by Bill Yancey
Wolfe started his engine and finished driving off the exit to an intersecting two-lane street. The ramp back onto I-4 north beckoned directly across the road. He ignored it. The sedan had begun moving almost as soon as Wolfe’s vehicle had. He turned to his left and looked for a fast food outlet, intermittently checking his mirrors. The sedan followed him, about a hundred yards behind.
Not yet convinced he was being tailed, Wolfe turned left into a Burger King, drove around the building, and waited for the sedan to pass the structure. When the sedan pulled into the parking lot, Wolfe pulled out, turned right, and headed back toward I-4. Passing by the onramp again Wolfe continued east on the two-lane road. The sedan followed. Doing math, trying to remember what the probabilities would be that the car would stop behind him, make the same left turn, and then the same right turn, Wolfe decided the chances were less than one in eight. He pulled into an Arby’s and parked. Taking his cell phone with him, he went inside and ordered a sandwich.
Unable to park next to Wolfe’s vehicle, the sedan pulled into a slot directly in front of the building, rear bumper toward the fast food outlet. Wolfe could see the car as he slowly ate his curly fries and roast beef sandwich. He could not see through the darkened windows. The license plate didn’t appear to be a government plate. In Florida, rental cars no longer had distinctive plates, to cut down on tourist ambushes, so he couldn’t tell who tailed him. The chances of out-running the sedan in a Prius seemed slim.
Wolfe walked to the counter and asked to speak with the manager. When she appeared, he told her his name and that he would like to speak with her in private. She led him to her office. “And what can I do for you, Dr. Wolfe?” she asked, after she had closed the office door.
“May I use your telephone?” he asked. “I may be in some danger. I suspect someone is following me. A man broke into my house three days ago and tried to stab my daughter. I’d like to call the police.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “I’ll step outside so you can talk in private.”
“If that black sedan parked under your sign leaves, please let me know,” Wolfe said. He picked up the telephone and dialed 911.
A Seminole County Sheriff’s Deputy had been eating lunch at the Burger King down the road. He arrived quickly, and after hearing Wolfe’s tale, walked out to the black car. Wolfe watched as the deputy stood by the open driver’s door. The driver handed papers to the deputy. The deputy spoke to dispatch through the radio microphone attached to his right epaulet. After several minutes, the deputy handed the papers back to the driver, who never left the vehicle. The deputy backed away from the sedan and the driver closed the door. The brake lights came on. The car started, the back-up lights shone, and it backed out of the parking space. Slowly it exited the parking lot, drove back onto the two-lane road and disappeared going east.
The deputy returned to the Arby’s. He smiled at Wolfe. “Japanese tourist,” he said. “Lost. And hungry. He thought you might have known something about the Burger King, so he followed you here. Said he didn’t want to upset you, so he was waiting for you to leave before he came in to order.”
“Really?” Wolfe said.
“That’s his story. I called in his identification, passport, driver’s license, and license plate. He’s clean. The car is a rental. Came from the Orlando airport about two hours ago. I suppose we have to believe him, Mr. Wolfe. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. Thank you, deputy,” Wolfe said, not entirely convinced. “I guess I’m still anxious after the break-in. Sorry to put you to all that trouble. May I buy you a sandwich and a drink? Oh, do you remember the man’s name?”
“Shima Ichiro. He said it means first born island, or something like that. My lunch is waiting for me in the cruiser. Thank you, anyway, sir. Have a good day.”
Wolfe pulled his piece of paper from his pocket and wrote down the tourist’s name. He didn’t see that particular black sedan on the remainder of the drive to St. Augustine.
CHAPTER 36
Lieutenant Roh emerged from the bathroom in the first floor apartment with a bath towel around his waist. He dried his hair with a second towel. “My first shower in many years,” he said to Byrnes. “With lots of hot water. Your turn. Find any clothing or money, Con co?”
