Firebird_A Spy Story of the 1960's

by Noel Hynd

  After her husband’s death, Anna Chennault worked as a publicist for the Civil Air Transport in Taiwan. She was a very smart woman, charming and fluent in several languages. Later, she was vice-president of international affairs for the Flying Tiger Line that her late husband had founded. Her politics were predictably conservative. In 1960, Chennault campaigned effectively in the hawkish Chinese-American community for her friend Richard Nixon.

  Now, in October of 1968, Spiro Agnew personally phoned Anna Chennault on Nixon’s behalf. They talked things over. Anna Chennault was willing to play a crucial role on behalf of Nixon campaign. Nixon had authorized "throwing a monkey wrench" into Johnson's peace negotiations. Anna Chennault would be the tiger lady who threw the wrench. She contacted South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem, the same man whom Richard Nixon had met in secret in July 1968 in New York. Anna advised Saigon to refuse participation in the talks, promising a better deal once elected.

  The South Vietnamese agreed to hold on, and as a result, the Democrats, and the soldiers in the ground in Vietnam, were deprived of a ceasefire or news of negotiations.

  Chapter 67

  On the same morning, the game plan unexpectedly changed once again for Cooper and Lauren. One of Lauren’s skip-trace contacts had hit some luck, and phoned Lauren at four that afternoon.

  Lauren put the phone down and spoke to Cooper.

  “We’ve got a solid lead on Lt. Diego Ramirez,” she said. “He lives in South Carolina.”

  “He's alive? Accessible?” Cooper asked.

  “Yes to the first. Who knows? to the second. Should we phone him or visit?”

  “Visit. That always works best in a case like this. This is a two-day trip,” Cooper said. “We’ll have to fly. Now. Murphy’s going to explode. He’ll blow sky high.”

  “So?’

  “I’ll reason with him. Plan to travel.”

  “Both of us?”

  “We’re a team, right?”

  “Right,” she said. “Sure.”

  Cooper was correct about the explosion. It was profanity-laced and could be heard all over the Sixth Floor. But by six p.m., the travel was authorized. Cooper and Lauren spent the night at her place in the East Village, then flew from Newark to Charleston the next morning.

  Chapter 68

  The Benson Boat Yard where Diego Ramirez worked was located at the foot of a dead-end road on the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, just south of Myrtle Beach. The yard itself was two acres, filled with dry-docked speedboats, cabin cruisers, wrecks, and fishing boats, all presumably towed in for overhauls.

  Cooper and Lauren pulled their car to a stop in front of the Benson Boat Yard and turned off the engine. Lauren turned to him from the front passenger seat. “Okay, what’s the game plan with this guy?” she asked.

  “I see if I can find Diego Ramirez, then I see if he’ll tell me anything,” Cooper said.

  “You sit here and wait.”

  “I came all the way down here and I sit and wait? You don’t want me to go with you?”

  “No. It could get rough in there. You stay here.”

  “I thought we were partners.”

  “We are. But I don’t want a partner getting injured. Again. Just do as I say, all right?

  She opened her mouth to object, then folded her arms, irked. “Good luck,” she said.

  Cooper grabbed a manila envelope containing the crash scene photos that he had from Maryland. He stepped out of the car. There was a large building that resembled a hanger for airplanes. There was an office in the front. Cooper rang and knocked.

  No one responded

  From nearby, Cooper heard hammering, metal on metal, as well as the occasional hissing of a gas-and-flame torch. He walked from the front office. He followed a dirt path through some weeds, grass, abandoned tires, rusted oil drums and boat parts and walked around back. Even during these days of mid-October, the heat in South Carolina remained intense.

  Behind the main building, Cooper found himself in an open work area, shaded by a tin roof. Cooper saw a tall crewcut man with a broad bare chest that gleamed with sweat, wearing tight cutoff jeans and a pair of leather work boots. He was crouched down, laboring on an outboard engine attached to a rear of a twenty-foot racing boat. There was no fan, no breeze: just heat and humidity in mega doses, plus flies.

  The man mopped his head and brow with an oil-stained towel. Everything flexed. Arms, thighs, calves. Pecs. Lats. Delts. The muscles rippled in the man's neck. Then he saw Cooper.

