by Travis Stone
'Oh, shit,' Benmore said.
An American voice amplified by a loudhailer echoed through the wheelhouse: 'Stop your engine and prepare to be boarded.'
The message was repeated.
Benmore shutdown the engine. 'I'm sorry I got you into this, friend.'
A Thai police launch came along side, the smaller boat rocking in its wake.
'Don't move,' echoed the loudhailer. 'You're under arrest.'
11
Amai walked in a daze. She could smell the shipyards: fish, diesel, filth. She was almost at Cam's. Her sister was the only person in Saigon that she could turn to.
It was late afternoon; she couldn't believe she had spent the day drugged. She pushed away thoughts of Thi. It was only hours ago that MI had ruined her plan. Triet should've been locked in an American interrogation chamber, not forcing her to act like a whore; not threatening to maim a child. Military Intelligence had ruined everything. Idiots.
Triet's right, she thought. It's only one night. I can survive one night.
Ironically, Triet's new assignment opened another line for reporting Tet. A Pentagon Major would be a credible source; MACV would take him seriously - but first she had to get Triet's information out of him. Nhu An depended on it.
Amai stumbled over the rough pavement. One thing was certain: the constant violence which had owned Triet since childhood had driven him mad. He would do anything to beat the Americans; nothing was too much; no price was too high.
Her body was numb. Triet had revealed his true nature - and it was horrifying.
The aggregate in the grimy footpath became her focus as she bumped through the foot traffic. Her mind traveled back in time to a bubbling stream, bright-green rice paddies, and her family home, standing on its stilts above the monsoon flooded land.
Homesickness overwhelmed her.
She thought of Nhu An - a small, beautiful, energetic child.
I hate this war.
She looked up and saw two Military jeeps crawling toward her. A rush of fright hit her and she swerved into a narrow lane.
Calm down.
The lane wasn't really a lane at all; just a gap of a few feet between a warehouse and a factory. Above, a heavy loom of electrical wires sagged from metal brackets bolted to the brickwork. The lane felt creepy. Amai stepped up her pace. She figured the lane would bring her out close to Cam's building anyway; a run-down French-colonial of three floors, which bordered the docks.
Cam, she thought. I need you.
The last time Amai had seen her forty year old sister, her glossy hair had acquired natural silver highlights, and the finest of crinkles had appeared at the outer corners of her eyes.
Cam was psychic. She lived a strange life of meditation and mantras and warning people of future dangers, storms, and illness. During the French War, General Giap had used Cam's remote-viewing skills to gather intelligence. Her ability had been embraced by the Viet Minh Commanders of the time, but now Cam worked as a legman for an undercover spy at Time magazine.
Amai looked back over her shoulder. A jeep had stopped across the lane; and when she looked back to the front again, she knew that she had a problem. She had reached the lane's midpoint, and the scene that confronted her was horrific, but not uncommon.
In a concealed alcove, a girl-child of about Nhu An's age sat watching a man beat blood from her mother's face. The man's uniform identified him as one of General Loan's.
Simultaneously, Amai felt shock, acceptance, revulsion, and fright.
She looked back to the jeep. Two soldiers jumped out and began marching toward her. She turned back to the beating, trying to think of a way to stop it without getting beaten herself. Then Amai saw several neatly stacked boxes of stolen US Army grenades. The woman was Viet Cong.
Amai took a step forward and Loan's man turned and saw her.
She thought: He's going to bash my face in.
He came away from his work and started toward her. She assessed his face: his expression was blank.
He doesn't recognize me.
Amai took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. She would have to talk her way out of it.
He said: 'What do you want?'
She gave him her sexiest pout and pointed to the end of the lane. 'Just passing.'
Her charm had no obvious effect.
He kept coming. 'Who are you? Tell me your name.'
Amai looked over his boney shoulder, and to her delight, the mother grabbed the girl's wrist and pulled her through a green door and into the warehouse beyond.
Loan's man turned, saw that his prisoners had gone, and rushed back to the alcove.
