Read Online Nature of the Game by James Grady - Free Book Online Page A

wake.
    â€œHere,” came Art’s voice from a bicycle rickshaw.
    Art took Jud to Rendez-vous des Amis, Madame Lulu’s brothel where that French septuagenarian schooled shy Laotian girls in the art of fellatio. They walked past the downstairs parlor where the pancake made-up proprietress poured Scotch for her customers while they picked their pleasure, climbed two flights of stairs to the roof.
    They walked out to the edge. Vientiane smelled of foliage. The lights of the city were scattered and few compared to Saigon. A Ford Bronco was parked in the street below.
    A man in a white linen sports jacket stepped out of the roof’s shadows and shook their hands with a clammy grip.
    He was an American. Art was blond; the man in the linen suit was paler, almost an albino in skin color and translucent white hair, a ghost with blue eyes.
    â€œLook over there,” said Ghostman. “Those lights are the Chinese embassy. Russians are here. Uncle Ho’s diplomats. There’s even a Pathet Lao legation a few hundred meters from our embassy. We’re all very polite.
    â€œThis is our war, and we’re winning it our way,” boasted Ghostman. “We’re doing a better job with five hundred CIA officers than half a million GIs are doing in Vietnam. They shouldn’t have taken that war away from us. Our Laos is cost-effective foreign policy.”
    Something stirred in the shadows on the roof.
    The man in the white linen jacket whirled, jerking a Browning 9mm from a shoulder holster.
    â€œJust a gecko,” said Art, shaking his head to Jud.
    â€œI know what it is, Monterastelli!” snapped the CIA man.
    And Jud smiled: now he had the full name—Capt. Art Monterastelli.
    We’re more equal now , thought Jud.
    â€œDon’t want to kill him,” said Ghostman as the lizard scurried away. “The French say that’s the start of sickness, the sign that it’s time to leave Asia. When you start killing geckos.”
    â€œIt isn’t geckos you want dead,” said Jud.
    â€œNo shit,” said Ghostman. He holstered the pistol, pulled a marijuana cigarette from his shirt. “Want some?”
    â€œI don’t smoke,” said Jud.
    Ghostman laughed. “Of course you don’t! You aren’t even here! None of us are! There’s one senior officer in SOG who knows this nitty-gritty, plus we three stooges on a whorehouse roof.”
    â€œWho’s the senior officer?” asked Jud.
    â€œYou don’t need to know,” said the CIA liaison. He clicked a Zippo lighter: Capt. Art Monterastelli and Jud stepped away from that flicker of flame.
    â€œNow who’s paranoid?” said Ghostman.
    â€œSergeant Stuart,” he said, “the people who count know what a fine job you’ve done. Damn good. You’re the kind of man America can depend on. We think you’re our kind of man. We’ve had our eye on you. We think you’re ready for the big time.”
    â€œIs that what this is?” said Jud, resisting the urge to challenge Ghostman’s arrogance with a dozen examples of past exploits.
    Art kept his gaze flat. He had a boyish face.
    â€œGod, this is a backwater!” Ghostman said. “These people believe there’s spirits everywhere—in rocks, our airplanes, people. Call it phi .”
    A man moaned in a room downstairs.
    â€œWe want you to do something for us,” said Ghostman. “It’s risky, catch-as-catch-can. It’s vital. It’s gotta stay buried deep. We think you can do it. If you don’t think you can handle it, if you say no”—he shrugged—“we’ll understand.”
    Then they told him what they wanted.
    Two months later, Jud was in the belly of a B-52 bomber, 43,000 feet above enemy North Vietnam: 2322 hours, 19 November, 1969. The plane had a skeleton flight crew of four American fly-boys, the right number for this moonless night’s mission.
    The