  Cooper did some quick math. The man appeared to be of the age of the man he sought, former embassy guard Lance Corporal Diego Ramirez. The man stood, larger than Cooper expected: maybe six feet three, two hundred thirty pounds with biceps as thick as fireplace logs.

  “I'm looking for Diego Ramirez,” Cooper said. “Ex-Marine. Heard he works here. I wonder if you'd know where I could find him.”

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “My name is Frank Cooper. I'm a writer. For the New York Eagle,” Cooper said.

  “What's that?”

  “A newspaper.”

  “Never heard of it,” said the man. “Never heard of you. And I hate anything from New York. It’s the bad luck trifecta for you, so get your ass out of here.”

  Cooper reached to his folder and pulled out a copy of the Eagle. He showed it. The day's headline surrounded an ongoing financial scandal at the Board of Education. “Well, here's the paper,” Cooper said affably, “and here I am. Now you've heard of both of us. And if it makes any difference, I was born in Illinois.”

  The workman went back to his labor, pulling on a pair of dark goggles. He picked up an acetylene torch. Working close to the rear of the boat, he shot a blue flame toward a rudder flap on the outboard motor. He held the flame in place for several seconds and connected one piece of metal to another.

  Sweat poured from his muscles. There was a cobra—blazing eyes, fangs exposed—tattooed in black, red, and yellow on the man's left shoulder. The snake stared at Cooper while its owner worked. It sent its own message.

  “Damn!” the man finally said, finishing. “Time for a butt.” He found a pack of cigarettes, tapped out a single smoke, and used the torch to light it. He inhaled deeply, then hacked a rough cough. He stood and inhaled again deeply and pushed the goggles upward on his forehead. He looked critically at the outboard motor. Then, with one massive arm, he picked it up from where it hung on the back of the boat, held it at shoulder height, and walked all one hundred fifty pounds of it, Cooper guessed, across his workshop and hung it on a steel mount.

  On his right arm was a SEMPER FI tattoo. Not even breathing heavily, he returned to confront his visitor face to face. “I thought I asked you to leave,” the man said.

  “I'm looking for Mr. Diego Ramirez,” Cooper said again. He was close enough to feel the heat radiating off the man's body. Cooper refused to back up. “Are you him? If so, I’d like to---”

  The man threw his smoke against a gasoline drum. He grabbed Cooper by the front of the shirt and lifted him off his feet. The man chicken-winged him and marched him back around the corner that he had turned moments early.

  Cooper dropped his envelope and struggled but the man was three times as strong and fifteen years younger. He twisted Cooper’s arm and hammer locked it. He marched Cooper halfway back to the parked car, then threw him down onto the gravel.

  “Now leave me the fuck alone!” he said as Cooper landed. “Come back in here again and I’ll fucking shoot you.” He then turned and walked back to his workshop.

  Lauren cautiously stepped out of the car. Cooper gathered himself and staggered to her. His elbow was bleeding from where he had hit the ground.

  “Doesn’t look like it went well,” she said.

  He stepped closer to her. His back hurt, as did his shoulder, his elbow, a hip and his jaw. Somewhere in the exchange, the bald man had whacked him in the face.

  “No. It didn’t. You could tell?” he asked. Cooper rubbed his aching jaw. �
��Jesus,” he muttered. Then, “Well, I never said I was running a popularity contest.”

  Lauren eyed the buildings and the envelope on the ground. “His name is Diego Ramirez and he’s an ex-Marine?” she asked.

  “Yeah. If that’s him. And I suspect it is. He’s got a small accent.”

  “Beautiful. And he’s Puerto Rican?”

  “Born in San Juan,” Cooper said.

  “Wait here,” Lauren said, stepping past him.

  “What the hell? What do you think you’re doing?”

  “It could get rough in there. You stay here. I got this.”

  Aghast, Cooper watched.

  Lauren scoop up the manila envelope from where Cooper had dropped it. She disappeared around the corner. He went to the car, grimaced and leaned against it to wait.

