A Dangerous Friend (27 page)

That's one solution, Pablo said.

Tell me another one, Rostok said.

Pablo returned to the map and began to describe the terrain in detail. The hamlets covered an area fifteen kilometers long by five kilometers wide. Inside the boundaries were rice fields and the river, and a heavily forested hill. Inside that perimeter you could hide a battalion of infantry and no one would know. You could send a regiment of American troopers and they could not cover it all; and it was likely that the VC had at least one underground complex, absolutely undetectable unless you knew it was there. The infantry comes in with its gunships and artillery and the people vanish. You'd never find them. And I suspect Smalley would vanish with them. You'd never find him, either. I think this is a different sort of invitation. I think they're saying, Come in alone. We'll take you to him. Pablo thought a moment, recalling the remoteness of Song Nu, its unapproachability and the tremendous reserve of the inhabitants. They spoke to you with their faces averted, reciting ordinary small talk as if it were Shakespeare. They reminded him of true believers reading from the Bible, or Reds from Marx. He was there visiting his wife's cousin. They stayed only a few hours and walked out by the same route as they had walked in; that was seven or eight years ago and he had not been back since. The children stared at him as if he were a djinn come to display his appalling supernatural powers; and then he realized they were fascinated by his hat.

Rostok said, You're saying that the army will muck it up, kill a lot of people and not find Smalley.

My guess, Pablo said.

You seem to know a lot about this place, Pab.

I was there once visiting, many years ago. Strange place. I didn't like it. But I remember it.

If the army doesn't go in for Smalley, who does?

I do, Pablo said.

Rostok smiled and then he laughed, a huge, cold guffaw.

Pablo remembered they parked off the district road and at once three men emerged from the forest to guide them to the hamlets. They walked for a while along the river then struck off on a trail. He remembered the swish of his wife's ao dai as they moved through the brush. After an hour they were joined by two more guides, and then a third and a fourth, and by the time they reached Song Nu One they were a formidable procession. When he asked his wife what it was all about, she smiled and replied that was the way villagers did things and not to be alarmed, they were hospitable people. Simple but hospitable, she amended. Not accustomed to strangers. At the end of the visit she giggled and said, They will always remember you because of your hat.

Impossible, Rostok said.

Fine, get someone else, Pablo replied.

The army, Rostok said.

Then Smalley's dead, Sydney said.

You seem damned sure of yourself, Syd.

I'm thinking of Smalley underground, and what's written on the map. What Pablo says is logical. I agree with it.

It's fanciful, Rostok said. Intuition isn't good out here, and if you screw up we're all in the soup. Besides, it's dangerous.

Depends on who's in charge, Pablo said. I don't think it's the VC. VC would've killed him by now or taken him north.

How do you know he's not dead?

I don't, Pablo conceded.

Well then, you're flying blind.

Trouble is, Sydney said, this is our information. It came to us, for whatever reason. We give it to the army and the army fucks up, it's on our heads, too. And Smalley, he's on our conscience.

Point taken, Rostok said. And the reverse is also true, that if we developed the intelligence
and
spring the lad, we're the heroes of the day. Llewellyn Group's on the map. He paused to consider the thought.

Llewellyn Group isn't the point, Pablo said, an unpleasant edge to his voice.

Rostok ignored the remark. He said, Do you think you can get in and get out safely? With Smalley? Smalley injured. Smalley dead weight. Who knows what sort of shape he's in or even if he's alive.

Fair chance, Pablo said.

It has to be better than fair, Rostok said.

All right, then. Better than fair.

I'll go with you, Rostok said. At the magnitude of this offer, a wide smile crossed Rostok's face. Just then he might have been appearing before television cameras at the news conference at Group House, a shaken but elated Captain Smalley at his side, Rostok unsmiling as he denounced the savagery of the enemy. The White House is on the line, Mr. Rostok.

Not necessary, Pablo said. He was tempted to add, Suicidal, but did not.

Under a white flag of truce, Rostok said.