Amai saw her chance to escape and started to run.
The man spun and grabbed for Amai's arm. She swerved and bumped a trashcan, which fell to the ground, spilling trash and a big, grey rat. The rat ran away, hugging the wall.
Amai ran as hard as she could. She heard the men from the jeep and yell out.
Will they shoot? She thought.
The sound took several seconds to come, but it was not like the sound of any gun that she had heard: it was a loud wallop that echoed past her and out into the street beyond. Amai turned to see the lane filling with a thick cloud of red brick-dust.
She kept going.
When she reached Cam's building, Amai was panting hard. She looked back; no one had followed her; no one was paying her any attention, but a small crowd had formed at the lane's entrance. Amai's limbs felt cold and heavy.
She climbed the internal spiral of thin metal stairs to the third floor. It was cool and gloomy. Her feet clanged on the iron steps, and a musty smell drifted down from the rooms above.
Amai knocked on Cam's door, but got no answer. She felt on the verge of panic and banged the door with the edge of her fist.
She's not home, Amai thought. I've got to get in.
She remembered seeing some thin plastic banding outside on the pavement, and went down to get it.
Outside she felt exposed. Two Army jeeps and an ambulance rounded the corner. She snatched up the plastic, shrank back into the doorway, and ran up the stairs.
Amai flattened the plastic and forced it between the jamb and the lock. The door opened and she went in.
Amai was annoyed to find Cam sitting cross-legged in the centre of the room. Cam was a picture of peace: eyes closed, breathing slow, chanting softly, while behind her, down in the harbor, cranes moved like the mechanical fangs of giant spiders, feeding on a helpless prey of paralyzed steel.
Cam often said that meditation connected her with the divine; the mantra focusing her mind until her sense of self expanded out into the peace of full transcendence. It was at this time that her psychic energy was strongest.
Cam's eyes opened.
Amai went to her. 'Did you not hear the explosion?'
'What explosion?' Cam unfolded herself, stood, and took her in a sisterly embrace. 'What is it, petal?' Cam said. What's wrong?'
Tears welled in Amai's eyes, but didn't spill. 'Too many things, Cam-'
'You're in trouble.'
Amai vomited her words: 'Triet will cut off Nhu An's hands if I don't get information from an American-'
'No.' Cam said. 'No-'
'I must. Nhu An-'
'We'll get a message to her. She can go into hiding-'
'No Cam. Triet's serious. They'll find her. I have no choice-'
'Amai. It's too dangerous-'
'I don't need a lecture, Cam. I need your help.'
'I can't help you if you won't help yourself.'
Amai flared. 'It was you who dragged me into this mess-'
Cam looked down.
'There's something else,' Amai said. 'Something worse.'
Cam didn't speak.
Amai told her about Tet, and Triet's plan for Saigon's slaughter.
Cam steadied herself against the wall. 'I have to meditate.'
'You always run away to meditate. What should I do?'
'The world has its path, Amai. E
verything happens for a reason. Saigon's fate is Saigon's fate. We cannot change it.'
Amai felt like Cam was abandoning her. 'I have to stop this.'
Cam swept the hair from Amai's face. 'And the American - Danny. Will he take you out of Saigon-'
'He's away.'
'You need to tell him what's going on.'
'He'll leave me.'
'Not if he loves you.'
'Oh Cam, what've I become? I'm horrible.'
'No-'
'What would father think?'
Cam was silent.
Amai looked at the floor. 'He would be ashamed.'
'He doesn't know what the world is like now.'
Their father lived a strictly Confucian way of life. He valued the virtues, and had raised his children to respect the traditional ways. Amai pondered the web of the deceit that she had spun since arriving in Saigon. Her father would be ashamed. She was ashamed.
Her father insisted on dignity and respect of others; but above all else, he insisted on respect of self.
The body is as important as the mind; his long spoken words filled her with dread.
Triet had manipulated her into lying, acting like a whore, and now drugging people. In the beginning she had believed Triet's propaganda, but now she understood that in his relentless drive to beat the Americans, her innocents had been trampled.
