The Cover of War

by Travis Stone

  The Cover of War

  Text copyright © 2013 Travis Stone

  All Rights Reserved

  The right of Travis Stone and Travis Stone Limited to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 & 78 of the copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means without permission of the author

  This book is fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or deceased, is co-incidental.

  Published under license by Amazon Digital Services &

  Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

  ASIN: BOOCBN3TPC

  ISBN-13: 978-1484901809

  ISBN-10: 1484901800

  Many thanks to Jason Norris and Sally Anne McKay for technical contributions. . . . and a quiet wink to an anonymous colonel. Thank you for your insight.

  Fact:

  In 1920, after completing an extensive study of the world's oil resources, a geologist named Herbert Hoover estimated that one of the planet's largest potential oilfields lay off Vietnam's eastern coast.

  In 1929, Herbert Hoover became the 31st President of The United States.

  In 1954 the French colonists were driven out of Vietnam.

  When the French left, American armies arrived.

  Much of the following is based on real events.

  DECEMBER 1967

  1

  December 26

  Thong Nhut Boulevard, Saigon

  10°46'57.90"N 106°42'04.75"E

  Amai lay awake beside him.

  In the darkened room the thump of boots on the narrow wooden stairs triggered a warning.

  She slipped her arm out from under the warmth of his body. The need to escape took her. The roof, she thought. Get to the roof.

  He rolled toward her; his fingertips tracing the curve of her naked body to where the satin sheet met her skin.

  It was too late; the boots had reached the landing.

  There was no where to go.

  She would have to face whatever came through the door.

  There was a heavy thump and the sound of cracking wood.

  * * *

  White shards of raw timber splintered from the frame's dark varnish.

  Adrenaline bolted Danny upright.

  Two men entered Amai's room.

  Danny's mind accelerated. Vietnamese military. What do they want?

  The first was stocky and aggressive with sharp eyes; the other gangly and arrogant with his receding hair cropped marine style. The stocky one rushed forward like a gundog. The other strode self-righteously behind - the hunter.

  Amai stood; her face white; her hands unable to cover all of her breasts.

  Danny leapt in front of her. 'What the hell? You can't-' Danny put up his hands.

  The stocky one took Danny by the throat, drove him back into the tiny bathroom and pushed the door shut. Danny could hear the hunter's voice through the thin door; calm and assertive.

  What the hell is this? Danny thought. He couldn't bare the thought of his beautiful, loving Amai coming to harm. He had to get out. He had to get to her. He threw his shoulder into the door and felt it give, but the stocky brut held it with his bodyweight.

  Amai was screaming at the hunter in unintelligible Vietnamese. There was the sound of a slap, sickening quiet, and then the hunter's slow, authoritative voice.

  Danny went into a frenzy. He smashed his shoulder repeatedly into the door, feeling it crack; feeling the shoulder behind it.

  Then the weight came off and Danny fell into the room. He rushed to Amai.

  The men left, pulling the broken door shut behind them.

  Amai was in tears; a faint red mark on her perfect cheek.

  Danny put his arm around her bare shoulders, feeling her goose-fleshed skin against his. 'What the hell was that about?' His voice quivered.

  She shook her head. Her lustrous hair flicked his face. Her liquid brown eyes took hold of his. Her breasts squashed against him and he was shocked to find himself hard again.

  She pushed him back onto the bed.

  My God, he thought. This is insane.

  * * *

  Amai hid the fear that coursed through her body.

  She hated deceiving Danny. The others she had not cared about; Danny was different. She drew back the mosquito net, which hung on plastic rings above the old, four poster bed, and studied his face; his usually alert brown eyes were glazed with worry; his easy smile gone. He rubbed his square, stubble covered jaw, and then swept his sandy hair up and to the left with his lithe fingers; pleasuring fingers. She couldn't believe she had fallen in love with him - an American - a beautiful American.

  I'm lying to him, she thought. I've used him.

  General Loan's break-in had frightened her to the core. She knew he had meant it to. Loan was Saigon's Chief-of-Secret-Police and he was hunting communist spies.

  Her fingertips went to her lips. I'm a communist spy, she thought. He's hunting me. The fear boiled inside her. What does he know?

  Amai feared capture by the men of the Phoenix Program more than anything. Now that Loan had found her; was watching her - she would have to abandon her flat. She would have to go into hiding - but she couldn't think of such things now. She had to meet Triet.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, crossed her legs, and began combing her voluminous hair. She didn't look at Danny. 'I've got to go out.'

  * * *

  A hot, viscous feeling circulated in Danny's gut. She had turned down his invitation to this evening's mixer at the Grand Hotel. Why? The break-in kept replaying in his mind. 'What did they want?'

  'Who?'

  'Those men. The break-in.'

  Amai elegantly shrugged. 'Mistaken identity. Happens here.'

  Bullshit, Danny thought. The hunter had wanted her.

  Amai got off the bed and slipped into a soft blue dress that made her breasts look fantastic. She turned her back to him. 'Zip me up.'

  Just touching her skin made him horny again. 'What you up to?' He tried to sound casual.

  'It's a secret.'

