Thomas decided he would take whichever one of the targets remained after Jette had taken the first shot. Since Jette would almost certainly take the first male, armed Simba, Thomas took a sight picture on the chest of the Simba with the sword.
When he heard the sound of a single shot from Jette’s 7-mm rifle, Thomas squeezed the trigger of the Colt Car-16. The sword-bearing Simba dropped his rifle, looked at his chest in surprise, and then fell forward on his face.
When Thomas raised his head from the stock, he was surprised to see the first Simba running toward him as fast as he could run. He lowered his head, quickly got another sight picture, and fired. It was a hasty shot, and his aim was a little off. The bullet struck the Simba on the left shoulder, which caused him to turn to the left before falling down. Thomas hit him again before he was on the ground.
He was surprised that Jette had missed him; he had naturally presumed the Congolese noncom could take a man-sized target at no more than fifty, sixty yards.
Then he saw that the milk cow had fallen forward onto its front legs, and that its head was bloody. The women who had been goading it were nowhere in sight, although there was the sound of something crashing through the brush.
The second cow and its goaders were having trouble getting past the fallen cow. Jette’s rifle fired again, and the second cow staggered and then fell on its side. Its goaders, both women, ran full tilt back up the path.
There was a third shot from Jette’s rifle. Thomas couldn’t see either man or beast, but it seemed safe to assume Jette had taken out the third cow.
Then, for several minutes, aside from a faint and diminishing rustling in the bush, there was silence.
Then there was a fusillade of fire, including what to Thomas’s ears sounded like the ripping sound of a 9-mm Uzi machine pistol.
A minute or two after that, women—ten in all—came running down the trail, singly and in pairs.
Then there came the sphincter-tightening sound a rifle projectile makes when passing within feet of one’s head. And then, immediately, two more such sounds.
“Shit,” Thomas said, and slid backward to take advantage of the protection the tree trunk offered.
Here lies Master Sergeant William Thomas, killed by friendly African fire.
You can take a look, asshole. Nobody’s shooting at you. That fire came from some idiot who wasn’t paying attention when Colonel Coizi said, “Don’t shoot down the path; we have people there.”
He slid sideward behind the trunk until he reached the base of the tree, which had been uprooted when the tree had fallen. He very carefully got to his knees and peered around the root structure.
Here lies Master Sergeant William Thomas, who took a look when he should have had enough fucking sense to keep his fucking head down.
He could see nothing but the dead cows; the two Simbas he had taken down were hidden by the bush.
Neither could he see Sergeant First Jette or any of the other shooters. There was the sound of gunfire in the distance.
Then came the sound of something crashing through the bush, and he scanned the area quickly. The first life he saw was three cows, running as fast as they could.
Fuck it, those cows never did anything to me.
Then three more women, and behind them two, three, five, seven armed males.
He debated moving the lever from SINGLE SHOT to AUTO, decided to leave it on SINGLE SHOT, and moved back up the tree trunk so that he could steady his left hand on it.
He had just taken a bead on the chest of the first of the armed males when there was a deafening burst of fire from an FN rifle on AUTOMATIC. It was right over his head, and he turned and saw two of the shooters, standing erect, firing at the Simbas.
When he turned and looked for the Simbas again, they were nowhere in sight.
He issued an order.
“Get up here behind the log, and put those weapons on single shot,” he ordered.
His voice sounded funny, and it took him a moment to remember—this was not the first time this had happened to him—that he had been deafened by the weapons firing so close to his head.
The two shooters obeyed his order, taking up positions behind the trunk of the fallen tree.
And then, for perhaps three minutes—which seemed much longer—absolutely nothing happened.
There was no sound of gunfire, no noises in the bush, and there was nothing, human or animal, to be seen.
And then Sergeant First Jette appeared, far to the right. He looked around, and Thomas sensed he was looking for him. Thomas raised his arm over the tree trunk and waved it until Jette saw it and waved back. Then Jette signaled that they should move down the trail in the direction of Colonel Coizi’s men.
Thomas stood up and signaled for Jette to go first, he would bring up the rear.
