It was a classic counterinsurgency operation where the CIA penetrated a number of communist cells that were operating in South Vietnam, then the Special Forces did the nasty work of eliminating the suspects. Some of the material Imelda got off the Internet said the Green Berets only killed a few dozen operatives. Others claimed they killed thousands. Killed them without trial, without proof, just knocked off whoever the CIA told them to take out. The sterile euphemism they used was “sanctioned.”
I guess I was too engrossed in trying to study the anatomy of my high school cheerleading squad to have been paying attention, but the operation got exposed sometime in the early or mid-seventies, just as the war was winding down. Then there was a mad rush by various congressional investigating committees to help the Army sort fact from fiction, to borrow General Partridge’s phrase. The word for what the Green Berets were doing was assassination. The words for what the CIA was doing was playing God. It was a war, but the people being summarily executed were South Vietnamese citizens, thus technically our allies. That’s a pretty vital distinction.
I saw immediately why Bill Tingle wanted me to research this. I mean, it made a lot of sense. Here was Jack Tretorne, aka Mr. Jones, masquerading as an NSA employee while he helped cover up a possible massacre committed by a Green Beret team. You couldn’t escape the parallels. Still, it struck me as beyond stupidity. Operation Phoenix had apparently led to an explosive scandal, and I just couldn’t believe that the same folks who did it the first time would turn right around and try it again. That’s like Ford Motor Company trying to reintroduce the Edsel.
Besides, this was not a war. At least, technically this was not war. There were no communist cells being infiltrated, no suspects being assassinated. This was a NATO police action, or whatever silly word was being used to describe an attempt to coerce the Serbs by bombing the crap out of them. As simple as that.
On the other hand, there was the murder of Jeremy Berkowitz. Maybe Tretorne told General Murphy to “sanction” him. As bizarre as that sounded, everything going on here struck me as bizarre. So why not? Tretorne seemed to me to be exactly the kind of guy who would order someone killed in cold blood. There was no sign of life or moral gravity in those eyes of his. And, if a man would help engineer a cover-up, then he was already breaking some very serious laws. What was a few more?
I decided I needed to be cheered up. All morning I’d been working out another scheme, and I decided its time had come. It was time to do some flushing, as they say in quail-hunting circles.
I left the office and walked back over to the NSA facility. The guards passed me through to the inner sanctum, I pushed the doorbell and looked up and stuck out my tongue at the camera in the corner. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made major.
A moment later, the door made that humming sound, and I pushed it open. Miss Smith was waiting. I gave her a shy grin, and she returned it with one of those wonderfully plastic smiles she must have perfected at some northeastern preppy college. She reminded me of a thousand cheerleaders I used to lust after.
“How are you today?” I asked.
“Fine.”
“That’s nice. I hope this isn’t inconvenient, but I need to talk with Mr. Jones again.”
“Follow me,” she said, and I studied her lovely sway as she led me back through the building, then to the stairway in the rear. We went down the stairs again, and I noticed that her hair roots were brown, not blond. The more I learned about this woman, the less real she seemed.
We reached the conference room at the end of the hall again, and Miss Smith’s long, manicured fingers very elegantly slid her little plastic card through the lock slot, then she pushed the door open. There were about five men in the room, all sitting around the table, with Jack Tretorne at the head. Aside from Tretorne, it looked like a nerd’s convention. There were lots of thick bifocals and pocket penholders and short-sleeve white shirts. These were NSA employees, no doubt about it. They had that certain charisma.
Tretorne had on his duck-murdering vest again. He looked badly out of place, like a jock at a software programmers’ convention. He glanced up and the room fell quiet. If I were a courteous guy, I would’ve said, “Excuse me. I’m obviously interrupting, so why don’t I just leave and you can call me when it’s convenient for you.”
I didn’t say anything; I just stood there. Tretorne’s marble eyes studied me, but I had no idea what he was thinking. Then he looked around the table and said, “If you all can please excuse us for a few moments, Major Drummond here is working on a very critical project, and I must speak with him. Alone.”
The nerds all got up and began filing out of the room. Finally, it was just the three of us, and Miss Smith closed the door.
“Hi,” I said.
He got right to the point. “What do you want?”
“I just need a few minutes. I’m preparing our summary, and I have to get a few questions answered. You understand, right?”
I collapsed into a chair before he could answer. I looked over my shoulder. “Miss Smith, would you be a good girl and fetch me a cup of coffee? Three sugars and just a small dose of cream.”
The lovely Miss Smith’s face turned instantly ugly. “I don’t fetch things, and don’t call me a good girl.”
I smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were Mr. Jones’s administrative assistant.”
I could see Jones nodding his head furiously for her to do what I asked. She pouted for about two seconds, then whirled around and walked back through the door.
I said, “Boy, has she got an attitude. How do you put up with that?”
Jones’s eyes were studying me very coldly. It was a little like being examined by that mechanical camera upstairs. “She’s all right,” he assured me. “This isn’t the Army, Drummond. We fetch our own coffee around here. Now, what do you want?”
“Well, remember yesterday when we looked at those films, and you read those radio transcriptions?”
“Of course I remember.”
“Good. I’ll need some kind of verification that all that was authentic. Also, you mentioned that the films will be stored in a file at NSA. I’ll need some kind of reference or name for that file.”
“I can get you that,” he said. He smiled. This was all so easy.
“Gee, that’s great,” I said. “One other thing. I’m gonna need your full name, social security number, and where you work at NSA.”
Oops, it was not so easy anymore. The smile was instantly replaced by a deeply perplexed look as he said, “Why?”
“Well, since you wouldn’t let me have the films or transcripts, you know, them being too sensitive and all, I have to cite you as a material witness in my exhibit. This is a highly controversial incident we’re investigating. The findings are going to be closely scrutinized. I can hardly write that I met with some jerk from NSA named Jones and leave it at that. I mean, how many Joneses are there at NSA? Must be a thousand or so, wouldn’t you guess?”
Tretorne’s jaw, I noticed, became very tight. There was very little body fat on his face, and right at that moment, those two little muscles just below his ears were ticking like time bombs. My obnoxiousness was breaking through the iceberg.
Just at that moment, he was saved by the bell. Miss Smith traipsed back through the door with my cup of coffee in hand. She gave it to me, and I took a sip. It was cold as ice, and she must have added half a jar of cream and at least ten large spoonfuls of sugar. The girl had spunk. I liked that.
I cranked back my neck and drained the whole thing. “Ah, just the way I like it. Thanks, honey.” Take that for spunk, bitch.
Miss Smith tried to take this in stride, but I noticed that she stomped a little as she worked her way around the table and took a seat near the opposite end. Unfortunately, Tretorne had recovered his composure.