"Anybody got a smoke? I'm out, and I could sure use one," a voice murmured.
"Here you go, Marine," Young said, the gracious general. He held one out to the shadow and flicked his trusty Zippo. Then he jumped back a step. "Shit!"
"Personally, General, I think Pittsburgh looks pretty tough this year. The Orioles are a little weak in the pitching department." Kelly took one puff, without inhaling, and dropped it to the ground.
"How long have you been here?" Maxwell demanded. "'Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!"' Kelly mimicked. 'I 'killed' you around one-thirty, sir."
"You son of a bitch!" Irvin said. "You killed me."
"And you were very polite about being quiet, too."
Maxwell turned on his flashlight. Mr. Clark--the Admiral had consciously decided to change the boy's name in his own mind--just stood there, a rubber knife in his hand, his face painted with green and black shadows, and for the first time since the Battle of Midway, his body shuddered with fear. The young face split into a grin as he pocketed his "knife."
"How the hell did you do that?" Dutch Maxwell demanded.
"Pretty well, I think, Admiral." Kelly chuckled, reaching down for Marty Young's canteen. "Sir, if I told, then everybody'd be able to, right?"
Irvin stood up from his place of repose and walked next to the civilian.
"Mr. Clark, sir, I think you'll do."
22
Titles
Grishanov was in the embassy. Hanoi was a strange city, a mixture of French-Imperial architecture, little yellow people and bomb craters. Traveling about a country at war was an unusual exercise, all the more so in an automobile daubed with camouflage paint. A passing American fighter-bomber coming back from a mission with an extra bomb or some unexpended 20-millimeter cannon rounds could easily use the car for practice, though they never seemed to do so. The luck of the draw made this a cloudy, stormy day, and air activity was at a minimum, allowing him to relax, but not to enjoy the ride. Too many bridges were down, too many roads cratered, and the trip lasted three times what ought to have been the norm. A helicopter trip would have been much faster, but would also have been madness. The Americans seemed to live under the fiction that an automobile might be civilian-owned--this in a country where a bicycle was a status symbol! Grishanov marveled--but a helicopter was an aircraft, and killing one was a kill. Now in Hanoi, he got the chance to sit in a concrete building where the electricity was a sometime thing--off at the moment--and air conditioning an absurd fantasy. The open windows and poorly fitting screens allowed insects freer reign than the people who worked and sweated here. For all that, it was worth the trip to be here in his country's embassy, where he could speak his native tongue and for a precious few hours stop being a semidiplomat.
"So?" his general asked.
"It goes well, but I must have more people. This is too much for one man to do alone."
"That is not possible." The General poured his guest a glass of mineral water. The principal mineral present was salt. The Russians drank a lot of that here. "Nikolay Yevgeniyevich, they're being difficult again."
"Comrade General, I know that I am only a fighter pilot and not a political theorist. I know that our fraternal socialist allies are on the front line of the conflict between Marxism-Leninism and the reactionary Capitalist West. I know that this war of national liberation is a vital part of our struggle to liberate the world from oppression--"
"Yes, Kolya"--the General smiled slyly, allowing the man who was not a political theorist to dispense with further ideological incantations--"we know that all of this is true. Do go on. I have a busy day planned."
The Colonel nodded his appreciation. "These arrogant little bastards are not helping us. They are using us, they are using me, they are using my prisoners to blackmail us. And if this is Marxism-Leninism, then I'm a Trotskyite." It was a joke that few would have been able to make lightly, but Grishanov's father was a Central Committee member with impeccable political credentials.
"What are you learning, Comrade Colonel?" the General said, just to keep things on track.
"Colonel Zacharias is everything that we were told, and more. We are now planning how to defend the Rodina against the Chinese. He is the 'blue team' leader."
"What?" The General blinked. "Explain?"
"This man is a fighter pilot, but also an expert on defeating air defenses. Can you believe it, he's only flown bombers as a guest, but he's actually planned SAC missions and helped to write SAC doctrine for defense-avoidance and -suppression. So now he's doing that for me."
