by Don Winslow
Quoc saw it and ordered a dozen men to form a screening line to their left to try to slow up the French advance and buy enough time to get the weapons into the trees. The porters were amazingly disciplined, not pausing to shoot, or drop to the ground, or even duck. They just kept shouldering their loads and moving ahead at a slow trot.
Signavi saw what they were doing, directed fire on them, and several of the porters dropped. The others strained to carry the weight, and a couple of Viet Minh lowered their rifles and took their places on the bamboo poles.
Two Legionnaires fell as the screening line came into action, and Nicholai saw Signavi direct a squad to his left, toward the copse, to cut off the Viet Minh. If the French got into the trees first, it was over.
He shouted to Solange, “Can you run?”
She nodded.
They took off, the saw grass slicing their faces and chests as they ran toward the copse, angling off to the left to block the French. Several Viet Minh joined them, and they ran through the grass as bullets zipped around their heads. One man dropped, and then another, and then it was as if they had disturbed an angry nest of hornets and the air buzzed around them.
But most of them made it to a tiny rise above a ripple of ground, and from there they could lay down fire on the flanking Legionnaires, forcing them to stop, drop to the ground, and engage in a firefight.
Behind him, the porters moved toward the trees.
Nicholai looked back to the dike and saw Signavi talk into a radio attached to the backpack of one of his soldiers.
No, Nicholai thought, please no.
He raised his rifle, sighted in, took a deep breath, and fired. The bullet hit Signavi in the high spine, and he clutched at his back and then fell.
But it was too late.
Only a minute later, Nicholai heard the plane engine, and then he saw it, but this time it didn’t drop low to strafe, but stayed high until it was directly above the rectangle of grass, and then it dropped its load.
Napalm.
The grass caught fire immediately, and a wall of flame rolled toward them.
Men ignited like torches and spun madly around, shrieking. Others seemed to simply melt.
Nicholai took Solange’s hand and ran.
The wave of flame rolled behind them like a fiery red tsunami from a nightmare. Nicholai felt it scorch his back and singe his hair as the intense heat seemed to suck the air from his lungs.
He pushed Solange into the trees.
Quoc was thirty yards ahead of them, waving them forward.
But leaves above him were inexplicably dropping. Leaves don’t fall in the springtime, Nicholai thought weirdly, then he saw that bullets were clipping them off the branches and at the far end of the copse he saw Vietnamese militia coming toward them.
We are dead stones, he thought.
The flames were fast coming up behind, the French rapidly working their way to the left, and the militia was in front and on the right. If we run to the front, right or left, Nicholai saw, we will only run straight into the guns. If we stay here, we will burn.
Surviving was not an option.
They had only a choice of death.
Quoc waved violently. “Here! Here!”
Nicholai looked more closely and saw a Viet Minh crouch at Quoc’s feet and then —
— disappear.
Into the earth.
Tunnels, he thought.
Our motherland will swallow us.
Sure enough, when he reached the middle of the copse, Nicholai saw small square openings. The Viet Minh were taking the rocket launchers out of the crates and handing them down the tunnel entrances.
“Come on,” Quoc said, pointing to the little square hole at his feet.
It was narrow.
Solange could squeeze through it, maybe Nicholai could.
“You first,” he said.
She balked. “I told you — I’m claustrophobic. I can’t.”
“You have to.”
He helped Solange get down into the square hole and watched as she wiggled her shoulder and made her way down. Then he looked forward to the far end of the copse. He could make out individual soldiers. They were advancing too quickly for the Viet Minh to get the rest of the weapons down the tunnel. Even if they did, they wouldn’t have time to cover up the entrances again, or escape in what could only be a vast and complicated maze of tunnels.
They would be trapped and caught.
Solange with them.
Quoc misapprehended his hesitation. “You are also afraid of tight spaces?”
Nicholai smiled, thinking of his blissful days exploring caves with his Japanese friends. “No.”
He pointed toward the advancing troops. “We need more time.”
“Yes.”
“Take care of her,” Nicholai said. “She isn’t one of your ‘ten.’ ”
“You have my word.”
Quoc quickly chose five of his best men and Nicholai went with them toward the edge of the copse. The gunfire increased, branches dropped on them, men fell. When they got to the edge of the trees, one of the Viet Minh bent over and opened a square of earth.
Then they lay down and started to fire across the open ground.
Nicholai felt a body fall beside him, then he was face-to-face with the blazing green eyes of angry Solange. “I said I wasn’t leaving without you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever do that again.”
She laid the stock of the machine pistol against her cheek and started shooting.
Diamond flattened himself onto the ground and peered through the grass at the copse of trees.
Nicholai Hel was trapped between the approaching flames and the rifles.
He hoped Hel chose the fire.
A harsh roar came up as the fire hit the trees.
Nicholai turned and saw them go, the flames climbing up the trunks and then igniting in the leafy branches with a hideous whoosh.
A Viet Minh ran from the center of the trees and signaled.
The weapons were in the tunnels.
