The telephone rang.

The President's secretary answered it.

The President held up his hand to silence Felter while he waited to see if the call was for him.

"It's the White House Signal Agency," the President's secretary announced. "For Colonel Felter. They have the Leopoldville secure satellite link open for him."

"Tell them to reschedule-" Felter began.

"What's that, Felter?" the President asked.

"Sir, I had a message from Major Lunsford saying that he had to talk to me," Felter said. "So I asked the Signal Agency to-"

"Meaning he's in trouble in the Congo?" Johnson interrupted.

"I think meaning, Mr. President, that Major Lunsford has something he considers important to say to me. Maybe he needs a decision from me. But if there was trouble, sir-if someone has been injured, for example-I think that would have been in his message."

"Huh," the President snorted.

"I'll reschedule the link, sir," Felter said.

"No," the President said. He looked at his secretary. "We can put that on the speakerphone, right?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

The President looked at Felter.

"Do not, do not, tell him where you are, or who's also here. I don't want him worried about saying the wrong thing."

"Yes, sir."

The President pointed to a second telephone on a coffee table, and pointed at the couch beside it. "You sit there, Felter, and talk at the telephone; you don't have to pick it up, just push the speaker button."

"Yes, sir."

He sat down, still in his rain-soaked raincoat, and pushed the speaker button.

"Felter," he said.

"Sir, we have your secure satellite link to Leopoldville. You have eleven minutes, twenty seconds of sat time left."

"Thank you," Felter said. "Open it, please."

He pushed a button on the chronograph on his wrist.

"You there, boss?" Lunsford's voice said, having been sent into space and bounced back off a surveillance satellite, then relayed to two speakers mounted on the walls of the room in Camp David.

"How are you, Father? What's on your mind?"

"I need some more stuff, some more money, and your permission to kill the company man, and I need it yesterday."

The President looked at the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which was frequently referred to informally as "the company."

"Tell me about the company man," Felter said.

"The sonofabitch thinks he's Eisenhower," Father said. "He sits on his fat ass in the embassy and draws arrows on maps."

"That's the problem?"

"The problem is, he's making assets available only to projects of which he approves. That means he's got jeeps and three-quarter -ton trucks in a fucking motor pool in Leopoldville, while we're-including Colonel Supo-riding around in requisitioned trucks, or walking. But, far fucking worse, the sonofabitch has the B-26s, the T-28s, and the C-47s in his fat little fingers and he told me flat out there is no way he's going to let us use them. And we need them, Colonel, if this thing is going to work."

"I'll see what I can do," Felter said, and looked at the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"If I had my druthers, I'd rather have permission to stick a spear up his ass and feed his corpse to the crocodiles," Father said.

"What else, Lunsford?"

"I need at least two more-four would be better-L-19s and two pilots for each."

"I'll speak with General Bellmon as soon as we're off, and get back to you."

"And twenty fixed-station transceivers, fifty backpack radios, and plenty of batteries for them."

"That can be arranged," Felter said. "What about the money?"

"Supo wants to buy information and dead Simbas with money, which in the bush means gold coins."

"How much are you talking about?" Felter asked.

The President picked up a telephone and spoke softly into it.

"Twenty-five thousand right now, and more later," Lunsford said.

"I think that can be arranged," Felter said.

"This link will shut down in fifteen seconds for a higher priority, " the White House Signal Agency operator announced. "You are rescheduled for fifteen minutes at 2210 Zulu."

Felter looked at the President.

"The Signal Agency guy tells me that's when the next satellite will be available," the President said. "In about an hour and ten minutes. I think that should give Felter enough time to explain all of this to us."

"Mr. President," Felter said. "May I respectfully remind you, sir, that Major Lunsford, at your orders, was not aware that anyone but me was on this end?"

"He's one mean sonofabitch when crossed, isn't he?" the President said. "I'd really hate to have him threaten to stick a spear up my rear end." He paused. "Brief us on what's going on over there, Felter."

"Yes, sir."

"You going to need a map?"

"I'd like to have one, sir."

"Get him a map," the President ordered. "And while that's on the way, Felter, get out of that wet raincoat."

