Muir sipped the last of his coffee, his moonful face breaking into a knowing grin. ‘Oh, God, I can’t believe it. Brandon Condley, of all people! You just said the magic words. It’s all over. The next thing you know you’ll be wearing luau shirts.’
‘She’d be more likely to try and put me inside a Givenchy suit with a silk shirt and a paisley tie. All right, enough. Stop bottom-feeding, Professor. If you want a house mouse I can get you one.’
‘Nice recovery, but you’re blushing, Brandon.’
‘I’m always sunburnt. I was on a fucking golf course yesterday!’
‘Excellent response!’ The professor waved a huge hand into the air, a declaration of victory. ‘Because I’m your friend, I’ll leave you alone for now.’
Condley checked his watch. ‘So, why am I here?’
Muir frowned, regaining his focus. ‘We have a serious problem, and we need to move quickly on it. That’s why I flew out here last night.’ He watched Condley’s face for a moment, anticipating the next question. ‘We need to move quickly because I did assume that you had some words with Colonel Pham and that this situation would make its way rather quickly up the government food chain. It could be embarrassing for them if we discover that they’ve harbored collaborators after repeatedly denying it. It could even inflame relations after all these years. And if they have any indication that we’re on the track of these two men, they’ll anticipate us and remove the evidence.’
‘So now we’re into evidence?’
‘I have a tip,’ said Muir. ‘A very good one.’
‘Deville?’
‘No, nothing on him,’ answered Muir. ‘No finger-print matches in the States at all. We’re sending agents to his old hometown to see if we can backtrack, but so far we’ve got a total blank. My guess is that he never returned home, or even to the States at all.’
‘The… victim?’
‘We’ve put St. Louis on full priority. They’re pulling the files on every unresolved missing-in-action and deserter case and looking for a match. Once they get into the files it should be a fairly quick process. He’s got to be Caucasian, early twenties as of 1971, five foot nine inches, brown hair. That narrows down the search already. From there we go to the fillings in his dental records. Three fillings or less, which in itself is kind of unusual. There can’t be more than a handful of people matching those indicators, so we should have an answer very soon. Perhaps within days.’
Professor Muir’s eyes lit up. ‘An odd thing here – one of my colleagues was looking at the skull the other day and he swears that these don’t look like American fillings. Something about the materials and the way the drilling seems to have been done. It could be just another indication that the victim was from a pretty backward rural area, in the same manner as his worn teeth indicate a rougher diet. But it also could mean that he isn’t even an American. Fancy that.’
‘Maybe Deville killed an eastern European adviser,’ said Condley. ‘If there was such a thing. Think of the irony in that. A turncoat actually killing a commie in order to get out of Viet Nam.’
‘That would surprise me as well,’ said Muir. ‘What good would it have done him? If he killed one of their advisers he would have been in deep trouble with them, so how could he have gotten out of, say, Ha Noi with their help? The only place they could have sent him was to another communist country, and I can’t imagine him being welcomed there if he’d just killed an eastern-bloc soldier. And he couldn’t have gotten out of the country from one of our airports in Sai Gon or Da Nang with the passport of an eastern European soldier who wasn’t even supposed to be in Viet Nam in the first place.’
The old waiter shuffled up, carrying a tray of food, so emaciated and expressionless that it seemed he might keel over and die with every step. Condley winked at Muir when Vo approached, and the two remained silent as he slowly placed Condley’s breakfast on the table. Then Condley dug hungrily into his omelette.
‘So you think you’ve got Pepper in the mountains,’ he said through a mouthful of food.
‘This might be a coincidence, but I’m inclined to think it isn’t.’ Muir sipped some coffee, looking around them and growing more intense. ‘I have another colleague who was sent out to investigate a reported sighting of an American a few years ago, up in the mountains near where we picked up the remains.’
‘The Que Son Mountains?’
‘Yes!’ said Muir excitedly. ‘The Que Son Mountains. But you know how these things go. They had to file a request and then receive clearance from province and district authorities. And then once the clearance was given, it took a full day to get up to the actual place. All told, from the time he put in the request to the time he showed up in the village it was something like five days. Plenty of time for the locals to, as they say, police the crime scene. Needless to say, he didn’t find an American.’
