Walking Wounded td-74 Read online

  MacCleary-now dead-later went to work for Harold Smith. And when CURE required a one-man army to do its work, MacCleary had remembered an intense marine named Remo Williams.

  Yes, Remo thought sleepily. That was the link. In a way, it had all started in Vietnam. And now he was back. The heat filled the lumbering bus. The tour guide babbled on about Vietnam's internationalist responsibility, and outside insects droned. Somehow their drone made more sense. Remo dozed off.

  Hours later, the motor changed tune and the bus jounced as it left the road. Remo blinked awake. He was surprised at how sluggish he felt. Maybe it was the heat. Then he remembered, as if over a long span of years, that he was a Master of Sinanju. He could walk naked across the Sahara or the South Pole in serene comfort.

  "Welcome to People's Reeducation Camp Forty-seven," Mr. Hom said. "We will now show you the good things we have done with those of the puppet South who were corrupted by capitalism."

  Remo made a face. He had Hom pegged as a low-level Communist-party political officer. But he decided to ignore the man, no matter how rankling his words. When Remo slipped away from the tour group, he didn't want to be conspicuous by his absence.

  The camp consisted of a four-sided chain-link fence surrounding long, barrackslike, unpainted buildings. A Vietnamese flag flew from a pole, its yellow star fluttering against a blood-red background.

  "Follow me, please," Mr. Hom instructed. His English was good, if mushily enunciated.

  Remo hung back in the rear of the group. The bus had stopped at the gate, which was opened by two pith-helmeted armed guards. The group was escorted into the perimeter. There were no guard towers, no barbed wire. It was obviously a minimum-security installation. Remo wondered if the POW camp he sought would be this easy to penetrate. Probably not. This had to be a showcase to impress foreign visitors.

  Mr. Hom continued to talk as he waddled along. He spoke into a hand-held mike that hooked up to a portable speaker he carried slung over his shoulder-as if he couldn't trust anyone to listen to him unless his decibel level was set at excruciating.

  "When the glorious People's Army liberated Ho Chi Minh City," he explained, "many Southerners had been under Western influence too long. They were lazy and indolent. They had absorbed American propaganda. They would not work. In our kindness, we brought them here, to teach them to work."

  Looking at Mr. Hom's wide, unlined face, Remo decided that that had happened while Hom was in diapers. But the man went on as if he'd personally executed the policy.

  Mr. Hom led them to one of the barracks and up its rough wood steps. Inside, there were Vietnamese people sitting together at long tables. Some wove baskes. Other appeared to be making sandals out of old truck tires. They looked up as the tour group crowded inside, their eyes sad and empty.

  "Many of these were criminals and prostitutes before," Mr. Hom explained, turning the sound down because it echoed in the close confines. "Every day, they rise early, attend indoctrination lessons, and work at simple tasks. Soon they will be rehabilitated."

  Remo, comparing the intelligent expressions of the Vietnamese captives with the dull faces of the soldiers and Mr. Hom's flabby, stupid expression, couldn't resist making a remark.

  "Saigon was overrun in 1975, more than ten years ago. Why are these people still here?"

  Mr. Hom turned on the group, searching each face with beady eyes. "Who speaks? You, American?"

  "Yes," Remo said levelly. "I am an American."

  "Your question is impertinent. But I will answer for the benefit of the others. These are stubborn cases. They are not ready to enter socialist society. Here, they are useful, to the state and to themselves."

  "They look like political prisoners-or prisoners of war. "

  "They have been liberated. A less-enlightened regime might have had them executed."

  "Yeah," Remo said, an edge to his voice. "You're too enlightened to hold POW's. Of any kind."

  "Yes, exactly," said Mr. Hom, thinking that Remo was agreeing with him. He turned to the rest of the tour group, satisfied in his mind that the dark-eyed American had been put in his place. He repeated his answer in German. Then again in Russian. The Russians nodded in agreement.

  Remo slid around the knot of tourists and edged close to one of the tables. A middle-aged woman with graying hair pulled back in a bun was weaving a basket. Remo whispered to her, "Do you speak English?"

  The woman nodded slightly, not taking her eyes off her work.

