At the top, he looked around him. He didn't recognize the terrain and thought perhaps he was in the unfamiliar north. But there was a long ground scar to the west, like those seen often in the old days, when the Americans were in Vietnam. Those early bombing scars had long ago disappeared under new growth.
Phong realized that he was in Cambodia, where the New Vietnamese Army fought Cambodian guerrillas. Then, down below, the convoy started up. One by one, the trucks wound out of sight, going west, deeper into Cambodia. Even after their sight and sound were an hours-old memory, Phong sat unmoving, waiting for darkness to fall.
When the crickets were in full song, Phong descended. He was very frightened. He was alone in a land where no one could be his friend. The Cambodians would kill him as one of the despised invaders. His fellow Vietnamese would take him for a soldier and force him to fight. And he had no way of knowing how far it was to Thailand. But he was determined.
In the days that followed, Phong lived off tender bamboo shoots and insects. The shoots were plentiful, and he learned to climb into trees above flat rocks and wait for insects to alight. Then he spat red betel-nut juice down to immobilize them. They didn't taste so bad in the juice. But he soon ran out of nuts.
On the fifth day, Phong's resolve to conserve his ammunition for self-defense was shattered. Famished, he killed a small monkey and ate it raw. He carried the bones for three days before he allowed himself the luxury of sucking out the sweet, nourishing marrow.
When he had fired his last bullet, Phong buried the rifle because he was afraid he'd be tempted to chew the wood stock for relief from hunger pains and injure his stomach. By this time, he had changed into the heavier fatigue pants. His cotton prisoners' clothing had been ripped to shreds. He dared not wear the shirt. It would soak up sweat and stick to his back. He took great care at night to sleep on his stomach. He was afraid that the slightest injury to his back would make his journey fior nothing.
Phong pushed further west. Time held no meaning for him. He avoided population centers, control points, and the sounds of battle. These detours forced him further and further south.
One night, he smelled salt in the air. It made him dream of fish the next day, when he slept. Hunger was a constant ache in his gut, so he struck out for the south.
Phong came to a river. He hadn't followed it many kilometers before he came across a fishing village whose stilted huts straddled the river. The smells of cooking fish and boiling rice made his stomach heave. But he was too weak to dare steal himself a meal. Instead, he crawled on his stomach to one of the fishing boats on the river and climbed in.
The boat carried him silently down the river. He lay in the bottom of the boat and watched the stars pass overhead. He found a fisherman's net and chewed on it, enjoying the taste of salt. Eventually, he slept.
Phong awoke with the sun. He sat up. The sea around him was indescribably turquoise. Beautiful. And deadly. The South China Sea, some called it. Refugees from, the conquered South called it the Sea of Death and Pirates. Many who fled after the fall of the old Saigon government fell victim to its treacherous waters.
Phong hunkered down, unraveling the fish net. Trawlers sat like fat water bugs on the sea's cool surface. If Cambodian, they would ignore him. If Thai, they could be pirates.
Phong cast his net, and when he felt a muscular tugging, reeled it in. He ate the fish greedily, not bothering to kill it. The blood ran down his fingers. It felt wonderful, the cold flesh slipping down his throat. He caught two more, and for the first time in many months, his stomach was full.
Perhaps he would drift down to Malaysia, or the tides might carry him to Thailand, where, if he avoided pirates, he could seek one of the refugee shelters, and then go on to America. He had heard that many refugees spent years trying to leave the camps, but they would take him to America once he showed them his proof. Phong was certain of this.
The screaming changed his mind. It carried across the water as clear as a temple gong. It was a woman, crying out for mercy.
"Khoung! Khoung!"
Others took up her cry. Phong looked up.
A boat wallowed, riding low in the water. Seawater slopped onto its deck. Phong had only to see that to know it was overburdened with cargo. Human cargo. Men, women, and children lined the gunwales. Some had begun jumping into the water.
A fast boat was bearing down on the first craft. It too ran with its decks full. But those decks were filled with men. They brandished pistols, bolt-action rifles, clawhammers, and spiked hardwood clubs. Saffron bands were tied over their brown foreheads.
Thai pirates. The scourge of the South China Sea. The fast boat came alongside the weaker one, bumped it once with truck-tire fenders, and the two crafts were quickly and expertly lashed together. The pirates descended like raging locusts.
They clubbed, shot, and stabbed the men and the children. The old women were thrown overboard. The younger ones were beaten and pitched over to the pirate ship to be hastily shoved below.
