Shadow of the Dragon

2

Today, the lesson was on field-expedient weapons, a subject with which John Clark was intimately familiar. Two-by-fours, pointy mop handles, socks full of sand, a handy magazine rolled into a tight tube if it came down to that — all of them could be useful in a pinch when an operative found him- or herself without a gun or a suitable knife. Campus director of transportation Lisanne Robertson was proving herself to be an able student as they walked through the teeming Ben Thanh Market.

Clark registered the sweating European man with his peripheral vision. Open cotton shirt, juking this way and that as he made his way through the crowd. This guy was up to something, leading Clark to believe that some kind of a weapon might come in handy in the not-too-distant future.

Clark estimated the European to be in his mid-thirties. Lean, fit, with the kind of ropy muscles that were difficult to keep hold of in a fight. A workingman’s muscles, like he’d just come from hanging Sheetrock or swinging a hammer at a construction site. Dark hair hung in sweaty curls over the collar of his shirt. Glancing furtively, obviously searching for someone, the man attempted to move quickly, but was impeded by the mass of shoppers and sightseers who clogged the aisles between what, at first glance, appeared to be an endless line of T-shirt shops.

Clark had spent the morning braving the crowds of Ho Chi Minh City, wading through rivers of scooter traffic and pointing out the various items an operative might find useful if he or she had to suddenly go on the defensive. Lisanne was former law enforcement and no stranger to conflict, making her a quick learner. In point of fact, Clark was more interested in observing the way she handled herself on the street than he was in teaching any of the finer points of tradecraft. Operational teams like The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency set up by President Jack Ryan and Senator Gerry Hendley, needed a periodic inoculation of fresh perspective and talent. The backbone of the team had been around since the beginning. They’d lost a couple of dear friends along the way, and, considering the type of work they did, were bound to lose some more if they were not extremely careful… or even if they were. Hence, Clark’s desire to see how the young woman comported herself in a foreign land.

The greasy European had popped up on Clark’s radar when he’d stopped to talk to a woman at a stall selling chunks of bloody unidentifiable meat piled up beside baskets of live frogs.

Clark didn’t mention anything to Lisanne. So far, he had nothing more than a gut feeling, a hunch.

It wasn’t so much how the man moved as the way those around him reacted to his presence. The woman with the basket of frogs recoiled when he approached her stall, as if he smelled bad or was about to draw a knife.

The man didn’t look particularly dangerous, at least not to John Clark. In truth, Clark had no idea of the man’s nationality. But he carried himself like a European, legs together when he stood, furtive, catlike, instead of doggedly like an American — so Clark began to think of him that way as they walked.

Though the rest of The Campus was off doing “real work,” Lisanne Robertson embraced the training week, rattling off possible field-expedient weapons nearly as quickly as Clark while they walked. The nine million inhabitants of Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — provided all sorts of deadly detritus in the way of rakes, tire irons, and bamboo poles. The wet market, pungent and loud, made up a relatively small area off the diverse indoor Ben Thanh Market. What it lacked in size, it made up for with an original odor. To Clark, it was the smell of Asia, and it brought with it a flood of memories. It was a smorgasbord of meat cleavers and fillet knives, free for the snatching if the need arose.

A smallish man crossed in front of them as they walked. Clark paused a half-step when he caught the man’s eye. The small man bowed slightly and walked on, disappearing into the crowd. Clark pointed down the aisle, motioning for Robertson to take the lead.

“He looked Chinese,” Robertson noted as they walked, calling out her observations like a good student. “Do you know him?”

“Nah,” Clark said. “He just reminded me of someone. A Chinese colonel.”

“From back in the day?”

“Yep,” Clark said.

“Sorry,” Robertson said. “Must be tough.”

Clark stopped. The people behind him parted, passing on either side of him and Lisanne. “The particular guy was a colonel who’d come to Vietnam to teach the Vietcong how to better kill us. Though I have to say they were already doing a pretty damned good job of it. Anyway, I watched that colonel for three days, learning his habits, what kind of beer he liked to drink, his preference in women. Got to know his face very well.”

“You think that guy was him?”

Clark looked at her, shaking his head as if to clear it.

“What?”

“Do you think that guy was the colonel you met years ago?”

“Oh, no,” Clark said, picturing the reticle of his Bushnell scope settling over the colonel’s ear. “I’m not positive about much in this old world, but I can assure you this. That wasn’t him.”

