Saigon (65 page)

There was an even longer pause at the ambassador’s end of the line. “You’ve certainly done your duty — I admire your courage and your great contribution to your country. No one can take from you the credit for what you’ve done. Now I’m worried about your physical safety. I have a report that those in charge of the current activity offer you and your brother safe conduct out of the country if you resign. Had you heard this?” 

The president absorbed the shock slowly: the ambassador’s use of the term “current activity” made it clear beyond all doubt that the backs of his chief sponsors were 110w turned finally against him. “No,” he said at last, drawing out the word in dismay, “I hadn’t heard that.” Another long pause followed, then he added lamely: “You have my telephone number?” 

“Yes,” replied the ambassador, and a further embarrassing silence ensued. Then, in case he had not made it clear enough, Henry Cabot Lodge labored his point once again. “If I can do anything for your physical safety, please call me.” 

The Vietnamese felt his anger rise as he contemplated the humiliating offer that was being made to him — shelter in the very embassy where, he realized now, his overthrow must certainly have been connived at. Suddenly all the stubborn, defiant pride for which he was renowned, and even a trace of scorn, flashed back into his voice: “I shall continue my efforts to restore order,” he said fiercely — and as soon as he’d spoken, President Ngo Dinh Diem broke off his last contact with the United States of America. 

Like all the other foreign journalists covering the coup, Naomi Boyce-Lewis spent the tense afternoon and early evening hours trying desperately to penetrate the confusion that cloaked Saigon like a dense fog; attempts to count up and codify units loyal to the palace or the plotters always came Out inconclusive because of insufficient information, and there was no sure way of testing the repeated claims of the rebels that their uprising had already succeeded. About six o’clock in the evening they unleashed a massive artillery and mortar barrage against the Presidential Guard encampment a few blocks from the Gia Long Palace, and the buildings were reduced rapidly to ruins; but although the sound and fury of the destruction provided dramatic pictures and copy for Naomi and the rest of the press corps, its effect was minimal, since most of the troops billeted there were already deployed inside the palace grounds. Over the radio, General Minh’s tape-recorded voice continued to proclaim that the armed forces had rescued the people from eight years of misrule, and crowds of cheering Vietnamese emerged to cluster around the rebel tanks and armored cars whenever there was a pause in the action. There was even some celebratory looting of shops, but with the palace and its defenders still holding out defiantly, an atmosphere of nervous uncertainty spread through the city as the evening wore on. 

Naomi and her camera crew positioned themselves in a deep doorway within sight of the palace gates, but long hours of waiting produced little reward; occasionally they saw one of the loyalist tanks rumble into the palace forecourt and lurch through the soft flower beds to fire its cannon at the ring of attackers entrenched in the surrounding streets; machinegun fire spurted sporadically from the windows between the ornate pillars of the palace’s cream-colored stone façade amid from time to time a voice that sounded like President’s Diem’s attempted to rally the troops over a public-address system with vague promises that loyal Units were racing to the rescue. But gradually it became clear that a lull was developing, and as the dusk deepened a fine, warm drizzle of rain began to drift down onto the city. A seven P.M. curfew was declared over the radio, and rumors began to spread that the coup leaders had got cold feet and were divided on whether they should launch an all-out attack on the palace or not. 

Naomi returned twice to her hotel room to try to contact Guy at the embassy, but each time she received the same curt response — he was “not available.” As she replaced the telephone the second time, she heard a soft footfall in the corridor outside her room and looked up to see a white envelope slide beneath the door. When she opened it, she found a note inside written in spidery letters which said simply: “Relax and get some sleep until three-thirty A.M. Guy.” 

The note was obviously not in Guy’s handwriting, and she tore open the door to see a Vietnamese waiter disappearing silently along the corridor. When she called him back, he explained that he had taken down the message by telephone from “an American gentleman” who had not given his name. Naomi thanked the waiter and gave him five hundred piastres then hurried back to the Street to tell her camera crew to get some rest. She drank a large whisky herself before climbing Into bed for a few hours, and when she awoke with the ringing of her alarm clock at three AM., she roused her crew and they hurried into the streets again to find that an unnatural hush had fallen over the city. 

The moist air was stifling at that hour, but the pre-dawn darkness was relieved by the glare from several burning tanks and an occasional building that had suffered a direct hit. They dashed across Lam Son Square to the Caravelle Hotel, and when they reached the roof they found it crowded with a dense throng of people who had been trapped there by the curfew. In the light of the fires they saw then that Saigon’s other rooftops and balconies were crowded too, and thousands of silent faces were watching and waiting like spectators in a giant grandstand for the climax of the drama. From time to time a magnesium parachute flare blossomed in the dark sky above them, and whenever a plane appeared, ted globular tracers arced upwards from the Gia Long Palace. 

