The world held its breath at the height of the Cold War in August of 1968 while the Soviets crossed into Czechoslovakia with tanks, troops and helicopter gunships to brutally put an end to what the Communist superpower of the time saw as a threat to its hard-line doctrine. The so-called "Prague Spring," which by August was gaining in momentum, was a liberal movement led by the newly appointed Communist leader of the Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubcek. At the same time the people of Czechoslovakia were beginning to see a glimmer of reform to a more democratic society, Tim Ryerson was also seeing his own personal freedom taking shape. He was about to graduate from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in psychology, and, as his reward, planned to take a long vacation in Europe after graduation. During that same spring of 1968, amid campus demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and anything else that symbolized the "establishment," Tim was openly approached by trench-coated government agents and recruited to perform a clandestine job for them during his planned travel in Europe. The mastermind for Tim's involvement for the "routine" courier job turned out to be his mysterious uncle who Tim discovered was the CIA station chief in Vienna. The assignment was to be relatively simple: cross the guarded Czech border from Austria with local operatives, and then retrieve a small capsule of microfilm called a "pearl" from a pro-Western physicist. However, Tim gets caught in the middle of the Soviet military incursion and the simple mission turns into one of sheer terror and suspense, with a high degree of confusion, betrayal and *.

August Pearl

By Thomas L. Reilly

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Thomas L. Reilly
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-8847-4

Chapter One

In the spring of 1968 two men walking across the campus of the University of Wisconsin wearing ties and trench coats and sporting short haircuts tend to stand out. After all, the local student population was actively engaged with chaotic protests against the war in Vietnam, and anything representing the so-called "establishment" fueled suspicion. Many of the university's gray pony-tailed tenured professors actually encouraged the student protests by espousing their own anti-establishment beliefs both in and out of the school's lecture halls. The atmosphere on the campus was charged with collective hostility against the government, coupled with the newfound sense of "doing your own thing."

The two trench coat-clad men announced their representation of the government as loudly as if they were using bullhorns. Nevertheless, they kept walking in a determined manner along a popular student pathway leading from the main campus, past Observatory Hill, and in the direction of the student dormitories. At three in the afternoon this part of the campus was busy with students coming and going between classes. The two men in their late thirties contrasted vividly with the younger longhaired and unkemptly dressed students. They shrugged off the occasional sneer with an attitude of professional indifference.

I was one of the students who noticed the mysterious duo. I was walking in the same general direction on another pathway about forty yards to their right en route to my dorm after completing my last class of the day, physical geography. In another seventy-five yards or so their path and mine would merge before going through a wooded area just before the men's dorms.

Only a few minutes earlier, before these two aliens from another galaxy caught my eye, I was casually strolling along thinking about graduation that was now only five weeks away. It had been a difficult four years of studying, but now it all seemed worthwhile. At twenty-two years old I would be graduating from college with a degree in psychology. But before seriously testing the job market or considering graduate school, I was going to reward myself by traveling in Europe for six weeks following graduation.

I rationalized I had earned such an extravagant gift, not only by studying hard enough to graduate with honors and be on the Dean's List, but also because I had worked full time the last three summers at a local paint factory in Madison, and then at another part time job during the school year delivering pizzas several nights a week. A nice, although frugal, vacation to Europe was necessary before settling into a more serious adult life. But now my thoughts were a bit distracted by seeing the two hatless Dick Tracy look-a-likes walking in the same direction.

I increased my gait, wanting to be in front of the men before the two pathways merged in the event something happened, like them being hassled by a group of students or vice-versa. I had only a short time to get to my dorm, drop off my books, and catch a bus downtown for my pizza delivery job on State Street.

Even though geometry was a weak subject for me, my planned angle and speed along the converging paths worked. I was able to get a few yards in front of the two men when entering the same path leading through the wooded area. Now I could forget them as a distraction and continue my more blissful daydreaming about graduation and the excitement of the planned trip to Europe as I walked the final quarter mile to Kronshage Hall.

I could see the front entrance to my dormitory, a stoic old stone building resembling a mutation between an ivy-league dorm and an asylum.

My roommate, Ken Waters, was just exiting the dorm and heading towards me with a bag of books over his right shoulder. He was an engineering major and I knew he was off to the main library for an evening of statistics and logarithms. Not only did Ken like those kinds of things, but he took a certain sadistic comfort in knowing he would probably make a lot more money than me someday because of the long nights he spent memorizing formulas and charts. But he was a good friend and had been since we attended the same high school together in upstate Wisconsin.

As he approached Ken called out, "Hey Tim, are you working tonight?"

"You know I am. I suppose you want me to work it into my schedule to drop by the library about seven-thirty so we can split an extra pizza I just happen to have in the oven of my delivery car, right?"

"Gee, that's a great idea, really glad you offered! And why don't you bring along some of those garlic bread sticks and a Dr. Pepper? You know the pop machine never works at the library."

"I wouldn't know about that Ken, I don't live there like you do. But since you're the damn engineering whiz, why don't you fix the machine?"

"Because free delivery is easier," Ken responded with a grin.

Our mutual good-natured ribbing was cut short as I saw Ken look over my shoulder with a strange expression on his face.

"Who do you figure those guys are?" he asked quietly.

I looked back just to see the two men in trench coats approaching, still walking in a determined manner. I had forgotten about them until Ken brought them back to my attention. Before I could say anything, the pair split up, swerved around us, rejoined and continued towards Kronshage Hall.

"Who are those guys?" was all I could say inquisitively to Ken.

Neither of us had an answer as we watched the two strangers walk up the steps and enter our dorm through the heavy wooden door.

"Well I'm out of here!" Ken exclaimed with a somewhat nervous wink at me. "I warned you about those overdue library books; now they're coming to get you," he chuckled as he walked away, obviously not wanting anything to do with the two strangers.

"Yeah sure, go ahead and run. You're the guy who borrowed the Bunsen burner from the chemistry lab just to heat your damn coffee in the mornings. They're coming for you pal, not me," I mused, still wondering what business the two guys really had in our dorm.

But what the hell, almost two hundred guys lived in the three-story building; they could be there for anyone. I dismissed any pangs of real or imagined guilt and continued into my dorm so I wouldn't be late for work.

As I reached the landing on the top floor and rounded the corner to proceed to my room halfway down the hall, I was amazed to see the guys in trench coats walking directly towards me. I immediately started calculating how much an overdue library book would cost with nearly four years of compounded interest. Maybe now I couldn't afford my trip to Europe!

"Do you know Timothy Ryerson?" asked the taller of the two men.

"Ah, yeah, I know him," I answered the man, trying to stall for something, anything, while wondering what in hell was going on. These guys seemed awfully official.

Just then the other guy reached into his inside breast pocket with a curious look on his face, the first display of any emotion by either of them. He removed a paper bearing a copy of a small photo. He looked at the photo then turned it to show me.

"Is this Tim Ryerson?" he asked with just a hint of a devious smile breaking one corner of his mouth. The picture was a copy of the same passport photo I had taken a couple months earlier and sent with my application in preparation for my trip to Europe.

"How did you get that?" I slowly...