The Coup

By John Charles Gifford

In 1980, the world is teetering on the edge of darkness. The president of the Republic of Liberia, Charles Dunbar Cooper, is preparing to sign a treaty with the Soviet Union that will remove the presence of America in West Africa and signal the continued spread of Communism on the continentan event that both American and European intelligence agents are working to prevent.

CIA officer Tom Walsh is used to traveling to Monrovia as an undercover journalist who collects sensitive informationbut Walsh knows this trip will be unlike any before. Assigned to an operation with French intelligence agent Yvette Dubois to prevent the Soviet takeover of Liberia, Walsh knows they are under the gun. With just days to organize key members of the Liberian government and army and stop President Cooper from traveling to Moscow, Walsh and Dubois soon find nothing is going as planned.

One of their key players is assassinated while another is arrested and charged in a series of ritual murders. During a demonstration in the capital protesting the government crackdown on human rights, both civilians and soldiers are killed. The government foils an attempted coup and then must defend itself against another.

As the oldest republic and the most stable government on the African continent tumbles headlong into a maelstrom of nightmare and chaos, sucking in everything within its radius, two spies face the mission of their lives, leaving them to wonder if either will make it out alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475987744

John Charles Gifford

John Charles Gifford earned two degrees from the University of Minnesota, served in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Liberia, and taught high school for twenty-eight years in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He currently lives and writes full-time in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. Lovingate is his ninth novel and the fourth book in the Montreal Murder Mystery series.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 John Charles Gifford

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8776-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8775-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8774-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907565

iUniverse rev. date: 6/24/2013

Contents

Dedications

Acknowledgment

Day 1

Tuesday

April 4, 1980

1

Day 2

Wednesday

April 5

2

3

4

5

Day 3

Thursday

April 6

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Day 4

Friday

April 7

16

17

18

19

Day 5

Saturday

April 8

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Day 6

Sunday

April 9

29

Day 7

Monday

April 10

30

31

32

33

Day 8

Tuesday

April 11

34

35

36

37

38

Day 9

Wednesday

April 12

39

40

Day 10

Thursday

April 13

41

42

43

Day 11

Friday

April 14

44

45

46

Day 12

Saturday

April 15

47

48

Epilogue

Dedications

To Nuala,

who got to read only a few chapters of this book

but lived through much of it;

to Caoilfhionn,

who was the very best to come

out of my Peace Corps experience in Liberia;

and

to Louise,

who suffered through endless hours of me behind the

computer, puffing away on my pipe.

Thank you for your love and encouragement, without which

this book would not be possible.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Dr. Fred P. M. Van der Kraaij for his kind permission to use the historical and cultural information about Liberia contained in this book. His website can be found at http://www.liberiapastandpresent.org.

In areas of peaceful competition with the Soviet Union, we will continue to more than hold our own. At the same time, we are negotiating with quiet confidence, without haste, with careful determination, to ease the tensions between us and to ensure greater stability and security. We hope that the Soviet Union will join with us and other nations in playing a larger role in aiding the developing world, for common aid efforts will help us build a bridge of mutual confidence in one another.

President Jimmy Carter, 1977–1978

* * *

The Soviet Union has no interest in maintaining the status quo. It does not accept our soft definition of détente. To the Soviet Union, détente is an opportunity to expand its sphere of influence around the world. The USSR continues its drive to dominate the world. Meanwhile, the Carter administration seems confused and torn. We can see the brunt of the Soviet Union’s capabilities at work in … Africa. Our fundamental aim in foreign policy must be to ensure our own survival and to protect those others who share our values. Under no circumstances should we have any illusions about the intentions of those who are enemies of freedom. Our Communist adversaries have little regard for human rights because they have little interest in human freedom.

Ronald Reagan, March 17, 1978, Fifth Annual CPAC Conference Speech: America’s Purpose in the World

* * *

No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.

United States Presidential Executive Order 12036, signed on January 24, 1978, by Jimmy Carter

Day 1

Tuesday

April 4, 1980

1

Monrovia

2:45 p.m.

