by David Drake
Kelly had clipped one end of the antenna wire onto the receiver—length for length, a piece of supple copper worked just as well as a steel whip, and it was easier to transport without poking anything. Now the civilian took the six-foot power cord out of the other coat pocket and began looking for a wall socket.
“What is that?” asked Captain Laidlaw, poised over a chair at the corner of the general’s desk. “Some sort of debugging device?”
“No, just a radio,” said Kelly. “The general wanted to hear”— there was a socket directly behind his own chair—“Radio Moscow.”
“Put that goddamned thing down!” the Defense Attaché snapped. “Mark, sit down.” Pedler seated himself, breathing heavily and looking at his hands. The uncurtained window behind him looked along the Boissy d’Anglais. One of the roofs, a block or so away, might be that of the ETAP, one of the finest luxury hotels in Paris. Presumably Kelly would be put up in one of the block of rooms there which the embassy kept rented at all times for Temporary Duty personnel and high-ranking transients.
Kelly would be put up there if he decided to stay, at least.
“We—ah,” General Pedler began. “Ah, Captain Laidlaw here will brief you on the situation.”
Laidlaw smiled brightly over his crossed knees. “Well, Mr. Kelly,” he said, “what have you been doing since you left the Army?”
The civilian took out a multi-blade jackknife and began cleaning his nails with the awl. Without looking up from his fingers he said, “That’s my file there, isn’t it?”
“Ah—”
“Isn’t it current? Doesn’t it say I’ve been selling office equipment for Olivetti?” Kelly glared at Laidlaw. The captain’s eyes seemed focused on the glittering stainless steel of the knife.
“Well, it . . .” Laidlaw temporized.
“Look,” said Kelly, “that’s your quota of stupid questions for the day. You know about me or I wouldn’t be here. I don’t know a goddamned thing about what you want of me. You want to talk about that, I’ll listen. Otherwise, I’ll go back to Basel where at least I get paid to talk to turkeys.”
“I think I’ll take over after all, Mark,” said General Pedler with surprising calm. He met Kelly’s eyes. “How current are your Russian and Vietnamese languages?”
The civilian blinked and snapped the awl closed. “Not real current,” he said carefully, “but I can still communicate well enough, I suppose.” Wistfully he added, “I used to be Native Speaker level, 4-4, in both, you know . . . when we were monitoring the message traffic in. . . .” His voice trailed off.
“And your French?” Pedler continued.
“My French customers tell me I have a Corsican accent,” Kelly said with a chuckle, “and I once had an Italian wonder if I didn’t come from Eritrea the way he did. But nobody takes me for an American, if that’s what you mean.”
“You won’t need Italian for this mission,” the general said decisively. “Now, even though you were with a, ah, Radio Research Detachment in Vietnam rather than a combat unit—”
Kelly nodded calmly. “Right,” he interrupted, “I was with the National Security Agency then, just like I was up to five years ago.”
“But I gather you did have some combat experience,” General Pedler said. “I believe there was even a Silver Star. I know what that means, especially for an enlisted man as you were.”
Captain Laidlaw started to hand one of the folders to his superior. It was red-bordered and stamped Top Secret, unlike a standard 201 Personnel File. The Defense Attaché waved it off without taking his eyes away from Kelly.
“I’d admire to know what’s in that file,” the civilian said, but it wasn’t a real request. He looked at the wall, at a framed photograph of General Pedler as a younger man, grinning beside the nose of an F-100. “That was at Fort Defiance,” he said. “They named it that because they dug the Squadron in with a pair of 8-inch howitzers, right in the middle of War Zone C. They dared the dinks to come get us. They did, too; the Lord knows, they did that.” He caught the general’s eyes. “I didn’t get that medal for fighting. I got it because somebody had to guide in the medevac birds with a pair of light wands, and it turned out to be me. I guess I’m about as proud of that as I am of anything I ever did in my life, if you want to know the truth . . . but I’m not looking for a chance to do anything like it again.”
