by Peter Gilboy
She sees the ditch again. She remembers her elbows being tied. She remembers staring down at hands groping over her chest, pinching her. And then what? She remembers being pulled from the ditch. There was more firing, and she didn’t know where it was coming from. Then, a huge explosion as their jeep bursts into flames. A man points and pushes her down a path. She resists. A rifle butt slams against her face, knocking her down and gashing her above one eye. The man pulls her to her feet and points again.
Patricia remembered crouching low as she ran, with branches whipping at her face. Her bare feet were bleeding from stones and roots. Blood pounded in her head. She remembered running with a remote detachment as if watching herself run. There was a jungle canopy high above, enveloping her, enveloping all of them as they ran, as if through a green tunnel. There were maybe ten of them with her. The open cut drained over her eye, sticky and hot. She tried to blink it away as she ran. Sweat burned the other eye. Mosquitoes stuck to the back of her throat.
Then she fell, and she heard angry, incomprehensible shouts. Someone untied her arms so she could run more easily. Explosions surrounded them as American and South Vietnamese forces returned the attack, launching artillery blindly into the jungle hoping to catch those responsible.
She ran with a speed possible only because of her terror. The dentist wasn’t with them. Then a young Viet Cong boy was running in front of her, pointing to the left, to the center, the right. The boy knew where every trap and mine waited.
Lieutenant Patricia Pavlik risked opening her eyes. But she saw only a dense blackness. She realized she was staring into a cloth blindfold. The only light she could see was a sliver of yellow breaking in below her eyes. She attempted to shift her head and look into the sliver of light. It hurt her eyes. She tried to move and realized that she was lying on her side. The air was hot and foul smelling. She lifted her head and felt something brush her forehead. A mosquito net. She lowered her head again.
The nightmare still did not recede.
Patricia tried to move her arms, and the pain increased to an agony as the cord tying her wrists cut deep into her. She attempted to stretch her legs. They moved freely, but then a sharp spasm shot up her spine. Her eyes teared into the blindfold.
She lay still and silent then, her eyes open against the blindfold. She tried again to recall what had happened next.
As darkness had fallen they reached a group of broken-down huts. She remembered collapsing and pointing to her lips, motioning for water. Someone tore her dog tags from her neck and handed them to someone else, who immediately disappeared. A hollowed gourd was pushed beneath her lips. Someone tipped it to her mouth. The water was filmy and had a musty smell. She drank and coughed, then gladly drank more.
They led her into a hut then, maybe this one where she is now. They tied her arms again. They blindfolded her. Terrified, she stood in the center of the hut, waiting, not knowing what for. After a few minutes, she felt fingers touching her arms, her wrists. Gentle hands—they were women’s hands—exploring her soft pale skin, rubbing at the faint freckles on her forehead, pulling gently on the delicate hairs of her arm.
They pulled her blindfold down over her neck. In the lantern’s light Lieutenant Pavlik saw five older women in black peasant dress. They stared up at her, studying her with open mouths as if she were an amazing painting or colorful bird in a tree. They moved in front of her, murmuring as they pointed at her green eyes and smiled at her nose and mouth. A squat woman who was more wrinkled than the others put her brown hands up to Patricia’s cheeks, then to her lips. She gently patted the sides of Patricia’s nose.
Their hands stroked at her hair that was matted and wet with perspiration. They hiked up her fatigue pants and squeezed her calves. Oddly, it felt good to be touched like this.
Then they were touching her breasts, pressing there, not sensually, but curiously. They made noises of surprise and maybe awe. They murmured in hushed voices. She recognized the words that they repeated—Người Mỹ, Người Mỹ—American, American.
The women pushed the blindfold back up and checked to make sure that it was tight. In the darkness again, Patricia felt one of them dabbing her forehead with cool water, trying to cleanse the open wound there, and someone else wiping her bruised feet with a cool rag.
