by Eric Helm
There was a lone figure in the center of the room, her chair sitting above the drain. She was wearing black shorts and nothing else. Her hands were tied behind her, with one end of the rope reaching down for the crosspiece of the chair so that her shoulders were drawn back and lifted. Her feet were spread and tied to the legs of the chair so that her bottom rested on the front edge. It gave her an unnatural and uncomfortable posture.
“What’s going on?” asked Santini.
“Viet Cong,” said the sergeant who had let Santini in. “Caught her trying to sneak onto the base this morning with a load of explosives.”
Santini stepped forward so that he could see more. There were two Vietnamese in the room and one American. The American stood to the side, his eyes on the light bulb.
One of the Vietnamese shoved his face into that of the woman and shouted something at her. The speech was too fast for Santini to understand any of it. The woman turned her head so that she didn’t have to look at her interrogator. He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to stare into his eyes.
“They got anything from her?” asked Santini.
“Nothing of interest. She claims a man asked her to carry the bag into the camp. She says she didn’t think anything of it and didn’t bother to look into it.”
“That’s a real possibility,” said Santini.
“I’d be inclined to agree with you,” said the sergeant, “except she’s not a regular member of the workforce. This is the first time anyone remembers seeing her.”
There was a wet slap and a scream. Santini turned and saw that a red welt had risen on the bare skin of the woman. The Vietnamese now held a length of bamboo. He shouted at the woman, and when she didn’t respond fast enough, he punched her in the stomach. She jerked against her bonds and moaned.
“Say,” said Santini, suddenly sickened. “Isn’t this going too far? There’s no need for this.”
“Vietnamese can do anything they want. If we complain, we’re told to let the Vietnamese handle their own problems and stay out of it.”
There was another scream. Santini saw the Vietnamese raise the bamboo over his head, bringing it down rapidly on the woman’s chest, abdomen and shoulders. She rocked in the chair, trying to avoid the blows. Blood spattered the floor as the man attacked her thighs.
Santini leaped forward, but before he could do anything, the second Vietnamese soldier grabbed the arm of the first. He spun him away from his victim and then shoved him toward the door, shouting at the man and pushing him into the map room. As the two men entered, the second grinned at the first. Santini realized it was the old Mutt and Jeff routine. One interrogator is the bad guy, cruel and unreasonable. The second is kind, pretending to be on the side of the victim. It was a trick so old that it had whiskers, and Santini couldn’t believe anyone would still fall for it.
The second man returned to the room where the woman was sobbing almost hysterically. Her chin nearly touched her chest, and there was sweat glistening on her body. The man crouched next to her and gently lifted her face, speaking softly. He talked to her, nodded at the door and then shook his head.
Santini couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could figure it out. She was being told that the first man wanted to kill her slowly, with as much pain as possible. He hated the Viet Cong and wanted them all dead. The second man was saying he understood that mistakes could be made. People sometimes didn’t understand the consequences of their actions. He would protect her. He would see that she was taken to the POW compound, given food and medical aid and treated with human dignity. But he needed something to prove that she was willing to cooperate, some information to show her good faith. If she did that, then he could protect her. If not, who knew what could happen?
The woman didn’t speak. She continued to cry, her shoulders shaking. The second interrogator snapped his fingers and held out his hand. The American handed him a wet cloth, which he used to wipe some of the blood from her body and then dabbed at her face, cleaning it.
She mumbled something and the man nodded. He spoke rapidly and then shouted into the map room. The interrogator there grinned, then left the room.
“Looks like she’s going to talk.”
Santini moved to the right and pulled out a chair. He dropped into it, realizing how sick he felt. He was light-headed and couldn’t seem to focus on anything. The problem was that he didn’t like torture, no matter what the reasons. He believed in the rules of land warfare. Soldiers should be questioned but not tortured. There were many conflicting emotions running through him.
A moment later the American appeared in the doorway and announced, “She’s not the first to bring munitions onto the base here. I want someone to contact the provost marshal and alert him. Ask him if he could swing by here so we can brief him.”
Santini stood and stepped close to the man. “What’d she tell you?”
“Just that there’s a raid planned to hit us sometime in the next few days. She isn’t sure when.”
Santini looked beyond the MP. The woman was slumped in the chair. Her feet had been freed and the rope linking her wrists to the back rung of the chair had been loosened, but her hands were still bound behind her.
“She tell you anything else?”
“Not yet. I think there’s some more to learn. I think we’ll get it in a few minutes. She’s talking now.”
“Yeah,” said Santini. “I see that.”
Captain Jonathan Bromhead stood near the smoking ruins of a rearm bunker and shook his head. Bromhead was nearing his twenty-seventh birthday, but still looked as if he belonged in high school. He was a freckle-faced kid with light hair that turned coppery in a certain light. Tall and slender, he had been the exec of an A-Detachment on his first tour in Vietnam and had lucked into command of one for his second. Many of the men on second and third tours had been diverted to MACV-SOG or Project Delta.
