Red Flags

by Juris Jurjevics

  A sign said NO GUNS, so we checked ours with an Air Force sergeant and pushed on past a row of slot machines onto a wide terrace. A Hawaiian-style bar covered with bamboo and thatch stood at the far end, elephants' tusks holding up the corners. A pair of jet jockeys, perched on the tiger-skin stools, leaned across, flirting up the Vietnamese woman tending bar. A medallion above the bottles read BEVERLY HILLS HOME SECURITY—ARMED RESPONSE. We took an umbrella-shaded table and slumped into our patio chairs. The air was soft.

  A stunning Vietnamese woman in a white blouse and pedal pushers appeared and took our order, then came back almost instantly to pour our beer, angling it into chilled glasses to form perfect heads.

  "This was worth helpin' the Charlies out with their target practice," Hopp said, "don't ya think?"

  "Didn't at the time." I took a long swig. "Do now."

  The waitress returned with our hamburgers, slathered with onions and cheese. Hopp parked his gum under the table, anointed his burger with ketchup and relish, and took a giant bite. I slipped most of the onions off mine.

  I said, "What does Big John think about nobody being home for his air raids?"

  "Well, every planned strike has to be run past MACV in Saigon and the whiz boys in Washington, and by our allies in our province, and their headquarters at Two Corps in Pleiku. Pleiku runs it by the South Vietnamese tactical headquarters in Saigon too. Four or five clearances. All this mostly to make sure friendlies aren't in the area we want to bomb. Takes weeks. The enemy knows within the first eight hours what we're planning. Just when we finally get all the okays to lay on the strike, the NVA ups and moves a coupla hundred yards next door."

  "Into the neighboring province?"

  "You got it. And the whole clearance thing has to start all over again, this time going through channels in that province. Eventually the raid gets the green light, but the Charlies up and move out again the night before."

  "They're playing our bureaucracy."

  "And winning."

  "Saigon leaks," I said. "Pleiku must too, and Cheo Reo. The VC have agents everywhere."

  "Yup," Hopp said. "The South Vietnamese military government is more penetrated than the whores in Saigon. But Big John Ruchevsky thinks there's a particular leak sprung in Cheo Reo."

  "How can he tell?"

  Hopp licked ketchup from his thumb. "We simulated a priority air strike a while back. Put in for clearance only at the sector headquarters level in Cheo Reo. Kept it entirely local. Just before the bombs were supposed to drop, the NVA carouselled out of its bivouac."

  "That still leaves a bunch of possible suspects," I said.

  "Yeah," Hopp said. "I guess. Though all of 'em in Cheo Reo."

  I pointed to Hopp's Yard bracelet. "You've been initiated."

  "Oh, yeah, yeah. Whenever I can, I tag along with Bennett on his visits to the Jarai villages to help with the kids. Have one from the Sedang tribe too. Had the ceremony and the moonshine. Got rightly drunk."

  The terrace was several hundred feet above the beach, with no guardrail or barrier between us and the vista of the water below and the air base launching warplanes every few seconds round the clock, afterburners trailing fumes. The South China Sea spread to the horizon, so beautiful it nearly hurt. I turned my face to the sun, closed my eyes. It blazed behind my lids. The clear air smelled of blossoms and burned jet fuel.

  "Where are we?"

  "The land of flush toilets and hot water." Hopp groaned, basking in the sunlight. "Shangri-la, son. Shangri-la."

  11

  HOW BIG?" RUCHEVSKY said, munching his cigar while he tried to align two shaving mirrors to catch sight of the bald spot developing on the back of his head.

  "Humongous." I plopped the exposed roll onto our shared desk, atop the open map where I'd marked their locations. "The field looks ready for harvest. Plants taller than the field hands." I told him about the warning shots we'd taken. "We didn't even make it to the Aussie's flower field, but Hopp on the way back from the body shop flew us over three other huge tracts of dope. They're all a few weeks from harvest, I'm guessing."

  Big John gave up the beauty exam and put the mirrors back on his dresser.

  "They're smuggling it south out of the province how?"

  "Only two passable roads in and out of the whole province. Neither is paved. They couldn't move it overland with any confidence."

  "Assume they're flying the dope out," Ruchevsky said. "Whose aircraft?"