Condley was almost finished with his omelette. He grunted. ‘You came all the way here to tell me that?’
‘Brandon,’ said Muir huffily. ‘I would not waste the government’s money in such a manner. What he did see were black children. It was an accident. As they started back toward Da Nang, a group of local children came out along the road, calling to them and waving to them. There were two half-black children. He estimated both were under the age of ten. He said they were trying to hide behind the trees at the rear of the other kids, as if it were all a game. But he’s certain they were half-black. Dark. Not as if they were the grandkids of someone who had been here during the war. This is a very remote village. Where there are half-black kids there is a black dad. And if there is a dad, why were they hiding him? I mean, clearly, if he’s having kids he’s hardly incarcerated.’
‘Pepper,’ said Condley.
Muir nodded. ‘I’d say from the location, which is not that far from the incident that happened to you and your Marines, and also not far from where we found our… victim, that there is a very good chance of it.’
‘But we’ve got the same problem, only now it’s an order of magnitude worse,’ said Condley, knowing he was stating the obvious. ‘They’ll never let us back there.’
‘Unless Pham takes responsibility.’
Condley grunted, unimpressed. ‘For what? If he takes responsibility for our conduct, that means he’s guaranteeing that we won’t do anything to hurt the government or they can send his own ass off to jail. That’s what taking responsibility is all about in this system: You volunteer to be the scapegoat if things go wrong. Which also means he’ll do everything he can to keep us from finding anything, even if he personally goes with us on the trip. And if we do find something – which I intend to do – and they hold him accountable, we’ve just screwed our best friend in the whole Vietnamese government.’
‘Yes,’ said Muir, smiling with satisfaction. ‘Not to mention the father of your girlfriend, with whom you are now fully enamored.’
‘Professor now you’re hurting my feelings.’
‘Let the record show that Brandon Condley has feelings.’
‘Anyway, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s engaged to a Frog.’
‘Sorry about that.’
Condley grinned slyly. ‘Pass on your condolences to the Frog.’
‘For now,’ said Muir, not losing his own smile. ‘Anyway, I thought about the situation with the colonel. But we can empower him, so that if we find something their government gets the credit. And if that happens, he wins.’
‘Now, there’s a baby-boomer concept,’ laughed Condley. ‘You want to empower a communist government official. Have you taken a look around here lately, Professor? I hate to break this to you, but they pretty much have all the power they want.’
‘Slow down, Brandon. Listen to me. We empower him in the media. We can arrange it so that it’s his discovery, not ours. We tell him the story is going to come out sooner or later anyway because my colleague back in Hawaii heard about the Deville situation and is preparing a report. We tell him that the Vietnamese government has the ability to pre
-empt a very nasty set of questions that will soon be coming their way from the international media. We also guarantee that we’ll support the Vietnamese government’s version of the story. Which will be that the Que Son Mountains are so remote, and their inhabitants so primitive, that it was impossible to make the determination before now, anyway. That Pepper has simply been living up there with a bunch of Montagnards, hiding from everyone, including their government. So Colonel Pham, or his boss if he wants, becomes the hero, instead of the Vietnamese being the villains.’
‘What about the fact that Pepper was a turncoat?’
‘We tell him we don’t know anything about that.’ Muir looked hard at Condley, his face bright with challenge. ‘Do we? I mean, truthfully, isn’t it a fact? We don’t even know who he is.’
‘Yet,’ said Condley, meeting the professor’s stare.
‘Exactly,’ answered Muir. ‘Yet. And if something comes out later, well, that’s later. If the media asks, the answer is that the Viets didn’t know and we didn’t know. All we have right now – that is, all we think we have, because even this isn’t certain – is an American in the mountains that they’re going to help us find. At least, we think he’s an American.’
‘You’re pretty smart,’ said Condley.
