by Mark Berent
O-1 FAC PLANE
"How ya doing back there, ah, what did you say your name was again?" Travers asked into the intercom via the boom mike attached to his headset.
"Hey, great. This is terrific," the passenger replied over the intercom in a happy voice, "I've never been in a plane this small. Let's do some more. Yeah, and my name's Parker."
“Geez, I really love this,” First Lieutenant Toby G. Parker thought to himself. “I never thought flying would be so much fun.” He felt absolutely exhilarated as Travers brought the O-1E around in another loop. He even noted the airspeed (40 mph) and altitude (780 feet) at the top of the loop.
As they came down the backside of the loop, Parker swung his head to look out each of his side windows. Just outboard of the struts that extended from the fuselage to the wings were rocket racks each holding two Willy Pete (white phosphorus) 2.75-inch rockets the FAC could fire into the ground to make big white smoke aiming points for the strike pilots he was controlling using his UHF radio.
Travers had told him, in answer to his questions, that the big strike fighters flew too high and too fast to find the usually obscure ground reference points in the jungle needed to locate a target. The little FAC O-1Es, flying low and slow, could see practically everything. They also carried the right kind of radio, an FM set, to talk to soldiers fighting on the ground who needed the fire power that air support could provide. Most FACs lived and flew out of tiny jungle airstrips where they maintained close contact with their Corps Army DASC (Direct Air Support Center) and the local Vietnamese province chief, Travers had explained.
Under the callsign Beaver, Travers had flown seven months in the Delta, reporting to Horn DASC. Now, he was the FAC for Bien Hoa province on call 24 hours per day, seven days per week. He knew his area like the back of his hand, and could pick out a new VC supply point or trail within hours of its construction. Besides the forty-five strapped to his hip, the only other armament in the airplane was the short stock M-16 (CAR-15) Travers had wedged to the left of his seat. Even though they had first met at dawn, Parker could tell Travers thrived on this kind of life.
As Travers, Copperhead 03, was leveling his O-1E, he was pleased that his passenger, even though an FNG, seemed to be appreciating the obvious enjoyment of flight. Glancing toward Bien Hoa he noticed some cloud buildups further north that might affect his plans to fly the courier run up there after the Bien Hoa stop.
"Here, Parker, you fly it for a while. I got to make a few phone calls." Travers released the controls, checked that Parker indeed had the airplane control stick in his hand, and punched in Bien Hoa Tower on his UHF radio to ask for landing instructions. He fully expected Parker to refuse or at least ask questions about how to fly the little airplane. He was impressed when he did not and wondered if Parker had ever flown before.
Parker had already figured out that the two most important things, assuming the engine ran properly, were to keep the wings level with the horizon and to keep the nose of the aircraft from rising or falling. He did this for about five minutes noticing to his dismay that the airspeed would fall off to 75 mph or climb to 105 as he tried to hold his altitude. He had no trouble keeping the wings level.
"Cripes," he said over the intercom, "I can't hold my altitude."
"Let go of the stick, I'll show you something." Travers said. "Notice the plane won't climb or dive by itself once you let go of it. I've trimmed it for this cruising airspeed. It's a stable platform. Watch this."
Travers suddenly shoved the stick forward several inches and released it. The little plane bobbed up and down then leveled itself almost immediately. "Take control, Parker, only this time don't get such a death grip on the stick. Hold it lightly between your thumb and forefinger."
Parker did as he was told.
"Now ease the stick to the right. Push some right rudder, and get us on downwind," Travers said. "A little back pressure now, the nose is starting to drop. Good; that's it. Do as I say now and we'll land. I'll handle the throttle and follow through on the controls with you."
Parker had never felt so excited as he obeyed Travers's instructions in the pattern and down to five feet above the concrete surface of Runway 27 at Bien Hoa Air Base. The Bien Hoa Control Tower had squeezed them in between a landing A-1E prop job and two F-100s in formation, gear and flaps down, lights shining, on GCA final. Land and get off the runway is what they told Copperhead 03.
