The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [57]
The priest had begun to sweat and tremble. He reached into his pocket with a fluttering hand and produced an envelope of heroin. With his eyes fixed on Christopher, he drew the white powder into his nose. After a moment he was quiet again.
The Truong toe returned his attention to Christopher. “That’s certainly a novel idea,” he said, his dry lips opening in a faint smile.
“It’s logical,” Christopher said. “To complete the act, you must be discovered. There may be a certain elegance in killing an American President with ignominy—using a man who appears to be a lunatic so that the assassination will be regarded as a bit of random madness. But it accomplishes nothing.”
“Accomplishes nothing? The man is dead.”
“But not his policies. When Diem was killed, he and Nhu were desperate to end American influence in Vietnam. They had no chance. But you do. Let it be known that Kennedy was shot in Dallas in revenge for the death of Diem and Nhu, and there will be such revulsion in the United States against Vietnam that you won’t see an American face in your country, or an American ship in your harbors, for a generation to come.”
The Truong toe flicked open his clenched hand as if releasing a bird into flight. “You’d give this country to the Communists?”
“Why not?” Christopher said. “Diem and Nhu were prepared to do so. At least the Communists are Vietnamese. Some of them are members of your family.”
The Truong toe relaxed on his divan, steepled his fingers, tapped their ends together. The priest spoke to him in rapid Vietnamese. Christopher watched the Truong toe’s impassive features and the priest’s face, one side of it as unreadable as the Truong toe’s and the other side in spasm. “Kill him tonight, in the street, anywhere,” the priest was saying. “No, he can do no harm,” the Truong toe replied. Christopher realized the old man knew he understood Vietnamese.
“Mr. Christopher,” said the Truong toe, speaking the name for the first time, “I’m curious—how did you come to hear the name Lê Thu?”
“Nguyen Kim mentioned it. He seemed to think it would be a great joke to use it as an introduction to you.”
“And you thought it had great significance—that it symbolized this assassination you think we carried out?”
“I didn’t know,” Christopher said. “That was one of my questions.”
“You’ve translated the name, I understand. It means ‘the tears of autumn.’”
“Yes—if it’s a code name it’s poetic, but insecure.”
“And you wish to know the name of our relative in the North Vietnamese intelligence service?”
“Yes.”
“That is all you require to prove our guilt, and rid our country of the Americans, who, as you suggest, will destroy it for reasons of their own policy?”
“Yes.”
As Christopher and the Truong toe spoke to each other, they smiled—more broadly with each question and answer. After hearing Christopher’s final reply, the Truong toe laughed, a string of dry barks like the cough of a man who has swallowed smoke. His laughter was a compliment. Only a clandestine mind like Christopher’s, free from values and concerned with nothing but the results of action, could have conceived the proposal Christopher had just made. The Truong toe had the same sort of mind. He was delighted to encounter another brain so like his own.
“We’ve heard a good deal about you since yesterday, Mr. Christopher,” he said. “It all seems to be true. This really is a most clever provocation. I have no idea what purpose your masters think it will serve, but you may give them my answer. It is this: your hypothesis is absurd. How could we touch a Kennedy? They live in another dimension of power.”
“Murder requires very little power.”
“No, no, no. Mr. Christopher, Lê Thu is just a name. You will search in vain for any relative of ours who is a secret agent of Ho Chi Minh’s. We accepted the death of Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu—we are weak, Mr. Christopher. How could we do what you think we’ve done?”
Christopher rose. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll go on with my work.”
“What bravado,” the priest said. “You want what—admiration? You’re mad