Targets: A Vietnam War Novel

by Don McQuinn

  They arrived at the compound where he’d parked the jeep for safe-keeping and he continued to evaluate the situation as he drove the familiar route to Gia Dinh. The more he thought, the more he wished Taylor was with him, although that would be an even worse security lapse.

  In a few minutes they were skirting the passive hulk of the temple at the intersection of Le Van Duyet and Chi Lang. Moonlight filtered through the clouds to be further refined by the meshed leaves above the building. The essence that penetrated to the roof dashed across the tiles like spilled mercury. Duc swung to the right on Chi Lang, then right again a little way on, moving more slowly in a maze of snaking dirt streets and ramshackle buildings, circling back toward the river. He switched off the lights and coasted to a stop at an intersection.

  “That house down there—the one with the light in the small window on the ground floor—you see it?”

  “Yes, Thieu Ta. The light is orange, like there is paper over the glass.”

  Duc nodded. “Good. The woman lives there in an upstairs room. You wait for me here. I will go to the left, circle the block, and enter as I come back this way. If anyone is watching us now, perhaps they will continue to look in the direction I went, and I will return in the same manner. You understand?”

  “I understand. It is a long way to see in the dark, Thieu Ta. I will not be sure it is you I see. How long will you be gone?” Minh peered into the gloom, tight-featured with disapproval. “The clouds keep covering the moon. What signal will you give if there is trouble?”

  Duc’s laugh crackled harshly. “There will be no need for help. Wait here until I return.”

  Minh moved to the driver’s seat as Duc was quickly absorbed into the darker side street. With nothing else to do, he scanned the area, checking windows, challenging each one. They maintained their own vigil, showing nothing more than an occasional fitful chip of moonlight. A dogfight erupted suddenly down the street to his right and Minh realized with shock that he was looking for the sound down his outstretched arm, his pistol trembling at the end of it. He replaced it under his shirt as the snarling and growling changed to retreating yelps. He felt very foolish.

  * * *

  Duc picked his way through the trash and potholes. The buildings ran at an angle to the moon’s position, effectively blocking even that light, so his progress was marred by shuffling and near-stumbles. At one point something squashed messily underfoot and a putrid stench immediately asserted its primacy over the general fetid air. He hurried to leave it behind. His stomach heaved and for a few steps he risked the noise to drag the shoe, trying to clean off whatever it was.

  In spite of the route, he made good time.

  From the front, the building was dark. He climbed the stairs silently and tapped on the door. There were scuffling noises on the other side, as though he’d disturbed small animals. A distant child’s voice whined sleep-thick complaint.

  “Open the door,” Duc said in hushed command. “I want to know why you failed to meet me.” It was a careful phrase, serving to identify him for the woman but essentially meaningless to any listening neighbors.

  The door swung wide. He stepped inside, into a well of blackness where only the thin line of light under the bedroom door was distinguishable, a glowing gold thread like a struggling dawn.

  A sound to his right, a strained exhalation, produced a pure reflex and he whirled, reaching for the gun under his belt. The blow to his stomach felt more like a shove. It knocked his hand away from the pistol and an electric puzzlement at the apparent ineffectiveness of the blow coursed his mind even as he felt himself staggering backwards. The handle of the door gouged the small of his back, another minor disturbance, and then it seemed to be crawling up his spine. He realized he was sliding to the floor and was angry at the odd inability to do anything about it. Confusion and fear seared his brain and he clawed for the gun.

  Something kept bumping his forearm. He tried to think what it could be and then he was sitting solidly on the floor, back against the door, and the perverse butt of the weapon was slippery with a mess that defeated his efforts to grasp it.

  He dropped his hand, resigning himself to ponderous lassitude and an awesome awareness swept all emotion from him as a wave scours a shore.

  He was dying.

  A hurried rush of feet intruded on the discovery and the door to the bedroom flew open. Two men rushed across through it, the slower one shoving his partner toward the window in a frenzy.

  Duc found their panic faintly amusing. The bloody mass revealed by the wildly swinging light bulb told him the woman on the bed would never bother them and he knew he certainly wouldn’t.

  The attempt to move sent pain thunder-rolling through his stomach that made him gasp, a contemptible mewing like a starved kitten. He clenched his teeth against a repetition, at the same time wondering why he bothered when no one would ever know.

  The sensation of lowering into a welcome rest was undeniable now. He was glad he had not been searched. Colonel Loc would be gratified. He would be equally displeased to learn the operation had been so badly mishandled. While his thoughts floundered he could feel his heart straining to function with a rapidly dwindling supply of material. A secret knowledge said it was racing desperately, and yet the individual beats seemed to come with the plodding thumps of pile-driver blows. Half his mind surrendered to panic for an instant, eliminating conscious thought and replacing it with a swirling smoke of terror and dread. He tried to breathe deeply. The shuddering effort lit pain around the wound that cleared his thoughts.

  He wondered about his family, saw the children playing, then gathered around the table for dinner. His wife was there—a good woman. He had been lucky. For all his errors, she truly loved him. The memory gave him respite from the increasing rams of a heart threatening to erupt through his ribs.

