The Asian Mantrap

Fourteen

My feet sank ankle deep into the mud of a flooded rice paddy when I landed. For some fifteen minutes, the three of us had been calling softly to each other as we made our final descent. We were able to remain close enough to stay within sight of one another despite the heavy darkness before dawn. At the two thousand foot level I had ordered silence. Farmers all over the world are pre-dawn risers; I hoped that we wouldn’t land near one.

We dropped within yards of one another. An early morning fog layer, thin but helpful, stretched hip-high in all directions. I heard nothing as we listened and remained still like hunched statues. Bu Chen’s footsteps made sucking noises in the mucky soil as he moved toward me. His ghostly figure was hidden behind the bundled-up parachute he carried. Willow joined us, a jubilant smile on her pretty face.

We followed the planted rows to a low dike of dry, solid ground. I pushed my parachute and harness into a puffed-up pile and touched a match to it. The specially treated fabric and webbing ignited and burned completely with a blue, nearly invisible flame that produced no smoke at all. In seconds the light ashen residue was scattering before a barely perceptible breeze. Willow and Bu Chen disposed of their parachutes in the same manner.

We removed our chest-hung knapsacks and dug into them. Our temporary footwear was replaced with the thonged sandals; peaked, cloth caps completed our disguises. Long before the eastern sky lightened, all tangible evidence that North Vietnam’s guarded sovereignty had been breached was destroyed or irretrievably buried.

Smoke rose from braziers inside scattered thatch-rooted huts where simple morning meals were being prepared. A group of walkers, dressed much as we were and with hand tools over their shoulders, marched past on their way to the fields. We were moving along the mist-blanketed road in the opposite direction. One or two of the farmers glanced at us suspiciously.

“The way we’re strolling along here empty-handed,” I said, observing the stares we encountered, “we look out of place. We’ve got to appear more part of the scenery, and also find a way of moving faster.”

Bu Chen apologized. “I’m sorry I couldn’t supply current travel passes so we could use the bus or train. If you’d gone along with wearing soldier’s uniforms, we could commandeer a ride on anything that comes along.”

“And also have a military escort to the wall in front of a firing squad,” I repeated, using the argument that made me veto the idea the first time.

Willow fell into file behind me along the edge of the road when the tinkling of a bicycle bell sounded at our rear. “That’s the only way to go in this country if you want to remain inconspicuous,” she remarked after a quartet of cyclists went by.

“Which is why you’re packing those two small cans of fast-drying spray paint in your knapsack,” I told her. “Keep walking... hup... hup... hup.” Neither of my companions saw any humor in my light touch.

Our shadows were still long on the dusty lane surface from the early morning sun when we came to a hard-surfaced road. A few yards from the intersection a sign gave distances to various points ahead. Willow gasped. “Oh my, look how far it is to Hanoi!”

“That’s kilometers, not miles,” I reassured her. “Let’s keep our eyes open now. We’re looking for a chance to pick up some transportation. Nothing gaudy, just workable equipment.”

The road was well travelled. Hanoi-bound buses, crammed with humanity and all forms of belongings, including animals and fowl, were aboard the swaying, overloaded vehicles. Motorbikes, scooters, and minibuses sputtered and belched black exhausts. Everyone appeared to move mechanically; little emotion showed on their faces. In a regimented society people tend to curb their curiosity. Little outward interest is shown in individuals or matters apart from one’s own small sphere of drab existence. It was that grim quality that surrounded us with an atmosphere of security as long as we took care not to attract undue attention.

For an hour we had done nothing to rock the boat, but that was about to change.

A turnoff just ahead at the far side of the village seemed to be sucking in a steady stream of bicyclists. It led to a low, corrugated metal, windowless building. Green-tinted plastic skylights in the roof admitted light into the building interior. Workers were arriving, placing their bicycles side by side in racks anchored to the outside walls of the building.

I left the road before we reached the driveway which led to an open, graveled space that appeared to be a loading area. Willow and Bu Chen joined me in the narrow strip of underbrush that formed a natural perimeter around the open space. We crouched in the thick vegetation and observed the scene.

The tall chimneys standing above the rounded domes of circular, brick structures behind the metal building identified the complex as a factory producing fired clay products. Straw-bristling crates were stacked beside a wide, doorless opening in the building. Through it, we could see the morning shift seating themselves at long tables where they commenced painting designs on plates, cups, and teapots prior to being baked in the kilns.

