by Eric Meyer
I pulled the folder out of my pack. “You mean this one? It’s empty.”
His entire body shuddered, and it was as if the determination that had held him together since the crash had crumbled into dust. His good eye closed and reopened.
“They got there first.”
“Let us help you back to the LZ. We’ll talk later.”
At that moment I heard the roar of twin turbine engines, the thunderous beat of the huge rotor blades, and I picked him up in my arms and started to run.
“Van, I’ll bring him. Run ahead and tell them to wait. Tell them we have a survivor, and he’s in desperate need of medical attention.”
She nodded and began to race through the tangle of trees, bushes, and vines. I stumbled along carrying Captain Trevelyan, and to my relief when I emerged in the clearing the helicopter was waiting on the ground, the engines idling and the rotor blades turning. Ready to take off, and I stumbled out into the open and tripped on a root. Somehow, I managed to twist around and land on my back with the badly wounded man on top of me, and I was struggling to get up when a single shot rang out. I felt Trevelyan’s body jerk, stiffen, and go slack.
I couldn’t believe it, and I managed to get back to my feet and look around for the shooter. I didn’t have to look far. He was standing inside the cabin of the Sea Stallion, the Marine crew chief, and he was holding an M-14 rifle at his shoulder. Van was shouting at him not to shoot, and I picked up the body and walked toward the helicopter. When I reached the door, the crew chief had put the rifle away and held up his hands to take the body inside.
I stared up at him, and he gave me a casual shrug. “I’m sorry about that, buddy. I thought a North Vietnamese had jumped you. From where I was standing, it looked like he’d wrestled you to the ground.”
I looked up at his eyes, and he refused to meet my gaze. I guess he felt guilty, but his explanation was reasonable enough. On the other hand, it seemed a coincidence that someone, somewhere wanted the men who’d traveled in that aircraft dead. I looked at Van who’d been standing next to him, and she gave me a slight shake of her head. I took it to mean she didn’t know what had happened and why, and I climbed into the cabin of the Sea Stallion for the journey back to Da Nang.
All the way the crew chief avoided looking at me, and I still wasn’t sure if what he’d done was deliberate or accidental. We landed at Da Nang, and two officers were waiting to meet us. Police officers, Vietnamese, and they looked more like hardened thugs than cops. Okay, some cops did look like hardened thugs, but most didn’t. I assumed they were Van’s colleagues, and they engaged her in conversation.
I left her to talk to them. “Le, I’ll see you in the cafeteria. I’m going to rustle up some coffee.”
“I won’t be going to the cafeteria, Mr. Yeager. These officers are here to put me under arrest.”
I started walking, and I jerked to a stop. Looked around, and I guess my mouth had fallen open in astonishment.
“Excuse me? Did I hear you right, something about you being under arrest?”
“That’s right. They’re here to take me back to Saigon for interrogation.”
I strode up to the two cops. “Listen, you guys, there has to be some mistake. Sub- Inspector Van has been with me investigating a crash site. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
He gave me a one-word reply. “Orders.”
“It’s okay. I have to go with them.”
“I’ll see what I can do to sort this out.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t try to interfere. There’s nothing you can do.”
Which wasn’t entirely true. I could have delivered a hard-left hook to the guy closest to me, followed by a straight right to the other, but on balance I decided to leave it alone. I’m not a violent man, not usually, but Vietnam does something to the soldiers who serve there. It makes a man different. Brutal. On this occasion I doubted it would help, and it could make things a damn sight worse.
I watched them unload the body of Captain Trevelyan from the Sea Stallion. They wrapped it in a body bag and placed it on the back of a jeep that drove across the base and disappeared. I felt tired and worse, used. Soiled, like a throwaway tissue. The official line of a North Vietnamese missile was crap, and I remembered that missile that targeted us as we flew out of Tan Son Nhut. As if it was an attempt to prove that the North Vietnamese were targeting our transport aircraft, and that had to be the reason for the C-130 going down.
