Play the Red Queen

by Juris Jurjevics

  A pair of Marine guards waved me past the sentry box at the residence gate. The white stucco house looked like a modest mansion on Philly’s Main Line.

  An elderly male servant knelt on the grass, pouring salt into an old-fashioned ice cream bucket while a woman cranked the handle and churned. A lance corporal in camouflage utilities squatted next to them, advising. A new Air Force AR-15 lay across his knees. The old man looked up from his labors and gave me a toothy gold smile.

  Gravel crunched underfoot as I tromped up the inclined driveway. A Marine in battle dress peered down at me from his balcony perch on top of the portico. On the raised patio at the side of the house, a woman sat watching the twilight fade. Behind her, French doors stood open to the evening. White blurs of blossoms wound around a trellis, scenting the oncoming darkness. Bats darted overhead, scooping insects from the air. A manservant lit large hanging coils that would smoke and smolder, keeping mosquitoes away.

  I mounted the steps to the front door. A maid showed me to a sitting room, where a little green light pulsed to the music on the Grundig radio-gramophone as Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars blasted out their New Orleans rendition of “Ochi Chernyie” on the turntable under the raised lid.

  Over the mantel hung a large painting of a very white woman lying very naked on a velvet couch, her pussy showing. An Italian gent was admiring it and asked if I didn’t think the “craquelure” was fantastic. Looked pretty average to me.

  Emily Lodge came through the French doors in a dress of tangerine colored Thai silk and introduced us to one another—Ambassador Giovanni d’Orlandi of Milan, dean of the Saigon diplomatic corps. And me, US Army gendarme, Detective Ellsworth Miser from Philly.

  D’Orlandi shook my hand enthusiastically. “Nadja’s young man!”

  Emily Lodge looked momentarily confused until he explained. “He’s seeing one of ICC’s loveliest young associates. A delightful Polish girl with a degree from London.”

  Emily Lodge gave me a knowing look. My secret was out. A servant girl offered us glasses of prosecco and spicy pork balls on a bed of banana leaves, usually served raw. Mercifully, these had been cooked. A male servant drew the curtains on the picture window and turned on more lights.

  Ambassador Lodge came downstairs wearing pleated trousers, shiny loafers without socks, and a pink-and-yellow striped dress shirt. He shook my hand and embraced the Italian. Though ten years younger than Lodge, d’Orlandi looked older, plagued by a parasite that had made itself at home in his gut, he said, and quickly changed the subject.

  We were led into yet another room, filled floor to ceiling with empty shelves. The Italian and I took armchairs; Emily and Lodge, the couch. A huge vase on a side table overflowed with snapdragons, daisies, and what looked like a version of my uncle’s zinnias. From Dalat, Emily said. A houseman poured drinks and the two ambassadors got right into it, d’Orlandi working hard to make his host think better of President Diem.

  “Et tu, Giovanni?” Lodge said with a laugh, but grew serious as he listened, shaking his head no. “Diem takes all our aid and refuses all our advice. Diem doesn’t govern like a president. He rules like a patroon. The government looks like the Ngo family tree. Cousins, uncles, nephews. Anyone with authority is connected to Diem by blood or marriage. Competence seems an obsolete concept.”

  “Sir, this is Asia,” I said. “Nobody trusts anybody outside of family.”

  “What would he need to do to rehabilitate himself in your eyes?” d’Orlandi asked.

  “Do one thing we’ve asked him to. Any one. Washington pressed him for accommodation on the Buddhist question,” Lodge said. “He insisted he would—and hasn’t. Same with land reform. He doesn’t budge. Or dissolve the Personalist Party and allow genuine opposition parties to form. Promises, always promises. Never action. We would especially appreciate it if the South Vietnamese actually took the field to confront the Communist threat. Instead, the units hunker in stand-down positions so they can dash to Saigon to protect Diem if and when there’s a coup. He has taken the Special Forces we’ve paid for and trained and turned them into a private security force for his own family.”

  “The internal threats against his administration are real.”

