by Eric Helm
“Maybe you should. The man I spotted wasn’t following me. At least not at first. If he had known who I was, he’d never have been careless enough to allow me to spot him. He was tailing you and wanted to see who you talked to.”
“You sound as if you know him.”
“I do. There’s none better.”
“Except you, right?”
“Wrong. I’m pretty good in the field, but this guy taught me everything I know. He used to be one of the instructors at the Farm. The only reason I spotted him was because I got lucky, and because he was busy making sure you didn’t spot him following you. I’d never have seen him if he’d been on me. The only reason I was able to lose him when he switched from you to me is because I already knew he was there.”
“You make this guy sound pretty dangerous.”
“Very is the word. I’ve seen him in action. He’s a killer.”
“I’ve killed people before, too,” said Morrow, remembering the two VC soldiers she’d been forced to shoot a few months earlier when Camp A-555 had been overrun.
Maxwell snorted. “Lady, this guy has killed more people than you’ve got friends. Next to him, I’m a Boy Scout. You? You wouldn’t even make Campfire Girl.”
Morrow indicated the envelope. “So why Cholon?”
“It’s a safe house. Or at least an apartment. The guy who followed you doesn’t know about it. I’m the only one who does. You take a taxi to the address in the envelope, then send the taxi away. When it’s gone, you walk back east to the end of the block, go one more block, then north for five. It’s in the sixth block, right in the middle. You go through a green doorway and down the hall to the end. Then up the stairs. Apartment 2C.”
“Safer than here? The guy is hardly going to walk into a Green Beret camp and shoot me.”
“Here Crinshaw can find you. Here they know where you are. They can make the move at any time, and believe me, this guy is too sophisticated to just walk in and shoot you. But if he wants you, the only chance you’ve got is if he can’t find you.”
“So how does that make me an insurance policy?”
“Are you with me on this or not?”
After a moment, Morrow nodded.
“In the apartment there’s a tape recorder and two spools of tape. One from Crinshaw’s office, the other a complete report, detailing everything I know or suspect.”
“Jesus. You know, Maxwell, this is quite a story. What’s to keep me from just sending it off to my editors?”
“Nothing. If that’s all Gerber means to you. You blow the whistle on this thing prematurely and they’ll have no choice but to make sure those people never get out of Cambodia alive. They’ll have to do what they can to cover their tracks. You’ll have a great story and a dead boyfriend.”
Morrow wasn’t at all sure she still had a live boyfriend. “What’s to keep me from using it after you get them out?”
“Again nothing. Except Gerber. You go making waves afterward, and he could wind up finishing his army career in Greenland as a private. That’s if he’s lucky. They have ways of making it happen. You’d better believe that.”
“So what good do the tapes do us at all if we can’t use them, as you say.”
“There’s one thing we can use them for. Revenge. The only chance Gerber and his people have is if I can convince my boss and Crinshaw that if anything happens to him, or us, that we’ll drag them down with us.”
“That’s it?” Morrow asked incredulously. “That’s your great plan? You’re going to try to bluff them?”
“Miss Morrow, it’s only a bluff if you aren’t holding the cards. I told you, the man who’s in this with Crinshaw, my boss, taught me everything I know. That’s what I’m counting on. And one of the most important things he taught me was never bluff. Never make a threat unless you’re willing to carry it out. That’s what I’m banking on — that he’ll remember what he taught me and believe I’ll do it.”
“So that’s how I’m the insurance policy. You want me to hold the tapes.”
“Hell, no, I don’t want you to hold the tapes. I don’t even want you to go near the place. Not unless I call you, or rather, fail to call you at certain times.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you wanted me to go there so they couldn’t find me.”
“If I can find you, they can find you. And if they find you with the tapes, you’re dead. I’ll have my pilot drop you in Bien Hoa. I’ve arranged for a car for you there. You drive back to Saigon and lose yourself. I don’t care where. Just don’t go to any of the places you usually go there.”
