It was late when Nhu Lap dropped Steve in front of the Caravelle Hotel. On the way back, Steve had paid the driver the agreed-on price, and thrown in an extra hundred for the good trip.

On the way back, Steve had Nhu Lap stop alongside the road once they’d gotten back out to pavement, and he’d pulled off his muddy pants and combat boots, replacing them with a fresh pair of khakis and a pair of loafers from the bag, just because he didn’t want to walk into the hotel looking like he’d just been grubbing around in some rice paddy. After wrapping the muddy stuff in a plastic bag, he walked up the stairs – the elevator felt iffy, but it was only three flights – and knocked on the door of the suite, wondering if Gil and Harold had been able to manage Hong all right.

Gil came to the door, with a big smile when he saw Steve, and a question in his eyes. Steve gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, and Gil gave him a big grin, and a thumbs-up back. That was all Gil needed to know for the moment, and the bug wouldn’t hear it.

Gil motioned Steve into the suite, and saw an interesting sight – Hong, laying on one of the beds, his head in a wastebasket that Harold had obviously put there. “What’s the matter with him?” Steve asked innocently.

“God, is he drunk,” Gil said, as much for the microphone’s benefit as anything else. “I think he’s pretty much puked out now, and it’s just the dry heaves. We tried to tell him you can’t drink Tu Do Street dry, or they’ll send out for more formaldehyde, but he wouldn’t listen to us. How’d the pussy chase go?”

“Pretty good,” Steve smiled, catching the drift. They hadn’t talked about a cover story for his absence, in case the bugs caught it and Hong didn’t, but there hadn’t been time for that. This was a perfectly good one. “Actually, I think they’re better than they used to be. They even act like they mean it, and in the old days most of them wouldn’t even bother.”

“I just hope you had an industrial strength rubber,” Gil smiled.

“Good God, yes,” Steve said. “Not Trojans, but Goodyear steel belted radial.”

“Good thing,” Gil said. “I hear they got AIDS here now, nothing like they got it over in Bangkok, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s too bad,” Steve agreed. “Bangkok used to be a fun town before that shit came along. Hey, I’m beat. Is he going to keep that stuff up all night?”

“Hope not,” Gil laughed. “It’s hard to get a lot out of him, but for a while there I think he thought he was going to die, and now he’s afraid he won’t.”

They let Hong sleep for a while in the morning – it was obvious he was going to have the Southeast Asian Regional Championship hangover. While he slept, the three went out for coffee and a pastry at the little coffee shop where Steve had met Nhu Lap the day before. It was their first chance to talk without bugs or Hong around since they’d all returned, but now paranoia was on them, and they didn’t say much. Steve sort of insinuated things had gone as well or better than expected, and Gil said a thorough debrief could wait. On the way back, Gil stopped by the hotel desk, where the manager had fair English, and got him to confirm their departure to Hanoi later that afternoon.

Hong still wasn’t recovered very well when they got on the old Russian turboprop out at Tan Son Nhut later that afternoon. He was still sicker than all get-out when they got him on the plane, and that didn’t make the flight any more pleasant, but it was still light when they got to Hanoi.

They checked in with the travel authorities once they got there. Yes, they’d had a pleasant trip, the hospitality was very good. Mr. Hong had done good service, but had gotten a little sick yesterday. It must have been something in the water down there. Yes, we found out what we needed to know for the tour group, that’ll probably be in December, and yes, Mr. McMahon will be along. Well, yes, Mr. Augsberg did get to the war crimes museum, and found it interesting. We’re glad you enjoyed your stay, looking forward to your coming back to our peaceful land.

The Air Philippines flight into the oncoming darkness felt like a breath of free, fresh air after the paranoia of the last few days, but it was with them still, and they didn’t say much there, or in the terminal in Manila. As luck would have it, though, they only had to kill about three hours there, before they were able to climb on a Northwest 757 for the flight to Tokyo. The Stars and Stripes on the tail of that bird told them they finally could speak openly.

