Pray Hard

By Jak Akerman

Synopsis Pray Hard

War hero Kim Pham and his sister Linh join the mass evacuation of Saigon City as the North Vietnamese Army consolidates its victory over the South. During their escape their bodyguard is shot by collaborators, though they are saved by the intervention of a mysterious American, Rusty McCandles
He accompanies them on a dangerous trek to the coast, during which time they are aided by a unit of the Girl’s Voluntary Defense Corps. They reach a coastal fishing village to find it swamped by refugees, and Rusty procures a boat. He also decides to take on board a Vietnamese woman and her two half-American children who, because of the North’s death edict concerning mixed marriages, need to escape.
After preparations, he leads his group on a perilous journey across the South China Sea.
They find themselves encountering storms, death boats, and then Indonesian pirates. Now Rusty has to again spring into action to save Linh and their new friend from terrible abuse. He single-handedly eliminates the pirates and then, after all they have survived together, Rusty and Linh finally submit to their strong, mutual attraction and their romance ignites.
Rusty seems to have powerful contacts and they rendezvous with ships of the Seventh Fleet, hove-to in international waters to take on escapees from Saigon, such as the mother and her two children. They replenish supplies before sailing on to the Philippines.
On Luzon Island they travel the infamous “Death Highway” to reach Clark AFB. It is here that Kim and Linh learn that Rusty is the maverick son of a self made billionaire and that a private plane is waiting to take them on to their joint destination of California.
Kim wrongly believes that only he and two others of his family know the whereabouts of twelve, individually unique, ancient Asian coins being held in a LA safety deposit box, but so do the NSA, members of the Chinese Heritage Committee and the Vietnamese “Snakes”, and, once in LA, Rusty’s father suffers trying to prevent Linh’s kidnap as ransom for the treasure.
Now Rusty has to come clean. He had known of the treasure all along and had deliberately attached himself to Kim and Linh. He’d been working undercover in Vietnam to infiltrate the Snakes. He calls in his NSA handlers to help rescue Linh and retrieve the treasure which the American government want as a bartering tool for the release of a number of their P.O.Ws in Vietnam.
The kidnap exchange complete, Rusty sees a flaw in the kidnappers’ plan. The bomb vest strapped to Linh is remotely controlled, and they are standing on Santa Monica pier. In a whirlwind, he snatches up Linh and takes them both crashing over the pier’s guard rails and kicks out for the seabed. Linh loses consciousness as Rusty manages to cut free the vest, then swim them both back to the surface.
Having retrieved the treasure, Rusty finally emerges from a stream of fire-engines, ambulances and SWAT with Linh in his arms. Then there comes ‘the twist’.
Six months later.
With the end of the Asian war, the Geneva Convention affords the release of all P.O.Ws and so the treasure is sold at auction for sixteen million dollars, the fortune going to a foundation for Vietnamese war orphans.
Linh and Rusty are building their own mansion on his father’s estate when Linh reveals she is carrying Rusty’s child.
End
Please note: in 1953 a single Hongwu coin was sold to Shanghai University for the equivalent of one million dollars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jak Akerman
• Release date: Jan 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310891656

Jak Akerman

Hi there.Thanks for your interest..I was born in Enfield, Middlesex, UK, where I was educated at Ambrose Fleming Technical Grammar. Won a couple of writing prizes while there. After beginning my working life as a Customs and Excise agent, moving on to become an Estimator with a construction firm, I moved down to the South West where fate, and my love of the sea, led me to research my first book, tak[ng a job as a 'deckey learner' fisherman, sailing on the Blue Sonata out of Starcross, Devon. To earn while i was writing I worked as an off-shore-marine fire protection engineer working the Channel ferries out of Lowestoft and ships such as the Oriana out of Southampton, oil platforms such as the Brittania.I have traveled Brazil, Rio and the great rivers of Amazonia, where I was surprised to see natives in football shirts carrying their 'dinner' over poles between their shoulders. Then California twice, in my research as a writer. I have written three novels and I am working on a fourth. It's called 'The Shadow Chamber' and it's gonna be a great thriller.I absolutely live for writing. Because I sure can't paint, play football or fly a plane.Thanks for looking

Book preview

CHILDREN OF THE DUST

COPYRIGHT© P A AKERMAN 2017

DISTRIBUTED BY SMASHWORDS INC

Ben Nghe, Saigon, South Vietnam, April 1975.

