Conspiracy (19 page)

Reginald Gordon
Athens, GA

There was a phone number and an address. At the side of the page were tick marks—Amanda knew that was Forester's way of counting how many times he'd tried calling a phone number without connecting.

There were dates and times on the next page—this must be from the conversation with Gordon, Amanda thought.

Nvr called.
No.
No threat.
Called in Jan for help only—one Marine to another. News story was bull. Blowing off steam.

Senator staff said couldn't help. Never talked to him. Rfused.
Not fair, no.
—seems still mad.

A different pen:

No records USMC.
ID body???
Resurfaced. Quiet.

The next page was headed by a carefully penciled notation: “FROM MEMORY”:

Check records strategic hamlets
Da Nang 1971–72
Three people would have known

Best source—Vietnamese Phuc Dinn (sp??)—tried to have assassinated. Knw he's still alive because spke to him. Will he tell??

Then, on the last page of the notebook with any writing, the contact information for the police chief of Pine Plains.

 

THE TRUTH WAS
, Dean didn't much feel like play-acting at the convention. But that was his job, and so after he finished breakfast he went down to the lobby and took a taxi to Saigon's new convention center about ten minutes away. The restlessness that had kept him awake half the night had settled into a background buzz; he told himself that he had a job to do, and that if he concentrated on that, everything else would fall into place.

Dean made sure the government officials who were working near the front of the hall saw him, and even took a few business cards from some of the display booths. By 9:45 he'd walked around the convention hall twice. He headed toward one of the business centers, figuring he would find an inconspicuous place where he could check in with Karr and the Art Room, when he was intercepted by Kelly Tang, the CIA officer helping on the case.

“Mr. Dean, how are sales going?” said Tang, a cheerful den mother checking on one of her charges.

“Not bad.”

“Why don't you have a cup of coffee with me? Come on. Vietnamese coffee is very good, if you know where to go.”

Dean followed her outside of the meeting hall proper to a large area of tables and chairs. While she went for the coffee, he took out some brochures and papers from his briefcase, as if he were checking to make sure he had enough material for a sales call. He wanted anyone who noticed him to think he was what he claimed to be, a salesman.

“Think you'll sell me a rice harvester?” she asked, returning with two cups.

“I can get you a special deal,” he said, pushing the papers back into his briefcase.

“You want to talk to Cam Tre Luc?” she said casually, stirring sugar into her cup.

“Yes.”

“A man will meet you at the Plum American Restaurant near the IDC Office Tower at noon. He uses the name Lo.”

“How will I know him?”

“He'll find you. He'll have a card just like this,” she said, producing a business card.

Dean nodded.

“He's going to want money,” added the CIA agent. “A thousand, just for setting up the contact.”

“A thousand U.S.?”

She shrugged apologetically. “A couple of other people turned me down.”

“Problem?”

“Not really. Cam Tre Luc is a tough and important person in a ministry that few Vietnamese want to anger.”

“Why do you think I'm going to make him mad?”

Tang smiled and changed the subject. “Did you and Thao Duong get along?”

“We're working on our relationship.”

“Very good. Have you sold anything at the convention?”

“Not yet. This is really just a scouting mission,” he said loudly. “We plan to make a push next year. But if anyone does want to buy, then of course I'm prepared. The Japanese are difficult competitors, but we'll hang in there.”

“Please let me know if I can help your company in any way,” said Tang, rising and sticking out her hand.

“I will.”

“Best of luck with the sales.”

 

THE WINDOW AT
the agricultural ministry that Karr had broken the night before had already been patched by a piece of cardboard. If there had been an inquiry, neither Desk Three's phone taps nor the bugs in Thao Duong's office had picked it up.

Whatever had disturbed Thao Duong the night before was not bothering him now, at least not outwardly; the Art Room translator told Karr that the Vietnamese bureaucrat was going through papers studiously, at times muttering the equivalent of “OK” or “Yes” to himself but saying nothing else.

