Department of Student Loans, Kidnap & Ransom

by Christian Hale

  *****

  The Executioner had almost finished his video chat with Marv, having taken down all the instructions for the upcoming training of the Vietnamese contractors. Tomorrow was to be the first of many long and boring work days in Ho Chi Minh City. That was all settled. But he still had one thing that he needed to tell Marv.

  “Marv, before we finish up, I want to run something by you.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “I’m tracking a runner. He has a standard student debt load. Nothing remarkable there. But he has cash reserves that may go over ten million.”

  “Now that’s remarkable,” observed Marv. “Why doesn’t he just pay back his defaulted loans and get on a plane to the good old USA?”

  “The money is dirty and he can’t step foot in the United States.”

  “OK,” said Marv, “now what is the exact problem?”

  “I’m getting tips on his location. 10% of ten million for the tipper is a decent payday. But the tips are coming from someone in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes.”

  “That’s unusual. The Treasury Department is usually pretty tight – no leaks. I’ll do some checking. What is the runner’s name?”

  “Michael Larson. He goes by ‘Mick.’ Former army – but he doesn’t have any skills that would make him dangerous. He was living in Mexico and now he’s in Indonesia.”

  “Right. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it for now.”

  “OK, enjoy Vietnam,” said Marv. “Have you stopped by Rebecca’s mom’s place? She said that you were bringing a present to the grandma and the kids for her.”

  “Yeah, I’m on my way there now.”

  “OK, thanks for that. If you have any problems with the training sessions, let me know.”

  The Executioner had become increasingly uncomfortable with the ease at which he was receiving tips, but he didn’t think that Marv would come up with anything through his government contacts. Putting the thought aside, he decided that he couldn’t sit in his bland room any longer.

  Leaving his hotel, The Executioner was not in hunting mode, as he had no interest in finding runners while in Ho Chi Minh City. This allowed him to travel and live as he wanted, not how he had to in order to blend in with the American expats. So today, instead of commuting cheaply with the locals, he was taking a long and expensive taxi ride to an outer district of what the driver preferred to call Saigon. The taxi moved briskly forward, past the crammed buses that stopped on every block.

  Seeing on his phone that he was almost at his destination, The Executioner exited his taxi and took to the streets. He texted ahead, warning of his impending arrival. Walking down a quiet residential lane, his phone pointed towards an unassuming but comfortable-looking house. As he approached the gate, two little Vietnamese girls skipped up to the other side, shyly smiling.

  The older girl spoke first, blurting out “Hello! Welcome to our home. My name is Annie and I am ten years old. This is my sister, and her name is Rose. She is eight years old. How old are you?”

  “Really old. I’m almost four times older than you,” he answered, making sure to fully enunciate every word.

  “Are you older than our mother?” asked Annie, as Rose did her best to hide behind her sister.

  “Rebecca? I don’t know. How old is your mother?”

  The two sisters whispered to each other in Vietnamese and then giggled.

  “Our mother is young and beautiful. She is 33 years old.”

  The girls turned to each other, spoke in Vietnamese and giggled again. The Executioner had no idea why.

  “Well, I’m a few years older than your mother,” commented The Executioner.

  The girls whispered to each other in Vietnamese again.

  “Annie and Rose…are those your real names? Or are they your western names like how your mother’s name in America is Rebecca?”

  “Our mother’s Vietnamese name is Jenny,” replied Annie, in what she assumed was a clear and helpfully answer.

  “What are you and your sister’s Vietnamese names?”

  “I am Annie and she is Rose.”

  “But do you have other Vietnamese names also?”

  “Those are Vietnamese names,” stated Annie in a slightly bemused manner.

  “OK,” said The Executioner, admitting defeat on the issue of the ethnic authenticity of the girls’ names.

  “Do you know Marvin also?” asked Annie, moving on to the next phase of the interrogation.

  “Yes, I work for him.”

  “We don’t like him,” said Annie, in a matter of fact tone.

  “Nobody likes Marvin,” said The Executioner, in the same tone of voice.

  Again the sisters giggled.

  “Please, come into our house. Would you like to meet our grandmother?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Our grandmother does not speak English.”

  “I know. I sent messages to your grandmother using the translator app on my phone. How about Rose? Does Rose speak English?”

  Rose giggled but said nothing. Annie, speaking for her little sister, said “Yes she can. In our school we must speak English in class.”

  “Perfect, then you two are my translators.”

  Later, after being force-fed several extra servings of Rebecca’s mother’s home cooking, The Executioner was again targeted for another question and answer session by the sisters. The two girls had clearly not come close to exhausting their repertoire of English vocabulary.

  “Mrs. Anh, your granddaughters speak perfect English,” said The Executioner.

