Hanoi km 015, p.1
Hanoi (KM 015), page 1
part #15 of Killmaster Series
Hanoi (1966)
(Book 15 in the Killmaster series)
Version 0.9
Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America
CHAPTER 1
MAN IN A GREEN BERET
Sergeant Ben Taggart of Special Forces Detachment Q-40 lay flat on his belly and held his breath. The feet of the guard passed inches away from his head and moved off into the North Vietnamese night. Taggart knew the pattern of the nightwatch; this was his third night on the job and he had learned almost as much about the Chinese patrols as he knew about the watch system of his own camp. But he did not know why there should be so many of them, or why they should be Chinese rather than Viets, or exactly what it was they were guarding with such vigilance.
In a minute and a half precisely the guard would be returning. Taggart waited for several carefully clocked seconds and then slithered across the path to his chosen listening post. It was a clump of bush that almost touched the tall, thick network of wire between him and the complex of heavily camouflaged buildings, and from it he could see the big Quonset hut that seemed to be the living quarters of some of the civilians.
He settled himself cautiously, making certain that he was not visible from either the path or the encampment and also that he did not touch the wire. A simple test on his first night of eavesdropping had told him that the current running through it had kick enough to kill an elephant. He crouched low beneath the leaves and peered into the compound.
The usual dim, bluish light pervaded it, showing the low, sturdy buildings as if in a flood of moonglow. It was not a military camp, even though there seemed to be enough armed men around to defend a fort. He watched a pair of them walk by slowly, feet moving in unison and Army rifles bayonetted, and wondered again what so many uniformed Chinese could be doing so close to Hanoi. They passed in silence. Behind him, the returning guard tramped slowly down the path. His footfalls receded.
Taggart pushed back his green beret and fitted a tiny device into his ear. It was radio operator Mick Mancini’s own version of a very much more complex piece of equipment, and he called it the “Hearing Aid.” Although its range was short it effectively amplified all sounds coming directly toward it.
For the third night in a row it began to pick up smatterings of conversation from the big hut. Taggart listened intently. In addition to being Q-40’s Intelligence Officer he was also its most versatile linguist. That was why Captain Marty Rogers had reluctantly agreed to let him do the snooping. Otherwise he would never have spared him for an assignment that had nothing to do with their own immediate mission, even though the camp was an enigma and the radio transmissions coming from it were so mysterious. Between the lot of them the men of Q-40 had been unable to break the code. But they had chipped it enough to be almost sure that the radio signals had nothing to do with troop movements or the Vietnamese Army or even the war.
Taggart turned his head a fraction of an inch to funnel the live sound into his ear. It came in the form of snatches of talk in many voices and in several languages. People of various races were talking sporadically and without much enthusiasm, as though they had little to say to each other. Sometimes their words were obscured in a muttered babble but more often they rose clearly and unchallenged, perhaps even ignored by people too bored to answer.
They were not, Taggart thought, a very chatty lot. But perhaps their trouble was that they were not good mixers. And one would have to be a good mixer to get along in this crowd. He gave all his attention to their idle talk, trivial though it was.
“… too long, far too long. And the food here, I say it is abominable.”
“Ah, no, no, no, my friend! The table, it is delectable. Never have I myself eaten better. But you are right, it is too long. We need change, that is all… .”
French. Both of them. From different parts of France.
“Not yet, Hans, I must finish my letter. My wife, again she has not written….”
German. Very guttural. Sour with displeasure.
“What are you doing with that book? Can’t you see I’m reading that? Give it to me!”
“Ja, ja, I am sorry—”
“Bah!”
Two more Germans. One of them very touchy.
“Yes, well, but does anybody know for certain how much money we are going to get out of this? Promises do not pay expenses, is it not so?”
A Swede, probably, although he was talking in German. The reply was indistinguishable, which was a pity, because the topic was more interesting than most.
Taggart manipulated a tiny dial and lost the Swede altogether. Instead he picked up a Chinese talking in slow, careful English, saying:
“I am going to bed. Good. Night. Gentlemen.”
Good. Night. To you, thought Taggart.
Another voice broke in, loud and clear. Hungarian, Taggart recognized, but he did not speak the language.
“But it is in the interests of science, Ladislas!” a deep bass boomed. “It is many years since I have had such an opportunity, I can tell you.” German, again.
“It is also in the interests of a cash reward, my dear Bruno. Naturally one is absorbed in the scientific aspects, but one also wonders when we will be paid and when it will be over. …”
The voices faded as if the two men had turned away. Taggart’s Hearing Aid tried following them and found nothing but a steady snore.
Then another voice:
“You should see how the others live! Oh, it is not too bad for us, I will admit, but Krutch and Wiesner and some of the others are living like kings. Champagne, pheasant, women, feather beds—”
“Oh, enough, Ludwig! We know it, we all know it, we’ve known it for months. What if it is true? Always the executives …”
Again the voices faded; again they had been German.
Taggart was fascinated. He had learned more in these few minutes than he had during the whole of the two previous nights. And yet it still was not enough. He began counting German voices and wondering who Krutch and Wiesner might be.
