Saigon (71 page)

Joseph shivered as the white door of the special cell in the old Süreté cellar clanged shut behind them, and he had to screw up his eyes against the glare of the bright overhead lights that reflected off the floor, the walls and the ceiling which were all painted a dazzling uniform white. Through rows of grilles set high in the walls the faint hum of invisible high-intensity air-conditioning units was audible, and the sharp chill inside the cell testified to their efficiency. At least twenty-five feet square, the room was furnished with a chair, a table and a plank bed, all painted a gleaming white, and there was a simple, unadorned hole for a toilet in one corner. Its lone occupant was seated on the chair with his back to them — a shrunken, aging figure dressed only in a ragged pair of white shorts. He was bent almost double with his shoulders hunched around his ears, and he had clasped his arms about his own waist in an attempt to provide his shuddering body with a vestige of warmth. 

“We built this cell especially for him,” said Guy in a normal voice, “A Special Forces patrol stumbled on his headquarters by accident in an old Dien Bien Phu kitchen near Moc Linh. He had an entourage of six personal guards and two cooks so we knew we’d netted a big fish.” As they walked towards the prisoner, the CIA man pointed to the row of vents set high in the walls. “Not all those grilles are air ducts. We installed high-fidelity microphones and television cameras-to record every move and every sound he makes twenty-four hours a day, whether he’s awake or asleep. So far he’s given away nothing — but then until now he’s never come face to face with an OSS officer who helped train that romantic little Viet Minh guerrilla band in 1945.” 

Guy raised his voice so that it carried clear across the cell, but the scrawny Vietnamese did not move or turn as they approached; even when the two Americans walked around in front of him, he continued to lean forward in a crouch, hugging his wasted body with his bony arms and only the top of his bowed head remained visible to them. 

“I’ve brought an old friend of Uncle Ho’s to see you, comrade,” said Guy quietly in French. “Let him get a good look at you.” 

For a long time the prisoner kept his head bowed, but when he raised his eyes at last to look at them, Joseph tensed suddenly. Although his cheeks were hollow and sunken, and his gray hair was cropped close to his head, the high scholar’s brow and the brightness of his gaze made the Vietnamese instantly recognizable, and Joseph’s memory sped back nearly twenty-five years to those few days he’d spent on the ledge outside the Pac Bo cave while he was being nursed back to health after the crash of his Warhawk. Dao Van Lat’s eyes widened for a fleeting instant too in a moment of mutual recognition, then his expression became blank once more. 

Guy was watching both men intently and he spotted the involuntary signals. “You recognize him, Joseph, I can tell!” He spoke sharply, unable to keep a note of triumph from his voice. “Who is he?” 

Joseph continued staring at Lat, his mind awhirl with contradictory impulses. How could he reconcile his memory of the idealistic young Annamese who had read Ho’s poems to him on a Tongking mountainside and the ravaged guerrilla leader who had obviously been helping direct Viet Cong operations in the South? And if he identified him as one of Ho’s close aides, would that encourage the U.S. government to exchange him for a group of captured pilots that might include Mark? Or would knowledge of who he really was make them more anxious to hold him? For several seconds Joseph agonized over which course would be most likely to bring about Mark’s release — then unable to decide, he turned his back suddenly on Lat. 

“I don’t know for sure,” he said slowly. “I think maybe I do recognize his face—but I’m not certain.” 

A shadow of relief passed across Lat’s features and he bent his head once more to stare at the floor. 

“But he was one of the group with Ho in Tongking, wasn’t he?” Guy’s voice was angrily insistent, and Joseph turned back, frowning, to face him. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time in Vietnam over the years, Guy, and met a lot of people. I think I recall his face from somewhere 

but it may have been twenty or thirty years ago. And he hadn’t been through the hell of a year in solitary then. I don’t really remember where it might have been.” 

