Once a Noble Endeavor Read online

  ISBN: 9781483553559

  Dedicated to my wife Betty, my three children: Robert P. Butler, Brian M. Butler and Reagan M. Hertel and all my grandchildren, present and future.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank the hardworking men and women serving our nation in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency, the Central Security Service, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the many US military intelligence commands for their inspiration. Any opinions expressed in this novel are mine alone and are not those of the FBI, NSA, CSS, DIA or the US military.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, additionally any resemblance to actual persons, alive or dead or any business establishments, events or locales are either used fictitiously or are entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved.

  Chapter 1

  Nick, though only “in-country” a short time, knew that the Vietnamese landscape in the Highlands in 1972 was generally just a series of modest dark green and brown round shouldered mountains, lacking the sharp peaks usually found at the apex—much different than the Catskills or Adirondacks he knew back home. From the perspective atop, it actually looked closer to a series of rolling hills with some intermittent lakes, trees, and bushes, all sitting within a sea of pervasive, deep red, sand-embedded clay. In some ways it looked like a cross between a Hudson Valley golf course and a pockmarked sand mine. The gritty soil was granular dirt that got saturated with the torrential seasonal rains and turned into an enormous expanse of enduring brightly colored and reflective mud.

  The high-pitched whistle of the artillery overhead continually ended in a resonant boom deep within Nick’s ears. The resounding noise rattled his eardrums and sent a quiver up his spine. The new soldier had not yet distinguished rockets from mortars or either from the conventional big guns exploding everywhere, but he certainly felt the rumbling report of the far-off enemy weapons.

  Nick Brennan, with a slight grimace on his face, in his drab olive-green uniform, was standing, hands on hips with his military boots two inches deep into the auburn paste on a lower hilltop overlooking Engineer’s Hill, a nearby military installation outside of Pleiku. That reservation was a place Nick was trying to protect from the North Vietnamese Army and their coconspirators, the Viet Cong. The faint pungent smell of the moist earth under a bright, hot tropical sun enveloped the whole area and was becoming so familiar to Nick’s nostrils.

  “I just can’t figure out where the hell he is,” Brennan said with a perplexed look—raising his eyebrows slightly and looking up the hillside. But he knew the target was nearby, probably right out of earshot, he guessed

  “Well, we’ve gotta find him, and he’s around here somewhere—that’s for damn sure,” said John Planner, a Specialist 5 and senior to Brennan, a Specialist 4th Class.

  The two soldiers had been assigned to locate an enemy agent who was calling in instructions and targets on his radio by directing mortar fire and assisting his comrades by guiding its steady movement across the sprawling military post. The two intelligence troopers were using a device called a PRD1: a portable radio direction-finding unit. As a high-frequency receiver, the machine was designed to capture the compass reading from which the enemy soldier was transmitting his deadly messages. The big, dark green and black device was mounted on the back of Nick and John’s jeep.

  “Nicky,” said Planner, “we need those grunts—call them over,” he said, pointing to a nearby infantry patrol, “and see if a couple of them can follow us up that hill over there, or maybe lead us up that hill—we are ASA, after all,” referring to the elite Army Security Agency, a military intelligence unit whose assignment in Vietnam was a secret and who often were humorously described as super bright but less that heroic.

  “Hey, John, how about instead we call in a chopper on the prick 25?” Nick said, nodding toward the voice radio, with the military nomenclature AN/PRC25, in the jeep. The PRC25 was a solid-state FM radio used extensively in the field in Vietnam. Nick knew it was a dependable machine with dependable soldiers on the other end of its encrypted transmissions.

  “Nah, the brush is too friggin’ dense—they’d never see him.”

  “How about ARDF, Johnny boy?” Brennan suggested, referring to ASA’s Airborne Radio Direction Finding unit. The ARDF helicopter units had been a secret operation for a while but became widely known through their constant effective use in the jungles of Vietnam.

  “Nope, they are all tied up with other missions today. I hate to say it, but we have to climb up there ourselves,” Planner sighed, pointing and shaking his thumb uphill.

  Finally, reluctantly but obediently, Nick complied with the order given and yelled out, “Hey, Sergeant, can we get a couple of your guys to back us up goin’ up there?” The NCO looked over towards Brennan and up the hillside and accepted the call as part of his job. Staring at the PRD1, he said, “No sweat—but have you guys picked him up?” The tall, dark-haired buck sergeant with a soft Tennessee accent was a draftee from the 4th Infantry Division—an outfit of some distinction.

  “Not yet, Sarge, but we have a pretty good signal coming soon, I’ll bet,” Nick sheepishly replied with his hands on base of the machine and his headphones covering only one of his ears. Brennan looked away from the NCO’s glance, suspecting he might be telling a little white lie to the good sergeant.

  Nick kept spinning the antenna and tuning the receiver and suddenly the PRD1 registered a loud, deep “duh”—the signal from a powerful Morse code transmission. “I got a zero beat null!” Nick whispered to John, indicating a hit. The radio transmission must have been coming from the nearby hilltop.

