Heirs of Cain (17 page)

Collins felt total exhilaration. He also felt a strange calm inside, a sense of detachment, like he was standing outside the scene looking in. There was no voice inside his head pleading for compassion, for empathy. Those were signs of weakness, and in this moment, in the searing heat and dust of some shitty gook village, he understood with clear certainty that weakness did not reside within him.

He possessed the stone-cold heart of a killer.

“First kill, sir?”

The voice coming from behind him sounded as if it were coming from another planet.

“First kill, sir?” the voice repeated.

Collins didn’t answer; there was no need. Numbers didn’t matter. Something inside him had been set free, some force that had no need for numbers. At that moment he knew what he was going to do, what he was condemned to do: create new and terrible numbers.

The mathematics of death.

Cain had been born at that moment, although neither Collins nor Lucas would know it for many months. That first tour of duty in Nam only fertilized the egg; birth wouldn’t occur until well into his second tour. It was then that his unparalleled ability to kill manifested itself in ways no one could have anticipated; it was during his second tour that Cain grew to manhood. Somewhere in those Vietnam jungles, Captain Michael James Collins shed his own persona like a snake shedding its skin.

Cain was born.

And quickly became a legend, a myth, more feared than any predator in those jungles. U.S. soldiers spoke of him with hushed reverence, invoking his name as if he were a deity. To them, he was godlike. A man above all rules, immune to the stings of conscience, a killer without remorse. Stories of his kills wove their way from the DMZ to the Delta. Much of his legend was fueled by the “midnight missions,” those solitary excursions into the jungle darkness, where, using only his bare hands, he sometimes killed a dozen or more of the enemy before returning to base camp at sunrise.

Among the Viet Cong, Cain’s legend took on a powerful, even sinister force. They saw him as a demon spirit, indestructible, immune to death. He was the shadow that awaited them in the night. He was their nightmare come to life.

Lucas was the first to recognize the change, later noting that he saw it more in Collins’s eyes rather than his actions. At certain moments, Lucas said, those blue eyes turned gray, revealing something dark, hidden, empty. They were, Lucas sensed, the eyes of a jungle predator: cold and keen, brutal, cunning, and savage.

In late 1967 Lucas needed those predator eyes, those killing skills. He had been ordered back to Washington, where he was put into place to oversee a new operation, one that would eventually replace the infamous Phoenix Project. This new project would be highly covert and even more secretive than its predecessor.

The Phoenix Project, also known as Operation Phoenix, was born deep within the belly of the CIA in the mid-1960s. It was designed to identify and “neutralize”—capture, induce to surrender, kill, or otherwise disrupt—anyone supporting the Viet Cong or pro-Communist sympathizers. The operation was introduced as the Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation program (ICEX). Among those running the program was legendary CIA spook Ted Shackley, the CIA Saigon station chief, and Shackley’s long-time friend, General Lucas White.

From its inception, Operation Phoenix was nothing less than an assassination program. Its mission was to cripple the Viet Cong by killing influential local village and hamlet leaders, such as mayors, teachers, and doctors. Guerrillas from the North, or any leader suspected of aiding the South’s parallel government, were also deemed legitimate targets for assassination.

Operation Phoenix was a natural successor to an earlier CIA black op—Project Pale Horse. Named for a passage from the Book of Revelation, Project Pale Horse ran for six years, operating primarily in the northeastern provinces of Laos, where it proved to be so effective against Soviet KGB and Red Chinese military advisors that a $50,000 bounty was placed on the head of the Pale Horse commander.

Pale Horse eventually ran its course, giving way to Operation Phoenix, which proved to be both efficient and highly controversial. Before Operation Phoenix was turned over to the South Vietnamese and spiraled out of control, the estimated death toll exceeded 40,000.

Operation Phoenix was, in the eye of one critic, “the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the Nazi death camps in World War Two.”

“Maybe so,” Lucas commented to Shackley and Westmoreland upon reading that assessment. “But no one can say we weren’t effective.”

With Phoenix flaming out, the need for a new operation became a high priority matter for the generals running the war. Big wars always contain smaller, secret wars, and Vietnam was no different. Thus, the plan for a new assassination operation went into effect. It was to be known as Project Armageddon. Lucas, because of his close association with both Pale Horse and Phoenix, was the natural choice to head the operation.

Lucas wholeheartedly believed in the project and was only too willing to oversee it. In Collins, he had the perfect instructor. Who better to teach the art of killing than a man with a doctorate in death?

“You don’t need me, Lucas,” Collins had argued at the time. “I’m needed here, in-country. This is where I can do the most good.”

“You’ll return, my boy. I promise.” Lucas countered. “And when you do, you won’t be alone. You’ll bring your heirs with you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come with me, my boy. Let us make full use of your special talent.”

