In Search of Enemies - A CIA Story - John Stockwell

Disengagement [243]
while the F-27 was on the ground at Gago Coutinho, having
offloaded food and other supplies, the MIGs arrived. Each fired one
rocket on the first pass; one of them exploded under the right wing
of the F-27, and the other a few meters in front. The pilot and copilot,
who were in the plane, received minor wounds. As the MIGs made
their second pass, one of the French Hoods armed and fired an SA-7
rocket. It malfunctioned and plunged back to earth. A second rocket
spiraled into the sky, missing the jet. Direct hits destroyed the F-27.
After several more passes at the airport of Gago Coutinho, the
MIGs turned to attack the small column of vehicles fleeing to Ninda.
forty-five kilometers to the south. A rescue operation was quickly
mounted and the pilots were evacuated from Ninda to Runtu, South­
West Africa. The French Hoods went with them and made their way
back to France; twenty-two had eventually been sent into Angola at
a cost of over s500,ooo; two had been killed in action. Savimbi
disappeared into the Angolan bush. The CIA could have no further
contact with him because the European couple had also panicked
and fled with the French Hoods.
On the task force, the consensus was that St. Martin might be
disciplined for disobeying orders and losing the plane. The CIA was
now liable for a great deal more money than he could include in his
monthly accountings, and Congress was angrily examining IAFEA­
TURE. Worse yet, Jim Potts, St. Martin's tolerant supervisor at headquarters,
was away on a trip. Nelson and Colby had retired. The new
director was not a member of the club. St. Martin seemed to be in
a bit of a jam. Carl Bantam could not conceal his satisfaction as he
drafted the first of a series of cables which would bring his escapades
to a halt.
Betting began. Would St. Martin find a way out? I hedged. Certainly
he seemed to be completely boxed in, skewered by his own fine
hand, but in every previous confrontation he had proven more than
a match for headquarters. Even without Potts's presence you could
not rule out the possibility that he would find some way to wriggle
off the hook.
He made it look easy. A cable from Kinshasa ad vised us that
Mobutu was extremely upset about the loss of his plane and was
demanding s2 million dollars in restitution, or that the F-27 be
replaced by a Boeing 737 jetliner (costing approximately s15 million).
St. Martin, headquarters, and Mobutu knew a replacement for the