Читать книгу The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA - Richard L. Holm - Страница 4

The Boeing 707 jetliner streaked across the Atlantic. In my mostly unconscious state I had no idea where the plane was headed or that it belonged to the U.S. Air Force. I didn’t know that in its large, open compartment it carried, along with me, only a burn specialist, two nurses and a corpsman. I didn’t know that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had dispatched the flight at the behest of John McCone, the Director of Central Intelligence.

I also didn’t know that around my neck hung a crucifix on a silver chain, a parting gift of faith by a Belgian priest whose name I would learn later.

All I knew, vaguely, was that I was still alive. Four men had walked and ridden bicycles a hundred miles across enemy-held territory to reach help for me. A nameless Azande witch doctor had treated my wounds, protecting them from infection, dehydration and those relentless insects. Another Belgian—a doctor in Leopoldville—had refused to accept that my condition was fatal.

And somehow, some way, by my own stubbornness I had refused to die.