Then his luck ran out. The desultory talk turned into stray comments on whose deal it was and whether it would rain again tomorrow.
He crouched in his cramped position for two hours, listening to the trivia and getting stiffer by the minute. Guards paced back and forth to either side of him at brief intervals, apparently oblivious to his presence. There, at least, his luck was still holding.
But there was no longer anything worth hearing.
It was time, he decided, to move on, to try to get a bead on the huge, low-slung building that looked like a giant workshop. It was not an easy target for the Hearing Aid because it was almost surrounded by smaller buildings that looked like storehouses, but maybe—just maybe —he could pick up something there.
He timed the guards, listened to their retreating footsteps, and began to edge his way out from cover. And then the Hearing Aid picked up the sound of voices coming from somewhere between the big Quonset and the workshop. It was the first time he had picked up voices from that direction, but it was also the first time anyone but the Chinese guards—and Taggart himself— had been outside the buildings at night, other than to cross the compound.
Taggart froze where he crouched. Three people were talking softly as they walked toward him from what he thought of as the officers’ quarters. Two men, and one woman. All German.
“… Krutch have to say this time?” A youngish male voice.
“Big news,” said a full-throated baritone. “I wish he had let me make the arrangements myself, but we are after all working for him so I suppose we must be satisfied to let him do things his way. But the man will be here soon, within the week.”
“Who is it, do you know?” The woman’s voice, low and pleasant.
“A Doctor Burgdorf, Erich Burgdorf. I do not know him myself. Krutch apparently does not know him either. But he is the one selected by the group to bring the plans.”
“What group, Krutch’s?” The younger male voice.
“No, no, no, of course not, Helmut,” the other man said with a touch of impatience. “Krutch, for all his pretensions, does not pretend to be a scientist. No, our own people selected him. He will be coming from Buenos Aires, where as you know they have been developing the triggering device.”
“Well, the projectile is ready for him. When exactly is he coming?”
“As I said, within the week. It is impossible even for Krutch to give the exact date because of course one cannot fly direct from B.A. to Hanoi. He will have to take the same sort of indirect route that all of us did, and there are bound to be some delays. But it will not be long now.”
“I am glad of that,” the woman said. “Four months in this place is too much for me. It’s like a concentration camp.”
“Ilse, that is not a happy choice of simile,” the older voice said gently. But it seemed to Taggart, listening, that there was something oddly menacing in his voice. “We don’t say things like that.”
“Of course not, Karl. I’m sorry,” the woman said hastily. “A prison, perhaps I should have said. But call it anything you like, it is not a pleasant atmosphere either for a woman or a scientist.”
The voices were loud now, so loud that Taggart almost felt like joining in the conversation and agreeing with her. He sneaked a cautious look through the leaves and saw them standing close to the concertina wire only a couple of yards within the outer fencing. In the blue light they all looked sick and pale, but he could see their faces clearly. And not only their faces. Taggart nearly whistled, an d for a moment he had eyes only for the girl.
Like the men, she was wearing a bluish-white lab coat over whatever she was wearing underneath, but unlike the men she filled it out and gave it shape—exquisite, swelling, softly rounded shape—in all the right places. Taggart watched delightedly as she took a deep breath that raised her breasts provocatively and then lowered them again. He could almost feel them settling into his hands.
“And I’ve had about all that I can take of Krutch,” she said.
“He’s not been pawing you, has he?” the younger man demanded sharply.
He’d better not have been, Taggart told himself silently. The girl shook her head.
“No, he’s got other things to paw,” she said, with a look of revulsion on her lovely face. And it was a lovely face, blue-tinted skin and all, and her lips were full and sweet yet firm. Or so Ben Taggart decided.
“Well, he’d better not touch you,” the young man said.
Taggart looked at him for the first time.
He was strikingly handsome in the Prussian manner, and Taggart loathed him on sight. That would be Helmut. He was looking at the girl in a possessive sort of way, the way that meant he had a claim on her. Or thought he had.
“He won’t,” said the girl.
“Hmm,” said the older man thoughtfully. He was very wise and distinguished looking, thought Taggart; quite benevolent. “Well, now, Ilse, if he should want you to have anything to do with him, I think it would be a good idea to cooperate. I must say I don’t altogether trust him myself, and it might just be politic to … ah … get on his good side.”
“His good side!” Helmut roared with laughter and slapped his lean thigh. “Which is that, the wooden leg or the other?”
“Tch, Helmut, don’t be crude,” the other man reproved Mm.
Crude, who’s crude? Taggart thought indignantly. What about you, you dirty old man, suggesting a thing like that to a girl like her? Come on, girl, tell the old bugger what you think of him!
The girl gazed at the older man and nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right, Karl. Maybe you have something there. Yes, with the end of this business in sight, perhaps it would pay to be nice to him.”
Taggart was stunned. He watched them turn away and listened to their closing comments with a feeling of dreadful disappointment in his heart. Perhaps it would pay to be nice to him! What kind of a girl was she, anyway? Not only doesn’t she give the old man hell, she actually goes along with him. Bitch!
