Targets: A Vietnam War Novel

by Don McQuinn

  Behind Miller, straddling his motorcycle, sunglasses and pulled-down hat masking his face, Sergeant Chi decided it was all right to break off his surveillance. He watched Miller make the turn back to the compound and drove past it himself. A few blocks further on he bought a soft drink from a pushcart vendor and relaxed in the shade to enjoy it.

  Everything was going as it should, he told himself, swirling the bottle and watching the liquid form a bubbly whirlpool. The black sergeant believed Trung Ta Tho was the one who diverted the file clerk in Special Branch. Chi smiled, remembering the sergeant’s nervous request for assistance. The smile grew wider as he pictured the expression on that face if he should ever learn that his request never reached Tho and the informant at Special Branch was a Chi nephew. Immediately, however, he was beset by the unwanted picture of Trung Ta Tho’s face if he should learn the same thing.

  He shook his head to chase away such unpleasantness.

  After all, Miller had asked him to speak to Tho, and he had convinced Miller that Tho was taking care of the matter and that no mention of their arrangement must ever reach Dai Ta Winter or Dai Ta Loc. There would be no problems and Miller was protected, free to pursue his single-handed war.

  Everything was going as it should.

  Chapter 34

  The interrogation of Tu had gone on for almost exactly two months and Taylor was so sick of it he dreaded thinking about it. Initially he had called on Tu at all hours of the day and night, keeping him confused and off balance. Further, he let Tu know he was available whenever Tu felt like talking, provided the subject was of interest to his captors. Taylor was accommodating, demanding, dependable, and unpredictable. The result was an emotional dependency on Tu’s part, and there grew from it a blighted relationship resembling friendship in the way flood-driven animals are said to co-exist peaceably on high ground. Neither man ever allowed himself to wonder what might happen if the rains stopped.

  Or didn’t.

  For his own part, Taylor entertained the same contempt for Tu as ever. The warm greetings, farewells, and confidences never altered the memory that Tu had hoped to see him gutted on the deck of Trung’s apartment. In Taylor’s mind, Tu’s imprisonment was no more than a muzzle on a rabid dog.

  On the other hand, Tu zealously banked the coals of his hatred for Taylor. He despised Taylor’s sympathy and cursed himself for discussing his own underground activities, but he did it, because it was the only coin that bought companionship. He told himself the information was too old to be important, laughing to himself at the eager acceptance, then beat his fists on the concrete walls after Taylor had gone. He seized small rewards for being especially cooperative only to revile himself all the more in retrospect.

  It was an insane union where hate, scorn, and repugnance were drowned in the juices of the brain and allowed to surface as warmth and welcome. Tu consoled himself that he was a prisoner, hoping against hope that someday he would be free and his superiors would never learn of his breakdown. Taylor consoled himself that every aspect of the technique he was using had been spawned by objectively analytical men in the Lubianka, Pyongyang, and Peking. Occasionally stories filtered through of the treatment afforded the American and ARVN prisoners held in the north or by the VC. He avoided thinking of them because when he did he caught himself enjoying each tiny purchase he achieved on Tu’s soul. It made him feel like a man enjoying the screams of a rabbit being screwed out of its burrow in the grip of a cleft stick.

  Tu had been helpful, his information more timely than he would ever admit. To Taylor’s pleasure, Tu now lumped Trung with the profiteers so mutually despised by both sides. He supplied every contact of Trung’s and garnished that list with people he suspected. Informants confirmed that Trung’s business was faltering and he seemed unwelcome in circles where his popularity once soared. Tu brightened at each revelation Taylor supplied, concentrating his eroded face into an even tighter effort, trying to think of something else damaging. He damned Trung at every opportunity with the joy of a man who has found his personal scapegoat.

  Eventually Tu told Taylor that Binh had a wife and daughter living in Saigon.

  Winter and Loc bayed like hounds and drove the Unit and every source they could reach to work on finding them. Every imaginable record was checked, double-checked, cross-checked. The woman and her child were sought by scores with the frenzy of conquistadors pursuing El Dorado.