"I've got it," Travers said, "now you follow through on the controls with me."
Parker followed through as Travers landed the fanged-mouth O-1E in a perfect three-point attitude and turned down a taxiway within the first two hundred feet from the approach end of the runway. As they taxied in Parker said, "There seemed to be an awful lot of fast stick and rudder movement until we slowed down."
"Yeah," Travers said, "we had about a ten knot crosswind from the right and there was a bit of jet wash on the runway from that last Hun that took off. Besides, there's a storm moving in. Here, you taxi this thing."
Oh God, this is great, Parker thought, manipulating the throttle and the rudders, trying to keep the plane straight on the taxiway. The chain from the handcuff on his left wrist to the briefcase on his lap hampered him only slightly as he moved the throttle. However, the survival vest and bulky parachute he wore on his back cramped his space in the narrow back seat just as the shoulder harness cramped his mobility. He had had a difficult time attaching the shoulder harness to his lap belt which was tangled over the forty five strapped to his hip and the flak vest he sat on. Travers had instructed him to sit on the thick vest because the parachute harness wouldn't fit over its bulk. "Besides," Travers had said slapping the vest folded on the seat, "this will protect the family jewels."
Parker goosed the throttle. "Oops," he said as he lost it with a too-sudden rudder movement. Travers corrected for him. "Keep your stick in the left rear corner to counteract the quartering left cross wind," he told the struggling backseater. Parker did that and managed credible but wobbly taxiing all the way up to the chocks by Travers's trailer on a remote parking revetment at the northern perimeter of the base. Travers shut down the engine.
In the silence when the propeller clicked to a stop, Travers said over his shoulder, "Come on in and have a beer, Sport, you done good. You're rough as a cob, but you're doing what you're supposed to do. You make the airplane go where you want, not where it wants." They climbed out the left side and took off their helmets.
Travers had a wide mouth and light red hair, slightly longer than the regs prescribed, now sweaty and matted. He stood a little under six feet, was a bit flabby, and had the faintest hint of a beer belly. Before coming to Vietnam as a FAC, he had served as an Air Defense pilot flying F-106 interceptors out of Tyndall AFB, Florida.
Parker helped him and the Bird Dog's crew chief push the O-1E inside the revetment under a lean-to of metal poles and a stretched canvas tarpaulin. The revetment, one of a series built by ARMCO (American Rolling Mill Company), consisted of earth-filled corrugated steel bins 12 feet high and 5.5 feet wide built on three sides of a concrete hardstand to protect parked airplanes from attack. The trailer and the lean-to were each next to a wall. Sergeant Germaine asked how soon the airplane was needed.
"In about an hour, Mike," Travers said looking at his Seiko. "Say 1230 if the weather doesn't go sour on us. Full fuel and rockets."
Travers and Parker walked the 30 feet separating the O-1E and the Mason two-man trailer for which Travers had traded 32 VC Russian-built AK-47 assault rifles. A dented 375-gallon camouflaged F-100 drop tank full of water, heating in the sun, was mounted on a frame next to it. Under the frame was a shower head. A hose ran into the trailer through a hole punched in the wall.
Sgt. Germaine had the one-room, separate entrance portion of the trailer. Travers used the rest for his operations board (a four-foot acetate-overlayed map of South Vietnam), his mess hall (a two-burner hot plate and a small refrigerator), and his bachelor officer's quarters (the adj
oining eight-foot by six-foot bedroom with chair, chest of drawers, and a G.I.-cot with pillow, and sheets).
Travers had also traded six VC home-built hand grenades for the 18,000 BTU GE CoolTone air conditioner strapped and propped in a front window. An eighteen-inch box fan he bought from the PX blew the cool air all the way through to the tiny bedroom.
There was a hand-cranked EE-8 field phone and a Prick 25 (a PRC-25 FM radio), on the homemade desk along with the map. Travers and Parker walked in, sweat encrusted. Travers pulled two cans of beer from the reefer, handed one to Parker, unzipped his front zipper to his crotch, stood in front of the air conditioner, and cranked up the field phone to ask for Weather.
