Never Say Die / Whistleblower

  The bartender put a record on the turntable, and the needle scratched out a Vietnamese love song, a haunting melody that drifted like mist over the river. Wind swayed the paper lanterns, and shadows danced across the deck. Lassiter stared at the five beer bottles lined up in front of him on the table. He ordered a sixth.

  “It takes time, but you get used to it here,” he said. “The rhythm of life. The people, the way they think. There’s not a lot of whining and flailing at misfortune. They accept life as it is. I like that. And after a while, I got to feeling this was the only place I’ve ever belonged, the only place I ever felt safe.” He looked at Willy. “It could be the only place you’re safe.”

  “But I’m not like you,” said Willy. “I can’t stay here the rest of my life.”

  “I want to put her on the next plane to Bangkok,” said Guy.

  “Bangkok?” Lassiter snorted. “Easiest place in the world to get yourself killed. And going home’d be no safer. Look what happened to Valdez.”

  “But why?” Willy said in frustration. “Why would they kill Valdez? Or me? I don’t know anything!”

  “You’re Bill Maitland’s daughter. You’re a direct link—”

  “To what? A dead man?”

  The love song ended, fading to the scritch-scritch of the needle.

  Lassiter set his beer down. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re such a threat to them. All I know is, something went wrong on that flight. And the Company’s still trying to cover it up….” He stared at the line of empty beer bottles gleaming in the lantern light. “If it takes a bullet to buy silence, then a bullet’s what they’ll use.”

  “Do you think he’s right?” Willy whispered.

  From the backseat of the car, they watched the rice paddies, silvered by moonlight, slip past their windows. For an hour they’d driven without speaking, lulled into silence by the rhythm of the road under their wheels. But now Willy couldn’t help voicing the question she was afraid to ask. “Will I be any safer at home?”

  Guy looked out at the night. “I wish I knew. I wish I could tell you what to do. Where to go…”

  She thought of her mother’s house in San Francisco, thought of how warm and safe it had always seemed, that blue Victorian on Third Avenue. Surely no one would touch her there.

  Then she thought of Valdez, shot to death in his Houston rooming house. For him, even a POW camp had been safer.

  The driver slid a tape into the car’s cassette player. A Vietnamese song twanged out, sung by a woman with a sorrowful voice. Outside, the rice paddies swayed like waves on a silver ocean. Nothing about this moment seemed real, not the melody or the moonlit countryside or the danger. Only Guy was real—real enough to touch, to hold.

  She let her head rest against his shoulder, and the darkness, the warmth, made sleep impossible to resist. Guy’s arm came around her, cradled her against his chest. She felt his breath in her hair, the brush of his lips on her forehead. A kiss, she thought drowsily. It felt so nice to be kissed….

  The hum of the wheels over the road seemed to take on a new rhythm, the whisper of the ocean, the soothing hiss of waves. Now he was kissing her all over, and they were no longer in the backseat of the car; they were on a ship, swaying on a black sea. The wind moaned in the rigging, a soulful song in Vietnamese. She was lying on her back, and somehow, all her clothes had vanished. He was on top of her, his hands trapping her arms against the deck, his lips exploring her throat, her breasts, with a conqueror’s triumph. How she wanted him to make love to her, wanted it so badly that her body arched up to meet his, straining for some blessed release from this ache within her. But his lips melted away, and then she heard, “Wake up. Willy, wake up….”

  She opened her eyes. She was lying in the back seat of the car, her head in Guy’s lap. Through the window came the faint glow of city lights.

  “We’re back in Saigon,” he whispered, stroking her face. The touch of his hand, so new yet so familiar, made her tremble in the night heat. “You must have been tired.”

  Still shaken by the dream, she pulled away and sat up. Outside, the streets were deserted. “What time is it?”

  “After midnight. Guess we forgot about supper. Are you hungry?”

  “Not really.”

  “Neither am I. Maybe we should just call it a—” He paused. She felt his arm stiffen against hers. “Now what?” he muttered, staring straight ahead.

