«Have you seen the newspapers?»
«Sure. I saw them three years ago, too. Back when I rated ten minutes on the seven-o’clock news. Now, it’s barely a couple of seconds… But I appreciate your concern. Especially since I told you to go to hell the last time we talked.»
«I gather you won’t give me a return-trip ticket.»
«No, I won’t, Andy. You’re doing a lot of damage. I’m only a minor—and temporary—casualty.»
«I hope you haven’t lulled yourself into a false sense of security.»
«That’s civilian talk. We have a different meaning for security. What is it you want to discuss that I won’t, or can’t?»
«Why you’re the all-time pariah for Roderick Bruce.»
«I’ve often wondered. An Army psychiatrist told me that I’m sort of everything Bruce wishes he was but can’t be; that he takes his aggression out on a typewriter… The simpler explanation is that I stand for large D.O.D. appropriations, and that’s grist for his mill.»
«I can’t accept either. You never met him?»
«Nope.»
«You never quashed any stories he might have written from Indochina? For security—your version of it.»
«How could I? I was never in that position. And I don’t think he was there when I was operating in the field.»
«That’s right…» Trevayne walked to the single chair in the small room and sat down. «He went gunning for you after our embassy in Saigon demanded that charges be brought against you… Paul, please answer this; I can get the information, take my word for it. Bruce’s articles said you were charged with killing three to five men; that the CIA denied having given you the license by using the term ‘extreme dispatch’ or ‘prejudice’ or whatever the hell it’s called. Bruce has friends in every section of the government. By implicating CIA, could you have caused the Agency to dismiss anyone? Someone he might have known?»
Bonner stared at Trevayne without answering for several moments. He raised his hand to touch the tender skin around his neck and spoke slowly. «Okay… I’ll tell you what happened… If only to get you off the CIA’s butt; they’ve got enough trouble. There were five slants, double agents. I killed all five. Three because they surrounded my bivouac and let loose with enough firepower to blow up an airstrip. I wasn’t inside, thanks to the CIA boys who’d alerted me. I dropped the last two at the Thai border when I caught them with North Vietnamese pouches. They were using our contact sheets and buying off the tribe leaders I’d busted my ass cultivating… To tell you the truth, the Agency quietly got me out of the whole mess. Any implications were the result of hotheaded Army lawyers; we told them all to go to hell.»
«Then why were charges brought in the first place?»
«You don’t know Saigon politics. There was never—in history—any corruption like Saigon corruption. Two of those double agents had brothers in the Cabinet… At any rate, you can forget CIA.»
Trevayne had removed a thin notebook from his pocket and flipped through the pages. «The charges against you were made public in February. By March twenty-first, Bruce was on your back. He traveled from Danang to the Mekong Delta interviewing anyone who had business with you.»
«He talked to the wrong people. I operated in Laos, Thailand, and northern Cambodia mostly. Usually with teams of six to eight, and they were almost exclusively Asian nonmilitary.»
Trevayne looked up from his notebook. «I thought Special Forces traveled in units; their own units.»
«Some do. Mostly I didn’t. I have a working knowledge of the Thai and Laotian languages—enough tonal understanding to get by—not Cambodian, though. Whenever I went into Cambodia I recruited, when we felt the security was tight enough. It usually wasn’t. Once or twice we had to scour our own people to come up with someone we could train in a hurry.»
«Train for what?»
«To stay alive. We weren’t always successful. A case in point was Chung Kal…»
They talked for fifteen minutes longer, and Trevayne knew he had found what he was looking for.
Sam Vicarson could put the pieces together.
Sam Vicarson rang the door chimes at Trevayne’s rented home in Tawning Spring. Phyllis answered and greeted Sam with a firm handshake.
«Glad you’re out of the hospital, Mrs. Trevayne.»
«If that’s meant to be funny, I won’t get you a drink.» Phyllis laughed. «Andy’s downstairs, he’s expecting you.»
«Thanks. I really am glad you’re out.»
«I never should have gone in. Hurry up; your chairman’s anxious.»
Downstairs in the recreation-room-turned-office, Trevayne was on the telephone, sitting in a chair, listening impatiently. At the sight of Vicarson, his impatience heightened. In words bordering on rudeness, he extricated himself from the conversation.
«That was Walter Madison. I wish I hadn’t promised to play fair. His partners don’t want the Bonner case, even if it means losing me as a client; which Walter told them, of course, it wouldn’t.»
«There’s such a thing as changing your mind.»
«I might do that. Their reasoning’s fatuous. They respect the prosecution’s case and have none for the defendant.»
«Why is that fatuous?»
«They haven’t heard, nor do they wish to hear, the defendant’s story. They don’t want to get involved; clients to protect, including me.»
«That’s fatuous… However, I think we can turn the hysterical newshound into an enthusiastic character witness for the maligned Major; that is, if we want to. The least we can do is shut him up.»
«Bruce?»
«In lavender spades.»
Vicarson’s research had been accomplished with comparative ease. The man’s name was Alexander Coffey. The Asian Affairs Bureau at the Pentagon—that is, the officer in charge at A.A.B.—recalled that Roderick Bruce had brought to his attention Coffey’s background. And A.A.B. had been happy to catch the Ph.D. Far East scholars were hard to come by. The officer was, of course, saddened about the Chung Kal operation, but apparently some good had come out of it. At least, that’s what he’d been told. It was always dangerous to put a research analyst into a combat situation… He gave Coffey’s file to Sam.
Vicarson had then gone to the Smithsonian Far East Archives. The head archivist there remembered Coffey clearly. The young man was a brilliant scholar but an obvious homosexual. It had surprised the archivist that Coffey hadn’t used his deviation to avoid being drafted, but since his future would be involved with foundations, and foundations were conservative organizations, by and large, the Smithsonian assumed Coffey didn’t want the proof on record. Also, the archivist had the suspicion that Coffey knew someone who could steer him into a pleasant military assignment. The man had heard that Coffey was stationed in Washington, and so presumed his suspicions were correct. He obviously didn’t know about Coffey’s death at Chung Kal, and Vicarson did not bother to tell him. The archivist showed him Coffey’s identification card. On it was an address on 21st Street, Northwest, and the name of a roommate.
As Vicarson learned, a former roommate.
The roommate still blamed the «rich-bitch» Coffey had moved in with for Alex’s death. Alex never told him who it was, but «he came around often enough—to get away from that awful glutton.» Alexander Coffey «came around» in new clothes, a new car, and new jewelry. He also came with news that his benefactor had arranged the perfect «situation» in the Army that wouldn’t require even one day of barracks, one day out of Washington. A simple exchange of clothes for the daytime, and the uniform would be custom-made in soft flannel. It was, according to Alex, the «perfect solution» for his career. Even an Army commission thrown into the bargain. What foundation could refuse him? And then he was «hijacked,» probably «betrayed» by the «rich-bitch.»