The two cops bundled Le up the steps and into a Republic of South Vietnam Air Force C-47, the propellers spun, and it began to taxi out to the strip. I felt sorry for her. She looked so small and vulnerable between those two hard, grim-faced cops who’d arrested her. There was something else, the reason for the arrest. Maybe it was to do with the corruption case she’d been investigating, and they were accusing her of being involved. But if I were a betting man, I’d have put my money on the mystery of the downed aircraft west of Con Thien.
I watched the C-47 take off, and she was gone. Standing at the side of the strip, I waited a while longer and withdrew the manila folder from my pack. Wiped off more of the oil, opened it, and checked just in case there was something I’d missed. I didn’t see anything, and at that moment I felt like someone had kicked me in the guts. A questionable air crash, the questionable killing of a survivor, and the questionable arrest of a cop assigned to the investigation; too many questions and no answers.
“Warrant Officer Yeager?”
I turned, and a Marine corporal was standing behind me. “That’s me.”
“They sent me to tell you your flight departs in forty minutes.”
“Excuse me? Which flight?”
He checked the clipboard in his hand. “The Caribou you arrived on leaves for Saigon in forty minutes. They said to make sure you’re on it.”
I shook my head. “Buddy, I’m here for the duration to investigate the circumstances of an air crash. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Uh, they said to get on the aircraft. I don’t think they’ll be so happy if it leaves without you.”
“And I won’t be happy if I’m on it. Who gave this order?”
He pointed to an officer standing halfway between where we stood on the control tower. “Major Best, perhaps it’d be best if you talk to him.”
“Which unit is he?”
“Military Police, Sir.”
Major Best was about as unfriendly as he could possibly be, maybe a tad more. “What is it, Mister?”
“Who ordered me back to Saigon?”
“I did.”
I took a deep breath. Another man I’d like to put on his back, and once again I managed to force myself to resist the urge. “Who gave you the order, Major?”
“My superior officer.”
“Does he have a name?”
“He does. Now get your ass on that plane before I call my men to put you in handcuffs, and you’ll still be on that plane.”
He stood, hands on hips, a big man with shoulders as broad as library shelves and a barrel chest. A man who wasn’t about to give away anything, and I know when I’m beaten. They say a man has to choose his battles, and this was one I had to lose, so I about turned and started walking toward the Caribou.
“Mr. Yeager.”
I kept walking and glanced back. “What is it?”
“Has the Army got so sloppy they’ve given up on saluting superior officers?”
I carried on walking. “Only those worth the salute. We tend to ignore the real shitheads.”
“You calling me a shithead?” he growled.
“Major, are you saying the description fits you?”
I reached the Caribou without being grabbed by a bunch of burly MPs to give me a good pounding for insulting their officer. Ten minutes later the aircraft took off for the return journey to Saigon, and I was the only passenger. Someone wanted me back in the capital real fast. Or they wanted me out of Da Nang just as fast, I couldn’t make up my mind which. The nose tilted upward, and we s
tarted to gain height. It didn’t level off, but kept gaining altitude, and we were still climbing when the pilot left the cockpit to enter the cabin.
He gave me a nod. “You must be some kind of a VIP. I wasn’t scheduled to fly back until tomorrow, but they said this was urgent. What’s it all about?”
“No idea. How high do you plan to climb?”
“Our service ceiling is twenty-five thousand feet, that’s seven and a half thousand meters. That’s how high we’ll be flying.”
“Missiles?”
He grimaced. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened on the way out here. By the way, we have no cabin pressurization, so when we level off you’d best pull down an oxygen mask.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And it’ll be cold.”
“No cabin heating?”
“We’re still waiting for spare parts.”
“I’ll remind them when we land.”
