“If I thought she’d be safer at home, I’d put her on that plane myself,” he said. “But I don’t think she will be safe. Not until she knows what she’s running from.”
“Surely she has friends to turn to.”
“But you yourself said it, Minister Tranh. She can’t tell her friends from her enemies. It’s a dangerous state to be in.”
The minister looked at Willy. “What is it you seek in the North?”
“It’s where my father’s plane went down,” she said. “He could still be alive, in some village. Maybe he’s lost his memory or he’s afraid to come out of the jungle or—”
“Or he is dead.”
She swallowed. “Then that’s where I’ll find his body. In the North.”
Minister Tranh shook his head. “The jungles are full of skeletons. Americans. Vietnamese. You forget, we have our MIAs too, Miss Maitland. Our widows, our orphans. Among all those bones, to find the remains of one particular man...” He let out a heavy breath.
“But I have to try. I have to go to Hanoi.”
Minister Tranh gazed at her, his eyes glowing with a strange black fire. She stared straight back at him. Slowly, a benign smile formed on his lips and she knew that she had won.
“Does nothing frighten you, Miss Maitland?” he asked.
“Many things frighten me.”
“And well they should.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were unfathomable. “I only hope you have the good sense to be frightened now.”
* * *
Long after the two Americans had left, Minister Tranh and Mr. Ainh sat smoking cigarettes and listening to the screech of the cicadas in the night.
“You will inform our people in Hanoi,” said the minister.
“But wouldn’t it be easier to cancel her visa?” said Ainh. “Force her to leave the country?”
“Easier, perhaps, but not wiser.” The minister lit another cigarette and inhaled a warm and satisfying breath of smoke. A good American brand. His one weakness. He knew it would only hasten his death, that the cancer now growing in his right lung would feed ravenously on each lethal molecule of smoke. How ironic that the very enemy that had worked so hard to kill him during the war would now claim victory, and all because of his fondness for their cigarettes.
“What if she comes to harm?” Ainh asked. “We would have an international incident.”
“That is why she must be protected.” The minister rose from his chair. The old body, once so spry, had grown stiff with the years. To think this dried-up carcass had fought two savage jungle wars. Now it could barely shuffle around the house.
“We could scare her into going home—arrange an incident to frighten her,” suggested Ainh.
“Like your Die Yankee note?” Minister Tranh laughed as he headed for the door. “No, I do not think she frightens easily, that one. Better to see where she leads us. Perhaps we, too, will learn a few secrets. Or have you lost your curiosity, Comrade?”
Ainh looked miserable. “I think curiosity is a dangerous thing.”
“So we let her make the moves, take the risks.” The minister glanced back, smiling, from the doorway. “After all,” he said. “It is her destiny.”
* * *
“You don’t have to go to Hanoi,” said Guy, watching Willy pack her suitcase. “You could stay in Saigon. Wait for me.”
“While you do what?”
“While I do the legwork up north. See what I can find.” He glanced out the window at the two police agents loitering in the walkway. “Ainh’s got you covered from all directions. You’ll be safe here.”
“I’ll also go nuts.” She snapped the suitcase shut. “Thanks for offering to stick your neck out for me, but I don’t need a hero.”
“I’m not trying to be a hero.”
“Then why’re you playing the part?”
He shrugged, unable to produce an answer.
“It’s the money, isn’t it? The bounty for Friar Tuck.”
“It’s not the money.”
“Then it’s that skeleton dancing around in your closet.” He didn’t answer. “What are you trying to hide? What’s the Ariel Group got on you, anyway?” He remained silent. She locked her suitcase. “Never mind. I don’t really want to know.”
He sat down on the bed. Looking utterly weary, he propped his head in his hands. “I killed a man,” he said.
She stared at him. Head in his hands, he looked ragged, spent, a man who’d used up his last reserves of strength. She had the unexpected impulse to sit beside him, to take him in her arms and hold him, but she couldn’t seem to move her feet. She was too stunned by his revelation.
“It happened here. In Nam. In 1972.” His laugh was muffled against his hands. “The Fourth of July.”
“There was a war going on. Lots of people got killed.”
“This was different. This wasn’t an act of war, where you shoot a few men and get a medal for your trouble.” He raised his head and looked at her. “The man I killed was American.”
Slowly she went over and sank down beside him on the bed. “Was it...a mistake?”
He shook his head. “No, not a mistake. It was something I did without thinking. Call it reflexes. It just happened.”
She said nothing, waiting for him to go on. She knew he would go on; there was no turning back now.
“I was in Da Nang for the day, to pick up supplies,” he said. “Got a little turned around and wound up on some side street. Just an alley, really, a dirt lane, few old hootches. I got out of the jeep to ask for directions, and I heard this—this screaming....”
He paused, looked down at his hands. “She was just a kid. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. A small girl, not more than ninety pounds. There was no way she could’ve fought him off. I—I just reacted. I didn’t really think about what I was doing, what I was going to do. I dragged him off her, shoved him on the ground. He got up and swung at me. I didn’t have a choice but to fight back. By the time I stopped hitting him, he wasn’t moving. I turned and saw what he’d done to the girl. All the blood...”