  “True enough,” Lodge conceded. “And most of them he’s brought on himself.”

  “Diem needs help,” d’Orlandi said.

  “And we’re ready to provide it. Washington is of a mind to bring in American troops. But Diem won’t hear of it, even though his huge army is moribund and the government completely seized up. Frozen in mid-crisis while he burrows into the tiniest administrative details. Does this village get electricity? Does that hotel get a permit to build? You’ve seen the state of his office in the palace. Stacks of passports, waiting for his personal blessing because Diem insists on signing every one of them himself. Student visas rot on his desk so long the kids with free rides in overseas colleges lose their scholarships. Inexcusable. While guerillas gnaw at the country’s guts and monks incinerate themselves in the streets, he busies himself with minor bureaucratic labors. He delegates nothing.” Lodge was indignant. “One whole side of the office is lined with sideband radios he uses to order around his troops in the field. Some units have to report their positions to him every hour. That’s bloody insane, never mind inefficient.” He opened his hands in a helpless gesture. “We may have to disassociate ourselves if this goes on much longer.”

  Washington would bring Diem to heel or find another top dog to supply with money, coaches, combatants. I wondered if Diem’s face would appear in the clouds.

  D’Orlandi looked thoughtfully at his drink. “I am not sanguine about President Diem’s chances of remaining in power. But I don’t see a viable alternative.”

  Lodge smiled. “Our ambassador to India likes to say, ‘Nothing succeeds like successors.’ There’s always someone to step into the breach. He needn’t be perfect. He could hardly be worse.”

  Emily Lodge looked uncomfortable. Trying to distract her guest and husband for her, I said, “Have you heard about the magic fish in Quang Nam province?” All three shook their heads. “There’s this gigantic old carp in a pond in Quang Nam. The local Buddhists claim the fish is a disciple of Buddha so the pond’s become a pilgrimage site. The powers here in Saigon started getting nervous that hundreds of Buddhist pilgrims could easily turn into protesters, so Colonel Tung dispatched some of his Red Berets to Quang Nam.”

  “Who will rid me of this turbulent carp?” Emily said, laughing.

  “The Red Berets sprayed the pond with automatic fire. Nothing. They covered the surface with bread crumbs to attract the fish, then tossed in grenades. The carp kept swimming. Believers started coming from all over the country to commune with the remarkable fish and drink the miraculous pond water, including ARVN soldiers. So government flunkies planted the story that the water was poisoned. Which changed nothing, except now the visitors started to protest the government’s actions. They can’t kill the carp, and they can’t stop the demonstrations. My mama-san at the Majestic said it was an omen.”

  The Lodges laughed politely. The Italian commissioner didn’t.

  “Cabot’s grandfather’s dearest friend became a Buddhist monk,” Emily Lodge told d’Orlandi, trying to lighten the mood. D’Orlandi apparently didn’t find the image of a Boston Brahmin sitting cross-legged in a three-piece suit as funny as I did. He looked grim, whether from the trouble in his gut or the attitude of the American ambassador, I couldn’t tell.

  Seeing that her first attempt hadn’t worked, Emily Lodge tried again. “Counselor Nhu,” she said, “was very sweet with his wife last month at Tan Son Nhut.”

  “Oh, yes?” d’Orlandi said.

  “Nhu and the children were seeing her off on her grand tour. Remember ours, Cabot?” she said to her husband, happiness lighting her elegant face.

  “Good gracious,” Lodge said. “We were in our twenties. Ne
wlyweds.”

  D’Orlandi brightened. “You honeymooned in Asia, Emily?”

  “We did. We were here, in Saigon, thirty-five years ago. It was enchanting.” She and Lodge gazed at one another.

  “You were enchanting,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.

  A gong announced dinner and he extended a hand to help her up.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Four places were set at the far end of a long candlelit table. Orchids bloomed on the serving counter laid out with shelled lobsters and an artichoke salad. A houseboy poured a French white wine. The first course was crab and soupe Chinoise.

