Red Flags

by Juris Jurjevics

  A stick smacked the fronds behind us: a sentry wading through the ferns and leafy plants on the other side of the fallen tree trunk, beating the foliage as he went. I thumbed the safety off and breathed shallow, through my mouth. A bead of sweat inched down my spine. Another hung from my nose and dropped. An insect staggered past my eyes, dragging a vanquished enemy twice its size. Its cousins had taken up residence in the soft flesh at the back of my right knee. Bo cho ticks, judging from the pain of the bites.

  Shouts erupted. A sentry hacked at the growth, bringing several others. They were chasing a snake, excited by the contest, yelping like children. The footfalls and shouts receded. I breathed again.

  The shoppers thinned out, and the vendors hurriedly struck their stands and packed their wares. The sentry in the crow's-nest tapped out a signal, alerting those on the ground that somebody was approaching.

  A two-stroke motor scooter came down the track, operated by a Vietnamese in green ARVN fatigues and aviator sunglasses. Behind him sat a Westerner in khaki pants, poplin shirt, and leather sandals: the USAID tough guy, wearing a shoulder holster. Their machine pulled up as a priest in shirtsleeves and clerical collar arrived on an ancient bicycle, its gears and chain clacking. A new white pickup truck brought a third Caucasian. What in the hell? I was dumbfounded.

  The ARVN and each of the Westerners silently waited his turn and met briefly with the stocky Vietnamese leader. He exchanged a few words with each man and gave him a packet. When he'd met all of them he promptly left, walking into the jungle with his entourage of VC. The priest remounted his bicycle and pedaled off. Mr. USAID and the South Vietnamese soldier got back on their motor scooter, and the white guy climbed into his pickup. They all departed the way they'd come. The guards withdrew, and the last sellers straggled off, putt-putting away on their motorbikes and pedaling their bicycle carts.

  We lay still. When we were utterly alone, Ruchevsky tapped me with his foot and we painstakingly crawled out through the tangle, our limbs stiff and numb. Back on the ridge, Ruchevsky drained his canteen and spoke for the first time since Little John had left us in the brush.

  "Need more water," he whispered, sprinkling his face with the final drops, his cheeks bright red. "Let's pinch some from that stream near the rest station."

  I raised my thumb in agreement. The new bunch of pilgrims would be snoozing by now and wouldn't be up again until they set out at nightfall. He led us up the hill near the rest station, where our faint animal track crossed their well-worn trail. The hut was to the right, the sound of running water to the left. We staked out the spot, listening and watching. The invaders slept. He handed me his two canteens and signaled go. Rifle slung, pistol out, I stepped onto the trail and padded toward the bubbling of the stream. It flowed rapidly with the previous night's rain. I filled all four canteens and hurried back, the fingers of my left hand hooked in the caps' plastic ties.

  The discharge was faint but unmistakable. I ran to John. When I reached him, an NVA soldier in green shorts lay on the trail flat on his back, clearly terrified. Ruchevsky knelt on his arm, holding the silenced pistol an inch from the boy's forehead, a hand over his mouth.

  He was no more than sixteen. Scrawny, gaunt, his hair overgrown, out for a walk in the beautiful woods to savor a minute's privacy, or maybe to fetch water to wash his clothes, boil his bamboo shoots. He must have been heading my way when Ruchevsky took him down. Shit. If only the boy had slept. A diagonal rice sleeve crossed his body.

  The youngster whimpered. Blood streaked his arm. Ruchevsky made faint soothing noises to put him at ease and popped a shot into his temple. It didn't exit. Just banged around the brainpan for the instant it took to send him into eternity. He lifted the weapon away. The silencer had burned a red circle around the small black hole.

  We each took a leg and dragged him off the trail and along our track, into heavier foliage. I went back and brushed away all marks of a disturbance while Ruchevsky stripped him of his rucksack and AK-47. He examined the weapon for a proof mark but it had none: a Chinese knockoff. He removed a bullet from the magazine, peered at it, and held it out to me. The base was stamped 1964: two-year-old ammo. I nodded in acknowledgment and signaled to hurry. If we were lucky, the soldier wouldn't be missed until tonight's march or might not be found at all.

