Vietnam, August, 1964.

he white broken lines in the narrow road came running at me, rushing toward my heart like pointed arrows. Bird, Boggs, and I were traveling fast, heading toward an apparent intersection with yet another highway. The horizon was always out of my sight. I couldn’t see the future; I could only see the miles falling under my feet as I raced on. It was easy to make mistakes searching for the faces of the assassins. It was becoming hard for me to trust even myself, for I wanted to find them all and be done with the assignment. Not a day went by when I did not want to hawkishly swoop down on them all and end their lives.

Then I could start mine.

The nights went by one by one, and I questioned my crusade. Was I a pair of eyes for this new President? Was I looking for the murderer of his President and friend, looking for him personally, or was I a protected source and a partner in a giant game of chess?

The letter I had received from President Johnson—was I on a special mission for him? Did he believe my eyewitness account of our history, or was I just a rook left over from the term of his predecessor? How much power does a president have anyway? Would I someday be capable of getting out from under his sway? Did I, even at that young age, feel sorry for them, for both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson? They had the power to kill but did not have the power or money to preserve and protect themselves. I did not understand at the time that men of power have a way of sucking others in with their whirlwind and aura.

Something was bothering me: my feelings were at conflict with what was happening in Vietnam. Then, came the Gulf of Tonkin run-in where the U.S. Navy destroyers and the North Vietnamese gunboats supposedly ran afoul of each other’s wakes. The alarm for war had been sounded at sea on the 2nd, and then in Congress on the 4th of August. The war began on the South China Sea. Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. President Johnson held so much control in Congress with his old friends that there were only two lone votes of dissent against it.

At the same time, to the southwest and on shore, an intelligence source of Bird’s was forwarding the discovery of Lieutenant Tram do La of Company “B,” 6th Battalion, SVM. Tram was from the city of Nha Trang, where his mother was a schoolteacher and his father was the local postmaster and a small-time bureaucrat under the Diems. His mother’s brother was General Tram Vam Due, Chief of Staff for the Commanding General of the Army of South Vietnam. While I was training him, I didn’t know this. Bird discovered it shortly after I gave him the list of names to be investigated. The family ties were strong. Many of the American dollars that General Due received from his part of the black market operations, Bird was sure, were being smuggled out of the country. Around the southern tip of Vietnam, the money was sent via coastal sailing ships and riverboats up the Men Cong River from the delta into Cambodia. The dollars were sold for gold, and the gold was deposited into false bank accounts in other Southeast Asian countries that banked with the French and Swiss.

Now, along with Bird and Boggs, I was moving rapidly up a coastal road. For a long time I discovered I had wanted to go to the hospital to the girl with no hands. I had waited too long; she had left to go to a rehabilitation school. I still wanted to visit her and possibly let go of the accumulation of grief and guilt that filled my sleepless nights. The accused portion of my soul came at me every night and caused me to recall her situation and my responsibility. I had been sending money to take care of her, as much as I could afford, and my mother and dad were trying to help, too. This didn’t erase the guilt. To my knowledge, the government was doing nothing directly. Indirectly, some aid was going to her from the State Department, or so the embassy people told me, in the form of medical help to the rehab school. What she needed was a new set of real hands.

What I needed was to let the boy within me say, “I’m sorry.”

After returning to Vietnam, Boggs and Bird filled me in on what had happened. Claiming to be an adjuster from an insurance company, Bird interviewed the Caduceus bandit Doctor Toggle had seen on his visit to the hospital. Bird had learned something I found to be particularly funny—the Caduceus bandits were the safest way to ship money. They brought in guns and war materials for the VC from the north and drugs for the small, but soon-to-increase, drug market. Plus, they hauled out the dollars and material the generals were stealing to be sold all over the Far East, supplies and construction equipment, anything of value, anything worth selling. Neither side attacked the bandits until the later days of the war when the Americans began to take control of the Vietnam rivers. By this time, the money was flying out of the country to Japan, South Korea, and every country in the Far East, where the economics of war would expand the economies of those Far-Eastern nations.

