GUY AND WILLY slept in separate beds that night. At least, Guy slept. Willy lay awake, tossing on the sheets, thinking about her father, about the last time she had seen him alive.
He had been packing. She’d stood beside the bed, watching him toss clothes into a suitcase. She knew by the items he’d packed that he was returning to the lovely insanity of war. She saw the flak jacket, the Laotian-English dictionary, the heavy gold chains—a handy form of ransom with which a downed pilot could bargain for his life. There was also the Government-issue blood chit, printed on cloth and swiped from a U.S. Air Force pilot.
I am a citizen of the United States of America. I do not speak your language. Misfortune forces me to seek your assistance in obtaining food, shelter and protection. Please take me to someone who will provide for my safety and see that I am returned to my people.
It was written in thirteen languages.
The last item he packed was his .45, the trigger seat filed to a feather release. Willy had stood by the bed and stared at the gun, struck in that instant by its terrible significance.
“Why are you going back?” she’d asked.
“Because it’s my job, baby,” he’d said, slipping the pistol in among his clothes. “Because I’m good at it, and because we need the paycheck.”
“We don’t need the paycheck. We need you.”
He closed the suitcase. “Your mom’s been talking to you again, has she?”
“No, this is me talking, Daddy. Me.”
“Sure, baby.” He laughed and mussed her hair, his old way of making her feel like his little girl. He set the suitcase down on the floor and grinned at her, the same grin he always used on her mother, the same grin that always got him what he wanted. “Tell you what. How ’bout I bring back a little surprise? Something nice from Vientiane. Maybe a ruby? Or a sapphire? Bet you’d love a sapphire.”
She shrugged. “Why bother?”
“What do you mean, ‘why bother’? You’re my baby, aren’t you?”
“Your baby?” She looked at the ceiling and laughed. “When was I ever your baby?”
His grin vanished. “I don’t care for your tone of voice, young lady.”
“You don’t care about anything, do you? Except flying your stupid planes in your stupid war.” Before he could answer, she’d pushed past him and left the room.
As she fled down the hall she heard him yell, “You’re just a kid. One of these days you’ll understand! Grow up a little! Then you’ll understand….”
One of these days. One of these days.
“I still don’t understand,” she whispered to the night.
From the street below came the whine of a passing car. She sat up in bed and, running a hand through her damp hair, gazed around the room. The curtains fluttered like gossamer in the moonlit window. In the next bed, Guy lay asleep, the covers kicked aside, his bare back gleaming in the darkness.
She rose and went to the window. On the corner below, three pedicab drivers, dressed in rags, squatted together in the dim glow of a street lamp. They didn’t say a word; they simply huddled there in a midnight tableau of weariness. She wondered how many others, just as weary, just as silent, wandered in the night.
And to think they won the war.
A groan and the creak of bedsprings made her turn. Guy was lying on his back now, the covers kicked to the floor. By some strange fascination, she was drawn to his side. She stood in the shadows, studying his rumpled hair, the rise and fall of his chest. Even in his sleep he wore a half smile, as though some private joke were echoing in his dreams. She started to smooth back his hair, then thought better of it. Her hand lingered over him as she struggled against the longing to touch him, to be held by him. It had been so long since she’d felt this way about a man, and it frightened her; it was the first sign of surrender, of the offering up of her soul.
She couldn’t let it happen. Not with this man.
She turned and went back to her own bed and threw herself onto the sheets. There she lay, thinking of all the ways he was wrong for her, all the ways they were wrong for each other.
The way her mother and father had been wrong for each other.
It was something Ann Maitland had never recognized, that basic incompatibility. It had been painfully obvious to her daughter. Bill Maitland was the wild card, the unpredictable joker in life’s game of chance. Ann cheerfully accepted whatever surprises she was dealt because he was her husband, because she loved him.
But Willy didn’t need that kind of love. She didn’t need a younger version of Wild Bill Maitland.
Though, God knew, she wanted him. And he was right in the next bed.
She closed her eyes. Restless, sweating, she counted the hours until morning.
