The New Breed

by W. E. B Griffin

  (Seven)

  The Immoquateur Apartments Stanleyville, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  6 August 1964

  Once the Simbas had left the Consulate Building, Warrant Officer Joe Manley had volunteered to go into town and have a look around.

  The polite fiction was that he was to establish contact with the Armee National~ Congolaise and learn from them their plans to either recapture the city or make an attempt to rescue the consulate and other American personnel.

  As he made his way through the backyards of the comfortable houses lining the Avenue Eisenhower, the only members of the ANC he saw were dead, their corpses lying where they had fallen. Many of them were mutilated. They had been slashed, he judged, by machetes.

  Since he had been in the vault when. the consulate was invaded, and the door was of course closed, he had yet to get a look at any member of General Olenga's Army of Liberation, the Simbas. Now the Simbas, the first ones he had ever seen, were allover, and they were worse than he expected.

  Some of them wore uniforms. This suggested at least that they were officers. Some looked like incredibly slovenly troops. And some looked, Manley thought, like extras in a old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie. They were bare chested and barefoot, their faces were marked with mud, and they had animal skins draped -over their shoulders.

  It was difficult to accept that this rabble had defeated armed, organized troops, but that seemed to be the simple truth.

  And then some Simbas saw him.

  They set out, from Avenue Eisenhower, after him. Not quite sure where he was going, he ran up and down alleys expecting any moment to hear a burst of automatic weapons fire. But none came, and finally when he looked over his shoulder to see if his, pursuers were gaining on him, there was no one in sight.

  He ran a little farther until he could run no more, and then stepped inside what had only the day before been a stationery store. The shelves had been ripped from the walls toward the center of the room, and their contents were scattered everywhere.

  Manley climbed to the center of the room over the rubble and found a sort of cave, where the high shelves from one wall had fallen onto a desk. He would stay there out of sight until dark, he decided.

  By the time he got his breath back, there had been time to reach an unnerving conclusion. The Simbas who had been after him had given up the chase not because he had gotten away from them, but because further pursuit on their part would have been a waste of effort. He was a white man in a city surrounded by hundreds of miles of jungle. There was no way he could get out of town, and even if he could do that, no way to get through the jungle.

  It finally grew dark, and then to his great surprise, the street lights came on. When he finally gathered his courage enough to look very carefully out the door, he saw lights in homes and offices, and then, incredibly, Europeans walking along the streets. Quickly and nervously to be sure, obviously anxious to get where they were going as quickly as, possible, but still on the streets.

  He thought that over for a couple of minutes.

  Lieutenant Craig, the young Army aviator who had flown the unmarked L-19 into Punia, had told him when he returned that he had heard from an absolutely reliable source that the Simbas actually practiced cannibalism. Young Craig obviously believed that, whether or not it were true.

  Manley resolved, very calmly, that if it were true, and these fucking people did decide to hack him up with a machete prior to broiling his liver, he would do a John Wayne. He would take as many of them with him as he could.

  And the way to do that was to get to his apartment in the Imoquateur. There, in a carefully hollowed out book, The Indian Campaigns of General Philip Sheridan ("borrowed" from the library at Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia, where he bad undergone the last stage of cryptographic training), was a Colt 1911Al automatic pistol and two spare magazines. He had taken the pistol from the body of a Marine lieutenant when X U.S. Corps had retreated from the Yalu in December of -50. It was in the hollowed-out book because, among other chickenshit regulations that went with this assignment, there had been a regulation that absolutely forbade personally owned firearms.

  He got as far as the elevator in the Immoquateur without being seen, and there he found himself looking down the open end of an FN 7mm barrel.

  "Que voulez-vous?" the Simba asked.

  Shit, that bastard doesn't speak French any better than I do.

  "lei, mon maison," Manley said.

  "Maison?"

  "Qui, mon maison," Manley said imperiously.

  "Bon," the Simba said, - smiling and lowering the Fabrique Nationale. "Bonsoir, M'sieu."

  "Bonne soir yourself, you cocksucker." Manley got on the elevator and rode to the fourth floor. Someone had been in the apartment. His Zenith Transoceanic portable radio was gone, he saw immediately.

  But nobody had bothered his books. He went and took The Indian Campaigns of General Philip Sheridan from the bookcase, opened it, and shook the Colt loose.

  He removed the magazine, saw that it was full, replaced it, and worked the action. Then he took the two spare magazines and put them in his trousers pockets. Then he sat there in the dark, holding the pistol.

  The telephone rang.

  He. looked at it in disbelief. A telephone, with cannibals. running the town?

  But then he remembered the power plant was obviously still in operation, so why not the telephone?

  He picked it up.

  "Manley." It was the Consul General. He had been "concerned" about him and thought he would "give the apartment a try."

