by Eric Meyer
Canh went to unlock the door and grimaced. “I must have forgotten to lock it. Not that there’s much to steal as everything inside was stolen or sold by corrupt officers long ago. There was just the rifles and ammunition, and we took those with us.” He paused, “And we left them back in the tunnel with my officers.”
He pushed the door open and went inside. We followed him into the main lobby, with the solid wood desk where normally a cop would be standing to deal with inquiries. There was no desk sergeant standing behind the desk. But there was someone else staring at us. Two men, and both were holding assault rifles trained on us. I didn’t need to ask if they’d selected full auto. One of the men had to be National Police Field Force General Phan Trong Kim. He was short, wiry, with a cunning face and slitted suspicious eyes; a bureaucrat, a deskman, with the characteristic stooped shoulders of a man who sends others out to do his dirty work. Of some note was his facial hair, a narrow chin beard below a wide mustache. On a dark night I could have mistaken him for Ho Chi Minh. The other was a man I knew rather better.
“Colonel Bader, I guessed you’d get here sooner or later.”
He tried to smile and failed. It came out as a cross between embarrassment and a snarl. “Mr. Yeager, you should have left it alone. Didn’t I tell you it was a North Vietnamese missile strike? All you had to do was listen, and you could have got on with your life. Instead, you had to poke your nose in where it wasn’t wanted, and you’ve created more trouble than you can believe. By the way, drop those guns. All of you.”
We dropped them, and they fell to the stone floor with a loud clatter. “What now?”
“We wait.”
I nodded. Of course, he’d want to be in at the end. Bao Ninh, the professional assassin who’d already tried and failed to kill us, and he wouldn’t want that failure on his hundred percent record. He’d want to be in at the end, and his bullets will be the ones that finished us.
“Colonel, you know what will happen if he kills the President? The end of the Republic, the end of American involvement in Vietnam, and the Commies will have free rein to run riot over Southern Asia. You must know you’re opening the floodgates.”
“Yeager, there’s a lot of men who want to see our troops pulled out of Vietnam. Everyone can see we’re losing the war, and…”
“We’re losing the war because shits like you and General Phan are making secret deals with the Communists.”
A shrug. “There’s no point in denying it, but I think this is for the best. We all do.”
“Best for your offshore bank account?”
I’d scored a hit then, and his face flushed bright red. “It isn’t just the money.”
“Yeah, right. What’re you planning to do with it? By an apartment in Manhattan, maybe a beach house on Martha’s Vineyard? There’re plenty of other crooks like you on the island, so you’ll feel at home.”
“Shut up, or I’ll shoot you now.”
“Your boss wouldn’t be happy when he gets here and finds you’ve stolen his thunder. You know he’ll want to finish this himself. Otherwise, you’d have shot us already.”
He didn’t argue, and I knew I’d got it right. Which gave us a few more minutes, maybe a bit longer before the assassin arrived. I was prepared to wait. After all, these two men had made a fundamental stake. When we walked into their trap, they’d just told us to drop our guns and we complied. But they hadn’t searched us, and if they’d had front line experience, they’d have known enough to never, ever fail to search a prisoner. Who was to know what they had concealed inside their clothing? Knives, compact pistols tucked into boots or into the waistband small of the back. We’d seen it all, because we’d fought on many battlefields, and taken plenty of prisoners. Men taken prisoner on the battlefield are like poisonous scorpions, liable to bite you in the ass when you weren’t looking, unless you search them for hidden weapons.
I’d taken two grenades into the tunnels of Vinh Moc. I threw one grenade into the operations room, and I had the other tucked into my pocket. All I was waiting for was the opportunity to use it, and that meant waiting for Bao Ninh to turn up. He wouldn’t be long. He’d have watched us head back toward the police post, and I could picture him now jogging along the track, his lips stretched into a beatific smile with the knowledge the men and women who’d caused him so much trouble were together in one place. Waiting for him to turn up and put a bullet into each of us.
