The Shadow of Arms (31 page)

Pham Quyen nonchalantly kicked the tires a few times, trying their firmness. Thach spoke. “We thank you for introducing us to good friends, sir.”

Pham Quyen looked up to find the two headaches. They were in front of the warehouse and came to a salute upon seeing Major Pham.

“Uh, . . . what are those two doing here?”

Cuong replied, “With your introduction we tried out a deal with them. It's now been two weeks and the business results are outstanding. They're already among the most trustworthy dealers in Le Loi market. I handed them over to my brother here, sir.”

“They're sharing my office,” Thach said.

Pham Quyen frowned.

“That's not good at all. You realize that they are CID agents?”

Cuong laughed loudly. “What a thing to say. Where are we, anyway? This is Le Loi market, the most famous one in central Vietnam. Here the merchants trade with devils and the honorable Buddha alike. Do you know how the saying goes around here? The color of money tells all. That's it. Whether red or blue, the only meaning is that it's a five- or a ten-dollar note. Over there in that other alley, the American side is frequenting old man Huyen's shop. Whatever information they gather and whatever inquiries they make, we don't concern ourselves with it. Le Loi market is like a pipkin in which medicinal concoctions are blended, anything that comes in here turns black and melts away.”

“That sounds plausible. Where are they getting the goods?”

“Turen, sir. It's like child's play.”

“How come your younger brother, Thach, is giving them space?”

Cuong gave a quick glance at the two men standing back there and, in a lowered tone, said mischievously, “To keep the other merchants guessing, sir. We know about lots of things. And if we have friends like them sharing our office, then the other traders won't take us lightly. Now old man Huyen will have to be wary of us. Thanks to the circumstances, my brother is enjoying some fringe benefits.”

“I see. Typical of you to look at it that way. I've also just hatched a good idea about those two.”

“What's that, sir?”

“It's a military secret.”

Cuong and Major Pham broke out laughing, patting each other on the back. The two men sauntered up toward them. Toi was talking to Thach about something. Ahn Yong Kyu approached Pham Quyen and said, “Major, if you'll give us a ride we'll come along with you. If not, we can go separately in our car.”

Pham Quyen looked puzzled and asked, “And where are you going?”

“To your new residence, sir. Miss Oh invited us for dinner. We're friends.”

“Go on, get in my car,” Pham Quyen responded in a haughty tone.

“Yes, but we've got something to carry.”

Ahn whistled to Toi, who went inside the warehouse and came back out with a large wrapped box.

“It's an oven, sir. A gift for Miss Oh.”

“Ah, that's nice.”

Thach rushed over and pulled the zipper on the back flap all the way up, then helped load the box. Yong Kyu and Toi climbed in the back of the Land Rover. It was roomier than it looked from outside, and the space could have comfortably held another two people. Cuong and Thach stepped back and looked on proudly as Pham Quyen drove out through the front gate. Unlike the back entrance, the front alley was rather wide and it soon opened onto the main avenue near the inter-city bus terminal.

“It's a fine car,” Toi said.

“Feels a bit dull, though,” said Pham Quyen. Looking at Yong Kyu in the rearview mirror, he asked, “Having a good time?”

“Thanks to you.”

“Are you taking deliveries at Turen every day?”

“No, sir. Just Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

“How much so far?”

“Oh, a few thousand, not so much.”

“Enough to pay for the pass and the use of the conex box, I suppose.”

They drove along Doc Lap Boulevard past the Grand Hotel and sped along the beach road. From that point on a residential district began. On both sides of the street were tall trees with trunks that it'd take three men linking arms to encircle. They passed by a tennis court nestled in a forest clearing, made a right turn at a main road and headed up a sloping grade. Houses were scattered among the trees and the breeze off the sea had a briny edge. The vista to the left looked down on Son Tinh, the far end of Da Nang Bay and the ragged peaks of Bai Bang were also visible.

