Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (27 page)

CHAPTER 44

Byrnes had never ridden on a train before, except for the trip from Annapolis to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy football game. The conductor curried favor with Vong, still dressed in his green NVA major’s uniform. The national railway employee practically fell over himself leading Vong and Byrnes to a relatively comfortable bench seat in the front of the passenger car. He placed Vong’s small, weathered duffle bag in the storage area in front of the seat. “No one will bother it, I assure you, Comrade Major,” the conductor said. “You and your brother have a pleasant trip. Be certain to let me know if you need anything.”

After the man had moved toward the rear of the car, Vong said quietly to Byrnes, “Everyone is scared of the uniform. The only thing they fear more are the cadre, enforcers of the peoples’ will.” He had slipped Byrnes a second set of identity papers before they boarded the train to Sa Pa. “Everyone in my village will know you are not my brother, Con co. You are ten centimeters taller than he was. You are now Thien Sang, almost like Thien Vu’s younger brother. And I’m going to return to calling you Con co, okay?”

“Vu? The man who lost a leg to the B-52s?” Byrnes asked.

“The same,” Vong said. “He is now an administrator in Ho Chi Minh City. With luck, you will get to meet him again some day. He says he owes you his life. We both know that’s true.”

“Where did you get these papers?” Byrnes asked.

“I dealt with forgers and thieves for years as part of my job in national security,” Vong said. “The black market is our only real economy. The only criminals we sent to jail or executed were the opium dealers and anyone in open revolt against the state. Corruption is rampant. If we put all the lawbreakers in detention camps, there would be no one to run the country.” Vong laughed. “Anyway, I have, or I had, access to the best forgers in the country. Many of whom owed me favors. Your identification papers are better quality than those made by the government. In fact a man who makes documents for the government produced them. He steals their ink and papers and substitutes inferior quality materials.”

“And my picture? How did you get that?” Byrnes asked, scanning his papers.

“That’s a complicated story. My job in the Ministry of Defense put me in contact with most of the prisons, jails, and detention and re-education camps. After all, that’s where we sent the criminals we caught,” Vong said, quietly, even though the racket made by the ancient locomotive drowned his words before they reached anyone else in the car. “I thought you might have survived the war. I knew you never made it to Hanoi, once I saw the records of POWs repatriated to your country. Yours wasn’t included. Eventually, I discovered where you were – I found out after the Korean blew himself up in the mine field. After that, it was easy to obtain your picture.”

With a sudden lurch the train moved forward. It took fifteen minutes of halting acceleration, with black coal smoke drifting into the compartment through open windows, before the engine attained a decent speed. “Our infrastructure suffered terribly from the American bombing,” Vong said. “This is supposed to be a nine-hour trip. It will take much longer than that.”

The car reminded Byrnes of black and white movies he had seen. He imagined Bogart and Bacall as spies on a train through pre-World War II Europe, or maybe he remembered such a motion picture. All the wooden church pew-like seats faced forward. Two persons sat in each seat. Packed to the limit, several unfortunate villagers stood in the aisle. Byrnes suppressed the urge to stand in order to give an old woman his seat, an act that he supposed Vong would have difficulty explaining.

Every thirty minutes to an hour, the train pulled into a small station, sometimes pitching left and right on uneven tracks, always with a loud screeching of the brakes and a sudden, stuttering stop. After the passengers in the aisle regained their footing, they usually filed out, replaced by a new set of local residents. Byrnes saw trussed pigs, chickens, and ducks carried by farm boys and young women.

“Buses take even longer,” Vong said, wrinkling his nose to an unfamiliar odor. “And the roads will be the last to be repaired, after the canal system, the railroads, and the electrical grid. We have much work to do. Some still curse Ho Chi Minh for not surrendering to the Americans, although they praise him for his tenacity against the Japanese and French. Ten years after you defeated the Japanese, you made them a world-class economic power. Imagine where we would be.”

