The Three-Nine Line

by David Freed

  My cadet classmates and I were all well aware that Cohen had been a prisoner of war for three years in Hanoi, captured after his F-4 Phantom fighter was tagged by a Russian-built surface-to-air missile. He had a knack for languages and spoke several fluently, including Vietnamese, which he’d learned while in leg irons. The horrors he’d endured in the Hanoi Hilton were profound, none more so than when another captured pilot, badly injured, was rumored to have died in his arms. Cohen, however, refused to talk about any of it. Those days were behind him, he’d say, when we pressed him. Then he’d invariably change the subject by quoting some classic bit of philosophy, about how people can’t change the past, only the future. It was Cohen who’d gotten me thinking about the virtues of Buddhism. It was, quite frankly, inconceivable to me that my gentle, soft-spoken professor could be suspected of murder.

  “You knew him, right?” Buzz asked me.

  “Been a long time but, yeah, I knew him. One of those people who change your life. Make you see things in a different light.”

  Cohen, Hauksson said, was still teaching part-time at the academy, living alone in a small cabin up in the mountains, west of Colorado Springs. I handed him back the photo.

  “When do I take off?”

  “You’re booked on a flight out of Los Angeles tonight under the name, Dr. Bob Barker,” Buzz said. “There’ll be a native language speaker, an interpreter, waiting on station to assist you when you arrive.”

  “Who’s the terp?” I asked.

  Hauksson flipped through his file. “His name is Nguyen Phu Dung. Says here he flew combat during the war. Knocked down a couple of F-4s in 1971, before he got shot down himself.”

  I was speechless. Almost. “He flew for the North Vietnamese?”

  “That’s what it says here.”

  “An enemy pilot who’s now working for us, and I’m supposed to trust him with my life?” I tried not to look as stunned as I felt. “What kind of shop are you guys running here?”

  “Look,” Buzz said, “the guy’s been fully vetted, okay? Both DIA and CIA vouch for him. You’re just gonna have to go with this, Logan. We don’t have the luxury of asset shopping at this point. You’re it. And so is he.”

  I ruminated for a couple of seconds. Buzz was right. Under the circumstances, time was of the essence.

  “Where do I find him?”

  “He’ll find you,” Buzz said.

  Our chorizo burritos finally arrived. They tasted like they were from Cleveland.

  V

  Buzz drove me back to the airport in his personal ride, a gold Kia Optima with Virginia plates. Given the government’s mileage reimbursement rates, he said, he preferred driving between Ohio and his home in suburban Washington rather than flying commercially.

  “I put it on cruise control, crank up a little Placido Domingo, and boom, I’m pulling into the driveway six hours later. Hell, it takes me nearly that long just to get through security at the airport.”

  “Nice car,” I said.

  “Yeah, Kia does a pretty good job. They’re building airplanes now, too, forklifts, buses, big-ass cargo freighters, you name it. I read the other day they build more ships than anybody in the world. They’re gonna own the world someday at this rate, the South Koreans.”

  We crossed over a rusting bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River, heading south on Interstate 90. Sand and gravel pits lined both sides of the water. The sky was clear, the traffic light. Most of the other cars on the road looked like they hadn’t been washed in months. There was no mistaking Cleveland for Los Angeles.

  When we got to the airport, Buzz pulled into the passenger loading section, reached into the glove box, and handed me a US passport issued to Dr. Robert Barker. Along with the passport was a preapproved visa application letter that I’d need to gain entry to Vietnam, as well as copies of letters in both English and Vietnamese, signed by the Vietnamese ambassador to Washington, granting “Dr. Barker” permission to counsel and assess the mental health of the two Americans being held in Hanoi. Buzz also issued me a brown leather wallet containing a California driver’s license and credit cards identifying me as Barker, along with six million Vietnamese dong worth about $300. Then he gave me an iPhone and charger.

