Into the Treeline

by John F. Mullins

  The colonel held his silence. “We don’t have much time,” Jim said. “If you’re holding out until we turn you in to the province officials, you can forget about that.” Jim was using an old interrogation trick; show them that you already know most of the details, so that it becomes pointless to hold out. “We already know about them. You won’t be turned in, not at all. At this point, all you can hope for is that I can somehow get you to Saigon. I’ll put you in the hands of people there who I can trust. But you have to give me something.”

  The collapse was obvious. The colonel’s shoulders drooped, he looked exhausted. Jim pressed the point.

  “You must tell me the purpose of this whole thing. We have brought in most of the other people,” he lied. “They are telling us everything they know. How do you think I found out about you? You will do yourself no good by telling me lies. We are not unreasonable men, Colonel. You are a soldier, as am I. As soldiers, we know when the battle is lost.”

  The proselytizing chief of the northern provinces started speaking in a dull, morphine-induced monotone. Jim checked to see that the tape recorder was working. He did not want to miss an instant of this.

  It took hours. At the end he had to prod the colonel awake to get the final, almost unbelievable details. When it was over he let him rest, telling the guard to keep good watch on the hut. Not that he thought the man would or could escape. The broken pelvis would make sure of that. He needed his own sleep. There was much to do in the morning.

  The man was dead when he looked in on him the next morning. There were no obvious marks. He checked quite thoroughly, questioned the guard at length, assured himself that no one had been in there. Must have been more internal bleeding than I thought, he told himself. Not that it mattered. He had not yet figured out what he would do with the man. The problem did not exist anymore. Just another corpse to dispose of. There had been many of them. There would be many more.

  “I have to go somewhere,” he told Tu. “I need a couple of people. PX shopping at Camp Evans,” he lied. “You need anything?”

  “Non, Capitane,” replied Tu. “We will rid ourselves of the offal while you are gone. You will give us orders when you return?”

  “Lots of orders, my good friend. Lots and lots of orders. Get the PRU ready. We have much work to do.”

  He put a copy of the tape into a mailing packet, addressed it to Lisa, and deposited it in the Army Post Office at Camp Evans. All around him was the bustle of a major U.S. army base. The 101st Airborne was in residence, a good unit and one that had been blooded in hundreds of useless battles for insignificant pieces of terrain that were immediately abandoned. Thousands of young men, strong, healthy, whole. The rot that had begun to affect the rear-area troops had not shown itself to any great extent here. These troops were confident, hardy, brave fighters. Most of them, he figured, still believed in what they were doing. Wonder what you’d do, he thought, if you knew that your own leadership was getting ready to give it all away. That all the sacrifices you made, all the buddies you watched being shipped out in body bags, were all for nothing. Would you stand up, demand of your leaders the commitment and bravery that you have shown? Or would you just go on believing that the people in power probably knew best? That if they were doing something, they must have a good reason for it, perhaps one that you did not understand, but after all, you were a simple soldier, and were not supposed to be able to understand. What would it take to rip that veil from your eyes? To see that the leaders were just men, all too fallible men, who for a host of reasons made mistakes too. Disastrous mistakes, which made a mockery of what you were doing. More evidence than I possess, certainly, though the tape that just went out of here might someday help.

  He kept to his cover story by going to the PX and purchasing a few supplies; shaving gear, writing paper, a couple of cases of beer. The PX was as well-stocked as any in the United States. Clothes, expensive jewelry, concessionaires who sold cars for delivery when you got home, tailor shops where one could get the latest fashions made to measure, mountains of beer, liquor stores selling booze at a fraction of what it would have cost in the States. No wonder the Vietnamese think we’re so rich, he thought. And no wonder one of the biggest businesses in the country was dealing in black market PX goods.

  Time to go. He had his mission, and he knew how to carry it out. He needed no logistics for it, no helicopters, no airstrikes, no artillery. Just a few trusted PRU. And while he did not know if it would do any good, at least he had to try.

