Jake Fonko M.I.A. (4 page)

Come to think of it, neither had I. But what the hell, had things turned out so badly? I’d wound up in the Army, which suited me just fine. It was something I genuinely excelled at. Then I noticed the time. Sarge looked like a good night’s sleep would benefit him, and I was preventing it. Heeding his tale about the rich folks and the working folks, I drained my beer, said good night and headed for home. It was way after curfew now, and the streets were empty. But it was dark, plenty of shadows to stay in as I strolled the few blocks toward home. And I felt pretty safe. I had my diplomatic papers and, more to the point, enough American money to calm down any constabulary who might stop me to question my business.

A block from the Brinks Hotel I passed an alleyway when POP!—a pistol shot startled me. I jumped clear of the opening, froze against the wall and, tensed for action, waited and listened. The sound of a body toppling. A groan. Stealthy footsteps receding into the distance. I flattened on the deck and peeped around the corner into the narrow, cluttered space, but I couldn’t make out anything in those shadowy depths. So what now? Go in there, unarmed, and see what’s what? Shout for the police? And then explain what I’m doing out on the streets after curfew? Why ask for trouble? Better to leave it for the locals to sort out.

Apparently, it hadn’t been anybody coming after me…still, I reflected that maybe Sarge’s advice about keeping my eyes open and one of them on my backtrail, was well-taken. I wore civvies and shuffled memos and reports around a desktop at risk of severe paper cuts, true enough, but a lot of other folks in Vietnam still waged serious war. Many among the hordes of desperate peasants filling Saigon sided with the Cong, and worse things could happen than being shaken down for a few bucks, even to Ranger-trained Americans with combat decorations. Back home I wouldn’t be lollygagging alone around the D. C. slums at midnight, after all. What made me think I could safely do it in a foreign city brimming with hostiles? Had I just been shown a timely omen? Embassy staff were constantly ordered, warned, cajoled and pleaded with, to be careful out in public. My co-workers holed up after dark, traveling in packs when they ventured out for entertainment. Who was I trying to impress? I resolved to stop being stupid and stay away from dangerous situations.

Fat chance.

2

Showing up to
work the next morning, March 10, I found more excitement awaiting us than on your usual Monday. During the night the Charlies launched a major attack on the lower Central Highlands provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot without warning. Somehow, unbeknownst to us, they managed to roll in what appeared to be three divisions, with 
tanks
, and had laid siege to the southern section of the city. Pandemonium ruled the CIA Station. Office strategy gurus compared the scope and execution of it to the assault against the French in Dien Bien Phu back in ‘54. The CIA face sported a juicy load of egg—our job description specified that developments of that sort were 
not
 to surprise us. What’s an intelligence agency for, after all?

Even worse, coupling the Ban Me Thuot attack with the fighting that had broken out on the northern coast near Hue, the 1975 offensive looked more serious than we’d thought. I’d seen Ban Me Thout once on my first tour, passing through the Special Forces headquarters there. Only 200 miles of Highway 14 separated it from Saigon, hardly a whoop and a holler. Those big “if onlys” on which we pinned our hopes for victory were fast losing ground to the pace of events.

The office buzz centered around speculation on how long the ARVN would hold out. If any local optimist believed we’d celebrate Christmas in Saigon, he kept it to himself. My experience out in the field with the ARVN and the Cong placed me firmly with the pessimists. I wasn’t going to run straight back to the Brinks Hotel and pack my bags, but neither was I going to pay cash down on a summer vacation at China Beach. I never bet against my own side, but that’s where the smart money lay.

The news from Ban Me Thout grew rapidly worse. It seems that the Cong (well, let’s be accurate—North Vietnamese Army regulars did most of the fighting by then) had come up with a new tactic. They bypassed the outer defense posts and went straight at the heart of town. The ARVN, meanwhile, had stuck to its usual pattern of letting the troops live with their wives and children, on the theory that they’d fight harder to protect them. Maybe it worked in the past, but it sure didn’t work in Ban Me Thout. As the families fled east, soldiers deserted their posts to help them, shedding their uniforms and changing to civvies (however, hanging onto their weapons), and joining the press of refugees that clogged the roads.

By midday Tuesday the NVA for all practical purposes controlled Ban Me Thout, though we didn’t get an official confirm on that until Friday. Reports came in of vast military stores left behind as soldiers pushed aside mothers and babies, stole bicycles, looted shops, raped girls and shook down fleeing civilians for their goods and money. Every man for himself, and Ban Me Thout marked only the beginning of the avalanche. Abandoned supplies and weapons fell by the ton into the enemy’s eager hands. The further they advanced, the more of our best stuff they gathered up to use against our side.