Muir grinned with satisfaction, folding his thick hands together on his heavy belly so that he looked like a contented Buddha. ‘Distance from the problem does have its advantages.’
The old waiter crept apologetically up to the table and handed Condley a grocery bag filled with bread. Then he refilled Condley’s coffee, quietly leaving the tab before he disappeared. Professor Muir glanced at the bag as he signed for the meal.
‘What are you doing with that bread?’
A tantalizing grin crept over Condley’s face. ‘Want to meet some interesting people? Some of them are women.’
Muir’s eyebrows arched quickly, giving away his interest as he stood up. ‘Well, I’m here on business.’
‘We’ve got several hours before we can meet with Colonel Pham. It’s a golf morning.’
Now Muir was smiling with an unconcealed, delicious anticipation. ‘The real Sai Gon?’
‘The Sai Gon you’ve never seen.’
Outside the restaurant, two gray-suited Japanese businessmen marched out of the elevator, followed by an older French couple dressed in almost identical baggy shorts and flowered shirts. The Japanese ignored them. The French couple looked at the two as if their presence in Sai Gon were a rude intrusion on their own antique, Francophone possession. Condley stepped inside the elevator and immediately pressed the button for the ground floor. Muir jumped in just as the doors were closing.
As the elevator descended, Condley found himself staring at a metal sign bolted to the wall next to the door. The sign said Nippon Elevator Company. Someone had scratched Nippon out with a room key or a knife. In Viet Nam it could have been anyone: Vietnamese, French, Aussies, Brits, Singaporeans, Koreans, even Americans. No one liked Nippon in Viet Nam, and maybe no one ever had. Underneath the sign was a metal screen covering a little loudspeaker. In Japan it probably serenaded passengers with elevator music, but in Viet Nam it no doubt listened as well as transmitted. That didn’t surprise him either. Even Muir would never fully believe it, but Vietnamese intelligence agents listened everywhere; on the street, in the bars, on the phones, even in your own room if they wanted to. And what better place to gain business intelligence than to listen inside the elevator of the famed Rex Hotel?
Someone had scratched up the loudspeaker too. Amused, Condley took out a key and scratched it some more.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Saying hello to Comrade Nguyen.’
‘As I said, Brandon, I think you need a vacation.’
The elevator reached the lobby. Condley stepped out, nodding to the uniformed elevator attendant and heading toward the front door. The lobby was filled with suitcases and jabbering French people, a tour group noisily checking out of the hotel. As they neared the outer door Muir finally grabbed him by the shoulder, halting him for a moment. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Sightseeing.’
Chapter Thirteen
Dzung was lazing in his cyclo in the park just across the street from the Rex. He bolted upright when he saw Condley walk out of the hotel, then waved with the innocent happiness of a young boy. In seconds he had jumped to the ground and pulled the cyclo into the street, ready to depart.
Striding toward him with Muir in tow, Condley pointed to a second cyclo driver calling to him in Vietnamese. When he reached Dzung, Condley put an arm around a reluctant, visibly addled Muir, introducing him. ‘Anh trai,’ he said, pretending that Muir was his older brother. ‘Hanson.’
‘Hanson? Oh, very good,’ said Dzung happily, watching Condley climb into the cyclo.
Condley pointed to the second cyclo. ‘Get in, Hanson.’
Muir swallowed, his eyes going wild with uncertainty. ‘Brandon, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is not my thing. It’s hot, it’s dirty. My stomach isn’t doing too well.’ He checked his watch again, as if it were a security blanket. ‘Let’s take a car. I’ll pay.’
‘You’ll pay anyway. Get in.’ Condley smiled easily. ‘You don’t want to take a taxi where we’re going.’
Muir climbed hesitantly aboard. His voice revealed his unease. ‘Where are we going?’
‘The real Sai Gon, Professor.’
Dzung pushed out into the traffic, crossing Le Loi Street, and soon was pedaling smoothly, comfortably, swaying side to side with the rhythm that allowed him to work his back muscles into the pedals. He leaned over Condley’s shoulder.
‘Where we go today, Cong Ly?’
