The gun pointed in Catesby’s face was a 9mm Browning automatic. He knew the weapon well and could see that the safety was in the off position and that the CIA man had already begun to squeeze the slack out of the trigger. Buffalo Springfield’s lyrics and the electric guitar were pounding hard into the now too cool air. The air conditioners were on full blast, but their background hum was obliterated.
Catesby was thinking very clearly. The purpose of the loud music was to mask the sound of the bullet that was about to enter the left side of his forehead and then exit behind his right ear, taking out a piece of skull about the size of a tennis ball. He closed his eyes and whispered, ‘I love you.’ It was a pointless romantic gesture because Catesby knew she was long dead and couldn’t hear him.
Catesby opened his eyes to the American’s braying laugh. CIA still had his finger on the trigger, but was slapping his thigh.
‘What’s so funny?’ said Catesby.
‘You are. You said you loved me. You think that if you drop your pants and let me cornhole you that I’m not going to kill you. You bitches from Limey-land are sure enough strange critters.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
The American relaxed the pressure on the trigger. ‘Who were you talking to then – your mommy?’
‘Just pull the trigger and leave me alone.’
‘No, I’m not going to kill you – just yet.’
Catesby was still finding it difficult to get used to being alive – and wasn’t certain that it was all that pleasant a sensation. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know that you’re one pathetic sick puppy.’
Catesby shrugged and watched the American waving the gun in time to the music and the lines about paranoia hitting deep and twisting the conscious. Catesby was sure the room was bugged. The high-volume music was intended to cover words as well as gunshots. He pointed to the carbon copy typed document. ‘Have you looked at this?’
‘Enough to get the gist.’
Catesby decided it was time to play his hand. ‘The Green Beret deserter story isn’t the big scoop I was sent here to get. Every insider with half a functioning brain knows the truth about you. CIA isn’t an intelligence agency, that’s just your cover story. In reality, you’re the world’s biggest drug cartel. You’ve turned US foreign policy into a racket. Fantastic, you’ve followed our example. British India was an opium factory – and China was our biggest customer. That’s why we fought the Opium War. The Dowager Empress started to cut up rough about her subjects being whacked out all the time so we had to send in gunboats to teach her a lesson. So don’t think I’m trying to be a morally superior Brit.’ Catesby pointed at the carbon copy on the table. ‘Even if I fabricated some moral shock and outrage in that article.’
The American picked up the carbon and started to read.
‘And just to let you know why shooting me would be a bad idea. That article hasn’t been filed yet. But if I don’t get back this evening, my very loyal stringer is going to telex it straight to London. I see that you’re enjoying it. When you get to page two you will notice your own name mentioned. But my favourite bit is the way your guys in the mortuary unit at Da Nang Airbase shove condoms full of heroin up the arses of dead GIs to smuggle the stuff back to the States. And the syndicated news agencies will spread this story all over America from sea to shining sea. You will be famous.’
The American sighted along the pistol. ‘Sounds like I haven’t got anything to lose.’
‘Pull the trigger and you will lose. Let me live and we can do a deal that will benefit both of us.’
‘Put your cards on the table and don’t deal from the bottom of the deck.’
‘I can spike the drug story easy. It will never see the light of day.’
‘How can I be sure?’
Catesby nodded at the carbon copy. ‘Even if I double-crossed you, you’ve now got your own copy. You would have forty-eight hours to wipe your fingerprints off every dead GI heroin mule. You can drop all your helpers and contacts deeply in the shit and cover yourself in rose-scented cologne. It might be a good idea to clean up your network in any case. A lot of the guys working for you have big mouths and no loyalty – otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to write that article. You could say I’ve done you a favour, but I haven’t done it for free.’
The American put his gun down and stared. ‘How much?’
‘You’re lucky. I’m cheap – thirty thousand US dollars. And not that funny monopoly money MPC shit, but real greenbacks.’