"Hey, Stormy, Phil the FAC. What ya got in War Zone C and D and on up to Loc Ninh from now till dark?" Travers listened and took notes. "How about tomorrow by first light?" He took more notes, said thanks, and placed the black Bakelite field phone in its olive drab canvas container. He turned to face Parker, hip resting on the desk, arms folded.
"No go, Parker. We got the usual afternoon line of thunder bumpers north of here marching west to east till probably 9 o'clock tonight. They're from the deck to fifty thou. Nothing flies including choppers up there till they swing through. We could maybe beat them in but we'd never get back out."
"Can't we get a jeep or something and drive up?” Parker asked.
"How long you been in-country, boy?" Travers asked, eyebrows raised. "That Highway 13 doesn't belong to us even with a 900-man tank battalion driving on it. It's a ten-meter wide hardtop road which means at any given time our front line is only ten meters across and at that you got to have flankers on each side and a point man out in front to trip ambushes. This isn't like World War Two or Korea where there were definite lines to defend or attack."
Parker nodded, beginning to understand. "Well, look," he said, "I got to call somebody, a Lieutenant Foure, a PI, and see if I can get rid of this stuff." He tapped the briefcase chained to his wrist.
Travers took another beer from the small fridge. "Don't sweat it. Foure's on his way. I asked the tower to call him on the landline and tell him to get over here."
"How did you know to do all that?" Parker asked.
"This isn't exactly the first time I've made this run, you know. I run classified stuff up to An Loc and Loc Ninh. Stuff like aerial photos of their local area in return for their ground observations and reports. Colonel Norman, the guy you work for at 7th, has set this up as perhaps a better way to swap Intel with the ground troops. In this case, the Special Forces. The local SF A Team here at Bien Hoa is assisting a camp at Loc Ninh and another A Team has the camp at Song Be. Both of them are in my TAOR, my Tactical Area of Responsibility." Travers took a long pull at the beer, wiped his mouth, and continued.
"There's over a hundred Special Forces fighting camps in Vietnam. Their missions range from border watch posts and Intel gathering, to interdicting and harassing the VC and NVA. Those snake eaters groove on that stuff," Travers said, the respect in his voice obvious.
He finished the beer, crumpled the can, and tossed it into a cardboard C-ration box already full of Coke and beer cans. "How come you didn't know any of this? How long you been with Norman's outfit, anyway?"
"Well, actually, ah, I only got here a few days ago. The guy who fitted me out this morning, Sergeant Miloyka, told me you were a good man, and would tell me all about the courier business. I just have the names and places of where I'm supposed to pick up and deliver stuff."
"Like I said," Travers began, "in between FAC jobs I fly the courier around. Sometimes we have an Immediate Request for air support that I have to divert to while going or coming from a delivery. That happens most of the time, in fact." He took out another beer. "You on any flight orders? You drawing flight pay?"
"Well, no, actually I'm not. Colonel Norman didn't say anything about that. I, uh, I thought maybe one or two runs was all I'd be set up to do," Parker said.
"Perhaps that's all you'll get, Parker. This is a new arrangement, and it may not prove out. I've only made ten runs so far." He heard brakes squealing, turned to look out the window in time to see a fatigue-clad USAF lieutenant wearing a steel pot climb out of a jeep and head for the trailer.
"Hey, Phil, you got it real cold in here," the man said as he came through the door. "You must be Parker," he said. The two shook hands.
Parker rubbed his wrist after unlocking the cuff link and giving the case to Foure. "Sign here," he said to Foure, handing him a USAF Classified Movement form in triplicate. Foure signed the paper and left the trailer.
"How come you don't pick up and deliver the bag yourself, Phil?" Parker asked as Foure drove off.
"First off, it's hard to fly an airplane with that thing chained to my wrist," Travers said pointing at Parker's attaché case, "and secondly once in a while I'd have to spend time on the ground to go over some of that stuff when I should be up doing my FAC thing."
"Who did this before?" Parker asked.
"A guy named McAdoo, first john like you."
