by Tom Clancy
“We’ll have to, as they build up their force, Robin. I’ve told you that,” Grishanov said quickly and quietly, but it was too late, he saw, at least in one respect.
“I’ve told you everything,” the American said, looking down at the map. Then his eyes closed and his shoulders shook. Grishanov embraced him to ease the pain he saw.
“Robin, you’ve told me how to protect the children of my country. I have not lied to you. My father did leave his university to fight the Germans. I did have to evacuate Moscow as a child. I did lose friends that winter in the snow—little boys and little girls, Robin, children who froze to death. It did happen. I did see it.”
“And I did betray my country,” Zacharias whispered. The realization had come with the speed and violence of a falling bomb. How could he have been so blind, so stupid? Robin leaned back, feeling a sudden pain in his chest, and in that moment he prayed it was a heart attack, for the first time in his life wishing for death. But it wasn’t. It was just a contraction of his stomach and the release of a large quantity of acid, just the perfect thing, really, to eat away at his stomach as his mind ate away the defenses of his soul. He’d broken faith with his country and his God. He was damned.
“My friend—”
“You used me!” Robin hissed, trying to pull away.
“Robin, you must listen to me.” Grishanov wouldn’t let go. “I love my country, Robin, as you love yours. I have sworn an oath to defend her. I have never lied to you about that, and now it is time for you to learn other things.” Robin had to understand. Kolya had to make it clear to Zacharias, as Robin had made so many things clear to Kolya.
“Like what?”
“Robin, you are a dead man. The Vietnamese have reported you dead to your country. You will never be allowed to return home. That is why you are not in the prison—Hoa Lo, the Hilton, your people call it, yes?” It seared Kolya’s soul when Robin looked at him, the accusation there was almost more than he could bear. When he spoke again, his voice was the one doing the pleading.
“What you are thinking is wrong. I have begged my superiors to let me save your life. I swear this on the lives of my children: I will not let you die. You cannot go back to America. I will make for you a new home. You will be able to fly again, Robin! You will have a new life. I can do no more than that. If I could restore you to your Ellen and your children, I would do it. I am not a monster, Robin, I am a man, like you. I have a country, like you. I have a family, like you. In the name of your God, man, put yourself in my place. What would you have done in my place? What would you feel in my place?” There was no reply beyond a sob of shame and despair.
“Would you have me let them torture you? I can do that. Six men in this camp have died, did you know that? Six men died before I came here. I put a stop to it! Only one has died since my arrival—only one, and I wept for him, Robin, did you know that! I would gladly kill Major Vinh, the little fascist. I have saved you! I’ve done everything in my power, and I have begged for more. I give you my own food, Robin, things that my Marina sends to me!”
“And I’ve told you how to kill American pilots—”
“Only if they attack my country can I hurt them. Only if they try to kill my people, Robin! Only then! Do you wish them to kill my family?”
“It’s not like that!”
“Yes, it is. Don’t you see? This is not a game, Robin. We are in the business of death, you and I, and to save lives one must also take them.”
Perhaps he’d see it in time, Grishanov hoped. He was a bright man, a rational man. Once he had time to examine the facts, he would see that life was better than death, and perhaps they could again be friends. For the moment, Kolya told himself, I have saved the man’s life. Even if the American curses me for that, he will have to breathe air to speak his curse. Colonel Grishanov would bear that burden with pride. He’d gotten his information and saved a life in the process, as was entirely proper for an air-defense pilot of PVO Strany who’d sworn his life’s real oath as a frightened and disoriented boy on his way from Moscow to Gorkiy.
The Russian came out of the prison block in time for dinner, Kelly saw. He had a notebook in his hands, doubtless full of the information he’d sweated out of the prisoners.
“We’re going to get your sorry red ass,” Kelly whispered to himself. “They’re gonna put three willie-petes through that window, pal, and cook you up for dinner—along with all your fucking notes. Yeah.”