  "Did you plan to come back here tonight?"

  "Not unless you want me to," Manley said.

  "No need," the Consul General said. "If you think you could, why don't you check out the building and see if you can find out how many Americans are there."

  "Yes, Sir," Manley said.

  "I'll see you in the morning then," the Consul General said and hung up.

  He did not, Manley thought, even ask if he had found the ANC, and if so, what the ANC had had to say.

  (Eight)

  Johannesburg, South Africa 7 August 1964

  "Embassy of the United States of America, good morning."

  "Mr. Edward T. Watson, please," the caller Said. He had a slight German accent.

  "Just one moment, Sir."

  "Hello !"

  "Mr. Edward T. Watson, please."

  "I'm sorry, he's not here at the moment. May I take a message? Or have him return your call?"

  "Would you please tell him that I wish he were here, the wild geese are flying?"

  "You must be Ed's Cousin Karl."

  "That's right."

  "Well, I'll get that message to him within a few minutes."

  "You're very kind."

  "Karl?"

  "Yes?"

  "Good luck, Karl. Take care of yourself."

  "Thank you." That afternoon the following advertisement appeared in the Johannesburg, South Africa, Times of South Africa: "Any fit Young man looking for employment with a difference at a salary well in excess of 100 Pounds monthly should telephone Johannesburg 2323 during business hours. Employment is initially offered for six months. Immediate start." The next day the same advertisement, differing only in the telephone number to be called in Salisbury, Rhodesia, appeared in the Salisbury Morning News and Bulletin.

  XVIII

  (One)

  The Immoquateur Apartments Stanleyville, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  5 August 1964

  There was a three-quarter moon reflecting off the sheet-steel roofs of the warehouse on the other side of the Congo River. The surface of the river itself was so smooth that there was a remarkably clear reflection of the moon on it. Hannelore Portet, leaning on the concrete railing of the balcony of the Air Simba apartment, could smell hibiscus.

  A few minutes earlier she had heard the washing machine start up, which meant Ursula was washing the day's diapers, and she was not surprised when Ursula came
out onto the balcony a minute or so later.

  "I guess his Royal Highness has given his slaves the rest of the night off?" Hanni said, speaking German.

  Ursula made a grunting noise that could have been a chuckle.

  "Mary Magdalene is rocking him to sleep," she said. "Jeanine is asleep. She fell asleep reading Playboy."

  "When I was her age, my parents had a doctor book," Hanni said. "We used to sneak it out and look at the pictures." Ursula made the grunting noise again.

  "What's going to happen to us, Hanni?" Ursula asked.

  "I wondered when you were going to get around to asking," Hanni said. "About the only answer I can give you is that we wait."

  "That's not much of an answer."

  "I both like and love you," Hanni said. "I love you because you're sweet and a good mother, and you're good for Jeanine.

  "And I like you because you're tough. I don't think many people, including Geoff, know how tough you are."

  "I'm not tough," Ursula said. "I'm scared to death."

  "But you're competent. You get done what needs to be done. And you're not hysterical. You haven't started crying."

  "I have," Ursula said. "I woke up in the middle of the night and cried. I want to go home!"

  "You haven't let Jeanine see you," Hanni said. "Or Mary Magdalene."

  "What good would that do?"

  "I'm scared too," Hanni said. "And I know that us being here is my fault."

  "Don't be silly."

  "Sil1y silly? If I hadn't played the grande dame, been Madame Chef Pilote, we would have been aboard that airplane when it took off."

  "That's ridiculous," Ursula said.

  "But I was, and here I am with my daughter; and you, and are surrounded by les sauvages on a rampage."

  "I don't want to hear any more of that," Ursula said. "I want you to tell me what's going to happen. And I'd rather you hadn't mentioned Les savages,' thank you just the same."

  "But that's what they are," Hanni said. "I'm a mother. I understand them." "You're a mother?" Ursula said, incredulously. "You understand. them?"

  "I've raised a child," Hanni said. "And as you are about to find out."

  "I've seen signs already. Children are savages. They have to be taught how to behave. No one has ever taught les sauvages to behave."

  "You're serious, aren't you?"

  "Absolutely," Hanni said. "It was sinful what the Belgians did in granting independence overnight. It was like giving a gun and the keys to a car to a six-year-old. Something like this was bound to happen. And you can no more blame the savage who came out of the bush and who think they're freeing the country from colonialism than you can blame a small child for cutting himself after you gave him a knife. They just don't know any better."

  "They know how to use their knives," Ursula said.

  Hanni didn't reply for a moment. "I don't know what's going," she said finally. "I don't have any idea. You never know what's going to happen in the Congo."

