Red Flags (25 page)

"You seem to have it in for the clergy."

"Hey, spooks do the same as you Army agents—use whatever cover is available."

My jaw dropped. "You've infiltrated the missionaries?"

"The opposition doesn't hesitate; why would we? They infiltrate Vietnamese seminaries, Buddhist monasteries, Polish pulpits—"

"Communist priests?"

Ruchevsky shrugged. "Just picture them in the confessional. The rectory. No coercion. No torture. Secrets spilled voluntarily. Makes my pulse race thinking about it."

I said, "They'd actually submit to years of religious training to establish a false identity?"

"Sure," Ruchevsky said. "Anything to do in the bad guys—us. Look at Wolf Man learning to speak Rhade, filing his teeth down, marrying into the chief's clan. They're damn committed. We're the ones playing the field over here and calling it monogamy."

He pointed accusingly. "You have to look at everyone. You can't assume. What's Sergeant Grady willing to do for his beloved Yards? Where are his loyalties really? Why does your pal Dr. Roberta listen to Communist broadcasts in Rhade all the time? What's Checkman confide to the Vietnamese girl he's so smitten with?"

"I can't believe—"

"You don't
know
what any of them would do for a cause or people important to them."

B
ACK IN THE
compound, the shit had hit the fan. Sector headquarters in Cheo Reo had already lodged Colonel Chinh's formal protest with ARVN II Corps headquarters in Pleiku, which passed it along to MACV next door, charging that an unauthorized bombing mission in Phu Thien District of Phu Bon Province had mortally endangered friendly troops on the ground, wounded civilians, and destroyed needed crops. Bennett received copies delivered by hand from across the road, along with a curt note.

Major Hopp was summoned to the senior adviser's office to speak by radiophone to his superiors in Tuy Hoa. Ruchevsky and I tagged along. Hopp feigned innocence with real panache, claiming he had sighted North Vietnamese regulars in the open. He insisted something big was going down in the province and he had stumbled into a piece of it. Bennett got on the line and backed him up, which was easy to do with all the recent NVA activity.

General Loc's staff had made such a stink that Hopp was temporarily grounded anyway, pending further inquiry, so he retired to a beach chair outside his hootch with a pitcher of whiskey sours and played fetch with the compound dog. Our other Cessna pilot made an assessment flight in the afternoon and confirmed the field was a charcoal briquette. We had undoubtedly put a crimp in a certain bank account. One for our side.

Colonel Bennett appeared in the bullpen just as Major Gidding came in, his face grave, followed closely by the first sergeant.

"Evening, sir," the XO said to Bennett.

"Good evening, Tom. What's up?"

"I have a priority message for you," Gidding said, "from MACV headquarters, Saigon."

"Crap. Break it to me gently."

"Your promotion's come through." A huge grin spread across his face. "You did it, Dennis. You did it. Full colonel."

"Well," Bennett said, looking shocked and rubbing his sunburned scalp. "Talk about surprises."

Seems somebody in the higher echelons thought he was doing a worthy job advising Colonel Chinh, and no doubt Chinh's reports were favorable. Why not? He got Chinh what he wanted and looked away when the province chief appropriated U.S. supplies. Gidding shook the colonel's hand with a heartfelt exuberance. I had more mixed feelings.

First Sergeant Mote beamed like he had done it himself. "Congratulations, sir."

The artillery-shell gong announced the evening meal. The first sergeant went out, Checkman close on his heels.

"Sir," I said. "Can we buy you a celebratory drink?"

"Thank you, no, Captain. How about some supper and iced tea instead, gentlemen?"

"We'd be honored," Gidding said.

The three of us retired to the mess hall. As we crossed to the chow line, the diners hooted and applauded, a few rising to their feet. Deros, sensing the excitement, barked loudly and got kicked out.

"So much for classified messages," Bennett joked.

"Not many secrets in Cheo Reo, sir," Gidding said.

He should only know,
I thought. We filled our trays and retired to the corner table nearest the door.

"I'll have to buy the bar," Bennett said.

"Captain Rider," Gidding said. "What are the Special Forces patrols reporting?"

"A lot of signs the NVA are prepping to inflict damage."

"Let's hope we're not part of their plans." Gidding poked at a meat patty with a knife. "I'd hate for this to be our last meal."

Bennett smiled. "Don't say that. If I want to keep the promotion, I have to survive at least twenty-four hours after receiving it."

