The Cover of War

by Travis Stone

  Amai shook her head. She didn't trust Triet to stay calm. 'The oil,' she said. 'They can't get away with just taking it?'

  'We will eventually be forced into making a deal,' Triet said solemnly. 'But if the Tet Offensive succeeds, we can drive them out before they can finish their survey - we can take the oil for ourselves.'

  Amai gasped.

  Triet said: 'When Vietnam is free, we will need the profit from this oil to rebuild our country. That is the importance of Tet. It will drive the Americans off the oil - at worst get them bargaining for it instead of taking it.'

  Amai felt the room shrinking.

  Triet's body inflated. 'Oil will be the blood of victory in this war, Amai - but freedom is still the beating heart of our struggle. Remember who you are fighting for.'

  Amai's eyes were wet from fear and exhaustion. She hoped Triet would mistake her emotion for loyalty.

  'Leave,' he said. 'I need to think.'

  Amai was drained. The constant fear of capture, and the effort required to maintain the ruse had taken a toll. She had taken the information from Major Johnson - or whatever his name was. She had done her bit. Now she needed rest.

  Triet shut the door on her. The boy returned and led her across the lane to a two story house. The boy explained that the house was occupied by an old woman, sympathetic to the Viet Cong. The old woman met Amai at the door, silently chewing betel nut. She led Amai upstairs to a bedroom that overlooked the lane. Amai flopped onto the mattress, but couldn't sleep. She felt sick with indecision.

  The Americans are here for oil, she thought. Money. Tet will drive them out. She imagined the civilian bloodbath and felt trapped between loyalties. Whose side am I on? Her mind spun. Should I report Tet to the Americans - or not?

  She curled up into a fetal position, her moist eyelids shutting. Sleep overtook her. She dreamed of Danny and Triet. She saw her niece as an older woman, with two grisly stumps for hands.

  Amai woke in the dark and unfamiliar room, dripping in cold sweat, unaware of how long she'd been asleep. She heard something down in the lane and got out of bed. Through the bamboo blinds she saw Triet's sentries, milling about, smoking in the doorway. She tensed; she could hear engines. Then she saw the line of windscreens and wing-mirrors and knew it was a raid.

  The column of jeeps stopped in the lane and the shooting started.

  * * *

  As soon as the Cholon target had started broadcasting, Nash's radio direction finding team discovered his exact location. They had used a simple process of signal triangulation to pin-point The Ghost's position.

  Two radio direction finding crews had been waiting impatiently for his broadcast. They knew the location was somewhere in Phu Tho, and each team had taken up position on opposite sides of the district, with their aerials aimed in the most likely directions.

  The moment The Ghost's radio went live, the two teams traced the signal strength, and took bearings. Where they crossed was The Ghost's location.

  He had only been on the airwaves for a few minutes, but it had been enough.

  * * *

  Triet heard gunfire on the street and knew instantly what it meant.

  The crash of the door and the drum of boots in the hall confirmed that there was no escape.

  He had only moments to react.

  He grabbed the radio's code book and slipped it under its loose floor board. Then he took a bottle of fish oil from the bench and smeared it over his forearms. With precious seconds left, he stuffed a handful of fishhooks and sinkers into his pockets.

  The soldiers stormed the room with surprising force.

  The last thing Triet saw was the butt of a rifle, smashing into his face.

  * * *

  Amai watched from the second floor window, feeling strangely detached.

  Two American soldiers loaded dead bodies into the back of the lead jeep. Triet was put in the front. His body was limp, but he looked alive. Amai wished he had been killed. She felt ashamed, but her world would be a safer place without him in it.

  The jeep took Triet away and she wondered if she would ever see him again. She hoped not, but a deep, nagging feeling told her that she wasn't free of him yet.

  Amai kept watching the lane. More jeeps arrived. Some US soldiers went into Triet's Headquarters, and some stayed in the lane smoking. Then a feeling of dread crept over her: the officer-in-charge was pointing to her building. Three soldiers threw down their cigarettes and walked to her front door.