Anyone would remember the eyes of Lt. Tram Do La. He was the only shooter trained who wore glasses. I had wanted to disqualify him from the teams, but both his brass and my people would not hear of it. His eyescontained some sort of yellow matter in the white portion. For me, only the Angel’s eyes were harder to look at. Tram’s eyes were so inferior that he had developed a habit of never looking anyone in the eye, except for certain family members. Later, I discovered why. His uncle, the Chief of Staff of the Army, had demanded Tram look him in the eye before he became part of the plot to kill Jack Kennedy.

The road improved as we approached Nha Trang. Bird drove faster. The increased speed only helped the bugs to flatten themselves on the windshield and on the front of the jeep. Mosquitoes, flies, and other flying things were a way of life in this part of the world. I was in the back seat, and many of the bugs that missed the windshield ended in the back of the jeep with me. All of them were stunned for a few minutes until they could sense something to eat was nearby—me. I had learned to ignore them.

Boggs was riding in the shotgun seat, holding a light. He leaned out the right side of the jeep to try to wipe off the film of bug guts with an old rag and some spit. He made a bigger mess every time. Bird slammed on the brakes and almost lost Boggs out the side. Boggs turned to him with a “what the hell.” Bird pointed to a young water buffalo standing in the center of the road. Slowly, we went around it to the left, and Boggs reached out and wiped at the buffalo’s eyes.

Bird and I laughed as we again started to speed. Moonlight made its debut from behind the disguise of foul weather to cast some light over the area. The beaches became evident, and I took a small notebook from my pocket and started to make notes. I had begun to record my feelings and to try to explain my thoughts for the first time in South Africa with Freta. As she slept on the sweat-soaked sheets from our union, I had written my first poem and had remembered Jewelko. Freta had loved what I had taught her about pulling the pillows up under her hips and buttocks. This I had learned from Jewelko.

When I returned from South Africa, another letter via the embassy was waiting. Lying beside me on the seat was a green flashlight. I picked it up and turned it to shine on the unfolded letter I held between my knees.

My Thomas, my love,

There is this disparity between us, but it is only in my mind that the dissimilarity lives. Our age difference. You are a young man, but very manly in the way you treated me. You are wise beyond the years God has given you; your wisdom shines. It does not change my feeling for your person. You will always be in my future and an important ingredient of every day. There are many sad circumstances for us all. These things we can often dispel with the credits we build up in our relationships with others. The qualities in us mirror and reflect all the goodness and create a home in our souls where love stays. This love is not offered as payment for our goodness to others, but it is given as hope and faith in the present and the morrow. This love may look back, but it will not go back. Love does not ride the tops of the waves, but rather rests in the depths of its own pleasure of giving. This love you gave to me willingly.

Love will always outshine the physical part of the day. The earth moves, and the sun stays still and shines over everyone, Thomas. Yet, even in darkness, I can sense the love that holds the warmth of the summer of our lives. Love will shape you, and the polishing of your spirit will glow past the day’s end and into the next world. Yes, I love you still and cry over the words you pull from my heart when I think what could have been possible.

I must one day set down this age barrier and put it to rest, or I will forever be sorry I mentioned it to you. I send you these words as touches to your mind. If I were there by your side, lying next to you, there would be no place my lips would not touch on your wonderful skin. Nothing would escape my eyes; no place could your soul hide. But, alas, I must not come to you, else I would never have the courage to again leave. For it is true, the tear that falls across two faces washes away the pain of the day to announce freedom to we who cry for each other.

Reveal your innermost thoughts to yourself in secret. Write your poems and dance with the spirit in your heart. I wonder how does your day begin? How does it end?

Forever love, Jewelko

The road continued to throw the white arrows at my heart, but the darkness and the gloom hid my tears. Even with my friends, I was solitary. Some of the faces of the fifty men and two women had bruised my memory, but none like the accidental maiming of the girl with no hands. She was in this part of the country and was probably getting ready for bed, though not able to button her nightshirt or even zip it up. She was alone, too.

We had approached a river. French rule and years of engineering had never provided a permanent bridge, but a Japanese pontoon bridge of wood and steel allowed us to cross. Bird started to downshift from third to second gear; the motor revved up high, and the transmission slowed the jeep in 100 feet from wide open to 30 miles per hour. No sooner had we come off the bridge than a small boy ran a bicycle into our path. We jarred to a stop. The boy lay still in the road. The bike was a total wreck.