“A MOST CURIOUS TURN of events.” Minister Tranh, recently off the plane from Saigon, settled into his hard-backed chair and gazed at the tea leaves drifting in his cup. “You say they are behaving like mere tourists?”
“Typical capitalist tourists,” said Miss Hu in disgust. She opened her notebook, in which she’d dutifully recorded every detail, and began her report. “This morning at nine-forty-five, they visited the tomb of our beloved leader but offered no comment. At 12:17, they were served lunch at the hotel, a menu which included fried fish, stewed river turtle, steamed vegetables and custard. This afternoon, they were escorted to the Museum of War, then the Museum of Revolution—”
“This is hardly the itinerary of capitalist tourists.”
“And then—” she flipped the page “—they went shopping.” Triumphantly, she snapped the notebook closed.
“But Comrade Hu, even the most dedicated Party member must, on occasion, shop.”
“For antiques?”
“Ah. They value tradition.”
Miss Hu bent forward. “Here is the part that raises my suspicions, Minister Tranh. It is the leopard revealing its stripes.”
“Spots,” corrected the minister with a smile. The fervent Comrade Hu had been studying her American idioms again. What a shame she had absorbed so little of their humor. “What, exactly, did they do?”
“This afternoon, after the antique shop, they spent two hours at the Australian embassy—the cocktail lounge, to be precise—where they conversed in private with various suspect foreigners.”
Minister Tranh found it of only passing interest that the Americans would retreat to a Western embassy. Like anyone in a strange country, they probably missed the company of their own type of people. Decades ago in Paris, Tranh had felt just such a longing. Even as he’d sipped coffee in the West Bank cafés, even as he’d reveled in the joys of Bohemian life, at times, he had ached for the sight of jet black hair, for the gentle twang of his own language. Still, how he had loved Paris….
“So you see, the Americans are well monitored,” said Miss Hu. “Rest assured, Minister Tranh. Nothing will go wrong.”
“Assuming they continue to cooperate with us.”
“Cooperate?” Miss Hu’s chin came up in a gesture of injured pride. “They are not aware we’re following them.”
What a shame the politically correct Miss Hu was so lacking in vision and insight. Minister Tranh hadn’t the energy to contradict her. Long ago, he had learned that zealots were seldom swayed by reason.
He looked down at his tea leaves and sighed. “But, of course, you are right, Comrade,” he said.
“IT’S BEEN A DAY NOW. Why hasn’t anyone contacted us?” Willy whispered across the oilcloth-covered table.
“Maybe they can’t get close enough,” Guy said. “Or maybe they’re still looking us over.”
The way everyone else was looking them over, Willy thought as her gaze swept the noisy café. In one glance she took in the tables cluttered with coffee cups and soup bowls, the diners veiled in a vapor of cooking grease and cigarette smoke, the waiters ferrying trays of steaming food. They’re all watching us, she thought. In a far corner, the two police agents sat flicking ashes into a saucer. And through the dirty street windows, small faces peered in, children straining for a rare glimpse of Americans.
Their waiter, gaunt and silent, set two bowls of noodle soup on their table and vanished through a pair of swinging doors. In the kitchen, pots clanged and voices chattered over a cleaver’s staccato. The swinging doors kept slapping open and shut as waiters pushed through, bent under the weight of their trays.
The police agents were staring.
Willy, by now brittle with tension, reached for her chopsticks and automatically began to eat. It was modest fare, noodles and peppery broth and paper-thin slices of what looked like beef. Water buffalo, Guy told her. Tasty but tough. Head bent, ignoring the stares, she ate in silence. Only when she inadvertently bit into a chili pepper and had to make a lunge for her glass of lemonade did she finally put her chopsticks down.
“I don’t know if I can take this idle-tourist act much longer.” She sighed. “Just how long are we supposed to wait?”
“As long as it takes. That’s one thing you learn in this country. Patience. Waiting for the right time. The right situation.”
“Twenty years is a long time to wait.”
“You know,” he said, frowning, “that’s the part that bothers me. That it’s been twenty years. Why would the Company still be mucking around in what should be a dead issue?”
“Maybe they’re not interested. Maybe Toby Wolff’s wrong.”
