Two Songs This Archangel Sings

'Yes.'

'Did you ever see the faces of the people who came just to talk to him?'

'Until the last time, there was only one man-the same man-who came with the pilot. He was dressed in civilian clothes.'

'You're sure it was always the same man?'

'I believe so, yes, although I never saw his face because of the long-billed cap he wore. Also, every time I saw him he was wearing a pale green raincoat that seemed too small for him. He was fat, about a foot shorter than Archangel.'

'If he was wearing civilian clothes, it may have been Veil's C.I. A. controller,' I said, half to myself.

'They didn't like each other.'

'Veil told you that?'

'No. The American never spoke of the man or what they talked about. But they were always gesturing angrily at one another, and their loud voices carried. I did not have much English then, but I could understand the sound of anger. Archangel was always highly agitated after these meetings, and he would usually go out alone hunting afterward.'

'You say there was only the pilot and this man in the green raincoat at the meetings up until the last time?'

'Yes.'

'When was the last time?'

'The early fall of 1972.'

'This was when Veil left your village?'

'It was when he was taken away,' Loan Ka replied curtly, his voice taking on a sharp edge of emotion. His eyes had gone slightly out of focus as he stared at a spot just above my head, and his face had a haunted expression, as though he were looking into the depths of a nightmare which was very old, but which he could not forget. 'I'm certain Archangel received no warning that he was being taken out, or he would have told us. We escorted him to what we assumed was just another regularly scheduled meeting, but this time there were two helicopters waiting at the landing site, One was a large troop carrier, and there were a large number of South Vietnamese soldiers inside with assault weapons. The other helicopter carried the man in the green raincoat, and …' Loan Ka paused, swallowed hard, then virtually spat out the last name. 'Colonel Po.'

The name, 'Colonel Po,' struck a distinctive chord-one that was very loud and dissonant. 'Liu Sakh Po?' I asked.

The Hmong nodded, and I felt the muscles in my stomach and across my chest begin to tighten. The information touched on a situation-and answered questions-that had made headlines in American newspapers for a week or more in 1972, in the fall.

Colonel Liu Sakh Po had been the most notorious officer in the South Vietnamese army. A scion of one of the wealthiest, most powerful-and, many said, most corrupt-families in South Viet Nam, Colonel Po had never, to anyone's knowledge, had a single bullet fired at him in combat. Yet he had been the most prominent spokesman for both the government and the army, in effect a flamboyant propagandist in French-tailored uniforms constantly warning that South Viet Nam would fall to the Communists if the United States did not provide ever-increasing amounts of aid. Po spent all his time in Saigon, a distance from the battlefield that did nothing to slow the numbers of large, glittering medals with which he was constantly being decorated in recognition of his 'public relations' efforts.

Then a New York Times reporter had discovered that one Liu Sakh Po, ARVN colonel, was Saigon's most prominent crime czar, trafficking in narcotics sold to American servicemen, a thriving black market in American-supplied foodstuffs and munitions, and prostitution. Although angry denials were issued by both the South Vietnamese and American military commands, and even though the reporter was hastily expelled from the country and branded a traitor by certain United States senators and congressmen, the evidence against Po had continued to build. Then, at the height of the scandal, Colonel Po had simply disappeared from public view. Now I knew where he had gone-into the jungles of Laos, with the help of the Americans.

Ironically, within the past year the Times had begun another series of articles on the infamous Colonel Po, a kind of retrospective and update written by the same reporter, a winner of three Pulitzer Prizes. According to the articles, Po had been spirited out of South Viet Nam after the collapse of Saigon and helped to settle in the United States, a fact that had been well hidden for more than a decade, up until the publication of the articles. Also, according to the articles, Po had brought his old tricks with him to his new country. Operating from a well-guarded mansion in Albany, New York, he was said to control a wide empire in drugs and prostitution throughout upper New York State. D6ja vu.

'Why was Po brought into Laos, to your village?' I asked, pretty certain I knew the answer.

'He was to replace Archangel, and the soldiers in the second helicopter formed his personal bodyguard. I do not know why this decision was made; as far as I know, he was the only non-American adviser sent to work with the Hmong anywhere in Laos.'

'The Americans were helping him hide from a very nosy press.'

'Even from the distance where we were standing, we could see that Archangel was angrier than he had ever been before. There was another American in the helicopter with the man in the green raincoat, an officer. Po and his men just walked away while Archangel argued with the officer and the man in the raincoat. They shouted back and forth at each other for almost half an hour.'

'Could you tell the officer's rank?'

'I believe he was a general; he had stars on his cap and the epaulets of his jacket. It was this man who finally ended the argument; he spoke very sharply, and then Archangel threw down his gun in disgust and climbed into the smaller helicopter.'

'And you never saw Veil Kendry again?'

Loan Ka shook his head. 'We saw him again.'

'But you said this was the last time-'

Loan Ka held up his cigar in a gesture asking for patience. 'It was the last meeting between Archangel and his superiors.'

At a sound to our left, both of us turned toward the doorway where one of Loan Ka's sons stood with a girl about his own age. She was dark-eyed, with long, shimmering black hair and olive skin. I thought she was beautiful. I had not heard the young man leave the house, had not heard a car start up, but Peter had obviously gone out into the night to bring the young woman back.

'This is Kathy,' Loan Ka continued quietly.

'Hello, Dr. Frederickson,' the young woman said, her English delivered with a lovely, lilting accent. She stepped forward, and I stood up and took the hand she offered. 'I know of you. I am a sociology major at the university here, and two of your monographs on family structure and crime are required reading in a course I'm taking. It's an honor to meet you.'

'My pleasure, Kathy.'

We sat, and Loan Ka's wife entered carrying a tray with hot tea and pastries. After serving us, she left, motioning for her son to go with her.

'Colonel Po and his soldiers were not interested in fighting the Communists,' the Hmong continued. 'They were interested only in preserving their own safety. Indeed, they didn't even trust us; they stockpiled most of the arms and ammunition in their own private compound, which they forced us to build for them.

'Then, about two weeks after Po arrived, our children began to disappear. At first we thought it was some kind of Pathet Lao terror tactic, and that individual Communists had somehow found a way to penetrate our defense perimeter and kidnap our children. But, as we were to learn, this was not the case. The most beautiful of our children, both male and female, were being stolen by Po's men, then smuggled into Viet Nam for use in Po's Saigon brothels.'

The words had been softly spoken, without any effort to lend them special weight. Still, I felt as if I had been dealt a physical blow. 'My God,' was all I could think of to say, and I lowered my gaze.

'It was almost a month before we discovered who was responsible for the disappearance of our children,' Loan Ka continued softly. 'It was not in our power to bring our children back to us, but we could do our best to punish those responsible. By this time we had few arms and little ammunition, but we took Po and his men by