High, circling birds speckled black the early grey sky. Pariah dogs cowered in the streets. Jewellers stuffed satchels. Buddist priests prayed. And ten thousand families hurriedly packed all they could carry before scrambling for the city’s southern exit routes.

As the smoke, flame and the angry thunder of artillery shells beset their district, after ten years of fighting, the people of Ben Nghe had accepted that the battle to hold rule over the South of their country was lost. They had lost the war against the North.

Yet, even when the marbled floor of the Defense Minister’s mansion rumbled beneath their feet, he and his family knew better than to panic. They had made their plans.

‘That fool! That American Ambassador Martin fool! Never believing this would ever happen! Now, you have to go immediately. Go, son, and never leave your sister’s side on your journey. We will meet up as we discussed.’

Average height though overweight, tracksuit, Nom Pham’s dark, narrow eyes were moist, intense. ‘Take care of our children, Long Trang.’

‘Come with us. Mother? Father?’ Kim Pham entreated his parents.

‘Impossible. I have explained,’ the Defence Minister gasped. ‘Go now, the pair of you. Go with Long Trang.’

Three inches taller than his father, smooth, Asiatic features, Kim Pham thought of the 24K gold leaf hidden beneath the insoles of his pumps. He had just five hundred South Vietnamese dong in his pocket. His younger, twenty-three year old sister had a thousand American dollars sewn into the hems of her thin cotton trousers; under different circumstances enough to buy two houses with gardens in South Vietnam, for now enough to see them through until they met up with their uncle Thuc in America. If they happened to be stopped by the enemy, found with more, then they would be seen as part of the elite by the North. Likely tortured and killed. Kim Pham had a letter written by his father that would allow them safe passage, if questioned by friendly forces, in the top pocket of his black, rural pyjamas.

‘We do not want to leave you,’ Linh Pham exasperated.

‘I understand, my darling daughter. But we all know I could be recognized, and then yourselves by assocation,’ Nom Pham maintained. ‘I have made powerful enemies ─ enemies that would not only seek vengeance on me but also on my family. Senior General Van Tian Dung has me on his death list, I have been assured.’

‘Take care of Kim and Linh, Long Trang,’ Tien Pham, honey skinned, petite, flowery cotton bottoms and loose white blouse, spoke pleadingly. ‘Be sure that no harm comes to our children.’

‘ I will, as ever, protect Kim and Linh with my life, Madam Pham.’ Long Trang placed his strong hands on his charges’ shoulders to ease them away from their parents. The protuberant bottom lip of his acorn, pock-marked face seemed to droop a little further. ‘But, with respect, you are right. I am afraid we must leave.’

Tien Pham kissed her children hard and fast on their cheeks, then Nom Pham quickly embraced them for what could be the last time, reluctantly released them into their bodyguard’s care.

‘ We will be safe with Long Trang, father. Linh and I will be safe. Please do not worry.’

Nom and Tien watched, their expressions wretched, as Long Trang eased their children towards the tall, embossed doors that led to the courtyard of their home and an uncertain future. Kim and Linh, both in black pyjamas, chin-tied, lampshade hats, a few possessions in the bin liner Kim carried, looked incongruous to the hallway of their palatial home.

Long Trang opened the double doors of the mansion and the sound of distant thunder, dust, a smell of smoke, drifted inwards. A grimy Citroen stood parked before ornate iron gates. The veined green fronds of tall palms broke the milky grey of the sky.

Nom and Tien Pham could not resist rushing forward to hug their children one last time.

‘Keep the password fast in your memory. Give our love to Thuc in America,’ Nom Pham blurted in English.

Long Trang disguised a knowing look.

‘I know what I must do, father,’ Kim answered, also in English. ‘We love you both.’

Linh fiercely kissed her parents. ‘We love you. Take care of each other. Goodbye now. Until America.’

Nom Pham bowed his head, took his wife’s arm and gently led her back inside the mansion. Kim and Linh looked back as the doors to their home slowly closed and Long Trang swung open the iron gates, walked back and climbed into the driving seat of the Citroen. He glanced across his shoulder to see Kim slam the trunk and join Linh in the rear, then he took the Glock pistol tucked into the back of his waistband and placed it beneath the dash.

