Saigon Red

by Gregory C. Randall

  “Are you telling me you don’t recognize your own family?” Javier said.

  CHAPTER 27

  “This is a joke, right?” Alex said as she stared at the photo. “One of your goddamned tests. Family? My family is in Cleveland, Ohio. How did you come up with this ridiculous idea? Javier, what am I, a total goddamned stranger to you? Why are you fucking me over like this?”

  “The other papers,” Chris said. “Look at them.” He stood and walked to the bar and refilled his glass. He raised the bottle to Javier, but he shook his head no.

  She picked up the papers and scanned through them, and immediately she knew what she was looking at: a DNA profile. Dozens of them had crossed her desk over the years. A few had helped her put bad guys in jail and, in one instance, had led to the conviction of a cold-case serial rapist. The name on the top of the first page of the file in front of her now said nothing—blank. The name on the second sheet was hers.

  “I know what these are, and I know what they mean,” she said. “So, what?”

  “This profile shows you have more than enough genetic markers to make you and Con Ma related,” Chris said. “According to my experts, and Javier’s as well, that means you both have the same male parental line.”

  “No fucking way. Impossible.”

  “We want to know what that connection is to this operation,” Javier said. “We’re already watching your family.”

  “My family? You goddamned son of a bitch.”

  “It’s standard procedure concerning national defense,” Javier said. “My hands are tied.”

  She glared at Javier and took a long pull from her drink. She would have emptied the glass if her stomach hadn’t rebelled. She ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  “Keep the door open!” Chris yelled.

  “Fuck you, Campbell!”

  She stared at the mirror and slowed her breathing, hoping to knock down the panic that was rising in her gut. Her mind raced as she threw water on her face and rinsed out her mouth. DNA did not lie, so either the samples were wrong, or it was something else. She patted her face with a towel.

  Operation? What operation? Think, think . . . Dad!

  The towel against her mouth, she walked back into the living room. Javier was leaning against the kitchen counter. Chris was still sitting on the chair. His Sig sat on the table.

  Her eyes shot daggers at Javier, then went to the table and looked diligently at the papers. “There is someone else involved,” she finally said. “And your so-called experts should have seen it. I’ve been trained by the best. These say that he’s not my brother but from another generation. If anything, this man is a nephew or cousin. Hell, look at him: he’s at least twenty years younger than me. I also know for a fact that my father hasn’t been out of the country since returning from Vietnam in 1971. Back then he didn’t have enough money to do anything but send us kids to college. I know where you got my DNA; I freely gave it in Texas. Where did you get this guy’s?”

  Chris looked at Javier. “Is what she is saying about the DNA correct?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Hell, I don’t know. They said there were enough markers to make the connections. Further tests would need to be made.”

  “Damn it, Javier,” Alex said, “you could perform a thousand tests and the result wouldn’t change. Where did you get the sample?”

  “That man was wounded during the break-in; he left a blood trail,” Chris said. “We sampled it.”

  She lifted her empty glass, gave it a shake, and eyed Javier. “I need a fresh one.”

  Dutifully, he walked to the bar.

  “Chris, I want you to get this in your head, and you too, Agent Castillo. I do not know this man. I am not aware of any family I have in Vietnam or anywhere else outside Ohio. If there is a connection to this man, it must come from one source. And it sure will surprise the hell out of the man responsible.”

  She told them about her father, the war, and the world of Vietnam in 1971, the same story her dad told her.

  “Do you mean that your father may have fathered a child here?” Javier asked, handing her a freshly made cocktail. “That somehow this assassin, this Con Ma, might be his grandson?”

  She sipped from her vodka on the rocks. “When you throw out everything else, what other possibility is there? Dad had no brothers, just two sisters. That is the only realistic conclusion, based on what we know and these pieces of paper.”

  Alex’s breath caught in her throat as Chris put his hand on his pistol, but she exhaled when he slipped it into his back holster.

  “So, you believe me?” she asked.

  “Before you walked into this room, I wanted Javier to arrest you for treason. I had no idea what to believe. That man is your greatest defender. He said to hear your side, then decide.”

  “Golly gee, thanks for the super support, cowboy,” Alex said.

  Javier raised his hands in mock surrender.

  “And?” Alex asked.

  “For now, let’s play this out,” Javier said. “It’s too damn peculiar to be something made up on the run. What do you suggest?”

  “You said operation,” she said. “What operation? Chris has me trying to find out who gave away top secrets that led to this Con Ma character killing two of our associates and transmitting classified data. After Dubai, Karns is certainly on the top of that list. So, what operation is this you’re talking about?”

  Javier looked at Chris, who nodded. Chris went to the bar, pulled two beers from the refrigerator, and handed one to Javier.

  “Our sources tell us,” Javier began, “that this Con Ma is working for a Chinese espionage syndicate that steals technical data, patents, software, and anything else worth something and sells it to those that would pay the most for it. The evidence says it’s run by a woman; she’s called the Chairwoman. They’ll stop at nothing to get the information. For the last five years we’ve come up with zilch on this man, only a few sketchy photos and the debris and death he’s left in his wake. What we’ve learned in the last few days is more than we’ve ever had on Con Ma.”