Guy rubbed his forehead, as though trying to erase the image. “By then there were other people there. I looked around, saw all these eyes watching me. Vietnamese. One of the women came up, whispered that I should leave, that they’d get rid of the body for me. That’s when I realized the man was dead.”
For a long time they sat side by side, not touching, not speaking. He’d just confessed to killing a man. Yet she couldn’t condemn him; she felt only a sense of sadness about the girl, about all the silent, nameless casualties of war.
“What happened then?” she asked gently.
He shrugged. “I left. I never said a word to anyone. I guess I was scared to. A few days later I heard they’d found a soldier’s body on the other side of town. His death was listed as an assault by unknown locals. And that was the end of it. I thought.”
“How did the Ariel Group find out?”
“I don’t know.” Restless, he rose and went to the window where he looked out at the dimly lit walkway. “There were half a dozen witnesses, all of them Vietnamese. Word must’ve gotten around. And somehow the Ariel Group got wind of it. What I don’t understand is why they waited this long.”
“Maybe they only just heard about it.”
“Or maybe they were waiting for the right chance to use it.” He turned to look at her. “Doesn’t it bother you, how we got thrown together? That we happened to meet in Kistner’s villa? That you happened to need a ride into town?”
“And that the man you’ve been asked to find just happens to be my father.”
He nodded.
“They’re using us,” she said. Then, with rising anger she added, “They’re using me.”
“Welcome to the club.”
She looked up. “What do we do about it?”
“In the morning I’ll
fly to Hanoi, start asking questions.”
“What about me?”
“You stay where Ainh can watch you.”
“Sounds like a lousy plan.”
“Have you got a better one?”
“Yes. I come with you.”
“You’ll only complicate things. If your father’s alive, I’ll find him.”
“And what happens when you do? Are you going to turn him in? Trade him for silence?”
“I’ve given up on silence,” Guy said quietly. “I’ll settle for answers now.”
She hauled her packed suitcase off the bed and set it down by the door. “Why am I arguing with you? I don’t need your permission. I don’t need any man’s permission. He’s my father. I know his face. His voice. After twenty years, I’m the one who’ll recognize him.”
“You’re also the one who could get killed. Or is that part of the fun, Junior, going for thrills? Hell.” He laughed. “It’s probably written in your genes. You’re as loony as your old man. He loved getting shot at, didn’t he? He was a thrill junkie, and you are, too. Admit it. You’re having the time of your life!”
“Look who’s talking.”
“I’m not in this for thrills. I’m in it because I had to be. Because I didn’t have a choice.”
“Neither of us has a choice!” She turned away, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. He was standing so close it made her neck ache to look up at him.
“Stay in Saigon,” he said.
“You must really want me out of the way.”
“I want you safe.”
“Why?”
“Because I—You—” He stopped. They were staring at each other, both of them breathing so hard neither of them could speak. Without another word he hauled her into his arms.
It was just a kiss, but it hit her with such hurricane force that her legs seemed to wobble away into oblivion. He was all rough edges—stubbled jaw and callused hands and frayed shirt. Automatically, she reached up and her arms closed behind his neck, pulling him hard against her mouth. He needed no encouragement. As his body pressed into hers, those dream images reignited in her head: the swaying deck of a ship, the night sky, Guy’s face hovering above hers. If she let it, it would happen here, now. Already he was nudging her toward the bed, and she knew that if they fell across that mattress, he’d take her and she’d let him, and that was that. Never mind what made sense, what was good for her. She wanted him.
Even if it’s the worst mistake I’ll ever make in my life?
The thump of her legs against the side of the bed jarred her back to reality. She twisted away, pushed him to arm’s length.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” she said.
“I think it was.”
“We got our wires crossed and—”
“No,” he said softly. “I’d say our wires connected just fine.”
She crossed to the door and yanked it open. “I think you should get out.”
“I’m not going.”
“You’re not staying.”
But his stance, feet planted like tree roots, told her he most certainly was staying. “Have you forgotten? Someone wants you dead.”
“But you’re the one who’s threatening me.”
“It was just a kiss. Has it been that long, Willy? Does it shake you up that much, just being kissed?”
Yes it does! she wanted to scream. It shakes me up because I’ve never been kissed that way before!
“I’m staying tonight,” he said quietly. “You need me. And, I admit it, I need you. You’re my link to Bill Maitland. I won’t touch you, if that’s what you want. But I won’t leave, either.”
She had to concede defeat. Nothing she could do or say would make him budge. She let the door swing shut. Then she went to the bed and sat down. “God, I’m tired,” she said. “Too tired to fight you. I’m even too tired to be afraid.”
“And that’s when things get dangerous. When all the adrenaline’s used up. When you’re too exhausted to think straight.”
“I give up.” She collapsed onto the bed, feeling as if every bone in her body had suddenly dissolved. “I don’t care what happens anymore. I just want to go to sleep.”
