He sat down for a moment, making himself totally still, looking and listening some more before he began his examination of the camp. He found a very good spot, perhaps twenty feet below the crest. The far side of the hill was steep, and a casual climber would make noise. In this place he wouldn’t be skylined to an observer below. His place was within the shroud of bushes to break up whatever outline he might present. This was his place on his hill. He reached in his vest and pulled out one of his radios.
“SNAKE calling CRICKET, over.”
“SNAKE, this is CRICKET, reading you five by five,” one of the communicators replied inside the commo van parked on Ogden’s deck.
“In place, beginning surveillance. Over.”
“Copy that. Out.” He looked up at Admiral Maxwell. Phase Two of BOXWOOD GREEN was now complete.
Phase Three began at once. Kelly took the marine 7 × 50 binoculars from their case and began examining the camp. There were guards in all four towers, two of them smoking. That had to mean their officer was asleep. The NVA had adamantine discipline and punished transgressions harshly—death was not an uncommon price for even a minor offense. There was a single automobile present, parked as expected near the building which had to house the officers at this compound. There were no lights at all, and no sounds. Kelly rubbed the rain from his eyes and checked the focus on both eyepieces before he commenced his survey. In a strange way it was like being back at Quantico Marine Base. The similarity of angle and perspective was uncanny. There seemed to be some minor differences in the buildings, but it could be the dark causing that, or perhaps a slight change in color. No, he realized. It was the courtyard, parade ground—whatever he was supposed to call it. There was no grass there. The surface was flat and bare, just the red clay of this region. The different color and lack of texture gave the buildings a subtly different setting. Different roofing materials, but the same slope. It was like being at Quantico, and with luck the battle would be as successful as the drills. Kelly settled in, allowing himself a sip of water. It had the distilled tastelessness of what they made on the submarine, clean and foreign, as he was in this alien place.
At quarter to four he saw some lights in the barracks, flickering yellow, like candles. Guard change, perhaps. The two soldiers in the tower nearest him were stretching, chatting to each other casually. Kelly could barely make out the murmur of conversation but not the words or cadence. They were bored. This would be that sort of duty. They might grouse about it, but not that badly. The alternative would be a stroll down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos, and, patriotic though they might have been, only a fool would relish that thought. Here they kept watch on twenty or so men, locked in individual cells, perhaps chained to walls or otherwise hobbled, with as much chance of escaping the camp as Kelly had of walking on water—and even if they succeeded in that most impossible of feats, what would they be? Six-foot-tall white men in a land of small yellow people, none of whom would lift a hand on their behalf. Alcatraz Federal Prison could be no more secure than this. So the guards had three squares a day and quiet boring duty that would dull their senses.
Good news, Kelly told himself. Stay bored, guys.
The barracks doors opened. Eight men came out. No NCO in charge of the detail. That was interesting, surprisingly casual for the NVA. They broke into pairs, each heading for a tower. In each case the relief crew climbed up before the duty crew came down, which was to be expected. A few remarks were exchanged, and the soldiers going off duty climbed down. Two lit up before heading back in the barracks, speaking to each other at the entrance. It was all in all a comfortable and grossly normal routine conducted by men who’d been doing the same thing for months.
Wait. Two of them limped, Kelly realized. Veterans. That was good news and bad news. People with combat experience were simply different. The time would come for action, and they’d react well, probably. Even without recent training, instincts would kick in, and they’d try to fight back effectively even without leadership—but as veterans they’d also be softer, disdainful of their duty, however cushy it might be, lacking the awkward eagerness of fresh young troops. As with all swords, that one cut in two directions. In either case, the plan of attack allowed for it. Kill people without warning, and their training was a moot point, which made it a hell of a lot safer.
Anyway, that was one wrong assumption. Troops on POW-guard duty were usually second-raters. These at least were combat troops, even if they had sustained wounds that relegated them to backup service. Any other mistakes? Kelly wondered. He couldn’t see any yet.
His first substantive radio message was a single code group which he tapped out using Morse Code.
“EASY SPOT, sir.” The communications technicians tapped out an acknowledgment.
“Good news?” Captain Franks asked.
“It means everything is as expected, no major news,” Admiral Podulski replied. Maxwell was catching a nap. Cas wouldn’t sleep until the mission was concluded. “Our friend Clark even delivered it exactly on time.”
Colonel Glazov didn’t like working on weekends any more than his Western counterparts, even less so when it was because his administrative assistant had made a mistake and set this report on the wrong pile. At least the boy had admitted it, and called his boss at home to report his error. He couldn’t very well do much more than chide the oversight, at the same time he had to praise the lad’s honesty and sense of duty. He drove his personal car into Moscow from his dacha, found a parking place in the rear of the building, and submitted himself to the tiresome security-clearance procedures before taking the elevator up. Then came the necessity of unlocking his office and sending for the right documents from Central Files, which also took longer than usual on this weekend day. All in all, just getting to the point at which he could examine the damned thing required two hours from the unwelcome phone call that had started the process. The Colonel signed for the documents and watched the file clerk depart.
