Targets: A Vietnam War Novel

by Don McQuinn

  “I wonder how many guys sat in here and told themselves Giap was going to beat his brains out on the wire at Dien Bien Phu?” Allen said to no one in particular.

  “Steer me to a chair.” Harker pointed with the cane. “I want to sit down.”

  They chose a small table near the wall. Taylor helped Allen position a massive armchair for Harker, thinking how they looked exactly as they’d look in the club on a hot Sunday afternoon in Quantico. Harker leaned against the soft leather and sighed.

  “It’s worth it,” he declared. “It hurts to take a deep breath, but it’s worth it. The first time in a month I’ve been able to inhale and not get a lungful of disinfectant.”

  Allen signaled a waiter. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “You and me, babe.” Harker straightened in the chair. “Then I want to go out to the pool and watch the chicks.”

  “Are you up to it?” Allen asked.

  “Don’t say up!” Harker jerked his chin downward. “If that devil hears you and takes off, I could die!”

  “Good Lord! You’ve got more proscribed words than the Church! Taking you out of that hospital was the same as a vow of silence.”

  “Not a bad idea for either of you dirty-minded youngsters,” Taylor said, standing. “We’ve got company.”

  Following his gaze to the front door, his companions saw Ly enter, spot them, and wave.

  “Hey, great!” Allen said. “Maybe she’ll join our celebration.”

  “I guarantee it.” Taylor continued to watch Ly. “I asked her to meet me here.”

  Harker said, “Well, I’ll be damned,” as he rose with Allen to greet her.

  Ly said, “Captain Allen. Lieutenant Harker. I haven’t seen you for a long time. You both look well. I was terribly sorry to hear you were injured, Lieutenant. Are you feeling better?”

  Harker blushed. “I’m—ah—fine, thanks. And thank you for your note, too. I enjoyed it.”

  She made a gesture of dismissal. “We were concerned,” she said. “Please, sit down.” Taylor held a chair for her and she leaned back against his hands for a moment. Then she was all solicitude for Harker.

  “Is the food good in the hospital? Is there anything I can get for you?” Harker inclined at the waist in a careful bow and raised his glass in a toast. “I just want to sit here and enjoy the company. Someone so pretty, and in a blue dress, after a steady diet of nurses in white. We came to celebrate Hal’s new membership in the club but I think I’ll celebrate your joining us.”

  Ly turned to Taylor. “He will make me blush.”

  “Please don’t!” Allen protested. “It’s the first time he’s ever shown good taste and we don’t dare destroy the moment.”

  Her hand fanned, as though to disperse the flattery. When it brushed Taylor’s bare arm the warm rush in his veins surprised him. The two reactions fed on each other and created a delicious anticipation.

  She rose and they followed suit.

  “Would you excuse me? I promised to meet someone else here. She’s playing tennis. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll walk with you, if you’d like,” Taylor offered.

  “No, please. I’ll only be a little while.” She smiled up at him, waved to the others, and was gone. Taylor sat back down and was pinned by knowing amusement.

  Harker winked broadly at Allen. “What’s the line about old dogs and new tricks? There’s a legend shot in the ass, huh?”

  “Feet of clay, feet of clay,” Allen murmured, paying for their drinks. “The typical military mind for you. Buy ‘em books, send ‘em to school, and they put the make on the teacher.”

  Taylor stared down his nose at each in turn. “I’d actually forgotten what immature whelps you two are.”

  Allen continued to look at Harker and tilted his head Taylor’s way. “Probably feels sorry for him. You know, sees how he’s tumbling into middle age, due to retire to a chicken farm somewhere. Sort of fading away.”

  Harker agreed soberly. “Respect for the aged is a keynote of Oriental culture. Like charity. Probably figures to give him one last chance. She’d gain a lot of merit that way, being a good Buddhist and all. I always admired her mind, and God knows she’s lovely, but I’m really impressed by her compassion.” He frowned in heavy concentration. “No, not compassion. It’s deeper than that. Pity. That’s it. Pity.”

  “Good thinking.” They shook hands and Allen continued, “Superb perception. Let me buy you another drink.” He gestured for the waiter, who looked at the more-than-half full glasses without a flicker and left for refills.

