Nine Days (12 page)

The phone in my pocket began to feel more like an alien force than a means to rescue. If anyone was going to save Ti-Anna, it was going to have to be me.

As we drove on through the dark, with my hands bleeding and my feet numb, that began to seem like a bigger and bigger if. What could I possibly do? I wasn’t sure I could even lift her out of the truck.

And if I did—then what? Carry her? Where? I had no idea where I was. It was hopeless.

Then I pictured, for the hundredth time, Ti-Anna’s drugged body, bouncing on the floor of this army truck. Or maybe she was waking up now, in the dark, no idea where she was, or where I was, or what had happened or was going to happen.

I was furious at all of them—Horace, Radio Man, Sydney, Rat-face. I wasn’t going to let them do this to her. One way or another, I wasn’t going to let this happen.

I heard a cawing overhead, and realized it wasn’t a crow but a seagull, and then I recognized something else: a salt tang in the air.

There, I thought, there’s one good thing: now I know which direction we’ve been traveling: east. East out of Hanoi, toward the ocean—toward the Gulf of Tonkin.

I lifted my head to look for waves, or beach, or something. All I saw was darkness.

I was beginning to think I’d been wrong when I’d told myself that nothing can last forever. This truck was going to drive on and on through the rain and the dark, never stopping—only I wasn’t going to be able to hold on forever. My hands would give way, my feet would unhook, I’d tumble onto a wet Vietnamese highway, and the truck—and Ti-Anna—would disappear into the night.

But then—could it be?—we weren’t going quite as fast.

I lifted my head again. The road had narrowed, and looked deserted. The buildings were smaller, houses or shacks or little warehouses, I couldn’t tell. There were no streetlights, and I could barely see beyond the pavement. I thought maybe I heard waves, but then I thought maybe I was imagining it.

Then, miracle of miracles, we really were slowing. Third gear, second gear, turn. Stop.

With the engine idling, the driver called out, got no response, called again. A voice responded, and the truck eased off the road and onto a graveled parking area, rolling another twenty yards or so
before falling blessedly silent. It was an amazing relief not to have air rushing past.

It was also terrifying: suddenly I felt totally exposed. I held my breath and willed myself to be invisible.

The cab door opened and then slammed shut. There was some scraping on the gravel—rubbing out a cigarette butt?—and then a few steps and a knock on a door. A door opening, another hurried conversation, a door slamming shut. And then—quiet.

A light drizzle was tapping the roof of the cab, and now I was sure I could hear the rhythmic lapping of waves not far away. And that was it. No voices, no cars. Nothing.

Slowly, slowly, I uncurled my fingers from the rope and rolled stiffly onto my side.

We were parked in front of a low, long building, with ten or twelve windows facing our way. Two windows were lit, and enough light leaked out through grimy curtains to show that we were in a compound, framed by sheds and shacks and a couple of other low buildings like the one that had swallowed the driver.

An odd assortment of boats and vehicles and equipment was scattered around the lot: a truck like the one beneath me, a few motorcycles, a three-wheeled bicycle rickshaw, an old fishing boat listing to one side and ropes and crates and other junk I couldn’t make out in the gloom.

I sat all the way up and rubbed my feet. Beyond those two windows the compound looked deserted, but I knew at least one other person was out there. I had to hope he—the guy in the gatehouse—had fallen back asleep.

I looked at my watch, which I had never adjusted. Back home it was three in the afternoon. Here it was eleven hours ahead. Two in the morning. Still plenty of darkness to come. Another good thing, I told myself.

Gingerly, I turned myself around, like a dog looking for the right
position for a nap, and crawled toward the front of the truck. My muscles creaked and complained but they did what I told them to do. I figured eventually even my feet would feel normal.

I slid onto the roof of the cab and swung down, my feet finding the driver’s open window and then the narrow running board and, finally, the ground.

I peered inside the cab, not knowing what I was looking for. It’s not like you’re going to find a map with an X drawn over our final destination, I told myself. There were no keys, either, just a crumpled cigarette pack and a lighter.

