Congo - Into Africa

"Hey, boet," the EO office manager yells through the phone, "get your bags packed, we're sending a flight up to Lubumbashi tomorrow." And the next day I'm on a silver Sabreliner flown by the owner, a bombastic American soldier-of-fortune from New Jersey, who must have tipped the scales at something over 350 pounds. I'll call him Slim. Slim and the chunky co-pilot, a South African doctor on a jolly sabbatical as EO's medical officer, are up front and three more of us scrunched in the back between boxes of food and medical supplies. Across from me is Slim's American mechanic, Bubba, who appears offended by life in general and stares resentfully at the ceiling. The other passenger is a tall, shy and unassuming chopper pilot whom I couldn't help glancing at with awe. Here was the stuff of legend, a name I'd heard since my first faltering steps covering the wars of southern Africa. The holder of more serious medals than you could shake a stick at, this former South African Air Force pilot should have had the chiseled jaw and narrowed eyes of a Texas lawman. He didn't, but I'll call him Wyatt Earp anyway. So there we are, Slim, Doc Holliday, Wyatt, Bubba and your DP reporter, heading for the gunfight at the OK Corral

Most of my African war zones have been reached after days of being shaken to pieces in captured Russian trucks or rattley old Land Rovers crawling along dirt tracks in low gear. Let me tell you that a twin-engine little number like the Sabreliner is better. We streaked over South Africa and Zambia at something like 30,000 feet and 500 mph, then began to descend.

There on the horizon was Lubumbashi and the long runway built in the quieter days of colonial rule. Slim radioed the tower for landing instructions. The message came back to make a low pass for identification. For all his size and irritating bombast, Slim had a handle on his Sabreliner. He rolled in, dropped the nose, and screamed down one side of the airstrip. Half-a-dozen trucks squatted along its length. Anti-aircraft guns tracked us. Or would have if the crews had been awake. They weren't taking any chances on getting surprised with another Kitona-style surprise attack, no sirree. We circled until someone woke the drivers to move their trucks. I could see straightaway that this was a seriously professional African army. Those rebels had better watch out.

We shut down next to a Russian four-engine Ilyushin cargo plane. First stop was the Hotel Karavia, where we checked in behind the hung-over Russian flight crew, then headed down the potholed road to a walled villa where the EO officers had taken up residence. Once through the steel gate ("Jesus Christ, will someone wake up the guard..."), there was a certain down-at-the-heels charm about the place. The lawns were burned to a frazzle, the stucco was peeling, and bougainvillea vines threatened to rip the roof off. A swimming pool with dead frogs floating on a few inches of green scum dominated the terrace. A large cage at the back of the garden held two rare pygmy chimpanzees the South Africans had saved from the locals' stewpot. One, a sweet natured grandmother, loved grooming anyone who came near her. Oscar, the feisty young male, had his own way of showing interest - like leaping up against the wire and doing his level best to pee or jerk off on you. For a second I desperately wished Mark Rugged were here in his brand new safari suit, talking to Barb back in New York. "As you can see behind me, Barb..."

Inside, worn furniture and coffee tables overflowed with much-thumbed girlie, biker, tattoo and Soldier of Fortune magazines, as well as deeply philosophical paperbacks from the pen of the well-known author Anonymous. I could see that the one dog-eared copy of World's Most Dangerous Places was in good company. Then there were the tools of the trade: stacks of ammunition boxes and brand-new Kalashnikovs lying across neatly arranged combat webbing and rucksacks, all ready for instant donning. The ops room, jammed with radios and wallpapered with maps, was the sanctum sanctorum of Ian, EO's intelligence officer, a tall and cynical chum who saved my life in Sierra Leone. (Thinking I was being left behind in Indian Country, I'd leapt for a departing helicopter and was dangling by my fingertips a hundred or more feet above a rapidly shrinking earth, when he grabbed a wrist and hauled me inside. I like quick thinking folks.) Seeing him and the others was sort of like a college reunion, and over beer and barbecue we swapped lies and war stories. "I'll ask John Numbe, our DRC liaison, to organize an interview with Kabila tomorrow," said Tim, the senior guy. (Lest you're wondering, no EO names here are real. That was part of the deal. Anyone outside that circle, however, is fair game.)

Back at the Karavia I dove from the path of stampeding ladies bidding for Slim's attention. Greeting them with avuncular familiarity, Slim patted a steatopygious bottom or two and promised to invite them to a scholarly seminar in due season. The chorus of, "Sleem, Sleem, moi, moi," was diverted by the Russian flight crew entering the bar. The dark wave turned and washed towards the Russkies, who also seemed to be on close speaking terms with them. How strange, I thought, stepping into the elevator, I'll bet those ladies don't speak a word of Russian.

