Thank you for each stately tree;
Thank you for each lovely flower—
Through all these, you speak to me.
The poem sounded like something my grandmother would have cross-stitched.
A second plaque was mounted beneath the first.
Welcome all!
This gardener supposes
You can pick your noses
But not my roses.
That sounded like something I would have said—in middle school.
The gate had no lock. I opened it and entered.
I didn’t see anyone along the side of the house, but I heard water running behind it. I followed the path and rounded the corner to find the garden continued across the back of the lot.
An older man in brown Bermuda shorts and a khaki safari shirt held a hose spraying water across a rose bush laden with blossoms. He wore a wide-brimmed hat for sun protection and gloves to guard against the thorns. But what caught my eye wasn’t his head or hands. Extending below his left knee was a prosthetic device, perhaps a generation or two before mine. You didn’t need to be a detective to understand why Chief Warrant Officer DeShaun Clark was able to locate Chuck McNulty through his disability checks.
“Mr. McNulty!” I called his name loud enough to be heard over the water.
He relaxed his grip on the sprayer, and the stream ceased. He turned to me. His wrinkled, tan face broke into a welcoming grin. He was about my height, five nine or five ten, and trim and fit.
He laid down the hose. “Damn aphids. Tricky to wash them off without destroying the blooms.” He took off his gloves and offered his right hand. “Chief Warrant Officer Blackman. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
His hand was calloused, and I wondered if he even needed the gloves.
“Sam’s fine. My military days are over.”
He looked down at my left pant leg. “Are they? I took the liberty of doing a little background check on you. These computers are something these days, and I still have a few contacts. If I heard correctly, we’re not only brothers-in-arms, we’re brothers-in-legs.”
I laughed because he expected me to. It was a corny joke, obviously from the same mind that penned picking noses, not roses.
“Well, you can call me Chuck.” He reached in the bush behind him and retrieved a walking stick. “My leg’s pretty good. It’s my balance that’s a little shaky. Something for you to look forward to.”
I surveyed the garden. “It’s amazing what you’ve done here.”
“Thanks. I get my exercise without straying too far from home. The leg bothers me a little more. Guess my skin’s getting thinner. My daughter keeps pushing me to go back to the VA and get something that might be a little more comfortable. But what I’ve got now is adequate for what I do. I’d rather see the military spend the money on the men and women coming home wounded who have a whole life ahead of them.”
The tough set of his jaw told me he firmly believed what he was telling me. In only a few moments and few words, the man had won me over.
I pulled up my left pant leg so he could see the articulating metal ankle. “This is what I got. I call it my Cadillac.”
“Your Cadillac?”
“Yeah. The ‘ride’ is smoother. I have a second leg I dubbed my Land Rover. It’s for more rigorous activity. I can run on it pretty well, but it’s a little stiff for day-to-day use. The Cadillac might be right for you.”
McNulty laughed. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll ask for a Buick. Seems to be the car for folks my age. You know I just turned eighty.”
“You don’t look a day over seventy-nine.”
He laughed harder and then slapped me on the back. “Just what I’d expect from a chief warrant officer. No bullshit.” He headed for the back door. “Come on in. My daughter was by earlier and made up some fresh lemonade and pimento cheese sandwiches. No sense eating out when we can have more time to talk here.” He paused a beat. “In private.”
I followed him into the kitchen.
“It’s only a little after ten,” he said. “If it’s OK with you, how about a cup of coffee, and we’ll have lunch after a while.”
“Fine. Black, please.”
We took our mugs into a small den. The room was more of a library with bookshelves on three walls, a couple of armchairs with strong lights beside them, and a velvet love seat. A feminine touch to a masculine decor. Light classical music came from somewhere.
“Alexa, stop,” he shouted.
Immediate silence.
“Thank you.” He smiled. “Isn’t that amazing? And I can’t help but say thank you when she does something for me. I read an article that kids today aren’t learning manners because they order people around like they order their devices.”
He gestured for me to take one of the armchairs. “Well, you didn’t drive all the way here to listen to me complain about the younger generation. You’re here about Eddie.”
