While Rome Was Sleeping

by M. S. Forsythe

  “Now Mr. Smith, there will be no more games, Major Lu Chan, have the guards bring the Chaplain in.”

  Lu Chan was surprised, but started for the door when Smith spoke, “No wait...what do you want?” he asked; his voice was hoarse as he looked at Chernakov.

  Chernakov held up his hand gesturing Lu Chan to stop and return to his seat. “I want you to tell us what is your name and tell us everything you know about the TSQ radar technology operating at CIA Site 85.”

  “Bill...Perry and I can only tell you about my job which was to take care of the power generators. I don’t know anything about the technical part of the operations.”

  “Really? Why should we believe that, Mr. Bill Perry?” Chernakov asked impatiently.

  “Because it was top secret and none of us knew more than the specific area of operations where we were trained and assigned. Most of the people who understood the TSQ were killed or got away.”

  “Then how did you survive, Mr. Perry, why were you left behind?”

  “I was supposed to blow up the generators.”

  “Were there other areas you were to destroy? Did you succeed?”

  “No... I don’t know; during the attack there was a lot of shooting and explosions and confusion and then I was captured.”

  “What about the other two who were captured with you...what were their jobs?”

  “I don’t know, I think they were replacements at the site, but I don’t know. I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Chernakov stood up and looked steadily at the American and said quietly, “I don’t believe you, Mr. Perry, but you will have time to reconsider—you will be leaving here shortly on a long trip. You will get to see some of my country.” He looked at Lu Chan, “Have the guards take this man back to his cell.”

  He stared at Chernakov, “Wha... what do you mean? Where are you sending me? Where are you sending me?” Perry repeated, yelling, “You bastard, you bastard,” he railed at Chernakov.

  Lu Chan looked at the implacable countenance of Chernakov, “Shall I have another prisoner brought in?”

  “No, Major, it would be a waste of time. Make the arrangements for Mr. Smith or Perry, if that is his name, and the two who were with him to be transported to the Soviet Union. They will have time to remember their names and their technical skills while they are waiting for the equipment from the radar site to arrive. At least it will be better for them if they do.”

  Chernakov stood quietly shaking his head at the irony.

  Lu Chan read his thoughts, “You had no choice, General.”

  “Really? I don’t know; perhaps God will forgive me. We now know that our North Vietnamese Comrades plan to use the American POWs as part of any peace negotiation. American President Nixon has promised the American people a conclusion to the war in Vietnam. He will do whatever he has to do to settle it.”

  ✽✽✽

  Chernakov was bone weary as he and Lu Chan left the prison and walked toward the vehicle that would take him to the waiting Soviet aircraft.

  Turning to Lu Chan, he said, “There will be a Soviet aviation expert who will meet me in Hanoi to evaluate some captured American aircraft sections as well as the material from Site 85. I expect that it will take some time to secure all of the equipment and arrange for its transport by ship back to USSR; I may be required to remain in Hanoi for several months until this is accomplished.”

  “As you know, General, I am frequently in Hanoi. You may contact me at our headquarters there; I may have updated weather information for you. I wish you the best for the rest of your assignment.”

  “Thank you for all of your help, Major,” Chernakov said returning Lu Chan’s salute, “I will see you in Hanoi.”

  Chapter 1

  Seattle, Washington

  Wednesday, September 10, 1980

  The plush carpeted hallways of Ramsey, Wilson & Carr were hushed and for the most part, empty. Only the occasional swish of the opening and closing of the polished sunburst elevator doors allowing access to the mahogany paneled reception area gave evidence of coming and goings in the busy law firm.

  A meeting had been called to order by the firm’s senior partner, Lyle Ramsey, Jr. Twenty five of the partners were gathered at the marble topped walnut table in the main conference room. An agenda addressing a number of the firm’s corporate mergers, tax filings, and limited liability companies rested in front of Lyle Ramsey at the head of the table. William Stafford the firm’s Chief Financial Officer and managing partner Frank Wilson, sat opposite each other on either side of Ramsey.

