Two Years With Master Quan: Boone's File, #7

By Dale Amidei

It is 2004. After earning a PhD in Physiology, academic prodigy Rebecca Boone Hildebrandt, drawn to Vietnam by her lust for adventure, nears completion of another two-year course of study. Here, her instructor is a master of martial arts and former wartime-era associate of her father.

 

After drug traffickers expanding their operations force a confrontation with the righteous old man, operatives of the West draw him into another covert war. Thrust from a study of martial arts into their most serious application, Boone joins a face-off against a hardened criminal organization backed by local communist beneficiaries.

 

In their frustration, an opposition seeking to prevail proves desperate enough to kidnap an honored patriarch of his village. Boone, one French DGSE asset, and an agent of the American CIA stand as the last hope for his release from the center of a trap set just for them.

 

Approx. 83,110 words / 292 pp. print length

• Language: English
• Publisher: Single Candle Press
• Release date: Mar 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201835453

Dale Amidei

Dale Amidei lives and writes on the wind- and snow-swept Northern Plains of South Dakota. Novels about people and the perspectives that guide their decisions are the result. They feature faith-based themes set in the real world, which is occasionally profane or violent. His characters are realistically portrayed as caught between heaven and earth, not always what they should be, nor what they used to be. In this way they are like all of us. Dale Amidei's fiction can entertain you, make you think, and touch your heart. His method is simple: have something to say, then start writing. His novels certainly reflect this philosophy.

Book preview

Prologue - A Girl Named Boo

Montessori School of McLean

McLean, Virginia

September 2019

Mrs. Ross thought Boo Bradley to be the most exceptional of her girls. Quiet, certainly, but in the manner of giving everything and everyone around her deep thought … as was encouraged here. Though in kindergarten, the girl displayed comprehension and expression seeming to speak well of the nurturing that had benefited her before enrolling in the academy, and this intuition only reinforced her teacher’s impression of Boo’s overtly dedicated parents.

Boone Boudica Bradley was tall for her age, with her young physique already given more toward her father’s stature than her mother’s petite, athletic build. Hints of her maternal Irish heritage shone in her darkening hair, promising the fair child would grow into a handsome woman. If we build on her good start, her teacher reminded herself.

Reticent but mannered on arrival, Boo—as the child chose to be addressed—remained paired with a more extroverted student, both to keep the former from withdrawal and to temper her new friend’s restless energy toward the studies the Bradley child seemed to relish so much. Together the girls had formed a symbiotic pair, an association always making Elvira Ross glad for both of them. The young friends were, to their Montessori instructor’s way of thinking, seeds for the future and treasures to be kept safe in the present. Tomorrow is the most important something we do here, after all … one present moment at a time.

The hourly chime sounded, and Boo set down her pencil, waiting for Mrs. Ross’s instruction. At the front of the Children’s House, the woman, older than Boo’s mother, clapped her hands twice. Recess period, ladies and gentlemen. Organize your space, and get some fresh air.

Sarah, squirming on the next mat over, let out a little squeal of delight and hastily stuffed her papers into a box holding her school supplies. Boo, it’s recess! Come on!

Unhurried, the taller girl smiled and put her own things away in a manner that would let her retrieve them for the following period without rooting through a mess like her friend’s. Okay, let’s go, Boo agreed, and they went outside.

Sarah liked to talk, and Boo liked to listen, and much of their free time together was consumed by just that. Sarah was equally as smart as any of the kids, her classmate knew. It was just that the other girl’s mind was busy in a way that mostly ended up coming out of her mouth. She needed someone to listen, and Boo thought it was a good way to be a friend.

Anyway, Sarah continued as they walked and skipped the perimeter of the greenway serving as the private school’s outdoor resource area, my mommy said the little boy’s eye will be just fine after his surgery. Mommy does a lot of those. She says she likes to help people.

That’s awesome, Boo told her.

Smiling for a moment, Sarah’s expression faded into one of curiosity. You never say what your mommy does.

Boo cocked her head to look at her friend. Well, no. She frowned. She’s home all the time. I know she’s very busy, and sometimes she has to travel. Mostly she’s in her office for Grandpa’s corporation.