“Then how are you going to call me when you need the tapes?”
“Every two hours, starting at noon, I’ll call the Saigon Press Club and leave a message for you. Something simple. ‘Jerry called about dinner, please call him back. Jerry called, he can’t make it tonight, please call him back,’ that sort of thing. The message will change slightly each time, but will always begin with ‘Jerry called,’ and end with ‘please call him back.’ If for any reason I fail to call at the appointed time, you wait until the next time to make sure it wasn’t some kind of screwup. If I miss two calls, you get the tapes and get them out of the country. Don’t try to take them out yourself, because if I don’t call, they’ll be watching for you to do something. You got all that?”
Morrow nodded. “I think so.”
“Good.” Maxwell reached into his coat and pulled out another envelope. “There’s ten thousand dollars and a phony passport in here. You can use some of the money in Saigon if you need it. The rest is in case you have to run. I got the picture for the passport from your application for press credentials from the South Vietnamese government.”
“You’ve been a busy boy.”
“Very. The chopper’s waiting. Shall we go?”
For a long moment Morrow considered the possibilities. It was one hell of a story. And she wasn’t sure what she was going to do yet about Karen’s letter to Gerber, wasn’t sure if she should do anything, or could. Finally she stood and picked up the envelopes.
“Sure,” she said. “Why the hell not?”
CHAPTER 16
THE CAMBODIAN JUNGLE OVERLOOKING THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL
While Kepler used the spotting scope to count the truck traffic, Gerber scanned the Trail through binoculars.
It wasn’t really accurate to call it a trail; a network would have been more appropriate. In the far distance, Gerber could see two double-lane roads of packed earth, the nearer of which, Kepler reported, appeared as though it had been graveled at some point in the past but was now in disrepair, although still obviously in use. On a far bluff a whole series of foot trails was visible.
The foot trails had been cut into the rock of the cliff face, making them difficult to spot from above. Extensive camouflaging of the roads was evident as well, although it was spotty and by no means perfect. Netting had been hung between trees, but the foliage was beginning to brown. In other spots it appeared that trees had been bent over and tied so that they created a tunnel-like effect. The living trees provided a much more effective camouflage, and even from this angle they screened the road. Those sections of the Trail were completely invisible to Gerber’s binoculars, but Kepler’s far more powerful spotting scope revealed tantalizing details.
“They’ve got an antiaircraft gun just off to the left of that short, open stretch of road at about two-fifty degrees,” said Kepler quietly. “I can’t be absolutely positive, but it looks like a 57mm S-60.”
“Can’t spot it,” Gerber told him.
“It’s just right at the edge, where the trees start. They’ve got camouflage netting over the top of it, but you can make out a little bit of the muzzle sticking out at about sixty degrees to the horizon.”
“All I can see is a little lump right at the edge of the trees.”
“That’s it,” Kepler told him. “You haven’t got enough magnification to be able to make out the barrel. Sure wish we could get a little closer. Like to ha
ve a better look at what they’ve got over there. If that’s a fifty-seven, they’ve probably got some twelve-sevens or fourteen-fives with it.”
“Sorry, Derek. That’s out. This is as close as we go. We know Charlie’s got troops out hunting for us. We’re really hanging our asses out in the breeze just doing this.”
“Yes, sir. I sure would like to know what all they’ve got over there, though. I mean, shit, triple A like that, sir, they must be expecting a visit from our flyboys.”
“More likely they’ve already had a visit. Not here perhaps, but somewhere nearby. Don’t forget that burned-out area we crossed.”
“Christ, who could. That wasn’t done by just a couple of T-28s with gun packs and a napalm canister under each wing. That was a heavy, concentrated bombardment. I didn’t realize we were dropping anything that intense this side of the border. Air commandos have been flying a few limited surgical strikes ever since the French pulled out, but word from the Pentagon has always been very low profile. Looks bad in the newspapers to drop heavy ordnance in a neutral country. Upsets the man in Washington’s breakfast.”