“Bloody hell,” the Colonel said in English, finally alone in his fourth-floor office. CASSIUS had a friend in the White House National Security Office? No wonder some of his information had been so good—good enough to force Georgiy Borissovich to fly to London to consummate the recruitment. The senior KGB officer now had to chide himself. CASSIUS had kept that bit of information up his sleeve, perhaps in the knowledge that he’d rattle his ultimate control officer. The case officer, Captain Yegorov, had taken it in stride—as well he might—and described the first-contact meeting in exquisite detail.
“BOXWOOD GREEN,” Glazov said. Just a code name for the operation, selected for no particular reason, as the Americans did. The next question was whether or not to forward the data to the Vietnamese. That would be a political decision, and one to be made quickly. The Colonel lifted the phone and dialed his most immediate superior, who was also at home and instantly in a foul humor.
Sunrise was an equivocal thing. The color of the clouds changed from the gray of slate to the gray of smoke as somewhere aloft the sun made its presence known, though that would not be the case here until the low-pressure area had passed north into China—or so the weather briefing had declared. Kelly checked his watch, making his mental notes at every point. The guard force was forty-four men, plus four officers—and maybe a cook or two. All except the eight on tower duty formed up just after dawn for calisthenics. Many had trouble doing their morning exercises, and one of the officers, a senior lieutenant from his shoulder boards, hobbled around with a cane—probably a bad arm, too, from the way he used it. What got you? Kelly wondered. A crippled and foul-tempered NCO walked the lines of soldiers, swearing at them in a way that showed long months of practice. Through his binoculars Kelly watched the expressions that trailed behind the little bastard’s back. It gave the NVA guards a human quality that he didn’t welcome.
Morning exercise lasted half an hour. When it ended, the soldiers headed off for morning chow, falling out in a decidedly casual and unmilitary way. The tower guards spent most
of their time looking in, as expected, most often leaning on their elbows. Their weapons were probably not chambered, a sensible safety precaution that would count against them either this night or the next, depending on weather. Kelly made another check of his surroundings. It would not do for him to fix too closely on the objective. He wouldn’t move about now, not even in the gray daylight that had come with the morning, but he could turn his head to look and listen. Catching the patterns of bird calls, getting used to it so that a change would register at once. He had a green cloth across the muzzle of his weapon, a floppy hat to break up the outline of his head within and behind the bush, and facial camouflage paint, all of which conspired to make him invisible, part of this warm, humid environment that—I mean, why do people fight for the damned place? he wondered. Already he could feel bugs on his skin. The worst of them were put off by the unscented repellent he’d spread around. But not all, and the feel of things crawling on him combined with the knowledge that he couldn’t make any rapid moves. There were no small risks in a place like this. He’d forgotten so much. Training was good and valuable, but it never quite made it all the way to full preparation. There was no substitute for the actual dangers involved, the slightly increased heart rate that could tire you out even when you lay still. You never quite forgot it, but you never really remembered it all, either.
Food, nourishment, strength. He reached into a pocket, moving his hand slowly and withdrawing a pair of food bars. Nothing he’d eat by choice in any other place, but it was vital now. He tore off the plastic wrappers with his teeth and chewed the bars up slowly. The strength they imparted to his body was probably as much psychological as real, but both factors had their uses, as his body had to deal with both fatigue and stress.
At eight, the guard cycle changed again. Those relieved from the towers went in for chow. Two men took posts at the gate, bored before they got there, looking out at the road for traffic that would probably never come to this backwater camp. Some work details formed, and the jobs they performed were as clearly useless to Kelly as to those who carried them out in a stoic, unhurried way.
Colonel Grishanov arose just after eight. He’d been up late the night before, and though he’d planned to arise earlier, he’d just learned to his displeasure that his mechanical alarm clock had finally given up the ghost, corroded to death by the miserable climate. Eight-ten, he saw, looking at his aviator’s watch. Damn. No morning run. It would soon be too hot for that, and besides, it looked like it would be raining all day. He brewed his own pot of tea over a small army-type cook stove. No morning paper to read—again. No news of the football scores. No review of a new ballet production. Nothing at all in this miserable place to distract him. Important as his duty was, he needed distraction as much as any man did. Not even decent plumbing. He was used to all of that, but it didn’t help. God, to be able to go home, to hear people speaking his native language again, to be in a cultured place where there was something to talk about. Grishanov frowned in the shaving mirror. Months more to go, and he was grumbling like a private soldier, a damned recruit. He was supposed to know better.
His uniform needed pressing. The humidity here attacked the cotton fibers, making his usually crisp blouse look like pajamas, and he was already on his third set of shoes, Grishanov thought, sipping now at his tea and going over notes from the previous night’s interrogations. All work and no play ... and he was already late. He tried to light a cigarette, but the humidity had also rendered his matches useless. Well, he had the cookstove for that. Where had he left his lighter ... ?