  Moira Culpepper dropped the sheaf of flimsies on Eliot Danforth’s desk, announcing that they were the latest reports from I Corps. Waited for him to read them, and the explosion she knew was to come. She was not disappointed. His nose grew even more red than usual, the flush climbing into his receding hairline. He was breathing harder and harder, almost as hard as he did when he was atop her. I wonder when he’s going to have a heart attack? she idly thought. The prospect did not dismay her. Though she hoped it would not be in her room. That would be messy, and hard to explain.

  “If I had any hard evidence at all that he was the one who killed our man,” he hissed, “I’d have him shot.”

  “What more evidence do you need?” she asked. “The man was killed in his bed, the night after Vanh was blown up. With a tool of the type known to have been used by Vanh in any number of assassinations. The wife says that it was a large figure; never mind the mumbo-jumbo about it being the black form of death itself. Who else could it have been?”

  “That, my dear, is not evidence. Not evidence I can carry to a court of law and justify the act. We can’t get away with just anything. Surely even you can understand that.” He ignored the stiffening of her lips caused by the insult. “He’s going to ruin everything! All that I’ve worked for during the last year.”

  “There’s more,” she said. “Colonel Binh didn’t return to his headquarters last night. He’s done that before, so no one is getting too upset just yet. But I thought you ought to know.” She enjoyed the discomfiture this news caused.

  “We cannot allow this to happen,” he said. “The Plan must go forward, and it cannot without the key people in Hue.”

  “Why don’t you go to Roger again and demand that he be removed?” She had been thoroughly briefed on ‘The Plan’ after she’d asked why it had been so important to keep a close eye on Captain Carmichael. After some initial misgivings, she had seen how career-enhancing it would be for Eliot, and by extension for her, if it succeeded. It was, therefore, a brilliant plan. And if it did not work there would still be time to distance herself from it. She kept two journals, one which recorded her work in support of the plan, the second in which she recorded nonexistent misgivings about it, and complaints that she was being forced to go along with it by a supervisor who was showing increasing signs of megalomania.

  “No possibility of that, without telling him what’s going on. And we can’t do that. First, I doubt that he would go along with it. He’s still of the opinion that we can win this war. Second, even if by some chance he did go along with it, he’d at some point want to claim some of the credit. And I’ll share credit with no one. This is all mine. No one else in this country, on our side, knows about it. Except you. And I know that I can trust you. Because I’ll bring you down with me if it goes wrong.”

  You just think you will, you old fool! she thought. Aloud she asked, “So what’s the answer?”

  “Do we have any further word on the VC team?”

  “No,” she admitted. “They dropped from sight once they entered Cambodia. We can only surmise that they are on their way north. They could even be there by now.”

  “Or they could have been killed in a B-52 strike, or by one of the Special Forces Recon teams, or could have just died of malaria,” he said. “Not good enough. The young bastard is very lucky. Two attempts on him so far, and neither worked. His luck may run out, but it could be too late by then. No, we’re going to have to do something more positive.” He looked at her speculativel
y, eyes hooded and glittering. “I think we’re going to have to put you into play.”

  “Me?” She felt foreboding. She hadn’t signed on for this part.

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult. You’re the only one who stands a chance of getting close to him. Certainly he’s not going to trust me.”

  “And what makes you think he’ll trust me?”

  “Don’t act naive!” he snapped. “It shouldn’t be too difficult for you. You’re used to using your body to get what you want. The young captain may be suspicious, but he’s still a man. Pack your bags for a long stay. You’re going to Hue on an inspection trip, and it may take you a week or two. I’ll cable Copely.”

  “And what am I supposed to do, once I get ‘close to him’?” she asked, wanting to hear him say it.

  “Stop him, by whatever means you have to use. Do I have to be more specific than that?”

  It was enough. A full-blown sanction. She felt an almost sexual shiver of excitement.

