Status Updates From The Katanga Run

But if Mike thinks Unione Miniere is the only player he'd be sorely mistaken. We see a short call between the leadership of Western; they've resolved that, if Lumumba can't deliver their concessions, they'll deny the resource market to their competitors by engineering a Civil War that will make mineral extraction in Katanga untenable. Capital sure is pernicious, huh?

Mike and Duclair head off for an arms deal in paris- Mike quickly is intimated with two things- one, the Unione Miniere has vast resources with which to acquire planes for Katanga's budding Air Service, and two, his hopes are a little too lofty. Most of the people in Tshombe's administration seem to only see him as Chantal's pet, and he won't end up leading their fleet. He's pretty dejected & humiliated.

Back to Kane, we find out that Lumumba has been rescued, but his rule over the Congo is one only in name; Kasa-Vubu and the army hold him more or less hostage. Kane and Suzy fuck the daylights out of eachother and Kane gets some information for his "troubles"- Barlow is being sent to Katanga & UN firmly behind Lumumba. He reports to IMEX & Western he'll explore concessions there to hedge bets on cross-congo contract.

-appear to have taken bloody vengeance on those who they believe helped set up the rebels' bushwhack. Mike feels a coil of disgust in him, and silently hopes Hermann wasn't in on it.

Back to Kane, we find out that Lumumba has been rescued, but his rule over the Congo is one only in name; Kasa-Vubu and the army hold him more or less hostage. Kane and Suzy fuck the daylights out of eachother and Kane gets some information for his "troubles"- Barlow is being sent to Katanga & UN firmly behind Lumumba. He reports to IMEX & Western he'll explore concessions there to hedge bets on cross-congo contract.

-and evacuate some of the wounded to Elizabethville, and he does without issue. Returning, he goes to Chantal and is taken off to a party with Tshombe et al, where he advises him to buy T6s for air support before hearing Lumumba's been overthrown by one General Mobutu- uh oh. The next day he flies again, headed to help with the bridge repairs, and finds the village a ruin, seeing corpses strewn about. The gendarmes-

He's able to sound off a warning just in time as the Baluba spring their trap, all twenty of them making a sudden charge as the column comes to a halt, a firefight breaking out between the surprised gendarmes and them. A few go down, but more of the rebels, and by the time those bearing spears and machetes reach the fore they're too depleted to overwhelm Hermann and the men around him. They tell Mike to come down-

Mike is assigned to provide overwatch for a few columns of Gendarmes slogging up into High Katanga; Baluba territory. They're headed to repair a bridge, and on the way he flies by a little village. Nothing seems amiss, but he can't shake the idea that something feels off- too calm, too at ease.. peformatively so. Just as the first column makes its approach he spots two dozen rebels in the bush by the road!

Kane manages to convince Lumumba to sign the agreement, but soon learns from a woman employee of ONUC named Suzy (who fucks the everloving shit out of him in his hotel room a bit after they party together) that Lumumba is planning to invade Katanga in support of the Baluba insurgency, having secured substantial soviet backing. Frightful stuff!

Mike arrives in the Katanga and visits with Chantal, discussing the job; rather unsurprisingly, the offer was a bit of a dupe. They want him to be a fighter pilot, not Tshombe's personal one. He also meets his new bodyguard, a beefy boer named Hermann Schmidt- the two watch the arrival of Hammarskjold in Elisabethville for a meeting with Tshombe, poised to evacuate if things go hot, but no violence occurs.

We find that Barlow has become something of a hotshot in the UN, rising through Canadian Civil service and being personally tapped by Hammerskjöld. An idealist as ever, Kane finds him useful, but rather irritating. After their meeting Kane gets Lumumba alone and with help from an aide (who he bribed) manages to get him to sign a letter of intent to give the concessions to Western.

--into an old face, though hardly an old friend. Barlow, the pilot who ratted Mike out and caused Kane to be drummed out. Barlow, seeming regretful, explains he now works for the UN and is helping to try to solve the painful crisis in the Congo. Kane considers swinging on him but thinks better and decides to fish for insights while chatting; I saw a bit of the next pages and it gets into Barlow's backstory.

Some timeskips. After 6 months in the US learning the mines, Kane is recalled and the bigwigs in Western/IMEX offer him a new job - wheel and deal for them across Africa, to secure newly-opened up mineral rights deals from the young nations. He proves to be quite good at it, and soon its 1960; he's courting PM Lumumba for the congo's rights while at the UN, but makes little headway. Before leaving, though, he runs-

Not a hugely eventful couple pages. Kane, drummed out of the RAAF, visits his employer at a mining company- he's informed the company is being taken over by an American conglomerate, and is convinced to go full time and travel to the USA to be the corp's attaché. He agrees and heads to Arizona, visiting a mine at Delphi ridge, seeing the mining process, and meeting the quite racist manager whose name I forgot.

