Up Country pb-2

by Nelson DeMille

  “I am. A United States Army captain pulls his pistol and shoots a United States Army lieutenant in the forehead. This is presumably a fatal wound. This happened in the heat of battle nearly thirty years ago. But let me play defense counsel — maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe it was one of those unfortunate instances where a superior officer shot a lower-ranking officer for cowardice in the face of the enemy. It happens, and it’s not necessarily murder, or even illegal. Maybe it was self-defense, or an accident. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” I added, “But of course, you have a witness. So I shouldn’t speculate.”

  We turned and began walking back toward the Wall. The light was fading, people came and went, a middle-aged man placed a floral wreath at the base of the black granite and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.

  Hellmann watched the man a moment, then said, “Yes, there was a witness. And the witness described a cold-blooded murder.”

  “And this is a reliable witness?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who and where is this witness?”

  “We don’t know where he is, but we have his name.”

  “And you want me to find him.”

  “Correct.”

  “How did you first hear from this witness?”

  “He wrote a letter.”

  “I see… so, you have a missing witness to a thirty-year-old murder, no suspect, no corpse, no murder weapon, no motive, no forensic evidence, and the murder took place in a godforsaken country very far from here. And you want me to solve this homicide.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Sounds easy. Can I ask you why? Who cares after thirty years?”

  “I care. The army cares. A murder was committed. There is no statute of limitations on murder.”

  “Right. You realize that this lieutenant who was killed, or is missing, is believed by his family to have died honorably in battle. So what is gained by proving that he was murdered? Don’t you think his family has suffered enough?” I nodded toward the man at the Wall.

  “That is not a consideration,” said Karl Hellmann, true to form.

  “It is to me,” I informed him.

  “It’s not that you think too much, Paul, it’s that you think of the wrong things.”

  “No, I don’t. I think that there is a name on this wall that is best left alone.”

  “There’s a murderer at large.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. For all we know, the alleged murderer was later killed in action. That was a nasty time, and odds are that this captain got killed in battle.”

  “Then his name doesn’t belong on this wall with those men who died honorably.”

  “I knew you’d say that.”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  “I think we worked together too long.”

  “We worked well together.”

  This was news to me. Maybe he meant we got the job done together, which was true, despite our big differences in personalities, and the fact that one of us was a stickler for rules, while the other was definitely not.

  We walked away from the Vietnam Women’s Memorial and stopped at the three bronze male statues: two white guys and a black guy, who were supposed to represent a marine, an army guy, and a sailor, but they were all dressed in jungle fatigues, so it was hard to tell. They were staring at the Wall, as if they were contemplating the names of the dead, but in a creepy sort of way, these guys looked dead themselves.

  Karl turned toward the wall and said, “At first, I didn’t like that Wall. I preferred these heroic bronze statues because the Wall, for all its abstractness and metaphorical nuances, was in reality just a massive tombstone, a common grave with everyone’s name on it. That’s what disturbed me. Then… then I accepted it. What do you think?”

  “I think we have to accept it for what it is. A tombstone.”

  “Do you ever feel survivor’s guilt?”

  “I might have, if I hadn’t been there. Can we change the subject?”

  “No. You once told me that you bear no ill will toward the men who didn’t serve. Is that true?”

  “It’s still true. Why?”

  “You said you were more angry at the men who did go to Vietnam, but who didn’t do their job — men who let the others down, men who engaged in dishonorable acts, such as rape and robbery. Men who carelessly killed civilians. Is that still true?”

  “Finish the briefing.”

  “Yes. So, we have this captain, who most likely murdered a junior officer. I want to know the name of this captain and the name of the murdered lieutenant.”

  I noticed that the obvious question of why — the motive — hadn’t specifically come up. Maybe, as with most cases of murder in wartime, the motive was petty, illogical, and unimportant. But maybe it was the central reason for digging up a thirty-year-old crime. And if it was, and if Karl wasn’t mentioning it, then I wasn’t going to mention it. I stuck to the facts at hand and said, “All right, if you want some reality checks, consider that this captain — this alleged murderer — if he didn’t die in combat could be dead of natural causes by now. It’s been thirty years.”

  “I’m alive. You’re alive. We have to find out if he’s alive.”

  “Okay. How about the witness? Do we know if he’s alive?”

  “No, we don’t. But if he’s not, we want to know that, too.”

  “When is the last time this witness showed signs of life?”

  “Eight February 1968. That’s the date on the letter.”

  “I know the army post office is slow, but this is a record.”

  “In fact, the witness was not an American soldier. He was a soldier in the North Vietnamese army, named Tran Van Vinh. He was wounded during the battle of Quang Tri City, and was in hiding among the ruins. He witnessed these two Americans arguing and witnessed the captain pulling his pistol and shooting the lieutenant. In his letter, which he wrote to his brother, he referred to the murderer as dai-uy — captain — and the murder victim as trung-uy — lieutenant.”

  “There were some marines around Quang Tri at that time. Maybe this is not a case for the army.”