Two sailors, a chief petty officer and a seaman first class, quickly replaced the maps of the Dominican Republic and Santo Domingo on a very elegant polished-wood, tripod-mounted map board with a map of the Republic of the Congo and its environs, then lowered a sheet of acetate over it.

Felter saw that the map board was equipped with grease pencils in four colors and a pointer. As he picked up the pointer, he saw that it bore an engraved plaque: PROPERTY OF THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS.

He guessed, correctly, that the CNO had planned to use the map to describe how the Marines would go into the Dominican Republic. And he guessed, again correctly, that the Chief of Naval Operations did not particularly like a lowly colonel in civilian clothing using his map board.

[image]

"The insurrectionist forces," Felter began, "known as the Simbas, are commanded by a self-appointed Lieutenant General Olenga. The Communists-not the Simbas themselves-refer to them as the Lumumbist Forces, after the late Patrice Lumumba, who, it is alleged, was assassinated in 1961 at the orders of Mobutu. So far as I know, Lumumba never laid eyes on Olenga.

"Following the Belgian jump on Stanleyville, and the roughly simultaneous military actions by the Belgians and the mercenaries of Major Michael Hoare, the Simbas were pretty well scattered all over these four provinces-Equatorial, Oriental, Kivu, and Kasai."

He used the pointer to indicate the locations of the several provinces.

"About the only effective Congolese officer dealing with the problem has been Colonel Jean-Baptiste Supo, like Mobutu a former sergeant major in the Belgian Force Publique. As of about ten days ago, Supo has been given responsibility for all the provinces, and our augmented Special Forces team is attached to his headquarters in Costermansville, which is over here near Tanzania.

"Colonel Supo believes that the bulk of the on-the-run Simbas are in the vicinity of Luluabourg, in Kasai Province. Even these people are not well armed, as the Belgian jump and the Belgian/Mercenary advance took place before the Soviets could organize a supply operation.

"Colonel Supo believes that the Cubans, when they arrive in Africa, will join the Simbas in the Luluabourg area, and that their first priority will be to first better arm, and then train, the Simbas.

"There are two possible routes for the passage of arms and men into the ex-Belgian Congo. One is through the ex-French Congo, Congo Brazzaville, and the other is from Tanzania.

"Colonel Supo believes that by concentrating his forces against the Simbas around Luluabourg, it will make supplying the Simbas from Congo Brazzaville very expensive, and that they will therefore use Tanzania.

"Using what frankly slender forces he has in Oriental, Equatorial, and Kivu Provinces, Colonel Supo plans to reduce or eliminate the pockets of Simbas, and interdict the supply of men and materiel from Tanzania with the assistance of Special Forces Detachment 17, as follows: "There are at present in the Congo a Beaver, two L-19s, and an H-13, and Major Lunsford, as you just heard, has requested two, preferably four, more L-19s. The aircraft are available, but we're having trouble finding enough black pilots and maintenance personnel. I gave General Mobutu my word that I would see that as many of our people as possible would be black."

"You're telling me, Colonel," the CNO said, "that you think you can patrol-and interdict men and materiel-in an area that huge with half a dozen spotter planes and what, forty men?"

"Yes, sir. Both Colonel Supo and Major Lunsford believe this can be done. With some help from the black B-26s and T-28s presently under the control of the company. We have no choice. President Kasavubu has publicly stated he will not have an American military presence in the Congo."

"I'd love to know how," CNO said.

"We are going to establish small outposts at dirt strip airfields at roughly fifty-mile intervals, from Basoko, west of Stanleyville, through Stanleyville, down to Costermansville, and then down Lake Tanganyika past Albertville to the Rhodesian border. There are apparently a large number of primitive airfields in the area, built by farmers and mercenaries, and not shown on aerial charts."

"How do you know this?" the Chief asked.

"One of the officers was formerly a pilot in the area, sir."

"A Congolese, you mean?"

"No, sir. An American officer. One of the two white Special Forces pilots. He was recently married to General Bellmon's daughter."

"I'll be damned," the Chief said.

