Page 37 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

His university lectures focused on the tuberculosis crisis but branched out into other infectious diseases so prevalent in Vietnam.

The country was a hotbed of malaria, leprosy, bubonic plague, and the venereal diseases that came with widespread prostitution.

The inevitable result of war was collateral damage, and innocents could die just as easily from lack of care and disease as from a bomb or bullet.

As in occupied France decades earlier, civilians were the ones who paid the highest price.

His goal with his university lectures was to equip his students to be ready after the fall of yet another empire occupying their homeland.

When the Americans abandoned or were thrown from Vietnam, there would be a vacuum to fill.

His status as a physician and medical school lecturer resulted in invitations to parties and gatherings attended by politicians, military officers, Catholic clergy, and private sector business magnates.

Through his reputation and associations, Brémaud soon became the doctor to the elite, also treating their spouses and children.

Physicians by nature are inherently trustworthy, after all.

In 1958, he married into Vietnamese society.

Ten years his junior, V? Tiên floated amongst the upper class to which she had been born.

University educated, well-read, and a magnificent hostess, she moved naturally in these circles.

Brémaud loved watching her work a room. While his bedside manner tended to be more logical and direct, V? was outgoing and extroverted, an easy warmth emanating from her inviting smile.

They were married by Bishop Joseph Pham Van Thien in what was then the Church of Saigon.

Built with tiles from Marseille, bricks from Toulouse, and exquisite stained glass from Chartres, their ceremony in the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon had been more than a wedding, it had been an event.

Though Brémaud shook hands and listened patiently to the generals and politicians drawn to the family of which he was now a part, he saw them as puppets, installed at the behest of the Americans.

President Ng? Dình Diêm’s policies that favored the Catholic minority over the Buddhist majority could not last. And neither could American support.

Had the United States learned nothing from Dien Bien Phu?

Every time he saw an American soldier stumbling out of a brothel or witnessed their drunken antics in the streets, he thought of his native France, of Paris, of liberation, and of épuration sauvage.

The American occupiers were no better than the French colonizers and no better than the Nazis that had plagued his native France.

One day they too would be defeated. When the Americans left—and they would, it was only a matter of time—the Vietnamese people would be able to determine their own future, and he and his wife would be safe from any purges, having supported the cause.

Two years after they were married, under pressure from his wife, Brémaud returned to Paris for the first time since 1946.

He had been honored with, and accepted, the Médaille de la Résistance for his work in France during the war.

Not only would it bolster an already stellar reputation, V? Tiên wanted to visit France with her husband.

And so, in March 1960, they spent two weeks in Paris.

Dr. Brémaud was awarded the medal at H?tel-Dieu hospital on a small stage set up on the front lawn to a standing ovation.

The next days were spent showing his wife the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Pantheon, Conciergerie, Musée d’Orsay, Palace of Versailles, Sainte-Chapelle, Arc de Triomphe, Musée Rodin, Grand Palais, Tuileries Garden, and of course the nearby Notre-Dame cathedral.

One morning, Brémaud rose early, kissed his wife, and exited the Grand Hotel Terminus on Saint-Lazare.

He took the Pont de Neuilly route bus a few stops and then walked the two blocks to H?tel-Dieu, admiring the grandeur of the oldest hospital in Paris.

He remembered the Resistance fighters and Nazis he had treated, and the women left battered in their wake.

He was standing alone, so lost in thought that he did not realize a man had approached and stopped next to him.

“The war was hard on everyone.” The man’s French was almost perfect, almost.

“It was,” Brémaud responded.

“Especially on doctors, no?”

Brémaud turned to see a young, handsome man with blond hair, hands in the pockets of his dark overcoat, looking at the hospital in which Brémaud had once worked.

“You must have been too young to remember.”

“Ah, I was,” the stranger replied.

“You are not from Paris. I can’t quite place your accent.”

“I come from further east, and I have a proposition for you.”

That had been eight years ago. In the interim, Brémaud’s social circle and influence had only grown.

His wife’s cousin had risen through the ranks and was serving as President Nguyen Van Thieu’s special assistant for military and national security affairs.

They dined with him and his wife at least once a week, discussing politics, policies, current events, and the status of the war effort.

Brémaud had also been asked to do more by his Soviet handler.

His marriage and access, status and reputation as a doctor, along with his private clinic, made him the perfect asset.

Dr. Brémaud always made sure his schedule was blocked for a long, leisurely lunch.

He was French after all. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he would finish his morning lectures at Saigon University and then meet his wife or another couple for lunch at either Caravelle or Majestic, both of which had excellent wine selections.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he would shutter the clinic and break for lunch just before noon to walk to one of a number of restaurants that dotted the Ch? L?n district.

He walked a little faster than normal today. He had another stop to make after he ate, and there were still patients to see in the afternoon. He felt the perspiration under his arms and at his temples, unsure if it came from the intense humidity or his nerves.

He glanced down at the rectangular A. Lange & Sohne watch attached to a brown leather strap on his left wrist, even though he had just checked it moments earlier. The watch reminded him of the occupiers.

Relax, you have plenty of time.

The young woman had been dressed professionally, but he knew what she was.