He could feel it now. It was, again, the private pleasure of knowing what would be, the godlike satisfaction of seeing the future. He took a sip from his canteen. He couldn’t afford to dehydrate. Patience came hard now. Within his sight was a building with twenty lonely, frightened, and badly hurt Americans, and though he’d never met any of them, and though he only knew one by name, his was a worthy quest. For the rest, he tried to find the Latin from his high school: Morituri non cognant, perhaps. Those who are about to die—just don’t know. Which was just fine with Kelly.
“Homicide.”
“Hi, I’m trying to get Lieutenant Frank Allen.”
“You got him,” Allen replied. He’d been at his desk just five minutes this Monday morning. “Who’s this?”
“Sergeant Pete Meyer, Pittsburgh,” the voice replied. “Captain Dooley referred me to you, sir.”
“I haven’t talked to Mike in a while. Is he still a Pirates fan?”
“Every night, Lieutenant. I try to catch some of the games myself.”
“You want a line on the Series, Sarge?” Allen asked with a grin. Cop fellowship.
“Bucs in five. Roberto’s real tough this year.” Clemente was having a career year.
“Oh, yeah? Well, so are Brooks and Frank.” The Robinsons weren’t doing so badly either. “What can I do for you?”
“Lieutenant, I have some information for you. Two homicides, both victims female, in their late teens, early twenties.”
“Back up, please.” Allen got a clean sheet of paper. “Who’s your source?”
“I can’t reveal that yet. It’s privileged. I’m working on changing that, but it might take a while. Can I go on?”
“Very well. Names of victims?”
“The recent one was named Pamela Madden—very recent, only a few weeks ago.”
Lieutenant Allen’s eyes went wide. “Jesus—the fountain murder. And the other one?”
“Her name was Helen, sometime last fall. Both murders were ugly, Lieutenant, torture and sexual abuse.”
Allen hunched forward with the phone very close to his ear. “You telling me you have a witness to both killings?”
“That is correct, sir, I believe we do. I got two likely perps for you, too. Two white males, one named Billy and the other named Rick. No descriptions, but I can work on that. too.”
“Okay, they’re not my cases. It’s being handled downtown—Lieutenant Ryan and Sergeant Douglas. I know both names—both victims, I mean. These are high-profile cases, Sarge. How solid is your information?”
“I believe it to be very solid. I have one possible indicator for you. Victim number two, Pamela Madden—her hair was brushed out after she was killed.”
In every major criminal case, several important pieces of evidence were always left out of press accounts in order to screen out the usual collection of nuts who called in to confess to something—anything that struck their twisted fancies. This thing with the hair was sufficiently protected that even Lieutenant Allen didn’t know about it.
“What else do you have?”
“The murders were drug-related. Both girls were mules.”
“Bingo!” Allan exclaimed quietly. “Is your source in jail or what?”
“I’m pushing the edge here, but—okay, I’ll level with you. My dad’s a preacher. He’s counseling the girl. Lieutenant, this is really off-the-record stuff, okay?”
“I understand. What do you want me to do?”
“Could you please forward the info to the investigating officers? They can contact me through the stat
ion.” Sergeant Meyer gave over his number. “I’m a watch supervisor here, and I have to roll out now to deliver a lecture at the academy. I’ll be back about four.”
“Very well, Sergeant. I’ll pass that along. Thanks a lot for the input. You’ll be hearing from Em and Tom. Depend on it.” Jesus, we’ll give Pittsburgh the fuckin’ Series to bag these bastards. Allen switched buttons on his phone.
“Hey, Frank,” Lieutenant Ryan said. When he set his coffee cup down, it appeared like slow-motion. That stopped when he picked up a pen. “Keep talking. I’m writing this down.”
Sergeant Douglas was late this morning because of an accident on I-83. He came in with his usual coffee and danish to see his boss scribbling furiously.
“Brushed out the hair? He said that?” Ryan asked. Douglas leaned across the desk, and the look in Ryan’s eyes was like that of a hunter who just heard the first rustle in the leaves. “Okay, what names did he—” The detective’s hand balled into a fist. A long breath. “Okay, Frank, where is this guy? Thanks. ‘Bye.”
