“Still pregnant. How was your hunting?”
“OK. I missed.”
“You
“The lion came out of the brush at less than ten yards. I had a point-blank shot. I missed.”
“It surprised you.”
“Yeah.”
“Then what happened?”
“It jumped on me. I rolled around. Finally I shot it.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why the hell I missed.” The waitress came over with the food. The turkey wrap was excellent, though Lia was loath to admit it.
“Let’s say you’re right and Forester was killed and it’s all related,” Dean told her, returning to their mission. “Why kill him? What did he know? The Secret Service had no information. If they had, they would have prevented the assassination attempt.”
“That’s what we have to find out. Duh.”
“What if there’s nothing there?”
“Won’t be the first time,” said Lia, digging into her sandwich.
Desk Three Operations Personnel Director Kevin Montblanc met them as they stepped off the elevator near the Art Room about an hour later.
“Uh-oh,” said Lia. “What’s wrong?” Montblanc laughed. His moustache helped make him look a bit like a walrus, dressed in a soft sport coat cut in a way that made him look like an English gentleman from the 1920s.
“Do I always signify a problem?” Montblanc asked.
“Always,” said Lia.
“There’s been an assignment change is all. Charlie, you’re to meet with Ms. Telach as planned. Lia, you’re going to work with the Secret Service and FBI. Mr. Rubens wishes to speak with you himself. He’s in his office.”
“I’m not going to Vietnam with Charlie?”
“Afraid not.”
“OK.”
Lia turned to Dean, sorry now that she hadn’t continued the conversation they’d started and then aborted in the restaurant about kids. Foolishly she’d thought they’d have plenty of time to talk about it.
She wanted to tell Dean that she would miss him, and to take care of himself, and to miss her — but she felt awkward in front of Montblanc.
“See you around, Charlie.”
“Yeah,” said Dean.
She spent the entire trip up to Rubens’s office trying to decipher the meaning of that “yeah,” before concluding it meant nothing more than “yes.”
26
Marie Telach went over the mission with Dean in a small conference room on the secure level of the Desk Three opera-tional center. The room was spartan; there was no massive video screen, no high-tech sound system. The furniture looked a half step above what one might find on sale at Wal-Mart.
Small laptop-like computers sat on the table, permanently connected to each other and the Deep Black computer system via a thick, shielded cable. The room was soundproof and, like the entire level, incapable of being bugged.
Or as Rubens would put it, not
No security system was impenetrable; defeating it was simply a question of devoting resources, creativity, and time.
“Your cover will be as a salesman for agricultural machines. An agricultural exposition is being held in Ho Chi Minh City and we’ve arranged for credentials for you.
There’ll be a packet of background and technical material in your briefcase. Tommy Karr will meet you in Tokyo,” continued Telach. “From there we’ve arranged for you to fly to Thailand, and then take another plane to Ho Chi Minh City.
A driver will meet you at the airport.”
“You mean Saigon, right?” said Dean.
Marie smiled. Dean didn’t know how old she was, but he guessed she was too young to have experienced Vietnam firsthand. It was just history to her, or worse, legend.
And to him? Only a dim memory. Something that had happened to someone else, to a young Marine not even old enough to drink. In fact, he’d lied about his real age to get into the Corps.
Not the last lie he’d ever told, but the last one he felt reasonably good about.
“The driver will be a local, someone businessmen use,” said Telach. “He’ll speak at least some English, but of course we’ll be able to help you with our own translator here. Please leave your communications systems on so we can do that. The CIA will vet the driver, but obviously he won’t be working for us. Be careful what you say.”
Dean nodded.
“Kelly Tang is the CIA officer assigned to help you. She’s covered as a Commerce employee, and she’ll be at the expo.
She’ll be arranging different receptions and maybe a lunch-eon where you may be able to meet one if not more of the contacts. That’s still a little loose.” A picture of a woman in her early twenties appeared on the screen.
“This is Tang. Look for her at the reception the first night.
The CIA is trying to dig up some information on Infinite Burn as well,” added Telach, referring to the Vietnamese assassination program. “We’re all sharing information. So far, they don’t have anything. And for the most part, they’re skeptical.”
“So am I,” said Dean.
“Good.” Telach continued, detailing how the CIA and local embassy people could be contacted. Tang would make available local agents — foreigners who worked for the CIA — if Dean needed help.
“There are three people you’ll have to contact. We don’t have an enormous amount of information on most of them, so you’ll have to gather some of it on the run. We do have some recent photos for two of them, and an old war time shot of the third. They were all connected with the war, but whether that’s significant or not we don’t know.” A Vietnamese man a little older than Dean appeared on the computer panel.
“This is Cam Tre Luc. He’s a mid-level official with the interior ministry. He has some responsibility for the state police, though we’re not precisely sure what his role is. I would expect that he’s the number-one candidate, simply because he’s in the right position to know about a plan like this, but he’s going to be the trickiest one to contact.” Dean read the biographical notes. Cam Tre Luc had been fifteen in 1968. According to the Army intelligence records, he supplied troop estimates and alerts when units were moving. His information had been rated as “often reliable”—excellent, under the circumstances.
“He could easily have been a double agent,” said Dean.
“Supplying our guys with just enough information to keep them happy, while he sucked them dry for the other side.”
“That’s true for all of them,” said Telach. She tapped her keyboard. “This is Thao Duong. He was a low-level member of the South government who was rehabilitated following the war. He now has a job in one of their commerce agencies, helping facilitate international business. You should be able to meet during the convention. Last but not least is this man, Phuc Dinh. He was a provincial official for the Vietcong who was on the American CIA payroll. He now works for one of the Vietnamese semi-official agencies that govern and facilitate travel in the country. He lives in Quang Nam Province. We don’t have a recent photo. We’ve constructed a computer-assisted