  Taylor said, “You two were born fifty years late. You could have killed vaudeville single-handed.”

  “Vaudeville.” Harker pursed his lips and tapped them gently. “I remember reading about that. Way back in his younger days, I guess. Twenty-three skidoo, Al Capone, all that.”

  “Wait a goddam minute! That was long before I was born!”

  “No kidding?” Allen was taken aback.

  “Up yours,” Taylor grumped. The waiter lowered the fresh drinks. Harker enjoyed himself so much he spilled some and he replaced the glass clumsily, laughing and groaning simultaneously. He cupped his hands over his stomach.

  “Serves you right,” Taylor said. “I hope your goddam stitches pop and flog you to death.”

  Harker managed a wheezing halt. “It only hurts when I laugh. Who said that was funny?”

  “We’re back to vaudeville.” Allen said. “Better ask the Major.”

  Doubling over further, Harker said, “Shop. Let’s talk shop. Tell me what’s going on down at the office.”

  Taylor shrugged. “That ought to kill thirty seconds. Or less.” He filled in the highlights of the Binh operation, omitting the talk in Carr’s office.

  Harker took a long drink when he’d finished. “So we’ve got nothing, right?”

  Before he could answer, Taylor’s attention was drawn to Allen’s stare aimed at the front entrance, all sign of pleasure drained from his face. “Oh-oh,” he breathed. “Everybody on his toes!”

  The others followed his look to a Caucasian signing in, flourishing the pen across the register. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, about Taylor’s own height and build, wearing casually stylish clothes that shouted money. Rich brown hair curled neatly below the line of his collar, offset by slightly darker sideburns and heavy mustache.

  Taylor asked Allen, “State Department?”

  Allen’s eyes widened and he grew sardonic. “Don’t let him hear that. That’s Mr. Benjamin Barline, celebrated journalist, author, and chronicler of America’s misdeeds.”

  Returning to his drink, Taylor said, “So that’s the mother-fucker. You said this is a class joint. I liked the crowd at the Friendly better.”

  “Watch it!” Allen hissed. His broad smile directed itself over Taylor’s shoulder. “I know him. He’s coming over here.”

  “Allen! How the fuck are you?” The voice boomed right behind Taylor, filling the room only to die in the echoing hush. “How come you’re not at some embassy bash with the fat cats? Run out of bullshit?”

  Taylor watched an immaculate hand slide past his ear to shake Allen’s. “How are you, Ben?” Allen said. “Meet my friends.”

  Barline touched hands with them quickly, noting names with nods and eyes that bored into theirs. “Any friend of Allen’s is a natural enemy of mine,” he said, and laughed. “He keeps turning up at the same drinking events I go to. We’ve had some interesting debates. He actually believes in this whore’s war. I assume you two agree with him?”

  The eyes lanced challenge at them, inferring hidden knowledge. Taylor’s professional respect for the man’s technique bounded upward. His mind flashed back to an apparently unrelated training film, a cartoon on tactics, showing arrowed armored units racing to blast a defensive position, curling back like waves from a cliff until one forced a breach. Belatedly, he realized his subconscious was telling him that Barline’s questions would be on the same order.

>   “All wars are bad from most points of view,” Taylor answered.

  “You’re a Major?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me. Meaningless bullshit. Call me Ben.”

  “No, I don’t think I want to do that.” Taylor met the eyes and held them. “Your reputation’s preceded you, Mr. Barline. I’d rather keep things formal. I’m not as mentally nimble as the Captain and I could talk myself into a hole very easily.”

  Barline said, “That’s funny. My next question was going to be if you’d do the talking for the junior officers and you already answered that and told them to keep their mouths shut at the same time.”

  “They can say whatever they want. I wasn’t around when you talked to Allen before. God willing, I won’t be again. They’re officers and responsible adults. I believe they’ll speak honestly.”

  Reaching for his drink, Taylor caught the worried frowns of the others and ignored them.

  “Does that mean you’ll answer questions honestly, Major?”

