Twelve Minutes to Vinh Quang

The restaurant smelled of anchovies and cigarettes. Lynn hated both, but still, it reminded her of home. Comforting and familiar. The anchovies in the sauce wouldn’t be real of course, and the tobacco almost certainly illegal.

It was three in the afternoon, but the room was still pretty much full. Patrons sipped glasses of tea, shrouded in the smoke and dusk, mumbling to each other in low-pitched conversation. Blinds were down against the windows, the only light emanating from shaded red lanterns hanging from the ceiling, casting the faces around her in crimson twilight.

The only light, that is, bar a government advertisement on the far wall. The picture of a decaying wooden boat on the high seas, the inhabitants of which were anonymous splotches of yellow staring over a thin railing. The holotype glow of the deep blue ocean was overwhelmed by the intensity of the red block letters stamped over the picture:

ILLEGAL

Everyday, middle-of-the-road fascism: it just had no imagination.

A small bell above the door tinkled as it opened, spearing an unwelcome slat of white sunlight into the room. Heat, too, gusting in to swirl the smoke and swing the lanterns. A shadow filled the doorframe, pausing perhaps to adjust its eyes to the gloom within. Maybe just pausing for effect.

An ancient Vietnamese woman behind the back counter came to life, pointing a gnarled finger at the new customer. “Má Măy. Dóng Cưả Lai đi.” [“Close that door. Your mother!”]

The silhouette shut the door, emerging from the light into a broad-shouldered man wearing an immaculate tailored suit, deep-blue necktie, and an air of contempt for the room he’d just stepped into. He removed the black homburg from his head and ran a hand over his gleaming, jet-black hair, combed straight back. As he did so, Lynn glimpsed a tattoo snaking up under his sleeve.

The man walked to the back counter. Lynn turned to watch as he did, adjusting her silver nose ring with thumb and forefinger. He spoke in hushed tones with the old woman, glanced back at Lynn, then turned and started speaking again rapidly. The grandmother waved him away before disappearing through a beaded doorway to the kitchen beyond.

He walked back to her table, hat in hand, face set. “Mister Vu?”

“Vu Thi Lynn.” She paused. “And that’s a Miz, Mister Nguyen.”

He made a show of looking her over. Her hair in particular came in for close inspection, dyed, as it was, the hue of a fresh-pressed silver bar and molded into a spiked Mohawk. She sported a tiny black leather jacket and a pair of thin eyebrows that could fire withering disdain at fifty paces.

His shoulders were hunched, like a boxer’s. “Is this a joke?”

“What are you having difficulty processing, Mister Nguyen? That I’m young, a woman, or,” she waved at hand at his suit, “that I don’t walk around with the word ‘gangster’ tattooed on my damn forehead?”

His eyes narrowed, lips pressed together. Then the flicker of anger was gone. “Perhaps you don’t know who I am.”

“All I know is you’re late.”

Mister Nguyen placed his hat on the table and played with the large gold ring on his index finger, looking down at her with a studied grimness.

Lynn stifled a sigh at the posturing. “Look, we have business to attend to, and I was led to believe you were a businessman.” She indicated the seat opposite her. “Let’s get to work.”

He nodded, as though to himself, scanning the room as he took his seat. Appeals to business usually worked with these people, imagining, as they did, that they were part of some traditional brand of professional criminality stretching back through time to the Binh Xuyen of Saigon or the Painters and Dockers Union of Melbourne.

“We doing this here?”

She nodded. “I’ve never been here before. There are a hundred places like this in Cabramatta. Neither of us need return here again.”

He looked around the room once more and took a palmscreen out of his pocket. He mumbled into it, pressed his thumb against a pad on the front, and then pulled a thin tube from the top. It unrolled into a translucent, wafer-thin flexiscreen. Soft green icons glowed across its surface. He looked at her. “So, what’s the rush?”

“No questions, Mister Nguyen.”

He clenched his jaw. He knew he couldn’t argue with this statement of professionalism either. “The transaction will take thirty minutes to complete.”

“Thirty minutes?”

