The Three-Nine Line

by David Freed

  I wanted to laugh but knew that would only provoke him.

  “Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, my brutha,” I said.

  “You America?”

  “California.”

  “California? No way. You know my man, Snoop Dog?”

  “Can’t say I’ve ever met the dude.”

  “Got any bread on you?”

  “By ‘bread,’ you mean money?”

  He got up in my face, bad ass-like. All 120 pounds of him. “Whatchu think I mean, turkey? C’mon, now, gimme what you got. This be real. I ain’t got all night.”

  “Sorry,” I said, “I don’t have a damned dong on me.”

  “Well, you better come up with some, player, right quick, if you knows what be good for you.” He backed away a couple of feet and inched up the bottom of his T-shirt, showing me the green boxer shorts billowing over the top of his baggy jeans, along with the Medieval-looking dagger wedged down the front of his pants. The handle was wrapped in black electrical tape.

  “Check that guy out,” I said, nodding behind him. “He looks just like Snoop Dog.”

  He turned to look. In a flash, I reached out and snatched the knife.

  He stood there with his mouth open, hands wide, not sure of his next move. His buddies weren’t sure either. They all jumped to their feet, looking at each other, waiting for somebody else to take the lead.

  “You should be careful with this bad boy.” I flipped the dagger around and handed it back to him, hilt end first. “You could hurt yourself.”

  “My man.” He grinned gold-lined teeth, then turned and shouted something to his homeboys in Vietnamese. They all eased up and sat back down.

  He wanted to know why I’d been dropped off in the middle of the street with a bag over my head. I told him I was on a scavenger hunt. He had no idea what a scavenger hunt was and I didn’t elaborate. I asked him where I was. The Dong Da district—the “South Central” of Hanoi, he said with obvious pride.

  “I’m staying at a hotel in the Old Quarter, on Gia Ngu Street. How far is that from here?”

  “Too far to walk it, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I do. You think you or one of your homeboys over there could give me a lift? I can run inside when I get there and get you the money.”

  For a hundred thousand dong, he said, he’d drive me personally.

  “Done.”

  I followed him down the block. His motorbike, a mud-splattered Honda Air Blade, was parked on the sidewalk. Two little boys watched us approaching and ran away—from him, me or both of us, I couldn’t tell.

  “What’s your name, dude?”

  “They call me Hammer.”

  They, whoever “they” were, could’ve just as easily called him Spartacus and it would’ve sounded no less preposterous.

  I climbed on the back of his bike and we were off like a rifle shot. Opposing traffic was coming at us from every conceivable direction as we circled through a busy roundabout yet, somehow, nobody collided. The Vietnamese, I decided, had to be among the best drivers in the world.

  Hammer was asking me something about Snoop Dog.

  “Say again?”

  “All the time, on TV, Snoop Dog, he, like, smokes weed, man,” Hammer said, turning his head and shouting at me over the tinny roar of his motorbike’s engine. “How’s he do it, man?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Pot’s not my cup of tea.”

  “In Vietnam, you smoke weed, go to jail long time. Too much weed, they hang your mo-fuggin’ ass. I mean, kill you, man, you know what I’m talkin’ bout? But if you Snoop, it’s cool.”

  I could offer no explanation as to why some American celebrities can flaunt their illegal drug use with virtual impunity while the common man goes to prison. At that moment, however, I was distracted. Laser-focused might be a more apt description.

  Ahead of us on Thong Phong Street, a black Lexus RX450 was pulled to the curb, parked in front of a small, intimatelooking restaurant called the Bouche Bistro. Colonel Tan Sang was standing on the sidewalk beside the SUV with his arms folded, facing toward the entrance. He seemed to be waiting for someone. As we passed by unnoticed, I observed a man emerge from the restaurant. I recognized him:

  Carl Underwood Jr. from the American embassy.

