Legacy of War

by Ed Marohn

  “His name is Quan. I know he came to Da Nang, maybe when he was twelve years old, in 1975, and because he has Cham ancestry, he now works at the Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture. That is all I know about the gold. Please believe me.”

  I didn’t, not completely.

  Hieu stood up to stretch. It had been a long interrogation. “You will have to remain here in prison until we confirm your information,” she said.

  Hung looked down, resigned.

  Hieu nodded to Major Han and me. “We take short break?”

  I got up and said to Hung, “Please dig further into your memories while we are gone.”

  The three of us walked out of the room, leaving the shriveled and defeated old man to contemplate his miserable existence. Two arrogant guards passed us, going back into the room. I noticed one had a baton that he twirled, a smirk embedded on his face.

  Hieu, Han, and I sat in a small isolated and windowless office near the interrogation rooms, drinking tea. Han said to me, “Hung is a traitorous capitalist pig, and if he was not needed, I would have told him to rot in prison.” His English impressed me. These Vietnamese agents were well trained.

  “Look, I don’t like Hung. After all, he tried to kill me in Saigon during the war. But we need to give him hope in order to gain as much information as we can. Anyway, we have to return to ask more questions.” I sat back, looking to Hieu for support and taking another sip of hot tea. The clock on the wall showed 3:35 p.m.

  It had been a long day. I was rubbing my eyes regularly. The caffeine in the tea did nothing for me. A good, strong espresso would have been better.

  “Mr. Moore is correct. We need to keep Hung cooperating to accomplish our mission,” Hieu said.

  Han grunted, acknowledging the rationality of this. He then said, “What is the best plan for now?”

  I said, “No further physical abuse. And no harsh threats. He could say anything to stay alive. He’s been tortured enough. I want to win his loyalty. If he feels he can trust Hieu or me, then we will gain more information. That means that you, Major Han, should not be in the room. Agent Hieu should be with me, however.”

  “No. That is not going to happen,” Han said, glaring at me, knowing I did not share his bullying technique in the interrogation room.

  “Major, he fears you. Yet his psychological defenses are strong. I want to tear them down with trust and honesty.”

  “No,” Han said, then turned and poured more tea for himself.

  “Well, look we all know what Hung told us in there collaborates what Colonel Zang told me about the gold. We are close to obtaining the critical piece needed to locate the place that will draw Ramsey and Loan,” I said, resigning myself to Han’s denial.

  I shrugged and looked to Hieu. Her face reflected no emotion. She continued to look at me, all the while thinking. She stood and motioned Han toward a corner of the room. Furiously, he also stood and followed her. They jabbered for close to ten minutes. His anger dominated her calming tone, yet she wore him down. He pointed a finger at her as he lectured her. She bowed in agreement. Then he slammed his mug on the table and left the room.

  “Major Han finally agrees,” she said. Her stoic face expressed little.

  “Thank you, Agent Hieu,” I said, noting a brief twinkle in her eyes. She walked to the door leading into Hung’s interrogation room.

  She pointed her head toward the door. “Shall we?”

  “Yes . . . ” Hung’s English flowed now. “Loan told me that he and Ramsey would smuggle the gold out of Vietnam before the fall of the South. We all knew that our troops could not stop the NVA without US military support and . . . ”

  I nodded for him to continue as I glanced at the peeling paint on the wall behind him. The room’s musty and acrid odor still attacked us—a virtual swamp of anguished souls.

  “This was about March 1973. I was told that CIA Agent Ramsey was at the US Embassy and would help Loan and me get out of the country. I was assured by Loan. We would divide the gold equally after we escaped from Vietnam. I trusted my brother-in-law. We were to escape with CIA support.” Hung stopped and waited.

  “How do you know that Ramsey had not already removed the gold?” I asked.

  “Maybe weeks before Saigon fell in 1975, Loan told me, when I just transferred again to Saigon from Da Nang, that he and Ramsey hid the gold together in early 1973 but could not go to the buried spot because the NVA and VC controlled the area.”

