Red Flags

by Juris Jurjevics

  "Might we persuade you to help us?"

  "Please." He held up a wrinkled palm. "Don't bother."

  I said, "Are you a Communist sympathizer?"

  "Though my politics are left, I am not a Communist, no. What I am is unsupported by my church and the Saigon government. The provincial commissar and I, we have an understanding that permits me to continue my work for the time being."

  "How is that possible?" Ruchevsky said.

  "We are similar, he and I. He is also a believer."

  "In a faith that denies yours. Is it true you administer social services for the Communists?"

  "It is. Action civique."

  "Why?"

  "Because I have the skills, and persons here are poor and need services, because the provincial commissar funds them as opposed to making off with the allocations."

  "Do you know his name?" Ruchevsky asked.

  "Comrade," he said facetiously, batting away the question. "What does it matter? They don't use their actual names anyway."

  "Are you aware how he finances their insurgency and your work?"

  "Extortion, I assume. The sale of whatever contraband comes to hand. Taxes? The VC demand a bottle of rice from each of the families once a week and maybe a couple of hundred piasters more from the few shopkeepers at year's end. I am uninterested in how the National Liberation Front finances the programs. I am indifferent."

  I said, "Even if it includes harvesting and selling opiates? A practice Hanoi condemns?"

  His fingers pinched together in front of his face. "To finance their colonial empire, the French sold opium to the Vietnamese through state-sponsored dens and shops. They rendered the drug commonplace." The hand flew open. "I wouldn't condemn the Front for exploiting this. Perhaps it is part of their strategy to return the favor and cloud the minds of the West. In any event, the brown genie is long gone from its lamp. I can only try to do some good in my immediate environs. As long as I do not proselytize, the commissar lets me do my work."

  "Father Calogaras," I said, "do you meet regularly with the Viet Cong?"

  "Of course. From time to time I go to the Southern Liberation Army to plead for more funds, more school supplies, medicines, for help digging channels for irrigation or sewage. Occasionally they will lend me their troops for these labors since there are so few young men left in the villages. In return, they tolerate my presence." The barest smile crossed his deeply creased face.

  "How long do you think they will let you operate here?"

  "As long as I am useful to them"—he shrugged—"and they to me. I pose no threat. They want their country. I would be happy for them to have it."

  The town had gone quiet. Not a person on the street.

  "Is that what you were doing at the market in the jungle," I said, "agitating for more resources?"

  Mild surprise registered on his face. "Yes." He eyed the open front doorway. "I really can't say more. They will not be pleased that we've spoken. It will take many hours to persuade them I am not collaborating. The longer you stay, the more difficult they'll be to convince, and the more unpleasant. You need to leave. It would be unfortunate for us both if you were found here when they come."

  I stood fast. "Why were the others at your rendezvous in the jungle? The ARVN and the two American civilians?"

  "Monsieur, you two really must go," he said.

  "Is that what he handed you out in the jungle in that package? An allocation for your programs?"

  "I need you to leave."

  "I need an answer."

  "Yes," he said, exasperated. "Money for the hamlets."

  I said, "Why is there a Communist flag on the mast outside?"

  He glared at me as if the question were absurd. "Because ... they claim the village as theirs."

  "Aren't those South Vietnamese militiamen at the road checkpoint?"

  "Regional militia, yes. What of it? They wisely never enter the village. You would do well to emulate them."

  "Are the people all VC sympathizers here?"

  "Not all, no. You know the Vietnamese. Their sympathies are complicated. If one son goes north to the People's Army, they send the other south to the Army of the Republic. Family is all the southerners are really loyal to."

  "Why doesn't someone take the flag down then?"

  "If someone does, the VC will kill his children in front of him, slay his wife, their relatives, pets, livestock, and bury him alive. But if you are tempted, by all means." He extended his arm toward the doorway, daring us. "If you like, you can wait some moments and discuss it with them personally."

  A Vietnamese youngster burst in through the back, shivering from fear. He muttered something to Calogaras.

  "People's Army irregulars," the priest announced, "less than ten minutes' walk."

  "We're going," I said.

