The Son (34 page)

By now I had most of the puzzle worked out. That was one advantage of lying flat on my back – the only one. I had time to think things out. It had been an inside job alright, as I'd begun to suspect earlier. That was what I'd told Considine when I'd met him in Hyde Park on the last morning, and he hadn't needed much convincing. Truong Dzu's actions had been the final proof.

What was interesting was the care and the time they had taken over it. They must have been working on it for months, perhaps ever since Eric had first appeared on the scene and planning had started for Loc's visit to Australia. Who were they working for? We'd never know for sure, but my guess was some hardline faction in Hanoi, wanting to get rid of a troublesome liberal, and make it look like the work of anti-communist fanatics among expatriate Vietnamese in Sydney. Neat! That meant Bach Ho and at least one other must have been working for them. Not that fat oaf Vo Khanh, all muscle and no brains. As an ex-Marines officer he probably hated the communists more than anything on earth. Most probably Binh, whom I suspected of having murdered Quang.

What would have happened if they'd succeeded? With Eric killed, shot dead by Truong Dzu as the latter (apparently) tried to protect Loc (too late) against an unknown assassin, there would have been no witnesses, nothing that could incriminate Bach or even Vo Khanh. Whatever the police or ASIO or anyone suspected, they would have been unable to prove it. It was only Eric's testimony, and what I had seen myself, which could bring them undone. And that they couldn't foresee.

I had to admire the evil ingenuity of it all, even if we'd never know all the details.

But there were other questions which bothered me, and to which I wanted answers. And when Roger came I pulled no punches. He was among the last of my visitors, as he'd had to return at once to Canberra, no doubt to explain himself to his masters, only reappearing a few days later.

‘You bastard!' I said. ‘You knew! You knew all along they were planning to kill Loc, and they were going to pin it on Eric! What was it? A power struggle inside the Vietnamese Politburo? The hardliners trying to get rid of a rival, and blame it on anti-communist extremists? Was that it?'

He didn't say anything.

‘And when did you find out, that's what I want to know! Was it when you got the traces on Bach, from the Americans? Was that it? When you told Considine and me they had nothing on him, you were lying! They did! I bet they knew all about him! They had to! Otherwise why would they have refused to accept him into the US? Come on, Roger! Tell me the truth! I've got a right to know, surely!'

‘Nothing would have happened to you if you'd done what you were told. But you always were an insubordinate sod!'

‘Thank Christ I was! Why, do you think it would have ended happily if I hadn't been there? You saw what happened, Roger! You saw what those bastards tried to do to Eric! They would have killed him, and might have killed Loc too. There was no way Considine could have got through that door in time! But you don't care, do you! You were quite prepared to sacrifice him if need be, to push your little scheme through!'

He made to say something but I ploughed on.

‘You were in this with the Yanks, weren't you! To make sure that Loc came out on top and his enemies were unmasked. Loc's their golden boy, isn't he! They want him to get the top job. And so do you. And you were prepared to do anything to make sure he gets it. Foiling an assassination attempt wasn't enough! Identifying the inside men wasn't enough! You had to make sure they got caught red-handed, so that the hard men in Hanoi would know, so that Loc's faction would get the upper hand, take the fight back to them … I bet you've even sent them a copy of the tape, to make sure it's all there on record. What's going to happen now, Roger? A few demotions among the hard men on the left? A few hardliners pushed aside for a time, so that the golden boy can have a smooth ride to the top? What is he, Roger? Is he working for you? For the Americans? Is that it? Their top man in Hanoi?'

That stung him.

‘Don't be stupid, Paul! Do you think a man of that calibre would work for another country? He's a nationalist, for Christ's sake! You said it yourself! He loves his country!'

‘So why did you do it Roger? To uphold democratic values?'

‘Don't sneer, Paul. Is that so wrong? Loc's one of the key men in that government. He'll be prime minister one day. And he's one of the few who's got any understanding of the outside world, who's ready to open his country to the west instead of trying to push it back to some Stalinist paradise! Of course he was worth defending! That's our job, remember? That's what we're in the business of doing, when we get the chance! So what's your beef all about?'

‘Nothing! Except that you very nearly got Eric killed! And now you're trying to pin the blame on anybody except the real culprits. Make it look as if it was all the work of some loonies in the Vietnamese community! Isn't that a little self-defeating? Playing Hanoi's game for them?'

‘It's the price we have to pay! We can't afford to rub their face into it publicly. This is the only way we can be sure the information will be used properly. Otherwise it'll have the opposite effect and strengthen the hand of the hardliners in Hanoi. Besides, that's the way Loc wanted it played. He asked us himself to handle it like this. Of course it's nasty. Whoever said it wasn't? Don't be so naïve, Paul.'

We glared at each other.

‘What about the Vietnamese community here? Don't you care that their reputation will suffer? They already get a bad enough press as it is!'

He shook his head.

‘It won't last long. People will soon see it was just a lunatic fringe. If necessary we can push that line with the press, feed it through some tame journalist. Besides, don't forget that some members of that community were only too happy to take part. Even if it was hatched by Bach Ho. Vo Khanh, for one. And those others who volunteered for it. Eric himself probably, if you hadn't turned him!'

I was silent. His cynicism floored me.