  Hellmann replied, “Tran Van Vinh, in his letter, mentioned that these two men were ky-binh — cavalry. So obviously he saw their U.S. Army First Cavalry shoulder patches, which he knew.”

  I pointed out, “The First Cavalry Division, of which I was a member, had over twenty thousand men in it.”

  “That’s correct. But it does narrow it down.”

  I thought about all this for a moment, then asked Karl, “And you have this letter?”

  “Of course. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Right. And the letter was addressed to this guy’s brother. How did you get it?”

  “In a very interesting way. The brother was also a North Vietnamese soldier, named Tran Quan Lee. The letter was found on Tran Quan Lee’s body in the A Shau Valley in mid-May of the same year by an American soldier named Victor Ort, who took it as a souvenir. The letter was sent home by Ort and lay in this man’s steamer trunk full of other war memorabilia for almost thirty years. Very recently, Ort sent the letter to the Vietnam Veterans of America, based here in Washington. This organization asks its members to return found and captured enemy documents and artifacts, and to provide information that these veterans might have concerning enemy dead. This information is then turned over to the Vietnamese government in Hanoi to help the Vietnamese discover the fate of their missing soldiers.”

  “Why?”

  “They are no longer the enemy. They have McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Saigon. In any case, we want them to help us find our missing in action. We still have about two thousand MIAs unaccounted for. They have an astounding three hundred thousand missing.”

  “I think they’re all in San Diego.”

  “No, they’re all dead. Including Tran Quan Lee, killed in the A Shau Valley, possibly by Mr. Ort, though he was vague about that.” Hellmann continued, “So, this American veteran, Victor Ort, sent
the letter he found on the body of Tran Quan Lee to the Vietnam Veterans of America, with a note saying how, where, and when he found the letter and the body. The VVA, as a courtesy to the men who are sending such letters, had the letter translated, and was about to send the translation to Mr. Ort, but someone at the VVA — a retired army officer — read the translation and realized that what he was reading was an eyewitness account to a murder. This man then contacted us. A civilian would have contacted the FBI.”

  “It was our lucky day. And did anyone send the translation to Mr. Ort?”

  “Mr. Ort was sent a translation of a love letter, and a note of thanks.”

  “Right. And you have the original of this letter?”

  “Yes, and we’ve had it authenticated regarding paper and ink, and we’ve had three different translators work on it. They all came up with nearly the same wording. There’s no mistaking that what Tran Van Vinh is describing to his brother, Tran Quan Lee, is a murder. It’s a very compelling and disturbing letter.” He added, “I’ll show you a translated copy of it, of course.”

  “Do I need it?”

  Hellmann replied, “There’s not much in the way of clues in the letter other than what I told you, but it might motivate you.”

  “To do what?”

  “To find the author of the letter. Tran Van Vinh.”

  “And what are the chances of Tran Van Vinh being alive? I mean, really, Karl, that whole generation of Vietnamese was nearly wiped out.”

  “Nearly is the operative word.”

  “Not to mention a short natural life expectancy.”

  “We have to try to find this witness, Sergeant Tran Van Vinh.” Hellmann added, “Unfortunately, there are only about three hundred family names in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese population is about eighty million.”

  “So the phone book won’t be much help.”

  “There are no phone books. But we’re lucky this man’s family name wasn’t Nguyen. Half the Vietnamese family names are Nguyen. Fortunately, the family name Tran is not as common, and the middle and first names of Van Vinh and Quan Lee narrow it down.”

  “Do you have a hometown and date of birth?”

  “No date of birth, but an approximate age, of course — our age group. The envelope was addressed to the brother via an army unit designation, and also on the envelope was Tran Van Vinh’s return army address. We know from these addresses that these two men were in the North Vietnamese army, not the local South Vietnamese Viet Cong, so they’re northerners. In fact, in the letter there is a mention of their village or hamlet, a place called Tam Ki, but we find no such village on any of our maps of Vietnam, North or South. This is not unusual, as you might remember — the locals often referred to their hamlets or villages by one name, and the official maps had another for the same place. But we’re working on that. The village of Tam Ki will be an important clue in finding this man, Tran Van Vinh.”

  “And if you find him? What’s he going to tell you that he hasn’t already put in the letter?”

  “He could possibly identify the murderer from old army ID photos.”

  “After thirty years?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “So, you have suspects?”

  “Not at the moment. But we’re going through army records now, trying to discover the names of all First Cavalry Division United States Army captains who were in or near the city of Quang Tri on or about 7 February 1968. Also, of course, we’re looking at the First Cav lieutenants who were killed or missing in action at the same time and place. That’s all we have — two ranks, a captain and a lieutenant, their division, the First Cav, a place, Quang Tri City, and the date of 7 February 1968, the actual date of the murder that was described in the letter written the following day.”

  Karl and I walked away from the statues, and I thought about all of this. I saw where this was going, but I didn’t want to go there.