I was so naive, she thought.
Triet had taken advantage of her, and now she would have to carry out another shameful task, or her innocent niece would become a victim.
'I wish I never came to Saigon,' Amai said.
Then she realized that had she not, she would never have meet Danny.
An awful feeling of guilt swamped her.
Cam said: 'You're under pressure. Think clearly. Use your intuition, it will guide you.'
Amai wiped her eyes. 'I just want to be a good person.'
Then it sank in: guilt would accompany whichever course of action she chose; she would never be free of it.
She needed to nullify the guilt.
She needed to close her mind, not open it. She needed to start the process of shutting the doors to her soul, if she was to get through tonight's sordid task.
Cam said: 'You are a good person. I love you my sister.'
Then they just held each other.
In Cam's embrace, Amai began to accept her fate, and with acceptance came tenacity.
I won't fail Nhu An, she thought. I won't fail the children.
12
The base surgeon wrapped a bandage around Nash's calf and fastened it with metal clasps. 'You've got some stitches, Captain. Keep the wounds clean - and for God's sake - rest it.'
Nash had no intention of resting. His ass felt like a pin-cushion and his leg throbbed, but he'd just been tipped-off on Amai's whereabouts and was desperate to follow it up; unfortunately he had to spar with Colonel Hitchcock first. Hitchcock wanted to shut him down.
A gentle eddy of nerves started in Nash's gut and he checked his watch: 4:45pm. He smoothed his non-regulation forelock back into his brylcreemed fringe, mounted his crutches, and vaulted to the waiting jeep. Corporal Jessup was driving.
'To the MI compound, Corporal. Move it.'
Hitchcock might look old and weak, Nash thought. But he bends men to his will like a blow-torch bends steel. The jeep pulled away. Hitchcock won't bend me.
Hitchcock wanted to shut down his surveillance operation and re-assign him to Death-Squads. Delta-squads would mean a return to the vils and hamlets to sweat old folk and take mothers away from their children. Nash preferred the city. He liked the bustle, the Oriental customs, the bright colors, the lively bars, and the groups of smiling women with their slim bodies and perky titties. And it was the city where Nash would win his renown, because unlike his superiors, he knew the Viet Cong were planning a large scale attack in Saigon; he just had to convince Colonel Hitchcock to let him continue pursuing Amai - even for just a few more days.
But Hitchcock could shut him down in a second. Nash's problem was that the old-school Colonel thought of him as a juvenile waster of resources. Hitchcock expected results, and so far Nash had failed to deliver concrete proof of his theory.
For success, Nash needed to find Amai, and now, after the botched surveillance, his hand had been forced - he would have to arrest, and torture her.
She will give me The Ghost.
Ashamed of his failure, Nash's forehead was crimped into V. The failure had rocked his ego. The humiliation of being beaten by a girl hurt far more than the bullets, and he was sure that the Intelligence fraternity was talking about it behind his back. He was sure his driver was suppressing a grin.
Nash thought of his father: he had been a big, strong, and highly devout man, who expected everyone around him to meet his high expectations. Nash's father had only beaten him eight times, but Nash remembered every one of them. Nash remembered the fear and guilt he had felt whenever he made a mistake.
Nash suddenly feared that Amai would make a fool of him again.
Then he remembered the moment when he had stood up to his father, and he felt the impact of the punch in his fist, and saw his father's stunned face before his knees buckled, and he slumped to the kitchen floor. His father had never bullied him again, and every time someone had tried to bully Nash, he had punched him in the face. Nash wished he could punch Hitchcock in the face; but he couldn't - here Nash had to play Hitchcock's game.
He banged the leg of a crutch on the jeep's dash.
Nash had put a round-the-clock watch on Amai's Thong Nhut Boulevard flat, but she hadn't returned.
She's too smart for that, he thought.
He recalled her escape with equal measures of disgust, admiration, and shame. She had run and jumped and climbed with a gymnast's strength and an animal's instinct. Nash feared that she would go to ground. He had to find her fast: she was his only lead on The Ghost.
