“What, Sergeant?” Alexander said. “Don’t be shy. Say anything. We’re in this together.”
Diffidently, Mercer said, “I just wanted to say, sir, Ant was full of stories about you at war. How you escaped from Colditz. I think the entire SOG ground studies group in all three command controls knows your Colditz escape story.”
Smiling a little, Alexander nodded, allowing himself to be pleased with his boy.
“Tell me, sir, is it true?” said Mercer, his breath bated, “did you really scale down ninety feet of wall and cliff in sixty seconds in the dark?”
Alexander laughed lightly. “No, I think the last forty-five feet we scaled after the sixty seconds were up.”
“But no one escapes from Colditz, that’s what we heard.”
“Well, no, some escape. They’re just all caught later.” Alexander paused. “Like I was caught.” He lowered his head, feeling a singe of himself sitting on the frozen February ground with Tatiana’s dead brother in his arms, waiting for the German guards to come and catch him. His mouth twisted as he looked away from Mercer. Not all of it was just stories.
“But what about the Gulag camp? Didn’t you get yourself and your wife to Berlin with a Soviet army following you?”
“I did,” said Alexander, “and you know what, gentlemen? The Soviets themselves may have a hard time letting go of that last one, which could be the reason we’re all here. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He moved away to sit next to Ha Si who mercifully didn’t ask him any questions.
Alexander spent a long time cleaning and inspecting his weapons.
The day ticked slowly by.
They had to decide right away, did they go in first thing the next morning? Ha Si wanted to wait another day. Richter growled, Alexander growled. But the ungrowling Ha Si maintained that unless they had an indication from Moon Lai of a punctual morning pattern, they were dooming themselves to failure, and with odds already so long, Ha Si thought they should do everything to make them a little shorter. Richter and Alexander grudgingly agreed, and so they waited out the rest of the tortuous day and another awake and active Martian night, during which the Vietnamese men came and went as if at a Saturday bazaar in New York City, a bazaar with Soviet-made helicopters coming and going, dropping off armies and supplies.
It settled down finally, and then promptly at eight in the morning, Moon Lai emerged from her hut and started to her destination. Ha Si, not even looking at her anymore but only at his watch, said he was satisfied. Alexander said, “What, now that you know she is as punctual as a German, you feel better?” He smiled.
“I do not understand what you are talking about, Major Barrington,” Ha Si said seriously. “I do not know any Germans. But yes. I feel better. Tomorrow morning, we go in when the guards are asleep. I will help them sleep. They will remain knocked out half the day.”
“Let me shoot them, Ha Si,” said Alexander, lifting his rifle. “They’ll be knocked out a little longer than that.”
“As you wish, sir.” Ha Si smiled. “The girl goes inside the hut, we go in behind her. A word of warning—we are probably going to have to go down into the tunnels. Down there better not to shoot, better to use the knives, but if we shoot, we shoot only with our silenced Rugers. The sound of a charge going off is like an explosion.”
Richter refused to let Alexander go with Ha Si to capture Moon Lai. “That’s an order. That’s final. No. We have nine other guys who can go. You’re not going. One of the Yards will go. They’re still like death.”
Alexander was barely listening to Richter, as he was getting his ammunition ready. “Colonel,” he said, “I’m also still like death.”
“You haven’t stopped pacing for five days!” exclaimed Richter. “You can’t sit for five minutes without a cigarette. I said no.”
“And yet,” said Alexander, “I managed to survive six days with six men in one foxhole. And months in the woods. And in a cell in isolation for eight months. I’ll be fine.”
“That was twenty years ago! And in the meantime, sneaking up and scaring your mouse of a wife half to death on Halloween does not count as honing your recon moves.”
“Anthony told you that?” said Alexander, disgusted.
“I don’t think that boy can keep his mouth shut about anything,” said Richter, staring at Alexander in a peculiar way that made Alexander look away.
Elkins said, “Let him go, Colonel. Mercer, Tojo and I will have his back from the trench. Ha Si will send us a sign if he is in trouble and needs help.”