On the Caravelle roof terrace, white-jacketed waiters still moved among the crowd, serving refreshments, and Naomi noticed that some of those present — diplomats, correspondents, visiting businessmen and hotel workers — were somewhat the worse for drink. They had been watching the grim spectacle for many hours on end, and to some it seemed to have become an entertainment. Somewhere a radio was playing a twist and cha-cha music; the rebels had begun to intersperse their repeated communiqués with this music during the night because it had been previously banned by Madame Nhu, and a group of junior American Embassy staffers and female secretaries were dancing exaggeratedly to the radio, bursting into noisy laughter at frequent intervals. But at three-thirty AM. precisely, their sounds of hilarity were suddenly drowned by an ear-numbing torrent of noise. The deep boom of 75-millimeter tank guns, the thud of mortar and artillery shells and the stutter of 50-millimeter machine guns all combined to produce an unbroken roar that obviously signaled the beginning of the final assault on the palace. Shot and shell poured down every boulevard leading to Gia Long, and the building’s already-pitted façade splintered and cracked under the onslaught. Soon the few loyalist tanks, the heavy machine guns behind the rooftop balustrades and the mortar batteries dug in around the grounds were adding to the din, and from the Caravelle terrace the night seemed to be alive with a million muzzle flashes. As Naomi watched, the interior of the glass cupola on the palace roof was lit suddenly from inside by dancing flames, and she guessed that the upper floors had caught fire inside. 

“Beautiful, just beautiful,” breathed Jock as he squinted at the scene through the eye of his camera. “I’ve never seen anything to match it.” 

The barrage lasted for an incredible two hours, and when it finally died away pale streaks of morning light illuminated the final rebel advance into the palace. Under lowering skies from which drizzling rain still fell, tanks, armored cars and armored personnel carriers, followed by running, crouching men, inched slowly towards the wrought-iron railings, and finally at about six-thirty AM. Naomi saw a solitary white flag of surrender flutter out of one of the palace’s high windows. 

The Vietnamese Marines were wearing scarlet scarves about their necks by this time to distinguish them from the defenders, and on spotting the white flag they rose up into the open, screaming their battle cries in unison, and raced across the pitted lawn towards the smoking ruins. Naomi and her crew were among the handful of journalists courageous enough to follow them, and a few stray shots were still whistling across the formal gardens as they dashed for the shattered main door; because Marines were scuffling with fleeing Special Forces troops and blocking the steps, Jock led the way through a gaping hole blown in the wall, and inside they found the marble floor littered with the glass of smashed chandeliers and fallen masonry. Groaning Special Forces troops, their bodies shattered by shell fragments, lay on the broad staircases alongside men already dead, plaster from the high ceilings covered the brocade chairs and potted palms, and the air was filled with choking smoke and the reek of cordite. The attack had severed the power supplies, and the jubilant rebel soldiers, not to be denied the spoils of victory, lit candles and began carrying away hooks and ornaments in an hysterical mood of celebration. 

Guy had long ago explained the palace layout to her, and Naomi led the crew up the wide staircase towards the offices of the president and his Supreme Counselor, but before they reached the top a Marine colonel leaned over a balustrade and begun yelling wildly to a brigadier and a group of senior officers waiting below. “They’re not here—their rooms are empty!” 

The little brigadier nodded grimly. “The communications shelter is deserted too! Come down!” 

Naomi ran back down the stairs to the brigadier and took him by the arm: “Where could they be?” 

“We’ve found three tunnels under the palace,” he said, shaking his head. “They all lead into the sewers — they’ve escaped.” 

Naomi nodded her thanks and led the way up the stairs once more towards the office of President Diem on the third floor. All around them the air rang with the sound of rebel soldiers sacking the palace: one group of Marines rushed by carrying armfuls of whisky and brandy bottles from Ngo Dinh Nhu’s cellar, others bludgeoned gold filigree fittings from the walls and stuffed them in their pockets, while some simply fired their weapons, shrieking with laughter, into the antique French mirrors covering the walls. When Jock and Naomi reached Diem’s office, they found the drab room musty and in disarray. The president’s double-breasted sharkskin jacket hung from the back of a rickety rocking chair, and a French book with a curiously prophetic title lay on the cluttered desk. Naomi glanced around the room, screwing up her face with distaste, and silently held the book to Jock’s camera so that its title showed; it was called ironically Ils Arrivent — They Are Coming. 

