Play the Red Queen

by Juris Jurjevics

  “Nhu feeds another man of integrity to the enemy,” Olivier said. “I suppose it saves him the trouble of imprisoning the poor fellow. His jails are entirely full, after all.”

  As the waiter delivered our Cokes and burgers, I asked for the latest word on possible coups.

  “The twenty-sixth of this month, Independence Day,” Enrico whispered. “I hear that is the leap on.”

  “Jump-off,” Olivier corrected and dabbed his lips. “Perhaps because—as we are hearing it—Diem plans to reshuffle the generals’ commands after Independence Day to break up their alliances. In the meantime the generals feed Diem false information about Viet Cong activity to justify moving troops where they will need them for the coup. But I understand the senior military men, like Big Minh and General Don, are still suffering from an excess of caution. The je-ne-rals frighten and back away. The younger officers are not so nervous. They are poised to strike immediately. So the crafty old horses of war keep ordering deployments that disrupt any schemes of coup d’état by the young Turks.”

  “Do any of ’em, young or old, really have the balls to take down their president?” Robeson said.

  “Diem is ripe for the picking,” Olivier said, “if they can bring themselves to trust their fellow officers. Of course, they’d need also the right assurances from your embassy.”

  “Enrico,” Robeson said, “how many coups are cooking, at last count?”

  “For sure six. Is possible now seven.”

  “Who’s behind the latest one?” I said.

  “Good you are sitting,” Enrico whispered, and edged closer. “Brother of President Diem—Monsieur Nhu.”

  “No shit,” Robeson said, and took a swig of Coke.

  Enrico made a pinched face. “We think Nhu he spreads this rumor himself to draw real plotters to the faux coup and unmask them so he can purge them from the government, perhaps from the earth. He has done it before.”

  “And a coup manqué cleverly sows confusion,” Olivier explained. “It makes officers worry about how genuine the conspirators are who invite them to join the next one.”

  Enrico shrugged. “Counselor Nhu, he likes everyone in the dark.” He tented his fingers together. “One week he agrees to leave the government ‘for his brother’s sake and for the country.’ The week that follows he recants and complains Diem is incompetent, not worthy to govern.”

  “So his coup could roll up conspirators,” I said, “or roll up on his older brother. You think Supreme Leader Nhu’s got plans that don’t include Diem?”

  Olivier tapped his lip. “He doesn’t lack for ambition and certainly has the ego. Nhu runs the show already from the wings, like your Wizard of Oz. He writes Diem’s speeches and pronouncements, prepares his answers for press interviews. Nhu issues orders to Diem’s ministers in meetings the president chairs. Put a question to Diem and Nhu answers.” Olivier blotted his forehead. “Diem seems to know only what Nhu wants him to know.”

  Enrico speculated that Madame Nhu might want to make Nhu’s unofficial presidency official. Perhaps she was looking to the lady assassin to make a martyr of her brother-in-law, catapulting her husband into the presidency on a wave of sympathy. What did I think?

  I thought the only sure bet was that if a coup came, Vietnamese officers would die, shot for their loyalty or shot for their disloyalty, depending on who won. If the young studs seized power, for sure the senior generals and colonels would soon be locking horns with their juniors. If those crafty generals pulled it off first, the younger officers would grouse and plot against their jaded elders. Either way there’d be beaucoup coup attempts to follow, turmoil both the Viet Cong and Givral patrons would welcome.

  A platinum blonde stopped by to chat with Enrico in Italian. Robeson and I turned back to our food.

  “Uncle Sam owes you a seersucker jacket,” I said to Robeson and quietly filled him in on the morning’s events. He informed me that lunch at the Givral was on me, and that I’d probably be picking up the tab for the rest of the year.

  Mouth full, Robeson said, “While you were busy hobnobbing with the higher-highers, I started thinking about the Red Queen making her bones with those road ambushes. Figured maybe ARVN or our advisors had done after-action reports on some of ’em.”

  “You found the reports?”

