screen showed that she had just successfully signed on. “Anybody could have used the network.”
“Probably.
Doesn’t explain the gun questions and the chat rooms, though.”
“I bet there’s a teenage boy inside,” said Lia. “One who plays basketball and is thinking he’d like to hunt.” She’d seen a basketball net and was guessing the rest.
“Maybe,” admitted Mandarin. He jabbed his thumb toward the roof of the car. The he li cop ters delivering the tactical team were nearly overhead. “We’ll know in a few minutes.” twenty federal agents, backed up by six state troopers and their cars, had been assigned to raid the Hennemman residence, the origin of the latest e-mail threat — a vow to “finish what’s been started”—against Senator McSweeney. The government had been granted a search warrant to seize the Hennemmans’ computers and other papers and material possibly related to the threat. The evidence was not just the e-mailed threat but also inquiries from a computer on the same home network in several public forums about weapons, rifles in particular.
Two members of a special DEA team took down the door; Mandarin and Lia came in right behind them. Within ninety seconds, the house had been searched and the three occupants of the house found themselves pinned in their beds by agents.
Lia helped secure the basement — nothing more threatening there than a dehumidifier — then came upstairs to find Mandarin holding his credentials out to Mrs. Hennemman, explaining what they were doing there. Her husband lay next to her, blinking up as if he wasn’t sure whether this was part of a dream or not.
“Where are the computers?” Mandarin asked.
There were four in the house, including one that was packed away in a box.
“We want our lawyer,” said Mrs. Hennemman belatedly.
“Give him a call,” said Mandarin, handing her his cell phone. “We’ll be downstairs.”
“Do you know whether your wireless network is secure?” Lia asked.
“What’s that?” said Mrs. Hennemman.
77
Phuc Dinh led Dean to a restaurant two blocks from the municipal building. He nodded at the maitre d’ as they entered, and walked straight to the back, taking a large table set with eight places. Within moments, two waiters appeared and whisked the extra places away.
“You will have a drink?” Phuc Dinh asked Dean.
“Water, please.”
Phuc Dinh ordered two bottles, along with a pot of tea.
“It was a long time ago,” he told Dean. “My memory may be faulty.”
The comment disoriented Dean. He was confused, and for a moment he thought Phuc Dinh was talking about
“I had not thought of the money for many years, or think that it was relevant,” added Phuc Dinh. He stopped speaking as the waiter approached.
“What money?” asked Rockman in Dean’s head.
Dean ignored the runner, trying not to show anything to Phuc Dinh, playing out the original bluff as if Forester had told him everything. He was a sniper again, a scout moving silently through the jungle, distractions and emotion in check.
“The war was a long time ago,” prompted Dean as the waiter left. “There were other things to think of.”
“The money was lost,” said Phuc Dinh. “It never arrived at the hamlet.”
“The hamlet was Phu Loc Two, wasn’t it?” asked Dean. It was a guess, but a good one — that was the village where he had stalked Phuc Dinh.
“Yes. Ordinarily a courier would arrive on the tenth of the month. He would bury the money beneath a rock on a trail about three miles out of town.”
“The trail to Laos,” said Dean.
Phuc Dinh nodded. “And then one month, it did not arrive.”
“Which month?”
“September 1971.”
Dean sipped some of the tea. The restaurant was not air-conditioned, and the temperature must have been well into the eighties, but despite the heat, it felt refreshing.
“There were complaints and threats from some of the leaders in the area,” Phuc Dinh said. “A rebellion. I sent a message and requested that the liaison come and explain what had happened, but he would not come. I heard later that he was killed by a rocket attack.”
“What was his name?”
“Greenfield.” Phuc Dinh looked up at the wall behind Dean, as if reading the answer off it. “He called himself Green. But that wasn’t his first name.”
“Was he a soldier?”
“No. Soldiers — Marines — were used as the couriers. But Green was a civilian — CIA, I assume.”
“Was his name Green
“Maybe.”
“Jack Greenfeld was a CIA officer who worked in this area. He ran a number of programs,” said Dean, who wanted the Art Room to know the background. “He worked in that area. Then he was killed by a rocket attack. He was replaced by a man named Rogers.”
“You’re familiar with the area?” said Phuc Dinh.
“Just some of the history.”
“Maybe it is the same person. Green. I don’t know what the arrangements were on the American side,” said Phuc Dinh.
“Only that payments were distributed to different elders.”
“We’re researching this, Charlie,” said Rockman. “Keep him talking. What does this have to do with Forester?”
Dean had already guessed the answer to Rockman’s question.
“What happened after the money stopped?” Dean asked Phuc Dinh.
Instead of answering, the Vietnamese official looked back at Dean. Their eyes met and held each other for a moment.
“Did you serve during the war, Mr. Dean?” Phuc Dinh asked.
“I did.”
“Then you understand.” Phuc Dinh refilled his teacup.
“One had always to cut his own path.”
“So when the money stopped, you began working with the VC?”
“One works with whomever one can.”
Dean suspected that Phuc Dinh had been working with the Vietcong long before the payments stopped; double-dealing was common. But it could have been that he changed sides then. By now it was irrelevant anyway.
“Did you know a man named McSweeney?” Dean asked.
“He would have been a captain. He was with the strategic hamlet program.”
Phuc Dinh stared at the wall once more. “The name is not familiar,” he said finally.
“Did you have any contact with the strategic hamlet program? Before the payments stopped?”
“The couriers were Marines. Maybe they were that program?”
“Did any Marines live with you in your village?”
“You say you are familiar with the history of the area.
Would Marines have lasted long in that village?” Phuc Dinh gave him the names of the provincial leaders who benefited from the payoffs. The list was long, though the sums Phuc Dinh mentioned were relatively small — for the