One happy day. Then he was clawing his hair out again.
Richter called. Alexander said, “I don’t give a fuck if a tsunami comes and washes away the whole of South Vietnam. Tomorrow you’re getting me on that slick.”
Tomorrow it stopped raining. The sun shined as if it had never rained, as if the ground was just soggy with heavy morning dew. It got hot and muggy. Alexander choppered out with two young PFCs fresh from basic at Fort Bragg, plus two suppliers and two sergeants. The doors of the Huey remained open through the three-hour flight north. The young soldiers tried to engage Alexander in conversation, but he was looking down below him to the canopied countryside, trying to do Tatiana’s thing, trying to feel for his son under the blanket of trees and ancient pagodas and broken beaten open churches and French Catholic palace ruins, trying to find that rising smoke signal. The green covering looked too thick to land the helicopter but then the jungle ended, and rice valleys began. A rectangular, orderly swathe of man-made clearing was laid out below surrounded by distant mountains. A large military base etched out in symmetry in the freshly cut elephant grass in the central highlands, that was the MACV-SOG Command Control Central in Kontum, the chopper distressing the grass and dust underneath as it came in to land.
Richter was waiting for him. Alexander hadn’t seen Richter since Anthony’s graduation four and a half years earlier. They were both in green battle fatigues, both with striped and barred officers’ insignia at their shoulders, including sharpshooter badges, and rifle and machine-gun bars. Both had graying hair cut army short, Alexander’s mostly black, Richter’s mostly gone.
“I’m sorry to see you under these circumstances,” Richter said. “But, man, am I happy to see your face.” They shook strong hands, they smiled briefly. Richter’s smile subsided. “Come, let’s go have a drink, some grub,” he said. “You must be exhausted.”
“Exhausted from sitting around.”
“I know. Not very good at that, are you, Major?” Richter shook his head as they started walking. “Look how much gear you brought. You’re a lunatic. You know you can get anything you need here. Look at our supply points. Ground studies teams go out loaded for bear.”
Alexander nodded in acknowledgment of the bear metaphor. “I had no idea you were so well equipped. But I have to talk to you and Ant’s lieutenant ASAP, Tom.”
“Come,” Richter said, with a slightly resigned demeanor. They walked from the landing strip down to the row of well-maintained officers’ barracks. “Lieutenant Elkins and Sergeant Mercer are waiting for you. They can’t wait to meet you.”
The base, its perimeter wrapped by a fence and barbed wire, was organized and functional: a landing pad, a landing strip, a hospital, a mail room, officers’ barracks, enlisted barracks, command headquarters, many weapon sites, a training camp, all on flattened ground the size of three football fields.
In Richter’s large, comfortable quarters—a desk, chairs, a conference table, maps, books, a cabinet full of liquor, obviously home—Alexander found two men. The small squat guy was the sergeant major of Anthony’s Special Forces unit. His name was Charlie Mercer, and aside from a shortness and squatness of stature, he also conveyed a stubbornness he might call stoic but to Alexander it looked bloody-minded. Mercer said nothing. He barely spoke.
The other soldier, a young, slim, good-looking boy was Dan Elkins. Alexander knew of Elkins from Anthony’s letters. For some reason, Elkins looked awfully young to Alexander, even younger than Ant. Too young to be in the army. His light hair was thin and stuck up, and his ears thick and stuck out. He chewed gum, popped bubbles, was instantly friendly.
“How old are you, Lieutenant?” Alexander asked.
“Twenty-seven, sir.”
This boy that looked too young to be in the Army was older than Alexander had been when he returned to the United States after ten years of merciless bloodshed. Alexander lowered his head.
Elkins was all about eye contact. Mercer never made eye contact.
“What’s wrong with that guy?” Alexander whispered to Richter.
“You are a legend around these parts, Major Barrington,” Richter said, smiling, cleaning the conference table of papers so they could sit down.
“I am?” Alexander stared at Elkins and Mercer, who now both looked away.