  “Ask and ye shall receive. Actually, Missy Blue asked and she received. I got plenty to show you.”

  “Like what?” I said, stealing some of his fries.

  Licking ketchup from his thumb, he glanced around at the clientele. “Not here.”

  I covered the bill and we got up to leave.

  “You are hear this?” Enrico said, pointing to an attaché who had joined them. “The vehicle of your ambassador? Attacked not three hours ago. Good fortune, His Excellency was not within.”

  “Saints be praised,” I said, easing past Robeson toward the door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Robeson pulled color photographs from a manila folder and laid them out on his desk. “Take a look at these photos from three Tay Ninh after-action reports. Each picture here is of a different kill zone she set up.”

  The first shot showed a wrecked ARVN truck where it had stopped to aid the stranded young beauty, her disabled bicycle still propped upside down, tires in the air. Another ambush site showed a bike lying twisted and wrecked in a ditch. Red arrows on both photos indicated the directions from which the VC had attacked.

  “Look at the arrows,” Robeson said. “They never once struck from where you’d expect, not any of the likely places, like thick scrub or jungle. Mostly they attack from open ground.”

  “You’re right,” I said, sifting through the photos. “There’s nothing by way of cover for the attackers.”

  Robeson went on. “Half the time comrades popped out of spider holes hidden in bare, hard earth. In this attack, from a produce stand sitting out in the open. And in this one, from behind a schoolhouse close to the road, books scattered across desks, maybe students inside when it all goes down. Can you imagine, VC cutting loose with automatic weapons from a classroom full of kids?”

  “Total shock and little to no return fire.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “These ambush schemes employed heavily prepared positions, clever camouflage and firing angles. Everything worked out in advance. The lone civilian who witnessed the last incident reported that the attack took seconds.”

  “Obviously well-prepped and planned,” I agreed.

  “Roger that. Being the underdog, they can’t afford not to plan every detail. Somethin’ you taught me back when we were advisors, Sarge. You said then the Viet Cong aren’t partial to winging it.”

  If the southerners were the Italians of Indochina, the North Vietnamese were the Germans, made even more rigid by the Maoist hardliners who’d come to advise and train them. Over time they’d foisted this stick-up-the-ass approach on their southern Viet Cong brethren.

  “Crouch assumed the Red Queen was improvising blitz attacks,” Robeson continued.

  “Making her unpredictable and just about impossible to interdict.”

  “With what we’re lookin’ at here, I’m convinced she don’t do anything on the fly.” Robeson opened a second manila envelope and pulled out black-and-white photographs. “The speed of the incidents don’t mean the action’s random.”

  “What are those?” I craned my neck to see.

  “Pics from Crouch’s crappy files on the previous two killings.”

  “We’ve seen them before,” I said.

  “Yeah, but look at the close-up of the ground at the first one.” He lay the picture in front of me. “See the glints? The shiny bits? I don’t think that’s tinsel.”

  “Any closer shots?”

  “They’re pretty skimpy.”

  “Any close-ups from the second killing?”

  “None that show anything us
eful.”

  “Crouch, did he remember what that was on the ground?”

  “No. Looked at the picture and thought maybe chewing-gum foil.”

  “Crouch is full of shit.”

  “Me, I think it’s bits and pieces of another astrologer’s kit.”

  “You think an astrologer was at two scenes?”

  “Maybe all three.” Robeson spread the photos like a fan. “I’m thinking he’s her spotter. Like you said, Crouch is full of shit. This young miss ain’t flyin’ by the seat of her pretty pantaloons. She don’t just pick random targets, plug the first American officer she sees. Look how she ran her damsel-in-distress roadside number back in Tay Ninh. A team of hardcore hard-asses: painstaking, careful, disciplined as hell. That’s how she’ll be working in Saigon.”

  “So say the locations are picked way in advance. Places American officers frequent. All the locations right on the street. Easy way in, easy way out. At a prearranged time, the spotter marks a target and holds him in place for her until she arrives.”

