Little Saigon

by T. Jefferson Parker

  He crawled back to the defunct sliding door and squeezed into the hangar beside the old plane. The cement floor was dusty but quiet. He moved slowly under the wing of the aircraft, then dodged behind a stack of old ammo boxes. Outside, the wind slapped against the walls. Frye watched the guard look in his direction, then turn back to Bennett, Fifty feet away, he guessed: I could take him out with one shot. You didn’t even get paper on the first one. It’s the first one you want true … usually that’s all you get.

  Shapes were moving just outside the light. Frye saw the guard stand at attention. Then the echo of footsteps slowly approaching Bennett, and a tapping sound. A young Vietnamese man dressed in green fatigues stepped into the light, looked at Bennett, then eased back into the shadows, Bennett looked up. Frye could see the stunned disbelief on his brother’s face as he squinted into the darkness. Two more steps, slow steps, punctuated by the tapping sound again. The profile of a man formed. With one last step he entered the light, a stooped figure leaning on an ebony cane, a face twisted beyond recognition. He wore dark glasses. Thach and Bennett stared at each other for a long, long moment.

  Frye’s body went bone-cold. He couldn’t take his eyes off Thach’s molten face—the way the cheeks and nose and mouth fused together, as if welded by some skilless artisan using the last scraps of creation. Thach wore an army shirt and pants, a black belt and boots, an officer’s holster, a batch of medals on his bulky, misshapen chest. He continued to stare down at Bennett, who stared back. Frye did too. The .45 seemed impossibly heavy and useless. Then Thach lifted a hand from his cane, just slightly, and motioned to someone behind him. Li stepped into the light, wrists bound tightly, ankles linked by a foot of rope, guided by a soldier with one hand on her arm and the other on his rifle. She wore the black pajamas of a Vietnamese peasant. Bennett started off his chair, but the guard stepped forward and drove him back with his gun butt. The man with Li cinched her close to him. Thach looked at the suitcases of money, then back to Bennett. When he spoke, his voice sounded artificially induced. “Your wife and I have had many long discussions these last days. I expected to find a strong woman in Li Frye, and I was correct. I had hoped to show her the truth of history, and of nature, but she is too far lost to your lies to ever see the truth. You were thorough, Lieutenant. Our attempts to re-educate her have not been a success.”

  Li stood motionless. Again Bennett tried to go to her, and again the guard jammed him back with his weapon.

  Thach turned to the darkness and waved again. The guard that Frye had seen outside now pulled a small table and chair to the edge of the light. Thach maneuvered himself behind it and sat down. “We have some formalities to complete before our transaction can be made.” The guard placed a sheaf of papers on the table. Thach removed his dark shades, removed a pair of reading glasses from his pocket, wrapped the cables carefully over what remained of his ears, and read. “On July second, nineteen-seventy-two, you ordered South Vietnamese Army sergeant Huong Lam interrogated as a traitor, then executed?”

  Bennett sat forward, still looking at Li as if she were the only person left on earth. As she gazed back at him, Frye tried to identify the strange expression on her face. She looked exhausted, almost resigned, but still with hope. What had Thach done to her?

  “Lieutenant Frye, please answer.”

  Bennett gave his name, rank and serial number.

  Thach shuffled the papers, then looked at him. “I must tell you, Lieutenant, that the war is over. You lost. The sooner you give me answers, the sooner we will finish.”

  Bennett was still staring at Li. “Yes, I ordered Huong Lam interrogated and killed.”

  “Huong was a man you had worked with for nearly a year, a man you had come to suspect was a traitor to the American war effort?”

  Bennett nodded.

  Li was looking at Thach now, as if paralyzed by the face and the disembodied voice.

  “On the night you took this woman, she came to you with a pack on her back. Huong Lam had given it to her. What was in it?”

  Bennett looked at Li.

  “Answer, Lieutenant.”

  “He gave Li a bomb. He strapped it to her back and told her to take it to me. He said we should open it together.”

  Li looked at Bennett expectantly.

