We both dropped to the ground and lay flat.
I heard the engine of a vehicle over the noise of the wind, and I could see yellow lights refracted in the fog. We lay there, and the lights got brighter as the vehicle approached from the direction we’d come from. I caught a glimpse of a big military truck as it passed.
We lay there for a full minute, then Susan said, “Do you think he’s looking for us?”
“I have no idea, but if he is, he’s looking for two people on a motorcycle.”
I let another minute pass. Then we stood, came around the boulder, and walked on into the wind. I pushed the scarf down to my neck and raised the flaps on my leather hat so I could hear better. Now and then, I looked over my shoulder for lights. The chance of anyone in a vehicle spotting us on foot before we heard or saw them was slim. But we needed to keep alert.
We crossed the crest of the pass, and the wind picked up, but it was downhill now, and we made good time.
About five hundred meters from the top of the pass, the wind became a breeze, and I could actually feel the air get warmer.
Five minutes later, I saw yellow fog lights coming at us and heard the sound of the engine, carried toward us on the wind.
There was a drop-off to our left, and to our right was a narrow stream between the road and the wall of the mountain. We hesitated half a second, then fell into the ice cold stream.
The vehicle approached slowly, and the engine got louder and the yellow lights got brighter.
We lay there, motionless.
Finally, the vehicle passed, but I didn’t get a glimpse of it.
I gave it thirty seconds, then got up on one knee and looked south. I could see the lights climbing up toward the pass. I stood. “Okay. Let’s move.”
Susan stood, we got back on the road and continued on. We were soaked and cold, but as long as we were moving, we wouldn’t freeze to death.
There was not a single sign of habitation along the route, not even a Montagnard house. If the Viets and hill people thought Dien Bien Phu was cold, they definitely wouldn’t live up here.
Two hours after we crossed the pass, the fog lifted, and the air was warmer. We were almost dried off, and I removed my gloves, scarves, and leather hat and put them in my backpack. Susan kept hers on.
Within half an hour, we could see the lights of a town down in what appeared to be a deep valley that I guessed was the Red River Valley, though I couldn’t actually see the river.
We stopped and sat on a rock. Susan took out one of the tourist brochures, which was soggy, and read the brochure by the flame of her lighter. She said, “That must be Lao Cai, and on the northwest side of the river is China. It says Lao Cai was destroyed during the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979, but the border is open again, if we want to visit the People’s Republic of China.”
“Next time. What’s it say about transportation to Hanoi?”
She flicked on the lighter again and said, “Two trains run daily. First one is at 7:40 A.M., arrives in Hanoi at 6:30 P.M.”
I looked at my watch, but it wasn’t there. I asked Susan, “What time is it?”
She looked at her watch and said, “Almost one A.M. Where’s your watch?”
“I gave it to Mr. Vinh.”
“That was nice of you.”
“I’ll send him a new battery next year.”
She asked me, “What do you want to do for the next six hours?”
“Have my head examined.”
“I can do that. You want to hear it?”
“No. Let’s get down to a warmer elevation, closer to Lao Cai, then find a place to hide out until dawn.” I stood. “Ready?”
She stood and off we went, down the road.
The mountains became foothills, and we saw huts and small villages now, but no lights on. The road dropped steeply toward the valley, and I could now make out the Red River and the scattered lights of two towns on both sides of the river; this side was Lao Cai, and the town on the other side, up river about a kilometer, must be in China.
I only vaguely remembered the 1979 border war between China and Vietnam, but I clearly recalled that the Viets kicked some Red Chinese ass. These people were tough, and as I said to Mr. Loc on the way to the A Shau Valley, I wanted them on our side in the next war. And I guess, in a way, that was partly what this mission was about.