“Time to disappear,” Nicholai said.
They crawled back to the tunnel entrance.
Solange balked, but Nicholai helped her and she squeezed down. When she was clear, Nicholai lowered himself into the hole, his wide shoulders snug against the entrance. It was a very tight fit, and for a few seconds he thought he might not make it at all. But his caving experience had taught him how to narrow his shoulders, and he felt Solange tug at his legs, and then he slid down the entrance shaft.
Four Viet Minh came behind them, and the last one pulled the tunnel entrance shut behind him. Another one gave his life to replace the camouflage on top.
Nicholai found himself in a small oval chamber that opened to a narrow horizontal shaft, just high enough to crawl into on all fours. Lanterns, apparently run off a generator, were hung every twenty feet, and although the light was dim they could see to move. He eased Solange into the next tunnel and crawled behind her.
A minute later, Nicholai heard the flames erupt above them.
It would have been a bad death.
“Are you all right?” he asked Solange.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
He paused, then followed Solange into the next chamber.
This one was larger, high enough to stand up in. Three horizontal shafts came off it in different directions. They rested for a moment, then one of the Viet Minh led them into another shaft, reached behind him, and ripped a plug from a cable, plunging the tunnels behind them into darkness.
Diamond cursed when the tunnel went black.
He had found the hastily camouflaged entrance and led several of the Vietnamese down the shaft into the first chamber. They crawled until they came to the chamber with the three shafts, then split up. Diamond took one of the men with him and was sure that he had the right tunnel as he could see recent scrape marks in the dirt below and could swear he heard the sound of movement,
like rodents, ahead of him.
He was on the track and then darkness hit.
Fighting off a momentary panic, he felt for the flashlight on his belt, turned it on, and shone it in front of him. The light in his left hand, his.45 in his right, he crawled forward.
They crawled until they came to what seemed to be a dead end. But another shaft ran sharply to the right, and they took it, and then repeated this process of seeming dead ends until this maze zigzagged at least three hundred yards and Nicholai roughly reckoned that they must be literally out of the woods. They came to a chamber that had a vertical shaft and they descended a wooden ladder another twenty feet down to a much larger chamber.
“Your home for the next couple of days,” Quoc said.
It was an underground barracks of sorts. Wooden-framed bunk beds lined the walls, rudely constructed wooden chairs were placed about, some medical supplies, bottles of water, and canned foods were neatly stacked and organized. There was even a small shelf of books, and relatively fresh air was being pumped from a narrow ventilator shaft.
“It’s quite good,” Nicholai said, “but I prefer the Continental.”
“I’m sure Mancini would be pleased to welcome you,” Quoc answered. “Shall I call for a reservation?”
“That’s all right.”
“Or the Beijing Hotel?”
“I’m growing fonder of this establishment by the second,” Nicholai said, “assuming, of course, that the price is reasonable.”
“Your bill has already been taken care of,” Quoc said.
“It’s a small city down here,” Nicholai said. “How far does this complex go?”
“Now?” Quoc said, “Almost all the way to the outreaches of Saigon. Eventually, all the way to the suburbs.”
“And then you pop out of the ground with rocket launchers and take the city,” Nicholai said.
“When the time is right,” Quoc said, “hopefully before the Americans blunder in. You will stay down here for a few days, then we will get you out, I think through Cambodia, if that suits you.”
“That will be fine,” Solange said.
She took a bottle of water, sipped from it, and handed it to Nicholai.
“We will leave you alone,” Ai Quoc said.
He and his men left the chamber to see to the rocket launchers.
Diamond crawled to a dead end and realized that he must have chosen one of the false tunnels. They were clever, these Communist rats. He started to back out, then paused and felt a small waft of air. He shone the flashlight to his right, saw the concealed shaft, and headed into it.
Soon he came to another dead end.
Damn these bastards to hell, he thought.
Then he saw the next shaft.
He was halfway through the maze of zigzags when he heard a dull throb above him.
Nicholai looked up.
So did Solange.
They stared at the ceiling as if they actually thought that they could see what they were hearing.
A low-pitched hum and then a whining sound, and then the bombs hit.
The bombers came in directly over the tunnel complex and laid their ordnance in a spread pattern over a rectangle of a thousand square yards.
The chamber shook.
Dirt fell from the ceiling.
It all held for a moment and then there was a horrific bass thud and the bunk beds came down, and the neat stacks of supplies, and the walls quivered and more dirt came down and then the lights went out.
Nicholai heard Solange moan, “Mon dieu, mon dieu.”
He reached for her hand, found it, and pulled her forward, his mind reconstructing the chamber and locating the shaft. He found it with his hand, reached up for the rungs, and pulled her behind him.
“We have to get up!” he yelled, and then he felt her find her feet and they climbed up the ladder to the next chamber. They had to get up and out quickly or they would be buried alive.
A slow, suffocating death in the dark.
“Nicholai …”
“We’re all right,” he said. “We’re all right. Stay with me.”
