“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
We had really pissed this guy off, and I knew he had some parting words for me, which I hoped were, “Mr. Brenner, your visa is canceled. Go home.” Okay.
He turned to me, smiled wickedly, and said, “Have a pleasant and safe journey to Hanoi. I may see you there. But perhaps not.”
“I plan to be there.”
He looked again at Susan and said to her, “Remove the film from your camera and give it to me.”
“I will not.”
He motioned to the two men behind him, and they came forward. Pushy and I made eye contact, and he smiled.
I said to Susan, “Give him the film.”
She hesitated, took the camera from her tote bag, and instead of taking out the film, she snapped a picture of Colonel Mang. This was not a Kodak moment.
He shouted, “The film! Now!”
She opened the camera, ripped the partially exposed film out, and threw it on the ground.
Pushy retrieved it, and he looked up at Susan with an expression of surprise, bordering on awe, as if to say, “You don’t fuck with a colonel in the MPS, lady. You nuts?”
Colonel Mang decided to break off the confrontation while he was ahead on points. He looked at me and said, “You and I, Mr. Brenner, survived many brutal battles here. It would be very ironic if you did not survive your vacation.”
My thoughts exactly.
He turned and walked away across the desolate field with his two henchmen. Pushy turned his head toward us as he walked and made a cutting motion across his throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The sky was dark now, and we stood there in the cold wind.
Finally, Susan spoke. “I’m shaking.”
“It got cold.”
“I’m shaking with fear, Paul.”
I knew what she meant. “You did fine. Terrific, actually.”
She lit a cigarette and her hand trembled, which it hadn’t in the presence of Colonel Mang.
I said, “Let’s roll.”
We started walking toward the bridge.
Susan asked me, “Did you two get along a little better in Saigon?”
“A little, but not much.”
She thought a moment, then said, “Weird, but I think he… he has some positive feelings toward you. Don’t laugh.”
I replied, “The cat has positive feelings toward the mouse. Lunch.”
“No, it’s more than that. There’s something between you… like a game, a challenge, a respect—”
“We’re bonding. But you know what? If I had a shovel and he had a machete, someone’s head would wind up on a pole.”
She didn’t reply, and we kept walking across the dark acres of the former Citadel. Susan said, “We lost all those good shots of Chief John’s village, Khe Sanh… everything. That really pisses me off.”
“You should have asked for a confiscated property receipt.”
“Now we have to come back and take more photos.”
“Not in this lifetime, sweetheart.”
“We’ll be back here someday.”
I didn’t reply.
She said, “He was going for his gun, Paul.”
“Don’t piss off people who have guns.”
“You pissed him off,” she reminded me.
“I was trying to bond with him. It came out wrong.”
She ignored that and said, “This makes the rest of the trip more difficult.”
“It makes it more challenging.”
We crossed the small bridge over the moat and headed back through the paths of the village toward the road.
There were electric lights in the houses that we passed, and I could smell the distinctive odor of charcoal in the cool, humid air. This was the smell I most remembered at twilight in the winter of 1968.
Susan said to me, “Sorry I didn’t tell you about Bill sooner.”
I replied, “It wasn’t your place to tell me.” I smiled and said, “So I need a name, and I use the name of the CIA station chief. Nice going, Brenner.”
She held her cigarette between her middle fingers, Viet style, and said in a Vietnamese accent, “So, Mr. Brenner, you have made contact with the hill people. Yes? And Miss Weber informs me you are going to organize them into an army. Yes? And you will own the hills. Yes?”
“Not funny. Hey, do you think Mr. Loc is waiting for us?”
“I very much doubt that.”
We kept walking through the dark village, and at night it was difficult to find the main path from the road where Mr. Loc had left us. I could smell fish cooking and rice steaming in the humid air.
We came to the road, and I said, “Mr. Loc did not wait for us. Too bad. I wanted to break his neck. How do we get back to Hue?”
“I don’t know. You want to stay in Quang Tri City?”
“There is no Quang Tri City,” I said.
“Maybe there’s a guest house. Or I’ll bet we could stay in any one of these houses for a few dollars.”
“They’d have to pay me. Let’s get on the highway.”
We walked toward Highway One over a kilometer away. I said, “That bastard left us here in the middle of nowhere.”
We got to the highway, but there weren’t any vehicles in sight, and it was two days into the new moon, so it was pitch dark.
Susan looked around, then said, “The buses go up and down Highway One until maybe midnight. I’ll go check with a local. You stay here and flag down a bus, if one comes along. They stop if you flag them down.”
Susan went into the closest hootch, about thirty meters down the road, and I waited.
I thought about the day and realized I’d done a five-month tour of combat duty in an afternoon. I may have wanted to linger awhile in the A Shau or Khe Sanh, but maybe enough was enough. I knew I’d never be back.
I thought also about all the stuff I’d filled Susan’s head with and decided that that, too, was enough.
Susan came back up the road and said, “We’re invited for dinner and to stay overnight.” She added, “We missed cocktails.”
“What’s for dinner?”
“Rice.”
“Long grain or sticky?”
“Sticky. There will be a bus along within half an hour. It’s a local.”
“When does it get to Hue?”
“When it gets there.”
“Did you have fun today?”
“Paul, I had an incredible day, and I truly thank you. The question is, How are you?”
“I’m fine. When I’m not fine, I’ll let you know.”
She lit a cigarette. “This war… that war was unimaginable. I can’t even begin to comprehend how you and the others lived like that for a whole year.”
Not everyone lived the whole year, but I didn’t say that.
We stood silently on the blacktop of Highway One and waited for headlights going south.
Susan asked, “What if an army patrol comes by? Do we duck out, or just stand here?”
“Depends on the mood I’m in.”
“Well, we’re waiting to flag down the Hue bus. Ten-dollar fine.”
“This place sucks.”
Susan replied, “The people are mostly nice. That family I just spoke to practically begged me to stay for dinner.”
“Peasants are nice. Cops, politicians, and soldiers suck.”
“You’re a cop and a soldier. You’re nice.”
“Sometimes.” I said, “Colonel Mang wants to kick you out. Why don’t you go?”
“Where am I going to?”
“Lenox, Massachusetts.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
She asked me, “Why don’t you go back to Boston instead of living in Virginia?”