Byrnes fell asleep listening to the clack-clack of the train wheels. He woke in absolute darkness, the train motionless. Unsure of where he was, having started the day in a prison camp, he waited for his senses to take in his surroundings. “You missed the announcement,” Vong said. “Engineers are checking the bridge ahead. There has been a lot of rain recently. They want to make certain it is structurally sound.”

Shortly after that, the lights came on in the cabin. “Everyone will have to disembark,” the conductor said. “The train will go across the bridge first. Then we will walk across the overpass.” A chorus of moans greeted the announcement. “Or you can take your chances in the train. If the bridge doesn’t hold its weight, you will die.” The moaning stopped.

“In the dark?” Vong asked the conductor.

“No, Major,” the conductor said. “I apologize for the inconvenience, sir. We will wait until dawn. Try to get some rest.”

There were no more incidents after the passengers re-boarded the train on the far side of the trestle. On reaching Sa Pa, Vong had good news for Byrnes. “We won’t have to wait in a hotel room overnight for the bus,” he said, “since we spent the night on the train. Our bus leaves in thirty minutes.”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a conductor to curry favor with Major Vong on the bus. He and Byrnes squeezed in along with the overload of passengers. The driver tied crates of birds and pigs to the roof and the back of the bus. Seated near the front, Byrnes thought he could make out French instructions written on the dash. The ancient diesel billowed clouds of oily black exhaust as it worked its way up and down the mountains. Slowly up, and too quickly down.

What should have been a two-hour trip, 72 kilometers to Lai Chau, took four hours in the Renault passenger bus built with a truck-like front end. There were places along the mountainous road when the collective passengers held their breath looking down into a ravine along the side of the dirt highway. Byrnes almost liked his chances with the landmines better. In Lai Chau, the passengers disembarked.

“So this is your hometown,” Byrnes said to Vong.

Vong laughed. “This is the big city compared to our village,” he said. “Be thankful you don’t have a heavy bag to carry.”

“Why?” Byrnes asked.

The nine-mile walk on the dirt road to Phong Tho took the two men four hours, up and down the switchback road through the mountains. A man on a bicycle and a woman on a Honda motorbike passed them, going in the opposite direction. Both waved. On the way, they passed a deserted village, overgrown by the forest. Byrnes saw thatched roofs no longer in place, trees growing through foundations, fences crumbling, and weeds poking through the cobblestones. The surrounding fields, once meadows of tall grass, gradually had been invaded by trees. “What’s that place?” Byrnes asked as they sat by the road resting.

“Tam Duong,” Vong said. “After the French defeat at Dien Binh Phu, the villagers abandoned it. They left the north for the south.”

“The whole village?” Byrnes asked.

“A million and a half northerners went south after the Geneva Accords,” Vong explained. “Mostly Catholics. Confucians converted to Catholicism by the French. The Buddhists in the south didn’t like them any more than the Confucians or communists in the north, but they couldn’t live under communist rule. In the middle of the night, whole villages left everything behind and marched south with their priests. They slept during the day, to avoid the Viet Minh patrols.”

“So why haven’t new villagers moved in?” Byrnes asked.

“Most young people gravitate to the bigger towns and cities these days, our workers’ paradise. It seems no one wants to be a farmer any longer. They all want to work limited hours in factories or go to university. Besides, we don’t have the population to replace those who went south. One and a half million left in 1954; another million northerners died in the war.”

“What happened to the northerners who left their villages?”

“Most made it to the coast, caught boats to the south. Some crossed the DMZ on foot. President Boa Dai granted them abandoned French property in the Mekong delta. Your older brother, Administrator Thien Vu, has been trying for six years to collectivize their farms. He says it’s not going to work. The southerners are too independent minded. As fast as he punishes them by sending them to the New Economic Zones, they bribe officials and return to their property.”

Byrnes laughed. “The southerners might turn you northerners into capitalists, yet.”

