by Earl Nelson
My first was to the White House. I left word with the duty officer that I had dropped off three CIA agents in Macau and that they may want to get them home quietly. I did this because I know the CIA would have got them home quietly, telling no one, not even the President.
I didn’t think they should get off cleanly. I don’t know if I bought Robertson’s story about them being there to shut down the operation.
From what I had read about the drug trade in the Golden Triangle it would take more like an army brigade to shut it down, and that for only a short time.
The next was to Mr. Norman to have him let MI6 know what the cousins had been up to. If anyone thought I was going to let the CIA get away with drug trafficking they were crazy. The only reason I let those guys go to was to lower my profile in this mess.
I also called home and left messages since they were asleep that I was okay, and that Mr. Norman had the entire story. Mum would get it in short order.
The next day I rode into town to Government House. I was resigned that my days of driving around by myself were about done with. The driver and another guard were upfront.
Tu and I were in the back discussing the stories in the daily newspapers. It turns out that Mr. Trần is very sharp. He clarified that the men that I had taken out of the country had been rescued during the raid.
The reason they were in chains is that no one had a key. How he said that with a straight face is beyond me. I thought I was the actor. I could see that the CIA would be contributing to South Vietnam’s treasury.
At Government House, I shared the real story. The Governor got a laugh out of Mr. Trần, he said he would like to meet such a consummate politician and blackmailer one day.
I thought blackmailers and politicians were synonyms.
We changed the subject to more serious matters. Dr. Deming was being well received in the Colony. The first of his instructors had arrived and they were developing a course syllabus based on the ASQC body of knowledge.
While we were meeting, we were interrupted by a phone call. It seemed the President of the United States wanted to speak with me.”
I had a childish thought about having them tell JFK that I would return his call when I had a chance. Luckily, I caught myself in time.
When I picked up the phone, it was, “Mr. Jackson, please hold for the President.”
The call was transferred immediately. At that point, I might have hung up. I hate it when someone is a better game player than me, just ask my sister Mary.
“Rick, I wanted to call you and thank you for how you handled those three agents. There will be an investigation at the agency. Something smells to the high heavens. You have saved the US public embarrassment. We owe you.”
I thought briefly about doing the ah shucks routine, but settled for, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Chapter 16
I decided to play golf the next day. My driver and bodyguard accompanied me to Clearwater Bay, and I left them to join a threesome that was waiting. They were a strange group, they looked more like muscle men rather than the doctors that I normally played with. I didn't give it a second thought.
Each of them had a caddy and they were just as out of place looking like the others. Not exceptionally so but enough that I noticed. One thing was none of them looked familiar.
At least my caddy was one I had used before. We teed off on one and I could tell these weren't world-class golfers. They weren't terrible but you could see they were occasional players rather than regulars. That didn't matter as I was just out to enjoy the day.
There was little talking going on, and once I swore one of the caddies said something in Russian. All went well until the fourth hole ran next to a side road off the main road.
As I looked at my line on a put, I was jumped. One of the guys even had a syringe in his hand.
I swung my putter hitting the syringe guy in the face. Another guy jumped on my back.
I turned quickly into him, and he lost his hold.
Another man was coming at me, but I managed to get a kick into his knee. It was a losing battle, I hit one guy in the face with the palm of my hand and probably broke his nose.
Another got a solid punch into my stomach that doubled me over. My caddy had joined the fray, but I saw him go down quickly.
I backed away as much as I could. The only good thing going on was that there were six of them and they were getting in each other's way. I had two of them down. Syringe guy and broken nose guy.
Unfortunately, this left more room for the others to come at me. The guy who punched me in the stomach was good as he followed up with a kick to my knee. I barely dodged that but in doing so collected a punch in my right kidney.
That hurt. I could barely stand. One of the other guys had picked up the syringe and was coming at me. As I saw that one of the others jumped on my back and took me to the ground.
I was lying face down as I felt the syringe jab home. There was a moment where I thought it did nothing then the world faded to black. I came to with a tremendous headache and I felt like I had been beaten, then I realized I had been beaten. There was a familiar vibration going on, I was in an airborne aircraft.
I tried to move and that was when I found out that I was handcuffed and shackled both arms and legs with a chain running around my waist and joining the sets of handcuffs. To think I had smirked at Rip Robertson in a similar situation.
Someone leaned over and looked at me. I didn't understand what he said, but I did recognize that it was in Russian.
My old friends the Soviets were up to their old tricks. I wondered if I would survive this one.