“It’s late,” Gil said from the aisle seat – they were three wide, back in the back, with no one in the seats in front of them. “You want to debrief now, or wait?”

“Crap,” Steve said. “I’ve wanted to talk for a day, now, but now I’m really so tired I’d just as soon sleep. I’ve got lots to tell. You want a summary?”

“I guess,” Gil nodded. “Our butts are going to be on this bird or the next one for a long time.”

“I can sum it up real quick,” Steve said. “No problems. I did make it out to Target One. We all could have gone out there the first day, if we hadn’t let Hong buffalo us. But, we didn’t know if he was talking through his hat, or if he meant it. If we’d had transportation waiting, or if I’d gone ahead and talked local, we could have all been out there. But, we probably wouldn’t have been able to accomplish much at Target One.”

“What’s that like?” Harold asked.

“Right now, mud all over the damn place,” Steve told him. “Nhu Lap – that’s the driver – and I drove most of the decent roads in the area, including the one that runs west out of Duc Vinh, then swings north up through the corner of the wedge and comes out west of the fire base. Nothing to see, of course. But, no problems as far as I can see. I didn’t go into any woods, not even Target One, but the woods there are grazed, at least some, pigs, maybe buffalo. I saw some big cow pies from the edge of the woods.”

“We still have to worry about booby traps, unexploded munitions, stuff like that,” Harold commented.

“Not a prime worry, I think,” Steve said. “Like I said, I didn’t go into any cover, but there was plenty of evidence that animals did. As far as unexploded munitions, I don’t know, but Gil, didn’t you say there never had been any really big shootouts in the area, just patrol action and small-bore stuff?”

“Well, yeah, I picked that up back in the puzzle palace back in ’77. There was about a battalion sized shootout a few miles west, back in ’68 if memory serves, but that’s out of the wedge by a good distance.”

Steve shrugged in the dimly lit seat, hearing the whisper of the engines behind. “Well, no way of telling, but that reduces the odds. Anyway, the villagers seem friendly enough. Helpful, hard to say. I didn’t see a lot of people, but no missing arms or legs on the ones I saw, so that might say something about mines and unexploded munitions, and might say something about how helpful they’d be. I didn’t talk to them directly, but had Nhu Lap ask them for me, you know, about the campsite. That was up at Duc Vinh; I saw a couple other places closer to Puk Me, but they were kind of far from the village and we were tight for time. Anyway, they seemed willing. We’ll have to pay, of course, but it won’t be much.”

“We’d basically figured on starting up around Duc Vinh and working toward the fire base,” Gil said. “We could move if it gets to be much of a hassle. Anyway, that part of it seems under control. Look, maybe it’s from having to talk around Hong this past week, but I’m still concerned about the official side.”

“I’m less worried about that than before,” Steve told him. “On the way back, I had a long get serious with Nhu Lap. I told him about Hong and the troubles we had. Now, remember, Nhu Lap is a taxi driver and he sees a lot of foreign groups, but he doesn’t usually see the kind of oversight we thought we were getting with Hong.”

“We didn’t get a whole hell of a lot out of him while we were getting him loaded,” Harold said. “He was dumped into this on short notice, we did find that out, and he did not want to have to go out in the boonies. He’s a city guy. We couldn’t tell if that was an official position.”

“I’m just about sure it wasn’t,” Steve said, now that he’d had a chance to think about it. “Nhu Lap said they used to watch round-eyes pretty close, but it’s eased up a lot since the Cambodian thing ended. He did a couple times indicate he thought we might see some roadblocks or something when we got close to Cambodia, and were almost sure to when we got past the Target One area and closer to the border. But remember, we never told him or the people in Hanoi where we were heading, other than Phuoc Lot, and we never got any static. All the static came from Hong.”

Gil closed his eyes for a moment. He was tired, and knew he wasn’t thinking well. “So, when we come in December, how do we avoid this happening again?”

“Like I said,” Steve smiled. “We let ourselves get buffaloed by Hong. Next time, even if they assign us somebody, we don’t give them the chance.”

