The tour group was composed of several Russians, an East German couple, and a thick-set man who said he was from North Carolina.
The North Carolinian sidled up to Remo nervously. "Sure glad to see another American on this trip, friend. "
"Same here," Remo said noncommittally. He decided not to get too friendly with the man. It would only complicate things.
"Stick with me, friend, and I'll tell you about the war. I was here in those days. I was a REMF, myself. I'll bet you can't guess what that means."
"It means rear-echelon-motherfucker," Remo said flatly. "I was in Nam too."
"You pulling my leg? You couldn't have been. Not unless the Army was drafting eight-year-olds."
"I was a Marine. First Battalion, Twenty-sixth Marines."
"No kidding?"
"No kidding," Remo said.
"You look, what-twenty-eight?"
"What I look like and what I am are two different things. "
"I'll take your word for it. Hey, this looks like the bus. Did they paint it that color, or is that jungle rot?" Remo didn't answer as he climbed into the bus. He made a point of taking a seat next to one that was without a cushion. The North Carolinian frowned, but took the hint. He sat in the back and the bus rattled down potholed streets and past the gates of the old Doe Lap Palace and then north. Remo stared out the window in thought. He was surprised that he'd revealed the military background to the other American. But the words had just slipped out. Remo had once been so proud of the Corps. But all that had happened to him since Vietnam made everything that had gone before insignificant like comparing the gold star you got in the third grade with a Congressional Medal of Honor.
The road turned to dirt and the last houses gave way to sugarcane fields. A chubby tour guide turned in his seat behind the driver. He picked up a microphone and introduced himself as Mr. Hom. Then he began his talk, speaking alternately in German, Russian, and English. It was the same speech in each language, about how the peoples of North and South Vietnam had been finally reunited after years of forced separation by the imperialist Americans. Remo tuned the man out and thought about his old life. A passing flash of elephant grass made his stomach clench involuntarily. Fear. He had not felt fear in a long time. Fear meant his training had not completely reasserted itself. Remo wondered if maybe he had left America too soon.
As Mr. Hom droned on, Remo felt the years melt away, back to 1968. And suddenly a thought occurred to him-a simple thought. He had always thought of his life as divided into two parts. Each was separate-almost as if he'd been two people sharing the same memories. His old life had ended when he was arrested for a crime he didn't commit and sentenced to the electric chair. It'd been a frame, with Dr. Harold W. Smith the framer. Thus had Remo Williams, former Newark cop, been drafted into service for CURE.
All that happened before had belonged to a previous life. There was only one link. A CIA agent named Conn MacCleary, whom Remo had encountered in Vietnam. Remo had single-handedly executed a critical mission under MacCleary's orders, a mission that should have required a battalion: storming a farmhouse and getting important security papers before the VC could burn them.
MacCleary-now dead-later went to work for Harold Smith. And when CURE required a one-man army to do its work, MacCleary had remembered an intense marine named Remo Williams.
Yes, Remo thought sleepily. That was the link. In a way, it had all started in Vietnam. And now he was back. The heat filled the lumbering bus. The tour guide babbled on about Vietnam's internationalist responsibility, and outside insects droned. Somehow their drone made more sense. Remo dozed off.
Hours later, the motor changed tune and the bus jounced as it left the road. Remo blinked awake. He was surprised at how sluggish he felt. Maybe it was the heat. Then he remembered, as if over a long span of years, that he was a Master of Sinanju. He could walk naked across the Sahara or the South Pole in serene comfort.
"Welcome to People's Reeducation Camp Forty-seven," Mr. Hom said. "We will now show you the good things we have done with those of the puppet South who were corrupted by capitalism."
Remo made a face. He had Hom pegged as a low-level Communist-party political officer. But he decided to ignore the man, no matter how rankling his words. When Remo slipped away from the tour group, he didn't want to be conspicuous by his absence.
The camp consisted of a four-sided chain-link fence surrounding long, barrackslike, unpainted buildings. A Vietnamese flag flew from a pole, its yellow star fluttering against a blood-red background.
"Follow me, please," Mr. Hom instructed. His English was good, if mushily enunciated.
Remo hung back in the rear of the group. The bus had stopped at the gate, which was opened by two pith-helmeted armed guards. The group was escorted into the perimeter. There were no guard towers, no barbed wire. It was obviously a minimum-security installation. Remo wondered if the POW camp he sought would be this easy to penetrate. Probably not. This had to be a showcase to impress foreign visitors.
Mr. Hom continued to talk as he waddled along. He spoke into a hand-held mike that hooked up to a portable speaker he carried slung over his shoulder-as if he couldn't trust anyone to listen to him unless his decibel level was set at excruciating.
"When the glorious People's Army liberated Ho Chi Minh City," he explained, "many Southerners had been under Western influence too long. They were lazy and indolent. They had absorbed American propaganda. They would not work. In our kindness, we brought them here, to teach them to work."
Looking at Mr. Hom's wide, unlined face, Remo decided that that had happened while Hom was in diapers. But the man went on as if he'd personally executed the policy.
Mr. Hom led them to one of the barracks and up its rough wood steps. Inside, there were Vietnamese people sitting together at long tables. Some wove baskes. Other appeared to be making sandals out of old truck tires. They looked up as the tour group crowded inside, their eyes sad and empty.
"Many of these were criminals and prostitutes before," Mr. Hom explained, turning the sound down because it echoed in the close confines. "Every day, they rise early, attend indoctrination lessons, and work at simple tasks. Soon they will be rehabilitated."
Remo, comparing the intelligent expressions of the Vietnamese captives with the dull faces of the soldiers and Mr. Hom's flabby, stupid expression, couldn't resist making a remark.
"Saigon was overrun in 1975, more than ten years ago. Why are these people still here?"
Mr. Hom turned on the group, searching each face with beady eyes. "Who speaks? You, American?"
"Yes," Remo said levelly. "I am an American."
"Your question is impertinent. But I will answer for the benefit of the others. These are stubborn cases. They are not ready to enter socialist society. Here, they are useful, to the state and to themselves."
"They look like political prisoners-or prisoners of war. "
"They have been liberated. A less-enlightened regime might have had them executed."
"Yeah," Remo said, an edge to his voice. "You're too enlightened to hold POW's. Of any kind."
"Yes, exactly," said Mr. Hom, thinking that Remo was agreeing with him. He turned to the rest of the tour group, satisfied in his mind that the dark-eyed American had been put in his place. He repeated his answer in German. Then again in Russian. The Russians nodded in agreement.
Remo slid around the knot of tourists and edged close to one of the tables. A middle-aged woman with graying hair pulled back in a bun was weaving a basket. Remo whispered to her, "Do you speak English?"
The woman nodded slightly, not taking her eyes off her work.
"What did you do before the war?"