"Mr. Disantis."
"Mr. Minh."
The short Vietnamese adjusted his glasses as they strolled past the park where the Independence Palace had once stood. "You are enjoying the sights?" he asked. "Do you see much that is familiar?"
"No," said Disantis. "Do you?"
Minh paused and looked around him as if the idea had not, pertained to him. "Not really, Mr. Disantis," he said at last. "Of course, I rarely visited Saigon. My village was in a different province. My unit was based near Da Nang."
"ARVN?" asked Disantis.
"Hac Bao," said Minh. The Black Panthers of the First Division. You remember them, Perhaps?" Disantis shook his head. "We were ... I say without pride ... the most feared fighting unit in all of South Vietnam ... including the Americans. The Hac Bao had put fear into the hearts of the communist insurgents for ten years before the fall."
Disantis stopped to buy a lemon ice from a street vendor. The lights were coming on all along the boulevard.
"You see the embassy there?" asked Minh, pointing to an antiquated six story structure set back behind an ornate fence.
"That's the old U.S. Embassy?" asked Disantis without much interest in his voice. "I would have thought that the building would've been torn down by now."
"Oh, no," said Minh, "it is a museum. It has been restored very much to its original appearance."
Disantis nodded and glanced at his comlog.
"I stood here," continued Minh, "Right here ... in April of 1975, and watched the helicopters take the last of the Americans off the roof of the embassy. It was only my third time in Saigon. I had just been released from four days in prison."
"Prison?" Disantis turned to look at Minh.
"Yes. I had been arrested by the government after members of my unit commandeered the last Boeing 727 out of Da Nang to Saigon. We fought civilians-women and children-to get aboard that plane. I was a lieutenant. I was twenty-three years old."
"So you got out of Vietnam during the panic?"
"They released us from jail when the North Vietnamese were in the suburbs," said Minh. "I was not able to leave the country until several months later."
"Boat?" asked Disantis. The lemon ice was melting quickly in the warm air.
Minh nodded. "And you, Mr. Disantis, when did you leave Vietnam?"
Disantis tossed the paper wrapper into a trashcan and licked his fingers. "I came here early in '69," he said.
"And when did you leave?" Minh asked again.
Disantis lifted his head as if to sniff the night air. The evening was thick with the scent of tropical vegetation, mimosa blossoms, stagnant water, decay. When he looked at Minh there was a dark gleam in his blue eyes. He shook his head. "I never left," he said.
Justin, Sayers, and Tom Newton came up to the guide as he sat alone at a table near the back of the hotel bar. The three Americans hesitated and looked at each other. Finally Justin stepped forward. "Howdy," he said.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Jeffries," said the guide.
"We ... uh ... we'd all, I mean the three of us and a couple of other guys, we wanted to see you about something.
