The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (14 page)

It was then a case of the Beijing Interpol office persuading the police to investigate. It was a slow, tortuous process. The PSB had its own criminals to deal with and its men were less than happy at spending their time returning the cars of what they saw as Hong Kong fat cats. The fact that so many high-ranking Chinese officials and their families ended up as recipients of the stolen cars didn’t exactly help Coleman’s investigations.

Coleman sipped his hot coffee and glared at the files. He wanted a cigarette, badly, but he’d promised himself that this time he really would give up. He’d given up at least six times before but never managed more than two weeks before lighting up. This time he was determined to quit. A good chunk of that determination had come from Debbie Fielding. She’d been trying to give up, too, and he’d promised to help. Even though he hadn’t seen her for almost two weeks he wanted to set her a good example. Thoughts of Debbie gradually replaced his urge to smoke, though both left him with a nagging ache in his guts, a longing that kept his mind off his work.

He’d met Debbie at one of the Lan Kwai Fong nightclubs, seen her dancing with a girlfriend, bought her a drink and, he thought, got on really well with her. The one drink led to others and they left together. She could barely stand and he’d had to help her to her car. A Jaguar XJS, of all things, a car the cadres would kill for in Beijing. She’d insisted that she could drive but he’d poured her into the passenger seat and taken her home. At least he’d tried to get her home. Halfway up the Peak her hand had begun to wander into his lap and she’d giggled and stroked him until he thought he’d burst. She’d persuaded him to turn off the road into a secluded side-street and practically leapt over the gear lever to his side of the car. Not that Coleman had needed much persuasion. It was cramped and their lovemaking had been quick and urgent. She hadn’t even given him time to remove his trousers.

Afterwards she’d said that she was sober enough to drive the rest of the way home and she’d dropped him off on the main road so that he could catch a taxi back to Wan Chai where he rented a small flat on the twenty-third floor of a cockroach-infested residential tower block.

Coleman had called her the following day, and the day after that, and they’d gone out five or six times. At the end of each date she’d ended up making love to him in the passenger seat of the Jaguar, hard and fast like a wild animal. He’d fallen for her in a big way but she wouldn’t see him more than once a week, she wouldn’t go back with him to his flat and she wouldn’t take him home to meet her parents. Now she seemed to be avoiding him and wouldn’t even return his phone calls.

He thought back to their last date, more than two weeks earlier. They’d eaten at a Thai restaurant and caught a movie at Ocean Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui. She’d offered to drive him home with a sly smile and he thought she’d go up to his apartment for the first time but instead she’d insisted they make love in the car, parked in the car park under his building. The car park was well lit and regularly used but she said she didn’t care. She’d been wearing a black dress, cut low at the front, and she’d unzipped him and mounted him in one smooth movement because she wasn’t wearing underwear. She allowed him to slip the dress down over her shoulders so that he could kiss her breasts but when he’d tried to take off his shirt she’d told him that they didn’t have enough time. She wouldn’t kiss him while they were making love, either, as if she didn’t want intimacy, just the use of his body. Thinking about the way she’d ridden him made him hard under the desk and he shook his head. He wanted to call her the same way that he wanted to draw on a cigarette, but he’d called yesterday and left a message with one of the family’s Filipina maids. He’d give her until the afternoon, at least.

All the vets seemed to grow more relaxed during their stay at the beach resort of Vung Tau, as if they finally sensed that Vietnam was no longer the threat it used to be, and that the smiling Vietnamese were smiling because they were glad to see tourists, not because they were planning to put ground glass in their beer or a bomb under their Jeep.

Hung and Judy drove them back to Ho Chi Minh City and booked them all back into the Floating Hotel. Judy then shepherded them on a series of tourist trips around the city: tours of pagodas and temples, a visit to an army surplus market that was still doing a healthy trade in US equipment and clothing, a look around the zoo – which was in as much of a sad decline as the city itself – a children’s amusement park, and an orchid farm.