"Notes?"
Grishanov's face darkened. "Back at the camp. Our fraternal socialist comrades are 'studying' them. Comrade General, do you know how important this data is?"
The General was by profession a tank officer, not an aviator, but he was also one of the brighter stars rising in the Soviet firmament, here in Vietnam to study everything the Americans were doing. It was one of the premier jobs in his country's uniformed service.
"I would imagine that it's highly valuable."
Kolya leaned forward. "In another two months, perhaps six weeks, I will be able to reverse-plan SAC. I'll be able to think as they think. I will know not only what their current plans are, but I will also be able to duplicate their thinking into the future. Excuse me, I do not mean to inflate my importance," he said sincerely. "This American is giving me a graduate course in American doctrine and philosophy. I've seen the intelligence estimates we get from KGB and GRU. At least half of it is wrong. That's only one man. Another one has told me about their carrier doctrine. Another about NATO war plans. It goes on, Comrade General."
"How do you do this, Nikolay Yevgeniyevich?" The General was new at this post, and had met Grishanov only once before, though his service reputation was better than excellent.
Kolya leaned back in his chair. "Kindness and sympathy."
"To our enemies?" the General asked sharply.
"Is it our mission to inflict pain on these men?" He gestured outside. "That's what they do, and what do they get for it? Mainly lies that sound good. My section in Moscow discounted nearly everything these little monkeys sent. I was told to come here to get information. That is what I am doing. I will take all the criticism I must in order to get information such as this, Comrade."
The General nodded. "So why are you here?"
"I need more people! It's too much for one man. What if I am kilted--what if I get malaria or food poisoning--who will do my work? I can't interrogate all of these prisoners myself. Especially now that they are beginning to talk, I take more and more time with each, and I lose energy. I lose continuity. There are not enough hours in the day."
The General sighed. "I've tried. They offer you their best--"
Grishanov almost snarled in frustration. "Their best what? Best barbarians? That would destroy my work. I need Russians. Men, kulturny men! Pilots, experienced officers. I'm not interrogating private soldiers. These are real professional warriors. They are valuable to us because of what they know. They know much because they are intelligent, and because they are intelligent they will not respond well to crude methods. You know what I really need to support me? A good psychiatrist. And one more thing," he added, inwardly trembling at his boldness.
"Psychiatrist? That is not serious. And I doubt that we'll be able to get other men into the camp. Moscow is delaying shipments of antiaircraft rockets for 'technical reasons.' Our local allies are being difficult again, as I said, and the disagreement escalates." The General leaned back and wiped sweat from his brow. "What is this other thing?"
"Hope, Comrade General. I need hope." Colonel Nikolay Yevgeniyevich Grishanov gathered himself.
"Explain."
"Some of these men know their situation. Probably all suspect it. They are well briefed on what happens to prisoners here, and they know that their status is unusual. Comrade General, the knowledge these men have is encyclopedic. Years of useful information."
"You're building up to something."
>
"We can't let them die," Grishanov said, immediately qualifying himself to lessen the impact of what he was saying. "Not all of them. Some we must have. Some will serve us, but I must have something to offer to them."
"Bring them back?"
"After the hell they've lived here--"
"They're enemies, Colonel! They all trained to kill us! Save your sympathy for your own countrymen!" growled a man who'd fought in the snows outside Moscow.
Grishanov stood his ground, as the General had once done. "They are men, not unlike us, Comrade General. They have knowledge that is useful, if only we have the intelligence to extract it. It is that simple. Is it too much to ask that we treat them with kindness, that we give something in return for learning how to save our country from possible destruction? We could torture them, as our 'fraternal socialist allies' have done, and get nothing! Does that serve our country?" It came down to that, and the General knew it. He looked at the Colonel of Air Defense and his first expressed thought was the obvious one.
"You wish to risk my career along with yours? My father is not a Central Committeeman." I could have used this man in my battalion....