  "Take his rice," he whispered. "My people can identify where the grains came from."

  I slipped the bandoleer sleeve off the body and draped it over myself.

  Ruchevsky lifted the rucksack and rifle and what looked like a shiny penknife but turned out to be a harmonica. We covered the body with broad leaves and were off, back over the ridge toward our rendezvous with Little John.

  We reached it two hours later. No Little John.

  "He's supposed to be here ahead of us," John hissed and gulped water.

  We stayed in the tree line back from the road and waited, trying not to talk, not knowing who might be nearby. After a while, curiosity got me.

  "What do you think that little powwow in the jungle was about?" I said in a whisper.

  Ruchevsky shook his head slowly. "God and Lenin striking a truce? Fuck, I don't know. Nothing good for us."

  "What the hell's the story on Mr. USAID?" I said very softly. "I wasn't exactly expecting to see him confabbing with the Viet Cong."

  "No kidding. His name is Whalen Lund. I keep wondering if he might be working for my employer."

  "You don't know if Lund is one of yours?"

  "Field people with different gigs aren't identified to one another. We don't coordinate—or cooperate. I'm here trawling the civilian population for Reds. I got a directive to make lists of VC and their sympathizers and order up air strikes. Lund? My station chief says he knew the guy a few years back, says he was a Marine looking to do dark deeds for God and country. Like running a Truong Son death squad. Offered himself to all the intelligence shops while he was still in the Corps. No takers—allegedly. Winds up a construction contractor for a short time. Well, a contractor, anyway. Then he joins USAID to push fertilizer and new rice strains, if you buy that."

  "And the priest? There to bless the provisions, you think?"

  "That was Father Calogaras, is my guess. I've only seen one old photo of him."

  "The lefty French priest they say has gone native? The one the Berets talk about offing?"

  "From a Greek family near Marseilles. Worker-priest in a factory there. Been in Indochina forever. Reportedly knows everything that goes on in the province. Has the locals' loyalty."

  "Which locals?"

  "Vietnamese—Communists, Catholics, Buddhists. It's kept him alive, so far. He's been in these mountains for two decades and everyone wants what he knows. But he stays completely off our radar, even while he's rumored to be running social services for the other provincial government."

  "For the Communists, you mean? Like schools?"

  "Schools, village wells, irrigation. Medical stations. Food for those on hard times. Some of our schools are his schools after sunset."

  "God, what was he doing there in the jungle with Lund?"

  "Beats me. Comparing notes on well digging?"

  "And the Westerner in the Ford?"

  "A local missionary, Judd Slavin. He and his wife are from St. Louis. Liked by everyone."

  "Including the Viet Cong, apparently."

  "He's the least worrisome. The humanitarian workers over here stay as neutral as possible ... for their own safety. Even so, the Viet Cong aren't very consistent in their official positions on Western do-gooders. Makes socializing iffy. They have a committee called Friends of Workers in Christ that's supposed to liaise with the missionaries. Slavin makes contact with them from time to time."

  "The ARVN dandy looked nervous."

  "Can you blame him?" Ruchevsky said.

  "Think he's a turncoat?"

  "He'd never be that obvious. No, he's there probably to negotiate new prices at the gas pumps or some other commodity his boss is dealing in. Must be a hell of a fee
ling, going in alone to bicker with armed VC."

  "Who was the odd-looking dude with the jowls and five o'clock shadow?"

  "He's the top comrade in the province. Chinh's counterpart. The VC boss, most senior official in the area. Outranks even their military leadership. Joe Parks calls him Wolf Man."

  "Amazing he would meet so publicly with Westerners and an ARVN."

  "Probably wants word to get around that they recognize his authority. Acknowledge his position."

  "What bio have you got on him?"

  "Former Viet Minh commander. Led a Montagnard battalion against the French. He remained in the Highlands after they kicked out the French. When President Diem launched his campaign to eliminate all ex-Viet Minh fighters in the south, he fled into the bush. Hid among the tribespeople."

  "What was with his teeth? They looked odd."