“What fucking trench?” Richter said, nearly yelling.
“The trench we’re going to dig as soon as we get permission to dig one, sir.”
Richer gave permission for Elkins and Mercer to go dig a trench directly across from Moon Lai’s hooch, and then took Ha Si aside. Glancing over at Alexander, Richter said, “Promise me you’ll watch his back.” He paused, and added quieter, “the way you watched his son’s back.”
“Will do, Colonel,” said Ha Si. “But hopefully better than I watched over his son. The boy is missing.”
“You see how wired he is?” said Richter. “He’s thinking only of his son. He’s going to get reckless. All right? Take Tojo with you. He can help you.”
Shaking his head, Ha Si said, “Three is too much. And Tojo is a Sumo. He is very good in a fight, but we want no noise. Major Barrington is almost as quiet as I am.” That was the highest compliment Ha Si could pay.
They waited out the rest of the night hidden in the grasses and the rocks. They slept briefly and badly, from anticipation of the morning, and from fear that snakes would come out, smelling food and men. Alexander kept watch with Ha Si and Elkins. Then he went and sat by Richter. Nobody could sleep, even though they had to, even though they had been ordered to. Alexander thought his own freefalling anxiety was enough to keep all of Saigon awake.
“Don’t worry about the men, Alexander,” Richter said. “You worry about nothing but yourself, do you hear me, about nothing but yourself, and you regret nothing. This is Ant’s team. He’s their commander. They will go into the fire for him. The Yards, too.” Richter paused. “Ha Si especially.” When Alexander gave him a quizzical look, Richter nodded. “Ha Si was close to your Anthony. I’m almost surprised Ha Si didn’t know about Moon Lai.” After too long and heavy a pause he added, “This business with Moon Lai is nasty. I feel it.”
“You should worry less, Tom.” Alexander was worrying plenty for the twelve of them.
Richter shrugged. “Can’t help it. What if they have more of our guys? Then what do we do? They’re so well situated here.”
“They’re fucking idiots,” said Alexander. “What kind of fighter builds his base in a hole in a valley surrounded by high ground, where an attacking force can entrench on top of a hill and with hardly any men grease them one at a time? Tom, you know this better than anyone— you who nearly single-handedly flattened North Korea until there wasn’t a building standing, you who firebombed them into submission—if only we had invaded North Vietnam proper, the war would be long over and we wouldn’t be in this predicament now.”
“Let’s try to find Ant first, all right?”
Alexander smiled, palming and smelling his cigarettes. “All I’m saying is he who controls the highlands controls everything.”
“Don’t forget to radio me every five minutes, Major Control,” said Richter, “give me a heads-up.”
“I don’t even have to call my wife every five minutes,” said Alexander.
“If shit starts flying, you radio me instantly, I won’t care how much noise our chopper makes; it’s coming in, and we evacuate. You have to get up the mountain and just one klick in, to that little clearing. Ten minutes, so we just have to pray we can outrun them.”
“We will outrun them.”
“Thing is, soldier,” said Richter, “you can’t run forward and shoot backward at the same time.”
“Watch me.”
“One klick, Alexander.”
Alexander studied Richter. “Tom, what’s the matter?”
Richter shook his head. “They have some heavy shit down there. The place is lousy with Sappers.” Sappers were NVA demolition commandos. “Vikki is already so upset with me for losing Ant in the first place. I keep telling her I didn’t do it on purpose.” He coughed. “I’ll feel better if we find him. But if things go south, I can only take so much grief.”
“And then a little bit more,” said Alexander.
They sat. Richter asked, “You lived like this for ten years. You miss the mad minute?” He smiled. “Do you keep hearing the far drums beating the long roll? Our Supreme Allied Commander MacArthur heard them all his life.”
“And not just him,” Alexander said, smiling at Richter’s sheepish expression before admitting, “I do miss the good men. Occasionally the idle bullshit. And I don’t mind the weapons.” He nodded sheepishly himself. “But...as for the rest of it, you won’t believe it, but I hate to be wet, hate to be filthy, hate to bleed, hate to lose my guys, and I quite like my wife.”