  Annie quickly had an exchange with her grandmother in Vietnamese and then turned to The Executioner and said “She says that we are very good students, and that she is glad that Americans talk to us so that we can practice our English.”

  “You and Rose get to talk to lots of Americans? In Saigon?”

  “No. We talk to Americans online. We talk to girls who are our age. Our school helps us find American girls to talk to. But also, we talk to old people.”

  “Old people, like my age?”

  Giggling as if it was her default response, Annie said “No. Old American people who are older than even our grandmother. They have free time, and I think that they are lonely. Also, old Americans are more educated, and my teacher at school says we should speak like them, not like young people.”

  “Well, Annie, I think you speak excellent English. But what about your sister?”

  Rose hid her face in her hands, and then peeked out from behind her fingers to look at The Executioner.

  “She is reticent,” said Annie, helpfully.

  “Reticent? That is a word that Americans don’t say very often. I would say that she is shy.”

  “I’m not shy,” said Rose quietly, breaking her silence.

  “OK, Rose, can you tell your grandmother something for me in Vietnamese?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Can you tell her that I brought a present from your mother?”

  The Executioner reached into his bag and pulled out the wooden box that Rebecca had given him in Los Angeles. He handed it to Mrs. Anh, having no idea what was inside.

  Mrs. Anh allowed her granddaughters to open the box, revealing three sets of Mexican Catholic prayer candles, embedded in glass containers decorated alternately with Jesus and the Virgin of Guadalupe. They were like the candles that The Executioner recognized from Latino corner markets, but these were of artisan quality.

  The girls, in a flurry of cheery debate, chose their own set from the box.

  “What do you call these in English?” asked Annie.

  “Candles.”

  “I know that! What kind of candles? Do these have a special name?”

  “In Spanish they probably have a special name. But I just call them prayer candles,” answered The Executioner, who was not the type to stop every conversation to search online for the correct terminology.


  Mrs. Anh spoke briefly into her phone and then interrupted the youngsters. She handed the phone to The Executioner. On the left of the screen was Vietnamese text, on the right was the translation: ‘Rebecca was not very religious until she moved to California. Now she goes to mass at a church in Los Angeles. She goes there to make friends with the Vietnamese women and to hear her own language. Now she sends religious gifts. She wants her daughters to be observant.’

  Mrs. Anh pulled Rose up on to her lap and kissed her cheek.

  Mrs. Anh then spoke to Annie and Rose in Vietnamese. Annie was quick with the translation.

  “We will show you your room.”

  “Oh, I…. I already have a room at a hotel. And my baggage is at the hotel.”

  Another rapid-fire Vietnamese exchange flew between grandmother and granddaughter. Then Annie announced, with no small amount of concern, “It is too late at night and it is dangerous outside. You must stay here tonight.”

  It was only 7pm and Saigon’s taxi services were perfectly safe, as was the neighborhood. The Executioner knew this as well as his hosts did. But he found the idea of staying for the night far more appealing than the thought of returning to his depressing and impersonal hotel.

  The Executioner’s agreement to this arrangement was met with enthusiastic approval by the sisters.

  Later that hour, as Mrs. Anh walked him to a neighborhood supermarket to fetch a toothbrush and deodorant, The Executioner was briefly interrogated (‘How old? Married? Why not?’). He was then given the family’s full story. What at home in Illinois would take a newcomer years to learn, was here given in less than 30 minutes. He was told that Rebecca had married a Chinese businessman and moved to Indonesia where her husband was transferred for work. The relationship eventually went bad. Before divorce was even mentioned, Rebecca left Indonesia with her young daughters. The husband never bothered to contact them, nor did he send any money. This led to a dire situation, as Rebecca had no career and Mrs. Anh was a widow who had not worked in years. It was only the four of them: three generations of women with no income.

  But, as Mrs. Anh said via her translation app, this was where Marv came into the picture. Divorced women were not considered undesirable by most Americans. But this particular American wasn’t interested in somebody else’s kids, as the marriage broker service’s website helpfully noted besides Marv’s profile picture. So, after chatting online regularly and then briefly meeting in Saigon, Marv married Rebecca and returned with her to Los Angeles. Mrs. Anh had initially hoped that Annie and Rose would go to America as well, a country where being half-Chinese wasn’t a problem like it had been recently in Vietnam.

  Mrs. Anh clearly did not like Marv, and she did little to hide that fact. But he had fully committed to the financial promises that he made. He paid off the remainder of the house loan, and he sent money regularly for living expenses, including the girls’ private school fees.

  The Executioner didn’t particularly care for Marv, but he knew far more about him than Mrs. Anh did. He wasn’t sure why she had such dislike for Marv. His best guess was that Marv had accepted her daughter, but rejected her granddaughters. The Executioner thought about it further, wondering how anybody could meet Annie and Rose, and then turn their back on them.