Up Country

CHAPTER SIX

We came in through the clouds, and I looked down at Tan Son Nhat Airport for the third time in my life.

Strangely, it looked the same as it did almost thirty years before; the sandbagged revetments hadn’t been removed after the war, and there was still a military side to the airport where I could see Russian-made MiG fighters around the old American hangars. I also caught a glimpse of an American C-130 cargo plane, and I wondered if it was operational, or if it was some sort of war trophy.

I recalled that Military Advisory Command, Vietnam had been headquartered at Tan Son Nhat, which turned out to be convenient when, in April 1975, the victorious Communist troops approached the airport; the MACV guys, among the last American soldiers in Vietnam, blew up their headquarters and flew off on Air America planes. I had seen it on TV, and now I saw some rubble that might have been the old MACV Headquarters, known then as Pentagon East.

As we approached the runway, I saw that the civilian terminal, too, was the same old piece of crap I remembered. I had this weird feeling that I’d passed through the Twilight Zone, and I was going back for my third tour. Actually, I was.

We came down on the wet runway with barely a bounce, so the round-eye was flying. The tarmac, however, must still have had shell holes in it or something because the rollout was a mile of bad road.

The aircraft turned onto a taxiway and for some reason stopped. On the approach, I hadn’t seen a single aircraft around, so it wasn’t like we were backed up waiting for a gate at this nowhere airport. When the Americans ran it during the war, Tan Son Nhat was the third busiest airport in the world, and it ran fine. But that’s another story. I knew I needed to get my head into the reality of this time and place, and I tried. But as we waited on the taxiway, my mind kept pulling me back to 1972, and the events that led up to my second visit to this place.

I was stationed at Fort Hadley, where I had re-enlisted after my first tour, after Peggy Walsh and I had stopped writing to each other, or I had stopped writing to her, to be more honest.

After about six months at Hadley, for some reason known only to God and Sigmund Freud, I married a local Midland girl named Patty.

Patty was very pretty, had a cute Georgia accent, didn’t hate Yankees, loved sex and bourbon, was poorer than me, and always wanted to marry a soldier, though I never found out why. We had absolutely nothing in common and never would, but getting married young and for no good reason seemed to be part of the local culture. I really don’t know what I was thinking.

Housing for married people was tight during the war, and there was nothing available on the fort, so we lived in this squalid trailer park called Whispering Pines, along with hundreds of other soldiers, their wives, and kids.

We watched guys go off to war and some of them came back, some didn’t, and worse, some came back to the army base hospital, missing parts. We drank too much, there was too much fooling around with spouses not one’s own, and the war dragged on with no end in sight.

So, there I was, a kid from Boston living in a trailer park with a wife whose accent and outlook made her incomprehensible half the time, and I had a few years to go in the army, and guys around me were getting their second and even third sets of orders for ’Nam. Don’t think I didn’t miss Peggy and Boston, and my friends and family. Especially when Patty would turn on the country western station, and I had to listen to songs titled “Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth ’Cause I’m Kissing You Goodbye.” Or “How Can I Miss You if You Won’t Go Away?”

Mom and Pop and my brothers had not yet had the pleasure of meeting the new Mrs. Brenner; I kept avoiding a trip north, or them coming south.

I never thought I’d see Whispering Pines Trailer Park again, but I did, last summer, when I was on undercover assignment at Fort Hadley investigating the arms deal case that turned into the case of the general’s daughter. I could have lived anywhere while undercover, but I chose Whispering Pines, which by that time was nearly deserted and filled with ghosts.

As I get older, I’m starting to make weird choices and decisions, and it seems that consciously or unconsciously I’m revisiting things and places from long ago. Like now, sitting on the taxiway at Tan Son Nhat Airport. I need to talk to a mental health professional.

But back to 1971, Fort Hadley, Georgia. By this time, I was a four-stripe sergeant — we made rank fast in those days — and as a combat veteran, I was assigned to the Infantry Training School, teaching young draftees how to stay alive and kill other young guys. The infantry sucks, by the way, but training new infantrymen was better than being one in Vietnam.

The country was in open rebellion by this time, the quality of the draftees was pretty low, and morale and discipline were in the toilet.

But all good things must come to an end, and I knew I was on the verge of getting orders for Vietnam, Part Two.

I really wanted to avoid this exciting opportunity, but I also had to get out of that hellhole I was in, including, I’m sorry to admit, my marriage. I wouldn’t be the first soldier who chose war over garrison duty and marriage, and I wouldn’t be the first to regret it either.

And there were other considerations; my brother Benny was now draft age. Benny was and is today a great guy, very bright and easygoing. Unfortunately, he spends a good deal of time with his head up his ass, and his chances of surviving a combat tour were not good.

The army had a sort of semi-official policy of not sending brothers, fathers, and sons to ’Nam at the same time, so I knew if I went back, Benny would probably not go until I returned, or might never go if I didn’t come back. The war was starting to wind down, and the name of the game was buying time.

I had a plan, and I’m a clever, take-charge kind of guy, and I managed to get accepted to Military Police School at Fort Gordon, Georgia. This was temporary duty, so Patty stayed at Whispering Pines Trailer Park in Midland, while I went to MP school at Gordon.

Under the conditions that prevailed at that time, if a soldier left his young wife alone for more than twenty-four hours around a military base, some guy named Jodie was helping her get over her loneliness. I wasn’t sure that’s what happened with Patty, but something happened. Or, as the country western song says “She’s Out Doin’ What I’m Here Doin’ Without.”

So, I returned from Fort Gordon after three months with a new MOS — military occupation skill. My old MOS had been Eleven-Bravo, meaning infantry, meaning a second tour in Vietnam from which I had no reasonable expectation of returning home alive this time. My new military occupation skill was Military Police, and Vietnam was a possibility, but not a sure thing. And even if I went to ’Nam as an MP, my chances of getting killed or maimed by the enemy were less than the chances of that happening breaking up a brawl in the Enlisted Men’s Club.

While I was at MP school, Benny got drafted, completed Basic Training, and was at that time in Advanced Infantry Training with a high probability of going to Vietnam, despite the troop reductions. We all knew that within the next year or so, someone was going to be the last guy in ’Nam to turn off the lights when he left, and someone was going to be the last man killed there. No one knew exactly when that was going to happen, but everyone knew they didn’t want to be one of those guys.

In any case, my marriage was heading south, so I decided to do the same and volunteered for ’Nam.

Quicker than you can say bye-bye, and with no leave time, I was at Tan Son Nhat Airport in January of 1972, where I got orders for Bien Hoa, the big replacement center nearby. Bien Hoa was where some of the fresh meat arrived from the States, awaiting further orders to join their units up country. It was also where a lot of the guys heading home waited for the freedom flight. It was a crazy place, made more so by the juxtaposition of the damned and the saved. They didn’t share the same barracks, but they mingled. They had little in common except two things: Those who were going home wanted to get drunk and get laid, and those who were about to go to the front wanted to get drunk and get laid. I, an MP sergeant, got caught in the middle.

As I said, morale and discipline had gone to hell, and I barely recognized the army that I had entered only about four years earlier. In fact, I barely recognized my own country anymore. So ’Nam was not that bad a place to be.

The war was winding down, at least for the Americans who were pulling out, but it would go on for another three terrible years for the poor bastards who had the misfortune of being born Vietnamese.

In fact, my second Vietnam tour lasted only six months before my MP company got orders to go home.

I hadn’t heard much from Patty in those six months, and what I did hear through her brief, but neatly written letters didn’t sound too positive. In fact, one letter said, “I’m sitting here listening to ‘I’m So Miserable Without You, It’s Like Havin’ You Here,’ which is how I’m feeling now.”

Some men returning unexpectedly from overseas call ahead, so that the loving wife can make preparations, or the unfaithful wife can get rid of the cigars in the ashtray. I called from San Francisco in June ’72, saying I’d be home in three days. This news was met with some ambivalence.

When I finally got out of the taxi that had taken me from Midland Airfield to Whispering Pines Trailer Park, I was somewhat ambivalent myself about what I wanted to find.

I threw my duffel bag on the ground and went to the door of the trailer. Coming home after a long absence in a war zone is a strange experience, like you just re-entered the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, and you know that things on earth have changed.

I tried the doorknob, and it was unlocked. I stepped inside my trailer and stood in the small living room. I knew she wasn’t there, so I didn’t even call out.

I went to the refrigerator for a beer and saw the note: Paul — I’m sorry, but it’s over. I filed for divorce. There’s no one else, but I just don’t want to be married no more. I guess I should say Welcome Home. Have a good life. Patty. P.S. I took Pal. Pal was the dog.

The grammatical error of the double negative annoyed me, and I could hear her drawl in the written words. The title of another country western song ran through my head—“Thank God and Greyhound She’s Gone.”

I threw the note in the trash and found one beer left in the refrigerator, which wasn’t my brand, but it was cold.

I walked around the place that had been my home for a few years and saw that she’d taken all of her things, but she hadn’t taken the furniture because it belonged to the trailer and was mostly bolted down. She did, however, take all the linens, meaning a trip to the PX that evening. Actually, I didn’t even have a car because she didn’t take Greyhound; she took our ’68 Mustang, which I still miss. I also miss Pal. I had anticipated him knocking me to the floor and licking my face, which I think he learned from Patty in the early days of our marriage.

This was not what homecomings were supposed to look like.

I spent a few days at Whispering Pines and Fort Hadley, getting my paperwork in order and all that, then I went back to Boston for my leave, where I was welcomed more warmly. My brother Benny was still in the service, so he wasn’t home — in fact, he was in Germany, holding the line against the Red Hordes on the Eastern Front. I’d like to think my second ’Nam tour kept him out of Southeast Asia.

My brother Davey was just eighteen, and had drawn a low number in the new lottery draft system and was looking forward to being called. He liked my uniform. The war really was coming to an end, so I didn’t try to talk him out of the army or into college, and he, too, served his country, mostly at Fort Hadley. When he got to Hadley, I tipped him off about the lint heads and told him to look up a strawberry blonde named Jenny, but he never ran into her.

Regarding my homecoming to South Boston, the neighborhood seemed different somehow, more so than the last time I’d returned. I realized my boyhood was over, and yes, you can’t go home again.

After my leave, I returned to Fort Hadley and Whispering Pines, and I discovered from a neighbor that Patty had lied about there not being anyone else — surprise! It turned out to be another soldier, and she’s probably on her fourth or fifth by now. There’s something about a man in uniform.

But things work out, and within a few months, I was back into a work routine on post and bought a nice yellow VW bug from a guy who was heading to ’Nam. The army doesn’t give you a lot of time to sulk or contemplate the meaning of life, and they don’t encourage you to talk about your personal problems. The army expression is “Got a personal problem? Go see the chaplain, and he’ll punch your tough-shit ticket.”

That was the old army, of course. The new army has trained counselors who’ll talk to you before punching your tough-shit ticket.

But it makes a man out of you, and you learn to keep shit to yourself. And that’s the way it should be if you’ve picked this life.

I was drawn back to the present by the sight of an open truck approaching the aircraft. This was our escort vehicle, a variation on the little truck with the revolving light that you see at most airports.

We followed the truck to the terminal, but we didn’t actually get right to a gate. We stopped on the apron, and the engines shut down. We had arrived.

It was still raining, and below I saw a line of young ladies holding umbrellas, which I guess is cheaper than a mobile jetway. I also saw a few soldiers standing under a corrugated steel canopy, carrying AK-47s. Two men rolled a stairway toward the aircraft.

As I stared out the window, my mind flashed back to Tan Son Nhat Airport, November 1967, my first tour.

We had landed just before dawn, and as I stepped out of the air-conditioned Braniff 707, a blast of hot, humid air hit me, which was surprising at that predawn hour in November, and I recalled thinking it was going to be a long year for a guy who liked autumn and winter in Boston.

A few hundred American soldiers had been standing on the tarmac behind a rope, wearing short-sleeve khakis, carrying overnight bags, and staring up at the aircraft. The Braniff 707 that had brought me to Vietnam would be quickly refueled, and without even changing the crew, the aircraft would take these guys home.

When I came down the stairway into the predawn light, I had to pass the guys behind the rope. I could clearly recall the looks on their faces; most appeared anxious, like this wasn’t going to come off like it should, but there were a few optimists who looked happy or excited.

A few of these homeward-bound men shouted out words of encouragement to the fresh meat, others shouted things like “You’re gonna be sorreee!” or “It’s a long year, suckers!”

As I looked closer at these guys, I noticed that some of them — who I realized later were the combat vets who’d seen too much — had this strange, faraway stare that I’d never seen before, but which I got familiar with later; this was my first clue that this place was worse than I’d imagined it from stories I’d heard, or from what I’d seen on the TV news.

My French companion brought me back to the present by saying, “What is so interesting out there?”

I turned away from the window and replied, “Nothing.” Then I said, “I was just recalling my first landing here.”

“Yes? This time should be more pleasant. No one is trying to kill you.”

I wasn’t completely sure of that, but I smiled.

A bell chimed, and everyone stood to deplane. I got my overnight bag from the overhead compartment, and within a few minutes I was on the aluminum staircase where the smiling young ladies held umbrellas over everyone’s heads. At the bottom of the staircase, I was handed an open umbrella, and I followed the line of passengers in front of me to the terminal, under the watchful eyes of the soldiers under the corrugated canopy.

My first sense of the place was the long forgotten smell of the rain, which did not smell like the rain in Virginia. A soft breeze carried the odor of burning charcoal, along with the rich and pungent smell of the surrounding rice paddies, a mixture of dung, mud, and rotting vegetation, a thousand layered years of cultivation.

I had returned to Southeast Asia, not in a dream or a nightmare, but in reality.

Inside the terminal, a lady took my umbrella, and motioned me to follow the others, as if I might have other plans.

I passed through a doorway into the International Arrival Terminal, a cavernous space that had the air of neglect and a sense of abandonment. The place was completely empty, except for my fellow passengers. Half the lights were out, and there was not one single electronic information screen, or any signs at all, for that matter. I was also struck by how quiet it was — no one speaking, and no PA system. Compared to the aircraft, the terminal was very humid, and I realized there was no air-conditioning, which wasn’t a problem in January, but must be interesting in August.

As it turned out, however, this primitive facility was going to be the least of my problems.

Directly in front of me was a line of Passport Control booths, and beyond the booths I could see a single luggage carousel, motionless and empty. There were no porters visible, no luggage carts, and strangely, no Customs stations. More strangely, no one was waiting for any of the arriving passengers, most of whom were Vietnamese and should have had people eagerly expecting their arrival. Then I noticed that there were soldiers at the glass exit doors, and beyond the doors were crowds of people peering through the glass. Apparently, no visitors were allowed in the Arrival Terminal, which was weird. In fact, this whole place was weird.

I walked up to one of the passport booths and handed the uniformed guy my passport and visa. I looked at him, but he never made eye contact with me. He seemed interested in my passport and visa.

I looked again into the cavernous terminal beyond the booths and saw, hanging from the ceiling at the far end of the terminal, a huge red flag with a yellow star in the center — the flag of the victorious North Vietnamese Communists. The full reality of the Communist victory struck me, a quarter century late, but with unmistakable clarity.

When I landed at Tan Son Nhat in ’67 and ’72, soldiers didn’t go through the civilian terminal, but I recalled that outside the terminal was the Stars and Stripes flying alongside the old red, green, and yellow South Vietnamese flag. No one had seen either of those flags around here in over two decades.

I had a creepy feeling, which was reinforced by the Passport Control guy, who kept staring at my passport and visa. I realized he was taking too long, and people in the other booths were passing through more quickly. At first, I just put this down to my usual bad luck of getting in a supermarket checkout line where the cashier was the village idiot.

But then the passport guy picked up a phone and began talking to someone. I could only remember a few words of Vietnamese, but I clearly heard him say the word My — American. This is not in and of itself a negative word, but you had to consider the context. I affected a look of bored impatience, which was lost on the passport guy.

Finally, another uniformed Vietnamese appeared, a short, stocky guy who took my passport and visa from the guy in the booth, and motioned me through. I picked up my overnight bag and followed him.

Standing on the other side of the line of passport booths was my French friend, who had passed through at least five minutes before with no problem. He seemed to be waiting for me, then noticed that I had an escort. He raised his eyebrows and said something in Vietnamese to my escort. The uniformed guy answered back sharply. The Frenchman, too, raised his voice, and they had a little argument, but the Frenchman didn’t seem cowed by the Commie in uniform.

The Frenchman said to me, in English, “I think this is only a random questioning. Be polite, but firm. If you have nothing to hide, it will go well.”

Actually, I had something to hide. I said to my new friend, “See you at Mademoiselle Dieu-Kiem’s.”

The short, tubby Viet guy gave me a push, which pissed me off so much I almost clocked him. But I got myself under control. The mission comes first. Clocking Commies was not part of the mission this time.

As I turned to follow the Viet, I heard the Frenchman say, “It is quite different now that neither your country nor mine is the power here. They have the power.”

So off I went with this little guy in uniform, whose hat had a big red Commie star on the peak. Last time I was here, I had an M-16, and I had the power, and if I’d seen this guy then, I’d have painted him as red as that star.

I realized I was getting myself wound up, so as I walked with this guy through the nearly deserted terminal, I calmed myself down with a mental image of me with my hands around Karl’s throat.

It occurred to me that there were three possibilities at the end of this walk. One, whoever it was I was going to talk to would kick me out of the country. Two, I’d be free to visit the Socialist Republic and do my sightseeing. Three, I’d wind up in the slammer.

I realized I might have some control over these possibilities, depending on what I said. I’m pretty good at bullshit.

We got to the far end of the terminal and came to a closed door, which my Commie companion opened, and which led to a long hallway lined with doors. The hallway was narrow, so my friend got behind me and prodded me again with a push. I could have broken his fat neck in a heartbeat, but then I wouldn’t know what door I was supposed to go through.

He grabbed my arm halfway down the hall, then knocked on a door. The voice behind the door barked, “Di Vao.”

My pushy friend opened the door, thumped his hand on my shoulder, and I entered the room. The door closed behind me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I found myself in a hot, dimly lit room whose stucco walls were the color of nicotine. In fact, the air smelled of cigarette smoke. The room was small and windowless, and a paddle fan hung motionless from the ceiling.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw on the far wall a portrait of Ho Chi Minh and a small red flag with a yellow star in the center. I could also see a photo of a guy in uniform, who I thought might be General Giap, and a few photos of unsmiling civilians, who were undoubtedly government or Party officials. I concluded that this was not the Travelers’ Aid Office.

There was a desk to my right and behind the desk was a middle-aged man in uniform. He said to me, “Sit.”

I sat in an olive drab chair that I recognized as an American army camp chair. The desk, too, was American; the standard gray steel that hasn’t changed since about World War II. On the wall above the desk was a big ventilation louver, and I could hear the rain falling outside.

The guy who had shown me into the office, who I’d nicknamed Pushy, deposited my passport and visa on the desk, then, without a word, he took my overnight bag and left.

The middle-aged guy in uniform studied my passport and visa by the light of a gooseneck lamp. I studied the guy.

He had on an olive-colored short-sleeve shirt with shoulder boards, and on the boards, he wore the rank of a major or colonel — I never could get the foreign insignia straight. Also, he had three rows of colored ribbons on his left breast pocket, and I assumed some of those dated back to the American War, as they called the Vietnam War here.

He had one of those faces that you instinctively don’t like — pinched and perpetually frowning, with high, prominent cheekbones. His eyes were narrow, and his eyeballs seemed fixed in their sockets.

He looked older than me, but I knew he wasn’t. In any case, he was the right age to be a veteran of the American War, and if he was, he had no positive feelings about Americans. I assumed, too, he was a North Vietnamese because he looked a little bigger and heavier than the southerners, who were slight of build. Also, it was mostly the North Viets who staffed the positions of power in the defeated south. My instincts told me this was not going to be a pleasant interview.

The guy looked up from my passport and said to me, “I am Colonel Mang.”

I didn’t reply. But the fact that he was indeed a full colonel led me to believe this wasn’t a simple passport and visa check.

Colonel Mang, in good English, asked me, “What is the purpose of your visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam?” He had a kind of high, staccato voice that was irritating.

I replied, “Tourism,” which was the lie from which all future lies would spring. And if this guy knew it was a lie, then he’d let me keep lying until he had enough lies to make a noose.

“Tourism,” said Colonel Mang. He stared at me. “Why?”

I replied, “I was a soldier here.”

Suddenly Colonel Mang’s demeanor changed from unpleasant to overly interested. Maybe I should have ignored my instructions and lied about that, but it’s really important to stick close to the truth.

Colonel Mang asked me, “When were you here?”

“In 1968, then again in 1972.”

“Two times. So you were a career military man.”

“I became a career military man.”

He tapped my visa and said, “Now you are retired.”

“That’s right.”

Colonel Mang thought a moment and asked me, “And what were your duties in Vietnam?”

I hesitated a half-second too long, then replied, “I was a cook. An army cook.”

Colonel Mang seemed to mull this over. He asked, “And where were you stationed?”

“In 1968 I was stationed at An Khe. In 1972 at Bien Hoa.”

“Yes? An Khe. The First Cavalry Division.”

“That’s right.”

“And Bien Hoa. What division?”

“I was a cook at the replacement center mess hall.”

“Yes?” Colonel Mang lit a cigarette and drew thoughtfully on it. Finally, he informed me, “I was a lieutenant with Division 325 of the People’s Army of Vietnam.”

I didn’t reply.

Colonel Mang continued, “I was an infantry platoon commander. In 1968, my regiment operated around Hue and Quang Tri. There were units of your division there as well. Were you ever stationed in that area?”

Again, sticking to the truth, but against my better judgment, I replied, “I was near Hue and Quang Tri a few times.”

“Yes? Cooking?”

“That’s right.” I thought that this could be a pleasant conversation between two veterans, except for the fact that we had once been trying to kill each other.

Colonel Mang smiled for the first time and said, “Since our time there coincided, perhaps we once met.”

Somewhat intemperately, I replied, “If we had met, Colonel, only one of us would be here now.”

Colonel Mang smiled again, but it was not a nice smile. He said, “Yes, that is true.” He stared at me awhile, then remarked, “You don’t seem to me like a cook.”

I considered offering him my recipe for two hundred servings of chili, but instead I said, “I’m not sure what you mean, Colonel.”

Colonel Mang puffed on his cigarette and seemed to be staring into the past. I had to assume he was used to questioning American veterans. I assumed, too, he enjoyed his job. What he was after, and what he knew, was another matter.

Colonel Mang said to me, “Many American soldiers have returned.”

“I know.”

We both sat quietly as Colonel Mang enjoyed his cigarette. I wasn’t particularly uneasy, and so far this seemed like just a random stop and question, a case of profiling, but I really didn’t like being on the answering side of an interrogation desk.

Colonel Mang asked me, “And what is this interest in coming back to Vietnam?”

I replied, “I’m sure each man has his own reason.”

“Yes? And what is your reason?”

Well, I was working undercover for the United States government to investigate a strange murder case. But Colonel Mang didn’t need to know that. In fact, this question had Zen overtones to it, so I replied, “I think after my visit here, I’ll know the answer to that question.”

He nodded appreciatively, as though this was the only possible answer.

Colonel Mang now got down to specific questions that needed non-Zen answers. He asked me, “Are you staying in Ho Chi Minh City?”

I replied, “I’m staying in Saigon.”

This honked him off, and he informed me, “There is no Saigon.”

“I saw it from the air.” Why do I piss people off? What is wrong with me?

Colonel Mang fixed me with a cold stare and said, “Ho Chi Minh City.”

I recalled Mr. Conway’s and the Frenchman’s advice to be firm but polite. How can you be both? But I backed off and said, “Right. Ho Chi Minh City.”

“Correct. And how long are you staying there?”

“Three days.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Rex.”

“Yes? The American Generals’ Hotel.”

“I always wanted to see where the generals stayed.”

Mang gave me a little sneer and said, “They lived in luxury while their soldiers lived and died in the jungles and rice paddies.”

I didn’t reply.

He continued his political education lesson and said, “Our generals lived with us and shared the hardships. My general had no more rice than I did. He lived in a simple peasant’s hut. Your generals at An Khe base camp had air-conditioned house trailers from America. I saw these with my own eyes when we liberated the south. Did you not see these at An Khe?”

“I did.”

“And there was a golf course for the officers.”

“Only nine holes,” I reminded him. “And your snipers and mortar guys made it a tough course.”

He actually laughed, then got himself under control and said, “And I am sure you cooked better food for the officers.”

“No, everyone got the same food.”

“I do not believe that.”

“Well, it’s true. Ask the next veteran you speak to.”

Colonel Mang didn’t want any of his prejudices upset, so he changed the subject and asked me, “What rank did you retire with?”

“Warrant officer.”

“Yes? So, how much did they pay you?”

Recalling that Mr. Conway said the average Vietnamese made three or four hundred dollars a year, I was a little embarrassed to reply, “About forty-five hundred dollars.”

“A month. Correct?”

“Right. You already know this, so why are you asking? And what is the purpose of these questions?”

Colonel Mang did not like my retort, but like most Vietnamese, he kept his cool.

He hit an intercom button and said something in Vietnamese. A few seconds later, the door opened and Pushy came in.

Colonel Mang and Pushy exchanged a few words, and Pushy handed Mang the stupid snow globe, that being the only thing in my overnight bag that had obviously confused him.

Mang examined the snow globe, and Pushy said something, so Mang shook it and watched it snow on the Vietnam Memorial. He looked up and asked me, “What is this?”

“It’s the Vietnam War Memorial. A souvenir.”

“Why do you have this with you?”

“It was a gift at the airport.”

“Yes?” He stared at the globe and shook it again. I would have laughed, but Mang might think I was laughing at him.

Mang said, “Yes, I recognize this. The names of your dead are carved on this wall. Fifty-eight thousand. Correct?”

“That’s right.”

He informed me, “We have one million dead.”

I replied, “The north and the south each had one million dead. That’s two million.”

He said, “I do not count the enemy.”

“Why not? They were also Vietnamese.”

“They were American puppets.” Colonel Mang put the globe on his desk and said to me, “Please empty all your pockets on my desk. Everything.”

I had no choice but to comply, so I put my wallet on his desk, along with the envelopes in my jacket pocket, and also my pen, comb, handkerchief, and Tic Tacs. I held on to the addresses the Frenchman had given me.

Colonel Mang first went through my wallet, which held some American currency, credit cards, retired military ID card, with rank but no occupation, medical card, and my Virginia driver’s license.

Next, he went through the things from my jacket, giving the pen, comb, handkerchief, and Tic Tacs a cursory inspection. Then he opened the envelopes with American money, Vietnamese money, and traveler’s checks. Next he opened the envelope that held my airline tickets, then the envelope with my hotel vouchers. He studied everything and made notes on a piece of paper. As he was writing, he said something in Vietnamese, and Pushy replied. They both seemed interested in the amount of money I had, which represented a few years’ salary for both of them. Obviously, there is no justice in the world when the defeated enemy could return to the scene of his defeat loaded down with cash.

Anyway, Pushy said something sharply to me in Vietnamese, then repeated it, which made him laugh. The Vietnamese are worse than Americans in regard to their impatience with people who don’t speak their language. I tried to remember a Vietnamese word or two, like “Fuck you,” but I was tired, and it wasn’t coming back to me.

Finally, Pushy left the room and forgot to take the snow globe with him. Mang continued working on his notes, then looked up at me and said, “You have reservations at the Century Riverside Hotel in Hue, and the Metropole in Hanoi.”

I didn’t reply, and this seemed to tick him off.

He lit another cigarette and said, “Please take your things off my desk,” as though I had annoyed him by depositing everything there.

I gathered my wallet and envelopes, odds and ends, and put them in my pockets. I noticed that Mang held on to my passport and visa. I said, “If that’s all, Colonel, I’d like to get to my hotel.”

“I will tell you when and if we are finished, Mr. Brenner.”

That was the first time he’d used my name, and he wasn’t being polite; he was telling me he knew my name, my addresses in Vietnam, my departure date, and the contents of my wallet, and so forth.

He said to me, “You have some days between your hotel reservation in Ho Chi Minh City and Hue.”

“That’s right.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Certainly you will go to An Khe.”

I might have, but not now. I said, “If it’s possible.”

“It is not a problem. However, part of your old base camp is a restricted area, used now by the People’s Army.”

“Including the air-conditioned house trailers?”

He didn’t respond to that, but said, “The town of An Khe is not restricted. However, the brothels and massage parlors are all closed as are the bars and opium dens.”

“Well, that’s good news.”

“Yes? You are happy that Dodge City is closed? That is what you called that district — correct? Built by your own engineers.”

“Never heard of it.”

Colonel Mang all of a sudden turned nasty and said to me, “Moral pollution. Degeneracy. That’s why you lost the war.”

I wasn’t going to let him bait me, so I didn’t reply.

Colonel Mang went on awhile about American imperialism, Agent Orange, the My Lai massacre, the bombing of Hanoi, and a few other things that even I wasn’t familiar with.

This was a very angry man, and I couldn’t even take any personal pleasure in getting him angry because he hated me before I walked through his door.

I recalled Mr. Conway’s advice to express remorse for the war, and I realized this wasn’t just a suggestion, but a requirement. I said, “The war was a terrible time for both our people, but especially for the Vietnamese, who suffered so much. I regret my country’s involvement in the war, and especially my own involvement. I’ve come here to see how the Vietnamese people are living now in peace. I think it’s good that so many American veterans are returning, and I know that many of them have contributed time and money to help heal the wounds of war. I hope to be able to do the same.”

Colonel Mang seemed pleased with my little speech and nodded approvingly. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but I doubted it.

He asked me, “And where do you go between Hue and Hanoi?”

Actually, on a secret mission, but I replied, “I don’t know. Any suggestions?”

“Surely you will visit some of your old battlefields?”

“I was a cook.”

He gave me a conspiratorial smile, like we both knew that was bullshit. He said in a flattering tone, “You seem to me like a man who would not be satisfied stirring a pot.”

“Well, I was a real sensitive kid. The sight of blood on the pork chops used to make me sick.”

Colonel Mang leaned across his desk and said, “I killed many Americans. How many Vietnamese did you kill?”

I kind of lost it right then and there, and I stood and replied, “This conversation has become harassment. I’m going to report this incident to my consulate in Saigon and to my embassy in Hanoi.” I looked at my watch and said, “I’ve been here half an hour, and if you delay me one more minute, I’m going to demand that you let me call the consulate.”

Colonel Mang, too, lost his cool, stood and slammed his hand on the desk. He shouted for the first time, “You will make no demands on me! I will demand of you! I demand from you a full itinerary of your travels in the Socialist Republic!”

“I told you, I have no specific plans. I was told I could travel freely.”

“I am telling you, you must give me an itinerary!”

“Well, then, I’ll think about it. Please give me my passport and visa.”

Colonel Mang got himself under control and sat. He said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, “Please be seated, Mr. Brenner.”

I remained standing long enough to piss him off, then sat.

He informed me, “I will hold your passport and return it to you before you leave Ho Chi Minh City. At that time, you will provide me with a full and accurate itinerary of your time between Ho Chi Minh City and Hue, and between Hue and Hanoi.”

“I’d like my passport now.”

