(Three)
Jan Smuts International Airfield Johannesburg, South Africa 1730 Hours 14 June 1964
Arthur B. Cohen, Resident Director of Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes, South Africa, Ltd., was on hand when South African Airways Flight 808, which had originated in Leopoldville and would terminate at Durban, landed. Just to be sure, he had arranged for an ambulance to be on hand, but it did not prove necessary.
Mrs. Geoffrey Craig, on the arm of her husband, made it down the stairs from the DC-8 on her own power.
"It's nice to see you again, Mr. Craig," Mr. Cohen said to Geoff, who was in civilian clothing.
"You, too," Geoff said, although he could not recall ever having seen the man before. "This is my wife, and Mrs. and Miss Portet."
"An honor, ladies," Mr. Cohen said. "Now is there anything that has to be done right now? Or can we get on to the hotel?"
"Honey?"
"I feel great," Ursula said.
"We've got you in the Intercontinental," Mr. Cohen said.
"Your father led me to believe you preferred a hotel. Mrs. Cohen and I would have been of course delighted to have you with us."
"We didn't want to intrude," Geoff said.
"It would be no intrusion at all, I assure you."
"The hotel's fine," Geoff said. "Thank you just the same.
Where's the car?" Cohen looked around and then gestured impatiently. An old but glistening Rolls-Royce moved majestically across the parking ramp.
"Unless Mrs. Craig would prefer to lie down?" Cohen asked.
"I feel fine," Ursula said. "I wish everybody would stop treating me like I'm made of glass." It was a fifteen-mile ride from the airport into Johannesburg.
Jeanine sat on one of the jump seats, her eyes solemn and wondering as she looked at Ursula.
"I can't hear the clock," Geoff announced.
"Excuse me?" Mr. Cohen said.
"I said, I can't hear the clock. Rolls-Royce advertises that the loudest thing at sixty miles an hour is the clock. I can't hear the clock."
"Quite," Mr. Cohen said.
"Did you know, Mr. Cohen," Geoff said, "that Rolls pays a royalty to Cadillac for the suspension on these things?"
"No, I can't actually say I'd heard that."
"Shut up, Geoff," Hanni said fondly. "You're more trouble than Ursula."
"It's going to be all right, honey," Ursula said. "I'm fine."
"Dr. Kloepp will come to the hotel just as soon as you're settled," Mr. Cohen said. "Spare you a trip to his office, you see."
"He doesn't have to do that," Ursula said. "I'm perfectly able to get around on my own two feet."
"You're as graceful as a cow on ice," Geoff said. "Let him come to the hotel."
"Geoff!" Hanni snapped.
Ursula and Jeanine giggled.
There were fresh flowers in each of the rooms of the suite on a high floor of the Intercontinental Hotel, and a large bowl of fresh fruit on the coffee table in the sitting room.
Geoff inspected each of the rooms before sitting on the couch in front of the bowl of fruit.
"No liquor?" Hanni asked.
"I'm sure there is somewhere," Mr. Cohen said, a little taken aback. He pulled on the door of a credenza and it came open, revealing a complete bar.
"What may I offer you, madam?" Mr. Cohen asked.
"Nothing for me, thank you," Hanni said. "But pour something strong into Daddy-to-Be before he drives us all crazy."
"Mr. Craig?"
"Geoff, for Christ's sake," Geoff said. "And yeah, a little nip would be just the thing. Bourbon if they have any."
"I'm going to lie down," Ursula said.
Geoff was instantly on his feet.
"You all right, honey?"
"I just want to lie down."
"You hungry or anything?" he persisted.
"I wish I could unplug him," Ursula said, then laughed and disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door.
Cohen handed Geoff a drink.
"Wild Turkey," he said. "I don't think I've ever had any before."
"Good stuff," Geoff said. He took a sip and then reached for the telephone on the coffee table. "Operator, I want to speak to a Mr. Karl-Heinz Wagner, at Hessische Schwere Konstruktion in Durban." The operator said she would call him back. He hung up and found Hanni's questioning eyes on him.
"Ursula's brother," he said. "But that was a confidential call. Understand?" She nodded.
"You, too, Mr. Cohen," Geoff said. "You are hearing none of this. And if he can come, you didn't see him. Do you understand?"
"Certainly. " It took ten minutes to get Karl-Heinz on the line.
"We're ready with your party, Mr. Craig," the operator said.
"Karl? Geoff."
"You are not supposed to call me," Karl-Heinz said.
"Ursula is about to have her baby," Geoff said. "Anytime, they say, within the next week or so. We're at the Intercontinental in Johannesburg, on the off chance that you could get up here." There was a long pause before Karl-Heinz called back.
"When it happens, call me. At the company. My home line may be tapped. I will find a way to get up there." The line went dead.
"Ursula didn't tell me her brother was in South Africa," Jeanine Portet said. "She didn't even tell me she had a brother."
"She must have forgot, honey," Geoff said. "But don't ever mention it to anybody, OK?" , "I'd love to know what the hell that's all about," Hanni said.