“We’ve got pictures going back forty years at the embassy,” said Guy quickly. “We inherited the old Süreté photo-archives. Maybe you can identify one with a name on it.” The CIA man glanced down at Lat, who sat staring vacantly in front of him, behaving as though they had already departed. “But there’s something else, Joseph, that might help jog your memory — it’s entered on his file under ‘scars and distinguishing physical characteristics.’ 

Taking hold of one of Lat’s manacled arms, Guy lifted him to his feet and with a quick movement of his free hand, pushed his loose shorts down his legs to the floor. He retained his grip on the arm of the Vietnamese so that he could not bend to retrieve the garment and turned him towards Joseph in a way that exposed his groin. “You see now what I mean he’s got no goddamned balls!” 

Lat, helpless in the American’s grip, tried without success to straighten his pathetically thin body but managed to keep his head up and stared at the far wall, striving to achieve a posture that would have some dignity, at least in his own mind. 

“How do you account for that, Joseph? Could he have been some kind of court eunuch in Hue in the old days? Was that where you might have met?” 

Lat was struggling to keep his balance, and Joseph turned away and walked towards the door so that he didn’t have to look at the shrunken, mutilated body of the sixty-five year-old Vietnamese. “It’s no help, Guy— let him get dressed. We’ll go arid look at the pictures.” He knocked loudly on the door to indicate to the guard outside that they wished to leave and didn’t turn round again, but out of the corner of his eye as he waited he could still see Lat, crouched shivering on the white stool, struggling with his manacled hands to pull the tattered shorts up around his waist again. 

Because the CIA photo archive of terrorist suspects stored on the top floor of the Chancery was classified “secret,” Guy had to escort Joseph past several security checks and remain with him while the search was made. Outside, the rhythmic clatter of a helicopter landing or taking off from the top of the building became audible from time to time, and the steady hum of rooftop shredders destroying classified waste provided a monotonous drone of background noise as Joseph began the laborious task of scrutinizing the hundreds of old photographs bled in pull-out drawers. Guy watched over his shoulder, turning away occasionally to gaze impatiently out of the plastic windows at the restricted view of the street visible through gaps in the rocket screens, but Joseph found it difficult to concentrate. He worked mechanically, peering at the succession of anonymous Vietnamese faces pictured beneath 1930s protest banners without really seeing them; in his mind’s eye he could see only the haggard face of I)ao Van Lat, trapped in that bare, shimmering dungeon that seemed more suited to the realms of science fiction than a police headquarters, and after several minutes he stopped and turned round to look at his brother. 

“Whose idea was it to build that nightmare cell, Guy?” he asked in a puzzled voice. 

“That was dreamed up here by the Agency.” 

“But why’s it painted white? And why the near-freezing temperature and the spy cameras?” 

“You know the Vietnamese rush to put on sweaters whenever the thermometer falls below seventy, don’t you? Like all his compatriots the prisoner imagines his veins will contract in cold temperatures — it’s disorientation technique. It’s been painted white for the same reason.” 

“A place like that’s more likely to drive a man out of his mind than make him talk.” 

“That’s a surprising sentiment,” said Guy quietly, “coming from someone who’s just learned his son’s being tortured witless in Hanoi.” 

“That’s no goddamned reason for us to do it, too!” 

Guy placed his hands deliberately on the table and leaned towards Joseph. “Listen, our little allies here in Saigon know as much about the gentle art of persuasion as their cousins in Hanoi and we can’t stop that — this is their country, remember. We insisted on putting our friend in that special cell to get him out of their clutches — to protect him. Those Vietnamese manning the doors and the cameras are on our payroll — they’re Agency employees. We insisted on that. If he’d been left to the South Vietnamese, he’d have been dead long ago.” 

Joseph snorted with exasperation. “Congratulations! You’ve discovered the world’s first humane form of torture.” 

“If you’re so concerned about our friend, just find his picture and give us his name,” snapped Guy. “Then maybe he’ll talk and we’ll give him an overcoat and you’ll feel a whole lot better about it. Don’t you understand? We’ve got a golden Opportunity to do a major deal that will get Mark released — if you can just come up with a name for him.” 

