“You and you?” Signavi asked.
Bay nodded.
Signavi looked hesitant.
“In my area of business,” Nicholai said, “discretion is of the utmost importance. I see nothing and I say less.”
“I’ll vouch for him,” Bay said.
“You can understand,” Signavi said, “that this is all… sensitive. We’re fighting a war, someone has to pay for it, and the Reds in Paris are unwilling to do it. So one holds one’s nose and does what is necessary.” He jutted his chin toward the opium being loaded onto the plane.
Nicholai shrugged. “Who am I to judge?”
“Indeed,” Signavi said, his nuanced tone leaving no doubt that while he was going to tolerate this gunrunner for practical purposes, he nevertheless found it distasteful.
Nicholai wasn’t willing to allow the implied insult to pass. He asked, “Signavi, is that a Corsican name?”
“Guilty,” Signavi said. “Napoleon and I, we both sought our futures in the French army. We take off first thing in the morning. I’ll arrange beds for tonight. I hope you will both join me for dinner.”
Nicholai never ceased to marvel at the French ability to dine well under any circumstances. Here, at a secret airstrip in the middle of the Laotian highlands, emerged a lunch of vichyssoise, cold roasted guinea fowl, and a very acceptable salad made from local greens, all washed down with a decent white wine.
Dining accomplished, Signavi led them to a large barracks tent surrounded by concertina wire.
His proximity sense woke him.
He lay still and listened to the sharp click-click as the wirecutters snipped the fence, then to the sound of a man crawling.
Bay Vien was sound asleep on his bed by the tent wall.
Nicholai dove just as the blade slashed through the tent. He knocked Bay off the bed onto the floor, then got up and went through the tent door.
The would-be assassin was already running back toward the fence.
A klaxon sounded and a searchlight swept the ground. Nicholai heard Alsatian dogs bark and then one burst across the stockade ground after the man. The man leapt for the fence and became entangled in the concertina wire. He twisted in the wire, a grotesque acrobatic act, as the machine-gun bullets hit him.
Signavi, clad in satin pajamas, a pistol in his hand, ran out, and a moment later Bay Vien came out of the tent and looked at the corpse hanging from the fence.
“Viet Minh,” Bay said. He turned to Nicholai. “You saved my life, Guibert.”
“Just looking out after my interests,” Nicholai answered. He walked back into the tent and lay back down.
Bay came in. “I’m in your debt,” he said.
“Forget it.”
“I won’t,” Bay said. “It’s a matter of honor.”
Nicholai understood.
103
COLONEL YU KNOCKED on the door of Liu’s office and received permission to enter.
Liu looked up from the stack of papers on his desk. “Yes?”
“The Viet Minh agent who was supposed to meet Hel was killed.”
“Ah.”
“So Hel didn’t make the rendezvous.”
“Obviously.”
“There’s a report,” Yu said, “unverified, that he went with the Binh Xuyen.”
“Stay on top of it,” Liu ordered.
Yu left the room deeply troubled. If Hel was with the Binh Xuyen, he was either a prisoner or had willingly betrayed him.
104
THE PLANE FOLLOWED the Mekong south.
Nicholai watched out the window as the broad brown river flowed out of the mountains down into the plains of Cambodia, then broke into multiple tributaries as it entered the delta in southern Vietnam.
Looking down at the endless stretch of green rice paddies, cross-stitched with irrigation canals and dotted with innumerable villages, Nicholai knew that he had made the right decision to deal with Bay Vien.
Blockhouses and guard towers rose every two or three kilometers above the paddies, and Nicholai could spot military convoys patrolling the main roads. Not only was the Foreign Legion thick on the ground, but also the well- armed militias whose arms the French purchased from the proceeds of the opium in the plane’s cargo hold.
The French army bought the opium from the Meo, purchasing their loyalty as well. Then the army sold the crop to the Binh Xuyen, who monopolized the opium traffic in Saigon. The French used the profits to pay the militias and mountain tribes to fight a guerrilla war in the countryside, while the Binh Xuyen held Saigon for them.
We would never have made it through all this, Nicholai thought, with the shipment of arms.
It was the right thing to do.
He had a dull headache that throbbed with the pulse of the engines and was exacerbated by the engine fumes. The propellers were noisy and the plane rattled and bumped, and he was glad when he saw the sprawling metropolis of greater Saigon appear below.
But the plane banked southeast, away from the city and down the coast, and Nicholai saw what looked like a military base.
“Vung Tau!” Signavi shouted over the noise. “ ‘Cap St.-Jacques’!”
The plane made a rapid descent and landed on the military airstrip. Trucks were waiting, and Binh Xuyen troopers in green paramilitary uniforms hopped out and quickly loaded the crates of opium and rocket launchers.
“I’m off to a bath and a decent drink,” Signavi said. He shook Nicholai’s hand. “Perhaps I’ll see you in Saigon?”
“I would enjoy that.”
“Good. See you there.”
A black limousine pulled up. Two troopers armed with machine pistols got out and escorted Bay and Nicholai into the back of the car and it quickly drove off the airstrip.
“Where is the cargo going?” Nicholai asked.
“The opium, to our processing plant in Cholon,” Bay answered. “The weapons, somewhere safe.”
“Until I’ve been paid,” Nicholai said, “the rocket launchers are still my property, and as such, I have a right to know where they are.”
Bay nodded. “Fair enough. They’re going to the Rung Sat – ‘the Swamp of the Assassins.’ ”
“Colorful.”
“It’s the base of the Binh Xuyen,” Bay said, smiling. “Remember, we started as ‘river pirates.’ Your property will be quite safe there.”
“When do I get paid?” Nicholai asked.
“Do you have an account in Saigon?”
“I prefer cash.”
“As you wish,” Bay said. “It’s nothing to me. I’ll arrange for payment tomorrow. Meet me at my casino, Le Grand Monde.”
“What do I have as security?”