  Harrison Carr sat quietly at the far end of the table, note pad in front of him; his eagle eyes studying the faces and body language of each of the younger partners.

  Seventy-six year old Carr the most elderly of the partners had been with the firm from the beginning. He had been Ramsey, Sr.’s partner and continued, becoming the younger Ramsey’s mentor. While the craggy faced old man had easily relinquished the firm’s control to Lyle Jr., his power and management instincts held sway over the firm through long time connections in the international business and political world. As it had with Lyle Sr., the chemistry between Ramsey Jr. and Carr flourished.

  Coffee had been served all around as Lyle moved into the agenda. He was in the middle of a sentence when the door opened and his executive secretary, Connie Porter, discreetly motioned to him from the doorway. Lyle responded immediately knowing only an urgent matter would cause Connie to interrupt a partners’ meeting. “Excuse me, Mr. Ramsey; there is a call for you on your private line.”

  Everyone’s attention was on Ramsey as he stood. Tall and straight as an arrow, he was an imposing figure, with thick wavy silver hair and glacial blue piercing eyes. He dressed with careful intention; his perfectly tailored charcoal gray suit, pale blue shirt with gold monogrammed cufflinks and diagonally striped dark gray and blue necktie conveyed the mark of leadership he wished to make.

  He adjured to Frank Wilson, “I don’t know how long this will take, go ahead with the meeting and we will confer later.” Most of those at the table continued to watch him as he exited; a few others looked in Wilson’s direction as he quickly took charge of the meeting. As the firm’s managing partner Wilson generated a monthly six figure income in business to the firm. Rearranging the papers in front of him, he stood and proceeded to call for discussion of client lists.

  Lyle hurried to his private office, closed and locked the door before picking up the phone. “This is Ramsey.”

  “Lyle,” the voice on the other end was crisp and businesslike, “my jet will be landing at Boeing field in about fifty minutes; meet me there. There is a delicate situation affecting GCI that has come up that I want you to handle. For the time being no one else in the firm is to know about it, but be certain Ramsey and Carr will benefit greatly. Oh, yes, by the way don’t have lunch; we will eat in Jackson Hole.”

  Thursday September 11, 1980

  Lyle Ramsey was in his office by six-thirty on Thursday morning. He had slept badly the night before and told himself that the whirlwind flight to Wyoming, a late lunch and two martinis with dinner contributed. But, the conversation with the client and his own response was the real reason for Ramsey’s sleeplessness.

  Fifty year old Lyle Ramsey was born to wealth. His father, a lawyer, had been a financial wizard; building a monetary empire in the late thirties that included California oil leases, real estate holdings and later, investment in industry. When Lyle was twelve his father moved the family to Seattle from Southern California. He saw the Pacific Northwest as his next economic conquest.

  It was 1942 and America had entered World War II; demands for war materiel, tanks, ships and planes opened wide the doors of opportunity. The Boeing Airplane Company in Seattle and Northwest ship building companies, Todd and Kaiser, were experiencing unprecedented growth. And Lyle Ramsey, Sr. was ready to establish a new legal empire. His interest in industry was now directed toward government defense contracts and negotiations. This would be
his legacy to his son.

  Young Lyle’s interest in law came at an early age. Like his father he realized that much control of corporations lay in the hands of legal departments and prestigious law firms negotiating those contracts.

  Handsome and brilliant, he was blessed with a photographic memory and sailed through his undergraduate studies at the University of Washington. He then turned his eyes toward Harvard Law School specializing in corporate law and made his mark graduating Summa Cum Laude; he joined his father’s firm, Ramsey, Wilson & Carr and within a year was made partner.

  Following his father’s death Lyle, now in charge, and senior partner, Harrison Carr, steered the blue chip firm into a solid gold future. By 1980 the firm had offices in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. with representatives in Tokyo; corporate headquarters would remain in Seattle. The firm now occupied four floors of the SeaFirst Bank Building in the heart of downtown.