Bromhead turned to Sergeant First Class Tyme, a tall sandy-haired man nearing thirty whose love of weapons was all-consuming. When Bromhead had found himself with a hole in his detachment, he had asked that Sergeant Tyme join him. In the few months that they had worked the assignment together, Bromhead had never regretted the decision, but then they had served together on their first tours, so Bromhead had known that Tyme was a top-notch soldier.
“How long to replace it?” asked Bromhead.
Tyme crouched and reached out, pushing a partially burned sandbag out of the way. “There wasn’t much of interest in there, Captain. Just spare ammo, a few weapons and some boxes of grenades. Paperwork’ll take a couple of hours, and then if I hand-carry it to Saigon, I should have the stuff back by nightfall.” Tyme suddenly realized he had talked himself out of a night in Saigon, and he amended his original statement. “Midmorning tomorrow at the latest.”
Bromhead smiled. “You sure about that? Couldn’t have it accomplished this afternoon?”
Tyme turned to look up into the captain’s eyes. “You think there’s going to be a problem?”
Bromhead glanced around. There was a squad of Vietnamese working on the wire, restringing some of it, adding tanglefoot and attaching more empty cans to the concertina. Another group, led by Sergeant Ashly, was checking the claymore mines, making sure that VC sappers hadn’t sneaked in during the night and turned them around as they sometimes did. A third party was making a final weapons check before heading out to search the jungle near the camp. No one was standing close to them.
“Justin, I don’t like any of this. Charlie has been lying low too long. I think something is building and Charlie is afraid of tipping his hand if he’s not careful. I think he’s being too careful. We should be extra cautious.”
“Okay, sir,” Tyme said seriously. He knew that Bromhead could sense things. The young captain seemed to see things on a subliminal level and used that to form his opinions. He had called the mortar attack the night before on the button. He’d told the team at the evening meal that he thought they would take a half-dozen mortar roun
ds about three in the morning. It had been ten at two forty-five.
“I can have the requisitions ready in an hour and catch the morning chopper to Cu Chi. Then on to Saigon, and if you’ll grease the skids, I can be back by midafternoon.”
“I’m sorry, Justin,” Bromhead said. “I know I should let you have the night in Saigon, but I’d really prefer that you were here tonight. If it doesn’t happen today, it will sometime in the next week or so.”
Tyme stood and clapped his hands together, brushing the dirt from them. He wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “Tet is coming up. Charlie’s making a big stink about a ceasefire during the holidays. Claims he’s going to observe it even if the running dog Americans don’t.”
Bromhead grinned. “And you believe that?”
“Yes, sir. That and in the Easter bunny and the three little pigs.”
“Okay,” said Bromhead. He turned and started walking toward the team house. Tyme fell in beside him. “Tell you what. You get the papers ready and get out of here. I’ll call and see if I can’t get the ammo delivered over to Tan Son Nhut so that you don’t have to go chasing around for it. That should give you some time to fool around in Saigon. At the very least, you’ll be able to hit the PX, drink a beer in the club and chase a couple of Vietnamese girls.”
“Thanks, sir.”
Le Tran Duc brushed her long black hair back, away from her face, and stared into the bright tropical light of downtown Saigon. She was a tall Eurasian woman whose father, a French soldier, had fought the Viet Minh. But she hated Westerners with a passion. It was her belief that the father who had lived with her and her mother for three years had deserted them when the French had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. Their lives from that point had been one of hardship, her mother forced into prostitution and both of them despised by other Vietnamese.
A woman with fine features, high cheekbones and large brown eyes, she was chased by men of all ranks. Most of the time she ignored the advances. Occasionally she turned on soldiers to tantalize them, and sometimes she responded favorably to those with high ranks or jobs in the embassy.
She sat in a small café, wearing the hated dress of a Western woman, her skirt to midthigh and her blouse molded to her upper body. Across the street was the gate to the embassy, and she watched to see how the guards reacted to the situations thrown at them. She wrote nothing down, memorizing the times and locations of the soldiers and sipping the tea that a young Vietnamese man bought for her.
When two Marines from the embassy guard force, now off-duty, entered, she smiled at them and then lowered her eyes. The cultured Vietnamese woman didn’t flirt openly with men, especially Westerners, but she knew they had noticed her.
The Marines ordered tea and then took it to a table close to Le Tran. They tried to watch her without her knowing it. She played them like game fish, giving them a little line and then snapping the hook tight.
Slowly she crossed her legs, noticing their eyes dip. She leaned back, lifted her hands and ran them through her long hair. As she moved, the blouse was stretched across her breasts. When they were staring at her chest, she uncrossed her legs, kept her knees apart and watched them try to bore holes in her thighs.
One of them stood, turned his back and pulled at his uniform. He spun toward her and began walking toward her table. Before he could get close to her, the young Vietnamese man who had been standing at the back of the café came forward carrying two cups of tea. He sat down with Le Tran before the American could get too close.
Le Tran smiled at him and then shook her head slightly, as if telling the American that he hadn’t moved fast enough. The Marine returned to his friend and said loudly, “Fucking tease.”
