Into the Treeline

by John F. Mullins

  You’ve made your choice, Captain, she thought as she made her way back to the Embassy House. Eliot was right. You’re a rogue player. And we can’t have that.

  She swept into Copely’s office. “Please make me an appointment with the province chief,” she said. “This afternoon.”

  She’d said Roger knew she was in town, Jim mused. Was that true? If so he was in on it. He still hadn’t made up his mind on that point. He hoped not. Roger might be his only chance for survival. And while he wasn’t sure he would or even wanted to survive, he did not yet want to close off that option. Perhaps he would know tonight. “Sergeant Tu,” he called, “come on in here. We need to plan an operation.”

  Roger was, at that moment, finding out about the visit. A friend of his from Air America with whom he had served in Bolivia gave him, as a matter of course, all Air America manifests. He liked to know who was traveling into and out of his region. Usually the names meant nothing; USAID, Embassy, CIA, and other personnel going about legitimate business. Vietnamese of enough rank to be able to qualify for the flights going to or coming from Saigon, usually so heavily laden with black market goods the C-47s had to strain to get off the runways. But this day it paid off. Why would Moira Culpepper go to Hue, without notifying him? True, Eliot had the authority to send anyone anywhere he wanted, but in practice it was simply never done. Turf was zealously guarded in the Agency, and for very good reason. There was not enough time to brief everyone on every operation, every agent. So you could be sending someone in on an ongoing op, where anything could happen. Simply not good tactics.

  He knew that it would do no good to question Danforth. He would get the usual smooth explanations, be reminded of Danforth’s authority, and learn nothing.

  He unlocked the small room off his office, went inside, turned on the radio. While he waited for it to warm up he reflected that Danforth must be running something very funny indeed. He wondered who else was in on it. He needed to know.

  He spoke into the handset, the electronic device inside the radio garbling his speech into electronic signals unrecognizable to anyone who did not have a similar device at the other end. When he finished he went to his desk. Paperwork to get through while he waited for the red light that would indicate he had return traffic. It might come today, it might not be for several days. But he would have an answer.

  He thought for a moment, something that he must have missed nagging at his brain. Called himself stupid when it finally occurred to him. Went to the other radio, called Al Dougherty in Quang Nam and told him to get on the next thing flying to Danang.

  He thought it would have to be the hardest thing he had ever done. Invading a Buddhist temple in the middle of the night, securing one individual, and bringing him out, alive. All without drawing any attention, without alerting any one of the hundreds of monks resident in the temple. Some of them, he knew, did not fully subscribe to the nonviolent tenets of their religion, and could be expected to react with force if his group was discovered.

  Tu had an idea. “Capitane, can you provide me with something that will make the man sleep?”

  “Sure,” Jim said. “I’ve got some chloral hydrate, what we used to call ‘mickeys.’ They’d put a bull elephant to sleep.”

  “One of the acolytes is a kinsman of mine. He often serves the ranking priests. Perhaps he can get it into the drink. And if he can’t, we’re no worse off than we are now.”

  They had been laboring at the plan for hours. It had seemed impossible on the face of it, but after many false starts and discards it seemed they were on the verge. Give me a nice easy smash-and-grab any time, Jim thought. Still, this might work. The hardest part had been how to secure the man so quickly he couldn’t make any noise to alert the others.

  “Let’s go for it,” he said. “I’ll get the drops. They’ll take just a few minutes after he drinks them. Then he’ll be out for at least four hours. Make sure your man doesn’t give them to him before last prayers. Tell him to be careful. This guy is bound to be jumpy now that the colonel hasn’t shown up for the last few days. He has to suspect something’s wrong.”

  “It will be done. I shall depart now, and will meet you at the rally point tonight.”