She didn’t hear the man enter. She only heard the women scurry away. Then there were no more sounds. Uncertain of what was happening, she backed up. But the man was behind her, and now his hands quickly encircled her. He grabbed her breasts, squeezing hard.
In this black nightmare Patricia was unable to scream. She shrank away from him, turned and kicked into the air, hitting nothing. She waited, her eyes wide open into the blindfold. She smelled his breath. Pork and fish sauce. She smelled him. Sweat and urine. Rough hairs touched her neck. She kicked again. Again hitting nothing.
Then the man grabbed her chin from behind and twisted her head backward. The same rough hairs were now against her mouth. He kissed her loudly and exclaimed something she didn’t understand. Then he was pulling her backward against his crotch, his mouth wet against her neck.
Finally she was able to cry out. But she did not. With a furious shake of her body she tried to twist away. He held her. She ordered him to stop but heard only a snort against her ear.
He threw her down on her stomach and shouted something, maybe commands of some sort. Others immediately entered the room. They rolled her on her back. They yanked her fatigue pants down. Fury surged through her as she understood. She twisted and turned violently to escape them. “Đi ăn cứt!” she shouted as loud as she could. They tried to cover her mouth. She shouted again. “Đi ăn cứt!”
They held her down and pushed their way inside her blouse. They pulled her legs. Patricia tried to rub the blindfold down and confront them eye to eye. They held her back. They did not speak, but she could smell their mouths and hear them panting like dogs out of breath.
Then she could not remember anything except waking up here.
Lieutenant Pavlik slept again. She awakened only when she heard footsteps enter the hut. The sun was low. Was it the same day, or already the next day? Someone pushed back the mosquito net and cut the ropes on her wrists, then removed the blindfold and motioned for her to stand. Even before her eyes adjusted, Patricia retreated on all fours to a corner of the hut. She huddled there, her arms around her knees. She tried to focus.
It was two young women who had entered and untied her. They were not the awed village women from the night before. They were stern young Viet Cong; girls really, maybe fifteen years old and with AK-47s over their shoulders. They wore black pajamas.
Using the wall for support, she tried to stand; circulation rushed back into her arms and hands, and the joints of her body went slack as the tightness to which they had been subjected suddenly released. She fell. The two women let her lie there, observing her with the expressionless detachment of two children watching a maimed insect.
The two VC girls could have been sisters except for the shape of their mouths—one with a broad frowning mouth and heavy lips, the other with a small heart-shaped mouth like a pouting doll. They continued to watch her without helping. Patricia realized that she was naked below her waist.
She crawled across the dirt floor to her clothes. She started to put them on but then stopped when she saw the bruises on her legs and the mass of mixed blood and crust on her thighs. Shaking, and fighting back tears, she scraped at it with her nails. Her hands were bluish and her fingers were hot and stinging as the circulation continued to work its way past the cord marks on her wrist.
With tremendous effort she pushed her feet into the fatigue pants. She worked them up, tugging until they were over her thighs and buttocks. Pain shot through her legs and shoulders. She tried to button the pants but could not make her fingers work. She lay back, exhausted.
The two Viet Cong girls left.
She thought of escaping now. The rule she had learned in training was that the best time to e
scape was right after capture. But how? And where could she go? There was no chance she could find her way back.
Hours later they came for her again. The same two girls. They motioned for her to stand. One of them noticed the watch on her wrist, a Timex with an OD band and black buckle. The girl pointed. She wanted it. Patricia pulled her hand away, but the girl grabbed her and yanked at the watch. It wouldn’t tear free. Reluctantly, Patricia undid the buckle and handed it over. The girl lay it across her wrist and tried to buckle it. She struggled with the latch. The watch fell. Exasperated, the girl stomped on it.
They shoved Patricia outside and pointed down the path.
Now they would run again. The young women ran, one behind and one in front of her, pushing her and shouting something. She couldn’t tell how long they ran, an hour or four hours, all that time on a jungle path with a green canopy overhead. She was exhausted when they came to another village. The cut on her forehead had opened again. They immediately pushed her into a hut and shoved her to the back wall. Then they went away.