He pulled her up into the next chamber. It was pitch dark now, a tight cloying blackness as he forced himself to remember the layout. It was difficult in the noise of the explosions above them, the falling dirt, the concussive force of the blasts.
You have been here many times before, he told himself, in many caves, in tighter spots than this, so think. He found the tunnel entrance first with his mind and then with his hands. Then he took off his shirt, tied one sleeve to his belt and the other to Solange’s.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re going to be fine.”
He led them into the entrance and they started back.
Diamond spat the dirt out of his mouth and rubbed it from his eyes.
God damn the Frogs, he thought. Didn’t they know he was down here? Or did they know and didn’t care?
“Come on,” he said to the soldier behind him.
There was no answer.
The man was dead.
He plunged ahead.
The tunnel was fast coming in around them as Nicholai pulled Solange along. They came to one false wall after another, but Nicholai had the route firmly in his head and he crawled quickly, encouraging Solange all the way.
“Almost there.”
“That’s good.”
“Oh, that’s very good.”
Diamond heard voices.
Speaking French.
He stopped, lay flat, and held the pistol out in front of him.
Nicholai’s proximity sense warned him.
Someone was around the sharp right angle in front of them.
He stopped.
“What—”
“Ssshh.”
A bomb blast rattled the walls. Dirt slid, narrowing the tunnel. His ears ringing, Nicholai couldn’t hear. He slid forward on his stomach, and then a muzzle flash lit the tunnel and he saw Diamond.
Diamond crawled forward, shooting in front of him.
Nicholai reached his right hand as far as it would go, clutched at the air, and grabbed Diamond’s wrist. “Solange, your knife!”
Diamond ripped his arm backward and freed his hand.
He lowered the pistol again, toward Nicholai’s face.
Nicholai felt the powder blast burn his cheek.
He reached again in the dark, lunging out with a punch. “Your knife!”
Solange coiled as much as she could in the narrowing confine of the tunnel. She pushed out with her long legs and squeezed past Nicholai, her knife in front of her.
Diamond pulled the trigger.
The muzzle flash blinded Nicholai. He crawled past Solange, and heard Diamond crawling away. He started to go after him, but then he heard Solange moan.
Diamond would have to wait.
He stopped and turned to Solange.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
But then he felt the warm stickiness of her blood.
She was bleeding badly from the side. He couldn’t see in the stygian darkness but he could feel.
So could she. “Please don’t let me die down here.”
“I won’t let you die anywhere,” he said.
Another blast rocked the tunnel. Dirt fell into their faces, their eyes, their noses, their mouths. He felt for her face, brushed the dirt away, then turned onto his back and started to pull himself along the tunnel shaft, pulling her behind him.
It was excruciatingly slow and he knew she was losing blood fast. The tunnel was collapsing, they were half buried, and he could only feel his way along, turn his head, and try to smell the way to open air.
He had to do it. He couldn’t let her die.
After an eternity he turned, saw a faint beam of sunlight, and sensed a fleeting breath of fresh air. He pulled until they reached the bottom of the tunnel entrance.
“We’re there,” he gasped.
Now he clawed his way up the shaft with one hand and pul
led her with the other. He climbed and fell four times before his hand gripped the surface with enough purchase to pull her weight up behind him.
He collapsed on the surface and pulled her into his arms.
“We’re here, my love,” he said. “We made it.”
But Solange was still.
Limp and lifeless in his arms. He wiped a strand of her golden hair from her green eyes, and closed them.
Then the next bomb hit.
164
HE AWOKE in a bed.
Clean, crisp sheets tight around his legs.
Haverford looked down at him.
“Good morning.”
“Where …”
“You’re in a Saigon hospital,” Haverford said. “A Foreign Legion patrol found you staggering around out in the delta. You were severely concussed, had some second-degree burns, shrapnel wounds, and three broken ribs.”
“Solange?”
“I’m sorry,” Haverford said.
Then Nicholai remembered.
A deep sorrow came over him.
“Why aren’t I in a cell?” he asked, looking around the room. It was impossibly white and clean.
“Ah,” Haverford said. “Your name is René Dazin. You’re a French merchant that the Viet Minh kidnapped. You were very lucky that the bombing raid happened to set you free, my friend, the same bombing raid that killed Michel Guibert.”
“Who made up that story?”
“I did, of course,” Haverford said. “But you might want to get out of the country as soon as you can walk.”
“Which should be when?”
“Might be another month or so,” Haverford answered. “I have a clean passport for you. You recuperate, then you disappear.”
Nicholai nodded, and even that small move made his head throb. But he was heartened that Haverford thought he needed the passport, even though he had Voroshenin’s multiple identities safely stashed with De Lhandes. The American agent, Nicholai thought, will believe he has me on a leash, and he will be wrong. Then he asked, “Diamond?”
“He made it out,” Haverford said. “Rats usually do.”
“Good,” Nicholai answered, relieved that Diamond hadn’t been killed by an impersonal bomb. He would visit Diamond personally and hold him to account. Not only for himself, but for Solange.
