the same name. They became Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa, when the new government renamed Leopoldville.
“At that time, there were two—yes, two—university graduates in Congo-Kinshasa. There were some other very bright people, however. Some were friends of mine. I had one particular friend, a fellow named Joseph Desire Mobutu, who had been a corporal in the Belgian gendarmerie. He loved to hear about the formation of the United States. I used to loan him books. He was really impressed with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
“As soon as parliamentary elections could be held, they were. Mobutu was at the inauguration. In his new uniform. He was now a colonel in the Congolese Army.
“Things promptly started to come apart. Katanga, where the copper mines are, could see no reason to share its wealth with the rest of the country and announced its secession under a lunatic named Moise Tshombe. The Congo’s second-richest province, Kasai, also announced its independence a couple of weeks later. A military coup broke out in the capital and there was rampant looting.
“The prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, turned to the Soviet Union for help. Khrushchev promptly started to send technicians and some really fancy weaponry to the Congo. They denied anything but honorable intentions.
“And we denied, of course, that we were sending weapons and CIA people to ‘advise’ President Joseph Kasavubu, even though that was about as much of a secret as the fact that it will grow dark when the sun goes down tonight.
“In my long government service,” Lorimer said, looking at Castillo, “I never saw a sitting U.S. President or heard from one. But the word going around then was that President Eisenhower was not going to tolerate the Russians in Sub-Saharan Africa and that he had decided that Nikita Khrushchev’s pal Lumumba was a bump on the road to international peace, harmony, and goodwill, and therefore had to be—to use the euphemistic terms I have heard so often since becoming friendly with Charley—whacked, terminated, eliminated.
“What happened was that in December 1960—this is six months after independence, mind you—Kasavubu overthrew the government. To make sure he wouldn’t come back, Lumumba was removed from the scene, it was rumored, by Colonel Joseph Desire Mobutu.
“When I asked my old friend, the great admirer of Washington and Jefferson, that he tell me the rumors were not true, his response was that it would well behoove me to keep my nose out of Congolese internal affairs, and further that it might be a good idea for me to request a transfer home before something happened that would force President Kasavubu to declare me persona non grata.
“I received the same advice from a co-worker at the embassy who I had reason to believe was getting his orders from Langley, Virginia. Consequently, I remained in the Congo as long as I could, another six months.
“Then, after an assignment to the Philippines, I returned in time for the tragedy at Stanleyville. That was August to November 1964. I left the day we jumped the Belgian Paras on Stanleyville; a large Belgian Army medical officer took one look at me and ordered me onto an airplane. Actually, he carried me onto it.
“I haven’t been back to the Congo since. But in 1965, shortly after by then-Lieutenant General Mobutu had become commander in chief of the Army and had appointed himself president for five years”—he looked at Svetlana a moment—“I was then political counselor in our embassy in Copenhagen; we must exchange opinions of what makes a really good smorgasbord when we can find the time”—he looked back at Castillo—“someone, who I suspect was the agency man who advised me to seek a transfer, apparently remembered that I had once been friendly with the general, and of course that I had been in the bush outside Stanleyville during the tragedy and I was proposed as ambassador to what was by then Zaire. The word quickly came that I was considered not acceptable. I later learned that my report on what had happened there was considered insulting to Congolese national dignity.”
He stopped, looked thoughtful, exhaled audibly, and finished: “Further deponent sayeth not.”
“Sir,” Castillo said after a moment, “please don’t misunderstand this. That background was fascinating, but what I hope you’ll tell us is what we can expect when we get there.”
“ ‘We get there’?” Lorimer parroted.
“Yes, sir,” Castillo replied, not taking his point. “Me and my team.”
The ambassador remained silent and glanced at the others as he considered his reply.
Then he looked at Castillo and said: “First of all, my dear friend, if
“As to what anyone else might find, if they were foolish enough to go to that area, it would be the sad remnants of a European attempt to superimpose their culture on the Congo. The Europeans, if I have to say this, are long gone. The airport—which used to have daily flights of Boeing 707 aircraft to and from Brussels—has been closed for years. There is rampant disease. And little or no electricity because little or no oil makes it up the Congo to power generators small or large. They would find stacks of decomposing bodies in the bush not unlike what the Khmer Rouge scattered around Cambodia. Need I go on?”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“The only way you could destroy that factory would be by air,” Lorimer said.
“We don’t even know where it is, within a hundred miles,” Castillo said.
“Oh, we can find it,” DeWitt said.
“ ‘We,’ DeWitt?” Castillo asked sarcastically.
“I thought this was an employment interview,” DeWitt said straight-faced. “You mean it wasn’t?”
“Charley,” Leverette said, “we could HALO a team, maybe just four, five shooters. Find the sonofabitch, paint it, and call in the Air Force.”
“You’d have to—” Castillo began. He stopped when a bell rang loudly, and then a telephone buzzed.
Lorimer picked up the telephone, listened, said, “Thank you,” and hung up.
“Someone else just happened to be in the neighborhood and is dropping in. Chief Inspector Ordonez.”
“Oh, shit!” Castillo said.
“May I suggest that Dmitri and Svetlana might be more comfortable if DeWitt took them for a ride around the estancia?”
“How about just putting them in another room?” Castillo asked. “This could just be a coincidence.”
“If you’d like to come with me, Svetlana, Dmitri?” Ambassador Lorimer asked politely.
“No rush. It’ll take him five, six minutes to get here from the highway,” DeWitt said professionally.
XIV
[ONE]
Estancia Shangri-La
Tacuarembo Province
Republica Oriental del Uruguay
1505 4 January 2006
Chief Inspector Jose Ordonez of the Interior Police Division of the Uruguayan Policia Nacional—an olive- skinned, dark-eyed man in his late thirties who was well-tailored—walked into the interior patio five minutes later.
“The door was open, Mr. Ambassador,” he greeted Lorimer politely. “I just came in.”
“You’re always welcome here, Jose. I’d hoped that I had made that clear when you last visited.” He gestured toward the table. “We’re just finishing lunch, but there’s more than enough—”
“That’s very kind, Mr. Ambassador. My day has been extraordinary, and I haven’t had my lunch.” He looked around the table, nodding.
“Good to see you, Jose,” Munz said. “Extraordinary, you say?”
Ordonez took an open seat at the table. “Quite. I began the day very early.”
“Is that so?” Castillo said.