“We need,’’ the general said, “someone to manage the defection of a Soviet Bloc citizen in a third country. That will require a certain facility with languages, which you have; but that could be supplied by a number of other persons with active security clearances—yes, yours still is, Mr. Kelly. The—mission, Project Skyripper—the mission, however, must be developed with speed rather than finesse. As I understand it, your name was suggested by General Redstone, who had served with you at one time.”
Kelly broke into a smile. “That bastard made general? I’ll be damned! I’d heard the Special Operations Group was pretty much a dead end for your career in the brass. Seemed like the folks who’d been running missions into Laos scared the crap out of the War College types back in the World when they got a few drinks in them and started telling stories.” The smile broadened. “And Red has some stories to tell, that’s God’s truth.”
“You accept the mission, then?” broke in the Naval Attaché, still smiling to hide his discomfort.
Kelly shrugged restively, looking at the picture again. “Five years ago, the NSA decided it didn’t need a cowboy,” he said. His hands, unnoticed, were still playing with the red and silver knife. “Right now, this cowboy doesn’t need the NSA—or any other part”—he glared at Pedler—“of the fucking US Government. Oh, sure, you’ll pay me—but last year I cleared, what, $37,000 it’d come to, cleared it honest without anybody trying to grease me or throw me under the jail.” Kelly leaned forward in the chair, the words cracking out like shots. “If I want excitement—and I don’t—I can get that walking the Genoa docks. Anything in the fucking world I want, I want, and I can get it or I know a guy who can get it for me. What do I need the USG for now, except another chance to get the shaft? Why do I need you?”
“You don’t,” General Pedler said, his voice a calm contrast to the civilian’s spewing words and the anger growing on Laidlaw’s face. “You didn’t need a medevac bird in the jungle, either. You weren’t wounded. You don’t need your country at all; but she needs you. And that’s enough, or you wouldn’t have flown in from Basel when we contacted you. Would you?”
Kelly slapped the arm of his chair. “Don’t give me that crap!” he said. “The country needs a few wogs blown away, so let’s get Tom Kelly, he’s good at it? No thanks. I had my share of that sort of diplomacy before, remember? Get somebody younger, General. This trooper’s learned that the US doesn’t need that shit—and the world sure as hell doesn’t need it!”
The civilian thrust himself back in his chair, glaring angrily at both officers. To Kelly’s surprise, the Naval Attaché was nodding morose agreement.
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Kelly,” General Pedler said, “I had a very similar reaction when the project was first broached to me. Like you, I’ve spent a great deal of my working life outside the US proper . . . and I learned very early that you don’t work very well with foreigners if you think they’re all wogs. What changed my mind about the mission is the information I’m about to give you.”
“Ah, Wally,” said the captain, “do you think it’s a good idea to. . . .”
Pedler looked at the other officer. “Why yes, Mark,” he said with a trace of mockery, “I do think it’s a good idea to carry out this mission. That’s why I’m going to give Mr. Kelly enough background to convince him of the same thing.”
The Defense Attaché stood up and strolled to his window. “The counterintelligence boys check out everybody who rents a room over there that faces the embassy,” Pedler said, waving an index finger toward the Boissy d’Anglais. “They still want me to put up opaque drapes, I say screw’em. Didn’t join t
he Air Force to spend my life in a coffin. But a lot of things I say with my back to the glass.” He turned toward the civilian.
“Very simply,” Pedler continued, “a Russian scientist had found a way to destroy all US strategic weapons within seconds of launch. He had a particle beam device, you’ve probably heard mention of it before. The concept is simple, but a way to turn the concept into a weapon is something else again. It appears that the Russians have it. Fortunately, the hardware—the electronic nuts and bolts of the device—isn’t simple either . . . and that, the Russians haven’t got.” He paused.
Kelly stroked his jaw. “Okay,” he said. “They don’t have the gadget and we don’t have the gadget. I haven’t heard any reason to panic yet.”
