by Eric Helm
U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES CAMP A-555
Mildebrandt was sitting in the team house with a cold, wet washcloth on his forehead, cradling a cup of warm tea in his hands. On the table in front of him were bottles of Alka-Seltzer, Pepto-Bismol, Kaopectate and aspirin. He’d spent most of the night in the latrine, holding his helmet between his knees. At the sound of a knock he looked up.
“Jesus, sir, you look terrible.” It was the team’s heavy weapons sergeant, a serious young man with the improbable name of William Henry Schattschneider IV, or possibly, V. Schattschneider himself claimed not to be entirely sure. He’d joined Gerber’s A-Detachment only a month earlier at his own request, replacing a man who had been killed in hostile action. It had made for a few awkward moments. Schattschneider’s father had been A-Detachment 555’s team sergeant before he himself had been killed in a mortar and rocket attack on the camp a little over a year before.
Mildebrandt slid the washcloth up over one eye so he could peek out from underneath it. “Thanks for the encouragement. Actually, I’m feeling a bit better. About an hour ago I ate a banana, and so far it’s stayed down. What do you need?”
“Sergeant Yashimoto says we got a chopper inbound, about five minutes out. Thought you’d want to know.”
Mildebrandt mopped his heavily sweating face with the washcloth and straightened in the chair. “Thanks. Any idea who it is?”
“Sergeant Yashimoto said the pilot gave his call sign as Blackbird One One, but it’s not listed in the SOI, so we’ve got no idea who it is. You want me or Sergeant Smith to meet the bird, sir? I mean, if you’re not feeling well…”
“No, that’s all right, Sergeant. I’ll do it.”
Mildebrandt slid back his chair and used both hands to push himself up from the table. The prospect of having something to do actually seemed to have a recuperative effect on him.
“You said the call sign wasn’t listed in our SOI? You don’t suppose it’s some kind of a trick, do you?”
“I wouldn’t think so, sir. Charlie doesn’t have any choppers. At least we’ve never seen him have any. Besides, I hardly think he’d call and announce himself beforehand if he were planning to air-assault this place. You sure you wouldn’t like me to take care of it, sir? You don’t look at all well.”
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll be fine.”
Mildebrandt waved Schattschneider aside, picked up his M-16 from where he’d leaned it against the wall and walked down to the helipad. In the distance he could hear the chopper and wondered who it could be. He stood there waiting for a moment, finally remembered someone should pop smoke, then got a grenade out of the rack Bocker had built near the helipad to hold them. He peeled the tape from around the canister, shook out a colored smoke grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it onto the helipad. A few moments later a Bell UH-1B slick painted a uniform flat black without markings swung into view and settled onto the pad, releasing a single passenger in a white two-piece suit, which looked as though it had seen better days.
“Lieutenant, uh, Mildebrandt, isn’t it? Remember me? Jerry Maxwell, USIS.”
“Sure. Mr. Maxwell. I thought you were CIA, though. What can we do for you?”
Maxwell gave the young lieutenant a pained look, then forced a smile.
“Actually, I’m looking for Robin Morrow, the reporter who flew out here with you from Saigon. I spoke to her about forty-eight hours ago in Saigon, but I understand she’s come back out here. Can you tell me where I can find her?”
“It’s kind of early. She’s probably still in the temporary quarters we fixed up for her. I’ll take you there.”
“Uh, well, Lieutenant, actually I’d kind of prefer you didn’t do that.”
“No?”
“No. You see, it’s kind of a personal matter.”
“A personal matter? But I thought she and Captain Gerber… uh, that is, sure, I understand,” said Mildebrandt, not understanding at all. “Will you be joining us for breakfast, sir?”
“No. No. Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got to get right back. I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“Of course, sir. Perhaps your pilot and crew would care for something while they wait?”
“That won’t be necessary. They have orders to stay with the aircraft.”
“Well, okay,” said Mildebrandt doubtfully. “I just thought maybe we should ask them if they’d like—”
“Do you speak Macedonian, Lieutenant?”
