a good plan,” Fumbe muttered. “No. Masakita is trouble.”
“It is the same plan we talked about last week, the week before. Where were you then, sleeping! What is different now that it is going to happen?”
“The Americans know,” Fumbe replied weakly.
“It was Reddish who went to Kindu to see the guns there,” Lutete said. “Who can trust this man? He helped hire the mercenaries. He was with the President during the rebellions, always with the President …”
His voice died away. They waited in silence watching Colonel N’Sika, who sat with gaze lowered, toying with a cigarette package. He removed a cigarette without lighting it and continued to turn it in his hands like a child’s puzzle.
The phone rang suddenly. Fumbe and Lutete sat up frightened. N’Sika didn’t seem to hear it. As it rang a third time, he lifted his head and nodded to de Vaux, who swiveled in his chair to lift the receiver from the table behind him.
“It’s Kadima.”
N’Sika got to his feet to take the call at his desk in the corner. He listened frowning, turned toward his colleagues, who silently watched his face.
“Yes, all right,” N’Sika said. “Yes, I understand. No, if you must go, you must go. Yes, he might be suspicious. But call me from the airport. I may have some news. All right. Yes.”
He hung up and came back to the table. “Yvon Kadima said he must go to Brussels this afternoon for the President, a private mission. His plane leaves at four o’clock.” His voice was tired.
“So it’s over,” Major Lutete muttered. “He’s told them.”
“He’s planning something,” Fumbe said. “He knows something.”
“Of course he’s planning something,” N’Sika replied. “Of course. To save his own skin. He had no heart for it, not from the first. Kadima was a mistake. Your mistake.” He looked at Major Lutete. “But our mistake now. Each of us.” He lit the cigarette finally and crumpled the package. “He thinks we’ll fail now, that the army won’t join us, the army, the police, everyone. You see the weakness now, don’t you?—the poison that’s spread everywhere, even in this room. Every place you look, the same—”
“Kadima told Reddish,” Lutete broke in. “Told him the way he’s told him everything all these years, whispering in his ear.”
“The police won’t be with us,” Fumbe said. “With Kadima against us, the police too—”
N’Sika said, “Who will go for Kadima?”
The four majors were silent, surprised.
“Who will go for Kadima?” N’Sika repeated, searching the black faces around the table.
“I’ll go,” de Vaux volunteered quietly from the end of the table.
“No!” Major Lutete objected, “not de Vaux! Keep him with Major Fumbe, where he can keep an eye on him. He spends an hour with Reddish and tells us nothing. Now Kadima! What else? Will he go to the prison and bring out his mercenaries? Go to the President next? Who can trust him? Send Captain Olinga.”
“Olinga will have to go to the police camp at Bakole to keep the police in the barracks. I can’t send Olinga.” He turned to Fumbe. “Send your captain, the tall one from the north.”
“So we go ahead?” Fumbe asked, surprised.
“At five o’clock.”
“But what about Kadima, Reddish?” Lutete said. “What about the mercenaries? The President will send for them, like before.
He’ll give them guns.”
“Kadima will be taken care of. Major de Vaux will handle the mercenaries. Reddish doesn’t matter.”
“If the President can’t trust him, how can we?”
“Reddish? Because of what Jean-Bernard has told us. Because he came here to say he didn’t care where our guns are pointed so long as his people are protected.”
N’Sika stood up and buckled on his holster.
“He’s not to be trusted! He’ll arm the mercenaries!”
N’Sika hesitated, looking down at Lutete’s thin face. “What are you saying—trusted? Who’s to be trusted? You, me, Major Fumbe there, who’s frightened still of Masakita after all these years, like the army! All of you, who’re worried about these mercenaries? Are you like the President?” he shouted, angry now, his patience gone. “Are you weak and corrupt, like him? Because if you’re weak and corrupt, you have no choice but to trust men who’ll deceive you, deceive you because you’re weak and corrupt! So sit there like a coward and talk about trust, or get to your feet and join us!”
They all stood, lifting their holstered arms. De Vaux remained behind with N’Sika, following him to the desk in the corner. Only after the door closed did Colonel N’Sika lift his head to glance scornfully toward the corridor and then at the Belgian.
“They are all women,” he said, “each of them, each what the President has made him.”
Chapter Seven
At four-thirty that Sunday afternoon, the American Ambassador was alone at his residence on the river, an enormous stone villa with ivy-covered colonnades shaded by towering African hardwoods. A gently sloping lawn curved away from the rear of the house and down through the trees to the great pool of the river. In the front of the residence beyond the circling driveway was another lawn bordered by gardens and flowering trees within the high wall. At the rear beyond the frangipani and flame trees was a turquoise-green swimming pool.
It was a brilliant sunlit afternoon with a mild breeze blowing high in the trees, the distant drowsy rustle the only sound to be heard. Ambassador Bondurant was in the back garden when the Belgian Ambassador telephoned. He took the call at the poolside bar, dressed in sagging seersucker gardening shorts, leather sandals, and an old polo shirt. Under one arm was a pair of long-handled pruning shears, under the other two books cradled together, each held open in its middle pages by separate fingers of his right hand. One book was a copy of a British historian’s essays, just received in the pouch, read that morning after breakfast, and the second a history of Soviet foreign policy 1929–39, drawn from his library. He’d been toiling in the garden that afternoon, pruning his absent wife’s roses, when a passage from one had fused with a passage from another. It was this discovery he’d been pursuing when the telephone overtook him.