‘What did your father say to you ?’ He asked of Kim.

Kim and his elder brother, Thinh, had fought against the Viet Cong. He was neither naive nor incautious. The almond features of his tigerish face tightened a millisecond before he spoke, casually. ‘Just a phrase father used to teach me to help me with my lessons. Always be proud that we are of the glorious South. And we are, aren’t we?’

Long Trang eased the Citroen through the gates. ‘Of course. God bless Nguyen Van Thieu.’ He let the sentence rest as he turned left onto the empty, block-paved road and headed towards the district center. ‘Those last shells were meant for the airfield, I am hoping. Off target. We shall soon see.’

A great Sikorsky helicopter, as loud as an express train, roared overhead, its massive rotors a silvery blur.

‘If only the Americans would help our family,’ Linh vexed.

‘You are going to have to grow up fast, young Linh. We are in danger and so you have to know the truth,’ Long Trang responded. ‘Your father has been a man of power for many years. He has adversaries in the American Embassy. Do not forget his fierce opposition to their bombing of Cambodia and Laos, which did indeed prove to have only little effect, other than set even more hearts against us. Also he made public the massacre at Cao Lai which heaped shame on the Americans. And then there was a suspected mis-appropiation of foreign aid. I think they call this payback.’

‘Our parents will get to Australia. I have every confidence. As you said, Long Trang, my father has been a man of power. Not all his friends will desert him.’ Kim sucked in a breath, tipped back his non la and raised that of his beloved sister with a light touch of his fingertips, gazed at her and saw the beginnings of despair etching her flawless, heart-shaped face. ‘Do not worry, Linh. As father said, look at this as the start of a new life. Our uncle, Thuc, has made a success of himself in America. We shall all be reunited in a short time.’

‘Yes,’ Linh replied sadly. ‘But with the dishonor of having fled.’

The road was red block-paved, tree lined, low but wide houses set back in private grounds. Ahead, Long Trang saw a huge crater off to the right, wisps of grey smoke curling into the breeze. Kim saw it also.

‘That has been made by a twenty-five pounder, I would say,’ Kim guessed. ‘If that had hit our home! The enemy are close with heavy artillery.’ He cast his gaze back along the road. ‘Oh, father, mother, hurry and get out.’

Long Trang swerved the Citroen around the crater. Far ahead, downhill, he saw the built-up district center of Ben Nghe, rivers of smoke drifting over the mile-square sprawl of pastel yellows, blues and oranges, ribbed and dotted with lush greens.

‘Look!’ Cried Linh, thrashing a finger. ‘There! Bao Vuong and his wife!’

Both Kim and Long Trang followed Linh’s pointer. One of the larger houses ahead and to the left had had its tiled, pitched roof destroyed, an overhanging aspen tree was on fire, and a gaping cavity in the home’s frontage exuded black smoke and licks of flame. Bao Vuong and his wife crawled painfully across the front lawn, gagging for air, mouths agape, their clothes torn and smouldering.

‘No!’ Long Trang pre-empted any question. ‘We cannot stop to help them!’

He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, raced towards the chaotic free-for-all, the stream of traffic on An Dai lo.

‘Look at this mayhem!’ Kim declared.

Linh squeezed his knee and for comfort shifted closer to her brother.

‘Exactly,’ Long Trang emphasised. ‘And that is why you must remember to do what I ask of you without argument or hesitation. Things are going to get a lot worse.’

The Sikorsky that had flown over them could now be seen landing atop a tall building in the district center, about four kilometers away. Long Trang could just make out what appeared to be a throng of people on the flat roof of the building awaiting rescue.

‘If only that were you,’ he mused.

In front of them the trading and warehouse area of An Dai Lo had become a racetrack of scooters and motorbikes, cars, cyclos, buses, bicycles, all battling towards the district centre, all almost certainly heading for Hoang Van Thu, or one of the other arterial links to the south or southeast, out of Saigon and away from danger. Saigon was about to fall to the armies of Senior General Van Tian Dung.