The idea of assassinating the president of his beloved country and seizing the reins of government had not come easy for him.

Major Joseph Togba was no fatalist. Indeed, he had always thought that human beings were quite capable of bringing about change themselves and that nothing in life was preordained. As a boy living in a small, remote village far up-country, his view had often conflicted with those of the elders. He had heard from young men in his village who had made the journey to Monrovia and returned for a visit that life was quite different, so one day, he left his family and his village and went to the city alone to create a new life for himself and to show those whom he had left behind that he was not fated to live a certain way. Unlike the others, however, he would never return to his village. He did not have to reach inside himself to discover the reasons behind the position in which he now found himself. They had been simmering on the surface his whole life.

He ran the palm of his hand over his forehead, brushing it lightly against the visor of his hat, pushing it slightly back on his head, and wiped the sweat on his khaki pants. The sun was already hot at midafternoon and promised to become hotter. As he walked to Monrovia’s main post office, he squared his hat on his head and did his best to focus his thoughts on what he had to do in the next ten days. Joseph was taller than most other Liberians, and there was a deliberate intention in his long strides.

Earlier, he had driven a military sedan from the presidential Executive Mansion, where he had his office, to the nearby army base. He had parked it there and was now walking the rest of the way because he wanted to use the time to reconsider what he was about to do. He was committed to his cause, but the stakes were extremely high, and he was not a foolish man. He had to be absolutely sure of himself. If he failed, it would mean his life.

He went down Lynch Street, passing under some deciduous sausage trees with their elongated fruit hanging over the sidewalk, and turned right onto Carey. He continued another block and then turned left onto Warren Street, where he saw a sign that read Deeper Life Bible Church outside a dirty white single-story building with a tin roof above a small porch. A thin man in a crisp, short-sleeved white shirt who was sitting on the porch looked up from the Bible he was reading and smiled at Joseph as he walked by.

Hello, my friend. Evening services begin at seven if you’re interested.

Joseph looked toward him without stopping and returned the smile.

No thank you. Perhaps another time, he said with a tone that suggested he was preoccupied with his thoughts. The man nodded at him and waved. Joseph continued down the street. Time was running out for him.

He should have been focused on the planning phase of the operation; instead, he found himself thinking about his family. He was painfully aware that if he failed, he would also be putting his family at risk of being murdered by the government, the mere thought of which had made him physically ill. He knew what the government was capable of doing. He remembered the joy he had felt the previous night being with his family. After a late dinner, before putting his children to bed, he had told them stories of fantastic animals that had taken over an enormous jungle. He and his wife had then shared some treasured intimate time together—talking, drinking wine, and making love. At one point, he had considered backing out of the conspiracy for their sake. But he had fought back his emotions and rationalized to himself that although the danger to them was real, it was minimal. Moreover, his cause was too great, so he had decided he would take a calculated risk and continue with the operation, being absolutely careful each step of the way. Now he wondered whether he was merely fooling himself.

He stopped suddenly.

He felt something taking hold of him. His throat tightened, his heart raced, and he became nauseated. He had first noticed these physical symptoms a month before, after Alexander initially contacted him via an unsolicited letter postmarked Paris. At first, it had been just a few furtive glances here and there wherever he went. Since then, it had become worse and included sleepless nights and bouts of vomiting. He had decided, however, to use this affliction to his advantage to help keep himself alert to possible dangers, but it took a great deal of energy out of him.

He turned around and looked down Warren Street to see whether anyone had been following him. There was a grassy island in the middle of the street, with trees large enough to provide shade. He saw two men sitting on the grass with their backs leaning against the trunk of a royal poinciana tree, its leaves starting to turn bright red and orange. He had just walked by without having noticed them. He cursed himself for making such a stupid mistake. Mistakes like that could put him and the operation in jeopardy. They were engrossed in conversation and not looking his way. They waved their hands in the air, apparently emphasizing one point or another, and were smoking cigarettes, which were dangling from their lips, bobbing up and down as they talked to each other. They were probably workers from a local business, taking a break and arguing over last night’s soccer game, he reasoned. But what if they weren’t? The uncertainty of not knowing for sure grated on him.