If the GRU had any other prostitutes passing them information, which he was sure they did, they passed it a different way.

Brémaud only dealt with Lan Tri Phuong. She would make appointments and see him on a semi-regular basis.

He could not remember a time when she had made an emergency same-day appointment. That had changed today.

He did not handle her in the traditional manner of the secret world.

He was merely a go-between, a cutout, only there as a conduit for passing information.

Visiting him at his clinic would not arouse suspicion.

They could meet alone in the clinic’s examination room where Dr. Brémaud took her confession, transcribing notes the way he had been taught by the man in Paris.

When it was done, he would hand her an envelope of South Vietnamese banknotes as he had been instructed.

Today, he had seen her just before lunch, made his transcription, passed her the envelope, and then bid her farewell.

He had two more patient consultations after she was gone. It was important not to break routine.

Their system was simple, which was why it worked.

He passed a loud street vendor, slipping past the Adam West Batman and Santa Claus balloons that waved in his face, and turned onto Cong Ly Street, hardly noticing the dust and noise natural to Saigon. His mind was elsewhere.

Lan Tri Phuong had learned from the American spy that a recently captured NVA prisoner had been killed before he could be interrogated. Her asset believed this to be of extreme importance to the GRU. He had carried a coded phrase: “Lam Nut Bau troi, Rung chuyen Trai Dat.”

Crack the Sky, Shake the Earth.

Wonder what he was trying to protect?

Brémaud struggled to remember exactly how to operate the encrypted radio he had been taught to use by the man in Paris.

He cranked the battery of the radio hidden in the wall behind a filing cabinet and sent a Morse code burst transmission through its antennae that was concealed upstairs in a north-facing window.

The radio was for emergencies only. The dead NVA soldier’s message seemed like it was.

For everything else, the dead drop would be sufficient.

The GRU spy reporting to Lan Tri Phuong believed he was at risk of exposure.

Two men from a unit called MACV-SOG had been escorting the NVA prisoner when he was killed.

The spy had told her that one of these men, Frank Quinn, was a seasoned Army Special Forces soldier and the other, Tom Reece, was a Navy SEAL with extensive experience in the Mekong Delta.

They were convinced that there was a leak and were demanding a list of everyone who knew the prisoner was being moved to Saigon, as well as those who knew their route. The GRU spy was on that list.

Brémaud’s first stop was a loud lunch bistro.

He smiled and nodded to a group of American soldiers slurping noodles on the crowded main floor of the compact three-story building.

Choosing a meal was easy enough, as the establishment only offered two dishes, chicken or beef noodle soup.

Steam rolled off the two large stainless-steel cook pots behind a long counter, adding to the torrid humidity and filling the air with the strong aroma of the herbal broth.

“What do you want?” a man in a stained white T-shirt asked in Vietnamese from behind the counter.

Even though Brémaud had eaten in the restaurant almost every week for the past decade, the owner, a man named Ngo Van Toai, treated him as if he were walking in for the first time.

Toai was short, round, and perpetually sweaty.

He greeted customers while tending to the stove and yelling at a cook he changed out by the week.

“Beef noodle, please, and a cup of Tua Chua-Lai Chau tea.”

If Toai was going to treat Brémaud like they had never met, the doctor was going to ask for a tea he knew they didn’t have.

“No tea. We have run out from the war. Coffee only.”

“A coffee will do nicely.”

Brémaud nodded at the owner and took a seat against the window that looked out onto the busy street.

The doctor had become a familiar face to the locals.

He blended in organically, speaking fluent Vietnamese and comfortable in his surroundings, whether at the university, his clinic, or on the streets of Saigon.

He pulled a dog-eared copy of Ma Vie Et Ma Pensée by Albert Schweitzer from a leather messenger bag and thumbed his way to his bookmark, a tongue depressor from his clinic.

He folded the book in half to continue his reading.

It was important to the operation that he did not make lunch seem forced or rushed.

The exchange with Toai, the noodles, and the paperback were all part of the charade.

He finished the first bowl, reminding himself to eat slowly. Then he ordered a second. Nothing seemed out of place. It was just another Wednesday.

After finishing off the last of his broth, he waved goodbye to the owner, who was in the midst of berating his latest chef, and exited onto the street.

He had two more stops to make. The last would be to a bakery to pick up a baguette.

The Vietnamese had perfected the decidedly French creation, and the best bread in Saigon was made just blocks away.

He would pick one up to share with his wife.

It would complement their dinner nicely.

He then slipped off the main street and into a narrow alleyway hardly wide enough for foot traffic. It was the sort of place one avoided. That was what made it appealing for a dead drop.

Mid-alley, he slowed and slipped the paperback out of his bag before pausing to take a knee as if to retie his oxfords.

Confident he had not been followed, Brémaud removed a brick with a small red mark in the top corner from the wall and slipped the book into the concealed cubby behind it.

Then he quickly flipped the brick over, putting the red mark on the opposite bottom corner instead, a confirmation that the dead drop had been loaded, before continuing on his way.

He had a baguette to purchase and patients to see that afternoon.

“Lam Nut Bau troi, Rung chuyen Trai Dat.”

Crack the Sky, Shake the Earth.

What did the message mean?

Brémaud accepted that he might never know.