  Danny was both romantically worried and professionally pleased. Curious to know what she was doing that took up so much of her time, and desperate to know from where she was getting her 'Viet Cong' information, he planned to follow her, before going to the Grand, where he would catch his regular ten minutes with General Westmoreland.

  From across the street, a blaze of sunlight reflected off one the US Embassy's sixth-floor windows. He faked indifference. 'Cool. I've gotta shave. There's that thing tonight at the Grand.'

  She turned and pouted. 'Will you be back for dinner?' Her English was flawless; almost American.

  'Eight at the latest.'

  Amai flashed an angelic smile. 'It's a date.' Then she kissed his lips and slipped out the door.

  Danny didn't shave. He put his camera in his denim satchel, slung it, and went to the door.

  An uneasiness grew around him. Where're you going, girl?

  He stopped and listened. Amai was doing something odd.

  He could hear her rapid footsteps, not going down the stairs, but going up. He waited. She didn't come back down.

  The roof, he thought.

  As quietly as he could, he went up after her.

  He reached the top, opened the tiny door that lead to the flat, tarred roof, peered out, and saw a flash of blue as Amai went over the rear parapet. He got onto the roof and jogged after her.

  At the parapet, he saw that she had climbed down a short ladder, to the roof of an adjoin
ing building. He crouched and watched her cross to the far side. When she went over the building's far edge, Danny climbed onto the ladder.

  What the hell is she doing?

  The rotten rung gave way only when it had all of his 170lbs.

  He landed heavily on his feet. His legs buckled. Pain shot into his right knee and he rolled on to his side.

  C'mon, he thought. You'll loose her.

  He picked himself up and hobbled forward.

  At the second parapet, he looked down over the low brickwork into a narrow alley, crammed with wooden crates, junk, and two elderly women struggling to control a dozen white ducks. Amai was running now, fast but gracefully down the lane toward a busy road.

  Shit.

  Danny hung over the side and let himself drop onto a stack of crates. Pain shot through his knee. He tried to ignore it and climbed down. The stench of methane filled the hot alley. He stumbled forward, the duck-women throwing up their arms as their flock flapped around him.

  Danny reached the intersection. Amai was gone. The alley's stink gave way to choking exhaust fumes. Pedestrians and motorbikes intermingled like drugged rats.

  Which way?

  A flash of blue in the crowd caught his attention. He turned right and fought his way through the jerking motorcycle traffic to the far side.

  Danny realized he was puffing. I haven't lost you yet, girl.

  A military jeep crawled past with four MPs filling its roofless interior. Amai stopped beside a rack displaying offal and chickens' feet. Danny caught up. She studied the raw meat until the jeep was well past.

  A deep uneasiness filled Danny's chest.

  There'll be a reasonable explanation, he thought.

  Sneaking after the woman he loved made Danny nervous. What would he say if she spotted him? He did not want to lose her; he'd never felt so comfortable with a woman. He loved her smile; he loved her energy; he loved the way that they could be ready to make love in a second.

  But something felt wrong.

  A small boy tugged Danny's sleeve and held up a rough copy of a WWII trauma manual. He gave the boy the coins in his pocket, but refused the book. When Danny looked up, Amai was weaving through the crowd.

  He stayed quite a way behind her. Periodically she looked back over her shoulder. He followed her for several blocks where the tight street opened into Cong Xa Paris Square, stood over by Saigon's ancient basilica of Notre Dame. Two paths bisected the grassed quadrangle, flanked by roads full of honking motorcycles. Amai hurried across the square and went into a rough looking bar called The Trung Hoa.

  The skin prickled on Danny's neck.

  He sat on the steps at the square's centre, waited a full minute, and then followed Amai into the Trung Hoa club.

  The air smelt stale. Five local men gambled at a round table. They all looked up together.

  Danny could not see Amai. There was no blue dress. Two men got up from the table and came toward him. One held a short metal bar, and said in coarse English: 'What do you want?'

  Danny knew the man would beat him. He turned, walked out of the bar, and didn't look back.

  Damn it, he thought.

  Where the hell had she gone? What the hell was going on?

  It felt wrong.

  2

  Inside the Trung Hoa, Amai shivered. She always did.

  She slipped behind the bar, pushed past the barman, who made no effort to give her room, and then opened a faded orange door that led to a storeroom. She heard a familiar click as the barman padlocked the door behind her. This was the system.

  Because Triet's Tet Offensive was close, he now met her in the inner city, and he demanded that she use this cut-out. The Trung Hoa was a VC front and Triet had arranged the heavies that guarded the place to stop anyone that followed her. So far it had worked.

  The thought of Tet made her uncomfortable - guilty. When she gave information to Danny, it went straight to General Westmoreland, resulting in the deaths of thousands of North Vietnamese boys. She thought Triet too comfortable in sacrificing human lives - large numbers of them. Triet was taking the war to a level that she couldn't stomach. The death toll was already monstrous; Tet's massive surprise attack on Saigon would make it grotesque.