  “She don’t need to roam the streets looking for a clean shot at an American officer. She just has to roll by the appointed spot at the appointed time. She fires, she books. Everybody dives for cover, hugs the ground, and by the time they look up she’s long gone.”

  “So what size operation are we looking at to pull this off?” I said. “There’s her, there’s the driver.”

  “Drivers,” Robeson corrected. “Three of ’em: a young male in his twenties, a man in his forties, and an older guy north of fifty. Then there’s the fortune-teller who bullseyes the poor soul, keeps him still until she shows.”

  “Most likely there’s at least one comrade protecting her,” I said. “Covering her back.”

  “Yeah,” Robeson agreed. “That’s one, maybe two more cadre. Easily hidden among the onlookers.”

  Captain Deckle emerged from his office and we laid out our thinking. He ticked off the headcount on his fingers. “Driver. Spotter. Plus, her rear guard. That’s three. Four, if there’s a second rear guard. Lady Death makes five.”

  “The other two drivers,” I said, “totals seven.”

  Captain Deckle frowned. “Unless they’re rotating as the backups in the crowd. That would keep it to five.”

  “She’d go with the lower headcount,” Robeson said. “Less exposure.”

  “But if they’re scouting locations ahead of time,” Deckle said, “that gives us a chance to intercept her if we can crack her team. Who’s the weak link?”

  “The drivers?” Robeson suggested.

  I shook my head. “I bet you she climbs on the Vespa at some corner where the driver’s been told to wait, probably instructed not to turn around. She gets aboard, they go, his eyes glued to the road. Afterward, she hops off along the escape route and disappears. He never sees her full face. At most, just flashes of her over his shoulder.”

  “Makes sense,” Deckle conceded. “Her commissars would want her to stay cloaked as long as possible. Minimum face-to-face contact. The longer she stays unidentified, the longer she stays in business.”

  Robeson bit his lip. “But if the other two drivers also double as her backup, mixed in with the crowd at the point of attack, they must get a good look at her while they’re waiting for her entrance. I mean, they gotta be curious.”

  “How much of a look?” I argued. “She’s got the hat on, she’s behind the driver. The backups’ job is to scan the crowd, stay alert for trouble.”

  “The fortune-teller.” Robeson said. “He’s got clear sight of her each time she rides up.”

  “He’s gotta be busy distracting the target. But you may be right that he’s our best bet.”

  “So how in hell do we find him?” Robeson said. “All we’ve got is bits of bone and mirror. Oh, and the torn paper from under Major Furth’s chair with the astrological hocus-pocus and Chinese characters.”

  I took out the evidence box and brought the scrap of the chart to Miss Blue’s desk to ask her to see what she could make of it. She nodded.

  Deckle got a call and waved us over. Captain Ting of the National Police, VBI criminal investigations, was on the line, requesting our immediate presence at a crime scene.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We tore over to Lam Son Square and pulled up alongside Ting’s unmarked Renault outside the Continental, Franchini’s other hotel. Vietnamese detectives were screeching to the curb in Black Marias, sirens braying like mules. Ting had said to meet him here, but there was no sign of him. No downed MAAG officer at the terrace café either. Confused, we followed the Vietnamese cops inside.

  The Continental’s Belgian manager stood in the lobby, wringing his hands. Captain Ting was upstairs, he said. The polished-wood birdcage elevator with its beveled mirrors was—as usual—out of order, so we rushed past the manager up the imposing staircase. Two surly Vietnamese Special Police challenged us on the landing, disappointed to hear we were there at the captain’s summons. They would’ve liked nothing better than to get in our faces, things being more tense than usual between local law enforcement and us overpaid and under-cultured big-dog Americans. Another pair happily blocked a Newsweek journalist emerging from his office to see what the ruckus was about.