“I do not care what you like.” He looked at his watch and said, “You have been here ten minutes, this was a routine passport and visa check, and you are now free to leave.” He pushed my visa across the desk and said, “You may take this.”

I stood and took my visa, leaving the snow globe on Mang’s desk, and walked toward the door.

Colonel Mang needed a parting shot and said, “This is my country, Mr. Brenner, and you are not the one with the guns any longer.”

I had no intention of responding, but then I started to think about this guy’s anger, his obviously traumatic war years as a combat platoon leader. I’m not a very empathetic guy, but because we were both combat veterans, I tried to put myself in his place.

But even if Mang was partly entitled to his anger, it wasn’t doing him any good. I asked him, “Don’t you think it’s time to make peace with the past?”

Colonel Mang stared at me, then stood. He said in a soft tone that I could barely hear, “Mr. Brenner, I have lost most of my family and most of my friends to American bombs and bullets. My high school class are nearly all dead. I don’t have a living male cousin, and only one of my four brothers survived the war, and he is an amputee. Now, if that happened to you, would you be able to forgive and forget?”

“Probably not. But history and memory should serve to inform the next generation not to perpetuate the hatred.”

He thought about that for a few seconds, then said, “You can do whatever you wish in your country. I hope you learn something here. I suggest adding to your itinerary a visit to the Museum of American War Crimes.”

I opened the door and left.

Standing outside was Pushy, who motioned me to walk in front of him. I re-traced my route down the narrow corridor and into the main terminal. Pushy gave me a little shove toward the baggage carousel. I walked across the deserted terminal and saw my suitcase and overnight bag, sitting at the feet of an armed soldier.

I reached for my suitcase, but Pushy grabbed my arm. He thrust a piece of paper toward me. I took it and read the handwritten words in English: $20—Arrival Tax.

My little guidebook had mentioned a departure tax, but I had the feeling that Pushy invented the arrival tax. I don’t like being shaken down, and it was time to push back. I crumpled up the blackmail note and threw it on the ground. “No.”

This sent Pushy into a frenzy, and he began shouting in Vietnamese and waving his arms around. The soldier stood by impassively.

I picked up my bags, and Pushy didn’t try to stop me. In fact, he shouted, “Di di! Di di mau!” which means get moving, and is not very polite.

I started to turn away, then I had a good idea that would make everyone happy. I put my bags down, reached into my breast pocket, and took a twenty-dollar bill from the envelope. I showed it to Pushy and gestured toward my bags. He wrestled with this temptation for a minute, weighing about three weeks’ pay against his dignity. He looked around, then shouted at me to walk to the door as he picked up my bags. If he’d been nicer, I would have pointed out the retractable handle and wheels on the suitcase.

Anyway, I went out into the hot, humid air, which smelled heavily of exhaust fumes. The rain was now a drizzle, and there was a covered walkway that led to a line of taxicabs. A few people did double takes at the sight of a uniformed guy carrying my baggage, and they probably thought I was a big-shot American.

We got to the lead taxi, and the driver wanted to put the bags in the trunk, but Pushy had the drill by now and threw both bags in the trunk.

I held out the twenty, and Pushy snatched it rudely. I really wanted to knee him in the balls, but that might have cost me another twenty. Pushy said something to me in a nasty tone of voice, then yelled at the taxi driver and stomped off.

The driver closed the trunk, opened the passenger door, and I got inside the small Honda, not much bigger than a Civic. It stank of cigarette smoke and mildew.

The driver jumped in the car, started it up, and sped off.

We got clear of the airport in a few minutes, and the driver said, in passable English, “You American? Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Come from Seoul?”

“That’s right.”

“Why take you so long?”

“The moving walkway was stuck.”

“They ask you questions?”

“Yes.”

“Communists eat shit.”

This took me by surprise and I laughed.

The driver took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and held the pack over his shoulder. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

He lit his cigarette with a match and steered with his knees.

I looked out the window and saw that the city had crept out to the airport. In place of the ramshackle bamboo huts and concession stands that I remembered on this road, I saw stucco structures. I noticed electric lines strung everywhere, and I saw TV antennas, and even a few satellite dishes. There were also a lot of small trucks and motor scooters on the road in place of the ox-drawn carts I’d remembered. Now, as then, there were a lot of bicycles. Something else new was a lot of plastic and paper trash along the road.

I didn’t expect to see the old Vietnam, which in many ways was picturesque and pristine, but this horn honking and the TV antennas were a little jarring.

I thought about Colonel Mang for a moment and decided that the whole incident was, indeed, random. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, my run-in with the authorities had compromised the mission. I had to decide whether to push on or abort.

The driver said, “Hotel?”

“The Rex.”

“American General Hotel.”

“Really?”

“You a soldier in Vietnam. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“I know. I drive many soldiers.”

“Do they all get stopped and questioned?”

“No. Not many. They come out of building… you know? They come… how you say?”

“Alone? Late?”

“Yes. Late. Communists eat shit.” He broke into loud laughter, warming to his subject. “Communists eat dog shit.”

“Thank you. I get the picture.”

“Mister, why the soldier carry your bag?”

“I don’t know. What did he say?”

“He say you are American important person, but you are imperialist dog.”

“That’s not nice.”

“You important person?”

“I’m the leader of the American Communist Party.”

He got real quiet and shot some glances at me in the rearview mirror. He said, “Joke. Right? Joke?”

“Yes, joke.”

“No Communists in America.”

The conversation had a little entertainment value, but I was jet-lagged, tired, and cranky. I looked out the window. We were in old Saigon now, on a wide, well-lit boulevard whose street sign said Phan Dinh Phung. I seemed to recall that this boulevard passed the Catholic cathedral and in fact, I caught a glimpse of the cathedral spires over the low, French-style buildings.

My new friend said, “My father a soldier. He was American ami. You understand?”

“Biet,” I replied, in one of my few remembered Vietnamese words.

He glanced back at me, and we made eye contact. He nodded, turned back to his driving, and said, “He prisoner. Never see him again.”

“Sorry.”

“Yes. Fucking Communists. Yes?”

I didn’t reply. I was, I realized, more than tired. I was back. Thank you, Karl.

We turned onto Le Loi Street, Saigon’s main drag, and approached the Rex Hotel.

I never saw any of Saigon when I was an infantryman. It was off limits, except for official business, and the average grunt had no official business in Saigon. But during my brief tour as an MP, I got to know the city a little. It was, then, a lively place, but it was a besieged capital, and the lights were always dimmed, and the motor traffic was mostly military. Sandbags were piled up at strategic locations where Vietnamese police and soldiers kept an eye on things. Every restaurant and café had steel gratings in front of the windows to discourage the local Viet Cong on motor scooters from tossing satchel charges and grenades at the paying customers. Yet despite the war, there was a frenetic energy about the city, a sort of joie de vivre that you see, ironically, when death is right outside the walls, and the end is near.

This Saigon, this Ho Chi Minh City, looked frenetic, too, but without the wartime psychosis that used to grip the town each night. And, surprisingly, there were lighted advertisements all over the place — Sony, Mitsubishi, Coca-Cola, Peugeot, Hyundai — mostly Japanese, Korean, American, and French products. The Commies might eat shit, but they drank Coke.

The taxi stopped in front of the Rex, and my friend popped the trunk and got out.

A doorman opened my door while a bellboy grabbed the bags from the trunk. The doorman said in good English, “Welcome to the Rex, sir.”

My driver said to me, “Here my card. Mr. Yen. You call me. I show you all city. Good tour guide. Mr. Yen.”

The ride was four dollars, and I tipped Mr. Yen a buck.

Yen looked around to make sure no one was listening, and he said, “That man in airport is security police. He say he will see you again.” He jumped back in his taxi.

I entered the Rex Hotel.

The lobby of the Rex was a big, polished marble affair, with vaguely French architecture, and hanging crystal chandeliers. There were potted plants all over, and the air-conditioning worked. This was much nicer than Colonel Mang’s office.

I also noticed that the lobby was decorated for the Tet holiday, which I was here for in ’68 and ’72. There were lots of flowering fruit branches stuck in big vases, and a big kumquat tree in the center of the floor.

There were a few people in the lobby, but at this hour — it was after midnight — it was pretty quiet.

I went to the check-in desk where a nice young Vietnamese lady, whose nametag said Lan, greeted me, took my voucher, and asked for my passport. I gave her my visa, she smiled, and again asked for my passport.

I informed her, “The police have taken it.”

Her nice smile faded. She said, “I’m sorry, we need a passport to check you in.”

“If you don’t check me in, how will the police know where I am? I gave them this address.”

The logic of this impressed her, and she got on the horn and jabbered awhile, then came back to me and said, “We will need to hold your visa until you check out.”

“Fine. Don’t lose it.”

Lan began playing with her Japanese computer terminal. She said, “This is a busy season. It is the Tet holiday, and the weather is good for tourists.”

“It’s hot and sticky.”

“You must come from a cold climate. You will get used to it. Have you stayed with us before?”

“I walked past the place a few times in 1972.”

She glanced up at me, but didn’t reply. Lan found me a deluxe suite for my hundred and fifty bucks a night and handed the key to the bellboy. She said, “Have a pleasant stay, Mr. Brenner. Please let the concierge know if there is anything you need.”

I needed my passport, and to have my head examined, but I said, “Thank you.” I was not supposed to call or fax anyone regarding my safe arrival. Someone would call here, which they’d probably done already, and they were wondering why I hadn’t yet checked in.

Lan said to me, “Chuc Mung Nam Moi. Happy New Year.”

My Vietnamese was mostly forgotten, but my pronunciation was once good, and I was able to parrot her. “Chuc Mung Nam Moi.”

She smiled. “Very good.”

So, off I went toward the elevators with the bellboy. The Viets are basically pleasant people, polite, good-natured, and helpful. But beneath the placid, smiling Buddhist exterior lay a very short fuse.

Anyway, up the elevator to the sixth floor, down the wide hallway to a big door. The bellhop showed me into a nice suite with a sitting area, a view of Le Loi Street, and, thank God, a room bar. I gave him a buck and he left.

I hit the bar first and made myself a Chivas and soda with ice. This was just like a vacation, except for the bullshit at the airport and the fact that I could get arrested any minute for no reason, or for a good reason.

The room was decorated in what I call French Whorehouse, but it was big, and the bathroom had a stall shower. I examined my suitcase on the luggage stand and saw that everything was a mess. Same with my overnight bag.

Also, the bastards had taken the photocopies of my passport and visa. I guess they didn’t have their own copy machine. Yet nothing else had been taken, and I gave Colonel Mang and his stooge credit for honesty and professionalism, despite Pushy trying to shake me down for twenty bucks. In fact, I would have been more comfortable if Colonel Mang was just a cop on the take — but he was something else, and that gave me a little worry.

I hung my clothes, straightened things out, peeled off my clothes, and got into the shower. That silly song “Secret Agent Man” kept running through my jet-lagged brain, then a few tunes from the James Bond movies.

I got out of the shower and dried off. I’d planned to check out the city, but I was barely conscious. I fell into bed and blacked out before I could turn off the lamp.

For the first time in many years, I had a war dream, a combat dream, complete with the sounds of M-16s, AK-47s, and the terrible chatter of a machine gun.

I awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I made myself a double Scotch and sat in a chair, naked and cold, and watched the sun rise over the Saigon River.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I went to a late breakfast in the hotel’s coffee lounge, and the hostess gave me a copy of the Viet Nam News, a local English-language publication. I sat, ordered a coffee, and looked at the headline, which read, “When U.S. Confidence Received a Major Blow.” I had the feeling this newspaper might have a slant.

The headline story was written by a Colonel Nguyen Van Minh, a military historian. It said, “On this day in 1968, our army and people launched an attack against enemy strongholds at Khe Sanh. The attack shocked the United States and forced President Lyndon Johnson and the Pentagon to focus on coping with us at Khe Sanh.”

I seemed to recall the incident because I was there. I read on and learned that the U.S. forces “suffered a severe and humiliating defeat.” I didn’t remember that part of it, but whoever controls the present, controls the past, and they’re welcome to it.

I had trouble following the bad translation as well as the logic in this article, but I was interested to see a mention of my division, the First Air Cavalry, that was translated as “The Flying Cavalry Division Number One.” More interestingly, the war was still news here, as I already discovered from Colonel Mang.

I looked around. The other guests seemed to be mostly Japanese and Korean, but there were a number of Westerners, and I heard French and English spoken. Saigon, it seemed, was making a comeback.

I checked out the menu, which was in a variety of languages and came with photos, just in case. None of the photos showed dogs or cats, or half-formed chick embryos, as I remembered from last time. I ordered the American breakfast and hoped for the best.

I finished breakfast and went to the front desk where I inquired about my passport. The clerk looked and said, “No, sir.” Neither were there any messages. I suppose I half expected a fax from Cynthia. I went out onto Le Loi Street.

Coming out of the cool, dimly lit lobby of the Rex into the hot sunlight was a bit of a shock: the sudden roar of the motor scooters, the continuous horn honking, the exhaust fumes, and the mass of people, bicycles, and motor vehicles. Wartime Saigon had been somehow quieter, except for the occasional explosion.

I began walking the streets of Saigon, and within ten minutes, I was sweating like a pig. I had a map from the front desk, and I had my camera slung over my shoulder. I wore cotton khakis, a green golf shirt, and running shoes. In fact, I looked like a dopey American tourist, except that most American tourists wear shorts wherever they go.

Saigon did not seem overly dirty, but neither was it real clean. The buildings were still mostly two to five stories high, but I noticed that a few skyscrapers had sprung up. Some of the architecture in the center was old French Colonial, as I recalled, but most of the city remained nondescript stucco with perpetually peeling paint. The city had some charm by day, but I remembered it mostly for its sinister and dangerous nights.

Traffic was heavy, but moved well, like choreographed chaos. The only vehicles that weren’t playing by the rules were military vehicles, and yellow, open jeep-like police vehicles, all bullying their way through the streets, scattering everything in front of them. This hadn’t changed much since last time, only the markings on the vehicles were different. You can always tell a police state, or a country at war, by how government vehicles move through the streets.

The most predominant form of transportation now, as well as then, were the motor scooters, whose riders were almost all young, men and women, driving in a predictably insane manner. The biggest difference now was that nearly everyone was talking on their cell phones.

I recalled when any of these men or women could suddenly produce a grenade or a satchel, and chuck it at a café without screening, a military truck, a police booth, or a bunch of drunken soldiers, American or Vietnamese. These new cell phone cyclists seemed a danger only to themselves.

The city was bustling because of the approaching Tet holidays, which to the Viets is like Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one, plus they all celebrate their birthdays on New Year’s Day, and everyone is a year older, like thoroughbred horses, no matter when they were born.

The streets were jammed with vendors selling flowers, branches of peach and apricot buds, and miniature kumquat trees. A lot of the vendors thought I needed these things for some reason, and they tried to entice me into buying fruit branches to carry around.

Some streets were crowded with stalls where vendors sold greeting cards saying Chuc Mung Nam Moi, and I thought about buying one for Karl and adding the words Phuc Yu.

The streets were also packed with cyclos, a uniquely Vietnamese form of transportation, a sort of bicycle with a one-seat passenger compartment up front. The driver pedals and steers from the rear, which is exciting. The cyclo drivers really wanted a Western fare, and they were bugging me to hop in and relax as they followed me through traffic and masses of people.

There were also swarms of kids circling me like piranha, pulling on my arms and clothes, begging for a thousand dong. I kept saying, “Di di! Di di mau! Mau len!” and so forth. But my pronunciation must have been bad because they acted like I was saying, “Come closer, children. Come bother the big My for dong.” You could get people fatigue real fast here.

I found a street that I recalled from 1972, a narrow lane near the Cholan district, the city’s Chinatown. This street was once lined with bars, brothels, and massage parlors, but now it was quiet, and I guessed that all the nice girls had spent a little time in re-education camps, atoning for their sins, and now they were all real estate brokers. I’d been on this street as an MP, of course, not as a customer.

I took a few photos as I walked, but I’d determined that I wasn’t being followed, so all this tourist stuff was kind of wasted, unless I got Karl to sit through five hours of slides back in Virginia.

I got my bearings and headed toward the Museum of American War Crimes, which Colonel Mang had urged me to visit.

Within fifteen minutes, I found the place on the grounds of a former French villa that had once housed, ironically, the United States Information Service during the war. I paid a buck and went into the compound, where a big, rusting American M-48 tank sat on the grass. It was quieter here, there were no beggars or hawkers, and I found myself actually happy to be at the Museum of American War Crimes.

I looked around at the displays, which were mostly photos housed in various stucco buildings, and it was all pretty depressing and sickening: photos of the My Lai massacre, horribly mutilated women and children, deformed infants who were victims of Agent Orange, the famous photo of the naked girl running down the road burned by American napalm, the photo of the South Vietnamese officer blowing out the brains of a captured Viet Cong in Saigon during the ’68 Offensive, a child sucking at the breast of his dead mother, and so on.

There was also a rogues gallery: Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, American generals including my division commander, John Tolson, and pro-war politicians, plus photos of anti-war protesters all over the world, and policemen and soldiers knocking college kids around, the Kent State shootings, and on and on. The captions in English didn’t say much, but they didn’t have to.

There were a lot of photos of the major American anti-war figures of the day: Senator John Kerry from my home state, who’d served in ’Nam at the same time I did in ’68, Eugene McCarthy, Jane Fonda manning a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, and so forth.

There was also a display of American war medals sent to Hanoi by the recipients as a protest against the war.

I could hear the Sixties screaming in my head.

I found a particularly disturbing photographic collection with an accompanying text. The photos showed hundreds of men being lined up, shot by a firing squad, then getting the coup de grâce with a pistol. But this wasn’t another American or South Vietnamese war crime. The text explained that the victims were South Vietnamese soldiers, and pro-American hill tribespeople, the Montagnards, who’d continued the fight against the victorious Communists after the surrender of Saigon.

The text described the Montagnards as belonging to the FULRO, the Front Unitié de Lutte des Races Opprimées — the United Front for the Struggle of the Oppressed Races, a CIA-sponsored group of bandits and criminals, according to the caption. These photographs of the cold-blooded executions were supposed to serve as a lesson to anyone who had any thoughts about opposing the government. Actually, these photographs were not much different than the others showing American atrocities. The Hanoi government was obviously clueless about how these photographs would play to a Western audience. In fact, an American woman standing next to me seemed pale and shocked into silence.

As I looked at all this stuff, I wasn’t sure what I felt. This was obviously an unbalanced presentation, omitting, for instance, the Communist massacres at Hue, and the one at Quang Tri City that I saw with my own eyes.

I’d seen enough and went out into the sunlight.

The people around the museum were mostly American, and they were divided by generation; the older men, obviously veterans, were angry, and some of them were swearing about the “one-sided, propaganda bullshit,” to use one overheard phrase. Some of the veterans were with wives and children, and they were a little quieter.

Well, enough fun for one afternoon. I walked toward the exit, and noticed souvenir stands selling pieces of army munitions, flower vases made out of shell casings, old American dog tags, and models of Huey helicopters made from scrap aluminum, like works of origami. I saw old Zippo lighters, engraved with the names of their previous GI owners, along with mottoes, unit crests, and so forth. I spotted a lighter that was engraved with the same thing that mine was engraved with: Death is my business, and business has been good. I still owned the lighter, but I’d left it home.

I went out through the gate onto Vo Van Tan Street and turned back toward the center of the city.

Now and then, out of the corner of my eye, and the corner of my mind, I’d see the remnants of the once proud ARVN — the Army of the Republic of Vietnam; middle-aged men who looked ancient, missing legs and arms, blind, lame, scarred, stooped and broken. Some begged from fixed spots in the shade. Some just sat and didn’t bother to beg.

Now and then, one of them would notice me, and he’d call out, “Hey, you GI? Me ARVN!”

These were men of my own generation, my former allies, and I felt guilty ignoring them.

It was a short walk back to the Rex, and when I entered the lobby, the air-conditioning hit me like a Canadian cold front.

I inquired at the desk for my passport, but no luck; no messages either. I got my key, went to the health club on the sixth floor, and scheduled a massage. In the men’s locker room, I undressed, got a towel, robe, and shower clogs, and took a shower, sweating Saigon out of my pores, but not out of my mind.

I lay on a tatami mat in a quiet room, easy listening music coming out of a speaker. An attendant brought me a cup of sake.

By sake number three, I was feeling a little buzz, and an instrumental of “Nights in White Satin” was coming out of the speakers, and it was 1972; I was puffing on a big, fat joint in a lady’s apartment off Tu Do Street not far from here, and she was lying next to me wearing nothing more than a cannabis smile, and we passed the joint back and forth, her long, black silky hair on my shoulder.

But then the lady began to fade, and it started to come to me that part of what I was feeling, being back here, was a sense of nostalgia for a time that was past; I was not young anymore, but I had been young once, in this place, which for me had been frozen in time. And as long as this place remained frozen in time, then so did my youth.

I must have drifted off because a guy was shaking me gently by the shoulder and saying I had a message, which turned out to be actually a massage appointment.

A receptionist at the health club desk directed me to Room C. Inside Room C was a massage table covered by a clean white sheet. I hung my robe, slipped off my shower clogs, and lay on the table, wearing my towel, stretching and yawning.

The door opened, and an attractive young woman wearing a short white skirt and sleeveless white blouse entered and smiled. “Hello.”

Without too much more conversation, she motioned me to turn over on my stomach, loosened my towel around my waist, and jumped up on the table with me.

She was really strong for a small woman and cracked every bone and joint in my body. She grabbed an overhead bar and walked on my back and butt with her bare feet, kneading her toes into my muscles. I could get used to this.

There were mirrors on each of the walls, but this didn’t seem too unusual, though I noticed that the young lady and I could look at one another in the mirrors, and she was smiling a lot.

Finally, she turned me over on my back and somehow I’d lost my towel. She was kneeling between my legs, and she pointed to a place she hadn’t massaged yet. I had a feeling the shiatsu part of the massage was over.

She said, “Ten dollar — Okay?”

“Uhh…”

She smiled and nodded encouragingly. “Yes?”

Give this hotel another star.

Moral considerations aside, the words “sexual entrapment” popped into my head. That’s just what I needed — Colonel Mang coming through the door taking a video of me getting a blow job in the massage room of the Rex Hotel.

I sat up and found myself face-to-face with my new friend. I said, “Sorry, no can do.”

She made a big pout with her lips. “Yes, yes.”

“No, no. Gotta go.” I slid off the table and slipped into my shower clogs.

Miss Massage sat on the table and kept looking at me, pouting.

I took my robe from the hook and said, “Great massage. Give you big tip. Biet?”

She was still pouting.

I put on my robe, left the massage room, and went to the reception desk where I signed a hotel chit for the ten-dollar massage, then added another ten for a tip. The reception lady smiled at me and inquired, “You feel good now?”

“Very good.” I would have felt even better if I’d gotten the CID to pay for a blow job.

Anyway, that little Southeast Asian interlude over, I went back to the locker room, got dressed, and left the health club, realizing that Colonel Mang wasn’t part of that deal. I recalled that M never instructed James Bond to steer clear of sexual entrapments. The Americans, on the other hand, especially the FBI, were very puritanical about sex on the job. Maybe I should look into a foreign intelligence service for my next career. I mean, I was having so much fun already.

I went to my room, got a cold Coke, and collapsed into an armchair. As I sipped my Coke with my eyes closed, an image of Cynthia materialized. She seemed to be staring at me as if I’d done something wrong. I am basically monogamous, but there are times that try men’s souls.

So, I sat there, deciding what I should wear to my seven o’clock rendezvous on the rooftop restaurant.

Then I noticed something. At the head of the bed near the pillow was the snow globe.

CHAPTER NINE

I took the elevator up to the rooftop restaurant and exited into a large enclosed area that held a bar and cocktail lounge. Mr. Conway hadn’t been specific about where to meet my contact — the more unplanned it is, the more unplanned it will look. Right. But this was a big place, and through a glass wall, I could see a wide expanse of tables out on the roof itself.

I gave the bar and cocktail lounge a once-over, then went out to the roof, and a maître d’ asked me in English if I was alone. I said I was, and he showed me to a small table. Service people all over the world address me in English before I even open my mouth. Maybe it’s how I dress. Tonight I wore a blue blazer, a yellow golf shirt, khakis, and docksiders with no socks.

I looked around at the rooftop garden. There were enough potted plants to simulate a jungle, and I wondered how anyone was going to find me. The roof was paved in marble tiles, surrounded on three sides by a wrought iron railing, and the fourth side by the rooftop structure I’d just come out of. About half the tables were full, from what I could see, and the crowd looked divided about evenly between East and West. The men were dressed well, though no one wore a tie, and the ladies looked a bit overdressed in light evening gowns, mostly floor length. I hadn’t seen much leg since I’d arrived, unless you count Miss Massage. There was, however, one middle-aged American couple in shorts, T-shirts, and running shoes. The State Department should issue a dress code.

There were hurricane lamps on each table with lit candles, and colored paper lanterns were strung around the garden.

Toward the far end of the rooftop was a huge metal sculpture of a king’s crown with the word Rex in lights. Not a very socialist symbol. On either side of the crown stood a big sculpture of an elephant rearing up on its hind legs, and beneath the crown, a four-piece combo was starting to set up.

A waiter came by with a menu, but I told him I just wanted a beer. I inquired, “Do you have 333?”

“Yes, sir.” And off he went.

I was glad they were still making Triple Three in the Socialist Republic — in Vietnamese, it’s Ba Ba Ba, and it’s a good luck number, like 777 in the West. I needed a little good luck.

The beer came in the bottle that I remembered, and I poured it into a glass, which I’d never done before. I noticed for the first time that the beer had a yellowish cast to it. Maybe that’s why some of the guys used to call it Tiger Piss. I sipped it, but I couldn’t recall the taste.

I looked out into the city. The sun was setting in the southwest and a nice breeze had come up. The lights of Saigon were coming on, and I saw that they stretched nearly to the horizon. Beyond the lights had been the war, sometimes close to Saigon, other times not so close, but always there.

The four-piece band started playing, and I could hear the mellow notes of “Stardust.” There was a small dance floor near the band, and a few couples got up and tried to dance to this somnolent tune.

I don’t know what I expected to find here, and I guess I was prepared for anything, but maybe I wasn’t prepared for “Stardust” on the rooftop garden of the Rex Hotel. I tried to imagine the American generals and colonels and staff sitting here each night, and I wondered if they looked out to the horizon as they were dining. From this height, no matter how far off the war was, at night you could see the artillery and rockets in the distance, and maybe you could even see the tracer rounds and illumination flares. Certainly you could hear the thousand-pound bombs, unless the band was playing too loudly, and you surely couldn’t miss the napalm strikes whose incandescent fire lit up the universe.

I sipped my beer, felt the breeze against my face, listened to the band, which had segued into “Moonlight Serenade,” and I suddenly felt very out of place, like I shouldn’t be here, like this was somehow disrespectful toward the men who had died out there in the black night. What was worse was that no one on this roof knew what I was feeling, and I wished Conway, or even Karl, was with me right then. I looked around to see if I was alone, then I spotted a guy my age with a woman, and I could tell by how they were talking and by how he looked that he had been here before.

I was halfway into my second beer, and the band was halfway into “Old Cape Cod”—how did they know these songs? — and it was twenty past the appointed hour, and still no contact. I fantasized about a waiter giving me a fax message saying, “The murderer has confessed — Tickets to Honolulu at the front desk.” But what about my passport?

While I was lost in my reverie, a young Caucasian woman had approached my table. She was dressed in a beige silk blouse, dark skirt, and sandals, and she was carrying an attaché case, but no handbag. She seemed to be looking for someone, then came over to my table and asked me, “Are you Mr. Ellis?”

“No.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was supposed to meet a Mr. Earl E. Ellis here.”

“You’re welcome to join me until he arrives.”

“Well… if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” I stood and pulled a chair out for her. She sat.

She was about thirty, give or take a few years, with brown hair, which she wore long and straight, parted in the middle, like the Viet women. Her eyes, too, were brown and very big, and her face was lightly tanned, as you’d expect in this climate. She wore no jewelry, just a sensible plain watch, and almost no makeup, except a light pink lipstick, and no nail polish. Despite the Vietnamese hairstyle, she gave the impression of a business lady who you’d see in Washington, a lawyer or maybe a banker or stockbroker. The attaché case reinforced the image. And did I mention that she was well built and pretty? Irrelevant, of course, but hard not to notice.

She placed her attaché case on the empty chair, then reached her hand across the table and said, “Hi, I’m Susan Weber.”

I took her hand, and thinking this was a James Bondian moment, I looked her in the eye and said, “Brenner. Paul Brenner.” I thought I heard the band playing “Goldfinger.”

“Thank you for letting me intrude. Are you waiting for someone?”

“I was. But let me buy you a drink while we both wait for our parties.”

“Well… all right. I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

I signaled a waiter and ordered a gin and tonic and another beer.

Ms. Weber said something to the waiter in Vietnamese, and he smiled, bowed, and moved off.

I inquired, “You speak Vietnamese?”

“A little.” She smiled. “How about you?”

“A little. Things like, ‘Show me your ID card’ and ‘Put your hands up.’ ”

She smiled again, but didn’t reply.

The drinks came, and she said, “I think they use real quinine. Something to do with malaria. I hate the malaria pills. They give me… well, the runs. I don’t take them.”

“You live here?”

“Yes. Almost three years now. I work for an American investment company. Are you here on business?”

“Tourism.”

“Just arrived?”

“Last night. I’m staying here.”

She raised her glass and said, “Welcome to Saigon, Mr….?”

“Brenner.” We touched glasses.

Her accent, I noticed, had a touch of New England in it, and I asked her, “Where are you from?”

“I was born in Lenox — western Massachusetts.”

“I know where it is.” Lenox was one of those picture-perfect postcard towns in the Berkshire hills. I said, “I drove through Lenox once. Lots of big mansions.”

She didn’t respond to that, but said, “Summer home of the Boston Symphony — Tanglewood. Did you ever go to Tanglewood?”

“I usually summer in Monte Carlo.”

She looked at me to see if I was jerking her around, couldn’t seem to decide, then asked me, “How about you? I think I hear a little Boston.”

“Very good. I thought I’d lost that.”

“You never do. So, we’re both Bay Staters. Small world and all that.” She looked around. “It’s nice up here, except in the summer when it’s too hot. Do you like the hotel?”

“So far. Got a great massage this afternoon.”

She caught this right away, smiled, and replied, “Did you now? And what kind of massage?”

“Shiatsu.”

She informed me, “I love a good massage, but the girls only make about a dollar from the hotel — they make more by offering extras, which is why they don’t like to massage women.”

“You could tip.”

“I do. A dollar. They like men.”

“Well, FYI, I just got the massage. But this is a loose place.”

“You need to be careful.”

“I’m doing better than that. I’m being good.”

“That’s very commendable. How did we get on this topic?”

“I think it was me.”

She smiled, then said, “About the hotel — it was once owned by a wealthy Vietnamese couple who bought it from a French company. During the American involvement here, it housed mostly American military.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Yes. Then when the Communists came to power in 1975, it was taken over by the government. It remained a hotel, but it housed mostly North Vietnamese party officials, Russians, and Communists from other countries.”

“Nothing but the best for the winners.”

