Phantom Leader Part 35

Johnson was silent for a long moment. "What do you believe now, this very day?"

Clark Clifford looked his President in the eye. "Exactly the same as I wrote in my letter to you three years ago. That our ground forces should be kept to a minimum, that Vietnam could become a quagmire.

Later, I said we could lose as many as fifty thousand men, and that the whole Vietnam effort could become a catastrophe for the United States."

"Do you still feel that way?" Johnson barked.

"Let me say this. In 1965, as the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, I visited Southeast Asia and was greatly impressed with the spirit of our military men and that of the Vietnamese. I would like to visit again."

"You will, you will," LBJ boomed. "But do you feel the the same way?"

"Yes, yes, I do, Mister President," Clifford said after a short pause.

Clifford turned to Whitey Whisenand and noted the black-bordered poster he held. "I've heard of your pilot's casualty blackboard. Is that it?"

"Yes," Whitey said.

"May I see it, please?"

"Oh migawd," the President said.

Whitey held out the blackboard on which he tallied the current aircrew casualty figures.

"pop, Aircrew MIA/KIA POW Aircraft USAF 404 206 879 USN 226 129 374 USMC 73 15 206 USA 160 58 454 (Helios) TOTAL 863 408 1913.

"I might add, Mister President," Whitey said, "that the overall casualty count for last week is the highest ever. In one week we lost 543 killed and 2,547 wounded."

"It's that d.a.m.ned Tet battle, isn't it?" the President exploded. "And Khe Sanh. We're losing men there, too, aren't we?"

Whitey answered him. "While it's true we are losing men in the Tet battles, particularly where the Marines are retaking Hue, we are not losing many men at Khe Sanh. The casualty rate there is minimal. The men are well hunkered in and the enemy shows signs of pulling out."

"Well, then, it's that d.a.m.ned Ho Chi Minh," the President raged. "He just won't fight a war like a good Christian should."

1345 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 1968.

HOA Lo PRISON, HANOI DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM The pain never went away. It was endured, relegated to life itself.

Pain from his ankles where the stocks closed on them met with the pain from his badly healed left arm. The dull numbness where his hips lay on the cold concrete was merely a buzz in the background that would spike every hour to wake him and force a slight s.h.i.+fting to a new position. To feel pain meant to live, to live was to survive. Survival was everything. To survive was to win over his captors who were so intent on breaking his spirit. They had broken his body, and-in the ropes-they had taken away his mind for a time, but the flame of his spirit still existed. From a bare flicker while in the ropes to a raging exuberance when in contact with a fellow American prisoner, the flame existed. They would never totally possess him. He knew now how he was inside, he had measured himself. And what he found gave him pride. By trying to debase him, they debased themselves.

By torturing him to breaking, they formed a hot-steel core they would never understand. He knew now they would have to kill him to extinguish the flame. And he was convinced that for the time being they did not want to kill him.

He was worth more alive than as a corpse. Alive, they could maybe make propaganda use of him. Yet they could not see that the figures in pajamas they presented to communist ,hips pressmen were mere robots performing in jerky, programmed ways that fooled no one except their captors. Or that his misspelled and badly written "confession" was worthless except to the vanity of the imbecilic man who had beaten it out of him.

Flak Apple had been having reoccurring dreams of either flying or walking the streets of his old neighborhood with his mother. In the flying dreams he rarely flew an airplane.

Usually it was effortless soaring and rolling around huge white clouds.

Although in his dream with his mother he was full-grown, he seemed to speak to her as a child. But so far she had never answered. Every time when he awakened from the dream he would keep his eyes shut, trying to go back.

Fragments would flicker, but he could never regain the feeling of reality the dream provided. His eyes would sting, ineffable sadness would sweep over him like a wave that could drown him. He was back in the despair of a prison camp in Hanoi. He fought back with prayer.

"Dear G.o.d," he would begin. "I ask only for enough to bear this burden."