The odds are that some nervous soul is going to take a shot first, and identify the target later, at anything coming down that trail. Let them shoot another African, not Mrs. Thomas’s favorite son, Billy.
“All right, get going,” he ordered the two shooters with him. “Form on Sergeant First Jette.”
And you can relax, fellows. You can run off into the bush if you want to. Doubting Thomas has done all the killing he wants to for today.
Two minutes—a hundred yards—later, there was the sound of a single shot. As a reflex action, Thomas dropped to the ground.
He could see Jette standing up, pointing his rifle at the ground, and then firing. Jette moved twenty yards and fired again at the ground.
Christ, he’s shooting the wounded!
Well, maybe they’re already dead, but he’s making sure.
It’s a lucky thing I ordered him on point. I don’t think I would have wanted to do that. I don’t think I could have done that.
He got to his feet and started walking again.
There was the sound of single shots being fired from what sounded like several hundred yards away.
These are not nice people. They cut Clarence Withers’s head off. And his leg. And I suppose there’s a good chance that at least some of them were in Stanleyville, where they cut people’s livers out and ate them.
But I still don’t like the idea of shooting them to make sure they’re dead.
The truth seems to be, Billy Thomas, that you’re not nearly as tough as you like to think you are.
“I will leave Lieutenant Breque in charge here,” Colonel Coizi said. “To dispose of the Simba bodies and collect their weapons. You and I and Sergeant First Jette will return to Outpost George in the jeep.”
"Yes, sir,” Thomas said.
“I would like to send a truck back for the dead cattle; it would be a waste to leave it here.”
“Yes, sir.”
The shooter who had been carrying Thomas’s radio walked up to them.
Thomas switched it on.
“Birddog, you there?”
“I was beginning to think you were some lion’s lunch,” Geoff Craig’s voice came back immediately. “What’s going on down there?”
“We bushwhacked them.”
“It’s over?” Even clipped by the radio, the incredulity in Craig’s voice was clear.
“Yeah, it’s over. The good guys won. Colonel Coizi’s taking me back to George in the jeep. Any chance you could pick me up there and get me out of here?”
“I’ve got one of the new pilots with me. I’ll have to take him to Woolworth and then come back for you.”
“Please,” Thomas said.
“On my way,” Geoff replied. “Birddog out.”
“Hunter out,” Thomas said, and turned off his radio.
[ TWO ]
Apartment 8-D, The Immoquateur
Stanleyville, Oriental Province
Republic of the Congo
1625 9 April 1965
Master Sergeant William Thomas, Special Forces Detachment 17, was sitting, in his underwear, on a chaise lounge on the balcony of the apartment. There was a bottle of Martel cognac on the floor beside him, but no gla
ss. It was therefore apparent to Major George Washington Lunsford when he stepped onto the balcony that Doubting Thomas had been imbibing from the neck of the Martel bottle, and equally apparent that he had done so a great many times.
“Getting a head start on the cocktail hour, are you?” Lunsford asked.
He had more or less expected Thomas to hit the bottle. “Doubting Thomas” had earned the sobriquet in Vietnam, not as any kind of reference to Saint Thomas, who had doubted Jesus’s resurrection until he had proof of it, but rather because he was given to sometimes nearly immobilizing pre- and post-operation introspection. Why are we doing this? Why is Bill Thomas doing this? Why did we do this? Why did Bill Thomas do this?
But the operative word is “nearly,” Lunsford thought. Thomas has never failed to perform, most often superbly, whatever he’s been ordered to do. But before he did it, and after, he was often emotionally torn up.
No one had ever mocked him—beyond the sobriquet—and Lunsford had often wondered whether this was because Thomas was a genuinely tough sonofabitch, whom anyone with sense would not intentionally cross, or because everyone seemed to understand, even respect, his doubts, even if they didn’t share them themselves.
“I think I’ll pass on the cocktail hour, thank you just the same, Major, sir,” Thomas said, carefully pronouncing each syllable.
