“Mai!” Noah screamed repeatedly, waving his arms. She finally spotted him, pausing and then turning in his direction. Noah stumbled forward. He reached out as Loc neared them. His hands found theirs and he yanked them behind him. Loc took a few more steps, and Noah raised his arms, his fists clenched. Though his lungs heaved, he didn’t bend down. Coughing, Loc tried to circle him and come at Mai and Minh from behind, but Noah spun, keeping himself between Loc and the children. Thien arrived and started yelling at Loc in Vietnamese. He lunged forward, and Noah moved quickly, stepping ahead, jabbing his fist at Loc’s nose, missing his nose, but splitting open his lips in a burst of blood. Though Loc staggered and could have easily been overwhelmed, Noah stepped back protectively in front of the children. Thien continued to shout at Loc. His hands against his mangled lips, Loc turned away. He began to run. He fell, stumbled forward a few more feet, and fell again. Finally he made it to the bushes that marked the border between the sand and street, vanishing into a crowd of onlookers.
Noah turned to Mai and Minh. He dropped to his knees and they leapt into his arms. He hugged them tight against him. They were weeping, and he kissed their foreheads, the sight of their tears making him cry. As he kissed them, he promised that they’d never be alone again, that he’d take care of them. They were going to go to school, sleep in soft beds, be surrounded by people who loved them. Also on her knees, Thien echoed his words, her arms around Mai and Minh.
“We’re going to take you home,” Noah said.
Mai looked up at him, her bloodshot eyes glistening, her body still shuddering. “You promise?” she asked, hugging him tight. “Please, Mr. Noah. Please promise me. Promise Minh.”
“I do, I do. We’re taking you home. Where you’re loved. Where you’ll never . . . never feel alone again.”
They held Noah tighter, crying together while waves crashed, and then, as breezes stirred and the sun strengthened, they each began to smile, and laugh, and all that seemed to exist was the four of them huddled on the sand.
TWO HOURS LATER, LOC SAT IN the back room of an electronics store. The store was one of the many fronts that allowed his uncle’s illegal drug trade to flourish and sold everything from the latest flat-screen televisions to iPods to karaoke machines. Music and talk shows blared all day from a variety of speakers. Visitors shopped, haggled, and made purchases, never knowing that drug money was counted and distributed behind closed doors.
Within this room, Loc held a wet cloth to his swollen and split lips. They’d finally stopped bleeding, though they still ached considerably. He lowered the cloth, held the stem of a whiskey bottle above his mouth, and poured the whiskey into the back of his throat. He passed the bottle to his cousin Vien who made himself a drink and raised his glass before a light, inspecting the clarity of the whiskey. Three other men were present—the same men who’d smoked opium with the cousins earlier that morning.
“Help me find them,” Loc said, gently touching his lower lip, which was in the worst shape.
“Why?” Vien asked.
“Because my mother and your father are—”
“That’s not enough,” Vien replied. He started to drink his whiskey, but his cell phone beeped. After reading the text message in his in-box, he quickly typed a response and again faced Loc. “Your mother left my father. Just like she left you.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means whatever I think it means. You want my help? You pay me for it. You pay my father for it. He’s not pleased you’re here, by the way. You’d have been smarter to go somewhere else.”
Loc licked his battered lips and tried not to wince. He thought about the man who’d hurt him, thought about putting a knife to his stump. “The American has money. A lot of it. You can take it.”
“I can rob anyone I want. That’s not what I do.”
“But he’s—”
“Give me the girl and I’ll help.”
“No. She’s not available. At least not for free.”
Loc’s cousin twisted the hairs at the corner of his mustache. “Are you going to kill the American?”
“Slowly.”
“Then I want the girl. If you won’t give her to me, get out of my building.”
Loc drank more whiskey. “Fine. Take her.”
“And his money. I get it all. You just get the children . . . after I’m done with her.”
“How will we find them?”
Vien laughed. “You think anything happens in my city without me knowing? Don’t act as stupid as you look.” He opened his phone and began to push buttons. “I’m sending out the word. We’ll have them in an hour.”