  "Vietnamese air force flies most of it for the various parties. Big shipments for the syndicates. The air corridors from Burma and Laos are choked with their flights."

  Ruchevsky fussed with his hairbrushes. "We'd be aware of South Vietnamese military flights into the province, though."

  "Sure. Our air controllers would log the activity."

  "Civilian aircraft on the other hand—" He stopped and fixed me with his glare. "Shit."

  "What?" I said.

  "Air America—the Agency's private delivery and taxi service."

  "You think they might be flying the dope out?"

  "Those aren't Boy Scouts at the controls. Hell, we airlift opium harvests all the time for our favorite warlord in Laos to help him finance his huge anti-Communist army. Air America flies in four hundred loads of material every day to keep his forty thousand troops and their families supplied. No problem flying a few loads out."

  I exhaled hard. "Doesn't sound like their aircrews would give a cargo of grass a second thought. What do they fly, DC-Threes?"

  "Mostly. STOLs and helicopters too." Ruchevsky bit his lip. "You got any idea about load capacity and dollar value?"

  I grabbed a pencil and did some quick calculations. "Bundled in forty-pound bales, a DC-Three load of marijuana would be around two tons. Each load would command—what—a quarter of a million U.S?"

  Ruchevsky said, "To grow the weed and move it they need all sides cooperating. The Viet Cong for security. Somebody cultivating. Americans for the airlift. And Colonel Chinh's South Vietnamese military authorities to be struck blind at appropriate times."

  "If you take off fifty thousand for pilots, bribes, and incidentals, that leaves a two-hundred-thousand-dollar profit. Could we interdict the air route? Can you do anything about Air America?"

  "The pilots are contract players and hard to control. Did you see an airstrip near that first marijuana field?"

  I shook my head. "Nothing flat or wide enough to land a plane."

  "The closest is the strip by the Phu Thien District headquarters," Ruchevsky said, looking at the map. "Though I doubt they could steadily airlift quantities of anything from there without the Green Berets noticing. There's a split A-team at Phu Thien and two MACV advisers."

  "So how would they manage it?"

  "Road Seven is dirt but plenty wide in places," he said. "Only low scrub. No vehicular traffic to speak of. Seal off an open stretch and you can put down a DC-Three on it, no problem. Those boys can land on an eyelid. Haul your weed to a road like that, guide the plane down, toss it aboard, and go."

  I scratched my sunburned arm, which was beginning to peel. "You think the Air America pilots cut their own private deals?"

  Ruchevsky thought for a moment. "The odd trip? Sure. Five a month? Less likely. That many blacked-out flights would need someone like me to make them happen—or at the very least, somebody affiliated with our beloved State Department."

  "Like a USAID rep?" I said. "Lund?"

  "Or the geek sidekick of his."

  "You said Lund might even be from your shop."

  "Possibly."

  "But you wouldn't know."

  "No. We're not identified to one another." Ruchevsky drew himself up. "What size deposits are the VC making?"

  "A hundred thousand U.S." I sat down on my bunk.

  "So who's getting the other hundred thou?"

  "Their partners."

  "What do you want to do about that marijuana field you spotted?"

  "Fuck it up."

  "How do you
propose to do that?" he said.

  "A bombing raid." I peered at the map.

  "If we go the official route, the South Vietnamese in charge of looking the other way will make sure we're denied permission. We'll just hear there are friendlies in the target area and we can't bomb."

  "Not if we don't submit a request."

  "How do we get B-Fifty-two sorties then?" said Ruchevsky.

  "We don't. We don't order up heavy bombers from outside the country. We use lighter aircraft from bases in country, already airborne and carrying unexpended ordnance. Fighters carrying napalm."

  "Go on."

  "I'll get Major Hopp to do a little theater production: we'll fly up there and incur heavy ground fire. If we're engaged by the enemy, it might be enough to eliminate the requirement for prior clearance and allow Hopp to call in air support immediately."

  "I've underestimated your less-than-sterling qualities, young captain."

  "The fighters will unload their nape onto the crops, set the field ablaze. Burn it to an unsmokable cinder."

  "You won't get more than a pair of fighters. We'll never get all the fields in one go."