The scan of his computer hadn't revealed anything more interesting than an unexpected increase in the rice harvest. The experts had decided that the key Karr had photographed definitely fit into a lockbox of some sort, but they had no clue about where that box might be.

Growing bored, Karr walked to his motorbike, parked in a cluster in front of a café a block away.

“Sandy, I think I'm going to shoot over to Thao Duong's apartment and have another look around,” Karr told his runner. “I'd like to see if he hid the strongbox somewhere nearby.”

“We didn't see it on the video bugs you guys planted last night.”

“I don't think he brought it in. Maybe there's a place behind his apartment house. Let me know if he leaves his desk.”

It was only six blocks to Duong's apartment house. Karr cruised past the front of the building, then drove around the
back and into the alley where they'd gone in the night before. The alley looked even narrower than it had in the dark. Beyond the fence at the back was a row of dilapidated shanties. When he'd seen them last night, he'd thought they were unoccupied. Now he saw enough laundry hanging amid them to clothe a small army.

There were no good hiding places in the alley, and the dirt behind the building hadn't been disturbed. If Duong had retrieved a strongbox last night, he hadn't hidden it here.

Karr rode his motorbike out of the alley and around the block, cruising around a man pulling a small cart of wares. He started to turn right at the next block, then realized he was going the wrong way down a one-way street. He veered into a U-turn and found himself in the middle of a flood of motorbikes, which zagged every which way trying to avoid him. Horns and curses filled the air.

“Jeez, this is as bad as Boston,” said Karr.

“Subject is moving, Tommy,” said Chafetz. “Heading for the elevator.”

“Ah, very good. On my way.”

 

DEAN GOT TO
the restaurant a half hour early, planting video bugs on the ladderlike streetlight posts outside. Waiting for someone to get him a table inside, he slipped a video bug under a light sconce at the front of the dining room. A waiter came and showed Dean to a table against the far wall; he could see the entire room and couldn't have picked a better vantage.

“OK, Charlie, we're getting good feeds all around,” said Chafetz in his ear. “You ready?”

“Sure.”

“We have some additional background on your Mr. Lo,” the runner added. “Real low-level dirtbag. He served some time in a state prison for running prostitutes, but the sentence was outrageously short—a week. His name is connected to a number of businesses in the Saigon area. Our DEA has a file on him for possible drug smuggling. A real Boy Scout.”

“I'll try and remember my knots.”

A few minutes later, a man in his late twenties wearing a silk shirt, crisply tailored blue jeans, and slicked-back hair under a backward baseball cap entered the café, trailed by three men wearing American-style caps, T-shirts that fell to their knees, and jeans as sharp as their boss's.

The man spotted Dean and sauntered over.

“Here on business?” The man's smile revealed a gold filling in his front tooth. Besides six or seven gold chains and a halter that read: “BD Ass,” his jewelry included a set of silver-plated knuckles.

“I'm waiting for a Mr. Lo,” said Dean, pushing the business card across the table.

Lo grinned. He pulled out the nearest chair, turning it backward before sitting down. The men who had come in with him stood nearby.

“You have money?” asked Lo.

“What for?” said Dean.

“I have a hip-hop act that needs studio time. Many interests.”

“I'll bet.”

“You know what hip-hop is? You're an old man.” Lo laughed. “Are you sure you know what you're getting into, grayhair?”

“That is Lo, in case there's any doubt,” said Chafetz. “Computer matched the face.”

“I was told that Mr. Lo would have a business card similar to this one.” Dean tapped the card.

Lo glanced at it. “That's nice.”

“So where's Cam Tre Luc?” said Dean. It was obvious Lo wasn't producing his card.

“Oh, Mr. Luc is a very important person. You won't find him here.”

Dean remained silent, waiting for Lo to explain what the arrangement would be. The supposed hip-hop impresario leaned forward in his chair, then turned his head slowly to each side, an exaggerated gesture to see if anyone else was listening in.