Bird jumped out, ran over, and almost yanked off the boy’s head, pulling at his full head of hair. Boggs and I jumped in to save the kid, but Bird looked at me as if I were a fool. “Thomas, this boy is not hurt. Get up, you little brat!” He pulled him to his feet. “See what you have done. You saw a jeep and said to yourself, ‘Americans will pay for anything.’ But, I was driving, and I’m with them, so you are caught lying to your own national policeman. Plus, you have wrecked your mother’s bike.”

The boy loathed us. He hated us, yet Boggs and I were the ones who wanted to step in unwisely and try to help him with his fabricated injuries.

Somewhat wiser, the boy gathered up his wrecked bike and disappeared into the night. We parked near a small building made of old French supplies, a sewing shop where it looked like sailing gear was made and repaired. We covered the jeep with a large black tarp after removing our gear. The building was on stilts, and Bird went carefully up the wooden steps. Muffled voices reached back to us. The man Bird spoke with obviously was an observer for the police at some time. Many words were exchanged between the two before Bird came back.

“Thomas, one of the men you seek is, indeed, here in this city. He is living with his mother and father not far from here. My friend says this man purchased a very nice 42-footer motor yacht in Hong Kong and returned here to Nha Trang just last week. He goes out early many mornings to fish. The boat is big enough to haul many people, and two men sail with him daily. My friend says he has heard it said that this man, Tram, wishes to take the boat around the world. Eventually he wants to settle in Mexico in a town called ‘Veracruz’ or on an island called ‘Puerto Rico.’ Do you know of these places?”

“Yes, I know of them.”

Boggs interjected the Marines had a base camp near the town of Vega Baja on Puerto Rico.

Looking toward the darkened Sea, I remembered seeing home movies and news photos of President Kennedy sailing across the open waters off Hyanis Port and Cape Cod. His face smiled for the camera as the wind tousled his hair and his hand tried to straighten the wind-blown mess. The pictures were of him sailing alone in a small boat, staged pictures perhaps, showing how he alone could sail the ship of state since General Eisenhower could no longer run the country after eight years as president. Jack Kennedy loved the water and was a great swimmer. He had been a Navy war hero, having saved the lives of some of his crew in the Pacific.

Years after those pictures, Tram and I had met, and unknowingly, I taught him how to become part of the murdering of the man who had saved those lives. I had shown him how to wait and spy, what to do while waiting, how to make a deliberate sling in less than a minute, how to support his rifle and not fog up his glasses, and how to make his escape by being still and silent. Most thought you ran as fast as you could after killing a man. This was far from true; this was the opposite of what an assassin was trained to do. The last thing I trained the six to remember was that a good killing did not disrupt any more of nature than was needed. “Do not stir up the elements of nature against you. You do this enough with the shot you fire taking the life. It is enough that the spirit world knows what you have done.”

Twenty-two years earlier, Tram had been born under the fear of the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. Last year, he had been recruited to become a willing party in the murder and assassination of one of the heroes of the war that had set him free from the Japanese yoke. Now, he was as free as any man in the world, free with a dream and a purpose, free to sail his boat to Mexico or anywhere else in the world. But now, the road of arrows had led me to him, and I would turn the arrows around and, this time, send them to kill him.

“Thomas, I have an idea. Let us borrow the General’s boat and follow this man you hunt.” Bird pointed to a guarded patrol boat flying several flags. One of them was the flag of a one-star general, the flag of the area commander’s rank—the personal flag and boat of General Tram Vam Due.

“Do you know the sea and boats that well?” I asked.

“Yes. As a youth I worked for years aboard a barge.”

“Good. Let’s try for it.”

Boggs had brought along our customized costumes, the green pants, pullover shirts, dried reed hats, and sandals. The sandals were very uncomfortable. I would never get use to that strap running between my toes—what a pain. Bird had his own poor-man peasant clothing he wore everywhere we went, and he had somewhere found a four-sided throwing net for fishing in the surf. We made our way to the sandy beach. Bird spoke loudly as if to say to anyone listening we were not leaving until we caught what we wanted. There could be no doubt in anyone’s mind about his mannerisms; Bird was Vietnamese. He spoke it; he looked it; and he acted it. He took the throwing net away from Boggs and threw it to the base of the surf, quickly pulling it together. Nothing, and again he tossed it to the base of the surf. It went further this time as he slowly pulled it closed. Hauling it in again, we found an array of small fish, some of them wiggling out of the net as Bird pulled it up on the beach.

