by Eric Meyer
“He said you need proper authorization before he can allow you access to a prisoner.”
Massey nodded. “It’s no problem. I have the documents. Take a look at this.”
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a hand grenade. For one crazy moment I thought he was going to detonate it, but he used it clenched in his fist to hit the guy, and he went over like he’d been poleaxed.
“We’ll put him in a cell. First let’s find Le’s cell, then we can get her out of here.”
Lam looked overjoyed. “You mean we can free her?”
“We’ve come this far. If they catch us, there’s not much more they can do than shoot us.”
“I reckon shooting would be more than enough. How about we try not to get shot.”
He grinned. “Copy that.”
She walked past the desk, picked up a huge bunch of keys, and reached a line of steel doors, each one the door to a cell. They’d posted the names of the occupants outside the door, and she found her sister’s cell. She tried the keys, and at the third attempt the key turned, and the door opened.
The cell was tiny and windowless, lit by a bare bulb in a wire mesh cage screwed to the ceiling. The only furniture was a galvanized bucket in the corner, and the stench was appalling. Van Le was huddled on the floor in a corner, and she looked up when she heard the door open. Her face was a mask of blood and bruises, and Lam rushed to her with a cry of alarm.
“What have they done to you?”
She looked up, and her eyes widened. “Lam? Is it you?”
“It’s me. We’ve come to get you out of here.”
“Get me out? I don’t understand.”
“We’ll explain later. Can you walk?”
“I’m sorry, no. They gave me a bad beating, and every muscle and bone in my body feels like it’s on fire.”
“Leave her to me.”
I picked her up, cradling her in my arms, and she cried out in pain from the movement. I followed Lam out of the cell. Ray dragged the unconscious cop inside and relocked the door. We started back up the stairs, reached the rear exit without any problem, and pushed it open. When we walked outside, the two sentries had returned to their station, and they’d just met adjacent to the door as we emerged.
Lam snatched out her Colt, and Ray raised his rifle. “Don’t try anything stupid, guys. We’re just going to stretch our legs and get some fresh air.”
“But, the prisoner…” one cop gasped.
“Yeah, she needs fresh air, too. It’s terrible down in that place. Carry on.”
“I’m not sure if this is authorized.”
“Sure it is. And keep your eyes skinned. The last report said two battalions of North Vietnamese regular soldiers are on their way to attack the headquarters, so you guys are gonna be busy real soon. Of course, if it was me, I’d make myself scarce before they arrive and shoot every man they find.”
They glanced at each other. One man produced a key and unlocked the gate in the perimeter fence, and they were racing down the street.
Ray chuckled. “I figured they weren’t keen to become dead heroes.”
The gate was open, and we simply walk through it and returned to the jeep. Lam cradled her sister on the rear seat. I took the wheel and drove away through the chaotic streets. No one took any interest in us. They had other things on their minds. Like defending the city from a Communist attack, or escaping from that same attack.
“We need to find somewhere to hide out.”
Massey nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Sooner or later they’ll come after us, especially if they believe Le has information that could damage them. I was thinking about a hotel.”
“I have a better idea.”
I drove off the main street looking for the back streets and soon found the kind of place I was looking for. The name on the shingle said the place was called ‘Go Go Girls.’ I called it by a more appropriate name, a brothel. They waited outside while I entered and negotiated for a room. The place was so lurid it gave lurid a bad name, an overwhelming reek of cheap perfume and sex, stale booze, and unwashed bodies. If they were paying anyone to do the cleaning, it wasn’t evident. Glasses behind the bar were almost opaque with a film of dirt, and the huge woman who greeted me at the door, probably the brothel madam, had so much makeup pancaked on her face I could see it cracking as she gave me a fake smile.
“Welcome to Go Go Girls. Whatever you want we have something for every taste.”
“A room for twenty-four hours.”
She had an answer ready almost before I stopped speaking. No doubt she was used to all kinds of customers, including fugitives. “One hundred dollars, American.”
