W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels Read online

  "If I were Henri Jannier, and I could arrange to have my wife stay in an

  "American' house in Saigon and ride around in an American Pontiac, and all it cost me was a few favors, I'd think I'd made quite a bargain," Felter said.

  "You think that Patricia's in danger?" Hanrahan had asked, alarmed.

  "Not yet," Felter had replied, matter of factly. "The Vietminh seem to be leaning backward not to create an incident involving Americans."

  And so there had been no way for Paul Hanrahan to say no when Patricia told him that the Janniers "insisted" they join them for Christmas on their plantation, ninety miles from Saigon.

  Two things at the plantation had surprised Hanrahan. The first was the Janniers' son. Hanrahan had understood he was supposed to have been in France; nevertheless he was waiting when the Hanrahans had climbed out of the two Citroen sedans the Janniers had sent to fetch them and their luggage.

  The son was named Jean-Philippe, after his Grandfather Dommer, and like his grandfather, he was a soldier. Until recently he'd served as a parachutist in Algeria; and he had been wounded there.

  Hanrahan liked Jannier from the moment he met him. He was that rare breed of parachutist, whose parachutist's credentials, like Hanrahan's, were impeccable, but who also understood that the parachute was an inefficient and maybe absurd means of getting a soldier into position.

  Jannier, a tall and muscular, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of twenty-six, was a graduate of L'Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Now that he was recovered from his wounds, and apparently hadn't been tainted by the treason some other French parachutists had been involved in, he was being sent to America, to Fort Rucker, Alabama, where he would undergo training as a helicopter pilot. After becoming a pilot, he would then serve as one of the French Army liaison officers to the Aviation Center. It was, Hanrahan undetstood, the sort of assignment given to very bright young officers for whom a rank-heavy career is prophesied.

  Before traveling on to the States, Jean-Philippe had come to Vietnam to see his parents; and by a marvelous coincidence (which was about as coincidental, Hanrahan thought, as Christmas Day following Christmas Eve), he was on the very same flight to America as the Hanrahans.

  The favors owed were being called in. Certainly a dear friend of the family, who happened to be a West Pointer, and who happened to meet the son under the family roof at Christmas time, would simply not abandon the son in America. He could arrange introductions, that sort of thing.

  He was being used, Hanrahan understood, but he couldn't be angry. If he was smart enough, he told himself, and further removed than a generation from his own lace-curtain Irish neighborhood, he would do the same for his own kids. And Christ, he did owe the Janniers. There was no question about that.

  The second thing Paul Hanrahan had been surprised to find at the plantation was a turkey. It was the enmie for Christmas Eve supper.

  The only way Jannier could have gotten a turkey, Hanrahan realized, was to have it shipped frozen by air from Hawaii. It was an incredible gesture, and if he could pay it back in some small way by fixing up Captain Jean-Philippe Jannier at Fort Rucker, he'd certainly give it a hell of a try.

  In fact, it all couldn't be easier, he thought. Colonel Bob Bellmon was at Fort Rucker, running Aviation Combat Developments. Bellmon was sort of a stuffy sonofabitch, but he was the man to take care of young Jannier. Like Jannier, his family had been officers for generations.

  More important, both - -Bdflmon and his wife spoke French. Barbara Bellmon was not only a really nice woman but the daughter of Major General Peterson K. "Porky" Waterford, who had led the famed 40th "Hell's Circus" Armored Division in War II.

  The Beilmons were Establishment, and they would be delighted to take care of the son of their French counterparts.

  (Two) As Paul was closing his attachd case, Patricia came out of the bathroom, looking crisp and desirable. She was red-haired and fair-skinned, but without the washed-out look Paul disliked in so many redheaded women. He had been enormously relieved when Patricia had kept her figure after the children. Even after three kids she was still very sexy and trim. Patricia Hanrahan scowled at her husband.

  "Do you really think you need that?" she asked, gesturing in the general direction of his. pistol.