“Toby’s never wrong.” He looked around at the crowded room, his gaze troubled. “And something else still bothers me. Has from the very beginning. Our so-called accidental meeting in Bangkok. Both of us looking for the same answers, the same man.” He paused. “In addition to mild paranoia, however, I get also this sense of…”
“Coincidence?”
“Fate.”
Willy shook her head. “I don’t believe in fate.”
“You will.” He stared up at the haze of cigarette smoke swirling about the ceiling fan. “It’s this country. It changes you, strips away your sense of reality, your sense of control. You begin to think that events are meant to happen, that they will happen, no matter how you fight it. As if our lives are all written out for us and it’s impossible to revise the book.”
Their gazes met across the table. “I don’t believe in fate, Guy,” she said softly. “I never have.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I don’t believe you and I were meant to be together. It just happened.”
“But something—luck, fate, conspiracy, whatever you want to call it—has thrown us together.” He leaned forward, his gaze never leaving her face. “Of all the crazy places in the world, here we are, at the same table, in the same dirty Vietnamese café. And…” He paused, his brown eyes warm, his crooked smile a fleeting glimmer in his seriousness. “I’m beginning to think it’s time we gave in and followed this crazy script. Time we followed our instincts.”
They stared at each other through the veil of smoke. And she thought, I’d like nothing better than to follow my instincts, which are to go back to our hotel and make love with you. I know I’ll regret it. But that’s what I want. Maybe that’s what I’ve wanted since the day I met you.
He reached across the table; their hands met. And as their fingers linked, it seemed as if some magical circuit had just been completed, as if this had always been meant to be, that this was where fate—good, bad or indifferent—had meant to lead them. Not apart, but together, to the same embrace, the same bed.
“Let’s go back to the room,” he whispered.
She nodded. A smile slid between them, one of knowing, full of promise. Already the images were drifting through her head: shirts slowly unbuttoned, belts unbuckled. Sweat glistening on backs and shoulders. Slowly she pushed her chair back from the table.
But as they rose to their feet, a voice, shockingly familiar, called to them from across the room.
Dodge Hamilton lumbered toward them through the maze of tables. Pale and sweating, he sank into a chair beside them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Guy asked in astonishment.
“I’m bloody lucky to be here at all,” said Hamilton, wiping a handkerchief across his brow. “One of our engines trailed smoke all the way from Da Nang. I tell you, I didn’t fancy myself splattered all over some mountain-top.”
“But I thought you were staying in Saigon,” said Willy.
Hamilton stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Wish I had. But yesterday I got a telex from the finance minister’s office. He’s finally agreed to an interview—something I’ve been working at for months. So I squeezed onto the last flight out of Saigon.” He shook his head. “Just about my last flight, period. Lord, I need a drink.” He pointed to Willy’s glass. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Lemonade.”
Hamilton turned and called to the waiter. “Hello, there! Could I have one of these—these lemon things?”
Willy took a sip, watching Hamilton thoughtfully over the rim of her glass. “How did you find us?”
“What? Oh, that was no trick. The hotel clerk directed me here.”
“How did he know?”
Guy sighed. “Obviously we can’t take a step without everyone knowing about it.”
Hamilton frowned dubiously as the waiter set a napkin and another glass of lemonade on the table. “Probably carries some fatal bacteria.” He lifted the glass and sighed. “Might as well live dangerously. Well, here’s to the trusty Ilyushins of the sky! May they never crash. Not with me aboard, anyway.”
Guy raised his glass in a wholehearted toast. “Amen. From now on, I say we all stick to boats.”
“Or pedicabs,” said Hamilton. “Just think, Barnard, we could be pedaled across China!”
“I think you’d be safer in a plane,” Willy said, and reached for her glass. As she lifted it, she noticed a dark stain bleeding from the wet napkin onto the tablecloth. It took her a few seconds to realize what it was, that tiny trickle of blue. Ink. There was something written on the other side of her napkin….
“It all depends on the plane,” said Hamilton. “After today, no more Russian rigs for me. Pardon the pun, but I’ve been thoroughly dis-Ilyushined.”