  "We Zippo the rest when we can these next few days, before the Vietnamese and MACV wake up to what we're doing."

  "Yeah." Ruchevsky laughed. "Before they handcuff us."

  "Hope you don't mean that literally."

  Ruchevsky chewed his cigar with glee. "It's sort of perfect. Their troops always manage to scoot out of the way of our air strikes, but their money supply is rooted in the ground this time. No way to vanish." Ruchevsky sobered. "Know this: The folks we're messing with are not the type to amortize their losses. There's immediate blowback from this when they figure out who to be pissed at."

  "I know. We've got to watch our butts," I said.

  He puffed his cigar, sending out a cloud of pungent blue smoke. "Okay, Captain, go put it to Major Hopp."

  I found Hopp socializing outside his quarters. We walked toward the perimeter where we wouldn't be overheard. When I finished laying out our plans for the VC grass crop, I said, "You think it's doable?"

  "Hell, yeah." He grinned, eyes dancing, and slapped me on the shoulder. "Finally a little sizzle. How soon do we perpetrate this arson?"

  "Soon as possible."

  "Okay, we'll hand-roast the product for them. Could be a marketing breakthrough."

  Miser emptied out the signal shack and set Hopp up with a secure voice channel to talk to his Air Force pals in Tuy Hoa. An hour later, it was a done deal.

  "Hallelujah," Miser exulted, practically dancing for joy at the possibility of trashing the dope crop and getting back to Saigon.

  We flew out at first light, Hopp in front, me in back again. Airman Lewis went on duty in the commo bunker. We reached the field and circled. Major Hopp reported our hot contact: massive ground fire, figures on the ground maneuvering, and all hell generally breaking loose. Lewis acknowledged and requested a forward air controller and any available flight. A pair of Skyraiders armed with napalm zipped over from a neighboring province to lend assistance and assumed a slightly higher orbit than ours. The FAC arrived and joined the circle. Union rules: only Air Force personnel could direct Air Force pilots. The FAC confirmed enemy structures and movement on the ground.

  Hopp rolled in to mark the field with white-phosphorus rockets and resumed his position in the aerial wheel. The FAC added several more. The lead fighter peeled off over the target and dropped its pods along one sloped edge. The fire would spread up the incline if we were lucky. The second plane rolled in, and the lower margin of the field burst into an orange fireball. The Skyraiders made two more passes with rockets and really got it cooking, then turned toward the coast to return to base. It was the most we could risk at one go. We didn't really dare report any more ground fire to get additional fighter-bombers diverted.

  Airman Lewis and the forward air controller observed the usual etiquette, thanking the fighter jocks and each other, after which Major Hopp thanked his counterpart, the fighter pilots, and Airman Lewis. Tomorrow we'd hit another field. While they were stroking one another in the customary manner, I got ready to empty an AK-47 into the thin fuselage of our light plane.

  "Hold your ears," I said on the intercom.

  "Whoa!" Hopp exclaimed.

  "What?"

  "Aim at the sides, not the floor. Don't hit any wires. I don't wanna lose the tail controls or we'll have to fly circles all the way home."

  "Right." I contorted myself and pulled the trigger, putting rounds into the skin. The report wasn't too terrible given all the noise in the cockpit. Hopp turned for home. Shell casings needed gathering up and the bullet holes required doctoring so they wouldn't reveal anything. I broke down the Kalashnikov and stuffed the pieces in a kit bag. We were given a heroes' welcome by Hopp's mechanic, who set to work on the fuselage. Airman Lewis and Major Hopp filed their reports and made ready for a repeat performance the following morning over the next field, twelve kilometers farther west.

  Ruchevsky and I procured two large cans of Australian beer from Sergeant Miser's small stash in the mess-hall fridge and retired to the northwest-corner bunker, on the roof of which resided the .50-caliber machine gun, its long shells glistening in the linked ammo belt. We ducked inside, checking first for tripwires. We made ourselves comfortable and congratulated each other on our campaign against the profit motive in Asia.

  Our private drinking establishment provided an unexpected benefit. The firing ports overlooked the road to the airstrip and the modest USAID compound next door. Before long, Captain Nhu drove past the dozing guard into the barren USAID compound and hurried inside the residence. He came back out with Whalen Lund, and the two of them went off in the captain's vehicle. I called our gate guard on the field phone to find out where the pair were headed.