  “I didn’t say anyone would answer questions, Mr. Barline. If I choose to, I’ll be as honest as I can.”

  “ ‘As I can.’ That’s an interesting qualification already. Does that mean you’ll lie to me only if you think you have to?”

  “No, sir, it means I’ll stop lying to you when you tell me when you stopped beating your wife.”

  Barline laughed and signaled the waiter, crooking a finger in the standard western manner, a gesture reserved by the Vietnamese for calling animals. When the waiter arrived, he spoke in his direction, rather than to him. The waiter’s eyes met Taylor’s and he smiled, the lips underlining sadness and appreciation for someone’s understanding. His parting glance for the back of Barline’s head was venomous.

  Ignorant of the exchange, the writer continued. “Seriously, what do you think of what we’re doing? Do you think we should be interfering here?”

  Taylor rolled his eyes. “You really believe we’re as stupid as you say we are. In the first place, I go where the Congress says I go. I don’t like any war. My friends are dying here. I could be next, in this fat-assed chair. And who says we’re interfering?”

  “The whole world. Don’t you think you were interfering at My Lai?”

  “You’re doing it again. First it was ‘we’ interfering and now it’s ‘you’ at My Lai. I’m supposed to melt with guilt and pour out through my own ass, defending My Lai, right? Listen, if—if—there was a massacre at My Lai, it’s my reputation, my country, that’s smeared. I only hope whoever’s responsible is caught and tried.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe all professional soldiers are so virtuous.”

  “As virtuous as you people are unbiased.”

  Barline’s keyed-up searching manner had changed to steady determination. His right hand clasped a kneecap, the skin stretched across the bulge of the knuckles. Taylor had the feeling the man was weighing him and it rankled.

  Barline said, “Let’s forget My Lai—”

  “I wish we could,” Harker said. Barline fired a look of annoyance at his presumption and faced Taylor again.

  “Let’s look at the overall picture. We came here as the world’s policeman. Can you justify that?”

  “No, not really. On the other hand, I can’t justify being taxed to support everyone in the world, or why we’re the fat dummy who sends food to every inefficient slob who asks for it. The non-interference thing’s two-edged, isn’t it? And while we’re asking questions, how come you guys never dump on a leftist regime with one of your propaganda barrages?”

  “Propaganda? Ridiculous!”

  “You bet your ass, ridiculous. And you’ve convinced a lot of people they don’t have a thing left to lose. No American or Vietnamese on our side has gotten even one percent of the ink you spilled over that rice-brokering usurer or that silly little shit who got executed because he only tried to blow up McNamara. I’m tired of seeing my people die for bushwhackers and a government you won’t let us deal with.”

  “In effect, then, you’re simply confessing that the military intervention has been a mistake. You’re agreeing with me.”

  “On that, if nothing else.” Taylor leaned forward, driving a finger at the table top to make his point. “It won’t be long before the Middle East blows up again. If the Arabs ever get their gear in order, they’ll waltz across Israel. When they win, they’ll throw a party that’ll make Dachau look like a garden club meeting. It’s horrible to contemplate, but intervention there’d mean confrontation with the Soviets and the whole socialist world. And for what? A bunch of Jews who ran off the Palestinians in the first place and who’ve got no oil in the second place. If we learn anything here, it better be the complete immorality and impracticality of interference. It’ll be hell on the Jews, but those people’re never satisfied. They must have four times the territory the UN allowed them.”

  Barline had grown increasingly rigid as Taylor’s monologue continued. At the end, he was taut, perched on the edge of his chair, fists bunched in his lap.

  “You bigoted sonofabitch.” The cursing wheezed through lips thin as blades.

  Taylor raised a placating hand. “I understand how you feel. I’ve got friends MIA here I thought of as brothers, friends in cemeteries back home. When the Palestinians get done with the Jews, I’ll feel the same about them as you feel about my friends. I really mean that, Mr. Barline.”

  Backing away from the raised hand as if it signaled contamination, Barline rose, his progress erratic and stressed. He opened his mouth to speak, shut it, and finally pointed to the other two men at the table before getting words out.

  “Do you work with them?”