It was Guy’s burst of laughter that pulled Willy out of her feverish speculation. She looked up and found Hamilton frowning at her. Dodge Hamilton, she thought. He was always around. Always watching.
She crumpled the napkin in her fist. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go back to the hotel.”
“Is something wrong?” Guy asked.
“I’m tired.” She rose, still clutching the napkin. “And a little queasy.”
Hamilton at once shoved aside his glass of lemonade. “I knew I should have stuck to whiskey. Can I fetch you anything? Bananas, maybe? That’s the cure, you know.”
“She’ll be fine,” said Guy, helping Willy to her feet. “I’ll look after her.”
Outside, the heat and chaos of the street were overwhelming. Willy clung to Guy’s arm, afraid to talk, afraid to voice her suspicions. But he’d already sensed her agitation. He pulled her through the crowd toward the hotel.
Back in their room, Guy locked the door and drew the curtains. Willy unfolded the napkin. By the light of a bedside lamp, they struggled to decipher the smudgy message.
“0200. Alley behind hotel. Watch your back.”
Willy looked at him. “What do you think?”
He didn’t answer. She watched him pace the room, thinking, weighing the risks. Then he took the napkin, tore it to shreds and vanished into the bathroom. She heard the toilet flush and knew the evidence had been disposed of. When he came out of the bathroom, his expression was flat and unreadable.
“Why don’t you lie down,” he said. “There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep to settle an upset stomach.” He turned off the lamp. By the glow of her watch, she saw it was just after seven-thirty. It would be a long wait.
They scarcely slept that night.
In the darkness of their room, they waited for the hours to pass. Outside, the noises of the street, the voices, the tinkle of pedicab bells faded to silence. They didn’t undress; they lay tensed in their beds, not daring to exchange a word.
It must have been after midnight when Willy at last slipped into a dreamless sleep. It seemed only moments had passed when she felt herself being nudged awake. Guy’s lips brushed her forehead, then she heard him whisper, “Time to move.”
She sat up, instantly alert, her heart off and racing. Carrying her shoes, she tiptoed after him to the door.
The hall was deserted. The scuffed wood floor gleamed dully beneath a bare light bulb. They slipped out into the corridor and headed for the stairs.
From the second-floor railing, they peered down into the lobby. The hotel desk was unattended. The sound of snoring echoed like a lion’s roar up the stairwell. As they moved down the steps, the hotel lounge came into view, and they spotted the lobby attendant sprawled out on a couch, mouth gaping in blissful repose.
Guy flashed Willy a grin and a thumbs-up sign. Then he led the way down the steps and through a service door. Crates lined a dark and dingy hallway; at the far end was another door. They slipped out the exit.
Outside, the darkness was so thick, Willy found herself groping for some tangible clue to her surroundings. Then Guy took her hand and his touch was steadying; it was a hand she’d learned she could trust. Together they crept through the shadows, into the narrow alley behind the hotel. There they waited.
It was 2:01.
At 2:07, they sensed, more than heard, a stirring in the darkness. It was as if a breath of wind had congealed into something alive, solid. They didn’t see the woman until she was right beside them.
“Come with me,” she said. Willy recognized the voice: it was Nora Walker’s.
They followed her up a series of streets and alleys, weaving farther and farther into the maze that was Hanoi. Nora said nothing. Every so often they caught a glimpse of her in the glow of a street lamp, her hair concealed beneath a conical hat, her dark blouse anonymously shabby.
At last, in an alley puddled with stagnant water, they came to a halt. Through the darkness, Willy could just make out three bicycles propped against a wall. A bundle was thrust into her hands. It contained a set of pajamalike pants and blouse, a conical hat smelling of fresh straw. Guy, too, was handed a change of clothes.
In silence they dressed.
On bicycles they followed Nora through miles of back streets. In that landscape of shadows, everything took on a life of its own. Tree branches reached out to snag them. The road twisted like a serpent. Willy lost all sense of direction; as far as she knew, they could be turning in circles. She pedaled automatically, following the faint outline of Nora’s hat floating ahead in the darkness.