Collins went with Lucas, reluctantly leaving Vietnam for the first time in two years. The real world held no interest for him anymore; his home was the jungle. That’s where he wanted to be—needed to be. That’s where Cain had come of age. Where he had carved out his legend.

He declined a lengthy leave, arguing in favor of immediate reassignment. Lucas was more than happy to oblige. The school, or “Shop,” as it was called, officially began operations in February 1968.

Lucas and Collins spent many weeks carefully screening potential candidates. More than one hundred were given initial consideration. Of that number, after further screening, fewer than half were called in for an interview. None were told the true purpose of the interview, or the nature of the project. That would happen only after acceptance.

That first class, which convened in the snows at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, consisted of thirteen men, ranging in rank from captain to private first class. All had served at least one hitch in Vietnam. Nine were Army, three Marines, one Navy. There were six Caucasians, four blacks, two Puerto Ricans, and one Native American Indian.

Of that original group, only six survived the cut.

Collins could remember every face, every code name. He had taught them, christened them, unleashed them. Now, four decades later, he could see them clearly, as if they were standing in front of him. Cardinal, Snake, Deke, Rafe and Moon.

The heirs of Cain.

But it was the Indian, standing slightly apart—always—from the others, arms folded, black eyes burning, that he saw most clearly. Dwight David Rainwater.

Seneca.

From the beginning, Seneca had been a different animal in every way. He never sought comradeship, never forged alliances, never relied on a fellow soldier. He was a lone wolf trapped in a pack. There were other differences, as well. He had instincts the others could never acquire. Natural instincts. While they were learning various killing techniques, he was honing skills that somehow seemed innate. Skills that accompanied him from the womb. But the biggest difference was his thirst for blood. While the others wondered,
In the end, will I be able to do this?
Seneca never doubted himself or his ability to kill. He knew.

Collins saw a madness in Seneca that went beyond what was needed. Assassins kill, but they don’t have to be crazy. Collins argued strongly for Seneca’s dismissal from the Shop, but Lucas adamantly refused the request. After all, Lucas reasoned, Seneca was precisely what was needed: the perfect killing machine. No guilt, no hesitation, no conscience. What more could you want in an assassin?

Seneca would stay.

“Okay, Lucas, have it your way,” Collins said. “But someday you’ll regret it.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Lucas responded.

“It’s not a risk, Lucas. It’s a certainty.”

Now, after all these years, that day had arrived.

As the afternoon shadows began to sweep through the room, Collins stood in front of the mirror and studied his naked body. It had held up well. The muscle tone, the definition, the strength—he looked good. Better than most men half his age. Except for the two scars—one on his left shoulder, one on his right side—he looked no worse for wear than he had twenty-five years ago.

He still had the predator’s body.

The predator’s mentality.

He stared at his face in the mirror, beyond his own cold blue-gray eyes, into the deepest recesses of his own being. Into the darkness of his heart.

He smiled.

Blood time was about to begin.

His time.

Vietnam, November 1967

The jungle heat attached itself to the skin like a blanket of fire. Mosquitoes and other insects swarmed with impunity. Silence screamed.

Cain leaned against a large tree, waiting until the sun moved beyond the jungle canopy, waiting until darkness fell.

Waiting for blood time to begin.

His time.

This was the first of what would become legendary midnight missions. On this night, the ultimate assassin made his debut. The night predator was unleashed. In the deep jungle darkness was the genesis of Cain’s legend.

He knew, even at this moment, that he was entering into a different realm. That from this night onward, his life would be changed forever. That once he began the killing, there was no turning back.

Cain would be more assassin than soldier. A ghost. A shadow among shadows.

Lucas had approached him with the idea, arguing that certain types of “nocturnal killings” were more valuable and would carry more weight. They would, he contended, make a “more emphatic” statement, play on the “enemy’s psyche” like a nightmare come true.

“I will find you targets,” Lucas said. “Get you locations. You, with those marvelous skills of yours, will do the rest.”

“Your confidence is reassuring, Lucas.”

“My boy, the level of confidence I have in you does not come close to matching your talent,” Lucas answered. “As I have said on many occasions, what you have is a very unique gift indeed.”

“Has this been cleared?”

Lucas chuckled. “My boy, this is Vietnam. Nothing needs to be cleared. If we want to do it, we simply proceed.”

Cain’s first two targets were a North Vietnamese captain and the mayor of Da Lat, a small village west of Cam Ranh. The mayor, a distant cousin of Vietnam’s flamboyant vice president Nguyen Cao Key, was a CIA asset who had been supplying the North with valuable U.S. military intelligence plans for almost a year. The two men had a 3:00 a.m. meeting scheduled in the back room of a small bar right off the main street.