“We are taking cover,” said Trin calmly. “This hole is the only protection for three hundred meters on a wide-open beach.”
The swaggering shadow of Bevode Fret’s head and shoulders jutted up in the band of sunlight on the wall of the pit. Growing larger as he approached with dawn at his back.
“Hey,” he yelled. Then, “You hear…”
Broker would never remember what he heard first, the shrill whistle from back in the dunes or the rifle volley. But he could tell that the gunshots were deliberate. Sparse. Aimed fire. He couldn’t tell who was screaming in pain or in panic. But they were all screaming up there.
Nina sprung at the sand wall and clawed her way up until her eyes were level with the top of the pit.
“Soldiers,” she muttered. Then she reared up, head and shoulders into the sunlight, and pumped her bloody fist in ferocious double-time glee. Her voice swelled into a hoarse cheer, “
76
Broker burst out laughing.
There were twenty of them, maybe more. Hard-faced young men in green camouflage tunics. Some carried AK-47s. Others toted deadly customized sniper rifles. They sprinted from the willows in the dunes, spreading out. Field radios crackled as they ran past.
Of their former tormentors, only LaPorte was still on his feet, running down the beach. Broker could see the sunlight catch the water that filled his footprints. Nina’s eyes marked him like iron bolts. She sprang from the pit, shucked her fatigue, and pounded after him.
“Let her go,” said Trin. Then he spoke curtly in Vietnamese to one of the soldiers, who, with two of his comrades, took off after Nina.
Broker kept laughing. Maybe he would never stop. He continued to laugh when he saw Bevode Fret crumpled over, clutching his right knee in both hands. Bevode appeared to be amazed that a bullet could go through his flesh and bone. “Jeez Louise,” he gasped through bloodless jerky lips. “You didn’t have to shoot me.”
Near one half-loaded dinghy, Save the Whales was also down, pushing hard on his thigh with both palms, applying pressure. Blue Shirt lay crumpled, unmoving. Two more of the Europeans made motionless rag piles on the sand. The rest of Cyrus’s men crouched behind the other dinghy with raised hands.
Broker had not been hallucinating. Three helicopters came in a line from the north, dots over the sea. Two fast patrol boats bracketed the
Then Broker saw two, three more soldiers who sat erect in spider holes in the sand a hundred yards up the slope where the dunes petered out. They were almost invisible in sandy folds of netting. Wads of sand-colored cloth hung from their helmets and tunics. They held heavy-barreled, scooped rifles. Snipers.
“Were they there all night?” he asked.
“I’m not sure exactly when they moved into position. The timing got all screwed up,” said Trin.
“These guys aren’t militia,” said Broker.
“Army Special Forces,” said Trin quietly. “The militia’s fine. They were a throw-away plan, for Cyrus to figure out.”
A lean Vietnamese woman in jeans and a military tunic ran from the last knot of soldiers and veered toward them, long black hair streaming. She had a pistol belt strapped on her waist with a red star on the holster.
“Who’s that?” asked Broker.
“A real bitch. The mayor of Dong Ha.”
She started screaming at Trin as soon as she slowed her pace. Just when Broker thought she was going to haul off and slug him, she hugged him instead.
Broker had seen those resilient lava eyes before. He stared as she unbuckled the pistol belt and handed it to Trin. She continued her harangue as Trin cinched on the gun with his torn hands.
“Speak English,” he shot back.
She took a haughty breath. Her thoroughbred nostrils quivered. “You said it would happen today. In daylight. Not
Trin nodded. “They got ahead of me. But it was right you waited. They had to be caught transporting it away.”
“The house in Dong Ha, you were the woman,” said Broker.
“Correct, Mr. Broker, and I’m married to a real bastard who likes to take too many chances. He thinks he’s hot stuff, but he’s just a colonel in the border police.”
Trin smiled tightly. “Phil, meet Mai Linh, my wife.”
With flowering understanding, Broker inclined his head. He couldn’t shake. His hand was a mess. She nodded back. Then Trin conversed with her in rapid Vietnamese. She switched back to English. “You still insist on doing this thing?”
Trin nodded curtly. “Get them all out, except those two.” He pointed first to Bevode, then down the beach. Nina had cornered LaPorte, who stood waist-deep in the ocean. Soldiers closed in on him and motioned to him with their rifles. Trin turned to Mai Linh. “You can’t be here,” he said flatly.
“I don’t approve of this,” she insisted.
“You’re not going to see this. Go.” She turned and jogged toward the beach. She stopped at Blue Shirt’s body and spoke to two soldiers who were starting to drag it up the slope. One of them bent, got up, and sprinted back to where Trin and Broker stood. He handed Trin the gold tiger tooth. Trin closed his hand around it in a bloody fist and glared at Bevode Fret, who squirmed in the sand thirty feet away.
Then he turned and shouted at the snipers who popped from their holes and jogged down to join their comrades at the waterline.
A truck rumbled down through the dunes and most of the soldiers gathered up the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners and loaded them aboard. Trin’s wife joined them. The truck gunned back up the slope and out of sight.
“What was that scene at the house about in Dong Ha?” asked Broker.
“I wanted her personally to see you. She photographed you through the window. To be able to identify you if it came to this.”
“Who was the guy at the house with her that day?”
“Our driver. I’m a cop.” A thin smile crossed his mouth as he aped Pidgin English. “How you say- undercover.”
“You could have let me in on it.”
Trin shook his head. “You might have tipped them off.”
“Cut it kind of fine, didn’t you?”
“You’re the one who kept insisting we had to catch him loading it into the boat.” Then he glanced up and his face could have been a rock on Broker’s beach. In a tight group, Trung Si and the six cripples slogged up the beach toward them. “Don’t interfere, Phil,” Trin admonished.
Bevode Fret was situated between them and the approaching Viet Cong veterans. He began to scramble painfully toward Broker and Trin. He crawled over his whip and left it behind like a molted skin.
“Hey, Broker. Okay, man. I’m your prisoner…”
“Talk to the guy in charge,” said Broker.
Bevode’s eyes were brilliant yellow with pain. They swiveled to Trin. But Trin’s gaze was fixed ahead, behind him. Slowly Bevode turned his head and saw Trung Si pause, balance on his good foot, and use his crutch to scoop up the whip and toss it in the air. He caught the whip by the handle and let it uncoil in a nasty twitch.
“Okay, you caught me. Quit fuckin’ around,” said Bevode.
The cripples filed past Bevode and walked to a stack of loose ingots-the first ones Broker had tossed out. Wobbling on their artificial legs, they reached down and loaded their arms.