“Maybe the White House is getting a little less sensitive about breakfast.”
“I hope so, sir. That’s the third convoy we’ve seen roll past here in the last hour and a half. Sixty-five trucks in all. And you got to remember that it’s broad daylight. The heaviest traffic is probably at night to lessen the possibility of aerial detection.”
“It’s a busy road, all right. What bothers me is that the security doesn’t seem to be very busy.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“You say there’s a triple A battery down there. So there’s got to be some troops around. Why haven’t we spotted any patrols?”
“It doesn’t necessarily follow that they’d fortify the entire trail, sir. Probably couldn’t. There’s just too much of it. More than likely they’ve got a few individual antiair guns scattered about where there’re gaps in their camouflage, like here. Stretches that are fairly well concealed they probably don’t bother protecting with triple A unless it’s some key passage, like a bridge or a pass through the hills. Things that would probably show up despite the camo and be probable bombardment targets. I doubt they even bother with ground patrols this far inside Cambodia, at least not on a regular basis. Why would they? They know U.S. or South Viet troops aren’t going to mount any operations across the border.”
“They know we’re somewhere in the general area, Derek, and let’s not forget what Maxwell said happened to those LRRPs. I think we can safely assume that they’re not all that lackadaisical about their patrolling procedures.”
“Yes, sir,” said Kepler. “There is that.”
“Did you ever get a chance to go over the papers we got off those VC?”
“Yes, sir. Both groups. Pretty routine stuff, for the most part. Pay books, ID cards, ration coupons, that sort of thing. The maps we got off the NCO were even worse than ours, with one interesting exception. Nothing marked on them, of course.”
“What was the exception?”
“One of them wasn’t a normal topographical map. It was an aerial reconnaissance photo. Pretty grainy, medium-altitude stuff. Nothing remarkable in the technology. The remarkable thing was that they had it at all.”
“I didn’t know the VC had any aerial mapmaking capability.”
“As far as I’ve been briefed, they don’t. That’s why it’s so interesting.”
“You think the North Vietnamese took the photos for them?”
“Maybe. My guess is that it was Chinese or Russian military assistance, but the North certainly has the technology, at least from what I can assess of the photo in the field. It could have come from a recon version of the IL-28 Beagle or just from some joker hanging out of an Antonov Colt biplane with a reasonably good 35mm camera and a wide-angle lens. We haven’t had reports of any NVAF jets this far south, but there was an Air America chopper jockey that downed a Colt a couple of months back.”
“How’d he do that?”
“The Colt buzzed him a couple of times and pissed him off, so he stuck the barrel of an AK-47 out the window on the guy’s next pass and got lucky.”
“I always knew helicopter pilots were insane.”
“Yes, sir. Crude, but effective, you might say. Anyhow, the guy landed and cut a swatch out of the tail surface to bring back the registration number. Wanted his kill confirmed.”
Gerber chuckled softly at that, feeling some of the tension of the past few days drain away.
“The Air America pilot reported the pilot of the Colt had blond hair,” continued Kepler. “That’s why I say Russian military assistance. Anyhow, the aerial photo, coupled with the AAA guns Charlie is socking in around here, could suggest a growing interest on the part of the VC and NVA in protecting the Trail from air strikes. The aerial photo might have been part of a survey, sort of a case of the Charlies trying to spot their own trails so they’d know what areas most needed camouflaging to keep our guys from finding them. That would suggest one of two things. Either the Trail is becoming increasingly important to the Communists as a supply route into South Vietnam or our interdiction missions have been making them hurt. It’s probably a bit of both.”
“Anything else of interest in the papers the VC had on them?”