But in the meantime, I had to keep them talking. I didn’t want them to suddenly recall they’d failed to shake us down for weapons. “Colonel, you know you won’t get away with this.”
The Police General replied with a sneer. “Who do you think will stop him? I have already made certain the official account of the air crash is accepted at the highest levels, and the matter those Army CID officers were en route to investigate will now be dropped.”
I ignored him. “I assume they were coming to investigate you, Colonel. As they found out you were on the take?”
He bridled. “Like I said, it wasn’t like that. The war is going badly, and sooner or later the Communists will take over the South. It may just as well be sooner and save lives.”
“So that was it? You were trying to save lives?”
“Of course I was.”
I fixed him with a sneer. “Colonel Bader, I was at Khe Sanh, and we beat North Vietnam into the ground. Sure, it cost the lives of some of our people, but at the last count Intelligence estimates the Communists lost as many as twenty thousand men. They lost a hell of a lot more during the Tet Offensive, and this current series of attacks will end the same way. We’re stomping them into the ground, and sooner or later they won’t have any choice but to give up. Provided men like you don’t sell us out to the enemy. If we let you get away with it, sure, South Vietnam will lose the war, the North will take over, and the country will descend into a bloodbath even worse than what’s going on now. They’ll take their revenge on everyone who fought for the South, and they’ll stack up the bodies in mass graves to hide the truth from the world.”
He shrugged again. “It’s too bad, why should I care about a few million gooks?”
The General gave him a sharp look when he heard that, but he made no comment. A moment later the door pushed open, and a man stepped inside. Bao Ninh, and he looked like a hungry Great White shark who’s just come across a lone swimmer in the water. He was wary, with an AK-47 pointed in our general direction, and he had two pistols pushed into his belt.
When he saw we were unarmed, he looked at General Phan. “This is them?”
A nod. “Yes, and this man, Warrant Officer Yeager, has been a thorn in our side from the start.”
His eyes stared into mine, and it was like looking into the depths of hell. “I saw you at Dong Ha.”
“Yeah, I should have put a bullet in you.”
“And I saw you outside the tunnels. You are lucky your aircraft changed course for a different target.”
“My guess is they’d have been dropping on your people outside Binh An.”
A cloud darkened his expression. “Some of those men are my friends.”
“Dead friends. They should have stayed at home making sandals out of old motor tires.”
“You will die,” he said it in a calm, matter-of-fact way.
“Probably, but you’ll die as well. We can continue this in hell.”
He chuckled. “Is that a threat? I do not think you are in any position to make threats. I can make your death very long and very hard.”
“I doubt it. When we go, pal, we go together.”
His brow furrowed in puzzlement. “And how do you plan to kill me?”
Slowly, I held out my right arm, and I had the grenade cupped in my hand. Unless he was blind, he could see I’d removed the pin earlier and was holding the lever down. “With this.”
He started to back away, but my voice stopped him. “Don’t even think about it. You try getting out through that door, and I’ll come after you, and you can’t outrun a
grenade.”
We stood there for several minutes, a frozen stand-off. He looked at all of us, one by one, then the Colonel, and then at the Police General, both of whom had their rifles pointed at me. I could see he was working out how he could get away with it, and when he thought he had the solution to the problem, he snapped out an order. “Kill him!”
Simultaneously, he darted out through the door, and he’d worked out I couldn’t follow him before they opened fire and tore me apart with a hurricane of bullets. Except I’d worked it out, too, worked out it was his only option, and I had other ideas. I tossed the grenade at Bader and Phan and screamed a warning they couldn’t ignore.
“Grenade!”
It’s hard to ignore a live grenade when someone has thrown it at you from short range, and whatever thoughts are in your mind at the time, carrying out an order to shoot a man wasn’t uppermost. All that counted was to be anywhere other than close to the explosion and the hot metal that would tear a man apart, and they did exactly what I thought they’d do. Ducked out of sight behind the solid wooden counter. If I’d thrown the grenade straight at them it may have worked, and they may have survived. I hadn’t. Instead, I’d thrown the grenade in a high, curving lob that dropped it neatly behind them, and I shouted, “Hit the deck!”