  Obviously, Ramsey had not expected South Vietnam to collapse so fast, nor had he prepared for the gold to be shipped out.

  Hung continued: “Ramsey fled with the American Embassy personnel in April 1975 . . . and took Loan with him. I tried contacting Ramsey but had no success. Then eventually I was captured by the NVA as they entered Saigon.”

  I now felt that Ramsey and Loan were the only ones left who knew where the gold had been hidden. They fled to return another day and retrieve the treasure.

  Hieu glared at Hung and said in English, “It is not your money. You robbed your people and even your American allies. If you ever want to feel the free air, you will tell us everything, or else you can rot here until you die.”

  He was not used to a woman browbeating him, and his self-worth had diminished. In the rural areas where the villagers struggled to eke out a living in the rice paddies, men and women worked side by side, contributing jointly, a relationship of equality. For Hung, who had developed hubris in his corrupt life, a brutal confrontation by a woman shook him. He looked to me, maybe assuming the friendlier American would be supportive.

  Finally, he said, “I am dying, and I wish to live out my life in peace with my family. The gold . . . it is probably gone. I never found it myself. But I tell the truth . . . I used the gold story to lure Loan back to Vietnam. And Ramsey too, as Colonel Tin wished me to do.”

  “I’m confused. Colonel Tin wants Ramsey back in Vietnam?” This countered Tin’s laissez-faire attitude about Ramsey when we spoke earlier today.

  Hung nodded. “But do not ask me why. I don’t know. If you capture Loan and Ramsey, Colonel Tin will free me to die quietly.” He looked at his folded hands, tears showing. “I want revenge as well and have helped Colonel Tin in order to achieve it.”

  “OK, then tell me where you expect them to enter Vietnam,” I said as I pulled a copy of Reed’s journal entries from my suit pocket and a folded map of Vietnam. I unfolded it and placed it in front of me on the table, continually staring at Hung. I pulled out my pen and waited. He looked at me, resigned.

  I held my copy of Reed’s journal entries, all shared with Hieu and Major Han. “Let’s look at what we now know.” I stood and went to the old chalkboard hanging skewed on the wall in the little office we had been using at the prison. Major Han had rejoined Hieu and me after Hung had been returned to his cell. He sat stiffly watching my briefing. The lighting in the room shone marginally better than in the interrogation room. Taking the broken piece of white chalk, I wrote the following:

  The key players—where are they now:

  Ramsey (Hong Kong). Based on airline ticket manifest

  Loan (Phnom Penh). Based on airline ticket manifest

  CIA estimates: Ramsey comes to Vietnam before Tet Holiday (Feb. 1–3)

  Maybe in late January? The 27th?

  How: By air: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)? Da Nang? Both TOO RISKY

  By land to Vietnam: Cambodia to Laos by vehicle—illegal border crossing. But per Hung, this would be the way!!!!

  I underlined the land route bullet point. “This is the one—the one that Hung said Loan and Ramsey would use.” Then I thought a moment. “Oh, there’s another option, but it’s not realistic.”

  I wrote on the board: By sea: 1,000 miles of coastline. Too much logistical planning.

  Major Han sat up and waved his arms in disgust. “You, Mr. Moore, former captain in US Army, come
here and lecture us on our job. We are quite capable to do it. Americans are all the same!”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything,” I said. My isolation grew with his animosity.

  “Yes, yes,” he snarled. Standing up, he walked to me and stopped a few feet away, facing me. I smelled his acrid breath. “We have Loan under observation in a hotel in Phnom Penh and will kidnap him by tomorrow night. So . . . what is this waste of time you scribble on the board?” He glared while pointing to the blackboard.

  “What if Loan escapes your agents?” I said and backed up a step.

  “Bah, what garbage you preach to us. Americans think of all the answers. You destroyed many lives here in the war. Created many orphans. To be exact, I am an orphan because of your B-52 bombers.” He turned and threw loud, harsh-sounding Vietnamese at Hieu.