“The reason,” said the general, and the intensity of his voice underscored his words more vividly than a mere increase in volume could have done, “is that the Russians will have the necessary manufacturing technology very shortly. If they can’t develop it themselves, they’ll get it from the West. Some nation, some private company or group of companies, will find it expedient to provide that technology. We live in a world, Mr. Kelly, in which nations as diverse as Libya and Israel find it expedient to send arms to the Iranians in their war with Iraq. The Russians will get their hardware. Within five years. There will be a nuclear exchange; and Mr. Kelly, only the Russian weapons will reach their targets.”
Pedler took a deep breath. “That is what will happen,” he concluded, “unless the Russian physicist who developed the weapon defects to the West, as he wants to do. As we want you to make possible.”
Kelly eyed the two officers as if they were in a police line-up. “You could be lying through your teeth, General,” he said flatly.
“No, Mr. Kelly,” General Pedler replied, “I don’t think I could—not to your face, not and expect to be believed. But if you want to think that somebody sold me a bill of goods . . . well, I can’t stop you from thinking that. All I can say is that I am convinced, or I wouldn’t be talking to you now.”
“Jesus,” Kelly said, rubbing his temples with his eyes closed. “Jesus.” Then looking at Pedler with none of the hostility of a moment before, “Look then, do I have . . . have full control of handling the thing if I take it on?”
“Well, if you want carte blanche,” said Captain Laidlaw, consciously trying to smooth the frown from his forehead, “that might depend on your definition of the term.”
“You’ve got my fucking file, don’t you?” Kelly snapped. “You know what I mean by carte blanche!” He looked back at the Defense Attaché and said, almost pleading, “Look, General, my skills—I’m not a diplomat. You say you need it quick and dirty, but . . . sir, it can get real dirty. And that’s the only way I can be sure to get it done. There’s people who wouldn’t make waves, not like . . . not like me.”
The Defense Attaché nodded. “That was considered,” he agreed. “But—you see, there were two plans for getting the hostages out of the Tehran Embassy,” he continued. “One of them was the CIA’s. Everybody knows that one; it’s the one they tried. Real slick. Minimum fuss and bother, minimum men and equipment committed so nobody’d make a big fuss in the UN afterward. That was one way.”
The general sat down again. Captain Laidlaw licked his lips nervously. “Ah, sir, I don’t know—” he began.
“If you don’t know, then keep quiet!” Pedler retorted. His heavy voice continued, “The other plan came from the JCS, and as it chance, I worked on it. I’d been Air Attaché in Tehran a few years before, you see.” The general’s thumb riffled a stack of papers on his desktop. “What we wanted to do was use a ring of daisy-cutters to isolate the compound—” Laidlaw frowned in puzzlement rather than disapproval. “Not a piece of Navy ordnance, Mark?” Pedler asked with a smile. “Fourteen-thousand-pound high-capacity bombs, then. They take two pallets in the belly of a C-130 to carry them, and when they go off, they can clear a quarter-mile circle of jungle for a landing zone. They’d have done the same thing to the buildings in the center of Tehran. We were going to use Rangers, parachuting in on MC-1 chutes and coming back on a Fulton Recovery System with the hostages.”
The general’s grin was as cold as a woman’s mercy. “That would have taken time, reeling in people who’d never used a snatch lift before. But it would have worked, which choppers couldn’t, not flying that far. And there would’ve been plenty of time. It’d have taken the rag-heads three days to bulldoze through rubble and bodies the daisy-cutters would have left.”
Kelly chuckled appreciatively, a sound that could have come from the throat of an attack dog. The hot glare of old emotions was making his palms sweat. “And when they got there,” he said, “they’d have found every mothering ‘student’ with his balls in his mouth, wouldn’t they?”
The general cocked his head. “That wasn’t part of the written plan,” he said.
“Sure it was,” the civilian said. “You made that decision when you decided to send in Rangers. Sure you did. . . .”
Captain Laidlaw was beginning to look ill. Both his spit-shined low quarters were flat on the floor. Pedler continued, “This operation is being handled through Paris instead of Rome because my opposite number in Rome refused to have anything to do with it. Well, maybe he was right. But I’ve been told that I’ve got a free hand, so long as the job gets done. And that means you’ve got a free hand, too, Kelly. So long as you come back with the goods.”