And his mind would tell him he was given enough to start the day. He knew that was G.o.d talking to him because G.o.d had given him his mind in the first place. Then he would begin his day.

The guard would never enter and release him to perform his morning toilet; he had to pull the waste can over to the slab and lift it next to himself.

He had great joy twice a day. Right after noon, when the guards were somnolent in the heat, he would tap code through the wall with Ted Frederick, and late in the afternoon he would be taken to a filthy cesspool to empty his wastebucket. Even then he could communicate.

Frederick had taught him that coughs, sneezes, throat-clearing, sniffs, spits, finger-snaps, even how one walked spelled out tapcode letters.

Sometimes he found secret messages written on sc.r.a.ps of coa.r.s.e toilet paper stuffed in a drainpipe. Maybe Julie Andrews thought the hills were alive with music, but Flak knew the camp was alive with communicators. It was time now to talk with Ted Frederick.

TAP TAP TI-TAP TAP, he rapped.

TAP TAP. Frederick was on line.

HOW U, Flak asked.

COPING. N U.

SAME. HARDEST PART IS AFTER DREAMS.

YEAH, Frederick rapped back. CIDS. WIFE. ESCAPE.

HOW BIG YOUR s.h.i.+T CAN. HOW WIDE, Flak tapped.

BUCET SIZE. WHY.

MY LEGS HURT. CANT SQUAT. RIM CUTS b.u.t.t.

PUT SANDALS ON RIM.

There was a long pause while Flak digested this important piece of news.

He was ecstatic. Simple things became earthshaking to a POW. Sitting comfortably on the c.r.a.pper was one such.

JOY. JOY. JOY. MEGA THANK DE NADA.

They spoke of home, various squadrons, and mutual acquaintances.

HOW POW NAMES GET OUT, Flak asked.

WILL TELL WHEN WE CAN TALC NOT TAP. Then the guards started stirring.

Time to sign off. Frederick made two raps and a GBU.

They came for him early that evening. Crazy Face unlocked his stocks with heavy, fumbling hands that sent sharp pain shooting up both legs.

When he rolled off the concrete slab and fell to his knees, Crazy Face drooled and kicked him in the ribs. A second guard standing outside the door barked something in Vietnamese, causing Crazy Face to scuttle away.

The man, wearing a uniform, told Flak to put his clothes on, meaning the maroon-and-gray pajamas.

Then he escorted Flak out of his cell and into a courtyard toward an iron gate within the prison complex he had never been through. As he approached the gate, Flak heard a quick spate of coughs and sneezes from behind one of the boarded-up cell windows. ICU, they spelled out. That meant that some POW had seen this movement of an American and would put the word into the central memory that Major A. A. Apple had been seen at this time on this date being led through that gate. Flak was comforted to know someone was watching.

Once through the gate they were in a courtyard Flak had never seen before. It was neater; what looked like Vietnamese prisoners were tending rows of flowers in raised beds twenty and thirty feet long. He was led into an administrative building, down a dark hall, up a flight of stairs, and into all Office that overlooked the POW compound. The walls of the office had been freshly whitewashed. The floor was wood lath, waxed and clean. A ceiling fan stirred the air that came through the tall windows.

A broad-shouldered Caucasian stood near the window.

He had dark brown hair cut short, a large Zapata mustache, and stood about five-ten, Flak judged. He was tanned, had crow's-feet around eyes as dark as coal, a roughly handsome man in his mid-thirties who wore an American field jacket.

He flicked a finger as dismissal for the guard and stared at Flak for a long time. Then he turned to a small table by the window and poured a gla.s.s of yellow liquid from a plastic bottle.

"Have an orange juice," he said in unaccented American English. He held the gla.s.s out to Flak. Flak accepted, sniffed to make sure it wasn't urine, and drank it down. He and Ted Frederick had decided long ago to eat or drink anything offered if there weren't any strings or trickery involved. It was a weak and sticky orange soda. He handed the gla.s.s back to the man, who did not take it.

"Put it on the table," he commanded.

