The Three-Nine Line

by David Freed

  Like Stoneburner across the hall, Cohen didn’t buy for one second that I was a psychologist. Unlike Stoneburner, he seemed content to accept the ruse and quietly resigned to his incarceration. He sat at his desk, legs crossed, impeccably dressed in country club casual—polished oxblood loafers, no socks, cuffed, razor-creased khakis, a blue polo shirt that matched the color of his watery eyes. When I commended him on his squared-away appearance under difficult conditions, he joked that house arrest had afforded him “plenty of time to catch up on my ironing,” then offered me a cup of tea.

  “Sure.”

  “How’s Virg doing?” he asked, plugging in one of those electric kettles that heat water to boiling within a minute or two. “They won’t let us talk to each other, you know. Just like the good old days. Only in this case, unfortunately, we can’t communicate by tapping code through the walls.”

  I turned up the volume on the television. Cohen seemed to understand what I was doing. “He’s worried about his wife,” I said, “anxious to get home, as I’m sure you are.”

  “This has to be much harder on him than me. I really have no one to go home to.”

  Cohen told me that his wife had left him shortly after he came home from Vietnam, and that he never remarried— something I didn’t know anything about when we were both at the academy. He didn’t elaborate on how he’d ended up single and I didn’t ask. If he had children, he didn’t mention them.

  “How’s your health, Colonel? I know you’ve had some issues with your heart.”

  “My ticker’s just fine. You didn’t tell me you were a cardiologist as well as a PhD.” He winked knowingly.

  I was tempted to tell him who I really was and how his philosophy class had opened up my mind in ways that would’ve been otherwise lost on me, a working-class kid who’d grown up bouncing from one foster home to another. But I was well aware that my purpose in Hanoi, the importance of the mission on which I’d been sent, eclipsed any walks at that moment down memory lane.

  I passed along the same information I’d given Stoneburner, essentially how Mr. Wonderful had been murdered within hours of the dinner ceremony, and how Vietnamese officials believed that one or more of the former POWs were responsible.

  Cohen gazed at the floor with those sad eyes of his, as if he were staring into the past. “Socrates said that it’s not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.”

  “You don’t seem all that surprised the guard’s dead, Colonel.”

  “Can’t say I am.” The teapot chimed. He poured steaming water into a white china cup. “A man like Mr. Wonderful, his past almost always catches up with him eventually. In other words, what goes around, as they say, comes around.”

  He asked me if I wanted sugar. I declined. He handed me the cup.

  “Maybe you can walk me through what you remember from that night,” I said.

  Cohen eased himself into the wooden desk chair and folded his hands placidly across his lap.

  “Perhaps the better question,” he said, “is what happened after all of us got back to the hotel.”

  Speaking quietly, he revealed information that Stoneburner hadn’t, something I hadn’t read in the briefing package from Buzz: Cohen, Stoneburner, and Billy Hallady had been accompanied on their trip to Hanoi by Hallady’s adult grandson, Sean Hallady, a former marine who lived in Salt Lake City.

  “Sean worships his grandfather,” Cohen said. “Of all of us, he was the most outwardly contemptuous of the guard. Wouldn’t even shake his hand.”

  Following the reconciliation dinner that night, Cohen said, he, Stoneburner, and the two Halladys all watched Mr. Wonderful stumble out of the Metropole through the hotel’s front entrance shortly after ten p.m., drunk and alone.

  “Did anyone follow him?”

  Cohen shook his head. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “by that point, having to sit there for three hours, looking at him across the table, remembering, we didn’t want anything more to do with the son of a bitch.”

  The Americans, according to Cohen, all hired “cyclos”— three-wheeled bicycles whose drivers ferry tourists around Hanoi—to take them back to the Yellow Flower Hotel.

  “When we got there, Stoneburner said he wasn’t feeling well and went upstairs to bed. I have no reason to believe he went out after that, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “What about you, Colonel? What did you do?”

  “Billy and I went upstairs with his grandson to have a nightcap.”

  Shortly before midnight, following a couple rounds of beer at the Yellow Flower’s rooftop bar, Sean Hallady, who was bunking in his grandfather’s room, announced that he was turning in and left, Cohen said.

  “Billy and I sat around for maybe another half hour or so after that, reminiscing about old times. I was a little worried about him because I noticed he was starting to slip a little.”

  “Slip?”

  “Mentally. He couldn’t remember certain things. Dates. Names. I don’t know whether it was the beer or something more serious. We’re all starting to get to that stage of life, unfortunately.”

  “And after the beers?”

  “I headed down to my room. Billy and his grandson were catching a flight back to the states early that morning. Virg Stoneburner and I were scheduled to fly out the next day. Virg wanted to see Halong Bay. It’s supposed to be gorgeous, all those islands.” Cohen smiled. “Neither of us really got a chance to see it during the war, needless to say, except from the air.”

  “What about Billy and Sean Hallady? Had they planned to go sightseeing with you at any point?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “I’m just wondering if they cut short their trip to get home sooner.”

  “You mean, because they murdered the guard and had to get out in a hurry?”

  “You have to admit, Colonel, the timing of their departure is a little curious.”

