“He told me he knows where the guerrillas are who did this.”
The chief gave orders to two of his policemen and they then hurried outside followed by four others. Yong Kyu got in the Jeep, and sat there without a word.
“Where are we headed?” the captain asked Yong Kyu.
“To the fish market, down by the pier.”
The Vietnamese police followed right behind them. When they reached the customs house, Yong Kyu turned and parked the Jeep at the square before the fish market. Empty wooden crates were stacked up everywhere, but there was no sign of people in the rainy streets.
“See that vacant lot down that alley?” Yong Kyu asked. “By that white wall? They’re two entrances, a big door out front and a side door from that vacant lot.”
As the captain repeated Yong Kyu’s words to the Vietnamese police chief, Yong Kyu dashed ahead into the alley, calling back, “Cover me, Sergeant!”
Yong Kyu crept up next to the door of the factory with the sergeant close behind him. The door opened a little. One at a time they ran inside. Then two policemen followed them in, jumped over some baskets of salt and crates of fish, heading for the middle of the building. Another policeman hit the lights. Two lamps hanging from the ceiling came on. Yong Kyu kicked the door on the side leading to the storeroom. The lamps were pouring light that way, but nothing could be seen except a row of nuoc mam urns. From the other side of the storeroom, a policeman opened the door and entered. The captain was looking on from behind them.
“Nobody around?”
“We’re too late. Toi and I knew about this place.”
Yong Kyu cracked one of the urns with the butt of his gun. The nuoc mam poured out, revealing gun stocks inside. The police chief and his men started breaking the other pots.
“All of them have guns inside,” said Yong Kyu as he walked outside.
“Why hadn’t you reported this yet?” asked the captain.
“We were conducting a secret investigation, sir. Call in some reinforcement, please.”
“Call the Americans?”
“Never mind. I’ll speak to him.” Yong Kyu went over to talk to the police chief who was enthusiastically smashing a row of urns.
“There’s another houseful of guerrillas across from Bai Bang. Call in some reinforcement.”
“Right. We’ll go together.”
They went back out to the parked vehicles. The police chief radioed to his headquarters. A short while later, two trucks arrived with backup police power.
“Divide up the forces and send some to Nguyen Cuong Company in old Le Loi market,” said Yong Kyu. “Have them also search the car repair shop behind the store. Now, follow us with the rest of your men.”
After crossing the smokestack bridge, they sped toward Bai Bang. The rain was pouring down on the windshields.
“You should have filled me in before you went off duty,” said the captain to Yong Kyu, looking straight ahead.
His hands locked on the steering wheel, Yong Kyu was peering at the shafts of rain frozen in mid-air by the Jeep’s headlights.
“I didn’t want to take the responsibility. .”
“But now, have you changed your mind?”
“Toi was my partner, sir.”
What Yong Kyu was feeling then was entirely different from what he had felt at Stapley’s death. He had no way to identify with Stapley’s behavior. There had been no choice for him. Toi’s death, however, was a disgrace, like the ends of Korean soldiers whose limbs had been lopped off, or whose remains were carried off as heaps of ashes. Yong Kyu seemed angry with himself for feeling self-pity. Something hot was running down his face. I’m exhausted, Yong Kyu murmured to himself. His throat was throbbing.
Yong Kyu had only been to that alley once, but he remembered it well. He parked the car on the edge of the market on a street lined by small shops. As he got out the Jeep, the police chief came up to him.
“Their base is in the Banh Hao store.”
“Where is it?”
“In the middle of these shops. In back of the store there’s a warehouse and a residence.”
They crept up stealthily. The police chief led his men around to the house in the rear, and Yong Kyu and the captain, with a few policemen, gathered out front by the shuttered windows of the store. There was a wooden door in front, reinforced with tin sheets. Realizing there was no other way inside, they began to crack the shutters with their boots and rifle butts. The wood splintered noisily and the glass behind the shutters broke into pieces.
When they started trying to climb through, a spray of bullets came from automatic weapons on the inside. One of the policemen was hit and went down. Yong Kyu and the captain dashed inside and took cover behind some rice bushels, then returned fire towards the interior. Judging from the shooting noises, a fight was also raging at the house out back. As in the jungle, Yong Kyu kept on firing as he rushed over to the warehouse door. A policeman came up beside him, stuck his gun into the warehouse and fired. Another policeman meanwhile had pulled the ring on a grenade and lobbed it inside the storage area. There was an explosion and from inside, flames and smoke rushed out.
The first to enter the warehouse was a police lieutenant. Yong Kyu rushed right behind him, instinctively firing a burst of rounds at a spot from which he heard something. A mountain of flour sacks piled almost to the ceiling tumbled down, a man’s dark figure falling with it. A shaded light hanging from the ceiling was swaying back and forth. Yong Kyu’s shadow stretched onto the wall and then shrank again. Quickly he took aim at the form of the fallen man. The air was full of white dust raised by the torn flour sacks. The man stared up at Yong Kyu, who saw that it was the younger brother of Major Pham. An AK47 was lying on the floor near his bent arm. He stretched out his arm to try to grasp the rifle. Yong Kyu fired again. The man’s body twitched from the shock of taking close fire, and soon stopped moving. The flour bags beside him gradually turned red.
“Sergeant Ahn, are you all right?” came the captain’s voice behind him.
The police lieutenant was down by the door, gasping desperately. Another policeman who had followed Yong Kyu in was lying at the side door and firing into the inner quarters of the house. The captain and Yong Kyu carried the moaning lieutenant outside. After a while the gunfire ceased.
Two visitors arrived at the general’s villa in Bai Bang. They came in a khaki sedan for VIP use, dispatched from the American forces. It being early in the morning, the general was still in his bedroom. A staff sergeant with the security detail stopped them to check if they were armed. One of the two men wore a uniform without any rank insignia, and the other was in a white half-sleeve shirt and a pair of black pants. The man in uniform was holding up a black umbrella for the civilian and himself.
“I have to confirm your identities, sir,” said the staff sergeant.
The uniform took out a badge of the security forces from his back pocket and showed it to the staff sergeant. But the latter would not step back.
“The general is commander-in-chief of Quang Nam Province, sir. Whatever your unit affiliation may be, you should observe the proper security protocol, sir.”
“This gentleman is from Independence Palace. Get out of the way.”
As the uniform spoke thus, the civilian intervened in a gentlemanly tone, “Ah, leave him be. I’m from the military council.”
He took out an ID and handed it over to the staff sergeant. Freezing at attention, the staff sergeant still managed to salute with propriety. The civilian put his ID away and asked in a gentle voice, “May I see General Liam now, please?”
“Yes, sir, let me show you the way, sir.”