First Sergeant Mote appeared at our table. A staff officer who served with Bennett's father had snuck a set of silver eagles into the daily courier pouch, and the sergeant presented them to the colonel. Bennett asked Gidding to pin one on and the first sergeant the other, which they did proudly to more applause and whistles.

As we dispersed, Checkman brought the colonel a message. Bennett read it and sighed.

"From Chinh," he said, leaning in close to me. "His men did a sweep through Cao Tin. No flag, no priest. No VC." He crumpled the paper. "Faulty intel, he says."

The following morning, Judd Slavin and his wife sent an invitation to the colonel for a cookout on their lawn celebrating his promotion. Bennett was surprised.

"They're inviting the whole team," he said to First Sergeant Mote. "A bad idea for missionaries to associate so openly with combatants, wouldn't you say?"

Mote sighed. "You've done an awful lot for them, Colonel."

"They're good people." Bennett read the invitation again. "I don't want them to risk retribution from the VC, but I don't want to slight them either."

"Sir," Mote said, "they've been here longer than any of us and are completely aware of what risks they choose to take. This is obviously important to them."

"You're right as usual, First Sergeant."

Bennett accepted the Slavins' invitation, and asked Sergeant Durando and me to take added precautions. The gathering could be an easy target, with so many of our people and our Vietnamese counterparts together in an undefended private residence.

I returned to my desk and scanned the classified communiqué from Major Jessup in Saigon, looking for congratulations on the drastic dip in VC fortunes and revenues. Nothing. Not even a downtick. The latest deposit was over a quarter of a million American dollars. We blast a nice-size hole in the side of their operation and their take goes up. What the hell?

 

Ruchevsky had his guards take up posts outside, ten feet from his house, so he and I and Little John could speak freely. I told him what I'd gotten from my boss in Saigon.

"At this rate," Ruchevsky said, "their monthly total will come to over a million bucks. Shit. That's got to be opium, with those numbers."

"Opium poppies like altitude." I spread my map across the chest Ruchevsky used as a coffee table and we examined contour lines. "Thirty-two hundred feet to maybe a mile high. The Aussie pilot's peak is four thousand feet above sea level—there." I traced a route to the mountain. "Hard, vertical jungle, with poppies growing on steep ridges and in ravines. Irregularly shaped patches, he told me—not really fields. Hard to spot except for the short time the plants are in flower."

Little John turned pensive, staring at the grids.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"Katu."

"Katu?"

Ruchevsky nodded. "Another Montagnard tribe. Their chief territory is up north, in Eye Corps. Last year the South Vietnamese government relocated a thousand Katu down to the southwest corner of Phu Bon Province, where you've marked that mountain."

"Katu scare," Little John said, making a face.

"That's the general word on the Katu from all the Yards," Ruchevsky said. "They're not exactly sociable."

"You know the Katu area?" I said to Little John.

"No."

"Anyone know it?"

"No. But Reverend Slavin know Katu."

"The padre at the jungle market?" I turned to Ruchevsky. "Does he mean the reverend's familiar with the Katu or that he speaks their language?"

Little John held up two fingers.

Ruchevsky glanced at Little John and back at me. "Both."

 

I drove Checkman and some of the enlisted over to the celebration at the Slavins'. The party hadn't been announced until the last possible moment for the sake of security. Sergeant Durando deployed a discreet cordon: six guards for the corners of the quarter-acre property, six more who'd attend the party and switch off with the others every half an hour until it was over. Concealed personal weapons were welcome. Colonel Chinh surprised us with a second security ring: a hundred of his men in five armored personnel carriers. Everybody who was not on duty showed up.

The invitation was for a back-home barbecue on what passed for the front lawn of the Slavins' home, next to a Yard village not far from town. The Montagnards we passed driving onto the grounds seemed more Westernized than the ones living farther out. The women were all demurely draped, the kids neatly dressed in uniform shorts and shirts and red kerchiefs. A couple of thatched longhouses had bicycles on their elevated patios. The Slavins' residence was modest, though made entirely of local teak and mahogany. The lawn consisted of a few tufts of weeds.

A pig had roasted all night in a covered pit. Tribesmen carved it into hefty chunks presented on two platters, with yams and asparagus, potato salad and French bread. Coolers of beer were strategically placed around the yard. A choir of barefoot Montagnard boys in shorts, white shirts, and red neckerchiefs sang something that sounded oddly like "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain."