  Willy followed his gaze to the hotel, which had just swung into view. A surreal scene lay ahead: the midnight glare of streetlights, the army of policemen blocking the lobby doors, the gleam of AK-47s held at the ready.

  Their driver muttered in Vietnamese. Willy could see his face in the rearview mirror. He was sweating.

  The instant they pulled to a stop at the curb, their car was surrounded. A policeman yanked the passenger door open.

  “Stay inside,” Guy said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  But as he stepped out of the car, a uniformed arm reached inside and dragged her out as well. Groggy with sleep, bewildered by the confusion, she clung to Guy’s arm as voices shouted and men shoved against her.

  “Barnard!” It was Dodge Hamilton, struggling down the hotel steps toward them. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Don’t ask me! We just got back to town!”

  “Blast, where’s that man Ainh?” said Hamilton, glancing around. “He was here a minute ago….”

  “I am here,” came the answer in a shaky voice. Ainh, glasses askew and blinking nervously, stood at the top of the lobby steps. He was swiftly escorted by a policeman through the crowd. Gesturing to a limousine, he said to Guy, “Please. You and Miss Maitland will come with me.”

  “Why are we under arrest?” Guy demanded.

  “You are not under arrest.”

  Guy pulled his arm free of a policeman’s grasp. “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “They are here only as a precaution,” said Ainh, ushering them into the car. “Please get in. Quickly.”

  It was the ripple of urgency in his voice that told Willy something terrible had happened. “What is it?” she asked Ainh. “What’s wrong?”

  Ainh nervously adjusted his glasses. “About two hours ago, we received a call from the police in Cantho.”

  “We were just there.”

  “So they told us. They also said they’d found a body. Floating in the river…”

  Willy stared at him, afraid to ask, yet already knowing. Only when she felt Guy’s hand tighten around her arm did she realize she’d sagged against him.

  “Sam Lassiter?” Guy asked flatly.

  Ainh nodded. “His throat was cut.”

  Chapter Eight

  The old man who sat in the carved rosewood chair appeared frail enough to be toppled by a stiff wind. His arms were like two twigs crossed on his lap. His white wisp of a beard trembled in the breath of the ceiling fan. But his eyes were as bright as quicksilver. Through the open windows came the whine of the cicadas in the walled garden. Overhead, the fan spun slowly in the midnight heat.

  The old man’s gaze focused on Willy. “Wherever you walk, Miss Maitland,” he said, “it seems you leave a trail of blood.”

  “We had nothing to do with Lassiter’s death,” said Guy. “When we left Cantho, he was alive.”

  “I think you misunderstand, Mr. Barnard.” The man turned to Guy. “I do not accuse you of anything.”

  “Who are you accusing?”

  “That detail I leave to our people in Cantho.”

  “You mean those police agents you had following us?”

  Minister Tranh smiled. “You made it a difficult assignment. That boy on the corner—an ingenious move. No, we’re aware that Mr. Lassiter was alive when you left him.”

  “And after we left?”

  “We know that he sat in the river café for another twenty minutes. That he drank a total of eight beers. And then he left. Unfortunately, he never arrived home.”

  “Weren’t you
r people keeping tabs on him?”

  “Tabs?”

  “Surveillance.”

  “Mr. Lassiter was a friend. We don’t keep…tabs—is that the word?—on our friends.”

  “But you followed us,” said Willy.

  Minister Tranh’s placid gaze shifted to her. “Are you our friend, Miss Maitland?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it is not easy to tell. I think even you cannot tell your friends from your enemies. It is a dangerous state of affairs. Already it has led to three murders.”

  Willy shook her head, puzzled. “Three? Lassiter’s the only one I’ve heard about.”

  “Who else has been killed?” Guy asked.

  “A Saigon policeman,” said the minister. “Murdered last night on routine surveillance duty.”

  “I don’t see the connection.”

  “Also last night, another man dead. Again, the throat cut.”

  “You can’t blame us for every murder in Saigon!” said Willy. “We don’t even know those other victims—”

  “But yesterday you paid one of them a visit. Or have you forgotten?”