Long Trang swerved to the far shoulder as he saw a gap, overtook a cluster of scooters, many three up, and moto-rickshaws struggling against the weight of an extra child or overloaded with personal belongings, or both. An Esso garage on his right, one kilometer queue, overflowed with angry and frustrated customers, all pushing to fill cans as well as whatever transport they possessed.

Exodus, Kim thought, and the closer they drew to the district center so the frenetic scramble worsened.

‘There is no other route to get on to Hoang Van Thu. We have to pass through the centre, I am afraid,’ said Long Trang. ‘Once we do then we can leave this rabble behind.’

‘These are not rabble!’ Kim retorted. ‘These are our people. People of the glorious South. If I could help every one of them then I would. I would thank you not to refer them in such manner, Long Trang.’

Long Trang raised his eyebrows. ‘You are right, Kim Pham. I apologize… People of the glorious South.’

They continued in a brief, uncomfortable silence. Long Trang drove the Citroen in a weave through the river of humanity, the polluted air combining with the 27C heat and humidity to cause them all to sweat and harbor bad tastes in their mouths. But they were the lucky ones, Kim thought, eyeing a poorly dressed man with dirty feet squatting against the wall of a small factory, his eyes closed, head thrown back, tiny child in his lap. Exhausted.

‘Enough of this now. Hold on,’ ordered Long Trang.

One kilometer from the junction with Ngi Du’o’ng, the road they needed to take, the bodyguard bumped them off the avenue, miraculously avoiding an incoming shell which tore the road ahead apart.

‘What the...!’ Kim exclaimed.

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Linh made the sign of the Cross. ‘That could have...’

Long Trang headed across an expanse of rough, dirt and grass terrain which ran between the trading warehouses and triangulated with Ngi Du’o’ng. Kim and Linh bounced around in the back of the Citroen like puppets with Long Trang hanging on to the wheel. Eventually Long Trang found a dirt service road that led onto Ngi Du’o’ng and he muscled the Citroen back out into the traffic.

‘There,’ he said, satisfied. ‘That saved us much time. After we reach Freedom Junction things should get easier.’

They were almost to the district center, passing by shopping outlets; a jewelry store with empty windows, bakers – closed, fabric shop – closed, hardware shop –closed. A bar owner had seemingly left his bar open to his customers and joined the dispersal, and, incredibly, there were twenty or so of his regulars in loose shirts and worn slacks, flip-flops, lampshade hats, being served by drunken women in flimsy ‘T’ shirts and bikini tops behind the bar. A moto-rickshaw tagged their front bumper as it scraped by after Long Trang had got trapped behind a melee in front of him.

Presently, they reached the district center; five-storey buildings, shops with apartments above, a riot of colour with the differing name signs, balconies overflowing with palm bushes and hyacinth, a river of flags and banners. Eucalyptus trees lined the pavements, the road ahead a teeming obstacle of scooters and small motorbikes, many three to a bike, small children jammed between parents. A few cars. Some Republican civilian scouts were trying their best to help mothers place their small children and babies onto packed buses. Children they would never see again.

‘What are they doing with those babies and tiny children?’ Linh cried in horror.

Long Trang shook his head, curled his lips. ‘Operation Babylift. Those children are being airlifted to America to start new lives with American couples who cannot have children. At least they will live.’

Now there came a four way junction, chaos, police helping people onto buses, carrying more babies and small children, army trucks getting the selected few to safety. The yellow and triple red-striped Que Can flag of South Vietnam flew from shopfronts, streetsigns, lampposts, and the crowds deepened. Every junction was a free for all. Hooters blaring, people shouting, pedestrians fighting their way across the roads, dodging traffic, swearing. A shopping centre was on fire. A once beautiful Buddhist pagoda, a high obelisk, multi-tiered with flying eaves and decorated in mosaics of colored, broken pottery, now stood shell damaged and looking like a rotten tooth. An old woman street vendor in black pajamas had been knocked over somehow. Her non la rested askew on her head as she crawled the pavement trying to gather her spilled yams and rescue her cai thung, her bamboo pole supporting woven baskets that had seconds before rested across her shoulder. A cart had been knocked over and the vendor’s load of blankets, candles, flip-flops, lay strewn over the pavement beneath a huge wall-cartoon of the North’s old President Bao Dai, depicted carrying bags of money along with a deck of playing cards. Long Trang knew he had run over a pedestrian’s foot but obscured the thought from his mind and pressed ahead through the traffic.

