“Sir, I haven’t flown an L-19 in some time,” Matthews said truthfully.
“You came from where?” Father asked.
“Headquarters, Third Army, sir.”
“Been flying the brass around in L-23s?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re the one from the Big Red One?” Lunsford asked Dugan.
“Yes, sir.”
“And they have a lot of L-19s in the Big Red One, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got some recent L-19 time.”
“That means you don’t get anything to drink, I’m afraid,” Lunsford said.
“Sir?”
“At first light,” Geoff said, “you and I are going to try to drop some batteries into a clearing in the bush. So we’re shut off from the sauce tonight.”
Mrs. Ursula Wagner Craig came into the room. She was wearing a simple, crisp-looking, yellow dress.
“And this, of course, is Miss—Mrs.—Stanleyville of 1965,” Lunsford said. “Otherwise known as Mrs. Ursula Craig.”
The enormous black woman came into the room, snatched the infant from the floor, and left with it.
“And that is the one meanest black lady I have ever met,” Lunsford said. “The first time I met her, I came through that door”—he pointed—“doing my John Wayne act with a FN automatic rifle, and Mary Magdalene came through that one”—he pointed at the swinging door—“with murder in her eye, and a butcher knife in each hand. I have never been so scared in my life.”
“She was protecting the baby,” Ursula Craig said.
“Jacques said that when he got here,” the airline captain said, “she scared him out of his wits, and she raised him.”
“A word to the wise, therefore, gentlemen,” Father said. “Don’t cross Mary Magdalene. Understand?”
“No, sir,” Captain Dugan said. “With respect, sir, I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not sure I even know where we are.”
“Okay,” Lunsford said. “I’ll try to make this quick so we can eat. You read in the papers about the Simbas, the people who occupied Stanleyville, and most of this part of the Congo, until the Belgians jumped on Stanleyville?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Portet’s wife, Ursula, the baby, and Mary Magdalene were trapped here when the Simbas came. In this apartment. It belongs to Captain Portet. When the Belgians jumped, Jack Portet—he’s Captain Portet’s son and a Special Forces officer— jumped with them, and of course headed right for the Immoquateur because his mother and Ursula and the baby were here, presuming the Simbas hadn’t had their livers for lunch in the town square.”
“Father, my God!” Ursula protested.
“They wanted to know what’s going on here,” Lunsford said, unabashed. “I’m telling them.”
“Sir, with respect, and forgive me, Mrs. Craig,” Captain Dugan said, “but you’re not saying these people actually practiced cannibalism, are you?”
“Yes, I am,” Lunsford said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Sir, didn’t I understand you to say you were here, too?” Matthews asked.
Lunsford nodded.
“Then you jumped with the Belgians, too?”
“No. He was here when the Belgians got here,” Geoff Craig said. “He was running around in the bush with the Simbas.”
“We had Special Forces here then?” Matthews asked, genuinely surprised.
“And some people from the Army Security Agency,” Spec7 Peters said.
“And some people from the Army Security Agency,” Lunsford agreed, smiling.
“We often work with Special Forces,” Spec7 Peters explained with as much modesty as he could muster.
Craig and Lunsford exchanged glances but said nothing.
Geoff Craig had a flattering—from his perspective—thought: If that skinny little bastard—especially since he’s earned his jump wings—doesn’t get himself blown away over here, there’s no way he’s going back to the White House Signal Agency.
“Sir, what I don’t understand is what Special Forces is doing here now,” Matthews said. “Haven’t the Simbas been . . . broken up? Don’t the Congolese have the situation under control?”
“Well, if it wasn’t for Che Guevara thinking that the way to bring the joys of Communism to the rest of the world is by encouraging the savages here to eat some more white people’s livers, they would.”
“Ach, du lieber Gott, Vater,” Ursula protested, so unhappy and disturbed that she reverted to her native German.
“You’re not talking about the Cuban?” Captain Dugan asked incredulously. “The guy with the beard?”
Lunsford nodded.
“That’s hard to believe,” Dugan said.
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Lunsford said. “Write that down.”
“My God, you’re serious,” Matthews said.
“Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, M.D.—who naively thinks we don’t know—is at this very moment on a farm outside of Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, preparing to lead his quote ‘forces of liberation’ unquote across Lake Tanganyika into the Congo,” Father said.
“He’s a doctor?” Lieutenant Matthews asked incredulously.
“I’ll be damned,” Captain Dugan said.
“We have an ASA intercept team on him,” Spec7 Peters said.