  A great spasm shot through him. When it had passed, the fear returned. The agonized effort of his heart had changed to a muted fluttering, a sliding sensation in his breast. He pictured bamboo leaves slipping back and forth, shouldering their way through the breeze.

  He could hold his head erect no longer. It dropped to rest on his chest. The light was dimming unaccountably, but there was still enough to see the blood from the wound, ebbed to an oozing trickle.

  The light failed with increasing speed then, creating undefined irritation. The swaddling blackness reached for him and he folded his hands in his lap with as much dignity as the obscenity protruding from his shirt would permit. After that he deliberately closed his eyes in defiance of the surprised mask he had seen on so many other dead down the years.

  A man was entitled to some taste of victory.

  Chapter 42

  “You are certain you have left nothing out? No one else spoke to the Major all evening? No one else entered the building?”

  Although he was the junior man present, Harker’s rage had filled the room, demanding attention from the time he entered. As if deferring to a natural force, the others in Loc’s office watched him press Corporal Minh for details. Winter moved constantly, brusque activity with no point. Denby sat on the edge of a hardbacked chair, bent forward at the waist. It made him look like a frog poised for a fly. His eyes shattered the image. He was very frightened.

  Lieutenant Colonel Tho and Sergeant Chi watched with polite professional interest only slightly marred by rumpled looks that said they’d been sleeping soundly until summoned.

  Taylor hoped he appeared as composed as Loc and wondered if the small Vietnamese was having as much trouble accepting Duc’s death as the rest of them.

  Minh answered Harker through lips that had begun to tremble.

  “Dai Uy, I have told you everything and only the truth. No one followed us. There is only a front door and one on the side. I could see both. As soon as I found the Major I looked out the window in the other room because it was the only way in that I could not have watched from the jeep. It is almost three meters to the ground, so no one came in there. Whoever killed th
e Major was already there and escaped through that window. I picked him up and carried him to the jeep and brought him here.”

  “Why?” Harker’s voice cut.

  “It is as I have already said.” Resentment surfaced with the words. “I knew if the Major was found there it would mean many questions. I did not want his wife and children to know he died in the room of a whore. I did not think our Colonel would want that. I brought him back here to his office so I could get help from his friends.”

  There was a bite in the last words and Harker blinked before turning to face the two Colonels. “We can put our hands on the other woman, that hooker, Tuyet. Maybe she can give us a lead—” He broke off at the sight of Winter’s shaking head.

  “The worst thing we could do. It looks like Duc stumbled in on a murder. We don’t know if it had anything to do with her VC connections or if she died because some pimp got overenthusiastic in his work. For now, I think we’ll keep the lowest profile possible and see what happens. If we create a stir, everyone in the world’s going to want to know why.”

  “We can’t just ignore this thing, Colonel.”

  Loc’s color rose and he interrupted. “It will not be ignored, Dai Uy. You have my promise. But Colonel Winter is right. We can learn more by watching. And it is safer.”

  Taylor flinched as Harker prepared to answer, then relaxed when the strained features turned to the far wall.

  Minh looked expectantly to Colonel Loc, who said, “You say you think you were unobserved getting back to the jeep. How did the guard here at the gate react?”

  “The Major was leaning against me. I had a poncho over him so you could not see— He looked drunk. The guard believed me.”

  Tho spoke up in his flat manner. “If the guard had checked you would have been in great trouble.”

  Minh’s flat answering stare matched the voice and expressed his unconcern for gate guards.

  Winter rubbed his hands together. “Colonel Loc, how can we help? I mean with the official version of what happened?”

  “I will arrange everything.” He turned to Minh. “When you returned with the Major you helped him inside. He was ill, not drunk. He was cutting fruit at his desk when he rose suddenly, in great pain as if from a cramp. He turned, fell with the bayonet. A terrible accident. You will be forced to tell the story many times. You will tell it as I have told you, with no changes or added details.”

  Minh bobbed his head.

  Loc surveyed the rest of the listeners, dwelling on each face before passing to the next. In the silence someone’s stomach rumbled, the noise like a bomb. Taylor noticed that each man’s eyes moved covertly to identify the source. Loc ignored the disturbance and when he was finished with his inspection, spoke again.

  “It is a ludicrous story, so far-fetched it will be unquestioned. We shall not have to account for his activities of the evening.”

  Chi leaned closer to Tho and they exchanged whispers. Tho spoke to Loc. “There will be investigation. What explains the lack of blood where he is supposed to have died?”

  “Everything was cleaned up, of course,” Loc said. “There would be no need to maintain the scene, as there was no crime. Merely an accident. Now we must arrange everything and call the Duty Officer. Are you prepared, Corporal?” The black eyes burned at the slight, hunched figure. Minh leaped to attention.

  Loc nodded and faced Winter. “It will be done.” He gestured at the Americans. “We are grateful for your support.”

  Winter waved his people toward the interconnecting door before shaking Loc’s hand. “I wish there was more we could do. I wish there was no reason to do anything. I know how much you respected Duc. We all did.”

  A silent nod ended the uncomfortable conversation and Winter entered his own office where the three others stood in an awkward group. Ignoring Taylor and Denby, he addressed Harker.

