Satori - Don Winslow [99]
The French army bought the opium from the Meo, purchasing their loyalty as well. Then the army sold the crop to the Binh Xuyen, who monopolized the opium traffic in Saigon. The French used the profits to pay the militias and mountain tribes to fight a guerrilla war in the countryside, while the Binh Xuyen held Saigon for them.
We would never have made it through all this, Nicholai thought, with the shipment of arms.
It was the right thing to do.
He had a dull headache that throbbed with the pulse of the engines and was exacerbated by the engine fumes. The propellers were noisy and the plane rattled and bumped, and he was glad when he saw the sprawling metropolis of greater Saigon appear below.
But the plane banked southeast, away from the city and down the coast, and Nicholai saw what looked like a military base.
“Vung Tau!” Signavi shouted over the noise. “ ‘Cap St.-Jacques’!”
The plane made a rapid descent and landed on the military airstrip. Trucks were waiting, and Binh Xuyen troopers in green paramilitary uniforms hopped out and quickly loaded the crates of opium and rocket launchers.
“I’m off to a bath and a decent drink,” Signavi said. He shook Nicholai’s hand. “Perhaps I’ll see you in Saigon?”
“I would enjoy that.”
“Good. See you there.”
A black limousine pulled up. Two troopers armed with machine pistols got out and escorted Bay and Nicholai into the back of the car and it quickly drove off the airstrip.
“Where is the cargo going?” Nicholai asked.
“The opium, to our processing plant in Cholon,” Bay answered. “The weapons, somewhere safe.”
“Until I’ve been paid,” Nicholai said, “the rocket launchers are still my property, and as such, I have a right to know where they are.”
Bay nodded. “Fair enough. They’re going to the Rung Sat — ‘the Swamp of the Assassins.’ ”
“Colorful.”
“It’s the base of the Binh Xuyen,” Bay said, smiling. “Remember, we started as ‘river pirates.’ Your property will be quite safe there.”
“When do I get paid?” Nicholai asked.
“Do you have an account in Saigon?”
“I prefer cash.”
“As you wish,” Bay said. “It’s nothing to me. I’ll arrange for payment tomorrow. Meet me at my casino, Le Grand Monde.”
“What do I have as security?”
Bay turned and glared at him. “My word.”
105
SAIGON WAS beautiful.
Nicholai thought the city’s sobriquet as “the Pearl of the Orient” was perfectly justified as he rode in a blue Renault taxi down the Rue Catinat.
The broad boulevard — lined with plane trees, studded with sidewalk cafés, bars, restaurants, expensive shops, and exclusive hotels — seemed a perfect blend of French and Asian culture, as if someone had chosen the best of both and placed them in happy harmony, side by side.
Vietnamese police, in their distinctive white uniforms, stoically struggled to manage the swirling Citroën and Renault autos, cyclo-pousses, Vespa scooters, and swarms of bicycles that competed for the right-of-way in a chaos that was a true mixture of the French and Asian styles of driving. Honking horns, jingling bells, and shouts of good-natured abuse in French, Vietnamese, and Chinese contributed to an urban cacophony.
Child street vendors darted and dodged through the traffic to sell newspapers, bottles of orange soda, or cigarettes to customers momentarily stuck in a jam, or sitting at a café table, or just walking down the busy sidewalks.
The women were magnificent, Nicholai thought — slim, tiny Vietnamese in tight silk ao dais stopped to window shop, while the elegant French colons, dressed in fashion only a year removed from Paris runways, strode in their slow, long-legged gait to the unabashed, admiring stares of the café denizens.
The cab pulled up to the Continental Hotel, a broad white colonial building in the Beaux-Arts style, with its arched windows