“Go on, tell me. I still don’t quite understand.”
“Tell you what?”
Then Toi grinned brightly. For a second he turned his eyes and then shoved his mirrored sunglasses right under Yong Kyu’s nose. On the glossy metallic surface of the lenses Yong Kyu saw his own face distorted into a grotesque shape. They were the kind of glasses that hid the mood of the wearer. Perfect for the scalding heat in Vietnam.
Barely suppressing a fleeting urge to punch Toi in the face, Yong Kyu calmly asked, “Why is it that a Korean woman is so likely to hook up with a Vietnamese?”
“Ah, that much I could’ve told the captain earlier. I thought of it from the start.”
“What do you want, anyway?”
“Easy does it, man,” Toi said, chuckling. “You’ll uncover a very good dealing connection.”
“Has that happened before?”
“Yes, when I worked for the American forces.”
Yong Kyu grew tense. “The conditions are the same, sure. But it varies depending on the kinds of deals.”
“With your help, I’m confident I can get to the core of these deals in three days.”
“Go on.”
“I told you. This Korean woman of yours, she’s hooked up with a Vietnamese. The Vietnamese like foreign women. They’ve lived colonized for a long time, so they like foreigners. The guy’s an officer, that’s my guess. His post, near Da Nang. Not a combat officer.”
“Sounds good. One thing I don’t get, though. Why would such a man need a woman as a front, and a foreign woman at that?”
“Ha, ha, you don’t understand, do you? It means he’s not in this for the money. A man like that can have as many big deals as he wants. That’s the key point. This is a petty gift kind of thing. Think about it. If she’s one of yours, there’s no doubt you’ll interfere. But you’ll never touch the core of the black market. Why? Because the dealings of the Vietnamese forces are sacred. Same with the American forces. Too many headaches and too much trouble. Endless complaints and accusations from civilians pour into the Vietnamese high command. The superiors in the investigative headquarters either have the man in charge transferred or issue orders suspending the investigation. It’s the same with AID8 loans, advisory group funding, and even with the foreign private contractors. You don’t get it. Perhaps you won’t get it until the end. So much the better for you. For after all, this is our country and this is our war. We are the masters of the house. You people just serve your time and go back home.”
Yong Kyu gulped down the saliva in his throat. “So what is this war of yours about? The Americans and we came here for no reason?”
“You people have no part in it. This is an American taxpayers’ war.”
“Cut the bullshit. For six months I was crawling in the mud where you’ve never been.”
Toi glanced at Yong Kyu then turned away and spat, apparently angry. “I’ve lived twice as long as you. So I know life. I’m from a family of merchants who have made their living in the Le Loi markets for three generations. All merchants have a good understanding of world affairs, big and small. Once there was a merchant who saw a man violently beating his wife, so he went into their house. He beat the husband for the sake of the wife. Then the brothers of the husband all came out and they beat the merchant. Then the merchant called on his neighbor for help. His neighbor knew that the merchant would reward him, so over he came too to intervene in the family fight. So? Have I said enough?”
Yong Kyu said nothing. Their Land Rover was pulling inside the headquarters compound of the American naval base.
Footnote:
8 US Agency for International Development
9
A flock of doves soared up through the palm trees. Dozens of trucks rolled in and out of the heart of the Quang Nam Province government. In the center of the yard in front of the building, where a fountain had bubbled during the French colonization, the national flag was flying from a pole. A decapitated statue displayed its awkward, naked form. The iron-barred front gate was permanently closed, fortified with sandbags that ran along the edges of what used to be flowerbeds.
Two heavy machine guns had been mounted on low watchtowers behind sandbag walls twice as tall as a man. Fully armed guards sat upright and attentive at two other spots. Out in front of the barbed wire barricades additional bunkers were manned by soldiers with automatic weapons. In the square directly in front of the building a pair of armored personnel carriers were on standby. When the director left for the day, one of the armored personnel carriers escorted him and the rear of his personal convoy was protected by two armored Jeeps equipped with.50 caliber machine guns. The provincial government building was now nothing but a fortress. Each window was covered with metal mesh to repel grenades. The terraces were practically sealed off by sandbag walls. A security force the size of a company was on rotation duty day and night.
Originally, in the early colonial period, the structure had been the home of the French governor. The architecture was in the southern French style, with orange-colored tiles adorning the roof and each level of terracing and neatly trimming the windows. Exotic ivy still crept up the walls to the highest windows, which at one time had been hung with shutters. Geranium pots perched on windowsills here and there. But the walls were ordinary plaster painted white. From a distance, the coarsely textured walls made the building look like a villa on some Mediterranean seashore. The only ugly intrusions on this idyllic scene were the sandbags, the machine gun nests, and the armored personnel carriers.
The iron gate on the side of the provincial government building stood wide open and a soldier was directing the truck traffic in and out. When they entered, the trucks drove into the front yard and made a loop around the flagpole, heading around to the back of the building. Once in the back and unloaded, the trucks made a U-turn to go out through the same gate and then sped off in the direction of the beach.
“What’s all that ruckus about?”
The question startled the lieutenant and he jumped up from the desk where he had been busy typing. He went over toward his superior, Major Pham Quyen, who was gazing down through the window with his hands clasped behind his back.
“God-damned fertilizer,” the major spat.
The lieutenant did not bother going all the way to the window and instead returned to his desk and flopped back down in his chair.
“Today is the day, sir.”
“Ah, what a pain. . ”
Quyen stretched. As his solid shoulders extended, the back of his crisply pressed American jungle uniform grew so taut that it looked about to rip at the seams.
“It’s already lunch time,” he muttered, glancing at his watch. “Still no word from the general?”
“No, sir. He stayed at Bai Bang last night, sir.”
Quyen understood. General Liam, a military high commander and the military governor of the province, had a villa on the beach at Bai Bang. It was on the northeast shore of the cape that the Americans called Monkey Mountain, overlooking Da Nang Bay. That the general had spent the night in Bai Bang meant that his arrival would be postponed until after the siesta hour.
“Did you notify the general that a dedication ceremony is to be held today in An Diem?”
The lieutenant hesitated and frowned. “. . I’m not permitted to communicate with Bai Bang, sir.”
“Call him.”
The lieutenant’s pleading look made Major Pham Quyen impatient and angry. “Call him, I said! We got a message from AID and the advisory group. The general must attend the ceremony today.”
“Yes, sir.”