  “I’m assigned to MACV.” Taylor made it sound like a negative. “Another paper-shuffler.”

  “That’s too bad.” Barline was regaining a cold control. “I was hoping you were a real soldier here on R&R. I wish you were getting shot at every minute of your life.”

  When no one answered in any way, Barline scanned them all once more, then spoke to Taylor again.

  “I make a bad enemy, Major.”

  “You’ve been my enemy for years.”

  Unspeaking, Barline spun on his heel and stormed out the door leading to the pool. Allen’s heavy exhalation broke the silence at the table, and then he said, “You really put your foot in it, Major. Didn’t you know he’s Jewish?”

  “I knew it a long time ago.” He laughed, a silent movement of his shoulders. “He really got steamed, didn’t he?”

  Harker’s quick movement sent a twist of pain across his face, but he pressed his question anyway. “You’re really that anti-Semitic? You’d bait him like that?”

  “Anti-Semitic? Hell, no. I’m not even anti-Israel or pro-Arab. In fact, I admire the Israelis. If I had to make a choice, I’d probably throw in with them. I just wanted to drop a hot rock in Barline’s fucking gizzard. Let him hold my end of the stick for a while.”

  “I don’t know.” Concern aged Harker. “He’s good with his hatchet.”

  “Forget it. He hates our guts. Why be nice to him?”

  “He’s right,” Allen said. “Barline’s not interested in any facts that don’t prove his viewpoint. I can’t see what he could do to harm us more than he already has.”

  “At least he left already.” Harker nodded toward the side door. “Here come the girls.”

  The woman with Ly could have been her younger sister, judging by their similar beauty. Shorter by about an inch, her mini flamed oranges and yellows. Her hair was cropped close, an ebony helmet, and where Ly seemed to drift across the polished floor, the shorter one walked athletically, as though she might break into a dance at each stride. She smiled a welcome at the men who stood waiting their arrival.

  “This is Le Thi Dao, Major Taylor. I don’t believe you’ve met?” Ly put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, presenting her.

  “Never had the pleasure.” He took her hand and she smiled with a bold self-assurance. It made her less gam
in and more woman.

  Allen stepped up with a chair for her. “Dao already knows me and she’s met Harker.” She nodded at Harker and thanked Allen with a glance.

  “The world is full of secrets and surprises,” Taylor observed, holding the chair for Ly.

  Dao was immediately interested. “Secrets, Major?”

  Taylor indicated the younger men. “These two were giving me a bad time because I asked Ly to meet me here without telling them. Now I learn they expected to meet you and they didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, no! Not planned. I arrange meet my friend, not know Hal and Bill be here.”

  “You’ve known them long?”

  “I meet Hal when he only one week Vietnam. My husband then with—I think you call Information Ministry? I meet Hal at party. Sometimes now I see here, sometimes other parties. He help me with my bad English.”

  Allen said, “People continue to invite her to their homes even though her husband’s assigned to Da Lat now. She’s too pretty to forget.”

  She smiled again and this time Taylor couldn’t fully interpret it, felt he’d missed something. She pointed a flame-tipped finger at Allen. “I know English word for you. I look dictionary, special. You fat—flatterer!” The group laughed and she threw herself back in her chair with a triumphant smirk. The conversation drifted on then, easy words floating on subjects that meandered across familiar, pleasant experiences. Taylor tended to contribute little, content to savor.

  Ly rose reluctantly, showing her watch as apology. “I must go. My mother will worry if I am not home before they leave. There is a reception and they must arrive by seven.”

  “Wait, I go with you.” Dao stood and Taylor used the distraction to move behind Ly and whisper “Seven-thirty?”

  She nodded shortly, combining the move with a turn toward Dao. “You must leave also?”

  The shorter woman indicated the room with a pugnacious jut of her jaw. “Better to leave. People see me with three Americans, alone, be talk, talk, talk.”

  “Why don’t you walk the ladies to the door?” Harker suggested. “I’ll wait here, if no one minds.”

  The women hurriedly walked back to pat his shoulder and reassure him, then headed for the door. Taylor and Allen fell in beside them, stopping at the door to watch them leave for their respective cars.