COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

  “Why will you not accept the truth of what your own people have done to you?”

  “I’m sorry Captain Xzi, but I cannot participate in this conversation.”

  Xzi favored him with an understanding look. “Strangely enough, I too am sorry. But Lieutenant, the time for your bravery is at an end. I have given you all the proof you need that we know everything about your mission. It is all the evidence any rational person could want, yet you refuse to accept it. Why?”

  Steven stared past Xzi, and out the small window. He concentrated on the trees in the distance, and cleared his head of all thoughts of the mission.

  “Cooperate with me, Lieutenant, and I will make sure the remainder of your imprisonment will be endurable.”

  Steven drew his eyes from the trees, and looked down at his teacup. It would be so easy to give in, to play the game and tell Xzi the story of their mission, using the same words as Savak and Latham. Nevertheless, he couldn’t do it, not after having beaten the drugs. “By the rules of the Geneva—”

  “No!” Xzi snapped, the gentleness of seconds ago gone. The colonel’s eyes were hard and flat. His voice turned coarse. “For you, and for all the criminals participating in the illegal military action in Vietnam, there is no Geneva Convention. War has never been declared, Lieutenant. Surely you are aware of that.”

  “I have no such knowledge. As a member of the United States Army, I am protected by the rules of the Geneva Convention, governing the treatment of prisoners of war—”

  “Stop!” Xzi’s eyes narrowed into two dark slits. “You are not a prisoner of war, Lieutenant. To your government, you Savak, and Latham are missing in action. No one knows your fate.”

  “I do,” Steven said softly.

  “Do you really, Lieutenant?” Xzi asked in a low, soft voice. “I wonder about you. I wonder why you persist in maintaining this charade. I wonder why you refuse to acknowledge what your own people have done to you. And, while I think on those questions you bring to my mind, I want you to ponder this: Your stay in this camp will be long and arduous, possibly even fatal for you and your friends, unless you come forward and speak truthfully with me.”

  Xzi stopped speaking. He stared hard at Steven, challenging him with a silent gaze for almost a minute before saying, “You may leave.”

  “It’s over?” Steven asked, incredulously.

  “For now.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  After leaving Xzi’s tea party, they took Steven to his solitary hut. An hour later, a helicopter came for Xzi. Steven didn’t see Xzi Tao, or anyone else except for his guard, during the next two weeks.

  The loneliness was the worst part of it. He was thirty feet from Savak, and fifty feet from Latham, but he couldn’t speak to them. Whenever he or the others called out, a guard walked to the mesh window and jabbed a rifle butt at them.

  For the long hours of each day, Steven stood at the window, staring at his friends’ huts. He would see them watching him or each other. Even silent, he was drew comfort that they were alive and close by.

  By the third day following Xzi’s departure, Steven had formed a daily routine. After awakening, he cleaned himself as best he could, using a part of the small ration of water allowed him for drinking. Then he ate the cold rice, chewing it slowly to make it last as long as possible.

  Following his meager breakfast, he exercised quietly. Sit-ups, pushups, knee bends, and squats comprised his hour-long routine. After finishing his physical routine, he watched Savak’s and Latham’s huts.

  Whenever one of his friends saw him, they exchanged waves and thumbs up signs. Their small and shared gestures were enough to help him make it through the day.

  While he stood at the window, watching the workings of the prison camp, and thinking about escape, he tried to puzzle out how he had kept from breaking under Xzi’s drugs.

  The second meal of the day, and the last, came a half hour before darkness. The food was the same as the morning meal—rice. But at night, sometimes, there was meat in it. Steven thought that the meat was monkey, rat, or snake. He didn’t dwell on the meat’s origins; he ate it. He’d lost twenty pounds since his capture. Any more loss would be muscle, a commodity he could ill afford to lose.

  Following dinner, he returned to the window to watch his friends and continue to think and plan. Then, with the full descent of night, he studied the nighttime workings of the prison camp.