  No one turned so much as a name.

  Winter reflected the defeat with increasing bitterness, spending ever more time in his office, alone. His bearing remained erect and his manner was as correct as could be asked, but he developed a shortness in his answers and a psychological distance that seemed to increase with every minute spent in his presence. Harker suffered with him. He watched Winter with steady anticipation, secure that this personality would soon revert to the old one. As the days passed and Winter only became worse, Harker’s attitude also changed. The only question in the minds of the remaining men in the Unit was how much of the new Harker was the result of Winter’s performance and how much reflected inward anguish over the ambush that had crippled Allen. The two subjects came to dominate his conversation and the others avoided him. To Harker, he was being rejected, and he didn’t know why. He became aloof. Most recently he’d taken to volunteering to do the liaison work with the other organizations searching for Binh’s wife and child. Reports came back that he was surly, critical, and threw Winter’s weight around unbearably.

  All those things moved through Taylor’s mind as he stood in the hall outside Winter’s office, waiting to be called inside. He also thought how uncharacteristic it was of Winter to keep someone waiting, then corrected himself. It used to be uncharacteristic. It was the small incivilities that constituted the major change in Winter.

  “Come.” The single word rapped command. Taylor entered and assumed a parade rest stance in front of the desk. A manila folder lay on it, red classification stamps and security admonitions glaring like angry scars. Winter acknowledged him with a curt nod, not bothering to look up or offer a seat.

  “We haven’t heard anything from your work with Tu for a few days,” he said. “When’ll he give us something we can use?”

  “He may never. I’m pushing as hard as I can, sir.”

  “Possibly. I’ve been thinking.” Moving quickly, Winter spun his chair to face the wall and its puffing air-conditioner. “Maybe you’ve gotten as much out of him as you’ll ever get with this buddy-buddy act. A few rounds with Tho and Chi ought to just about wring him dry enough to hang out.”

  “No way, Colonel. We’ve got him to the point he’s virtually one of us. He needs to talk and we’re the only ones he can talk to. If you could see—”

  “I know, I know. I get the same shit from Tho, through Loc. I’m still not convinced. I can’t believe he doesn’t know where the woman’s hiding. You say he wants to talk? Good.” As quickly as before, the chair spun and Taylor was struck by the bite in Winter’s eyes and voice. “Let Tho hook his balls to that telephone generator and I promise you, when Tho rings, Tu answers.”

  Taylor failed to completely repress a shiver and it aggravated him. His own voice rose. “All that was tried. Well, not all, I admit. Tu’s never been tortured. But that’s a good thing. I don’t think even Tho will agree with you, Colonel.”

  “He’ll do what he’s told, Major.” The comment hung in the air between them, rotten with implication. Winter looked almost expectant and Taylor wondered, with a cold feeling inside, if Winter was actually hoping he’d respond in anger and lay himself open to a riposte.

  He said, “Yes, sir.”

  The studied neutrality deflated Winter. He dropped his gaze back to the papers on his desk. “See what else you can get from the sonofabitch.”

  Taylor repeated his answer and was turning to leave when Winter stopped him.

  “Sit down, sit down. Stay a minute.” The brusque words and gesture were belied by the voice. As Taylor sat on the edge of the sofa,
Winter threw him a warped smile.

  “I’ve been letting things get to me,” he confessed, lighting one of his heavy cigars. He rolled it around in his mouth before continuing. “To be so near, Tay, so damned close, and come up empty. Do you think Tu’s got anything more we can use? Really?”

  “I don’t think he’s holding out on us, Colonel. He may know something he hasn’t used. He holds back pieces because he knows that’s why we come to see him, but I think if he knew where the woman lives, he’d have said so. On the other hand, he may know something he doesn’t know he knows, some little piece of information we can use to lock it all in place. We’re working on it.”

