“Yes, sir,” Jack said.
“Lowell told me he told you you would be here at least a month,” Felter said. “Sorry, Jack, but it just can’t be helped.”
“I understand, sir,” Jack said.
Felter looked as if he was going to say something else, something serious, but changed his mind.
“I want to tell you guys about Peters,” he said, smiling. “He came over to my office from the White House and asked if he could speak to me personally. I said sure. He’s always gone out of his way to take care of me.”
“What was he doing in the White House?” Hanrahan asked.
“Making sure the President’s communications don’t break down,” Felter said. “He had twenty guys working for him.”
“So what’s he doing here?” Hanrahan asked. “Why would he give that up for this?”
Felter smiled.
“He wants to be a real soldier,” Felter said. “He said that when he came in the Army, he wanted to go Infantry, maybe even go to jump school. But he made the mistake of telling them he had a radio amateur’s license. ASA is always looking for guys passing through reception centers who can read Morse and know about radios. So they put him in the Signal Corps and the ASA, and that’s all he’s done in the Army. Every time he applied for transfer, they told him he was essential. If he really raised hell, they promoted him. You know how few Spec7s there are in the Army? Probably less than a couple of hundred, and he’s the youngest. Anyway, he told me he’d been reading my mail, knew what’s going on with Operation Earnest, and knew that I levied the ASA for communications people. So he volunteered, and was told, again, he was essential. He said he knew I had the authority to levy him by name, and would I please do so, because I was his last chance of ever getting out of the ASA and ‘back in the Army.’ So I levied him by name, and the head of the ASA called me up and said I obviously didn’t understand the situation, Peters was essential to the White House Signal Agency, and I just couldn’t have him. I told him I had the priority, and wanted him. He said, ‘Colonel, not as a threat, as a statement of fact, I’m going over your head with this one.’ ”
“Obviously,” Hanrahan said, chuckling, “he wasn’t familiar with your chain of command.”
“I don’t think he was,” Felter said, smiling. “And I don’t know if General Sawyer actually went to President Johnson, but the day before Peters came down here, he showed up at my office— it was the first time I’d ever seen him in a uniform—came to attention and saluted, and said he was reporting for duty. Then he started worrying that he wouldn’t measure up to being around Green Berets. I assured him he didn’t have to worry, all he had to do was make sure the communications worked, nobody expected him to eat snakes or jump out of airplanes.”
“And we turn him into a parachutist,” Jack said.
“I hope he got hurt after he got his fifth jump in,” Felter said. “I suspect he really wants the wings and the shiny boots.”
“On his fifth,” Lunsford said. “He’s got his five jumps.”
“Don’t let him do it again, Father,” Felter said. “He’s too valuable. ”
[ THREE ]
404 Avenue Leopold
Léopoldville, Republic of the Congo
1320 26 February 1965
The international operator informed Jack Portet that there was a problem with the circuits at the moment, his call to Fayetteville, North Carolina, could not be completed at this time, and suggested he try again later.
“Merci beaucoup, mademoiselle,” Jack said politely, hung up, and then angrily muttered, “Shit!”
Marjorie had taken the news that he was going to Africa now, rather than a month or so later, surprisingly calmly. It was nice to think that this was because she was, after all, an Army brat, and knew that Army wives have to get used to their husbands being sent off on short notice. But it was also possible that she was just putting on a bright face, and was pissed or hurt, or both.
But he had promised her that he would call the minute he got to Léopoldville, and he had called just as soon as they’d gotten to the house and he’d had a shower, so he had called her within an hour and a half of getting off the UTA flight from Brussels, which was close enough, and now the fucking circuits were having a problem.
He pulled open a shelf in his father’s desk, found the number he was looking for on a typewritten list, and dialed it.
“Le residence du Chef de l’ Armée de la Republique,” a male voice announced.
French, Jack thought. They hate the Belgians and anybody else who speaks French, but they answer the phone in French.
