The Shadow of Arms (41 page)

“My brother would never get involved in such risky business. He's a very cautious man, sir.”

“I'm not saying you should talk to your brother about this. Make friends with Lieutenant Kiem on the adjutant's staff at the provincial government office. I'm certain he's now scheming to find a way to develop some business of his own. The money that falls into his lap for helping Major Pham is chicken feed. As far as I know, militia matters are under the jurisdiction of the ARVN Second Division, but since their headquarters are up in Hue, the commander who should be in charge has no practical control.
A
captain dispatched from First Division Headquarters, along with Colonel Cao, superintendent of military police in Da Nang, will be delegated power to conduct the training and take command of the militias. Lieutenant Kiem, I think, will be responsible for liaison between those concerned.”

“Plan?”

“Just think about it. Three hundred hamlets, each with between fifty and one hundred households—even if we assume only one adult male per household we are talking about at least thirty thousand guns.”

“Administrative tricks, maybe?”

“Sure. A few thousand ghosts can easily be fabricated on paper. Statistics are in flux because new hamlets are being created, the population is on the move, and the count of the dead changes daily. Depending on Kiem's capability, the quantity could be even higher. If that works out we'll have a regular supply of ammunition and other supplies for a whole division of local guerillas. That should do for small arms. We can start with one hundred and gradually increase the supply to one thousand or more. That'll enable us to open a steady channel for continuing sales of weapons and ammo, but best of all, the money for training these ghosts and for related administration will roll into their hands and then straight into their pockets. We won't even have to throw them any bait. Since we already see this opportunity, all we have to do is move fast and grab the chance before other merchants get the same idea.”

Nguyen Thach was going over the modus operandi he intended to carry out with Minh's help. He continued: “And the next thing is the food and medicine. Those are items we must come up with through our own resourcefulness in trading.”

“Will it be rice, sir?”

“Rice is traded openly; it's a basic commodity in the market. We can transplant rice twice a year, and even under the French our country was famous for exports of Annam rice, but over 40 percent of our paddies in central Vietnam, not to mention the Mekong Delta, have been turned into battlefields. So the main rice trading these days is concerned with relief grain from California. Just like with cement and fertilizer, it's easy work. It's plentiful all over the market. The more important thing is the combat rations—we can't afford expensive food for guerillas in the jungle. Nothing is more convenient than C-rations for operations requiring blackouts or secret mobilizations, like night reconnaissance, infiltration, and ambushes. We also need C-rations to feed the wounded in the swamps.

“Along with guns, the trade in C-rations is one of the most sensitive for the American intelligence investigators. So we have to make small purchases and gradually accumulate stockpiles. As for medicines, in this tropical climate the items most in demand are antibiotics, antiparasitics, and painkillers. Terramycin, streptomycin, quinine and, most of all, anesthetics and morphine are hard to come by in the jungle. We use refined heroin as a painkiller sometimes, but it's risky. If we carry out this task, the duty of linking up with the various cells will be transferred to another section.”

“Are we the only ones doing such work in Da Nang's Third Special District, sir?”

“Ah, naturally there's a transportation team that connects the city with the countryside and another team working across from the smokestack. And we have administrative agents in the market collecting taxes, of course. After being reinforced the total strength of the 434th Special Action Unit is now sixty fighters, divided into four companies. You'll learn the details after you become a regular agent. By the way, your status is secure now?”

Minh took his dog tags out from beneath his shirt and showed them to Thach.

“I'm a sergeant in the air force, sir. I belong to the maintenance detachment at the air base.”

“Well done. That'll be very useful later.”

Nguyen Thach walked toward the warehouse door. “I'll be dropping in every day around this time or before you're finished for the day,” he added.

Once he was gone, Minh went over their discussion and rearranged the information in his head, carefully organizing everything lest he forget. He heard a truck pulling up outside, and after it stopped the foreman came in with three men. The foreman greeted Pham Minh with a nod and a merchant from the country extended his hand. He said he had come from Hoi An.

“The payment has been made.”

