Page 35 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

Now beyond the confines of the embassy, a modern concrete eyesore topped by the Stars and Stripes that stood out from the French colonials flanking it, Eldridge walked for two blocks and then crossed the street, dodging scooters, pedicabs, and rickshaws through the incessant honking of horns.

He ducked into a faded yellow and blue Renault taxicab going in the opposite direction.

He watched to see if anyone followed him, just as he had been taught in England.

He bought a loaf of French bread at a bakery on the edge of Tu Do Street, using the stop as an opportunity to assess the crowd.

He then took a tuk-tuk, a motorized three-wheel rickshaw with an open-air cabin, to Bui Vien Street, where the evening’s festivities in one of the more popular red-light districts was just gearing up.

Though it could be hard to tell in the chaos of Saigon, he did not notice a tail.

He strolled past the bars, brothels, nightclubs, massage parlors, and saunas that were sustained by a constant flow of American GIs, many of whom, Eldridge was sure, would be dead before the year was out.

Every night in Saigon was a Saturday night.

He resisted the urge to get a drink and ignored the enticing calls of the bar girls who beckoned like the Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey.

There would be alcohol and female companionship at his destination.

At the end of the street, he took another tuk-tuk to Le Thanh Ton Street before redirecting his driver to the Ch? L?n district on the western side of the Saigon River.

He paid his fare and crossed the street again, darting past a group of kids playing soccer in the day’s last light, chickens and roosters scrambling to avoid the ball.

Smells of roadside cooking stands burning wood mixed with the evening air, their coals glowing below sizzling meats.

The Ch? L?n district dated back to the Le Dynasty of the sixteenth century and supported a thriving Chinese community.

He walked past the Quan Am Buddhist temple and Bình Tay Market.

Almost there.

Confident that he had not been followed and therefore was not under suspicion, he turned down a narrow alley. The aroma of jasmine and bougainvillea crawling up the walls calmed him, and helped offset the stench emanating from the sewage ditch that ran along one side.

Eldridge felt the bite of a mosquito at his neck and slapped it away.

He twisted his head to see if anyone turned down the alley after him. Nothing.

He continued toward a semi-detached home that shared a single wall with its neighbor at the end of the dead-end alley. Tall and narrow, each of its three floors was a separate apartment. Eldridge’s destination was the middle floor. He had been there many times.

He paralleled the sewage ditch that deposited its dark sludge into a small pond on the other side of the building.

Eldridge knew the pond would soon fill the night with the sounds of frogs croaking to attract mates.

Eldridge always found it amusing that he would soon be making love to the sound of frogs mating in a pond of shit just off the balcony. Fucking Saigon.

Three doorbells were affixed to the wall beside the entrance. He rang the middle buzzer twice, followed by four more in quick succession. He paused and then pressed it twice more.

A minute later he heard the shuffling of slipper-clad feet.

Lan Tri Phuong opened the door in nothing but a blue silk robe. Stunning and perfectly proportioned, she couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. Eldridge quickly stepped inside, enveloped her in his arms, and brought his lips to hers.

Eldridge never told her when he was coming, yet she was always there, always alone.

Was she a prostitute? Of sorts, he surmised, but during his time in Saigon, she was his alone, or so he liked to believe.

It was good for his ego to think that he was important enough for the GRU to assign her just to him.

Eldridge suspected she did not have many options.

She could become a bar girl and risk the sexually transmitted diseases that came from entertaining hordes of U.S.

servicemen, or she could work for the GRU, get set up in an average apartment overlooking a shit pond, take his information, and pass it to the Soviets.

Eldridge also knew she was smarter than she let on. She was a survivor.

And though he was well aware she was just a cutout playing her part, he could not help but have feelings for her.

He was not supposed to know how she gave the information he passed her to the Soviets.

That was the very reason for cutouts. They were intermediaries, used to facilitate the exchange of information.

Every now and then he got curious and thought about following her to see who she met, to whom she passed the information, and if there were a sexual component to that liaison as well.

Was it another cutout, or was it a handler?

Did she transcribe what he told her? Did she leave it at a dead drop or meet with someone in person and pass it along verbally?

Whether it was the aftereffects of the adrenaline dump that came from almost dying in the ambush, the intense debriefing in Ambassador Bunker’s office, or the fear of knowing that he was expendable, Eldridge was exhausted. He needed a release, and he needed sleep.

She broke from the kiss, smiled, took him by the hand, and led him upstairs to her second-floor flat. Once inside with the door bolted, she turned back to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I have a lot to tell you,” he said. “I almost died today. But first…” He slipped the robe from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

She watched him with curiosity as he slept. The rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheets had found a natural rhythm. Every now and again he would mumble. That was one of the aftereffects of the sodium amytal with which she had spiked his fourth scotch.

Her flat had only three rooms and a small balcony. From the kitchen she could see through the living area and into the bedroom where the American snored. He was never rough with her and sometimes he visited socially. That was an acceptable part of their deal. She knew it could be a lot worse.

Usually, he passed along what information he had over a drink as soon as he arrived, eager for what was to come.

She never wrote it down. She was blessed with an exceptional memory, and it was better if she was not caught in possession of anything incriminating should she be surveilled or questioned by authorities.

Then she would pleasure him. She would cook, prepare drinks, bathe and massage him.

Once he stayed for two days, but usually his forays were less than twenty-four hours.

No sense in arousing suspicions by disappearing for too long.

Tonight was different. Tonight, he needed her immediately, and she gave him exactly what he desired.

She had then drawn him a bath and poured him a scotch before preparing a meal of lemongrass chicken with a side of rice and pork dumplings.

She then patted him dry, offered him a silk robe, and handed him another scotch.

He sat at the small kitchen table and told her what needed to be passed to Moscow.

“The NVA prisoner of concern is dead and did not disclose the significance of ‘Lam Nut Bau troi, Rung chuyen Trai Dat.’ Whatever the secret was, it died with him.”

Lan did not want to know. She understood her role. Pass along the information. Well, that was not her only role.

His fourth scotch was spiked with the crystalline sedative. It was after that drink that he had begun to break down. Through the tears, his true thoughts and emotions, repressed over the previous hours, had found an outlet.

They were not supposed to target me.

I could have been killed.

I’m too important.

I was terrified.

The drug was not necessarily a truth serum, as there really was no such thing.

It had been explained to her by the doctor who supplied it that the dose was a barbiturate, a central nervous system depressant that relaxed the user and induced sleep.

She was to administer it and ask him about the information he had provided to test the veracity of his statements and ensure he had not been turned.

He would wake up hours later with no memory of her questions, just a headache that was easy to blame on too much scotch.

When he awoke, she would pleasure him again and make him breakfast.

Then she would go see the doctor.