At first, just a couple of gulls gathered at the water’s edge. Then a few more came as the small fish flopped in the sand and back into the steadily pounding white surf. After Bird cast the net . . . maybe ten times . . . there were a hundred or so gulls, flying, pulling at each other, and trying to steal away the catch of other birds. The tide was coming in, and with it came the smaller fish to swim the sea’s edge, looking for food and safety. The larger fish, following close behind, looked for a chance to catch the small ones between the shoreline and the deep water. This cycle had repeated itself twice a day for thousands of years. Big fish eat the small fish and try to get away from the even larger fish.

Lt. Tram do La was a small fry, a little fish; and he had, so far, avoided getting caught. He had to have fired the shot that hit the President in the back. Tram’s glasses would mean that he, of all the shooters, would need the most time to sight the President. To fix the cross hairs on a target and to fire at a precise place required time; it required a sight picture and a list of other relationships between eye, scope reticule, and target. Wearing glasses does not make this process of aiming and focusing any easier. To be a shooter from a spiderhole would have meant the performance would have had to be without fault. If what I knew was the truth, then, in my judgment, Tram was the above-ground shooter; and the other two teams were the ones who had fired out of the spiderholes. Tram would have required perfect conditions to do what was expected of him in the triangulation of the target.

The humiliation of Tram is what I wanted. That this humorless, yellow-mattered, speckle-eyed, dog-eating, bit of waste had killed my President was unthinkable! While I sat on my hunches, watching the small fishing boats get under way; my anger shocked and surprised me. The day was going to be typical for August—hot, maybe wet, bone chilling, and then hot again. Low-lying clouds had moved away during the night, and the morning sky was cloudless. Seawater lapped lazily at my sandal soles and up over my feet. Nature was still for a time, except for the sounds of the gulls and the steady surf. Then the sun began to reach for the heavens. With a sense of pending doom, I realized the course of the day had begun; and now I was going to end it for Tram.

Two Vespa motor scooters came across the old pontoon bridge in a hurry. Looking over at the river, I could see the tide was beginning to return to the shallow, silt-filled harbor. Each scooter carried two people, three young men and a girl. All were wearing green, army-issued hats and clothing. The girl’s ponytail swung and bobbed under the back of her cap. She was thin, almost too thin. Then I saw her face. It was beautiful. I figured all of them to be in their twenties. One of them was Tram, the one with the coke-bottle glasses. All four of them moved to the motor yacht, each knowing what responsibility was his or hers. The girl and one of the men cast off the lines that were loosely holding the boat at the dock. All the time the Vietnamese Army guards whistled and called out to the girl, trying to get her attention and a wiggle or two. For the first time, one of the Army guards was not watching in our direction.

Bird tapped me on the shoulder. “She is called Helen in English.”

“Helen?”

“Yes, like Helen in Greek mythology, the woman who launched the thousand ships against Troy.”

“In Vietnamese?”

“Tine Lynn Toe, and she is the mistress of General Tram Vam Due. Some think she is also the best-looking woman in Vietnam. In your country she would be a movie star.”

“Yea, she’d be a Marilyn Monroe, pretty, but not too smart and not a singer, if I remember right.”

Cuyahoga Falls, August, 1975.

ll of a sudden Jenny grabbed my arm. Our conversation had been going on for four hours. The coffee pot was empty, as was the orange juice and ice-water containers. “Wait a minute, now, Thomas!”

Jenny had been sitting for a long time. Her only movement had been the twisting of rings around her fingers in small endless circles. Every now and then, she would hand me a cup of coffee or a glass of water. Once she walked to the front window to look toward the direction in which the shot had been fired. Then she fumbled for the keys to the rental car and reached under the chair for her shoes. She got up, excused herself, and left the room, only to quickly return. She was totally wrapped up in my story.

“Now you’re interjecting Marilyn Monroe,” she said. “We have Jackie and Marilyn, two enemies. I suppose you’ll tell me who killed her, too! We have Madame Diem and Jewelko . . . “

“That’s right! And, if you want to connect names, then connect Hoover and Hoffa, throw in Nixon and Rose Kennedy. You have no idea how far this goes.”