  He and Tan Sang shook hands warmly, like they were old friends, then Underwood got in the Lexus with him. The head of a high-profile murder investigation, socializing with a man who might well be a suspect in that murder.

  Something about the arrangement didn’t sit well.

  EIGHTEEN

  “How’d you like to make a million dong?”

  Hammer looked back over his shoulder at me as we rode on his motorbike past the Bouche Bistro.

  “Say what?”

  “We just passed a restaurant. There’s a black Lexus in front, about to pull out. I want you to follow it—only I don’t want the people inside the Lexus to know they’re being followed. Think you can handle that?”

  “For a million dong? Hell ya, dawg.”

  He guided his Honda to the curb, braking in front of a vegetable market. The parking area was thick with other scooters and milling shoppers, making it difficult for motorists passing by to see us. We didn’t have to wait long. Tan Sang’s SUV cruised past after no more than half a minute. Hammer gunned his engine and we were soon in trail.

  I thought I might have to school him in the fundamental rules of a rolling surveillance—always maintain your distance and keep at least two other vehicles between you and the subject you’re shadowing—but the kid seemed to know instinctively what to do. For once in my life, I was happy to find myself in heavily congested traffic. Engulfed as we were in a slow-rolling sea of mostly motorbikes, Hammer and I were hardly noticeable.

  “That Lexus dropped you off with your head in that silly-ass bag.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “So, who are you, anyway, man? Some kinda Ice T-Shaft mo-fo or what?”

  “I’m the guy who’s paying you a million dong when this is all done.”

  “Damn. I heard dat.”

  What was a spook like Carl Underwood Jr. doing tooling around Hanoi with a corrupt Communist bigwig like Truong Tan Sang? I didn’t know, but I had every intention of finding out.

  After less than a mile, the SUV came to a stop across the street from a public park. Hammer hung back and pulled over around the corner without me asking him to—close enough that I could maintain eyes-on, but far enough away that we weren’t noticeable. The kid was a natural.

  Several older badminton players were smacking shuttlecocks back and forth across a rope they’d strung up between a pair of streetlights. Skateboarders wearing kneepads and colorful safety helmets were jumping concrete stairs, sliding down handrails. They looked like American skateboarders in Santa Monica and Rancho Bonita. On the other side of the park, four shirtless soccer players in a loose circle were laughing and practicing their passing. One of them spotted Tan Sang’s SUV and trotted across the street to where it sat, idling at the curb with its lights on.

  It was too dark to make out much detail and I was too far away to hear what was said. The soccer player reached in through the left rear window, which was open, and received something small, which he quickly stuffed into one of the front pockets of his red, knee-length gym shorts. He nodded adamantly to whoever he was talking to inside the SUV, the way one nods when acknowledging a set of instructions, then trotted back across the street to rejoin his soccer-playing buddies.

  “You wanna go talk to that dude?” Hammer asked gesturing toward the players as the SUV merged back into traffic.

  “Stay with the car.”

  “You got it, bro man.”

  Past the grandiose concrete mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh’s body lay in perpetual state, then west, we followed Tan Sang’s Lexus. On our left, just past a golf driving range, was what looked like some sort of military museum with various MiG-21 fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles displayed on its spacious grounds. If Tan S
ang suspected he was being followed, he never let on. Sharp, abrupt turns and U-turns are among the most basic of countersurveillance methods, but the SUV’s driver was hardly evasive—until he put on his signal, slowed, and made a sharp right between two apartment buildings.

  “Kill your light.”

  “Say what?”

  I reached forward and flicked off the motorbike’s light switch.

  “I can’t see where I’m going, man!”

  “Just drive.”

  By the time we made the same right turn, I’d lost sight of the Lexus. The road ahead was a twisting lane with apartment buildings on either side, barely wide enough to accommodate one vehicle. Twice, we nearly sideswiped parked motorbikes as Hammer struggled to maintain control in the dark.

  “Faster, Hammer.”

  “I go any faster, man, we gonna die.”

