Up Country (46 page)

“The final battle of the French-Indochina War.”

“Yes. Military men of all nationalities go there to study this historic battlefield. So you should go there. When you have seen the museum and taken some photos, ask a local person where is this hamlet you are looking for. It is less than thirty kilometers north of Dien Bien Phu. But be careful who you ask. Up north, they report everything to the authorities.”

He sipped his tea, then continued, “I have been to Dien Bien Phu, and so I can tell you that there are many hill tribespeople who gather near the museum and in the market to sell their crafts to the tourists. The tribesmen are mostly H’mong and Tai. You will recall from your time here that the tribespeople have little loyalty to the Vietnamese government.” He added, “They are not anti-Communist, they are anti-Vietnamese. Therefore, you should direct your inquiries to a tribesman, not an ethnic Vietnamese. You may find a few tribesmen who speak some English, but mostly they speak French for the tourists who are mostly French. Do you speak French?”

“Un peu.”

“Bon. You should try to pass as French.” He added, “I think you can trust these people.”

“Tell me why I should trust
you.
”

Mr. Anh replied, “That would take some time, and whatever I say would not convince you. As I see it, Mr. Brenner, you have no choice.”

“How do you know my name?”

“If I needed to contact you at your hotel in an emergency.”

I informed Mr. Anh, “It’s very unusual in these situations for you to know who I am. I don’t mean to sound racist, but you’re not a native-born American, and you don’t qualify as a person who should know either my name or my destination.”

He looked at me a long time, then smiled and replied, “I still have relatives in the new country. Your government trusts me, but to be sure, they have arranged a family reunion for me in Los Angeles. I am to leave for the States on the same day you leave Hue. If I don’t show up in Los Angeles, they will assume I have betrayed them and you.”

“That’s a little late for me, partner.”

“I have no intention of betraying you, Mr. Brenner. In fact, I wish you a successful trip because if something happens to you, it will not go well for me or my family in Los Angeles.”

“I see. Well, we don’t shoot people.”

“That’s not what they told me.”

I didn’t reply to that. Bottom line here, the stakes were very high, whatever the game was, and Mr. Anh was either loyal to Uncle Sam, or scared shitless about his family, or both. They weren’t fucking around in Washington. I said, “Okay. Sorry if I insulted you.”

“Not at all. It was a legitimate and necessary question. Your life is at stake.”

“Thanks.”

“For you, it doesn’t matter if I’m loyal or under duress. I’m on your side.”

“Great.”

Mr. Anh stayed silent, chewing on his peanuts, then said, “Whatever your mission is, Mr. Brenner, I assume it is important enough for you to risk your life. If not, you should take the next plane to Hanoi or Saigon, and get out of this country. This can be a pleasant place for the average Western tourist—but if you are deviating from tourism, the government can be very unforgiving.” He added, “I have been asked to help, and I agreed, thereby putting my own safety in jeopardy. I don’t know what this is about, but I am one of those Vietnamese who still trust the Americans.”

“Well, I don’t.”

We both smiled.

I said to Mr. Anh, “Okay, if you are who you say you are, then thank you. If you’re not, then I suppose I’ll see you at my trial.”

“You would be lucky to get a trial. I’ll tell you something you may not know—the Hanoi government is obsessed with the FULRO. You have heard of this group—Front Unitié de Lutte des Races Opprimées—the United Front for the Struggle of the Oppressed Races?”

I recalled again the photos I saw in the American War Crimes Museum in Saigon. I said, “Yes. I’ve heard of the FULRO.”

Mr. Anh had more good news for me. He said, “You will be passing through FULRO territory. The Hanoi government is merciless in hunting down these guerrillas, and merciless in their treatment of Americans who have made contact with them. If this is your mission, and you are caught, you can expect to be tortured, then shot. I know this for a fact.”

Well, this was not my mission, but it occurred to me that I’d have a hard time explaining that if I were arrested. I always assumed that the worst that would happen if I were caught would be a few weeks or months of unpleasantness, followed by a diplomatic solution to the problem, and repa-triation back to the States. But if I put the FULRO into the equation, I might very well wind up being the last American MIA in Vietnam.

