by Ty Patterson
Their interrogator had worked on their nerve and pressure points, in a way that reminded the farmer of the sadistic NVA soldiers.
His wife cried louder when he brought her a glass of water from the kitchen.
She cursed the day he had met the American sisters. She swore at him and warned him to stay away from them.
Cham had his fields. He had a good life. Wasn’t that enough for him? Why did he have to revisit the past? Why did he have to get involved?
The old man didn’t reply. He was shamefaced, tears trickling down his cheeks.
Neither he nor his wife noticed the shadow in the adjoining room, listening.
Zeb didn’t understand the language; however, he didn’t need to.
The tone, the manner of the couple’s speaking, the glimpses he caught of them, told him volumes.
His face was set when he returned to his vehicle.
He looked at the pale moon in the sky once and made a vow.
There would be one less Russian walking the earth. Soon. Very soon.
The sisters left Sa Dec believing Cham, but not to the extent that they ignored their investigative instincts.
It was Meghan who hadn’t fully bought into his story. It wasn’t that she disbelieved him. However, his report of joining Dang’s gang and extracting information seemed a little too easy to her cynical mind.
‘It was a different time. These days, any gang in any part of the world wouldn’t just take on new members. They would vet them. Besides, he did get tortured,’ Beth argued in his defense. ‘You’ve seen his notes. You’re disputing them? Why would he manufacture them?’
‘Yeah, that’s got me stumped,’ Meghan acknowledged, her face troubled. She had grown to like Cham and wanted desperately to think he was telling the truth.
‘Records of his arrests.’ Her sister snapped her fingers, and Meghan’s face lightened.
She knew what Beth was referring to. Communist states loved records. They would detail every little event or incident that their citizens had been involved in.
There would be an archive somewhere of Cham’s arrests. The police would have created a fictitious story, but he would be there in the system.
They got Phuong not to reveal a word to An Khoi until they had verified the farmer’s account. Not even the fact that Dang was a VC soldier.
They searched the police database for Dangs in the NVA. Such records were less extensive, and when the police officer made some calls, they found out the reason.
The North Vietnamese had been the victorious side in the war and had listed every enemy soldier. They hadn’t been so meticulous about their own people.
They went about verifying the new Dangs in the same manner and hit some of the same bottlenecks.
Very few were contactable. Some had died, others had moved to remote areas. Of the handful they spoke to, a couple spoke only when Phuong had to make threats.
‘Get your team to contact and verify as many of the Dangs as they can,’ Beth instructed their police liaison, who nodded and went out to relay her commands.
When she returned, they switched the focus to verifying Cham’s account.
They persuaded her to dig into HCMC’s computer systems and, when nothing turned up, asked her to check out where the old records were kept.
They were housed in a government building downtown, Phuong discovered. An office that maintained historical records of all kinds, including police cases.
She had to get An Khoi’s authorization for a visit, and when Beth asked her to fake it, ‘You’ll get me suspended,’ was her response.
‘We’ll make sure you get a promotion,’ the American retorted, and that was enough.
The building’s security consisted of a few sleepy guards and a portly clerk who made them sign their entry and the reasons for their visit.
Phuong scrawled illegible names and put on her sternest look. She threatened the official, saying he would be cleaning toilets in the remotest part of the country if he disclosed their visit to anyone.
She was investigating corrupt government officials. It was a joint investigation along with the FBI. She pointed to the sisters. Did the clerk really want to be the person who impeded such an operation?
The clerk didn’t. He hurriedly led them to a basement and pointed them to rows of shelves.
‘They are sorted by department, year, and month. HCMC police records will be in the last rows,’ he declared and sped away to the sanctuary of his desk.
It was evening—by then their hands were coated with black ink, and cobwebs had stuck to their hair—when Phuong sighed happily.
She held up a brown folder. ‘Cham was right.’
Conspiring against the country was the main reason Cham had been arrested. Making false allegations about other respected citizens was one of the many other accusations made against his name.
The documents noted that Cham had been convinced to see the error of his ways. He was a low-level farmer. He didn’t need to be prosecuted. He had been urged to lead an illustrious life serving his country.
The police had watched him for several months thereafter, and then the report ended. Evidently Cham had proved to be a model citizen.
The date of the arrest matched Cham’s notes.
‘Doubting him still?’ Beth challenged her sister.
‘No,’ Meghan replied and mentally apologized to the farmer.
‘The problem is,’ Beth said, folding her hands and leaning against a rack, ‘this gets us no closer to identifying or locating Dang.’
‘Yeah, but I know what might.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve been going about this the wrong way. We should check out who the current drug barons are. See if they bear any resemblance to Dang.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘You didn’t trust me?’ An Khoi looked disturbed when they presented the documents to him the next day. ‘You didn’t come to me in the first place? That Dang was VC is a big development.’
In the span of one day, the search for the NVA soldier had stalled. Phuong’s officers had made no progress. The soldiers on their list were either deceased or untraceable.