“And you know it all. Come on! What makes you think for one minute that I believe any of this?”

“Hell, woman, I didn’t invite you here! You were sent by the only other man in the country who knows the real truth, who still trusts me to stay silent about all this and him—the only other man who knows what I am capable of telling and doing to history.”

“Hell, yourself! I don’t think so!”

“Then, why are you here? Don’t you realize you’re expendable now? You’re a stone around his neck, just like I am. He thinks he is the only man I fear now. I know I am the only one he fears. It is just Nixon, he, and I who are left. Now he’ll fear you, too, because of Jim; and what you may do to him down the road from here to where you stay.”

“That would make a good book title, Thomas—The road from here to where you stay—If you live to write it.” It was obvious she didn’t want to trust me. She doubted everything I had said. Yet if she were as smart as she seemed, she was aware that there were too many unanswered questions floating in the minds of too many people; the plain simple people who knew that the whole story had not been told. Someone had to know the truth; someone had to have stayed silent a long time for some reason. What was the reason? Money, comfort, duty, honor, fear? What keeps one quiet?

She came over, sat next to me, then, nervously, stood and pulled at me to get up. Walking to the dining room table, she explained, “Let’s sit away from the window. It’s getting darker. Okay? Back to Vietnam, the summer of ’64, Nha Trang and the Vietnamese . . . Monroe.”

Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1964.

he tidelands filled the harbor and the wetlands. Sea amphibians mixed with the river fish, and the time was right to sail. The moon had pulled the seawater inland. Anyone wishing to head into the deeper clear waters had to go soon. Boggs and I could hardly pull in the net it was so full of creatures. These waters were rich with life of all kinds.

Bird made his way back to the covered jeep and changed into a Vietnamese Army captain’s uniform. What an officer he would have made! Almost as if he were a Vietnamese Patton, he walked the wooden dock that led to the General’s patrol boat. In a commanding but soft voice, he ordered all but one of the guards away to some distant, meaningless chore. I think they trusted him because he was only commanding the two junior officers off the boat, keeping the senior officer there with him. The two men left their weapons behind and walked to the other end of the dock. They kick-started their motor scooters; and, in a belch of white smoke, were off down the road. Bird and the other guard disappeared down the stern hatchway.

Slowly, Boggs and I worked our way to the end of the dock and quietly slid into the water. We swam to the side of the patrol boat. Boggs tapped three times on the hull, and Bird dropped a small rope ladder over the seaward side. For some reason, the U.S. Navy had allowed the South Vietnamese Army to use this patrol boat; and subsequently, it had become the private power craft of the General. Now, two wet, green-clad, American Marines and a Vietnamese policeman were stealing it from one of the most powerful men in Vietnam. A hundred-thousand-dollar “gift” was reclaimed to serve my mission.

Immediately after we climbed aboard and cast off the bow and stern-lines, the two diesel engines clacked and roared to life. Straight out of the anchorage, we plowed across the calm seas with the high cirrus clouds foretelling a sailor’s delight. That is, except for the soldier that Bird had earlier taken to the forward cabin. This young soldier’s legs were spread as far as humanly possible and sat on the General’s bed. Duct tape tied one hand to his right leg while his left hand was tied to his left. A toilet plunger was taped over the soldier’s nose and mouth. He looked as if he were some sort of wild beast with a horn growing out of his face. With his eyes taped closed, his skin was blanched with fear—he was as white as a dead man and must have thought he would be one before the day was over.

Boggs went about gathering the weapons left behind on Bird’s orders. In addition to the three M1 Grand rifles, he found ammunition for the dual .50 caliber, sky-mount machine guns that were located on both the port and starboard sides. Upon finding and uncovering the guns, we found them lightly oiled and in perfect shape, much the same as everything else on the boat. Boggs quickly loaded the weapons and had them ready for use. A first round was in each chamber. Four ammunition belts hung ready, off to the side of each gun. The belts, with their large, shiny brass bullets hanging one after another, were the only give-away that the guns were ready to fire. Close to an hour had passed between the time Tram do La had sailed from the dock, and we had motored out past the river’s mouth. Unless Tram was in a hurry, he would only be a matter of four or five miles ahead of us, if we only knew in which direction to go.