“Well, I understand it became a pigsty. But sometime in the mid-1980s, the government sold an interest in it to an international company, who managed to get rid of the Communist guests. It was completely renovated and became an international hotel. I always book this place for American and European businesspeople.” She looked at me. “I’m glad you like it.”

We made eye contact, and I nodded.

She looked at her watch. “I can’t imagine where this Mr. Ellis is.”

“Try the massage room.”

She laughed.

I said, “Have another drink.”

“Well… why not?” She said something to a passing waiter, then reached into her attaché case and took out a pack of Marlboros. She offered the pack to me.

I said, “No, thanks. But you go ahead.”

She lit her cigarette and while lighting it, she said softly, “I have something for you.” She exhaled a stream of smoke.

I didn’t reply. I hadn’t expected a woman, but I realized it was less conspicuous.

She said, “I received a fax from your firm. I marked what you need in a newspaper, which is in my attaché case. The crossword puzzle. They said you’d understand.”

“Offer the newspaper to me when you leave.”

She nodded, then said, “I faxed your firm last night that you’d checked in here. I told them your flight was delayed because of weather, but that you’d checked in an hour and a half after you’d landed.” She asked me, “Was there a problem at the airport?”

“They misplaced my luggage.”

“Really? There are not many flights arriving, and there’s only one baggage carousel. How could they misplace your luggage?”

“I have no idea.”

Her gin and tonic came along with another beer. The band was playing “Stella by Starlight.” There seemed to be a sky theme in these selections.

I asked Ms. Weber, “Do you really work for an American company?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Have you ever done anything like this before?”

“I don’t know — what am I doing?”

Clever reply, but I needed an answer, so I asked her again.

She replied, “No. I was just asked to do this favor. First time.”

“Who asked you?”

“A man I know here. An American.”

“What does this man do for a living?”

“He works for Bank of America.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Well enough. He’s my boyfriend of the moment. About six months. Why are you asking these questions?”

“I’d like to be sure you’re not on the watch list of the local KGB.”

She nodded, then said, “Everyone here is under surveillance by the Security Police. Especially Americans. But the Viets are not very efficient about it.”

I didn’t reply.

She added, “Three fourths of the Vietnamese police force are in plainclothes. These guys at the next table could all be police, but unless I light a joint and blow smoke in their faces, they’re more interested in their beers than in me. It’s all very random. I get stopped and fined two dollars about once a month for some stupid traffic violation.”

I didn’t reply.

She continued, “It’s all about money. This city is full of high-priced imported consumer goods, and the average Nguyen makes about three hundred a year, but he wants everything he sees, so if he’s a civilian, he works close to Western tourists for the tips, his kid brother begs in the streets, his sister turns tricks, and his brother, who’s a cop, extorts money from the tourists and the expats.”

“I think I’ve met them all.”

She smiled and informed me, “It’s a corrupt country, but the bribes are pretty reasonable, the people are basically nice, street crime is rare, and the electricity works in Saigon, even if the plumbing is a little unreliable. I wouldn’t worry too much about police state efficiency here. It’s the inefficiency, the government paranoia, and xenophobia concerning Westerners, trying to convince them you’re just here to make a buck, or take pictures of pagodas, or have cheap sex, and that you’re not here to overthrow the government. I’m no hero, Mr. Brenner, and not a patriot, so if I thought there was any danger to me in doing this little favor, I’d say no.”

I thought about all this and concluded that Ms. Weber was a little cynical, though she didn’t strike me that way at first. But maybe ’Nam got to her. I asked her, “So why did you agree to do this little favor?”

“I told you — my stupid boyfriend. Bill. Now that we have consulate people here, he thinks they can help his business. The government knows as much about business as I know about government.”

“So someone in the consulate asked Bill to — what?”

“They asked Bill to ask me to meet you. The consulate wanted a woman. The police don’t pay much attention to women, and I guess this is less conspicuous.”

“Can I check out this guy Bill?”

She shrugged. “I’ll give you his card. I have a stack of them.”

“You’re a very loyal girlfriend.”

She laughed, then said, “You’re very suspicious.”

“Also, paranoid. And there’s a possibility I’m being watched, so don’t be completely surprised if you’re questioned later.”

Again, she shrugged. “I don’t know a thing.”

I informed her, “I’m a veteran, and I’m here to reminisce, and to see some of the places where I served.”

“That’s what I was told.”

“And that’s all you know. Your business date didn’t show up, and you’re about to leave.”

She nodded.

I asked her, “Aside from the newspaper, is there anything else you’re supposed to give me?”

“No. Like what?”

“Like a cell phone.”

“No. But you can have mine. It doesn’t work well between cities. But it’s good for Saigon. You want it?”

“Not if it can be traced to you.”

“It’s up to you. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“What were you told you could do?”

“Take and deliver a message.”

“What’s the deal on me faxing a message out of here?”

“You mean in the hotel? You just fax it.”

“Do they look at it? Make a copy?”

She thought a moment, then replied, “They do. They won’t give your sheet back until they’ve made a copy. But I can send a secure fax or e-mail from my office.” She added, “That’s what I did last night.”

“Are you also supposed to fax someone regarding this meeting?”

She nodded. “A 703 area code. Virginia.”

“Right. Okay, along with your rendezvous report, say that I was stopped at the airport, and they took my passport, but I think it was a random stop, and I’ll be leaving Saigon on time, if I have my passport. Okay?”

She looked at me, then repeated the message, and said, “I’m not supposed to ask you any questions, but—”

“Don’t ask any questions. And if you get a reply to the fax, memorize it. Do not carry it with you to this hotel. Contact me and we’ll meet somewhere. Okay?”

“Whatever you say.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. So, they stopped you at the airport? That’s why you were late.”

“Right.”

“I’m not surprised. You look shifty.” She laughed and asked, “Did they want an arrival tax?”

“Twenty bucks.”

“Did you give it to them?”

“I did.”

“You shouldn’t have. They understand no if you’re firm about it.”

“I made this little security guy carry my luggage to the cab.”

She laughed. “That’s great. I love it.” She added, “You know, the passport guy and everyone split the loot. That’s the scam.”

I asked her, “So, you think it was just a random shakedown?”

“Sure… except they hardly ever take a passport.” She thought a moment, then said, “You’ll hear from them again.”

“I hope so. They have my passport.”

She lit another cigarette, and I had the impression she wasn’t in a hurry to leave. I said, “Offer me the newspaper, and then you can take off for your next appointment. I need your business card and Bill’s.”

She looked at me, and we held eye contact awhile, then she put out her cigarette and said, “My business card is in the newspaper. I’m not sure you’re supposed to know anything about Bill. Call me, and I’ll let you know about that.”

“Okay.”

She stood and picked up her attaché case from the chair. She said, “Thank you for the drinks.”

I stood. “My pleasure.”

She said, “I have an English language newspaper I’m finished with. Do you want it?”

“Sure. I can use something to read.”

She took her International Herald Tribune from her attaché case and put it on the table. “It’s a day old, but it’s the weekend edition. You won’t see another one until Monday night.”

“Thanks.”

She put out her hand and we shook. She said, “Good luck.”

I replied, “Chuc Mung Nam Moi.”

She smiled and said, “Chuc Mung Nam Moi.” She turned and left.

I sat down and left the newspaper where it was, waiting for something unpleasant to happen as I sipped my beer.

I waited a full minute, nothing happened, and I picked up the newspaper and unfolded it. I palmed her business card and slipped it in my jacket pocket as I extracted my handkerchief and wiped my forehead. I sat sideways to the table and read the front page by the light of the table candle.

Well, so far, so good. I’ve never worked a case in a hostile country, though to be truthful I’ve worked cases in friendly countries that I’ve made hostile. In any case, I thought my spy craft was pretty good, considering I was just a cop. Mr. Conway was right — it’s in the blood of my generation. Too many spy novels and movies. What would James Bond do now?

Well, James wouldn’t have let Ms. Weber get away, for starters. But when you’re working for the CID or the FBI, as I’d done a few times, you keep your cork in your shorts. And then, of course, there was Cynthia. And Bill, whoever he was. Plus, Ms. Weber didn’t need any more trouble than she might already be in.

I looked up and noticed that Susan Weber had returned to the table. She sat down. She said, “Mr. Ellis has canceled our appointment. Also, I was supposed to tell you not to hesitate to call me if you need anything and to let me know when you’re about to leave Saigon on Monday morning. But the phones in most foreign business offices are presumed to be tapped — not necessarily for security reasons, but in hopes they can hear something that will give them a business advantage. Still, you have to be careful what you say on the landline phones. My cell number is on my card, but you’ll need a cell phone to call me, if you don’t want the conversation monitored. If you call me from a landline, and you need to say something important, I can meet you. I’ve been asked to stay in Saigon all weekend. Okay?”

“You forgot all that?”

“Well, I said you could call me, if you need anything. I’m just elaborating.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“It’s Saturday night and I don’t have a date.”

“Where’s Bill?”

“I told him I might be busy, depending on what happened tonight.”

“Am I missing something?”

“I wanted to see if you were interesting or not.”

“Well, then, I guess this is good-bye.”

She smiled. “Come on. Don’t give me a hard time.”

“Look… Susan… my instructions were—”

“I have new instructions. They want me to brief you about the country so you don’t get totally lost and confused after you leave Saigon.”

“Is that true?”

“Would I lie to someone from my home state?”

“Well…”

“I’m not used to no.”

“I don’t imagine you are. Will you join me for dinner?”

“I’d be delighted. How nice of you to ask.”

I signaled a waiter and asked for menus. I said to my new friend, “How’s the food here?”

“Actually, not bad. They have Japanese, French, Chinese, and, of course, Vietnamese. This is the Tet holidays, so there’ll be a lot of specialty holiday foods offered.”

The menus came, and I asked her, “What’s the word for dog meat?”

“Thit cho.” She smiled and picked up her menu. “What do you want? Chinese, Vietnamese, or French?”

“I want a cheeseburger and fries.”

“I’ll order for us from the holiday menu.”

The maître d’ appeared, and they had a conversation about the menu, punctuated by some laughs and glances toward me. I said, “No thit cho.”

The maître d’ laughed again and said something to Susan. To show I understood the language, I told him in Vietnamese to put his hands up.

The guy left and Susan said, “I ordered a lot of little things so you could taste everything and eat what you like.” She asked me, “Why did you tell him to put his hands up?”

“Just practicing.”

She asked, “Don’t they have lots of Vietnamese restaurants in Washington?”

“Why do you think I live in Washington?”

“I assume you work for Washington.”

“I live in Virginia. I’m retired.”

“Did you have Vietnamese food when you were here in the army?”

“I had C rations. You weren’t allowed to eat the local stuff. Army regulations. Some guys got very sick on the food.”

“Well, you still have to be careful. Drink lots of gin and tonics, bottled water, beer, and Coca-Cola. I was really sick when I first got here. We call it Ho Chi Minh’s revenge. But I haven’t been sick since then. You build up immunities.”

“I won’t be here that long.”

The food came, course after course. Ms. Weber ate like a Vietnamese with the bowl up to her face, shoveling in everything with chopsticks. I used my knife and fork.

We made small talk, mostly about Saigon and her job. She explained what she did, but I being a government employee with no business background, none of it made sense to me. It had to do with giving advice and arranging loans for mostly American investors who wanted to do business in Vietnam. Even though it made no sense to me, it made sense to her, and I concluded that she really was an investment advisor. I can usually tell when someone’s faking it because many of my assignments require me to take on an undercover role and pretend I’m a clerk, or an armory sergeant, or anything that will get me close to the suspect.

After a while, I think we felt comfortable with each other. She said to me, “I know I’m not supposed to ask you questions, so I don’t know what to ask you to make conversation.”

“Ask me anything you’d like.”

“Okay. Where did you go to school?”

“I can’t answer that.”

She smiled. “You think you’re funny.”

“I am funny. Where did you go to school?”

“Amherst. Then Harvard for my MBA.”

“And then?”

“I worked in New York with an investment bank.”

“For how long?”

“If you’re trying to figure out my age, I’m thirty-one.”

“And you’ve been here three years.”

“Three years next month.”

“Why?”

“Why not? It’s a good résumé builder, and no one bothers you here.”

“You like it here?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, thought a moment, then said, “I guess… being an expat is who I am. You understand?”

“No.”

“Well… it’s part of my identity. In New York, I was nobody. Just another pretty face with an Ivy League MBA. Here, I stand out. I’m exotic to the Vietnamese and interesting to Westerners.”

I nodded. “I think I understand. When are you going home?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think about it.”

“Why not? Don’t you get homesick? Family? Friends? Fourth of July? Christmas? Groundhog Day?”

She played with her chopsticks awhile, then said, “My parents and my sister and brother come and visit at least once a year. We get along very well now because I’m here and they’re there. They’re all very successful and competitive. Here I can be my own person. A few good friends have visited, too. Also, the American community here goes out of its way to celebrate holidays, and somehow the holidays are more special and more meaningful. You understand?”

“I think so.”

“Also, this isn’t just a Third World country. It’s a semi-totalitarian state, and the Westerners here feel like they’re living on the edge, so every day is interesting, especially when you beat these idiots at their own game.” She looked at me. “Am I making any sense, or have I had too much to drink?”

“Both. But I understand.”

“You should. You’re a spy.”

I informed her, “I’m a retired army person, I served two tours here in ’68 and ’72, and I’m back here as a tourist.”

“Whatever. Does this place bum you out?”

“No.”

“Did you have a bad time when you were here?”

“I’ve had better times.”

“Were you wounded?” she asked.

“No.”

“Did you ever have any post-traumatic stress?”

“I have enough everyday stress to keep me happy.”

“Where were you when you were here?”

“Mostly up north.”

“You mean Hanoi?” she asked.

“No. Hanoi was in North Vietnam. We never fought there.”

“You said north.”

“The northern part of the old South Vietnam. The DMZ. Did they teach you any of this in school?”

“In high school. I didn’t take history in college. So, where were you stationed?”

“In ’72, I was at Bien Hoa. In ’68, I was mostly in Quang Tri Province.”

“I’ve been as far north as Hue. Beautiful city. You should try to get there. I’ve never been to the Central Highlands. I did fly to Hanoi once. They hate us in Hanoi.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Well, whatever you did, they still hate us.” She looked at me. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“So, are you going to visit those places?”

“Maybe.”

“You should. Why else would you come here? Oh… I forgot, you’re…” She put her finger to her lips and said, “Shhh,” then laughed.

I changed the subject. “Do you live in central Saigon?”

“I do. Most Westerners do. The surrounding districts can be a little too native.” She changed the subject back and asked me, “What did you do here in Vietnam?”

I said, “I’d rather not talk about the war.”

“Do you think about it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then you should talk about it.”

“Why? Because I think about it?”

“Yes. The point is, men keep things to themselves.”

“Women talk about everything.”

“That’s healthy. You need to talk things out.”

“I talk to myself, and when I do that, I know I’m talking to an intelligent person.”

“You’re a tough guy. Old school.”

I looked pointedly at my watch. Somehow, Ms. Weber and I had become familiar, which may have been a result of too many beers. I said, “It’s been a long day.”

“I’m having dessert and coffee. Don’t run off.”

“I’m jet-lagged.”

She lit a cigarette, ignored me, and said, “I never smoked before I got here. These people smoke like chimneys, and I got hooked. But I don’t do grass or opium. I haven’t gone completely native yet.”

I watched her in the flickering light of the candle. This was a somewhat complex woman, but she seemed to be a straight shooter. I never compare Woman A to Woman B, but Susan reminded me a little of Cynthia — the straightforwardness, I think. But whereas Cynthia was formed by the army, as I was, Susan came from another world, Lenox, Amherst, Harvard. I recognized the upper-middle-class accent and bearing, the other Massachusetts that Southies used to laugh at, but also envied.

She signaled a waiter and asked me, “Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee.”

She said something to the waiter, and he left. She said to me, “The native coffee is good. It’s from the highlands. You want dessert?”

“I’m stuffed.”

“I ordered fruit. The fruit here is out of this world.”

She seemed to be enjoying my company, or enjoying herself, and that’s not always the same thing with women. In any case, she was kind of fun, except she’d had a beer too many and was starting to get silly.

It was cooler now, a beautiful, star-filled evening, and I could see the last sliver of the waning moon. I said to her, “New Year’s Eve is next Saturday night. Correct?”

“Yes. You should try to be in a major city that night. It could be fun.”

“Like New Year’s Eve at home?”

“More like Chinese New Year in Chinatown in New York. Fireworks, noisemakers, dragon dancing, puppet shows, and all that. But it’s also very solemn, and a lot of people go to pagodas to pray for a good year and honor their ancestors. The party ends before midnight because everyone goes home to be with their families at midnight. Except that the Catholics go to midnight mass. Are you Catholic?”

“Sometimes.”

She smiled. “Well, then go to midnight mass if you’re near a church. Someone will invite you to come home with them and share a meal. But the first visitor who crosses the threshold of a Vietnamese home after midnight must be of good character, or the family will have an unlucky year. Are you of good character?”

“No.”

“Well, you can lie.” She laughed.

I said, “And I understand that the celebration lasts for a week afterward.”

“Officially four more days, but in reality about a week. It’s a tough week to get anything done because just about everything is closed. The good news is that all the pre-holiday traffic and congestion come to an end, and most places look like ghost towns. The restaurants and bars are usually open only at night, and people party hard every night. But each city and region has some differences in how they celebrate. Where do you think you’ll be for Tet?”

I thought, Probably in jail. I said, “I’m not sure about my itinerary.”

“Of course.” She thought a moment, then said, “You must have been here for a Tet holiday if you were here twice.”

“I was here for Tet ’72 and ’68.”

She nodded. “I know about Tet ’68. I’m historically challenged, but that I know about. Where were you?”

“Outside Quang Tri City.”

She said, “I understand it was very bad in Quang Tri and Hue. Maybe you can be in Hue for Tet. That’s a very big celebration.”

I replied, “I’m not sure where I’ll be.”

“Do you at least know what you’re doing tomorrow?”

“I’m sightseeing tomorrow.”

“Good. You need a guide and I’m available.”

“Bill might be annoyed.”

“He’ll get over it.” She laughed again and lit another cigarette. “Look, if you’re going up country, you need some tips. I’ll give you some good advice.”

“You’ve been helpful enough.” I asked her, “Do you use that expression? Up country?”

“I guess so. I heard it here. Why?”

“I thought it was only a military expression.”

“The Westerners use it here. Up country. Means someplace out of Saigon or any major city — usually someplace that you’d rather not be — like in the wilds. Right?”

“Right.”

“So, if you’d like, I’ll show you the real Saigon tomorrow.”

“That’s above and beyond the call of duty.”

She looked at me through her cigarette smoke, then said, “Look, Paul, I’m not… I mean, I’m not coming on to you.”

“That never crossed my mind.”

“Right. Are you married? Am I allowed to ask that?”

“I’m not married, but I’m in a… what’s it called these days?”

“A committed relationship.”

“That’s it. I’m in one of those.”

“Good. Me, too. The man’s an idiot, but that’s another story. Princeton. Need I say more?”

“I guess that says it all.”

“I hope you’re not Princeton.”

“God forbid. I’m army college extension program, cum laude.”

“Oh… anyway, here’s where I’m coming from. I’m not—”

The fruit and coffee came.

The band was playing some Sixties stuff now and swung into “For Once in My Life,” Stevie Wonder, 1968.

She picked at some fruit, then patted her lips with her napkin. I thought she was getting ready to leave, but she asked me, “Would you like to dance?”

This took me by surprise, but I replied, “Sure.”

We both stood and moved to the small dance floor, which was crowded. I took her in my arms and there was a lot of woman there. We danced. I was a little uncertain about where this was going, but maybe I was reading this wrong. She was bored with Bill and wanted a little kick by having dinner with Super Spy.

The band was playing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Her body was warm, she danced well, and her breasts were firm against my chest. She had her chin on my shoulder, but our cheeks were not touching. She said, “This is nice.”

“Yes, it is.”

We danced on the roof of the Rex Hotel, with the lighted rotating crown above us, the stars overhead, a warm tropical breeze blowing, and the band playing slow dance music. I thought of Cynthia, though I was holding Susan. I thought of our few, short times together, and the fact that we’d never shared a moment like this. I found myself looking forward to Hawaii.

After a few minutes of silent dancing, Susan asked me, “So, do you want company tomorrow?”

“I do, but…”

“Here’s where I’m coming from. I’m not political, I’m strictly business. But I’m not real thrilled with these idiots who run this place. They’re bullies, anti-business, and anti-fun. The people are nice. I like the people. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve never in my life done anything for my country, so if this is for my country—”

“It isn’t.”

“Okay, but I’d like to do something for you because I have a feeling you might need more tips about this place than anyone has given you. And I’d like you to succeed at whatever you’re doing here. And I don’t want you to get in trouble when you leave Saigon. The rest of this place is not Saigon. It can get a little rough out there. I know you’re a tough guy, and you can handle this place — you did it twice. But I’d feel better if I gave you a day of my time and gave you the benefit of my extensive knowledge of Vietnam. How’s that?”

“Good pitch. Are you doing this for me, or because you like to live dangerously, or because you like to do things that the government here doesn’t like you to do?”

“All of the above. Plus, for my country, no matter what you say.”

I mulled this over as we continued to dance. There was no good reason why I shouldn’t spend the day with this woman, but something told me this was trouble. I said to her, “I expect to be called to some government office to answer some questions. You don’t want to be around for that.”

“They don’t frighten me. I can trade insults with the best of them. In fact, if we’re together, you won’t look so suspicious.”

“I don’t look suspicious.”

“You do. You need a companion for the day. Let me do this.”

“Okay. As long as you understand why you’re doing it, and that I’m just a tourist, but a tourist who’s come to the attention of the authorities for some reason.”

“I understand.” The band took a break, and she took my hand and led me back to the table.

She found a pen in her attaché case and wrote on a cocktail napkin. “This is my home number if you need it. I’ll meet you tomorrow in the lobby at 8 A.M.”

“That’s a little early.”

“Not for an 8:30 mass at the cathedral.”

“I don’t go to church.”

“I go every Sunday, and I’m not even Catholic. It’s part of the expat thing.” She stood and said, “If you’re not in the lobby, I’ll try the breakfast room. If you’re not there, I’ll ring your room. And if you’re not there, I know who to contact.”

I stood. “Thanks.” I added, “I had a really nice evening.”

“Me, too.” She picked up her attaché case. “Thanks for dinner. You’ll let me buy you dinner tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

She hesitated, then looked me in the eye and said, “I know a few men your age who work here, and a few men who I’ve met here who have returned to find something, or maybe lose something. So, I know it’s tough, and I can understand. But for people my age, Vietnam is a country, not a war.”

I didn’t reply.

“Good night, Paul.”

“Good night, Susan.”

I watched her disappear into the enclosed restaurant.

I looked at the cocktail napkin, memorized her home phone number, and crumpled the napkin into my coffee cup.

It was, as I say, a beautiful evening with a warm breeze rustling the plants. The band was playing “MacArthur Park.” I closed my eyes.

A long time ago, when Vietnam was a war and not a country, I could recall nights like this out under the stars, the tropical breeze moving through the vegetation. And there were other nights without a breeze, when the vegetation moved, and you could hear the tapping of the bamboo sticks that they used to signal one another. The tree frogs stopped croaking and even the insects became still and the night birds flew off. And you waited in the deathly silence, and even your breathing stopped, but your heart thumped so loudly you were sure everyone could hear it. And the sound of the tapping bamboo came closer, and the vegetation swayed in the breezeless night.

I opened my eyes and sat there awhile. Susan had left a half bottle of beer, and I drank from the bottle to moisten my dry mouth.

I took a deep breath, and the war went away. I found myself looking forward to tomorrow.

I went to my room carrying the newspaper. There was no message light on, no message envelopes anywhere, and the snow globe had been moved by the maid who turned down the bed. It was now on the desk.

I sat at the desk and opened my International Herald Tribune to the crossword puzzle, which was the New York Times puzzle and was half finished. I studied the puzzle a moment, then I noticed that next to number 32 down was a tick mark.

I opened my Lonely Planet Guide to the section on Hue. There was a map of the city and a numbered key that showed points of interest. Number 32 was the Halls of the Mandarins, located, I saw, in the Imperial Enclosure, which was a walled section within the Citadel walls of the Old City.

This was where I was supposed to meet my contact on the appointed day at noon. He — or she — was a Vietnamese, and that’s all I knew.

If I somehow missed the hour, or if no one was there to meet me, I was to go to the alternate rendezvous at 2 P.M. The alternate was identified by the reverse of the digits 32, according to Mr. Conway. I looked at the map of Hue and saw that number 23 was the Royal Library, which was located in the inner sanctum of the Imperial Enclosure, called the Forbidden Purple City.

The third alternate at 4 P.M. was the sum of 3 and 2, which on the map was an historic temple called Chua Ba, outside the Citadel walls of the city.

If my contact didn’t show up at any of these rendezvous, then I was to go back to the hotel and wait for a message. I was supposed to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

I thought this was all a little melodramatic, but probably necessary. Also, I didn’t like the idea of having to trust a Viet, but I had to assume the people in Washington knew what they were doing. I mean, they’d been so successful here before.

I put a few more tick marks against the numbers in the crossword puzzle and did more of the puzzle, noticing that Ms. Weber got some really difficult clues right. Obviously a bright lady, and obviously, too, she had her own agenda — or someone else’s agenda.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

CHAPTER TEN

I got off the elevator and walked into the hotel lobby at ten after eight. Sitting in a chair under a palm tree was Susan Weber, reading a magazine. Her legs were crossed, and she was wearing black slacks and walking shoes. As I got closer, I could see that the magazine was in English and was called the Vietnam Economic Times.

She put down the magazine and stood. I could see now she was also wearing a tightly tailored red silk shirt with half sleeves and a high mandarin collar. She had sunglasses on a cord around her neck, and one of those nylon fanny packs around her waist. She said, “Good morning. I was just about to start calling around for you.”

“I’m alive and well.”

She said, “I may have had a little too much to drink last night. If so, I apologize.”

“I certainly wasn’t in a position to judge. I hope I was a good dinner companion.”

She replied, “I enjoy talking to people from home.”

Ms. Weber was a little cooler this morning than she’d been last night, which was understandable. Remove the alcohol, the music, the candlelight, and the starry night, and people get a little more reserved around last night’s date, even if they’ve wound up in the same bed.

I was wearing my standard khaki slacks, and instead of a golf shirt, I wore a short-sleeve dress shirt. I replied, “Am I dressed all right for church?”

“You’re fine. Ready?”

“Let me get rid of my room key.” I went to the front desk and gave the clerk my key. “Any messages?”

He checked my box and said, “No, sir.”

I walked toward the front doors where Susan was standing. This was really annoying about the passport. Mang knew I was leaving tomorrow, and I needed my passport to travel.

I joined Susan, who said, “I see you didn’t get your passport back. But I’m sure they’ll return it today if they know you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“I think I’ll be picking it up at Gestapo Headquarters.”

“They usually just return it to the hotel. Or they’ll tell you to pick it up at the airport. But that usually means you’re going home sooner than you thought.”

Fine with me, though I didn’t say that.

She asked, “Do you have your visa?”

“The hotel has my visa.”

She thought a moment and said, “You should always have photocopies of your passport and visa with you.”

“I did. The police stole them from my overnight bag at the airport.”

“Oh…” She said, “I’ll get a copy of your visa made.” She walked to the front desk and spoke to the clerk, who checked a file box. He pulled out a piece of paper, read it, and said something to Susan. Susan came back to me and said, “The police have taken your visa.”

I didn’t reply.

She said, “Well, don’t worry about it.”

“Why not?”

“No one’s going to stop us. Ready?”

We walked outside, and it was hotter than the day before. Motor traffic on Le Loi was a little lighter on a Sunday, but there were as many bicycles and cyclos as on Saturday.

Susan gave the doorman a dollar, and we walked toward a red motor scooter parked on the sidewalk. She stopped beside the motor scooter, took a pack of cigarettes from her fanny pack, and lit one. “I need a cigarette before we go.” She smiled. “You might need one after we get on the road.”

“Can we take a taxi?”

“Boring.” She patted the motor scooter. “This is a Minsk, 175cc’s. Russian made. A good machine for around town. I also own a motorcycle, a 750cc Ural, a real beast. Great for the open road, and a very good crossover bike in the mud.” She took a drag on her cigarette and said, “The Russians make decent bikes, and for some reason, there are always parts available.”

“Are there helmets available?”

“You don’t need helmets in Vietnam. Do you ride?”

“When I was your age.”

“There were no helmet laws in the States when you were my age. Did you wear a helmet?”

“I suppose not.”

She drew on her cigarette and asked me, “Did you get your number?”

“Couldn’t find it.”

“Couldn’t find it? I ticked off number 32 on the crossword puzzle. Didn’t you notice that?”

“I’m not that bright. Took a few spills when I had my motorcycle.”

She laughed and said, “Thirty-two. I’ll remember it for you.” She asked me, “What’s it mean?”

“Thirty-two down? I think the word was rotisserie.”

She didn’t think that was funny, but left it alone.

I looked at her as she finished her cigarette. She passed the direct sunlight test — in fact, she looked better than last night, with a nice tan, and bigger and brighter eyes than I’d noticed in the candlelight. Also, the shirt and slacks fit well.

She took a final drag on her cigarette and said, “Okay. I have to stop smoking.” She threw the cigarette in the gutter and said, “I went to my office this morning and sent that fax.”

“Thanks.”

“It was about 7 P.M., Saturday, their time, but someone replied. They work long hours there, wherever and whoever they are.”

“What was the reply?”

“Just acknowledged receipt, said to keep them informed. They wanted me to give them a time when you and I could be near the fax for a confidential response later. I said I’d come back to the office at 8 P.M. my time for the fax. Is that okay?”

“Well… considering that you’re not being paid to go in on a Sunday, that’s fine.”

She replied, “Whatever they have to say can wait twelve hours.” She added, “You might have your passport by then, or your exit visa. Ready to roll?”

She put on her sunglasses, jumped on the motor scooter, started the engine, and revved it a few times. “Hop on.” She took an elastic band out of her pocket and tied her long, flowing hair back so it wouldn’t blow in my face.

I got on the saddle seat, which was a little small, and held on to the C-strap. Susan pushed off the center stand and drove down the sidewalk, then cut onto Le Loi Street. I put my feet on the footpegs just as we made a sharp U-turn.

Within five terrifying minutes, we were at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, an out-of-place Gothic structure with twin spires, but made of brick instead of stone. There was a small grassy square out front where we dismounted. Susan chained the motor scooter to a bike rack. I remembered this square from 1972, and nothing much had changed. Even the big statue of the Virgin Mary had survived the war and the Communist takeover. On that subject, I asked Susan, “How are the Commies with religion?”

“Depends on the program of the moment. They seem okay with the Buddhists, but not thrilled with the Catholics, who they view as subversive.”

We walked toward the cathedral, and I said, “And therefore, you go to church.”

She didn’t reply, but continued, “They give the Protestants a really hard time. They harass the missionaries, kick them out, and close their mission schools and churches. There are no Protestant churches in Saigon, only some private services in homes.” We got to the steps of the cathedral, and she asked me, “Did you ever come here during the war?”

“Actually, I did, twice, when I got into Saigon on a Sunday.”

“So, you were a good Catholic then.”