  We bade the priest goodbye and left with as much decorum as we could manage, but we didn't breathe easy until well after we had passed the regional militia checkpoint and not gotten shot in the back.

  "If Calogaras got a packet of money from Wolf Man, it stands to reason they all did," I said. "So Nhu's packet could have been Chinh's tribute money for his part in ensuring the shipments' safe passage. And Lund gets his cut for arranging the transport flight."

  "Do you think the French priest is as innocent as he says?" John asked. "Or that missionary Slavin?"

  "You seem to have it in for the clergy."

  "Hey, spooks do the same as you Army agents—use whatever cover is available."

  My jaw dropped. "You've infiltrated the missionaries?"

  "The opposition doesn't hesitate; why would we? They infiltrate Vietnamese seminaries, Buddhist monasteries, Polish pulpits—"

  "Communist priests?"

  Ruchevsky shrugged. "Just picture them in the confessional. The rectory. No coercion. No torture. Secrets spilled voluntarily. Makes my pulse race thinking about it."

  I said, "They'd actually submit to years of religious training to establish a false identity?"

  "Sure," Ruchevsky said. "Anything to do in the bad guys—us. Look at Wolf Man learning to speak Rhade, filing his teeth down, marrying into the chief's clan. They're damn committed. We're the ones playing the field over here and calling it monogamy."

  He pointed accusingly. "You have to look at everyone. You can't assume. What's Sergeant Grady willing to do for his beloved Yards? Where are his loyalties really? Why does your pal Dr. Roberta listen to Communist broadcasts in Rhade all the time? What's Checkman confide to the Vietnamese girl he's so smitten with?"

  "I can't believe—"

  "You don't know what any of them would do for a cause or people important to them."

  12

  BACK IN THE compound, the shit had hit the fan. Sector headquarters in Cheo Reo had already lodged Colonel Chinh's formal protest with ARVN II Corps headquarters in Pleiku, which passed it along to MACV next door, charging that an unauthorized bombing mission in Phu Thien District of Phu Bon Province had mortally endangered friendly troops on the ground, wounded civilians, and destroyed needed crops. Bennett received copies delivered by hand from across the road, along with a curt note.

  Major Hopp was summoned to the senior adviser's office to speak by radiophone to his superiors in Tuy Hoa. Ruchevsky and I tagged along. Hopp feigned innocence with real panache, claiming he had sighted North Vietnamese regulars in the open. He insisted something big was going down in the province and he had stumbled into a piece of it. Bennett got on the line and backed him up, which was easy to do with all the recent NVA activity.

  General Loc's staff had made such a stink that Hopp was temporarily grounded anyway, pending further inquiry, so he retired to a beach chair outside his hootch with a pitcher of whiskey sours and played fetch with the compound dog. Our other Cessna pilot made an assessment flight in the afternoon and confirmed the field was a charcoal briquette. We had undoubtedly put a crimp in a certain bank account. One for our side.

  Colonel Bennett appeared in the bullpen j
ust as Major Gidding came in, his face grave, followed closely by the first sergeant.

  "Evening, sir," the XO said to Bennett.

  "Good evening, Tom. What's up?"

  "I have a priority message for you," Gidding said, "from MACV headquarters, Saigon."

  "Crap. Break it to me gently."

  "Your promotion's come through." A huge grin spread across his face. "You did it, Dennis. You did it. Full colonel."

  "Well," Bennett said, looking shocked and rubbing his sunburned scalp. "Talk about surprises."

  Seems somebody in the higher echelons thought he was doing a worthy job advising Colonel Chinh, and no doubt Chinh's reports were favorable. Why not? He got Chinh what he wanted and looked away when the province chief appropriated U.S. supplies. Gidding shook the colonel's hand with a heartfelt exuberance. I had more mixed feelings.

  First Sergeant Mote beamed like he had done it himself. "Congratulations, sir."

  The artillery-shell gong announced the evening meal. The first sergeant went out, Checkman close on his heels.

  "Sir," I said. "Can we buy you a celebratory drink?"

  "Thank you, no, Captain. How about some supper and iced tea instead, gentlemen?"

  "We'd be honored," Gidding said.