In Ngo Dinh Nhu’s larger office on the floor below, they found the looters had already finished their work. Sawdust was spilled everywhere from the stuffed hunting trophies that had been slashed open and torn from the walls; the sensuous portrait of Nhu’s wife above his desk had been lewdly defaced with a bayonet that had been left jutting from her lower abdomen, and in her own suite some of the long rails of filmy, silken ao dai had been ripped apart and strewn around the room. Others remained hanging neatly in their closet above line after line of stiletto-heeled shoes, and Naomi guided Jock in filming these and the smashed bottled of Vent Vert perfume that lay scattered around the bathroom with its big pink sunken bath and washbasin of black Venetian marble. 

As they passed through Ngo Dinh Nhu’s office again on their way back to the ground floor, Naomi had to wade through a litter of files that the looters had scattered across the carpet. On a whim she stopped and bent to look at some of them and discovered that their buff-colored covers were stamped with the title of Nhu’s notorious Social and Political Research Service. Under the glow of the camera light which Jock held for her, she flicked idly through one or two of them; they appeared to consist mainly of informers’ reports on Saigon politicians and army officers, written in French or Vietnamese, but her attention was arrested abruptly when she turned the cover of one file and saw Guy Sherman’s name printed on its front. She opened it and was startled to find herself looking at a piece of Continental Palace notepaper on top of the file, which bore her own handwriting. The name and address of the Buddhist priest who had alerted her to Thich Quang Duc’s suicide seemed to leap off the page at her, and she knelt there on the floor staring numbly at the note for perhaps half a minute, no longer hearing the crash of breaking glass nor the shrill, crazed laughter of the troops plundering the palace all around her. 

Four hours later, just after eleven o’clock on that morning of November 2, there was a brisk knock on the door of Naomi’s suite in the Continental, and she opened it to find Guy Sherman smiling broadly at her. He wore no jacket and his clothes looked crumpled as if he hadn’t changed them got a long time, but he had a frosted bottle of Laurent Perrier tucked under his arm and two long-stemmed champagne glasses dangled from the fingers of his right hand. 

“What are we celebrating?” she asked with a weary smile, standing aside to let him enter. 

“Just the overthrow of the dreaded Ngo Dinh brothers,” he replied, shrugging exaggeratedly. “Nothing more — the whole thing went like a dream. Maybe we’ll drink a toast to your Outstanding exclusive coverage of that subject, too.” Instead of entering he leaned forward, took her by the hand and led her down the corridor into the adjoining suite. “I rented this specially just to be near you today, Naomi. And nobody knows I’m here. So we can both hide away from the damned telephone for an hour or two, right?” He grinned again, knocked the door shut with his heel and walked confidently across the room to put the champagne and glasses on a low table in front of a sofa. 

“Thanks to your timely tip we certainly got off to a flying start while everyone else was enjoying their siesta.” Naomi smiled as she sank onto the sofa. “And thanks for your note too. It allowed us all to grab sonic much-needed sleep last night while the opposition went red-eyed. We’ve certainly got some marvelous footage —— enough to make an hour-long documentary. But even so, my coverage is still just a tiny bit inconclusive at present.” 

She relaxed against the sofa back with a long sigh and closed her eyes. The tension of the last few hours had left her feeling drained; while her crew were trying to ship their film out to Hong Kong and onward to London, she had forced her way through the jubilant crowds to the central post office to telephone a voice report for the news bulletins. On the way she found that the fact that the president and his brother were still missing had not in any way dampened the frenzied celebrations that were being mounted in the streets. joy mixed with vengeful violence had been evident everywhere; the offices of the regime’s English- language newspaper, the Times of Vietnam, were burning fiercely when she passed, and gangs of students chanting “Long Live the Junta” were rampaging along many of the boulevards. She saw a mob hauling down the massive statue of Vietnam’s legendary heroines, the Trung sisters, because one of them had been fashioned in the likeness of Madame Nhu, and homes of pro Nhu ministers and officials were being ransacked all over the city. 

