surprise and managed to kill many of them. Po himself escaped into the jungle.
'Without arms or ammunition, we could no longer fight the Pathet Lao and Viet Cong, and so they began to move freely down the trails in our region. On the other hand, we were not attacked-probably because the Pathet Lao assumed we were still as well defended as we had always been. We waited for the Americans to contact us again, for another adviser and more arms. But no more helicopters came. For us, it was as if the war had ended- except that our children had been lost to Po's brothels, and nothing could assuage the grief of our tribe.'
Now there was a prolonged silence, broken only by the muffled sound of rock music coming from a room upstairs and the clink of dishes as Maru Tai worked in the kitchen.
'I was one of the children taken,' the girl called Kathy said, picking up the thread of the story. Her voice was barely audible at first and was often broken by sighs, but it gained strength as she continued to speak. It was all I could do not to reach out and take her hand, tell her that it was all right and the she did not have to relive this nightmare. But I needed to hear all of it. It was why Veil had put the symbols in the painting.
'I was caught by one of the soldiers as I was walking along a trail just outside the village,' Kathy continued. 'He put a hand over my mouth and jabbed my arm with a hypodermic needle. I can't remember how I was taken away, but I seem to remember the sound of a helicopter. I was taken to a… place, in a city, where I found some of my friends who had disappeared before me. I'm sorry, Dr. Frederickson, but it would be most difficult for me to talk about the things that were done to me there.'
'It's all right, Kathy; that's not important. Just tell me what you can.'
'Some time after I arrived, a pimp took a boy and myself out on the streets to look for customers. It was perhaps three or four in the morning. The boy and I were so… tired. The streets were empty, but still the pimp would not take us back and let us sleep. We stood in a doorway, the pimp gripping each of us by the shoulder so hard that it hurt very much. Then we heard the sound of footsteps coming along the street, just around the corner from where we stood. The man came around the corner, and the pimp pushed us out in front of him. It was the American.'
Something that felt like an electric shock flashed through my chest, momentarily making it difficult for me to breathe. 'You mean Veil Kendry?'
'Yes-if that is the name of the man on the posters you hung up around the neighborhood. The children just called him the American, and the adults called him Archangel. He was wearing a uniform. He was clean shaven, but his face was haggard, and he looked like he had not slept in a long time. The pimp spoke to the American, offering one or both of us for his pleasure. The American stood very still as he listened to the pimp, but all the time he was looking down at us. There was an expression on his face which is very difficult to describe. I believe I saw tears in his eyes, and he was smiling gently, as if to reassure us that everything would be all right. But behind the tears and the smile was an expression more frightening than anything I have ever seen.
'When the pimp finished his proposition, the American killed him. It was almost a casual gesture-the American just reached out with one hand, wrapped his fingers around the man's neck, and snapped it with a twist of his wrist.' Kathy paused, shuddered. 'Sometimes, in nightmares, I can still hear the sound of the pimp's neck breaking; it was a hollow pop almost as loud as a gunshot.
'Then the American stepped over the body of the dead pimp and picked up the boy and me in his arms. He held us close for some time, and when he set us down on our feet his face was once again filled with this terrible rage. He asked us to take him to the brothel. We couldn't remember how to get back, but the American was very patient with us. He walked with us through the streets, carrying us when he could see that we were too tired to go on, until we finally found the brothel. He held us close once again, then gently pushed us back into the shadows before he crossed the street and entered the brothel.
'I don't know what happened in there. I do know that there were always big men inside, armed with guns. I didn't hear any gunshots, nor even any shouts; still, I believe the American killed all the guards and managers inside the house, for when he came out he had the other eight children with him.
'The American, walking in the middle with his arms around us, led us through the city to a Catholic Relief Agency. I remember that it was dawn when we got there, because orange sunlight shone in the nun's face when she opened the door. The American explained the situation to her, and she promised to see that we were returned to our families. Then the American turned and walked quickly away. It was the last time I ever saw him.'
Maru Tai, who had been standing and listening in the doorway, now entered with more pastries and hot tea, and a new bottle of liqueur. I opted for the liqueur; I needed it.
'Thank you, Kathy,' I said. 'I know how hard it must be to relive that experience. You said the American was in uniform. Could you tell his rank?'
The beautiful young Hmong woman shook her head, causing her black hair to ripple across her shoulders. 'It was the only time I'd ever seen him in uniform, and I was a child. Rank wasn't something I was thinking about at the time.'
'Of course. Can you remember if he was wearing any kind of decoration on his cap, or on the shoulders of his shirt?'
The girl closed her eyes and cocked her head to one side as she tried to remember. Finally she opened her eyes, nodded. 'Yes. Now I remember that when he lifted me up and held me, I saw some kind of metal bird on his shoulder. It was silver. Does that tell you anything?'
'Yes, Kathy. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you were willing to come here and tell me this.'
'When Peter picked me up, he said that the American had disappeared and that you were trying to help him. I'll never forget what the American did for me, and I would do anything to help him.'
'Do you have any idea what the American was doing in Saigon, or how long he'd been there?'
'No, sir.'
'Do you have any idea how much time had passed between this incident and the day he was forced to leave Laos?'
'I can answer that,' Loan Ka said. 'From information I've gathered from speaking with others since then, I would estimate that it was seven or eight weeks from the time Archangel left our village. And the attack came on the same day that Archangel dropped Kathy and the other children off at the Catholic Relief Agency.'
'Attack?'
'Kathy saw the man you call Veil Kendry for the last time in Saigon; it was not the last time the rest of us saw him. He came to us in late afternoon of the day he'd killed the whoremasters and rescued the children. He came alone in a helicopter, flying in low over the jungle. He landed in the village, virtually at the edge of a cliff; it was very dangerous to attempt this, but he made it. Then he got out, leaving the helicopter running. He was still dressed in his army uniform, but now there was blood all over the front of his shirt and pants. He stayed only long enough to give us a warning. It seems Colonel Po had made it safely out of the jungle and back across the border. He'd claimed that our village had gone over to the Pathet Lao, and he argued that we should be made an example of. The South Vietnamese had been pressing the Americans for permission to launch some kind of joint offensive across the border. Now permission was granted, and our village was to be the object of the offensive. A combined force of American and South Vietnamese commandos had already crossed the border and was now very close, ready to begin the attack with rocket launchers. The entire village was to be destroyed.
'We had no choice but to flee with whatever possessions we could carry, and that's what we did. After warning us, Archangel got back into the helicopter and flew off.
'The first rockets landed on our village perhaps a half hour later, and then the commandos rushed in after them. By this time we were all out of the village, but the women and children slowed us down so that we were not as far up into the mountains as we would have liked to be. From our position, we could look down and see them burn our village and kill our livestock. Then the Americans and South Vietnamese began to fan out into the jungle, searching for us. Three helicopters were brought in to aid in the search, and they probably would have found us if not for Archangel. Suddenly his helicopter rose from a ravine and attacked the helicopters that were searching for us. Archangel fought in the air as he had always fought on the ground-with great skill and courage, and total abandon. He bought us the time we needed to climb higher into the mountains, into caves where we could not be found. It was from these caves that we saw Archangel's helicopter crash. All these years we assumed he had died in that crash. We are sorry for the great troubles you say he has now, but the entire Hmong community is overjoyed to learn that he is alive.'
For some time I sat in silence, stunned by images of Veil being forced to fight against, and probably kill, a great many of his own countrymen and allies. It would have made him a traitor in the eyes of most of his