“This is Captain Jacques Portet of Air Simba,” Jack said in Swahili. “I would be very honored if General Mobutu could find a moment to speak to me.”
There was a long—at least two-minute—period of silence and then the operator came back on the line.
“Regrettably, the General cannot take your call at this time,” he said in French,
“Would you be good enough to give General Mobutu a message for me?” Jack asked, again in Swahili.
“I will try,” the operator said in French.
“Please inform General Mobutu that I am in Léopoldville, at my home, and would be honored if he could find the time to telephone me,” Jack said in Swahili, then spelled his name and gave the number—three times, before the operator managed to get it right.
He put the telephone in its cradle and walked through the French doors to the verandah, then down to the swimming pool, where, as Spec7 Peters, his leg in a now-soiled cast that ran most of the way up his calf, watched from an umbrellaed table as Major Lunsford and Captain Smythe tried unsuccessfully to wrest a pink rubber swan from the massive arms of Master Sergeant Thomas.
“Get through?” Lunsford called to Jack.
“No.”
“Hey, if Special Forces wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one,” Lunsford said.
Jack gave him the finger.
“And Mobutu wasn’t available,” Jack added.
“Meaning?”
“He may call this afternoon. He may call tomorrow, or three days from now, or he may never call,” Jack said. “Two variables affect the equation: One, they may not have passed my message on to him, and, two, presuming they did, he may not return the call for hours, or days, to make the point that he is important and I am not.”
“You’re going to have to try tomorrow if he doesn’t call back today,” Lunsford said.
Jack nodded, and sat down beside Peters.
“Anything I can get for you, Peters?”
“No, sir.”
“Hungry?”
“I could eat a little something, yes, sir.”
Jack looked up at the house, saw Nimbi, the houseboy, and mimed eating. Nimbi trotted to the table, and Jack spoke to him in Swahili. Nimbi nodded and trotted back to the house.
“Beer now,” Jack said. “Steak and a salad in twenty minutes. Okay?”
“Sounds good.”
When the beer was delivered, it drew Father, Doubting Thomas, and Aunt Jemima from the pool like a magnet.
Lunsford held up his bottle of beer.
“We’re going to have to start paying you for the beer, accommodations, and chow,” he said.
“Forget it,” Jack said.
“No, it’s one of the things we have to figure out,” Lunsford said. “We’re on separate rations, which means, apparently because the State Department has somebody who figures this out, we get standard separate rations pay, plus forty percent, because Léopoldville— all the Congo—is forty percent more expensive to live in than Washington, D.C. Same thing for the quarters allowance.”
“Really?” Jack said, interested. He’d never thought of the subject before.
“Really,” Lunsford said. “As of this moment, in addition to your other duties, you are Rations and Quarters Officer of Detachment 17. Once a month you will, as Rations and Quarters Officer, present a statement to me, stating that adequate quarters
and messing facilities were not available. I will sign the first endorsement thereto, forwarding it to the military attaché for action, whereupon he will lay money on you, which you will then disperse to the troops.”
“I have to do that?” Jack said.
“Yes, Lieutenant, you do,” Lunsford said. “That’s why we have junior lieutenants, to relieve their senior officers of dealing with petty administrative problems. Maybe, if you behave between now and then, I will assign the duty to one of the other pilots when they get here. But for now, you’re it. Say ‘yes, sir.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said, chuckling, and then asked, “Even if we eat the rations they’re going to ship us?”
“I don’t want to eat them unless we have to,” Lunsford said. “But once rations like that are issued, they’re no longer accountable for. I thought they might be handy to pass out to our Congolese allies, but that would mean we’ll have to find our own chow. What do you think?”
“Well, I don’t mind eating lion,” Jack said. “Or, for that matter, monkey or gorilla, but I don’t know about the others.”
There was silence.