“Ah,” Robertson said. “Gotcha.”

She was a former Marine, and no shrinking violet when it came to human conflict.

They kept walking, Robertson calling out weapons, and Clark kept an eye on the European.

Clark liked his people to be aware of everything around them, keeping their “quivers” full, so they could draw on what they needed when they needed it. Even if an operative had a gun, circumstances could make producing it take too much time.

Ingrained in Clark’s DNA, these were good points for even the most seasoned operative to review.

Vendors barked out to them as they walked, calling Lisanne “Madam,” looking stricken with grief when she didn’t stop and buy a pair of “Adodis” sweatpants or a “Nortfaze” jacket. Their faces magically brightened again as they barked at the next customer once Lisanne passed by.

Clark and his friends had frequented the market during his first trip to Saigon. U.S. Navy HQ had been only a few blocks away and Ben Thanh provided a good place to meet girls, grab a plate of shrimp dumplings, or maybe buy a couple of knockoff T-shirts to send to your kid brothers who were getting all their news about the war from Walter Cronkite or The Huntley — Brinkley Report. Saigon had been loud then, and crowded, too, though nothing like it was now.

Many of the old buildings were gone, gaudy new ones with higher rent having sprung up in their place. It was hard to say which were the flowers and which were the weeds — the old buildings or the new. Maybe it was a bit of both. The people seemed better off than they’d been when he was here before, but Clark supposed that was more a function of pushing the poorer folk to the outskirts of town.

Thousands of scooters, called motos in Vietnam, groaned and buzzed on the teeming street outside the market. Clark and Lisanne Robertson were merely two in tens of thousands of other bees moving en masse inside a hive. Clark was unarmed, and he’d long since moved his wallet into the front pocket of his loose chinos — not because Vietnamese people were inherently more likely to pick his pockets, but because they were people and the odds around so many people were that some of them were going to try and pick his pocket. And of all the species of animals on the planet, Clark mistrusted people the most.

The sizzle and smell of banh xeo, an especially delicious shrimp crepe, twined around Clark’s memory and pulled him sideways toward the stall. The crowd moved on behind him as he stepped out of the flow. Clark spoke quickly to the stooped mama behind a wooden board she’d set over two upturned crates. He paid for two cardboard baskets of yellow tacolike banh xeo, one for him, and another for his trainee, and then waited while the mama dished up his order. Clark couldn’t help but wonder what this woman cooking banh xeo had been up to when he was here the first time. Had she been cooking then, too? Had they passed on the street? In a club? Had she or one of her relatives shot at him, killed his friends? Had he killed any of hers? Whose side had she been on? Likely her own side, Clark thought, trying to stay alive when two unstoppable forces were bent on grinding everything between them into the greasy monsoon mud.

Clark closed his eyes for a quick moment, just long enough to take in the riot of odors and sounds — fish, black vinegar, and scooter exhaust. When the wind shifted just right, he could smell the Saigon River, mere blocks away.

Clark passed one order of crispy shrimp crepes to Lisanne — who’d snagged them a couple of seats at one of the half-dozen low plastic tables beside the food stall. It wobbled badly and looked like something the kids would be relegated to at Thanksgiving. Clark didn’t care. They’d been on their feet all morning and it was good to sit down.

Lisanne tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear, and leaned across the rickety plastic table toward Clark. She wore khaki shorts and, like Clark, a loose microfiber shirt with the long sleeves rolled up above her elbows. The deep olive complexion she’d inherited from her Lebanese mother helped her blend in a little better than Clark. Though, he had to admit, old men were invisible just about anywhere in the world. It was a fact he used to his advantage. Clark was still in better-than-average shape, jogging five miles every other day. He was admittedly not nearly as fast as he used to be. He’d kept up with his lifting, lower weight and higher reps. He could still bench his body weight, an ability he’d used as a sort of litmus test for his personal fitness. These days, he spent a good deal of time recovering between sets, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about his grandson — or whoever he happened to be training at the moment.

“Doesn’t this bug you?” Lisanne asked, her eyes darting from face to face in the crowd of passersby. “I’ve never thought of you as a person who’d like to turn his back on anyone.”

Clark smiled at that, resisting the urge to call his young acolyte Grasshopper.

“We’re predators,” he said, biting into one of the banh xeo. “Our eyes are set in the front of our heads, perfect for being a hunter. When we focus those eyes on someone in particular, we have to turn our back on someone else.”