  The only variations he allowed in his daily routine were in his sleeping times. He slept at different hours, waking at different times to study the nighttime routines of the duty guards.

  While he thought and planned his eventual escape, he studied the layout of the prison camp with greater and greater intensity. Because of the denseness of the jungle around them, the Vietnamese had used the natural contours of the land. The camp itself was kidney shaped. The huts containing the other American and South Vietnamese prisoners were at the south end of the compound. Steven’s hut and the huts and those of Savak and Latham were on the north end. Steven guessed that before their capture, these had been supply huts.

  The central building was in the narrowest part of the camp, and permitted Steven only a small clear area to see the south end. It also obscured a good deal of the view from the south into the north end of the camp.

  If they got the opportunity to escape, Steven knew they would have to use the narrow center area to their advantage.

  Steven’s solitary routine lasted for fifteen days, ending with Xzi Tao’s return. An hour after the Chinese intelligence officer’s helicopter landed, Steven sat across from Xzi Tao. On Xzi’s desk were two hand enameled and steaming cups of tea.

  Pushing one of the cups toward Steven, Xzi said, “I have given you ample enough time to think about our last meeting. Have you done so?”

  Steven picked up the tea, cupping it between his palms, and sipped the hot and soothing beverage. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I have not changed my mind.”

  “You realize, of course, that you may be condemning your friends to death, do you not? By speaking truthfully, you, Savak, and Latham can spend the duration of the Peoples’ revolution in comfort. I promise you this, Lieutenant. At the first opportunity, I will guarantee all of you an early release.”

  Reading Xzi’s face, Steven believed Xzi was speaking honestly. The man’s eyes, and the set of his mouth told Steven the Chinese colonel was not offering false succor, but a real promise that Steven was certain Xzi would maintain.

  Still, Steven shook his head. “I can’t, Colonel Xzi. I am an officer in the United States Army, and have sworn to never willingly cooperate with my enemy.”

  Xzi didn’t speak immediately; he drank from his cup, lowered it, and exhaled. “Why do you feel the need to spend the rest of your internment like a caged animal?”

  “While I am here, and with or without bars, there will always be a cage around me.”

  “You will die as so many of your people have, from disease, from malnutrition, and hard labor. Please Lieutenant, spare yourself this indignity. Spare your two friends as well.”

  Steven swallowed. He shook his head no.

  Xzi sat back and regarded Steven through lowered eyelids. “If you will not do this for yourself and your friends consider the folly of your being sent here. Is it not humiliating to know that your lives are being spent for nothing? Your own people have failed you, yet you insist on maintaining your false faith. You are a courageous man, Lieutenant, and I feel deep sympathy for you. You may leave now,” he ordered abruptly.

  Steven stood as the door opened and the guard returned. He followed the guard out, slowly negotiating the steps down. Instead of taking him back to his hut, the guard brought him to the one that he and the others had woken in on their first night of captivity.

  He found Savak and Latham inside. Steven embraced them warmly. He gazed silently at them for several long seconds. “Xzi’s leaving soon.”

  Savak turned away. “He’s got everythin
g he wants,” he said, his voice filled with self-loathing.

  Steven shook his head hard. “No, not everything. There’s still a chance to save it.”

  “What chance. There’s not a hell of a lot we can do from here,” Latham said.

  Steven smiled. He reached over and took their hands in his. “Exactly.”

  <><><>

  Xzi didn’t leave as quickly as Steven had expected; instead, and for every day Xzi remained at the prison camp, at exactly nine in the morning, he met with Steven.

  A fresh pot of tea was always on the table. Tidbits of food were on a porcelain platter. Steven always took the tea. He never ate the food.

  After Xzi’s formalities with the tea and food, they would talk. Sometimes Xzi would question Steven about the mission; but for the most part, he would talk about the history of China, of Vietnam, and of America.

  Laced within these talks were oblique references to military movements currently underway by the American command. When Xzi spoke of these maneuvers, he frequently drew from his vast store of historical knowledge and used parallels from World War II to explain the futility of the American side of the fighting.

