Conspiracy

Only if someone else had killed him.

They thought that was possible, though. Otherwise they wouldn’t have come to see her.

Assuming they were telling the truth.

Amanda was so consumed in her thoughts that she missed the exit for her office. As she passed she instinctively slapped on the brake, then pulled onto the shoulder. She slapped the wheel angrily.

She was acting like an inept jerk. Paranoid and distraught.

She should be able to keep her head clear. She was a federal agent, trained to stay calm in an emergency. What if she’d been on an assignment? What if she’d been guarding someone?

But that was exactly the point. In that case, she’d have a script to follow. In that case, she’d be removed from the situation, distant. It would be easy. She wouldn’t know anything, or anyone, but her job.

Amanda took a pair of very long breaths. She got back into traffic, and headed toward the next exit.

I’ll dump the car at a Metro stop, she decided. I’ll find that notebook. Because if they do think it’s murder, then sooner or later they’re going to accuse me.

It’s what I would do if I were following the script.

33

When Dean arrived in Vietnam the first time, he hadn’t been prepared for the heat. It hit him with his first step off the plane. He was soaked in sweat by the time he stepped onto the tarmac. He felt as if he’d stepped into the mouth of a whale.

He wasn’t quite prepared for it now, either.

The 757 had parked a good distance from the terminal, leaving the passengers to walk down a set of portable steps to a nearby bus. It had just rained, and there were large, shallow puddles on the cement apron. Dean glanced to his right and caught sight of a row of old hangar buildings, brown half-pipes made of corrugated metal. Thirty- some years before, the buildings had housed U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers; now they looked like overgrown gardening sheds.

“I thought this was the dry season,” said Tommy, picking up the pace toward the squat, open-mouthed bus nearby. The door was where the hood would be on a truck.

“Dry means less than a monsoon,” said Dean. The air steamed with the recent rain, though by Vietnamese standards the seventy-seven-degree temperature was mild.

“Bring back memories?” asked Karr, sliding into a seat.

“Not really.”

“That’s good. Warn me if you feel a flashback coming on.” Dean had actually been to the Saigon airport only once, to pick up someone. It had been nighttime and from Dean’s perspective the airport consisted only of security checkpoints and a big, poorly illuminated building. So rather than seeming familiar or even nostalgic, the airport to him now seemed blandly generic, as if it could be anywhere in Asia.

The large hall where the passport control was located reminded him of the airport in Istanbul, Turkey, where he had been a few months before: somewhat modern, somewhat utilitarian, a place where a crowd could be counted on not to loiter.

The customs line was only a dozen people long. A Vietnam ese woman in front of Dean slipped a twenty- dollar bill into her passport. The clerk took it without comment, studied her documents, then waved her through.

There was no reaction from the clerk when Dean presented his American passport; he flipped through it quickly, then handed it back.

“Have a good day,” said the man, reaching for Karr’s documents behind Dean.

“Hello, Charlie. How does it feel to be back in Vietnam?” asked Jeff Rockman, the runner back in the Art Room. He was speaking to Dean through the Deep Black communications system, partly embedded in Dean’s skull.

“Fine,” said Dean, turning around to wait for Karr.

“We’re in their video security system,” said Rockman.

“Smile — you’re looking right at the camera.” Dean scowled instead. The Art Room regularly “invaded” computer-controlled video security systems to keep tabs on operatives during a mission. Ironically, the more sophisticated the system, the easier it was for the Desk Three hackers to penetrate. This system, which transmitted its images not only to the local security office but also to an interior ministry monitor in Ho Chi Minh City, was about as secure as a child’s piggy bank.

Karr joined him and they walked down the steps to the baggage claim area.

“A woman bribed the passport guy with twenty bucks,” said Dean, talking to the Art Room though he pretended to be speaking to Karr. “What was that about?”

“Commonly done,” answered Thu De Nghiem, the Art Room’s Vietnamese interpreter and an expert on the local culture. “It’s a holdover from the past. A lot of returning Vietnamese will include ‘tips’ in their passports, though it brings them nothing. You will find a lot of petty corruption in the country. It’s pathetic really. A tip worth a few cents at most can get you very far.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Karr led the way to the luggage carousels, where their suitcases had yet to appear. As they joined the small knot of people milling around the conveyor belts, Dean spotted two men in suits watching tourists from the far end of the hall. A maintenance worker mopped up the spotless floor just to their right.

“Your bags are being searched in the room behind the belt,” said Rockman. “Shouldn’t be long.”

“I hope they don’t steal my razor,” said Karr. “I really need a shave.”

A half hour later, re united with their luggage, Dean and Karr passed through the customs area without being stopped for an official inspection. Just past the door, a row of people crowded against a waist-high temporary metal fence, searching for the faces of relatives. The line extended out toward the main hall of the reception area, overflowing outside.

“I’m guessing that’s our driver,” said Karr, pointing at a silver-haired man near the door. He held a cardboard sign with the words “Car/Bean” on it.

“Kin chow,” said Karr, sticking out his hand.

“Xin chao,” said Dean, correcting his pronunciation. The words for “hello” sounded like “seen chaw” to an American.

The rhythm and tone — a flat, slightly drawn-out singsong — were as important as the sound of the consonants. “Toi ten la Charlie.”

“And I’m Tommy,” said Karr, shaking the driver’s hand.

“Very nice to meet you,” said the driver. “I am Lu. You speak Vietnamese?”

“I know a few phrases,” said Dean. “Ra?t vui d — uoc g?a panh. I am very pleased to be able to meet you.” Lu answered in Vietnamese that he, too, was happy to meet Dean and welcome him to his country.

“The car is outside,” he added in English. “I will take you to the hotel.”

“How about a drive around the city first?” asked Karr.

“You want scenic road?”

The juxtaposition of “scenic” and Vietnam seemed highly ironic to Dean, and yet as they drove to the hotel he realized that the country was indeed beautiful. Even the developing outskirts of Saigon, which looked a lot like the smaller cities of China, with cranes and bulldozers scraping the earth, had plenty of lush greenery to set off the yellow machines and the buildings they passed.

The city itself looked almost nothing like the Saigon Dean had visited as a Marine. New high-rises were sprinkled among the colonial-style buildings that had completely dominated then. Instead of casting shadows on the older, smaller buildings, the high-rises seemed to light them up, pulling them out of the past.

Motorbikes flooded around the car as it circled a city square marked by a fountain and leafy green trees. Dean noticed a family of four clinging to an older bike, a three-year-old leaning precariously toward the ground.