The paved streets gave way to dirt roads, the buildings to huts and vegetable plots. At last, at the outskirts of town, they dismounted. An old truck sat at the side of the road. Through the driver’s window, a cigarette could be seen glowing in the darkness. The door squealed open, and a Vietnamese man hopped out of the cab. He and Nora whispered together for a moment. Then the man tossed aside the cigarette and gestured to the back of the truck.
“Get in,” said Nora. “He’ll take you from here.”
“Where are we going?” asked Willy.
Nora flipped aside the truck’s tarp and motioned for them to climb in. “No time for questions. Hurry.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?”
“I can’t. They’ll notice I’m gone.”
“Who’ll notice?”
Nora’s voice, already urgent, took on a note of panic. “Please. Get in now.”
Guy and Willy scrambled onto the rear bumper and dropped down lightly among a pile of rice sacks.
“Be patient,” said Nora. “It’s a long ride. There’s food and water inside—enough to hold you.”
“Who’s the driver?” asked Guy.
“No names. It’s safer.”
“But can we trust him?”
Nora paused. “Can we trust anyone?” she said. Then she yanked on the tarp. The canvas fell, closing them off from the night.
IT WAS A LONG bicycle ride back to her apartment. Nora pedaled swiftly, her body slicing through the night, her hat shuddering in the wind. She knew the way well; even in the darkness she could sense where the hazards, the unexpected potholes, lay.
Tonight she could also sense something else. A presence, something evil, floating in the night. The feeling was so unshakable she felt compelled to stop and look back at the road. For a full minute she held her breath and waited. Nothing moved, only the shadows of clouds hurtling before the moon. It’s my imagination, she thought. No one was following her. No one could have followed her. She’d been too cautious, taking the Americans up and down so many turns that no one could possibly have kept up unnoticed.
Breathing easier, she pedaled all the way home.
She parked her bicycle in the community shed and climbed the rickety steps to her apartment. The door was unlocked. The significance of that fact didn’t strike her until she’d already taken one step over the threshold. By then it was too late.
The door closed behind her. She spun around just as a light sprang on, shining full in her face. Blinded, she took a panicked step backward. “Who—what—”
From behind, hands wrenched her into a brutal embrace. A knife blade slid lightly across her neck.
“Not a word,” whispered a voice in her ear.
The person holding the light came forward. He was a large man, so large, his shadow blotted out the wall. “We’ve been waiting for you, Miss Walker,” he said. “Where did you take them?”
She swallowed. “Who?”
“You went to the hotel to meet them. Where did you go from there?”
“I didn’t—” She gasped as the blade suddenly stung her flesh; she felt a drop of blood trickle warmly down her neck.
“Easy, Mr. Siang,” said the man. “We have all night.”
Nora began to cry. “Please. Please, I don’t know anything….”
“But, of course, you do. And you’ll tell us, won’t you?” The man pulled up a chair and sat down. She could see his teeth gleaming like ivory in the shadows. “It’s only a question of when.”
FROM BENEATH THE FLAPPING canvas, Willy caught glimpses of dawn: light filtering through the trees, dust swirling in the road, the green brilliance of rice paddies. They’d been traveling for hours now, and the sacks of rice were beginning to feel like bags of concrete against their backs. At least they’d been provided with food and drink. In an open crate they’d found a bottle of water, a loaf of French bread and four hard-boiled eggs. It seemed sufficient—at first. But as the day wore on and the heat grew suffocating, that single bottle of water became more and more precious. They rationed it, one sip every half hour; it was barely enough to keep their throats moist.
At noon the truck began to climb.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Heading west, I think. Into the mountains. Maybe the road to Dien Bien Phu.”
“Towards Laos?”
“Where your father’s plane went down.” In the shadows of the truck, Guy’s face, dirty and unshaven, was a tired mask of resolution. She wondered if she looked as grim.
He shrugged off his sweat-soaked shirt and threw it aside, oblivious to the mosquitoes buzzing around them. The scar on his bare abdomen seemed to ripple in the gloom. In silent fascination, Willy started to reach out to him, then thought better of it.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, guiding her hand to the scar. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“It must have hurt terribly when you got it.”