"At each airstrip there will be a small detachment of Congolese soldiers, a supply of avgas and lubricants, and a radio able to maintain contact with our aircraft in the area, and with at least one other airstrip on each side. At every third or fourth airstrip, there will be a Swahili-speaking Special Forces soldier, and a platoon of Congolese soldiers.

"Until aerial reconnaissance was made available, Colonel Supo's forces have had great difficulty in locating the enemy, who can move two hundred yards off the roads and become invisible. Now they can be found, and kept under surveillance until ground forces can make contact."

"And you don't think the-what did you call them, Simbas?- are going to take out your outposts once they know what they're up to?"

"Colonel Supo believes that once they come to understand that as soon as an outpost learns of their presence, either accidentally, or by having friendly natives inform the outpost-and obviously Major Lunsford believes that twenty-five thousand dollars in gold is going to buy some friendship-or, especially, by attacking an outpost, that they will thereafter immediately become the hunted, that the outposts will be avoided at all costs."

"And how many of your outposts will have been overrun before they get that message?" the Chairman asked.

"That will probably depend, sir," Felter said evenly, "on how fast and how hard we can react when the first one, the first two, are attacked. I suspect that it is why Major Lunsford wants access to the T-28s and the B-26s. The only aerial gun platform he has available to him is the H-13, on which he can mount a couple of air-cooled Browning .30-caliber machine guns. He plans to bomb the Simbas with a technique developed in Vietnam. You pull the pin on a fragmentation grenade, and then place it in a quart Mason jar. The walls of the jar keep the firing mechanism from operating. The Mason jar is then dropped from an L-19. If the jar shatters, the grenade is activated."

"Jesus Christ!" the President of the United States said.

"And since the outposts are all on, or next to the few roads that pass through the bush in that area," Felter went on, "this will also deny the roads to the enemy as supply routes."

"You seem to be placing a hell of a lot of faith in the ability of this Major Lunsford," the Director said.

"It's well-placed," the President said. "Major Lunsford ran around in the jungles for four months passing himself off as a Simba. He's quite a character."

"There are certain things Supo's men cannot handle without assistance," Felter said. "They are short of transportation. The more jeeps and three-quarter-ton trucks they have available, the quicker they can respond to the detection of the enemy, and the easier they can keep the outposts resupplied. I wasn't aware that the agency had vehicular assets in the Congo. If I had been, I'd have asked for them. As it is now, I am flying in jeeps on our chartered 707.

"Tactically, if Supo can call on our-the agency's-black B-26s and T-28s when they encounter a large enemy force, or to interdict boats attempting to move men and materiel across Lake Tanganyika, it will make his job that much easier."

"I've heard about enough of this," the President said.

"Sir?" Felter asked.

"When you arrived, Colonel Felter," the President said, "we were discussing whether I should order sending the Marines or the Eighty-second Airborne Division into the Dominican Republic. In either case, we are talking about thousands of men, hundreds of transport airplanes."

"Yes, sir?" Felter asked.

"I don't like the picture I'm getting of one of Lunsford's men all by himself in the middle of an African jungle, having to worry, if he's attacked, if anybody's going to come help him," the President went on. "So I'll tell you what's going to happen."

"Yes, sir?"

"When that satellite comes on again, Felter, you're going to get on the horn with Major Lunsford, you're going to give him my best regards, and you're going to tell him I said he's going to get everything he asked for. And then you, Paul, are going to tell your man over there that if I ever hear he didn't give Lunsford whatever he asked for, I will stick a spear up his ass myself."

[ THREE ].

The Office of the Ambassador The Embassy of West Germany Washington, D.C.

0900 2 April 1965 "Good morning, Erich," the ambassador said to the embassy's military attache. "What have you got for me?"

They were both slight, trim, bald men of the same age who wore spectacles. They looked so much alike that when both were to attend a diplomatic reception, Colonel Erich Steitz, if at all appropriate, tried to wear his uniform, to preclude his being called "Your Excellency" and/or "Mr. Ambassador," and the ambassador being called "Colonel."

"A von Greiffenberg-gram, Your Excellency," Steitz said with a smile, and held out to him two sheets of paper.