Page 191 of Cry Havoc
After a moment, Tom set the silenced derringer on the table, still pointed at the dead man. Should he have felt something? He thought of all those he had killed in Vietnam and Laos. That was a theater of war, fighting combatants who were trying to kill him. This was a different game with different rules.
I know what I’m good at.
Tom left the weapon where it lay. Though neither it nor its ammunition bore any markings, he knew the GRU would be able to connect it to a GRU Spetsnaz operative who had been killed in Bangkok. He wanted there to be no question as to what had transpired.
Tom stepped on the smoldering cigarette as he walked past the body. He used Dvornikov’s keys to lock the door to the flat and then took the stairs down five flights and exited the building onto the icy sidewalk. The sleet had turned to rain. Did that signal a thaw? A warming?
Was Dvornikov right? Had the CIA sent him to Berlin because they knew he would kill the one known link to American POWs in the Soviet Union?
He pulled up the collar on his overcoat and drew his hat down low, just above his eyes.
He thought about what Serrano had told him in Saigon:I’m starting up something new, a program for which I think you’d be perfect. We call it Phoenix.
Maybe Vietnam was lost, maybe it was really lost before it had begun, or perhaps it was lost along the way. No matter the trajectory, there was still work to be done in the jungles, deltas, and highlands of Southeast Asia. If incursions into denied areas were to remain the mission of MACV-SOG, then while his teammates were doing the job, Tom would be there too, protecting them through Phoenix. There were still targets to eliminate. He also had a Montagnard boy to find in a village outside Khe Sanh. He had a rosary and a tiger claw to return.
The gray Trabi that had driven Tom into the city slowed to a stop. A woman was in the back seat. It was the woman from the apartment. Tom opened the passenger door and got in next to the driver. Without a word, the vehicle pulled back onto the street and continued on into the night.