She had watched the crowds leaping Onto tanks and hugging the soldiers, who were clearly startled by such warm expressions of affection from the ordinary people, and soon everywhere girls were throwing bouquets of flowers and gifts to the delighted troops. But she had found herself most deeply moved by scenes she had witnessed outside the pagodas; army trucks had arrived every few minutes bringing groups of haggard Buddhist prisoners newly released from jail. They were embraced deliriously by their fellows and many, because they were weak from torture and privation, had to be carried into the temples. After she’d finished her call to London she had made a special detour to inquire about the monk who had been her informant in June, but amidst the near-pandemonium at his pagoda, a nun had told her there was no trace of him; he had disappeared suddenly even before the raids on the pagodas, she said tearfully, and he was believed to have been secretly murdered by the security forces, 

Naomi, stunned by the news, had passed close to the ruined Gia Long Palace as she made her way back to the hotel, and here and there she had seen the crumpled body of a soldier or a civilian still lying huddled in the gutter. The sight of these corpses and the sense of shock she had experienced on learning about the disappearance of the Buddhist monk were still preying on her mind as she watched Guy’s fingers rip the gold foil from the champagne bottle, and she started involuntarily when the cork exploded from its neck. Guy smiled, never taking his eyes from hers, and filled the two glasses frothing to the brim. Then he came to sit down beside her on the sofa and handed her one, but before he drank he withdrew from his trouser pocket a circular tin of sixteen-millimeter film and laid it on the table between them. “Your coverage isn’t inconclusive anymore, Naomi,” he said softly. “Shall we drink to it?” 

She looked questioningly at the tin lying on the table. “What’s that?” 

“Film of the bodies.” 

Because she was still half thinking of what she had seen so recently in the gutters outside the palace, she gazed back at him blankly. “Whose bodies?” 

“Diem and Nhu.” 

She sat upright suddenly, spilling some of her champagne. “They’re dead?” 

He nodded. “Yes —- and this is the only film in existence of their demise.” 

“Who killed them?” 

“A police major sent to bring them from Cholon where they were hiding. They loaded both of them into the back of an M-ii3 armored personnel carrier with the major and closed the hatch. Diem was shot In the head and Nhu was bayoneted to death en route. They were both dead by the time they got back to the headquarters of the Joint General Staff.” 

She stared at the little film, her eyes suddenly bright with interest. 

“And you, Naomi,” he said, raising his glass in her direction with an ironic little smile, “have some exclusive footage of the view into the APC when they opened the hatch.” 

“Who filmed it?” she said when she found her voice. 

“None other than yours truly.” His smile broadened. “Although of course only you and I will ever know that.” 

“May I look?” 

He nodded, and she put down her champagne untouched to open the tin. Holding it carefully by its edges, she pulled the strip of film off the reel and lifted it eagerly towards the light of the window. 

“It isn’t very distinct — I’m not the world’s greatest cameraman and I had no special lights. But it’s usable.” He leaned towards her and squinted through the back of the film, pointing with his finger. “The bodies are lying face forward on the seats. Most of what you can see is their backs and the backs of their heads. The bigger, roly-poly body on the right is Diem of course, and the smaller one with several bayonet wounds is brother Nhu. I’ve screened it once for myself in our little photo lab — you can see it’s them okay.” 

“It’s incredible film, Guy,” breathed the English journalist. “How were they caught?” 

Guy’s pleasure in her reaction showed plainly in his face, and letting his hand fall casually onto her knee, he began to stroke her trouser-clad thigh slowly as he talked. “They were betrayed early today by one of their palace aides. They slipped away last night about nine o’clock using one their secret underground tunnels. They’d got a Red Cross Land Rover waiting for them at the tunnel exit and it whisked them off to Cholon, where they’d already set up a direct communications link with the palace in the home of a friendly Chinese merchant. They kept up their contacts through the night with their supporters in the palace and even intermittently with the coup headquarters. General Minh offered them safe conduct several times if they surrendered — but they turned him down. So Minh had to plan a careful general assault. Nobody except a couple of their closest aides knew Diem and Nhu had gone until Gia Long was finally stormed. It was Diem himself who gave the order to show the white flag in the end — but by telephone from Cholon.” 

“Did they give themselves up after that?” 

“Diem called Minh about six-thirty A.M. and offered to surrender in return for a guarantee of safe conduct to the airport and a flight abroad. Minh agreed, but Diem, devious to the end, didn’t reveal where they were — or perhaps in this treacherous little country he knew what to expect anyway. After the aide betrayed their hideout, they fled to the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Cholon to take communion. They were still on their knees when the arrest party found them there. They bundled them both into the M-113, and shots were heard inside as soon as they moved off.” 

Naomi’s face registered her distaste, “But why were they murdered so callously?” 

Guy shrugged. “I guess it was inevitable from the start. The junta would never have felt -safe with the Ngo Dinhs alive and kicking — wherever they were.” 