  He picked up the Colt.45 from where he'd placed it next to the attache case, and slipped it into a skeleton holster in the small of his back.

  "We're not at Bragg yet," he said. "And you.

  "Never need a pistol until you need one badly," his wife finished his stock answer.

  "That's right, honey," he said.

  She shook her head in resignation and disgust.

  The houseboys wordlessly asked permission to take the luggage. Paul went to them and tried to give them money, which they politely but firmly refused. He gave up and geshired for them to take the luggage.

  The Jannier family was gathered on the wide, red-tiled walkway that ran from the house to the curving drive. The Janniers were not going to go into Saigon with them. It was a ninety-mile drive each way over rough two-lane macadam roads.

  The two Citroen sedans that had brought the Hanrahans from Saigon were in the drive. There were two Vietnamese drivers to a car, which was known as "sharing the rice bowl." Thus four men (in this case, four extraordinarily large men), doing the work of two, were "busy" tying luggage with great care to chrome racks on the roofs.

  In addition, two houseboys were on the walkway, each with a tray of champagne glasses.

  The departure turned out to be quite emotional when everyone realized that, excepting for the son, they were probably seeing one another for the last time. The chances of the Hanrahans returning to Vietnam, at least if Paul Hanrahan had anything to do with it, ranged from zero to highly unlikely.

  Paul was not surprised when Christine Jannier kissed him, but he was surprised and touched when Henri wrapped his arms around him in an affectionate hug, and then actually kissed him. There was nothing whatever sexual in it, obviously, but it was a strange and disturbing feeling to feel a man's whiskers grating on his own.

  They finished their champagne and got in the cars. Then, with waves and tootings of the horn and shouts of

  "Bon voyage!" and

  "Bon chance!"

  and

  "Au revoir!" the two cars, their tires grating on the macadam, drove away from the house.

  Paul, Jr." and Kevin rode in the first car with Jean-Philippe Jannier, while the Hanrahan women went with Paul in the second. Their protracted departure for home now seemed just about over, Paul thought thankfully. All that remained was a "cocktail" at the Hotel Caravelle in Saigon. That would give them a chance to exchange a final word with a few friends as well as with the first secretary of the Embassy, the ambassador having sent his regrets, and make a quick visit to the facilities (the ones at the airfield left more than a little to be desired). Then they would be off to the V. I.P lounge and the Air France Constellation to Tokyo.

  Hanrahan had been in Vietnam for more than three years, since the spring of 1955, when he had been one of the first American "advisors"

  sent there following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. He was glad to be getting out. It was his judgment that it had been a mistake to send Americans here in the first place. What he had seen of Vietnam since he had come had convinced him that what he had witnessed in Greece was not going to happen here, that this was a lost cause.

  In Greece, the communists had been defeated. In part, this had been possible because Harry Tniman had quietly ordered the army to send a group of officers and enlisted men to train and equip the Greek Army.

  This enabled them to protect their border with Albania and suppress Soviet-directed native communists.

  Paul Hanrahan had first parachuted into Greece during World War H while on detached service to the OSS. Later, during the Uruggle with the communists, he had stayed on in Greece as an advisor. It had been touch and go for a while, especially at first, but then things had been turned aroun
d. American supplies had helped, of course, and so had the expertise of people like Hanrahan, whose extraordinary skill in counter-guerrilla activities was based on his own experience as a guerrilla. But hat had kept the Soviet Union from taking over Greece had been a mind-set: the Greeks hated the communists not only for the ordinary reasons, but for religious reasons. They believed that the communists were the Antichrist, and they were willing to die for those convictions.

  Hanrahan had rarely found such pure anticommunism in Vietnam. There was a little (among some of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, for example), but it was not widespread. Aware that he had become cynical, Hanrahan divided most of the South Vietnamese into two groups: those who really didn't give a damn who ran the country, and those who wanted to run it for their own benefit. Most of the anticommunists were in the second group. They were not anticommunist because they hated, as Hanrahan did, what communism really meant. And because of that, Hanrahan was convinced that the red flag, sooner or later, would fly over all of Vietnam.

