Part 35 (1/2)

”Beautiful, just beautiful,” breathed Jock as he squinted at the scene through the eye of his camera. ”I've never seen anything to match it.”

The barrage lasted for an incredible two hours, and when it finally died away pale streaks of morning light illuminated the final rebel advance into the palace. Under lowering skies from which drizzling rain still fell, tanks, armored cars and armored personnel carriers, followed by running, crouching men, inched slowly towards the wrought-iron railings, and finally at about six-thirty AM. Naomi saw a solitary white flag of surrender flutter out of one of the palace's high windows.

The Vietnamese Marines were wearing scarlet scarves about their necks by this time to distinguish them from the defenders, and on spotting the white flag they rose up into the open, screaming their battle cries in unison, and raced across the pitted lawn towards the smoking ruins. Naomi and her crew were among the handful of journalists courageous enough to follow them, and a few stray shots were still whistling across the formal gardens as they dashed for the shattered main door; because Marines were scuffling with fleeing Special Forces troops and blocking the steps, Jock led the way through a gaping hole blown in the wall, and inside they found the marble floor littered with the gla.s.s of smashed chandeliers and fallen masonry. Groaning Special Forces troops, their bodies shattered by sh.e.l.l fragments, lay on the broad staircases alongside men already dead, plaster from the high ceilings covered the brocade chairs and potted palms, and the air was filled with choking smoke and the reek of cordite. The attack had severed the power supplies, and the jubilant rebel soldiers, not to be denied the spoils of victory, lit candles and began carrying away hooks and ornaments in an hysterical mood of celebration.

Guy had long ago explained the palace layout to her, and Naomi led the crew up the wide staircase towards the offices of the president and his Supreme Counselor, but before they reached the top a Marine colonel leaned over a bal.u.s.trade and begun yelling wildly to a brigadier and a group of senior officers waiting below. ”They're not here-their rooms are empty!”

The little brigadier nodded grimly. ”The communications shelter is deserted too! Come down!”

Naomi ran back down the stairs to the brigadier and took him by the arm: ”Where could they be?”

”We've found three tunnels under the palace,” he said, shaking his head. ”They all lead into the sewers - they've escaped.”

Naomi nodded her thanks and led the way up the stairs once more towards the office of President Diem on the third floor. All around them the air rang with the sound of rebel soldiers sacking the palace: one group of Marines rushed by carrying armfuls of whisky and brandy bottles from Ngo Dinh Nhu's cellar, others bludgeoned gold filigree fittings from the walls and stuffed them in their pockets, while some simply fired their weapons, shrieking with laughter, into the antique French mirrors covering the walls. When Jock and Naomi reached Diem's office, they found the drab room musty and in disarray. The president's double-breasted sharkskin jacket hung from the back of a rickety rocking chair, and a French book with a curiously prophetic t.i.tle lay on the cluttered desk. Naomi glanced around the room, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her face with distaste, and silently held the book to Jock's camera so that its t.i.tle showed; it was called ironically Ils Arrivent - They Are Coming.

In Ngo Dinh Nhu's larger office on the floor below, they found the looters had already finished their work. Sawdust was spilled everywhere from the stuffed hunting trophies that had been slashed open and torn from the walls; the sensuous portrait of Nhu's wife above his desk had been lewdly defaced with a bayonet that had been left jutting from her lower abdomen, and in her own suite some of the long rails of filmy, silken ao dai had been ripped apart and strewn around the room. Others remained hanging neatly in their closet above line after line of stiletto-heeled shoes, and Naomi guided Jock in filming these and the smashed bottled of Vent Vert perfume that lay scattered around the bathroom with its big pink sunken bath and washbasin of black Venetian marble.

As they pa.s.sed through Ngo Dinh Nhu's office again on their way back to the ground floor, Naomi had to wade through a litter of files that the looters had scattered across the carpet. On a whim she stopped and bent to look at some of them and discovered that their buff-colored covers were stamped with the t.i.tle of Nhu's notorious Social and Political Research Service. Under the glow of the camera light which Jock held for her, she flicked idly through one or two of them; they appeared to consist mainly of informers' reports on Saigon politicians and army officers, written in French or Vietnamese, but her attention was arrested abruptly when she turned the cover of one file and saw Guy Sherman's name printed on its front. She opened it and was startled to find herself looking at a piece of Continental Palace notepaper on top of the file, which bore her own handwriting. The name and address of the Buddhist priest who had alerted her to Thich Quang Duc's suicide seemed to leap off the page at her, and she knelt there on the floor staring numbly at the note for perhaps half a minute, no longer hearing the crash of breaking gla.s.s nor the shrill, crazed laughter of the troops plundering the palace all around her.