They were brought snacks, drinks, smokes. Elkins said, “You don’t mind that the non-com eats with us, do you, sir?”
“Of course not.” In Poland and Byelorussia, his sergeants always ate side by side with him and his Lieutenant Ouspensky.
White teeth from one protruding ear to the other, Elkins said, “Mercer has been under Ant’s command since Airborne. Anthony’s the one who recommended him for SOG. Over the years, he—we all—have heard some serious shit about you, Major.”
With a small nod, Alexander clicked his glass with a nearly-trembling sergeant.
Elkins smiled. “Forgive us if we see a bit... um, flabbergasted—to finally meet you.” The men stared.
Smoking intently, staring right back at Elkins, Alexander said, “You want flabbergasted? Well, how is this?” He swallowed a mouthful of his beer. “In his last letter home, Ant wrote that he married a Vietnamese girl. How’s that for fucking flabbergasted? Know anything about that, Lieutenant?”
Profane surprise came from three throats.
“Hmm,” Alexander said, taking an almost calm drag. “Guess not.”
Richter, always a leader of men, asked to see the evidence. “Come on!” he said. “Let’s see it. Don’t tell me you don’t have with you the last letter your son wrote. Let’s fucking see it. Maybe there’s something in it you overlooked and forgot to tell me. Maybe I’ll be able to glean some other information from it.”
“No matter how many times you ask me,” said Alexander, turning away from Richter and toward Elkins, “I don’t have it. Ant’s mother has it. And as far as I know she’s not here. But I do know what he said in it, and I’m telling you, he got married. What, you don’t think I can read English? He said he married a girl he met last year near Hué, and that her name is Moon Lai.”
It was at this point that Dan Elkins fell off his chair. Then he went wild. He had to leave the barracks for a few minutes to calm down. Alexander exchanged a glance with Richter. Mercer didn’t speak, sitting like a hangdog. He reminded Alexander of someone; the faint familiarity was just out of reach. Something having to do with small kids.
When Elkins came back he was only slightly calmer. “It’s impossible,” he said. “It’s fucked up and impossible. I’m shocked and I can’t believe it. I have to see it in writing.” He kept shaking his head. “I simply don’t believe it.”
“What did I tell you?” Richter said calmly. “Better cough up that letter, Major.”
“Ant wouldn’t do it,” Elkins said to Alexander. “Your son is not fucked up like the rest of us. He doesn’t do idiot things.”
“Lieutenant, calm down,” Richter said in his commander voice. “Do you know this Moon Lai?” They were sitting at the cleared rectangular wooden conference table, staring at one another.
“Yes, sir. Oh, yes, sir,” said Elkins, banging his fists impotently on the table. “I most certainly do fucking know her. Which is why I can’t believe it.” Elkins’s blue eyes were blazing. “It’s not true. It can’t be true. Merce, do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know,” Mercer said. “I don’t know her.” He shook his head. “But with Captain Barrington anything is possible.” The sergeant paused. “But why would he get married and not tell you, Lieutenant?” he said to Elkins. “You were friends. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”
But Alexander, staring at the grain on the table, knew: a four-year love affair with Tatiana’s best friend, in their house, under their nose, and no one suspected, not the estranged husband, not the prescient Tania. The most open boy was obviously also the most shut-in boy. With Anthony, everything was possible.
“Major, maybe you’re mistaken,” Richter sai
d to Alexander. “Lieutenant Elkins here says it can’t be.”
“I didn’t say it can’t be, Colonel Richter,” said Elkins. “I said, it can’t fucking be. Meaning, it can be, I just don’t fucking believe it.”
“All right, Elkins, who is she?” Alexander asked.
“Who is she? Obviously that’s the million-dollar question. Oh, the bastard! But not to say anything to me, not even a word, I mean how fucked up is that?”
Alexander waited until Elkins moderated himself down a degree or two.