Roh had found his old apartment virtually unchanged, with the exception of a new recliner and a newer television in the living room. The key he had kept hidden under a statue of Buddha in an outside decorative rock garden remained where he had left it. At the front door had been three days worth of two newspapers, the Chin Luan, a Vietnamese paper, and the Saigon Post, an English language newspaper. Roh had shared the apartment with another South Korean officer, who worked in intelligence. His tour would have ended long before. They uncovered no sign of the newer occupants, evidently he or they had departed three to four days earlier. The absence of most of the occupants of the apartment building reminded Byrnes of an apocalyptic movie.
Naked to the waist, wearing only the faded, worn, khaki pants given him by the NVA, Byrnes nodded. “In the apartment directly above us, I found clothing that will fit you. The occupants must also have left quickly. I saw family pictures on a bureau. May have been an employee of the Americans. No looters have hit this apartment building, yet. Seem to be some original residents here. Across the hall is a nice lady. She said there was a man about my size who left a week ago. She used to clean his apartment for him. Gave me the key. I found a few pair of trousers, shoes, socks, even three dress shirts,” he said, pointing to two piles of clothing he had dropped on the couch in front of a small television set. “But no money.”
“Some underwear? I’ve missed my underwear.” Roh scanned the room, eyes falling on the broadcast displayed by the black and white television. Tanks rolled past the US Embassy. Crowds waved hands and NVA battle flags.
“Didn’t know if you wanted to wear someone else’s underwear,” Byrnes said, “but I brought three pair for you. Seven pair of tighty-whities for me.” He held one pair up for Roh’s inspection.
“Nice. I prefer boxers, though.”
Byrnes showered. He spent thirty minutes under the running water. He stood under the stream until the hot water began to cool. No mud, no animals, warm water, soap, heaven, he thought. Roh rapped on the door. “Are you done?” he asked. “According to the reporter on television, the communists have declared a curfew. Anyone on the streets after 9:00 p.m. will be detained. Or shot. Or both. Looters are subject to arrest and execution without a trial, he said. All former ARVN troops are to surrender their arms at the Presidential Palace.”
“Great,” Byrnes said. “You might want to leave that watch you found in the apartment. Don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Where is that restaurant you bragged about?”
“The watch will help us keep track of time and the curfew. Restaurant’s near the American Embassy off Hong Thap Tu. We can walk it in thirty minutes, provided we aren’t detained by the NVA,” Roh said.
“Yeah, and you said it would only be an hour’s walk to this apartment building, too,” Byrnes said, skeptical of Roh’s time estimate.
“How was I to know the streets would be impassible?” Roh asked. “If you don’t want to go out, there is food in the kitchen and probably more in some of the other abandoned apartments.”
“May as well see Saigon before the communists destroy it,” Byrnes said. He slipped on a pair of thin nylon socks and tried to put his feet into a pair of short engineer boots he found in the upstairs apartment. “Crap.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Shoes are too small,” Byrnes said. He pulled off the boots and then stuffed the socks in them. He had also rescued a pair of worn leather sandals from the other dwelling. “These feel good,” he said after slipping them on.
“Boots and socks fit me,” Roh said, after sitting on the couch and slipping them on. “Thanks. Oh, I found a wad of bills in a hollow book on the shelf. Looks like 100-200,000 Piasters.”
“Is that a
lot?” Byrnes asked.
“Depends on how bad the inflation has been over the last six to eight years. A US dollar was worth about 200 Piasters when I was captured in 1967. I guess we’ll find out at the restaurant.” He stuffed the entire wad of bills into his pocket.
Byrnes had no idea where they were, or how to find anything in Saigon. He walked with Roh, speaking quietly in Vietnamese, even though Roh spoke perfect English. Both men had shaved off sparse mustaches and beards after their showers. Byrnes told Roh about the pack of razor blades he had bought prior to leaving the States on the WestPac cruise. He expected a single blade to last him the entire cruise. Roh laughed. The only change in his appearance had been slightly shorter and squared off sideburns and the loss of a small patch of chin hair. “Europeans show their ice age heritage,” he said. “They needed hair to keep warm.”
The walk northwest along Pasteur, led them within a block of the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace. They saw hundreds of NVA processing thousands of ARVN troops. The South Vietnamese presented in various stages of dress. Some were fully clothed in combat fatigues or dress uniforms. Others sat or stood in their white boxer shorts and bare feet. Byrnes saw every combination of clothing between those extremes.
