She said, "Your Vietnam luck has run out, Paul."

I didn't reply.

I thought about our encounter with Colonel Mang in the desolate ruins of the Quang Tri Citadel, and I recalled the South Vietnamese colonel, probably dead now or re-educated, who had pinned the medal on me. Two very different occasions, but the same place. Actually, it wasn't the same place; time and war had changed that place from a field of honor to a wasteland so crowded with ghosts that I swear I could feel their cold breaths on my face.

The bus continued on toward Hue.

Susan, coming out of her thoughts, said, "Plus, he was insulting. He practically accused me of being a s.l.u.t."

"You should have slapped him. Hey, what did you say to him about searching your apartment?"

She hesitated, then replied, "Well, I asked him if he m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed while he was searching my underwear drawer."

"Are you crazy?"

"I felt violated. I was angry."

"Anger, Ms. Weber, is a luxury you can't afford here."

"Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Notice, however, he didn't deny it."

I laughed. But it wasn't funny. Colonel Mang hadn't thought so, either. He was probably in the Hue police station by now testing his electrodes.

An hour after we left Quang Tri City, the bus came into the northern end of Hue, and stopped at the An Hoa bus station, just outside the walls of the Citadel. This seemed to be the last stop, so we got off. A taxi took us to the Century Riverside Hotel.

There were no faxes or other messages for us at the front desk, making me believe that everyone in Saigon and Washington had the utmost confidence in my ability to carry out the mission; or maybe they were all just fed up with Susan and me. In either case, no news is good news.

We hit the bar before the bathrooms, showing where our priorities lay.

We hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, but strangely I had no appet.i.te for anything but Scotch whiskey. Susan, too, drank dinner.

At about 10 P.M. P.M., we retired to my suite and sat on the terrace with beers from the mini-bar and watched the city and the river through the mist.

She said to me, "In Saigon, I told you that for people of my generation, Vietnam was a country, not a war. Do you remember that?"

"I do. p.i.s.sed me off."

"I can see now why it would. Well, I hope I've shown you the country as well as you've shown me the war."

"You have. I learned some things."

"Me, too. And did you work through some things?"

"Maybe. I won't really know until I'm home for a while."

Dark storm clouds had rolled in from the north, and it began to rain. A flash of lightning lit up the city and the river, and the bolt crackled to the earth, followed by the distant sound of rolling thunder, like an artillery barrage.

The rain blew in on the terrace but we sat there drinking, and within a few minutes, we were soaking wet and cold.

It was easy to imagine it was the winter of 1968 again; the Tet Offensive was raging, and to the north of here, the city of Quang Tri lay burning across the flooded rice paddies, and we were dug into night positions, into the mud, and we waited for the retreating enemy army trying to reach the hills behind us, pursued by the American and South Vietnamese troops. Hammer and anvil, it was called. We were the anvil, the pursuing troops were the hammer, and the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in between were hamburger meat.

I may have seen Tran Van Vinh that night and may have fired a burst of rounds at him. I would have to ask him, when I saw him, how he'd escaped from the cauldron of the embattled city.

Susan asked me, "Wet enough?"

"Not yet."

"Where are you now?"

"In a foxhole, outside Quang Tri City. It's raining, and the artillery is firing."

"How long do you need to be there?"

"Until I'm ordered to leave."

She stood. "Well, when you get ready to make love, not war, I'll be waiting." She tousled my wet hair and went inside.

I sat in the rain for another few minutes, did my penance, and went inside.

Susan was in the shower, and I got undressed and joined her.

We made love in the shower, then went to bed.

Outside, the thunder clapped and the lightning lit up the dark room.

I slept fitfully, and the lightning and thunder provided the background for my bad dreams of battle, and I was aware of a cold sweat on my face, and a trembling in my body. I kept reaching for my rifle, but I couldn't find it. I knew none of this was real, but my body reacted as if it were, and I dreamed that I'd been knocked unconscious by an explosion, and when I awoke, I was being flown to a hospital ship, the USS Sanctuary Sanctuary, in a very quiet helicopter.

I opened my eyes.

I sat up in bed with the feeling that something black and heavy had been lifted off my heart.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. It said 4:32, or, as we say in the army, Oh-dark-thirty. I could hear rain, but not thunder. I turned toward Susan, but she wasn't in bed. looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. It said 4:32, or, as we say in the army, Oh-dark-thirty. I could hear rain, but not thunder. I turned toward Susan, but she wasn't in bed.

I got out of bed and checked the bathroom, but she wasn't there. My thrashing around might have woken her, so I went into the sitting room of the suite and checked the couch, but she wasn't there either.

I picked up the telephone and dialed her room. As the phone rang, I pulled it toward the terrace, but she wasn't on the terrace, and she wasn't answering the telephone.

I went back to the bedroom to get dressed so I could go to her room, or to the garden out back.

