He let up on the drilling only when he and Pos made another scouting trip to see the camp’s expansion in person. They took a different route in and discovered that the original game trail had been mined and the sides of the trail booby-trapped in other ways.
The post was indeed larger than before. The fence came all the way out to where the original cleared ground had been, and many more structures—mostly barracks, Lincoln judged, but also storehouses and bunkers and an enlarged motor pool area—were tucked behind it. A large swath had been scraped clean all the way around it, killing ground for the towers—one at every corner, now—and weapons emplacements positioned throughout. The road leading up to the camp had been paved, as had roadways inside.
It would take a massive frontal assault to dislodge the Pathet Lao now. Even with his new recruits, Lincoln didn’t have a force nearly large enough for that.
But since his last conversation with Donovan, that wasn’t the plan. A victory that couldn’t be won with direct action could still be achieved in other ways. For his attack on Colonel Phan, Lincoln had adapted techniques common to North Vietnamese sappers, and they had worked. Guerilla tactics were the only ones that had a chance of success in an unconventional war like this one. And there was no law saying the communists were the only ones allowed to practice those.
Seeing the camp in person, in its expanded size and scope, gave Lincoln the inspiration he needed. He knew what to do now. He just needed to be able to pull it off.
33
* * *
When Lincoln got back to Vang Khom, he saw that at least a hundred more Hmong had arrived, including more women and children. The village was bursting at the seams, and it couldn’t continue. He pushed through the crowd to find Koob holding court outside his house.
“We have to talk,” Lincoln said. “Inside.”
Koob apologized to the assembled crowd and waved Lincoln in ahead of him.
“There is a problem?” he asked when they were both seated on the floor.
“The problem is we’re getting too many people here.” Lincoln waved a hand toward the throng outside. “I wanted more soldiers. We’ve got those, but we’re also getting their wives and their kids. Others are coming without their families, which means their own villages are underdefended. We’ve got to find some kind of balance.”
Koob gave him a blank look. “Too many people,” Lincoln simplified. “Maybe I was wrong about how to recruit more.”
“You are not wrong,” Koob said. “You are very smart.”
“Not always,” Lincoln admitted. “I don’t want all the other villages around to be emptied out while we take in everyone here. We need to send some of these people home.”
“But you said—”
Lincoln raised a hand, cutting him off. “I know what I said before. Trouble is, we can’t support that many people. And we need the Hmong scattered around, so they can attack the Pathet from different sides.” He didn’t want to give voice to his biggest fear—that with the regional Hmong population concentrated only in Vang Khom, the Pathet Lao could wipe them all out with a single assault on the village. “You should pick some of the men who have been well trained and know their stuff. Have them train the newcomers, then send them back to their own villages. We can give them radios so all the villages can stay in contact easily, so we can coordinate our efforts. But they can’t all just live here.”
“I will tell them to go,” Koob said. He looked disheartened.
Lincoln didn’t want him to think the problem was his fault. “I should have been more careful, should have set some limits,” he said. “I didn’t think so many people would come.”
“Everyone wants to kill the Pathet and VC,” Koob explained.
“That’s a good thing. Everyone will get their chance. They just can’t all stay here, and I don’t have time to do all the training and drilling for everyone. Set up some training schedules for the new ones, and get the ones who’ve already been trained back to their own villages.”
“I will,” Koob said.
• • •
That crisis handled, at least for the moment, Lincoln headed back to his own longhouse. Sho was inside. Some familiar bundles rested on the table, along with a few letters.
She jumped up at his approach, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him. After a few minutes, they pulled out the chairs and sat. “Corbett came,” she said. “To see Mai. He brought money and mail.”
“I see that. I didn’t know he was coming. I guess now that he has Mai, we’ll be seein’ more of him.”
“Mai loves him. She says he is not always nice to her, but she loves him.”
“Not nice, how?”
“He argues. Sometimes he slaps her. But then he makes love to her.”
“She shouldn’t put up with that.” Even as he said it, he knew that plenty of women back home put up with such treatment, too. Corbett hadn’t learned that behavior in Southeast Asia, he was sure.
“She loves him.”
“Maybe she should have better taste in men.”
“I am glad you’re not like that, Lincoln,” Sho said.
“Never.”
He flipped through the mail. There was a letter from Sammy, one from Father James, and one from Ellis. He opened Ellis’s first. It was brief and to the point. When he was finished, he set it aside. “Speaking of love, Ellis has himself a girlfriend.”
“Your brother?”
“That’s right. He’s dating some girl named Vanessa. Sounds like she’s a keeper.”
Sho’s eyes welled with moisture. “What’s wrong, baby?” Lincoln asked her.
“I wish you would never go. I want to be a ‘keeper,’ too.”
“Sho, you are a keeper. You’re like nobody I’ve ever known.”
“But you will still go. Leave me here.”
He had been giving a lot of thought to that issue lately. Maybe there was a way to take her home. First he would have to smuggle her into Vietnam, but Corbett would be willing to do that. Then he’d have to falsify a Vietnamese identity for her and marry her there. Donovan could help with that.
