Up Country

by Nelson DeMille

  I kept getting the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to have gotten this far, and that Susan was making adjustments for my living presence. But that might be too paranoid. Maybe I was supposed to make it as far as Bangkok, then be evaluated as to how much I found out, and, as Mr. Conway said, how I would be dealt with. Maybe Susan was supposed to be a witness for or against me. And maybe my friend, Karl, who cared about me, was to be my judge. I asked Susan, “Are you supposed to go to Bangkok?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Hello? Susan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” I pointed out to her, “If there exists a possibility that I might need to be . . . let’s say, given a full military funeral before I was ready for one, has it occurred to you that you, too, might be in a similar predicament?”

  “It has occurred to me.”

  “Good.” I left it at that.

  We moved into the rising sun, toward Hanoi, toward the end of the mission, and toward the end of my third, and definitely last, tour of duty in Vietnam.

  The train from Lao Cai moved slowly through the northern outskirts of Hanoi, and at 6:34 P.M., we pulled into Long Bien Station.

  The journey from sultry, sinful Saigon had taken me to the battlefields of South Vietnam and into the heart of my own darkness, and up country on a journey of discovery and hopefully self-awareness.

  I had finally come to terms with this place, as had a lot of men who’d been here, and as had a lot of my generation, men and women, who hadn’t been to Vietnam, but who had lived through Vietnam so many years ago.

  And yet, at unexpected moments, the war still had the power to haunt our dreams and intrude into our waking hours. And for Edward Blake, this was one of those times.

  BOOK VII

  Hanoi

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Hanoi. An evocative name to people of my generation, as Berlin and Tokyo were to my father’s generation. Hardly a week went by during the war that didn’t have a news report of a Hanoi bombing raid. American bombers struck two miles from the center of Hanoi today, targeting a railway bridge over the Red River, a power plant, and suspected enemy surface-to-air missile sites. After about five or six years of these news stories, they ceased to be news, except for the pilots and the people on the ground.

  The passengers around us were gathering their luggage and began filing off the train.

  Susan and I remained seated and watched the platform.

  There were a large number of uniformed Border Police on the platform scanning the departing passengers, plus some plainclothes guys, who were easy to spot. I said to Susan, “Some of those guys have what could be photos in their hands.”

  She kept staring out the window and said, “This is not an uncommon sight at transportation terminals . . . we shouldn’t automatically assume they’re looking for us . . . but they are looking at Westerners.”

  “Right.” I also assumed they had the photographs from Pyramide Island, so maybe they wouldn’t recognize us with our clothes on. In fact, a few of the cops seemed more interested in the photos than the departing passengers.

  I said, “Let’s hook up with that American group you were talking to.”

  We stood, got our backpacks, and made our way to Car 6 where the American group was filing out with their Vietnamese tour guide.

  There was a Viet lady standing in front of Susan as we shuffled out, and Susan spoke to the woman in Vietnamese, then spoke to me. Susan discovered that Long Bien Station was located in a remote district on the east side of the Red River, and the passengers from our train needed to board a standard-gauge train to the central station if they were going to downtown Hanoi. There were also buses and taxis available. And police cars.

  One of Susan’s most striking features is her straight shoulder-length hair, and she asked me to tuck it under her quilted jacket.

  I have many striking features, but I couldn’t wrap them all in scarves without attracting attention or running out of scarves, so I just wrapped a dark blue Montagnard scarf around my neck and chin. Susan did the same.

  “Separate when we get out.”

  We got out on the platform, separated, and placed ourselves in the center of the group of about twenty Americans with their guide.

  Susan was chatting with the people around her, and I struck up a conversation with two guys while my eyes followed the cops. A few of them were looking at our group, but not showing any signs of recognition.

  The tour group was assembled, and we began moving off the platform. We might just make it, but I held my breath anyway.

  The railway station was a combination of old and new, and I could see where bomb damage had been repaired with newer concrete. A country that has seen war never looks quite the same again, at least not to the people who remembered how it used to look.

  The weather was overcast, and a lot warmer than it had been in the mountains. This country needed a sunny day. I needed a sunny day.

  I noticed a taxi stand to my left, where two Border Police and a plainclothes guy stood, looking at Westerners who were getting in the cabs.

  Our American tour group was moving toward a waiting bus whose sign said Love Planet Tours. I wasn’t feeling any particular love at the moment, but fugitives can’t be choosy.

  Our group began boarding the Love Planet bus. Susan was ahead of me, and she spoke to the Viet tour guide for a moment, handed him some money, which made him smile, and she boarded. I reached the guide and handed him five bucks. He smiled and nodded.

  I boarded the bus. The driver, who had never met this group, didn’t pay any attention to me, but if he had, he’d have gotten a few bucks, too.

  The bus could hold about forty people, and there were lots of empty seats, but Susan had placed herself in an aisle seat beside a middle-aged woman wearing Montagnard hoop earrings. I took the seat across the aisle from Susan and threw my backpack on the empty window seat. I could hear the luggage being thrown into the compartment below my feet.