“You got ’em,” Lunsford said. “I thought Gimpy Peters’s eyes were going to come out of his head when you said ‘monkey or gorilla.’ ”
“If we’re in Stanleyville, there will be lots of first-class cooks looking for work,” Jack said. “Vegetables and fish and eggs and pork won’t be any problem, but we’re going to have to figure out some way of getting in beef.”
“That going to be expensive?”
“I don’t think so. Ninety percent of the Belgians are gone from Stanleyville, and there was a food system that supplied them that no longer has customers. Everything but beef was available in Stanleyville, and still should be—or at least enough to feed the Detachment. They grow beef around Costermansville, and same story: Belgians gone, and the farmers looking for customers.”
“The farmers weren’t Belgians?” Peters asked.
“I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d be pretty surprised if, after Mike Hoare’s mercenaries ran the Simbas out, that the number-one boys on the farms didn’t come out of the bush and go back to work, whether the boss was there or not. They make their living off the farms and ranches, too, and the number-one boys know as much about running the operation as the owners did.”
“Interesting,” Lunsford said.
“Don’t take any heavy bets that I’m right,” Jack said. “We’ll only know for sure when we get there. In Costermansville, if that’s where we wind up—Colonel Supo has his headquarters there—we can just take over a floor in the Hotel du Lac.”
“Nice place,” Lunsford said.
“You know it?” Jack asked, surprised.
“I met Pappy Hodges and Geoff Craig there when I was running around in the bush with the Simbas,” Lunsford said. “And what’s all this going to cost?”
“I think, not much. I know the people who run the hotel, so they won’t try to gouge us, and I think they’ll be glad for the business,” Jack said. “So what happens if we don’t need all the money Uncle is giving us?”
“Well, he ain’t going to get it back,” Thomas said. “That is, if the Rations and Quarters Officer is wise enough to delegate that responsibility to the senior NCO of this organization.”
“Sergeants, as you should know, having been one, are the backbone of the Army,” Lunsford said. “It would behoove you to pay attention to Sergeant Thomas. Say ‘yes, sir.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said.
“I was thinking of R and R,” Lunsford said. “Christ only knows how long we’ll be here. I’ll set up a week’s TDY to South Africa, every couple of months, on a roster. We will call them ‘local purchases missions’ and it won’t be charged as leave. If there’s excess money in the rations and quarters fund, we can pass it out to the troops.”
“That’s not legal,” Captain Smythe protested.
Lunsford looked at him with his eyebrows raised.
“Since you have been a sort of half Green Beanie not quite long enough to get your sweatband greasy,” Lunsford said, “I will overlook that stupid comment, Captain. But don’t ever again offer a legal opinion of one of my decisions. Say ‘yes, sir.’ ”
He was smiling, but Smythe—and everybody else—knew he was serious.
“Yes, sir,” Captain Smythe said.
The steaks were served, and they were just about finished with them when there was movement on the verandah.
“Why do I think we’re about to see General Mobutu?” Lunsford asked softly as two Congolese paratroopers moved quickly across the lawn to take up defensive positions, and two more stepped onto the patio.
“I didn’t hear any sirens, did you?” Jack asked.
Lunsford shook his head.
“Maybe he knows he’s important,” Lunsford said.
Joseph Désiré Mobutu stepped onto the verandah, followed by Dr. Howard Dannelly. Mobutu was wearing camouflage fatigues and jump boots. Dannelly was in a tropical-weight gray suit.
“Jacques, mon vieux!” Mobutu called out, smiling and waving his hand as he came off the verandah and started across the lawn.
“Why do I think he wants something?” Lunsford asked softly as he got to his feet.
“Welcome, my general,” Jack said in Swahili. “And you, Doctor.”
Lunsford came to attention in his bathing trunks, and saluted. Mobutu returned it, then embraced Jack.
“I am here as a friend, not officially,” Mobutu said in Swahili.
“Then hello, Joseph,” Jack said. “Can I offer you a beer? Lunch?”