He couldn’t marry a Hmong woman from Laos, a country he had never officially set foot in. But a Vietnamese wife? Nobody could stop him from bringing her back to the world with him.
“There might be a way you can come with me,” he said. “I have to think on it some more, and talk to some people. I think we can work it out, maybe.”
“Really?” Sho asked, bolting from her chair and falling to her knees beside him. The tears continued to slide down her perfect cheeks, but judging by the beam she projected, they had changed to tears of happiness. “Oh, Lincoln, you would really take me with you?”
“I said maybe. I’ll try. It’s complicated, but I think there’s a good shot.”
“That makes me so glad,” she said, laying her head on his thigh and snaking her arms around his waist. “So, so glad.”
“Me, too,” he said. He stroked her hair, dried her cheek with his thumb. “Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.”
34
* * *
“What’s eating you, boy?”
Ellis looked up from his untouched beer to see Father James sliding into the seat next to him at the bar. Sammy’s was empty at this time of day, and he was surprised to see the priest here.
At his look, Father James chuckled.
“Don’t worry, I’m not turning into a lush. Came by to drop off a letter for Lincoln. Plain to see something’s troublin’ you. Want to talk about it? It’s kind of what I do for a livin’. ”
Something was troubling him. He’d been mulling it over ever since the fur job, worrying on it like a dog with a thick bone, and he’d finally come to a decision.
He wanted out. He wanted to be free of the Black Mob, free to live a normal life, one that didn’t revolve around guns and heists and fast girls and faster cars. He wanted what the Average Joe had and thought wasn’t enough.
Above all, he wanted
Vanessa.
And he had no idea how to tell Sammy.
“Have you ever made a decision you knew your folks wouldn’t be happy about, even though you knew it was the right path for you?”
Father James laughed.
“I’ve had troubles of my own, with the law and otherwise, Ellis. Yes, I’ve got a pretty good idea what that’s like.”
“How did you tell them?”
Father James grew serious.
“Just what is it you’re wantin’ to tell Sammy, Ellis?”
“I think I want out of the family business,” Ellis said. It was the first time he had vocalized it, and it sounded stupid to him even as he said it. Give up everything he had, for a girl?
Not just any girl, he reminded himself. Vanessa.
“Oh,” the priest replied. But then Ellis’s words seemed to sink in. “Oh,” he said again, more gravely this time.
“Exactly.”
“I can’t say as that’s something I’d ever expected to hear coming from you,” Father James said. “What’s prompting it? Did something happen?”
“No, not really. Nothing like that.” Ellis took a deep breath. “There’s this girl.”
“Ah.”
“No, you don’t understand. She comes from a good family, one that makes their money straight. And she’s really involved in the movement, and she’s gotten me turned on to it, too. And I’m starting to see there’s ways to make things happen that don’t involve puttin’ the beatdown on somebody, or threatening to. And maybe that’s a better way to live, you know?”
“There’s not a lot of money in that way of life for most people. Most folks are just scraping by, paycheck to paycheck. It can be a hard life, Ellis. Much harder than you’re used to.”
Ellis blinked. “Are you trying to talk me out of it? You’re the one person I figured would be all for me going straight!”
“I am all for you giving up the life of a criminal, Ellis. But you mentioned a young lady, and I imagine your plans involve her, no? So you have to be realistic. You have to know you have the means to support yourself and her—legitimate means. What skills do you have that don’t involve running numbers and shaking people down for money? You need to think about that. There are a lot of jobs out there for unskilled laborers, but they don’t pay much and it’s hard work. You have to know what you’re getting into, and be prepared for it. Otherwise you’ll be back here in a week, begging Sammy to take you back.”
Ellis hadn’t thought about that, but he realized the priest was right. He had more to consider before he had a sit-down with Sammy. He needed to have a plan in place, or the old man would shoot him out of the water, just as Father James had done.
“You’re right, Father. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thank you.” And he got up from the bar and headed out to find the nearest newspaper, leaving the priest staring after him, bemused.
• • •
“And why are you dressed in your Sunday best, drinking my ’shine at three o’clock in the afternoon?” Sammy asked as he walked into the bar to find Ellis bellied up to the counter with a glass in his hand, a folded-up “want ads” section under his arm.
“Just got back from an interview,” Ellis said proudly.
“From a what now?”
“An interview. For a job.” Clerking over at the K&B. Not a job that was going to make him rich by any means, but an honest one, and there was potential to move up into management.
“And why on God’s green Earth would you be needing to do that?”
Now that the moment had finally arrived, Ellis wasn’t as nervous as he thought he would be. Maybe it was because his interview had gone so well. Maybe it was because he had a plan in place that he knew Sammy couldn’t find fault with. Maybe it was because he knew deep down he was on the right path at last. Whatever it was, he faced his father with a calm exterior and an interior that mostly matched it.