Nguyen drew a cigar from the inner pocket of his jacket, and set about clipping the end with a steel cigar cutter. “The government tracks every freewave signal going into Vietnam. Our transaction can’t be direct.” He put the cigar in his mouth, took his time lighting it with a heavy gold lighter. He snapped it shut and puffed out a thick cloud of smoke. “We relay through a few different countries first before ending up at a front factory in Laos, right near the Vietnamese border. My contact there gets word across the border to a small town on the other side: Vinh Quang.” He pointed down at the flexiscreen with the end of his cigar. “The money for the equipment—that’s easy, will only take a few minutes. Unofficially, the Australians don’t give a shit about private funds going to buy weapons for the Viet Minh. The money for people is tougher to get through clean. You know—the whole refugee thing.”

Lynn nodded. She glanced over at the government ad on the wall, red letters glowing fierce and eternal. Yeah. She knew.

Money, of course, was always an exception. Five million dollars and you and your family would be granted a “business residency” in Australia. The government funneled the arrivals into Cabramatta and the nearby suburbs, very quietly, so the general public wouldn’t get too heated up about it.

The rest who arrived by boat were thrown into internment camps for a few months before being returned to Vietnam, where inevitably they ended up in Chinese prisoner-of-war camps.

Nguyen placed the cigar cutter and lighter on the scratched tabletop. “You insisted on being here when the money went through. It takes thirty minutes.”

“You know the saying,” she said, “trust everyone, but cut the cards.”

He shrugged. “Sure. I need to keep the line open, verify who I am, confirm we’re not a part of some Chinese sting operation. If we miss a call, I fail to enter a pass code, they burn the link.”

She nodded.

He puffed on his cigar like a man who believed he was in charge. “You said you wanted to move twenty million. Minus, of course, fifteen percent for my fee.”

“You told me the fee was ten percent.”

“That was before you criticized my clothes.”

“You look like a cross between a pimp and a wet echidna. I think I went easy on you.”

His eyes went hard. He glanced at her hair, opened his mouth to retort, then shook his head. “I did some asking around. Everyone has heard about you. High profile means a higher risk.”

“You didn’t even know whether I was a man or a woman before today.”

“The authorities could be observing you.”

“They’re not.”

He inhaled deeply on the cigar, blew the smoke directly into her face. She closed her eyes for a moment, felt her hand clench into a fist.

Nguyen was oblivious. “Your regular guy got done for tax evasion. I have the contacts. And you’re in a hurry.” He opened his hands and smiled. “The fee is fifteen percent.”

Lynn glanced around the room. A couple of faces were turned in her direction. She shook her head, a small shake—one that could be mistaken for Lynn trying to get the smoke out of her eyes.

She looked back at him. “I want a business residency for two families. That’s ten million. The rest goes to weapons.”

“I assume these families are on an Australian government watch list. They’ll need new identities?”

She raised an eyebrow in the universal signal for obviously.

“You know these people?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why are you getting them out?”

“You appear to be asking questions again. Now what did I say about that?”

He brought his hand down hard on the plastic tabletop, causing the condiments to chatter. He took a deep breath. “No respect.”

Lynn sipped her tea, watching him over the lip of the glass.

He took a long drag on his cigar and returned the stare. Then he blinked away whatever he wanted to say and began manipulating the glowing symbols on the flexiscreen, whispering into it from time to time.

Unobserved, Lynn allowed herself a small smile.

Through the nanos attached to her optic nerves, the c-glyph could broadcast data and images that only she could see. Some people would have multiple freewave screens open all hours of the day. Watching the betting markets or reality television or point-of-view pornography. As a general rule, if you were in conversation with someone and their eyes glazed over, or even closed, they were finding some facile freewave feed more interesting than your company.

Lynn tended to keep her visuals uncluttered. At the moment all she had loaded up was the timestamp in glowing green numerals that appeared, to her brain, about a foot away in the top left corner of her vision.

15:33

She marked the time. Thirty minutes to Vinh Quang.