  Winter sighed through the curling smoke and the column shattered in wild swirls. “Well, keep at him. Maybe we get a break.” He laughed. “As if it made any difference. Maybe Harker’s got the right idea. He was saying last night that he realizes he can’t do a thing about Allen’s leg but he’s determined to put as much hurt on Charlie as he can. Inflicting pain. It seems to be becoming our reason for existence.”

  Still wary, Taylor restricted his response to a nod.

  Winter continued, the cadence of his words much more rapid than usual. “I’ve let things slide to some degree around here. I want you to know I’m aware of it. From now on, Binh gets first priority, but that’s all. He’s not the whole show anymore. I’ll be paying more attention to Denby’s work, for one thing.”

  “What work?” The scorn popped out before he could stop it and Taylor braced himself.

  Instead of anger, genuine amusement broke across the solid features. “ ‘What work,’ indeed. He’s been very busy, actually, trying to hold back Miller. While Denby’s trying to produce the ultimate operation plan, Miller and Minh have produced some respectable drug leads and Miller’s pretty close to some of the help and hangers-on at that Major’s bar.”

  Taylor allowed himself to relax a little. “We may be losing our good Sergeant Miller to the crass world of commerce.” At Winter’s expected surprise, Taylor continued, “He left a letter lying on his desk the other day when he had to answer the phone. I looked down, and there was the letterhead, some import-export business in New Orleans. Probably a connection with Ordway, you know? He was from Louisiana.”

  “God, I hope he’s not thinking of getting out. We’ve got too few like him.”

  “A fact. And what about Harker?”

  Winter’s face clouded. “I can’t be sure. I think he intends to make it a career. I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I’m not sure at all, anymore.”

  “I haven’t spoken to him much lately, but he seems basically sound. He’s just letting this thing with Allen get to him. He’ll get over it.”

  “I hope you’re right. We had dinner last night at the My Canh, that floating restaurant. You know what I got for table talk? Him telling me about a guy who used to take a couple of street kids there for dinner every week. Treated a couple different ones to dinner each time. His contribution to something, I don’t know. Anyhow, the day Charlie set off the bomb in the place, the guy was there with the kids. One of them was a little girl and she got away from him after the blast and took off across the gangplank for shore, just like Charlie figured. She, and the others, didn’t know he’d put a claymore on the bank. When it went, it took her head off, and that’s the way the guy found her. Harker says they shipped him home in a week, still talking to himself.”

  Taylor swallowed. “So he’s getting morbid. He’s been here too long.”

  “Morbid? Not morbid, Tay. You didn’t hear him. He hates now, truly hates. I want you to keep an eye on him as best you can. Talk to him from time to time.”

  “I’ll try. He’s pretty cold to everyone lately.”

  “I know.” With the words, years seemed to fall in on the older man. His head sagged and his hands curled into weak fists on the desk. “Make a try. He’s worth the effort.”

  “For sure.” Taylor rose. “Anything else, sir? I’d planned to see Tu today—”

  “Do it,” Winter interrupted, waving him out. “We’ve all got work to do.”

  With Taylor gone, he settled back, drawing on the cigar luxuriously.

  He let his mind wander, exercising only enough selectivity to confine himself to the past two months. Faces came and went and he reflected with pride that the Unit had accomplished some things while suffering few casualties. Allen’s was the worst, by far. The other attrition was administrative. He’d have lost Allen anyway, which was a hell of a way to look at things, but there you were. Then there was Ordway and Kimble. Taylor was getting short, and Harker’s extension would be running out. He made a mental note to recommend disapproval if he tried for another extension. Denby was almost through. There’d be a request for early rotation from that one in a few days. Even Miller would be leaving soon, despite his recent interest in extending.

  He was going to continue on down the truncated roster, but something about Miller, something no more than a mental hangnail, stopped him.

  There was something strange about Miller’s attitude and he made another mental mark to find out what had increased the Sergeant’s devotion to duty so markedly. Four months ago he’d have died if anyone said extension within his hearing. Perhaps Denby had an idea. Or Taylor.

  Small matter. It was winding down. Well, if Nixon was going to pull them out, better to do it and have done. Maybe Harker had a point—take out as many of the opposition as possible and fade out.