“How’s that again, sir?”
“I said, do you speak Macedonian?”
“Uh, no, sir, I don’t.”
“Then I’m afraid you won’t be able to ask them, because they don’t speak English.”
“Don’t speak English? Then what do they… oh, I’m beginning to understand.”
“Fine, Lieutenant. Now could you just give me directions to Miss Morrow’s quarters, please? As I said, I’m in kind of a hurry.”
Mildebrandt gave him the directions, and Maxwell walked off, leaving the lieutenant standing by the helipad.
“What was that all about, sir?” said Schattschneider, coming up.
“Well, uh, I don’t know. Said he wanted to talk to Miss Morrow.”
“Must be a pretty high-powered press type to rate his own chopper. Who is he?”
“Some guy named Maxwell. I met him in Saigon. Thought he was CIA, but he says he’s with the U.S. Information Service.”
“That is the CIA,” said Schattschneider.
“Nobody tells me anything,” lamented Mildebrandt. “Say, Bill, you don’t happen to speak any Macedonian, do you?”
“Macedonian? Why, no, sir, I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“Never mind. I was just wondering. Thanks, Bill.”
“Uh, sir, it’s Hank. Actually it’s Henry, but I kind of prefer Hank. That’s what the men all call me. That’s what everybody calls me. Bill was my dad’s name.”
“Hank. Okay. Thanks.” As he walked off, Mildebrandt muttered, “Nobody tells me anything.”
Maxwell found Morrow sitting on her bunk, wearing a pair of combat boots covered in red dust, the familiar fatigue pants cut off into shorts and a khaki shirt that looked as though it had been slept in, and had. Her eyes were red and puffy-looking, and her face looked streaked. Maxwell noted that her bags were packed and sitting out on the dirty plywood floor and that there was a half-empty bottle of Beam’s Choice sitting on the floor next to her bunk.
“Must have been a rough night,” observed Maxwell, picking up the bottle and sinking down on the other bunk across from her. “You look like hell, lady, if you don’t mind my saying so, and even if you do. But it’s all right. I think I like you better this way. I always did prefer my women a bit dirty. Must have something to do with this damned business I’m in.” He uncorked the bottle and took a long pull. “I must be becoming an alcoholic. That was smooth.”
“You don’t look so shit-hot yourself, Maxwell,” Morrow told him. “And drinking at this hour? Mr. One-Rum-and-Coke-a-Day Maxwell? The Russians must be in Washington.”
“Not at last report. Saigon, maybe. Besides, I told you I was going to try and change my drinking habits. Anyway, I mistrust a man who doesn’t drink. He must be afraid he’ll talk too much when he does.”
“Did you want something, or did you just come way out here to be obnoxious?”
Maxwell took another drink, then recorked the bottle. “Hmm, very smooth. I came out here to talk to you, young lady. What’s the matter, you got some place you got to go to in a hurry?”
“Yeah, Saigon. I’ve got to get out of this dump for a while.”
“Fine. I’ll give you a lift back when we’re done talking. Got a chopper waiting outside.”
“Great. I’m ready. We can leave now.”
“Not just yet. I’m not through talking. Are you going to pass up a chance to hear what the Dirty White Clam has to say when he tells you he feels like talking? Yes, I know what you press people call me. There’s not a hell of a lot goes on in Saigon I don’t k
now about, Miss Morrow. Now then, where’s that famed reporter’s natural curiosity? Where’s your sense of journalistic endeavor?”
“Where’s the point to all this? Just what in the hell are you doing here, Maxwell?”
“Very probably throwing my career away. A lot depends on whether or not you’re the kind of person I think you are.”
Morrow found herself wondering just what Maxwell was leading up to. In spite of everything, the conversation did seem to be taking an interesting turn.
“Spare me the character analysis, Maxwell. Why would I want to help you?”
“I can’t think of a reason in the world,” he said, uncorking the bottle and taking a third drink. “But I did think you might be interested in helping your boyfriend, Gerber.”