“There are no bad Catholics in a foxhole.”

We climbed the steps of the cathedral, and Susan said hello to a few Americans, and people who sounded like Australians. I noticed there weren’t many Vietnamese, and I commented on that.

She replied, “Father Tuan says this mass in English — the next is in French, then the rest are in Vietnamese.”

“Are we staying for all of them?”

She ignored me, and we went into the narthex, and here, too, Susan chatted with some people and introduced me to a few of them. One woman looked at me, then asked Susan how Bill was. There’s always one.

We walked into this big Gothic monster that could have been in France, except that I noticed that the place was decorated with blossoms and kumquat trees for the Tet holiday, which I vaguely recalled that even the Catholics celebrated here.

As I was looking up at the vaulted ceiling, Susan said, “Are you afraid it might fall on you?”

“I told you I needed a helmet.”

We walked up the center aisle. The place was cool and dark and about half full. We sat in a pew toward the front. Susan said, “There’s a chance Bill may show up. I spoke to him last night.”

“Was he happy that you got home after midnight?”

“He’s not the jealous type, and there’s nothing to be jealous of.” She added, “If he seems a bit unfriendly, that’s just his manner.”

“Right. Look, why don’t I go back to the hotel after mass?”

“Shhh. It’s starting.”

The organ cranked up, and the processional started up the aisle. The priest and all the altar boys and everyone else in the processional was a Viet, except the man on the processional cross who was Jewish. It’s all pretty amazing, if you think about it.

Anyway, the mass started, and Father Tuan’s English was something else. I think I would have understood the French better. Like the mass, the hymns were in English, and I discovered that Susan had a beautiful singing voice. I faked the hymns, though I can really belt out “The Rose of Tralee” when I’m drunk.

The sermon had to do with sins of the flesh and the many temptations in the city. Then there was something about the souls of the impoverished girls who sold their bodies, and so forth. The priest made the point that without sinners, there’d be no sin — no opium, no prostitution, gambling, pornography, and massage parlors.

I had the impression he was looking at me. I started feeling like a character in a Graham Greene novel, sweating in some godforsaken tropical climate, wracked with Catholic guilt over some sexual transgression, which, in the final analysis, was not that big a deal.

Anyway, the mass went on for an hour and five minutes, though I wasn’t timing it.

The organ cranked up again, and the recessional moved out. I followed down the center aisle and lost Susan somewhere.

I stood near her motor scooter, out in the sunlight of the square. I actually felt good about having gone to church.

I saw Susan at the bottom of the steps where Father Tuan and a lot of parishioners were chatting.

Maybe there was something to this expat thing. I mean, if you’re expatting in London, Paris, or Rome, it’s no big deal. You have to pick some totally fucked up place like this where you’re six inches taller and ten shades lighter than everyone, and where you stand out like a sore thumb; and if that thumb is in the eye of the local government, so much the better. And all the other pale round-eyes were your friends, and you got together for cocktails and bitched about the country. People back home thought you were cool, and they were secretly envious of you, and you celebrated American holidays that back home were just a three-day weekend and a sale at the shopping mall. You even voted, for a change, with absentee ballots.

Of course, there was the other type of expat, people who hated their own countries, and there were also those who were running away from something or someone, and those who were running away from themselves.

Susan, by her own admission, fell into the category of expat who thought it was neat to be an American in a place where she stood out, where her family and peers back home had to use a different and actually unknown standard to judge her success and her life.

Well, I didn’t want to be too cynical or analytical, especially since I liked Susan, and she was self-aware enough to figure herself out.

Susan walked toward me, accompanied by a man of about her age. He wore a light, tropical sport jacket, wasn’t bad looking, tall and very thin, with sandy-colored hair. He looked like a Princeton man, so it must be Bill.

Susan stopped and said to me, “Paul, this is my friend, Bill Stanley. Bill, this is Paul Brenner.”

We shook hands, but neither of us voiced a greeting.

Susan picked up the ball and said to Bill, “Paul was here in ’68 and… when?”

“Seventy-two.”

“Yes. It must have been very different then,” she prompted.

“It was.”

Susan said to me, “I was just telling Bill that you had some problems at the airport.”

I didn’t reply.

Susan then said to Bill, “I think Jim Chapman might be around this weekend. I’ll call him at home.” She said to me, “He’s with the new consulate delegation. Friend of Bill’s.”

Bill didn’t have much to say about that, and neither did I.

This conversation was not approaching liftoff, so I said, “I think I’ll go back to the hotel and make some inquiries from there. Susan, thanks for accompanying me to church. I never like to miss mass when I travel. Bill, great meeting you.” I turned and left.

I have a good sense of direction, and within fifteen minutes, I was back on Le Loi Street, and the hotel was in front of me. I noticed I wasn’t sweating as much as yesterday, so I must be acclimating.

I heard a motor scooter behind me on the sidewalk, and I moved to the right. She pulled up next to me and said, “Get on.”

“Susan—”

“Get on.”

I got on.

She gunned it, and we jumped the curb onto the street.

We didn’t speak, and she was tearing up and down the streets, making sharp unexpected turns. She called out, “It’s fun to open it up on Sunday when the streets are clear.”

The streets looked pretty crowded to me.

Susan took her cell phone out of her fanny pack and handed it to me. She shouted, “Give it to me if you hear it ring. Or vibrate. It’s got a vibrator.”

Having just come from church, I resisted an off-color remark and put the phone in my shirt pocket.

Her cell phone rang and vibrated, and I handed it to her. She held it to her ear with her left hand while she steered with her right hand on the throttle. If we had to make a sudden stop, she wouldn’t be able to squeeze the front brake grip, but that didn’t seem to bother her or any of the other scooter drivers with cell phones.

She was obviously speaking to Bill, or listening to Bill — she wasn’t saying much. Finally she said loudly, “I can’t hear you. I’ll call you tonight.” She listened and said, “I don’t know what time.” She hit the end button and handed the phone back to me. “You answer it if it rings again.”

I put the flip phone back in my shirt pocket.

She continued her death-defying motor scooter run, which was actually, of course, just her venting a little anger at Bill. But I wasn’t angry at Bill, and there was no reason for me to get splattered across the pavement. “Susan, slow down.”

“No backseat driving.”

A cop was standing in a traffic circle, and he held up his hand as we approached. Susan swerved around him and when I looked back over my shoulder, the cop was flapping his arms and shouting. I said to her, “You almost ran over that cop.”

“You stop, you get a ticket for something, and it costs you two dollars on the spot.” She added, “Also, it could be a major hassle because you don’t have any ID.”

“What if he got your license plate number?”

“I was going too fast. But next time, put your hand over the plate.”

“What next time?”

“I have an NN plate. That’s the prefix on the plate, and it tells them I’m a foreign resident — nguoi nuoc ngoia. Foreigner, and not a tourist. The tourists get hit with a ten-dollar fine because they think that’s cheap, and they’re frightened anyway. It’s not the money, it’s the principle.”

“I think you’ve been here too long.”

“Maybe.”

We approached the fenced-in gardens that held Reunification Palace, formerly the home of the South Vietnamese presidents, when it was called Independence Palace. I remembered this place from ’72, and then I saw it again in April of 1975 on television in the now famous videotape of a Communist tank breaking through the massive wrought iron gates.

We turned into a side street and drove through a gate into the grounds of the presidential palace, then pulled into a small parking lot and dismounted. Susan chained the motor scooter to a bike rack and took off her sunglasses. She said, “I thought you’d like to see the old presidential palace.”

“Are we expected?”

“It’s open to the public.”

She opened one of her saddlebags and took out a camera and slung it over her shoulder. She said, “I can guarantee you we weren’t followed, but if they radioed ahead or something, and they know you’re here, then you’re just sightseeing with some local chick who you picked up somewhere. Right?”

“Let me worry about my cover.”

“I’m here to help. Plus, I like showing out-of-towners around. Follow me.”

We walked on a garden path around the palace and came to the front of the big building, which was not a traditional ornate palace, but a precast concrete structure whose architecture can be described as tropical modern mortar-proof. About a hundred meters across a wide lawn were the wrought iron gates, now looking in better shape than when the North Vietnamese tank crashed through them. In fact, to the left side of the gates was a big Russian T-59 tank sitting on a concrete platform, and I assumed this was the tank.

Susan asked me, “Do you know what this place is?”

“I do. Is that the tank?”

“It is. I was very young when all this happened, but I’ve seen the videotape. You can see it inside for a dollar.”

“I saw it on TV when it happened.”

I noticed a lot of Westerners around the tank taking photos. But unlike the rusting American tank in the war crimes museum, this Russian-made tank was chained off, with flags all around it. This was a very important tank.

She said, “I’ve taken a lot of Americans here, including my parents, and I’ve memorized the guide’s tour. You want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“Follow me.” We climbed the palace steps and stood at the top. She said, “So, it’s April 30, 1975, and the Communists have entered Saigon. That tank is barreling up Le Duan Street and bursts through those gates. It continues on across the lawn and stops right here in front of the palace. That’s what you saw on the videotape, taken by a photojournalist who happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

She continued, “A minute or so later, a truck comes through the gates, drives across the lawn, and stops near the tank. A North Vietnamese officer jumps out and walks up these steps. Okay, standing right here is General Minh, who had become President of South Vietnam about forty-eight hours earlier, after President Thieu beat it. Minh is surrounded by his new cabinet, and they’re probably very nervous, wondering if they’re going to be shot on the spot. The Communist officer climbs the steps, and Minh says, ‘I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you.’ The Communist officer replies, ‘You cannot give up what you do not have.’ End of story, end of war, end of South Vietnam.”

And, I thought, End of Nightmare. When I saw the tank bursting through the gates on television, I recalled feeling that all those American lives that had been lost trying to defend South Vietnam had been wasted.

I tried to remember what happened to General Minh, but like everyone else in America, after April 30, 1975, I turned off the Vietnam Show.

She asked me, “Do you want a picture of you with the tank in the background?”

“No.”

Near the front doors of the palace was a ticket booth, and in English, a sign said Foreigner: four dollar — Vietnamese: free.

Susan had an argument with the guy in the booth, and I guessed it was the principle and not the money.

I said to her, “Tell them I want a senior citizen’s discount.”

“Today is on me,” she said.

Finally, they settled on six dollars, we each got a paper ticket, and went inside.

She said, “Shut off the phone. They go nuts if a cell phone rings in one of their shrines.”

The palace wasn’t air-conditioned, but it was cooler than out in the sun. We walked into the big, ornate reception hall, and through the massive four-story palace. The place looked better inside than it did outside, and the modern architecture had an open, airy feeling. Most of the furnishings were time capsule Sixties Western modern, but there were a lot of traditional Vietnamese touches, including a collection of severed elephant feet.

There were a large number of people touring the palace, mostly Americans, if I went by the number of shorts. Each section of the palace had a Vietnamese guide, who kept telling Susan in English to stay with the group. Susan would reply in Vietnamese, and there’d be a little argument, which Susan always won.

She really pushed the envelope, and I guess this was part of her persona; she wanted to be recognized as an American, but not as a tourist. Also, she was a bit of a bitch, to be truthful. I think Bill would back me on that.

We went up to the roof of the palace where dozens of tourists stood around taking photos of the city. It was a nice view, except for the pall of smog. A female Vietnamese guide stood on a helipad next to an old American Huey helicopter, and said in English, “This is where the American puppet and number one criminal President Thieu and his family and friends get on helicopter and fly away to American warship as the victorious People’s Army approach Saigon.”

The rooftop helipad was a good place to smoke, and Susan lit up. She said, “I’ve learned a lot of history since I’ve been here. It’s interesting to be with someone who actually lived some of this.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m a relic?”

She seemed a little embarrassed for a change and said, “No, I just mean… well, you were probably very young when you were here.” She smiled. “You’re still young.”

In fact, Cynthia and Susan were about the same age, so I guess I was still in the game. It must be my immature personality that fooled women.

Susan finished her cigarette, and we went back into the palace. On the second floor, we entered the presidential receiving room. Susan gave the guard a dollar and said to me, “You can sit in the president’s chair. I’ll take a picture of you.”

I really don’t like my picture taken when I’m on assignment, and I said, “That’s all right—”

“I already paid a buck. Sit.”

So, I sat in the silly chair of the former president of South Vietnam, and Susan took a photo. This was too much fun, and I said, “Have we seen it all?”

“No, I’ve saved the best for last. Follow me.”

We went down several staircases into a dimly lit hallway off of which were many doors. Susan said, “This was the air raid shelter, and also the war rooms.”

She led me into a big room that was lit with old fluorescent fixtures. We seemed to be the only people there. The walls were cheap luan mahogany plywood, the kind of stuff Americans once used to finish basement rec rooms.

On the walls were dozens of maps of South Vietnam in various scales, maps of the individual provinces, and some closer detailed maps of towns and cities. On all the maps were colored symbols showing the locations of American, South Vietnamese, and enemy military units deployed around the country.

The maps were dated, and some of them went back to the Tet Offensive of January and February 1968, and I saw the location of my infantry battalion, marked by a pin with a flag, outside Quang Tri City, which was eerie. Some maps were dated April 1972, the time of the Easter Offensive, which I was also here for.

Susan asked me, “Does this interest you?”

“It does.”

“Show me where you were stationed.”

I showed her my little flag outside of Quang Tri City. “This was my base camp in 1968, called LZ Sharon.”

She said, “LZ is Landing Zone — another vet told me that, and all the camps were named after women.”

“Most, but not all.” I showed her another pin. “This was LZ Betty, which was actually an old French fort, also outside Quang Tri City. That was brigade Headquarters, where the colonel lived.”

“Are you going to visit these places?”

“Maybe.”

“I think you should. And where were you in ’72?”

“Bien Hoa. Right outside Saigon. You must know it.”

“Sure. But I didn’t know it was an American base.”

One map was dated April 1975. I can still read military symbols, and I recognized the positions of the South Vietnamese forces and the progression of the North Vietnamese army, represented by red arrows, as they swept over the country. It appeared that at some point, no one bothered to make any further marks, or move any more pins on the map. Whoever kept the map updated must have realized that the end had come.

You could hear the ghosts if you listened, and if you had a good imagination, you could picture the military men and politicians here each and every day and night through the month of April 1975, as it became clear that the red arrows on the map were not abstract, but were hundreds of thousands of enemy troops and tanks, coming toward Saigon — toward them.

We looked around the underground war rooms: conference rooms, a communications room with vintage radios and telephones, a nicely furnished bedroom and sitting room for the president, and so forth, all frozen in time.

We left the underground war rooms and went outside into the sunlight, behind the palace, where President Thieu’s old Mercedes-Benz still sat; another piece of frozen time that made this place eerie.

We walked through the gardens of the former presidential palace, which were quite nice.

She asked me, “Was that all right?”

“Interesting. Thank you.”

“I’m never sure what people want to see, but as a vet, I thought you’d appreciate that little piece of history. I have a few more places in the standard tour, then you get to pick.”

“You really don’t have to show me around Saigon.”

“I enjoy it. When I lived in New York, I never got to see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building unless out-of-towners were in.”

“I have the same deal in Washington.”

“You know, I’ve never been to Washington.”

“Sometimes I wish I’d never been to Washington.”

She glanced at me, then said, “If I ever get to Washington, you owe me a tour.”

“Deal.”

We continued our walk around the grounds. The air was fragrant with blossoms, which was nice in January. We stopped at a refreshment stand, and we each bought a half-liter bottle of water.

We drank as we walked, and I asked her, “When your parents first visited, what was their reaction?”

“They were appalled. They wanted me to pick up and leave right then and there.” She laughed and added, “They couldn’t picture their coddled little girl living in a Third World city. They were really bummed out by the prostitutes, the Communists, the beggars, the food, the heat, disease, me smoking, me going to a Catholic church — you name it, they were bummed out.” She laughed again.

I asked, “Did you take them on your motor scooter?”

“Heavens, no. They wouldn’t even get in a cyclo. We took taxis.” She added, “My brother and sister came once on their own, and they loved it. My brother disappeared one night and came back with a smile.”

“I’m sure he went to a puppet show. How old is he?”

“He was in college then.”

“What do your parents do?”

“My father is a surgeon, and my mother is a high school teacher. How’s that for perfect?”

“My father was a mechanic, my mother was a housewife. I grew up in South Boston.”

She didn’t reply to that, but she made a mental note of it.

She seemed to be heading for a particular destination, and we took a path that led through a line of flowering shrubs. In front of us was a small slope of grass, and she walked halfway up it and sat down. She took off her shoes and socks, and wiggled her toes, then unbuttoned the top few buttons of her silk shirt.

I sat a few feet from her.

She took off her fanny pack, fished out a cigarette, and lit up.

I took the cell phone out of my pocket and said, “Maybe I should call the hotel.”

She took the cell phone from me and put it in her fanny pack. “No rush. I’ll call for you later. They respond better when you speak to them in Vietnamese.”

She finished her cigarette, rolled up her sleeves, lay back on the grass, and closed her eyes. “Ah, that feels good. You should take off your shirt and get some sun.”

I took off my shirt and lay down beside her, but not too close. I put my shirt and empty water bottle under my head.

The sun felt good on my skin, and there was a little breeze blowing now.

She said, “You looked too pale.”

“I just came from winter.”

“I actually miss winter. I miss the fall in the Berkshires.”

We made small talk for a while, then I said to her, “This may be none of my business, but I feel a little guilty if you and Bill had an argument about you spending your Sunday with me.” I didn’t feel at all guilty, but I wanted a response from her.

She didn’t reply for a while, obviously considering the right response. Finally she said, “I explained to him that you were going up country Monday morning and needed to be briefed — that this was part of the stupid favor he was asked to ask me to do.” She added, “He wanted to come along. I told him no.”

“Why?”

“In Vietnam, three is an unlucky number, and three people together bring bad luck.”

I replied, “I thought three was a lucky number in Vietnam. You know — Ba Ba Ba — lucky beer.”

She stayed quiet a moment, then said, “Maybe I got it wrong.” She laughed, but didn’t really answer my question.

It was getting hot in the sun, and I was sweating, but she looked cool as a pomegranate. I said, “So, brief me.”

“Where are you headed next?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then how can I brief you? And why don’t you know where you’re going?”

“I’m just supposed to travel around, maybe visit some battlefields, then I have an appointment about a week from now.”

“Where?”

“I can’t say.”

“You’re not helping me.”

“Just give me a general rundown of transportation, communication, how the hotels work, customs, currency, and all that.”

“Okay. It’s the Tet holiday, as you know, and it’s hard to get transportation for the next week. Then, from New Year’s Day on, everything’s shut down, or on a very light schedule — the train service actually shuts down for four days. The roads, planes, and buses are empty because everybody stays close to home, and they eat and sleep. Nine months from now, there’ll be a baby boom, but that’s not your problem.”

“And most people are in their native towns and villages?”

“That’s right. I’d say ninety percent of the population manages to get home. The big towns and cities that are full of formerly rural people really empty out — and the villagers and peasants have the pleasure of houseguests in their little huts for a week.”

I remembered the weeks leading up to Tet ’68, and the sight of thousands of people walking, bicycling, riding in ox carts on the rural roads. The army had put out a communication telling the troops what this was all about, and we were told not to interfere with this mass movement of people, but to keep an eye out for Viet Cong, who might have infiltrated these pilgrimages. Viet Cong meant any male of military age who had two arms and two legs and wasn’t wearing a South Vietnamese army uniform and wasn’t carrying an ID card.

I didn’t recall finding any VC, but in retrospect, these throngs of civilians must have been filled with VC infiltrators, on the move and getting into place for what was to come. And to make matters worse, a good portion of the South Vietnamese army was either on leave, or were going AWOL to be home. General Giap, in Hanoi, who had planned this surprise attack on Tet Eve, the most sacred and most militarily defenseless day of the year, was a smart guy. I hoped that Colonel Hellmann in Washington, who had planned my Tet operation, was at least as smart.

Susan went on about the general conditions in the countryside and reinforced some of what Conway had told me.

She said, “The people are generally friendly, and they won’t rat you out to the police. They don’t like their government, but they love their country. Be respectful of their customs and traditions, and show an interest in their way of life.”

“I don’t know any of their customs.”

“Neither do I. I know Saigon, but it’s very different out there. Don’t pat anyone’s head. The head is sacred. The feet are the lowest part of the body. Don’t get your feet above their head. That’s disrespectful.”

“How would my feet get above someone’s head?”

“I can think of a few ways.”

So, we lay there, and Susan went on about customs, pitfalls, police, health matters, food, guest houses where they didn’t report your presence to the police, and so on.

I asked her, “Is there still a danger of land mines?”

“There seems to be. Every once in a while you read about some kid getting blown up. If you’re really out in the boondocks, stay on the well-trodden paths.” She added, “You wouldn’t want to find what you missed last time.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

She asked me, “Are you going into the former North Vietnam?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, if you are, then the situation changes. The Communists have been in power there since the 1950s, and they’re pretty well organized. According to my company booklet, which I had to read, the secret police in the north have an extensive network of government informers. The people in the north are not particularly friendly to Americans, as I discovered on my first business trip to Hanoi. We killed about a million of them. Right? These people will rat you out to the police.” She glanced at me and said, “If you’re going to the north, be prepared for a more efficient police state.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Pass yourself off as an Australian. They’ll be friendlier to you. But that doesn’t work with the cops, of course, who can look at your passport.”

“How does an Australian act?”

“Always have a can of beer in your hand.”

“Right.”

“You might hear the words Lien Xo spoken regarding yourself. Kids in rural areas, who don’t see many Caucasians, will yell out, ‘Lien Xo!’ This just means foreigner, or Westerner, but the literal translation is Soviet Union.”

“Run that by me again.”

“Okay. When the Russians were here from 1975 to the 1980s, there were no other Westerners here, and the term Lien Xo came to mean Westerner. In the north, Lien Xo is not derogatory — the Soviets were their allies. In the south, it once had derogatory connotations because the southerners hated the Russian military and civilian advisors. Now it just means Westerner. Follow?”

“Sort of. In the south, I’m an American, in the north, I’m Australian. But people will call me Soviet.”

“That just means Westerner. Don’t get confused.”

“Why can’t I be a New Zealander, or a Brit, or how about a Canadian?”

“I don’t know. Try it. Okay, up north, the people are not as materialistic as they are in the south.”

“That’s good.”

“No, that’s bad. They’re real Reds, and are not as bribable as in the south. Maybe it’s a philosophical or political thing, but it’s also because there aren’t as many consumer goods in the north, so American money isn’t God. So, you can’t give a cop a tenner and expect him to turn the other way. Understand?”

“How about a twenty?”

She sat up suddenly and said, “You know… my office is closed the week after next for the holiday. And this week is very slow. You want company?”

I sat up.

She said, “I’d love to travel around the country. I’ve hardly been out of Saigon in a year. It might be interesting to see some of the war stuff with a veteran.”

“Thanks, but—”

“You’re going to need an interpreter. They don’t speak a lot of English outside the cities. I wouldn’t mind taking a vacation.”

“I’m sure there are other places you could go. Winter in the Berkshires.”

“I always go out of the country on vacation, but I’d like to take an in-country vacation.”

“I’m sure Bill would be happy to join you.”

“He doesn’t like Vietnam. Can’t get him out of Saigon.”

“I’m sure he’d make an exception if he was looking for us.”

She laughed and then said, “We can travel together as friends. People do it all the time. I trust you. You work for the government.”

“I don’t think the people who sent me here would approve of me taking on a traveling companion.”

“They would if they understood what this place is about. Aside from the language problem, men traveling on their own are hassled unmercifully by pimps and prostitutes. That doesn’t happen if you have a woman with you. Also, the police are less likely to bother you. A guy by himself is presumed to be up to no good. I don’t know why they sent you here alone.”

Neither did I, now that I thought about it. I suppose it had to do with the strong desire to limit the knowledge of this murder investigation that wasn’t a murder investigation. I smiled and said to Susan, “How do I know you’re not a double agent?”

She smiled in return. “I’m a boring investment advisor. I need a little excitement.”

“Drive your motor scooter.”

“Done that. Think about my offer. I can leave a message in the office tonight, pack, and be at the Rex at 10 A.M., latest.”

I asked, “And Bill?”

“What’s your obsession with Bill?”

“It’s a guy thing. Does he have a gun?”

She laughed. “No. Of course not.” She added, “Having a gun here is a capital offense.”

“Good.”

She said, “I’ll send him a telegram from our first stop. Wherever that is.”

“Let me think about this.”

“Okay, but if you decide you’d like me along, I’d like you to understand this is strictly platonic. I mean it. I’ll pay for my own room, and you’re free to sample the local ladies, except I want a dinner companion.”

“Who pays for dinner?”

“You, of course. I order, you pay. And when you need to go off on some secret meeting, I’ll disappear.”

I thought about all of this, sitting there on a grassy slope with the presidential palace in the distance, the buildings of Saigon all around the park, the scent of flowers in my nostrils, and the sun on my face. I glanced over at her and our eyes met.

Susan lit another cigarette, but didn’t say anything.

I’m used to working alone, and, in fact, I prefer it. If I screwed up on my own, my friends in Washington would be disappointed, and maybe sympathetic, depending on the circumstances. If I screwed up while traveling around with a woman, they’d hang me by my balls. James Bond never had this problem.

Also, I wasn’t at all sure what she was up to. She made a reasonable case for wanting to take an in-country vacation, and then there was the excitement and adventure thing, and this might be her prime motive. Then there was moi. I am charming. But not that charming.

In any case, her motives were completely irrelevant to the mission at hand. When I’m on a case, I’m totally focused, and I don’t even think about women. Hardly ever. Now and then, but only on my own time.

And then, of course, there was Cynthia. Cynthia was a pro, who worked with a lot of men herself, and I’m sure she’d understand. Maybe not.

“Are you thinking?”

“I was watching that dragonfly.”

“Well, let me know by 6 A.M. tomorrow. Then, as we say in business, the offer is off the table.” She put on her shoes and socks, buttoned her shirt, stood and put on her sunglasses.

I stood and put on my shirt as she fastened her belt pouch. “Ready to roll?”

We walked down the slope to the parking lot. She unchained the motor scooter, then took her cell phone out and dialed. She said, “I’m calling the Rex.” She said something in Vietnamese into the phone, and I heard her use my name. She didn’t seem satisfied with the answer and got a little sharp. Bitch. After a lot of monosyllables and consonants, she hung up and said to me, “Nothing there for you. But I gave them my cell phone number and told them to call as soon as your passport or anything else arrives for you.”

She handed me the cell phone, started the motor scooter, and I hopped on the back. She said, “I’m sorry. I should have asked you if you wanted to drive.”

“Later.”

We rode through the streets of Saigon, and Susan was taking it easy. She asked me, “Do you remember this guy’s name at the airport?”

“Why? Do you know the bad guys by name?”

“Some of them. The names get around.”

“His name was Mang. A colonel in uniform.”

She informed me, “Mang is his first name. Do you have the whole name?”

I replied, “He called himself Colonel Mang. How could that be his first name?”

“I thought you spent some time here. The Viets use their first names — which are actually at the end — with their titles. So you would be Mr. Paul, and I’m Miss Susan.”

“Why do they do that?”

“I don’t know. It’s their country. They can do what they want. Didn’t you know that from when you were here?”

“To be honest with you, the American soldiers knew very little about the Vietnamese. Maybe that was one of the problems.”

She didn’t respond to that, but said, “They’re very careful about forms of address. You always use a title — Mr., Miss, Mrs., Colonel, Professor, whatever — followed by their first names. They love it if you know the Vietnamese word. Dai-Ta Mang. Colonel Mang. Ong Paul. Grandpa Paul.” She laughed.

I wondered what the word was for bitch.

She said, “I’ll check around for a Colonel Mang, but find out his last name, if you see him again.”

“I’m sure I’ll see him again.”

“Did you tell this guy where you were heading?”

“He has part of my itinerary from my hotel vouchers. He wants to know the rest of my itinerary before he gives me my passport.”

“Do you want him to know where you’re going?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then make it up. This is not an efficient police state. You want to see another famous place?”

“Sure.”

“Are you having fun?”

“I have fun at this speed.”

She reached back and patted my knee. She said, “I’m going to get the beast later, and we’ll drive out toward the Michelin rubber plantation. I want to get out of the city. Okay?”

“Maybe I should stay close to the hotel in case this Commie colonel needs to see me.”

“It’s Sunday. He’s home reading the biography of Ho Chi Minh while his wife cooks the family dog.” She laughed.

I, too, laughed. I mean, you have to laugh.

For some guys, Susan Weber would be pure male fantasy. But I had this thought that Susan Weber was like the country she was living in: beautiful and exotic, seductive like a tropical breeze on a starry night. But somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the clicking of bamboo sticks getting closer.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We went up Le Duan Street, a wide leafy boulevard, and Susan pulled over onto the sidewalk and pointed across the street. “Do you recognize that place?”

Beyond a high concrete wall with guard turrets was a massive stark-white building about six stories high; another Sixties-type structure of preformed bombproof concrete. It took me a few seconds to recognize the former American embassy.

Susan said, “I’ve seen that news footage of the Viet Cong breaking into the embassy during the Tet Offensive.”

I nodded. That was February 1968, the beginning of the end; the end itself came seven years later in 1975 when the embassy became the Fat Lady, singing the last aria in an overlong tragic opera.

I looked up at the roof and saw the smaller structure where the last Americans had left the city by helicopter on April 30, 1975, as the Communist troops approached. It was yet another of those famous or infamous video scenes that were emblematic of the whole sorry mess; the marine guards fighting with screaming and crying Vietnamese civilians and soldiers, who had overrun the compound and wanted to escape, the embassy staff trying to look cool as they made their way to the helicopters, embassy files burning in the courtyard, the city of Saigon in chaos, and the Ambassador carrying the folded American flag home.

I’d seen this on the TV news with a bunch of other soldiers, as I recalled, on a television in the NCO club at Fort Hadley, where I was still stationed. I recalled, too, that no one around me said much, but now and then someone would say softly, “Shit” or “Oh, my God.” One guy actually wept. I would have left the room, but I was mesmerized by the image of this real-life drama, and further fascinated by the fact that I’d actually been to the embassy a few times, which made what I was watching even more surreal than it looked to most people.

Susan broke into my time trip and said, “The building is used by the Vietnamese government oil company, but the American government is negotiating to get it back.”

“Why?”

“They want to level it. It’s a bad image.”

I didn’t reply.

“It’s American property. They may build a new consulate building there. But I think the Communists might want to make it another tourist attraction. Six bucks at least. Free to Vietnamese.”

Again, I didn’t reply.

Susan said, “The Americans are back, the people want them back, and the government is trying to figure out how to get their money without getting them. I live this every day on my job.”

I thought about my own reason for being in this country, but there were still big gaps in my understanding of this mission, which is not the usual way to send a man on a dangerous assignment. This only made sense if I put Susan Weber into the equation.

Susan asked, “Do you want a picture of you with the embassy in the background?”

“No. Let’s go.”

We drove through central Saigon, crossed a small bridge over a muddy stream, and she said, “We’re on Khanh Hoi Island, mostly residential.”

This was a low-lying piece of land, swampy in areas, with clusters of wood shacks near the wetlands, and more substantial residential blocks on the higher ground. I asked, “Where are we going?”

“I need to get my motorcycle.”