“Because I’m getting out of the business. I’m going straight.”
Sammy burst out laughing.
“Well, if that ain’t the damned funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Ellis, you want a job, you should take that act on the road. You’ll have ’em all in stitches!”
“Laugh if you want, old man. I’m serious. I want out.”
Sammy’s smile faded.
“You want out, you say. To do what? Wait tables? Wash cars? Lay pipe? Dig ditches? What sort of work is that for a son of mine, eh?”
“It’s honest work,” Ellis replied.
“Honest?” Sammy echoed. “It’s cheap. It will get you none of the things you want, none of the luxuries to which you are accustomed. You will live hand to mouth, just as your grandparents did. Why do you think I have worked so hard to rise to this position, if not to keep you from that sort of life, huh? And now you want to turn your back on all I have offered you? And for what?” His eyes narrowed. “This is because of that girl, n’est-ce pas?”
“What’s so wrong with wanting to live a life free of violence? Free of crime? We could do that! With your connections, we could make legitimate money, give up the numbers running, all the rest. Go straight with the bar and the nightclub and whatever else—maybe a restaurant. Grand-mére had the best recipes—”
“That’s enough,” Sammy said. “Look around you, Ellis. We are only a few generations removed from slavery, segregation is still rampant, the Southern Union still runs the wealthiest part of this city. The only freedom to be had for the black man is in cold, hard cash, and the only way to make that money is under the table, by violent means. We may not want it to be that way, Ellis, but that’s the simple truth of the world right now, and none of your marches or Freedom Rides or ‘I Have a Dream’ speeches can change that fact.
“No, Ellis. Having money is the closest we can get to having freedom. Maybe things will be different for your children or your children’s children, but for you and me, that’s the way it is. You want to consign those future children to more years of virtual slavery to white masters, you go ahead and leave. That’s not what I want for you or for them—I want you to be free—but I can’t stop you. You’re a man now and you make your own decisions. Just stop and think hard about what you’re giving up when you walk out the door before you go. And that it’s not just yourself you’re making that choice for but for every Robinson who comes after you.”
Sammy had come over to stand beside Ellis while he spoke; now, he clapped his son on the shoulder once, twice, then turned on his heel and left the room, leaving Ellis as unsure about what he should do as he had ever been.
He’d never thought about it from Sammy’s perspective before, but the old man made a lot of sense. Money was freedom in New Bordeaux, especially if you were black. And he’d never make enough of it as a drugstore clerk—or even a manager—to have the kind of life Sammy was talking about. The kind of freedom he dreamed about sharing with Vanessa.
Damn it! Why did everything always have to be so complicated? He downed the rest of his ’shine and poured himself another glass, wondering if he’d find the answer to that question at the bottom of the bottle, or maybe just a respite from having to think about it. Determined to find that much, at least, he set about getting good and drunk, and it wasn’t long before he wasn’t thinking about anything at all.
35
* * *
To take down an organization, cut it off at the knees, Donovan had said. Lincoln had heard Sammy Robinson give similar advice. Lincoln hadn’t taken it to heart before, but his failures against the Pathet Lao had caused him to reconsider.
The post had grown extensively. That meant it relied more than ever on shipments from the north—of food, medical supplies, weapons and ammunition, uniforms, men—all the stuff that a modern army lived on. He needed to target those things, in order to make life hell for Colonel Sun.
That was where he would start. The convoys would be guarded, but they would also be far more vulnerable than the fort itself. And he had experience hitting trucks, from his New Bordea
ux days. He and Ellis and a couple of the guys had once taken down a truck delivering TV sets, three weeks before the Super Bowl. They’d made a killing selling them on the streets.
This one would be a little more complicated, but the basic idea was similar. He sent Pos and a few other scouts down the mountain to determine whether trucks arrived on any regular schedule. While they were gone, he had Koob pull together a platoon of a hundred of their best men and they rehearsed the plan Lincoln had come up with, over and over until they had it down. He contacted Donovan for some additional supplies. By the time the scouts returned with their report, Lincoln felt fully prepared.
There was a schedule, it turned out. The next convoy would be arriving in twenty-two hours. That didn’t leave much time to get into position, but the men were ready to go. They double-timed it down the mountain, Lincoln knowing all the while that coming back up would be a considerably slower process. Bypassing the camp completely, they went to a spot Pos had identified a few kilometers up the main road.
Other than military traffic—units from the camp going up to patrol around the intersection and convoys coming from the north—virtually no one used the road. Lincoln had no way to guarantee that they wouldn’t be surprised from the south, which would turn into a much bigger fight than he was looking for. But if the scouts were right about the convoy schedule, they shouldn’t have to be here for long, mitigating the risk of surprise.
Lincoln liked the spot Pos had picked out. It was just after a blind curve in the road, with the forest pressing in on both sides. As soon as they arrived, they felled several large trees and positioned them across the road, about thirty yards down from the turn. The men in the convoy would recognize it as an ambush as soon as they reached it, but by then it would be too late.
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