  But he was a soldier. He went where he was ordered to go and did the best job he could when he got there. That nobility of purpose, however, did not stop him from recognizing fault where he saw it. And it was his judgment that it was a mistake to send the army to Vietnam.

  In addition, the army itself was making the same mistake it had made in Greece. They were sending the same low caliber of officers to Vietnam that they had sent to Greece. When he was cynical (and he seemed to be cynical more and more of the time), he often thought that USAMAG (Greece) had been successful despite its officer corps, not because of it. When a levy for personnel was issued, the best officers were given commands of a platoon to a regiment and the who weren't quite good enough for a command or for a -position were the ones who could be "spared" to go to USAMAG (Vietnam). And even the good officers who were sent over were the wrong kind. They could probably command an American battalion or regiment and fight a conventional war. But the war here was unconventional. Fighting it required skills that most of the people Hanrahan had met simply didn't have.

  He forced those thoughts from his mind, and told himself to look on the bright side. He was going home. He was going to Bragg, where he had been stationed three times before; so that was sort of like going home, too. And he was pleased with his new assignment. He had crossed swords with the commanding officer of USAMAG (Vietnam) on a number of issues, and his efficiency reports, through a technique of "damning by faint praise," had reflected that officer's disapproval. But despite the lousy efficiency reports, he was being assigned to the newly organized Special Warfare School. He thought there was at least a chance that the school could set up some kind of valuable training program for officers and noncoms about to be sent to Vietnam or wherever else the brass decided "advisors" were needed.

  It would have been pleasant to think that he had been assigned to the Special Warfare School despite his efficiency reports rather than because of them. But Hanrahan was a realist. He had been a lieutenant colonel longer than just about anyone in the army. It was entirely likely that he had risen as high in rank as he was going to rise. It was expected of West Point graduates that, at appropriate points in their career, they be given commands. The only commands Paul Hanrahan had ever had were of small detachments of advisors.

  Command, he sometimes thought bitterly, was judged by numbers of troops. Command of a 1,200-man battalion involved in maneuvers in Louisiana was considered far more important than command of a 50-man advisory detachment, even though the advisors might be in de facto command of a division and a half of indigenous troops in contact with a real enemy.

  Of course, it was possible that he would get the eagle of a full colonel. It was even possible that five years later he could get to be brigadier general. He was, after all, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, and there was the West Point mective Association, which was supposed to see that West inters got promoted no matter what.

  It was also possible, It. Col. Paul "Red" Hanrahan thought, a pig could be taught to say the rosary and then be taken "into heaven. tie looked out the window of the Citroen at the rice paddies id told himself that in seventy-two hours, when he looked out window, he would see either a billboard urging some kinder on him, or a farmer riding a tractor, not one standing up to his hips in muddy water. ten minutes later, roughly three-quarters of an hour from the plantation, as the two Citroens drove at what Hanrahan thought an excessive speed-down the winding road between flooded paddies, the skin at the back of his neck began to crawl. the first thing he thought was that he was concerned with speed. Vietnamese, particularly those at the wheel of a Westerner's vehicle think that automobiles have two speeds, on and off.

  but then he realized it was more than just the speed. There was a reason for the speed. he turned over his shoulder and saw they were being followed by a General Motors Carryall. me sonofabitch is right on our bumper! And then he knew. "Get on the floor!" he ordered sharply. Patricia looked at him in disbelief. Hanrahan reached over his wife and put his hands on Rose's shoulders, then jerked her violently out of the corner threw her onto the floor of the car. My God!" Patricia shrieked. "Paul, what in the world..

  Hanrahan put his hands on his wife's hair and pulled her downward to the floorboard.