  It took forever for the poky Americans to board, and I watched the Border Police outside moving around, still staring at pictures and still looking for someone.

  The bus was finally loaded, and the Viet guide came aboard. He said, “Okay, every person here?”

  The tour group replied in unison, “Yes.”

  I hate tour groups, but the alternative in this case—a police car—might actually be worse, but not by much.

  I saw a border cop walking toward the bus, and he got on.

  I needed to tie my shoelaces, which I did, and so did Susan. Meanwhile, the woman next to her was keeping up a non-stop rap and to the cop it must have looked like she was talking to herself.

  I could hear the tour guide and the cop exchanging words, and I figured it was only a matter of seconds before the cop would be tapping me on the shoulder. I glanced at Susan, who was looking at me, and we kept eye contact.

  After what seemed like eternity plus a few minutes, I heard the hydraulic sound of the door closing. A second later, the bus was in gear and moving. Nevertheless, Susan and I kept tying our shoes until the bus was out of the station area and on the road.

  I sat up, and so did Susan. I said to her, “Hi, I’m Paul. Is this your first time in Vietnam?”

  She closed her eyes, put her head back on the headrest, and took a long, deep breath. The lady next to her never missed a beat and kept jabbering.

  The bus headed south, and the setting sun came in through the right-side windows. We both took off our blue Montagnard scarves and put them in our backpacks. I said to Susan, “Where you from?”

  She replied, “Please shut up.”

  The woman beside her took offense, shut up, and turned toward the window.

  Susan said to her, “Sorry. I was talking to this pest.”

  The woman turned toward me and gave me a hard look.

  I glanced at the tour guide, who was standing near the driver, facing the rear. I saw that he was looking at me, and our eyes met for half a second, then he lo
oked away.

  I had no idea what motivated him to keep his mouth shut, but it probably had a lot to do with fear; not of Susan and me, but of the cop. Taking a few bucks from unauthorized passengers was a small offense; harboring fugitives, even unintentionally, could get him fined, fired, and arrested. This was a country that was running scared, and I’ve been in countries like that, and that could work for or against the authorities. This time, it worked against them. Next time, we might not be so lucky.

  The bus continued on a wide street, and the guide said, “So, we now come to Chuong Duong Bridge, who go over Song Hong—Red River. Beautiful river. You take picture.”

  Everyone dutifully took photos of the bridge and the Red River. The guide said, “We go now Hanoi. Hoan Kiem District—Old Quarter. Very beautiful. You take picture.”

  We crossed the bridge into the Old Quarter of Hanoi, and the streets and sidewalks were crowded, but not nearly as bad as Saigon. In fact, instead of the frenzied, horn-honking suicidal motorists and pedestrians of Saigon, there was a quiet determination on everyone’s faces here, a slower and more purposeful movement of people and vehicles. I was reminded of army ants in a terrarium.

  The buildings were mostly French colonial, very quaint, very run-down, but still charming. There were lots of leafy trees on the streets, and if it weren’t for the signs in Vietnamese, I could imagine I was in a French provincial town, which is where I’d rather be.

  On the horizon, I could see the lights of towering new skyscrapers. I said to Susan, “It’s not as grim as I imagined.”

  Susan excused herself from the one-way conversation with the woman and said to me, “Looks are deceiving.”

  “Don’t be negative. Visualize success.”

  She was in no mood for me and turned her attention back to Blabbermouth.

  I looked out the window again. I recalled that we’d never actually bombed the center of Hanoi; just the military targets on the outskirts of the city, which is why it still looked French and not East German. I didn’t recall, however, the U.S. getting any favorable press for sparing the central city. It’s hard to put a good spin on bombing attacks, even sensitively planned ones.

  The bus made its way through the narrow, winding streets. The guide was giving a running commentary, and he, too, didn’t congratulate the Americans for leaving the Old Quarter intact. People don’t appreciate Americans.

  The guide said, “Tomorrow, we see Ho Chi Minh tomb, Ho Chi Minh house, Lenin monument, Army Museum, Air Defense Museum, and lake in city where American B-52 bomber crash and still in lake.”

  I said to Susan, “We’re going to miss all of that.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I glanced out the window, then asked Susan, “Do you know where we are?”

  She replied, “I have a general idea where we are. Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

  I hadn’t actually thought much beyond the immediate problems as they had evolved. In truth, I never thought we’d get this far, but we had, so now I needed to figure out where we were going to spend the night. I said to her, “Well, we can’t go to the embassy or the Metropole if they’re looking for us. How about your Hanoi office?”

  She replied, “My office is closed, I don’t have a key, and it may be watched.”

  “Can you call one of your employees at home?”

  She said, “I don’t want to get them involved.”

  “You mean none of them are working for the CIA?”

  She didn’t reply.

  I said, “Well, I have a contact in the embassy. His name is John Eagan, FBI guy here on assignment. I’ll call him tomorrow from a pay phone and arrange a rendezvous somewhere.”

  She said, “You know the embassy phones are tapped. Don’t you have a pre-arranged rendezvous?”

  “No. But I can work it out.” I asked her, “Do you know what a big ugly fucker is?”