He looked to their right slightly without turning his head and saw an old man carrying a basket full of plantains slowly trudging down the street in the opposite direction, partially obscuring the view of a blue-and-white moped leaning against a stone wall. The man wore tattered shorts, a dirty gray T-shirt that must have once been white, and black rubber sandals. For a second, Joseph allowed himself to feel pity for him.

His eyes then darted to the left and saw a boy coming in his direction from farther down, skipping in the middle of the street on his side of the island and bouncing a small rubber ball. He then looked back at the two men sitting under the tree. They were still engrossed in discussion. Get ahold of yourself or this will kill you, he thought.

Satisfied that he wasn’t being followed, he turned around again and set his briefcase on the sidewalk, reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. He was exhausted. He took a long drag from it, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke back out. He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with his hand and then wiped his hand on his pants. He picked his briefcase up and glanced behind him one more time. The boy who had been bouncing the ball had caught up to him.

Geh me a ci-GAR-ette, will you, mista?

The major looked down at him. The boy had to cock his head back in order to see him. He looked to be about ten years old and was grinning at him, showing his white teeth, his hand over his eyes, squinting into the sun. Joseph reached back into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes, shook one out with one hand, and gave it to him without saying anything. The boy snatched it and ran off, bouncing his ball with the unlit cigarette in his mouth. Joseph smiled after him and then continued to walk toward the post office.

From Warren Street, he turned left. The post office edifice, with its high columns, came into view as he made his way toward the entrance. He climbed the marble front steps, dropping his cigarette on the sidewalk, and entered the building.

Once inside, he strode to the brass post-office boxes in the main lobby. He reached into his pocket and took out a key and opened box number 1047. He pulled out a large legal-size envelope and then closed and locked the box. He found a long, empty bench by a wall and sat down, sliding his briefcase between his legs. He quickly scanned the area, making a mental note of how many people were there and what they were doing. He saw only a few people, and they all seemed to be preoccupied with licking stamps and opening mail. He took a pen from his left breast pocket and used it to open the lip of the envelope. He immediately saw that the envelope contained US bills. He looked around the lobby again to make sure no one was looking at him. Assured that no one was, he looked into the envelope closer. One-hundred-dollar bills. Perhaps as many as fifty or more, he estimated. He looked for a note, found it, and read it. The instructions told him to be at the Café Malagueta in thirty minutes, where he would receive $100,000 to partially finance the coup against President Charles Dunbar Cooper. This money, he guessed, was a good-faith gesture. Things were starting to come together. He felt excitement well up inside himself just enough to ease up on his nerves.

Café Malagueta was just a few blocks east of the post office, at the corner of Broad Street and Carey. He had no illusions as to the perils he now faced. He reached down for his briefcase and set it on his lap. He unlocked it, opened it, and put the envelope containing the note and money inside. He closed it quickly and reset the lock. He stood up straight with his shoulders back and scanned the area once again for anyone who might be looking at him or for anything that seemed out of place. His attention to detail was in part the result of the training he had received with the American Special Forces at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, years earlier. The cadre had taught him that attention to detail was critical and could save his life. He had never forgotten that.

He brought his right hand to his waist, lightly touching his .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol reassuringly. What he was involved in required absolute vigilance. In ten days, he, as the commanding officer of the president’s personal elite security unit, was going to assassinate the very man he had sworn to protect. Nothing could go wrong.

He walked to the exit, down the stairs, and out into the heat of the West African sun once again.