“Break?”
“Pittsburgh,” Ryan said.
“Huh?”
“Call from a police sergeant in Pittsburgh, a possible witness in the murders of Pamela Madden and Helen Waters.”
“No shit?”
“This is the one who brushed her hair, Tom. And guess what other names came along with it?”
“Richard Farmer and William Grayson?”
“Rick and Billy. Close enough? Possible mule for a drug ring. Wait . . . ” Ryan leaned back, staring at the yellowed ceiling. “There was a girl there when Farmer was killed—we think there was,” he corrected himself. “It’s the connection, Tom. Pamela Madden, Helen Waters, Farmer, Grayson, they’re all related . . . and that means—”
“The pushers, too. All connected somehow. What connects them, Em? We know they were all—probably all—in the drug business.”
“Two different MOs, Tom. The girls were slaughtered like—no, you don’t even do that to cattle. All the rest, though, all of them were taken down by the Invisible Man. Man on a mission! That’s what Farber said, a man on a mission.”
“Revenge,” Douglas said, pacing Ryan’s analysis on his own. “If one of those girls was close to me—Jesus, Em, who could blame him?”
There was only one person connected with either murder who’d been close with a victim, and he was known to the police department, wasn’t he? Ryan grabbed his phone and called back to Lieutenant Allen.
“Frank, what was the name of that guy who worked the Gooding case, the Navy guy?”
“Kelly, John Kelly, he found the gun off Fort McHenry, then downtown contracted him to train our divers, remember? Oh! Pamela Madden! Jesus!” Allen exclaimed when the connection became clear.
“Tell me about him, Frank.”
“Hell of a nice guy. Quiet, kinda sad—lost his wife, auto accident or something.”
“Veteran, right?”
“Frogman, underwater demolitions. That’s how he earns his living, blowing things up. Underwater stuff, like.”
“Keep going.”
“Physically he’s pretty tough, takes care of himself.” Allen paused. “I saw him dive, there’s some marks on him, scars, I mean. He’s seen combat and caught some fire. I got his address and all if you want.”
“I have it in my case file, Frank. Thanks, buddy.” Ryan hung up. “He’s our guy. He’s the Invisible Man.”
“Kelly?”
“I have to be in court this morning—damn it!” Ryan swore.
“Nice to see you again,” Dr. Farber said. Monday was an easy day for him. He’d seen his last patient of the day and was heading out for after-lunch tennis with his sons. The cops had barely caught him heading out of his office.
“What do you know about UDT guys?” Ryan asked, walking out into the corridor with him.
“Frogmen, you mean? Navy?”
“That’s right. Tough, are they?”
Farber grinned around his pipe. “They’re the first guys on the beach, ahead of the Marines. What do you think?” He paused. Something clicked in his mind. “There’s something even better now.”
“What do you mean?” the detective lieutenant asked.
“Well, I still do a little work for the Pentagon. Hopkins does a lot of things for the government. Applied Physics Lab, lots of special things. You know my background.” He paused. “Sometimes I do psychological testing, consulting-what combat does to people. This is classified material, right? There’s a new special-operations group. It’s a spin-off of UDT. They call them SEALs now, for Sea Air Land—they’re commandos, real serious folks, and their existence is not widely known. Not just tough. Smart. They’re trained to think, to plan ahead. Not just muscle. Brains, too.”
“Tattoo,” Douglas said, remembering. “He has a tattoo of a seal on his arm.”
“Doc, what if one of these SEAL guys had a girl who was brutally murdered?” It was the most obvious of questions, but he had to ask it.
“That’s the mission you were looking for,” Farber said, heading out the door, unwilling to reveal anything else, even for a murder investigation.
“That’s our boy. Except for one thing,” Ryan said quietly to the closed door.
“Yeah. No evidence. Just one hell of a motive.”