They came into a residential compound for high-ranking US officers and foreign civilians. The car pulled to a stop in front of a stairway carved out of stone. On either side of the steps there were blooming orchids, hyacinths, African lilies, mescals and white and yellow irises. It was a one-story house with white plaster walls. The long leaves of a palm tree hung down in front of the picture window in the living room. Oh Hae Jong, who had been watching for them for some time, came out. She was wearing a casual dress with fluffy sleeves in the style of the Philippines. Yong Kyu nodded at her.

“How are you? It's a nice place.”

“Ah, I've just finished arranging things. I find it easier to stay in a hotel.”

She was not wearing any makeup and had an apron around her waist. It was becoming on her. Pham Quyen's expression became much more relaxed than it had been when he spoke to them earlier.

“Now, gentlemen, have a seat. I'll be back after a quick shower.”

They sat down on the sofa and Hae Jong brought them drinks.

“Are you planning to settle in Vietnam, then?” Yong Kyu asked.

“Why shouldn't I? Now I have a nationality and a passport, too,” she replied in a teasing tone, glancing at Yong Kyu out of the corner of her eyes. He remained silent.

“I'm practically married to Major Pham. I went to see his family a few days ago. They're all very good people.”

Hae Jong seemed happy and poured out more words. “Now that I've moved into this house, it seems there's no such thing as war in this world. I can hardly breathe because of the fragrance of those flowers, you know. Later, let's go out on the veranda in the back and have dinner out there. I brought some kimchi and red pepper paste from the Dragon Palace.”

Yong Kyu looked at her with vacant eyes. What he saw was a fallen leaf that had been drifting along on stormy waves and now had stopped, shivering for a brief moment, atop a little rock above the water. He sat there facing the only woman from his country in the city of Da Nang. A woman who could go anywhere with a single suitcase. Hae Jong had come to Vietnam with the armed forces, and the army's deployment and her life in Vietnam were, he thought, facing the same fate.

“What'll you do when the war ends and our military forces pull out of here?”

Hae Jong's eyes opened wide and round.

“Ends? Just like that?”

“No war goes on forever. One day they'll shake hands, or frown, and they'll end it.”

Well, so much the better, then. A country like this, if there were peace, would be a paradise, don't you think?”

“Do you love Major Pham?” Yong Kyu asked casually, as if joking. She let out a short laugh but did not answer.

“Jay . . . or James was the name, didn't you say?”

Hae Jong did not remove her eyes from her fingernails.

“Your relationship with him or with Major Pham at present is not so advantageous for you. I'm sorry . . . war has been the matchmaker, the mediation. War is always fluctuating. It's hard to follow through on one's decisions. No one has any idea what will happen to this country once the war is over.”

Yong Kyu kept thinking he should shut his mouth, but the words kept on streaming out. Unlike back at the headquarters during the interrogation, Hae Jong made no protest about his nosing into her personal life.

“He and I are in the same boat, so I don't expect any problems,” she replied in a bored tone.

“Because he's not a Westerner, is that it?”

“No . . . he's like a bullet out of a muzzle. No place to return to. On paper, I'm the bona fide wife of a Vietnamese.”

“Last time at Madame Lin's, you said you were heading for Bangkok, didn't you?”

“Things were different, then. They hadn't yet issued my passport. Now I have a commercial passport that lets me take my pick and fly to America, Europe, Southeast Asia or anywhere for the next two years.”

Then, in protest, Hae Jong raised her voice. “The reason I like you, you shouldn't forget, Mr. Ahn, is not because we are both Koreans.”

She rose from her chair and Yong Kyu looked up at her.

“Except for your pretensions of giving me the advice of an older brother, you're a good friend. We speak the same language and you have a kind heart. But that seriousness of yours, I can't stand it. Oh, the soup must be boiling.”

Toi was sitting by the window, thumbing through some magazines. Shit, Yong Kyu murmured to himself, why bother. He felt awkward. After all, was he so different from the drunken recruit who threw a beer bottle at that Korean dancer for performing a strip show? Neither Pham Quyen nor Mimi seemed to have chosen their paths of life with any conviction.

