by Peter Gilboy
46
A VILLAGE IN SOUTH VIETNAM
DAY 672
IT WAS ONE YEAR later. Lieutenant Patricia Pavlik was cutting new leaves to cover the top of the doghouse. She had already gathered stones to line the outside of it. The monsoons would be coming again. She would be prepared this time. As she worked, Patricia thought about T.R. She thought about Vang. She thought about the mouse-faced man and what he had done to her. She thought about it, the thing that had been inside her.
But her main thoughts were still about survival. She ate everything they gave her, and she found more when she could. Small fish. Roots. Lizards. Beetles. Once, with a single stone, she had killed an egret that was resting on a nearby branch. She was allowed to build a fire to cook it. Snakes were the easiest to find, and she learned the difference between the ones that were venomous and the ones that were not. She would trap the black ones with a forked stick and kill and roast them.
She was accustomed to the stomach pains and the headaches when she could not find food, but at least she was stronger. And her mind was clearer. She knew the villagers, some of them by name. They were friendly to her, and she understood that they did not trust the communists. Some of the children would come and sit with her and hear her speak in English and laugh at the strange language. She taught them words in her language for fish and stone and sit and throw. In turn, they taught her their children’s games, which she immediately recognized as a kind of hopscotch and hide-and-seek. She’d made a kind of calendar too, counting days and months by lining up pebbles inside her cage. All the while she readied herself with plan after plan of escape. But they were all too difficult, and besides, there were no opportunities.
Her education had continued too. Now she knew about Loi Le who, centuries before, had led the revolt against the Chinese. She learned about the two sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, who had fought the Chinese even before Loi Le.
She learned more about the French occupation, and how the French fled as the cruel Japanese arrived. She learned that Ho Chi Minh had declared the country independent in 1945, after the defeat of the Japanese. But the French came back and seized the country again.
Patricia learned about the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu, where, for nearly three months the righteous forces of Ho Chi Minh under General Giap fought and thoroughly routed the French. There were to be elections, promised by the Geneva Accords, but they were thwarted by the capitalist Americans. And so the country was split apart—North and South.
Lieutenant Pavlik’s fluency with the language grew. Her liberator rarely had to correct her pronunciation now. She knew all the anti-capitalist slogans by heart. She could recite from Marx about the ruling class trembling at a revolution. Hãy để cho lớp cầm quyền run sợ một cuộc cách mạng cộng sản. She could recite from Ho Chi Minh about how the communists will win even if they lose ten soldiers to their enemy’s one. Bạn sẽ giết chết 10 người đàn ông của chúng tôi, và chúng tôi sẽ giết chết 1 của bạn.
She recalled many times what the Leniency Team had said; that there was no timetable for her release. Months. That was what they had said: months. But now it had been twelve months, and the Leniency Team had not returned. It would not be months, she knew. It would be years. Yes, years. But how many years? She didn’t know. She braced herself. How could she continue like this? How could she survive for years? She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
Only one thing mattered. That she sustain herself. That she be stronger than the day before. That she be stronger than the years. That she be stronger than they were.
Sitting in front of her doghouse one morning, Patricia said the word out loud for the first time: “Years.” But how many years? And Lieutenant Patricia Pavlik buried her eyes in her crossed arms.
47
JANUARY 18, 2006
THE APARTMENT,
9:50 P.M.
WE FOCUS AND CONTINUE to listen hard. For anything. The movement of a branch. The crunch of a foot falling. An animal scurrying away. Anything. We listen, and minutes pass. Nothing. No more whispering. The shhh, it’s gone.
Then, a silhouette comes toward us, hunching low. Greene squeezes the hand device. The Claymore goes off. The explosion. We see the silhouette flying backward.
Then, nothing. We wait. Still nothing.
I’m tired. I’m drained. I open the door to our apartment and just stand there. Puzzled at first. Then stunned. My clothes are piled high in the living room. I hear drawers in the other room being jerked open and slammed shut.