  Lyle had never married. There had been one woman Lyle loved and who loved him, but she did not share his drive for power and eventually the relationship ended. Loyalty to his father was the only sentimental quality that remained. A life size painting of Lyle, Sr. occupied a wall in Lyle’s office. The intensity of the painting’s ice blue eyes under bushy white brows seemed to follow Lyle to every corner of the room. Each Friday afternoon he and Harrison Carr would meet in his office that had once belonged to his father, pour an expensive scotch in two Waterford crystal bar glasses and raise a toast to Lyle Ramsey, Sr.

  This morning he stood at the window of his office looking to the West at the ships anchored in Elliot Bay thinking over the meeting of the previous day. Over lunch, in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, a place of grandeur and beauty, he had accepted a deal that would net the firm an immediate two million dollars with the promise of additional millions in future contracts. His client could guarantee ongoing business; long standing close connections with past and current government administrations had been well cemented by such clients.

  He and the client had made an agreement that he now had to carry out, carefully. Precautions must be taken to ensure that he and the firm would remain completely in the clear.

  Deep in thought, Lyle didn’t hear Harrison Carr enter the office. Carr’s voice startled him. “Here a little early aren’t you, Lyle?” Not waiting for a reply the elderly Harrison went on, “I can see something is weighing on your mind and I strongly suspect that it has to do with your abrupt departure from the meeting yesterday.”

  Ramsey nodded moving to his desk and looking directly at the elder partner, “You’re right as usual, Harrison;” he paused, his manicured hands folded on the desk; “yesterday we were offered an opportunity that could potentially guarantee continued millions of dollars to the firm in future GCI contracts but there could also be a substantial risk.”

  “What’s the problem, Lyle? Everything has some risk, everything that has value that is,” Carr’s deep monotone voice intoned solemnly. “I’ll not comment one way or the other since I’m not privy to all the information, but I will say that I have always trusted your instincts. It’s your call; if you want to talk further I’ll be in my office.”

  “Thank you, Harrison. Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  Harrison nodded and arose from the side chair in which he had been seated and walked slowly out the door. Ramsey noted Carr moved slower than usual this morning and was using the cane he occasionally relied on. “He’s slowing up a bit, Dad,” he commented to the portrait.

  Ramsey reached for his private phone and dialed a number in the Seattle Police Department. “Hello, Detective Maxwell, this is Lyle Ramsey. Listen carefully, you have my private number—I want you to call me from another location in no less than fifteen minutes.” Ramsey knew exactly who to press for favors within the police department and he knew homicide Detective Monte Maxwell would agree to most requests if the carrot was sweet enough.

  Monte mumbled lamely, “Yeah, sure always good to hear from you.” He put the phone down thoughtfully. Monte hated to hear from Ramsey but the jobs he had done for him in the past had netted a few hundred dollars here and there; enough reward to take the pain out of the risk. Monte got out of his chair saying to his partner. “I’m goin’ down to the newsstand and get a candy bar. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” Bending over his ample belly to close a desk drawer he grunted.

  Detective Ed Peterson raised his eyes from a report he was working on; hearing Monte grunt while reaching for the lower drawer of the desk he commented, “You’re always hungry! But you’d better lay off those candy bars or you won’t be able to get your butt outta’ your chair.”

  Ignoring Peterson’s verbal jab at his girth, Monte muttered under his breath that Peterson should “Get lost” as he walked to the corridor. He rode the elevator down from the fifth floor of the Public Safety Building wondering what Lyle Ramsey wanted this time. In the lobby he headed for a pay phone and quickly dialed a number. “This is Monte, what can I do for you Mr. Ramsey?”

  Ramsey could hear the reluctance in Monte’s voice. “I have a job for you, Monte; it’s worth two hundred and sixty thousand dollars if it’s done well.” Ramsey now had Monte’s full attention.

  “Wow” Monte gasped. “Sure, Mr. Ramsey, I’ll be glad to help you any way I can. Just give me the details and....”

  “Shut up and listen, Monte, this is not nickel and dime stuff, this is big money for a big job,” he paused, “Someone has to be eliminated.”