  “We’re losing them.” Again I leaned forward and reached around him. Clamping my right hand on his, I goosed the throttle. “Faster or no dong.”

  “You crazy, man.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  The kid accelerated despite his better instincts and fear. As we rounded yet another bend, I caught sight of the SUV’s taillights turning down a narrow alley, the mouth of which was all but obscured by the densely packed apartment buildings that lined either side of the lane we were negotiating in virtual blindness. Two seconds later, and I would’ve missed the turn completely.

  “Keep going straight.”

  “You don’t want me to follow him no more?”

  “Straight.”

  I could see driving past the alley that it dead-ended after about twenty meters in front of a single-story, fortress-like structure constructed of concrete blocks that had been painted a disarming lime color. The roof was flat. Heavy security grates barred the front door and two large front windows. It looked like a crack house.

  Once we were safely past the mouth of the alley, I instructed Hammer to pull over and got off the back of his motorbike.

  “Wait here.”

  “Where you going, man?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  I could smell fear on the kid.

  “Look, man,” he said, “I don’t know what this is all about, okay, but you messin’ with some freaky shit. Somebody fixin’ to get killed, and I don’t want that somebody to be me, so if it’s cool wit’ you, I be on my way.”

  I wondered how many hours of MTV he’d watched in his short life. MTV. America’s greatest contribution to modern popular culture. That and Lady Gaga. You’re welcome, earth.

  “Wait here for me and I’ll double that million dong I was going to pay you.”

  “Two million? Straight up?”

  “Yeah, Hammer, straight up.”

  We shook hands on it.

  The apartment buildings were decrepit and jammed close together. Collectively, they formed a funnel, flanking the approach to the house. There was nowhere for me to hide, no way to advance under concealment of cover. I’d faced similar situations with Alpha. The difference then was that I typically went in as part of a well-armed team, equipped with stateof-the-art night optical devices that gave us a definite tactical advantage against the high value targets we were hunting. Now I was alone, unarmed, and not at all sure what I was looking for. Instinct told me there was definitely something there. How to see without being seen, that was the catch.

  All armies prefer high ground to low. Special operators are no different. The elements of concealment and surprise almost always are better maintained when advancing on the enemy from above; people tend to look down more often than they do up. Which was why, ultimately, I elected to sneak up on the house where Tan Sang’s SUV was parked by hopping from the rooftop of one tenement to the other.

  Climbing up was easy, even for a guy with a gimpy football knee approaching middle age. I found an old ladder lying against a wall, used it to reach a darkened second-floor balcony and, from there, climbed an iron railing to haul myself onto the third floor. From there, I grabbed on to an overhang and hauled myself up, then over the edge of the roof of the apartment building. Crouching low in the dark, I waited for any movement or sound that might indicate I’d been spotted, but saw or heard nothing alarming.

  Jumping from one rooftop to the next was about as challenging as playing hopscotch. A few steps back, good running start and launch myself blindly across the void. Piece of cake. Unfortunately, on my third leap, I crashed rather loudly into some sort of knee-high vent pipe. The collision rattled my fillings and produced a major league bruise on my left shinbone, but left me otherwise intact. A dog barked somewhere below me. Again I crouched and waited. No one came running.

  Two more leaps across space and I reached the end of the alley. Slowly, feeling my way in the dark, I crawled to the edge of the roof and peeked over. Three stories down and there it was: Tan Sang’s Lexus. Logan, you’re such a pro. I was feeling fairly special about my vast sleuthing talents until it occurred to me that I couldn’t see inside the house from my vantage point on high. Nor did I know how the hell I was going to get down off of that roof without being seen and/or heard and drawing attention to myself.

