Perfect Justice

49.

COLONEL NGUYEN FOUND HIS way home by starlight, following the path illuminated by the twinkling sentinels of the night. In the old days, he recalled, he used to look to them for guidance, for a sense of permanence, for answers. Now they were just white lights in the sky. Silent. Unresponsive. Nothing more.

Lan sat on the front porch Nguyen had only recently reconstructed. Her feet were propped against the railing; her eyes gazed up toward the heavens.

She was as beautiful as the Vietnamese flower for which she was named. Her smooth, tranquil face warmed his heart. It was almost as if there were no danger at all, as if that same porch had not been riddled with gunfire only a few days before.

He sneaked behind her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “The children?”

“In bed.” She took his arm and pulled it close around her.

“Was it difficult?”

“It is worse every night. They are afraid monsters will come in the night. And what can I tell them?” She shook her head sadly. “The monsters do come in the night.”

“How did you get them to sleep?”

“I told them their father would protect them, of course. As he has always done. As he always will do.”

“Perhaps the monsters will not come tonight,” Nguyen said as he sat beside her in the same chair. “Perhaps tonight will be calm.”

“Why do you say that? What have you been doing?”

He paused a moment, then decided it would be better to tell her than to let her imagine something worse. “I strung a trip wire across the entrance to Coi Than Tien.”

“Do you think that will stop them?”

It would be so much easier to lie to her. But he found he could not do it. “No. But at least now, if the black pickup returns, we will hear it coming.”

“Perhaps the conflict is over. Perhaps they will let it die.”

“No,” Nguyen said. “I have overheard Dan Pham and his associates. I do not know exactly what they plan, or when they plan to do it. But I know they contemplate another assault on ASP.”

“Perhaps this trial will quiet their fever.”

“How so?”

“Perhaps the trial will make Dan realize we are not alone, not so desperate as he thinks. Perhaps the trial will make the men of ASP realize they cannot commit these atrocities without paying a price.” She paused, then slowly brought her vivid brown eyes to meet his. “If Vick is convicted.”

Colonel Nguyen looked away. “You think he will be convicted?”

Lan’s face became resolute. “I pray to God that he will be.”

Nguyen gazed out into space, into the immutable tranquillity of the stars. How he wished to be among them, to be soaring through the void, to be anywhere but where he was. “It would be wrong to convict an innocent man.”

“I know nothing of this,” Lan said. “But I know what is best for my children. And my friends. And my husband.”

She could not have stated it any plainer. There was nothing else for them to say, then. Nothing else at all.

“You will go to watch the trial again tomorrow, my husband?”

He took her hands. “I feel I must.”

“Do you not have duties at the farm?”

“The farm will survive without me for a few days.”

She nodded slightly, then removed her hands from his. “I will await your return in the evening. We all will.”

Without even thinking, Nguyen took his wife into his arms and placed his head upon her chest. She was so warm, so good. He would be nothing without her.

“I only wish … to do what is right,” he said, after a long time.

“You will,” Lan replied. “You always do.”

“I am not so sure.”

“You are a fine man. Your heart is good.”

“Even a good man can grow … old. Tired.”

“Is this the hero of the 112^th National Brigade? Is this the man who saved Maria Truong so recently?”

“Still, I worry. … I am not sure I can trust myself.”

“Trust me, then. I know you will do what is best. Best for me. And your children. Best for us all.”

Colonel Nguyen stared up into the blackness, unanswering. A cold wind blasted his face, stinging his eyes. If only he could be certain. If only he could know. If only—

He hugged his wife close to him, and braced himself against the long cold night.