The Deserter by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07P87TFXT
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 34

Maggie Taylor finished her rum and asked Brodie to make her another.

Brodie rarely refused a drink request from a young lady, but whatever Maggie Taylor was offering while sober needed to be given the same way. “Later.”

She nodded. “Okay… Well, Flagstaff. It’s the name of a CIA program in Afghanistan. Once you know that, you know that the code name is obviously a sort of in-joke takeoff on the Phoenix Program.”

He nodded. But there was nothing funny about the notorious Phoenix Program—the CIA Black Ops initiative in Vietnam that had been tasked with wiping out the Viet Cong infrastructure through infiltration, kidnappings, torture, and of course assassination. Literally thousands of Viet Cong—or suspected Viet Cong—had been executed without due process and often without much evidence. As Brodie understood it, CIA officers, in partnership with Army intelligence, did the Intel work and also a little of the wet stuff, but most of the dirty work was done by the South Vietnamese National Police, and even by U.S. Army Special Forces personnel who’d been recruited by the Agency. The program was always controversial because ICs—innocent civilians—had been killed by mistake, and it had been shut down after a congressional investigation. But history showed that Phoenix was very effective in accomplishing its mission. Therefore it would not surprise Brodie if, like the mythical phoenix that rose to life from its own ashes, the spooks at Langley thought that Phoenix—reborn as Flagstaff—would work well in Afghanistan.

He looked at Maggie Taylor, who he assumed had some knowledge of this from her CIA boyfriend. “Go on.”

She nodded. “When I was deployed to Afghanistan, I stayed in touch with Trent.” She glanced at Brodie and continued, “He told me he was working on something very important. With Special Ops units in Afghanistan.”

And Special Ops often became Black Ops when the CIA got involved—as happened in Vietnam. Some things never change—except for the name. Brodie said, “And this was the Flagstaff program.”

“Trent didn’t give me a name for this program, but later he slipped up and used the name. He hinted that people in Civil Affairs… people I knew… were also helping the Agency with this program, and maybe I’d like to help.” She stared off into space, then continued, “That should have set off alarm bells, but… I was naïve, stupid, and eager to assist in the war effort.”

Brodie had heard enough confessions to know not to interrupt when the suspect was crossing the threshold, and to ask questions only when the person began to dissemble or contradicted an earlier statement. Or when they started to justify what they’d done. He wasn’t so sure Maggie Taylor was that stupid and naïve not to understand that her old boyfriend was recruiting her, but he let it pass. He was tempted, however, to point out that she showed poor judgment in that relationship. Brodie had been there himself, so he could be sympathetic, but he had never let the personal cross over into the professional. Apparently she had. Getting involved with the spooks was messy, and it didn’t easily wash off.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.