“They disobeyed instructions, then,” Bay said. “I had hoped to accomplish this without violence. Simply have you sell your wares to what you thought were Viet Minh, pay you your money, and let you go on your way. But now …”
Bay shook his head with what appeared to be regret. “Please understand it’s only business.”
Nicholai knew that this development had rearranged the stones on the go-kang. His promise to Colonel Yu to deliver the weapons to the Viet Minh now seemed impossible to redeem, and his own death wouldn’t change the outcome.
He could almost hear Otake-sama’s gentle counsel. When the immediate situation is untenable, Nikfro, what do you play for?
Time, Otake-sama.
Play for the long game.
“Yes, poor business,” Nicholai answered.
“How so?”
“Fifty rocket launchers will make the Binh Xuyen very powerful,” Nicholai said. “So what would a hundred make you? Or two hundred?”
Bay Vien scoffed, “You can’t get that many.”
“Not if I’m dead,” Nicholai agreed.
He could virtually see Bay Vien thinking, as well he might. The Binh Xuyen would eventually have to fight the militias, other gangs, and perhaps the Viet Minh. They might even have to go up against their current ally Bao Dai and his regular Vietnamese troops in the future. These weapons could decide the outcome of a battle fought in the streets of Saigon.
And Bay Vien’s thinking, Nicholai contemplated, will determine if I live or die.
100
ELLIS HAVERFORD ALWAYS LIKED Saigon.
In the guise of an employee at the United States Information Service, he had been in and out of the city quite often over the years, and considered it a second home. To him it was the ideal blend of the best of Paris and the best of Asia—the food, the architecture, the wine, the fashion, the women —all without the gray winters and accompanying existential angst that often plagued the city on the Seine. Saigon was a sophisticated town with an easy tolerance for vice—its casinos were honest and well-run, its brothels cheerful, hospitable, and famed for the staggering variety of their courtesans.
And he liked the city’s bars. Saigon was a great town for booze and boozy conversations. The escalating war brought reporters from all over the world, always good for a laugh and a little inside information, always available for late-night card games and early-morning Bloody Marys.
Besides, Haverford liked the Vietnamese. He loved their kind demeanor, respected their long struggle for independence, admired how they had adopted the best of Western culture and adapted the worst.
Still, he hoped to spend as little time as possible there, praying that the “cold warriors” back in Washington would not step into the shoes of the French. He had fought in Vietnam before, and he didn’t want to fight there ever again.
Now he waited for Nicholai Hel, hoping that he would arrive with the spring rains.
101
NICHOLAI TOOK a separate pedicab down to the river, got off a half mile from where the rafts were docked, and walked the rest of the way.
Tasser shone a bright lamp on him as he approached.
“That you, Mike?”
“And if it wasn’t?” Nicholai stepped onto the raft. “A truck will be pulling up anytime now. We’ll transfer the cargo.”
“Not a minute too soon for me,” Tasser said. “These fucking Hmong give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“What will you do now?”
“Back to the high mountains,” Tasser answered. “See if any more crazy Brits, Yanks, or Frogs want to climb to the top of the world. Look for me in the photos — I’ll be the guy they don’t name.”
A pair of headlights came down the road. Tasser’s men offloaded the cargo onto the shore. Nicholai shook Tasser’s hand. “Thank you for everything. It’s been a genuine pleasure.”
“Same here.”
Tasser gathered his crew and disappeared into the darkness.
Nicholai walked toward the truck.
Bay Vien sat in the front passenger seat.
102
THE TRUCK ROLLED OUT of town in the morning, Nicholai in the front seat beside Bay Vien.
“Where are we going?” Nicholai asked.
Bay pointed east, across the river, up toward the mountains.
“Why?”
“You ask too many questions,” Bay answered, sucking on a cigarette. He was irritable, unused to the early hour and the jostling of the truck. Besides, the Binh Xuyen boss wasn’t thrilled that Nicholai insisted on coming along with the weapons instead of just meeting him in Saigon.
“Until I get my money,” Nicholai had said, “I stay with my merchandise.”