  Thach wrote something down. “Tell her, Lieutenant Frye, what your men found in the pack given to Li by Huong Lam.”

  Bennett started off his chair again but the guard lifted his gun butt. Bennett ducked, covering up with his elbows. Frye saw the guard’s disdainful frown, the disappointment that he’d already beaten the fight out of his plaything. His brother sank back into the seat. Frye’s grip tightened on the automatic.

  Bennett looked at Li. “She knows. It was a bomb, a frag grenade made from three dead mortar rounds.”

  Thach rose slowly from the table and tapped his way to Bennett. He stooped, bringing his face close, and removed his glasses. Bennett sat, frozen by Thach as a mouse is frozen by a rattlesnake. Then, slowly, Bennett leaned forward. Their faces almost touched. Bennett’s hand rose slowly, as if to touch Thach’s cheek, but hovered there, unable to complete the motion. Bennett spoke in a whisper. “No.”

  Thach’s face twisted into something like a smile. He stood straight. “What is wrong, Lieutenant? You look like a man who is seeing ghosts.”

  “Lam.”

  “Bennett.”

  “Lam … you fell, you—”

  “I was thrown. Let us not distort the truth as we have distorted each other. I am still thrown from your Huey a thousand times a night.”

  “Lam,” whispered Bennett.

  “Lam died in the sky as he fell to earth. He died in the trees that tore his face. He died in the mud where he lay while the rats ate him. He died in the tunnel where they did not set his wounds because he could never live. You killed him.”

  Thach brought up a hand, looped something off his neck, and tossed it toward Bennett. It landed on the floor and Frye knew in an instant what it was: the silver wave necklace he’d made and sent to Benny all those years ago.

  Bennett breathed deeply, his eyes moving from Thach to Li, then back to Thach again.

  Li stood still, staring at Thach as the colonel approached her. Frye could see the tears glistening on her cheeks.

  “Lam,” she said. “Lam.”

  Thach took her face in his hand and turned it to Bennett. “Tell us, Bennett, what you found in the pack that I prepared for you two to open together.”

  Thach yanked Li up close to Bennett, still clenching her face in his hand. “This must come from you. I’ve waited many years for the chance to hear you say that one word. Li would not believe me. Tell her now, what I packed for you to open together. Tell me what I was tortured for, what I was thrown from the gunship for.”

  “Champagne,” said Bennett quietly. “Three bottles of French champagne.”

  Thach released her. She didn’t move.

  “And what else?” asked Thach.

  “A note that said, ‘Friend, you have won.’”

  Li looked at Bennett imploringly. She seemed to diminish into the pajamas. “Benny … no. It was a bomb.”

  Bennett’s voice was low. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know, until after. It wasn’t until my men tried to defuse it that I knew what had really gone down. I was drinking in the officers’ club that night. I was drinking because a friend betrayed me. Then the ordnance team came in and tossed the pack onto the bar. They were laughing. I just stared at those bottles and realized what I’d done. I thought you had betrayed us, Lam. And I thought you tried to kill me for taking Li away. Go back, Lam. Go back to that night and ask yourself what you would have done.”

  Bennett wiped his face, then steadied himself in the chair. He looked up at Thach. “When I saw the champagne, I went to Tony and tore apart his hootch. He had code books, maps. He was our traitor, all along. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed for your soul, and prayed I could bring you back. Jesus Christ, my pra
yers were answered.”

  Thach looked at each of them. Frye saw a strange amusement in his face. “Ah, Tony. I suspected him. I wondered if he were an idiot. I nearly shot him once, simply on instinct. Months later, when I found out what valuable work he had done for us, I was glad I didn’t. I’m sure you Americans did a good enough job of that, Lieutenant.”

  Thach balanced himself on his cane and peered for a moment up into the light. Frye beheld his ruined face, then his brother’s. When Thach turned again to Bennett, his eyes were fierce. “What made you believe I would betray you? I fought for you. I nearly died, many times, for you. I brought Kieu Li to you. I led your men against my own people. What made you believe that I would not give up a woman to you?”

