Red Flags (7 page)

One of the Jarai bent down, picked up a large beetle, admired it, stripped off the hard shell, and crunched down. Protein on the hoof. A delicacy. I'd seen hootch maids in Saigon do likewise with cockroaches.

I turned back to Parks, a little embarrassed to outrank a man who had served longer than any of the rest of us and might have qualified for a general's star. "What's the lowdown on our ARVN friends across the road?"

"It's the usual: awful morale and lethargy. We equip them with obsolete World War Two weaponry and boss them around. Their brass doesn't so much as house or even feed them properly, skims their pay, and lets them gamble and piss away what's left. After which they go grabbing up chickens and appropriating rice from the civilians. Endears them to everyone. Soldiers sell their military items and then nag us to replace them."

"Meanwhile, their officers avoid anything that looks like a decision."

"Yeah. Bugs the hell out of the colonel. Bennett is career military. He respects the idea of service. Here, government and military appointments go to whoever has the connections and the wallet. How many exceptional officers have you seen stuck at lower ranks because they couldn't afford the rank they deserved, while untrained incompetents parade around with generals' stars? You ever see anyone above the rank of captain out in the field?"

"In their system," I said, "field-grade officers don't have to go."

"If Bennett had gotten the combat command he'd wanted, he'd be leading troops like he did in Korea. Instead, he's stuck as senior adviser to this ingrate bunch. He's diplomatic, he does a good job, but any time we plot an operation, the ARVN go into slow motion. Every preparation takes forever. By the time the troops get done getting ready, the VC are long gone. Lately they aren't even bothering to go through the motions."

"And why do we? I wonder."

Joe Parks puffed on his pipe. "They're embarrassed to have us land on them with all our strategizing and machines as if they couldn't do it themselves. And they're embarrassed and resentful that they can't. They don't trust their lousy excuse for a government, and their government doesn't trust us. They see us pouring in men and equipment, erecting huge aerodromes and monster camps, and it makes them suspicious that we have permanent designs on the place, like the French."

"Meanwhile, the Montagnards worry that we'll abandon them to the Vietnamese, who will grab up their land and evict them the minute we're not here to protect them."

"The Yards in Pleiku call the Vietnamese land eaters," he said. "They're not wrong. The generals and cabinet ministers are busy snapping up the best land for their summer homes and business ventures. Our Two Corps commander, General Vinh Loc, and a bunch of his subordinates are building an amusement center up in Pleiku on Hodrung Mountain, next to where the Fourth Division builds its base camp this fall."

Miser perked up. "Amusement center?"

"Brothels and bars." Parks sucked on his pipe. "They're expecting to make a fortune. Plei Poontang, the enlisted call it." He relit the bowl with a wooden match. "The Jarai think that's the volcano they came out of at the beginning. Bellybutton, they call it. Holy ground."

"Is that Titty Mountain?" Miser said, contemplating investments.

Parks nodded and puffed. "Yup."

Other members of Team 31 drifted into the bar, including Hump, the guard who'd been on the gate when we drove in, also his sidekick Lucky, and a pale newbie wearing fresh jungle fatigues and boots—no nametag, no patches, only his second lieutenant's bars. He nearly dove to the ground when an artillery shell shrieked by overhead, outbound. Hump offered him a Camel and Lucky offered a Lucky Strike to try and calm him down.

Westy poured the guy a whiskey and said, "Just Harassment and Interdiction, sir. Vietnamese gun bunnies across the street blasting their cannons to rattle infiltrators and maybe waste some if the H and I lands lucky."

Miser lifted his beer. "Your tax dollars at work, a hundred and ten bucks a shell. To attrition," he toasted, and sucked on his bottle.

"Attrition!" we repeated and hoisted ours.

"Infiltration traffic's growing all the time," Parks said to the lieutenant. "The guns go off a lot. You'll get used to them."

Another artillery shell launched. The lieutenant flinched again as it screeched and rocketed across the sky.

The lieutenant rubbed his palms on his uniform. "How far out are they firing?"

"Seven miles max," Parks said. "The ground they can reach is nominally the government's. The rest is the Viet Cong's." He winked at us as he slid the lieutenant's bounty sheet over to him. "I think this is yours, Lieutenant Lovell."