  The three of us retired to the mess hall. As we crossed to the chow line, the diners hooted and applauded, a few rising to their feet. Deros, sensing the excitement, barked loudly and got kicked out.

  "So much for classified messages," Bennett joked.

  "Not many secrets in Cheo Reo, sir," Gidding said.

  He should only know, I thought. We filled our trays and retired to the corner table nearest the door.

  "I'll have to buy the bar," Bennett said.

  "Captain Rider," Gidding said. "What are the Special Forces patrols reporting?"

  "A lot of signs the NVA are prepping to inflict damage."

  "Let's hope we're not part of their plans." Gidding poked at a meat patty with a knife. "I'd hate for this to be our last meal."

  Bennett smiled. "Don't say that. If I want to keep the promotion, I have to survive at least twenty-four hours after receiving it."

  First Sergeant Mote appeared at our table. A staff officer who served with Bennett's father had snuck a set of silver eagles into the daily courier pouch, and the sergeant presented them to the colonel. Bennett asked Gidding to pin one on and the first sergeant the other, which they did proudly to more applause and whistles.

  As we dispersed, Checkman brought the colonel a message. Bennett read it and sighed.

  "From Chinh," he said, leaning in close to me. "His men did a sweep through Cao Tin. No flag, no priest. No VC." He crumpled the paper. "Faulty intel, he says."

  The following morning, Judd Slavin and his wife sent an invitation to the colonel for a cookout on their lawn celebrating his promotion. Bennett was surprised.

  "They're inviting the whole team," he said to First Sergeant Mote. "A bad idea for missionaries to associate so openly with combatants, wouldn't you say?"

  Mote sighed. "You've done an awful lot for them, Colonel."

  "They're good people." Bennett read the invitation again. "I don't want them to risk retribution from the VC, but I don't want to slight them either."

  "Sir," Mote said, "they've been here longer than any of us and are completely aware of what risks they choose to take. This is obviously important to them."

  "You're right as usual, First Sergeant."

  Bennett accepted the Slavins' invitation, and asked Sergeant Durando and me to take added precautions. The gathering could be an easy target, with so many of our people and our Vietnamese counterparts together in an undefended private residence.

  I returned to my desk and scanned the classified communiqué from Major Jessup in Saigon, looking for congratulations on the drastic dip in VC fortunes and revenues. Nothing. Not even a downtick. The latest deposit was over a quarter of a million American dollars. We blast a nice-size hole in the side of their operation and their take goes up. What the hell?

  Ruchevsky had his guards take up posts outside, ten feet from his house, so he and I and Little John could speak freely. I told him what I'd gotten from my boss in Saigon.

  "At this rate," Ruchevsky said, "their monthly total will come to over a million bucks. Shit. That's got to be opium, with those numbers."

  "Opium poppies like altitude." I spread my map across the chest Ruchevsky used as a coffee table and we examined contour lines. "Thirty-two hundred feet to maybe a mile high. The Aussie pilot's peak is four thousand feet above sea level—there." I traced a route to the mountain. "Hard, vertical jungle, with poppies growing on steep ridges and in ravines. Irregularly shaped patches, he told me—not really fields. Hard to spot except for the short time the plants are in flower."

  Little John turned pensive, staring at the grids.

  "What's the matter?" I said.

  "Katu."

  "Katu?"

  Ruchevsky nodded. "Another Montagnard tribe. Their chief territory is up north, in Eye Corps. Last year the South Vietnamese government relocated a thousand Katu down to the southwest corner of Phu Bon Province, where you've marked that mountain."

  "Katu scare," Little John said, making a face.

  "That's the general word on the Katu from all the Yards," Ruchevsky said. "They're not exactly sociable."

  "You know the Katu area?" I said to Little John.

  "No."

  "Anyone know it?"

  "No. But Reverend Slavin know Katu."

  "The padre at the jungle market?" I turned to Ruchevsky. "Does he mean the reverend's familiar with the Katu or that he speaks their language?"

  Little John held up two fingers.

  Ruchevsky glanced at Little John and back at me. "Both."