Kroomph! A tremendous blast behind them. The Citroen’s back wheels jumped up from the road an inch. Kim and Linh swung their heads about. Long Trang pressed his eyes to the rear view mirror.

They saw carnage. Mangled scooters and moto-rickshaws, bicycles, all in heaps. Shattered shopfronts. People with faces cut by flying debris, gushing bright red blood, wailing, staggering blindly through a huge fog of pulsing smoke and dust. A couple of dozen bodies were sprawled writhing in the road. A woman lay prostrate, a meter away from her shoeless, bloody foot.

Linh cried out in horror, squeezing the hand of her brother. ‘Get us out of here, Long Trang!’

They were relatively safe in their car. They were escaping. Long Trang just wanted to put his foot down, run over anything that blocked their way. Kim and Linh now saw the full horror of the war zone and Long Trang was the man to get them to safety. He had been their family’s bodyguard for the last five years. They knew him well. He would save them.

The road had cleared a little. Three truckloads of soldiers of the Republic of Vietnam Army and a van of what looked like news-crew were the only oncoming traffic. Long Trang hit the pavement, crashed through plastic tables and chairs where people would normally have been eating, clipped someone, just missed a few others. Pedal to the metal, he took them screeching back onto the road.

In front of him still turmoil. The sweat dripped from his face. Kim and Linh held each other, their eyes tightly closed. Long Trang only just maintained control of the Citroen.

Another kilometer. They ripped through the market area, passed the local cinema and the public execution corner, a ten foot wall of sandbags behind three posts, bordered by a sturdy white-railed wooden fence encased in barbed wire.

Seven thousand people or more, just in that district, were trying to escape the city by any means possible, abandoning their homes, their businesses. Bao Dai’s army was at their doorstep. And those back in that bar, Kim thought, had to be Binh Xuyen, known also as Snakes, members of the 40,000 strong organized crime gang who ran a large part of Saigon and South Vietnam with the backing of the North. Their enemies were all around them.

The next right turn and Freedom Junction was two kilometers away. Now Long Trang was stuck behind a small blue Renault working its way around a knot of scooters and moto-rickshaws. The pavements were crowded with people scurrying about, dangerously sidestepping into the road. But for the chaos the day seemed to be brightening with broad patches of blue now showing through the ceiling of washy grey, the kaleidoscopic array of colors from the shop signboards, the radiant green of the aspen trees and palms along the route, the host of flags, the monumental pagoda here and there, gold and red and blue.

Long Trang had his mind concentrated determinedly on his sole purpose, that of protecting his charges.

His dark eyes flashing across all ahead of him, he noticed those of the driver of the blue Renault in front staring directly, ferociously, at him from the small rectangle of glass that was the Renault’s rear view mirror.

Now the road widened, allowed an easing of the congestion, as the four-way junction ahead loomed closer. Long Trang saw the Renault overtake some bicycles and rickshaws and then ease over to the nearside. The driver was a foreigner, Caucasian, curly red hair, and as Long Trang passed he and the foreigner exchanged hard, critical glances.

Kim had noticed the eye contact. ‘Who was that, Long Trang? Do you know each other?’

Long Trang wiped a hand down his face to get rid of the sweat. ‘I don’t know him. He’s a foreigner. Probabably American or Australian. Why he would let us pass is anyone’s guess.’

‘I think I am going to be sick,’ Linh croaked, the vision of the carnage behind her still large in her mind.

Kim placed an arm around his sister’s shoulders. ‘Can you pull over, Long Trang?’

Their bodyguard did so without question, braked and bounced them up the kerb and onto the open, coarsely grassed verge, the Citroen then jolting to a standstill.

Linh pushed her door open and thrust out her head, immediately retching up bile. Kim caressed her back with the palm of his hand. ‘Are you going to be okay, sister?’

Linh spat and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘The sight of that horror back there …’

‘We understand,’ said Kim, watching Linh pull herself back into the car and slam the door shut. He wiped her eyes and face with his handkerchief, just a clean rag as might a peasant use. ‘Go on, Long Trang.’

