Collateral Damage

by H. Terrell Griffin

  She smiled. “Well, shoot,” she said. “I thought maybe you were just getting a little frisky.”

  “And if I were?”

  She was quiet for a moment, staring at me. “I couldn’t settle for just frisky.”

  I felt a lurch in my chest, down where my heart is. She was opening a door, I thought, a door to a relationship. Maybe. But now was not the time to explore it. “I couldn’t either,” I said. I looked at her for a beat, smiled, and left the sofa.

  I pulled Jock out of the group he was chatting with, got him out of earshot. “We need to find out the names of the two CIA guys Team Charlie killed, Opal and Topaz.”

  Jock looked at his watch. “It’s late. I doubt the night-shift wonks can pull anything for me.”

  “What if the director lit a fire under them?”

  “That’d get the job done. Is it that important?”

  “I think so. If there are men in the CIA who’ve gone rogue and are pursuing this, we may be able to backtrack and find out who Opal and Topaz were buddies with in Saigon.”

  “I’ll call him, but I have a question.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Why do I have to sleep in the room with Logan while you get J.D.?”

  “Because I’m the guy making the room assignments and Logan snores. A lot.”

  Jock grinned and went to make his phone call. I walked out to the patio in search of Doc. I found him talking to Fleming. “Excuse me, Flem,” I said, “but could I have a word with Doc?”

  “Sure,” said Fleming. “I’m on my way to bed. See you guys in the morning.”

  “Doc,” I said when Fleming had gone, “tell me about the Evermore Foundation.”

  I saw his face change, a look of surprise crossing it. He was silent for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “Not much to tell, really. I set up the foundation to funnel money to the survivors of Ban Touk.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “Several years ago, I began to make more money than I’d ever dreamed of. I didn’t just want to spend it on bigger and bigger houses and cars. I’d never been able to get those dead women and children out of my mind, the Ban Touk people. I assumed that some villagers had survived, mostly the men who had been taken into Laos by the people who set us up.

  “I began to make inquiries. I wanted to see if I could find any of those who might still be alive. I hired a lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City, using a false identity. He came highly recommended by a couple of the executives in a company I’d recently acquired. They’d been involved in some infrastructure projects in Vietnam and had used this guy.”

  “What was his name? The lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City.”

  “Tuan Nguyen.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Just that I was aware of a massacre that had taken place at Ban Touk and I wanted to see if any of the people were still alive.”

  “And?”

  “This lawyer had some sources in the Vietnamese intelligence agency. He found some of the records concerning the massacre. They didn’t say that it’d been set up by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, only that some Americans had killed all the women and children. Many of the men from Ban Touk were still alive, and Nguyen found some of them still living in the same area where the village had been. They had rebuilt and started new families. A few of the women and children of the village had survived, those who were somewhere else when the men were moved into Laos. None of these people knew that their families had been staked out like goats for the slaughter. They just knew the Americans killed their families.”

  “Why did you want to remain anonymous? You were doing a good thing.”

  “The only reason I would even know about the massacre was if I was there. It was never made public. I didn’t want anyone to tie me to it, so I set up the foundation with a couple of layers of insulation. I’m surprised you figured it out.”

  “Jock can do wonders.”

  “I guess.”

  “You’ve been putting two hundred thousand dollars a year into the foundation until this year, when you didn’t pay into it until after Jim was killed. Then you put in an extra hundred thousand. Why?”

  Doc massaged his forehead, taking a minute to think. “I just didn’t have the money in the spring. I had bought two more engineering concerns and it took all my cash. I knew a big influx of money was only a couple of months away, so I e-mailed Nguyen and told him the foundation would not be able to make the donation in April as usual, but that a larger donation would be sent during the summer.”

  “What does Nguyen use the money for?”

  “He gets a small percentage as a fee, but the rest of the money is doled out for all kinds of things the villagers need. Generators for electricity, wells for running water, sewage disposal, and scholarships for the village kids. Just enough to help out, but not enough to sap their work ethic.”

  “Are you sure Nguyen is using the money like you want?”

  “Yes. The foundation gets copies of all checks and I have an accountant in Ho Chi Minh City who follows up and makes sure the money is being used properly.”

  “Doc, I hope this is on the up-and-up,” I said.

  “It is. My way of giving back something to those I took so much from.”

  A low buzzing sound filled the room. The men were instantly alert, all movement stopped. “We’ve got visitors,” said Doc. “That’s the perimeter alarm. Grab your weapons.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  The men moved quickly, their age not slowing their soldier reflexes by much. They picked up rifles that were stacked in a corner of the great room. I hadn’t noticed them before because a tapestry was draped over them, giving the appearance of just another piece of furniture. I unzipped the duffel and passed the M4s and Glocks to Jock and Logan.

  The men and J.D. moved to prearranged positions. Apparently they’d planned for this before we got to the island.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Doc picked up the TV remote control and pointed at the large flat-screen monitor hanging on the wall at the end of the room. Pictures came up, greenish looking squares covering the screen. “Those are the security cameras operating with night-vision technology,” Doc said. “Each screen covers a quadrant of our little island. They overlap so we don’t have any blind spots. If the intruders get closer, they’ll cross the next line of defense and a siren will go off and floodlights will come up.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Jock asked.