Richter smiled in assent, was thoughtful. “I liked my wife, too,” he said, pausing. “Still do a little bit.”
Alexander was not looking at Richter.
“I can’t defend myself, Alexander. This here is my life. Once it mattered to Vikki, but now she is very much over me.” He sighed. “It’s funny, but the older I get, the more I wish she weren’t quite as... over me.” He struggled with something. “I’m not explaining well.”
“Don’t need to explain anything, man. Really. Not a thing.”
“God! Whenever I think of her now, the thing I come back to is that first time I saw her, back in 1948. She had come to DC to meet you guys; she was disheveled and harried, running to Tania and Anthony. Her black hair was flying, she was crying, and she was scooping up your boy into the air, suffocating him with her arms and her loud kisses. I think that’s when I fell in love with her—right then and there, watching her love on him.” An anguished cry left Richter’s chest. “She was so . . . emotional and Italian. Apassionata. I liked that. I needed that.” He broke off for a long while. “We were so strong once, but now it’s just for show,” he said quietly. “I do what I want. She does what she wants.” He hung his head. “Not really a marriage, is it?”
“No,” said Alexander. “Not really.”
“Yes,” Richter whispered, “but I know that when I cross the river, the last breath on my lips won’t be the Corps and it won’t be this.”
Alexander lowered his head in his mute, conflicted compassion.
“Everything good with you and Tania?” Richter asked much later when they were still reluctantly tensely awake.
“Yes, man,” said Alexander, staring below into the black valley with the little green men like Martians, invading earth. “Everything is what it’s always been.”
“That’s good,” Richter said. “That’s very good.”
They fell asleep eventually, against the rocks, next to each other.
Then it was dawn. At seven in the unseasonably warm and cloudless morning, Ha Si and Alexander, armed, helmeted, ready, moved down the hill single file, with Elkins, Mercer and Tojo behind them. Richter and his six Yards had spread out and hid at the top of the hill amid the boulders, setting up their M-60 machine gun on a tripod. Ten 100-round bandoliers lay close, plus two extra barrels when the grease gun started smoking from the heat. Despite all their precautions, the white men couldn’t help it: they were all nervous about a high-stakes mission without the cover of night. On the plus side, the crisp morning was dazzling and visibility was good.
From slightly above, Ha Si shot his opium darts one by one into the backs or shoulders or necks of the sleeping guards. Whoosh—and then he moved through the elephant grass to the next one. Whoosh. Behind him, Alexander went up to the guards and emptied their AK47s, throwing the banana clips to Elkins and Mercer in the trench. He left the weapons with the slumped-over guards because he didn’t know how observant Moon Lai was. They jumped into the trench to hide until she came.
At eight, Moon Lai slowly walked down the path with clean bandages and came to the last hut barely thirty feet away from the troops. Opening the door, she disappeared inside. As soon as she was in, Alexander and Ha Si, silent like tigers, made their way to the hooch. They stood, stood, and then flung open the door and in one movement were through.
Inside was empty—a grassy space, perhaps twelve feet square, and no Moon Lai. Ha Si pointed to the secret trap door in the ground. Had they not known to look for it, they never would have seen it. The huts were decoys, empty of life.
Ha Si pulled the grass hatch open slightly to see which way it hinged. Turned out, it just lay on top like a manhole cover. The ladder faced away from the back wall of the hut and that’s where Alexander and Ha Si planted so that Moon Lai’s back would be to them when she ascended the ladder.
Twenty unbearable mute minutes crawled by. It was damp and fluid and sticky in the hooch, it was stifling and sweaty. Though Alexander listened, there was no noise from below. “Are you a Buddhist, Ha Si? An animist?” he whispered, pulling up and kissing his cross.
“No,” Ha Si replied, kissing his own cross. “I’m a good Catholic boy like you and your son, Major Barrington.”