“Ant knew I would’ve ripped him a new one, if I knew,” Elkins finally said. “I wouldn’t have let him do it. He didn’t want to hear it from me. He’s like that. When he wants to do something, he just doesn’t want to hear it, the pig-headed West Point bastard.”
“All right now, Lieutenant,” said Richter. “The pig-headed West Point bastard is this man’s son. Now tell us what you know.”
Elkins finally told them what happened last year, the summer of 1968, in Hué. After Tet was over and Hué was destroyed—its civilians terrorized and massacred by the Viet Cong who were finally pushed out by the Americans—the U.S. soldiers were mopping up.
“We were a three-man killer team, silent and lightly armed,” said Elkins.
“Security patrol, Elkins,” corrected Richter.
“Oh, yes, I forgot. I apologize, Colonel,” Elkins said dryly. “Security patrol. We wouldn’t want to offend anyone by hinting there is a war on or anything.”
“Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sorry, Colonel. I’ll continue. Well, we were patrolling the pachinko, hunting for—um, excuse me, looking for—Viet Cong; that was our mission, to find them and to, um”—he glanced at Richter— “to what, sir? To apprehend them?”
“Elkins, three hours in the stockade for you,” said Richter, “if you keep this up. Just continue.”
“Ah, yes, to neutralize them; that’s the delicate word I was looking for!”
“Six fucking hours, Elkins!”
“Sorry, sir. Anyway, it was me, Ant, and our other buddy Lieutenant Nils; real good guy, he’s not around anymore. Stepped on a mine two months ago,” Elkins said, crossing himself. “Ant would be sad to hear it; they were tight.” He sighed. “Anyway, we ran into a little situation.” He coughed, rubbing his hands together. “We were on the outskirts of Hué, passing through a ravaged ville torched by the VC in their hasty retreat. And in this burned-out ville, in broad daylight, we found a South Vietnamese girl, very young, maybe fifteen? I don’t know. Very young, very small, and very buck naked, tied to a tree. She had been beaten, had obviously been assaulted. No sooner that we lowered our weapons and approached her than from around the ruins a dozen Charlies opened fire, wounding me, Nils, and barely missing Ant. He was grazed in the scalp, bled like a slaughterhouse animal. He returned fire, hosing them down, then lobbed a frag grenade at them. He greased them, but unfortunately the grenade didn’t spare the naked bird.”
Richter said, “Lieutenant, what does this firefight have to do with . . . ”
“I’m getting to that, sir. Well, she wasn’t dead. Anthony untied her, took off his tunic, covered her, stabilized her. She’d lost an eye and two fingers. He bandaged her up, gave her morphine. We called for a medevac. Anthony kept asking her, where’s home? At first she couldn’t get control of herself, she was screaming. But just before the chopper came, she told us she was working in Pleiku, trying to support her—I don’t even the fuck know—dying mother, sick sister? Point was, the medevac flew us all to a Pleiku hospital. As we landed on the roof, the little girl flung her arms around Ant’s neck and pushed them both out of the hook and onto the ground. She was hysterical. After that she refused to leave his side. He stayed with her, helped her, got himself cleaned up. Nils and I convalesced at our leisure. I remember now, a few days later when we got leave, Ant went somewhere without us. We didn’t see him until we got back to base for our next mission. That was a year ago. We never saw the girl again and Ant never talked about her. But now that I think about it, he never came on R&R with us after that. And he had had quite the... yen for the Asian ladies, if you know what I mean. We had some wild times together.” Elkins broke off, staring solemnly at Alexander. “I mean, sir, you know, just normal guy stuff, sir, nothing too crazy—”
Alexander stopped him. “Just—continue.” Why was it that the young were always convinced they had invented sex?
“Well, he stopped coming out with us. When he’d get a couple of days off, he’d disappear on his own. I know on his last trip in July he signed out to Pleiku.”
Richter confirmed that records showed that Anthony had gone to Pleiku during each of his six leaves.
Alexander was thoughtful, considering Elkins, absorbing what he had been told, what it meant, and then he said, “And this young girl is Moon Lai?”