“Take a look at this, will you?” Lunsford said, handing him a sheet of typewriter paper. Thomas took it, and with a visible effort, focused his eyes on it. “I need to get it out on the next satellite. ”
SECRET
HELP0025 1600 ZULU 9 APRIL 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
AFTER ACTION REPORT #2
REFERENCE MAP BAKER 08
1. REFERENCE MY HELP 0022 6 APRIL.
2. AT APPROXIMATELY 1600 ZULU 8 APRIL 1965 MSGT WILLIAM THOMAS WHILE ADVISING A CONGOLESE RECONNAISSANCE UNIT LOCATED THE SIMBA FORCE WHICH OVERRAN OUTPOST GEORGE. AT THE TIME OF DETECTION THE SIMBA FORCE CONSISTED OF APPROXIMATELY FORTY-FIVE (45) ARMED MALES AND FIFTEEN (15) ARMED FEMALES AND WAS APPROXIMATELY FIFTEEN (15) KILOMETERS DUE EAST OF OUTPOST GEORGE. THEY WERE HERDING SIX (6) HEAD OF CATTLE STOLEN FROM THE DESERTED CATTLE RANCH AT OUTPOST GEORGE.
3. AT APPROXIMATELY 0400 ZULU 9 APRIL 1965 A CONGOLESE REACTION FORCE OF APPROXIMATELY TWENTY (20) MEN COMMANDED BY LT COL HENRI COIZI AND ADVISED BY MSGT THOMAS MADE THEIR PRESENCE KNOWN TO THE SIMBA FORCE AND CALLED FOR THEIR SURRENDER. THE SIMBA FORCE RESPONDED WITH AUTOMATIC SMALL ARMS FIRE, AND THE REACTION FORCE ENGAGED. A FIREFIGHT LASTING APPROXIMATELY FIFTEEN (15) MINUTES ENSUED.
4. LOSSES TO THE REACTION FORCE: ZERO (0) KIA; ZERO (0) WIA
5. LOSSES TO THE SIMBA FORCE THIRTY EIGHT (38) MALE KIA; ZERO (0) FEMALE KIA UNKNOWN WIA.
6. WEAPONS RECOVERED FROM SIMBA FORCE: 41 RIFLES OF VARIOUS MANUFACTURE, INCLUDING M- 14 KNOWN TO BE IN POSSESSION OF SFC WITHERS AT OUTPOST GEORGE; 34 HANDGUNS OF VARIOUS MANUFACTURE, INCLUDING 1911A1 .45 PISTOL KNOWN TO BE IN POSSESSION OF SFC WITHERS AT OUTPOST GEORGE. IN ADDITION, FIVE HEAD OF CATTLE WERE RECOVERED.
HELPER SIX
SECRET
“That about cover it, Bill?” Father asked when Thomas looked up at him.
“Why not?”
“Is it accurate, or isn’t it? Should I have it sent as is, or not?”
“You left out that Colonel Coizi hung the sergeant who ran off on Withers,” Thomas said.
“We weren’t involved in that,” Father said, “or were we?”
“What they did was make a noose of commo wire—”
“We weren’t involved, were we, Bill?”
“Coizi made me watch,” Thomas said. “They made a loop of commo wire and hung that from a tree. Then they backed a truck up under it, put the poor bastard on the truck, put his head in the noose, and drove the truck away. It didn’t break his neck, and it wasn’t even doing a good job of strangling the poor bastard, so Coizi told Sergeant First Jette to pull down on him; that tightened the noose, and after a minute or so, he stopped jerking around.”
He looked at Lunsford.
“While he was jerking around, everybody laughed. Funniest thing they’d seen in years.”
“It’s their business, Bill, not ours.”
“There would have been some WIA, too, except they went around and shot the wounded.”
“This is Africa, Bill.”
“We’re Africans, aren’t we?” Thomas asked.
“I was born in Philadelphia,” Father said.
“You know what I’ve been thinking, Father?”
Oh, Jesus. I hope he’s not going to jump on the guilt wagon. I shouldn’t have let them hang the guy. I should have stopped it.
“I’m getting a real hard-on for this Guevara bastard,” Thomas said.
That was the last thing Lunsford expected to hear.