Dean thought Lo was disappointed to see that no one was. “You pay me and I tell you where to find Mr. Luc,” Lo told him.

“No.”

Lo looked shocked. He pulled back in the chair, then abruptly rose and started away.

“What are you doing, Charlie?” asked Rockman in Dean's ear.

Dean reached for his cup of tea and took a small sip, watching as Lo and his entourage left the café. The Vietnamese man struck Dean as the worst combination of American
“gangsta” clichés, aping copies of copies that he saw on smuggled MTV tapes.

Which didn't mean he wasn't dangerous, Dean reminded himself a half hour later when he left the café. He walked up the block and turned to the right, just in time to be confronted by one of Lo's companions. Dean spun around immediately, catching a would-be ambusher with a hard elbow to the mid-section. As the man rebounded off the ground, Dean grabbed the pipe he had in his hand and struck the other man in the kneecaps.

Lo and the third member of his “posse” stood a few feet away, next to the corner of the building. Dean whipped the pipe at his remaining bodyguard, then threw Lo up against the wall, pinning him there with his .45.

“I'm still looking for Cam Tre Luc,” Dean told Lo. “Here's what we're going to do. I'll let you go now without a new breathing hole in your neck. You arrange for me to meet Luc. I meet him, then I'll pay you five hundred American.”

“Deal was one thousand,” said Lo.

“That's right. But I'm taking five hundred back for my troubles. Like you said, I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm going to need some Bengay when I go home.”

“Saigon Rouge, midnight. He will be with Miss Madonna. Five hundred cash,” added Lo as Dean released him. “You pay at the desk when you come in.”

“That's a whorehouse,” said Chafetz in Dean's ear as he walked away.

“Well, I didn't figure I'd be meeting him in a church,” said Dean, flagging down a passing Honda
ôm.

 

KARR SPOTTED THAO
Duong as he came out of his building. Duong turned to the left and began walking in the general direction of the port area near the mouth of the Saigon River.

“I'm going to tag him,” Karr decided, telling the Art Room that he was going to get close enough to put a disposable tracking bug on Duong's clothes. Karr drove down the street, then pulled his bike up onto the sidewalk to park. From the side pouch of his backpack he removed one of the filmlike personal tracking bugs, carefully peeling the back off so that it would stick to its subject.

Though his white shirt and white cap were hardly unusual on the Saigon streets, Thao Duong was easy to spot as he approached. He walked with a nervous hop, and held his hands down stiffly at his sides, as if they were a boat's oars trailing in the water.

Unlike the street, which was packed solid with motorbikes and the occasional bus or taxi, the sidewalks were fairly clear, and Karr had no trouble timing his approach. Sidestepping a row of bikes parked against a building at the corner, he lumbered into Thao Duong just before the intersection, sending him sprawling to the ground. Karr scooped the thin man to his feet, planting the clear bug on the back of his hat at the same time.

“Sorry, pardner,” Karr said cheerfully. “Very sorry.” He repeated the translator's apology in Vietnamese.

Thao Duong's face had turned white. For a moment, Karr thought he was going to have a heart attack. But he sped
forward, skip-walking across the intersection just as the light turned.

“Working?” Karr asked the Art Room.

“Yes,” said Chafetz. “He's crossing the street about halfway down the block.”

“Must have a suicide wish,” said Karr as the motorbikes whizzed by.

 

ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES
later, Thao Duong entered a three-story office building within sight of the port. The building looked as if it dated to the early 1950s, and its stucco exterior looked as if it hadn't been painted since then.

“Which side of the building?” Karr asked the Art Room.

“North side,” said Sandy Chafetz. “We're not sure what floor, second or third.”

Karr took what looked like an expensive tourist camera from his backpack and began fiddling with the lens. The camera contained a miniaturized boom mike that could pick up vibrations on window glass, but it had to be aimed at the proper window.

“How's this?” he asked, aiming the device at the top floor. The feed was sent back to the Art Room via the booster in his pack.