  Guy stared across the table. “Gerard.”

  In the darkness outside, the cicadas’ shrill music rose to a scream. Then, in an instant, the night fell absolutely silent.

  Minister Tranh gazed ahead at the far wall, as though divining some message from the mildewed wallpaper. “Are you familiar with the Vietnamese calendar, Miss Maitland?” he asked quietly.

  “Your calendar?” She frowned, puzzled by the new twist of conversation. “It—it’s the same as the Chinese, isn’t it?”

  “Last year was the year of the dragon. A lucky year, or so they say. A fine year for babies and marriages. But this year…” He shook his head.

  “The snake,” said Guy.

  Minister Tranh nodded. “The snake. A dangerous symbol. An omen of disaster. Famine and death. A year of misfortune….” He sighed and his head drooped, as though his fragile neck was suddenly too weak to support it. For a long time he sat in silence, his white hair fluttering in the fan’s breath. Then, slowly, he raised his head. “Go home, Miss Maitland,” he said. “This is not a year for you, a place for you. Go home.”

  Willy thought about how easy it would be to climb onto that plane to Bangkok, thought longingly of the simple luxuries that were only a flight away. Perfumed soap and clean water and soft pillows. But then another image blotted out everything else: Sam Lassiter’s face, tired and haunted, against the sky of sunset. And his Vietnamese woman, pleading for his life. All these years Sam Lassiter had lived safe and hidden in a peaceful river town. Now he was dead. Like Valdez. Like Gerard.

  It was true, she thought. Wherever she walked, she left a trail of blood. And she didn’t even know why.

  “I can’t go home,” she said.

  The minister raised an eyebrow. “Cannot? Or will not?”

  “They tried to kill me in Bangkok.”

  “You’re no safer here. Miss Maitland, we have no wish to forcibly deport you. But you must understand that you put us in a difficult position. You are a guest in our country. We Vietnamese honor our guests. It is a custom we hold sacred. If you, a guest, were to be found murdered, it would seem…” He paused and added with a quietly whimsical lilt, “Inhospitable.”

  “My visa’s still good. I want to stay. I have to stay. I was planning to go on to Hanoi.”

  “We cannot guarantee your safety.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” She added wearily, “No one can guarantee my safety. Anywhere.”

  The minister looked at Guy, saw his troubled look. “Mr. Barnard? Surely you will convince her?”

  “But she’s right,” said Guy.

  Willy looked up and saw in Guy’s eyes the worry, the uncertainty. It frightened her to realize that even he didn’t have the answers.

  “If I thought she’d be safer at home, I’d put her on that plane myself,” he said. “But I don’t think she will be safe. Not until she knows what she’s running from.”

  “Surely she has friends to turn to.”

  “But you yourself said it, Minister Tranh. She can’t tell her friends from her enemies. It’s a dangerous state to be in.”

  The minister looked at Willy. “What is it you seek in the North?”

  “It’s where my father’s plane went down,” she said. “He could still be alive, in some village. Maybe he’s lost his memory or he’s afraid to come out of the jungle or—”

  “Or he is dead.”

  She swallowed. “Then that’s where I’ll find his body. In the North.”

  Minister Tranh shook his head. “The jungles are full of skeletons. Americans. Vietnamese. You forget, we have our MIAs too, Miss Maitland. Our widows, our orphans. Among all those bones, to find the remains of one particular man…” He let out a heavy breath.

  “But I have to try. I have to go to Hanoi.”

  Minister Tranh gazed at her, his eyes glowing with a strange black fire. She stared straight back at him. Slowly, a benign smile formed on his lips and she knew that she had won.

  “Does nothing frighten you, Miss Maitland?” he asked.

  “Many things frighten me.”

  “And well they should.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were unfathomable. “I only hope you have the good sense to be frightened now.”

  Long after the two Americans had left, Minister Tranh and Mr. Ainh sat smoking cigarettes and listening to the screech of the cicadas in the night.

  “You will inform our people in Hanoi,” said the minister.