  "Wolf Man had himself tied to a tree and had his front teeth filed down like theirs. Trained for a year at the Gia Lam school for ethnic minorities, in Hanoi. Speaks several Montagnard languages, knows their customs, how to use a crossbow. Ingratiated himself with a chief. Took a daughter as his wife, put on a loincloth, lived the Montagnard life, and patiently swung everyone in the vil to the Commie cause, mostly by telling them Ho Chi Minh will give the Yards the Highlands and autonomy after the war. They were reluctant to believe it—until they heard it on Radio Hanoi. The Reds broadcast it in the major Montagnard languages."

  "And the teeth are why he's called Wolf Man?"

  "His pointy teeth, yeah, I suppose. And the heavy beard. His facial hair is unusual as well. Like Vietnamese, Yards haven't much body hair to speak of. A beard is the sign of someone with the qualities to lead. Like Ho Chi Minh. Like the Yard holy man they call the King of Fire. Also, Wolf Man bellows. Gets loud when he harangues villagers. He's got an agitprop team that roams the province proselytizing, and intimidating when needed. You miss your twice-monthly tax of two hundred grams of rice or your annual tax payment of five thousand piasters if you're a shopkeeper, and you're likely to get a visit from Wolf Man."

  "Do we know where he is now?"

  "He gets around, never beds down in the same place two nights running. Sleeps five hours—if at all." Ruchevsky darkened. "He's executed half a dozen village chiefs, lots of minor officials, teachers, wives, even kids, for collaborating with the Saigon government. Like those two who floated into Cheo Reo."

  "How large an NVA force was being supplied by that jungle market?"

  "Their buddy system is built on units of three," he said. "Everyone we saw made purchases for the other two."

  "The cadre allowed sixty soldiers at a time into the market for no more than fifteen minutes. Two hundred and fifty total."

  "Right," he whispered. "Multiply that by three and that's their unit, bivouacked up there in the mountains someplace."

  "Seven, seven fifty."

  "Seven hundred sounds right. And there are signs of lots more hardhats out there in the hills—more than two or three times today's group. More customers for Madame Chinh's next country market."

  "Our province chief's wife?"

  "It's her show, according to Little John's sources. She's behind the black market operating in town too, but that's small potatoes compared to this."

  "Then Madame Chinh's running a fucking supermarket for the NVA. Forget the snacks and smokes; they were selling enough staples to keep a large group fed for a week or more."

  Ruchevsky sipped his water, sweat pooling in the corners of his eyes.

  "Whatever you do," said Ruchevsky sternly, "don't put a word of who we saw at this shindig in your report."

  "You don't think the colonel should hear about this?"

  Ruchevsky stared me down. "Not a word until we figure out what we're dealing with. A priest, a missionary, a USAID rep, and an unarmed ARVN meet with a VC commander in the jungle. It's like the setup for a joke. But what's the punch line?"

  "You know," I said, "you could have warned me the two of us were going to get so up close and personal with hundreds of VC."

  "Well," Ruchevsky said, "if I had, you might not have come."

  Little John finally showed. We mopped off the face blacking and changed into our regular clothes. When we got back to MACV, Ruchevsky went straight to our room, and I went to report to the colonel, but he wasn't in his office. So I sat down at Checkman's big Underwood and, using two carbons, typed up an intel summary describing the scope of the market and our encounter with the infiltrator we'd killed. As instructed, I made no mention of the meeting between Wolf Man and the odd quartet, and I gave the reporting agents a high reliability rating of B. Colonel Bennett would know they were John and me, but we went unnamed. In case the information leaked, we didn't want our methods known.

  I left a copy on Bennett's desk in a sealed envelope and marked it commanding officer—eyes only. He wasn't going to be happy about the market, and even less so about the growing NVA force out there in his province.

  The original went in the courier bag Checkman would swap tomorrow morning at the airstrip for one coming in. I took the carbon papers and the second carbon copy to Sergeant Rowdy in the signal shack to teletype immediately to MACV in Pleiku and Saigon and warned him not to discuss it, even with the other enlisted man who had clearance for the crypto van. He gave me a surprised look. I hesitated, said, "Never mind," and ducked into the crypto rig and typed it myself. Afterward I got Miser to follow me out to the barrel in which the detachment burned its classified paper and handed him the sheet. He shook his head in dismay as he read.

