cross-country. Broker didn’t like it. The silence. Lola had been gagged again. Her two guards walled her off. Trin trod at the back of the tiny column with the rifle and the pistol.
“What the fuck’s going on with him?” whispered Nina.
“I don’t know. Are you strong enough to run if you have to?” asked Broker.
He could feel her wince in the dark. “That bad?” she said.
“It’s possible,” said Broker. He shifted the pack to ease the straps cutting into his shoulders.
The man hobbling behind them muttered something. Broker heard his machete blade zing casually against some brush. The sound made the tiny hairs alert on his neck. Under guard, along with Lola.
He wondered if Trin had decided to fuck a bunch of white people. Lure Cyrus in. And then dump all the hon- keys in one hole. Broker’s mind raced. Christ,
Paranoia gamboled from the stunted shadowy trees and brush and joined the line of march. They hobbled past familiar landmarks. The abandoned hamlet and then the Spartan ranks of North Vietnamese headstones. Not far ahead they heard the waves breaking on the sand.
Communication was now exclusively in Vietnamese.
Machetes and wickedly curved rice sickles very much in evidence, the vets indicated that they should stop and rest in the cover of the three old round graves on the bluff above the cove. The packs were opened and food and water were doled out.
Trin stayed aloof. Not speaking. A shadow in the moonlight, he’d handed off the rifle to one of the vets and kept the pistol handy.
“It’s down there?” asked Nina.
“About a hundred and fifty yards,” said Broker.
“Maybe we shouldn’t get spooked. It could work,” said Nina, speaking with her mouth full. They scooped rice and fish from banana leaves with greasy fingers and washed it down with bottled water. Fuel. Their eyes had totally adjusted to the dark. The moon cast the surrounding terrain in silver relief.
“If he puts the militia up here, they have a perfect field of fire down that beach.” Her voice was absent, practical.
“Yeah,” said Broker. “But will we be up on the bluff here or down on that beach when the shooting starts?” He focused on Trin’s shadow. He’d freed Lola’s hands. And returned her purse. Now they were walking together down to the beach.
The man with the rifle hobbled over to them and casually tapped the muzzle against Broker’s knee.
“Watch it,” said Broker.
“Yes,” said the man politely, his smile delineated in the moonlight. Then he chided them in Vietnamese, “Ngu. Ngu.” For emphasis, he transferred the rifle to one hand and reclined his cheek in the palm of the other. “Ngu.”
Broker nodded. Exhaustion took precedence over anxiety. “Whatever happens, we need some rest.”
As the man with the rifle stood guard or watch over them-or both-they squirmed, getting comfortable in the warm sand at the base of the old cement wall.
“How’re you making out?” he asked.
“I’m hurting some,” she said frankly, “and I still have those downers in my veins, but I can hack it.”
Anger snaked in his chest. “I’ve done everything…wrong,” he blurted.
“Shhh,” she said, touching her finger to his dry lips.
He threw his arm protectively around her and she curled into his chest. Physical necessity almost immediately plunged them into a deep sleep…
Beside a grave, on the pirate beach, in the graveyard of the iron elephants.
71
They woke up to a damp white world of sand and fog and the tang of burning wood. The vets had a cookfire going. A larger fire crackled on the beach. No one seemed particularly concerned about concealing themselves.
Nina squinted and made a face. “Doesn’t look like our numbers have increased during the night.”
Broker busied himself with pouring sand from his filthy socks. He put his busted-up tennis shoes back on and laced them tightly. Amazingly, the pain in his thumb had diminished since Trung Si had applied his gunk.
Trin was nowhere in sight.
Through his stiffness, Broker smelled the blessing of brewing coffee. They were fed steamed rice and dirty glasses of coffee. The coffee was good. Nothing else was.
They sat and shared a cigarette in the cover of the willows, ragamuffins behind a clean sand dune.
Where was the militia?
Somewhere, away from their beach, there were governments and courts of law and the police. All of which Broker had avoided in order to deal directly with Nguyen Van Trin. On the beach there was only their pounding hearts, sweat, the itch of sand fleas, and the stink of betrayal. A fiery salmon sky streaked with lavender started to burn through the mist.
Two hundred yards away they could now see Lola LaPorte wander up and down the beach, picking up driftwood and adding it to the fire. A short compact figure walked the water’s edge and that was Trin. Gradually the mist lifted and then the sun broke the line of the sea like the blazing helmet of an approaching giant. They could see the boat, a white blur on the horizon.
“The
“Subtract Virgil and he could still have a dozen guys counting Bevode,” speculated Broker.
“They drove me down from Hanoi in the Mercedes and I was blitzed. Never saw more than two or three at a time,” said Nina.
“You know,” said Broker, glancing around, “we’re real exposed out here. Where the hell is the militia?”
“I’m not a big fan of AK-47s, but we could use a couple dozen about now,” said Nina, gnawing her cracked lip.
“I don’t think we should stick around to find out.” Broker stubbed out his cigarette and dusted sand from his palms. They stood up and stretched. The silent, walnut-faced cripple with the rifle motioned them toward the beach. Trin stood a hundred yards away. Lola was closer.
She looked up, smiled, and called out, “Good morning, Vietnam.” It was written across his chest.
“Trin’s out of pistol range. I think I can get that rifle. Then we head for the trees. Fast,” said Broker under his breath to Nina.
“Just say when.”
Because Lola had spoken, Broker steered toward her. She watched him approach, hands on her hips, with the wind in her hair, like a tarnished stainless-steel madonna. She had marvelous recuperative powers. The spot under her right eye where he’d hit her was hardly bruised.
Broker stopped ten feet from her. Nina lagged a little behind. The guard labored to keep up on his artificial leg. He came up on Broker’s left side. The rifle hung casually in his hands at arm’s length. Not real alert, this guy.
Lola folded her arms and smiled. “Well, how do you like the big time, Minnesota?” she said with a confident edge to her voice.
“You know, I almost trusted you,” said Broker.
“You didn’t really hope to take down Cyrus and Bevode…with these scarecrows? And
“So now what?” said Broker, edging slightly toward the man with the rifle.
She smiled indulgently. “We’re really not bad people once you get to know us. You just caught us in an
