Up Country

by Nelson DeMille

  He looked at me. “Nuoc?”

  Susan translated, and Mr. Cam pulled over to the side of the road.

  I reached over, shut off the ignition, and took the keys. I got out of the car and closed my door.

  I came around to the driver’s side and took the orange streamer off the antenna. I opened the driver’s door, gave Mr. Cam a little push, and said, “Move.”

  He was not happy, but he slid across the seat. I’m sure he had thoughts about making a break, but before he considered this option, I was behind the wheel, and the car was moving. I shifted through the gears and cruised along Highway One at about a hundred kilometers an hour. The Nissan drove well, but with two Caucasians and one Viet, and a full tank, it was a bit underpowered.

  I didn’t really want Mr. Cam along, but neither did I want him going to a police station. So, I kidnapped him. I said to Susan, “Tell him he looked tired, and I’ll drive. He can go to sleep.”

  She translated.

  Mr. Cam looked anything but tired. He looked agitated. He said something, which Susan translated as, “He says you will be in big trouble if the police see you driving.”

  “So will he. Tell him.” She told him.

  I got the Nissan up to 120 KPH, and without traffic, it wasn’t too bad. But now and then we hit a pothole, and I almost lost control. The springs and shocks weren’t the greatest, and I was relying on the spare if I had a blowout. I certainly wasn’t relying on my membership in the AAA.

  About ten minutes later, I noticed in my rearview mirror the headlights of a car, and as it got closer, I saw that it was a small open jeep. I said, “We have company.”

  Susan looked out the back window and said, “It could be a police jeep. I think there’re two people in it.”

  I floored the Nissan.

  The road was straight and flat as it passed through the rice paddies, and I eased the Nissan to the center of the road where I hoped the blacktop was better. The vehicle behind me was keeping up, but not gaining.

  Mr. Cam was looking in his sideview mirror, but said nothing.

  I asked Susan, “Do the police have radios?”

  She said, “Sometimes.”

  Mr. Cam said something to Susan, and she said to me, “Mr. Cam believes there’s a police car behind us, and he suggests we pull over.”

  I replied, “If it was a police car, he’d have his lights and siren on.”

  She said to me, “They don’t have lights and sirens here.”

  “I know. Just being funny.”

  “This isn’t funny. Can we outrun them?”

  “I’m trying.”

  I was maxed out at 160 KPH, and I knew if I hit a major pothole at this speed, I’d have a blowout, or I’d lose control, or both. The police knew the same would happen to them, but they seemed uncommonly dedicated to the chase, and I figured they had more in mind than a two-dollar ticket. In fact, if Mr. Thuc had set us up, the cops had also figured out by now that Mr. Cam wasn’t driving.

  The Nissan held the speed, but this was a total crap shoot regarding who was going to hit the first big pothole.

  There was a big truck in front of me, and I came up behind it like it was standing still. I swung onto the oncoming lane and saw another truck coming head-on. I passed the truck, then at about two seconds before I would have collided with the oncoming one I swung back into the right lane. A minute later, I saw the headlights of the jeep behind me, and he’d lost some ground.

  Mr. Cam was getting increasingly agitated, and he kept trying to reason with Susan, who kept telling him, “Im lang,” which I recalled meant be quiet or shut up.

  The vehicle behind us was about a hundred meters away, and maybe a little closer than last time I looked. I asked Susan, “Do the cops carry rifles or just pistols?”

  “Both.”

  “Do they shoot at speeding cars?”

  “Why don’t we assume that they do?”

  “Let’s assume they want to rob the stagecoach, and they don’t want everything incinerated in a ball of fire.”

  “Sounds right.”

  I said to Susan, “Get ready to toss that thing in your tote. We don’t want to face a firing squad.”

  She said, “I’ve got it in my hand. Tell me when.”

  “How about now? Before I flip this car, and they find it on us.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Susan?”

  “Let’s wait.”

  “Okay, we’ll wait.”

