by Barry Eisler
In the thick traffic, the five-mile trip took almost an hour. I sat in the backseat, jostled by the occasional pothole, surrounded by the buzzing and honking of armadas of motorcycles, with nothing to do but watch and think.
I hadn’t ever intended to come back here. It’s not that I hated these people, although there are plenty of soldiers who still do—hell, there are American World War II vets who still hate the Japanese. I hated them at the time, yes. I wanted to hate them, to prove that despite my Asian face I was different, I was American, more American even than the soldiers who suffered and fought alongside me.
And there were plenty of opportunities to hate, plenty of reasons. The Vietnamese were masters of psychological torture. They could turn anything, any harmless, neutral thing in your environment, into something deadly, until the world itself started to seem like your enemy. They booby-trapped pens, C-ration cans, the bodies of dead soldiers. They hid trip wires behind branches and mines under the dirt. They would lay spikes alongside a road and then ambush you so when you dove for cover you’d be impaled.
Imagine losing a buddy that way, one of the men whose smile could always cheer you up, who’d saved your life, who had your back no matter what. Imagine how you would hate. But then imagine this. Before you’ve even had a chance to process what’s happened, while your uniform is still soaked with your friend’s hot blood, two guys you’ve never seen before and never will again have zipped him into a bag and tossed him rudely onto a medevac chopper, and an instant later he’s gone, so gone you wonder where all that blood could have come from. There’s no funeral, no burial, just a grief so confusing and bitter you start to choke on it, and the only thing that saves you from being paralyzed by that grief, being killed by it, is a rage so white-hot the sane can barely begin to imagine it.
The rage has a purpose, you see: it offers an outlet. But it carries a heavy price. You do things you couldn’t have imagined doing, couldn’t have imagined anyone doing, things you can’t talk about afterward, not even with the men who acted with you. In that state, the things that make you human, your empathy, even your fear, they’re gone. You feel like you’ve died already, and you’re right in a way, part of you has died and will never come back. At that point, being killed is almost a mercy. Because if you survive it, if you survive your own death, the path back to life is almost impossible. After the war, there were men, hollowed-out men whose means of negotiating the world had been reduced to alternating silence and rage, who would try with earnest futility to explain themselves that way. “I died there,” they would say.
I thought that, too, for a long time after. But now, watching from the back of a cab images of that stark country that had swallowed up my innocence, I thought, No, I didn’t die here. Vietnam is where I was born.
And I’d never left. Not really. I’d been back to the States, then all around the world, then finally settled, at least for a time, in Japan. But the person who was born here had never grown up, never fundamentally changed. His body had wandered, but his mind had remained in the place that had formed it.
Once, when I told Midori I wanted out of the business, she had asked me how hard I was trying. I felt my jaw clench at the memory. What horror had she ever endured? How could she, how could anyone who wasn’t there, imagine the way war changes you?
Losing people, and not being able to properly grieve them, shrinks your world. You try to avoid attachments, anything that could hurt if you lose it. You start to say don’t mean nothing about everything, the important things especially. You learn that only a few people can be trusted, fewer and fewer, in fact. You feel used by your own government. The equipment sucks, the orders suck, you know the politicians don’t give a shit if you live or die as long as they’re reelected. And then, if you’re special, the way I apparently was, you get sent on a certain mission, where you can kill your own out-of-control best friend: my blood brother Crazy Jake, still the most dangerous man I’ve ever known. That brings it all together: the horror, the stifled grief, the silence, the distrust, the raging, all-consuming hatred.
I got out of the cab in front of the Rex and declined a bellboy’s offer to help me with my bag. I wasn’t going to stay here, but I remembered the hotel from leave in Saigon and thought it would be a good starting point from which to refamiliarize myself with the city. I was glad it was still here, the silly crown over the marquee and all. Not just because it was inherently comforting to know that my memories weren’t only of relics, but also because familiar terrain would save me time and help keep me safe.