In the space of a few minutes the entire work force had assembled. They hunched over their tables, busily scribing intricate patterns on pieces of chinaware. All were intent on their individual efforts.

“Follow me,” I whispered and moved off at an angle to reach the bicycle rack most removed from the open loading door. Screened behind a low leafy bush resembling a hawthorn, I looked over the nearest bicycles, making my choice. Once more the advantages of a police-state regimented society favored us. None of the cycles were secured to the rack. “Just our luck,” I complained. “Just bicycles. Not a moped in sight.”

“It’s just as well,” Bu Chen said. “All motorized vehicles are registered and easily traced. Even if we had some de-etching acid, we’d be in some pokey by noon. Foot power is the safest way to go.”

I began to move out of the bushes. A strong hand grabbed my ankle. “Not you,” Willow hissed. “We’re close to the big city where French is a second language, but you wouldn’t get by with it here. I’ll go.”

She went forward, erect and unhurried. With her comely looks hidden under the projecting peak of her cap, she looked little different from the others who had entered the factory. She examined the racks almost casually, then pulled a bicycle loose. She wheeled it over to where Bu Chen and I lay on our stomachs keeping watch. With a weight lifter’s ease she hoisted the bike over the chest-high hedge and deposited it beside us. Bu Chen wheeled it further out of sight.

Willow made a second round trip with equal aplomb.

She had selected a third bicycle and started to remove it from the rack when its handlebars became entangled with an adjacent bike. She should have left it and taken another, but Willow was determined to disengage them.

In the act of unhooking the bicycles, a truck wheeled into the driveway. Willow heard it. She stood stockstill. The truck continued its approach to the loading door. It was a two-and-a-half ton U.S. Army vehicle, part of the millions of dollars worth of military equipment abandoned in the pell-mell exodus of American troops from Vietnam.

The truck came to a stop with its front bumper no more than fifteen feet from where Willow stood grasping the two bicycles and looking over her shoulder. Now I could see that there were two men in the cab. The one sitting on the passenger side wore a peaked, woolen cap bearing a red star insignia. Both men got out. The driver, a civilian, glanced at Willow and continued into the building. The soldier, wearing a baggy uniform with cloth leggings wound around his muscular legs and thonged sandals on his bare feet, got out of the truck from the side nearest me. He carried a partially-filled rucksack which he carried by its straps in one hand. He walked toward Willow stopping beside the fender of the truck. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear any words. Willow stood her ground and said something in return. Whatever it was, it encouraged the young soldier to move closer. Willow backed away. I thought she was inviting the soldier to make a try at separating the bikes, but he didn’t step between them.

I knew instinctively that it wasn’t going right. My hackles prodded me. As I moved around to get closer, I could hear Willow’s voice. It had a pleading tone. It didn’t take a crystal ball to see that the soldier was only interested in Willow and not in what she was doing. The impression grew firmer when he dropped his backpack so both hands would be free. His mouth was parted in a wide, sinister grin.

Willow’s submissive actions were confusing to me. Whatever threat she thought she was facing — rape or exposure as a foreigner — it was forcing her to seek the shelter of the building corner.

She dodged around it blindly, tripping over something, then fell to the ground. The soldier broke into a run toward her. I moved at the same time, covering the intervening space without regard to being observed. I reached the hunched-over soldier just as he was reaching down to grab Willow.

His head turned as he sensed my presence. A snap of my wrist caused Hugo to grow out of my forward-moving right hand. The up-thrusting movement drove the dagger point deep between his third and fourth ribs. Its progress slowed slightly when the blade edge scraped and severed a costal cartilage next to the sternum. During the four seconds it took him to die and slump to the ground, he wheezed out a pitiful gasp of surprise. I used my foot to slip him over on his back so that blood would drain back into the body cavity instead of on the ground.

“Grab another bike and get back in the bushes!” I hissed. “I’ll take care of this.”

Willow had enough sense not to argue. She moved with a blur of speed and I was alone with a wholly unexpected, unwanted, and painfully evident corpse. My grisly handiwork could be found by anyone tending the ovens in preparation for the day’s ceramic firing. I had to make a split-second decision and dispose of the body at once. The longer I waited, the more likely fresh blood would seep through the uniform and stain the ground. I couldn’t hope to drag or carry it across the open space without leaving a damning trail of red stains.

The nearest circular kiln was ten feet away. I could feel the intense heat from fires burning behind its hinged metal doors placed near ground level every few feet around the circumference of the domed oven. The perspiration that ran down my stained face was as much from fear of discovery as from the blistering heat from the kiln fires.

