by Tom Clancy
“Tough day?” Frank Allen asked.
Lieutenant Mark Charon was surprisingly chipper for a man who’d been through a fatal shooting and the almost-as-rigorous interrogation that had followed it.
“The damned fool. Didn’t have to happen that way.” Charon said. “I guess he didn’t like the idea of life on Falls Road,” the narcotics-division lieutenant added, referring to the Maryland State Penitentiary. Located in downtown Baltimore, the building was so grim that its inmates referred to it as Frankenstein’s Castle.
Allen didn’t have to tell him much. The procedures for the incident were straightforward. Charon would go on administrative leave for ten working days while the Department made sure that the shooting had not been contrary to official policy guidelines for the use of “deadly force.” It was essentially a two-week vacation with pay, except that Charon might have to face additional interviews. Not likely in this case, as several police officers had observed the whole thing, one from a mere twenty feet away.
“I’ve got the case, Mark,” Allen told him. “I’ve been over the preliminaries. Looks like you’ll come out okay on this. Anything you might have done to spook him?”
Charon shook his head. “No, I didn’t shout or anything until he went for his piece. I tried to ease him into it, y’know, calm him down, like? But he just jumped the wrong way. Eddie Morello died of the dumbs,” the Lieutenant observed, impassively enjoying the fact that he was telling the exact truth.
“Well, I’m not gonna cry over the death of a doper. Good day all around, Mark.”
“How’s that, Frank?” Charon sat down and stole a cigarette.
“Got a call from Pittsburgh today. Seems there may be a witness for the Fountain Murder that Em and Tom are handling.”
“No shit? That’s good news. What do we have?”
“Somebody, probably a girl from how the guy was talking, who saw Madden and Waters get it. Sounds like she’s talking to her minister about it and he’s trying to coax her into opening up.”
“Great.” Charon observed, concealing his inward chill as well as he’d hid his elation at his first contract murder. One more thing to clean up. With luck that would be the end of it.
The helicopter flared and made a soft landing on USS Ogden. As soon as it was down, people came back out on the flight deck. Deck crewmen secured the aircraft in place with chains while they approached. The Marines came out first, relieved to be safe, but also bitterly disappointed at the way the night had turned out. The timing was nearly perfect, they knew. This was their programmed time to return to the ship. with their rescued comrades, and they’d looked forward to this moment as a sports team might anticipate the joys of a winning locker room. But not now. They’d lost and they still didn’t know why.
Irvin and another Marine climbed out, holding a body, which really surprised the assembled flag officers as Kelly alighted next. The helicopter pilot’s eyes grew wide as he watched. There had been two bodies in the meadow. But mainly he was relieved at achieving another semisuccessful rescue mission into North Vietnam.
“What the hell?” Maxwell asked as the ship commenced a turn to the east.
“Uh. guys, let’s get this guy inside and isolated right now!” Ritter said.
“He’s unconscious, sir.”
“Then get a medic, too,” Ritter ordered.
They picked one of Ogden’s many empty troop-berthing spaces for the debrief. Kelly was allowed to wash his face, but nothing else. A medical corpsman checked out the Russian, pronouncing him dazed but healthy, both pupils equal and reactive. no concussion. A pair of Marines stood guard over him.
“Four trucks.” Kelly said. “They just drove right in. A reinforced platoon—weapons platoon, probably, they showed up while the assault team was inbound, started digging in right away—about fifty of ’em. I had to blow it off.”
Greer and Ritter traded a look. No coincidence.
Kelly looked at Maxwell. “God, I’m sorry, sir.” He paused. “It would not have been possible to execute the mission. I had to leave the hill because they were putting listening posts out. I mean, even if we were able to deal with that—”
“We had gunships, remember?” Podulski growled.
“Back off, Cas,” James Greer warned.
Kelly looked long at the Admiral before responding to the accusation. “Admiral, the chances of success were exactly zero. You guys gave me the job of eyeballing the objective so that we could do it on the cheap, right? With more assets, maybe we could have done it—the Song Tay team could have done it. It would have been messy, but they had enough firepower to bring it off, coming right into the objective like they did.” He shook his head again. “Not this way.”
“You’re sure?” Maxwell asked.
Kelly nodded. “Yes, sir. Sure as hell.”
“Thank you, Mr. Clark,” Captain Albie said quietly, knowing the truth of what he’d just heard. Kelly just sat there, still tensed from the night’s events.
“Okay,” Ritter said after a moment. “What about our guest, Mr. Clark?”
“I fucked up,” Kelly admitted, explaining how the car had gotten so close. He reached into his pockets. “I killed the driver and the camp commander—I think that’s what he was. He had all this on him.” Kelly reached into his pockets and handed over the documents. “Lots of papers on the Russian. I figured it wasn’t smart to leave him there. I figured-I thought maybe he might be useful to us.”
“These papers are in Russian,” Irvin announced.
“Give me some,” Ritter ordered. “My Russian’s pretty good.”
“We need somebody who can read Vietnamese, too.”
