Danger Beyond Intrigue: Volume One

by H. L. Valdez

  Transitions

  3 July 1964. Phan Rang Air Base: Ninh Thuan Province Vietnam. With clear visibility, Navy Lieutenant Commander Justin Fortune was at the controls of his attack Cobra helicopter, leisurely flying his last flight to the Admiral’s Flag Ship in the South China Sea. From the low-lying tropical rain forest below, the aircraft resembled a sleek fighter plane as it soared above the rugged terrain of the lush Annamite Mountain Chain. When he arrived in Vietnam in 1963, helicopter operations had been in full swing since 1961. Americans were being killed. During his tour, he won the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Purple Heart. Flying was in his bones. Justin could fly anything. Checking his watch, he reached into the large leg pocket of his flight suit for a folded copy of the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Glancing at the front page, he leisurely checked the cover stories where General Westmoreland had replaced General Paul Harkins as head of U.S. Forces in Vietnam. Maxwell Taylor was replacing Henry Cabot Lodge; the envoy to Vietnam, and the U.S. was sending five thousand soldiers to the emerging war. Another story stated that North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong forces were inflicting heavy casualties on South Vietnamese government troops in the Mekong Delta region of Vinh Cheo, one of the government's last remaining footholds in the Chuong Thien province. Looking at the horizon line, he contemplated the headlines while tucking the paper into his baggy pocket.

  "What is America doing here?" he questioned surveying the land below, reflecting on his final moments in Vietnam.

  Flying along the sandy tropical coastline, Justin reflected on his twelve-month tour of duty, which had been demanding and complex, almost a grotesque parody in the belief, faith, and justice of humanity. The combat skirmishes had gone beyond the bounds of friendly rivalry. He was coping by shoving the shock and emotion of war out of the way.

  "The Americans don't control the situation; we're not winning," he opined logically, shaking his head in disgust, slapping the front of his helmet. With hazy insight, he was questioning his values and taking a serious inventory of himself and his lifestyle. He believed that what he was doing was 25-percent sport and 75-percent way of life. He was fed up with the belligerent military hysteria that forced him to attack civilian population centers.

  "I'm tired of this war, tired of the Navy, tired of being divorced, tired of looking for a wife, tired of being alone," he groaned, slapping his helmet, thinking of his former wife and their five-year marriage. Justin loved flying but resented the long deployments forcing him to be away from home. The separations and hardships imposed on his family by the Navy destroyed his marriage, or so he thought. Bloated with toxic emotions, he felt ambushed by life events.

  "I still love her. I still want her. I still daydream about her. Now she's out there, grudge fucking Marines in San Diego," he mumbled bitterly, slapping his helmet. Twelve months had elapsed since his divorce, and that was the last time he had made love to a woman. Time was not healing his wounds and there was no end to his agony. A piece of his heart died. His emotions were hard-hearted, leading to a burning bitterness and resentment toward his wife and women in general. Yet, he longed for intimacy with a woman, but was afraid of the possible hurt he might endure if he surrendered his heart -- a classic approach-avoidance conflict, and became transparent with his feelings.

  "I need a wife and family. I don't do single life very well," he said nodding, agreeing with himself. "I have no life, no family, no kids, no dog, no plants, no fish. I have nothing. Nobody." He surmised glum faced.

  "Come on God, help me!” he yelled cynically. "I need a job as a civilian pilot flying for United Airlines from L.A. to New York; working with beautiful women all day; working eight days a month for $250,000 a year. Now that's a good job!" he shouted, irritated, slapping his helmet, trying to convince himself, looking at the clouds forming on the horizon.

  "Come on God, help me out down here!" He hollered, scanning the terrain. "You know how tough it is down here. Look what they did to you! Come on, now; help me out! Hear my prayers; send relief!" He shouted, exasperated with his life.

  "I need a change now!" He hollered, slapping his helmet, and then with odious feelings, turned suddenly into a sixty-degree roll, over the mountainous jungle. In one continuous curving motion, he squeezed the red trigger of his Gatling machine gun, and within seconds fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition into the trees below, splattering dozens of screaming monkeys nesting in the thick branches.

