Conspiracy by Stephen Coonts Page B

on. He stopped every few yards, listening. Finally he heard a sound—brush moving—and he froze.
    At first, Dean wasn’t exactly sure where the sound came from. Then he heard something else, which helped him locate it thirty feet to his left. He snaked through the vegetation, moving toward the sound as quietly as he could.
    The thick leaves were more effective than a smoke screen. Men could pass within a few feet of each other and not be seen. Hearing was more important, though the jungle filtered that as well, mixing in the sounds of animals and the natural rustle of the wind as a screen.
    Finally, Dean spotted something that didn’t look like vegetation about ten yards away. He wasn’t sure if it was a man, let alone whether it was Phuc Dinh.
    Dean moved forward so slowly it was as if he were only leaning in that direction. The gun was at his hip, ready to fire. The gray shape became the side of a chest. Something above it moved.
    Eyes.
    Dean fired.
    The bullet punched a quarter-sized hole through Phuc Dinh’s chest. In the sparse second it took Dean to chamber another bullet, life had ebbed from the VC commander; he fell straight back, collapsing against the trunk of a tree.
    Dean’s heart beat three times before he reached the body. A pistol lay next to Phuc Dinh; his mouth gaped open. There was no question he was dead.
    Dean, like all scout snipers at the time, carried a smallInstamatic camera to record kills. He pulled it from his belt pouch and took two pictures. Then he took the VC officer’s pistol, slid it into his waistband, and went to find out what had happened to Longbow.

 
29
    WHEN NATIONAL SECURITY Advisor Donna Bing asked Rubens to convene a joint briefing session on the Vietnamese Assassin Plot, as she called it, Rubens tried to demur, telling her he thought it was premature. But she had insisted, and so late that evening he and Ambassador Jackson trekked down to Washington via Admiral Brown’s helicopter to meet with representatives of the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service to, as Jackson put it, sing for their supper.
    It was easy to see how much credence the various agencies placed in the theory by how high-ranking their representatives at the meeting were. Collins was there for the CIA; the initial information was theirs and she had turf to protect. But Frey had sent one of his deputies and a mid-level member of the investigative task force on the McSweeney investigation. Rubens didn’t even know the FBI officials representing the bureau.
    He understood the skepticism. His agency’s review of Vietnamese intercepts found nothing that indicated a plot existed.
    â€œOf course they would be careful about it,” said Bing briskly. She badgered the other agencies for opposing theories—a disgruntled constituent was preferred by both the FBI and Secret Service, though he had yet to be identified—and then disparaged them. For once, she dropped her belligerent attitude toward Rubens and actually seemed—not
nice,
exactly, but human.
    Rubens saw why when she summed up the session.
    â€œLooking at this from the macro level, it makes utter sense,” Bing declared. “The ultimate players here are the Chinese. They’ve helped the Vietnamese set it in motion—I would be looking for that connection in the intercepts.”
    Rubens was hardly a fan of China. But if there was still scant evidence that the assassination plot had been backed by the Vietnamese, then there was even less—as in nil—that the Chinese had a hand in it. He exchanged a glance with Jackson, who, diplomat that he was, returned only a hint of a smile.
    â€œWas there something else, Bill?” asked Bing.
    â€œI would only emphasize that we have yet to develop hard information about Vietnam’s involvement, let alone China’s.”
    Disappointment fluttered across Bing’s face. But she quickly banished it, saying, “Well, then we have to keep