The Cover of War

The Cover of War

Text copyright © 2013 Travis Stone

All Rights Reserved

The right of Travis Stone and Travis Stone Limited to
be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 & 78 of the copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored,
or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any
means without permission of the author

This book is fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are either the product of imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or deceased, is
co-incidental.

Published under license by Amazon Digital Services
&

Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

ASIN: BOOCBN3TPC

ISBN-13: 978-1484901809

ISBN-10: 1484901800

Many thanks to Jason Norris and Sally Anne
McKay for technical contributions. . . . and a quiet wink to an anonymous
colonel. Thank you for your insight.

Fact:

In 1920, after completing an extensive
study of the world's oil resources, a geologist named Herbert Hoover estimated
that one of the planet's largest potential oilfields lay off
Vietnam
's eastern coast.

In 1929, Herbert
Hoover became the 31st President of The United States.

In 1954 the French
colonists were driven out of
Vietnam
.

When the French
left, American armies arrived.

Much of the
following is based on real events.

DECEMBER 1967

1

December 26

Thong
Nhut Boulevard
,
Saigon

10°46'57.90"N
106°42'04.75"E

A
mai lay awake beside him.

In the darkened
room the thump of boots on the narrow wooden stairs triggered a warning.

She slipped her
arm out from under the warmth of his body. The need to escape took her.
The
roof,
she thought.
Get to the roof.

He rolled toward
her; his fingertips tracing the curve of her naked body to where the satin
sheet met her skin.

It was too late;
the boots had reached the landing.

There was no
where to go.

She would have
to face whatever came through the door.

There was a
heavy thump and the sound of cracking wood.

* * *

White shards of raw timber splintered from
the frame's dark varnish.

Adrenaline
bolted Danny upright.

Two men entered
Amai's room.

Danny's mind
accelerated.
Vietnamese military.
What do they want?
 
          

The first was
stocky and aggressive with sharp eyes; the other gangly and arrogant with his
receding hair cropped marine style. The stocky one rushed forward like a
gundog. The other strode self-righteously behind - the hunter.

Amai stood; her
face white; her hands unable to cover all of her breasts.

Danny leapt in
front of her. 'What the hell? You can't-' Danny put up his hands.

The stocky one
took Danny by the throat, drove him back into the tiny bathroom and pushed the
door shut. Danny could hear the hunter's voice through the thin door; calm and
assertive.

What the hell
is this?
Danny thought. He couldn't bare the
thought of his beautiful, loving Amai coming to harm. He had to get out. He had
to get to her. He threw his shoulder into the door and felt it give, but the
stocky brut held it with his bodyweight.

Amai was
screaming at the hunter in unintelligible Vietnamese. There was the sound of a
slap, sickening quiet, and then the hunter's slow,
authoritative
voice.

Danny went into a
frenzy. He smashed his shoulder repeatedly into the door, feeling it crack;
feeling the shoulder behind it.

Then the weight
came off and Danny fell into the room. He rushed to Amai.

The men left,
pulling the broken door shut behind them.

Amai was in
tears; a faint red mark on her perfect cheek.

Danny put his arm
around her bare shoulders, feeling her goose-fleshed skin against his. 'What
the hell was that about?' His voice quivered.

She shook her
head. Her lustrous hair flicked his face. Her liquid brown eyes took hold of
his. Her breasts squashed against him and he was shocked to find himself hard
again.

She pushed him
back onto the bed.

My God,
he thought.
This is insane.
   

* * *

Amai hid the fear that
coursed through her body.  

She hated
deceiving Danny. The others she had not cared about; Danny was different. She
drew back the mosquito net, which hung on plastic rings
above the old, four poster bed,
and studied his face; his usually alert
brown eyes were glazed with worry; his easy smile gone. He rubbed his square,
stubble covered jaw, and then swept his sandy hair up and to the left with his
lithe fingers; pleasuring fingers. She couldn't believe she had fallen in love
with him - an American - a beautiful American.

I'm lying to
him,
she thought.
I've used him.

General Loan's
break-in had frightened her to the core. She knew he had meant it to. Loan was
Saigon
's Chief-of-Secret-Police and he was
hunting communist spies.

Her fingertips
went to her lips.
I'm a communist spy,
she thought.
He's hunting me.
The
fear boiled inside her.
What does he know?

Amai feared
capture by the men of the Phoenix Program more than anything. Now that Loan had
found her; was watching her - she would have to abandon her flat. She would
have to go into hiding - but she couldn't think of such things now. She had to
meet Triet.

She sat on the
edge of the bed,
crossed her legs, and began combing
her voluminous hair. She didn't look at Danny. 'I've got to go out.'

