Lost Soldiers

by Lost Soldiers (retail) (epub)

  Muir flipped a few pages in the folder, then again held it near the victim’s remains. ‘Deville fractured his left femur in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager.’ The pointer went to the victim’s left femur. ‘You’d be able to see the imprint of that fracture on the bone. Nothing here. And actually this man – this victim – is from my calculations about two inches shorter than Deville. Again, case closed. This is not Deville.’

  ‘You’re sure you have the right file, Professor?’

  ‘His name is all over it, on every page. There’s no mistake here. And think about the hand, Brandon. Could the amputation of two hands be an accident? It’s what we like to call a signature. And you know whose signature it is. I’m telling you, these remains are not Deville.’

  ‘So the only thing that matches is the dog tags.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said the professor. ‘So ask yourself. Why would Specialist Deville kill this man and leave him behind wearing his own dog tags?’

  ‘Because he wanted whoever found the body to think that he was dead.’

  ‘Exactly. And why would he want us to think that?’

  ‘Because he wanted out,’ said Condley. It all made perfect sense now. ‘He deserted because he wanted to avoid a court-martial. But he didn’t want to stay in Viet Nam no matter what the hell he was doing up there in the Que Son Mountains. And how do you get out of Viet Nam when you’re a deserter, when there’s a war on, and the American military controls all the flights? You can’t be Specialist Theodore Deville. You have to be somebody else.’

  ‘Somebody they’re going to allow onto an airplane,’ said Muir.

  ‘He killed the guy, figuring the body would be so decomposed by the time they found it that they would assume it was him, and then stole the man’s identity,’ said Condley.

  For the first time in a long time Condley felt genuinely spooked as he looked down at the skeleton on the gurney. The dirt of Ninh Phuoc, crusting the sheets of a lab in Hawaii. The moldy old poncho, like a memento that had crossed a time warp. The sand-blanched, copper-coloured bones. The skull without a face. The teeth that did not match. The leg that had never been broken. The hand that was not there. The name they did not know, stolen along with his life by a man who was nothing if not ruthlessly audacious.

  ‘Who is he? Excuse me, Professor, I’m sounding like you. Who was he? And how the hell did Deville find him up in the Que Son Mountains, in the village of Ninh Phuoc?’

  ‘Better yet,’ said Muir, ‘where’s Deville?’

  ‘Well, OK. Both.’

  ‘Right,’ said Muir. ‘Both.’

  Condley could not help but notice that the normally emotional scientist had become coolly clinical, at the very moment that he himself was trembling with an anger that he found difficult to control. Deville’s treachery and savagery had awakened an animal inside him that he thought had died a quarter century before. A blood lust was rising in him that he knew would not be quenched unless he found Deville. He realized that, oddly, he was prepared to risk everything, and even to die, in order to bring Deville to justice. Not that he planned to die.

  ‘He’s still alive, Professor. I can feel it.’

  ‘We have some avenues of approach,’ said Muir. ‘On both counts, actually. I’ve asked that the FBI do a nationwide fingerprint search on Deville. If he’s been involved in any activity in the United States that requires a fingerprint, no matter what false identity he’s using, they’ll be able to start running him down, or possibly already have. I’m not optimistic on that count, but it’s a start. Within the next few days we’ll also have a computer-imaged photo that will show what Deville should look like today. We’ll get that out to the right people. With respect to our unfortunate friend here, I’m pulling in all the files of those still listed either as missing in action or as deserters inside Viet Nam. A whole new category, that. I hadn’t thought much about the deserters before. And we’ve got a few things to work with in order to narrow down our search.’

