From childhood, Nguyen Van Minh existed in a state of war.
Born on the eve of global conflict, his first memories revolved around the Japanese invasion of his native Indochina. Minh lost a brother in that war, but the greater price of freedom was a restoration of the hated French colonial regime in 1945. Ho Chi Minh, leader of the underground resistance, turned his own Vietminh guerillas on the French without breaking stride, waging a relentless "war of the flea" against the imperial giant.
Minh was thirteen when the French army was beaten at Dien Bien Phu. He was already looking toward the priestly career that devout Buddhist parents selected for him. As a youth in Saigon, he was preoccupied with learning the ritual paths to Nirvana, but he was not entirely ignorant of politics. He noted: the Geneva conference and its call for partition of Vietnam, with reunion under nationwide elections in 1945; betrayal of the conference accords by the southern government of Ngo Dinh Diem and his puppet, Emperor Bao Dai; the steady drift of Ho Chi Minh's northern clique into an orthodox Soviet orbit.
A leader of the nation's Catholic minority, Diem persecuted Buddhists — and anyone else objecting to his venal, nepotistic rule. In 1957, the countryside rose in revolt, and Diem retaliated by escalating tactics of oppression. Firing squads worked overtime, and guillotines mounted on the back of military trucks made the rounds of rural villages, killing real and suspected rebels.
In 1958, Minh's family was caught in a sweep of Binh Hoah province and each member was slain "attempting to escape." At graveside, Minh renounced the priesthood in favor of a personal quest for revenge. He traveled north, across the DMZ, seeking those who possessed the necessary skill and knowledge. He returned in 1960, with others, to organize a fledgling National Liberation Front — the Vietcong.
During his absence, American advisers replaced the French, shoring up Diem's regime with money, medicine, munitions. To Minh, they were all the same — running dogs of Western imperialism, feeding like leeches on the lifeblood of his people.
He swore a private oath to destroy them all.
On his twenty-first birthday, Minh killed his first American.
Standing in the darkness, filled with the righteous anger of his race, he tossed two grenades through the window of a Saigon nightclub and watched the place erupt in flames. Seven people died, but it was the American — a Special Forces captain, he read later — Minh remembered. It was a birthday present to himself.
There were other killings, Americans and Vietnamese alike, every one an enemy of his people. With time, Minh came to appreciate violence for its own sake, an end in itself. He tenaciously pursued his enemies, and found them everywhere.
Finally, there was victory. The Americans withdrew, and in time the southern traitors were defeated, but it brought no end to war. The push continued — against Laotians and Cambodians, against the Montagnards and others who resisted relocation in the New Economic Zones. There was work for killers in Vietnam, but Nguyen Van Minh was selected for a higher destiny.
In the name of the people he was carrying the fire abroad, exporting the war to America.
Minh devised a cover for himself, simple but effective. He became a refugee, his family murdered by a tyrant (true enough), carrying a new gospel to the West (also true, in a way).
His church, the Universal Devotees, was Minh's crowning achievement. Father Ho taught him the guerilla is a fish, swimming in an ocean of people. In America, Minh was a fish out of water — until he fabricated his own artificial sea. A reservoir of followers and hangers-on to do his bidding, mask his purpose. In his mind, there was poetic justice in his plan, using the spoiled children of the capitalist pigs as a lethal weapon.
As a gentleman of culture, Minh appreciated poetry.
They were half a million strong, and growing. He already saw results, but the best was still to come. Soon the Devotees would realize its full potential, working from within, generating chaos. If all went according to plan...
Amy Culp's defection was a deviation from the script, but Minh felt capable of dealing with it. Her escape, with the aid of outside forces, was something else again, potentially disastrous.
His defenses were penetrated, soldiers lost. The girl was gone, and with her knowledge of the church she was a menace — while she lived.
Setbacks, certainly, but Minh had learned to live with problems, cope with adversity. The patient warrior was usually victorious in the end.
A knocking on the study door distracted him from private thoughts.
"Come."
Tommy Booth entered and closed the door. Minh studied his chief of security: Tommy's normally intense face wore a haggard look he hadn't seen there before.
The Vietnamese kept his voice low, barely audible across the room, so Tommy had to move closer if he wished to hear.
"So?"
The soldier spread his hands, a helpless gesture.
"Gone," he said. "We lost her."
"And my elders?"
"Eleven down," Tommy told him. "Somebody tore them all to hell."
"Somebody," Minh repeated, frowning. "A confession of your ignorance. Give me facts, Tommy."
Booth absorbed the slap without expression. He cleared his throat and began again.
"Okay, fact. Some...an unknown intruder... took the girl away from Mike and Gary. Killed 'em both. Then he took her in the Cadillac and crashed the gate, wasted two more soldiers at the checkpoint.