Phong averted his eyes. They were his countrymen, Vietnamese boat people who, even a decade after the war had ended, were risking their lives to escape. And he was helpless.
Phong knew then that he had no hope of floating to Malaysia. He almost jumped overboard, but there was blood in the water now. And blood would bring sharks.
Phong paddled with his hands. He hoped his sense of direction was true.
And the screams continued, growing more distant. "Khoung! Khoung!" For hours Phong prayed quietly to his ancestors.
The headland was green and looked cool in the setting sun. The tide brought him closer with agonizing slowness.
Phong would have swum for it, but he remembered what the salt water would do to his back, and so, even though he feared being sighted by coast watchers, he stayed in the boat until at last it bumped shore.
Phong sank the boat with stones and disappeared inland. The ground cooled his bare feet. He had no way of knowing where he was. Thailand, Cambodia-even back in Vietnam.
He'd begun to despair of ever reaching safety. But because it was night, he kept walking, driven less by the will to live than by the memory of his American friends who had been in captivity so long that they had even ceased to hope. Phong was their last hope now. He would not let them down.
He heard the dog bark and he froze. A dog! The bark was distant. Perhaps a kilometer. He listened again, his heart thudding. But the dog did not bark again. Perhaps it had been a hallucination, a trick of the ear.
Phong followed the jungle path. In his mind he sang the old lovers' song of the homeland, "Dark Is the Jungle Path to My True Love's Hut," and he wept with bitter nostalgia for the old Vietnam.
There was a village. And the dog barked again. Once. He had to see if the dog was free, or on a chain. He crawled on elbows and stomach to the village's edge. The dog barked again. It was a happy bark. And then he saw it, yellow and lean and running loose.
A man threw the dog a chunk of meat. Meat! The man was Phong's age, over thirty.
Phong stood up and walked into the village, his hands open and empty. He was safe. There could be no doubt. This was not Cambodia-the Khmer Rouge had virtually eliminated all Cambodian adult men of fighting age. And it was not Vietnam either. No Vietnamese village could afford the luxury of a pet dog. Not with meat in such short supply and dog so tasty.
He was in Thailand.
"I am Vietnamese!" he cried as the villagers circled around him in curiosity. "I am Vietnamese. Take me to refugee camp. I have proof of American MIA. Understand? Proof of MIA!"
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he watched as the two men started throwing rocks at each other.
It was a drug deal gone sour. Remo had been sent here to Brownsville, Texas, to take care of Fester Doggins. Fester was a drug smuggler, the man responsible for the shift of cocaine trafficking from Florida to the Texas coast. The DEA had been so successful in their Florida intercepts that the Colombian drug traffickers had to open up a second front in the drug war. Fester Doggins was their American contact. He was moving heavy weight, so Remo had been ordered to terminate his operation and terminate Fester too.
Remo had been waiting at the remote inlet his employer, Dr. Harold W. Smith, had told him Fester regularly used. Remo sat high on an outcropping of rocks, his legs dangling over into space. It gave him a commanding view of the inlet.
Fester had arrived in a chrome-festooned pickup truck with two men. Everyone had guns and wore ostrichskin cowboy boots and Stetsons pulled low over sunsquint eyes.
The boat came later. It was a yacht, very big and very expensive.
A man in white ducks stepped onto the teak deck of the boat and began speaking to Fester Doggins in Spanish. He was brown-skinned, probably Colombian. Remo didn't understand Spanish, so he waited patiently for the men to conduct their business. His job was to get everyone and make sure the coke shipment never got into circulation. Remo figured that would be easier if they loaded the stuff onto the pickup first. Remo didn't feel like exerting himself today.
But because Remo did not speak Spanish, he had no idea that the rapid-fire exchange between the two businessmen was escalating into an argument. The Colombian snapped his fingers and two men popped up from forward hatches and leveled high-powered rifles at the men on the shore.
Fester's two assistants dived for shelter. One of them made it. The other was chopped down by one of the crewmen.
That was when what Remo considered the rock throwing began.
Bullets flew, ricocheted off rocks, and sprang into the air.
Remo watched unconcernedly. There had been a time in his life when the sound of gunfire made the adrenaline rush through his body. When the sounds of automatic weapons firing meant that random death was in the air. No more. Remo was beyond that irrational fear. He had been trained to think of a firefight as a half-step above a rock fight.
As his trainer in Sinanju had once said: