“What do you think?” Broker asked Nina.
She leaned forward and said, “Pardon me,” as she carefully removed Trin’s sunglasses and peered into his eyes. “Black holes for pupils. At night he drinks, during the day he takes speed, bet you anything. We’re taking our lives in our hands, Broker.”
“Nina, will you let us do this damn thing?” growled Broker.
Trin smiled tightly and replaced his glasses. “She should meet my ex-wife. They’d get along.”
“Are we agreed?” asked Broker.
“I don’t like being isolated with a bunch of militia troops, but you’re right. If we telegraph, we’ll have a carnival,” said Nina. “It could work. Cyrus is loading the goods, the militia hits them…calls in the officials.” She squinted at Broker. “It’s your neck. You’ll be alone in Hue City with LaPorte. And you’ll be on that beach with him. Could be hairy if they resist-”
“True,” said Trin, smiling broadly. “The militia are good kids, but not real great shots. Hopefully, they’ll loan some weapons to my men at the home. They’ll be a steady influence.”
Broker was not sure whether to be encouraged or to make his will. He saw spooky old bones from the past get up and walk around in Trin’s smile. But it was so crazy it just might work. “So that’s it,” said Broker. “My end’s getting Cyrus to go for it.”
“One more thing,” said Trin. He reached in his attache case and produced a sheet of paper with a list in crisp, printed English. “CNN, Reuters, the Australian News Service. This afternoon, before we catch the train, you and Nina must visit these offices and get business cards from the reporters.” Trin grinned broadly. “Lay groundwork. Hint that something is going to happen. Then, when Cyrus comes ashore, we get to the nearest telephone and call them in. CNN can afford a helicopter. Maybe they can film it live.” Trin jammed his finger dramatically into the air. “A scoop. Video uplink! That way Cyrus LaPorte will get his face on television in America.” He turned to Nina. “You like it?”
“Aw, God,” groaned Broker.
“You just might have something there,” said Nina, narrowing her eyes. “Put it in plain view.”
“Put you in plain view,” muttered Broker. Nina wrinkled her nose.
“So,” said Trin, replacing his sheet of paper in his case and zipping it shut. “We have a plan. We catch the train at seven tonight; I’ve already called. A car is arranged for us at Quang Tri City, noon tomorrow. Tomorrow night we check the site.”
“You’ve had a busy morning,” said Nina.
“I could be the best tour guide in Vietnam if the government would let me open my own business,” lamented Trin. “But I served the South. I can only moonlight. I can arrange cars and drivers and hotels. I can’t handle visas or tickets in and out of the country. Maybe after we do this-”
“So what do we do until the train leaves?” asked Broker.
“Play tourist, stay surrounded by people,” said Trin. “When our driver gets here we’ll visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, then maybe the Dien Bien Phu Military Museum. This afternoon we visit the press.”
Broker tried to sound upbeat about the thin plan. “If we pull this off, the government might buy us lunch for returning the gold.”
“You mean on top of what you’re planning to steal yourself?” Nina’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
“First let’s find out if there is gold,” said Trin.
“Just a thought,” said Broker.
Trin exploded with laughter. “I think a government official would give you a mathematics lesson. He would point out that you dropped more bombs on Indochina than on the armies of Germany and Japan. That we took a million dead. That we have three hundred thousand of our own missing. And then he would look you straight in the eye and say, ‘Fuck you, Yankee, we won.’”
“I said it was just a thought,” said Broker.
Trin lit a cigarette and stared dubiously at the smoke. “One thing bothers me,” he said.
“Only one?” quipped Broker.
“Seriously,” said Trin. “If ten tons of government gold would have been laying around the northern provinces in nineteen seventy-five I would have known about it. And Cyrus LaPorte is taking a hell of a risk for a hundred million dollars…”
Trin continued. “That’s the world to you or me but he’s a multimillionaire. He doesn’t need it
“He’s hooked on the action. His ancestor was a famous pirate,” said Broker. But he rubbed his chin. Shrewd point. He remembered Jimmy’s sinister comment:
Trin tapped his cigarette nervously in the ashtray and said, “Something is missing.”
58
The hotel faced a traffic circle at the edge of the Old City. The van arrived and, as they snailed through the cramped, smoky medieval alleys, Broker began to see evidence of the strip-malling of Hanoi. Gaudy mini-hotels and satellite dishes sprouted like brick and plaster burdock among the ramshackle twelfth-century architecture. Hanoi’s callused palm had been crossed with silver and hope rode a shiny new motor scooter.
All the bicycles in the world jostled the van with anthill North Vietnamese energy and aggravated Broker’s jet lag. His eyes ached. He wanted to get out of the city. Into the countryside and fresh air. Get the thing moving.
Mr. Hai, the driver, turned with a sturdy grin. “Roger, wilco, wait one,” he said.
Just trying to be friendly.
Broker winced as a woman on a bike scraped the side of the van. He saw his first cop: gray shirt, Kermit green trousers with a red stripe. “The cops don’t carry guns,” he said.
“There are lots of guns, never very far away. Just criticize the government. You’ll see,” said Trin.
Nina sat quietly, meditating on the street scene. She toyed with one of the silver earrings, turned and smiled. “You know. If the people doing it are crazy enough, it just might work,” she said.
They came out of the dense side streets and onto a broad French boulevard on which thousands of people waited patiently in line. Trin pointed at the top of a gray stone pyre that poked through the trees. They parked and waited while Trin ran into an office. He returned with tickets and slipped a guard a U.S. dollar. The guard escorted them to the head of the line. American tourists were allowed to take cuts. Broker averted his eyes from the squints of dour peasant veterans, their shirts clanking with medals, who stood patiently in the sun.
They joined a procession of elementary school kids who wore white shirts, blue trousers and skirts, and had red scarves tied around their necks. The kids walked in orderly ranks minded by their teachers.
“Pioneers,” sniffed Trin. “Communist youth movement.”
The shrine rose in blocky tiers of pharaonic Russian granite. Soldiers in red-trimmed rust-brown uniforms stood mannequin-stiff at attention. White gloves. Gleaming carbines. Huge urns of bonsai flanked the carpeted entrance. Trin smiled tightly. “I’ve never been in here.”
“Me either,” said Broker. The joke died on their faces under the quiet brown gaze of the Young Pioneers. Feeling like someone being initiated into a solemn pagan ritual, Broker walked up the steps, around a corner and shuffled down a ramp into the chilled, dimly lit inner sanctum. Nina squeezed his hand. “This is our first real date,” she whispered reverently. Holding hands, they filed past the glass sarcophagus that held the frail, embalmed cadaver of the little man with the goatee who had stared down the Free World.
Back in the sunlight Trin fidgeted and lit a cigarette in an explosion of nerves. He muttered in Vietnamese. Broker put a hand to his shoulder. “You all right?”
Trin bared his teeth. “We said a lot of things. He said a single thing, ‘Vietnam is one.’” Trin exhaled and recited under his breath. “The mountains can be flattened, the rivers can be drained, but one truth remains: Vietnam is one.” Trin shook his head ruefully. “That guy was focused.”
“I know somebody like that,” said Broker playfully.
