Lei left. As he read the pamphlet, Minh had been daydreaming that he was back in Atwat—the room had become his barracks. If he had been from the countryside, by now he would have been assigned combat duty in the jungle. For an urban guerilla, the primary object of his watchfulness was his own family, his own neighbors. Wasn’t the whole city his battlefield? When the instructors said he would have to overcome the temptations of city life, they had meant he had to be on guard against the pleasures and the frivolity of the city, but on another level they could have meant that he has to defeat the vanity that urged him to reveal himself. Under his breath, Minh rehearsed the ten essential points of the NLF oath, followed by the final moving phrases: “Victory certainly shall be ours. For the combined strength of our people is not to be broken, justice is on our side, and colonialism has had its century in the sun and is now bound for extinction. Peace, democracy, and the national liberation movement are spreading far and wide like a storm, winning one victory after another.”
Pham Minh wrapped the leaflets back up and put them back inside the dictionary cover. He wondered how long he had been sleeping. He rose from the wicker bed and threw open the latticed shutters on the window. It was nearing evening and the twilight sky was beautiful. Monday had almost flown away. Feeling thirsty, he went out to the living room and found Mi there playing with her three-year-old daughter. His little niece came over into his arms and he put the girl into the hammock and rocked it jerkily. She screeched with laughter. Mi seemed uncomfortable and quietly went into the kitchen. Minh took his niece outside into the yard and played with her for a while. Then, with the little girl in his arms, he went through the reed screen into the kitchen where his sister Mi was washing rice. He spoke first to her back.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”
She didn’t stop what she was doing, but seemed to be waiting for him to continue. After a few seconds, he went on.
“Some people are strong, but there are weak ones in this world, too. There are strong plants like baobab trees and weak ones like violets. About the way I feel, I’m afraid you ... I’m in despair now. You could try to understand.”
Mi stopped washing the rice and turned her head.
“Come here.”
Minh set the child down and approached his sister. She embraced him and seemed about to weep.
“I’m sorry,” she said, patting his back. “Minh, you’re not like Quyen. Ever since you were a little boy, you were always my favorite.”
“I’ve got some ideas of my own.”
“I know, I know. I won’t drive you into a corner anymore. I couldn’t help thinking of my children’s father, that was why.”
The next day the Pham brothers appeared at the air force battalion headquarters in Da Nang. Minh was wearing a uniform given him by his brother, a sergeant’s chevron on the shoulder, and he carried transfer papers. They gave him a shiny set of dog tags with his new unit. His name must have been inserted into a space on the roster vacated by a deserter or an airman killed in action. Minh sat there in the outer office for about an hour leafing through newspapers as his brother chatted and chuckled with the commander. When Quyen emerged with a short lieutenant colonel, Minh saluted to the commander as his brother had taught him. The lieutenant colonel merely glanced at him.
Their next stop was the air base on the edge of downtown toward Dong Dao. The Vietnamese air force detachment was right across the street from the US base. A few patrol planes and two tired-looking squadrons of older fighters and helicopters were parked on the strip. Like the Vietnamese navy, the air force had no independent operational authority and only served as an adjunct to the US forces, so there were not many pilots around. Here, also, Minh was a ghost on the duty roster worth five thousand piasters a month to the commanding officer. He finished the formalities by shaking hands with the major who was in charge of the detachment. The major cautioned him not to go outside of Da Nang unless it was absolutely necessary.
“By April next year, you’ll be the first one in our family to emigrate,” Pham Quyen said brightly as they left, looking as though a load had just been lifted from his shoulders.
Minh went back home and changed his clothes. Then he picked up the disguised bundle of leaflets and headed for Hoa teahouse, the rendezvous point for cell B. He drank some tea with the leader of cell B and exchanged a few words before leaving.
“Any other orders?”
“None.”
“The date is unchanged?”
“Changes, if any, will be handed down from above.”