At Han Theuyen, the men turned right and walked past the Notre Dame Cathedral. “That’s probably one of the reasons they surrendered,” Roh said.
“To save the cathedral from destruction?”
Roh nodded. “Saigon has a long history. Cathedrals, pagodas, museums, palaces. Ho Chi Minh would have wanted it preserved, too.”
More vehicles piled with revelers yelling and waving flags drove past the men as they walked northwest again on Duy Tan. “There certainly are a lot of people celebrating for a country that was at war two days ago,” Byrnes said. “Do you suppose they were all communist sympathizers?”
“They’re being pragmatic. You may not realize this, but many South Vietnamese fought with the Viet Minh against the French, and then came south to escape the communists. Their loyalty has been divided for years: pro-independence, anti-communist. If pushed they can display either. Most have recently switched sides in order to prolong their lives, I suppose,” Roh said “I had many a southerner tell me he admired Ho Chi Minh for his resistance to the Japanese, and his ability to throw out the French. Everyone, even the South Vietnamese, called him Uncle Ho. The original southerners, and those who left North Vietnam after the Geneva Accords divided the country in 1954, had no desire to be communists. Especially the Catholics. Entire Catholic hamlets packed up and followed their priests south, marching in the night to avoid soldiers, or taking boats down rivers to the South China Sea and following the coast south. Many died trying to escape. The North Vietnamese communists detained many more. Still, they all admired Ho.”
Byrnes could smell smoke. Behind a ten or twelve foot tall cement wall along Hai Ba Trung a plume of black smoke drifted into the air over the trees that lined the road. “What do you suppose is burning over there?” he asked.
Roh sniffed the air, smelled the acrid odor. “Probably secret documents. Behind that wall is the US Embassy. See that tall building with the flat roof? That’s a helicopter pad. One way to hide is in plain sight. We will walk down Hong Thap Tu, past the embassy. I doubt the NVA would expect fugitives to do that. Keep your eyes open, though.”
Furniture, papers, typewriters, adding machines, wastebaskets, even staplers and paperclips littered the road near the embassy. “Jesus, what a mess,” Byrnes said. “Looters?”
“You wouldn’t think so. If the communists find American equipment in someone’s possession, he’d have a lot of explaining to do,” Roh said, then laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I figured it out. Some people did ransack the embassy, probably angry that you Americans left without them. And when they got to the street and heard the NVA tanks, they thought better of the idea, dropped their booty, and ran.”
“Makes sense,” Byrnes said.
In the courtyard, behind a huge metal gate that evidently had been damaged by an armored vehicle, sat two Russian or Chinese T-34 tanks. Their crews, men who looked like fourteen and fifteen year-old boys, but in reality were older teenaged combat veterans, lounged on the decks of the tanks or in the grass nearby. Roh waved. Some soldiers smiled and waved back. Byrnes copied Roh’s gesture to the NVA soldiers.
Several blocks off the main thoroughfare, they found a small brick establishment. Huge posters covered the windows and walls in front, advertising for the nearby Pink nightclub. They depicted guitar-toting stars: Elvis Phuong and Anh Tu.
The proprietor of the Viet-My restaurant, a toothless old man with sparse white hair, recognized Lieutenant Roh. “Good evening, Lieutenant,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in years. In fact, I don’t believe I have seen a Korean national since the South Korean Army left in 1973. Are you a correspondent now?”
Initially surprised that all South Korean troops had departed Vietnam, Roh recovered quickly. “Yes. Yes. I’m a foreign correspondent covering the war. I guess now I’m covering the peace,” he said. He pointed to the taller Byrnes. “My friend, Con co, and I thought we’d get one last local meal before seeing about leaving Saigon.” When the waiter, an older man with a bad limp and a withered left arm, appeared, Roh ordered an American meal of steak, vegetables, and baked potato, along with a beer for himself and a Coca-Cola for Byrnes.