Morrow felt the skin of her cheeks draw tight. “What makes you think I’d want to help him, or that he’s my boyfriend, for that matter?”
“Miss Morrow, we’re not going to get anywhere if you maintain this attitude. I told you, there’s not a hell of a lot goes on in Saigon I don’t know about. In fact, there’s not much in this whole damned country. That includes you and Gerber. And your sister. Karen’s her name if I remember right.”
It came as a shock. “Just what is it you think you do know, Maxwell?”
Maxwell waved a hand airily. “I don’t think, Miss Morrow. I know. My spies are everywhere, as they say in the movies.”
In point of fact, Maxwell didn’t know anything, but years of experience at keeping his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut while other people talked had made him pretty good at drawing conclusions from dozens of disjointed scraps of information and rumor.
Maxwell glanced at his Rolex watch, saw that it was a little after 7:30 a.m. and took another drink of the Beam’s.
“Here,” he said, passing the bottle over. “I think you’re going to need this.”
Morrow took the bottle but set it down on the floor.
“Do you like stories, Miss Morrow? Of course you do. All reporters love a good story. Well, hold on to your bra and panties, missy, because I’m going to tell you a whopper.”
Maxwell leaned back against the wall and scratched his chin. He still needed a shave. For a moment he said nothing, then he began.
“Once upon a time in a far-off exotic land, there were some noblemen who kept the king’s secrets for him. And in order to keep the king safe and his kingdom secure, they sent their agents throughout the world to spy on the king’s enemies. Some of them went halfway around it.”
“Does this story have a point to it?” said Morrow.
“Just bear with me a moment, please. I think you’ll find it interesting.
“Now as it happened, one of these agents who was sent halfway around the world was very good at his job. So good in fact that one day he noticed something that he shouldn’t have. He noticed that his boss, the nobleman who had sent him halfway around the world to spy on his king’s enemies, had shown up in his neighborhood and was acting strangely. In fact, he’d been in town for two days and hadn’t dropped in to say hello. But he had stopped in to see somebody else. Several times, in fact. A certain general of the king, whose job it was to make sure all the king’s troops in this faraway land had everything they needed to fight the king’s war with, but instead kept the best for himself and gave the troops second best.
“Is the story beginning to interest you now, Miss Morrow?”
“It begins to,” said Morrow. “Go on.”
“Now as it happens,” said Maxwell, “this agent who was very good at his work had recently been forced to cooperate with this not very nice general in the planning and implementation of an expedition to a neighboring land to see what the king’s enemies were up to there. The expedition was led by a gallant young captain of the king’s army, who was also very good at his work, but who wasn’t very good at picking girlfriends or playing politics and had run afoul of the nasty old general. In fact, the general disliked him so much that he had intentionally picked the captain for this expedition, which was very dangerous, hoping that something bad would happen to the gallant young captain.
“And then he made sure of it by making sure the enemy knew exactly where the gallant young captain would be.”
“Oh, my God, you can’t be serious,” breathed Morrow. “Not even Crinshaw would do that. Surely you can’t mean—”
“It’s just a story, Miss Morrow. Would you like me to finish it?”
Morrow nodded for him to continue. She was sitting bolt upright now.
“Oh, this general was evil enough to do such a thing, all right. Especially when it had been made easy for him. You see, the agent who was very good at his work, well, his boss had given the general the perfect opportunity, because he’d asked the general, in the name of the king, to mount an expedition that would draw the enemy out into the open where they could be destroyed by a powerful new secret weapon of the king’s, called Arc Light. Have you ever heard the term Arc Light used before Miss Morrow?”
Morrow nodded slightly. “Saturation bombing by B-52s.”
“Good. I thought perhaps you would have. It makes the telling of the story easier.