“Is the bathroom en suite?”
“You pay fifty dollar more, Mister. Is honeymoon suite.”
“Something with a rear entrance.”
“Extra fifty dollar.”
I wondered if there was a honeymoon suite without a rear entrance but declined to discuss it any further. Every time I opened my mouth the price went up by fifty dollars. I wasn’t in a good bargaining situation, so I counted out the money, took the key, directions to the rear entrance, and went to fetch the others. I started the engine of the jeep and drove around the back and parked up. We helped Le out into the street, through the door, and up a narrow, unlit staircase. At the top there was a narrow landing and a single door to what she’d described as the honeymoon suite. I’d have described it as more of a hideout for people on the run, with no access to the main part of the brothel. Which suited us fine, we were on the run, and I had little interest in inquiring about their professional services.
We climbed a staircase that creaked so alarmingly it sounded like the building was close to collapse. The room was modest to say the least, with a tired and sagging double bed and a chipped basin with a single tap for cold water. I found the toilet behind a torn curtain, and decided we’d have to be desperate before we used it. Lam went to work on her sister, wetting a cloth under the tap and wiping away the dried blood on her face. Gradually, the face I remembered emerged, the pretty Sub-Inspector I’d traveled with to the DMZ to inspect the downed aircraft. She occasionally groaned in pain, and I worried her torturers had broken something, but when I asked her, she reassured me there was nothing broken.
“They beat me with fists and billy clubs. It was painful, but not hard enough to break anything. Mr. Yeager, why did you come for me? Why did you get me out of that cell?”
I’d like to have told it was for altruistic reasons, but that would have been wrong, and I told her the truth. “You know what we saw up there, the North Vietnamese seeding the crash site with pieces of missile. We’re inclined to think it’s part of a wider plot. Something to do with what they were coming here to investigate.”
She nodded and winced in pain. “The plot to unseat the government.”
“That’s right. Lam believes that you have information about what’s going on. Information we should hand over to people we can rely on. Before it happens and the country falls to the Communists, and that could happen inside of a few months. You know they’re already back, North Vietnamese troops with their Vietcong allies. They’re attacking Saigon in strength, and for all we know they’re hitting other targets around the country.”
Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “I don’t understand. I thought the Tet Offensive was over.”
“That’s what we all thought,” Massey growled, “Except they’re back for a second go. These people don’t know when they’re beaten.”
“They’re not beaten,” Le gasped, and sank back as the waves of pain took over her body again. After a couple of minutes she was able to speak again, “They’re not beaten until somebody prevents this conspiracy from happening.”
She slumped back down on the bed, her eyes closed, and her faced stretched with the pain.
If I get my hands on the bastards who did that to her, I’ll show them how it feels.
“Are you okay to go on? You’ve had a bad tim
e, so if you need to rest for a while, we can wait.”
“It can’t wait. It could happen any time under cover of these new attacks.”
“What could happen?”
“Bao Ninh could happen. Have you heard of him?”
“You mentioned him to Lam, he’s an assassin.”
“The best, he’s unstoppable. After we got back from the DMZ, I was checking my pigeonhole when I found a message someone had put in the wrong place. It mentioned Bao Ninh, and it stated they’d agreed the price, provided he carried out the job within seven days. That was two days ago, so I guess they’re timing it to coincide with this attack. Waiting for the Communists to exhaust themselves, and when our people relax their guard and congratulate themselves on fighting them off, he’ll strike.”
“Why not before?”
“Because the President is surrounded by a ring of steel, impossible for an assassin to penetrate. Except when they’ve defeated the enemy, the President is sure to go out into the open to congratulate his men on their victory. That’s when he’s sure to make the hit.”
“Do you have any idea how he’ll do it?”
