The Cover of War Read Free Page B

tables and watched a
girl's lacey underwear slide down the chrome.
    Out of the
corner of his eye, Golota saw a flash of blue. He turned and held his breath.
Amai's curvy form drifted out of the haze.
    I'd love to
see her fucking that pole, he thought.
    She sat opposite
him, looking frightened. Golota smiled.
    He had picked
she was VC instantly. It was two months ago, at a bar in Cholon. Dressed in
clinging charcoal silk, which would've stood out in a 5th Avenue restaurant,
and oozing sexuality, she looked out place - then he had watched her work the
reporter.
    Golota had
attempted to blackmail her, threatening to blow her cover if she didn't supply
him with the 'speed' he was needing more-and-more. It had been a gamble - a
dangerous gamble - but he wasn't surprised when she asked for military
information in return for the drugs. The information she asked for had been
easy to get. He needed his 'speed'.   
    He Said:
'Where's my fucking stuff?'
    Amai pushed the
small plastic-bag across the table and Golota felt the rush of anticipation.
With those drugs in his blood he would be a killing machine in the field.
 
    With his left
hand, Golota pinned Amai's wrist to the table. With his right, he touched the
smooth skin of her arm.
    'No.'
    He held her
tight and looked into her frightened eyes. Her body trembled. He felt powerful.
    'If I yell,
your-'
    He let go. She
stood, turned, and then floated back into the bar-room smog; the clinging blue
fabric making love to her entire body as she walked.He imagined hersucking him off, her sultry eyes looking up at him
as she made him come.
    Those eyes, he thought. Fuck, those eyes.
    Amai was playing
it too close, Golota knew. He figured she would soon be locked in an
interrogation chamber; Saigon was riddled with informants.
    He suddenly
feared loosing his line of supply. Next time he saw her he would arrange a back
up.
    If I see her.
    Somehow he
didn't think he would.
    Golota pocketed
the plastic bag and left.
    * * *
    Chaske Thorn recognized the girl
immediately. There were only two faces like hers in Vietnam ; hers, and her sister's.
    Chaske's mind
spooled back six years to Laos .
The Ho Chi Minh Trail.
    It was her.
    The top-secret
mission was a proof-of-concept test for the JASON Group. Chaske's team of the
CIA's Special Activities Division, had seeded a section of the emerging Ho Chi
Minh Trail with experimental seismic detection devices - GSIDS.
    The details came
back vividly: through the hot, wet foliage, he watched the girl and her sister.
Somehow the older one had seen him. Chaske's mouth was dry. He felt
simultaneously helpless and attracted to her; the older sister. In the ferns
beside him, Golota raised his PPS submachine-gun. Chaske reacted instinctively,
pushing Golota's barrel away as the firing pin struck the primer. The bullets
slapped into heavy leaves. The sister looked directly into Chaske's eyes. He
felt the thump of an explosion; heard the crack of bullets. He forced his mind
to stay conscious; conscious enough to escape. He dumped the radio; the Station
Chief's metallic voice vibrating through the speaker, broadcast from a C-121,
orbiting thirty-thousand feet overhead, demanding to know what the hell was
going on with his sensor string.
    Chaske looked
for an escape.
    Golota's head
was bleeding; his ear shredded.  
    It was Chaske's
fault. He just couldn't bear to see such beautiful creatures killed. It was a
mistake - he had let Golota down - his country down.
    Chaske had heard
his father's words echo in his mind: Conscience is the root of all courage.
If you want to be brave, obey your conscience. Those were the last words
his father had spoken before beginning his walk into the spirit world.
    Saving those beautiful
girls was no mistake. How could it be?
    Chaske came back
to the present. Sweat slipped between his muscles and the loose cotton shirt.
The younger of those beautiful creatures was now on the sidewalk - in Saigon .
    * * *
    It took Amai less than a second to