by Robin Moore
Ossidian was for once in his life thankful for his coarse features and swarthy complexion. “Coarse”—that was how a blonde, thin and trim, a girl he had once wanted badly when he was younger, had described him. As he swung down the road, montagnard style, he did not worry about standing out from other people. He was burly, but so were many of the montagnards, and he was only a little taller than the average tribesman. The Tai men were the tallest montagnards in Indo-China.
Ossidian’s eyes wandered in all directions. Every landmark, the signs, the few motor vehicles that passed, all were carefully marked.
Suddenly a stench assaulted him. It nearly knocked him off his feet, and made him want to run to escape it. Conquering the nausea that threatened to overcome him he saw a nearby oxcart moving toward the country. Lieutenant Vo coughed, and exclaimed, “Those mois! They fertilize their crops from the city’s public toilets.”
As Vo was talking, a grinding of gears sounded from behind them and Ossidian turned. An open military-personnel carrier, which had been driving slowly down the road, the Viet Cong soldiers inside looking at everyone walking toward the city, suddenly sped up to get away from the insufferable oxcart.
Ossidian watched the surveillance patrol racing down the crumbling macadam highway. He knew that the people were strictly controlled in all sectors of their GWOA. But the SFOB could get little information from the area. One of Ossidian’s most important tasks was to provide a complete study on exactly how the population was controlled by the Communists in their heartlands. Since Pham Son Ti was the chief political officer in the GWOA and in charge of population control, kidnapping him was all important.
It was 5:30, almost dusk, when suddenly a sharp command was shouted from behind. They turned. Ossidian’s heart stopped. His stomach chilled. Two khaki-clad civilian police officers wearing stiff-billed caps were approaching them on bicycles. Both had submachine guns slung over their shoulders.
Vo and Ossidian exchanged helpless glances. “Let me talk,” Vo said. “We’re both Tai tribesmen but you do not speak Vietnamese. Have the package ready when I tell you.”
The policemen braked to a stop and one of them—perhaps an officer by the decorations on his shoulder strap, Ossidian thought—started questioning them. Vo answered in halting Vietnamese.
The conversation went on and the police made many threatening gestures with their weapons as Vo slapped empty pockets, apparently in response to demands for identification papers. Finally, the tone of the interrogator softened and a crafty smile spread over his face as he looked at Ossidian. Vo snapped his fingers and Ossidian reached back into his basket, pulled out a coarse brown-paper envelope, and handed it to Vo. The officer snatched it from him, opened it, and took out a pinch of brownish powder which he sniffed.
Now Vo and the policeman conversed in low tones and the gesturing with the submachine guns ceased. Ossidian’s heart began to return to normal speed, his breathing became more controlled.
The policeman abruptly stuck the envelope into his pocket and he and his companion rode off. Vo and Ossidian started walking on toward Hang Mang.
“That was close,” Vo said.
“What happened?”
“I convinced them you were the chief of a poppy-growing tribe on the border and you worked directly with the province political chief, Ti, selling raw opium.”
“I caught it when you said his name.”
“The people here know the political chief buys opium from the mountain people. Some he sells for his own profit, some he turns over to the government to be sold for gold on the international market. The police did not want to take a chance on having trouble with Ti so they took a bribe of that envelope of dried poppy juice for themselves. They’ll sell it for six months’ wages to the Chinese black-market buyers.”
Ossidian breathed deeply. “It’s a good thing they’re as corrupt here as anywhere else.”
“Corrupt?” Vo asked teasingly. “We have a way of life which not the Communists nor anyone will stop.”
Thirty minutes after their narrow escape Ossidian could tell from the landmarks Ton had described that they were close to their destination.
It was exactly 6:00 in the evening when up ahead, beyond a dry rice paddy, Ossidian saw the patch of coconut trees set out in straight rows with banana trees growing below them. As he came closer the intelligence sergeant made out the discolored cement house set back from the road. The sun had set by the time they turned into the path from the main road to the farmhouse.