"But what do they do? Sell stuff?"

Shaking her head, Boo frowned a second time. I guess I don’t know much more. Mommy says it’s about things a little girl doesn’t need to worry about.

Huh. Sarah smiled again. Well, before Mommy was at the medical school she worked in a hospital. And that was before she was a mommy. What did your mom do before?

Boo did not know the answer to her classmate’s question, and like most questions, it begged for information. I’m not sure, I guess. She never talks about that.

Well, I know because I asked. You should ask, too.

Why? Boo wondered.

With a grin, Sarah took her friend’s hand. "Because I like to know stuff."

Okay. The Bradley girl lapsed back into thought as Sarah went on to chatter about other things. Now there was something Boo herself did not know, and it seemed important because a lot must have happened for her mom before she married Daddy and Boo herself came along. So I will ask. Then Sarah and I will both know, the girl decided.

So it went for another good day at the Montessori School. When Boo was released, Elena was there as usual, waiting in Mommy’s big, black truck to drive them both home. The woman was always interested in what had happened at school and how lessons were progressing. Boo thought Elena liked to hear her talk, so each day’s drive from school was mostly that.

Home was the same big, brick house Boo had always known, with trees all around and a long driveway. The little girl liked being home, despite adoring her teacher and friends at school. It felt warmest and safest here, and it was the way home should be, she thought often.

Elena had her remotes so Boo did not have to keep them during the school day, and the locks on the front door were undone by the time she got there as announced by all the clicking she heard. Dropping her backpack in the entryway, her jacket joined it before she saw from the quietude of the ground floor that Mommy must be working upstairs. She might be on the phone. I shouldn’t yell.

Her mom and dad shared the spacious office across from their even bigger bedroom, which was closer to the stairs than Boo’s room. Sure enough, her mom was there, resting her head in her hands, her red hair flowing over them while her fingers rubbed her temples.

Mommy? Boo asked in a low voice. Are you crying?

Boo’s mother startled a bit but raised her head, smiling. Oh, Boo-boo. You’re home. She held out her hands. Come here, baby. How was your day?

I had a good day, I guess.

Elena wanted to know all about it, I imagine.

Yeah.

Her mother seemed satisfied with that. A click of a button on her computer keyboard hid all the windows on her monitors a moment later.

"Did you have a good day?" Boo asked.

It’s a work in progress, honey.

Boo shifted her head to peer into her mother’s face, which was so pretty most of the time. A second later her gaze was returned, unflinching, approving, and Boo realized, always loving. It made her mother’s lap the best place to be, next to Daddy’s. Mommy, may I ask a question … for school?

Her mother turned her so that they were face-to-face. Certainly, you may.

Boo remembered that Mrs. Ross said it was important to look at someone when you talked to them. What did you do before you were a mommy?

A curious smile and a now distant gaze took over her mother’s face. Well, honey, that’s a very long story, full of things a little girl doesn’t need to worry about yet.

I know. You say that a lot. But Sarah wanted to know and I didn’t know what to tell her. Boo could see her mother wanted to answer but wanted it to be a good answer, too.

Well, you can tell her your mommy was in school, and then traveled a bit and afterward worked for the government in different jobs for a long time. That’s where she met your daddy. Now, we are all living happily ever after.

Frowning, Boo said, I’m pretty sure she wants to know more than that.

Her mother laughed. Well, sweetheart, you’ll soon learn that people often want to know more than they should.

Boo had a sinking feeling inside her chest. Me, too?

Her mother stopped laughing and instead hugged her. Oh, no, honey. Not you. Never you, not here.

Then what?

With a sigh, her mother replied, I guess we can have this talk. She held Boo at a conversational distance once more. But this is family talk. Not for your friends. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Yes.

So promise me.

"I promise." Boo made her commitment and resolved to keep it, just the way her mother and dad expected and always did themselves. She was going to hear a story other people never would, and that trust made her love her mom even more.

Chapter 1 - Here to There

"I was in school like you, for what seemed like forever. Oma wanted me to go on to study in Germany, so I did. Once I got my doctorate, though, your grandmother and I had very different ideas."