  “The answer to your question, Dr. Barker, is no. Billy has a granddaughter—Sean’s sister, I think—who is going to Tulane medical school. She was getting some big award. Billy wanted to be there for that. He told me he didn’t sleep well overseas, which I can appreciate, believe me. He planned to stay up all night, do some reading. That way, he could nap on the flight home. We shook hands and wished each other well. That’s the last I saw of him. I’m assuming he made it home okay.”

  “Did you tell the Vietnamese authorities any of this?”

  My old professor’s eyes turned flat and hard. “When I was at the Hilton, I eventually broke under torture,” he said. “We all did. Any man who says he didn’t is a liar. But we never volunteered anything that they could use against any of us or our country. That was our code of honor. We lived and died by that code, Doctor. After surviving that, day after day, year after year, would I voluntarily tell the Vietnamese anything?”

  “My apologies for asking the question, Colonel. I meant no offense.”

  He got up and gazed out at the office building under construction across the street. Hazy sun filtered in through the window. “Such a vibrant city,” Cohen said. “Amazes me that we bombed these people as vigorously as we did.”

  “How would you describe your interaction with Mr. Wonderful the night of the dinner?”

  “Interaction?” He thought for a moment. “I’d say it was minimal at best. His government wanted him to be there for the better good. We were only there out of a sense of duty. We shook his hand, but that was about it. It seemed to me like he’d been doing some drinking. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He wouldn’t look any of us in the eye. He remembered what he’d done. There’s no question in my mind about that.”

  “Had you forgiven him?”

  Cohen watched with rapt fascination as Vietnamese laborers with their pant legs rolled up hauled wet concrete in buckets up ladders across the street. They reminded me of worker ants.

  “Aristotle believed that there were five primary social virtues, Dr. Barker:
courage, compassion, self-love, friendship and forgiveness. I learned the first four in my years at the Hanoi Hilton. The fifth, forgiveness, I learned in the years that followed.” He turned to face me. “Not all of the guards were bad. Some of them showed genuine compassion toward us.”

  “I didn’t ask you about the other guards, Colonel. I asked about Mr. Wonderful.”

  Cohen rubbed the back of his neck. “Until the State Department called, I had essentially blocked him from my memory. Did I forgive him for all the pain he inflicted on my brothers and me? If forgetting constitutes forgiveness, the answer is no. Some things you can never forget. But if your definition of forgiveness is distancing yourself from the kind of rage a place like that can instill in a man, I’d have to say yes.”

  My eyelids were starting to sag—jet lag creeping in. I thanked him for the tea even though I hadn’t had a sip, told him I’d be in touch with any news, and got up to go.

  “You look familiar to me somehow,” Cohen said. “Have we met before?”

  “A previous life, perhaps,” I said.

  V

  The anti-eavesdropping app on my iPhone disguised as Angry Birds was designed to make an audible beep whenever it found a listening device within a three-foot radius. I ran the phone across the walls of my hotel room, along the baseboards and electrical outlets, around the table lamps, under the bed and over the thermostat, then stood on my desk chair and ran it past the smoke detector, fire sprinklers, and air-conditioning grates. The device never beeped. Either it wasn’t functioning properly or the room was clean.

  I pulled off my shoes, sat down on the bed, and called Buzz in Cleveland. He sounded groggy, like I’d rousted him from sleep.

  “What time is it there?” he wanted to know.

  “About two in the afternoon.”

  “Yeah, well, here it’s almost two in the morning,” Buzz said. “Thanks for nothing. I was dreaming about Halle Berry. We were just getting to the good part.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You should be, Dr. Barker. What’s up?”

  I told him that Cohen and Stoneburner appeared to be in good shape despite the rigors of house arrest, then filled him in on what I’d learned about Sean Hallady, Billy’s grandson, having come along on the trip to Hanoi.

  “The fact that Hallady headed home along with his grandson just before Mr. Wonderful’s body was found makes you wonder,” I said.

  “Where’s the grandson live?”

  “Salt Lake City.”

  “I’ll have my shop do a full workup on him when I get in at zero-five.”

  “One more bit of intel you’re gonna want to run by the chain of command.”

  “Go,” Buzz said.

  “I met Colonel Tan Sang, the guy running the murder investigation. They’re planning to transfer Stoneburner and Cohen to a prison ahead of criminal charges being filed.”

  “When.”

  “Thursday.”

  “That’s four days.”

  “Affirmative. I didn’t tell Stoneburner or Cohen. I don’t want them stressing out any more than they already are.”

  “Spoken like the true fake psychologist you are.”

  I passed along Stoneburner’s concern that his wife be informed of his status. Buzz said he’d make sure she was briefed and told me to keep him posted immediately on any relevant developments. I assured him I would.

  The bathroom counter was black marble, the plumbing fixtures polished brass. I dropped my clothes on the floor and stepped into the shower. The water felt like a warm caress.

  I lay down on my impossibly firm mattress to catch a few hours’ sleep. Thirty-five minutes later, my phone rang. I, too, may well have been dreaming of Halle Berry. I honestly can’t remember.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end was male, the accent Vietnamese.

  “Your life,” he said, “is in danger.”

