“The C-47s have more on their plate than they can handle, sir,” Charley said, “supporting Hoare’s mercenary force in their suppression of the insurgents in the Luluabourg area.”
“I’m sure that Major Hoare would be delighted to give up his air transport for a twenty-four-hour period if that meant the interdiction of a convoy of men and matériel intended to reinforce the insurgents he’s dealing with,” Lowell said. “I know I would.”
“Make the aircraft available to Major Lunsford,” O’Connor ordered.
“We won’t know where to hit the convoy until Colonel Supo makes that decision,” Lunsford said.
You mean, O’Connor thought, until you make that decision.,
“. . . which means,” Lunsford went on, “that we won’t know which of the airfields we’ll use until just before we use them. What we would like to do is send Portet to Kamina. He knows just about every field in the area; he’s landed at just about every field in the area.”
The translation of that is you want your guy at Kamina to make sure Charley’s aviation people “cooperate fully” with your request for Charley’s C-47s.
“Any problem with that, Howard?” Lowell asked.
“I can’t think of any,” O’Connor said. “Charley?”
“I was wondering, frankly, why you can’t use Portet’s—Air Simba’s—C-46s for this.”
“They’re being used, openly, under contract to the Congolese Army, to supply Colonel Supo’s forces,” Lunsford said. “And, of course, they’re supporting, covertly, our covert operations. Once we have the convoy in our hands, they can be used to take the prisoners to Stanleyville, and to distribute the war matériel wherever Colonel Supo wants it, but they can’t be used to transport a company of paratroopers; we need the C-47s for that.”
“Hoare won’t like it,” Charley said.
“It doesn’t matter what Major Hoare likes or dislikes,” General Mobutu said. “He is in the employ of the Congolese Army; he will take orders from the Congolese Army.”
“I presume that question is settled?” Lowell asked after a moment, then, when O’Connor nodded, added: “Go on, please, Major Lunsford.”
“Colonel Supo has some agents with the insurgents in the Luluabourg area,” Lunsford said. “The problem with them is getting their intel out in time for it to be of any use. The way Colonel Supo plans to deal with that is—with our assistance—to establish two outposts in the area around Luluabourg, one of the low land and the other on the plateau, which is five thousand feet above.
“We have reason to believe—Colonel Supo’s agents have told us—that Mitoudidi plans to retake Albertville, in Katanga Province, here”—he pointed to Albertville, which was at the midpoint of the shore of Lake Tanganyika—“because (a) it will give him a port for resupply from Tanganyika; (b) restore the credibility the insurgents lost when Major Hoare’s men ran him out of it; and (c) because he believes the Cubans will give him the necessary muscle to do so.”
“And you think he can take it back from Hoare?” O’Connor asked. “And what about the Congolese Army?”
“Colonel Supo,” Lowell said, “who, as I think you know, was recently given responsibility for Katanga Province, believes that he can keep Albertville from being taken again, with the forces he is in the process of moving there. If the Cubans participate in the attack—and Colonel Supo believes Mitoudidi will not attack without the Cubans—and that attack is a spectacular failure, Colonel Supo believes this will destroy the credibility of the Cubans with the insurgents, and the credibility of ‘General’ Mitoudidi with the Congolese people. The advantages of that, obviously, would be enormous.
“Going off at a sort of tangent,” Lowell went on, “Colonel Supo wants the Congolese Army—not Major Hoare’s mercenaries—to win quote ‘The Second Battle of Albertville’ unquote, which would make it clear that the Congolese Army has things under control without any outside assistance, and again, the advantages of that would obviously be enormous.”
And if you and your Green Berets aren’t “outside assistance, ” what the hell are you? O’Connor thought, and then he had a second thought: No. I’m wrong. The whole world knows about Michael Hoare and his mercenaries, and nobody knows about these Special Forces people. If they can help Mobutu and Supo to really hand Mitoudidi a licking, this arrogant sonofabitch is right, “the advantages of that, obviously, would be enormous.”
“So the problem is reduced, essentially,” Lowell said, “to make sure that Mitoudidi does lose the Second Battle of Albertville, and the way to do that, Colonel Supo believes, I believe, and Major Lunsford believes, is (a) to keep up the interdiction