There were compensations, if you could call them that. The Vietnamese soldiers treated him with respect, almost awe—except for the camp commander, Major Vinh, worthless bastard that he was. Courtesy to a fellow socialist ally demanded that Grishanov be given an orderly, in this case a small, ignorant peasant boy with only one eye who was able to make the bed and carry out the slops bowl every morning. The Colonel was able to walk out in the knowledge that his room would be somewhat tidy when he returned. And he had his work. Important, professionally stimulating. But he would have killed for his morning Sovietskiy Sport.
“Good morning, Ivan,” Kelly whispered to himself. He didn’t even need the binoculars for that. The size was so different—the man was over six feet—and the uniform far neater than that worn by the NVA. The glasses showed Kelly the man’s face, pale with a narrowed-eye expression to contemplate the day. He made a gesture to a small private who’d been waiting outside the door of the officers’ quarters. Orderly, Kelly thought. A visiting Russian colonel would like his comforts, wouldn’t he? Definitely a pilot from the wings over the blouse pocket, plenty of ribbons. Only one? Kelly wondered. Only one Russian officer to help torture the prisoners? Odd when you think about it. But that meant only one extraneous person to have to kill, and for all his lack of political sophistication, Kelly knew that killing Russians wouldn’t do anyone much good. He watched the Russian walk across the parade ground. Then the senior visible Vietnamese officer, a major, went towards him. Another limper, Kelly saw. The little Major saluted the tall Colonel.
“Good morning, Comrade Colonel.”
“Good morning, Major Vinh.” Little bastard can’t even learn to salute properly. Perhaps he simply cannot make a proper gesture to his betters. “The rations for the prisoners?”
“They will have to be satisfied with what they have,” the smaller man replied in badly accented and phrased Russian.
“Major, it is important that you understand me,” Grishanov said, stepping closer so that he could look more sharply down at the Vietnamese. “I need the information they have. I cannot get it if they are too sick to speak.”
“Tovarich, we have problems enough feeding our own people. You ask us to waste good food on murderers?” The Vietnamese soldier responded quietly, using a tone that both conveyed his contempt for the foreigner and at the same time seemed respectful to his soldiers, who would not have understood exactly what this was all about. After all, they thought that the Russians were fast allies.
“Your people do not have what my country needs, Major. And if my country gets what she needs, then your country might get more of what it needs.”
“I have my orders. If you are experiencing difficulty in questioning the Americans, then I am prepared to help.” Arrogant dog. It was a suffix that didn’t need to be spoken, and Vinh knew how to stick his needle into a sensitive place.
“Thank you, Major. That will not be necessary.” Grishanov made a salute himself, even sloppier than that given him by this annoying little man. It would be good to watch him die, the Russian thought, walking off to the prison block. His first “appointment” with the day was with an American naval aviator who was just about ready to crack.
Casual enough, Kelly thought from several hundred yards away. Those two must get along fairly well. His scrutiny of the camp was relaxed now. His greatest fear was that the guard force might send out security patrols, as a line unit in hostile country would surely have done. But they were not in hostile territory, and this was not really a line unit. His next radio message to Ogden confirmed that everything was within acceptable risk limits.
Sergeant Peter Meyer smoked. His father didn’t approve, but accepted his son’s weakness so long as he did it outside, as they were now, on the back porch of the parsonage after Sunday evening dinner.
“It’s Doris Brown, right?” Peter asked. At twenty-six he was one of his department’s youngest sergeants, and like most of the current class of police officers a Vietnam veteran. He was within six credit hours of completing his night-school degree and was considering making an application to the FBI Academy. Word that the wayward girl had returned was now circulating through the neighborhood. “I remember her. She had a reputation as a hot number a few years back.”
“Peter, you know I can’t say. This is a pastoral matter. I will counsel the person to speak to you when the time is right, but—”
“Pop, I understand the law on tha
t, okay? You have to understand, we’re talking two homicides here. Two dead people, plus the drug business.” He flipped the butt of his Salem into the grass. “That’s pretty heavy stuff, Pop.”
“Even worse than that,” his father reported more quietly still. “They don’t just kill the girls. Torture, sexual abuse. It’s pretty horrible. The person is seeing a doctor about it. I know I have to do something, but I can’t—”
“Yeah, I know you can’t. Okay, I can call the people in Baltimore and fill them in on what you’ve told me. I really ought to hold off until we can give them something they can really use, but, well, like you say, we have to do something. I’ll call down first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Will it put her—the person—in danger?” the Reverend Meyer asked, vexed with himself for the slip.
“Shouldn’t,” Peter judged. “If she’s gotten herself away—I mean, they ought not to know where she is, and if they did, they might have got her already.”
“How can people do things like that?”
Peter lit up another. His father was just too good a man to understand. Not that he did either. “Pop, I see it all the time, and I have trouble believing it, too. The important part’s getting the bastards.”