“Captain Zabrewski, sir,” Sergeant Major Tinley asked politely. “May I have a word with you, sir?”
Zabrewski was visibly surprised, but recovered quickly.
“Certainly, Sergeant,” he said. “Will you excuse us, please, Mr. Gregory, for a moment while we step into the corridor?”
“I’ll just step outside for a few minutes,” Gregory said, nodding at a door. “And when you’re finished, you could just tap on the door.”
“That’s very kind of you, sir,” Captain Zabrewski said. “Thank you very much.”
When there was no tap on the door ten minutes later, Mr. Gregory cracked the door to see if he could be of some assistance.
Neither the captain nor the sergeant major was where he had left them, nor, when he looked, anywhere in the building.
Apparently, Mr. Gregory concluded, some sort of military emergency had come up.
[ FIVE ]
Office of the Corps Surgeon
Headquarters
XVIII Airborne Corps
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1445 8 April 1965
“Sir, General Hanrahan is here,” SFC Stuart T. Cameron, the administrative NCO of the Office of the Corps Surgeon, announced.
Colonel Frederick A. Emmett, Medical Corps, rose to his feet.
“Please come in, General Hanrahan,” he said.
Hanrahan, trailed by Zabrewski and Tinley, marched into his office.
“Thank you for waiting for me, Doctor,” Hanrahan said.
Hanrahan did not believe it was necessary for medical officers to carry rank; he never addressed them by their rank; he called them all “Doctor,” except those he personally admired and/or liked, whom he addressed as “Doc.”
“My pleasure, General,” Colonel/Doctor Emmett said.
“We have a little problem I hope you can help us with,” Hanrahan said.
“Anything within my power, General.”
“One of my men was killed the day before yesterday,” Hanrahan began.
“I’m sorry.”
“We all are. Good soldier.”
“What happened to him?”
“That information is classified Top Secret/Earnest,” General Hanrahan said. “As of this moment, you have a Top Secret/Earnest clearance for those matters—only those matters—which in my judgment you have the need-to-know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He was on an outpost in the former Belgian Congo, which was overrun by an insurrectionist group known as the Simbas.”
“I didn’t know we were in the Congo,” Dr. Emmett said.
“His body was partially dismembered,” Hanrahan said. “The head and part of one leg.”
“Jesus!”
“His body is now, or shortly will be, en route by air to Pope.”
“I see.”
“My aide, Captain Zabrewski, and Sergeant Major Tinley,” Hanrahan said, nodding at them, “have just come from a funeral home in SFC Withers’s hometown, Laurinburg, which is about fifty miles from here. The funeral director told them they need all sorts of paperwork which we don’t have, and have no way of getting. ”
“The AG isn’t handling the return of the remains?”
“So far as I know, the AG hasn’t been told of SFC Withers’s death.”
“Permission to speak, sir?” Sergeant Major Tinley asked.
“Granted,” Hanrahan said.
“We were hoping it could be done here, Colonel,” Tinley said. “The paperwork, I mean.”
“I see,” Colonel/Doctor Emmett said. “Captain, would you and the sergeant major step outside for a minute, please? I’d like a word with General Hanrahan.”
“Yes, sir,” they said, in unison, turned and walked out of the office.
When the door was closed, Colonel/Doctor Emmett looked at General Hanrahan and said, “Jesus Christ, Red, here we go again!”
“Doc, I can’t help it.”
“You know what it says in the Manual for Court-Martial? ‘Any officer who willingly and knowingly issues, or causes to be issued, any document’—”
“—‘or statement he knows to be false,’ ” Hanrahan finished for him, “ ‘is subject to such punishment as a court-martial may direct. ’ The way I read that—‘or causes to be issued’—I’m not asking you to do something I’m not doing myself.”
“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we? Too many times.”
“And every time you’ve come through for me,” Hanrahan said.
“Fuck you, Red. I’m thinking of the next of kin.”
“Me, too, Doc. This is my fault. I should have known Zabrewski and the Tin Man would have gone to the funeral home without asking me first.”
“That was the Tin Man? I’ve heard about him.”
“Withers was on his A team in Vietnam.”
“If they hadn’t gone to the funeral director, I would have gotten another three-in-the-morning phone call, saying you’re at Pope with a little problem, right?”
Hanrahan nodded. “Probably, certainly.”
“I’m afraid that funeral director is going to smell a rat now.”
“Zabrewski said he told him nothing except that the death took place outside the U.S.”
“And if he makes a stink?”
“Then we’re fucked.”
“Same drill as last time? Understood?”
“Understood,” Hanrahan said.
“If you can get the body off the airplane and off Pope without the Air Force knowing and into the hospital, I will do the autopsy. . . . Jesus, you said the head is severed?”
Hanrahan nodded.
“Well, that’s the cause of death, then?”
“I’m hoping he was dead, shot, first,” Hanrahan said.
“. . . and sign the death certificate, and the no-communicable-diseases certificate. . . .”
“Which I thereupon stamp Top Secret, and give the funeral home a copy with the place of death et cetera, blacked out.”