"Your father was a soldier," Grishanov pointed out. "And like you, a good one." It was a skillful play and both knew it, but what really mattered was the logic and significance of what Grishanov was proposing, an intelligence coup that would stagger the professional spies of KGB and GRU. There was only one possible reaction from a real soldier with a real sense of mission.
General-Lieutenant Yuri Konstantinovich Rokossovskiy pulled a bottle of vodka from his desk. It was the Starka label, dark, not clear, the best and most expensive. He poured two small glasses.
"I can't get you more men. Certainly I cannot get you a physician, not even one in uniform, Kolya. But, yes, I will try to get you some hope."
The third convulsion since her arrival at Sandy's house was a minor one, but still troubling. Sarah had gotten her quieted down with as mild a shot of barbiturate as she dared. The blood work was back, and Doris was a veritable collection of problems. Two kinds of venereal disease, evidence of another systemic infection, and possibly a borderline diabetic. She was already attacking the first three problems with a strong dose of antibiotics. The fourth would be handled with diet and reevaluated later. For Sarah the signs of physical abuse were like something from a nightmare about another continent and another generation, and it was the mental aftermath of that that was the most disquieting of all, even as Doris Brown closed her eyes and lapsed into sleep.
"Doctor, I--"
"Sandy, will you please call me Sarah? We're in your house, remember?"
Nurse O'Toole managed an embarrassed smile. "Okay, Sarah. I'm worried."
"So am I. I'm worried about her physical condition, I'm worried about her psychological condition. I'm worried about her 'friends'--"
"I'm worried about John," Sandy said discordantly. Doris was under control. She could see that. Sarah Rosen was a gifted clinician, but something of a worrier, as many good physicians were.
Sarah headed out of the room. There was coffee downstairs. She could smell it and was heading for it. Sandy came with her. "Yes, that, too. What a strange and interesting man."
"I don't throw my newspapers away. Every week, same time, I bundle them together for the garbage collection--and I've been checking the back issues."
Sarah poured two cups. She had very delicate movements, Sandy thought. "I know what I think. Tell me what you think," the pharmacologist said.
"I think he's killing people." It caused her physical pain to say that.
"I think you're right." Sarah Rosen sat down and rubbed her eyes. "You never met Pam. Prettier than Doris, willowy, sort of, probably from an inadequate diet. It was much easier to wean her off the drugs. Not as badly abused, physically anyway, but just as much emotional hurt. We never got the whole story. Sam says that John did. But that's not the important part." Sarah looked up, and the pain O'Toole saw there was real and deep. "We had her saved, Sandy, and then something happened, and then something--something changed in John."
Sandy turned to look out the window. It was quarter of seven in the morning. She could see people coming out in pajamas and bathrobes to get their morning papers and collect half-gallon bottles of milk. The early crowd was leaving for their cars, a process that in her neighborhood lasted until eight-thirty or so. She turned back. "No, nothing changed. It was always there. Something--I don't know, released it, let it out? Like opening the door of a cage. What sort of man--part of him's like Tim, but another part I just don't understand."
"What about his family?"
"He doesn't have any. His mother and father are dead, no siblings. He was married--"
"Yes, 1 know about that, and then Pam." Sarah shook her head. "So lonely."
"Part of me says he's a good man, but the other part..." Sandy's voice trailed off.
"My maiden name was Rabinowicz," Sarah said, sipping her coffee. "My family comes from Poland. Papa left when I was too young to remember; mother died when I was nine, peritonitis. I was eighteen when the war started," she went on. For her generation "the war" could mean only one thing. "We had lots of relatives in Poland. 1 remember writing to them. Then they all just disappeared. All gone--even now it's hard to believe it really happened."
"I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't know."
"It's not the sort of thing you talk a lot about." Dr. Rosen shrugged. "People took something from me, though, and I couldn't do anything about it. My cousin Reva was a good pen pal. I suppose they killed her one way or another, but I never found out who or where. Back then I was too young to understand. I suppose I was more puzzled than anything else. Later, I got angry--but against whom? I didn't do anything. I couldn't. And there's this empty space where Reva was. I still have her picture, black-and-white of a girl with pigtails, twelve years old, I guess. She wanted to be a ballet dancer." Sarah looked up. "Kelly's got an empty place, too."