I mean, I didn’t want to be accused of upsetting the global balance of power; the military and political geniuses in Washington were obviously working hard to forge a new Viet-American alliance against Red China. Somehow, Vice President Blake was important to this alliance, and he needed to become president. All I had to do was forget what I’d seen and heard in Ban Hin, and with luck, we’d have Cam Ranh Bay again, and the sailors of the Seventh Fleet could get laid a lot in Vietnam, plus we’d have some new oil resources, and we’d have a big Vietnamese Army poised on that border right ahead of me, and we could all kick some Chinese butt— or at least threaten to if they didn’t stop acting like assholes. Sounded good.
Even better, I could blackmail President Blake into making me Secretary of the Army so I could fire Colonel Karl Hellmann, or bust him to PFC and put him on permanent latrine duty.
Obviously, lots of good things could happen if I just shut my mouth— or maybe I’d get it shut for me.
I didn’t know, nor would I ever know, if Susan Weber was supposed to terminate my career and turn my pension into a death benefit for Mom and Pop. The stakes were high enough for her to be motivated into such a course of action—I mean, if Washington had threatened to kill Mr. Anh’s whole family if he turned rat, then certainly the stakes were high enough to add Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner to the hit list.
During the war, the Phoenix Program had assassinated over 25,000 Vietnamese who were suspected of collaborating with the Viet Cong. Add to that number a few Americans in Vietnam who had VC sympathies, and some local Frenchmen who were outright VC collaborators, and other Europeans who lived in Vietnam and leaned too far left. It was an amazing number—25,000 men and women—the largest assassination and liquidation program ever carried out by the United States of America. And I could assume that some of those Americans, who had been involved with the program and who were my contemporaries, were ready, willing, and able to whack a few malcontents and troublemakers like me at the drop of a hat.
On a happier note, I had found the girl of my dreams. Right here in Vietnam. A guy shouldn’t be so lucky.
As we walked toward Lao Cai, I said to Susan, “You understand that I’m going to blow the whistle on Edward Blake.”
She didn’t reply for a while, then said, “Think about it.” She added, “Sometimes, Paul, truth and justice are not what anyone wants or needs.”
“Well, when that day comes—if it hasn’t already arrived—then I’ll move to someplace like Saigon or Hanoi, where at least no one pretends that truth and justice are important.”
She lit a cigarette and said, “Underneath it all, you’re a Boy Scout.”
I didn’t reply.
She said, “Whatever you decide to do, I’m with you.”
Again, I didn’t reply.
We found a thicket of bamboo and made our way into it, then unrolled our ponchos and lay on the ground. I’m not a big fan of bamboo vipers, and I hoped it was cold enough to keep them snoozing until the sun warmed them. That’s what it said in the escape and evasion manual.
Susan slept, but I couldn’t. The sky was clearing, and I could see stars through the broken cloud cover. Some hours later, the sky began to lighten, and I could hear birds that sounded like parrots or macaws squawking. I also heard the stupid chattering of monkeys somewhere in the distance.
We needed to get moving before the bamboo vipers did, and I shook Susan awake. She sat up, yawned and stood.
We got back on the road and continued on.
To our right was a wide stream, flowing swiftly out of the mountains to the Red River. There were clusters of huts near the road, but it was
too early for people or vehicles to be out and moving.
The road flattened, and we were on the valley floor now. Within thirty minutes, we entered the incredibly ugly town of Lao Cai.
I could tell that all of these buildings were relatively new and that the entire town must have been destroyed in the 1979 war. At least this was one destroyed Vietnamese city that no one could blame on the United States Army, Marines, Navy, or Air Force.
There were a few people around, but no one took any note of us. I saw a group of about fifteen young backpackers sitting and lying in a group in the marketplace, as though they’d spent the night there.
I said to Susan, “With our backpacks, we can pass for college kids.”
“Me maybe.”
Susan stopped a Vietnamese lady and asked, “Ga xe lua?”
The woman pointed, pantomimed something, and spoke.
Susan thanked the woman in French and I thanked her in Spanish, and off we went.
Susan said, “We have to cross the river.”