Ton had used the right word, déclassé, Ossidian thought, approaching the building. Once it must have been the comfortable farmhouse of relatively wealthy people. Now it looked beyond repair.
Ossidian motioned Vo to go past him down the path toward the rear of the house. Trees and foliage grew uncultivated around the place like an invading jungle. The two Tai tribesmen brought up the rear. A door stood half open and Vo looked from it to Ossidian and back into the dark room. Ossidian gestured Vo in.
“Chow ow,” came a soft female voice from inside.
“It is Quand,” Vo said to Ossidian, as the woman continued in Vietnamese. “Everything OK.”
A smiling Nguyen That Ton stepped to the doorway and beckoned them in. “You will like very much, Quand,” he said. “She is number one woman.”
Ossidian did not return Ton’s cheerful smile. “This big deal, Ton,” he said. “Business only.”
“Important to keep close to all contacts,” Ton said. “I learn this from American school.”
When Ossidian was introduced to Quand, who lighted a candle so he could see her plainly just as he entered the back door, he realized Ton had not exaggerated. She wore a black au dai and a strand of pearls around her neck encased in the high collar of the Vietnamese-style dress. Ossidian’s assignments in certain French-speaking parts of the Middle East stood him well.
“Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he said, brushing the back of Quand’s hand with his thick lips. In French, he went on, “I have been looking forward to meeting you. I am told that your beauty is only exceeded by your ability as a businesswoman.”
Quand bought his little speech. “Monsieur, je suis enchanté aussi.” Then, a shrewd look came into her eye which Ossidian did not miss. “I hope you will be pleased at the price I was able to get from the Chinamen for your gold leaf Mr. Ton asked me to sell to obtain local currency.”
“What did you get?” Ossidian asked.
“Translated into your money, $38 an ounce. That’s a little more than you’d get in America. I kept my regular 15 per cent commission for handling this dangerous negotiation.”
Ossidian was surprised at Quand’s knowledge. “How do you know what we get in the United States?”
Quand smiled enigmatically, “I and my brother here”—she gracefully indicated a smiling, heavy-set, middle-aged Vietnamese—“have been in business for many years, since my father was murdered.” Her eyes became hard. “Mr. Ton tells me you have bought for resale all of Muk Thon’s poppy.”
Ossidian nodded. He knew he was in the presence of a woman with class and wished his French was better than adequate or that he could speak Vietnamese.
“Perhaps we can also do business. I fear you have spoiled a rich supply for me by paying him too much. But then I’m sure that you will sell it back to me for what I would have paid Muk Thon, since your mission in Hang Mang is not business and I and my brother can help you.”
Ossidian began to feel on solid footing. His career had been occupied in using corruption and greed in foreign countries to further the national objectives of his own.
“We’ll have no trouble doing business,” he said smoothly. “I have much gold and poppy to dispose of and, as you suggest, I look for profit in much different currency than you.”
“Good. Now, what do you want of us?”
Ossidian shot a look at Ton. “Can we trust her?” he asked in English.
“Certainly, as long as you do not cheat her in money matters. She is a distant
cousin of Ti, but she hates the Communists. They executed her father in 1956 when the political officer in Hang Mang denounced him as being counter-revolutionary. Her father refused to give up his land to be divided among the peasants after the land reform act was passed.”
“How about her brother?” Ossidian asked.
“Pham? He hates Ti and the Communists.” Ton turned to Pham and said in French, “The American is worried you might be with the Communists.”
Pham spat on the floor and turned to Ossidian. In careful French he said, “My father was executed because he owned all the land around this house. Now we only own the house with no land to support it. I was put in their dirty, rat- and snake-infested jail for a year for being his son. There were many hundreds of executions and I was waiting my turn when all the way from Hanoi orders reached here that errors were being committed in the name of land reform. I was released with hundreds of the wealthy class from jail. And what does our political chief in Hang Mang tell us when we come home? He says he and the People’s Democratic Government hope that those who were sent to jail in error and whose fathers and brothers were executed in error would understand the problems of forming a new government and forgive those who erred and go back to work for the people in peace.”
