Before I jumped back onto the department store roof, I spent a full minute looking out over the city. It wasn’t because I liked the view. I had to take time to set a course to the river.
For centuries the great Hong Ha, or Red River, had been a lifeline for the people who occupied this land. It was a vast avenue of commerce. Thousands of watercraft of every kind plied the broad, silt-laden waterway. Traffic between Hanoi and Haiphong was thick and constant. A fast pleasure boat could cover the distance in three hours. A tug pushing flatboats could make it in under seven. The trip upstream took a third longer.
I’d made up my mind that we’d go by river. We were in a hurry, but I wasn’t interested in getting to Haiphong too soon. I just wanted to get there for sure.
Once on the ground, we moved quickly along the route I had fixed in my mind. Willow acted as point in case a verbal encounter occurred. As we got closer to the river, we met more people. Movement of goods by waterway is a round-the-clock activity.
Willow was invaluable. She kept her ears open. We were within sight of the docks when she interpreted what an excited passerby was calling out to a friend. “He says that terrorists have vandalized army headquarters. There’s been another brutal murder, this time a lowly soldier. That makes six men in uniform, including two officers, who have been killed in just one day. Extra troops are being called out. The city is going to be sealed off.”
A man driving a small flatbed truck drove up and came to a stop before a quayside saloon and started shouting. Sailors and merchants tumbled out upon hearing his words. Willow pushed us against a plate glass window of a darkened storefront. “Well, joy time is over,” she said.
“Those are reservists running off to join their unit?” I mused.
“Everyone’s going to clear out before the marines show up to put all boats under quarantine until they’re inspected. If we’re going to grab a ride, we’d better take our pick soon.”
I was moving before Willow finished laying on the bad news. There was no time to be selective. Or timid. I strode straight ahead to the end of the dock ahead of us. A sixty foot, self-propelled coal barge — fully loaded — was moving off. The skipper, barely visible in a small pilot house at the stem, was backing his craft into the river proper. His attention was stern. He tugged on a lanyard frequently, sounding whistle warnings as the ungainly craft got underway. He was in no hurry; he had yet to hear the latest news.
I leaped onto the pyramid of apple-sized chunks of coal. Martin let out a low groan when he landed right next to me. Willow did it right, not even losing her balance on the sloping side of the piled coal. The heaped-up load acted as a screen between ourselves and the busy barge master. We squatted in the bow, blending in well with the background because of the dark clothing we wore. Martin cradled his newly-acquired weapon possesively.
The lights on shore receded as the barge backed away from the dock. I realized we had reached the traffic lane when a small freighter crossed our bow from starboard to port. The skipper swung the barge’s nose about to parallel the freighter’s course and reversed his engine. We moved forward, heading downstream.
“Stay here you two,” I said. “I’m going astern to size up the situation. Keep an eye out but stay put.”
I eased back along the gunwale. The barge sat low in the water. The river surface was tar black and smooth. Halfway to the stem I could see a white light atop the pilot house. A bit further on the head of the skipper came into view. I wondered if there was other crew aboard — an engineer, perhaps.
I watched for a long time. The skipper seemed statuelike; only his forearms and hands on the wheel moved, and then only slightly. I was about to return to Martin and Willow when the man in the pilothouse did something I didn’t like. He reached out with one hand and brought a microphone up to his face. The barge had radio communications with other boats and the shore.
I told Martin and Willow. “That’s bad,” muttered Martin. “If he sees us, he’ll have the river patrol here in no time.”
“I wonder if a radio alert will be put out to riverboat captains to look for stowaways?” Willow remarked.
“It appears he’s alone, so he can’t make a search,” I answered.
“I’ll take him out,” Martin said gruffly. He had a wild light in his eyes. Violence was second nature to him.
“There’s no need to kill him,” I objected. “We need him. He knows the river.”
“We can get along without him,” argued Martin. “He’s got charts in the pilothouse. Besides, he’s just another gook.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Martin was plain crazy with his obsession. He still thought of himself as being at war in enemy territory. He had lost touch with reality — driven by a compelling urge to destroy indiscriminately. There was only starlight around us, but I could see his craggy jaw was set, his eyes sunken from weariness and gnawing pain, but mostly his eyes were fixed and over-bright. Fever, I guessed, but not enough to cause that hard, flinty glint in them as well. Martin could become a problem.
I had to be firm. “Keith, you stay right where you are. Keep a lookout down river. Willow and I will handle the skipper.” He accepted the duty, nodding his head sharply. I drew Willow aside and told her what to do.
We moved toward the stem, each of us on either side of the small mountain of coal. I got to a point where I could see the captain’s head. When he turned upon hearing a thump against the side of the pilothouse, I knew Willow had thrown the first lump of coal. I waited. Another thump. This time the skipper lashed the wheel and stepped away to look out the side window.
I ran ahead. The boatman heard my footsteps. He was facing me when I stepped into the wheelhouse. He was middle age with a thin, scraggly beard. A cataract clouded his left eye. One shoulder dipped lower than the other as if he suffered from spine curvature. His head crooked to one side to compensate for the deformity.
His eyes went wide with surprise and locked on the gun in my hand. They narrowed when he looked up. The disintegrating makeup on my face seen in the sidelighting from the binnacle lamp must have been hideous. He was adjusting to the apparition before him when Willow joined us.
She talked to him softly in his language. It took him a while to understand. Then he spoke in a surprisingly strong voice. Willow translated. “He doesn’t know any details, but from radio chatter between riverboats, he’s aware that a manhunt is underway in Hanoi. The search is fanning out and everyone is ordered to report anything out of the ordinary. A total curfew has been imposed in Hanoi. No one is allowed in the streets and all traffic going out of the city has been halted. No trains, no buses, no movement of any kind. Martial law is being declared.”
“What about shipping?”
She asked, then turned to me. “All craft on the river not already underway must remain docked until all vessels can be searched. All downstream watercraft in transit are to put in at the next guard station for inspection.”
“Where’s that from here?”
Willow passed the question. The boatman put a grimy finger on a dog-eared chart spread out on a navigation shelf. “He says it’s just around the next bend about two miles ahead. It’s the first of two between here and Haiphong.”
I made a meaningful gesture toward the skipper with my gun. “Tell him to douse his lights. All of them. I want this scow blacker than the coal he’s carrying.” The man complied. “Now tell him to swing way over away from the guard station so we’ll be harder to see. We’re going to sneak by it.”
The man protested. “That’ll put us in the upstream lane,” Willow translated. “We’ll be bucking traffic and may have a collision.”