  We found Captain Ting in the hallway, tugging back the cuff of his white shirt to consult the gold-filled Bulova on his wrist. Ting was a devoted fan of American and French films and in better times he’d liked to meet me at the movies when we needed to put our heads together someplace dark. As a Vietnamese, he wasn’t allowed to patronize the new American theater, so we’d have a bite at Cheap Charlie’s before going to his favorite tacky theater in Cholon. But I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. Thanks to Nhu’s suspicions about Americans’ intentions toward Diem, no one in government could afford to be seen fraternizing with a long nose in public. The watchers were being watched. Everyone was scared and trying to keep clear of the regime as its end approached. I appreciated him reaching out in spite of it.

  Since he’d called us in, I’d assumed the victim was a fourth MAAG officer, but Ting nudged open the door of a small suite where a Vietnamese general’s khaki blouse lay neatly over the back of an armchair, his pants folded on the seat.

  “Le géneral Lang est mort,” Ting said.

  I blanched. “Yeah, I’ll say.”

  The room smelled like an abattoir. Black blood pooled on the floor. The ceiling fan was churning, but the Saigon heat was already doing its work on the body. The general lay on his back on the sagging bed, clearly naked beneath a sheet. The round base of a wineglass protruded from his chest, the stem buried deep between his ribs. Robeson pointed to the sodden red silk impaled on the glass spike. “Don’t look like that came with the champagne.”

  Ting remained in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back. “Hotel linen only white.” He nodded toward the bucket where a magnum rested in a pool of melted ice, a white serving cloth expertly knotted around its neck. Ting was careful to keep his distance from the corpse and any dripping surfaces, not wishing to soil his immaculate white shirt and pressed slacks—or disturb the man’s ghost. “Bottle almost empty,” he said. In his halting English, Ting explained he’d learned from the general’s aide that a woman had shared the general’s last hours. The victim had brought her to the hotel himself. A one-night stand, his aide assumed, since she wasn’t the man’s regular mistress. The lieutenant had discreetly avoided gazing at the young woman in the black ao dai, though he’d wanted to. She hadn’t carried so much as a purse, just a thin red scarf.

  “All that champagne in his system must’ve slowed him up,” I said to Robeson. “That would have helped her get it done. Any reason to think it’s not our girl?”

  “Only if the Commies are fielding whole platoons of killer babes carrying red silk scarves.” He cupped his nose against the smell and pointed to the swollen mass around the general’s right eye socket. “Lo
oks like she gave him a major shiner during the struggle.” Robeson pushed aside the mosquito netting and lifted the sheet, revealing a soggy mess around the corpse.

  While he examined the body, I slipped into the bathroom. Wet towels lay where she’d tossed them on the tiles of the stall shower. A blood-streaked hand towel hung on the rail, properly folded. Upside down in the drain of the sink was the crystal champagne flute she’d snapped off to make her weapon.

  “She’s one cool customer,” I said to Robeson, returning to the carnage.

  “A lot of guts,” he agreed. “Taking on a stocky male like that in a locked room armed with nothing but stemware and surprise. Not a peaceful way to die, bleeding out, spraying like a fountain. He couldn’t have gone easy.”

  I pointed at the crystal stem. “If that had hit a rib, she’d have been alone in a confined space with a wounded guy fearing for his life. She’s always worked in the open where it’s easy to get away quickly. She’s got world-class skills with a gun. Why change tactics? Why change weapons?”

  Robeson scratched an ear. “Say they cased him. Saw he had a weakness for the ladies. She exploits his need for privacy, comes at his invitation wearing nothing but an ao dai and a scarf. Harmless-looking young girl. She had to change weapons.”

  “Why take the risk? She could’ve gone with a smaller gun. Strapped it to her ankle under the pantaloons. Smuggled in a garrote, a blade. I mean, she’s in here with no help. No good way to escape if things go wrong.”

  Robeson turned in a circle, surveying the room. “Her ao dai must’ve been smeared head to foot. What’s she do for clean clothes? No overnight bag, no shoulder bag. She must have had an accomplice staying in the hotel or on staff.”

  “She didn’t need a change of clothes,” I concluded. “They weren’t here to talk politics. She undresses in the bathroom. Hangs up the ao dai. Goes to him starkers, with the scarf hiding the broken-off stem.”