‘We go to District Four.’
Dzung laughed excitedly, as if the thought were madness. He called rapidly to the other cyclo driver, whose name was Luong, and they chatted quickly as they made their way along Nguyen Hue Street. Then he leaned over Condley’s shoulder again.
‘District Four no good.’
‘You live in District Four.’
‘Yes, sir. I live in District Four.’
‘Then District Four is good.’
Dzung laughed again, exchanging glances with Luong. ‘Oh, thank you, sir, but District Four is very bad. Here in Sai Gon we say, if you want a nice house go to District Three. If you want good hotel, go to District One. If you want to die, go to District Four.’
Muir had been leaning forward in his seat in the other cyclo, trying to follow Dzung’s heavily accented English despite the distance and the traffic noise. Now he called to Condley. ‘What did he say about dying?’
‘He wasn’t talking about dying,’ lied Condley, turning around and watching his suffering, sweating friend as the cyclos wove their way along patched roads. He shouted over the noise of honking cars and droning motorbikes.
‘He said “dining.” District Four’s got a lot of good restaurants.’
‘Oh,’ said Muir uncertainly, checking his watch again and blinking exhaust fumes out of his eyes. ‘Well, we already ate.’ Muir thought about it some more. ‘Then why’d he say it was bad?’
‘Because he knew we already ate.’
‘I don’t believe you, Brandon.’
Just in front of them two motorbikes collided in the heavy traffic, sending their occupants spinning and sliding along the pavement. One, an older man wearing a worn brown army officer’s hat, whose fixed, stoic glare reminded Condley immediately of Colonel Pham, struggled to his feet and walked scraped and bleeding back to his bike. Picking it up, he drove away without so much as a word as blood dripped from his forehead and fingers. The other, a thin young man dressed in a flowing white shirt, lay motionless on the pavement, apparently out cold. The rear wheel of his motorbike still raced nearby as two pedestrians began to drag him out of the traffic, which had hardly slowed its incessant pace.
‘Too many Hon Da,’ noted Dzung philosophically.
‘I need to call Hawaii,’ moaned Muir, checking his
watch.
‘They’ll be there when we get back,’ laughed Condley. ‘If you make it back.’
Muir was sweating profusely, even more heavily than Luong, who was transporting him with the power of his thin, churning legs. ‘You know, Brandon, the reason I’ll never trust you is that you really, honestly don’t give a damn! If something happened to us you’d probably think it was cool! It’d show you had… balls.’
‘Relax, Professor. I’ve been out here a long time and I haven’t died once.’
‘You’re only making me more nervous. We’re heading out of the city. Where are we going? I really don’t need this. We have a very important job to do over the next few days.’
Condley looked back to Dzung, grinning conspiratorially and speaking in Vietnamese. ‘My brother’s afraid.’
Now Dzung’s face changed. Once publicly admitted, Muir’s fear became personal to him, a matter of his own responsibility and honor. He took control, as surely as if this were a combat mission a whole lifetime before. He angled his cyclo closer to Luong’s and moved just ahead of Muir, so that he was now looking down directly at him.
‘Mister Hanson! Sir!’ Muir looked up at him, and Dzung waved one arm into the air as he pedaled. ‘No problem. I know, I know. Khong co sao. It’s OK. You go by yourself, maybe some problem. You my customer, Cong Ly he my good friend.’
‘Are you sure?’
Dzung spoke rapidly to Luong, who now leaned over and patted Muir reassuringly on a shoulder. ‘No problem!’
Muir was unconvinced. He called over to Condley. ‘Why should I trust them?’
Condley chuckled, comfortable on his cyclo throne. ‘Because if you don’t you’ll really have a problem.’ He searched Muir’s reddened, sweating face as the traffic sped past them and noticed how tightly his hands gripped the side rails of the cyclo. For all his education, for all his competence, Muir was petrified simply to be out unprotected along the seedy edges of the city. ‘Calm down, Professor. If you ever double clutch out here you’re in trouble.’
‘What does that mean?’
Lost Soldiers Page 15