Pablo saw them walking through the forest waving handkerchiefs, the villagers applauding before the shooting started. I've already turned Sydney down, Pablo said. I know the people in these hamlets and I think they'll remember me, and I'll come to no harm. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't do it. He nodded stiffly, believing every word he had spoken. The people of Song Nu lived according to their own lights. For whatever reason, they had decided to surrender Smalley, an alien in their midst; when he was gone, they would return to contemplation of their minor saints, forgetting utterly the inconvenience in their midst.

Rostok was thinking hard. Anyone could see he had the beginnings of a plan, and that alarmed Sydney. Rostok said, I'll give you my Nungs.

For what? Pablo said.

Protection, Rostok said.

Forget the Nungs, Pablo said.

They're good boys, Rostok went on. Loyal boys. Well trained and well paid. They're just lazier'n hell. Good fighters, though. Ruthless.

Pablo watched them dozing under the admiral's tree. The gardeners were moving in slow circles, collecting leaves. There was no traffic in the street. Pablo blinked perspiration from his eyes and put on his hat, trimming it just so. He thought he would go home for a siesta, lie quietly under the mosquito netting and think about tomorrow. He stepped to the door, then turned for a final word to Rostok. He said that the map was meant for him, not Sydney. Claude Armand had nothing to do with it in any case.

He said, What's needed here is absolute secrecy and discretion on your part because people have put their heads in a noose and you hold the noose. So we'd need your word on this, Ros.

Aye aye, Pab, Rostok said with a distant grin.

We can't deviate from these plans, Pablo said.

Of course not, Rostok agreed.

***

The next morning Pablo Gutterman said a tender goodbye to his wife. He said he was going to Song Nu on business and if he did not return by evening to call Sydney Parade in Tay Thanh. She accepted this information without comment, not even to ask what the business was. She had her own intuition and had received what she called an "ingling." Naturally Pablo trusted her without reservation and had told her about Smalley's disappearance and presumed capture. She had said then that she did not believe the boy was dead. That was not the way things appeared to her. He always listened carefully to her and was startled when she added that death was never to be feared. There were many things that could be taken from you that were more precious than life.

He had said, I don't understand.

She had looked at him fondly and said, My Pablo.

Now she patted his cheek and told him she had been to the astrologer Tri the day before and he had assured her these were auspicious times for them. Mr. Tri was confident, and Mr. Tri was never mistaken.

She said, Since my cousin died, I know no one in Song Nu. But it is not a dangerous place so long as one stays within bounds and proceeds with modesty. She said he presented an imposing figure in his white suit and Panama hat, and then she giggled; it was not at all the costume that he wore on weekdays. It was not a suit for business, was it? She kissed him and mussed his hair, and then she straightened his tie. Pablo went a little weak in the knees when he pushed open the door to his house and waved. He never liked leaving her, even for an ordinary day at the office; and this was not an ordinary day.

You are protected, she told him as he walked to the little Fiat parked in the street.

Trying to be light, he said, Is that a promise?

A promise, she said.

Goodbye, darling.

By nightfall, then, she said.

He drove to the place just off the district road, parked, and began to walk. Soon his white suit was spotted from the damp and dirt on the leaves. He was sweating under his hat but he dared not remove it. He was aware what a comical figure he looked, some character from a fifties French farce. He should have asked his wife to take a photograph but she did not as a rule believe in photographs, thinking them bad luck and needlessly provocative to whatever spirits hovered round him.

The path was muddy but there were no tracks, neither animal nor human, and no sign he was being watched, though someone would be watching to make sure he did not stray from the path or take a wrong turn. Probably they knew how defective his eyesight was and how hard for him to distinguish among shadows. They were clever people and would leave no trace of their presence. So long as he proceeded correctly they would not show themselves. The forest was featureless yet alive, the leaves dripping water and small creatures rustling nearby. The odor of the forest was bitter in his nostrils. He did not remember the path from his trek years before, but he was reminded of the tropical forests of his boyhood home in Florida. They were featureless, too, and dangerous in different ways. He had been a decent woodsman as a youngster but that lore had left him long ago. He had no need for it here; he was a city man. He had a scoutmaster who had taught him how to blaze a trail and make a fire without matches and how to move slowly while watching for snakes. He was not moving slowly now and there was no need for stealth. They knew where he was and when they felt the time was right, they would make themselves known. He tried and failed to remember the scoutmaster's various warnings about poisonous snakes. He had a terrible fear of snakes and knew to keep to the middle of the path.