“Yes. Specifically as he might tie into his brother-in-law, Frank DeMille. But why don’t you start with what you’d want me to know about Eddie?”
McNulty nodded and took a long sip of coffee. Then he sighed and set the mug on the floor beside his prosthetic leg. “Well, he was a helluva guy. That’s what I want you to know. And smart as a whip, although he had a great gift for a man so blessed.”
“What was that?”
“He listened. I mean he really listened. Not only to what was being said but the context and the consequences. And he didn’t just see, he observed, as the Sherlock Holmes saying goes.”
“Listening and observing. A good combination for an intelligence officer.”
McNulty smiled. “A good combination for a chief warrant officer. Eddie was a couple of years younger than me. He could have had a desk job in the Pentagon as an analyst, but he wanted to be on the ground. And he was prepared. He had learned some Vietnamese and some of the Montagnard languages.”
“Those are the mountain people, right?”
“Yes. Indigenous people before the Vietnamese migrated there. They were loyal allies and saved many a shot-down pilot from enemy capture.” McNulty shook his head. “It’s a crying shame the way our government abandoned them. But then look at the way we treat our own veterans.” He gave a quick glance at my prosthetic leg.
I wondered if he’d researched me enough to discover my testimony before a congressional committee deploring the conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. It was the event that got me shipped off to the VA hospital in Asheville and away from the media lights.
“Can you tell me what you and Eddie were listening and observing for?”
“I don’t see any harm after all these years. We were tied to the Kit Carsons.”
I gave him a blank stare. Obviously, I’d missed something about his war in my military history studies.
“The Kit Carson Scouts,” he explained.
“The only Kit Carson scout I know is the guy from the Old West.”
“Right. He was a scout and a tracker. Our Kit Carson Scouts were NVA and VC deserters.”
I knew NVA stood for North Vietnamese Army and VC abbreviated Viet Cong, those who lived in the South but rebelled against the South Vietnamese government.
“The Marine Corps first used them in the 1960s. The Marines are foolhardy enough to try anything. In exchange for amnesty, the deserters actively joined our side. They knew the hidden trails, the VC hidden among the innocent villagers, the signs of booby traps like trip wires and pressure plates, and the locations and movements of advisors.”
“Advisors?”
“Yes. Chinese and Soviet. They not only supplied arms but their own intelligence. Of course, there was always the possibility that a deserter was still working for North Vietnam. The new Kit Carson Scouts were heavily monitored, but the percentage of those still in the enemy’s camp was small. Many of the sco
uts made great contributions and suffered casualties working for our side. Many more Americans were saved, and the Marine program was so successful, it expanded into U.S. Army operations.”
“That’s what you were doing in 1971?”
“Yes. Specifically, we were charged with seeking out Chinese and Soviet advisors on the ground—and that ground wasn’t always Vietnam.”
I did know enough history to understand McNulty meant secret incursions into Cambodia and Laos, incursions our government vehemently denied. No wonder Chuck McNulty’s and Eddie Gilmore’s missions were highly classified. Embedded with Kit Carson Scouts and army platoons, had they taken out—the euphemistic word would be neutralized—some of these Chinese and Soviet advisors?
These operations, especially outside of Vietnam, would be highly sensitive. The Soviets would deny their presence, and we would deny eliminating them. No wonder the file was still classified after all these years. Now that I understood the background, I was ready for the war story.
“So what happened?”
“We were up country. Eddie and I were embedded with a platoon of seasoned combat veterans still within the borders of the Vietnams. Three Kit Carson Scouts were with us. The lead scout, Nguyen Van Bao, a former NVA officer, had heard through the villages’ network that two Soviet advisors had been seen with a party of NVA regulars. Bao spoke excellent English. He said he could lead us to the most likely spot to intercept. Bao had proven himself in previous operations, although we’d never confronted either Soviet or Chinese personnel.