  Monte sucked in his breath and looked around furtively. This request was over the top. “Okay, go on,” he said hesitantly, “you want me to—”

  “No” Ramsey said vehemently. “I want you to find someone who cannot be traced back to you. There will need to be two applicants for the job; two individuals who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. You need to find the applicants and handle this personally, Monte. Our client is very particular and has zero tolerance for mistakes. Do you understand?”

  “How much am I authorized to offer?” Monte queried.

  “They each get thirty thousand; half up front and the other half when the job is finished. That leaves two hundred thousand for you. You will get half up front as well. There is a piece of merchandise involved that must be delivered to me for the client; that’s part of the deal.

  “If everything goes smoothly the two candidates could get a bonus of another thousand apiece. You will be responsible for the successful completion of the job. I want to keep this local and very low key.”

  “Who is the target?” Monte asked.

  “There will be a man coming off a cargo ship, the Tsein-Maru, out of Bangkok. The ship is due to arrive early on Tuesday the sixteenth, so you understand that you don’t have much time to find the right candidates. You must be very careful in your selection even with the time constraint.

  “The target will probably be with the crew most of whom will be Asian, he is not. He is Caucasian, late forties about 5’ 10” or so and has a long scar on the left side of his face. It is my understanding he will make contact at the Seattle Seamen’s Center at the Port.

  “He will be carrying something, some kind of merchandise like a package or packet on him that must be delivered to me unopened; this is part of the deal and it is as important as the ‘hit’. In fact I want everything he has on him delivered to me to make certain I get the right merchandise; by that I mean wallet, papers, everything. Monte, this has to appear to be a mugging and robbery. The guy will no doubt look like a transient sailor and it should go down as I described. There can be no slip-ups; no trail to you and no trail to me. Is that clear? Can you give me your guarantee that you can handle it?”

  The gravity with which Ramsey was speaking caused Monte to perspire. This could be a fairly easy two hundred thousand or the beginning of a nightmare. He pushed his oily black hair out of his eyes and sighed. He didn’t like the idea of the ‘leg work’ that would be necessary for this mission. He preferred taking jobs sitting at his desk and using the phone,
telling others what to do, but the color of two hundred and sixty thousand dollars had captured Monte. “I think I can guarantee success Mr. Ramsey,” his thoughts were racing. “But uh, Mr. Ramsey, how and when do we get paid?”

  “Don’t just think you can, Monte—I want your certain guarantee. As for pay, it depends on how efficient you are. Do it well and don’t screw this up or else....”

  Monte didn’t want to know the rest of ‘or else’. “No, no, Mr. Ramsey I just wondered how to make the offer,” Monte said nervously. “I am guaranteeing and I’ll get started finding applicants right away.”

  “Fine, just remember time is short; so I repeat, be very careful in your selections. When you get the right people, call me,” Ramsey told him. “You have my number.

  “Once again, I want to make it perfectly clear to you Monte, that if anything goes wrong and you involve me in any way, you will live, briefly, to regret it.”

  Monte hung the phone up and assured himself that nothing would go wrong.

  ✽✽✽

  Sitting back at his desk Monte mentally went over a list of names that might be suitable for this job. One came to mind, Jake Schultz. Jake had done some hard time for assault with a deadly weapon and was now on parole.

  Monte remembered Jake. His weapon of choice was a knife that he had used expertly on an ex-con in a bar fight that Jake had started. Although the man didn’t die, the attack was enough to put Jake away for a twenty year sentence of which he served eight years and was now on parole. It surprised Monte that he had been paroled; Jake was a mean guy. “I’ll just give his parole officer, Hal Baker, a call and see what’s cookin’ with Jake,” Monte said to himself as he picked up the phone.

  “Hello, Hal, Monte Maxwell.”

  “Hello, yourself,” Hal said. “Haven’t heard from you for quite awhile, what can I do for you?”

  “Oh, just inquiring about one of your cons, Jake Schultz. Does he have a job yet?”