I kicked open the nearest fire door. A blast of heat poured out. I grabbed the dead soldier by both wrists and pulled with all my strength. The body, propelled by the momentum I gave it, shot through the opening like a well-aimed sack of potatoes. I slammed the door shut and ran for the hedges.

I found Bu Chen behind the wall of bushes calmly spraying a yellow bicycle with an overcoat of neutral brown. “Where’s Willow?”

“She’s gone ahead. We’ll catch up as soon as I finish this.” He saw the questioning look on my face. “Oh, you didn’t see her. She snatched the third bike from the rack and grabbed up the loose knapsack while you were roasting that marshmallow you speared. Neat trick.”

I presumed he was admiring Willow. I did. Only a rare type of girl would have the will and presence of mind to finish a job despite the unnerving experience she had just undergone.

Bu Chen tucked the used aerosol can in his backpack for disposition later and wheeled the freshly painted bicycle away. The quick-drying finish would be hardened by the time we reached the road. I followed him with the bicycle left for me. Willow was fifty yards down the road, pedalling at a steady pace toward Hanoi.

At mid-afternoon we reached the outskirts of the city. We brought with us chafed butts and aching leg muscles. The long hours of pedalling were tedious rather than terrifying. We conversed very little, generally moving in single file with myself situated between Willow and Bu Chen. I never allowed myself to get careless or overconfident, but I adapted to the high plateau of tension we were under. It’s a compensating feature of my personality, otherwise I could never operate efficiently under constant strain.

I’d had time to think and plan. Twice during the day we had an opportunity to stop alongside the road within earshot of a public loudspeaker which was part of every crossroads village. Willow and Bu Chen translated the propaganda broadcasts. Aside from exhortations to make constant efforts to produce food, fuel and products useful to the people’s society, and harangues about the decadent western world, very little current news was heard. I was surprised at the completeness of weather reports even though the monsoon season had begun.

Nothing was mentioned about crime in the capital city. I had a suspicion that such information was deleted by government censors. To confirm the lack of public knowledge about recent deaths, Bu Chen went to a kiosk and bought a two-day old newspaper. No announcement of any kind was carried about an unknown killer roaming the streets striking down important public figures. The newspaper had no obituary column. Between Willow and Bu Chen, the entire edition was read while we rested and munched on high protein energy snacks. I had to caution Bu Chen not to discard the wrappers when he carelessly balled up one to throw it away.

I took that as an indication that he was beginning to become overconfident although he denied it. This came shortly after he had questioned the need to retain the extra, unused bail-out bottle of compressed oxygen I insisted we keep. It was a small matter — the containers weighed very little and were not bulky.

The minor argument showed that Bu Chen was becoming testy and that was bad. He could become a problem. In time I might have to consider inviting him to branch off on his own. I wouldn’t force it, though. For the moment, I’d rather keep an eye on him a while longer. If he was turned loose and got picked up, I couldn’t be sure how long he could resist certain interrogation techniques known to be employed by North Vietnamese authorities.

I called a halt at the first public telephone. It was located inside a passenger waiting shelter at the terminal end of a city bus route. I discussed strategy with Willow. Bu Chen listened in.

“We haven’t much to go on except two names that have a fatal attraction for Keith Martin. One is Phan Wan who is connected to Nho Phu Thone. Martin all but broke his back to find Phan Wan in Bangkok.-She’s here in Hanoi. Martin’s here in Hanoi. And Nho Phu Thone, a man whose name is on a list of those to be liquidated by Martin, is also here in Hanoi. For Martin to be as successful as he has been, he’s got to have someone here in the city who is fingering his victims. I think it’s Phan Wan. Martin’s got to contact her. Nho Phu Thone either has her or knows where she is. To get to Martin, we’ll have to start with Phu Thone and probably save his life in the process.”

“I’ll follow you,” Willow said. Bu Chen lifted his shoulders and dipped the corners of his mouth. It was lie of his concern.

“Telephone Phu Thone’s house and ask for Phan Wan,” I instructed Willow. “Play it by ear, but don’t push too hard. You’ll probably have to con a servant or secretary, so keep your act together.”

I supported Willow’s confiscated bicycle while she used the phone. The conversation lasted long enough to produce promising results. Willow came back with a dark look on her face. “There wasn’t any telephone directory attached to the phone. I spent all that time talking to a couple of operators.”

I guessed that I was going to be disappointed with what she had to say. I asked anyway. “Did you learn anything at all?”