  "They're just turning into the ARVN garrison," I announced to Ruchevsky.

  "Hmmm. Off to see the wizard?" He burped. "Command performance by USAID man? Looks like Lund's in this business all right. Probably using USAID fertilizer to boost the yield per acre, and the newest herbicides. You know he's getting his." He took a pull of beer. "There's no way Chinh wouldn't have his snout in the trough too. Lund and his VC partners are undoubtedly keeping the colonel happy. So that's at least two entrepreneurs we've pissed off today. We should do some probing while they're agitated and vulnerable. See what we can dig up."

  "I doubt Captain Nhu or Whalen Lund are in any mood for a heart-to-heart," I said. "Chinh either—at this time."

  Ruchevsky actually giggled.

  "How about their friend from the jungle market," he said, "Father Calogaras? I'm pretty curious to meet the invisible frog priest, find out what he knows about this all. How do we find him?" He looked at me. "Well? You're the gumshoe."

  Actually, I'd given it some thought. I took out a map of the province and located the place where we had spied on the jungle market.

  "He arrived on an old bicycle, without a rucksack or even a water container."

  "Right." Ruchevsky nodded.

  "With the poor condition of the road and in this heat, it's unlikely he'd pedal more than an hour."

  "How far could he ride in an hour along that track?"

  "Five or six kilometers," I said.

  I spread out my map on the sandbag ledge. Measuring six kilometers with a tie-off string, I drew a crude circle around the meeting spot.

  "The only Catholic Montagnards I know of," I said, "are Bahnar. None around here. The converts in this province are all Protestant. If Calogaras has parishioners, they're likely Vietnamese Catholics."

  There was only one Vietnamese village between Cheo Reo and the jungle road where we had spied on the NVA market. It was less than two kilometers from where we stood.

  "Cao Tin," I said. "A mile away."

  Ruchevsky looked embarrassed. "You think he could be living that close and stay out of sight this long?" He paused for my answer.

  "Only one way to find out."

&
nbsp; VC roadblocks tended to come down at around four in the afternoon, the day's toll-taking and blockading done. We let the commo bunker know our destination and estimated return time, gathered our gear and a radio, and set out by jeep five after the hour. Road 2 ran west–southwest through scrub and tall grasses twice the height of a man, past a Montagnard village on the outskirts, past groves of trees and stands of bamboo flanking streambeds. I radioed in our progress.

  Just before the hamlet, we passed a checkpoint manned by South Vietnamese militia in conical hats and peasants' black pajamas, barefoot and armed with carbines. They made no move to stop us and we rolled past unacknowledged.

  Locals in heavy black cotton padded about the town's market square, even more modest than Cheo Reo's. Muslins and tarps interlaced and formed a shaded alley for platforms and stalls. Vendors and shoppers looked up as we drove by. The sun beat down and there wasn't a whisper of wind, not so much as a breeze. We squinted against the sharp tropical light. The flag atop a pole hung limp and barely visible. The colors were wrong: yellow and blue. A yellow star undoubtedly hidden in the folds. What had we driven into?

  I nudged Big John and nodded toward the Communist flag. Ruchevsky casually slid his weapon off his shoulder. We pulled up outside the only structure in the town that was roofed and sided with wood, with a slightly elevated wooden floor. We sauntered in, as if the circumstances called for bravado. A gray-haired Caucasian male wearing shorts and a blue work shirt with the sleeves ripped off was bent over the floor in back, hammering. When he stood up, he looked haggard and hollow-eyed, his complexion like leather. He didn't seem happy to see us.

  "Father Calogaras?" Ruchevsky said.

  "Yes. I am he," he answered in English and tossed the hammer aside with a loud bang.

  "We have been searching for you for quite some time."

  He wiped his face with a plaid cloth. "Voilà. I am here, you are here, we are here. And soon they will join us, damn it."

  Ruchevsky attempted an ingratiating smile. "We wanted to talk to you about the political situation in the province, and we wonder if you might help us."

  Father Calogaras was already shaking his head no before Ruchevsky finished. "I have no side in your conflict," he insisted. "I'm a Franciscan. My purpose, my mission, is people."