I looked across Le Loi Street and smiled. The oddly named Saigon Tax shopping center was still there, looking much as it did in my memory, the main difference being the replacement of a Sony neon sign by one advertising Motorola instead. The French-designed City Hall to the Rex’s right also remained, its cream-colored balustraded façade illuminated grandly in the day’s fading light.
I went into the hotel. The lobby had gotten a face-lift, but in its déclassé essentials it remained unchanged. I smiled in quiet amazement that a place could survive war, and communism, and the passing of decades so unperturbed. I moved in from the entryway, feeling like I was stepping back in time. The young man I was had come here with a prostitute, more than once. I was astonished at the clarity with which I could remember faces, and moments, even the names they had called themselves ten thousand nights ago.
I took an interior staircase to the fifth floor, and then, ignoring the signs warning that only registered guests were permitted beyond, I explored the mazelike interior of the hotel. Beyond the public areas, it was all as it had been: hallways with open balconies at their ends; faded wood paneling and stalwart tiled floors; empty couches facing upholstered chairs in hidden antechambers, coffee tables and ashtrays absurdly at the ready, set out in melancholy hopes of a party that had moved on decades before. Even the fat geckos, feasting on insects attracted to the corridors’ stark fluorescent lighting, it was as though it had all been waiting for me.
I followed one of the staircases down to the third floor, then made my way to a balcony at the end of the corridor. I had a perfect view of City Hall and the plaza in front of it. Excellent.
There was only one problem: a single inset incandescent light in the ceiling directly above me. I took out a handkerchief and un-screwed it a few turns until it went out. I doubted anyone would notice and fix it before tomorrow. If they did, I would just unscrew it again.
I took the stairs back down and walked over to the statue of Ho Chi Minh on the plaza in front of City Hall. I looked up at the hotel. The balcony I had darkened was noticeable, but not egregiously so. There were plenty of other lightless patches in the hotel’s façade, and I doubted Hilger would zero in on this one. Even if he did, he’d have no way of knowing I was standing there, shrouded in darkness.
Saigon Tax was a little less familiar, primarily because it had gone upscale since I had last seen it. In addition to jewelry, watches, plasma televisions, and home theater systems, there was a section selling Panasonic massage chairs. Slowly but surely, Saigon was getting rich. But the layout was as I remembered: four floors, with an open atrium from the ground floor all the way up; three sets of staircases, two escalators, one elevator; entrances and exits on three sides. Perfect.
Long into the night, I wandered District 1, the city center, re-familiarizing myself, absorbing details. It wasn’t just the Rex: I was astonished at how little the city itself had changed. I’d been to Bangkok less than a year earlier and the place was barely recognizable as the city I had first visited during the war, but communism had retarded things here, and it was only recently that Saigon had begun to take off. Some of the street names had changed, yes. And there were a few new high-rises—a Citibank building, one for HSBC—but the low skyline was largely the same. I recognized some of the Rex’s contemporaries: the Caravelle, with a tall new wing; the Majestic, still perched above the Saigon River. The presidential palace, whose wrought-iron gates had come crashing down under th
e North’s tank treads when the South fell in 1975, had been preserved and renamed the Reunification Palace, and was now a tourist attraction. I was amazed at the almost palpable presence of the young man who had walked these streets and seen these sights. I no longer was that man, but his memories were now mine, his dark gift to me; they united us as surely as the progeny of a dissolved and loveless marriage.
I walked. The ubiquity of commerce, I noted, that too was unchanged: motorcyclists offering impromptu taxi rides; stores selling a few spare feet in a corner for someone to park a scooter; street vendors hawking secondhand watches and rebuilt engines and coconut milk in plastic cups. The raw capitalism, the economic dynamism, of the place was stunning. I wondered why anyone had ever feared that communism could take root in this culture. The North had swallowed Saigon like a diner ingesting a virus, and within twenty years the virus had so infected the host that Hanoi was calling for doi moi, politely described as “reforms,” more accurately understood simply as “capitalism.” Save these people from communism? Christ, it was Hanoi that needed saving now. We could have just sat back and enjoyed the show.