  "What did you do before the war?"

  "I was a teacher," she said. Her words were more breath than bite, but Remo understood them.

  "And you?" Remo asked a man with tortoiseshell glasses.

  "Engineer. "

  "Any message you want me to carry back to the world?"

  "Yes. Tell the Americans to come back." The woman nodded in agreement. Others did too.

  One of the guards noticed Remo and stepped forward. He slapped the old woman. Remo slapped him back. The soldier went in one direction, his rifle in another. His helmet clanged off a wall, sounding like an old gong.

  "What is this?" Mr. Hom's cry was shrill.

  "This enlightened Communist slapped that old woman without reason," Remo pointed out.

  "Lies! Vietnamese only strike women for politically correct reasons. What are you doing there, American? Return to the group. There is no talking to internees here."

  "Why don't I wait outside?" Remo suggested.

  Mr. Hom stiffened. He looked from Remo to the others in the group, and evidently remembering the image he wished to project of the new Vietnam, nodded sullenly.

  "Wait on the steps. We will join you almost at once."

  "Don't hurry on my account," Remo said, pointedly stepping on the prostrate soldier's stomach on his way to the door.

  Outside, he watched the sun setting over a bushy ridge. He rubbed his eyes. They were caked with dried fluid. He felt tired, and wondered if it was jet lag. But jet lag was something he had banished from his life long ago.

  Remo noticed the next barracks were unguarded. He drifted over and put an ear to the door. He heard breathing and low talking. Finding a sealed window, he looked in.

  Looking out at him was a man with blue eyes and Caucasian features. His face exploded in shock at the sight of Remo's face.

  "American, American!" he shouted in English. "You come to rescue?"

  "Damn right," said Remo, taking the wooden frame in his hands. He yanked. The sash came off like a picture frame.

  Remo helped the man out. He wore black pajamas, the traditional Vietnamese peasant clothes. His hair was black, like a Vietnamese's. But his face was white.

  "Where helicopters?" His accent was pure Vietnamese.

  "What helicopters?" Remo asked.

  "Liberation helicopters. You American. You come to liberate Vietnam?"

  "Not exactly," said Remo, noticing two more faces poking out the window. One was Vietnamese, but his skin was milk chocolate. Another was a girl. Her skin was Asian, but her face was freckled, her large eyes green as an Irish colleen's.

  "How many of you are there?" Remo asked.

  "Twenty. "

  "You're not POW's, I take it," Remo said.

  "Yes. Prisoner longtime."

  "Not American POW's," Remo said disappointedly, as the others began to climb out the window, chattering excitedly and clinging to one another in fear. Remo looked around. So far, no guards in sight. But that wouldn't last long with the noise they were making.

  The first man was talking excitedly and grabbing Remo's T-shirt.

  "Yes."

  "Yes, what?" Remo demanded.

  "Yes, American. Half. "

  "Half?" Then the tour group spilled out of the other building. Mr. Hom saw Remo and shouted in Vietnamese. Guards came running raggedly, looking around in confusion.

  Hom pointed to Remo and the hole in the barracks, out of which teenage prisoners were now pouring, dressed in rags. The guards, who looked out of practice, got organize
d.

  Mr. Hom waddled up to Remo, flanked by the soldiers. They held their rifles at the ready. Hom flapped his arms like a pelican trying to fly.

  "You break camp rules," he screeched. "You break camp rules. This is nasty. You are not to see those people. What is the meaning?"

  "I thought I was liberating American POW's," Remo said stubbornly.

  That upset Hom even more. "There are no American POW's in Vietnam," he yelled. "We are not like that. Though you bomb us, we forgave you. These are bui doi, dust of life. What you call Amerasians. They are the mongrel children of Saigon prostitutes and American killer soldiers."

  "They say they're prisoners," Remo said. The young captives crouched behind him. The girl, her green eyes fearful, clung to Remo's T-shirt. She looked all of nineteen. Her face had the look of a jib that had been cranked too tight.

  "Lies! They are here because no one wants them. We feed them, give them work. They are grateful."

  "Take us home, American," the prisoners whispered. "Take us to America."

