Iris stepped from the doorway. “What?”
“He got them!”
“What are you talking—”
“Loc! He took them!”
“Loc?”
“He took Mai and Minh!”
Thien stepped on a pot and looked above the fence. “Which way did he go?”
Noah spun around. “I don’t . . . I started shouting and he . . . he turned toward downtown. They were on a scooter.” Noah hit the side of his hip. “Minh reached for me. He wanted me to help. And I tried. I tried but I was too goddamn slow.”
Iris struggled to clear her reeling mind. “Where, Thien, where do you think he’ll take them?”
“I do not—”
“Answer me!”
Thien raised the brim of her hat, still peering above the fence. “I am not sure. But . . . but I do not believe he will keep them in the city.”
“Where would he go?” Iris asked. “For the love of God, how can we catch him?”
Noah turned to Iris. “Are your keys upstairs?”
“Wait, Noah.”
“I’m going after them. Right now!”
“Just—”
“Your keys! Where are they?”
“Stop!” Iris shouted, moving between him and the doorway. “You’re never going to find him like that! Are you crazy?”
Thien put her hand on Noah’s arm. “We should find Sahn. He will know where to look.”
“Sahn?”
“The policeman.”
Iris nodded. “That’s right. He said he’d help us.” She ran her hands through her hair, besieged with dread, trying to think of a plan. “You two, take the scooter. Thien, you know where he walks. Go look for him.”
“And you?” Thien asked.
“A police station isn’t far. I’ll run.”
“But you cannot speak Vietnamese.”
“That doesn’t matter. Someone will speak English and he’ll help.” Iris glanced at the empty seesaw, struggling to control her emotions, to fight an overwhelming sense of panic the likes of which she’d never known. “Why . . . why is this all happening?” she asked, rubbing her brow, her breath coming too fast and shallow. “It’s my fault. I sent them outside. I should have gone with them like Mai asked me to. If only I’d—”
“Stop it,” Noah said, shaking his head, squeezing her shoulders.
“But I shouldn’t have—”
“We’re going to get them back. You hear me? They took Tam and Qui, but they aren’t going to take Mai and Minh.”
“They can’t, Noah. They just can’t.”
He squeezed her shoulders again. “They won’t.”
“But how can you say that? How can you know that?”
“Because Loc needs them. He stole them because he needs them. So he’s not going to hurt anybody. All we have to do is find them. Find them and bring them back.”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s what we’re going to do. Right now.”
She reached into her pocket and handed him the keys to her scooter. “Then find them. Please find them.”
“Just hurry to that police station.”
“I will.”
He turned to Thien. “Let’s go get Sahn.”
THIEN DROVE THE SCOOTER WHILE NOAH scanned their surroundings. She drove with speed and efficiency, weaving around slower traffic, navigating cluttered streets as if she were the wind brushing past leaves. Noah’s gaze was much less precise, darting into crowds and shops. Though his time with the marines had taught him how to focus under pressure, he found it difficult to settle his emotions. Mai and Minh were being held against their will, and the thought of Loc mistreating them filled Noah with worry and rage. While he knew that Loc needed them, he also knew that they could be hurt in ways that wouldn’t prevent them from sitting on a corner and begging for Loc’s money. And this was the knowledge that tore at him, the knowledge that he’d kept secret from Iris.
Painfully aware that each passing minute only gave Loc more time to escape, Noah urged Thien to drive even faster. He often had to hold tightly on to the scooter as she followed the contours of roundabouts or turned abruptly down narrow alleys. People on nearby scooters, usually so polite and understanding, often glared or gestured at Thien for her excessive speed.
“Where else could he be?” Noah asked, wishing they had two scooters.
“We will find him. We just—”
“There!” Noah shouted, pointing toward a uniformed policeman. “Isn’t that him?”
Thien didn’t answer, instead crossing the busy street, holding up one hand as she drove against the flow of oncoming traffic. The beep of her horn sounded when they neared the curb, and Sahn turned toward them. He looked angered by the intrusion, but before he could speak, Thien said hurriedly in Vietnamese, “Captain, Loc kidnapped Mai and Minh! Just now! He came to our center and took them! ”
Sahn grunted. “Kidnapped them? How?”