  “We’re going to find out who did this. I’ll get you your extension if you want to tackle it.”

  Taylor said, “Bullshit. Duc was my partner.” He leaned past Harker, shoving the younger man aside. “You can’t take something like this away from me. Duc was a friend. I owe him.”

  Winter opened his mouth and Taylor pounded the desk. “And no shit about being too involved. You saw Harker go after that kid in there. You call that cool? You want someone to ship over? If that’s what it takes to get the mother-fucker who killed Duc, I’m in.”

  Winter dropped his gaze to the desk top. “I know you’re upset. So’s Harker. And so, by God, am I!” He looked up, his face mottled, and pointed at the Captain. “You’ll observe the investigation of the woman’s death with no indication that the Unit has an interest. Now get out of here and get some sleep. Her kid’ll be crying and drawing the neighbors and then the police’ll be in on it. And now I’d like to speak to Major Taylor alone.” His eyes shifted from Harker to stare at Taylor’s bunched fists on his desk and Taylor took them back to dangle self-consciously at his sides.

  Denby stopped at the door, assuring that Harker was gone before him. He turned back. “Colonel, I wish there was some way I could help. Perhaps if we let my op plan drop, I could take the detail you just gave Harker? I know how you feel, but Duc, and all—” The thought died unexplored.

  Winter said, “I’ve already told you, Carl, your job is that renegade Major. I’ll have your answer on how we deal with him by Friday.” His lips bent to a tight smile. “With any luck, you and Miller’ll still have time to make it work before you rotate.” He continued to smile until the door clicked behind Denby, then waved Taylor to a chair.

  “Sorry about mouthing off,” Taylor said. “It’s just that I keep hearing what we’re saying as though I wasn’t a part of it. Like, there’s a baby out there in the same room with its mother, only she’s nothing but bloody rags. Minh only mentioned the kid the first time through like he’d say there was a chair in the room, part of the scene, a prop. And now you! All it is to you is something that’ll make noise and attract attention. Jesus! The kid’s sitting there looking at its mother, and we’re just letting it happen!”

  “I thought about a phone call saying there’s been trouble there, but even the Saigon police’ll wonder about that and start checking. We don’t know who she’s told what.”

  Taylor stood up to pace. “And that’s another thing. Us, making up a story about how Duc died. Sitting in that room like buzzards, picking at what’s left of him, like he was just another fucking problem instead of one of the best men any of us’ll ever know.”

  “Sometimes you really piss me off.” The raw emotion in Winter’s voice snapped Taylor around. “You think you’re the only one who has feelings? Listen, before you dragged your ass in here from your cozy little pad, I was in your office looking at what used to be Duc under a poncho. I liked him and respected him and I have to perjure myself telling people he died in a comic strip accident. And if I told them the truth, I’d have to tell them he died because he violated every fucking security rule in the world.”

  For a moment they stared at each other, the sour taste of mutual embarrassment like shared bad wine. Winter rocked in his chair, his thick hands clamped to the arms. His eyelids shuttered to half-closed.

  “Let me think a minute. We both need to cool out and get our wind.”

  Winter let his eyes close completely, hoping to better isolate himself. For one terrible second he thought he heard scraping noises from the floor below and imagined them moving Duc’s body. Half-forgotten images of other limp forms swarmed in his mind and he twisted in the chair.

  For some reason he was thinking of Taylor, and he seized the subject as a welcome relief.

  Why not send him after Duc’s killer? he asked himself. He’d seek him out and kill him ruthlessly.

  No, not really. With skill, no remorse, and a sense of justice. He’d probably think of it as ruthless, but the poor bastard didn’t know what the word meant. The killing was the easy part. All it wanted was the right psychology, the right frame of mind.

&
nbsp; We’re the ruthless ones, the ones who sift out the believers—the ones who mean the best—and use them to do the worst. It’s like asking the peasants to give up their best for sacrifice, not for their own benefit, but to the greater glory of the priests.

  His eyes opened and he stared at the random wave-patterns of the acoustic tile on the ceiling.

  Hundreds of men—Jesus, thousands. I’ve had a hand in teaching thousands of men how to kill and never understood why no more than a dozen had the mental chemistry to be man-hunters, the ones who exercise the dark side of power without becoming overwhelmed by it.

  A single line etched his forehead.

  But what about that Chinese—what the hell was his name? Eng? Ng? An. That was it, An. He killed him out of plain anger. Well, shit—why not? He thought he had reason and the little idiot tried to cut him, anyhow. The arrest turned into a combat operation, and even if it hadn’t, An was an enemy and a nasty order and the world was better off without him.

  That was a judgement.

  Who had the right to make that kind of judgement?

  Nobody.

  But if you didn’t make it, people made it against you, so you used the cutting edge on them, the men like Taylor, until they’d done their work and then you thought up ways to keep them bright and ready to work again and got them out of the way while the clean hands and trained minds came with their lawbooks to choke anyone left over.

  And Harker was lost, falling off to the side. If Taylor had done the wrong thing with the Chinese, he’d done it as a soldier. There was a look to Harker now that said nothing of hard decisions filtered through conscience and weighed against alternatives.