  I admired her composure as she stood up and gave back in kind. I had lost my rudimentary understanding of Vietnamese—my thirty-year absence had seen to that—and could only guess at what was being said. Han was technically her boss, yet I felt that Colonel Tin’s authority and power had been passed on to Hieu. She seemed to show it as she shouted back at Han, who raised his arms and stormed out of the office. I waited.

  “Please continue, Mr. Moore. He will work with us,” she said as she returned to her seat, facing me.

  I twisted my neck, working out the new tension, and rubbed my forehead again. “Look, I’m not trying to cause issues. Tell me what you want from me.”

  “Please continue,” she said and pointed to the chalkboard.

  “Well . . . ” I hesitated. “Do you have any aspirin?”

  She pulled her shoulder bag to her and reached inside. Taking out and opening a small bottle, she found two white tablets and gave them to me. She poured water from a pitcher on the table into my empty tea mug.

  “Thank you,” I said and downed the pills and water.

  She nodded. In that brief respite I felt I liked her as a person. True, she was cool toward me—the American—but I understood after what the US did to her country. Her Eurasian bloodline didn’t overcome her Vietnamese, but enhanced it in subtle ways, taking her striking looks to a unique level, as if a renowned artist had sculptured her face. She looked stunning and close to perfect in the dim light of that office. I had avoided concentrating on her because of her aloofness, of her seeming hate for Americans, but her argument with Han changed that. I continued to look, forgetting my manners, captivated by the mysterious flavor of her charms. Her ponytail heightened her appeal, making her look younger than her forty-some years. Her black eyes bore into me, revealing nothing of her thoughts; I worried about what she could see inside me. It became a regal look that made me think of her as a princess in ancient Vietnam, ruling over her subjects, demanding and getting complete loyalty and devotion. Still mesmerized with her eyes, I focused on her meticulously shaped eyebrows, almost pencil lines, and then her mascara-highlighted eyelashes.

  She was pure woman, yet by the strength she exuded, like a lioness protecting her pride, I felt she could be deadly. Everything about her conveyed control, every move seemed planned. I wondered what sort of man she had deemed to marry, to bear her children. He had to be like a god to qualify for her devotion, to share her bed.

  “Captain Moore, will you continue?” Her strong voice returned me to matters at hand.

  “Ah.” I slowly turned to the chalkboard, my mind still fantasizing about this unique woman, wondering how I got off track. “I think these are the key points as summarized by Hung.” I wrote furiously, focusing on the task.

  Gold near My Son, per Hung

  Land route: Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam per Hung

  Ramsey will still go to gold if Loan is captured

  Cham native (Quan) working at Da Nang museum—possibly knows where the gold is hidden

  What transportation to recover and haul gold?

  Return by land, travel back to Laos or to Cambodia?

  Reed’s journal pages served as the basis for our planning. The latest information provided by Hung coincided with the words written by Reed, giving us some hope that there was truth to this hidden gold, which would lure Loan and Ramsey to be captured by Vietnamese police agents.

  Hieu, after reviewing the pages, stood and went to a filing cabinet, pulling out larger maps of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. She spread them out on the table. As I sat down, she plotted the villages near My Son: Dai Lanh and Giang.

  She let out a deep breath as she said, “If the gold is near My Son and the villages of Dai Lanh or Giang, then Ramsey, with proper vehicles, could transport the recovered gold along Highway 14 to the Laos border near village of D Cong, cross over, and drive to Pakxe, Laos, where there is an airport that can accommodate large transport aircraft. It is approximately 480 kilometers one way from Giang or Dai Lanh to Pakxe.”

  Looking over her shoulder, I smelled the delicate fragrance of her perfume. It momentarily distracted me.

  Catching myself again, I studied the map’s legend and did a quick conversion. That equaled about 320 miles. Depending on the condition of the roads and trails, it could take six to ten hours to drive.

  “If we assume a full day to drive to Vietnam, then Ramsey has to allow at least one full day to load the gold, and then a third day for the return to Laos. And we are assuming that he can find the hidden spot quickly. It’s been many years, and landmarks disappear with vegetation growth—well, you know all that.”