“I have one of those,” Albie said. “Irvin, get Sergeant Chalmers in here.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Ritter and Greer moved to a corner table “Lord.” the field officer observed, flipping through the written notes. “This guy’s gotten a lot . . . Rokossovskiy? He’s in Hanoi? Here’s a summary sheet.”
Staff Sergeant Chalmers, an intelligence specialist, started reading through the papers taken from Major Vinh. Everyone else waited for the spooks to get through the papers.
“Where am I?” Grishanov asked in Russian. He tried to reach for his blindfold, but his hands couldn’t move.
“How are you feeling?” a voice answered in the same language.
“Car smashed into something.” The voice stopped. “Where am I?”
“You’re aboard USS Ogden, Colonel,” Ritter told him in English.
The body strapped in the bunk went rigid, and the prisoner immediately said, in Russian, that he didn’t speak English.
“Then why are some of your notes in English?” Ritter asked reasonably.
“I am a Soviet officer. You have no right—”
“We have as much right as you had to interrogate American prisoners of war, and to conspire to kill them. Comrade Colonel.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your friend Major Vinh is dead, but we have his dispatches. I guess you were finished talking to our people, right? And the NVA were trying to figure the most convenient way to eliminate them. Are you telling me you didn’t know that?”
The oath Ritter heard was a particularly vile one, but the voice held genuine surprise that was interesting. This man was too injured to dissimulate well. He looked up at Greer.
“I’ve got some more reading to do. You want to keep this guy company?”
The one good thing that happened to Kelly that night was that Captain Franks hadn’t tossed the aviator rations over the side after all. Finished with his debrief. he found his cabin and downed three stiff ones. With the release from the tension of the night, physical exhaustion assaulted the young man. The three drinks knocked him out, and he collapsed into his bunk without so much as a cleansing shower.
It was decided that Ogden would continue as planned, steaming at twenty knots back towards Subic Bay. The big amphibious ship became a quiet place. The crew, pumped up for an important
and dramatic mission, became subdued with its failure. Watches were changed, the ship continued to function as before, but the mess rooms’ only noise was that of the metal trays and utensils. No jokes, no stories. The additional medical personnel took it the hardest of all. With no one to treat and nothing to do, they just wandered about. Before noon the helicopters departed, the Cobras for Danang and the rescue birds back to their carrier. The signal-intelligence people switched over to more regular duties, searching the airways for radio messages, finding a new mission to replace the old.
Kelly didn’t awaken until 1800 hours. After showering, he headed below to find the Marines. He owed them an explanation, he thought. Somebody did. They were in the same space. The sand-table model was still there as well.
“I was right up here,” he said, finding the rubber band with two eyes on it.
“How many bad guys?”
“Four trucks, they came in this road, stopped here,” Kelly explained. “They were digging in crew-served weapons here and here. They sent people up my hill. I saw another team heading this way right before I moved.”
“Jesus,” a squad leader noted. “Right on our approach route.”
“Yeah,” Kelly confirmed. “Anyway, that’s why.”
“How’d they know to send in the reinforcements?” a corporal asked.
“Not my department.”
“Thanks, Snake,” the squad leader said, looking from the model that would soon be tossed over the side. “Tough call, wasn’t it?”
Kelly nodded. “I’m sorry, pal. Jesus God, I’m sorry.”
“Mr. Clark, I got a baby due in two months. ‘Cept for you, well . . .” The Marine extended his hand across the model.
“Thank you, sir.” Kelly took it.
“Mr. Clark. sir?” A sailor stuck his head into the compartment. “The admirals are looking for you. Up in officer country, sir.”
“Doctor Rosen,” Sam said, lifting the phone.
“Hi, doctor. This is Sergeant Douglas.”
“What can I do for you?”
“We’re trying to track down your friend Kelly. He isn’t answering his phone. Do you have any idea where he is?”
“I haven’t seen him in a long time,” the surgeon said guardedly.
“You know anybody who has?”
“I’ll check around. What’s the story?” Sam added, asking what he knew might be a highly inconvenient question. wondering what sort of answer he might get.
“I, uh, can’t say, sir. I hope you understand.”
“Ummhmm. Yeah, okay. I’ll ask.”
“Feeling better?” Ritter asked first.
“Some.” Kelly allowed. “What’s the story on the Russian?”
“Clark, you just might have done something useful.” Ritter gestured to a table with no fewer than ten piles of documents on them.
“They’re planning to kill the prisoners.” Greer said.
“Who? The Russians?” Kelly asked.
“The Vietnamese. The Russians want them alive. This guy you picked up is trying to take them home,” Ritter said. lifting a sheet of paper. “Here’s his draft of the letter justifying it.”
“Is that good or bad?”
The outside noises were different. Zacharias thought. More of them, too. Shouts with purpose to them, though he didn’t know what purpose. For the first day in a month, Grishanov hadn’t visited him, even for a few minutes. The loneliness he felt became even more acute, and his only company was the realization that he’d given to the Soviet Union a graduate-level course in continental air-defense. He hadn’t meant to do it. He hadn’t even known what he was doing. That was no consolation, however. The Russian had played him for a fool, and Colonel Robin Zacharias, USAF, had just given it all up, outsmarted by some kindness and fellowship from an atheist . . . and drink. Stupidity and sin, such a likely combination of human weaknesses, and he’d done it all.