* * *

A hot, viscous feeling circulated in
Danny's gut. She had turned down his invitation to this evening's mixer at the Grand
Hotel.
Why?
The break-in kept replaying in his mind. 'What did they
want?'

'Who?'

'Those men. The
break-in.'

Amai elegantly
shrugged. 'Mistaken identity. Happens here.'

Bullshit,
Danny thought. The hunter had wanted
her.

Amai got off the
bed and slipped into a soft blue dress that made her breasts look fantastic.
She turned her back to him. 'Zip me up.'

Just touching
her skin made him horny again.
'What you up to?' He
tried to sound casual.

'It's a secret.'

Danny was both
romantically worried and professionally pleased. Curious to know what she was
doing that took up so much of her time, and desperate to know from where she
was getting her 'Viet Cong' information, he planned to follow her, before going
to the Grand, where he would catch his regular ten minutes with General
Westmoreland.

From across the street, a blaze of sunlight reflected off
one the US Embassy's sixth-floor windows. He faked indifference. 'Cool. I've
gotta shave. There's that thing tonight at the Grand.'

She turned and
pouted. 'Will you be back for dinner?' Her English was flawless; almost
American.

'Eight at the
latest.'

Amai flashed an
angelic smile. 'It's a date.' Then she kissed his lips and slipped out the
door.

Danny didn't
shave. He put his camera in his denim satchel, slung it, and went to the door.

An uneasiness
grew around him.
Where're you going, girl? 

He stopped and
listened. Amai was doing something odd. 

He could hear
her rapid footsteps, not going down the stairs, but going up. He waited. She
didn't come back down.

The roof,
he thought.

As quietly as he
could, he went up after her.

He reached the
top, opened the tiny door that lead to the flat, tarred roof, peered out, and
saw a flash of blue as Amai went over the rear parapet. He got onto the roof
and jogged after her.

At the parapet,
he saw that she had climbed down a short ladder, to the roof of an adjoining
building. He crouched and watched her cross to the far side. When she went over
the building's far edge, Danny climbed onto the ladder.

What the hell
is she doing?
  

The rotten rung
gave way only when it had all of his 170lbs.

He landed
heavily on his feet. His legs buckled. Pain shot into his right knee and he
rolled on to his side.

C'mon,
he thought.
You'll loose her.

He picked
himself up and hobbled forward.

At the second
parapet, he looked down over the low brickwork into a narrow alley, crammed
with wooden crates, junk, and two elderly women struggling to control a dozen
white ducks. Amai was running now, fast but gracefully down the lane toward a
busy road.

Shit.

Danny hung over
the side and let himself drop onto a stack of crates. Pain shot through his
knee. He tried to ignore it and climbed down. The stench of methane filled the
hot alley. He stumbled forward, the duck-women throwing up their arms as their
flock flapped around him. 

Danny reached
the intersection. Amai was gone. The alley's stink gave way to choking exhaust
fumes. Pedestrians and motorbikes intermingled like drugged rats.

Which way?

A flash of blue
in the crowd caught his attention. He turned right and fought his way through
the jerking motorcycle traffic to the far side.

Danny realized
he was puffing.
I haven't lost you yet, girl.

A military jeep
crawled past with four MPs filling its roofless interior. Amai stopped beside a
rack displaying offal and chickens' feet. Danny caught up. She studied the raw
meat until the jeep was well past.

A deep
uneasiness filled Danny's chest.

There'll be a
reasonable explanation,
he thought.

Sneaking after
the woman he loved made Danny nervous. What would he say if she spotted him? He
did not want to lose her; he'd never felt so comfortable with a woman. He loved
her smile; he loved her energy; he loved the way that they could be ready to
make love in a second.

But something
felt wrong.
 

A small boy
tugged Danny's sleeve and held up a rough copy of a WWII trauma manual. He gave
the boy the coins in his pocket, but refused the book. When Danny looked up,
Amai was weaving through the crowd.

He stayed quite
a way behind her. Periodically she looked back over her shoulder. He followed
her for several blocks where the tight street opened into
Cong Xa Paris Square
, stood over by
Saigon
's ancient basilica of Notre Dame.
Two paths bisected the grassed quadrangle, flanked by roads full of honking
motorcycles.  Amai hurried across the square and went into a rough looking
bar called The Trung Hoa.

The skin
prickled on Danny's neck.

He sat on the
steps at the square's centre, waited a full minute, and then followed Amai into
the Trung Hoa club.

The air smelt stale.
Five local men gambled at a round table. They all looked up together.

Danny could not
see Amai. There was no blue dress. Two men got up from the table and came
toward him. One held a short metal bar, and said in coarse English: 'What do
you want?'

Danny knew the
man would beat him. He turned, walked out of the bar, and didn't look back.

Damn it,
he thought.

Where the hell
had she gone? What the hell was going on?

It felt wrong.