After losing sight of land, I could see why early sailors hated to go very far without some way of telling where shore was located. There was water in every direction. Bird handed Boggs a pair of field glasses and asked him to go forward to search for Tram’s Chris Craft.

Over the deep roar of the twin engines running about half open now, Bird turned to me, “He is, as you said, a good man, yet something about him causes me concern. I think I have not met a man of such instant convictions.” Bird’s words, referring to Boggs, were almost lost in the wind. This was his theater. He was a boy again on the Red River in Hanoi, working on his uncle’s garbage barge. As far as Bird was concerned, we were heading out to sea to dump human squander.

Boggs pointed to the south. A small black dot tossed and rose with the increasing size of the waves.

Over the engines, I yelled at Bird, “South?”

“It would make sense to go south if they wish to fish. But, I do not think that is what they intend. We shall, however, hail the boat.”

Bird pulled the twin throttles all the way back, and the powerful thrust of the propellers pushed the boat headlong into the whitecap waves. Boggs had to reach out to grab the handrail running down both sides of the bow. One of the twin .50’s loosened and turned as a prophetic sign toward us. Seeing it swing, Boggs hurried back. Still holding on to the handrail, he turned the gun seaward, and locked it in place. The bow came down hard on a wave. We were submerged for a second coming up out of the next one when the water broke, washed back over the three of us, and splashed into the open hatchway. The winds had picked up, and the sea was becoming more tossed and tumbled. It didn’t take much time to catch up with the fishing boat Boggs had spotted.

Bird pulled up beside the small-masted sailing boat and hailed it in Vietnamese. “Has a large motor boat from Nha Trang belonging to Tram passed this way?”

“No,” replied a young girl standing close to a net loaded down with fish.

“Do you believe her, Bird?” I asked.

“Yes. She knows his boat. I do not think her to lie.”

Waiting to safely clear and then drift by the smaller sailing boat, Bird turned and pulled back the throttles. The twin motors again dug into the water and raised the front fifteen feet of the bow out of the sea. We were now turned and heading north with the motors running wide open, and the boat breaking over the crest of wave after wave. As we left one wave and crashed down on the next one, I wondered, how much pounding can this boat take?

Now we were following the coastline of one of the most picturesque beach-front properties in the world. Here the hills and mountains materialized right in front of the eyes—browns and greens mixed with blue and white. An easterly wind was piling the sea opposite the side of our speeding boat and trying to push us ashore. In only an hour, we had seen the clement sea mature and enlarge itself like a smoldering fire and turn into an inferno. Boggs stood as a sentinel, sequestered from Bird and me, braced against the handrail. Leaning forward with the spotter glasses held tight to his eyes, he searched for Tram’s Chris Craft. His years as an aid to the Admiral of the Fleet had come back to him. With every swelling of the whitecaps, his sea legs grew stronger and he remembered how to roll and then move on the forever-distorted surface of the water. Progress seemed slow. Then, hold the rail with one hand, Boggs pointed to his left and north.

Bird headed in that direction. If I could, I wanted to question Tram before I killed him. The thought of killing him made me uneasy; but I knew he would die one way or another. I wanted to see if he knew where any of the remaining three men were. Somehow I knew he would be the only one who may have tried to stay in touch with the rest of the assassins. Because of his family ties, possibly he could shed light on who in the governments of South Vietnam and the United States may have had the power to help arrange this muddled chaos.

Going over to stand beside Bird, I shouted over the sounds of the engines, “Did you find out from the soldier if Tram and his people had armed themselves and the boat?” I pointed below deck. Bird shook his head no. “Then I’d better go below to see if I can find out before we get too close.”

“Thomas, Tram will think it a visit from either his uncle or the crew from the patrol boat wishing to see the Vietnamese Monroe again.”

I was not sure—I still wanted to go below and check.

