“And talking to your mother quite a bit. You must have dreamed you’d done something very bad. You were telling her you were sorry. Several times you said that.”
“Well,” Moon said, “several times I did things that were bad.” Which really wasn’t what Osa van Winjgaarden wanted to talk about.
“This Debbie, I think she must be your sweet-heart.”
“What did I say?” And, as soon as he asked, wished he hadn’t. So, apparently, did Osa. She looked slightly abashed.
“Well, personal things sometimes.”
Time to change the subject. “I remember hearing you talking to Mr. Lee about getting me off the ship and to a doctor, and Mr. Lee saying there wasn’t a doctor, except the prison doctor,” Moon said. “And you said prison was better than being buried at sea. And I remember agreeing with you.”
“I thought you had dengue fever,” Osa said. “That is very bad business. You die from that.”
Moon had a sudden surprising thought. “But you would have gone to prison too. Not just me.”
Osa shrugged.
“And I think I remember somebody giving me sort of a bath,” Moon said. “With a wet towel or something, turning me over. Washing everywhere. Even behind my ears. I think it was you. Or was I dreaming?”
“It was to make you more comfortable,” Osa said, still looking out at the darkening sea.
“So I don’t guess I have any secrets anymore,” Moon said.
“No secrets?”
“I mean, I guess you know I am a little bit too fat around the middle. And have a scar on my hip. So forth.”
“Oh, yes. How did you get that terrible scar?”
Moon was silent for a moment. “When I turned over the jeep.”
Some slight variation in the wind caused the sail above them to make a flapping sound. Straight ahead, and high, four sea birds were circling. Long pointed wings. Albatross, perhaps, if they flew over the South China Sea. Gooney birds.
“And a man was killed in it,” Osa said slowly. “The friend who died in the accident you had. You talked about him when your fever was so high that first day.” She looked at him, face sad. “I think he must have been a very good Mend. You grieve for him.”
“Yes,” Moon said. “I do.”
Rice appeared at the top of the ladder, looked at them, climbed out, and walked toward the stern, where Captain Teele was doing something at the wheel.
“What did I say to my mother?”
“I didn’t listen,” Osa said. “Of course not.”
“But you heard enough to know I was talking to her. What did I say?”
He decided she wasn’t going to answer. Then she said, “I already told you. You said you were sorry.”
Rice was walking up.
“You decide you’re going to live?”
“With a little bit of luck,” Moon said. “And a little more of that soup.”
Rice sat on the canvas beside him. “Teele’s going to wait until about an hour before dawn. Then he’ll haul in the sail and go as close to the mouth as he can get. We’ll take the rubber boat and ride on into the new R. M. Air base. Then I’ll fire up a copter and we’ll get this business over with.”
Moon didn’t comment. The soup suddenly felt heavy in his stomach.
“If we’re lucky, Bob Yager will be there. If he is, we can get maybe four or five of those copters out of there. You know, fly two of them over to Thailand, leave one, fly back in the other, take a couple more. Keep doing it until we got all of ’em out that are ready to go.”
It took Moon about a second or two to understand the implications of this. What was a military helicopter worth? The army paid about a million dollars each, he guessed, depending on the model.
Used, and a fire sale situation, maybe three or four hundred thousand each. Maybe more. No way to guess.
“Yager,” Moon said. “I thought he was on the business end of things.”
“He was Ricky’s executive officer back when they were both in the service. He’d resigned his commission before Ricky did. Went into some sort of business in Saigon and Phnom Penh, the way I heard it, and then came along right after Ricky started R. M. Air. Chief pilot and deal maker. Last I heard he was in Malaysia, setting up a base down the peninsula for when the South Viets gave up.”
“You told us there wouldn’t be any pilots left,” Moon said. “Remember telling us that?”
Rice’s face showed no trace of embarrassment. “Did I say that? I guess I did, didn’t I. I was thinking you folks would have just left me there in prison and gone on about your business.”
“You’re right about that,” Moon said.
“It’s better this way anyway. First place, Yager will probably be gone by now. So I didn’t lie.”
Moon shrugged.
“No use leaving those copters for the Commies,” Rice said. “I’d rather blow ’ em up. And from what the radio is saying, there ain’t going to be no Army of the Republic of Vietnam after a few more days. They owe Ricky money now, and they’ll be owing a lot more.”
“You going to sell them? Is that the plan?”
“We could. But why not expand R. M. Air to Thailand or Malaysia?” Rice asked. “I guess it’s your company now. You being lUcky’s brother, I guess you inherit it. There’s sure as hell plenty of business out here. Hauling things around. And people.”
“First we go get Ricky’s daughter,” Moon said. “And take care of this other business.”
“Sure,” Rice said. “First things first.” He looked thoughtful. “You still have that map?”
“It’s with my stuff,” Moon said.
Osa brought it, and they spread it on the deck.
“Okay,” Rice said. “Here we are.” He tapped a fingertip on the blue of the South China Sea a half inch north of the westernmost of the seven mouths of the mighty Mekong. “When it gets a little darker, Captain Teele will pull in close as he can safely get this ship, and we’ll run the shore boat up to here.” He moved his fingertip to a dot just upstream from the mouth. “Long Phu is the village. Ricky was starting to move things down there the last I saw of things, so it should pretty much all be there by now. The ARVN general Ricky was working with owned a place down there, a dock sticking out into the Mekong with a warehouse. Had living quarters and a bunch of big sheds Ricky had ’em convert into repair hangars.”
He grinned at Moon.
“I think the general had been into smuggling. Probably still was. Anyway, when Ricky wanted a safer place for R. M. Air he worked out a deal with this fella. So we’ll pull in there about daylight and see what we find. If R. M. Air is still operating, then no problem. We just take a copter and get our business done. if everybody’s gone but some of the birds are left behind, we’ll fuel one up and get on with it. Or, if they didn’t get the birds moved down there then”-Rice moved his fingertip an inch up the river-“we sail on up the Mekong to the R. M. Air hangars at the airstrip outside Can Tho and take a copter from there.”
Rice paused, studying the map. Far out, near the horizon, Moon saw a red light reflecting from a sail. Then two more. Small craft, six or seven miles away, he guessed, and apparently outward bound.
“I’d guess Bob Yager will still be there,” he said. “Wherever the copters are. Yager would stick around until the last dog died.”
“Yeah,” Moon said.
“Sure,” Rice said. “Yager will be there. if he’s not, we can do it just as well without him.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Osa said. “Can you find anything in the darkness?”
Rice shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
Moon was going to say, Because maybe the Vietcong will be shooting at us, but Osa answered the question.
“I remember flying up the river that day you took me to my brother’s mission,” she said. “It was like flying over green wilderness. Everywhere you looked you could see light reflecting off the water. All tangled up with streams and irrigation canals. Like a maze. I’d think you would get lost. Easy enough, maybe, in a helicopter where you can see the sea behind you and the mountains up ahead. But down on the water in a little boat how could anybody tell? Not in the dark.”