by Eric Helm
“You mean, if anything goes wrong, we could shift the blame onto Maxwell?”
“Why not? That Kit Carson we sent with Gerber is one of Maxwell’s people. That’s already a nice, neat little tie-in to the situation.”
“I just can’t believe you’d do that so easily. Throw one of your own people to the wolves like that.”
“Listen, Crinshaw, I’d throw you to the wolves if it were necessary to the mission. You’re a great one to be talking anyway. Let’s not forget who picked Gerber and his boys to go on this little suicide mission, shall we?”
“It’s not a suicide mission,” said Crinshaw uneasily. “You shouldn’t say that. What if someone should hear you call it that?”
“I don’t know what else you could call it. We’re using them to draw the VC out into the open so we can clobber them with air power. That sounds to me like an awfully good way for Gerber and his boys to get zapped.”
“If anything happens to them in the line of duty, it’s an accident of war,” snapped Crinshaw. “We can hardly be held responsible for that. They’re doing a dangerous job, and if anything untoward should happen to them in the process, well, I mean, after all, they are soldiers.”
“Yeah. Soldiers who haven’t been told what the job is they’re doing, who don’t know that they’re the guinea pigs in our little experiment. It’ll make a nice epitaph. ‘They did their job. Too bad they didn’t know what it was.’”
“As I told Maxwell, if they do their job right, they might not have any problems at all.”
“Come off it, Crinshaw. We’re dangling them out there as bait, hoping the VC will come along and take a big bite out of them. And then, as soon as Charlie starts knocking on the front door, we’re going to slam the back door shut on them.”
“You said it was important that we talk,” said Crinshaw. “Why? What is it you want to talk about?”
“I’ve got a report from my man in the COMSECINT network. He tells me they’ve lost the signal from that tracer I gave the Brouchard woman.”
“Hell! How the fuck did that happen?”
“He doesn’t know, you idiot. He’s got no direct communications with either Gerber’s bunch or the VC search teams in the area. All he knows is that the beeper has stopped sending. At least we’re not picking it up on our equipment, and we’ve got equipment that can pick up a flea fart in a tornado.”
“Maybe the Viet Cong have got them already. Maybe our plan didn’t work.”
“It’s not your plan, and it’s not my plan. The decision was made at the highest levels to try this. We’re just implementing it.”
“If they’re dead, or the VC have captured them already, then we have nothing to implement.”
“If you’d stop jabbering and keep your mouth shut for a minute, you might find out things. The VC don’t have shit. The tracer may have stopped sending, but Gerber’s bunch has made a routine commo check since. There may be a few flies in the ointment, but the plan is still viable and still in operation. My friend at COMSECINT tells me their intercepts indicate that Charlie had three separate units triangulating on Gerber’s patrol before the beeper stopped. The VC knew the general area and Gerber’s exact last position before the tracer conked out. They can make some educated guesses about where to look for them. All we have to do is be patient. Sooner or later one of the VC search teams will make contact with Gerber’s unit and fix their position while they call up the reinforcements. All we have to do is wait for Gerber’s evacuation call, and we’ll know exactly where to send the B-52s. We could knock out a major VC unit, and maybe even do some substantive damage to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. If we can get Gerber to direct the strikes for us, we’ll get even better results.”
“How big an area of destruction are we talking about?” asked Crinshaw.
“Big. A B-52 carries around forty-eight 750-pound bombs. A single plane can lay waste an area a hundred yards wide and a quarter of a mile or more long. We can lay on thirty planes, more if we really need them. Once we start hammering them, the only way for Charlie to survive it will be if he grows himself some wings and flies out. Even then I wouldn’t give him much of a chance.”
Or Emilie and Gerber and his men, thought Maxwell. Crinshaw had made it very plain that there would be no air evac for them if any trouble started. That SOB had signed their death warrants.
Maxwell listened to the rest of the tape, but there was nothing else of significance.
He searched futilely through the Coke cans one more time, looking for something to drink. He scratched at the stubble on his chin and promised himself he’d buy a razor in the morning. He had an answer to at least one of his questions. He now knew that Jirasek was running a wild card operation with official CIA approval. At least he’d said it had been approved at the highest levels. The only proper thing for Maxwell to do was just forget he’d ever heard of the thing. To interfere would be interfering with national policy.
But he couldn’t just sit back and watch Crinshaw murder Gerber and his men. That was what it really came down to.
Jirasek was perfectly capable of spending a few troops if it was necessary to accomplish the mission. But in this instance it wasn’t necessary. Maxwell could see that. Jirasek could use Gerber’s patrol to pull the enemy out into the open for the bombers and still evacuate them just before the Arc Light.
Except that Crinshaw had no intention of permitting them to be evacuated. Maxwell had known ever since that business of the trumped-up court-martial attempt that Crinshaw harbored a hatred of Mack Gerber and his men, but he had never actually believed Crinshaw would go this far. Maxwell couldn’t let him get away with it. He owed Gerber that much and, of course, there was Emilie to consider. He would have to find some way of keeping Gerber and those with him alive without interfering with the basic goal of the mission that Jirasek had outlined.