Geoff met her eyes but didn't say anything. .
Then he got up and walked to Ursula's bedroom door.
She was standing by the bed, her back to him.
"I just talked to Karl-Heinz," he said. "He says he'll come when you've had the baby." Ursula turned to face him.
"Then you better call him back," Ursula said. "I just broke my water."
"Hanni!" Geoff shouted.
"Take it easy, I heard her," Hanni said, pushing past him.
"Have the car brought around."
(Four)
Penthouse Suite Two The Intercontinental Hotel Johannesburg, South Africa
0430 Hours 15 June 1964
Geoffrey Craig had Miss Jeanine Portet slung over his shoulders like a bag of cement when he entered the suite.
"Just dump her on the bed," Hanni ordered. "I'll undress her."
"Poor kid," Geoff said.
"She wanted to wait, she waited," Hanni said. "And I'm sure when she wakes up she'll be glad she did. Did you see her face when she saw the baby?"
"Did you see his face?" Karl-Heinz Wagner said.
"Yes, indeed," Hanni said.
"There must be champagne around here someplace," Geoff said.
"It's half past four in the morning!" Hanni protested.
"I intend to toast my son and his nephew," Geoff said. "I don't care what time it is;" A search of the premises revealed no champagne. Two bottles were ordered from room service.
"Anyone else hungry?" Geoff asked, holding his hand over the mouthpiece.
Hanni looked surprised. "For some reason I'm famished," she said.
"Steak and eggs, sunny side up," Geoff ordered. "Three times. Whatever goes with it."
"I've got to be thinking of getting back," Karl-Heinz said.
"You can't go until you see Ursula, for Christ's sake," Geoff said. "I mean, awake. I want to get a picture. Geoffrey Craig, Jr., with his mommy, daddy, and uncle Karl."
"I am not on administrative leave," Karl-Heinz said.
Hanni picked up on that and looked at him curiously.
"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Geoff said. "Don't be such an ass. How often do you get to be an uncle? And they wouldn't dare start the war without you."
"I must get back," Karl-Heinz said relentlessly. "Perhaps it will not become known that I was gone."
"Tell them you were in Johannesburg with two good-looking German blondes. That sounds credible."
"I must get back," Karl-Heinz said. "There is an UTA flight at ll00."
"OK, that'll give us t
ime," Geoff said. And then he thought of something. "Christ, my father!" He picked up the telephone and gave the operator the number in New York.
"Do you know what time it is in New York?" Hanni asked.
"Who knows, who cares? God is in his heaven and all is right with the world," Geoffrey Craig, Sr., said.
(Five)
Albertville Airfield 050015 June 1964
K. N. Swayer had gotten very little sleep during the night. He had called in his assistant, Denny Fitzwaller, a tiny, fifty-year-old Scot with whom he had installed rigs allover the world and told him what was going on. It was something they had been through before, constipated natives making a flaming pain in the ass of themselves and that it would probably turn out to be a waste of everybody's time and a hell of a lot of the company's money, but nothing more.
But it was better to be safe than sorry, and that what had to be done was to spread the word that at quarter to five in the morning, everybody from Unit Rig was to get in their car and drive to the airfield. No suitcases or anything else that would give away their intention to get on the Air Simba airplane and get out.
"There's no need to panic," Swayer had concluded. "Just tell them to play it cool and do what they're told to do."
Most of the Unit Rig people, who had worked for Swayer or Fitzwaller before, took the evacuation news calmly, but two brassy wives and a Detroit Diesel tech rep were difficult. The wives arrived at Swayer's cottage together to demand a fuller explanation than what Fitz had given them. When Swayer patiently provided it, they told him they could see no reason-if there was no real problem, as he said-for them to go off anywhere with nothing but the clothing on their backs and to leave all their things for the niggers to steal.
The tech rep, who came to Swayer's house while the women were raising hell with Swayer, announced that he didn't give a damn what either Fitzwaller or Swayer said, if there was a plane coming in in the morning, he intended to be on it, and with all his things, because he had had enough of Albertville, the Congo, and Unit Rig and was going home. He didn't, he said, need Detroit Diesel's job that much.
Swayer told the women to go home and pack two suitcases and to put them in the trunk of their car so that no one would see them.
Fitzwaller came in and announced that everybody had been notified.
"Give it an hour, Fitz," Swayer said when the women had left, "and then let the air out of their tires."
"You sonofabitch!" the Detroit Diesel tech rep said.
Swayer walked up to him and grabbed his shirt front and slapped him, twice, with his open hand, so hard that when Swayer let loose of the shirt, the Detroit Diesel tech rep fell down.
"You can't do that to me!" the Detroit Diesel tech rep said furiously, glowering up at Swayer from the floor.
"I just did," Swayer said without raising his voice. "And if you open your mouth one more time I'll do it again. Sit yourself in a chair and stay there unless I tell you, you can move." He waited until the Detroit Diesel tech rep had, after some hesitation, done what he had been told to do, and then turned to fitzwaller.