With no way of holding on to anything during the wild ride, the soldier had bounced from the bunking area to the small, cramped area between the galley and the stateroom. As I entered this area, I felt the force of a bullet pass by me and strike the hatchway. It was almost impossible to hear the report of the explosion over the blaring engines. From somewhere, the soldier had found an M1 Carbine, a small semi-automatic rifle. Now, as a contorted acrobat, he lay waiting for the first person to come to the hatchway. The General must have hidden the rifle under the covers of the bunk, himself worried about a murderous muse; and it worked itself loose. The soldier’s sense of fear and what might happen to him had rewelded the electrical impulses in the rational part of his mind; he was totally crazy by the time I stepped into the hatchway. He fired at least once at me. What he had not realized in doing this was that he had also conjured the Angel of Death from some distant place. There would not be another chance.

Three things happened so fast that it is hard to remember in what order they occurred. As a tray of mushroom plants and other loose objects came sliding towards me as the bow went up, I had to jump them. The deck was slippery from the water dripping in around the hatchway. To my right was a teak knife block with a heavy-looking meat cleaver nestled in the woodstand. Even before I could think to pull my pistol from my waistband, my hand gripped the cleaver’s handle and swung it down into the hairy, melon head of the soldier. The forward tip of the blade exited the left side of his nose. Next to him, almost as a shrinking violet, the Angel beckoned, until I again swung the cleaver, only this time the blade stuck in the skull bone itself. With my second swing, her wail of desperation disappeared into a gleeful giggle for the soldier’s fate.

For the first time I felt myself break into a cold sweat. The Angel was gone before I knew it, whereas the last couple of times I had killed, she had lingered nearby. If I had not felt the patrol boat slowing, I might have questioned this difference in the Angel’s behavior.

Bird was hailing the boat as I arrived back on deck. Lying off the bow was a smaller speedboat with the motor already started. Within seconds it had pulled away, and with no warning, two men stood and braced themselves. Two men from Tram’s boat came to the starboard side and picked up Browning automatic rifles. All four men from the two different boats started firing.

We threw ourselves to the deck. Boggs started crawling on all fours toward the locked-down dual .50’s. Bird grabbed a .45 caliber sub-machine gun and sprayed bullets. I was looking for something more than a pistol, even while I was shooting.

Then we all noticed a problem with the smaller boat and while the two tried to fix things, Boggs got to, and unlocked, the .50’s. The big machine guns were now off safe. One of the men on the smaller boat was hit by a shot from Bird and fell backward onto the deck. Boggs had the big dual machine guns shooting; each shot seemed to grow louder as the waterscape splashed from the sounds of the bullets getting closer. The deck of the patrol boat was beginning to fatigue as bullet after bullet was fired. Then the engine on the smaller boat stopped as a bullet bore its way into the upper cylinder wall and halted the pistons’ travel. Smoke began to escape while Boggs’ crosshairs found the bodies of both men. The force of the velocity from the impacting slugs was so great, their torsos almost exploded before our eyes. The Angel grabbed for each, but again left quickly with her loot. Water poured into the boat, and it disintegrated into thousands of small pieces.

Someone from the other side must have thrown or fired a grenade at us. The eruption of water next to our side was sufficient to knock me overboard. I surfaced and realized I was closer to the Chris Craft then I was to the patrol boat. Swimming was always fun—until I remembered the bottom was a thousand feet below me and the whitecaps were breaking over me. Do I really have a choice? After swimming underwater to the far underside of Tram’s boat, I grabbed a metal ladder hanging from the gunnel. The sound of the gun battle was still popping. Smoke was thickly issuing from both Tram’s and the patrol boat. The small motorboat had vanished. Rolling high waves tossed the craft like a beer bottle; I couldn’t wait, the .50’s would destroy the boat, and me, in a matter of minutes.

Suddenly the shooting stopped, and I peered over the edge. Breaking water washed over me. One of Tram’s mates was lying beneath the wheel in the wheelhouse. As the boat turned aimlessly, the steering wheel acted like a gristmill. Instead of grinding grain under its weight, the handles of the wheel beat against the man’s face and mashed it into pulp.

The Angel looked over her right shoulder at me and I heard an ode to the soon to-be dead. The space between her upper arm and shoulder socket was dark, but the fat and smallness of her uncovered, fallen breast dangled visibly. She, for the first time, appeared to me naked. Her body shone like a polished stone, and her rump was lifted, disclosing the upper back of her leg. She turned toward the cabin area. Crazily, desire came over me and I even reached out to pull her up on her knees. Though she was air, I could still see a large blackhead in the middle section of her upper spine. She scrambled down the steps on her hands and knees, like a broken piece of chalk across a school blackboard, motioning me to follow. The smoke and smell from gunpowder filled the outer passageway.