"Why isn't he doing this anymore?"
"He's in the 3rd Surge down there at Saigon."
"Why, what happened to him?"
"Got himself full of mortar frags on the ground at Loc Ninh when the VC tried to overrun it one night last week.”
1730 Hours Local, 20 December 1965
Alpha Airlines, Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Republic of Vietnam
Bubba Bates was chewing the skinny butt off Nguyen Tran, his chief of Vietnamese government liaison who also screened indigenous personnel (meaning Vietnamese) applying for work with the Alpha Airlines station at TSN (the station identifier for Tan Son Nhut). Alpha was soon to open another station up in I Corps at Da Nang for its DC-3 and DC-4 passenger and cargo route. Most Vietnamese workers preferred the TSN station because it was right in the lap of the delights of Saigon.
Bubba was pissed at Nguyen Tran because he was having a hard time recruiting baggage smasher shift bosses to go to Da Nang and set up the baggage handling system, and he blamed Tran for not providing him with enough enthusiastic support. Tran tried to tell Bubba that the shift bosses who went to Da Nang, even if only for a few weeks, needed extra money, Vietnamese Piastres, called P, to pay someone to look after their families while they were gone.
"Tran, I don't have any extra money. You know that as well as I do. Tell 'em I'll give 'em double comp time when they get back. Okay?"
Ong (Mister in Vietnamese) Tran, who had received his baccalaureate in civil engineering from the Universite' de Saigon in the late fifties, told Bates that time off wasn't the answer.
"They must hire Nung guards," Tran said, "at least one for each house. They don't cost much. Maybe 100 P a day. And rice. You pay this, the men will go. You pay 100 P and maybe 10 more P each day for rice and the men go Da Nang, go to Da Nang," Tran corrected.
"Why, for Chrissakes, the guards? They think VC overrun their hooch the minute they go? Or some Nguyen down the street come diddle the old lady?" Bates hawked a laugh at that one. He thought it pretty funny. The 110 P per day was about 95 cents in real money. That came to about thirty bucks a month for ten guys which totaled three hundred dollars. Bates couldn't afford that from the slush fund or petty cash Alpha had set up for such contingencies because Bubba was all the way into the slush fund and petty cash to support his air-conditioned apartment in Saigon on Hai Ba Truong street near the Saigon River, not to mention the greatly gorgeous Tui, his mistress.
"No, Mr. Bates, that is not the problem. The problem is Saigon cowboys. They come around houses and ask for money when they know people work for Americans. They think they have much money. They want some. If the man is gone he must provide protection," Ong Tran said.
"Protection, hell. Sounds like extortion to me. They're trying to extort the money out of me." Bubba Bates wiped his face with his giant red bandanna. It came away soaked with sweat and grime from the construction. Ong Tran in his white shirt and black pants, on th
e other hand, looked unrumpled, dry, and clean. Bates didn't know why, but he rarely saw a Viet with sweat on his brow. Just didn't work as hard as a white man, he would say when commenting to his fellow Americans about the tough life at TSN.
"Tell 'em 50 P, Tran, that's all the company can afford." When Ong Tran tried one last protest, Bates gave him a shove and told him to “Goddammit, go deal with the problem.” What the hell did he think he got paid for, anyhow. Sheeit, Bates said to himself, wiping his head and neck again, his black hair hanging wetly next to his florid face. If it isn't one thing, it's another. After yesterday's humiliation in the terminal in front of Joe and Al by that broad from Braniff, he was ready to kick the crap out of anybody who got in his way. As an equivalent to a GS 8, Bubba Bates had Officers Club privileges. He planned to stop by the O’ Club each night on his way home in the chance he'd find that dickhead lieutenant, Parker was the name on his tag, and teach him a thing or two.
At 1800, Bubba's replacement reported in for the mid-shift, freeing him until 1000 the next morning. Bubba briefed him on the day's input, on lost baggage, on the schedule of birds due in during his shift, and then signed out. He walked out of the western end of the Alpha Airlines Quonset hut into the parking lot, unlocked and opened all four doors of his company-furnished Quatre Cheval Renault to cool the 130 degree sun heat to the day's 92, then drove to the Officers Club. He drank a shot in a beer, then left when he couldn't find that dickhead lieutenant.
