The two men took long sips.
“Now, what was so important that you would fly up to Phu Bai on the day I arrive fit for full duty?”
“You heard about Spike Team Idaho.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Back in May, Glen Lane, Robert Owen, and four indig disappeared without a trace.”
“I think I know why.”
Tom leaned forward.
“I’m listening.”
“Just before Tet, we picked up a burst radio transmission from Cholon but could not identify its exact point of origin. It did allow us to focus our signals collection resources on that section of Saigon. The night of your POW rescue mission we picked up another burst radio transmission and this time, because we were already monitoring, we were able to pinpoint its source—a private medical clinic run by a French doctor named Jean René Brémaud. He moved to Saigon from Hanoi in the 1950s and married into society circles. We put him under surveillance—all in-house with no MACV or Vietnamese involvement.”
“And?”
“And we sent a team into his office after hours.”
“You broke in?”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
“An R-354 hidden in a false wall.”
“R-354?”
“It’s a Soviet spy radio with a burst transmitter that sends messages in Morse code.”
“What did you do with it?”
“We left it there exactly as we found it. He’s part of a network, and we need them all.”
“Is he connected with the spy in MACV?”
“Yes, but not directly. We also photographed all his patient medical records and files. A name stood out. A patient who visited him with suspicious frequency, a woman named Lan Tri Phuong.”
“Maybe she just has a medical issue.”
“She is young and in good health.”
“Why was she visiting him?”
“The records say it was for STD testing.”
“Is that unusual?”
“It is when there is no corresponding lab work.”
“Interesting.”
“Also interesting is that her file had a false address. We had eyes on Brémaud and his clinic, so last month when Phuong had her next appointment, we started following her too.”
“And?”
“And we found her apartment, also in Cholon. It’s walking distance from the clinic. We put a team on her.”