“But Dr. Wiesner,” Helmut was saying, sounding a little strained, “joking apart, you don’t seriously suggest that Ilse—uh—make up to that man?”
“No, no, no, no,” the older man said impatiently. “Let me put it this way. We must all be cordial and cooperative, and Use most of all. It won’t be for long, another week or two at most. We send the Spider up, activate her, we collect, and then we go. Ah, be careful now— here comes a guard. Let us talk of other things.”
They talked of other things until their voices faded out completely and their figures disappeared from view.
Taggart stayed until all was silent in the camp but for the hum of a generator and the deliberate footfalls of the watch. Then he chose his time and snaked his way cautiously across the path to the bush-covered hillock that helped to conceal the camp so effectively from prying eyes. If it had not been for Mick Mancini’s vigilance on the radio and his skillful use of the direction-finder, Q-40 might never have discovered the existence of this strange encampment. Unless, of course, they had stumbled on it by accident and blown their own mission all to hell.
Sergeant Taggart sorted the facts out in his mind as he wormed his war-toughened body through the low scrub on the far side of the hill. He had time for thought; the Special Forces camp was a good three miles away, across rough terrain that did not make for speed. Yet he felt the gnawing need to hurry. There was something big in the wind—big and nasty smelling.
And so he glided carefully through the night, thinking.
Fact Number One: She was absolutely gorgeous.
Fact Number Two: But she was a bitch.
Fact Number Three: This was no North Vietnamese camp and it had nothing directly to do with the war. Rather, it was some kind of scientific installation staffed mainly by German scientists and technicians and manned by Chinese soldiers.
Fact Number Four: They had developed some kind of missile which they were preparing to send up after receiving certain plans from a scientific courier arriving within the week from South America. And “within the week” could mean tomorrow.
Taggart wondered what sense Army Intelligence had been able to make of the taped radio transmissions and tried to quicken his pace. How could they know this thing would turn out to be top priority? And he was sure now that it was, that the radio signals and his own information were vitally important.
He flitted rapidly along the damp edge of a rice paddy.
Fact Number Five: She had lovely legs.
Fact Number Six: Whatever this was all about, it was not something that Unit Q-40 was equipped to handle on a moment’s notice. They had their own job to do.
Fact Number Seven: Nevertheless, somebody had to handle it. But who?
Well, all he could do was report to Captain Rogers and have him run with the ball.
And run was the operative word. Instinct and training combined to tell him that there was no time to waste.
Ben Taggart picked his way silently past a sleeping North Vietnamese village and almost into the arms of a patrol. There were four of them, heavily armed and wide awake, and they were blocking the only more or less direct route back to the Special Forces camp.
He stopped himself at the last possible second and slid into a stand of trees with a silent curse. The men were posted on the path and showed no sign of moving. That meant he would have to either wait them out or backtrack and take the long way around. He chewed it over in his mind and decided to take the long way, even though it meant a loss of several hours and a return to camp by daylight. From what he knew of Vietnamese patrols, it was the better bet.
Taggart backed away with silent care, damning the loss of time and praying that Q-40’s field camp had not been discovered.
Crummy bastards, getting in my way, he swore; and began the long, slow trek through the heart of enemy territory toward the hidden American camp.
CHAPTER 2
TARGET: HANOI
“Within a week?” said AXE Agent N-3. “We may be too late already, considering that the week started— when, two days ago? Three days ago?”
Hawk nodded and puffed out a blue cloud of cigar smoke.
“Three days,” he said, his cold blue eyes flickering from one to the other of his half-dozen top operatives. “Taggart did his best, but he was delayed. And the code was a tough one to crack. We only received the transcriptions this morning. But we have one advantage—we know that the man Burgdorf has already left.”
“That’s an advantage?” Agent B-5’s lantern jaw chomped away vigorously at the inevitable stick of chewing gum. “I should think that would leave us right up the pole. Or do I take it that he’s already being followed?”
“You may,” said Hawk. “You may also take it that we lost him in Paris. We have had, as you no doubt realize, little time to get our operation under way.”
“Great.” B-5 chomped busily. “So where’s the advantage?”
“Pictures,” Hawk said crisply. “We know who to look for. As soon as Taggart’s information was passed on to us I was able to line up various agents—our own, C.I.A.’s, and others operating through COMSEC—to check passenger lists and major airports. A Dr. Enoch Berger left Buenos Aires by non-sked flight for Paris yesterday afternoon. A-2 was at the airport with a lapel camera and got Berger at Immigration. And then lost him. But he wire-serviced the pictures to us and we checked on Berger in Buenos Aires. It’s Burgdorf, all right.”
“And well on his way,” said N-3, stubbing out a cigarette on his desk ashtray. “I assume your idea is that we try to intercept him. But what if we don’t? Wouldn’t it be better for one or more of us to head straight for the camp and do our own scouting?”
Hawk eyed him coldly. “Wait for the rest of the briefing if you please, Carter. I know you consider these sessions a bore, but they are necessary. Unless you would like to go ahead without full possession of the facts?”