  The knock on the interoffice door was so weak it was a second before his mind reacted to it. Hurriedly, he said, “Come in, Loc, come in!” He was poised, expectant, when Loc eased into the room. A nervous, sweating Duc followed, grinning and nodding in a welter of uncertainty.

  “Sit over there,” Loc directed and the unusual directness of the order warned Winter that something was about to break. Loc seated himself on the sofa, across the room from the now clearly frightened Duc. He took a moment to compose himself, using it to inspect creases and the drape of his uniform.

  “Major Duc has just revealed some interesting developments. I will let him tell you of them.” He fixed Duc with a baleful eye and busied himself with a cigarette as the rotund Major cleared his throat several times and began in careful Vietnamese.

  “I am certain you remember the woman, Tuyet, who worked with Trung, Tu, and the man who died when they were captured. Perhaps though you have forgotten, with so much on your mind and she is an insignif—”

  Loc hissed.

  Without missing a beat, Duc said, “The woman works for us now, but she has been unproductive until recently. She indicated she wished to see me last night and I met her. She has observed a curious thing in the past months.”

  He paused for breath and Loc’s head swung his way. Duc pretended not to notice, but his recital speeded appreciably.

  “In the past week or ten days, Trung has had little trouble getting merchandise for his bar. Tuyet was considering quitting work there because his black market connections were failing. He could provide no access to anything and was even short of supplies for the bar. Now there is plenty of everything. She knew the change was important and followed Trung on three afternoons when she knew he was making business calls. On each occasion, he was picked up by a car at his home. Tuyet followed in a cab. I have reimbursed her.”

  “The important points,” Loc suggested.

  Still not looking toward him, Duc went on. “She was unable to identify the man Trung met, but she learned that the man who picks him up works for an American. Yesterday she followed the driver after he returned Trung to his home. The man went to this address and entered the house.” He moved to Winter’s desk and placed a typed copy of his report on it, tapping it with a finger.

  “The address is that of Mr. Benjamin Barline. Colonel Loc says you know of him.”

  “Barline?” Winter repeated the name as a whisper, repeating it, louder. “Barline? Are you telling me he is involved with the VC? I cannot believe it! He hates us, but he is not one of them!
Has anyone checked? Who have you told?”

  “It has not been pursued,” Duc answered quickly, “but a records check shows no suggestion of Barline being a communist.”

  Loc gestured Duc to silence and took over the conversation. “And we have told no one because we are uncertain how to treat the information. But we can draw some very interesting conclusions. While you have been cursing Barline’s reports, I have made it a point to analyze what he has written about. He is a most industrious man, my friend. And lucky beyond belief. Did you realize that when the Vietnamese workers went on strike against the Morris-Knudsen construction company, Barline reported it would happen before the company was aware of the plan? Two days before the Tet attack, he was in Singapore. He returned in time to file amazingly accurate reports about the start of the operation. In fact, he was in the Cho Lon district only hours before the first VC troops entered and at one time made it back to the center of the city through their lines, within blocks of where another group of journalists was shot down by the same VC. And just about two months ago, when some monks attacked the police around their temple, it was a surprise to the police, but Barline was there, as was a cameraman associated with him.”

  Winter gestured wearily. “All right, all right. He’s being tipped off. I don’t believe he works with the VC.”

  “Nor do I,” Loc agreed, his voice scalpel sharp, “but I am certain the VC works with him. I believe he is informed and I’m certain he has, quote, antigovernment, unquote, sources.”

  “The driver?”

  Loc stared at his cigarette. “I don’t know, but it seems the only answer.” He turned back to Duc. “Repeat what else you discovered.”

  Duc stared and Loc nodded slowly. “He must know.”

  Sweat blobs suddenly spangled Duc’s brow at the hairline and the flesh immediately under his deep-set eyes gleamed a damp satin-finish. He extracted a handkerchief and mopped rapidly. The sweat disappeared, but his face retained a ruddy hue.