As a U.S. government contract worker, Bubba Bates also had full PX and, something the average G.I. didn't have, full commissary privileges, which he abused with great fervor. He drove to the big PX in Cholon to pick up, as he did about every fourth day, six bottles of Jim Beam whiskey, twelve cans of ladies Revlon hair spray, and four cartons of Salem cigarettes. He waited in the longer line at Aisle 3 to be checked out by his special friend. When his turn came he handed her thirty eight dollars in script, Military Payment Certificates, also known as MPC or funny money, and his ration card with an American five dollar bill folded in it. The plump Co at the register, demonstrating great experience, palmed the green bill neatly and only pretended to punch Bubba's rat-card. Bubba nodded, hoisted his bags and walked out.
Tui met Bubba at the door of his third-floor apartment on Hai Ba Truong Street and took the two brown paper bags from him to the small table in the kitchen. She was barefoot, and wore a white shift with a slit up the left side, and no makeup. Her hair, more brown than black, hung in a smooth cascade down her back just past her shoulder blades. Quite tall for a Vietnamese, she almost matched Bubba's five foot nine height. Her eyes were more dark blue than black, more wide set and more round than most Asian girls.
She divided equally the goods from the heavy American commissary brown paper bags, and transferred the whiskey, hair spray, and cigarettes into two old hemp shopping bags. She stuffed Vietnamese newspaper around the bottles to muffle any clinking sound. She carefully folded the paper bags and added them to a stack under the sink.
As was the daily ritual, she took a frosted mug from the freezer section of a new refrigerator, a Budweiser beer from below, poured the beer into the mug adjusting the foam just so, added two fingers of Jim Beam from a bottle she took from a cabinet, and carried it on a rosewood tray to the balcony which overlooked the Saigon River. Bubba sat in a papasan chair, bare feet crossed on the balcony railing.
The traffic noise was a buzzing hum of Honda scooters punctuated by beeps from the tiny blue and white Renault taxis. Yet the noise wasn't as bad as over on Tu Do Street where most of the G.I. bars and shops were. The stink of castor oil-laced gas from the scooters went unnoticed by Bubba. He was used to it. Tui set the tray on a wicker table and handed Bubba his drink. After he took a long swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, she bent over him from his right side, kissed him on the lips, ran her tongue around inside his right ear, then began to massage his neck and shoulders.
"Harder on the left side. That's it. Harder. Dig your fingers in. Ah, God that's good," Bubba sighed. He drank heavily from the frosted mug. "You're the best, Tui. The best." Then, after a pause of several minutes during which he alternately sighed and groaned, he asked "How did we do today?"
She left him for a moment and returned with a small neat package wrapped in newspaper. Bubba opened it and counted the MPC inside. The funny multi-colored currency totaled $294, Bubba's return on yesterday's 38 bucks worth of booze, hairspray, and butts. It would be 40 percent less were he to be paid in green, American currency, but he accepted the funny money which was as good as green once deposited in his account at the Saigon branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Another privilege the common G.I. did not have.
Via a scam with an Army finance clerk, Bubba was close to getting as much green as he wanted so he could buy more MPC from the Indians on the southern end of Tu Do Street at a 1.4 to 1 ratio. Legally, no government worker--civilian or military--was allowed to have American money in his or her possession. It created inflation, so the reasoning went. As it was, Vietnamese shopkeepers, bar girls, black marketeers, and pimps, who preferred hard currency, would accept funny money from G.I.'s who had run out of Piastres, the Vietnamese currency they were supposed to buy at 118 to the dollar. They would accept MPC at a rate that screwed the G.I. out of about 50 percent of its value. To get rid of the funny money, which had no value on the economy, they would sell it at 1:4 to 1 ratio to whomever could come up with American greenbacks. This new and highly lucrative source of money for Bubba would be a welcome addition to his black marketeering, which was really small potatoes compared to some big time operators. The situation in Vietnam was Curtis "Bubba" Bates' one shot at the brass ring and he intended to max it out.