On Wednesday morning Minh put on black Vietnamese clothing and went to Nguyen Cuong’s store for his first day of work. Over his shoulder he slung a canvas bag containing two bananas, a shaving kit, and one of the dictionary covers. It was about seven thirty when he reached the warehouse in Le Loi market. Cuong was already in the office and the female clerk was making Tonkin-style coffee, boiling water over an alcohol burner.
“Ah, welcome. Let’s have a cup of coffee together.”
Cuong and Minh sat down across from each other.
“Let me introduce the two of you, since you’ll be working together. This is Miss Ran.”
Minh and the clerk nodded to each other. The coffee was strong and aromatic.
“We open the store at seven in the morning,” Cuong said, “like our competitors in Le Loi market. It’s the early bird that catches the worm, you know. From seven till twelve we move merchandise in and settle payments for transactions closed the day before. Lunch and siesta go from twelve to three. From three to six we ship goods going out of town and continue with collections. At six o’clock you can head home. Of course, things vary occasionally, but that’s more or less the routine. Now, Miss Ran, you have that detailed list of the incoming and outgoing merchandise for today, don’t you?”
Miss Ran handed the typed work orders over to Cuong, who passed it to Minh.
“Check the accuracy of the newly delivered stock as shown here and let me know. Same with the things being shipped. I’m doing the bargaining myself, but completing the deals will be your responsibility, Mr. Pham. I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
Cuong pulled the telephone closer. “I’d better inform your brother what we’re up to,” Cuong said, looking over at Minh. He asked the switchboard at the provincial government office to connect him with the governor’s office.
“Major Pham, please. Not in yet? This is Nguyen Cuong Trading Company. Yes, yes, please do.”
Cuong hung up the phone and said to Minh, “Now let’s go to the warehouse.”
As they opened the back door leading to the warehouse, it was still dark inside but for a few beams of morning sunlight streaming through the cracks in the big door. Cuong turned on the light. He took out a set of keys and handed them to Minh.
“So, this one’s the key to that door over there that opens from the side path. This one opens the warehouse from the office, the way we came. And this one is for the front gate. Hold onto these.”
Once Cuong had left, Minh did a count to confirm all the stock on hand in the warehouse. Three hundred bags of cement, twelve hundred galvanized iron sheets, two hundred fifty sacks of fertilizer, two hundred bags of food, and five hundred sheets of plywood. Then he checked the delivery orders and opened the main gate all the way up. Bright sunlight flooded in, bathing almost half the warehouse. He moved the desk and chair into the shadows to avoid the heat and sat down.
The door from the office opened and Nguyen Thach came in. “Ah, already in, I see,” Thach said. “Contacts with the cells on Monday and yesterday went fine, I hope?”
“Yes, I delivered the books.”
“Where do you meet C today?”
“An open cafe down by the pier. All the members will be there. Am I to be dropped from cell C, sir?”
“There’s b
een a call up of reinforcements. I’m afraid only the leader will show up today. Now I’d like you to become friendly with some of the clerks and shop owners in the market. The sooner the better. Might not be a bad idea to treat them to lunch in a few days. As for the traders who bring trucks from outside Da Nang for pickups, you’ll meet them through your work. One of the merchants on our side is coming up today, so I’ll introduce him to you.”
“What’re my orders for next week, sir?”
“Each cell in turn will change their contact days. By then you’ll have new tasks. Reports will have to be made on the results of dissemination of the leaflets. The training period is four weeks. After that, the real missions will begin. But you, Comrade Pham, will have to help me with my responsibilities for procurement and finances. C-rations and arms are what you should have in mind. We have to keep the guerillas on the outskirts of Da Nang supplied with ammo and mortar shells as well as food and medicine. We’ll also have to find weapons for the recent reinforcements.”
“Will each cell be supplied with weapons, sir?”
“Yes. Pistols and automatic rifles are the most useful arms in Da Nang. Then, too, there’s a need for hand grenades, explosives, and blasting caps.”
“Are we stealing them?”