Julia comes through the bedroom door carrying more of my clothes. Without looking at me, she throws them on top of the others.
“Julia.”
But she’s gone again. I close the door and wait, and in a minute she returns with yet another pile.
“That’s the last of it, Quintyn,” she says, forcing a smile. “I hope everything works out for you. Thanks so much for everything.”
“Julia.”
She looks at me more closely, now surprised. “You’re drunk! Quintyn, you’re drunk!”
“No, I’m not.”
“I can smell it! And I can see your eyes. You’re fucking drunk!”
“Okay, but I’m not drunk. I know what I’m doing.”
“Oh, you know what you’re doing! That’s a fucking joke!” She turns.
“No, wait, Julia. Please understand. It’s just this case. That’s all. I really went off the deep end. I can see that now. It got me tangled and confused. I know that.”
“Well, you can be tangled and confused without me. I’m done. I’m fucking done here.”
“Julia, please, it won’t happen again.”
“You bet it won’t,” she says.
I reach for her.
“Don’t touch me!”
“I’ll do anything, Julia. I’ll drop the case. I’ll drop everything. I’ll do anything. I’ll quit, okay? Tomorrow. Today. We’ll go to Hawaii. We’ll even go tonight.”
“Well, write me when you get there, and let me know how the weather is.”
She points at the pile of clothes. “There are your things. You can take them now or pick them up later. Up to you. I’m going out. Don’t be here when I get back.”
“Julia, stop! I can’t lose you! I can’t.”
She comes closer, furious and glaring at me.
“Well, you don’t have me, Quintyn. Not anymore.” She grabs her coat and pulls it on. She’s crying now. “And I never had you, not really.” She wraps her scarf around her neck. “You’re sick, Quintyn. That fucking war. That fucking Eddie. I hate him, Quintyn. I hate him!”
She walks past me to the door.
Then she’s gone.
Still bewildered, I go to the couch and sit down. I know she’s not gone. Not really. We’re a team. She knows that deep down. We’ll always be a team.
And she was wrong about one thing. I’m not drunk. Maybe two was all. That’s nothing.
But she was right about so many other things. The ROWBEC letters. Like she said, a Rorschach blot. I see what I want to see. I get wrapped up in the past. Okay, I understand now. I understand.
She’ll come back. I’ll explain it better to her. I’ll quit Section One tomorrow. No, today. I’ll quit today. Right now. I’ll call in. That’ll show her she was wrong. About me. That I’m still the man she loves. That the war is over for me. Even Eddie. I don’t need Eddie. I don’t want Eddie. I can go on. That was all so long ago. And we can be a team again.
I can feel myself sobering up, my thoughts becoming even clearer.
Even if the Pavlik information is real, how would that matter? I don’t have the satellite authority anymore. Even if I did, what could I do with it? Nothing. And I know what I’d be up against; people lying and covering up for decades. Really, what is my responsibility here, anyway? I’ve already done my part. I’ve done more than my part.
And maybe there wasn’t a cover-up at all. Maybe we’re just a conspiracy-crazy nation now, want
ing to believe the worst about others. Me too. I’ve believed the worst about my own country. Julia was right. She was right all along. I see that. I can see that now.
I’ll go to her. I’ll find her. No, I’ll wait right here until she comes back. By then I’ll already have quit Section One. She’ll see that we’re a team again, and then it’s on to Hawaii.
I glance up as I hear a rustling outside the door. She’s back already. We’ve both had time to cool off; to realize what we mean to each other.
I yank the door open. Alec stands there.
“Knock, knock,” he says.
I move back as he steps inside. He stops in front of the pile of clothes. “I take it it’s not laundry day,” he says, glumly.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Quintyn.”
“It’ll be okay,” I tell him. “I’ve made up my mind now, Alec. I’m quitting. I’m done. I’m done as of today. I’m done as of right now.”
“Well, I don’t believe you. Plus General Finders now agrees with us.”