  Karl continued, “We can narrow this down and come up with a list of possible suspects based on army records. Then, we will ask the FBI to question these former captains if they are civilians, and we will question any who are still in the army. At the same time, we will be looking for the only witness to this homicide. It sounds like a long shot, Paul, but crimes have been solved with even less to go on, as you well know.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to go to Vietnam, Paul.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Karl. Been there, done that. Got the medals to prove it.”

  “Vietnam in January is actually quite pleasant, weatherwise.”

  “So is Aruba. That’s where I’m headed next week,” I lied.

  “A return trip might do you some good.”

  “I don’t think so. The place sucked then, it sucks now.”

  “Veterans who’ve returned report a cathartic experience.”

  “It’s a totalitarian Commie police state with two hundred thousand tons of unexploded mines, booby traps, and artillery shells buried all over, waiting to blow me up.”

  “Well, you need to be careful.”

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “Of course not. The place sucks.”

  I laughed. “Colonel, with all due respect, you can take this case and shove it up someone else’s butt.”

  “Listen to me, Paul — we cannot send an active duty man to Vietnam. This is… well, an unofficial investigation. You’ll go over as a tourist, a returning veteran, like thousands of other men—”

  “You mean I wouldn’t have any official status or diplomatic immunity?”

  “We would come to your aid, if you got into trouble.”

  I asked, “What kind of aid? Like smuggling poison into my cell?”

  “No, like having an embassy person visit you if you were detained, plus, of course, we’d lodge an official protest.”

  “That’s very reassuring, but I don’t think I want to see the inside of a Communist prison, Karl. I have two friends who spent a lot of years in the Hanoi Hilton. They didn’t like it.”

  “If you ran afoul of the authorities, they’d just kick you out.”

  “Can I tell them you said that?”

  Hellmann didn’t reply.

  I thought a moment and said, “I’m assuming that the Vietnam Veterans of America has sent the original of this letter to Hanoi as part of their humanitarian program to help the North Vietnamese learn the fate of their dead and missing. Therefore, Hanoi will locate the family of the deceased Tran Quan Lee, and they will know if his brother, Tran Van Vinh, is alive and where he is. Correct? So, why don’t you go through normal diplomatic channels, and let the Hanoi government do what it does best — keep track of its miserable citizens.”

  Hellmann informed me, “Actually, we’ve asked the VVA not to send that letter to Hanoi.”

  I knew that, but I asked, “Why?”

  “Well… There are a number of reasons we thought it best that Hanoi didn’t see the letter at this time.”

  “Give me one of those reasons.”

  “The less they know, the better. The same is true for you.”

  We made eye contact, and I realized that there was more to this than a thirty-year-old murder. There had to be, or none of this would make any sense. But I didn’t ask anything further. I said, “Okay, I’ve heard too much already. Thanks for your confidence in me, but no thanks.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Don’t try that on me, Karl. I’ve put my life on the line for this country many times. But this is not worth my life, or anyone’s life. It’s history. Let it be.”

  “It’s a matter of justice.”

  “This has nothing to do with justice. It’s something else, and since I don’t know what it is, I’m not putting my ass into Vietnam for a reason that no one’s telling me. The last two times I was there, I knew why.”

  “We thought we knew why. They lied to us. No one’s lying to you this time. We’re just not telling you why. But trust me that this is very important.” />
  “That’s what they said then, too.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  The sun had almost set, and a cold wind was starting to blow. We were nearly alone, and both of us stood silently with our thoughts. Finally, Karl Hellmann said in a soft voice, “It is twilight. The shadows are long.” He looked at me. “The shadows stretch from there to here, Paul. That’s all I can tell you.”

  I didn’t reply.

  A man appeared dressed in an old fatigue jacket, wearing a bush hat. He was about our age, but looked older because of a full gray beard. He put a bugle to his lips and played taps. As the last mournful note died away in the wind, the man faced the Wall, saluted, and moved off.

  Karl and I lingered a moment longer, then Hellmann said, “All right, I understand. It could be a bit risky, and middle-aged men don’t risk their lives for something that could be foolish or useless. To tell you the truth, this man Tran Van Vinh is most likely dead, or even if he were alive, he probably wouldn’t be helpful. Come on, let me buy you a drink. There’s that place you like on Twenty-third Street.”

  We walked in silence through the Mall, and Hellmann asked, “May I at least show you the letter?”

  “Which one do I see? The love letter or the real one?”

  “The translation of Tran Van Vinh’s letter.”

  “A true and complete translation?”

  Karl didn’t reply.

  I said to him, “Give me the original letter in Vietnamese, and I’ll have it translated.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  I smiled. “So, there’s something in the letter that is not for my eyes. But you want my help, and you’re holding a lot back.”

  “It’s for your own good. Whatever I’m not telling you is irrelevant to the mission of finding Tran Van Vinh.”

  “It’s relevant to something, or you wouldn’t be so cloak-and-dagger about it.”

  Karl said nothing.

  I asked, “How long ago did you get this letter from the VVA?”

  “Two days ago.”