"And fact. Two carloads of men overtook them on the road — five, six miles west — and all of them are dead. I checked it out, and it looks like a friggin' war zone."
Minh winced at the profanity. He disliked any form of personal excess.
"Your professional assessment?" he inquired.
Tommy frowned.
"Professional's the word, all right," he answered. "Somebody led those boys around the block and met 'em coming back. They were good — handpicked — but they couldn't measure up."
Minh made a sour face. His voice was tight.
"Again 'somebody.' Is there any indication of our enemy's identity? His strength?"
Tommy shook his head, dejected.
"Lester — at the gatehouse — lived long enough to say there was one man in the Caddy with the girl. No way to tell about the ambush. From the looks, it could've been an army."
"No."
His military mind was circling the problem, probing for solutions.
"I do not think an army. If our enemies were certain..."
He let the statement trail away, unfinished. Leaning back in his swivel chair, Minh made a steeple of his fingers and focused on them. Calling up the monastic training of his youth, he made his mind a blank, the better to concentrate his full attention on the puzzle.
If his enemies were conscious of the plan, if they had evidence to move against him, federal officers would be knocking at the door with arrest warrants. The Americans were formalistic in their dealings with suspicious characters, affording common thugs a battery of rights that often made conviction an impossibility. If police overstepped their bounds, the fact was trumpeted on radio and television, plastered all across the headlines. Frequently, it was the officer who found himself in court.
Minh was thankful for the ignorance of enemies. He could work within their decadent society, use their precious laws and Constitution to protect himself.
A subtle man, he also appreciated irony.
But if the girl had not been rescued by police — which she almost certainly had not — then his problem remained unsolved.
There were agencies, of course, which handled covert operations for the government. Once again, however, the Americans roped themselves with limitations and restrictions: their CIA could only operate outside the country, and the FBI was strictly a domestic agency, under constant scrutiny from critics in the press. Coordination was a problem, and Occidentals seemed to take a masochistic pleasure in reviewing every foible, every failure of their "secret" agents.
The Soviets, of course, had no such weakness, and Minh thought at once of Mitchell Carter. The man himself would not be capable of such a daring rescue, but he could hire professionals, even as he had recruited Tommy Booth and Minh's troop of "elders." It was not beyond the realm of possibility, and yet...
Minh frowned as he wrestled with the question of a motive. On the surface, Carter was an ally, but it never paid to underestimate the KGB's duplicity.
Minh viewed the Russians with particular contempt. If Americans were greedy pigs, the Soviets were little more than traitors, their epic revolution long degenerated into something like a form of leftist fascism. He could tolerate Carter and the KGB, as his country tolerated Soviet "advice" and "guidance." They were necessary evils, and would someday outlive their usefulness.
Mitchell Carter might have outlived his usefulness already.
If he had participated in the girl's escape, for whatever reasons of his own, Minh would see him dead.
He had planned to kill the man, looked forward to it from the first day of their association. Hanoi would not object if he could demonstrate that Carter had betrayed them. Minh would probably receive congratulations for initiative, perhaps promotion.
First, though, he would need proof. And if Carter was not responsible...
He faced Tommy Booth, found the man watching him intently.
"Is it possible to trace the girl?" he asked.
Tommy shrugged.
"We're checking out her friends locally," he said. "There aren't many."
"Good. If she contacts anyone, I want to know about it."
"Done."
He considered telephoning Carter, but decided the lines should not be trusted.
"Send a team for Mitchell Carter," he instructed. "It's important that I see him."
The soldier raised an eyebrow.
"He's not gonna like it."
Minh allowed himself a thin smile.
"Be persuasive." And he paused, thinking. "I assume you have mobilized the elders."
Booth nodded.
"Ready and waiting. Shall I pull 'em in?"
Minh shook his head in a gentle negative.
"Leave them in place. I don't want to concentrate our force until we know the enemy by name."
Tommy rose to leave, and Minh's voice stopped him at the door.
"The girl's disappearance is a serious mistake," he said. "It must be rectified without delay. Any leak would be... unfortunate."
There was a sudden pallor under Tommy's sun-lamp tan.
"I understand."
Minh held the soldier with his eyes, letting him sweat.
"You must redeem yourself, at any cost."
A jerky nod, and Tommy Booth got out of there, leaving Minh alone. The Vietnamese dismissed him, concentrating on solutions to his problem.
There was Carter. If the man was guilty, Minh would know soon enough. And if he wasn't, they would face the common enemy together.
Whoever it turned out to be.
Minh had not believed in God for many years, but he accepted the reality of fate. His people and their revolution were predestined for eventual success. They would prevail.
It was a faith that taught him patience, made him strong.
A man of confidence, he could afford to wait.