  Muir took out his pointer again, his manner indeed professorial, and began touching the remains as he spoke. ‘Brown hair – a few tufts were still inside the poncho. Definitely Caucasian, from the cheekbones and the set of the jaw. He was, I’d say, about five foot nine inches tall. Clear indications of a damaged right shoulder, probably from repeated trauma. And look at this…’ Muir touched the skeleton at the very top of the spinal column, where the neck met the skull. ‘See how worn this vertebra is?’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘No, look right here. See? It’s a bit shiny, as if it’s gone through a good bit of trauma. Possibly a bad car accident, but my guess is that he was an athlete who played hard at contact sports that repeatedly caused blows to the head. Boxing, perhaps, given his size. The damaged shoulder would go with that diagnosis. There’s also some formative arthritis on the upper vertebrae, which is unusual for a younger man and would confirm that suspicion. And look at these ridges on his teeth.’ Muir’s pointer ran along the molars at the back of the skull.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Condley, seething. ‘Just look at that.’

  ‘They’re worn far beyond what one might expect in a young man. This suggests a coarse diet, of the sort that might be found more often in rural America. Appalachia, perhaps.’

  Muir ceremoniously closed the pointer. ‘We’ll find him.’

  ‘You mean you’ll find out who he was,’ corrected Condley. ‘Then find out what the fuck he was doing in the Que Son Mountains. And while you’re doing that I’ll find Deville.’

  ‘How do you propose to do that, Brandon?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ A thought crossed his mind. ‘Maybe if we find out about this guy it will lead us to Deville. Especially if we can find out what they were doing together. Who knows, maybe he was a turncoat too.’

  ‘Possibly,’ mused Muir. ‘But logic tells me that he wasn’t. Why switch places with someone just as bad off as you are?’

  ‘You’re right.’ Condley looked at the man’s remains with a renewed sobriety. ‘If we knew where they met, or what they were doing, maybe there’s an intersection that can help us backtrack to Deville. He did steal the guy’s identity.’

  ‘For a while, possibly. But if he were smart enough to steal this man’s identity, you can assume that Deville was also smart enough to take on a new one as soon as he escaped.’

  Condley marveled at the scientist’s demeanor as they walked back toward his office. ‘Why are you so calm about all this, Professor?’

  ‘Because it’s all come down to science, Brandon. We have our variables. We have computers. We have good people working on the problem. It gives the whole issue the kind of certainty that I enjoy.’

  ‘It may be science to you—’

  ‘I know,’ interrupted the huge, garrulous Muir. He patted Condley on the shoulder as they walked. ‘For you it’s personal. So may I remind you as your friend? Don’t let your emotions get the better of you, Brandon. If you do find this man, you can’t afford to make a mistake.’

  ‘Them,’ corrected Condley.

  ‘Them? I don’t understand what you mean.’

  ‘There’s two of them.’

  Chapter Nine

  Sai Gon

  The noonday sun faded quickly, disappearing behind a bank of ugly gray clouds. An eerie darkness covered the city, as sudden as an eclipse. And then the sky opened up with a windless torrent of rain.

  In front of the Rex Hotel the sidewalks emptied in a matter of seconds as hustlers, hawkers, and beggars scurried into covered alleyways or huddled under tarps, while tourists headed into street cafes or back to their hotels. Along the streets the cyclo drivers pulled poncho-like rain jackets over their heads and buttoned up their passengers inside windowless canvas flaps. The covered cyclos looked like dark, oversize baby buggies as they navigated through puddles and avoided the splashing traffic of cars and motorbikes.

  A few blocks away, across the street from the shabby little Vien Dong Hotel, Dzung sat in hi
s own cyclo cab underneath a large shade tree. He had pulled the canopy around the cab and snapped himself inside as soon as it had started raining. His knees were up to his chin to avoid the torrent. His eyes were faraway. The rain pattered all around him, cold on the canvas of the canopy.

  Trapped in his little bubble, Dzung felt strangely free. He thought for a long time about the way the rain had smelled, musty and alive, where it mixed with the river behind the porch of his childhood home, and then of the young foreigner who yesterday rode with him for an hour and did not pay him, and finally of how every day his smallest child faded further from him, slowly, slowly dying. But he could change none of these things. So mostly he thought of how pure and safe he felt inside the canopy as the rain washed over and around him.