We threw ourselves down as the explosion roared in the confined space, and the shockwave contained within the stone walls battered at us. When the echoes had died down, I got cautiously to my feet and peaked over the other side of the wooden counter. Both men were lying on the floor. The General was dead, and Bader was severely wounded, with blood pouring from a wound in his neck. I vaulted over the top and looked down at him.
“Where would he go? Back to the tunnels?”
He shook his head, and even that tiny movement caused him to close his eyes and whimper in agony. “Not Vinh Moc, not now his whereabouts are known.”
“Then where? Where would he go, Colonel?”
The voice was almost inaudible, and I had to bend close to him to hear the words. “Finish…”
“Finish? I don’t get it.”
“Finish…”
I didn’t get it, but Van Le had come around the counter, and she was looking at Bader with an expression of horror. “He’s going back.”
“Back where?”
“To where it all started. To Saigon, to kill the President.”
We raced outside, in case he was still around, but he’d gone. Around back we found where Bader and Phan had parked their vehicle, and there were just the tire tracks in the mud, and the jeep we’d taken, ‘borrowed’ from Dong Ha.
We looked at each other and said it at the same time. “We need to get back to Saigon.”
There was nothing more we could do, and Sergeant Canh said he’d handle the process of tiding everything up. The grenade had wrecked part of the front office, five of his officers lay dead inside the tunnels of Vinh Moc, and the best we could do was assure him we’d get him some help. We had a friendly MP officer we could call on at Dong Ha, and I suspected he’d be able to make the arrangements.
We piled into the jeep and drove away, and it was immediately obvious there was no way we’d get to Saigon in a military jeep. Not driving along the main highway south, riddled with buried mines, NVA and VC ambushes, and even the so-called friendlies, the ARVN, weren’t always so friendly. A Willys jeep would make a good few bucks on the black market. So we headed for Dong Ha and managed to bypass Binh An, where the battle was already dying down. I afterward discovered the Communists had taken heavy casualties, and already their men were starting to desert. Just like at Khe Sanh, and just like during Tet.
Captain Roland Mason met us at the gate, where the sentries had refused to allow us onto the base. He looked amused. “You’ve brought my jeep back?”
“We have, yes.”
“How did it go up at Vinh Moc? Did you get him?”
We gave him a short account of the action at the tunnels and informed him about the cop we’d left at the police post, along with the bodies of Colonel Bader and General Phan.
He whistled. “How did they die?”
“Grenade.”
“Right. And our friend, the guy you say is out to kill President Nguyen?”
“That’s the thing. We believe he’s on his way back to Saigon to finish the job.”
“How can you know?”
Le interceded. “It was Colonel Bader, a dying confession.”
He nodded. “And General Phan, was that his conclusion?”
“He didn’t disagree.”
I fought back a smile. “Captain, we need to get to Saigon.”
“No need, I can alert the Saigon Police, and they’ll put out an APB for him.”
I paused. “General Phan, he was in on it. Some of his senior officers are sure to be part of the conspiracy.”
His eyes widened. “That complicates matters. I’ll talk to Army CID at MACV. They can have some of their people look into it.”
“Colonel Bader was Army CID. We don’t know if any of his people at MACV were involved.”
“Shit. So what do you want me to do?”
“Get us a ride to Saigon. We know Bao Ninh, and we know what he looks like. We know what he’s planning to do, and if you can trust anyone to try to stop him, it’s us. Captain, we haven’t been through hell for nothing.”
He looked at the sentry. “Open the gates and let them inside. Yeager, take the jeep back to the vehicle compound and wait for me there. This could take a while.”