But then again, on this night with so many killing games going on outside, was it so wrong to have an uncertain future? True, in the end this land would belong to those who, embracing death and yet warring against it, secure their own survival one step at a time. Just the way he came, so Yong Kyu one day would be slipping off quietly with his duffle bag on his shoulder. To sit and gaze at the back of Hae Jong as she set the table for dinner made him think she had become totally at home here. The evening sun was burning deep red just above her as night shaded the sky out there beyond the Ku Dhe River of Son Tinh.

Major Pham emerged from the bathroom in shorts and a casual shirt. Hae Jong stopped setting the table and pointing through the window with the fork in her hand, yelling, “How beautiful! What are those sparks?”

Pham Quyen turned to Yong Kyu with a questioning look. The two men went out onto the veranda to see. Darkness had descended over Da Nang Bay down below them, and streams of fire were flickering in towards the beach from over the ocean. They were probably from helicopters. They seemed to be tracers from heavy machine guns fired as a formation of gunships went up on a night mission.

 

 

21

Once in a while a breeze found its way in through the cracks in the truck's canvas cover, but the heat remained unforgiving. Fifteen urban guerrillas, operatives of the Third Special District, had broken down into teams of five and were departing for Da Nang. They had marched down the Ho Chi Minh Trail along the Atwat Mountains to the border between the Second and Third Districts.

The teams headed into the Third District first had to infiltrate into Long Long, a big village in the Central Highlands from which a rough mountain road ran down to Da Nang. This village on the Thatra River was guarded by a contingent of US Special Forces and was an ARVN reconnaissance outpost. The conditions for infiltration were extremely unfavorable, but once they made it into the confines of the village they could hop on regularly scheduled freight trucks to Da Nang and down the coast on Route 1.

There had been another infiltration route from Atwat into Hue and Da Nang through Bien Hien, but the transfer point had not been securely recovered since a North Vietnam division recently was decimated in the area. With guidance from a local agent they made their way to Nhong Trong and marched through the jungle from there. They had one encounter with an ARVN patrol, but with the guide's help they hid in the reeds along the Thatra River and waited in silence until the enemy party passed by.

In groups of three they finally arrived at the edge of Long Long where a farmhouse served as a sanctuary. The next afternoon they were escorted to the rendezvous point, a restaurant in the center of the village. Everyone was disguised as a peddler or a traveling peasant. They hid in the attic or the basement air raid shelter of the restaurant until their respective departure times. The freight truck that left the village once a day could only carry five men hidden inside under the cargo of produce. Pham Minh was in the second group to leave. They left at dawn. It was still very dark outside when they got into the truck, bearing loads on their shoulders like ordinary laborers and then burrowed underneath the cargo. Each group's lead agent sat up front in the cab beside the driver. When they approached a checkpoint he knocked three times on the truck window. Then once they passed a safe distance beyond, he would knock again twice to sound an all-clear.

The road was an unpaved ledge precariously cut into the steep slope running down from the highlands into the jungle valleys and the truck bounced roughly as they cautiously inched their way onward. It had been built for wagons, originally dug out by villagers mobilized by the French colonial government. Pham Minh's group of five had brought along an empty can so they could relieve their bladders without leaving the truck. For food all they had was lumps of cooked rice wrapped up in banana leaves. By the time they ate it, the rice was salty from the human sweat it had absorbed.

On the road down to the northern side of Da Nang, the truck approached a checkpoint at Kethak near the point where the Kudeh River emptied into Da Nang Bay. From the front they heard the signal of three knocks and instantly the men in back raked the vegetables up over their bodies. The space toward the front of the cargo bed was partitioned with boards so that even if there was an abrupt stop, the fruit and vegetables piled up high in the back would not fall down forward and be damaged. When someone looked into the back of the truck, all they could see was the cargo of produce piled almost to the canvas roof of the truck.

The Kethak checkpoint was manned by an ARVN QC sergeant and local militia. They checked the driver's pass and glanced at the load. By that time, however, the agent had already handed over a “toll” of one thousand piasters, slipped in with the transit pass. If no toll had been paid, the sergeant in charge of the checkpoint probably would have made a fuss of unloading the entire cargo for inspection, saying he had to search for guerrillas and ammunition before allowing them through.

