“Absolutely not.”
“Are you going to make a number of demands from the United States that must be met before I am returned?”
“Absolutely not at this time.”
“Do you think that the force of your personality is so great that you can convince me of your sincerity and your plans for your nation and that you can win me over to be a proponent of your cause during the rest of this short trip?”
“I believe that when you see my camp, and my army, and the people we are fighting for, that you will understand our cause and that you will soon be on our side. I understand that you were not pleased with your meeting with our illustrious President last night.”
“Not at all. He seems to be a drunk who enjoys watching young girls blow their brains out in a betting arena.”
A look of surprise and then disgust washed over Mojombo’s face. “He took you there?”
“He did, and two men had to carry him out after the girl died. He wasn’t faint with pity or remorse. He was stone-dead sloppy drunk and couldn’t stand up or walk.”
“That’s our boy, our glorious President. I also know that you were upset by the twelve million dollars his regime squandered and stole from the Farm Project.”
The Vice President chuckled again. “Mojombo, you don’t miss much, do you? Yes, I’m still angry about that. Not a lot of money in terms of some of the massive foreign assistance programs we have, but to have him simply steal it is unforgivable.”
“Do you know that we no longer have a national school system? Each province is supposed to have an elected school board and to build and run schools. Six years ago, President Kolda withdrew all of the federal money from the school system. The entire education system failed and over two thousand schools closed.”
“Switzerland?”
“Probably that’s where most of the stolen money goes. Or a half-dozen other safe-money countries.”
“Taxes. I’ll bet Kolda’s Administration is remarkably brilliant about levying and collecting taxes.”
This time it was Mojombo’s turn to laugh, but it had a bitter edge to it. “Absolutely right, Mr. Vice President Adams. He bleeds every bit of money he can from the people, and rewards them by raising the tax rates again. Nobody has any idea how many millions of dollars this man and his cohorts have stolen from my country. We probably never will know.”
Mojombo went forward and spoke with the captain at the wheel a moment, then came back. He brought with him the SATCOM that had been in the limousine. “I bet you know how to work this, Mr. Vice President.”
“I’ve seen it done.”
“We have detailed and complete operating instructions on working the SATCOM. We got it off the Web straight from the maker of the radio.” He grinned, clean white teeth flashing in his dark smile. “We try to be as efficient as possible.”
“I’m starting to believe you. We had a report that some terrorists attacked the city two days before we arrived. Stormed the Central Police Station and raided it for weapons, and then proceeded to slip into a large military post on the outskirts of town, where they stole two truckloads of weapons, ammunition, and food supplies.”
“You’re correct, Mr. Vice President, with the exception that the raiders were not terrorists, they were Loyalists. We were highly efficient on that raid, and lucky at the same time. They still haven’t realized that we are a solid military organization that won’t go away. Those supplies are part of our lifeline.”
“Why hasn’t that little general we met loaded up fifty boats and stormed up the river and wiped out everything that moved? He could do it with his twelve thousand troops.”
“General Assaba tried it two weeks ago, but he only brought fifty men in three boats. We had advance warning that he was coming. Our men were hiding in the trees along the river waiting for him. Fish in a barrel, Mr. Vice President. He tried to attack us, but we routed him with at least fifty-percent casualties. We had one man wounded in the leg, and no KIAs. He must have learned a lesson.”
“But could he come with a huge force?”
“Not with the boats he has now. He has no real Navy, and only six river patrol boats. He might move three hundred men if he was lucky. We could handle them, probably sink most of the boats with RPGs before he got within fifteen miles of our camp.”
“He knows that?”
“He should.”
Adams watched out the window, and saw that the boat turned into a tributary of the larger river. This one was much smaller, and the dense jungle grew down almost to the water’s edge on both sides.
“In a setting like this you might recall the missions you ran for the Navy on the Nam rivers,” Mojombo said.
For a moment Commander Marshall Adams was back on a Black Navy killer boat on a Nam river and the rifle fire coming at them from the dense growth was murderous. Not even their .50-caliber cutting swaths through the jungle with the large-caliber bullets could slow down the Vietcong firing. More than once they had to turn downstream and race away from sudden death.
Adams looked at Mojombo Washington. “You won’t tell me what to say on the SATCOM when I talk to the White House? You won’t advise or pressure me in any way?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good. How much farther to your camp?”
“Another hour, almost seven miles up this river.”
“It doesn’t look that deep out there.”
“This is a water-jet-powered boat,” Mojombo said. “It can keep moving in less than a foot of water. No propeller to worry about, just a powerful jet of water rushing out the tubes in back.”
Adams watched the young man. He was confident, he was intelligent, and he evidently had some military training. But could he lead a ragtag bunch of citizen soldiers in a virtual revolution against the entrenched and powerful current government?
“You must have had some military training.”
Mojombo nodded. “Yes. Since I wasn’t a citizen, I couldn’t enroll in ROTC at college, but they allowed me to audit any courses that I wanted to. I took them all, so theoretically I’m at least a first lieutenant by now.”
“You do plan ahead, don’t you?”
Vice President Adams heard shouting from the shore, and he looked out the window. There was a rickety dock along a strip of open land. He saw many fires and huts and one frame building.
The boat eased up to the dock. Mojombo went out of the cabin and shouted at the people. They shouted back and chanted something over and over again.
Adams went aft to see better. Quickly the people on shore brought baskets of goods to the boat and handed them on board. Mojombo spoke to the thirty people who had gathered at the landing. Most were men, but there were a few women and children. Adams had a feeling that the whole village had turned out for the event.
After Mojombo spoke, he moved back a step on the boat and waved. Men on the dock cast off the lines and the engine revved up, and the boat edged back into the current, then powered upstream.
Mojombo came back into the cabin smiling. He carried two cold Cokes with him, and handed one to the Vice President.
“Those are some of my supporters. Whenever we pass going upstream they give us food and any supplies they think we might need. There are a dozen or so groups like this along this river and the larger one downstream. You asked if the people would support a revolution. What do you think?”
“Impressive, Mr. Washington. It couldn’t have gone better if you had staged it for my benefit.”
“Do you think I staged it?”
Adams watched the black man. He had never grown up around African Americans. Over the years he had made some contact with the black caucuses and other black groups in his political dealings, but he’d never had a good black friend. He knew he had a lot to learn, and a lot of prejudices to unfetter that had been foisted on him by his parents. He tried hard to evaluate this situation.