  As these meetings continued, Steven was almost seduced into thinking he was sitting with an old friend. But each time his resistance faltered, he made himself understand the ploy Xzi was utilizing to weaken his determination.

  At the end of each morning’s session, Steven returned to the prison hut. As soon as the guard left, he would go over every word of his talk with Savak and Latham. After Steven finished his report, they would spend the rest of the day planning their escape.

  On the eighteenth day of Xzi’s return, the morning came and went without Xzi sending for him. He paced the confines of the hut, wondering why. Nothing was happening; nothing had changed in the area, or in the prison camp routine.

  Just after the sun reached its zenith, they came for him. Although he was on the alert for anything unusual, he sensed nothing at the beginning of their meeting.

  Before their tea, Xzi opened a magnificent mahogany case and took out a small white bone handled knife in a hand painted leather scabbard. It was Chinese in design, and Xzi looked at it fondly. “I received this yesterday. It was a present from my wife, for my birthday.”

  “It is magnificent,” Steven said as Xzi put the knife back into the mahogany case and poured their tea.

  After finishing the first cup of tea, Xzi poured a second, and then leaned back in his chair. He steepled his hands, rested his chin on his outstretched fingertips, and stared at Steven for so long that all of Steven’s senses came alert.

  “Lieutenant,” Xzi said at last, “this will be our last talk together. I leave today. I will not be back.”

  Taken aback by the finality of Xzi’s words, he remained silent for several seconds before saying, “I’ll miss our little chats.”

  A half-smile formed on Xzi’s face. “Perhaps we could continue them, away from here and in comfort. Talk to me, Lieutenant. If you tell me about the mission, I will take you and your friends out of here, today.”

  Steven swallowed hard. “No.”

  “I do not understand why you persist in playing this idiotic role, Lieutenant Morrisy. Cooperate, and I will see to it that you and your friends fare well. At the proper time, I will make sure the three of you go home. You have the word of a Chinese officer.”

  Steven took a long drink, before setting it down and saying, “We’ll take care of ourselves.”

  “I find it ironic,” Xzi continued, ignoring Steven’s remark, “that your high command chose you for this mission. Ironic and stupid. Your two friends have given all the information they possess. But not you. I’ve heard of cases of natural resistance to the drugs, but have never come across one myself.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  “You miss my point. The totality of your resistance has forced me to ask myself why, whether in a drugged or normal state of mind, you will not admit to the purpose of your mission or corroborate what your friends have told me. I keep mulling over the possibilities. I continually ask myself what the harm would be.”

  “Maybe it’s just the way I’m made.”

  “No, Lieutenant, it is not the way you are made.” Xzi’s voice turned solemn. “But it is the way you made yourself. So,” Xzi continued, “I must ask you one final time. What was your mission?”

  Steven put down his cup. “I’m sorry Captain, by the rules of the Geneva—”

  “No more,” Xzi Tao said.

  Steven peered at him strangely. He believed Xzi this time. “This really is the last time, isn’t it? No more drugs, no more questions?”

  “Lieutenant, you are the enemy, but you are still a man. I will not degrade you further.”

  Steven was oddly touched by Xzi’s words, and for the first time, volunteered something about himself. “If it helps, I can’t tell you why you failed with me.”

  Xzi Tao smiled. It was an open smile, almost a friendly smile. “But I can. You have a...” he paused, searching for the word. “The sort of memory that allows you to recall events in complete detail, yes?”

  “Photographic.”

  “Yes. Well, you closed off the portion of your mind that concerns your mission, and made yourself misdirect my questions to an area you could answer.”

  “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

  “Anything is possible, Lieutenant. In this instance, what you have done—and what your people could not foresee—has given me the proof of the reality underlying your mission. Most people would believe your refusal to admit what the others have admitted, confirms the others’ statements. However, in this instance, it becomes the opposite. Lieutenant, you know and I know you were supposed to break under our interrogation.”