  “Great, just great. And what else?”

  “We want this ring,” Chris said. “We want Con Ma. And we’ll do whatever we can to find them.”

  “Like staking out a simple man and his family in Cleveland?” Alex said. “Really, Jave? My detective vibes are telling me that there’s a lot more going on. NATO? Easy access to a facility with super-important international data? Even in today’s world, data can easily be hidden. I may be in my forties, but even I’ve heard of the cloud and blockchain. It would be easy to keep this information out of the hands of a group like this.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Yeah, I get it. It is easy, too easy. My brothers love to go fishing. The one thing I learned is that the bigger the bait, the bigger the fish. This is all a setup, a fishing expedition, all to catch this Con Ma, this Chairwoman, and her gang. But right now, all you caught was . . . me? Am I right?”

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” Javier said. “All of this caught us by surprise. Chris thought that Karns might be involved, but it’s bigger than that. You found that out in Dubai, and we think that we can catch them here in Saigon.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Yes, the technology that we helped Como Motors create is real. It has significant importance to both the United States and NATO. It’s a five-part software package that works with hardware that can overcome a swarm attack of drones or other massed intelligent offensive and defensive weapons. We’ve dangled this out there to see what we can catch. Unknowingly, Nevio Lucchese and his behind-the-scenes deals are helping us.”

  “You’re putting his family in harm’s way as well,” Alex said. “Damn you—and this software is real?”

  “Yes, to a point. But he’s been passing information to Con Ma and maybe others. There are some built-in glitches, and in a month or two it will fail and eat itself. But it also needs all five of the plug-ins to work. One was stolen by this killer in the technology center. The secon
d part Lucchese passed on in Dubai. As I said, I thought Karns might be involved. But we thought there might be someone else.”

  “I won’t ask who.”

  “Jake Dumas is clean,” Chris said, “if that’s who you were thinking of.”

  “Good, I like him. So, am I still on board?” She looked at both Chris and Javier. Their response wasn’t overwhelming.

  Alex looked back at the papers and sipped her fresh drink. “Jesus, what a pair of bastards. Things we know: First, that Nevio Lucchese must keep dealing with this Con Ma like nothing has changed. Second, that Con Ma, this Ghost, is somehow related to me. I don’t like it, but for now, it seems inescapable. Third, the Chinese have no idea that we know what’s going on. And lastly, this Con Ma has no idea about me or our relationship. It also means that he has a father and mother somewhere, dead or alive.”

  “Where do you think this Con Ma came from?” Javier asked.

  “No idea,” Alex answered. “Other than something that must have happened almost fifty years ago, no clue. Chris, did you have any further research done on this DNA?”

  “Like what?”

  “There are dozens of worldwide data banks that collect and share DNA results. Did you check any further than your own DNA match?”

  “Our people are still chasing this down.”

  “That’s the first thing.” She held up the papers. “And check them against as many databases as possible. We may get lucky, find his father or mother. However, remember that those results will be from people who have posted their DNA. This Ghost may have sisters or brothers, and he most certainly has a mother and a father. Whoever his parents are, one of them is my sibling—my half brother or sister—and they might be in the system. We must find out. It may be one of the leads we need to find this Ghost.”

  “I’ll have my people in Washington help,” Javier added.

  Alex spun on Javier. “And that brings me to you. Why the hell are you here? To give Chris leverage on me?”

  “Not fair.”

  “Then why?”

  “We were meeting on another matter.”

  “And that is?”

  “Top secret.”

  “Bullshit. Chris was going to shoot me if I made a wrong move. And you would have let him. So, all this top-secret crap is just that: crap. I called this bait—there has to be something else.”

  “Politics,” Javier said.

  “Politics, really?” Alex answered.

  “Our efforts to cover up these facility deaths have kept the HCMC police highly suspicious. They were all over the crime scene; we couldn’t keep them away. First, the port’s fire trucks arrived, then a detective and his CSI team. They looked for fingerprints, went over everything. They took the transmitting device. We demanded it back, and they returned it to us a few weeks later. Even the escape ropes this Con Ma used were taken. They haven’t shared anything with us. It’s my guess that they also have this DNA, as well as data on the weapon.”

  “This is the weapon with the explosive bullet?”

  “Yes, so we need to know what they have.”

  “That’s my first job: find out what the police know,” Alex said. “What’s the name of this detective?”

  “Tran Phan,” Chris noted. “I met him with Karns during a follow-up trip I made a few weeks after the break-in. Nice enough fellow, but cagey. He didn’t let much out. When I pushed, he rebuffed me and told me to mind my own store. He does not like dead bodies, even if they were tây.”

  “Tây?”

  “Vietnamese slang for an American.”

  “If this Ghost is who you think he is,” Chris said, “will you have a problem? To stop him will require some serious use of force.”

  “I don’t know. You threw too many balls in the air.” She checked her phone. “I’ve got to get back. I don’t want to be late.”

  “Alex, I’m trusting you on this,” Javier said. “My head says one thing, my heart another—and right now, be glad it’s my heart.”

  “Is that a threat, Mr. CIA Agent? Lay off it, will you?”

