To Kill the Pope by Tad Szulc Page B

narrow verandas, in the center of True Thien, and probably fourteen or fifteen thatched huts around the perimeter. He saw a tall, thin old man in a loose blackgarment stepping out on the veranda of his house, looking toward the rising sun, yawning and stretching.
    â€œGo! . . . Go!” Tim shouted, leaping out from behind the bushes and running toward the village houses across a stretch of tamped-down, yellowish soil. The team raced alongside and behind him, a flying wedge.
    Tim Savage, a CIA officer named Silva, and a Vietnamese sergeant rushed onto the veranda of the first house, knocking down the old man in black and hurling themselves inside through the open door. The Rangers fanned out to secure the approach to the village from the west—a rutted track emerging from rice paddies beyond—while the other CIA man, Gervasi, and the remaining South Vietnamese posted themselves around the house, their weapons raised in readiness against an attack.
    *  *  *
    Inside, Tim found the family at breakfast by a charcoal stove. The two men, three women, and four or five children froze with their rice bowls in midair as the Phoenix team burst in.
    â€œDown on the ground, facedown!” Tim shouted, the South Vietnamese sergeant barking out the translation in his language. The villagers obeyed wordlessly. They were patted down for weapons; they had none.
    â€œOkay,” Tim said, “now get up and stand against the far wall, facing me.” He instructed Silva to search the house for arms. The Rangers brought in four black-clad men at gunpoint.
    â€œWe grabbed them in the other houses,” the lieutenant announced, “but others ran away, they just vanished.”
    Tim nodded, signaling for the Rangers’ captives to join their fellow villagers at the wall. A straight-backed chair, the only one in the household, was placed in the center of the room, and Tim motioned Gervasi to lead one of the Vietnamese to it. The man was thrown into the chair like a rice sack.
    â€œLet’s have a conversation,” Tim told him, and the corpulent South Vietnamese translated. “I’m going to ask a few questions, and if you answer truthfully, nothing will happen to your family. Do you understand?”
    The Vietnamese, an emaciated man in his thirties, remained impassive and silent.
    â€œHow many fighters live in your village?” Tim asked.
    The man in the chair stared at the ground, motionless. His facial muscles made his face hard like a mask. Tim repeated the question. Again, silence, expressively loud in its defiance and contempt.
    â€œAll right, have it your way,” he said.
    The South Vietnamese stepped up and backhanded the prisoner across the face, the force of the blow hurtling him out of the chair. He collapsed on the ground, and the sergeant kicked him viciously in the groin. The man uttered no sound. The South Vietnamese and Gervasi threw him back in the chair, tying his wrists with strong twine. The man’s hands rested limply on his lap.
    â€œThis is the last time I’ll ask you to answer,” Tim said quietly.
    The villager’s face still betrayed no emotion. Tim raised his eyebrows as a signal to the South Vietnamese, who produced sharpened bamboo sticks from his backpack and deftly stuck two of them under the nail’s of the man’s right hand. The sticks tore off the nails, and blood spurted from the tips of his fingers. Now the villager howled in pain, then relapsed into silence. He will never talk, Tim told himself, but I guess we must keep trying. He felt nausea rising up from his stomach. God, is this what we should be doing? This is wrong, terribly wrong! How can I allow this to happen, let alone order it? It’s inhuman! He clenched his teeth, letting the torture proceed.
    The South Vietnamese sergeant yanked up the man’s head, thrusting the sharp point of his curved knife into his right eye. There was a squishy sound and the