Prayers to Broken Stones (30 page)

Nguyen van Minh joined him as Disantis waited for a light to change on Thong Njut Boulevard.

“Mr. Disantis.”

“Mr. Minh.”

The short Vietnamese adjusted his glasses as they strolled past the park where the Independence Palace had once stood. “You are enjoying the sights?” he asked. “Do you see much that is familiar?”

“No,” said Disantis. “Do you?”

Minh paused and looked around him as if the idea had not pertained to him. “Not really, Mr. Disantis,” he said at last. “Of course, I rarely visited Saigon. My village was in a different province. My unit was based near Da Nang.”

“ARVN?” asked Disantis.

“Hac Bao,” said Minh. “The Black Panthers of the First Division. You remember them, perhaps?” Disantis shook his head.

“We were … I say without pride … the most feared
fighting unit in all of South Vietnam … including the Americans. The Hac Bao had put fear into the hearts of the communist insurgents for ten years before the fall.”

Disantis stopped to buy a lemon ice from a street vendor. The lights were coming on all along the boulevard.

“You see the embassy there?” asked Minh, pointing to an antiquated six-story structure set back behind an ornate fence.

“That’s the old U.S. Embassy?” asked Disantis without much interest in his voice. “I would have thought that the building would’ve been torn down by now.”

“Oh, no,” said Minh, “it is a museum. It has been restored very much to its original appearance.”

Disantis nodded and glanced at his comlog.

“I stood here,” continued Minh, “right here … in April of 1975, and watched the helicopters take the last of the Americans off the roof of the embassy. It was only my third time in Saigon. I had just been released from four days in prison.”

“Prison?” Disantis turned to look at Minh.

“Yes. I had been arrested by the government after members of my unit commandeered the last Boeing 727 out of Da Nang to Saigon. We fought civilians—women and children—to get aboard that plane. I was a lieutenant. I was twenty-three years old.”

“So you got out of Vietnam during the panic?”

“They released us from jail when the North Vietnamese were in the suburbs,” said Minh. “I was not able to leave the country until several months later.”

“Boat?” asked Disantis. The lemon ice was melting quickly in the warm air.

Minh nodded. “And you, Mr. Disantis, when did you leave Vietnam?”

Disantis tossed the paper wrapper into a trashcan and licked his fingers. “I came here early in ’69,” he said.

“And when did you leave?” Minh asked again.

Disantis lifted his head as if to sniff the night air. The evening was thick with the scent of tropical vegetation, mimosa blossoms, stagnant water, decay. When he looked at Minh there was a dark gleam in his blue eyes. He shook his head. “I never left,” he said.

Justin, Sayers, and Tom Newton came up to the guide as he sat alone at a table near the back of the hotel bar. The three Americans hesitated and looked at each other. Finally Justin stepped forward. “Howdy,” he said.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Jeffries,” said the guide.

“We … uh … we’d all, I mean the three of us and a couple of other guys, we wanted to see you about something.”

“Ahhh, there is some problem with the tour?” asked the guide.

“No, no, everything’s great,” said Justin and glanced back at the other two. He sat down and leaned toward the Vietnamese. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “We … ah … we wanted a little more than the regular tour.”

“Oh?” The guide blinked. His mouth was not quite curled in a smile.

“Yeah,” said Justin, “you know. Something
extra.
”

“Extra?” said the guide.

Roger Sayers stepped forward. “We want some special action,” he said.

“Ahhh,” said the guide and finished his drink.

Justin leaned forward again. “Nat Pendrake told us it was OK,” he whispered loudly. “He said he … uh … arranged it through Mr. Tho.”

“Mr. Tho?” the guide said blankly. But the smile was there now.

“Yeah. Nat said that … uh … a special action would be about a thousand.”

“Two thousand,” the guide said softly. “Each.”

“Hey,” interjected Sayers, “Nat was here just a few months ago and …”

“Quiet,” said Justin. “All right. That’s fine. Here.” He slid his universal card across the table.

The Vietnamese smiled and pushed Jeffries’s card back. “Cash, please. Each of you will have it tonight. American dollars.”

“I don’t know about …” began Sayers.