  Amai thought: I need a way out.

  She racked her brain but couldn't think of an exit. The building backed onto a factory wall. It had no rear windows or doors. The only way in or out was the front door, or one of two windows, all of which opened to the lane.

  This time she was trapped.

  The soldiers would have her description. She would be arrested.

  A blunt fist pounded the front-door.

  Amai froze; she had no idea what to do. It was the old woman who reacted. She came into the room, took Amai by the shoulders, and steered her into a small kitchen.

  The thumping on the front door became impatient.

  The old woman dragged back a heavy bamboo mat. The mat hid a trapdoor; and the trapdoor hid a small space. Amai heard the front door splinter, and then heavy boots thumping up the stairs.

  She crawled into the hole and lay flat on her back. The space was only inches high, but was wide enough to hide several people. The old woman closed the trapdoor and covered it with the mat. Then she lay down and cried out; Amai realized she was pretending to have fallen.

  The soldiers burst into the kitchen. Through gaps in the floor-boards and the broken weave of the mat, Amai could see everything above clearly.

  The old woman wailed helplessly in Vietnamese, and Amai thought: She's done this before.

  The men helped the old woman up, and then started questioning her. Amai could hear everything. The old woman played the part well, but the soldiers remained suspicious. They went out. Amai could hear their boots on the floorboards as they searched the house.

  Amai began to shake. They're searching for me.

  They started in the far room and worked their way back toward her. Then they returned to the kitchen. Amai saw their faces through the cracks and felt sure that they would see her shape, or the whites of her eyes, or hear her breath, which sounded like a hurricane.

  All three soldiers came into the kitchen and stood on the mat, directly above her.

  She held her breath.

  Boot soles stood inches from her face. She could smell the dirt in their treads. The trapdoor flexed toward her face, creaking suspiciously under their weight.

  It's too obvious, she thought. If they lift the mat-

  Automatic weapons' fire crackled down in the lane. The soldiers ran out of the kitchen and banged down the stairs.

  They're gone, she thought.

  Relief washed over her like a drug. But as the effect dissolved, she felt empty and alone. Over the last twenty-four hours, in the turmoil of deception and fear, she had pushed the thought of Danny from her mind. Now images of his face plunged into the void.

  Oh Danny, my love, she thought. Where are you?

  In her mind's eye, she pictured him lying dead. She saw him zipped into a black plastic bag and then thrown onto a pile like luggage from a train.

  Is he alive? She thought. Or is he dead?

  She desperately needed to find out. He was the man she loved, and she needed more than anything else in the world to be with him.

  34

  The South China Sea, 0455

  3 nautical miles South of Callou Bank

  9°18'37.26"N 107°42'29.70"E

  The US Navy destroyer reversed its engines on a 345° heading, and rumbled to a stop.

  In the ship's command center, the radar display showed six vessels within a ten nautical mile circle.

  The SEAL Team leader, a W-4 Chief Warrant Officer, watched the Captain's clean finger track to the target: a green blip on the
circular screen. They re-confirmed the junk's position - 3 nautical miles off port - where it had been at anchor for the last three hours.

  The destroyer's Captain said: 'Why don't we just blow it outta the goddamn water?'

  'MI want prisoners to interrogate,' the SEAL lied. MI knew nothing of the operation.

  'We could just bring the ship alongside.'

  The SEAL was annoyed. 'Element of surprise,' he said. 'We don't want them destroying evidence.'

  'What's their crime?'

  'Classified.'

  'On a United States Warship, nothing happens without the Captain's knowledge.'

  'It does tonight,' The SEAL said. Then he left the bridge.

  On the main-deck, his strike-team waited, crouching like bullfrogs in the Zodiac assault boat. The SEAL climbed into the black rubber craft and signaled the crane operator. The winch jerked the RIB up, swung it out over the rail, and began lowering it toward the sloshing sea.

  They hit the water. Twin outboard engines growled into life and the Zodiac accelerated out into the chop, its engines over-revving as it crested each inky swell.

