be foolproof, which probably means they’re reading it in the Kremlin, or in Peking, before the courier can get it into Washington from Vint Hill Farms or Fort Meade.”
“How often can you send, or receive, something?”
“We get a satellite about every four hours for half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes—it depends on the trajectory.”
“Around the clock?”
“Sure.
“I find it hard to believe that the bad guys have somebody here listening for us to send a message to a satellite.”
“Anything is possible,” Peters said.
“But if there is, aren’t we telling him here’s a message the minute we start transmitting?”
“We transmit garbage twenty-four hours a day. Every five minutes, there’s a two-second pause, long enough to shut off the garbage tape and turn on the crypto tape,” Peters explained. “And then, when the crypto’s finished, we wait for a two-second pause, and shut it down, and turn on the garbage again,”
“I am awed,” Jack said. “And I will be very surprised if it works.”
Two hours later, when Geoff Craig handed him a printout from the cryptographic machine, there was proof that it worked:
SECRET
EARN0005 WASH DC 1405 ZULU 19 MARCH 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: EARNEST SIX
TO: HELPER SIX
1-IMMEDIATELY ON RECEIPT ADVISE LOCATION, CONDITION, VISA STATUS AND ETA USA MRS. MARJORIE PORTET.
2-ETA LÉOPOLDVILLE LIEUTENANT JAMES C. MOORE AND CWO3 FRANCIS CLAURE FROM RUCKER VIA BRUSSELS ABOARD UTA 5621 1635 ZULU 22 MARCH.
FINTON FOR EARNEST SIX
SECRET
And three hours after that, at 3:15 P.M. local time, Colonel Sanford T. Felter (Earnest Six) also had proof that the burst transmission network to Costermansville was functioning well when he received the following from Major George Washington Lunsford (Helper Six).
SECRET
HELP0003 1605 ZULU 19 MARCH 1965
VIA WHITE HOUSE SIGNAL AGENCY
FROM: HELPER SIX
TO: EARNEST SIX
1-REF PARA 1 YOUR 0005: MRS. MARJORIE PORTET, LAST SEEN IN SPLENDID CONDITION IN SWIMMING POOL THIS LOCATION 1555 ZULU 19 MARCH 1965 DECLINES TO DISCUSS HER TRAVEL PLANS TO USA BEYOND STATING QUOTE NOT ANY TIME SOON ENDQUOTE. SHE STATES SHE HAS NON-EXPIRING, MULTI ENTRY/EXIT VISA AND SENDS HER LOVE.
2-REF PARA 2 YOUR 0005: TRAVELERS WILL BE MET AT LÉOPOLDVILLE BY AUNT JEMIMA WHO HAS APPROPRIATE MACHINERY READY FOR THEM TO OPERATE.
HELPER SIX
SECRET
[ EIGHT ]
The Hotel du Lac
Costermansville, Kivu Province
Republic of the Congo
0950 23 March 1965
The reception room of the King Leopold Suite had been converted into the Detachment’s conference room by moving the elegant furniture with which it had been furnished and replacing it with folding banquet tables and folding chairs from the hotel’s basement storerooms.
Map boards had been locally fabricated from two-by-fours and sheets of plywood, and there was even a glossy mahogany speaker’s lectern with a built-in public address system. It carried a beautifully carved insignia reading, “Rotary International, Costermansville, Belgian Congo.”
With the exception of a few members of the Detachment—aircraft mechanics, a tower operator, and two Green Berets charged with their security—who were in Stanleyville, the entire Detachment had been assembled in the conference room. They were sitting around the banquet tables, which had been arranged in a U.
They were all now wearing the uniforms of Congolese paratroops, with the collar rank insignia of senior noncommissioned officers or junior officers. Lunsford had decided, Solomon-like, that E-7s would be captains, E-6s lieutenants, and everybody else who spoke Swahili senior sergeants. The seven E-5s who didn’t speak Swahili were wearing sergeant’s insignia.
Everyone was wearing U.S. Army parachutist’s jump boots, rather than Congolese boots, as the result of another Solomon-like decision of Major Lunsford. The “old” Green Berets had put on Congolese boots when they had drawn their Congolese uniforms; many of the “new” Green Berets had not.
“What the hell, Geoff,” Lunsford had announced when informed of the problem. “If it makes them feel good, why not?”
With the exception of their pistols—everyone had a Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP caliber semiautomatic pistol—their weapons were a mixture of Belgian and American. There were Fabrique National 7-mm automatic rifles from Colonel Supo’s ordnance stocks, and U.S. Army M-16 .223 rifles, including the short carbine version of that weapon, the Car-16.
Major Lunsford, Lieutenant Craig, and Sergeant Thomas were armed with cut-down Remington Model 1100 12-gauge shotguns. They had carried such weapons in Vietnam, having found they were both very effective close-range people killers, and easy to carry in aircraft. All three weapons and a case of 00-buckshot ammunition for them had been carried to Africa in a locked case, as Lunsford strongly suspected that if their weapons preference became known, everyone would want a shotgun, and he wanted most everybody to be armed with a rifle of one