  The phone, he said, was encrypted. Installed on it were various relevant apps. There was a dictionary listing fundamental Vietnamese words—yes (vâng), no (không), thank you (cảm ơn bạn), and so forth. Another app served as English-Vietnamese translator. If worse came to worst and nobody spoke English, I could use it to make myself understood. Another app offered a guide to useful mental health terms (cognitive dissonance, associationism, etc.) so that I might familiarize myself with the vernacular of psychology and hopefully sound credible. The last app Buzz pointed out was the latest version of the kids’ game, Angry Birds. In reality, it was a countersurveillance program that would allow me to detect electronic bugging devices. Also downloaded was a file with relevant background information on my mission as well as the bogus résumé of the fictitious Dr. Bob Barker that I was to memorize if I hoped to be convincing in the role. All of the apps would remain but the informational files would erase themselves as a security precaution, Buzz said, after being opened once.

  “As always,” I deadpanned, “should you or any of your I-M force be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim.”

  Buzz looked over at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.

  “Who the hell’s Jim?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Just so you know,” Buzz said, “nobody can track you on that phone. Nobody can listen in, not even the NSA. My direct number is on speed dial. So is my twenty-four-hour command post here in Cleveland. If you need help, hit zero.”

  “And what, the cavalry comes riding to my rescue?”

  “You’re pretty much out there on your own on this one, Logan. Screw the pooch, and we’ll make all the necessary arrangements to have your remains shipped home with full honors.”

  “And I’m taking this assignment why?”

  “Because you’re a patriot. Because you owe it to all those studs who came before you. That includes the two they got locked up over there right now. Just do me one favor.”

  “Name it.”

  “Don’t go looking for trouble over there. Get in, find out what you can, and get the hell out. The last thing the administration needs is having to negotiate the release of one more American. Copy?”

  I nodded. We gripped forearms, gladiator-style—our old, premission routine from Alpha—and I got out of the car.

  “I mean it, Logan. In, out, done. No trouble.”

  “Me?” I smiled. “Never.”

  When I looked back, he was watching me, frowning.

  V

  The Gulfstream was waiting where I’d deplaned earlier that morning. The cockpit door was still closed. For all I knew, both pilots were still inside, still cowering in embarrassment at that miserable excuse for a landing. The flight attendant, Best, welcomed me back on board with a chicken salad deli sandwich on rye, a bottle of fresh-squeezed guava juice, and a midsize rolling suitcase, black.

  “The boss told me business casual,” he said. “Hope everything fits okay.”

  Three pairs of Dockers slacks. Conservative dress shirts. Suede Rockport oxfords. Argyle socks. Two sweater vests. Your grandfather’s boxer shorts. Buzz’s definition of the well-dressed psychologist. I changed into slacks and one of the shirts, and stuffed my old clothes into the suitcase, along with my toothbrush and other toiletries. Best assured me my duffel bag would be waiting for me when I got back stateside.

  “You’ll need to leave your old wallet with me,” he said, “and anything else that could identify you as anybody other than your operational cover. You’ll get it all back after.”

  I tossed him my wallet.

  “Anything else that could identify you? Monogrammed garment labels? Tattoos? Not that we could do much about the ink at this point.”

/>   “I’m not into body ink. And, fortunately, I left my monogrammed bikini briefs at home.” I laced on my new Rockports, which looked like the kind of shoes old folks slip on to walk the mall, sat back, and settled in for what would be an uneventful flight to Los Angeles.

  Thinking about my old professor, Steve Cohen, gave me a welcomed respite from thinking about Savannah. I remembered that Cohen had a history of heart trouble—he’d been hospitalized briefly when I was at the academy for what was described as a “mild cardiac event” before returning to the classroom. I wondered to what extent his being back once more in Hanoi and under armed guard would cause him tumult. More than anything, though, I also wondered how the hell I was going to pull off this operation.

  FOUR

  The flight was a China Airlines red-eye with a short layover in Taipei, leaving at 0105 hours out of LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal. I had plenty of time to kill before my scheduled departure.