  They covered the distance to the junk fast.

  The moon behind had not quite set, and ahead the sun had not yet risen. Out of the dark, the stationary junk materialized like a pirate-ship: its hull curving down to the waterline amidships, and its sail hanging from the mast like the leathery wings of a sleeping bat.

  The SEAL thumbed off his MP-5's safety; he felt on edge.

  Alongside, he gave the signal to cut the outboards, and they glided silently over the last few feet. He looked back and grimaced; a light from the junk's mast betrayed the Zodiac's presence, turning its wake into gleaming hoops on the black water.

  The rubber pontoon bumped against the timber hull. The SEAL scanned the deck and saw no other lights. No activity. He had expected a panicked attempt by the crew to destroy evidence. It was the evidence that he wanted - and the Soviet made device that she was towing from her stern. With the hint of alarm, the SEAL thought that he might be alongside the wrong vessel, and risked shining a flashlight onto its bow. The numbers matched. It was the target vessel.

  Strange, he thought. They'll probably try to talk their way out of it. Too bad they're all going to die.

  A hook ladder went up at the junk's low-point and the strike-team climbed aboard.

  When they were all aboard, the junk exploded.

  35

  Bien Hoa, 0530

  Danny crawled out from behind the dumpsters and looked up and down the military lane.

  He wanted to crawl back behind the bins. Come on, he thought. Get moving.

  He hugged the buildings as he moved down the lane. At the first intersection he could see the airfield to his left, and to his right, a gate. The gate opened to the civilian side of the fence.

  The gate opened and a group of drunken airmen, dressed in civvies, staggered in. Danny watched from the shadows. The MP came out from his box and laughed at the men. 'You get some pussy?' Danny heard him say.

  'Fucked ourselves stupid.'

  Danny pulled back between two huts. The airmen went past.

  This is it, he thought. Now or never.

  Danny jogged up to the MP's box and put on his best drunken stagger.

  The MP came out. 'What you lost son?'

  'My fuckin' wallet,' Danny tried to slur his speech. 'Must've dropped the fucker on the road.'

  The MP opened the gate and Danny went out.

  When Danny was out of the MP's sight, he started to run.

  Danny made the main road and saw a bus-stop. He walked over to it, disappointed to find no timetable. He detected movement in the shadows, and tensed.

  A young nurse walked out of the morning gloom and sat at the bus-stop.

  Danny said: 'Do you know what time it arrives?'

  She pointed behind him and Danny spun round. A yellow bus was crawling down the road toward him. He let out his breath. On the bus' display were the words: Saigon via Go Vap.

  36

  Nash jogged to the interrogation room. The ecstasy of success anesthetized the pain in his leg, and focused his mind

  He had the Viet Cong Commander. He had The Ghost.

  He imagined uncovering the Viet Cong plans and weapons - the proof of a foiled operation. The 'I-told-you-so' would feel as good as kicking Hitchcock straight in the balls. The anticipation made Nash tingle.

  Nash also had Major Johnson. He was holding Johnson in a hotel room to avoid friction with Hitchcock, but to Nash's frustration, he had been unable to get anything useful out of the Major. Amai had drugged him so heavily that he couldn't even remember leaving The Continental - he couldn't even remember what he'd eaten for dinner.

  Nash approached the pit's metal door, where Mancini stood looking baffled. Mancini saluted Nash - which he didn't usually do in the compound.

  'Do we have the man?' Nash said.

  'He's in the pit. But-'

  'But what for Christ's sake?'

  Mancini looked down. 'We're not sure if he's the right guy.'

  'What the fuck?'

  Mancini shuffled from foot-to-foot. 'Claims to be Nguyen Tray Cung,' he said. 'Which checks out on the property lease of the building we raided. Claims to be a fisherman - which checks out on the ownership of a small fishing boat at Ba Son. When we found him, he stunk of fish and had hooks-n-crap all over him.'

  They fish with nets, Nash thought. 'We find anything in the building?'

  'Just the radio - Soviet model.'