We drove through a warren of wooden houses with gardens, then a cluster of multi-story stucco buildings. Susan turned down an alley and into a parking area that was actually an open space beneath a stucco building, elevated on concrete pillars. The parking space was jammed with bicycles, motorbikes, and assorted odds and ends.

We dismounted, and she chained her motor scooter to a rack.

She walked over to a big black motorcycle and said, “This is my beast. The Ural 750. It’s illegal for foreigners to own anything over 175cc’s, so I keep it here.”

“To look at?”

“No, to drive. The police check up on what foreigners have around their house. Friends of mine, the Nguyens, live in this building.”

“What happens when you take it on the road?”

“You move fast.” She added, “It’s not a huge problem once you’re out in the country. From here, Khanh Hoi Island, I can head south over a small bridge and be out of town in another fifteen minutes. The motorcycle has Vietnamese citizen plates, and is actually registered to a Vietnamese national — another friend of mine — and the police, when they stop you, have no way to check who actually owns it. And if you give them five bucks, they don’t care.”

“You have been here too long.”

She unchained the big bike with a key from her pocket and said to me, “Ready for adventure?”

“I’m trying to keep a low profile. Do we need to take the illegal bike?”

“We need the muscle on the hills. You weigh too much.” She patted my stomach, which sort of surprised me.

I said, “You should wear a helmet for highway driving.”

She lit a cigarette. “You sound like my father.”

I looked at her and said, “It’s a long way from Lenox, isn’t it?”

She thought about that, then said, “Indulge me in my petty acts of rebellion.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “You wouldn’t have recognized me three years ago.”

“Just don’t get yourself killed over here.”

“You, too.”

“Hey, I’m on my third tour. I’m a pro.”

“You’re a babe in the woods is what you are.”

She took out her cell phone, and still smoking, she dialed someone, spoke in Vietnamese, listened, spoke sharply, then hung up. She said, “A message for you that they didn’t call me about.”

“Would you like to share it with me, or are you not finished complaining about the desk clerk?”

“The message was from Colonel Mang. He said you are to report to the Immigration Police headquarters tomorrow morning at eight, and ask for him.” She added, “I’ll help you make out an itinerary.”

“I can study a map.” I pointed out, “I may be going home, and I know the way.”

She asked me, “Did you say or do anything to get this guy angry with you?”

“I was firm but polite. However, I may have said something to honk him off.”

She nodded, then asked me, “Do you think he knows something?”

“There’s nothing to know. Thanks for your concern, but this is not your problem.”

“Of course it is. You’re from Massachusetts. Plus, I like you.”

“Well, I like you, too. That’s why I want you to stay out of this.”

“It’s your show.” She jumped on the big Ural, and I got on the back, which was much roomier and more comfortable than the motor scooter. She had a backrest, which had a grip for me to hold on to. She started the engine, and the roar echoed off the low ceiling.

Susan pulled out of the parking area, and we headed south and crossed another small bridge over a stream, and off the island. To my left I could see the wide expanse of the Saigon River, filled with pleasure boats on this Sunday afternoon.

Susan pulled off to the side of the road, turned to me and said, “If they think you’re up to something, they won’t kick you out. They’ll watch you.”

I didn’t reply.

“If they arrest you, they’ll do it in some small town where they can do what they want with you. That’s why it would be good if you had someone with you.”

“Why wouldn’t they arrest you, too?”

“Because I’m an important member of the American business community, and it would cause a real stink if I were arrested for no reason.”

I replied, “Well, if I need a nanny along, I’ll let you know.”

She said, “You’re a cool customer, Mr. Brenner.”

“I’ve been in worse situations.”

“You don’t know that yet.”

She gunned the motorcycle and bounced back onto the road.

CHAPTER TWELVE

We headed west through a mixed landscape of rural and urban: rice paddies, new industrial parks, primitive villages, and high-rise apartments.

Within twenty minutes, we had left the urban sprawl behind us, and we were into the open country. Motor traffic was light on a Sunday afternoon, but there were lots of ox carts, bicycles, and pedestrians, which Susan wove through without slowing down, horn honking almost continuously.

The countryside had gone from low-lying rice paddies to rolling terrain; vegetable plots, pasture, and clusters of small trees.

Now and then, I’d see a pond, which I could identify as a bomb crater. From the air, they used to come in three colors: clear blue water, muddy brown water, and red water. The red water indicated a direct hit on a bunker with lots of people in it. People soup, we called them.

Susan shouted above the noise of the engine, “Isn’t this beautiful country?”

I didn’t reply.

We passed four wrecked American-made M-48 tanks, which all had the faded markings of the former South Vietnamese army on them, and I assumed they had been destroyed in April 1975 by the North Vietnamese as they drove toward the final battle of Saigon, which mercifully never took place.

A huge cemetery appeared around a curve in the road, and I said to Susan, “Stop here.”

She pulled off the road, and we dismounted. I went through an opening in a low wall and stood among the thousands of lichen-covered stone slabs lying flat on the ground. Stuck in the ground beside some of the slabs were red flags with a yellow star in the center. On each of the slabs was a ceramic bowl that held joss sticks, some of which were smoking.

An old man walked up to us, and he and Susan had a short conversation.

Susan said to me, “This cemetery is mostly for the local Viet Cong and their families. That part of the cemetery is for the North Vietnamese who died liberating the South — well, he said liberating. I guess you — we would say invading.”

“Ask him if there’s a South Vietnamese military cemetery around here.”

They conversed, and Susan said, “Such cemeteries are forbidden. He says that the North Vietnamese bulldozed all the South Vietnamese military cemeteries. This makes him sad and angry because he cannot honor the grave of his son, who was killed while serving with the South Vietnamese army. His other son was a Viet Cong and is buried here.”

I thought about that, and about our own Civil War cemeteries that honored the North and the South. But here, all memory of the defeated nation seemed to have been obliterated, or displayed in a dishonorable way, like the wrecked tanks that had been left as reminders of the Communist victory.

I saw an old lady sitting against the wall selling joss sticks. I gave her a dollar and took a joss stick. I walked to the closest grave and read the inscription: Hoang Van Ngoc, trung-uy, 1949”1975. He was born the same year as me, but thankfully that’s all we had in common. Susan came up beside me and lit the joss stick with her lighter. The smoke and smell of incense rose into the air.

I don’t pray, unless I’m being directly shot at, but I put the stick in the bowl, thinking about the 300,000 North Vietnamese missing who had no grave markers, our two thousand who were missing, and the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers who I’d just discovered lay underground in bulldozed cemeteries. I thought about the Wall, about Karl and me standing there, then about Tran Van Vinh.

One part of me said that Tran Van Vinh could not possibly be alive, while another part of me was convinced that he was. My conviction was based partly on my own ego; Paul Brenner had not come this far to find a dead man. Partly, too, there was that almost miraculous set of circumstances that had led me here, and which, as a rational person, I wanted to discount, but couldn’t. And finally, there was this suspicion that Karl and his friends knew something I didn’t know.

I turned away from the grave, and we walked back to the motorcycle.

We continued on. I remembered this area west of Saigon because I had ridden shotgun a few times with convoys to Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border. In those days, the rural population lived mostly in strategic hamlets, meaning guarded compounds, and the ones who didn’t were Viet Cong who lived in the Cu Chi tunnels. Then there were the part-time VC — pro-Saigon government by day, dinner with the family, then off to the night shift with the AK-47.

This area between the Cambo border and the outskirts of Saigon had been heavily contested throughout the war, and I recalled reading somewhere that it was the most bombed and shelled piece of real estate in the history of warfare. That could be true, from what I remembered.

I also recalled a lot of defoliation with Agent Orange, and when the vegetation was all dead and brown, the American bombers would drop napalm and set the countryside on fire. The pall of black smoke would hang for days until a rain came and deposited wet soot on everything.

This is what the generals could see from the rooftop of the Rex, if they looked west during dinner.

I saw that the vegetation had come back, but it didn’t look right; it looked scrawny and sparse, the result no doubt of the residual defoliants in the soil.

The Ural 750 made a lot more noise than an equivalent American or Japanese motorcycle, so we didn’t talk much.

We’d been on the road about an hour, and now we were heading northwest toward Cu Chi and Tay Ninh, which was where Route 22 went. Funny, I still get lost in northern Virginia, but I knew this road. Obviously, it was important to me once.

We entered Cu Chi, which I remembered as a small heavily fortified provincial town, but which was now a bustling place of new buildings, paved streets, and karaoke parlors. It was hard to imagine the intense fighting that had gone on in and around this town for thirty years, beginning with the French Indochina War in 1946, through the American War, and ending with the Vietnamese themselves in a fight to the finish.

Red flags flew everywhere, and in the center of a traffic circle was yet another North Vietnamese tank on a concrete platform surrounded by flags and flowers.

Susan turned into what looked like the main street, then she pulled over and stopped. We dismounted, and I chained the motorcycle to a rack as Susan took her camera out of the saddlebag.

We stretched and beat the red dust off our clothes. She asked me, “Have you ever been here?”

“A few times. On my way to Tay Ninh.”

“Really? What were you doing in Tay Ninh?”

“Nothing. Part of a convoy escort, as I recall. Bien Hoa to Cu Chi to Tay Ninh, then back before dark.”

“Amazing.”

I wasn’t quite sure what was amazing, and I didn’t ask. My butt was sore, my legs ached, and I had dust in all my body orifices.

We took a walk along the main street, and I was surprised to see groups of Westerners. I asked Susan, “Are these people lost?”

“You mean the Americans? They’re here to see the famous Cu Chi tunnels. They’re a big tourist attraction.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. Do you want to see the tunnels?”

“I want to see a cold beer.”

We turned into an open café and sat at a small table.

A young boy hurried over, and Susan ordered two beers, which materialized in a few seconds, sans glasses. So we sat there, covered with dust, chugging beer from bottles without labels, Susan smoking, still wearing her sunglasses.

The sinking sun was angled below the café’s canopy, and it was hot. I commented, “I forgot how warm it is here in February.”

“It’s cooler up north. As soon as you go over Cloudy Pass, the weather changes. It’s rainy season up there.”

“I remember that from ’68.”

Susan seemed to be staring off in space, then said, as if to herself, “Even all these years after the last shot was fired, the war hangs over this place… like that guy across the street.”

I looked across the street and saw an old man swinging on crutches, one leg missing, and part of one arm also gone.

She said, “And those tanks on the sides of the road, the Cu Chi tunnels, military cemeteries all over the place, battlefield monuments, and war museums in every town, young men and women with no living parents… I kind of ignored all this when I first got here, but you can’t ignore it. It’s everywhere, and I don’t even see half of it.”

I didn’t respond.

Susan continued, “It’s also part of the economy, the reason for a lot of the tourism here. The young expats sort of make fun of all this war nostalgia — you know, the vets coming back to see this and that. They… we call it visiting Cong World. That’s pretty awful. Very insensitive. That must piss you off.”

I didn’t reply.

She said, “That was nice of you — the joss stick.”

Again, I didn’t reply, so we sat in silence. Finally, I said, “It’s very strange being back here… I’m seeing something you’re not seeing… recalling things you never experienced… and I don’t want to get weird on you… but now and then…”

“It’s okay. Really. I just wish you’d talk about it.”

“I don’t think I have the words for how I feel.”

“Do you want to go back to Saigon?”

“No. I’m actually enjoying this more than not enjoying it. Must be the company.”

“Must be. It’s sure not the heat and the dust.”

“Or your driving.”

She called the boy over, gave him a dollar, said something to him, and he ran off into the street. A few minutes later, he was back with a pair of sunglasses and a wad of dong in his hand, which Susan told him to keep. She opened the sunglasses and put them on me. She said, “There, you look like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider.”

I smiled.

Susan picked up her camera and said, “Look tough.”

“I am tough.”

She snapped a picture of me.

Susan gave the camera to the boy, then pulled her chair next to mine, and threw her arm around me. The kid took a shot of us with our heads together and bottles touching. I said, “Get a few extras for Bill.”

Susan took the camera from the boy and said, “Can I send these to your house, or will that cause a problem?”

I recognized the question for what it was and replied, “I live alone.”

“Me, too.”

We used the single WC in the rear and washed off the road dust. Susan gave the proprietor a dollar for both beers and exchanged New Year’s greetings with him. We went out to the street and walked back to the motorcycle. Susan asked me, “Would you like to drive?”

“Sure.”

She slung the camera over her shoulder, gave me the keys, and we mounted up. I started the engine, and Susan gave me a quick course on driving a Russian Ural. She said, “The gears are a little sticky, the front brakes are soft, and the back brakes grab. The acceleration may be a little faster than you’re used to, and the front tends to climb. Otherwise, it’s a dream to drive.”

“Right. Hold on.” I found myself going too fast down the main street. I passed two cops sitting on their bicycles, and they yelled something at me. “Do they want me to stop?”

“No. They said have a nice day. Keep going.”

Within ten minutes, we left the town of Cu Chi behind, and I was getting the hang of the machine, but the congestion on the narrow road was giving me some problems.

“Use your horn. You have to warn people. That’s the way they do it here.”

I found the button and blasted the horn as I swerved through bicycles, pedestrians, motor scooters, Lambrettas, pigs, and ox carts.

Susan leaned forward and put her right arm around my waist and her left hand on my shoulder. She said, “You’re doing fine.”

“They don’t think so.”

She gave me directions, and within a few minutes, we were off on a narrow road that was barely paved.

I asked, “Where are we going?”

“Cu Chi tunnels straight ahead.”

After a few more kilometers, I could see ahead to a flat open area where a half dozen buses were parked in a field. Susan said, “Pull into that parking field.”

I pulled into the dirt field partially shaded by scraggly trees.

Susan said, “This is one of the entrances to the tunnels.”

“Is this part of Cong World?”

“This is the ultimate Cong World. Over two hundred kilometers of underground tunnels, one of them going all the way to Saigon.”

“Have you been here?”

She replied, “I’ve been this way, but never actually in the tunnels. No one wants to go in with me, and I figured you’d have no problem with it.”

That sounded like a challenge to my manhood. I said, “I love tunnels.”

We dismounted, chained the motorcycle to a tree, and walked to the entrance of the tunnels.

It was a buck-fifty to enter, which Susan paid for in American dollars without an argument.

We joined some people under a thatched roof whose sign said English. The crowd was mostly Americans, but I heard some Aussie accents as well. There were also thatched pavilions for other languages. Apparently, someone in the People’s Ministry of Tourism had been to Disney World.

A female guide handed out brochures to the crowd of about thirty English speakers.

The guide said, “Please to be quiet.”

Everyone shut up, and she began her spiel. I wasn’t too familiar with the Cu Chi tunnels, and I had the feeling I wasn’t going to learn much more from our guide, whose English was somewhat unusual.

I read the brochure, whose English was also a little off.

Anyway, between the guide and the brochure, I learned that the tunnels were begun in 1948 during the Communist fight against the French. They started at the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia, and zigzagged all over the place, including underneath former American base camps. The original tunnels were only wide enough for a small VC to crawl through, and we should be careful of insects, bats, rats, and snakes.

The lady guide informed us that the tunnels could hold up to sixteen thousand freedom fighters, and that people actually got married in the tunnels, and women had babies down there. There were kitchens and full surgical hospitals in the tunnel complex, sleeping rooms, storage rooms once filled with weapons and explosives, drinking wells, ventilation shafts, false tunnels, and booby-trapped passages. The guide smiled and joked, “But no more booby traps for you.”

I said to Susan, “I hope not, for a buck-fifty.”

The lady also informed us that the Americans had dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs on the tunnels, had entered them with flamethrowers, had flooded them, gassed them, and sent in teams of men called tunnel rats with miners’ helmets and dogs to go hand-to-hand with the inhabitants of the tunnels. Over the twenty-seven years of the tunnels’ use, ten thousand of the sixteen thousand men, women, and children who’d occupied the tunnels had died, and many were entombed below.

“So,” said our guide, “we are ready now to go in the tunnels. Yes?”

No one seemed too eager, and about ten people suddenly remembered other appointments. No refunds.

As we walked to the entrance, the guy beside me asked, “You a vet?”

I looked at him and replied, “Yeah.”

He said to me, “You look too big to be a tunnel rat.”

“I hope I look too smart to be a tunnel rat.”

He laughed and said, “I did it for three months. That’s all you can do.” He added, “You got to give it to these bastards. I mean, they had balls.” He noticed Susan and said, “Sorry.”

She said, “It’s okay. I swear, too.”

I said to the guy — who was short, but no longer thin — to make him feel good, “You guys did a hell of a job, too.”

“Yeah… I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I volunteered for that job. I mean, meeting Mr. Charles face-to-face crawling in a small space is not fun.”

We got to the entrance of the tunnel, and the guy said, “I have the worst fucking nightmares about these tunnels… you know, I’m crawling in the dark, and I can hear somebody else breathing, and I got bugs crawling under my uniform, biting the shit out of me, bats in my hair, snakes moving over my hands, and the fucking ceiling is about three inches over my ass and dripping water, and I can’t even turn around, and I know Chuck is right in front of me, but I don’t want to turn the miner’s lamp on, and—”

I interrupted and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t go in there.”

“I gotta go. You know? If I go in there, my nightmares will disappear.”

“What genius told you that?”

“Another guy who did it.”

“It worked for him?”

“I guess so. Why else would he tell me to do this?”

“His name isn’t Karl, is it?”

“No… Jerry.”

Anyway, the lady guide stopped at the mouth of the tunnel that was covered by a wooden shed. She asked, “Is any person here who has been in this tunnels in the war?”

My buddy raised his hand quickly, and everyone looked at him.

The guide said, “Ah… so, you fight in tunnel. Come to talk with me.”

The former tunnel rat moved to the front of the group and stood beside the guide. I thought we were about to get a lecture on American imperialism, but she said, “Please to tell everyone to stay together and to be not frightened. It is very safe.”

The tunnel rat repeated the guide’s instruction and advice, and added a few tips of his own, becoming an unpaid assistant guide. Really bizarre, if you thought about it.

We filed into the tunnel, and the tunnel rat was asked by the guide to bring up the rear.

The entrance to the tunnel was wide, but very low, and everyone had to stoop. The incline started out easy, then got steeper, and the passage got narrower. The tunnel was barely lit by a string of dim light bulbs.

There were about twenty of us, including some young Australian couples, about six middle-aged American couples, some with kids, and the rest young guys, mostly backpackers.

The guide made a little commentary now and then, waited for a Japanese group to move on, then continued deeper into the labyrinth.

It was a lot cooler in the tunnels, but very damp. I heard a bat chirping somewhere. I said to Susan, “This is a good second date place.”

So, we zigged and we zagged, and the tunnels got narrower and lower, and soon we were crawling over reed mats and sheets of wet, slimy plastic in the dark. I mean, do I need this shit?

We finally came into a space the size of a small room, lit by a single bulb, and everyone stood. The guide turned on a flashlight and pointed it around the underground chamber. She said, “Here is cooking place. You see there place where cooking, and up on ceiling hole where goes smoke. Smoke goes into farmer house, and farmer cooks so American think it is farmer cooking. Yes?”

A lot of flashbulbs started to go off, and Susan said, “Smile” and blinded me with a photo flash.

The guide passed the flashlight beam over the group and said, “Where is American who fight in tunnel? Where?”

We all looked around, but the guy was gone. AWOL. The guide seemed concerned, but considering the limited liability exposure of the Cu Chi Tunnel Corporation, not overly worried.

We moved on for about another half-hour, and I was getting cold, wet, tired, claustrophobic, and filthy. Something bit me on the leg. This had stopped being fun a while ago, and I dubbed this tour “Charlie’s Revenge.”

Eventually, we got into the same tunnel through which we’d entered, and within five minutes, we were out into the sunlight. Everyone looked like crap, but in a few seconds, people started to smile. Was this worth a postcard home or what?

The guide thanked us for our courage and our attention, and everyone gave her a buck, which explained her fondness for what had to be the worst fucking job on the planet.

As we moved off, I saw her washing herself in a basin of water. I said to Susan, “Thank you for suggesting that.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She looked around and asked, “Hey, what happened to the tunnel rat guy?”

“I don’t know. But if that group of Vietnamese behind us doesn’t come out, you have your answer.”

“Be serious. The guy may be lost, or freaked out in there. Shouldn’t we do something?”

“The guide knows she lost someone. She’ll take care of it. He owes her a buck.”

We walked over to an area of vendor stalls. Souvenir shops were selling more war junk like in the Museum of American War Crimes, and a guy tried to sell us a pair of Ho Chi Minh sandals, made of old tires, that he swore were once worn on the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Viet Cong. All the vendors, I noticed, were dressed in black pajamas and sandals, and wore conical straw hats, just like the VC. This was totally surreal at first, then I decided it was idiotic.

Susan asked me, “Are you okay with this?”

“Sure. Cong World.”

We each got a liter of bottled water and used half to wash off and half to drink.

She said, “I can’t imagine how people lived in there for years. And I can’t imagine how you guys must have lived out in the jungle day and night.”

“Neither can I.”

We spotted our tunnel rat friend sitting in a plastic chair with a bottle of beer in his hand. We went over to him, and I said, “We thought you got lost.”

He looked up at me with no recognition.

I asked him, “You with anyone?”

“Bus.”

“Good. Maybe you should get back on the bus.”

He didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “I’m going back in.”

Susan suggested, “That might not be a good idea today.”

He looked at her — through her, actually. He stood and said, “I’m going back.” He began walking toward the tunnel entrance where the pavilions were.

Susan said to me, “Maybe you should try to talk him out of it.”

“No. Let him go. He’s got to try it again. He’s come a long way.”

We got back to the motorcycle, and Susan said, “I’ll drive. We need to be in Saigon before dark, and I know the roads.”

We mounted up and drove out of the parking field. Susan continued north on the back road, which was now barely more than a dirt trail. She called out, “This is usually okay as a dirt bike, but you’ve got to hold on.”

We were bumping wildly, and the bike skidded a few times, but she was a very good driver, and I started to feel more confident that we weren’t going to wind up alongside the road kill.

She said, “This road goes to Route 13, which goes through the Michelin rubber plantation. Thirteen will take us back to Saigon, and it’s a very lightly traveled road, so we’ll make good time.”

We traveled north over the worst road in the hemisphere, and I thought my kidneys were going to pop out of my ears.

Finally, we reached a two-lane paved highway, and Susan cut to the right. She said, “This is the rubber plantation. Those are rubber trees.”

The road seemed nearly deserted, and she opened the throttle. We were clipping along at about sixty miles an hour, but it was a good road. The sun, however, was sinking fast, and the shadows of the rubber trees were long and dark.

I remembered that Karl said he’d seen action here with the Eleventh Armored Cavalry, and I knew from other veterans of that unit that there had been a number of running battles within the Michelin plantation, and along Highway 13.

I pictured Karl here, manning a machine gun atop an armored vehicle, puffing away on a cigarette, scanning the spooky forest with field glasses, and probably pretending he was Field Marshal Guderian leading a panzer army into Russia. I’d have to tell him I was here — if we ever spoke again.

Within twenty minutes, we were out of the spooky rubber forest and into an area of scrub brush. It was dark now, and the only traffic on the road was some scooters and small cars. As we got closer to Saigon, the traffic became heavier, and Susan had to keep slowing down.

Wartime Saigon at night was like a sea of light in a vast ocean of darkness. Within the city, life went on; on the outskirts of the city, barbed wire and roadblocks sprang up and soldiers became alert. Nothing outside the city moved after dark, and if it did move, you killed it. And beyond the barbed wire were the military bases, smaller islands unto themselves, like Bien Hoa and Tan Son Nhat, where soldiers and airmen drank beer and gambled, watched movies from home, wrote letters, cleaned their equipment, cursed the war, stood guard duty, and slept fitfully. And if you were unlucky enough to be assigned to a night patrol, you sometimes met the men and women of the Cu Chi tunnels.

We were approaching the city from the north now, and I saw the lights of Tan Son Nhat Airport. Farther to the east would be my old base at Bien Hoa, which also had runways, but only for military aviation. I asked Susan, “Do you know what happened to the American military base at Bien Hoa?”

“I think it’s a Viet military airfield. Jet fighters. I didn’t know it had been an American base until you told me.”

“I guess I can’t visit my old barracks.”

“Not unless you want to get shot.”

“Not this trip.”

We crossed a muddy canal and got on Khanh Hoi Island from the same bridge we’d left from. The streets of Khanh Hoi were dark, but Susan knew the way. We passed a yellow police jeep, and the guy in the passenger seat looked at us and looked at the motorcycle. He began to follow, and I said to Susan, “We have company.”

“I know.” She shut off her lights and drove into a narrow alley where the cop car couldn’t follow. She seemed to know the alleys and passageways, and within a few minutes, we were pulling up to the parking lot beneath the Nguyen apartment.

We transferred everything from the Ural saddlebags to the Minsk saddlebags, and switched mounts like a pony express rider. Within a few minutes we were on our way with the small Minsk, which seemed even more uncomfortable than I remembered it.

Susan looked at her watch as she headed toward the center of the city. She said, “Good timing. It’s twenty to eight, and we should be in my office by eight.”

“Where’s your office?”

“On Dien Bien Phu Street. Near the Jade Emperor Pagoda.”

“Is that a restaurant?”

“No, it’s the Jade Emperor Pagoda.”

“Sounds like a restaurant on M Street in Georgetown.”

“I can’t believe I spent a whole day with you.”

“Neither can I.”

“Just kidding. You’re fun. Did you have fun today?”

I replied, “I did. I don’t know which I liked the best — meeting Bill, the heat, your driving, wartime memories of Saigon, the road from hell to the Cu Chi tunnels, or giving that cop back there the slip.”

“Didn’t I buy you a beer, and a pair of sunglasses, and pay for all the tickets?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

We crossed the muddy stream into central Saigon and followed the embankment road along the Saigon River. The city was incredibly crowded for a Sunday night, and I remarked on this.

Susan said, “It’s called Sunday Night Saigon Fever. Sunday night is a bigger night than Saturday for some reason. It’s totally crazy. We’ll go out after dinner and have a few drinks, maybe some dancing, and a karaoke place, if you’re game.”

“I’m really exhausted.”

“You’ll get your second wind.”

We headed up a narrow street that crossed a few heavily traveled boulevards. As we waited at a stoplight, I asked Susan, “Do you ever ride alone? I mean out in the country.”

“Sometimes. Bill is not a big motorcycle buff. Sometimes I go with a girlfriend. Viet or American. Why?”

“Is it safe for a woman alone?”

“Sure. The thing about most Buddhist countries is that women aren’t hassled. It’s a cultural thing more than religious, I think. Of course if you’re young and pretty, like me, and you’re in a bar, a Viet guy might try to pick you up, but they don’t have great lines.”

“Give me an example.”

She laughed. “Well, first they tell you how beautiful you are and how they’ve noticed you on the street many times.”

“What’s wrong with that? I use that line a lot.”

“Did it ever work?”

“No.”

She laughed again, and accelerated through the intersection. A few minutes later, we turned right onto Dien Bien Phu Street.

Within a minute, we passed a very impressive pagoda, which would make a great restaurant some day, then Susan pulled onto the sidewalk in front of a modern glass and steel building that was cantilevered over the sidewalk. We got off the Minsk, and she walked it to the front door. A guard opened the door, smiled and said something in Vietnamese.

Susan opened the saddlebag and retrieved her camera. She left the motor scooter in the marble lobby of the office building, and I followed her to the elevators.

The elevator doors opened, and we got on. Susan used a key to activate the seventh floor button. She said, “Don’t let Washington talk you into something dangerous.”

It was a little late for that advice.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The elevator doors opened onto a large reception area decorated with black lacquered furniture, rice paper prints, and a pink marble floor. The brass letters over the reception desk read American-Asian Investment Corporation, Limited.

Susan said, “Welcome to AAIC, Mr. Brenner. Would you like to buy half of a fish canning factory?”

“I’ll settle for a whole Scotch and soda.”

Beneath the corporate sign hung a banner in gold metallic letters that read Chuc Mung Nam Moi, and beneath that, in English, Happy New Year.

A small kumquat tree sat on the floor, and a few twigs of blossoms were stuck in what looked like an umbrella stand. Most of the petals had fallen to the floor.

To the right of the desk was a set of red lacquered double doors, and Susan put her hand on a scanner. A chime sounded, and she opened one of the doors.

I noticed a security camera sweeping the lighted reception area.

I followed her into a large open space filled with desks and cubicles; a typically modern office that could have been anywhere in the world.

The place was deserted, but the fluorescent lights were all on, and again I noticed cameras scanning the room. The air reeked of stale cigarette smoke, which I hadn’t smelled in an American office in two decades.

She said as we walked, “We have the whole top floor with a terrace. The AC is turned off, so it’s a little stuffy in here.”

We came to the rear of the floor where three widely spaced doors indicated large enclosed offices. She went to the door on the left whose brass plaque read Susan Weber, with no title. There was a combination lock pad on the door, and she punched in a series of numbers, then opened the door to her office.

The office was dark, and she turned on the overhead lights, revealing a big corner office with windows on two walls. I glanced around for a video scanner, but I didn’t see one. “Nice office.”

“Thank you.” She put her camera on the desk along with the exposed roll of film. She opened the top drawer and got a carton of cigarettes from which she took a pack of Marlboros. She lit up with a chrome desk lighter and took a long drag. “Ah…” She informed me, “I get strung out and bitchy if I don’t get my fix.”

“What’s your excuse the rest of the time?”

She laughed and took another pull on her cigarette. She said, “I went to New York six months ago for a meeting. Four hours in a no-smoking building, and I was also having PMS. I almost freaked out. How can I go back to the States to live and work?”

It was a rhetorical question, but I answered it. “Maybe you can’t. Maybe this is it.”

She looked at me, and our eyes met. She put out her cigarette and said, “I’ll send you copies of the photos we took if you give me your address.”

I inquired, “Is your mail secure?”

She replied, “We have a company pouch that goes out every day by FedEx, and the mail is sorted in New York and sent on. If you ever want to send anything to me, mail it to New York.” She gave me a business card with the New York address of American-Asian Investment Corporation. I memorized the address and gave the card back to her, saying, “It’s best if I’m not carrying this.”

She looked at me. “We’re in the Manhattan directory, if you forget.”

Susan sat at her desk, put on a headset, and called up her voice mail. She said, “Ice and mixers under that sideboard. I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

I opened the cabinet, which revealed a small refrigerator, and I took out an ice tray and mixers. The glasses and liquor decanters were on the sideboard, and I made the drinks while she listened to her messages.

On the wall above the sideboard were her two framed diplomas — Amherst and Harvard. Also hanging on the wall was a commendation from the American Chamber of Commerce — Ho Chi Minh City branch. This was mind-boggling, but my mind had been so boggled in the last twenty-four hours that if I’d seen she’d been awarded the Order of Lenin for increased profits, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Somehow I’d entered an alternate universe where we had won the war.

On the sideboard itself were four framed photographs. The closest was one of Susan in a graduation cap and gown — crimson, so it must be Harvard, if my Boston memory served me right. In the photo, Susan looked younger, of course, but also… I guess you’d say not yet burned up by the corporate world in New York, or toughened by the years in Saigon. I have a high school graduation picture like that of myself, before I went to Vietnam.