They waited. She turned and signaled the grandmother, ordered a late lunch. A soft chime sounded a few minutes later. Nguyen closed his eyes and put a finger to the c-glyph behind his left ear, listening as it whispered directly into his eardrum. He murmured a response, paused, and then mumbled again.

He opened his eyes a few seconds later. “The money for the equipment is through.”

She nodded, touched her own c-glyph, fingers against the small circle of cool steel. “Anh Dung?” She listened to the reply, nodded once.

“Everything check out?” Nguyen asked.

“Don’t worry, you’ll know if it doesn’t.”

Nguyen slurped his tea and settled into his chair, content to watch the slow burn of his cigar. The minutes stretched out. Nguyen didn’t try to engage her in conversation; the first transaction had gone through smoothly: things were going well.

Until the bell above the door tinkled again.

Two men entered. As the blinding light returned to the dusk of the room, she could see that they weren’t from around here. White men with cheap fedoras, crumpled suits, and the empty gaze of detached professionalism. Government men. They scanned the room, their eyes stopping when they found Lynn.

She held her breath, moved her hand to her belt buckle.

They walked right up to the table, removing their hats as they approached. “Mister Nguyen Van Cam?” Lynn’s hand stopped, hovering above the lip of her jeans, she breathed out slowly.

Mister Nguyen looked up. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Agent Taylor, Immigration Enforcement Agency.” He flipped out a badge featuring an Australian crest, emu and kangaroo glinting chrome in the red haze. He pointed to the man next to him. “This is Agent Baker.”

Nguyen was silent, his cigar trailing an idle string of smoke to the ceiling.

The time glowed softly at the edge of her vision.

15:51

Twelve minutes.

Nguyen was struggling to conjugate a response when the grandmother appeared between the two agents. The top of her head didn’t even reach their shoulders. She looked down at Lynn when she spoke. “Hai thằng chó đẻ này làm gi`ở đây vậy?” [“What are these two sons-of-bitches doing here?”]

Lynn’s spoken Vietnamese was close to fluent, but she kept her translator on when she was working. Though less frequent, this part of town also echoed with Laotian, Burmese, and a hundred Chinese dialects. Smart to be tuned in to those wavelengths.

So the c-glyph whispered the old woman’s sentence into her ear, coming through in English a couple of seconds later. It made it look like the grandmother was speaking in a badly dubbed old movie.

“They won’t be here long. Can you get them tea?” Lynn asked.

“Bác bỏ thuôć độc vô luôn đựỏc nha?” [“Shall I poison it?”]

Lynn smiled a small smile. “No. Just tea.” The men were moving their hands to their c-glyphs. Apparently they’d entered the restaurant without their translators turned on.

Lynn indicated a couple of seats nearby. “Gentlemen, why don’t you sit down? Drink some tea with us.”

One of the agents answered. “No thank you, Miss. We are here to take Mister Nguyen in for questioning.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Lynn leaned back in her chair, used her eyes to indicate the room they were standing in. “Here’s the thing. You’re deep in the heart of Cabramatta. Not the safest place in the world for an immigration enforcement agent.”

They looked around the restaurant. Perhaps noticing for the first time the quiet that had descended on it. All eyes in the room focused on them, the atmosphere turning like a corpse in the noonday sun.

“Gentlemen,” she said.

They looked back at her.

“Just smile, grab a seat, and conduct your business politely. You’ll be out of here in a few minutes, no trouble.”

The agents exchanged glances. One nodded. They dragged chairs with faded red seat cushions over to the table, smiling strained smiles as they sat down.

Nguyen cleared his throat, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “What’s the charge?”

The official looked across at him with dead eyes. “People smuggling.”

“Do you have a warrant?” asked Lynn.

He turned back to her. “Are you his lawyer?”

“No.” She indicated Nguyen with an open palm. “He’s my pimp. Can’t you tell?”

Agent Taylor didn’t seem keen on smiling. “People smuggling is a very serious offense.”

Lynn nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen the advertisements. Very, very serious—imagine trying to help Vietnamese civilians flee cluster bombing and nerve warfare? China would be livid. And we couldn’t have that.”