"Holy shit," the young man said, staring at his name on the poster. He knocked back his shot and offered the glass for a refill, blinking rapidly, eyes tearing up from the booze.

Westy switched on the tape deck in back of the bar and blasted out some rock. Something stirred in the thatch overhead. The dinks' artillery hurled another shell. Westy replenished the lieutenant's liquor and poured himself a shot.

"Yeah," he said, "
nam lu,
" and downed the whiskey. "Attrit the funky bastards."

 

My roommate took up most of the doorway. Ruchevsky was big. Six three or four. Over two hundred pounds. Thinning hair and a somber expression. He wore the requisite short-sleeved shirt, baggy khaki pants, and Hush Puppies, and looked like someone who sold sporting goods for a living. Anything but a spook. He dropped his backpack by his bunk.

"Captain Rider?" he said. "John Ruchevsky."

"Pleasure." I shook his hand.

"I run the agents in the province," he said, "and spy on everybody."

"I'm honchoing the signal detachment."

"And freelancing intelligence for MACV. I just put in dibs on you myself."

"For what?"

"Mutual benefit. You can watch my back and tell me everything you get from MACV that's super secret. And I'll selectively brief you on the local doings."

"Why doesn't that sound equitable?" I said.

"Hey, somebody's gotta be the top bunny. And we
are
on the same side, no? If I don't help you sort through the avalanche of intelligence bullshit, you won't know what's important in the daily shitstorm of classified crap coming your way out of Saigon and Pleiku and clogging your encrypted channels. Besides, your colonel is okay with it. We're all a little thin on the ground in this place."

I buttoned my jungle fatigue shirt. "You want me to go undercover downtown in Cheo Reo City?" I teased. "Blend in with the locals?"

Ruchevsky snorted. "You may be smaller than me but you'd stick out a mile too. No, I need you for company when I go out in the woods. You could hold my hand, operate my fancy radio for me. Hey, you don't like country and western, do you? I
hate
C and W."

"Rock. I like rock."

Ruchevsky grinned. "We're golden. You absolutely get to play with my guns. Your jacket says you're good with them."

Shit, had he really seen my file? "I didn't think your outfit liked to share," I said.

"True, but I'm more generous than most. Besides, you're gonna get bored pushing classified paper. You'll want to get out from behind that desk, get a little fresh air. I can offer you some fun and frolic, nature hikes, introductions to interesting people."

"We'll see," I hedged, not eager to take on more duties.

His eyebrows rose. "Come on," he coaxed. "I'll keep your secrets if you'll help me with mine."

I didn't respond. He sighed, disappointed. "Don't make me resort to blackmail."

"Like what?"

"Like who you really are and what you're really after. You and your pal from El Cid," he stage-whispered, using the slang for Criminal Investigation Division.

So much for working anonymously. I gave him a cold eye and walked to the door, closed it softly.

"You're smarter than you look," I said.

"Hey, I've seen your shop in Saigon. You've got no backing. We've got two floors in the embassy, our own air service, Special Forces at our beck and call, the ear of the ambassador and his lips on the buttock of our commander in chief. You got Ellsworth Miser and a stapler."

"You know anything about major dope fields in the province? Poppies? Marijuana?"

"That your assignment?" he said with disdain. "You seriously looking to wage war on drugs
here?
Save the world from snorting, shooting, smoking that shit? How many fingers you got, Dutch boy?"

"No. I just need to screw with this one operation."

"Just the one? Why?"

"At harvest time there's this Viet Cong bank account in the crown colony that grows fistfuls of American dollars with every load they run from here. Dope is giving them a lot of purchasing power in the arms market."

Ruchevsky blew a smoke ring. "Hmm. Maybe our interests do overlap. Did you know Hanoi is negotiating with Moscow for field-fired rockets?"

"Jesus," I said.

"Katyushas. Two meters long, black steel. Thick as your leg. A hundred pounds, forty of them high explosives. They'll fly maybe fourteen, eighteen kilometers. We're supposed to keep watch for one. Capture a sample, if possible. Can't you just see me hauling ass through the jungle with a hundred-pound rocket under my arm?"