Lehman found himself enjoying the city, despite its obvious poverty. The people they met were friendly and helpful and he could see that they were keen to get back on equal terms with the West. He made a mental note to look at the possibilities of some sort of Vietnamese venture capital fund. Not a real one, naturally, but a scam to fleece investors. He was convinced it would pull in the suckers like flies to jam.

Even Carmody appeared to relax. At first he’d done nothing but pick faults and arguments, calling the hotel staff “gooks” behind their backs and making fun of the cyclo drivers because of their cheap clothes and bad teeth. But as the days went by he became less sarcastic and bitter and began to take a real interest in what Judy was showing them.

Gradually, though, the sights that Judy took them to became more political. She took them to the Military Museum and showed them its collection of NVA equipment used to defeat the South. Then she took them to the Museum of the Revolution which celebrated the communist struggle for power. Inside the white neoclassical building were huge gilded ballrooms which had been converted to exhibition rooms containing Viet Cong weapons and photographs of what the Vietnamese called “The Liberation of Saigon”. She showed them equipment the VC had used to conceal papers and weapons – a hawker’s display of cigarettes with a secret compartment underneath, a boat with a false bottom in which guns and explosives could be hidden, a sewing machine with space underneath in which a bomb could be concealed. It was terrorist equipment yet Judy didn’t treat it as such; instead she proudly demonstrated it to the Americans and cited it as an example of Vietnamese ingenuity in the face of US oppression.

Lehman heard Tyler talking to Carmody at the back of the group. “She doesn’t seem to realise that most of this stuff was used in Saigon, for booby-traps and sneak attacks,” he whispered. “It wasn’t used in the war, it was urban terrorism. What use would a sewing machine be in the jungle, for God’s sake?”

Lehman didn’t turn around but he agreed with Tyler’s sentiments. Judy seemed to take great pride in the things she was showing them, without acknowledging that it was equipment which the VC had used to take the fight behind the lines, to the shops, bars and cinemas of the city.

She went on to show them maps and photographs of the fall of Saigon but there was no mention of the thousands killed by the North Vietnamese forces in the months that followed “Liberation” or of the hundreds of thousands who were sent off to the re-education camps.

Lehman got the feeling that Judy had been breaking them in gently, that she had done all the tourist stuff first to put them at their ease before starting to push the government line. Sure enough, the following day Judy and Hung took the group to the Museum of American War Crimes. When she first told them where they were going they thought she was joking, unable to believe that the Vietnamese could be so aggressively untactful about naming an exhibit. But no, she was serious. They got off the bus and were each handed a leaflet headed “Some Pictures of US Imperialists’ Aggressive War Crimes in Vietnam”. It was badly written but the grainy photographs spoke for themselves – bodies at My Lai, US soldiers posing in front of dismembered bodies, setting fire to huts, and horrific pictures of victims of phosphorous bombs and napalm. Carmody flicked through his brochure and, as Judy watched, screwed it up and dropped it on to the floor. Horvitz glanced at his and then pushed it into the back pocket of his jeans.

In the yard in front of the museum was a collection of US artillery and armoured vehicles, including a 175 mm Howitzer, an M48 tank and, behind it, an M41. Judy took them slowly around the equipment, each of which had a small information sign in Vietnamese and English. It was the first museum they’d visited where signs were in English, and as he read the one in front of the Howitzer he could see why that was. “The US imperialists mostly used this Howitzer in their numerous criminal acts in the Iron Triangle area,” it said.

Horvitz snorted as he read the sign. “Most of the criminal acts I remember in the Iron Triangle were on their side,” he said to Lehman. He had tied his long hair back in a ponytail and it swung from side to side as he shook his head. “This is shit, man,” he said.

“It’s their view of what happened,” said Speed, appearing behind Horvitz and Lehman. “They’re entitled to their viewpoint.” He stepped to the side and began filming the tanks. Tyler was looking at the M48 but he moved away when he heard the whirr of Speed’s camcorder. He came over and stood by Lehman.