It took two hours, and we were fretting and fuming, wondering if we were about to be offered a ride or an uncomfortable cell. But he was as good as his word, and when he arrived he was with another man. A United States Air Force NCO, a crew chief.
“This is Master Sergeant Seth Ryder. His C-130 is flying back to Tan Son Nhut, due to take off in one hour. He’ll take you to the flightline and get you aboard. I can’t promise anything when you land, but I’ll contact some people I know on the base and see if they can help you out. That’s the best I can do.”
We thanked him and shook hands. “It’s appreciated, Captain.”
“I lost a cousin during Tet, and I’d hate to see his death was all for nothing. Have you lost anyone in this war?”
“I have.”
I didn’t elaborate on it, and I didn’t need to. Many of us had lost someone close, and it hurt. It always hurt.
An hour later we were tucked into the rear of the aircraft as it screamed along the runway and took off at a steep angle, gaining height to get out of missile range for the start of our journey back to Saigon. Where it had all started and it would all finish. I knew in my heart one of us had to die. I’d vowed to kill Bao Ninh, and there was no doubt whatsoever he’d made the same vow, to kill me. I wasn’t alone. Ray Massey was there as always, watching my back. Van Le, the Sub-Inspector from the National Police and Constable Van Lam, were equally determined to see this through. They were good people, and it felt good to know they were on my side.
But ultimately, I knew it would come down to two men. Warrant Officer Carl Yeager and Bao Ninh, assassin working for the People’s Republic, Ho Chi Minh’s ruthless band of cutthroat, bloodthirsty politicians and senior army officers. One of us had to die. I’d made up my mind it wouldn’t be me, although I had a sobering thought.
I’ve been known to be wrong.
Chapter Twelve
Master Sergeant Seth Ryder got us away from Tan Son Nhut without undue problems. In theory, the flight crew was unaware of their stowaways, but I noticed they were careful to stay away from the rear of the aircraft. When we touched down, they stayed in the cockpit until Ryder managed to arrange for a buddy to spirit us away in a supply truck that drove us close to Ryder’s quarters, and he had a civilian vehicle parked nearby.
“You’re welcome to take it on loan, but I want it back in one piece. My wife is due to make a visit soon, and we’re planning to do the tourist thing. I’d hate to tell her I’d lost the car.”
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My thoughts went back to my own wife, Gracie. The story was the same, the wife of a serving soldier determined to visit the exotic and colorful country she’d heard so much about. See what her husband had been doing all this time. It didn’t work out, the Vietcong murdered her, and the rest was a long and sorry saga of trying to make sense of my loss and grief. I’d come through a dark valley, hating every Vietnamese I came across. Hating and often fearing them, they were the enemy. Slopes, gooks, you name it. They were all the same, sneaky little bastards who’d put a gun to your back and pull the trigger as soon as look at you.
That was the theory. There were also men like Sergeant Canh, who’d fought for us up at Vinh Moc, and lost his comrades as a result. There were Le and Lam, both decent girls, cops, who tried to uphold the law until their superiors found they were getting too close to the corruption, the duplicity, the conspiracy to hand the country to the Communists. There were plenty of others, Vietnamese, good men and women who deserved less of the hatred and more admiration for the difficult, often impossible jobs they were doing. I guess the big problem was separating the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff. Especially when so many of them looked the same.
There were plenty of guys who had a simple philosophy when out on patrol, and that was to shoot every Viet they saw who looked suspicious. And most of them looked suspicious. How could they not when the Vietcong guerrilla who tried to shoot you on the street looked identical to the local storekeeper or restaurant owner? Often wore the same clothes.
As a final gesture, Master Sergeant Ryder persuaded us to leave our rifles, and he scrounged up a pistol apiece for us, Colt M1911s. “We keep ‘em in the aircraft, but so many go missing I tend to stash them out of sight. Don’t worry about the rifles, they’ll be here when you get back.”
Our eyes met, and he didn’t need to say the rest of it, if we got back.