  Chapter XV

  Carmichael still needed more evidence. He did not know who the conspirator or conspirators were on the American side. He could not let himself believe that they were numerous, that this was the hidden agenda of the U.S. policymakers. If that was so the game was up. He might or might not be able to prevail if this was a plot of one or two rogue officials. If it was more, he was doomed. Not that it frightened him. He’d already decided that he did not much care if he survived or not.

  In the dark watches of the night, coming awake fighting from a dream that was all too real, sleeping not again until dawn lightened the sky outside his window, he would lie rigid and think. Mostly he thought about what a piece of bad luck he was. Not for himself, necessarily. He seemed to be very much the survivor Lisa had called him. But he was a disaster for others.

  People perished around him, while he walked through it with little or no harm. It seemed to be a certain death warrant, for him to care about someone. The list seemed endless: Captain Buon, Vanh, literally hundreds of soldiers whom he had led, old friends and compatriots. Everyone was dead. They called to him at night, demanded to know why. And he could not answer them. Nor, it seemed, could he join them.

  Mostly he blamed himself for the deaths. His rational mind would argue, telling him that these things happened, that most would have occurred with or without him. These arguments were always lost. He knew they would not have happened if it had not been for him. If he had asked Vanh where he was going and insisted that he take a bodyguard, if he had not decided to assault a hill against insurmountable odds, if, if, if…

  At times he would get up, unable to stand the silence magnifying the voices in his brain. Play a tape on the PX-purchased Teac tape deck. The Doors often suited his mood. “Summer’s Almost Gone,” and especially “The Unknown Soldier.” Other times it would be Edith Piaf, though the sentiments expressed in “Je ne Regrette Rien” were exactly the opposite of his. Better was “En Avant la Legion.” Because in the final analysis, what choice did you have but to go on?

  Sometimes he contemplated placing the pistol behind his ear and ending the whole sorry mess. Would take it from beneath his pillow and stare at it until the cold metal grew warm from his hand, as warm as the touch of a seductress. Then he would sigh, regretfully, and put it away. What held him back he did not know; cowardice, perhaps. Or the realization that his work was not yet done. Or perhaps it was the desire for revenge that glowed within him like a furnace. Or perhaps it was sheer obstinacy, unwillingness to further the opposition’s cause. Why should he make it easier for them?

  He would doze again then, fitfully, rising a couple of hours later when one of the soldiers knocked on his door, bringing him a steaming cup of strong French coffee. Get into his clothes, which were starting to hang on him like rags. Look at himself in the mirror while he shaved, seeing how much further his eyes were sunk into his head today. Occasionally a flash of the old humor. Goddamn, he told himself, a little more of this and you’re going to look like a refugee from Dachau. He smiled a little bit. It felt strange.

  A knock on the door. The guard again, telling him he had a visitor. Must be Fitzwilliam bringing me mail, he thought. Don’t think I can stand any more good news. Maybe I’ll just tell him to burn the shit when he gets it.

  He was surprised, and immediately suspicious, to see Moira Culpepper standing there. I was expecting bad news, he thought, and here it is in the flesh.

  It was immediately apparent that she was nervous. Not at all the self-assured, poised woman he had known. She had not stopped chattering since she pushed her way past him and perched precariously on Vanh’s old cot. Bullshit about an inspection visit, and how she had seized the chance for it because, and at this she looked at him from under seductively lowered eyelids, it would give her a chance to spend some time with him, to get to know him better. She looked very good, sitting there in a vaguely military pants suit. But the military never issued material that clung so lovingly to upthrust breasts and artfully stretched itself along crossed legs. She talked about Saigon gossip, dropping names that meant little or nothing to him. What difference did it make that this general was banging that secretary? That so-and-so was a closet homosexual, and couldn’t keep himself away from young Vietnamese houseboys? I’ve been with true whores, he thought. But they were nothing compared to you. They, at least, knew what they were. You, on the other hand, feel no remorse, no shame. Your morals are not underdeveloped, they don’t exist at all. I feel nothing at all for you, no desire, no lust, nothing. And realizing that, he felt liberated.