Looking at Minh's delivery order, the foreman pointed to the kind and quantity of merchandise that had been circled in red ink.

“Here it is. Hoi An.”

Pham Minh released the cement and fertilizer and got a receipt for the delivery. Nguyen Cuong, who had just walked in, nodded.

“I knew you'd do fine. Save those documents and give them to the major. I'll give you the final approval.”

 

 

26

The little notebook belonging to the head of the Hong Kong Group had disclosed three of their lines of business and led to one very important discovery. Chairman Pak had written down the names of the clubs and bars he had been supplying with beer and cigarettes, including the Bamboo Sports Club as well as minor inns. Even a few brothels were identified. Colonel Cao and Major Krapensky must have been very unhappy.

The cigarettes had been coming mainly from the air force PX and electric appliances from the marine PX. The beer supplies had only recently been switching over from Hamm's to Korean beer. Lately the supply of Korean beer had grown and the price was down in the market, no doubt about that. The captain and Yong Kyu already knew very well that the Hong Kong Group had been working together with the chief sergeant from the investigation team, the staff sergeant from the supply corps detachment, and the master sergeant in charge of the canteen at brigade. Under the acronym MAC, a list of names was written down in alphabetical order, and there was also an entry for Puohung Company in Le Loi market.

Yong Kyu thought Puohung might well be a channel through which A-rations were flowing out. Fresh A-rations, as everybody knew, were unloaded at Bai Bang Harbor, from where the heaps of produce were sent to the refrigerated navy warehouse across from the smokestack. The good thing about A-rations was that they were perishable and so could not be stored very long. Further, marketing food was always easy. It was widely known that the US economic team had been controlling the prices by regulating supplies.

It seemed that Pak had, without access to the inside mechanics, succeeded in tapping into a supply channel for these profitable items. He even had a Vietnamese merchant lined up to take A-rations off his hands. With the Puohung Company nearby in Le Loi market, the investigation would be easy, and the owner might turn out to be dealing in luxury items as well as A-rations. Pak's list also included some Vietnamese traders who
could be dealing in weapons.

The whole Hong Kong Group, including Lieutenant Colonel Pak, Pig, Pak's brother-in-law, and the crew cut, had been taken to the police station. They were interrogated only about the Salem cigarettes from the air force PX and the four pallets of beer stored at the pier. All of them were so discouraged that they answered the questions meekly. The captain told Pak to keep his hands off the beer, but was less adamant about the cigarettes. He alluded to the fact that the flow of beer, especially Korean beer, into the market had been irritating the Americans and that, unless stopped, it would enrage Colonel Cao, the police superintendent, who liked to keep his hand on the beer tap in Da Nang. Pak was told that he would be allowed to deal only in luxury items and appliances from the PX. Pak didn't respond to that. As soon as the prisoners were released, the captain went to the Dragon Palace with Yong Kyu and the chief sergeant to have lunch.

“What next?” Yong Kyu said, and went on in a joking tone. “Shall I bring in the staff sergeant from the supply corps and the master sergeant from the brigade canteen and punch them in the nose?”

“Hey,” the chief sergeant said, “they've only been dealing in order to put a little cash away for when they take off their uniforms. They haven't committed any serious crimes, have they? Fight when you have to fight, and make money while you can, that's what I say. We came here to make some stinking money, and nobody stole anything, we just did a little business, that's all.”

“Listen, you: you've got to figure out your right foot from your left. Blue Jacket Ahn is trying to cover for you. He's got the detachment by the throat, isn't that right?

“When the pictures are developed, it'll be more than enough,” Yong Kyu said.

“From now on all the Korean beer is yours,” the captain said to the chief sergeant. The latter started to sulk.

“What do you expect me to do, go out and sell it myself door to door? I don't speak the language and I don't know any Vietnamese merchants.”

“Don't worry about it. I wrote down all the dealers that Lieutenant Colonel Pak was using.”

Yong Kyu took out his notebook and showed it to them.

“What do you know, that slimy woman who owns this place, that raccoon, she's one of Pak's customers, too,” the captain said in a low voice.