  SEVEN

  He wanted to meet at a bar called the Giddy-up. The address was on Tran Hung Dao Street, which he said was a ten-minute walk from my hotel. An exhausting, sweat-filled, half-hour workout on a ninety-degree afternoon with 90 percent humidity is more like it. Amid the Old Quarter’s dizzying labyrinth of side streets that resemble alleys and crazy crowded avenues whose names can change literally from one block to the next, I quickly became lost. The good news, given the serpentine route I navigated, was that nobody could’ve possibly tailed me without my having spotted him.

  The Giddy-up was Hanoi’s version of a Western saloon, replete with a dime store wooden Indian out front. Inside, Vietnamese men wearing ten-gallon Stetsons sat at the bar throwing back shots of whiskey and nursing bottles of Saigon beer, while a four-piece Asian cover band belted out an earnest though somewhat erratic version of Hank Williams’s “Cold, Cold Heart.”

  “Logan?”

  Slits for eyes barricaded behind puffy lids. Thick lips. Skull shaved smooth. A jade likeness of the Buddha, big as a silver dollar, hung from a leather strap around his beefy weightlifter’s neck. He strode toward me from the bar with a beer in his hand and a rock star’s swagger, decked out in black combat boots, bloused black parachute pants, and a white, form-fitted muscle shirt that flaunted his powerful physique. For a man who looked to be pushing seventy, he was still definitely a stud.

  “I am Nguyen Phu Dung,” he said, “your interpreter.”

  We shook hands. His unassertive grip contrasted with the fierce warrior image he conveyed. Lashed to his left wrist was a big silver pilot’s watch with buttons and dials galore. An ugly scar ran the length of his left forearm.

  “You got any ID?”

  I showed him my Dr. Barker passport. He gave it a quick glance and handed it back to me, glancing over my shoulder toward the door.

  “Were you followed?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “You want something to drink? Beer?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Good. More for me.”

  He led me to an unoccupied table near the rear of the saloon. A waitress came over in fringed leather chaps and a tank top with the actor John Wayne’s face on it. Phu Dung polished off what was left of his beer, handed her the empty bottle and nodded for another. I asked for a glass of water. He translated my request and the waitress headed back to the bar. We sat.

  “You told me over the phone I was in danger.”

  “They’re checking on you.”

  “Who is?”

  “The government.” Phu Dung surveyed the bar’s patrons like he was keeping an eye out for snipers. “They find anything, you’re going to be here a long time.”

  “How do you know this?”

  He shrugged.

  “You know people inside the investigation?”

  “I know many people,” Phu Dung said, sipping his beer.

  “How do I know you’re not working for the government?”

  He slowly swung his eyes toward me, like the guns on a battleship.

  “If I was, you would be in jail by now.”

  The band started playing “Stand By Your Man,” only it sounded more like “Stand My You Fan.”

  “I am told you were a fighter pilot,” Phu Dung said.

  “Not me, friend. I’m a psychologist.”

  His eyes disappeared into their slits as his thick lips slowly spread into a smile that told me he was onto me. Buzz’s people had undoubtedly passed along my service record, the flying part of it, anyway, to help build rapport between the two of us.

  “I heard you were a pilot, too.”

  Phu Dung nodded. “MiG-21.”

  “I also heard you shot down a couple of our planes.”

  He held up four fingers.

  “Four planes you shot down?”

  “Only credited for two.”

  I was entrusting my life to a man who’d done his best to blast American airmen like me out of the skies. The notion didn’t sit well.

  Phu Dung sensed my
discomfort. “I defended my people,” he said. “You would have done the same.”

  He was right, of course. He’d fought to save his homeland against what his political leaders considered foreign aggression. Had our roles been reversed, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do exactly that.

  “Why are you helping us?” I asked him. “The risks are just as great for you as they are for me. Possibly even more.”

  I thought he was going to tell me that the war had ended long ago and that he held no personal grudges, but he said nothing. Instead he held up his right hand and rubbed the tip of his index finger and thumb together. So that’s what it was: he’d gotten involved not because of some humanitarian, we-are-the-world-type ambitions, but because the job paid, and probably paid well by local standards. And yet I wondered: Nobody who wears a big jade Buddha around his neck is in it strictly for the paycheck.

  Our drinks arrived. I gulped my water. Phu Dung downed his beer like it was water. I told him I wanted to see the crime scene.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  V

  The sidewalk in front of the Giddy-up was clogged with dozens of scooters and small, underpowered motorbikes parked close together. Virtually all of the sidewalks of Hanoi appeared to be similarly jammed as were the streets—endless streams of Vespas and underpowered, two-wheeled Hondas, their helmeted drivers all vying for space with each other and the occasional taxi, minibus or car. Phu Dung’s ride was easy to spot as we emerged from the bar: a gleaming black Harley-Davidson Sportster with chrome pipes. Painted on the side of the gas tank was the silhouette of a silver MiG-21.

  “Hop on,” he said, pushing the ignition starter button and firing up his two-seat motorcycle.

  “What about a helmet?”

  “No helmet.”

  “I’m looking around, Phu Dung, and everybody else is wearing helmets.”