* * *

In ten minutes, he was at the café and was shown to a table outside on the sidewalk facing Broad Street, which was busy with its usual afternoon traffic. The sounds of car engines, horns, and motorbikes were the background din of Joseph’s Monrovia. He sat at the wooden table with a white linen tablecloth across the street from a park, drinking a cold bottle of Club beer and smoking a cigarette. He had taken off his uniform jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. In a short-sleeved tan military shirt, his black arms contrasted with the whiteness of the linen. The major was a tall and heavy man, but he was physically fit and strong. Sitting at the table, he projected himself as a formidable figure.

Across the street, twelve boys were playing an unorganized game of soccer in the park adjacent to the Mesurado River, which snaked through the city. They were barefoot and wore short pants and tattered T-shirts that were dirty and frayed at the bottom. Someone had probably cheated, because there was a ruckus of loud shouts and intimidating gestures that boys sometimes made toward one another now and again to help maintain a pecking order among them, clearly as rigid as the military. Joseph watched the boys intently for a few minutes, squinting and shading his eyes from the sun with his hand. He laughed and took a swig of his beer. They’ll work it out, he thought. The game was too important for them to stop too long for one little row.

He put his cigarette to his lips again and deeply took in the smoke and blew it out his nostrils. He winced as the smoke drifted upward into his eyes. He no longer had the patience he’d once had with his government, which was being run by a tightly knit oligarchy of Americo-Liberian families. He was tired of the conspicuous nepotism and their unmitigated failure to bring corruption under control—and now President Cooper’s disgraceful pandering to the Soviets. Worse yet, there was no legal way for Liberians to change any of that.

He took another swig of his beer and looked across the street again toward the boys in the park and noticed the boy to whom he had given a cigarette. The boy was waving at him with that same big smile. Joseph waved and smiled back. He owed something to these boys, to their future.

He wondered whether Alexander himself would show up with the money or send someone else. After all the letters he’d received from him over the last month, he was eager to finally meet him. Although the previous letters had come to him by post from Paris, he knew that Alexander must be in Monrovia now, because the note he had received early that morning had his signature. It had been slipped under the door of his office in the Executive Mansion sometime before he arrived at work, instructing him to be at the post office at 1500 hours. But in the end, it really didn’t matter whether it was Alexander or someone else as long as he had the money that had been promised to him.

At the intersection to his left, he saw two men out of the corner of his eye, riding a blue-and-white moped on the street that passed by the café. He squinted as he watched them, shading his eyes with his hand. The two looked vaguely familiar. The second person, the passenger, held his right arm tucked in closely to his body. Normally, this would not have bothered Joseph, but these were not normal times. His training kicked in, and he told himself that the right arm of the passenger should have been around the waist of the driver of the moped, or at least his hand should have been holding on to the moped itself. Nothing too unusual, but again, it was attention to detail. Keeping his eyes on the passenger, he lifted the bottle of beer to his lips to finish what little was left of it, and then it dawned on him. His eyes widened. He stood up quickly, pushing his chair behind him. The bottle he had been holding fell from his hand to the cement sidewalk and shattered. He grabbed his .45, pushed the safety off with his thumb, chambered a round, and aimed at the passenger on the moped. Before he got a round off, he fell to the sidewalk in his own blood.

Day 2

Wednesday

April 5

2

Roberts International Airport

Harbel

12:10 p.m.

Pan American Flight 31 originated in Nairobi; picked up passengers in Accra, Lagos, and Abidjan; and landed safely and smoothly on the single runway at Roberts International Airport, Pan Am’s principal African hub, before continuing its milk run to Conakry and Dakar and then on to New York City. The runway itself was Africa’s longest and had been constructed and used by the United States Army Air Corps in 1942 as a base to run flights out of in their efforts at keeping the expansionist policies of the Axis powers in check.

After being in an air-conditioned 747 jumbo jet, Tom Walsh felt as if he were walking into a sauna as he went through the front exit of the plane and stood at the top of the passenger boarding stairs. As bureau chief for the French news service Agence France-Presse in neighboring Abidjan, Ivory Coast, he also covered the news in Liberia, so he was used to these short flights to Monrovia; however, he never managed to adapt to the stark contrast of temperatures between the plane and the outdoor heat and humidity. He took a deep breath, pushed his fingers through his hair, patted his khaki shirt pocket for his passport, making sure is was handy, and walked down the metal stairs, across the apron, and into the terminal building. Only a few people got off the plane at Roberts, so the line through customs and immigration went quickly. The agent looked up, recognized that it was Walsh, and immediately stamped his passport without looking at his picture and name.