“Right. But not my signature, right?”
“I don’t think they’d take it without your signature, and that seal, stamp, whatever, that makes little holes in the paper.”
“What if the mortician wants the documents verified by a Consul General?”
“This happened before. I gave them a signed, stamped certificate saying that the Consular Verification has been accomplished but misplaced. I planned to do that again now.”
“Now there’s willingly and knowingly issues,” Colonel Emmett said.
Hanrahan shrugged.
“Between you and me, Red, what this fellow was doing, was it important? Is it worth all this?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Don’t tell those two anymore than they have to know,” Colonel Emmett said.
“They’ll have to handle getting the body off the airplane. . . . ”
“Anymore than. . . . what’s that you’re always saying? . . . they have the need to know.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Hanrahan said.
[ SIX ]
Apartment 10-C, The Immoquateur
Stanleyville, Oriental Province
Republic of the Congo
1930 8 April 1965
First Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig put his arms around his wife and held her tightly against him. He was surprised at the depth of his emotion; he could not, literally, talk and he was aware that his chest was heaving.
Finally, he found his voice.
“You’re out of your goddamned mind,” he said.
“I love you, too,” Ursula said.
“Jesus Christ, Liebling, you know what happened here!”
“I was in the hand of God then, and I am in the hand of God now. And with my husband.”
Without taking his arms off her, he pulled his head back so that he could look at her face. That struck him dumb again.
After a moment he asked, “How the hell did you get on the airplane? What the hell was Portet thinking of?”
“I asked him if he would bring
us, or whether I would have to get here myself. He knew I would come either way. Bringing me would be easier on Jiffy. And I could bring all the things I need for Jiffy on the plane.”
“Jesus, Liebling, you can’t stay here!” he said, and before she had a chance to respond, asked, “Does Felter know?”
Ursula nodded.
“He knew he couldn’t stop me.”
“I just don’t understand your reasoning,” Geoff said. There was a suggestion of anger in his voice.
“Marjorie is here,” Ursula said.
“Marjorie’s out of her goddamned mind, too,” he said.
“Marjorie is with her husband,” Ursula said. “And now I’m with my husband, and Jiffy is with his poppa.”
“What the hell did my mother say?”
“She was a little hysterical,” Ursula said matter-of-factly. “Then Hanni convinced her we would be safe in Léopoldville.”
“And you’re going to Léopoldville, just as soon as I can get you there!”
“You smell from under the arms,” she said.
“What?”
“You need a shower.”
“I spent all goddamn day in an airplane,” he said. “Of course I need a shower.”
“Well?”
“How’s Jiffy?”
“Taking a nap. Mary Magdalene’s with him.”
“You brought her back, too?”
Ursula nodded.
“Maybe, by the time you have your shower, he’ll be awake.”
He looked at her.
“Just as soon as I can get you out of here, you’re going to Léopoldville.”
“You really smell,” she said.
“So you keep telling me,” he said.
She pointed toward the bathroom.
He shook his head, finally took his arms off her, and went into the bathroom and closed the door. He sat on the toilet and took off his boots, then stripped out of his flight suit and underwear and got under the shower.
Ursula looked at the closed bathroom door, then started taking off her clothing. When she judged he had had enough time to take off his clothing and get under the shower, she went to the bathroom, saw him vaguely behind the steamed glass door, smiled when she heard him talking to himself, then pulled open the glass door and got in the shower stall with him.
[ SEVEN ]
Apartment 10-C, The Immoquateur
Stanleyville, Oriental Province
Republic of the Congo
2055 8 April 1965
The word is surreal, Captain James J. Dugan decided as he looked around the living room of Apartment 10-C. The last week has been surreal, from the moment I was told to call the Office of the Commanding General at Fort Riley. I know better than to think this is a dream from which I will wake up, but that’s what it feels like, and the word for that is surreal.
Captain Dugan was wearing the uniform of a major of Congolese paratroops, complete in every detail to the Browning 9-mm automatic pistol in a web holster. First Lieutenant Paul W. Matthews was wearing the uniform of a Congolese captain of paratroops.
As they had put on the uniforms, under the direction of a Congolese captain of paratroops named DeeGee, who confessed that he was really Sergeant First Class Andrew DeGrew of the 17th Special Forces Detachment, Lieutenant Matthews had made a little joke:
“Yesterday, I ain’t never even seen a captain of Congolese paratroops, and today I are one.”
When they had pressed Sergeant DeGrew for details of what was going on, DeGrew had politely told them that “The Major” would explain what was going on over dinner, which would be served at 2100 in Captain Portet’s apartment.
Once satisfied with their appearance, DeeGee/DeGrew had left them alone in apartment 8-F with two bona fide Congolese paratroop sergeants, who would, DeGrew explained, serve as both their orderlies and their bodyguards. Using sign language, one of the sergeants had managed to communicate that there was beer, if the officers wished, and at 2050, the other had managed to communicate that it was time to go to dinner.