Harold shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”

“That’s because I haven’t told you yet,” Steve said. “We got to talking about Target One, and I never got to that part.”

“Well, damn it . . .” Gil said.

“I’m trying,” Steve smiled. “Like I said, on the way back I had a long talk with Nhu Lap, and explained the problem, and we worked out how to deal with it. OK, to begin with, when we come back, we come in on either the Air Philippines flight direct to Tan Son Nhut, or maybe the Air Thai flight from Bangkok. According to Nhu Lap, Air Thai has been flying into Tan Son Nhut for several years, and when we were dinking around in the terminal this afternoon, I confirmed it. Now, that really is important. “

“How?”

“Because that means we don’t go through Hanoi and take our lives in our hands on that Russian junkheap again. Also, Nhu Lap says they’re more political up there, and don’t lean on people coming into Tan Son Nhut on Air Thai like they do in Hanoi. He doesn’t know, but doesn’t think they’re going to be that tough on Air Philippines, either. But, I’m thinking, next time we go in through Bangkok, just to be on the safe side.”

“I can go along with that,” Harold said. “I don’t want to get on that commie piece of crap again, either. But, they could still lay another Hong on us.”

“True,” Steve said. “But, remember when we came into Hanoi, they gave us that shit about not having the authorized trip leader with us? That’s why we got Hong pressed on us in the first place. We probably ought to have another interpreter, rather than just me, just in case. But, even if we get nailed again, there’s another backstop.”

“What’s this?”

“This is what caused me to get in so late,” Steve smiled. “I had to go by Nhu Lap’s apartment to get the details nailed down, and there’s still one loose end, but we can work it out. Where we really screwed up this trip was we let Hong look for wheels when he really didn’t want to go anywhere. Not the next time, when we walk out of the terminal and get met by Nhu Lap and his taxi, his brother-in-law and his Toyota, and some cousin who I didn’t meet who has some kind of truck. I’m not real clear on that, but it’s apparently something like a pickup or maybe an old three-quarter ton army truck. The cousin supposedly has some English; Nhu Lap and his brother-in-law just speak taxi English – you know, ‘You want pussy?’ Anyway, we throw our shit on board and take off for Target One before Hong Two has a chance to call anybody. He can either go or stay behind, but he has to make up his mind right on the spot, and once he’s out in the boonies, there’s no way to call anyone.”

Gil grinned. “Steve, I told you the other day that you’re sneaky. I’ll say it again. I like that.” With that, Gil offered his highest accolade. “We could have used you on Smoke Bomb Hill.”

“How do you know Nhu Lap will come through?” Harold asked.

Steve shrugged. “I don’t, necessarily. He’s good people, has a nice wife, two little kids about like Hunter and Tabitha. His brother in law is pretty cool, too; we sat around and talked for a while. They’re coming out in the field with us, and they’ll have the stuff to stay for a while. But, more important, Nhu Lap made about a month’s worth of income in a single day, and he does like those greenbacks. He knows there’s more where they came from. It’s going to cost us a few thousand, and we’re going to have to pay high. We could probably do it cheaper, but like that used car guy on TV says, ‘Money talks, nobody walks.’”

“How’s he going to know when to meet us?” Harold wondered.

Steve shrugged. “We’re going to have to do it a little blind. I told him most likely Air Thai, December 17 or 18, but once we get the dates nailed down, I’ll airmail him a letter, and he says he’ll airmail me back with a confirmation. Besides that, I’m going to try to get a backup message through the front desk at the Caravelle. We do need to get the flight nailed down as soon as possible, though.”

“What if that falls through? He doesn’t show?”

“That’s actually simpler,” Steve smiled. “Everybody sits on their butts at Tan Son Nhut, while I go and get other wheels. It didn’t take much trouble to find Nhu Lap, and I don’t expect to have much trouble if I have to do it again, because next time, unless we have a real good interpreter along, I’ll speak the language.”

“Uh, Steve,” Gil frowned. “I hate to say this, but the only real good interpreter we have a visa for is Binky.”