  "How are we supposed to look for Mary Jane and opium production with NVA and VC crawling all over the province, stocking up like fucking squirrels for winter?"

  He reached in his leg pocket and pulled out a map that he snapped open. "The province is five thousand square kilometers—five thousand itsy-bitsy one-kilometer grids on this map. You could hide a whole division in a corner of a single grid, much less a bunch of VC dope. Who knows how many NVA are out there. What do we go looking for and where do we look?"

  "Not me, not tonight," I said, feeling the waves of fatigue.

  I set the sheet aflame with my lighter, holding it by an edge until I was satisfied, and burned the two carbons. Before I left, I filled him in on what wasn't in my report.

  "And Ruchevsky didn't want you to write up the meeting in the woods?"

  "No."

  "He doesn't trust it won't leak," Miser said, guessing correctly. "Fucking hell." He sighed. "What have we stepped in?"

  I walked to my quarters. Ruchevsky, naked to the waist, fresh from his shower, was bent over the rucksack we'd brought back. He tossed aside two NVA uniforms and a pair of boots and laid out currency, scraps of writing paper, a notebook, some photos, and two crudely dried cannabis leaves rolled up in a shirt.

  He examined each item with a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

  "I'm sorry I had to do that kid," he said, not looking up.

  "You didn't have much choice."

  "I hate it when they're kids."

  I peered at the materials spread on the bed. Vietnamese loved photographs; the boy had secreted his in the journal. He wasn't supposed to be carrying either. A girl, maybe fifteen, smiled in one photo. Sister, girlfriend? A snap of him, a family gathering... His people would not have the solace of a grave, much less his remains. Perhaps they'd get them back after the war, more likely never. Whether his comrades discovered the body or not, the youth's death wouldn't be reported to his family. The NVA didn't notify soldiers' families about casualties. Hanoi had declared funerals detrimental to morale. Even if his kin learned privately that he'd been killed, they were forbidden to conduct a funeral. Most probably his family wouldn't know he wasn't coming home until the war was long over.

  I picked up a photo of the kid and two North Vietnamese Army buddies. Written on the back: Nam do a di da phat. May God protect us.

  "You think they'll find his body?" I said.

  "I hope not. I don't think his fellow t
ravelers will stop to look for him. On average they lose four or five men from a company on the march south. His mates will leave the rest hut in the morning and trek on. If we're lucky, they'll assume he deserted or hurt himself in the jungle, or ran into a tiger."

  Wanting to get my head off the subject of the dead boy, I pointed to the articles on the bed. "What are you seeing?"

  "They're supposed to surrender all personal letters and papers at the border before stepping onto the trail in Laos. But they're inveterate journal keepers." Ruchevsky flipped open a notebook filled with handwriting. "Checkman did a quick read-through for me."

  He held up a sheet of paper. Checkman's summary fell from his fingers, and Ruchevsky picked it up off the blanket and gave me the highlights.

  "They started out seventy-one days ago, it says. Each got issued twenty kilos of rice for half the journey. They subsisted on two small meals a day, pepped up occasionally with wild game, since they're expected to provision themselves. They boiled ants for condiments, picked wild bananas, gathered bamboo shoots."

  Ruchevsky held the notes closer to his gooseneck lamp.

  "He's lost a lot of weight, so have his buddies. They're jaundiced, fevered. A couple can barely carry their weapons. One of his comrades was hurt during an air raid. They packed the wound with cow dung and dirt to stop it bleeding. They buried him at station fifty-seven." He looked up. "The stops aren't numbered sequentially so we don't know where that was." He referred again to the synopsis. "Another comrade came down with dysentery so bad he couldn't get out of his hammock. They cut a hole in it so he could relieve himself. Made him smoke weed. He succumbed during the night."

  "Can you tell where they were," I said, "where they got the marijuana?"

  "Not really. You know the problem. The trail is a twelve-mile-wide corridor of paths."

  Ruchevsky opened the journal to a place marked with a strip of paper.