She looked around. The hut was no more than matted straw and packed twigs. It had a single hole at the rear, a kind of jagged window. The hut was bare except for a straw mat and a brown mosquito net on the dirt-packed floor.
Patricia looked to the door and could see the outline of two forms sitting on either side of the doorway. She sat and waited. For what? She didn’t know. Dusk came, and then night. Finally, she called to the two silhouettes by the door. They entered quickly, lit a lantern, and stood over her. But it was two different women. One was dressed in black pants and a white shirt. The other had something wrong with her face, like it was torn. Patricia immediately thought of napalm. They each held rifles. They were stern. They were angry. They were proud.
Patricia gestured for the need of a toilet. They each took an arm and led her through the doorway. Outside the air was cool against her face. The breeze kept the mosquitoes away but not the flies. They circled her head and bit her shoulders. The VC women pushed her through the brush to a pit latrine. After some discussion between them, they seemed to agree that they should stay and watch. Patricia squatted and tried to balance her back on a vertical post next to the pit.
When she was finished, Patricia pointed to the cut on her forehead and the slices on her feet. She made motions asking for bandages and shoes. They sneered at her and pointed to their own bare feet, dark and hardened. They led her back to the hut.
Day came, and the two young VCs brought her water in an aluminum cup with U.S. stamped on the side. The water was stagnant. She didn’t care. She drank eagerly and pointed to the cup for more. Expressionless, they brought her more, then motioned for her to keep the cup.
Lieutenant Pavlik poured some water on her fatigue sleeve and used it wipe the dirt from her forehead. Cool drops rolled down over her eyes. Next she ran the damp sleeve across the back of her neck. She opened her fatigue blouse and wiped over the top of her chest and under her arms. The sleeve was now dark with her dirt. She shook it out and poured more water onto it. She wiped her face and neck again.
There was only a little water left, and she desperately wanted to wash some more. But should she save it for drinking? There was no way to know if they would give her more water today, or even tomorrow.
She set the cup against the wall of the hut. She bent her head and with her fingers she tried to untangle her hair. Then Patricia shook her head, and dust and dirt fell around her.
She heard one of the female guards speak, and Patricia glanced toward the door. They were still sitting outside, shadowed silhouettes as they leaned against the hut. Their rifles were across their laps. One of them glanced in and saw Patricia watching them. The guard spat on the ground.
They did not feed her that day. In the evening it grew dark again and mosquitoes invaded the hut. Patricia fled to her mat and under the mosquito netting. Later the young women came in and tied and blindfolded her again.
In the early morning of the next day they entered and led her to the latrine. Back in the hut, she motioned for food. They frowned and shook their heads. They left. In the evening they returned and tied her up and blindfolded her again for the night.
Each day repeated. She kept track of them. Four days and four nights. Or maybe it was five. Each the same as the day before. Trips to the latrine. No food.
Each night was also the same, with that man returning. She knew his smell. She knew his sounds and his breath. She lay on her side waiting for him, her eyes blindfolded and her body tense and contracted.
She heard him enter each time. It was just one man now. She knew the sound of his mumbling as he stood over her; the same smell of pork and fish and urine. She felt his whiskers again her check. She recognized his hideous giggle as he rolled her over.
He was smaller than she was and probably not as strong. But with her hands bound she was helpless. Still, Patricia refused to be defeated. She would preserve herself, at least inwardly. She struggled against his hands as they pawed over her and forced her legs. She refused to cry out. And this refusal to emit even a single sound was her demonstration of strength. Instead, she went numb and waited as he snickered against her ear, pushed his stubby hands against her breasts. She wanted to laugh out loud at how small he felt inside her.
Patricia retreated into her mind, to her father and the lake where he sometimes took her, and how she’d swim out to the raft and back, her father so proud of her as he watched. And then he would wrap her in a big towel and squeeze her in his arms until she was dry. It was always springtime or summer when she thought of her father.