  I tried to remember the map, and if I recalled correctly, there was another small town a few minutes ahead. If there was another cop in the area, that’s where he’d be.

  Mr. Cam was quiet, the way people are when they have accepted their fate. In fact, I thought I saw his lips moving in prayer. I didn’t expect him to do anything stupid at this speed, like grab the wheel or try to jump out, but I said to Susan, “Tell Mr. Cam that I’ll stop at the next town and let him out.”

  She told him, and he seemed to buy this. Why, I don’t know, but he bought it.

  Meanwhile, I was hitting potholes, and we were all bouncing wildly.

  Up ahead was a small car, stopped right in the middle of the road. I could see a woman in my headlights waving for assistance. This, I figured, was the ambush where we’d be relieved of what the cops hadn’t gotten in fines. But the law hadn’t caught me yet, and Mr. Cam was not behind the wheel. He said, however, in rehearsed English, “I stop. Car need help. I stop.”

  “You’re not driving. I no stop.”

  I swung into the oncoming lane where I could better judge the distance to the drainage ditch on my left, and shot past the lady in distress and her car.

  I tried to divide my attention between the road outside my windshield, and the headlights behind me. I saw the lights swing around the stopped car in the road, and the jeep almost veered off into the ditch, but then it got back on the road.

  Susan was watching out the back window.

  I said to her, “Sorry about this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Drive.”

  “Right. That guy’s not a bad driver.”

  She asked me, “Do you know how to blind a Vietnamese driver?”

  “No. How?”

  “Put a windshield in front of his face.”

  I smiled.

  What wasn’t so funny is what happened next. I heard what sounded like a muffled backfire, and it took me about half a second to recognize the hollow popping sound of an AK-47. My blood froze for a moment. I took a deep breath and said, “Did you hear that?”

  She replied, “I saw the muzzle flash.”

  I had my foot all the way down to the floor, plus some, but the Nissan was maxed. I said, “Okay, ditch the gun. We’re going to stop.”

  “No! Keep going. It’s too late to stop now.”

  I kept going and again I heard a gunshot. But was he firing at us? Or just trying to get our attention? In any case, if his four-wheel drive was bouncing as badly as mine, the guy with the rifle couldn’t get a good shot at this distance, which was about two hundred meters now. I swung the Nissan into the oncoming lane so that the shooter would have to stand and fire over his windshield, but the police jeep also swung into the oncoming lane behind us. So, I swung back into the right lane.

  I heard another shot, but this time, his bullet was a tracer round, and I saw the green streak off to my right and high. My God. I hadn’t seen a green tracer round since 1972, and it made my heart stop for a second. We used red, they used green, and I started seeing these green and red streaks in front of my eyes.

  I brought myself back from that nightmare to this one.

  Mr. Cam was sobbing now, which was fine, except he started beating his fists on the dashboard. Next it would be my head. I recognized the little signs of hysteria. I let go of the wheel with my right hand, and gave him a backhand slap across the face. This seemed to work, and he put his face in his hands and wept.

  I had this crazy idea that all of this had been a misunderstanding and a co
incidence—the police car just wanted to check our registration, the car in the middle of the road really was broken down, and Mr. Cam was pure of heart. Boy, wouldn’t he have a story to tell around the Tet dinner table?

  We’d whizzed through a few small villages that straddled Highway One, and I saw within the villages people on bicycles and kids on the road. This was dangerous, and so were the potholes and the guys shooting at us. It all came down to luck—one of us was going to make a fatal mistake.

  I threw my map and guidebook back to Susan and said, “Can you tell how far the next town is?”

  She used her lighter to see the page and said, “I see a place called Van Gia. Is that the one?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. How far?”

  “I don’t know. Where are we now?”

  “We’re about thirty kilometers from Ninh Hoa.”

  “Well . . . then Van Gia is right here.”

  And sure enough, I could see the lights of a town ahead.

  Susan said, “You can’t go through that town at this speed, Paul. There will be trucks, cars, and people on the road.”

  “I know.” I needed to do something fast.