  “Sit tight for now. We’ve got all the lines of fire covered. If we need to shoot, we’re in good shape.”

  Nothing moved on the screen. Maybe it was some kind of animal, an innocent incursion. Then I saw movement, a man crawling up from the beach. He was wearing black and in the eerie glow of the night-vision lenses, it looked like neoprene. A wet suit. He must have swum in and now was moving quietly toward the house. I pointed him out to Doc.

  “I see him,” said Doc. “Everybody stay quiet. There’s only one man. Somebody is probing our defenses. Let’s not give anything away.”

  We watched for a couple more minutes as the man made his way closer to the house. The old soldiers stood quietly, positions manned, rifles at the ready. It was the infantryman’s lot. Hurry up and wait. The fire discipline ingrained in them so many years before was still there. They watched the man on the beach come onto the lawn slithering through the grass.

  “We need to find out who he is,” said Jock.

  Doc nodded. “He’s getting close to the point that sets off the lights and siren.”

  “I’ll go,” said Jock. “I don’t want the alarms to spook him.”

  “Want company?” I asked.

  “No. Better if I go alone.” He moved to the door on the opposite side of the house from where the intruder was working his way toward us. He pulled a black windbreaker from a peg at the entrance, put it on over his jeans and white shirt, zipped it to his chin, and let himself quietly out the door.

  I turned back
to the TV monitor. The intruder was still making his way slowly toward the house. Moments passed. The room was quiet, all attention focused on the man in the wet suit. He was crawling toward a depression in the lawn, a swale, used to direct excess rainwater toward the sea. He had just reached the lip of the swale when an arm reached out and encircled the man’s throat. He was pulled violently into the depression, Jock’s forearm never leaving his throat. Within seconds the intruder went limp. Dead? Knowing Jock, I doubted it. He’d want information.

  Jock hoisted the limp body onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and walked toward the house. Doc went to the nearest door and let him in. Jock brought the man to one of the sofas and tossed him like so much linguine onto the cushions. I got a look at the intruders face. He was Caucasian. I was surprised that he wasn’t Asian.

  “He’ll wake up in a few minutes,” said Jock.

  “He’s not Vietnamese, that’s for sure,” said Fleming. “Any ID on him?”

  Jock ran his hands over the wet suit. “Nothing but a cell phone in a waterproof bag.”

  “Let me see that,” said J.D. Jock handed it to her. She opened the phone and pushed a couple of buttons, looked closely and said, “This is probably a disposable phone. There’s only one number programmed into it and that’s on speed dial.”

  The intruder was stirring on the sofa, his eyes open and trying to focus. Jock slapped him gently in the face, once, twice. The man shook his head and then his eyes focused on the armed men in the room.

  “Who are you?” asked Jock.

  The man just stared, lips pressed tightly together, and shook his head.

  “Do you speak English?” Jock asked.

  The man shook his head again.

  Jock turned to Doc. “Take this piece of shit out back and shoot him. He can’t help us.”

  Doc reached for the intruder’s arm. The man shook him off, sat up. “Wait,” he said. “I speak English.” There was a slight hint of the islands in his voice, the way that many of the white Bahamians speak, more American than Caribbean, but distinctive.

  “What are you doing crawling around on my island in the dark?” asked Doc.

  “Can’t tell you that,” the man said.

  Jock put a nine-millimeter pistol to the guy’s forehead, right in the middle, just inches above the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to ask you some questions, dipshit, and you’re going to answer them or I’m going to kill you where you sit.”

  “That wouldn’t be very smart,” said the intruder.

  Jock laughed. “Smart or dumb, you’re still dead.”

  “I’m an officer in the Bahamian Defense Force,” he said. “My people are waiting for me to call,” he said. “If they don’t hear from me,” he paused, looked at the large chronometer on his wrist, “in ten minutes, they’re going to storm this island with heavy weapons. One of our boats is just offshore.”

  “Yeah,” said Jock, “and I’m Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.”

  The man on the sofa stared at Jock. He wasn’t afraid, or if he was, he didn’t show it. “You guys don’t want to get into this. Running drugs is one thing. Killing a Bahamian military officer is a much bigger deal. You won’t leave this island alive.”

  Jock removed the pistol from the man’s forehead. “Drugs?” he asked. “You think we’re running drugs?”

  J.D. stepped in front of the man, holding her ID case so that he could see. “I’m a detective in Longboat Key, Florida. What makes you think we’re running drugs?”

  “A boatload of men comes into our country without clearing customs and ends up on this island. A couple of days later a private jet lands at our airport and clears customs. But they don’t declare a large duffel bag that could hold weapons. An airport worker sees them sneaking the duffel off the plane. They rent a boat and come to the same island where the people on the boat landed. What would you think, Detective?”

  “A fair assumption,” J.D. said. “How do we verify your identity?”

  “Call Chief Constable Bram Gilmore at the Marsh Harbour police station. He’s aware of our operation.”