He was beginning to tire, losing his concentration. He paused to take off his hat and wipe his forehead with the back of his hand, breathing hard. He noticed then that there were no birds, either audible or visible. The middle-of-the-forest silence was unnerving and then he heard the faint swish of river water. He remembered the river and the wooden bridge over it, and rice fields on the other side. The sky cleared and the sun began to shine, casting sharp shadows on the path. He put on sunglasses against the glare and picked up his pace. The absence of birds and the sudden sun gave him a second wind. Now the path narrowed and he had to walk sideways to clear the bushes on either side; he knew that they were only a few yards from him, moving parallel to him. He removed his hat again so that they could see him clearly, harmless Pablo Gutterman here to take away their inconvenient infantry captain.

There was no bridge across the stream and for a moment he thought he had lost his way. Then he saw the footings and bits and pieces of wood and a crater on the other side. One unlucky H-and-I meant that he would have to wade across. He took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers, watching all the while for snakes and hoping someone would appear with a boat. He did remember that the first of the Song Nu hamlets was no more than a kilometer distant, if that. He put his socks inside his shoes, tied his shoelaces together, and slung the shoes around his neck and started across, slipping on the stones, holding his hands out for balance as if he were on a high wire. He wondered what they thought as they watched him, an overweight middle-aged civil servant fording a stream in the middle of the forest. Unarmed, not dangerous. And frightened, he said aloud, alarmed then by the sound of his own voice, deeper than usual. On dry land once more, he put his shoes and socks back on and began to hurry.

He was upon the first hamlet before he knew it. The houses were built into clearings, their lines so clean they seemed to merge with the trees beyond. The hamlet was an extension of the forest and governed by it. A faint odor of woodsmoke hung in the air but the place was empty, not even a dog or a chicken. Pablo cautiously looked into one of the houses, not crossing the threshold but leaning in to look and finding nothing except an overturned cooking pot, its contents congealing in the dirt. A gray smock hung on a hook and a pair of black sandals was visible under a stool. In all his years in Vietnam he had never seen an empty hamlet. There were always old people and children looking after one another; it was hard sometimes to tell who was in charge. The last time he had been here, his party looking like fashionable Parisians come to visit the poor relations in the provinces, the place had been filled with life, the women admiring his wife's silk ao dai and the children fascinated by his Panama hat.

The sun moved behind a thick bank of cloud and he took off his sunglasses. The color of the forest changed from dark green to light. The path was well worn. Behind the wall of green he felt the wilderness, wilderness spread farther than any man could hike, wilderness so thick you could lose your way in five minutes. Whole civilizations could flourish in it and never be detected. When he last traveled this path he found the atmosphere alien but cordial; it had the monotony of the grave or of outer • space. He thought that all he could do now was continue, walking as quickly as he was able and turning his eyes from the evidence of civilian unrest.

Ahead of him a figure emerged from the forest and he knew without looking that another was behind him. They appeared to be unarmed and moved with a lightness of foot. They did not look at him or make any sign they were aware of his presence. Another ten minutes on, they approached the second village, a cluster of wooden buildings open to the air. The quiet was absolute. The one leading the way—he was slight and stepped on the balls of his feet, hands parallel to the ground like a dancer—pointed to the biggest of the houses, built like the others, on stilts with a long staircase leading to the first floor. And then the guide took a step sideways and glided into the forest, leaving Pablo alone in the clearing. Somewhere far away a dog began to bark and was quickly silenced. Then he heard the thump of an approaching helicopter and froze until that sound, too, faded. He began to walk slowly toward the long staircase, mounting it with difficulty and peering at last into the interior, so dark he had to wait a moment to allow his eyes to adjust. The air was close and carried the sour smell of the sickroom.