Johnny Mad Dog by Emmanuel Dongala

Author:Emmanuel Dongala
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2002-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Johnny, Known as Mad Dog

Obviously, things were more complicated than I thought. After those UN soldiers threw us out of the compound, I figured I could simply call Giap and explain the situation. Giap in turn would call our new head of state; the president would send troops to back us up; and in the blink of an eye we could empty the compound and at last root out the Chechens who were hiding among the refugees. Well, it didn’t work out like that.

First, it wasn’t easy to reach Giap. When I finally got hold of him, he told me to hang up and he’d call me back right away. A quarter of an hour later, he still hadn’t called. I waited another ten minutes while my anger mounted. The asshole! What did he take me for? If he didn’t get back to me in five minutes, I was damn well going to call him so he could hear what I had to say, and I wouldn’t mince words! We couldn’t stay here indefinitely, cooling our heels in front of the compound where those Mayi-Dogo killers were sitting around so peacefully . . . Five minutes passed . . . Okay, I was going to call him. I stepped away from the others so they couldn’t overhear the conversation. I checked again to verify that five minutes had passed. They had—six whole minutes, in fact. I punched in the number but hung up before it rang; you should always give people a second chance. I would allow him five more minutes and then I was going to—My cell phone rang. I jumped and pressed the talk button. It was Giap.

He sounded preoccupied. He explained that the city had not been entirely pacified and that there were still pockets of strong resistance. It was thought that the Chechens had foreign mercenaries fighting with them and that the mercenaries’ planes might even bomb the city. Our job was to surround the HCR camp to make sure that no one came out and, at the same time, that nothing—no food, no medicine—could get in.

My unit consisted of only about fifteen commandos. I didn’t see how we could prevent armed men, like the UN soldiers I’d seen inside, from entering and leaving the compound whenever they pleased. I needed reinforcements. I told Giap that I hadn’t seen anything of Idi Amin and his commandos, though he said he’d sent them to help us prevent people from taking refuge in the embassies. Giap replied that he couldn’t reach Idi Amin—maybe the guy’s phone was broken or the batteries were dead. Instead, he was going to tell Savimbi to leave the Sarajevo district and come to back us up. I would have preferred him to send Snake instead, but it made no difference. I didn’t have anything against Savimbi. We’d been Mata Mata together in the old days, under the command of our great leader Giap.

I thanked him, and said that of course I’d be

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