“Sure. She charges us four fifty or even five dollars a can for beer she buys at a buck-fifty a can.”

“That's a wholesale price. The retail price goes as high as six
dollars
at the moment, you know,” the chief sergeant said.

“For a guy so much in the know, how come you've been spinning your wheels without getting anything done? You better come with me to say hello to Colonel Cao. So much for the beer. As for that canteen sergeant at brigade headquarters, you should collar him, too. There's liquor and cigarettes.”

“I understand.”

“And take good care of the boys, look after them. And rent a truck, too.”

“The owner of the place where I'm working now, he rents vans. Get one from him for now.”

“Well, that's one more thing taken care of,” said the captain in a better mood. “What remains is the matter of the beer. It'll leave us in an awkward spot if we end up clashing with the US side again.”

“We can solve that problem by reaching a compromise with the Vietnamese police superintendent. The basic information must have come from there. Korean beer was pushing out American PX beer all through the Da Nang circulation network. That was their way of irritating the US forces so that they would interfere with the marketing of our beer.”

“Right, we can arrange something with Cao. Anyway, since all the deals on the US side are made either at the harbor or in their warehouses—that is, within their compounds—the final responsibility was bound to fall on third-country nationals. We've got to get detailed information on the black market activities of the US economic operations team.”

Yong Kyu explained again what he had copied from Pak's records. The captain listened for a while with his brow furrowed into a frown and then thought deeply.

“That's it, A-rations are the goods least connected with the war. If stored too long, they turn into garbage, but fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables are daily necessities in central Da Nang. It makes price manipulation very easy. It's produce consumed by the privileged of the city, but it raises problems of its own, and not just a few, either. If we pull the wrong thread, we might find ourselves holding a snake's tail instead of a sack of potatoes. Once bitten, we lose.”

“The B-rations we pull out from Turen have little impact on the prices of other goods and the transactions are easy. I'll try
to
dig up some details on the A-ration trading. I have a feeling something will turn up.”

“Will you begin with MAC?”

“No, sir. I'll start at the opposite end,” Yong Kyu said with a smile. “Le Loi market.”

“Fine. If worse comes to worst, we'll find ourselves back at square one. Why not take a look at the Americans' turf? Just don't get them upset.”

The captain agreed with Yong Kyu's idea of digging up details on A-ration dealings. Once they understood the mechanism of price-fixing in the black market, other valuable information would fall into their lap as well. It was their best bet.

“The underground trade in dollars is important, too,” the captain went
on.

“It's not just military currency, sir. You can change anything: money orders, francs, deutsch marks, yen, you name it. Everything is quoted in piasters, though. They say money changers have been coming here all the way from Cholon and Saigon.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Yong Kyu made his regular rounds and
drove
a rec center Jeep through the convoy traffic to the Turen supply warehouse.
He
met Leon in front of the warehouse. The American looked worried and quickly ushered Yong Kyu inside.

“There's a big problem.”

“What is it? Something gone wrong with our business?”

“No, that wouldn't be so serious. You know Stapley, don't you?”

“So, he's the one in trouble?”

Yong Kyu had once enjoyed a night on the town with Sergeant Stapley, Leon
's
best friend. Stapley was a blonde from New York, handsome as a French movie actor. He was always talking up his plans to become a cartoonist when the war was over. In some ways he was very different from Leon. He used the most imaginative swearing among the GIs to denounce the Vietnam War. He had something of an artistic gift and was in the habit of making medallions and bracelets by engraving sayings he composed himself in Gothic lettering on coins and strips of metal or plastic. He had given Yong Kyu a yellow plastic
emblem
with red lettering that read: “Do Not Crumple or Trample before Disposal!” Other creations of his said things like “God-Damned War” or “Fucking Murderers!” or “Baby Cookers” or sometimes titles or lyrics from popular rock songs. That night Leon had vanished early with a woman and Yong Kyu had spent the whole night drinking whiskey with Stapley. He remembered their conversation.