  He felt the car brake, and then skid. Next he was flying rward, slamming into his wife, and then bouncing against the back of tile front seat. "Stay where you are!" he ordered. Rosemary began to whimper. He got his hand on the.45, tugged it free of the holster, and mrnrked the action. Then he opened the door and crawled out between the two Citroens. They had both skidded to a stop, crosswise on the road, facing in opposite directions.

  He got to his knees and moved to the rear of the car he just left.

  Vietnamese in black pajamas were spilling from the GMC The man in the lead was raising an American Thompson 45 caliber submachine gun to his shoulder, aiming it at the rear car Hanrahan put both hands together on the.45 to steady it and shot the man twice, first in the chest and then again in the face

  Then he ran the four steps to the edge of the road and dove into the ditch.

  There came the sound of submachine guns, not the slow blam-blam-blam a Thompson makes, but a lighter, rip pix sound. And then other weapons were firing. His pistol held both hands in front of him, Hanrahan popped up from the The firefight was over.

  Not all the Vietnamese in black pajamas had made it ow the GMC. Those that had were sprawled in spreading pools blood behind the man with the Thompson he had dropped. others were hanging at obscene angles from the open doors the truck. The windows on the GMC were stitched with holes and steam was rising from the hood and radiator.

  The Vietnamese in the Citroens had not been "sharing a rice bowl," he now realized; they'd been riding shotgun. Now they were advancing toward the GMC, holding French MAT 9 mm machine pistols in their hands.

  The man Hanrahan shot was obviously dead; the.45 bullet had blown the back his head away. There was some question about the others the ground behind him, or hanging from the GMC.

  One of the Vietnamese matter of factly ejected the clip fror his MAT-49, inserted a fresh one, and then emptied it into bodies.

  "Formidable, mon Colonel," Jean-Philippe Jannier and then switched to English. "But I fear you have dirtied suit."

  He had a MAT-49 hanging loosely at his side. Hanrahan saw vestiges of smoke curling from the open action.

  "Fiick my suit," Hanrahan said. He rushed to the ( and for a moment his heart stopped. Patricia and Rosemar were not moving.

  "Oh, my God!" Hanrahan wailed. And then Patricia looked up at him, wide-eyed, terrified, unbelieving. "Honey?" she asked, and then she repeated herself. "h'. AJC Patty," he said. "It's all over." she asked again. hen she saw the bodies on the road, Patricia became sick and that caused a sympathetic reaction in Rosemary. There was more carnage than anyone would have thought. He was able to reconstruct what had happened: it was an ambush, a carefully planned ambush, probably intended to Jam Phi
lippe Jannier, and probably because of his grandfather. The ambushers had known the cars were coming. They waited along the road to positively identify Jannier, and met him in the GMC. The GMC also served as a signal on the highway. When they saw it coming, they turned ox-drawn cart across the road to block it. The car had been pinned between the GMC and the cart. there had been just one car, if Jannier had been traveling alone the ambush would have succeeded. He would have been attacked the moment he stopped. There had been a moment's hesitation when the two cars skidded to a stop, sufficient time for the bodyguard in the car to direct his fire against the GMC. It was possible, Hanrahan decided, that he had been unnecessary, that the men could have taken care of the man he had shot.

  in was suddenly violently angry that the Janniers could put his wife and his children in such jeopardy. Then he realized that was emotion speaking, not reason. it had done nothing of the kind. The bullocks were unhurt. They hadn't even run. One of the Vietamese went to them, urged them into motion, and got cart off the road. The others picked up the weapons of the ambushers and loaded them into the trunks of the Citroens. Then they resumed their journey to Saigon. Before they got to Saigon, Hanrahan had calmed down enough to realize that there would very likely be all kinds of officialdom interested in what had happened on the road. If that happened, their departure would be delayed. He told the driver to signal the other car to stop so he could discuss the problem with Jean-Philippe lannier. "I can look into the future, mon Colonel," Jannier said. "unfortunately, Two hours from now, as they return from an unadventful trip to Saigon, my father's cars will be assaulted without warning. Unfortunately, lives will be lost."