Big Mango (9786167611037) by Jake Needham Read Free Book Online Page B

grinned around at the other agents as
if he had said something funny and they all grinned back right on
cue. Eddie could have sworn he even saw the headlights blink, but
he might have been mistaken.
    Reidy shifted his full attention back to
Eddie. “You were in the marines, weren’t you?”
    “You going to tell me what this is all
about?”
    Eddie had been rousted plenty of times
before, but these jokers weren’t playing by the rules.
    “Were you in Vietnam in April, 1975?”
    Eddie looked at Reidy without answering,
determined to wait him out.
    “Yes, you were in Vietnam in April, 1975. You
were in Saigon. We know that.”
    “Then why did you ask me?”
    “What was your assignment?”
    “Do you already know that, too?”
    “Do you ?”
    To hell with this. “I took pap smears
from bargirls.”
    Eddie was sure this time. The headlights
definitely blinked.
    Reidy just kept on rolling. “You were a tech
sergeant in Company A, Fifth Battalion. You were assigned to assist
with the evacuation of the American Embassy in Saigon and you went
out on one of the last choppers from the compound.”
    Eddie’s irritation was suddenly swept away by
a swiftly rising tide of anxiety. First the two pictures of the
group of marines with the red circles on them, then the clipping
out of the DEA file about Harry Austin’s death, and now this.
    “What do you remember about Operation
Voltaire, Eddie?”
    Eddie almost laughed out loud. “Operation what ?”
    “That was your last assignment before you
were evacuated from Saigon, wasn’t it?”
    “I never heard of Operation Voltaire. I was
never involved in anything that sounded remotely that
intelligent.”
    Reidy made a dismissive gesture.
    “You were assigned to Operation Voltaire all
right, Eddie. But just to refresh your memory, that was the
exercise to rescue the Bank of Vietnam’s currency and gold reserves
before the North Vietnamese took over. You were in charge of the
guard detail for Operation Voltaire, weren’t you?”
    What in God’s name is this guy talking
about?
    “We secured the perimeter of the embassy
compound and protected the evacuation,” Eddie answered carefully.
He was hearing alarm bells going off all around him, but he
couldn’t for the life of him figure out what they meant. “That’s
all I remember.”
    Reidy obviously didn’t really care what
answers Eddie gave him. He couldn’t have been stopped with a
howitzer.
    “All the Bank of Vietnam’s reserves
disappeared during the evacuation. We’re looking for them.”
    That was interesting, Eddie reflected through
his wariness, even if he still couldn’t work out what it had to do
with him.
    “How much is missing?” he asked.
    “Using today’s values?”
    “By all means, use today’s values.”
    “A little over $400,000,000.”
    Eddie started to laugh, but then he noticed
that none of his visitors looked even slightly amused.
    Christ on a goddamned crutch! Are these
people serious?
    Eddie’s mind raced, trying to remember
anything that might connect to what Reidy was talking about.
“You’re telling me that someone just got around to noticing all
that money was missing?”
    “It was always assumed the money had been
abandoned in the panic and that the North Vietnamese eventually got
it,” Reidy answered with a half smile that Eddie found somehow
unsettling. “When diplomatic relations were restored last year, we
discovered the Vietnamese didn’t have it. A task force was formed
at Treasury to account for it.”
    “Well, if you’re looking for $400,000,000
around here…” Eddie gestured at his modest office, “you’re shit out
of luck.”
    “Maybe not.” Reidy leaned forward very slowly
and rested his forearms on Eddie’s desk. “Pentagon records say that
on April 27, 1975, you were the ranking NCO in a squad assigned by
Captain Harry Austin to secure a warehouse about two blocks from
the American Embassy in Saigon. That was where Austin had stored
the Bank of Vietnam’s