Operation Norfolk by Randy Wayne White Read Free Book Online Page A

easy. Because it won’t be. Truth is, Mr. Hawker, I don’t think anyone much expects you to come out alive. Like I said, Cwong is not your normal street thug. He’s smart as hell and absolutely merciless.” He looked at Hawker for a moment, then added, “You want me to continue with the briefing, Mr. Hawker? Or maybe you’d like to rethink your interest in the operation.”
    The vigilante gripped his iced tea in a steady hand and swallowed it in a single gulp. “I’m listening,” he said.
    The CIA agent stared intently at Hawker. “It’s possible that choosing the night of one of Cwong’s bigger deliveries will make it easier for you to slip onto his island unseen. His protection won’t be at full strength. See, Mr. Hawker, Cwong has his own personal elite guards. Mostly upper-rank Viet Cong. They’re absolutely ruthless. I think you’d have a better chance of succeeding on your mission if you caught Cwong while some of them were away from the island.”
    â€œThat makes sense,” said Hawker. “But how long will I have to wait?”
    The agent shrugged. “According to our monitoring stations, two small deliveries are due in about four days. But nothing really big is coming up that we know about.”
    â€œYou just want me to sit back and wait?”
    â€œAs I said, Mr. Hawker, our instructions are to assist you in any way we can. The final decisions as to where and how your strike will be are up to you.”
    â€œAnd you have almost no intelligence on Cwong’s island? That makes for a pretty tough choice, gentlemen.”
    The first man nodded to the second, and the second agent pulled down a large wall chart showing the multitude of islands around the Solomons. The first agent said, “I didn’t say that we had no intelligence on the island. I said we’ve been unable to get an insider to cooperate with us and feed us data. We have, of course, all the sophisticated machinery of intelligence gathering at our disposal. Through those means, we’ve compiled a fair amount of information on Cwong. We’ll tell you what we know, what might be helpful, but, of course, we can’t let you write any of it down. It’s all highly sensitive material. It is, in fact, completely illegal for us to be involved with an operation like this at all. That’s why we can offer you only limited assistance.”
    â€œI understand,” said Hawker.
    The second agent stepped forward, tapped the chart, and said, “Con Ye Cwong bought this island”—he touched a small, fluke-shaped island northwest of Guadalcanal—“ten years ago, not long after the fall of Saigon. Apparently others in the North Vietnamese army felt Cwong had grown too powerful. There was even a plot to have him assassinated. But they offered Cwong the option of leaving, and he jumped at the chance. Ended up in the South Pacific with about four hundred thousand in gold and U.S. currency and a handful of men. He began looking around for some remote estate to buy, and then he got wind of Kira-Kira, an island of about five thousand acres. Used to be an Australian settlement there, grew sheep, coconuts, pineapples, stuff like that. Hell of a thick jungle in the middle of the island. About fifteen years ago a couple of Japanese soldiers were discovered there, leftovers from World War II. Got blown off their ships and still weren’t sure the war was really over. They were half crazy, of course, but it gives you some idea of what the interior of the island is like. Those men lived there unseen for thirty years, unnoticed, so far off the unbeaten path they had no inkling the war was over.”
    The vigilante was getting interested in the island, interested in Cwong as a person for the first time. He listened carefully.
    The second agent said, “As you know, Cwong really has two main business operations going at the same time. One of those