Mr. Anh was a bottomless well of interesting facts, and he said, “There have been CIA men, Special Forces men, and American freelance mercenaries who have gone into the remote areas of the country to aid the FULRO—most of them have never been heard of again.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

Mr. Anh looked at me and said, “This is an unhappy country, a country whose history has turned brother against brother, father against son. Here, in the south, you never know who to trust. But when you get to the north, it is much easier—trust no one.”

“Except the hill people.”

Mr. Anh did not respond. He sipped his tea and asked me, “Has your visit brought back memories?”

“Of course.”

“In this country, most of the war generation are dead, or have fled. Those who remember do not speak of it. The government celebrates every Communist victory, and they have changed each of their defeats
into victories. If they had thirty years of victories, what took them so long to win the war?”

It seemed like a rhetorical question, but the answer was, “The winners write the history.”

Mr. Anh continued, “I had to go to America to learn the history of my own country. If you listen to Hanoi long enough, you start to doubt your own memory and your own sanity.”

“Same in Washington, Mr. Anh.”

“Well, but you make that a joke. Here, it is not a joke.”

“How many more years do you have here?”

“One.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. I may stay . . . things are changing for the better here . . .”

“I have an American friend who’s been here three years, and she can’t seem to leave.”

“Everyone has his or her own reasons for staying or for leaving. This is an interesting country, Mr. Brenner, a dynamic country in many ways, coming out of a long nightmare, filled with social and economic change. For many people, especially Americans, the transition is exciting, and offers many opportunities. An American expatriate once described Vietnam to me as being like the Wild West, a place where you leave your history behind, and where anything goes in pursuit of your fortune.”

“God help Vietnam.”

Mr. Anh smiled and added, “You could die of boredom in Japan, or Singapore, or Korea. Here, you won’t die of boredom.”

“That’s for sure.” I finished my Coke and looked at my watch.

Mr. Anh noticed and said to me, “The name of the village you seek is not Tam Ki, it is Ban Hin, in the province of Lai Chau.” He spelled it out for me and added, “It’s a difficult journey. The only air service is twice weekly from Hanoi, and you are not to go via Hanoi, according to what I have been told. In any case, the seats on the aircraft are usually booked weeks in advance. So you need to go by land. Unfortunately, there is no bus service from here, only from Hanoi. The roads, especially now with the rains, are treacherous, and you know by now that you are not allowed to rent a car yourself. You need a car and driver.”

“Maybe I’ll stay home.”

“That is your decision. But if it were me going, I would take a
four-wheel drive and a good driver. The road distance from Hue to Dien Bien Phu is between nine hundred and a thousand kilometers, depending on your route.” He added, “Fortunately, the first five hundred kilometers will be on Highway One toward Hanoi. At some point south of Hanoi, you must choose a road to take you to Route 6, which will then take you northwest through the mountains to Dien Bien Phu.”

He found a map of northern Vietnam in the guidebook and pushed the book toward me. “Do you see Dien Bien Phu?”

I looked at the map and found it in the far northwestern part of the country, near Laos. I could also see Route 6, coming out of Hanoi and winding through the mountains to Dien Bien Phu. I asked, “How’s Route 6?”

“Not a good road at this time of year, or any time for that matter. The roads that lead you to Route 6 are worse.”

“Worse than New Jersey?”

He smiled and continued, “You will see on the map two or three roads leading from Highway One to Route 6 before you get to Hanoi. You must pick one, depending on weather conditions, the condition of the road, and perhaps other factors that only you can decide upon when the time comes for you to leave Highway One.” He looked at me.

I said, “I understand. Tell me what I should tell my driver about why I don’t want to go through Hanoi to get to Highway 6 to Dien Bien Phu?”

“Tell him you enjoy treacherous mountain roads in the rain.”

Not funny.

Mr. Anh said, “With luck, you can be in Dien Bien Phu in two days.”

I thought about this, and wondered what those idiots in Washington were thinking. I said, “Is it possible to hire a small plane from Hue”Phu Bai?”

“Not in this country, Mr. Brenner. Private flights are strictly forbidden.”

“How did the French get to Dien Bien Phu?”