We crossed the Red River on a new bridge, and I could see pylons of two destroyed bridges further upstream. Also up the river, where it split into two branches, I could see buildings with Chinese characters painted on them.
Susan saw them, too, and said, “China.”
I looked around as we came off the bridge and saw a few ruined buildings on the Vietnamese side that hadn’t been rebuilt. It had been an odd war, and I couldn’t even remember what it was that got the Chinese and Vietnamese at each other’s throats so soon after the Chinese had given aid to the Viets during the American War. Basically, they didn’t like each other, and hadn’t for about a thousand years. It probably wouldn’t take much to get them at each other’s throats again.
We followed a road that paralleled the train tracks, which I noticed were narrow-gauge. I could see the station ahead, and it, too, was a new concrete slab structure, the original station being probably the first casualty of the war.
We entered the station house and saw hundreds of people at two ticket windows, and hundreds more camped on the Hanoi-bound platform. There were a few people on the westbound platform for the train to China, which was only about 1,500 meters up the line.
The station clock said 6:40, and it looked like we’d be waiting in line for an hour and might not get a seat. The next train, according to the posted schedule, left at 6:30 P.M. and got to Hanoi at 5:30 Saturday morning.
I didn’t need to be in Hanoi until Saturday, but I didn’t want to hang around Lao Cai for twelve hours. Plus, it’s sometimes nice to show up early and surprise people.
I said to Susan, “Why don’t you use your charm and your American bucks and jump the line?”
“I was about to do that.” She went to the front of one of the lines and spoke to a young man. Money changed hands and within ten minutes, she returned with two tickets to Hanoi. She said, “I got us each a soft seat for ten bucks, plus I bought the kid a sleeper bunk for seventeen bucks, and gave him another five. Are you keeping track of our expenses?”
“I’ll just put in for combat pay. Actually, since you’re with me, I can also put in for hazardous duty pay.”
“You’re funny.”
Not a joke.
We moved out to the platform where hundreds of people stood, sat, and lay on the cold concrete. The narrow-gauge train was on a siding, and it looked like the Toonerville Trolley.
The sky was light, but overcast, and the temperature was in the mid-fifties. There were a number of young backpackers and middle-aged Western tourists, and many of them wore recently purchased articles of Montagnard clothing from different tribes, probably mixing tribes as well as genders. The real Montagnards on the platform thought this was funny and were pointing and snickering.
Susan lit a cigarette and asked me, “How much money was combat pay?”
“Fifty-five bucks a month. Six hundred and sixty dollars a year. Not that good a deal. Meanwhile, guys like Edward Blake, who weren’t out in the jungle getting their asses shot off, did things like black market, currency dealing, and outright looting. Some people here got rich off the war, most got killed, wounded, or fucked up, plus, of course, fifty-five bucks a month for their troubles.”
Susan thought a moment and then said, “I can see why you’d take this personally.”
I didn’t reply.
She asked me, “I wonder if Blake got that loot home.”
“We may never know, but it wasn’t that difficult. Before you went home, you got checked out here to make sure you weren’t bringing home drugs or military ordnance. Other than that, they didn’t care what you brought home in your duffel bag. At the U.S. end, Customs just waved you through because they knew you’d been checked for drugs and explosives at this end. Also, officers, like Captain Blake, were on the honor system.”
She nodded and said, “Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.”
Because this was a border town, there were too many uniformed guys around, mostly border patrol types, but also a lot of heavily armed soldiers, as though they were expecting another war momentarily. This place was a little creepy, but there were enough adventure travelers from Europe, Australia, and America to provide us some cover.
Border cops began patrolling the platform, asking people for ID and soliciting contributions for the widows and orphans fund. I noticed that they gave the ethnic Chinese a really hard time, and also they were picking on Westerners who were alone or in small groups without a guide.
Susan, too, noticed this and said to me, “See that group over there? I think they’re Americans. Let’s mingle.”