  Peering over the edge, I could see directly below me a couple and their three small children inside their apartment. They were all sitting around a TV inside the living room. Whatever they were watching must’ve been wildly hysterical because they were all laughing. Bolted to their balcony, as was the case with many apartment balconies and rooftops in Hanoi, was a small satellite TV dish. The dish offered a solid handhold. All I had to do was reach down and grab it, use my weight as a pendulum to swing myself onto the railing of their balcony, shimmy down, snag the dish on the second-floor balcony directly below it, then repeat the process to the first floor. But there was no way I could reach down and snag that first dish without being seen, unless the people inside were somehow momentarily distracted.

  Directly above me, protruding from the rooftop by about three feet, was a weather head—a thick metal pipe from which six electrical power cables hung, swaying precariously on the evening breeze. Like petals on a flower stem, all of the power cables connected to a central telephone pole down on the street and a precarious-looking jumble of at least two dozen other lines, each one feeding a surrounding apartment building. I took off my shirt, draped it over either side of one of the lines to avoid electrocuting myself, and pulled. The line gave way with marginal resistance, sparking as it landed on the roof. The effort, however, didn’t produce the result I’d hoped for. The lights in the apartment below me stayed on.

  I repeated the process, draping my shirt over another line and yanking it down. No joy. A third line. Nothing. A fourth line. Nothing. After my fifth attempt, in an instant, all of Vietnam seemed to go dark. I could hear shouts of frustration from all over the neighborhood while the kids in the apartment below me whined in complaint.

  Quickly, I reached out, snagged the satellite dish, and, like Tarzan swinging down from the trees, descended from the third to the second floor, strained to catch the second dish, and missed it.

  Damn.

  The fall was about twenty feet, long enough for me to remember proper parachute-landing techniques I’d learned nearly a decade earlier at Fort Benning where I’d gone through airborne training with Alpha: legs bent slightly at the knees; chin and elbows tucked in; and a sideways roll as you hit to distribute the shock on the body upon landing. I also remember thinking, “This is gonna hurt.”

  It did. And then some.

  My right shoulder felt like I’d gone one-on-one with a freight train. The back of my skull throbbed where it had smacked the street. I was woozy and ached, but nothing felt broken. I quickly shook off the cobwebs, got to one knee, and then to my feet. In the blackness, I crossed the gap between the apartment building from which I’d plunged to the house where Tan Sang’s Lexus was parked, and took cover beside it. The vehicle was empty. Time to advance on the house itself.

  T
he number, 22, was painted in white on the wall beside the front door. Crouched there, I could hear the low, angry murmur of a male voice inside. A second or two later came the sharp, unmistakable crack of a human palm smacking human flesh. This was followed instantly by the wail of a woman crying out in pain, and the terrified screams of other women. Somebody in that house was getting a beating.

  With the power out, flashlight beams danced behind the front windows but thick curtains prevented me from seeing inside. There had to be other windows in the back or along the sides, maybe even a way to get inside without being observed.

  I was crossing in front of the house when the door suddenly opened and two young men armed with AK-47s came barging out looking like they were in a hurry to kick somebody’s ass. With nowhere to hide but behind a spindly little bush that came up to my calves, I assumed the ass was mine.

  NINETEEN

  All day. That’s how long my fellow Alpha operators and I once were compelled to sit in a classroom, learning how the eye detects motion in low light. The instructor was a nerdy Yale University ophthalmologist with a profusion of nose hair who droned on for hours about cones and rods, peripheral drift illusion, and something called the Pulfrich effect. The only thing I remembered from that day was that cavewomen were gatherers and that cavemen learned it was much easier to spot prey when it’s moving. This explains why men today can never find anything in the refrigerator while women can find everything. It was a lesson I tested when the two-man security detail bolted out of the house with their AKs.

  Had they turned, they would’ve seen me. To my amazement, they didn’t. As the Buddha said, it’s better to be lucky than good. Okay, maybe the Buddha didn’t say that, but he could’ve, because it’s the truth. Sighting down the barrels of their assault rifles, the gunmen scanned the street and the surrounding apartment buildings, looking every which way but behind them—where I was crouched, motionless, doing my best to become one with the bush.