“Go, Jesse,” Jensen replied immediately.
“Start walking down the hill. Aunt Jemima will fly you out of here.”
“I’d rather stay with my trucks.”
“The way this works, Doc, is that I tell you what to do, and you do it. I’ll wait for you. Jesse James clear.”
Thomas walked slowly down the road, looking over his shoulder from time to time until he saw Doc Jensen coming down the road after him.
Then he stopped and waited for him to catch up.
“What’s going on, Thomas?”
“Father wants us out of here, that’s what’s happening,” Thomas said. “Did you hear that ‘good show’ bullshit from Aunt Jemima?”
“I think he wants to be an English officer and gentleman,” Doc said. “But I sort of like him.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
He pointed toward the sky, where Aunt Jemima’s flat-black L-19 was making its approach to National Route 39.
[ FOUR ]
SECRET
HELP0041 2220 ZULU 16 MAY 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
AFTER-ACTION REPORT #5
REFERENCE MAP BAKER 11
1. AT APPROXIMATELY 1200 ZULU 16 MAY 1965 CAPT DARRELL J. SMYTHE FLYING RECONNAISSANCE IN AN L-19 NEAR SURINO, KATANGA PROVINCE, CONGO OBSERVED A FOUR TRUCK CONVOY ON ROUTE NATIONAL 39 SUSPECTED OF TRANSPORTING CUBAN FORCES INTENDED TO REINFORCE CONGOLESE INSURGENTS IN THE LULUABOURG AREA.
2. THIS INTEL WAS FURNISHED TO A CONGOLESE REACTION FORCE AT KAMINA, ADVISED BY SFC ALFRED JENSEN, AND TO A RECONNAISSANCE PATROL IN THE AREA ADVISED BY MSGT WILLIAM THOMAS.
3. AT APPROXIMATELY 1330 ZULU 16 MAY 1965 THE CONVOY WAS HALTED BY THE CONGOLESE REACTION FORCE APPROXIMATELY 35 MILES EAST OF SURINO. MSGT THOMAS AND SFC JENSEN WERE LATER SEPARATELY INFORMED BY CONGOLESE OFFICERS THAT EIGHTY-TWO (82) ARMED INDIVIDUALS BELIEVED TO BE CUBAN NATIONALS WERE TAKEN INTO CUSTODY, TOGETHER WITH A LARGE QUANTITY OF SMALL ARMS AND OTHER MILITARY MATÉRIEL.
4. THERE WAS COMPLETE SURPRISE AND THE ALLEGED CUBANS WERE TAKEN INTO CUSTODY WITHOUT THE EXCHANGE OF GUNFIRE. CONGOLESE AUTHORITIES BELIEVE THAT THE STOPPING OF THE CONVOY WAS CONDUCTED WITHOUT GIVING THE ALLEGED CUBANS TIME TO INFORM INSURGENT FORCES IN THE LULUABOURG AREA THAT THEY WERE BEING STOPPED. ALTHOUGH NEITHER WAS PRESENT AT THE ACTUAL STOPPING OF THE TRUCKS AND SUBSEQUENT ARREST OF THE ALLEGED CUBAN NATIONALS MSGT THOMAS AND SFC JENSEN CONCUR.
5. CONGOLESE AUTHORITIES HAVE INFORMED THE UNDERSIGNED THAT IF INVESTIGATION REVEALS THE ALLEGED CUBANS ARE IN FACT ARMED FOREIGN NATIONALS IN THE CONGO WITH THE INTENT OF OVERTHROWING THE GOVERNMENT BY FORCE, THEY WILL BE DEALT WITH UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND CONGOLESE MILITARY LAW, WITH APPROPRIATE REPORTS TO BE MADE TO THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE AT THE TERMINATION OF THE CURRENT STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY.
HELPER SIX
SECRET
[ FIVE ]
404 Avenue Leopold
Léopoldville, Republic of the Congo
1205 20 May 1965
Nimbi, the houseboy, led Miss Cecilia Taylor to what he referred to as “Les Madames,” who were sitting in their bathing suits at one of the umbrellaed tables by the swimming pool.
Mary Magdalene, the enormous black woman Cecilia had seen before, was sitting at the shallow end of the pool, her feet in the water, her flowered dress hiked nearly to her waist, playing with the Craigs’ baby.
Madame Ursula Craig and Madame Marjorie Portet smiled at her—and then at each other—when they saw her.
“Good morning, Cecilia,” Ursula said. “You look like you could use a glass of orange juice.”
“I could, thank you very much,” Cecilia said.
“We all need orange juice, Nimbi,” Marjorie ordered. “And Miss Taylor will be staying for lunch.”