  “Just as I figured, he must be up high,” John said, “he can see almost the whole one side of the camp.” John, a bit more experienced, had a sixth sense when it came to locating the enemy—it was his forte. He loved intelligence tracking; for his money it was high-tech detective work.

  “How strong is it?” John asked.

  “It could knock me over—he’s real close—maybe eight hundred feet, maybe a little more. You think we can get a fix on him, Johnny?” referring to trying to triangulate on the transmitter by moving in lateral directions around the target in the jeep.

  “What are you, kiddin’? In this terrain and with the way this asshole keeps trekking about?”

  “I guess it is basically a logic problem like they taught us at Fort Devens—when all else fails, just follow the arrow,” Nick sighed as he thought back to his Army training in logic and the use of algorithms and mathematical formulas to catch an enemy agent. But when that failed, as it sometimes did, the drop-back position with the PRD1 was to just go in the direction of the signal.

  “Okay, let’s take a bearing and follow it straight at this bastard,” John suggested.

  “Yeah, I’m in, but we have to be real careful and let the riflemen do their magic,” Nicky added, shaking his head in the direction of the infantry troopers.

  “Join the Army? Ah, balls you shoulda become a hair dresser!” Planner said with a grin.

  “Oh, what, now there’s something wr
ong with good grooming?”

  Planner and Brennan, smiling, looked at each other, picked up their M16 rifles and took up positions directly behind the four soldiers assigned to lead the way. There was no open path to take up, but most of the dark, stout vegetation became sparse in spots and the soldiers methodically spread out, moving on a compass reading of generally 360 or 0 degrees due north. There was no breeze and the woods were dead silent—John and Nick knew the movement of the squad was projecting a sloppy sucking sound as the soldiers navigated through the thick mud. But they also knew the enemy soldier no doubt was wearing a headset.

  “Nicky, this guy is going to be on a cheese box, so he has something to carry, and while he’s transmitting he will be pretty damn busy—but watch your ass anyway, and don’t forget he might have help,” John whispered.

  The cheese box was a small transmitter used by the VC and NVA that was energized by human power. The operator used pedals similar to those on a bicycle to send out the signal—batteries were generally unheard of among these clever agents. Nick, feeling insecure, immediately interpreted Planner’s admonition as screaming possible danger ahead!

  As Nick and John followed up through the foliage they came upon a tall lean tree with evenly spaced thick branches—ideal if one was inclined to climb. The infantry assistant squad leader looked at John and whispered, “We’ve gone about 300 meters and I stayed on our azimuth. I need someone to climb that tree and spy ahead; I don’t want to just walk into that brush.” It was pretty clear what he meant. The infantry troopers were heavily weighed down with pistol belts, ammunition, ponchos, flak vets, weapons and other gear. John and Nicky travelled far lighter.

  Planner immediately looked at Brennan. Nicky, at about five feet ten inches and 165 pounds, had a physical build which mildly resembled a spider monkey in some ways—long arms and long legs, lithe and agile, with strong striated appendages. John said softly, “Nick there are two reasons I need you to climb that tree—first, you can climb like a goddamn primate, and second, you’re an expert with that 16,” he said, referring to the rifle.

  Brennan went pale and said quietly in reply, “Johnny boy, there are two reasons I can’t climb that tree: first, I am scared to death of heights; when my bowels let go, there is going to be an enormous explosion up there, and second is I can’t live with the thought that I joined the Army to be a grounder pounder—you know, no planes, no oceans, and now I’m going to die four stories up in the air without even a parachute!”

  “You are not going to die, you’re just gonna take a quick peek out over there,” John said, pointing north, “no big deal.”

  The infantry corporal softly chimed in, “Look, you are in the best shape in several ways to do this, and even if we hear just rustling ahead we’ll rush in and your target is dead meat.”

  “Mother of God, what am I doing here?” Nick said to John. John smiled faintly and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Alright, but listen real carefully: any noise, any noise at all and you guys get him and get him real quick—I’m a bleeder.”

  Nicky quickly scaled the tree hand over hand with his rifle draped over his shoulder. Planner gazed up at him with amazement and said to the corporal, “This guy must have orangutans in his family, and they are only a couple of generations back for sure. Look at that son of a bitch go!”

  On top of the tree, more than forty feet up, Brennan looked north and saw steady movement in the bushes only about three hundred feet away, yet he heard nothing.

  Using hand signals, Nick motioned with a thumbs up to those below that he found the enemy soldier. He must be on the cheese box, using his legs to charge the radio, he reasoned. Looking down to the ground, Nick started to get a little dizzy and held on tightly to the branch that separated him from certain death as he grasped his rifle with his other hand.