I glanced at her, and beautiful though she was, she looked a bit world-weary for her age. To be more charitable, her face revealed some character.

The second photograph was a studio shot of a handsome well-dressed couple in their early fifties; her parents, obviously. Dad looked like an okay guy, and Mom was a looker.

The third photo was a family shot, a Christmas tree and a fireplace in the background. There was Mom and Dad, Susan, her younger brother, and a sister who looked a little younger than Susan. They were all good looking, wore turtleneck sweaters and tweeds and were about as Protestant as they come; old line Yankees from West Waspshire.

The fourth photo was taken outdoors, and it could have been a summer wedding — the entire clan was gathered, grandmas and grandpas, couples, kids and babies. I found Susan wearing a long white summer dress and short hair. Standing beside her, with his arm around her bare shoulder, was Harry Handsome, wearing a white dinner jacket and a bronze face. He could be a relative, but he didn’t look related, so it must be the boyfriend, or maybe even her fiancé since he was in a family shot.

I noticed there was no photo of Beau Bill.

I turned away from the sideboard and saw that Susan was now checking her e-mail. She glanced up at me and said, “That’s my family, obviously. They’re perfect in every way, except for some interesting eccentricities and undiagnosed mental disorders.” She laughed. “But I love them all. I really do. You’d like them.”

We made eye contact, and she said, “They’d probably like you. Except for Grandpa Burt who thinks the Irish should be deported.”

I smiled.

She went back to her e-mail and said, “Have a seat over there. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

I sat in a swivel chair near the windows at an oval table with a black granite top. I watched Susan at her desk, clicking away at her keyboard. She’d shifted into a different personality almost as soon as we’d entered the lobby of the building.

I looked around at the office as I sipped my Scotch and soda. The carpet was a plush jade green, the furniture was burled wood, and the walls were covered in yellow silk with a subtle pattern of bamboo.

Through the east-facing windows, I could see the waning moon. In less than a week, there would be no moonlight, which, if I was in open country, might serve me as well as it did the enemy at Tet 1968.

In a large alcove, I noticed a fax machine, a photocopier, a shredder, and a floor safe. To have your own items like this was not just a status symbol, but an obvious sign of security consciousness. Nothing important had to leave or come into this office from the cubicle farm. I recognized the setup.

Susan got up from her desk and sat in a chair across from me. She picked up her gin and tonic and said, “Cheers.”

We touched glasses and drank. She lit another cigarette and left it burning in the chrome ashtray, which I noticed was half full of butts. The trash can, too, was half full, and there had been petals on the rug in the reception area. No cleaning or maintenance was done here before or after business hours. They had obviously hired a security advisor. Or maybe they didn’t need any outside advice.

Susan said, “Do you have any wallet photos?”

“Of what?”

“Your family.”

“If I don’t carry business cards into enemy territory, why would I carry pictures of my family?”

“Right. You’re in enemy territory. I’m not.” She smiled and said, “I thought you were a tourist.”

“I’m not.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

I changed the subject and said, “Your parents must have at least approved of your office.”

“How could they not? I have arrived in the corner office years before I would have in the States.”

In that respect, Susan and I had similar Vietnam experiences. When I was in the infantry in ’68, you made rank fast, mostly because of sudden personnel losses. ’Nam was a good career builder, but you needed to go home to get back into the mainstream of army life — the real world. Susan Weber hadn’t yet made that transition.

American-Asian Investment Corporation aroused my curiosity, and I asked her, “Who has the other two offices?”

“My boss, Jack Swanson, and a Viet. We have three other Americans — two guys and a young woman, Lisa Klose, with a new MBA.”

“Ivy League, I hope.”

“Of course. Columbia. Plus there’s a Canadian woman, Janice Stanton, who is our financial officer. Also, we have two Viet-Kieus with us. Do you know Viet-Kieu?”

“Nope.”

“Former Vietnamese refugees who’ve returned. Some of them are so homesick, they’d rather be here in a poor, totalitarian country than wherever it was they’d escaped to. Our Viet-Kieus are a man and a woman, both from California, both speak perfect English and Vietnamese. They’re an important part of a lot of multinational businesses here, a cultural bridge between East and West.”

I asked, “How are they treated here?”

She replied, “The Communists used to harass them, called them traitors and American lackeys and all that. But for the last five or six years, the Viet-Kieus have been officially welcomed back.”

“And how about next year?”

“Who the hell knows? Every time the politburo or the National Assembly meet, I hold my breath. They’re just totally unpredictable. Business doesn’t like unpredictability.”

“Maybe you should address the politburo and tell them that the business of Vietnam is business. Screw this Marxist stuff.”

“I detect a little anti-capitalism in you, Mr. Brenner.”

“Not me. But there are more important things in life than making money.”

“I know that. I’m not that shallow. And the reason I’m here doesn’t have a lot to do with money.”

I didn’t ask her what it had to do with; I already knew some of it, and the rest of it she probably wasn’t sure of herself, though it might have to do with a guy. Maybe Harry Handsome in the photo.

Ms. Weber got back to the subject of staff and said, “We also have about fifteen Viets working for us, mostly female secretarial. We pay them twice the average wage.”

“And you don’t trust any of them.”

She didn’t reply for a moment, took another drag on her cigarette, and said, “They’re under a lot of pressure to take things out of here that shouldn’t be taken. We help them by removing the temptation.”

“And the phones are monitored, the doors can only be opened by the round-eyes, maintenance and cleaning are done only during business hours under round-eye supervision, and the cameras record everything.”

She looked at me awhile, then said, “That’s right.” She added, “But there are no cameras or bugs in this office. I am a member of the Inner Party.” She smiled. “You can speak freely.”

I observed, “This place could be a CIA front.” I added, jokingly, “AAIC backward is CIA.”

“How about the other A?”

“That’s the disguise.”

She smiled. “You’re nuts.” She stirred her drink and said, “Anyway, the Americans, Europeans, and Asians are here just to make a fair profit, not to corrupt or undermine the government or the country. If that’s what’s happening, it’s because of their greed, not ours.”

“Was that in your company handbook?”

“You bet. And I wrote it.”

I looked out the window and saw the huge lighted advertising signs all over Saigon. If someone had told me thirty years ago that I’d be sitting here like this in the plush office of an American woman with an MBA from Harvard, I’d have recommended them for a psychiatric discharge.

I hated to admit it, but in some ways, I liked the old Saigon better; for sure, I liked the image of the younger Paul Brenner with an MP uniform patrolling the streets of Saigon instead of the older Paul Brenner looking over his shoulder for the fuzz.

Susan broke into my thoughts and said, “So, you can see why I’m here. I mean, from a career point of view. I’m in charge of charming the foreign investors, private and corporate. Do you have any money? I could double your money.”

“You could triple it, and it still wouldn’t amount to anything.” I asked, “Do you have an office in Hanoi?”

“We have a small office there. You have to be where the political power is. Also, an office in Da Nang. The Americans left a great port facility there, plus a great airfield and other infrastructure.”

“I actually left the country in 1968 from Da Nang.”

“Really? Are you going there?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you get to China Beach?”

“No, I was anxious to get to Boston.”

“Right. If you get to Da Nang, don’t miss China Beach this time.”

“I won’t. So what about the Viet guy in the corner office?”

“You guess.”

“He’s the son of an important government official, and he comes in only on Wednesdays in time for lunch.”

“Close. But he does have the contacts. Everything in this country has to be a joint venture, which means buying part of a company that the government confiscated from the rightful owners in 1975, or starting a new company and giving the government a share for peanuts. I mean, it’s more complex than that, but there’s nothing that can happen here without some government involvement.”

“Is it worth it?”

“It could be. Lots of natural resources, a hardworking, low-paid population, mostly all literate, thanks to the Reds. The harbors are terrific — Haiphong, Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay, and Saigon — but the rest of the infrastructure is a mess. The American military put in some good infrastructure during the war, but whenever an area was contested, the bridges, roads, rail lines, and everything else got blown up again.”

“It’s sort of like playing Monopoly, but everyone gets a hammer.”

She didn’t reply, and in fact looked a little impatient with my sarcasm.

I thought about all of this, about Vietnam Incorporated. To the best of my knowledge, this was the only country in Asia where the Americans had a distinct business advantage over anyone else, including the Japanese, who the Viets were not fond of. The Soviets who were here after 1975 screwed things up, the Red Chinese weren’t welcome, the Europeans were mostly indifferent except for the French, and the other East Asians either weren’t trusted or were disliked.

So, in some ironic way, for reasons that were partly historical and nostalgic, and mostly financial and technical, the Americans were back. Ms. Weber and her compatriots, armed with MBAs, engineering degrees, letters of credit, and lots of hustle, were racing around Saigon on their motor scooters, carrying satchels of money instead of satchel charges of plastique. Swords into market shares. And what did this have to do with me? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

Susan said, “Are you sulking about something?”

“No. I’m just processing. There’s a lot to take in.”

She observed, “If you’d never been here, this wouldn’t seem so strange to you.”

“Good point.”

She looked at me and said, “We won the war.”

I wasn’t going to reply to that statement, then I said, “Fifty-eight thousand dead men would be happy to know that.”

We sat in silence while I thought about AAIC. The place looked legit, and Susan sounded legit, but… But stay awake, Brenner. The bamboo was clicking in my brain again, and the vegetation swayed without a breeze. I looked at my watch. It was ten after eight. “Time to fax,” I said.

“We’ll finish our drinks and relax. They’re not going anywhere.”

Ms. Weber seemed indifferent to my fate, but she was right; they weren’t going anywhere. I asked her, “Where’s your apartment from here?”

“On Dong Khoi Street. South of Notre Dame, not far from the Rex.”

“Don’t think I know it.”

“Sure you do. It was once Tu Do Street, heart of the red-light district.” She smiled. “You may have seen it once or twice.”

In fact, I had, of course. My Vietnamese lady friend had lived in a little cul-de-sac, right off Tu Do. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember her name, but like a lot of the Viet ladies, she’d adopted an Anglo name. I knew it wasn’t Peggy, Patty, or Jenny, or I’d have remembered it. In any case, I remembered what she looked like, and our times together, so I wasn’t senile yet.

“Are you remembering Tu Do Street?”

“Actually, I was there a few times. Professionally. I was an MP on my tour of duty in ’72.”

“Really? And how about the other time? Sixty-eight, right?”

“Right. I was a cook.”

“Oh… I thought you did something dangerous.”

“I did. I cooked.” I asked her, “So you live in a red-light district?”

“No, it’s quite nice now. According to the guy I rented it from, it was once called Rue Catinet, during the French time. It was fashionable then, but very sinister, with spies, double agents, murky bistros, high-priced courtesans, and private opium dens. It went downhill from there during the American period, then the Communists cleaned it up and named it Dong Khoi — General Uprising Street. I love their stupid names.”

“I vote for Rue Catinet.”

“Me, too. You can still call it that, or Tu Do, and most people know what you’re talking about.” She added, “My apartment was built by the French — high ceilings, louvered windows, ceiling fans, and beautiful plaster moldings that are crumbling, and no air-conditioning. It’s very charming. I’ll show it to you if we have the time.”

“Speaking of time…”

“Okay.” She stood. “Let’s fax.”

She went to the fax machine in the alcove, and I followed. She wrote something on a sheet of company letterhead, then handed it to me. It said, “Weber—64301.” She informed me, “That’s my code so they know it’s me, and that I’m… something…”

“Not under anyone else’s control.”

“Right. If the number has a nine in it, it means I’m under duress. Am I under duress?”

“No comment. Now I’m supposed to sign it, right?”

“Right. I guess somebody there knows your signature.”

“I guess so.” She gave me a pen, and I signed the sheet.

She said, “This is exciting.”

“You’re easily excited.”

She fed the paper into the fax machine, and I watched her dial the 703 area code for northern Virginia, then the number, which I didn’t recognize. The fax rang, then started to grind away. She said, “Not bad. First try.”

The fax went through, and Susan said, “That calls for a drink.”

She left the alcove and went to the sideboard where she made two fresh drinks. As she returned, the fax rang. She handed me my drink, then took the fax she’d sent and put it through the shredder.

The return fax came through, and I took it out of the tray. The familiar handwriting said: Hello, Paul — You had us worried for the last fifteen minutes. Glad to hear from you and hope all is well. We can continue this communication via e-mail. Ms. W has instructions. Regards, K.

I stared at the message, words from another galaxy, as though I’d been contacted by aliens, or by God. But it was only Karl; I’d recognize his tight, anal handwriting anywhere.

Susan was already sitting at her desk and was going online. I shredded Karl’s message.

I left the alcove and wheeled a chair beside Susan. She said, “Okay, we’ve made contact. He wants you to go first. What do you want to say?”

“Tell him I have an appointment at the Immigration Police headquarters tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred — purpose unknown.”

She typed and sent, waited and got his reply, which said: Do they still have your passport?

“Yes, and my visa.” She typed the reply, and I said to her, “Let me sit there, Susan. You’ll have to move away from the screen.”

She glanced at me, then stood, took her drink, and sat in the chair opposite her desk.

Karl replied: Tell us what happened at the airport.

I took another swallow of Scotch and began typing, relating the encounter fully, but succinctly. It took me ten minutes to type all of this, and I ended with: I believe this was a random stop and question. But it may have compromised the mission. Your call.

The reply was some time in coming, and I could picture Karl in an office with a few other people: Conway, maybe, some other FBI types, and CID people, and people who I could only guess at.

Finally, his reply came, a lot shorter than the conversation in Virginia that led up to it. It said: Your call, Paul.

I tapped my fingers on the desk and took another swig of Scotch. I didn’t want to let too much time go by, as if I was hesitating. Yes or no? Simple. I replied: It may be Colonel Mang’s call. I realized that was a bit of a cop-out, so I added: If I get my passport back, I’ll go forward with the assignment. I pushed send.

The reply came quickly: Good. If you’re expelled, we know you did your best.

I replied: There is a third possibility.

They thought about that in Virginia, then Karl replied: Be sure to have Ms. Weber in a position to know if you are detained. Set up a meeting time or phone call with her, and tell her to contact us if you don’t make your contact with her at the scheduled time or place.

I replied: I know how to set up a failure-to-show alert. Thank you.

Karl, true to form, wasn’t going to be baited, and he replied: Is Ms. Weber under any surveillance? Has she been seen with you other than at the Rex rooftop?

I glanced at Susan and said to her, “They want to know if you think you’re under surveillance.”

“How do I know? I don’t think so. It’s not my turn this month.”

I typed: She doesn’t believe she is. Because I’m a pro, and I don’t ignore sticky parts of multiple part questions, I typed: We spent the day sightseeing. Saigon, Cu Chi.

I could hear Karl’s voice, “What? You did what? Are you insane?”

His actual response was: I hope you had a pleasant day, but I know Karl. He was pissed.

I don’t like having to explain myself, but I typed: It was good cover, and an opportunity for me to take advantage of her knowledge of conditions up country. I added: I don’t have my platoon with me this time.

Karl’s reply was terse: Roger.

There was nothing further on that subject, so I typed: Ms. Weber’s boyfriend has contacted or will contact the consulate on my behalf.

Karl replied: We’ve already done that, obviously. Are you forming an entire spy ring there?

My, my. We were becoming a little snippy. In conversation, I wouldn’t even reply to that, but with e-mail, you had to reply, so I typed: :).

Karl, obviously in a jocular mood and with an audience, replied: :(.

I asked Susan, “Can this keyboard give the finger?”

She laughed and said, “Are they giving you a hard time?”

“They’re working at it.” I mean, my ass is on the line here, and they’re busting my balloons. I typed: Do you have any further information for me regarding my assignment?

Karl replied: Not at this time.

I asked specifically: Haven’t you located that stupid village yet?

Herr Hellmann replied: That’s irrelevant if you’re not at liberty to travel, and that is information you shouldn’t have before you meet Colonel Mang. We’ll let you know when and if you get to Hue.

I thought about that and concluded that they had located the village, or always knew its location. Also, the name of the village was not and had never been Tam Ki. They’d changed that in the letter, of course, so if anyone here were squeezing my nuts, and if I gave it up, it wasn’t my actual destination. In fact, Tam Ki might not exist. Fairly certain of my conclusion, I asked Susan, “Does Tam Ki mean anything in Vietnamese?”

“Spell it.”

I spelled it.

She said, “The whole language is based on accent marks, diphthongs, and stuff like that — compliments of the French who gave them the Roman alphabet. Unless you pronounce it right, or know the accent marks, I can’t translate it.”

“Can it be a village? A place name?”

“Could be, but for instance, T-A-M can mean to bathe, or a heart, depending on the pronunciation, which is based on the accent marks. Tam cai is a toothpick, tam loi is an air bubble. See what I mean?”

“Yeah… how about K-I?”

“K-I is usually a prefix — ki-cop is stingy, ki-cang is carefully, ki-keo is to bargain or complain.”

“Could this just be a made-up name?”

“Could be. Doesn’t sound like a place name.”

I looked back at the screen and saw: Acknowledge.

I replied in the military style: Affirmative, which has different shades of meaning, depending on who’s talking to whom, and how the conversation is going. In this case, it meant: Yeah. I added, to see what he’d say: Do you want me to research the location of this village?

The reply was immediate: Negative. Do not ask and do not look at maps. Maps are inaccurate and many villages have the same name. We will contact you if and when you get to Hue.

I replied: Roger. How are you making out with names of suspects and name of victim?

Karl replied: Narrowing list. Then: If at liberty, where will you go tomorrow?

I replied: Narrowing list.

He answered me: Colonel Mang wants an itinerary and so do we.

I looked up at Susan and asked her, “Where would be a good place to go from here tomorrow to kill a few days?”

“Paris.”

“How about a little closer to Saigon? Someplace where Westerners go.”

“Well, Dalat, the French mountain resort. The rail line is still blown up, but you can get there by car or bus.”

“Okay, any place else?”

“There’s the old French beach resort of Vung Tau.”

“So, I have my choice of the mountains or the beach. Where’s Vung Tau?”

“A little south of here. I can take you with my motorcycle. I go there on weekends.”

“I need to head north.”

“Why don’t you call your travel agent?”

“Come on. Help me out.”

“You didn’t want my help.”

“I apologize.”

“Say please.”

“Please.” I couldn’t believe I’d gotten myself in this situation; hounded by a Vietnamese version of Lieutenant Colombo, apologizing to a sulky upper-middle-class snot, and Karl shoveling shit at me over the Internet. Where is my M-16 when I need it?

I calmed down and asked Susan, “How about Nha Trang?”

She nodded. “Not bad. Not too far, nice beach, and lots of places to stay. Do you know it?”

“Yeah. I actually had a three-day in-country R&R there in ’68.” I asked her, “Are there any Western tourists there?”

“Usually. It’s still warm enough to swim there. You won’t stand out, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean.” I also meant I didn’t want to wind up in some godforsaken place where the fuzz could pick me up without any of my compatriots around to witness it. But that was negative thinking. Visualize success. I asked Susan, “Can I get there easily?”

“I can get you there, and I can find you a place to stay. Money talks, and I have a good travel agent who does business with the firm.”

“Okay. Nha Trang. Thanks.”

I started typing, and she said, “Tell them I’m going with you.”

“Yeah. Right.” I typed: My intended destination is Nha Trang — unless transportation or accommodations are not available. If it changes, Ms. W will let you know ASAP.

Karl replied: Understand. Suggest you stay in Nha Trang or alternate until Hue rendezvous. The less movement, the better. Fax Ms. W your Nha Trang or alternate address when you arrive. Instruct her to give it to the consulate.

Susan said to me, “Did you tell them?”

“I did. They said flat out no.”

“You didn’t ask them. Tell them you need a guide and interpreter.”

I typed: I will attempt to keep to the itinerary I give to Mang until the time I leave Hue for Tam Ki. The missing days between Hue and Hanoi may cause some problems when I show up in Hanoi.

Karl replied: If you’re still having a police problem when you get to Hanoi, contact Mr. Eagan at embassy. But do not go to embassy unless instructed. Acknowledge.

Roger. I pictured myself living in the American embassy for five years while the State Department negotiated my safe departure from the Socialist Republic. This really sucked. I asked: Should I contact you from Hue — directly or through Ms. W?

The reply came: Negative. If you don’t check in at the designated hotel in Hue, we will know and will assume a problem. When you do check in, you’ll be instructed regarding further communication.

Instructed by whom?, I asked.

Karl replied: You’ll be contacted.

I typed: Anything further regarding my Hue contact?

Karl responded: Negative. Do you understand your rendezvous times and places?

I answered: Affirmative. 32 down. The word was rotisserie.

Karl replied: The word had nothing to do with it. Do you understand your instructions?

I replied: I do.:). I added: Hey, I saw the Cu Chi tunnels, Highway 13, the Michelin plantation. Good tank country. Did you have fun?

Karl replied: :(.

I typed: We should come back together.

He replied: I’ll think about that. Remember, we need to know what happens tomorrow re Mang. Are you confident in Ms. Weber’s understanding of what she needs to do?

I replied: She’s very savvy, resourceful, motivated. Give her a raise.

He replied: I have nothing further. You?

Yeah. What the hell is this all about? But I typed: Cynthia? Honolulu?

I waited for the reply, and it seemed a long time before it came up on the screen. It said: We have not been in contact with her. But your travel arrangements are made from Bangkok to Honolulu, then Maui.

I typed: Contact her.

Karl’s reply was: She’s on a case. But if she intends to meet you in Honolulu, the army will approve her leave quickly, and get her to Hawaii. He added: Focus on mission.

I typed: Let me know by Hanoi.

He replied: By Bangkok, latest.

I replied: Roger.

Karl sent me an early valentine: Good luck, Paul, God speed, and safe home.

I sat at the keyboard a long moment, knowing this might be the last message from home for a long time. I knew that feeling, from the last two times, when I spoke to my parents on a special radiophone that the GIs could use about twice a year. I typed: I’m glad I came back. I’m confident I’ll be successful and home on time. Love to Cynthia.

Karl replied: Roger. Further?

Negative.

Out.

I signed off, deleted everything, and sat there awhile, then stood and went to the sideboard. I made myself a Scotch on the rocks and skipped the soda.

Susan asked me, “Is everything okay?”

“Yes.”

She thought a moment and said to me, “If you’re not able to travel tomorrow… if they keep you here for a few days, I can make a business trip for you. Meet someone, or whatever.”

I looked at her and smiled. “Thank you. That’s a very nice offer, but it’s a lot more complex than that. Okay, how do I get to Nha Trang?”

“I’ll e-mail the company’s travel agent and see what I can do.” She sat down at her desk. “Do you want me to try to book you a room somewhere, or do you want to wing it?”

“I’ll need to give Mang an address.”

“Not necessarily. Every major town has an Immigration Police office. Basically, they watch foreigners. So, if you tell Mang you have no address in Nha Trang, he will tell you to report to the Immigration Police either on your arrival, or after you’ve found a place to stay.”

I thought about that, then said to Susan, “I’ll find a place to stay when I get there.” I added, “In fact, I’ll try to find the R&R hotel on the beach that the army took over during the war. That should be a nostalgia trip.”

“Should be. What was the name of it?”

“Don’t remember. An old French place. But I’ll recognize it. In any case, I’ll fax you here after I check in to someplace. If I don’t contact you within twenty-four hours of my departure from Saigon, contact my firm.”

“I’m here to help.” She turned her attention to her computer and started typing. She said, “I’m asking my travel agent about a train or mini-bus reservation to Nha Trang for tomorrow. Planes have been booked for months. I’m offering twice the ticket price, which is already quadrupled for foreigners. Okay?”

“It’s not my money.”

“Good.” She continued typing and said, “I’m also asking her about a private car. There’s also a hydrofoil to Nha Trang, though I’m sure everything’s booked. But we’ll get you to Nha Trang, even if I have to put you on the torture bus.”

“A private car sounds like the way to go. Money is no object. Will this travel agent get back to you ASAP?”

“She’s in at 8 A.M. — Saigon starts early. You’ll be seeing Colonel Mang at about that time. I will meet you in the lobby of the Rex, and we’ll see if you need to go to Nha Trang, or the airport and home.” She added, “And if you’re not at the Rex by, say, noon, then I know who to contact.”

“Do you mind if I give the instructions?”

She looked up from her keyboard and said, “Mr. Brenner, this is not rocket science, and I learn fast. I’ve taken the responsibility of getting you out of Saigon, or reporting your detention or expulsion. Let’s do this my way.”

My goodness. Ms. Weber really was a different lady in her office. Or maybe she was a little miffed at me for not wanting her along on the trip.

She continued banging away at the keyboard and said, “I’m now e-mailing my boss, Jack Swanson, saying I won’t be in until tomorrow afternoon.”

It seemed to me that there was a lot of typing going on for these relatively simple messages.

Ms. Weber shut down her computer, stood, finished her drink, and said to me, “Let me take you to dinner.”

“That’s very nice of you. But I do have an expense account.”

“So do I. And I’m going to tell you why you should invest in Vietnam. It’s the Pacific Rim country with the most potential for growth.”

I replied, “I’ve already invested enough in Vietnam.”

She didn’t reply, walked toward the door, and put her hand on the light switch. “Ready?”

I said, “Please print out the fax report and shred it.”

“Oh… you’re a real pro.” She went to the alcove, printed out the fax activity report, and ran it through the shredder.

I took the camera and the exposed roll of film from her desk and said, “Please put this in your safe.”

She punched the keypad on her safe, and I gave her the film and the camera, which she put in the safe and closed the door.

We left the office and walked around the perimeter of the suite. Susan pointed out the library, the conference room, and a lunch room that looked like a French café.

She said, “We treat ourselves well here. It’s cheap, and it’s a mental health perk. Here’s the workout room and the showers.” We entered a room with a few exercise machines. Through an open door, I saw a massage table.

I thought we were going to our respective places of residence to clean up, but Susan indicated a door that said Men, and informed me, “There’s everything you need in there. I’ll be in the ladies’ shower.”

“If I need anything.”

“Behave. See you here in the exercise room.”

I went into the men’s locker room, got undressed, and stepped into a big shower stall. I turned on the water, got a handful of soap from a liquid dispenser, and washed off the grime of the last twelve hours.

Some men sing in the shower; I think. And what I thought was that no one and nothing here in Saigon or in Washington was as it seemed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I went into the exercise room, found Friday’s Wall Street Journal Asian edition on a chair, sat, and read.

It was quiet in the empty building, and from behind the door of the ladies’ locker room, I could hear a muffled voice, and I was fairly sure it was Susan making her promised phone call to Bill.

About ten minutes later, Susan came out of the locker room wearing a long yellow sleeveless silk dress, and slung over her shoulder was a small leather pouch. The dust was off her face, and she was very tan. Her hair was neatly parted in the middle and hung over her shoulders. A little lip gloss completed the makeover. I stood and said, “You look lovely.”

She didn’t reply to my rare compliment, and I had the impression she’d had a little tiff with Bill. I said, “Maybe I should go back to the Rex and change.”

“You’re fine.”

We went into the reception area, the elevator came, and we got off in the lobby. She said to me, “I’ve had enough driving. We’ll take cyclos.”

I followed her out the doors and onto the sidewalk. We walked for about ten seconds before a flock of cyclos descended on us.

Susan haggled with the cyclo drivers, and I looked at them. They were poorly dressed, scrawny, and not young. A guy I knew who’d been here told me the cyclo guys were mostly former ARVN, and this was one of the few jobs open to them as former enemies of the state.

Susan cut a deal with two of them, and we each hopped into a cyclo and off we went up Dien Bien Phu Street. Susan called over to me, “It cost me double for you because of your weight.”

I looked at her and saw that she wasn’t kidding. I said, “You’re lucky they don’t charge by IQ.”

“You’d ride for free.”

Dien Bien Phu Street was a wide boulevard, heavy with motor traffic, bicycles, and cyclos, and it was a little unnerving sitting in an open compartment with the driver in the rear and cars and scooters cutting in and out.

The city was very lively on a Sunday night, horns honking, boom boxes blasting, and pedestrians crossing in mid-block and against red lights.

Susan pointed out a few sights as we made our way along the boulevard. She said, “This street, Dien Bien Phu, was named after the final battle between the French and the Viet Minh — the predecessors of the Viet Cong. The Viet Minh won.”

“Whoever wins gets to name the streets.”

“That’s right,” she said. “In ten years, this will be called Avenue of the Multinational Corporations.”

Susan took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to her driver, who took it, then the two cyclos came close so she could hand the pack to my driver. She said to me, “My guy wants to know if you’re a veteran.”

I hesitated, then said, “Tell him First Cavalry, Quang Tri, ’68.”

She relayed this, and they both said something to her. Susan said to me, “They are both veterans. My driver was a jet fighter pilot, yours was an infantry captain. They say, good to see you again.”

I looked at her driver and made the V for victory sign. He returned the sign, half-smiled, then stared straight ahead.

We rode around central Saigon, and Susan pointed out the sights, but mostly we just watched the street show.

She said, “See those apartment blocks? They were built by the Americans in the ’60s for CIA and embassy people. They now house Communist party officials.”

The apartment blocks were drab gray concrete, without the usual balconies, and they looked like a penal institution. I said, “Serves them right.”

We passed Notre Dame, and I noticed that the small square was filled with people promenading. The uniformed cops seemed to have disappeared, and I assumed the plainclothes cops took over after dark. And yet, by outward appearances, Saigon did not look like a police state. In fact, it looked like everyone was going out of the way to break some law or another — public drinking, prostitution, sleeping on the sidewalks, running traffic lights, jaywalking, and whatever else they did that I couldn’t see.

On one level, the South Viets were second-class citizens in their own country, ruled like an occupied nation by the cadres of Communist carpetbaggers from the north, and exploited by the Asian and American capitalists. Yet, on another level, they seemed happier and more free than the Communists, like Colonel Mang, or the capitalists, like Susan Weber.

We were at the northern end of Dong Khoi Street now, and it was as if we’d entered Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. The brightly lit street was choked with pedestrians, cyclos, bicycles, and motor scooters, all heading south toward the river.

The facades of the old French-style buildings were nearly covered with neon advertisements, and names of places like Good Morning Vietnam, Ice Blue, and the Cyclo Bar. There were also a number of upscale French and East Asian restaurants and a few grand hotels from another era. I recognized the Continental, where the war correspondents used to stay and make up news stories in the bar.

The metamorphoses from Rue Catinet to Tu Do to Dong Khoi had not been complete, and it seemed like all three versions of the same street co-existed as one. I did remember Tu Do, and I saw a building now and then that I thought I recalled, but too much time had passed and all the names were changed. I called out to Susan over the noise, “Is there still a place called Bluebird? Or Papillon?”

She shook her head. “Never heard of them.” She added, “I understand that the Communists shut everything down in 1975.”

“They’re not fun guys.”

“No, they’re not. A lot of places started to reopen in the late ’80s. Then in ’93, the Communists got annoyed with all the bars and karaoke places and pulled a raid all over the city and shut everything down again. Some places were allowed to re-open, but only if they used Vietnamese names and cleaned up their acts. Little by little, it all came back, bigger, brighter, and crazier than ever, and with Western names again.” She said, “I think, this time, it’s all here to stay. But you never know. They’re unpredictable. No respect for private property and business.”

I pointed out, “They could kick you out.”

“They could.”

“Where would you go?”

She replied, “I have a book called The Worst Places in the World to Live. One of those.” She laughed.