“That’s very kind of you, and I accept. But the reason I’m here is because Major Lunsford asked me to meet him.”
“He’ll be here soon,” Marjorie said. “He’s at the airport with my Jack, deciding which of the redundant-shipments goes where,” Marjorie said.
“Excuse me?”
“The Air Force, to everyone’s surprise, finally delivered a planeload of redundants early this morning,” Marjorie said.
“Redundants?”
“The way I understand it, the Air Force insisted they could support Operation Earnest. Felter didn’t believe them, of course, but gave them the shopping list, meanwhile making sure my father-in-law actually delivered what we needed with the Intercontinental Air Cargo 707. . . .”
She paused and, smiling naughtily, asked, “I thought they called Father last night about it? Didn’t he tell you?”
“Major Lunsford was at my apartment, on some business, when he had a call,” Cecilia said. “I suppose that’s what it was.”
“When the plane landed, the pilot wouldn’t turn the stuff over to anyone but Father, Cecilia,” Marjorie said. “So when the attaché called here, I gave him your number.”
“I feel like I’m explaining to my mother why I was out all night,” Cecilia said.
“Apropos of nothing whatever,” Marjorie said, “I think I can say without fear of contradiction that Special Forces Detachment 17 is very happy to see their beloved commander happy, and grateful to whoever, or whatever, is making him happy.”
“My God, you mean everyone knows?” Cecilia asked.
“All of us know,” Marjorie said, “and not one of us would say a word outside the clan.”
“How did you know George was at my apartment?” Cecilia asked.
“I’m the unofficial adjutant, I guess,” Marjorie said. “I’m the one people come to find Father, so he tells me where he’s going to be. So I knew where to find him when the attaché called.”
“At half past three in the morning,” Cecilia said.
“Oh, was it that late? I never looked at the clock,” Marjorie said.
“The hell you didn’t,” Cecilia said, and added: “I never thought I would behave like this—was capable of behaving like this.”
“None of us did,” Marjorie said. “I think they call it ‘lust,’ as in ‘unbridled lust.’ It sneaks up from behind, and quite literally sets you on your behind.”
“Marjorie!” Ursula said reprovingly, but with a smile.
“Actually,” Marjorie said. “Just before you came, Ursula and I decided we were going to have a word with you, just between us girls, but first things first.”
She took a sheet of paper from her purse and handed it to Cecilia.
“This is what Father wanted you to see,” she said.
SECRET
EARN0087 WASH DC 1035 ZULU 20 MAY 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: EARNEST SIX
TO : HELPER SIX
FOLLOWING RECEIVED FROM ZAMMORO IN BUENOS AIRES
SEÑORA CELIA DE LA SERNA DE GUEVARA DIED OF LUNG CANCER AT 1230 BUENOS AIRES TIME 19 MAY 1965.
FINTON FOR EARNEST SIX
SECRET
Cecilia handed it back.
“I suppose you saw the other one,” she said, “where they threw the poor woman out of the hospital?”
Both Ursula and Marjorie nodded.
“I can’t understand that,” Cecilia said.
“I’m not saying it’s right,” Ursula said. “But I can understand it.”
“Ursula used to live in East Germany,” Marjorie said. “But, quickly changing the subject, how are your quarters here in Léopoldville?”
“They’re what you’d expect for the secretary to the Cultural Affairs Officer,” Cecilia said. “A fifth-floor walk-up overlooking the Stanley Basin.”
“We’re all living here, and there’s still three unused bedrooms, ” Ursula said.
“You’re not suggesting I move in here?”
“We’re suggesting you’d attract less attention often spending the night with your American girlfriends here . . .”
“Than with my American boyfriend at my flat?�
��
“Actually, I was thinking your Congolese light colonel boyfriend,” Marjorie said.
“God, I forgot about that. . . .”
“Then you cave in to our irrefutable logic and will?”
“I suppose I should feel like a shameless slut, but I don’t,” Cecilia said.
“If it’s with the right guy,” Marjorie said, “I have learned that feeling like a slut is not necessarily all that bad.”
[ SIX ]
404 Avenue Leopold
Léopoldville, Republic of the Congo
1735 21 May 1965
Father Lunsford, Marjorie Portet, and Ursula Craig were sitting at one of the umbrellaed tables by the pool, watching Mary Magdalene splashing around the shallow end of the pool chasing Jeffy. Father and Ursula were drinking beer, Marjorie what looked like a gin and tonic.
“Where’s Jack?” Cecilia Taylor asked as she slipped into the chair beside Lunsford, managing to run her fingers across his shoulders as she did so.
