Without remorse - Tom Clancy [109]
'I can't knock the hospitality, Captain.' Kelly felt obligated to buy the first beer. 'You know why I'm here?'
'I work intelligence,' Griffin replied.
'kingpin?' As though in a movie, the officer looked around before replying.
'Yes, sir. We have all the documents you need ready for you. I hear you worked special ops over there, too.'
'Correct.'
'I have one question, sir,' the Captain said.
'Shoot,' Kelly invited between sips. He'd dried out on the drive from New Orleans.
'Do they know who burned the mission?'
'No,' Kelly replied, and on a whim added, 'Maybe I can pick up something on that.'
'My big brother was in that camp, we think. He'd be home now except for whatever ...'
'Motherfucker,' Kelly said helpfully. The Captain actually blushed.
'If you identify him, then what?'
'Not my department,' Kelly replied, regretting his earlier comment. 'When do I start?'
'Supposed to be tomorrow morning, Mr Clark, but the documents are all in my office.'
'I need a quiet room, a pot of coffee, maybe some sandwiches.'
'I think we can handle that, sir.'
'Then let me get started.'
Ten minutes later, Kelly got his wish. Captain Griffin had supplied him with a yellow legal pad and a battery of pencils. Kelly started off with the first set of reconnaissance photographs, these taken by an RF-101 Voodoo, and as with sender green, the discovery of Song Tay had been a complete accident, the random discovery of an unexpected thing in a place expected to have been a minor military training installation. But in the yard of the camp had been letters stomped in the dirt, or arranged with stones or hanging laundry: 'K' for 'come and get us out of here,' and other such marks that had been made under the eyes of the guards. The list of people who had become involved was a genuine who's who of the special operations community, names that he knew only by reputation.
The configuration of the camp was not terribly different from the one in which he was interested now, he saw, making appropriate notes. One document surprised him greatly. It was a memo from a three-star to a two-star, indicating that the Song Tay mission, though important in and of itself, was also a means to an end. The three-star had wanted to validate his ability to get special-ops teams into North Vietnam. That, he said, would open all sorts of possibilities, one of which was a certain dam with a generator room ... oh, yeah, Kelly realized. The three-star wanted a hunting license, to insert several teams in-country and play the same games OSS had behind German lines in the Second World War. The memo concluded with a note that political factors made the latter aspect of polar circle - one of the first cover names for what became Operation kingpin - extremely sensitive. Some would see it as a widening of the war. Kelly looked up, finishing his second cup of coffee. What was it about politicians?- he wondered. The enemy could do anything he wanted, but our side was always trembling at the possibility of being seen to widen the war. He'd even seen some of that at his level. The phoenix project, the deliberate targeting of the enemy's political infrastructure, was a matter of the greatest sensitivity. Hell, they wore uniforms, didn't they? A man in a combat zone wearing a uniform was fair game in anyone's book of rules, wasn't he? The other side took out local mayors and schoolteachers with savage abandon. There was a blatant double standard to the way the war had been conducted. It was a troubling thought, but Kelly set it aside as he turned back to the second pile of documents.
Assembling the team and planning the operation had taken half of forever. Good men all, however. Colonel Bull Simons, another man he knew only by his reputation as one of the toughest sharp-end combat commanders any Army had ever produced. Dick Meadows, a younger man in the same mold. Their only waking thought was to bring harm and distraction to the enemy, and they were skilled in doing so with small forces and minimum exposure. How they must have lusted for this mission, Kelly thought.