Because Guy’s face was so close to his, Joseph was suddenly more intensely aware than ever before of the Gallic cast to his features; the dark hair, the narrow face and the eager expression reminded him suddenly of someone he’d known well, and he started inwardly when he realized he was seeing another version of the boyish face of Paul Devraux. Guy’s eyes were alight with the same kind of fervid idealism that had in the end proved fatal for the Frenchman, and in that moment Joseph made up his mind to pass over any likeness he might find of Lat in the archive. Without replying he turned back to the table and began going through the motions of inspecting the photographs once more. 

For almost a quarter of an hour he sorted through drawer after drawer, consciously trying to give the impression he was examining each envelope with care, pretending to subject some to closer scrutiny and passing over others more quickly; Guy grew more restless as the minutes ticked by and he began pacing slowly back arid forth while he waited. By chance, Joseph decided to peer closely at what seemed to be another anonymous portrait and found himself looking at a female face that made his heart leap into his throat. Although he hadn’t been concentrating fully, the curve of her cheeks and the distinctive lustrous eyes that had mocked or condemned him by turns whenever they met flashed a message directly to some part of his brain that might always have been waiting unsleeping to receive it. The photograph looked like an enlargement of a shot taken at long range with a telephoto lens; hatless and obviously unaware of the camera, his daughter was pictured with her long hair dressed in a thick practical braid that hung in front of her left shoulder. Behind her there was a background of thatched huts and palm trees that suggested she was in a village of the Mekong delta. With shaking hands Joseph turned the print over and read the inscription on the back: 

“Tuyet Luong, Long An province, January 1963.” 

After staring at it transfixed for some time, he realized Guy had stopped his pacing, and glancing up, he found his brother watching him intently from the far end of the room. Their eyes met for an instant then Guy began moving back towards him, but before he reached his side, Joseph calmly replaced the photograph in its brown paper envelope and slipped it back among the others. 

“Did you find someone who looked like him?” asked Guy sharply. 

“No — nothing interesting.” .Joseph didn’t look up again and he went on inspecting the files for another five minutes before standing up and rubbing his eyes. “Do you mind, Guy, if we call a break there and finish this some other time? I’d like to take time out to listen to Mark’s tape again — and maybe contact Gary too with the news.” 

Guy nodded reluctantly. “Okay — but let’s try to get back to it real soon.” 

He escorted Joseph to the embassy entrance, then returned immediately to the photo-archive. He went straight to the last drawer Joseph had worked on and examined the dog-eared folders covering the pictures. While walking towards the table he had taken a careful look at the folder in which Joseph was replacing the picture that had so obviously startled him; one corner, he had noticed, was slightly torn, and he had memorized its position towards the front of the drawer while Joseph was replacing it. Pulling it out again, he extracted the photograph and stared at the face of a beautiful Vietnamese girl ‘who looked as though she might have been of mixed parentage. Turning it over, he read the caption and made a note of the name and reference number on a slip of paper. in response to a phone call, an assistant came to the room, and Guy asked him to run a computer check on the name. Guy remained in the archive, glancing occasionally at the picture, and five minutes later the assistant returned. 

“Several unconfirmed trace reports on Tuyet Luong have gone on file over the past three years, but none has been followed up,” he said, glancing down at the printout in his hand. “Routine sightings have been reported from Qui Nhon, Da Nang — and the latest. one two months ago came from Hue. Her original sin was suspected murder of two members of the South Vietnamese security police in 1961 — and she’s believed to have thrown a grenade at two of our operatives a month later. They escaped with minor injuries. The first two trace reports were routine and they weren’t acted on when received because other more urgent cases currently had priority. The last one’s been lying on the file because nobody was interested enough to follow it up. Tuyet Luong’s a back number these days, you might say.” 

Guy nodded arid took the printout from the assistant. “Have the Hue trace checked and let me know the result as soon as it comes in.” 

“Okay, sir,” said the assistant briskly. ‘I’ll get on to it right away.”