  "This is a public relations war; it's the liberals' war," he thought out loud easing back to his normal flight pattern.

  "And here we are pounding the shit out of Vietnamese cities with air strikes, napalm, artillery, and Naval gun fire," he said, disgusted. Justin loved flying but felt it was 90-percent routine and 10-percent stark terror, especially when he flew an F-4 Phantom jet on napalm runs against the enemy in close air support of covert CIA operatives on the ground.

  "Everyone has a dream! The enemy is strong and filled with vitality," he blurted in frustration, confident with the knowledge that past struggles for political independence from China developed in the Vietnamese people a strong sense of National identity. It was the shadow from this identity that made the idea of winning the war so far removed.

  “What am I doing here?” He snapped, maneuvering his craft past business and private dwellings.

  “Twelve months ago I was filled with confidence, cynicism, and stoic rebelliousness,” he snapped to himself. “What the hell happened to me?” He blurted, slapping his helmet, thinking that what seemed to be famous victories had turned into free-floating guilt and anguish. Frustrated, now he saw the world through a paradoxical prism of diffused realities: Government support had been less than positive. It was the trauma of desperation that produced an epidemic of disbelief and bad taste. In the end, Justin would miss the camaraderie of his fellow pilots and the close fellowship of being a member of an elite pilot community. What made him so popular with his fellow pilots was his ability to quickly make deductions and connections. He had a knack for abstract knowledge about nature, natural phenomenon, science, and mathematics. Possessing an excellent memory of remote and distant facts, he had an eye for details. He was interesting and appealing in that his natural curiosity made him enjoyable to be with.

  "Conflict is the absence of absolutes. Resolving conflict is a systematic search for solutions. Everyone knows that!” He reasoned out loud, peering down at ox carts and motorbikes sharing the dirt road below.

  "We won't win. Historical roots in conflict are difficult to resolve. We won't win," he said, shaking his head, admiring the lush beautiful countryside. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he looked-up at the enormous gray-black rain clouds.

  "Heavy rainfall coming, Charlie!” He chuckled. “Have a nice day," he chimed with a sardonic smile, waving goodbye to Vietnam while banking his helicopter toward the South China Sea. Justin considered how 150 years of French rule had introduced European elements, yet the Vietnamese people continued to observe cultural rites honoring their ancestors and family, indicating a devotion to the old traditions. Tense, he took the cablegram from his pocket, re-reading the message.

  "Fleet Admiral requests meeting aboard Flag Ship. Another message awaits you at Fleet Command Headquarters."

  "I don't get it," he grumbled, agitated. "Notes like this create a crisis atmosphere. I don't trust it," he said, uncertain and nervous about the meeting.

  "How could we be so stupid?" He shouted, slapping his helmet in resentment, thinking how overweight and overconfident American Diplomats bragged about quickly ending communist aggression by applying American technology.

  "It's here and now time," Justin mumbled, in self-awareness.

  “I’ve got to change. Please Jesus Christ, help me change,” he prayed, making the sign of the cross. “Help me today and quickly, dear Jesus!” He pleaded, making the sign of the cross again. “I think I have combat fatigue, and a few other unpleasant problems dear Lord. I also have a bad case of the Fuck-Its. Send help. Amen.” He ended, mak
ing another sign of the cross.

  Examining the vast shimmering horizon, Justin attempted to psychologically recharge himself by recalling boyhood flying lessons learned from his father who he deeply admired and yearned to emulate. While a senior in high school, he earned his pilot's license. With his father's encouragement, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy to study aerodynamics. After graduation, he completed jet training, and became cross-licensed in helicopters, attended Aerial Navigation Class at the Aerial Observer School, then went to Vietnam in 1963 when helicopter operations began in earnest. He was there when thirty-one Americans died in action. But his fondest and most vivid memories were after World War II, when his dad, a former Navy pilot and aeronautics instructor, returned home to the grandeur of New Mexico. The war had stolen time from their father-son relationship and their reunion was a time of bonding. Patiently, his father taught him to fly throughout the Southwest of the United States. After landing on desert dirt roads, they would camp and explore ancient Indian ruins while photographing mountain lions, bobcats, birds, bighorn sheep, black bears, and elk. While flying over the mesas, plateaus, and peaks of the vast Southwest, Justin found inner peace. While horseback riding near the Peak of Isis Temple in the Grand Canyon, he discovered soul revealing solitude. Hiking the ruins of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde, Colorado, he clarified his virtues. Along the dusty trails of the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico, he expanded the limits of his humanity. Marveling in the desert sunrises and sunsets, he found knowledge of true self. Under the night sky canopy of millions of brilliant stars, he discovered the meaning of life.

