Page 159 of Cry Havoc
“The three Americans I saw?”
“It’s a possibility, Tom.”
“So why don’t we grab Eldridge and this doctor, put the screws to them, and force the Soviets to give up our boys?”
“Because the Soviets will deny it and probably kill the POWs they have. We need a bigger fish to trade.”
“Who?”
“That’s where you come in.”
“Me? I’m a SEAL assigned to SOG. I’m about to take a team here in Phu Bai. Can I just pick up and go work for the Agency?”
Serrano again reached into his bag and removed a paper that he unfolded and pushed across the table to Tom.
“What’s this?”
“Orders from Colonel Singlaub, sheep dipping you over to CIA.”
The paper was plain and simple, an addendum, a new assignment with the Central Intelligence Agency.
“It’s dated today,” Tom noted.
“It is.”
Tom thought of Quinn against the tree and the tall Russian who gutted him.
“When do we leave?”
“I have a plane waiting.”
“Let’s go.”
“There is one more thing, something I didn’t want to tell you until you agreed to come over.”
“Oh?”
“I told you that Brémaud communicated using a dead drop.”
“Yeah, for another cutout who then probably takes the info out of country and passes it to a handler?”
“Yes, but the person we observed at the dead drop wasn’t just anyone. It was someone you know.”
“What? Who?”
“Ella DuBois.”
CHAPTER 56
Saigon, Vietnam
July 1968
ELLA DUBOIS HAD BEENtrained well.
She had the taxi drop her a few blocks from her destination in the Cholon district. The walk would be just shy of ten minutes and would give her time to spot a tail.
She concentrated on not looking over her shoulder. Instead, she focused on using the reflections in storefront windows to observe those behind her. She entered and exited shops, and crossed busy streets only to double back, scanning for surveillance. She was looking for vehicles and people appearing more than once, the way the man she knew as Gabriel de Machaut had taught her in Paris.