16.

Four hours later, just after eleven o'clock on that morning of November 2, there was a brisk knock on the door of Naomi's suite in the Continental, and she opened it to find Guy Sherman smiling broadly at her. He wore no jacket and his clothes looked crumpled as if he hadn't changed them got a long time, but he had a frosted bottle of Laurent Perrier tucked under his arm and two long-stemmed champagne gla.s.ses dangled from the fingers of his right hand.

”What are we celebrating?” she asked with a weary smile, standing aside to let him enter.

”Just the overthrow of the dreaded Ngo Dinh brothers,” he replied, shrugging exaggeratedly. ”Nothing more - the whole thing went like a dream. Maybe we'll drink a toast to your Outstanding exclusive coverage of that subject, too.” Instead of entering he leaned forward, took her by the hand and led her down the corridor into the adjoining suite. ”I rented this specially just to be near you today, Naomi. And n.o.body knows I'm here. So we can both hide away from the d.a.m.ned telephone for an hour or two, right?” He grinned again, knocked the door shut with his heel and walked confidently across the room to put the champagne and gla.s.ses on a low table in front of a sofa.

”Thanks to your timely tip we certainly got off to a flying start while everyone else was enjoying their siesta.” Naomi smiled as she sank onto the sofa. ”And thanks for your note too. It allowed us all to grab sonic much-needed sleep last night while the opposition went red-eyed. We've certainly got some marvelous footage -- enough to make an hour-long doc.u.mentary. But even so, my coverage is still just a tiny bit inconclusive at present.”

She relaxed against the sofa back with a long sigh and closed her eyes. The tension of the last few hours had left her feeling drained; while her crew were trying to s.h.i.+p their film out to Hong Kong and onward to London, she had forced her way through the jubilant crowds to the central post office to telephone a voice report for the news bulletins. On the way she found that the fact that the president and his brother were still missing had not in any way dampened the frenzied celebrations that were being mounted in the streets. joy mixed with vengeful violence had been evident everywhere; the offices of the regime's English- language newspaper, the Times of Vietnam, were burning fiercely when she pa.s.sed, and gangs of students chanting ”Long Live the Junta” were rampaging along many of the boulevards. She saw a mob hauling down the ma.s.sive statue of Vietnam's legendary heroines, the Trung sisters, because one of them had been fas.h.i.+oned in the likeness of Madame Nhu, and homes of pro Nhu ministers and officials were being ransacked all over the city.

She had watched the crowds leaping Onto tanks and hugging the soldiers, who were clearly startled by such warm expressions of affection from the ordinary people, and soon everywhere girls were throwing bouquets of flowers and gifts to the delighted troops. But she had found herself most deeply moved by scenes she had witnessed outside the paG.o.das; army trucks had arrived every few minutes bringing groups of haggard Buddhist prisoners newly released from jail. They were embraced deliriously by their fellows and many, because they were weak from torture and privation, had to be carried into the temples. After she'd finished her call to London she had made a special detour to inquire about the monk who had been her informant in June, but amidst the near-pandemonium at his paG.o.da, a nun had told her there was no trace of him; he had disappeared suddenly even before the raids on the paG.o.das, she said tearfully, and he was believed to have been secretly murdered by the security forces, Naomi, stunned by the news, had pa.s.sed close to the ruined Gia Long Palace as she made her way back to the hotel, and here and there she had seen the crumpled body of a soldier or a civilian still lying huddled in the gutter. The sight of these corpses and the sense of shock she had experienced on learning about the disappearance of the Buddhist monk were still preying on her mind as she watched Guy's fingers rip the gold foil from the champagne bottle, and she started involuntarily when the cork exploded from its neck. Guy smiled, never taking his eyes from hers, and filled the two gla.s.ses frothing to the brim. Then he came to sit down beside her on the sofa and handed her one, but before he drank he withdrew from his trouser pocket a circular tin of sixteen-millimeter film and laid it on the table between them. ”Your coverage isn't inconclusive anymore, Naomi,” he said softly. ”Shall we drink to it?”

She looked questioningly at the tin lying on the table. ”What's that?”

”Film of the bodies.”

Because she was still half thinking of what she had seen so recently in the gutters outside the palace, she gazed back at him blankly. ”Whose bodies?”

”Diem and Nhu.”