-home, though, returning to Kenya. But the Congo calls once again! This time, a letter from Chantal, giving thanks.. and informing him that she talked Mike up to Tshombe and he wants to hire him to pilot for him!
Mike is drawn by the prospect but worried by the danger - he goes to Zog for advice, and Zog warns him war is coming. But Mike seems stuck on Chantal- he insists he has to go, and Zog reluctantly acquiesces.

-by the local commandant, who asks Mike to stay around and run more rescue flights. He's uncertain but is convinced to stay, which he does- the rescue flights are hardly enjoyable between weather and panicked passengers, but by July 18 - my birthday! - he's finished up. So it seems the Belgians were too, quitting in their thousands as UN forces came in and katanga declared independence. Mike is just happy to get-

-mentions the Berthouds in passing and - astonishingly - one of the women says the elder Berthoud is her brother! It seems Chantal reccomended him to the consul & Zog arranged he go.. without telling him, of course. The family prove to be.. not of Chantal's ideals, though, and they talk alot of shit about Lumumba. Fortunately he doesn't suffer their company long as they leave. Before he does too, he's called upon-

-this already rough trip to be complicated by the fact his plane actually had sustained damage from the gunfire! Oh well. It's fly or stick around with the mutineers. Even with a tank leak, he has enough to get to Rwanda, their preferred destination, and manages it without much issue. Zog isn't happy when informed but directs him to a repair agent before Mike heads off with the family, who buy him dinner. He-

-fire from the mutineers in the town. Soon enough, with direction from the truly terrified farmers via transistor, he finds the estate and lands in dicey conditions to find the four occupants- all drenched in rain. He decides he can bring them all, but without luggage, which they aren't pleased about.. but they're not enthused to stay either so they help him refuel w jerricans and gets ready to leave, but finds-

Mike continues to worry for the Berthouds, and it seems their paths might cross again- whilst they're not with the refugees coming to Nairobi, Zog asks Mike to fly to Katanga - at the request of the Belgian consul - to fly out a family of coffee farmers. He agrees and is soon off in a 180, from Tabora to Kigoma and then the town. It's a long, grueling trip, and gets no better as he has to avoid some small arms-

-parasidisial, before Mike and his parents call it a day. Before bed, though, Mike habitually listens to the news on radio and learns of a startling development- the army in Congo has mutinied! Mike seems quite worried and his mom browbeats him into discussing Chantal. Over the next weeks news only get worse- the govnment is collapsing entirely to the point Tshombe requests Belgian troops come to Katanga.

-trip burns away quicker than high-octane fuel, and soon Mike and the Berthouds go their separate ways- Mike is a little melancholic, having grown to like the family, Chantal especially, who insists he come stay with him should he ever come to the Congo, not that he ever intends to. Mike retires to his family's farm to rest for a while. We get some really nice descriptions of the property, which seems almost-

-him in. We learn that Chantal is personal secretary to one Moisé Tshombe, current provincial and future national president of Katanga. Chantal seems optimistic about independence- her mother fears violence. Mike shares Chantal's progressive nature & love for africa , and she's quite into that fact- her interest in his story - and him - is palpable but Mike, gentlemanly as he is, doesn't pursue that. The rest of the-

After submitting his flight plan, he takes one of the company's Cessnas - hardly a jet fighter like he flew before but still adequate - to the Mount Kenya resort to pick up his passengers, the Berthouds - Belgians - The daughter, Chantal, is a young woman of surpassing beauty who seems quite enamoured with flying; she sits up front with Mike and the group set off, enjoying a trip which the Berthouds happily include-

A few years later, Russell is now in Kenya, transporting tourists and safari-goers throughout the country by plane, having abandoned his accountancy & country after the accident. Even disgraced as he was, he found work easily under a Mr. Zegintov- Zog, as the locals called him - and his latest trip is an overnight from Nairobi to Mount Kenya, the Rift, Ngorongoro and then the Serengeti, transporting a family of 3.

He clips a tree with his wing and Mike can do little else but watch as his comrades plane explodes and disintegrates. After the accident, Mike is court-martialled and drummed out, while Kane is forced to resign and the squadron's parade is cancelled down to a one plane salute to it's ducal patron, largely due to Barlow's snitching on Kane, who seems a decent officer. Nobody seems very approving, ofc. What a calamity!

-coming with. The two are noticed by a rulesier pilot, Steve Barlow - a Canadian - but he says little. The group are selected by the squadron leader, Kane, to go on a weather flight prior to the squadron's final parade, but they divert from the plan and rush down into the gorge to underfly the bridge in spite of the conditions, wildebloode relishes in the opportunity and gets a little too caught up in the moment;

The book begins in January 1957, as two pilots in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, Mike Russell and Jake Wildebloode, plot one last flight; Their squadron is being decommissioned as a cost cutting measure in two months' time and they're looking to underfly a local suspension bridge that they'd been fantasizing about navigating for some time. Mike is hesitant, but Jake insists and sort of dragoons him into-