The guy did hold a bottle of water to my lips and let me drink. I think that meant they weren't going to kill me right away.
We landed about two hours later, but it was only a fueling stop. I was taken off the aircraft and motions were made that I was to pee on the ground without going into any buildings. Rather than messing my pants up, I managed to do so.
We soon refueled and were in the air again for another three hours. I didn't recognize the aircraft type, but it was a twin-engine about the same size as a DC 3. It had large red stars on it so there was no doubt as to who had me.
Several of the airmen were awake and tried to ask me questions in Russian.
"I don't speak Russian."
One of them replied in English. "Are you American?"
"Yes."
" Oh, KGB caught you and bringing you to Moscow for trial, we see several times."
"Has anyone got away?"
"Nyet."
I thought hard about how I could get out of here, but even if I did where would I go?
A meal was brought to me. It wasn't that bad or else I was that hungry. I hadn't eaten in the last eighteen hours.
I thought hard about how to escape but this wasn't like the movies where they would fall for, I'm sick and then I could jump the one guard and sneak out. They always showed up in twos.
The armed one stood back. The one who slipped the food tray under my door carried no weapons. They had done this before.
If I were going to Moscow for a trial maybe I could hire a high-priced Russian lawyer to get me off from whatever faked charges they would come up with.
Or maybe real charges, like, Your honor this horrible person in front of you prevented our brave Russian pilots in their Blinder bombers from dropping nuclear bombs on American military installations.
Or maybe, Your Honor our man in Los Angeles was peacefully spying on CIA agents when the nasty person exposed them and resulted in our valiant Commercial Attaché being declared Persona non grata.
Or better yet. This filthy capitalist helped kill and behead four of our agents who had merely kidnapped his sister so we could trade her for him.
He had the nerve to put the heads in a bowling ball bag and throw them onto our Embassy ground. We had to put the heads on ice and ship them back to Russia. He should be charged with murder and be forced to pay for the shipment of the he
ads.
Okay, I was getting desperate in my thinking. If I remember correctly my mind was trying to compensate for my current reality and change it.
Not that it would work.
After a restless night of sleep in which someone was peeing, puking, farting every five minutes I was fed a breakfast of stale bread and cold greasy sausage.
I offered my jailers ten million dollars to set me free. You could see the avarice in their eyes, but they turned me down out of fear of failures and their repercussions.
At that point, I was chained and returned to the aircraft.
Another two refuelings and we landed in what appeared to be an extra-large military airport.
I was then taken in a closed van which reminded me of the Black Marias in old movies to a building. Since we drove into a bay and the overhead door was promptly closed all I could tell was that it was a building.
One of my KGB escorts spoke up, the first words I had heard from any of them since I was woken in my cell.
“Welcome to Lubyanka"
My heart sank as this was the dreaded KGB headquarters where people died. It was famous in all the spy movies. I thought that not even James Bond could get out of my situation now.
I was taken to a room where my handcuffs, chains, and all my clothes were forcibly removed, and a freezing cold fire hose turned on me. I was then led naked to a cell and the door was closed. There were no blankets in the room, and it was cold. I think I could hear air conditioning equipment running in the background. It must have been hours before anyone came.
I was asked in educated English if I was ready to confess.
"Confess to what"
He chuckled as he walked away, "I'm sure you will think of something."
The guy must be crazy.
I noticed that my room wasn't as cold as it was before, now it was getting uncomfortably warm. After a while, it was downright hot. At least I didn't have any clothes on.
Soon it got hotter. I was dehydrated as there was no water available. I need a drink badly,
My new ‘friend’ came back and stood there. Another guard came with him. The guard had a small table on which there was a pitcher of ice water. My friend poured a glass and stood there drinking it.
He looked at me and said, "Oh I'm sorry would you like a glass.
"Yes, please."
Some manners never went away no matter the situation.
"Are you ready to confess?"
"I have nothing to confess to."
"Such a shame," as he upended the water on the floor. he and the other guy turned and left.
When they were gone, I was able to reach through the bars of my cell and get my fingers wet. I licked them off and went for more. As I went for the third time the guard came back in with a mop and cleaned up the spill. He turned to leave but then he spits on the floor.
In broken English, he told me I would drink that when things got bad.
Chapter 17
The rest of the day the cell alternated between hot and cold, the only comfortable time was when it was changing. Even that wasn't great as it could be because every time it was changing from hot to cold, I was blasted with cold water from a fire hose. When it was cold, I was miserable.