“We have no wish to help the Communists,” said Quand. “But we are trapped here in Hang Mang. We would be shot if we tried to leave and were caught. It takes much money to buy your way out.”
“What do you want?” Ossidian asked.
“If we can hide enough gold and currency my brother and I would like to go to Saigon or—” She paused, her eyes bright. “Maybe we could go to Hong Kong.”
“You want to go to Hong Kong?” Ossidian asked, as though it was the easiest request to grant he had ever heard.
Quand and Pham nodded vigorously.
“You work with me, and Ton and Vo and you two will get to Hong Kong with enough gold leaf and poppy to put you in big business.” For a clincher, Ossidian reached into his pack, pulled out a brown package, and tossed it to Quand.
“Muk Thon cultivates the best poppy I’ve ever seen,” Ossidian said. “Now it’s my job to sell it.”
Quand examined the brownish powder at length. “You want me to sell this for you?” She crushed it between thumb and forefinger, sniffing it. “Not the best, but I will get you what I can.”
Ossidian shook his head. “It’s a down payment—you understand? A down payment for what we are buying from you.”
“What do you want from me?”
Ossidian glanced at Ton. “Have you told her what we want?” he asked in English.
“You want me to help you get Pham Son Ti,” Quand stated. “No, I do not speak English, but I know what you really are after. My brother and I can help you do this. Ti is our cousin but that does not stop him from many bad things.” She lowered her gaze from Ossidian to her hands folded in her lap.
Ossidian took in the pose for a moment and turned to Ton. “Her cousin does not treat her as a sister?”
Ton smiled lewdly. “No. But she does not treat him as a brother in business dealings. As political chief he is in charge of disposing of all the poppy in this province. In this as in other things she is his unwilling partner.”
“OK!” Ossidian pronounced the universal English expression. Then, in French: “We have talked enough. The first thing I want is Ti. Quand—I want you somehow to make him come to this place. . .and soon.”
“But how?”
“He wants more poppy, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him you have a new tribesman with a high grade of poppy that will bring more gold in Hong Kong than the old poppy.”
Quand thought a few minutes. “That might work,” she said. “He sometimes likes to watch me make the first contacts so he knows how much I really pay. Then he takes it from me at almost no profit to me.” Her mouth turned down. “He takes me too.”
“You’ll get paid for all the times he takes you until we take him,” Ossidian said harshly. “Just get him here. I’ll handle it after that.”
Quand stared back at Ossidian as though he were an enemy. After several moments she said, “I will bring him here. But you must have the poppy.”
“I will supply a Tai chief for him to bargain with, and five kilos of poppy. That ought to bring him out. In New York City that much raw heroin would be worth over $1,000,000.”
“Five kilos!” Quand cried.
“That’s how much I bought from Muk Thon since I’ve been with him,” Ossidian answered.
“I will bring Ti out.” She nodded to herself. “And after you take him I will sell it, and you and I will share the profit.” Quand gave Ossidian a smile that almost made him forget he was an intelligence sergeant in the United States Army Special Forces.
“Something like that, chérie. You get Ti out here, I’ll have the poppy.”
Pham grasped Ossidian’s hand. “It is a privilege to work with a man of honor such as yourself,” he said.
Ossidian’s shoulders twitched and he suppressed a smile. “And for me, the same,” he replied in formal French. “Now, since Lieutenant Vo is going to stay with you, he and I will have a little talk outside before I go back.” Ossidian bowed to Quand and Pham.
“Ton,” he said, “you and Vo will see that what I need is here and tell me by radio when I can come for Ti.”
Ton assured the intelligence sergeant that all would be ready and then Ossidian led Vo outside the farmhouse, an arm around the Vietnamese lieutenant’s shoulder, for a last strategy meeting.
They talked in hushed tones for a few minutes and then Ossidian and the two Tai tribesmen headed back for the mountains. It would be an all-night trek across the fields, avoiding the roads and the Communist security system around Hang Mang.