  She lifted a trap-door in the corner, and then dropped into a muggy, oily smelling basement. Ahead of her lay a hand-dug tunnel that went under the street and into the basement of a neighboring building. It was an effective means of throwing off a tail, and now that Military Intelligence was watching her - tracking her - she needed to be cautious. Vigilant caution was the only thing that would keep her alive. If General Loan found one scrap of evidence against her, he would kill her, and dump her body in the Saigon River like the others that had been caught.

  She shivered. She knew also that Saigon held worse fates than death.

  Amai took off her blue dress. Hanging on a hook was an outfit of common clothes; black pants, a white blouse, and a cone shaped hat. She put them on and then hung the blue dress on the hook. Now she looked like everyone else. She crawled into the tunnel.

  The second basement was larger than the first. Concrete steps led to the muggy lane above. A man was sitting on the first step. It was Triet.

  'I thought we were meeting at the café?'

  Triet patted the step. 'Sit.'

  She sat, studying his gaunt face. His sinewy body looked malnourished and he had not combing his hair for months. There had been an odd tension between them for weeks. She tried to convince herself that the stress of the upcoming Tet-Offensive was the cause, but really, she knew it was her - because she didn't want him.

  His eyes grabbed at hers; they always did. 'How is it with the American?' His voice was cold. 'You seem . . . comfortable.'

  His tone angered her. 'I've done my duty-'

  'Lower your voice.'

  'As you have forced me to.' She felt her body loose strength. 'General Loan came this morning.'

  'We know.'

  'He knows.'

  'He suspects.'

  'Then why did he not arrest me?'

  'He works for Phoenix; they want you to lead them to me.'

  Of course, she thought. A jolt of fear hit her. 'They would've followed me-'

  'They didn't see you leave your flat - they are still watching from inside the Embassy.' Triet plucked a cigarette from a brown carton with a picture of a camel on its front. 'You will abandon the flat now; but our job is almost done. We are almost out.' He held the unlit stick between his fingers. 'Tet will end the war, Amai. Everything depends on it.'

  She wondered what Danny would think of her suddenly moving. 'What are my orders?'

  'Tell the pig reporter that an NVA division is massing on the Cambodian boarder, between firebases Anvil and Chevy.' He held out a slip of paper, scrawled with numbers.

  She took the paper. 'Danny will pass it on to Westmoreland tonight.'

  Amai nodded. She felt isolated. All of the dis-information that she had fed to Danny had been like this; leading to the slaughter of North Vietnamese boys, and American Victory. It made no sense. 'How does this help?'

  His swollen eyes narrowed to slits. 'By drawing American forces out of the cities.'

  'Why?'

  'You don't need to know.'

  Amai jumped up. 'I take the risks. I should know why.'

  Triet's lips peeled back from his teeth. 'It's a deception. General Giap wants Saigon weakened - by drawing the Americans out. Then, during the Tet cease fire, tens-of-thousands of Viet Cong will storm the city - all cities.' Triet clenched his fists. 'It will be a massacre here-'

  Amai's blood stopped in her veins.

  'Remember Amai, Vietnam's freedom depends on it. Tet must succeed.' He looked through her.

  The look in Triet's eyes was pure hate. But his hate would be directed at civilians; women and children. His words conjured images that churned her stomach. She could smell the blood of children as it pooled on Saigon's streets.

  A malicious smile spread from Triet's mo
uth.

  This is evil, She thought. 'Triet, this is wrong-'

  'It is the will of Ho Chi Minh. It will be done.'

  A fuzziness separated her mind from her body.

  He leaned in. 'There is a bigger picture-'

  'Nothing can justify this.'

  Triet stood. 'Do you want us to win this war?' He sounded calm, but his eyes burned her.

  'Yes.'

  'Do you want freedom for your people - your family in the North?'

  Her voice barely escaped: 'Yes.' She could say nothing else. She knew her father would not want this bloodbath.

  'Tet is the path to freedom, Amai. You must do this. Vietnam needs you. I need you.'

  The fuzziness cleared and her mind reeled. Tet was unjustifiable slaughter. Tet was monstrous. She was involved. The first shot hadn't even been fired and she felt like a mass murderer of children.

  The children, she thought. The mothers

  Triet was looking at her differently. He leaned back. 'Our deception is working. The Americans build more and more firebases near the boarder to counter our false threats. You're a star, Amai. A true hero.'

  Amai only felt revulsion. A million starving orphans flooded her thoughts; distraught parents, hopelessly searching for missing children; children with horrific wounds; children lying dead-

  No, Amai thought. This is not what I came here for. Father would not agree with this. This is wrong.

  She could not be part of it for a second longer.

  I could stop it, she thought. I could stop Triet. She felt a surge of hope. She knew she had the power to stop Tet - she could easily tip-off the American Commander.

  I would be killed as a traitor, she thought. I would be a traitor.

  She tried to ignore the thought; deny it had even entered her mind.

  But she could not turn away from the fact - if she didn't stop Tet, the blood of Saigon's children would be on her hands - forever.

  Triet handed her an envelope. There was always an envelope. She reached for it, unable to stop the tremble in her hand. Triet's hand touched hers and he tried to hold her gaze.