Turning serious, Vong said. “Don’t laugh. We need Vu to succeed and remain an administrator in Ho Chi Minh City. He is trying to find you a way out of Vietnam. It may take a while. You need to be patient.”

“So far, I have been here fifteen years, Binh. That’s a long time.”

“Perhaps. Remember, the war for Vietnamese independence dragged on for some forty years. On your feet, Con co,” Vong said, lifting his body off the ground and picking up his duffel bag. “Use those long legs to finish the climb up the mountain.”

CHAPTER 45

His search for Tammy Kimura led Wolfe back, into the house. Guests gradually diminished in number as they expressed their condolences, said last prayers in front of the casket, and bade their farewells to the sisters. Wolfe heard Kimura’s voice upstairs, along with other guests. As he climbed the stairs he caught a glimpse of a black trouser leg entering the hallway bathroom and the door closing behind the gentleman who wore it. He found Kimura in her brother’s bedroom talking with a gray-haired woman.

“Mom cut them all out, except this one,” Kimura said, pointing to a photograph in the book, “probably because it wasn’t labeled with your name.”

The white haired woman chuckled. She said, “I never thought your mother liked me very much.”

Wolfe waited patiently for a pause in the conversation. When Kimura finished talking, he said, “Tammy, sorry to interrupt. I have to go.”

“Oh, Addy,” Kimura said. “We were just going to look for you. I want you to meet Emily Rose. It used to be Emily Rose, then Emily Thornton. She’s gone back to Rose, says she’ll keep that from now on, no matter what husbands three, four, and five have for their last names.”

“Tammy!” the diminutive woman said, blushing.

Kimura continued, “She was my brother’s girlfriend his senior year in high school. Emily, this is Dr. Addison Wolfe. He was on the aircraft carrier in Vietnam with Jim.”

Rose turned to face Wolfe. She was short, less than an inch over five feet tall. Her blond hair had morphed into a beautiful silver gray. Her genes had been kind. She didn’t look more than fifty-five years-old, although Wolfe knew she was in her late sixties. “A pleasure. Call me Addy,” Wolfe said, holding his hand out to the woman.

She took his hand with both of hers. “It’s nice to meet a close friend of Jim’s,” she said.

“Is that you?” Wolfe asked, pointing to the half-page picture in the open high school yearbook. It depicted a well-built blonde high school student with a pixie haircut, standing next to an exceptionally tall, handsome young man. The boy was easily a foot and a half taller than the girl. The caption read,
Mutt and Jeff: Editor of the
Salvo
interviews basketball star
.

“Yes,” Rose said.

Kimura explained, “The
Salvo
was the school newspaper. My mother didn’t cut that picture out. They didn’t use Emily’s name in the caption. Guess Mom missed it.”

“Who’s the tall guy?”

“That’s my first husband, Max Thornton,” Rose said. “We got married after college. The marriage didn’t last long.”

“Sorry,” Wolfe said. He heard the toilet in the hallway flush and water run in the sink. No one exited the bathroom, however. Wolfe had a sudden inspiration. He turned to Kimura. “Would you mind if I borrowed that yearbook again, Tammy. I’d like to do some more research.”

Kimura looked at Rose. Rose shrugged and nodded. Kimura said, “Sure, Addy. Could you bring it back when you come for the funeral, or mail it back if you can’t make it?”

“No problem,” Wolfe said. “Are you finished with it for now?” Both women nodded. Wolfe pulled out the tri-folded piece of paper he kept in his shirt pocket and placed it between the pages and then closed the book. The plastic book cover stuck to his hands when he picked it up, so he held it by one edge in his left hand.

Wolfe put his right arm around Kimura’s shoulders and squeezed her to him. “I’ll be here for the funeral,” he said. “Your mom was a nice lady. Too bad I didn’t get to know her better. I’m sure you and Yasuko will miss her.”

“Thanks, Addy.”