“No . . . there’s plenty of such stuff floating around this city. Over across from the smokestack is the center of the black market for arms. We have to secure as many mortars, rocket launchers, artillery pieces, and shells for them as we can from the US forces. We also need a lot of antitank mines. And then . . .”
Nguyen Thach looked at the list of goods to be delivered that Minh had set down on the desk and said, “Didn’t your brother tell you about the phoenix hamlets project?”
“Yes, he also mentioned cinnamon up in the highlands.”
“Cinnamon?”
“Yes, sir. Looks like he plans to mobilize troops to harvest cinnamon.”
Nguyen Thach gently laughed. “He did come up with a brilliant idea. The two of them will soon recover the glory of the Bao Dai era. Cinnamon operations . . . probably more than half of all the AID-funded supplies for the phoenix hamlets project will be channeled through the provincial government here. Three hundred hamlets are to be built. Already relief food for the refugees is moving through here . . . there’ll be a mountain of rice pouring in. But what we have our hearts set on are the new carbines, M1s and M2s, to be supplied to arm the militias in the new hamlets.”
“My brother would never get involved in such risky business. He’s a very cautious man, sir.”
“I’m not saying you should talk to your brother about this. Make friends with Lieutenant Kiem on the adjutant’s staff at the provincial government office. I’m certain he’s now scheming to find a way to develop some business of his own. The money that falls into his lap for helping Major Pham is chicken feed. As far as I know, militia matters are under the jurisdiction of the ARVN Second Division, but since their headquarters are up in Hue, the commander who should be in charge has no practical control. Acaptain dispatched from First Division Headquarters, along with Colonel Cao, superintendent of military police in Da Nang, will be delegated power to conduct the training and take command of the militias. Lieutenant Kiem, I think, will be responsible for liaison between those concerned.”
“Plan?”
“Just think about it. Three hundred hamlets, each with between fifty and one hundred households—even if we assume only one adult male per household we are talking about at least thirty thousand guns.”
“Administrative tricks, maybe?”
“Sure. A few thousand ghosts can easily be fabricated on paper. Statistics are in flux because new hamlets are being created, the population is on the move, and the count of the dead changes daily. Depending on Kiem’s capability, the quantity could be even higher. If that works out we’ll have a regular supply of ammunition and other supplies for a whole division of local guerillas. That should do for small arms. We can start with one hundred and gradually increase the supply to one thousand or more. That’ll enable us to open a steady channel for continuing sales of weapons and ammo, but best of all, the money for training these ghosts and for related administration will roll into their hands and then straight into their pockets. We won’t even have to throw them any bait. Since we already see this opportunity, all we have to do is move fast and grab the chance before other merchants get the same idea.”
Nguyen Thach was going over the modus operandi he intended to carry out with Minh’s help. He continued: “And the next thing is the food and medicine. Those are items we must come up with through our own resourcefulness in trading.”
“Will it be rice, sir?”
“Rice is traded openly; it’s a basic commodity in the market. We can transplant rice twice a year, and even under the French our country was famous for exports of Annam rice, but over 40 percent of our paddies in central Vietnam, not to mention the Mekong Delta, have been turned into battlefields. So the main rice trading these days is concerned with relief grain from California. Just like with cement and fertilizer, it’s easy work. It’s plentiful all over the market. The more important thing is the combat rations—we can’t afford expensive food for guerillas in the jungle. Nothing is more convenient than C-rations for operations requiring blackouts or secret mobilizations, like night reconnaissance, infiltration, and ambushes. We also need C-rations to feed the wounded in the swamps.
“Along with guns, the trade in C-rations is one of the most sensitive for the American intelligence investigators. So we have to make small purchases and gradually accumulate stockpiles. As for medicines, in this tropical climate the items most in demand are antibiotics, antiparasitics, and painkillers. Terramycin, streptomycin, quinine and, most of all, anesthetics and morphine are hard to come by in the jungle. We use refined heroin as a painkiller sometimes, but it’s risky. If we carry out this task, the duty of linking up with the various cells will be transferred to another section.”