AFTER RESCUING MAI AND MINH, THIEN and Noah decided to drive directly to the Nha Trang airport. They’d been told on the street that Vietnam Airlines operated almost hourly fights to Ho Chi Minh City, and there might be seats still available for a trip in the afternoon. Aware that Loc would likely find help and look for them, Thien had driven as fast as possible to the airport, which was located over a series of low mountains to the west of the city. The drive hadn’t been easy, as the airport road was under construction, and Thien was forced to weave in and out of earthmoving machines.
They’d arrived in time to secure three tickets on the next flight. They’d thought about buying four, but Noah wouldn’t abandon the scooter. It was too valuable to the center, and they didn’t have enough money for another. Though Thien had disagreed with him, Noah promised to leave for Ho Chi Minh City just as soon as their plane departed. The plan was for him to drive a few hours to a safe place, check into a hotel, and then finish the trip in the morning.
The airport at Nha Trang wasn’t much more than a large, two-story building that overlooked an immense stretch of concrete and several runways. A waiting room on the second floor was filled with plastic chairs facing a wide expanse of windows that allowed people to watch planes arrive, passengers disembark, and vehicles speed about. Many of those present were foreigners, and the air echoed with the conversations of French, German, Israeli, Swiss, American, and Vietnamese travelers. The room wasn’t air-conditioned, and ceiling fans spun above, hopelessly overwhelmed by the heat and humidity.
Mai and Minh were still traumatized by their escape from Loc and sat between Noah and Thien. Though Noah tried to explain how safe airports were, both children often glanced at the doorway, looking for Loc. Noah still couldn’t believe that Minh could talk, and asked him a variety of questions, enjoying the sound of his voice.
Aware that Mai and Minh must be hungry, Noah got up and shuffled to the gift shop, which was nothing more than a table covered with candy bars, magazines, cheap souvenirs, bags of dried fish, medicine, and canned drinks. Noah bought everyone a snack and returned to them with some haste, as he could tell by their worried glances that they didn’t like him to be away.
“Here you go,” Noah said, handing everyone a candy bar and a drink.
Mai took her snack and looked out the windows. “I hear planes fall from the sky,” she said in English. “Sure, sure, scooter is better. Maybe we all take scooter.”
Thien smiled. “Planes are safe,” she replied. “Much safer than scooters. Mr. Noah just took me on one a few days ago. And it was wonderful.”
“Why?” Minh asked, holding his candy bar between his stump and his thigh so that he could open it.
“Because you can fly,” Thien said. “Like you are on the back of a big bird. And you can see rivers. And mountains. And the ocean.”
Minh cocked his head toward her. “The ocean? Do you see fish? Or whales? Or dragons? Do the water end or go on forever?”
Thien put her hand on his knee. “You will see for yourself. Soon enough. And you really will think that you are flying.”
Minh nodded and took a bite of his candy bar.
Noah leaned closer to him, so that other passengers wouldn’t hear their conversation. “I always thought,” he whispered, “that if you ever spoke, you’d be really quiet. You’d say a word here and there, but that would be all. It never occurred to me that you’d be able to speak English so well.”
Minh shrugged. “But I always listen. Even in game, I listen.” He smiled and took another bite of his candy bar. “Sometime, in game, the people talk in English about what to do. They think I no understand. And then I beat them. And they so surprised. They never know I speak English.”
“Even I no know,” Mai replied, helping herself to his candy bar. “All this time, I no know. Same, same, every game. I do all speaking for him.”
“I can’t believe you never figured it out,” Minh said in Vietnamese. “All those games that I won. I listened to everything that you said, that they said.”
“You’re too smart for me, Minh the Trickster,” she replied, pushing her knee against his, smiling as she finished his candy bar. “I told you all those stories. You’re going to have to tell me so much.”
“Are you going to eat all my food?”
“Yes. As your punishment. For not talking to me. I’ll get fat, and you’ll weigh nothing more than a dragonfly, and I’ll blow you away whenever you bother me.”
“I’ll come back, looking for you.”