  Japan

  4 July 1964. Japan. On the Izu peninsula, a few hours southwest of Tokyo, Sasha Nakamura parked her motorcycle then began meandering up the stone studded path of the Japanese garden. Passing small stone nyorai, Buddha statues, she was walking uphill to the outdoor hilltop seaside courtyard of the exclusive Cape Palace Hotel. Men and women wearing the summer yukata, or kimono, were sipping green tea in tranquil solitude, sitting beside a thatched roof teahouse. Mallard ducks with iridescent green heads were quacking at orange-billed females paddling in a small pond. A small pine scented forest, and scenic tracts of bamboo surrounded a massive red Torii, gateway to the hotel. Inhaling deeply, Sasha enjoyed the iso-yaki, skewered fish; being grilled over hot coals and activating her senses. Red paper lanterns decorated with black Kanji symbols hung from an outdoor restaurant where rows of squid lay cut and quartered drying on bamboo racks. Stopping at a food stall to buy takoyaki, fried octopus, and a bottle of Sapporo beer, she assessed the crowd at the open-air bar and analyzed the atmosphere. Mothers with children sat on blankets; teenagers sat at tables leafing through manga, thick Japanese comic books. Salaried men sat at small tables smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and sake, ogling females; overweight mama-sans slurped noodles; and young office ladies in shorts and halter-tops huddled in small groups smoking, drinking, and eating skewers of beef on wooden sticks.

  “Arigato,” Sasha said, paying for the order, then followed the savory aroma of sizzling meat. Stopping at another yakitori grill, she bought several skewers of mixed beef. Eyeing an empty table, she quickly moved to the isolated spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Setting everything down, she began turning the stainless steel handle on the silver pole, opening the patio umbrella. Removing her sunglasses, she surveyed the raging surf pounding against protruding, time worn volcanic rock formations. Under the umbrella's shadow, she studied the crowd, withdrawing into private thoughts, collecting her psychological momentum and developing step-plans to implement her assassinations. Sipping beer from the large brown bottle, she carefully pondered and reviewed the multiple trafficking zones where her narcotics flowed, compartment-to-compartment.

  “The wait begins,” she sighed, removing a mirror from her bag. The first Orei-mairi, the call of retribution used by Yakuza gangsters to settle old scores, was about to begin. These assassinations would signal the beginning of a long international gang war. Feeling inept, she bristled with anger as her mind raced with vengeful thoughts about losing control of this organizational compartment used for transporting narcotics from Laos through Vietnam, and Tokyo. Sasha took it personally that someone stole her heroin and felt betrayed by middlemen who disobeyed her orders. During this vendetta, there would be no mending the breach in her trust; major staff adjustments would be imposed. Sasha would personally enforce the rules, not subordinates; she would dole out punishments - an example would be made of those who had violated the code-of-conduct. Delegating her authority required supervision; what she needed were reliable, cunning, and trustworthy partners. Asia was her domain; she was protective of her turf and determined to maintain control of the family's vast drug distribution network and trade routes at any cost.

  "The best way to predict the future is to invent it," she thought out loud, holding the mirror up to her face. "This moment was inevitable," she sighed resigning herself to the moment, putting the mirror in her bag.

