The weapons littered the banquet tables in the conference room, as everybody watched the door to see what the hell was up.
The door opened, and Lieutenant Craig walked in, stood to one side, and called, “Ah-ten-hut!”
Everyone in the room popped to attention.
Colonel Jean-Baptiste Supo, Military Commandant of Oriental, Equatorial, and Kivu Provinces, walked into the room, followed by two Congolese officers and finally Major Lunsford, who was wearing the uniform of a Congolese lieutenant colonel of paratroops.
Major Smythe walked up to Lunsford, saluted crisply, and announced, “Sir, the Detachment is formed.”
Lunsford returned the salute, performed a crisp about-face movement, saluted Colonel Supo, and said, in Swahili, “Chief, the detachment is formed.”
Supo returned the salute, then walked to the lectern.
“Be as you were,” he said, in painful English. “I regret, I have not the English. Major Totse will do for me.”
Major Alain George Totse stepped beside Supo.
“I am Major Totse,” he said in heavily French-accented English, “I have the honor to be Colonel Supo’s intelligence officer.”
He stepped back and motioned for Colonel Supo to go to the lectern’s microphone. Colonel Supo said something to him in Swahili, and Totse stepped forward to stand beside Supo.
Supo said something in Swahili.
“Colonel Supo welcomes you to the Republic of the Congo and thanks you for offering to serve against a common enemy,” Totse translated.
Colonel Supo said something else in Swahili.
“Colonel Supo,” Major Totse translated with a smile, “says I am to take it from here.”
Colonel Supo went to one of the empty chairs in the first row and motioned for Lunsford, Smythe, and Craig, who were still standing near the lectern, to join him.
Totse went to the map board, where there were two Belgian Army maps, one U.S. Army map, and one National Geographic Society map. He picked up a pointer, which had formerly been a billiards cue.
“My English is not so fine,” he announced. “Be so good to interrupt when understand me you don’t.”
There were some muted chuckles.
Totse pointed to the U.S. Army map.
“This is where we are, Costermansville, in Kivu Province,” he said, “at the southern end of Lake Kivu. We are pretty much in the center of Africa. This is the source of the Nile River . . .”
He moved the pointer.
“. . . just over the border in Rwanda.”
He shifted the pointer to the west.
“This is Stanleyville, in Oriental Province, where you arrived in this country. When this trouble began, a revolutionary named Nicholas Olenga, who originally referred to himself—without ever having been an officer—as ‘Major’ Olenga, then ‘Colonel’ Olenga, and who now calls himself ‘Lieutenant General’ Olenga, began operations in Albertville, which is here on the shore of Lake Tanganyika.”
He moved the pointer to show where he meant.
“The border between the Congo and Tanganyika runs down the middle of Lake Tanganyika.
“Now, in the beginning, Olenga’s rebellion was spontaneity—”
“Spontaneous, Alain,” Lunsford corrected him.
“Spontaneous, thank you, Father,” Totse said. “Olenga is a Kitawala, which is a cult mixing primitive Christian faith—they expect the return of Christ any day—with native gods. They believe they have Dawa, which protects them from being shot.
“Inasmuch as Olenga’s insurrection was unexpected, the Armée Nationale Congolese was not prepared for it. He took Albertville and marched on Stanleyville, and took that, and increased the size of his forces en route.
“Three things happened. It was necessary to request foreign assistance. A former British officer, Michael Hoare, who lives in South Africa, was recruited to form a mercenary force to resist Olenga and his Simbas. Hoare is a soldier, but he recruited his white mercenaries from the bars of the Belgian and French waterfronts. They are not soldiers. It is necessary for Hoare to shoot the insubordinate as a means of maintaining discipline.
“Olenga began to massacre Belgians and other whites in Stanleyville. The story that he cut their livers out and ate them is true. Major Lunsford was in Stanleyville and saw this.
“The Russians and the Chinese, who were apparently as surprised as we were at Olenga’s success, began to try to supply him with arms and people to train his men.
“Aware of what that would mean, and to save the lives of the Belgians in Stanleyville, the Belgians provided parachutists, and you Americans airplanes, to jump into Stanleyville. The Belgians also supplied troops under Colonel Van de Waele. Those troops, and Major Hoare’s mercenaries, succeeded in driving the Simbas from Albertville and Stanleyville. At the moment they are scattered, in small groups, all over this area, some in the bush around Albertville, some in the bush