“Where?” asked Justin.

“The frontage road beyond the hotel maintenance buildings,” said the guide. “Twenty-three hundred hours.”

“Right,” said Justin as the guide stood up. “See you then.”

“Have a nice day,” said the guide and was gone.

The trucks transported them to a point in the jungle where the road ended and a trail began. The five men jumped down and followed the guide through the darkness. The trail was muddy from the evening rains and wet fronds brushed at their cork-smudged faces. Justin Jeffries and Tom Newton kept close to the guide. Behind them, stumbling occasionally in the dark, came Sayers and Reverend Dewitt. Lieutenant Naguchi brought up the rear. Each man was in uniform. Each carried an M-16.

“Shit,
” hissed Sayers as a branch caught him in the face.

“Shut up,” whispered Justin. The guide motioned them to a stop and the Americans pressed close to peer at a clearing visible through a gap in the dense foliage. A few kerosene lanterns threw cold light from the doorways of a dozen huts of the village.

“Vietcong sympathizers,” whispered the guide. “They can tell you where the cadre headquarters is. Everyone in the village knows the VC.”

“Huh,” said Sayers. “So our job is to get the information, right?”

“Yes.”

“And they’re VC sympathizers?” whispered Tom Newton.

“Yes.”

“How many?” asked Lieutenant Naguchi. His voice was barely audible above the drip of water from palm leaves.

“Maybe thirty,” said the guide. “No more than thirty-five.”

“Weapons?” asked Naguchi.

“There may be some hidden in the huts,” said the guide. “Be careful of the young men and women. VC. Well-trained.”

There was a long silence as they stared at the quiet village. Finally Justin stood and clicked the safety off on his rifle. “Let’s do it,” he said. Together they moved into the clearing.

Ralph Disantis and Nguyen van Minh sat together in a dark booth in an old bar not far from what had once been Tu-Do Street. It was late. Minh was quite drunk and Disantis let himself appear to be in the same condition. An ancient juke box in the corner played recent Japanese hits and oldies-but-goodies dating back to the eighties.

“For many years after the fall of my country, I thought that America had no honor,” said Minh. The only sign of the little man’s drunkenness was the great care with which he enunciated each word. “Even as I lived in America, worked in America, became a citizen of America, I was convinced that America had no honor. My American friends told me that during the Vietnam War there was news from my country on the televisions and radios every day, every evening. After Saigon fell … there was nothing. Nothing. It was as if my nation had never existed.”

“Hmmm,” said Disantis. He finished his drink and beckoned for more.

“But you, Mr. Disantis, you are a man of honor,” said Minh. “I know this. I sense this. You are a man of honor.”

Disantis nodded at the retreating waiter, removed the swizzle stick from his fresh drink, and placed the plastic saber in a row with seven others. Mr. Minh blinked and did the same with his.

“As a man of honor you will understand why I have returned to avenge my family,” Minh said carefully.

“Avenge?” said Disantis.

“Avenge my brother who died fighting the North Vietnamese,” said Minh. “Avenge my father—a teacher—who spent eight years in a reeducation camp only to die soon after his release. Avenge my sister who was deported by this regime for …” Minh paused. “For alleged crimes against morality. She drowned when their overcrowded boat went down somewhere between here and Hong Kong.”

“Avenge,” repeated Disantis. “How? With what?”

Minh sat up straight and looked over his shoulder. No one was near. “I will avenge my family’s honor by striking against the maggots who have corrupted my nation,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Disantis. “With what? Do you have a weapon?”

Minh hesitated, licked his lips, and looked for a second like he was sobering. Then he leaned over and grasped Disantis’s forearm. “I have a weapon,” he whispered. “Two of them. I smuggled them in. A rifle and my service automatic from the Hac Bao.” He hesitated again. “I can tell you this, Mr. Disantis. You are a man of honor.” This time it was a question.

“Yes,” said Disantis. “Tell me.”

Two of the huts were on fire. Justin and the other four had come in shouting and firing. There had been no opposition. The thirty-two villagers, mostly children and old people, knelt in the dust at the center of the village. Sayers had knocked over a lantern in one of the huts and the thatch and bamboo had blazed like an incendiary flare. The fat American had beat uselessly at the flames until Justin called, “Forget the fucking hootch and get back here.”