“We were moving quickly and had made camp for the night. The platoon leader, a Lieutenant Norris, had told his men he would set an extra watch, given our location. As dusk deepened, I realized I hadn’t seen Eddie since Norris issued his orders. We had a twelve-man platoon plus three scouts and Eddie and me. Seventeen total. I thought maybe Eddie had stepped off a few yards into the underbrush for a whiz. But no one should move outside our camp perimeter. I asked Norris for an escort to accompany me in looking for Eddie.
“We saw his body lying off the side of the path. He had evidently backtracked, maybe to piss, maybe to check for any overt sign that we had passed this way. Eddie was always careful.
“And I made a stupid mistake. I ran to him.”
I winced, anticipating what his mistake had been. “Booby-trapped,” I whispered.
McNulty nodded. “Yes. But not the body. A trip wire to a grenade on the path about fifteen feet in front of it. Simple, but highly effective.” For a moment, he stared down at the metal device in place of flesh, bone, and blood. “At least Eddie’s body wasn’t mutilated by the blast. My comrades carried me to a spot where a chopper could evacuate us. I lost consciousness somewhere along the way.”
McNulty picked up his cup and had another swallow of coffee. I held my tongue, letting him tell the story in his own time.
“I came in and out and wasn’t in a fully conscious state until they were prepping me for transfer to a hospital ship. No one would tell me anything.” He smiled. “That is until a chief warrant officer named Len Axelrod showed up. He asked me what happened. What did I know about Nyugen Van Bao? Had I ever heard Eddie speak about a doctor named Jean Louis Caron? I refused to answer his questions until he told me what happened to Eddie.” His smile broadened. “I guess I don’t have to tell you how tight-lipped a chief warrant officer can be. But I held to my advantage. He told me Eddie had been garroted.”
Garroted. The word jarred my ears like a clanging gong. Garroted. A silent assassination in a war zone where you expected the enemy from the outside, not within.
“The Kit Carson Scout Bao,” I said.
“The one Eddie trusted the most. He’d been a rat all along. And he murdered Eddie and disappeared. Over the years, I’ve thought about how we were taken in. The Kit Carson Scouts were a real asset for our troops. More than two hundred died in service. Eddie just happened to connect with the wrong one.” McNulty paused and shook his head. “No, I don’t think it was coincidental. Bao knew we were intelligence officers. He ingratiated himself. In Saigon, he would run errands for Eddie. In hindsight, I should have noticed that he kept himself aloof from the other scouts. And I’d found him in Eddie’s quarters several times, but he’d claim to be getting something Eddie needed or taking something to post. As for that last mission, I believe he led us to a place where he could kill Eddie and then safely cross into the protection of the NVA.”
“But why? Why then?”
“Maybe Eddie was onto him. Suspicious about something he didn’t share with me. Chief Warrant Officer Axelrod told me Bao had been seen visiting this French doctor in Saigon, Jean Louis Caron. He was later proven to be a spy.”
“For the North Vietnamese?”
“No. For the Soviets. He’d been working for them since Vietnam was a French colony.”
I began to see the implications. “Bao could inform him where your next patrol would focus. They could be clear. But why not have the NVA attack you?”
“Bao had cultivated his relationship with Eddie. It was more valuable to keep that going. And there was the very real danger that Bao could be killed in a firefight.”
“Something drastically changed the priorities. Did Eddie say anything about his brother-in-law?”
“No. But Chief Warrant Officer Axelrod did. Eddie had requested a meeting with him. They’d spoken briefly by radio phone as Axelrod was investigating alleged civilian casualties caused by our troops in another province. Eddie said he would send him a summary of his request.”
“That summary was probably his report on whatever his brother-in-law Frank DeMille brought to his attention. Passing the information to someone who was an investigator would have been the logical move. That person could evaluate the situation and then inform the FBI if appropriate.” I thought about McNulty’s statement that Bao was often in Eddie’s quarters and ran errands for the officer. “Bao could have seen the letter Frank DeMille wrote to Eddie.”
McNulty nodded. “If Eddie asked Bao to take his summary to Axelrod’s quarters, Bao very well could have gone to Caron instead. Axelrod claimed he never received Eddie’s report.”
“What network of spies could coordinate murders half a globe away?” I asked. “Not the North Vietnamese.”
“No,” McNulty agreed. “And I don’t think Eddie was killed to protect Bao. I think he was killed because DeMille’s letter set off alarm bells for Eddie, and he’d find out that Chief Warrant Officer Axelrod never received his report. From what you’ve told me, I believe the key to the whole thing is the link from Bao to Caron to the Soviets to DeMille.”
McNulty’s assessment sounded far-fetched, but Eddie Gilmore had been murdered, and his report hadn’t reached the intended recipient. So the scenario he sketched wasn’t impossible. What it did mean was that if the Soviets had directed Frank DeMille’s elimination, they surely wouldn’t have used Bobby or Danny Case as their agents. It also meant whatever was worth protecting in 1971 was still worth protecting today, long after the Apollo missions and Soviet Union were history.
I voiced my skepticism. “How do you know that whoever killed Eddie didn’t take Bao captive? They could have wanted to make a public spectacle in front of their own troops of what happens to someone who deserts and joins the Kit Carson Scouts.”
McNulty leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes narrowed. “Because I’ve seen the bastard.”
“You’ve seen him? Here in the States?”
“No. A couple of years ago, when the trade policy of our country went haywire, Vladimir Putin made a trip to Vietnam in an effort to increase commerce between Vietnam and the Russian Federation. CNBC carried a news story as Putin met for photo ops in Hanoi. And there he was. Nyugen Van Bao, now the defense minister. Of course, he’d aged, but you don’t forget the face of the man who blew off your leg.”
“No, you don’t.” I flashed back to that moment
I learned my wound had come at the hands of corrupt U.S. soldiers and not an ambush by Sunni insurgents.
McNulty gave me a strange look, hearing in the tone of my voice that he’d struck a nerve.
“Clearly, the embrace Putin gave Bao wasn’t a formal nod or handshake,” McNulty said. “The former KGB agent and the traitorous Kit Carson Scout had a history, and maybe that history involved shared knowledge of Dr. Jean Louis Caron and the assassination of Eddie Gilmore. I saw that scene and wrote a letter to my congressman, but now that Vietnam is a trading partner, no one is interested in opening old wounds.” McNulty threw up his hands. “I’m afraid I’m not much help.”
I sat quietly for a moment, my mind whirling as I tried to put the pieces together. There was no proof of anything, just this man’s story that provided no concrete connection to Frank DeMille. I was left with conjectures. This was dangerous territory where you were tempted to adopt a theory and then interpret the facts to support it. Build a case that was a house of cards and see one wrong assumption bring it crashing down.
“This Frank DeMille,” McNulty said. “He must have worked with classified information.”
“Computer code and programming as it related to the Apollo project. If you can’t track your astronauts, you have no space program. Evidently, DeMille was a computer genius.”
“So you think someone was copying and stealing the work?”
“If we rule out a domestic angle, then yes. And if the connection was Soviet intelligence, then a threat that they learned about in Vietnam must have triggered an assassination in North Carolina.”
McNulty nodded. “They had a mole—a mole in the Kit Carson Scouts and a mole in the tracking station. Even though the Soviet Union is no more, the Russian Federation is still run by thugs. And computer data is more valuable than ever. My guess is they still have an agent in place and the motive isn’t to cover up a crime in the past but rather an ongoing crime in the present. Where’s the FBI in all this?”
The former intelligence officer had crystalized the events into a workable hypothesis. Moving from the Case family as perpetrators to an international spy ring certainly moved the investigation from Sheriff Hickman, Sheriff Browder, and Newly and Efird into the highest priority for the FBI. There was no question about sharing information with Special Agent Lindsay Boyce. And the three persons who spanned the decades were Joseph Gordowski, Theo Brecht, and Randall Johnson. Was Johnson silenced because he had been bought by the Soviets? He wasn’t a scientist himself, but as a maintenance man, he could have probably gone anywhere. Now, no longer needed, he was a liability. He could be guilty and still have been murdered by person or persons unknown because he transformed from being an asset to being expendable.
Murder in Rat Alley Page 19