Flak did as he was told. On the table were plastic bottles with water and other juices, a half-full bottle of vodka, and a tray of nuts, raisins, and apples. On the wall, under pictures of Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh, was a map of Hanoi. He lingered, trying to study the map and compare it to recce photos he had seen of downtown Hanoi.

"So. You are Algernon Apple. I am Alvaro Ceballos," the man said. He held out his hand. It was quite large. When Flak ignored it, he said, "You will shake my hand." Reluctantly, Flak offered his hand.

Immediately, Ceballos caught it above the knuckles and began to squeeze.

He looked full into Flak's face as he applied tremendous pressure.

Caught unawares, Flak at first tried to withdraw his hand, but Ceballos held firm and grasped his wrist with his other hand.

Flak remembered a trick from grade school. Instead of trying to return the pressure, or even contend with it from such a painful position, he curled his hand inward, trying to make his thumb meet his little finger.

That caused his knuckles to roll out from under Ceballos' grip. Flak stared back at the man. He knew better than to do anything other than pa.s.sive physical resistance. "Hunh," Ceballos snorted and released Flak's hand.

"Eat," he said, and pointed to the snack table. "Eat, and we will talk.

I've heard a lot about you. I think I can help you.

Keeping an eye on the st.u.r.dy man, Flak ate from the trays. He crunched on the nuts and raisins. Without asking permission, he poured another gla.s.s of the orange soda.

Who is this guy? he asked himself. What does he want?

What's the trick here?

Ceballos walked over and sat behind his desk. He watched Flak eat for a few moments, then spoke.

"Sit over here," he said, and pointed to a chair in front of his desk.

Flak put handfuls of raisins in his pajama s.h.i.+rt pocket and sat down.

There were no pockets in the pajama pants.

"You want to know why you are here, don't you? Of course you do," he said without giving Flak a chance to talk.

"I'll tell you why you are here. You are here so we can talk about your life. Yes, your life in that so-called land of the free, that United States. We will just talk. I am an educated man. You can talk to me.

How about that, Algernon?"

Stall, Flak told himself. This guy wants to play mind games, and there's no way I can win. I need to figure out what he's after. Stall.

"What did you say your name was?"

he asked Ceballos.

"Alvaro Ceballos," the man said with a frown.

"Where are you from, Mister Ceballos?"

"You don't ask me questions, Algernon. I ask you questions." He spoke in a mild voice. He took a pack of Marlboro cigarettes from a drawer, lit up, inhaled deeply, and offered a cigarette to Flak, who took it and put it in his pocket.

"Don't you smoke?" Ceballos inquired pleasantly.

Ceballos smiled. "Give it back. Put it here on the desk."

When Flak did as he was told, Ceballos folded his hands in front of himself and leaned forward, an inquiring expression on his face. "Why didn't you talk to that Robert Williams?"

Flak shrugged. "He did all the talking."

Didn't you agree with what he said?"

"No."

"Tell me, then," Ceballos said, "how was your life in the United States?"

Fine.

"Didn't you ever have any problems?"

"No."

"Didn't you ever have trouble in school?"

"Listen, Algernon, you can tell me. I know how it is. Let me tell you something. You want to know where I am from.

I am Cuban. Yes, Cuban. But I lived in the United States many years when I was younger. And I even was in New York and Was.h.i.+ngton after the revolution." He stood and said with great pride, "I was Fidel's closest aide and interpreter." He shook his finger at Flak. "We stayed in Harlem, Fidel and 1. I know how it is to be a Negro in America." He p.r.o.nounced it "nay-grow," revealing for the first time a Spanish accent.

"And look here." He slid some Time and Life magazine copies across the desk. Flak could see the cover stories were about the Detroit riots of last summer.

"Pick them up. Tell me what they say," Ceballos commanded, his voice imperious. Flak haphazardly thumbed through the pages. "Tell me what they say," Ceballos said in a louder voice.

Flak stopped at a page. "Right here it says that 'Ode to Billie Joe'