  "They are killing people every day," Ursula said. "Beating them to death. Cutting them up with big knives . . . what do you call them? 'Machetes.'"

  "So. far no. Europeans," Hanni said.

  "So. far," Ursula said. "But how long will that last?"

  "I have been thinking positive," Hanni said. "Did you ever read that book?"

  "What?"

  "A book. Written by an American. The Power of Positive Thinking."

  "No., I haven't," Ursula said, a tone of impatience, even annoyance, in her voice.

  "The idea in it is that you think of the best that you can do.

  rather than of the worst things that can happen."

  "That's foolish."

  "Olenga and the Simbas are mad at the Americans," Hanni said, ignoring her. "They seem to be going out of the way not to offend the Belgians or any other Europeans. Because of my husband, I've gat a Belgian passport, and Jeanine is Belgian, and you still have your German passport. That's positive."

  "But I came here on an American passport and there's no. Congolese visa an my German one. And Jiffy's an my American passport."

  "I've hidden your American passport," Hanni said. "Just to be safe. Your German passport will be enough. If you are actually asked far it, the man who asks will probably be illiterate. If it is not an American passport, that will be good enough."

  "Hanni!" Ursula said, sadly, disbelievingly.

  "We have food, and we can buy more," Hanni said. "There was five thousand dollars in Swiss francs in the sofa here. Fuel money, in case we have to send an airplane somewhere where you needed cash far fuel." Seeing the look an Ursula's face, she decided to try humor.

  "When the plane arrives tomorrow to take us home, I don't know what we'll do. with all the condensed milk. Mary Magdalene took me at my ward when I told her to buy all she could. We have eight cases. There's no shortage of bread or chickens. Beef may not be an the menu far long-"

  "And if the plane doesn't came tomorrow?" Ursula interrupted, not amused. "Or the day after that? Or next month? Or never?"

  "There will be a plane," Hanni said. "Jean-Philippe will probably be flying it."

  "I hope it gets here before the Simbas run out of-Congolese to hack to death," Ursula said, "and start coming after the Europeans."

  Hanni met her eyes. "So do I, Liebchen," she said finally.

  "And I really think it will."

  "Geoff must be going out of his mind."

  "See, you're learning," Hanni chuckled.

  "Huh ?"

  "You're thinking positively," Hanni said. "You're feeling sorry far somebody else, not yourself."

  "Ach, Gott!" Ursula said in exasperation. But she smiled, and that, Hanni decided, was a good thing.

  (Two)

  Camp David, Maryland 8 August 1964

  The world, was far mare interested in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolutan passed by the Congress the day before (the Washington Post had already called it a "blank check to the President to do Whatever he wanted in Indochina") than in the plight of a-handful of Americans in a remote city in the middle of Africa. Nor was the remote possibility of a small-scale American intervention in the Conga nearly as important as the immediate certainty of American intervention an a massive scale in Vietnam.

  Consequently, when the President-having so far ignored what had happened in Stanleyville,- He led the meeting he was presiding over toward the question of public relations, foreign and domestic, vis-a-vis possible American actions in. Southeast Asia, Felter reasoned that his presence would be no longer required at the meeting. As quietly as he could, he Closed his briefcase and walked-toward the door.

  "Where the hell are you going?" the President of the United States called out to. him sharply and unpleasantly: "Gaddamn it, Colonel, you can leave when I tell you you can. Who the hell do you think you are?"

  Felter resumed his seat.

  Felter's public humiliation pleased the Director of the United States Information Agency even mare than it pleased the Director of the CIA and other high-ranking officials in the roam. The Director of the USIA, a holdover from the Kennedy Administration, was a friend and confidant of the Attorney General.

  Bobby Kennedy and he had once, agreed that since every great man had to be permitted one enormous fault in judgment, Colonel Sanford T. Felter had to be Jack Kennedy's. His choice of Lynden Baines Johnson as his vice president did not count, of course, since Johnson delivered Texas and a few other Southern states.

  After President Kennedy's assassination, they had both been surprised when Felter was noticeably absent from the first Kennedy aides replaced. Johnson, for some odd reason, actually seemed to like him, even though he was in the habit of referring to Colonel Felter in terms that were insulting in several ways at once. When Johnson had learned that Felter's White House switchboard and Secret Service code name was "the Mouse," for example, he offered that he thought of him as "the Snip." And then, grinning with delight, he added that a snip was what fell to the floor after Jewish ritual circumcision. />
  But Johnson had kept Felter on, and it had quickly become apparent that he was treating Felter as Jack Kennedy had, with respect. This was bad enough. But worse, he shared confidences with him that he shared with no one else. No one knew what Felter was doing or where he would show up. Just that whatever he was doing was done for the President. And wherever he showed up, and whenever he asked for something, he was doing so with the authority of the President.