She was gone!

At the other end of the narrow hall was a closed door. This door was locked; someone had to be inside. There was a fire ax hanging on the bulkhead, so I bashed down the door. It sprung open, and I could see by the light from the portholes that the Angel already was exploring two naked bodies. The room smelled bittersweet. Slithering and slipping in and around the feet of both people, it seemed the Angel wanted to watch and make love at the same time. Both bodies were being injected from a glass bottle hanging from the ceiling, which was the source of the smell.

Feeling for a pulse on the girl’s neck even though the Angel was already reaching for her, I confirmed for myself that she had none. She was bleeding from a large wound near her hip.

A surgical rubber hose was whipped around my neck—the other one was not dead! My windpipe was being suppressed, and I imagined the angel reaching for my manhood. Promptly, I could feel the blackness that comes before the light of one’s death. Almost wanting to let go and feel for the lace on the edges of death or to reach right through the blackhead on the angel’s back to her empty heart, I stared back into her eyes.

Instantly, she was begging me with now-beautiful blue eyes and her thin, shapely body, to fight and live. My controls were shutting down between the smoke and the bitter-sweet perfume of death. Drifting on the open sea, I saw the falling hands come to rest on the fire ax.

Wait—it was there beside me. I could almost reach it with my left hand. Somehow, someone pushed it closer. Refreshed, I lifted it and let it swing and fall point first into the back of Tram Van Do, the yellow-speckle-eyed shooter of the President. The Angel dipped her finger into the oozing blood of the once-beautiful woman, tasted the blood and then made a mark on my forehead.

The cabin was full of gallon glass jugs filled with the juice of something, and I discovered an address book in the Captain’s Logbook. Quickly flipping through it, I found two addresses in English: Jefferson Highway, Arlington, Virginia, and Orange, California. A soaking-wet Bird came through the hatchway, his eyes full of revenge.

“Thomas, we must leave. Come now!” He pointed around us. “She is going down hull first.”

“First, tell me what this could be?” I handed him a bottle. In the reflection of the glass, I saw the blood red “X” on my forehead.

“It is the juice of the opium poppy, papaver somniferous. Does this surprise you? Come now.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore.”

Bird handed me a picture frame that had been blown off the cabin wall. “Do you know this?”

“No.”

“It is Oedipus, the son of Laius and Jocasta. He was abandoned at birth. He, unwittingly, killed his father and, then, married his mother.”

“What a mind you have, Bird! If we get out of here, find me the one on the list who is a bastard or who may have killed a parent.”

Hanging on the back of the cabin door was a picture of Odin—-the god of Norse mythology, the deity of war and art, the creator of the cosmos and man, the god of the dead.

We looked back at the carnage of wasted life.

“In the end this god even failed him, Bird!”

Tapping Odin, Bird responded, “Perhaps this is why so few think of him as the real god.”

The Chris Craft had taken a real punishment from the dual .50’s. Boggs had fired at least 200 times into the hull and super structure. The boat was now filling slowly. Boggs had found a good-size rubber raft and deployed the compressed air bottles, only to find that the raft, too, had many holes in it. In disgust with his own good shooting, he abandoned the raft and located another one in the rear storage area. Popping the air bottles, we three were over the side as the boat settled below the waterline.

President Johnson had found a way to pay back the North Vietnamese for Ben dim Phu and for what we thought was a sneak attack on the Navy’s destroyers. With the permission of Congress, he had the means to strike at the country that had probably asked for the death of President Kennedy for his support of the Diems. February came, and the Vietcong attacked the U.S. Army compound in Pleiku. Johnson ordered the commencing of Operation Rolling Stone. Within days, I received orders from Washington and General Johnson to return home. A little more than a year had passed and I could report that three of the six were dead by my own hands. Although I heard rumors of higher-ups in the new government of South Vietnam who were responsible for the organization of the death, I could not find the link up the chain.

One of the men mentioned in Tram’s address book, however, was in California. His name was Val de Towel. He was a lover of American beer and American round-eyed women with fair skin and big butts.

I would soon be traveling to the West Coast.