Catesby was referring to Military Post Currency. It was illegal to hold genuine US currency in Vietnam: a court martial offence for US troops and a criminal offence for Vietnamese. The idea was to stop corruption and to prop up the South Vietnamese currency, the dong, at an exchange rate that was ten times higher than the market reality. US personnel were issued MPC instead of real dollars. They could use MPC to buy drinks in American military clubs and goods from US PXs, Post Exchange shops. MPC made its way into the Vietnamese economy via prostitutes and drug dealers, but it was a risky currency to hold. Every few weeks, on an unannounced and secret date, a new series of MPC was issued and the old MPC became completely worthless. Only valid holders of MPC, US personnel, were allowed to exchange the old MPC for the new MPC. If you were a Vietnamese with a big wad of MPC, you were out of luck. But despite the risks, a Vietnamese black market involving MPC deals flourished. No one wanted the low-value dong.
The American looked at his gun, now lying on the table, and then at Catesby. ‘It’s a lot of money. I don’t think you’re worth it.’
‘You’re haggling over peanuts. You know if you take a walk down Tu Do Street you’ll find a dealer before you’ve gone fifty paces. If you’re stupid, you pay fifty dollars MPC for a bag of pure heroin. But you can bargain him down to twenty dollars for the bag. Now, how much would you get for that same heroin on the streets of New York? Three thousand, even five thousand bucks? Don’t haggle when you’re sitting on a pile of gold – or you could lose it all.’
The American looked thoughtful. ‘Come back in three days. I’ll give you half the money then – and explain what you’ve got to do to get the other half.’
As part of his preparation for Vietnam, an SIS South East Asia specialist had told Catesby to read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. ‘That’s what it’s like. It doesn’t make any sense – and if you try to make sense of it, you will go just as mad as Kurtz.’
It didn’t make sense – and Catesby realised that it was impossible to do what he had been sent to do. There was no direct route to Miranda Somers – only detours and dead ends. He was sure all the stuff he had gone through with the CIA man about Lopez and Burchett and drugs was pointless. Catesby was ready to cable London saying that he had failed and was returning to England. But before he sent that cable, he wanted to make one more contact – his last chance to find Miranda.
The best place to meet hacks in Saigon was at the Rex Hotel during the 1700 hours press briefing by the US command – colloquially known as ‘the five o’clock follies’. Catesby had been told to look for her there – and easily found her. She seemed thoroughly bored as a US lieutenant-colonel wittered on about the successes of ‘Vietnamising’ the military effort. She was a French female journalist who had known Miranda in Paris. The information had come via the SIS man in the French capital.
Catesby didn’t know whether or not the Frenchwoman had been told his real identity, so he kept up his journalist cover. He told her that he wanted to visit the ‘Iron Triangle’ northwest of Saigon.
The Frenchwoman smiled and said, ‘It’s so boring.’
‘What is?’
‘This war. But if you want to go there, I take you.’
»»»»
The trip, as she had warned, was neither dangerous nor exciting. The Frenchwoman’s open-top Peugeot 403 cabriolet was sandwiched in a convoy of US Army two-and-a-half-ton trucks, what the Americans call ‘deuce and a halfs’.
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p; ‘They have these convoys every day,’ she said. ‘But they only go to the 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi. That is as close as anyone can safely go. If you want to see war, you need a helicopter.’
The tarmac eventually gave way to a long straight road of red clay. The convoy threw up clouds of orange dust. The countryside was completely flat. The only trees that could have provided cover in an ambush were a great distance from the road. The Americans waged war with bulldozers and defoliants as well as bullets and bombs. The Frenchwoman had red hair, probably dyed, which Catesby thought went well with the clouds of red dust. He only spoke to her in English. He knew that his fluent French, with a hint of his mother’s Belgian accent, wasn’t particularly compatible with a cover story as a journalist from the East End of London. But the Frenchwoman possessed all the shrewdness of a Parisian concierge and clearly knew that Catesby wasn’t what he pretended to be, but she also had the grace not to admit it.