  "I think that speaks for itself," Remo pointed out. He folded his arms, ignoring the pointing rifles.

  "You are very smug, American," said Mr. Hom. "You spit on the generous hospitality of the Vietnamese people. I think you should return to America. You will learn nothing here."

  "I didn't come here to learn your propaganda," Remo said. "And I'm not budging until I know these people won't be hurt."

  Mr. Hom hesitated. He felt the eyes of the tour group upon him. His next words dripped sarcasm. "Perhaps you are still bitter about having retreated from the victorious People's Liberation Army. Hmmm?"

  "We didn't retreat, remember?" Remo said. "We signed a peace treaty in Paris. Your people promised to stay in the North and ours in the South. It took you about a year to muster the courage to violate it."

  "We liberated the South," Hom said stiffly.

  "You couldn't win on the battlefield, so you tricked us with a treaty you never intended to uphold. Then you stabbed everyone in the back."

  "We won."

  "Maybe it's not over yet," Remo said. His voice held an edge that made Mr. Hom wipe suddenly sweaty palms on his whipcord breeches.

  Mr. Hom barked orders in Vietnamese. The guards lowered their weapons. Two went around a corner. They came back driving a Land Rover.

  "You will be driven back to Ho Chi Minh City," Mr. Hom said petulantly. "There your money will be refunded and you will be put on a flight away from Vietnam. Perhaps one day you will realize the goodness of the forgiving Vietnamese people and we will allow you to return."

  Remo, knowing he had no chance of doing anything for the Amerasian prisoners under the circumstances, shrugged as if it didn't matter. He said, "Okay," and turned to the huddle of frightened half-Vietnamese, half-American faces.

  "Sorry," he said loudly. Then he whispered, "Sit tight. I'll be back."

  Remo allowed himself to be escorted to the waiting Land Rover and driven out of the camp gates. The amplified voice of Mr. Hom followed him down the road. Hom was informing the tour group that in America, many people felt bitterness over their failure to impose their will on the Vietnamese people. But the Vietnamese were strong from thousands of years of struggle. No one would ever divide them again.

  Chapter 11

  Less than a mile down the road, darkness fell with the stark suddenness that Remo remembered so clearly even after twenty years.

  The soldiers sat in the front of the Land Rover. Remo sat in back. The driver was preoccupied with watching the road ahead. He had only his headlights to see by. Remo reached out and squeezed the other soldier's neck until he felt the man go loose. Remo kept him sitting upright while they stumbled through ruts in the road.

  When the driver slowed to negotiate a sharp turn, Remo brought his fist down on his helmet like a mallet striking a bell. The driver collapsed like a puppet. Remo shoved him onto the roadside and slipped behind the wheel. He braked, kicked the other soldier into the dirt, and spun the Land Rover around.

  Remo drove until he recognized a diseased banana tree that was near the reeducation camp, and pulled off the road. On foot he crept up to the perimeter fence and went over it like a black cat.

  He drifted through the camp, keeping in the shadows. The lethargy of the day had fled. He felt alert once again. Maybe it had been the heat after all.

  The tour group was eating in a wooden building, and behind it Remo found several Land Rovers and a canvas-backed truck. Reasoning that the kitchen was at the back of the big building, he slipped to the door. It came open at his touch. Inside, an elderly Vietnamese cook was busy pulling wooden pallets of fresh bread from a huge oven. Remo went to a cupboard and ransacked it. When he left the kitchen unseen, two canvas sacks bulged under his arms.

  There was just enough sugar to pour into the gas tank of every vehicle. Remo replaced the gas caps and found his way to the barracks where the Amerasians were kept. A soldier in green was nailing bamboo splints across the broken window. Remo put him to sleep with a single chopping blow and removed the bamboo with quick tugs. He poked his head in.

  "Next bus leaves in two minutes," he called. "You can buy your tickets on board."

  They poured out of the window like lemmings. Remo helped the younger ones over the sill. When he had them collected in a group, he put his fingers to his mouth to gesture for quiet.

  "Now, listen. I can get you out of here and away. But after that, you're on your own. Understand?"

  They nodded, their faces pale and grateful.

  "Okay," Remo said. "Single file, and follow me. Don't bunch up."