He didn’t even have tears for his shame. He was beyond that, sitting on the floor of his cell, staring at the rough, dirty concrete between his bare feet. He’d broken faith with his God and his country, Zacharias told himself, as his evening meal was pushed through the slot at the bottom of his door. Thin, bodiless pumpkin soup and maggoty rice. He made no move towards it.
Grishanov knew he was a dead man. They wouldn’t give him back. They couldn’t even admit that they had him. He’d disappear, as other Russians in Vietnam had disappeared, some at SAM sites, some doing other things for those ungrateful little bastards. Why were they feeding him so well? It had to be a large ship, but it was also his first time at sea. Even the decent food was hard to get down, but he swore not to disgrace himself by succumbing to motion sickness mixed with fear. He was a fighter pilot, a good one who had faced death before, mainly at the controls of a malfunctioning aircraft. He remembered wondering at the time what they’d tell his Marina. He wondered now. A letter? What? Would his family be looked after by his fellow officers in PVO Strany? Would the pension be sufficient?
“Are you kidding me?”
“Mr. Clark, the world can be a very complicated place. Why did you think the Russians like them?”
“They give them weapons and training, don’t they?”
Ritter stubbed out his Winston. “We give those things to people all over the world. They’re not all nice folks, but we have to work with them. It’s the same for the Russians, maybe less so, but still pretty much the same. Anyway, this Grishanov guy was going to a considerable effort to keep our people alive.” Ritter held up another sheet. “Here’s a request for better food—for a doctor, even.”
“So what do we do with him?” Admiral Podulski asked.
“That, gentlemen, is our department,” Ritter said, looking at Greer, who nodded.
“Wait a minute,” Kelly objected. “He was pumping them for information.”
“So?” Ritter asked. “That was his job.”
“We’re getting away from the real issue here,” Maxwell said.
James Greer poured some coffee for himself. “I know. We have to move fast.”
“And finally. . .” Ritter tapped a translation of the Vietnamese message. “We know that somebody burned the mission. We’re going to track that bastard down.”
Kelly was still too drugged from sleep to follow it all, much less see far enough into the future to realize how he had assumed his place in the center of the affair.
“Where’s John?”
Sandy O’Toole looked up from her paperwork. It was close to the end of her shift, and Professor Rosen’s question brought to the fore a worry that she’d managed to suppress for over a week.
“Out of the country. Why?”
“I got a call today from the police. They’re looking for him.”
Oh, God. “Why?”
“He didn’t say.” Rosen looked around. They were alone at the nurses’ station. “Sandy, I know he’s been doing things—I mean, I think I know, but I haven’t—”
“I haven’t heard from him. either. What are we supposed to do?”
Rosen grimaced and looked away before replying. “As good citizens, we’re supposed to cooperate with the police—but we’re not doing that, are we? No idea where he is?”
“He told me, but I’m not supposed to—he’s doing something with the government . . . over in . . . ” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “He gave a number I can call. I haven’t used it.”
“I would,” Sam told her. and left.
It wasn’t right. He was off doing something scary and important. only to come back to a police investigation. It seemed to Nurse O’Toole that the unfairness of life had gotten as bad as it could. She was wrong.
“Pittsburgh?”
“That’s what he said.” Henry confirmed.
“It’s cute, by the way, having him as your man on the inside. Very professional,” Piaggi said with respect.
“He said we need to take care of it quick, like. She hasn’t said much yet.”
�
�She saw it all?” Piaggi didn’t have to add that he didn’t think that very professional at all. “Henry, keeping people in line is one thing. Making them into witnesses is another.”
“Tony, I’m going to take care of that, but we need to handle this problem right quick, y’dig?” It seemed to Henry Tucker that he was in the stretch run, and over the finish line were both safety and prosperity. That five more people had to die to get him across that line was a small matter after the race he’d already run.
“Go on.”
“The family name is Brown. Her name is Doris. Her father’s name is Raymond.”
“You sure of this?”
“The girls talk to each other. I got the street name and everything. You got connections. I need you to use ’em fast.”
Piaggi copied down the information. “Okay. Our Philly connections can handle it. It’s not going to be cheap. Henry.”
“I didn’t expect it would be.”
The flight deck looked very empty. All four of the aircraft briefly assigned to Ogden were gone now, and the deck reassumed its former status as the ship’s unofficial town square. The stars were the same as before, now that the ship was again under clear skies, and a sliver of a waning moon was high in the sky in these early hours. No sailors were out now. however. Those awake at this hour were on duty, but for Kelly and the Marines the day/night cycle was askew, and the gray steel walls of their spaces were too confining for the thoughts they had. The ship’s wake was a curious luminescent green from the photoplankton stirred up by the ship’s screws, and left a long trail showing where she’d been. Half a dozen men stood well aft, staring at it without words.