“He took a C-46 load of redundants to Kamina,” Father said. “He’ll be back tomorrow, probably, or the day after.”
“Oh, he’s left already?” Cecilia asked.
Taking supplies to Kamina wasn’t the only reason Jack was going there, and Cecilia knew it. But Ursula and Marjorie were at the table, and they didn’t have the need-to-know, and Cecilia knew that, too.
Colonel Supo had told him he had been thinking. And what he had been thinking was that if they didn’t interdict any of the launches crossing Lake Tanganyika from Kigoma, that might be suspicious. If, Colonel Supo said he had been thinking, one of the T-28s to which he now had access could interdict the odd launch, giving the impression that it had been discovered by accident— an air patrol had just found it by luck—that would, he was thinking, convince the insurgents that there were certain risks in sending launches across the lake.
That would make them more cautious, thus reducing the frequency and number of launches they would attempt to send across Lake Tanganyika. And, of course, if they sank the odd launch now and then, that would consign X many pounds of supplies to the bottom of the lake, and force the insurgents not only to get more supplies but also to buy another launch and find a crew capable and willing to sail it across the lake, where the enemy, it was known, sometimes got lucky and came across a launch and sank it with all hands.
That’s what he had been thinking, Colonel Supo said, and what did his good friend Lieutenant Colonel Dahdi think of his thinking?
Colonel Dahdi said he was in complete agreement with Colonel Supo, but that he would have to discuss it with Miss Taylor.
Miss Taylor, when Lunsford had discussed it with her over lunch, had thought it was a good idea, with certain caveats. She had rather liked Major Lunsford’s notion that it was better to make the insurgents’ replacements simply disappear than to engage a replacement launch under conditions in which there might be survivors who could guess that there were agents in Kigoma transmitting intel vis-à-vis the departure of launches from that port.
“And we have to be very careful, George, to make sure we don’t sink some innocent smuggler. Your ASA people in Kigoma can get a message to Kamina or the T-28s how fast?”
“They can talk to the B-26s in the air, but not the T-28s.”
“So why don’t we send Jack Portet in a B-26—not to fly it, I want the Cubans to fly it—to make sure they get the right launch, and make it disappear?”
“Great minds think alike,” Father had said to Cecilia, “about love and war.”
He did not think it necessary to tell her that he was going to tell Jack to make absolutely sure that when the trigger on the B- 26’s control yoke was depressed, firing the six .50-caliber Browning machine guns in the nose, he wanted that trigger depressed by someone who really knew what he was doing, and that Jack would almost certainly decide he was the man for the job.
“He wanted to get to Kamina before dark,” Father said. “So, how was your day at the office, dear? To tell you the truth, I’ve never really understood what a ‘cultural affair’ is. Making love to classical music?”
He waited for appreciative laughter. He didn’t get so much as a chuckle.
“They’re all a little retarded, Cecilia,” Marjorie said. “It takes some getting used to.”
“The courier from the embassy in Brazzaville brought me something,” Cecilia said. “A total of nine Cubans, including one positively identified as Captain Roberto Agramonte, have arrived, two and three at a time, on various airlines, but mostly Air France, in Brazzaville. Agramonte went right to the Foreign Ministry. Our source there said he told the Foreign Ministry people he was there to, quote, ‘coordinate the reception of Column Two,’ unquote, whatever that means.”
“It probably means no more than another fifty men,” Father said. “Guevara’s got delusions that he’s Napoleon. He’s divided the . . . what—thirty, forty—people he’s got on the plateau into the troops and the general staff. We’d call it a platoon.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to underestimate the enemy,” Cecilia said.
“What’s to underestimate? All he’s done so far is sneak into the country—think he’s snuck into the country—set himself up in a shack city on a plateau in the middle of nowhere, and get sick. And he’s supposed to be a doctor.”
“I wonder if he knows about his mother?” Cecilia asked.
“The intercept teams haven’t picked up anything,” Father said. “I suppose news like that would have to go from the Cuban Embassy in Buenos Aires to Havana, to Dar es Salaam, and then they’d have to relay it to Luluabourg.”
[ SEVEN ]
Kamina Air Base
Katanga Province, The Congo
1100 23 May 1965
Father Lunsford found Jack Portet, who was wearing a flight suit, eating breakfast—ham and eggs, a croissant, orange juice and coffee—in the officers’ mess.
“Is that breakfast or lunch?” Lunsford asked, slipping into a chair beside him and reaching for the coffeepot.