There were two paratroopers outside the door of Apartment 10-C, whom Dugan and Matthews judged to be bona fide because both bore facial scars obviously intended to enhance their beauty.
Captain DeeGee opened the door to them, a Car-16 slung from his shoulder, and indicated the direction of the living room.
A white man in a U.S. Army flight suit without any insignia of any kind was sitting on the floor playing patty-cake, patty-cake, with the blond infant who had been on the 707. The blonde was nowhere in sight.
There was a coffee table, on which had been arranged a selection of hors d’oeuvres, and a barefooted African in a starched white jacket was standing behind a small bar. The Congolese lieutenant colonel now identified as Major Lunsford was at the bar with two other men: the captain of the 707, and the Congolese captain who had been at the foot of the aircraft steps and told them saluting wasn’t necessary, he was a Spec7.
And I never saw a Spec7 before today, either, although I’ve heard of them, Captain Dugan thought.
A second barefoot black man in a starched white jacket came into the room through a swinging door, carrying a huge platter holding a small roast pig with an apple in its mouth. The enormous black woman from the 707 followed him, and showed him where she wanted it laid on a large dining table. Then she followed him back through the swinging doors.
“Welcome,” the airline captain said. “Come on over and have a drink.”
They walked to the bar,
“Good evening, sir,” Captain Dugan said.
“Good evening, Captain,” Lieutenant Matthews said.
“You’re Major Lunsford, sir?” Captain Dugan asked, offering his hand.
“Welcome to the Congo, Captain,” Lunsford said, shaking his hand, then offering his hand to Matthews with a nod.
“You’ve met Spec7 Peters, I understand?” Lunsford said.
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.
“The proud daddy on the floor is Lieutenant Geoff Craig, my exec.”
Craig waved at them, then held the infant’s arm so that the infant could wave, too.
“Which one of you is better at dropping things from L-19 hardpoints?” Craig asked. “Specifically, into a clearing maybe twice the size of this room? A clearing in some really heavy bush?”
Dugan and Matthews looked at each other, but neither replied.
“Hey, you were asked a question,” Lunsford said.
“Sir, I haven’t flown an L-19 in some time,” Matthews said truthfully.
“You came from where?” Father asked.
“Headquarters, Third Army, sir.”
“Been flying the brass around in L-23s?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re the one from the Big Red One?” Lunsford asked Dugan.
“Yes, sir.”
“And they have a lot of L-19s in the Big Red One, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got some recent L-19 time.”
“That means you don’t get anything to drink, I’m afraid,” Lunsford said.
“Sir?”
“At first light,” Geoff said, “you and I are going to try to drop some batteries into a clearing in the bush. So we’re shut off from the sauce tonight.”
Mrs. Ursula Wagner Craig came into the room. She was wearing a simple, crisp-looking, yellow dress.
“And this, of course, is Miss—Mrs.—Stanleyville of 1965,” Lunsford said. “Otherwise known as Mrs. Ursula Craig.”
The enormous black woman came into the room, snatched the infant from the floor, and left with it.
“And that is the one meanest black lady I have ever met,” Lunsford said. “The first time I met her, I came through that door”—he pointed—“doing my John Wayne act with a FN automatic rifle, and Mary Magdalene came through that one”—he pointed at the swinging door—“with murder in her eye, and a butcher knife in each hand. I have never been so scared in my life.”
“She was protecting the baby,” Urs
ula Craig said.
“Jacques said that when he got here,” the airline captain said, “she scared him out of his wits, and she raised him.”
“A word to the wise, therefore, gentlemen,” Father said. “Don’t cross Mary Magdalene. Understand?”
“No, sir,” Captain Dugan said. “With respect, sir, I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not sure I even know where we are.”
“Okay,” Lunsford said. “I’ll try to make this quick so we can eat. You read in the papers about the Simbas, the people who occupied Stanleyville, and most of this part of the Congo, until the Belgians jumped on Stanleyville?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Portet’s wife, Ursula, the baby, and Mary Magdalene were trapped here when the Simbas came. In this apartment. It belongs to Captain Portet. When the Belgians jumped, Jack Portet—he’s Captain Portet’s son and a Special Forces officer— jumped with them, and of course headed right for the Immoquateur because his mother and Ursula and the baby were here, presuming the Simbas hadn’t had their livers for lunch in the town square.”
“Father, my God!” Ursula protested.
“They wanted to know what’s going on here,” Lunsford said, unabashed. “I’m telling them.”
“Sir, with respect, and forgive me, Mrs. Craig,” Captain Dugan said, “but you’re not saying these people actually practiced cannibalism, are you?”
“Yes, I am,” Lunsford said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Sir, didn’t I understand you to say you were here, too?” Matthews asked.
Lunsford nodded.
“Then you jumped with the Belgians, too?”
“No. He was here when the Belgians got here,” Geoff Craig said. “He was running around in the bush with the Simbas.”
“We had Special Forces here then?” Matthews asked, genuinely surprised.
“And some people from the Army Security Agency,” Spec7 Peters said.
“And some people from the Army Security Agency,” Lunsford agreed, smiling.
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