Without her, I'm screwed.
The jeep stopped outside Hitchcock's Quonset and Nash got out. Hitchcock was a drinker and a manipulator, but he was no fool; in PSY-OPS he had coined phrases like 'hearts-and-minds', and had written much of the PSY-WAR Manuel of Operations. Through the creation of The Phoenix Program, Hitchcock's goal was to break the enemy through clever propaganda and brutal fear mongering, and at this the Colonel was expert. Unfortunately, much of Hitchcock's talent was directed at his own staff. Nash thought that Hitchcock was a prick.
He needs to be reminded who the real enemy is, Nash thought.
He put the rubber toe of each crutch onto the timber steps and vaulted up. He opened the door to see Hitchcock sitting behind his desk, reading Intelligence estimates.
'C'mon Captain.' Hitchcock sounded impatient. 'I haven't got all day - and neither've you.'
Hitchcock's mole speckled skull was combed over with strands of damp grey hair, and horn rimmed glasses magnified watery eyes, pulled down by heavy bags. Behind the Colonel, a freshly opened bottle of Scotch sat on a shelf beside a framed photo of an overtly homosexual teenage boy.
A son maybe? Nash thought, searching for the resemblance.
A tumbler containing half melted ice sat on the desk, though Nash could not smell the alcohol through the lingering scent of pipe smoke.
Hitchcock looked up. 'Sizing me up, son?'
Nash felt off balance. He stood his crutches against Hitchcock's desk and saluted.
'Put your sticks against the wall. Now what can I do for you?'
Nash stopped his eyes from rolling and moved his crutches.
'Well son? Speak up.'
Nash sat on a chair in front of Hitchcock's desk and smoothed his face. 'Sir. As you know, two of my men were killed, and I was obviously wounded in pursuit of a Viet Cong terrorist-'
'Take your elbows off the desk.'
Nash sat up straight.
Hitchcock continued: 'Can't let discipline slip just because of a little nick in the leg now, can we?'
Nash concealed his irritation. He knew Hitchcoc
k's little power games served only to bolster his sense of control.
Were you beaten as a child like I was? Nash thought. Ignored by an alcoholic father, maybe? . . . Or perhaps it's the homosexual son?
Disinterested, Hitchcock said: 'I suppose you want more of my men, money, and resources so you can continue gallivanting around Saigon shooting at unarmed little slant-eyed girls.'
'We didn't actually shoot at her, Sir. They-'
'No. But they certainly shot you.'
Nash clenched his teeth.
'Tell me Captain-' Hitchcock extracted a nail full of mucus from his nose. 'Why I should give you anything?'
Nash had rehearsed his speech on the way over. 'Amai's high-level,' he said confidently. 'She'll give us The Ghost-'
Hitchcock was examining his finger.
Nash spoke louder: 'Sir. We need to find out when and where they plan to attack-'
'Stop it with that goddamn nonsense.' Hitchcock picked up the heavy stack of estimates and let it drop to the desk. 'Christ, son. The enemy clearly doesn't have the capability to even dream of launching such an attack.'
'They have the desire, and the signs are there if you-'
Hitchcock tapped the pile. 'So you're right, and everyone else is wrong?'
'It would seem so.'
A muscle twitched in Hitchcock's cheek. 'Now listen for once in your goddamn life. I've been in this game a lot longer than you.'
Too long, Nash thought.
Hitchcock stood. 'When Genghis Khan conquered this shit-hole, he did it by picking one village and slaughtering the men, the women, and the babies, in the most gruesome ways he could imagine. When the news spread - everyone complied.'
Hitchcock scraped his fingernail on the edge of his desk.
'That's the key.' Hitchcock's voice gained volume. 'Shock-and-awe. Death-squads that put the fear of God into those little bastards.' He softened his tone. 'Not chasing some silly little girl around town.'
Nash wanted to yell: wake up. But he knew where Hitchcock was steering him. 'Sir. If we can get Amai's superior, we can find out what they're planning-'