Part 38 (1/2)
Joseph's personal telephone began ringing while he was still unlocking the door to his office at eight-thirty AM. the next morning, and when he lifted the receiver the note of urgency in his brother Guy's voice was immediately evident.
”Can you get over to the emba.s.sy right away, Joseph, please? Something special's come up.”
”What's it about?
”I can't say over the telephone. I've been calling you at your villa all night. I gave up finally at four AM. when your bep told me you still weren't in. You didn't leave a contact number.”
Joseph's eyes narrowed as he registered the note of reproof in his brother's voice. ”Something unexpected turned up, Guy. Do you mind giving me some idea why I should run over there right away?”
”I'd rather tell you when you get here,” replied Guy with slow deliberation. ”But let me a.s.sure you it's in your own interest to get here fast.”
”Okay, I'll be there right away.”
As he hurried towards the new fortified emba.s.sy that had been built on the site of the old French Bureaux de l'Infanterie north of the cathedral square, Joseph puzzled over his brother's urgent summons. Guy had come back to Saigon for the second time nearly a year before as a counterintelligence case officer, and normally the staff of the Joint United States Public Affairs Office had little or no direct contact with the CIA Saigon station that now occupied the top three floors of the ultramodern Chancery block. At a personal level, the antipathy which Joseph had felt from the start for the brother who was sixteen years younger than himself had not lessened with the pa.s.sage of time, and by habit and mutual consent, relations between them had always remained cool and distant. Joseph therefore concluded that the reasons for Guy's call must be professional, and searching his memory he recalled hearing some behind-the-hand talk at a c.o.c.ktail party that intelligence reports suggested a new Viet Cong offensive was being planned to coincide with the annual Tet holiday, due to begin in two days time. The expert reaction, he already knew, had been that if plans of a major offensive had leaked out so easily, they must be part of a new propaganda ploy, and not much credence was being given to the threat. Perhaps, thought Joseph, some new evidence had come in and Guy wanted to brief him personally, but he gave up speculating as he came in view of the emba.s.sy, struck suddenly by its ugliness. It had taken two years to build and only four months before, in September 1967, had it finally replaced the former French bank premises overlooking the Saigon River which until then had served as the United States diplomatic headquarters in the city. Like President Thieu's Doc Lap Palace, the entire facade of the Chancery was protected by a rocket and artillery s.h.i.+eld, a concrete carapace that gave the building a sinister, fortress like aspect. A ten-foot wall also surrounded the compound, and a raised helicopter pad had been built on its flat roof; inside, a Marine force of sixty men patrolled the grounds day and night, and as one of the Marine corporals on gate duty checked his pa.s.s at the main entrance on Thong Nhut Boulevard, Joseph reflected ruefully that the rocket screens on the emba.s.sy and the palace had turned them into grim monuments to the indefatigable Viet Cong; these essential defenses were an ever-visible public acknowledgment that the guerrilla forces would always be strong enough to strike unimpeded at the twin headquarters of their enemies in the heart of their own capital.
In his room on the fifth floor of the Chancery, Guy wasted no time on preliminaries. As soon as Joseph stepped through the door, he waved him to a chair and pressed a b.u.t.ton on the tape recorder on his desk. Because the quality of the voice reproduction was poor, Joseph couldn't make out the opening words, but he sat bolt upright in his seat the moment his ears attuned to what was obviously a recording of a short-wave broadcast.
My grandfather is Senator Nathaniel Sherman, who has served as Democratic senator from Virginia for more than forty years, and I wish it to be known that, contrary to his views, I see the cruel war of aggression being waged against the heroic Vietnamese people by the United States as a crime against all humanity Joseph's knuckles whitened on the arms of his chair and he stared at the tape recorder with an anguished expression. ”Thank G.o.d! At least he's alive.”
Guy nodded grimly but lifted a finger indicating they should hear the recording through.
I was shot down while carrying out inhuman air raids against churches, hospitals and schools in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and I regard my role in the war as evil and shameful Joseph listened to the rest of Mark's confession in a shocked silence, and the moment Guy switched off the recording machine, he buried his head in his hands. When at last he looked up again his face was pale, and he spoke through gritted teeth. ”He's alive, Guy - but what in h.e.l.l's name have they done to him to make him say that?”
”They've tortured him just like they've tortured all the other poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who've fallen into their hands,” said Guy in a voice that shook with emotion. ”Mark's so d.a.m.ned gutsy they've probably had to work harder on him than most - that's maybe why it's taken them all this time to squeeze that obscene bulls.h.i.+t out of him.”
”Where did that come from?” Joseph nodded towards the tape machine.
”Havana Radio put it out last night.”
Joseph cursed softly and closed his eyes again.
”Even if Mark wasn't my nephew, that would turn my G.o.dd.a.m.ned stomach,” said Guy fiercely. ”But knowing what a brave, decent guy he is makes it ten times worse.” He rose from his seat, paced angrily across the office and stood staring out through the window. ”It must simplify things a little in your mind too, Joseph, doesn't it? Doesn't it make you care less about those deep historical complexities you've always warned me about? Doesn't it make you wonder whether all the trouble really stems from the 'monstrous exploitation' these people suffered under the French?” Guy labored his quotation in an exasperated tone. ”Couldn't it just be that these people have got a s.a.d.i.s.tic streak a mile wide that makes them want to kill and maim other human beings for the sheer h.e.l.l of it?”