  Looking north again, Nick watched the infantry soldiers moving quickly toward the target. Led by the corporal, the soldiers surprised the agent and quickly surrounded him. Nick thought to himself, we are going to have a great catch. But Brennan suddenly saw more movement in the brush off to the left of the infantry soldiers: there in a small opening suddenly a VC militiaman appeared with an AK-47 rifle in hand, slowly and cautiously moving toward the soldiers. It was obvious by his silent, catlike movements that the militiaman knew his comrade was captured and he was going to take some serious offensive action. Nick, knowing that he, too, must take action, forced himself to think for just a moment.

  Nicky watched as the VC silhouette moved in and out of clearings in the brush slowly toward the soldiers—the enemy rifleman was perhaps fifty-five feet away from his targets. Nick was going to yell out but suspected the enemy trooper might just charge forward and get a couple of our guys before he could be taken out. His profile moved ever so slowly toward the squad of soldiers. Taking aim, Nick instinctively took a bead on him, but the potential killer suddenly ducked into the leaves. Without a good sight picture, Brennan knew he couldn’t fire. Nick took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. “I need to see him move, please God just make him move,” he said in a low voice.

  Suddenly, the enemy soldier reared his covered head out of a cluster of tall bushes and raised his AK into the high ready position, the action taken by combat soldiers just before firing—the deadly sniper was now within thirty feet of John and the squad and moving dead on. Nicky again quickly raised his weapon, found the profile of the enemy’s head in his sights, and said to himself, “Squeeze, don’t pull,” just as he had learned in basic training. His whole body shaking, he fired and narrowly missed the target. Shit—up and to the left.

  Now all the soldiers diving to the ground were facing up in Nick’s direction. Reflexively or perhaps foolishly the attempted assassin did the same. Suddenly, the target’s shoulders and chest appeared wide in Brennan’s fixed sights—neatly between the rear sight and the bright white post on the front of his rifle. As John and the others looked toward Brennan, they heard the hollow crack of gunshots. With four quick trigger actions Nick fired at the VC bodyguard, this time striking the target just as he again began to raise his weapon and prepared to open up with his AK-47. The VC agent’s profile fell to the ground in a muffled thud with several bullet holes to his lower face and upper chest. Planner, at first unsure at what had just happened, paused and then looked back up towards the tree again and gave Nicky an enormous smile. Nick, always modest, raised his eyes to heaven and smiled in return. At least a Bronze Star, Planner thought, at least. Nick had saved some military asses and ASA had captured an enemy agent—a good day’s work for sure!

  Back at the base of the tree, John had to talk Brennan down. “With your left foot step down to the branch just below—no, right there—now just put your right hand on the branch to the left…” And so it went. While Brennan was able to deftly climb up the tree not looking down, he almost fainted coming from the top to the bottom.

  “You see, Johnny, I’m pretty damn good going up the tree—you know, up the tree—I never look down going up the tree, but I’m basically useless coming down”. He wasn’t kidding, Planner thought.

  ****

  At ASA’s command center, Brennan and Planner had to get to work getting the Vietnamese linguists to interview the big fish. Enemy agents with special communications and operational knowledge were fresh meat for ASA, the National Security Agency (NSA) representatives, and regular Military Intelligence (MI) operators.

  ASA and NSA had both translators and linguists; MI had mostly translators. That was an important distinction. A linguist actually spoke the language, understood common and local idioms, studied the culture, and carefully watched the detainee’s reactions to questions during the interrogation. The translator was just that—a specialist who literally translated words, written or spoken.

  Most ASA and NSA language operators had been trained at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterrey, California and had been immersed in the language and culture during the training. Translators, by comparison,
mostly studied at other venues and essentially learned the written word, rules of grammar, and had somewhat limited training in the spoken word. They often specialized in captured messages. While both were valuable intelligence assets, for the purposes of interrogation the linguist was preferred. Nick loved to watch the linguists work.

  The ASA and NSA linguists, in addition to their basic skills, had a background in communications and intelligence. That provided special insight into an enemy agent’s capabilities and the efficacy of his work, especially those operatives transmitting secret messages to a concealed network.

  During big operations, Nick always enjoyed watching another group of talented intelligence specialists operate, as well. He was fascinated with the way the cryptologists could break out an encrypted message, decode it through the use of mathematics.

  “How the hell do you do that?” Nick would ask the crypto analyst.

  “Their battlefield codes are easy—there is a pattern and it is hasty. They sometimes juxtapose things—they will change times and locations based on some adjustment table: for example add two hours to a time cited or move a target by ten kilometers east or west. These guys are grunts, not intelligence specialists. We just use the patterns you find in mathematics—often whole numbers and mostly prime numbers— you know, numbers greater than 1 and only divisible by itself and one,” the ASA comrade would explain.

  “I love what you crypto guys do—I just don’t understand how the hell you do it.”

  Within a half hour an NSA rep and ASA operator arrived in the detention area. Nicky and John were pleasantly surprised by their early arrival. “Where’d you find this serpent?” the NSA guy asked, pointing at the captured agent.

  “Up in the hills north of here,” John responded, “and he had a cohort who was compelled to meet Buddha courtesy of Nicky’s steady hand and deadly aim,” he added with a grin.

  “Hey, John, I missed with the first round.”