There Will Be Killing by John Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

sitting in their laps.

5

    It was nearing dawn and J.D. Mikel had yet to sleep. He didn’t require a lot, which was fortunate, because he had been summoned to the MACV headquarters in Saigon, three days earlier. As his spine settled into the hammock where no one would find him—god, he hoped not—he ran through the details again that had called him from the jungle and literally landed him in a nut ward.
    When the summons came he had been dressed in black silk pajamas, Vietnamese Highlands style, and flip-flop sandals, just as he was now. And just as now the sky was still and shadowed—only then he had been sitting in the back of a jeep, driven by a Special Forces Officer.
    As they rolled up to the entrance of the sprawling fortress in Saigon known as Pentagon East, they were joined almost immediately by a black late 60s Cadillac limousine. Another Special Forces Officer opened the door, then out stepped a man in an elegant English cut suit and highly polished shoes.
    He greeted J.D. with their customary exchange, “And how are you, my young friend?”
    The man’s voice, high and a bit squeaky, in no way matched his attire or his bearing, or the worldly position such attire and bearing would dictate. J.D. bowed his customary bow.
    â€œNot as young as I once was, Mr. Ambassador.”
    â€œAnd thank goodness for that.” A beat. “J.D.”
    They laughed as they always did at their private little joke, then slipped into the professional faces they were there to put on.
    Flanked by the two Special Forces Officers, their shiny shoes, flip-flops and green nylon combat boots echoed down a long, gleaming corridor until the officers opened a pair of French doors, revealing a tasteful office where a much decorated general rose quickly from his desk.
    â€œGood evening, Mr. Ambassador.” General Glen Claymore gave a sharp salute. He had bulldog jowls, BB pellet eyeballs, and a Yul Brenner globe you could spin on its axis. “It’s a long flight from Paris. Please, have a seat, and may I offer either of you coffee, tea?”
    The Ambassador, a title he retained despite the less than diplomatic purposes he now served, gave a dismissive wave and didn’t bother to sit. J.D. flip-flopped over to the silver service before settling into the chair facing Claymore’s desk where he placed the tea cup to steep.
    â€œAgent Mikel, we have a dark one. I would not have brought you out of the current operation, but this is urgent.”
    Claymore slid a file across the desk. J.D. briskly thumbed through the surprisingly thin stack of pages while Claymore filled them in. He wound up his briefing with a fist to desk thump, growling, “We need this thing stopped now . Before the press catches so much as a whiff of this garbage. Sentiments back home are bad enough as it is.”
    Sentiments “back home” were not J.D.’s problem. He was a US citizen by birth but any real sense of affiliation didn’t extend much beyond his employer. “You have confirmed kills?”
    â€œWe have bodies, yes. Dismembered in such a way that. . .” Claymore shot a look of distaste at the file. “We think this may have happened before.”
    â€œExplain.”
    More briefing, more desk thumping, then, “For all we know the crazy who escaped the nut ward at Madigan General is dead or doing his killing in some Iowa cornfield, but we can’t discount the possibility that he’s managed to pick up where he left off on the front lines.” Claymore glanced uneasily at the Ambassador. “This is, of course, the worst case scenario from a public relations position and purely speculation on our part.”
    At yet another mention of public relations, J.D.’s annoyance rose to the level of flicking lint off a dark suit. The suit in the room, however, parked a well-tailored hip against the desk, got down to the nasty end of the stick.
    â€œYou find whatever this is,