I tried to locate the little alleyway that led to the cul-de-sac where my friend used to live. It was on the left side as we headed down to the river, but I didn’t see it. I said to Susan, “You live on this street?”

“I do. It’s not so bad five nights out of the week. And I’m on the fifth floor and closer to the river. I’ll show you.”

The throngs on the street were mostly young; boys and girls in T-shirts and jeans, the guys chatting up the girls, the girls mostly in groups.

I could see the end of Dong Khoi, and the moonlight on the Saigon River in the distance. Susan called out, “That’s my building.”

She was pointing to the left at a stately old French-style building on the last corner before the river. On the ground floor was a Thai restaurant, and next door was another old hotel called the Lotus, which Susan informed me was once the Miramar, and which I remembered.

She said, “Top floor. Corner apartment, river view.”

Sounded like a real estate ad in the Washington Post. I looked up at the corner apartment and noticed lights in the window. I said, “Someone’s home.”

She replied, “Housekeeper.”

“Of course. You like those corner locations, don’t you?”

The cyclos swung onto the river road where a nice breeze was blowing across the moonlit water. The nice breeze smelled of God knows what, but if you held your nose, it was beautiful. The shore across the river, I noticed, was almost totally black, which I recalled from last time, and there seemed to be not a single bridge over the river. I said to Susan, “That’s still undeveloped over there.”

“I know. There are thousands of acres of flower farms there — orchids, exotic plants, and all that. When I go to sleep at night, I dream about subdivisions and shopping malls, then when I wake up and look out my window, it’s all flowers — a waste of prime property.”

I looked at her and realized she was putting me on. I smiled to show her I was a good sport.

The cyclos went a short block, then swung north onto Nguyen Hue Street, which ran up to the Rex and was parallel to Dong Khoi. This was a wider street, and it, too, was filled with humanity and vehicles.

Susan said to me, “It’s a clockwise circuit — down Dong Khoi, then along the river, and up Nguyen Hue, then right at the Rex on Le Loi, and right again on Dong Khoi. An all-night parade.”

“You mean I have to listen to this from my hotel?”

“Only until about dawn. Then it gets quiet until rush hour starts ten minutes later.”

“Did you pick the Rex for me?”

“I did. It’s close to my apartment, as you can see.”

“I see.”

“I like the rooftop restaurant. I like slow dancing.”

We turned right on Le Loi and continued east. Susan said, “The kids call this circular parade chay long rong — means living fast.”

“We never got above walking speed.”

“I don’t make up the language — I just translate it. It’s like cruising, living in the fast lane; it’s metaphor, not physical speed.”

“I have problems with metaphors. Time for dinner.”

She said something to her driver, and we continued on.

Within five minutes, the cyclos pulled up alongside a big building that looked like an old French opera house, and which Susan said was now a people’s theater, whatever that means. Along one side of the theater was an outdoor café whose tables were filled with Westerners and a few well-dressed Viets, male and female.

We got out of the cyclos, and Susan insisted on paying the drivers — a buck for hers and two bucks for mine. She was being uncharacteristically generous, but I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I gave each of the guys another dollar.

They wanted to shake my hand, so we all shook, then Susan’s driver — the guy who in another life had flown jet fighters — said something and Susan translated. “He says his wife and children were allowed to emigrate to America four years ago. But he wasn’t allowed to leave because he was an officer in the South Vietnamese air force. But under the… what we call the Orderly Departure Program that the Americans have negotiated with Hanoi, he hopes to be allowed to leave next year.”

I said, “Tell him I wish him good luck.”

She translated, he said something, and she said to me, “He thanks America for taking his family. They are doing well and send him money. They live in Los Angeles.”

“Well… I hope they wind up someplace nice.”

My driver, the infantry captain, didn’t have anything to say, and I had the impression he was well beyond any hope for anything.

We walked into the outdoor café whose name, according to a small sign, was the Q-Bar. It seemed to occupy a piece of this theater building and was very minimalist, sort of like a trendy Washington yuppie hangout.

There was an inside section with tables and a bar, and on the walls were murals of what looked like Caravaggio paintings, but it was hard to tell through the cigarette smoke.

A young Vietnamese waitress in a black and white uniform greeted Susan in English, “Good evening, Miss Susan, and where is Mr. Bill tonight?”

I was happy for the opportunity to speak English and replied, “He’s washing his Princeton sweater, but he’ll be along shortly.”

“Ah… good. Table for three?”

“Two.”

Susan didn’t clear up the confusion.

The waitress showed us to a table near the railing, lit by an oil lamp. Susan ordered a California Chardonnay, and I asked for a Dewar’s and soda, which didn’t seem to be a problem.

The waitress moved off, and Susan lit a cigarette. She said, as if to herself, “Washing his Princeton sweater.”

“Excuse me?”

“Was that the best you could do?”

“It was short notice. It’s late.”

We let that go, and I checked out the patrons. They dressed like they made more than a buck a day, and on the street, I saw a few Japanese luxury cars — Lexus and Infiniti, which I hadn’t noticed during the day.

The drinks came. I would have raised my glass to my hostess and said something nice, but I had the feeling she’d heard enough from me. In fact, she said, “Probably I should have taken you someplace else.”

I said, “Of all the gin joints in Saigon, she takes me here.”

She smiled.

I said, “What if Bill shows up?”

“He won’t.” She raised her wine glass. We clinked and drank. “You can get a great burger and fries here. I thought you might be in the mood for that.”

“I am. Good choice.”

Susan said, “This place is owned by an American from California, and his Vietnamese-born wife, who’s also a Californian. The Q is a play on the word kieu — a Viet expat who’s returned. Viet-Kieu. Get it?”

“Got it.”

She said, “This place is popular with the American community and Viet-Kieu high rollers. It’s expensive.”

“Keeps out the riffraff.”

“Right. But you’re with me.”

To show her I wasn’t completely at the mercy of her hospitality and to show some savoir faire, I said to her, “A Frenchman on the flight in gave me the names of a lot of good restaurants and bars.”

“Such as?”

“The Monkey Bar.”

She laughed. “Wall-to-wall whores. And very aggressive. They put their hands down your pants at the bar. You can go to the Monkey Bar after we leave here.”

“I was just checking up on what this guy said.”

“Well, he wasn’t doing you any favors.”

“He recommended a restaurant called Maxim’s — like the one in Paris.”

“It’s a ripoff. Bad food, bad service, overpriced, just like in Paris.”

My French friend was batting zero for two. I asked Susan, “Do you know a woman named Mademoiselle Dieu-Kiem?”

“No. Who is she?”

“A courtesan.”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t reply.

I said, “But I’d rather be with you.”

“So would ninety percent of the men in Saigon. Don’t push your luck, Brenner.”

“Yes, ma’am.” So, my attempt at independence and suavity was squashed like the ugly little bug that it was. “Thank you for bringing me to one of your special places.”

“You’re welcome.”

The waitress brought over tiny menus. Susan ordered fruit and cheese for herself and another wine. I got my burger and fries and ordered a Corona, which they had.

It was cooler than last evening, but I had a film of moisture on my face. I remembered Saigon as hot and unhealthy when I’d left here in June of ’72. I asked Susan, “Do you have a summer house or a weekend place?”

She replied, “That concept hasn’t developed here yet. There’s no running water in the countryside. If you go into the country, you step into the nineteenth century.”

“So, what do you do on weekends in the summer?”

“I sometimes go up to Dalat where it’s cooler, or to Vung Tau, formerly known as Cap Saint Jacques.”

“Not to Nha Trang?”

“No. Never been there. It’s a hike.” She added, “But I’d love to see it. I’m sorry I can’t go with you.”

I let that one alone and asked her, “How difficult is it to travel into the interior of the former North Vietnam?”

She thought about that a moment, then said, “Generally speaking, anywhere along the coast is relatively easy. Highway One, for instance, goes from the Delta all the way to Hanoi, and it’s being improved every year. The Reunification Express — that’s the train — also links the north and south now. But if you mean heading west toward Laos, it’s difficult. I mean, the Viets do it, but they have a lot more tolerance for washed-out roads and bridges, landslides caused by overlogging, steep mountain passes, and vehicle breakdowns. And it’s the winter rainy season up there — a persistent drizzle called crachin — rain dust.” She asked, “Are you headed that way?”

“I’m awaiting further instructions. Have you gone into the interior?”

“No, I’m just reporting what I hear. A lot of Western scientists go there — biologists, mostly. They’ve actually discovered previously unknown species of mammals in the northern interior. They just found an ox that no one knew existed. Plus, there are still tigers in the interior. Have a good trip.”

I smiled. “I actually saw a tiger here once. And an elephant. And they weren’t in the Saigon Zoo where they belonged.”

“Well, be careful. You really can get hurt or get sick out there, and the conditions are very primitive.”

I nodded. At least with the army, the medics were good, and the helicopters got you out of anywhere within half an hour, and onto a hospital ship. This time, I was on my own.

Susan said, “If you’re going into the interior, you may want to pass yourself off as a biologist or naturalist.”

I looked at her. I’d had the same thought as she was telling me about the unknown species. And now I had a new thought: I was getting the briefing I never got in Washington. In fact, a lot of what had seemed like Viet trivia today may have had a purpose.

The food came, and the burger and fries were terrific, and the Corona was ice cold with a lime in it.

She asked me, “Where do you live?”

I replied, “I live outside Falls Church, Virginia.”

“And this is your last assignment?”

“Yes. I retired last year, but they thought I should press my luck and do Vietnam, Part Three.”

“Who are they?”

“Can’t say.”

“And what are you going to do after this?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“You’re too young to retire.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“By your significant other?”

“She’s very supportive of whatever I want to do.”

“Does she work?”

“Yes.”

“What does she do?”

“Same as what I did.”

“Oh, so you met on the job?”

“Right.”

“Is she ready to retire?”

I cleared my throat and said, “She’s younger than I am.”

“Was she supportive of you going to Vietnam for this last assignment?”

“Very. Can I get you another beer?”

“I’m drinking wine. See the glass?”

“Right. Wine.” I signaled the waitress and ordered another round.

Susan said, “I hope you don’t think I’m prying.”

“Why would I think that?”

“I’m just trying to get an image of you, your life, where you live, what you do. Stuff like that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. My favorite subject is usually me.” She thought a moment, then said, “Maybe you’re interesting because you’re not here on business.”

“I am here on business.”

“I mean, money business. There’s no money in this for you. You’re doing what you’re doing for some other reason. I mean, it’s not even because of your career. What is your motivation?”

I thought about that and replied, “I honestly think I’m stupid.”

“Maybe it’s a personal reason, something you’re doing for your country, but really for yourself.”

“Have you considered a radio talk show? Good Morning, Expats.”

“Be serious. I’m trying to help you. You need to know why you’re here, or you won’t be successful.”

“You know, you’re probably right. I’ll think about that.”

“You should.”

To change the subject again, and because I needed some information, I asked her, “How good is your travel agent?”

“Very good. She’s a Viet-Kieu — understands Americans and Vietnamese. Can-do attitude.” She added, “Bottom line, money talks.”

“Good.”

Susan reminded me, “But Colonel Mang might kick you out.”

Maybe I had one beer too many, but I said to her, “What if I didn’t go to see Colonel Mang to find out? What if I just went up country? Would I be able to do that?”

She stared directly into my eyes and said, “Even if you were able to get around the country without anyone asking for your passport or visa, you’ll never get out of this country without one. You know that.”

I replied, “What I had in mind was going to the consulate first thing tomorrow and getting an emergency passport issued.”

She shook her head and said, “They are not yet an official delegation and have no passport-issuing capabilities. That won’t happen for at least six months. So, if you don’t have a passport or a visa, or even photocopies, you won’t get far.”

I replied, “If I get to the American embassy in Hanoi, it becomes their problem.”

“Look, Paul, don’t compound the problem. See Colonel Mang tomorrow.”

“Okay. Tell me about the Immigration Police. Who are these clowns?”

“Well, their business is foreigners. The police in this country were organized by the KGB when the Russians were here, along KGB lines. There are six sections, A to F. Section A is the Security Police, like our CIA. Section B is the National Police, like our FBI, and Section C is the Immigration Police. Sections D, E, and F are respectively Municipal Police, Provincial Police, and Border and Port Police.” She added, “The Immigration Police usually just handle visa and passport violations, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about this.”

“Right.” But I had the thought that Colonel Mang could be an A or B guy in C clothing. That was a fairly common ruse. The other thought I had was that Ms. Weber knew a lot about the Vietnamese fuzz, but maybe all expats had a handle on that.

It was pushing 11 P.M., and I said, “I think I’ll call it a night. Got an early A.M.”

I called for the check, but Susan insisted on paying for it with her company credit card, and I wasn’t going to argue with that.

She wrote something on her copy of the charge slip and said, “Paul Brenner — company unknown — discussed fish cannery investment, dangerous missions, and life.” She smiled and put the slip in her little bag.

We stood and went out in the street. I said, “I’ll walk you home.”

“Thank you. Sort of on the way is one last place I want to show you. Just two blocks from here. We’ll have a nightcap, and you’ll be back to your hotel by midnight.”

Famous last words. I said, “Fine.”

“Unless you’d rather go to the Monkey Bar.”

“I’d much rather have a nightcap with you.”

“Good choice.”

We walked a few blocks to a quiet street that wasn’t particularly well lit. At the end of the street was a big, illuminated building whose sign said Apocalypse Now. I thought I was seeing things, but Susan said, “That’s where we’re going. Have you heard of this place?”

“I saw the movie. Actually, I lived the movie.”

“Did you? I thought you were a cook.”

“I guess I wasn’t a cook.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Neither did Colonel Mang,” I said.

“You told him that?”

“Sounded better than combat infantryman. He may have gotten the idea I killed one of his relatives.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

I didn’t answer that, but said, “The army unit portrayed in that movie was the First Cavalry Division. My division.”

“Really? I saw the movie. Helicopters, rockets, machine guns — Ride of the Valkyries. Unreal. That’s what you did?”

“Yup. Don’t remember the Ride of the Valkyries, but sometimes they’d play cavalry charges from a helicopter on a loudspeaker.”

“Weird.”

“I think you had to be there.”

We had arrived at the front door to a long, low yellow building in front of which were about twenty cyclo drivers, hanging around, smoking.

I said to Susan, “Come here often?”

She laughed. “Actually, no. Just when I have out-of-towners in. I brought my parents here. They were uncomfortably amused.”

A Caucasian man opened the door, and we stepped into Apocalypse Now.

The first thing I saw was a cloud of smoke, like someone had popped about a dozen smoke canisters to mark a landing zone in the jungle. But it was only cigarette smoke.

The place was hopping, and a four-piece combo of Viets was playing Jimi Hendrix. Against the left side of the place was a wall of sandbags and barbed wire, like firebase chic. A big poster from the movie of the same name hung on a wall, and Susan said it was autographed by Martin Sheen, if I wanted to look. I didn’t.

The overhead paddle fans were helicopter blades, and the light globes had red paint splattered on them to look, I guess, like blood.

We went to the long bar against the back wall, which was packed with mostly middle-aged guys, black and white, and they definitely had the look of former military about them. I had this sense of déjà vu, Americans again on the prowl in Saigon.

I got two bottles of San Miguel from the American bartender, who said to me, “Where you from, buddy?”

“Australia.”

“You sound like a Yank.”

“I’m trying to fit in.”

Susan and I sidled up to the bar and sucked up the suds. The place was absolutely fogged in with cigarette and cigar smoke, and Susan lit up. She said to me, “So, GI, you lonely tonight?”

“I’m with someone.”

“Yes? Where she go? She go away with general. She butterfly. I stay with you. Show you good time. I number one girl. Make you very happy.”

I didn’t know whether to be amused or to freak out. I said, “What’s a girl like you doing in a nice place like this?”

She smiled and said, “Need money to go to Harvard.”

I changed the subject and said, “This is the opposite of Cong World.”

“It’s R&R World. Does this offend you?”

“I think that anything that trivializes war is offensive.”

“Want to leave?”

“We’ll finish our beers.” I asked, “When does the shooting start?”

But it wasn’t so easy to leave. There were four couples next to us, all middle-aged, and they struck up a conversation. The men were all former American air force officers, and they had their wives with them to show the ladies where they’d served and all that. They were okay people, and we chewed the fat awhile. They’d all been stationed up north at Da Nang, Chu Lai, and Hue”Phu Bai Airbase, and they’d bombed targets around the DMZ, and that was their ultimate destination. They asked me about my wartime service without asking me if I was a vet. I said, “First Cav, Quang Tri, ’68.”

“No shit?” said one. “We blew the crap out of a lot of targets for you guys.”

“I remember.”

“You going up country?”

“I think we’re already there,” I said.

This got a big chuckle, and one of the guys said, “Is this place unreal, or what?”

“It’s unreal,” I agreed.

The wives didn’t seem overly interested in any of this war stuff for some reason, but when they learned that Susan lived in Saigon, they descended on her, and the five ladies talked shopping and restaurants, while the five guys, myself included, told war stories until the shell casings and bullshit were knee deep. They seemed fascinated about the life of an infantryman and wanted all the gory details.

I obliged, partly because they bought me another beer, but also because this was part of their nostalgia trip, and I guess mine as well. I never get into this stuff at home, but here, in this place, and with a little buzz on, it seemed okay to talk about it.

They told me about dodging surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire, and blowing the living shit out of everything that moved in the DMZ. They used empty beer bottles to demonstrate all of this, and I realized that these guys had totally removed any moral or ethical considerations from the stories, and saw aerial combat as nothing more than a series of technical and logistical problems that needed to be dealt with. I found myself caught up in these narratives of bombing and strafing, which was kind of scary. It doesn’t take much to stir the heart of old warriors, myself included. It was 1968 again.

Midnight came and midnight went. The band was playing the Doors now, and my grip on reality and chronology was slipping.

Now and then, when the band stopped for a few minutes, a loudspeaker would blast a cavalry charge, followed by Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

As far as theme bars went, this was right up there with Planet Hollywood.

Somewhere in the conversation, we got around to places to see and where we’d already gone. I said to them, “You’ve got to get out to the Cu Chi tunnels.”

“Yeah? What’s there?”

“These really big tunnels, the size of train tunnels, where the VC had hospitals, dormitories, supply rooms, kitchens. You go in with electric golf carts. It’s a great tour, and you can have lunch and cocktails in one of the VC dining halls. I think they have ladies silk shops in there, too. The wives will love it.” Why do I do things like this?

The guys made a note of it.

The four airmen came to a belated realization that my First Cavalry Division and the First Cavalry Division in the movie and the theme bar were one and the same, and this called for another round of beers and more war stories.

We ran out of ammunition, and one of the guys asked me, “Who’s the lady?”

“What lady?”

“The lady you’re with.”

“Oh… just somebody I met last night. She lives here.”

“Yeah. So she said. That’s some good-looking woman.”

I’m never sure what to say when someone says that, but I said, “Your wives are very attractive.”

They all agreed that their wives were wonderful and were saints to put up with them. I agreed with this, too, but they wanted to get back to Susan. One guy asked me, “You on top of that?”

“We’re negotiating.”

They all got a big laugh out of that, and that in turn led them to the subject of hookers. We all got a little closer for this conversation, and one guy said, “We’re trying to get them to go shopping on their own.”

“The hookers?”

“No. The wives. All we need is a few hours, but they won’t go by themselves. The city scares them.”

“Get them a female English-speaking guide from the hotel.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. See, Phil? He agrees. Get them a guide, and we’re on our own.”

I recommended the Monkey Bar. “Wall-to-wall whores — don’t pay more than five bucks for the prostitutes, but the waitresses and barmaids can be had for a few bucks more. Then take the wives to Maxim’s for a late dinner.”

They hatched the plot right then and there and did high fives. I thought army guys were bad, but flyboys were worse. I remembered an old army joke and told it. I said, “What’s the difference between an air force pilot and a pig?”

“What?”

“A pig won’t stay up all night trying to fuck a pilot.”

They roared. Good one. Were we having fun, or what?

One o’clock came, and one o’clock went. I needed to take a leak, and I excused myself.

I found the men’s room in a passage that led to another crowded room in the back. When I got out of the men’s room, Susan was waiting for me. She said, “There’s a garden in the back. It’s quiet, and I need some fresh air.”

“Why don’t we leave?”

“We will. I just want to sit down a minute.”

Susan led me to an enclosed garden with little café tables that had candles on them. The garden was strung with paper lanterns, and it was quiet here, and the air smelled better.

We sat at an empty table, and I looked around at couples holding hands. I guess this was sort of like post-Apocalypse, where you went after you died or something.

I also noticed the smell of incense in the air, and the smell of cannabis burning. In fact, I saw little glowing fireflies dancing around the tables as the Js were passed, inhaled, and passed again. I had a sudden urge for a joint, something I hadn’t felt in twenty years.

Susan said to me, “You seemed to be having fun.”

“Good guys.”

“The wives were nice, too. They wanted to know if we were a couple.”

“Is that all women talk about? Sex, sex, sex.”

“We weren’t talking about sex. We were talking about men.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Do you want some tea?”

“What kind of tea?”

“Real tea. The other tea is BYO.”

She called over a waitress and ordered tea.

We sat there in the dark garden, and neither of us spoke. A pot of tea came with two little teacups, and I poured. I don’t even like tea.

We sipped the hot, flavorless tea for a while. I inhaled the steam, and my lungs started working again.

I was exhausted and even Susan yawned, but it was beyond the hour that would have mattered in regard to a good night’s sleep, so we sat there and sipped this horrible tea. After about ten minutes, I realized this was quite pleasant.

Finally, Susan said, “You know what would make me happy?”

“What?”

“If you went home tomorrow.”

For some reason, I told her, “It would make me happy if you went home.”

This was a somewhat intimate exchange between two people who hadn’t yet been intimate. I said, “You need to get out of here before something happens to you… I mean mentally.” I heard myself saying, “You’re worried about me, but I’m worried about you.”

She stared at the flickering candle for a long time, and I saw tears running down her face, which surprised me.

We were both a little drunk, and this moment wasn’t real, or even rational. With that in mind, I said softly, “When I was here… there was this story going around among the troops… the story of Gordon’s Kingdom. Gordon was supposed to be this Special Forces colonel, who went off into the jungle to organize a tribe of Montagnards to fight the VC, but Gordon went around the bend, went native, and got really messed up in the head… you know the story. It was a version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but somehow the story got transferred to Vietnam… this apocalyptic story that they made into this movie… but apocalyptic or not, it was a warning… a fear that we all had, that we would stop wanting to go home, that we would get really messed up in the head, and we couldn’t go home anymore… Susan?”

She nodded and let the tears keep flowing.

I gave her my handkerchief, and we sat there, listening to the night insects, and the muffled sound of sexy Janis Joplin from the bar, punctuated by “Ride of the Valkyries.” I couldn’t even guess at what caused her to weep.

I held her hand, and we sat there awhile longer.

Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “Sorry.” She stood. “It’s time to go.”

We left Apocalypse Now and went out to the street. We got into a taxi, and I told the driver, “Dong Khoi.”

Susan shook her head. “We need to go to the Rex.” She said something to the driver, and he pulled away.

As the taxi moved through the streets, Susan said, “I get weepy when I drink too much. I’m okay now.”

I said, “You must have Irish blood. My whole family and all my Boston friends get drunk, sing Danny Boy, and cry.”

She laughed and blew her nose into my handkerchief.

Within a few minutes, we were at my hotel. Susan and I got out, and she said, “Let’s check that message and see if there’s anything else.”

“That’s okay. I’ll call you at home if there’s anything new.”

“Let’s check.”

So, we entered the hotel and went to the front desk. I got my room key and an envelope. The message inside, in barely readable English, said: You to meet Colonel Mang at Immigration Police headquarters, 0800, Monday. You to bring all travel documents and to bring travel itinerary.

It would appear that I was going to get my visa and passport back in exchange for an itinerary. That’s what I would do if I were Colonel Mang. I had aroused his curiosity, and also pissed him off. He wanted me around.

Susan looked at the message, then got businesslike again and said, “I’ll see you here in the morning when you return from your appointment. I suggest you pack and check out before you leave to see Colonel Mang, and have the hotel hold your bags in the lobby. You may not have a lot of time to spare. I’ll have tickets with me for something by the time I get here, or I’ll have the tickets delivered here. I’ll go with you to the train or bus station, or wherever you need to go. In any case, I’ll be here at nine, waiting.”

“If I’m later than noon, do not wait. Leave the tickets here and contact my firm.”

She took her cell phone out of her bag and gave it to me. She said, “I’ll call you from my apartment in the morning with some tips for your meeting, and I don’t trust the hotel phones.”

I asked, “Is your apartment phone secure?”

“It’s another cell phone. I have a landline, but that’s only for long distance.” She added, “Call me if you need anything, or if something comes up.” She looked at me and said, “Sorry if I kept you out too late.”

“I enjoyed my day. Thank you.”

She smiled, and we gave each other a friendly little hug and kiss on the cheek, and she turned and left the hotel.

I stood in the lobby another few minutes, waiting, I guess, to see if she came back, the way she’d done on the Rex roof. The door opened, but it was just the doorman, who said to me, “Lady in taxi. Okay.”

I walked to the elevators.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I woke before dawn and took two aspirin and one malaria pill.

I’d decided to wear what I wore when I first met Colonel Mang: khaki slacks, blue blazer, and a blue button-down shirt. Cops like to see suspects in the same clothes each time — it’s a psychological thing, having to do with a cop’s negative knee-jerk response to people who change their appearance. This outfit would be fixed in Colonel Mang’s little brain, and with any luck, we’d never see each other again.

I put the snow globe in my overnight bag to give to Susan as a thank-you present. As I was making a final check of the room, Susan’s cell phone rang in my pocket. I answered it and said, “Weber residence.”

She laughed and said, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, except for the chay long rong parade outside my window, and the Ride of the Valkyries running through my head.”

“Same here. I’m a little hungover.” She added, “Sorry if I got weepy.”

“Don’t apologize.”

She got down to business. “Okay, any taxi knows where the Immigration Police headquarters is. It’s actually in the Ministry of Public Security. Give yourself fifteen minutes because of rush hour. Don’t hold your taxi — they don’t like to hang around that building.”

“Maybe Colonel Mang will offer me a ride back to the Rex.”

“He may actually do that if he wants to see some kind of ticket to Nha Trang. But most likely he’ll instruct you to report to the Nha Trang Immigration Police.”

“If he does come back to the Rex, make yourself scarce.”

“Let’s see how it plays.”

I asked her, “Are you glad you got involved with this?”

“Beats going to work. All right, I have an e-mail from my travel agent, and she’s working on transportation to Nha Trang. Leave my cell phone with the front desk, and I’ll pick it up when I get there.”

“Okay.”

“Now, regarding Colonel Mang — try not to piss him off. Tell him you saw the Cu Chi tunnels, and you’ve earned a new respect for the people’s anti-imperialist struggle.”

“Screw him.”

“When you get to the Ministry of Public Security, you want Section C — that’s the Immigration Police. Stay away from A and B, or we may never see you again.” She chuckled, but she wasn’t kidding.

She continued, “You’ll be directed to a waiting room, then you’ll be called, but not by name. It’s random, but old people go first in Vietnam, so you’ll be called first. You then go into another room, and the guy there asks what you want. He’s nasty. Most people are there because they’ve been stopped with an expired visa, or they need visa extensions, or work or residence permits. Low-level stuff.”

That didn’t explain why I was told to go there, but I didn’t point this out.

She continued, “You have an appointment, so ask the nasty guy for Colonel Mang. The word for colonel is dai-ta. You ask for Dai-ta Mang. Give the nasty guy something with your name on it.”

“They’ve got everything with my name on it.”

“Give them your driver’s license or your hotel bill or something. They’re supposed to speak foreign languages for their job, but they don’t, and they don’t want to look stupid. So make it easy for them.”

“You’ve been to this place?”

“Three times after I first got here. Then, somebody in my office told me to stop answering their summonses. So I did, and now they come to my office or my apartment every few months.”

“Why?”

“Paperwork, questions, and a tip. They call it a tip, like they just did me a service. Usually takes me about ten minutes and ten bucks to get rid of them. But don’t offer Colonel Mang any money. He’s a colonel, and maybe a pure and true Party member. You could get arrested for bribery, which is the biggest joke in this country because you usually get arrested for non-bribery.”

“Right.”

“But if he asks for money, give it to him. The going rate to ransom your passport and visa is fifty bucks. Don’t ask for a receipt.”

I thought about this and about my conversation with Colonel Mang at the airport, and I was fairly certain that money was not what Colonel Mang was after.

She continued, “Some of these guys are nothing more than corrupt former South Vietnamese police who’ve managed to stay on the job with the Reds. But some of them are northerners, trained by the KGB, and they still have KGB heads. Also, the higher the rank, the less corrupt. Be careful with Colonel Mang.”

“Right.” And this raised the question of how I got lucky enough to meet Colonel Mang in the first place.

Susan asked me, “Did he seem old enough to have fought in the war?”

“He remembers the war quite well.”

She stayed silent for a few seconds, then said, “Maybe you can turn your shared experiences into something positive.”

“Yeah. Look, I’m not going there to bond with the guy — I just want my papers, and I want out of there.”

“But you don’t want him to kick you out of the country.”

“No, and he has no intention of doing that. I’m not going home today — I’m going to Nha Trang, or to jail — so be prepared to fax my firm either way.”

“I understand.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s about it. See you later.”

“Okay… look, Susan… if I don’t see you later… thanks—”

“See you later. ’Bye.”

I hung up, turned off the cell phone, and put it in my jacket pocket.

I gathered my bags and took them down to the lobby. I went to the front desk and saw that one of the clerks was Lan, the same woman who had checked me in. I gave her my room key and said, “Checking out.”

She played with her computer and said, “Ah, yes, Mr. Brenner. I check you in.”

“You did.”

“Did you enjoy your stay?”

“I really did. Saw the Cu Chi tunnels.”

Lan made a face and didn’t reply. As the bill printed out, she asked me, “Can we assist you in any way with your travel plans?”

“Yes, you can. I need to go now to the Immigration Police to get my passport. You remember all that.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“So, I’ll leave my luggage here and with luck — ba ba ba — I’ll be back shortly to collect it.”

Again, she nodded, then handed me my bill. She said, “Your room has been pre-paid. How would you like to settle the extra charges?”

I scanned my bill and felt I needed to explain that I hadn’t gotten a blow job in the spa, despite the big charge. But I replied instead, “I’ll settle it when I return with my passport and visa, and collect my luggage.”

Lan thought about that a moment and replied, “As you wish.”

It’s got to be tough running a four-star hotel in a totalitarian state. I mean, your guests disappear without a trace, the police come to search the rooms and upset the maids, and there are so many phone taps that you can’t make a dinner reservation without getting a cop on the line.

I gave Lan Susan’s cell phone and said, “A young lady, an American, will be along shortly to pick this up. Please see that she gets it.”

“Certainly.”

I took the snow globe out of my overnight bag and gave it to Lan. “Also, please give this to her and tell her I said thank you.”

Lan examined the snow globe, but didn’t comment on it. To a Vietnamese, it may have looked like a layer of rubble around a partially destroyed building.

Lan called over a bellboy, who gave me two receipts for my luggage and who got a dollar in return. Lan said to me, “Thank you for staying with us. The doorman will call a taxi for you.”

