“I feel that I have to raise the question of security.”
“This place is secure, Howard,” Lowell said. “With General Mobutu here, it’s probably the most secure place in the Congo.”
I didn’t tell this sonofabitch he could call me by my Christian name!
“I was referring to the ladies’ security clearances,” O’Connor said.
“Oh. Well, Howard, the ladies have Top Secret/Earnest clearances. ”
“But they’re not government employees, Colonel, they’re dependents. ”
“Major Lunsford, who granted the clearances, knew that, Howard,” Lowell said. “Anything else?”
O’Connor shook his head, no, but then asked, “Lunsford has the authority to grant clearances?”
“Three of us do,” Lowell said. “Colonel Felter, Major Lunsford, and myself. It’s all in order, Howard.”
“Mon general,” Lowell asked in French. “Would you like to say anything before we begin?”
Mobutu shook his head, no.
“Mon colonel?”
Supo shook his head, no.
“I understand you would like to have Major Lunsford take this over?”
“I have not the good English,” Supo explained.
“Major Lunsford?” Lowell said, motioning Lunsford to his feet and then helping him pull the sheet of oilcloth that covered the map over the top of the map board. Lunsford then stepped in front of the map. He held part of a billiards cue in his hand, to use as a pointer.
“Guevara and the other Cubans,” he said in French, “who entered the Congo on 23 April reached Luluabourg . . . here”—he pointed out Luluabourg with the cue—“in the early-morning hours of 7 May, yesterday. A second group of approximately 130 Cubans, under Captain Santiago Terry, debarked from the Cuban vessel Uvera in Pointe Noire, Congo Brazzaville, at 0600 6 May. Nineteen of them, under Captain Terry, were immediately trucked to the Congo River, near Matadi”—he used the pointer again—“and entered the Congo here, where they were met by Laurent Mitoudidi, who calls himself ‘general’ and is chef de cabinet of the revolutionary staff military council. . . .”
“May I ask, Major,” O’Hara asked in not very good French, “the source of your intelligence?”
“Colonel Supo,” Lunsford replied.
“We are not completely without intelligence sources,” Mobutu said, sarcastically, in French.
“We believe they will reach Luluabourg either today or early tomorrow,” Lunsford went on. “Orders have been issued to the roadblocks to let them pass.”
“May I ask why?” O’Connor asked.
“One,” Lunsford said, “nineteen Cubans aren’t going to make a perceptible change in the insurgent forces; two, this way, we’ll have all the Cubans in one place; and three, they will not be aware that we have them under surveillance. And, maybe, four: there were 130 men and a quantity of arms on the Uvera. Inasmuch as they think their route into the Congo is secure, they will probably use the same route to move both men and matériel in a truck convoy, bypassing the roadblocks when possible, and overrunning the roadblocks they can’t bypass. We’re working on a plan to have the convoy disappear.”
“Disappear?” O’Connor asked.
“We will surveil their progress from the entry point at the Congo River to Luluabourg. They don’t have many options so far as a route goes—it’s either National Route Five, Sixteen, or Twenty—and at the appropriate point, we will simply make the supply convoy disappear. The Cubans will be moved somewhere—probably Stanleyville—where they can be secretly court-martialed—”
“Court-martialed?” O’Connor interrupted. “Secretly court-martialed? ”
“International law permits the court-martial of armed foreign nationals detected in a country during an armed insurrection, with the intent of supporting the insurrection,” Lunsford said as if delivering a classroom lecture. “The details of the court-martial—court -martials—do not have to be made public until the insurrection has been suppressed, and law and order restored, when they are required to be furnished to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”
“In other words, you intend to shoot the Cubans?” O’Connor said.
“It’s my understanding, Howard,” Lowell said, “that with the exception of Guevara, whom the Congolese government, like our own, does not wish to make into a martyr, the Congolese government intends to court-martial any foreign national who comes to the Congo armed, and intending to join or assist the insurgents. What punishment will be meted out is, of course, something the Congolese will determine.”
In other words, yes, you’re going to shoot the Cubans.
“That’s one of the places where you, or at least your airplanes, come in, Howard,” Lowell went on. “Colonel Supo may have to move a company-size force in a hurry, and he’ll need your C-47s to do that. This plan presumes he’ll have access to three C-47s for twenty-four hours when he calls for them. Is there going to be a problem with that?”
O’Connor