  Nash tapped his chin. 'What about the firefight?'

  'Eight dead gooks. Eight AKs recovered.'

  'What'd he say about the radio?'

  'Who?'

  'The fucking prisoner, numb-nuts.'

  'Said he didn't know nothin' about it. Said he had a boarder who had been actin' strange. Said the boarder went by the name of Triet.'

  Nash felt a pinch of nervousness. 'He won't fool me with that crap,' he said. 'Let's put him on the machine.'

  'He's on it now, Sir-'

  Nash went hot. 'Who's interrogating him for Christ's sake?'

  'Colonel Hitchcock.'

  * * *

  Colonel Hitchcock turned away from the prisoner fuming.

  Nash had failed him again; and seriously this time. It had gone to the top. The Defense Secretary wanted blood.

  Foolishly, Nash had apprehended the wrong man in Phu Tho; and the blunder had snowballed into an avalanche - the kind that buried careers. Nash had let the real terrorist escape. But worse than that, Hitchcock had just learned that Nash's incompetence had led to the killing of an entire SEAL Team, while executing a top-secret mission in the South China Sea.

  It was worse than total disaster.

  The forewarned Viet Cong had set a trap, rigging an old fishing junk with ammonium nitrate before abandoning ship. But it didn't end there: the junk had somehow learned the location of a top-secret US vessel operating in the area, and had laid mines in her path. The American vessel hit the mines and went to the bottom, killing all crew and destroying hundreds-of-thousands of dollars worth of technical equipment.

  Hitchcock had seen all too often how juvenile oversight could lead to wartime catastrophe. But Nash's display of ineptitude only continued: Nash had disobeyed a direct order. His direct order.

  Hitchcock clenched his fists. That snot-nosed little prick went for Johnson.

  After informing Hitchcock of Nash's disobedience, the Defense Secretary had ordered him to, one: immediately release Major Johnson to medical treatment. Two: pursue no further questioning. And three: scrub all documentation relating to any-and-all of the above incidents.

  The Defense Secretary had made it explicitly clear to Hitchcock - failure to comply would result in his Military career and benefits ceasing to exist.

  When Hitchcock found Nash, he was going to tear a strip off him. He didn't expect to find him standing in the pit doorway, looking lost.

  * * *

  The tallest of the fiv
e men, dressed in civilian clothes, handed ID cards to the other four. 'We have been guaranteed all-access.'

  They all checked their Glock side-arms, loading a 9mm round into their chambers and switching to safety, as per protocol.

  'Johnson is missing,' the tallest said. 'Our mission is to find Amai Nguyen - and kill her.'

  The others nodded.

  'Contact me when it's done.'

  * * *

  Nash saw the raw fury in Hitchcock's face and felt a hot fizzing inside his gut.

  Hitchcock pointed back into the pit, and spoke through clenched teeth: 'Release this man immediately.'

  Nash looked in and saw the prisoner. Tied to a chair, he was scrawny, pathetic, and cringing like a beaten dog.

  Is it him? Nash thought. Is this The Ghost?

  The man didn't look like a ruthless Viet Cong Commander - he looked like a fisherman.

  Nash wanted to find out. He mustered as much nerve as he could, and said to Hitchcock: 'I'd like a word with him first.'

  'Don't you dare talk back you snot-nosed little prick.' Hitchcock's face reddened to the point of aneurism. 'Release him now. And release Major Johnson now or you'll await your courts-martial in Long Binh Jail. Is that clear?'

  Nash wilted.

  Hitchcock thrust a finger into his face. 'And you . . . you got the wrong man. Now I have to clean up your mess.'

  Nash's bowels felt weak. 'What mess?'

  'No you don't know, do you.' Hitchcock snarled. 'Because of you, an entire SEAL Team has been wiped out, and one of our ships sunk.'

  'Sir-'

  'And you went for Major Johnson despite my explicit order to stop. I've just had my ass chewed by the goddamn Defense Secretary. Johnson was not to be touched. Are you trying to flush us both down the can?'