  Xzi paused in his dialogue to finish his tea. When the cup was empty, and he set it down, he gazed into Steven’s eyes. “Do not blame yourself; rather, the fault lies with your high command. They have not learned how to fight us, and they will never learn.”

  Steven shook his head slowly, not so much in disbelief as in wonder at the workings of the Chinaman’s mind. “They aren’t that stupid.”

  Xzi smiled. “Aren’t they? But that is no longer the point. What becomes important for you, now, is that I leave today. Once I am gone, you and your friends will be back under Captain Lin’s control.

  “Lin will put you in with the other Americans, for now. He will work you without mercy. It is with sadness that I do not think such will be the worst of it. The Soviets will come too, within a week, to question you and Savak and Latham. They will want to verify what I have already reported. They, too, will be merciless.”

  “I will remember that,” Steven said, puzzled as to why Xzi was telling him about the Russians without offering an alternative.

  Xzi Tao stood. “I sent the guard away. I wanted no other ears to hear our conversation. I will get the guard now,” he said, and went to the door.

  Steven watched Xzi disappear through the door. Xzi had never left him alone before. He looked at the knife on Xzi’s desk—Xzi’s birthday present. Should he take the chance? Behind him, he heard Xzi’s voice. Reacting instinctively, Steven reached across the desk, pulled the knife from the case, closed the cover, and slipped it into his waistband.

  “Lieutenant,” Xzi Tao called from the doorway.

  Steven stood, turned, and walked toward Xzi and the waiting guard. When he was three feet from Xzi, the colonel offered Steven a formal bow.

  “Goodbye Lieutenant Morrisy. I truly hope you survive this camp, and will one day see your home again.”

  <><><>

  “You’re sure he’s going for good?” Savak asked, after Steven buried Xzi’s knife in the corner of the hut, and the three friends sat together, speaking in low voices.

  “He’s leaving today. He also warned me we can expect to go through the whole damn thing again in about a week, with the soviets.”

  Latham glanced at the spot where Steven h
ad buried the knife. “I’ll kill myself first.”

  Steven’s smile was hard. “You won’t have to. We won’t be here. Xzi also told me Lin is planning to move us to the other compound.”

  Savak looked from Latham to Steven. “Which means what?”

  “Once we’re in with the other prisoners, we’re finished,” Steven stated in a tone barring any argument. “I’ve watched the camp routine for a month. I’ve charted out all the watch shifts, day and night. Lin keeps a dozen men on guard duty over the regular prison huts. He keeps them fresh by changing the shift every three hours. There’s no way to take them by surprise.”

  “Then we have to do it on the way there,” Latham said, seeing what Steven was leading up to.

  “We’ll never make it,” Savak said. “Unless...”

  Steven smiled. “Exactly, I think that’s just what Lin will do. He likes using fear tactics. He’ll come for us during the night.”

  “What about the fifties in the tower?” Latham asked.

  Savak looked out the window, and at the two guards manning the tower’s fifty-millimeter machine guns. “We’ll have to find a way to do it without their seeing us.”

  “Chuck, if we can get out, can you get us back to Laos?” Steven asked.

  This time it was Latham’s turn to smile. “Get us out. I’ll get us home.”

  <><><>

  Xzi’s copter landed late in the afternoon, just after the other prisoners returned from the paddies.

  Steven had spent every minute since leaving Xzi, waiting for the guards to burst into the hut, looking for the knife. As the afternoon wore on, and they were left alone, Steven began to believe Xzi had packed away the knife’s case without looking inside.

  As he watched the proceedings for Xzi’s departure, it was with mixed feelings. Steven knew, as soon as the copter took off, they would be at Lin’s mercy. Two of them had already died by the Vietnamese captain’s hands; the possibility they would all die was strong.

  “Shit! They’re coming this way,” Savak called. Steven left the window he was using, and joined Savak and Latham.