CIA reports, endorsed by Director William Colby himself, had predicted 1976 to be the year of the Cong’s general offensive and uprising to liberate the south. But their success at Ban Me Thout exceeded what anyone, perhaps even the VCs themselves, had imagined. Then we got word that Pleiku and Kontum, further to the north, had come under attack, and terrified refugees mobbed Highways 14 and 7B, pressing toward hoped-for safety on the coast. A correction soon came in: there’d been shelling, but no attack. General Phu, commander of forces there, had secretly hauled his own ass out of there, and when that word got out, the troops no longer felt any compunction to stand and fight. The stampede was on. Military Zone II faced complete collapse. Sarge sure called it right.

Meanwhile, my duties made less sense than ever. They’d installed me in a small, windowless corner office on the fourth floor of the Embassy building that came equipped with the world’s loudest air conditioner. It must have previously been a storage area, because combination-locked file cabinets lined one entire wall. I adjoined a bullpen area full of communications equipment and rows of desks where CIA staff read cables, answered telephones, shuffled papers and scurried to and fro with frenzied determination. Every few minutes some eager beaver clerk bustled into my office, closed the door, and, ignoring me, unlocked one of the drawers and either put some papers into it or took some papers out.

But I never had anything to do with any of them: Sonarr kept me at my desk. What with the sudden onslaught of heavy enemy attacks, everybody in the Embassy, CIA or legitimate State Department staff, operated in berserk mode. However, my own work schedule still consisted mostly of orientation and background briefings—a couple times each day staff from either the CIA or the Embassy came in and solemnly filled me in on matters that I could have learned more about from the office secretaries. I could barely make their words out over the air conditioner racket. Todd Sonarr gave me a few reports coming in from the field to analyze and comment on from a military perspective. My occasional after-hours tete-a-tetes with Mickey Mouse continued. But then Todd Sonarr started sending me out on some 
really
 strange assignments.

Sonarr and I got on so-so—at least we could talk sports. Or military. He’d served his hitch in the Marines, and he knew a trick or two. He seemed fascinated by the LRRPs—couldn’t figure us out. “Some of our guys tried to co-ordinate with them out in the field,” he told me once. “You know, work up some joint operations where they gather intelligence for the CIA as well as the Army. Just couldn’t make it go. Nothing personal, but they told me the LRRP guys were a bunch of cocky, arrogant, disrespectful sonsabitches. Wouldn’t take directions, couldn’t grasp the big picture—too independent-minded.”

“That’s a funny coincidence,” I said. “Some guys in my unit one time tried to co-ordinate with some guys from the CIA. Just couldn’t make it go. Nothing personal, but they told me the CIA guys were a bunch of fuzzy-minded jerks who kept trying to get them involved in harebrained schemes and half-assed operations, when all they wanted to do was put greasepaint on their faces and go out in the jungle and kill gooks. I can’t imagine where your buddies ever got that impression of the LRRPs. You’re sure they weren’t talking about the Green Berets?”

Sonarr savored conspiracies: he could figure out the connections among any five events you gave him, not only pinpointing the sinister forces guiding events from behind the scenes, but with a complete rundown on tactics, operations and logistics. JFK’s assassination was the only exception. Sonarr staunchly insisted that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone.

He claimed to be a protegé of an agent named Bill Harvey, a name well-known around the station as the quintessential Company cowboy. “The things that guy did,” Sonarr once marvelled to me. “He ran an operation through a tunnel between East and West Berlin, dug half the tunnel with his own hands. He was the first guy to finger that Brit spy, Philby. I swear, there isn’t a tougher man in the outfit.” But if he admired Bill Harvey, he positively worshipped James Jesus Angleton, an OSS original who up until recently had been the CIA counter-intelligence chief. Sonarr’s voice positively choked whenever he spoke of Angleton.

His dedication to The Cause was one side of him. He had another. Several months ago parties unknown had posted his picture, captioned “Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man?” on an office bulletin board. It referred, a cute Vietnamese file clerk from the third floor explained to me during an afternoon tea break, to his practice of having shipped in, at government expense, American luxury cars for personal use, which disappeared—stolen—shortly thereafter. A slick scheme to peddle cars to locals at highly profitable prices, not to mention possible insurance scams? So some suspected. Such suspicions gained support, she went on, from the fact that Sonarr used a CIA car and driver right along, and never seemed especially upset about his periodic victimization. The only conclusion anyone could draw about the picture was that it couldn’t have been an inside job, as it had been too cleanly executed. Sonarr hadn’t been able to dig up a clue, not even a fingerprint.

One afternoon just after lunch Sonarr called me into his office. I noticed a fresh copy of Hustler magazine peeping out from under a stack of reports. He had them sent from the States via diplomatic pouch, a giggling secretary had confided to me, and delivered (plain brown wrapper) to his office, so as to avoid disharmony at home, as his wife did not approve of such literature, or much of anything else. Very strict one, she! The local girls around the Embassy sure did like to tell me things. I was going to have a tough choice, picking one to get extra-friendly with.

Wasting no time with greeting or prelude, Sonarr thrust a walkie-talkie into my hand and dispatched me to the foyer on the third floor of the Continental Hotel. “Okay, got it,” I said. “And what do I do there?”

“Sit tight until a man in a light blue suit, wearing sandals and no socks, gets off the elevator. When he’s out of sight, buzz me immediately.”