  Hieu nodded. “We must develop a realistic timeline for their arrival and be in the area of My Son before. If we can discover the hiding spot, we can wait for them there. However, this is only necessary should our people fail on Loan. If they succeed, Loan can give the exact location once he is captured tomorrow.”

  “If he is captured,” I said.

  She looked up at me. The coolness, maybe an arrogance of knowing the right answers while others floundered, had returned. “I agree—we need a contingency plan.” She folded the maps.

  “I will call Colonel Tin after I secure airline tickets. Today is January 2, so we should plan on going to Da Nang by tomorrow to talk to the Cham native working at the museum.” She looked at me and pulled out her phone.

  “Yes, that makes sense,” I said. Trying to add some value, I pulled out the latest photograph of Ramsey and handed it to her. “It may come in handy.”

  Hieu had been placed on hold while arranging the flight from Hanoi to Da Nang, so she took the photo. She studied it until the other party came back on.

  Hieu seemed excited as she hung up the phone. “I arranged a 4x4 vehicle for us in Da Nang. These roads can be difficult, and if the two of them use old trails, we will be able to pursue. Mr. Moore, I hope you have some type of hiking shoes for the My Son area.”

  “I am prepared, Hieu. The suit I am wearing is the only one I brought. The rest of my clothes are jeans and safari shirts.”

  “Good—we begin then.” She then dialed Colonel Tin.

  I turned and busied myself with collecting my CIA case. Hieu would be a good partner; I felt secure with her. The shrewd Colonel Tin had planned it well.

  Hanoi, January 2, 2003

  As her driver steered back to Hanoi, I noticed Hieu had not used my first name so far.

  When asked, she said, “Seniority and rank are important in dealing with many of the officials in our country. It is better to follow this custom as we are working together. In Vietnam, the last name comes first, followed by the middle name and then the first name.” I recalled this tradition from when I served here, thus I would be addressing her by her last name, Hieu.

  Sitting in the back seat, I absorbed the panorama of Hanoi’s approaching city limits as Hieu stayed busy on her cell phone, orchestrating our travel for tomorrow. Farmers hauled produce, chickens, and even pigs into the city on their little motorbikes for evening shoppers, preparing for the morning marke
t as well. One mini motorbike passed at a congested street intersection balancing six cages full of chickens stacked and tied down behind the driver, towering over him as he zoomed in between vehicles and pedestrians. It amazed me how adroitly he avoided collisions with others. Other motorbikes carried loads of small bushes, reed baskets, clay pots, or dishes.

  With Tet celebrations approaching, Kumquat trees were everywhere; these small, three-foot trees, planted in large pots, were also hauled on bikes, cars, and motorbikes. The trees represented three generations of ancestors, selected to ensure that all family periods were represented: ripe fruit for adults, unripe fruit for children, and buds for babies.

  As we approached the Hotel Nikko Hanoi and pulled into the driveway, bellmen rushing to greet cars delivering hotel guests, Hieu clicked off her cell phone and said, “I invite you to meet my family for dinner tonight.”

  That startled me. “OK . . . ” I said, “but only if you have the time. I know you have much to do.”

  “No, we fly to Da Dang tomorrow at 1300 hours. So, time is OK.”

  “Good, then,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was past seven-thirty, or 1930 hours.

  “I will walk over and get you at 2030 hours. My apartment is four blocks away. You can freshen up.” She nodded toward the bellman opening my door.

  In my hotel room, I took a quick shower then changed into clean underwear and shirt, and then put on my suit. The stuffy and humid prison had taken its toll on my clothes.

  I was not fond of wearing the pistol, but I had been cautioned to have it on me, so I strapped the holstered pistol back over my shirt. I tightened my tie with a Windsor knot and waited for the telephone to announce Hieu.

  A few minutes later she called from the lobby phone, and I took the elevator down to meet her. She had changed into the traditional, beautiful ao dai, the classic trouser and slit tunic. I admired Vietnamese women in this attire. On her, it accented her beauty even more. A striking light blue in color, Hieu’s ao dai changed her from the serious, efficient government agent to a delicate woman. Her black shiny hair hung long over her shoulders, encompassing her face.