The Caribou touched down at Tan Son Nhut, and to my relief there was no one waiting to meet me with another bunch of puzzling and conflicting orders, so I wandered over to the BOQ where they’d assigned me a room. A small room, but it had the advantage of a shower, and I stripped off and stood under the hot water. Washing off the sweat, the dust in the grime of my trip north, and trying to lay aside the questions that were piling up. I continued to stand under the cascading water, and I felt a bit better. Which made me feel worse, guilty. Like Pontius Pilate washing his hands after he’d sentenced Jesus to the crucifixion. I’ve gone north with Van Le, and now she was incarcerated in Police Headquarters in Saigon. I’d located a survivor of the air crash, Captain Trevelyan, and he was dead, his body stiffening in a body bag at Da Nang.
On the plus side, I had… nothing, a bunch of suspicions, but no more. The involvement of the North Vietnamese soldiers in an attempt to cover up was beyond belief. Why would they deliberately plant evidence to suggest they shot down one of our aircraft? There was no sense to it, and when I’d dressed in a clean uniform, I strapped on my sidearm, a Colt M1911, and went looking for answers. I went to the obvious place, my boss, Colonel Nathaniel Bader. It would have been polite to knock on the door and wait to be invited in, but I wasn’t feeling polite. I felt like a bundle of washing that someone had put through mangle. Unconsciously, I touched my sidearm, as if I’d like to shoot the Colonel, but that’s all it was, a passing thought.
He looked up abruptly, his brow darkening as I pushed the door open, entered his office, and slammed the door shut. “Yeager!”
“Yeah, Yeager. Colonel, I’ve come to get some answers.”
“You can’t just bust in here and…”
“I just did bust in here. What’s going on with our aircraft? Don’t tell me it was shot down by a missile, because that’s a heap of horseshit.” I told him what I’d seen with Sub- Inspector Van, told him about the strange shooting of Captain Trevelyan, and Van’s arrest when we got back to Da Nang. I held up a hand to stop him interrupting, “Before you reply, Sir, do me a favor and cut the bullshit. There’s something strange going on, and you’ve given me this investigation, and I intend to see it through. Colonel, are you involved in something illegal?”
“How dare you suggest I’m involved in illegal activity! That’s insubordination, Mr. Yeager, and I suggest you withdraw that question immediately.”
“Colonel, there’s something weird going on here, and I want to know exactly what it is. I asked you a question, are you involved in something illegal?”
His face was bright red, like a beet. I thought he was about to shout for the guards to toss me into a cell. He froze for several seconds, and finally subsided into his chair. “Mr. Yeager, I just took over this command, and I wish this one hadn’t come across my desk.”
“I’m listening.”
“This is for your ears only. You’re aware the President of the Republic of South Vietnam is Nguyen Van Thieu? He took over last year after a long period of rule by the military junta.”
“I heard.”
“It’s critical for the success of our military operation inside the country that President Nguyen stays in post and maintains a stable government. If his administration collapses, the country will fall into chaos. The ugly possibility is his replacement could insist the United States removes its forces from South Vietnam. Which would mean everything our men have fought and died for will be worthless, because it will open the door for the Communists to walk in, and there’ll be no one to stop them.”
“Why should a new President want to kick us out? What would he have to gain?”
“What if he was acting on behalf of Hanoi? He’d have everything to gain.”
I didn’t ask him to explain, not for a few seconds. I was flummoxed, the South and North Vietnamese had been at loggerheads for many years, and each regarded the other as the Devil Incarnate.
“You think it could happen?”
“That’s what those Army CID officers were on their way to investigate. Until the aircraft went down, and that puts us in a difficult situation.”
I shook my head. “Colonel, I’m no expert, but it was obvious to me someone planted a bomb on the aircraft. It was murder.”
“The accident investigators have all signed off on a missile strike.”
I nearly exploded. “Jesus Christ, I saw the North Vietnamese planting pieces of a missile at the crash site. It was a bomb, no question.”
He tossed a stapled sheaf of papers across his desk. “You’d better look at that.”
I glanced down, and I was inspecting an accident report. The conclusion was a North Vietnamese missile fired from inside the DMZ. Republic of South Vietnam Air Force General Phan Tu signed it off.
“Air Force General Phan Tu. I wonder if he’s any relation to Police General Phan Trong Kim?”