The drive to Cu Chi wasn’t completely uneventful. In retrospect, Catesby thought the sound of the explosion had been oddly muffled considering the size of the bomb. A few seconds after it went off a grey plume rose over the road ahead and the convoy ground to a halt.
The Frenchwoman yawned. ‘Happens all the time, so stupid.’
‘Boring?’
‘Yes.’
Eventually, Catesby heard someone shout an order from further up the column. A tailgate clanged and a squad of US soldiers jumped down from the truck in front of them and deployed on either side of the road with weapons at the ready. Catesby was surprised there wasn’t a more coherent contingency plan for such a situation. The troops in many of the trucks stayed put, some simply smoking and joking. Others stood up and peered towards the front of the column to see what had happened. The troops who had deployed to form a defensive perimeter didn’t seem sure what they should be doing. A few peered into the distant tree line before they got bored and slouched down on their backsides to light cigarettes. The air soon became loud with the clatter of helicopter blades.
‘We could be here a long time,’ said the Frenchwoman.
‘I think I’ll have a look.’ Catesby slung a camera around his neck.
‘Of course – you’re a journalist.’
Catesby felt a frisson of excitement as he set off up the road. It was why boys went to war; but they soon learned. He walked alone for 400 yards before he came to a flurry of activity. A half dozen US soldiers wearing flak jackets were scouring the side of the road with mine detectors. Behind them a group of Vietnamese soldiers were putting body parts into bags. There were also motor vehicle parts scattered over the side of the road – notably an axel and a gearbox. Three helicopters had landed and another helicopter was firing rockets into a distant tree line. Catesby walked over to a helicopter where an American in his forties, about twice as old as everyone else, was directing things like a scoutmaster. His collar bore the oak leaf insignia of a lieutenant colonel. His voice was decisive, but mildly annoyed.
‘The ARVN were supposed to have cleared this road. Tell the thieu ta at district to get an armoured personnel carrier up here asap.’
Catesby turned towards another officer with black-framed spectacles who wore the twin bars rank insignia of a captain and seemed mildly amused by the incident. ‘What happened?’ said Catesby.
‘The ARVN didn’t do their job,’ said the captain. He was referring to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. ‘The Quan Canh jeep escorting the column ran over a booby-trapped bomb and got blown to fucking smithereens.’
‘Any American casualties?’
‘None so far, just the white mice.’
The Quan Canh were the Vietnamese military police, but they were also called ‘the white mice’ because of their distinctive white helmets and gloves. Catesby thought he had better take a few snaps to prove he was a journalist, but felt he was disrespecting the dead. Meanwhile, he heard the US lieutenant colonel demanding another Vietnamese escort, an ARVN APC, before the column moved forward again.
Catesby turned to the captain. ‘Would it be fair to say that you use the Vietnamese as human mine detectors?’
The captain shrugged. ‘I’m not sure about the “human” bit. But it’s their country, so if it blows them up it’s tough shit.’
On cue, a Vietnamese Army armoured personnel carrier began to clank up the road to take over from the blown-up Quan Canh jeep. Catesby had seen enough and walked back to the car. The Frenchwoman, oblivious to the drama, had smeared sun cream on her face and was lying back in the driver’s seat as if she were on a sun lounger in Saint Tropez. She stirred as Catesby got in the car. ‘Interesting?’
Catesby shook his head. He wanted to get away from the squalid war and talk about something else.
The Frenchwoman gave him a funny look. ‘Were you in the war?’
‘I was too young. I was only sixteen in 1945.’ That was what the date on his false passport indicated, at any rate.
‘You look older.’
Catesby smiled. ‘Thank you. I’ve had a hard life.’ The weakest part of his cover identity was the fact that his fake IDs were for someone six years younger than himself.
‘That makes you only thirty-nine. I can’t believe you are one of those vain men who can never admit they’ve passed forty.’
