"I dont know, Cabi."

"Actresses are cheap, theyre exhibitionists, and always seek publicity!"

"Angelina is not like that."

"You saw all those pictures in the newspapers, all that gossip-"

"It was terrible what they said."

"How do you think it got there?"

"Because she is a famous person, the three of us understood that."

"She engineered it all! What she wants from you is publicity, that is all."

"I dont believe you."

"You are a stupid dock boy from the waterfront, what do you know about anything? If she knew who and what you really are, do you truly believe shed look at you twice?"

Nicolo fell silent. Finally, he spoke, his head arched back in the seat. "Youre right, Cabi, Im nothing, a n.o.body. I have gone beyond myself, believing things I should not believe because of all the attention and the fancy clothes I wear for this grand game of yours."

"You have the rest of your life ahead of you, my darling boy. Consider all this as an experience that will help you grow into a man.... Now, be quiet, for I must think."

"What must you think about?"

"About the woman Im about to meet in this Silver Spring."

"I must think also," said the dock boy from Portici.

Hawthorne dressed in his new clothes with the help of Poole, who tied his tie, stood back, and rendered judgment. "You know, youre not a bad-lookin civilian, as civilians go."

"I feel like a starched cornstalk," said Tyrell, stretching his neck inside the shirt collar.

"When was the last time you wore a tie?"

"When I took off my uniform, and thats the truth." The telephone rang, and Hawthorne pivoted in pain toward it.

"Stay where you are," said Poole. "Ill get it." He crossed to the desk and picked up the telephone. "Yes?... This is the commanders military aide. Please hold on." He covered the phone and turned back to Tyrell. "Wooly mules.h.i.t, its the office of the director of Central Intelligence. The man wants to talk to you."

"Who am I to object?" said Hawthorne, lowering himself awkwardly on the bed and reaching for the phone. "This is Hawthorne," said Tye.

"The director wishes to speak with you, sir. Please hold on."

"Good afternoon, Commander."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Director. I a.s.sume you know my rank is in retirement."

"I know a great deal more than that, young man, and its all to my regret."

"What do you mean?"

"Ive been talking to Secretary Palisser. Like him, I was part of Van Nostrands extraordinary scam. My G.o.d, that man was brilliant."

"He was in a position to be brilliant, sir. Hes also dead."

"He knew which b.u.t.tons to push; if things had turned out otherwise, we all would have falsely exonerated one another in light of his so-called contributions. He was the consummate actor, and I, like my colleagues, believed him completely."

"What did you do for him?"

"Money, Commander, over eight hundred million dollars transferred to various European accounts."

"Who gets it now?"

"With sums like that, I imagine it will go to international litigation. First, when the time is right, well have to disclose the illegal transfers. Ill resign, of course, and whatever grand illusions I had in taking this job are down the tube."

"Did you make a profit from the transfers?"

"Good Lord, no."

"Then why take the fall?"

"Because regardless of my good intentions, what I did was illegal. I used my office to benefit an individual by disregarding the law and concealing my action."

"So you were guilty of poor judgment; you werent the only one. The fact that youre willing to admit what you did and why you did it would seem to me to let you off the hook."

"For a man with the baggage you carry, thats a remarkable statement. Can you imagine the pressure on the President? An appointment of his to an extremely sensitive and influential position expediting illegal transfers of eight hundred million dollars? The opposition would scream corruption at the highest levels, as in Iran-scam, and I didnt even get a security fence."

"Forget that c.r.a.p, Mr. Director," said Hawthorne, his eyes above the telephone wide, glazed, filled with an admixture of anger and fear. "What baggage do I carry?"

"Well, I... I a.s.sumed you understood."

"Amsterdam?"

"Yes. Why do you sound so surprised?"

"What do you know about Amsterdam?" Tyrell interrupted, his voice hoa.r.s.e.

"Thats a difficult question, Commander."

"Answer it!"

"I can only tell you that Captain Stevens was not responsible for your wifes death. The system was at fault, not the individual."

"Thats the coldest G.o.dd.a.m.n statement Ive heard since 'I was just following orders. "

"It happens to be the truth, Hawthorne."

"Whose? Yours, his, the systems? No ones accountable for anything, right?"