The agents suddenly seemed a lot more interested in her. Taylor looked her over and then held out his hand to Agent Baker, who removed a palmscreen from his pocket and passed it to his partner. It looked a bit larger than a regular model, maybe four inches across by six long. The retina scanner he flipped up from the end must have been specially fitted. Lynn cursed inwardly.

“Would you mind if I did an identity check, Miss?”

She pointed. “What is that?”

“The retina scanner?”

“That model. That’s official immigration issue isn’t it? An expensive unit, I believe. ”

“Miss. The scan please.” The agent had one of those voices trained to convey authority. Imbued with one extra notch each of volume, aggression, and confidence.

“I’m afraid I can’t agree to that.”

His gaze rose from the adjustments he was making to the scanner. “It’s the law. We’re making an arrest. You appear to be an associate of Mister Nguyen.”

“I’m Australian. You have no jurisdiction over me.”

“Sorry Miss, but we don’t know that until we test it.”

“That seems a conveniently circular argument.”

“If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Lynn raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the mantra of secret police and peeping Toms everywhere.”

The agent’s professional patina didn’t drop. Not surprising, a person in his position would be subject to a wide range of creative abuse on a daily basis. “Like I said—it’s the law.”

“I read an article about this once. If you run my retina prints, I’ll be listed as present during one of your arrests.”

He responded with a shrug that indicated that while she was right, he didn’t really care.

“And I’ll be flagged as a person of interest for immigration.”

“I didn’t design the system, Miss.”

“Of course not. An empty suit couldn’t design a system so diabolical; your only function is to implement it.”

Still no response. Not a flicker. She sighed and pulled out an unmarked silver cigarette case from her jacket pocket. “Do you gentlemen smoke?”

Agent Baker let out a humorless laugh. “You think we can afford to smoke on a government salary?” He glanced around the room, at Nguyen. “In fact, I doubt anyone here can afford to smoke. Legally, anyway.” He looked back at Lynn. “Do you have a license for those?”

Her fingers lingered in the open case. “I thought you were in immigration, Agent Baker, not drug enforcement. Haven’t you gentlemen got enough on your plate for today?”

The man pointed at his partner. “He’s Baker, I’m Taylor.”

“You people all look the same to me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “White people?”

“Bureaucrats.”

The one on the right planted his elbow on the table, holding the palm screen up at about her head height. The other agent turned to watch the room, hand slipping under his jacket. The patrons, seeing a hated ID check underway, watched him right back. Lynn snapped shut her case, sans cigarette, and placed it on the table.

15:56

“Here, hold it steady.” She placed both hands on the palmscreen and held her eye up to the scanner. A small, black metal circle with a red laser dot in the center. She looked into the beam. The red glare caused her to blink.

“Try not to blink, Miss. It just needs five seconds.”

She put her eye in the beam again, counted to three, then blinked rapidly. A chime in a minor key emanated from the palmscreen.

The agent sighed. “Miss.” Firmer this time. “Just place your eye over the beam. Don’t blink. It’s over in a few seconds.”

She failed another three times, eliciting more sighs and even a curse. She smiled sweetly. The smile didn’t feel at all natural on her face, but their displeasure was satisfying nonetheless. On the sixth attempt, she allowed it to work.

16:00

He looked at the results of the scan. “Miss Vu. I see you have full citizenship.”

“I’m aware.”

“But your parents do not. They are Vietnamese–Australian.”

She sat in silence. Let the threat hang there for a few moments while she studied it. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Nothing.” He snapped down the scanner, put the palmscreen in his coat pocket. His flat stare lingered on her. “I’m just saying they fall under our jurisdiction.”

Under the table, she slowly slid her pistol from the small holster under her belt buckle. She moved it to her lap, hidden in the shadows, easing the safety off with her thumb. “My parents have nothing to do with this.”

Again, those dead eyes. “If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.”

The grandmother reappeared, placed a pot and two glasses on the table. She glanced down as she did so. From the angle she was standing, the old woman could see the pistol Lynn clutched in her hand. She leant down, whispered close to Lynn’s ear. “Bỏ thuôć độc dễ hỏn.” [“Poison would have been easier.”]