“I don’t pay,” Bay answered, “until your merchandise is safely delivered.”
“So I guess you’re stuck with me.”
Now Nicholai lit a cigarette of his own and sat back, enjoying the relative cool of the early morning and the streaking red shafts of daylight coming over the hills. Young boys were already herding buffalo down to the river for a drink and a bath, and women were collecting buckets of the muddy water to bring back to their village.
They waited twenty minutes for the ferry to return from the other side of the river, then the heavy truck carefully drove onto the floating platform. Thick ropes on the ferry ran through large eyebolts and then out to the harnesses of elephants, one on each side. A young Lao mahout kicked his elephant in the flank and the two animals started across the river, pulling the ferry along with them.
The ferry came to a shuddering halt on the opposite bank. Two large sheets of corrugated tin were thrown down for traction, and the truck rumbled up the slope and onto a dirt road that cut up through the forest.
They climbed for five hours, slowly making their way up the switchbacks into the mountains, where limestone cliffs punctuated the otherwise green hills. Fields of dry mountain rice broke up the jungle, while other scorched patches told of primitive slash-and-burn agriculture. Men, women, and children — most of them wearing loose-fitting black jerseys, baggy black trousers, and black turbans — were out on the burned fields, hoeing away the debris and getting the rich red soil ready for planting. Small, shaggy ponies grazed the edges of the burned fields.
“Who lives here?” Nicholai asked, risking conversation.
More awake, Bay was a little more gregarious. “The Meo. They came down from Sichuan two thousand years ago.”
Nicholai saw the rice fields, and small patches of potatoes and other vegetables. Then, as they climbed higher, he noticed a different crop.
Poppies.
“The Meo are also florists?” Nicholai asked dryly.
Bay chuckled. “The Viet Minh used to control the opium crop, now we do. I guess it’s caused some resentment.”
An hour later the road leveled onto a valley and then a broad plateau that led into a town — mostly wooden shacks and a few shops clustered around a few brick-and-tile buildings and an enormous colonial structure that looked as if it had been some kind of administrative center.
“The old French governor’s palace,” Bay said.
“Where are we?” Nicholai asked.
“Xieng Khouang,” Bay answered. “It’s about the only town up here. The French built it back in the 1880s, then the Japs took it. When they got chased out, the Pathet Lao had it for a while, until the Meo helped the French take it back.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Money,” Bay answered. “Why does anyone do anything?”
They drove through town without stopping. A mile outside of town they came to a large airstrip that had recently been bulldozed out of the terrain. An American-made DC-3 with French military markings sat on the strip, guarded by French paratroopers. Other soldiers, along with Meo men, loaded crates from trucks and carts into the cargo hold.
“This you didn’t see,” Bay warned.
He got out of the truck. Nicholai slid out behind him and followed him across the dirt landing strip to whe
re a paratroop captain stood, supervising the loading. The captain saw Bay Vien, walked toward him, held him by the shoulders, and kissed him on both cheeks.
Then he noticed Nicholai. “Captain Antoine Signavi.”
“Michel Guibert.”
They shook hands.
Signavi stood just a shade shorter than Nicholai. He wore crisp camouflage gear, jump boots, and the vermilion beret of a paratrooper. “I have some beer on ice. About the best I can do up here.”
He led them just off the airstrip to a canvas canopy with a portable table and three stools. An orderly reached into an ice chest, came out with three bottles of Tiger beer, opened them, and set them on the table.
Signavi held up his bottle. “Santé.”
“Santé,” Nicholai echoed.
“Three more weeks,” Signavi said, “and this runway will be a river of mud. Unusable. The road up here too. Very difficult. I’ll be glad to be back in Saigon.”
He removed his beret, exposing a thick head of black hair.
“I have some cargo,” Bay said, “to put on this flight. It’s okay?”
“Sure,” Signavi answered. “We’re light this trip.”
“And two additional passengers?”
“You and you?” Signavi asked.
Bay nodded.
Signavi looked hesitant.