“We were inside. They were out in the playground.”
“You left them—”
“They were only alone for a minute! He must have been watching.”
“And you’re sure it was Loc?”
“Noah saw him take them.”
“Against their will?”
Thien rose above her seat. “He took them, Captain!”
Sahn’s fingers tightened around the handle of his baton. “Do you have a photo of the children?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yes or no?”
“No. No, we don’t. They just started living at the center and we—”
“Silent,” Sahn replied, holding up his hand. He thought about calling his superiors, about starting a manhunt. He’d do these things, but they’d take time, and they didn’t guarantee the return of the children. “You’ll have to go after him.”
“Go after him?”
“Without a photo, do you think the police will find them? Who would they look for?”
“But Minh . . . he’s easy to describe.”
“He’s one of thousands of homeless boys. You can’t rely on that.”
Thien thought about all of the street children in Saigon alone. “Doesn’t Loc have a record? Can’t you search for him?”
“Of course we’ll search for him. But he won’t be caught easily. And it will take time for us to move. Do you want to wait?” Sahn turned from the sun, his mind churning. “I know this Loc. A long time ago, I arrested him. His family is from Nha Trang. He has friends there. Go. Go to Nha Trang. Look for them on the beach, where the tourists are.”
“Nha Trang? But that’s—”
“He can’t stay in Ho Chi Minh City. And if he can’t stay here, where else would he go but Nha Trang?”
“Will you notify the police there?”
“Right away. But you’d be foolish to count on them. Most will be lazy or corrupt or nothing more than men who sit at desks and kill flies. And they won’t move fast enough.”
“But they might—”
“Better to count on yourselves than them. Count on yourselves and you’ll have no regrets. You or the police will find them, and you’ll have no regrets.”
Thien thought of Nha Trang. She’d never been there before, and while she agreed that they had to move quickly, she didn’t like the thought of being without help in a strange city. “Will you go with us, Captain?” she asked, wincing as her calf bumped up against the hot muffler of the scooter.
Sahn would have liked to do just that—to save the children and break Loc forever. But with his eyes, he’d be more of a liability than a help. “If the children were to somehow escape,” he said, “where would Loc go?”
“He’d come back for them. To the center.”
“And I’ll be waiting for him. With the American woman. I’ll protect her and arrest him.”
Thien didn’t respond, and Noah asked her what was happening. “Just another minute, please,” she said in English. “And I will tell you everything.”
“Can he move on that leg?” Sahn asked in Vietnamese.
“He does his best.”
“But can he move? Because if you find those children . . . you’re going to have to take them. Loc won’t give them up. You take them, and if he comes for you, start screaming so loudly that he’ll be forced to run away. He won’t come after you if people are around. So you take them and make a scene. And then get on the first train back.”
“What if he’s not in Nha Trang?”
“Then go to the police station there. I’ll leave instructions for you. I’ll have the police looking everywhere else. And they’ll be looking in Nha Trang. I just don’t want to count on them there. Not when you two can so easily identify the children.”
Thien eyed the oncoming traffic for a break that would allow her to cross the busy street. “Thank you, Captain,” she said, her grip tightening on the throttle.
“Is he a good man?” Sahn asked, staring at Noah.
The question caught Thien off guard, but she straightened and said, “As good as anyone.”
Sahn noted the defiance in her voice and the speed with which she rushed to defend him. “You protect her,” he said in English to Noah. “You understand?”
Noah nodded, wishing that he could speak Vietnamese. “I will.”
“Now go,” Sahn said, continuing in English. “Go and find them. And take them. With strength.”
“Please watch over Miss Iris,” Thien replied, and then twisted the throttle and darted into the approaching traffic.
Sahn did his best to watch them go. Even with his crippled eyes, he knew that she was lovely, and that she loved the American. Are they doomed? he asked himself, thinking about the war, about how thousands of American soldiers were forced to run from their Vietnamese lovers. The soldiers had either died or escaped to America. And the women had remained, their fates usually unpleasant.
