George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

Then a New York Times reporter had discovered that one Liu Sakh Po, ARVN colonel, was Saigon's most prominent crime czar, trafficking in narcotics sold to American servicemen, a thriving black market in American-supplied foodstuffs and munitions, and prostitution. Although angry denials were issued by both the South Vietnamese and American military commands, and even though the reporter was hastily expelled from the country and branded a traitor by certain United States senators and congressmen, the evidence against Po had continued to build. Then, at the height of the scandal, Colonel Po had simply disappeared from public view. Now I knew where he had gone-into the jungles of Laos, with the help of the Americans.

Ironically, within the past year the Times had begun another series of articles on the infamous Colonel Po, a kind of retrospective and update written by the same reporter, a winner of three Pulitzer Prizes. According to the articles, Po had been spirited out of South Viet Nam after the collapse of Saigon and helped to settle in the United States, a fact that had been well hidden for more than a decade, up until the publication of the articles. Also, according to the articles, Po had brought his old tricks with him to his new country. Operating from a well-guarded mansion in Albany, New York, he was said to control a wide empire in drugs and prostitution throughout upper New York State. D6ja vu.

"Why was Po brought into Laos, to your village?" I asked, pretty certain I knew the answer.

"He was to replace Archangel, and the soldiers in the second helicopter formed his personal bodyguard. I do not know why this decision was made; as far as I know, he was the only non-American adviser sent to work with the Hmong anywhere in Laos."

"The Americans were helping him hide from a very nosy press."

"Even from the distance where we were standing, we could see that Archangel was angrier than he had ever been before. There was another American in the helicopter with the man in the green raincoat, an officer. Po and his men just walked away while Archangel argued with the officer and the man in the raincoat. They shouted back and forth at each other for almost half an hour."

"Could you tell the officer's rank?"

"I believe he was a general; he had stars on his cap and the epaulets of his jacket. It was this man who finally ended the argument; he spoke very sharply, and then Archangel threw down his gun in disgust and climbed into the smaller helicopter."

"And you never saw Veil Kendry again?"

Loan Ka shook his head. "We saw him again."

"But you said this was the last time-"

Loan Ka held up his cigar in a gesture asking for patience. "It was the last meeting between Archangel and his superiors."

At a sound to our left, both of us turned toward the doorway where one of Loan Ka's sons stood with a girl about his own age. She was dark-eyed, with long, shimmering black hair and olive skin. I thought she was beautiful. I had not heard the young man leave the house, had not heard a car start up, but Peter had obviously gone out into the night to bring the young woman back.

"This is Kathy," Loan Ka continued quietly.

"Hello, Dr. Frederickson," the young woman said, her English delivered with a lovely, lilting accent. She stepped forward, and I stood up and took the hand she offered. "I know of you. I am a sociology major at the university here, and two of your monographs on family structure and crime are required reading in a course I'm taking. It's an honor to meet you."

"My pleasure, Kathy."

We sat, and Loan Ka's wife entered carrying a tray with hot tea and pastries. After serving us, she left, motioning for her son to go with her.

"Colonel Po and his soldiers were not interested in fighting the Communists," the Hmong continued. "They were interested only in preserving their own safety. Indeed, they didn't even trust us; they stockpiled most of the arms and ammunition in their own private compound, which they forced us to build for them.

"Then, about two weeks after Po arrived, our children began to disappear. At first we thought it was some kind of Pathet Lao terror tactic, and that individual Communists had somehow found a way to penetrate our defense perimeter and kidnap our children. But, as we were to learn, this was not the case. The most beautiful of our children, both male and female, were being stolen by Po's men, then smuggled into Viet Nam for use in Po's Saigon brothels."

The words had been softly spoken, without any effort to lend them special weight. Still, I felt as if I had been dealt a physical blow. "My God," was all I could think of to say, and I lowered my gaze.

"It was almost a month before we discovered who was responsible for the disappearance of our children," Loan Ka continued softly. "It was not in our power to bring our children back to us, but we could do our best to punish those responsible. By this time we had few arms and little ammunition, but we took Po and his men by surprise and managed to kill many of them. Po himself escaped into the jungle.

"Without arms or ammunition, we could no longer fight the Pathet Lao and Viet Cong, and so they began to move freely down the trails in our region. On the other hand, we were not attacked-probably because the Pathet Lao assumed we were still as well defended as we had always been. We waited for the Americans to contact us again, for another adviser and more arms. But no more helicopters came. For us, it was as if the war had ended-except that our children had been lost to Po's brothels, and nothing could assuage the grief of our tribe."

Now there was a prolonged silence, broken only by the muffled sound of rock music coming from a room upstairs and the clink of dishes as Maru Tai worked in the kitchen.

"I was one of the children taken," the girl called Kathy said, picking up the thread of the story. Her voice was barely audible at first and was often broken by sighs, but it gained strength as she continued to speak. It was all I could do not to reach out and take her hand, tell her that it was all right and the she did not have to relive this nightmare. But I needed to hear all of it. It was why Veil had put the symbols in the painting.

"I was caught by one of the soldiers as I was walking along a trail just outside the village," Kathy continued. "He put a hand over my mouth and jabbed my arm with a hypodermic needle. I can't remember how I was taken away, but I seem to remember the sound of a helicopter. I was taken to a… place, in a city, where I found some of my friends who had disappeared before me. I'm sorry, Dr. Frederickson, but it would be most difficult for me to talk about the things that were done to me there."

"It's all right, Kathy; that's not important. Just tell me what you can."

"Some time after I arrived, a pimp took a boy and myself out on the streets to look for customers. It was perhaps three or four in the morning. The boy and I were so… tired. The streets were empty, but still the pimp would not take us back and let us sleep. We stood in a doorway, the pimp gripping each of us by the shoulder so hard that it hurt very much. Then we heard the sound of footsteps coming along the street, just around the corner from where we stood. The man came around the corner, and the pimp pushed us out in front of him. It was the American."

Something that felt like an electric shock flashed through my chest, momentarily making it difficult for me to breathe. "You mean Veil Kendry?"

"Yes-if that is the name of the man on the posters you hung up around the neighborhood. The children just called him the American, and the adults called him Archangel. He was wearing a uniform. He was clean shaven, but his face was haggard, and he looked like he had not slept in a long time. The pimp spoke to the American, offering one or both of us for his pleasure. The American stood very still as he listened to the pimp, but all the time he was looking down at us. There was an expression on his face which is very difficult to describe. I believe I saw tears in his eyes, and he was smiling gently, as if to reassure us that everything would be all right. But behind the tears and the smile was an expression more frightening than anything I have ever seen.