Elkins nodded. “This young girl is Moon Lai.”
Alexander sat quietly, considering.
“Let’s go and find her,” he finally said. “Where in Pleiku does she work?”
Elkins was fixedly studying the wooden table and said nothing.
“Answer the major, Lieutenant!” Richter barked.
Elkins lifted his gaze to Alexander for a moment before he lowered it again and said nothing.
“Elkins,” mouthed Alexander in disbelief. For a moment he thought he might have to leave the quarters himself. “Anthony did not”—he could barely speak—“marry a whore from Pleiku.”
“Why do you think I’ve been cursing up a shitstorm?”
“No.” Alexander shook his head. “It’s some kind of a mistake.”
“That’s what I said!”
And then the four of them sat stunned, no one more so than Alexander.
Mercer finally spoke. “Hey, Major, don’t feel so bad,” he said. “Maybe she’s a reformed whore.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Merce!” exclaimed Richter.
“Maybe she’s reformed?” said Alexander. “As opposed to what? Tom, in his letter, Ant said that not only had he married this girl but that she was expecting a child!”
Oh, the cursing from four hardened soldiers.
What was wrong with his son? God, where was he? “You see, there has to be some mistake,” Alexander said to Elkins. “Because it’s just not possible.”
“That’s what I fucking said!” yelled Elkins.
Richter spoke with authority. “All right, everyone, let’s bring this down about a thousand. Alexander, this is the situation...”
“You have to tell me the situation?” snapped Alexander. Now it was his turn to bark. “My son, a commander of a Special Forces A-team, a tight, highly trained, elite group of men, went on leave and did not come back. His weapon, his ruck, his gear, have not been found. And now we find out he married and knocked up a yum-yum girl. Meanwhile, he’s vanished off the face of the earth. Anything I forgot?” He was trying hard to think clearly.
Richter poured everyone another glass of beer. They lit up their cigarettes, they sat. “No, I think you just about covered it, Major.”
“Hey, maybe his disappearance has nothing to do with Moon Lai?” Elkins said, brightening. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence?”
The silent soldiers smoked skeptically.
Alexander’s face was contorted in concentration. “Elkins, did you say the girl was South Vietnamese?”
“Well, yes,” said Elkins. “Of course she was. What else?”
“What else?” said Alexander. “You three did walk into a Viet Cong ambush, did you not?”
Elkins looked puzzled and troubled. “Yes, but...I don’t understand what you’re saying. What are you suggesting? She was assaulted by them, Major. You should have seen the state of her.”
“Elkins,” Alexander said, “the girl sells herself to soldiers for money. I can imagine the state of her. What do you think she’s not used to? What do you think she won’t do? Get beat up a little? Look, I knew this when I came here—we need to find this Moon Lai, and we need to
find her in a hurry.”
“Oh, good luck finding her. That’ll be easy,” said Richter with a nod. “So easy. Why, I’m sure Pleiku has no more than one brothel full of young Vietnamese women. It won’t be a problem.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “But how many one-eyed, eight-fingered pregnant hookers does Pleiku have?”
“What are we going to do, go to each and every happy house until we find her?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Richter laughed. Slapping Alexander on the back, he poured him another beer. “Absolutely, Major Barrington. Why don’t I just telegraph your wife and tell her that her husband traveled halfway round the world so he can go to whorehouses for the next three months. I’ll tell Tania it’s for a good cause. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Richter and Elkins laughed. Mercer did not allow himself such liberties. Certainly Alexander didn’t laugh. “First of all, we don’t have three months,” he said, downing his beer. “We don’t have five minutes. And second,” he added with a straight face, “my wife is very understanding about whorehouses when it’s for a good cause. We’ll drive there tonight. How far is it? Fifty kilometers?”
“Tonight?” said Richter.
“At night the bars will be full.” Alexander stared pointedly at Richter. “What, you don’t know it’s the best time?”