Will it end for her in tragedy? Sahn wondered, hoping that it wouldn’t. She seemed so full of life and promise—a woman who could carry Vietnam into the future.
“Be careful,” he whispered, trying to locate her scooter in the chaos, hoping that the past was dead and that this time the American would stay.
MAI HAD NEVER BEEN IN THE back of a pickup truck. Under normal circumstances, she’d have enjoyed the experience. The wind would have caressed her face while the movement of the truck made her smile and laugh.
As it was, she couldn’t have been more despondent. She sat next to Minh with her back near the cab, her feet bound together with electrical wire. Loc sat opposite them. He’d already expelled some of his rage, and Mai’s stomach still ached from where he’d struck her. She had wet herself immediately afterward and now sat in her damp shorts, wishing that she’d never been born.
Mai no longer bothered to wipe her tears. They simply ran down her face and fell to her lap. Though she wanted to comfort Minh, she didn’t have the strength to even find his eyes. Better to simply sit and watch the landscape pass. She didn’t know where they were going, other than that they were headed north. She’d heard this bit of information as Loc spoke with their driver before they left. The men had laughed and smoked from Loc’s pipe.
For the first time in her life, Mai wanted to use the pipe. Perhaps it would free her, if even for a moment. To be free for a moment would be worth most any price. She’d tried to find her own freedom by going to the center, tried her hardest, but freedom had again been taken from her. Maybe she’d never even had it. Whatever the case, she was once again a slave to her own fate. Freedom was a myth.
Mai glanced at the swiftly moving cement, wondering what it would feel like to tumble from the truck. Would the bus behind them crush her? Would she drift away as Tam had? Would anyone but Minh cry for her?
Wishing she knew what death felt like, Mai looked at the sky. It seemed to be a deeper shade of blue here, beyond the city. Maybe death was like that—a deeper shade of blue where she could be born again.
AN HOUR INTO THEIR DRIVE, NOAH wished he had his bottle of pain pills. Though Thien was an expert at avoiding potholes and debris, the road was rough, and his back throbbed from the constant jarring. He tried to reposition himself on the thickly padded seat, but nothing helped.
Noah scrutinized his surroundings, hoping that luck would befall him and he’d see Mai and Minh on Loc’s scooter. The man’s baseball jersey would be hard to miss, even in the midst of the chaos around them. Noah’s gaze darted about more haphazardly than he’d have liked, but he found it impossible to remain calm, despite his training. He thought time and time again about how Minh had reached for him, about the fear that must grip the children. And the knowledge of their fear fueled him with a sense of desperation so powerful that he felt more like an animal than a man. His instincts dominated his logic. His adrenaline demanded immediate action. He needed to find and protect Mai and Minh, no matter what the cost to himself.
But finding them seemed impossible. Though Noah had seen many unusual sights over the past few years, he was unprepared for what he saw now. The highway leading north reminded him of some sort of bizarre, postapocalyptic world. Thousands of buses, trucks, cars, and scooters weaved their way forward, trailed by clouds of dust and exhaust. The vehicles carried anything the mind could conceive—water buffalo, streetlamps, teak tree trunks, marble statues of Jesus, and the occasional bundle of old artillery shells. Alongside the highway, endless tin stalls served the needs of travelers. Food vendors were plentiful, as were repair shops, temples, and giant steel drums that served as mobile gas stations. All of the shops and buildings were accessed by scooter rather than by foot. People simply drove up and asked for what they wanted. Occasionally, the stalls vanished and the jungle sprang forward. Hundreds of hammocks hung from serpentine branches and supported weary travelers who’d paid a nominal fee for the pleasure of resting.
The highway was being rebuilt in places and often detoured around projects powered by both modern-era heavy equipment and oxen. To Noah’s surprise, Thien didn’t follow traffic but drove directly through these undertakings, sometimes weaving in and out of vast earthmoving machines as if their scooter were an ant scurrying among turtles. She took such shortcuts whenever possible—driving on the wrong side of the highway if oncoming traffic was light or moving into the wakes of speeding buses that cast all other vehicles aside.