“Bao Ninh is a trained marksman, a demolitions expert, and lethal with a handgun. My guess would be a long-range sniper shot. There is one more thing, the location of Bao Ninh. You will find him…”
She slumped back and her breathing was shallow, but at least she was asleep and out of pain. All we could do was wait. I went back down the creaking staircase and around to the bar to collect drinks for all of us. The alternative was the water that came out of the tap in our room, and I wouldn’t give it to my dog for fear of poisoning him. I collected four cans of ice-cold Coke at five times the going rate and took them back to the room.
“What about something to eat?” Ray asked, “I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“I’ll see if I can find somewhere that serves take-out meals. If we try an order from downstairs we’ll still be hungry when we go bankrupt.”
I finished my Coke and went back out into the street and found a stall selling hot food in polystyrene containers. Rice with anything, and I chose what resembled chicken wings to go with the rice, although I wasn’t convinced the wings had come from real chickens. They were small and bony, and I decided not to ask. When I got back to the room, they tucked in while we waited for Le to surface.
Eventually, she opened her eyes and moaned again, looked around the room, and relaxed. “For a moment I thought I was back in that cell.”
I didn’t blame her for thinking that. This place certainly stank like the cell where we’d found her. “Le, you mentioned a name. Bao Ninh, and you said you knew where we could find him.”
“Dong Ha Combat Base, north of Quang Tri.”
“You’re kidding me. That’s nowhere near Saigon.”
“Yes, and when the President visits, he will be waiting.”
“Why the hell would he go to Dong Ha?”
She paused to catch her breath. “Because just before they arrested me, I discovered they plan to hit Dong Ha Combat Base with a large formation of North Vietnamese regular troops. Either they will succeed, in which case they have scored a major victory. Or we drive them off, the President visits Dong Ha to congratulate them, and Bao Ninh will kill him.”
Dong Ha, north of Quang Tri. The place we’d been headed, close to the DMZ, and the last place I wanted to go. “That’s around twelve hundred klicks from Saigon. We have no way of getting there, and you can forget the jeep. We were lucky to get this far. There’s no way it would make the return journey.”
“The answer is simple,” Ray said, “We call it in. When the military knows what’s going down, they can stop it.”
He was right. It was the simple answer. “I’ll call Colonel Bader at Tan Son Nhut and fill him in with the details. Le, it would be helpful if we had some evidence. What about that message you said was misplaced?”
“They searched my possessions and took everything away. The message has vanished.”
“Do you have anything to prove what you’ve said?”
“Nothing.”
I nodded. “I’ll go and find a phone and call it in.”
For the second time I walked down the stairs, and they creaked even louder than before. The brothel would have had a phone, but I didn’t want to call from there, just in case they were able to trace it, so I found a bar two streets away and used their phone. It took me ten minutes to get through to Colonel Bader, but eventually I heard his familiar voice on the end of the line. Just like before, except about fifty degrees colder.
“You need to turn yourself in, Yeager. You know every cop in the city is looking for you, and if they find you first, I can’t answer for what they’ll do to you. Come back to the base, and we’ll talk about it.”
“Not just yet, Colonel. I want to run something past you. Someone is trying to kill the President.”
I heard him chuckle loudly, and he said something I couldn’t make out to someone else who was with him. “This is in connection with the aircraft downed by a missile south of the DMZ, is that right?”
“Right. Except it was no missile. Those investigators were getting too close to the guy who plans to put the bullet into the President so his pals can take over. They’re connected to the North Vietnamese, that’s all I know, but Colonel, this is straight down the line. I repeat, a missile didn’t down the aircraft. It was a bomb, and I even have the name of the guy who did it.”
I heard what sounded like a sigh, but it could have been a yawn. “Mr. Yeager, I’ve looked into this, and I’ve talked to our counterparts in the ARVN and the police. I still have a copy of the report on my desk, and there’s no question it was brought down by a missile. Case closed.”