“I don’t remember.” At her puzzled look, he added, “I mean, not on any sort of conscious level. It’s funny, though, how well I remember what happened just before the plane went down. Toby, sitting next to me, telling jokes. Something about the pilot looking like an old buddy of his from Alcoholics Anonymous. He’d heard in flight school that the best military pilots were always the drunks; a sober man wouldn’t dream of flying the sort of junk heap we were in. I remember laughing as we taxied down the runway. Then—” He shook his head. “They say I pulled him out of the wreckage. That I unbuckled him and dragged him out just before the whole thing blew. They even called me a hero.” He uncapped the water bottle, took a sip. “What a laugh.”
“Sounds like you earned the label,” she said.
“Sounds more like I was knocked in the head and didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”
“The best heroes in the world are the reluctant ones. Courage isn’t fearlessness—it’s acting in the face of fear.”
“Yeah?” He laughed. “Then that makes me the best of the best.” He stiffened as the truck suddenly slowed, halted. A voice barked orders in the distance. They stared at each other in alarm.
“What is it?” she whispered. “What’re they saying?”
“Something about a roadblock…soldiers are stopping everyone. Some sort of inspection….”
“My God. What do we—”
He put a finger to his lips. “Sounds like a lot of traffic in front. Could take a while before they get to us.”
“Can we back up? Turn around?”
He scrambled to the back of the truck and glanced through a slit in the canvas. “No chance. We’re socked in tight. Trucks on both sides.”
Willy frantically surveyed the gloom, searching for empty burlap bags, a crate, anything large enough in which to hide.
The soldiers’ voices moved closer.
We have to make a run for it, thought Willy. Guy had already risen to a crouch. But a glance outside told them they were surrounded by shallow rice paddies. Without cover, their flight would be spotted immediately.
But they won’t hurt us, she thought. They wouldn’t dare. We’re Americans.
As if, in this crazy world, an eagle on one’s passport bought any sort of protection.
The soldiers were right outside—two men by the sound of the voices. The truck driver was trying to cajole his way out of the inspection, laughing, offering cigarettes. The man had to have nerves of steel; not a single note of apprehension slipped into his voice.
His attempts at bribery failed. Footsteps continued along the graveled roadside, heading for the back of the truck.
Guy instinctively shoved Willy against the rice sacks, shielding her behind him. He’d be the one they’d see first, the one they’d confront. He turned to face the inevitable.
A hand poked through, gripping the canvas flap….
And paused. In the distance, a car horn was blaring. Tires screeched, followed by the thud of metal, the angry shouts of drivers.
The hand gripping the canvas pulled away. The flap slid shut. There were a few terse words exchanged between the soldiers, then footsteps moved away, crunching up the gravel road.
It took only seconds for their driver to scramble back into the front seat and hit the gas. The truck lurched forward, throwing Guy off his feet. He toppled, landing right next to Willy on the rice sacks. As their truck roared full speed around the traffic and down the road, they sprawled together, too stunned by their narrow escape to say a word. Suddenly they were both laughing, rolling around on the sacks, giddy with relief.
Guy hauled her into his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.
“What was that for?” she demanded, pulling back in surprise.
“That,” he whispered, “was pure instinct.”
“Do you always follow your instincts?”
“Whenever I can get away with it.”
“And you really think I’ll let you get away with it?”
In answer, he gripped her hair, trapping her head against the sacks, and kissed her again, longer, deeper. Pleasure leapt through her, a desire so sudden, so fierce, it left her voiceless.
“I think,” he murmured, “you want it as much as I do.”
With a gasp of outrage, she shoved him onto his back and climbed on top of him, pinning him beneath her. “Guy Barnard, you miserable jerk, I’m going to give you what you deserve.”
He laughed. “Are you now?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And what, exactly, do I deserve?”
For a moment she stared at him through the dust and gloom. Then, slowly, she lowered her face to his. “This,” she said softly.