  A truck was right in front of us now, and his brake lights were going on and off as he slowed down for the town. I swung out into the oncoming lane, passed him, and got back into my lane. I slammed on my brakes and discovered they were not antilock. The Nissan fishtailed, and I fought to keep it under control. The truck was right on my tail now, and I killed my lights. I kept about five meters in front of the truck, hidden from the police car.

  I had no idea how close the police car was, but he should be alongside me in a few seconds. I waited and saw his headlights on the road to my left, then the yellow jeep was right beside me. In a split second, the guy in the passenger seat with the AK-47 saw me, and our eyes met. He looked surprised, then aimed his rifle as I accelerated and sideswiped the jeep. I didn’t have to hit him hard because the driver, who was looking for me up ahead, wasn’t expecting it, and the yellow jeep went off the road and skidded on the soft shoulder. In my sideview mirror, I saw the jeep hit the drainage ditch and flip over. I heard a muffled crash and saw flames, then an explosion.

  I had the accelerator to the floor, and I was still in the oncoming lane. I pulled back into my lane and saw in my mirror that the truck had come to a stop on the road. I put my headlights back on.

  I pumped the brakes and got the speed down to sixty KPH as we entered the town of Van Gia.

  It was very quiet in the car, and I could hear my breathing. Mr. Cam was actually on the floor, curled into a fetal position. I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw Susan staring straight ahead.

  I was doing about forty KPH now down the main street, which was Highway One.

  There weren’t any streetlights, but most of the one-story stucco buildings were lit, and this illuminated the road. I saw a karaoke parlor to my left, and dozens of kids were hanging out in front of it. Bicycles and motor scooters were parked everywhere, and people were crossing the street. I said to Susan, “You should get down.”

  Susan slumped down in the rear.

  Up ahead on the right, a yellow police jeep was parked in front of the police station, and a few men in uniform were outside. If the cops back there had radioed ahead, then this was the end of the road, and we’d be lucky if we got a firing squad.

  I literally held my breath as I approached the police station. There was not a single car moving on the road because at night there weren’t many places you’d want to go, and the town was small enough to walk or bicycle. So, the dark blue Nissan stood out. I slumped down in the seat to try to look like I was five feet tall, and I put my right hand over my face as though I was scratching lice or something. Mr. Cam made a movement, and I took my hand away from my face, grabbed his hair, and pushed him down. “Im lang!” I said, even though he wasn’t talking, but I couldn’t remember how to say, “Don’t move!”

  We were abreast of the police station now, and I was trying to keep my head turned to the side, and my eyeballs on the cops, while holding Mr. Cam by his hair. I know you’re not supposed to touch a Vietnamese’s head, but he was in the fetal position, and I couldn’t get my hand on his balls.

  The policemen glanced at the dark blue Nissan, and I realized I was about to pull Mr. Cam’s hair out. I slid my hand down to his neck and held it.

  We were past the police station now, and I looked in the right sideview mirror. The cops were looking at the car, but I could tell they weren’t looking for me. Still, the car held their interest. I kept moving in first gear up the main street.

  A kid on a bicycle passed right in front of me, and we made eye contact. He yelled out, “Lien Xo! Lien Xo!” which I recently learned meant Soviet, or sometimes foreigner, meaning me.

  It was time to go. I accelerated and soon we had passed through the town of Van Gia and were back on the dark highway.

  I shifted through the gears and in a few minutes we were sailing along at a hundred KPH. I kept looking in the rearview mirror to see if the kid tipped off the cops to the Lien Xo, but I saw no headlights.

  I breathed for the first time in about ten minutes. I said to Susan, “How about some nuoc?”

  She already had the bottle open and passed it to me. I took a long swig and offered the bottle to Mr. Cam on the floor by tapping it on his head. I figured he was dehydrated by now, but he didn’t want any water, so I passed the bottle back to Susan, who took a long drink.

  She drew a deep breath and said, “I’m still shaking, and I have to take a pee.”