  He was about to stir up a hornet’s nest, he knew. The Buddhists would not take lightly the disappearance of the secretary of the chief bonze. This time payoffs to the hierarchy would not work. They’d be after him all over the country. He planned to drop from sight until he had all the information he needed. Then he’d surround himself with the PRU, get to the airport, and commandeer a plane to Saigon. There he could lay it all out to COMUSMACV. He did not trust anyone on the civilian side. He did not know who might be in on it, but doubted the military was. The brass might not know how to fight this war, and didn’t, in his opinion, but he doubted that they would be party to just giving up. After that, he didn’t know what would happen. And didn’t much care.

  He busied himself by gathering a few things together, placing them in a small pack. He doubted that he’d be seeing this place again, no matter what happened. There was surprisingly little. A small framed picture of his mother, taken in the thirties. All he needed. The tape recorder, tapes, other detritus he would leave for the PRU. It was time. He went to the bathroom, stuck a finger down his throat, caught the watery results in a plastic bag. Tied it off and stuck it in the pack too.

  “Colonel,” Moira said, “we have a problem.”

  She was, he thought, quite beautiful. For an American. Ordinarily Westerners did not attract him; he thought them too big, and unfeminine, and gross. But something about this one made him put her in the excepted category.

  “We have a problem, Miss Culpepper?” he said, acting as if he did not know what she was talking about.

  “Cut the bullshit, Colonel. I’m speaking of Captain Carmichael. And I speak with full authority from Eliot Danforth. Now, do you wish to speak frankly, or shall I go back to my superior and tell him that you refuse to cooperate?”

  Desirable or not, she was still a Westerner, with their insufferable ways, he thought. Still, it would not pay to anger her. “Yes,” he said. “The captain has become a thorn in our side. Already he has done much damage.”

  “He cannot be allowed to do more. Do you understand me?”

  “And in this you speak also with the voice of Mr. Danforth?” he asked, hoping that the tape recorder he had concealed in the desk was picking up the entire conversation.

  “I do,” she replied.

  “And do you have any suggestions?”

  “That, Colonel, is your department. I have every faith that you can manage.”

  If only it were so easy, he thought. The two attempts I have already made did not succeed. Still, I only need to be successful once, and he must be successful all the time. It will be done. Better this way anyway, with the Americans telling me to do so. If anything goes wrong, I can always blame them. It would be very embarrassing for them, having it known that they authorized the assassination of one of their own.

  “Would you like a drink, Miss Culpepper?” he asked. Perhaps she would be more friendly, now that they were coconspirators. He was aware that he had grown an erection from watching her breasts poke against the thin green fabric of her suit. So much larger than the Vietnamese women he was used to. Even those who were half French.

  “No,” she said, disdainfully. “My work is done here. I’m going back to the Embassy House. You can reach me there, if you need anything.” She knew the effect she was having on him, and was glad of it. Her self-confidence had taken a severe blow when she had been unable to arouse Jim Carmichael. Still, a Vietnamese? The thought repulsed her.

  He did not let her see his anger as he showed her out. Someday, he vowed to himself, someday I will repay these Americans for their arrogance.

  “Well?” he demanded of Tu when they met at the rally point in a small hut just outside the temple compound.

  “It is done. The man likes to have a cup of tea just before going
to bed. My nephew says that he sleeps like the dead.”

  “Then let’s go.” They were again dressed in saffron robes. The robes were convenient for hiding much; UZIs strapped to their sides, pistols, ropes for binding, and tape for muzzling mouths. He hoped they would have to use none of it. If they did the game was as good as up before it started. He was not too worried about his height. Some of the Buddhists of Chinese extraction were almost as tall as he, and he was wearing a hood to disguise his hair and features. That, and the dark, should be enough.

  They slipped into the temple by ones and twos. The mental map he had constructed from the sketches of one of the PRU soldiers who had spent much time there served him well. Not that it was a terribly complicated building anyway. Tu was by his side. They occasionally passed others, monks who could not sleep and wandered the halls, or those on business of one type or another. No one challenged them. The Buddhists regarded this place as sacrosanct, invulnerable to threat from either side. Jim had counted on that attitude. It seemed to be working.