“He agrees with us?”
“That guy from the White House, Hoffman, verified that there was someone signaling with those ROWBEC letters. A woman. But she wasn’t an American.”
I wait.
“He says that the woman was actually part French and part Vietnamese.”
“And what does ROWBEC mean?” I ask.
“No one knows.”
“Of course they don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s more of the same, isn’t it, Alec. Un-fucking-believable.”
“He said her name was Amalie Tran,” Alec goes on.
“Was?”
“She’s dead. At least, according to Hoffman. She drowned when they tried to help her. They say she was disturbed. A mental case.”
“Of course,” I say again. “And then her body disappeared, right?”
“Apparently, yeah.”
I want to laugh. It’s the same crap. The same fucking story. It doesn’t stop. Or am I falling into that trap again? Another ink blot, and I’m imagining bats and squirrels.
“You’ve been drinking?” Alec asks.
“No. Well, maybe one. It doesn’t matter. Did I tell you I’m quitting?”
“Yeah, you said you’d do it today. So what do you want to do, Quintyn?”
“What can we do? We’ve got no satellite access now. Even if we did, and even if Patricia Pavlik is there, we can’t help her. We’re done either way.”
Alec studies me a moment. “There is one way,” he says.
“What?” Then I remember what Rogowski had said. “No,” I say. “No way.”
Alec pulls out a packet from his pocket. “Asiana Flight 204,” he says. “Through Seoul.”
“Jesus. Be fucking realistic, will you? There’s nothing we can do.”
“Old school, Quintyn, that’s the only way it can happen now. Doing it on the ground, like the old days.”
“Like the old days? The answer is no.”
Alec focuses on me intently.
“You didn’t hear me,” I say. “I’m quitting.”
“You can quit later. When you get back, if you really want to quit, then fine. I’ll see that you’re set up with the best benefits.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I say.
“Look,” he says, “we’ve got to go with what we think, don’t we? We think Patricia Pavlik is there. Actually there. And that she’s alive.”
“Or she’s not there, Alec, and we’ve been trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn’t exist.”
“She’s there, Quintyn. I know she’s there!”
Ready?
“No, you want her to be there, Alec. Just like I did.”
“She’s there, damn it, and you know it!” he says.
“All I know is that I’ve got a wife now.”
“Well, it’s up to you. I’m not pushing. You know the case and you know Nam. And you’ve got a good sense for things, Quintyn. We either do it or don’t.”
I think a moment. There’s that hum in my ear again. “There’s no way we can prove she’s there,” I say.
“Maybe through that informant,” Alec suggests. “What’s her name?”
“Shirley,” I say. “That’s her American name, anyway. Smith said she works at a place called the Wellness Center in Qui Nhon.”
“Can’t be too hard to find.”
“Probably not,” I agree.
“Maybe DNA,” he continues, “if we can somehow get even a single strand of hair, then we can compare the DNA to her parents’.”
“That’s possible,” I say.
“It wouldn’t take that long, would it?” Alec asks.
The hum is growing louder. “Three days max. Maybe four.”
“And you don’t need to be a Delta Force or Green Beret guy, Quintyn. All you got to do is find the informant in Qui Nhon.”
“We just need some sort of verification,” I say, “so we’ll know whether to keep going.”
“Exactly.”
“Or we’ll find out that it’s a hoax,” I add.
“That too.”
We have a deal, man.
“And if she’s there,” I say, “then we can threaten Hoffman and anyone else. Tell them that we’ll go public if they don’t get her out now, and get the others out too.”
Alec nods.
He sets the packet down beside me. “Two hours, Quintyn,” he says. “Asiana Airlines Flight 204. Here’s a visa too. And a picture of Patricia Pavlik from her military ID. You’ll just have to do the best you can, Quintyn. No satellites. None of our spy tech. We’re back to basics. Towers is going with you. I’ll make sure he’s at the airport.”