  I pulled off to the side of the road, and all three of us took a well-deserved pee. Mr. Cam tried to make a break for it, but it was a halfhearted attempt, and I pushed him back in the car.

  I checked the tires, then I examined the car for bullet holes, but I couldn’t find any. They either weren’t shooting at us, or their aim was off because of the bouncing. It really didn’t matter.

  I looked at the driver’s side and saw that it was scraped, and the left front fender was bent, but basically I just kissed the jeep, which is all it took.

  Back in the car, I accelerated to a hundred and maintained that speed. I said to Susan, “I really am sorry about that.”

  “Nothing to apologize for. We were running from bandits. You did a great job.” She asked, “Do you drive like that at home?”

  “I actually took an FBI course in offensive driving. I passed the course.”

  She didn’t reply, but she did light a cigarette. She offered one to Mr. Cam, who was sitting in his seat now, and he took it. She lit it for him, and between her shaking hand and his trembling lips, I’m surprised it got lit.

  The sea was on our right again, and the last sliver of the moon reflected just enough light off the water to make it not totally black. I passed a truck heading north, but there were no vehicles heading south. This was a totally desolate road at night, which was good for making time, but not good for much else. Now and then I could see a pothole, and I swerved to avoid it. Sometimes I didn’t see the pothole and hit it, putting the Nissan into a jarring bounce.

  Susan asked, “Do you think anyone is looking for us?”

  “The only people looking for us are dead.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I said to her, “Mr. Thuc, however, may be looking for Mr. Cam by now.”

  She thought about that and said, “Mr. Thuc will have heard from his lady-in-distress by now that we were running from the cops, so he’s thinking we’re either dead or continuing on to Hue.”

  “Why won’t he call the cops?”

  “Because the cops would want about a thousand dollars just to look for the car, and thousands more if they found it.” She added, “Mr. Thuc is just hoping for the best by now. He’ll worry about it tomorrow if he hasn’t heard from Mr. Cam. When you think of cops here, don’t think of helpful boys in blue who call you sir when you ask for help. They’re the biggest thieves in the country.”

  “I understand.” />
  Susan spoke with Mr. Cam, who seemed a little better after his cigarette. Susan said to me, “He denies that we were being set up to be robbed. He says we are very untrusting. He wants to get out.”

  “Tell him he has to drive the car back from Hue”Phu Bai Airport, or Mr. Thuc will kill him.”

  Susan told him, and I recognized the word giet, which means murder or kill. Funny how I remembered some unpleasant words. I said to Susan, “Tell him he’ll be home with his family tomorrow, if he behaves.”

  She told him, he said something, and Susan said to me, “I doubt very much if he’ll go to the police. There’s nothing in that for him but trouble.”

  “Good. Because I really don’t want to have to kill him.”

  She didn’t reply for a long time, then asked me, “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  She sat back in her seat and lit another cigarette. “I see why they sent you.”

  “They didn’t send me. I volunteered.”

  Mr. Cam seemed to be trying to follow the conversation, probably wondering if we were talking about killing him. To cool him down, I patted his shoulder and said, “Xin loi,” which sort of means “Sorry about that.”

  Susan asked me, “Is your Vietnamese coming back?”

  “I think so. Xin loi. When we wasted somebody, we’d say, ‘Xin loi, Charlie.’ Like, sorry about that, Charlie. Get it?”

  She stayed quiet for a while, wondering, I’m sure, if she was with a psychopath. I wondered about that, too. I said to her, “My adrenaline is pumped. I’ll be all right.”

  Again, she said nothing. I think she was a little frightened of me, and to be honest, so was I.

  I said to Susan, “You wanted to come along.”

  “I know. I’m not saying anything.”

  I put my hand over my shoulder, and she took it and squeezed.

  I went back to my driving. The flatland narrowed here to a strip between the mountains on our left, and the sea on our right. Traffic had totally disappeared, and I was making a steady hundred KPH.

  Susan asked, “Do you want me to drive?”

  “No.”

  She began massaging my neck and shoulders. “How you doing?”