Lynn gave her a small smile in reply.

Agent Baker took one sip of his tea before turning to Nguyen. “Time to go.” He pointed down at the flexiscreen sitting on the table. “That yours?”

Nguyen puffed on his cigar. Like Lynn, he seemed to be figuring the best answer to that particular question.

“Mister Nguyen, is that your flexiscreen?”

Nguyen began to speak, but Lynn cut him off. “Yes. Yes it’s his.”

The agent started to rise from his seat. “You better bring it with you.”

16:03

A soft chime emanated from the screen. The four faces at the table turned to look at it. No one spoke. A few seconds passed and the chime sounded again, the ideograms on the flexiscreen increasing in brightness, insisting on attention.

“Mister Nguyen,” she said. He didn’t respond. He just sat staring at the screen. Her voice was firmer the second time. “Mister Nguyen.”

He started and looked up at her.

“Why don’t you answer your call while the agents here show me that warrant.”

He looked from her, to the screen, over to the agents, then back to her again. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Sure.” He put a finger to his c-glyph and closed his eyes.

“Gentlemen.” Lynn held out her hand. “The warrant.” She felt surprisingly calm given she was responsible for a crime occurring three feet away that could get her thirty years in prison. She focused on her breathing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Agent Baker glanced over at Nguyen, who was now mumbling responses to someone only he could see. The agent sighed and reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the palmscreen, and pressed his thumb to it. “Verify: Agent Baker, immigration enforcement. Display warrant for Nguyen Van Cam, suspected people smuggler.”

He waited. Nothing happened. He pressed his thumb to it again. Still nothing. It was dead. No sound, no light, no signal. He handed it to his partner. The other man looked at the dead screen, then up at Lynn. “What’s going on here?”

She slowly slid the pistol back in the holster, eyes on the two men. “You tell me.”

The agent held the screen up. “All official communications are contained in this, including the warrant. It’s a closed system. It was working fine a few minutes ago. Now it’s dead.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Well, I’d say you boys are shit out of luck.”

“This doesn’t change anything.”

“I disagree. It changes everything.” Lynn signaled for the grandmother to come over to the table. She did so immediately. “This is private property. Unless you’re conducting government-sanctioned business, you should leave,” she turned to the old woman, addressing her in the formal Vietnamese mode, “Right, elder aunty?”

The grandmother looked at the two men, her eyes sparkling. She found a phrase for them in English. “Piss off.”

The agents rose from their seats. One reached under his jacket. The other looked around at the customers, at the faces staring back at him from within the red haze, coiled with silent anger. The agent placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Let’s wait outside. Warrant and back-up will be here in fifteen minutes.”

The other man nodded, still staring straight at Lynn. He let his hand drop, looked over at Nguyen. “Don’t even think about leaving.” Then he spun and walked out, his partner right behind.

Lynn turned to the old woman. “We need some privacy.”

The old woman set about ushering the customers out the front door. No one needed much encouragement. It wasn’t worth witnessing what was going to happen next.

Soon all that remained was the smoke and the scent of anchovies. That, and two of her men. They walked over from where they had been sitting, one stood behind Mister Nguyen, one next to Lynn. They were big men.

Nguyen glanced up at them, then back at Lynn. “We should leave, now.” He started to rise from his seat, but a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and pushed him back down.

Lynn shook her head. “Not yet, Mister Nguyen, not yet.” She indicated the door with her eyes. “Your men in the car outside have been sent away.”

“What?”

She sighed and folded her hands on the tabletop. “You led two immigration agents to our first meeting.”

“I didn’t know they were following me.”

“You led two immigrations agents into our first bloody meeting.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the steel was in it this time.

Nguyen said nothing, just bowed his head and looked at the burnt-out cigar between his fingers.

Lynn pointed at the cigarette case. “Fortunately I keep a dot scrambler on hand for times such as this. The one I stuck on the agent’s palmscreen will wipe any record of my retina scan, and freeze the unit until a tech can sit down and unwind the scrambled code. And this,” she pointed to her nose ring, “is a refraction loop. You know what this does?”