The walkie-talkie puzzled me—as a communication device it was about as secure as a bullhorn. You’d think the CIA would worry about unfriendlies listening in, if anybody would. Well, Sonarr must know what he’s doing, I figured (where, oh where, was my Motto?). I proceeded straightaway to the Continental and immediately encountered a glitch. Sonarr had said “third floor,” but the ground floor was numbered “0,” meaning that the third floor of the building was floor number 2. I dialed Sonarr and asked for clarification. I heard him mutter something that sounded like, “Oh, Jesus.” Then he said, “Listen, is there any way you can watch both those foyers from the same spot?” I told him no, so he said he’d get back to me on it. A minute later my phone buzzed. “Floor number 2,” a voice said, and the phone clicked off. Okay, I took up my position, sitting leafing through a magazine I’d picked up in the lobby and trying to look inconspicuous. I’d waited no more than a quarter hour when a dapper oriental man in an elegant light blue suit, wearing sandals and no socks, emerged from the elevator, strolled down the ornately finished hallway and let himself into one of the rooms. Staying where I sat (so as not to arouse any suspicions), I counted doorways to the one he entered and calculated the room number. Then I buzzed Sonarr. “He’s here,” I said. “What next?”

“Nothing. Sit tight.”

“Don’t you want to know what he did?”

“No.” Click.

Real cloak and dagger stuff. I was a spook! After a minute or two, my phone beeped discretely. “Fonko here,” I breathed into the mouthpiece, warily shifting my eyes to scan the hallway both directions.

“Go down to the café on the terrace. Sit at the table on the far side away from the lobby entrance, third away from the bar, and order two cups of tea.”

“What if it’s occupied?” Never hurts to have a backup plan.

“It won’t be.”

“Okay, Then what?”

“Sit tight.” Click.

Strange it all was, but easy enough to carry out. I did as told. Nothing happened. Except an oriental fellow, looked like Chinese, came over up to my table and asked if I could make some change for him. Glad to oblige. We swapped a few bills and an assortment of coins. A few minutes later my handphone beeped. “Fonko here.”

“Anything happen yet?” I had nothing to report, save making change. “Okay,” Sonarr said, “now proceed up the south side of Le Loi Street toward the market. That’s the street that goes between the hotel and the National Theater, the side by the Caravelle. Take your time. Do you know what ‘saunter’ means? Do like that. When you reach the third book stall from the corner of Tu Do Street, stop, look at the books on display out front for 90 seconds, then scratch the top of your head with your left hand. Absolutely do not put either hand in your pocket, look at your watch or blow your nose, while standing in front of that book stall. Then saunter two more blocks down Le Loi and return to base. Don’t come straight back. Go some odd route.”

“How do I tell it’s 90 seconds if I can’t look at my watch?” There was a long silence at the other end. I felt ashamed of myself, making sport of the intellectually-challenged like that. “Tell you what,” I suggested, “I’ll count ‘em off.”

“That’ll be okay,” he said, sounding relieved. “Anyhow, it doesn’t have to be exactly 90, just a minute or two was what I meant.”

“Got it,” I affirmed. “What about the tea?”

“If you’re thirsty, drink it.” Click.

Thirsty enough for one, anyhow. I finished it, paid the bill, and sauntered through the lobby and out through the heavy door the uniformed doorman crisply swung open for me. I crossed over in front of the National Theater to the Caravelle Hotel, then sauntered up Le Loi the half-block to the intersection of Tu Do Street. I waited for a let-up in the traffic of bicycles, scooters and cyclo-rickshaws. I’d have had an easier time picking my way through a swarm of bees. Forget sauntering or die! I bobbed, weaved and dodged through the torrent of vehicles, pouncing the last couple feet to the opposite curb.

I’d just resumed sauntering when four big-caliber pistol shots rocked the street right behind me. I hit the deck and wrenched around on the ground to see what was happening. A motor scooter careened into the center of the broad intersection, its blood-soaked driver and buddy-rider teetering off on opposite sides. A scooter with two other Vietnamese men on it zipped by and fled past the Continental Hotel, the oncoming traffic parting to avoid it. The crippled scooter veered, wobbled and crashed into a heap of wounded riders and tortured metal, and a hand grenade clunked and thunked out a few yards ahead of it. Every pedestrian in sight flattened on the ground in an instant, and the previously impenetrable tangle of two- and three-wheeled vehicles miraculously opened a gap about ten yards across, like a school of bait fish giving wide berth to a passing barracuda. It was a flash-bang grenade, thank goodness. The high explosive charge would have killed anybody close to it, but it didn’t throw fragments. Random terrorists would have tossed a frag grenade, to spread as much mayhem as possible. That one had been targeted at somebody, but looking around the scene, I couldn’t figure out who. Whoever it was, owed one to the guys on the second scooter. We all picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off, and the normal street buzz started all over again. My ears rang, but except for the would-be assassins, no serious harm done, just a few folks knocked off their bikes. Tough town.