SOON AFTER LAURENT KABILA took over Congo in 1997, he called Roman in for a meeting. "He asked me to get a small jet," Roman says. He bought the Sabreliner we're flying in now—and later a Gulfstream II—and became the unofficial official state pilot. Mobutu was out, Kabila was in; it was time for peace. But this was Africa, and the two countries that had helped Kabila were exacting their rewards in the east, sucking diamonds out of the country. Kabila believed his power was secure; in July 1998, with the stroke of a pen, he sacked his Rwandan chief of staff and ordered all Rwandans and Ugandans out of the country. The second Congo war began. Rebels allied with Rwanda and Uganda hijacked a 707, filled it full of troops, and flew it to Kitona, on the Atlantic coast. Within weeks they and other troops had marched on Kinshasa, cut power to the city, and taken over half the airport.

Kabila reached out to his neighbors, and Roman and Watson went to work. With power out and roads blocked, a helicopter plucked Roman from his house and flew him to the airport; it was shot down two flights later. Roman used the Sabreliner to shuttle generals to Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Sudan, while Kabila hunted frantically for troops and weapons.

"The airport was on fire, and the rebels had RPGs and American-made Stingers, so I'd take off in the dark at full power right on the deck until I was three or four miles out, then I'd streak to 13,000 feet." He flew to Johannesburg and back twice a day, 16 hours nonstop. That month he flew 180 hours in all. (In the U.S., the FAA limits commercial pilots to 100 hours a month.) The shuttling paid off: Troops and weapons poured in from Angola and Zimbabwe and Chad, flown by Watson, who carried more than 500 troops per load in a 707. Amid the frantic flights a Congolese diplomat named Kikaya Bin Karubi came face to face with Tim Roman for the first time.

"I was flying to Zimbabwe," Karubi recalls, "and I was asked by the president to look after the pilot, and I was shown Tim. I said, ‘What kind of pilot is this?' Laurent-Désiré Kabila had been a rebel his whole life. He was known for his anti-American sentiment, and this was a huge contradiction in my mind. I said to the president, ‘Who is this man? Do you trust him? He could be working for the CIA!' And the president said, ‘I trust him with my life.' Tim took many risks and flew many dangerous missions. He played an important role in our country."

Kinshasa was soon secure, but the old man's days were numbered. In 2001 Roman was downtown when his telephone rang. "There's a problem," said the caller. "Go to the airport. Now."

By the time he got there, rumors were flying: The president had been shot by one of his bodyguards and was hurt bad. "The airport was in lockdown," says Roman. "My mechanics ran away like dogs and my driver jumped out of the car at 50 miles an hour." Soon the phone rang again. It was Joseph Kabila. The old man was dead. "Don't move the airplane," he told Roman, "unless it's my voice." Roman sat in the plane for three days. When things finally calmed down, Joseph, at 29, had become the youngest president of potentially the richest country in Africa. Over the next few years Roman flew to every country on the continent—South Africa, Chad, Algeria, Libya, everywhere. "I met the colonel—Qaddafi—three times." And he made, he says, "millions and millions of dollars."