Page 23 of Cry Havoc
Quinn did not need to verbalize the plan. Both Amiuh and Tom knew: this hunting expedition had turned into a prisoner snatch.
Tom watched Quinn raise his Sten gun. Usually, they fired from the hip at muzzle flashes in the jungle. Having time to aim down their sights was the exception. Tom and Amiuh deliberately raised their Sten guns, mirroring Quinn’s movements.
First fielded by British commandos in 1941, the MK II Sten gun was a direct blowback, open-bolt, 9mm submachine gun with a distinctive thirty-two-round magazine that extended from the left side of the weapon. Tom’s was one of the specially modified versions produced on the grounds of the Special Operations Executive’s Station IX in Welwyn, England, in 1943. SOE commandos, much like MACV-SOG operators, found themselves in need of firearms that would allow them to silently dispatch sentries behind enemy lines. The MK IIS—“S” for Special Purpose—resolved this issue with an integral suppressor shrouding the length of the barrel. Tom often wondered if his was one of those dropped into occupied France for use by the Resistance. He felt the thin canvas sling slide across his shoulder as his right eye focused through the rear circular aperture and found the large triangular front sight welded in place on the trunnion.
The Sten could be temperamental with magazines it didn’t like, which was why they had tested all their mags at the range. They had taken a hammer to those that did not feed well to avoid them being reissued at some point in the future.
Tom’s support hand gripped the magazine and mag well thatprotruded from the left side of the weapon, just as the commandos of the Special Operations Executive had two decades earlier. The barrel shroud and silencer, even with a canvas wrap laced tightly with cord around it, tended to heat up when used on full auto. He lined up the sights on the man to the far right.
Tom would work his way from right to left. Amiuh, from left to right. Quinn would focus on the middle.
Tom ensured he was on semiauto; his Sten’s silencer baffles would not last long on fully automatic. Precision and surprise would be critical. His finger rested on the trigger, waiting on his One-Zero to initiate.
The NVA officer had just filled his lungs with a long drag from his cigarette when Quinn’s bullet found its target, a man less than two feet from the smoker’s right. Tom and Amiuh sent their suppressed rounds an instant later.
This close, head shots were the order of the day.
It took a moment for the officer to realize that his escorts’ heads had vaporized almost instantaneously, showering both sides of his face with wet brain matter. The lit cigarette dropped from his mouth into his lap. He had begun to fumble with his holster when Quinn bolted from the tree line. They were only about 15 feet away. The grizzled Army Special Forces soldier was on him in seconds. The NVA officer was seated and took the full brunt of Quinn’s impact. Quinn trapped the hand fumbling for the pistol as Tom delivered a front kick that caught the underside of the man’s chin, knocking him unconscious.
Amiuh stepped into the trail and took up security.
A POW meant that their secret hunting expeditions would come to the attention of senior-level leadership, but a live enemy officer was an intelligence coup. Maybe that would make up for Havoc’s approval violations.
What was this officer doing with a security detail this close to Phu Bai?
They would find out, if they managed to get him back to base alive.
Transporting prisoners was always fraught with issues. Did you makethem walk out or carry them out? If you were with them overnight, what was the best way to keep them from screaming or trying to escape? Did you assign one person to carry them, which took that person out of the fight, or two, which took two people off line? They had experimented with tying rope to a prisoner’s feet, which allowed them to walk but not run. The problem was that it slowed everyone down as they moved toward extract.
Being so close to the forward operating base, Quinn decided that he would carry the prisoner halfway and then switch out with Tom. They blindfolded the NVA officer with a cravat, the yellow brain fats from his dead comrades that had showered his face soaking through the green cloth, and injected him with morphine to keep him subdued. Tom made a mental note to always carry a syringe with some sort of tranquilizer in the future so no one on the team would have to part with their morphine.
In the fading light, they did not have time to go through the man’s canvas courier bag, so Tom slung it over his shoulder. With Amiuh still holding security, the two Americans went through the pockets of the dead NVA and left three Eldest Son magazines in their victims’ web gear before moving off into the jungle. It had been less than three minutes since the first shots were fired.
It was time to get back to base and find out what this courier and his security detail were doing so close to Phu Bai.
CHAPTER 4
Maryland, USA
ALLISTER DESMOND WAS NOTgoing home. Instead, he called his wife, Brenda, telling her that something important had come up at work, that he would be in meetings for the next few hours, that she shouldn’t wait up, and to please give their newborn daughter a kiss for him. He did not do this with any regularity. Maybe it would be different if Clara Müller lived in the United States. Brenda could call the NSA switchboard at Fort Meade and be patched through to his cubicle to check on him, but the operator would tell her that her husband was unavailable. Such were the perks of working in the national security space.
He pulled out of the large parking lot and onto Savage Road thinking of the evening ahead.
His wife did not know exactly what he did. Top secret and all that. She was proud and somewhat in awe of him. She was quite content to care for their young daughter in suburban Maryland and keep a tidy home. She even pretended to like the spy films to which he dragged her on date nights, or had before their daughter was born.
Allister checked his sideview mirror and eased the 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 onto 295 North toward Baltimore. Luckily, he had made the purchase before the birth of their first child. The car was only a year old when hehad found it at the local used car lot. Brenda had been so proud when he pulled it into their driveway. As the man of the house, he handled the finances, and she had absolute trust in him. If Allister thought the new car fit their budget, it must be so.
He had opted for the Raven Black paint job on the Galaxie, the four-door version to keep it a little more practical. The only hint of excess was the red interior, which also happened to be the only option available on the lot. At $2,815 it was a bit of a splurge, but not enough to raise any eyebrows in the office of counterintelligence.
He had taken Brenda to the Volkswagen dealership when they discovered she was pregnant. She looked so happy behind the wheel of the 1967 baby blue VW Squareback station wagon, a car that was now parked in their garage. As far as she knew, they were living the American dream.
Allister sighed and checked the speedometer running the length of his dashboard. His eyes dropped to the clock, centered below the speedometer and just above the steering wheel. He was late. That was okay. Running late would just make him seem more important to Clara.Held up at the office. Matter of national security.Yes, that would impress her.
She would be waiting for him at the Lord Baltimore Hotel’s Diamondback Lounge, where they had met a few times over the past two years when she had business in the area. It was convenient because she would already have a room paid for by her German technology company. He pictured her there now, dark hair styled into the fashionable “beehive” made popular by Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. He thought of the men of the after-work crowd noticing her and starting to chat her up or buy her drinks. His foot pressed down a bit harder on the accelerator.
He wasn’t betraying his country. West Germany was an ally after all. It’s not like he was giving secrets to the Soviets. It was just pillow talk, or so that was how it had started. But pillow talk would only take him so far. He knew that if he was to continue to spend time in bed with someone as stunning as Clara Müller, he would have to give her more.
Allister wasn’t a fool. He knew he was no Sean Connery, but now he was having an affair that made him feel as though he was. He also knew that she did not lust for him because of his looks or physique, or lack thereof, but rather for his keen mind. When they discussed the future of technology, Clara got a ravenous look in her eyes. To her, when they talked computing, no one else mattered but Allister Desmond. He had never had that effect on another woman, not even his wife. The importance of technology went right over her head. Not Clara’s. She spoke his language. She understood him and the importance of his work. And when she invited him back to her hotel room after an intense discussion on the opportunities presented by cryptology in the public and private sectors, Allister was hooked. Once in her bedroom she had taken control, doing things to him and taking him to heights of pleasure he never knew existed. She had blown his mind. European women were different.