“I know,” Mai said. “And I’ll let you stay. But you’ll have to tell me so many stories. You’ll have to fly around and look for them. And if you don’t come back with enough I’ll squash you with my foot.”
Thien smiled as Mai stepped on Minh’s toes. He playfully hit her in response, and as they teased each other, Thien stood up, walked past them, and sat beside Noah. She took his hand in hers and moved close to him, so that her mouth was near his ear. “I wish you would come with us,” she whispered. “Will you please come with us?”
“I want to,” he replied, twisting toward her, remaining close to her. “But Iris needs the scooter. And there’s no money for another. I’m broke.”
“Then sell it here and buy another when you get back.”
“There isn’t time for that. You’re going to leave any minute. And I’d never get what it’s worth. It’s almost brand-new.” He glanced out the windows toward an idle plane. “Iris depends on it. She’s told me how it’s made her life easier. And she’s done so much for me. I just can’t let her down.”
Thien pulled away from him slightly. “What about Loc? He could find you.”
“He’s not going to find me. I’ll leave as soon as you get on the plane, and head straight for Saigon.”
“He could wait somewhere for you . . . ahead on the road.”
“Thien, he isn’t going to find me. He doesn’t have any idea where we are. And just to be safe, I’ll take some back roads out of Nha Trang.”
“But I do not want to go without you. It will be such a long ride back for you. Please come with us . . . with me.”
Noah kissed her on the forehead. He wanted to kiss her lips, but with so many people about, he turned and watched a plane race down the runway. It rose awkwardly above the shimmering cement, in no way resembling a bird. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I used to collect things.”
“What?”
“We would go to the beach for a week every winter. And I’d collect shells. I’d spend all day looking for them. I’d come back to the room sunburned and tired, but I’d have a basket of beautiful shells.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why are you telling me this now, Noah? When I am about to leave?”
“Because I still have those shells. And I saw them once . . . after I got back from Iraq. I wanted to throw them away, because it hurt me to look at them. I was jealous of the boy who found them. I wanted to be him again. More than anything in my life, I wanted to be him again. I still do.”
“Why have you kept them?”
“I’m not sure. But I have my shells, my coins, and my fossils. As much as I wanted to throw them away . . . I couldn’t. They meant too much. And I couldn’t walk away from them, even though I sometimes hated them.”
“I would like to see them.”
“I’m not going to walk away from you,” he said, whispering into her ear.
“Why not?”
“Because I love you.”
She squeezed his hands. “Do you know why I sing so much when you are near?”
“Tell me.”
“Because you make me want to sing. And that is why I know I love you.”
At the front of the room, a man announced in Vietnamese and then in English that boarding for the flight to Ho Chi Minh City would soon begin. As people started to stir, Noah kissed the side of Thien’s head. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, watching her fingers move against his. “Please do me a favor and show Mai and Minh the rivers, the ocean. Tell them what they’re seeing. Maybe you can get them each a window seat.”
“I will.”
“I love you, Thien. I didn’t know I was capable of such love. I thought that part of me was dead.”
“It is not dead.”
“Only because of you.”
Despite the crowd around them, Thien leaned even closer to him, kissing his cheek, wiping away her tears. “Please hurry back to me.”
“I will. I promise.”
“We need you.”
“I’ll be back soon. Before you go to sleep tomorrow I’ll be back, and you can sing something for me. And I’ll just lie there and listen.”
“And then?”
He thought for a moment, his fingers curling around hers. “And then everywhere we go, we’ll go together.”
TO LOC, THE ROOM IN THE rear of the electronics store seemed to get smaller by the minute. Though whiskey had helped to dull his pain, his need for revenge was overwhelming. The sooner he found the American and hurt him, the sooner he could think of things beyond the humiliation that he had suffered. He’d beat the American in front of the half boy and the girl. And then he’d beat them.
Loc’s sense of humiliation was compounded by the presence of his cousin and his reliance on him to help capture the American. He knew that Vien would take advantage of his misfortunes and, in fact, already had. The talk about Mai was only the beginning.