  He led them to the next barracks and then to the one nearest the gate. Motioning for them to stay out of sight, Remo slipped to the gate and approached the guard.

  Remo was almost up to him when his foot hit a rock. It was the strangest thing. He should have seen the rock. At the very least, he should have sensed it before kicking it. He was trained not to betray himself. But he had.

  The guard spun. His Ak-47 hung from a shoulder strap. He brought it up snappily. Remo was quicker. He grabbed the weapon by barrel and stock, and spun like a top. The centrifugal force made the guard let go. The strap held for three revolutions, then snapped. The guard sailed over the fence and crashed into the upper branches of a rubber tree: He lay still.

  Remo broke the padlock, kicked the gate open, and waved for the others to come.

  They started off single file, but the open gate was too much for them. The orderly escape became a rout. Still clutching the captured rifle, Remo yanked the external lever that opened the folding bus doors. He slid behind the wheel as the others found seats and huddled under the exposed window glass. In a moment, Remo had hot-wired the ignition and got going. The sound of the bus rumbling brought excited yells from the camp. Engines started growling, but the engines didn't catch. That would be the sugar. Remo grinned.

  In the rearview mirror Remo saw the Vietnamese soldiers pile into the road, some dropping into a shooting crouch, others bringing their rifles to shoulder height.

  Mr. Hom, hopping up and down like an animated pelican, slapped their rifle barrels down before they could fire. He swore at them, pointing to the gawking tour group, who were watching the brave soldiers of the new Vietnam trying to organize pursuit without vehicles.

  Remo grinned again. It reminded him of the day in September 1967 when he stole a North Vietnamese tank from under the noses of its sleeping crew. He pushed the accelerator to the floor, driving after the setting sun, toward Cambodia.

  It was many miles before Remo hit a roadblock.

  Two Land Rovers were parked nose-to-nose, blocking the road. About a dozen soldiers were standing in single-file formation in front of the Land Rovers, their rifles high and unwavering. They reminded Remo of paintings of the British Redcoats standing in strict military formation while American guerrillas picked them off from behind cover. Remo grunted to himself as he slowed the bus. The Vietnamese were acting like real soldiers now. That would
be their mistake.

  Remo barked, "Everybody get on the floor," to his passengers, yanked the door-opening handle with one hand, and scooped up his rifle with the other. He stopped. Noticing the rifle, he asked himself in a dazed voice, "What the hell am I doing?" Chiun would kill him if he caught him using a firearm. Remo left the weapon behind and walked into the bus's headlight glow with his hands hanging loose and empty.

  He smiled as he approached the toylike soldiers.

  "Is this the Road to Mandalay?" he asked cheerfully. "Or am I in the wrong movie?"

  A dozen safeties clicked off at once.

  "Yep," Remo said. "Wrong movie. I want Tarzan goes to Vietnam."

  And without any preliminary tensing of muscle or other betraying action, Remo vanished from the twin spray of headlights.

  The Vietnamese soldiers blinked. One of them barked an order. The soldiers advanced into the light, walking abreast.

  Up in the overhanging tree where Remo had disappeared to, he was reminded again of the Redcoats. Only these soldiers were green. And not just in the color of their uniforms. Remo found a strong vine, tested it for weight, and pushed off.

  He came down like a pendulum hitting dominoes. The first soldier never knew what hit him. Neither did the one next to him, who was thrown into the man beside him, who in turn clanged helmets with his comrade. The chain reaction of falling soldiers would have been comical had it not been for the sporadic eruption of automatic-weapons fire as frantic fingers tightened on triggers. Rubber-tree leaves were sickled off. Thick tree boles shattered, spewing milky sap. The Vietnamese cackled profanity. None of it did them any good.

  Once they were tangled up on the road, Remo put the still-conscious ones to sleep with a series of butterfly jabs. He motioned for help, and several Amerasians dragged the soldiers off to the side of the road and confiscated their rifles. Remo had moved the Land Rovers close to the bus and started siphoning gas into jerricans bolted to the back of the bus when the Amerasians wandered out of the dark bush. They were wiping blood stains off confiscated bayonets.