A slight creaking of the ladder alerted them. They both crouched, got ready, barely breathing. The manhole cover was lifted by a small, crippled hand. She struggled, having a hard time pulling herself and her belly up onto the straw floor. Her back was to them. Alexander smelled the sulfur of medicine, he smelled the salt of blood, he saw the empty opium vials she put on the ground next to the bloodied rags. Whoever she was taking care of was not only hurt but in pain.
Alexander and Ha Si waited two more seconds.
She was barely out and still on her haunches when Alexander, not giving her a chance to stand or to see them in the peripheral vision of her eye, sprang on her, knocking her down on the ground, his arm over her arms, his hand over her mouth. Instantly Ha Si pulled the manhole cover closed so no one could hear them from below. Holding her very tightly, Alexander leaned to her ear and whispered, “Where is Anthony?”
The woman went into convulsions in her struggle against him. She tried to scream, to turn her head, he had to hold her so firmly it must have hurt her, but she fought anyway and flailed her legs until Ha Si grabbed hold of them, while Alexander gripped her around her chest with one arm, keeping the other over her mouth. She tried to bite him. He had to snap her jaws shut. Turning her head to him so she could see his grim face, he said, “Stop moving. Stop fighting.” He gave her head a yank. Since he didn’t think she understood him, he jerked her head again to get her to stop her frenzy. A stick-on bandage covered one eye, but her other, seeing eye, very near his face, was black and round with—what was that? Strangely, it didn’t look like fear. Despite the pressure on her neck, she kept trying to bite him, kept shaking her head, kept trying to free herself from him.
“Dâu lá Anthony?” Ha Si said in Vietnamese, while tying her feet together with rope. “Où est Anthony?” he asked in French.
She kept shaking her head in Alexander’s hands. Shaking or trying to free herself?
“Where is Anthony?” Alexander asked in English. “Gde Anthony?” he whispered in Russian. She blinked. She blinked at Russian?
Alexander couldn’t let go of her mouth until he was sure she wouldn’t scream, because if she screamed they’d have to kill her and run, and their op would be finished before it began, and they still would know nothing about Anthony. “Should we take her into the trench?” Alexander asked Ha Si, panting.
She groaned, shaking her head against his hand.
Alexander looked down at her. “She understands me?”
She nodded. Recognition was in her eye. She was looking at him as if she knew him.
“Are you going to scream?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“You speak English?”
She nodded, but he couldn’t trust
her. What if she screamed? One of her hands had gotten loose from Alexander, and she reached over and grabbed the dirty bandage lying on the ground and waved it up and down—like a white flag.
After exchanging a look with Alexander, Ha Si pulled out his SOG knife and stuck it into Moon Lai’s neck. “Listen to me,” he said. “He will let go of your mouth, but if you utter one sound above a whisper, the knife is going into your throat, do you understand?”
She nodded. Alexander still held her head in a twist. “Even before he gets to you with his knife,” he said, “I’m going to break your fucking neck if you raise your voice. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“Do you know where Anthony is?”
She shook her head.
“Do you want us to take you into the woods?” said Ha Si. “Two men to take you into the woods and keep you there until you tell us where he is? Because that’s next for you.”
Alexander frowned at Ha Si. Were these kinds of threats really necessary against a pregnant woman? Moon Lai saw his ambivalence. Ha Si, ignoring him, was undeterred. “Stop looking at him. Look at me. Where is Anthony?”
She shrugged again, struggled again. Alexander’s hand remained over her mouth.
“If you don’t tell us,” Ha Si said, “we’ll snatch your mother. And the little boy. Nod if you understand.”
The girl nodded.
“Where is he?” Alexander asked in a milder tone than Ha Si, despite his firm hold on her fragile throat. He applied extra pressure. “Is my son down there?” he asked her. “Is he in the hole?” When she did not reply, Alexander yanked her neck back. She gasped against his palm but did not reply. She was a pregnant woman! This was insane. “Please,” he said to her, moving off her body, no longer straddling her, letting her lie on her side. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want my son. Tell me if he is down below, that’s all I want.” Taking a chance, Alexander let go of her mouth.
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