  D’Orlandi and Lodge did most of the talking over dinner while I daydreamed about the fancy meals I’d treat Nadja to when Flip and I pulled off our little redistribution of oil-company wealth. Seeing I wasn’t following the diplomatic back-and-forth, Emily Lodge quietly surprised me with questions about my “young lady” and the difficulties of dating in a besieged city where the usual forms of entertainment had been outlawed.

  “You’re a fortunate young man,” she said, “to have found love in this troubled place. Tell me, what’s been the biggest obstacle?”

  “Probably that she’s a Communist.”

  She burst out laughing, as if I’d made a joke. Lodge and d’Orlandi stopped mid-sentence and looked over to see what had her so amused.

  Dessert was homemade mango ice cream doused with Courvoisier, accompanied by dark-roast Vietnamese coffee from a highland plantation. D’Orlandi asked to speak with the ambassador privately.

  Emily offered me port. No one had ever done that before. I pretended to ponder.

  “Whiskey it is,” she teased. “Ice?”

  “Straight, please.”

  “Here you are, Agent Miser,” she said, “neat.” She handed me the heavy crystal glass just as the power failed. “Oh, how irritating.”

  Outside, Marines called to one another as they hurried to the perimeter. Emily began to light candles on a side table. Their flames flashed all around the room, reflected by mirrors on the walls behind them.

  Blinking at the sudden glare, she said, “We’re still settling in and I haven’t had time to do anything about those mirrors.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “They’re eight-sided.”

  “They are, aren’t they,” she said, peering at them. “They’re scattered all around the house.”

  “Buddhist clergy must have installed them. They fend off unhappy ghosts, I think.”

  “Ghosts. Really? Do you believe in ghosts?”

  In Viet Nam, how could you not? I thought. “Vietnamese do, ma’am. Your staff does. Your servants and groundskeepers will leave if you remove the mirrors and disturb the spirits.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind. Why would they think unhappy souls were hanging around the premises?”

  “Something could’ve happened here.”

  “Something untoward? Here in the house?”

  “Yes, or somewhere in the compound.”

  “I should look into that.” She stared out into the darkness, sampling her port. “Did you know that Cabot resigned his Senate seat to go to the war?”

  “No,” I lied. I’d seen that in his file.

  “Washingtonians were shocked. No one had done anything like that since the Civil War. Our sons were twelve and nine when he joined. He was forty-two. Assigned to an armor battalion in North Africa. So happy in his tank. I prayed he’d come home to us and he did. He was lucky; we were lucky. The thought of losing him now is more than I can bear.” She faced me straight on. “President Diem has hundreds of bodyguards and thousands of soldiers at his beck and call.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve seen what passes for the ambassador’s security?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I have.”

  “When we first arrived in Saigon, we had just one sleepy old man guarding our place. Freddy Flott and Mike Dunn were staying with us temporarily and appointed themselves our sentries. They slept on a rug in front of our door and took turns on watch, weapons at hand, until real guards could be arranged.”

  “You’ve got Marines now,” I said.

  “Yes, thank goodness.” She tipped her head slightly.

  “And I’m putting two good CIDs on his tail, starting in the morning.”

  “Thank you for that. I wish it could be twenty. I worry Cabot enjoys taking risks. He likes the exhilaration. Hates sitting at a desk.” She glanced away. “I almost hope he doesn’t try for the presidency. He’d loathe the administrative part.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I sipped the whiskey, almost as old as I was, and a lot smoother.

  “You’re pursuing the assassin who may be after Cabot and President Diem.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we are.”

  “She seems quite remarkable.” Lodge didn’t want her to worry; apparently she didn’t want to worry him, either, and had let him believe she knew nothing. But if she already knew her husband was in danger, I saw no reason not to be direct.

  “She gets it done.”

  “That’s what scares me.” She held her glass in both hands. “My husband likes you, thinks you’re smart—and lucky for him.”

  I kept silent, a little surprised to learn he thought of me as a rabbit’s foot.