  She finished her drink and took the towel back into the bathroom. She splashed water on her face, then sorted out her blonde hair with her fingers. The curls had a mind of their own in the humidity.

  When she returned to the room, her pistol was sitting on the table. She took it, dropped the magazine, inspected it, glared at Chris, reloaded the magazine, and slipped the pistol into her waistband.

  “I’ll go with you,” Javier said.

  “No, you stay here with Chris. I don’t want to be seen with either of you. I’ll let you know what I find. Chris, I’ll need that additional DNA information as soon as something pops. Send it to the phone you gave me, not mine. And, Javier, right now is not a good time for us. Give me a day or two to get through this. Okay?”

  He gave a reluctant nod.

  She slipped on her raincoat, picked up the folders with the pictures and files, and without turning around walked out and into the hallway. What she really wanted to do was go back and punch them both in the mouth.

  CHAPTER 28

  When Alex returned to the apartment, Ilaria, dressed for the evening, was waiting for Nevio to return from work and take them to the event at the Sheraton. Nevio had told the family that he’d cleared his schedule for the next two days. Gianna was looking at Ho Chi Minh City guidebooks in the living room. Paolo was watching a video. Maria and the cook were putting together a feast.

  “Eating all this before going out?” Alex said, entering the kitchen.

  “This is for tomorrow night,” Ilaria said. “The sauce needs to marinate.”

  Alex was amazed; fresh pasta sat on the counter in neat curled piles, the smell of tomatoes and seasoning filled the air, loaves of bread sat next to the pasta, and an open bottle of red wine rested on the countertop.

  “Need help?” Alex asked.

  “Too many cooks already,” Ilaria said. “What, no bags?”

  It suddenly dawned on Alex that she had no shoes from her shopping trip. “I couldn’t find anything in my size,” she said, thinking quick. “These Vietnamese girls are a lot smaller.” She smiled and said she would be in her room. She took one last look as she turned into the hallway; it was the happiest the family had looked in weeks.

  It was four thirty in the afternoon, which meant—she mentally did some calculations—it was five thirty in the morning in Cleveland. She needed more information, information only a man in Cleveland could give. Too early to call her father—he had to be told about this family connection in Vietnam. There was no sense in putting it off. During the taxi ride back to the Lucchese apartment, it had been all that she’d thought of. Assuming the testing was correct and double-checked, this Con Ma, this Ghost, this spy and murderer, was her nephew. No wonder Chris and Javier were upset. She’d have been furious if she’d found this DNA trail in a case she was working on in Cleveland. There was no reason for Chris to fake this—based on his reaction, he was as surprised as anyone. She was beyond shocked. Her father had left a child in Vietnam? A child, now an adult, that sometime, maybe twenty-five years ago, had a son of their own? A son that had become this murdering Ghost? Was this child of her father still alive? Was this person a man or a woman? Did she have a sister or a brother in Vietnam, maybe here in Saigon? Maybe just two blocks away, running a noodle stand?

  After the Luccheses left for the reception, Maria put together a quiet dinner for the children and Alex. Later, after watching a movie, Alex said she was going to her room. She said she was tired, but her watch said it was past nine o’clock in the morning in Cleveland.

  She closed the door to her room and dialed.

  “I was thinking about you this morning,” her dad said before Alex could even say good morning. “What time is it there?”

  “Hi, Dad. It’s almost ten thirty at night. How are you and Mom?”

  “We’re great! Never a moment’s peace around here. We’re going to the lake this afternoon. John and Annie and the kids a
re coming out to the cabin. I was hoping for a relaxing few days, but not this time. The Tribe’s in New York tonight, so there should be some good baseball to watch. The kids want to water-ski. They say there’s a crappie bite going on. Busy, busy.”

  Alex didn’t say anything for a long while.

  “You okay, honey? What’s up?”

  “Something has come up,” she said, “something that I need to talk with you about. I wish I could do it in person, but this is as good as it can get for now.”

  “Jesus—you okay? You’re not hurt, are you? Something happen?”

  “No, I’m fine. Is Mom there?”

  “No, she spent last night at Rick’s. One of the kids has a bad cold and they had this thing last night, so your mom stayed with them. She’ll be back before noon. Damn it, Alex—”

  “Dad, tell me about Yvette.”

  “Yvette? Why, what’s going on?”

  “Dad, I need you to tell me about Yvette and Saigon. You said that you two were in love, and that you believed she died during the war—and that you never found her, is that right?”

  The pause was longer on Roger’s end. “Why are you asking? What’s happened?”

  “You mentioned never hearing from her again and wondering if she were dead. There was no confirmation about her death?”

  “Honey, how could there have been a confirmation? The whole of South Vietnam was burning. There was no one to go and find out anything about anyone. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Alex didn’t care what Chris and Javier said about national security or that something was rotten in Teton Security—this was her family, her father.

  “Dad, I’m in Saigon. I’m assigned to care for a family. There are two kids and a wife and husband. He works for a large international company. My job is simple: provide safety and security for the family. Earlier this year, there was a break-in at a facility that my company was protecting. Important data was stolen, and two men were murdered.”