She sat upright suddenly, spilling some of her champagne. ”They're dead?”

He nodded. ”Yes -- and this is the only film in existence of their demise.”

”Who killed them?”

”A police major sent to bring them from Cholon where they were hiding. They loaded both of them into the back of an M-ii3 armored personnel carrier with the major and closed the hatch. Diem was shot In the head and Nhu was bayoneted to death en route. They were both dead by the time they got back to the headquarters of the Joint General Staff.”

She stared at the little film, her eyes suddenly bright with interest.

”And you, Naomi,” he said, raising his gla.s.s in her direction with an ironic little smile, ”have some exclusive footage of the view into the APC when they opened the hatch.”

”Who filmed it?” she said when she found her voice.

”None other than yours truly.” His smile broadened. ”Although of course only you and I will ever know that.”

”May I look?”

He nodded, and she put down her champagne untouched to open the tin. Holding it carefully by its edges, she pulled the strip of film off the reel and lifted it eagerly towards the light of the window.

”It isn't very distinct - I'm not the world's greatest cameraman and I had no special lights. But it's usable.” He leaned towards her and squinted through the back of the film, pointing with his finger. ”The bodies are lying face forward on the seats. Most of what you can see is their backs and the backs of their heads. The bigger, roly-poly body on the right is Diem of course, and the smaller one with several bayonet wounds is brother Nhu. I've screened it once for myself in our little photo lab - you can see it's them okay.”

”It's incredible film, Guy,” breathed the English journalist. ”How were they caught?”

Guy's pleasure in her reaction showed plainly in his face, and letting his hand fall casually onto her knee, he began to stroke her trouser-clad thigh slowly as he talked. ”They were betrayed early today by one of their palace aides. They slipped away last night about nine o'clock using one their secret underground tunnels. They'd got a Red Cross Land Rover waiting for them at the tunnel exit and it whisked them off to Cholon, where they'd already set up a direct communications link with the palace in the home of a friendly Chinese merchant. They kept up their contacts through the night with their supporters in the palace and even intermittently with the coup headquarters. General Minh offered them safe conduct several times if they surrendered - but they turned him down. So Minh had to plan a careful general a.s.sault. n.o.body except a couple of their closest aides knew Diem and Nhu had gone until Gia Long was finally stormed. It was Diem himself who gave the order to show the white flag in the end - but by telephone from Cholon.”

”Did they give themselves up after that?”

”Diem called Minh about six-thirty A.M. and offered to surrender in return for a guarantee of safe conduct to the airport and a flight abroad. Minh agreed, but Diem, devious to the end, didn't reveal where they were - or perhaps in this treacherous little country he knew what to expect anyway. After the aide betrayed their hideout, they fled to the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Cholon to take communion. They were still on their knees when the arrest party found them there. They bundled them both into the M-113, and shots were heard inside as soon as they moved off.”

Naomi's face registered her distaste, ”But why were they murdered so callously?”

Guy shrugged. ”I guess it was inevitable from the start. The junta would never have felt -safe with the Ngo Dinhs alive and kicking - wherever they were.”

”So they were killed on General Minh's orders?”

Guy nodded wordlessly, still stroking her thigh, but without warning Naomi stood up and walked over to the window. She folded her arms and stood looking down at the excited crowds thronging Lam Son Square, a frown creasing her brow. ”How is it you're so well informed?” she asked quietly without turning around. ”Were you on the inside of the coup? I tried to call you several times yesterday, but they always said you were unavailable.”

Guy sipped his champagne and smiled. ”Let's just say I was keeping a close watching brief at the COUP headquarters. By the time the bodies came back in the M-I 53, n.o.body protested when I stepped up and produced my little home movie camera - is that what you mean?”

Instead of replying she pulled a folded slip of paper from a pocket in her blouse and walked back to the sofa where he sat. ”I think you must have dropped this sometime, Guy,” she said tonelessly, holding towards him the note about the Buddhist monk she had given him five months before.

He glanced at the paper then back into her face, still smiling easily. ”Where did you find it?”

”On the floor of Ngo Dinh Nhu's office at six-thirty this morning. Isn't that where you dropped it?”

He continued to smile at her unabashed. ”Sometimes in my job, Naomi, you have to play along with both sides to make sure you know what everyone's thinking. Quite often you have to deal with people you don't particularly like.” He took the slip of paper from her and looked at it for a second before letting it drop onto the table. ”Intelligence work is like any other business - for a deal to work well, both sides have to be seen to get something out of it.”