MICHAEL CRICHTON

Apparently, Captain Munro found humoring tourists uncongenial; by 1960, hewas reported running guns from Uganda into the newly independent Congo. AfterMoise Tshombe went into exile in 1963, Munro’s activities became politicallyembarrassing, and ultimately forced him to disappear from East Africa in late1963.He appeared again in 1964, as one of General Mobutu’s white mercenaries inthe Congo, under the leadership of Colonel “Mad Mike” Hoare. Hoare assessedMunro as a “hard, lethal customer who knew the jungle and was highly effective,when we could get him away from the ladies.”*Although more than nineteen thousand people were killed in the Mau Mauuprisings. only thirty-seven whites were killed during seven years of terrorism.Each dead white was properly regarded more as a victim of circumstance than ofemerging black politics.Following the capture of Stanleyville in Operation Dragon Rouge, Munro’sname was associated with the mercenary atrocities at a village called Avakabi.Munro again disappeared for several years.In 1968, he re-emerged in Tangier, where he lived splendidly and wassomething of a local character. The source of Munro’.s obviously substantialincome was unclear, but he was said to have supplied Communist Sudaneserebels with East German light arms in 1971, to have assisted the royalistEthiopians in their rebellion in 1974—1975, and to have assisted the Frenchparatroopers who dropped into Zaire’s Shaba province in 1978.His mixed activities made Munro a special case in Africa in the 1970s;although he was persona non grata in a half-dozen African states, he traveledfreely throughout the continent, using various passports. It was a transparentruse: every border official recognized him on sight, but these officials wereequally afraid to let him enter the country or to deny him entry.Foreign mining and exploration companies, sensitive to local feeling, werereluctant to hire Munro as an expedition leader for their parties. It was also truethat Munro was by far the most expensive of the bush guides. Nevertheless, hehad a reputation for getting tough, difficult jobs done. Under an assumed name,he had taken two German tin-mining parties into the Cameroons in 1974; and hehad led one previous ERTS expedition into Angola during the height of the armedconflict in 1977. He quit another ERTS field group headed for Zambia thefollowing year after Houston refused to meet his price: Houston had canceled theexpedition.73