Swiss International Airlines Airbus A340

Somewhere over Turkey

Early June 2002

The journal looked and smelled new, with a wonderfully worked leather cover and an unblemished green ribbon to hold the thing shut when she wasn’t making her entries. I should have started a diary long before now.

Boone’s initial thought seemed incongruous, however. A diary? No. My day-to-day business is my own, and hardly anyone else’s at this point.

Eleven hours and forty minutes in the air afforded one plenty of time to think, and this second leg from Zurich would be the longest by far. Boone knew her life to be lived best in going forward, just as her airliner was cutting through the stratosphere … and now as it seemed, at an equivalent pace.

At least her mother had been at her graduation from Saarbrücken to see her daughter hooded for the second time in three years, and by the age of twenty-two, no less. Clearly demonstrated through her accelerated achievements, Boone’s academic recall nearly matched her gift for facial recognition. Those traits, combined with her inherited native intelligence, had continued to challenge even her postgraduate instructors to maintain an appropriate pace in her education, a difficulty that dogged her since middle school.

The last time her father’s military service allowed him to attend such a ceremony was her high school graduation in Sierra Vista, Arizona, when she was just sixteen. Afterward, he was transferred to Kuwait on an indefinite deployment. And that’s probably the biggest reason why Mom wanted me to continue on to a close-by med school.

The conversation had been in German, and her mother’s native language allowed for all the Sturm und Drang proving itself inevitable. "You are not going to Vietnam. Good God, girl, what are you thinking?"

Their relationship was contentious generally and worse when her dad was unavailable to temper her mother’s sense of Teutonic order and discipline with his affirming humanity. Boone could only cross her arms and hold her ground as the conversation became more difficult. "Mom, I am. The arrangements are made, and my flight is booked."

Hearing the way things were did not help relieve her mother’s pressure gauge at all. "You should be preparing to fulfill your potential. This is a time to continue your education, not waste on travel."

"Mother, I am doing just that." The success of her initiative was due in the largest part to her father’s contacts and assistance. The methods by which he obtained for her a student visa he declined to share, in return asking only that his involvement remain confidential. Thus, his behind-the-scenes machinations enabling her postdoctoral studies would ever remain a secret, thank God, between the man and his only child and daughter. And certainly Mother must never find out.

And whatever can they teach you in Vietnam that Heidelberg cannot?

Not now. Maybe when I get back. "They can teach me about the world, Mom, and I want to know."

Three years is a long time to spend in the third world, you know. Have you never listened to your father’s stories?

Every one. And they sunk deep into my soul. His life is the one I want for myself, not the one you envision, and I’m never going to be able to make you understand. And it’s a three-year residency authorization. That doesn’t necessarily mean I plan on running it out. I don’t.

He is the one who has put you up to this. We will be talking about that, he and I.

Mom, don’t you dare take this out on Dad. Boone felt a bit flushed. "This is my life. These are my decisions. Will you never allow me this?"

Once they make more sense, perhaps.

Boone halted the conversation momentarily to maintain her control. "Understanding requires listening. I learned that in school just the way you taught me."

So there they were, the mother the immovable object and the daughter an irresistible force. As in any such clash, they simply each went around the other. You will do this with your own finances. Neither will your father or I contribute so much as a penny.

My sweet sixteen is doing fine, Mom. Securities are up ten percent this year alone. I’ve even paid off my last student loan. I was meaning to tell you.

For the first time, her mother seemed at a loss for words. Someone else’s might have even been crying by now. A curt, Very well, if you will not listen to reason, then, however, was all Boone got from her own.

Mom, you know I love you and will miss you. I will write as often as I may. But I’m going.

Very well, Karla Hildebrandt McAllen said again, as undeterred as ever. A moment passed, then her mother issued one final expectation. What you go there to learn, learn it well, at least.

"I will. I promise."

As arranged through the American Embassy via her father’s extensive list of diplomatic contacts, the course of her postdoctoral education was officially a study of the culture and traditions of Southeast Asia. Which was not entirely a fabrication. Her care in-country was entrusted to her father’s wartime associate, whose own experience living in the village of her final destination went now more than thirty years past. So run the sands of history.