"But revenge--"
"Yeah, revenge." The doctor's expression was bleak. "I know. We're supposed to think he's a bad person, aren't we? Call the police, even, turn him in for doing that."
"I can't--I mean, yes, but I just--"
"Neither will I. Sandy, if he were a bad person, why did he bring Doris up here? He's risking his life two different ways."
"But there's something very scary about him."
"He could have just walked away from her," Sarah went on, not really hearing. "Maybe he's just the sort of person who thinks he has to fix everything himself. But now we have to help."
That turned Sandy around, giving her a respite from her real thoughts. "What are we going to do with her?"
"We're going to get her well, as far as we can, and after that it'll be up to her. What else can we do?" Sarah asked, watching Sandy's face change again, returning to her real dilemma.
"But what about John?"
Sarah looked up. "I have never seen him do anything illegal. Have you?"
It was a weapons-training day. A solid cloud cover meant that no reconnaissance satellites, American or Soviet, could see what was happening here. Cardboard targets were set up around the compound, and the lifeless eyes of mannequins watched from the sandbox and swing set as the Marines emerged from the woods, passing through the simulated gate, firing low-powered rounds from their carbines. The targets were shredded in seconds. Two M-60 machine guns poured fire into the open door of the "barracks" --which would already have been wrecked by the two Huey Cobra gunships--while the snatch team raced into the "prison block." There, twenty-five more mannequins were in individual rooms. Each was weighted to about one hundred fifty pounds--nobody thought that the Americans at SENDER GREEN would weigh even that much--and every one was dragged out while the fire-support element covered the evacuation.
Kelly stood next to Captain Pete Albie, who, it had been assumed for the purpose of the exercise, was dead. He was the only officer on the team, an aberration that was compensated for by the presence of so
many senior NCOs. As they watched, the mannequins were dragged to the simulated fuselages of the rescue helicopters. These were mounted on semitrailers, and had come in at dawn. Kelly clicked his stopwatch when the last man was aboard.
"Five seconds under nominal, Captain." Kelly held up the watch. "These boys are pretty good."
"Except we're not doing it in daylight, are we, Mr. Clark?" Albie, like Kelly, knew the nature of the mission. The Marines as yet did not--at least not officially--though by now they had to have a fairly good idea. He turned and smiled. "Okay, it's only the third run-through."
Both men went into the compound. The simulated targets were in feathery pieces, and their number was exactly double the worst-case estimate for the SENDER GREEN guard force. They replayed the assault in their minds, checking angles of fire. There were advantages and disadvantages to how the camp was set up. Following the rules in some nameless East Bloc manual, it didn't fit the local terrain. Most conveniently indeed, the best avenue of approach coincided with the main gate. In adhering to a standard that allowed for maximum security against a possible escape attempt of the prisoners, it also facilitated an assault from without--but they didn't expect that, did they?
Kelly ran over the assault plan in his mind. The insertion would put the Recon Marines on the ground one ridge away from SENDER GREEN. Thirty minutes for the Marines to approach the camp. M-79 grenades to eliminate the guard towers. Two Huey Cobra gunships--known with lethal elegance as "snakes" to the troops, and that appealed to him--would hose the barracks and provide heavy fire support--but the grenadiers on the team, he was sure, could take out the towers in a matter of five seconds, then pour willie-pete into the barracks and burn the guard force alive with deadly fountains of white flame, doing without the snakes entirely if they had to. Small and lean as this operation was, the size of the objective and the quality of the team made for unplanned safety factors. He thought of it as overkill, a term that didn't just apply to nuclear weapons. In combat operations, safety lay in not giving the other guy a chance, to be ready to kill him two, three, a dozen times over in as little time as possible. Combat wasn't supposed to be fair. To Kelly, things were looking very good indeed.
Without Remorse (1993) Page 44