I went out to the sidewalk and a taxi appeared. I said to the doorman, “Tell the driver I need to go to police headquarters. Ministry of Public Security. Biet?”

The doorman hesitated for a beat, then said something to the taxi driver as I got in.

We pulled away from the curb and headed west on Le Loi Street.

We drove through a section of the city that looked as if it held every cheap hotel and guest house in Saigon, and between the cheap lodgings were cheap eateries. The area was filled with young backpackers of all races and colors, boys and girls on a great adventure; a far different Vietnam experience than my own at that age, when I, too, carried a backpack.

The taxi turned into a street named Nguyen Trai, and continued on. I looked at my watch: It was five minutes to eight.

We pulled over and stopped near a three-story building of dirty yellow stucco, set back from the street behind a wall. The driver motioned to the building, and I paid him and got out. He sped off.

The structure was big and seemed to be part of a larger compound. There was a flagpole out front that flew a red flag with a yellow star.

There were two armed policemen at the open gate in the wall, but they didn’t challenge me as I passed through. I guess no one tries to break into this place.

I crossed the small forecourt and entered the building into a sparse lobby.

In front of me was a high, ornate wooden desk, like a judge’s bench, which looked very Western, like it had been left over from the French. A uniformed guy sat there, and I said to him, “Immigration Police.”

He stared at me awhile, then handed me a small square of green paper that had the letter C on it. He pointed to my left and said, “Go.”

So, off I went, thinking, “Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go.”

I walked down a wide corridor that had offices on either side, and through the window of an open office I could see a large interior courtyard. The Ministry of Public Security was obviously a big and important place with much work to do. I had no doubt that the courtyard was used for executions under the French, and maybe under the South Vietnamese, and the Communists.

I passed a few uniformed cops, and a lot of badly dressed bureaucratic types with attaché cases. They all eyed me, but the little green pass got me to the end of the corridor to a door marked C. Above the door was a sign that said Phong Quan Ly Nguoi Nuoc Ngoai. Nuoc, I know, means water, and Ngoai is foreign, according to Susan’s license plates — so this was either the ministry that imported foreign water, or it was the place where foreigners from overseas had to report. Betting on the latter, I walked through the open door and entered a medium-sized waiting room. The room held about two dozen plastic chairs and nothing else. There were no windows, only louvers near the ceiling, and no fans. Also, there were no ashtrays, judging by the cigarette butts all over the tile floor.

Four of the chairs were occupied by young backpackers, with their packs on the floor. They were chatting with one another — three guys and a girl. They looked up at me, then went back to their conversation.

I took a seat. On one wall was a big poster showing a condom. The condom had a face, two feet, two arms, and was carrying a sword and a shield. Dangling from the sword was the word AIDS, and written on the condom was the word OK. Some comedian had written on the condom in English, Vietnamese Fighting Meat Puppet Show — People’s Theater.

On another wall was a poster of a Vietnamese woman and a Western gent embracing, and the words in English said AIDS Can Kill You.

On the far wall was a poster of Ho Chi Minh surrounded by happy peasants and workers, and next to that was a sign in English that said Not to cause big disturbances and not with radio. This enigmatic message was repeated in several languages, and I hoped that at least one of them made sense.

A few more people entered the room, mostly young people, but then a middle-aged Vietnamese couple entered, and I guessed they must be Viet-Kieus with a visa problem.

The young people were all chatting with one another in English, and with various accents ranging from American to Australian to several European-sounding accents. I heard the word “fuck” pronounced six different ways.

Also, from what I could overhear, most of these kids were looking for a visa extension, but some of them were looking for their visas and passports that had been officially stolen by the police. None of them seemed particularly concerned. The Viet couple, however, looked frightened, and also astounded at the backpackers who didn’t. Interesting.

It was ten after eight, and I decided to give it ten more minutes before I caused big disturbances not with radio.

A few minutes later, a guy in a khaki uniform entered the room and looked around. He saw me and motioned for me to come with him. It’s a pretty good deal being old in a Buddhist country.

I followed the guy out into the hallway, then into another room, an office, across the hall.

A uniformed officer in khakis with shoulder boards sat behind a desk, smoking. He said to me, “Who you? Why you here?”

This must be the nasty guy. I looked him in the eye and said in slow, simple English, “I—” I tapped my chest, “here to see Dai-ta Mang.” I tapped my watch, “Appointment,” then gave him my hotel bill. I didn’t want to give him my driver’s license because these clowns had enough of my official identification, and I pictured myself out in the street with no ID, except my monogrammed handkerchief.

In any case, the guy seemed okay with the bill, which he examined for some seconds. He then looked at a sheet of paper and seemed to be trying to match names. His cigarette ash broke off and landed on my hotel bill. I looked around for a fire extinguisher, or an exit sign.

Finally, Nasty looked up and said something to the guy who’d brought me in, waved the hotel bill around as if he was an unsatisfied hotel guest, and the other guy took the bill and motioned me to follow him. And we complain about rude civil servants.

So, I followed this guy down the long, straight hallway, wondering if I’d gotten my message across, or if they thought I was a bill collector from the Rex looking for a deadbeat named Mang. I hadn’t realized how useful it was to have Susan with me.

Anyway, this guy stopped and knocked on a door numbered 6. The guy opened the door, but motioned me to stand back. He entered, I could hear talking, then the guy came out and pointed inside.

I entered a small windowless room. Sitting at a wooden table was Colonel Mang, and on the table was the hotel bill, a newspaper, his attaché case, a teapot and cup, and an ashtray overflowing with butts. This was obviously not his office, which I suspected was in Section A; this was an interrogation room.

Colonel Mang said, “Sit.”

I sat in a wooden chair across from him.

Colonel Mang looked as unpleasant as I remembered him at the airport. The narrow eyes, high cheekbones, sneering, thin lips, and taut skin made him look like he’d had six facelifts. His voice also still annoyed me.

Colonel Mang pretended to be looking at the papers on his desk, then looked up at me and said, “So, you have brought for me your itinerary.”

“Yes, I have. And you’ve brought for me my passport, and my visa, which you took from the hotel.”

Colonel Mang looked at me a long time, then said, “Your itinerary.”

I replied, “I leave for Nha Trang today. I will stay there for four or five days, then I go to Hue.”

“Yes? And how do you travel to Nha Trang?”

“I’ve asked a travel agent to find me transportation. My ticket will be waiting for me at the Rex.”

“And you have no ticket to show me?”

“No.”

“So, you may go by automobile.”

“I may.”

“If this is the case, you must go through Vidotour, the official tour agency. This is the authorized way to travel by automobile and driver in Vietnam. You may not hire a private car and driver.”

“I’m sure my travel agent knows that.”

“They know. But they do not always follow this procedure. If you travel by automobile, you must book through Vidotour, and you must tell Vidotour office to call this office and report the name of your driver and the automobile license plate number.”

“Sounds very reasonable.” The good news seemed to be that I was free to go to Nha Trang. The bad news was that I was free to go to Nha Trang.

Colonel Mang asked me, “Who is this travel agent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you not know?”

“I asked an American acquaintance in Ho Chi Minh City to assist me.”

“Yes? And who is this American acquaintance?”

“Bill Stanley. Bank of America.”

Colonel Mang hesitated a moment, then made a note of this. Bill Stanley now had something in common with Sheila O’Connor, who I’d ratted out to Father Bennett in another lifetime. Sometimes you’ve got to rat someone out, but never rat out a friend. Pick an Ivy League grad whenever you can.

Colonel Mang asked me, “How do you know this man?”

“We went to Princeton together. College.”

“Ah… and you say he is with the Bank of America?”

I was getting a bad vibe about this for some reason. I replied, “I believe that’s what he said.”

Colonel Mang nodded, then said to me, “Inform your travel agent that he or she must telephone this office this morning and ask for me.”

“Why?”

“You ask too many questions, Mr. Brenner.”

“You ask too many questions, Colonel Mang.”

This pissed him off, but he kept his cool. He looked at me and said, “You are the one who is raising questions in my mind.”

“I have been completely truthful and cooperative with you.”

“That remains to be seen.”

I didn’t reply.

He repeated, “Tell your travel agent to call me. Where are you staying in Nha Trang?”

“I have no reservations at this time.”

“You must have an address.”

“I’ll get an address when I get there.”

“Why do you wish to go to Nha Trang?”

“It was recommended as the best beach in Southeast Asia.”

This seemed to please the little shit, and he said, “It is. But you did not come all this way to go to the beach.”

“I was there in 1968.”

“Ah, yes, where the combat soldiers would go for rest.”

I didn’t reply.

Meanwhile, the guy was chain-smoking, and the air was thick with smoke, not to mention humidity and the smell of sweat, which may have been my own.

Colonel Mang made another note on a piece of paper and said to me, “When you arrive at Nha Trang, you will report to the Immigration Police and give them your address. If you do not find accommodations, inform them of this.” He looked at me and said, “They will see to it that you have a place to sleep.”

I thought he meant jail, but he continued, “They have some influence with the hotels.” He smiled.

“I’m sure they have. I thank you, Colonel Mang, for your assistance, and I won’t keep you any longer.”

He gave me a nasty look and informed me, “It is I, Mr. Brenner, who am keeping you longer.” He took a sip of tea and said to me, “How do you propose to travel from Nha Trang to Hue?”

“By whatever means are available.”

“You must inform the Immigration Police in Nha Trang of your means of travel.”

“Can they help me with transportation?”

He seemed to miss my sarcasm and said, “No.” He looked at me and asked the big question. “You have five days between the time you leave your hotel in Hue and the time you are to check into the Metropole in Hanoi. What do you intend to do with those days?”

Well, I had to go to Tam Ki on a secret mission, but I really wanted to go to Washington and break Karl’s neck.

“Mr. Brenner?”

“I’m going to travel up the coast, by train or by bus, to Hanoi.”

“The trains do not run for four days after Sunday. The bus is unsuitable for Westerners.”

“Really? Well, I’ll hire a car and driver. Through Vidotour, of course.”

“Why do you wish to travel by land and not aircraft?”

“I thought it would be educational to see the former North Vietnam on my way to Hanoi.”

“What do you wish to learn?”

“How the people live. Their customs and way of life.”

He thought about that a moment, then informed me, “For ten years, the people in the north suffered and died under American bombs, and shells from your battleships. I recommend to you the Vinh Moc tunnels where the residents of that coastal town lived for seven years during the American bombardment. You may not find those people as friendly to you as you may have found them here in the former American puppet state.”

Colonel Mang might make a good Cong World tour guide. I said, “Well, then, I want to learn from that experience.”

He seemed to be mulling this over. If I was Colonel Mang, I wouldn’t press Paul Brenner about this loose itinerary from Hue to Hanoi. Because if Paul Brenner was up to something, then most likely what he was up to was going to transpire during those days.

Mang looked at me and said, “You are free to travel north from Hue to Hanoi by any legal means at your disposal.”

We made eye contact. We both knew we were both full of shit.

Colonel Mang made a few more notes on his piece of paper, and though I’m trained to read upside down, I can’t even read Vietnamese right side up. Colonel Mang said to me, “And when you are in Hue, you will visit the places in the vicinity where you were stationed. Correct?”

I replied, “I intend to take a day trip to Quang Tri City and see my former base camp.”

“Well,” said Colonel Mang, “you will be disappointed. There is no city of Quang Tri any longer. Only a village, and no evidence of the former American bases in the area. Everything was completely destroyed by American bombs in 1972.”

I didn’t reply.

He said, “You will report to the Immigration Police in Hue.” Colonel Mang sat back, lit yet another cigarette, and stared at me through the smoke. “So, how have you spent your days in Ho Chi Minh City?”

Not wanting to piss him off again about place names, I said, “In Ho Chi Minh City, I saw many excellent places. I took your advice and went to the Museum of American War Crimes.”

He didn’t seem overly surprised at this, making me wonder if I’d been followed.

I continued, “I saw photographs of what happened to the South Vietnamese soldiers and the Montagnard hill people who didn’t lay down their arms after the surrender. They paid a high price, but they should have just gone into the re-education camps like a few million other people, and they would have come out happier and better citizens of the Socialist Republic.”

Colonel Mang seemed uncertain of my enthusiasm and conversion. Maybe I was laying it on too thick, but there was no reason to stop. “That evening, I had dinner at the rooftop restaurant of the Rex where the American generals dined while their troops fought and died in the rice paddies and jungles.”

I made eye contact again with Colonel Mang. If he was sharp, he already knew from my hotel bill where I had dinner, and that I hadn’t dined alone, unless I ate a lot. But he just stared at me.

I said, “On Sunday, I saw the former presidential palace where Diem and Thieu lived like emperors while their soldiers and the people suffered and died.”

Again, I couldn’t tell if he already knew this. I decided that I was giving him too much credit for police state efficiency. I said to Mang, “I’m very impressed with all I’ve seen and learned.” I elaborated a bit, as though I was an inmate in a re-education camp looking to get out.

Colonel Mang listened as I related my many moments of epiphany, and he nodded. He seemed to be buying it. If I’d bought those Ho Chi Minh sandals, I would have put my feet on his desk, but I seemed to be doing okay without the props.

I said, “On Sunday, I went out to the Cu Chi tunnels.”

He leaned forward. “Yes? You traveled to the Cu Chi tunnels?”

Colonel Mang realized he’d shown genuine surprise instead of inscrutability. He asked, “How did you get to Cu Chi?”

“I took a tour bus. It was absolutely amazing. Two hundred kilometers of tunnels, dug right under the nose of the South Vietnamese and American armies. How in the world did they hide all that dirt?”

Colonel Mang answered my rhetorical question. “The soil was thrown into streams and bomb craters by thousands of loyal peasants, a kilo at a time. When the people work as one, anything is possible.”

“I see that. Well, it was all very educational, and it certainly changed my thinking about the war.” So, let’s get the fuck out of here.

Colonel Mang stayed silent for some time, then asked me, “Why do you travel alone?”

“Why? Because I couldn’t find anyone to go with me.”

“Why did you not join a veterans’ group? There are groups of men who shared the same experience and who return with organized tours.”

“I’ve heard about that, but I wanted to come here during Tet, and I made a last-minute decision to just come.”

He looked at my visa again and said, “This is dated ten days ago.”

“Right. Last-minute decision.”

“Americans usually plan for months in advance.”

Obviously, this is what first caught the eye of the guy at the Passport Control booth. I owed Karl a kick in the nuts. I said, “I’m retired. I just go where I want, when I want.”

“Yes? And yet your passport was issued several years ago, and there are no visa stamps or entry and exit stamps on the pages.”

“I travel in the United States and Canada.”

“I see. So this is your first overseas trip?”

“Since that passport was issued.”

“Ah.”

Colonel Mang gave me one of those looks that suggested he was somewhat confused by an inconsistency in my responses. He changed the subject and asked me, “Are you married?”

I replied, “That is a personal question, Colonel Mang.”

“There are no personal questions.”

“There are, where I come from.”

“Yes? And you can refuse to answer the question of a policeman?”

“That’s right.”

“And what happens to you when you refuse to answer?”

“Nothing.”

He said to me, “I have heard this, but I do not believe it.”

I replied, “Well, go to the U.S. and get yourself arrested.”

He didn’t think that was funny. He played around with the papers on his desk, and I didn’t see my passport. “You have seen many prostitutes in Ho Chi Minh City. Correct?”

“I may have.”

“They service the foreigners. Vietnamese men do not go to prostitutes. Prostitution is not legal in Vietnam. You have seen karaoke bars and massage parlors. You have seen drugs for sale, and you have seen a great deal of Western-influenced decadence in Ho Chi Minh City. You are thinking that the police have lost control, that the revolution has been corrupted. Correct?”

“Correct.”

He informed me, “There are two cities that occupy the same time and space. Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City. We let Saigon exist because it is useful for the moment. But one day, Saigon will no longer exist.”

“I think, Colonel Mang, the foreign capitalists may disagree with you.”

“They may. But they, too, are here only as long as we want them here. When the time comes, we will shake them off, the way a dog shakes off his fleas.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

He didn’t like that at all and stared at me a long time. He changed the subject and said, “As you travel, Mr. Brenner, you can see the destruction your military caused, which is still not repaired.”

I said, “I think both sides caused the destruction. It’s called war.”

“Do not lecture me, Mr. Brenner.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Colonel Mang. I know what war looks like.”

He ignored that and continued his lecture. “Now you will see a country at peace, ruled for the first time in a hundred years by the Vietnamese people.”

Poor Colonel Mang. He was a real patriot, and he was trying to come to grips with the guys in Hanoi who were selling the country to Coca-Cola, Sony, and Credit Lyonnaise. This must really be a bitter pill to swallow for this old soldier who gave his youth and his family for a cause. Like most soldiers, myself included, he didn’t understand how the politicians could give away what had been bought in blood. I almost felt some empathy with the guy, and I wanted to tell him, “Hey, buddy, we all got screwed — you, me, and the dead guys we know, we all got the shaft. But get over it. The new world order has arrived.” Instead, I said to him, “I’m very much looking forward to seeing the new Vietnam.”

“Yes? And when you visit your old battlefields, what will you feel?”

I replied, “I was a cook. But if I was a combat soldier, I have no idea what I’d feel until I stood on the battlefield.”

He nodded. After a few seconds, he said to me, “When you arrive in Hanoi, you will again report to the Immigration Police.”

“Why? I’m leaving the next day.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

I leaned toward Colonel Mang and said, “My first stop in Hanoi will be the American embassy.”

“Yes? And for what purpose?”

“I’ll leave that for you to figure out.”

Colonel Mang thought about that and said to me, “Did you contact your consulate here?”

I replied, “Through my acquaintance here, I registered my presence in Ho Chi Minh City, my problem at the airport, my passport being taken, and my arrival date in Hanoi.” I added, “My acquaintance here will or has already contacted the American embassy in Hanoi.”

Colonel Mang did not reply.

I liked the subject of the American embassy, so I said, “I think it’s a very good thing that Washington and Hanoi have established diplomatic relations.”

“Do you? I do not.”

“Well, I do. It’s time to bury the past.”

“We have not even buried all the dead yet, Mr. Brenner.”

I wanted to tell him I knew about the Communists bulldozing the cemeteries of the South Vietnamese military, but I was already a pain in his ass. I said, “If America had no diplomats here, who could I complain to about your behavior?”

He actually smiled, then informed me, “I liked it much better the way it was after 1975.”

“I’m sure you did. But it’s a new world, and a new year.”

He ignored this and asked me, “Did you give your acquaintance, Mr. Stanley, your travel itinerary?”

“I did.”

He smiled. “Good. So if you met with a misadventure along the way, and if no one hears from you in Nha Trang or Hue or at the Metropole in Hanoi, your embassy and the police can join in making inquiries.”

I said, “I don’t intend to meet with any misadventures, but if I do, my embassy will know where to make the first inquiry.”

Colonel Mang seemed to enjoy exchanging subtle threats and counter-threats. I think he appreciated me on one level. Also, by this time, he was starting to suspect that he and I were in a similar business. And I was fairly sure that Colonel Mang was several steps up from an Immigration police officer; he’d borrowed this ratty office in Section C, full of backpackers and condom posters. Colonel Mang’s real home was in Section A or maybe B. Section C put the suspect at ease and off his guard. And regarding my notifying the embassy, or Karl, they weren’t as concerned about the Immigration Police as they would have been about the Security Police or the National Police.

Also, I thought, there was some irony and symmetry at work here — I wasn’t a former cook or a tourist, and Colonel Mang was not an Immigration cop. And neither of us was going to get nominated for Best Actor Award.

I said, “Colonel, I need to get back to the Rex Hotel, or I might miss my transportation. Thank you for your time and advice.”

He pretended he didn’t hear me and looked at my hotel bill. He said, “A very expensive dinner. Did you dine alone?”

“I did not.”

He didn’t ask any further questions and didn’t ask for money. He took a piece of cheap paper and wrote something on it, then took a rubber stamp off the desk, and pressed it onto the paper. Colonel Mang said, “You will show this to the Immigration Police wherever you report to them.” He handed me the stamped paper, my hotel bill, my passport, visa, and another square of paper with a C on it, though this one was yellow. “You will take this pass directly to the desk where you entered the building and give it to the man there.” He smiled and added, “Do not lose your pass, Mr. Brenner, or you will never get out of this building.”

Colonel Mang had a little sense of humor; warped, but at least he was trying. I stood and said, “I had an interesting visit, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

He ignored this and informed me, “If you deviate from your itinerary, notify the closest Immigration Police. Good day.”

I said to him, “And thank you for returning my souvenir to my room.”

“That is all, Mr. Brenner.”

I couldn’t resist and said, “Chuc Mung Nam Moi.”

“Leave, before I change my mind.”

Well, we didn’t want that, so I left.

Outside in the hallway, there was no one to escort me, so I just walked down the hall by myself.

I got to the front lobby and gave the guy there my yellow pass, and he pointed to the front doors and said, “Go.”

I walked toward the front doors. The Ministry of Public Security was sort of a bad imitation of Orwell’s Ministry of Love, but there was a palpable presence of police power in this building, a feeling of accumulated decades of fear, intimidation, interrogations, blood, sweat, and tears.

I left the building and walked out into the sunlight. As Susan said, there were no taxis around, and I walked a block before a cab pulled alongside me. I got in and said, “Rex Hotel.”

And off we went. I glanced at the note that Colonel Mang had given me. It was a long sentence in Vietnamese, except for the words Paul Brenner. I also recognized the word My—American. Colonel Mang had signed the note with his full name, which was Nguyen Qui Mang, followed by his rank, dai-ta. These Nguyens got around. Anyway, the stamp on the note was a red star with a few words, including phong quan ly nguoi nuoc ngoai. I put the paper in my pocket, pretty pissed off about having to carry around a note from the fuzz.

It was a few minutes after nine, and within ten minutes, I was back at the Rex.

I walked into the lobby, and there was Susan Weber, sitting in a chair facing the door, wearing navy blue slacks, walking shoes, and a tan cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She saw me, stood, and moved quickly toward me, as though we were lovers meeting for a tryst.

Neither of us wanted to be overdramatic, so we just took each other’s hand without any hugging or smooching. She said, “How did it go?”

“Fine. I’m free to roam. How’d you do with the ticket?”

“I’ve got you booked on the train to Nha Trang.”

“Great. You’re terrific.”

“But the ticket isn’t here yet, and it’s a 10:15 departure.”

“How far is the station?”

“About twenty minutes, this time of day. So, what did Colonel Mang say?”

“I’m re-educated.”

She smiled. “Did you keep your smart mouth shut?”

“I tried. He said the prostitutes, the drugs, the karaoke bars, and you would soon be history.” I added, “Not you by name, of course.”

“You know, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

“It does, if you’re Colonel Mang. He’s got a serious double-think problem going in his head, and I’m afraid he may have a nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, when is my ticket going to arrive?”

“Any moment. And thank you for that snow globe. Is that for me?”

“Yes. It’s not much, but you don’t need much.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“Precisely.” I said, “I’ve got to settle my bill here—”

“It’s done.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“It could have been, and now you have time to tell me about the twenty-dollar massage charge.” She smiled.

“I overtipped.” We let that one go, and I said, “Colonel Mang wants your travel agent to call him tout de suite and report in.” I added, “Sorry if that causes a problem. He insisted.”

“That’s okay. Vidotour reports everything, but the private travel agents don’t, unless they’re specifically told to. I’ll call her.”

“Does Bill use the same travel agent?”

“Sometimes. Why?”

“Because he was the one who called the travel agent on my behalf. I didn’t want to use your name.”

“Oh… well… it doesn’t matter. I’ll call him and straighten it out.”

“Tell him I thank him for getting me out of Saigon. That will make him happy.”

She didn’t respond to that and said, “Did Colonel Mang give you any sort of note, or anything in writing?”

I showed her my note from Colonel Mang and asked, “What’s it say?”

She looked at it and gave it back to me. “It says, ‘Register the address of Paul Brenner, American, and his arrival and departure, and means of transportation to and from your location.’ ”

I nodded. What the note didn’t say was, “Report this to the Security Police,” but that was understood.

Susan said, “It used to be common for Westerners to register with the Immigration Police. You used to need a travel permit in addition to your passport and visa. Travel has become less restrictive in the last few years.”

“Not for me.”

“Apparently not. Let me make a few calls.” She added, “Maybe someone can get a fix on Colonel Nguyen Qui Mang.”

She walked off toward the door where the signal would be better and made a few calls. I hate to leave other people holding the bag for me, and I never do that in my private life, but when I’m on an assignment, Rule Number One is the mission comes first, and Paul Brenner comes second, and everyone else is last. That didn’t include Susan, of course, and probably shouldn’t have included Bill Stanley. It was no big deal, anyway, though I noticed that Susan seemed a little concerned or maybe annoyed.

Susan returned from her cell phone calls and said, “It’s all straightened out.”

“And Bill was pleased that I gave his name to Colonel Mang?”

She said, “You could have used my name.”

“No, I couldn’t have. I don’t want Colonel Mang questioning you and finding inconsistencies in my conversation with him.”

“I thought you were being chivalrous.”

“Spell that.”

I noticed a kid of about twelve coming through the door. Susan walked over to him and said something. He gave her an envelope, she gave him a tip, then said something to my friend Lan, and motioned me toward the door.

Things started to move fast now, and Susan and I were out on the sidewalk. She said, “That’s my taxi, and your bags are in the trunk. Let’s move.”

We got into the taxi, and Susan spoke to the driver, and off we went.

I said to her, “You don’t have to come to the station—”

“It will go much faster if I’m with you, unless you’ve learned to read and speak Vietnamese in the last few hours.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll take the ticket.”

“I’ll hold it. I need to show it at the station. You don’t actually have a seat, but I got you a car number. It’s a second-class coach and will be filled with Viets, any one of whom will give up his seat for five bucks, and stand. You can’t do that in First Class because they’re mostly Westerners, and they’ll tell you to fuck off. Okay?”

I said to Susan, “When you get back to your office, I need you to fax or e-mail my firm and tell them I’m off to Nha Trang. Tell them Colonel Mang wants me to report to the Immigration Police there, but I don’t believe the mission is compromised, though I may be under surveillance. Okay?”

She stayed quiet a moment, then said, “I thought they’d be on pins and needles waiting to hear the outcome of your meeting, so I called the consulate when I made those other calls. I kept it short, in case the call was monitored. I got hold of the guy there who knows about this. I think he’s the resident CIA guy. I just said, ‘He’s free to travel. Wire his firm.’ Okay?”

I thought about this and said, “Okay. But you e-mail or fax them with a full report when you get to the office.”

“Will do.”

The train station was north of the center, and within fifteen minutes we pulled up near the entrance amid dozens of taxis, buses, and swarms of people.

Susan gave the driver a five, and we got out as he popped the trunk. I pulled my bags out of the trunk and noticed a big yellow backpack in the trunk. Susan pulled it out and slammed the trunk closed, then put on the backpack. She said, “Okay, let’s move.”

“Uh… hold on.”

“Come on, Paul. We’ll miss the train.”

We? I followed her into the station, pulling my suitcase through the big central terminal. Susan looked at the display board and said, “Track 5. That’s this way. Let’s move.”

We hurried across the open area crowded with travelers, and I said, “We can say good-bye here.”

She replied, “I hate good-byes.”

“Susan—”

“I feel responsible for getting you to Nha Trang. Then you’re on your own. Okay?”

I didn’t reply.

We got to the track, and Susan showed the woman at the gate two tickets. They exchanged some words, Susan gave her a dollar, and the woman waved us through.

We hurried along the platform, and Susan said, “Car 9. That’s at the far end, of course.”

My watch said 10:12, and the conductor was calling all aboard in Vietnamese, which could have been funny if I was in a better mood.

We got to Car 9, and I hefted my suitcase on board, then jumped on and pulled Susan up after me. We stood there in the end vestibule compartment, and I was huffing, puffing, and sweating.

The conductor gave the last all-aboard, the doors closed, and the train started to move. We stood there and looked at each other as the train began gaining speed, moving away from the station.

I asked, “How much do I owe you for the ticket?”

She smiled. “We’ll settle later.”

I said, “I really didn’t see this coming.”

“Of course, you did. You’re a spy. You saw that I wasn’t dressed for the office. I held the tickets. I already called the consulate. I stopped mentioning that I wanted to go with you. I came to the station. I held a taxi with your luggage in the trunk — along with mine. So what was your first clue?”

“All of the above, I guess.”

“So, stop acting surprised.”

“Right.”

“Do you want me along?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll only stay in Nha Trang a few days, then I’m going back to Saigon.”

“Did you get a hotel?”

“No, we’ll find that hotel you stayed at on your R&R — if it’s still standing.”

I looked through the window of the vestibule door and saw that the coach was packed with people, luggage, crates, and just about everything except farm animals. I said, “We may be better off standing.”

She said, “It’s five or six hours to Nha Trang. We’ll buy two seats.”

The train was passing through the northern outskirts of Saigon, and I saw a jet fighter, a Russian-made MiG, coming in to land at what must have been Bien Hoa Airbase, my former home away from home.

A conductor came into the small vestibule, and Susan and he spoke. She counted out twelve singles, and he left. She said to me, “He’ll do the deal. He keeps the change.”

The tracks swung east now, toward the coast, and the Saigon sprawl rolled on with the train. I could see houses that were little more than shacks, and I remembered these from 1972, when almost a million refugees from the countryside had crowded into the relative safety of Saigon.

Susan said to me, “I really love the beach. Do you have a bathing suit?”

“Yes. Bathing suits in your luggage look touristy to government snoops going through your things.”

“You spies are really clever.”

“I’m not a spy.”

“That’s right.” She smiled. “I packed light, as you can see. Just a few days. I brought my swimsuit. The beach is supposed to be magnificent.”

“Is the beach topless?”

She smiled. “Always thinking. No, you can’t do that here. They go nuts. But at Vung Tau there are secluded spots where the French go to swim and sunbathe in the nude. But if you get caught by the local fuzz, you’ve got a problem.”

“Did you ever get caught?”

“I never went topless or nude. I’d love to, but I’m a resident, so I can’t claim ignorance.” She asked, “So you had an R&R in Nha Trang?”

“Yes. May 1968. The weather was good.”

“I thought you went someplace out of the country for R&R.”

“There were three-day in-country R&Rs available to people who did something to deserve it.”

“I see. And what did you do to deserve an in-country R&R?”

“I invented a new recipe for chili.”

She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “I hope in the next few days you’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me about your experiences here.”

I replied, “And maybe you’ll tell me why you’re here and why you stay.”

She didn’t reply.

The train moved on, east across the Saigon River, through a landscape of rice paddies and villages.

I looked at Susan and saw that she was looking at me. We both smiled. She said, “What would you have done without me?”

I replied, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out after you go back to Saigon.”

She said, “After three days with me, you’ll be good to go.”

“After three days with you, I’ll need a three-day R&R.”

She smiled. “You keep up pretty good for an old guy. Do you swim?”

“Like a fish.”

“Hike?”

“Like a mountain goat.”

“Dance?”

“Like John Travolta.”

“Snore?”

I smiled.

She said, “Sorry. Just teasing.”

The train moved on, away from old Saigon, away from the new Ho Chi Minh City, north toward Nha Trang, and back to May 1968.