‘I'm sorry to see you laid up like this, Paul,' he went on. ‘I really am. If it's any help, I got approval from Bill for the office to cover all your medical bills. But please don't play the innocent with us. You knew we would have to take this all the way, or you should have known. Don't forget, he volunteered, Paul. And you brought him to us. Did you think we were just going to sit on our hands? Come on! And think what would have happened if you hadn't brought him to us. If you hadn't turned him and he'd genuinely tried to do the job for them. He would surely have been killed then! So don't play the injured party, Paul. It won't wash.'

He paused, seemed to pull himself back, conscious that he was going too far.

‘Besides, you got what you wanted,' he went on more calmly. He pulled an envelope out from his coat pocket, took out two passports. He held them out for me to see. But when I reached for them he pulled his hand back.

‘Sorry, can't let you have them just yet. When she comes back from her trip. She and Eric will have to go to Immigration in person, and be sworn in like everyone else. You can be there as witness. No need to look so grateful. Did you think I was going to renege on the deal? But there's one condition, Paul.'

‘What's that?'

‘Not a word, to anyone! I mean it! Stick to the approved version. You can say if you must that you got wind through Eric of some attempt to attack Loc and you tried to step in and got shot for your pains, but nothing else, not a word about Truong Dzu or inside help. I need your word, Paul! Otherwise they don't get these.'

He held the passports up, then put them back in the envelope. I nodded.

‘You have it.'

‘Good. That's settled. I'd better be going. I have a plane to catch. I'll come back and see you in a couple of days. Meanwhile Bill and the mob send their love. He thinks you did well, by the way.'

‘Thanks. But I still have one request.'

He sighed in exasperation.

‘Not another one, surely! Don't you ever stop?'

‘Not for me. For Quang. He had a daughter. She came to the funeral last week. Lives in Paris with her mother. From what I saw she's not too well off. I think some compensation would be a nice gesture. Anonymously, of course. Some investment of Quang's that paid off? A hundred thousand dollars? That shouldn't be too much for the Agency's coffers, should it? After all, it's not as if this operation cost you much. Others did most of the work.'

He sighed again, but nodded.

‘I'll put it to Bill. You're right. I'm sure we can work something out.'

I looked after him as he went. Roger had tried to be decent at the end, and had lived up to his promise about the passports. I had to give him that. But I couldn't forgive him for the way he'd been prepared to sacrifice Eric. I knew that nothing would ever be the same between us.

More visitors. Vivien of course, almost every day. Maisie was back on the south coast, but I'd instinctively played it Roger's way with them, telling them how Eric and I had helped foil an attempted assassination, but were now under strict orders not to reveal any further details, for fear others might learn from them. They were both thrilled to the core, beneath their concern for me.

With Jack Lipton I was much more frank, when he and Sen came to see me. I didn't see why I should lie to him, when it was through him that I had first met Quang, and because of it that Quang had been killed. So I told him the bare bones of the truth: that Bach had been at the centre of a plot to kill Loc, working through a group of crazy extremists, but that he himself was in fact an agent of Hanoi, working for some unholy elements there; I also told him I was pretty sure that was why Quang had been killed, because he was getting too close to the truth, and that it was probably Binh, Bach's offsider, who had done the killing. I said it for a reason: both Bach and Binh had disappeared; but Jack had many contacts in the Vietnamese community. If he discreetly spread it about that they were in the pay of Hanoi, it would make it that much harder for them to escape. He said little, but took it all in. I knew he'd put the information to good use.

As for the man himself, Dang van Loc, that was another surprise. He showed not the slightest distress at what had happened, as if it was all part of the job. He'd been through worse in his life. But on the way back from New Zealand he made an unexpected stop, breaking his journey in Sydney to come and see me in hospital. We had been forewarned, Eric was there, with Brian Considine. He didn't stay long, an hour between two flights, but he shook my hand warmly, and Eric's and Brian's, and praised our courage for what we had done, and expressed his regret at the way I'd been hurt. He was startled when I spoke to him in Vietnamese: a couple of stilted phrases I'd rehearsed beforehand, to which he replied in his own stilted English.

‘Where did you learn Vietnamese?' he asked. ‘Were you a soldier?'

‘
Thư'a, không
,' I said mischievously, keeping to Vietnamese. ‘No. I worked in the embassy, in Saigon.' I deliberately used the old pre-communist name. ‘April 1975. I was there at the end.'

He nodded and smiled.

‘We call it the new beginning,' he said.

I smiled back and we savoured each other's wit.

‘I recently met an old friend of yours,' I went on more seriously, in English. ‘Le Minh Quang. I believe he worked for you for a while on the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee.'

‘That's right. An old friend, as you say.'

‘He was killed two weeks ago. Murdered by one of the men who plotted to kill you.'

He nodded gravely.

‘It was largely due to him that we found out about the plot. He was very anxious that you should be protected.'

‘Thank you for telling me. I had heard he was dead, but I wasn't sure how. I am very sorry.'

We exchanged a few more comments. He shook hands again with Brian and Eric, and thanked them both too, and all who had helped foil the plot.

‘My life is not important. But what those people tried to do is bad for Vietnam, and such people must not be allowed to succeed. Thank you for that.'

He turned back to me. His large head was all skin and sinew and bone, alive with an intense energy. His black eyes bored into me.

‘I will not forget my friend Quang. Or you either, Mr Quinn. Good-bye.'

His eyes swept over the others in the room, rested gently on Eric for a second. When he limped out, with his assistant in tow, who hadn't uttered a word, the air felt a little less charged.