5
DePorta received three messages from the SFOB stressing the importance of capturing the province political chief in Hang Mang. In fact, until Ti or someone like him could be kidnapped and brought back to the SFOB for interrogation it was considered highly inadvisable to attempt infiltrating another guerrilla team into the meticulously policed areas of the GWOA. The abduction of Ti was DePorta’s chief objective now. It was constantly on his mind.
Five nights after Ossidian’s meeting with Ton, Sergeant Everett announced he was getting a signal on Lieutenant Vo’s frequency. Ossidian, an anxious DePorta, and Smith crowded around the set.
In two nights, Vo radioed, they should be prepared to receive a poppy-hungry province chief at the old farmhouse. Ti would arrive at approximately 1800 hours.
Captain DePorta personally commanded the operation to kidnap the province political officer. Captain Brick Smith would take over Acbat if DePorta was lost and Mattrick would become XO and intelligence officer.
DePorta, Ossidian, and two of the Tai tribesmen who had excelled in the assault-group training Rodriguez and Smith had been giving, gained the main road into Hang Mang about the middle of the afternoon of the day set for the abduction of Ti. Wearing the loose black garb of the tribesmen, the black and red cloth tied about their heads and the Tai sandals, they walked single file and unevenly spaced along the narrow road. All carried woven baskets on their backs. Occasionally, ancient trucks and square military vehicles passed from both directions, the khaki-clad soldiers in cloth caps paying no attention to the dusty, ragged montagnards.
Ossidian led the way. The sun was hanging close to the tops of the mountains in the west when he spotted the small coconut grove beyond the rice paddy on his right. He reached the path to the house, turned in, and strode nonchalantly toward the back of the building. There was a two-wheeled buffalo cart standing there, loaded with pungent fertilizer-manure and human excrement mixed. Hideous as the smell was, Ossidian sniffed in satisfaction and then found a tree and sat down, leaning his basket against it. A few minutes later DePorta rounded the back of the farmhouse, smelled the load, and sat windward of it. The two tribesmen, who arrived a few moments later, seemed unconcer
ned and squatted near the cart. The water buffalo stood still between the shafts; a rope attached to the ring through his nose was tied to a post.
DePorta looked around for the driver of the buffalo cart but could see no one.
He watched Ossidian reach into his basket and draw out a long-barreled black pistol. Into a carefully oiled light-leather holster hanging down inside his left pajama leg, the sergeant thrust the weapon.
At dusk, a Vietnamese dressed in the manner of the political officer class, khaki shirt and slacks, entered the grounds. As he came behind the farmhouse DePorta recognized Lieutenant Vo but remained motionless until Vo approached him.
“You came yourself?” Vo asked.
“Ossidian says we need an authentic Tai chief to negotiate the sale of some poppy.”
Vo nodded. “This may be a very tight thing. I am dressed exactly as Ti was when he went to his office this morning, except for a pistol. You have the real poppy?”
DePorta nodded. “In my basket. Five kilos.”
“Good. Ti is a big man and he may not come alone. We may really have to sell the poppy to get out without being caught.”
“No!” Ossidian growled. “We’ll get him if he comes here.”
“Be careful,” Vo warned. “Right here we could ruin the whole mission.”
“We’ll be careful,” said DePorta.
Vo nodded and looked at the manure cart, wrinkling his nose. “I see my auxiliaries are doing their jobs well. Can you drive a water buffalo?”
“I grew up with water buffalo in the Philippines.”
“Good. Who will make the shot?”
Ossidian patted the holster inside his pants. “That’s my job.”
“Be sure Ti is out of sight of the road when you shoot,” Vo cautioned. “Ti does not like coming out here. He wants the poppy badly, but if Quand weren’t giving him more than raw opium he wouldn’t come. Ti thinks Quand wants him out here so she can persuade him to restore these lands to her family. He isn’t thinking of danger to himself.”