  Chapter 69

  The bald man was settling in to his equipment again when Lauren turned the corner. She spoke to him in Spanish as he looked up at saw her. “Hola. Diego?” she asked.

  He gave her a long look. “¿Quien quiere saber?” he asked. “Who wants to know?”

  Lauren introduced herself in Spanish. The man asked if she was with the man whom he had just chased. She admitted that she was. She said she shared Diego’s heritage and asked for the personal favor of being able to speak with him.

  “May I sit down?” she asked, continuing in Spanish.

  He said she could. Then, “Okay, look, lady, let's get it straight. You ain't from no bank or finance company, right?”

  “Claro que no.”

  “I used to own this yard,” the man continued in Spanish. “Bank foreclosed on me, took every dime of equity I had. So if you're here to shove some papers at me…”

  “I'm just a working stiff like you,” Lauren reassured him. “You’re Diego, right?”

  After a moment, “Soy Diego.”

  Lauren breathed easier. She led him into some small talk and told him, truthfully, that she was on her first major assignment for a New York newspaper.

  “I really need your help,” she said.

  “Was that your boss I just threw out of here?” he asked.

  She laughed. “No. He’s my partner. And a friend. He’s not a bad man. We work together, and he’s helped me. As a Latina, a lot of people are against me in the business world. He’s not. He hired me when a lot of people wouldn’t. Don’t be rough on him. He’s good people.”

  The man absorbed it. “Esta bien. Okay,” he said.

  “You were a Marine?” she asked.

  “Semper Fi.”

  “Vietnam?”

  “Two tours in Nam. Five tours in total in the Corps.”

  “Gracias,” she said.

  “¿Por qué?”

  “For standing up for our country. Mira. I want to show you something,” she said.

  She opened her wallet. She found a picture of her brother, Hector, in Saigon.

  Diego looked at the picture and all it implied. “He’s doing okay?” he asked.

  “So far so good,” she said. “You know how it is. I pray to God every day.”

  Diego nodded. Yes, he knew.

  “What did you do?” she asked. “In Vietnam?”

  Diego looked at her curiously. He sighed. He rose and walked to a small refrigerator. There was a shotgun leaning against it. He pulled out two cans of chilled Coca-Cola. Lauren noticed his limp. He came back, sat down next to her and gave her a soda. They popped the tops and drank.

  “Gracias,” she said again.

  “De nada. I was in a Marine medium helicopter squadron. I was deployed to the Mekong Delta to provide support firepower for the ARVN’s against the Viet Cong.”

  “Purple hearts?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “How many?” she pressed

  “Two,” he said. After several seconds, he added, “Plus a Silver Star.”

  “God bless you,” she said.

  He nodded.

  A moment passed. Diego reached to Lauren's copy of the Eagle. He flipped a few pages. His eyes settled upon a Kenneth Siegelman trademark, a beach scene from Australia featuring two twenty-year-old girls named Cindy and Lacey in bikinis. The photo was a quarter page.

  “You like the two girls?” Lauren asked. “Guys like to be guys, right? Guys like to look.”

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “They should put your picture in here.”

  “In a swim suit?”

  “Why not, hey?”

  She laughed again. She decided to flirt. “Maybe someday,” she said. “Right now, I write for them.”

  “Nice newspaper. You wrote something in here?”

  She thought fast. She found a short piece in the sports section. Then she added, still in Spanish, “I interviewed Clemente of the Pirates.”

  “You met Roberto Clemente? Cute girls. Nice paper.”

  He apparently meant it. Lauren wasn't used to receiving compliments on the Eagle.

  “Esta bien, I'm Diego Ramirez,” he said. “So what do you want?”

  “I'm doing research project for my newspaper,” Lauren said. “It includes a few personal details on a man named David Charles. He was at the U.S. Embassy in Paris briefly in 1965.”

  Ramirez leaned against the boat. He extinguished his cigarette by nipping off the end of it with his teeth and spitting it quickly onto the floor. He crushed the ember with the toe of his boot. He smiled. “Ha! Yeah. I knew him,” he said. “Not really well personally. Us jarheads kept to ourselves. Shut up and follow orders. Threw people out when I had to. Our rifles weren’t even loaded. Know what I'm saying?”