“It was a bomb, Sir, and the name of the bomber is Bao Ninh. I can even tell you where he is planning to make the hit. It’s…”
“Forget it, Yeager. I’ve had enough of this. The cops have an APB out on you and that girl, and if they get their hands on you before you get back inside this base, they’ll rip you apart. Get yourself back here, and we’ll sort out this mess. And you can forget anything about this bomb, we know why the aircraft went down, and the investigation is over. Where are you?”
“Hanoi.”
“Yeah, and I’m Hanoi Hannah. You’re in Saigon.”
“You have a trace on the call.”
“Of course.”
The city was still in chaos, but I heard the noise of a racing jeep engine getting nearer, and they’d been fast tracing the call.
“I’ll be seeing you, Colonel.”
“Hold it, I can…”
I didn’t wait around to see what he could or couldn’t do. I already knew. It would involve a period of incarceration, and I’d probably have to answer charges from the Republic of Vietnam Police. It wasn’t going to happen. I had other ideas, and I had people waiting for me. I turned the corner just as an MP jeep skidded into view and braked to a halt outside the bar. Four men leapt out and raced inside, and I melted away back to the brothel.
They were waiting for me when I open the door, and Massey had his gun leveled, just in case. He shrugged. “Sorry, but you never know who is about to come on in without an invitation. How did it go?”
They stared at me, their eyes wide with hope, and I had none to give them. I told them about the lukewarm response, and that if we were hoping for any help from our own people, we could forget it. “We’re stymied. They’ve decided that aircraft was hit by a missile, and they’re not interested in any other theory.”
“So what’s next?”
I suddenly felt tired, more tired than I could believe. I’d been up all night trying to avoid the cops, and I should have been able to hand this across to the United States military, except they weren’t interested. “There is no next. We’re finished.”
“You’re not serious? You know what that means. The President dies, and if we’re right about who is behind it, Ho Chi Minh will be on the next flight to Saigon.”
>
“Ray, there’s nothing we can do. It’s finished. We can’t fight them all, our own military, the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, and God only knows who else. We have no place else to go.”
“Dong Ha Combat Base, in Quang Tri Province.”
I looked at Le, and she still looked terrible, her eyes sunk deep into their sockets, and the bruises on her face were beginning to show a livid purple. “Excuse me?”
“I said Dong Ha Combat Base. That’s where Bao Ninh will be, so that’s where we have to go.”
I thought of that nerve-wracking jeep ride from Da Nang to Saigon, and we’d been lucky, real lucky to make it. “You know how far it is? There’s no way the jeep would make the return journey, it must be eleven hundred klicks at least. We wouldn’t get halfway.”
“There must be another way. We have to do something.”
“Le, the only other way is by air, and that would mean driving into Tan Son Nhut and hitching a ride on the next cargo aircraft going up there. It’s not gonna happen. The chances of us sneaking on board a United States military aircraft are zero.”
Ray filled a tumbler with water from the basin, took a sip, pulled a face, and spat it out. “Damn, they must put that stuff direct from the Saigon River. I was gonna say the United States military aren’t the only people who fly aircraft up to the DMZ.”
I nodded tiredly. “Sure, I know the Republic of Vietnam Air Force flies up there to resupply their own people, and we’d have even less chance with them. Forget it, it’s not gonna happen.”
“There is an airline that flies up there on a regular basis. Air America.”
I recalled the C-47 flying out a few days before and smiled. “You know who owns the airline?”
“Sure, everyone knows. CIA. I know some of those guys, me and a couple of other Rangers have flown with them when they needed an extra gun or two.”
I gave it a few seconds thought and dismissed it. “Even if you could fix it, and there’re no guarantees, it’d mean getting inside Tan Son Nhut, and there’s just no way. Forget it, it won’t happen.”
We argued and discussed it for almost an hour, and in the end Ray said he’d go out and call someone he knew and see if it was possible. I had my doubts, and besides, even if he did get us up to Dong Ha, we’d still be up against it. The U.S. military and the South Vietnamese chasing our asses, and Dong Ha wasn’t Saigon.