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The judge instructed and cautioned the jury, then the bailiff led them to a room in the back of the courthouse. Judge Tyler told them to begin deliberating immediately, rather than waiting till the following morning.

It was clear to Ben, from the judge’s tone, that he didn’t think the deliberation would take long.

PART THREE

THE RESIDUE OF HATE

58.

JUST AFTER SUNSET COLONEL Nguyen and Lan walked hand-in-hand through the loblolly pine trees outside the perimeter of Coi Than Tien. The night was still and peaceful; they could almost forget all the turmoil that surrounded them.

Colonel Nguyen left the courtroom after the jury was dismissed. They still had not returned. Nguyen told himself repeatedly that no one could be certain what the jurors’ thoughts were. But the evidence at trial had been strong, almost overwhelming. He had little doubt but that the jury would find him guilty, and the death sentence would be rendered against Donald Vick.

A man he was almost certain had not committed the crime.

“We came here to escape,” Lan reminded him. “But I sense your troubles have followed you.”

He smiled as best he could. He wondered if all this had not been hardest on her, all his trauma, his moodiness, his indecision. At least he was in control—he could chart his own course. She was at the mercy of the decisions of others.

“Are you still thinking of the trial?”

He nodded.

“Surely they will convict the man. Surely there is no other choice for us. For Coi Than Tien.”

There was truth in what she said. Nguyen knew that even as they spoke Dan Pham and his followers were gathered in the barn, waiting for word of the jury’s verdict. They had made it clear they expected Vick to receive the maximum sentence. And that if the courts did not deliver justice to their satisfaction, they would do it themselves.

That was the choice that lay before them. A guilty verdict would mean the conviction of an innocent man. And a not guilty verdict would mean strife, violence, rioting—probably death to Coi Than Tien.

Lan took his hand inside hers. “Is there nothing I can do to soothe your worries, husband?”

“No. We will just have to wait and see what—”

He was interrupted by the sound of clattered tin cans inside the fence surrounding Coi Than Tien. Someone had triggered the trip wire he’d strung across the front entrance. A few seconds after that he heard gunshots firing in rapid succession. Automatic weapons.

“Stay here,” he told Lan.

Without waiting for a response, Nguyen ran toward Coi Than Tien. It would take him at least another minute to make it to the front gates. Instead he ran to the fence and leaped up against it. He rose at least four feet into the air and was able to grab the top. Pushing against the fence with his feet, he hoisted himself up and swung over into Coi Than Tien.

It was the black pickup with the smoked windows, returned once again to wreak death and destruction on Coi Than Tien. Gun barrels extended from both the driver’s and the passenger’s windows spraying a steady stream of bullets in all directions.

Nguyen ran as fast as he could toward the pickup. He passed terrified neighbors running in the other direction, desperately trying to get themselves and their families away from the danger.

He dashed around the barn and bolted toward his home. The pickup spotted him. Its engines roared; it pivoted around and began firing at him. A bullet ricocheted off the porch just inches above his head. Nguyen dropped to the ground, then crawled on his knees and elbows toward the front door. He flung the door open, crawled inside, and slammed the door behind him.

Holly was standing in the living room beside Mary’s cradle. Mary was crying loud and hard.

“I stayed with the baby, Daddy,” Holly said. Tears were streaming from her eyes. “Just like you said.”

“Get down!” Nguyen grabbed his daughter and knocked her against the wooden floor. Another volley of bullets rained through the windows. Holly screamed.

Nguyen took his baby from the cradle and hugged her close to him. He pressed both daughters flat on the planks and prayed that the danger would pass them by. He could hear the pickup moving outside, circling the barn, keeping everyone pinned inside their homes.

Another round of bullets pierced the front doors and windows, the ones he had only repaired two days before. Anger boiled up inside Nguyen’s breast. To attack them in their own homes—to endanger his children! His body tensed and filled with hate. If he could just get out of here, he would tear them apart. He would destroy them. But he could not leave the children—

“Go,” a voice behind him said.

It was Lan. She must’ve cut through the rear of the settlement and come in the back door.

“I will see to the children. Go.”

As soon as he was sure the pickup had momentarily moved away from his home, Nguyen moved a chair beside the bookshelves he had constructed in the front room. From behind two books on the top shelf, where the children could not possibly get it, he withdrew a gun.

The one that had served him so long and so well in his previous life.

It would serve him again.

As he ran out the front door he once more heard the sound of gunfire, but this time from a different quarter. The front doors of the barn were open, and a steady stream of bullets poured out from within.

It must be Pham and his self-styled resistance league. Despite Pham’s denials Nguyen had suspected they were stockpiling weapons; now his suspicions were confirmed. Under the circumstances, however, he could hardly complain.

Pham’s group did not have automatic weapons, but there appeared to be many of them, and they were well hidden within the dark interior of the barn. The pickup had stopped roving and was now at a stationary location between the barely reconstructed Truong home and the barn.

Colonel Nguyen went down on one knee, held his gun in both hands, and aimed carefully. His first bullet punctured the pickup’s left rear tire. Those huge oversized tires made for an easy target. The second bullet blew out the left front tire.

Someone in the pickup noticed what was happening. The wheels spun as the pickup tried to move away. The pickup lurched into drive, doing a lopsided tilt toward the left and scraping the wheel hubs on the dirt. Just as the pickup began to move, Nguyen fired a third bullet into the rear window. The window shattered as the pickup barreled toward the front gate, leaving a trail of glass shards in its wake.

Nguyen raced after the truck, but it was out of sight before he had run fifty feet. The black pickup had struck again, and now would disappear without a trace just as it had done so many times before.

Dan Pham emerged from the interior of the barn. “What a marksman you are!” he exclaimed. “The great Colonel Nguyen has once more triumphed against the enemy.”

Nguyen’s face remained stern. “You told me you were not storing weapons. You lied.”

“Yes,” Pham admitted, “and you knew I was lying. What of it?”

Pham’s followers began to emerge from the barn, many of them carrying their guns.

“Are you still so blind?” Nguyen grabbed Pham by the collar of his jacket. “Don’t you see what is happening? With each incident, the destruction escalates. It will never end!”

“It will end,” Pham said solemnly. “It will end when ASP has been eliminated!”

His followers cheered. Nguyen scanned their faces. Angry faces, faces of men prepared to do anything, prepared to march on ASP and tear the camp apart board by board. Faces filled with rage.