“Now the problem was that this new weapon of the king, this Arc Light, wasn’t a very accurate weapon. In fact, when you used it, it destroyed a huge area, which meant it would destroy the expedition led by the gallant young captain, too, unless the men in the expedition could find a way to escape in time. So the evil general made sure they couldn’t by seeing to it that when the time came they’d be denied airlift.”
Morrow sat stunned for a moment. “How did you find this out?”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Miss Morrow. This is just a story. But the agent who was very good at his job found out about it because a lady friend of the gallant young captain’s had convinced him something was rotten somewhere. Not in the way she’d planned, but because the agent discovered his boss had been following the captain’s lady friend.”
Morrow put her hand to her mouth. “I was followed? From Crinshaw’s office?”
“The lady in the story was followed. And when that happened, the agent who was very good at his job decided that it was time to have an ear in the general’s office so he could find out exactly what kind of intrigues were going on in his bailiwick.”
“You bugged Crinshaw’s office,” said Morrow, and wondered why that revelation didn’t particularly surprise her.
“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. And, of course, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Maxwell took an envelope out of his pocket and laid it on the bunk. “Inside there’s a piece of paper with an address on it and a key to an apartment in Cholon. I think I can get your boy and his people out in one piece, but I’ve got to be careful because it has to be done without jeopardizing the primary mission.”
“Why, for Christ’s sake?” interrupted Morrow. “Why not just pull them out?”
“Because I’m still one of the king’s men, damn it, and the orders for this had to come from high up. And because I am very good at doing my job.”
“That’s just great. That’ll make a terrific headline, Maxwell. ‘American Patrol Dies in Cambodia Because Superspook Is Good at His Job.’ That’s just marvelous.”
Maxwell sighed. “And I thought you were a smart lady. You just don’t get it, do you, Morrow? I can’t pull them out. I don’t have the authority. I doubt whether even Crinshaw does, because a plan like this had to be approved at the very highest levels of the executive branch. We’re talking about launching a secret bombing war in Cambodia on a hitherto unprecedented scale. Even if I did have the authority and could pull them out, I’d be violating the wishes of the President of the United States. All I can do for Gerber and the rest of them is try to leave open an escape route for them for when the time comes, or to be more accurate, try to make sure Crinshaw doesn’t slam it shut in their faces. Now are you with me on this or not?”
“Wh
at is it you expect me to do?” asked Morrow.
“Nothing. At least I hope you don’t have to do anything. But I need an insurance policy, and like it or not, you’re it.”
“How can I be your insurance policy if I don’t know what you want me to do?”
“Easy. All you gotta do is stay alive. Only if you stay here, I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.”
“I see,” said Morrow levelly. “You think it’s as bad as all that, then?”
“Don’t you? There are careers at stake here. Not just yours or mine, or even Crinshaw’s. I told you, it’s a decision to intentionally betray an American patrol to the Viet Cong in order to draw the VC out in the open so that they can be annihilated by a mass bombing raid in a neutral country. That kind of decision had to come from the highest levels.”
“I just can’t believe the President of the United States would give such an order.”
“That’s not the way these things get done. The President mentions to the director that he thinks it would be an awfully good idea if the DCI could come up with some way that the Company could help the military do something about all those supplies that keep getting through on the Ho Chi Minh Trail despite all the air interdiction missions being flown. He makes this comment to the director in the presence of the chairman and maybe just a couple of the joint chiefs of staff and then bops out to the Rose Garden for a spot of lunch with some visiting dignitary. The DCI and the chiefs are bright boys. They correctly interpret the situation to mean that the President wants them to get those VC bastards any way they can, but that he doesn’t want to know the details.
“That way, if anything goes wrong, the President can stand there blinking soulfully into the klieg lights and honestly say to the press and the American public that he had no prior knowledge of any such action, because he didn’t actually give them any orders or know what was planned. It’s what we call the doctrine of plausible deniability. A very neat system. And if you’re naive enough to believe that sort of thing doesn’t go on, you’ve got no business being a reporter. At least not over here.”
“It’s a frightening story, all right,” said Morrow, “but I don’t scare easily.”