“Just a beer, thank you,” Mobutu said, and sat down at the table, and motioned for Dannelly to take a chair.
Without orders, Nimbi came quickly across the lawn carrying a tray with more beer and a pitcher of orange juice.
Jack waited until Mobutu had taken a beer, and orange juice had been poured for Dannelly.
“General, may I present these three soldiers? This is Captain Smythe, who will be Colonel Supo’s pilot; Master Sergeant Thomas, our sergeant major; and Specialist Peters, who will be in charge of communications.”
Mobutu looked at each of them carefully.
Taking their cue from Lunsford, Smythe and Peters saluted.
“How do you do, sir?” Thomas said in English.
“Unfortunately, neither Captain Smythe nor Specialist Peters speaks either French or Swahili,” Lunsford said in Swahili, “but we’re going to try to teach them.”
Mobutu smiled at Thomas, possibly because they looked as if they could be brothers, returned his salute, and offered him his hand.
“What’s wrong with the little one’s leg?” Mobutu asked. “And what is a specialist? Is he a soldier?”
“He is a fine soldier, my general,” Thomas said in Swahili. “He hurt his leg during his last jump—”
“He’s a parachutist?” Mobutu asked, doubtfully.
“Oh, yes, my general,” Lunsford said. “And despite his injury, he insisted on coming here with us. He is perhaps the best special operations communications man in the Army. As a specialist of his grade, he is paid what a master sergeant is paid.”
Mobutu beamed at Peters, reached for his hand, and pumped it enthusiastically. Peters, who hadn’t understood a word of the exchange, smiled nervously.
“How is your wife, Captain Portet?” Dannelly asked in English.
“It’s Lieutenant, Doctor,” Jack corrected him, now speaking English. “And she is fine, and at this moment waiting for my call. There’s trouble with the circuits.”
“Mr. Finton tells me that her father is a fine Christian officer and gentleman,” Dannelly said.
“And her mother is a fine Christian lady,” Jack said.
“Well, then, I guess we can hope they will all be a good influence on you, can’t we?”
“I’m sure they will be, Doctor,” Jack said.
It was obvious from the look on his face that Captain Smythe was wondering what that
exchange was all about.
“I said I was here personally, as a friend, Jacques,” Mobutu said in Swahili. “We have to talk about Air Simba. Do you mind discussing a little problem in front of your friends?”
“Not at all,” Jack said. “Major Lunsford is my friend as well as my commanding officer. I look on Sergeant Thomas as a friend as well as a master sergeant.”
“But I’m sure you don’t want to force the others to have to listen to a business conversation, do you?”
“With your permission, sir,” Thomas said in Swahili to Lunsford, “I will take the others into the house.”
“Granted,” Lunsford said.
“Thank you,” Mobutu said to Thomas.
Mobutu helped himself to another beer and waited until Smythe and Thomas, supporting Peters between them, made their way across the lawn to the verandah.
“There is a slight problem with the people who are going to finance the purchase of Air Simba,” Mobutu began, now speaking French. “Somewhere they have gotten the idea that the company is not in as good shape, financially, as your father led me to believe it was, and I—my friends—told the bankers it was.”
“May I speak frankly, Joseph?” Jack asked in French.
“We are friends,” Mobutu said.
“My father has faith in the Congolese government,” Jack said. “When he listed the assets of the company, he treated the vouchers issued by the government as cash. The bankers, possibly, being bankers, do not share Dad’s faith that as soon as possible the government vouchers will be paid.”
Mobutu did not reply.
“The second problem is that the bankers have somehow formed the idea that your father has more or less deserted Air Simba for greener pastures, suggesting this is because he is fully aware of the financial difficulties of Air Simba,” Dr. Dannelly said.
“They know he has resigned as chief pilot of Air Congo, and is now living in the United States,” Mobutu added.
“He told you about that, Joseph,” Jack said. “The U.S. government has asked for his services, and he could hardly refuse. I thought you understood.”
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