There was only one real question he had to answer first.
How?
CHAPTER 14
THE CAMBODIAN JUNGLE
“Kit, may I speak with you a moment?” asked Gerber when they halted for a rest.
“Of course, Mack. How may I help you?”
Gerber looked annoyed at her familiar manner of address. The woman was getting altogether too friendly. It was another problem he didn’t need, especially when what he had to talk to her about was very unfriendly. He took the tracer receiver out of his pack and showed it to her.
“I’m afraid I have to ask you if you know what this is,” he said.
There was only the slightest hesitation before she looked surprised. “I am sorry, no. Should I?”
She said it just a little too easily. Gerber felt himself growing icily calm.
“You may not know precisely, but I’ll bet you can make an educated guess, can’t you, Bien Soo?” His carefully chosen use of her Vietnamese name was intended to distance and establish that this was a serious conversation, not a friendly one. Nor was the subtle implication of a threat lost on Kit.
“I have never seen this thing before, Captain.”
“That wasn’t what I asked. I asked if you knew what it was.”
She shrugged almost convincingly. “Some sort of electronic device, I suppose. A radio of some kind, perhaps. I see it has an antenna. Is it important?”
“No,” said Gerber levelly, “but the transmitter someone is carrying is, because it’s been chirping out our location to the Viet Cong. That’s how they’ve been able to follow us so easily. That’s why I’ve ordered Sergeant Bocker to search everyone’s packs.”
“I see. And who will search Sergeant Bocker’s pack?”
“I’ve already done that. If Bocker doesn’t find it in someone’s pack, then I’m afraid we’ll have to consider a strip search of everyone.”
“In that case, I look forward to seeing you with your clothes off, Captain. Who will take off mine, you, or that nice Sergeant Anderson?”
“Damn it, Kit, this is no time to be cute. You know our situation. If we find the beeper, you kno
w what I’ll have to do to whoever has been hiding it.”
“And you believe I am that person.”
“You’ve got to admit that you’re the most promising candidate. I’ve known all the rest of these people for over a year. I’ve fought alongside them. You’re an outsider.”
“I see, Mack. I am sorry you feel that way. I have fought alongside you, too, have I not? Or have you forgotten the three men I helped kill earlier? And I have told you things about my past that I have told to no one else. I had hoped that by now you would think of me as a friend.”
“That’s part of the problem, Kit. The story of your past seems to keep changing, depending on whom you’re talking to. What you told Master Sergeant Fetterman doesn’t exactly fit with what you told me, or with what Jerry Maxwell told me about your past. Is there any truth in any of it?”
“A little. Enough. What does it matter?”
“Who are you?” Gerber practically shouted.
“You know who I am. I have told you. I am Brouchard Bien Soo Ta Emilie. I was once a Viet Cong. Now I am Kit Carson scout for you.”
“And whose side are you on, ours, or the VC?”
“My own, Captain. There is no other side worth being on.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“If you find that I am the traitor you believe me to be, you will then have to kill me, yes?”
Gerber said nothing.
“Suppose I were to walk away right now. Just disappear into the bush and never come back?”
“Then I’m afraid I would have to kill you right now, ma’am, with much regret, of course,” said Fetterman, who had come up softly behind her.
“Thank you, Master Sergeant. I trust your professionalism and know that you would make it as quick and painless as possible.”
“You may tell your Sergeant Bocker that he can save himself a lot of time, Captain Gerber. He will not find the beeper, as you call it, in my pack. Nor will a strip search be necessary. The transmitter is in Sergeant Krung’s pack, at the bottom along the right-hand side.”
“Lady, you can’t seriously expect me to believe Krung is a traitor.”
“Of course not. I put the transmitter there. I am simply telling you where it is, because I’ve no wish for you to find it necessary to kill an innocent man after you’ve murdered me.”
“Murder would hardly be the word for it,” said Gerber.
“I think Jerry Maxwell may feel differently, Captain. I have worked for Mr. Maxwell for over a year now. I am one of his best agents.”
“Christ!” said Gerber. “Another lie. Aren’t you capable of telling the truth at all?”
Abruptly she turned so that both Gerber and Fetterman could see, dropped her shorts and pulled up her shirt. Even in the pale, poor half-light of predawn, the scars Gerber had noted earlier were clearly visible. There were even more of them than he had imagined. With a sickening feeling, he noted their similarity to another set of scars on another young woman’s backside. Robin Morrow’s.
“You want truth, Captain? This is truth. Do you think even for one second that I would continue to help the people who did this to me?”
She stood there, bare-assed and silent for a moment, then looked at Fetterman.
“You may kill me now if you like, Master Sergeant. I will make it easy for you.” There was something defiant in her voice.
The silence stretched for perhaps a full minute.
“Sir?” said Fetterman at last. “What are your orders?”
Gerber waved him to silence.
“Pull up your pants, for Christ’s sake,” he told Kit. “Nobody’s going to kill anybody tonight. At least not until I find out what this is all about.”