“How so?”
“He wants to use these fucking people. He doesn’t give a shit about them.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Probably, my ass. I’m abso-fucking-lutely on the money. He wants to be the big tamale in South America, and if that means a couple of thousand, a couple of tens of thousands of these poor fucking savages get blown away to get him there, that’s fine with him.”
Lunsford didn’t reply.
“I shot two guys this morning,” Thomas said. “Took the first one down with a chest shot; he didn’t know what hit him. The second one I hit in the shoulder, and I had to shoot him twice. Okay. So maybe they did cut Withers’s head and leg off. But Withers wouldn’t have been here in the first place—none of us would—if that fucking Guevara wasn’t trying to take over this country.”
“I have to agree, Bill.”
“So if it wasn’t for Che fucking Guevara, Withers would be alive, right?”
Lunsford nodded.
“And so would those two savages I popped this morning, and all those poor fucking savages Coizi’s shooters got, right?”
“Right.”
“And now Che fucking Guevara is about to come across Lake Tanganyika in fucking person, right?”
“That’s the intel, Bill.”
“And if I pop the bastard—the only sonofabitch who really deserves to be popped—my ass is in a crack, right?”
“Very seriously in a crack, Bill,” Lunsford said. “Don’t even think about it.”
“That’s what I thought you would say,” Thomas said.
He picked up the bottle of Martel and held it out to Lunsford. “You want a little taste, Father?”
“Thank you,” Lunsford said, and took a pull from the bottle’s neck.
“I’m trusting you on this one, Father,” Thomas said. “I really would like to pop Che fucking Guevara.”
“Not popping him is going to cause him, and people like him, more trouble than popping him,” Lunsford said.
“So I keep hearing.”
“You going to be all right, Bill?”
“Yeah. I’ll just have a couple more tastes and hang it up for the day.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m already shitfaced. I don’t want Craig’s wife to see me this way.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Tough broad, that one,” Thomas said. “Coming here to be with her man. You have to admire that. I’d like to find one like that.”
“Me, too,” Lunsford said, and was genuinely shocked when an image of Cecilia The Real Dar es Salaam Station Chief flashed through his mind.
God, that’s strange. I don’t even know her last name. What triggered that? When Doubting Thomas called Geoff’s wife a “tough broad”? And that isn’t the first time I’ve thought of her, either.
What did she say? Maybe sometime, when you’re wearing shoes, we could talk about dinner again.
“You know she got out of East Berlin by crashing through the wall in a truck?” Thomas asked admiringly. “Tough broad.”
“I heard,” Lunsford said. “You sure
you’re going to be all right, Bill? You want me to hang around?”
“With all respect, Major, sir, get the fuck out of here.”
[ THREE ]
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
0930 21 April 1965
Mary Margaret Dunne knocked politely at the door of Colonel Sanford T. Felter, and when he motioned her to enter, handed him a sheet of paper.
“Just delivered, Colonel,” she said.
He took it and read it.
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM: Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 21 April 1965 1345 GMT
SUBJECT: Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #75.)
TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter
Counselor To The President
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
By Officer Courier
In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, the following information is being furnished: .
From CIA Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika (Reliability Scale Five):
1. In response to an inquiry by US Ambassador,Tanganyikan Minister of Foreign Affairs denied any knowledge of Cubans anywhere in Tanganyika.
2. Accompanied by a senior Tanganyikan police official, sixteen Cubans, including Guevara and Dreke, left the Morogoro farm on two trucks 2130 Greenwich 20 April 1965.
3. They are bound for Kigoma in the Western Province. They are in civilian clothing and armed with Belgian 7-mm automatic rifles and Israeli Uzi 9-mm machine pistols, but have no heavier arms, hand grenades, explosives, or other war matériel.
4. They will travel by a circuitous route, off major highways and possibly only at night. Estimated time of arrival in Kigoma before midnight 23 April 1965.
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
SECRET
“What I think we have here, Mary Margaret,” Felter said, “is the exception to the rule. The CIA station chief in Dar es Salaam seems to have all his ducks in a row.”
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