  Their group took up positions; two by the front door, ready to cover the escape, two more on each floor to cover the rear, Tu, himself, and two others at the room of the target. The door was unlocked. He was relieved. He’d brought along a pick kit, but had never been particularly good at surreptitious entry. His instructor at Fort Holabird had despaired of him, told him that his best bet if he had to open a door would be explosives, and a hope that everyone was deaf.

  The man on the bed was snoring loudly. The two men with them took position on either side of the door, and he and Tu went in. Christ, he thought, helping Tu to pick him up, this guy must weigh two hundred pounds. They roughly stood him up between them, supporting his weight with his arms over their shoulders. He did not stir, though the snoring stopped. “Wait a minute,” he whispered to Tu. He took the plastic bag from a pouch inside his robe, ripped it open, and poured it down the front of the sleeping man. The sour smell of vomit immediately flooded the room. Tu wrinkled his nose in disgust.

  They walked, half carrying and half dragging the man between them. The two men at the door fell in behind them, close enough to assist and far enough away to not attract attention. Jim was sweating. He was beginning to wish he had kept himself in better shape over the last few weeks. The man was totally dead weight, his head lolling on his chest, flecks of vomit attaching to his chin. Down one flight of stairs, another long hallway. They hadn’t seemed so long when he was coming up. They were becoming a spread-out column now, with the hallway guards from the last floor taking position still further to the rear.

  Someone approaching, not one of ours. “My brothers,” the man said, “is there a problem?”

  “Our brother is sick,” said Tu, moving closer to the other monk so he would be assured of smelling the vomit. He did, backing up quickly.

  “Can I be of assistance?” he asked, hoping they would say no.

  “You are kind,” Tu replied, “but no. Our friend had too much to drink after evening prayers, and you know how that is regarded here. We would ask you to tell no one of this. He is a good man, but sometimes he is weak. We wish to get him into the fresh air, and clean him up. He will be well in the morning.”

  “I understand,” said the monk, who had weaknesses of his own, the most prominent of which was that he loved the forms of little boys. He hurried away.

  Down another staircase, the front door in sight. Jim had to keep himself from hurrying. All had gone well so far, no need to attract attention now. Not, he thought, that he could have hurried very much anyway. The man seemed to be getting heavier.

  Then they were outside, and the cool night air washed over them, diluting the sour smell of the victim. Two of the PRU relieved him and Tu of the weight. He was panting, was glad to see that Tu was also. “Next time,” he whispered between breaths, “let’s get somebody who doesn’t like to eat quite so much, okay?” Tu’s flashing grin in the moonlight rewarded him.

  They could not take the man back to the PRU compound. That would be the first place the searchers would look. That had been one of the sticky parts of the plan, where to go. Finally Tu had volunteered the fact that yet another member of his family, one who could be trusted as much as his nephew, since it was that nephew’s father, had a large sampan. They headed for the Perfume River, only a couple of hundred yards from the temple, where they took up position on the bank. Tu produced a flashlight with the lens taped so that only a slit of light escaped, flashed it twice. Received an answering flash immediately, followed in a few minutes by the soft splash of oars. They loaded the unconscious man aboard the little boat, along with Jim, Tu, and one other PRU man. Smoothly the boatman pushed them away from the bank and steered them out into the river. Within moments they were bumping against the side of the sampan.

  The transfer was made, the small boat tied to the rear of the sampan, and they cast off downriver. It would be a few hours before they could reach the sea, there to become just one more boat among thousands. Jim was exhausted. Sleep came quickly.

  The chop as the sampan exited the mouth of the Perfume River into the South China Sea woke him. He’d slept only a few hours, yet felt curiously refreshed. His demons had not visited him at all, perhaps because now he was committed to a course of action from which there could be no turning back. No matter what happened, nothing would ever again be the same.