Nightfall. It had been a dreary day for everyone at SENDER GREEN except for Kelly. The parade ground was mush, with fetid puddles, large and small. The soldiers had spent most of the day trying to keep dry. Those in the towers had adjusted their position to the shifting winds. Weather like this did things to people. Most humans didn’t like being wet. It made them irritable and dull of mind, all the more so if their duty was also boring, as it was here. In North Vietnam, weather like this meant fewer air attacks, yet another reason for the men down below to relax. The increasing heat of the day had energized the clouds, adding moisture to them which the clouds just as quickly gave back to the ground.
What a shitty day, all the guards would be saying to one another over their dinner. All would nod and concentrate on their meals, looking down, not up, looking inward, not outward. The woods would be damp. It was far quieter to walk on wet leaves than dry ones. No dry twigs to snap. The humid air would muffle sound, not transmit it. It was, in a word, perfect.
Kelly took the opportunity of the darkness to move around some, stiff from the inactivity. He sat up under his bush, brushing off his skin and eating more of his ration concentrates. He drained down a full canteen, then stretched his arms and legs. He could see the LZ, and had already selected his path to it, hoping the Marines wouldn’t be trigger-happy when he ran down towards them. At twenty-one hundred he made his final radio transmission.
Light Green, the technician wrote on his pad. Activity Normal.
“That’s it. That’s the last thing we need.” Maxwell looked at the others. Everyone nodded.
“Operation BOXWOOD GREEN, Phase Four, commences at twenty-two hundred. Captain Franks, make signal to Newport News.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
On Ogden, flight crews dressed in their fire-protective suits, then walked aft to preflight their aircraft. They found sailors wiping all the windows. In the troop spaces, the Marines were donning their striped utilities. Weapons were clean. Magazines were full with fresh ammo just taken from airtight containers. The individual grunts paired off, each man applying camouflage paint to his counterpart. No smiles or joking now. They were as serious as actors on opening night, and the delicacy of the makeup work gave a strange counterpoint to the nature of the evening’s performance. Except for one of their number.
“Easy on the eye shadow, sir,” Irvin told a somewhat jumpy Captain Albie, who had the usual commander’s jitters and needed a sergeant to steady him down.
In the squadron ready room aboard USS Constellation, a diminutive and young squadron commander named Joshua Painter led the briefing. He had eight F-4 Phantoms loaded for bear.
“We’re covering a special operation tonight
. Our targets are SAM sites south of Haiphong.” he went on, not knowing what it was all about, hoping that it was worth the risk to the fifteen officers who would fly with him tonight, and that was just his squadron. Ten A-6 Intruders were also flying Iron Hand. and most of the rest of Corenie’s air wing would trail their coats up the coast, throwing as much electronic noise into the air as they could. He hoped it was all as important as Admiral Podulski had said. Playing games with SAM sites wasn’t exactly fun.
Newport News was twenty-five miles off the coast now, approaching a point that would put her exactly between Ogden and the beach. Her radars were off, and the shore stations probably didn’t know quite where she was. After the last few days the NVA were getting a little more circumspect about using their coastal surveillance systems. The Captain was sitting in his bridge chair. He checked his watch and opened a sealed manila envelope, reading quickly through the action orders he’d had in his safe for two weeks.
“Hmm.” he said to himself. Then: “Mr. Shoeman, have engineering bring boilers one and four fully on line. I want full power available as soon as possible. We’re doing some more surfing tonight. My compliments to the XO, gunnery officer, and his chiefs. I want them in my at-sea cabin at once.”
“Aye, sir.” The officer of the deck made the necessary notifications. With all four of her boilers on line, Newport News could make thirty-four knots, the quicker to close the beach, and the quicker to depart from it.
“Surf City. here we come!” the petty officer at the wheel sang out loud as soon as the Captain was off the bridge. It was the official ship’s joke—because the Captain liked it—actually made up several months before by a seaman first-class. It meant going inshore, right into the surf, for some shooting. “Goin’ to Surf City, where it’s two-to-one!”
“Mark your head, Baker,” the OOD called to end the chorus.
“Steady on one-eight-five, Mr. Shoeman.” His body moved to the beat. Surf City, here we corne!