Bubba handed the money to Tui, who stashed it in the grip in the closet. When she returned to the balcony, she took Bubba's beer away, then sat on his lap. She placed his hands on her breasts, began to slowly grind her hips over his maleness, leaned forward to dart her tongue around the inside of his mouth. In about three minutes, as was the ritual, Bubba picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. She had already turned up the air conditioner. The tiled floor was cool to his feet. The austere Vietnamese handmade double bed was covered with a taut white sheet. Two American pillows were under the sheet at the head of the bed, a folded sheet lengthwise at the foot.
Bubba stood next to the bed. Tui stepped out of her shift and, kneeling, undid his belt and his zipper, stripped off his pants and underwear, then his shirt, pushed him gently back on the bed, and straddled him. She had to work on his flaccidness a moment before guiding him into her. She rocked back and forth. It was over in seconds. As it always was.
Tui disengaged, stood up, and watched Bubba for a few moments. When it was clear he had gone to sleep, she pulled the sheet over him, turned down the air conditioner a notch, picked up her shift and left the room.
After her shower, during which she scrubbed with great attention, Tui put on a black and white ao dai, a white silk scarf to cover her less-than-black hair, picked up the two hemp shopping bags, put her small black purse in one, and left the apartment, making sure the door was safely locked behind her. In the vestibule she unlocked the chain holding a Honda scooter, and, with the shopping bags stowed one to each saddle bag, wheeled to the Cercle Sportif on Hung Thap Tu street where she arrived at dusk.
Buey Dan, the second assistant tennis pro, who spoke fluent French and good American English, met her in his office, which overlooked the courts. Tui gave him the hemp bags. Without glancing into them, Buey Dan placed the bags in a locker from which he took an identical bag containing a folded hemp bag and $294 in military script wrapped in newspaper. He handed it to her and sat at the desk.
"What have you found, little sister?' he asked in Vietnamese.
Tui nervously licked her lips. "I have found he is the wrong man," she replied rapidly in the same language. "He knows nothing and never will."
She stood up, took the kerchief from her head and shook out her hai
r as she walked to the window overlooking the courts. Except for one Caucasian, the six lighted courts were full of Vietnamese players dressed similarly in white polo shirts, white shorts, white wool knee-highs, and American high-top tennis shoes. There were no Vietnamese women players. Ball shaggers called bo doi, in dark shorts and armless tee shirts, slouched or ran depending on the prowess of their players. The commonplace scene calmed her.
"Have you found me another here, Uncle?" she asked watching the slim Caucasian skillfully returning the ball. She could tell from his elegant, energy conserving placer la balle style he was French, probably a colon planter from up north. The Amis seemed to squander energy as they raced around the courts.
"No, little sister. There are some Ami military here but they are staff to Dai-Tuong Westmoreland and are scared to ever do anything by themselves. There is one, a thieu ta, a major, who gets sometimes too drunk but he does not show himself alone in this club. I had him followed to Tu Do street. He takes girls in the bars there. It is reported he likes them very small. We have someone who might interest him," Buey Dan said. Tui was silent for a moment.
"Is the gossip bad? Could I return here to the Cercle Sportif to look for another?" She asked finally.
"You possibly could return but we have other plans," Buey Dan said.
Tui turned from the window to look at him in the deepening shadows. He had yet to switch on the light.
"Then you already knew, Uncle, I was unsuccessful," she said. "Do I go to the bars now to sell Saigon Tea?" Tui straightened her shoulders in a thin gesture of defiance. Buey Dan leaned back to look up at her and said, "Little sister, we will not send you to the Tu Do Street bars or even the International nightclub. We have others for those places and for the American Embassy people. Instead, we want you to convince the mui lo longnose to take you to the Officers Club on their air base Tan Son Nhut. You will make it more and more obvious you are dissatisfied with him as you meet the men who go there. You will concentrate only on military officers. Supply us with as many names as you can. We will give you information on them. And we will give you names of officers to watch for. We will determine for you which one to target. Meanwhile, act American, pretend to drink a lot, wear those miniskirts, dance by yourself to the machine music. Go to Chez Robert's and see how the American embassy secretaries act when they drink. Imitate them. Become a round-eyed American beauty queen."