“I was up most of the night in a B-26,” Jack said. “And, apparently aware that I was getting some well-deserved rest, the maintenance officer ordered T-18 engine run-ups outside my window, starting at nine. I finally gave up trying to get some sleep. What are you doing here?”
Lunsford did not respond to the question; instead, he asked lightly:
“And did you do something useful, while you were up most of the night?”
“Are you going to send an after-action report?” Jack asked seriously.
“No. The B-26s are an Agency operation. And since we don’t fly their airplanes—we don’t fly their airplanes, do we, Jack?”
Portet met his eyes and snorted.
“No, sir, I don’t think you could find anyone who would say that I was flying the B-26 last night, when it blew a launch into many small pieces.”
“And since we don’t fly their airplanes,” Lunsford went on, “there’s really no reason for us to send an after-action report, is there?”
“I guess not,” Jack said.
“But, hypothetically speaking, if an after-action report was being sent, what do you think it would say?”
Jack thought about that a moment, then replied:
“Acting on information everyone on the B-26 really hopes was reliable, a forty-odd-foot launch was detected in the Congolese waters of Lake Tanganyika—maybe a mile over the border. Said vessel was on a course for Kalamba. Said vessel did not display running lights. Persons aboard said vessel, on seeing a B-26 aircraft coming at them with gear and flaps down at about two hundred feet, fired upon said B-26 with what appeared to be small-caliber automatic weapons, whereupon said B-26 blew said launch into small pieces with a ten-second burst of .50-caliber machine-gun fire from the six Brownings in the nose of said B-26.”
“Hypothetically speaking, what would you say the chances were the boat was able to report their predicament before it went down?”
“Zero,” Jack said.
“Zero.”
“Not even hanging on to pieces of the boat?”
“From the fireball, I’d say it was carrying a couple hundred gallons of gasoline as cargo. Plus some high explosives. Nobody swam away from that one.”
“Now that they know how to do it, can the Cubans do this on their own from here on in?”
Portet thought that over before replying.
“You have two problems with our Cubans,” he began. “The first is that they’ll happily blow any boat out of the water that they even suspect has their communist countrymen aboard, and, two, they are wondering, aloud, why they can’t just blow Guevara and everybody else on the Luluabourg plateau away.”
“I’ll have Cecilia speak to them,” Lunsford said.
“What makes you think they’ll listen?”
“Because she’ll make it clear that anybody who disobeys orders will get shipped back to the States,” Lunsford said. “They wouldn’t like that. Here at least they can do something against Guevara.”
[ EIGHT ]
TOP SECRET
HELP0039 2115 ZULU 23 MAY 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
SITUATION REPORT #43
1. FOLLOWING, IN WHICH MATA HARI CONCURS, SHOULD BE FURNISHED TO CIA.
2. AT 0915 ZULU 23 MAY 1965 ASA SOURCES INTERCEPTED A RADIO MESSAGE TRANSMITTED FROM KIGOMA, TANGANYIKA AND SIGNED BY COLONEL LAURENT MITOUDIDI, AS CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STAFF MILITARY COUNCIL, ADDRESSED TO “TATU” (GUEVARA) IN LULUPLAT. IT USED A CODE NORMALLY USED ONLY BY CUBAN EMBASSY IN DAR ES SALAAM, AND IS THEREFORE CONSIDERED LEGITIMATE. IT ORDERED GUEVARA TO “PREPARE TO ATTACK AND LIBERATE ALBERTVILLE AND HOLD IT AGAINST ALL MERCENARY AND REACTIONARY FORCES.” NO SPECIFICS WERE GIVEN.
3. WE HAVE DRAWN THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS:
a. GUEVARA HAS, PROBABLY BECAUSE HE HAS NO OTHER CHOICE, PLACED HIMSELF AND CUBANS UNDER ORDERS OF MITOUDIDI. MITOUDIDI IS HAVING HEARTS AND MINDS PROBLEMS WITH CIVILIAN POPULATION IN ORIENTAL, KATANGA, AND KASAI PROVINCES BECAUSE OF BOTH HIS INABILITY TO OUST HOARE’S MERCENARIES AND/OR SUPO’S FORCES FROM ALBERTVILLE, STANLEYVILLE, OR ANYWHERE ELSE, AND BECAUSE OF THE UNDISCIPLINED BEHAVIOR OF HIS TROOPS. THERE HAVE BEEN MANY CONFIRMED REPORTS OF ATROCITIES AGAINST CONGOLESE CIVILIANS IN THE AREAS INFESTED BY SIMBAS, RANGING FROM THEFT OF FOOD AND LIVESTOCK, FORCIBLE RECRUITMENT OF MEN INTO SIMBAS, TO RAPE AND MURDER.
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