  After a sumptuous, two-entree dinner at Panda Express, I visited the international terminal bookstore. There, I perused an article in Cosmopolitan magazine about sixteen problems people encounter during drunken sex. I felt particularly fortunate that I don’t drink anymore. After that, with still plenty of time to kill, I went window-shopping.

  From Hermès to Gucci, the terminal’s merchants catered to a clientele of which I surely was not a member and never would be. At one duty-free shop, I paused to admire a bottle of singlemalt Balvenie whiskey on display behind glass. It’s been years since I touched a drop of liquor, but I remembered the stuff was high-end. Two haughty sales associates stood nearby, arms folded, chatting with each other and looking bored.

  “Mind me asking a question?”

  One looked over like she was doing me a favor. She had dark hair and way too much lipstick.

  “May I help you?”

  I pointed to the bottle. “What’s the price on that?”

  “The Balvenie? It’s $46,000.”

  I started laughing. She seemed offended.

  “Sir, this is the absolute best scotch money can buy. In the world. Period. For, like, ever. It’s nearly fifty years old.”

  “So am I, but I guarantee you, nobody’d pay that much for me.”

  At the Porsche Design shop, a sleek-looking, squared-away African American sales clerk dressed all in black tried to interest me in a $480 stainless steel pen that flexed like a snake. The technology, he said with pride, had come by way of NASA, where engineers required a “writing instrument” that would perform reliably in harsh, zero-gravity conditions of Earth orbit.

  “The Russians came up with a similar writing instrument,” I said. “It was called a pencil.”

  He forced a thin smile. Call it a hunch, I don’t think he thought I was the least bit funny.

  My seat was on the aisle, thirty-seven rows behind the nose of the China Airlines Airbus A330. The flight attendants were stylishly coiffed and all unusually statuesque for Chinese women. They wore their hair up in identical buns and went about their work with all the humor of Marine Corps drill instructors. If you deigned to leave your seatback even slightly reclined when they were coming down the aisle, serving a meal, they were only too eager to lean over, push the button on your armrest, and return your seat to its full and upright position without asking whether you’d like to do it yourself. They served us chicken and rice with a full-sized Almond Joy candy bar for dessert. Not bad.

  “First time to Taiwan?” the guy in the middle seat asked me. He was Asian, midthirties, and spoke with an Asian accent. His aloha shirt was open to his navel, revealing a proliferation of gold neck chains, from one of which hung a two-inch rendition of the Buddha, carved from jade.

  “I’ve been there a time or two,” I said.

  “On business?”

  “More or less.”

  “So what is it you do?”

  “As little as possible.”

  He smiled and seemed to know enough not to pry.

  I ate.

  “Taiwan’s awesome, dude,” he said after a while. “Really hot chicks there.”

  “Is that right?” I forked some chicken into my mouth.

  “Not as hot as Vietnamese women, though. That’s where I’m from. Vietnam.”

  He told me his name was Tony and that he ran a filling station outside New Orleans. He was making a connection in Taipei and flying on to Ho Chi Minh City—what was once known as Saigon—to attend his mother’s funeral.

  I offered my condolences.

  “Yeah, thanks. She’s a great lady. Never wanted to leave the old country, though. It was home, you know?”

  I nodded and told him I was headed ultimately for Vietnam myself, to Hanoi.

  He shook his head. “Just be careful up there, man.”

  “Something wrong with Hanoi?”

  He unwrapped his Almond Joy. “Bad things happen in Hanoi, that’s all.”

  He dozed off after dinner. The young woman sitting against the window next to him, ensconced in a gray, hooded, oversized UCLA sweatshirt, had fallen asleep even before we’d taken off.