The hum is louder than ever now. I shake my head to make it go way. It won’t. My world is splitting, two needs pulling me in different directions. No, it’s the past and present that are splitting, each jerking me their own way.
But maybe I can do it. Just for three days. Four at the max. That’s all. Then Julia and I can be a team again. We can do it. I know it.
I look to Alec. “I’m ready,” I tell him.
48
DAY 651
THEY HADN’T TOLD HER where they were going. Already it was two weeks in. She knew by the sun that they were going west. What was west? Cambodia. Laos. Thailand. But these were Vietnamese. Where could they be taking her?
She was in her black pajamas and wearing her cone hat. She had a rope around her neck, and two guards with her, one in front and one behind her. At times she could see the train of others ahead of her. She knew they were Americans by their size and the way they walked; maybe two dozen Americans in all, each tied at the neck with a rope, and each led by two guards who yanked the ropes when their prisoner slowed, and kicked them when they fell.
Another four days. More tangled growth. More dense underbrush. More giant leaves reaching for her. Snakes. Slanting trees. Flickers of monkeys overhead. Noises in every direction. The air was sweet and fresh. Aromatic blossoms assaulted her senses and provided instants of relief. Bomb craters formed pools of water where mosquitoes waited. They crossed two rivers, one easily on foot, the other with the water at chest level. Another time they had to navigate miles to find a crossing. Her mind was numb. Endless steps, a single human frame stumbling along, falling down, rising, an eternity of steps.
At one point she heard the words Đường Trường Sơn. At another point she heard, in English, “Victory Road.” Still another time she heard “Warrior’s Road.” She knew what it was then—what the Americans called the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North’s secret link to provide weapons and manpower to their fighters in the South.
At times they passed tiny hamlets off to the side. The fighting seemed to have been over for a year and a half, maybe longer, and only now were some of the hamlets being rebuilt. They passed craters and carcasses of gunships. They passed hills where nothing grew. The countryside still smelled of war. The countryside still smelled of death.
At night the soldiers separated them and cam
ouflaged the camps. Water, rice, mosquito nets. Then it would be morning and they were slogging forward again. Her knees were swollen, her legs bruised. Her pajama legs and tops were torn, but that was inconsequential. She was inconsequential. A dot on the earth, a trudging speck in a line of other trudging specks, each marching on centuries of fallen leaves.
One time, she was bitten. A snake coming from nowhere. Black and white. Her guards laughed at her. It wasn’t poisonous. But her calves swelled. She limped badly then and had to get a forked branch to lean on.
Two weeks more, and they began climbing, slowly, plodding a foot at a time, the mud sucking at their feet. They had to pause every few minutes for breath or water. There seemed to be fewer Americans ahead of her now, and she wondered if they had fallen ill or died from exhaustion, their bodies tossed aside. The jungle thinned out and then disappeared. Grass replaced vines. Meadows replaced palms and the thick overgrowth. Then, a forest of tall hardwoods. Even higher they went, and bomb craters still pockmarked the hills.
It was the highlands.
The guards were careful to steer them around some villages; only the guards would enter to buy food or steal it. Starving again, she had no appetite. And any food she ate was consumed by the worms inside her. At times they marched straight through deserted villages, these with narrow cages filled with men and women who had only enough space to lie on their backs. She knew these were Montagnards, the hill people who had helped the Americans and now were being punished. The narrow cages were stacked on top of each other. The stench from them was terrible even from a distance; the rot, the decay, the excrement falling on the ones below. Their hollow eyes followed her as she passed. She wanted to stop. She wanted to free them. She wanted to run.
She stumbled on.
At the end of one day, they crested a hill and the man pulling her rope tugged harder to get her to the top. She heard rushing water then. She veered to the side of the trail, near a cliff, and peered down at the waterfall. The sky stretched out above, a light blue. She could die here. This was a good place. Yes, she could die here. She could break from the others and rush over the cliff. If they held her, she would take them with her.