“Are we the only ones doing such work in Da Nang’s Third Special District, sir?”
“Ah, naturally there’s a transportation team that connects the city with the countryside and another team working across from the smokestack. And we have administrative agents in the market collecting taxes, of course. After being reinforced the total strength of the 434th Special Action Unit is now sixty fighters, divided into four companies. You’ll learn the details after you become a regular agent. By the way, your status is secure now?”
Minh took his dog tags out from beneath his shirt and showed them to Thach.
“I’m a sergeant in the air force, sir. I belong to the maintenance detachment at the air base.”
“Well done. That’ll be very useful later.”
Nguyen Thach walked toward the warehouse door. “I’ll be dropping in every day around this time or before you’re finished for the day,” he added.
Once he was gone, Minh went over their discussion and rearranged the information in his head, carefully organizing everything lest he forget. He heard a truck pulling up outside, and after it stopped the foreman came in with three men. The foreman greeted Pham Minh with a nod and a merchant from the country extended his hand. He said he had come from Hoi An.
“The payment has been made.”
Looking at Minh’s delivery order, the foreman pointed to the kind and quantity of merchandise that had been circled in red ink.
“Here it is. Hoi An.”
Pham Minh released the cement and fertilizer and got a receipt for the delivery. Nguyen Cuong, who had just walked in, nodded.
“I knew you’d do fine. Save those documents and give them to the major. I’ll give you the final approval.”
26
The little notebook belonging to the head of the Hong Kong Group had disclosed three of their lines of business and led to one very important discovery. Chairman Pak had written down the names of th
e clubs and bars he had been supplying with beer and cigarettes, including the Bamboo Sports Club as well as minor inns. Even a few brothels were identified. Colonel Cao and Major Krapensky must have been very unhappy.
The cigarettes had been coming mainly from the air force PX and electric appliances from the marine PX. The beer supplies had only recently been switching over from Hamm’s to Korean beer. Lately the supply of Korean beer had grown and the price was down in the market, no doubt about that. The captain and Yong Kyu already knew very well that the Hong Kong Group had been working together with the chief sergeant from the investigation team, the staff sergeant from the supply corps detachment, and the master sergeant in charge of the canteen at brigade. Under the acronym MAC, a list of names was written down in alphabetical order, and there was also an entry for Puohung Company in Le Loi market.
Yong Kyu thought Puohung might well be a channel through which A-rations were flowing out. Fresh A-rations, as everybody knew, were unloaded at Bai Bang Harbor, from where the heaps of produce were sent to the refrigerated navy warehouse across from the smokestack. The good thing about A-rations was that they were perishable and so could not be stored very long. Further, marketing food was always easy. It was widely known that the US economic team had been controlling the prices by regulating supplies.
It seemed that Pak had, without access to the inside mechanics, succeeded in tapping into a supply channel for these profitable items. He even had a Vietnamese merchant lined up to take A-rations off his hands. With the Puohung Company nearby in Le Loi market, the investigation would be easy, and the owner might turn out to be dealing in luxury items as well as A-rations. Pak’s list also included some Vietnamese traders who could be dealing in weapons.
The whole Hong Kong Group, including Lieutenant Colonel Pak, Pig, Pak’s brother-in-law, and the crew cut, had been taken to the police station. They were interrogated only about the Salem cigarettes from the air force PX and the four pallets of beer stored at the pier. All of them were so discouraged that they answered the questions meekly. The captain told Pak to keep his hands off the beer, but was less adamant about the cigarettes. He alluded to the fact that the flow of beer, especially Korean beer, into the market had been irritating the Americans and that, unless stopped, it would enrage Colonel Cao, the police superintendent, who liked to keep his hand on the beer tap in Da Nang. Pak was told that he would be allowed to deal only in luxury items and appliances from the PX. Pak didn’t respond to that. As soon as the prisoners were released, the captain went to the Dragon Palace with Yong Kyu and the chief sergeant to have lunch.
The Shadow of Arms Page 41