Everyone wore mufti in deference to our hosts' civilian status except the guest of honor and Captain Cox, who drove in from Mai Linh and appeared at the gathering covered with orange road grit. He looked like an owl when he removed his goggles. Old Mr. Cho, in his tropical suit, stepped away as Cox dusted himself off.

Colonel Chinh arrived fashionably late in an armored personnel carrier, dressed in white linen. He stepped lightly, as if from a carriage, and took his wife's hand to help her down. She was tiny and wore a black
ao dais.
Perfect emeralds set in heavy green gold sparkled at her ears. Captain Nhu came down the little ramp behind the Chinhs. In addition to MACV personnel, all five of the Korean medical staff came by, and Dr. Roberta Towns in a sunshine-yellow sundress.

John Ruchevsky wore his customary scowl and tropical attire: Hush Puppies, cigar, short-sleeved shirt, and khaki slacks held up by the saddest-looking leather belt.

Spying Chinh's dainty wife, Ruchevsky muttered, "It's Madame Antoinette herself, come to eat cake."

Colonel Chinh stepped up to Bennett and snapped his fingers at an aide, who immediately brought over his gifts for the new bird colonel.

"Felicity," he said to Bennett and presented him with a long-playing record of a traditional Vietnamese concert. Also a mahogany box the size of a humidor containing a captured Chinese K-54 pistol. The underside of the lid was inlaid with a large round replica of Bennett's new eagle insignia in burnished silver. Chinh handed the colonel a third gift wrapped in coarse brown paper. Bennett undid the wrapping and unveiled a leather-bound volume and a small book of poetry.

"'
Essential Summary of Military Arts,'
" Bennett read, "'Marshal Tran Hung Dao.'"

Chinh said, "Our marshal fight Mongol invader. He retreat to mountain. Mongols far from home. Dao make guerrilla fight." He turned to Judd Slavin and Bennett and spoke in Vietnamese.

Checkman translated: "Marshal Dao wore down the Mongols of Kublai Khan and destroyed them with a trick. In 1287."

"Many best advise. For you," Chinh said in English, patting the book. "America next birthday, one hundred ninety. Viet Nam, three thousan'. My country old, like this war. We fight French, Japan, Chinese all time, Burma, Khmer Krom, Cham, and Montagnard, Mongols three time, and many time other Vietnamese. Now America teach to us how make war."

"Colonel Chinh," Bennett said, "we are here as partners. My country has vowed to stand with yours. As have the Australians, South Koreans, Thai—"

"Yes, yes," Chinh said, impatient. "Free World Force. You come fight war for us. Like Lafayette in American Revolution. George Washington same me. He have not many soldier—eight thousand? Lafayette bring forty-four thousand French to fight. Many warship. Defeat English emperor. French make you free." He giggled gleefully, hand to his mouth.

"You are well informed about our history," Bennett said. Chinh appeared pleased and accepted the compliment with a slight bow.

The second book was from Madame Chinh, he explained: a famous poem in Vietnamese written in the 1700s and translated into French. Chinh apologized for the lack of an English translation.

Checkman, interpreting, said, "She doubts it could be done because the language of the original is so remarkable."

"Please thank her for me," Bennett said. "Ask her what it's called."

Checkman spoke to Madame Chinh and turned back to him. "
The Lament of the Waiting Warrior's Wife.
"

"Thank you so much," the colonel managed, looking uncomfortable.

"Duty," Chinh said, half bowing. "I go."

Chinh spoke to Judd Slavin in Vietnamese and turned on his heel. He tromped down the porch steps and into the open back of his armored personnel carrier. Captain Nhu and Mr. Cho helped his wife board, and the hatch closed. The machine pulled away, raising dust from the hard-packed earth. A battery of howitzers fired, their booms familiar as thunder at a lawn party. No one flinched, not the children long used to it, not even the newbie, Lieutenant Lovell, talking to his Vietnamese counterpart.

Everyone savored the food and the rare opportunity to socialize. John excused himself to talk to the hostess. Roberta took it as her cue to come over. Her A-line sundress was plain and hid her shapely figure but there was nothing restrained about her. Roberta, who hadn't paid attention to Madame Chinh's gift, was visibly happy. A barefoot Jarai choirboy held out a tray of hors d'oeuvres for us to sample.