"Eighteen klicks. Damn. That would give them artillery, if they're accurate and they buy enough of them."

"VC in the dope business," Ruchevsky said, musing. "Whaddya know. There's been nothing in my informants' reports so far. But it's an eye for an eye. We got a deal or what?"

"Okay," I said, reluctantly.

"Good. That's settled. You up for a walk in the woods?"

"How long? How many of us?"

"Just you and me, overnight. We'll stage out of my villa. My main man, Little John, will drive us. We'll hike in, hike out. It's not far."

"Where are we going? What are we after?"

"Little John gave me a lead on odd doings in the bush: a market servicing the NVA in the jungle. I want to see the scope of this thing, count customers, maybe get a handle on what kind of force is massing in the province."

"Sounds promising."

"Are you good to go without reporting your whereabouts?"

"I have to tell someone I'll be away."

"The colonel."

"And my sergeant."

"Okay, but that's all. It's our ass if the wrong people hear. We won't have backup."

"The colonel says you think our security's compromised and there's a leak. Any ideas where we're sprung?"

"Well, anything that goes across the street to ARVN is practically broadcast the next night by Radio Hanoi. We identify a target for the Air Force and it promptly vanishes. If there's a mole in the camp, I don't know where. We've looked at the usual suspects: Bennett's interpreter, old Mr. Cho. The hootch maids, food servers, cooks, the Montagnard guards—even our servicemen with security clearances."

"You checked
my
people—the signal detachment?"

"The two handling really classified stuff, yeah. And Miser. You too." He smiled. "That's when I found you out." A self-satisfied grin spread across his face.

"You come up with anything on the signal detachment?"

"Sergeant Rowdy's got a girlfriend downtown and likes to party. And your pal Miser habitually seeks out ridiculous investment opportunities wherever he goes. Thinks he's gonna be the next Howard Hughes from running bingo parlors in Asia. But that's about all. Given how leaky it is on the other side of the road, how would we even notice a trickle here?"

"Not very reassuring. When are we going on this little picnic?"

He consulted his watch. "Tomorrow afternoon. Right after I see Major ‘Civic Action' Gidding. Why don't you tag along? Could be an eye opener."

"You and the major work closely, do you?"

"Not if he can help it. He hates my guts. Says I'm an arrogant, self-centered anachronism."

"Now, why ever would he say such a thing?"

I
LAY ON MY
bunk midmorning reviewing intel reports, hoping like hell I'd find something to point me toward the source of the drug coffers in the province. There was a knock on the screen door and Checkman said, "Excuse me, Captain Rider. The colonel wants you."

I picked up my boonie hat, strapped on my .45 pistol. The MACV compound was abuzz. The girlfriend of the gate guard on duty—Lucky—had strolled out from town to visit with her American paramour at his post. But the Vietnamese sentry across the road didn't like the idea of her fraternizing, so he'd stopped and hassled her. She gave him some lip and he struck her with his rifle barrel, splitting open her scalp and knocking her to the ground. Lucky ran to her aid and got into it with the South Vietnamese. The province chief was notified and intervened officially to eject our security guard from the province.

Apparently the young man was serious about the girl, but the province chief's authority was total, his word law. It was his province to command, his country. We were his guests, his advisers. There was no appeal. Lucky was to be on the first available aircraft out of Cheo Reo, no matter where it was headed.

We passed a small group of enlisted men in the quad commiserating with the kid as he stuffed sundries into his rucksack while waiting for a ride. The snatches of conversation were of the tough-break, motherfuckin'-slope variety. Hump and his bunkmates promised to send the girl to him on the next plane. They'd talk the pilots into it and slip them a bottle of Jack.

Checkman led me into the office bullpen, where the colonel stood holding a mug of coffee.

"You expecting trouble?" he said, indicating the pistol on my hip.

"Force of habit, sir."

"A good habit. Remind me to get you and Sergeant Miser issued carbines. It's what the ARVN carry. Most of the rest of us too, when we go out with them or with the territorial militias. Meanwhile, I sent for you because Mr. Cho here says the province chief is expecting a courtesy visit from you. We'd best get that out of the way before I hear back that I've been disrespectful. I've already sent over a note of apology for our gate guard's misbehavior."