At the checkpoints on the outskirts of the cities, the inspection was usually more thorough for the outgoing traffic than for the incoming, mainly because the incoming trucks carried agricultural goods that were very scarce. Even when such goods were moving between so-called liberated areas under NLF control and the areas under South Vietnamese jurisdiction, both sides tended to be lenient.

The truck lurched forward again, and soon two knocks on the window were heard. Only then did the men in back pull their heads and shoulders up free of the vegetables, turning their necks to loosen the weight under which they had been buried. The five of them had been born again as brethren now fighting for the National Liberation Front. Apart from his four comrades, Pham Minh had no information about their higher organization, or about the identity of their fellow urban guerrillas, nor did he have any idea how they expected to regain the strength needed to liberate the nation while under the countless enemy guns, cannons, and aircraft in Da Nang.

According to the vague information they had been given, the number of NLF guerrillas active in Da Nang was at least two hundred. There were roughly forty teams, collectively known as the 434th Special Action Group of the Third Special District. In other words, the fifteen members in his training group at Atwat were comparable to a single company unit, and they were acquainted with no superior command above the level of company leader. The political staff of the district committee must have been handling the coordination with other teams on the next level above.

“We're in Da Nang!” one of the team members shouted after hearing the sound of passing vehicles and peeking out through a parted canvas flap. Pham Minh could also sense they had arrived. The breeze now had the fresh smell of the sea. The truck pulled in past the inter-city bus terminal at the old Le Loi market and slowly parked in the lot for the produce market. The driver and the lead agent lifted the rear flap and pretended to begin unloading the goods. One at a time, the team members crawled out and casually joined in the work of unloading. To the eyes of onlookers, they looked no different from any of the other day laborers hired in the market to move the fruit and vegetables around.

When they were almost finished, they followed the eye signals of the agent to the Chrysanthemum Pub. It was the very place Pham Minh had first visited when he joined the Front. Since the pub was a place always jammed with travelers, nobody thought twice about strange faces, thus it was a textbook example of a good place for arranging a covert rendezvous. They walked in past customers eating
nuoc mam
noodles and passed inside the rear quarters behind the partition. No sooner had they sat down around a table in one of the rooms than a waiter stood before them. Their lead agent spoke.

“Bring us five bowls of noodles, steamed fish, and liquor. And pass the word that the cargo from Long Long has arrived.”

“Excuse me, . . . but who do you want me to tell?”

The waiter's tone was respectful. The agent spoke again.

“We're looking for Uncle Nguyen Thach.”

“I see. Just a minute, please.”

They were all either drinking tea or smoking cigarettes. Looking out through the screened window, Pham Minh was taking in the familiar sights of old Le Loi market spread out across the street from the restaurant. The aroma of fried fish and
nuoc mam
reminded him of the sweat of peasants. The strong salty smell of boiling boar's intestines mixed with hot pepper wafted by. In the kitchen, sleek black sun-dried sausages were glossily shining and the fried bananas were deep yellow. Cooked rice with hot curry was evenly spread on a cutting board, and nearby side dishes of pepper, pork, cabbage and onions were being ladled around a whole duck that was bright red after being boiled and spiced.

There was not a single foreigner in the motley crowds bustling in the market. White people were nowhere to be seen, and in fact the distinctive sharp smells of the old market were deeply repulsive to almost anyone but the Vietnamese themselves. But the city carved up by many barricades and off-limits zones was coming to seem like a set of gigantic cages for animals and fowl. The young waiter who had gone out returned and stood there blocking Pham Minh's line of sight. He came up to their table with a tray full of food.

“I've notified Uncle. He said he'll be here shortly.”

The guide nodded.

“Now, let's have dinner. I'm afraid this will be the last time we eat together.”

For the first time a humane look could be detected on the agent's face. The team members asked no questions, nor did they chatter unnecessarily. They were heeding the unwritten rule that one never, regardless of time or place, seeks to discover anything about missions in progress. Nobody asked: Where am I being sent? Who's my superior? Where are my comrades? What is the role of the owner of this restaurant? Are you heading back to Long Long? Is your assignment to help us with infiltration?