I wondered if it would go on all night. It did. I tried to get some sleep but when I laid down bright lights came on. They were blindingly bright. When I finally started to doze off in one of the heat cycles, which appeared to be about an hour-long, loud music started. Someone had a wicked sense of humor. It was, “Rock and Roll Cowboy.” I just thought I hated that song.
This continued for all the night hours. In the morning, my ‘friend’ showed up dressed up in a suit as though he were an office worker.
"Are you ready to confess?"
"Confess what."
"Whatever you need to, I hear it is good for the soul if you believe in such."
Then cruelty of cruelties we went through the glass of water scene again. I had learned one lesson and that was to get as much off the floor as I could before the uniformed guard mopped it up. He ran true to form and ended the session by spitting on the floor.
Then a pleasant surprise happened. Breakfast was brought in. I was so hungry I wolfed the sausage and potatoes down. Only when I had finished did I realize how salty it was. My thirst was magnified.
The next time the fire hose was brought out I drank as much water as I could. It probably saved my life, at least from dehydration. Midway through the morning, I was taken to another room. My 'friend' was there.
Once more he asked, "Are you ready to confess?"
This time I just shook my head no. He turned and left the cell. As he was exiting two more guards came into the room. They wore black leather gloves. I quickly found out that was to protect their hands as they beat me.
It was a professional beating. I was black and blue everywhere but my face. I tried to twist and turn away from the blows, but my chains prevented much movement.
I soon realized that it was better to hold still and let them hit their target or they would miss and damage parts of me, that had been hit previously. When they were done one of them talked to me.
"You learn quickly, most fight us until they are hurt bad."
So nice to know that I met the thug's approval.
I was taken back to my cell where the loud music continued along with the bright lights plus the alternating temperatures.
I was so tired that I finally collapsed. I have no idea how long I had been awake, it seemed like days. They must have been watching because I was rousted out of my unconsciousness and hit with the fire hose once more.
The only good thing was that they had changed the music, “Rock and Roll Cowboy,” which must have been too much for them.
Finally, I collapsed into true unconsciousness. I have no idea how long I was out. At least when I woke up, I didn't feel like I was about to die. Only like death warmed over as Mum would say.
I was starting to hallucinate; I thought the guard brought me a cold glass of water and allowed me to drink. When I reached for the glass, he poured it on the floor. Maybe I wasn't hallucinating after all.
Once more my 'friend' came to the cell.
"Are you ready to confess?"
"Confess to what?"
"Ah, progress."
At that, he turned and walked away.
The music stopped, the lights went off and I finally could sleep.
I was woken sometime later by the guard. He handed me a paper that had my confession written on it. I read it and realized that I was heading for a show trial. I would be confessing that I worked for the CIA and was trying to cause problems between North and South Vietnam and blame it on the Soviets.
That was so stupid I tore it up.
Immediately thereafter the lights came back on, and the music resumed.
I think it may have been, “The Flight of the Valkyrie,” at about 100 decibels. It was loud. At least I didn't have to listen to it long as I was taken back to the room where I had been beaten.
There was no surprise when the two thugs returned and beat me all over again. I hadn't time to heal so the bruising was spectacular. It also hurt like hell. I wasn't sure which was worse, no sleep, being beaten, or the thirst.
They kept this cycle up for several years, or at least a while.
Finally, a day, or a week, or even a month later my 'Friend' asked me if I was ready to confess.
"Yes, bring the paper here I will sign it."
It felt like another person was speaking. I didn't want to do this, but I had to stop this while I was still alive.
The paper was brought. It had the same words as before, so I signed it.
My life changed from that moment. I was given a glass of water. Real food was provided. I could sleep with no lights or music.
They allowed me a week of rest. I healed enough that I could move without feeling like an old man.
One morning my 'friend' came in. Tomorrow is your trial. You will read out loud t
he paper that you signed confessing to working for the CIA then plead guilty.
The court will find you guilty and you will be sentenced to twenty years of hard labor in Siberia. You will stay there until your government trades you for one of our brave agents who they caught. Do you understand that if you do not do as I have said this will start all over?
I nodded my head; I was beaten down.
"I must hear you say it."
"I will read the paper as written."
"Good, you almost set a record for holding out. The woman who set the record died, unfortunately."
It went as he said, they gave me a cheap suit and tie and took me to a courtroom. It was packed with reporters, mostly Russian but some from the free world. There were TV cameras.