Restless Soul - Alex Archer [95]
“Uncle Lanh was captured by American fighting men in the war. Some of his men were captured also, and all of them were put in a prison in South Vietnam. A bad prison, Uncle Kim told me. For forty years.”
Annja’s eyebrows rose. “Forty years?” How was that possible? She’d thought prisoners on both sides were released after the war, though to this day reports lingered of MIA American soldiers still rumored to be held in the heart of the country.
“Papers were lost, and the prison changed hands,” Nang said. “Uncle Kim said Lanh was supposed to be free after the war, but the lost papers kept him in prison. Until the prison closed and everyone left inside was freed.”
“A forgotten man,” Annja said.
“A bitter man with no love left for his country. Vietnam was bad to my uncle Lanh.”
“So he took from it,” she surmised. “In the past few years of his freedom, he has taken relics.”
“What is the wrong in that? Uncle Lanh was owed for all the years in prison. A lifetime he spent in a cell.”
“Uncle Lanh is a thief and a smuggler,” Annja said. And probably worse. Those in the operation under him showed no compunction against killing, so likely Lanh hadn’t, either.
“There were places, Uncle Kim said, where ancient golden treasures were hidden during the war. Monks did not want the temple riches to fall into American hands and so they hid them in the jungle. Uncle Lanh knew of the places, and much of it was still there when he got out of prison. So Uncle Lanh and a few of the soldiers who served under him regained the treasures and sold them to wealthy men in other countries. Getting them out of Vietnam was the dangerous part, he once told me. But he had ways, and people looked the other way when he gave them gold. He sent the gold to Laos and Thailand, to hidden places in the mountains. Then buyers were found and the treasures moved on. And when those treasures were gone he found more.”
Nang kept talking without more prodding, as if he wanted someone to know about Lanh and the operation. He spoke about it with a sense of pride and clearly believed that it was all justified because of the prison time Lanh had served.
“He took things from temples. Not a lot at any one time, but all together a lot since his freedom. Also from a museum once, he told me. And from burial places. Uncle Kim said the dead did not need their gold. Lahn needed the gold, though, gold and diamonds and emeralds. Uncle Lahn said he would be dead soon enough because he was so old, and that he would enjoy the gold while he still lived. It became, I think, the only thing he loved. Gold and money. Everything else he hated.”
“You don’t need to be involved with all of this, Nang. The world is full of opportunities and—”
“This is what my family does. This is all I know,” he said angrily.
And this is all I know, she thought. Seeing something through to its end, putting the last piece of the puzzle into place and righting any wrongs along the way. It wasn’t all she knew before she picked up the sword, but it was her life now. Along her previous path she would have made a few phone calls and let some international authorities find Lanh Vuong. She would never have been involved in a chase scene on Chiang Mai’s streets, or a sword fight in the antiques store. She certainly wouldn’t have been driving across Thailand, and now Laos, and within several hours into Vietnam.
“But I do not hate like my uncle Lanh does. I do not hate everything. You, though, I hate you.”
Had Lanh Vuong hated enough during the war to use the skull bowl? Annja wondered.
“Read this map to me.” Annja sat the one of Northern Vietnam on Nang’s lap. “Read about Hue. Tell me all about Hue.”
She genuinely did want to know about the city she was driving to, and she wanted to keep his mind occupied at the same time.
Nang was clearly terrified of her, and she did nothing to ease that feeling. She’d left the gun in the back room of the antiques shop and appeared