Actually, Tui thought to herself, it would be far more enjoyable visiting the Officers Club than spending all day confined to the barbarian's apartment. She pictured the American Officers Club as being like that of the French; quiet, dignified, elegant white linen on the tables, crystal, china, fine wines, a sommelier, a maitre d'hôtel in attendance. "Yes, Uncle. I will do that. How soon?"
"Immediately," Buey Dan said, standing up, "immediately."
Tui started for the door and paused. "Uncle, I know of your sorrow," she said, eyes downcast.
Buey Dan's eyes flickered. "It was for the liberation," he said in a voice that sounded like glass being cut. "For the liberation," he repeated after she went out the door, seeing again in his mind the bulky long nose cutting down his son.
As Tui expertly wheeled her Honda through the now darkened Saigon streets, she thought about her past. She was a métisse, a Eurasian; Vietnamese mother, Caucasian father. He was a German who had joined the French Foreign Legion directly from a French prison camp in 1945. He had died a hero's death in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. Tui had completed two years in the Sorbonne in Paris, on money from the modest estate her Legionnaire father had stolen as an SS officer in Holland.
A bit of a child prodigy, Tui spoke, besides her classical Vietnamese, fluent French and Hochdeutsch in such a soft mellifluous manner that it didn't sound the least bit Teutonic. She also spoke quite correct British English learned as an au pair in the UK during the summers of '62 and '63 to supplement her income, and at the direction of Buey Dan, her party cadre boss of eight years. Through the years, as she saw Buey Dan become more fanatic in his beliefs, her trust in him slowly eroded into fear. She knew he was sometimes called the Lizard from Hanoi Lake, but she didn't know why.
Tui was 19, looked 14, and was, if not a pure Marxist, at least a Vietnamese nationalist who truly believed that salvation for her beloved country lay with Ho Chi Minh and not Vietnamese Prime Minister Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky and American President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Tui could also erotically manipulate Curtis Bubba Bates in such a way as to reduce him to a quivering whimpering mass if he didn't do her small favors. She felt nauseous while doing it, but she did it, for "the liberation" she told herself. Outside of getting for her schedules for incoming cargo and G.I.s on Alpha Airlines and other MAC contract flights, Bubba could perform no significant favors of any intelligence value.
Tui, who was a member of the Cercle Sportif, had mistaken Bubba Bates for an important American when she met him, through a simple contrivance, by the pool late one afternoon. Bubba's loud manner, condescending attitude toward the waiters and pool boys, and extravagant handling of money convinced her this was so. Only a general, a dai-tuong, or a high state department official, a dai su, could act thusly was Tui's reasoning. Tui only knew about American capitalists from what Buey Dan had told her and Bubba Bates fitted the description like the skin on the tamarind fruit.
Membership in the exclusive athletic and social club had been opened, albeit reluctantly by the membership committee, to Americans. Bubba, and a few pretentious others, rushed to join. The rest had neither time nor inclination to join the club merely to hobnob with snobby French and Viets who, even if they knew how, would not speak a word of English nor understand the American's attempt to speak French. There were, however, two major exceptions: General Westmoreland, COMUSMACV, and the Dai su, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. They were welcomed and fawned over by all the French and the Viets.
It didn't take Tui long to realize her mistake, but she had already compromised herself by moving in with Bates at his Hai Ba Truong apartment. She would now use him to better advantage as an entry to the Officers Club. She knew he could get her a temporary Alpha Airlines employee's pass to the giant air base. Maybe even a permanent one. She would soon find the right target. She would deal with Bates' objections when the time came. It would all depend on how much she had control over the long-nosed barbarian.
Bates was still asleep and snoring when she entered the third floor apartment.