"To cure that disease was one of the illusions I had when I took this job. I was doing pretty well until you and Bajaratt came along."

"Get off my case, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

"Youre upset, Commander, but I might say the same to you. Let me tell you something. I dont like trained U.S. personnel-superbly trained as you were at the taxpayers expense-selling out to a foreign government for money! Do I make myself clear?"

"What you say or think doesnt interest me. You and your system killed my wife, and you know it. I dont owe you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds a thing!"

"Then get out of our nest. Ive got a dozen deep-cover agents better than you, and I can insert them without missing you for a minute. Do me a favor, get out."

"In your dreams! Friends of mine were killed-good friends-and one who survived may never walk again! You and your hotshots have been about as inadequate as youve ever been. Im going down and deep, and Id advise you to keep track of me because Im going to lead you to Little Girl Blood."

"You know, Commander, I believe thats possible, for as I mentioned, you were well trained. As to monitoring you, you can take that to the bank, insofar as your equipment is frequencied into our macrocomputers. Lets get down to business, Commander. As your people requested, and relayed through Palisser, the communications and transponder units will be combined with no access to outside telephones. Frankly, I think its overkill, and our personnel will be individually and collectively upset-theyre among the finest we have."

"So was ORyan. Have you told them about him?"

"I see your point." The director was silent for a moment or two, not finished, merely pausing. "Perhaps I will, although we have no concrete proof of his having turned."

"Since when are we in a court of law, Mr. Intelligence Man? He was there and she was there. One survived and one didnt. Have our rules of engagement changed?"

"No, no, they havent. Coincidence is rarely, if ever, a factor. Perhaps Ill explain that theres evidence that this operation has been penetrated; that could be enough. Sequestration is very bad for internal morale, and these people are all outstanding. Ill have to think about it."

"Dont think. Tell them about ORyan! What the h.e.l.l else do you need? Why, when theres a hundred thousand square miles of coastline, was he within a couple of hundred yards of Bajaratt when he was taken out?"

"Its not conclusive, Mr. Hawthorne-"

"Neither was my wife, Mr. Director. But you know and I know what killed her! We dont have to think, we know. Havent you made that leap? Because if you havent, you dont belong in that chair."

"I made it years ago, young man, but where I am now demands that I make another leap-not so much of faith, but one of practicality. There are a lot of things Id like to change around here, and I cant do it being imperious. Theres been too much of that. Regardless, you and I are working on the same side now."

"No, Mr. Director, Im working for my side and some degree of sanity, if its any comfort to you. But not yours. To repeat, I dont owe you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds anything-you owe me what you can never pay." The blood rushing to his head in fury, Hawthorne slammed down the telephone, the strength of the impact cracking the tan plastic sh.e.l.l.

Raymond Gillette, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, leaned over his desk, his fingers ma.s.saging the terrible ache in his forehead. Bewilderingly, the memory of Command Saigon had come back to him, filling him with anger and sorrow, and he did not know why. Then suddenly it was clear-it was Tyrell Hawthorne ... what he was doing to the retired naval officer. The similarity to Saigon was acutely painful.

Back in Vietnam, a young air force officer, an Air Force Academy graduate, had been shot down with his crew, parachuting out of a burning plane near the border of Cambodia, less than five miles from the camouflaged, crisscrossing Ho Chi Minh supply routes. How that man survived the jungles and the swamps while evading the Cong and the North Vietnamese, only G.o.d knew, but he had done so. He had made his way south through the rivers and the forests, living on berries and bark and rodents until he reached friendly territory. And the story he brought back to his intelligence debriefing was incredible.

There was a hidden complex the size of twenty football stadiums carved out of the side of the mountain, into which hundreds of trucks and tanks, gasoline haulers and armored vehicles disappeared regularly during the daylight hours, only to proceed south again at night. According to the young officer, it was also an ammunition depot, as he had seen webbed ammo vehicles enter and leave empty.

Visions of the World War II German rocket base, Peenemnde, fueled the imagination of the interrogating intelligence officer, who now sat at his desk as director of Central Intelligence. To bomb out, to utterly destroy and close up such a ma.s.sive complex, would not only be an immense strategic victory but also a much needed psychological boost to a military machine that was being worn down by the sheer perseverance of an enemy who had neither the use nor the need of false body counts.