While the waiter delivered their order to the cook, Roh pointed to the menu and prices, written in colored chalk on the large blackboard behind the bar. “Inflation has been brutal,” he said. “An apple used to cost about half an American dollar in this restaurant, about 100 Piasters. They were cheaper in grocery stores, of course. Now an apple is worth 1250 Piasters here, according to that menu.” As they watched, the owner of the restaurant erased the prices with a dish rag and added 1000 Piasters to each as he rewrote them. “Paper money is worthless in a time of crisis, Con co. Probably one of the reasons the most recent occupant of my apartment left it behind. It would of absolutely no value wherever he went outside Vietnam.”
When the waiter returned with their food, Roh pulled the wad of bills from his pocket. “I think I’ll pay you now and give you your tip while I can still afford it,” he said. He thumbed through the bills, then shook his head and handed all but 1000 Piasters to the waiter. “Easy come, easy go,” he said in English.
CHAPTER 37
A surprise awaited Wolfe when he drove in the front gate at The Cascades, part of World Golf Village. Teddy, the guard, had called him minutes before. Wolfe had dutifully pulled off the highway and answered the call. A man waited at the guard shack for Wolfe. Ted said the man wanted to talk to him about a mutual friend.
Parking his Prius along the side of the road, Wolfe walked over to the gate, where the man waited in his vehicle, a late model BMW sports car. The convertible top lay open. Within the shade of the guard shack, the man sat inside his vehicle smoking a cigar. He wore an Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts similar to Wolfe’s favorite shorts. Wolfe couldn’t see the man’s feet, but he assumed he wore sandals, if he wore anything at all.
Wolfe stood next to the driver’s side of the car. “I’m Addison Wolfe,” he said to the heavy-set stranger with a full head of gray hair. “You want to talk with me?”
“Dr. Wolfe,” the man said. He pushed the driver’s door open and stood. Grabbing Wolfe’s right hand, he shook it with a firm grasp. “Is there a place where we can talk?”
“You don’t look like an assassin,” Wolfe said. “Who are you and what do you want to talk about?”
“Pardon me? Oh, I’m George Crouch,” the stranger said. “My friends call me Zorro, although now I look a lot more like Sgt. Garcia.” He patted his midsection. “That was my call sign in the Navy. I flew F-8s and F-4s in the navy.” He chuckled. “Can we chat about J.T.? I talked with his sister yesterday after I heard about his mom. We keep in touch. J.T. and I were roommates during Plebe Summer at Annapolis. You were kidd
ing about being an assassin, right?”
“I wish,” Wolfe said. “Follow me to the club house. That’s a fairly public place. On warm summer days there are usually a number of people around the pool. And we can get drinks if you want.”
“Okay.”
Wolfe told Teddy to let the BMW through the gate. Crouch followed Wolfe to the clubhouse and, after parking, joined him at one of the tables around the pool. Wolfe had picked a spot between the indoor and outdoor pools, relatively isolated from the crowd around the grill and bar. “Want a beer?” he asked Crouch.
“Pepsi’s fine, Doc,” Crouch said. “I’m flying later today.”
Wolfe retrieved two Pepsis from the concession stand. He set one in front of Crouch and sat with his back toward the pool. “You mentioned flying later,” he said. “What do you do, Mr. Crouch?”
Crouch took a sip of his Pepsi. He said, “Call me George, Doc. I work at the Cecil Commerce Center, what used to be Cecil Field until the navy closed it. A friend of mine buys F-5s and T-38s from countries all over the world. They are being retired from most air forces. Then he rebuilds them and sells them to rich civilians who want to fly supersonic jets. I’m his test pilot for the refurbished aircraft. They only cost one to two million once he rebuilds them. Want one?”
“Can’t afford one. I always wanted to fly,” Wolfe said, smiling. “My uncle was a military pilot. Flew F-86s in Korea. When I graduated from medical school, I applied for astronaut training. Didn’t work out.”
“I’ll call you next time we test a T-38. Those are the two-seaters. Be happy to take you up with me,” Crouch said.
“Don’t know if I’d go,” Wolfe said. “I’ve gotten used to being Earth-bound. They let you do that at your age?”