But that would have required patience, I supposed, and perspective, too, neither of which was ever likely to feature prominently in anyone’s list of the top ten American virtues. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to participate in the current sequel: America Uses Military to Remake the Middle East and End Tyranny in Our Time.
Sequel, my ass, I thought. It’s a fucking remake. And the end is going to be just the same.
I was pleased to find the Opera House I remembered, now known as the Municipal Theater. Likewise, the Notre Dame cathedral, a remnant, along with City Hall, of French rule. I liked that the locals hadn’t tried to eradicate the country’s colonial heritage. Their acceptance, even embrace of the past suggested a cultural maturity I found I admired.
I smiled. Maybe I was giving them too much credit. Maybe they were just too busy making money to care.
I found a store that sold knives, where for ten dollars I bought a nameless folder with a four-inch blade. I would have preferred something higher-quality, but I had to settle for what was available. I slapped the spine of the blade against my palm a few times, and was satisfied the lock was adequate. Certainly the edge was sharp enough, at least for the time being. Dox, who could be almost fetishistic about what he carried, probably would have sneered at it. But I tend to be a meat-and-potatoes guy about blades: insert pointy end in target. Repeat as necessary. It’s always worked for me before.
The thought of the burly sniper bore down on me. I didn’t want to think of him just now—there was nothing I could do for him, so the thinking was a distraction, a waste. But for a moment, the sound of that last scream echoed in my mind, and my worry broke through. I paused and concentrated on where I was, what I was planning, until the emotion had passed.
As the night grew late, fatigue crept closer. Darkness softened the contours of the city around me, and my emboldened memories emerged like insistent stars in a fading sky. Kids, ten thousand miles from home and fresh from the jungle, delirious with sudden freedom and the absence of fear, loosed upon the city and looking for booze, girls, any kind of trouble. Crazy Jake, in a bar on Dong Khoi, berserking on a navy guy who’d said something stupid to him, then denying everything to the MPs after the guy had been ambulanced off, persuading them, his shark’s smile and the insanity in his eyes letting them know you fuck with me you better be ready to die. Everyone laughing nervously after the MPs had acknowledged their mistake and shoved off, everyone but Crazy Jake himself, who’d been ready to die right then, who’d actually expected it, and maybe was disappointed that yet again it hadn’t happened, that the gods of war had plans for him far from the artifice of the city with its lights and laughter and otherworldly rules.
I hadn’t thought of Crazy Jake in years. He had thrived on the madness of war, going deeper and deeper into that heart of darkness until he was possessed by it, until it infused his sinews and coursed in his veins. I was the only remaining person he trusted, and that’s why they sent me for him. He knew. I couldn’t have done it if he hadn’t let me. He couldn’t kill what he’d become. Someone else had to do it for him.
All at once I wanted badly to have four plain walls around me and to sleep, especially to sleep. I caught a ride on a motorcycle cab to the New World hotel, which my guidebook had informed me was large, anonymous, and popular with Japanese tour groups. I took a hot bath, fell into the adequate but unspectacular bed, and was gone as instantly as if I’d been humping a sixty-pound ruck through the jungle, rather than wandering streets haunted by the restless ghosts of that earlier time.
9
THE NEXT DAY, I continued to familiarize myself with the terrain: the patterns of traffic (there weren’t any); presence of security (in front of banks, jewelry stores, and higher-end hotels); the best vantage points (the Rex, Saigon Tax, some of the hotel restaurants). I looked for anything out of place, any signs of a setup. I experimented with different personas. As an American, and carrying a map, I was assailed with offers of rides on motorcycles and in cyclos; as a Japanese, less so; when I’d bought some local clothes and started imitating the walk, the posture, the expressions of the natives, I was left alone entirely.
I had a lunch of pho noodle soup and watermelon juice, then bought a camera tripod to augment the Nikon D70 digital SLR I had brought with me. I finished mapping things out and was satisfied. After that, I had nothing to do but wait.
