“Is the Hanoi Hilton still open?”
“This is not a joke.”
“I make jokes when I’m tense. Anyway, am I to understand from you that Vice President Blake is visiting Hanoi?”
“He’s here to see his old friend, Ambassador Patrick Quinn, and to participate in a conference on MIAs, and I’m sure a few other less publicized meetings with the Vietnamese government.”
I nodded. “He should also have an unscheduled meeting. With us.”
Susan didn’t reply for a while, then said, “That might be a good idea, or a very bad idea.”
“If he knows about this problem, he wants to be in Hanoi where he can have some hands-on control of the situation where and when the mission ends. We can help him with that.”
Susan replied, “I honestly don’t know if he’s aware that he has a problem. But other people do, and I think Mr. Blake will be made aware of it in Hanoi. The bad news, Mr. Vice President, is that we know you murdered three Viets and an American officer in Vietnam. The good news, sir, is that we have the situation under control.”
“It’s not under control,” I pointed out.
“It was supposed to be.”
The train continued east toward Hanoi. Susan and I discussed a few ideas and options and tried to come up with a game plan. I made believe I trusted her completely. She made believe, too.
I kept getting the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to have gotten this far, and that Susan was making adjustments for my living presence. But that might be too paranoid. Maybe I was supposed to make it as far as Bangkok, then be evaluated as to how much I found out, and, as Mr. Conway said, how I would be dealt with. Maybe Susan was supposed to be a witness for or against me. And maybe my friend, Karl, who cared about me, was to be my judge. I asked Susan, “Are you supposed to go to Bangkok?”
She didn’t reply.
“Hello? Susan?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I pointed out to her, “If there exists a possibility that I might need to be… let’s say, given a full military funeral before I was ready for one, has it occurred to you that you, too, might be in a similar predicament?”
“It has occurred to me.”
“Good.” I left it at that.
We moved into the rising sun, toward Hanoi, toward the end of the mission, and toward the end of my third, and definitely last, tour of duty in Vietnam.
The train from Lao Cai moved slowly through the northern outskirts of Hanoi, and at 6:34 P.M., we pulled into Long Bien Station.
The journey from sultry, sinful Saigon had taken me to the battlefields of South Vietnam and into the heart of my own darkness, and up country on a journey of discovery and hopefully self-awareness.
I had finally come to terms with this place, as had a lot of men who’d been here, and as had a lot of my generation, men and women, who hadn’t been to Vietnam, but who had lived through Vietnam so many years ago.
And yet, at unexpected moments, the war still had the power to haunt our dreams and intrude into our waking hours. And for Edward Blake, this was one of those times.
BOOK VII
Hanoi
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Hanoi. An evocative name to people of my generation, as Berlin and Tokyo were to my father’s generation. Hardly a week went by during the war that didn’t have a news report of a Hanoi bombing raid. American bombers struck two miles from the center of Hanoi today, targeting a railway bridge over the Red River, a power plant, and suspected enemy surface-to-air missile sites. After about five or six years of these news stories, they ceased to be news, except for the pilots and the people on the ground.
The passengers around us were gathering their luggage and began filing off the train.
Susan and I remained seated and watched the platform.
There were a large number of uniformed Border Police on the platform scanning the departing passengers, plus some plainclothes guys, who were easy to spot. I said to Susan, “Some of those guys have what could be photos in their hands.”
She kept staring out the window and said, “This is not an uncommon sight at transportation terminals… we shouldn’t automatically assume they’re looking for us… but they are looking at Westerners.”
“Right.” I also assumed they had the photographs from Pyramide Island, so maybe they wouldn’t recognize us with our clothes on. In fact, a few of the cops seemed more interested in the photos than the departing passengers.
I said, “Let’s hook up with that American group you were talking to.”
We stood, got our backpacks, and made our way to Car 6 where the American group was filing out with their Vietnamese tour guide.
There was a Viet lady standing in front of Susan as we shuffled out, and Susan spoke to the woman in Vietnamese, then spoke to me. Susan discovered that Long Bien Station was located in a remote district on the east side of the Red River, and the passengers from our train needed to board a standard-gauge train to the central station if they were going to downtown Hanoi. There were also buses and taxis available. And police cars.
One of Susan’s most striking features is her straight shoulder-length hair, and she asked me to tuck it under her quilted jacket.
I have many striking features, but I couldn’t wrap them all in scarves without attracting attention or running out of scarves, so I just wrapped a dark blue Montagnard scarf around my neck and chin. Susan did the same.
“Separate when we get out.”
We got out on the platform, separated, and placed ourselves in the center of the group of about twenty Americans with their guide.
Susan was chatting with the people around her, and I struck up a conversation with two guys while my eyes followed the cops. A few of them were looking at our group, but not showing any signs of recognition.
The tour group was assembled, and we began moving off the platform. We might just make it, but I held my breath anyway.
The railway station was a combination of old and new, and I could see where bomb damage had been repaired with newer concrete. A country that has seen war never looks quite the same again, at least not to the people who remembered how it used to look.
The weather was overcast, and a lot warmer than it had been in the mountains. This country needed a sunny day. I needed a sunny day.
I noticed a taxi stand to my left, where two Border Police and a plainclothes guy stood, looking at Westerners who were getting in the cabs.
Our American tour group was moving toward a waiting bus whose sign said Love Planet Tours. I wasn’t feeling any particular love at the moment, but fugitives can’t be choosy.
Our group began boarding the Love Planet bus. Susan was ahead of me, and she spoke to the Viet tour guide for a moment, handed him some money, which made him smile, and she boarded. I reached the guide and handed him five bucks. He smiled and nodded.
I boarded the bus. The driver, who had never met this group, didn’t pay any attention to me, but if he had, he’d have gotten a few bucks, too.
The bus could hold about forty people, and there were lots of empty seats, but Susan had placed herself in an aisle seat beside a middle-aged woman wearing Montagnard hoop earrings. I took the seat across the aisle from Susan and threw my backpack on the empty window seat. I could hear the luggage being thrown into the compartment below my feet.
It took forever for the poky Americans to board, and I watched the Border Police outside moving around, still staring at pictures and still looking for someone.
The bus was finally loaded, and the Viet guide came aboard. He said, “Okay, every person here?”