  “Christ, Lam, you’d been with the Viet Cong once. Our intelligence was leaking worse every week, and I knew you loved her. I saw the look in your eyes when you watched us. If you could have been me that night, you would have figured it exactly the way I did. What in hell else would I think, when you strap a heavy pack on her and tell her to open it with me? Why else would you be packing up to head north when I found you?”

  “You were afraid of me?”

  “You’re goddamned right I was.”

  Thach seemed to consider this. He finally turned to Li. “But, you. I gave you a path to follow, a channel for your passion. I let you see what was happening to our country. I treated you with respect. I protected you. I came to you in the marketplace of An Cat and walked you home at night. I loved you, and you saw it, too. Why did you ever believe I could betray you?”

  Li looked down. “Because, Lam, you were fierce, more fierce than anyone I knew. When I told you that I was going to an American soldier, it wasn’t hatred I saw, it was something quieter, something far worse. Your look connected with … with a part of what I was feeling. And your voice, when you tied that thing to my back. Not for a moment did I imagine that you would let me go to Bennett.”

  Frye watched as Li stood, wrists and ankles bound. She looked at Thach and held his gaze. “Deep in my heart, I didn’t want you to let me go. Deep in my heart, I felt that what I was doing was wrong. I loved you as I could never love an American. I told you that a hundred times! But didn’t you feel how impossible it all was? That was the war, Lam. There were only two sides. Some part of me wanted to stay with you, but parts of people can’t stay behind. And there was no room in my heart for that doubt, just as there was no room in yours for what I was doing. I was terrified, but I was happy that you would want to kill me. I … needed to believe it.”

  “Why?”

  Li breathed deeply. “Because it made me free of you.”

  Thach looked at her. “You were always so simple, Kieu Li. You still are.” He drew close to her again, bringing his face close to hers. “The truth is, that when I saw the love pass between you two, it sickened me. It still does.”

  Frye saw the slickness on the colonel’s face, the blotches of sweat that had soaked through his shirt. Thach’s breath was coming faster now. Frye saw one of the guards glance at the other. Then Thach reached out with his cane and poked Bennett’s chest. “In these last days, I have told Li the truth many times. But she would rather believe you. You have occupied her, Lieutenant, like your army occupied my country. You have kept her a child. I have helped reeducate thousands, and none has been so completely … shaped as Li. You should have much pride in her. And much shame.”

  Li struggled against her rope, glaring at Thach. “I’ve listened to my own heart since I was seventeen years old, Lam. You have only listened to others. You are the child, not I. You surrendered in your fight for freedom because you saw yourself as a man betrayed. What of our countrymen, Lam? What of those who fought on against the greater terrors that the Communists unleashed?”

  “Such words mean nothing to a man falling through space to his death.”

  Frye watched now as Colonel Thach hobbled back to his table and sat down. His breath was fast, exhaled from his twisted nose with a labored hiss. For a moment he seemed lost in his papers. “I have always wanted to bring these truths into the open. Those days are still very clear in my memory. In a sense, they matter little. What are intentions and beliefs? What are reasons and motives? They are things we attach later to our actions. Only the action matters. All else is convenient falsehood.”

  Bennett shifted in his chair. “How did you live through it, Lam?”

  Thach looked at him. “The mam grove was high. The water was deep because of monsoon. The fall was broken first by leaves, then branches, then the swamp. The Communists took me into the tunnel to die, but I lived. The darkness became my ally. When I woke and saw my new face, I knew that Lam had died. I hated that face. I knew I would stay in the tunnels so no one would see it. So I would never see it. And with a crippled leg I could still crawl, no slower than anyone else. All I knew for certain was that you had betrayed my trust the same way I knew your country would betray mine. My faith in America was my faith in you, Bennett.” Thach stopped and shook his head. “You are right, I was more foolish even than you, Lieu Li. And almost as innocent.”

  “So you turned.”