Welcome back to the Republic of Liberia, Mr. Walsh, he said, smiling, showing his white teeth.

Walsh was out the front door of the building in no time.

He bought a copy of the Liberian Age newspaper from a boy at the front entrance, folded it without looking at it, and put it under this arm. Picking up his briefcase and suitcase, he was about to hail a taxi, when one pulled up in front of him. The 1973 rusted and faded yellow Datsun bore the motto Pray for all us sinners! in newly painted, bold black cursive writing on the back fender, near the door. All Liberian taxi drivers had a personal motto painted on their vehicles. The general populace expected them to have one, and it was a source of pride for the drivers. Walsh looked at the motto; said, Amen, to no one in particular; threw his bags into the taxi; and climbed in after them.

US embassy, Mamba Point, he said to the driver.

Right away, sir. The traffic on Tubman Boulevard through Congo Town going into the city was pretty heavy on my way out here, so it might take slightly longer. Do you have an appointment there at a particular time, sir? I could stop somewhere so you could use a phone.

No, that’s fine. Thanks, Walsh said, first looking at the back of the driver’s head and then at his eyes through the rearview mirror up front. He was surprised that the driver had used standard English—nearly American—rather than the more common Liberian dialect that he would have expected from a taxi driver. You American by any chance?

No, no, no, sir. He laughed. Just educated by them in Monrovia. The missionaries, you know.

Walsh glanced at the taxi license displayed on the dashboard on the passenger side and made a mental note of the driver’s name: Edward Blamo.

Walsh’s senior editor at the Agence France-Presse in Paris had had no idea when he hired him back in 1967 at the age of twenty-three that he would be employing a covert CIA officer with the National Clandestine Service who was in urgent need of a cover job in Gabon, as El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba was about to take control of the country. All he knew about him was that Walsh spoke and wrote French like a native, that this was to be his first job as a journalist, that he didn’t mind being isolated in the god-awful heat of sub-Saharan Africa, and that he came cheap. The job had been vacant for months. With the new president taking office, the French news agency needed to fly a journalist to Libreville right away to cover the events. Both Walsh and the news agency’s needs had been well served. He barely had time to pack. He had secured his cover in time for Christmas.

Now at thirty-six, with Gabon as well as Mozambique, Senegal, and Angola behind him, he was a seasoned field officer with well-established native agents in both Abidjan and Monrovia. He used these trips to Monrovia as a journalist to make contact with those he had recruited and nurtured, to collect sensitive information and pay them off. This trip to Monrovia, however, would be unlike any he had ever taken before.

The driver started the car, turned on the radio, and pulled out. The weather was tolerable for the tropics, and all the windows were rolled down. The taxi had air-conditioning, but in order to save on gas, the driver seldom used it. The temperature was eighty-five degrees, but there was a breeze blowing quite hard, which made it feel cooler than it was. It was all blue skies and nearly cloudless.

The ride into Monrovia, a stretch of about thirty-five miles, usually took about fifty minutes. The land near the airport was flat and cleared of trees. It looked like a construction project had been under way, but Walsh had seen the same thing when coming and going for as long as he could remember. Public moneys earmarked for particular jobs usually got eaten up by corrupt politicians before the government projects were completed, leaving a vast array of idle construction sites around the country.

The newly paved highway that snaked from the airport to the outskirts of the city provided comfort for those traveling on it, but because of the congested traffic beginning at the city limits of Congo Town, the ride suddenly became slow and bumpy. Parts of Tubman Boulevard were unpaved, and the paved sections into the city center were often not well maintained; chunks of cracked concrete protruded upward, forcing drivers to skirt around them like an