For no reason that he could think of, he glanced behind himself, out through the rear window of the Citroen. He saw that the blue Renault had also stopped to one side.

Long Trang was pulling away. ‘That other car stopped as well,’ he told Long Trang in a puzzled tone.

Long Trang took time to think. ‘As a foreigner, maybe he’s not sure of his way out of the district,’ he said slowly. ‘It is obvious everybody else is getting out. Maybe he wants a lead. He knows that we are locals by the way you two are dressed.’

Kim pondered the reasoning. ‘Hmm. I suppose you could be right.’

‘Freedom Junction!’ Long Trang announced.

Ahead, a busy town center and four wide roads meeting around a fifty-meter paved ring, in the middle of which was a great lily pond, the lily leaves floating in clusters on its surface of flat, green water. A massive billboard soared up from an island in the centre of the pond: three ordinary citizens, one waving a yellow flag with three, thin red stripes horizontal across its centre, the Que Can flag of the Republic of South Vietnam, marching forward, led by a soldier with a raised fist:

HAY DE TAT CA CHUNG TA DOAN KET

DE GIAI PHONG MIEN NAM VINH QUANG

The slogan announced:

LET US ALL UNITE TO LIBERATE THE

GLORIOUS SOUTH

‘How long will that remain there?’ Linh sighed wistfully.

Long Trang followed a stream of traffic around the island and headed southeast on to the highway, the terrain flat, the buildings on either side of the highway becoming interspersed between tall palms and fern trees. Still a multitude of buses, moto-rickshaws, scooters and motorbikes, yet now the cars could take advantage of the wider road and their speed. He accelerated past a river of slower traffic.

‘If Ho Chi Minh were still alive he would be dancing in circles to see his vision coming true,’ Long Trang observed. ‘Though his Vietminh have always kept control over large parts of the countryside and so we must remain vigilant on our journey. The peasant clothes may not suit you, but they are necessary.’

Kim and Linh removed their non la in unison and rested them on their knees. Linh’s silky, jet black hair fell around her face.

‘Communist pigs,’ Kim guttered.

Linh smiled bleakly at her beloved brother, proud of him, proud of his heroics against Ho Chi Minh’s guerilla army, the Viet Cong. Long Trang cut a left to take them towards the even wider Vo Van Kiet highway and the Saigon River.

‘Binh Xyuen pigs,’ Long Trang snarled. ‘Contaminated fleas on the back of a scabby dog.’

They passed almost empty side roads, the striped awnings of the shops still shading the pavements, masses of greenery bursting from the balconies of apartments above.

Vo Van Kiet ran parallel to the Saigon River, the watercourse wide enough to allow 30mtr. barges and houseboats to maneuver with ease. These and smaller barges were moored close to storage buildings aside the concrete wharves, and were cramming with those fleeing the city. Yet there are still men working, thought Kim. Whose side are they on?

It was as though Long Trang could read his mind. ‘Probably Binh Xuyen, Snakes,’ he suggested.

‘Stealing,’ Linh said simply.

They continued southeast on the highway, following the downward flow of the river, the area greatly built up, the tops of tower buildings visible over the nearer rooftops of suburbia. Kim saw another Sikorsky landing on the roof of one, two kilometers distant.

‘The American helicopters are everywhere,’ he observed, then added dryly, ‘here for the selected few.’

‘I heard they have named their operation Frequent Winds, or something like that,’ Long Trang said disinterestedly. ‘The Americans…they could wrap a turd in pretty paper and give it a fancy name.’

‘Really, Long Trang,’ sighed Linh. ‘They are our allies.’

‘They left it all too long in the beginning...more than ten years ago, waiting a year before giving their formal backing to the South because Diem had not been legally elected. International bullshit.’

‘He does have a point, my sister,’ Kim put in.

Linh was quietly thoughtful for a moment, then said, ‘Well, at least we are free to express our opinions.’

‘And we will remain free,’ Long Trang insisted.

‘Yes,’ said Kim. ‘If our boat is there to meet us.’

Long Trang overtook a group of scooters and a couple of cyclos, weird contraptions individually built, half motor bike, half car, the fronts with a double seat where the engineof a car would normally be, convertible canvas roof, the motorbike rider positioned behind his passengers. Exhaust smoke wafted through the windows of the Citroen.