  Thach smiled again. Frye could see a grim pride showing in his eyes. “Communism. Democracy. We both know by now that they are only words. They are two fat old women, fighting over a bowl of rice. I turned to my race, Lieutenant, to my people. I turned to my mirror and asked how this had happened. I turned to myself.”

  “How did you do it? How did you get to this country?”

  “With much planning and waiting. With help from many comrades in your country. When I first heard the songs on your Secret Radio, I was almost certain it was Li. I found later that this ‘Voice of Freedom’ was married to an American. My suspicions were correct. Much planning, Lieutenant, much waiting.”

  “How long did Kim work for you?”

  “Four years. She has family in Vietnam. She was easy to use. The false intelligence she sent you from Vietnam was very effective. Look how easily you were fooled. I knew the people in Little Saigon would believe I was here. But you Americans would never believe it. I used your arrogance as a weapon against you. I used the tunnels under Saigon Plaza because they are my element. Kim supplied the words.”

  “And the Dark Men?”

  Thach stood slowly. “They asked no questions and wanted little money. They are frightened children.”

  “Why did you bring us here? Why the airstrip?”

  “With Xuan gone and your network crippled, it was a secure place. Nothing is so safe as an enemy camp with no enemy left. Before coming here, we held Li in Los Angeles. We have sympathetic friends there.”

  “You won, Colonel. You’ve slaughtered the resistance, haven’t you?”

  Thach shook his head. “I have one hundred and twelve people from your network. They will be tried for treason. Only one remains, and you are going to reveal his identity to us. We know he is highly placed in Hanoi, and we must move with caution. One of his code names is Nathan, is it not, Lieutenant? Nathan, who guides you to our positions, describes our strength, misinforms our leaders. Nathan, for your country’s first spy? Yes, I can see already that I am correct.”

  Thach’s breathing seemed to accelerate again. Frye watched the sweat run down his face. “Look at all I have accomplished. I have destroyed the resistance and the Voice of Freedom, I have removed the irritating Tuy Xuan. I have shown the people of Little Saigon how small and helpless they are. And I have you, Lieutenant.”

  Bennett bowed his head. A moment later he looked to the suitcases, then to Thach. “I brought your money. Take it, and let us go.”

  “Your money is a filthy thing, Lieutenant. I demanded it to satisfy my allies in this campaign. I have no need for it myself.”

  “Then we’re finished.”

  Thach picked up the pen and papers from his desk and brought them to Bennett. “Almost. What we discussed earlier is written here. Also, a statement that you are responsible for organizing a Secret Army in Vietnam
. That your government financed it. A list of the accomplishments of the army is included. The bridges they have destroyed, the factories they have sabotaged, the men and women they have assassinated. You will find the information to be accurate. Read it. Sign it.”

  “What for?”

  “For me, Lieutenant. And to satisfy my superiors. I cannot tell you how rewarding it has been to see you confess. It is something I will want to have with me forever. Even I am tired of hatred. I am almost finished. I kept you from Li for all these days so you would know what it is like to have your love taken away, so you could know how Huong felt. And also, to give me time to convince Li that she should come home with me, confess her betrayals, and work again for the good of her people. At this I may have failed. I knew it would be difficult. But I do have another plan for her, and for you, Lieutenant.”

  “Never,” Li spat out. “Never.”

  “I’m not going to sign that thing.”

  Thach seemed to know all along that Bennett would refuse, but for a moment, Frye thought he saw something like confusion on the colonel’s face. “Why? After all that happened, why did you continue to make war?”

  Bennett looked at Thach. “For the people I knew who fought and died for something they believed in. For Li. For myself. For Huong Lam, what do you think of that?”

  “And you, Li? For fifteen years you have continued to fight. Your Secret Army has brought death and destruction to the new republic. You fly from rich America to the jungles to deliver codes and instructions. I have photographs of you bearing arms over the mountains of Thailand into Kampuchea. I have watched your progress across our maps in the basement of the defense ministry, marching through the jungle with your pathetic little army. I have imagined the way you must hold the M-sixteen in your thin, beautiful arms. I have hours of tape on which you sing, then plead with my countrymen to join you. Why?”