Page 90 of Cry Havoc
“Rumored?”
“The press loves it. Adds to the mystique, but I can confirm. They bought it in 1930. You done with the coffee?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, extinguishing his cigarette.
“Remember, you’re Tom Smith here.”
“Creative.”
“All right, let’s get you checked in.
The Vietnamese man selling newspapers on the corner of Lam Son Square watched the two Americans exit the Givral Café and stop briefly at the sleek British-made sedan. The taller man reached inside and removed a duffel bag. They both crossed Dong Khoi Street through a mass of bicycles, mopeds, and rickshaws and entered the French colonial that dominated the block. They passed under the huge green letters adorning the building just above the ground floor identifying the building as the Continental Palace.
A few minutes later the shorter of the two men returned to the car, pulled into traffic, and drove away.
The man stopped waving the day’s paper at passersby and leaned against the wall to take a break. He lit a cigarette as cover and pulled a pencil from behind his ear, making notations as he had been instructed in the periodical in his hand.
Later in the day he would ride his Peugeot scooter to the Cholon district and deliver that paper to a medical clinic.
Then he would ride home to his family.
What materialized from the information he provided in the paper was none of his concern.
CHAPTER 29
TOM COULD UNDERSTAND WHYso many news outlets had made the Continental their base of operations in Vietnam. It was located in the city center and the energy in the monstrous building was palpable. It felt like the epicenter of either a party for the ages or a pending disaster.
Serrano had ensured he was properly checked in and told him to get settled. He would be back around five p.m. to take him to the DuBois plantation. They would meet in the bar.
Behind the reception desk were three rows of clocks set against varnished wood display boards. Their white dials were adorned with black Roman numerals. Under each clock was a brass plate indicating a location. The top row displayed the time in Saigon, Hong Kong, London, and New York. The second row: Johannesburg, São Paulo, Lisbon, and Los Angeles. The third row: Cairo, Sydney, Frankfurt, and Toronto. Tom found it interesting that both Paris and Moscow were excluded. He also noticed that the four o’clock position was “IIII” instead of “IV.” He wondered why he had never noticed this before. Was it for symmetry? He looked down at the luminous triangular, rectangular, and circular hour markers on his Rolex and then back up at the clocks.
If you are going to survive in this world you are going to have to be more attentive.
The worried receptionist behind the counter told him that the hotel’spet peacock had recently disappeared from the courtyard garden where it had become something of a hotel mascot and asked if he would please let her know if he spotted it. Tom expected it had ended up as someone’s meal but didn’t say as much; instead he told her that he would keep an eye out. She had asked how long he would be a guest and that he should really stay through the spring so he could experience the frangipanis blooming in the courtyard. They were planted in 1880 when the hotel was built. He said he would try.
Tom took the creaky staircase up to the second floor, passing groups of journalists stumbling downstairs to tackle the day. They still reeked of alcohol. Good times were being had in the Continental. Tom wondered if it was that way with the generals at the Rex.
If so, we might be in for a long war.
The hotel was rectangular with a large courtyard in its center. Its thick brick walls and wide-open windows countered the tropical heat.
He turned left at the top of the stairs and made his way down a hallway with high ceilings to room 214. Tom had never seen hotel room doors as tall as those at the Continental. The door handles were positioned noticeably lower than what would be considered normal. Tom surmised that was probably because people were generally shorter in the 1800s when the hotel was built.
Just inside the door to his room was a short hallway that opened into a spacious bedroom with a queen-sized bed protected by mosquito netting. Two large wooden wardrobes stood against the stark white walls opposite a rolltop desk. A rocking chair engraved with the French fleur-de-lis, a symbol Tom recognized from his French studies, one closely associated with French royalty and the Holy Trinity, was in the corner. Two white columns were oddly out of place and positioned off-center in the room. Tom made a mental note to be wary of them if he got up at night.
He pushed aside thick red velour drapes and opened the pair of French doors that led to a balcony. A family of geckos scurried away. A table andtwo small chairs overlooked the courtyard with its gardens, koi ponds, and bougainvillea. Fountains muffled the conversations of patrons enjoying a late breakfast below. Even from the interior balcony he could hear the sputtering of mopeds and rickshaws on Dong Khoi Street.
Leaving the balcony doors open for air, Tom returned to his room. An abstract painting of a woman hung above the bed. It was primarily done in grays and blacks but for the eyes. One was red and the other blue. The eyes looked like they were watching him. Her head was attached to her broad-shouldered body by an overextended neck and was encased in what looked like an oblong goldfish bowl. It was signed in the upper-left-hand corner next to a date, 1960. Tom wondered what the artist was trying to convey. He walked to it and pulled it away from the wall half expecting to find a listening device or a two-way mirror. Instead, his heart skipped a beat as a gecko darted from behind, scampered down the wall, and escaped out onto the balcony.
If the small lizards were to be his roommates, it wasn’t the end of the world. He heard they ate mosquitos, which might be helpful.
Tom opened his bag and set the disassembled Harrington & Richardson T223 rifle on the bed. It was broken down into its separate primary components so it would fit in his bag—stock, barrel and receiver assembly, bolt and bolt carrier assembly, trigger group, bipod, and five loaded magazines. After the events of Tet, he was extremely fond of its forty-round magazines. Even the new thirty-rounders were hard to come by for the CAR-15s, which meant the majority of SOG operators still used the twenty-rounders. Having a T223 with five mags of forty rounds each was a major firepower upgrade. If he was going to be staying in Saigon, he wanted more than a pistol close at hand. He assembled the rifle and placed it in the closet. Just in case.
Unpacking his few belongings, he wondered how long he would call the Continental home. If it was more than a few days he was going to need additional clothes. Before Serrano picked him up, he would run outfor attire that was more suitable for the evening’s occasion. The streets around the hotel were teeming with shops where he was sure to find something appropriate.
He unholstered the custom Browning Hi-Power and placed it on the nightstand. Then he kicked off his shoes and lay back on the bed, placing his hands behind his head and looking up at the ceiling fan. Its slow-moving blades reminded him of the hands of the clocks in the lobby. He pondered how many more years of his youth he was going to sacrifice to a country called Vietnam and to the policymakers in Washington who were keeping them all chained to the deck of a sinking ship.
CHAPTER 30