He didn’t have to say anything; they both knew the debate was over and she’d lost. The truth was, she was glad he was there. It felt so good to close her eyes, to have someone watching over her. She realized how muddled her thinking had become, that she now considered a man like Guy Barnard safe.
But safe was what she felt.
Standing by the bed, Guy watched her fall asleep. She looked so fragile, stretched out on the bedcovers like a paper doll.
She hadn’t felt like paper in his arms. She’d been real flesh and blood, warm and soft, all the woman he could ever want. He wasn’t sure just what he felt toward her. Some of it was good old-fashioned lust. But there was something more, a primitive male instinct that made him want to carry her off to a place where no one could hurt her.
He turned and looked out the window. The two police agents were still loitering near the stairwell; he could see their cigarettes glowing in the darkness. He only hoped they did their job tonight, because he had already crossed his threshold of exhaustion.
He sat down in a chair and tried to sleep.
Twenty minutes later, his whole body crying out for rest, he gave up and went to the bed. Willy didn’t stir. What the hell, he thought, She’ll never notice. He stretched out beside her. The shifting mattress seemed to rouse her; she moaned and turned toward him, curling up like a kitten against his chest. The sweet scent of her hair made him feel like a drunken man. Dangerous, dangerous.
He’d been better off in the chair.
But he couldn’t pull away now. So he lay there holding her, thinking about what came next.
They now had a name, a tentative contact, up north: Nora Walker, the British Red Cross nurse. Lassiter had said she worked in the local hospital. Guy only hoped she’d talk to them, that she wouldn’t think this was just another Company trick and clam up. Having Willy along might make all the difference. After all, Bill Maitland’s daughter had a right to be asking questions. Nora Walker just might decide to provide the answers.
Willy sighed and nestled closer to his chest. That brought a smile to his face. You crazy dame, he thought, and kissed the top of her head. You crazy, crazy dame. He buried his face in her hair.
So it was decided. For better or worse, he was stuck with her.
Chapter 9
The flight attendant walked up the aisle of the twin-engine Ilyushin and waved halfheartedly at the flies swarming around her head. Puffs of cold mist rose from the air-conditioning vents and swirled in the cabin; the woman seemed to be floating in clouds. Through the fog, Willy could barely read the emergency sign posted over the exit: Escape Rope. Now there was a safety feature to write home about. She had visions of the plane soaring through blue sky, trailing passengers on a ten thousand-foot rope.
A bundle of taffy landed in her lap, courtesy of the jaded attendant. “You will fasten your seat belt,” came the no-nonsense request.
“I’m already buckled in,” said Willy. Then she realized the woman was speaking to Guy. Willy nudged him. “Guy, your seat belt.”
“What? Oh, yeah.” He buckled the belt and managed a tight smile.
That’s when she noticed he was clenching the armrest. She touched his hand. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“It’s an old problem. Nothing, really...” He stared out the window and swallowed hard.
She couldn’t help herself; she burst out laughing. “Guy Barnard, don’t tell me you’re afraid of flying?”
The plane lurched forward and began bumping along the tarmac. A stream of Vietnamese crackled over the speaker system,
followed by Russian and then very fractured English.
“Look,” he protested, “some guys have a thing about heights or closed spaces or snakes. I happen to have a phobia about planes. Ever since the war.”
“Did something happen on your tour?”
“End of my tour.” He stared at the ceiling and laughed. “There’s the irony. I make it through Nam alive. Then I board that big beautiful freedom bird. That’s how I met Toby Wolff. He was sitting right next to me. We were both high, cracking jokes as we taxied up the runway. Going home.” He shook his head. “We were two of the lucky ones. Sitting in the last row of seats. The tail broke off on impact....”
She took his hand. “You don’t have to talk about it, Guy.”
He looked at her in obvious admiration. “You’re not in the least bit nervous, are you?”
“No. I’ve been in planes all my life. I’ve always felt at home.”
“Must be something you inherited from your old man. Pilot’s genes.”
“Not just genes. Statistics.”
The Ilyushin’s engines screamed to life. The cabin shuddered as they made their take-off roll down the runway. The ground suddenly fell away, and the plane wobbled into the sky.
“I happen to know flying is a perfectly safe way to travel,” she added.
“Safe?” Guy yelled over the engines’ roar. “Obviously, you’ve never flown Air Vietnam!”
* * *
In Hanoi, they were met by a Vietnamese escort known only as Miss Hu, beautiful, unsmiling and cadre to the core. Her greeting was all business, her handshake strictly government issue. Unlike Mr. Ainh, who’d been a fountain of good-humored chatter, Miss Hu obviously believed in silence. And the Revolution. Only once on the drive into the city did the woman offer a voluntary remark. Directing their attention to the twisted remains of a bridge, she said, “You see the damage? American bombs.” That was it for small talk. Willy stared at the woman’s rigid shoulders and realized that, for some people on both sides, the war would never be over.
She was so annoyed by Miss Hu’s comment that she didn’t notice Guy’s preoccupied look. Only when she saw him glance for the third time out the back window did she realize what he was focusing on: a Mercedes with darkly tinted windows was trailing right behind them. She and Guy exchanged glances.
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