Thomas replied, “and we as soldiers obey our orders even if we do not understand them.”
“Yes, Major, sir,” Jette said. “But what if he is killed by the paras?”
“Then you and I will still be in trouble,” Thomas said. “Life is not fair, my friend.”
“No, it is not, Major, sir,” Sergeant First Jette agreed solemnly.
“You and I will be side by side on the roof,” Thomas said. “I will tell you which of them to shoot. You are not to shoot anyone unless I tell you, you understand?”
Jette nodded.
“Let’s go,” Thomas had said, getting out of the jeep and then reaching in the back for the cased sniper’s rifles, a rucksack, and a backpack radio.
The mercenary sergeant in charge of the power station guard detail was standing in the dark by the door of the power station. He was a short, stocky Frenchman with a pockmarked face.
Thomas had met him the night before, in Bendera, when finalizing the plans for the defense of the city and the hydroelectric plant with the mercenary commander, Major Michael Hoare.
Hoare knew that Thomas and the two Americans who had come with Supo’s elite paratroopers were Americans and Green Berets, but that information was not shared with any of his officers or men. If Hoare suspected he was dealing with a master sergeant, a sergeant first class, and a staff sergeant, rather than a major and two captains, he gave no sign.
He was actually very charming—Thomas had liked him at first sight—and completely agreed with the plan for the defense of the city and hydroelectric plant Supo and Father Lunsford had drawn up, but not before he had studied it carefully and asked what Thomas thought were intelligent questions about it.
There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that the Simbas had spies all over the area, and that the Simbas knew many—perhaps most—of the details of Hoare’s defense plans. The spies would immediately report anything out of the ordinary to the Simbas. It was therefore necessary to keep from both Hoare’s mercenaries and the regular Congolese troops that there was a ninety-percent certainty that the power station would be attacked at first light, and Bendera itself, once the power station had been attacked and reinforcements had been sent to defend it.
The Congolese paratroopers had moved into the area in trucks with their tarpaulins in place, and there was no reason to think that anyone knew they were in the bush, and would move into their positions in the predawn darkness.
But the mercenary sergeant who would be in charge of the guard detail at the power station from 0600 had to be told that “a Congolese officer and his sergeant” would go into the roof of the building before dawn, and Hoare had sent for him, and told him.
The mercenary sergeant had made it clear that he did not like the idea of having a Congolese officer and a sergeant first on “his” roof, especially when Major Hoare told him it was none of his business what they would be doing, and, further, that he was to do whatever Major Tomas told him to do.
Hoare had picked up on the concern in Tomas’s eyes, and when the mercenary sergeant had been dismissed, asked him if something was bothering him.
“I’m wondering, Major, if I have to tell that guy what to do, if he’ll do it.”
“He will do it,” Hoare said. “I’ve ordered him to do it.”
Tomas had still looked doubtful.
“We instill a high degree of obedience in our enlisted men by a swift system of punishment,” Hoare explained conversationally. “The first instance of disobedience is punished on the spot by shooting them in the fleshy part of the leg. The second instance, we shoot them in the forehead. Sergeant Taller has already been shot in the leg. By me.”
Jesus H. Christ! He means it!
“I suppose that would work,” Thomas had said.
“Good morning, Sergeant,” Thomas said, in French, to the mercenary sergeant. “I didn’t see you standing there. And I guess you didn’t see me; otherwise you would have saluted.”
With obvious reluctance, the mercenary sergeant saluted, and Thomas returned it.
“It will not be necessary for you to tell your men that we are here,” Thomas said. “Just show me how to get to the roof, and keep everyone off it until I tell you otherwise.”
The mercenary sergeant nodded.
“What have you got in those long cases, Major? Rifles?” he asked.
“I could have sworn I heard Major Hoare tell you that what we’re doing is of no concern of