CHAPTER 2
MACV HEADQUARTERS, SAIGON
Brigadier General Thomas Harkin sat behind his huge rosewood desk and studied the report in front of him. As he read, he fiddled with the pen from a gold set, occasionally tapping it on the green felt blotter. A fancy clock with an inscription sat next to a small lamp that cast a pool of light on the sheet of paper Harkin was reading. His starched and pressed jungle fatigues showed no sign of wear, no sign of harsh laundering, and no sweat stains.
Standing at attention on a small woven rug before Harkin was Major Richard Hobbs. He was a stout man whose light skin rejected the tanning of a tropical sun so that he was a pumpkin color when he wasn’t peeling. His thinning blond hair didn’t protect his head from the sun, so he was one of the few men who never neglected to wear a hat outside.
Harkin flipped over the last page of the report, then looked up at Hobbs. “Okay. I think I have the picture now. What I want you to do is downplay all this for the press conference.”
“Downplay it?”
“That’s right. Official word from Washington through the embassy here is that the war is winding down. The enemy is no longer capable of launching any attacks other than small mortar and rocket harassments designed to obtain press interest.”
Hobbs took a step forward and reached for the report. “But, General, we have information that the enemy is massing his forces in the area.”
“I know that. I can read just as well as you can. And I know about the attack on Plei Soi. All that makes no difference.” Harkin grinned broadly. “You have to remember that this is an election year. Congressional and senate seats up for grabs. A Presidential election. Bad press from here could sink more than a few campaigns.”
“How is misleading the press going to help?”
“Now wait a minute, Major. No one said a word about misleading the press. You provide the information for them and answer their questions. Just don’t volunteer any information.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If they ask, tell them that the enemy is in the process of rebuilding. There’s a lull in the fighting. You expect something to happen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just a couple of weeks ago General Westmoreland predicted a major enemy offensive in the near future.” Harkin chuckled. “That made him no friends in Washington, but then the press ignored his statement anyway. We play it honest with them, but we don’t have to hand them everything.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Now I’ll want a full report just as soon as you’ve completed your press conference.”
Hobbs came to stiff attention and saluted. He spun and stepped to the door. As he walked through the outer office and entered the corridor, he realized he was the sacrificial lamb. If anything went wrong, if a lot of unfavorable stories appeared in the hometown newspapers it was his head that would roll. That was why he had inherited the job of briefing the press. Harkin and the others considered him expendable. Unlike them, he couldn’t delegate the job, because if his captain or sergeant blew it, the general would still fire him.
He stopped outside the door of the pressroom. With a hand on the knob, he took a deep breath. He touched his face with the sleeve of his jungle fatigues, blotting up the sweat that even three tons of air-conditioning on the building’s roof couldn’t stop, and then threw open the door.
The members of the media were standing in small groups, talking to one another when Hobbs opened the door. As he entered, they looked up and fell silent, then began moving toward their seats. Hobbs noticed that even though seats hadn’t been assigned, a natural pecking order had been established. The wire services, TV networks and major newspapers representatives were in the front. In the rear were the freelancers and small newspapers like the Des Moines Register or the Kansas City Star.
Hobbs moved to the raised stage and set his notes on the lectern. “I have a brief statement and then I’ll take your questions.”
He waited for a moment, but no one objected. “In the past twenty-four hours there have been fourteen mortar and rocket attacks directed against our bases. These attacks were small-scale and scattered throughout all of South Vietnam. As of now, we have no indications that there were any casualties, and the damage to U.S. facilities and equipment was light.”<
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He flipped over a page and continued. “Current estimates place the number of enemy soldiers in South Vietnam, and this figure includes NVA, Viet Cong and irregular forces, at around three hundred thousand. That’s a slight increase over last month’s figures.”
Hobbs again waited for a response and again was disappointed. He concluded his briefing by saying, “Finally, we have a report that the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao overran the town of Nambac about sixty miles from the royal capital of Luang Prabang. Now are there any questions?”
A man stood but didn’t identify himself. “Would it be fair to assume that the current trend will last through the lunar new year?”
“We’re not sure how long the trend will last. Naturally we’re trying to assess the situation.”
“Which is another way of saying you don’t know.”
“It means, sir,” said Hobbs, “that we’re watching the enemy. Right now he’s avoiding a fight and has seriously stepped down the number of mortar attacks launched. It’s a trend that will continue for another few days.”
“Has there been any discussion about withdrawing American forces from Vietnam now that the enemy is pulling back?”
Hobbs stared at the woman who had asked the question. She was large and stout and wrapped in sufficient khaki to make several pup tents. He hesitated before answering because he could still hear Harkin telling him that the politicians were worried. The perfect opportunity to mislead the press had just surfaced. They had made a false assumption based on incomplete information. But he knew that it would come back to haunt him if he didn’t handle it just right.
“There have been no discussions about a reduction in the size of the American commitment to Vietnam. What we have is a lull in the fighting, and we expect an upswing.”
“Could you clarify that?” shouted a man in the back.
“There’s really nothing to clarify. The enemy is taking a break right now—”
“Then you expect a general battle to develop?”