Joseph sighed wearily and stood up. ”Perhaps we could debate that old theme some other time, Guy,” he said quietly. ”Meantime I'd like to borrow that tape if I may and listen to it again on my own.”
”Sit down please, Joseph. You're right maybe this isn't the moment for airing our differences.” The younger man's tone was conciliatory suddenly and he returned to his desk and sat down again. ”I didn't ask you to come over just to listen to the tape- there's more to it than that.”
”What do you mean?” Joseph resumed his seat, lines of anxiety furrowing his brow.
”All that follows is cla.s.sified, okay - for your ears only.”
Joseph nodded his agreement.
”In the last few months, the Viet Cong have begun putting out subtle feelers about talks on prisoner exchanges and what they tantalizingly call 'other political issues'
Joseph's eyes widened in surprise. ”Do you mean the Viet Cong want peace talks? That's way out of character, isn't it?”
”It's downright unprecedented. It may be a cover for something else - we can't rule that out. But anyway, over the last two or three years we've been steadily picking up some important prisoners here in the South - leading cadres in the Liberation Front. Their cover is so deep even our friendly Vietnamese interrogators here in Saigon can't get the real names out of some of them. They all usually have at least six aliases. You know as well as anyone the military and political leaders.h.i.+p down here has been sent in from Hanoi - but proving it is something else.”
”But now you've had some approaches about those prisoners, is that what you're saying?”
Guy nodded. ”Right. The first contact through third parties three months ago threw up a list of half-a-dozen prisoners the Front wanted released right off. They suggested American pilots in Hanoi might be freed in exchange. We've heard nothing at all for several weeks but there was a new contact last night -just a few hours after Mark's confession went out on Havana Radio,”
”Do you think that was deliberate?” asked Joseph quickly.
”Almost certainly. They seem to see Mark as a trump card because he's the grandson of the famous Senator Sherman. The Front last night offered a list of a dozen Americans, naming names for the first time - and Mark's name was among them.”
”But that's marvelous news, Guy!”
Well, let's try and keep this in perspective -- it's early days yet. And the plot gets thicker,”
”What do you mean?”
”In the list of the Saigon prisoners the Front want released in exchange, there's one new demand - for a very special prisoner indeed. He was captured iii the delta a year ago and he's been held in solitary confinement ever since in a whitewashed, refrigerated cell in the old Surete cellars at the top of Catinat. He's so G.o.d-d.a.m.ned tough he hasn't even revealed his name yet. He's known only as 'the man in the white room' - that's the way the Front listed him. We're sure he's on the Central Committee of the Lao Dong at Least - maybe even a member of the Politburo. We're beginning to think he might be the object of the whole exercise and they've probably waited until now to ask for him in an effort to play clown his importance. He hasn't said a single word in twelve months, but we're as sure as h.e.l.l he's the highest- ranking North Vietnamese we've ever had in our hands.”
”So why are you telling me all this?”
”Because it struck inc suddenly last night after Mark's name came up - you may know something no other American in Saigon knows.”
”What's that?”
”You ran around the Tongking jungles for several weeks with half the present Hanoi Politburo in your cloak-and dagger days with the OSS, right?”
Joseph nodded guardedly.
”I thought maybe you might just know 'the man in the white room' by sight. He might just be an old buddy of yours. If we could pin him down, it would help us evaluate the swap deal.” Guy rose abruptly from behind his desk. ”I thought we might go arid take a look at him.”
7.
Joseph s.h.i.+vered as the white door of the special cell in the old Surete cellar clanged shut behind them, and he had to screw up his eyes against the glare of the bright overhead lights that reflected off the floor, the walls and the ceiling which were all painted a dazzling uniform white. Through rows of grilles set high in the walls the faint hum of invisible high-intensity air-conditioning units was audible, and the sharp chill inside the cell testified to their efficiency. At least twenty-five feet square, the room was furnished with a chair, a table and a plank bed, all painted a gleaming white, and there was a simple, unadorned hole for a toilet in one corner. Its lone occupant was seated on the chair with his back to them - a shrunken, aging figure dressed only in a ragged pair of white shorts. He was bent almost double with his shoulders hunched around his ears, and he had clasped his arms about his own waist in an attempt to provide his shuddering body with a vestige of warmth.
”We built this cell especially for him,” said Guy in a normal voice, ”A Special Forces patrol stumbled on his headquarters by accident in an old Dien Bien Phu kitchen near Moc Linh. He had an entourage of six personal guards and two cooks so we knew we'd netted a big fish.” As they walked towards the prisoner, the CIA man pointed to the row of vents set high in the walls. ”Not all those grilles are air ducts. We installed high-fidelity microphones and television cameras-to record every move and every sound he makes twenty-four hours a day, whether he's awake or asleep. So far he's given away nothing - but then until now he's never come face to face with an OSS officer who helped train that romantic little Viet Minh guerrilla band in 1945.”
Guy raised his voice so that it carried clear across the cell, but the scrawny Vietnamese did not move or turn as they approached; even when the two Americans walked around in front of him, he continued to lean forward in a crouch, hugging his wasted body with his bony arms and only the top of his bowed head remained visible to them.
”I've brought an old friend of Uncle Ho's to see you, comrade,” said Guy quietly in French. ”Let him get a good look at you.”