He smiled. “They parachuted in.” He said, “There is an alternative route. You could fly from here to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, then fly to Luang Prabang in Laos, and you will be only about a hundred fifty kilometers from Dien Bien Phu. But you’ll first need a visa for Laos, and then you would have to cross the border back into Vietnam by road, and that could present a difficulty.”

“Well, thank you for the geography lesson, Professor. I’m sure I can get to Dien Bien Phu before my visa expires.”

He reiterated, “Hire a very good private driver with a good four-wheel drive. You should make it.” He added, “Do not go through Vidotour.”

“I know that.”

Mr. Anh played with his pile of broken peanut shells and said to me, “I have been told to pass on some instructions.”

I didn’t reply.

Mr. Anh said, “If you find this person you are looking for, you are to offer to buy all his war souvenirs. If he is dead, document his death, and make the same offer to his family. If he is alive, you are to photograph him, and establish his residence with maps and photographs. This person may be contacted at a later date for whatever purpose your government needs him for.”

Again, I didn’t reply.

Mr. Anh seemed a bit uncomfortable about something, and he was avoiding my eyes when he said, “Or you may wish to finalize the matter yourself, thereby saving the trouble of a further visit to this individual.”

I said to Mr. Anh, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

He did, and I said to him, “I’m not quite sure I understand what that means. Do you?”

“No, I don’t, Mr. Brenner. They said you would understand.”

“Did they? What if I misunderstood and thought they meant I should kill him, when they meant something else?”

Mr. Anh did not reply to that directly but said, “After a long, bitter war, there are many grudges left to be settled.”

I didn’t think this had anything to do with an old grudge, or a payback for something that happened in the secret world of espionage or the Phoenix assassination program, or anything like that. Tran Van Vinh was a simple soldier who’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to see. But Mr. Anh assumed that it had to do with the dirty, back-alley war, which was a logical assumption; or that’s what he’d been told.

Mr. Anh concluded with, “In any case, your mission is then complete, and you are to go directly to your next destination with the items you have acquired. This message is verbatim, and I know nothing further.”

I didn’t reply.

Mr. Anh said, “You are to stay here tonight and tomorrow night, as you know, then make your way to Dien Bien Phu, and the village in question. I am to contact you at your hotel if there is a change in plans, or if I have any further information for you. I have a secure means of informing someone
in Saigon that this meeting was successful, and you have the opportunity now to give me a message that I will pass on.”

I replied, “Just tell them that I understand my mission, and my duty, and that justice will be done.”

“Very well. Should I leave, or do you wish to go first?”

“I’ll go.” I took some peanuts and put them in my pocket. I said to Mr. Anh, “I’m leaving this guidebook with you. What I want you to do is to return it to my hotel on the morning I’m to depart for Dien Bien Phu, which is the same morning you are departing for Los Angeles. In that way, I’ll know you haven’t been arrested, and that my mission is not compromised. If I don’t receive the book, I reserve the right to leave the country. You can pass that on.”

He said, “I understand.”

I stood and took ten dollars out of my pocket and put it on the table. “Thank you for an interesting tour.”

He stood, and we shook hands. He said to me, “Have a safe journey, sir. Happy New Year.”

“Same to you.”

I left and made my way through the market, out onto the river walk, and I headed toward the bridge to the new city.

It was not yet four o’clock on New Year’s Day, the first day of the Year of the Ox. It might also be the last day of the year for the jackass, meaning me. How do I get myself involved in things like this? For a take-charge kind of guy, I keep falling into vats of shit: career-limiting homicide cases, dangerous assignments to hostile countries, and complicated love affairs.

I got onto the pedestrian walk of the Trang Tien Bridge, and I stopped halfway. I cracked open some peanuts and dropped the shells into the river. I popped a few peanuts in my mouth and chewed.

The sky was a layer of clouds and a few raindrops fell. The air was damp and cool, and the Perfume River ran swiftly to the sea.

Well, I thought, I hadn’t misunderstood Mr. Conway at Dulles, or Mr. Anh in Hue. Washington wanted Tran Van Vinh dead, and they’d be happy if I killed him. And they didn’t even bother to give me a reason, beyond national security, which could mean anything and usually did.