The civilian began rewinding his antenna wire to give his hands something to do while his brain worked. “You’ve got a full briefing set up, I suppose?” he said.
Pedler nodded. “Are you go or no-go?” he asked.
Kelly looked away and cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m go,” he said toward a corner of the ceiling. “In a month or two I’ll ask you if you still think you knew what you were doing. If I’m around to ask. But I’m go, provided you take care of one thing.”
Pedler’s face went as blank as a poker player’s. “Let’s hear it,” he said.
“Somebody may try to run an Article 15 through on the guy who drove me in today,” the civilian said. “Specialist 5 Phillips. I want the papers torn up—if there are any papers.”
The Attaché’s expression did not change. “What happened?’’ he asked. Captain Laidlaw was shifting uneasily in his chair.
“Nothing happened,” Kelly said. “That’s why I don’t want to see the guy shafted.” His smile flashed, as chill as a polar dawn.
“All right, Mr. Kelly,” the general said as he stood, “I’ll take care of it. And now that that’s settled, I’m giving you the only order you’ll hear for the duration: stay off the sauce. Period.”
Kelly snapped his eyes back to the Attaché’s. “I can handle it,” he said.
Pedler leaned forward with his knuckles lost in the books and papers littering his desk. “Don’t bullshit me, Sergeant,” he said. “I’ve worked with juicers all my service life. Some of them aren’t oiled all the time, and some of them work better than a lot of the rest of us even when they are oiled. But you’re not selling typewriters now. If you drink the way you’ve been doing since the NSA fired your ass, you’re going to get a lot of people killed and you’re going to screw up the mission. Do I make myself understood?”
Kelly stood up, thrusting the radio cord back in his pocket. “I hear you talking, General,” he said. “Now—I want a shower and a shave. Then we’ll get down to details.”
Pedler nodded toward the door. “Have Oanh look up Morley for you,” he said. “He was supposed to take care of arrangements. Report back to Room 302 here at”—he checked a massive wrist chronometer—“1500 hours.”
Kelly’s hands were full of his own gear, helping him suppress an instinct to salute. Sergeant. Well, he’d been one, a platoon sergeant when they booted him out. He’d refused all offers of warrant rank. Just didn’t want to be an officer, even a half-assed warrant officer. And now, by God, they needed him like they needed none of those brass-bound monkeys in the Pentagon
. They needed Tom Kelly.
When the door closed behind the civilian, the Naval Attaché coughed quietly for attention. General Pedler looked at him. “There’s something in this man’s restricted file that I think you ought to . . . note carefully, Wallie,” Laidlaw said.
“Well?”
“He, ah . . . it appears that when Kelly was in Vietnam he used to accompany troops on field operations as a matter of course,” the captain said. He flipped pages up over the binder clasp until he found the correct one, though the report was too clear in his own mind for any real need for reference. “Kelly’s duties, his assigned tasks at the time—this was 1968—did not require him to leave the base camps, of course.”
“So he did things he didn’t have to do,” the general said with a snort. “Probably did a lot of things he wasn’t supposed to do, too. That’s water over the dam—and besides, it’s just that sort of thing that gave him the background he needs for Skyripper.”
“No doubt, sir,” said Laidlaw acidly. “I’m sure there must have been some reason to decide that Mr. Kelly was qualified. In this case, however, Staff Sergeant Kelly—as he then was, accompanied a ten-man ambush patrol under a Lieutenant Schaydin. They dug shallow trenches and set up Claymores—directional mines—”
“I know a Claymore just as well as you do, Captain. We used them for perimeter defense ourselves.”
Laidlaw looked up. “Yes. They set up Claymore mines about 25 yards in front of their position. During the night, a sound was heard to the front. Lieutenant Schaydin raised his head just over the lip of his trench and detonated a Claymore. The mine had been turned to face the friendly positions. It sprayed its charge of steel pellets straight back in Schaydin’s face, killing him instantly.”