  I drove Checkman and some of the enlisted over to the celebration at the Slavins'. The party hadn't been announced until the last possible moment for the sake of security. Sergeant Durando deployed a discreet cordon: six guards for the corners of the quarter-acre property, six more who'd attend the party and switch off with the others every half an hour until it was over. Concealed personal weapons were welcome. Colonel Chinh surprised us with a second security ring: a hundred of his men in five armored personnel carriers. Everybody who was not on duty showed up.

  The invitation was for a back-home barbecue on what passed for the front lawn of the Slavins' home, next to a Yard village not far from town. The Montagnards we passed driving onto the grounds seemed more Westernized than the ones living farther out. The women were all demurely draped, the kids neatly dressed in uniform shorts and shirts and red kerchiefs. A couple of thatched longhouses had bicycles on their elevated patios. The Slavins' residence was modest, though made entirely of local teak and mahogany. The lawn consisted of a few tufts of weeds.

  A pig had roasted all night in a covered pit. Tribesmen carved it into hefty chunks presented on two platters, with yams and asparagus, potato salad and French bread. Coolers of beer were strategically placed around the yard. A choir of barefoot Montagnard boys in shorts, white shirts, and red neckerchiefs sang something that sounded oddly like "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain."

  Everyone wore mufti in deference to our hosts' civilian status except the guest of honor and Captain Cox, who drove in from Mai Linh and appeared at the gathering covered with orange road grit. He looked like an owl when he removed his goggles. Old Mr. Cho, in his tropical suit, stepped away as Cox dusted himself off.

  Colonel Chinh arrived fashionably late in an armored personnel carrier, dressed in white linen. He stepped lightly, as if from a carriage, and took his wife's hand to help her down. She was tiny and wore a black ao dais. Perfect emeralds set in heavy green gold sparkled at her ears. Captain Nhu came down the little ramp behind the Chinhs. In addition to MACV personnel, all five of the Korean medical staff came by, and Dr. Roberta Towns in a sunshine-yellow sundress.

  John Ruchevsky wore his customary scowl and tropical attire: Hush Puppies, cigar, short-sl
eeved shirt, and khaki slacks held up by the saddest-looking leather belt.

  Spying Chinh's dainty wife, Ruchevsky muttered, "It's Madame Antoinette herself, come to eat cake."

  Colonel Chinh stepped up to Bennett and snapped his fingers at an aide, who immediately brought over his gifts for the new bird colonel.

  "Felicity," he said to Bennett and presented him with a long-playing record of a traditional Vietnamese concert. Also a mahogany box the size of a humidor containing a captured Chinese K-54 pistol. The underside of the lid was inlaid with a large round replica of Bennett's new eagle insignia in burnished silver. Chinh handed the colonel a third gift wrapped in coarse brown paper. Bennett undid the wrapping and unveiled a leather-bound volume and a small book of poetry.

  "'Essential Summary of Military Arts,'" Bennett read, "'Marshal Tran Hung Dao.'"

  Chinh said, "Our marshal fight Mongol invader. He retreat to mountain. Mongols far from home. Dao make guerrilla fight." He turned to Judd Slavin and Bennett and spoke in Vietnamese.

  Checkman translated: "Marshal Dao wore down the Mongols of Kublai Khan and destroyed them with a trick. In 1287."

  "Many best advise. For you," Chinh said in English, patting the book. "America next birthday, one hundred ninety. Viet Nam, three thousan'. My country old, like this war. We fight French, Japan, Chinese all time, Burma, Khmer Krom, Cham, and Montagnard, Mongols three time, and many time other Vietnamese. Now America teach to us how make war."

  "Colonel Chinh," Bennett said, "we are here as partners. My country has vowed to stand with yours. As have the Australians, South Koreans, Thai—"

  "Yes, yes," Chinh said, impatient. "Free World Force. You come fight war for us. Like Lafayette in American Revolution. George Washington same me. He have not many soldier—eight thousand? Lafayette bring forty-four thousand French to fight. Many warship. Defeat English emperor. French make you free." He giggled gleefully, hand to his mouth.

  "You are well informed about our history," Bennett said. Chinh appeared pleased and accepted the compliment with a slight bow.