Tom Newton swung his rifle to cover the cringing villagers. “Where are the VC?” he shouted.

“VC!” shouted Sayers. “Where are their tunnels? Tell us, goddammit!” A kneeling woman holding a baby bowed her forehead to the dust. Flames cast bizarre shadows on the dirt and the smell of smoke made the men’s nostrils flare.

“They don’t understand,” said Reverend Dewitt. “The hell they don’t,” snapped Justin. “They’re just not talking.”

Lieutenant Naguchi stepped forward. He was relaxed but he kept his M-16 trained on the cowering villagers. “Mr. Jeffries, I will stand guard here if you wish to conduct an interrogation.”

“Interrogation?” said Justin.

“There is an empty hut there, away from the fire,” said the lieutenant. “It is best to isolate them during questioning.”

“Yeah,” said Justin. “I remember. Tom, cut a couple of them out of the herd. Hurry!”

Newton lifted a young man and an old woman by the arm and began moving them toward the hut.

“Not her,” said Justin. “Too old. Get that one.” He pointed to a wide-eyed girl of fifteen or sixteen. “She’s probably got a brother or boyfriend fighting with the VC.”

Newton pushed the old woman back to her knees and roughly lifted the girl to her feet. Justin felt his mouth go dry. Behind him the flames had set a third hut on fire and sparks drifted up to mix with the stars.

Disantis set the ninth plastic saber carefully in a row with the others. “How about ammunition?” he asked.

Minh blinked slowly and smiled. “Three thousand rounds for the rifle,” he said. He lifted his glass in slow motion, drank, swallowed. “Thirty clips for the .45 caliber service automatic. Enough …” He paused, swayed a second, and straightened his back. “Enough to do the job, yes?”

Disantis dropped the colored money on the table to pay the tab. He helped Minh to his feet and guided the smaller man toward the door. Minh stopped, grasped Disantis’s arm in both hands, and brought his face close. “Enough, yes?” he asked.

Disantis nodded. “Enough,” he said.

“Shit,” said Tom Newton, “he’s not going to tell us anything.” The young man from the village knelt before them. His black shirt had been pulled back to pin his arms. Blood was smeared from the corners of his mouth and nostrils. There were cigarette burn marks dotted across his chest.

“Bring the girl here,” said Justin. Sayers pushed her to her knees, took a fistful of hair, and jerked her head back sharply.

“Where are the VC?” asked Justin. Smoke came through the open door of the hootch. “Tunnels? VC?”

The girl said nothing. Her eyes were very dark and dilated with fear. Small, white teeth showed between her slightly parted lips.

“Hold her arms,” Justin said to Newton and Sayers. He took a long knife out of its sheath on his web belt, slipped the point under her buttoned shirtfront, and slashed upward. Cloth ripped and parted. The girl gasped and writhed but the two Americans held her tightly. Her breasts were small, conical, and lightly filmed with moisture.

“Jesus,” said Newton and giggled.

Justin tugged her black pants halfway down, slapped her knee aside when she kicked, and used the knife to tear the cloth away from her ankles.

“Hey!” yelled Sayers. The young Vietnamese had lurched to his feet and was struggling to free his arms. Justin turned quickly, dropped the knife, lifted the M-16, and fired three times in rapid succession. Flesh exploded from the boy’s chest, throat, and cheek. He kicked backward, spasmed once, and lay still in a growing red pool.

“Oh, Jesus,” Newton said again. “Jesus Christ, this is something.”

“Shut up,” said Justin. He placed the butt of his rifle against the dazed girl’s collarbone and pushed her onto her back in the dirt. “Hold her legs,” he said. “You’ll get your turns.”

After seeing Minh to his hotel room and putting him to bed, Disantis went back to his own room and sat out on the balcony. Some time after three a.m., his son-in-law and four other men materialized out of the darkness and sat down around one of the round tables on the abandoned terrace below. Disantis could hear the sounds of beer cans being tossed into trash bins, the pop of more tabs, and bits of conversation.