  Cong Ly was back. A taxi had taken him to the hotel from Tan Son Nhat airport late last night. The word had gotten out on the street early that morning, passed along among the hustlers and cyclo drivers, letting Dzung know that his well-paying friend was once again in Sai Gon. And so Dzung had posted himself across from Condley’s hotel three hours before, on duty just as surely as if he were standing watch in a foxhole during the war.

  Finally the rain left the city, with the same suddenness that had marked its arrival. The sky brightened and the sun began to bake the streets. The cars and motorbikes drove endlessly by, splashing through fresh puddles. The hustlers and the hawkers emerged from their hideouts, calling and laughing to one another, comparing how deeply they had been soaked. Dzung unbuttoned his canopy and folded it back as if emerging from a cocoon. Then he sat again on the seat and lit a cigarette, silently watching and waiting.

  In a few minutes he saw a small commotion at the hotel’s front door. It was Condley, joking playfully with the doorman. Dzung brightened, tossing away his cigarette and jumping down from his perch on the cyclo. He waved happily, with the bright face of a small child.

  ‘Cong Ly! Cong Ly!’

  ‘Hey, Dzung! Manh khoe khong?’

  ‘Da, khoe! Khoe!’ said Dzung, letting Condley know that things were fine. For otherwise, where would one begin?

  Condley crossed the street, shaking his hand and slapping him on a narrowing shoulder. Dzung reversed the seat on his cyclo, patting it to indicate that it was dry, and gestured for Condley to climb aboard.

  ‘Where we go today, Cong Ly?’

  ‘I have to take a taxi.’ Dzung’s face fell noticeably, as if he had just been fired. ‘Only for a little while,’ said Condley. ‘I have to go to Thu Duc. Too far for you!’

  ‘I can take you to Thu Duc!’

  ‘No, on your cyclo that would take at least an hour each way. I need to be there very soon.’

  Dzung nodded, accepting the limitations of his cyclo. ‘Why you go Thu Duc, Cong Ly?’

  ‘I go to the golf course at Binh Trieu.’

  Dzung started laughing. ‘Binh Trieu golf course no good, Cong Ly, you know that.’

  The Binh Trieu golf course was a well-known joke in Sai Gon. Just across the Sai Gon River in the district of Thu Duc, a Taiwanese consortium had built two large golf courses, replete with upscale clubhouses. Since almost no Vietnamese could afford equipment, club dues, or fairway fees, the logic behind the investment had centered on providing recreation for foreigners, particularly the Japanese, whose passion for the sport, they had reasoned, would bring in loads of tourists. But few Japanese travelled to Viet Nam on pleasure rather than business, and golf, for all its usual seductiveness, was not going to lure them, at least not in Sai Gon. The cool, mountainous area around Da Lat, perhaps. But Sai Gon’s weather, which cycled between an unbearable oven heat and torrential rains, was not a fit for those who wished to spend three hours outdoors hitting little white balls along alternately parched or soaked fairways.

  The business had failed. The Taiwanese company had departed, leaving the golf course and its facilities to its Vietnamese partner, which was in reality an umbrella company run by the government. And these days, as it rather forlornly awaited the prospect of a new investor, the government kept the golf course and its clubhouse open for the use of its higher-ranking officials.

  ‘I don’t play golf,’ said Condley. ‘This is business.’

  ‘You meet Colonel Pham there. I know, I know.’ Dzung started laughing again. ‘He stupid, walking outside all day in the sun!’

  ‘He thinks it’s fun,’ said Condley.

  ‘That’s why he is stupid. You know, Cong Ly, sometimes I don’t understand, so please tell me again. How did the VC win the war?’

  Condley grinned. It was an old joke, more true than either of them really would like to admit. ‘They didn’t understand that they were beaten.’

  Across the street the doorman waved at Condley, holding open the door to a waiting taxi. Condley nudged Dzung again as he headed back toward the hotel. ‘Maybe three hours, OK?’

  ‘Ba tieng dong ho’ agreed Dzung, reluctantly walking back underneath the shade tree and again climbing onto the seat of his cyclo.

