for late-night card games and early-morning Bloody Marys.
Besides, Haverford liked the Vietnamese. He loved their kind demeanor, respected their long struggle for independence, admired how they had adopted the best of Western culture and adapted the worst.
Still, he hoped to spend as little time as possible there, praying that the “cold warriors” back in Washington would not step into the shoes of the French. He had fought in Vietnam before, and he didn’t want to fight there ever again.
Now he waited for Nicholai Hel, hoping that he would arrive with the spring rains.
101
NICHOLAI TOOK a separate pedicab down to the river, got off a half mile from where the rafts were docked, and walked the rest of the way.
Tasser shone a bright lamp on him as he approached.
“That you, Mike?”
“And if it wasn’t?” Nicholai stepped onto the raft. “A truck will be pulling up anytime now. We’ll transfer the cargo.”
“Not a minute too soon for me,” Tasser said. “These fucking Hmong give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“What will you do now?”
“Back to the high mountains,” Tasser answered. “See if any more crazy Brits, Yanks, or Frogs want to climb to the top of the world. Look for me in the photos – I’ll be the guy they don’t name.”
A pair of headlights came down the road. Tasser’s men offloaded the cargo onto the shore. Nicholai shook Tasser’s hand. “Thank you for everything. It’s been a genuine pleasure.”
“Same here.”
Tasser gathered his crew and disappeared into the darkness.
Nicholai walked toward the truck.
Bay Vien sat in the front passenger seat.
102
THE TRUCK ROLLED OUT of town in the morning, Nicholai in the front seat beside Bay Vien.
“Where are we going?” Nicholai asked.
Bay pointed east, across the river, up toward the mountains.
“Why?”
“You ask too many questions,” Bay answered, sucking on a cigarette. He was irritable, unused to the early hour and the jostling of the truck. Besides, the Binh Xuyen boss wasn’t thrilled that Nicholai insisted on coming along with the weapons instead of just meeting him in Saigon.
“Until I get my money,” Nicholai had said, “I stay with my merchandise.”
“I don’t pay,” Bay answered, “until your merchandise is safely delivered.”
“So I guess you’re stuck with me.”
Now Nicholai lit a cigarette of his own and sat back, enjoying the relative cool of the early morning and the streaking red shafts of daylight coming over the hills. Young boys were already herding buffalo down to the river for a drink and a bath, and women were collecting buckets of the muddy water to bring back to their village.
They waited twenty minutes for the ferry to return from the other side of the river, then the heavy truck carefully drove onto the floating platform. Thick ropes on the ferry ran through large eyebolts and then out to the harnesses of elephants, one on each side. A young Lao mahout kicked his elephant in the flank and the two animals started across the river, pulling the ferry along with them.
The ferry came to a shuddering halt on the opposite bank. Two large sheets of corrugated tin were thrown down for traction, and the truck rumbled up the slope and onto a dirt road that cut up through the forest.
They climbed for five hours, slowly making their way up the switchbacks into the mountains, where limestone cliffs punctuated the otherwise green hills. Fields of dry mountain rice broke up the jungle, while other scorched patches told of primitive slash-and-burn agriculture. Men, women, and children – most of them wearing loose-fitting black jerseys, baggy black trousers, and black turbans – were out on the burned fields, hoeing away the debris and getting the rich red soil ready for planting. Small, shaggy ponies grazed the edges of the burned fields.
“Who lives here?” Nicholai asked, risking conversation.
More awake, Bay was a little more gregarious. “The Meo. They came down from Sichuan two thousand years ago.”
Nicholai saw the rice fields, and small patches of potatoes and other vegetables. Then, as they climbed higher, he noticed a different crop.
Poppies.
“The Meo are also florists?” Nicholai asked dryly.
Bay chuckled. “The Viet Minh used to control the opium crop, now we do. I guess it’s caused some resentment.”
An hour later the road leveled onto a valley and then a broad plateau that led into a town – mostly wooden shacks and a few shops clustered around a few brick-and-tile buildings and an enormous colonial structure that looked as if it had been some kind of administrative center.
“The old French governor’s palace,” Bay said.
“Where are we?” Nicholai asked.
“Xieng Khouang,” Bay answered. “It’s about the only town up here. The French built it back in the 1880s, then the Japs took it. When they got chased out, the Pathet Lao had it for a while, until the Meo helped the French take it back.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Money,” Bay answered. “Why does anyone do anything?”
They drove through town without stopping. A mile outside of town they came to a large airstrip that had recently been bulldozed out of the terrain. An American-made DC-3 with French military markings sat on the strip, guarded by French paratroopers. Other soldiers, along with Meo men, loaded crates from trucks and carts into the cargo hold.
“This you didn’t see,” Bay warned.
He got out of the truck. Nicholai slid out behind him and followed him across the dirt landing strip to where a paratroop captain stood, supervising the loading. The captain saw Bay Vien, walked toward him, held him by the shoulders, and kissed him on both cheeks.
Then he noticed Nicholai. “Captain Antoine Signavi.”
“Michel Guibert.”
They shook hands.
Signavi stood just a shade shorter than Nicholai. He wore crisp camouflage gear, jump boots, and the vermilion beret of a paratrooper. “I have some beer on ice. About the best I can do up here.”
He led them just off the airstrip to a canvas canopy with a portable table and three stools. An orderly reached into an ice chest, came out with three bottles of Tiger beer, opened them, and set them on the table.
Signavi held up his bottle. “
“
“Three more weeks,” Signavi said, “and this runway will be a river of mud. Unusable. The road up here too. Very difficult. I’ll be glad to be back in Saigon.”
He removed his beret, exposing a thick head of black hair.
“I have some cargo,” Bay said, “to put on this flight. It’s okay?”
“Sure,” Signavi answered. “We’re light this trip.”
“And two additional passengers?”