“In my area of business,” Nicholai said, “discretion is of the utmost importance. I see nothing and I say less.”
“I’ll vouch for him,” Bay said.
“You can understand,” Signavi said, “that this is all … sensitive. We’re fighting a war, someone has to pay for it, and the Reds in Paris are unwilling to do it. So one holds one’s nose and does what is necessary.” He jutted his chin toward the opium being loaded onto the plane.
Nicholai shrugged. “Who am I to judge?”
“Indeed,” Signavi said, his nuanced tone leaving no doubt that while he was going to tolerate this gunrunner for practical purposes, he nevertheless found it distasteful.
Nicholai wasn’t willing to allow the implied insult to pass. He asked, “Signavi, is that a Corsican name?”
“Guilty,” Signavi said. “Napoleon and I, we both sought our futures in the French army. We take off first thing in the morning. I’ll arrange beds for tonight. I hope you will both join me for dinner.”
Nicholai never ceased to marvel at the French ability to dine well under any circumstances. Here, at a secret airstrip in the middle of the Laotian highlands, emerged a lunch of vichyssoise, cold roasted guinea fowl, and a very acceptable salad made from local greens, all washed down with a decent white wine.
Dining accomplished, Signavi led them to a large barracks tent surrounded by concertina wire.
His proximity sense woke him.
He lay still and listened to the sharp click-click as the wirecutters snipped the fence, then to the sound of a man crawling.
Bay Vien was sound asleep on his bed by the tent wall.
Nicholai dove just as the blade slashed through the tent. He knocked Bay off the bed onto the floor, then got up and went through the tent door.
The would-be assassin was already running back toward the fence.
A klaxon sounded and a searchlight swept the ground. Nicholai heard Alsatian dogs bark and then one burst across the stockade ground after the man. The man leapt for the fence and became entangled in the concertina wire. He twisted in the wire, a grotesque acrobatic act, as the machine-gun bullets hit him.
Signavi, clad in satin pajamas, a pistol in his hand, ran out, and a moment later Bay Vien came out of the tent and looked at the corpse hanging from the fence.
“Viet Minh,” Bay said. He turned to Nicholai. “You saved my life, Guibert.”
“Just looking out after my interests,” Nicholai answered. He walked back into the tent and lay back down.
Bay came in. “I’m in your debt,” he said.
“Forget it.”
“I won’t,” Bay said. “It’s a matter of honor.”
Nicholai understood.
103
COLONEL YU KNOCKED on the door of Liu’s office and received permission to enter.
Liu looked up from the stack of papers on his desk. “Yes?”
“The Viet Minh agent who was supposed to meet Hel was killed.”
“Ah.”
“So Hel didn’t make the rendezvous.”
“Obviously.”
“There’s a report,” Yu said, “unverified, that he went with the Binh Xuyen.”
“Stay on top of it,” Liu ordered.
Yu left the room deeply troubled. If Hel was with the Binh Xuyen, he was either a prisoner or had willingly betrayed him.
104
THE PLANE FOLLOWED the Mekong south.
Nicholai watched out the window as the broad brown river flowed out of the mountains down into the plains of Cambodia, then broke into multiple tributaries as it entered the delta in southern Vietnam.
Looking down at the endless stretch of green rice paddies, cross-stitched with irrigation canals and dotted with innumerable villages, Nicholai knew that he had made the right decision to deal with Bay Vien.
Blockhouses and guard towers rose every two or three kilometers above the paddies, and Nicholai could spot military convoys patrolling the main roads. Not only was the Foreign Legion thick on the ground, but also the well-armed militias whose arms the French purchased from the proceeds of the opium in the plane’s cargo hold.
The French army bought the opium from the Meo, purchasing their loyalty as well. Then the army sold the crop to the Binh Xuyen, who monopolized the opium traffic in Saigon. The French used the profits to pay the militias and mountain tribes to fight a guerrilla war in the countryside, while the Binh Xuyen held Saigon for them.
We would never have made it through all this, Nicholai thought, with the shipment of arms.
