Page 88 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)
CIA Annex
Saigon, Vietnam
“I WANTED YOU TO hear it from me first,” Nick Serrano said.
A fan rotating on a stand whirled in the corner, its low hum ensuring that the office was never entirely silent.
Every time it breezed past the desk, it ruffled the edges of papers held down by East German binoculars that had once been issued to an NVA soldier.
A slower-moving fan turned on the ceiling.
Neither did much to combat the heat. A Hermes portable typewriter was on a typing table in the corner.
Behind Serrano was a filing cabinet topped with a stack of books that included Street Without Joy, The Centurions, and The Golden Bough.
Much like Colonel Backhaus’s hooch in Phu Bai, the walls were decorated with maps of Southeast Asia.
“I don’t love the sound of that,” Tom replied.
After taking the longtail boat farther downriver and rendezvousing with the CIA trawler as per their preplanned secondary extract, they had powered into the Gulf of Siam and then into the South China Sea, where they transferred to the USS America, a Kitty Hawk–class supercarrier.
Major Kirill Dvornikov had been extremely cooperative.
To his way of thinking, there was no reason, ideological or otherwise, for him to end up gutted like Sergeant Voronin.
Tom and Serrano had escorted Dvornikov to Manila aboard a Grumman C-2 Greyhound carrier onboard delivery aircraft, where they turned him over to interrogators from the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.
“Things have changed,” Serrano said.
“Things are always changing, Nick. What’s up?”
“The Soviets manipulated the situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tom, I’m sorry, Dvornikov is getting traded, but it’s not for our POWs in Siberia.”
“The hell he’s not! He told us the Soviets are taking American POWs from Vietnam to Siberia! He told us they have six there right now! Who knows how many more they could take from Hanoi. What the fuck’s going on, Nick?”
“The only people who know what he said in the cabin on that trawler are you, me, and Dvornikov.”
“And the Agency interrogators who have been grilling him the past few weeks.”
“I don’t know what he told them, but let’s assume it’s what he told us: that the Soviets are transporting POWs who are officially listed as Missing in Action to the USSR for interrogation.
And let’s say that goes in a brief to the president, who then confronts Brezhnev. After Brezhnev denies it, then what?”
“Then we push them. We ask whatever spies we have in the USSR to get us proof. We go to war if we need to.”
“Tom, listen to yourself. The United States is not going to risk a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union over six guys, especially without direct proof.”
“You listen to yourself, Nick. We fucking owe it to them, to the guys who laid it all on the line, who came over here and trusted their elected representatives and commander in chief. We owe it to them and to their families to do whatever it takes to get them home.”
“I agree with you, but there is another variable at play.”
“What?”
“The Pueblo.”
“North Korea?”
“Yes.”
Tom took a breath and thought it through.
“They are offering us the crew of the Pueblo if we look the other way on U.S. POWs in the Soviet Union, aren’t they?”
“That’s right. Now, I don’t know if not pressing the POW issue is a condition of a trade for the crew of the Pueblo, but I can make assumptions.”
“How many crew members are they trading?”
“All eighty-two, plus the body of the sailor who was killed.”
“Eighty-two,” Tom whispered. “And it brings an end to the Pueblo crisis.”
Serrano nodded.
“Where is he now?”
“Who?” Serrano asked.
“Dvornikov.”
“Not sure. Something this sensitive and high-priority is going to be kept extremely close hold. Probably the Philippines, possibly Japan or Mexico, anywhere other than U.S. soil. I’m sorry, Tom, but this is sometimes how the bureaucracy and politics work above the tactical level.”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t beat yourself up over any of this. Dvornikov told us that Ella knew he had security. She lied to us. That’s what got her killed.”
“I’ll keep telling myself that. And Eldridge?”
“He’s been reassigned. It may be more advantageous to use him to pass disinformation through his cutout to Dr. Brémaud.”
“Is there talk of a State Department Office of Inspector General investigation?”
“Not yet. That would blow the opportunity to play him back against the Soviets.”
“What kind of games are we playing, Nick?”
“This is the gray zone, Tom. I’m not going to lie to you. On this side of the fence, that’s where the game is played. You need to take some time and think through just how much gray you are comfortable with.”
“If I see Eldridge, I might kill him.”
“I wouldn’t blame you, but please let us handle him.”
“I’m not about to make a promise I can’t keep.”
“Will you at least try?”
“That I can do.”
“Thank you. And, there is good news on Tran.”
“Oh?”
“As you know, he got to the hospital in Bangkok, where they managed to stabilize him. An Agency contact tight with the Royal Thai Police was waiting for him when he arrived. The next day we flew him to Okinawa for next-level care. He’s recovering in Costa Mesa, California, right now and is expected to make a full recovery. ”
“Well, that’s something.”
“It’s a win, Tom.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“You are due to rotate home soon. I want you to think about staying on.”
“With you? At the CIA?”
“That’s what I’m hoping. We still have a mission here, and you can keep working the POW issue on this side. I won’t forget and I know you won’t. I can’t speak for what happens above us.”
“It seems they are all too eager to put this behind them.”
“Just promise me you’ll consider it.”
Tom took a breath and looked around the room, his eyes coming to rest on a map of Laos. He turned his head back to Serrano and nodded.
“Good. In the meantime, why don’t you get out of that Pittman apartment shitbox and let me put you up somewhere nicer.”
“If I never see the Continental again, it will be too soon.”
“The Caravelle’s not bad. Nice rooftop bar. You will blend right in with your safari shirts.”
Tom smiled.
“There it is. I knew you still had a sense of humor. I recommend it for drinks with Loelia Maxwell.”
“Yeah?”
“Go see her and try to enjoy yourself.”
“That sounds like good advice.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, get out of here and mull over what I said. It’s been a bloody year. The war is entering a new phase. I could use you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Tom said, getting to his feet.
The two men shook hands.
“But right now, I’ll take you up on the Caravelle.”