  It’s not working, she thought frantically. He sits there and looks at me with no emotion at all. His eyes are empty, dead. Looking at me as if I’m some sort of foreign creature. It angered and at the same time frightened her. The one constant in her life had been her ability to control men through her body. Now she was beginning to realize that it was she who was being controlled. First Eliot had sent her here with the unspoken order to use her sex to get close to this man. Not caring that she would have to sleep with him. Treating her like little more than a common whore, when she would have thought it would have made him wildly jealous to think of her in another man’s arms. The control she’d thought she had over him obviously did not exist.

  Now this dead-eyed one, who she had found so easy to manipulate, responded to her not at all. She uncrossed her legs, let him see where the tight material cleaved into her sex. There was no flicker in the eyes.

  “Eliot wanted me to ask you,” she said, changing tack, “about the PRU operations. There haven’t been many reports coming from Thua Thien.”

  “That’s because there hasn’t been much to report,” he lied. “By the way, does Roger know you’re here?”

  “Certainly,” she replied. He hadn’t been told, of course. He’d have been suspicious of such a visit. One did not just come down and inspect province operations without the knowledge and permission of the Region. She hoped to have her business done and be out before he found out. After that, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, except complain to the deaf ears of Eliot Danforth.

  In reality, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to do. Eliot had been purposefully vague on that point. He’d told her to get close. Then what? Stop him, he had said. Surely he hadn’t intended that she be the one to kill him! She was not sure she could do that. She’d been to the training at the Farm, of course, and was thus technically qualified. But technical qualification, shooting at paper targets, or stabbing a dummy, were not like the real thing. She had never had to do that, and was not sure she could. Still, if it came to a choice between him and her…

  But right now she’d continue to try to gather information. “You stated in a report a few weeks ago that you felt you’d be able to build up a comprehensive information base from the Chieu Hoi program. How’s that coming?”

  He smiled for the first time then, a painful rictus that bore no resemblance to the open grin that had attracted her so much the first time they had m
et. “Not too well. I’m afraid I may have made a miscalculation. Appears that they know less than I’d expected, or they’re a hell of a lot better at concealing it. I’m not ready to give it up yet, but I think it’s going to take a lot longer than we’d hoped.”

  He’s lying! she thought. Captain James N.M.I. Carmichael, you’ve learned a lot, but not enough. Not enough to fool someone who lies as a profession. In this, at least, she still felt confident. “I know how the loss of Captain Vanh must have affected you, Jim,” she said, putting all the sincerity of which she was capable into her manner. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry all the people in Saigon, and especially myself, are. Your early reports made it evident how much you thought of him.”

  You lying bitch! he raged inside. You and all your ilk could give a fuck about Vanh. Just another Slope, you’d say, if you said anything at all. More likely you wouldn’t even have taken notice, if it didn’t suit your purposes to use it to try to fool me. “Yes,” he said, his face smooth and noncommittal. “He was a good man. This sets the program back even worse. He was essential. He’ll be hard to replace.”

  “Yes, well, I guess I’d better get back to the compound now.” She was seething. Nothing seemed to work on him, not sex, not sympathy, not official queries. Eliot would be very angry, and that would not be good for her career. And anyone who stood in the way of her career was in a great deal of danger. She made one, last, half-hearted attempt. “I’ll be at the compound every night,” she said. “They gave me your old room to sleep in. Will you come by and see me?”

  If you don’t get out of here very quickly, he was thinking, I’m going to cross the few feet that separate us, and take you in my arms, and turn your head around until I hear the bones snap and feel you quiver as the life drains out of you. “Maybe,” he said. “But I haven’t been feeling too good lately. Maybe it’s the malaria making another visit. I can’t guarantee anything.”