  I dug out the iPhone Buzz had given me and studied the White House’s executive summary of the crisis in Hanoi:

  Being held in the Yellow Flower Hotel along with my former professor, Colonel Cohen, was retired Air Force Captain Virgil J. Stoneburner, 71, of Boca Raton, Florida., whose F-105 Thunderchief had been hit by ground fire while attacking a bridge south of Hanoi in May 1969. Stoneburner had been badly injured ejecting from his stricken jet. North Vietnamese doctors tried to reset his broken legs after he was captured, but he never walked normally again.

  The third former POW who’d been prescient enough to leave Vietnam and return home hours before Mr. Wonderful’s body was found, Clarence “Billy” Hallady, resided in Redlands, California. He’d flown propeller-driven Skyraiders off the carrier, USS Ticonderoga. Shot down in December 1965, Hallady held the distinction of having spent more time in North Vietnamese prison camps than just about any non-jet-driver in the fleet. He’d spent three years at Walter Reed and other VA hospitals upon his release, undergoing nearly twenty surgeries to repair the injuries he’d sustained to his arms and shoulders during countless torture sessions at the Hanoi Hilton, many of them at the hands of Mr. Wonderful. The records described the psychological trauma he’d sustained during those sessions as “profound.”

  “Coffee or tea, sir?”

  I looked up from my phone into the flight attendant’s perfect porcelain face. She was holding silver decanters in either hand and possessed the kind of body that generated recreational thoughts about which I immediately felt conflicted.

  “No, thanks.”

  She moved down the aisle without so much as the hint of a smile. Say what you will about flight attendants on American commercial airlines these days. At least they smile. Occasionally, anyway.

  I glanced over at my seatmate to make sure he was still snoozing—he was—and returned to my reading.

  Cables from the US Embassy in Hanoi to the White House showed that officials had made repeated efforts to resolve the looming crisis by reaching out to Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry as well as the Supreme People’s Procuracy. The Americans had been essentially stonewalled.

  The only pertinent bit of intelligence gleaned from these failed diplomatic efforts had been to confirm the identity of the man heading the investigation of Mr. Wonderful’s murder. He was from the Ministry of Public Security—Vietnam’s version of the FBI. His name was Truong Tan Sang. His photos were included in the briefing package on my phone. Open source analysts at CIA reported that Sang was a Vietnamese army colonel whose mother had been killed during US bombing raids on Hanoi in December 1972. The colonel by every indication was a rising star in the Communist Party. At fifty-two he was unmarried, a fluent English speaker and hard-line ideologue with no known personal vices and a seemingly limitless political future. Some predicted he might one day even become prime minister. He had silver hair and conveyed the imperious counten
ance of a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

  As for Mr. Wonderful, his sadistic exploits had been told and retold in memoirs published by various former American prisoners of war. It was said that he smiled and hummed pleasantly while torturing downed flyers. Intelligence reports indicated that in civilian life after the war, he’d married and started a small company selling used car parts in Hanoi. The venture had proven profitable, allowing him to buy up several apartment buildings throughout the city. Acquaintances described him as a kind and honest man who, like many veterans, never talked about what he’d done during the war. Allegations of his brutality were inconceivable to his family and friends. So, too, for that matter, were stories that any US prisoners of war had ever been mistreated in any significant way by any Vietnamese prison guards. The Vietnamese were a civilized people; the notion of torture was antithetical to their culture.

  My curriculum vitae, or rather, Dr. Bob Barker’s, was a creative amalgam of truth, half-truths, and flat-out fiction. Like me, he’d grown up in Colorado and enjoyed flying small airplanes in his spare time. But while one of us had gone to the Air Force Academy, flown more than one hundred combat missions, and eventually gone to work in the shadow world of covert intelligence operations, the other of us had dallied for years in the womb of academia, racking up two master’s degrees and a doctorate. Barker had matriculated all over the country, from Purdue to Penn State to Carnegie Mellon, before setting up a private clinical practice in Rancho Bonita. He was a member of the American Psychological Association and innumerable other esteemed professional organizations, and had been honored for his clinical research in the area of post-traumatic stress disorder.