  "And thank God for Vietnamese informants," she concluded, staring at the Pacific Ocean, waiting patiently while pondering power shifts in the global heroin business. Pulling a bite-sized piece of yakitori meat off the wooden skewer with her teeth, she contemplated her long-term plans and strategies for smuggling narcotics. Chewing the tender beef, she pondered her upcoming promotion into the powerful pyramidal Asia drug hierarchy, trying to visualize the impact and how it would affect her self-image and her life. Self-composed, she carefully scanned the crowd, then opened her bag and raised binoculars to her eyes. In the distance, peaks of the submerged volcanic chain could be seen. Time slowly ticked by without notice while she continually scrutinized fishing boats bobbing in the whitecap swells. Setting the binoculars down, she unfolded a copy of the Japan Times newspaper, and skimmed the front page about Tokyo's preparation for the XVIIIth Olympic Summer games in October. Then she glanced at a story on a court trial in New York City about nightclub comedian and heroin addict Lennie Bruce on charges of obscenity. Uninterested, she surveyed the crowd, and neatly folded the paper, thinking about her boyfriend. Her personal life was suffering, there never seemed to be enough time to enjoy a relationship or even think about having a child. Struggling with the idea of having a baby, her maternal instincts were once again setting off alarms of her biological clock. She loved Nick, but questioned the wisdom of his being a husband and the father of her child. Work came first and love second.

  "I can't be a mother," she remarked out loud. "Can I be a mother?" She asked herself, sipping her beer, thinking of the parental and business implications.

  "Do you really want to be a mother?" She asked. "Yes and no," she answered, unsure of her true desire. "Be patient," she assured herself, sipping her beer, putting on her sunglasses.

  “Hey Mom, problems with drug trafficking are growing,” she laughed, psychologically leaking, thinking of a mother-child scenario. Looking through the binoculars she scanned the beach below, evaluating the role of competing drug traffickers, in that they were creating a wedge in her long-established consumption market. White and yellow gold was being dumped on the black market. Greed was on the rise and the new breed wanted easy money without compromise. Sasha reasoned that money was neutral, and greedy people were expendable. Once again, her enemies would tremble as they did one year ago when one black night in a small border hamlet, deep in the Yunnan jungle of China, she tortured and murdered a thief who had stolen her heroin. Encircled by her hill tribesman with warrior painted faces, some held torches; others drummed a hypnotic beat, as Sasha stood half-naked, smeared with black and brown warrior paint over her face and body. Some tribesmen wearing ceremonial beads, sat in the shadows smoking opium from a gourd pipe; others dressed in loincloth, swallowed a liquid hallucinogen while watching the village Shaman prepare for the sacrifice by ingesting hallucinogenic peyote buds. Chanting, and dancing around the glow of the blazing fire, the Shaman was performing the paranormal ceremony of The Calling of the Wandering Souls. His altered state elevated him in
to a spiritual event known as ego death or mystical experience, where he lost his sense of boundaries between his body and the environment, creating a universal unity. The old Shaman’s intense feelings of connectivity with a higher power and the universe combined the paradoxical emotions of euphoria and despair. The tribal warriors were animated and lively, chanting and drumming, entering their drug-induced trance.

  "Time to die!" She wailed dancing around the prisoner helplessly lying in the dirt tied to a bamboo cross. "Time to die," she shouted, staring into the crying man's eyes.

  "Time to be sacrificed," she whispered, bending down, staring into his eyes, pressing her face against his. Standing, she laughed, while pulling up her loincloth, and urinating on his chest as he begged for mercy. Laughing, her psychological framework shifted into a dissociative trance that narrowed her awareness as her behavior went beyond her conscious control. Holding a metal clamp she extracted a white-hot spike from the enormous fire. Then, screaming like a banshee, she picked up a mallet, viciously pounding the glowing spike through his sizzling flesh, and into his rib, spurting his warm blood onto the dirt. The frenzied tribesmen in ceremonial paint, carrying spears, wearing traditional jewelry to honor the dead, witnessed Sasha's face change into madness as she pounded another searing nail into the ribs of the screaming thief. Staring at Sasha, the warriors played instruments witnessing a psychotic transformation of her mental framework as her behavior morphed into madness. As she pounded another burning nail into his rib, the screaming, and tormented thief begged for mercy. Chanting and bouncing in unison, the tribesmen were witnessing Sasha’s journey into psychological darkness. Shifting into a possessed trance, she raised her knife, slitting the man's chest to his belly button as her personal identity switched into a new identity that was influenced by a spirit power. Dripping in blood, she stood over the dying thief in an amnesic state, her body jerking with involuntary movements, eyes rolling, mouth open, speaking intelligible sounds.