They passed beneath another road that bridged the river. A garden center, sportsfield, homes and shops, lay far over to their right. What little oncoming traffic there was used the three lanes on the other side of the grassy meridian.

‘What if our boat is not there to meet us?’ Linh worried.

‘Then you really will have to rely on your false papers,’ Long Trang quickly replied. He smiled for the first time that day. ‘Though I can’t imagine anyone procuring better. Straight from your father at the Ministry of Defense.’

Even Kim and Linh found small, sad smiles as they swapped looks. Kim’s thoughts switched to when his father had explained his own past in sometimes hard to believe terms.

The mission with which he had been entrusted remained firmly implanted in his mind. His father, for many years one of the most powerful men in the Republic of South Vietnam, had told him of that which he had taken out of the country in his diplomatic bag. He had reluctantly admitted his involvement with the Snakes, how he had fallen weak against the fear of losing everything, how he had anticipated the cost of losing the impending war.

Get to America. Retrieve the golden Hongwu tongbao coins. You have the password, your uncle Thuc has the key.

Kim Pham leaned back against his seat and took a deep breath. ‘Those Marxist bastards. Our country has lost the fight, and we are running like chickens about to have our heads chopped off. I swear that if ever I meet a Vietminh I will kill him and drink his blood.’

‘Kim,’ Linh said sullenly. ‘We all know that we have lost. But we are Catholics. Do not lose your faith and talk in such terms. It scares me. Believe in our God and we will survive.’

‘Where was our God,’ Kim raised his voice, ‘when the Viet Cong sneaked into our country, murdering innocent farmers, raping the children, raping the wives, burning the crops and houses!’

‘We inherit the love of our ancestors.’ Linh burst out. ‘Do you not think that I harbor the same thoughts? But drinking their blood?’

Kim Pham lowered his head, and his voice. ‘You are right of course, my sister.’ He was appeasing her, for he loved her dearly. ‘I believe in our God. Yet I also believe that any enemy who wishes harm to our country, to us, our family, must be struck through the heart. I do not understand why Van Thieu persecutes the Buddhists. They do not threaten us. But my country I will defend with every fiber of my body.’

Well spoken, thought Long Trang, but what will patriotism buy you now. How will it secure your future if we are caught?

The highway curved southwest, away from the Saigon River, its direction taking them into the countryside, off-shoots leading to smaller towns and hamlets. The traffic slowly thinned as the one-time city dwellers headed back home to their families to await the outcome of the war and its consequences. Home was the only place to go for most South Vietnamese; their country was bordered to the west by the North’s allies, Cambodia and Laos, again Laos and China in the north, to the south the Gulf of Thailand and in the east and again the south, the South China Sea.

‘Couldn’t you have found a car with a radio, Long Trang?’ Kim asked. ‘Maybe there would be news of what’s happening in the city.’

‘We have been gone less than an hour, Long Trang answered flatly. ‘And I am sure that you would agree that one of your father’s limousines would not suit our purpose.’

‘The air conditioning would be welcome though,’ Linh observed, mopping her brow.

‘DAT TREN CUA BAN NON LA! PUT ON YOUR HATS,’ Long Trang suddenly snapped.

Without question, Kim and Linh immediately obeyed. Kim took the letter his father had given to him from his top pocket and tucked it into the back of his seat.

‘What is it?’ he demanded.

Long Trang kept his eyes fixed to the rear view mirror. ‘A car coming up behind us. Moscovitch. Russian. Only the Binh Xuyen would be laughing amongst themselves in a situation such as this. Their cronies are invading our country. Have you seen much laughter on this road?’

He grabbed his pistol and tucked it back in his waistband, beneath his shirt.

‘Do they know of us?’ Linh worried.

‘I should not think so. I am not going to wait and find out.’

Kim turned his head and saw the cheap, squarely built saloon pull in behind them. ‘They look drunk.’

‘They are looking at us!’ Linh cried.

‘Don’t look back at them!’ Long Trang ordered. ‘You have your peasant clothes on. I am going to pull down the side-road ahead. It leads to the hamlet of Vno Chi Lang. If they are Snakes then they may have seen us as an easy target to be robbed. If not, then they