“Bit one-sided, wouldn’t you say?” Tyler asked.

“It’s the type of propaganda they pushed all the way through the war,” Lehman said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I didn’t expect to find them still calling us imperialists.”

“You read this?” Tyler said, brandishing the leaflet. He opened it and read aloud. “The war against Vietnam had caused lasting sting to the US conscience thus sparkling – yeah,
sparkling
– off widespread antiwar movements in US walks of life. We – Vietnamese people – are sincerely grateful to world peoples, including progressive Americans, for their precious support of our just struggle for Independence, Freedom and Happiness.”

Lehman shook his head sadly. “Independence, Freedom and Happiness,” he repeated. “Can’t say I’ve seen much of that here.”

“Have you seen what’s over there?” asked Tyler, pointing over Lehman’s shoulder.

Lehman swung round and his eyes widened as he saw the tadpole-shaped helicopter squatting among a clump of bushes.

“A Huey,” said Lehman.

The two men walked over and stood in front of the helicopter. The paintwork was peeling as if it was suffering from some incurable skin disease and Lehman could see through the Plexiglas that most of the electronics inside had been stripped out. Most of the structure was intact, though, and there was an M60 machine-gun mounted in the doorway on the left.

Lehman reached over and stroked the bulbous nose of the helicopter as if he was petting a horse.

“Think it’d still fly?” Tyler asked.

Lehman grinned. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said. “It’s probably rusted away inside.”

“The panels look good. And the rivets seem okay,” said Tyler, walking around the Huey.

“Yeah, but it’s been out in the open for God knows how long. The turbine will be fucked and the gearbox will probably have seized up.” He stuck his head inside the cabin. “And a lot of the electrics have been pulled out. No, it’ll never fly again.”

“Brings back memories, though?”

“Yeah, it does that.” He went over and tried the door to the pilot’s station but it had been padlocked. He shaded his eyes and pressed his face against the Plexiglas. Inside he could see the metal frame seats and their webbing covers. A headset was lying on the pilot’s seat, still plugged into its socket in the roof.

“How many flights did you make?” asked Tyler.

“Nine hundred and sixty three,” replied Lehman without hesitation. “A total of 2,146 hours in the air.”

“All in the Huey?”

“Most of it.” He pushed himself away from the window and looked at Tyler. “You ever flown in one?”

Tyler shrugged. “I prefer something a bit faster,” he said, which Lehman recognised as just another evasion, even though it came with a friendly smile. Tyler was wearing his sunglasses so Lehman couldn’t see his eyes.

“You weren’t a pilot, were you?” Lehman asked. He could see his own reflection in the black lenses.

“I can fly,” said Tyler quietly.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Tyler nodded slowly. “I know it isn’t.” He smiled and continued walking again. “How do you feel about what happened here, in Nam?” he asked.

Lehman watched Tyler walk away and slowly followed, looking at the ground. “I think we were here for the right reasons,” said Lehman. “I think it was a war worth fighting. And I think from what we’ve seen of the place in the last couple of days that it would have been better for everybody if we had stayed.”

“What do you think we were fighting for?” Tyler asked.

Lehman thought for a while. “It might sound corny, but I think we were fighting for freedom. It’s like it says on JFK’s tomb – we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to ensure the survival and success of liberty. I really felt like that back then. I know the regime here was as corrupt as hell, but it had to be better than what they’ve got now. Saigon used to be buzzing. It was a vibrant, lively city. The whole country could be as rich as hell – it’s got great land, great natural resources – and yet look at it. It’s Third World. It’s pitiful. And it’s the communists who’ve done it. Yeah, I was happy to fight for that.”

“You volunteered?”

Lehman nodded. “Yeah. And that’s what made it all the worse when I went back to the States and found that no one cared. Or worse, that they thought I was a fascist child killer who’d had no right to be there in the first place.”