  “I’m sitting across from one.”

  I smiled. “It’s a B-52 bomber. Military slang. Someone in the embassy should know that. The military attaché, Colonel Marc Goodman, will know.”

  The lady next to Susan was eavesdropping on our conversation, and her hoop earrings were sticking straight up.

  I asked Susan, “Do you know the lake where the big ugly fucker is?”

  The lady’s eyes widened. Susan smiled and nodded.

  “Good. That’s our rendezvous. Eagan is the guy. Just in case we’re separated. Okay?”

  Again, she nodded.

  I asked her, “Who’s your contact in the embassy?”

  She didn’t reply for a second, then said, “Also Eagan.”

  I didn’t pursue that.

  I said, “As for tonight, we should try to find an American who will let us share his or her hotel room. But not this group.”

  She replied, “I’ll have no problem finding someone who will share his hotel room with me. Where are you sleeping?”

  “Brothel.”

  “Not in this city.”

  Susan seemed to be thinking, then said to me, “Actually, there is a place we can go tonight . . .”

  By the expression on her face, I thought she meant an old lover, which would not have been my first choice of overnight accommodations. But then she said, “I was invited to a reception tonight . . . at the American ambassador’s residence.”

  “Really? Am I invited?”

  “That depended.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not we got to Hanoi tonight.”

  I think it mostly depended on whether I was alive or dead. I said, “I thought you told me everything.”

  She didn’t make eye contact and replied, “My presence at this reception was tentative, and not important.”

  “I see. So, let me guess who’s at this reception. Well, since the Vice President is in town, I’ll take a wild guess that Edward Blake is the guest of honor.” I looked at her.

  She nodded.

  “And you are supposed to brief him about some subjects that he may have some interest in.”

  “Not him directly.”

  The lady beside Susan was leaning so far left, I thought the bus might flip over.

  I said to Susan, “Am I dressed for a diplomatic reception?”

  She smiled and replied, “You’re so sexy, Paul, you could show up in dirty jeans, running shoes, and a muddy leather jacket.”

  “Good. What time is this soiree?”

  “Starts at eight.”

  I looked at my watch, which was still on Mr. Vinh’s wrist. I said, “What time is it?”

  She looked at her watch. “It’s 7:15.”

  “Can I buy a watch in this town?”

  “I’ll buy you one.”

  The bus pulled over on a narrow street and stopped. The guide said, “We here at hotel. Good hotel.”

  I looked out the window and saw an old stucco hotel that the Michelin Guide may have overlooked.

  Our tour guide said, “We register in hotel, then meet in lobby, and go to good dinner at Italian restaurant.”

  This got a round of applause from the group, which had probably been eating rice and weasel up country for the last week. I applauded, too.

  Everyone began filing out of the bus, and I found myself behind Susan’s chatty friend. She turned her head toward me and gave me a look like I was an unshaven, mud-splattered, smelly pervert. She asked, “Are you with our group?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m Canadian.”

  We stepped off the bus and encountered our guide. He looked away from Susan and me, but I took a twenty and pressed it in his hand as we passed by him.

  So, there we were, in Hanoi, on a narrow street crowded with pedestrians, cyclos, and a few motor vehicles. It was dark now, and the streetlights were on, but the trees blocked most of the light, so the street was in shadow.

  We walked away from the hotel, and I asked Susan, “Do you know where we are?”

  She said, “Not far from the ambassador’s residence.” She suggested, “Let’s f
ind a place to have a drink, use the facilities, and wash up. Also, I want to make a call to the embassy duty officer.”

  “Good idea.” I looked across the street for a café or bar, then something made me turn back toward the hotel about fifty meters away. Parked in front of the bus was an olive drab car, a sedan, which you don’t see many of in this country. I had the impression it was some sort of official vehicle. There was a uniformed man standing on the sidewalk with his back to us, and in the light from the hotel marquee, I could see he was speaking to our guide and to the bus driver. I didn’t like the looks of this; I liked it even less when the bus driver pointed toward Susan and me. The uniformed guy turned around and looked toward us. It was, in fact, Colonel Mang.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Colonel Mang walked toward us and called out, “Mr. Brenner! Miss Weber!”

  I said to Susan, “Did he say something?”

  “Oh, shit . . . Paul . . . should we make a run for it?”

  Before I could decide, the sedan moved up and stopped beside us. The uniformed guy in the passenger seat pulled a pistol and pointed it at me.

  Colonel Mang came strolling down the sidewalk, wearing his green dress uniform, but no gun holster. He motioned for his goon in the car to put away his gun, then stopped a few feet from us and said, “I was afraid I had missed you at Long Bien Station.”

  I replied, “In fact, you did.”

  “Yes. But now I have found you. May I offer you both a ride?”

  He may have been feeling bad about leaving us stranded in Quang Tri, and now he wanted to make it up to us. I said, however, “That’s okay. I need the exercise.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the Metropole.”

  “Yes? The Metropole is the other way. Why did you ride on that tour bus?”

  I replied, “I thought it was a city bus.”

  “You know it is not that. In fact, you are acting as if you are running from something.”