‘I look older because of what I’ve been through. It’s a hard life in the East End of London. I was once nailed to the floor by a gang of villains who thought I was a grass. They cut off all my toes with a pair of bolt cutters and then worked their way upwards.’
‘What’s a “grass”?’
‘C’est un mouchard.’
‘So you know a bit of French?’
‘Just schoolboy stuff.’
‘Is it not strange that your school taught you French underworld slang?’
Catesby smiled. ‘It was the East End of London. They were hardly going to teach us Proust.’
‘I think you are a big tease.’
The truck engines in front of them began to grind to life in a cloud of red dust and diesel fumes. ‘It looks like we’re starting to move.’
The Frenchwoman started the engine, which gave a high-pitched whine compared to the heavy American trucks. ‘When are you going to start to tell the truth?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I did.’
‘Then I will have to make up my own stories about you. And, by the way, I was in the war and I was only fifteen when it ended.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I carried messages for the Maquis and counted German vehicles – child’s play. Now, some truth from you? Why are you here?’
‘I would like to report on this war from the other side – to see what it’s like to be with the Viet Cong and the NVA.’
‘It is possible, but not easy. The North Vietnamese never trust you.’
‘How can you get them to trust you?’
‘It helps if you are a woman – but maybe if those London gangsters got high enough with those bolt cutters…’
‘I’d rather not talk about it. Have you had any experience with the Viet Cong?’
The Frenchwoman shrugged. ‘It is difficult to say.’
‘Even in French?’
‘Even in French. Because I do not trust you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re trying to hide what you are really doing.’
Catesby stared out at the countryside. For some reason it reminded him of Thetford Forest. A part of him always wanted to be in East Anglia – and images of home always made him think more clearly. Catesby was now certain that the Frenchwoman had talked to the SDECE man at the French Embassy – and that’s why she had so readily agreed to give him a lift. The French intelligence agency, Le Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage, ran a good-sized station in Saigon. The SDECE mission was not just to gloat over the Americans’ difficulties, but also to be in a position to reassert French interests when things completely fell apart. Catesby imagined that the SDECE ma
n had probably treated her to a few drinks and dropped a secret or two in an attempt to get his leg over. It’s the way they operated.
‘You mentioned,’ said Catesby, ‘that it’s easier for a woman to make contact with the Viet Cong.’
‘In most cases – and you should know that.’
‘And how should I know that?’
‘Because that’s why you’ve been sent here.’
Catesby looked at the distant tree line and tried not to show his annoyance. It was likely that the SDECE man was already plotting ways to drop him in the shit. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying. You’re talking riddles.’
‘You’re not a journalist.’
‘Wrong.’
‘You work for a very wealthy and aristocratic British family.’
Catesby laughed. The SDECE man had either lied to her or got it wrong. Or the Frenchwoman was lying about what she actually knew. Bluff and double bluff. ‘Actually, that would perfectly describe the owners of one of the newspapers I write for.’
‘Don’t treat me like a fool. Everything about you is fake.’
‘Who am I then?’
‘I don’t know.’
Catesby sensed she was telling the truth. ‘In that case, tell me more about this aristocratic family.’
The Frenchwoman gave a very coquettish smile. She was enjoying the drama. ‘They are almost royalty.’
Catesby smiled. ‘Good work, you’ve rumbled me – ça veut dire démasquer. I’ve been sent here to recover a valuable family heirloom that disappeared from a château after the fall of France.’
‘The family heirloom that you are seeking is a human one. Her name is the Right Honourable Miranda Somers.’
Catesby was now certain that his meeting with the Frenchwoman was no accident. It had been set up. But he decided to play the game. ‘Don’t you know her other names? She has quite a string of them – just like your French aristos.’
The Frenchwoman sounded put out. ‘Regardless, Miranda has disappeared and there is a rumour that she has come to Vietnam to work for the National Liberation Front in their struggle against the Americans.’
The Whitehall Mandarin Page 25