  “I know exactly.” Lauren nodded. She sensed her moment to make a reportorial move.

  “Diego,” Lauren began, “Let me ask you something. Do you remember a funny incident back in February of 1965? When Ambassador Bohlen went back to the United States, this same David Charles was acting ambassador for a while. Then Mr. Bohlen came back and…”

  Diego Ramirez started to laugh. “Yeah, oh, sure. Hell. I remember that really well.”

  “You do?”

  “Charles. A Texan.” He laughed again. “‘Lyndon's Man.’ People called him because Johnson had sent him personally.”

  “That's right. Did you see a lot of him?”

  “My job was to stand at the door. Like a cigar-store Indian. Didn't have nothing to do but watch people.”

  “You talked to him, this David Charles?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “About what?”

  Ramirez laughed. “Really want to know?”

  Lauren nodded and smiled.

  “You won’t be offended?” Ramirez asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “He asked me about the French whores. Whether I was getting anything at night.”

  “Uh, huh.” She laughed.

  “Nothing much beyond that. I didn’t talk embassy shop with him if that’s what you mean. Don’t know nothing about that. Above my pay grade.”

  “You liked him, Mr. Charles?

  “Seemed like a nice man, Mr. Charles. Wealthy. More down to earth than the real ambassador. But he was a gentleman. Never gave the jarheads no trouble.” The former lance corporal paused. “He knew all the famous people. The big cheeses. All the Presidents.”

  “What about a man named Stanley Rudawski?” Lauren asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Older guy, right?” Ramirez asked. “Maybe around sixty.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Rudawski was kind of a brainy. I didn’t know him that well. Nice man, I guess.”

  “But you remember him, too?”

  “Yeah,” Diego Ramirez asserted. “I remember them both. Rudawski spoke Spanish. Now I remember.”

  “There was a day in February 1965,” said Lauren. “Ambassador Bohlen came back, then you were supposed to take David Charles to the airport. You were sort of his ‘guard,’?”

  “You could say that.”

  “You were in charge of making sure he didn’t talk to anyone. Isn’t that correct?’
>
  “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve done some research. I talked to Stanley Rudawski once,” she fibbed.

  “Yeah? Oh, that’s cool. How is he? Mr. Rudawski.”

  “He just died, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Diego paused. “So this has something to do with that? With him dying?”

  “Sort of. What do you remember about the day in February?”

  “Mr. Bohlen called me into his office when he came back to Paris. Charles was sitting right there in front of him. Looked real mad, Bohlen did. Told me to get Charles out to the airport, fast. He was recalled immediately. Wasn't supposed to talk to nobody, especially embassy staff.” Ramirez paused again. “Why are you asking me all this? Why don't you find Charles? Ask him. Or the ambassador, himself,”

  “We can't find David Charles. Rudawski is dead. Bohlen is not available.”

  “Oh,” said Ramirez, as if it barely mattered.

  Then Lauren reached to the manila envelope. “I want to thank you, Diego,” she said “You're being very helpful. Maybe now,” she said, “you could just confirm everything by identifying some photographs. Do you mind?”

  “No. I don't mind.” Ramirez grabbed the oily towel again and dried his hands.

  “I'm going to show you pictures of eight men. Examine them carefully. Let me know if you recognize anyone.”

  Ramirez shrugged. “Sounds easy,” he said, intrigued.

  Lauren unveiled the packet of head shots: Rudawski, from his obituary picture provided by his daughter; David Charles, swiped from the CIA file; and six others that Cooper had filched from the obituary archives in his office.

  Lauren laid out the eight photographs on the only surface available, a worktable cluttered with tools, oil cans, and outboard motor parts. Lauren watched Ramirez as he looked at the eight photos. He picked up each one individually and gave it a good look. Then he made two piles, one of six photos and one with two.

  “These six I don’t recognize,” Ramirez said. With a thick forefinger, Ramirez pushed the ringers aside. “Stanley Rudawski,” said Ramirez next. That left a single head shot on the table. “This one is David Charles,” he said, identifying the photo from the CIA file.