  There was an R&R beach off to the right, barbed-wire-encircled and reserved for the relaxation of the American troops. No Vietnamese were allowed, except for the drink sellers, massage girls, and whores lucky enough to get an invitation to accompany some GI. Few combat troops ever came here; when they got out of the field they had no desire to go to a beach somewhere in Vietnam, opting instead for Bangkok or another of the out-of-country locations. Mostly rear-echelon types came, people who had plenty of time off, and took not only the out-of-country R&Rs, but any other little benefits they could lay their hands on. This early in the morning there were no sunbathers. At one end a group of soldiers with mine detectors slowly advanced, sweeping from side to side in case the VC had come in during the night and left unpleasant mementos of their visit. The sun was coming up over the water, its glare a reminder of how hot the day was going to be. Time to get to work.

  He went below, where Tu was presiding over a very groggy prisoner. Chloral hydrate was very effective, but it gave one the granddaddy of all hangovers. This guy was not going to feel very good. At least someone had cleaned the puke off him.

  “We need him to be out from under it a little bit better,” he told Tu. “Maybe another couple of hours. You want to get something to eat?”

  Tu nodded, making one last check of the prisoner. Not that there was much chance of his getting away. He was handcuffed to eye bolts in the hull. His feet were tied together, and there was a strip of duct tape across his mouth. “Take the tape off,” instructed Jim. “There’s no one to hear him now.”

  Up on the deck Tu’s brother’s wife had cooked up a pot of pho, the Vietnamese soup that was a full meal in itself. As befitted a maritime family, it was thick with chunks of crab, shrimp, and fish. Jim took a bowl, doctored it with a hefty shot of nuoc mam, fermented fish sauce, and squatted next to the rail. He enjoyed the motion of the sea. Perhaps, after this was over, if he survived, he would become a fisherman. It seemed a good, honest life. But that “if” was a very big one. Tu squatted next to him.

  “A very smooth operation, Mon Capitane,” he said, between slurps of the tasty soup.

  “So far, my friend, so far. I just worry that this was the easy part.”

  Tu’s silence was in itself an eloquent comment. They did not speak again until both had finished their meal. They politely refused another helping, disappointing the woman. Both had noticed that there had been very little food left after their bowls had been filled. The woman would have given it all to them, had they allowed it, and the family would have gone hungry.

  They continued out to sea, and even as slowly as the sampan cruised it
was not long before they were out of sight of land. The engines were cut, and the boat allowed to drift. The family dropped lines into the water. To anyone who looked, it was just another fisherman at work.

  The man was fully awake when they went back below. It was obvious that he recognized Jim, because upon seeing him he shut off the complaints he had been voicing to the guard. Perhaps he felt it would do no good. Instead he started praying.

  “We wish you no harm, esteemed one,” started Tu. “You know who we are. We do not regard you as an enemy. We may even be on the same side. But we must ask you some questions. There is much we know. We only need you to fill in the details. Then you will be released, unharmed.”

  Couldn’t have said it better myself, thought Jim. He had already decided to let Tu handle the interrogation, remaining in the background as a distant, unspoken threat. They already thought he was crazy, and capable of anything. Let them go on thinking that.

  “Tell us,” said Tu, following the line given him earlier by Jim, “what is the purpose of this effort? We already know of the people involved. Some of them we have already picked up. The others we soon will. We have the backing from Saigon,” he lied. “So you must know that your plot has failed. This is your chance to prove to us that you were involved only because the enemy promised you, false promises, that your order would be spared if you cooperated. They threatened you, or your leaders?” Tu was by this allowing him a way out.

  It was effective.

  “We are a group of people,” the monk began, “from both sides, who are tired of the war. We know that it cannot be won, not by either side. So it will go on, and many more people will die, and to what purpose? We wish a country that will be aligned with neither side, that would be neutral.”