Where was this enormous mountain sanctuary large enough to house an entire division and all its firepower? Where?

The young air force officer could not accurately pinpoint it on the aerial maps; he had been hiding and running for his life on the ground. However, he knew the coordinates where he had been shot out of the sky, and he believed that if he was chuted down in the area, he could retrace his escape route. In retracing it he was sure he would reach the ascending hills opposite the armed mountain retreat from which he had observed the activity. Not only sure, but positive; there was only one such group of hills, "like scoops of green ice cream piled on top of each other," but not defined in the aerial photographs.

"I cant ask you to do that, Lieutenant," Gillette had said. "Youve lost over twenty-five pounds and your physical condition is marginal."

"I think you can and you should, sir," replied the pilot. "The longer we wait, the more screwed up my memory gets."

"For Christs sake, its just another depot-"

"Correction, sir, its the depot. Ive never seen anything like it anywhere, and neither have you. Its like turning part of the Grand Canyon sideways and driving into it! Let me go, Captain, please."

"I sense a wrinkle here, Lieutenant. Why are you so eager? Youre a rational man; youre not after extraneous medals, and this could be a very dangerous operation."

"Ive got all the reason I need, Captain. My two crewmen bailed out with me; they landed near each other in a field while I bounced through some trees, maybe a quarter of a mile away. I threw my chute under some branches and ran toward that field as fast as I could. I reached the edge of it at the same time as a group of soldiers came out from the other side-soldiers in uniforms, not kids in pajamas-and I knelt in the gra.s.s and watched those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds hack my crew to death with bayonets! They werent only my friends, Captain, one of them was my cousin. Soldiers, Captain! Soldiers dont bayonet prisoners in a field!... You see, I have to go back there. Now. Before it all becomes too much of a blur."

"Youll have all the protection we can give you. Youll be wired with the most sophisticated communications equipment we have and monitored every step of the way. The Cobra choppers will never be more than three miles from your position, prepared to swing down at your signal and take you out."

"What more can I ask, sir?"

A great deal more, young man, for you didnt understand any more than I did. Covert Operations doesnt work that way. Theres another morality, another ethic, the credo of which is "get the job done, whatever the cost."

The young officer was flown northeast with a Cong defector who had lived on the Cambodian border. Both were parachuted at night over the vicinity where the pilots plane had gone down, and together they started the retrace. Gillette, the intelligence captain responsible for the mission, flew north, just south of Han Minh, joining the Cov-Op unit monitoring the two-man insurgency team.

Where are the Cobras? asked the intelligence officer from Command Saigon.

Dont worry, Captain, theyre on their way was a colonels reply.

They should be there now. Our pilot and the Cong defect are closing in. Listen to them!

Were listening, said a major who hovered over a radio. Relax. Theyre reaching Zero target and weve got a perfect fix on their position.

If they give the signal, theyre roughly a thousand meters west of Zero, added the Colonel.

Then send in the Cobras! roared the captain from Saigon. Its all we asked them to do!

When they do it, said the colonel.

Suddenly, there was an eruption of static accompanied by an erratic staccato of gunfire. Then silence-a dreadful silence.

Thats it! yelled the major. Theyve been cut down. Contact the bombers to move in and unload everything theyve got! Here are the coordinates!

What do you mean, theyve been cut down? Gillette shouted.

They were obviously found and killed by North Viet patrols, Captain. They gave their lives for an outstanding operation.

Where the h.e.l.l were the Cobras, the choppers that were to take them out?

What Cobras? said the major from Cov-Op sarcastically. You think we were going to blow the whole show with Cobras in the air only miles from Zero? Theyd be picked up by radar and thats a G.o.dd.a.m.ned mountain!

That wasnt my understanding! yelled the captain. I gave that pilot my word!

Your word, said the colonel, not ours. Were trying to win a war that were losing.

You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! I gave that pilot a promise- Your promise, not ours. By the way, whats your name, Captain?

Gillette, the intelligence officer replied, perplexed. Raymond Gillette.

I can see it now: Gillettes Razor Cuts Off Major Supply Route! Were also pretty big in the Press-Op department.