“Still,” Lisanne said, scanning the crowd. “It creeps me out to have anyone get behind me.”

“I agree,” Clark said. “That’s a good quality for you to have in our line of work.” He nodded to the food. “Go ahead and eat. We won’t sit here long.”

“Glad to hear that,” she said. Supremely feminine, she still knew how to shovel down food.

After the Marines, Lisanne was working as a patrol officer in Virginia when she’d pulled Hendley over on a traffic stop. He’d been extremely impressed with the way she’d handled herself and he’d eventually recruited her to be their director of transportation. She was fluent in Arabic and could get by in Spanish and Mandarin. As DT, she often acted in the same capacity as a one-person Phoenix Raven detail, guarding the Hendley Associates G550 when it was on the ground at various airfields around the world. Clark rolled her into defensive tactics and other scenario-based training exercises with other Campus operatives almost as soon as she’d come aboard. She’d wowed the rest of the team with her fighting skill right from the get-go. More than anything, Clark was impressed with her ability to think under pressure. She was a better-than-average shot on the range, but began to really shine when the Sim rounds came zinging her way. She’d been downrange before and knew all too well what it was like to get shot at.

“Would it make you feel better if you had a gun?” Clark asked.

Lisanne looked up over half a bite of crepe and raised an eyebrow. She was used to him quizzing her all the time. Often calling him Socrates when he only answered her questions with more questions.

“I think it would,” she said. “A little. Though I guess I’d worry about someone bumping into it in a crowd like this and making a scene.”

Clark gave a contemplative nod. He wiped his hands on a handkerchief he took from the hip pocket of his khakis. Few food vendors wanted to cut into their bottom line by providing napkins for free.

“Tell me what you have on you right now,” he said.

“My everyday carry?” Lisanne grinned. “I always enjoy it when Ding has everyone pocket-dump their EDC on the plane.”

“Everyday carry…” Clark shook his head, scoffing a little. “I get a kick out of all the shit people call their everyday carry. A person in downtown Paducah might be able to get away with carrying two knives, a survival bracelet, multitool, tacticool flashlight, escape and evasion tools, and a SIG 365 with an extra magazine. Most of the time, we lose a bunch of those luxuries when we travel to other areas of the world, even in a private jet like we do. Your everyday Joe or Jill can run the most prepared setup imaginable in their hometown, surrounded by friendlies, but as soon as they get on a plane for Aruba, they can forget about a pistol. Carry one of those cool metal punch cards with a flat lock-picking set and you’re liable to get picked up as a spy in a good many countries. A pocketknife better look like a tool when you go overseas, or there’s a good chance you’ll get to know the inside of a Yourassisgrassistan prison.”

“Agreed,” Lisanne said, wiping her hands on the handkerchief she got from her own pocket.

Clark gave the white rectangle of cloth a nod. “That is everyday carry.”

Lisanne grinned. “Something I can have with me when I’m overseas or in Paducah.”

“Exactly,” Clark said. “The stuff you carry every damned day, rain or shine, wherever you are… That’s a fairly sparse list. There is everyday carry, there’s most days carry, and then there’s mission carry. You and I will often accept the risks of carrying a concealed firearm in a foreign land because the danger of not having one outweighs the chance of arrest.”

Clark tapped the side of his head. “The things you put up here are a hell of a lot more important than what you have in your pocket. If you don’t remember anything else we talk about, remember this: You are the weapon. Anything you carry in your pocket or pick up from your surroundings — gun, knife, mop handle, or broken brick — is nothing more than a tool.”

Lisanne nodded, chewing on the counsel along with the last of her banh xeo. Her face remained impassive, but Clark picked up on a sudden change in her countenance, a subtle shift, as if she were about to stand.

“That guy you were watching,” she said without moving her head. “He’s back.”

Clark thought of complimenting her for noticing the same European he had, but decided the ultimate compliment would be to let her assume that he knew she’d been up to speed all along. In truth, it didn’t surprise him.

“His buddy on the motorcycle just dropped him off,” she said. “Directly behind you… Looks like he’s locked on to someone in the crowd…” Both hands on the table, she scanned, looking for the European’s target. “Got her. Local girl, maybe fifteen, at your seven o’clock.”

Clark was on his feet in an instant.

“They’re heading this way,” Lisanne said. Fifty feet out.