To Rose, Wolfe held out his hand. He said, “It was a pleasure meeting you, Emily. Maybe we’ll meet again some day.”

“That would be nice,” Rose said, shaking his hand. “We could talk about Jim.”

“That would be great,” Wolfe said.

As Wolfe reached the first floor, he heard the bathroom door open. “Ready to go?” A man’s voice asked.

***

“I don’t know, Dr. Wolfe. What would this request have to do with Ralph Fulton, and whether or not he is fit for trial?” Psychiatrist Yolanda Nichols asked as she shook her head. She held Fulton’s chart on the desk in front of her. “I don’t see the connection.”

“Chief Fulton says Byrnes told him to inject the bolus of potassium into Clemons, right?”

“Yeah, but what’s that got to do with fingerprints in a fifty-year-old yearbook?”

“What if I could prove that James T. Byrnes is alive and living in the United States?” Wolfe asked. “Wouldn’t that change things? Admittedly, Fulton’s mental health is fragile. Seeing a ghost could certainly push him over the edge.”

Nichols’s face showed her surprise at the statement. She said, “What are the chances? You said it looked like he died in a friendly-fire accident in Vietnam.”

“I heard recently that he survived the airstrike. He lived long enough for the North Vietnamese to send him to a detention camp near the Chinese border. I met a fellow inmate, a Korean soldier who disarmed landmines with him. That man was repatriated by the Vietnamese after more than ten years as a prisoner.”

“Was Byrnes repatriated?” Nichols asked.

“I don’t know. Right now, I can’t prove he was. But if I find his recent fingerprints on that book, that will be a different story. I do know that the CIA threatened me with jail if I pursued my investigation. They don’t want MIAs found, they said. Or, maybe, they want to exploit MIAs in some fashion and they don’t want that exposed.”

“You realize that you are beginning to sound a bit paranoid, don’t you?” Nichols asked, shaking her head. “Okay, Addy, I’ll see what I can do. The district attorney isn’t going to be happy with the expense, though. This isn’t a murder case. The alleged victim was already dead. It may be an attempted murder case, or a theft of hospital property with unauthorized use of medication case, a competency case, or a purely question of insanity case. The DA has more important legal matters he’d like to send to trial, or close.”

***

“Dad! Watch out!” Kayla Anne yelled.

While driving, Wolfe had looked down and reached for his cell phone when it rang. He was digging in his pocket for the phone when the Prius rolled up on a man walking toward him in the middle of his lane, on North Legacy Trail in the Cascades. Looking up, he slammed on the brakes, stopping ten feet short of the tall, gray-haired man. The man continued his jaunt, walking around the driver’s side of the Prius.

Wolfe rolled down the window. “Hey, old man,” he said. “Get out of the middle of the street.”

Never slowing, the man said, “I don’t like the sidewalks here. They’re uneven. I tripped once and skinned my knees. Nearly broke my wrist.” He continued to walk, skirting the Prius and continuing down the middle of the lane.

Irritated, Wolfe yelled, “We’ll put that on your tombstone, moron!”

“Dad!”

Blushing, Wolfe shrugged. “Well, it would look good there,” he said. “
Rather be a hood ornament than have skinned knees
. Yeah, that fits.” He shook his head. “We have some neighbors with early dementia. I guess that’s why your mother chooses to spend a lot of time away from home.”

“She and Junior will be back next week,” Kayla Anne said.

“Good timing,” Wolfe said. “I’ll be out of town at Mrs. Byrnes’s funeral.”

When they pulled into the driveway and stopped, Wolfe finished fishing out his cell phone. “Go ahead in, KayLan,” he said. “I have to return this call. Reception’s better here in front of the house.” He pushed the button on the garage door remote. The door slowly retracted into the garage.

Kayla Anne exited the car. “Make sure you close the door, Dad. We don’t want the cookie zombies returning.”

Wolfe smiled and nodded. He listened to the message on his phone and returned the call to the fingerprint expert.