Such questions not only made no practical contribution to the mission, they only increased the risks and burdens as more people had more sensitive information. Another thing was, after once meeting a certain person and exchanging a few words, the next time you met somewhere you were to reveal no sign at all of the prior contact. Connections were to be formed only on the basis of what was needed for the current task. Once the common cause of the mission no longer existed, they should erase one another from memory.

It was their first hot soup since leaving Atwat. They also shared a kettle of hot liquor and a boiled fish garnished with ginger and
nuoc mam
. It was getting dark outside and a cooler wind was blowing caresses through the marketplace. Every so often they turned their eyes to the hall to check new customers entering the place. The guide kept checking his watch. Then a low voice came from the behind.

“Were you looking for me?”

A gentle-looking man in his thirties, clad in a jacket and black Vietnamese pants, was looking down at them. Pham Minh remembered distinctly that he was the same man who a few months before had received him here and put him in touch with the NLF. Though they were already acquainted, Pham Minh gave him only a blank look. Two other members of the team had joined in Da Nang at the same time and they, too, no doubt already knew the face of the operative known as Uncle Nguyen Thach.

It seemed likely that all fifteen of them who were slipping back into Da Nang in three separate teams would have their missions coordinated through this man. If someone were caught or turned traitor, the lead agent would be changed and the whole group would disintegrate and be reconstructed anew. Even members of the same team did not know the real names, former occupations, or hometowns of the others. All they knew of each other was the expressionless faces they now were peering at.

“I've come from Long Long. The goods are onions, cabbages, bananas, papayas, and some more. The tenants of our farm came with me.”

Nguyen Thach and the guide shook hands. The former sat down at the table across from the guide and examined them all one by one. Then he said, “I'll buy the whole consignment.”

“Thank you, but time is short for me, so . . .”

The guide took out a piece of paper from his pocket. “Would you sign this receipt here, please?”

Nguyen Thach wrote his name on the document for transfer of the recruits and the guide took it back, folded it and put it away for his report to superiors back at Atwat. Then he rose from his seat. Without even looking at the team members, he gave a nod to Nguyen Thach and quietly walked down the hall and out through the door.

“Finished with your meal? Well, then, it's time to get to work,” Nguyen Thach said.

He led them through the kitchen of the pub, where the women cooking stood aside to let them pass. They emerged from the pub through the back door. Thach walked over to the lot where they had parked the truck and stopped at the heap of baskets and bushels full of fruit and vegetables they had unloaded.

“What are you waiting for?” he said. “You've been paid, so start working. Hurry and get these stored inside. Don't dawdle.”

For an instant the team members were puzzled, but as ordered, they picked up the baskets on long bamboo poles and followed Thach. He led them not to his own place, the car service shop, but to the office of his elder brother, Cuong. He went around to the rear of the brick building where the office was and unlocked a door. The office door was on the left, and on the right was another wooden door with an aluminum-grated window set in it. Before opening the door Thach turned a switch. Inside was a storage room of about one hundred fifty square yards. There were two thirty-watt light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. All sorts of boxes, sacks, and bags were piled up. Standing at the door, in a low voice he ordered them to hurry in.

The team members carried the baskets into the warehouse. As the last of them came inside, Thach closed the outer iron gate and relocked it. They gathered around and stood there awkwardly in the warehouse. Thach removed a few papers from his pocket and took them to a small desk and sat down.

“Over there . . . grab one of those boxes and have a seat. Come to me as I call your name.”

He held up some documents and read for a while before calling out a name. The person summoned would approach the desk and answer the questions posed by Thach. At the end of the interview he returned to his seat and Thach went on to the next piece of paper. Pham Minh was the last of the five to be called.

He walked up to Thach's desk.

“Pham Minh . . . so you were a medical student at Hue University?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Born in Da Nang and . . . just a minute, is Major Pham Quyen of the provincial command Comrade's elder brother?”

“Yes.”

“The chief adjutant of General Liam at the provincial government office, that Major Pham, correct?”

“Right, sir.”

Nguyen Thach frowned slightly, rubbing the tip of his nose as if absorbed in thought.

“Your brother, he must know you joined the Front. Doesn't he?”