As I was dressing, I heard the door open in the sitting room. I went into the room as she turned on a lamp. She was dressed in jeans and a black sweater, and she was wearing a black quilted jacket, which I hadn't seen before. She was also carrying her backpack and some other items in a large plastic bag, which she threw on the couch.

I said, "Going somewhere?"

"Going up country."

"Are the elephants watered and fed?"

"They are."

"And you left the gun in the garden?"

"I did."

"Swear?"

"Swear." She said, "We need to check out by five-thirty and meet someone."

"Who and where?"

"Are you showered?"

"No." I yawned. "Why should I be?"

"Go ahead and shower. Look, I bought you a backpack when I went shopping Sunday, and this leather jacket, and two rubber rain ponchos, plus some other stuff for the road. You need to pack light and ditch your luggage and dress clothes."

I moved toward the couch and said, "How will anyone know I'm an American without my blue blazer?"

"That's the point. Look." She b.u.t.toned her quilted jacket, put on a pair of biker goggles, tied a Montagnard scarf around her neck and face, and put on a black fur-trimmed leather hat with earflaps. "Voila."

"What are you supposed to be?"

"A Montagnard."

"What tribe?"

"I've seen pictures of them in newspapers and magazines and on TV. This is how they dress in the highlands and the hill country when they're riding their motorcycles in the winter."

"Is that a fact?"

"Yes. And as you know, they're a little heavier and stockier than the Viets, so we should be able to pa.s.s as Montagnards from a distance."

"What distance? Ten miles?"

She added, "Also, there are a number of Amerasians left over from your visit here, and many of them live in the hills... they're sort of outcasts."

I said, "There won't be any Amerasians on the other side of the DMZ; I never got that far."

She said, "Well, then north of the DMZ we're Montagnards. Point is, you want to blend in. From a distance."

I didn't reply.

She took a dark brown leather jacket from the plastic bag and handed it to me. She said, "I bought you the biggest one I could find. Try it on."

I tried it on, and I was able to get into it, but it was tight, and barely reached my waist.

Susan said, "You look s.e.xy in leather."

"Thank you. I a.s.sume we're going by motorcycle."

She looked at me and said, "I can't think of another way. Can you?"

"Yes. Four-wheel drive and a driver. I'm going to check out the private tour companies today-Slicky Boy Tours, Hue office. I've got some days to get to where I'm going, so I'm not pressed."

She shook her head and said, "You don't want a third party involved. Colonel Mang will be all over this town interrogating private tour operators, if he hasn't already."

"Well... let's go to another town to hire a car and driver. Or we can just ask any guy in a four-wheel drive. Any Nguyen will drive us to Dien Bien Phu for three hundred bucks."

Susan replied, "That may be true, but my idea is better and doesn't involve a third party, and gives us complete control of the agenda."

She was right, up to a point. Transportation in this country was a matter of making the least bad choice. I asked her, "Where did you get a motorcycle?"

"Go shower. I'll start packing for you."

I turned, went back into the bedroom, peeled off my clothes, and went into the bathroom. I tried to remember when I'd given Susan control over this mission.

Through the bathroom door, I could hear her rummaging around in the bedroom. I called out, "Can I have one blazer for Hanoi?"

"It's a small backpack."

I shaved, showered, and took my malaria pill.

I came out of the bathroom wearing a towel, and Susan had my suitcase and overnight bag on the bed, plus a dark green backpack. My clothes were strewn on the sheets. I said, "I'll do that."

I spent the next ten minutes putting the bare necessities in the backpack; everything that I was going to ditch, I put into the suitcase and overnight bag.

She saw me packing my docksiders and Ho Chi Minh sandals and said, "Just wear your running shoes. You have too many pairs of underwear. Why don't men wash underwear when they travel?"

Now I remembered why I wasn't married. I said, "It's easier to throw them out. Okay, how's that?"

She rolled up a rain poncho, pushed it in my backpack, and strapped it shut. "Good. That's it. You want to get dressed?"

I took off the towel and put on the outfit I'd kept aside-athletic socks, one pair of underwear, jeans, a polo shirt, and my black running shoes. I slipped my pa.s.sport and visa into my wallet and put that into a little waterproof pouch that Susan had bought. I said, "Where'd you go for this stuff ? L. L. Bean?"

"I went to the central market. They have everything."

We gathered her quilted jacket and my leather jacket, plus the two hats, two pairs of leather gloves, and a bunch of Montagnard scarves, and stuffed them in the plastic bag so no one downstairs could see and remember them. I put my camera in a plastic laundry bag along with my exposed and unexposed film and shoved it in a side pouch of my backpack. This reminded me too much of 1968.

Susan said to me, "I've got my camera, so we can ditch one to save s.p.a.ce."

I knew I'd have to photograph Tran Van Vinh's souvenirs if he wouldn't sell them to me, and I'd definitely have to photograph Mr. Vinh himself, or his grave. Also, I needed to photograph his house and locale, so if he wasn't dead, someone could come by later, find him, and kill him. I said to Susan, "I need a camera for this job, so we'll take two to play it safe."