He shook his head.

“To the naked eye I looked normal. But when you take the memory pin from your c-glyph and play back this scene, the area around my face is distorted. The light bent and warped. They’ll still have my voice print, but I can live with that.”

She placed the cigarette case in her pocket.

“So I’m in the clear,” she said. “You know the laws on human memory. If it doesn’t come from a memory pin playback, it is inadmissible as evidence. What with the frail psychology of natural memory and all that. Those agents won’t remember what I look like anyway. Not if I change my hair.” She reached up, touching the spikes with her palms. “Pity. I quite like this style.”

She sighed. “There is, unfortunately, one loose strand. I didn’t activate the refraction loop until after you’d walked in. Those agents,” she waved at the door, “could subpoena your memory pin.”

He stared at her for a few seconds, processing what she was saying. “I’ll destroy it. I’ll give it to you even. Right now.”

She shook her head. “It is more than that. You’re sloppy, and that makes you a liability. You know the names of the families I just paid for, and—”

“—I’ll wipe all my records. You can have every—”

“—Enough.” Her eyes flashed. “Enough. You endangered my parents. This isn’t business, this is personal.” She paused, watching the man squirm under the heavy hands pressed down on his shoulders. “That’s the secret, by the way, Mister Nguyen. This business we have chosen—it’s always personal.”

“What are you saying?” He struggled to rise. The man next to Lynn stepped forward and drove a fist into Nguyen’s face, rocking the gangster’s head backward. Nguyen sat there for half a minute, one hand clutching the table, the other over his eye. When he pulled his hand away blood trickled down his cheek, the eyebrow split and already swelling.

Lynn indicated the man who had struck him. “This is Mister Giang. How is your family doing, Mister Giang?”

A voice, deep and clear, answered. “Well, Miz Vu.”

She kept her eyes on Nguyen. “They been out here some time now haven’t they?”

“Nearly three years.”

She nodded. She pointed at the man behind Nguyen’s left shoulder. “This is Mister Lac. His family arrived only six months ago. Have they settled in well, Mister Lac?”

“Very well, Miz Vu.”

“Did your younger sister get into university?”

“Yes. She will be a teacher.” A note of pride in the voice.

“Good. If there are any problems with tuition, you let me know.”

It was hard to tell in the shadows, but Mister Lac appeared to nod in reply.

Nguyen watched her now out of one eye, fear blossoming behind it.

“Mister Giang?”

“Yes, Miz Vu.”

“Could you take Mister Nguyen out to the back room and put a bullet through his head?”

Giang moved to where Nguyen sat and grabbed him by the upper arm. He and Lac hefted him out of his seat. Nguyen stuttered. “Wait, What? You can’t kill me.” Spittle fresh on his lips, his good eye wet. “Do you know who I am?”

Lynn stood. “Yes I do. You’re a mercenary,” she said. “And I meet people like you every day of the week.”

She nodded at Giang. He punched Nguyen in the stomach, doubling him over as the air expelled from his lungs, his cigar butt dropping to the floor.

That was the last she saw of him—bent over, unable to speak, being dragged from the room.

She turned to Mister Lac. “Get my parents. Right now. Take them to a safe house. If they argue—when my mother argues with you—just tell her that their daughter will explain everything in a couple of days.”

Lac nodded and left.

The grandmother walked in as he was leaving, handed over a warm bamboo box. “Cỏm của con nè. Bać đoán là con muôń take away.” [“Your lunch, child. I guessed you wanted take away.”]

The scent of rice, sharp chili sauce and aromatic mushrooms rose from the container. Lynn smiled a small smile. “Smells delicious, older Aunt. Cám ỏn bać.”

Grandmother nodded. “Con baỏ trong. Con đi há.” [“You take care. You go.”]

“You too. Con đi đây.”

Lynn straightened, fixing the ends of her hair with an open palm. She faced the front door. Twilight to heat, crimson to blinding white. Lynn hated the world out there.

She reached for the door handle.