I grabbed the lighter and tiptoed toward the back of the truck. No one came running at me from the office building, or from the gatehouse.

I heard an odd snuffling inside the truck. Please, let her be okay, I thought. I unhooked and lifted the flap. In the darkness I could make out nothing, so I flicked the lighter and—I couldn’t help it—let out a gasp.

I’d been imagining Ti-Anna lying in empty darkness, maybe tossed on a few empty sacks. What I saw was the opposite of emptiness. Three rows of rope hammocks ran the length of the truck. Each row was triple-decked, one hammock on top of another on top of another. And in every hammock a girl, curled up to fit the tiny space.

In my shock I let the lighter close. I took a deep breath, hoisted myself into the truck and, with my hand shaking, flicked it on again. The flap closed behind me.

I had to turn sideways to slide between the rows. Some of the girls stared at me, in a vacant way. Some didn’t bother. Some had blindfolds on. Some had tape over their mouths. None of them made a sound. There was a sour smell to the air.

I sidled up one narrow aisle, holding the lighter over one stack of hammocks after another. The girls were just that, most of them—girls; kids, really, though there were a few young women too. All were barefoot. A few had bruised faces or black eyes. None of them was Ti-Anna.

She’s got to be here, I told myself. I saw them put her in. I would
have seen them take her out. I sidled back toward the flap and pushed up the other row, flicking the lighter more and more impatiently until—there she was, in a hammock near the front, in the middle of a stack: one girl above her, one below.

I held the lighter close to her face. Her eyes were closed, but she looked unhurt, and she was breathing. Okay, I told myself. She’s alive. Another good thing.

I shook her lightly and whispered her name. Her eyes flickered open. I moved the lighter nearer my face, so she could see me. For the longest time she stared almost uncomprehendingly, as if she were swimming up from somewhere deep, deep underwater. Then she reached out and touched my chest.

“You’re soaking,” she said.

“That’s true,” I whispered. I was so happy I wanted to squeeze her in my arms. She’s okay, I thought. That’s all that matters. We’ll get out of this somehow. “It’s the rainy season here in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Where are we?” she said. She lifted her head and moaned, fell back down and asked again, more insistently. “Where are we? What is going on?”

“You were drugged,” I said. “Do you remember going to Thieu’s house? They injected you with something, and put you in this truck, and drove you toward the seashore. We’ve got to get you out of here. Fast.”

Some of the other girls were watching us now, still without emotion, without curiosity, or maybe they were too scared to show either. Ti-Anna didn’t seem to notice them. She closed her eyes again, and I closed the lighter; I didn’t want to use it up. I couldn’t see my hand six inches in front of my face.

I perched on the side of Ti-Anna’s hammock, without putting my weight on it, and felt for her shoulder.

Then I heard her voice in the darkness.

“I do remember,” she said. “They showed me pictures of my father. Ethan, he’s alive! We have to— Ow! My head is pounding.”

She had tried to sit up again, too fast. But this time she kept coming, more slowly, holding on to my arm and swinging her legs onto the ground.

“We have to get those photos, Ethan. Then
they
will have to admit he’s alive, that they kidnapped him. Then they’ll have to let him go.” She paused. “God, it’s like someone has a hammer inside my head. What do you think they gave me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t know whether to be cheered or terrified that Ti-Anna, a prisoner about to be sold into slavery, was confidently making plans to defeat the People’s Republic of China.

“But listen to me, Ti-Anna. One thing at a time. We’ve got to get out of this truck. It could drive off again at any minute, God knows where. There’s men all around, and they probably have guns.” That was a guess, but it didn’t seem unreasonable. “Let’s see if you can walk.”

I flicked the lighter one more time, and this time Ti-Anna noticed the girls. She looked above her, below her, all around, and I could see her taking it all in: the bruises, the naked feet, the taped mouths.

“My God,” she breathed.

“Yes,” I hissed. “I know. But we have to move,
now
.”

She let me help her into a standing position and lead her toward the back.

I pushed the flap open a crack. After the blackness of the truck the lot seemed positively bright. No one was in sight.