‘We still aren’t sure where you stand,’ Beth told him frankly, looking at him unflinchingly. ‘Not just you, but everyone. Except Colonel General Lanh. We’ve worked with him before. We know about him. Everyone else in the HCMC police is new to us. Those arrest records show Dang has connections in the police. There’s no other reason why Cham would have been arrested and tortured.’
‘His contacts would have widened as his business grew,’ Meghan added.
‘I understand,’ An Khoi said stiffly. ‘Yet you trusted Phuong.’
The female officer fidgeted, wishing to be anywhere else but in the company of her superior officer.
‘She’s too young and too junior for Dang to have reached her.’
‘He would have no use for her, you mean.’
‘Exactly.’
‘An Khoi, do you think we would have come to you if we genuinely thought you were on Dang’s payroll?’
‘Yes, I get that,’ he acknowledged and started speed-reading the papers.
He rose abruptly when he’d read the first few and beckoned them to their office. He shut the door once they were inside, his face pale.
‘Phuong translated these for you?’
‘Yeah, the relevant parts,’ Meghan replied, mystified. ‘You were right to be suspicious. These are so detailed that if the police didn’t act then, I can’t see how they would act now.’
He paced the office, thinking furiously, and then turned to Phuong.
‘Has he named any officers in the rest of those sheets?’
‘Yes, sir. Those who arrested him and tortured him. There are ten names. All of them have retired. But they were high-ranking, in their last positions.’
She rattled off a few names and titles, and An Khoi grew more troubled.
‘Those are at the very top of the police,’ he explained
to the sisters. ‘Just because they are retired doesn’t mean anything.’
‘They would have connections. Or their replacements could be just as corrupt,’ Meghan guessed.
The officer nodded and looked questioningly at her when she took Cham’s records back, folded them and stuffed them in her bag.
‘We can’t act on them,’ she said, answering his look. ‘Let’s see where we get with our premise. Start with your current crop of criminals and work back from there.’
Coming up with a list of drug barons wasn’t difficult. An Khoi and Phuong produced ten files, men who were suspected of large-scale drug running.
It was equally easy to cross off all those who didn’t fit Dang’s description.
Beth’s face was glum when they tossed all the files away.
Not one of the men fit Dang’s description, or even bore such a name.
‘There are no others?’ she asked the police.
‘No. This isn’t a large country. We know of every criminal who is out there. Every person who runs an enterprise this big.’
‘And they’re still at large because you have no proof.’
‘Or they have contacts,’ An Khoi answered without irony.
Beth swore softly and kicked out at a chair. She leaped forward to grab it before it toppled.
‘Something funny?’ she snarled when her sister chuckled.
‘Yeah. You’re missing the obvious.’
Beth righted her seat, taking her time. ‘Of course! Dang changed his name—and his face, too. Plastic surgery.’
‘Yeah.’
‘In that case, there’ll be some of these men who are similar in build to him.’ Beth pounced on the files, riffled through them quickly, and then stopped in disgust. ‘All of them! They’re all short and clean-shaven. About the same age Dang would be.’
She looked up and flushed when she saw her sister was still smirking.
‘What? What am I missing?’
‘It’s simple. We get Dang to come to us.’
Vietnam, 1967, to USA, Postwar Years
Billy Patten met Dang the day of their rendezvous.
He was careful. Although the two men had conversed the previous day, the other man was still a NVA soldier. He was the enemy.
He reached their meeting place early and lay hidden, in wait, his rifle ready.
He heard Dang’s rustling before he saw him.
The soldier’s glasses caught a glimmer of light, and then his head emerged from behind a tree and vanished just as quickly.
Billy waited. He had to confirm there was no trap.
Fifteen minutes passed. No other soldiers appeared. Seven thirty pm.
‘Billy?’ Dang called out softly.
‘I’m here,’ he answered after a while. ‘Throw your rifle away and step out.’
‘You throw rifle first.’
‘Not happening, dude. I’ve got your money, remember?’
A pause, and then an AK-47 crashed to the ground.
The NVA soldier stepped out, his eyes swiveling behind his glasses as he tried to spot Billy.
‘I’m here.’ The American came from behind him and laughed quietly when Dang jumped. ‘I could have taken you. But that isn’t why I came.’
‘What you have in mind?’ the enemy soldier asked in broken English.
‘What I told you yesterday. A partnership.’
It was an uneasy alliance at the beginning. Neither man trusted the other. Each one went to a meeting fully expecting an ambush.
However, the lure of money was too strong to resist, and over time, their suspicions disappeared.
Billy gave Dang advance information on the American bombing runs and village raids. That gave the NVA man sufficient time to move his stashes of drugs and money.
He directed Dang to new customers, soldiers on his side who he knew were looking for new highs and addictions.
He had some money squirreled away that not even Rachel knew of.
The day he brought out his own bills, several months later, was the day all mistrust disappeared. Dang regarded him in a new light, and Billy knew the last hurdle had been cleared.