Clark turned, spotting the girl first. She moved quickly, not running, but clearly trying to make time. Apparently unaware that the European was closing in on her, she looked over her shoulder at every other step. She knew somebody was out there, hunting her. Her yellow T-shirt had seen better days. Sagging at the collar and torn in several places, it looked to have been used as a rag to wipe the girl’s grimy face as much as an article of clothing. Filthy denim shorts were cut high, revealing a map of faded bruises on her thighs. She wore heavy eye makeup, but no shoes. A band of pale skin stood out starkly from the otherwise olive complexion of her wrist, where she’d once worn a watch.

“I’ll go after her,” Lisanne said, already walking, showing Clark a grim smile. “You’re liable to scare her.”

“Copy that,” Clark said, moving to intercept the oncoming European. He was close, so it didn’t take long.

Clark got a clear glimpse of a pair of flex-cuffs protruding from the European’s pocket — and the black butterfly knife in the man’s clenched fist. It was closed now, as the European made his way through the crowd, but with a flick of his wrist, he could flip it open in an instant. It was a wicked little weapon, devastatingly effective in the right hands. And not at all likely to be carried by any sort of law enforcement in the process of arresting a fleeing teenage girl.

Certain now that the European had nothing but bad intentions, Clark jostled him lightly as he went by. There were plenty of non-Asians in the crowd, and the European gave the gray-haired Clark no more than a passing grunt for getting in his way.

The man had just begun to push off with his trailing foot when Clark drove the heel of a boot straight into his Achilles tendon.

Cursing in Slovakian, the man sagged, instinctively moving to shield his injury. With all the weight now on the man’s forward leg, Clark gave him a brutal side kick. Human knees were not designed for lateral movement, and the ligaments and cartilage fairly exploded. Clark snatched away the butterfly knife. It had all happened so quickly and the man was so immersed in pain that there was a good chance he wasn’t completely sure Clark was the person responsible for his injuries.

The crowd closed in around him as he fell, and Clark, as was his habit, melted into the shadows. Lisanne was still out there, watching out for the fleeing girl.

Clark found them less than a hundred feet away, at the edge of the no-haggle area where blue-smocked salespeople charged fixed prices for their wares.

Clark pushed his way through a knot of concerned gawkers — local Vietnamese and assorted tourists — to find another European flat on his back, unconscious, blood weeping from the burst flesh above a bushy black eyebrow. This one was shorter than the partner Clark had dealt with, broader, with the flattened face of a boxer — for all the good it had done him.

Clark scanned for other threats, but no one stood out. A frumpy saleswoman in a sky-blue smock held up her phone and rattled off something in Vietnamese. Clark recognized the word for police.

A frail Vietnamese woman who looked to be in her fifties clucked her way through the crowd. She wore a nun’s headscarf and a sincere but stern look that Clark knew all too well from his childhood. The frightened girl stepped from around Lisanne at the sight of the nun and rushed into her arms, tears and words pouring out of her. Clark caught part of it, but his Vietnamese language skills had grown worse than rusty after all these years. The sobbing didn’t help.

He shot Lisanne a look and nodded toward the market. Both knew any contact with the local gendarmerie would gain them unwanted attention that they didn’t need. The rest of The Campus would be working here for a week, and he and his new operative still had a lot of work to do.

The nun enveloped the girl with her arm, like the wing of a mother hen, and led her back the way she’d come, disappearing in the mass of humanity. Evidently, she didn’t want to get involved with the police, either.

“She’d come to meet the sister,” Clark said, tipping his head toward the nun.

“I only got to talk to her for a couple of seconds,” Lisanne said. “But as I understand it, those guys were pimping her out at a couple of the local hotels. They’d brought her to meet a client across the street and she bailed on them… At least, that’s what I think she said. Her English wasn’t much better than my Vietnamese.”

Clark walked beside her, turning down a narrow alley made of bolts of colorful cloth stacked nearly to the ceiling.

“You made short work of the hairy guy,” Clark observed. “I’ll be interested to hear how you did it.”

“Sure,” Lisanne said, smiling. “Remember that upright cement post where I was standing?”

“I do,” Clark said, seeing where this was going.

“Like you told me,” Lisanne said. “Sometimes you bounce a rock off the bad guy’s head, sometimes you bounce the bad guy’s head off the rock. I’m the weapon, I just choose how to use the tool.”

Clark gave her a wink. “Young lady,” he said, “I believe you will do.” He took out his phone and punched in his son-in-law’s number.

“You guys about done for the day?” he said when the man at the other end picked up.