The kiss was different this time. Warmer. Hungrier. She was a full and willing partner; he knew it and he responded. She didn’t need to be warned that she was playing a dangerous game, that they were both hurtling toward the point of no return. She could already feel him swelling beneath her, could feel her own body aching to accommodate that new hardness. And the whole time she was kissing him, the whole time their bodies were pressed together, she was thinking, I’m going to regret this. As sure as I breathe, I’m going to pay for this. But it feels so right….
She pulled away, fighting to catch her breath.
“Well!” said Guy, grinning up at her. “Miss Willy Maitland, I am surprised.”
She sat up, nervously shoving her hair back into place. “I never meant to do that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“It was a stupid thing to do.”
“Then why did you?”
“It was…” She looked him in the eye. “Pure instinct.”
He laughed. In fact, he fell backward laughing, rolling around on the sacks of rice. The truck hit a pothole, bouncing her up and down so hard, she collapsed onto the floor beside him.
And still he was laughing.
“You’re a crazy man,” she said.
He threw an arm around her neck and pulled her warmly against him. “Only about you.”
IN A BLACK LIMOUSINE WITH tinted windows, Siang sat gripping the steering wheel and cursing the wretched highway—or what this country called a highway. He had never understood why communism and decent roads had to be mutually exclusive. And then there was the traffic, added to the annoyance of that government vehicle inspection. It had given him a moment’s apprehension, the sight of the armed soldiers standing at the roadside. But it took only a few smooth words from the man in the back seat, the wave of a Soviet diplomatic passport, and they were allowed to move on without incident.
They continued west; a road sign confirmed it was the highway to Dien Bien Phu. A strange omen, Siang thought, that they should be headed for the town where the French had met defeat, where East had triumphed over West. Centuries before, an Asian scribe had written a prophetic statement.
To the south lie the mountains,
The land of the Viets.
He who marches against them
Is surely doomed to failure.
Siang glanced in the rearview mirror, at the man in the back seat. He wouldn’t be thinking in terms of East versus West. He cared nothing about nations or motherlands or patriotism. Real power, he’d once told Siang, lay in the hands of individuals, special people who knew how to use it, to keep it, and he was going to keep it.
Siang had no doubt he would.
He remembered the day they’d first met in Happy Valley, at an American base the GIs had whimsically dubbed “the Golf Course.” It was 1967. Siang had a different name then. He was a slender boy of thirteen, barefoot, scratching out a hungry existence among all the other orphans. When he’d first seen the American, his initial impression was of hugeness. An enormous fleshy face, alarmingly red in the heat; boots made for a giant; hands that looked strong enough to snap a child’s arm in two. The day was hot, and Siang was selling soft drinks. The man bought a Coca Cola, drank it down in a few gulps and handed the empty bottle back. As Siang took it, he felt the man’s gaze studying him, measuring him. Then the man walked away.
The next day, and every day for a week, the American emerged from the GI compound to buy a Coca Cola. Though a dozen other children clamored for his business, each waving soft drinks, the man bought only from Siang.
At the end of the week, the man presented Siang with a brand-new shirt, three tins of corned beef and an astonishing amount of cash. He said he was leaving the valley early the next morning, and he asked the boy to hire the prettiest girl he could find and bring her to him for the night.
It was only a test, as Siang found out later. He passed it. In fact, the American seemed surprised when Siang appeared at the compound gate that evening with an extraordinarily beautiful girl. Obviously, the man had expected Siang to take the money and vanish.
To Siang’s astonishment, the man sent the girl away without even touching her. Instead, he asked the boy to stay—not as a lover, as Siang at first feared, but as an assistant. “I need someone I can trust,” the man said. “Someone I can train….”
Even now, after all these years, Siang still felt that young boy’s sense of awe whenever he looked at the American. He glanced at the rearview mirror, at the face that had changed so little since that day they’d met in Happy Valley. The cheeks might be thicker and ruddier, but the eyes were the same, sharp and all-knowing. Just like the mind. Those eyes almost frightened him.
Siang turned his attention back to the road. The man in the back seat was humming a tune: “Yankee Doodle.” A whimsical choice, considering the Soviet passport he was carrying. Siang smiled at the irony of it all.
Nothing about the man was ever quite what it seemed.