“Phu Thone has a private, unlisted number.”

“It took all that time to learn that?”

“Wait a minute. This isn’t Philadelphia, you know. The phone system is part of the postal service so you get the extra bureaucratic runaround. When I insisted I had to get in touch with Phu Thone, I was told to write a letter. And would you believe, the mamh-san I talked to felt so sorry for the poor country girl lost in the big city that she gave me Phu Thone’s home address!”

A high, thick, cement-finished wall surrounded Phu Thone’s villa. The immense house sat on a sea of lush green grass rimmed with extensive flower beds. Through the closed iron gates barring access via a wide, gravelled driveway, I could see five mattock or shovel-equipped gardeners at work amid the plants and shrubs. Two others were using long lengths of hose to sprinkle shaded areas of the lawn.

It was obvious that Nho Phu Thone had a large staff of servants. One was standing in attendance on a wide, exposed veranda. He wore a white serving jacket and black bow tie. He was pouring liquid from a silver teapot into the cup in front of a slim youthful-looking woman seated alone at a glass-topped, wrought-iron table. “Do you suppose that’s Phan Wan?” Willow asked.

“If it is, I’ve got to speak to her,” I went closer to the gate so I could see as much of the grounds inside the wall as possible. A bent-over woman working with a hoe a short distance away looked sideways at me.

I beckoned to her.

She went back to work, then looked again.

I waved to her once more and took the green bail-out bottle of oxygen from my knapsack so she could see it.

“What are you doing?” Willow whispered, stepping up next to me.

“Get her over here,” I snapped. “Tell her I’ve got this revolutionary new combination insecticide and fertilizer for the head gardener. Get her to let me in and point out the boss man.”

“You’ve got to be mad!” hissed Willow. “You can’t expect to walk in there and start talking to that girl. People dressed like us stay in the streets.”

“I just want to get close enough to test her with a name. Get me inside, then you and Bu Chen wheel your bikes down to the corner. Wait three or four minutes. If I don’t join you, ride back to see what’s going on. Don’t stop, unless it’s apparent that everything is all right. Whatever happens, you know what to do.”

“Maybe I’d better make the contact. It’s too risky for you.”

The old crone’s coming to the gate ended our debate. Willow talked to her, gesturing toward me and the metal container I held. I turned the control valve releasing a spurt of gas with a convincing hiss. The gnarled hands of the old woman unlatched the gate and allowed me to push through. She pointed a bony finger in the direction of two men standing together near one corner of the mansion. I nodded my thanks and started in that direction.

I glanced back. Willow was speaking to the old lady, holding her attention while I veered toward the stand of blooming red rose bushes planted under the ballustrade of the veranda. My approach went unnoticed by the young woman who sat at the table. Her head was bent as if reading something laying flat on the table. She had a striking profile, with delicate, sculptured features. Her long black hair was piled up on her head in a chignon held in place with silver-inlaid pins the size of chopsticks. Her dress was a figure-fitting, high-collared garment made of shiny, richly embroidered material. The young woman and everything surrounding her reflected the aura of great wealth.

The manservant had disappeared inside the house. The lovely Vietnamese girl was alone on the veranda.

I leaned forward against the rose bushes. “Phan Wan!” I called out softly.

Her head came up and turned toward the sound. She had heard, but didn’t know where the voice was located. I stood on tiptoe and said her name again, a little louder.

Her eyes darted in my direction. I backed up a step. “You are Phan Wan?” I spoke clear, distinct English.

From the way her bright eyes widened, I knew that she had understood. She rose from her chair so she could see more of me. A perplexed look came over her pretty face. That changed to a haughty, imperious glare showing her surprise that a mere peasant would have the effrontery to address her at all.

As she was about to summon the missing manservant, I blurted out: “Has Keith Martin come to see you? Keith Martin!”

She was speechless. Her first reaction was to glance over her shoulder fearfully to see if the houseboy had returned. Then she rushed to the railing that separated us. Her English was flawless. “Who are you? Keith... He is here?” Her voice was breathless with excitement.

She raised her head to look out over mine. “Oh, my God!” She cried out in response to what she saw.

I whirled around.

Two men, the foremost being the one pointed out as the head gardener, were trotting toward me. The aggressive way they carried their sharp hand tools made them look like weapons poised to give battle. I jerked my head around to look up at Phan Wan.

Standing beside her was the white-jacketed manservant, an ugly look on his face. In one outstretched hand he held a British Army Webley revolver with the hammer full back.

I was trapped.