Though remaining communist, Vietnam had evolved economically in a track similar to that of its patron state, the People’s Republic of China. The truisms of economics, regardless of any ideological filter applied to them, functioned according to the same laws of cause and effect there as anywhere else, and in time even the most entrenched hard-line governments accepted the fact.

To Boone’s surprise while researching her notion, she found Americans were actually popular among the current generation of locals. Perhaps it’s our money and the fact that we now comprise a vast market for their goods. Regardless, the country today is only in their officially collectivist lip service the same one Dad fought to oppose. The good turn of history since the Seventies had probably been the determinate factor in convincing herself that a sabbatical in Vietnam could be a viable idea after all.

Boone was, she now realized, for the first time truly out on her own. My plans. My money. My own vision of my future. It was better than any of her previous graduations. It was an emancipation, and one to which she had looked forward for the majority of her young life. Living it. Like Dad does. Sorry Mom, but I shall indeed fulfill my potential as his daughter.

Her eyes dropped back to the virgin journal in her hands, and she opened the cover to the first page. The initial few lines there were only a place for its title or provenance. Like her life, this journal was hers. So it was she wrote only her name, under which she had traveled since before leaving Sierra Vista: Rebecca Boone Hildebrandt. Below that she added its second line: June, Two Thousand and Two.

The pages beyond were fresh and waiting. Like my life, to be used to my best ability. Her fingers ran over the space where, she decided, she would preserve her innermost thoughts rather than merely catalog her days. And a ballpoint is okay for now, I guess. I really should find myself a fountain pen for this sort of thing. She clicked out the distal end from the ergonomically padded gel-writer and began her first entry:

My name is Boone, and as I begin this journal I am in the air on my way to a foreign country at the start of a new life. Moreover, as I now realize, it will be the first time—once I get to where I’m going—that I shall be without any guiding hand. But life is never really new, is it? The process is merely building on itself here and everywhere as I’ve seen it do since I started paying attention.

The intent of my education seemed to be to produce someone who can do these things. To choose her way and see it through, and to accumulate every bit of edification she might gather unto herself along the road. No one has expected anything less of me since I was a child.

I should be afraid, but am too excited by the prospects of what I will find in the new land waiting at the end of this long flight. Perhaps later I can sleep; for now, I do not wish to miss a thing. This is how freedom feels, and I am loving it with my every breath and heartbeat.

Boone looked over her initial entry and decided it would be enough of a start. No signature. No date. This is only for me, anyway, in the time I can imagine waiting up ahead, when I will be revisiting my thoughts instead of preserving them. Between here and there, she had a hell of a lot of living to do.

Near the village of An Say

Binh Dinh Province

Socialist Republic of Vietnam

The next morning

From this most elevated point, which was the high tower in the ruins of a Cham Temple, a person from An Say could behold both the mountains of the highlands and the green land that dropped off toward the port city of Quy Nhon in the distant southeast. Quan Quy Chinh preferred his morning’s walk to reverse itself here as its midpoint. These were not tourist-trodden paths as elsewhere in his country, and the ruins served merely as a private place in which one could reflect on his progress in the course of a long-enough life.

Yes, long enough. Dark blood, seeming to testify to the fact, again had laced his output during the constitutional that regularly preceded his exercise, and the old man took the tray of the outhouse to the paddies himself so as to avoid any inquiry as to his health.

Whatever it might be, his condition was not so quickly resolving itself as it had in the past. A day now and again had evolved rather to be a period of several days, and then a week at a time. But neither am I any longer a young man.

For Quan to have reached his late sixties, considering the life that preceded them, was a gift in itself. It had been a story comprised of episodes never considered possibilities before their events transpired. Death beckoned and demurred many times in those years … in war, and in its aftermath, and through to a settled satisfaction with his destiny. To see a decline now is natural.

He utilized what life had best taught him by minding his manner of living it from moment to moment, embracing each one as it approached and arrived and departed in the way of all things. They would not, of course, go on forever, regardless of any anxiety or grasping desperation in the meantime. Meeting one’s end is also living. I should go about making myself satisfied with the interim before that day arrives, as you did.