  The Italian ambassador and Lodge were returning. “Sergeant,” she said, dropping her voice, “please do whatever you can to keep my husband safe.”

  It was almost nine-thirty, the ambassador’s well-known bedtime. Ambassador d’Orlandi thanked the Lodges for their hospitality and departed. Emily retired as well, leaving me alone with the ambassador, who plied me with more whiskey and, taking a candle, led me onto the dark patio where the white blossoms shone in the dark.

  “Your security detail lets you go outside after sundown?”

  “They’re all right with it as long as we don’t have too many candles out here or silhouette ourselves against the glass doors when the power is on.” He scraped back a wrought-iron chair and sat down. “Any progress on finding our comely young killer? Did the interrogation report help?”

  “Some,” I said. “Not enough.”

  “Any idea what she might have against a nice fellow like me?”

  “It could be your suspending the economic aid program.”

  “How extraordinary. What’s the connection?”

  I considered telling him about Major Furth’s damning report, the hucksters, the double-dealing importers, the siphoned monies, the laundering, the whole stinking mess. Then I thought better of it.

  I said, “The MAAG officers she’s killed all worked on the Commodity Import Program one way or another. The ARVN general she stabbed to death at the Continental was in charge of its finances. You’re the official who shut it off.”

  “So the trail leads her to my door.” He sipped his whiskey.

  “Possibly. Yes, sir. That and your position. Your rank as the senior American in-country is more than enough to tempt her. She aims high.”

  “Speaking of aiming high, you should be aware that things are heating up in Saigon. CIA says an assassination attempt on Counselor Nhu was aborted at the last second earlier today.”

  “Nhu? Where did this go down?”

  Lodge swatted his neck and checked his hand. “Just north of town. An attempted ambush of his Mercedes.”

  “The Red Queen?” With no love lost between Washington and Nhu, we’d never considered he might be the Americans’ Old Fox.

  “No. Strictly in-house. South Vietnamese army snipers, American trained. They had clear shots. But apparently they were called off.”

  “What spoiled it? Were Nhu’s kids in the car with him?”

  “No.”

  “A foreign dignitary?”

  “No. Only he and General D
on were in the limo. Don is Chief of the Joint General Staff but the title is hollow, like Big Minh’s.” He put down his glass. “Neither one actually commands anything.”

  I waved away a buzzing mosquito. “Do we know who any of these coup conspirators are?” I said, curious to see if Lodge would make me part of the we.

  Lodge fluffed his open shirt, fanning himself. “The generals? No. I wish I knew. I only have the names of a few junior officers in the younger coup group.”

  With a go-between to the plotters in place, Lodge had to know exactly who all the leaders were. Then again, he’d never promised me candor. Just asked for mine.

  “I think we know one,” I said.

  “Who?” Lodge raised his chin.

  “The general sitting beside Nhu in the Mercedes.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Moehlenkamp called from Tay Ninh to say he might have a lead on the Red Queen. He was anxious for us to get there. Corporal Magid offered to drive us to the airport but got called into Deckle’s office, leaving Robeson and me to hail a taxi out to Tan Son Nhut.

  Air Vietnam and KLM prop jets were lined up single file, roasting on the civilian side of the airfield behind the international flights. First in the queue, an Air France Boeing, made its dash and took off, heading for Tokyo, then across the Pole to Paris, another fifteen hours away.

  On the military side of the airfield, at the Thirty-Third Tactical, a bunch of Americans in khakis and civilian clothes stood alongside a mob of ARVN soldiers, all waiting to learn where the half-dozen US aircraft would be flying to. The only transport headed for Tay Ninh was a war plane pregnant with rockets and ordnance to be delivered onto Communist enclaves and two major supply trails in the border province.

  A trio of bombers idled, engines churning, waiting their turn to power into the air. Ahead of them, a pair of overloaded jet fighters released brakes and raced down the strip to struggle into the sky. I called Captain Deckle on an Air Force phone circuit to report our lack of progress. He wasn’t happy.