AT SIX O’CLOCK that evening, the sun had set, but the air was still hot and wet. The back and chest of my shirt were dark with sweat, the shifting crowds and insectile drone of motorcycles close upon me. I stopped in an ice cream shop around the corner from the Rex to rest and wait. I bought a cone and enjoyed it, along with the scant, periodic relief offered by a lone oscillating ceiling fan. Thirty people were crammed into the seats around me, but they paid me no heed. I’d picked up the local vibe and faded right into it.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at the readout—Dox’s mobile—and picked up. “Yeah.”
“I’m here,” Hilger said. “In the city. Where are you?”
I put a fifty-thousand dong note on the table and started moving. “District One. You?”
“The same. Where are we going to do this?”
I kept moving, watching the sidewalk and street. “You know the HSBC building?”
“No, but I’m sure I can find it.”
“Ask anyone. You can see it from most of District One—there aren’t many high-rises. There’s a coffee shop on the ground floor. Meet me there in ten minutes.”
I clicked off and headed into the Rex. Two minutes later, I was in my third-floor balcony perch. No one had fixed the lightbulb. I set up the camera and tripod, then looked down at the statue of Ho through the 400mm telephoto lens. I could see every detail. If anyone asked, I was just a Japanese photography hobbyist, trying to capture the essence of the plaza below me. But I didn’t expect to be challenged. The Rex was never that kind of place.
Ten minutes later, my phone rang again. It was Hilger. “You’re not here,” he said.
“I got nervous. I wanted something more public.”
There was a pause. “Don’t fuck with me, Rain. If I abort this meeting, your friend is going to die.”
That was a bluff. Whatever he wanted from me, he wanted it badly enough to have come this far. I could safely take him along a little farther.
“I’m not fucking with you,” I said. “Just walk to the City Hall, the huge French building a block south of you. There’s a plaza in front of the building with a statue of Ho Chi Minh. Lots of people around. Meet me in front of the statue.”
Two minutes later, he showed. Through the camera lens, I could see everything in the brightly lit plaza, even the beads of perspiration on Hilger’s face. His right side was to me. I didn’t see an earpiece. So far, so good.
This time I called him. “Are you there yet?” I asked.
He looked around.
“Yeah, I’m here. Why aren’t you?”
“I’m being careful.”
“You’re being too careful. You’re going to blow this whole thing.”
“How do I know you’re not setting me up?
“You’re the one who asked for this meeting, remember?”
There was a pause. I said, “There’s a shopping center right in front of you, if your back is to City Hall. Saigon Tax, the one with the big Motorola sign on the façade, across the street from the Sheraton. With a Citibank building visible behind it. I’m inside, in the Góc Saigon café. Rooftop of the shopping center. Come on up and you can find me.”
I watched him glance behind, then to the sides, then up at the buildings around him. I waited, and was rewarded with a close view of his left ear—empty, like his right. His eyes swept right over the dark spot where I stood. That’s right, I thought. I might be here. Or in Saigon Tax. Or in a room at the Sheraton. Or maybe I set up video in one of the vans in front of the Rex and I’m watching you remotely. Or I’m not watching you at all. The point is, you don’t fucking know.
He clicked off without a word and headed up the plaza, toward Saigon Tax. I tracked him through the camera for a moment, then watched the plaza unaided.
A few seconds later, I spotted a burly blond guy moving casually behind Hilger and in the same direction. I looked through the camera and saw that his eyes were everywhere, taking in all the details, his head tracking slowly left and right as he walked. The visual alertness was out of sync with the casual gait, and I made him as Hilger’s backup. I made him so fast, in fact, that I wondered for a moment whether he was supposed to serve not just as backup, but also as a distraction. The idea is, the opposition knows you’re looking for backup, or for surveillance, or whatever, so it serves up exactly what you expect. And because you’ve now spotted the danger you knew was going to be there, your mind unconsciously closes to other, less obvious possibilities. I knew there was going to be something…oh, there it is! is the mindset of amateurs and others without much hope of longevity in this business. I knew there was going to be something…there’s one, now where are the others? is the mindset of survivors.