  * * *

  Viet Nam’s scorching heat, sudden rains, and mosquito-infested wetlands did not make it an ideal place to play golf, but you could never explain that to Colonel Pham. No one used the Binh Trieu golf course more regularly than Pham. The former Viet Cong officer had developed an intense passion for the sport that matched his former enthusiasm for soldiering. Hardly a day passed without the colonel having played at least nine holes. He played in all but the heaviest of rains. He played in even the worst heat.

  In reality he was terrible at the game, except for a dead-eye ability to putt. But a thrill glazed the colonel’s eyes every time he talked of golf. Secretly, Brandon Condley believed that golf was the metaphor for much of what Colonel Pham had fought for, or maybe merely against. For as he traipsed carefree and timeless along the fairways, the former Viet Cong soldier could imagine that he was part of a larger world. A world where people whiled away the hours in idleness and had no need for toil. Where smacking a silly little ball and having drinks on a terrace afterward while watching a satellite TV channel was evidence that he had risen above the beggars and the toilers. Where – yes, it was true – he had a bit of payback, a taste of the life of those playboy capitalists he had spent so many years trying to kill.

  Condley had an ulterior motive in meeting the colonel at the golf course instead of in his office. Certain discussions were permissible in Pham’s office, and others were dangerous, no matter how innocently begun. Talking in the office about policies that already existed was safe. Asking questions in the presence of other, ever-listening ears about matters that had happened in the past, and particularly policies that had existed before the fall of South Viet Nam in 1975, was an application for reprisal.

  The colonel was on the fifth hole, almost alone on the course as he readied to tee off in the boiling sun. He was wearing tan slacks, a patterned golf shirt, and white athletic shoes. On his head, incongruously, was a green North Vietnamese Army pith helmet. As Condley approached, Colonel Pham waved casually to him, then took his shot. The ball arched lazily for a while, then landed in a puddle about seventy yards down the middle of the fairway. Its location seemed to please Pham greatly. He smiled as the ball rolled a few more feet, holding on to the top of his pith helmet with one hand and urging the ball forward with a little body English. Then he sighed, putting his three wood inside his golf bag and slinging it over a shoulder.

  ‘Nice shot, Colonel,’ said Condley in Vietnamese. He was already sweating profusely as he reached Pham. They shook hands briefly, then the colonel set off down the fairway toward his ball.

  The colonel was into his game, staring intently down the flat, straight fairway that only a few years before had been a rice paddy. ‘What club do you think I should use?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ answered Condley, walking alongside him. ‘I’ve never played a game of golf in my life.’

  ‘I thought everyone in America likes golf.’

  ‘No, sir. Some do, some don’t. If I was g
oing to waste three hours I’d rather just go fishing.’

  ‘Fishing!’ laughed Colonel Pham. ‘In Viet Nam the women go fishing.’

  ‘I’ll take a woman fishing any day of the week,’ grinned Condley. ‘As long as she makes my lunch and baits my hooks.’

  ‘But you told me your ancestors are from Scotland.’ One of the colonel’s greatest fascinations, now that he had come to know his former enemy, was that almost all Americans could trace their ancestry to another country.

  They began to cross a puddle on the fairway that was the size of a basketball court, compliments of the earlier rain shower. Condley’s head was baking through his baseball cap and his shoes were thoroughly soaked, but still the colonel plodded on. In the middle of the puddle Condley could see the colonel’s golf ball. ‘There’s your ball, Colonel. Yes, you’re right. My ancestors were from Scotland and Ireland, mostly.’

  Colonel Pham’s face took on a new excitement. ‘But you see, golf was invented in Scotland. It is their national sport, so you should love it!’

  ‘For some it is.’ Condley smiled as they reached the ball. ‘But for my people golf is a diversion. Fighting is their national sport. It’s our tradition, even in America. We call it “the redneck way.”’

  ‘Redneck?’ The colonel seemed confused.

  ‘Red. Neck.’ Condley pointed to the back of his neck. ‘It’s our culture. The Scots-Irish in America. Because we work with our hands, the upper classes always looked down on us. They call us rednecks because our necks get red working in the sun. And fighting is our sport. Not golf.’