I knew they were Americans because two of the guys were wearing shorts in fifty-degree weather, and the women had bought and put on enough Montagnard jewelry to look like radar antennas.
We walked over to the tour group of about twenty Americans who had a male Viet guide with them.
Susan, who’s more sociable than I am, struck up a conversation with a few of the ladies. They talked jewelry and fabrics.
The cops kept their distance from us.
At about 7 A.M., the Toonerville Trolley started to move off the siding and ran onto the main single-line track and stopped at the platform. Susan said good-bye to her new friends, and we went to our car in the short eight-car train. We boarded car Number 2 and found our seats.
The coach was narrow, with only two seats on the left, and the aisle running along the windows to the right.
We put our backpacks overhead, and Susan said, “You take the aisle so you can stretch a little. This is really cramped.” We sat.
Neither of us spoke, and I think we both realized that we’d had more than our share of good luck, and we shouldn’t comment on it. Of course, skill, brains, and experience had a lot to do with it, too. As it turned out, Susan Weber was a good traveling companion. I wondered if I’d have made it on my own, and I knew that I’d be wondering about that for the rest of my life.
At 7:40, the train pulled out of the station, and we were on our way to Hanoi.
The tracks ran along the north bank of the Red River, and on both sides of the river, the Tonkinese Alps stretched along the valley. With a little imagination, I could picture myself in Europe going someplace nice.
The coach was filled with Viets and Westerners, and there were people standing in the vestibule, but no squatters in the narrow aisle beside us.
We sat in silence awhile, watching the scenery, which was actually quite spectacular. The train made a lot of noise over the tracks, and I realized the coach wasn’t heated. I also assumed there was no bar car.
Susan turned away from the window and looked at me. She said, “So far, so good.”
“So far, so good.”
She asked, “So, was I a good buddy?”
“Am I home in one piece yet?”
She lit a cigarette and looked out the window for a few minutes, then asked me, “What are your instructions regarding Hanoi?”
“What are yours?”
S
he didn’t reply for a while, then said, “I was told to go to the embassy for a debriefing.”
I asked her, “Are there Viet police guards around the embassy?”
She replied, “Well, I’ve only been there once . . . but yes, there’s a Vietnamese police post. Plus I was told there were undercover embassy watchers, checking out everyone who goes in or out, and even taking photos, and sometimes they stop people.”
“What were you doing in the embassy?”
“Just visiting.”
“Right.”
She asked me again, “What are your instructions?”
I replied, “I was told to go to the Metropole and await further instructions. I may or may not be contacted. I may or may not be wanted in the embassy. I’m to leave for another city tomorrow—”
“Bangkok. I saw your tickets, and so did Colonel Mang.”
“Right. The Metropole is out, Hanoi airport is out, and the embassy is watched.”
“So? What are we going to do?”
“Is the Hanoi Hilton still open?”
“This is not a joke.”
“I make jokes when I’m tense. Anyway, am I to understand from you that Vice President Blake is visiting Hanoi?”
“He’s here to see his old friend, Ambassador Patrick Quinn, and to participate in a conference on MIAs, and I’m sure a few other less publicized meetings with the Vietnamese government.”
I nodded. “He should also have an unscheduled meeting. With us.”
Susan didn’t reply for a while, then said, “That might be a good idea, or a very bad idea.”
“If he knows about this problem, he wants to be in Hanoi where he can have some hands-on control of the situation where and when the mission ends. We can help him with that.”
Susan replied, “I honestly don’t know if he’s aware that he has a problem. But other people do, and I think Mr. Blake will be made aware of it in Hanoi. The bad news, Mr. Vice President, is that we know you murdered three Viets and an American officer in Vietnam. The good news, sir, is that we have the situation under control.”
“It’s not under control,” I pointed out.
“It was supposed to be.”
The train continued east toward Hanoi. Susan and I discussed a few ideas and options and tried to come up with a game plan. I made believe I trusted her completely. She made believe, too.