“Two small things. One of the guys was NVA, although he was wearing a VC uniform. Not too surprising that. We’ve had some reports of the Communists mixing troops in the same unit. Probably functioning as an advisor of some kind. It would be nice to know exactly what he was up to, but I don’t think we’ll likely ever know that now. The other item was more a curiosity. Fetterman found it when we were crossing the burned area. It was a sort of diary. It was pretty badly scorched, but we could make out bits of it. Belonged to an NVA corporal who was apparently a bit of a poet. It also contained an account of his trip south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but it was mostly personal impressions, that sort of thing. I don’t think we’ll get much of military value out of it. I, uh, I gave it to Kit to see if she could make anything out of it that I’d missed. I hope that was okay, sir.”
“I don’t know what to make of our Kit Carson scout, Derek. Her having that beeper sure seems pretty damning. On the other hand, she tells an almost believable story about where it came from, and one that does explain why it’s of American manufacture, as Bocker says. What it doesn’t explain is why the VC had the receiver for it, and why Maxwell’s boss, if it was Maxwell’s boss, would risk blowing us to the VC with such a stupid stunt. You put it all together and it begins to leave a very bad taste in your mouth.”
“Are you saying you think we were intentionally set up, sir?”
“Hell, I’m not sure of anything. It looks that way, but it just doesn’t make any sense. If it is the case, it raises more questions than it answers. Who is this guy who claimed to be Maxwell’s superior? Does he really exist, or is he just another of our scout’s inventive fabrications? Why would he give her the beeper unless he wanted us blown? Why would he want such a thing? Surely Washington wouldn’t want the publicity of having U.S. troops captured by the VC in neutral Cambodia, or is there some bizarre reason why Washington would want that? Or be willing to risk it? What were the VC doing with an American-manufactured receiver that was obviously designed to track, after a fashion, the beeper, and where did they get it from? And how much of the truth, if any, is our scout telling us? You figure it out if you can. I can’t.”
“I hope somebody can, sir.”
Jerry Maxwell had.
It was a little past noon when he entered Brigadier General Billy Joe Crinshaw’s outer office and inquired of the withered old administrative sergeant whether or not the general was in. Before the sergeant could answer, the door to Crinshaw’s inner office burst outward, and the general, resplendent in his freshly changed, razor-creased khakis, blustered out. When he caught sight of Maxwell, he pulled up short.
“Ah, Maxwell. What are you doing here?”
; “I came to see you, General. It’s about Gerber’s patrol.”
“Yes, yes, I know. They’re in contact with the enemy. I’m just on my way over to the TOC now. Got to keep abreast of the situation, you know. That damned fool Colonel Bates is already hollering to get his boys pulled out of there. No backbone, that man. Doesn’t seem to understand that a soldier’s job is to fight the enemy, not run away from him.”
It came as a shock. Maxwell hadn’t known. Bates was right, of course. The team needed to be extracted at once.
“I think we’d better talk in your office, General,” said Maxwell, casting a meaningful glance at the sergeant.
“Confound it, man, didn’t you hear? I’ve got to get over there right away. I’ve got to make certain that pantywaist Bates doesn’t pull them out until—”
“Until Jirasek can make sure the B-52s get there from Thailand? Yes, General, I figured they’d have to be based in Thailand for this one. It would take too long from Guam. You couldn’t be sure there’d been any VC still around to bomb if you waited too long. You’d just be bombing a hillside full of dead Americans and Tais, and oh, yes, let’s not forget our one Vietnamese scout.”
The blood drained visibly from Crinshaw’s countenance.
“I… don’t know… what on earth you’re talking about,” Crinshaw sputtered.
“I’m talking about murder, General. Premeditated, coldblooded murder. Now do you want to go back in your office and talk about it, or do you want to stand here and discuss it in front of your sergeant?”
“Why, you… Why, I never heard of such nonsense in all my natural life. Why, you’re crazy.”
“No, General, I’m not. But I’m beginning to think you may be. What I am is somebody who knows all about your little scheme, and is desperate, because I’m running out of time. And although you don’t know it, you are too, because if I don’t call Robin Morrow at a certain time with a certain message, there’s going to be a set of tapes on their way to the networks, and this whole little show is going to blow right up in your face.”