A shrug. “Maybe, maybe not, but as of midday today the South Vietnamese have made it clear they require no further activity at the air crash site.”
“The bodies are still there, Colonel. They’re our own people.”
“Not any more, they aren’t. While you were on your way back here they sent in a team to recover the bodies, and when they’re done examining them, they’ll hand over the remains for repatriation to the United States.”
“The wreckage is still there.”
“Before they left they planted demolition charges to blow everything into tiny fragments, so as to make it useless to the Communists. It’s over, Mr. Yeager. Take a couple of days leave, and I’ll hand you your next assignment. Apparently, some of our guys are running an illegal gambling operation up at Quang Tri, and we want it broken up.”
“Big deal. What about the threat to the President?”
“We passed everything over to the South Vietnamese cops, and they’re dealing with it. That’s it, Yeager, it’s over.”
“Yeah, right.”
I walked out of his office, and it wasn’t over. I walked out of the admin building and over to the cafeteria. All I needed was a couple of mugs of hot Java topped with something stronger than cream. What I had in mind was whiskey, bourbon; even vodka if that’s all I could find, something to drown my sorrows. They had me beat, all of them, Colonel Bader, my boss here at Tan Son Nhut. I knew he was fundamentally honest and would play no part in murderous conspiracies. But he was doing the job, and he wanted to keep everything clean and neatly tied up. There were plenty of others who could be involved in a possible conspiracy, like the South Vietnamese cops, Air Force, and no doubt plenty of other persons unknown. Like the North Vietnamese, the Communists, and it was starting to form a pattern.
Someone highly placed wanted that plane downed, and they’d planted a bomb to make certain. The reason had to be to stop the investigation. They’d succeeded, and effectively hidden the evidence and closed off any possibility of further action. The file at Da Nang was empty when they handed it over to me. Even Sub-Inspector Van was under arrest, banged up in some damp cell in the basement of Police Headquarters. Captain Trevelyan shot when he’d alm
ost made it out. Everyone involved was either dead or under arrest. If it wasn’t a conspiracy, someone was doing a damn good job of making it looked like one.
It occurred to me then I was wrong. Not everyone was dead or under arrest. I was the exception, and I made a mental note to start watching my back. I visited the PX first and purchased a quarter bottle of bourbon and entered the cafeteria. Seated in a corner out of sight of most of the clientele, I poured a healthy shot of whiskey into the coffee and began to drink.
It soon became obvious the quarter bottle wasn’t enough, and besides, I found the atmosphere claustrophobic. The constant roar of jet engines, the clatter of turbines spooling up as Hueys came and went, men coming off duty and sitting nearby telling the same old jokes. The expressions on their faces telling a different story. This place was developing into a nightmare, and no matter what General Westmorland and his aides reported; they all knew things weren’t getting any better. What they didn’t know was things were potentially about to become a lot worse. If the suspicions Colonel Bader had mentioned were correct, and if they continued to do nothing and ignore the obvious, the government could fall.
Moreover, I’d seen those North Vietnamese seeding fragments of a missile around the crash site which spelled-out their involvement. Someone had planted a bomb on the aircraft, of that I was in no doubt. Someone was trying to cover for those people who’d conspired to bring down an aircraft and murder the investigators on board. And if nobody did anything about it and just accepted it at face value, South Vietnam was going down the shithole so fast it wouldn’t touch the sides.
I strolled out to the gates and found a cab that took me into Saigon. I wanted to get away from it all, to murder at least a pint of bourbon. I strolled through the crowded streets, Vietnamese civilians in colorful dress, soldiers from our Army, and the ARVN. Cops everywhere, directing the battalions of motor scooters and cyclos, the three-wheel bicycle taxi that appeared in Vietnam during the French colonial period. Battered Renault cars and polished Mercedes with darkened windows vied for space on the crowded streets. Everywhere the smell of spices, sometimes mixed with sewage, and sometimes the aroma of fresh brewed coffee as I passed a bar, searching for something more suitable for a man who wanted to get drunk.