“I was a helicopter gunner. Even got a medal. That's how I got to be a sergeant. Now I'll never be a cartoonist. Listen to me, you smelly Asian boy, I'm gonna stay put right here and get promoted to be master sergeant with a moustache and then I'll give a hell of a time to my men. You know that guy named Silverstein, right? He writes poems and illustrates them. What if we brought him over here and made him a sergeant, what d'you think?”

“You idiot, you don't even know what would happen, do you? Either he'd sell the entire stock of Turen to fill his belly, or live on, like you, throwing a tantrum over the killing on the battlefield, or maybe just get killed himself,” Yong Kyu had said.

“Stapley's disappeared,” Leon said.

“Maybe he's just gone to China Beach again, to play poker and now he's sleeping it off?”

“I wish that was all. But he took off with a truckload of poncho liners. Must be worth three thousand dollars.”

“Why the hell would he take poncho liners?”

“Because that warehouse was just finished inventorying. There were also jungle boots and tents.”

“How long's he been gone?”

“Five days. An AWOL report already went up the chain.”

AWOLs were everywhere. Sometimes they would fake a transfer and show up at a foreign barracks, or loiter around one of the ARVN city detachment posts. Once in a while an AWOL American managed to hole up for months in a Vietnamese civilian household.

“Can't you do something?” Leon asked. “I want to help him.”

“Me?” Yong Kyu rolled his eyes. “You must be out of your mind. We're different from you guys. And this is your installation. How can I help you? Leon, I can tell you know where he is.”

“More or less. Probably trying to get some help from the AWOL Rescue Society.”

“What's that? A group that helps out AWOLs?”

“It'll be harder than down in Saigon, but I'm sure there's also a group here. Please find him a civilian house where he can hide for a month. You know the locals. All of us boys in Turen love him. We don't want to see him thrown in jail.”

Yong Kyu tried to come up with an idea. Leon again spoke. “The reward is no problem. Just tell me what kind of goods you want.”

“Shut up. I'm not after a reward. Let's just find him and talk to him.”

“I have a feeling he'll get in touch with me after a few days. We need to find him a hideout before then.”

Yong Kyu talked it over with Toi, who undertook finding a private home to take Stapley in.

“It's interesting,” Toi said with a smile, “to see people proclaiming their neutrality like this.”

“Not to me. I have no position. I'm going home as soon as I can and
then
I'll forget about all this.”

They emerged from Nguyen Cuong's warehouse after stacking the goods they had delivered. Nguyen Thach pushed open the door leading into the marketplace and stepped out.

“What do you have today?” Thach asked.

“Canned pork and potatoes.”

“Boring, yet again,” Thach said. Then he turned to Toi and said, “Bring me some raisins and spices.”

“They haven't done the inventory yet, that's why. We'll go back on Friday, so why don't you let them know directly what you need?”

“Ah, all right, then.”

“I guess the money for last week's been collected?”

“Yeah, about eight hundred dollars so far.”

“We need to rent one of your cars. Mr. Nguyen Thach, let us use one of your box vans. How much do you charge for a day?”

“I'll let you have it for twenty-five dollars, gas not included. Others will charge you thirty, but since we're a family here I'll give you a discount.”

“We only need it after siesta, not the whole day.”

“Fifteen, then. But you people have vehicles, don't you?”

“They're all marked with company names. My friend, a sergeant, and
I
are going to use it. Ten dollars, what do you say?”

“All right. But have it back before dark. There'll be another five dollars charged if you use it until late tonight.” Thach was an excellent haggler.

“Ask him about the A-rations,” Yong Kyu said to Toi.

“What about them?”

“Well, prices, what's in demand, that sort of thing.”

“Mr. Nguyen Thach, what kinds of A-rations are selling well these days?” Toi inquired.

“Can you get some?” Thach countered with a sparkle in his eyes.

“Well, we can try . . .”

“Onions are good and so is beef . . . apples and oranges are doing especially well.”

“Which command the best price now?”

“Hard to tell. I've never handled them. Go over to the new market and find out for yourself. There's also one dealer here, a very large operation called Puohung Company, right over on the next alley. The owner is an even bigger trader than my brother.”