“So they were killed on General Minh’s orders?” 

Guy nodded wordlessly, still stroking her thigh, but without warning Naomi stood up and walked over to the window. She folded her arms and stood looking down at the excited crowds thronging Lam Son Square, a frown creasing her brow. “How is it you’re so well informed?” she asked quietly without turning around. “Were you on the inside of the coup? I tried to call you several times yesterday, but they always said you were unavailable.” 

Guy sipped his champagne and smiled. “Let’s just say I was keeping a close watching brief at the COUP headquarters. By the time the bodies came back in the M-I 53, nobody protested when I stepped up and produced my little home movie camera — is that what you mean?” 

Instead of replying she pulled a folded slip of paper from a pocket in her blouse and walked back to the sofa where he sat. “I think you must have dropped this sometime, Guy,” she said tonelessly, holding towards him the note about the Buddhist monk she had given him five months before. 

He glanced at the paper then back into her face, still smiling easily. “Where did you find it?” 

“On the floor of Ngo Dinh Nhu’s office at six-thirty this morning. Isn’t that where you dropped it?” 

He continued to smile at her unabashed. “Sometimes in my job, Naomi, you have to play along with both sides to make sure you know what everyone’s thinking. Quite often you have to deal with people you don’t particularly like.” He took the slip of paper from her and looked at it for a second before letting it drop onto the table. “Intelligence work is like any other business — for a deal to work well, both sides have to be seen to get something out of it.” 

Naomi’s voice trembled slightly. “But giving that monk’s name to Nhu probably led to his murder.” 

“Lot’s of people die when there’s a war on. Naomi. If you really believe in what you’re doing, you can’t worry about every little sacrifice that has-to be made along the way.” 

“But doesn’t the monk’s death bother you at all?” 

Guy drained his glass and refilled it, nodding towards the paper on the table. “Naomi, you benefited from what I did. That little quid pro quo kept my lines of communication open to Nhu and his dragon lady. They kept right on talking to me— and you willingly used what I gave you in your dispatches. You wanted good reliable information as badly as I did, didn’t you?” 

Naomi stared down at him wide-eyed; then reluctantly she nodded. 

“So let’s stop worrying our heads about all that stuff, shall we?” He took her hand, and she let him pull her down onto the sofa beside him. Gazing at her with a new intensity, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, nodding at the same time towards the little tin of film on the table. “In there, Naomi, you’ve got another world exclusive — I’ve delivered the goods. So it’s time now for grown-up girls to stop hiding behind hints and promises, isn’t it?” 

She looked at him undecidedly for a moment, then nodded once more in agreement. 

“I’m really glad things have worked out for us at last, Naomi. I’m not accustomed to waiting this long, you know, It’s only because you’re so damned special He began unfastening her blouse as he talked, and when he leaned close and began to kiss her bare shoulders she closed her eyes. She let him unbutton her trousers and remove them, but her expression remained strangely blank as she watched him take off his own clothes. Even when he was naked and leaned down to kiss her again on the lips, she still didn’t respond, and he pulled back from her with a puzzled smile. 

“I didn’t figure you for an English ice maiden, Naomi,” he said slowly. “You’re not really one of those girls who can’t get started until they’re taken roughly, are you?” His smile broadened when she didn’t reply, and he dropped his gaze pointedly to the filmy lace of her brassiere. The dark whorls of her nipples were clearly visible through the flimsy garment, and with both hands he seized it suddenly and ripped it in two at its narrowest part, fully exposing her breasts. 

“God, Naomi, you’re beautiful,” he said in a faltering voice as he caressed her. “I’ve never wanted any woman as much.” 

She felt her nipples tauten beneath his fingers and her own breathing quickened involuntarily as he forced her silken underpants down over her hips with quick, clumsy movements; but even when he rose above her, fully aroused himself, she still stared back at him with the same frozen expression on his face. 

“It’s going to feel like I’m raping you, Naomi, if you lie there much longer like that with your knees pressed together,” he gasped. “Relax! The teasing game’s over.” 

He tried to slip one hand between her knees to prise them apart, massaging the pale gold haze of hair at the base of her belly feverishly with his other hand — but she squirmed away from him suddenly. 

“Please stop, Guy,” she said sharply. “I don’t want this to go any further.” She sat up and turned away from him, covering her face with her hands, and he stared at her nonplussed. 

“What in hell’s name is going on?” His voice was thick, and his chest rose and fell rapidly with his erratic breathing. “I don’t get any of this!”