  Doc went to the phone, looked up a number in the book, dialed it, and asked to speak to Gilmore. The conversation was short. Doc hung up, turned to the intruder. “What’s your name?”

  “Lieutenant Thomas Llewellyn.” He pronounced it “leftenant,” in the British fashion.

  “He’s legit,” said Doc. “Can I get you a drink, leftenant?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Llewellyn looked at his watch. “You’ve got five minutes to convince me that I shouldn’t have my men blow this place off the map.”

  Jock said, “Call your men. Tell them to back off for another fifteen minutes. That’ll give us time to explain what’s going on.”

  “It’ll also give you time to get ready to kill my people.”

  “We’re already on alert, Lieutenant,” said Jock. “Look around you. These might be middle-aged men, but they were the most capable soldiers of their generation. They can still take out your men. Our position is fortified and you will have to stage an amphibious landing. That didn’t work out too well for you alone. It’s not going to work out for your men. If they come in now, they’re dead. If they come in later, they’re dead. But if we’re legitimate, everybody goes home alive.”

  Llewellyn thought for a beat, nodded, picked up his phone, and punched a button. “Stand down. I’m in the house with the people here. I need about another half hour to verify some stuff. If you don’t hear from me by then, or if you hear gunfire, light this place up.”

  He closed the phone and looked at Jock. “Okay. Convince me.”

  “I’m a U.S. intelligence agent,” said Jock. “Detective Duncan is with the police. These other men are businessmen from the States. We’re here hiding out for a few days. We’re not on an operation. These men are my friends and I’m lending a hand, unofficially.”

  “Who are you hiding from?”

  “We don’t know. But somebody’s trying to kill us. They’ve already killed three grown children of some of the men in this room.”

  Llewellyn looked around him. “These aren’t your everyday civilians,” he said. “Not the way they handle those weapons.”

  Jock nodded. “They’re all former Special Operations soldiers. From the Vietnam war.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’d rather not get into that,” said Jock, “but I think I can prove myself to you so that you’ll accept my word that the only thing any of us has done wrong is ignore Bahamian immigration laws.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Call your commanding officer. Have him get in touch with the Bahamian ambassador to Washington. Tell him to ask the ambassador if you can trust the word of Jock Algren.” He handed his ID to Llewellyn.

  “It’s late,” said Llewellyn. “The ambassador might be asleep.”

  “He’ll get up for me,” said Jock.

  Llewellyn walked out onto the patio and made his call. He was only gone for a few minutes before he returned to the room, a big smile on his face. “The ambassador remembers you well and sends his regards. He said we could trust you with anything.”

  The movement was quicker than lightning. One nanosecond Jock’s right hand was hanging loosely by his side and the next it was a fist plunging powerfully into Llewellyn’s gut. I was standing a few feet from Jock and Llewellyn, the other men spaced about the room in no particular order. I sensed confused movement, a murmuring. One of the men said loudly, “What the hell?”

  “Stand down,” I ordered. “Jock knows what he’s doing.”

  “You heard the L.T.,” said Doc. “Stay tight.”

  Jock had Llewellyn by the throat, his palm pushing on the man’s chin. Llewellyn was sitting on the floor, his back against a sofa, Jock on top of him. Llewellyn was trying to catch his breath, breathing in short gasps.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Jock said, his voice low, full of menace.

  “I told
you,” said Llewellyn, making a mighty effort to breathe. “I’m with the Bahamian Defense Force.”

  Jock grinned. “You stupid bastard. I have no idea who the Bahamian ambassador to the U.S. is, but I know he never heard of me. You’re CIA. And this is not a sanctioned mission.”

  I could see resignation on Llewellyn’s face. He’d been had and he could see no way out. I watched him work it out, his brain functioning, sorting all the possibilities. There was only one. Give it up. Jock saw it too, and released him.

  “You’re right,” he said, all trace of the Bahamas gone from his voice. “I’m CIA and I report to some very senior people. You work for the government. You don’t want to mess with this. You ass is about to be grass.”

  “Son,” said Jock, a genuine smile on his face, “nobody in government is senior to me, except for the president of the United States. And I can have him on the phone inside a minute, no matter where in the world he happens to be. Your superiors are finished. They’re going to end up under lock and key in some godforsaken outpost where nobody will find them. You need to call your men off. Tell them the mission is aborted and they’re to go back to wherever the hell they came from.”

  Llewellyn looked at his watch. Laughed. “You’re full of shit. In about five minutes those men are coming ashore. You’re going to be dead in ten minutes.”

  “And you’ll be dead the minute they come into our perimeter. Your guys don’t stand a chance, son, and I’ll kill you the minute we hear them coming ashore.”

  Llewellyn stared at Jock and perhaps at his own mortality. He understood that it didn’t matter if anything else Jock had told him was true. The real truth was that Jock would kill him. That fact alone took precedence over everything else.

  “Okay,” he said. He picked the phone up from the floor where it had dropped when Jock punched him. He opened it, pushed a button, and said, “It’s over. Stay where you are for now. I’ll get back to you.” He closed the phone.