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By Root 328 0

August to leave. Just in case. Looking at the young woman, Rodgers felt cold-inside, not out. What she'd done here reminded him of something he'd learned during his first tour of duty in Vietnam: that while treason was the exception rather than the rule, it was everywhere. In every nation, every city, every town. And there were no reliable profiles, no rules, to sort out the practitioners. Traitors came in all ages, sexes, and nationalities. They worked in public places and private places and held jobs where they came inffcontact with information or people. And what they did could be personal or it could be motivated entirely by profit. There was something else about traitors, something unique to them. They were most dangerous when they were caught. Faced with execution for their crimes, they had nothing to lose. If they had a final gambit, however futile or destructive it was, they'd try it.

In 1969, the CIA had received intelligence that North Vietnam was using a South Vietnamese military hospital in Saigon to distribute drugs to American servicemen. Rodgers went there, ostensibly to visit a wounded comrade. He watched as South Vietnamese nurses accepted American dollars from "wounded" South Vietnamese soldiers-actually, fifteen to eighteen-year-old Viet Cong infiltrators-as payment for moving heroin and marijuana from the basement to field-bound medical kits. When arrested, two of the three nurses pulled pins from hand grenades that killed them and seven wounded soldiers in the ward.

Caregivers and teenagers becoming killers. Vietnam was unique that way. It was the reason so many veterans had snapped when they came home. In quiet villages, young girls frequently greeted American soldiers. Some asked for candy or money. Often, that was all they wanted. Other times, girls carried dolls that were rigged to explode. Sometimes the girls blew up with them. Old women occasionally offered bowls of cyanide-laced rice to the Americans, rice which they ate first to put the soldiers at ease. These were shapes of destruction more frightening than an M16 or a land mine. More than any other war, Vietnam had robbed American soldiers of the notion that anything anywhere could be trusted. And returning from that war, many soldiers found that they could no longer open up to wives, relatives, even children. That was one of the reasons Mike Rodgers had never married. Getting close to anyone other than a fellow soldier was impossible. And all the therapy, all the reasoning in the world couldn't change that. Once killed, innocence could not be revived.

Rodgers was not happy to revisit those feelings of mistrust again through Annabelle Hampton. The young woman had sold innocent lives for profit and dishonored the government she worked for. He wondered how anyone could be content with blood money. The building was quiet, and there were no ambient sounds coming from outside. First Avenue had been shut down just beyond this building and the FDR Drive had been closed because it passed right behind the United Nations. Obviously, the New York Police Department wanted to have clear access if they needed it. The deadened street in front of this building was also closed. When the TACSAT beeped, it startled them all. Hood stopped pacing and stood beside Rodgers. Annabelle's gaze shifted to the general. Her mouth was set, and there wasn't a hint of compliance in her pale blue eyes.

Rodgers wasn't surprised. Annabelle Hampton was a shark, after all. "Answer the phone," Rodgers said.

She stared at him. Her eyes were cold. "If I don't, are you going to torture me again?"

"I'd rather not," Rodgers said.

"I know that," Annabelle said. She grinned. "Things have changed, haven't they?"

There was definitely something different in the young woman's voice. Aggressiveness. Confidence. They'd given her too much time to think. The dance had begun, and Annabelle Hampton was leading. Rodgers was glad he'd taken the precautions he had. "You could force me to answer by bending my finger back again," she said. "Or you could hurt me in other ways. Open a paper clip