I jumped down and turned to help Ti-Anna, who surveyed the inside of the truck one more time and then slid warily to the ground. We headed toward what looked like an empty shed as far from both the gatehouse and the lighted windows as we could get.

As Ti-Anna hop-stepped across the gravel, I understood why every girl was barefoot; it made it that much harder to escape. She winced with every step, and I was sure that with every wince her head pounded. But she kept up without complaint until we had collapsed on a pile of foul-smelling nets inside the shed.

We caught our breath.

“Ethan,” Ti-Anna said as another mystery dawned on her. “How did
you
get here? How did you know I was here? How did you find me?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Let’s get out of here, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

I looked nervously through the dirty window.

“We could use that pedicab,” I said. “You can ride while I pedal. We have at least two hours of darkness left. If we can get past the guardhouse, we could get pretty far before they notice you’re missing.”

We were sitting thigh-to-thigh on the nets, and I could sense her mulling over what I’d said, and then I could sense her shaking her head, no, in the darkness, and somehow I knew what was coming.

“Ethan,” she breathed. “We can’t leave those girls. We just can’t.”

We sat in the dark, breathing in Eau de Decayed Shrimp, while I let that sink in. I wasn’t surprised, as I said. I didn’t even disagree.

I just didn’t see how we could save those girls.

Eventually, I said so.

“I know,” Ti-Anna said softly. “I don’t have a clue either. But—do you still have the phone?”

I knew where she was heading. As quickly as I could, I sketched out why I wondered whether we could trust Sydney.

Ti-Anna didn’t respond for a while—for so long that I began to think maybe the drug had kicked in again or, worse, that she was giving up. I realized that the only thing scarier to me than Ti-Anna determined to rescue a hundred slave girls on the way to liberating her father would be Ti-Anna deciding that something was impossible.

“So,” I finally said. “I know it’s horrible, but—should we try the pedicab? Those guys won’t hesitate to kill you if you piss them off, I’m pretty sure of that.”

She still didn’t answer.

Then, as if she hadn’t heard my last comment at all, she said, “Here’s what I think. You’re right about Radio Man. I think he agreed to trick my father into this trip. Remember what Sydney said about his family back in China? Who knows what they threatened
him
with.

“But—here’s the thing, Ethan: I’m sure he didn’t want to. At least, he didn’t want to do this to me—maybe with my dad there’s some history we don’t know, but he didn’t want to do this to me. To us.”

She paused, looking at me in the gloom. “That’s why he sent us away at first; he had some idea of what they might make him do, if he let us in, but they didn’t know we were there, so they hadn’t sent him orders yet, so he tried to act as though it hadn’t happened. That in itself took courage.

“By the time we showed up again the next morning, they had tracked us somehow—they would have known we hadn’t gone back to your dump of a hotel.”
My
dump? I thought. “So when we knocked on his door, he had to let us in. He had to do what he did.”

“But he felt bad about it. I know he did.”

It made me nervous to hear her assure me how certain she was, as if she was trying to convince herself.

But maybe she was right. “So because he felt bad, he came running after us with Sydney’s number—outside, where
they
couldn’t hear,” I said. “As a good-luck charm.”

“Maybe it was something he did so he could feel a little better about himself. ‘I tried to save them,’ he could tell himself,” Ti-Anna said. “But it wasn’t just a good-luck charm. Think about it. She really might have saved us, if I hadn’t been so stupid and stubborn.”

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and turned it on. What’s the worst that could happen? I thought as I waited for it to power up.

Well, I answered myself, that’s a no-brainer: As soon as she talks to you, she’ll call whoever is sitting in that shabby little office across
the boatyard, and they’ll come get us both, and inject us with whatever they had drugged Ti-Anna with last time, only more of it.

And what if Sydney wasn’t part of the plot? Even then, what good could she do us, or those girls? I knew we were somewhere along the ocean, but I didn’t know where. Vietnam’s coastline was at least a thousand miles long. That left a lot of room for guesswork.

Having run through all the reasons it made absolutely no sense to be doing what I was doing, I punched number two.