Lindsay McKenna - Ride The Tiger

Movement at Marble Mountain was constant: helicopters buzzed overhead; men and jeeps hurried from one place to another. Today, Gib felt the strains and pressures of the ceaseless activity more than usual.

Steeling himself for Colonel Parson’s questioning, Gib slipped into the tent marked with a red sign trimmed in yellow. Marine Air Group—(MAG)—Headquarters, it proclaimed.

Parsons looked up as Gib entered. Gib stood at customary attention until he was ordered to be at ease and sit down. “I’ve got the general breathing down my neck,” the colonel began without preamble. “What have you found out about the Villard case?”

“Not much, sir,” Gib admitted. “I talked to Constable Jordan in Da Nang a week ago, and he feels Binh Duc is probably responsible for the placement of the mine that killed Mrs. Villard.”

Parsons’s lean hand tightened around the pen he was holding. “Any proof?”

“No, sir. Short of finding Duc and making him admit it, I doubt we’re going to get anything substantial.”

“Have you questioned Miss Villard’s peasants?”

Gib felt his CO’s probing eyes go through him. With the unexpected number of helo flights the last week, he hadn’t been able to schedule time to see Dany again. “Not yet, but that’s next on my list.”

“When?”

“Today, sir,” Gib lied. He knew he was dragging his feet on this investigation because of Dany’s effect on him. Parsons wasn’t going to allow any more stalling on his part. He might as well get it over with.

Parsons grunted his satisfaction. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’m appointing you official liaison officer to Miss Villard. It’s been so damned busy around here that I keep forgetting to tell you.”

“Liaison officer? What for?”

The colonel shrugged noncommittally. “Don’t know yet. That’s the word that came up from Saigon a couple days ago. The boys at headquarters don’t think we need to know what’s going on—as usual.”

Bothered, but not sure why, Gib nodded. “We’re still investigating the death of Miss Villard’s mother, sir.”

“That has nothing to do with this second assignment, Gib.”

Irritated, Gib scowled. So what the hell did? “Does HQ have some other plans involving the Villard plantation?”

Parsons shrugged. “As I said before, Gib, they don’t make me privy to the think-tank personnel who go around all day cooking up screwball ideas to hand to the field marines. If I had anything more than that, I’d give it to you.”

Rankled, Gib nodded. “Sounds like HQ has something bigger up their sleeve.”

“Probably,” Parsons agreed drily. “But until they tell us, we can just hang out over the cliff wondering what the hell it is. We really don’t have time for that.”

Gib agreed. “I’ll schedule some time to see Miss Villard this afternoon and question her workers. Maybe one of them knows something.”

Parsons snorted. “My money’s on the local VC chieftain. Those gooks probably won’t talk to you for fear of his reprisal.”

Gib cringed inwardly at the colonel’s use of the derogatory term to refer to the Vietnamese people. To him, it showed lack of sensitivity and, worse, a lack of understanding of a people whose history was thousands of years old. They deserved to be treated as human beings, not placed under some convenient, insulting label. “It wouldn’t make sense in this case, sir. Miss Villard said she has had an agreement, a neutrality, with all parties involved since 1930.”

With a tight, smile, Parsons muttered, “Miss Villard is fooling herself if she thinks she can remain neutral in the middle of all this.”

“I don’t know, sir, the Villards managed to do it when the French colonials were fighting the Vietminh in the fifties.”

“This is different.”

“If I get a deposition with any proof of Duc’s involvement, I’ll contact you upon my return.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Gib came to attention and left. Against his better judgment, he looked forward to seeing Dany. Had she recovered from the initial shock of her mother’s death? He hadn’t been able to forget the look on her face, the puffiness beneath her eyes, showing how much she’d cried. Moving between the long rows of tents, he made his way to his own. Recalling Ma Ling’s severe censure about showing up in uniform, Gib decided that to keep the peace he’d better slip into civilian clothes.

His tent was small and spare, including a metal bunk with a thin mattress on it, a metal locker where he stored his clothes, an office desk and a phone. The plywood floor was swept daily by Vietnamese women who worked on the base, but sand inevitably crunched beneath his flight boots.

Grabbing a towel, Gib headed for the hastily erected plywood showers that stood at the end of the row of tents. On some days, the grit of Marble Mountain felt like burrs under a saddle as far as Gib was concerned. The fine sand got trapped inside his dark green flight suit and chafed until his skin was raw and bleeding. Then fungal infection could set in, becoming a nightmare of trying to get rid of the leaky abrasions with ten-day cycles of penicillin. He shook his head at the thought. Yeah, great climate they had here.

Right now Gib wanted a lukewarm shower to cleanse his crowded, exhausted mind almost as much as to wash the sand off his body. Drying himself afterward, he padded down the row of tents in his shower thongs, the white towel wrapped loosely around his narrow hips. It would be a welcome change to get out of his one-piece flight uniform and into a set of clean civilian clothes. Back at his tent, Gib pulled on a light blue short-sleeved shirt, fresh underwear and tan slacks, then quickly ran a comb through his short dark hair, taming it into place.

Feeling semihuman once again, he borrowed a yellow Citroën from an ARVN officer friend and headed toward Dany Villard’s plantation. As Gib drove along Highway 1, which would eventually lead to 14, his mind strayed to the passing countryside. The afternoon heat was building across Vietnam, the sun burning down from a bright azure sky to touch the top of the triple-canopied jungle. The smells that surrounded Gib were many, from pungent and acrid to cloyingly sweet. To him, Vietnam was a land of extremes, but more than anything, it was one of the most beautiful places on earth—and, unfortunately, rapidly becoming one of the deadliest.

As he drove down the Villard plantation’s long red-brick driveway, Gib saw the few Vietnamese peasants working along the boulevard look up in curiosity. But their faces gave away nothing of what they thought or felt about his intrusive presence.

At the house, Gib climbed out of the Citroën. The need to see Dany was nearly overwhelming in one sense, yet uncomfortable in another. As he took the steps two at a time, Gib tried to search for why he was drawn so powerfully to her, but no answer was forthcoming. All he knew was that thinking of Dany brought a lush flow of feelings that he’d thought he’d lost by being in combat for nearly two tours. And he couldn’t afford to feel like that—not here in Vietnam with the rigors of combat he faced every day.

He knocked at the screen door and waited patiently for Ma Ling to appear.

Ma Ling answered his knock, her broad brow wrinkling instantly when she saw who it was. “Yes?” she demanded.

Gib spoke slowly. “I’m here to see Miss Villard.”

Ma Ling’s scowl deepened, but she reluctantly opened the door. “Come, you go through house. Miss Dany out with workers.”

Gib nodded. “Thank you.”

Shaking her head, Ma Ling led him through the teakwood halls to a rear door. “Go out there,” she ordered. “You find her there.”

Gib thanked her and, leaving his briefcase near the back door, stepped out once more into the sunshine. Bougainvillea grew in bright profusion around the rear of the house, and a small, carefully manicured lawn with a number of silk trees bordering it made up the backyard. A variety of orchids climbed and hung in the limbs of the silk trees, their colors and scents dazzling his senses. As always, the calls of birds, each melody different, wafted out of the jungle that surrounded the rubber-tree plantation like a somewhat discordant symphony. Screamer monkeys could be heard, their shrieks sounding almost human in the distance.