Tyreen clamped his teeth together. “You get me that plane, Captain, or in the morning you’ll be looking for a new job.”
He could hear the man breathing on the far end of the line. Tyreen’s nostrils dilated. He saw Harris looking at him with one arced eyebrow; he felt like saying to Harris, “God damn it, I’ve got a right to pull rank — that’s what rank is for.” But he said nothing. Into the phone he added more mildly, “I’ll be there at twenty-three hundred hours with written authorization from General Jaynshill, Captain. If I don’t produce it, you can scrub the flight. But have the plane standing by for me. Understood?”
“You’ve made yourself clear, Colonel.” The Air Force Captain didn’t bother to disguise the resentment in his voice. There was a rush of sound over the phone — a jet taking off. Someone evidently opened the Captain’s door: in the background Tyreen could hear the rattle of voices spitting takeoff and air-traffic instructions into microphones in the control tower. The Captain said, “Can you hang on just a minute, Colonel? I may have something for you.”
“All right.” Tyreen cupped the phone and spoke to Harris.
“Get on another phone. Get through to the General’s aide and ask him to hold a line open for me.”
Harris nodded, slipped out of the chair, and dogtrotted out of the room. The phone began to blurt. Tyreen lifted it to his ear:
“—seem to have something you can use, Colonel. The maintenance hangar’s got a two-place jet trainer being fixed up. The shop crew figures to roll it out on the line by twenty-three hundred hours. I’ll scrape up a pilot for you somewhere. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Good enough, Captain. Sorry to get rough with you. Thanks for the trouble.”
“No trouble, sir. But one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Please don’t forget to bring me something with the General’s signature.”
“I’ll have it, Captain.” Tyreen hung up. He saw Harris coming in, sleepy-eyed. Harris said:
“The General’s on the phone with MAC–V headquarters. As soon as he’s finished, he’ll call you.”
Tyreen felt a twinge of fever chill. He pictured himself standing at the window again, waiting for the telephone to ring. “No,” he said aloud. “Get back to the General’s aide. Tell him I’m on my way over there. Call me a jeep from motor pool.” He walked toward the coatrack.
Chapter Two
1945 Hours
Slashing knives of rain cut through the young Vietnamese’s thin fatigue shirt, drenching his flesh. A tangled knot of soaked hair hung down across his eyes, and he lacked the energy to push it away. He moved like a mechanism, listening to water spurt in his combat boots; he trod the street slowly with his head bent so that he did not see the glisten of lighted windows, except in their reflection on dappled pools among the cobblestones. A jeep emerged from the night and whipped past, flinging up a sudden cloud of water that struck him a blow and fell away; the jeep’s red taillight turned a corner and then he was again alone on the street. Squat, dark buildings made an obscure gorge of the Rue Catinat; the whorehouses down the street were closed except for their lonely beacon lights. Soon it would be curfew: pedestrians appeared now and then, hurrying on last-minute errands. With the peculiar dryness of watersoaked cotton, his socks rubbed his feet uncomfortably.
With nothing at all in mind, he stepped into the alcove of a shop doorway and stood in temporary protection from the warm, steamy rain. A light across the street flickered dimly in reflection on the glass show windows of the clothing shop. His eyes lifted to the uncertain reflected blankness of his own face, half obscured by a clothes dummy in a black ao-dai beyond the window. The dummy stared back at him, unruffled. Its face was as gray as the rain.
He took little notice of his own face in the glass. It was young, square, tough, weary. His dark hair was matted; his face jutted at cheekbones and jaw, wide across the eyes, thick at the neck. He wore sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves.
He inspected the luminous dial of his watch and stared again at the quietly pattering gray rain. He heard the grumble of a vehicle traveling a nearby street. Saigon was quiet: dimly in the distance he could hear the crump-crump of artillery fire from the offensive to the west.
A cyclo-pousse came in sight; the bicycle-driven rickshaw went by, moving silently and without lights. For a moment his attention was absorbed by sight of the squat driver’s pajama-like shirt, rain-pasted to the man’s back.
A jet fanned overhead. By the placement of its lights he made it out to be a Caravelle, and that seemed odd, for Air Vietnam did not ordinarily fly after dark; perhaps it was a high government official or a diplomatic mission.
He went back into the rain, ducking his head, ramming his hands into his pockets. He crossed the central market plaza, threading a thick crowd of refugees and shoppers; he went down a narrower street, passing a wall on his right crowned with bougainvillaea. Even through the oppressive rain he could scent the heavy fragrance of jasmine trees. He had another look at his watch and walked rapidly through an alley, emerging on a wide, tree-overhung boulevard.
Water dribbled down a rainspout and flowed in a rivulet across his path. He stepped over it and went on. From a window above his head a cigarette arced outward, glowed with a red button-tip for an instant and sizzled, and dropped lifeless past his face. The window slammed shut.
He turned the corner, glanced up at the street sign, and blinked when a raindrop touched his eye. His face dropped, turned, regarded the building fronts ahead of him. He counted doors and presently turned into a stone building that was gritty even in the downpour.
A yellow fifteen-watt bulb hung from the cracked plaster ceiling. The frayed carpet led forward to the foot of a narrow stair. When he put his weight on them, the steps creaked. Paint, once yellow, was worn off the centers of the wooden stairs. He went up two flights, came around the head of the stair, and saw a door standing open midway down the hall. A drooping hulk of a man stood in shirt-sleeves in that doorway; the man said, “Nguyen Khang?”
“That’s right.” Sergeant Khang spoke English readily, with a comfortable accent.
“I’m Captain Saville.” The big man stepped back out of sight. Nguyen Khang ran fingers through his drenched hair, shook water from his fingertips, and walked forward to the door. The shirt clung to his wide back and thick round biceps. He put his hand on the edge of the door and swung it shut behind him.
The room was narrow and gloomy. It had a few chairs and a scarred table, and a door standing half open, leading into darkness. Rain pebbled the window.
Sergeant Khang brought his attention back to the host. Black hairy arms hung from Captain Saville’s rolled-up sleeves; his biceps and torso were corded with knotty muscle. His bootlaces were untied. He was half bald, and in his hand he held an open bottle of Vietnamese beer. The beer hung strong in Khang’s nostrils.
Saville said, “Drink?”
“I could use something to eat,” Khang said, and added, “sir.”
“Sure,” Saville murmured. “Take a hot shower and put on my robe in there. It’s dry.”
Sergeant Khang stood with his feet planted wearily. “Maybe we ought to get to business first.”