Conspiracy

100

Qui Lai Chu sat on the wooden chair with her legs pressed together, staring at the floor. It had been quite a long time since she had had trouble with the police, but remembering how to deal with them did not require any great effort. The most important things were to remain calm and to do nothing to provoke them.

The door opened. Two of her jailers and a short, older man entered the room. As usual in Vietnam, the older man was in charge. The others stepped back from him deferentially.

“You, Qui Lai Chu — what did you do in Quang Nam?” said the man. The words shot from his mouth like crisp gunshots; he had a slight frown on his face, as if already angry that she was wasting his time.

“Who are you?” Qui asked.

“You are not in a position to ask questions! What did you do in Quang Nam?”

“I accompanied a business tourist there. I am a licensed translator,” Qui continued before the man could say anything else. “He was an American and he obviously felt war guilt. He spoke to several people and inquired about a dead man. He met with a government official. I assume it was an old enemy who had vanquished him, and he had come to make his respects.”

“What official?”

“He did not take me inside,” she said.

“Why bring a translator and not use her?”

“I cannot explain an American’s whims.”

“You were paid?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps, thought Qui, he is looking for a bribe. But after several more questions about how she was paid — Qui knew better than to say that he had paid with American dollars, for that would have been a crime — her interrogator changed the subject.

“What was this man like?”

“An American. Stupid. Lazy. Fat.” They were the stock answers one was expected to give.

“Don’t lie.”

“He was a typical American.” Qui held out her hands.

“He said he was with a relief organization. He seemed intelligent, but spoke little. Like all Americans, I assume he had more money than he knew what to do with.” Once again, the subject was changed, with Qui asked how the man had come to hire her. This was somewhat tricky ground. She was licensed by the government to translate, and driving Dean in her private car was, potentially, a crime if she charged for it, even though it was a common practice.

With no way of knowing what her interrogator was after, Qui gave as little information as possible, leaving open the obvious but not stating it for the record.

“Do you still wish to know who I am?” asked the man finally.

“Yes.”

“My name is Cam Tre Luc. I am the director of the Interior Ministry Southern Security District. Do you know what that means?”

“You are an important man,” said Qui, lowering her gaze.

“It means that if I lift my fingers you will be reeducated in the countryside.”

“Reeducation” essentially meant banishment to a poor area where, if one was lucky, he or she might be looked on as a community slave. Reeducation could last a year or two or ten, depending on a number of factors, including bureaucratic whim and the emotions of the village’s headman.

“I wish to speak to this Mr. Dean,” said Cam Tre Luc.

“You will arrange it for me.”

Qui had not given Dean’s name, but she was not surprised that Cam Tre Luc knew it.

“I don’t know how to contact him,” said Qui.

“He called you a short while ago,” said Cam Tre Luc. He gestured to one of the younger men, who produced Cam Tre Luc’s cell phone. “Call him back. Tell him to meet you at the Inchine Hilton.”

Qui took the phone, trying to think of how she could warn Dean while still appearing to do Cam Tre Luc’s bidding. The phone provided its own answer — Dean’s phone number had registered as gibberish on her directory.

“I don’t have a way to contact him,” Qui told Cam Tre Luc.

“You will find a way,” he said, abruptly turning and leaving the room.

As he walked down the hall from the interrogation room, Cam Tre Luc reached into his pocket and retrieved a small lump of misshapen metal, turning it over in his fingers as he walked. It was an unconscious habit; he had had the metal for going on forty years, ever since it was pulled from the rib where it had lodged, a few inches from his heart.

“Without luck,” the nurse who had pulled it from him said, “you would be a ghost.”

Lieutenant Son, the head of the division that had detained Ms. Chu, was waiting at the end of the hall.

“Keep questioning her about this American, Charles Dean,” Cam Tre Luc told him. “In the morning, I want her taken to his hotel.”

“He has not gone back, or I would have been informed.”

“My goal, comrade, is simple,” said Cam Tre Luc. “I wish Mr. Dean to be brought to me. If you have a better way of achieving that goal, by all means proceed. Just do not fail in the end.”

“What if this Dean has already left the country?”

“He would have been picked up at the airport. No, he is still here. He hasn’t checked out of his hotel. Detain him, take his passport, and alert me.”

“Absolutely, Comrade Director.”

Cam Tre Luc stepped out in the humid night air, still turning the metal lump between his fingers. The American would pay for his impertinence. They had not fought the war to be treated like peons.