“Thank you for believing me, Captain.”
“I’m not entirely sure that I do. Now tell me. Why did Maxwell give you the transmitter?”
“Maxwell gave me nothing, except this assignment to act as your guide, and the other assignments I have done for him in the past year. That, and help getting out of the detention center after I chieu hoied.”
“Then where did it come from?”
“From a man who called himself Jack. He claimed to be Maxwell’s superior.”
“He claimed to be? And you believed him?”
“He knew the right challenges and replies, what you would call passwords, and he carried both the MACV Form 6 and a Special Operations Group ID card. He knew me, although we had never met, and he knew all about Maxwell and how he had helped me and what I had done for him in the past. I had no reason to doubt his authenticity. The area of covert operations in which I work is rarely as cut and dried as your combat assignments, Captain. We seldom have the luxury of well-known superiors and written orders.”
“So what did this guy named Jack tell you when he gave you the transmitter?”
“That it was a marker beacon to help them track our progress and pinpoint our location when the time came for us to be extracted. And that it would be necessary to guide the bombers to their target.”
“What bombers? What targets?”
“He said that when we reached the Ho Chi Minh Trail, your people would direct air strikes against the enemy.”
“That was never a part of the plan. We’re supposed to make an intelligence assessment of the traffic on the Trail only. Nobody said anything about directing any air strikes in a neutral country.”
“Nevertheless, that is what he told me, and I assumed that was the real purpose for your mission, even though that is not what Maxwell had told me. As I said, in covert operations we rarely have the luxury of written orders or clearly defined mission profiles.”
“Did you discuss any of this with Maxwell?”
Kit gave him the sort of look a parent might reserve for a very small child.
“Of course not. Maxwell had briefed me for a reconnaissance mission. When his superior gave me the transmitter and told me it was to be an air strike coordination, I knew without having to ask that Maxwell had been cut out for some reason. The assumption was that there was a leak of some sort in Maxwell’s organization, possibly Maxwell himself.”
“My God, lady, you do think in devious patterns.”
“I think of how I must do my job, Captain. Like you, I am sure, I do not always enjoy it, but it is my job. In this business, being devious is what keeps you alive.”
“Well, Captain, what do we do now?” asked Fetterman after a moment.
Gerber took his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair. After a moment he sighed deeply.
“First, have Galvin get that damned beeper out of Krung’s pack. Tell him he can look it over first, but then I want him to make sure it’s put permanently out of commission.” He glanced at Kit. “Then, tell him I want him to continue with the search of everyone’s packs. I’m beginning to be just devious enough myself that I’d like to make damned sure our friendly little spy here hasn’t hidden another one of those things somewhere else. All packs, web gear, poncho and blanket rolls to be checked. Anything big enough to hide a transmitter.” He glanced at Kit again. “I think we can dispense with the body searches. We’ve already seen the only one we’re likely to find anything taped to, I believe.”
“Yes, sir. Disposition of the prisoner, sir?”
Gerber looked at the female scout and noted how small and defenseless she seemed, standing there, yet vaguely defiant, too. When he reminded himself that she had acquitted herself well during the ambush of the three VC trackers and at least claimed to have killed the VC officer who had raped her, he reevaluated his opinion of her as helpless. He’d have shot her himself if it hadn’t been for those damned scars. They were the one thing that persuaded him that this time, possibly, she was telling the truth, if she was capable of such a thing.
“For the moment there is no prisoner,” said Gerber. “However, if at any point during the remainder of the mission Miss Brouchard attempts to leave our company, make contact with the enemy or is found to have any other form of communications or tra
cking device, you are to shoot her on the spot if I am unable to do so. Is that clear, Master Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. Our route of march?”
“As planned. We proceed with the mission.”
“Sir, you can’t be serious,” said Fetterman.
“Our orders are to make an assessment of the traffic and troop strength along a specific section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Those are written orders, signed by General Westmoreland himself, and I intend to carry them out. Get the men ready to go. If we push it, we can be in position by noon.”
“We’re going to travel into the operational area in daylight, sir?”
“That’s right, Master Sergeant. We’ve wasted enough time fucking around trying to shake off our tail. You have your orders. Now are you going to carry them out, or do you plan on finishing out your career by questioning my orders?” snapped Gerber.
“Take it easy, Captain. I wasn’t questioning your orders, just your judgment,” said Fetterman softly.
“Just get them moving. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now you,” said Gerber, holding up his M-16 and pointing it in Kit’s general direction. He had to remind himself not to shout. “You’re supposed to know this area. Well, by God, it’s time you started earning your pay. It’s time to climb down off that fence of yours and decide whose side you’re on once and for all. You get us there without being spotted by the VC, or so help me God, I’ll use this on you myself. I don’t know whose side Maxwell is on, or his boss, or how the hell the VC got hold of a receiver for that damned beeper, but by Christ this time you’d better be straight with me. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Captain,” said Kit quietly. “Whether you believe me or not, that is all I have ever wanted.”
Gerber glared at her. “Fine. Just so we understand each other. Now get moving.”
CHAPTER 15