After a sleepless night of swatting mosquitoes and listening to giggles and slurred Russian through the paper-thin walls, I stepped out of my room to see a scantily-clad lady tapping at a door. "Niki?" she said softly. "Niki?" I wandered bleary-eyed downstairs for breakfast on the patio. Bubba appeared, silently took a chair across from me and stared resentfully at the menu. Then he stared resentfully at his coffee. "Nice day," I ventured. "So what?" Bubba said resentfully. It turned out that Bubba was one of life's victims. Whether deserved or not, I cannot say, but the Born Again would undoubtedly find a parallel somewhere in the Good Book. Seems Bubba had come to Zaire a few years earlier as an aircraft mechanic for one of those really big American televangelists. You'd know his name if I mentioned it, even if you never watched television in your life. You probably saw it on the front page of the National Enquirer while you were waiting in the check out line at the supermarket. EVANGELIST FOUND NAKED BEHIND ALTAR -"I was only explaining to these ladies how we're all naked in the eyes of the Lord," said the Reverend Billy Rabbit. I can't remember now if this TV preacher had dropped his wad on women, drugs, 100-foot yachts, or whatever else the gullible sent checks for him to do after praying for them, but he was down to his last million or so. So he had mounted an expedition to Zaire. Not to look for lost souls and convert the heathen, as you're probably thinking. Don't be silly. He was looking for diamonds to convert his bank account. Sadly, things didn't work out and he headed back to the gold mine of preaching to the pitiful. And, like the good Christian he was, forgot to pay Bubba or even tell him he was leaving. Just sort of slipped his mind, probably, though I'm sure he repented and asked the Lord's forgiveness later. But Bubba had more grit than you'd give him credit for at first glance. Taking a liking to the country, he started a couple of businesses, settled down and was doing all right. Then Slim hired him. But Bubba wasn't very happy. I don't think he liked Slim too much. Of course, I don't think Slim liked Bubba too much, either. In fact, there was sort of a poetic circularity of loathing about their relationship. But Slim needed his silver steed kept in flying condition, and Bubba liked the bucks. So I guess they were stuck with each other. Tripping back upstairs for my cameras, I saw the same lady still tapping at the door. "Niki? Coest moi, Niki."

Over at the villa, my Sierra Leone savior is plugging the latest intelligence about the rebels into his laptop. Tim, a taciturn former Special Forces officer, is waiting impatiently for a call from Commandante Numbe about the promised interview with President Kabila. A couple of the guys are sprawled on couches, looking at pictures of girls their mothers would not approve of, while others are outside working on their tans. For those who have never been there, 95% of a working merc's contract is spent waiting. And I wait with them. And wait. Meanwhile, at the back of the garden Oscar is leaping back and forth in anticipation of someone getting close enough. Back at the hotel, Emanuelle is still tearfully tapping. "Coest moi, Niki.-

Using schoolboy French, I persuade EO's Congolese driver to take me in search of Numbe. We stop at an office, which hasn't been painted or washed since the Belgians left in 1965, and I'm handed a form that has spaces for my name, place and date of birth, marital status, father's name, mother's maiden name, their places and dates of birth ... . It turns out that I'm filling in a request for Congolese citizenship. Seems my French is worse than I thought. We head for the airport. At the gate, guards level RPGs and machine guns at us. The driver leans out of his window and shouts. The guards shout back. The driver shouts again. More guards come running. By now we're surrounded by lots of shouting guards, all of them pointing guns. I shrink, wondering what the French is for, Say you're sorry, turn around and let's get the fuck out of here. Suddenly everyone is laughing at the little misunderstanding and we're waved through. To our left a long line of locals are ducking through the perimeter fence and climbing the stairs to the cargo hold of the Ilyushin-76. When not shuttling between Lubumbashi and Tripoli to swap diamonds for guns, the entrepreneurial Russians do a little private charter service to Kinshasa and back. They are packed in by the hundreds, it's standing room only and one poor soul without the fare sails out the door and lands in a heap twenty feet below. The crew huddle under the wing, glancing grumpily at their watches. Pilot Niki is late. Immediately in front of the passenger lounge is a hive of activity around three 727s wearing faded liveries. Sweating soldiers and forklifts are unloading pallets heavy with ammunition crates. My driver points at a uniformed Congolese officer supervising the operation.. "Voila! C˙est Commandante Numbe." Hooray, I think, hopping out with a winning smile. Numbe promises the interview to morrow, hisses at the driver to get me out of there, then turns back to calculating how much he's made on this little transaction. You'll probably be surprised if I tell you that he lied. But let's be fair. Would you spend valuable time telling your side of the story to a journalist when the main purpose of the war was to stuff your pockets? Get serious.

I'll spare you the subsequent excruciating details. Oh, I could include more snippets about all-night Russian drinking sessions, Slim's hijinks, Bubba's glowers, Rolex-encrusted Congolese officers who spent more time partying at the Karavia than preparing for war, and the philosophical Ethiopian flight crew whose 707 was grounded when an army truck crashed into a wing. My EO hosts, all professional warriors, suffered with me, but at least they were getting paid to wait. When it finally became clear that I might have to spend weeks here and still not have the story, I winged my way back to Pretoria.

By way of postscript, it turned out that I may have been luckier than I imagined. A respected Angolan journalist who arrived after me foolishly mentioned to Commandante Numbe that he was going to expose the sheer incompetence of the army. He has not been seen since. Two Hind gun ships were eventually provided by Kabila. They were so poorly maintained that one suffered mechanical failure and crashed. EO were finally given the green light to attack a strategic rebel stronghold, but the first two attempts saw their Congolese troops mutiny. On the third attempt, some 30 black and white South Africans had engaged the rebels (killing six Serbian mercenaries, it was later learned) when they were promptly attacked from the rear by the men they were leading. Fighting both rebels and "allies" simultaneously, they broke contact and scattered into the bush. Almost a week later, Wyatt found 13 of them from the air, but the second decrepit gun ship didn't have the power to lift them out. Kabila refused permission to send a recovery aircraft -- it was being used to ship his diamonds to waiting buyers, for goodness sake -- forcing EO to send in a rescue team on the ground. Learning the location of eleven more South Africans held hostage by their Congolese troops, EO launched an extremely dangerous operation that brought them back alive. By now it was clear that the army they had been hired to train and lead had no interest in being shot at. It was time to get out of Dodge. Numbe's threat to hold them was solved by locking him up and convincing Kabila that they needed a few days leave back in South Africa. Big Daddy, counting the millions he had already stashed in overseas accounts, couldn't be bothered by details, and gave them the nod. It was the last he saw of EO.

Which just goes to show that, like a war correspondent's, the life of even the best freelance warrior has its ups and downs. And can be damned inconvenient at times, too.