He didn’t return the money he had stolen, however. ‘I’ll manage it. You come to me, I’ll give you what you need. It’ll be safer where I’m keeping it,’ he insisted.
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘After all we’ve been through? Yes, I do. This isn’t about trust. It’s about financial management.’
He taught the NVA man English, how to comport himself, and saw Dang change in front of his eyes.
‘You get the H from Laos, don’t you?’ he asked one evening as they sat sharing a cigar.
‘It comes from there. But I get it from a supplier in Saigon.’
‘How about going to the source? To Laos? To the fields?’
‘Will require time.’ Dang glanced sideways at him. ‘And money.’
‘Time?’ Billy snorted. ‘This war is going nowhere. We have time. Funds too.’
Storing bills was becoming one of their biggest challenges. New customers, American soldiers who had a thirst for drugs and a seemingly endless supply of money, had fueled their growth.
Billy dug holes around his camp, near outhouses and distant parts, and buried bundles in them. He kept records, and each month, Dang and he ran through the accounts.
They started sourcing the heroin from Laos, and that increased their profits. There were risks. They lost a supply in one bombing run, and in another incident, a Huey ripped at a hut where Dang had hidden several sacks of H.
‘That’s the price we pay.’ Bill shrugged when they totaled up their losses. ‘We’re still ahead. By miles.’
There were unwritten rules to their deal. By day, Billy still went down the tunnels. He killed NVA soldiers where he found them. Dang attacked American soldiers whenever he could.
The two never fired on each other’s units, however, if possible. And never at each other.
The war was grinding to an end. They could feel it. Back home in the US, Americans were deeply dissatisfied with their involvement in Vietnam. Politicians and presidents wanted to end the war.
They didn’t discuss politics, however. They were businessmen caught in a war. That’s how they saw themselves.
Dang broached the topic one evening a year later. ‘What happens when you go back?’
‘Nothing changes,’ Billy assured him. ‘I’ll be your partner over there. We can expand in America. I can raise funds. Think of what we can do with more money.’
‘I want to come to America.’
Chapter Thirty
‘You?’ Billy looked at him, astonished. ‘Why?’
‘You said it yourself. We can expand there. Both of us will work better together.’
Billy nodded without answering. This was a wrinkle he hadn’t thought of.
‘You don’t like?’
‘I do like.’ He grinned and slapped his partner’s shoulder. ‘Let me go back first. See how it works. Papers and that kind of stuff. It won’t be easy.’
‘You trust me with business when you are gone?’ Dang asked him slyly.
‘You trust me with money?’ Billy guffawed.
They had worked out their roles early on. Billy was the sales and money man. He was better at accounting. He didn’t get into selling because the risk would have been too great.
Dang looked after the operations. The sourcing, the distribution. He knew the local language and the people. It was his strength.
Their parting wasn’t emotional.
They met the night before and went through the accounts. Their smuggling business had generated close to a million dollars in the two years they had been working together.
‘Buy a house,’ Billy told him. ‘Establish a front.’
‘Front?’
‘Some business that makes you look legal.’
‘Ah.’
He circled a figure. ‘One hundred thousand dollars. Enough to buy a house? And start a business? Li
ke a restaurant?’
Dang calculated rapidly. ‘Yes. More than sufficient.’
‘Get phones. We will establish a routine for talking.’
‘What about all the money? Where will it be?’
Billy smiled wolfishly. ‘I’ve already made arrangements. A joint account. Both our signatures needed to operate it.’
During one of his visits to Saigon, he had opened an account. The bank manager, on seeing the wad of bills he had produced, had been very cooperative.
Yes, Billy could add another name to the account, he beamed. Yes, that could be a Vietnamese name as well.
Regulations? What were those? He had given a knowing smile as he opened the envelope Billy passed him and slid it inside his breast pocket.
‘It is legal?’ Dang looked at him, surprised.
‘Yes. I bribed them. After what we’ve done, now you’re worrying about legality?’
The two shared a laugh.
‘This will work?’ Dang asked him uncertainly as the American rose to leave.
Billy Patten, the salesman, flashed his smile.
‘Yes, it will.’
And it did.
It wasn’t easy.
Billy was treated like a hero on his return. Chisholm arranged a parade for his homecoming, and for several months, he was mobbed wherever he went.
There were war protestors too, people who spat at him. His sister-in-law, Ginny, was one such person. Sure, she was civil to him; in fact, she was polite and treated him with respect. And yet, Billy knew she didn’t like him, or trust him. Just like her dad, Rachel’s father.
Despite all that, he sneaked out in private whenever he could, making excuses to Rachel, and made calls to Dang.
Once a week. That was their routine. He needed to get away. Be alone. Find himself. That was his story he gave Rachel.
He brushed off Dang whenever his partner brought up the topic of his coming to America. ‘The timing isn’t right. You just wouldn’t get a visa. There’s a lot of anger and hatred here.’
He got their bank account transferred to an American bank. Bribed more managers and got Dang listed as a joint holder.