  “But wouldn’t it be easier to cancel her visa?” said Ainh. “Force her to leave the country?”

  “Easier, perhaps, but not wiser.” The minister lit another cigarette and inhaled a warm and satisfying breath of smoke. A good American brand. His one weakness. He knew it would only hasten his death, that the cancer now growing in his right lung would feed ravenously on each lethal molecule of smoke. How ironic that the very enemy that had worked so hard to kill him during the war would now claim victory, and all because of his fondness for their cigarettes.

  “What if she comes to harm?” Ainh asked. “We would have an international incident.”

  “That is why she must be protected.” The minister rose from his chair. The old body, once so spry, had grown stiff with the years. To think this dried-up carcass had fought two savage jungle wars. Now it could barely shuffle around the house.

  “We could scare her into going home—arrange an incident to frighten her,” suggested Ainh.

  “Like your Die Yankee note?” Minister Tranh laughed as he headed for the door. “No, I do not think she frightens easily, that one. Better to see where she leads us. Perhaps we, too, will learn a few secrets. Or have you lost your curiosity, Comrade?”

  Ainh looked miserable. “I think curiosity is a dangerous thing.”

  “So we let her make the moves, take the risks.” The minister glanced back, smiling, from the doorway. “After all,” he said. “It is her destiny.”

  “You don’t have to go to Hanoi,” said Guy, watching Willy pack her suitcase. “You could stay in Saigon. Wait for me.”

  “While you do what?”

  “While I do the legwork up north. See what I can find.” He glanced out the window at the two police agents loitering in the walkway. “Ainh’s got you covered from all directions. You’ll be safe here.”

  “I’ll also go nuts.” She snapped the suitcase shut. “Thanks for offering to stick your neck out for me, but I don’t need a hero.”

  “I’m not trying to be a hero.”

  “Then why’re you playing the part?”

  He shrugged, unable to produce an answer.

  “It’s the money, isn’t it? The bounty for Friar Tuck.”

  “It’s not the money.”

  “Then it’s that skeleton dancing around in your closet.” He didn’t answer. “What are you trying to hide? What’s the Ariel Group got on you, anyway?” He remai
ned silent. She locked her suitcase. “Never mind. I don’t really want to know.”

  He sat down on the bed. Looking utterly weary, he propped his head in his hands. “I killed a man,” he said.

  She stared at him. Head in his hands, he looked ragged, spent, a man who’d used up his last reserves of strength. She had the unexpected impulse to sit beside him, to take him in her arms and hold him, but she couldn’t seem to move her feet. She was too stunned by his revelation.

  “It happened here. In Nam. In 1972.” His laugh was muffled against his hands. “The Fourth of July.”

  “There was a war going on. Lots of people got killed.”

  “This was different. This wasn’t an act of war, where you shoot a few men and get a medal for your trouble.” He raised his head and looked at her. “The man I killed was American.”

  Slowly she went over and sank down beside him on the bed. “Was it…a mistake?”

  He shook his head. “No, not a mistake. It was something I did without thinking. Call it reflexes. It just happened.”

  She said nothing, waiting for him to go on. She knew he would go on; there was no turning back now.

  “I was in Da Nang for the day, to pick up supplies,” he said. “Got a little turned around and wound up on some side street. Just an alley, really, a dirt lane, few old hootches. I got out of the jeep to ask for directions, and I heard this—this screaming….”

  He paused, looked down at his hands. “She was just a kid. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. A small girl, not more than ninety pounds. There was no way she could’ve fought him off. I—I just reacted. I didn’t really think about what I was doing, what I was going to do. I dragged him off her, shoved him on the ground. He got up and swung at me. I didn’t have a choice but to fight back. By the time I stopped hitting him, he wasn’t moving. I turned and saw what he’d done to the girl. All the blood…”

  Guy rubbed his forehead, as though trying to erase the image. “By then there were other people there. I looked around, saw all these eyes watching me. Vietnamese. One of the women came up, whispered that I should leave, that they’d get rid of the body for me. That’s when I realized the man was dead.”