"In the morning, Fitz, pick up this guy and those women and their husbands in the GM carryall and take them-without luggage-to the airport."
"Got you," Fitzwaller said.
"You realize what's going to happen when I make a report of this?" the Detroit Diesel tech rep said.
Swayer ignored him.
At four o'clock in the morning Martin Luther Nsagamdo made breakfast for Swayer and the Detroit Diesel tech rep. Orange juice, a small steak, eggs, toast, and coffee.
Swayer went to his safe and took out his emergency-cash envelope and put all of it but five hundred dollars in his pocket. He gave the five hundred dollars to Martin Luther Nsagamdo and told him to see after the houseboys of the other Unit Rig people in case they had "forgotten" to do it themselves.
He told Martin Luther Nsagamdo that if things looked bad, he should put his wife in the MGB and drive her to his village.
At quarter to five he put the Detroit Diesel tech rep into the MGB, and with Martin Luther Nsagamdo riding precariously behind them, his rear end on the trunk, drove out to the airport.
There were, he thought, an unusual number of what he thought of as bush Africans on the streets of Albertville. So far as Swayer was concerned, bush Africans, as opposed to the Albertville natives, most of whom seemed to make an effort to dress and behave like Europeans, looked as if they lived in the bush.
They wore animal skins and strange hats, went barefoot, and carried sticks. More important, they seemed sullen and hostile, whereas the Albertville natives were polite, smiling, and happy.
The Air Simba Curtiss Commando appeared right on schedule, making Swayer wonder whether the pilot had arrived early and circled out of sight and hearing until the time set for his arrival.
Swayer was not surprised when the Commando landed and the door opened and Captain Jean-Philippe Portet fitted the stairs in place.
He would have been surprised if Portet had sent someone else.
The Unit Rig people were quickly loaded aboard.
Swayer shook Martin Luther Nsagamdo's hand, told him not to run the MGB into a tree, and climbed aboard.
Captain Jean-Philippe Portet, who had shut down only one of the Commando's engines, restarted it as he taxied to the end of the runway, and when he reached the end and turned, immediately began his takeoff run.
Martin Luther Nsagamdo watched the Commando grow small in the sky and then got behind the wheel of the MGB.
He drove with great care back to the house, where his wife would be all packed and waiting for him. It would be her first visit home since they had been married and she had come to work for Mister Swayer.
A mile from town the road was blocked by perhaps fifty people. Several of them were wearing parts of Belgian Army uniforms, a brimmed cap, or a blouse, or a shirt worn with the tails flapping. And several of them were armed, Martin Luther Nsagamdo saw with concern as he drove close and slowed down.
He stopped and smiled politely and greeted the apparent leader as "Chef."
"What are you doing?" the Chef said. He was wearing a Belgian officer's blouse, complete to Sam Browne belt, from which hung a sword and a brimmed cap. But he wore no shirt and tie, the trousers were civilian, and he was barefoot.
"I have taken my boss to the airport," Martin Luther Nsagamdo said. "And now I go to put the car away." Martin Luther Nsagamdo did not see the machete which came swinging from behind at his head until he sensed something moving near him in the last split second. There was not even time to raise his hand to protect himself or to duck.
The blow severed the right side of his neck and his spinal cord and most of the left side of the neck, but not all of it. His head remained connected to his body by a thin sheath of muscle and tissue. Arterial blood, for three or four heartbeats, spurted six inches up from his shoulders.
His body was dragged from the MGB.
The chef, the man in the Belgian officer's blouse and Sam Browne belt, reached in the car and dipped his finger in the blood. He touched it to his forehead and then painted a cross with it on the passenger-side windshield.
Then he got behind the wheel and, cheerfully blowing the horn, drove slowly into town with his men trotting along beside and behind him.
An hour later another patrol of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Olenga's People's Army of Liberation found Mrs. Martin Luther Nsagamdoin the kitchen of K. N. Swayer's house. She was waiting for her husband, all dressed up in a flowered print dress she had seen in a Montgomery Ward catalog, and which K. N.
Swayer had sent for.
She was raped and shot and dismembered.
(Six)
United States Strike Command McDill Air Force Base, Florida 17 June 1964
CINC STRICOM had been at Fort Hood, Texas, visiting the 2nd Armored Division, and it was half-past three in the afternoon when his L-23 landed at McDill. Two days before, impulsively, when it had been time to either get on with the visit
or cancel it, he had told his aide to ask Lieutenant Colonel Lowell if he would be free to fly the airplane.
CINC STRICOM's aircraft was normally flown by company grade officers, because he believed it was a waste of a more senior officer's time and skill to be an airborne taxi-driver. But in this case he went against his own unofficial rule. For one thing he wanted to get to know Lowell better, and having him around at Hood would accomplish that. And for another, Lowell was an Armor officer and would be another set of eyes.
The New Breed Page 29