His wife and son were already there, gone ahead to the place that waited beyond the dropping of the body. To desire something other than the present is to suffer. So said the Buddhists, and the French Catholic priests and nuns the same—though in different words—and with a commonality that none of them, in Quan’s perception, fully grasped.

He was, after all, a teacher as well, and as such naturally first given to learning. To pay attention was a process, he regularly informed his students at the outset of their studies. Life was given not for anxiety over its end, but to live.

So I am learning still. Quan finished his standing meditation, regarding the beauty of the setting again. Satisfied, he took up his walking stick for the climb down the ages-worn stone stairs to the path back toward An Say. There, soon the morning class would commence. For my community, through its young people.

Trai Cho Soi

Border Highlands

The place-name, Michel Mesrine knew, would have in his own tongue been called Camp de Loups. It was indeed a camp of wolves, and one not to be entered lightly or by unhappy accident. His native language, at least, would be accommodated far more than his smattering of the singsong local dialect. This was a time for deadly serious business, and it therefore required the accomplishment of clear understanding if he was to make the journey back through the jungle with his plans, not to mention his anatomy, intact.

"Vous êtes le Français?"

I am, he answered in the same language.

Proceed, then. The man is waiting for you.

It was notable, Mesrine thought, that he was not being searched by the inner perimeter guard. Indeed, the armed man showed as little interest in doing so as had the first a kilometer farther out. The evidence of weapons was plentiful enough here that whatever ordnance a lone man might conceal was assured to be instantly and decisively overwhelmed by a lethal response. Bring whatever you want, the prevalent attitude seemed to say. Mind your manners if you wish to live.

Advancing into the camp, Mesrine found the central fire to have died down over the course of the night, now this morning a mere smolder where the next would be built in the evening. The men sitting around its remnants were the oldest and best outfitted, distinguished from the regular crew here by the impression of also being visitors. Everyone, for instance, appeared affected by the highland heat and humidity to the same extent. Regardless, Mesrine knew, these were the ones with whom he had inquired as to the prospects for a cooperative effort. It proved unnecessary to introduce himself.

"Monsieur Mesrine! You are early!"

Tardiness would hardly do for a first business meeting, is it not so?

No, the eldest of them agreed, though time here in the mountains is for us more of an approximation than in your cities, Frenchman.

Nevertheless, I would hardly keep my prospective associates waiting.

His host motioned to a folding camp chair. Before taking his seat, Mesrine first set down beside it the medium-sized duffle bag he had slung on his shoulder. The duffle remained within easy reach of the Frenchman.

Are your manners something that OCRTIS emphasizes in their training?

Ah, so they indeed are careful men. Mesrine smiled. Merely an affectation of my culture. He looked around, gauging the considerable level of suspicion now emanating from the glowering associates of the Laotian drug boss. Mesrine’s capacity as an inspector with the French drug agency Office Central pour la Répression du Trafic Illicite des Stupéfiants, less painfully referenced via its acronym, was just announced to all by the one who would decide the Frenchman’s fate here. It was a factor he would have been required to breach near the onset of their relationship in any case. But should you wonder, I am here to propose a business endeavor, rather than in any official capacity.

So does entrapment usually present itself, another among them commented.

By a suicidal man, perhaps, my friend. I have no illusions of this being anything other than a one-time visit should I fail to convince you of my sincerity.

And it is your reputation as a businessman that precedes you, his host affirmed. The man seemed to lose his patience for etiquette. So what is it, exactly, that you propose?

Smiling once more, Mesrine settled back into his chair. A new route, made possible through my anticipated patrons in Calais and via their shipping contacts in Quy Nhon.

Through to France, you mean?

"Indeed, mon ami. A direct route with no middleman, save us, with the accompanying increase in profitability enabled by a vertically integrated business structure."

It would mean more money for everyone. Profit was a universal concept. None of them, Mesrine knew, did this sort of thing for the enjoyment or the thrill, and certainly not in an essential exercise of any sense of humanity.

"You make an intriguing proposal, Frenchman. Just the sort a policeman would in the course of his