And for a time, Lieutenant Patricia Pavlik was safe again.
11
JANUARY 16, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC, 6:11 A.M.
MOST WAR STORIES ARE heroic. They’re John Wayne tales. Automatic fire as someone races from cover to cover. He doesn’t get killed. Doesn’t even get wounded. Not a nick. He spins around. Flicks on automatic and kills a half dozen. He doesn’t even have to reload.
Of course the teller of the story is also the hero. Funny how that works. You roll your eyes, knowing it didn’t happen at all.
But some war stories are scary true. And some are freakishly true. How we got stuck in the ditch. It’s both.
I had told Julia that I work for Direct Resources. It’s in the phone book. It even has an address. If you drop in, you’ll find a smiling receptionist who will expertly answer all your questions. All untrue, of course.
That’s what I’m thinking as I take South Carolina Avenue, then turn right onto Pennsylvania Avenue. No, I’m not stopping in to see the president or heading to the Pentagon. Nor am I heading to the State Department or Fort Meade.
I come to the loop around the Capitol and head up Sixth Street. It’s snowing again. Light flakes stick to the windshield. I’m driving my T-Bird. Not the old classic from the fifties, but the 2004 model, just as sleek. Two hundred and forty horsepower. Select-shift. Electronic throttle control. It’s black, of course. Black leather interior too. It’s the only way to go.
Who do I really work for? Section One. That’s where I’m headed. It’s not my third cover. It’s real. But even the name Section One is classified and for internal use only.
Section One is one of nine sections in all. Each is part of the NSA. The nine sections were formed after 9/11 when a House committee wanted electronic intelligence outfits to be independent and nonbureaucratic, free of red tape. Good luck with that. But now we are independent enough that even the House doesn’t know where we are. Or how much money we spend. In closed sessions, they demand to have firsthand access to all that we’re doing. Not a chance. They formed us to be secretive. Now they can live with it.
What do we do? We predict the future. At least that’s our inside joke. Actually, we try to guess the future. By following people. From the sky. We track foreign heads of state, budding politicians, rising military leaders of foreign governments and their opposing factions. We track anyone who is valuable now or who
we think might be in the future. Each of the nine sections works its own designated area. Could be southern Europe, northern Africa, Japan, or somewhere else.
My section, Section One, is tasked with the Middle East. From the sky, I’ve followed Bashar Al-Assad from palace to palace. I’ve followed members of Turkey’s Council of Ministers. The Saudi family, too. Section One knows where they go and who they meet; we know their work habits, gambling habits, substance habits, and sex habits. We know that the twelfth Saudi prince, Khalid, has a penchant for blond-haired boys. And the sixteenth prince, Muqrin, has a stocking foot fetish. We track military plans, coup plans, and marriage plans. We know which Western film the Ayatollah watched last night. We know which middle-grade military officers are in line for coveted positions. All of this is collected. All of this is important. Every bit of it.
Having eyes in the sky is not new. Even commercial enterprises take snapshots of the earth’s surface and put it on the Internet. But our eyes are different. More powerful, obviously, but also in real time. And we use EARS, Electronic Aerial Reconnaissance Stratagem. These are omnidirectional listening devices—we call them “cones” or “listening cones”—that relay voices and other sounds from strategically placed locations, such as bars, restaurants, and street corners, to receptors that transfer the sounds back to the satellite. Turn on a listening cone from the sky, and we’re tuned in. Nice.
We even have our own security classification, simply referred to as “E.” Like most classifications, it doesn’t say much. It’s not supposed to.
The man I report to is Alec Vogel. Alec reports to General Finders. General Finders reports only to the White House. No one else.
It may seem exciting to you, thrilling and romantic, almost like being a spy. What you can’t imagine is the routine of it. The tedium. The migraines from eyestrain. So, don’t think of us as spies. We’re more like those old-fashioned telephone operators with headphones and a dozen cords to plug in. Yes, that’s us; Mabel at the switchboard.