It was the right thing to do.
He had a dull headache that throbbed with the pulse of the engines and was exacerbated by the engine fumes. The propellers were noisy and the plane rattled and bumped, and he was glad when he saw the sprawling metropolis of greater Saigon appear below.
But the plane banked southeast, away from the city and down the coast, and Nicholai saw what looked like a military base.
“Vung Tau!” Signavi shouted over the noise. “ ‘Cap St.-Jacques’!”
The plane made a rapid descent and landed on the military airstrip. Trucks were waiting, and Binh Xuyen troopers in green paramilitary uniforms hopped out and quickly loaded the crates of opium and rocket launchers.
“I’m off to a bath and a decent drink,” Signavi said. He shook Nicholai’s hand. “Perhaps I’ll see you in Saigon?”
“I would enjoy that.”
“Good. See you there.”
A black limousine pulled up. Two troopers armed with machine pistols got out and escorted Bay and Nicholai into the back of the car and it quickly drove off the airstrip.
“Where is the cargo going?” Nicholai asked.
“The opium, to our processing plant in Cholon,” Bay answered. “The weapons, somewhere safe.”
“Until I’ve been paid,” Nicholai said, “the rocket launchers are still my property, and as such, I have a right to know where they are.”
Bay nodded. “Fair enough. They’re going to the Rung Sat — ‘the Swamp of the Assassins.’ ”
“Colorful.”
“It’s the base of the Binh Xuyen,” Bay said, smiling. “Remember, we started as ‘river pirates.’ Your property will be quite safe there.”
“When do I get paid?” Nicholai asked.
“Do you have an account in Saigon?”
“I prefer cash.”
“As you wish,” Bay said. “It’s nothing to me. I’ll arrange for payment tomorrow. Meet me at my casino, Le Grand Monde.”
“What do I have as security?”
Bay turned and glared at him. “My word.”
105
SAIGON WAS beautiful.
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Nicholai thought the city’s sobriquet as “the Pearl of the Orient” was perfectly justified as he rode in a blue Renault taxi down the Rue Catinat.
The broad boulevard — lined with plane trees, studded with sidewalk cafés, bars, restaurants, expensive shops, and exclusive hotels — seemed a perfect blend of French and Asian culture, as if someone had chosen the best of both and placed them in happy harmony, side by side.
Vietnamese police, in their distinctive white uniforms, stoically struggled to manage the swirling Citroën and Renault autos, cyclo-pousses, Vespa scooters, and swarms of bicycles that competed for the right-of-way in a chaos that was a true mixture of the French and Asian styles of driving. Honking horns, jingling bells, and shouts of good-natured abuse in French, Vietnamese, and Chinese contributed to an urban cacophony.
Child street vendors darted and dodged through the traffic to sell newspapers, bottles of orange soda, or cigarettes to customers momentarily stuck in a jam, or sitting at a café table, or just walking down the busy sidewalks.
The women were magnificent, Nicholai thought — slim, tiny Vietnamese in tight silk ao dais stopped to window shop, while the elegant French colons, dressed in fashion only a year removed from Paris runways, strode in their slow, long-legged gait to the unabashed, admiring stares of the café denizens.
The cab pulled up to the Continental Hotel, a broad white colonial building in the Beaux-Arts style, with its arched windows and pedimented doors. It was the apero hour, that time in the late afternoon when the privileged classes sought refuge from the heat and the day’s work, and all the smarter types gathered on the Continental’s broad café terrace that flanked the boulevard. Just across Catinat from the USIS office, the Continental was a convenient place to have a drink, exchange information and intelligence (to such an extent that the café was nicknamed “Radio Catinat”), or perhaps to find a companion to share a table now or a bed later.
Ellis Haverford looked through the anti-grenade netting to observe the new arrival as Nicholai unfolded himself from the backseat of the small car. He was dressed like a classic Southeast Asian colon, in the clothes that he had bought in Luang Prabang. Vietnamese bellboys in short white jackets and black trousers ran out to take his luggage and take it into the lobby.